For I have "tasted" the sweet Words of our God, and "seen" the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.. (Psalm 119:102-104, Psalm 27:11-14, Psalm 34:8)
Once you've "Tasted and Seen" the goodness of the living God, it's hard to not tell of the things you know to be true.
I work with CRU (a Christian Ministry on College Campuses) integrating and encouraging Deaf students as they encounter God in their native language - ASL. :)
Sorry for the delay - I've not had access to internet for the past 3 days, so here's "FrienDay FriDay" 2 days late ;)
Here in New Jersey - they like stop lights - lots of them.. See for yourself - I've numbered them for you..
The even odder thing is that stop light #2 and #9 are null and void - because it's a ONE WAY street, with cars going "up" (notice the parked cars?) the street.. *shakes head* The only thing I can figure is that a policy maker had OCD and thought it better "safe than sorry" when it came to stop lights.. or that the inmates needed something to do.. *shrugs* *laughs* Soli Deo Gloria, Friends! :D
Lost things found: The last week of June, I was running - literally - to the store to pick up some things that I needed to make breakfast. Wearing a reusable shopping bag like a backpack, I jogged the 5 blocks to SuperFresh, the local grocery chain.. 2 blocks away, I found 3 school ID cards - all of the same teacher - scattered on the sidewalk.. The school was closed with no one around, thus, dropping the cards in my bag, I continued on to my destination. As I unloaded my groceries back at place, I took the cards out and laid them on the entry table (if you knew how small my apt is - you'd laugh at this "entry table" that doubles as a chest of drawers for my roommate and triples as an end table for the couch. It's great at multi-tasking *laughs*). "I'll get an envelope and drop those back at the school on Monday" I thought.. then my friend came, and life happened, and I promptly forgot about them. Until 2 weeks ago.. (yeah, 3 weeks later, oops!) While tidying up our small lil space, I saw them again - and since I had an errand to run - I drove by the school on my way. The 2 adults standing in the fenced in playground looked more like they were in charge of day-care than school, but I stopped asking if they knew the teacher listed on the ID's. They did! "She's been looking everywhere for these" one of them said. "She'll be glad to have them back." *yay* Rewind to last year - sorta same situation, but this time with keys.. For the first 5 weeks of Project, I lived in a condo - the kind where people come and go on a weekly basis. I found the key ring in the dirt under a bush.. We checked the 5 key, to see if we could figure out which condo they fit. We looked for a car that matched the make of the 2 different ignition keys - no dice. So - I put them in my car, in hopes to figure out a way to ID them.. But the summer got busy, and there they sat.. All the way home with me they eventually went.. The key ring included 3 loyalty cards: Baby's R Us, ShopRite (local NJ grocery) and American Eagle. I tried Baby's R Us - but they wouldn't give me any information on the card holder.. I figured A&E would be the same. The keys made it back to Wildwood with me this summer. Since ShopRite has more of a local/renter mentality, I figured they might be a bit more understanding. Today I went to customer service, and they were able to call the customer and let them know that their keys were turned in and where they could come retrieve them.. *double yay*
Lost things found.. Found things returned.. Of course these musings are always going to turn Spiritual - as how can I not connect this to something deeper ;) As I think about "lost" and "returned" - I can't help but wonder how this correlates to people.. One of Cru's mission statements is "to turn lost students into Christ-centered laborers". "Lost" students.. Lost people.. People who have not "returned" to their Savior.. On Saturday, the students on Project put on a free cook-out for the locals. Many international students come to Wildwood to work for the summer, thus most of the attendees were not from America. Because I have a *wonderful team* of Interpreters this year, I ended up stepping out of my "interpreter role" and getting into a conversation with a guy from Serbia named "George" (pronounced "Geor-Jeh"). He was raised in an Orthodox tradition, but admitted that religion didn't mean much to him - since he had studied many different religions - and now considered himself an atheist. We had a great convo - one in which we bounced from spiritual topic to national specific topics and back - everything was fair game. If you know me, you know that I like discussing theological things, and so when he brought up the idea of "losing his faith" in the God of Bible - it caught me up in a ponderment..
