IJM Global Prayer Gathering - Plenary #2 and Prayer Rooms

This morning's session was really wonderful, especially with the opportunity to hear from several field office directors.

First up- Sanju Mathew, Field Office Director in Chennai

Saju began with the story of Hagar and Ishmael, found in Genesis. He noted that the story is a subplot of Genesis. The seemingly minor role that Hagar and Ishmael play in the book do not prevent God from showing up in a real and marvelous way. But why include such a small story? It teaches us things about the character and nature of God; and He is not absent, even from the least of these.

God certainly sees the brokenness and hears the cries of the helpless, and "the Sovereign God of the Universe will move Heaven and earth the answer the cries of the desperate."
Those who victimize the weak show they have no fear of the Lord, and this injustice infuriates the Lord with a holy anger.

In response to what our prayers here have to do with IJM around the world: Exodus 17:8-16
"For hands were lifted up to the throne of the Lord." - everything that was happening in the valley, on the battlefield, depended on Moses on the mountain. And God is glorified when we lift up our voices for those who cannot.

"Prayer is the means by which God's power is brought onto the battlefield." -SM
"Prayer is the slender nerve that moveth the muscles of Omnipotence." -Charles Spurgeon

On the cross, Jesus gave up his access to the Father and Heaven remained silent. Now, we have access and Heaven is not silent.

Jesus was the Intercessor for us when we were weak and helpless. We are called to be intercessors for the world's weak and helpless.

From IJM staffers in the online chat: How to pray now, today
- For cases where official release has not been given. Official release is a government document guaranteeing freedom and rehabilitation for released slaves
- For courage, protection and encouragement for the team fighting in the battle front
- For government relations and perseverance in the face of obstacles

Next up was James Ewins, Field Office Director in Bangalore

James told an incredibly powerful story of slaves being freed from a conglomeration of brick kilns. He discussed the trials and triumphs as well as the hard labor and rich reward that accompany such a mission. He echoed the truth of Psalm 124: "if it had not been the Lord who was on our side/ when people rose up against us,/ then they would have swallowed us up alive,"

"The road to freedom is not an easy one," and we are walking it with them and will not give up.

How to pray:
- For strengthened relationships with government and police
- For resilience and determination on the part of the freed to be truly free
- For the team and their families; "We love what we do, but it is not safe."

James was followed by Joseph Kibugu, Field Office Director in Kenya

Joe began by discussing the harrowing crimes against humanity committed during post-election upheaval two years ago. He discussed the amount of corruption in Kenya's government and police forces, which adds to the necessity of IJM's presence in the country.

One of the most notable details he shared was that the poor and oppressed are forced to rely heavily on the rule of law because they have no other resources and little to no upward mobility. When the rule of law on which they rely is faulted or corrupt, it leaves them with nothing.

Pray that the staff in Kenya would "work with great wisdom, great hope and persistence as they seek God's work for the country."

Sara Groves (@grovesroad) performed Joy Is In Our Hearts but not before mentioning the fabulous Henri Nouwen line: Joy is a good thing well-secured.

Next, we "moved" on to the prayer rooms. These are available in a live blog format, and the two that I attended were run by @colbymarie.

Room No. 1: Government Relations w/ Holly Burkhalter
Two especially notable things from the live blog:
1. As advocates, we must stand by our officials and representatives regardless of their politics in order to give them the strength to adopt policies that will bring slavery and sex trafficking to an end.
2. CPCA - the Child Protection Compact Act: an extremely significant piece of legislation that you can read more about here (via IJM) and track the progress of here (via govtrack.us).

Room No. 2: Aftercare w/ Kathy Stout-Labauve
Three especially notable things from the live blog.
1. Trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy is the best aftercare that IJM knows of. (And also happens to be a significant portion of the Masters programs I am looking at.)
2. Those who are freed essentially trade the issues of being a slave for the issues of learning how to be free. I cannot even imagine this kind of acclamation - there is so much.
3. Aftercare provides healing resources that treat the effects of oppression and victimization. It is hard to comprehend just how deeply the oppressed, victimized and abused are effected, and it goes well beyond freedom from the tangible oppression.

There's lots more to come with GPG2010. It can be watched live online or on demand at a later point in time in case you missed it - http://www.ijm.org/gpgonline. The live blogging feeds from the break-out prayer rooms are available, as well, at the same link.

