#GodisWithMe

Yesterday was Independence Day here in Nicaragua, a day the whole country takes time to fully celebrate.  Everyone has Monday and Tuesday off of work and school, providing a great opportunity to take part in the celebrations and spend time with family and friends.  Hundreds upon hundreds of people lined the streets as parades wandered through town all throughout the weekend.  These parades featured every school in the city with school children walking and performing in marching bands.  The deep rhythms of the drums and the loud bangs of fireworks could be heard everywhere.  As the saying goes, the louder things are the happier it is!

On a different note, I have recently joined a women’s Bible study and I have to share with you what a blessing it has become for me during my week.  I was a bit dubious at first, considering I’d be the youngest participant by quite a bit, but I decided to jump in feet first and see where it would take me.  Well, I didn’t quite expect to be so surprised, that’s for sure!  The reason: we are studying Gideon.  You know, the guy who challenged God with his whole fleece thing and got away with it.  And then there was something about some guys lapping up water out of a river and then only some being chosen to fight against a big army and win by tricking the bad guys into thinking they were goners.  Or something like that.  Basically, my idea of Gideon going into this was that he was one lucky (and recklessly bold) guy who valiantly saved his people. 

Come to find out, he wasn’t the valiant warrior type.  Not at first anyway.

In Judges 6, we first meet Gideon while he is threshing wheat.  In a winepress.  Which is kind of like a cave.  Ok, so Gideon was in hiding from some bad guys who were picking on Israel in the hopes they wouldn’t steal his food.  But the angle of the Lord nevertheless chooses to visit with this man: “… The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” (vs. 6)  Um, did I miss something?  Isn’t the angel of the Lord talking to Gideon, a lowly man (he says this himself in verse 12) who is acting a bit cowardly right at the moment, hiding in his bat cave?  I wonder how Gideon reacted.  Did he cough in surprise?  Snort in derision?  Scoff at the preposterous nature of it?  Stare in stunned silence?  Well, we don’t know how he reacted physically but we do know he doesn’t say anything.  He sort of ignores it and then goes on to complain to this mighty angel that God couldn’t be with them if all this bad stuff was happening.  Take that, angel of God.  What do you have to say for yourself?

If we keep reading, we see that Gideon gets a quick lesson in just how wrong he is.  God had never abandoned Israel—they had abandoned God. 

I have to say, I’m a bit jealous of Gideon.  Not that I necessarily want to be oppressed by enemies or thresh wheat in a windless cave or be chosen to lead an army into battle or anything, but it would be nice to hear from an angel’s mouth that God is with me.  That would be sure to calm my doubting mind.  But, even if I don’t hear those words like Gideon did, I have faith that the truth of them still rings true today.  God is with me, through the power of Jesus’ sacrifice and the gift of the Holy Spirit.  “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28: 20).  I experience God in a whole different way than Gideon did.  I wonder if he’d be jealous of me…

At the end of each lesson, we are given the opportunity to create hashtag statements of things we learned.  A hashtag (popularly used on social media outlets like Twitter) is simply a word or group of words that express something.  Like #KelseyRocks or #VivaNicaragua or #WaylandCRC.  So, I’d like to recap today with a few hashtags of my own of things I learned from Gideon:

#GodIsWithMe

#GodUsestheOrdinary

#BeAwareofGod’sVoice

#LessonsfromGideon

#StayTuned!!

Time Flies by Slowly

Time is kind of funny, I think.  We as humans (a.k.a. wannabe control freaks of a universe beyond our understanding and control) like to pretend that time is linear.  You know, like past, present, future.  Yesterday, today, tomorrow.  Before, now, later.  We break down our linear friend into simple pieces that can be controlled and manipulated to our liking: years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds.  And this is a great comfort to us because this way time makes sense. 

But what about those times where time doesn’t follow our rules?  Like when the minutes seem to drag on, as if its feet are trapped in sticky molasses preventing it from moving forward?  You know, like when you’re in math class and you’re waiting for the bell to ring, or when you’re waiting for a bus and you keep checking your watch every three seconds in exasperated “patience”.  The seconds seem to tick by ever so slowly, laughing at your impatience.  Or, what about those times where our lives flash before our very eyes and we seemingly jump from one moment to another?  Like when we’re driving long distances on familiar roads or when we swear we’ve only fallen asleep for “three seconds” on the couch in a quick cat-nap.  In those moments we begin to think that time travel is indeed possible.  Or what about those moments where time seems to be moving fast and slow at the same time?  Like when you’re in an accident or when you’re getting married or when you are giving a speech in front of an audience.  Every detail becomes so clear and unclear when times flies by slowly like that.

