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Saturday, 03 May 2008

Becoming Me

Tomorrow is graduation.

Not my graduation. My college graduation was – wow – six years ago already. Tomorrow’s graduation will feature many students I barely know and a few rather dear to my heart. In fact, I feel closer to more people in this senior class than I ever did in my own. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. The story actually starts six years ago in a place quite far from here…

When I graduated from college, I had no real direction in mind. I’d been working for a small-town newspaper for a few years, and the idea of being that kind of journalist for very long made me rather chlosterphobic. I decided that before I ‘settled down’ into a job I might not even like, I’d better have one last adventure. Destination: Papua New Guinea. It was the closest I could get to Australia and still consider it a mission trip.

To make an incredibly confusing story short, all within the span of three weeks, my grandmother died unexpectedly, my visa for Papua New Guinea didn’t come, and I had to decide whether to cancel the trip to Australia my mom and I had been planning as a pre-mission trip celebration. In the end, we went ahead with the trip to Australia and had an amazing two weeks together. I was even able to stay for another two weeks to soak in more of the country I’d wanted to visit since I was nine years old.

After a month in Oz, I flew home and had to face life again. What to do with the money I’d raised for a mission experience in Papua New Guinea? My choice was formed by the equivalent of spinning a globe and poking your finger at a location, or so I thought. My six weeks in Arizona consisted of blue skies and red rocks; of Native American Reservations and a very snowy Grand Canyon; of telling God I didn’t want to do this missionary thing my whole life, and being humbled by His patience and grace.

Next stop: Honduras. My seven weeks there taught me a few things: 1. Learning how to write in Spanish really doesn’t help you speak it or understand when it’s spoken to you. 2. Mission work can consist of washing clothes, baking cookies, and doing dishes. 3. I didn’t want to only wash clothes, bake cookies, and do dishes for the rest of my life. 4. Hondurans are amazingly gracious and hospitable people.

Honduras also changed my attitude toward missions. I got past some of my trepidation about having to speak in front of people to ask them for money; and I realized that I might find a way to use my passion for writing to help spread God’s love. Enter Trans World Radio.

I won’t say that TWR changed my life; but God sure used TWR to change my life. He took me away from everything and everyone I held dear and plopped me in a country I’d barely even heard of: Slovakia. (That’s Slovakia of the former Czechoslovakia – it split from the Czech Republic in 1993.) There I met…life. Real life. Life filled with people and possibilities; life that is about community and God and broadening your perspective. Any words I use to describe those two years will fail to capture what happened to me there; of how God took me to the end of myself, to a point where I didn’t even recognize the person I’d become; and how He shaped me into a person more wholly me than I’d been in a long time.

And then, it was gone. The magic disappeared. I went home, disappointed in God for taking me away from the place I’d fallen in love with. For almost a year I tried to fight the darkening shadows on my own; the more I struggled, the deeper I fell. It felt as though the light had gone out, and I didn’t know how to make it shine again.

One Sunday morning I spoke in church about some of my experiences overseas. I couldn’t even tell you now what I said. But my Bible study leader came over to me afterwards and asked if I had ever considered working in the church. Uh, no. But that sparked my curiosity and I found the United Methodist Church online and started looking through their website. Something on one of the drop-down menus caught my eye: Youth and Young Adult Corner. Hmm.

I found lots of programs to choose from, but one in particular caught my eye: US-2 – a mission experience for social justice-minded young people between the ages of 20-30. I’d never really done much with social justice, whatever that meant, but the program had one huge plus: you didn’t have to raise your own support!

I sat one day at my computer, filling out the US-2 application, working on the gazillion essays they make you write. The first question was: Describe something in your life that has recently affected your faith. How did you see God at work in the process?

Dang, they don’t beat around the bush!

I remember sitting at the table, staring at the screen, wondering how to answer that question. Truthfully, that part of me was kind of ugly. But something – or Someone – prompted me to write the truth. To tell them of my struggles. To be vulnerable, something I’m definitely not used to doing. But I had to decide, right then and there, if I was willing to fight, to not give in to the darkness, but to trust God even when life didn’t make sense.

Somehow I did. And through some incredible God-incidences, I am where I am today. I am a US-2 missionary for the United Methodist Church, a denomination I’d attended all my life without knowing what it stood for. I work at a college, a place I couldn’t wait to leave six years ago, and I LOVE my job. I interact with college students – the same kind of people who used to intimidate and/or annoy me – and I LOVE them deeply. I live in a small, very quirky town in the South, when I’m very much a northern farm girl at heart.

