Who and What Gives Significance to Our Daily Ministry?

Many people have asked how we are doing with the transition back to the USA. I’ve answered pretty honestly, but as the days go on, I think I realize there is another level of transition, particularly for me. One of the challenges is feeling like our ministry in Peru and throughout Latin America had so much tangible, powerful, significance and purpose on a daily basis.  Life here in the USA, even ministry can seem sort of insignificant in light of having literally rescued kids who were orphans, dying, abandoned, etc.  Please don’t hear what I’m not saying…  My new position in Young Life Capernaum to help transition our older kids from our local Capernaum ministries once they’ve met the Lord and passed high school age means that the joy and treasure we’ve found in our friends with disabilities gets to be shared with the Church. It means our friends who have disabilities being given a forever family… not just being “fostered” into the Family of God, but settling into their forever home in the Body of Christ where they are offered opportunities to explore and discover and then use their gifts. It means the Body of Christ being whole, a more accurate expression of what God has intended as weak and strong, wise and simple come together. It means belonging for those who haven’t belonged. It means hope for families who’ve felt alienated and rejected by churches. It means blessing for my able bodied friends as well as those with disabilities.  As I write those words, passion stirs in me. This is what I was made to be about. This is the gift I bring to the Body of Christ, a message of belonging together.

And YET, on a purely emotional level that I am beginning to process, it just doesn't feel as desperate, as powerful, as necessary as the work we were doing in Peru!  I know what I feel isn’t not what is many times. I've come to understand that some of my friends with disabilities here in the USA, here in Fresno, across this country that has such incredible care, provision for, facilities, interventions, education, and therapies for people with disabilities are literally orphaned … Group homes and long term care facilities are our countries' orphanages. So many kids I know sit in these “orphanages” and never have visitors, family dinners, places where they’ve been known for years and years, people who let them be where they are on a grumpy day, a sad day, a season of being in a “funk” only to see them through to times of joy, purpose, and blessing.  That’s what a family does… they know you, walk with you, and hold you even when you’re inappropriate, unkind, or impatient.  I want my friends to experience family. A family that doesn’t go away, that isn’t wiped out when the funds no longer exist for a program, or when staff changes over in a Young Life club or in a group home. True belonging for God’s children is found in Him and in the expression of a local church.  So, the call to the vulnerable, the weak, the forgotten hasn't changed…

I have changed though.  I have seen what few people see in life. I have touched and smelled the horrors of deep abandonment, abuse, pain, even death and those same depths of hope, redemption, and life rising from the ashes. I’ve lived in some extreme places emotionally these past 5 years.  At our week of debriefing with other missionaries a question was asked rhetorically often “how then shall we live?”  I don’t have the answer to that still, but I think just acknowledging these paradigms, acknowledging that I feel these extremes, this loss of a tangible sense of significance to my work on a daily basis is the beginning.

And since I’m laying it all out here… maybe part of this is because of the response of people. People respond to a "romantic," exciting, even “sexy” ministry like sending a disabled orphan in a developing country to camp at the beach for the first time in his life more than they do to what I must raise support for now.  I get that. I respond to it with urgency, I feel freedom to ask with urgency. My heart pounds when I pull out of the orphanage parking lot with a van load of kids. My passion, experience, giftedness are at their keenest focus when in those places. Its exhilarating as much as it is heartbreaking.  Shanty town ministries, hot meals for hungry families affected by disability, therapy techniques taught to empower parents, a shower for the first time in her life to a friend with terrible skin breakdown in need of cleaning… those evoke powerful emotions that can bring about a sense of fulfillment and significance to my work.

However, if I set aside emotion, what do I know? I know that God passionately loves His creation, especially those that the world looks past as useless or unnecessary, He calls them necessary (I Cor 12:22). I don’t think that our Heavenly Father prefers kids in Fresno over kids in a shanty town in Latin America, or vice versa. I believe that He is at work restoring, redeeming, calling us all to Himself. While the backdrop will look different, the ministry is the same. He wants to prepare for Himself a Church that is more whole. He wants to show us through our friends who live with disability that His grace is sufficient. He wants to show us His power perfected in weakness. He wants to show us what it means to need one another, to be interdependent on one another…. I could go on, but I write these things as a reminder to myself, to anchor my soul that what He has called me to do today is not much different from what He allowed me to be a part of in my 5 years living in Latin America.

 I asked several donors to stay with Peru and I am so grateful they did, however, I have lost funding and I am struggling…. We are close to our goal, probably only $ 500/month away and needing some start up funds, but its the waiting… waiting to hear from people, waiting and wondering if people are thinking "get a real job already, would you, Christen?" Imagining what people think of this calling, imagining the judgment of donors and friends is silly, this I know, but in my brokenness and desire to please the Lord and please people, I am convicted. So, today, I wait. I wait and I know that My God shall supply all my needs according to HIS riches (not my passion, great stories of urgency or need) in glory.

I think this is where we need to be for now. For Christian and I, there is so much value to being in the USA (that’s another post), but for me, to not be swallowed in the very real desperation and pain that was becoming a part of my daily life walking alongside of such extremes, it is healthy.  It is good to have a baseline of normal that doesn’t fluctuate between such extremes of safety and danger, pain and joy, health and death as I’ve experienced in the past couple of years.

So today I find myself in prayer. Prayer that the Lord would affirm His call with His provision for His plan in the form of monthly donors that would support the position. I would love to be able to rest at night without wondering if we have enough donations this month to cover health benefits and even get a salary. For some reason, in all of these years, funding has never been an issue, but it seems to be one now… and I have a sneaking suspicion that the Lord just really wants to drive me back to himself more than ever. In the relief of a relatively safe life, world, neighborhood, etc, it would be easy to shift into neutral and relax but somehow this seems to be the tool to alert me that I cannot do this alone, that I don't "have it."

That’s where I am at in this transition. Learning again to trust and rest and find purpose and significance in the life I am living here and now. And my significance and fullfilment? It comes from the Lord Himself. From being with Him, from hearing His voice, from knowing the sacrifice made on my behalf.