Seriously, time doesn’t seem very linear or controllable in those moments. 

Flooding at the Nehemiah Center
(pic from Centro Nehemias Facebook page)

One of the peaks at Volcan Masaya

Well, this past week has been a great lesson in how weird time can be.  The week literally flew by, with activity after activity after activity.  Wednesday evening the SPIN students (from Dordt and Geneva) flew in to Managua, where we were there to greet them.  However, our plans were thrown into flux as the Nehemiah Center experienced some serious flooding from storms the night before.  Some of our resources were muddied and ruined by the flooding, but thankfully not all of them.  We also needed to move the students and the days of orientation to a different guest house in Managua—talk about last minute planning!  But everything went well despite the many challenges we faced.  We spent several hours orienting the students to their new lives here in Nicaragua, everything from schedules to culture shock to living with host families.  We tried to break up the monotony with fun ice-breakers and games, like a relay race doing some very typical Nicaraguan activities like drinking pop out of a bag and making tortillas by hand.  I would say the highlight of our orientation time in Managua was the small tour we had of the capital city: we saw the Masaya volcano, Somoza’s ruined mansion and the Sandino statue placed atop it, the lake front and boardwalk at Puerto Salvador Allende, and the old Cathedral and plaza.  

SPIN Welcoming Party

On Sunday after church we traveled to León and introduced the students to their host families with a great welcoming party, a fun time for the families to come together and welcome their new son or daughter to their homes.  Yesterday, the students were divided into exploration teams and spent the day in a Scavenger Hunt of León, racing the other teams to find key landmarks and information.  It was a fun (and hot) way of quickly getting to know the city they’ll be spending the next 3 months in.  By the end of the week, we were all exhilarated by the new sites, people and information but also exhausted by it.  I feel like I’ve lived an entire month in just one week!

In fact, I might just go take a siesta.

Stay tuned!

Foreign to Familiar: A Strange Journey

Here I stand, a foreigner in the midst of a joyous throng of Nicaraguans.  Hands raised high, my neighbors sway and dance, much like an anemone under water (though less tranquil I suppose).  They sing praises to the One above, thanking Him for life, love and hope.  I join in song, my tongue stumbling on the Spanish words that are on the projector screen.  I clap and I sway just like my neighbors, but I know that in reality I stick out like a sore thumb. 

My eyes become momentarily distracted by the elderly man sitting next to me: skin dark and leathery with age and sun exposure, his eyes closed in prayer, his mouth moving in song, his hands raised high to feel the Spirit in this place.  He does not notice me, a stranger, sitting next to him.  He is completely absorbed in the moment, worshipping the God he loves.  Inspired, I decide to join him.

In this moment, I feel peace.  I don’t feel awkward that I am an outsider; I don’t feel weird that this is definitely not my style of worship; I don’t feel unwelcome in the slightest.  In this moment, I know that this is where I need to be. 

The church I had this experience at is my host family’s church, Rosa de Sarón.  It’s a large church with a few hundred members, and is located right next to one of the biggest outdoor markets here in León.  To put it simply, it’s a bustling center of energy and movement, both inside the church and outside.  For the next while, I’ve decided that this is the church God wants me to be at.  The 3 hour long services seem daunting, as does the heat, but when I feel that sense of belonging I’ve learned not to question it :)

I have to say, I still feel like a traveler in a foreign land.  But, each and every day I feel myself growing used to my surroundings.  I’m no longer startled by strange sights, like 3 people on a motorcycle.  I am no longer taken aback by strange noises and smells, like fireworks and outdoor markets (which are smelly, let me tell you).  I am no longer unnerved by strange places, like my room, my home, my neighborhood, my city.  Nicaragua is growing on me, folks.  And what a strange feeling that is!  To know that I am on this journey of living a new life here, waiting patiently until the day where everything seems familiar.  My journey from foreign to familiar is a long and sometimes strange one, filled with many curves and hills and sudden detours.  But, I know that if I stay on this path, I will eventually reach my destination: belonging.  So, lace up your boots!  There’s a long walk ahead of us :)

This week, the Dordt students arrive for their semester abroad here in Nicaragua.  To say the least, I am excited!  This is what I’ve been preparing for these past 2 months and I find myself giddy with anticipation and worried with last minute details.  These next two weeks or so are going to feel like a never ending marathon, running from one obstacle to the next.  

