Excitement and a Vision

I've never been one to enjoy change if it means that the people I love will no longer live in the same city as I do. Any other kind of change, I welcome, encourage, and even strive for...but I tend to want to hold very tightly to the people who make a place into a home. So, this past week, even as I told Theresa,"Oh, there have been so many changes recently, it doesn't register so much to have another one coming up...I'm happy that you feel you'll be moving towards your calling," even as I can look at Angela and say, "It's so great that you have a job now!" I have found myself on the inside just groaning and wanting to avoid most people altogether.

It's nothing that the people have done...it's just that, if all goes as planned, nearly everyone I know in the Cities will be gone in April or May...and I need time to rest in God's arms and to allow Him to remind me that I have a home and a stable place no matter how many people dear to me are called to follow Him in a different location. I need time with Him for Him to remind me that He is good, that He knows what is going on, that He can be trusted. I want so badly to be a person who can serve Him with or without a vision; with or without solid relationships in my life; with or without being "in the mission field". And when I am aware that He is my home, all of that becomes so much more possible.

I've been doing a lot of imagining futures recently. And this week I have had one, more simple question for God, which is: "Do you want me to build any kind of foundation in the Twin Cities, or not?"

Before last night, I had been laughing at the idea of staying in my house beyond April. Rent is $1500 plus utilities...I would have to find new housemates and everyone I know is planning to move...I am sleeping on a borrowed bed that will disappear in April...I don't have any furniture at all...

But in the back of my mind this week, I have been quietly thinking, "I have a house. That's all I've wanted for a few years now...a house to have intentional Christian community in and to do ministry out of...all I need are the people." And my thoughts have kept playing the song that was in my thoughts when I first moved into this place, "This is home, yeah I'm finally back where I belong, where I belong. Yeah this is home, I've been searching for a place of my own, now I've found it." This song always springs to mind at exactly the moments when this house should feel *least* like home...when it's obvious that the current situation is very temporary.

Last night, it suddenly occurred to me that, if I am free to find my own housemates in April, and if I must start completely from scratch, I can look for whoever I want. I can specifically seek out Christians who are interested in living in an intentional, missional community. I can find people who want to pray together, seek God together, and use the house they live in for Christian outreach. We do so much! We could prayer walk the streets, get to know our neighbors and do random acts of service for them, we could invite homeless people over for dinner, we could invite neighboring college students in for prayer retreats and be a safe place of rest for them, we could take in teens who are pregnant and have been kicked out of the home because of it and just love them...okay, so those are the sorts of things *I'd* like to do...but first and foremost we could pray together, get to know each other, and take off on whatever visions we share. The goal would be to be generous and gutsy with everything God gives us.

And what better way to start connecting to the Christian community in America than by actually being myself? Rather than trying to pretend to be an ordinary Sunday Christian, slowly working my way into the community, I can just enter churches in my usual, "Come along on this crazy vision!" style. Some of my best relationships in Tokyo were made when I was running around asking anyone and everyone to pray 24/7 with me.

This doesn't mean that I'm planning to stay in America long term...and, in fact, this vision is only about 13 hours old, which means it still might fade or change. But, as I pray this week about whether to start building connections here, I still haven't gotten the sense of any open doors for ministry elsewhere. So, if I've still got some time in the Cities, I'd rather use it doing crazy things for God. I suppose the next couple weeks will tell if this is yet another wacky stage of transition or a vision God has placed on my heart.

A long overdue update

I think I have written 8 blog drafts since my last entry, so I felt like I was communicating a little better than I was...*sheepish grin* This is actually pretty typical of my communication struggles in general...I've thought so much at people in my head, that it never occurs to me that they can't know it because it hasn't "been published".

So, here's what's up: Bud is fine, but probably not in charge of writing a book anymore. While we were working on the book, he often talked about things that had been sacrificed with his own family for this job...and it is with some joy that I watch him loosen up on what he felt a duty to do and focus on his family more. So, this leaves me with a gymnastics coaching job and many, many questions about what else I should be doing, either in the present or in the future. I moved into a new house in St. Paul at the beginning of December. I now live with two wonderful ladies, Angela and Theresa. Theresa is about my mom's age, a nurse practitioner in geriatrics, with her heart truly in organic farming. Angela is at a similar level of unemployment to me, and is a music teacher who is currently doing odd jobs and teaching music lessons in at least three locations around Minnesota.

Both of my housemates are of Bohemian ancestry, which is amusing because I'm about three quarters Bohemian--my mom's side of the family is 100%. When they found out I was Bohemian too, it was during our first meeting, and Angela asked, "Are you stubborn?" I smiled as innocently as possible.

I learned shortly after moving in that both ladies were Catholic, and both had wanted to become Sisters at one point in life. I think I walked around grinning a very silly grin at how awesome God is the day I found that out.

