Sounds kind of ridiculous. But finding Jesus in seminary isn't easy. But sometimes He surprises you. The other day I was walking through campus realizing the brokenness here in seminary, realizing that there is as much brokenness in seminary as there is outside of seminary. Kind of like how there is as much brokenness in the church as outside of church. Yet, somehow I was surprised with how many not whole people are walking around here, dealing with spirits of fear, of anxiety, of rejection, of fill in the blank its here. The spiritual climate here has made me desperate. I crave the Lord. My soul and my body longs.
So the other day, we were in class...its called spirituality and mission. And we start to worship...WORSHIP in class at a seminary. Yes, it's rare. It actually felt odd and unfamiliar to be worshipping with my classmates. And, what do you know? The Holy Spirit shows up and starts to inhabit our praise. Then, we move into a time of intercession for Haiti and all the while we are singing COME LORD JESUS COME TO HAITI!!! And, it was like HEY JESUS THERE YOU ARE!!! AHHHH JESUS IN SEMINARY!!!! Not Jesus in a book, in a picture, not talking about Jesus as some kind of far off historical figure...but His presence. It surprised me. HA!
I have wrestled so much wondering if I am supposed to be here. Hating it at times, being ok with it at times, wondering why I have to do this at times. Even the plane ride back to LA asking God if there was anyway He could release me from this and then I told Him I will stay until He releases me. Thinking about the debt I am going into and praying He will release me and that if He doesn't that He will sustain me. And He speaks Jeremiah 29 to me "build homes and PLAN TO STAY. Plant gardens and eat the food they produce". LIVE. So I'm finally putting up art in my apartment!!! Its hard to go from a season of being somewhere and packing up after a few weeks or a few months, to actually really unpacking. Maybe someday soon I'll stop using the travel toiletry case I've been using for the past 2.5 years :)
Its been two years since I stepped off of that plane in Swaziland. My bag was lost. My team had been there for 2 crazy weeks. How does two years flit flutter by like that? So, here I am. Two years later. In Colorado Springs. How did that happen? When did that happen? I've been having what I call Colorado Crisis - the how did I get here?! what am i doing? God what are you doing?! crisis. I feel it when I'm making mini pizzas at my job. I feel it when I'm folding t-shirts at my other job. I feel it when I'm driving home. I feel it on my days off. I feel it sitting in church. I feel it when I get up in the morning. God what is this all about?
You go on the race. Your idea of God gets flip turned upside down. Your ideas of life with Jesus get spun around and shaken out. Then the next thing you know, you find yourself in America, living in suburbia, wondering how you got here. How you got from being a travelling group of Jesus followers, world changers bringing the kingdom of God to countries around the world to serving milkshakes and ice cream cones. Its kind of humorous at times. I find myself standing at the sink at work washing dishes and laughing at all of it. How following Jesus and bringing His kingdom sometimes is completely unglamorous.
Last week, I was driving home from work. After a long day of working at my full time job during the day, and my part time job at night...driving home and asking God, "Seriously, what is this all about?!" I've been wrestling with it. Sometimes to not question and to not need answers, to not need reasons, to not need His explanations is trust. Like when someone you love asks you to do something and you do it without needing them to explain why. Oh, that is beautiful trust. Haha, for me though, I just got to this breaking point and I was like ok God, I need something. Just something. And He starts to show me different people in History. Moses, Jesus, Paul, the Israelites. Their journey through the wilderness, the desert....all of them went through a period of wilderness, of parched desert times, of just being a carpenter, of just walking in circles, of just working.
