FHL

Another way that I've put down roots in Charlotte is by getting involved in Faith, Hope & Love, a mentoring program for inner city kids from really rough homes and bad neighborhoods. I mentored with FHL five years before leaving for Ukraine. I loved that program and investing in the lives of those children. I went twice a week then, plus I'd go have lunch at my kid's schools, and do other activities with them. FHL had gotten pretty large and was taken over by another organization, which then decided that the mentoring program wasn't as important as their sport's program, so they did away with it in 2008. The church that originally started the program decided to start it up again, and are now partnering with a private Christian school for needy kids, called Brookstone School. Brookstone collects 7% of its income in tuition from the students and the rest is in grants, gifts, and fund raising from the local community. http://www.brookstoneschools.org/

I started back mentoring at FHL in September and was super excited to do so. I go once a week for an hour and do homework with a forth grader named Zariah. I've also started going to have lunch with Zariah at school every other week, which is something she loves. Today was "Day of the Nations" at Brookstone and all of the classes prepared presentations and foods from different countries. It was lots of fun to see all of the costumes and hear the songs and other things that the kids had prepared. It was also fun to surprise Zariah and see her face light up when she spotted me in the audience. The video is the one song that all of the grades sang together.

With Zariah in her classroom

Reconnection

One of the many blessings of being "home" has been the third of my goals for this year: reconnecting/re-establishing my roots here in Charlotte. After being gone way too much in the first four months of this year(I was gone 12 out of 16 weeks), I realized that I had to really concentrate on reconnecting here. And though I've still traveled again since then(July, Aug. and Oct.) I've made a concerted effort to be as involved again at church as is possible with my schedule. Spending time with old friends, connecting with new, going to ladies' mtgs. and the annual retreat, taking part in Supper Club, and just being involved in people's lives again here has been so great for me. A huge blessing, though, has been being an AWANA JV leader(starting in Sept.) Upon hearing and realizing that I couldn't step back into the Varsity leader position that I had left four years ago, I admit that I was disappointed. Those were great years of growth, fun, and fellowship- with the leaders and all of the kids that came through. But then the need arose for another leader for the junior high group and I was so excited to get to serve in this way. Perhaps I'm a tad strange, but I really love that awkward middle school age group. That's the primary age group that I taught in my previous life as a music teacher- and I absolutely loved it. So being able to jump back into engaging with kids in that wonderful time of life has been a huge blessing for me. It's a really small group this year, but it's made it really great, because we have such opportunity to really get to know each kid. And it's been so much fun getting to serve with the other leaders, two of whom I had in Varsity years ago when I first started as a 23 yr. old!

Here are a few fun faces from our Oasis Ice Cream Party on Sunday:

Simon salivating over his sumptuous sweets

Annelise is skeptical about her candy covered concoction

Madeline looking at her monstrosity and wondering if her eyes are bigger than her stomach

Jesse thinking unkind thoughts about the photographer. =-D

Emily's tasty treat

Isaac won the prize for "keeping it simple"

Clean up time!

Good grannies

I started out the day with a bang, or rather, a bang up. I had my first riding accident this morning. Yes, I'm fine. I just feel a little stupid, and am thankful that I didn't do serious damage to either myself or the bike. I talked my friend, Kristie, into doing the Greenway section of my ride with me, and as we were riding and talking, I turned around to look at her. I realized very quickly that I was way too close to an asphalt retaining wall on the narrow path, and that I was definitely going to collide with it. I also realized that I was not going slowly and that I had the possibility of ending up in a bad location, like the cement ground or the creek to my left. Fortunately, I controlled the bike and just ended up with some major scrapage(didn't know that's a word, did you?) and bruising on my upper right arm and calf. And amazingly, my brand new fancy, shmancy riding shirt(weather resistant, blah, blah, blah) didn't have a scratch on it. That's some amazing technology that can allow that wall to tear up my arm without doing anything to the shirt. I'm thinking my arm would be in much worse condition if I'd been wearing something else. Anyway, I'm ok. I was excited to finally get my bike odometer installed yesterday, so today was my first ride to see my true mileage. I thought that I was somewhere around 15 miles a day, but it turns out that I'm right near 17, so that's awesome.

