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Friday, 25 September 2009

  • Grey's was profound tonight...or maybe just to me because Bailey's comments about grief resonate all too soundly with my soul.  "I can't care anymore.  Stephens is not my child.  O'Malley was not my child.  I just have to stop caring so much because I can't keep feeling like this..."  My heart is too fragile for this kind of work and so I compartmentalize.  I shove away the grief, the sadness, that sinking hopelessness because when I let myself think about it, when I let myself feel all those feelings for all of my kids, all those I've mentored, the ones I've invested in, I just can't do it.  Maybe God feels like this sometimes, feels that grief and that pain that lodges itself so deeply into the pit of your stomach that no amount of clawing or digging can get rid of.  Maybe that's the point...that you can't make it go away...that it reminds you that for as much pain as there is, the joy is that much greater.

    But sometimes I just don't know what to do with it.  It makes me freeze, become paralyzed at the weight of it.  It makes me think, why take another step when the step could just add to the heaviness.

    There's no avoiding the pain...it will always be there.  There's no getting around the fact that there's sin and brokenness and sometimes we get to be the recipient of that, or maybe just the collateral damage.  But how do we jump back into the ocean when we've already been smashed against the rocks once, twice, too many times to count...  How does Jesus just go for that one lost sheep?  How does He chase after that one sheep, never knowing if that sheep follows Him back home?  But He doesn't just do it once, He does it over and over and over again.  How do you lose so many sheep and never lose hope that the next one will come back?  How do you hope and not get crushed if it doesn't work out?

    Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?"
          "Yes, Lord," he said, "you know that I love you."
          Jesus said, "Feed my lambs."

     16Again Jesus said, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me?"
          He answered, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you."
          Jesus said, "Take care of my sheep."

     17 The third time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?"
          Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, "Do you love me?" He said, "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you."

        Jesus said, "Feed my sheep. 18 I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go."

    God was referring to Peter's death, but when I read it, I see that it is the cross we bear in life with Christ, life and death.  When we love Jesus, we take care of his sheep.  Taking care of his sheep often results in being lead places we do not want to go.  "I just have to stop caring because I can't keep feeling like this..."  I can't keep feeling like this, but I can, and I will, and I'll never stop caring even if it kills me.

Sunday, 16 August 2009

  • This was my response and reflection about this blog entry I read:

    I am a follower of Jesus, and I don't take offense to this post, as much as I think you have correctly identified a large portion of the American Church.  We largely do go to our nice churches, live in our comfortable suburban homes, and seem content on offering our tithes to support church programs that "reach out" to the poor and disenfranchised.  However, there are those Christians, as one person posted above, who believe there is more to being a Christian than merely donating our money.  We are not only called into ministering hands-on to those who suffer, but we are called to suffer alongside them.  This is a radical call that requires commitment and sacrifice - a complete going against the grain of American culture.  I make no excuses for my brothers and sisters who turn a blind eye to the suffering around us, but I am well aware of the difficulty in making the choice to actively love the poor and suffering around us.

    As someone who has deeply felt this conviction in my life, I have committed my life to being an advocate and agent of change and reconciliation among the poor and oppressed in the city.  I have lived in this neighborhood in Los Angeles County since I graduated from college, a square mile that is one of the densest populated and least resourced areas in Los Angeles County.  I am part of a Christian organization that's vision is to build relationships with neighbors, mentor children and youth, and bring the Gospel in an unintimidating way through weekly Bible Clubs with children and youth.  As we see needs, we begin new structures, including a tutoring program, exposure trips to colleges, big cities, the mountains, etc.  We spend time in the schools talking to teachers, finding out the ways we can be most helpful in our work with the children and their academics.  And beyond anything, I believe that our presence here, our prayers, our love makes an impact on the spiritual powers that have a hold on the city - the way that satan tries to maintain his hold on the neighborhood through gangs, drugs, alcohol, violence.  Do I think I'm doing anything extraordinary that no one else could do?  Of course not.  But do I think it takes a great deal of consideration and true conviction to be able to life this lifestyle without burning out?  No question.  But ultimately, being a follower of Jesus is exactly as this writer states, it should be a lifestyle, not just something we do when it's convenient or easy. 

    The longer I live in the city, the more I realize that it my responsibility is not to sit around and condemn other Christians for not agreeing with me about Jesus' mandate to love the poor, but I need to pray for more workers, pray for others to receive the same level of conviction, and to mentor and teach others about what I believe Jesus says about loving the poor.  As I live out my convictions, I hope that other people will see my actions and be prompted to love those around them as well.  But it is not good enough to expect that my actions alone will prompt others to newfound conviction - I must teach others as well, to let my actions and words speak the same truth and message.  This is when our testimony as believers is most powerful.  May God continue to teach me how to walk in His truth and to teach me His heart.