I started re-reading the Irresistable Revolution. I got to this part where God just seared my heart. Shane Claibourne finds himself in Calcutta, India. Working at one of Mother Theresa's homes. His job? To roll cotton balls at a medical clinic for lepers. Every day, a 4 foot pile of cotton is laid in front of him. Shane, all day, rolls cotton balls. There he is bringing the Kingdom by rolling cotton balls. Its so funny this upside down kingdom, isn't it? Then one day, the doctor turns to him and says, "You know how this works. You have been watching. Its your turn." So here I am in Colorado Springs, rolling cotton balls. He takes us all through different seasons and they are all good because He is good. They aren't easy by any means. But they are good :)
"Its time to rewind.To see where this all began.Its
been a roadtrip with you Lord.Pit stops
that turned into longer pit stops than planned.It all started in the DR.Sharing
what you did while I was on the race.Pedro told me he knew I was supposed to go to seminary, that you had
something very special for me.I told
him he was crazy.He told me to seek you
on this.So I did. I actually remember
being really upset when he was telling me that you were telling him I was going
to seminary.I was mad with tears in my
eyes.I knew that it was going to
radically change my life.I knew it
wasn't from me, but I didn't yet know if it was from you.So, the next morning, I got up.Morning prayer.The usual.Whoa, you blew me away.The
Pastor that was sharing that morning...Liz's dad was talking about turning points
in our lives.How God asks us questions
in our life, in every single one of our lives that is going to radically change
the destiny of our lives.That we need
to know the answer.Yes or No.My mind was abuzz, my spirit was abuzz.I had to get away to be alone with you.Alone.On the rooftop of the classrooms.I stood and sat and worshipped and prayed.I asked you if this was it.If you were calling me to go to seminary.I asked you to confirm it if so by anointing
me with oil.You told me Psalm 45.It said, "You love justice and you hate
evil.Therefore God your God has
anointed you with the oil of joy more than anyone else."WHOA.So there I had it.I got back
stateside.You knew I wanted to go to India, I asked
you if you gave me the opportunity that I would go.You opened that door, and I went.But before I left I knew I had to be obedient
so I applied to seminaries and the first one I got in was Fuller.Then Nyack.I got back from India
and that maybe You didn't REALLY mean that you wanted me to go.But, I couldn't get it off my mind.I went to visit Western, and it was an
immediate no for me.I am in San Fran,
and wake up one morning stressed, anxious.Crying out in my spirit that you tell me where to.I go to sit outside with you...I have a
hankering to read Hebrews.And there it
is again, that very same verse.The same
exact one, different part of the bible.I go to visit Fuller, and everything I asked you for, was there.But still, I didn't know for sure.Me, being my non-committal self.I planned a visit out to Nyack, all the while
praying for you to make it so obvious and so clear where you want me to go, to
confirm it however you wanted.Grace's
cousins come to visit this past weekend.What do you know, as we are driving around Boulder, there are signs for Fuller
Sotheby's.Another business named
Fuller.Several more signs for
Fuller.4 in Boulder.One after another.I ask you ok
Lord if this is You, show me one more.You did.I slept on it, marveling
at the coincidence as I got up the next morning.I said, ok God just one more.You did.You showed me one more sign."
I am not a book-learner.I learn through experience, its how He made me.There was such a war in me that came up as I
wrestled through this seminary thing.On
the race, you learn how God gives you what you need at the time that you
need.You learn that you don't need an
MDIV, you don't need to be some kind of spiritual super star, you just need to
be YOU, fully YOU, the YOU that God intended that God breathed into existence,
the YOU that God masterminded, the YOU that He calls BELOVED, the YOU that He
chose and called by name.
It was such a confusing thing for me because I was like how
can I go from seeing God beyond the walls of the church, beyond the walls of
America and see Him in His nations and go back to school?!I'm debt free, why put myself in debt?!Its been a thing of surrender for me but as
someone wisely said, its surrendering to LOVE that we are doing when we
surrender to God.It seemed so
anti-WR.Anti everything I learned on
the race, everything the Lord showed me on the race to go to seminary, to
institutionalize myself...HAHA.I guess that's
how I felt about it.But the Lord has
led me to go to Fuller.Its not about institutionalizing...its
about saying Yes to God, whatever, however illogical things seem.I've had support from people, I've had
opposition from people, which is why I needed to know so clearly that it was
the Lord.He's made it clear in so many
more ways, so I feel peace, I TRUST.So
let's go Lord.
