Flesh and Spirit (Pt 4)

Crazy stuff happens in cameras, I tell Jennifer before she leaves the car, I'm not saying that there's not something weird going on. I don't know where that picture came from, but the worst thing we can do right now is be afraid.

She nods. She takes her bag and her new cd, and she leaves the car.

Ruthie studies the picture on her cell phone as we complete the short drive from Jennifer's home to our own. We see what Jennifer is talking about, but it's blocky, pixillated, small.

I dunno, I tell Ruthie, It doesn't look like anything to me, but I get a feeling.

Yeah, she says.

No one is really giving me anything to run with right now. I think. I pray for some sense of what is going on, and why this little photo seems so significant to all of us.

I call my friend David Park, and he's on his way to a speaking engagement. I tell David something like the following, except much longer: There's a crazy picture coming out of a house where crazy stuff happens, and everyone in Jennifer's family is scared, and I don't know what to think about the photo, but the fear is a bad thing. Also, I have a feeling that this is a good time to talk to them about Jesus.

I tell David I'd appreciate his presence when I visit the family, and he agrees, but tells me he can't be here until tomorrow because of this speaking thing.

I hang up, and a few minutes later, I get an overwhelming impulse, like a command, to talk to them before they go to bed.

I'm in a world beyond my strategies here, so I submit to the impulse.

When Ruthie and I make it back to Jennifer's at ten at night, I see why someone needed to be here now with some good news.

(Intermission) Kids on Peace

This year at the afterschool program, we are orienting our craft and teaching time around a "Word of the Week." This week's word was "peace."

We gave the kids this quote from Robert Fulghum:

Then we asked the kids to write down one way that they could make, do, be, or give away peace. Here are some of their answers:

Tito: I do peace when I help other people

Kevin: I share my school supplie with my frifened in school!

Gabriela: Peace is kind of like loving yourself. You can't wish to love yourself, you have to do it for yourself.

Maritza: Peace Be in you. god prtekst you and other peopole But the mean peaple He prteks the holl world but down. Peaple that go to church are nice more in sunday.

Yesenia: Peace is what I give away and what I give away is kindness. And some of my love of course NOT all of it. Thats peace!

Flesh and Spirit (Pt 3)

This is what it feels like to be in ministry most of the time: Running around from here to there, taking care of this or that, hoping that God will intervene at some point. When He does, I have no idea what to do.

Jennifer sits in the back seat, Ruthie and I in the front.

An hour ago, we registered over 60 kids for our afterschool program and gave out over 30 backpacks. Now we have a window of time to get Jennifer to Best Buy and help her pick out a CD for her fourteenth birthday before figuring out how to get backpacks and school supplies for the thirtysomething kids who didn't get any.

- Ruthie, my mom wants to know if she can send you something, Jennifer says.

- Send what? asks Ruthie.

- It's cause there's this picture, and it's so scary of Leslie. I couldn't sleep last night, and my mom was crying.

As Jennifer tells it, the story behind the picture is this: Jennifer's mom has a friend who lives nearby, and the kids play together while the moms hang out. Jennifer's younger sister, Leslie, has a white hoody which she wears whenever she can, even in the heat of July in Georgia. So Leslie goes with her mom to their friend's house, plays with the two younger kids, and goes home.

The next day, a picture shows up on the friend's cell phone. In the picture, the friend's two youngest kids are walking in the foreground, and a figure wearing Leslie's hoody sits in the center on the bed. But where Leslie's face should be, a pale, grotesque, masculine face stares straight at the camera.

- Well who took the photo? I ask.

- No one remembers it, Jennifer says.

- And you're sure it's Leslie? She was there on that day?

- Yeah.

- Did they have a mask or something?

- No, but that house is haunted, Jennifer says, there's a ghost that throws stuff and makes noises.

I tell Jennifer to send us the picture. I'm a bit of a cynic about spiritual manifestations, and I still wonder if my experiences in the Philippines were just vivid products of my sleeping mind.

Still, I feel familiar chills moving up my spine and crawling into my skull.

