Bud--the man I'm working for to help write the story of Lutheran Health Care: Bangladesh, apparently had a stroke on Friday. I don't know how bad is was, but it sounds like his speech has been affected. :-/ I don't know anything more than that yet. But prayers appreciated.
God apparently is quite keen to get it into my head that He is my stability. I'm so glad I know Him.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
Follow Up on Righteousness
So, apparently I freaked out at least my parents with my last entry. I wish I could say things well. But, I found another blog that explains what I'm talking about better, I think. It's here.
I think one of the reasons these things I'm figuring out are so radical to me is that I have always kind of lumped sin and The Law into one. So, when Paul does something like chew out the Galatians for 4 chapters about relying on the law, and then spends the chapter after that telling them, "Don't follow the sinful nature!", I get confused, and have to figure out what that means for me and people I love.
One of these days I'll figure this Christianity thing out. ;-)
I think one of the reasons these things I'm figuring out are so radical to me is that I have always kind of lumped sin and The Law into one. So, when Paul does something like chew out the Galatians for 4 chapters about relying on the law, and then spends the chapter after that telling them, "Don't follow the sinful nature!", I get confused, and have to figure out what that means for me and people I love.
One of these days I'll figure this Christianity thing out. ;-)
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Holiness, Righteousness, and Truth (Oh my?)
I have no way to make this short. My apologies in advance for how long this entry is going to be...
At the Holy Spirit Conference this past August, a speaker got up just after a period of sweet worship and challenged our group. He said that the people in this group were to be praised for their seeking the Spirit, but that sometimes we fell short in the truth department. He went on to talk about righteousness...and there was a mind blowing idea for me in this. He said that, if one does a word study on righteousness, you'll find that it is a lot more than being a good person. A righteous person is one who will stand adamantly for truth. (I'd like to look into this a little more to see where he got it). He believed that God had shown him that one would be hard pressed to find three righteous people in all of America.
It was one of those nights where God was so close that it was easy to mutter rash prayers, like, "God, if you will show me how to be righteous, I will follow you." These past few weeks I've decided that any time I've sung the song, "Righteousness, righteousness is what I long for..." it's probably been a lie. Sigh. I am sometimes so content to allow people around me to stand deceived. There are a million strategies I employ almost daily to keep people from knowing what I believe. Truth is not such a popular thing in America or Japan. We prefer comfort. And it's much easier for me to cater to the need for comfort of those around me than to allow any truths I believe to come out and throw that off.
I think of words like righteousness and holiness as religious words that have lost any real meaning in the English language. They're most often used to reflect hollow piety. I suspect that most Americans using the word "righteous" mean 'self-righteous, Pharisaical, and hypocritical'. And this is a far cry--and a twisting--of the true meaning. True righteousness and holiness, I believe, would result in a kind of courageous, strong beauty. The kind of greatness that Jesus lived as he both lowered himself to wash his disciples feet and reamed the Pharisees with passionate truth.
A little while ago, a friend's comment left me reeling for several days. It was this: "God's first priority is not actually us...it is his glory...we are the crown of creation, true, but sometimes he just wants someone to go around preaching judgment and calling people to account...not for their good, but actually for their destruction." This comment overlapped with me reading Romans 9 and feeling as though I actually understood it for the first time...what it might mean when Paul says, "What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath--prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory" (9:22-23). These are the kinds of statements that leave me quivering. They clash violently with everything I grew up knowing...with every way I've learned and sought to serve God. They are the kinds of realizations that make me identify completely with Isaiah falling on his face and declaring woes on himself and his people upon getting a glimpse of the Holy One.
Two nights ago I sat down with the most intense person I have ever met. He's a Nigerian Christian named Miracle. We had prayed together at a student mission organization at Concordia, and he'd decided we should get together and talk some more. It felt something like an interview. We sat down across from each other on some couches and he would ask me question after question with a blank, unreadable expression on his face. He is, without question, one of those black-and-white truth people I would (affectionately) label a prophet.
Perhaps the most amusing part was when I was saying how I didn't know if I would go back to Japan or not. He kind of smiled and said, "You'll go back." I started to argue with him just because he was so sure about it, and so he stopped me, and this followed:
M: What if God says, "Go back to Japan, but it's going to be hard." Will you go?
P: Of course.
M: What if he says, "Go to Japan, but they're going to torture you for following me," Will you go?
P: If God says it, I'm going.
M: What if he says, "Go, but they're going to kill you." What then?
P: If God says 'go', I'm going! The consequences have nothing to do with it.
He sat back against the couch and said very matter-of-factly: "You'll go back". I tried to insist to him that I would answer any question beginning with "If God says..." with an "of course!". So, he then asked me, "Okay, so God says go to South Africa. Are you going?" I said yes. Thirty seconds later, I said, "But...I don't really think I'm going to South Africa." He just laughed at me then and wanted to know what was holding me back from returning to Japan.
...the power of good questions.
So, I "passed" all of the questions in his interview until we got to his question, "How does a person get to heaven?" Apparently what's been bugging him the most about being with all these Lutherans is the idea of 'grace alone'. So, we argued about this until Haidee came to rescue me sometime around 12:45am. His argument is that an unrighteous person will not be saved.
I ended up at home the next day devouring the entire book of Romans...and I am amazed at how much righteousness enters into this book about grace and mercy. Paul talks about salvation as being "slavery to righteousness". There are verses like this:
At the Holy Spirit Conference this past August, a speaker got up just after a period of sweet worship and challenged our group. He said that the people in this group were to be praised for their seeking the Spirit, but that sometimes we fell short in the truth department. He went on to talk about righteousness...and there was a mind blowing idea for me in this. He said that, if one does a word study on righteousness, you'll find that it is a lot more than being a good person. A righteous person is one who will stand adamantly for truth. (I'd like to look into this a little more to see where he got it). He believed that God had shown him that one would be hard pressed to find three righteous people in all of America.
It was one of those nights where God was so close that it was easy to mutter rash prayers, like, "God, if you will show me how to be righteous, I will follow you." These past few weeks I've decided that any time I've sung the song, "Righteousness, righteousness is what I long for..." it's probably been a lie. Sigh. I am sometimes so content to allow people around me to stand deceived. There are a million strategies I employ almost daily to keep people from knowing what I believe. Truth is not such a popular thing in America or Japan. We prefer comfort. And it's much easier for me to cater to the need for comfort of those around me than to allow any truths I believe to come out and throw that off.
I think of words like righteousness and holiness as religious words that have lost any real meaning in the English language. They're most often used to reflect hollow piety. I suspect that most Americans using the word "righteous" mean 'self-righteous, Pharisaical, and hypocritical'. And this is a far cry--and a twisting--of the true meaning. True righteousness and holiness, I believe, would result in a kind of courageous, strong beauty. The kind of greatness that Jesus lived as he both lowered himself to wash his disciples feet and reamed the Pharisees with passionate truth.
A little while ago, a friend's comment left me reeling for several days. It was this: "God's first priority is not actually us...it is his glory...we are the crown of creation, true, but sometimes he just wants someone to go around preaching judgment and calling people to account...not for their good, but actually for their destruction." This comment overlapped with me reading Romans 9 and feeling as though I actually understood it for the first time...what it might mean when Paul says, "What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath--prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory" (9:22-23). These are the kinds of statements that leave me quivering. They clash violently with everything I grew up knowing...with every way I've learned and sought to serve God. They are the kinds of realizations that make me identify completely with Isaiah falling on his face and declaring woes on himself and his people upon getting a glimpse of the Holy One.
Two nights ago I sat down with the most intense person I have ever met. He's a Nigerian Christian named Miracle. We had prayed together at a student mission organization at Concordia, and he'd decided we should get together and talk some more. It felt something like an interview. We sat down across from each other on some couches and he would ask me question after question with a blank, unreadable expression on his face. He is, without question, one of those black-and-white truth people I would (affectionately) label a prophet.
Perhaps the most amusing part was when I was saying how I didn't know if I would go back to Japan or not. He kind of smiled and said, "You'll go back." I started to argue with him just because he was so sure about it, and so he stopped me, and this followed:
M: What if God says, "Go back to Japan, but it's going to be hard." Will you go?
P: Of course.
M: What if he says, "Go to Japan, but they're going to torture you for following me," Will you go?
P: If God says it, I'm going.
M: What if he says, "Go, but they're going to kill you." What then?
P: If God says 'go', I'm going! The consequences have nothing to do with it.
He sat back against the couch and said very matter-of-factly: "You'll go back". I tried to insist to him that I would answer any question beginning with "If God says..." with an "of course!". So, he then asked me, "Okay, so God says go to South Africa. Are you going?" I said yes. Thirty seconds later, I said, "But...I don't really think I'm going to South Africa." He just laughed at me then and wanted to know what was holding me back from returning to Japan.
...the power of good questions.
So, I "passed" all of the questions in his interview until we got to his question, "How does a person get to heaven?" Apparently what's been bugging him the most about being with all these Lutherans is the idea of 'grace alone'. So, we argued about this until Haidee came to rescue me sometime around 12:45am. His argument is that an unrighteous person will not be saved.
I ended up at home the next day devouring the entire book of Romans...and I am amazed at how much righteousness enters into this book about grace and mercy. Paul talks about salvation as being "slavery to righteousness". There are verses like this:
- "To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger." (2:7-8)
- "For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ" (5:17)
- "But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (5:21)
- "But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life" (6:22)
- "And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. ... For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God" (8:3-4;13-14).
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Fondness for my boss
I've realized over the past week that I am growing exceptionally fond of my 80-year-old, retired doctor, boss. I wish I had a picture of him to show you. He has wispy white hair and wears high-top sneakers. He talks in a way that's somewhat dry, and he's never said goodbye on the telephone...he just kind of hangs up when he figures the conversation is over. But this past week I'm starting to recognize the way he cares about people. He's a protector. And I am exceptionally fond of protectors...as long as they aren't the clingy, worried type. My lifestyle tends to alarm clingy, worried type protectors...and that's a shut-down, because usually the aspects that worry them are the paths I've chosen out of love and faith.
Bud's lifestyle is probably equally "unwise" to mine...at 80 years old, he's still out organizing conventions on immigration churches, to say nothing of the book we're working on. A couple weeks ago he scratched himself and started bleeding all over the place and he just slipped out to the hospital and came back an hour later so we could do a four hour interview with one of the missionaries who helped start the hospital in Bangladesh. I joked with him on the way to the car yesterday, "So, you're going to rest in heaven, huh?" He just grinned.
I was reminded today that Bud, retired though he may be, is definitely still a doctor, though. I had a slight, slight, slight fever on Sunday. And so we had an interview on Monday and I was having a little trouble concentrating because of my cold. I apologized to Bud for not being quite with it...though in our conversation in the car on the way back from the interview we decided that the trouble concentrating had been mutual and was possibly due to our interviewee's tendency to switch subjects very quickly and then ramble about them. But, today I got a phone call from Bud--a typical 1.5 minute long one. It went something like this:
B: Umm...are you alright?
P: Yeah...I just have a cold. That's all.
B: But...is it getting better and not worse?
P: Yeah. Yeah, it's getting better.
B: Well, do you want to rest tomorrow?
P: Really, it's just a cold. I can do anything.
B: I think you'd better rest tomorrow too. We'll meet on Thursday.
P: Well...if that's when you want to meet, but really...
B: *click*
I don't know what it was about that short conversation that left me feeling loved. Even though I'm still sitting here thinking that a headache and sore throat do not justify a day off.
Bud's lifestyle is probably equally "unwise" to mine...at 80 years old, he's still out organizing conventions on immigration churches, to say nothing of the book we're working on. A couple weeks ago he scratched himself and started bleeding all over the place and he just slipped out to the hospital and came back an hour later so we could do a four hour interview with one of the missionaries who helped start the hospital in Bangladesh. I joked with him on the way to the car yesterday, "So, you're going to rest in heaven, huh?" He just grinned.
I was reminded today that Bud, retired though he may be, is definitely still a doctor, though. I had a slight, slight, slight fever on Sunday. And so we had an interview on Monday and I was having a little trouble concentrating because of my cold. I apologized to Bud for not being quite with it...though in our conversation in the car on the way back from the interview we decided that the trouble concentrating had been mutual and was possibly due to our interviewee's tendency to switch subjects very quickly and then ramble about them. But, today I got a phone call from Bud--a typical 1.5 minute long one. It went something like this:
B: Umm...are you alright?
P: Yeah...I just have a cold. That's all.
B: But...is it getting better and not worse?
P: Yeah. Yeah, it's getting better.
B: Well, do you want to rest tomorrow?
P: Really, it's just a cold. I can do anything.
B: I think you'd better rest tomorrow too. We'll meet on Thursday.
P: Well...if that's when you want to meet, but really...
B: *click*
I don't know what it was about that short conversation that left me feeling loved. Even though I'm still sitting here thinking that a headache and sore throat do not justify a day off.
Monday, October 12, 2009
In Which I Laugh at Myself
I have a tendency to give other people the advice I actually need to hear. My younger sister has been trying to figure out her path in life recently. And when she went from, "I'm going to culinary school" to "I'm going to be an aquarium scientist!"...I told her, "Just give yourself permission to be lost for a little while! You don't have to figure out your life just yet."
Do you ever have those times in life when you desperately want God to have spoken, and so you keep trying to see his speaking everywhere...yet he hasn't really spoken yet? I have this problem sometimes. Especially during transitions. My projections of the future have been flopping from continent to continent like crazy these past few weeks. It's looked something like this:
-I'm pretty sure God's not going to let me go back to Japan. But, India has been popping up a lot. I think I might be going there.
-On second thought, maybe I should go to med school...
-Never mind...I still hate needles. On a different note...that guy was really interesting and he might move to Afghanistan to do Bible translating. We could get married, and...