IJM Global Prayer Gathering - Plenary #1

Pre-session Online Feature:

Gary Veurink, IJM executive vice president and COO, was previously the corporate vice president of Dow Chemicals. From his brief interview, it was clear that his corporate mindset and experience are a tremendous asset to the long-term goal-making and goal-reaching processes. It is good to remember that NGOs and non-profits need business models, pragmatic principles and empirical knowledge to accompany their heart and passion. To hear a COO, especially one with such an impressive background, speak of a "movement of justice" that "changes how the justice system in the world treats poor people" was moving. To see that he also had a plan to bring the movement to fruition was in.credible.

And one other thought not from Gary: Calling on God to help in the work is tantamount to any fundraising efforts. If He is not in it, it is all for naught.

Gary Haugen Introduction:

An excellent reminder that seekers of justice are locked in a battle with violence and evil - the violence and evil in the tangible world as well as that which is found in Paul's writings. "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12). And so we must "put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil" (Ephesians 6:11).

This work must manifestly break your heart and, perhaps, you will hate it; but you will do it because God calls.

Susan Cohn Wu:

- Something amazing happens when we commit to unhurried time.

-Exodus 33: "you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live." Aslan, as described in the books, could never have fit on the screen. Neither could Christ fit in our limited understandings. We have a glimpse of a God who "stooped to conquer."

-"On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, making up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies hats and straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offence, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return." -Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk

- Psalm 23: words of certainty about the proximity and care of God in our time of greatest crisis--the valley

- "All prayer is prayed in a story, by someone who is in the story. There are no storyless prayers. Story is to prayer what the body is to the soul, the circumstances in which it takes place. And prayer is to story what the soul is to the body, the life without which it would be a corpse. Prayers are prayed by people who live stories." -Eugene Peterson
We are people of a narrative and we are here because of a story. We must not neglect the first story - the story that makes any other story, the story where God stepped into time with us, the story of God's persistence to love the unlovable.

- The reality of Christ is greater than our theology.

- "Faith does not take away from the reality of this evil. In fact, faith enables us to look squarely at the truth and not shrink back from it" -Susan Cohn Wu

- Live a life larger than your fears. Approach prayer in this.

The power we so blithely invoke

"On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, making up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies hats and straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offence, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return" -Annie Dillard, via Susan Cohn Wu
IJM Global Prayer Gathering

Untitled.

A little over a year ago, I started on a journey. I was just beginning my second semester as a senior at Grove City, and things were going really well. Tantamount to all other successes was the amount of time I was spending studying the Word and praying. For the first time in a long time, I was really hungry for Truth. I was voracious in my reading, and the Lord was not silent in His teaching.

I began sorting through a few career options and decided on spending a year in Seoul, South Korea teaching English in an elementary school. I was thrilled! I felt God's promise in it, and I was optimistic about having a "plan" for after graduation. Graduation came and went and the countdown to Korea grew smaller and smaller. I endured a week of intense doubt; but I forged ahead, empowered by words from Hosea.

By the time mid-July rolled around, I had devoured almost all of the New Testament and a good chunk of the Old Testament. The Lord continued to speak to me, and my heart was more open than I recall it ever being. It was a time of great joy and hope for me. I was so thankful for the opportunity to travel and teach; I was so excited for what the Lord would do in that year.

On July 28, 2009 I flew from Charlotte to Dulles to San Francisco to Seoul.

On August 14, 2009 I flew from Seoul to Seattle to Charlotte to Baltimore.

All that happened between those dates is important -- perhaps it is not too much to say that it altered the course of my life. Those days contained, without a doubt, the most intense emotions I have ever experienced: daily oscillation between joy and sorrow, hope and dejection, excitement and melancholy.

I sought the Lord but felt as if I was holding on by a thread thinner than a silk worm's silk. I tried hard to find Him, knowing He was the only one that could preserve me. He did not fail me; not once, but I was full of uncertainty. So I returned home. I smiled. Said I was thankful to be back. Said I was certain the Lord had a plan. Said I was glad for the opportunity. Said I was optimistic about the lessons in it.

The next two months were strange. My heart was a torn: I wanted to trust the Lord for whatever He had for me, and I wanted to curse Him for leaving me high and dry without a plan. Some weeks I felt powerful testaments of God's love and grace. Other weeks I wanted nothing to do with Him. As my job search continued to flounder, the latter kind of week became more and more frequent. I was slowly giving up. I was tired. I wasn't willing to try anymore. I was hurt; hurt that I had trusted and that trust had failed me. I wasn't willing to make my heart that vulnerable again. Almost everything I did was halfhearted.

