Walking Slowly in Wonder

As I struggle to find the words to write to adequately convey my new found sense of wonder, I hear the leaves rustling in wind as I sit on a wrap-around porch in the suburbs of Washington D.C. I hear wind chimes playing a familiar tune as they dance in the wind. I see branches swaying as if welcoming the coming of fall. I am surrounded by trees which are just beginning to turn beautiful shades of orange, yellow and red as sign of Fall's arrival. It is in this moment I sit in wonder. I am amazed at the beauty surrounding me even on a Monday morning.

I recently arrived back from a trip to the U.K. where I was blessed to be hosted by an amazing family in Shrewsbury and a good friend in London. (For those of you who have traveled internationally, you understand the struggle of not having data for your smart phone.) Shrewsbury is a small town out in the English country side complete with cobblestone streets and a castle. Our first day in Shrewsbury involved getting lost through small passageways and wandering down dead end river walks. I quickly realized I was walking with my head up instead of down engrossed in all the latest happenings on social media. I noticed the beauty of storefronts beckoning us in to peruse their treasures. I stopped to look at bright, white clouds against a pure, blue sky with a blanket of green hills as far as the eye could see. I was slowly learning to see my surroundings through the lens of wonder. I watched the clouds move and transform as they danced with the wind. I admired the sheep perched up on the hills as I struggled to take each step up the slippery path. As I sat down with our host, I heart her heart to love those in ministry and create a safe space to allow wounds to heal within community. I was filled with wonder as I left this small town which taught me to sit in awe and wonder of the beauty surrounding us every day. 

London is a vibrant city filled with people from around the globe. There are so many different neighborhoods each with a different vibe which could be felt as we wandered through breathtaking parks and crowded sidewalks in search of the best latte. I marveled at the array of languages spoken as we jumped on and off the metro. I slowly sipped tea out of delicate china and savored tea sandwiches as sunlight flooded in through towering windows. I ate brunch surrounded by delicious Spanish food and lively Spanish people. I was sat in wonder of the paths all of us had taken to get to the brunch table. I meandered through the modern art museum without the familiar sense of urgency which has been my constant companion over the last few months. I was able to sit and be present in those moments. I sipped good coffee while we dreamed about the future and all the unknowns.

I am slowly understanding and accepting a posture of wonder as I explore nooks and crannies along the way. I am rediscovering the beauty of walking slowly and marveling at the small things. I invite you to walk slowly this week.  

My Summer as Interim

I stepped into the role of Interim Director of High Ministry not fully understanding the journey it would become. I had two months to plan and create a program for high school students to encounter Jesus during their week at camp. I was excited to watch dreams and ideas come to fruition. I was looking forward to spending weeks with youth pastors and counselors who had become friends over the last four summers. I hired a staff who desired to love counselors and campers in very real ways. I was expectantly waiting for God to move in major ways.

I was completely unprepared for the ways I would be stretched and challenged. I had a staff of 16 who all had different stories and expectations for the summer. There were a wide variety of youth pastors who all had different expectations of what they wanted out of their week at camp. On occasion, they had harsh critiques for me or simply said they could tell I was a gap filler. I had to quickly find the balance between friend and leader. I was forced into tough conversations with staff about expectations and fighting for each other. I sat with youth pastors as they struggled with campers and shared their heartbreaks as students got sent home. My heart and mind were exhausted and raw at the end of every week.

In the midst of all the chaos, I was reminded every week of my role as a gap filler. The seemingly innocent questions from youth pastors or counselors about my journey to the interim position and why I was not a fit for the full time position. It felt like daggers being thrust into open wounds every week. I was open to the questions and explained my posture of open handedness as I continued to seek God in a season of being told no.

I was surprised by the beautiful ways God showed up. I was surrounded by a staff who loved each other well through the long nights and hard conversations. My staff pushed and challenged me to rest amidst the chaos. They learned quickly that I would not settle for easy, one-word answers. Youth pastors gave words of encouragement as they loaded on buses and packed up vans at the end of the week. They allowed me to see the their hearts for ministry, and the fight they engaged in for their students on a daily basis. Speakers pushed me to lean into the gifts I was given to run a programed camp as they spoke truth from the stage that I needed to hear.

Beautifully chaotic. Those two words perfectly describe this summer. It was a gift to walk alongside staff and counselors as we pointed students to Jesus. I walk away from this summer with empty hands knowing I left it all on the table. I sit with open hands as I allow God to lead me in this next season. 

Kolkata. Cancer. Camp

Kolkata. Cancer. Camp.

Kolkata. Cancer Camp.

Most of the time I feel like a broken record.

Those 3 little words have defined the last month. I am going to do my best to briefly explain each.

