Loving Well

 Only eleven kids this week, but quite a few who are only just coming back after long winter breaks. (One mom just got a job, so they have gas money for coming to church again! Whoot!) Rather than totally discombobulated by the change, they managed to enter this week with a feeling of coming home, of just chilling with family.

These kids love each other and they love each other well. **st*n sat by J*m** during story, spouting out those little wondering statements that come easier to fourth graders than fifth graders, and J*m**, who is the youngest in his family, got a chance to practice his big brother skills. He would grin down at whatever "cute" thing **st*n had said and then glance up at me like, "I was never this little, was I?"

Nine out of eleven in this crew are fifth graders, just on the cusp of middle school. I hear about who they like and who has a crush on who, and, then, the next minute, we find a tree to climb and they totally forget that they are supposed to be anything resembling grown up.

So, (for this week) we laugh and we practice the verse. We climb trees and play hide and seek in the sunshine. (Does it really count as seeking if you know exactly where each child is going before you even close your eyes??) We listen to a lesson, dissect the songs, and spread off into corners to pray - giant stuffed animals in tow. We run and talk and give legs up and hands down. We play tag and catch kids in pretzel holds from behind. And, we run some more. There are a thousand billion words and chairs that are upended to become space ships. Seed pods are thrown while someone draws a picture not three feet away, and we cram as much life and love and learning into an hour and a half as we possibly can.

There are lessons about conviction. But, there are also lessons about why we don't use phrases like, "Move it, Chinese!" even if we are joking, and the plethora of reasons why Jessica doesn't want the boys teasing each other about, "sucking balls," at church, even if it is perfectly acceptable (almost a requirement) to their friends at school. And, lessons about forgiveness and guilt and respect. And, a thousand other things that I have already forgotten, because, in an hour and a half, we can cover a whole lot of ground!

Sharefest 2012

This year, our cluster project involved destructing flower planters/benches, moving dirt from planter to flower bed, breaking down cardboard boxes, sweeping, taping, and plenty of paining. The girls worked from 7:30 in the morning until 2:30 in the afternoon. Too cold for sweat and too much fun for tears, but there may have been a little blood when someone got up close and personal with the parking lot.

Not that is slowed her down for more than five minutes!

We were the happy recipients of homemade ice cream mid morning, and found some supremely tasty taco truck burritos for lunch. (Yes. We like food. Can you tell?)

The entire work crew there was awesome, and it is always fun to know that there are hundreds of other people from all kinds of different churches spread out across town doing the exact same sorts of things.

Anyone who wants to claim that American teenagers are lazy and self centered really ought to come watch these girls in action for five minutes. They know how to WORK and how to work JOYFULLY. Their other leaders would have been more than proud to see them so much in their element while serving. I know that I certainly was!

Gifts - 4th/5th Grade Style

With only twelve kids this week, and nothing "different" going on in main service, we managed to hit that sweet spot once again - where major holidays are over, spring is coming, and they're growing enough to start putting words behind questions and feelings.

(That being said, don't come into the group expecting to suddenly see innocent angel children. It's still the same messy group, just able to verbalize a few more things and trust a little more openly. And...sometimes they all decide to verbalize at once. :D Yeah. I can totally hear all twelve of you at the same time. Not so much.)

****

"Oh! I think I had a prophecy!" One of the boys jumps into the the middle of my sentence. "When I was still in California, I had a dream about what our new house was going to look like, and, then, when we got here, it was exactly the same as my dream."
His eyes are glowing as he shares the story with me us, and eleven kids sit up a little straighter to hear how I answer him. They've already heard some stories from me, but now, for a fleetingly few minutes, they want to check and make sure that they get it.

He waits a heartbeat. "It was kind of weird."

This is one of those moments where they waver between little kid faith and a pre-teen desire to be cool, to be normal, to be whatever it is that their friends think that they're supposed to be.

"Yeah. It can seem weird, but this stuff is totally for real." His focus is back on me, waiting, watching. "Isn't it cool that God gave you that tool, so that moving would be easier?"

