Raining Cows

 Couch #2: Holly Springs, North Carolina.

That’s where we are now.  But that’s not where we were this morning.  This morning, we were at the last day of the Lucas house, wrapping plastic around mattresses, eating pizza, and cajoling couches up the stairs.  Don’t scratch the paint!

God has called the Lucas family to discipleship.  Very intentional, please-come-into-my-house, would-you-like-a-cup-of-coffee sort of discipleship.  Following after the example of Jesus living day-to-day life with His disciples.

Discipleship gets a little harder when your disciples betray you.  Especially when you’re moving houses.  Even more especially when you’re moving out of a house without knowing where you’re going to move in.  Even much more especially when you’re battling cancer.  Which is what Kathy (Mrs. Lucas) is fighting right now.  What Mark (Mr. Lucas) is struggling to understand.  What Connie (Miss Lucas) is seeking Jesus’ face in the midst of.

Dear God, bless the Lucas’s.

They were a blessing to us.  We tried, like kindergartners explaining calculus, to give a word, a prayer, a song.  Something to comfort the comfortless.  Something to try to make sense of the un-sensible.  I don’t know that we really succeeded.

But God the Father saw the intention of our hearts and decided to bless us in return.  He says He owns the cattle on a thousand hills.  I figure that means He owns all the cows in Rwanda.  Maybe more.  It’s only been three days on the road for us, and we’ve already seen Him share His cows with us.  We’re looking forward to seeing Him send more.  We’re looking forward to seeing cows rain.

(Staggered, left to right: Lisa, Teri, Erin - Happy birthday!! - me, Connie, Lily, Kathy, Mark)

What the Unknown Looks Like

We experienced our first “dream tour” gathering tonight.  That’s what we’re calling ourselves.  We’re making T-shirts.  What are you waiting for? on the front.  I don’t know.  Something amazing I guess, on the back.  More details to follow.  (That’s your cue to smile.)

But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.

What I wanted to say is what happens when Jesus walks into an American living room.

It was a Bible study we were crashing.  Twenty-odd strangers we’d never met before, singing songs we’d never heard.  They prayed, then introduced us.  We sat up a little straighter.  “Hi, my name is _______________.”  Polite smiles, blinking eyes.  Hm.  Who are these guys, and what are they doing in my living room?

And then we stopped talking about ourselves and started telling stories.  God’s stories.  And the Spirit of the Lord burst into that room.

We talked about dreams.  We met a young lady who hopes to teach teens wisdom through God’s hand moving in history.  We met another one who wants to mentor young mothers.  We met another who has been called by God to travel to the nations, going from country to country, sharing the love of Christ.  We met another who is being built up to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit, bringing the truth of Christ to His Bride.  We met another who hopes to share God’s stories through music, words, and movie.

We met all these in one room.  Just one room.  How many rooms do you think there are in the United States of America?

And we didn’t just meet them.  We talked with them.  We shared and prayed and worshiped and cried and praised our Father God with them.  We got to connect a hand with a wrist, a foot with an ankle, an eyelid with an eyelash.  We saw Christ as the Head of His church come in and breathe life - breathe life! - through His body.

Do you know what it looks like when the breath of Jesus breathes on you?

Tonight I saw something magnificent.  Tonight I saw the Body of Christ.  In a North Carolina living room with white trim and tan paint.  Here.  In America.  Right next door to you.

Tonight God took our unknown and made it shine, radiant and beautiful, in our eyes, in our hearts.  Tonight He showed us the unseen.  And He did it through the faces of our brothers and sisters.  His children.  My family.

So, what are we doing on our dream tour?  Oh, we don’t really know.  If you’d like to find out, maybe you should invite us into your living room.

(So, this is us.  Left to right: Lisa, Teri, Lily, me.)

*P.S. Please note the color coordination I skipped out on.*

The First of 6,000

I am rocking on a little padded swing on the second-floor porch of a huge house overlooking a brilliant host of North Carolina trees.  The wind is swooshing through the branches, trying to make the sound of ocean waves only without the pauses.  Crickets are chanting.  Birds are twittering.