It has been too long since I have updated this. But I feel that I owe it to all of my friends, supporters, and family. I've hesitated to write because I don't know how to put this season into words. I fear having to be transparent and real on this blog because it isn't easy. But it feels like its time. There is no method to my madness, my ravings and rantings, so just let me unload and process stream-of-consciousness style. I am here in Portland, OR right now. Maybe I should back up...and start with India. India was truly a season of the Lord breaking me. It was so painful, not at all what I anticipated, completely different from the race. Leading a trip is so different from being a participant. I will spare you the details...lets just say one of the loneliest seasons of my life, yet the Lord was near and tenderhearted towards me and gracious. He loves me. He broke me and showed me I need Him and can't do a SINGLE thing with out Him.
I got home to NJ, was home resting and relaxing for 5 weeks, visited friends. Then I packed up the car and headed west. Man, I feel the Lord calling me into this season of Exodus. I don't even fully know what that means. But its this whole leaving behind...leaving stuff, leaving scars and wounds, leaving junk, leaving old identities, old habits, old lies, old me. Exodus has been in my spirit for a good 8 months now...the Lord reminded me of it while I was home. I'm still figuring out what all that means. So I drove out to Colorado again. Hung out for a week and a half. Reconnected with people. Saw some beautiful world race faces. Packed my bags again. Funny thing, I was in the airport yesterday walking to my gate when I passed a gate for Philadelphia. It made me stop and think and smile. It made me think about how easily I could get on that flight and end up after a few short hours right back where I had begun. I love Philly. And for some reason at that moment it symbolized for me who I was 2 years ago. How easily I could go back, but at the same time how I could never go back to who I was.
I am reminded in this season of the simplicity of following Jesus, of how things boil down to simple simple truths...truths that even children get. God is good. I can trust God. God is love. He loves me. God is real. He hears me. God cares. He cares about this world. Our freak-out moments go back to these simple things...do we believe He is good? Do we believe He is love? And the truth exposes the ridiculousness of the lies. So we fight with that sword of the Spirit.
So I am in Portland, visiting Western Seminary. Then onto Bethel in Redding, CA and Fuller in Pasadena. Pray for confirmation, that the Lord would clarify where He is taking me that I'll be yielded to Him in Jesus' name. Its hard to go from the race, learning about and experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit. Seeing the Lord move in the world, beyond the walls of church, the walls of academia to go into the seminary classroom. The Lord told me to go and reminded me of it through two prophetic words I recieved 2 weeks in a row. So I reminded to trust and obey. Seminary was never something I planned for me, but thank God that its not about my plans. So its all coming down to that...Trust and Obey!!
The pilgrimage for me continues. The race ended for me in May of 2008. Here I am in India. The real life team I was leading has left India after all of the bomb craziness in Mumbai. They are happy, healthy, and at home :) I am here in Calcutta with my sweet, wonderful, crazy friend Tammy. Its been surreal. Being here in Calcutta has floored me. I keep meeting all of these ordinary radicals, and they keep on pushing me to live beyond materialism and 401k plans and fancy vacations, i LOVE IT! We meet with with phenomenal organization called Freeset that is essentially setting women free from sex slavery in Calcutta's red light districs. They are employing 150 women and their goal is to someday employ 10,000...meaning they're dream is to free every sex worker in Calcutta. Its beautiful. My jaw literally was dragging on the floor as they walked us around their property. It was amazing, all of these women, freed. And it all started with a dream that the Lord gave this unassuming New Zealand couple. They packed up their three little kids and moved to India in obedience and that has radically changed lives...seeds that have fallen to the ground and died to the dreams of our culture and our world and alive to the dreams of our big, beautiful God. And then today, just a little woman named Agnes and her love for the poorest of poor...just another seed fallen to the ground. Just ordinary people, like you and me swept away by His love. So much more...not enough time to process.
Christmas brings a lot of things to mind for many people: snow, Santa Claus, stockings, food, family, gifts, etc. It tends to be a time of year full of joy and excitement for many people. Small children fall asleep Christmas Eve anxiously waiting to open their eyes on Christmas morning.
However, this is not the typical Christmas for most people around the world, including here in India. There is a great need here, and this is a call for YOU to step up and be Jesus to the children and staff at Asha House and Asha Mission through giving. Jesus did not come and die so we can sit back and enjoy life. Jesus came and died to save us because we cannot save ourselves, and He has called us to love. That love needs to extend to all people of all nations, including the children of Asha House and Asha Mission.
