My Dear Dross

It came up in Sophia's vocabulary work this year: dross. Something that has been filtered out, is worthless; ie "junk". Boiled away. Skimmed off. Why? To leave something better behind, something pure and lovely.

Perhaps to the horror of my militaristic, patriotic family, I am not much of a nationalist. I respect those who are, but "my people" are all over the globe. Borders and flags and loyalties seem an odd accessory to friendship and love. So, thought I, perhaps I am well suited to serving and living abroad...I don't bring as much ethnocentric baggage.

Perhaps to the horror of my "time is money", plan ahead, day timer-toting friends and acquaintances, I have never been much of a structured person. I like flex time. I inwardly cringe when people ask me to nail down dates (don't they see that a really cool sunset could happen that night that we should go have a picnic in front of instead???). So, thought I, perhaps I am very well suited to the slow-paced, more spontaneous life which characterizes Latino culture.

Now, for certain, these aspects of my character helped, perhaps immensely. But how little of that path I had really gone. I had and have so much to learn. The longer I serve in Latin American communities, the more I realize how much grace others have extended to me over the years as I've blundered and stumbled along, stepping on cultural toes here and there, all the while thinking that I was finally getting it.

So, I am being simmered again and more dross is rising to the top. Funny, it never seemed worthless while it was part of me, but now that I take a good look at it...gross. Take, for example, our near and dear dross: our rights.

Think about how many of our irritations daily are related to our perceptions of our rights. "I have the right to not have to sit for a half hour in this waiting room". "I have the right to not be bothered at home by a business client". "I have the right to be informed ahead to time if a family will be dining with us". "I have the right to my time". "I have the right to privacy". Seemingly reasonable expectations, right? Wrong.

Why wrong? Isn't it good to establish these things for the sake of one's happiness? Now, having a nice uninterrupted evening at home is a good thing, indeed, it's a blessing. But it's not a right. Privacy is a nice thing too, especially if one has a headache and wants peace and quiet...but it's a blessing, not a right. Most of this world's inhabitants don't have the luxury of being alone in their own space. It's a blessing when one can carve out time to be alone, or to do what one pleases...but it's not a right. Rights are based on "my happiness", whereas God calls us to "love others, to look not only to our own interests, but to the interests of others". We want a Bill of Rights...God gives us a mandate of love.

Let me illustrate an every-day working out of this principle. You are busy vacuuming your house, looking forward to soon curling up with a good book or watching a favorite tv show, and then turning in early. You know you need extra sleep for your busy day tomorrow. Your doorbell rings and it's your old roommate from college, along with her husband and four kids. They're in town and thought to drop in! Plus, do you have room for them to stay the night?

What is your gut reaction?

-Why in the world would they come unannounced? Don't they realize that I could have other plans? How can they expect me to receive them? How presumptuous! (my time, space, privacy)

Are they welcome? Even if you paste on a smile, swing wide the door, rustle up some food and lay out sleeping bags...are they truly welcome? Are they more important, or is the fact that your "rights" were trampled on matter more?

Do we even have the slightest idea of what hospitality is?

Dross. Our "rights" have the capacity to smother something so precious and vital to human community without our even having realized it. I can't imagine many people would consider themselves inhospitable, but then, dross has a way of hiding, or parading around as silver. Hospitality can, in our culture, waltz hand-in-hand with our precious rights; events are planned, agreed upon, hours set, rights observed, and people go home at the right time to mutual satisfaction. There are no upsets, no interruptions, no unfavorable surprise guests. What a mutation.

True hospitality has, at its heart, the deeply centered belief that "I" am not the important one; the one who comes to my door is. The needs and happiness of my guest are what matters, not whatever I had planned.

And so I find that though I thought God had made me missions-friendly. Though I thought that He had refined me in key areas...I find that in so many ways my understandings of the most basic teachings of Christ need to be melted down and skimmed of dross.

Always, always learning.

The Making of a Champion

Yoya digs in during the last 300 meters. This was her last time competing as a juvenile. She's competing against the top clubs of Chile who are equipped with paid staff, excellent boats and oars, and wonderful facilities. We were running alongside the river, yelling our heads off, "Ya Yoya, levanta Yoya!!! Vamos Yoya!" She said all she heard was her name, over and over, no one elses! She was with the pack when all of a sudden she put her head down and started to pick up her pace (an extraordinarily difficult feat in the end of a grueling 2000 meter race). She started to pull away...she....she... WON!!!!! Yoya is the champeon in all of Chile for her age group!!!! WOW! This qualified her to be a National Select rower; invited to international competitions!!! Next month she's going to Buenos Aires!!!

Her fist raised in triumph, she finishes way ahead of the pack!!! Woohoo Yoya!
Our excitement was palpable! Here's Liz and Belen right after Yoya's win. We yelled, we hugged, we cried, we laughed! We tried to catch our breath from running alongside her!


