Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Monday, May 21, 2012
Lewis & Clark College: Reflections on Infinite Complexity and Inevitability
Almost two years ago I started the process of getting into grad school for counseling. There were many possible programs, many custom tailored to fit different schedules, budgets, and lifestyles. Yet I was looking for only three things: worldview, location, and intellectual rigor. I wanted a school that had a worldview that would both complement and challenge my own—more on that later. I wanted a school that was somewhere I would actually want to live. I’d lived in the Southwest a long time and was potentially looking for a change. Finally, I wanted a school that would have very high academic standards both for my efficacy in my chosen field and to help prepare me for my eventual further schooling in law/jurisprudence, philosophy, ethics, whatever. As I said before, there were a lot of schools, but in the end there was only one that actually fit the bill: Lewis & Clark College.
If you know me the worldview piece was already severely limiting. Most schools’ counseling programs are overly practical and don’t want to rock the boat. They’d better rock my boat. Also if you know me, one of my mottos in life is “location, location, location”. I wasn’t going to live anywhere in the Midwest… or the South, and definitely not in Texas. Nor most of the East Coast and I quickly discovered the right side of the country is not big on rigorous counseling programs. I wanted to find one in Boston, but out of their many colleges/universities I only found one even possible program, which I eventually decided against. There were some choices in the Southwest but they were all Christian schools and I was still leaning more towards secular education. That left the Pacific Northwest (ie Portland as I’ve never been impressed with Seattle), which had a number of good programs. But after incredible amounts of study I realized that it was Lewis & Clark College or essentially nothing for me. I guess I secretly don’t believe in margin or I have that much faith in God and/or my own abilities.
But my life somewhat fell apart in 2011 and I could not go to Portland that fall; I asked for a deferment, made a defense of that decision, and it was granted. I would now start in the Summer of 2012. Now I just had to get my life in order, have one final “mission trip”, and prepare to leave the dryness for the rain. The preparation to leave my friends, family, and community in Phoenix could not have begun too early. I was leaving everything behind.
My friends finally made peace with me leaving, the discussions were had, the wisdom of stay or go were analyzed critically, prayed over, and accepted. Africa was prepared for and finally conducted and then I was home for 5 days and then finally in a van headed North. The photos are up. It was a rush. I wouldn’t do it any other way.
Now I’m here in Portland, which I’m probably going to just keep calling “the land of myth and beards”. It’s an extraordinary city that does make me a little sad that 90% of cities in the US don’t even have half the interestingness of this town. I could hate it after 7 months of gray, but even on this rainy, moody May afternoon it is endearing at worst. I should be studying and reading copious amounts of material about research methods and counseling theory, but I want to do this first, so that’s what I’m doing.
“How is school”, you ask? Grad School has been challenging, but I love it. I know I’m in the right place.
The first thing you must know about Lewis & Clark College is that it is beautiful. Not “kinda pretty”, but breathtaking and grand. It sits high on a bluff over the Willamette River in between an extremely wealthy community known as Lake Oswego and a densely forested state park. The architecture of some of the older buildings is reminiscent of archetypal old (and large) English cottages, while the new buildings are tastefully refined contemporary—all of which are LEED certified for energy efficiency, of course. The whole campus is a garden with flowers, towering junipers and firs, lush ferns, and babbling creeks. Trails run throughout the campus’ forests and nature walks. There are countless beautiful and secluded spots to study and rest. Bridges cross a little ravine tucked on the East side of campus. The trees tower over you and you can hear the stream running below. It is something of poetry, to be honest. Even the beautiful library runs along the massive rose garden—replete with flower bushes, moss-covered stone gazebos, and a view oriented at the summit of Mt. Hood. Last year the L&C campus won “2nd most beautiful campus” in the United States and I am not surprised in the least. It’s a simply splendid place to be.
Yet even this is not the reason that I chose Lewis & Clark, although it surely didn’t hurt. The beauty was compelling, being in Portland was perfect, and the school’s intellectual heritage was encouraging, but what I was most excited about was this one thing (in two parts):
Their Critical Perspective and their commitment to Social Justice.