Then this afternoon had me acting as chauffeur for my 87 yr. old grandmother, for my great-aunt's(her sister-in-law) birthday party. It was sad to hear her ask where we were going over and over, even though she's talked about this party all week. And then when we got there, she was completely overwhelmed by the social aspect of the situation and couldn't hold a conversation with anyone except her sister. But, I think she enjoyed just being around people, and she definitely enjoyed the ride over there and getting to see all of the beautiful Fall colors. And I enjoyed, as always, getting to spend a bit of time with my extended family, particularly my younger cousins, Laura and Rachel.

With my cousins, Laura and Rachel

With Gram

(Great)Aunt Ruth, (Great)Aunt Ann(the birthday girl), and Gram

Fall on the Greenway

I'm greatly enjoying my morning rides, particularly now that Fall has fully arrived here in the South. My goal is to do some kind of timed race in the Spring. We'll see. I haven't really begun to look into it yet, but I'm steadily working my mileage up. This week I moved up to 15 miles a day, so depending on whether I ride on Mondays or go to Zumba, I'm now getting in 75-90 miles weekly(with a break on Sunday). Since I don't run, I've never understood what the "runner's high" is. But I'm pretty sure I get it now. Not only do I thoroughly love my riding time, I get kind of upset if I have to miss a day. Plus, it's pretty amazing watching my body change from month to month. Now that I've switched to morning rides, I'm usually up and out the door by 7:45. Since it takes a while to ride that mileage I use that time to sing, pray, think through things, and just enjoy the nature. I also recently downloaded an Audio Bible onto my Ipod and started listening to it this morning. Did you know that in an hour and fifty minute ride you can get your prayer time done and listen to 53 chapters of the book of Psalms? I'm betting that I could just about listen to the entire Bible by the end of this year at that rate. This last Saturday I did my ride and then took my bike into the shop to get a tune-up. Since I didn't have it Monday morning, I decided to take my camera out on the Greenway to catch some of the beauty that I see every morning. Here are just a few of the photos, but if you'd like to see all of them, you can check them out in my facebook photo album labeled, "Come and take a walk with me." Facebook has changed their format yet again, so I haven't quite figured out how to attach a link for it here. Sorry!

Acceptance....

.....pt. 2 of Cross Cultural Servanthood, by Duane Elmer

Acceptance is the ability to communicate value, worth and esteem to another person

Romans 15:7, "Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God."

What does this acceptance look like??
*we are to take the initiative in showing acceptance toward others, making them feel valued and respected
*we unconditionally accept others without considering their external features, lifestyle, decisions, and so forth. (Note:acceptance does not mean approval.)
*we do not have the option of rejecting any person, though we may, in a culturally appropriate way, address behaviors that the Bible clearly addresses as sinful
*we are to eliminate our dehumanizing behaviors such as threats, intimidations, power-plays and other ungodly forms of manipulation
*we accept people-period; like Jesus, we must reject labels such as race, generation and gender as defective guides for how to treat another human being
*we expect that accepting others in these ways may cost us dearly

"Accepting one another may be one of the most powerful acts of love we can offer to each other because it promotes oneness.Oneness in Christ is so wonderful that the natural expression is to sing the praises of God. The world notices the healing love and wholeness of the body and sees a great and mighty God. They see His glory."

This new awareness of my lack of acceptance is rough, let me tell you. It's kind of mind numbing to think of walking around constantly judging people. It's even worse to know that we all do it, even when we're supposed to be serving those that we're judging! The part that really got me was how much missionaries judge the people, culture, and customs in which they find themselves. That part was like a big slap in the face, because I know it's so, so true. We go into other cultures, taking our preconceived western ideas of how things should be and how people should think and act, and rarely do we invest deep enough in the culture to truly understand why thing are the way they are. I've heard so many comments, but I'm only going to comment on my own superiority complex. For example, "Why is it so dirty, stinky, nasty, unhygienic, etc? Don't they care about(fill in the blank)? I can't believe that they still believe all of those old superstitions!" Ugh, I think of the many times that I laughed at people's fears of a breeze, an open window, a cold drink, or ice cream making them sick- even if it was only laughing inside of myself.  Or much worse, tried to prove to them scientifically that they were wrong. What arrogance, and what lack of ability to assimilate into my adopted culture. 

