Gut Check

Wow! That's a lot of money!

Reality check number two of Jessica's week: Internship is coming faster than I thought it was.

In so many ways, the six months between now and Kenya feel like eternity, but deadlines are starting to creep up on me. By June 30th I have to have 25% of my budget raised or pledged, and the end of the month isn't as far away as it seemed a few weeks ago.

God is good though, and I'm excited to see how He brings in funds, both for myself and my classmates as we get ready for our internships with Bethany International Ministries. It should be good.

Old Man River

Call me naive, but, whenever I read about "muddy, brown rivers" as a kid, I would picture something like the Yakima -- kinda murky in a greenish blue water sort of way. I guess it never made sense that rivers could be actually brown without essentially being natural sewers.

I stand corrected. Rivers in Minnesota most definitely come brown.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

Kenya Facts 101

• Home to the largest population of Quakers anywhere in the world


• There is a traveling library that goes through Eastern Kenya -- on the back of a camel
  
• The Kenyan people's idea of casual clothing looks about like an American's idea of office wear
• 
  
• The Lion King is set in Kenya -- Pride Rock is an actual land formation

Singing Spies

I spent last weekend doing a simulation (kind of like a giant game) of the persecuted church.

It was pretty crazy, and I had tons of fun crawling through bushes, hiding stuff in my pockets to bring into the "peace camp," and sneaking around in the dark going on "missions" to get stuff that we needed. About a third of the way through, though, I got caught and sent to "prision." That was when things started getting really cool.

Even though we weren't allowed to talk to eachother most of the time, we were allowed to sing worship songs if there weren't any gaurds in the room. --If they came in while we were singing, they would bang on our cells and yell until we quit.

At one point, they came in while we were singing with all six of our leaders from the peace camp, the people we had elected to plan missions and keep an eye on the rest of the group. No matter how much they yelled, we just kept singing worship songs straight to Jesus.

In the prison they made us do things like push-ups and sits anytime someone did something wrong, so they told all of the leaders that they had to do push-ups until we stopped. For almost twenty minutes they did push-ups and sang with us. Even though their arms hurt and even though it was only a game, there was joy on their faces. They knew that they didn't have to be there, but they wanted to be.

Their arms hurt because they loved Jesus, and they loved that.

We never did stop singing. The gaurds put them into cells with us and left the room, because the power of God was so strong in that "jail."

We may have been captured as spies, but our most powerful weapon was a song and a prayer.

36 Hours to Reality

This past weekend, my school partnered with The Honor Academy (HA)-- the other organization that shares campus with us -- to put on a simulation of the suffering church. The simulation is an annual thing that HA has its interns go through, and they refer to it as the World Awareness LTE (Life Transforming Event).

Thursday night they gathered all of us together to watch "Hotel Rwanda" and then sent us back to our dorms "for the night." Night only lasted about three hours before the facilitators stormed our dorms and herded us out onto the front lawn, bleary eyed and clutching water bottles. Knowing what was going on did nothing to slow the adrenaline that was coursing through our bodies as they marched us to the gym and had us remove "everything" from our pockets -- several people had found creative ways to hide things directly on there persons, so we still went forward with quite a few items they did not know we had...

We were told that the new government in the "glorious Republic of Ceylan" had decided that our "cult" was in opposition to the state and that we were each being rehabilitated either by nature in the "peace camp" or by force in the "prison camp."

I, along with the majority of the group, was led to the "peace camp" out in the back 40, where we were given a few tarps, some rope, a stack of bowls and spoons, a first aid kit, and a map highlighting the places where food and additional water were hidden -- not exactly a UN approved refugee camp, but it was a start.

Anytime we set foot outside of the camp, we were fair game for the facilitators. If you got "shot" you went directly to the prison camp. Our only "job" was to go on missions to collect food, water, sleeping bags, and "bus parts." The "bus" we were building was big enough to hold fifteen people and would see them across the border -- and out of the LTE -- once we completed it. Most watches, cell phones, ect had been confiscated by the government, so time pretty much became a non-issue unless we were on our way to a required movie session. -- We watched movies like "Invisible Children" to try and raise awareness of different world issues.

After the second movie of the day, me and another girl were captured and sent to solitary confinement for a time, before joining the other prisoners in their cells. (There is an empty storage room on campus that is made up of probably a dozen chicken wire and two-by-four "cages," ceiling high and large enough to hold about six college students laying down. They really do look like crude prison cells, so it was perfect.)

I would spend the next 24 hours in this facility, and it was here that the LTE became more than an elaborate game of cops and robbers or capture the flag. Everything we were going through was still a simulation -- push-ups and wall sits are nothing compared to beatings or torture -- but the emotions we were going through, and the moment by moment decisions of whether or not to rebel against our captors, were becoming more and more "real" as the initial adrenaline wore off.

I could tell you story after story of things that happened in that "jail" -- and hopefully will in later posts -- but, for now, let's just suffice to say that there were moments the facilitators could not enter the room where we all were for fear of crying and that, by the end of the event Saturday afternoon, we were all acting far more like Christians than we had been when they drug us out of the dorms early Friday morning.

In some ways, it was one of the longest 36 hours of my life, and, in some ways, I'm amazed that it only took 36 hours to bring us that much closer to reality.

Same story, different page; same journey different mile

I realize that I haven't really posted anything about ministry week besides my random musings, so, here we go.


All of my friends have heart wrenching stories about learning to love from homeless men or amazing testimonies about leading whole families to Christ, and I wish that I could relay something along those lines. I wish that I could tell you that I came to realize what Jesus meant when He said "the least of these." I wish that my eyes would shine as I tell you stories about a homeless vet named Johnny. I wish that God had given me any instructions for the week besides "Wait and listen."