Somewhere in the back of my mind -- or maybe it was the recesses of my heart -- I longed to be back in the place I was before I went to Korea. The place where I was passionate about everything: living, loving, serving, being. Disappointment and hurt left me limp as a rag doll. But part of me still wanted to love the Lord and serve Him and experience grace daily.

Although I had essentially decided I was going to give up on faith if something didn't happen, I kept telling myself to just wait it out, that eventually it would come back to me. This "season", as my Christian-ese called it, would end soon and I would be on the road to a better spiritual life. However, as C.S. Lewis learned long before I, "Mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin." (The Problem of Pain)

I kept waiting for God to change so things could be back to normal. I kept waiting for the immutable, perfect, divine God of the universe to change so that I could have my life back the way I wanted. And I possessed all of the pride, arrogance, stubbornness, and stupidity of someone waiting for something like that to happen.

But recently a truth occurred to me. A truth that I have known and treasured for many years. A truth that is hard to write about because it means that fault lies in me. A truth that is cause for joy because it means I can go forward in peace and trust.

The Lord is no less faithful than He was before I left for Korea. My faithfulness has waxed and waned with an especially long bout of waning these last two months, but the Lord has remained a firm constant. Waiting for me, patiently; despite my impatient waiting for Him. The change in my plans was drastic. It shocked me, caught me completely off-guard, made me angry and sad. It changed me, but it did not change the Lord. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He is infinitely patient, loving, kind, and forgiving.

Starting now, I'm on a new journey -- a journey of re-discovery. A trek to make up for the weeks and months that I've lost; a pilgrimage to remembering what it is to trust and love and feel. I long to feel joy again, and I know, in time, it will come. Because I am turning back with grace and strength provided to me by the One who never turned away in the first place.

Eat this bread; Drink this cup

There are few things I am more moved by than the celebration of the Eucharist on a Sunday morning. The incarnation of Christ is perhaps the most mystical aspect of the Christian faith and the Eucharist is the nearest I can come to experiencing His physical presence here on Earth. While I don't believe that the bread and wine themselves become holier when they are used for this purpose, I am thankful for it's representation of a tangible Savior.

The reminder of Christ incarnate by way of the Eucharist means two very significant things to me: 1) a Savior able to identify with all that I experience (Hebrews 4:15) and 2) a body not all that different mine endured incredible suffering in place of me (Matthew 27:27-46).

The breaking of bread for the breaking of the body. The pouring of wine for the spilling of blood. The humanity of the divine Christ becomes very clear to me while remaining completely astounding and mystical. As paradoxical as that seems, I think it is the essence of faith. The more we learn and understand, the more we find to seek and discover. That is beautiful; it is the mystery of Christ as man and divine embodied.

In Girl Meets God Lauren Winner writes, "For people with bodies important things like love have to be embodied. That's all. God had to be embodied, or else people with bodies would never in a trillion years understand about love."

Communing together over bread and wine does much for the edification of the Church, as well. Food and drink are at the very base of humanity's needs, and to share in them, whether over a table of pizza or in the pews, brings about a level of intimacy and deepened relationships.

Another bit from Lauren Winner: "Holy Communion is another name, and there are good reasons to speak of taking communion. Those words remind us that we are not only drawing near to God, but that we are doing the most basic and social thing, we are eating together, we are drawing near to one another."

In church buildings where stained glass windows and brightly illuminated texts have been replaced by sound systems and powerpoints, it is easy to become academic and logical about things, dealing only in reason and that which we see. To strip our faith of the element of mysticism found in something like the divine made man is to remove one of its most fundamental tenets. To be thoughtful and intentional about the Eucharist, the representation of Christ made man, is to bring back this mysticism, which is sure to open our lives to a realm we can never fully understand but will always crave to know.

Let me introduce you to my new hobby

Somewhere in the middle of my 406 day blogging hiatus I became obsessed with photography. I do not use the word obsessed lightly. It happened one day in March after I shot a few pictures with my friend's Nikon D40.

After acquiring my own D40 as an early graduation present, I effectively captured the last 3 weeks of my college career in beautiful, brilliant, sharp photos. I was hooked. While in North Carolina, I was privileged to do some work with a professional photographer. I helped shoot a wedding, did some marketing and business things for her, and learned SO much. We ventured to the zoo one day to shoot for fun. I also took family pictures for the 2009 Christmas cards, especially challenging since I also needed to be in the pictures. We were trying to get a head start so that they could go out in February instead of July like they usually do.