There's a thing in counseling called FIT, and it means that the counselor is identifying with the counselee. And I think that's the issue here; we, as people made in the image of God and created to love, are not practicing FIT. We're not identifying with the other person/people. No matter where we are, whether it be overseas, or sitting at a coffee shop, or walking down the street, we are called to love those with whom we're coming in contact. Why? 

Well, for these two simple reasons:
1)They're also made in the image of God
2)To point them to the One in whose image they're made

Judge not, lest you be.......? pt. 1

Street Scenes:

*a guy walks by, both arms in full tattoo sleeves
*girl in her 20's with a face full of metal
*young dreaded guy runs by, holding on to his saggy pants so they don't fall down
*young woman goes by in an extremely low cut dress- all eyes turn to her
*middle aged woman with slovenly appearance wanders by
*mother stands on the side of the street screaming profanities at her toddler
*three middle eastern men in turbans stroll down the street
*young, effeminate man stops to talk, sounding more female than male

What's the first thought that pops into your head for each of these scenes? Be honest.

"Do you know how long it takes a person to make a judgement when first meeting or seeing someone? How quickly does the average American determine whether there is a possiblity of a friendship between himself and the other person? Thirty seconds? A minute? Five minutes? How long?

According to a study of Americans, it took the average person between 2.4 and 4.6 seconds to decide if there was potential for a relationship.  As a result, we categorize people very quickly, and once categorized, we close our minds about them." *As a note, this happens unconsciously. We're not standing there trying to decide if we want that person to be our friend, or not.

So now, having read all of that, go back up to the top, to the list of people. These are not made up people. They're people that I observed while sitting at a coffee shop reading this afternoon. As I was reading the chapter in "Cross- Cultural Servanthood" that deals with Acceptance and Communicating Respect for Others, the author suggested that I try a test to demonstrate how quickly we judge others. And almost instantly, I understood the message he was trying to get across. Those that met my acceptance and approval based on their clothing, mannerisms, etc., I responded to in a different way than those mentioned above. And though I would be willing to talk to every single one in the above list, I had already judged them without knowing anything about them other than what I had observed in a split second. Now take this unconsious judging that is inside each one of us and take it to the mission field, where not only do we judge, but we judge in an even more uninformed way, because we, as foreigners, aren't from that culture and just don't "get it". Can you see how we can easily run into some big problems in communication?

"Cross- Cultural Servanthood, Serving the World in Christlike Humility", by Duane Elmer, is what I'm reading at the moment, and I'm pretty sure that it's going to go on the list of "must reads" for any missionary or person on their way to the field who might ask for my reading recommendations. Wow. It's already totally convicted me and opened my eyes more to the ways that we Americans go tromping in to foreign countries wielding our "superior knowledge" and ready to educate everyone on the "best way" for things to be done.

And that, folks, was just your intro. I'm pretty excited about this book. Stay tuned for more!

