Hope Faith -- Work and Learning

Another week of the internship has passed, and once again it's been quite the time of learning from God and practicing his presence. Here's some of the things Sean, Jodie, and I accomplished at Hope Faith this past week:

Monday: Put up baseboards in the hallway by the shower

Tuesday: Continued to work on the basement -- our pet project. Organized paint supplies and cleaned up trash. 

Wednesday: Explored the attic and roof as we cleaned and replaced air conditioner vents

Thursday: Went through the electronics room and threw out ancient keyboards and printers. Supported Sean as he gave his testimony at Hope Faith's worship service, Word on the Street. 

Friday: Ate breakfast with clients and then hung out talking and playing cards with whoever stopped by. 

It's been a great week! While working at Hope Faith, we've had lots of opportunities to work with some new people. On Tuesday Will and Osyrus helped us in the basement -- they're two high school kids doing community service. Then on Wednesday and Friday we got to hang out a bit with Justin, who is only a year or two older than us. He has done the Hope Faith internship before and fell back into old habits afterward. Now he's back and is getting back on a good path again.

I've continued to get glimpses of the inner city poor culture as the weeks go on. This past Friday, Jodie and I experienced some of the objectification that is commonplace for women here. An older man named Joe sat next to us for some of the morning and was talking with us. Most of what he said was harmless -- he told us about his model airplane collection and his three marriages and reading to his kids when they were young. But scattered throughout the conversation were some subtle and many not-so-subtle markers of just what Joe thought of women. He complimented my long hair and told Jodie and I he was trying to decide who to propose to. He talked a lot about sex, not in a explicit way, but in a way that showed how closely he associated women with making love. The kicker came at the end of the day as we got up to leave. Joe said, "Now remember ladies, the best thing about you is your figures. I mean it now! Watch your figures. We have to many Big Bertha's running around."

Jodie and I prayed with Sean when we got back to Ryan's -- praying off those lies that Joe said and praying that God would heal the anger and bitterness in him. We realized how fortunate we were to have men in our lives who validated us in all our talents and abilities and who would fight for us if we were ever threatened. So many women in the inner city culture have been used and abused by the very men whose role it is to protect and respect them. Just the small taste I had on Friday was enough to help me imagine the insecurity, mistrust, and defensiveness that that kind of treatment would create in the life a woman. It's sucky.

Prayer Request: Praise for men who treat women with respect and honor them before God. Prayers that God would bring healing to the women at Hope Faith and throughout inner city culture who have been shut down and objectified. That they would come alive through the love of Christ and that Jodie, Sean, and I would be sensitive to their hurts and needs as we minister to them.

Thank you all! God bless!

Father's Day Gifts

Wrote this in creativity group today. It was supposed to be a gift from me to God, but it kinda ended up the other way around =) He gives good gifts indeed!

Pearl of Great Price

You are my Papa, I am your girl

You've polished me up

And made me your pearl. 

Lost in the depths of the ocean so vast

Caught in the seaweed

Of the sins of my past. 

Cold and alone, my breath running out

You saw me. "My daughter!"

You let out a shout. 

Leaving behind your place on the sand

You tore off your God clothes 

And plunged in -- a man. 

You swam the way down -- league after league.

Scraped by the coral,

Your hands start to bleed. 

I see you far off -- I hope and I wonder: 

Why come to save me? 

Doubt pulls me under. 

But still you swim on, and soon you are here. 

Breaking me free

From the chains of my fear. 

Then upward we soar! Up towards the light!

My fear is replaced

By joy and delight!

Here is the air! Here is the sun!

Here I'm alive!

Thanks to the One. 

Now on the beach, I fall at your feet. 

Amazed that for me

The whole ocean you've beat. 

Yet you lift me up and whisper real low

All the beautiful things

You want me to know. 

That you are my Papa, I am your pearl,

And nothing could keep you

From your little girl. 