-No planning marriages with people you've only met once, Pamela! Moving on...isn't it interesting how easy it was to pray for Albania compared to other countries...and there is church planting ministry there! Maybe I'll look for mission work in Albania.
-Though I also have a heart for Burma...but that's tricky. I wonder where I'd need to be to become part of that...
-No, I think I might be going back to Japan after all. In fact, I'm going to join a ministry fairly similar to the one I was just a part of...
-What, am I crazy?! I really don't want English teaching to be my ministry anymore. It drains energy from the ministries I think are really important...*returns to Asian Access website for the first time in several months* ...maybe I'll be a church planter in Japan.
This all seems suspiciously like an indication that God has not spoken yet about what I'm doing next. But, the fun part about discerning is that, God actually is speaking. I just won't recognize the pieces until He thinks I'm ready. I was realizing that a lot of the countries I'm attracted to have something in common: they're underdog countries in the spiritual world.
Did you know that Albania has a super high concentration of Muslims? I ached for them while we were praying just thinking of how many lies they've heard throughout their existence. Under the iron curtain, their government told them they were the most developed nation in the world. The curtain fell and the truth was obvious. The lies continue, though...as the outside world tries to tell them that material things will bring the satisfaction they want. Islam promises satisfaction through a religious system and one's own holiness rather than Christ's. I yearn for truth in Albania.
Burma / Myanmar grabbed my heart when the cyclone hit during my first 24/7 week at Hongo. That meant I had plenty of time to pray for things, and, not knowing *anything* about Burma I pleaded that God would use the disaster to open the doors for His love to make it in. Only later did I realize how serious the need for this is. I looked everywhere for a group to go with to do volunteer work in Burma during that summer vacation...the government thwarted the Assemblies of God group I found. We were told by our Christian contact we would be allowed to go and be driven around to see the damage, but if we tried to rebuild anything we would be arrested. We didn't go.
Though the outside is completely different, I think Japan has a lot in common with Albania and Burma. I know I can't put that into words.
I don't know if God will give me a chance to touch all these places that I love...or a chance for my love for Albania or Burma to actually be tested and purified into something deep and real rather than a surface emotion. But it's been a good realization these past few weeks: I can serve God anywhere. There isn't a corner of this world that doesn't need missionaries. And I think the front line of mission work is going to be defined more by *who* God has made us to be than *where* God has placed us. There is a kind of freedom in that...freedom to laugh at myself when I don't have a clue and make ridiculous grand assumptions about where I'm going. And freedom to continue to be a missionary all the same, because that is who I am, wherever I am.
Do you ever have those times in life when you desperately want God to have spoken, and so you keep trying to see his speaking everywhere...yet he hasn't really spoken yet? I have this problem sometimes. Especially during transitions. My projections of the future have been flopping from continent to continent like crazy these past few weeks. It's looked something like this:
-I'm pretty sure God's not going to let me go back to Japan. But, India has been popping up a lot. I think I might be going there.
-On second thought, maybe I should go to med school...
-Never mind...I still hate needles. On a different note...that guy was really interesting and he might move to Afghanistan to do Bible translating. We could get married, and...
-No planning marriages with people you've only met once, Pamela! Moving on...isn't it interesting how easy it was to pray for Albania compared to other countries...and there is church planting ministry there! Maybe I'll look for mission work in Albania.
-Though I also have a heart for Burma...but that's tricky. I wonder where I'd need to be to become part of that...
-No, I think I might be going back to Japan after all. In fact, I'm going to join a ministry fairly similar to the one I was just a part of...
-What, am I crazy?! I really don't want English teaching to be my ministry anymore. It drains energy from the ministries I think are really important...*returns to Asian Access website for the first time in several months* ...maybe I'll be a church planter in Japan.
This all seems suspiciously like an indication that God has not spoken yet about what I'm doing next. But, the fun part about discerning is that, God actually is speaking. I just won't recognize the pieces until He thinks I'm ready. I was realizing that a lot of the countries I'm attracted to have something in common: they're underdog countries in the spiritual world.
Did you know that Albania has a super high concentration of Muslims? I ached for them while we were praying just thinking of how many lies they've heard throughout their existence. Under the iron curtain, their government told them they were the most developed nation in the world. The curtain fell and the truth was obvious. The lies continue, though...as the outside world tries to tell them that material things will bring the satisfaction they want. Islam promises satisfaction through a religious system and one's own holiness rather than Christ's. I yearn for truth in Albania.
Burma / Myanmar grabbed my heart when the cyclone hit during my first 24/7 week at Hongo. That meant I had plenty of time to pray for things, and, not knowing *anything* about Burma I pleaded that God would use the disaster to open the doors for His love to make it in. Only later did I realize how serious the need for this is. I looked everywhere for a group to go with to do volunteer work in Burma during that summer vacation...the government thwarted the Assemblies of God group I found. We were told by our Christian contact we would be allowed to go and be driven around to see the damage, but if we tried to rebuild anything we would be arrested. We didn't go.
Though the outside is completely different, I think Japan has a lot in common with Albania and Burma. I know I can't put that into words.
I don't know if God will give me a chance to touch all these places that I love...or a chance for my love for Albania or Burma to actually be tested and purified into something deep and real rather than a surface emotion. But it's been a good realization these past few weeks: I can serve God anywhere. There isn't a corner of this world that doesn't need missionaries. And I think the front line of mission work is going to be defined more by *who* God has made us to be than *where* God has placed us. There is a kind of freedom in that...freedom to laugh at myself when I don't have a clue and make ridiculous grand assumptions about where I'm going. And freedom to continue to be a missionary all the same, because that is who I am, wherever I am.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Going Fishing
While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him,
"Simon, three men are looking for you. So get up and go downstairs.
Do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them."
Peter went down and said to the men, "I'm the one you're looking for. Why have you come?"
(Acts 10:19-21)
A friend and I have been going through the book of Acts for a class she's taking about cross-cultural outreach. Usually we're supposed to be looking for new outreach ideas, but this last week, the verses I quoted above hit me more strongly than any of the content around them. What struck me is that Peter has reached the place where he truly is Peter, the Rock. And yet, the Spirit of God does not call him Peter, but rather 'Simon'. I went back and looked at the section where Jesus asks Peter if he loves him and tells Peter to feed his sheep...again, Jesus says, "Simon, son of John."
I didn't really know why this struck me so strongly...I think it was Haidee who made the connection of God addressing Peter based on his identity rather than by his function. Though God had appointed Peter as the rock of His church, when they were alone He still spoke to 'Simon' the man.
I was talking to another friend a couple nights ago and I left that conversation thinking about times 'in the desert' when God strips us down to only that identity of "child of God". It's strange to have 'old' parts of my identity popping back into my life again...things that I feel a little like, "But God, I let that go to be a missionary."
I'm coaching gymnastics right now for the first time in seven years. It is so good, and so bizarre, to come home with the smell of chalk on my hands and repetitious routine music running around my head. It feels strange to be putting all this energy into remembering how to do something that has nothing to do with God...the reason I'm at this gym is that I need money and it's something I enjoy doing. I have none of my usual "missionary ulterior motives" there whatsoever.
Anyway, I wrote a poem when I was wrapping up my time in Japan talking about what it felt like to go home...I was putting myself in Peter's sandals when the disciples return to fishing after Jesus has died and resurrected. I didn't share it with anyone when I wrote it, but I feel like doing so now. It still seems very apt for this season of my life:
I'm Going Fishing
Coarse rope grates at my palms again
Coarse rope grates at my palms again
The nets are in the water
And now is for waiting. Waiting and waiting
That was life with You
That was life with You
It has ended.
Once there were demons fleeing
Once the healed clung to our waists with glee
Once we stood and proclaimed the coming of the great King
And the King was our own friend.
But his skin went cold and clammy
Linen cloths shrouded his blood-stained side
But then
Once we stood and proclaimed the coming of the great King
And the King was our own friend.
But his skin went cold and clammy
Linen cloths shrouded his blood-stained side
But then
Those same arms moved
I saw his legs holding him up again.
I tremble.
My friend has risen
But I am left the fool
Failure
My life betrayed by my own fearful words
I tremble.
My friend has risen
But I am left the fool
Failure
My life betrayed by my own fearful words
His dream continues.
Is He even human anymore?
He who comes and goes and refuses to be the same.
I'm going fishing.
The net hangs empty in the water
Will He steal this one thing I can do?
At least the rock of the boat is familiar.
I'm going fishing.
Unless You appear to me again
Unless You speak so that dream and reality are redefined in this new world.
Until then, dearest of friends,
My hands wait for the nets to pull taunt.
Why do my eyes still stray to the shore?
Is He even human anymore?
He who comes and goes and refuses to be the same.
I'm going fishing.
The net hangs empty in the water
Will He steal this one thing I can do?
At least the rock of the boat is familiar.
I'm going fishing.
Unless You appear to me again
Unless You speak so that dream and reality are redefined in this new world.
Until then, dearest of friends,
My hands wait for the nets to pull taunt.
Why do my eyes still stray to the shore?
Friday, September 11, 2009
A new job!
A couple weeks ago, I visited the World Mission Prayer League with one of my missionary friends who was doing a presentation about Japan. I unknowingly sat down with the director of the organization at dinner time and ended up getting to tell him about Japan and my experiences and what I was up to at the moment (hoping to get back to Japan and looking for some temporary work in the meantime). I was assuming temporary work would be through a temp agency or something like a college summer job...I planned to apply to Starbucks or another coffee shop.
Because of this conversation at WMPL, however, I found myself busing across the Cities last week to meet Bud for the first time. Bud is a retired OB/GYN doctor who has gone on a number of short term medical missions. He was one of the founding members of Lutheran Health Care: Bangladesh (LHC:B). The number of acronyms in my life has gone up significantly since meeting him. ;-)
Right now Bud is trying to get the story of LHC:B on paper, and I've been hired in a temporary position to help him do that. I cannot help grinning when I think about what an awesome job God found for me. Basically, I need to run a digital recorder and coax a story out of Bud. The story is hidden underneath a lot of details and business strategies, but there are moments when I see the real story...the story of God and the people He loves...in the middle of all that. I just need to uncover it and draw it out with good questions.
Because of this conversation at WMPL, however, I found myself busing across the Cities last week to meet Bud for the first time. Bud is a retired OB/GYN doctor who has gone on a number of short term medical missions. He was one of the founding members of Lutheran Health Care: Bangladesh (LHC:B). The number of acronyms in my life has gone up significantly since meeting him. ;-)
Right now Bud is trying to get the story of LHC:B on paper, and I've been hired in a temporary position to help him do that. I cannot help grinning when I think about what an awesome job God found for me. Basically, I need to run a digital recorder and coax a story out of Bud. The story is hidden underneath a lot of details and business strategies, but there are moments when I see the real story...the story of God and the people He loves...in the middle of all that. I just need to uncover it and draw it out with good questions.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Entertaining Short People
Some missionaries that I worked with in Japan live about two doors down from me in the temporary missionary apartments. Jessica (their six year old daughter) has been knocking on my door fairly frequently. I've been trying to find ways to entertain her when I don't have so many kid type things around the house.She came into my apartment today after church and wanted to know what we were going to do. She wanted to play a computer game on my computer, but I really don't want to get into the relationship with kids where they're coming over to play on my computer, and I told her 'no'. And she immediately replied, "Well, what are we going to do? You're bored and don't have anything to do right now, right?" Ah, the honesty of children. It really is time to start working again. I just got settled back in temporary housing again after some visits with friends, a trip to IHOP (prayer, not pancakes), and a good friend's wedding. So, now I have the time to get settled in at least some kind of temporary job as well. I'm really looking forward to that!
Anyway, for now I just wanted to share the...um..."musical genius" with you of my friend Jessica.
She says: Hello, everyone! I have been playing the guitar two songs. Bye!
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
One knows the adjustment phase can't quite have ended yet when...
While figuring out how to navigate the subway system in Chicago, my mind wonders, "Will I be able to recognize the kanji for O'Hare International Airport if that's all that's on the signs?"
*chuckle*
*chuckle*
Monday, July 27, 2009
I want to tell 1000 stories
But I really do try not to do that in blog entries. I've had an exciting past couple weeks!
But today I'm not going to blog about my train ride. I will not tell you my story about accidentally renting a car with a black leather interior, climate control system, two gps systems, and so many buttons I was afraid I would break it.
I won't tell you about Amtrak sticking us on buses from Reno to Sacramento and how annoyed it makes me that people shout at Amtrak employees when the reason for the change is that three people died when they drove through a guard railing into a train.
I will not tell you my train evangelism stories.
I will not tell you about Sachiko, wonderful Japanese hamburger chef wannabe and her notebook of American hamburger sketches. I will most definitely not spend two whole paragraphs raving about how I got to talk to Sachiko in Japanese for five hours on the train.
I won't tell you about meeting with good old friends, about picking 15 some pounds of cherries, braving territory where a homicidal turkey was out on a revenge mission to get my friend, cooking Indian food with freshly butchered lamb, picking 10 pounds of raspberries, hiking to one of the most beautiful views I've ever seen, sitting quietly watching the sunset with a good friend who will soon enter a convent, renting a kayak, or eating tapas.
I won't tell you what it felt like to show up at my new apartment with next to no sleep after the train ride only to find no landlord and no key into the building. (It worked out)
I won't tell you about seeing Liz again, and I won't go off for twenty pages on just how much better short distance relationships are to long distance ones.
I won't talk about Woodland Hills church (at least today), and getting to meet Greg Boyd, and the 100,000 reflections on megachurches that I gathered from one church service.
But I do have one story that I really want to tell today. And now that I've told you all the things I'm not going to tell you, I'm ready to write that blog. ;-)
But today I'm not going to blog about my train ride. I will not tell you my story about accidentally renting a car with a black leather interior, climate control system, two gps systems, and so many buttons I was afraid I would break it.
