Transition Jitters

First Sunday back. Last Sunday before school starts. And, we dance with this transition like it is a tangible thing.

Haiti fills conversations and lessons and leaders' meetings. Atlanta the most common question I hear all day. I am captured by the idea that there were this many people aware of us. This many people praying.

A small team from a large congregation. But, we had warriors on our side.

My cluster girls want to talk and talk. The Haiti kids get together for coffee before youth group. Intersect is alive with bodies and words.

As if we could possibly sit close enough to transport back to where we were last Sunday. Tell enough stories, fill the night with enough words, to stretch these last hours of Summer into extra time.

Ultimate Spoons and music, Haiti and breakout groups.

And, I am reminded once again of the physicality of the way that we do uncertain emotion. This need to throw beanbags and frisbees, jump over chairs, blocks paths, and fight through barricades of pillows.

"This is how you know it's almost school."

The explanation comes easily to this new eight grader who has been brought over for introduction eyes wide at the running bodies and flying objects that fill the room between where she started and where we are now standing.

"It's always crazy in here, but this is just a little extra crazy."

The other girls nod, and we duck and dodge whenever necessary, the boys laughing as I manage to stand in just the right place to catch a gaga ball with my face. Twice, before they finish a single game. Skills, I tell you. Skills.

My eighth grade boys are wild and unpredictably predictable. Throwing thing. Chasing each other. Wrestling on the floor.

The girls are a little off kilter. Or, maybe I am. Horrifically bad this week at keeping more than one conversation in the air at a time. But, sixth and eighth graders have elementary Sunday school in common, so we talk about that. Talk about how Jessica's groups always climb the tree. Give brief lessons on survival at Ignite.

"If you hear someone yell my name, get out of the way. It means that bodies are coming through."

Because, some things are tentatively the same, even for kids trying to figure out what eighth grade really means.

This one will barrel past with a, "Jessica!!" when he is being chased, fully expecting that I will somehow provide protection from whatever game it is he's started. That one will forgive my absence in time to hide behind me from a dodge ball. No words, no eye contact, just a human shield, a dance around what will be and what has always been. 

Later, he'll bump into me, and I'll chase him for a very familiar moment or two. But, in the meantime, he will choose to sit with one of the male leaders. Choose to play the game with one of the male leaders.

Because, oh-my-goodness, they may have finally decided that these men (and high school guys) are to be trusted!

If you asked them this week who their leader was, they would point to Mike, to Matt, to Christopher or to Jonathan. And, I don't know if I can fully explain how awesome that is.

There isn't anything simple about it, nuances and details that could go on for pages. Disclaimers and caveats and overly explanatory explanations. Specificity that spices joy with sorrow, confidence with anxiety.

But, we'll deal with the details another time.

For now, there are nets of leaders surrounding my kids. Dozens of people praying for them the way that dozens of people were praying for us. And, that, in itself, is beautiful, incredible, awesome.

We'll take it.

Always Learning

It's simpler here, with this smaller crew, and we find ourselves starting to daydream different ways of doing things, authentic ways of doing things.

We talk about Kenya more than I have talked about it in years. Answer questions about mid-term missions and long term commitments. Language learning. Culture learning. Water filters. Trash disposal. Do you boil water before you cook with it? How long before you stop using filtered water to brush your teeth? What do you do about parasites?

What kinds of bugs? What do you wear? Was it safe? Was it hot?

Stories come out, and I find myself bragging on the incredible Kenyan missionary that I worked for and with. See them mentally pasting her against an image of Ms. Betty. Grace. Betty Prophet. These women of God who have the faith to change the world.

These ones who live up to their names.

Together, we take in their stories, God's stories through them, and the team begins to sink into this idea of actually living here. Slowly at first, but gradually with greater confidence.

Ms. Betty passes plantain chips around the van, and they weigh the travel nurse's dire warnings against the casual way that we offer them food from the side of the road. Break open thin plastic bags and bite into crisp saltiness.

They are learning not to be afraid of this place, and it is good.

Learning to show up at soccer games and greet the children around them, but quietly, without chase or tickle or silly games. Without detracting from what this community is here to accomplish. Finding the familiar in dust and heat and wind, and remembering that these things are bred into their bones.

Desert rats. Tri-Cities kids. Better acquainted with with dust clouds than snowstorms.

This is home.

My soul unfurls a little with the normality of it all, and they are at peace.