Markers around the circle stop moving as he finally nods, and the smile in his eyes reaches down to the rest of his face. "Yeah."

We're talking about spiritual gifts as "tools" to do life well, sitting on the floor in the hallway, surrounded by the jungle animals that they drug over, markers and paper spread everywhere, in a tight clump that is really only a circle by virtue of the fact that it is not a square. Their notes look like anything and everything you can imagine, bulleted lists, presents with the different gifts popping out, stick figures, random squiggles. But, one of the girls manages to sum it up well.

Her page is labeled "Spiritual Gifts" across the top, and, under a picture is the phrase, "Whatever God tells you to do, do it."

Yep. That will pretty much cover it.

(The main curriculum is talking about conviction, about not being afraid to stand up for things.Our small group tends to take its own tangents, and this conversation has been several weeks in the making.)

Work

"Teacher?"
"Ms. Mac?"
"Teacher?"
"Ms. Jessica?"
"Duty?"
"Mrs. Whatever-your-name-is?"
"Jessica?"
"Ms. MacFarlan?"
(x 20+)

Jesus typically starts his greeting by tugging on my upper arm, "Duty? We have a problem..."

Omar greets me with the phrase, "Ms. Jessica? Can I run?"

Machiah skips the formalities altogether and announces his presence with the declaration, "Machiah is awesome!"

Jasmine walks with her hand in mine.

Farias alternates between running up for a hug and avoiding me when he wants to cause trouble. "Ms. Jessica? That duty," pointing to whomever has just dealt out his latest disciplinary action, "is mean."

***

The second graders just finished the story of The Ugly Duckling in reading group, and the fifth graders are nearly at the end of The Wizard of Oz. Toto tipped over that curtain, and they all forgot that this was reading group and they were supposed to be bored. Everyone wanted to be the one to read what happened next.

There are measurable goals they are supposed to be meeting, reading rate, accuracy, and recall. But, in the long run, this is the goal, that they decide, even for a few moments, that they like to read.

The second graders, on the other hand, are still relatively convinced that the whole thing is a competition. :)

Why Kony 2012?

Had I thought ahead, I would have posted this yesterday, before I participated in the corporate blowing up of Facebook via the Kony 2012 video. Because, this isn't the first time that Invisible Children has come across my radar screen.

I saw the movie for the first time in 2004 or 2005, had a friend who interned with them in 2006/2007, studied the war and its beginnings in school (Joseph Kony was not the founder of the LRA, it was a woman named Alice Lakwena who claimed to be channeling the spirit of a dead general. Kony is the current leader, who claims to be channeling the Holy Spirit.) and have been following their work since that first showing. There have been hours of conversation - and weeks of internet scouring - regarding the good, the bad, and the ugly of the organization.

PROS:
Invisible Children was, is, and will continue to be primarily a group of film makers with a story that they feel the world needs to hear.

When it comes to film, they are good, very good.

They are passionately and possibly naively optimistic 

They do have a story, and the world needs to hear it. The LRA has been in operation since the late 1980's, and many (most) people still don't know what is going on. Twenty-five years of ignorance desperately needs to be dealt with. 

Cons:
Invisible Children was, is, and will continue to be primarily a group of film makers with a story that they feel the world needs to hear. (This is where most of their money, time, and effort goes.) They are not experts when it comes to aid, foreign policy, or book keeping, and passion can only take you so far.

Much of their work is born out of the naive optimism of Americans who have never lived in a war zone, never been on the receiving end of international aid, and understand the effects of colonization only from the viewpoint of the victors.

As an organization, they are overwhelmingly young and white (Which shouldn't have anything to do with anything is good for getting the attention of policy makers, but bad when it comes to trying to understand a problem that is largely effecting a non-dominant culture.)

The world this conflict isn't divided into good people and death eaters Joseph Kony and a horde of innocents. No one with a gun is a "good guy" here, even when they come in wearing American uniforms.

As a pacifist, I don't believe that military force is the answer to anything. As just war theorists, Invisible Children disagrees.

So, why Kony 2012?