I am a missionary suffering for the sake of Jesus.  Who ever thought suffering could be so blessed?

You know, He promised His disciples if they would give up home and family and comfort, then He would return it with a hundred-fold.  I’ve left home and family and comfort a few times now, and His promise has never failed me yet.

For all I’ve given up, the One who leads me has given back more than I could ask or imagine.

“The Lord is good, and His love endures forever.”

We drove from Gainesville, Georgia, to Hendersonville, North Carolina, today.  Lisa, Teri, Lilly, and I.  I’ve never been to North Carolina before.  Turns out God made a couple places in this world even more beautiful than Nebraska.  Fascinating, isn’t it?

This is our first leg in a 6,000-mile journey.  We don’t really know what we’re doing or where exactly we’re going or what God’s got planned.  But He knows, and that’s all that matters.  We walk by faith and not by sight.  At one point last week, I was thinking how nice it would be if God would actually give me the tangible answers to some of the things I’ve been trying to trust Him for.

You want to know His response?  “It wouldn’t be faith if you could see everything I see.”  If only we understood how easy it is for Him, how many resources He has at His beck and call - like the father leading his slightly nervous child down the hallway in the dark.  “I can’t see, Daddy.  I can’t see.”

If only we knew how much He can.

Then again, if He let us see that, we wouldn’t really need faith any more.  It would be too easy.

For now, I’m content to stay blind so long as He never lets go of my hand.  He hasn’t lost His grip yet.  Meanwhile, I wait for the day when my faith becomes sight.  Just think how floored we’ll all be when He finally turns the lights on.

It’s much more fun this way.

God, Save the Turtles!

I went to church in Georgia today.  I saw lots of interesting things on the drive there and back.  Kind of like Dr. Seuss’s kid on Mulberry Street.  Only this was true.

I saw a cop directing traffic in front of the church parking lot.  She told me, “Enjoy the rest of your day.”  I saw a turtle (not a chicken) crossing the road.  I saw a man with drum sticks cheerfully pounding away on his steering wheel.  I saw a super-sized version of a go-cart driving down the road like it was a real car.

I saved the turtle.

Actually, I almost ran over him first.  Swerved at the last second so my tires wouldn’t flatten his shell.  The five cars behind me did the same.  But sooner or later, someone wasn’t going to swerve.  I remembered a scene from “Rango” and decided to do something about that.

So, I turned my car around, parked in the most convenient spot I could find, and trotted out onto the pavement.  Relax.  I looked both ways first.

The turtle ran away from me.  Well, scuttled.  Turtles don’t really run.  But he definitely scuttled in the opposite direction.

I tried to remember if snapping turtles could actually cut through a finger, or if they just clamped on and never let go.  I tried to remember that this particular Georgia road was quite curvy, and the speed limit was 55.  I tried to remember that I’d left my car running in a stranger’s driveway.

Basically, I figured, I was risking my life for the sake of an ungrateful reptile.

I thanked God one last time for all ten of my fingers and picked up the turtle.  “Stop hissing,” I commanded.  “I’m trying to save your life.”

The turtle shrank inside his shell and refused to come out.  But he stopped hissing.  I deposited him in the front lawn of the stranger who had been nice enough to let me borrow his driveway.  No flattened turtle shells.  No flattened, misguided, “Save the Reptiles!” church-goers.  No flattened fingers.

I just hope he doesn’t decide to cross the road again.

A Voice That's Not Inside My Head

I have discovered the secret to never getting lost.

It has nothing to do with car-pooling or tow trucks.  It has nothing to do with what state you live in.  And, no, I haven’t been arrested.

I’ve discovered the GPS.

It’s not mine actually.  I drove Jenny to the airport today, and everyone was pretty sure they’d never see me again if I didn’t have a GPS to get back.

(They may have been right.)

So, Teri let me borrow hers.  There I was.  Pulling out of the airport, facing a world I didn’t know.  Streets I’d never seen.  Signs I couldn’t pronounce.  Cars with no “Go, Huskers!” sticker in the back window.