This idea of "lost vs. misplaced" .. and how - from the perspective of the Card-holder and the key-owners, their item was "lost".. when really it was "found, waiting to be returned".. which brings me to the concept of "already but not yet".. in that it was "already found but not yet returned".. Spiritually speaking - it causes me to wonder - Can someone "misplace their trust" in God? annnd - if not - then the process of questioning God - like the season of life George is in - could it be classified as an "already but not yet" kind of thing? As the students on Project live in the tension of "stepping out in faith to share the Gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results up to God" how much of a persons life is an "already but not yet" child of God? Is it like the "already but not yet" process of sanctification - being saved by Jesus' sacrifice that covers us once and for all, but daily working out that salvation to become more like Christ? Do these things even correlate? I'm glad it is the Lord that searches the hearts of men and not I - as I it is something my finite mind struggles to grasp.. However, these concepts are comforting to me. Especially "already but not yet".. Below is a song is called "Desert Song" by Hillsong (lot's of "songs" in that sentence).. It wrestles with some of the things I've been mulling over recently..
"When triumph is still on it's way.." meaning in the midst of the battle - when the victory has not yet been won.. when the winning seems lost.. or not yet found.. "All of my life, in every season.." when the plans seem to be working out in a different way than I anticipate.. when blue prints seem to be misplaced.. lost under a stack of papers.. "You are still God.. I have a reason to worship.." and maybe it's a process - of being "lost.. and then returned.." or the conundrum of being "already but not yet" that I find comfort - and Hope - in. Thus - "I will rejoice, I will declare - [no matter what stage of the battle I'm in] God is my victory and He is here.."
Today, Peter (or Peet's as he has become known to us) flew back home.. He's in the air somewhere over the mid-west as I type this..
Before we watched him wade through the security line at the airport, we (Cory, Cara and I) took a moment to pray for our now dear friend that we meet just 6 weeks ago. He was a great help to us in the interpreting department, and could be counted upon to add a soundtrack to our times together while we did interpreter development for he and Cara (our Interns) or just hung out while we formed our own "Interpreter Community" here on Project.
Covering Peets in Prayer :)
Remember: don't be sad it's over, be happy it happened!We'll miss you, Peets - So glad God brought you out to Wildwood, NJ to hang out with us for the past month and a half. Yay for new and dear friends! Soli Deo Gloria, Friend :D
I realize that my "Tuesday's Tidbit's" have fallen by the wayside.. I've just been stuck as to what to post under that category.. my brains been uncreative as of recent, I guess.. Thus I've decided to start "[what]Sup, Wednesday?" as a place where I can give weekly updates abt how day to day life is going here in Wildwood, New Jersey. To start out, here are some things happening in the near future.. Schedule: - Peter leaves on Friday - Cory and I out of town next weekend - Auzy comes in August Peter has been here for the past 6 weeks, working as an "Intern Interpreter" under Cory (who has been a part of the last 2 Summer Projects, and is serving as a Lead Interpreter with me the whole summer.) It's been a blessing to have "Peets" (as we've been calling him) here to help out with the interpreting needs. Cara (the other Intern) has been here for the last 3 weeks - so having 4 interpreters to share the responsibility with has been a little slice of heaven! We (Cory, Cara and I) will be sad when he leaves. Speaking of Cory and I being the "Lead Terp's", some friends of ours (a couple from last summer's Project) are getting married next Friday about 5 hours from here. We'll be driving up to Boston on Friday for the wedding - meaning I'm in the process of trying to figure out if I need to bring in some other Interpreters to help Cara cover the needs of the weekend, or if things will be "chill" enough that she can manage the few things on the calendar by herself.. Prayers for *wisdom* and *provision* would be appreciated :) Lastly, Auzy - my boyfriend who lives in Honduras currently - is coming to visit the first week of August.. which, consequently, is the last week of Project. He'll be my road-trip buddy home, and then stay a while and meet my family :) I'm trying to get details and plans established now, so that when he's here, we can just enjoy the last few days of Project. I've not seen him in person since April 29th.. so needless to say - I'm pretty stoked that he's coming! *Please be praying for him, his travels and his work load - as he'll be in the states for a month total, so he's trying to leave things for his students/a sub to do while he's gone* :) Finances: Yesterday, I spent 7 hours devoting time to "office hours". Being that I wear many hats here on Project - annnnd that I am not the most skilled at (nor do I enjoy) money and math things, I tend to avoid them at all cost! (pun intended) That being said, here's where I am sitting currently.. Project (and Cru in general) likes to use terms like "low on support" and "fully funded" to describe where they are financially. While I am *Super Grateful* that I am not low on support -{thanks to you who have donated monetarily!}- I am also not fully funded. It is a little hard for me to say that concretely, as I don't have a good sense of numbers, and so the money I do have seems to be covering the interpreter needs that I've had thus far. And I trust that God knows the need (what the final balance will be) and He will prompt you to give in order to make that happen. However, when my Dad (who is very skilled with numbers and budgeting) and I sat down back in May and came up with a working budget the number was right around $18,000. So when I say "fully funded" - that's where I am aiming.. I am currently sitting at $13,736 that has been raised so far. If you would like to contribute to helping me get to a fully funded status, please visit my donor page on Cru's website, and follow the prompts.. THANK YOU in advance for helping to further the cause of Christ by financially supporting this ministry! I think that wraps up "[what]Sup, Wednesday?" for now. I'll be back with more fun "deet's" (as these college students say - it's an abbreviated form of details) ;) next week! Thanks for tuning in and reading through "[what]Sup." Appreciate your prayers! Soli Deo Gloria :D
Starting at the 4th of July, every Friday at 10pm until Labor day, they shoot off fireworks here at the Beach.. being that I live 4 blocks from the beach.. they are visible (and able to be heard and felt) from my apartment.. My cat's not toooo thrilled about it, but it is a fun visual to walk out into the street and see this..