In general, I've been impressed by how safe I've felt in the new house. They managed to get me to play piano for them my first night there...and even somewhat unapologetically. By maybe the second week we had decided to do the evening prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours together whenever we could. Our schedules don't match up so well, but the times we have prayed together have been a blessing.

In the middle of all of this, I applied for an English teaching job in Japan, and then I didn't finish the application process. I'm finding myself extremely reluctant to teach English as a career, even for the sake of returning to Japan as a tent-making type missionary. I am longing for a job as a church-worker missionary. The struggle is that I can't do that through the ELCA. I've found a couple mission agencies that I love. They all involve fundraising. When I talked to one of them on the phone, they let me know that I could apply, but that I probably wasn't connected enough in the States for a fundraising mission job. They suggested I take a year or two and keep building a foundation of relationships, and maybe get a master's degree from a seminary or something in the meantime.

I find this insanely frustrating. And I've been surprised these past few weeks at how strong the longing to return to Japan and the mission field has been.

It seems almost amusing that anyone would think I am at a place of building stable foundations for anything. What I'm about to say might sound like whining, but it's really not. I more look at these events and can't help but chuckle at how ridiculous the current lack of stability is. I have a job...and then Bud has a stroke and that is gone. The state of Minnesota was supposed to send me a driver's license and never did (at least, they said it would be within 6 weeks...and it's been 10). My cell phone vanished in between my apartment and Haidee's house over Thanksgiving break when I wasn't using it. Because I have no Minnesota driver's license and they voided my Wyoming license, I wanted to bring my passport to the airport this Christmas. I searched for it for two hours, taking apart literally everything that I own, the night before I left...all that remains of my passport is the sneaking remnant of a memory of seeing it in my orange binder (I carried it around to make a copy of it when I was applying for the job in Japan). It is not in my orange binder, where it belongs, or in any of my belongings that I could find. Thankfully, they let me through airport security with a voided license.

Both of my housemates are also in a state of transition. Angela is applying for a job today, and if she gets it, she'll move out--but probably still see us some weekends. And as for Theresa, I don't really understand how she ever ended up living in the city in the first place. Her heart is quite obviously in the country. :-) She told me when I came back last night that her move out date might be earlier than summer, like she had been predicting. She might end up leaving the house in April. This doesn't particularly surprise me--and I'm happy for Theresa. She belongs on a farm growing her own vegetables and worshiping God through passionately caring for the earth that He's made. And despite the fact that my home is temporary, I still feel this complete certainty that I am where I belong living in this house.

So...I may have to laugh at anyone who implies that I should be building stability in the States right now. But this has been a season of seeing God's love in very tangible ways. Tokyo was not a place of relational wealth. I had dear, precious close friends there...all of whom lived across a huge city. It was a place where I lived alone and had to reach out very intentionally for every contact. Living with people who love me and whom I can love is healing in a way I can't express. Living in a place where I am enjoyed, but not needed and not a burden is freeing me to love and serve in ways I normally can't...I race outside on snowy days to try to be the one who shovels our driveway, and I can spend an hour outside with the snow grinning from ear to ear at the thought of Theresa and Angela coming home to find they don't have to shovel. I've yet to actually achieve that goal...the job is big enough that they usually come home and immediately come out and help me. But being able to shovel without feeling a trace of duty or guilty obligation is so wonderful.

So, that's the long story of what's been going on with me in my Minnesota life. I appreciate your prayers so much...my longing to get back to the mission field right now is really great. But whatever my emotions are up to, I want to follow God. Sorting out my own desires and what God is saying is trickier than normal right now, but I know from experience that His voice will come just in time...and probably not a moment sooner. I think the parable of the virgins waiting for the bridegroom and keeping their lamps lit is much what listening for God entails...I want to be there with my ears open, my lamp lit, when he comes and says it's time to move forward.

Real Life...Sigh

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.

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. ;-)

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:

• "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).

Here's what I make of this...righteousness is one of the fruits of salvation. So often as Lutherans, we focus on that moment of salvation...we are well aware that God can and does forgive any sin...and so we might go around living our lives like we aren't any different and like we haven't been given a spirit of power for the sake of righteousness. I think Miracle is right to be frustrated with us about that. A Christian should look different from a non-Christian. A person who has been bought out of slavery to sin and made a slave to Christ shouldn't be walking around in bondage to sin--not in bondage to addictions, to jealousy, to anger, to fear, to pornography, to greed, to idolatry. We can't win these battles in any way other than by the power of God's Spirit...and that is where grace comes in. Grace doesn't mean sitting apathetic towards our sin knowing that God has accounted for it. If the fruit of our salvation is apathy, it might be time to question the reality of our faith--and whether we know this Jesus Christ that we profess to believe in.

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.

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.