Please pray for safe travels for the students as well as for endurance, patience, and joy for all of us during these exciting moments of change and newness. 

Stay tuned!

Calm the Storm

From  http://trojanhorsecollective.com/conversations-with-my-storm/ 

There’s a storm, of dust and dirt, swirling in a chaos of grays and browns.  Lightning dances within the darkness to the beat of thunder’s drums.  Rain falls like shards of glass.  The wind howls, crying out and moaning as if in pain. 

Let’s call this storm the current state of my mind.  The dirt is my thoughts, the lightning is my ideas, the thunder is my desires, the rain is my emotions, and the wind, well the wind is the voice of others calling out to me like a siren’s song.

Now, imagine this storm has been suddenly trapped inside a little glass bottle.  Cork in place, the roaring chaos is but a muted whisper.  Its strength has not gone—it rages on as if nothing has happened.  And yet, on the outside, is has been silenced.  This glass bottle is the mask I wear, hiding the reality hidden underneath.

Despite the peaceful and confident mask I wear, I feel in this very moment weighted down by the storm in my mind and heart.  I feel stalked by the dark things in this world, things we combat fiercely with news reporters, Facebook posts and #hashtags: sex slavery, gang violence, drug trafficking, hate crimes, ethnic cleansing, systemic poverty, political corruption.  I’m trapped by my uselessness to truly do anything about it.  And those are things on a worldly scale—what about the things that affect my life here and now?  In comparison my situation feels insignificant, and yet it is holding me ever so strongly in its grasp.  It doesn’t feel small to me.  How can I reconcile that when the world is literally crumbling around me?

More importantly, as a Christ-follower and imitator, what am I supposed to do?  WWJD?  How would Jesus calm the storm in me?

I’ll tell you what Jesus would do, because he’s already done it for us.  He would walk up to my storm, speak his Truth to the wind and chaos and command it to be still.  He would turn to me, kiss my forehead, and take my worries, my doubts, my sins from me.  He would remind me that my burden is not my own, that I alone cannot save this world.  In fact, I cannot save anything.  Only God can.  With his soft voice he would remind me that He is the Eye in the storm, the Peace that transcends all understanding, the Light to this dark world.  He would take my hand and say, “My child, come follow me.”

Truly, “[h]umankind cannot bear very much reality.”[1]  Even with what little we do carry we are weighed down like Atlas, knees bent and trying to carry the world on our backs.  On our own, that burden is too much.  But with God, our burden is light and our joy is great.  We need but follow in Jesus’ holy footsteps, no matter how clumsy or slow we may be.  With our eyes on Him, our feet shall not waver from His path.

Let go and let God.

Stay tuned!

---

[1] T.S. Eliot, “Dry Salvages” in Four Quartets (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1943. Reprint, 1971), 44.

Noise

Just imagine chickens clucking, diesel engines roaring, motorcycles revving, babies crying, horses clomping, dogs barking, parrots squawking, fans droning, people calling, doors squeaking, kids laughing, buses honking, and music playing.

All at the same time.

When you move to a new place, the first things that strike you as different are generally the food and the way people look.  Ask anyone, “So what was such-and-such a place like?” and they’ll say something like “Well, it was crazy, people walking everywhere, wearing these colorful dresses—even the guys—but the food was amazing!  Ok, a little spicy, but so good!”  These things seem to be easy to get used to—you find a food you like, you copy the actions of other people to fit in, you buy a new “indigenous” outfit or accessories.  To put it simply, you adjust.  

But noise, now that’s hard to get used to.  Noise is something that is constantly barraging us, whether we are aware of it or not.  Smells come and go.  Taste only happens at meal time.  And sight, well, sight can be shut out if we but close our eyes.