A Gaggle of Guests

Well, actually, there were only two. =-) But with all of the busyness, and trying not to neglect them, and keep them fed and entertained, it felt somewhat like a gaggle. We saw them both off at the airport a little while ago and so now I have a bit of time to write about my guest. My guest was a bit of a surprise. We had discussed her visiting and different dates that would be the best, but it was a bit of a surprise when I received a text message 2 wks. ago saying that she had bought tickets for a week that I hadn't suggested. =-D Nonetheless, I was glad that she was able to visit and it was fun having her here. Never would I have thought that one of my girls from Odessa would visit me in Charlotte. Yulya is one of the girls who was saved the Fall before I moved to Odessa and was an active part of my church, Living Hope, the entire time I was there. Though she wasn't one of the girls that I was responsible for mentoring, she grew attached to me, and would spend as much time at my apartment as I would allow her to. =-) She's been in the US working this summer and is now traveling around visiting friends. Since I was so busy over the last few days I didn't get to do a lot with her, but we did make it into Uptown one afternoon to take some photos, and she got to see what my typical day of study looks like- haha. She got dragged around to all of the activities and meetings that I already had planned, and even went to Zumba with me. She's not much into having photos taken of herself, but I managed to get one really good one of the two of us together, and then several fun ones that she took of me during our afternoon enjoying the art Uptown. Now that everyone's gone, the quiet has returned and things will settle down again. It was fun having her here, though, and letting her have the opportunity to see a bit of what my life looks like here.

 In the Green, Uptown

A wacky statue in front of one of the art museums

In the Green

I made a new friend. I think he likes me. 

Window dressing

Parties & Princesses

This last week has been super busy, and I've actually got lots of pictures to share! So before I get totally behind, I thought I should start with last weekend. Last week my best friend, Tapley, arrived for a few days because her mom was getting remarried. So I spent time with her and her family while they were here, went to the wedding, picked up a special guest(that will be the next post), PLUS we had the 32nd anniversary of Grace Bible Church. So not only have we been hosting my special guest since Saturday, we've also had the guest speaker for the anniversary, who's been staying with us since last Thurs. Add in having to write my first paper for my counseling class, plus my homework and other reading and well, it's been a bit busy around here. Alsoooo, I had my first radio interview about Missionary Care on Monday, and I'll enclose the link for those who'd like to hear it. I was super pleased with how it went, even though I, of course, forgot to cover a few things. It was a neat experience. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cwa-radio/2012/10/15/grace-caf#.UHtsO66LFOA.facebook If you go to it before next Monday, you can listen to it from the main page. If you go after Monday, you can find it in the archives.

With Taps at the reception

Look who showed up at church on Sunday....Princesses!!

 

And who doesn't want a picture with four princesses??

PTM, pt. 2

The theme for the Pastors To Missionaries Conference was "The Hour is Coming and now is....The Urgency of Caring for Global Cross-Cultural Workers." Every day was full, from the first session at 8:30am to the final one ending around 9pm or later every evening. Interestingly, I think that my favorite session and favorite speaker was our "Worship in the Word" leader in the mornings. I took more notes from his sessions than from any other. He concentrated on the fact that we must take people out of their problems and lead them to Christ. Every session with him was full of great questions to help us take people from their inner focus to the point where they are Christ focused. It doesn't matter what is going on in someone's team, area of ministry, or even their agency. Life isn't fair, or right all the time. People are broken humans who act out of their brokenness; some completely blinded to the fact that they're leaving a path of broken co-workers or those they're serving in their stead. Others deal with marital problems, depression, pornography, hopelessness- the list goes on. And often, agencies either turn a blind eye, or feel that they're stuck with the situation(particularly if the person is in leadership), or they deal too harshly with the person. The thing is, though, sometimes the issue is simply not in our power to fix- and so we MUST lead the person out of the path of bitterness, anger, and great hurt- to focus on where truth can be found. And truth and healing and forgiveness can only come through the power of Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. I so appreciated the sharing that was done in the morning "Worship in the Word" sessions.

Every afternoon we had Workshops. The different workshops were: Listening in Spirit and Truth: The Ministry of Spiritual Direction; Tender Care; Teaching Others How To Do Conflict Well; Expectations, Processing the "Twangs" with Cross-Cultural Families; Using our Offensive Weapons in Member Care; Missions Systems Dysfunctions; Practical Responses to Sexual Temptation and Sexual Acting Out; Fathering a Fatherless Generation

The plenary sessions were:Urgency- The signs of Our Times; Shepherding the Nations: Our Member Care Legacy; Developing a Theology of Risk for Missionaries

A few snapshots of my notes:

-Why is the task so urgent? *shattered lives *nobody cares *increased pressures *the commission itself is urgent *too many are living on fumes

-We need to live and serve out of joy and overflow, not because of need

-We will inevitably struggle with life when we let circumstances define life, and not WHO God is.