That's a lie though. I don't wish. I don't question that God knew exactly what He was doing. I don't deny the fact that the lessons my friends learned were ones I've learned in the past. On the streets of Portland, on the Rez, in Denver and Mexico, Pasco, Kellogg, and Nicaragua, at Royal Family and through years of Church Camp and teaching Sunday school, I gained much of the wisdom that they did this week. Sometimes, though, I think it would be easier if I weren't always on a different page.

It wasn't that God didn't break my heart this week; the problem was that He ripped it to shreds.


I'm not sure that I have the words to even begin to explain, and, if I have the words, I'm not sure that I have the courage to use them.

The short story is this. If I was discontent with much of the American church before we left, I have no way to politely categorize what I'm feeling now. There has to be some way of phrasing it all without sounding like a revolutionary, some way to make it clear that I don't want to reinvent the wheel simply as an act of rebellion towards the generations that have gone before me, but I haven't found it yet.

I could try to describe to you the passion that churns in my chest at each new sign of consumerism that slips -- sometimes loudly heralded -- into a church sanctuary. I could try to tell you how my heart breaks in agony at the sight of a new piece of equipment, knowing that the money spent there was money not spent on the needs of a hurting human being. I could explain the fear of an almighty GOD who demands the glory that we have given to our things. I could have you watch the end of "Schindler's List," and, next time you get dressed for church, consider how many eternal lives the cost of your ring or your clothes could have saved. I could make you read Isaiah 58, and read it over and over until it becomes a part of you and haunts your every waking thought.

But I don't know how to communicate such things. Church is more than we've made it. Christ is more than we've made Him out to be. And this world is more than we'll ever understand.

If this is just the fire of youth, then I never want to let the flame go out.

Paradox of Eternity

To move from gang graffiti and condemned houses onto a pristine campus where deer droppings litter the grass is mind boggling, to see a business man in his Armani suit cross paths with man who picks up used cigarette butts and smokes them, astounding.

This life we live is astounding, a paradox in all facets. There are rich because there are poor. There are poor because there are rich. Each man's inefficiencies push another higher. We all are participants in this global dance and yet refuse to admit that the steps have been choreographed by the generations before us. We take our places and move as the music demands, straying only a little that we might not collide with another dancer. To insert syncopation requires courage, to dance to the beat of a different drummer, practically a death wish.

And yet, we seek to follow in the steps of Christ, so we do things that society says will condemn us. To look another man in the eyes is to admit that they are no more than pawns in our world, pieces that we can play in order to get ahead, so, we look deep into the pain in their eyes, and we smile. We sit next to those we have been told are to be rejected, and we talk to the distasteful.

We trade the paradox of this world for the paradox of eternity. We become the poor of this world, yet we know that we will be rich in the next. We syncopate because we hear a different song and we have vowed our lives to follow it.

Ministry Week!!

This next week is going to be way different from normal school, and I'm about to jump out of my pants waiting for tomorrow morning.

We're going to be going to downtown Minneapolis to just hang out with people and bless the local churches in any way we can. They are giving us six hours out of every day to wander around in pairs, talk to whoever we can, build relationships, pray for people, and share Jesus -- kind of like what the highschoolers from Bethel did in Bridgetown but minus the sleeping bags -- and I'm really really excited about it. It's a little colder here than it was in Portland, but I'm sure God has all sorts of things planned for us regardless of the weather.

My team is going to be staying (and spending the first part of our day serving at) a church called The Evangelist Crusaders just a few miles from where we go on Friday nights to hang out with the kids. It's a little farther out into the suburbs than any of the other teams but not ridiculously far out.

I had to laugh when the pastor was talking to us last Thursday, because, in his four minute blurb he used the phrase "loving people because people matter" (One of the Bridgetown mottos) as well as "come and see" (which is Sacred Road's motto). Both of those ministries are are ones that I really love working with, and I figure that, if God can orchestrate that level of detail, He totally has this week worked out.

Prayer requests:
*Boldness
*Unity among the team
*Unity of purpose with the church we are going to serve
*Energy
*Passion
*Divine appointments

Blessings!

Jessica MacFarlan <><

James 1:27

Check it Out

I fully fell during work today and chipped part of my tooth off on the tile outside of the kitchen. I keep finding myself playing with the broken tooth with my tongue, because it feels bizarre -- think of what it feels like when you loose a tooth, but weirder and sharper.

Puddle Jumping

Oh dear, I feel like such a little kid right now, but it's totally amazing.

I rained today -- which was amazing in and of itself, because it meant that it was too warm to snow -- and, by the time we got off PT this evening, there were puddles all over the place in the lawn. Me and friend, who also refuses to wear shoes unless there is danger of frostbitten toes, ran around outside like idiots and jumped in puddles until we had mud all the way up to our t-shirts.

It was hilarious while it lasted -- it's only thirty-six degrees out and really windy -- even though our feet were half frozen from the ice / snow / slush that was falling mixed in with the rain and making the ground COLD. But, I think half the campus is now convinced that we are insane (They gave us quite the befuddled looks as they hurried past in their sweatshirts, trying to get out of the rain as quickly as possible.). Most of them were pretty sure of that fact anyways, so, I'm not sure it really makes a difference. Lol.

So... yeah... I'm now in my warm room, eating honey and reflecting on the fact that something as simple as jumping in a puddle can make a week such a beautiful thing.

Blessings,

Jessica Mac <><

2 Samuel 22:30

Hippie Hair 101

Over the last week I have learned two very important facts about my hair

#1. It makes very nice cornrows

#2. When it is taken out of said cornrows, it gets incredibly poofy