Monday, 10 August 2009

  • Wow, has it really been almost 2 months since I've posted...?  Every indication of how busy I've been.  So for the last 2 months, I've been pseudo-ASCing LAUP.  The pseudo part in that I was still working at my job, and I ate meals with my roommate.  But for all other intensive purposes, I was the team leader.  It was a very, very different experience than that of 2 years ago.  This was a much younger, spiritually and emotionally, team, and so we wrestled with completely different issues.  Overall, it was a good experience, and a great opportunity to lead Kristy in how to lead others, but I definitely ended up soo tired.  It was a lot on my plate for the end of my ministry year.

    I'm now on a month/month and a half ministry break.  It has never felt so good to take a month off and rest.  But it is also a great time for me to reflect on this crazy year.  We could not have asked for a better year in ministry.  Our ministry grew to about 35-40 kids that we had influence with, 15-20 that we were seeing with some sort of regularity.  Our staff team of 2 from this last year is now up by 50%, and will hopefully be up by 100% by January.  Over the summer, we again grew our sphere of influence with kids by about 50%, so we're probably up to about 25-30 kids who have the potential of coming to Bible Clubs.  We taught the kids values such as perseverance, hard-work, responsibility, delayed gratification, and to some degree, we have seen small responses here and there.  We had weekly Bible Clubs, started a tutoring program that tutored about 10 kids twice a week, took a number of trips including Big Bear and San Francisco, built trust great relationships with a number of family and parents, and this was all in a year.  It's just been an incredible year.

    But more incredible than the fruitful year of ministry is the ways I've learned more about how greatly God desires to work in the city.  I still feel like I'm learning so much, that I have a long ways to go in learning to navigate the dynamics of the city, but God has been faithful in my mistakes, and even more faithful in my risks.  I've learned most importantly of all that as long as we're willing to put ourselves out there for the sake of the Gospel, regardless of our mistakes, our naivete, our immaturity, God honors our risks.  It does not mean it doesn't come without persecution, hardships, long days and nights, frustration...but our challenge as followers is learning to put those things in perspective, to understand that the life with Jesus is one of costs and sacrifices, but that the rewards, whether now or in eternity are always, always worth the price.  I feel like this a theme or a post that I put up fairly regularly, but even now, as I'm preparing for the future, it is something that I'm so grateful that God is ingraining into my soul, developing, growing, watering, as I know I will need to be able to cling to this truth.

    In other news, we are being persecuted for the first time since we moved into the neighborhood.  There is this family next door who started creating a fuss a couple months ago - trying to get a few of the families we work with kicked out of the apartment complex.  Now most of these are really good families who we have great friendships with.  They try and get them in trouble, calling the police all the time, making up lies about the kids keying their cars.  Recently, they started "video-taping" the kids doing "bad things" and filing official reports with the police.  In addition, they made a big fuss about wanting to talk to me and Kristy.  Apparently, this family has been going around and telling all the families that Kristy and I are evil, that we bring the kids over to apartment once a week to teach them how to key cars and destroy property, that we're horrible people they should keep their kids away from.  Now of course, they're telling these things to families that we work with and who don't believe them for a second.  They've constantly reaffirmed us, telling us how much they appreciate our work with the kids, how they've seen how much we care about the children and the neighborhood.  But it's crazy to hear that we're visible enough in the neighborhood that there are people trying to stop our ministry. 

    Well, so I finally went to go speak to this family, and heavens above heavens...I find out they go to my church!!  What in the world?!  This is a church that preaches social justice, love for the poor, outrageous, sacrificial love for our neighbors, and there are people like this there?!  I don't even understand how they can walk away from Sunday's and act the way they do.  They talked in my ear for 2 hours about how they try and love people, how they're so nice to everyone, yet the neighbors just have nasty faces whenever they pass by, that the kids are so mean to them, that they don't understand why the whole complex is out to get them.  I'm like seriously?!  You file fake police reports, you lie about people, you yell at all the kids in the complex, and you wonder why people don't like you?  I think the most difficult thing for me in the situation is that they believe that they are without a doubt great Christians, and they advertise themselves as such in the complex.  That by trying to get these "wretched Hispanics who shouldn't be in our country," by yelling at all the kids, they are "doing God's work."  They tell me how they get home, lock themselves in their apartment, and pray for the salvation of all the sinners in the complex.  It is so difficult for me to see that they work we're doing here in the name of Jesus can be tainted by their version of Christianity.  I don't make judgments about peoples' eternal states, but I do get angry when I think about how they are exactly what Jesus talks about when he says, "But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea."  Of course, I don't intend on throwing them in the sea, but I am praying for Jesus' quick and effective intervention.

    Anyway, there's my long return back to journaling.  Hope to journal much more frequently this month.

Sunday, 14 June 2009

  • Has it been a week!  I'm sitting here, so utterly exhausted I don't know what to do with myself.  And I have a huge catering event coming up on Wednesday, so suffice it to say I'm going to have a crazy week this week as well.  Catering has been crazy...but that's only adding to the craziness of the rest of my life, not necessarily super stressful in and of itself.

