Reverse Mission: Real Mission Partnership Creates Opportunities to Flip the Script of Hospitality and Service

This past summer, we were in the backyard of Marlon and Diana's Guaimaca home when I experienced one of the more precious demonstrations of hospitality. The youth and leaders from our church were invited to lunch in their garden as Marlon and Diana's young son walked by me with his t-shirt curled into a pouch filled with fresh-picked starfruit. With eyes wide and grin even wider, Marlonito approached the table and unfolded the bottom of his shirt as starfruit rolled across and off the foldout tables. Our young host remembered from the previous summer how much his American friends enjoyed picking from their trees and tasting the best of Honduras' produce, so he was more than prepared for our visit this time around.

Hospitality and welcome was offered by the next generation of missional partnership.

Then there was last Monday. The dream had been realized of reversing mission and welcoming our friends from Honduras into our community as we were gathered in my living room. While we were chatting about this growing partnership, my son and daughter desperately wanted to take all of us out and show our guests around their stomping grounds. So like little pilgrims, my son and daughter lead us on one of their favorite adventures, briskly walking about twenty yards ahead of us and towards the creek behind our townhouse.

Noah and Lily had made their way into the woods, briefly out of sight, although their tiny footsteps and voices were sure to be heard in the neighboring town. As Marlon, Alex, and I drew closer we encountered a familiar display of hospitality and welcome. Noah's shirt, much like Marlonito's this past summer, had been curled up and filled to overflowing with gifts. But due to the lack of suburban vegetation, instead of starfruit he delivered walnuts. Noah had gathered as many of these "walnut balls" I recently introduced him and his sister to and handed them out, one-by-one, to his new friends from Honduras. "One for you and one for you and for you," he said to each visitor. Then he showed them how to throw nature's baseballs into the creek, each toss met with a jubilant "yes!"

I froze. I am pretty sure a few tears welled up and trickled out of my eyes. My son and daughter understood partnership. They understood friendship. They understood one of the most basic elements of mission and discipleship: sharing the joys, gifts, resources, and discoveries with one another. Marlonito knows this simple truth quite well, too.

Our children no longer knew Daddy's friends as abstract people. Honduras was no longer somewhere Daddy went every summer an airplane ride away. Honduras and the people who lived there were now their friends and family, too. Actually, my daughter claimed two of them were "her girls."

If I have learned anything from the Honduras Youth-to-Youth Missional partnership it is this: mission must be reversed if ever to become true partnership. If the church desires to move beyond paternalism and less-than dignified attempts to love and serve our neighbors in other parts of the world, we must be willing to extend invitations to our friends in these communities to serve and explore alongside us in our cities, neighborhoods, communities, and churches. We must be willing to return the favor of hosting and become recipients of those who are rarely offered a chance to visit where their American brothers and sisters practice the mission of God and witness of the church.

Real Christian mission must be willing to flip the script and exchange parts if partnership is truly the desired goal. Failure to do so will only further the "us and them" mentality. That's something neither I nor Marlon want for our children. Thanks be to God we have been able to expose them them to something different. I only pray our kids will one day be able to meet.

After all, they seem to understand partnership best.

 

I could write endlessly about our extended weekend together, which is no doubt a highlight of my 12 plus years in youth ministry. But I think the only way to come close to capturing the joy is through selected photos:

Samy, who has liked every youth event on Facebook, finally gets to attend!

Our youth greeting friends from Honduras at airport.

Hanging out with fellow youth leaders from Honduras, Alex (left) and Marlon (right)

Friday Night High School Football Game

Yes, they wanted to see the Rocky Steps

My son thinking he's just another Honduran teenager.

Serving at Broad Street Ministry

Alex sharing that our Souper Bowl Sunday Fundraiser has helped provide meals to over 350 families during a major drought this past August.

Participating in worship and signing a two-year covenant of partnership

Hanging out at my house

Apple picking at Highland Orchards

Click "Honduras Tab" for other related posts, most notably "Declaration of Interdependence" and "The Kingdom of God is Like Mango Trees in Guaimaca."

Lamenting in Luxury and Laughing at God's Promise

I was in a folding chair sunken into tho the sandy beach of Ocean City when I first read about the murder of a black youth named Mike Brown by a white cop in Ferguson, Missouri.

The beach.

In the comfort and security of family and friends, with our only disturbance being over-zealous young lifeguards and their whistles, I remembered racism is far from dead and the Civil Rights Movement far from over.

I was drinking my coffee on the front porch as I perused articles on my iPhone about increasing persecution and genocide of Christians and other adherents to minority religions in the Middle East, most notably in the mountains of Iraq. I wondered what the earliest Christians would say to them- and us- in the horrific wakes of modern martyrdom?

My porch.

I was at the dining room table and eating dinner with my family as we live-chatted a friend of ours via Facebook messenger. She is a young Orthodox-Jewish woman with two kids and a husband who works in pediatrics outside Gaza, caring for both Palestinian and Israeli war victims. They live nearby Tel Aviv. Our courageous friend shared with us how she lives in daily fear, moving from living room to shelter multiple times each day. It was 2 a.m. Israeli time and she couldn't sleep.

We were eating dinner at our dining room table.

I was on a plane with a group of youth headed back home from Honduras as I reflected on the Child Refugee Crisis. Thousands of unaccompanied children were fleeing Central American countries, like the one I just freely left, in search of safety and security their families could not provide. You can read a glimpse into their experience in Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazrio.

I have been reading it- at home.

I am not sure if the world we live in is becoming increasingly dark and the despairing groans are louder now than in generations past or if our sensitivity to global issues is greater due to social media and the ease of access afforded by modern technology.

It's probaly a combination.

What I do know, my heart aches with intensifying pain every time I turn on the television, scroll through Twitter feeds, or open that news app I am confident will have more bad news than good news to report.

I cry when I talk to friends in Honduras or Tel Aviv. I get angry out of solidarity when I read posts by my black friends, some who are pastors, who shed horrific light on racism that continues to plague our nation, churches, and local police forces.

I lament. A lot. But my lamenting is in luxury and privilege. I grieve in security and safety. I can pick and choose the issues that tug at my heart strings, even post videos of buckets of ice water being dumped on my head, because my life is not in jeopardy.

But the lives of my friends are. My brothers and sisters in the faith, even though I may not know the names of those who call the Iraqi hills and sanctuaries home, do live in fear.

Their laments come from a very different place. They lament in fear and oppression.

The same is true for those in Ferguson, Tel Aviv, and regions surrounding Tegucigalpa.

Maybe that's why I laugh. I don't laugh in joy. I laugh with the cynicism of Sarah- at God's promise.

""And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, 'After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?'" (Genesis 18:10-12)

I wonder, how long, O Lord, will you forget us- them- forever?

