And then the next morning, I had this thought: “I’m 28 weeks pregnant! If we have to wait another four weeks to find out if we have to leave the country, I will be 32 weeks pregnant.” From that simple mathematical review, my anxiety immediately spiraled. Slowly at first. Just the first worrying seed planted in my heart. And in less than 24 hours from typing my very truthful, confident reflections on all the many, many ways the Lord has been merciful to us, I spent the rest of the day pendulum swinging between intense anxiety, feelings of guilt for my utter lack of faith, reviews of God’s promises and provisions, and attempts to take control and plan out all the different “what-if” contingencies.
I spent a week writing my last blog post, all the while feeling so confident in the Lord and so at peace with His provisions and faithfulness to us. On the day I was just about ready to post my draft, we found out about the issues we were having with our visa and the potential negative implications for us. Frankly, it didn’t much phase me at the time. It felt slightly overwhelming, but I very much trusted that the Lord would guide us - just like I had written in my post. Plus we have experienced such a tremendous outpouring of love, support, and prayers from the Body of Christ that I felt encouraged to solicit prayers from everyone. We didn’t know how it was going to work out, but we just knew it would. Laughingly, we even mentioned what a shame it would be if we had to leave the country for a week to await our visas while celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation and Oktoberfest in Germany!
And then the next morning, I had this thought: “I’m 28 weeks pregnant! If we have to wait another four weeks to find out if we have to leave the country, I will be 32 weeks pregnant.” From that simple mathematical review, my anxiety immediately spiraled. Slowly at first. Just the first worrying seed planted in my heart. And in less than 24 hours from typing my very truthful, confident reflections on all the many, many ways the Lord has been merciful to us, I spent the rest of the day pendulum swinging between intense anxiety, feelings of guilt for my utter lack of faith, reviews of God’s promises and provisions, and attempts to take control and plan out all the different “what-if” contingencies.
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This is my kitchen window. Across the street are our neighbors whose houses all back up to the big fence-less pasture, so they all have livestock. From this kitchen window, and our dining room back doors, we can see between the two houses and past the light pole to the mountainside beyond. Each morning as we're eating breakfast we watch flocks of sheep slowly meander through our small sight line from left to right, always herded by sheep dogs and shepherds. We watch for them each morning, and we often get to watch them return home from right to left in the evening. After seven weeks, we have yet to get tired of the beautiful sight.
This particular morning while I was making breakfast, I saw the sheep right on time. Yet today it was raining. Actually, it was pouring. And it's cold. The lightning left streaks in the sky, and the thunder reverberated between the mountains. Instead of their normal route along the open pasture, all the sheep were walking underneath the treeline, trying desperately - and in vain - to find some kind of protection and stay dry. Even for animals used to being outside, they were attempting to take shelter any way they could. I thought about how miserable it must be to be out there right then. In the cold and in the rain. And then, I noticed the shepherd. And his sheep dogs. Just like always, steering the sheep safely to where they need to go. Cross Cultural Ministry Internship Overview
We all arrived on Tuesday, June 27. Nine different missionary units. All different ages. All different family structures. All different routines. All with different stories and backgrounds. All from different states. All preparing for ministry in different countries: Southeast Asia, the Middle East,Greece, France, Colombia, Bulgaria, Peru, and Romania. All different, yet all very similar, too. All eager, nervous, and exhausted in our own way from our travels and what unknowns we had lying before us at CCMI. All with a specific calling from the Lord to live incarnationally in cross-cultural ministry experiences so as to help usher in the restored Kingdom of Christ. All knowing what it feels like for others to unrealistically hold us up on a faith pedestal. All knowing what it feels like for others to question whether we're being stupid, irresponsible, or a little crazy. All probably actually a little bit crazy in our own rights. All living under one roof in crammed quarters for one month.
