The Journey Home

I just finished Henri Nouwen's book, The Return of the Prodigal Son. As I read through this book I was impressed with not only how much of my own story fits into this parable and painting, but how much the journey to return home to the Father appears in other stories and scriptures. I realized that we rarely give this parable justice, lumping into the tales of why sinners turning back to Jesus is a good thing but this parable means so much more than that.

So because of that I am going to be writing a lot more about how the Prodigal Son narrative plays out in where I see Jesus move in the lives of students on campus and my own life.

What stands out most to me in this book is Nouwen's analysis of the elder son and stating the son's lostness. At Urbana 12, Ram Sridharan stated that elder son mistook proximity to the father for intimacy with the father. As I read throughout the book and saw the desperate lostness of an elder son who was by the father the whole time I see myself as one easily caught up in resentment and bitterness that I never felt I could "run away" and have wild escapades. I was responsible, the good child in my own family and in my Christian family. But here the Father ceases to become a father and becomes a slave driver where instead of joy, the elder son is filled with anger and resentment for never being "good enough" to be celebrated.

"Here I see how lost the elder son is. He has become a foreigner in his own house. True communion is gone. Every relationship is pervaded by darkness... There is no longer any trust. Each little move calls for a counter move  each little remark begs for analysis; the smallest gesture has to be evaluated. This is the pathology of the darkness. Is there a way out? I don't think there is - at least not on my side. It often seems that the more I try to disentangle myself from the darkness, the darker it becomes. It need light, but that light has to conquer my darkness, and that I cannot bring about myself. I cannot forgive myself. I cannot make myself feel loved. By myself I cannot leave the land of my anger. I cannot bring myself nor can I create communion on my own. I can desire it, hope for it, wait for it, yes, pray for it. But my true freedom I cannot fabricate for myself. That must be given to me. I am lost. I must be found and brought home by the shepherd who goes out to me."

What was so profound about the elder son is he has yet to understand how truly lost he is. That is what we see from the younger son. He realizes his lostness and comes home, where he know he will be found. But until the elder son sees his lostness, sees his life in darkness, he can never be found.

In many ways this transition out of college has been my journey home. There are times when I was the younger son - indulging in my own desires and leaving the promise of home. Most of the time I have been the elder son, working hard and expecting praise for every little thing I do. Expecting that my work, my effort, my love should be constantly noticed, reciprocated, and appreciated. But so little do I see my own lostness in that - lost in a world of desired praise without having ever set foot outside the door. This transition has been an invitation from Jesus into trust and gratitude, neither of which I'm natural at (although I would say it's not natural for most humans to be constantly trusting and grateful). Without trust, we cannot be found because we have to trust that the Father actually wants us home, we are important enough to be found. Without gratitude we become buried in resentment and joy becomes almost impossible. We can longer celebrate with those who are found again and feel we have not been given what we deserve.

As I continue on this journey of returning home to the Father, I now carry with me the difficult disciplines of trust and gratitude. We will see how this journey continues to unfold.

Urbana 12 via a Bookstore Employee

As you may have heard, I recently attended a huge missions conference in St. Louis, MO known as Urbana 12. I went three years ago in 2009 and both conferences had a profound affect on my life. Back in 2009 I was anxiously awaiting an answer to the question "What will I do when I graduate?" I got one phrase - "Return to Fresno." And while I grossly misinterpreted that to mean moving to Fresno full time (which I didn't), I did find myself on staff for a Urban summer project in Fresno and then returning to get my teaching credential. A lot of things happened in my life because of Urbana 09, and I can only assume the same will happen for Urbana 12. But I don't know what God will do as a result of Urbana 12, and so I thought I would share what I am processing.

I tend to be very experiential so while the sessions were amazing (and you can see them here), I probably learned more from my experiences at Urbana 12 than any of the general sessions. First let me tell you what I did while I was there. Since I was serving as a staff at the conference, I did not have the freedom to do what I liked all the time. I worked in the bookstore stock room, making sure the bookstore looked clean, that there were always enough books on the shelves, and keeping track of when books sold out. I worked mostly from 1:00-6:30 (and was sadly unable to go to any of the seminars) with meetings in the morning. I was able to attend most of the general sessions and spend some time with my students.