Yoya and her mom. Are there words for this kind of joy? Irene has raised seven children, most of whom rowed in our humble club. What a victory, not only for Yoya, but for our whole team.
Jordan Hostetter had a fine race as well, taking 2nd by only inches!!! Here's Jordan with our trainer Felipe, and Yoya : ). What a day of JOY! Yoya told me after the race that she was praying right before she picked up her pace, "Lord, I'm in your hands". Yes, indeed!

Just wanted to share our joy with you. Yoya hasn't stopped smiling for two weeks now : D.

Dumbfounded by Glory

Monday night rowing youth Bible study.

It's God's glory. That's what it comes down to. We work, we study, we interact, we host, we reach out, we suffer, we pray, we try try try, but only God makes things grow. I talked in an earlier post about the feeling of acceleration we feel in the ministries here; well, it hasn't stopped. And it isn't us.

People are opening up, discussions are going deeper than ever before, God is reaching out in dramatic ways to rescue, to save, to give witness that He cares, about even the smallest of details. The rowing youth saw that we have 8 chapters (8 weeks of study) left in Acts and asked in an eager voice, "What are we going to do next? We ONLY have 8 weeks left!?"

I feel like I'm a farmer who has planted seeds, pulled weeds, watered, and puttered about for three years waiting for a crop. You start to get a complex like you're just no good at farming. But then all of a sudden it's like Jack and the Beanstalk and you're sitting in the shade of some massive stalks. It was important to weed, to water, to plant....but God makes things grow; in His way, in His timing.

Now the farmer says, Well, thundering hippos, what am I supposed to do with that? I thought I'd nurture little plants, staking them as they grew taller and such. Discipling, right?

What do you do when the Kingdom grows legs?

You let the Kingdom do its thing. What does that mean for us?

We are discerning whether this is our last term in Chile. We would like you also to be in prayer with us! We'd like to know what God shares with you as you pray.

Your Most Devoted,
Sarah

Blood and Coffee

To My Most Amiable Readers...

Roughly a year has past, but I remember it every time I pass the bus station on my way home from rowing. It was an odd and frantic and holy moment, and caught me completely by surprise.

I was worn out. I forget what we did that day, weights, running, or rowing, but I was really tired. As the bus lurched through traffic I gazed out the window and saw a homeless or drunk (or both) guy face-down on the ground. He actually looked like his face was plowed into the dirt, as if he'd been shot from a cannon and landed head first. I felt the familiar nudge of the Holy Spirit to act on what I'd seen.

I got off the bus at the terminal (100 feet past the man) and worked my way to the entrance where I intended to buy some coffee for the man and try to get him out of the dirt and coherent. Right before I reached the doors a commotion from the left caught my eye. A man was lying on his side weeping, blood pooling from a cut in his head. A frantic teenager stood over him with wild eyes.

I can only describe what happened next as supernatural. I am not a confrontational person. Even if I know I've been wronged, I generally let it slide. But some sort of authority came over me at that moment. I locked gazes with the young man and bit off my words, "What has happened? What have you done?"

He broke eye contact, he started to yell, "Look! He's fine! My uncle is fine! Look, he's moving!" Again, myself almost yelling, "What happened to this man?" Cops arrived and threw the guy up against the wall and patted him down.

Meanwhile I crouched beside the victim and asked where he's hurt. In broken sentences he wept out, "He cut me! All over my back! I hurt! Call my wife! Here's money, call her!". I gently turned him so that I could see if he was bleeding from the back, and although his coat was cut to ribbons, there was no major bleeding. His head wound needed to be stopped however and I racked my brain as to what I could use to put pressure on it.

While I grabbed my clean rowing pants out of my backpack and applied them with pressure to his head wound I yelled at the crowd now enveloping us, "Get him some water! Call an ambulance!" No one moved. Oh the frustration of mob mentality. So I made eye contact with every person I could see and forcefully yelled, "Get water NOW. Call an ambulance!" A few people scurried off and a moment later I was handed two cups of water and was told an ambulance was on the way.

Apparently ambulances are a bit slower in South America. During the next fifteen minutes I tried to comfort and keep still the man who had been attacked. Helping him drink, calming him down, getting him as comfortable as possible on the pavement by propping his bags behind him. When the ambulance arrived I showed them where he was bleeding, removed my bloody pants from his head and stepped back into the crowd.

They took over and there was nothing left for me to do. I was so shaky. Confronting a guy who just attacked his uncle with a knife is not something I do everyday. I normally don't do first responder stuff. I don't normally yell at and boss around complete strangers.

I walked into the terminal and paid 100 pesos to use the bathroom. There I washed the blood off my hands with the cold water at the sink and tried to make sense of what had just happened. I thought I was supposed to be giving coffee to a drunk guy, and now I'm washing blood off my hands!

The drunk guy! I'd totally forgotten about him! I quickly walked out and over to the kiosk that sells coffee. Walking out of the terminal, all that remained of the scene was a pool of blood. Willing my hand not to shake and spill the hot coffee, I strode over to where the man had been.

He was not there. There was no sign of him anywhere. But...he was out cold! Was he real? Or had God put an angel there to get me off the bus at the right moment? That I'll never know.