"oh, those Wildwood days.. wild, wild, Wildwood days.." (it's a song..)
Back in May, on way out to the South Jersey shore, my sister and I spent 2 days in D.C. The second day there, we took the Metro and a Bus to meet up with a friend for dinner. We started out in a town north of D.C and ended up pretty far west - past the Virginia border.. It took over an hour and a 1/2 to get from point A to point B (including a short backtrack from my minor glitch in reading the subway map - but that's neither here nor there). Had I been driving - in Oklahoma - from point A to point B it would have taken 30 mins max - but driving out here would have been pretty comparable time-wise, so we opted for public transportation. The thing that struck me as *funny* was how I viewed this concept of time. As I rode home alone on the metro (after sending my sister home on her first solo flight - she rocked it, btw) I found myself not minding the hour transit at all.. mainly because there were soooo many things to observe on the subway - people watching, advertisements in the train car, watching the scenery outside.. but if I had been back in Oklahoma, and had hit traffic and been stuck in the car for an hour trying to get somewhere that would have taken 20 mins, I'd'a been frustrated, annoyed and all around fed up with the situation.
I've always struggled with this concept of time- I have no time estimation.. can't guess how long I've been sitting here typing/editing this.. have no grasp of incidental time management.. To cope with this, I try to plan out time to the minute.. but since numbers are not my friends - and time is in numbers - we often don't get along. That being said, this concept of time spent on the train --> an hour of time I would generally call "wasted" became just another part of the "journey home".. I, in a sense, was able to take time out of the equation, and just use it as a part of the trip. I no longer saw it as a confining regulation..
In tying into my last Monday's Musings about beauty, a verse in Ecclesiastes comes to mind. Chapter 3 verse 11 starts off saying "[God] has made everything appropriate {or beautiful} in its time.." This correlation of "appropriate" and beautiful caught me as most translations say beautiful but the HCSB says appropriate.. which brought me to the reality of the place I find myself here in Wildwood..
Most of you know that my story pertaining to Interpreting and Summer Projects really started back in 2007. It is a messy, fumbling in the dark kind of story.. The kind that says "how can something beautiful ever come out of this?" The kind that resigns itself to accept "that was a great dream, but that's all it'll ever be.. a dream". So I left the dream in broken pieces on the ground and walked away.. But God has His ways.. and in 2010 God's timing became "appropriate" and brought the redemption of that dream to me. One Deaf student. One main Interpreter. One FULL summer of accessibility - of Hearing and Deaf students getting to know each other.. of building relationships and healing past wounds that had been left unattended.
Then in 2011 God continued to bring the restoration of that dream. Two Deaf individuals. Many short term team Interpreters. The First Deaf individual to be Student Staff. More Hearing and Deaf bridges being built. More opportunities to tear down the barriers of language and culture that separate my 2 worlds (Deaf and Hearing)..
Now - 2012 - I find myself beginning to see the reality of that dream becoming a flourishing training ground for Deaf college students. THREE Deaf individuals. The first Deaf "volunteer-staff" role. FOUR long term interpreters with a network of short term interpreting teams. A place that embraces the differences and promotes accessibility and ownership of responsibility regardless of background or culture or language..
I mentioned that last year(to my knowledge) the first Deaf "Student Staff" [Intern] was on a Summer Project. This year (again, to my knowledge) the First Deaf student has been assigned a "Student-Director Team" leadership role.. After the first 5 weeks of Project, the Staff leave and turn over the Project to the students to run everything. The easiest way to explain it would be: A team of 6 directors are chosen, and then a tier of bible study leaders are established, and then the rest of the students are assigned tasks under different activity headings after that..
and the male Deaf student - Dakota - was chosen to be one of those 6 director roles!!
