Rosarito, Day 3

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We started our morning at the children’s home, with breakfast & devotions. Made a sack lunch & packed up our bags for the transfer to our new ‘home away from home, then made our way out past the “Cliffs of Insanity” to Joseph House. Joseph House is a home in the making, sponsored by Hope Chapel Rosarito – it’s purpose is to provide a safe haven, a place for deported men to stay, live, & be discipled. There are currently 5 men living in the home, & many of them have jobs (a rarity for deportees.) Our tasks for the day were simple:

  • Paint the 2-story front of the house, as well as 1 of the 2-story sides. No ladders, just extension poles. (Light baby blue. It was nice.)
  • Assemble a corner desk – without instructions, & perhaps without all the necessary pieces.
  • Rearrange the home so that the 5 occupants could better live life in it. After all, dudes are dudes & we need help organizing & designing stuff.
  • Clean the kitchen (see above)
  • Dig holes for a fence to establish the Joseph house property boundary. Make the fence. Using only reclaimed wood, scrap metal & nails.

Boom. We did it. Finished all of the projects with the help of some skilled labor (Mario & Alejandro, 2 of the once-baddest-but-now-big-softies-for-Christ-that-I’d-want-walking-with-me-on-any-street-in-the-world type of guys) & a lot of sweat. And sun. It was hard work, & took a lot of ingenuity on the part of Tony Mac, who rigged two extension poles together in order to finish painting one section of the house, & of Janelle, who came up with the idea of hanging out the upstairs windows to paint other parts of the 2nd story. Good times.

An added benefit is that we met a family from the US that just relocated to Rosarito. Jason & Dulce have 3 kids, & the funny part is that Jason went to the same high school theWeez currently attends in the greater Reno-Sparks Metro area. Small. World. Jason is a photographer & videographer working in Baja, & he’s been shooting a bunch of pics for us.

At the end of our work day, we took time to pray for the house & for the men who do (& will) live in it. It was very moving to know that this place is (& will be) a refuge for men who have lost everything… & that they will become men who have found everything again when they find Christ.

We were dead tired (& dirty), so we made our way to our new home, the House of Rest. It is sponsored by Calvary Chapel & is a world-class place, with room for 64 people & some really great features. The best one so far was the SHOWER because I was covered in baby blue paint sprinkles.

Freshly scrubbed, we made our way to Grandma’s House, a Baja restaurant specializing in (wait for it….) food like Grandma used to make. Ate to our hearts content. And with eyes glazing over & people starting to nod off, it was time to go home.

Wrapped up our day with a brief discussion, a song, & prayer, & the promise of PANCAKES & BACON for breakfast in the morning. Another happy thought is that we will be sleeping in & having a rest day. Without a rest day on a trip like this, it would be easy to lose focus, get burned out, & turn into virtual zombies. With the demands of our schedule Friday-Sunday, we can’t afford that, so Thursday is rest day/beach day/buy a poncho day for those that so desire.

And it will be grand. Thank you for praying. It makes a difference.

Rosarito, Day 2

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Slept great, & woke up just before my alarm. Because we’re staying at a children’s home, they get first dibs on the kitchen for breakfast prep/clean up. This means we get the kitchen around 8-8:30 & prep breakfast. We’re trying to take turns making breakfast/cleaning up so that everyone gets to experience the joy of washing dirty dishes. There’s nothing like it.

After breakfast, most of the team was charged with engaging with the special needs children. Very cool to see how many of the little ones have changed, grown, developed, & gained areas of function. The year between our visits really displays the significance of a place like “Catherine’s Home” to help those who society has abandoned or given up on, & invested time, energy, & the love of God.

The boys were tasked with painting a clear-coat wood sealer over a mural in the kids main play room. While the kids were playing in it. We were given rollers & a paint tray, & pointed in the ‘right direction.” And did I mention that the clear-coat sealer came with explicit instructions NOT to apply the sealer with a roller? Or NOT to apply it indoors? Well, that was fun. It made my brain feel silly, as did watching the rest of the team attempt to “lasso the wind” as every mobile kid in the place tried to make a run for it, hoping to bathe their little hands & faces in the toxic goo we were applying to the walls.

And then we ran out of sealer, 1/2 way through. So, Tony Mac & I did what anyone would have done in our places. We jumped in the van, with Daniel the Man, & went looking for “the Home Depot” we’d seen when we came in yesterday. Found it too. Boom!

