The Waiting Place

Have you ever read the Dr. Seuss book "Oh The Places You'll Go"? I feel like I'm in the waiting place of Dr. Seuss' story. Here it is just in case you haven't, it's a fun book:

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You're off to Great Places!
You're off and away!

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You're on your own.  And you know what you know.
And YOU  are the gal who'll decide where to go.

You'll look up and down streets.  Look 'em over with care.
About some you will say, "I don't choose to go there."
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,
you're too smart to go down any not-so-good street.

And you may not find any you'll want to go down.
In that case, of course, you'll head straight out of town.

It's opener there in the wide open air.

Out there things can happen and frequently do
to people as brainy and footsy as you.
And when things start to happen,don't worry.  Don't stew.
Just go right along. You'll  start happening too.

OH!
THE PLACES YOU'LL GO!

You'll be on your way up!
You'll be seeing great sights!
You'll join the high fliers
who soar to high heights.

You won't lag behind, because you'll have the speed.
You'll pass the whole gang and you'll soon take the lead.
Wherever you fly, you'll be the best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

Except when you don' t
Because, sometimes, you won't.

I'm sorry to say so but, sadly, it's true
Bang-ups and Hang-ups can happen to you.

You can get all hung up in a prickle-ly perch.
And your gang will fly on. You'll be left in a Lurch.

You'll come down from the Lurch with an unpleasant bump.
And the chances are, then, that you'll be in a Slump.

And when you're in a Slump, you're not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted.  But mostly they're darked.
A place you could sprain both you elbow and chin!
Do you dare to stay out?  Do you dare to go in?
How much can you lose? How much can you win?

And IF  you go in, should you turn left or right...
or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Simple it's not, I'm afraid you will find,
for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.

You can get so confused that you'll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
            
The Waiting Place...

...for people just waiting.
Waiting for a  train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or a No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a better break
or a sting of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or another chance.
Everyone is just waiting.

NO!
That's not for you!

Somehow you'll escape all that waiting and staying.
You'll find the bright places where Boom Bands are playing.

With banner flip-flapping, once more you'll ride high!
Ready for anything under the sky.
Ready because you're that kind of a guy!

Oh, the places you'll go! There is fun to be done!
There are points to be scored.  There are games to be won.
And the magical things you can do with that ball
will make you the winning-est winner of all.
Fame!  You'll be famous as famous can be,
with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.

Except when they don't.
Because, sometimes, they won't.

I'm afraid that some  times you'll play lonely games too.
Games you can't win 'cause you'll play against you.

All  Alone! Whether you like it or not,
Alone will be something you'll be quite a lot.

And when you're alone, there's a very good chance
you'll meet things that scare you right out of your pants.
There are some, down the road between hither and yon,
that can scare you so much you won't want to go on.

But on you will go though the weather be foul
On you will go though your enemies prowl
On you will go though the Hakken-Kraks howl
Onward up many a frightening creek,
though your arms may get sore and your sneakers may leak.

On and on you will hike and I know you'll hike far
and face up to your problems whatever they are.

You'll get mixed up, of course, as you already know.
You'll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step, step with care and great tact
and remember that life's a great balancing act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never  mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and 3 / 4 percent guaranteed.)

KID, YOU'LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!

So...
be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea,
you're off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So...get on your way!

---Dr. Seuss

Right now, I find myself in the waiting place, and though I don't find it useless, I am ready to move on. There is so much I want to do with my life, but I feel God saying "wait". I want to go to Kenya again, but I'm not sure it will happen this summer. I was approached recently about leading a small trip to Mexico to visit some of my church's missionaries down there, so I'm thinking and praying about that possibility. The possibility just got presented and again, nothing is nailed down yet, but I don't know if I could leave in May for Kenya then turn around the leave at the end of June for Mexico. Plus, I don't know if I can take that much time off. And what about VBS?

If I could, I'd drop everything and move out of the US today. So, going back again, maybe even for a longer time sounds like my dream come true, but just because it's my dream, doesn't mean it's in God's plan for my life at this point, in the future, maybe (hopefully) but I don't know about
right now.

Obviously, I have a lot to think and pray about. A piece of my heart is still in Kenya, but I can't just discard the opportunity to lead a trip to Mexico because I love Kenya. This trip to Mexico could open the eyes of several more people to the world of missions and the need in third world countries. So, I'm waiting, for what, I'm not sure yet, but I'm waiting.

I know I don't want to do children's ministry in the US for the rest of my life, but right now, I'm here waiting on God. I've only been back in the US for 7 months and I'm already growing impatient for a response. I know I'm not supposed to stay here, but I don't know where I'm supposed to go. I don't even know if I should know where I'm supposed to go first, or if
I should just jump on a plane and figure it out once I'm out of the US. Right now, I'm committed to being here, in Dallas, TX, and waiting for God to answer. I'm just waiting, with the hope the knowledge that God won't call me to wait forever. I just need to trust in His timing. I'll leave "the Waiting Place" as Dr. Seuss calls it sometime, and then who knows where I'll go =).

on suffering (a blog from my friend Lara)

Is there not wrong too bitter for atoning?
What are these desperate and hideous years?
Hast Thou not heard Thy whole creation groaning,
Sighs of a bondsman and a woman's tears?
-F.W.H. Meyers

"The problem of pain," as C.S. Lewis titled it with his book on suffering, has been rattling around in me these three months, knocking its way through the hallways of my mind, tipping over tomes of theology I thought I had arranged quite nicely. (I used that word for you, Andrew.)

