Inhale

The closer we get to summer, the louder and more rambunctious we get around here. But, also, in some impossible way, the quieter and closer we get, as well. 

 5th grade girls jostle for spots on the cushioned pews that have recently shown up in the first of our many spaces, curling up close and playfully refusing to give way when other people try to squeeze their way in. Instead, they compare fidget spinner tricks and run off to grab my bag for an additional spinner and fidget cube, trading them down the line during story, so that, even if our fingers are distracted, our mouths are finally silent. The little one who can't stand to sit still for this long drops her head onto my shoulder, but only asks once to slip out to the bathroom. And, with the transition jitters nipping at our heals, I'll every win that we can get.

 It’s been an everyone-talking-at-once sort of a morning, more interested in being heard than in the Snapchat filters that so often distract them or even than in rifling through the bag of lifesavers that we give out as rewards for bringing their Bibles. So, we cram the seventy odd minutes with as many of their favorite traditions as we can possibly fit and pour out grace to cover the wiggles and the swirls of anticipation and anxiety. 

One chair added to our row for a late arrival becomes two and three and four, until the row of five has become a line of ten, stretching out across both aisles and butting up against the 3rd and 4th graders space, but they barely blink at the intrusion, and there is Grace in that.

Grace in the number of girls who are here on a holiday weekend, in the careful way that they listen to each other, and in the fine line between encouraging reluctant ones to join in the game and honoring the boundary of a simple "no." Grace for rolling down hills and going over the transition plan for the dozenth time. Grace for taking pictures to remember. For girls who leave early and for the ones who stay late. Grace to take a deep lungful of the chaos and savor it, because we only have two more weeks.

And, because, His Grace always seems to show up when we are at our messiest and most uncertain.

Adventure Time

When you give these girls paintbrushes and an abandoned bus, truth spills off of their fingers.

So, we load a few of these art loving, adventure seeking girls into a borrowed minivan and spend a few hours letting them loose on the world.

Fill the drive up with confession and grace, with theology questions and plans for summer missions trips. Pull up the "highlight verses" and quotes that we would have shared at cluster and mark them onto this giant canvas instead.

And, at first, they don't quite believe me. Really, we can paint it? Won't someone care? But, this is the Pacific Northwest, where we happen to keep abandoned school buses in the middle of the desert until they are covered with layers of words upon words upon words.

So, paint brushes are pulled out and old spray cans are co-opted as pallets, and they fall into a comfortable silence as they work. Words about peace and courage and doing small things with great love. About light and life and the quirky ways that they have been created. Truth that is no less true for the fact that, a month from now, you might never know that we were here.

Because, today, they live it as well as paint it.

On narrow, well worn trails, and steep paths where we pull ourselves, hand over hand, along a rope that someone laid out before us, they are courageous and they are gentle, they are fierce and they are fearless and they are kind.

And, I pray that they are learning to see themselves the way that their leaders see them, the way that their Creator sees them. Because, these precious lives were not by accident.

And, that is the magic of it.

That, when the waters were first carving these rocks, when these rocks were first starting to cool, when the universe was still too small and too hot to measure or grasp, before time began, there was a Creator who put this spark in them.

This spark that we pour out out on bus that is twice as old as any of them, and on a path that has been worn by hundreds and thousands of feet. This spark of Grace and Light and Love, these hearts that want nothing more than for everyone to be invited to the party. This was put into these kids on purpose.

Into these girls who are already talking about who we could invite "next time," who are wishing that the boys were here, who have never quite been able to wrap their heads around the lines that we draw between small groups, between clusters, between genders; who only know that there is time to be spent and adventures to be had, and shouldn't everyone be invited to come along?

Into these girls who do hard things, even when they are scared, and who love deeply, even when they know that it will hurt.

Into these girls who know that the Holy Spirit in them means that they can breathe Grace and Mercy from the very core of their beings.

And, into these girls who can come back with tired legs and hungry stomachs, who have washed theirs hands in the spray of a waterfall and then dirtied them again scrambling up a shale covered slope.

Because, when you give these girls paintbrushes, truth comes spilling out.

Empty

All weekend, the youth pastor makes coffee on stage in front of the kids, good pour over coffee, black or with liquid flavorings, distributed in some of his favorite mugs, and, all weekend, a few of my girls sit on the floor to be able to see.

Listening, watching, thinking things through. Climbing up onto top bunks for conversation and filling the time largely with the sound of crickets. 

Our first cabin time is silent and forced, but, in the few words that come, the other leader notices how quick they are to disagree with one another, how comfortable they are with holding different opinions, how it is done without vitriol or tension. And, it is good to have fresh eyes, because, I might not have even noticed.

This has become so much a part of what we do, of who they are, of how they process. Wrestling through questions and doubts, holding space for never being certain of the answers.

(And, we do figure out how to have cabin times that are a little more natural conversation and a whole lot less silence -- although perhaps no less disagreement.)

"Love God. Love people," one of the girls sums it up afterwards. "The end."