I couldn’t have cared less.  I had a GPS.  I charged it up, punched in the coordinates for "Home," and we were all set.  “Drive 2.7 miles, then veer left on Interstate 85,” a very suave female voice announced in a polished British accent.  Two point seven miles.  Left.  Eighty-five.  I think I can handle that.  It even came with a cool, live-feed picture of the road I was driving, the current speed limit, and my ETA.  The only things missing were a glass of lemonade and a good book.

It's amazing what I'm capable of when I'm listening to a voice other than the ones inside my head.  I made it all the way from Atlanta to Gainesville without a single wrong turn.  No backtracking.  No wrong exits.  No U-turns.  I was very impressed.

And then I pulled into the driveway of “Home.”  Zero miles to destination, the GPS informed me.

It was a stranger’s house.  White siding with dark green panels.  Very nice.  Definitely not home.

Oops.

Turns out “Home” was not the correct coordinate system.  Apparently, this specific “home” was no longer in commission.  I did what I usually do when I get lost.  Got the car out of the driveway, flipped a U, and drove the other way.

Apparently, the polished British chick doesn’t like being contradicted.

“Redirecting.  Redirecting.  Redirecting,” she sternly decreed.  She was using the same tone I’ve heard my sister use to tell her daughter not to eat the needles off the Christmas tree.

I turned my music up and ignored her.

Ultimately, I did make it to the house I was looking for.  Twenty minutes past my ETA.  But the whole experience taught me some valuable lessons:

#1: Opening the passenger door from the driver’s seat to pull in the seatbelt while the car’s in drive is not a good idea.  Especially not on the Interstate.

#2: Do not tick off the polished British chick inside the GPS machine.

#3: Technology is helpless in the face of traffic jams.

#4: Always make sure you know where “Home” is before you try to get there.

The Ultimate Betrayal

I’m meeting all sorts of people here at AIM headquarters.  People from Alabama, Kansas, North Carolina, Germany.  But no matter who I meet, they all seem to have several things in common.  They’ve quit their jobs.  They use their passports a lot.  They love worship.  They’re addicted to coffee.

And they’re asking questions.  Questions about how your world view shapes your actions.  Questions about why sex trafficking still exists.  Questions about how best to cram a whoopie cushion under a thick couch.

And one dark, un-askable question that none of us really like to talk about: What if God fails me?  What if I put my complete confidence in Him, and He doesn’t come through?  What if He doesn’t fill my car up with gas?  What if He doesn’t get me a job?  What if He doesn’t provide the $1,000 a month I need for support?  What if He doesn’t heal my wife of terminal cancer?  What if He doesn’t save my unbelieving dad?

The questions burn.

They ache, they cry, they weep, they scream.  We think we’re dying.  Maybe we are.  And in the end, there we are, shattered, scattered in a million pieces at the feet of God Most High.

What happens when we ask God to pull through for us, and He blatantly doesn’t do it?  When we know He can, and He knows He can.  But He doesn’t.  Because if He is still good (And if God is not good, what do we have?), and if He is still sovereign, and if He is still generous and loving and merciful and kind . . . then there must be something wrong with us.  The problem must be on our end.

Pain must be our fault.

We must not be perfect yet.  We must somehow need this pain - this seeming failure on the part of God - in order to make us into better people.  Oh . . . but hold on a minute there.  Even that answer can’t get us too far.  Cause Jesus was perfect, wasn’t He?  And He felt more pain than I’ll ever feel.  And the Father failed Him in a way He’ll never fail me.

That moment of God the Father turning His back on His own bleeding, suffocating Son, dying a thief’s death on a Roman cross - that moment in all history may be God’s ultimate betrayal.  The greatest example of God’s failure.  Here was a perfect Man - a sinless, spotless, righteous Man - who needed rescue.  And God didn’t do it.  Worse!  He actually turned His face away and pretended not to notice.

Like a school teacher studying the rocks while the class bully beats up the wimpy nerd on the playground.

God did nothing.

How many agonized, throbbing prayers do you think He failed to answer on that day?

