Well, it's time for an August end-of-the-month update. Over the last month, we have made our home in Michigan, living in Joy's mom's basement. And we are thankful for the space, the family time, and moments to rest, but we would be lying if we didn't say we were ready to make the half trans-Pacific flight toward the islands. We've organized our remaining belongings, shipped a few heavier items through priority mail, and are excited about boarding the plane on Monday. We're a little nervous about two five-hour flights with a 21 month old body of energy (Justice), but at least there's an aisle to run up and down. Our flight neighbors will love us!
We also wanted to share our fundraising efforts. Four months ago, we set a goal of $15k to raise annually. We are thankful to announce that our estimates for the year, through actual giving and pledges, sit at $14,700- only $300 short! We are so close, even, that we wanted to share what would happen with any extra funds given for this first year.
1). We still need $2000 up front for a vehicle. We have sold one of our cars, and are still in the process of selling our Ford (please pray for the sale!). This money will go directly into one vehicle to use on the island, but we are still about $2000 short to meet our need for a reliable family vehicle. This is a one time need.
2). Our current healthcare level through Christian Healthcare Ministries does not cover midwifery costs. Using a midwife at home is extremely cost effective in comparison to regular labor and delivery costs at a hospital. Our out-of-pocket expense is estimated at $3000 for our January baby.
3). Any money donated that exceeds our fundraising goals and the aforementioned needs will roll directly into our fundraising efforts for year two and three. Because we do not plan to move back to the mainland after the first year, but invest in relationships over multiple years, we need to fundraise $15k annually.
What about your Debt?
Glad you asked! There may be a handful of people who have a particular passion for aiding missionaries in getting out of debt. Indeed, for many pastors and ministers around the world, excessive debt cripples one's ability to minister effectively. Joy and I do not have a credit card, a mortgage, or any loan other than our student loans. However, our student loan debt is quite substantial. If you are interested in helping to alleviate the pressures of our student debt, let's have a conversation! We'd love to talk to you about it.
I also wanted to share a word about giving through easytithe. When you visit the online giving portal linked under the "Support the Mission" tab at the top of the blog, you have the option to set up a giving profile or to do a 'quick give.' This will direct you to a page that has a drop down menu to direct your funds. For giving toward our annual costs or our one time needs of a CAR and MIDWIFE we ask you find the tab labeled "North/Central Kona Mission." It should be the last option in the drop down menu. All giving is tax deductible.
For all those who have supported us through housing, food, prayers, monetary donations, and words of encouragement, we THANK YOU. We look forward to what God has planned for us, Kona Coast Nazarene, and the West Coast of the Big Island. Stay tuned to this blog for further updates, ministry news, and family transitions.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Monday, August 26, 2013
No First Day Jitters
I miss teaching. This past month, Facebook has been filled with "first day back" pictures, teacher nightmares and room set-ups. My teacher friends in the south (who are now in their 4th full week of school) have posted plenty of "grading," and "lesson planning" updates late at night and on the weekends. Thus is the life of a teacher.
And to be clear, I don't miss that. The constantly over-full days, never accomplishing everything you had planned, showing up well before the bell rings, and staying well-past dinner time.... just to take home a few more hours of planning, or research, or grading. Those are (some of) the reasons I stopped teaching.
But this is the first Back To School season in 6 years I'm not experiencing as a teacher. I miss the excitement of new students, the energy that flows (and explodes) through those little bodies, teaching brains that are so eager to learn. I miss teaching reading and writing. I think I miss writing the most. Weird, I know. I miss building relationships with students and parents. I love when students know me well enough to predict a response, and when they know each other well enough to have productive learning groups. I love challenging students, patiently allowing them to struggle, and joyfully celebrating when they succeed. I miss the challenge as a teacher to figure out various learning styles and to plan with those particular students in mind. Just writing this brings specific faces to mind.
