Haiti Video

Haiti VBS trip 2012 - Haitian Christian Mission from Jessica Mac on Vimeo.

SOLD in Sunnyside

The SOLD exhibit made it's second appearance this weekend in conjunction with Sunnyside's Promise and Oasis Community Church.

We were able to come alongside organizations and individuals who have their hands in deep on issues of trafficking in their area and give them another tool for building awareness. They provided wonderful volunteers, strong backs, and eager hearts, and managed to get even their mayor to go through the exhibit.

Our amazing audio guys remixed the narrative track for this showing - with even more improvements on the way, including a public school friendly version. The high school youth group at Bethel gave up time on a Sunday night to create more Red Hand petitions for the Yemen room. My parents volunteered their weekend to serve at the exhibit. And, folks in Sunnyside put in countless hours rounding up volunteers and making sure that the word got out.

Set up and tear down went smoothly thanks to a largely teenaged work crew, and volunteers from VISTA and elsewhere in the valley helped two eight hour days to go by without a glitch.

Now, we just need to find out where we're going next!

This is How We Do

Proof of the oddity that is the Focus group (the justice group that carried over from last summer), not so much in the what of this picture but more so in the who of it.

Thursday morning/afternoon, six of us met to talk, research, scheme, drive all over town, play car games designed to frustrate those who have never heard them before, and, eventually, chalk clean water statistics in the park. Because, building awareness seems to be our thing, and we're still raising money for a well.

Four hours of laughter, planning, fast food stops, and constant explanations of old inside jokes. Special times that were pretty typically us.

By the time we got to the chalking, the above were our crew: an incoming sixth grader, an incoming high school freshman, and one about to leave for her freshman year of college. By most "church" standards, they should have been split, at the very least, into three separate "ministries" according to their respective ages. There, they would play different games, sing different songs, and learn progressively more "complicated" things about Jesus. In a church our size, they would rarely even cross paths.

After all, middle schoolers are insecure and hyper; high schoolers only care about whether their friends think they're cool, and college students are motivated by nothing besides coffee and free pizza. Right?

And, yet, they're here, spending a hot summer afternoon - one of precious few before school starts again - working on a project with people that they never would have otherwise known. Because, God doesn't always work in the boxes we create.

(In fact, He seems to rather enjoy smashing them to pieces.)

Chalk

The Focus group met for four hours on Thursday to research, check links, be generally strange, and pull out the chalk for the first time this summer. Yep. We actually managed to make it through to August without ever breaking out the chalk. Which, clearly, had to come to an end at some point, because, not only do we remember what we chalk, but it gives other people an awesome chance to self educate as well.

And, the kids get the greatest grins on their faces when they see someone stop to read something that they've written. There's nothing like hands on learning combined with instant gratification to make this all a little addictive.

Bracelets

The Focus group met up at the library again today to photograph all of the new bracelets and get them prepped to go up on the blog. There are nineteen new bracelets up for sale, various sizes but all fully adjustable.

New faces meant going over old ideas with fresh eyes and re-looking at the prospect of putting together a 30 Hour Famine event for middle school, high school, and possibly college students. We also spent time filling each other in on what is going on in other parts of the youth group with regards to clean water. This group is no longer alone in their desire to put in wells.

Some of the kids who went to Haiti this year have also been scheming up all sorts of crazy ways to raise the money for a well in Village Cannis. (More on that at a later date.)

Bridgetown 3

Friday morning, we rearranged the vans and took off for the Real:Life exhibit, with the admonition that missional people are aware of the things going on in their world. 

So, they learned about everything that you could possibly imagine cramming into a kid in the course of one exhibit, and they learned about it slowly and carefully and well. Most of them had been through on prior trips, but that did nothing to dampen the respect or earnestness with which they encountered each story. 

We talked through it a little. They blew off some steam at the park. We talked through it again in smaller groups. They blew off some more steam. And, then, we took all of the thoughts still floating in their eyes, and we brought them with us. 

