hope is winning

A friend named Molly has been on staff with Youth With a Mission over the past four years in Battambang, Cambodia. Last week, Molly's mom and sister, Sue and Erin, along with three other good friends from church, traveled to go spend a couple of weeks with Molly. Here's a report from our friend Maribeth emailed today:

Dear Friends,

We hope this finds everyone well in Iowa and beyond. We arrived in Battambang yesterday afternoon after a 3 hour bus ride from Siem Reap. It was a great way to see the Cambodian countryside. Miles of rice fields as far as the eye could see, traffic going multiple directions and a bus driver who honked enthusiastically every mile or so. He liked his horn, for sure. We enjoyed Cambodian music videos on a TV at the front of the bus, too. Once in Battambang, a city that is much more spread out than Siem Reap, less touristy, and yet with a population of 250,000, we moved into our new headquarters, hopped in a tuk-tuk and rode to the YWAM base.

This is where we met all the people so near and dear to Molly's heart these last four years. How much they love her, too! Young Cambodians (ages 18-25?) flowed out of the base, so eager and excited to finally meet Sue and Erin! We ate a communal dinner with them, and enjoyed great conversation with Molly's friends and fellow YWAM staffers. Marla and I sat at a table with one young man who talked in beginner's English about his own growing faith. At first animated, he then began talking about his family-- particularly his parents, and how his decision to become a Christian had alienated him from his family. He was the "only one" he said, meaning the only Christian, and there had been a price to pay in terms of his loved ones. That night, as we chatted outside with these faith-filled Cambodians, chanting from the Buddhist monks could be heard in the distance.

Today, we hit the ground running after a breakfast buffet at the hotel that included hotdogs, vegetables, rice, fish, and many things we had never seen, much less eaten before. Sue was looking for her bran flakes, but alas.: ) We attended a worship service on the YWAM base, with songs sung in alternating Khmer and English. How cool to hear familiar worship songs sung in Khmer! After that, we went to an orientation for life in Battambang and on the base and visited a small orphanage started by the YWAM staff. There, a baby, a toddler and his brother are cared for so lovingly by YWAM staff. To get there, we walked through a slum area that was heartbreaking. If you've ever seen the "Save the Children" commercials, you already have a sense for what a slum looks like and how people are forced to lived. Wrenching and wrong.

We also visited a government run orphanage that cares for 270 children. It was more of a campus, with individual houses for children of varying ages. It had impeccably groomed landscaping with flowers everywhere and a clean environment for the children. Talking about Jesus, however is not allowed, so while YWAM can volunteer or run a big event at the orphanage, their faith cannot be shared.

A young YWAM staffer named Anna has an over-the-top ambitious dream that we toured today as well. She's starting a restaurant/bistro called Cafe Eden. I wish you could all see the scope of the vision she has. Nestled in downtown Battambang, YWAM bought a run-down four story building that leaked like crazy (during rainy season, Anna, slept under a tarp), had structural impossibilities, needed re-wiring and incredible sweat equity. Once finished, the restaurant will provide many valuable jobs for local Cambodians and will create revenue for other ministries, including one that reaches out to the street children just down the street.

Tomorrow is another health clinic, this time in a slum area. We're prepared to be broken again. How can you not be?

And yet, we agree with the t-shirt message we saw in the YWAM "shop"

today... "HOPE IS WINNING". When you see first-hand what a team of

young people who are sold out for Christ can do-- you feel it and you

see it. Hope is winning. It always has, it always will.

All the best,

Maribeth, Jane, Erin, Marla and Sue

quote of the day

"Too often I looked at being relevant, popular, and powerful as ingredients of an effective ministry. The truth, however, is that these are not vocations but temptations. Jesus asks, 'Do you love me?' Jesus sends us out to be shepherds, and Jesus promises a life in which we increasingly have to stretch out our hands and be led to places where we would rather not go. He asks us to move from a concern for relevance to a life of prayer, from worries about popularity to communal and mutual ministry, and from a leadership built on power to a leadership in which we critically discern where God is leading us and our people."

- Henri Nouwen In the Name of Jesus

city reflections

Did you watch the 16 minute video of Dr. Bakke that I posted a few days back? What grabbed you in it?

Several of his statements cause reflection for me...

-40% of the world lives in India and China; only 4% live in the U.S.

-The 4% that do live in the U.S. are more and more multi-ethnic. Neighbors of every color, nationality, and culture are the reality; we really are a global village.

My ethnocentric notions are challenged when I read these statistics. White power and privilege that are embedded in me due to my environment and upbringing are challenged when I read these statistics and realize what a small minority I am in a much larger world. I think about how important it is for me not to socially isolate with people like myself but to intentionally spend time with a diverse span of people so that I might gain a better sense of others' perspectives and realities.

-Bakke talks about the period when churches were fleeing from the cities in the 60's and after.

-He also talked about how our world is becoming more and more urban as city populations expand.

I think about the Early Church. When the Plague hit and people began fleeing the cities, it was the Church that fought against the traffic and went into the city to care for the sick and dying.

Do we see the Church returning to the hard places in our cities or have we been fleeing with everyone else to self-protect?

-500 world cities have 1 million or more people in them.