I am so grateful for my time as a teacher. I have no idea what our future in Hawaii holds as far as employment, but I certainly hope it includes teaching. For our circumstances, the ideal position would be part-time working with elementary students. Beyond the obvious challenge of us not living there yet, I also have the obstacle of transferring my teaching license, and the upcoming obstacle of having a baby. I mean, let's be honest... if you had the choice of hiring a pregnant teacher who will take a maternity leave in January, or the choice of hiring a non-pregnant teacher, which would you choose?
Will you join me in praying for the right job, in the community where we will live? What an opportunity to know our neighbors!
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Our First Year: Incarnational Practices
A lot of people have asked what exactly we will be doing during our first year, beyond the general notions of planting missional communities, discipleship/discernment, and community development. So, the following is a type of guide to our first year living in Hawaii, in an unknown community, with diverse people, and unique cultures. Our goal is not to begin something new, but rather observe, listen, see, and join where God's movement has already begun. We believe this slower practice will bear more fruit in the long run. Our goal is to enter into the community before placing any judgments or needs over the community. The following are a few practices that will help us during our first year.
1). Healthily transition our family. I'm not sure this one can be overstated. For our family, we have been transitioning for about 3 months. When we arrive in Hawaii, we will begin the process of looking for a place to live, a car to drive, jobs to work, and new friendships to develop. But the most important is to give the intentional time to healthily establish/continue family rhythms. This isn't just important for the sake of our family. We also understand our familial existence as a witness to God's love and grace in the world. We want to model what it looks like for a healthy family to live together in peace. And that takes intentional patient everyday work.
2). Find the Third Spaces. In every city or town, there are social spaces that are nuetral gathering points: a coffee shop, a park, a beach, a basketball court, etc. These are places where people gather regularly. We want to make it a point to visit the same "third space" in an intentional effort to get to know those who also use that space. The good thing is that these can be done as a family (revert to #1) or while catching up on reading/studying/emails/etc. at a coffee shop. The idea is to be open and attentive to those around you. Observe the patterns of the culture, how people interact with one another, and don't be scared to engage. Many people visit these spaces because they want to be a part of the community.
3). Work like you're on a mission. I've covered a little bit of this in the post on bi-vocationality, but too often we enter into a work environment and treat it separately from the rest of our life. We've created compartments of interaction that we don't like to overlap. Our work places are prime social spaces for forming relationships, and we should always be attuned to when our co-workers experience joy and heartache. We should celebrate with them, cry with them, and genuinely care for their well-being.
4). Volunteer in the community. Volunteering at a local social agency is a great way to get to know the community. Many non-profits or public organizations have their fingers on the pulse of community struggle and life. But it also allows us to not force our own agenda. Many churches see a need and think they need to start a new program. Rather than put the resources into starting something new, why not join a group in the community already working at it? It puts us alongside our neighbors, gets the church working outside its walls, and forms meaningful friendships in the process.
5). Fellowship around a Meal. Eating is universal. We plan to open our home to those that live around us. There's a reason much of the interaction between Jesus and his disciples happened at a meal. And I don't think it's a coincidence that we practice a table/meal fellowship when we partake in the Eucharist. Eating connects us to each other and the earth. And out of that connection comes the possibility of sharing our lives with one another. A meal opens us up to one another in a different way than these other practices.
6). Be attentive to the gate-keepers. As we begin to inhabit the neighborhood, we will begin to notice who the gate-keepers are. Who are the voices in the community that hold sway? Who has a distinct passion for a particular social need (and the connections to go with it)? Who is it that knows everyone else in that community? These are people we want to know. They are the ones who can begin to teach you about the cultural similarities and differences. They are the ones who can introduce you to a network of relationships that extend beyond an individual's reach. Their trust also carries the social capital to work well within the neighborhood.
7). Pray. As I thought through important practices of inhabiting a neighborhood, the importance of prayer became increasingly relevant. Prayer is a discipline that aligns our will, our heart, our passions with God's. When we practice prayer, we are more readily available to our neighbors. When prayer becomes a habit, we can move through a neighborhood with an attentive mind, eye, and heart to where God has gone before us. In short, prayer is the practice that guides us into God's redemptive movement.
Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost note that a "Missional-incarnational church should be living, eating, and working closely with its surrounding community, developing strong links between Christians" and everyone those Christians meet. As these practices are carried out, our guess is that we will begin to recognize those who are open to us and possibly to God. When that recognition happens, we begin to cultivate those relationships (good food, anyone?) Our first year in Hawaii will be spent doing the above practices, as well as learning and joining the established rhythms of Kona Coast Nazarene. But again, these incarnational acts (practices that aid us in entering into a particular community) can be and should be done by everyone. Our hope is that we can help guide people into this process over the long haul.
1). Healthily transition our family. I'm not sure this one can be overstated. For our family, we have been transitioning for about 3 months. When we arrive in Hawaii, we will begin the process of looking for a place to live, a car to drive, jobs to work, and new friendships to develop. But the most important is to give the intentional time to healthily establish/continue family rhythms. This isn't just important for the sake of our family. We also understand our familial existence as a witness to God's love and grace in the world. We want to model what it looks like for a healthy family to live together in peace. And that takes intentional patient everyday work.
2). Find the Third Spaces. In every city or town, there are social spaces that are nuetral gathering points: a coffee shop, a park, a beach, a basketball court, etc. These are places where people gather regularly. We want to make it a point to visit the same "third space" in an intentional effort to get to know those who also use that space. The good thing is that these can be done as a family (revert to #1) or while catching up on reading/studying/emails/etc. at a coffee shop. The idea is to be open and attentive to those around you. Observe the patterns of the culture, how people interact with one another, and don't be scared to engage. Many people visit these spaces because they want to be a part of the community.
3). Work like you're on a mission. I've covered a little bit of this in the post on bi-vocationality, but too often we enter into a work environment and treat it separately from the rest of our life. We've created compartments of interaction that we don't like to overlap. Our work places are prime social spaces for forming relationships, and we should always be attuned to when our co-workers experience joy and heartache. We should celebrate with them, cry with them, and genuinely care for their well-being.
4). Volunteer in the community. Volunteering at a local social agency is a great way to get to know the community. Many non-profits or public organizations have their fingers on the pulse of community struggle and life. But it also allows us to not force our own agenda. Many churches see a need and think they need to start a new program. Rather than put the resources into starting something new, why not join a group in the community already working at it? It puts us alongside our neighbors, gets the church working outside its walls, and forms meaningful friendships in the process.
5). Fellowship around a Meal. Eating is universal. We plan to open our home to those that live around us. There's a reason much of the interaction between Jesus and his disciples happened at a meal. And I don't think it's a coincidence that we practice a table/meal fellowship when we partake in the Eucharist. Eating connects us to each other and the earth. And out of that connection comes the possibility of sharing our lives with one another. A meal opens us up to one another in a different way than these other practices.
6). Be attentive to the gate-keepers. As we begin to inhabit the neighborhood, we will begin to notice who the gate-keepers are. Who are the voices in the community that hold sway? Who has a distinct passion for a particular social need (and the connections to go with it)? Who is it that knows everyone else in that community? These are people we want to know. They are the ones who can begin to teach you about the cultural similarities and differences. They are the ones who can introduce you to a network of relationships that extend beyond an individual's reach. Their trust also carries the social capital to work well within the neighborhood.
7). Pray. As I thought through important practices of inhabiting a neighborhood, the importance of prayer became increasingly relevant. Prayer is a discipline that aligns our will, our heart, our passions with God's. When we practice prayer, we are more readily available to our neighbors. When prayer becomes a habit, we can move through a neighborhood with an attentive mind, eye, and heart to where God has gone before us. In short, prayer is the practice that guides us into God's redemptive movement.
Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost note that a "Missional-incarnational church should be living, eating, and working closely with its surrounding community, developing strong links between Christians" and everyone those Christians meet. As these practices are carried out, our guess is that we will begin to recognize those who are open to us and possibly to God. When that recognition happens, we begin to cultivate those relationships (good food, anyone?) Our first year in Hawaii will be spent doing the above practices, as well as learning and joining the established rhythms of Kona Coast Nazarene. But again, these incarnational acts (practices that aid us in entering into a particular community) can be and should be done by everyone. Our hope is that we can help guide people into this process over the long haul.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Just Hanging Around
What have been doing in Michigan? Just hanging around!