I won't tell you about Amtrak sticking us on buses from Reno to Sacramento and how annoyed it makes me that people shout at Amtrak employees when the reason for the change is that three people died when they drove through a guard railing into a train.I will not tell you my train evangelism stories.
I will not tell you about Sachiko, wonderful Japanese hamburger chef wannabe and her notebook of American hamburger sketches. I will most definitely not spend two whole paragraphs raving about how I got to talk to Sachiko in Japanese for five hours on the train.
I won't tell you about meeting with good old friends, about picking 15 some pounds of cherries, braving territory where a homicidal turkey was out on a revenge mission to get my friend, cooking Indian food with freshly butchered lamb, picking 10 pounds of raspberries, hiking to one of the most beautiful views I've ever seen, sitting quietly watching the sunset with a good friend who will soon enter a convent, renting a kayak, or eating tapas.
I won't tell you what it felt like to show up at my new apartment with next to no sleep after the train ride only to find no landlord and no key into the building. (It worked out)I won't tell you about seeing Liz again, and I won't go off for twenty pages on just how much better short distance relationships are to long distance ones.
I won't talk about Woodland Hills church (at least today), and getting to meet Greg Boyd, and the 100,000 reflections on megachurches that I gathered from one church service.
But I do have one story that I really want to tell today. And now that I've told you all the things I'm not going to tell you, I'm ready to write that blog. ;-)
A Happy Surprise
I was walking from the missionary apartments to Roseville yesterday to buy a bus pass. It's about an hour walk, and about halfway through, I stumble on a church with a sign that says: "Christian Alliance Church. Worship in English and Japanese, 9:30". I was shocked and thrilled to see it so close to my new home. I'd planned on trying to find a Japanese church to attend every once in awhile, but never expected one to just show up on my doorstep.
The view upon walking in the next morning was definitely not what I expected, though. The crowd was distinctly 98% Caucasian with gray hair. I couldn't see a single Japanese person. I introduced myself to one of the greeters and was immediately introduced to another elderly lady who had been a missionary in Indonesia. Normally that would have been fun, but my brain is just racing on the topic, "Where are the Japanese people?" I went in and sat down, skimming the bulletin. The topic for this Sunday was something along the lines of "Countering Attacks on Biblical Interpretation!!!" With a small sigh, I kept reading. And saw at the bottom, "All English worship: 9:30. Japanese worship: 9:30".
I slid across the pew to the nearest person, who led me out of the large sanctuary and pointed down a hallway to a small room. Warm familiarity. In this room there were only 20 chairs, and three Japanese women with hymn books, practicing singing a hymn because it would be sung for the first time that day. As worship started we were joined by two bi-cultural families with and a couple more individuals. We sang, and then they closed the shades and played a video of a Japanese church for the sermon.
The subject of the Japanese side of things was Jesus the Great High Priest who understands our weaknesses. I spent most of the 45 minute sermon not quite understanding the Japanese and wondering what part of my heart wants to subject itself to this. My love for the Japanese people has never been a rational thing.
I spent last evening talking to a girl at Woodland Hills who is involved in ministry in the Philips neighborhood--one of the poorest in Minneapolis, and the place I did an internship another lifetime ago before Japan. People connected to her church that she knows do undercover mission work in the middle east. They've started riots and risked their lives. "Is there persecution in Japan?" she wants to know. I don't know how to answer. I tell her it's very physically safe, and then try to explain what it's like with rather awkward words. I leave feeling somehow inferior. And my mind strayed back to this as I was sitting through the sermon.
I don't like formal situations. I'm not a fan of politeness for politeness sake (though occasionally I am a hypocrite about not being a fan of that one). I like to be able to believe what people tell me and not have to intuit very deeply to figure out where they're actually at. Some of the Japanese people who look the most open to God on the surface are no where near actually open to him...which I suppose is true many places, but sometimes I get tired of that. People tell me I am a patient person, but in Japan I feel impatient all the time. I find the stereotypical church services there to be somewhat dry...and the church service this morning was similar except for the songs at the beginning.
My favorite cultures can be found in Africa...India...South America...places where people are community oriented and emotionally free. Places where need is a part of life and so the people are somehow more real.
I dream of a ministry that is exciting. I would be afraid sometimes, but part of me longs for a situation where I would need to be undercover. Or in danger. Or struggling just to get food because Jesus had called me out with the poorest of the poor. All of this is much to the dismay of my mother. But no...with all that longing, somehow the greatest longing of all is still this safe, nice, wealthy, educated, polite, slow and yet steadily moving, mission field of Japan.
I conclude that I have no way to explain myself about Japan.
Chatting with people after the church service, members discover that I graduated from St. Olaf. They excitedly motion to the two young women sitting apart from us and say that they attend St. Olaf. I'm stunned...I'm in Minnesota, but not a Lutheran Church. And St. Olaf is hardly something I expect to bond with people over. One of them has lived in the States since she was an infant, and she laughs at me that I can't help but speak "English Teacher English" to her just because she's Japanese. I'll have to work on that one.
A woman asks me if I am interested in connecting with Japanese exchange students while I'm here and gets my email address.
I notice that this is the first church service I've attended where people actually seem to stick around afterward to talk. Just like in Japan, a small box of senbei is passed around, and they insist on giving me the leftovers.
I leave the church with a smile I can't suppress and a skip in my step. I may never understand why, but I love these people. I suspect God could be found the culprit. ;-)
The view upon walking in the next morning was definitely not what I expected, though. The crowd was distinctly 98% Caucasian with gray hair. I couldn't see a single Japanese person. I introduced myself to one of the greeters and was immediately introduced to another elderly lady who had been a missionary in Indonesia. Normally that would have been fun, but my brain is just racing on the topic, "Where are the Japanese people?" I went in and sat down, skimming the bulletin. The topic for this Sunday was something along the lines of "Countering Attacks on Biblical Interpretation!!!" With a small sigh, I kept reading. And saw at the bottom, "All English worship: 9:30. Japanese worship: 9:30".
I slid across the pew to the nearest person, who led me out of the large sanctuary and pointed down a hallway to a small room. Warm familiarity. In this room there were only 20 chairs, and three Japanese women with hymn books, practicing singing a hymn because it would be sung for the first time that day. As worship started we were joined by two bi-cultural families with and a couple more individuals. We sang, and then they closed the shades and played a video of a Japanese church for the sermon.
The subject of the Japanese side of things was Jesus the Great High Priest who understands our weaknesses. I spent most of the 45 minute sermon not quite understanding the Japanese and wondering what part of my heart wants to subject itself to this. My love for the Japanese people has never been a rational thing.
I spent last evening talking to a girl at Woodland Hills who is involved in ministry in the Philips neighborhood--one of the poorest in Minneapolis, and the place I did an internship another lifetime ago before Japan. People connected to her church that she knows do undercover mission work in the middle east. They've started riots and risked their lives. "Is there persecution in Japan?" she wants to know. I don't know how to answer. I tell her it's very physically safe, and then try to explain what it's like with rather awkward words. I leave feeling somehow inferior. And my mind strayed back to this as I was sitting through the sermon.
I don't like formal situations. I'm not a fan of politeness for politeness sake (though occasionally I am a hypocrite about not being a fan of that one). I like to be able to believe what people tell me and not have to intuit very deeply to figure out where they're actually at. Some of the Japanese people who look the most open to God on the surface are no where near actually open to him...which I suppose is true many places, but sometimes I get tired of that. People tell me I am a patient person, but in Japan I feel impatient all the time. I find the stereotypical church services there to be somewhat dry...and the church service this morning was similar except for the songs at the beginning.
My favorite cultures can be found in Africa...India...South America...places where people are community oriented and emotionally free. Places where need is a part of life and so the people are somehow more real.
I dream of a ministry that is exciting. I would be afraid sometimes, but part of me longs for a situation where I would need to be undercover. Or in danger. Or struggling just to get food because Jesus had called me out with the poorest of the poor. All of this is much to the dismay of my mother. But no...with all that longing, somehow the greatest longing of all is still this safe, nice, wealthy, educated, polite, slow and yet steadily moving, mission field of Japan.
I conclude that I have no way to explain myself about Japan.
Chatting with people after the church service, members discover that I graduated from St. Olaf. They excitedly motion to the two young women sitting apart from us and say that they attend St. Olaf. I'm stunned...I'm in Minnesota, but not a Lutheran Church. And St. Olaf is hardly something I expect to bond with people over. One of them has lived in the States since she was an infant, and she laughs at me that I can't help but speak "English Teacher English" to her just because she's Japanese. I'll have to work on that one.
A woman asks me if I am interested in connecting with Japanese exchange students while I'm here and gets my email address.
I notice that this is the first church service I've attended where people actually seem to stick around afterward to talk. Just like in Japan, a small box of senbei is passed around, and they insist on giving me the leftovers.
I leave the church with a smile I can't suppress and a skip in my step. I may never understand why, but I love these people. I suspect God could be found the culprit. ;-)
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Father's Day Indian Feast
I got a book for my birthday called "Classic Indian Cooking". It was recommended by my cousin--at least, I hope it was. She couldn't remember the title, but this book seemed to fit her description. I'm excited about it...I've dabbled a little in making curry with recipes from allrecipes.com, but wanted to learn how to do it really well.
<--Step One: Mixing spices, roasting them in the oven, and grinding them to make the spice mix garam masala. This is a close-up of the spices before roasting.
The day before, my dad and I boiled milk to make homemade Indian cheese (paneer). -->
It was fascinating. You boil the milk and then dump in some lemon juice and the curds form almost immediately. You rinse all the lemon out of the cheese curds, squeeze them in cheese cloth, hang them to dry for a couple hours, squish them under a pot of water for a couple more hours, and then cut them into chunks, as in the picture.
This was the main curry I made
<--(matar paneer) and Becc graciously joined me when things got tricky. It's a tomato based sauce with cheese and peas...and lots of spices, of course!
My dad is an amazing cook. I keep telling him that his next job should be owning his own restaurant...I can imagine him having a blast talking to all kinds of neighborhood people and unveiling his new masterpieces every day. He's the kind of guy who will make an eight course Indian meal--never having made any of the eight courses before--and invites 24 people to our house to eat it. He started cooking Indian at my urging sometime around when I graduated from college. I think he's come to really love it too. He keeps telling me he doesn't want to be this crazy everyday, though...I guess he likes being a pastor. ;-)
<--Step One: Mixing spices, roasting them in the oven, and grinding them to make the spice mix garam masala. This is a close-up of the spices before roasting.Since I got the cookbook, my dad and I have been planning to cook together. The project would take two days...we planned to go all out...making as many ingredients from scratch as possible. And, it turned out that the two of us (with help from Becc and Mom as they were willing and needed) cooked all through Father's Day...we started around 2:30 and got dinner on the table by 8:30. (much earlier than our mid-cooking estimates of 11pm ;-)
The day before, my dad and I boiled milk to make homemade Indian cheese (paneer). -->It was fascinating. You boil the milk and then dump in some lemon juice and the curds form almost immediately. You rinse all the lemon out of the cheese curds, squeeze them in cheese cloth, hang them to dry for a couple hours, squish them under a pot of water for a couple more hours, and then cut them into chunks, as in the picture.
This was the main curry I made<--(matar paneer) and Becc graciously joined me when things got tricky. It's a tomato based sauce with cheese and peas...and lots of spices, of course!
In the end, we realized we wanted lassis! -->
(sweet yogurt drinks) My sister is the queen of smoothies, and quickly took over the project. Even though we had no mango,
these were maybe the best lassis I've ever had.
(sweet yogurt drinks) My sister is the queen of smoothies, and quickly took over the project. Even though we had no mango,
these were maybe the best lassis I've ever had.
My dad is an amazing cook. I keep telling him that his next job should be owning his own restaurant...I can imagine him having a blast talking to all kinds of neighborhood people and unveiling his new masterpieces every day. He's the kind of guy who will make an eight course Indian meal--never having made any of the eight courses before--and invites 24 people to our house to eat it. He started cooking Indian at my urging sometime around when I graduated from college. I think he's come to really love it too. He keeps telling me he doesn't want to be this crazy everyday, though...I guess he likes being a pastor. ;-)
These are my dad's four dishes he made. (over achiever!!!) He made a dal (lentil dish), an egg curry, a rice pilaf, and plain basmati rice. Oh...and also chai for after dinner. Yum!
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Once, in Tokyo, I sat in a Denny's with my stateside program director and my Japanese program director. They asked me, among other things, about the inter-denominational work I was doing. This led to a discussion about the difference between a "theology of the cross" and a "theology of glory". I found myself arguing that the theologies were two sides of the same coin...one a mark of our complete dependence on God and the other the glory of God that flows through us as a result of the cross and the giving of the Holy Spirit. My Japanese program director exclaimed, "That's very Lutheran!"
Sometime around then, I was worshiping in "the church next door to my church." An Assemblies of God church called GAP (Gospel Assembly of Praise). There is a time for sharing and prayer requests, and one girl told us a fairly heavy burden. The pastor invited her up, and invited all of us to pray for her. We got up and gathered around her...it was one of those times when I felt a particularly strong need to pray, and so I didn't even think...I leaped up and laid hands on her along with some others. It wasn't until we were done praying that I realized that the people who had laid hands on her and who had prayed aloud were: the pastor, two girls from the worship team, another girl strongly involved in church leadership, and me. Thankfully, it seemed that was fine. One of those church leaders said to me afterward, "You fit in really well here."