And I know what you’re thinking—you can tune out the world too.  You can use headphones, earplugs, or lock yourself in a soundproof room.  But those are just replacing one form of sound for another: music, muted sounds, the sound of your own breathing echoing off of the soundproof walls.

Noise never leaves us.

I don’t know about you, but I like to sleep in relative quiet.  The rhythmic whirr of a fan or the light notes of soothing music is about all I can tolerate.  Or could tolerate I should say.  I also like to work in relative quiet, focusing on the task at hand.  Tranquility, not silence, is the level of noise I love.  But living here in León, tranquility is hard to find and even harder to preserve.  Fleeting moments it’ll be here, like a breath of fresh air, and then suddenly a motorcycle will go past or a woman trying to sell tortillas or a car announcing the circus is in town. 

And for a while there, these interruptions irritated me.  I felt constantly attacked by sounds, the noise traveling up my spine like nails on a chalkboard.  I found myself exhausted, listening and mentally complaining about every little noise I heard and didn’t approve of.  Why couldn’t people just shut up for one second so I could sleep?! 

But the problem wasn’t with the people and the world living their normal lives around me.  The problem was definitely with me.  I realized that I just cared too much about everything I heard, as if it were a clue that I had to uncover and understand.  And because of this I became so overwhelmed to the point of irritated exhaustion.  Things needed to change.  I needed to change.  And so, slowly but surely, I began to ignore things.  Honestly, I don’t know how I did it, but somehow I grew used to the multitude of noises around me.  Now, when things are too quiet I get on edge.  Like, did everyone move away or die or something?  Is there something going on that I don’t know about?  Why is it so quiet?!

Do I still like to sleep in relative peace?  Yes.  Can I sleep when there’s lots of noise?  Thankfully, yes.  Even better, I have grown used to the noise around me and have begun to appreciate it.

So, when you sleep over at a friend’s house and hear strange noises coming from the walls, just remember that your friend has lived there all along and has slept soundly without any problems.  When you travel to a new place, sit for a bit and enjoy the new sounds around you and appreciate them for their uniqueness. And when you move to a new home, a new neighborhood, a new country, take comfort in the knowledge that someday, somehow, you will get used to it.

Stay tuned!

We are the Aspen

Two deaths have greeted Wayland CRC this week, deaths of two women who were dearly loved by all of us.  Judy Potter and Josie Talsma have been pillars in our church, strong in their faith, bright in their happiness and joy, tender in their love.  We mourn their deaths, the sudden holes they leave in life behind them, a vacuum that nothing can quite ever fill again.  And yet, more than our mourning, we rejoice in the life Judy and Josie shared with us.  We celebrate the time we were blessed with to get to know and love two such beautiful people.  We are thankful because we were the lucky ones to know Judy and Josie.  We were their family.

And this week, I am blessed not only to celebrate the past lives of Judy and Josie, I am also blessed to soon welcome a new baby into our fold.  Missionary friends of ours, Josiah and Sarah Bokma, are having their second child very soon and are excited to see just who this little person is going to be.

Two different celebrations, both of life: one of ending and one of beginning. 

My sister told me the other day that Jerry Zandstra shared with our church a beautiful metaphor describing the life of the Church. This metaphor struck me as so beautiful and I just have to share it with you.  Jerry described the Church, both local and global, as being like the aspen tree.  For those of you who are not botanists or biologists, aspen trees are very unique in the way they live and grow.  From wise ol’ Wikipedia (cough cough sarcasm):  

“All of the aspens typically grow in large clonal colonies, derived from a single seedling, and spread by means of root suckers; new stems in the colony may appear at up to 30–40 m (98–131 ft) from the parent tree. Each individual tree can live for 40–150 years above ground, but the root system of the colony is long-lived. In some cases, this is for thousands of years, sending up new trunks as the older trunks die off above ground.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspen)

And so a cove of aspen trees is a clone family connected to the parent tree—and to each other—by its extensive and life-sustaining root system that can last for seemingly forever.  How cool is that?!  And so, in honor of the Church being like the Apsen trees, I’ve written a short poem:

We are the Aspen,

Trees with roots that go deep,

             deep,

     deep,

          deep.