I pray God's covenant, one that nudges us towards golobal reconciliation and new creation, would no longer be a mere theological teaching point or carrot dangled in front of grieiving parents who claim Jesus as Lord.

I pray for the day to hasten when our mourning turns to dancing.

I pray for the weapons of war in the Middle East and Missouri to be turned into agricultural tools of the harvest, promoting growth and vegetation versus injustice and segregation.

I pray God's covenantal promises would become our reality. The whole world's lived experience.

I pray for the kingdom Jesus preached about, lived out, and died for the sake of, would be resurrected within each of us and all around us.

I pray our prayers of how long would be transformed into jubilations of about damn time.

But I wonder if God is saying the same to each of us.

How long, O children, will you hate each other forever? Will you forget the image each of you bears and the love each of you have been invited to share?

Will you choose prejudice over conversation, greed over generosity, power over communities and countries where all are welcome as though they have always belonged?

Is God saying to us, this blogger included, it's about damn time?

Because it is.

So as one who laments in luxury, I covenant to commune with those who do not. I commit to learning real stories, researching possibilities for change and transformation, surrounding myself with diverse voices and convictions, and echoing the cries of victims of all forms of violence, marginalization, racism, poverty, oppression, and any and all manifestations of evil near and far.

I am not sure what this will look like or even where to begin, but I know it's time.

It's about damn time.

"Promise-making God, I get Sarah's laughter. It's the sad snicker that covers a cracked heart. Faith withers when life feels wrung dry and past it's best-used-by date. For all who feel life has passed them by and find that faith comes hard, create through your Holy Spirit the laughter of love, the faith that your promies are true, and the hope that in Jesus the best is yet to be. Amen

---from Seeking God's Face by Philip F. Reinders

Relaated Links:

Not as Helpless as We Think. 3 Ways to Stand with Those in Ferguson by Rachel Held Evans

PCUSA Office of Public Witness & Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson on Ferguson and Gun Violence

Good News and Bad News in Honduras

Is There a Nonviolent Response to Isis? (SoJo.Net)

Good News (and bad news) in Honduras: Partnership and Child Refugees

Our team was packing for our morning flight when friends from Tegucigalpa popped in for an evening surprise. They wanted to cap off a week of service, play, worship, and shared learning with some cake and conversation. As we celebrated year four of the growing youth-to-youth missional partnership between the Presbytery of Honduras and the Imago Dei Youth Ministry, one of the leaders offered an honest reflection and bold request.

"When your family and friends google Honduras they will learn about murders, poverty, corruption, and difficulties with education. Please share with them the good news about Honduras, too."

So, here's the good news.

Honduras is a beautiful country. The landscape and vegetation begs the question, is this what Eden was like?

Honduras is saturated with passionate churches whose members demonstrate what can and should happen when God's people share the burdens of one another and hold all things in common.

The youth of Honduras are eager to engage broader visions of what it means to be called a community and congregation at the forefront of God's mission in and for the world. These same young people are even asking questions about how to begin conversations about justice advocacy, peace making, and social development.

I also have strong friendships with Hondurans who long to become pharmacists, oncologists, engineers, and social workers so they can improve the country they call home and the livelihoods of those whom they call neighbors.

Hondurans also know how to have a good time. Want evidence? Just check out the video of our week together.

Now for the bad news, in case you did not already know.

Honduras has become synonomous with instability, injustice, drug trafficking, police corruption, economic distress, political perversion, and a national government unable to make significant dents in any or all of the above. This beloved nation, and my home away from home, has even earned the dreaded title, "murder capital of the world."

You could say Honduras is a developing nation whose socio-political development is slow at best.

These are all reasons why unaccompanied children are fleeing at such a rapid pace. Despite the rumors to the contrary, Honduran parents are sending their kids on dangerous pilgrimages to surrounding nations like the United States not as hopeful immigrants but as desperate refugees.

While we may be tempted to once again use these young ones, to whom the kingdom of God belongs, as pawns in another political game perpetuated by the media, the issue at stake here is not immigration reform.

Well, not entirely.

We are talking about a refugee crisis. Many Honduran parents believe there is lower risk in shipping their children off to either a neighboring nation or one a flight away versus remain in their neighborhoods where violence is on the rise.

So while we may want to focus on American legislation and rash policies and procedures for deportation, you can't cure cancer with Tylenol. If we make this issue only about us as Americans and our bent in one partisan drection or another, parents of these children will not stop their pursuit of the safety and future of their children. They will just find other and, quite possibly, more detrimental alternatives.

That's because, by and large, these families are not looking for American citizenship or tax-free employment, rather praying for relief and rescue of their kids whom they love. Which means our focus as individuals and communities, churches and politicians, must become the growing tumor of violence in Honduras that breeds on internal socio-political corruption and results in unaccompanied child refugees. We must also explore ways to exercise hospitality and extend international pastoral care until a cure is found.

If we make this about anything else the result will be catastrophic, leaving thousands of children as victims of a poorly played political game.

I can't imagine news any worse. I want good and even better news for Honduras. So do my friends.

Helpful Resources

http://www.sharedjustice.org/more_unaccompanied_children_are_arriving_in_the_u_s_from_honduras_than_from_any_other_country_what_s_happening

www.ajs-us.org

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-28339147

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/07/13/opinion/sunday/a-refugee-crisis-not-an-immigration-crisis.html?referrer=&_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/15/us/questions-about-the-border-kids.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Aw&_r=1

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/07/08/329774643/u-n-urges-u-s-to-treat-migrants-as-refugees?sc=17&f

http://www.presbyterianmission.org/site_media/media/uploads/pda/pdfs/interfaith-weekend-resource-packet.pdf

http://www.pcusa.org/news/2014/7/7/response-unaccompanied-children/

http://www.pcusa.org/news/2014/7/18/pcusa-leaders-offer-prayer-use-sunday/

http://gregklimovitz.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-kingdom-of-god-is-like-mango-tree.html

Read Previous Post: http://gregklimovitz.blogspot.com/2014/07/declaration-of-interdependence-early.html

Declaration of Interdependence: Early Reflections on Honduras Youth Partnership

"If we embrace the notion that all of life is interdependence, then we must believe that everyone is our neighbor- regardless of race, social status, or geography."

Bruce Main, Why Jesus Crossed the Road

One of my greatest joys as a youth pastor is being able to learn alongside teenagers. As I type this, I sit at a table with three other youth intensely journeling about their experiences as mission partners with friends in Honduras. These three young disciples, along with the many others who have served here each summer since 2011, have taught me a great deal about love, curiosity, generosity, faith, Scripture, love, and what it can and does look like when we follow Jesus locally and globally.

They have taught me even as I have strived to teach them. We have leaned on one another.

