The same sun

If you live in Tacoma have you noticed that things have been unusually crazy? I've noticed a lot more graffiti engraved on local store fronts and have been aware of crying sirens that are screaming at greater frequencies. I wonder what is going on?

My own personal experience with this craziness started on Friday morning last week when I was on my way to the Y. I couldn't find my car. At first I thought I must be just not seeing it because this wouldn't really happen. But, after walking up and down the block I was reassured that the spot where I parked was now absent of my car.

My alarm clock on Saturday morning was a phone call from the Tacoma police Department saying they had found my car! Amazing! James and I drove over to the location which was only a couple of blocks away. There we found my car abandoned, but in perfect condition. They had done nothing to it except steal my piggy bank that was waiting to be rolled into money sleeves.

This whole experience showed me how unattached I am to this car. I realized how my prayers to not have attachment to material possessions were starting to take root. God has begun to established a steady faith that allowed me to responded by saying "Great, now I don't have to worry about selling it in a couple of months!" This response was a shock to me. Even though opportunities like this aren't desired it was good to see what rose out of my heart because of it. Other times I wasn't so pleasantly surprised but more disappointed by the darkness that oozed out.

Saturday we had a house concert at our home and so there were lines of cars parked on our skinny street. I came home for the Mission Encounter greeted by comments of my car being hit in a hit and run. I thought they were joking and teasing me since I had just gotten it back that morning. They weren't. The back was dented in the identical spot of a hit in run last February. This time my reaction wasn't as calm. I was mad! Mad that so much insanity could happen within such a short period of time. My friend Marie and I went up stairs and did some warfare prayer because I know that we don't fight against blood and flesh, but against principalities and spiritual forces.

I've not only seen physical warfare manifesting in Tacoma, but there has also been a lot of disunity. I've been in a season of tension with one of my housemates for over two weeks. It was to the point were we hadn't said more then the surface greeting and I was arranging for another place to live under the pretense of needing to save money before I left for Africa. As I write this it sounds so immature. I was the host of bitterness and personal offense. Once I started to allow bitterness to invade my heart the line of Truth was blurred.

Tuesday night we sat on my small bed and hashed out our emotions and perspectives. After two and a half hours of conversing, reflecting and planning we came to the great conclusion of reconciliation. It was amazing because I went into the conversation thinking that it would be the end of our intimate friendship and that I would be content on having an acquaintance void of any depth. I remember the breaking point of the conversation for me when my heart let go was when they said,"I went to Powells book store and was going to journal all of the reasons why I was so frustrated with you. All I could do was write about all the things you taught me and how much I loved you. I now have pages and pages." This melted me and I actually felt all walls tumble down and it was like my heart went limp again and was embraceable once more. I had convinced myself from the actions of my friend that they didn't love me or want me in their live. Hearing the truth made my heart open up again to the love they had for me.

As I lay in bed reading a book called When Heaven Invades Earth by Bill Johnson, I came to this quote that struck my heart with validity. "The anointing of the Holy Spirit forever changed the lives of the humble. But it was also Holy Spirit empowered ministry that caused great offense to the proud and brought about His crucifixion. The same sun that melts the ice hardens the clay." And ultimately the way we react to the Holy Spirit is due to the condition of our heart.

My ultimate desire to be alive to Holy Spirit and to be melted by His presence. This time with my housemate was one of brokenness and self-reflection and I realized that there I was in part being hardened by conviction but in the end I was melted and undone by love and forgiveness.

Flustered

Well, ARGGGGH. I am letting out a big sigh now as my day was far from perfect. Actually, I was unusually flustered all day today. My students weren't doing anything out of the ordinary but they were hitting all of my buttons labeled annoyed. Ivory kept on singing our songs in his bass opera voice, Richard looked at me blankly as I directed him for literally the 10th time to move closer to his partners for the math game, and Jayshawn continued his obsession with the velcro on his shoes.

But, really my flustered day started at the gym where while gabbing towards the mirror in kickboxing a spunky older Asian woman kept on punching her way into my mirror space, and there was a locker area hog in the locker room.
Why is it that some days everything sees to be elevated? Things that normally would go unnoticed end up being the main themes for the day. When this happens I pray. Today I realized that most of the issues were because I was forgetting that when I became a Christian I was crucified with Christ and now I don't live but He lives in me. This means that those things that I was taking personally should affect me at all because I should be dead to myself. Easy to say, but when a spunky grandma is blocking your view and a pouting 2nd grader is preventing you from your lunch hour, it is different. But, it shouldn't be.

I got to talk to Don Rogers the International Director on the phone today. I really really thougth that this would be THE conversation. THE conversation inviting me to join the team of Empowering Lives International. THE conversation telling me that my dreams had finally been cemented and confirmed. THE conversation that would allow for me to speak with finality about my plans to Africa. But, instead we are waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Waiting for the next month when he is going to sit face to face with the board of directors in Kenya and together they can plan and write my job description so that it can be approved for a NGO pass.