The thing that struck me out of the last 5 years.. is that God's timing has been soooo appropriate.. As much as I was tempted to look at 2007 and call it wasted time - it was necessary to arrive at this place.. 2010, 2011 were all beneficial to pave the way for now in 2012 - and the ability to facilitate (the interpreting needs) of a qualified and equipped Deaf student to lead other Hearing students in this kind of setting couldn't have happened without the prior years..
Beautiful = Appropriate = Beauty full!
Here's to resting in *His* timing and allowing time to be the tool that leads to "appropriate" fulfillment of dreams and not the restriction of dreams.. Soli Deo Gloria :D
The 20 or so Cru Staff members - that are an integral part of establishing the baseline for the students to spring board off of for the next 5 weeks - left this morning.. Now it's up to the 60 college students to run the meetings, plan the outreaches, and keep the Project going.. :)
Here is a fun lil' video from just before our Project picture was taken and one of the Staff's kids was providing entertainment to all of us as we crammed ourselves into a small space to document this years faces :)
(Deafies - If the one above is too artistic and doesn't make sense - try this one.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO_19J6rJQk) The lyrics of the chorus above popped up in my thoughts yesterday.. so I decided to look up the video to see what the whole song says.. it's interesting, how it coincided with one of the talks that the Female Project Director, Lori, gave on Sunday afternoon. She spoke about how women were made as an incarnate Beauty - the crown of God's creation. There are 6 things she borrowed from the book Captivating, that she said beauty does: Beauty -Speaks (It says "all shall be well") - Invites - Nourishes (feeds, encourages growth) - Comforts (provides rest) - Inspires - Is Transcendent (more than skin deep, calls us to long for more, and reminds us we were made for another place) and she challenged these college student girls on Summer Project to think through ways that they are embracing this kind of beauty that the Lord has given them. She also encouraged them to see which kinds of beauty they struggled to display - and to ask the Lord, in his Goodness, to grow them in that area.. That was Sunday afternoon.. Sunday morning, as we gathered for the last "Project Church" before the Staff team leaves on the 6th, and all responsibilities of the Project are handed over to the students, Dave (the Male Summer Project Director) challenged the students with the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 (mostly from the version in Matthew).. He took an interesting approach though, and set the stage that is often over looked. He reminded the students that Jesus has just been informed that John the Baptist (Jesus's cousin, most likely a friend) has been put to death. The disciples have just gotten back from their first "mission trips" and are excited, and yet most likely exhausted. Taking all this in, Jesus says that he's going to go to a "desolate place" and has his disciples come with him. And as the crowd of people see Jesus depart in the boat on the lake, they begin to follow him on land - arriving to his destination (of anticipated respite for him) before he does.. And Dave then posed the question - "When life presses in on us, our character is the first thing that gets squeezed out.. What do we see squeezed out of Jesus as he's feeling broken (due to the loss of his cousin/friend/co-laborer) and exhausted (from the disciples needing encouragement after their small missions excursions)?" We see that he 'meets the needs of those present'.. He has compassion.. He tends to them like a good shepherd.. Then Dave asked the students to contemplate, as they are 5 weeks into Project, what is being "pressed out" as they are feeling the "squeeze" of the demands of Project.. It can be hard to process the message for myself as I'm interpreting.. and while I have a wonderful team in Cory, even in the "off" seat as the "back up terp" it is still hard to disengage from the interpreting process. However, this message was similar to the one he gave as a farewell charge to the students last year. Which - consequently - makes it easier for me to maintain more of the message.. annnd for the Lord to convict me about things from the talk.. "What is pressed out of me when I am squeezed by circumstance?" Beauty? or un-beauty.. (otherwise known as ugly..) ;) It takes me to a blog entry that I read last year: "We sit broken and I choke out the ugly words, words that have been there but I have been too appalled to voice.. We sit long and spill the ugly, inadequate tears and we let His light fill up the holes." - here Katie Davis articulates what I often feel here on Project.. I'd like to say "beauty" is what is pressed out of me.. but I know that inwardly that's not the case - especially here on Project. So much ugly - selfishness mostly, vain glory, pain and complaining - comes up in me.. and while I try to suppress it, I'm grateful for it at the same time.. Thus, I'll close with this - the lyrics of the song bring me a muse to meditate on.. "You make beautiful things out of the dust.. You make BEAUTIFUL things out of US".. *But thanks be to God who delivers us from the ugly, and makes us beautiful*!
That's all I gots.. Thanks for hanging with me.. Soli Deo Gloria :D