As a youth pastor, I have learned to value interdepedence. Actually, I have declared it as an essential element of Chrisitan identity, community, discipleship, and mission. Youth and adults alike need each other as those who profess faith in and covenant to pursue a crucified and resurrected Jesus who is in the process of making all things new and right.

John H. Westerhoff is right, "One Christian is no Christian, for we cannot be Christian alone- we are created for communuty" (Will Our Children Have Faith 38).

Interdependence is one of many reasons Imago Dei Youth Ministry has been a part of the Honduras Youth-to-Youth Partnership since 2011. We hold the conviction that we not only need one another in the suburbs of Philadelphia, but also our brothers and sisters in places like Honduras. We need our "copartners in grace"* and the faithful witness of our friends who live in a cultural context different than our own. We need their unashamed commitment to the gospel, incarnations of genuine community throughout their national Presbytery, extensions of generous hospitality to visiting friends, and creative zeal as they develop new initiatives to care for their own and elevate the voice and passion of young people.

They also need us.

They need us not only to assist in fundraising for their creative projects, but also to remind them the church does not exist for self-serving purposes alone. They need us to remind them the church exists as an agent of personal, social, and systemic transformation. They need us to share our understandings of the kingdom and how we see the pursuit of justice as exercises in neighborly love. They need us to encourage their own pursuits of change within their congregations and communities who have silenced the voice of younger generations for far too long.

We actually need each other.

So this week we once again declare our interdependence. As we serve alongside one another in the construction of a retreat center and Eco-stoves, pray and read Scripture before and after soccer games, discuss critical issues of unaccompanied children fleeing to the U.S.** and others facing homelessness and addiction, and contemplate what it can mean to enhance conversations beyond summer trips, we remember we belong to one another and the God who made us both.

We may live miles apart, but we are still each other's neighbors. Actually, we are more. We are an interdependent family still growing into a shared identity and purpose.

This family is a young one, mostly made up of teenagers. Their communities depend upon them. Their churches depend upon them. I depend upon them. We all depend upon one another.

We cannot be Christian alone.

 

"If there is no friendship with the poor and no sharing of the life of the poor, then there is no authentic commitment to liberation, because love exists only among equals. Any talk of liberation necessarily refers to a comprehensive process, one that embraces everyone."

Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation

 

Notes

*Karl Barth translated Philippians 1:7, in reference to Paul's partnership with the churches in Philippi, this way, "I bear you in my heart as those who in my imprisonment, as also in my defense and declaration of the gospel, are all my copartners in grace" (Epistle to the Philippians).

**Learn more about the thousands of children fleeing Honduras in search of refuge from the violence and corruption within Honduras: http://www.pcusa.org/news/2014/7/7/response-unaccompanied-children/

***Read also: http://gregklimovitz.blogspot.com/2014/07/good-news-and-bad-news-in-honduras.html

Are You Willing? Youth Encounters with a Leper and Ordinary Opportunities to Love Your Neighbor

I am not willing to share a beverage with someone other than my wife and kids. This may have started as a kid and the visions of shards of whatever falling from my father's mustache into the preferred liquid to be consumed. Some call me a spit-phob as a result.

I am not willing to eat pickles. Actually, I take offense to the consumptive assumption that Americans prefer pickles on their chicken sandwich or burgers. Restaurants nationwide refuse to consider what the vinegar residue, i.e. pickle pee, does to the roll, waffle fries, and whatever else is on the purchased platter. Hint: ruined forever.

I am not willing to jeopardize the health and safety of my wife and kids.

I am not willing to text and drive.

I am certainly not willing to root for the New York Yankees regardless of who they play or if they are on my fantasy team.

And when I was in Honduras this past summer, when I looked over my shoulder and saw a teenage leper propped up against the wall of the cathedral as our youth were in conversation with some folks from the Micah Project, I was not the first to be willing to offer food and drink.

The high school youth were more willing than I. Actually, they were willing because one of the homeless youth, despite his lingering high from yellow glue, was more than willing to offer compassion and empathy.

I will never read Luke 5:12-16 the same again.

Never.

The story goes like this. A leper, accustomed to exclusion and isolation from people, community, religious hubs, and sacred practices, gets word about this Jesus whose message hinges on the marginalized and social outcastes. This religious teacher many called Messiah, went from town to town, village to village, and city to city breaking every social norm and religious taboo.

Would he be willing to outstretch his hand towards even a leper who had not known human contact and connection since his diagnosis?

Would the love of God, the kingdom of God, the dreams of God's healing from disease, oppression, exclusion, and constant rejection be extended to him?

"Jesus, if you are willing..."

"I am willing..."

Are we willing?

A large part of what it means to be called a disciple of Jesus is rooted in willingness. Willingness to follow. Willingness to try the impossible. Willingness to use your gifts, talents, resources, passions, and time for a greater cause than yourself. Willingness to fail. Willingness to love those the world has rejected. Willingness to have your eyes and ears opened to others the world has closed itself off to? Willingness to surrender all that you are to the dreams of God that are not only for you, but also and especially for the whole world.

Willingness to embrace the leper in your midst, and those just like him, whom Jesus considered on the A-list of his divine banquet.

But not all of us will have the chance to meet a leper like the one in Luke's narrative or our friend in the Honduras cathedral. This can easily become another means to dismiss these stories as though though they have nothing to say to us. But we encounter lepers every day.

Each day youth who walk into a school, which is more a less a village of teenagers, they encounter large numbers of their peers. And not everybody fits in; not everybody is welcome; not everybody feels as though they belong or they are valued by another.

There are lepers who sit in isolation from those who do belong, at those folding tables in the cafeteria. They may walk the hallways with head down, doubtful anyone is aware of their existence until they are bumped into by someone headed the opposite direction.

There are those who live across the street from all of us or a few houses down who do not fit the accepted image of cleanliness, lack the ideal body type, practice a stereotyped religious tradition, or have a history of struggles with mental health.

There are those who sit beside us on the train as we commute from the 'burbs to the city, others with whom we share an office or cubicle, and those we pass by on the streets as we walk from the train to that very office complex.

Are we willing to stretch out our hands of compassion in a way reflective of Jesus the Willing One?

We don't have to strive to be heroes. We just have to be willing.

"God's love for you and God's love for the larger world in need cannot be separated. God's longing to see you liberated for life tgar really is life can't be neatly pulled apart from God's longing to see the poor liberated for life that really is life. The two are inextricable. God's concern for the stuff of our lives, and God's concern for the lives of those who live on the margins, can never be neatly parsed...Can you see what great news it is that this serendipitous double liberation isn't something extra we do? We don't have to add lots more overwhelming activity to what we've already got going. Rasther, the regular stuff of our lives- the commute to work and the potlucks and home improvement projects and errans and play dates- are the exact places in which we express and experience God's love for a world in need."