We, the India team, are asking you to be Jesus to these children and staff by giving. Your giving is not going to useless wants, it's going to lagitament needs. Here is a list of items that the orphanages have a need for:
Asha House: Asha Mission:
-soap -winter clothes
-shampoo -closed toed shoes
-toothbrushes -sweaters
-mittens -blankets
-hats -bed sheets
-sweaters -new bunk bed
-underwear
Some of these items seem so basic to us, but the means to attain them do not exist for these orphanages. We have included the address and other information t o send money to below. You can be assured that every cent sent in will go to these orphanages for their Christmas.
Please prayerfully consider giving even just a little so that these children will be taken care of as best as possible. PLEASE don't finish reading this and ignore it as you continue on in your comfortable life while these children continue with so little.
Step up. You have the opportunity to be Jesus to these children.
"Religion that God our father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" James 1:27
--India Team '08
Address:
First United Methodist Church
301 South Main Street
PO Box 35 Randelman, NC 27317
-Make checks payable to: First United Methodist Church
Going to the leper colony is hard. Its uncomfortable. Its awkward. There are no words to describe how odd it is. A group of Americans, walking through like a group of tourists to befriend the people who are living life in an Indian leper colony. Something about it feels so patronizing. And as you look into people's eyes you have to wonder, what makes you different from me? Are we different? What makes us the same?
We visited the leper colony once again and the dread in me was there again. UGH. I am a missionary and this is no glory story. The material need, the physical need, the health needs, the spiritual needs are so in your face. Jesus' response to all of this would be compassion, why is mine of self-protection and feelings of being overwhelmed. I can't handle it. So, I don't know what else to do but to pray. So in all of this need, this desperation, I pray the most honest prayer I have in all of our visits to the leper colony. We can't do this without You, Jesus. You have to go into that alley, touch eyes, hearts, minds, bodies in ways that a human cannot. We step out of the car, out of safety, out of comfort and into the alley. The children from the slums run over to us like they have honing beacons and can sense and smell western blood. We walk through the alley, people raise their heads from their beds. The hopelessness is thick. We walk to the end of the alley, gather the kids. We talk to Jesus and ask Him to join us there in that little patch of concrete that is swarming with flies, with these little ones from the slums. They sit with a stillness and quietness that they have never had before. I ask, do you know who Jesus is? Has anyone here heard of Jesus? Our translator translates the question. No. They have never heard of this Jesus. It's a profound moment. The team and I are struck by this realization that there is no knowledge of Jesus here, yet Jesus is here. So where do you begin? How do you begin to explain to these little ones that have no concept of Him? Jesus is God, Jesus loves you, Jesus loved you so much He died for you. Its overwhelming. We only have half an hour with them, we share what we can in the short amount of time that we can. I share about something thats been intimate to me in the past several years. I share about Jesus being God and God being in your boat when you are scared. When all you can feel is the wind and the the waves, and you want to run and hide. But then there He is. How we can talk to our God when we are scared, because even the wind and the wave obey Him. Because He is there, unafraid, even just hanging out and napping, while we run around screaming our little heads off.
After we shared, I saw a little old woman sitting on the ground. Watching and listening. I sat down next to her and started to chat with her through body language. Its amazing what you can communicate through pointing, grunts, etc. :) I found out that her children are alcoholics, they beat her. She is going blind, her legs hurt. This sweet little woman, just sitting there, listening to our children's teaching. She continues to come out every week, to sit in the back as we teach the children. The Spirit of God is moving in that place. His hand is moving. Human eyes cannot see it, but I am speaking it in faith. I've seen adults peeking their heads over the wall of the leper colony, listening. I've seen the lepers come out and sit as we teach the children, their curiosity tickled. And so, the Lord hears and He uses the fish and loaves that we bring to feed the hungry in ways that we cannot see with our eyes. But we believe in what we cannot see. So its all good.