They are loved. Loved enough to think nothing of voicing their frustrations, because they don't have to be perfect. Loved enough to ask wild questions and circle back to familiar conversations, and loved enough to opt out when they feel like they have heard it all before.

Loved enough to sit and talk on these couches until a more conscientious leader reminds us of curfew, and loved enough to gather back here before the sun comes up to watch as the weather cycles through rain and snow, sunshine and fog, all in the long hours before breakfast.

Loved enough to do this thing in a different way than we have ever had cause to in the past.

Middle school ministry is without a full time director, and, so, there are smaller people running around all weekend, holding their own camp alongside and intertwined with the high schoolers', bouncing by for hugs and hip bumps every time that we see each other. Making my older ones smile with off beat singing and dancing on the sidelines of worship.

Trying to carve out their own space, teasing each other, laughing, playing, and a little off kilter, because this new way of being means that not all of "their" leaders who are at camp are actually their leaders for the weekend. Instead, we are there as high school leaders and students, trying to find balance without sacrificing one retreat for the other.

Holding space for different groups at different times, building patterns and rhythms in that compressed sort of family time that camp creates.

Mealtime lines become sacred spaces, my phone travels, as it always does, and a little person tucks herself shamelessly under my arm during worship, ready to curl up on the floor and fall asleep at about the same time that the high schoolers are ramping up for the night.

Little cousins are flipped upside down in the breakfast line, and there is this blurry space where "ladies first" gives way to this mixed gender, mixed age, group that somehow finds itself often together. Sixth grade, twelfth grade, adult; leader, student, all of the above. Family groups overlapping with family groups, overlapping with family groups.

They play their own games, have their own snowball fights and prayer times, but discover that you can crowd surf, when there are high schoolers waiting to catch your tiny, flying self, and that, sometimes, those same high schoolers will let you steal the chips off their plate and squeeze into the tiny space left at an already overcrowded table.

Sunday morning, we forget about the divisions for a little while and fall into easy, middle school leader patterns: fly up, photo sharing, phone stealing, being jumped on, tackled, and dragged from one end of the room to the other. Twenty minutes of every middle school language that we can think of to reassure them that they are loved.

So loved that one of my high schoolers complains early on in the weekend that, "Jessica, I think that you love them more than you love us."

And, I am 99.9% certain that she doesn't actually want me to roughhouse with her after chapel the way that she has just caught me doing with one of the 7th grade boys. But, she does start asking for the hugs that the middle schoolers assume are theirs for the taking, learning from their easy freedom the same way that they learn from the high schoolers steady grace.

Grace for when we cross the line from the slightly ridiculous to the utterly absurd. Grace for when our outdoor game becomes an indoor one. Grace for when the things that they have been talking about for a year don't turn out like they had planned. Grace for moving cabins and loud corn hole games that drown out conversation. And, grace for when our familiar patterns give way a little to make room for everyone at once.

Because, we're more Venn diagram than cohesive whole, this year, overlapping circles of stories and habits that all center on this God thing, this Jesus thing, this business of being poured out and filled to overflowing with Grace.

Haiti kids who ask for a morning wake-up, even as they hold a phone in their hand; recognize my water bottle when I leave it sitting places that it shouldn't be; use the snack bin in our cabin as an illustration for the dozenth Haiti story; and come looking for lotion and EmergenC, cough drops and melatonin, already confident in the contents of my bag.

Haiti kids who can identify the arc of a familiar conversation by a single overheard word or phrase, who know each other's triggers, who talk about team members who aren't here almost as often as they tell stories about the ones who are, and who are only mostly joking when they ask to spend the night on the couches in the cafe, rather than splitting back off to our cabins.

Cluster girls who lay hands on each person in turn, voices falling over each other in a prayer shower, as the leaders take turns washing feet; who revel in this place where Bridgetown and Haiti collide, even if it isn't the way that we are supposed to be doing it at all. Girls who wash our feet in return.

Girls who pack up on Saturday night and spend the extra time on Sunday morning throwing out trash and cleaning up the random bits of this and that that have left our mark on this place; haul things out to the trailer before we tromp through the snow and jump over puddles in order to get a cabin picture; make a point to meet my middle schoolers; claim the longest table for our cabin and then fill in the gaps with every extra person they can find.

Underclassmen with their own history and stories and expectations. Old youtube videos, vines, and random conversations; a crouton given in celebration of a facebook-friendship anniversary; the counting of years that I have been one of their many leaders; memories gone over and over and over again.

Clapping games and card games; boys who come to tell me when they feel like the youth pastor has said something particularly brilliant during cabin time; and a seat for Jessica on the bus ride home, saved by the same child who has been doing so since he was a tiny sixth grader who had yet to decide whether girls or kaleidoscopes were a more interesting thing to talk about.

This time, we talk about slightly more weighty things, God things, life things, draw the youth pastor into yet another theology conversation that is deftly flipped back on them. And, even still, I know that there are things that he is thinking and feeling that we haven't had the time to say.

Bridgetown kids, breakout group kids, college kids who appear on Sunday morning, new ones who somehow still fall into these ever shifting groups. Middle schoolers with their own layers of history and complexity.