In the case of our van, we took those thoughts back to the church, where we were confronted with piles of paper and boxes of crayons. "You need to create twenty-three invitations to tonight's Love Feast. Here's what they need to say."

Oh, the irony. The artists are out scrubbing graffiti off of power boxes, while eight of us sit here, tongues between our teeth, hunched over meticulously folded cards, just trying to make sure that someone else will be able to read what we write. When we say buckle down and get 'er done, we quite actually mean that we are going to take the kid who rides bulls as a pastime and see how he does with a different kind of challenge. 

And, as if that were not enough, the next job was to set twelve tables for an English style high tea. 

Huh?

Yep. Pardon us while we Google to make sure which side the fork goes on. 

But, they did it. With much excitement and many "proper" pinkies being waved in the air, they welcomed back the graffiti removal crew and all headed out to invite their personal guest to a multi-course English style tea. And, then, they sat, and they listened, and they ate, until their stomaches, hearts, and minds were full to bursting. 

They washed hundreds of dishes, cleaned everything that could possibly be cleaned, took loads across the street to the Portland Rescue Mission, and then went absolutely, deliriously, manic, nuts. We pulled into a parking lot and the leaders stepped out, only to turn around and see all three vans rocking and jumping. 

We opened the doors, and they had a dance party in the parking lot. 

I have never been in a louder van. 

And, yet, in the middle of all of that, they caught a story about a newly runaway girl on the radio, and everything went silent as they stopped to pray for her. 

And, yet, they stopped on a worship song and sang, because they knew that all of the fullness inside of them had a reason and a purpose, even if they couldn't put it into words. 

Back at the bunkhouse, they played quarters (bloody knuckles) until the pain had slowed their bodies down enough to listen, and then they hung out with each other and colored and laughed and talked about strange things in the dark in our cabin until they couldn't help but fall asleep. 

In the morning, they cleaned and packed and cleaned some more, then handed out more flyers, in a different apartment complex, for a different kids' club and talked a little bit about Haiti - Yes, they are already thinking about next year. We headed to two other neighborhoods for kids' club, and they spent two hours painting faces, running games, handing out food, and giving constant piggy back rides. 

(Jessica's brain may have nearly exploded when a little Som*li boy came up and asked for a piggy back ride like it was the most natural thing in the world.)

Basically, they spent two hours continuing to love well. I could go into more of it, but I have already written half a book as it is!

And, then, we shook up the seating arrangements once again, and headed for home. 

Now, they are left with the hard job of fitting all the pieces together into this puzzle that we call life. 

Bridgetown 2

Wednesday morning, they split up into teams for a prayer walk with the exhortation that, "What missional people (intentional Christians) are passionate about, they pray for." And, off they went, map in hand, leaders trotting after them like obedient puppies, instructed only to intervene if they were about to put themselves in legitimate danger. Which, in the case of Jessica's team, this week, meant never.

My team of four managed to check all of the suggested "stops" off the guide sheet with pro map reading skills and minimal discussion, but in the most random order possible. Just because we're cool like that.

They wandered down to the waterfront at the direction of one of the girls and stood to move on at a moment picked by our only guy. Not thirty seconds later, we "happened upon" a teenage girl who was out of phone minutes but needed to call a friend.

She supplied none of her information, just smiled and thanked us, but they heard her when she laughed the way that teenagers do and mentioned that no one else would let her borrow a phone because they all thought she might steal it. They stood respectfully when she made her call and didn't push it when she left, but they listened, and they remembered the story that they were allowed to hear. 

They remembered the girl who was their age, who had spent the night with a group of drunk traveling kids, and who was waiting by the fountain, in a city she didn't know, for friends who were running two hours late. 

And, like all of the other teams, they came back and shared those stories with their friends, creating a web of stories and wrapping a layer of reality around these people whom they were passing. Because, it's not just in Haiti that our kids notice everything.

Their next challenge involved a scavenger hunt.

My team = slightly less than competitive. But, we did get some Voodoo donuts at one of our stops, and took a moment to pose when a man who was houseless offered to take our picture near a wall of painted doors.