-"80% of those in state prisons in New York come from six neighborhoods in New York City. We can pay $50,000-$100,000 to incarcerate a person, or we can do something about the six neighborhoods."

My community has about 110,000 people in it. The problems and needs in the city are still complex and big, but the smaller size of our community makes it easier to become familiar with it. I listened to our county sheriff speak the other day about his work and our county jail. We have the 3rd largest jail in Iowa, and there are currently 240 beds full. Sheriff Thompson's passion is to help break the cycle for families and provide environments for children that will help them to overcome the generational pattern. Not every Christ-follower will be called into such a vision and passion, but I am of the belief that the Church should be leading in these efforts of restoring community and working toward shalom in even some of the hardest places within our cities. If we hear Jesus say "follow me" and we look to see where he walked so that we can follow, I'm thinking we will travel into some places that we as the Church have largely been ignoring.

Those are just a few of my thoughts as I heard the interview. What did you think about as you watch the Bakke interview (posted 2 days ago) about how U.S. cities are changing?

classic Saturday

William Temple (1881-1944) from his writings Christianity and Social Order:

"In making the world God brought into existence vast numbers of things, like electrons which always have to obey his law for them to do so. But he made creatures-men and women-who could disobey his law for them and often do so. He did this in order that among his creatures there might be some who answer his love with theirs by offering to him a free obedience.

This involved a risk in that they would naturally take the self-centered outlook on life, and then, increasingly become hardened in that selfishness. This is what has happened. To win them out of this, he came on earth and lived out the divine love in human life and death. He is increasingly drawing us to himself by the love thus shown."

Dr. Ray Bakke: "How US Cities are Changing"

thoughts this weekend spurred from this video....

Untitled from Kenneth Ou on Vimeo.

something new

Youth Art Team (www.youthartteam.blogspot.com) and my friend, Heidi, are inspiring me these days. I had a terrible art teacher in elementary school, and there weren't any aspiring artists in my family either. Therefore, I have few to no memories of me drawing, painting, creating art as a youngster. I entered my teen and adult years with the mindset of "I can't draw" and left it at that.

Over the past few weeks, as I've watched youth art team members, including my daughter, use watercolors in their sketchbooks and begin to paint on canvas, I thought, "Why not?" Why not try my own hand at this when there is no risk, no expectation, just freedom to experiment? So, off to Hobby Lobby last week to purchase some art supplies at home for me and family members. What to paint became the next question.

Our church sends out a daily Scripture encouragement, and over the next three weeks staff members are sharing a verse and thought about a Scripture that reminds them of their identity in Christ. What if I read through the verses and spent some time reflecting on them as I painted a picture related to each verse shared?

That's what I've done the past three days. Three observations I'm making:

1. I may not be the next Picasso, but it's been really fun.

2. I have really liked interacting with Scripture in this very new way these past few days.

3. I enjoy trying new adventures that I'd never considered previously in my life before a few years ago...a marathon, piano lessons, and now a little watercolor in my life.

What "something new" do you think you might want to try your hand at this fall?

identity

I listened to a teaching at church this morning on how we humans become deceived in believing that who we are is found in 1) what we do 2) what we have 3) what others say about us. These addictions of power and position, possessions, and approval make us believe our security and worth is wrapped up in ourselves rather than in the One in whom we find our truest identity.

This afternoon was a beautiful fall day, and as I took our German Shepherd for a walk out on our country roads, I reflected back on the greatest schooling on my identity in my lifetime. Twelve years ago, I was pregnant with our first child and working full-time in a youth ministry position at the church of my childhood. I was steeped in ministry, activities, and relationships at the church, and I was awaiting the arrival of our baby boy right around the Christmas holidays. Everything turned dramatically on a dime. Our son was stillborn, and eight weeks later, not long after my return to work, our church body fell into heavy conflict and division. Six months later, after gut-wrenching months of conflict, I resigned and left the church.

Those months after the loss of our child and the loss of my job found me either sitting in a living room recliner for hours upon hours with my Bible and God or walking the bike trails with our first German Shepherd who has since passed away. God dealt with me about identity to my core. I could no longer base my identity on what I did…what had been a passionate calling from God and a five year investment of my heart and life…was no more. I had experienced the birth of a child and knew what it felt like to be a parent, but I wasn’t doing parenting. I couldn’t base my identity on what I had….I did not have our child, and I did not have ministry as I knew it. I couldn’t base my identity on what people thought or said about me. There were many relationships that suffered through the church conflict, and I received the pain and anger of many people I had known since childhood.

So, there I was, laid out and feeling stripped before God with what was the greatest test of my identity. And in what was the deepest identity crisis of my life, God did the deepest work of my life. When it appeared that I was doing much of nothing for a good portion of the next year, God was actually doing some of his greatest growing of me that I’ve ever experienced. Those times with Him were the richest and most intimate of my experience to date. He rooted me in my identity in Christ, and I really believe it has shaped me differently in what I believe about my life and how I see and define Christ’s Church.

Our teacher this morning mentioned being still…silence/solitude/ceasing…as a counter measure to fight all of our doing. I will testify to this practice with all my heart and life. Quieting my inner and outer self to be centered in God, to hear from God, to remember who it is that really works, who holds the power and plans, and whom I belong to and answer to, is so critical to break the identity lie of I am what I do.