Kolkata lodged itself deep, deep in my heart when I first spent time there in 2011. The only word to sufficiently describe the city is HARD. The streets are filled with hard-faced people. You pass people working hard to get out of poverty. Many times people succumb to the hard reality of poverty. Being a white female is hard as I walked the streets and people stared or touched me. Among this hardness are the beautiful women of Sari Bari. They welcomed me back with such love and joy. It is always a gift to see their smiling faces each morning as I ascend the stairs to start the day. I love getting to share the story with visitors as they seek to understand the hope which permeates Sari Bari. I am forever greatly to be just a small part of the Sari Bari community.

Cancer. It was always something that plagued other families. The day I arrived home from Kolkata, I was confronted with the harsh reality that my family was not invincible. My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was in Kolkata. My parents decided to wait to tell me until I got back so I found myself exhausted from traveling hearing my mom has a cancer. She explained they found it in the early stages. She was in surgery to remove the tumor 2 weeks after the diagnosis. She is doing well and recovering. We are forever grateful for the army of people praying as family journeys down the road of cancer treatment and recovery.

Winter Camp is in full swing. I love getting to work with amazing people that strive to create experiences for campers to see Jesus in new ways when they come up to the mountains for a few days. I love seeing the ways God has already worked in the lives of hundreds of Jr High students over the last 5 weeks. I am expectantly waiting to see how God will continue to work in the lives of hundreds of High School students over the next 4 weekends. It has been an exhausting few weeks as I ensure all the pieces are in place and people are prepared. The chaos is where I thrive.

It has been a rough few weeks as I adjusted to life back in the States. I am confident God is still good. 

Life in a Foreign Context

It has been a gift to spend a week with my cousin and her family in Kathmandu. We have explored all the tourist attractions as well as strolling around back alleys that open to beautiful views of open valleys and towering mountain tops. (Sadly it was too cloudy to see the Himalayas.) They new all the hole in the wall places that were safe to eat as well as the western style restaurants that rivaled Chipotle. I was able to meet some of the expat community and hear the wide variety of things they are involved in throughout the country. I found it interesting that at some point during conversations someone would bring up the gas shortage. The would ask how many tanks of cooking gas we had or what the going black market price was for taxis or where they were getting black market gasoline. I realized this part of the world creates extreme hoarders out of even the most normal people. (I learned to hoard small bills in India.) I realized a good school is important for every family living abroad and kids are kids no matter where they live. People who call a foreign city home learn to negotiate everything and will walk away if they can not get a local price for something. Americans abroad wrestle with the reality of having the means to pay for things that make life sustainable while still wanting to engage local culture and community. (I have argued to the death over 10 rupees which is $0.15.) All expats are always looking for a good deal on flights to their home country and usually know the best routes and have flown enough airlines to know which ones to never fly no matter how cheap it is. (I will never, ever fly Biman Bangladesh again.)

I am forever grateful for each and every expat who has welcomed me into their homes and community. I have learned invaluable lessons on what is truly important when living abroad and how the little things become precious gifts throughout a hard day, week, month, year. I am blown away by the amazingly strong men and women doing life outside their home country/culture. They are a beautiful community that has learned to welcome people well and say hard goodbyes. I cherish the opportunity to meet so many expats around the world and am so incredibly thankful for their hospitality and generosity extended to me. 

Nepal: The Struggle is Real

Life is rough in Nepal. I knew it would be when arrived but seeing the day to day struggle for Nepali and Bideshi alike after the earthquake destroyed so many structures and the current rioting taking place at the border which means limited supplies are coming through the border. These two situations combined have increased the cost of living and stunted the tourism industry which is the top grossing industry in this small, land-locked country. Gasoline and cooking gas are hard to come by so there is a lucrative black market charging exuberant prices for these daily necessities. Businesses who depend on tourism are struggling to stay afloat as tourist are few and far between since the earthquake. Nepal is thought to have have lost 50 billion rupees last year from the earthquake and the last of tourism.

Today, we took the opportunity to help stimulate the tourism industry and explored the 3 original kingdoms which make up the Kathmandu Valley. Each kingdom sustained a great deal of damage from the powerful earthquake which hit last April. There are temples that toppled and buildings that buckled. Piles of rubble are a sobering reminder of the devastation sustained last April. The once packed tourist attractions are now sparsely spotted with a group here and there. We hired a tour guide to show us around Bhaktapur. He works for a trekking company which normally has thousands of inquires each year from around the world. This year, they have only had four inquires for all of 2016. Taxi drivers are forced to charge quadruple the normal fare to afford gasoline on the black market. The streets are lined with buses, trucks and cars waiting for days to fill up their tanks if gasoline becomes available. There are fewer buses and those running are dangerously overcrowded to the point which they are teetering to one side as they drive. Restaurants have had to limit their menus to account for limited cooking gas. Many small roadside eateries are cooking over wood fires because cooking gas is too costly or completely unavailable.