    So last week, our bathroom flooded again.  Haha, at this point, I'm incline to say it's not a huge deal.  This is probably the 4th or 5th time it's happened in the last 3 years, so whatcha gonna do?  But...this time, it started coming through the walls, through the window sill, along the door, through light fixtures...it was really bad.  And then the bits of mold that were growing over the next week became huge black spots, patches of white sponge, orange circles...great giant patches of mold!  We let our manager know, but nothing happened...so finally called the landlord about it to try and get things fixed.  She calls us back and is like, well...one time my ceiling flooded, and the paint kinda bubbled a bit, but then after a couple days, it was fine.  You shouldn't need to worry about a thing.  I'm like...uh, black fuzzy spots on the ceiling = mold, Einstein!!!  So she send someone to look at it and says oh, it's not anything, but I'll send someone anyway.  The worker she sends says our bathroom is a disaster zone, there's definitely mold growing, and we should move to another place at least temporarily ASAP, that they will begin tearing out the bathroom the next day.

    So as circumstances have it, we were in process of moving into a new apartment.  It had some of the basics, but we had maybe 70% to go.  So Kristy and I stay up all night, like literally, all night, skip work, and move pretty much our entire apartment in the span of a night, without prior notice.  So the next day, you'd think, well...the landlord owes us something.  Our apartment flooded the week before (for which I took off work), we can't actually live in our current apartment because a third of the bathroom is being torn out, and we've now stayed up until ridiculous hours moving because we shouldn't be in the apartment when they pull down the mold, due to health risks.  We talk to the landlord, and she's like, well...since you have another apartment to live in, I'm not even goin to pro-rate your rate - please keep in mind that we pay rent on both apartments...and you should only be paying rent on an apartment that is habitable.  And she's like well, I shouldn't have to compensate you because no one's going to be living there anyway, so it doesn't matter.  One of my friends said that under that philosophy, I shouldn't have to pay rent while I'm on vacation either :P...I mean, technically, I'm not physically in the apartment, so it doesn't matter anyway, right?

    So we fight and argue and do research about our rights, and finally, because the mold problem is so bad, the landlord has to come down to actually see the apartment (mind you, I've never met her in 3 years)...and as we're talking to her, makes it sound like she's doing us a favor and is going to cut our rent by $150.  I'm like seriously?!  You can sound that condescending for reducing our rent a measely $150, when there are so many problems wrong with this place, I could sue your butt off?!  A co-worker said she probably realizes that for some reason, we want to stay in the building, so she's treating us like sh*t.

    I'm not even going to get into the other argument we had with her, but suffice it to say, dealing with landlords in the city SUCKS!  And yes, this is exactly one of the reasons we live incarnationally in our neighborhoods...that we experience and can empathize with our neighbors over these injustices, and that as educated, resourced individuals, we can advocate on behalf of our neighbors, have the arguments they don't know to have, fight for basic rights, make landlords take responsibility.  It doesn't mean it's easy though, and if I was a normal college graduate, I would've moved and then sued her to high heaven.  But as it is, we feel strongly about the work we're doing on this street, we know we can't move yet, and thus we can't be as aggresive lest we get evicted.  And it also means that when things get tough, and situations get messy, we don't just move and pass the buck, but we stick it out and dig into the problems.  And while of course we know it's right and good...it doesn't make it less exhausting.

Monday, 08 June 2009

  • So after almost 3 years in my current apartment (crazy!), we're moving.  Haha, ok, so we're really only moving upstairs in the same complex, but moving is moving :P.  It's strange to think about since in college, I never lived in a place for longer than 9 months at a time, and now I'm leaving my home of 3 years.  So it's gone through like 4 makeovers, tons and tons of work, and been the giver of multiple floods, insect attacks, leaking ceilings/walls, was the second home for upwards of a dozen neighborhood kids, and it was my first home in the city.  There is some sort of sentimental value in that, a feeling that it's where God began His deeper work of developing my heart for the city and the oppressed.  It is where I continued to learn how to be a person of hospitality, how to hold my possessions loosely, how to have my door be open for the neighborhood at all times, it is where God reinforced that a life with Him means a life that doesn't belong to me.

    So now, while we're moving, it's so strange to think about how life will be different.  I'll still be doing neighborhood ministry, but our old apartment will still be home base for ministry.  We are passing the torch! :)  We'll still be available at all hours for the kids, but our space will have more of a sense of calm, of peace...a safe haven to find rest.  I don't think that I've "paid my dues" and can now enjoy a nicer apartment because I've earned it, but I do think Jesus is moving me into a slightly different season...a season of training others, becoming a little more hands-off with the day to day, as well as a season of preparation for my next adventure.  I think our new living situation is conducive for that.

    Anyway, I think I'm really excited for the new place.  We're partially moved in...we've got the basics done.  So we're actually sleeping in it tonight.  The goal's to be done by Friday.  Will keep you updated on the housewarming party :).