We could use at least another six retreats just to begin to sort through the surface layers of it all.

It's a little bit like a giant family reunion, where everyone is mostly certain that they are related, but no one is 100% sure how.

So, instead, we stretch out every moment of every hour for as long as the clock will allow, jump up and down like crazy people, lift our hands in the air, and crowd surf through what might have been cabin time.

"Grace that brought me to the throne of God!"

They've turned the song into an anthem, a party, a celebration, and I'm not sure that they realize how right they are. There is Grace here. Grace that weaves together our complexity and our mess. Grace that walks the balance line between the instinct to wear a leprechaun hat all weekend and the instinct to stay up for "real talk" until all hours of the night.

Grace for kids who gather for quiet times far earlier and longer than what the schedule asks of them, for encounters with the Divine, and for the practical questions of living life like Jesus. Grace for throwing together a wildly disparate group, and Grace for learning to live a little more like family.

Grace for kicking coffee mugs and trying not to slip on the ice. Grace for tromping through knee deep snow by way of a "hike," and Grace for a cabin of strangers who learned to be a cluster.

This is the God who comes in tenderness and love. The master who washes the servants' feet. The one who was filled to be poured out. And, as these overlapping circles join together to take communion, this is Grace that draws us to the throne of God.

Transitions

There are a lot of things happen in the middle school group today.

The only youth pastor that they have known is moving on, and this is both their first chance to process as a group and also their week to say goodbye.

They've been deciding all week how to process this, texting each other, texting leaders, talking, thinking, talking. But, it doesn't ease the tension on a circle of worried sixth grade faces that already know exactly what I am going to tell them. They still don't like it.

For some of them, the reaction comes with greater force than others. The girls who have known Julie as a discipleship group leader are teary eyed, and the questions come quick and quiet. Where are Chris and Julie going next? What are they going to do? Who is going to take Julie's discipleship group? Her job at the school?

This is familiar but also different. So very, very different from what the high schoolers walked through before them. Quicker, cleaner, more certain. A change from one familiar couple leading the ministry to another, perhaps not forever, but for right now. And, for the kids, this nebulous sense of "now" seems to be enough.

Enough to make cards and eat cookies and watch a slide show. Enough to say their thank you's and their goodbye's and to step out into the falling snow.

Because, the transition also means that the change in youth pastors wasn't the only thing that they learned about in their parent letters.

There is a winter camp that I wasn't going to be at, because I have yet to learn the art of being in two places at once. Transition has moved them to the same campus as the high school retreat. They will be joining the older group for meals and chapel.

And, they are a well earned mixture of thrilled and terrified.

By text, they were moans and groans about the change, certain that they didn't want their siblings around, dismissive of the idea that this could be something good.

In person they are close and excited, bouncing off of my hip and standing just within reach, spilling over with half stories, and coming back again just as often as they leave. One moment there because they are nervous, the next grieving, the next there because they are excited.

Falling into camp habits without any appearance of conscious thought.

The girls help me to set up the game, scattering the floor with hula hoops and familiar manila tags.

No one is sure anymore which of the "standing in the middle of the woods" handwriting is theirs, or even which of the dozens of words they would have used to describe God. How, after all, do you begin to contain the Divine onto the space of a single card?

Some of them went with the sorts of words that Christians have been parsing through for centuries, "immutable," "omniscient." Others chose words that were less pretentious but no less powerful, "grace," "love," "faithfulness."

Today, instead, they talk about bus rides and ridiculous games, and who played with which app on my phone when they were too sun kissed and dirty and exhausted to string together another sentence. And, maybe, in this case, it isn't so different. These are the things that we know, not about God, but about each other -- and, through each other, the things that we know about God.

We know that God is present in our joy, present in our hurt, a soft place to fall back on when we have moved past our ability to do anything else.

Grace. Love. Faithfulness. Steady knowing. The things that they see of God are the things that they have seen in human lives.

In the high schoolers who play truth or dare with them and in the leaders and friends who climb aboard these noisy, smelly busses and commit the time to doing life together. Sure, we're a mess. Put a dozen humans together in any sort of a situation, and there will be mess. But, in the midst of the mess, they are learning how to be human.

So, today, when things are just a little messier than normal, they fall back on those patterns. Drop the barriers of grade or gender; pull in a little closer; circle up a little more often, sit a little more in each other's space. Remind each other with stories of the past, present, and future, that our God is present and patient, that, in all of it, we are never alone.

They can say goodbye to two leaders who they love. They can handle changes with grace. They can move forwards even when they don't know what happens next.

For today, they can run a mutant form of a relay race while the leaders throw dodge balls at them from the balcony. They can collect these familiar cards. They can eat gluten free cookies and deliver cards and pray out loud. They can do everything in their power to honor two people who have been serving in this ministry since they were in preschool.

Because, just like at camp, there are patterns of faithfulness in the midst of the chaos.

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Advent: Joy

 

Snow is magic in the desert. Our kids are giddy at the thought of it, scooping their bare fingers deep into the powdered crystals, sledding long after the thin layer has given way to packed and frozen grass. Playing every moment that they can, because you never know how long it is going to last, how fleeting this blanket is going to be.