Today I am thankful for the opportunity to explore this city with my cousin and her family. I am thankful I live in a country which has electricity, natural gas and gasoline are available 24 hours a day. I am thankful for the blessing to be able to travel and explore the world. More importantly, I am grateful for the ways God is present amidst the brokenness in this city and the ways He is bring restoration.

My Next Big Adventure: Nepal & India

In two weeks I will be embarking on another adventure halfway around the world. I will be traveling to Nepal & India which are currently at odds with each other. I have the opportunity to play Santa Clause for my cousin and her family who moved to Nepal a few months ago. I will be bringing Christmas presents for her kids as well as American goodies and a taste of home as they endure through the gas shortage which currently plagues this tiny country. Nepal sustained major damage from the earthquake that hit last April which they are still trying to rebuild. A few months later, Nepal ratified a new constitution which India was not excited about so they closed the boarders in order to stop gas from crossing the boarder into the small country. The result is months without cooking gas or gasoline for transportation. As I head into the chaos, I am excited to spend time with my cousin and provide a much needed hug from home.

From Nepal, I will be traveling back to Kolkata to help host a team from Biola University. I am excited to introduce the girls from Biola to the beautiful women of Sari Bari. I am looking forward to seeing Kolkata through their eyes as they give me a fresh perspective on the brokenness amidst the beauty. This team will get a small glimpse into the freedom journey Sari Bari is helping to write in the back lanes of the red light areas. I know there will be challenges and obstacles along the way, and I am doing my best to mentally, emotionally, spiritually prepare for mean streets of Kolkata. I am expectantly waiting for God to do something awesome as I journey halfway around the world. 

#camplife

Camp has been a huge part of my life over the last 4 years. It has been a place where I learned the value of community and had the opportunity to be the hands and feet of Jesus to thousands of campers each summer. I accepted a year around position at camp while still in India not knowing how my transition back to the States would be, but also knowing there was no other place I would rather process my time in India.

I arrived home from Kolkata 4 months ago with huge holes in my heart as I longed to be back at Sari Bari with the women and expat community which had become like family. As I began to share about my experience with friends and family, I found myself growing bitter and angry because no one really understood. I appreciate those who walked through those hard conversations with me as I slowly started to process all the small things God did in and through me. I gave myself two short weeks to readjust before jumping full force into my new position at camp. 

I stepped into the Program Ministries Assistant role not knowing what it would look like or involve. I knew it was an office job but there was freedom to roam around each camp center in order to invest in other staff members. I was nervous to have 6 different supervisors who were all so different, and I was unsure of their expectations. Camp preparation was in full swing as I walked into the office and was put to work making schedules and submitting check requests. It was not the camp life I was used to but grateful for the opportunity to experience camp through a different role. 

Camp was in full swing starting the second week of June. Campers arrived by the hundreds each week. I was excited to see familiar faces and have the opportunity to be a counselor for a few churches throughout the summer. I had the opportunity to share about my time in Kolkata with 5th & 6th graders each week, and they had the opportunity to support the work of Sari Bari. I was able to create space to process through my time in Kolkata with youth pastors and friends who had been praying for me while I was in India. It was often painful to share about the difficult times and the ways my heart hurt for the women in Kolkata. I loved being able to share about the good times and the ways God is working in the red light areas. I am so grateful for those brief conversations which helped me process my time in India. 

A few weeks into camp, I stepped into the counseling staff supervisor role which means I had a staff of my own. I was responsible for the well-being of 12 staff counselors. I felt inadequate in so many ways because I was unsure of my capacity to love others while I still felt so broken from my time in India. The staff counselors hesitantly welcomed me in unsure of the part I would play in their summer. Within the first few days, the girls were opening up and sharing their struggles as a staff counselor and the difficult campers they had that week. As part of my weekly routine, I would make time to check in with them as often as I could. I would hear stories of the ways God was working through them. I would hear the struggles of difficult campers or counselors. They would share bits and pieces of their life and the journey which brought them to camp. It was life-giving for me to walk through camp with this group of counselors as they loved campers well. I was able to spoil them with lots of coffee and treats throughout the summer. It was a tough learning curve for me to figure out the balance of being a boss verses being a friend. There were times I had to make hard, unpopular decisions, but it was for the greater good of the counsel. God was present each step of the way and it helped me better understand what it looks like to live openhandedly. I am so thankful for the moments I was able to spend with the counsel, and I look forward to building on the friendships that were formed. 

As a side note, there is a chance I will be heading back to Kolkata for a short trip early next year. I am excited to share more about this opportunity once details are worked out.