---Margot Starbuck, Small Thing with Great Love: Adventures in Loving Your Neighbor

Are you willing...

...to love your competitor on the local sports field?

...to serve a meal to the new parents down the street?

...to sit at that lunch table with those kids who eat alone?

...to engage in a friendly conversation with the person one seat over on the train?

....to invite the parent of the kids your kids are friends with to church on Sunday, or Wednesday, or any day?

...are you willing to go to Honduras, or Philly, or the borough down the road and learn about those who call the streets home and how you can be a part of their liberation?

Are we willing to see every day as an ordinary opportunity to outstretch our hands towards others and love our neighbor as ourself?

To follow Jesus is to be willing.

But this doesn't mean we have to eat pickles.

Thanks be to God.

 

The Kingdom of God Is Like a Mango Tree in Guaimaca: Reflections on Honduras Youth Partnership 2013

There are two prominent figures that overlook the market and downtown Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The first, El Cristo del Picacho, is located in a beautiful park with an incredible view of the capital city. It costs 10 Lempiras (roughly $.50) to see this Jesus, which seems to debunk any theology about salvation being free.

The second is a yellow house on the opposite hill, which is home to one of the more prominent drug lords in Honduras. Everyone knows he lives there; he simply has paid-off police and other law enforcement to ensure security for his residence and dealings.

In between these two cultural "icons" is a plaza buzzing with activity. The streets of this plaza serve as residence for many of Honduras' most marginalized and ignored.

There are the "glue boys," homeless youth who flee domestic distress and develop addictions to yellow shoe glue that provides a cheap daily high. Most pay no attention to kids like Mil Años, a young boy nicknamed for his aged face that results from his addiction. Micah Project, instead, calls them family and extends them invitations into their community where they can be lifted from addiction, receive an education, and discover the love of God in Jesus.

The plaza is also home to a young leper, who sits at the main entrance of a Catholic Church. Our youth took notice and offered him hot food, cold water, and quite possibly the only expression of hospitality and affection he encountered all day. Talk about a story that will preach!

Then there are the severely physically handicapped, aged "glue boys," homeless old women, and a long line of others. As our youth walked with leaders from Micah Project throughout the streets of this Honduran Central Park, stories of Scripture came alive. It was almost too much for some of our youth.

And we remembered those overlooking the city, symbols of liberation and oppression. We were in the space between them, a very thin place where we could hear echoes of the benediction from the previous night's debriefing:

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, hard hearts, half-truths, and superficial relationships. May God bless you so that you may live from deep within your heart where God's Spirit dwells...And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, in your neighborhood, so that you will courageously try what you don't think you can do, but in Jesus Christ you'll have all the strength necessary." (Franciscan Blessing)

It is true, Honduras is a country in distress. The nation is plagued with political corruption, insufficient education, significant malnutrition, pervasive poverty, increasing drug-related violence, and a police force confused about who to defend- drug lords or vulnerable citizens?

It is also true that beauty, love, and hope are sprouting up like mango trees in the back yards of Guaimaca homes, an hour outside the urban center. If we are not paying careful attention, we may miss these stories and the sweet attestations to the kingdom of God falling from their branches.

Each day of our evolving youth-to-youth partnership in Honduras began and ended with cross and resurrection stories. Youth were invited to share where they encountered suffering and despair and where their eyes and ears were opened to signs of God's hope and redemption.

I am convinced this should become a daily, personal and corporate discipline. The temptation is to either fix our eyes on Cristo del Picacho and forget the drug lords wreaking havoc behind us or be overwhelmed by the drug lords and others just like him, unaware that Jesus has entered into real human suffering and promised all of us new creation.

The call of disciples of Jesus is to live in the spaces between Picacho and that yellow house on the hill, or at least make pilgrimages of partnership there, with an honest and awakened hope that this new creation can and must begin now.

And I am firmly convinced that this especially begins though the youth of our respective communities.

Here Are Some Resurrection Stories from Year Three of Our Partnership in Honduras

Rungs of Hope in World of Despair: Background Checks, Boston, and John 1:43-51

The past few weeks have been a steady stream of depressing news stories, mostly reporting the terrorist activity in Boston, tragic explosion in West, Texas, and legislation disappointment in Washington. When we are glued to televisions and subjected to endless musical photo montages intended to rope us into a particular station's coverage, the world looks dark and hopeless at best. When reporters ask passerbys and rescue workers questions that exploit their raw emotions, we wonder how long until the world is once and for all put to rights. When that same week our political leaders choose to kiss the billion-dollar rumps of lobbyists instead of embrace a bill that will make the world safer for everyone, especially our children, we feel powerless against violence and injustice.

We wonder why we need background checks to run a daycare but not to own a semi-automatic purchased at privately-organized conventions.

If we are not careful, we can become slaves to cynicism.

And when photos trend on Facebook and Twitter, reminding all of us that events like the Boston bombing happen everyday in Syria, it doesn't make us feel any better.

We actually wonder, can anything good come out of a world so saturated in heartache and sorrow?

This past week, Imago Dei Youth worked through the call story of Nathanael (John 1:43-51). Jesus had just captured the hope and imagination of Philip who became bent towards sharing this good news with his friend from Cana, "We have found the one we have been waiting for" (1:45-46)!

"Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" retorts the jaded Nathanael.

"Come and see!"

God has a habit of bursting good news of redemption and hope in the midst of the darkest, drearist, dullest, and most forsaken circumstances, people, and places. The coming of the world's deliver was no different.

Still, our questions today echo those of Nathanael, whose name means "God has given," can anything good come from ________?"

I don't think it is appropriate to pose this question to those who lost limbs or loved ones to terroist activity, homes and rescue workers to fertilizer fires, or children by guns easily purchased by killers. It's too raw and misses the opportunity to grieve with those who grieve. While God certainly can and often does resurrect goodness out of the worst of human suffering, we must not think for a second that God intended any of this to happen for some sort of divine purpose or affirmation of sovereignty.

I believe God wants this horrific activity to end. I believe Jesus announces to the world, it doesn't have to be like this.

I also believe when we embrace the Way of Jesus and the dreams of God as our very own, we dicover we are not powereless, things can be different, and good news can pop up all around us even when our minds are numb by so much bad news.

It's as though the gospel writer knew we needed to hear that God has given us hope when we encounter the mission, witness, and work of Jesus.*

I love how the gospel writer's anecdote ends. Nathanael stands in awe as Jesus responds with a brilliant play on the familiar story of Jacob's ladder:

"Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." (John 1:51; see Genesis 28:10-16)

Divine traffic, a holy collison of sacred messengers, rooted in this Human One called Jesus, Messiah, Immanuel, God with Us.