Friends offer a fruit that looks like a tiny lime, and we are shown how to split the delicate but leathery skin. How to fold it back to reveal a J*lly Rancher flavored fruit. Pale, yellow-orange. Round and vaguely slimy around a solid pit. Kenép.

Pop it in your mouth. Suck it clean. Toss the pit and peel into a nearby mathenge patch.

As easy as peanuts at a baseball game.

They add it to the list of things to be googled when we hit an airport, and "eat first; ask questions later" takes on a 2014 spin. Eat first; google in a few days.

Google it while you sit and talk. While you pass around decongestants for drippy nosed kids waiting to board a flight. While you post to a group faceb**k page, blurry phone pics full of fingers and little kid camera angles.

Because, we don't need a thousand perfect pictures to know that this happened.

It happened. And, that is enough.

This is Home

"I can't come tomorrow." Little arms wrap themselves around me like pipe cleaners, as if we are trying to melt into one body, one heart. "My mom says that I have to do chores."

So, I let her lead me outside to the shaded corner where we sat for so long last year. Pull her to her feet and spin, again and again, until she is dizzy and laughing. 

"Can you stand up?" I raise my eyebrows at this wobbly, giggling child, and she simply steps closer.

"Spin me!"

Spin her. Let her sit on my lap. Play with my camera. Chew a piece of gum. Cling like a tiny on my hip when she refuses to let her feet touch the ground.

Because, she is six now, only two when we first met, and we both know that this might be the only day until next summer. Another year before she is once again whispering my name into my ear.

"Jessica."

"Loveli."

"Jessica."

"Loveli."

She spins under my hand, dancing to the rhythm of a soccer game. Falls into my arms when I tickle her, teeth flashing in a bright smile, gum just poking out of the side of her mouth as she tries to convince me to give her another piece.

Because she is six. And, you can never have too much gum in your mouth when you are six.

***

Lovena comes the next day, eight years old and too big to sit on my lap, but just the right size to lean up against the stone wall, elbows using my knees as arm rests.

It's hot, and we're mostly quiet. Watching the boys run through drills and play scrimmage games. Taking a few selfies when she gets ahold of the camera. Pretending not to see the littles or the Play it Forward boys who point phones in our direction, documenting this pile of onlookers to their practice.

But, we still walk hand in hand like we have always done.

Still grin and smile and ask the occasional question when it feels like the conversation needs words.

Have I seen Loveli yet? Am I coming tomorrow?

Does she like school? Does she still like to play soccer?

We make for pretty minimal conversation between the pair of us, but there is something precious about just being introverted together. About sitting on our stone perch and laughing as the world does as it pleases around us.

Because, today isn't a memory yet, not yet a story we tell, or a moment we hold in our hearts.

Today is where our sweat muddles together. Where we match up brown hair and brown eyes and call it family.

Today, we are going to take a few hours to lean in close and make this time count.

***

Ewens Simon is the first one to spot me when I settle down on a familiar bench before practice, the first one to whisper my name to Jason and nudge the other boys into looking behind them.

"Jessica. Jessica, do you have your camera?"

So normal, so casual, that it erases any doubts about the two day layover in Atlanta.

Because, this isn't coming in late or cold turkey to someone else's gig. This is slipping into an old familiar pair of shoes, re-becoming part of a story that has been four years in the making.

Here, in this place, we already know each other's names.

Here, they know that my camera is their tool to capture their world, to keep record, even when something goes wrong and the pictures disappear before anyone has a chance to see them.

Because, my phone is full. Full of kung fu videos and soccer clips and silly poses. Full of little fingers half in the frame and unintended panos that have dismembered legs flying over the deep brown of the soccer field.

And, it doesn't matter that I don't keep track of any of it, that my most common answer is, yes, they can use my phone, but, no, I don't know where it is. 

They'll pass it off when it is their turn to play, or scold one another with a, "Jessica said to give it to me now." 

Just the way that my kids in the States do. My Haitian kids will put it in the hands of another blanc before they leave, the same way that my Sunday school kids will pass it off to another leader.

This is easy. This is normal. 

This is visiting and playing and loving, not because we are saviors, but because we are friends.

This is home.

Kingdom Come

Our team is so much smaller this year that the first few meeting felt a little like a toddler clomping around in Dad's oversized shoes. What do we do with all of this space? How do we function as a small-ish team of eleven, rather than an army of twenty-two?

What do we do in a world where counting heads requires a glance, not a calculator and a roster?

We use long layovers for scavenger hunts. Pull in close to tell stories and give instructions. And, then we make the team even smaller.