I've tried to describe my need for both churches to various people. In one discussion it came down to: I worship with my mind with the Lutherans, and I worship with my heart at GAP. To another person I confessed: I feel a lack of freedom in the Lutheran church when I'm happy, and I feel a lack of freedom in the Assemblies church when I'm sad. Lutherans look at you with funny eyebrows if you throw your hands up in the air or suggest that dancing is one of the best ways to worship. Pentecostals look at you with a "deer in the headlights" expression if you tell them that you're very frustrated with something you're doing for God...God is going to come through, after all, isn't he? (these are all stereotypes, of course...and I'll be the first to let you know that there are people throughout both churches that shatter the stereotypes)
My hometown has 27 churches for 7000 people. Compare this with Tokyo which has a little more than half a church per 7000 people. But even with all those options, I haven't found a church where I can get that "GAP" style worship and still attend my home Lutheran congregation in the same week. Starving for "hands in the air", "spirit-led" worship, I finally gave in and attended a local foursquare church yesterday morning as a break from my regular home church.
The worship was what I was longing for, and it filled me somewhere very deep. I had to be very amused as well, because the pastor got up for his message and started talking about change and transition. His whole sermon centered around the idea of God forcing us into times of change we wouldn't have chosen for ourselves with the purpose of giving us a broader picture of who He is. A few things he said really struck me. One was that, in times of change, in his experience, God won't give enough answers to satisfy our attempts to cling to a feeling of security. God wants us to trust Him, not to feel like everything is secure and worked through. He also said that, in any time of change, we would have a choice. And the choice is this: 1) grumble or 2) allow the life of Jesus to flow through you in the midst of the uncertainty or pain.
I like being told I have a choice. I feel like God has been dead silent about whatever my future holds...even as some choices have had to be made and discussions and searching begin...I sometimes feel like all my future thoughts are conducted with God just silently watching, an unreadable expression on His face. That kind of eerie silence that eventually drives me back to him with some kind of exasperation...saying something like, "What?! Be happy for me! Be mad at me! Be sad about what I'm doing! Be...anything other than silent!"
And, truthfully, he hasn't been silent. If I could summarize my interactions with God over the past few weeks into a short conversation, it might go like this:
Pamela: God, where am I going? Am I messing up? Am I overstepping in any way? Am I hoping for something I shouldn't be hoping in?
God: Put me first. I'm the only one you can trust.
Pamela: Right. Got that. Now...since I'm trying to put you first, how about letting me know if these future talks are getting in the way of anything you're planning for me?
God: Have you noticed the special place you're in right now? You really don't want to miss it.
Pamela: I don't think we're talking about the same thing here...
God: You're right. I'm talking about where you are. I'm setting life and death before you in your present circumstances...choose life!
Choices...to grumble, or to be life-giving? There's something about being told: "you're choosing between grumbling and allowing Jesus to work through you" that fills me with determination. I want so badly to learn how to serve him and be faithful to him in this day to day stuff...in the indefinite with no goals, agendas, or plans.
Sometime around then, I was worshiping in "the church next door to my church." An Assemblies of God church called GAP (Gospel Assembly of Praise). There is a time for sharing and prayer requests, and one girl told us a fairly heavy burden. The pastor invited her up, and invited all of us to pray for her. We got up and gathered around her...it was one of those times when I felt a particularly strong need to pray, and so I didn't even think...I leaped up and laid hands on her along with some others. It wasn't until we were done praying that I realized that the people who had laid hands on her and who had prayed aloud were: the pastor, two girls from the worship team, another girl strongly involved in church leadership, and me. Thankfully, it seemed that was fine. One of those church leaders said to me afterward, "You fit in really well here."
I've tried to describe my need for both churches to various people. In one discussion it came down to: I worship with my mind with the Lutherans, and I worship with my heart at GAP. To another person I confessed: I feel a lack of freedom in the Lutheran church when I'm happy, and I feel a lack of freedom in the Assemblies church when I'm sad. Lutherans look at you with funny eyebrows if you throw your hands up in the air or suggest that dancing is one of the best ways to worship. Pentecostals look at you with a "deer in the headlights" expression if you tell them that you're very frustrated with something you're doing for God...God is going to come through, after all, isn't he? (these are all stereotypes, of course...and I'll be the first to let you know that there are people throughout both churches that shatter the stereotypes)
My hometown has 27 churches for 7000 people. Compare this with Tokyo which has a little more than half a church per 7000 people. But even with all those options, I haven't found a church where I can get that "GAP" style worship and still attend my home Lutheran congregation in the same week. Starving for "hands in the air", "spirit-led" worship, I finally gave in and attended a local foursquare church yesterday morning as a break from my regular home church.
The worship was what I was longing for, and it filled me somewhere very deep. I had to be very amused as well, because the pastor got up for his message and started talking about change and transition. His whole sermon centered around the idea of God forcing us into times of change we wouldn't have chosen for ourselves with the purpose of giving us a broader picture of who He is. A few things he said really struck me. One was that, in times of change, in his experience, God won't give enough answers to satisfy our attempts to cling to a feeling of security. God wants us to trust Him, not to feel like everything is secure and worked through. He also said that, in any time of change, we would have a choice. And the choice is this: 1) grumble or 2) allow the life of Jesus to flow through you in the midst of the uncertainty or pain.
I like being told I have a choice. I feel like God has been dead silent about whatever my future holds...even as some choices have had to be made and discussions and searching begin...I sometimes feel like all my future thoughts are conducted with God just silently watching, an unreadable expression on His face. That kind of eerie silence that eventually drives me back to him with some kind of exasperation...saying something like, "What?! Be happy for me! Be mad at me! Be sad about what I'm doing! Be...anything other than silent!"
And, truthfully, he hasn't been silent. If I could summarize my interactions with God over the past few weeks into a short conversation, it might go like this:
Pamela: God, where am I going? Am I messing up? Am I overstepping in any way? Am I hoping for something I shouldn't be hoping in?
God: Put me first. I'm the only one you can trust.
Pamela: Right. Got that. Now...since I'm trying to put you first, how about letting me know if these future talks are getting in the way of anything you're planning for me?
God: Have you noticed the special place you're in right now? You really don't want to miss it.
Pamela: I don't think we're talking about the same thing here...
God: You're right. I'm talking about where you are. I'm setting life and death before you in your present circumstances...choose life!
Choices...to grumble, or to be life-giving? There's something about being told: "you're choosing between grumbling and allowing Jesus to work through you" that fills me with determination. I want so badly to learn how to serve him and be faithful to him in this day to day stuff...in the indefinite with no goals, agendas, or plans.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
June 19th, 2009
I would like to ask you a favor. Would you please get on your knees, right now while you're reading this and not some later undefined time, and spend at least 5-10 minutes praying for Japan? Please. I think the timing is crucial.
Please cry out for God to be glorified, for his purposes to be accomplished, for the devil's plots to be disarmed, for God to anoint those speaking and that his words would be heard, for the kind of sweep through of the Holy Spirit that brings clarity of sin and therefore true repentance and transformation, and also ask the Holy Spirit to pray through you as he promises when you don't know how to pray.
Thank you, friend.
Please cry out for God to be glorified, for his purposes to be accomplished, for the devil's plots to be disarmed, for God to anoint those speaking and that his words would be heard, for the kind of sweep through of the Holy Spirit that brings clarity of sin and therefore true repentance and transformation, and also ask the Holy Spirit to pray through you as he promises when you don't know how to pray.
Thank you, friend.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
I got to take a Japanese class!!!
So, in the past few weeks I went from thinking I might be going to Hong Kong...and then I figured out I probably wasn't going to Hong Kong...and then I went on vacation, had a wonderful time with my friend Haidee, got to go visit my uncle with Leukemia in the hospital and be encouraged by his heart and spirit in the middle of something that's got to be kind of scary, and spent several days with my mom and sister at my 92-year-old grandpa's house. On Sunday I take off again with the family for Utah and Colorado to see national parks and my dad's family. There is my 2 second update.
The night I got home from all my travelling, I had a conversation with a friend that kicked me into high action mode again. Not to say that running around the nation visiting people isn't high action...but that kind of action gear that I kick into when I have a vision.
And so...the next day, I found myself hardcore spending time with God...as well as making myself a budget, planning my next move, and searching for an online Japanese class.
Tonight I tried my first online Japanese class for the trial price of $3 for 50 minutes. I tried the Beginner 2 level, which still uses a textbook and should be about JLPT 3kyu level. The class was super structured and quite easy...a very safe place to pull out Japanese that's gotten a little rusty. And at the end the teacher recommended I try the next level up. But despite not learning too much that was new...I found myself glowing from head to foot once the class was over. The teacher is a Japanese person living in Japan. I'm excited to try the intermediate class next time and see if I get to talk freely more...even though I know I could use the structure of learning the grammar at the Beginner 2 level. But really, I can study grammar on my own. It was just so wonderful to speak Japanese!
Today I also made the semi-decision that when I move to the Twin Cities I'm going to move by train. The train system in America is ridiculously lacking...and I want to do whatever possible to support it. So, the plan I am super excited about is to buy a 15 day rail pass and travel to the Twin Cities in the following way: Denver-->Sacramento-->Portland-->Seattle-->Glacier National Park-->Minneapolis. This is less than half the cost of renting a car, will allow me to see my Northwest friends, get the nice long processing time I have been longing for, get some possible quality time with beautiful scenary in Montana...I've never been to Glacier before...I can bring slightly more luggage than on an airplane...and I get to support the American train system all at the same time.
Anyway...it's been so good to be able to spend the past two days more or less withdrawn and with God. I can never sing enough praises for the way a day with God changes absolutely everything. Like the entire world goes from being this threatening thing that's trying to beat me up to a place that seems to just radiate with possibilities and His presence. The problems don't necessarily go away, but it's like they change from giants into mice. And then I can laugh at them. ^_~
This entry feels splattered all over the place, but that's kind of what my brain has been doing the past few days anyway.
The night I got home from all my travelling, I had a conversation with a friend that kicked me into high action mode again. Not to say that running around the nation visiting people isn't high action...but that kind of action gear that I kick into when I have a vision.
And so...the next day, I found myself hardcore spending time with God...as well as making myself a budget, planning my next move, and searching for an online Japanese class.
Tonight I tried my first online Japanese class for the trial price of $3 for 50 minutes. I tried the Beginner 2 level, which still uses a textbook and should be about JLPT 3kyu level. The class was super structured and quite easy...a very safe place to pull out Japanese that's gotten a little rusty. And at the end the teacher recommended I try the next level up. But despite not learning too much that was new...I found myself glowing from head to foot once the class was over. The teacher is a Japanese person living in Japan. I'm excited to try the intermediate class next time and see if I get to talk freely more...even though I know I could use the structure of learning the grammar at the Beginner 2 level. But really, I can study grammar on my own. It was just so wonderful to speak Japanese!
Today I also made the semi-decision that when I move to the Twin Cities I'm going to move by train. The train system in America is ridiculously lacking...and I want to do whatever possible to support it. So, the plan I am super excited about is to buy a 15 day rail pass and travel to the Twin Cities in the following way: Denver-->Sacramento-->Portland-->Seattle-->Glacier National Park-->Minneapolis. This is less than half the cost of renting a car, will allow me to see my Northwest friends, get the nice long processing time I have been longing for, get some possible quality time with beautiful scenary in Montana...I've never been to Glacier before...I can bring slightly more luggage than on an airplane...and I get to support the American train system all at the same time.
Anyway...it's been so good to be able to spend the past two days more or less withdrawn and with God. I can never sing enough praises for the way a day with God changes absolutely everything. Like the entire world goes from being this threatening thing that's trying to beat me up to a place that seems to just radiate with possibilities and His presence. The problems don't necessarily go away, but it's like they change from giants into mice. And then I can laugh at them. ^_~
This entry feels splattered all over the place, but that's kind of what my brain has been doing the past few days anyway.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
I like building things
We have a bird feeder in our backyard that has been around about as long as I have. So it got to where it looked like this...
You can't tell in the picture, but it got to where it's held together with string and all that.
For mother's day, my dad had the idea that we could take it to a church member's workshop and fix it up. I've been to this workshop two times before. The first was in sixth grade when I was building a huge rat maze for the science fair. The second was for high school youth group when Doug (the church member) helped us design and construct little alters to keep at home. Even though my ideas always end up more elaborate than what I can actually build, each time has been memorable to me.
This time made me think about the spiritual gift of craftsmanship...how many spiritual gifts discussions include it and how I've seen so little of it in action. Doug's workshop is a collection of a bazillion little odds and ends...random nuts and bolts, hinges, rare African woods...anything you could need to build anything. And there's something different about the entire place...not that I've been in too many workshops, but this one is a real spiritual place.
Even though we were repairing a bird feeder for my mom, Doug had set up a project for me to make a new bird feeder too. It's made out of the plastic container some Venetian blinds were in, four chopsticks, a Wyoming license plate and a few more wood parts. It was super easy to put together...just drilling holes, using a nail gun, a sander. But it reminded me of the little bedside table I made in Tokyo...that was just a board that I painted, but putting a coat of red on that board would light up my whole day.
(I was fascinated also when I brought my guitar into the Christian music store to get repaired. The man working on it was blind. He proclaimed, "Let me see your guitar!" and then laughed and said, "Well, that's an oxymoron for a blind guy." I liked him immediately. I watched him tinker around with it...he fixed the peg and by touch could tell that the neck wasn't quite in alignment, and with a couple screws he made my guitar play better than it ever has. And I found myself wondering how many years it would take me to learn how to make something like a guitar from scratch. Haha. Yep...I'm still on vacation with no vision.)
But anyway...back to Doug's workshop...we fixed up my family's bird feeder. In the end, we left almost all the outer parts, but we took the whole thing apart and strengthened it. It was straighter and everything. When we were done, Doug asked if anyone had a blessing for it. I was thinking...yeah...it's a bird feeder. I'll do blessings for a lot of things...but not bird feeders.
But he got out a candle and set it in front of the bird feeder. We were silent for a few moments. Doug and my dad prayed. And Doug started talking about how this bird feeder reminded him of our church. They're in the middle of doing Natural Church Development, and they were told their weakest aspect was passionate spirituality. So, right now, they're looking at how to grow in that.
