Why I Support Youth Missions International

As I'm sure you know, it is very easy to become overwhelmed by the needs around the world. There are a lot of people on this planet. There are a lot of people in trouble on this planet, facing poverty, disaster, disease, hunger. There are a lot of people who have never had a chance to hear about the Hope that comes through knowing the only man who has defeated the cause of every trouble. And just as it is easy to become overwhelmed by the myriad needs, it is also easy to become overwhelmed by the thousands of different ways of meeting them, the staggering amount of different approaches and organizations that are addressing needs.

In the face of all that, I want to tell you why I choose to send my support to an organization called Youth Missions International (YMI). I'll be frank, YMI would never have reached my radar except that a close friend of mine joined their work this year. The stories I hear every day of the work she is doing with YMI give me so much hope. But it's not just the good work of my friend that gives me hope, it is the way YMI runs.

Youth Missions International was founded in 2007. From my estimation, that makes them a very young ministry. Their mission, obviously, revolves around sending Youth. on Missions. Internationally. Very simple mission. Very simple strategy. This is one of the things I love about them. The simplicity of YMI's stance means that they can craft trips for many age groups, many schedules, many passions, on many continents. It also means that they unite people who do not always have the easiest time finding things in common.

As with all cross cultural missions, YMI trips introduce people of very different backgrounds, cultures, and beliefs, and grant them common ground. It is very hard to leave an experience like that without a greater appreciation and understanding of other people's perspectives and situations. Something I don't see in every cross cultural missions organizations is this appreciation beginning long before anyone steps on a plane. YMI prepares their students to relate to and love people not only of different cultures, not only of the people they are sent to, but of people in their own community. The training, the trips, and the impact, are not left as a one-time really special experience. Instead, they equip and invite students to apply these skills and experiences everywhere for the rest of their lives.

I think the thing I love most about YMI is that they give people the confidence to talk about what is most important to them. Allow me to expand on that (I promise I'll be done soon, stick with me). There are a lot of things I wish I had learned when I was younger. I often wish I had stuck with my piano lessons--or learned to play any instrument--because if I had learned then, now I would know how to play an instrument, maybe even well. I wish I had played a sport. Any sport. Anything athletic at all, ever. Then I would have at least one thing to say to my athletic friends besides "go team!", and hopefully wouldn't feel such a sense of dread when people invited me to participate. And most important, I wish I had learned, and practiced, telling people about what is most important to me when I was younger. Just like with music and sports, I have a sense of dread that often makes me afraid to talk to people about Jesus. I have so little practice with talking about it that I have come to think of it as a deeply personal thing, like talking about my personal weaknesses and strengths, instead of thinking of it as something that is much bigger than this little Caroline that actually applies to everyone, should they choose to hear it. I wish that I had begun the learning and the practice of this conversation a lot earlier, so that I would be confident in it by now. And that is what YMI does. They give youth the tools, training, and support to talk about what is most important to them, and they give them the opportunities to practice that skill. Just like practicing a sport, an instrument, or public speaking, people touched by this organization get to practice telling a really, really good story, and not just for two weeks on their trip, but for years to come.

And I think that's really cool.

(My information comes from http://www.ymimissions.org/ if you want to know any more).

Hope

There is a woman in my mind. She is some sort of hybrid of a lot of beautiful thoughts, gathered from a lot of different places.

Every morning, when the day is dawning and the light is crisp, she can be found somewhere in her home with a cup of coffee and a Bible. On busy, hectic, or hurried mornings, she skips the coffee.

She is full of peace.

She smiles often.

She is quiet, not the self-conscious kind of quiet, but the quiet of a person who knows truth of herself well enough to not need constant reassurance of thoughts and words.

When she is harmed or spoken badly of and someone who loves her fights to "avenge her honor" and set the perpetrator straight, she looks at this loved one sternly and says, "Don't you know I know who I am?"

She knows want well enough to know it's not forever and to trust.

She has the courage to apologize, even when it is humiliating, because she is not afraid of being humbled.

She is generous with all she has.