Pro tip: don't wash your passport and then try to travel with it. Very sweet consulate officials in Atlanta will smile and laugh at you and then walk away to solve your silly problem.

Because, there is nothing that will tear down any misplaced assumptions of knowing what a trip will hold faster than standing at the boarding gate of a third and final flight with a seventeen-year-old who is being told that trying to get through customs on that passport will get her deported.

Yeah. No, thanks. That is not the kind of story that we want to go home and tell.

So, the two of us spark a flurry of phone calls early Sunday morning. Is it fixable? Where is it fixable? What do we do in meantime?

And, then we take a deep breath. Because, the only thing that we can do is wait and pray.

Pray for the team that we sent ahead of us. Pray for grace from passport officers. Pray our way through last minute but amazingly gracious Southern Hospitality, while we label bags for a craft show, and through countless rounds of HGTV.

Somehow, our story becomes their story, this mostly obscure high school trip a thing that all sorts of people are talking about, praying about, invested in. All because we got stuck in Atlanta.

But, we make it.

We step around that final corner into heat and bright sunlight, and something in our souls unfurls. Uncurls a little more when we catch glimpses of blonde heads over the compound wall and find ourselves wrapped in the warmth and welcome of a team.

And, I hold on to this moment, because this is a little of what eternity will feel like, this joy that will fold over us like a blanket. This sense of completeness. Of having all the time in the world.

The Kingdom of God will be a little bit like Haiti. 

(Because, Haiti already is a little bit of the Kingdom of God. Already; not yet. Tension in the middle. This theology of a coming reality that is already real.)

The stories we have built up inside us will come bubbling forth, good, bad, and beautiful; until we can see the Glory that is painted across it all.

We will eat. We will talk. We will play and watch and laugh, and our hearts will ache with the beauty of this thing.

We will grow quiet, sometimes. Pull up a circle of chairs and murmur about the things that we have seen God do, not just now, but in moments that stretch back to the beginning of Creation. We will glance around in awe and wonder, and we will know that this God, our God, is so very, very Good.

And, then, we'll wake up the next morning - if we ever need to sleep - and we will get to work.

I don't know exactly what work will look like in eternity. But, I know what work looks like now. I know the messy, sweaty, joyful, painful reality that is building relationships. The Shalom that we create one heart, one moment, one plate of food, one whisper of truth at a time.

I know the Divinity that shines through when we reach out a hand, figuratively and physically, to pull each other over obstacles. When fears are faced together. When names are known and stories are internalized. When nothing tangible is too precious to be shared and everything intangible is too precious not to be.

And, that's the sort of work that we get to in Fond Cheval.

My kingdom would have gotten us here faster, would have smoothed over the bumps in the road, would have greedily snatched up every moment that I could eke out of these eleven days. But, this isn't my kingdom. This is His.

This is His Kingdom come.

Simple (Complicated) Answers

"Should I get a car or go to Haiti?"

One of the seventh graders has my phone curled in his hand as we wait for parents to pick them up from a middle school event, fingers still scrolling through the unedited mass of photos and videos that the kids in Fond Cheval added over the past eleven days, examining the miniature kung fu movie and selfies squinting into too bright sun.

I've been home for eight and a half hours, and the answer comes easily to my lips.

"Go to Haiti."

Wait until that arbitrary but magical summer after freshman year, and then go to Haiti.

Let the car wait for another year when you will be old enough to actually drive it. Let the "things" sit until they become less important than the people. Let your horizons open up before you've absorbed enough cynicism to close them.

Let me plant this seed now, while you're still young enough to think that I know everything.

Because, if there are two things woven deeply into the DNA of our church, two things that the youth groups pick up on, it is this: children's ministry and missions.

The high schoolers sit around on darkened roof tops, watching for shooting stars and asking each other questions. "If you could do long term missions anywhere but here [Haiti], where would you go and what would you do?"

Medical missions, teaching, annual trips. They all have a plan, a concept, a dream. A sense that life in suburban America is not the end all be all of Christianity, that the best job that brains and charisma could earn them aren't really the highest goal.

And, I am reminded of this conversation with kids who will, next year, be old enough to join us. Reminded of the answers that we heard at winter retreat to the question, "If you knew you could not fail..." Reminded of seventeen year olds who will wait for as many silent hours as it takes to get a new passport and get on that plane.

Of a 4.0 GPA football player who drives an old, beat up, barely working car, but spends months raising the funds to go to Haiti.

