Posted on

Mission, Through Our Eyes

Through_her_eyes1_2 My friend, Marti, has been an inspiration to me since I met her in late 2000/early 2001. She worked as a coordinator/trainer and writer for Caleb Project for many years and now works for Pioneers doing much the same thing. She trained our team, along with another team, in ethnographic research and was pretty much my mentor, encourager, strategist and counselor as I walked through the process of co-leading the team as the Research Coordinator while we were in India and then as the primary writer once we were home.

Marti’s detail-oriented mind and incredible ability to focus make her the perfect person to edit reports, prayer guides and video scripts. But it’s in her creativity, incredible writing talent and deep love for Jesus and His Kingdom workers on the front lines that we can see her heart and passions.

She’s written a book about women missionaries on the field, the challenges they face, they opportunities they have and the incredible impact they make on the world in which they serve. Its a unique book in many ways. You need to check it out.

I have been blessed in so many ways to know a great many women who serve, or have served, overseas. Their unique perspective on life, ministry and the culture in which they serve challenged me to be more intentional in my own life. I will be forever grateful for their investment in me. Their impact can best be seen, I think, in my own ministry. The taught me to be a lifelong learner, a lover of people and an observer of culture, all without ever losing my own identity and uniqueness. Marti is one of those influential women. In honor of her, and her book, I thought I’d give you a glimpse through my eyes of my favorite place I have lived overseas.

I cannot think of Marti and not think of India, nor India and not think of Marti. The two are forever connected. And I have incredible memories of both. Sometimes I dream moving to India someday. However, as a woman, I think it was probably the hardest place I lived. The "eve-teasing," the constant attempts to feel me up on crowded buses and trains, the butt slaps by strangers and the lewd looks were difficult. I learned the elbow jab and toe stomp (for the bus rides) with the best of ’em, ride the women’s car on the trains and I worked hard to develop a thick skin for the rest. I also faced challenges with disrespect from rickshaw drivers and merchants who wanted to "re-negotiate" the price halfway through our transaction simply because I was a woman, or a foreigner, or both. I had one rickshaw driver pull over in the middle of a bridge crossing the Yamuna river and change the fare. I balked, of course, and told him absolutely not. When he refused to move until I agreed, I got out and started to walk — without paying him. It didn’t matter to me that there wasn’t another rickshaw "stop" for… miles, probably, or that I had absolutely no idea how to get to my friend’s home. I was not going to be bullied out of a fair deal agreed upon by the driver simply because he thought an American woman could be. The driver quickly gave in when he realized he either got the agreed-to fare, or no fare at all. I got back in and we finished our ride. That was empowering. As a woman I’d not experienced such a victory over obvious discrimination. And it felt good! 🙂

Two things I remember most about India are the smells and the temple bells. It’s odd how smells can take you right back to a significant memory with vivid clarity. Last month I walked out of my office building on my way home for the evening and was assaulted with the most intense smell. It wasn’t Nashville’s normal smell. You didn’t know that places, states, cities, countries all have unique smells of their own, did you. They really do. Nashville — Tennessee really — smells like wet grass and green growing things. At least it did until this drought. But the smell that smacked me in the face that evening wasn’t Nashville; it was the oily smoky mixture of burning trash, oils and spices of India. It smelled like India. I was instantly transported back to Delhi and half-expected to see a cow standing in the middle of the street stubbornly refusing to move despite a cacophony of honking horns, making drivers swerve or take a detour to get where they want to go. Wild! How does Nashville go from smelling like wet grass to smelling like India? I puzzled over that for days, until my boss mentioned that the current jet stream and wind patterns had pushed all the smoke from the fires in Georgia north all the way into Nashville. Smoke. The smell of something burning. But where the smells of oil and spices came from I will never know. Marti commented once that she ended up throwing all her clothes away after coming home from India. The smell is so pungent and pervasive that it is impossible to wash out of your clothes, no matter how hard you try. I will never forget that smell, and oddly enough, I grew to love it. When I smelled it last month my heart literally ached for Delhi.