Because, Kony has already been indited by the ICC as a war criminal (I got to have that little party with my teammates in Kenya). His name should be as common as Hitler's. I may not agree with the way that Invisible Children is pressuring the US government to deal with the issue, but I agree that Joseph Kony ought to be famous, and I intend to continue to do everything in my power to make him so.

Media is what is needed on the American side of this issue, and media is what they do well. So, I will take advantage of anything I can get my hands on.

Finally Most importantly, I refuse to allow this generation to be the one who has to sit down with a history book and their children and explain why they did nothing when it was in their power to add even a single drop to the bucket of justice. This might not be the step that causes that bucket to overflow, but it might be the first important step that some people have ever taken.

In 2012, let's make Joseph Kony famous.

Because, believe me, 2013 will come with more than it's share of new problems to focus on.

Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. 

Source: invisible.tumblr.com via Jessica on Pinterest

Winter Retreat - Eureka!

Last year's high school retreat was largely about an amazing group of kids getting to join in on the party as brand new friends became a brand new part of the family of Christ. The key words were, "Welcome to the party!" and it was a weekend characterized by wild, giddy, sleepless joy.

The "old" kids made "their" retreat into something largely about others, and it was a good, good thing to watch.

This year, they needed something totally different than that, and, because we have a good God, He had exactly what they needed waiting and ready for them, even at a brand new-to-us camp that had empty chicken coops in the backyard of every cabin and bunkhouse.

This year, the key word was, "Eureka!" It meant everything from, "Eureka! A puddle!" (Which happened to be more than plentiful the first night/morning. Whoot for mud!) to, "Eureka! That moment right there, that was God!"

25 girls worth of shoes in the entryway to our combined cabin

 They came totally expecting to see God move, but more than a little terrified of what that movement might look like. The one thing that united them all was a desperate desire to leave the weekend knowing that, somehow, things were different than when they came. 

What they needed, but would never have said, was a chance, just for a few days, to not have to have all of the answers, a chance to be served, and a safe place to be broken without having to pretend like life was okay. (Because, they are teenagers. Life is never really, "okay.")

And, so, they moshed to dub step, played in inflatables, explored trails that went to who knows where, swam, swung, painted their faces with mud, sang, danced, listened, shared, explored some more, and let God wash them in the truth of His love, the truth of the absolute joy that He finds in them.

And, I think that they found a different sort of joy than what they found last year, a joy that is more raw and open, that carries with it more pain but also more wonder.

The joy that they found is the type that comes home and wants to spill out, wants to change the world, wants to let everyone know that there is more to life than this, that heaven is real, that justice and love can be both present and coming realities, that God is forever and always enough, and, perhaps most importantly for this specific group of kids, that they don't ever have to be afraid.

Because there is love.

I have mentioned before how amazing these kids are at service, how well they love on other people, but, like anyone, they get burned out. Some of them still carried heart wounds from past ministry trips; most were feeling like they were in this alone. Almost all of them were at a point where it was getting harder and harder to see past their own pain to the world around them.

And, so, God brought them to a place of refreshment, where they were surrounded by three bus loads of other people who were after the same thing.

They went home completely raw from having heart wounds opened and scrubbed clean and bandaged, but they discovered joy in the process - jumping up and down, slamming into your neighbor, hands  in the air, eyes closed, face uplifted JOY. Joy that doesn't come from anything except God.

We slept so much more than last year, but you can see, even in the pictures, the rawness and vulnerability that they allowed to take up residence behind their eyes. This was a year for surrender and for exploring what it means to follow Jesus with everything.

(There is this thing whereby, no matter how long camp is or is not, the mast morning is always for taking pictures. Last year's pictures, they are practically pulling each other back down to the ground, like balloons filled with too much helium. This year's pictures are closer, tighter, more on top of each other, like a pack of puppies in a thunderstorm, half in awe and half terrified of the next boom.)

Eureka! We went to the mountains and we found God - not that He was exactly hiding from us anyplace else!

And, we also found some dear meat to roast over the fire, some snow covered trails to hike in Converse and slipper boots, a giant swing that was completed while we were there, and water that smelled like fart (sulfur from the hot springs). "To the adventure!"