Babamız
Ey göklerde olan Babamız, İsmin mukaddes olsun; Melekûtun gelsin; Gökte olduğu gibi yerde de senin iraden olsun; Gündelik ekmeğimizi bize bugün ver; Ve bize borçlu olanlara bağışladığımız gibi, bizim borçlarımızı bize bağışla; Ve bizi iğvaya götürme, fakat bizi şerirden kurtar; Çünkü melekût ve kudret ve izzet ebedlere kadar senindir. Amin. I've had the privilege in worshiping our Father in English, Spanish, Romanian, and German in the past, and most recently I've been able to sing His praises in Turkish. The lyrics above are the Lord's Prayer in Turkish, which the Armenians sing at the beginning of each of their church services. For the past four Sundays we have attended the Armenian Evangelical Church of Brussels, and even in the midst of my awkwardness of not being able to really communicate with many of my brothers and sisters in Christ, I remember trying my best to follow along phonetically with the lyrics on the screen, thinking to myself, "Lord, who would have ever thought I'd have the chance to worship you in Turkish?!?!" I laughed in my head to myself at the ridiculous beauty of it all. Each chance I've had to worship with other language speakers has been like getting a sneak peak at the end of a movie: when we will all be worshiping from every tribe, tongue, and nation our Lord and Savior for eternity in the Restored Kingdom. How beautiful! But last Sunday, a particular occurrence demonstrated to me even more beauty than the music. We were surprised when the Lord called us to full-time mission work just four months after you were born. A lot has changed in the three years since your birth. And with each passing day, I am more and more grateful for your sweet presence in my life. Just the other day, I got my first overseas migraine on our way home from the Armenian church. The only part of this experience that was new or different was that "going home" now included significant walking, carrying a heavy backpack, pushing a stroller, and riding buses, trams, and trains. When we were at the train station, I found a bench to lay down on while your daddy watched you. You came over to me and began gently stroking my hair and blessing me with sweet kisses on my forehead. It was the first time since your birth that I really felt like you were being Jesus to me. It was as if the Lord opened my eyes to what an asset you are going to be for me in Romania.
"Demographics" are looking at statistics and information about a particular culture. For example, "demographics" would look at the percentages of Christians versus atheists versus Buddhists in a given area. "Ethnography," in contrast is the participation in and observation of cultural interactions and behavior and then attempting to understand why those things are occurring in that given culture. This is major work of anthropologists, and we are being trained how to do this so that we can each enter our host cultures and learn to strategically observe the culture, ask questions, and discover why the culture is the way it is and how that affects behaviors and interactions. We've even got opportunity to practice ethnography as we were sent out in teams into different areas of Brussels to observe different cultures and make predictions as to why they are doing what they're doing. Obviously, then, we have to fight against making generalizations after just a few observations. Ethnography would ideally be done over a long period of time with many experiences and observations to help us refine our conclusions. But it is awesome practice. So instead of just walking down the street and enjoying the new sights and sounds, we are training our brains to be watching, listening, and smelling in order to guide our conclusions about the culture. This kind of work will help us immensely as we move into a host culture and learn to live and work there.
Today we looked at four ways that culture is measured, and each country is given a rating from 0 - 100 which I'll put in parenthesis next to each country below. I'd like to go through what we learned as it applies to Romania versus the United States and the way we are anticipating that these differences may affect us. Hopefully this will also give our friends and family back home ideas of how to pray for us specifically as we assimilate. For Easter this year we sent out a letter and a card that reminded everyone of the legitimate truth of the Resurrection of Jesus. And for me, that is such good news to know that I can be both intelligent and a Christian without having to suspend one or the other. Having a religion that is supported by historical evidence means a lot to me.