As he talked about how we had revamped the whole bird feeder but we had kept the old, beautiful parts, and how that was like our church right now, I felt as though the Holy Spirit had just dropped down on us. It wasn't his words, so to speak...just one of those times that feels very sacred. I was holding back tears at the beauty of the whole experience as we said goodbye to Doug.
It's so funny how God keeps answering the heart cry of, "Where can I go and be with God?". The places haven't been anywhere I would think to look for him...I usually look for churches, not workshops or international student houses. It's also notable that none of these places are places I can return to...they're "rest stops" on the way to somewhere else...somewhere to get a drink of water before the journey continues. And I am incredibly thankful for the gift.
You can't tell in the picture, but it got to where it's held together with string and all that.
For mother's day, my dad had the idea that we could take it to a church member's workshop and fix it up. I've been to this workshop two times before. The first was in sixth grade when I was building a huge rat maze for the science fair. The second was for high school youth group when Doug (the church member) helped us design and construct little alters to keep at home. Even though my ideas always end up more elaborate than what I can actually build, each time has been memorable to me.
This time made me think about the spiritual gift of craftsmanship...how many spiritual gifts discussions include it and how I've seen so little of it in action. Doug's workshop is a collection of a bazillion little odds and ends...random nuts and bolts, hinges, rare African woods...anything you could need to build anything. And there's something different about the entire place...not that I've been in too many workshops, but this one is a real spiritual place.
Even though we were repairing a bird feeder for my mom, Doug had set up a project for me to make a new bird feeder too. It's made out of the plastic container some Venetian blinds were in, four chopsticks, a Wyoming license plate and a few more wood parts. It was super easy to put together...just drilling holes, using a nail gun, a sander. But it reminded me of the little bedside table I made in Tokyo...that was just a board that I painted, but putting a coat of red on that board would light up my whole day.
(I was fascinated also when I brought my guitar into the Christian music store to get repaired. The man working on it was blind. He proclaimed, "Let me see your guitar!" and then laughed and said, "Well, that's an oxymoron for a blind guy." I liked him immediately. I watched him tinker around with it...he fixed the peg and by touch could tell that the neck wasn't quite in alignment, and with a couple screws he made my guitar play better than it ever has. And I found myself wondering how many years it would take me to learn how to make something like a guitar from scratch. Haha. Yep...I'm still on vacation with no vision.)
But anyway...back to Doug's workshop...we fixed up my family's bird feeder. In the end, we left almost all the outer parts, but we took the whole thing apart and strengthened it. It was straighter and everything. When we were done, Doug asked if anyone had a blessing for it. I was thinking...yeah...it's a bird feeder. I'll do blessings for a lot of things...but not bird feeders.
But he got out a candle and set it in front of the bird feeder. We were silent for a few moments. Doug and my dad prayed. And Doug started talking about how this bird feeder reminded him of our church. They're in the middle of doing Natural Church Development, and they were told their weakest aspect was passionate spirituality. So, right now, they're looking at how to grow in that.
As he talked about how we had revamped the whole bird feeder but we had kept the old, beautiful parts, and how that was like our church right now, I felt as though the Holy Spirit had just dropped down on us. It wasn't his words, so to speak...just one of those times that feels very sacred. I was holding back tears at the beauty of the whole experience as we said goodbye to Doug.
It's so funny how God keeps answering the heart cry of, "Where can I go and be with God?". The places haven't been anywhere I would think to look for him...I usually look for churches, not workshops or international student houses. It's also notable that none of these places are places I can return to...they're "rest stops" on the way to somewhere else...somewhere to get a drink of water before the journey continues. And I am incredibly thankful for the gift.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Cause for Celebration
My guitar made it home!!!
I was started to get really worried, because the post office in Japan said 2 weeks, and it's been something like a month. Apparently they did not take rural Wyoming into consideration. So, my mom came into the house today with our backed up mail from while we were gone last week, and my guitar was with it!
Unfortunately, one of the pegs broke in transport, so my d-string is unalterably something like ten octaves lower than the other strings and horribly out of tune. But I don't think replacing the peg should be such a big deal.
I am especially celebrating the return of my guitar case along with my guitar. Since my friends all got together to give it to me, it actually has more sentimental value to me than the guitar itself. (Shh...don't tell my guitar!) ;-)
In case any of you were very concerned about Ebony, I also was able to rescue him yesterday morning. He was very excited to make it out of that teeny cage and nearly took my arm off when I walked him to the car. So, I headed for the hills with him and we went out to run and play in Red Canyon. That dog remains a stubborn rebel, though. He found a deer carcass and ran off with a five inch long bone from the leg. I'm chasing after him, trying to woo the bone out of his mouth with treats, but apparently the bone looked nicer to him than treats and obeying me. I finally sat down about twenty feet away from him. I ate my sandwich. He ate an entire deer leg bone. And once he had (I kid you not) swallowed the whole thing, he was willing to trot alongside me again. Sigh...you try to make a dog happy...
I think he was still cranky from being in jail. He was so exhausted he slept the entire rest of the day. ;-)
I was started to get really worried, because the post office in Japan said 2 weeks, and it's been something like a month. Apparently they did not take rural Wyoming into consideration. So, my mom came into the house today with our backed up mail from while we were gone last week, and my guitar was with it!
Unfortunately, one of the pegs broke in transport, so my d-string is unalterably something like ten octaves lower than the other strings and horribly out of tune. But I don't think replacing the peg should be such a big deal.
I am especially celebrating the return of my guitar case along with my guitar. Since my friends all got together to give it to me, it actually has more sentimental value to me than the guitar itself. (Shh...don't tell my guitar!) ;-)
In case any of you were very concerned about Ebony, I also was able to rescue him yesterday morning. He was very excited to make it out of that teeny cage and nearly took my arm off when I walked him to the car. So, I headed for the hills with him and we went out to run and play in Red Canyon. That dog remains a stubborn rebel, though. He found a deer carcass and ran off with a five inch long bone from the leg. I'm chasing after him, trying to woo the bone out of his mouth with treats, but apparently the bone looked nicer to him than treats and obeying me. I finally sat down about twenty feet away from him. I ate my sandwich. He ate an entire deer leg bone. And once he had (I kid you not) swallowed the whole thing, he was willing to trot alongside me again. Sigh...you try to make a dog happy...
I think he was still cranky from being in jail. He was so exhausted he slept the entire rest of the day. ;-)
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Where is home anyway?
I had a whole new blog entry spiraling off the end of the last one, so I'm just going to write two entries back to back.
Some of the most painful words spoken to me since I've been in the States came from a complete stranger, who was very well-meaning. He said brightly and cheerfully, "Welcome home!" Not only was I in the States, but separated from my family and friends, and in midst of a culture shock attack. I couldn't even respond for a moment, but finally put on a nice smile and said, "Thank you."
It's also been surprising to see many Christians calling my hometown "God's country". I've seen or heard this three times now. Once was in a prayer meeting where they made reference to someone "being back in God's country". My heart had been crying out Psalm 42 the whole meeting, "My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Where can I go and meet with God?" Now, I know that when they call Lander "God's country", what they mean is that the mountains are to die for. But it seemed so ironic while I'm longing for the kind of intimacy with God that only comes in a community...welcome to God's country.
I've been thinking a lot about citizenship in the Kingdom of God. The real one, that is. Not something special about Lander, Wyoming. There are a couple of times that I've felt very at home since coming back. It always feels like a safe place has just descended around me in the middle of the storm.
My brother took me into his dorm room for two nights while I was traveling this week. He was generous to me way beyond what was necessary. My favorite was that there was this bathroom that was co-ed at the end of his hallway. The problem was that the door wouldn't lock, and my brother swears that some of the guys will just storm in there without knocking. So, it didn't matter what time of day it was, if I was going to go to the bathroom, Charlie was going to stand guard. We were up watching movies until 3am one night, and I tried to tell him I would be just fine when I headed for the restroom afterwards. But he insisted that the guys might be drunk, and stood guard all the same, putting on this wonderful stern guard face for the occasion.
While I was with my brother, I had the strongest sense of home I have had yet on one particular occasion. Charlie showed a kind of understanding that had to have been Holy Spirit inspired, because even *I* couldn't have told him it was a good idea ahead of time. He took me to the international student house on his college campus to play Settlers of Catan. The house is home to a Christian group as well as many international students. And I found that I really felt at home there, and like I could connect to people again. We stayed for hours...ate cheesy bread, played Settlers, talked about God a bit...I didn't know a soul there besides my brother, and yet I was suddenly safe.
There was a guy there who didn't really like our board game playing too much, I don't think. He kept saying, "A bunch of Christians acting like non-Christians." I didn't know him well enough to know if he was teasing us or serious. But it seemed so funny to me...that one person's "a bunch of Christians acting like non-Christians" seemed like beautiful Christian community to me...where we just sit back and laugh and eat together; and Jesus' name is dropped in casual conversation.
Some of the most painful words spoken to me since I've been in the States came from a complete stranger, who was very well-meaning. He said brightly and cheerfully, "Welcome home!" Not only was I in the States, but separated from my family and friends, and in midst of a culture shock attack. I couldn't even respond for a moment, but finally put on a nice smile and said, "Thank you."
It's also been surprising to see many Christians calling my hometown "God's country". I've seen or heard this three times now. Once was in a prayer meeting where they made reference to someone "being back in God's country". My heart had been crying out Psalm 42 the whole meeting, "My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Where can I go and meet with God?" Now, I know that when they call Lander "God's country", what they mean is that the mountains are to die for. But it seemed so ironic while I'm longing for the kind of intimacy with God that only comes in a community...welcome to God's country.
I've been thinking a lot about citizenship in the Kingdom of God. The real one, that is. Not something special about Lander, Wyoming. There are a couple of times that I've felt very at home since coming back. It always feels like a safe place has just descended around me in the middle of the storm.
My brother took me into his dorm room for two nights while I was traveling this week. He was generous to me way beyond what was necessary. My favorite was that there was this bathroom that was co-ed at the end of his hallway. The problem was that the door wouldn't lock, and my brother swears that some of the guys will just storm in there without knocking. So, it didn't matter what time of day it was, if I was going to go to the bathroom, Charlie was going to stand guard. We were up watching movies until 3am one night, and I tried to tell him I would be just fine when I headed for the restroom afterwards. But he insisted that the guys might be drunk, and stood guard all the same, putting on this wonderful stern guard face for the occasion.
While I was with my brother, I had the strongest sense of home I have had yet on one particular occasion. Charlie showed a kind of understanding that had to have been Holy Spirit inspired, because even *I* couldn't have told him it was a good idea ahead of time. He took me to the international student house on his college campus to play Settlers of Catan. The house is home to a Christian group as well as many international students. And I found that I really felt at home there, and like I could connect to people again. We stayed for hours...ate cheesy bread, played Settlers, talked about God a bit...I didn't know a soul there besides my brother, and yet I was suddenly safe.
There was a guy there who didn't really like our board game playing too much, I don't think. He kept saying, "A bunch of Christians acting like non-Christians." I didn't know him well enough to know if he was teasing us or serious. But it seemed so funny to me...that one person's "a bunch of Christians acting like non-Christians" seemed like beautiful Christian community to me...where we just sit back and laugh and eat together; and Jesus' name is dropped in casual conversation.
Still Homesick
I keep wanting to update my blog...but I can't do it without feeling like I'm whining at the moment. Much of my life right now is spent battling a complete lack of gratefulness for where I am, and writing whiny blog entries certainly doesn't help with that. So, this is an attempt to name the deeper culture shocks for what they are without being whiny. I hope it works. :-)
When you are a stranger in your own country, no one expects you to be a stranger. I find myself going into my "Japanese coping mode" on a regular basic, which is to say...lots and lots of passive listening. If there's something I don't understand, I shove it into a back corner of my brain and listen all the harder to try to figure out what is going on. And there is a surprisingly large number of things going on that I don't understand.
Some of them are similar to being in Japan. For example, I've been present for a number of conversations that go something like this:
Person A: So-and-so did (or didn't) do ______.
Person B: Wow. That's really offensive!
Pamela (thinking): Umm...wow...how could that possibly be offensive? *begins thinking very hard to try to figure it out*
Pamela: *shares about one sentence of personal experience*
Person A: *manages to turn my experience into a theological argument*
Pamela: *gives in and responds to the theological argument, all the while mourning the lack of intimacy with anyone*
In some of them I am obviously the one at fault...
Pamela: America is $^*#@&)*(%@*&$*#@&$@*#&$*)@&#%(&)(%$@(*%&()$
Poor suffering family member of Pamela: ...umm...don't you think that's a little negative, Pamela?
Pamela: (Someone is listening to me!!!) No! It's not negative! Because $^*#&$*&#!@%(*&$)%&@)%&*#@&%@)($@) (huh...that actually does sound kind of negative...)
I'm also finding myself with a high need to save the world at the moment. Pamela without a vision is a sad sight...I am convinced that the reason God usually lets me have a vision is that I would destroy the world with my self-created visions otherwise.
Last night, my vision was not a world-destroying one, though, thankfully. But it was still ridiculous. If I got home from my church visiting between 5 and 6, I was supposed to go rescue my dog Ebony from the dog hotel (here after called "jail"). (My parents and I have been gone this week...me visiting sponsoring churches and my parents catching swine flu...er...going to church convention in El Paso) [No...they haven't caught swine flu. They were just crossing the border, so we've been joking about it.] Anyway. Somehow in my mind I translated 5-6 to 5:30 to 6:30. I hit the outskirts of my hometown right at 6:30, not having stopped to rest or eat for the past three hours. Normally I can't do that in a car, but I was fueled by this crazy vision to break my dog out of jail that night. I raced over to try to find the jail per my parents insane directions, and all the while my mind was shouting, "I'm coming, Ebony!" While a very small voice was saying to me: "There is no way you can make it, Pamela...just drive home."
