Stories from the Steeple

“Finding God’s Story in Your Story” (Genesis 29:15-30)

July 27, 2008

Rev. Carol McVetty, English Language Pastor

In a well-remembered bit of narration from the movie “Forrest Gump”, the hero says: “My mother always said, ‘Life is like a box of chocolates. Because you never know what you’re gonna get.’” Forrest goes on to stumble through a life of seemingly random encounters with many of the chaotic world events of the late 20^th Century. There is no purposefulness to his life, no growth, no character development. He just wanders along through history a sort of present day court jester, an innocent fool.

In the book we have been studying together on Wednesday nights this summer, Scott Bader-Saye’s “Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear”, Bader-Saye suggests that one of our deepest fears is that life is like a box of chocolates, but for a different reason. “…because a box of chocolates is consumed, piece by random piece, in no particular order.”

Are our lives a series of random events, our days simply consumed until nothing remains? Or is there a story to our lives; a beginning, a middle, an end? Do our days move in a coherent direction that makes sense? Or do we stumble along like Forrest Gump from one event to another, searching in vain for the connecting thread? These are haunting questions for many.

In our scripture lesson today we met Jacob. Now Jacob in not nearly as appealing a character as Forrest Gump. In fact at times he is downright despicable. Nonetheless, for the next several weeks, we will follow the exploits of Jacob and his son Joseph in our scripture lessons and sermons. (I encourage you to read the whole story on your own. Move back a few chapters, perhaps to chapter 25, and read on through the end of Genesis to get the entire cycle of stories in context.)

Jacob was born hanging onto his twin brother’s heel. He spent much of his youth rebelling against “the system”, which in his day dictated that the first born of a family inherited all of the father’s wealth. You haven’t seen sibling rivalry until you have seen Jacob manipulate his older twin, Esau, into giving up his birthright for a bowl of lentil soup. You know nothing about dysfunctional families until you read how the parents in this one choose up sides: father Isaac backing Esau, and Rebekah, the mom, favoring Jacob. Rebekah even helps Jacob trick his dying dad into giving him the blessing which is due the elder son.

Having stooped so low and connived so skillfully to get the family farm, Jacob then had to run for his life because his brother was out to kill him. Surely on the long, dusty trip to Haran Jacob wondered “How is this going to turn out? Where is my life headed?” Today’s episode opens as Jacob has arrived in Haran on the doorstep of an uncle he had never met. He is a refugee, a fugitive, with only the clothes on his back and a price on his head.

Now Jacob has met his match! His uncle, Laban, is surely the Wiley-Coyote of the Old Testament. “You love my daughter Rachel? She’s a beauty, isn’t she? Sure, seven years labor sounds like a good bride-price.” So they shook hands on the deal. But seven long years of sheep-tending later Jacob had to remind his uncle of the deal. So a wedding banquet was thrown. What happened next is one of the most eye-popping tales in the Hebrew Scriptures. It actually believable if you factor in 1) all the women being veiled, 2) that it is really, really dark inside a Bedoin tent, and 3) a huge lots of wine having flowed throughout the wedding festivities. It wasn’t until the morning after, in the sober light of dawn (or noon perhaps), that Jacob realized he’d been had! He had married Leah, the older, not Rachel, the beautiful, whom he loved. And Uncle Laban, confronted with his treachery shows no shame. “Oops, not to worry. I had this older daughter I had to get off my hands. But you can have Rachel, too. That’ll be seven more years labor, thank you very much!”

What are we to make of this wild and crazy story? I have searched it, and as it stands on its own, I can’t find any moral. I have no uplifting lesson you can carry home with you today from this particular story. Reading today’s text is like pulling over to the side of the road to stare at a train wreck. We are left with Jacob—exiled from home, still no property or security, having invested seven years, seven hard years, for the love of his life, only to shafted and manipulated into working another seven years for no pay. This is the point where I imagine he went out and plastered the bumper sticker on the back of his donkey cart, the one that says “Sh-t happens.”

And we see Leah and Rachel—two women, two sisters, voiceless and unheard. Their hopes or desires were never consulted. Their lives had been arranged for them. Now they had been setup for a life-long, bitter competition for the attention of one man.

Then there is Laban—who comes off like a character in a Dilbert cartoon, gleeful, almost sadistic in his scheming, leaving chaos in his wake.