It's as though Jesus were saying, "What you'll see from now on is the reality towards which Jacob's ladder, and even the Temple itself, was pointing like a signpost. If you follow me, you'll be watching what it looks like when heaven and earth are open to each other." (N.T. Wright, John for Everyone 18).

In the midst of all the evil and injustice of this world, heaven and earth are still open to each other. God's love and concern are still deeply connected to the world and each one of us. Signposts are being constructed and illuminated everywhere as people live into the kingdom of God and offer their very lives as testament to the simple truth: love always wins.

The story of Nathanael is an invitation to come and see, follow Jesus, and join the holy traffic as you grasp rungs of hope and grace- even in the midst of the darkest of days.

And may we never be slaves to cynicism or fear.

As a part of the youth conversation, we wrote signs of heaven and earth being open to each other. Here are a few that caught my attention, and a few I added, which have carried me through these weeks. Maybe make your own list in the form of a ladder, grasping these rungs of hope during your own seasons of despair.

• When youth in Honduras walk 4.5 hours through the mountains to catch public transportation and be a part of youth retreats and workshops where they learn about and worship Jesus alngside their fellow believers.
• People rushing to the scene in Boston and West, Texas, willing to risk their lives to save another.
• Broad Street Ministry and their solidarity and hospitality offered to the poor and homeless o Philly.
• Young children entering remission after long battles with cancer.
• Watching a middle school youth finally make it to the top of a rock climbing wall and high-fiving his youth pastor after repeated failed attempts and nearly given up.
• Confirmation statements of faith.
• The joy and love for life my kids demonstrate every single day.
• When advocates and lawyers develop propositions to solve corruption in Honduras police forces.
• The work my wife does to support and rehabilitate homeless women who are veterans.
• When I meet with new friends in Coatesville who share about their ministry alongside at-risk youth.
• When a high school youth sells all his violent video games and declares he wants to be God's peacemaker not agent of destruction.

Note:

*I wonder if John chooses to use the name Nathanael versus Bartholomew, as in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, for this very literary and metaphorical platform?

Are We Powerless? My Son's Seizure, Boston Marathon, and Brief Reflections on Nehemiah

This past January, I was in the middle of a church meeting when my wife's number showed up on my phone. My son's body temperature rapidly spiked and he had begun to seize. I will forever remember hitting triple digits and beating the ambulance home, ushering paramedics to my kids' room, and witnessing my wife on the floor with my son battling a febrile seizure. I experienced six of these fever-induced seizures as a child, each of which my mother vividly remembers. I am sure the same will be true for my wife and me.

While many affirm what was actually occurring in my son's little body was not as scary as it looked, the experience was nonetheless the most horrific I have had to date. We felt powerless. We feared there was nothing we could do.

Thankfully, our son recovered and within 24 hours was restored to his normal, mischievous, playful, and quirky self. Still, in those moments when we held him in his tiny hospital gown, restrained him as he received an IV, and even prayed for him and his body temperature to be restored to normal, my wife and I felt powerless.

The feeling of powerlessness is the most oppressive emotion and crippling fear a human can experience.

Who Would Have Ever Dreamed? Final Reflections on Extended Weekend in Honduras

"Partnership implies a working relationship, an arrangement by which two parties share a vision and engage together in activity to meet shared goals...This friendship, however, must ultimately graduate to collaborative action- the final essential principal of partnership. Without it, the relationship never truly matures into a partnership, for the word partnership implies working together on the basis of shared vision and toward the fulfillment of shared goals. At the end of the day, a relationship that seeks to be a partnership must move on to shared action. (Linking Arms, Linking Lives, p. 52, 72).*

I don't think any of us knew exactly what we were getting ourselves into when this youth partnership began in 2010. I know we had high hopes and dreams to begin to "do youth mission differently," but we were not sure if it was going to "work." It's much easier to purchase group packages whereby mission is made easy and youth do not have to do much pre-trip preparation or make any post-trip commitments.

Neither do their parents.

But mission, ministry, and life lived as disciples of Jesus was never meant to be easy. Incarnations of God's dreams for the world was and is never meant to be short-term.

There is no need to wait until youth are adults to implement genuine and long-term partnerships.

As I sit here on our flight home from Tegus to Atlanta, then onward to Philadelphia, I am overwhelmed by what God has birthed out of our initial adventures of prayer and discernment years ago. Together, with our youthful sisters and brothers in Honduras and those of Imago Dei Youth Ministry, we have created something special. We are learning together, dreaming together, praying together, empowering together, and collaborating together how we can now pursue mission together.

Together.

Last night was yet another affirmation that what we are up to together is indeed good and beautiful. My traveling companion and I gathered together, alongside our PCUSA mission-co-worker, in the the upper room of Peña de Horeb. They had their computer and projector set up, pizza, soda, and ice cream on the table, and a video of our partnership through the years titled, "Nuestra Historia," paralleling the theme from our weekend together. We laughed. We smiled. I certainly cried.

And as we broke bread together, I could not help but think of yet another gathering in an upper room when bread was broken and stories were shared about in-breakings of God's dreams and realizations of God's kingdom happening right before their eyes. Shared hopes. Shared dreams. Shared mission.

They didn't know what was ahead. We don't necessarily either. What we do know is this is exactly what we are called to be doing right here, right now, and in the days ahead, too.

We also know it is time to move towards colaborative action.

In Linking Arms, Linking Lives, the authors write of three partnership essentials: deep reconciliation, authentic relationships, and collaborative action. Imbedded within each of these is also a concern for human dignity, equality, and mutual respect. In a word- YES. These have been the foundations of our partnership, especially as we converse together as youth in Honduras and Pennsylvania to develop a shared vision of partnership:

While we wrapped up conversations in that Honduran upper room along the highway, we recognized once again that now is the time for collaborative action. This was the year for shared mission. This summer we will create opportunities to serve even as we continue to learn together.

Water projects?

Tire gardens and sustainable food efforts?

Eco-stove construction?

Repairing homes of youth in the community?

Micro-loans and youth co-operatives?

Participation in workshops and programs with Association for a More Just Society?**

The sky's the limit...

We are not sure what this will look like over the summer or thereafter. What we do know is the mission will be shared and efforts will be collaborative. They will be initiated by youth in Honduras and actualized and sustained together through cross-cultural partnership.

Then we will know this friendship has truly matured, even as the growth continues into something far more beautiful than any of us ever dreamed possible.

"This type of partnership requires hard work, sustained vision, strong commitment, and relentless perseverance in the midst of huge relational and ministry challenges...they also readily testify to the gratifying fruit it produces" (Linking Arms, Linking Lives, p. 111).