I wanted a school that admitted they had an agenda, refusing the intellectual and moral dishonesty of modernist notions of “objectivity”. Lewis & Clark trains counselors so that those individuals might make society more just and help humans heal. They are not vague in their endeavor, but explicit. This is more uncommon than you may think. Most counseling programs are not concerned with the societal implications of moving into another person’s brokenness. Lewis & Clark is. Granted, this is of course because of fundamentally humanistic beliefs, not Judeo-Christian beliefs, but that too was what I wanted. I’m a believer in Christ through and through, yet I realize that I’m a resident alien in this World. I had already decided some time back that I did not want to go to a Christian school. This was for a number of reasons, but mostly because I wanted nothing to be sacred. We live in a post-modern world in which nothing is sacred. If all I knew was a Christian perspective and used ideas and word that may be “true” but meant nothing in a deconstructed world I would never be able to reach in and love the person whose psyche is unable to conceptualize a loving God or love a person who cannot believe in Jesus out of intellectual conviction (and/or sin). This decision to eschew Christian education was ultimately one about what I wanted to do with my life—and what I thought God wanted to do with my life. It was almost theological in nature. Thankfully, these past couple years my whole theology of what it means to believe in a resurrected King had coalesced and produced vision for my place in an unbelieving world. Stanley Hauerwas, Shane Claiborne, Ron Sider, and Kevin Gage all played a part in that. Thanks guys!
So now I find myself in Research Methods class deconstructing (my favorite!) philosophical paradigms. This will likely not be popular with most Christians, but as with any liberal education grounded in critical theory, we approach everything from the post-modern perspective. It’s much more complex than that, of course, but essentially that is what it is.
I appreciate your prayers as I learn to love my cohort and try to excel in my studies. Licensure feels like forever away, but before I know it I’ll be a therapist in this state or perhaps another. This will open up many new and exciting opportunities for future ministry both here and abroad.
Phoenix to Portland: "The Past is Prologue"
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Africa Journal #14: The Dryness and the Rain
The warm dry air of Phoenix greeted me and what had become monochromatic began to fill in with hues of color upon the recesses of my mind: the smell of automobiles on hot tarmac, the feel of efficiency and quality, the sound of familiar language. Kevin, Lisa, and Grace picked up a disheveled, vanquished man from the Terminal 4 north curb and took him to America’s Taco for carne asada therapy. I held Grace’s precious hand the entire time, having realized in my time away just how wonderful it is to love a child and to feel so thankful for the opportunity that Zak & Lisa’s beautiful creation has afforded me. In the familiar din of Phoenix’s best carne asada joint I began to warm up and remember. Brant showed up and all the sudden I hadn’t been gone for two and a half months; it’d been only yesterday that I’d left the desert for equatorial Africa on a journey to serve. But who can remember that now? We laughed and talked and moved easily through the rhythms of familiarity and love. Shortly I was home napping trying to escape the terrible lag that crept up behind me. I failed. Waking up from that small nap my first day back felt like dying and it wasn’t until the following morning that my body finally said, “ok, you can start to heal now.” Waking up I remembered the experiences just a few days before…
I do not regret going and I do really believe that it all happened as it should. After all, it probably isn’t possible for things to happen as they should not. Only God knows, but I know that in Africa I didn’t merely slow down, I stopped. There were days in which I sat only in the company of God. This sounds more spiritual than it is for in this time I faced some of the darkest times and darkest beliefs. I did not share them with anyone for the efficacy of sharing burdens is limited at the nether regions of the subjective agonies of life. I wish I could say I felt His presence, but more often I felt His absence. I taunted God, asking of Him things that cannot be asked. I shut down, became cold and feared a future that was made of things such as this. To be honest, I don’t know if I wanted to hear from Him. The anger and hurt had reached new depths, and the sickness provided the space for honesty about that. In that place I only wanted to be alone with the visceral immediacy of pain. In my hopeless state there were many who attended to my needs reminding me that my attempts to truly feel alone were only partially successful. Thankfully, God wasn’t allowing me to write the script of our story. It was because of people like Gina, Shawn & Sarah, and Abby & David that I made it through. When the day finally came to leave Uganda, Shawn and his new adopted son Jethro made sure I made it safely to Entebbe Airport; I was not, am not alone.
