For my last post from this side of the ocean I've decided to share my "Top Ten Take-Aways" from the last couple of years (in no particular order). Many of you have been a part of helping these thoughts come together and walking them out with me. Thank you for your invaluable friendship.
10. I’m free. I’m never going to be one of the people here or be like them. Who I am, in all my strengths and weaknesses, is who lives here. I’m free to be myself and not try to be Arab or the ideal of who I think an ex-pat here is. We each were positioned in specific places and times and we shouldn’t cheat the community at large or our friends out of that by trying to have other gifts or be people we’re not.
9. There’s a way to express my passions in the Kingdom. I have been concerned about issues related to human rights and social justice (refugees, poverty, human trafficking, etc.) for several years. I no longer feel this tension between political views and faith that I felt cornered into before. My life is more integrated now than I ever could have imagined (see Micah 6:8). I also am convinced there is no self-righteous answer to injustice. Accusing major players like the “Mugabes” and ridding the world of them won’t solve all our problems. I see power plays on every level of life and selfishness within me as well. Redemption is a humble and deep work (Like, Phil. 2, for starters).
8. Black polyester robes are HOT. That’s it. They are just stinking hot.
7. I am made to live in relationship, absolutely, 100% not a lone ranger. Completely in love with the idea of journeying WITH people.
6. Looking forward to an abiding city and being in love with the unshakeable Kingdom. When all around seems to shift and change, I have been forced on many days to look to what is certain. I have learned that often my sadness and lack of belonging has little to do with this culture and much to do with being in a broken world. It’s the complete, yet not completed work of the cross. We’re Homesick.
5. I’m always free to love the person in front of me. It’s never wrong to love, take joy, have peace, be patient, be kind, treat people with dignity, display a gentle attitude or gesture, live faithfully or control myself. I don’t have to argue with the taxi driver over what usually amounts to another $1-$2 he wants. I can walk in mercy and be patient at the post office. There is no law against these things.
4. Head scarves. I can pick out which ones are cooler, won’t slip off, etc. and tie them so they’ll stay on for an hours-long outing. I’m kind of hoping my next venture doesn’t lead me back into the world of polyester. :)
3. Forgiveness. I read a book recently about complete forgiveness which consists of wanting someone to be blessed and prosper as if they had done nothing wrong. Immediately tears came to my eyes as I realized that is my life – I am blessed and prospering as if I have done no wrong, and whoa have I ever. How could I choose holding onto bitterness over experiencing the peace that comes with forgiveness in light of that truth?
2. Cooking from scratch and substituting ingredients. Lack of availability leads to creativity and skill-building. Examples: condensed soup, Alfredo packets - what’re those? All we know is white sauce. Boboli? Huh? Pizza crust is flour, water and oil!
1. He is at work…even until now (John 5:17).
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Saturday, July 19, 2008
One less rat.
Just thought all those concerned should be notified...there's one less living rat in the world as of 4:15ish pm my time. YAY!
So getting ready to be done with this part of my life here. Also, I'm very thankful we have a landlady who doesn't seem to be bothered too much by exterminator duties.
Eagle eye Roomie A spotted the little (actually quite large) guy under the washing machine and our strong, village landlady came down with her mom. The two of them went into the bathroom with the plunger and after much banging and crashing emerged asking for a plastic bag. Then they yelled, "Oh no! He's not quite dead...YET." We then saw more plunger action and eventually he got scooped into a grocery bag while still moving a bit. Major props to Roomie M for holding the bag and ensuring his sure capture during the squirming. Then we took him off to the trash (by trash, I mean we left him on the side of the road at the informally designated trash/grazing area around the corner).
So getting ready to be done with this part of my life here. Also, I'm very thankful we have a landlady who doesn't seem to be bothered too much by exterminator duties.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
I like your eyes...