"Tranformemos Honduras" is the education reform initiative through AJS. The tag line of "Orar. Señar. Trabajar." Translates to "Pray. Dream. Work." Fits quite well with our vision for partnership, eh?

Notes:

Top Photo: Celebrating together in the upper room of Peña de Horeb. Love this group of youth leadership!

*The subtitle of this book is, "How Urban-Suburban Partnerships Can Transform Communities." While the collection of authors (Ron Sider, John Perkins, Wayne Ordon, and Albert Tizon) intended this as a domestic resource, the implications are beneficial for international partnerships just as well.

**Be sure to check out Association for a More Just Society. They are in partnership with International Justice Mission and are making significant progress in areas of education reform, security and peace advocacy, youth and family support, and political corruption alleviation. We met with their staffers this week, but there is not enough room on this blog to share of how God is at work here. www.ajs-us.org

Generación C: Reflections on Youth Workshop in Honduras

"I want to be more than a taker. I want to discover how I can give back, too." These were the words of one of the members of the youth leadership who gathered together this past weekend in Ojojona, Honduras. We, i.e. one of our college youth and I, were invited by the Presbytery of Honduras and PCUSA mission co-worker to aid in the facilitation of conversations, Bible studies, prayer, and play as we explored what it can look like to empower the voices of youth in churches throughout the country.

Here are a few reflections from the weekend:

What's Your Story?

There is great hope and power when we discover we are known and have value. When we are given a chance to share our story, passions, talents, and God-given gifts, we are reminded of our significance in God's dreams for the world. When it comes to youth in Honduras, they are not always given this sort of space and validation. They're expected to fit within particular norms and traditions. Dreams of anything different come as affronts to older leadership fearful of losing [control] of youth in the church.

This may not sound all that unfamiliar. But the ramifications are far greater....or at least different.

It was a joy and privilege to listen to and read their personal stories and passions that they can then use to make a difference in their churches and communities.

What's the Gospel?

This is a question Christians need to ask over and over again. We need to ask not only what we mean when we talk about the good news of Jesus Christ as illustrated in the Scriptures, but also what the good news of Jesus looks like in a particular community, demographic, and cultural context. What is the good news for a teenager in suburban Philadelphia? What does good news mean for youth who live in urban and rural Honduras?

This week we spent significant time reflecting on this very question, related stories in the gospels, and illustrated how theses stories could speak good news into their congregations and communities.

We also explored how the gospel is not only about personal salvation, although that's deeply true, but also an announcement of God's concern for social change and community development. The gospel is an inward and outward journey, for us and the whole world.

For many of the Honduran youth leaders, this was a refreshing reinforcement of the inner longings often silenced by many in leadership. For others, this was a difficult message that they are still pondering in light of the understandings they have inherited generation after generation. Wait, God is concerned about those beyond the walls of my church?

Again, this is not only a challenge for those in Honduras.

What's In a Name?

When I arrived in Tegucigalpa and returned to Peña de Horeb, our primary contact within our youth partnership, I was encouraged to learn they had named their youth group: Generación C.

"The 'c' is for change," said one of their youth leaders.

There is something about a name that gives power, ownership, and a sense that we belong to something worthwhile and influential. This is why, in 2008, we shifted our identity to "Imago Dei Youth Ministry."

That said, at the conclusion of our gathering, each group was invited to share what they would name their group as a means to propel them not only to believe the gospel, but also animate it. How could they put the good news of Jesus into action?

They responded with great enthusiasm, as they considered new identities of affirmation and mission.

I am excited by what has taken place this weekend. I am grateful to be a part of a new way of doing youth mission with long term dreams and aspirations. I am grateful that we have moved away from service blitzes and into real partnership. I am honored we were invited to share leadership this weekend.

I am also grateful that Imago Dei Youth Ministry and the Presbytery of Honduras can together be givers of the good news of Jesus- to one another and to our neighbors near and far.

Dios Te Bendiga

 

Resurrection as Idle Tale: Moving Beyond Myth and Legend

One of the things pastors are quite good at is storytelling. We are able, some better than others, to transform random encounters with family members, congregants, youth, or cashiers at local grocery stores into anecdotes for our next sermon.

My wife knows this. She also knows that we are quite good at adding details, or at least hyperbolizing them, so to make our point and solidify a theological platform. "That didn't really happen as you told it," she will say as we reflect on the sermon. "It at least didn't happen like that."

When we are aware of this trend in pulpit fables, myself included, we become suspicious of anything and everything being said by the preacher or teacher.

But when we find out that the event really did happen in that way, we discover the preacher was able to awaken our senses and give fresh movement to the biblical text of the day.

These stories have the potential to change us, transform us, and awaken us to how God is indeed alive and well in both every day moments and innovative expressions of love and compassion. They are more than idle tales and nonsense.

When Helping Hurts: Must Read for All Interested and Engaged in Short-Term Youth and Adult Mission

"What are we doing this year?" asked several of my youth who continued to wrestle with whether they wanted to participate in year three of our youth-to-youth missional partnership in Honduras.

"I understand partnership. I agree with our definition of partnership. But when are we going to do something?"

In 2010, the Imago Dei Youth ministry embarked on a new adventure and claimed a new paradigm for youth summer and short-term mission: partnership. Instead of purchasing a packaged program that "makes mission easy," often at the expense of the poor, we were called into a more long-term partnership with youth in a developing nation contexts. We were invited by the Presbytery of Honduras and PCUSA World Mission to chart new ground and a more holistic and healthy approach to cross-cultural engagement.

We no longer wanted to assume that we could "bring Jesus" somewhere Jesus was already hard at work. We no longer wanted to assume that we had all the answers that simply needed to be implemented among the poor. We no longer wanted to worship our North American idols of projects and instead chose to enter into meaningful relationships with people who are gifted and called just as much as we are.

We no longer wanted to assume we were helping the poor through week-long service blitzes when in fact we may be hurting them and their human dignity.

In preparation for our initial partnership, and regularly consulted since, our leadership team read, When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor and Yourself, by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert. They write:

"One of the biggest problems in many poverty alleviation efforts is that their design and implementation exacerbates the poverty of being of the economically rich- their god-complexes- and the poverty of being of the economically poor- their feelings of inferiority and shame. The way that we act toward the economically poor often communicates- albeit unintentionally- that we are superior and they are inferior. In the process we hurt the poor and ourselves" (65).

This is particularly the case in naive, yet popular, approaches of suburban youth ministries. We often serve not because we are interested in long-term development and holistic transformation of whole people. Instead, we serve because we have an inner-longing to feel needed, wanted, and as though we have "made a difference." We chase after the rush that comes with quick charity and at the same time does not demand much sacrifice and surrender on our part. We are obsessed with the idea of justice and the possibility of change, but not always willing to endure what is really required for sustainable growth and transformation.

