This is the story of IF: Costa Rica.
It has been 10 years since I’ve travelled to another country
for a mission trip. Having and
caring for babies will keep you grounded.
I’ve watched my husband go here and there, sometimes twelve days at a
time. Now that the kids are older
I’ve been waiting for the right, God directed opportunity to spread my wings
and serve internationally.
Rewind to September of 2013. My friend Nickie hosted a gathering in her home and invited
gals from our neighborhood to listen to what her friend, Colleen was doing
through her Catholic mission in Costa Rica. Everyone who came immediately connected with the very
likeable, outgoing, and passionate Colleen and left excited and super supportive
of all Colleen is doing for the indigenous Cabecar people. It was thrilling to see their efforts
to provide respite and health care for the impoverished families there, to love
on widows, orphans, and the homeless, to raise and deliver chickens, aka,
protein to the villagers, to evangelize and teach. (see www.StBryce.com) But for me, the connection and
admiration I had with Colleen was spiritual--I felt as if I could read between
the lines and see into her heart.
My husband and I have been in ministry for 17 years. Ministry is often a lonely calling-and
I’m sure it’s multiplied by 100 when you are overseas in the jungle. You are the counselor, the teacher, the
giver, the meeter of needs, the literal hands and feet of Christ who brings
good news. And I must say, those
hands and feet get tired.
You find yourself longing for someone to step into your life and offer
you counseling and comfort, to teach ‘you’, to give to ‘you’. But asking is super hard, feels awkward
and embarrassing. You are the one
who is supposed to be strong. Is
it ok to share your needs and even weaknesses and struggles? (I’ve learned the hard way that many
people don’t know what to do with the pastor’s wife’s needs and
inadequacies…She’s supposed to be perfect…it can really rock someone’s world to
know these intimate details let alone to know what to ‘do’ with them)
All that to say, I knew I wanted to find a way to bless
Colleen and connect with her and encourage and love on her. I believe so strongly Jesus’ words in 1
Thessalonians 5:12-12 “We ask you brothers to respect those who labor among you
and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly
in love because of their work.”
Many people think that ministers should suffer and go
without. That it’s a calling to
poverty of some sort.
This is not what the Bible speaks.
1 Timothy 5 says that those who direct the affairs of the church are
worthy of double honor and that the worker deserves his wages.
So…this is my heart for Colleen…. And then on October while
browsing through Facebook I see this post from Colleen:
For all my girls not going to IF : Gathering Austin, I
think you should plan to visit me and we'll have IF Missions. And I'm not just
saying that. Girls' mission trip in which we ask the big questions, tell our
stories and live it out loud. It could be good. Consider yourself officially
invited.
You see, this
‘IF Gathering’ here in Austin is planned for February
8 and 9. Women will come to
worship and pray and listen and dream.
While many of us have the opportunity to jump on board and attend
something like this…when you are on the mission field these experiences aren’t
a reality. So, I took Colleen up
on her offer… We quickly formed a team of 6 women to take the charge of 1
Timothy 2:1-6 to bring thanksgiving and prayers for our spiritual leaders. This bunch of protestants is going to
bless our Catholic sister.
We will go to
Costa Rica and bring with us, double honor for Colleen and their work
there. We will go with full hands,
big hearts, and open ears. Our
hands full of tangible provisions to bless her, big hearts ready to grieve,
celebrate , and love on her. And
open ears to hear her…to let her be known…to give her a safe place to just BE…to
take off her hats of ‘missionary’, ‘teacher’, ‘leader’, ‘counselor’
and ‘provider’, and to just BE Colleen—our sister in Christ.
Colleen, here we come!
BONUS:: I’d also like to share the story of IF: Costa Rica from
Colleen’s perspective below.
Enjoy!
Why I Am Asking IF
Back in September at Idea
Camp, I had the pleasure of hearing Jennie
Allen speak. And let me tell you something, I was all on board
to sign up for whatever it was she was about afterwards. Her passion, her heart
for Jesus, her honesty about being a woman and loving other women was a
language I speak it deep in my heart. It is a language that has been beating
its rhythm loud in my head since my friend Ann began calling us the
#esthergeneration from the red clay of Uganda. Its song is being sung in my
development of our social
enterprise initiative and our St.
Francis Emmaus Center.
So when I learned about Jennie's IF:Gathering, I got excited. If you know me,
you won't be surprised that I leaped right in without looking at how deep the
water was. I told you about
the common ground established with people at Idea Camp. IF was
an opportunity to really see that concept bloom, and I was all in.
