From the mountain to the valley

I am realizing that trust is a fragile thing. Even trust in someone as reliable and loving as God.

I believe God has never failed me. You'd think that would be enough to clinch my undying and unending trust in every circumstance I face. That trust by now would just come automatically. But it doesn't.

Some years ago, I went through a very dark, difficult time. I cried out to God to just be with me in that time of suffering and loneliness. I wasn't asking for a solution to my situation, or an end to the pain. I just needed him to sustain me in the midst of that experience. For some reason I still cannot fully understand, he seemed to leave me alone. For the first time in my life, when I needed him the most, I couldn't sense his presence or his comfort or his peace. I felt left to my own strength and resource, which of course were weak and used up.

That experience of seeming abandonment shattered a trust in God that all my life to that point had been unshakeable and reflexive. It's taken years of hard work between the two of us to build back that trust, but I admit, it's still a bit shaky.

Just yesterday, Andrew and I took a quick overnight trip to Zermatt, a village at the foot of the world famous and iconic Matterhorn, a sharp, toothy peak in southern Switzerland. Throughout the entire drive down late on Wednesday night and subsequent hiking day on Thursday, we saw bold evidence of God's hand on us, his provision for exactly what we needed when we needed it. Everything was working out perfectly when it might have gone badly (we could have hit hours-long traffic jams, missed the 11 p.m. train from Täsch into Zermatt, been locked out of our hotel. Thankfully, we avoided these possibilities). As we hiked, we were literally "on the mountaintop" and reveled in God's stunning and awe-inspiring creation. The weather gave us a few hours' window of perfection to get spectacular pictures and enjoy the scenery before it clouded over and we could no longer see the peak. I felt close to God, I experienced his faithfulness and my trust was increased.

Then we drove down from the mountain and back home into the flatlands of northern Switzerland. We left the "mountaintop."

Less than 24 hours later, I'm face-to-face with a brick wall of seeming impossible circumstances that are riddled with uncertainty, enormous obstacles and fear-inducing possibilities. My trust is in danger of faltering. Today, here "in the valley" I am reminded that trust isn't a feeling or a state of being. It's a choice. A hard choice that takes effort, strength and determination.

I don't know why we turn mountains and valleys into spiritual metaphors. We often say we're "on the mountaintop" when we're in a moment of spiritual excitement, wonder, deep trust and comfort or peace. When we're "in the valley" we're experiencing a lack of spiritual resources, or perhaps suffering and trials, difficult obstacles, disappointment, grief, fear or depression.

Well, that metaphor couldn't be more tangible to me than today. Yet, with the view of the Matterhorn fresh in my memory, and my clear memory of how he gave us everything we needed when we needed it, I am making the difficult choice of trusting God to work everything out to his good and perfect plan, for my good (not for my comfort necessarily but for my good) and believe that he is in control when we are so obviously not able to be.

Together

We've been through three months of daily German lessons now, and the class is taking a hiatus for the month of September. There was something I didn't expect to happen when we began on May 5, that a break is allowing me to reflect on.

I didn't expect to bond so much with our classmates. Hailing from Russia, Kyrgyzistan, Bulgaria, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Syria, France, Turkey, Spain, Thailand and Nigeria, the students in our class are all on the same playing field, the same team, with no one having the advantage of being on their home turf. We are all foreigners, learning a new culture and a new language together. There's something about making mistakes together, laughing together over those mistakes, helping each other through the difficult lessons that bonds people to each other. There is no room for arrogance or superiority for anyone when you're learning a foreign language.  We are all humbled by the obvious nature of what we do not know and cannot say without help. And everyone wants the others to succeed.

I was surprised by how our classmates worked their way into my heart. They are kind, gentle and generous people who love to share their lives, even when we cannot communicate in words, by pulling out their iPhones to show each other their homes, their families, their countries, and anything else that makes them who they are. They love to give hugs. I am humbled by their exceeding and unmatchable hospitality and generosity. It was hard to say goodbye to them for the summer.

I have been praying for them, for God to bless them and their families, as well as their integration into this new culture and land. I pray that someday we will all stand at the throne of God and praise Him together.

About Büsingen

Ever wonder how our strange little village of Germany became completely enclosed within Switzerland? And how does that work?

Here's a very short but informative article about how Büsingen got this way and how it works now.

http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/253-germany-surrounded-by-switzerland

Making New Friends (Re-Posted with Additions)

The following is re-posted from a couple of weeks ago. Just trust me when I say I felt it necessary to take it down due to the potential for miscommunication and misunderstanding. I've also added some more recent thoughts at the end. I apologize for the abnormal length of this entry, but please read all the way through. - Andrew

***
I am reeling a bit after German classes this week.

The teacher asked one of the girls from Turkey a simple question for the sake of an example having to do with families. Do you have a mother? No. Do you have a father? No. Brother? Sisters? The girl broke down in a sudden flood of tears, and had to leave the classroom for a little while. The teacher, obviously, was very embarrassed.