There was a Lakshmi temple right behind our flat in Delhi. Every morning about 5 am or so the priests would come out and ring a huge lattice work of bells, to wake the gods and get their attention. I don’t remember exactly how long they rang them, just that it usually felt like an eternity. My room opened up into the street in front of the temple, which was really more of an alley; the concrete buildings on either side of it couldn’t have been more than ten feet apart. It looked more like a courtyard than a street. The priests rang their bells out on the street three floors down but pretty much right outside my window and the sound echoed up and down the alley, reverberating between the concrete walls. That sound quickly became my own call to worship. A call to pray for all those who would enter the temple that day, praying to the gods for peace, prosperity, safety and answers. I knew their efforts were in vain, that those little "gods" couldn’t truly satisfy, and my fervent prayer became that God, the One True God, would thwart those "gods’" efforts to keep His beloved creation in bondage to their service; that He would stir the heart of every person who entered that temple, that he would unmask and uncover the deep dissatisfaction they felt, so they would become desperately aware of the intense hunger of their souls. I prayed that that intense hunger would drive them to search for the only One who can truly satisfy. Every morning, when the bells rang, I got on my face before my God and begged Him to sweep across the city and make Himself known to these wonderfully beautiful, dynamic passionate people in a powerful and undeniable way.

The smells and the bells. And the beautiful amazing women I met and with whom I forged relationships; the beauty of the culture and the myriad of bridges to the gospel within it. These are the things I cherish about India. They made all the frustration, "eve teasing", sleepless nights and personal struggles worth it. India is forever tattooed on, and embedded in my heart. And I owe this blessing to all the mission-focused women like Marti who invested in me and gave me the gifts of their wisdom and encouragement. I think I’m the luckiest woman alive.

Posted on

Family Photos

MoviestarIn honor of the Hallmark holiday, I thought I’d post a couple of pictures of my dad, and his dad.

My dad was the son of a farmer, and always called himself a farm-boy. One of his favorite movies became "A Princess Bride" because  he loved the story of a farm-boy turned pirate who was still just a farm-boy at heart in love with a princess. Mom was his Princess, and he used to say, "As you wish," ever time she asked him to do something — because, as the movie’s narrator said, "every time farm-boy said, ‘As you wish’ what he was really saying was, ‘I love you.’"

But he sure good lookin’ for a farm-boy! He could have given old Archie Leach (aka Cary Grant) a run for his money.
Grandpaeverettandnina_2
Here’s his dad, Jim (the farmer), with my sister when she was little.
I’m told he got to meet me, the namesake of his beloved wife, but I don’t remember him. He died when I was not even three. But grandpa, I’m told, was a man of quiet strength and quick wit. Things my dad obviously inherited.

Dad had a wonderful charm about him that endeared him to everyone who saw it. Of course, he also had his military side, and all us kids saw that side every time we misbehaved, which I did often (I can’t help it; I like to push the envelope!).

Ninaanddad
He wasn’t any kind of perfect. He stuffed his emotions more than he showed them; he struggled to balance his desire to preach the Word of God boldly with his complete distaste for the "fire and brimstone" sermons he grew up on, and lamented to me more than once that he felt he failed his men more often than not in giving them the truth straight up because he didn’t want to sound like the preachers of his past. And he was a perfectionist that was never satisified with himself or his children unless we’d done something near perfect.

But he was also a loving, generous, kind man who wept, well he’d say his "eyes watered"Loverskiss
when His children — especially this little one — returned to God. He was fiercely proud of all his kids, especially my sister Nina because of her huge heart and willingness to help anyone in need. He just didn’t know how to show it. He came from the generation where real men don’t show emotion and don’t give out a whole lot of compliments. He did his best to raise four very different, stubborn, energetic, dynamic children and give them all what he thought they needed for living a life of deep connection with God. Sometimes he failed and sometimes he succeeded.

For better or worse, I am my father’s daughter. I’m often told I look like him. I know I sometimes think like him (sometimes that good and sometimes not so much). I have some of his speech patterns too. I also seemed to have picked up his fierce love for the Southern Baptist Dadandmeandida
Convention, his strong aversion to politics and his desire to serve God in ministry. He and I used to talk for hours about missions, cultures and reaching the lost for Christ within the context of their own cultures. He and mom wanted to be missionaries with the FMB (now the IMB) and my sister Paula sometimes says that I was fulfilling their legacy by going overseas. I don’t know about that. But I do know I loved having a father that was just as passionate about the most important thing in my life as I was.

Oh, and I loved his hugs! He would let me just hang on forever. I think hugs are my love language and I could get allDadandmeonmysweet16 filled up by just standing in the kitchen holding onto my dad while he talked to mom about his day and she cooked dinner. I cherish those memories! I miss those hugs.

I miss my dad. But I know he doesn’t miss this earth. Sometimes, like holidays like today, I get very homesick for heaven.

Happy Father’s Day to every father out there. May God bless you this year as you struggle to live out your destiny and purposes the best way you know how. Yeah, you’re gonna leave some scars on your kid(s), there’s no way to avoid it. But don’t worry. It’s nothing that God can’t fix. May He grant you all wisdom, grace, and a wicked sense of humor.