(I'm laughing at myself telling you this story, by the way. So I hope you're laughing too!)
Needless to say, when I pulled into the jail, the desk was empty and the door locked. I could hear Ebony barking, but there was nothing I could do but slip away again as quietly as possible--not wanting to upset him by letting him know I'd been there.
So...on the non-laughing-at-myself level...I keep trying to figure out how to connect to God without a vision. This is something I've been trying to figure out for *months* now...not just since coming to the States, but pretty much ever since I understood that God was going to ask me to move away from the vision I'd thrown my heart into. It bothers me that I don't know how. I haven't been able to talk to many people about it, because as soon as I do, they criticize me for my inability to do it. And I know it's bad that I can't do it...that's why I try to reach out about it...to get other people's wisdom and try to learn from it.
But I'm fighting against actually learning how to just 'be' with all my heart...it often turns into this crazy quest to figure out what I'm doing next. And in my processing the other day, I realized the one option I wasn't considering was that it wasn't time to figure out what to do next.
As I was driving home in the car, I was thinking all these frustrations up at God, and it was kind of like he said, "What if I just want a vacation with you?" My response to this was pretty much to be horrified.
And I'm reminded of my mom, who just wishes home were a place of comfort for me. My constant need for a vision is actually wounding to the people who are trying to give me a place to rest.
Like Ebony, maybe it's me who's turning the hotel into a prison. Maybe the small cage is meant to protect me from wearing myself out with too much running. Or maybe I'm taking the metaphor too far...it just seemed to fall in place. But I'm so afraid to make the cage my home. What if my world stays this small? What if God asked me to "settle down" in America instead of in a foreign mission field?
When you are a stranger in your own country, no one expects you to be a stranger. I find myself going into my "Japanese coping mode" on a regular basic, which is to say...lots and lots of passive listening. If there's something I don't understand, I shove it into a back corner of my brain and listen all the harder to try to figure out what is going on. And there is a surprisingly large number of things going on that I don't understand.
Some of them are similar to being in Japan. For example, I've been present for a number of conversations that go something like this:
Person A: So-and-so did (or didn't) do ______.
Person B: Wow. That's really offensive!
Pamela (thinking): Umm...wow...how could that possibly be offensive? *begins thinking very hard to try to figure it out*
Pamela: *shares about one sentence of personal experience*
Person A: *manages to turn my experience into a theological argument*
Pamela: *gives in and responds to the theological argument, all the while mourning the lack of intimacy with anyone*
In some of them I am obviously the one at fault...
Pamela: America is $^*#@&)*(%@*&$*#@&$@*#&$*)@&#%(&)(%$@(*%&()$
Poor suffering family member of Pamela: ...umm...don't you think that's a little negative, Pamela?
Pamela: (Someone is listening to me!!!) No! It's not negative! Because $^*#&$*&#!@%(*&$)%&@)%&*#@&%@)($@) (huh...that actually does sound kind of negative...)
I'm also finding myself with a high need to save the world at the moment. Pamela without a vision is a sad sight...I am convinced that the reason God usually lets me have a vision is that I would destroy the world with my self-created visions otherwise.
Last night, my vision was not a world-destroying one, though, thankfully. But it was still ridiculous. If I got home from my church visiting between 5 and 6, I was supposed to go rescue my dog Ebony from the dog hotel (here after called "jail"). (My parents and I have been gone this week...me visiting sponsoring churches and my parents catching swine flu...er...going to church convention in El Paso) [No...they haven't caught swine flu. They were just crossing the border, so we've been joking about it.] Anyway. Somehow in my mind I translated 5-6 to 5:30 to 6:30. I hit the outskirts of my hometown right at 6:30, not having stopped to rest or eat for the past three hours. Normally I can't do that in a car, but I was fueled by this crazy vision to break my dog out of jail that night. I raced over to try to find the jail per my parents insane directions, and all the while my mind was shouting, "I'm coming, Ebony!" While a very small voice was saying to me: "There is no way you can make it, Pamela...just drive home."
(I'm laughing at myself telling you this story, by the way. So I hope you're laughing too!)
Needless to say, when I pulled into the jail, the desk was empty and the door locked. I could hear Ebony barking, but there was nothing I could do but slip away again as quietly as possible--not wanting to upset him by letting him know I'd been there.
So...on the non-laughing-at-myself level...I keep trying to figure out how to connect to God without a vision. This is something I've been trying to figure out for *months* now...not just since coming to the States, but pretty much ever since I understood that God was going to ask me to move away from the vision I'd thrown my heart into. It bothers me that I don't know how. I haven't been able to talk to many people about it, because as soon as I do, they criticize me for my inability to do it. And I know it's bad that I can't do it...that's why I try to reach out about it...to get other people's wisdom and try to learn from it.
But I'm fighting against actually learning how to just 'be' with all my heart...it often turns into this crazy quest to figure out what I'm doing next. And in my processing the other day, I realized the one option I wasn't considering was that it wasn't time to figure out what to do next.
As I was driving home in the car, I was thinking all these frustrations up at God, and it was kind of like he said, "What if I just want a vacation with you?" My response to this was pretty much to be horrified.
And I'm reminded of my mom, who just wishes home were a place of comfort for me. My constant need for a vision is actually wounding to the people who are trying to give me a place to rest.
Like Ebony, maybe it's me who's turning the hotel into a prison. Maybe the small cage is meant to protect me from wearing myself out with too much running. Or maybe I'm taking the metaphor too far...it just seemed to fall in place. But I'm so afraid to make the cage my home. What if my world stays this small? What if God asked me to "settle down" in America instead of in a foreign mission field?
Friday, April 10, 2009
Across the Pacific
Today I am blogging from my old bed in my old basement room. And let me tell you, it is *strange* to be in America after two and a half solid years of not being here. There's this almost mystical familiar air to everything...while at the same time the whole place feels foreign. Getting into the airport in Seattle didn't feel so different from getting into the airport in Kolkata, India for my trip a year and a half ago.
A lot of little shallow things are shocking...
I keep looking at streets and wondering what happened to the houses in between the other houses...and then I remember that houses were always that far apart in the States.
It feels weird to tear toilet paper without the flap over the top of the roll.
Remembering that it's normal not to be able to see anything above the trees.
I also panic when my mom makes right hand turns and there are cars coming at us in the left lane.
I spent a solid 30 seconds searching for the part in the wrapping on a box of chocolates that I could pull open before remembering that it's everything in *Japan* that is easy open, not in America.
I really keep wondering where all the people are.
Leaving Denver International Airport, I wondered where the city was.
When I arrived in Denver, it was 71 degrees. On the road home to Wyoming, it was 31 degrees with blowing snow and ice. The mountains were gorgeous!
Cheese is NOT a priceless commodity and does not need to be rationed.
We have a dishwasher!!!
Beds are *really* soft.
People say, "Hi, how are you?" when you walk into gas stations.
Seattle did not look green from the airport.
My dog is *really* big. But he still remembers me! We're now fighting about who's going to be boss. ;-)
Some things are exactly the same. My church is started a prayer vigil last night that will go until tonight, and after the Maundy Thursday service I stood with a guy who was shaking in his socks about his half hour prayer time. I got to meet the woman at church who is running the prayer vigil and she said how everyone was really freaking out, but she had a guide for them to pray and knew they would realize the half hour slots were really short, and get really blessed by it besides.
Anyway...this is the shallow stuff. The deeper stuff will take me a few more days of mulling over...but for now, I am back in the States, and feeling rather displaced.
A lot of little shallow things are shocking...
I keep looking at streets and wondering what happened to the houses in between the other houses...and then I remember that houses were always that far apart in the States.
It feels weird to tear toilet paper without the flap over the top of the roll.
Remembering that it's normal not to be able to see anything above the trees.
I also panic when my mom makes right hand turns and there are cars coming at us in the left lane.
I spent a solid 30 seconds searching for the part in the wrapping on a box of chocolates that I could pull open before remembering that it's everything in *Japan* that is easy open, not in America.
I really keep wondering where all the people are.
Leaving Denver International Airport, I wondered where the city was.
When I arrived in Denver, it was 71 degrees. On the road home to Wyoming, it was 31 degrees with blowing snow and ice. The mountains were gorgeous!
Cheese is NOT a priceless commodity and does not need to be rationed.
We have a dishwasher!!!
Beds are *really* soft.
People say, "Hi, how are you?" when you walk into gas stations.
Seattle did not look green from the airport.
My dog is *really* big. But he still remembers me! We're now fighting about who's going to be boss. ;-)
Some things are exactly the same. My church is started a prayer vigil last night that will go until tonight, and after the Maundy Thursday service I stood with a guy who was shaking in his socks about his half hour prayer time. I got to meet the woman at church who is running the prayer vigil and she said how everyone was really freaking out, but she had a guide for them to pray and knew they would realize the half hour slots were really short, and get really blessed by it besides.
Anyway...this is the shallow stuff. The deeper stuff will take me a few more days of mulling over...but for now, I am back in the States, and feeling rather displaced.
Monday, March 16, 2009
We Laugh at Key
This Saturday at Key was a particularly sweet time, in my opinion. One of the Japanese guys was supposed to lead a Bible study. I sent him an email around 4:00 when he wasn't there yet, and it turns out he was asleep, but came right over after getting my email. We spent the first hour just hanging out, speaking broken Japanese or broken English...often both in the same sentence. In the end, Kim came up with a great game for us to play. Which is the source of all the pictures in this entry. The game is kind of a combination of pictionary and telephone. It's a little difficult to explain, but everyone started by drawing a picture or writing a phrase. So, if I draw a picture, I pass it to the person on my right. That person looks at what I've drawn and writes on another paper what they think the picture is. Then, they pass what they've written to the next person, who has to draw a picture of what was written down without seeing my original picture. The results are hilarious.
We had a woman come in to see Key for the first time. She actually walked in after we were finished. Three people were in a backrub line and we were just laying around and talking. She asked us what we normally did at Key, which is always a hard question to answer. But one of the Japanese guys rescued us from our efforts to explain and said very simply, "We laugh." And we certainly laughed a lot last Saturday. Here are some of our pictures from Saturday (and hopefully some laughter) to share with you guys:
Here is the first picture, drawn by my good friend Jenae. Later, she explained to us that this picture was supposed to represent "Allergy Season".
An astrologer is standing with chicken.
Watching the stars with my best friend the chicken.
We had a woman come in to see Key for the first time. She actually walked in after we were finished. Three people were in a backrub line and we were just laying around and talking. She asked us what we normally did at Key, which is always a hard question to answer. But one of the Japanese guys rescued us from our efforts to explain and said very simply, "We laugh." And we certainly laughed a lot last Saturday. Here are some of our pictures from Saturday (and hopefully some laughter) to share with you guys:
Here is the first picture, drawn by my good friend Jenae. Later, she explained to us that this picture was supposed to represent "Allergy Season".
The next person (who may or may not have been me) wrote,
She sang a song to her favorite forest flower.
Followed by...(I think you're getting the idea now)
She sang a song to her favorite forest flower.
Followed by...(I think you're getting the idea now)
A hermit sings in the garden.
There is a strange man dancing in flowers.
Here's the next round. Note that we had non-native English speakers in the group, which is how this lovely situation came about. :-) :
Loving my planetes.
Save the earth.
Don't smoke for the future of the earth.
And my personal favorite:
This one started with a caption rather than a picture: A Shepherd.
Here's the next round. Note that we had non-native English speakers in the group, which is how this lovely situation came about. :-) :
Loving my planetes.
Save the earth.
Don't smoke for the future of the earth.
And my personal favorite:
This one started with a caption rather than a picture: A Shepherd.
An astrologer is standing with chicken.
Watching the stars with my best friend the chicken.
Yay for laughter!
Jesus Sightings at Key
Aside from all our laughing at Key, I was struck really strongly as we sat around in a group that every person there was a person who had been impacted personally by Jesus. As we were sitting around, one of the guys pulled out a book of pictures from Israel. He showed me one of Mt. Sinai--a landscape of jagged, rocky mountains that I can't imagine how a person could climb--and he told me that he had been in a prayer group and seen a picture of him and Jesus with mountains like that. He said before he'd had that experience, he hadn't really believed in Jesus. He described the picture he had seen: Jesus flying down a mountain to him.
Key is supposed to end at 5:00, but we were still hanging out and talking at 7:00. For about an hour we'd been saying we should go eat. But at this point it was 7:00, Bibles were spread all over the place, and another Japanese guy had enlisted us to help us find this Psalm he'd been meditating on recently. I proposed we bring Bibles along to the restaurant. And while we waited for food, he told us all about how his life had been changed so much...how he had gone from being a person who had been scared away from the harsh teachings of the church he was attending and had recently been touched by Jesus through the Lutheran youth gathering we attended last fall. Now he had quit his job and was considering going to seminary.
Another Japanese member of the group was suicidal and snatched to safety when Jesus found him.
It's a special group of people...a group that can sit together and say, "We have known the Lord."
Kazuhiro said it best maybe when someone said "It's like He chose you." And he flipped right to John 15 and read, "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that will last."
I wonder what this fruit will be. If it will be fruit that the group bears together or if everyone in the end will scatter out to be planted in a different place. But for now, the fruit seems to be that young Christians, Japanese and English, have a place where they're coming together and starting to trust each other. We're starting to learn how to communicate and how to share our joys and struggles, and it's a group where His name comes up all the time, whether we're doing Bible study or drawing silly pictures.
Key is supposed to end at 5:00, but we were still hanging out and talking at 7:00. For about an hour we'd been saying we should go eat. But at this point it was 7:00, Bibles were spread all over the place, and another Japanese guy had enlisted us to help us find this Psalm he'd been meditating on recently. I proposed we bring Bibles along to the restaurant. And while we waited for food, he told us all about how his life had been changed so much...how he had gone from being a person who had been scared away from the harsh teachings of the church he was attending and had recently been touched by Jesus through the Lutheran youth gathering we attended last fall. Now he had quit his job and was considering going to seminary.