I have always admired people that are really honest and shameless. Like, whenever I read people's blogs, especially some of these race blogs, I am shocked by the level of honesty I see and I crave it. I think about the type of people that talk about praying for sight for a blind man and then how they confess that they are not sure that God can heal him. That's so honest and so real and I think God is honored by it, honored that we know that He knows our thoughts and that there is no use in trying to hide them. So, in light of all of that I am going to be honest and confess some things.
India is hard. The culture shock I have experienced here was intense. You would think that after living in 11 different countries, living out of a bag for a year would have better prepared me for this. I know that I am so blessed. I've been blessed by parents that have sacrificed immensely to leave Korea and immigrate to the States in hope of a better life for their future family. I have grown up in plenty, been blessed with a college education. I am rich by the world's standards. All that to say, the transition was rough. Its hard to go from comfort, life with couches, carpet, screens on windows, a sense of entitlement, hot water, tv, internet, starbucks, green lawns, driveways, sidewalks, coffee machines...to our life in India. I'm not suffering. I'm uncomfortable. I get tired of gnats landing on my face and flying into my mouth when I'm trying to sleep. Its uncomfortable to have large ants crawling on my legs while I try to sleep. The pollution is bad. Preparing dinner is a challenge. We go to 5 different stores to pick up things for dinner for the night. Those things are inconvenient. But, it's an incredibly humbling thing to look at the staff at the orphanages as they get up at 5am to prepare the orphans for school and for the day. Their purpose is to serve the orphans daily for the Lord. So humbling. Stuff like that just makes you be quiet and gives you some perspective.
Another confession, sometimes I don't know what to do. I've noticed that the lepers don't really care if we are there or not. Its hard to love people that don't give a crap that you are there. We drive up to the leper colony, which is on the outskirts of the city. They live in these little one room homes that line both sides of this little alley. We walk up, the children from the slums go crazy with excitement to see white people and me J. We hang out with them for a bit, and then walk down the alley. People look out their windows, pick their heads up from their beds to take a look at us, roll back over and then go back to bed. So, we knock on their doorframe and invite ourselves into homes where we are not welcomed. What else am I supposed to do? I am stuck there for another hour, I am a leader, I'm supposed to know what to do. But I don't. It makes me realize how powerless I am. How much its not about me. Its humbling. All I can do is pray for them. Sometimes they invite the prayer, other times they are like sure whatever, in deference to us being Americans. Its hard for me to want to go to the leper colony.
Sometimes I wonder why God has chosen me to love these people, to love the orphans, to love the lepers, to love 17-23 year olds. I am so bad at it. I am not loving. I want to be loving, I want my life to be marked by love. Because in the end that's what everything boils down to. There are so many other people that I can think of that are marked by that kind of love, that would be better at loving these people. But then, here I am in India. But its like God is just showing me how I am not loving, how wretched, blind, broken, useless I am without Him.
I was thinking about all of this stuff as we were riding to the orphanage. And then thinking about how He picked me and how that makes no sense. I am amazed. Its undeserved. Its grace.
Thank you to everyone who has prayed for me, given to support me. You guys are amazing and I am blessed, SO incredibly blessed to have you in my life. Things in India are rolling. Most of us are almost 100% in our health. Ministry here with all of the cultural differences, language differences is filled with awkward silences, body language, awkward exchanges, but filled with beautiful moments with the lepers and the orphans. We are at our half-way point on our trip and the intense India heat is starting to die down. But all is well, it continues to be a time of the Lord silencing all other voices in my life except for His. He is bringing me into a time of refining where He will not allow anything to quench my thirst but Him alone. Its hard, its lonely, its everything that I want right now. :)
Sounds kind of ridiculous. But finding Jesus in seminary isn't easy. But sometimes He surprises you. The other day I was walking through campus realizing the brokenness here in seminary, realizing that there is as much brokenness in seminary as there is outside of seminary. Kind of like how there is as much brokenness in the church as outside of church. Yet, somehow I was surprised with how many not whole people are walking around here, dealing with spirits of fear, of anxiety, of rejection, of fill in the blank its here. The spiritual climate here has made me desperate. I crave the Lord. My soul and my body longs. 