I suppose a final report on Africa is in order. This is common practice for “missionaries” and those that are “sent”. Yet ministry does not lend itself to quantification. I don’t know the impact my passion or skills brought to the table. I know that I enjoyed counseling the boys when I could and that it was helpful for them. I know that I loved doing MTS with the male leaders, even if we were unable to finish. I know that I felt within my strengths when I did trainings, even if those were few. I know that it is always an honor to spend time with my Ugandan friends, the boys in the home, and the boys on the street. I know that the Americans at the Kampala guesthouse were my lifelines in many ways and I hope that I blessed them in some capacity as they have blessed me. I am further reminded and comforted by what I know the church is and can be. I will probably never learn to like churches in Africa with their prosperity gospel and too-often heresies, but I will always love The Church in Africa for the faith, devotion, and community. God, how I have so much to learn from them. Furthermore, it is encouraging and life-giving to be reminded that God’s Church is something that knows no boundaries, respects no culture, and is promised to be victorious both now and in the end. I know that I have cast my lot in the way of a broken, crucified King and that there is no other way to the truth. I could have learned that again in a place that wasn’t Africa, but probably not as well. I needed the late night talks with Peter, the enormous pain of hearing the stories of young boys who have experienced hell, the experience of Abby & David’s great passion, the laughter in the churches, and the stark reality of Rwanda’s genocide memorials to truly learn in a way that may sink into the fleshy part of my soul.
Last Tuesday I left Uganda. This Tuesday I leave Phoenix. Brant, Kevin and I will load up my junk in a rented minivan (whatever can’t fit stays) and head to Santa Barbara and up the Pacific Coast Highway to Astoria, Oregon and then on to Portland where on Monday I begin my first grad school classes. I’m not even remotely prepared, but as always, I’ll shoot from the hip and hope for the best. The opportunity before me is one that few people get and I plan on capitalizing on the blessing. I am cautiously hopeful all the while steeling myself for an extended season of loss. I have never known less about what the future holds and that can be somewhat disconcerting at 28. But most of my plans and dreams for my life have already collapsed so I’m hoping God can take what is effectively a tear-stained blank slate and write something new and beautiful on it. Whether I like it or not I’m quickly running out of things to rely on besides Him. So that is my prayer for Season 4, from dryness to rain, that He would write a new story for me and that I would lose control of that which I hold on to with all my life… that which has only produced death. It is time to integrate my pain, loss, and knowledge into my story. I surrender, God! I was called out to the desert and was faithful to go. Now I am called to the land of rain and I want to be faithful, so I ask You to do something new and create in me something beautiful! That is my prayer. Amen.
Africa Journal #13: Sickness & Genocide
Americans, if you’re not sitting down, you should probably sit down before the next sentence, as it will invariably shock you. When I went into the ER I was taken to a bed immediately. There was zero wait. I walked from the car to a bed and was seen immediately. Incredible! I will skip the gory details, but soon enough they had an IV in me and were pumping fluids into my depleted system. I talked to a couple of doctors there and they asked about my symptoms and I told them about the stomach pain, headaches, nausea, vomiting, lack of appetite, come and go fever, muscle soreness, and the “intestinal problems.” They took blood and did some tests. They found out I have a really bad bacteria infection that before escaped detection and that I have really bad allergies, which is exacerbating the problems. I can’t even tell you how nice it is to finally know what is wrong. The doxy and amoxy I have been taking have had no effect on this formidable enemy. They got the right/strong antibiotics flowing into me and went from there. In about six hours I was discharged at a total cost of like $56. I won’t even try and consider how much that care would have been in the U.S. That was yesterday and since then it has not been all roses and I’ve been in a lot of pain, but I think I am finally on the mend. This evening I ate my first full meal in about a week.