Long enough to give us a two hour delay on Friday, to stay for Sunday.

"That's right! When it snows," one of my eighth graders turns to the sixth grade girl who is his frequent shadow, spilling over with suddenly remembered excitement, "we always...!" And, I don't think that either of them even realize that it isn't a sentence. Because, snow at church means snowball fights. It means sliding in the parking lot and stomping our way back into the building, shaking off ice crystals as we go.

It means fifth grade girls who see the shoes on my feet and slip theirs back on without a question. Music that is a little bit of a mess, until we sit down, and it is just the sound of their voices, and the mess is Holy too.

Whispers through the Bible story, as if they have yet to realize that sitting in the front row means that the presenter can hear every word that they are saying. Pens that stray from a piece of paper to the pages of my Bible. Wiggly girls who are doing their best to listen.

We've been practicing, this year, highlighting things in their Bibles. But, this is my Bible, and she doesn't have permission, and she knows she shouldn't, and something in me wants to rise up that is terribly un-grace filled. Something that wants to be less than lavish with this Joy that we are celebrating with verse cards and candy canes at the front doors. I almost stop her before I have the chance to see what she's marking.

Luke 15:1

"Then all the tax collectors and sinners drew near to Him to hear Him."

We're about to move from this space to tuck ourselves under the stairs, light candles, color ornaments for our Jesse tree, wait for the one who brought ultimate reconciliation, and I am reminded to take a breath. Where there is lavish, ridiculous, out of control Grace, Joy seems to follow.

So, our cardboard tree dripping with stories and color, we blow out the candles and slip our way across the parking lot. Take pictures. Toss snow. Laugh and shiver and slide down the hill where we often play games. Duck back into the building just after service ends and pile ourselves and our belongings back into the 4th and 5th grade room. Circle up on the floor and play clapping games until the parents arrive.

Gather middle schoolers between services and throw snow until our fingers are numb and there is ice melting down our backs and our socks and we have to shake like dogs before we come in the door. Because, they know that snow on a Sunday means the best (and worst) kind of a snowball fight. One with no teams or preparation. No gloves or hats or jackets. Just powder clinging to our sweatshirts and our hair. Laughter. The easiest kind of joy.

They pull other leaders out of the building to join us or chase them across the parking lot, faces and fingers flush with cold. "What is your persuasion," the leader who is speaking pulls up a scene from The Polar Express, "on the big man?"

The kids just finished leading a worship set all on their own, and we're settled down on the driest patches of the floor. (Because, a hundred people who have just come in from taking pictures in the snow leave a lot of puddles.) And, this is a different kind of Grace, a different kind of Joy. 

Grittier. Needing a little more time and space to be wrestled through.

"Doubt," she tells them, "can be the beginning of growth, or even the beginning of faith."

Because, life isn't linear, and neither is faith. Some of these ones who have spent the morning laughing and teasing each other will spend the afternoon in petty drama, and no one's family is quite what it appears to be on Sunday mornings. There are rough edges and raw wounds that an hour and a half doesn't begin to cover. But, every once in a while -- more often when we are looking for it -- it snows, and we find ourselves surprised by joy.

Sixth graders who curl up close during the lesson and breakout groups. High schoolers who spend their evening watching Charlie Brown and decorating hundreds of cookies to pass out at their schools. Sweep off tables. Shop vac popcorn off the floor. Sing along to Santa Clause is Coming to Town and Let it Go. Laugh and then stress out and then laugh some more. (And, probably stress a little more afterwards.)

Watch out for each other. Pray for each other. Sass each other. Wrestle with frustration and apathy and fear. Eat from a bowl of colored frosting with a plastic knife, and go straight to Dairy Queen afterwards, the way that they always do.

For today, Joy is loud and messy and a little bit goofy, tinged with the hurt and the reality that give it depth, completely ridiculous as a reaction...except for these two things: it snowed, and we are here to celebrate the One Who Restores All Things. 

God With Us in this explosive, absurd, hopeful sort of a Joy.

Advent: Hope

The first Sunday of Advent surprises us a little, sneaks up on us before the calendar can change over to December, before we have quite had a chance to clean the Thanksgiving leftovers out of the fridge. And, there's something perfect about that.

Surprised by Hope.

My 5th graders lit the first flickering candle this morning, and there is a giant piece of string art in the sanctuary that spells out the word in endless loops of thin white thread.

The littles help me to draw a swirling Jesse Tree onto the back of a cardboard collage of "God's Heart," and we spend the last of our small group time coloring and cutting two dimensional ornaments for our two dimensional tree.

One by one, they point out their piece and take it in turns to tell these familiar stories. Genesis stories. Exodus stories. Beginnings and in betweens and no-one-quite-knows-what-is-happening-yet's. Messy humanity surprised, over and over again, by Hope.

Hope that turned out to be a baby, a rescue, a victory. A long and restless waiting for the One who would be all of those things and more.

"By faith Abraham..."