She has a lot of friends who are very different from her. She knows how to love people who disagree with her.

She is true to herself.

She really believes that something about God is revealed everywhere she looks. She believes this because she really sees it.

Today I thought about this woman for the first time in a long while, and thinking about her gives me hope. This woman does not, to me, sound young. When I grow to be her age, I hope I will be a lot more like her. And I have hope that I will be different from her in ways that I can't yet imagine, ways that are really beautiful. I think this kind of hope, the hope that things will be a little different than what you can imagine, is what makes life so much better to live than just to think about.
Romans 8:24 "For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?" I hope to become the woman I was made to be. And I hope because I think she is more than the woman in my head.

What a Character

This week, as an end-of-the-semester celebration my mother took me to Walt Disney World! Which may very well be the best place in the whole of this magnificent Earth. We saw magnificent things (Cinderella's castle, dozens of little girls dressed up as princesses, extraordinary fireworks and so much more), we rode magnificent rides (Pirates of the Caribbean, anyone?), and, dear readers, we learned to draw Pluto like a pro.

Learning to draw Pluto like a pro may sound like an intimidating feat--and it is!--unless you have a seasoned Disney animator teaching you, which is precisely what we had. Way back in the corner of Walt Disney World's Hollywood Studios park, there is a little area with endless appeal if you are at all interested in the art of Disney, where you can view concept art, see a little of how animated films come together, and most importantly, learn to draw your favorite characters (or whichever character everyone else in the room shouts out). It is to this exhibit that my mother and I headed, and waited in eager anticipation for the doors to open to that magical little drawing studio in the heart of Disney World. We waited, we people-watched, we guessed Disney characters from a screen placed there for our entertainment, and all but leapt for joy when the doors flew open! But then sat down again because it still wasn't time; a little girl had wandered to where the door-opening-switch lived and pushed the inviting button therein. So we continued our wait.

A few minutes later the doors opened again, and behold, this time it was our turn! We shuffled inside to a room full of drawing tables, each fitted with one sheet of paper and one pencil, eraser not included, and selected our seats. And then a master animator stepped forward, and--after an ominous warning that these pencils had no erasers and therefore must be used lightly!--he began to draw. There was a camera above his little drawing board (fitting with the same single sheet of Disney paper as all of ours) so that we could all view his drawing on a huge screen just behind him. He instructed us to draw circles and lines and curves and eggs all strangely related to each other until, right at the very end, there was a brief game of something like connect-the-dots and all of our strange shapes turned into Pluto! A room full of near-perfect drawings of the same beloved dog. It was pure Disney magic.

A few days later I was reading Romans and came across this verse, "we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope." Now I know this is a bit of a stretch, but stick with me here. Reading about "producing character," I couldn't help but think of what it takes to create a character in the world of animation. Be it Pluto or Alice in Wonderland, all of the characters we know and love went through a serious editing process, going through a hundred different shapes and colors, a million different possibilities. If you are able to see the concept art for any major character you will find dozens of images that look very little like the final result, what is taken from those images might be as much as the form of their face, and might be as little as an expression. It takes a lot of editing and rethinking and reshaping to finally form them into the perfect character for their story.

What I take from this silly reading of such a serious verse is the hope that we are becoming important characters in a real story, through the trials of everyday becoming more and more who we need to be to make this story the best it can be. If we don't get too caught up in the fears and cares of each moment, and accept the editor's pen, as it were, we can become characters with a story worth telling.

Just Put One Foot in Front of the Other...

The other day, I went out to dinner with a few friends. All of them were certified lifeguards, and spent the meal talking about lifeguard training, rescues, and such things (needless to say I did not have a lot to add to the conversation).