Roots that grasp one another,

Entwined, joined, inseparable

Connecting tree...........................to tree................................to tree

We are One.

One in body,

One in mind,

One in spirit.

When one tree cries, we all weep

When one tree laughs, we all join in glee

When one tree dies, we all mourn

When one tree grows, we all share in the new life

Storms may come,

Toppling trees from their roots,

But in their sudden absence we live on,

Our roots keeping us strong with life.

May we never forget that we are forever united,

That we reflect the image of the Father who made us,

That we are much greater than what we seem at first glance,

That our life is in the community beneath the earthen ground.

We are the Aspen.

We are One. 

I dedicate this humble piece of literature to the beautiful and inspiring lives of Judy Potter and Josie Talsma and to the little baby of Sarah and Josiah, whoever you might be :)

Stay tuned!

PHOTO (http://fineartamerica.com/featured/aspen-tree-grove-ron-dahlquist.html)

Servant Partners

So, you may have noticed that this blog post is a bit late… and by late I mean like 2 weeks late.  Sorry!  The first reason is that I was gone for an entire week at a conference, which I will share about more in a second.  The second reason is that I was really sick yesterday and writing was the last thing on my mind.  But fear not!  I have returned!

Guissell, Me, Mark, Adrianna

Last week, the Caminantes (those in the Cohort a.k.a. Adrianna, Guissell, and Mark) and I all went to a conference in Managua.  This conference was held by an organization called Servant Partners and the purpose of this conference was to train their new missionaries who are entering into the field.  Thankfully, the conference was also open to outsiders who’d like to join in on the learning.  Throughout the week we had a mini-retreat in which we were silent for 2 hours and pondered several questions, we had Bible studies every morning, and every afternoon we learned about various things from community development to spiritual warfare to Integral Mission and Theology.  I learned a lot this week and, on top of that, I met some really cool people.

Servant Partners began in 1993 and has since grown to include 81 members in 11 countries, working in 14 teams in 11 countries around the world.  Their mission is to plant churches that transform their urban poor communities.  Servant Partners’ members also live in those poor communities to live in solidarity with their brothers and sisters.  If you’d like to learn more about them, please check out their website: http://www.servantpartners.org/.

I want to briefly share with you some of the things that I learned this week at the conference, things that continue to weigh on my mind.  First: prayer is powerful.  I think that as Christians it’s easy to forget this point as we become so easily distracted by the great works we are accomplishing or saddened by the overwhelming amount of problems this world has.  In these moments, prayer seems very far off, hidden from our sight.  In reality, it should be the first thing we think of!  Prayer is a way to establish ourselves in the presence of God, of anchoring ourselves to his glory, and of remembering that our world belongs to Him.  The moment we forget prayer is the moment we forget to align ourselves with our Creator.  How are we supposed to be Christians if we don’t spend time with God?

The second thing that struck me this is week is how God’s Word is still alive.  During the conference we studied Luke, beginning with Jesus’ birth.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read those passages, memorized those passages, sung those passages, studied those passages.  But guess what?  I still learned something new each and every time.  Every morning we would look over a section of Scripture and follow three simple steps: Observation (What does the text tell us?), Interpretation (What is the meaning of the text?), and Application (What does the text mean for my life?).  We would do this personally, then in small groups, and then everyone together.  Each time, new questions would be asked, new observations would be made, and new insights would be shared.  That’s the beauty of the Bible: it speaks to us to this very day.

The final thing that has been on my mind is how big God’s kingdom is.  At the conference, we had members from Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, the United States, and Argentina, all of whom had spent some time serving in other countries around the world.  To sit in the presence of fellow brothers and sisters who come from very different places was such a joy and a bit mind-blowing.  We often think of the entire Church as the church we attend every Sunday but multiplied a few times.  Our minds can’t grasp how big the Church is worldwide, let alone fathom the many cultures and variations that God’s people represent.  And we all belong to Him.  Isn’t that such an amazing thing?  To know that each and every one of us has been made in His image, has been saved by his Son, and has been welcomed into his Kingdom to live with Him forever? That puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?

I would just like to end with a passage of Scripture, from the words of Jesus revealing his Mission:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 

(Luke 4:18-19 NIV)

Let’s follow his lead.

Stay tuned!