Because I just spent eleven days with the answer to Al*xz's question.

I've sat with them while they wrestled through ideas of financial accountability. "If just one of us hadn't come, what could HCM have done with that money?" Listened as they began to scheme up fundraisers and better ways of doing things. Heard the gears in their brains turning a hundred miles an hour.

But, I have never once heard them say that it wasn't worth it.

Hurt, tired, sick, frustrated, giddy, numb, happy, or deliriously excited. Coming around that final corner in the airport means coming home.

It means that their friends and their family are waiting for them, and it doesn't matter how sweaty or cramped or uncomfortable the journey is to get there. It doesn't matter that they will spend the next eleven months missing these smells and these sensations and these faces.

Because, they are home.

And, family is so much more important than a car.

The League

 

Middle school camp, where the questions range from, "What do you mean that dark things get hot faster?" from the sixth graders and, "What is 'detrimental'?" from the eight graders to, "What does it mean when people put their hands up [during worship]?" from the seventh grader who has settled himself at my elbow.

Where we run and dance and run some more. Dance during chapel and games and the scavenger hunt to get to Monday morning's breakfast. Run in the dark and in daylight, in silence and to pounding music. And, then run a little more just for good measure.

Where we get lost and find ourselves and ask for a dozen sets of directions. And, where the kids wrestle with big questions about God and smaller questions about life.

"Well," one of the seventh graders tilts his head at me, as if 'because I am a girl' was clearly the most ridiculous reason ever for not being his counselor, "why couldn't you just be our leader during the day and then go back to another cabin to sleep at night?"

"I have my own girls to take care of." I laugh and thwack him gently, moving on before this conversation goes downhill fast, trusting that his amazing counselors will endear themselves to him quickly enough. Because there is a strangely knowing innocence about this age, about G*b* questioning why his leaders have to be male and Al*xz's jealousy over the female leaders' ability to grown armpit hair when he can not.

About kids who heft a flashlight experimentally in their hands, glad for the borrowed light, but almost instantly declaring that, had they been allowed their phones, they would have had an app for that.

But, it's dark enough here that they learn to use the flashlights. Dark enough for night lights even in the 8th grade girls' cabin. Dark enough for running feet to slow in the first night game to wait for me to catch up with them, for a changing voice to declare, "There's Jessica," and set them off again.

Because, part of what they're learning is how to trust. Trust their leaders. Trust each other. Trust themselves.

Through low ropes and cabin times and morning rec, they are allowed to work their way through things that there are no apps for, even if they were to have their phones.

Because, there is no app that will help you spot a team mate so that she doesn't fall off the wall. No app to get the one on crutches from point a to point b. Nothing but their own brains and hearts and bodies to fill the long hours of free time.

No Starb*cks and no energy drinks. No ip*ds or longboards or any of the things that they normally spend their time on. 

They're a little less close and tight than they are at our old camp, a little more confident that this space is truly intended for them. They love this place with the careless intensity that only middle schoolers can muster. But, none of that makes this easy.

It's messy, mixed up, anxious, giddy, joyful, laughing, hurting, and every other word that we could possibly think to use to describe it. Drenched in mercy and grace and love that keeps on going no matter what.

It's beautiful.

Beautiful when we crank up the music or pull out the art supplies for quiet time. Beautiful when they write each other notes or slip their hands into the air for worship. Beautiful when there are tears and when there is laughter and when the injured one forgets the pain for long enough to sing Revelation Song into the darkness just outside the camp fire.

Beautiful when we sit on the bus and the girls call out the character that they saw in the boys during night games that pushed them all to that fine line between adrenaline and fear.

Because, the leadership and teamwork that ooze from these kids is pure gold.

Not enough to win them any prizes or accolades during competitions, but enough to make our leader hearts swell with pride as we watch them bite their tongues against complaining and work carefully not to cheat, even when it would be so easy to mimic the teams around them. 

These are our eighth graders, the ones who play and laugh and dance with the younger kids, who pick up their own trash and a little extra, who let us pull them in from free time early to work on service projects, who work together more smoothly than we could ever think to ask.

And, I could tell you stories for days.

Stories about the kids who finished their low ropes obstacle with nothing but determination and encouragement, but then bent down as soon as they were finished and tightened a loose cable, so that the next team would have it easier than they had.

About kids who were always, always, always where we asked them to be, even if we as leaders were late getting there.

About girls who waited in a cabin for thirty minutes simply because they knew that we would show up eventually.