Turns out, they didn’t have any toxic goo similar to what we’d used, & after attempting to translate into Spanish what we wanted, we were handed off to the English language Paint specialist, Eduordo.

ED: why do you want clear coat wood sealer? Are you painting wood?
ME: Nope. Drywall.
ED: So you want a drywall sealer? We have that. It comes in white.
ME: Nope. We want a clear coat wood sealer.
ED: But you’re not painting wood.
ME: Nope.
ED: How about concrete sealer? You want that?
ME: Nope. We need the wood sealer. I know it doesn’t make sense, but we want the toxic goo we put up to be the same kind of goo we already used.
ED: Sorry. We don’t have it.

It was an adventure. We bought ourselves a celebratory Coke Zero, & went home.

Most of our afternoon was spent walking a dirt road neighborhood that could only be accessed by helicopter. Not really, I made that up. It simply required that we drive the van up sheer, boulder laden cliff-like roads at great risk to our personal safety. I dubbed them “the Cliffs of Insanity.”

Not really, but it was steep & rocky. Our team talked to many kids. I was lagging in the back, & was tapped on the shoulder by a 60ish man named Augustine. He knew gangsta-rap English (all the swear words too) & we were able to communicate very well. He walked with me for about 10 minutes, & then told me he needed to stop & head home because his back hurt. Because he was old. So I asked if I could pray for him, & did, in broken Spanish & Spanglish.

He burst into tears near the end of the prayer – & gangsta-Spanglish spilled out as he thanked me & our group for coming to his “god-forsaken barrio, a place of hopelessness.” Then he thanked me for having a real conversation with him, & treating him like a person, a real person. Because he is a worthless alcoholic, deported 30 years ago, who lost his wife & kids in the deportation. And now his only meaning in life comes from giving pesos to little kids so they don’t starve. And losing himself in the bottle. He thanked me again, & headed wobbily down the street. I wept.

TheWeez was called upon to give the message at the outreach – she had the crowd of mostly U12’s waiting on her every word. She started her talk with a chant, “UH – LEESE! UH – LEESE! UH – LEESE! UH – LEESE!” The crowd went wild. She told them how Jesus delivered her from bad-dreams when she was a little girl, how she had been taught to call on the Name of Jesus when she was afraid or in a time of need.

Off to the side, I wept.

Turns out, when we were on our paint run, we missed most of morning dance rehearsal. Yes. Dance rehearsal. For our outreach this afternoon. Missing rehearsal doesn’t mean you miss the performance. It just means you get to shake it like there are no repercussions for doing so. And we did. Tony Mac, Daniel the Man, & I. Booyah!

We got back to the children’s home, had dinner & cleaned up. We’re heading to a debrief (let’s talk about the day) in 10 minutes. Then, it is sleepy time. Tomorrow, we’re heading back up the Cliffs of Insanity to do some work at the Joseph House, Hope Chapel Rosarito’s outreach to deportees.

Good night. Thanks for praying.

Rosarito, Day 1

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Met at the church today at 5:30 a.m. & had the van packed by 5:50… on the road by 6. Quickest pack job ever. 9 of us prayed & piled into the van for the long trip that would eventually end with us in Rosarito, Mexico for day 1 of our mission.

I was the driver today… didn’t initially plan to drive the whole way myself, but it worked out… & I don’t feel like a zombie. The only difficult part was when everyone in the van went to sleep, leaving me cruising down the I5 attempting to will any drowsiness away. Didn’t turn on the radio until we hit LA traffic.

Made it to our destination, Carl’s Jr in San Diego where we met up with Don & Sandy Godwin, the pastors of Hope Chapel Rosarito, & their daughter Emily (who lived with theBean & I for several months last year.) They will be serving as our hosts for the next week. Don & Sandy guided us the remaining 3 miles to the border, & led us across. Our van was stopped by a border agent – he asked a question or 2, looked in the van, & sent us on our way. Rosarito here we come.

20 minutes later, we were reminded WHY we have been told over & over that we need to be flexible – the place we were supposed to be staying for the next week turned out to be double booked, & we, like Joseph & Mary at the time of Jesus’ birth, found there was no room at the Inn. Stables, anyone?

A few phone calls were made & we found that we would be able to stay at the same children’s home we did last year – this could be a win-win situation, as we are already familiar with the home & many of the children… our only wild-card is we don’t know how the ‘cooking our own food while the children’s home staff are in the kitchen prepping their kids food” thingy will go. Here’s to a couple of necessities: Flexibility & Humility.