What are we to make of this messy, ambiguous story? What are we to make of our own messy, ambiguous lives….when our best efforts still leave us empty-handed…when our future is manipulated by others…when we tumble from one mess to another, or wander through our days, not knowing where they are headed? Is life just one darn thing after another? Is it really like a box of chocolates after all, consumed piece by piece, randomly, till it’s all gone?

Some years ago I heard a woman, a totally secular, non-church-going mom, explain why she brought her children to Vacation Bible School. She said “On the way home in the car, my kids sing the songs they’ve learned. They repeat the stories that have been told. This is the only place they’ve heard a story like this. You are the only ones who really have a story.” Sisters and brothers, that is the good news. The Gospel says that God has given the world a story, and it’s a story of redeeming love. The Good News of the Bible is that God has given the world a story, and has called each of us to participate in it, to play our part.

The book “Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear” has introduced us to a way of understanding that story that helps us see ourselves as part of it. God’s story is a drama in five acts. Act 1 is God’s creation of the world. Act 2 is God’s calling of Israel. Act 3 is God’s incarnation in Christ. Act 4 is the calling and sending of the Church, and Act 5 is the culmination of the story in God’s reign of Shalom. We live in Act 4. We are the ones called and sent by God to live out his love in the world. Jacob lived in Act 2, God’s calling of a particular people, Israel. In fact, it is just this big picture that the narrator had in mind when recording Jacob’s story.

The Hebrew people told these earthy, colorful, clearly entertaining stories about their ancestor Jacob for generations around the campfire. The stories may have seemed to them as random and ambiguous as they are to us. But the narrator who put this series of stories in writing was able to read these events in light of God’s story. He could detect the thread of purpose that runs through them all. Our faithful narrator arranged the stories to show us the point. The whole Jacob cycle is arranged as a series of frames, or matching bookends to surround and draw attention to the central point. In the series of stories, the first is conflict with Esau, matched with reconciliation with Esau at the end. Next, is an encounter with God at Bethel, matched with an encounter with God at Peniel. Inside of those two frames is the conflict with Laban, balanced by a truce with Laban. Right in the middle of all these stories is the birth of Jacob’s children. That is the key, the central point of the whole Jacob saga. While in Haran, he had eleven sons, and one daughter. On his return to Canaan he had one more son. Those twelve sons became the fathers of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The narrator looked at Jacob’s messy, chaotic life full of conflict and trouble, deception and lies. He looked at all that and still could see God’s story being played out. He saw that ancient promise to Abraham, of more descendants than there are stars in the sky, coming to fruition in Jacob. That is not to say that God caused each event. To say that we would have to conclude that God is as mean and manipulative as Laban, that God is a trickster like Jacob. God’s way in the world is much more mysterious than cause and effect. Somehow God is at work. In ways beyond our understanding, God weaves even the darkest turns in life towards God’s good ends. We set aside explanation to tell a story of God’s purpose having it’s way, even in the midst of our messes and screw ups.

As Christians, our job is to learn to do what the Genesis narrator did. Our task is to read the jumbled, random events of our lives in light of God’s story. You can learn to recognize your bit part is God’s vast drama and thus pick up the thread of meaning and purpose running through your days.

Through my high school and college education I invested eight years in studying science…eight years dedicated to the dream of becoming a doctor. Near the end of college that all fell apart, and I went home not knowing what I was going to do. What if I had been able to see that time experience in the light of the story of the fishermen who left their nets and their whole lives behind and walked away to follow Jesus with no idea of what came next? If I could have seen my story in the light of that part of God’s story, then perhaps I would have been spared some of the sense of failure and shame that I felt at the time.

I have heard Karen folks in the refugee camps in Thailand, having fled the horror that is Burma, say: “We are like the Hebrew children wandering in the wilderness. We have no country, no home, but God is providing us with daily manna. And I know many of those who have resettled in our midst see the US as their Promised Land.

When Judge Lefkow’s husband and mother were brutally murdered just down the street, the first thing their pastor did was to tell the family the story of Job. She told them how his life was trashed, and yet he clung to God; and how Job eventually discovered that God was hanging on to him.

To learn to see our story in the light of the Great Gospel story of God’s redeeming love…

That is our task. For life is, after all, not like a box chocolates. Life is not a random series of events that lead nowhere. Our lives are lived out within the great drama of God’s loving purpose….