I was surprised how difficult it was to serve in this role for several reasons. One it was very psychically taxing. I was on my feet for at least seven hours a day at work (not to mention all the walking to and from places) and while I was working around a lot of people, the lack of direct interaction wore the extrovert in me out completely. It was also interesting to be in a working position where you weren't sure if people were supposed to interact with you. Most people who walked through the bookstore tended to ignore the stock room employees not out of spite but so they wouldn't be in the way. They also had the cashiers to interact with and the book information table to ask their questions. We were there to keep the place running smoothly and sometimes it meant staying out of the way.

It was also difficult because I felt I was missing out on a lot. When I was a student in Urbana 09, I was directly apart of the whole Urbana experience, processing with my friends and maybe even being a little annoying at some points (I was still learning how to process around introverts at the time). But this time I felt distant from my students - who were soaking up their own Urbana experience, who had each other to process with, and I was limited by my work hours and my exhaustion. There were moments when I felt as I reached out to students, I could only go so far and they were already taken care. It was hard for me, for someone who had spent an entire semester trying to take care of them, feeling like I was unable to do so at this conference for a large variety of reasons.

So what did I learn while I was there? Well four things stuck out about my experience at Urbana 12 (not including the amazing sessions I was able to be a part of).

1. Sometimes ministry is about getting on your knees and pulling books out of boxes. Ministry is not always the glorified view we paint it to be. There is a lot of hard work involved and sometimes we don't get noticed for the hard work we do - and many times we shouldn't. We live in a culture where we constantly need to be praised for every good work that is done (I'm a frequent member of wanting to be in that club) and sometimes we just need to do the work that God has called us, not to get notice or praise but because God has called us. That week, God called me to serve in the book store stock room. No, it was not glorious or fancy (and sometimes not fun) but it was necessary to help students have the full experience of Urbana 12. Will I see how my efforts somehow affected God's Kingdom - no I will not. But I can see how working here affected me and that is more than good enough.

2. Jesus meets people's needs, not me. This was probably the harder lesson I learned while at Urbana. After working with a ministry that had not had staff, I got used to the idea that I was "needed" around that fellowship. And yes, staff were needed there but ultimately it Jesus who meets their spiritual and physical needs much better than I could ever attempt. As I longed to meet the spiritual needs of my students - to help them process, to join in their experience of Urbana 12, Jesus telling me to let him meet the needs of my students. This doesn't mean I back off or get lazy because sometimes Jesus meets people's needs by using his servants to do something. And even if Jesus is meeting people's needs through me - I let Jesus be in control of the process. It changes how I respond and even initiate with my students, keeping Jesus at the center rather than myself.

3. My self-worth and value is not linked to how often people want to process with me. This is a hard lesson that I keep having to re-learn. Since the best way that I experience love from other people is quality time, I tend to view their time spent with me as an extension of their love. When it comes to ministry, I can be tempted to think that students care for me and trust me when they want to process their experiences with me and tend to be apathetic about me when they would rather process with others. This got challenged simply by my lack of availability  I was not around as often to process and experience the conference with my students so they would go to others rather than to me. Also Urbana is a hectic conference (really even that feels like an understatement) and so to process anything while you are there is only done by the extreme processors (like myself - but even I didn't do it this time). It is an ongoing lesson that was brought to the light when I came home as I tried to interact with my students about their experiences and felt like they had other places to go and process. It was hard to admit that I once again tied my value as a staff worker with how much people seek me out. But here they can seek out each other and seek out Jesus and once again challenging how easy it is for me to feel I have to be at the center.

4. A call is not felt, it is heard. This was big for me. When Tom Lin, the Urbana director gave an invitation to partake in God's cross-cultural and global mission - three years ago I was waiting for the magic spark. I was waiting for the gooey feeling inside that I knew this was right. Little did I know that God was trying to tell me for years to just partake anyway, that he was calling me to partner with someone great for something great. This year, as I sat in my seat, I knew that God was calling me to just say yes - that he would figure out the rest and let me know of the small steps I needed to take. I didn't have to wait for a gooey feeling inside to partake in his mission but I knew that's just what I wanted to do with my life long term. So I said yes. Don't know what will happen next but I know that God is faithful to lead me and prepare me for where he wants me to go.

It feels like a lot when I put it in writing, and maybe it was long overdue but now I must review my notes and watch the videos to see what God was teaching me through the content of Urbana, not just my experiences.

Snarf's

I have found a sandwich shop I like almost as much as High Street Deli (no one can ever replace them as number 1 in my heart). The one problem is that it is located in St. Louis. Even farther away than SLO. Seriously world? What's so hard about finding one in Los Angeles I really like? I'm too picky for my own good. Well here is new place number 1 I visited while in St. Louis for Urbana 12. 