The youth pastor talks to the high schoolers about faith forged through trials, talks about the hard things in his own story with greater transparency than he ever has before. Challenges them to do business with God about the hard things in theirs. Challenges them to trust. To be open, to be honest, to tell the stories of when brokenness gave way to Hope. The mountains that were moved after they came to the end of themselves. The broken pieces that make them real. Make them human.

And, they do. They have those God moments that ripple from one to another until it settles over the room, a blanket of Holy presence that would be stifling if it weren't lit by that same flickering candle of Hope. Hope that changes their attitudes and puts a spark in their eyes.

They pray and they sing and we split off into conversation groups where my few trace the carpet with thoughtful fingers and promise to find someone, this week, to tell their story. Not here. Not now. Not in this room that seems to swallow their words and muffle them into silence. But, sometime.

Here, we are stories just by being, their past and their present tangled up together in the messiness of knowing that who they are here, tonight, may not who they appear to be tomorrow, or even a few hours from now. Hopefully, knowing that it doesn't matter. Hopefully, knowing that they are loved. Strong or weak. On top of the world or being crushed beneath it. This is the sort of place where we just keep picking up one rock and then another and another and another. Until, eventually, we look behind us and discover that the mountain has shifted.

Surprised by Hope.

These few are hesitant to close our time in prayer, worried about stuttering or using the wrong words, knowing full well that I won't let them out of this room until someone does. They avoid eye contact, barely moving, as if that will help them blend in with the couch.

"It can be super short." The stubborn in me keeps pushing, "Just, 'Jesus, help us to find someone to tell our stories to this week.'"
"Oh!" one of my sophomores lights up with sudden confidence, "I know what to say."

Surprised by Hope.

The tension melts from his shoulders, and we bow our heads to pray.

And, we come back together talking about ministry trips, Bridgetown kids near the wall, Haiti ones near the pews, spilling over with memories and plans and the powerful sense that, the last time that they felt this sort of Holy, they were somewhere else. Somewhere where it was okay to be broken. Somewhere where God's people worked together to heal.

Something deep in these kids has built a connection between service and the Holy. Between hard stories and the Holy. Learned to see God in the eyes of a person who is homeless, in shooting stars and giggling littles.

Discovered that they can find that same God here.

When you don't have all of the answers and you can't work hard enough to solve all of the problems. When there aren't enough hours in the day, and when you fall asleep not knowing what comes next -- except that you are surrounded by family that is walking this same path. When God shows up anyways.

These are the stories we tell.

Washing feet under an overpass. Cramming into a room filled with sweaty volunteers. Bouncing along in a bus. Wiping down dusty floors. Twining together orthodoxy and orthopraxy into a worship that is as simple as breathing.

Sometimes they have to find the Holy in the unfamiliar before they can have the eyes to see it here. Before they can dig through the mess of our broken humanity and find themselves surprised by the audacity of Hope.

Upside Down Grace

No matter how many times I remind them otherwise, the fifth graders collage from their own frame of reference. Whatever side of the cardboard that they are sitting on is "down," and the side opposite from them is "up."

Things are sideways and topsy turvy, cartwheeling across the space in layers of paper and marker and quotes. These are nature kids and words kids and kids who are fascinated by the thought of a world that is bigger than just themselves. There is an astronaut head floating sideways, at least one landscape flipped completely upside down, and a cow smiling at us with a set of human lips.

And, I kind of love it.

I love the long string of question marks that fill in an empty space and the silent reminder that, whatever we see of God, we see from our own point of view. That things are wild and messy whichever way you look at it. That there is truth written in the upside down bits. And, that, sometimes, when gravity seems to have let loose and sent rolling hills floating on top of a pale blue sky, it is an invitation to see God from a different angle.

Because, it hasn't been an easy week for our kids, and, yet, I watch Grace tumble over us, in wave after stinging, healing wave.

Church lets out early, slowly, gently, and my fifth graders continue their quiet work in the hallway, barely speaking past the music that we are playing, unperturbed by the steady stream of adults who circumvent them without comment. It's a 'feed treats to a couple thousand people' week, and they dig their teeth into whole apples as we finally start to clean up and move our things back into the space where we are "supposed" to be.

They've learned to kick their shoes off under the stairs, to bring their paper Bibles, and to underline verses while we talk about Justice and Power. Learned to weave quiet prayers into the frame and form a long, snaking line of seats during story.

And, when their little hearts fight for attention, for any attention, when something inside of them whispers that they need to have more of whatever thing they're looking at, that they need to be in control in order to feel safe. When it takes some extra time to settle. When the power point doesn't quite work right. When we go over Bridgetown verses in elementary Sunday school. When church lets out early.

There is Grace to cover.

For when I have completely forgotten that I was supposed to come up with a game for middle school, even though it's been on my to do list since Monday. For when I ask some kids who have come over for hugs, and we come up with something anyways. And, it works.

Grace for playing in the octagon and singing loud to camp songs and sending a hip bump down a long line of girls who simply need the contact to remember that they are loved. Because, I give out more hugs than usual this Sunday, stand around and talk for a little bit longer, pull in a little closer and a little tighter, because, this is Grace when there is hurt in the air.