And kids who jumped into games full force, even when full force is not in their typical nature.

I could tell you about the girl who let me borrow her flip flops when one of mine got eaten by a night game, or about the girls who finally found it lying under some rocks and returned it to my cabin on the last day of camp.

About a quiet canoe ride with a kid who could have chosen a thousand less appropriate ways to debrief but carefully managed to use this one instead.

About the way that they made requests but didn't balk when the answer was not what they were hoping for, and about the ones who hate getting dirty but came down to the mud pit anyways to take pictures for the rest of us.

The kids who sat and listened and honored the stories that were being told on the chapel stage. Or the ones who quietly focused in during cabin time.

I could tell you about the stubborn determination of our one on crutches to get to the top of the giant swing, or about the new friend who offered to take off his prosthetic leg to show her how to do it.

Or, I could tell you about the wild energy that was contained time and time again and then let loose on whatever newest obstacle they found in their paths.

Because, the last thing that these kids lack is energy. Right up until the moment when their heads hit their pillows, and then...crickets.

All of that running? It makes for some tired kids.

And, half the time, I feel like we're learning just as much about ourselves as a church as anything else. Learning what stresses us out and what makes us feel like we can conquer the world. Learning which heart attitudes we are most likely to address with the kids and which antics we will probably let slide.

Learning how to be a team, even when we aren't the ones leading this parade.

Because, we've gotten used to winning everything, gotten used to having the loudest voices, gotten used to being the glue that holds a camp together.

It takes a little shaking and stirring of our hearts as leaders, takes a twenty-four hour stream of conversations with the kids, to settle in and sit back and see what a new camp has to offer.

To decide that the games are awesome, even though we can't seem to figure out the magic formula for coming in higher than "not last." And, to decide with the kids that quietly playing fair is something that we value enough to stick with.

Because, it's good practice for our justice minded thirteen year olds to find the distinction between "unfair that is hurting someone" and "unfair that is annoying." Because, "do everything without complaining" is often harder for our church family than it ought to be.

And, because we value this.

Because, we value being the leaders and students who hang back after a game to clean up our own space and the spaces around us.

Because, we value that sacred space for quiet times that is carved into the daily schedule, even if it look a little different every day. Art. Music. Journaling. Bible reading. So long as you're intentionally slowing down to make time for Jesus, it doesn't really matter.

But, hang with Him. Listen to Him. Enjoy Him.

And, then, enjoy each other.

Because, we may push our kids towards fairness and responsibility, may expect them to honor one another in their words and attitudes and actions, but it doesn't mean that we are earning any prizes for "best behaved church at camp."

Our kids are the ones who sit in the back and off to the edges at meal times, baffled by the idea of standing in line by cabin and waiting to be dismissed

"Wait? You want me to show up early for meals so that I can pretend to be at school while I listen to you talk about things that might be funny if I could hear you over what my friends are saying? Huh?"

They sort of kind of figure it out by the end of the week, standing in the back and talking until enough space opens up that they think they might have a chance at getting food. And, we don't really push it, because we would rather smother them in grace than make getting food an act of performance.

There's enough anxiety coursing through these little bodies. Let's not add anything else.

"Take a knee" echoes often across the rec fields, and we find ourselves the last ones shushing children and nudging them to the ground, pulling them off the edges of the slip 'n slide while the other teams are already settled in to listen.

Shushing each other as leaders just as often. During games and leaders' meetings. And, even when it's just us, all talking over each other and telling stories at the same time, like so many verbal puppies with too much energy to spare and not enough time to spend it.

Down at the waterfront. In the mud pit. Sneaking through night games just as quietly as the kids. We fully expect our leaders to pour out crazy amounts of energy in physical proximity to our kids. And, fully expect said energy to be jump started by copious amounts of early morning coffee (hot coco).

Because, we're pretty game for anything. scavenger hunt to get to breakfast? Sure. Breakfast delivered to the cabin? Definitely. Shaving cream in the face? Why not?

But, take away that early morning time to make sure that the team is still functioning as a unit, and ain't nothing going to happen.

Well, actually, plenty would still happen. Just with leaders who were as stressed out as our kids would be if you dumped them in a cabin full of strangers.

Everything is awesome... when you're part of a team.

And, as annoying as the song is, I can see the kids learning the same lessons as we go through the week. Stretching out a hand to help each other across the low ropes course. Walking slowly enough for the one on crutches. Pulling together for dance circles.

Functioning smoothly as a unit that is so much bigger than a single cabin or a single church.