But out of that betrayal - out of God’s ultimate failure to act - came our ultimate story of redemption.  If God hadn’t failed to save . . . we wouldn’t know Him today.  It is only because of His failure that we are alive.

What if the same could be true when God fails us?

What if what we see as His betrayal is actually His deepest plan for our restoration? . . . What would happen if we stopped worrying that God might let us down?  How high would we aim if we gave ourselves permission to fail?

Lost for a Cause

Ask anyone in my family.  Anyone of my friends.  Anyone who’s ever ridden in the car with me.  They’ll all tell you the same thing.

I get lost.

A lot.

Apparently, Georgia is very capable of taking this skill of mine and . . . emphasizing it.

I get lost in Nebraska.  Where the roads are straight.  Where intersections happen like clockwork at perfect right angles.  Where it’s flat and you can usually see the town you’re driving to miles before you get there.

In Georgia, I’ve discovered, it’s worse.  Much worse.  You can’t see anything a mile away.  Too many trees.  Intersections don’t intersect at right angles.  Too many hills.  And nothing’s straight.  Too much water.

You may not be surprised to hear that I got lost.  Twice.  In 24 hours.  It happened like this . . .

I arrived in Gainesville after 18 hours of driving at 9:00 at night only to discover that my mapquest directions ended on the road.  Let me clarify.  I was looking for a house.  Not a road.  I think the house is about 45 minutes from the Interstate.  It took me an hour and a half to get there.  In the dark.  With speeding cars getting pulled over all around me, and no speed limit signs to tell me how fast not to go.

Welcome to Georgia.

The next day, it happened again.  I had been given very specific directions to get to AIM headquarters.  Left on Old Cornelia Highway, drive for awhile, turn right at Limestone Parkway, blah, blah, something about a gas station . . . So, I jumped in my car half an hour before I was supposed to be there, found Old Cornelia, and turned left.

And there I was, driving down a road I didn’t know looking for a street that wasn’t there.  But I didn’t know that until later.  You see, another thing they like to do in Georgia is change the names of their roads.  So, although the real name of the road is Limestone Highway, the sign over the intersection says SR11.  I saw SR11 clear as day.  I went right on driving.  Twenty minutes later, I thought maybe I had missed my turn somewhere and turned around.

I was 45 minutes late to my meeting.

Welcome to Georgia . . . again.

The good news is, the road network here matches up really well with how I’m feeling about life right now.  I don’t know where I’m going.  I never know when the road’s gonna dip or swerve or disappear altogether.  I get a little nervous when it gets dark.

The other good news is that I’m not driving this alone.  He hasn’t let me run out of gas.  Yet.  He hasn’t told any of the tires to spontaneously combust.  Yet.  He hasn’t sent a deer leaping gracefully into the windshield of my car.  Yet.  He’s never failed me.  Yet.

I’m beginning to think He never will.

Cinnamon-Scented Glazed Donut Hand Sanitizer

The above-pictured toilet holds some very . . . unique memories for me.  It’s nothing to do with my upcoming tour with AIM.  At least, I hope not.  It’s all in the past. (Dear God, let it stay there.)

It happened in Haiti.

Toilets are a luxury in most countries.  Most centuries, for that matter.  Does anyone even know when the first toilet was invented?  In Haiti, we saw lots of toilets.  We did not, however, see many flushing ones.

It’s complicated.  There it was, the sparkling white porcelain seat, complete with matching sink.  Shower head, faucet, hot and cold taps.  What more could you ask for?  Well, running water would be nice.  Ah, yes . . . I knew we forgot something.

The big black barrel in the back is what we used instead of running water.  And it was working great too! . . . Until the day the toilet plugged.  Don’t ask why.  Let’s just say it got a little stopped-up.

Have you ever tried to unplug a toilet without a plunger?  Have you ever tried to mime “plunger” to someone who doesn’t speak your language?  Have you ever put hand sanitizer on a toilet seat?