Apparently we've attracted some attention here lately. The other day a bunch of teenagers were on our street playing soccer. It's not at all uncommon for the younger boys to be around, but this was a new group to us. My roommate found this note stuck in our door:
He wrote his phone number on the back. I see no way this plan could fail... just hope he doesn't pine away at his house too long because I don't think he'll be hearing from any of us! Oh the joys of foreign celebrity. Feeling ready to blend in again. :)
He wrote his phone number on the back. I see no way this plan could fail... just hope he doesn't pine away at his house too long because I don't think he'll be hearing from any of us! Oh the joys of foreign celebrity. Feeling ready to blend in again. :)
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Who we are, too.
I am almost tempted to entitle this post “Ponderings. Part 3.” However, I’ve realized that continuing to label all my thoughts on how encountering persistent injustice is affecting me with new numbers each time might get a little out of hand.
We’ve been teaching some pretty marginalized women for a couple months now. Each day I come home and am either in tears or beyond them. I am indescribably alive and broken at the same moment for being involved in their lives. We cry out to God in desperation about their situations. We plead for their lives and well-being. We return and have found in some cases their situations are worse. Now granted, my perspective is short and finite. But my perspective is really all that these initial, daily reactions come from. I wonder why things seem to keep going from bad to worse for these ladies.
Remember this struggle I posted a couple months ago about how intellectually I know that God sees all and loves all yet suffering and injustice persist? I have found myself back at that very place of deep wrestling the last couple weeks particular to all the stories from the prison. I went back again and read some of the scriptures that always apply to these situations and the series of sermons I read on “Sin, Evil and Suffering” by Flemming Rutledge that point me again to the cross. Many thoughts here are borrowed from those writings and people I’ve been talking with.
One of the better things I’ve heard lately is that if we refuse to process the evil and suffering around us and in the world, we will disengage with God or people who are experiencing injustice. I think we also lose sight of who we are. I’m tempted to think (as an 'easy' answer that doesn't involve so much processing) it would be very easy if we could just rid the world of those who are inflicting grand injustice – the ‘Mugabes’– we would solve all of our problems. I’m finding it’s harder to “confess [my] own sin and seek transformation.” I’m being reminded that ridding would include me (reminded with a great deal of help from Scripture and Rutledge’s teaching). Within each of us lie a victim and a victimizer. No one is above being unjust. Jesus entered the pain that the marginalized so easily relate to, but he was also “numbered among the transgressors.” He was made to be sin for us. If we reject what he did for perpetrators; we reject what he did for us.
Psalm 82 and 110 have been speaking a lot to me on this subject as well. God directs people to: “Give justice…and rescue the week and needy.” The foundations of the earth are shaken at injustice. It simply offends the plan. The hope is that even though we live with injustice and fight it within ourselves, we are morning dew, giving life to the world. That’s the part of going to the teach these women that makes me feel more alive than most any other part of my week. And there’s resolution. In the end things will be made right (end of Psalm 110). Man’s justice is not the final justice. I have no idea what that’s going to look like just as Jesus’ contemporaries had no idea what Old Testament prophecy about a Messiah would really look like. And they were surprised. So maybe there’s no revenge, smackdown and unleashing of anger like I would desire some days against ‘Mugabes.’ Maybe that’s already been taken out on someone who became a transgressor. We just don’t know how it’s going to go. But we know the final justice is good, complete, right and loving.
“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with thy God.” – Micah 6:8
Let’s make this a conversation. What are you learning it means to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly in your situation? It’s something I’ve been pondering lately. Shoot me an email or comment with your thoughts. Love you all and am so glad for the many teachers you are to me and the input you give to my life.
We’ve been teaching some pretty marginalized women for a couple months now. Each day I come home and am either in tears or beyond them. I am indescribably alive and broken at the same moment for being involved in their lives. We cry out to God in desperation about their situations. We plead for their lives and well-being. We return and have found in some cases their situations are worse. Now granted, my perspective is short and finite. But my perspective is really all that these initial, daily reactions come from. I wonder why things seem to keep going from bad to worse for these ladies.