They are a church. The Church. 

A family. A unit. Pieces of a puzzle.

And, I can only hope that we're modeling their roles for them well. That, as we murmur "servant leadership" over the things that we ask our eighth graders to do, that it makes sense, because they are seeing servant leadership in us.

Okay. We don't murmur. No one would ever hear us over the chapel music if we murmured. Soft voices are generally reserved for waking children up or putting them to bed.

But, we say it often. Use it to explain why the eighth grade girls are at the back of the bus by the bathrooms. Why they're putting together "Bags of Sunshine" before chapel or playing with red hand paint during the extra space between free time and dinner.

Servant leadership. Servant leadership. Servant leadership.

They're eighth graders now, and we want to teach them that one of the perks of being up high is the privilege of putting yourself low. 

Of course, these are already the kids who solve low ropes problems by lying on the ground so that teammates can walk across their back, and who understand that "leading" through the woods during a night game means putting yourself out as the first one to be caught.

They're pretty solid on how this thing is supposed to work.

And, so, mainly, we just do camp. Cabin clean up and slop buckets and stacking chairs in the dining hall. But, also goofy boys who borrow my sweatshirt during a night game and never quite manage to give it back.

Throwing sixth graders off of the water toy and letting a group of them throw me off in return. Standing in line for what adds up to hours with seventh grade girls who want to swim out and play king of the mountain and eight grade girls who want to go down the giant slide.

We watch them blob each other and laugh as we skid over the slippery spot just before you get into the water.

They earn tickets to shove plates full of shaving cream in our faces, and we rub it all over theirs in return. Rub mud in their hair and bury their legs until they look like a mermaid. Stand in a fire hose and wash off muddy selves in an equally muddy lake.

Worship together and dance to everything from Fr*zen to Backstre*t Boys.

Slip 'n slide and Bro Ball and a giant relay where we sharpie their event numbers onto their arms so that no one forgets.

We go through two bags of gum balls, a tub of licorice, and five pounds of Sour Patch K*ds.

Giant swing. Low Ropes. Paintball. Game room.

Long talks about nothing and everything as we sit by the lake during free time or hike up to see a waterfall on the way to camp.

Stop to examine sunsets and still water and oddly shaped trees as we take the time to revel in everything. To give high fives during chapel and call each others' names every time that we pass. To prove, constantly, that we are here and we are family and this is beautiful.

This is mercy and this is grace. This is never being perfect but picking each other up when we fall and trying again.

This is ice packs and injuries and worship music blasting in the cabin.

Goofy skits and goofy clothes and superhero everything.

This is middle school camp.

Telling Visual Stories

Photography is a big thing. If I can't find it on your Tw*tter or your Inst*gram feed, I can pretty safely assume that the trip to the top of Mount Everest that you're telling me about didn't really happen.

But, there is a massive difference between taking a photo of our latest cup of coffee and trying to be the one* to document a short term trip.

*Yes. This should be one person, two if your team is huge or split up, who is in charge of taking all of the "nice" pictures. The rest of you, hand off your cameras. Let someone at your destination show you their world.

One Simple Rule:

Focus on the stories you have permission to tell.

If you are that person, take respectful, honoring photos of willing subjects by focusing on the story of your team. 

Feel free to take pictures of your team eating meals, having devos, hanging out, or riding in a private vehicle. Document beautiful sunrises and incredible night skies. Point the camera at vast stretches of open road and the details of vegetation that make this place uniquely here.

Keep it pointed away from other people.

That kid on the corner may be cute, but, if none of you have gotten to know him, you don't need the picture.

Take pictures with and of people who know that you are taking their picture and have given you the go ahead. If you don't know the names of anyone not-on-your-team in the shot and neither do they, you probably shouldn't be taking it.

This especially applies to babies and small children. A two year old smiling at you is not permission. Getting a candid of one of your teammates chatting with mom and baby when mom knows that you have the camera out and pointed at her is.

Taking the time to talk to mom yourself, getting to know her, and then asking to take a picture to remember to pray, definitely is, so long as you actually mean it.

People are not props.

People's homes and belongings are not props.

Things that you don't understand are not automatically fair game. You're not here for People of WalM*rt or some sort of Fail Blog.

Take pictures of the things that you have been given permission to take pictures of.

Don't be the creepy foreign paparazzi with their cameras stuck out the window as they drive by. You would be sketched out to see someone doing it in your neighborhood. Don't do it in theirs.