Let me back up.  I had a helper in all this, a friend in the midst of crisis.  Her name is Morgan.  I don’t really remember how Morgan and I finally got a toilet bowl plunger in our hands.  I think it took something like three days and several interesting conversations.  But at last there we stood, looking down into a toilet that was . . . not sparkling white anymore.

I’d never prayed over a toilet before that moment.

We’d done our darndest to skillfully slosh the plunger around inside, we’d poured in a bucket of water, and now we were praying that when we flushed, everything would go down and not up.  Please, not up.

Morgan set her teeth, pushed the handle, and . . . Miracle of all miracles, it went down!  God does answer prayer.  We know.  We’ve seen it.  We got so excited, we did an impromptu victory dance right then and there.

. . . Uh, did I mention that Morgan still had the plunger in her hand?

It splattered everywhere.  Toilet seat, walls, floor.

And that was the day I used cinnamon-scented glazed donut hand sanitizer on a toilet seat.  The rest of the night, it smelled like a Dunkin’ Donuts shop in there.

I haven’t eaten a glazed donut since.

The Next Step

My ten-year high school reunion happened this year.  A few weeks ago, I think.  I’m not really sure.  I didn’t go. (Hey, give me a break.  I’m in denial.) The first two kindergartners I ever taught are sophomores in high school.  My one-year old pony is now eighteen.  Dude.  Talk about making a person feel old.

I think I’m supposed to have reached an age of maturity.  Gentle grace and unflustered poise.  Stableness.  Calmness.  Responsibility.  Ha.

Would you like to know what I’m doing with my life?  I did get back from Haiti five whole weeks ago, and I don’t think I’ve told hardly anyone yet.

I’m leaving again.  Thursday-ish.  (Yeah, I know that’s only three days from now.)

Maybe I’m being irresponsible.  Maybe I read too many missionary books.  Maybe I took the words of Jesus literally.  You better not ask me.  I don’t know the answer to a lot of things.  What I do know is that at church this last Sunday, my pastor closed with these words: “As the Father has sent Me, so am I sending you.”  It’s what Jesus said to His disciples after He rose from the dead.  When Pastor said that, I felt like Jesus was saying it to me.

Maybe I am crazy.

Or maybe I’m chasing a dream.  The deep, unspoken dream that God had in mind when He knit me together in my mother’s womb.  The path He’s carved out for my barefoot feet to follow.  The reason He put me here at all.

I’ve left home, family, horses, cornfields, lazy days, and a very cute dog a half dozen times.  I’m about to do it again.  Because my Lord and Savior is saying, “Come.  Follow Me.”

So, on Thursday, I’ll pack up my bags, hop in the car, wave goodbye to my puppy (whose 100 pounds, I’ve been told, aren’t very puppy-ish anymore), and head for Georgia.  Gainesville, Georgia.  AIM headquarters.  I’m scheduled to serve there for a week with a team of I’m not sure how many other people.  And then two ladies (Teri and Lisa), a 6-year old, and I are jumping in a van and heading out again.  Somewhere in the States.  Several somewhere’s, I think.  To see what God does next.

You might want to stay tuned.  I have every intention of sharing what happens in the coming six weeks.  I just have no idea what it will be.

 

(This is just a couple of the other places, I'd like to go...)

Impossible

I saw something impossible today.

I was taking a walk down this lovely path through the woods behind the house I’m sitting for when there It was.  The Impossibility.  Hanging about seven feet up and at least a yard removed from the nearest branch.  Surrounded by nothing but air and sunlight.  And neither one of those is a very tangible thing.

It was a spider’s web.  It looked just like they do in barn lofts and in the corners between the wall and the ceiling.  Only this one was a bit more impressive.  Sort of like the difference between jumping into the shallow end of a swimming pool and leaping off the Cliffs of Dover.

A spider sat in the middle of this Impossible web.  A little spider with black legs and a white back with two little black dots in the middle of the white.  Apparently, he was trying to be a lady bug.  He just sat there, waiting for his dinner, like it was the most natural thing in the world for him to be an Impossible distance away from anything solid.  He didn’t even have any wings.