A male student showed me a photograph of his small apartment shared with three other guys in Syria. There was a gaping hole in the roof, and the interior was covered in dust and rubble. He and his roommates had left the apartment only moments before a bomb fell and destroyed their apartment. With a smile, he showed me a second photograph of the four of them outside the building, wide grins on their faces, and middle fingers extended in the air. The implied message was unmistakable: “You missed.”
 
Another male student today showed me a gruesome image of a friend with multiple head wounds. The friend had been in an accident in Greece. His heart stopped for ten minutes and he was presumed dead. As he was being taken to a morgue, his eyes popped open. Somehow, he was still alive (though likely with some brain damage). This same student told another story about being an ambulance driver in Syria, which is a far cry from being one in Europe or the US. He wore black clothing and bullet-proof armor while driving through war zone after war zone. Ambulances were targets, and he was sometimes shot at. He mentioned snipers. He says the things he saw are like photos in his mind, and he can’t forget them. He says this with no trembling in his voice and an awkward smile on his face. You would think he’d just told you he’d gone fishing. He says he saw too many people die. When I reminded him that he had probably saved many people, he smiled (less awkwardly, with more warmth). No doubt when the images of the dead are so powerful, it is hard to remember the ones you helped save.

What an incredible, eye-opening, heart-changing privilege to be a part of these people’s lives – no matter how long or short it lasts. The photographs of protests, destruction, and the injured were not taken by reporters. I didn’t see them on a website. They were taken on the same iPhones I held in my hands as the people personally involved in these events explained each picture. When I shake their hands, I shake hands very likely once covered in someone else’s blood. Hands that balled into fists and beat the air during a protest.

Though I can nearly always find something to relate to in the story of a person who has suffered, there is not a shred of anything in my experience or knowledge that helps me understand any of this. A few summers ago, I put pressure on the bleeding wounds of an elderly man who had been in a bike accident on a busy street. This is nothing compared to what these Syrian friends have likely seen or experienced in the space of an hour. Yet that experience shook me up something fierce. I watched with horror as bodies fell, or rather leaped, from the burning World Trade Center. But I saw it on television from the remote distance of several hundred miles. This is sadly distant from any level of being able to relate to my new Syrian friends.

But they’re talking to me about these things, showing me the photographs, and even if I can’t relate I can still listen. Not only because it’s good for them to talk rather than bottle these things up inside, but because I think I just need to keep hearing these stories. I need to keep looking into the eyes of those who are telling the stories, and never forget that despite all the many things that make us so different from each other we are still real, living and breathing people. And, at least for now, we share the same space and can share stories and – for four hours a day – can share our lives.

***
Following the temporary removal of that original post, we had a two-week holiday from German class. We returned yesterday.

A girl from Bulgaria shared with Gina yesterday about her grandmother - who raised her as if she were her own daughter - has a life-threatening condition and only surgery can bring relief. However, the lady refused to have surgery because she was afraid she wouldn't survive the procedure. The girl and her husband tried to persuade her that she would certainly die without it. The girl returned to class yesterday after two weeks in Bulgaria, and does not know what condition her grandmother is now in.

A girl who seemed to immediately become attached to Gina left class yesterday due to severe stomach pain. We learned she was taken to the hospital yesterday afternoon before our class let out for the day. She's pregnant, but the baby is fine though the pain continues to be severe. She's alone in a foreign country, except for her husband who seems to be an absolutely wonderful man.

The two male students I refer to above come from the same village in Syria. Within the last couple of days, their village was arbitrarily attacked by terrorists. On one day 20 people were killed, and 50 died on another day. I couldn't believe these guys showed up to class or that both stayed the whole time. They were distracted and visibly upset, but they were present and engaged for the full four hours. Imagine you are thousands of miles away, and you learn that your neighborhood was attacked by terrorists and 70 people are killed. Never mind how you'd feel: would you even be capable of showing up for class or going to work?

I hesitate to share so much personal information about our classmates who are very quickly becoming friends. But these are the real people facing some serious difficulties far away from home: that is where our ability to relate pretty much stops.