Posted on

Cabana Night

Tonight/this morning I had my first official initiation to the Nashville club scene, complete with drinks bought by a stranger new friend acquaintance. I stuck to diet coke as I was the designated driver for the evening (my first initiation to the bar scene in town was my first couple of weeks here when I went honky tonkin’ along lower Broad).

The place was Cabana, a very popular hot spot for those who want to see and be seen (notSarahs_21st my kind of scene), with a stop at Sunset Grill for Midnight Nachos. The occasion was my friend Sarah’s 21st birthday. We had a great time! She was so excited to finally get her first legal drink in Nashville she could hardly contain herself (she spent last summer in school in London and had her first official legal drinks of her young life in a very cool old London pub).

I’m not into the bar/club scene. I’ve never enjoyed going someplace where the music (or acoustics) is too loud to hear the person that’s screaming in your ear and where the main source of entertainment is alcohol. I’m not into the honky tonk scene here, either, even though there is incredible music to be had, because I can’t stand the drunk guys that try so hard to hit on me but are so drunk that all they end up doing is spitting beer in my face as they try to form their words. Blech. Tootsies is cool once or twice. After that it’s just too loud, too smelly and too crowded. I’d rather sit on the porch of Jack’s Bar-B-Que and watch the Ryman alley traffic.

But Sarah was having a ball! She was just so excited to be 21 (remember that feeling?? Ah
youth…). I had a great time watching her. I swear I think every guy in the place wanted to buy her a drink. She is too cute for words. Look out Nashville!

Posted on

Weekend Worship – Let It Rain

Name_map
The drought here in Middle Tennessee has brought back to my mind a song I sang/prayed continuously while I was overseas serving NAME. Michael W. Smith sings Let It Rain on his first "Worship" album. The lyrics are simple and repeat hundreds of times. If you aren’t truly praying the song, it can be boring. But for some reason, for me, every time I hear it, I’m compelled to lift up to God the peoples and places most dear to my heart, asking Him to drench them in that summer storm downpour kind of rain. I go through naming each country, each group, each person, picturing them dancing in
drenching rain and crying out to God to make it real, to rain over them and drench them completely, enveloping them totally in His consuming love.

I’m working on post regarding this specific prayer that I’ve prayed to this song, and how it impacted my own life. But today I want to follow Micah Fries’ idea of just starting off the weekend in worship. So if you’ve got a few moments, pull out the cd (if you’ve got it) andDownpour spend a little time soaking in the drenching rain of God. He is indeed so good.

Let it rain, let it rain
Open the floodgates of heaven

Let it rain, let it rain!
Open the floodgates of heaven!

The LORD reigns, let the earth be glad;
let the distant shores rejoice.

Clouds and thick darkness surround him;
righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne

Fire goes before him
and consumes his foes on every side

His lightning lights up the world;
the earth sees and trembles.

The mountains melt like wax before the LORD,
before the Lord of all the earth

The heavens proclaim his righteousness,
and all the peoples see his glory! — Psalm 97:1-6

Posted on

Crowded

I have started three different posts in the last couple days, all that seemed important at the time I began writing. But after coming back to them later — when the distractions of life that took me away from writing were dealt with — they didn’t seem all that important any more and I no longer wanted to write about them. Ever had that happen?

My mind has been running in all sorts of different directions lately. School has been a major issue. I’m down to the wire (two weeks left to study) to take an exam worth 12 credit hours. I also start a class next Monday and another one in mid-July that will overlap each other and finish about the same time (which will amount to another 12 credit hours) creating twice as much homework and study as I’ve had up to this point. And I hate studying. I really hate it.

I recently ran across a folder of my school stuff my dad kept till he died. It had every single report card I got from Kindergarten to 12th grade. I was a C average student pretty much the whole way through. Even the classes I loved I only got Cs or Bs. The only classes I got As in were theatre ones.

Many teachers left comments like, "student is polite and friendly but daydreams too much" or "student is not performing up to her abilities." Both probably very true. School bored me most of the time and exasperated me the rest. My internal world, the one I created in my mind, was always far more interesting than the external real one. It hasn’t gotten much better. Oh, I’ve learned to curb my penchant for daydreaming, but frustration with study remains. My main encouragement has been to learn that everyone else in my department hated accounting too and didn’t do well in it (all have business degrees). It’s good to know I’m not the only one who so does not care about the proper way to list expenses on the cash flow statement.