Pretty sweet, seeing as we don't exactly have anything like this wall in Tri-Town.

We may have come in dead last on the scavenger hunt, but, when we moved on to delivering kids' club flyers to an apartment complex in Gresham, they put their logical sides to use and busted through their assigned buildings with a friendly efficiency.

The first few doors were an exercise in how-much-do-I-really-want-to-be-willing-to-serve-in-whatever-way-they-ask, but, classic Bethel kids, they put on their game faces and got it done anyways. And, within three answered doors, they were pro. One upstairs. One downstairs. The other pair the next set of doors down. And, pretty soon, they were collecting flyers from other teams, because they had delivered all of theirs.

If you ever need people to canvas for an event, I've got your team!

Lunch happened somewhere in there, as well as our only sit down dinner as a team. And, then, we sent them out, armed with sandwiches, hot coffee, and clean socks, to find stories and faces, to let real voices paint them a better picture of life on the streets.

They met Dave, who wants to run for Mayor of Portland; Terri, who got kicked out of his apartment complex after he flipped the manager the bird for bullying other seniors; Papa Wolf, a vet who rode a motorized wheelchair and made sure that the street kids had everything they needed; the Guardian, who watched over people while they slept and kept their stuff safe while they were awake and who had provided a safe place in the center of the park for those who were not a part of the clash between some Occupiers and the police.

And, they met some street kids who offered them a ride in their shopping cart and some beer, until one retracted the offer of beer with the statement, "No, they're too little for that."

They came back together to share stories of this community that had been so willing to teach them, and, then, in a classic youth group move, we fed them each a Voodoo donut, gave the sugar a few minutes to settle in, and then announced that it was time for bed. Ha!

But, eventually they did go to bed, on the floor of a church, with only whatever three items they had chosen to bring from the bunkhouse.

Thursday morning, we got eighteen females up and ready in ten minutes or less. No changing of clothes, and the potential for either brushing teeth, brushing hair, or putting on deodorant, but not all three. Blankets had been shared all night. Hairbrushes had been shared. Deodorant had been shared.

Toothbrushes. Not so much.

And, then, they were released. "Come back at 4:00pm. Eat somewhere in between if you can, but not someplace another team has already been. Good luck."

And, we got to explore just how far their good attitudes could stretch, which, was, apparently, pretty stinking far. (One snack sized bag of Sun Chips at 2:00, some leftover pastry from another group at 4:00, and they were good to go until dinner - 8:00 for some of them, 10:00 for the others.)

They wandered the length of downtown - several times - in the hunt for food, made a semi-serious attempt at spanging, talked with a friend from the night before, made the world's quickest tour of a mall, and hung out in a giant fountain. 

They discovered the frustration of having nothing but time to spend when you are hungry and the peace of having nothing but time to spend when you just want to relax. They realized a little more of how hard it would be to get a job while living with no food security. And, they decided that, if time really were money, people who were homeless would pay more for their meals than just about anyone else. 

(On average, our teams waited 1.5-2 hours in line at a soup kitchen. Multiply by three meals a day, and you are potentially putting in a six hour work day just to eat.)

From there, they worked under the bridge at Night Strike, serving food, picking up trash, greeting people and sitting down with them, giving out clothes, painting nails, and washing feet. This, down here, this is how Church should be. 

They served with everything they had - and caught the eye of more than one BT staff member with their willing service - and then came back to bunkhouse and let the volume fly. (So many thoughts and feelings. Not enough words to express. Must. Act. CRaZy!)

But, classic Bethel kids: boys' rooms are on one side of the staircase; girls' rooms are on the other, so, not matter how hyper loud we get, we will continue to talk with each other from across the divide. Because, well, "No purple!"

Bridgetown

Last Monday, I got one of those texts. "Hey, you bored sitting around? I just had a student injure himself so he can't go to BT, opening up a spot... you wanna roll with us this week?"

So, Tuesday afternoon, I took off on a second high school ministry trip, this time with twenty-three students and five other leaders, to Portland, OR. (As if I would ever miss a chance to be blown away by these kids and their incredible ability to love!)