We teach our youth and church members that following and serving Jesus is really about us. We proclaim that discipleship and the way of the kingdom is easy.

"‘Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it'" (Matthew 7:13).

What Corbett and Fikkert remind us is that the desire to help and serve is not enough. We must be willing to contemplate how we can break open our limited understandings of the gospel and revolutionize the task and call of the church and youth ministry service projects and mission trips. We must shed our god-complexes, reject paternalistic tendencies, and explore how to empower those in developing contexts through new paradigms of partnership:

"Development is not done to people or for people but with people. The key dynamic in development is promoting an empowering process in which all people involved- both the 'helpers' and the 'helped'- become more of what God created them to be" (105).
"We assume that we have all the best ideas about how to do things...the truth is that we often do have knowledge that can help the materially poor. But we must recognize that the materially poor also have unique insights into their own cultural contexts and are facing circumstances that we do not understand very well" (116).

This sort of shift in youth ministry service and summer mission is not necessarily popular and may not draw the masses. Youth-to-youth partnerships run the risk of generating more questions from parents and church leaders who are motivated by results. It's hard to measure human dignity, which is often sacrificed for the sake of stories and photos shared with mission and outreach committees.

"While poor people mention having a lack of material things, they tend to describe their condition in far more psychological and social terms than our North American audiences. Poor people typically talk in terms of shame, inferiority, powerlessness, humiliation, fear, hopelessness, depression, social isolation, and voicelessness." (53)

I am grateful for Corbett and Fikkert's contribution to the missional and community development conversation. I am particularly enamored with their ability to make their wisdom and insights accessible to a broad audience, to include youth and their parents. However, there is a danger. Once you open this book and read it together in the context of a community, there is no going back. You will once and for all crucify old and destructive paradigms of youth mission and service.

You will also resurrect new opportunities to serve alongside neighbors in the developing world with much more lasting and holistic results.

You will live into the kingdom of God together...and for much longer than a week over the summer.

"What are we doing this year?" asked my youth.

I am grateful they have submitted their deposits, some not even from their parents' bank accounts, so they can continue to find out.

Other Beneficial Excerpts:

"North American Christians are simply not doing enough. We are the richest people ever to walk the face of the earth. Period. Yet, most of us live as though there is nothing terribly wrong in the world" (28).

"Rather than fleeing these urban cesspools, the early church found its niche there...the Christian concept of self-sacrificial love of others, emanating from God's love for them, was a revolutionary concept to the pagan mind, which viewed the extension of mercy as an emotional act to be avoided by rationale people" (44).

"The problem goes well beyond the material dimension, so the solutions must go beyond the material as well." (54)

"Poverty is the result of relationships that do not work, that are not just, that are not for life, that are not harmonious or enjoyable. Poverty is the absence of shalom in all its meanings" (62)

Another great read, with a pending review and blogpost:

Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It) by Robert D. Lupton

Mumford & Sons as Lyric for Missional Partnerships

I have been waiting for quite some time for Mumford & Sons to release their sophomore album. I am still waiting for someone to write a Lenten-themed production of Sigh No More, which could be performed on Broadway...or at least in my church.

The British poets have a knack for overlapping prophetic overtones with innovative instrumentals and edgy vocals that run parallel to the sacred narrative of Scripture and real human experience. They take a risk in their music and their message. The result is fertile ground for fresh and faithful dialogue with those who find Sigh No More and Babel significant contributions to their iTunes library.

The lyrics of Sigh No More continues to capture my theological imagination. Lyrics from a variety of tracks have ventured into numerous prayers, sermons, and off-the-record conversations with youth and adults alike.

hold on hope...

you were made to meet your maker...

love it will not betray you, dismay or enslave you, it will set you free..

Then as I drove home yesterday, newly-downloaded Babel blasting through my speakers, I heard these lyrics:

Final Reflections from Honduras: Hope in the Hills and Call Me, Maybe...

Tuesday morning began with a heart-wrenching, impromptu story from a local Honduran. He shared how he grew up in so much poverty and with so little assistance from the church that he thought "God loved the rich and did not care about the poor." His prayers seemed to fall on deaf ears when a child, as day after day not a single bag of corn was delivered by any sort of divine messenger.

So he decided to work his way out of poverty was more effective than spending time in church.

And he slowly has done just that.

This story put poverty in perspective for all of us gathered in the kitchen. So often short-term missions romanticize the poor with statements like, "they have so little but seem so happy" and "they have such a strong faith despite their circumstances." When our students heard this story they quickly learned that there is a deep darkness that hovers over poverty. The presence of God and the hope for all things to be made new are not always easy to discover in the wake of so much suffering.

But as one of our adult team members remarked, "there was hope today in the hills."

A two-and-a-half hour ride through the mountains landed us at a farm with a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, and innovative and organic agricultural technology, e.g. stoves fueled by methane generated by pig manure. The family who lives on this farm is supported by the Raos Cooperative, a Fair Trade Certified organization whose primary harvest is coffee beans.

There is nothing like sipping a cup of joe on a Honduran hillside with a side of fried plantains.

After our visit to the plantation, we sat in on a presentation by the Director of Quality Control at the Raos office. He shared with us the ins and outs of the coffee industry and how they go to great lengths to assure justice in farmer's wages and responsiblity towards the environment. They do this while at the same time harvesting premium roast coffee that trumps anything our Seattle-based corporation produces.

Needless to say, Upon my return home I will be switching brands for my morning brew.

Our group was captivated by what goes on behind the scenes in regards to the food and coffee we purchase. We also were encouraged by organizations like Raos, and Heifer International as one of their partners, who have dramatically improved the lives of families represented by the one we met today.

This past week has been an emotional roller coaster. We have seen the depths of Rural and urban poverty and encountered brilliant witnesses to the kingdom of God alive and well through organizations like Association for a More Just Society and Heifer International. We have had conversations about partnership and contemplated what the word means for us as Honduran and American youth.

Yet for me the weekend could not have ended any better than it did. While one of our vans traveled to and from the plantation, accompanied by our friends from Peña de Horeb, I played D.J. One of the van members suggested we attempt to reproduce a youtube video gone viral. I was not sure if the choreography was possible or if our Honduran friends would be interested.

I could not have been wrong.

The result was potentially one of the better illustrations of our partnership. Over the course of four hours, we were able to create, to laugh, to sing, and to move in rhythm together. What seemed impossible in the beginning became more than possible in the end.

And it took a long time and a whole lot of patience.

I cannot be more excited for our Youth-to-Youth Missional Partnership in Honduras. While we have only just begun, we have certainly made great strides in new directions. Even more, we have started to share common understandings as they pertain to what partnership is really about.