Our hearts break for our new friends who suffer. We don't know what to do. We don't know what to say (and our vocabulary and grammar are painfully limited just yet). I'm re-learning how much it hurts to love, and how much wisdom is required. It isn't hard to love people who are so completely different from us, but it is hard to know how best to do so. We can do nothing more for the time being than pray for our friends, reach out as best we can, and rely on God to help us love with wisdom and for our friends to receive love from us in the spirit in which it's given - even if we inadvertently make mistakes in how we might express or fail to express it.

Please join us in prayer for our friends!

German class

We are in our fifth year in Germany and Switzerland. According to European Union law, when a foreign resident is in the country for five years, he or she must become proficient in the local language (German) in order to get the work visa renewed for subsequent years.

We are not proficient according to the government standards and although we tried to get an exception, we are being required to take an intensive, seven-month German course at an approved language school before we will be eligible to have our visas renewed so we can stay here next year.

Thankfully, through your giving to our ministry fund while we were touring the States last year, we now have the finances needed to pay for the class, which is rather expensive (several thousand dollars). We could not afford to take the classes prior to now. We are really grateful to you all for helping to make this happen so we can stay.

The class started on Monday. It meets five days a week, from 8:30 a.m. until 12:40 p.m., and with the exception of August, it will run from now until Dec. 23.

It's a bit overwhelming to do this 4 hours a day, every day. It makes us tired mentally and physically. However, it's also a lot of fun. We have really wanted to get a lot better in German and weren't able to afford it during the first four years. We are really excited to be able to have deeper conversations with our friends and acquaintances in the very near future.

It's also fun to be in a class with 16 other people from a variety of nations. We haven't had much chance at conversation yet, but know there will be many opportunities. Our class consists of six people from Turkey, three people from Syria, and the others hail from: Nigeria, Russia, Hungary, Bulgaria, France, Kyrgyzstan and Thailand. We are among the oldest people in the class; most are in their 20s.

We could use your prayers on a variety of angles concerning our class:

• That we will be adept at absorbing this new information and retaining it.
• That we will be able to manage our time so that we can get all our other work done with only four hours in the afternoon each day to do it and meet our deadlines.
• That God will show us opportunities to share His love with our new classmates.
• That we will have the physical and mental strength and energy to keep up. It's only been four days but we have gotten increasingly weary with each day.

Thanks again for your love, prayers and support!

Being in the valley

For some reason, for the past three weeks, Andrew and I have been in a bit of a valley. We've analyzed it, talked it over and tried to figure it out. I don't think we've reached any conclusions as to why, and thus that makes it harder to address or try to "fix."

I've had valleys in every part of my career, at every place I've worked. So I know that what we're feeling is not just because we're missionaries. Everybody has down days, tough weeks, long and melancholy months. That's just life.

I can generally point to my current feelings of being in a spiritual or emotional valley to frustration with myself for not being as productive in my missionary work as I think I should be. I've had trouble achieving measurable results, projects haven't turned out how I wanted and in my frustration I've struggled harder to focus, to stay on task and to be as creative and motivated as I normally am, which leads me to feel disappointed in myself, and thus melancholy.

Where my melancholy is exacerbated is the various additional feelings that get layered over the melancholy and complicate things.

1. Failure. Because when you only hear the good stories of victory and achievement from missionaries, you tend to think that if you're having a less productive week or month where for every accomplishment are several failures or setbacks, you feel like a failure, that you're not "doing a good job." It seems like we missionaries are constantly reporting these series of successes or results of our hard work. When you don't have anything positive to report, you feel less valuable as a missionary because you are less productive.

2. Guilt. As a missionary, knowing that your salary and support is coming through sacrificial donations from generous but not necessarily well-off people around the world puts extra pressure on you to achieve and produce consistently, all the time. You don't want to waste the precious donations of so many loving and supportive people by failing to produce massive amounts of quality work each week or month.

3. Spiritual questioning. You ask yourself: Is my feeling of melancholy, my lack of focus and concentration, my emotional exhaustion the result of some kind of spiritual failure on my part? Do I need to pray harder, trust more, read the Bible more, basically work a lot harder on my spiritual life?

When you're already emotionally and physically worn out from the work you've been doing, feeling like you need to push harder in your spiritual life just adds to the feelings of tiredness you're already battling.

I think the hardest part of being a missionary for me are these times when you spiritualize your work. In all honesty, I find it tempting to have a job "just for the money." There are fewer layers of complicating emotions that come with a job where you're simply in it for the paycheck, and don't have the conscious pressure all the time that your work is tied up in the eternal destination of millions of people around the world, as well as in reviving and upholding and inspiring the Church. For me, that's just a lot of pressure when I go to work that I haven't had at secular jobs. Yes, knowing my work has eternal significance (I actually think all work has eternal value, but you know what I mean) gives meaning to my workday, but it also adds a lot of pressure.