-Always be on the prowl for Hope, Love, and Forgiveness

-Missionaries are ordinary people given extraordinary assignments that create special needs

-Good administration is a vital piece of Member Care

-People are our most important resource. They are NOT expendable

Barnabas Pastors to Missionaries Conference, pt. 1

The name of the conference is a little misleading. It's not a bunch of pastors, though it would be nice if there were more. It's a conference for missionary care givers, primarily made up of those who serve full time, either overseas or from the States. There were a few agency heads, a few pastors, and a few lay people, but the majority of the 160+ people were full time care givers. And though I knew I would be one of the youngest, I wasn't quite prepared to be one of six under the age of 35, and out of those six, only two of us are full time(the others are students in the Member Care program at CIU). Then, following the six of us, there were a handful of 40ish folks, and perhaps 10-15 in their 50's. The biggest age group represented at the conference was 60's and 70's. The face of Member Care in our mission agencies today is, er, to put it mildly, OLD. At first, I was rather intimidated by these older, incredibly wiser, far more experienced, battle scarred warriors..........until I began to converse with them.And with the exception of a couple of folks who definitely thought the youngins were too young, the rest were amazingly encouraging. They talked about how we're missing entire generations of Member Care folks in our agencies, and how necessary it is for younger people to be brought along in this important work since they are getting older. It felt like I had so many incredible "grandparents" who were sharing with me, investing in me, praying over me, giving me books, passing on info., encouraging me, telling me the most important conferences/trainings to get to, etc., etc.- and just pouring into us younger ones. It was incredible.

This was my wonderful small group, which met together twice daily. The couple on the far left are the next youngest in my group- and they're the same age as my parents. =-D

I had to take a picture of these two couples. They've served with New Tribes for ages and ages- far more years than I am old- and are now in the States as Member Care workers. They're all(except for one who's only 38 yrs. older- haha) at least 40 years older than me, and the most fun and raucous bunch of mid-70's people I've ever met. They were fantastic and I spent quite a bit of time with them. They have children almost as old as my parents! I want to be that fun in 40 more years.

*in pt. 2 I'll actually write about some of the sessions and things that I learned.

Out and About

When it rains, it pours, right? Sometimes I don't feel as if I have enough to do. And then other times.....yikes. This is just a quick update to say, "Sorry I haven't been a good blogger." My picture taking skills have become quite lousy since I'm no longer traveling like a crazy person. And my writing- well, I should just make myself write more, because it's good for me and I enjoy getting my thoughts out of my head in a good medium.

I had meant to write an update about my Counseling Class. I had intended to do an updated Thankfulness List. I had wanted to.........you get the picture, right? A few months ago, the lady in the home office who did all of the newsletters retired. That job got shifted to someone else and I was asked to do a lot of the editing of the letters. I've thoroughly enjoyed that "job", as it helps me to get to know our staff and their ministries better. Well, now it's time for the annual IM newsletter, which goes out every Fall to thousands of people all over the US. Each year the missionaries of IM get a chance to share their thoughts and concerns with a much broader audience than is the norm through their regular newsletter. And do you know what that has meant for me this year? Yep, I now have the task of editing all of those articles. Starting last Wednesday, I was sent forty one articles from staff all over the world, and I've been steadily working my way through, in an attempt to get them edited before tomorrow. Why tomorrow?

Well, tomorrow I go to my first Missionary Care conference. It's Barnabas International's annual Pastors to Missionaries conference, and runs tomorrow through Friday in the mountains of NC(which makes me super happy). The pres. of IM(and his wife) flew in to Charlotte tonight and we'll be headed out in the morning. I'm nervous, excited, and looking forward to a great week of fellowship, worship, and learning lots of things! So, I apologize again for not being a better blogger, but after a week of caring for grandma, and then a week of editing like a crazy person, well, I just ran out of time. Can't wait to tell you all about the PTM conference when I get back, though!