In other words, the past six years of my life have been about finding myself in places I never, ever expected to be. And somehow, God used each of those places – even the dark ones – to shape and mold and breathe new life into me. And still He walks beside me, taking my hand, lighting just enough of the path for me to see a few steps ahead.

And I wonder…where will God lead me next?

Wednesday, 26 March 2008

Roofing in the Rain

My dad is a construction guru. He built our family’s house. He’s an amazing carpenter, turning junk like old barn siding into beautiful cabinets and paneling. He made a life-size Thomas the Tank Engine for his grandkids to ride in - plus laid all the track and even built a railroad crossing complete with flashing lights and ringing bells.
When he worked in construction for a living, my older brothers sometimes helped out, especially with roofing projects. But I was the youngest and the only girl, so it never made sense to teach me how to hammer and saw. I honestly meant to pick up a few carpentry skills when I lived at home last year, but we never got around to it.
This past weekend, I traveled to Gulfport, MS, to do hurricane recovery work with 12 college students and 5 other adults. I figured we’d be cleaning up piles of debris, gutting houses, or painting. Then we arrived, and I found out that my half of the group would be tearing off and putting a roof back on a house - hah! I’d rarely ever swung a hammer before, except for putting up a few pictures on the walls. But hey - maybe it’s in my genes.
Saturday afternoon’s weather was exactly what every roofer dreads - sunny and 90 degrees. I remembered those cool, cloudy days when my dad would leave the house saying, ‘Ah, a perfect day for roofing.’ No such luck for us.
Our first task was to get the old roof off. Golly, what a process! Three or four of our team used these half spade-half shovel tools to dig up the shingles while others pulled up the loose shingles and threw them in the junk pile. We were all sweating up a storm, drinking water by the bottle-full (and hoping it wouldn’t go straight through us - the nearest bathroom was a couple miles away).
After the old roof finally surrendered, we started nailing down tar paper…and man, did we nail! No nail guns for us (my dad would be proud)! We managed to get the roof tar-papered before dragging our weary bodies down off the roof and into the van for the ride back to the church where we stayed.
Sunday morning we were all a (lot!) bit tired, but an enthusiastic welcome at morning worship and lunch at the beach lifted our spirits. In a little over three hours that afternoon, we managed to shingle two-thirds of the roof (even with a few crooked rows that had to be corrected). As the sun set, we gazed with satisfaction on our hard work, ready to return the next morning and finish what we’d started.
I awoke Monday morning to the pitter-patter of rain falling outside. We checked with Emil, our construction leader and roofer extraordinaire, and dressed for a day of working in the rain. At the work site a few hours later, the rain was coming down in sheets. Undeterred, our roofing crew climbed carefully atop the house and got to work. The rain continued, unabated, all day, soaking us to the bone. By afternoon, all warmth had seeped out of us, but still we carried on.
As I hammered, my thoughts were on the people of lower Mississippi and Louisiana. This rain was nothing compared to the lashing Hurricane Katrina gave them.
Four hours after we’d begun, I hammered the last nail and surveyed the beautiful new roof we’d put on for Bobby and his wife. Even in the pouring rain, it was one of the sweetest, proudest moments of my life.
I think I can say with certainty that none of the rain-soaked volunteers from Pulaski, TN, would have traded that moment for all the dry clothes in China.
The Smiles of Life