Then I read this article by Lee Strobel. And I was reminded that for many, the evidence isn't what they're worried about. For me, it was. But for many, the question is perhaps even more basic than that. The question for many is, subjectively, does Christianity work? Will it actually work in my life and make a difference? Well let me tell you. From my experience, it does. It "works." Ultimately every other religion or psychological self-help method relies on ME to accomplish it. And for a lot of people, this is a good thing. Because I'm very capable. I always have been. Truthfully, I have never really struggled with much. I have said more times than I care to admit that "I may not be the smartest person, but I'm definitely not the dumbest, and I know some people who are a lot worse off than me who figure this out. So I can, too." And that is how I have faced many challenging situations. But I've been very convicted of this mentality, especially when I have realized a lot recently that this mantra doesn't "work." I fell on my face in my bedroom on the first day of second semester back in January. I knew God was wanting me to pray about my situation. The day before I had received news at school that I was going to have a very, shall we say challenging, group of students in one of my classes. If you had asked just about any teacher who the top-five most difficult students were in our 8th grade class this year, I had three of those top five in this one class alone. I was already overwhelmed with just about everything in life, experiencing my first panic attacks, and dealing with postpartum depression. So this news shook me. I wanted nothing more than to end my teaching career with an easy, fun group of students, but this was NOT going to be it. Frankly, I was pretty mad about it. So on the first day of this semester, I prayed about it. Yet the words that came to my mind went like this: God, please give me your strength, your peace, and hope -- wait, no, not hope. I know I have hope because I'm a Christian. Plus, I know that I'm capable of getting through pretty much anything for 18 weeks when I put my mind to it. And then it hit me. Smack dab in the middle of my prayer, I realized for the first time that my mantra for getting through tough times was completely about ME. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" was some pithy catch phrase I had just been using my whole life, but really, when push came to shove and I was really in a difficult time, always - ALWAYS! - my deep inner voice was telling me "You've got this because you're good enough to get through it. You've got the smarts. You've got the ability. You've got the strength. You can do it." So then my prayer completely changed directions. God, you're right. I've been hoping in myself and not in you. Lord, I guess I don't really know how to hope in you. Please help me do that. And Lord, please don't just make the next 18 weeks bearable. Make them miraculously good and use me to show my students Jesus. Help me to hope in YOU in my classroom each day, not myself and my teaching abilities or my ability to just grit my teeth and get through something tough. Help me to have hope and faith that you truly can accomplish this because I know I can't. What happened from January through May was truly nothing short of miraculous. Not only did those three challenging students not cause any real disruptions or hardships in the classroom, one of them actually developed a great relationship with me. And the class as a whole became one of my favorites. They were fun, sweet, easy-going, caring, and funny. I looked forward to the class each day. I had the opportunity to really help a young lady in that class who was dealing with a very difficult issue with a friend, and she wrote me a letter telling me how much it had helped and impacted her. It turned out to be just the class that God had prepared for me for my final semester as a teacher. I know my own heart. And I know without a shadow of a doubt that this miraculous change in these students was not just a change in my own perspective. It wasn't just because I had an attitude adjustment. Because I know me and how quickly my attitude becomes entirely self-absorbed when I face difficult things that I find unfair. The Holy Spirit changed me in a way that I could not have changed myself through some mantra and good vibes. The Holy Spirit worked on the hearts of those students while in my classroom to make it a positive social and learning environment. And my self-help mantra is 180 degrees different now as we face the unknown difficulties coming up as we move to Romania. There are so many things that I can't envision and for which I don't have answers. And this past semester of finding total brokenness in my own abilities and independence has shown me that I truly can't face what the Lord has called me to by myself. Moving overseas with kids? Not speaking the language? Having no idea where we're going to live yet? Having a baby in a foreign country without established community? Not knowing how my two toddlers are going to adjust and who will help me with them? Being away from friends and family? I can't do those things on my own. I just can't. I'm scared of all of those things. I'm terrified for my children. I grieve heavily for everything we're leaving behind and especially all that this means for my kids. This is such a stark life-change that I can't just grit my teeth and bare it for a short time period. I can't just rely on myself because it's too much for me. And yet I know that this religion "works." I know that the Lord is going before me and is going to carry me through. Not just because He's gifted me with being smart or a fairly capable human being with abilities to pull myself through it, but because He has promised to fight for me and I need only to be still. (Exodus 14:14) The Christian religion "working" doesn't mean that my life is suddenly going to be successful and perfect by any worldly standards. In fact, the Bible affirms for us that we ought to expect persecution and hardship when we follow Jesus, for if the world killed Jesus despite him being blameless, how much more should we expect to suffer with Him? However, my relationship with Jesus "works" because, despite my circumstances, the Lord provides me with hope for restoration of this broken world and a deep joy that I am loved by the King. And those things have nothing to do with me and how good or capable or beautiful or wealthy or lucky or smart or righteous I am. And I am so very, very grateful that the Lord has shown me my deep need of hoping in Him this past semester. And I'm so grateful that He answered my prayers so that I could end my teaching career in a way that glorified Him because of the way that it changed my heart. Y'all. Look at all those check marks.
All of those check marks have been penned just since May 1st. We've been praying for God to make it clear to us what He would have us do by May 18th - meaning, in our heads, what we should do about buying one-way versus round-trip airfare for our Belgium training coming up. And we're now $285 of monthly pledges away from being fully funded and cleared by our mission agency to buy our one-way tickets. But wow, He has made so much more than just that clear to us.
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