Urbana 12

Every three years, InterVarsity USA and Inter-Varsity Canada put on a mission conference known as Urbana. I attended in 2009 and was privileged to attend Urbana 12 this year. There are so many things to be said about the conference, and I'm sure I will be reflecting on them more as the month rolls on but here are my top highlights.

- Hearing a talk given in Spanish
- Being challenged and grown in unexpected ways
- Hearing an African man be the first to give the primary scripture exposition for the conference




- Worshiping in 4 different languages at once
- Singing in Hindi for the first time
- Watching a Chinese student light up when we sang in Mandarin
- Seeing my students sing in new languages




- Seeing over 200 people make heart commitments for Jesus (98 of them for the first time)
- Seeing my students wrestle with hard questions and make radical commitments for God's global mission
- Watching 7 CSUN students commitment to long term cross-cultural and global mission



- Students joining-in and making 32,000 AIDS caregiver kits instead of a hearing a speaker
- Having 15 CSUN students attend the conference (that is 25% of our fellowship)
- Re-uniting with old friends and making new ones

Ringing in the new year with 16,000 of my brothers and sisters 

*pictures from urbana.org

Rest

Hello from Urbana 12. There are so many things to say and I will get to them when I come home.

But for now I want to talk about rest. Did you ever notice how difficult to rest it is? Especially in ministry. We are always going, doing, loving, taking care of constant flow of demands, needs, and problems. With so many people around us that are in great need of our love, resources, and to hear the news of the kingdom how can we ever justify sleeping let alone resting. We can almost never say "no" to things for the mission is too great.

But if we do not take care of our own souls we will burn out, become bitter, and resent the very passion God implanted in us to begin with. For even Jesus rested. Multiple times in scripture it said Jesus went to a quiet place to pray. But what about the hungry, the poor, the sick, the lame, the hurting, and those who need you Jesus? How will your resting help them?

I believe Jesus knew that he needed space to rest and be with his father otherwise his ministry would suffer. Otherwise he would burn out. Rest is crucial to ministry for it is crucial to our soul. And that often means we must say no to something.

Tonight at Urbana they were doing amazing join-in session - building 32,000 AIDS caregiver kits for Swaziland. What a way to practically serve others at this conference. But an hour before it started, I was exhausted - tired and impatient. My soul was being stretched to its limit but how could I say to no to helping those in greater need than my own. Wasn't this just my own weakness I needed to overcome? Power through? Ignore it?

No. Not this time. God called me to pull away, to retreat, to say no. "Let someone else build a kit - there are 16,000 people who can do it too you know. You need rest for you soul or your ministry will suffer." So perhaps I missed a great opportunity to be a part of something amazing. But perhaps by resting in God's presence alone, I was given the strength to keep pressing on - to see with new eyes and have a continual soft heart.

Because sometimes it is just as important to pull away and rest as it is to jump up and act.

Generosity and Faithfulness (30 Days of Gratitude)

Today I am thankful that God provides in fundraising. This is an Urbana year, where students from all over the country will be head to St. Louis to learn about God's heart for the cities, the poor, the world, and for mission. We have 15 CSUN students going, which is pretty amazing.

But fundraising has been difficult. I come from Cal Poly, a large fellowship, where we have a specific way of doing fundraising - we rely on big events such as dance parties, potluck dinners, t-shirt fundraisers, etc. Since we have such a large base to get people to participate this, and a wealthier community they all work very well. Let's face it, they have not been working well at CSUN. I attempted to do a t-shirt fundraiser and it was like pulling teeth to get people to participate. A lot of work for not a lot of money.

So I felt God asking me to keep it simple, just ask for the funds. I took two students with me, Mark and Jenel, to my home church Lake Ave to ask a one small group to support us as we head to Urbana in about a month. I didn't give either Mark or Jenel much explanation but they remained faithful, sharing why they wanted to go. I don't think people in the small group were moved by their stories as much as they were moved by the spirit to give.

After making a 10 minute or less announcements, and staying afterwards to talk, we raised $650. I was amazed and blown away by God's provision, in what seemed like no effort. But it wasn't me, or even my students who somehow convinced people to give to us, it was the Lord, who worked in the hearts of people to give so that 15 students may learn more God's heart for the world.