I followed one of the strands from his web.  It was about nine feet long in all - just one tiny, hair-thin strand, angling off from the web and trailing down, down, down to where he’d tied it off.  On a blade of grass far, far below.  Talk about stability.  This little guy had absolutely no qualms in his skill as a master craftsman.  But I was still perplexed.

I asked God how the spider got there.

God said, “He let go.”

Hm.  Yes, I suppose he’d have to, hm?  Maybe he jumped out of the tree.  Maybe the wind blew him.  Maybe he made friends with a bird.  I don’t really know.  All I know is this tiny spider somehow managed to get himself and his house seven feet up in thin air.  And you thought climbing Mount Everest was an achievement.  Try doing it with no mountain under you.

This spider is my newest hero.  He did something Impossible . . . and all because he let go.

Comfort Vs. Life

“America is comfortable, but Haiti is alive.”  I’ve been pondering this lately.  It’s a quote from one of the teenagers on our last Haiti team after their reintroduction to life Stateside.  I’ve decided I agree.

In America, we get our food at Dairy Queen in less than two hours - sometimes less than two minutes.  Our roads in our capitol cities are paved.  We have freezers.  We have coffee makers.  We have Skittles and crunchy peanut butter and gel pens.

Haiti is different.  Haiti is hot.  The only time you’re even remotely cold is when you’re taking a shower in unheated water.  The roads to even the nicest resorts are full of potholes.  It stinks.  Somehow the city has managed to maintain both poverty and pollution.  The Internet connection is inconveniently iffy.  It’s impossible to find strawberries.

Haiti’s not very comfortable.  But it most certainly is alive.  They sang in the streets after the earthquake.  Churches meet in the streets still.  They hold services till midnight.  They don’t even stop singing if the power goes out.  Children dance in the aisles.  Adults raise their hands and get on their knees.

So.  If we are comfortable, and they are uncomfortable . . . are they alive, and we are un-alive?

I don’t know, it’s almost like they’ve discovered something - some deep, hidden secret - that’s been too slippery for our fingers.

I saw the secret in Gyver, the 14-year old preacher.  What would he have been like if he grew up in the States?  With video games, facebook, movies, and air conditioning?  He’d be a good kid, sure.  But would he be on fire for Jesus, so passionate about his Savior that you can’t even ask him how his day has been without getting a 45-minute sermon?  How many Gyver's are hiding in our midst, buried under too much TV?  Gyver’s not comfortable.  He’s a fatherless teenager who lives in a tent.  But Gyver is alive.

I saw the secret in Pierre, one of our translators.  Pierre is a pastor in Haiti - a pastor who works for free.  If he was in the States, he could get a paying position, drive a nice car, shepherd a large congregation.  If he was in the States, his congregation might actually have a roof over their heads.  Pierre's church in Haiti meets in the streets.  The mission God's given them is to go into the tent cities and find families they can give houses to.  How many Pierre's are hiding in our midst, buried under too much money?  Pierre's not comfortable.  He can't even afford to buy a refrigerator for his wife.  But Pierre is alive.

I saw the secret in Jeff, my favorite blind boy.  The only blind boy I’ve ever known.  If Jeff was in America, he might not be blind at all.  He lost his sight one eye at a time, separated by a span of four years.  Perhaps his blindness was treatable; perhaps it was preventable.  Even if it wasn’t, Jeff could have learned Braille, gone to a school for the blind, probably even gotten a job.  He wants to be a pastor in Haiti.  He can’t read the Bible, and he wants to be a pastor.  I heard him quote verses to a group of American teens.  When they asked him how he knew so much Scripture, he said God had given him a gift for remembering.  How many Jeff's are hiding in our midst, buried under too much safety?  Jeff’s not comfortable.  He’s a blind boy who can’t read.  But Jeff is alive.

We’ve got more comfort.  They’ve got more life.  That’s basically what it boils down to.  So, what would it take to give us more life? . . . What would it take to give them more comfort?

Perhaps the answer to both questions is the same.

“One thing you lack,” Jesus said.  “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.  Then come, follow Me.”