A lackluster picture taken with integrity is a thousand times better than a beautiful photograph that treats people like animals in a zoo.

Use your camera to tell stories well.

Telling Stories Well

You've checked your leader, your heart, your camera, and your language skills, and you're ready to head off into the great unknown to bear witness, but how do you do that well?

A few rules that I apply just as imperfectly as anyone...

No one is voiceless:

By our very nature, humans communicate. All of us. All the time. There has never been a person on the planet who was voiceless. 

There may have been no one to hear, no one who cared to listen closely enough to hear or see or feel what they were trying to communicate. But, they have always had a voice.

Your job is to be ears and eyes first, and a megaphone if requested.

You may be in a power position because of your age, gender, ethnicity, economic standing, or country of birth. Go Spiderman on the situation, and use your power well.

Be an amplifier, a megaphone, a platform, proof that at least one person in our big, beautiful, messy world is listening to the things that they have to say. Listen. Watch. Ask questions. And, then, listen some more.

How awesome does it feel when someone lets you blow steam about that frustrating thing that happened or gets excited with you about some random thing from your favorite book? It feels just as awesome to people all around the world when you take interest in the details of their lives.

You're not a "voice for the voiceless" or a superhero or a white savior.

You are witness and servant, the inn keeper on the other end of the Jericho road.

Stories are not yours to take:

It can be tempting to search for the most tragic story, the bitterest despair, the brightest hope.

Don't.

Don't show up in Haiti and start questioning everyone you meet about the earthquake or deplane in Cambodia and ask people about Pol Pot and the killing fields.

Those stories form a deep and intimate part of a person's identity, and they have just as much right to them as they do to their personal possessions. Their stories are theirs. If they chose to share them with you, treat them gently, record them properly, write down the details before you forget them, and check to see how much you have permission to share.

The most precious ones might never leave your heart and your mind. That's okay.

Store them there and let them shape a quiet, intimate part of who you are.

Respect the stories that are never told. People make decisions all the time not to hand strangers the key to the safety deposit box where they keep their diamonds. Someone you have known for less than a week is likely to make the same decision about you.

Unless you are a journalist or working with an organization that has specifically asked you to come in and search out these particular stories, err on the side of moderation in all things.

It is perfectly acceptable to come home with a story about a little girl named Fatima who loves the color blue and draws impeccably symmetrical stars. 

Echo the truth that you are told. It is enough.

Don't make your story their story:

Check the details. Over and over and over again. Check the details.

What you see as a mud hut may be the house that they just finished saving for and constructing for their family.

The rebar sticking out of the roof might be a clever way to avoid paying higher taxes, and the languishing ruins may be new construction being put together brick by brick when there is cash in hand.

What looks like chaos might be carefully orchestrated order, and what seems like order may actually be an office mired down in paperwork.

Ask questions, and, when you think you know, ask more questions. Find out more than what the people and the places look like. Discover what they are thinking, how the feel, what it is that they want you to know.

Use caution not to project felt poverty into places where it isn't or melancholy into places where there is joy.

Your story, the things that you feel and experience while you are in their spaces, the thoughts that go through your head or the prayers that want to spring from your lips, those are yours. They are valid. But, take care that they don't spill out over the edges of where they belong.

Your story is not necessarily theirs.

Don't make their story your story:

Conversely, their story is not yours.

You have not walked through the things that they have walked through or thought the things that they have thought precisely in the way that they have thought them.

There will be moments where you feel your shared humanity so deeply that it seems as if you share a soul.

Hold on to those, but don't let them overtake you.

You don't have to let yourself be overwhelmed by the overwhelming.

Grieve when you need to grieve. Laugh when you need to laugh. Take your process. But, remember that God is writing a story that is uniquely yours.

You may not spend the rest of your life marked by the things that have marked the people you meet, and that is okay.

You have permission to move on, to remember without thinking about it every moment, to make it a part of you without letting it consume the whole.

God is the only one big enough to carry someone else's story, and He already bore that burden on the cross. You can let it go and search instead for the beauty that is present in the midst of any pain. His is the only story worth letting into every portion of your life.

Remember the big picture:

There is always more than what you see in a week or two. More than what you see in a month or a year.

If you feel like there is a problem that isn't being addressed or a story that is being swept under the rug, ask about it, but be willing to accept that the answer might include things that you haven't been able to see or experience.

Trust that not everything has to change before you leave.

Just because this isn't your home doesn't mean that it isn't someone else's.