(Once again, the placement of the pictures is whatever blogger felt like doing. I haven't rearranged them to fit with the narration.)

This is one of those odd trips, where 65% of your time seems to be is spent on things other than hands on service, which is, quite possibly, one of the most uncomfortable things that you could ask of a group from Bethel. 

Doing things to help people? Down to a science. Bethel teams can fly by the seat of their pants and accomplish anything that you ask from them. If there are things to be done with our hands, we are 1,000% all over that one. Stopping to just sit and learn? Traditionally, not our strong suit. Thus, for the sixth year in a row, the high school youth group took a team to Portland, to learn from and with Bridgetown Inc. 

(The first high school team went my senior year, with a different youth pastor, and a very different set of kids. Subtle things about the trip have been tweaked and changed, but much of it is just as it was five years ago.)

Twenty-three kids were divided up into five groups, where we spent much of our time wandering the streets of downtown Portland. On Wednesday, they spent two hours on a prayer walk, two hours on a scavenger hunt, an hour and a half on "walk about," and an additional hour canvasing an apartment complex for Saturday's kids' club.

The next day, they walked for eight hours and stood for another two.

The closest thing to a complaint sounded like, "I am going to have buns of steel."

I don't think that I will ever cease to be amazed by the energy and tenacity with which they go after things. This crew of (largely) fourteen and fifteen year olds offered everything of themselves that they were allowed the chance to give. For introverts to come on a trip where 90% of the "service" actually involves just sitting down and asking people for their stories. For extroverts to slow down and bite their tongues and wait for quieter team members to speak first. For them to brag on each other like every success was worthy of a nobel prize. For teenagers to verbalize their desire to do more, know more, see more. For disappointments to turn into stories and for their loudest moments to still remain fully under control.

For all of that, there is a testimony not only to the greatness of their God but also to the greatness of their character.

After a four hour van ride, a stop at the falls, and a stop at the mall for dinner, they finally set foot in downtown Portland and settled down on the red bricks to listen. Here, they listened to the story of the group that they were about to join. While they watched, they listened and took note, and, this being Portland, a few random strangers stopped in to listen too.

Back at the bunk house, they listened to the story of the one who was going to be their boss - not the sort of half hearted listening that they have perfected in school, but really truly listened. And, they watched as they listened, watched to see if his eyes and his body matched up with his words, watched to see if their teammates were hearing the same things that they were.

Because, these kids will do everything in their power to find the truth.

Just when I thought that we had pushed them beyond the limits of even the best attention span, it was time to journal. And, they jumped into it with a passion that was astounding. They got their hearts right. They gave up their expectations. They wrote each other letters of encouragement.

And, I got a necessary smack on the head reminding me just how much I love these kids.

Prior to that moment, I may have entertained some not so positive but very beaver-like thoughts about being a last minute addition and not fitting into whatever team dynamic they had already established. Yeah. Shut up, MacFarlan. You love these kids. So, be here to love on them and enable them to love others.

Luckily for me, one good "duh" moment was enough to return to your regularly scheduled programing of constant bragging about these kids.

Which, was a good thing, because, as per usual, they were rockstars.

Not enough bunks in the girls' rooms (which they referred to all week as "cabins")? No complaints. This is why we brought sleeping bags.

One bathroom for eighteen girls? Meh. Why not shower downstairs?

"I need three volunteers." Eight hands shoot into the air faster than lightening.

Dishes in the sink? There's a high schooler in there washing them before the rest of us have even finished eating.

Just woke up an hour early for a coffee shop that doesn't seem like it's going to open today? Guess we'll drink orange juice instead.

You won't tell us what we're doing next? Guess we'll just wait and see.

No technology? Okay. Can I text my mom to let her know I won't have my phone?

This is a generation used to having the answers for everything at their fingertips. And, yet, they turned it all off for a few days and concentrated on the people around them. They learned stories and made constant connections, delving into a world that is so different from their own and yet could so easily be theirs were just a few things in their lives slightly different.