Another Japanese member of the group was suicidal and snatched to safety when Jesus found him.
It's a special group of people...a group that can sit together and say, "We have known the Lord."
Kazuhiro said it best maybe when someone said "It's like He chose you." And he flipped right to John 15 and read, "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that will last."
I wonder what this fruit will be. If it will be fruit that the group bears together or if everyone in the end will scatter out to be planted in a different place. But for now, the fruit seems to be that young Christians, Japanese and English, have a place where they're coming together and starting to trust each other. We're starting to learn how to communicate and how to share our joys and struggles, and it's a group where His name comes up all the time, whether we're doing Bible study or drawing silly pictures.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Kids make me happy, plus more transitional ramblings
On Saturday, the ELCA missionaries got together to have lunch, kind of to recognize me and also the new J3s who have finished language training and will be starting their assignments soon. The highlight of this time for me was teaching Aaron's daughter Cassidy how to do a headstand. I just can't help it...after several years of coaching beginner gymnastics, I see a kid trying to stand on their head with their hands by their ears and I have to help them learn how to balance. :-)
Anyway...apparently I made a friend. During church today, I received these notes in sequence. The last one was my very favorite. :-)
Tonight I rented a movie on itunes about three soldiers who are returning home from Iraq. I mostly got it because I figured I would be able to identify very well with the return culture shock. There were a couple really good return culture shock moments, but my favorite part was when they were in Colorado. There was dust blowing around. I realized I haven't been anywhere dry enough for there to be dust blowing around in about two and a half years. And something else really strange...they were outside in the Rockies, and I realized the sound their feet made on the ground was familiar...it was the crunch of dry pine needles on mountain soil. It's comforting in a way. Today, I finished my last human-given responsibilities in Japan, with the exception of moving myself out. It was nice to feel a longing for home. I'm excited to sit up on a mountain where the air is fresh and dry and the ground crunches and dust blows around and gets in your eyes...I'm excited to see the sky jam packed with stars...and I can't wait to go back to a small town pace of life if only for a little while...
I guess what all of that means is that I'm finally letting go...I've been letting go for several months now as God has gently helped me pry away one finger at a time, but it's to the point where I dare to let my heart remember some things it loves about home. I don't know if that seems like a big step to anyone else, but I was surprised to find that my heart had made it.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Things to be happy about one's last week of teaching classes in Japan
1) A huge bouquet of orange, yellow, and white flowers
2) A lovely simply bouquet of greens, two pink tulips, and three daisies
3) It is the first week of my entire time in Japan that there has been enough touch
4) I got to hold Mirai's baby (Kentaro) off and on all afternoon.
5) Playing "Life Stories" is an adequate lesson plan for any level of class when it's the last week.
6) I get to give away a couple Bibles with verses in them
7) God gave me one class with two Chinese students (no Japanese students) this term, and with them I can really rejoice about my future even as I'm saying goodbye.
2) A lovely simply bouquet of greens, two pink tulips, and three daisies
3) It is the first week of my entire time in Japan that there has been enough touch
4) I got to hold Mirai's baby (Kentaro) off and on all afternoon.
5) Playing "Life Stories" is an adequate lesson plan for any level of class when it's the last week.
6) I get to give away a couple Bibles with verses in them
7) God gave me one class with two Chinese students (no Japanese students) this term, and with them I can really rejoice about my future even as I'm saying goodbye.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
The End of an Era
Yesterday morning there was a mini-prayer summit at the Assemblies church close to mine. The day started at 9:30, and it took every ounce of courage I had to get myself in the doors at all...it was 11:00, just half an hour before the end of the prayer meeting. So much courage was necessary because these people have only seen "Pamela with a Tokyo-wide vision". And I knew that if I went I would have to tell them what is now the truth: I am leaving. And at the moment I can make no promises that I will ever be back.
If I could have teleported straight from giving them that news to an airplane, I would have done it.
Many other people have accepted my leaving with a calm lack of surprise. But this group is, of course, different... A Brazilian pastor said to me, "I'll keep that in prayer. Maybe God is calling us to start off from your prayers without you...but I hope not. I think you have the same heart [for prayer in Tokyo]." It sums it up well. These are the people I found when I felt all alone in my vision...we encourage each other just by existing at the same time in the same city. And it seems like people are finally starting to come together so that it's more than a vision...something is beginning to be built.
I keep thinking back to the IHOP prayer seminar a few months ago, and one experience in particular. I had dragged a number of friends along to the seminar, and they were all sitting in the back of the room. I had been dragged to the front and given a microphone to help lead harp and bowl worship. But the distance between me and the Lutheran missionaries was driving me *crazy*. I had the strong, strong urge to be sitting next to Jenae in particular. Finally, I set down my microphone and did it, earning me a strange look from the other girl who was leading.
Yesterday, they announced the time that they are going to start holding prayer meetings in the hope of building something bigger. It will be 1st and 3rd Saturdays from 2-4. Now, let me tell you something amusing. There are 52 hours in a week. There are exactly two activities I have felt a responsibility to be involved in during my last months in Japan: the building of a house of prayer and the building up of our fellowship group called Key. What do you suppose the odds are they would be in direct conflict with each other? Sigh.
But the decision was really made a long time ago at that prayer meeting where I moved out of the front to sit with Jenae. Key will keep my loyalty for the remaining months that I am here. The decision makes no sense in terms of greatest numbers, greatest efficiency, greatest value...it only makes sense in an upside down world where Jesus is King, where love is the greatest law, and where "important" is defined by that law and His calling. For now, a precious vision has been given back into His hands. And as Stan said yesterday, "Well...He is still King. And He's not surprised."
I sent in my application this afternoon.
If I could have teleported straight from giving them that news to an airplane, I would have done it.
Many other people have accepted my leaving with a calm lack of surprise. But this group is, of course, different... A Brazilian pastor said to me, "I'll keep that in prayer. Maybe God is calling us to start off from your prayers without you...but I hope not. I think you have the same heart [for prayer in Tokyo]." It sums it up well. These are the people I found when I felt all alone in my vision...we encourage each other just by existing at the same time in the same city. And it seems like people are finally starting to come together so that it's more than a vision...something is beginning to be built.
I keep thinking back to the IHOP prayer seminar a few months ago, and one experience in particular. I had dragged a number of friends along to the seminar, and they were all sitting in the back of the room. I had been dragged to the front and given a microphone to help lead harp and bowl worship. But the distance between me and the Lutheran missionaries was driving me *crazy*. I had the strong, strong urge to be sitting next to Jenae in particular. Finally, I set down my microphone and did it, earning me a strange look from the other girl who was leading.
Yesterday, they announced the time that they are going to start holding prayer meetings in the hope of building something bigger. It will be 1st and 3rd Saturdays from 2-4. Now, let me tell you something amusing. There are 52 hours in a week. There are exactly two activities I have felt a responsibility to be involved in during my last months in Japan: the building of a house of prayer and the building up of our fellowship group called Key. What do you suppose the odds are they would be in direct conflict with each other? Sigh.
But the decision was really made a long time ago at that prayer meeting where I moved out of the front to sit with Jenae. Key will keep my loyalty for the remaining months that I am here. The decision makes no sense in terms of greatest numbers, greatest efficiency, greatest value...it only makes sense in an upside down world where Jesus is King, where love is the greatest law, and where "important" is defined by that law and His calling. For now, a precious vision has been given back into His hands. And as Stan said yesterday, "Well...He is still King. And He's not surprised."
I sent in my application this afternoon.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Fathers
A couple snapshots from church yesterday:
-It was our annual meeting and a very heated discussion was going on. Something to do with how many people are on the church council, whether we are mistreating people by electing them over and over again, etc. One of those times when everyone has gotten very serious. In the middle of it all, Aaron's daughter Cassidy started drawing a picture on the white board. She didn't know Aaron was watching her, but in the middle of all this debating, he was distracted completely from the task at hand. Just looking at his daughter's art with a smile. Sometimes, it doesn't seem like other people are recognizing our work, but often I think God is watching it, secretly and silently from behind us so as not to distract us, but with a huge grin on His face.
-After the meeting, we came out to the office to discover that the pastor's son had been doing some "art" of his own. That is to say, there were now permanent marker "signatures" all over the chairs, desks and table. Once most of the church members had left, the pastor sat his son down, showed him the damage, and let him know why it was damage. Yuki began wailing in the middle of this, but his father continued to patiently and persistently tell him what he had done. After that, the rest of their family went back upstairs (home) and Yuki and dad remained, clean up tools in hand. Yuki is three years old, so I know he wasn't actually helping so much. But the two went around side by side until all the marker was erased.
It's interesting to me that other people are often the first ones to confirm the fears in our head that we are not doing any good, or to confirm that our greatest efforts are actually increasing the mess instead of decreasing it. There is this truth that we as Christians have to come face to face with at some point: God does not need us.
Some of us stop there. Some refuse to believe it and stake their entire identity on the fact that they are needed by God...their ministry looks frantic, and they have a lot to lose if something goes wrong. Others hear they are not needed and drop out of the game altogether...if God doesn't need them, what's the point? Still others understand but not fully...they feel a contradiction between the truth that God doesn't need them and the truth that God calls them to obedience. Fear of God and failing keeps them "in line", but they haven't understood the whole picture.
The truth is that God wants us with him. I believe we can make him smile. The Bible tells us he rejoices over us, and the Hebrew for that word actually means "spins around in circles". I love to think about God getting all "improper" and spinning around in circles of joy over the little actions, the small prayers, the heroic sacrifices of a moment that are made in his name. He knows we make messes sometimes, but isn't that what being a kid is? I remember another time when one of Aaron's daughters was upset and she cried to him, "But you're the dad, and that means you can fix it!" Human dads can't fix everything. But our heavenly Dad really can and does bring all things around for good. Often by handing us the cleaning supplies and cheerfully saying, "Let's get to work. I've got just the thing for this stain."
-It was our annual meeting and a very heated discussion was going on. Something to do with how many people are on the church council, whether we are mistreating people by electing them over and over again, etc. One of those times when everyone has gotten very serious. In the middle of it all, Aaron's daughter Cassidy started drawing a picture on the white board. She didn't know Aaron was watching her, but in the middle of all this debating, he was distracted completely from the task at hand. Just looking at his daughter's art with a smile. Sometimes, it doesn't seem like other people are recognizing our work, but often I think God is watching it, secretly and silently from behind us so as not to distract us, but with a huge grin on His face.
-After the meeting, we came out to the office to discover that the pastor's son had been doing some "art" of his own. That is to say, there were now permanent marker "signatures" all over the chairs, desks and table. Once most of the church members had left, the pastor sat his son down, showed him the damage, and let him know why it was damage. Yuki began wailing in the middle of this, but his father continued to patiently and persistently tell him what he had done. After that, the rest of their family went back upstairs (home) and Yuki and dad remained, clean up tools in hand. Yuki is three years old, so I know he wasn't actually helping so much. But the two went around side by side until all the marker was erased.
It's interesting to me that other people are often the first ones to confirm the fears in our head that we are not doing any good, or to confirm that our greatest efforts are actually increasing the mess instead of decreasing it. There is this truth that we as Christians have to come face to face with at some point: God does not need us.
Some of us stop there. Some refuse to believe it and stake their entire identity on the fact that they are needed by God...their ministry looks frantic, and they have a lot to lose if something goes wrong. Others hear they are not needed and drop out of the game altogether...if God doesn't need them, what's the point? Still others understand but not fully...they feel a contradiction between the truth that God doesn't need them and the truth that God calls them to obedience. Fear of God and failing keeps them "in line", but they haven't understood the whole picture.
The truth is that God wants us with him. I believe we can make him smile. The Bible tells us he rejoices over us, and the Hebrew for that word actually means "spins around in circles". I love to think about God getting all "improper" and spinning around in circles of joy over the little actions, the small prayers, the heroic sacrifices of a moment that are made in his name. He knows we make messes sometimes, but isn't that what being a kid is? I remember another time when one of Aaron's daughters was upset and she cried to him, "But you're the dad, and that means you can fix it!" Human dads can't fix everything. But our heavenly Dad really can and does bring all things around for good. Often by handing us the cleaning supplies and cheerfully saying, "Let's get to work. I've got just the thing for this stain."
Saturday, January 24, 2009
The Beautiful Mess
It is interesting to notice the way that my perception of how long I'm going to be in Japan changes the way I minister. When I told God back more than a year ago how I was willing to stay in Japan however long He called me to, I remember noticing that it changed everything...my heart through all of itself into the mission here because of that belief that I was here for a long time. Now that (pending any major surprises) I am heading back to the U.S. in April, I find the result has been a throwing aside of caution. I am teaching boldly...at least for me. No more patience...the days are numbered. And this is what my teaching looks like when I am being bold...
My Beginner Bible class has stopped being beginner in any sense of the word. Part of this is because Winter Term has characteristic low numbers, and rather than being a true class, it's almost a cell group with me, two church members, and Takaaki. The poor guy hears more sermons a week than anyone else I know. ;-)
I've borrowed a curriculum called The Beautiful Mess from a Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. I love telling my Japanese students the title for the course, because they can't fathom what "beautiful" and "mess" are doing so close to each other. Our first week was all about ways that we try to hide our messes from God. It was amazing. We had a list on the board of what the mess was and how we tried to hide it from God. Etsuko came up with something brilliant. One mess we wrote down was "sin, guilt, and shame" and when I asked how we tried to hide it, Etsuko immediately said, "charity." Once she had explained about doing good out of guilt rather than out of love, the other church member was sitting with a very intense, concentrating look on her face. I don't know if I've ever before gotten this woman to turn her eyes to herself and not just look to others...she's one of the people who serves *all* the time. And I found myself wondering and hoping for the possibility that this woman could serve not out of feeling shameful or inferior, but out of the knowledge of how awesome God thinks she is. I imagine her shining instead of trembling.