Shh... Just Listen

Another week has gone by, with me not posting more often -- sorry! Sometimes it's hard to believe that ya'll really want to know that much about my life! But you keep telling me that you do, so I will honor you by posting again by Wednesday. There, now it has to happen  =)

This week has really flown by! Last week at this time, we were just getting back from Pella, Iowa, where we spend every other weekend. Ascent holds a prayer meeting/bible study at an old Catholic church there every  weekend, and we go up for the prayer meetings. These meetings are unique. We begin with worship and then move on to Gospel Contemplation, where Ryan or Jean (the directors) will read a passage from the Gospel aloud and invite the rest of us to meditate on it. After that time of centering, we have a break and then reconvene in a couple of smaller groups for the main part of the meeting -- listening prayer.

Usually we think of prayer as us talking to God, but in listening prayer, we reverse the roles and ask God to quiet our hearts so we hear Him talk to us. In each of the groups, everyone takes a turn sitting in the middle while everyone else prays for him or her, just listening and asking God to give us a thought for the person in the middle. The thought could be a verse of scripture, a song, a picture, a word, or just an impression. Then we share those thoughts with the person we're praying for and allow them to sit with God and decide what was from Him and what we kinda made up. The purpose of this kind of prayer is to encourage each other and also to learn what God's voice sounds like and how to listen for it. It's definitely a process of grace, but it is a great blessing!

 If you are skeptical or weirded out by the idea of listening prayer, I don't blame you! When I first heard of it several years ago, I didn't know what to think. It was different than anything I'd ever experienced and I had all sorts of questions: does God really talk to us that clearly? why would He? how do you know if the thought you have is from Him or from your own mind? The only reason I went to my first Ascent prayer meeting, called Encounter I AM, was because I trusted my friend Sara from high school, who had experienced a lot of blessing from listening prayer. But even though I decided God was probably big enough to speak to people through other people's thoughts if He wanted to, I was sure that He wouldn't want to do that for me.

Long story short, I was blown away by the power and love of God that I experienced the first time I participated in listening prayer the summer after my freshman year of college! I was the last person in our group to be prayed over, and I wasn't expecting to hear anything that was really personal. Maybe some generic stuff about God loving me, but nothing that was really specific to my life. Well, I was wrong. God gave those praying for me pictures that described the place I was at with indecision and disappointment with my major and reminded me that Jesus knew what He was doing and wanted me to trust Him and just BE with Him. They also shared with me a scripture that I had just been given by a friend and that had really been encouraging me lately. After this experience, I had to reevaluate my tiny idea of who God was and how He wanted to interact with me. It was seriously life-changing to realize the power and intimate love of our God all at the same time!

It took me several more prayer meetings for me to get over my fear actually sharing the things that God had put on my heart for others in our group, but eventually, sharing became as much of a blessing as receiving -- especially as people responded in ways that confirmed that God was speaking to them in the word or picture I'd shared.

Now, I just want to clarify that you don't just say whatever pops into your mind when you're praying over someone. If what you hear is contrary to the Bible or the character of God as revealed in the Bible, than it is obviously not from God and shouldn't be shared. You also never share something that you hear about a major life decision, like marriage or jobs or things like that. Even if those thoughts are from God, the person needs to hear those directly from God, not from you first. That being said, listening prayer is a practice of grace. You usually don't know if the picture or song or word in your head will mean anything to the person you're praying for, but you can share it anyway, just in case, and let them sit with God and decide. It's sometimes really fun to see how God will use what seems like silliness to one person to speak to someone else!

Anyway, I wanted to share with you all about listening prayer because the idea behind it -- that God uses our imaginations to communicate to and through us -- is something we'll be exploring a lot this summer. It's crazy all the ways that God will speak to us if we're open to listen! All the while that we are serving or learning or running this summer, we are practicing being aware of God's presence: how He's speaking to us, teaching us, or leading us to speak to others. We're not very good at it, but that's okay. God's patient =) And Christ invites us to this in John 15:4 when He says, "Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me." 


So that's not at all what I was planning on sharing with you today, but that's what came out, and I'm glad! If you are freaked out by the idea of listening prayer, or just have questions about it, please don't hesitate to email me at lxpskr@dordt.edu. I won't be offended by your skepticism or curiosity.

Expect another post very soon -- one more about what's happening right now, and hopefully some pictures too =)

In honor of Father's Day and the reminder it gives of the importance of families, please remember the clients at HopeFaith who have very painful, broken family histories. Pray that God would heal those wounds with gifts of grace and forgiveness and satisfy them with His love.

Thanks brothers and sisters!