As the only non-lifeguard there I certainly learned a lot, and one thing that really struck me was a concept of dealing with panicked victims. When someone is in danger of drowning, it is a distinct possibility that they will lose it; completely panic and resort to mad and purposeless flailing to try to stay afloat. The danger then becomes acute for the person trying to save them, because when he gets near enough to do anything to help, the hysterical victim may quite possibly hit him, jump on top of him, drag him down. So what could you possibly do when the person you're trying to help will only destroy you both? All of my life-guarding friends knew the answer. The rescuer has to swim up just out of the victims reach. Our panicked friend, on seeing help so close, will often make a mad lunge for the rescuer, who propels himself back, again just out of their reach. They do this panicky little dance over and over again until the lifeguard has guided them right back to shore. To clarify, the victims thoughts are something along the lines of, "I'll never make it back to shore alive. But surely I can make it those few feet to that lifeguard."

This struck me so much, because it's a thought pattern that I think a lot of us live in (at least I know I do). When we see where we want to be, healed, joyful, thriving--it looks completely unattainable. We tell ourselves, "I'll never make it that far." But somehow there's always a little step right in front of us that we know we can take with confidence.

I realized, listening to this story, that God has been pursuing me like a lifeguard for years now. I have never been able to believe in where's He's taking me, but God has convinced me each step of the way to take each little leap forward.
"Surely I'll never be the woman of peace and joy that I want to be. But at least I can set aside some time for God every day."
"There's no way I'll ever be that woman. But at least I can learn to really pray through the things that weigh down my heart."
"I'm never going to be that woman. But at least I can encourage the people around me."
"I will never make it through this. But at least I can trust that God is good."
"I will never ever be there. But at least..."
The shore is a lot closer. I truly cannot make it on my own, but suddenly I realize that's not stopping me, because God is not going to give up and leave. He's going to keep leading, every step--or splash--of the way.

In Jeremiah 29:11, God is talking to a man named Jeremiah, whom He loved. And He says something that is true of everyone who loves Him: " 'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.' " The great future that God has for us is a little much to comprehend; it feels so far away. But before that future comes hope, just enough to get through each step of the way.

Truly His,
Caroline

Come Together

Yesterday I was hanging out in my dorm, and it's a rather quiet building. People seem to mostly just spend their days locked in their rooms doing homework. So I thought to myself, I should bring us all together! I should do something so exciting that everyone rushes from the building out to the back parking lot!

Well, it didn't go exactly like that, but anyway, suffice to say I set off the fire alarm.

As you know, my friend and I like to cook, and we make a meal for ourselves about once a week. So this week we were pondering what to prepare, and she had an epiphany! Tempura! Wonderful! And with our tempura we would make sushi! It would be a glorious meal! So off we went to the store and we selected all kinds of beautiful veggies to fry, and then we scoured the aisles for nori (seaweed wraps) and sushi rice. Perfect! We got back to campus, dumped our produce onto the lobby kitchen counter, and began the adventure. (on another note, did you know it's relatively difficult to chop carrots with a spatula?)

We prepared the rice, chopped veggies, lay out our nori, and soon, very soon, we were cutting up our very first sushi rolls. They were beautiful! They looked just like they should! They tasted just like they should! Perfect! So once we were confident in our sushi making ability we started the tempura. A dangerous task. I dunked the battered veggies in the oil and it hissed and brooded and sputtered. I now have polka-dot burns on my arms, but it was all worth it! The veggies were perfect!

We summoned some friends and continued making sushis and tempuras while they ate. We wandered over and munched with them for a bit. Soon it was determined we should fry some more veggies, at which point someone wondered aloud, "Is it supposed to be smoking?" The little bits of batter in our oil were making quite a fuss, and we watched with dread as the smoke curled its way up to the ceiling and tickled the nose of the smoke alarm. The smoke alarm, peeved about being awakened from it's slumber, began to cry, and of course, not just in the kitchen, but throughout all 150+ rooms in our building.

We lamented at the lack of windows and tried to chase the smoke out for a few minutes before the RAs discovered us and ordered that we leave the building. So we trudged outside for a reunion with many of our dorm-mates.