And within that story, your story moves toward a good end.

Amen.

“Show Us the Way” (John 14:1-9)

April 20, 2008 - Fifth Sunday of Easter

Rev. Carol McVetty

On Tuesday I will participate in an interfaith dialog, a conversation among people sometimes identified as “Abraham’s Children” because Jews, Christians, and Muslims all view Abraham as their spiritual father. I hope many of you will participate as well. For me, it is a conversation not with strangers, but with friends. Jamal Hussein of the Ismaili Center, Paul Koch at Ebenezer Lutheran, Michael Zedek, the rabbi at Congregation Emanuel, and Father Dominic Grassi at St. Gertrude’s are colleagues of mine here in the Edgewater neighborhood. We sit around a table for lunch every month. Over the years I have grown to respect and trust and value them both as friends and as men of faith.

You folks may also find it to be a conversation with friends, neighbors, or acquaintances. This is a local Edgewater event. That is part of the reason we are doing this. We believe that locally, within a neighborhood, is the place these conversations must begin. It is the place they are the most fruitful.

As I began to gather my thoughts for Tuesday, I was also preparing this morning’s sermon. The Gospel text assigned for today, the Fifth Sunday of Easter, is found in the Gospel of John and includes these words: “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life. No ones comes to the Father except through me.’” Now what do I do with that? This is a treasured text for me. It is one of my favorite parts of John’s gospel, along with the other “I am” statements: “I am the light of the world.” “I am the good shepherd.” “I am the vine.” “I am the way, the truth, the life….” To these words my soul clings, as to a life raft in a raging storm. But how do I carry them with me into interfaith dialogue? Must I leave them at door? Do they apply?

Years ago I was asked to pray at the annual community commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. It was a big deal in our city, an inner ring suburb of Detroit. Southfield was primarily African American and Jewish. Those groups would make up the majority of those in attendance at the event. My clergy colleagues advised me to give a generic sort of interfaith prayer. They said that in those kinds of settings Jewish people feel betrayed, tricked into blasphemy even, if they are invited to pray and then the prayer concludes “in Jesus’ name”. Use images for God that all can ascribe to, that will give offense to no one, I was told. That is the only appropriate thing to do, they said, especially at a city sponsored event. But in conversation with members of my church, some African-Americans who were on the event’s planning committee, I was told, “If you do that, we will feel betrayed! Dr. King was a Christian, a Baptist even. His faith was the rich soil from which his work grew. Even at this city-wide event we must celebrate his faith or we are being dishonest about his legacy. You must pray an explicitly Christian prayer.” Who would have imagined a prayer….just a prayer….could be fraught with so much danger! It is no simple thing to engage one another across faith differences.

When we step into the public sphere with our faith, I see two main approaches. One is the equivalent of “Nyah, nyah, nyah, nah, nah.” It says “We’ve got the truth. Jesus is the only way.” Theologians call that triumphalism. The notion that only Christians are acceptable to God has fueled much that is good. It is the energy behind evangelism and much of our missionary enterprise. It says, “we’ve got Good News!” But we can see the disastrous results of this conviction as well; the Crusades, the Holocaust, religious conflicts down through the centuries. With horror I read this week that Rod Parsley, pastor of Ohio’s most mega megachurch, the 12,000 member World Harvest Church in Columbus, is calling for the destruction of Islam. His book “Silent No More” is selling well. He also broadcasts to huge audiences, proclaiming that America can only “fulfill its divine purpose” by seeing to it that Islam “this false religion, is destroyed.” It is not just the extremists who claim Allah wants to destroy Christian civilization that he is out to eliminate. No, even the kind, moderate Muslims down the street, “mainstream believers in America drink from the same poisoned well” and must be eliminated.

We recoil in horror from such hatred. We rightly recognize it as the opposite of the way of Jesus, utterly un-Christian. When someone like Parsley tosses out “Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”, it is like a grenade and we run for cover. But the shelter we find is all too often in a non-committal stance: “Oh, there are many ways to God” …”all religious ideas are the same,” “it doesn’t matter what you believe.”

So we careen from “nyah, nyah” to a mamby-pamby, wishy-washy position that denies the core of our faith. If our only choices are triumphalism or indifference, I find myself praying “Lord Jesus, show us the way!” Because there must be another!

