a special table

I had a table tonight in which both customers were hearing impaired. I was a little shocked when I went up to the table and no one answered when I asked them how they were doing. Shortly after the man started to point at items on the menu and make some sounds. Immediately I understood, and took their order. I think it is difficult to be in circumstances where basic communication is hindered such as a cross cultural experience. I enjoy traveling, and I have found that the language barrier has always been the most difficult part of traveling out of the country. But, here I was in my own home town at one of the most familiar and safest places I can imagine, and I was lost for words because I do not know sign language. I went upstairs and found some instructional videos for some words that I might find helpful. I learned "Enjoy," which is what I always tell a customer when I give them their food. I learned "Your Welcome" and a few other things. When I used to newly acquired signs the table was ecstatic. The gentleman began to sign like crazy, and even though I didn't understand any of that, he knew that I was willing to engage and understand his culture just a little bit. It is amazing how much someone entering our world can affect our appreciation for that person.

How greater still is Christ, the word made flesh? He entered our world and understood us fully. What a good and glorious God we serve!

Soundtrack: He will come, Waterdeep

Missionary?

As I have prepared for seminary I have discussed my plans with dozens, possibly hundreds of people. And there seems to be a theme in the questions that they ask me. Some will ask if I want to preach, and that doesn't phase me. Most frequently I am asked whether I want to be a missionary. How unusual. However, even when I have explained that I want to teach, they still ask if I want to teach over seas. This is not the first time in my life that people have asked me if I feel called to missions. The YWAMers in Vancouver all had separate discussions with me. Mark and Krista Harris discussed this with me. Kirk and Nicole regularly discuss this with me. Most everyone that I met both times I visited them in Ghana asked me if I too felt called to missions. I know I am gifted at cross cultural ministry. As I began to write this entry I felt tears running down my cheek. I am hitting a big truth for my life. However, I am struck by the lack of vision I have. I sense a vacancy in this realization.

When I went to NYC for my birthday I had begun to pray that God would reveal the next major chapter in my life. I had just clarified a relationship that I thought would lead to romance, possibly even marriage. He was committed to Savannah and looking to live a small life. I am not. I have always been charmed by the big city, and the possibility of living close to my best friend thrilled me. I kept expecting God to hit me over the head with a plan or an assurance that NYC was to be my next home. He didn't. I picked out a church to visit, and it was all wrong. I even met someone in the film industry, and I was disgusted by her lifestyle. I got a strong sense that if I do get to live in New York, it will not be alone. The struggles that I would experience in that city would require a home base support. I will not live there as a single girl, but only could live there as a married woman. That door is closed to me right now.

Similarly, I have noticed that when people ask me about missions I can not simply say "No." I feel like I must include a caveat. I feel obligated to give a conditional response. I always say that you never know God's plans for your life. I have a similar feeling about missions that I feel about NYC. The struggles that I would experience, the joys that I would enjoy need to be shared. That is a life I personally can not live as a single gal. If I am to live as a missionary, I have not been granted that word yet because it is not a word for me, it is a word for us, whomever the other half of that us may be. That door too is closed to me right now. But, I am freely admitting that I see that door in my life's room of choices.

I am fortunate enough that the major choicies and major self identifing characteristics in my life have been accompanied by supernatural spiritually significant intervention. I am used to the Lord making clear what I am to do with my life.

I must consider whether these feelings are an expression of my admiration of Kirk and my desires to be like him. This is a reality that I have had to consider throughout my adult life. What motivates me? I make choices carefully to ensure correct motives. Kirk and I grew up in the same missions minded church and went to the same missions minded college ministry and we both grew up traveling freely. It makes sense that we would both be conditioned to similar professions.

So, I wait. I am open. I am willing to do as God wills with my life. I am eager to discover the next "next chapter" in my life.

Soundtrack: Your Love is Deep, Jami Smith

How could he?

I have this friend. When I describe him to people I tend to compare him to the main character in "Big Fish" the movie because his stories most often had a glimmer of truth, but were always blown out of proportion. He had a serious case of delusions of grandeur. He was a partner in ministry in Savannah who left following a divorce. He went back to UGA to finish his master's degree, however, he stopped abruptly. I talked to him shortly after he left Athens, and he told me all about the new job he was offered in Florida, and I bought it. When I went to Savannah a couple of weeks ago I had lunch with one of my girls from that ministry who had been particularly close to this friend. In our discussion I brought up this friend, and she hinted that she knew there had been something (pardon the pun) fishy about why he left UGA. My friend that joined me on the trip did some googling, and found an article. I am including some key information from that article:

"Most college women think it's pretty unlikely someone will slip a date-rape drug into their drink, but (Names have been removed) learned different when she woke up in a strange Conrad Drive house at 7 a.m. one morning in July 2007.

Her clothes were nowhere in sight, a man she hardly knew was touching her, and she had no idea how she had gotten there....

She will never know with scientific certainty that her drink was spiked- date-rape drugs are undetectable in blood just hours after ingestion, she learned. But she doesn't doubt that's what happened after she talked to two women in her circle of friends who say that they had almost the same experience, with the same man...

She had to swear out a warrant against the man, a Thunderbolt (a small community in Savannah) native named (again, the names have been removed) and go through a hearing before police would arrest him."

I can not begin to discuss what thoughts and feelings this stirred up in me. This is a man that I trusted, that I joined in ministry. This is a man that I have eaten with, stayed up late with. I love this man, not romantically, but the deepest forms of philo, friendship love. I have prayed with him. I have shared some of the deepest parts of myself with this man.

What do you do when you feel betrayed by people that are so close to you? I am reminded of the youth minister at my home church that was arrested for chatting with a girl that was underage. Shock. Disappointment. Confusion.

It makes you realize how fragile we all are. It makes you wrestle with the reality that no man is immune to original sin. We are all infected. We are all capable of doing the most disgusting things. Oh, God! Thank you for providing a way to freedom from sin. How hopeless we are without you! Who are we that you would want a relationship with man?

Soundtrack: Trouble is a friend, Lenka & Ain't No Rest for the Wicked, Cage the Elephant

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.


A good and gracious God gives us the freedom to be tenacious, to be faithful, to be unconquerable.

Soundtrack: The Quest, Bryn Christopher