Emily prepped us for some of the outreach work we’re doing tomorrow, & gave us all a lesson in cultural norms & appropriateness. We wrapped up our day with a short debrief & a quesadilla snack. The weariness of the day’s travel is setting in. Please pray for us over these next days – our team is safe & doing well.

What if there’s no divine “to-do” list…?

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“What would Jesus be doing if He were walking in my shoes, in my neighborhood, in the place I live, work, & recreate?” That’s a question every Christ-follower is faced with, every day. Because when it comes down to it, living life as a Christian is all about finding ways to practically & actively love God, & love people in the same way He does.

This doesn’t equate to following a divine “to do” list – rather, it’s about being intentional & creative in living our lives… & recognizing that our ways & means of “living like Christ would” paints a portion of a picture, a conglomerate masterpiece made up of many, many contributors that reflects the Awesomeness & Greatness of our God… as well as the many facets of His character & personality that are reflected in & through US – His handiwork.

We can wrestle through trying to figure out WHAT God wants for us to do… looking for specific actions & behaviors, when in reality He is wanting us to commit our ways to Him, & then find a way that makes sense to us to answer the question: “What would Jesus be doing if He were walking in my shoes, in my neighborhood, in the place I live, work, & recreate?” For each of us, it will be different. A reflection of God’s character. And a picture of His creative nature, evidenced in & through our lives.

The Next Generation matters…

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In Mark 10:13-16, we see Jesus hanging out with His disciples… Many parents took the opportunity to bring their children to Him so He would bless them & hold them. His well meaning disciples saw what was happening & decided that they needed to stop the parents from approaching Jesus with their kids because Jesus was OBVIOUSLY busy & OBVIOUSLY had more important things to do than spend His time interacting with children.

Except that isn’t how Jesus saw it – He got indignant & rebuked His disciples – Jesus told them to knock it off, saying, “Let the children come to Me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” And then Jesus took the children in His arms, & blessed them, laying His hands upon them. To the disciples, the kids were a nuisance, a hindrance to important things & people that Jesus could be doing & seeing. To Christ, kids were invaluable, & modeled how God would have us receive & come to Him.

Throughout the Bible, God’s people are instructed to intentionally take time to pass on to the next generation the goodness of God, the fulfillment of His promises, the understanding of His ways, & the love for Him & His words. (See Deuteronomy 4:1-10, Psalm 71:17-21 & Proverbs 22:6 for a few examples.) On top of this, current research shows that about 75% of people who come to know Christ do so before their 18th birthdays.

At Hillside, one of our core values is prioritizing our “next generation” – the babies, kids, youth, & young adults – &, accordingly, we want to intentionally, creatively, & strategically give of our time, resources, & energy to help our next generation become fully devoted followers of Christ.

We need each other… & other musings…

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One of my favorite stories from the book of Genesis & one of the best insights into what God thinks of our human need for connection is found in Genesis 2. At that point, God was all but finished with His creation. Genesis 1 reveals that God spoke & there was light. Light. Heaven. Stars. Sky. Waters. Earth. Plants. Flowers. Trees. Creatures of every sort: sea, land, & air. And finally, He formed man, Adam, out of the clay of the ground, and breathed His own breath into his nostrils. This man He created in His own image (a reflection of who God is & what He’s like, that points to & gives glory to Him.) And it was good.

And yet, even before sin, God noticed that there was something that was NOT good. Every animal, bird, & living creature had a partner. A companion to walk (or swim or fly) through life with them. Every living creature except for Adam. And it was NOT good. So He fixed it.

God caused Adam to go into a deep sleep, & made a woman, Eve. Adam recognized that something which had been missing, something that was fundamental to the human experience (& to reflect God’s glory,) had been fixed.

Now, to me, this isn’t merely a story about marriage or the relationship between men & women. Throughout the scriptures, we see that we are created to be in significant, meaningful relationships, & that one of the results of the fall of humanity into sin was broken relationships.

Jesus came to bring humanity life in all of its fullness, & as a local church family, Hillside is committed to nurturing an environment where significant connected relationships can develop, grow & mature, so that we are able to reflect God’s glory & to show that He exists by how we love one another.

Surprised & other musings on a Monday…

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After Church yesterday, I was in the typical rush to prep for the next thing we had to do… 45 minutes of “free time.” Which means running around crazy to make sure life is dialed in for the next round of stuff. And then a smile. KIRSTIN. A dear friend who moved away a couple years back. But now she is HERE. Standing there with her Kirstin Smile. Surprise. Had to come to town for a ‘thing’. Thought she’d swing by to say “hey.” I wept.