Afterschool Program Re-opens!

Flesh and Spirit (Pt 2)

There are the days when I can only believe in glimpses, and there are days when I can't seem to believe at all.

But there are words, with which I spend a great deal of time, because they build a story. If you ask me why the idea of God will not leave me alone, and why I give myself to the teachings of Jesus, I will respond that The Story is one that points to Him.

How it all adds up and fits together is a question I can't answer. The math is beyond me.

I find it absurd that a guy who can barely scrape together enough belief to keep living is here, in an international neighborhood easily overlooked by the Bible Belt that surrounds it, with the charge of living and speaking the Love of Christ.

But I am willing, and that seems to be enough for now.

Flesh and Spirit (Pt 1)

I sat behind the driver, on the passenger side. Outside the jeepney, vague yellow lights advertised a vacant city.

The vehicle looked like any other jeepney populating Manila's streets. Vivid patterns adorned the ceiling. Two cushioned benches ran along the sheet metal siding, from front to back.

He did not turn to face me. I only saw the back of his head, his hair black and shiny, typical of filipino men.

- I go to Faith Academy, I told him.

The small missionary boarding school felt as if it was around us in the dark, somewhere undefined behind the electric lamps.

Something entered the dream. I felt it lock me in.

The driver turned to me, his face pale, grey, hollow. I know your school, he said, as something dark worked its way around under his skin, like blood, rushing, cascading from top to bottom.

- We have several students there. Our blood runs in their veins, he said.

I could not breathe. I twisted, turned. His glare was gripping. It was all around me. It was the jeepney, the night, the yellow lights. He went on, but his words were deep, indistinct, a fierce growl, and I reached for the name of Jesus. I tried to call it out, but I had no breath. A rasp.

Jesus, I said from the bed. I was awake before The Name left my lungs. I was eighteen, sleeping in a bunk bed below Jon, across from Brendon. Faith Academy and all of its other dorms were asleep, except me and God and the Devil and only they knew what else.

Our dorm stood still atop its hill, and a GE wall fan rattled from side to side as I placed my feet against the cool wood of our floor.

Fortunately, Unfortunately

Monday:

After a great lunch meeting, I stepped out of my car by the mailboxes, and A---- yelled a greeting from the playground, which sits right next to the boxes.

I was surprised that he acknowledged me, since he was yelling at me last time we spoke. I had asked S---- about some gang graffiti in our hallway. Despite the fact that I had just asked if they knew anything about it, A---- and S---- got very angry and defensive while their posse watched from the stairwell.

"Yo, Ian, wanna play soccer?"

"Definitely," I responded, excited to be invited back into their circle.

We divided up into teams, and kicked back and forth for a while, trash talking each other and having a great time. When it was over, S asked me if I could drive them to soccer practice on Tuesdays, since there was a team forming at a nearby school. Glad for the opportunity to get more time with them, I quickly agreed.

Tuesday:

I drove the car to my mechanic this morning to check out a small problem and get it fixed before driving the guys to soccer, and after a wait of several hours, he gave me some bad news. Transmission problems. I delivered the car to another shop that specializes in transmissions, and they said they needed to hold it over night and check it in the morning. I handed over the keys.

I got a ride home with my sister, Lisa, who teaches a Bible study to some of the kids in our neighborhood. I arrived at our apartment feeling depressed about our finances. We were already about two grand in the hole from taxes, and now we have to deal with transmission repair costs, not to mention that we barely make enough to cover our regular bills.

I was so depressed that I completely forgot about agreeing to take A----, S----, and their friends to soccer practice until they came knocking at our door, dressed up and carrying soccer balls. I had to tell them the bad news. They left to try and find another ride.

Yesterday was one of those days that felt like everything clicked into place. Today felt a bit like it all clicked back out again. Hopefully tomorrow will contain another upswing. It's the pendulum of faith-based neighborhood ministry. We can predict and plan all we want, but circumstances always shift around us.

On days like today, the best we can do is believe that the Father has some perspective that we lack. We ask for his peace, and love and serve as faithfully as we can.