The Beautiful Mess curriculum always ends with time praying for each other, and I decided we would do so every week. And that has been powerful.
My Beginner Bible class has stopped being beginner in any sense of the word. Part of this is because Winter Term has characteristic low numbers, and rather than being a true class, it's almost a cell group with me, two church members, and Takaaki. The poor guy hears more sermons a week than anyone else I know. ;-)
I've borrowed a curriculum called The Beautiful Mess from a Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. I love telling my Japanese students the title for the course, because they can't fathom what "beautiful" and "mess" are doing so close to each other. Our first week was all about ways that we try to hide our messes from God. It was amazing. We had a list on the board of what the mess was and how we tried to hide it from God. Etsuko came up with something brilliant. One mess we wrote down was "sin, guilt, and shame" and when I asked how we tried to hide it, Etsuko immediately said, "charity." Once she had explained about doing good out of guilt rather than out of love, the other church member was sitting with a very intense, concentrating look on her face. I don't know if I've ever before gotten this woman to turn her eyes to herself and not just look to others...she's one of the people who serves *all* the time. And I found myself wondering and hoping for the possibility that this woman could serve not out of feeling shameful or inferior, but out of the knowledge of how awesome God thinks she is. I imagine her shining instead of trembling.
The Beautiful Mess curriculum always ends with time praying for each other, and I decided we would do so every week. And that has been powerful.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
My pastor's son speaks English
Today, Yuki came into the office singing jibberish that sounded suspiciously like English. His dad called him back and told him to speak English. This is the result... :-D
EDIT: No, no...it's not really English. But you can hear in the sounds that it's what he's imitating. Anyway...
EDIT: No, no...it's not really English. But you can hear in the sounds that it's what he's imitating. Anyway...
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Africa meets Japan
I went out tonight.
And what's more, I went out of my own free will. But there was very good reason for this...one of the new J3s, Carolyn, discovered a concert in Shinjuku that was combining Taiko (those huge Japanese drums you may have seen before) and drums from Ghana. We walked about thirty minutes in nearly freezing rain to find it, were lost, had to stand up through the whole concert, and all in all, it was one of the greatest concerts I have ever been to. Carolyn turned to me at one point during the night and said, "I would have walked out there all night for this!!!"
I've always loved Taiko. It's dance and drums together, and it just doesn't get so much better than that.
But I did have to laugh a little bit at one part of the concert. Two men from Ghana were on stage. One was playing drums, the other was trying to get a Japanese crowd to clap. I'll come back to this in a minute.
When I was in South Africa, we were put to shame by a music group. It was January. They sang a number of energetic songs with all the heart they had. At one point, they came up close to the microphones, stood up straight and still, and sang "Deck the Halls" as though they were members of a fine choir. It was very boring. Then, those mischievous African grins overtook their faces once again, they stepped back from the microphones, and they swayed and sang "Deck the Halls" for real.
Later, they announced how this group of students from St. Olaf was there and how we were going to sing. They tried everything to get us to have spirit. But we were up there, still and stern, singing beautifully but with something missing. I couldn't help thinking how dead we had to look...we were exactly like their jokingly stern version of "Deck the Halls"!
There weren't nearly enough opportunities in Africa to make music with Africans. Being in a circle with Africans making music is pretty close to pure freedom for me. Heaven on earth.
So...back to the Shinjuku Japanese / Ghana drum performance...
I had to laugh because one of the Africans got us to clap in this rhythm. We were supposed to clap on the second and third beat. The whole audience got this down and ran with it. The beat never altered, but was a steady "ichi NI SAN ichi NI SAN"...except that the drummers weren't sticking to the same beat. They would speed up or slow down. The man who had led us into clapping eventually changed the beat he was going at from two beats together to three and the audience continued it's steady "ichi NI SAN"...never changing or adjusting to the music.
Later, I was saddened by it, because the man who had been leading the clapping got off the stage. As part of the audience, I watched him try to start clapping along with the next song. No one joined him. He lasted about a minute before he started pausing longer between claps, and finally stopped all together and faded against the wall. It's hard to be the only one clapping. I was thinking about being in South Africa and how hard they worked to get us to be alive while we were singing.
The different kinds of beauty struck me, though. Japanese beauty is intentional, balanced, artistic, masterful. The taiko drummers were perfectly synchronized, and everything from the beat to the position of their arms is structured.
The African drums had little visual appeal. But while I had no urge to move at all during the taiko, I couldn't stop moving during the African drumming. That contagious freedom is what is most beautiful to me about it. I feel like I'm part of the music.
I always wonder how that freedom fits into Japan. If it's just my culture that makes me long for it, and culture shock that makes me feel like it's missing. Do people born and raised in Japan long for that kind of freedom too? Somewhere inside? Do any of the taiko drummers ever just get the urge to break out and start doing a dance all their own, leaping from drum to drum in some spontaneous, crazy way? I wonder.
And what's more, I went out of my own free will. But there was very good reason for this...one of the new J3s, Carolyn, discovered a concert in Shinjuku that was combining Taiko (those huge Japanese drums you may have seen before) and drums from Ghana. We walked about thirty minutes in nearly freezing rain to find it, were lost, had to stand up through the whole concert, and all in all, it was one of the greatest concerts I have ever been to. Carolyn turned to me at one point during the night and said, "I would have walked out there all night for this!!!"
I've always loved Taiko. It's dance and drums together, and it just doesn't get so much better than that.
But I did have to laugh a little bit at one part of the concert. Two men from Ghana were on stage. One was playing drums, the other was trying to get a Japanese crowd to clap. I'll come back to this in a minute.
When I was in South Africa, we were put to shame by a music group. It was January. They sang a number of energetic songs with all the heart they had. At one point, they came up close to the microphones, stood up straight and still, and sang "Deck the Halls" as though they were members of a fine choir. It was very boring. Then, those mischievous African grins overtook their faces once again, they stepped back from the microphones, and they swayed and sang "Deck the Halls" for real.
Later, they announced how this group of students from St. Olaf was there and how we were going to sing. They tried everything to get us to have spirit. But we were up there, still and stern, singing beautifully but with something missing. I couldn't help thinking how dead we had to look...we were exactly like their jokingly stern version of "Deck the Halls"!
There weren't nearly enough opportunities in Africa to make music with Africans. Being in a circle with Africans making music is pretty close to pure freedom for me. Heaven on earth.
So...back to the Shinjuku Japanese / Ghana drum performance...
I had to laugh because one of the Africans got us to clap in this rhythm. We were supposed to clap on the second and third beat. The whole audience got this down and ran with it. The beat never altered, but was a steady "ichi NI SAN ichi NI SAN"...except that the drummers weren't sticking to the same beat. They would speed up or slow down. The man who had led us into clapping eventually changed the beat he was going at from two beats together to three and the audience continued it's steady "ichi NI SAN"...never changing or adjusting to the music.
Later, I was saddened by it, because the man who had been leading the clapping got off the stage. As part of the audience, I watched him try to start clapping along with the next song. No one joined him. He lasted about a minute before he started pausing longer between claps, and finally stopped all together and faded against the wall. It's hard to be the only one clapping. I was thinking about being in South Africa and how hard they worked to get us to be alive while we were singing.
The different kinds of beauty struck me, though. Japanese beauty is intentional, balanced, artistic, masterful. The taiko drummers were perfectly synchronized, and everything from the beat to the position of their arms is structured.
The African drums had little visual appeal. But while I had no urge to move at all during the taiko, I couldn't stop moving during the African drumming. That contagious freedom is what is most beautiful to me about it. I feel like I'm part of the music.
I always wonder how that freedom fits into Japan. If it's just my culture that makes me long for it, and culture shock that makes me feel like it's missing. Do people born and raised in Japan long for that kind of freedom too? Somewhere inside? Do any of the taiko drummers ever just get the urge to break out and start doing a dance all their own, leaping from drum to drum in some spontaneous, crazy way? I wonder.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Life Goes On
I woke up this morning to a Japanese voice shouting outside my apartment. "Yakiiiiimoh! Yaaaakimoooh! Ishi yaaaaakiimoh!" Or, directly translated, "Baaaaked potato! Baked pooootatooo! Rock-baked potato!!!" Living in the middle of Tokyo, such sounds do not usually wake me up anymore. But recently it's been the New Year's holiday and the streets have been strangely silent and empty. Today they are back to normal...business men rushing about, bicycles ringing bells to shoo pedestrians out of their path, and the occasional baked potato van running by.
But with all this going on, I almost feel like I'm not in Tokyo anymore. Don't ask me where I feel like I am. Maybe Limbo, or the State of Transition, or the Land of Too Much Thinking. I wonder if it's a little how to feels to know you are dying...all around you plans are being made, new ministries born, friends are changing and growing, churches are changing and growing...I watch it all with a kind of wary distance, knowing that I will leave it all very, very soon...but wanting to cherish everyone and everything that surrounds me.
I think as a result of this cherishing, it was the first Christmas that I didn't miss America. We had a handbell choir at church this year...a group of high school girls, some of whom were the tiny and yet able to throw around the huge bucket bells. I watched some men from the congregation go up and try to play those same bells after church and fail.
A special joy for me this Christmas was Etsuko. I've watched her get bolder and bolder about sharing her faith, and this year she took it to a new level. We were setting up candles to get ready for the service, and as soon as it was just the two of us, she told me, "Pamela, a miracle happened!!!" Apparently she prayed up the courage to give Christmas cards to all her neighbors in her apartment building. She told all of them that she was a Christian, that she prayed God would bless them that Christmas. One woman came up and met Etsuko for the first time, deeply moved. She told Etsuko that she had attended a Christian school and so she had studied the Bible as a teenager, but she hadn't thought about it for years until she got the card. Etsuko took her boldness to a new level and asked the woman if she would like to read the Bible or some Christian books together sometime, and the woman agreed.
Part of real life being on pause has been a lot of time with my missionary community these past few weeks. We're all pretty scattered when breaks aren't happening, but when they do happen it seems like lots of time gets made up for. And bottled up loving and arguing all seems to come out at once. So, basically, God has given lots of time with my Japan family. Life is never, ever boring in this group of people. :-) This break included:
But with all this going on, I almost feel like I'm not in Tokyo anymore. Don't ask me where I feel like I am. Maybe Limbo, or the State of Transition, or the Land of Too Much Thinking. I wonder if it's a little how to feels to know you are dying...all around you plans are being made, new ministries born, friends are changing and growing, churches are changing and growing...I watch it all with a kind of wary distance, knowing that I will leave it all very, very soon...but wanting to cherish everyone and everything that surrounds me.
I think as a result of this cherishing, it was the first Christmas that I didn't miss America. We had a handbell choir at church this year...a group of high school girls, some of whom were the tiny and yet able to throw around the huge bucket bells. I watched some men from the congregation go up and try to play those same bells after church and fail.
A special joy for me this Christmas was Etsuko. I've watched her get bolder and bolder about sharing her faith, and this year she took it to a new level. We were setting up candles to get ready for the service, and as soon as it was just the two of us, she told me, "Pamela, a miracle happened!!!" Apparently she prayed up the courage to give Christmas cards to all her neighbors in her apartment building. She told all of them that she was a Christian, that she prayed God would bless them that Christmas. One woman came up and met Etsuko for the first time, deeply moved. She told Etsuko that she had attended a Christian school and so she had studied the Bible as a teenager, but she hadn't thought about it for years until she got the card. Etsuko took her boldness to a new level and asked the woman if she would like to read the Bible or some Christian books together sometime, and the woman agreed.
Part of real life being on pause has been a lot of time with my missionary community these past few weeks. We're all pretty scattered when breaks aren't happening, but when they do happen it seems like lots of time gets made up for. And bottled up loving and arguing all seems to come out at once. So, basically, God has given lots of time with my Japan family. Life is never, ever boring in this group of people. :-) This break included:
- getting news of a really good friend's engagement
- getting news of another friend's engagement not a week later (something is in the air in Tokyo!)
- setting up a lot of futon pads as a giant maze and then failing miserably in attempting to convince the missionaries to come upstairs and rescue a kidnapped companion (my friends have no compassion, I tell you! ;-) )
- worshiping and leading prayer without a voice--but yay for good prayer and worship time in English!
- the creation of a major earthquake contingency plan including the need for boats and Morse Code transmission devices...which most of the other missionaries somehow don't seem to want to go along with. ;-)
- After all the talk about major earthquakes, a minor earthquake the day AFTER all my friends left my apartment...I was shaking harder than the ground. I'm not afraid of being in Tokyo during a major earthquake, but the thought of being trapped alone is really not appealing.
- Broke the silence barrier...at least once more.
- Going out to a shrine on New Years to shiver with my two friends and be available in case Jesus had anyone for us to talk to. Got videotaped by three drunk Japanese girls who now think they've met three missionaries from Nebraska. Stood watching crowd after crowd of people throw 5 yen coins into the shrine, bow to a false god and wish for a good New Year until our feet and hearts were numb. Reflecting on this, I am thankful that I am in a group of people where such "adventures" can take place.
- Slept in the latest I ever have in my un-sick life (1:40pm...hehe)
- Cheese fondue. Need more be said? :-D
- Interrogated my sister's new boyfriend over the webcam while he was on the other side of her cellphone.
- Managed to come up with words for my Hongo report. Sent my report to a church member to translate. Decided that I really need lessons on how to speak / write so a translator can do something with it. :-/
- Discovered that my friend Jenae is as competitive and into games as I am. Felt silly about how long it took us to figure that out (2 years). Had an awesome time trying to cream each other at a bunch of games.
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