And adjusting to the weather. Michigan is much cooler (and thus, much more pleasant) than what we're used to in Nashville.
We have tried to spend time with family, but traveling several hours with a toddler who uses the potty has been a bit challenging. Here, Justice and Ella are watching Grandma Sheri cook! 
We have gone blueberry picking, and raspberry picking.
We like to spend as much time outdoors as possible, so this local playground has been fantastic.
Playing on the deck at Grandma Kim & Grandpa Craig's house.
Reading books with Daddy at the library.
And sneaking a peak at the neighbor's horses. I guess it's obvious that our time is largely spent entertaining our daughter :)
Thursday, August 8, 2013
On Mourning the Possibility
Sorrow and grief spring forth naturally in any lasting relationship, whether individual or communal. In the last three weeks, we have said good-bye to acquaintances, co-workers, friends, and family. When you give yourself over to the work of the community and those within it over an extended period of time, grief in saying good-bye is normal. But there exists many types of grief. And, my parting ways from the East Nashville community pairs more with a mourning of what could have been, the possibility of deep friendships committed to the co-laboring of healthy relationships, rather than from what was. As we take a few weeks to reflect on our time in Nashville and prepare for our work in Hawaii, it has become clear that my grief is one of potential unfulfilled.
One could infer all types of meaning to the kind of potential I speak. It could be professional...I had plans for Emmaus Fellowship that I could not materialize. Relationships between two disparate communities were slow to grow. At East Nashville Cooperative Ministry, I wanted to engage churches in East Nashville to mobilize for communal change on individual, communal, and systemic levels in regards to food and poverty. But many churches live an insular existence, keeping their heads attuned to the individual needs of those in their own buildings. Rare was the day when a church community wanted to create with you rather than just serve in a mission project capacity.
The potential could also be relational. In our five years, we felt we kept hitting a glass ceiling in the depth of our relationships. As Joy and I grew closer together as a married couple, we longed for others to share life with us, to struggle with us, to challenge us, to encourage us, to laugh with us, to love us, and to join us (or for us to join them) in witnessing to the Kingdom of God among us. We can name all of the couples/individuals who held potential to be that for us and us to them, but only a select few began to manifest in real ways. Joy and I have talked about why having genuine friendships has been so hard for us: a different stage of life, geographical proximity, no common commitments, lack of shared goals, overlapping time, personal interests, etc. It seemed that my contemplative activist friends met during times where church responsibilities held me from participation, and my time at Vanderbilt didn't lend itself well to joining friendships to our marriage.
In the last year, when we moved to East Nashville and joined the East Nashville Mom's Club we began to see many of our neighbors as joint friends. And yet, we began having the conversation to move away, limiting our attachment to new relationships. And we feel right now a loss revolving around those future relationships.
In many ways, Nashville has been for me a type of preparation. We moved to Nashville for my education, to prepare further for the work God has for us. School is naturally preparatory. Yet, we could have made Nashville our permanent home. We love the city of Nashville, but we have never felt so isolated. In many ways, the work I was doing at the Church fits as an isolated venture delegated to an individual. There was not a sense of shared community. The support I needed was not necessarily monetary support (though it was necessary to continue the fellowship meal); I needed the common bond that occurs through shared experiences of those committed to a common goal. For me, this community needed to be created- which was hard, lonely, and isolating work. In many churches, we like to hire out professionals to do our outreach work. We mostly know social justice is important, but we have no idea how to guide a community toward a way of life where justice happens. When compassionate ministry or social justice or hospitality work is delegated to an individual, instead of becoming part of the social imagination of the whole community, we merely foster an illusion of restoration and communal healing. And I'm tired of fitting in as an illusion. The grief that I have in separating from Emmaus Fellowship is knowing and seeing some of this come to fruition. In the last 6-9 months, a committed core group began to see and live differently in relation to our neighbors. And I couldn't be more grateful.