When Jennie announced her bigger
vision for IF and all the ladies I like
to read a whole lot started sharing pictures of those
twinkle lights and that
pretty white table, and I knew I could be a part of it from my little
mountain top in faraway Costa Rica, I was doubly excited. But sad that I would
be alone. So I boldly shouted that anyone who wanted to could come join me
here for IF: Missions. I realize now that it is really easy to be all brave
like the other girls when your proposal seems unlikely.
But then they said "yes". Ladies from
varied backgrounds and different denominations said they would actually like to
ask IF with me in this space and see where God led us. And then, as I tend to
do when I jump into something with all my heart, I panicked a little. Not about
having company. But asking myself if this was what God was doing, or what I
wanted.
And so I did what I do when I am panicking about God. I
prayed. I sat with Him. I searched my heart and I searched His Word. And He
led me to the answer of why my heart simply must ask IF. That answer is
three-fold.
1. My Morning Offering makes me an offer. For as
long as I can remember I have prayed a Morning Offering that begs for the
"unity of all Christians". But I have not every often asked myself
what my responsibility was to what I was praying for. If we are honestly
praying for unity, it seems to me that we need to be actively working toward
unity, no? And how do we find unity if we never meet? Never sit at the same
table and see one another for who we are. If there is no relationship, how can
there be unity?
I want that unity. I want to be able to sit with sisters in
Christ outside the lines and the boxes that have been drawn for us and see anew
what unity could mean. I want to sit at a table that is about conversation
not conversion to one way of thinking. I want grasp what is good and lovely and
noble in the sisterhood of Christ and shake it up like a bottle full of dormant
sparkles and watch it mix and float and become something breathtakingly
beautiful. Because I believe in a God that unites. And I believe He does it
in ways that are not systematic but surprising, in ways that are much less
about what we bring to the table and much more about what He has to serve us,
in ways that challenge the deepest parts of us and yet lavish us with love and
generous grace. Because His purposes, His heart, His love are already
triumphant. If we can just let Him win, the world will change. Hearts will
heal. Stereotypes will crumble. Timid voices will find their vibrato and sing.
And oh, how I would love to sing in the chorus of united sister love, in the
#estergeneration's choir.
2. Acts 2 asks for all. "When the day
of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a
sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole
house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that
separated and came to rest on each of them." That is what His Word says.
I believe that if ALL the disciples were in one place the
day the Holy Spirit set them on fire and the church was born, that there were
women there too. And the flames dances on their heads and their mouths opened
and they were ALL IN ONE ROOM and they left from there and set the world on
fire. Acts does not tell us their stories. And rightfully so. It is named Acts
of the Apostles for a reason. It has a purpose and it has its story to tell.
But who is telling ours? Because there is a story left to
be told, the story that we are writing, the distant daughters of the women with
flames dancing over their heads and the fire alight in their hearts and their
tongues loosed with the power of God and the whole world waiting to hear what
they have to say. And I want to be one who tells that story because I know in
my deepest being that it is full of the glory of God and the kingdom come and
heaven's hope.
And I think it has start right there where it did in Acts 2.
"They were ALL together in one place." In the days before division
and denominations built walls between us, the Spirit came in full force when
they were all together in one room. And the world was a changed place because of
it. And I know from my own life that the Word of God is extensively repetitive.
We go back and do what He did and what they that named themselves His name did,
Christians, and the Word is alive again and our God lives and the flames dance
and the fire falls and the world changes. And I want to be there waiting.
3. Romans 8 yokes me with an obligation. If we
are the distant daughters of they whom the Spirit descended upon and we claim
life in Christ, then we live governed by the Spirit. My favorite book of the
Bible then says in verse 6 that "The mind governed by the flesh is
death,but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace". A mind
governed by the flesh is death. Sin, division and fear have their origins in
death. Life, peace, love, and unity are the thoughts of the mind governed by
the Spirit. And so in verse 12 Romans tell us that we have an obligation: an
obligation to live according ot the Spirit. To live life and peace and good and
hope and unity and fire dancing, life changing risks.
And Romans ends its brilliant treatise of life in the Spirit
with this: "For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the
children of God...Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and
co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that
we may also share in his glory."
And for this we will gather. We will suffer through the
unknown and the strangeness and the things that divide God's children with our
Jesus. We wonder why about one another and find things hard to swallow in our
differences. We will feel the brokenness in the Body of Christ and wish there
were away out of it. Because we know that there, in that place, his glory will
shine.
And wherever the glory of God is, I want to be. And I
want to lift my hands and hear the wind of the Spirit rise and watch the flames
dance in eyes of my sisters and speak the words of life in their foreign
tongues so that they will hear. And I want them to do the same for me.
So, me, I am asking IF. But I think God is already giving me
a glimpse of the answer.