"Therefore we ought to support such people, so that we may become co-workers with the truth" (3 John 8).

I am hopeful for the years to come. Our students are eager for the future.

And so our our friends in Honduras who left us a note that concludes my reflections for this week:

"Espero, en lo personal que esta bonita amistad perdure por muchos años y que nuestros hijos tambien puedan compartirla!"

(I hope, personally that this beautiful friendship will endure for many years and that our children can share it.)

Paying to See Jesus? More Reflections from Honduras

Youth Directors Reunited

I was able to reconnect with Edin Rodas of Peña de Horeb, one of the youth directors. I also met another youth and music director from a church in Guaimaca, Marlon. Their love for the young people of Honduras is so contagious and reminds me that the youth in Honduras can and will have a voice in their churches today and tomorrow.

Paying to See Jesus

We visited El Picacho again this year. This beautiful park that overlooks the city of Tegucigalpa and also tells the religious and philosophical history of Honduras. This includes Mayan replicas, busts of Plato and other philosophers, and statues of Confucius and Jesus. But unlike last year, now you have to pay 10 Lempiras, i.e. $.50, to approach the feet of the Messiah. I paid the debts of my team of 26 and led them to Jesus. So much easier than preaching and teaching.

Elementary School Visit

We were able to visit the elementary school in Guaimaica, about 2 hours from Teguc. The school was beautiful and the children were thrilled to see us as we toured their classrooms. Marlon, the youth and music director at the church across the street, teaches commuter classes alongside his wife.

I will never forget how we were greeted when we walked up the steps and opened the front door of this church. Twenty youth, whom we met from the weekend retreat, surprised us as they shouted, "Welcome!" I cannot think of a better attestation to the identity of the church than this, opening the floodgates of hospitality and embrace to strangers. In fact, that was our evening Scripture as selected by a high school youth, "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have enetertained angels without knowing it" (Hebrews 13:2).

On a side note, the youth from Guaimaca had a full afternoon planned for us. However, their plan was overturned by their pastor who wanted us to see a variety of church projects in need of on-going finacial support. While I was grateful to learn more about the rural regions and congregations, I was grieved by the vision of the youth being negated. As Gloria Wheeler reminded us, this was a real illustration of how the youth are often not given voice in their communities. Furthermore, when we visited one of the church buildings we were exposed to deep the financial dependency has become.

The Pastor shared with us that they had started construction with the materials they had purchased and through the labor of their community members. They finished half of the building when they were informed that a U.S. congregation wanted to come down and help build. So they stopped. They waited. They let them finish the building. The pastor said, "it was not their best work." This is precisely what we are trying and feel called to avoid. I pray our partnership moves beyond finances, elevates the voices of young people, and ultimately becomes our best work in partnership.

Honduras Gardens

We also visited a few homes in Guaimaca. One of the homes had a very large garden with every tropical fruit you can imagine, e.g. bananas, plantains, guava, mandarin oranges, lemons, mangos, etc., coffee beans (pictured), sugar cane, and more. All of this has motivated me to work harder to develop a more organic, locally harvested, and fresh produce diet.

This has been an incredible few days. We have been exposed to a variety of conversations, experiences, people, and communal dynamics that all need to be taken into consideration as we continue to explore how this partnership will move forward in years to come. I continue to be energized and blessed by the youth and adult leadership on our team, who have had their eyes and ears open to what God is up to in this place.

Continued prayers appreciated....

 

Read other reflections on www.workofthepeople.wordpress.org to include fantastic post from a parent...

 

Forgiveness as Jubilee: Uncovering Sins, Trespasses, and Debts in Lord's Prayer

Forgiveness is difficult for us to wrap our brains around. We have been the offended and the offender; we have been the one in need of extending forgiveness and find it difficult, if not impossible to offer. We have also been the one who has longed to be offered forgiveness, but wonder if the mistakes we have made have burned bridges beyond repair.

So when we hear Jesus' words, forgive us and forgive others, they may sound well and good, but is forgiveness really as simple as apologies delivered and accepted?

Still more, the matter is complicated whenever you walk into an ecumenical setting, with believers from Lutheran, Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian traditions. We don't even say the same things are being forgiven.

If you have ever concluded a prayer circle with the Lord's prayer and you get to this line, you know what I mean, "Forgive us our sins/trespasses/debts as we forgive...well...all those things, Lord."

So it may be best, when trying to engage this line in the Lord's Prayer, to explore the witness of each tradition's interpretation.

Hacemos La Misión en Colaboración: Honduras Youth Partnership 2012

One of the ways I have felt called to exercise my vocation as a youth pastor is through the development of a wide variety of missional partnerships. The kingdom of God is so vast and diverse, yet the temptation looms large to assume that our context is the only context whereby the gospel speaks and God's people dream.

What are missional partnerships?

Missional partnerships are pilgrimages that enable disciples in one context, i.e. the suburbs of Philadelphia, to travel with and work alongside disciples in another context as the church collaborates and conspires together.

Missional partnerships are immersions within the missio Dei (mission of God), which is to reconcile the whole world, through Jesus Christ, to God's good and beautiful intentions. The mission of God can also be understood as God's movement to save the world from all forms of suffering, injustice, evil, and chaos. And this reconciliation, which began in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, continues as God's people, in places like West Chester, PA and Tegucigalpa, Honduras, are formed and sent by God's Spirit to live into good news of God's deliverance.

Missional partnerships emphasize collaboration and reject imposition and inquisition. Missional partnerships are conversations. Missional partnerships assume nothing and work together on everything. Missional partnerships risk the sharing of leadership. Actually, missional partnerships shift leadership from the hands of the travelers to the hopes and dreams of the hosts who call the "foreign" context their home. This is what Hunter Farrell refers to as "mutuality in mission." [1]

Missional partnerships take short-term missions to the next level and extend interactions and collaborations beyond the one-week excursion and continue the dialogue and dream even after photos have been swapped and t-shirts washed and buried at the bottom of drawers.

Missional partnerships become covenanted relationships that extend well into the future- God's future!

I am a firm advocate of the "come and follow" and "look and see" discipleship model first embodied by Jesus in the calling of the Twelve. These missional partnerships are adventures in such discipleship, whereby youth are awakened by the kingdom of God and transformed by the power of the gospel alive and well all over the world. These partnerships empower youth to develop the eyes and ears to see and hear how God may be calling them to exercise their unique gifts and callings to participate in the very dreams of God locally and internationally.

That said, as the Imago Dei Youth Ministry prepares for a return to Honduras and year two of our youth-to youth missional partnership with the Presbytery of Honduras, I thought I would muse about a few of my hopes and dreams. Imago Dei Youth, feel free to comment and add your own :)