The best thing about photography, especially photography in the digital age, is that that you can be self-taught. Every time I take a picture, I learn something new about what I like, what works, what doesn't work, and how to more effectively shoot. It's such a great learning process, and you don't waste all that film.

So far, I've enjoyed shooting our nature adventures, which is really easy to do when you live in Western North Carolina. I've attempted some inner-city shots in Atlanta, DC, Baltimore, and Seoul, but it's hard for me to just "see" what works there. Some people can take shots of buildings and they look super, ultra cool; mine mostly look like buildings. I'm still a huge fan of jumping pictures and have remained unscathed since the tailbone incident of April 2008. And finally, I thoroughly enjoy shooting kids. My niece is a wonderful practice for this.

Career? I don't think so. But, everyone needs a hobby, right?

Photos: slinky bobcat at NC Zoo; family pose in Todd, NC; Sadie on a walk

Hello, October

October: the leaves change, temperatures drop, school is really in full swing, fall decorations are everywhere, Halloween - all very important and prominent parts of this new month.

In addition to all that is Fall, October is awareness month for breast cancer, domestic violence, down syndrome, dental hygiene, SIDS, and world blindness, to name just a few. The fact of it is, almost every month of the year is rife with causes to support, programs to give money to, and places to volunteer.

For bleeding hearts like myself, this means an onslaught of heart-wrenching emotion. We feel the immediacy of every cause when we see an advertisement with a lonely battered woman or a child's belly swollen with hunger or a young man sorting through trash heaps or a shaking puppy without a home. There is a part of us that could be behind almost every cause; compassion, sympathy, and hopefully empathy seep out of our every pore.

Therein lies the fundamental problem: we can't support every cause. If we tried, we would spread ourselves so thin we couldn't be of use to anyone. I have to believe there is a cause for everyone because all of us have different hearts and minds. So, how do you choose?

1. Find the cause that won't leave you alone, that keeps you up at night. Choose the one that has you day dreaming about what a world without X would look like and what you could do to make that reality.

2. Discern your passion. For example, the commercial with dish detergent being used to clean off the little animals covered in oil is touching, but it's merely a cuteness factor. The ad agency who created the commercial did a good job, but it isn't my passion. To find the cause right for you, you've got to know what you really, really care about for the long-term.

3. Know your skills. We're all talented in some ways, both natural and learned. A lot of skills are extremely transferable when it comes to this area, but some causes call for a special skill. For example, in order to advocate an increase in music education in public schools, you might be taken a bit more seriously if you have some involvement in music yourself.

4. Volunteer. There is at least one nonprofit associated with any cause and they're almost always looking for volunteers. Seek out these opportunities; they will help you determine if the cause is something to which you'd really like to commit or if its time to find another.

a letter: the mini time capsule

There are few things in life I love more than a letter sent via post There is something very intentional about letter writing, something so patient and thoughtful. More than a phone call, which often results in instant feedback; more than an e-mail, the format of which almost mandates brevity; more than a tweet or text, which limits thoughts to 140 or 160 characters - I treasure letters above all of these things.

An envelope addressed to me amongst the day's mail is like discovering an unexpected Christmas present behind the tree after all others had been opened. When I lived with the Shengs, TS would joke that I got more mail then they did. He was joking, but only in part. The truth is, I am an excellent letter writer (humble, too), and the best way to get letters is to write them. I love the time that it takes to sit down and write a letter to someone - a real letter, one that details your comings and goings, lessons learned, the simplest and grandest things of life all at once, etc.

Letters are like tiny time capsules. They are written one day and arrive a few days later, unless the USPS is really off and then they arrive 47 years later. A letter freezes time and sends it off to be shared by another. Whatever happens after I lick the disgusting glue on the back of an envelope cannot be recorded in that particular time capsule. It must wait its turn for another. A letter, thus, is the perfect way to share life with people far away. Unless you write letters like e-mails or texts or tweets, then there is no summarizing, no jumping to the end of the story, no telling the main points - there is only that moment or those moments in which what really matters is present.

With my affection for letter writing comes an extreme fondness for the stationery aisle in any store. I could spend hours and hours and hours and dollars and dollars and dollars in those blessed aisles picking out the perfect stationery on which to write. On the days when I'm feeling even more creative, I pick through magazines and cut out pictures fit for a card front. If you want to make me late or seriously distract me, send me the stationery aisle in any store.

Don't get me wrong - I am often appreciative of the immediacy of technologically advanced forms of communication, and I anxiously await the day when I can send invisible thoughts to my friends via the chips implanted in our brains, but there is still nothing like a letter. Send me one. I promise I'll write back.