My mind is also filled with thoughts from "Abba’s Child." That will require several posts of their own, so for now I will say that I am being challenged greatly by this book. It’s ideas are enticing, exciting, but they frighten me beyond words. It means living in an entirely different way, adopting a completely new paradigm. Fear of the unknown, and a strange fear of "losing myself" or at least the self I’ve always known, keeps me standing on the edge drooling at the sweet life I’m reading about rather than diving into the deep end.

Then there’s this HBO series I started watching last week. "Rome" delves into the goings-on of the Roman Republic, rife with civil wars, at the very rise and reign of Gaius Julius Caesar. It also shows the early life of a young Gaius Octavius, who later became Caesar Augustus; the emperor who ordered the census that took Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem so Jesus could be born in the City of David as was prophesied. It is a fascinating (and graphic) series about the machinations of power, lust, faith, duty, honor and love. As is so typical of me, as I watch I can’t help but think of a) how ripe the culture was for the love of Jesus, how much it desperately needed it!, and b) the events that followed — the birth of Jesus, his life and ministry, death and resurrection — and how amazing it is that God determined that all that would happen within the context of this newly forged, and finally at peace with itself, Empire. I watch as centurions, patricians, plebes and others talk of the Roman gods as if they truly believed in them. For so long I’ve believed them to be myths that it’s rather shocking to my mind to realize they truly believed in them. It breaks my heart! They did have Jews living among them, but they were slaves. Romans would have no more reason to lend credence to their One God than we do to lend credence to their many. So how, then, did God expect His love to be revealed to the Roman Republic? Except, of course, through a life steeped in it.

Which brings my mind back to the present, and how I must live each day as Abba’s child, steeped in the passionate love of Jesus if I ever hope to make a difference in this world. Watching "Rome" I think of all the ways the Roman Empire (and Augustus especially) prepared the world for the Gospel’s spread. Without the roads/infrastructure, the common languages and rulers, the commonality of the Empire, as well as the persecution the Empire brought upon Jesus’ followers, I don’t think the Gospel would have spread as quickly nor taken such deep root. I can’t help but wonder what God has quietly (or perhaps not so quietly) allowed to developed, perhaps even encouraged and helped along, in our world today that can aid us in spreading His good news to those who haven’t heard, or haven’t experienced through a life steeped in His love.

Yeah, my mind is very crowded these days…

Posted on

Holy Frappuccino!

Vanillabean_cream
I have a craving for a Starbucks Chai Creme Frappuccino. Sitting here reading my books, I finally decided perhaps I should do something about this itch on my taste buds.

But I also know the drink is not so good for the hips and all the other places my body loves to store fat. They are very rich; these days I cannot finish the whole thing, even a tall. So I figured I better check the Weight Watcher points of one of these babies before I gave into the call from Starbucks. Oh. My. God.

21 points for a grande (16 oz)
15 for a tall (12 oz)

Uh… that’s almost all my points for a whole day. In one drink. As Larry would say, "yeow!" Even if I only drank half of the tall that’s still 7 points. The same as a ham sandwich, or two pieces of thin crust pizza or 3 bananas.

Dang. I used to have at least one of these a day (often a venti, which I just discovered is worth 24 points) when I worked at the Capital Group in downtown LA. There was a Starbucks kiosk on the lower level and the temptation (and taste!!) was just too hard to resist. No wonder I gained so much weight while working there.

I think I’ll stick to my lemonade tonight.

Posted on

Sick of the Excrement

I don’t know what is going on these days but the energy creatures of the Internet have been out in force lately. The blogs I have been to the last few days/weeks have had comment strings literally in the hundreds, filled with mean-spirited hateful hurtful comments. Just vicious. After reading them I feel like I’m covered in shit and I want to take a shower. The "Christian" blogs may not have the more colorful language found at the rest, but they are just as filled with vitriol. It’s just masked in "spirituality." Nothing like a pharisee in full dress robes to ruin a conversation.

It never ceases to amaze me that pharisees come in all shapes and, uh, non-religions. And tonight I discovered another casualty of this crap. Over at NiT is a sad, sad example of this vitriolic hate-filled Internet meanness. Brittney resigned today from her role as First Blogger, so-to-speak. At least the first paid blogger for a media outlet in middle Tennessee. To understand her vital role in the creation of a true community of bloggers in Nashville you would have had to experienced it. Even though I never went to any of the blogger gatherings or commented much either on NiT or on the many, many blogs it, through Brittney, introduced me to, I still felt like a contributing, appreciated and liked member of this community.  And I always stood a bit taller when she choose to highlight one of my posts on NiT. She could snark with the best, argue her point to the end but when the chips were down, or when you had a helluva victory, she would be right there by your side, cheering you on or offering a cup of encouragement. She once said she’s not a "Christian," but she acts a lot more like one than many who arrogantly claim the title.