We connected with Nick & Kirstin at College Group. Sunday night Study. Eating dinner together. Sitting in our living room with other friends. Reading the Scriptures. Questions. Debates. Ponders. (I declare Ponders is a word.) Prayer. Connecting. Sharing life’s joys. Pains. Challenges. Celebrations. It knit us together in a way that time & life will never separate. And it makes me think.

Last night, we had Study. Dinner. A great group of very diverse people gathered around the counter. Eating. Laughing. Enjoying each other. To the living room, everyone claiming “their” spots. Sharing their highlight of the week, giving us insight into what makes them tick. Reading the Scriptures. Talking about them. Chasing rabbit trails. Praying. Talking about the happenings of the day. I brought up my highlight – seeing Kirstin this afternoon. Daniel asked, “Who’s Kirstin?”

The flood of memories & life experiences shared flooded my brain as I thought how to answer him. And I said, “Kirstin is YOU Daniel, in a different lifetime.” We had a good laugh. And it made me think.

For the majority of the last 25 years, theBean & I have hosted people in our home on Sunday nights. It’s looked different – I’m cracking up thinking about how we used to go to the park next to our house & play BALL, a hybrid between rugby, football, soccer, basketball & handball. And MMA. There were several trips to the ER before that round of Study. I think of Cap’ns coffee stains on my floor. That boy couldn’t control a cup of coffee to save his life. I think of Josh-bum semi-napping on the couch, only to respond in context when asked a question. I remember pulling a newly dating couple aside & asking them to stop groping each other. I think of the Squirrel Gurls – 2 opposites that became like sisters.

I think about the privilege of seeing peoples’ lives developing & growing as they moved through high school/college into the life standing in front of them. In my minds eye, I see lives opening up like flowers as God healed them from life’s hurts, & blossoming into the people God made them to be. Pete & Debi becoming best friends. And then getting married. There are literally hundreds of memories of people flooding my mind. And I’m privileged to have been in this spot.

And many of these people have become ‘chosen family.’ People who have left indelible marks on our lives – & they have moved on, moved away, pursuing their lives, careers, & passions. And these people follow Jesus & inevitably help others learn to do the same through their life examples. And my heart sometimes aches as I miss them & the impact they’ve had on my/our life/lives.

And yet… God is good. He always sends more people. And it seems that the only thing we have in common is Jesus & a desire to pursue Him, His words, & wanting to figure out HOW to apply this to our lives, to bring it from theory to action & practice.

It gives me joy. And I feel rich. Because there is life. Meaning. Worth. In relationship. Community. Fellowship.

I love this.

What’s your story?

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When it comes to sharing with others about the message of the Gospel (Good News,) many of us can feel intimidated & inadequate. It’s almost as though the task of talking to others about Jesus effectively requires something MORE than we are or we have.

More education. More knowledge. More experience. More answers. MORE. I mean, what happens if we start talking to someone & they ask us a question about our faith, the Bible, etc. that we don’t know how to answer? :)

A couple weeks ago, my supervisor reminded me that sharing the Gospel doesn’t require communicating a theological masterpiece, massive amounts of memorized Scripture, or a certified-spiritual-gifts-test-result-qualifying-you-as-an-evangelist.

He simply asked, “What’s your story? What has Christ done in your life? Why did you choose to put your faith & trust in Him? That’s what your friends & family need to hear. Share your STORY.”

Revelation 12:11 tells us that we, believers in Christ, will overcome the devil through the blood of the Lamb (Christ’s sacrifice on the cross which paid the penalty for our sins,) & through the word of our testimony (our story, what Christ has done, is doing in our lives.) We each have a  GREAT story, & the more we rehearse it, remember it, & tell it, we give glory to God, point to Jesus as the Savior, & we share the Good News.

I like to take the cue from a blind man who Jesus healed – the religious leaders were hounding him with a barrage of questions about WHO healed him, HOW He had done it, & WHETHER this Jesus was a good guy or not. The man said, “Well, I don’t really know much, except that I was blind, & now I can see.”  (See more on this in John 9.)

Beautiful answer.

Read the ingredients labels & a thought from 1st John

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My daughter, theWeez, likes to eat healthy. Which means she reads the ingredients labels on everything. I mean, EVERYTHING. The other morning, I was making an egg burrito, & she declared, “Those tortillas are gross. Dad, do you know how many ingredients are in them?”

