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!

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*

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. ;-)

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. ;-)

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.