Look again at the story in John’s Gospel. It took place in the Upper Room on the night when Jesus was betrayed. Jesus had gathered around him his dearest friends….

the ones who had trailed after him through the countryside

the ones who had watched him heal and heard him preach

the ones with whom he had talked late into the night, praying and speaking of Holy things, of God

the ones who were there when the authorities turned from jealous to hostile….as things grew tense and dangerous.

It was this group of intimate friends to whom Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” It was not to the whole world that Jesus spoke that night, but to this little band of followers.

And John wrote his gospel for a small, struggling church, in a world that was a cacophony of competing religious claims. It was a little group trying to separate itself out from the synagogue, trying to establish their identity in the midst of pagan cults. It was for this little band of early Christians that John recounted this story. The heart of John’s gospel is that Jesus is the Word become flesh. Remember how it begins? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God….And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” In Jesus, the incarnate Word, we can see and know God in a way never possible before. In the coming of Jesus the relationship between God and humanity is forever changed. That’s John’s testimony. That’s John’s message. Jesus is so intimate with God that he calls him Father. No one had done that before! When we see Jesus we see God. They are in an embrace that cannot be severed.

So when John writes the story of that last night in the Upper Room, when he recounts the words of Jesus “I am the way…” essentially it means “The way to enter this intimacy that I share with God is by drawing close to me. That’s the way to do it.” Jesus is making a defining statement for this community, for his followers. The statement does draw a boundary. But it is not a boundary around God, for God is without limit. It draws a boundary around the Christian community. It says, “this is who we are. We are the people who believe in the God who has been revealed to us decisively in Jesus. To be in the circle of Jesus’ own, you must recognize Jesus for who he is: the Way, the Truth, the Life.” To be Christian is not to say “Oh, well, believe whatever.” To be Christian is to say “I have found the Way in Jesus.” This is what it means to be Christian. This passage does not answer the question “who gets to heaven?” It answers the question “who is a Christian?….

who is part of this community?….

and how does this community find God?”

We find God through Jesus.

How, then, do I take this testimony of Scripture into interfaith dialogue? I carry it as a badge, not a club. I fully, completely and proudly own who I am….a follower of Jesus. And I meet others who come fully, completely, proudly as Jews or Muslims. We come as distinct voices in a spirit of mutual respect and care. Otherwise there is no point in coming at all.

Finally, do we dare ask the question “who gets to heaven?…Who is accepted by God?” Yes, we can ask it. But we dare not presume to answer it. I am deeply grateful that that decision is not up to me. Tony Campolo says “Yes, Jesus said ‘No one comes to the Father except through me.’ But how can we presume to know who Jesus will bring to the Father?” We cannot. Only God himself knows that.

But I do know this:

That the God I meet in Jesus is a God of unstoppable love.

That the God I meet in Jesus is a God of unending mercy.

That the God I meet in Jesus is a God of grace beyond our imagining.

That the God I meet in Jesus surely knows a way to embrace all our neighbors.

The point of our dialogue on Tuesday is most definitely not deciding who gets into heaven. The point is to build relationships of trust. We build relationships of trust so we can live together as neighbors, and stand together in the face of the crucial tests of our day. I attended a missions conference this week at Lutheran School of Theology, Chicago. One of the speakers, a Catholic theologian, recounted how, as Serbia was descending into a bloodbath, that the leaders of each religious group spoke out against the violence. The Catholic bishop spoke to the Croates, the Orthodox patriarch spoke to the Serbs, and the Muslim leaders spoke to the Bosnians. But it didn’t make enough of a difference. They slaughtered each other anyway. But now, in the aftermath of that horrendous war, those leaders meet together. They are building with each other relationships of trust so that now, when they speak for peace and understanding, they speak together, with one voice. Now they are showing their people how living as neighbors is done. And now, whenever tensions rise again, they will be heard differently.

Here in Edgewater our purpose is the same. It is to show that we can be vibrantly, passionately, faithfully Protestant or Catholic or Muslim or Jew and still trust and love each other. It is to show that we can even admire what is beautiful in the other’s faith. And it is to lay the groundwork for speaking together on the crucial challenges that face us all. Even now we are making plans for a weekend next fall of joint interfaith action through all of Edgewater to address the scourge of gun violence.

Jesus said to his disciples, his dearest friends, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. If you would come to the Father, it must be through me.” This message is not for others. It is for us. For we cannot come to the Father by ourselves. On our own we are hopelessly lost. We need Jesus to show us the way.