They were here working long before you heard of this trip, and they will continue to be here long after you've unpacked your suitcase.

Remember that life will continue in its big ball of wobbly wobbly timey wimey stuff, even in the moments where you are not here to bear witness. (Really, remember it; it takes a lot of pressure off!)

Go. Listen. Watch. 

Learn. Love. Serve. Be served.

Tell stories well.

Before You Go On That Ministry Trip

Before you get on the plane for that short term missions/ministry trip...

Check your leader:

Can you follow the person who is going to be leading your trip? What about any other leaders who are serving under them?

There needs to be at least one leader on the trip who you are able to listen to without question.

This isn't because short term missions trips are a dictatorship, but because there will be moments when leading a team cross culturally (or anywhere) where there simply will not be time to explain.

Explanations and questions can come later. Most trip leaders will welcome even your most probing thoughts, but the middle of church service/the market/public transportation might not be the most appropriate time to ask.

Can you be as responsive to the seemingly inane requests of your leader to cross your legs, uncross your legs, change clothes, put on different shoes, lower your voice, look somewhere else, use the other hand, etc as you are to the "big" requests that are simple to understand?

If you can't, what choices do you need to make? Do you need to meet with one of the leaders? Get to know them better? Wait for a later trip or go with a different group?

The way that your group interacts will likely communicate more about Christianity than any words you could say or any service you could perform. Make sure that you are able to follow well.

Check your heart:

Are you going to bear witness to someone else's story? Or, are you going because you want to add a cool new chapter to your own?

There is an entire industry and global economy built around giving people new experiences in new places. It's called tourism, and it can be a soul stretching, eye opening, heart stopping way to expand your horizons, but tourism isn't missions, and missions isn't tourism.

You should be going to bear witness to other people's stories and primarily to bear witness to other people's stories.

It doesn't matter if you have an incredible skill that fills a felt need of the local community in a developmentally appropriate partnership. If you are a terrible listener, someone will probably want to strangle you within twenty-four hours.

They won't. But, why spend hundreds or thousands of dollars just to be a pain in someone's neck? You have friends and family at home that you can provide that service to for just a fraction of the cost.

Instead, be ready to listen, look, learn, and then serve (or be served) as asked.

Stories are powerful. Powerful enough to take the time to hear them - and occasionally tell them - well.

And, yes, of course I have opinions on what that looks like.

Check your camera:

Is it a real camera? Like a not-a-phone, old school piece of equipment with a slightly dusty screen that you had to dig out of your parents' sock drawer?

That's what you want to bring.

Because, no one wants to sit there worrying that the kid running around with your camera is going to accidentally switch on the data plan and earn you a cell bill the size of Texas when you could be playing clapping games or engaging in conversation or doing whatever else your hosts have asked of you.

Unless you are the one or two people that your team has designated to take respectful, honoring photos of willing subjects, your camera isn't a tool to make yourself look more awesome or capture the perfect selfie.

It's another way to bear witness, a chance to let another person show you a glimpse of the world through their eyes.

Your language skills may not be the sharpest, but a picture speaks a thousand words. Put your camera in someone else's hands, and let them show you what is important about the day, the event, the moment. The answers can teach you a lot.

This means building relationships to the point where you know who it is appropriate to hand a camera to and where to find them if they wander out of eyesight. It means learning names and personalities and who that one kid is who you shouldn't hand the camera to, because they will get distracted and drop it into the nearest puddle of liquid.

You might not get the perfect profile pic, but you will get a new perspective.

And, finally...

Check your language skills:

Are they up to par for what you plan to be doing on the trip?

If you're going to be working with kids, learn to ask about ages and siblings and favorite colors. Learn to ask adults about family and life and spirituality.

Learn the names of common objects that you'll be interacting with - and the all important skill of asking what something is called.

You would be confused if someone came on a ministry trip to the United States without learning any English. Expect the same reaction from your hosts and then be grateful when they choose not to show it.

Language is communication is relationship.

Learn as much as you can before you go, and learn more when you're there.

It will probably feel like your brain is about to explode and your tongue is tying itself up in knots, but that's okay. You (hopefully) didn't sign up for this trip because they promised you that it would be easy.

This is important enough to put some effort and sweat and tears into. The God who understands every language on the planet thinks that this one is just as rich and beautiful as the one that you grew up with. Worship through the work of learning new sounds.

Check your leader. Check your heart. 

Check your camera. Check your language skills.

Pack your bag.

Go, and love like Jesus there the same way that you love like Jesus here.