Innocent Light

We had some friends over Monday night.   They weren’t some new Portland friends, but long time friends who happen to be in Portland.   The Leach’s are amazing people.   Michelle and I go back 10+ years.   I had the privilege of mentoring Michelle when she was fresh out of high school and learning what it meant to be an adult.  I look back and I know that our relationship was God ordained, but I also look back and think, 10 years ago I was still just a kid, what did I have to teach anyone about being an adult.   But apparently I did, Michelle and I spent many wonderful hours sitting coffee side talking.

However, it really wasn’t just seeing Michelle that was the most special about Monday night for me.   Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to down play how great it was see and hug and friend, pray together and just catch up in general.  I was blessed beyond words to see Michelle, Kevin and their 3 month old little boy Adam.   But what was more special for me than all of that was to meet Magnolia Love (Maggie for short).   A little girl whom I dubbed “the happiest little girl to ever live”.

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Our daughter Imogen has been quite sick lately. More so than most days, this has served to reveal just how much Imogen prefers her mother to me. I reach out to hold her and love on her, but she recoils deeper into her mother’s arms. I don’t resent that Imogen loves her mother. I love to see the close and loving bond they share.

But still, it hurts to feel rejected, especially when my daughter is sick.

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I met Gwen about 3 years ago.  She was volunteering in the children’s center at the homeless shelter I worked at in southern California.  Gwen’s heart was overflowing with love for “our” kids.  She volunteered over 20 hours a week; teaching the alphabet, changing diapers, wiping noses, bandaging booboo’s and most of all being a consistent presence in the life of children who had never had consistency.

Gwen and Andrew

After a few months of Gwen working with us her husband lost his job.  She came to us in tears telling us that she would no longer be able to volunteer because they could no longer afford child care for their preschool aged son (and he was to young to “volunteer” at the shelter).   It was pitched to the shelter leadership that we could not loose such a wonderful volunteer and it was asked that she be able to bring her son to the shelter with her.  The proposal was accepted by both Gwen and leadership.

Thus began Gwen and Andrew’s service to the shelter.  For Andrew, who was just 4 yrs old at the time, it was hardly work.  All he knew was that he switched to a new preschool, where is mom “worked”.  Each day I watched Andrew play with the kids in the shelter, developing friendships with children who were never in place long enough to make friends.   Andrew had no idea that he was actually serving in ministry alongside his mom (and sometimes his dad too).

My love and respect for Andrew grew.  I watched him play with his friends.  He didn’t care that they lived in a homeless shelter, he loved them for who they were, not the circumstances they lived in.  My love and respect for Gwen grew, because she modeled that love for her son.  By her loving those children and their mothers for who they were, Andrew felt safe and confidant to do the same.

I would watch Gwen and tell myself I wanted to be a mom like her someday.  One that not only raises my children to love those that society sees as unlovable, but one who models it to my children.

So here I am, a mom.  And I am able to follow Gwen’s example to me, by teaching Imogen to love all people.  And now here in Portland, I’m proud to tell people that my daughter goes to daycare in a homeless shelter.  I’m proud to bring Imogen to work with me and allow her to interact with and get to know (as best as a 1 year old can) the women who live at the shelter I now work at.  I look forward to seeing her grow up feeling safe and confidant to love those who society deems as the least, the last and the lost. She will call them her friends.  Like Gwen and Andrew, I count it as a gift to serve in ministry not just alongside my husband, but alongside my daughter as well.

Thank you Andrew for showing me that ministry has no age restrictions.  Thank you Gwen for modeling for me what a mother’s job is, to teach her children to love.

It’s that time again, election time here in the USA……wait don’t go, I promise I’m not about to rant.

With election time comes everyone exercising their right to freedom of speech.  No place shows this more than Facebook.   Just like many other people, my Facebook news feed has been filled with political rantings.   I’m all for a good political discussion. I, like many others am very opinionated when it comes to politics and I love to vote.  Though, I choose to keep my thoughts off Facebook.  I feel like political preferences should be shared in person through relationship, where reasoning and thoughts behind beliefs can be shared.  I have done my best to ignore what I have seen on Facebook and not chime in on my thoughts.  Until now.

I feel like I cannot ignore something I saw the other day.  I feel I cannot let it go by with sharing how truly heartbreaking it was to see.  What was it you ask……… it was a picture, captioned, comparing Obama to Hitler.   It is bringing tears to my eyes now as I think about it.

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We just got back from a wonderful and exhausting vacation. On the first day of our trip, we got the chance to worship with our sending church, the Beacon. It was great to hang out and worship with our spiritual family.

The Beacon graciously allowed me to preach that Sunday. It was my first time teaching a congregation, so it was pretty exciting for me.

I chose to speak on the missional life. In the beginning, we talk about what the missional life looks like – serving, supporting, and sending. Then we took a look at what mission is biblically, through a short word study of the Greek apostello. Then, we looked at the call of Abram (Gen 12) and the Great Commission (Matt 28) to get a better understanding of what the missional life looked like for Abraham and the disciples.

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Maria was a 14 year old girl from a small town. Maria and her cousin went out together to a local fair. At the end of the day, they were waiting for the bus home. Instead of seeing the bus arrive, a semi truck pulled up, masked men jumped out, and without a word the girls were drugged and thrown into the truck.

What followed for the two girls was horrendous torture. For days, they were imprisoned in a darkened room with no food or water. Then, Maria says, one evening she was brutally beaten before being raped by 23 men.

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