Amen.

“Stay With Us” (Luke 24:13-35)

April 6, 2008 - Third Sunday of Easter

Rev. Carol McVetty

“Stay with us” they said to the mysterious stranger. “Stay with us, for it is evening, the night is falling.”

Evening is the weary time, isn’t it? The day that brimmed with bright possibility as it dawned all too often ends with grouchy, head-achy, grubby reality, only made worse by a packed CTA train or traffic jam on Lakeshore Drive. It is in the evening that little things get on our nerves. What went poorly that day plays over and over in one’s mind like a bad commercial. What’s left undone nags at us. It’s in the evening that we just want to curl up and be left alone….or escape into the lights and noise that will drown out the anxieties, the loneliness, the haunting emptiness.

“Stay with us” they urged him. For it is evening, the night is falling.

For Cleopas and his companion on that first Easter, evening was not just the time of day, it was their state of mind. The story they told the stranger on the Emmaus Road was as despondent as the one UCLA and North Carolina fans are telling this morning after last night’s losses in the NCAA basketball Final Four. It was a story of failure, a story of crushing defeat. “Where have you been this weekend?” they asked stranger. “Under a rock? Jesus, our teacher, was surely a man of God. Surely he was a prophet. The things he said and did were full of power. He was the One…the One who was going to deliver Israel from the Empire. We were sure of it. But our leaders betrayed him. They had him tortured and executed. It’s been three days now. The women came this morning with a crazy tale about how his body was gone from the tomb… and a vision of angels. But the others checked it out. No one has seen him. We thought he was the One. But now it’s all over.

Then Jesus took their story, blessed it, broke it, and gave it back to them. He blessed it by retelling it in the light of the long, long story of God’s loving action in the world.

It’s a story of God’s good and holy creation…our world.

It’s a story of people created with the capacity for mighty achievement and heroic good, but also with the freedom and mysterious tendency to choose evil..ordinary garden variety evil, or unimaginably horrendous evil.

It’s a story of God’s loving relationship with a particular people, Israel

how he brought them out of slavery in Egypt, through the wilderness, and into a promised land.

It’s a story of God’s loving patience when this beloved people went astray again again: ignoring God, dazzled by wealth, cheating the poor, exploiting the stranger.

Jesus blessed their story by telling it back to them in the context of the stories of Eve and Adam, Sarah and Abraham, Moses, David, Ruth, Isaiah and Jeremiah.

Then Jesus broke their story. He broke it open, showing them how his suffering was for us. “He was wounded for our transgressions.” Jesus explained to them how God works in the world…that failure. heartbreak. dead ends, aging bodies, even graves are the place where God steps in to make a new beginning.

Finally, Jesus gave their story back to them. And their hearts burned within them. Their hearts burned because they could hardly contain a story so vast and rich and wise. And now they understood how their ordinary little lives were a part of it. They begged him: “Stay with us.”

Yesterday a number of us gathered in Howel Hall to break bread together. Well, actually, since it was a Filipino feast there was only rice and noodles, no bread. But you get the idea. We ate together and told stories. It was a “despidida”. “What’s a despidida, and what should we wear to one?” were the burning questions around here last week. We learned that a despidida is a time to say farewell, and also a wonderful party. We said goodbye to Rudy, who is returning to the Philippines for a year, and a final goodbye to his wife Loretta, who died in December. The stories that were told could have been stories of despondency…a loved one going so far away for so long. They could have been stories of despair, in that a beloved wife and mother, little Nicholas’ dear lola (grandma) has left this world for good. But Jesus stayed with us. If, when two or three are gathered together in Christ name, he is there, then by golly 60 will do just fine. Jesus stayed with us. We gathered as family and friends, but with a keen awareness that we were also sisters and brothers in Christ. In addition to blessing the food at the tables, Jesus also took this family’s experience of saying goodbye, and blessed, and broke, and gave it back to them. So the tears were not tears of despair, but of blessed memory. And the stories of the family’s heritage were treasured and lifted up. The pictures of Loretta’s life were cherished and affirmed. And there were stories that looked, not back in grief and loss, but forward to a life of promise and meaning for Rudy as he returns to the Philippines. The spirit of Jesus brought about that transformation. Jesus stayed with us. Jesus drew that families’ story into the great, vast Gospel story of God’s redeeming work in our lives.