Littles who drink from my water bottle and pull gum from my backpack and carry my phone around without actually using it for anything. And, the crickets at the end of breakout groups, because no one is in a particular hurry to leave and no one particularly wants to offer to pray. Because, they are feeling vulnerable enough already without putting it on display, thank you very much.

But, finally, someone does, and there is Grace.

Pushing us. Sheltering us. Present with us.

Grace.

Kingdom Come

The fifth graders are a mess of glue and scissors, sharpies and paper scraps, sprawled out across the hallway with a piece of cardboard that is nearly bigger than they are.

"Make a collage of things that show God's heart."

They quickly overflow the tiny space that I gave them to fill, and I spend part of my morning rummaging through a recycling dumpster for something large enough to contain the truth that is spilling off of their scissors. Favorite Bible verses, quotes, images of children and animals, adults, and nature. They create a pile of sunrises and question marks and decorate the top of the piece in metallic marker.

It isn't finished yet, but we tuck it away into a corner for next week, give them a chance to weave their prayers into the loom, circle up on the floor for a speed version of our Books of the Bible game, gather up the pillows and highlighting pencils and Kenyan scarves that make up our space, and send them off with their parents.

We're practicing abundance here. Practicing what it looks like not to worry about someone else getting your favorite color of pen or finding the Bible verse before you. Practicing putting socks in the donation bin and celebrating those few who managed to get their brains, and their paper Bibles,  together despite this rainy morning, without worrying when we will be celebrated in return.

Because, when our world is bigger than ourselves, when we can trust that there is "enough," the justice that we are studying comes like breathing, prayer comes naturally, and there is space to ask the questions that bubble at the lips of these little Ravenclaw girls with their brains that are constantly spinning, trying to "figure it out."

Space for my 6th graders to begin to shift their loyalty to people over process. To decide that they don't really care about collecting name tags as much as they care about having the leaders who belong with these pieces of fabric and nylon. To become, for a few minutes each Sunday, the things that a strong, healthy Slytherin class should be.

Loyal. Ambitious. Digging up details that no one else knew existed. Passionate. Bold. Stubbornly self reliant, but fiercely protective of anyone they consider their own. They are constantly playing the angles, moving the pieces, discarding the things that they deem to be extraneous, and trying on new ones for size. And, it's just about as much of a whirlwind as it sounds like.

This crew is constant movement and words and physical contact, always trying to "do it right," sorting through unspoken rules and relationships and unconsciously forcing us to put words to them. Slytherins guard our traditions, Gryffindors our stories, and Ravenclaws our ideas.

These three classes that twine together in a dizzying web of social media contacts and real life friendships don't have scissors or glue on hand this morning, but they are making their own sort of a collage, their own sort of a living picture of the heart of the Creator.

Unique. Gifted. Imperfect. With abundant space at the table for anyone who wants to come.

It doesn't solve the problems of the world, but it may just bring the Kingdom a little closer.

When high schoolers share their testimonies at athletic events, I am reminded of how far we have come in one year, in two years. Of the hurt and healing and honest conversations, of the questions that they are asking and the questions that they will continue to ask.

Of worries over friends and family in Haiti and the constant prayers that form as I spend my weekend driving and hiking through the Olympic National Forest, where, predictably, there is rain. But, rain that is so much gentler than that which has flooded churches and houses and fields.

Here, I hike for a few minutes alongside a woman who is well into her seventies, umbrella held confidently in one hand and trekking pole in the other, tisking over her "young" friends who have sped on ahead of her and in awe of a waterfall that surges with brown flood water, the bridge that we stand on swimming with fallen rain.

Here I am reminded by the Makah permit that hangs in my window that I am a guest on someone else's land. Here, I am reminded of the constant, unrelenting power of the ocean and the faithfulness of a God who sees. Who sees the twisting tangled mess of human history and chooses to enter in. Chooses to walk alongside us. Chooses to Love.

"Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."
- Arundhati Roy

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Grace Upon Grace

It's been twelve months since the new youth pastor walked through these thin glass doors for his first official Sunday.  "It's okay not to be okay," he stood in front of our students, almost as nervous about being the 'new guy' as they were about having someone new to trust, "just don't stay there."

It's been a roller coaster of a year since then, but there's a feeling that we are starting to get our feet under us, starting to find the patterns and ways of being that keep fear from having such a powerful hold. It's still messy and grace filled and broken and beautiful, but it's the kind of broken that feels like healing, like wild, untamed rightness in the midst of the mess.

Fifth grade girls curl up for our first week under the steps and weave unspoken prayer requests into the loom that was started at middle school camp, laughingly introduce themselves by the color of their toothbrush, and interlace their arms for a simple tapping game on the floor.

We finish like that, looking a little foolish, hands all woven between each other on the floor, while the groups around us sit neatly in their chairs, but, maybe, as one of the sixth grade girls slips in to join us, imperfect and together is the best place that we could be.