What I do know is that God was at work in it. He gave me authority in that moment; whether to halt further violence or just to comfort the man I don't know. It was in a strange way a holy moment; God was showing up and changing the plot.

I hadn't written about this before, mainly I didn't want to scare my mom : ). She has enough to worry about with my rowing stories!

Your Most Devoted,
Sarah

Acceleration

To My Most Amiable Readers...

We are a bit stunned and wish to act wisely. The Lord is moving in a way that I can only associate with velocity...it feels like He is increasing the acceleration of His kingdom here in Chile.

We make plans, and He changes them. He is making conversations spring out of nowhere about Him in unexpected places with unexpected people.

This morning Gigi and I met up to go visit a woman she met through the animal protection group. The meeting was very opposed; Edison threw up right before I left, I could not find the store she asked to meet at, but we pressed on and ended up sitting down to talk with Sandra. We shared our stories, how God has changed us and filled us with love and joy. We asked if we could pray for her, as she was "not ready yet" to talk to God herself. As we said "amen" she suddenly interrupted us with a startled look on her face. "When you were praying I saw the most beautiful light appear, and I almost fainted. My arms became heavy and I am trembling!".

We explained that the Enemy is not pleased and is opposing her interest in God, but that the Father is near and is more powerful. She then, with Gigi's help, prayed to accept the Lord in her heart!!!

Please lift up Sandra in your prayers this week. Specifically that her husband could find work, that her faith would grow, and that God would protect their family.

Dustin went in to rent a movie and ended up in a 15-minute conversation about God, religion, and our mission here, that ended with an open invitation for them to study the Word with us.

Please pray for the movie store owners, that they would grow in spiritual hunger and that God would speak to them.

I was on my way to rowing when I passed my friend's small convenience store. I glanced through the windows and not seeing her, I kept on. I was halfway down the block when I heard her yelling my name, arms in the air. She told me that rowing was postponed to the afternoon that day and we ended up spending an hour talking about the Lord; how to live His love, how to forgive others, what to do with psychic abilities after accepting Christ, how to really live for what is important to God. Joana is wrestling with cultural Catholicism and who she might be apart from that. You can tell she wants to run to Jesus, but she feels bound by "the real world".

Please pray for Joana, that God would free her and woo her to Himself. Pray also for her husband Roni, for salvation!

Last but not least, please pray for the health of the Christian workers in Puerto Montt. So many of us have been waylaid by viruses, infections, and nasty colds. Thank you!!!

Your Most Devoted,
Sarah

Adapter

To My Most Amiable Readers....

I looked at the espresso machine in dismay. It just sat there. No gurgling. No hot java dripping down. No steam. Nada. Just a red light which is the only thing keeping me from looking (again) to make sure it was plugged in. The men were in the living room awaiting their caffeine fix. I had a pitcher of milk ready to froth. Dainty espresso and cappuccino cups all lined up, ready to fill. Blast it, I was even wearing my new ruffly apron. Nothing.

I'm in a hotel in Atlanta right now. I'm supposed to be flying over the gulf of Mexico on our way to Chile. Delayed flights and crowded runways made us miss our big flight at 10. So we had to flag down a shuttle, get a hotel room, scout out some take-out, and are now enjoying the air-conditioning and cable tv at the Day's Inn (missionaries are pretty easy to please). Not what I had in mind (especially the 10 hour wait at the airport tomorrow).

Dustin came in to the kitchen and stared at the espresso machine with me. It was then that we realized that we had accidentally plugged it into 220 current instead of into our adapter and fried it. Woops. We looked at each other, sort of smirked and put the hotpot on and served our guests instant coffee. Though I did wad my apron up in a ball and left it forlorn on the counter. It was too cheerful for my mood.

Realizing that I definitely wouldn't be waking up in Chile, but instead would be repeating another full day of travel, my eyes teared up and I fought off a strong urge to stamp my foot and yell "NO FAIR!". I started to pray and the Lord met me in my frustration and fatigue. He reminded me to look about and enjoy the blessings of an evening of rest in a hotel room with air conditioning, cable tv (in english, woohoo!), and take-out pizza.

I'm better at adapting now. Four years in Chile worked a lot of that out in me. But sometimes life's curveballs still knock me to the ground. Now I'm just better at seeing the flowers while I'm down there ; ).

Your Most Devoted,
Sarah

Unfound Forum

Unfound Forum

Bless my soul, you love to talk
That is
Until you're rudely interrupted
By a discordant voice

Bristling you put on armor
You've an easy shot
I've no need for any and
I don't fear you

Come at me with it then
Let me see your passion
Played out in words
That may pierce my heart

I don't learn by smiling
And running away.

Why are you ducking?
I have not hit you
I am trying to see you
But you like to hide behind
A shield

I lift your face guard
But you have shrunk down inside
And I see only your hair
So I speak but you hear mumbles

And you don't want to hear me
You are safe in there
I'm sorry my friend
What have I done.

I back away
It's happened again
I think to say apologetic words
But you can't hear me in your metal suit

I weep.