“Stay with us” the two disciples said to the stranger. Stay with us…for it is evening, and night is falling. They welcomed him in, as a guest in their home. But suddenly Jesus became the host. His seat became the head of the table. And he took the bread and blessed it, and broke it and gave it to them. And they could finally see! Their eyes were opened…”It’s Jesus! Stay with us!” But he was gone, as ephemeral, as fleeting as any of our glimpses of the Divine.

Today we gather around this table set with the bread and the cup. We invite Jesus to be our guest, but then, again, he becomes the host. We will take and bless and break and give bread, but it is his table, his bread. We do all this in the very presence of Christ.

I urge you, during Communion this morning, to let Jesus take and bless and break and give back to you the story of your life that you have brought with you today. For our lives are not just our own little drama of happiness and heartbreak, of anger and love, of work and success and failure. Years ago in Detroit I saw an overpass that had spray painted on it: WORK EAT DIE. Well, yes, there is a kind of flat two-dimensional truth there. But it is ultimately false. Because our lives are a part of a rich, flowing story…a story that began before time with our Creator’s vast and mighty love for his creation and each precious life within it. When we ask Jesus to stay with us, and to draw that story into our hearts, then it reads us, not the other way around. The story of God’s redemption reads and transforms the story we tell about our own lives.

Despair becomes hope

possession becomes gratitude

struggle becomes challenge

boredom becomes joy

aimlessness becomes purpose.

But Jesus can only reshape our lives and show us how they are a part of God’s great story, if we learn the story…if we listen to it. That’s why we put in the bulletin each week the texts for the coming Sunday, so you can read them and listen to them throughout the week. That’s why we offer so many different Bible studies. That’s why I suggested to you this morning that you reread the Scripture for the day here in worship while it is being read in Karen, so that it can sink into your heart. Then you give Jesus the opportunity to take your life story…

to take it, bless it, break it open, and give it back to you.

It is in prayerfully opening up the Scriptures and coming to this Table that we say:

“Stay with us, Lord Jesus,

stay with us.”

Amen.

UPDATE #5

Hello everyone,

Yesterday, Monday, was a day for disappointments. We were supposed to visit an IDP (internally displaced persons) village across the river in Burma during the afternoon. Duane told us the night before that we would not be going. The logistics were complicated, and the schedule so tight that it would be hard to get there and return before dark. I had very much wanted to observe the harsher conditions “on the inside” that all of our refugees have experienced at some point. The morning was set aside to observe cultural orientation classes in Mae La Camp for those ready to head to the US . When we arrived bright and early, we sat in our vans outside the main entrance…and sat and sat. Finally we were told the Thai guards were refusing us entrance. I suppose this too is part of the refugee experience. Lots of waiting, lots of disappointment, and no explanations. Instead, Duane took us to an IOM Processing Center where those applying for resettlement in the US come for medical tests and their Department of Homeland Security interview. We spent some informative time with the NGO (non-government organization) that cares for the families during the 4 or 5 days they stay at the center. I was happy to meet a young man who is headed for Chicago in March.

Today we headed south and up, up, up for several hours into the mountains to visit the Umpiem Camp. Our vans struggled in low gear through mountains as remote and rugged as any I have seen in West Virginia . Everything the 23,000 refugees at Umpiem need must come by truck over this same road. I learned that the two camps we are visiting are the only ones that can be reached without 4 wheel drive vehicles. The cool breezes we began to feel were most welcome after the oppressive heat of the valley.

This camp, like Mae La, is a world unto itself. Our visit began with a meeting with members of the Camp Committee , refugee leaders elected to run the internal affairs of the camp. As we wandered later on our own we encountered the Karen Youth Organization office, the Karen Women’s Organization, a high school, a hostel for orphans and children sent in from the IDP villages to go to school, and several churches. The trio I was with spotted the oversized shoes of some others of our group outside of a house. We removed our shoes to enter as well and were embraced by the hospitality of a Baptist pastor. His wife, a graduate of the Bible College in Mae La we visited on Sunday, teaches 9th grade at the high school. NGO’s may provide some funds for all these institutions, but they are created and run by the refugees themselves. Their initiative and organizational abilities are astounding, especially in the midst of so much privation. When asked what the most common problems of women are in the camp, the Women’s Organization leaders said “Securing enough food for their families.” The food rations are severely limited for reasons too complicated to explain here.