What pisses me off the most is that even after she’d resigned the energy creatures and pharisees didn’t quit. I could not believe the hateful words written, and written and written again. It makes me sick to my stomach. How can people be so nasty to another human being??

I guess I’ve just hit my limit.

WKRN will be hard-pressed to replace Brittney. Hers was a huge, overwhelming job and she did it with aplomb and finesse. Not many could pull that off.

Posted on

Charter Member of the Geek Brigade

I sitting here watching The History Chanel’s Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed and I realized just how much of a geek I really am. I’m quoting lines from the first three Star Wars movies, all the lines, with the same cadence, pauses and intensity as the actors… without even thinking about it.

Think it’s obvious I’ve only watched them, oh, about a bazillion times?

Posted on

Mirror, Mirror

Rockwell_mirror
There are times when what’s going on inside me cannot be described or even understood. Times when emotions bubble up suddenly and then disappear just as fast, when my spirit seems to be chewing on something I cannot see, or remember, when everything in my neat little paradigm is tilted, shaken, demolished. The last couple of weeks have been one of those times.

I’m reading a book called, "Abba’s Child" by Brennan Manning. A friend of mine read another of Manning’s books, "Ragamuffin Gospel," and kept throwing the book against the wall every few pages. It profoundly challenged much of her paradigm of God, and is still today reshaping it.

I understand what she went through. I have yet to throw the book against the wall, but that’s only from emotional paralysis. I predict sometime soon that will pass and the book will regularly sail across the room and slam into whatever wall is closest. It is challenging the core beliefs convictions I hold about myself and about God.

I’ve had a copy of this Norman Rockwell painting hanging in my room since I was about thirteen. The first time I saw it I recognized myself in it. I am, have always felt I was, that awkward little girl whose gaze drifts between the movie star in the magazine and my own  clumsy, decidedly unfeminine image in the mirror; dreaming, hoping, wishing, praying that I will one day look in the mirror and see the beautiful movie star woman staring back at me.

My mother looked like a 40s pin-up sweater-girl, complete with the large, pointy bosoms and curvaceous hips. Even with the gray hair and extra lumps of age she was stunning. I spent my childhood eager to grow up into what would surely be a body and face as radiant as my mom’s. It never happened. My sisters are as fabulously beautiful and talented as our mom but somehow those genes skipped me. Perhaps there just wasn’t enough left over. I am, after all, The Baby.

And there’s another part of me I cannot escape: The Baby. Who made everyone’s life difficult; spoiled, lazy, petulant, demanding, moody… the list goes on, but I won’t bore you.

Yes, yes, yes, of course over two years of intense counseling have given me new "thoughts" to think about myself, new paradigms to try on. But none of them seem to fit. None of them seem real or truthful.To say I even want to believe them would be a lie. They are dangerous, frightening. I’d prefer to stay in my safe corner where I know; where my paradigms have stood the test of time and at least produce predictable results.

Which begs the question, why am I reading this book? This book that is driving me a little nuts, that I regularly want to throw against a brick wall or over a steep cliff. And now we are back to the beginning of this post, the bubbling emotions and internal stuff that cannot be described. The closest I can come – and it sounds schlocky to be sure – is that God’s Spirit in me keeps prodding me, pulling me, and pushing me this direction. I could say no and push Him away, but the thing is, I don’t want to. I like being with Him.

I’ve gotten glimpses of God’s passion for me, His overwhelming, devastatingly wild mad love for me. I can’t sit with it for long. It’s too intense. It reveals every crack and deformity I have (and I have a lot!), and I have to run and hide. It’s too unbearable. Its not that I don’t want to be so close to Him; its that I cannot stand the intense heat of His gaze. He sees right through me and I find myself lacking. Severely lacking.

But I keep coming back. That kind of love is too compelling to stay away for long.

His love, which called us into existence, calls us to come out of self-hatred and to step into His truth. "Come to me now," Jesus says. "Acknowledge and accept who I want to be for you: a Savior of boundless compassion, infinite patience, unbearable forgiveness, and love that keeps no score of wrongs. Quite projecting onto Me your own feelings about yourself. At this moment your life is a bruised reed and I will not crush it, a smoldering wick and I will not quench it. You are in a safe place." — Brennan Manning, Abba’s Child