So, in my sickness and emotional turmoil Uncle Alex (who I work with at API) and I headed to beautiful Kigali, Rwanda to bear witness, both to the 18th anniversary of the genocide and to the continual redemption of Rwanda, arguably Africa’s best current success story. I could say a lot of the trip, but it would take far too long. But I will tell a story. While we were there we went to the Kigali Genocide Memorial, a place where over 250,000 men, women, children, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, wives, husbands, students, friends, whatever, were buried. The only thing the buried had in common was that they were part of the conjured “tribe” Tutsi that the Belgians had thought up in the early 20th century. It was a far more socio-economic status than a racial designation, but nevertheless it spelt death in April of 1994. The mass graves cannot be summed up so I will not try. I cannot wrap my mind around 250,000 individual, brutal murders although it became easier when we were inside looking at skulls that had collapsed around the physical power of a machete to the side of the head. But where I fell apart, where I prayed aloud to never, ever forget what I have seen was the exhibit dedicated to children. It was as subtle as could be, but the tall photos of young Rwandan boys and girls smiling were almost themselves too much. The placards underneath the endearing photos were what caused you to fall apart:
I leave Africa is a few short days. I do not yet know what the lasting impact of this season will be on me, but I believe it will have been instrumental in some way in my life. I’ve seen God do amazing things and I’ve seen God keep me sufficiently humble and reliant on Him. I’m truly thankful for your prayers and support that got me to this place. You’re a blessing to me and I want you to know that. Some of you I owe emails too and I hope to get those to you when I can. I hope to write one more time once my thoughts and life are in order. Expect some new blog entries soon at my blog: www.glocaldan.blogspot.com
God Bless,
Thursday, April 19, 2012
impending
“impending”
This is not an “Africa Journal”. This is a mindstream taken directly from my journal, recorded just about an hour ago as I watched a massive, ferocious storm light up the sky. It is simply my thoughts, feelings and memories as they came to me. This is effectively unedited. Please excuse the use of both past and present phrases. listen, do not fear.
I watched the storm approach. A tempest was already raging deep inside of me. I thought of Ronan’s timeless, inked words, “These are not words. They’re only feelings. There are no sounds that you can hear. There are no forms that you can touch. I tell myself, I keep repeating, that your ways are bringing you to me.” Yes, I thought to myself. I watched the storm approach the same way you watch the approaching moment your best friend marries the love of his life. It is that particular mix of joy and longing that steeled my soul in that moment. As the stars disappeared it felt like a warm embrace from a lover long since removed. I reveled in the moment and in impending fury.
The whole day I’ve spent considering the narrative of my life and the struggles and pain that seem to grow stronger every day. The flashbacks are more constant now as a dozen spent pens can attest to. There was this moment that came amidst the thousandth page of other’s pain that I was reading in which I started to feel myself. The loss and anger broke through the numbness and deadness that are my constant jailors, enslaving and yet protecting me from this overwhelming urge to stand in the lightening storm just to test my life, to prove that I’m still alive. It’s not safe to feel like this and people will ask, “What is wrong?” as if the catacomb of silence is an almost necessary state to experience the truth of my experience. How can I describe what it means to be an iceberg with the danger laying mostly beneath the surface? And yet that old friend, violence, having breached my prison bars embraced me. Now with the storm enveloping me I took the time to embrace back. It had been too long.
I thought of the stories that I’ve heard, both the hundreds and the few that have truly, utterly broken my heart. I remember the stories of others that have cost me more than my life. I consider that embrace, that rage, that impeccable desire for both wrath and shalom, that violence that courses through my veins. I can hear it pumping in the ringing silence of my ears. The storm is still too far away to be heard, but I know it draws nearer. The tears run stream down my face picking up the ashes that are imbued in my sackcloth soul in some ceremonial gray mud of remembrance. I stifle a scream, a scream to protest with God. “Why?!” is not a sufficient question. “You.” That is the accusation I level at the nameless, faceless person who embodies that which took everything and took it in the name of God. I would take your life. I would rip the page from the book and burn it alive.