She walks with me to the middle school service where we are greeted by little brothers who cling to feet and slide across the polished floor, releasing to chase after a high schooler who is also a Sunday school teacher. And, it's one of those mornings where the games go over better than they have any right to and music has that boisterous, full body feel of being at camp, but the girls come into breakout groups subdued and quiet, as my giggly ones who normally try to talk over each other at a mile a minute wait for the new ones to fill the silence instead.

We never do get quite to the bottom of it, but there is Grace to cover. Grace for middle schoolers who use today to communicate in pokes and shoves and the sorts of physical whirlwinds that can say so much more than words at this age. Grace for leaders who remember how to respond in kind. Grace because Christ was once this age, and I am sure that the boy who grew up to gather together zealots and fishermen and tax collectors spent more than a few hours roughhousing in the Judaean countryside.

The crickets that normally descend on my high school breakout group vanish in a sudden moment, and we are voices layered over the top of each other, going over time, caught up in a discussion about Abraham and Isaac, as if, in this last week before we switch over to new groups, we have decided to prove that we can do this conversation thing. That we can circle up on the floor and this couch and wrestle through the reality and humanity of these very imperfect characters.

That we can find ourselves in their broken relationships and often faltering faith. That we can turn over the stones and ask the difficult questions and struggle with the implications the way that people have since long before Christ.

That, as we work through the particulars of getting kids into this communities that we call clusters and the messy, non-linear process of growth and healing, it's all okay. That there are good things on the other side, and that they are loved unconditionally, even in the midst of it all.

It's okay not to be okay. (Just don't stay there.)

Because They Love

There is a balance, in telling stories, of not centering too much of the focus on one thing or another. In telling the story of cleaning a wound at a VBS and of the raucous game of duck, duck, goose that had just occurred and the paper crowns that decorated the heads of dozens of little kings and queens.

In not telling too much without looking back to see what the pictures say.

Because, sometimes my head gets so wrapped up in the particulars that I forget to look at the bigger pattern. Forget to remember the peace that washes over our kids when they step out the other side of customs and the joy that crosses a massive language barrier when they slip into VBS mode or set foot on the basketball court and soccer field.

 We don't take our kids to Haiti so that they can change the world. We don't bring them to learn about poverty or to become more grateful for the things that they have. There are a thousand things that could be reasons for bringing them but aren't.

We bring them because, when they are here, when they are with Ms. Betty and Edwens and Dollus, they are welcomed into being a part of a global Church. Because they hear the names of other countries thrown around in an easy way that they simply do not in our little corner of the pacific northwest. Haitian friends play soccer games in the Dominican, go to school in Cuba, visit churches in Curacao, move to Canada, and attend trainings in South Africa as a matter of course.

Because Ms. Betty thinks that they can do anything, but also clucks at them to drink enough water and eat another piece of cake. Because one of the most powerful women in Haiti knows them by name and teaches them by example what it looks like to offer a cup of cool water to a stranger, whether it is ice cubes to whoever happens to wander up to the apartments or pouches of fresh drinking water to children and mamas, grandmas and big brothers, at VBS.

Ms. Betty teaches them to show up with full hands and a full heart and to offer them both to whomever is going to be there the longest, whomever is going to do the most good and disciple the most faithfully.

Teaches them that it doesn't need to start out beautiful to fill a need, it simply needs to start.

Ms. Betty loves them with the same fierce and protective love that she directs towards everyone in her path, and they learn that it doesn't matter where you come from or how old you are or what skills you bring to the table. It matters that you are willing and available, at 6:00 in the morning and 10:00 at night. It matters that you pray, it matters that you worship, and it matters that you love with everything that you have.

Edwens teaches them that the job is never done. Shows them how to express gratitude for the work that was done before you and how to never stop dreaming of ways to make it better.

Teaches them to pray for strength and demonstrates what it looks like to live in the faith that that strength will come.

Cares wildly and passionately and in a thousand directions at once and manages to fill their heads and their hearts with information that they never knew that they were missing. Slips into debrief time to hear them tell stories and rubs his hands together along with the rest of us in a ridiculous but honest declaration of, "Yaaaaay...God!"

Lays hands on these kids and prays for them and lights up their imaginations with the possibility of coming back to this place that they have come to love so much partially because Edwens loves it with everything that he has. And, if Edwens and Ms. Betty love a thing, then it must be worth loving too.

We bring our kids to Haiti to visit with their friends and their mentors, to become a part of a bigger story, to find the settled grace of moving mountains one small rock at a time, even when, sometimes, those mountains are the ones that they find in their own heads.

We bring them because they teach us the same things that they have been taught. How to love a place, body, mind, and soul, even when it tears you apart and exposes you, vulnerable, to things that you had never thought of dealing with before. How to let a place change you, not out pity or compassion or even empathy, but because you have been welcomed in and found yourself at home. And, we are all a little more ourselves when we are at home.

We bring them because there are littles who light up like the sun when they see them and teenagers who they are growing up with, even across this vast span of land and ocean.

We bring them because there is something about the sight of shooting stars and the taste of genips that gets in their blood and changes the trajectories of their lives, opens up new ideas and new ways of being.