Psalm 68

Things Unseen

First of all, I'm sorry that I've waited so long to blog. 1) Because some of you commented that you would have liked me to blog more often when I was in Nicaragua last year, and 2) because now I have way to much to say for this one post!


This past week has been great and blessed and challenging in a lot of ways. This past weekend was our first in KC and the staff wanted us to see some of the city. On Saturday, after some much needed sleep-in time, we headed to a Christian Indie Craft Fair in Johnson County and then to Loose Park downtown for Frisbee and reading, finishing off the day with We Bought a Zoo from the Red Box.


Sunday morning we attended Beggars Table Church in downtown -- it's a church that doubles as an art gallery!  We were warmly welcomed into the small, young congregation and we worshiped with them in the midst of paintings by Clint Metcalf. It was really a beautiful, refreshing morning. I've put the link to the church and artist on the left.


Then this week we settled even more into our schedules and into each other's company. As the only Dordt student doing the internship, I was expecting it to take a while to be really connected to all the Central students, but I feel like I've know them for much longer than two weeks. I was the only girl at Ryan's house one night and Ryan, the director, asked me if I had hung out with guys a lot. He totally read me on that, cause I was a little unsure of what to do with myself as the only girl there. But then I was able to talk about that with some of the girls, and I'm excited about learning more about just sharing and relating to guys, That's just one example of the kind of community we have -- very honest and challenging and caring.


Besides getting to know the other interns better, I've gotten way more comfortable at Hope Faith this past week. All of the interns were working at Hope Faith this week because the other volunteer site, Kansas City Urban Youth, doesn't begin until Monday. By the end of this week, almost all the interns and staff recognized Jodie, Sean, and I, who had been working there everyday. It's so encouraging to be met with recognition and enthusiasm, even if they only know us as Yahoo 1, Yahoo 2, and Nancy (Sean is Nancy, of course). Some of the work we've done there this week includes arranging furniture in their newest transitional house, washing and oiling the woodwork in that house, organizing donations in the warehouse, working in the new community garden, and serving food in the kitchen. I love working with the other interns and getting to know them better, but my favorite part of Hope Faith is the interaction we have with the clients. On Thursdays we attend their 10 o'clock service called Word on the Street. The talent among the clients and staff is phenomenal! Every week, Mark leads worship -- gospel-style. Ladies are shouting and playing tambourines -- they're sold out for Jesus! This week, one of the men who works in the kitchen got up and did two original raps for us. He was a huge black guy, and it was so cool to hear God's word and truth expressed so poetically and in a way that really connected to the clients there.


Fridays at Hope Faith what Jim, our supervisor, calls our "Ministry Days." We go to morning devotions and then kinda hang out in the fellowship halls, building relationships with clients and being available for prayer. Praise God! He had a lot of work for us to do yesterday! Patsty and Sean spent almost two hours listening to the story of a young man about our age. He told of his broken past -- abuse, drugs, two kids with his girl friend, prison, prescription drug abuse -- and of his current despair. He was really struck by the happiness the Patsy and Sean and wanted what they had. They prayed for him, and then he decided he wanted to pray for himself. It was his first prayer ever, and in he asked God to take his addiction and fix his life. Afterward, he said that he felt as if a weight had been taken from his shoulders. I met him at lunch, and there's no way that I could have guessed the despair he had felt earlier by looking at him then. It was so awesome to see the way God had provided Patsy and Sean to give this man what he had been looking for -- hope and a new start.

I also had an eventful day at Hope Faith Friday. I talked for about an hour with a young woman named Marina, who has beautiful eyes and wild curly hair. She has a very broken past and is living on the streets now. She has some sort of mental illness, but is very sweet and soft-spoken. I sat down next to her and we started talking about God and faith. Marina has a sincere faith in Christ, but there were some parts of her theology that were skewed, and as she talked and talked and talked, I became more and more overwhelmed. How was I supposed to respond to all that hurt and bitterness and truth and falsehood and conviction? Eventually I excused myself and just stood in the bathroom for a while, settling my heart and praying for guidance. I returned to the group and Heidi prayed for me too. One of the Hope Faith staff soon came up and asked me to pray for someone else, which was a blessing -- I was able to pray truth and life and God's love over another woman. But for the rest of the day I was physically drained and a bit preoccupied by what had happened that morning. The conversation and prayer I was a part of, combined with Patsy and Sean's experience really opened my eyes to the reality that Hope Faith is a spiritual battlefield. Brokenness and pain are not hidden there, but neither are love and freedom of Christ. These two realms are in a struggle for the allegiance of the people there, and as warriors of Christ, we must be aware that we are entering that battle. Our King is going to win the battle, but we're still called to fight it! Thank goodness that we're are told never to fight in our own strength! That was another lesson of the day -- sometimes we minister by listening and praying, and we have to let go and trust God to work out the rest.