“Um. 3?”

“Nope. Like 20. You really have to be careful what you’re putting in your body.”

“Duly noted.”

Next day, we had the TortillaLand tortillas, which are made with a total of 4 ingredients. Better. And tastier.

Reminds me of John’s great challenge to his readers in 1John 3 & 4. He tells them that  BELIEVING in the Name of Jesus Christ, & loving one another – are indicators that we are abiding (remaining, living in) God & His family. John also puts forward a couple of warnings – 1st: don’t be like Cain, who hated (& eventually murdered) his brother, Abel. 2nd, he challenges them to be very discerning about the spiritual input they accept from others. Specifically, he tells them to TEST every spirit (the motivating force/entity) behind any instruction or prophetic utterance given by a teacher, prophet, &/or spiritual leader.  So, since we can’t “read the ingredients label,” what does that mean, & how do we do that?

John reminds them that not everyone who claims to be speaking for God &/or on Christ’s behalf is actually doing so – & he gives a couple of TESTS for his readers to use in determining the source of the spiritual input:

  1. Does the individual confirm that Jesus Christ came physically in the flesh, as a man? There were many teaching at the time that anything in the material world (including our bodies) was inherently evil; only things of the higher, spirit world were good. So, the conclusion reached was that Jesus Christ only seemed  to have a real body; He was in fact a spirit. John says that the denial of this core truth is a dead giveaway that the spirit motivating the teaching is off.
  2. Does the individual/teaching confess Jesus Christ? This confession centers on embracing Christ fully as God, as revealed in the eyewitness accounts of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John. Anytime Jesus is reimagined, reinvented, &/or redefined by a prophet/teacher/etc. in any manner different than God chose to reveal Him is an indication that the source of the input is the spirit of antichrist. Anytime Christ is diminished or reduced from being FULLY God & FULLY man – from being the sole source of our relationship with God the Father – the spirit of antichrist is exposed.

For us, 2000 years later, these TESTS are a great encouragement – & help remind us to be wary about what we’re ingesting, spiritually, & to regularly, with Holy Spirit insight, discernment, & wisdom, examine the spiritual input we are seeking out/getting from others. If it’s of God, it will stand up to the test.

Crossing over… from death to life.

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Over the last few weeks in our “Letters from John” series, we’ve discovered that John is just a little redundant when it comes to a couple of the things he wants to make sure to communicate to his readers. The most significant, to me, is his repetition of Christ’s commandment: “Love one another.” Here in chapter 3, he gets into some detail about just what “loving one another” looks like, lived out.

In verse 12, he challenges us to not be like Cain, who murdered his brother. Ok, check. That sounds like an easy one, right? Don’t murder. However, I think it goes deeper than that, & touches on the motivation for Cain murdering Abel: jealousy. Genesis 4 tells how Cain was a farmer, while Abel was a shepherd. The time came for a sacrifice offering to be made to the LORD. Cain gave some of the leftovers of his harvest; Abel made a sacrifice of the best lamb in his flock. As a result, God rejected Cain’s offering, but accepted Abel’s. God’s favor made Cain so angry (& jealous) he schemed to get Abel alone in a field, & killed him.

Both Cain & Abel knew what God wanted in a sacrifice – their parents, Adam & Eve had firsthand experience with what God wanted: their very best. Abel chose to approach God & God’s terms, & Cain didn’t. Abel was received – Cain wasn’t. Cain’s jealous response, (birthed out of evil, John tells us) revealed the death & darkness that lived in him, while Abel’s showed the life & light dwelling in him.  Death. & life.

Loving our brothers demonstrates that we’ve crossed over from death to  life… that we’ve allowed God’s love, light, & life to be made manifest in us.

John continues in verse 16 – using Jesus’ example of love shown in how He laid down His own life for His followers… & John urges his readers to do the same. Since in Jesus’ case, this meant Christ’s death on the cross, does that mean that we are called to do the same? I say yes. Here’s how it can work on a daily basis.

Laying down our lives for others can be much more than dying in someone’s stead… it can also be love that is shown as we serve others & look to put their needs & interests before our own (ala Christ’s example from Philippians 2:1-10). This demonstrates that we have crossed over from death (the pattern of this world) to life (the pattern modeled by Christ.) Finally, this repeated command to love one another isn’t an abstract one – it is imminently practical, & demands that we look for ways to do what we believe Jesus would be doing if He were walking in our shoes. Because, when you think about it, He is.