HI ALL! Today is the last day of training and tomorrow I will be commissioned by the United Methodist Church to be anchored in two years of mission work in Nome, Alaska. I humbly invite you if you are able to watch the US-2 and Mission Intern Commissioning Ceremony tomorrow at 11am Eastern Time via live stream from the General Board of Global Ministries web site here at http://gbgm.org/live. If you wish to come to the Ceremony, the address is 475 Riverside Dr., New York, NY. I ask primarily for your prayers as we all move through this transition.
I want to take some time in this entry to reflect on my last four entries and how they relate to what training here as taught me. I must confess, through the previous mission trips with the Appalachian Service Project, Jeremiah Project and the Footprints Organization, I had a preconceived notion that mission was doing. Mission was going to a place to repair, rebuild, teach and feed. Let me take you back to the first entry where Mother Teresa told Shane Claiborne “Come as you are”. Allow me to share with you a lesson I learned from Sierra Leone.
“The World will be fed not by the bread of man, but by the bread of God.”
I heard this voice speak this phrase to me the summer prior to going to Sierra Leone in the winter of 2009 and 2010. I did not fully understand what this meant until I was there in the city of Bo within the walls of the Child Rescue Center. As soon as I stepped through the gate of the CRC I was greeted by a child who walked up to me, smiled at me and reached for my hand. The time I spent in the CRC I learned there that it wasn’t my work, but my presence that made the difference. The bread of God isn’t materials, WE ARE the bread of God. Time spent with someone is feeding them: sharing, learning, listening, walking together.
My time in Nome is a time I have been invited to invest in. I was INVITED to Nome. This sense of invitation has been something I have struggled with for my lifetime. I wasn’t really accepted into the dominant cliques in Elementary School, High School or College (one, because I didn’t want to join a fraternity amongst other reasons). Growing up I was seen as the nerd, the loser, the outcaste. I always had trouble in social settings; I was shy and out casted. Even in terms of more personal relationships, I have been rejected, ignored, unnoticed and unwanted. These ultimately built the issues that brought me to become Clinically Depressed. But along of this I have also accomplished a great deal as I have said in my Accomplishments entry, and those fill my soul with hope.
I have learned through the experiences of my life that it is better and more rewarding to walk the path I have walked. I read recently on a friend’s Facebook:
“I might not be someone's first choice, but I am a great choice. - I may not be rich but I am valuable. - I don't pretend to be someone I'm not, because I'm good at being me. - I might not be proud of some of the things I've done in the past, but I am proud of who I am today. - I may not be perfect but I don't need to be. - Take me as I am, or watch me as I walk away.”
I take that to heart, not only in terms of deeper, more personal and intimate relationships, but also in terms of this mission. I was invited to live in Nome, INVITED. Presence seems to be a larger calling factor then work, being bread. I am truly blessed to have this opportunity that a place that I have never been, a place where I know no one, a place where I have never lived has invited me to live with them. Very rarely have I felt someone reach out to me like that and that kind of acceptance. True, I signed up for this, but during my interview with those I will be working with in Nome, they told me that they were hoping I would grow spiritually during this journey with them.
I thank God for this dearly. Undoubtedly I will miss the sense of a community like St. Stephen’s wanting me around, and I cherish that sense of invitation that they have always given me, and it seems that staying in a life within the Body of Christ has filled me soul, and taken me out of the dark world of rejection, neglect, absent-mindedness and apathy. I tell you this, so that you may think about what this choice can do for you.
You do not need to go long distances to be on mission, and once you begin to answer the calls of Christ, He will bless you and guide you to parts of your life that you will treasure. Mission can happen anywhere with anyone you meet. Often it takes going outside of the norm of society, but Romans 12:2 tells us to not be conformed to this world and that we must be renewed. This commitment doesn’t need to be made now. But know that as I have made this commitment, I have achieved wonderful things because of Him, things I would have never imagined or believed I could have achieved, but I believe it now. It CAN happen to you. You just have to allow it to.
+PeAcE+
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