Violence, I know. The streaks across the perilous sky remind me of counter-battery fire and the death that each audible report attests to. I think of the charred bodies, the blood stained glass, and the open graves. This, after all, is war. I think of the exchanges of hatred and fire and how such violence is the manifestation of that rage, that fury that is both boundless and patient. “You”, I whisper in to the now windy emptiness. It is black as sin out here despite the magnificent flashes and the irony is not lost on me.
“I hate you with the justice of a thousand nights that I’ve longed for, prayed for healing.” Yet I know that my own anger is second only to another’s. And by what right do I have to take their pain and make it my own? But it is now my own. I do not know where theirs ends and mine begins. “Someday”, I think. I stare intently at the flashes ignoring every close sound in hopes of hearing the distant sounds of fury. I want to hear it, but more than that I want to taste it. I want to know it. I want to remember that I was not there at the foundations of this earth and yet I will brace like a man for the impending gale. My heart and head collide as I hear the chorus of breakdown ring in my ears as I scream inwards, “Make him beg for his life!!!!” With the intensity only learnt through years of waiting for the opportunity.
But then the prose of feeling drops dead from my lips and as it hits the ground I stomp on its lifeless existence a couple of times just to make sure. The blood is again pumping in my ears and I think of the knife and the cold intimacy it represents. In the end only one of us walks away.
The wind is harder now. I wonder if it will carry me home.
And to think, I am standing here because of love.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Africa Journal #12: the update you’ve all been waiting for with bated breath…
Africa Journal #12: the update you’ve all been waiting for with bated breath…
Part 1:
Sometimes it is hard to even remember that I am in Africa. Of course that is exceedingly obvious from an outside perspective, but through these weeks of sickness I’ve been mostly by myself or in my own head. When I’m with others it has mostly been other Westerners. Westerners mostly have been taking care of me (thanks Gina!). I’ve been reading Western books and I’ve mostly been eating “Western” food (incredibly, it is healthier than food here). I’ve mostly been drifting through African life rather than partaking in it. I can honestly say this is the first time I’ve ever been in Africa and done that. It’s somewhat disturbing. Even recently when I was walking around Kampala and I felt distant, rather than a part of what was going on.
This morning, however, I feel like I’m back in Africa. I’m drinking tea on this fine Ugandan morning with Uncle Peter and I’ve been writing postcards and he’s reading a book I got for him on leadership. He loves it. Leadership books put me to sleep. He’s also eating roasted ants. That’s Africa. Generally speaking, I’m known for doing “crazy” things, so you may be shocked to find out that I will not eat the aforementioned ants. I’ve decided that I have a rule: I won’t eat anything, unless it comes from the sea, with more than four legs; safe rule, right? That keeps me from having to eat the millions of ants my friends here roast whenever the nasty creatures decide it’s a good time to emerge from the earth en masse. But Peter rather enjoys them and it’s good to feel like I’m somehow “back in Africa”.