Looking back on it, I'm reminded of Jesus' first public miracle. At a wedding, Jesus' mother found out that the hosts had run out of wine. Uh oh! So she told Jesus, knowing that he's God and he can do something about it, and he did. He changed six huge jars of water into wine (which happened to be some of the best wine ever--John 2:10). Jesus took a food catastrophe and turned it into a miracle that ended up bringing people together--they were excited and pleased that the hosts gave them such great wine. I have to admit that setting off the fire alarm was more catastrophe than miracle, but still I was pleasantly surprised at the congeniality of everyone involved. I wonder if later the bride and groom admitted to their friends that they don't know where that great wine came from and they all had a good laugh. Either way, embarrassed as I was about interrupting everyone's day, I'm even more surprised by how loving everyone can be about silly mistakes. That's miracle enough for me.

Truly His,
Caroline

Parable of the Lost Spoon

I'd like to read you all a story. It's a tiny parable Jesus told in Luke 15. He said, "suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.' In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

Why do I tell you this story? Because my friends, I have lost my spoons. At the beginning of the year, my parents bought me a little box of silverware. It contained four table knives, four forks, and four spoons (ingenious, right?). So imagine my dismay when, preparing a bowl of cereal, I reached into my box of silverware to find only forks and knives! Two of my spoons were sitting in the sink, waiting to be washed, but the other two were nowhere to be found! Gone!

I searched. I pondered. I puzzled. What had happened to my spoons? They were not in my room. They were not in the kitchen. They had vanished. I pondered some more. My spoons were gone. I mourned. My silverware set would be incomplete, possibly forever. I could only offer two people cereal at once when I have three bowls. What if I lost the other spoons? Quite relevant to the parable, I did happen to tell a few of my neighbors. They were confused and saddened with me. Poor spoons, gone forever.

Coming across this parable again, I am struck by the significance of people. I care about a silly little piece of silverware, taking time to puzzle over it and search for it. How much more important are we as people? Certainly we are more significant than spoons. How exciting to know that God is concerned over us, searching us out when we stray from Him. I want to give Him cause to rejoice. Let's be Found.

Beauty, thy name is Salmon

Dearests, you would not believe how beautiful my dinner was last night. A friend and I decided earlier on in the week that we would like to cook something this weekend, so we laid out plans for Friday night. In the past weeks we've made Nigerian food and Filipino food, but after watching Julie & Julia we decided we needed to make something upon which we could lavish ridiculous amounts of butter. Baked potatoes were certainly on the menu, and some lovely mixed vegetables. We went back and forth on the meat; should we get poultry? steak? fish?

We made our way to the grocery store, polling our friends to see how many we would cook for (they were all quite delighted with the prospect but all realized that they had previous engagements. Go figure), and ended up with just the two of us. Well, their loss. So we each chose a potato, and then filled a bag with broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and asparagus. And then we made our way over to the meat counter: the moment of truth.

We paced back and forth, gazing in wonder at all the options, meticulously arranged on a bed of ice. "Chicken? Steak?" and then, at the end of the counter, we saw them. The most handsome, seasoned fillets of salmon. We summoned the man behind the counter and wonderingly pointed at the fish. He picked up what we had thought was two or three fillets, actually only one. Glorious! We could split one between the two of us! This salmon just got better and better by the moment.

We took over the kitchen, and I mostly stood back in wonder (and microwaved the potatoes in plastic bags; instant baked potatoes, who knew?) as my companion took all of the food from uncooked potential to fragrant masterpieces of sustenance. We set out one beautiful plate of salmon covered in our mélange of vegetables, accompanied by our now cheese-covered potatoes. It was radiant. It was stunning. I thought very hard about taking a picture of it for you, my dear readers, and just as I was deciding, the power went out all over campus.

We feasted by the light of a book light and a head-lamp. I'm sure we made quite the sight: as people came up the dark stairs to our dorm lobby the only light they could see illuminated little more than one large plate of salmon and vegetables. Needless to say, it was possibly the best dinner I ever could have hoped for.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says simply, "Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." I am so encouraged to realize that finding joy in these little things--in the perfect peace of fish and the silliness of a power outage--is what God desires for me. He filled this world with beauty and light and sometimes silliness, and I think in some ways it's just to make us smile.

Truly His,
Caroline