Once again, there's more to tell you all!! I don't want this blog to just be a play-by-play of my schedule; I want it to be a testimony of the work God is doing and what I'm learning from Him. I hope to blog again in more detail on that soon. 

Thank you once again for your prayers! I continue to receive great encouragement from your notes =) Please pray that God would teach me to follow His lead at Hope Faith, to go clothed in the armor of God, and to trust Him to work out His will there. It's an adventure!

You all are in my prayers as well! Please let me know how I can lift you up before our Father. Blessings on you week!

The Opening Challenge: "Abide in Me"

They have certainly kept us busy this first week of our internship! I'm down here with 9 other interns, all of whom are from Central College in Pella. We've spent a lot of time together so far, and it's been great to get to know them. The four of us girls live in our own rented house with Ascent staff member Emily (who is a great house mom and spider killer). Four of the guys are doing the internship for their second or third time, so they are living in a rented house in the inner city with two other Ascent staff. The other two guys are first year interns like the girls, and they are living in the Ascent "home base" house with two staff members as well.

Our schedule settled into what will become our normal routine by the end of the week. My looks something like this:

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Weekend
Morning (8-12)	Work at Hope Faith – delivering furniture, serving food, sorting clothes, building relationships with staff and clients, eating lunch with clients.
Afternoon (1-5)	Teaching at Ryan's house ("Home Base")	Prayer in the IHOP (International House of Prayer) Prayer Room	Manuscript Study of Zachariah at Ryan's	Prayer on our own	Teaching at Ryan's house	Every other weekend: Bible study in Pella. Otherwise, our own free time.

So much has happened, that I'm not sure where to start in relating it all to you. Two other interns, Sean and Jodie, and I began our time at Hope Faith Ministries (a homeless day center) this week. Jim, our supervisor, took us on a tour and explained to us the purpose (to glorify God and tell people about His Son) and history (full of God's powerful working) of the ministry. I'm very glad to have been assigned to Hope Faith for the summer, as the staff are sold out for Jesus and the programs they have in place really impact their clients for the better. I'm sure I'll have lots more to tell you about Hope Faith throughout the summer! If you'd like to know more about them, I've posted their link on my home page.

So far, everyday has been packed with learning about God. A real focus of our internship is learning and practicing what the staff calls abiding. Other people call it being constantly in prayer. Basically, it's the idea of being constantly plugged into God. Our day of silence on Tuesday was sort of abiding initiation -- a whole day with just ourselves and God. We were given a short book to read called Practicing the Presence of God, written by Brother Lawrence in the 1600s. What a challenging and encouraging read! Brother Lawrence describes the way that he constantly fixes his heart and mind on God, simply for the love of Him. If you're like me, you'd like to be able to do this, but know yourself to be too distracted and broken to be thinking of the Father all the time. But Brother Lawrence reminds his readers that God's grace does not depend on his children's worthiness. When we fall, we don't have to beat ourselves up, because God expects us to fall and gives us grace to pick ourselves up and turn to Him again. It's that simple! We just turn our hearts and minds back to God and never expect to be able to succeed without His intervention. This will be my challenge and joy this summer: to seek God with my whole heart, learn to wait silently on Him, and keep Him at the center of my thoughts and actions all day, picking myself up by His grace alone when I fall.

In your prayers next week, please pray that Sean, Jodie, and I would have confidence when reaching out to the clients at Hope Faith -- it's hard to know how to start a conversation with someone in a homeless shelter. Also, for the clients there -- that their hearts would be open to our friendship and God's love. And please share your requests with me, that I may be in prayer for you as well! You can always email me at lxpskr.dordt.edu.