A lot has gone on since I’ve last written an update. For me I’ve been more of an observer than a participant. This sickness, which is so uncommon for me, has really gotten me down and kept me out of the action. I’m still not at 100% as my body tries to recover from whatever virus it was that I had—the doctors failed to identify it. Now the headaches are almost gone and I’m probably just days away from having all my strength back although I have noticed that even my slight frame has lost considerable weight and muscle mass over the past two weeks. The remedy, of course, is more meat, more peanut butter, and more chocolate. Fat and protein is what I need! My caloric intake is already much lower here than in the US so it’s always a struggle to keep weight on here, but the sickness has taken it to the next level. My goal for my final weeks here is to “make up” (which is the Ugandan term for working out) everyday and to put some muscle mass back on and hopefully improve my cardiovascular situation after the relatively sedentary lifestyle I was forced to endure. So what have I missed out on recently? Well, a few things. I’ve missed doing much “ministry” as I could barely get around on my own. That’s thrown quite a wrench into the schedule of things, but that’s just how it is. I’ve also missed a number of other things. I was supposed to go to African Hearts in Ssenge, but was unable. I was supposed to be in Rwanda this past weekend, but was unable. One of the boys in our street program died last week and I would have liked to go to his funeral as well, but again I was unable. Speaking of death (sorry, no segway), it is continually an eye-opening experience to see how often it occurs here. If you remember from my previous musings on the topic, the mean age here in Uganda is 17. In the US it’s around 37. That means death occurs at quite an alarming frequency in this country with an almost record-breaking birthrate. One of the women in our women’s ministry had to bear the news that her son had been murdered in prison. Gina, the missionary here that works with the women’s program, went with her. Another woman Gina knows had her baby die when the baby fell off a boda boda (motorcycle taxi). Death, of course, is par for the course of human life and the global mortality rate will always be 100%, but not all cultures view life and death in the same way. One thing about here is that death is a community affair and not hidden from the population as it is in many ways in my/our culture. I am still trying to ascertain the real beliefs about death here, but they are definitely different than in the West where we have so many safeguards against death that most people here simply don’t have access too. Here God gives and takes away. In the West we tend to believe science and medicine give and take away. I remember being in Malawi where the HIV/AIDS rate is well north of 30% of the population and seeing funerals almost all the time. In Africa death is viewed with a particular perspective that I would do well to understand…
Part 2:
Because a number of you have asked, I will fill you in briefly on how my computer was miraculously returned to me. To be blunt, if you have ethical issues (as I actually do) about the use of bribery you should probably stop reading now. That’s an indicator of where this is going…
Contrary to my nature, I’ll make this explanation as simple as possible. As soon as my computer was stolen, Gina, the aforementioned missionary here, called an Uncle at a different home for street children, a home that only takes in teenage street boys. That in and of itself is worth commenting on. It must be known that it is very rare for anyone to take in street boys who are 14+. To be blunt, they are steeped in violence, thievery, drug abuse, and any other number of vices. They are the few survivors of their group in society, and they didn’t make it to their teenage years on the streets by being moral. On the streets the just perish. So this home is a radical concept of the gospel that says, “none should perish.” Yet Gina knew that the boys in that home knew where we lived and knew that if they wanted quick access to the expensive gear mzungus have, this was where to get it. So! She called the Uncle of that home and asked if any of their boys may have possibly stolen a Macbook Pro. He said he’d try and find out. Long story short, it became apparent that one of the boys had stolen my computer. We’ll call him Joseph for the purposes of this disclosure. One of the other boys had ratted him out to the Uncle and so now we knew who had taken it. However, by the time Joseph finally admitted to stealing my computer, it had changed hands four times, with money obviously exchanged in the process. Gina wasted no time. She went to the ATM, pulled out 500,000 Sh. (about $205 USD) and then went to the police to start to track down the computer. First she had to pay/bribe the police to do anything. That’s how it is here. Then, long story short, she had to pay each person off to say where the computer had gone. Incredibly, by the end of the day, she’d located my computer with a random Ugandan who lived in the Kivulu slum. He’d paid some 80,000 shillings for a computer worth over 1 million shillings. She paid him to get back the obviously stolen computer. It would seem that all is well at this point in time, but then there is the question of “justice” and it is not one that you would think. Somehow, and this is incredible, amidst the being paid off and everything else the police decided they would in fact want to arrest the perpetrator for stealing the computer. This is uncommon, in case you’re wondering. Usually there is no drive to arrest someone, especially if arresting someone may be a hassle, unless they are paid specifically for that. Nevertheless, they wanted to arrest Joseph, which they did. Now, you may be thinking, “That is just. He stole your computer and should face the consequences.” In a perfect world, I may agree with you. But Gina knew well enough how I viewed justice and knew that I would be appalled if this teenage boy went to prison because of his theft. He wouldn’t “learn his lesson” there. A boy who had never known an ounce of justice in his own life, a boy who had no one in his life who loved him besides the Christians who had taken him in, a boy whose own family rejected him, would not experience justice in going to prison without a judge, jury or trial. What he would experience would be sodomy, violence, and perhaps death. In there this young, impressionable boy would become a cold man. So the police were then bribed to not send him to prison. Joseph, our young thief, was set free. God be glorified for getting my computer back to me.