Even though Don was the bearer of undesirable news, he was so encouraging. And I do know that God is working in the midst of this waiting period. I'm still waiting to hear from Iris ministries so I'm waiting to buy my ticket. In the meantime on Saturday I get to share at a Missions Encounter and trust that God will tug on peoples heart because He has a vision and I am just the person who gets to voice it.

Overall, I've learned alot about the African people through this whole process that started eight years ago. Ever since Feburary I was waiting to hear from them a final word and I realize that the Kenyans truly do prefer communication face-to-face and that they value personal communication.

Shoe shining

Shoe shining
Originally uploaded by meagdiamond.

Splendor: Waiting for the green light

Overload

My brain is on overload. I am feeling like a run down wind-up toy. I just was talking to my housemat and my tounge coudln't keep up with my thoughts. And that is really slow since I'm dead tired. Today I slept in until the late hours of 8:00. I woke up to go to the bathroom. Normally I would sink back into the comfort of my "poof" as my grandma calls them. And I did try that, but then the phone called me out of my almost slumber. And by that time my brain was already awake and thinking about the reading I needed to run my eyes over inorder to do my online assignments. When I signed up for these two graduate courses online with Moody I was excited about the opporunity to learn again and to get some new skills, but now I'm down right overloaded. After studying the morning hours into the early evening I got to get together with Abby.

It's sort of comical because we always plan these grandious adventures of scaling mountains or biking, scrape booking and painting a room all in one day. By the time we hang out it ends up being a walk that ends a couple of blocks away at a friends house and then laying on the couch reading. But, that is something I love about dreaming. It is fun to dream about all of the adventures you would like to do even if they materialize in a much more minature way.

On my bed is pile of books, big books. Books that you could knock someone over with, like in a cartoon where their arms go like silly putty stretching to the floor. I used them today for an assignment for my biblical studies class. I am starting to get used to piles and stacks of books being permanent figures in the corners of my room. The funny thing, or maybe sad depending on how you see it, is I'm not even sure what I'm in school for. I'm not talking about my purpose, but I mean what the end degree will be. I keep telling people Biblical Studies, but I don't like peoples reactions when I tell them that. I want to get the "Wow, that is so cool!" reaction. Not the, "Oh. . ." reaction.

I've spent a lot of time in my bedroom recently. The other day as I was studying I caught the end of this little furry butt with a long ropy tail bounching past my book shelf. I screamed and jumped up to report to my housemate. I timidly went back into my room, but this time was crouching on my chair as I studyed. Seconds later Ray was the one screaming and I turned to look in her room and saw the same little furry butt sauntering across her floor. Immediatley we both were up on our beds and we watched and screamed. I was giggling though my screams as Ray only stopped screaming briefly to take deep breaths. Inside me was a strange mixture of comidic relief and terror. We called everyone we knew within a three mile block radius of us and no one, literally, no one was home. We left messages of us screaming in panic on our friends voicemails. Eventually James came home and with two boxes and a ruler as he said it "Took care of the problem". There hasn't been a little furry butt sighting since, but every time I enter in the bathroom, my room, or basically into our house I am always looking for a sighting of that unwanted guest. Today as I lay in bed reading I thought I heard the dreaded scampering in the walls, but tried to onvience myself that it was the natural creaks of an old house.

Waiting for the green light

Well, the past week has been wonderfully interesting. I was all ready to go to an inservice at Valhalla elementary school because I had arranged for a three month long term sub job with one of my collegues. Before school ended I thought I had fully arranged for the details of this to run smoothly. My principal emailed me telling me that since she hadn't heard from, and neither had the other teacher or the sub office they had given the job to someone else. This made my heart sink initally and in many ways I felt like it was sort of a sudden death of someone I knew. Since I thought that I was coming back in the fall I didn't properly say goodbye to the other teachers or to my children. After I got over the momentary shock I realized that God is in control and He has plans that are much bigger than I could ever design. This truth helped my heart to be at peace and even excited for what could happen. The next day I got a phone call from another pricncipal in Federal Way that was looking for a long term sub for two months. I went to visit the school and teacher that day and after an two hours walked out to my car with a new assignment to teach a multiage 1,2 class until November. Then on Thursday I got an email about a school through Iris ministries. The timing would be from the end of October to the beginning of January. I applied for this school and arranged for my pastor and friend to fill out the recommendations. Perhaps this could be the reason why the long term three month position wasn't finalized and instead this two month one was available.

As of right now I'm still in the holding process. I'm waiting to hear from ELI concerning our partnership in Eastern Africa and I'm waiting to hear from Iris concerning this school in Mozambique. Even though I've not had the green light from either group I'm proceceding ahead as if I have the go. It has been liberating and intense as I do another sweep through my stuff and place it into piles or donate, give away, or keep for Africa. It has been freeing because I love simplicity and not having material posessions as a weight. How awesome it would be to move and transition quickly with no material ties. It has been exausting because of the memories and sentiments linked to each item and the whole process of uprooting my life from one home to a new home is emotional.