Anyway, a couple of things spoke to me this week in regards to these feelings. First, one day, while I was trying to force myself to put in a few more hours work to make up for the hours where my efforts hadn't produced anything, I heard the words in my head "man is not a machine." I reflected on what that phrase meant, and I concluded that I am an organic, living human being who gets tired. I am not a machine where I can turn myself on when I walk in the office door, work like a robot all day, and then turn myself off when I go home at night. I have feelings that can drain my energy, such as disappointment, loneliness, isolation, frustration, resentment and self-criticism. I think when I heard the words in my head "man is not a machine," that was God speaking to me and reminding me that there are times when I just can't work as hard or that my efforts will be less productive than other times because of the emotions I am experiencing, and this is OK.

Second, Andrew preached a sermon in church last Sunday about Sabbath. While it was mainly focused on our need to rest in God regularly, and this is generally associated with a certain day per week, it helped me realize that God recognizes our need for rest, for pulling back and recovering from our work. So when I feel how I've felt the past few weeks, it may be a signal that it's time to give myself a break and a little room to be less productive until I recover my strength in God and can push it hard again.

Third, this article that I ran in Engage by Howard Culbertson talks about how being a missionary isn't about the measurable results you can see, but in simply being obedient and dedicated to the Lord of your life. I think this can apply to anyone, whether you are a missionary living in another culture or not. I encourage you to read it. http://engagemagazine.com/content/doing-mission-well-dedication

No matter what job you have or what demands and pressures are on you, whether you are called a missionary or simply a Christian who lives a missional life in your own community, we all have these times when we need to give ourselves a bit of a break and realize that we are not machines, that we need to rest, allow ourselves to fail, and know that sometimes our efforts won't achieve measurable results to our own expectations, and this is OK. Sometimes, I think we can be harder on ourselves than God is on us.

And we need to know that, even though we are products of cultures that place greater value on humans who achieve great results, our value and worth is not tied up in our productivity and successes, but simply in our identity as the beloved children of God.

-- Gina

Teaching live webinars

For the past five weeks, I have been teaching a live webinar series on "Powerful Storytelling" to as many as 100 participants who live and work in Asia, Africa and Europe. I have been doing this each Monday in partnership with the Asia-Pacific Region's communication team, who are handling the tech side of the whole thing while I teach the lessons I've written on how to communicate a story in a compelling way.

It has been super exciting to me that the curriculum I wrote two years ago is getting out to even more Nazarene ministry personnel around the world beyond the Eurasia Region.

Since I began working with Engage in 2009, seeing the stories that people in ministry are developing for their own blogs and newsletters, or submitting to various Nazarene publications, I've realized that offering some basic writing training might be helpful to a lot of people who are already doing the hard work of telling the stories of God's work in their parts of the world. So I've dreamed of this for a long time, and waited to see if my dream was something that God actually wanted me to do.

As the different training opportunities have come my way (a presentation to field strategy coordinators in April 2011, live classroom training India in 2012 and South Asia in 2013, a workshop at General Assembly 2013, and now online webinars for Asia-Pacific, Europe and Africa in 2014), I can see that this is a dream God has given me and has been making a reality. It's amazing to see everything materialize without my pushing down any doors, that they just open naturally.

For this webinar, the series of topics is a little different than what I taught in India and South Asia because it's a slightly different demographic of participants. Here's the schedule we've done:

1. Why we tell stories
2. What makes a story
3. Narrative Writing
4. Interviewing
5. Writing news stories and blogs
6. Ethics

We will have the last webinar in the series this coming Monday. We've been recording each session and uploading each session, along with lesson documents, exercises and sometimes bonus audiocasts to a resource website so that the many participants who can't join us live can download the materials and watch the lesson later.

A week or two ago, I shared about this training with a missionary in the Mesoamerica Region (Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean) and she felt that my coursework would fit perfectly into a seminary class they're going to be offering this fall to train regional missionaries on how to communicate about their work with the local church. I've been asked to write a syllabus for the storytelling part of the class and to give them all my materials, which they will then adapt and translate into Spanish. It's really exciting to see the dream and the teaching spread around the world like this.

I feel really humbled that I get to be part of this. I know there're are a lot more qualified and experienced people out there than myself, but for some reason I just can't fathom, I'm the one doing this.

All this to say, thanks a lot to everyone who has been praying for the webinars and for me. It's been a challenging project, and sometimes we've had technology problems or our participants have had trouble logging in to the sessions. Sometimes I stumble a bit as I teach. But overall, the feedback I've been getting from the participants has been really positive and helps to affirm that this has been a valuable use of my time.