Sometimes I can tend to take life a little too seriously. I have a frustrating day, or I’m not feeling well, and the world suddenly seems dark and grim. In those moments, I need to be reminded that God IS real and that I AM loved. Those reminders can take some pretty interesting forms…
* Ceramic turkeys. Now, I’ve seen plenty of ceramic deer and geese decorating people’s yards back home. But in Pulaski, on nearly every corner you’ll find a painted ceramic turkey. One has a map of Pulaski on it; another sports flowers and fruit; yet another represents a college graduate. How can you not smile about that?
* A wooden bowl. When my friend Amanda came to visit a few weeks ago, she brought me a beautiful gift - a wooden bowl she had stained and then woodburned my name on. With my unique first name, I’ve never been able to buy keychains or pens or notepads with my name inscribed on them. Now my ‘Mariellyn’ bowl sits above my computer at work, reminding me of a dear friend.
* Sporting fun. I love watching sports of any kind, and this past weekend was no exception. My Ohio State Buckeyes and Pittsburgh Steelers both won BIG. And yesterday, after watching a rousing game of flag football where the faculty/staff team beat up on a team of students, I got to see my Cleveland Indians advance past the Yankees and into the American League Championship Series. Go Tribe!!
* Cowgirl hats and colored hair. At a student-led retreat a few weeks ago, my boss and I went on a KMart run to pick up a few forgotten items. On one of our many trips around the store, I spied a couple of cowgirl hats that were calling our names. Add to that some colored hairspray, and we had quite a lot of fun amusing the students - and ourselves!
* Old friends & new. I had an amazingly blessed network of friends when I lived in Slovakia, and I miss them! But thanks to email, Skype, and cell phones, and I can keep in touch with most of them. And though I doubt I’ll ever find so many quality friendships in one place again, the students I work with here at Martin bring a lot of smiles to my face.
What are the smiles in your life today? :o)
'But when He came to Himself...'

Last week in chapel, the message was given on a verse I had never really thought much about. It comes from one of the most beloved parables of all time - the Prodigal Son. Most of us know the tale of the younger brother who takes his early inheritance and squanders it all, ending up with no food and no one to care if he lives or dies. He realizes that even the lowliest of his father’s servants live in better conditions. So he goes home and begs his father for a job, not realizing how deeply his father loves him. Instead of castigating him for his carelessness, the father wraps his arms around his son and celebrates his homecoming.
I’ve always loved this story of our Father’s unconditional love. But I never paused to think about why, after all the misery he’d endured, the son finally decided to come home. Some versions of Luke 15:17 say, ‘When he came to his senses’ - he realized he would only survive if he swallowed his pride and went home. Another version (NRSV) puts it this way: ‘But when he came to himself…’
Isn’t that how it often happens with us? God gives us the richness of His presence, and we leave Him behind as we walk out of church. He longs to fill our hearts with joy, and we look elsewhere for a quicker fix. But then there comes a day when nothing fulfills us, when all this world has to offer cannot ease the ache inside. On that day we have two choices: deny or accept who God made us to be.
We are human, yet spiritual. We were formed of dirt, but God also created us with minds and hearts and souls. We are unholy, impure, and yet God invites us to dine at His table. We are imperfect, but God loves us perfectly and unconditionally. We turn away from God time and time again, and still He calls us His children.
Why? Why does God offer us such unfathomable grace?
Because it’s who He is. Love, mercy, grace, justice, all rolled into One.
He created us in His image, to be love, mercy, grace, and justice in this world.
So, like the Prodigal Son, when we fully come to ourselves, we come face to face with our Father. And we realize that, to our utter disbelief, no one and nothing can separate us from His love.
Amen!
Take a Walk with Me...

Walking is one of my great joys in life. Growing up in the hills of central eastern Ohio, I never truly appreciated the peaceful harmony of being in and among God’s creation - until I left, that is. In the past five years, I’ve left that beautiful valley a number of times - sometimes for a few weeks, another time for several years. Everywhere I traveled I observed the amazing variety of God’s world - the forests of saguro cactus in southern Arizona, the scruffy mountains of Honduras, the lush rainforests of Australia, the Saharan desert of Morocco, and the charming cities of Europe. In each place I fell more deeply under nature’s spell.
And still, after witnessing some of the world’s most glorious wonders, I often long for my childhood home. Even now, living as I am in the loveliness of southern Tennessee, I crave the stillness, the peace, the absolute rest I find in my home of homes. More than anywhere else in the world, when I am in my valley, sun on my face, listening to the birds’ teasing calls and the creek’s joyful bubbling…breeze whistling among the trees, squirrels scampering across the just-mown grass…I feel God. Doubts and mistrust fall away. Each ray of sun His smile, the bubbling water His laughter, the whispering wind His voice.
I have seen God in all the places I’ve been, and I know He is always with me - even to the ends of the earth. Yet those rare and marvelous moments of perfect peace, when God seems to simply surround me, come most often when my heart, my soul, are at home. For this lifetime, I’ve been blessed to have two places fit that description. Now that I’m preparing to walk for a few years on a different path, in a new place…I wonder what imprint will be left on my heart when I reach the end of this road.