But my sorrow also fits within the "idea" of community. I often wonder whether I've been searching for some ideal community that I've placed over particular relationships. Rather than giving myself to a place or person entirely and seeing what kind of community comes about, I've created what Bonhoeffer calls a "Wish Dream," which always destroys community. My fear is that because we didn't see relationships blossom to our hope, that perhaps they never will wherever we go. Or, perhaps, five years really isn't long enough to reach the depth of grace and love that we so desperately want to share with others.
My tears in leaving Nashville were genuine. We left people and communities that we loved. And, we will miss many of our friends and those we worked with. But there's a small part of us that believes we missed something, a fleeting ingredient that kept hiding.
One could infer all types of meaning to the kind of potential I speak. It could be professional...I had plans for Emmaus Fellowship that I could not materialize. Relationships between two disparate communities were slow to grow. At East Nashville Cooperative Ministry, I wanted to engage churches in East Nashville to mobilize for communal change on individual, communal, and systemic levels in regards to food and poverty. But many churches live an insular existence, keeping their heads attuned to the individual needs of those in their own buildings. Rare was the day when a church community wanted to create with you rather than just serve in a mission project capacity.
The potential could also be relational. In our five years, we felt we kept hitting a glass ceiling in the depth of our relationships. As Joy and I grew closer together as a married couple, we longed for others to share life with us, to struggle with us, to challenge us, to encourage us, to laugh with us, to love us, and to join us (or for us to join them) in witnessing to the Kingdom of God among us. We can name all of the couples/individuals who held potential to be that for us and us to them, but only a select few began to manifest in real ways. Joy and I have talked about why having genuine friendships has been so hard for us: a different stage of life, geographical proximity, no common commitments, lack of shared goals, overlapping time, personal interests, etc. It seemed that my contemplative activist friends met during times where church responsibilities held me from participation, and my time at Vanderbilt didn't lend itself well to joining friendships to our marriage.
In the last year, when we moved to East Nashville and joined the East Nashville Mom's Club we began to see many of our neighbors as joint friends. And yet, we began having the conversation to move away, limiting our attachment to new relationships. And we feel right now a loss revolving around those future relationships.
In many ways, Nashville has been for me a type of preparation. We moved to Nashville for my education, to prepare further for the work God has for us. School is naturally preparatory. Yet, we could have made Nashville our permanent home. We love the city of Nashville, but we have never felt so isolated. In many ways, the work I was doing at the Church fits as an isolated venture delegated to an individual. There was not a sense of shared community. The support I needed was not necessarily monetary support (though it was necessary to continue the fellowship meal); I needed the common bond that occurs through shared experiences of those committed to a common goal. For me, this community needed to be created- which was hard, lonely, and isolating work. In many churches, we like to hire out professionals to do our outreach work. We mostly know social justice is important, but we have no idea how to guide a community toward a way of life where justice happens. When compassionate ministry or social justice or hospitality work is delegated to an individual, instead of becoming part of the social imagination of the whole community, we merely foster an illusion of restoration and communal healing. And I'm tired of fitting in as an illusion. The grief that I have in separating from Emmaus Fellowship is knowing and seeing some of this come to fruition. In the last 6-9 months, a committed core group began to see and live differently in relation to our neighbors. And I couldn't be more grateful.
But my sorrow also fits within the "idea" of community. I often wonder whether I've been searching for some ideal community that I've placed over particular relationships. Rather than giving myself to a place or person entirely and seeing what kind of community comes about, I've created what Bonhoeffer calls a "Wish Dream," which always destroys community. My fear is that because we didn't see relationships blossom to our hope, that perhaps they never will wherever we go. Or, perhaps, five years really isn't long enough to reach the depth of grace and love that we so desperately want to share with others.
My tears in leaving Nashville were genuine. We left people and communities that we loved. And, we will miss many of our friends and those we worked with. But there's a small part of us that believes we missed something, a fleeting ingredient that kept hiding.
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