Remember this struggle I posted a couple months ago about how intellectually I know that God sees all and loves all yet suffering and injustice persist? I have found myself back at that very place of deep wrestling the last couple weeks particular to all the stories from the prison. I went back again and read some of the scriptures that always apply to these situations and the series of sermons I read on “Sin, Evil and Suffering” by Flemming Rutledge that point me again to the cross. Many thoughts here are borrowed from those writings and people I’ve been talking with.
One of the better things I’ve heard lately is that if we refuse to process the evil and suffering around us and in the world, we will disengage with God or people who are experiencing injustice. I think we also lose sight of who we are. I’m tempted to think (as an 'easy' answer that doesn't involve so much processing) it would be very easy if we could just rid the world of those who are inflicting grand injustice – the ‘Mugabes’– we would solve all of our problems. I’m finding it’s harder to “confess [my] own sin and seek transformation.” I’m being reminded that ridding would include me (reminded with a great deal of help from Scripture and Rutledge’s teaching). Within each of us lie a victim and a victimizer. No one is above being unjust. Jesus entered the pain that the marginalized so easily relate to, but he was also “numbered among the transgressors.” He was made to be sin for us. If we reject what he did for perpetrators; we reject what he did for us.
Psalm 82 and 110 have been speaking a lot to me on this subject as well. God directs people to: “Give justice…and rescue the week and needy.” The foundations of the earth are shaken at injustice. It simply offends the plan. The hope is that even though we live with injustice and fight it within ourselves, we are morning dew, giving life to the world. That’s the part of going to the teach these women that makes me feel more alive than most any other part of my week. And there’s resolution. In the end things will be made right (end of Psalm 110). Man’s justice is not the final justice. I have no idea what that’s going to look like just as Jesus’ contemporaries had no idea what Old Testament prophecy about a Messiah would really look like. And they were surprised. So maybe there’s no revenge, smackdown and unleashing of anger like I would desire some days against ‘Mugabes.’ Maybe that’s already been taken out on someone who became a transgressor. We just don’t know how it’s going to go. But we know the final justice is good, complete, right and loving.
“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with thy God.” – Micah 6:8
Let’s make this a conversation. What are you learning it means to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly in your situation? It’s something I’ve been pondering lately. Shoot me an email or comment with your thoughts. Love you all and am so glad for the many teachers you are to me and the input you give to my life.
Friday, June 13, 2008
East meets West (in my living room)
After two years in our flat with no "real" furniture, today we got a hand-me-down couch and chair. We're looking a little crazy with our East/West fusion, but oh so very happy to have a comfy place to sit. :)
Before:
After:
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Changing a gas tank...
As many of you know, part of my normal morning ritual is reading Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest. I have done this the last few years for a couple reasons. Chambers brings it. He challenges me in ways that aren’t even close to comfortable, and it is good to be washed in truth. Also, my dad and another good friend read Chambers everyday. There’s something about family and community being joined in daily reading together that I just really like and continues to help me feel connected to people in America.
A couple weeks ago there was a string of days on 2 Peter so I camped on that for a few days. I was reading in a few different English versions and came across something in the New Living Translation that jumped off the page:
“Knowing God better leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness. Godliness leads to love for other Christians, and finally you will grow in genuine love for everyone.”
This is our gas stove and accompanying gas tank:
Every few weeks the gas runs out. “It always happens while I’m cooking something,” I grumble. (Like when else is a gas tank going to run out? Of course while you’re using it. But still – in the middle of baking or cooking it just seems conspired somehow). So it’s out. There’s no more heat. The cake (or biscotti…yeah, I’m still a little bitter about my ruined batch and the ensuing gas tank failures) falls, the chicken is attempting to become bacteria-free at 100 F before you realize what’s happened and dinner guests are waiting. You free the tank of the regulator with a wrench, bring the new, full, heavier-than-all-get-out tank into the kitchen, hook it up with the wrench and check for leaks. Or maybe the spare tank is empty or has a leak. Then you call for a new one. But maybe your supplier is out, so you wait for tomorrow. It’s drudgery. There’s nothing about changing a gas tank or calling for new ones or waiting that makes me happy or feel satisfied or inspires me with some high ideal to keep living here. Nothing.