We bring them because they love and they are loved, and, because, when there is a family reunion, you pack up the kids and you gather the luggage and you travel for as long as it takes. Because, this is family, and family is worth the cost.

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A Prayer

 "If there's life on other planets, did Jesus die for their sins too?"

We're flopped on our backs under a brilliant net of stars, and the nature of this team quickly makes itself known. These kids, and their leaders, are questions and certainty, faith and doubt all tied up into the most intricate and beautiful of knots.

Theology and missiology, soteriology and dating. Our nights are filled with unanswerable questions and open handed issues as kids present their cases and admit their sticking points. And, in a way that is unique to this team, our days overflow with more of the same.

Pulling weeds and moving rocks is a perfect time to talk about Calvinism and Arminianism. Long van rides are for discussing prophecy and tongues, the recent socio-polital history of Haiti, and some of the finer points of what it means to honor and hold space for your spouse.

They teach each other how to solve Rubik's cubes and sudoku puzzles, discuss the age of the universe and arguments for a local or global flood. And, occasionally, they fall silent, and the journals make their way to the porch, and they introvert together, reading out an important line from a book or passing a puzzle that has them stumped.

On the basketball court, they watch each other like hawks, absolutely determined that we will not have a repeat of last year's adventures. The returning girls walk back and forth with me, arms full of Nalgene bottles that are scooped up and refilled almost as soon as they are emptied. You sweat hard, you take electrolytes. You feel sick, you tell Jessica. Take breaks, sub out, push hard, but remember that we still have a week yet to go.

VBS after VBS with kiddos who want nothing more than to see your face spark to life the way that it does when you see them. Hours of chase and beach balls and made up games. Wires to be twisted around rocks and skits to be performed. Songs to dance to, hacky sack to play, and endless streams of babies and little ones to be picked up, held, rocked to sleep, fed crackers, or played peekaboo with.

The 'thing' that we've come to do is slower this year, smaller, and our kids respond with the same gentle honor and courage that they work so hard to show each other. Play with snapchat filters and let their phones be passed around by small people they have just met, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to have your camera roll filled with selfies or group shots with a finger halfway through the screen. Color pictures. Filter inside when it gets too hot to sit quietly and play hand games until it is their turn at crafts. Play outside games that echo back inside the building with shouts and laughter, because, sometimes, duck, duck, goose and shoulder rides are competitive sports.

Shine with a peace and joy that transforms every moment of putting others before self into a pure act of worship.

Washing water bottles. Saving plates of food. Quietly guarding the steps, so that conversations can be held secure and private. Basketball games at six in the morning. Unloading and re-loading lumber and sheet metal. Being early to the gate for a sober family meeting on the way home. Playing a giant game of chess or snorkeling at the resort. Getting a haircut. Trying genips and fresh sugar cane. Worship becomes an action, is an action, the thing that you would give up something for.

Wake up early to sanitize hospital beds and sand walls before breakfast. Stay up late to sweep and wipe down floors by hand and then to mop them and then mop them again. Move equipment, pick up trash, sanitize and sanitize and sanitize some more. Dislocate a shoulder or get mowed down on the basketball court and pop back up to try it again. Circle up tight on the roof when we've had a night with all of the emotions and sing until until the guitarist's fingers are raw.

Lay hands and pray over each other 'Haitian style,' with twenty-one voices layering over each other in a constant stream of sound, because there is One Who Hears. One Who Hears when they are frustrated because they expected it to be harder, and One Who Hears when they didn't expect it to be this stinking hard.

One Who Hears their faith and their love, their doubt and their questions, their unity and their hurt, their beauty and their mess.

One who watches them more carefully than they scan the night sky for shooting stars or threats of rain. One who knows their goofy comments and their honest conversations long before the words fall from their lips. One who has been preparing their hearts for this thing, this messy, beautiful jumble of an easy, hard, sleep deprived, throw your expectations out the window, sort of a thing.

We're caught up somewhere in that tension again, somewhere part way between fear and peace, just far enough along to see Faithfulness in the road that we've walked, but still tangled up in the darkness and the violence of our own humanity.

Because, there are nights when 1:30 in the morning is beautiful, star lit, gentle, honest. Nights when it is painful and terrifying. Nights when we talk circles around ourselves only to admit that we don't have a stinking clue. And, nights when we simply do not sleep at all.

Days when we work for more hours than there is daylight. Days when we play in a brilliantly blue ocean, and days where it is enough to join in on the dedication of a partially finished surgical center.

Because, really, none of those days are as simple as that -- and none of those nights are either. Sometimes there is snot in the face masks and ugly dead patches in the coral and jelly fish that want to sting you. Sometimes play days have some of the most serious conversations, and sometimes work days are the ones where finger jousting occurs.

We fall. We misstep. We fumble our way through bringing a new youth pastor along on this journey and through reaching back to find closure for old stories. And, somehow, we stumble our way into astounding, sacrificial Grace in the midst of it all.

Because, right here, right now, on this planet, Christ walks beside us.

And, that is enough.