I can't claim to have anything new--gosh, C.S. Lewis wrote a book on it. But here are some thoughts:

Pain hurts. And we do not know why. Why pain, why hurt. If I imagine pain's arrival in Kolkata, I see him holding a very large suitcase, a suitcase he immediately unlatched and shook, letting fears and tears and broken bones and hungry bellies scatter aross the alleys and streets of this city. Whenever I arrived in Kolkata, with my very tiny suitcase of hope and goodwill and dreams, I took one look around the place and wanted to sit in a corner and cry. Nothing I had seen in my safe and sterile past prepared me for this.

Pain and suffering aren't things the church talks about all that much. The American church the least, probably. There is no blame to place or finger to point. The larger part of our culture just doesn't have to--or perhaps more accurately, doesn't want to--deal with it.

In her book, A Path Through Suffering, Elisabeth Elliot writes this:

Suffering, even in its mildest forms--inconvienence, delay, disappointment, discomfort, or anything else that is not in harmony with our whims and preferences--we will not tolerate. We even reject and deny it.

This is me. This has been me even in India. Always looking for ways to preserve self, to settle myself in comfortably, to watch out for me. I do it so naturally.

Then I read snippets in the Bilbe, snippets that jolt me with their dissonance to the way I am living.
"though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials"
"in this world you will have trouble"
"but it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for Him"

It's like I am living in a different reality. When I live by the reality of this world, suffering makes absolutely no sense. When I believe more in earth than I believe in eternity, suffering sinks me. The ship goes down fast when I see children without mothers, men without limbs, women without escape.

Why pain? Why hurt?

Here I learn, some days most harshly, other days more gently, that suffering is something from which I cannot hide. There will be no cowering in the closet until all the dark clouds pass.

Elisabeth says this also,

"I know of no answer to give to anyone except the answer given to all the world in the cross. It was there that the Great Grain of Wheat died not that death should be the end of the story, but that it should be the beginning of the story."

I have nothing more than this either. Jesus suffered. Jesus hurt. At whatever depth to which the world's most intense pain settles, Jesus went to that depth. Yes, He has heard the whole creation groaning. Even this night, when I will try to meet sleep again as questions flit and dip through me, He hears.

Now, as He died, to change the meaning of death to a signal of life, of rebirth,

am I willing to die?

CPR, Frist Aid, Christmas Presents and Prayer

What an odd title for a blog? How on earth do those things correspond with each other? Glad you asked, let me tell you...

Last week I made a morning commute through Dallas traffic to downtown Dallas where I took a CPR Instructor class. The class was from 8am-6pm, Tuesday-Friday and was mostly lecture (a fact I was unaware of before signing up for the class). My motivation for taking the class has many facets.

1. I currently work at Redeemer Bible Church as their Children's Director and I want at least one volunteer in every classroom to be CPR/First Aid certified, plus I think it's important for our staff to be certified in case of an emergency.
2. I've been taking some kind of First Aid course since I was 13. Whether it be babysitters training, CPR, First Aid, Lifeguarding, Wilderness First Responder, etc. I've been certified in some area related to first aid, and God like to use my knowledge apparently because I'm continually having to utilize what I've learned.
3. Red Cross is internationally recognized as an "Aide" organization. My certification can grant me access into countries simply because I'm associated with Red Cross. I can also train people internationally.
   

All those motivators kept me awake and attentive throughout the class. I passed the test and now am I proud owner of an instructor card (which I plan to laminate). My certification allows me to teach a host of classes. From CPR to First Aid to Wilderness Training to Babysitters training...and the list goes one. Then one I'm most excited about is Wilderness Training, it just sounds exciting!! So that wraps up the CPR/First Aid portion of this blog, now onto Christmas Presents.

On Sunday, November 11th, my mother had the brilliant idea to invite our family over to stuff and wrap Operation Christmas child presents. I will do these every year because I have a friend who was in Thailand when the presents were delivered and her stories and pictures of the kids will always motivate me to participate in Operation Christmas Child. Anyhow, my family enjoys getting together, but we usually make it revolve around a holiday or birthday, so revolving it around a service project was new. The day was such a success!! We planned to stuff 4 boxes, 2 for boys and 2 for girls, but my family brought so many toys, pens, pencils, paint, etc. that we ended up filling 9 boxes and still had supplies left over! The day was made a success because it gave us a bridge to talk to my family about God in a non-threatening way. When asked where the boxes go and why we're stuffing boxes, my mother, sister and I were able to share bits of the Gospel with my family.

One moment that I stick with me for awhile was when my Grandma asked why we were stuffing so many boxes. My mother responded, "because God calls us to care for orphans and widows so we're going to follow His command." My Grandma was a little thrown off by her response, but it hit home and I was so proud of my mom for not taking the easy way out.

While this might not seem like a very big deal to many of you, it was a turning point for my immediate family. We're not stepping down anymore and settling for whatever our extended family will give us, we're taking charge. There's a sense of urgency now and I love it!! After years and years of prayer we're finally starting to see fruit. I was at my Aunt's house the other day to wish my cousin "good luck" before her volleyball try outs and before I could come up with the idea, my Aunt called us over to her and said, "We need to pray". I was almost moved to tears. That statement is one you would hear used in MY family, not my AUNT'S family. It was a joyous moment. We sat down and for 10 minutes prayed for my cousin's try outs and her ministry on whatever team she made.

God's faithfulness to answer my prayers shone through at that moment and it's sparked in me a flame to pray more fervently. I was talking to a friend who's also felt the need to pray more and she said, "when I want something in this life I keep at. If I want to meet with someone, I'm going to keep asking that person until they make time for me. But I'm not that way with God." I'm not either. I pray, but not with a sense of urgency, not with an unquenchable passion. When I lift up things that are specifically connected to my heart and life I feel a sense of urgency, but not with everything. It's a phenomenon I'm still dealing with. But despite that I'm committed to spending more dedicated, focused time in prayer.

That's an update on me. It's been awhile since I've posted anything. Pictures will be arriving soon.

God Bless!!