However, somehow I’ve become convinced this task (along with all the other tasks in my life I would consider “less than ideal” work), this bane of my existence in my pink kitchen, has built up my endurance level, self-will, and self-control so that I can more easily stop and take time to feed a hungry person, to study language, to go on visits, to give teaching literacy my best shot each day and to love beyond myself. Whenever I take on this task, this responsibility, I know I’m growing in patient endurance. It’s like working out for my soul.
Someone pretty wise told me through most of my middle and high school years that “leaders pick up trash.” If you want to be someone who turns up to be respected and worth their salt – go and start picking up the trash when the meeting’s over. Do the things that need to get done. At the time, I think I just saw that as like a “servant leader” type of deal – first shall be last, etc. But there’s more – the qualities of someone worth listening to are developed in the daily doing.
I’ll leave us with a repeat of an Oswald quote from a previous post because it just keeps ringing in my ears:
A couple weeks ago there was a string of days on 2 Peter so I camped on that for a few days. I was reading in a few different English versions and came across something in the New Living Translation that jumped off the page:
“Knowing God better leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness. Godliness leads to love for other Christians, and finally you will grow in genuine love for everyone.”
This is our gas stove and accompanying gas tank:
Every few weeks the gas runs out. “It always happens while I’m cooking something,” I grumble. (Like when else is a gas tank going to run out? Of course while you’re using it. But still – in the middle of baking or cooking it just seems conspired somehow). So it’s out. There’s no more heat. The cake (or biscotti…yeah, I’m still a little bitter about my ruined batch and the ensuing gas tank failures) falls, the chicken is attempting to become bacteria-free at 100 F before you realize what’s happened and dinner guests are waiting. You free the tank of the regulator with a wrench, bring the new, full, heavier-than-all-get-out tank into the kitchen, hook it up with the wrench and check for leaks. Or maybe the spare tank is empty or has a leak. Then you call for a new one. But maybe your supplier is out, so you wait for tomorrow. It’s drudgery. There’s nothing about changing a gas tank or calling for new ones or waiting that makes me happy or feel satisfied or inspires me with some high ideal to keep living here. Nothing.
However, somehow I’ve become convinced this task (along with all the other tasks in my life I would consider “less than ideal” work), this bane of my existence in my pink kitchen, has built up my endurance level, self-will, and self-control so that I can more easily stop and take time to feed a hungry person, to study language, to go on visits, to give teaching literacy my best shot each day and to love beyond myself. Whenever I take on this task, this responsibility, I know I’m growing in patient endurance. It’s like working out for my soul.
Someone pretty wise told me through most of my middle and high school years that “leaders pick up trash.” If you want to be someone who turns up to be respected and worth their salt – go and start picking up the trash when the meeting’s over. Do the things that need to get done. At the time, I think I just saw that as like a “servant leader” type of deal – first shall be last, etc. But there’s more – the qualities of someone worth listening to are developed in the daily doing.
I’ll leave us with a repeat of an Oswald quote from a previous post because it just keeps ringing in my ears:
"Drudgery is one of the finest tests to determine the genuineness of our character. Drudgery is work that is far removed from anything we think of as ideal work. It is the utterly hard, menial, tiresome and dirty work."- Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Tennis and stuff...
We just got to celebrate Roomie A's birthday at the nicest place in town... a Western hotel. Woo hoo. So we got to swim, play tennis, wear shorts outside and sleep in rooms with AC and really comfy beds. Seriously - don't get much better 'round here!
Yeah, even at this fine establishment there was no net this weekend...something about repainting the spongy floor:
Roomie A's new tennis racket AKA "RAMBO"...
Out on the court:
Yeah, even at this fine establishment there was no net this weekend...something about repainting the spongy floor:
Despite no "real" tennis without a net I did also get some juggling instruction from Occassional Roomie S:
Here we are soaking up a beautiful sunset:
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