We left feeling again deeply moved by the gentle, gracious spirit of everyone we met. It was a day of immeasurable blessing.Tomorrow we begin to make our way back to Bangkok, and then home.

Grace and peace, Carol

UPDATE #4

Dear Friends and family,
We were divided into four small groups to visit churches in the Mae La Camp yesterday. Even Duane, our leader, did not know which of the several dozen churches the Karen leaders had chosen. As we drove along the road that runs parallel to the camp we could see waves of thatched bamboo huts clinging to the base of an immense, steep
mountainside. My group was dropped off at one spot on the roadside. A young man met us and immediately set off at a tremendous pace along a packed dirt path weaving its way among the little open houses. People were everywhere engaged in ordinary morning routines. The path went up and up, sometimes on log or stone steps. I felt like I was back in my summer camp days, but would have managed better if I had had on sneakers and jeans instead of a skirt and sandals. Before long I began to hear children’s’ voices singing in four part harmony. It was the Sunday school children at the church. We arrived and met the pastor and a young woman who introduced herself to me and asked my name. When I answered she asked “Do you know Taw Kaw Pah?” “Yes, she is a leader in my church.” I said. “I am Taw Kaw Pah’s friend.” In a camp of 50,000 I had landed at the Baw Naw Baptist Church , Taw Kaw Pah’s home church where PoeClee’s uncle is the pastor. Joyful introductions of relatives of those I know followed. It was a moving, joyful day for me, to preach about God’s reign of love, justice, peace and redemption to a packed bamboo church of people who know the reality of the absence and presence of these things acutely first hand. Later we visited the Bible School in the
camp and listened to the students sing gloriously. Seeing the steadfast faithfulness of the people in the camp, and looking into the faces of the young students, longing for a different future for their people through out that very long day was more than worth the sweaty hours on hard plastic chairs, the swollen ankles, and any number of visits to an Asian outhouse. Those who have been in rural Asia will know what I mean by “squatty potty”. The rest of you will have to use your imagination.

There is so much more to tell of that very full day, but it will have to wait until I get home.

Grace and peace, Carol

UPDATE #3

Dear Friends and Family,

We flew to Chaing Mai in a plane full of European tourists. I can understand why. It is a beautiful city at the edge of the mountains of northern Thailand . From here people go elephant trekking, white water rafting, and exploring in glorious National Parks. Someday I would love to return to do all that. For now, our tourist activity was limited to visits to the night market at the end of the day. It is a wonderland of crafts, jewelry, fabrics, and everything else from the bizarre to the mundane, at dirt cheap prices. But we saw things the tourists never see. Every day for the last three days we rode in vans from one ministry project to another. From AIDS prevention to preparing pastors for the ethnic villagers in the hills, training medical teams who enter the conflict zones of Burma to care for the Karen hiding in the jungles, and caring for AIDS orphans. Our missionaries here, and the other Christian workers we met, are brilliant, creative and amazingly effective in initiating projects that are then carried out by the local people.

One story will have to suffice. Our first evening in the night market a small group of us were eating dinner in an open air restaurant. Suddenly a tiny girl, no more than 6 was peering over the edge of the table. We gave her a piece of bread. Then she held up the flower necklaces she was selling. We bought one, and wondered about her story. No adult was in sight. Before the night was out we had seen easily a dozen of these little flower sellers. The next morning we visited ABC missionary Kim Brown and her four health related projects. One is House of Blessing, a preschool for ethnic minority children who live in a nearby slum. She said “These children are selling flowers all night in the night market and never go to school. After we enroll them in our day care and work with the families for a few months, most of them are no longer selling flowers. These darling children sang for us and crushed us with hugs. After 3 years of preschool, they have learned Thai and are ready to enter 1st grade. Doug notified us of the assassination of a Karen leader in the town of Mae Sot , where we will be spending the next few nights. Surely that is the Myanmar military’s retaliation for the earlier killing of the Karen leader defected to their side. We are in no danger. In spite of this hit, the Burma military is not free to roam the streets of Mae Sot in Thailand , and westerners are not a target. We leave momentarily for a 6 hour drive to the Mae La camp.