Personally there are few things in life I am more interested in than ethics… and yet as I’ve consider what it means to bribe the police to free this boy from ultimately being taught to hate I can think of no more sound of an ethical decision. Granted, my ethics have developed over the years of trying to practically apply my faith and don’t fit a “system” per se, but they are grounded in the two basic Kingdom ethics: Justice & Mercy… God’s ultimate justice and his mercy that we are to model. Those two cannot exist without the other. Let me offer and example. There is a famous scene in Victor Hugo’s preeminent classic Les Misérables in which the Bishop Myriel hands two silver candlesticks to the thief, Jean Valjean, who has stolen from him after the police return the man they saw leaving the city and suspected of stealing. The context you’re probably familiar with, and you’ll then remember that the Bishop Myriel leans over to the man and whispers, “and with this I have ransomed your soul. I have purchased you from Satan and am giving you back to God.” These words are some of the most beautiful in the history of European literature. The moral concept holds fast as well. I do not want to give stark moral equivalency to this timeless story and the freeing of a young Ugandan thief from prison via bribing, but I think we do well to understand what ends ethics has in mind. Bishop Myriel knew that he had been sinned against, but he knew to an even greater understanding that Valjean had experienced terrible things in life and he too had been sinned against. Bishop Myriel knew that as a representative of God he could pursue man’s limited notion of justice, or he could trust God with justice and insodoing, could do something divine and offer forgiveness and freedom from earthly consequence. He is afforded to opportunity to offer the fullness of mercy and chooses to do so. I believe that is the demand placed on us all. If we’re all truly God’s representatives in a broken, fallen world, then such radical mercy is the demand placed on us. Not as a legalistic demand, but as a response to the grace we’ve been given. We are free to offer mercy.
I had already forgiven the thief for stealing my computer. I was furious at having it taken because it is such a helpful tool in this life, and yet I could not really be angry with someone who had acted, in truth, as rationally as I often do. Abject poverty is a devastating circumstance to bear. It disallows me to really judge those who are caught in its web. When I learned that the thief was in fact a street boy, it was all the harder to cast judgment into the waters. I do however look forward to meeting this boy. I want to tell him that I forgive him and yet tell him of my side of the story so that he understands that taking from another isn’t a zero sum game. I want to give him an opportunity to speak about his side of the story as well.
The rest of the story is even more incredible. I was encouraged by a couple friends to try and raise the money that was lost by the theft of my computer. So I made a paypal support widget on my facebook profile. Within some 72 hours my friends have raised over the value of what I had suggested. It was profoundly humbling to be on the other side of the earth and to have my friends via the “faceless” world of facebook, raise over $700 to replace my computer, my portal to the modern world. Then my computer showed up, negating the need for the money… and yet every single person told me to keep the money and use it for any needs that I currently have or use it on ministry here. I wept when I thought of just how much God continues to use people to speak about his goodness. It is his church and the relational aspect of God in which I most experience His lovingkindness. And so now I find myself with a decent amount of money, enough to purchase some software to recover a portion of the data the purchaser of my computer erased, enough to give me some space to think about how I can bless someone here with this money. I am a blessed man and every day I run out of more reasons to believe otherwise. Thank you, friends.
So that is the story of the past few weeks. I will continue to update you as I can, and I have a lot of writings that I want to share, but thank you for reading and considering my thoughts. You all bless me. Please pray for the remainder of my time here. I want to be effective in my counseling and Mending the Soul groups. I want to heal so that I’m not so weak all the time. I want to be emotionally prepared for my return to Phoenix and the short turnaround that I have before going to Portland. Thank you.
Dan