Grace and peace, Carol

UPDATE #2

Hello from Bangkok

After about 30 hours of travel (I think…jet lag doesn’t help my math skills any) I arrived safely at the Bangkok Christian Guest House.

Bangkok is a vibrant, intense, international city…in many ways familiar to a Chicagoan. We moved around to our appointments using the “sky train”, a newer, cleaner, smoother version of the El. Office workers scurry and school kids chatter and giggle just as they do in Chicago. But there is no doubt we are in Southeast Asia. Women scrub and sweep the sidewalks following a rain, half the vehicles on the streets are motorbikes, market stalls and even entire restaurants sprout on the sidewalks after dark, and along the sois (lanes) the distinction between inside and outside is blurred. In order to visit one ministry located in a multi-story town house, we walked through a laundry operating out of what would have been the garage, completely lacking a front wall.

The international aid agencies we visited gave us precisely the information I need to better understand the Karen refugees arriving at our church. They painted a picture of the Myanmar regime’s “development plans” that seemed as bizarre and brilliantly diabolical as those of the Kmer Rouge in Cambodia in the 1980’s, even if their fatality rate in not as high. The Myanmar military are using forced labor and evacuation of villages to gain control of the rich resources found in the ethnic areas, including Karen State. The result is a nation some have called “the world’s largest concentration camp.” I left thinking “How long, O Lord, how long?” This violent oppression of the Karen people has been going on for decades, sending them over the border into Thailand by the thousands. The bright spot in those visits was meeting people from all over the world dedicated to feeding and clothing the refugees , and slogging through the bureaucracy necessary to resettle them.

The second day we visited Night Light, a ministry founded by Annie Dieselburg, an American Baptist missionary. She is a visionary dynamo who has taken on the global sex trade in her corner of Bangkok. Night Light offers employment in jewelry making for 70 former bar girls. They are welcomed into a community of love (similar to Samaritana’s in Manilla) that works holistically to mend their brokenness. Some of us had commented on the intense presence of advertising in Bangkok, even more so than in the US (though I wouldn’t have imagined that was possible.) High rise buildings are turned entirely into giant billboards, video ads play on monitors on the skytrain, and so on. After visiting Night Light we discussed the impact of social norms by which everything is for sale making it easier to sell women as entertainment. It is not surprising that Bangkok is the world capitol of sex tourism. But it is a difference in degree, not in kind, to what happens at home and elsewhere around the world. On that cheery note I close. We are off to Chaing Mai in the north.

Grace and peace, Carol

UPDATE #1

Dear Friends, family and church folks,

Sandals…check. Sermon….check.

Anti-malaria medication…check.

It’s packing time for my flight tomorrow to Thailand . I am going with a group of American Baptist leaders and pastors to deepen our connections with Karen Baptists from both Thailand and Burma . We will especially be learning about the Karen people and the refugee to resettlement process they are experiencing. The Karen brothers and sisters at North Shore (refugees from Burma/Myanmar) are very excited for me to see their former homes, schools and churches, and have sent me off with fervent prayers.

As I complete my trip preparations, my incredible excitement is tempered with a bit of sadness. We received word a few days ago that due to changes in the political situation, we would not be able to sleep in the Mae La Camp during our 3 day visit there, but would stay in the nearby town of Mae Sot . That’s disappointing, as evening is a good time for casual conversation, and I was looking forward to the deeper experience of camp life that spending the night affords. But I am more sad after hearing from one of our Karen leaders the details of the new reality. Some years ago an important commander in the armed Karen resistance was enticed by promises of wealth and power to join the Myanmar military forces in fighting against his own people. His defection divided the Karen army. On February 3 this leader was assassinated. Those responsible remain at large, but the Myanmar military blames the Karen people and have threatened retaliatory attacks against the Mae La Camp. Such attacks, more common in the summer months, have always been repelled by the camp security guards. But obviously those responsible for our group are concerned about the heightened risk. What saddens me is that there are 50,000 other people in that camp who don’t have the choice to sleep someplace where it is more safe.

I hope to send a few updates during my 11 days in Thailand . I do not know how much computer access I will have. Any updates I do send will also be posted on North Shore ’s website, www.northshorebaptist.org

When asked “What do I need to know before I go to Thailand ?” the first thing my Karen friends said was: “You don’t need your coat.” So wish me well as I leave Chicago ’s snow and cold for a sunnier, warmer place!

Grace and peace, Carol