Send Us To Kenya

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Greetings! We pray that this letter finds you well. We are in our 4^th year of living in Nashville and who would have dreamed so much would happen in four years? We have seen doors open that we never imagined and opportunities presented to us that were pleasantly unexpected.

We would like to share with you one of those opportunities and invite your support. We have an incredible opportunity to engage with an amazing organization in Kenya, Africa called, Made in the Streets MITS (www.madeinthestreets.org).

Context For The Trip

Nairobi is the capital city of Kenya and home to over three million people. It is a city of contrasts. It is both an economic center in the nation and at the same time home to thousands of children who are on the streets with no parents, no homes, and no hope. Most of these children are abused, hungry, and addicted to substances - glue sniffing is a pervasive and destructive problem for these children who live in the streets.

MITS is a child development program that uses a holistic approach to address the serious issue of child homelessness and the related problems of abuse and addiction. MITS reaches out to children who are still on the streets. They identify children who are ready to leave the street life and offer them something better. Once a child is taken off the street, their basic needs of food, water, shelter, and clothes are met first. As children are able and old enough, they are given incredible opportunities in education and learning trades such as auto mechanics, sewing, woodworking, catering, hairdressing, computers or farming.

How We Plan To Engage

            Engaging with MITS as a family is a rare and beautiful opportunity. There will be two kinds of engagement during this trip.

The first kind of engagement is the children who have been rescued off the streets. This trip is unique in that the plan for the trip is to engage the unique qualities and skills of the Americans with the unique qualities and skills of the Kenyans. Chris will engage in some staff training (and getting training from staff) on child development and will be exploring how Positive Youth Development might intersect with the work of the program. Gail and Sierra will engage in the young women learning to sewing and singing. Canaan will gravitate toward the farming and computers. 

The second kind of engagement will be with children on the streets of the Eastleigh Suburb of Nairobi. We will observe and even participate in the outreach work done in the streets is Eastleigh. So, in a sense, we will see both the challenge that exists in the streets as well as participate in the existing programs that address these challenges. 

How You Can Engage

We would love to have your support in any or all of the following three ways: Prayer, Financial, Social Media. You will see more details for each on the following page.

Our financial needs include airfare, ground travel, lodging, food, immunizations, passports and visas. For each of us, the cost is roughly three thousand dollars for a grand total of $12,000.

We depart July 15, 2014 and return July 30, 2014.

Peace,

Chris, Gail, Sierra & Canaan Gonzalez

Facebook: facebook.com/fajitaboy

Twitter: @fajitaboy

DONATE ONLINE:

www.ottercreek.org/missions

DONATE WITH A CHECK:

PAY TO THE ORDER OF: Otter Creek Church of Christ

MEMO: MITS

STICKY NOTE: "Gonzalez"

Otter Creek Church of Christ

409 Franklin Rd.

Brentwood, TN 37027

A Prayer for the Board of Trustees at Lipscomb University

 

Heavenly Father, Holy Spirit, Jesus, we come to you today grateful for your generosity in allowing us to breathe another day full of breath, for the privilege of being alive. We come grateful for the responsibility of being situated as leaders at Lipscomb University. You have positioned us to touch the lives of students, their families, their friends, their churches. Everything we do vibrates across hundreds or even thousands of relationships, plucking the tender and resilient strands that hold people together. Let us now take off our sandals, for you have placed us on holy ground.

As a Christian institution of higher learning located in Nashville, in Middle Tennessee, in the Southeast, in the United States, in the world we have the choice either to close ourselves off and protect ourselves from the world and culture that swirls about us or to engage this world and culture.

May we resist the temptation to disengage as the Essenes did finding comfort and identity in separating from the world about them, settling into an insular seclusion as though we can somehow be separate from anyone else.

May we resist the temptation to engage as the Pharisees did finding comfort and identity in judging the world about them, settling into self-righteousness and spiritual pride as though we could be spiritually superior to anyone else.

May we resist the temptation to engage as Rome did finding comfort and identity in lording over others with power and authority, settling into domination and oppression as though the power we have was meant to control others.

Instead, guide us as we engage this amazing world around us. We seek to follow the way of Christ as he engaged the world. Let us make an incarnational engagement with this place, with everyone we touch. Let us be fully in this world while not being of this world. Let us be generous like Jesus, giving ourselves away without losing ourselves. Let us be an aroma that promises delight and let us be the delight to the world that we promise to be. Let us change this place by goodness not force, by kindness not judgment, by connection not protection. Let every single thing we do leave a generous and unforgettable experience for this world to ponder.

With the responsibility and privilege we have been graciously given, we ask for boldness. May we be bold. Truly bold. Not the imposing boldness that flows from arrogance, not the flailing boldness that comes from desperation, not the explosive boldness that ignites from anger, but rather the generous and engaging boldness that can only exude from humility.

With the responsibility and privilege we have been graciously given, we ask for wisdom. May we be wise in leveraging our collective experiences, wounds, successes, failures, skills, talents, deficiencies and personalities for the benefit and blessing of the world around us. And yet even with all of that, we ask for more wisdom. Give us wisdom beyond ourselves. Give us wisdom that we have not earned through experience. Give us divine wisdom. In your word you promised that a request for wisdom would not be denied and so we come expectant.

We are grateful for being blessed with the privilege and responsibility of Lipscomb University.

We offer up this prayer in Jesus name.

Grief Demands A Story

Grief demands a story. It is story inertia - story energy that sits heavy on the soul. It may be so heavy the soul can hardly pull itself out from underneath it. Early on, it simply can't. Grief is meaning that must be storied. Grief introduces piles and mounds and layers deep of meaning with no pre-programmed language or behaviors by which to tell the story. Grief does not ask for you to read lines; it requires that you write them - in a language you have never spoken. Grief, the relentless and ever flowing source of disquieting, disrupting, unstoried meaning, tires the body and wears on the mind, stress-fractures the soul, sets granite boulders on the heart and then says, "speak!" 

For my grieving friends, I know you are tired and weary and may be looking for a place where grief is not or a moment when grief sleeps - so you can also sleep. I also know such a place does not exist and such moments for rest are elusive. You may look at the days before you as an endless line of blank hours awaiting processing. 

It is my prayer that you can find some way in all the disorienting emptiness to story your grief. In words. In song. In dance. In tears. In prayer. In poetry. In mission. In art. 

And it is my prayer that you will have genuine and humble listeners. Real listeners. May listeners be near you when you can story your grief, the kind of listeners who are uninterested by anything else in the world but you, who are undistracted by any other care in the world, whose listening humbly invites more story. 

An Open Letter To Cancer

An Open Letter To Cancer

(Not so) Dear Cancer,

Let’s cut to the chase and dispense with any trite and meaningless pleasantries. I am not going to sugar coat this or pretend to play nice. I hate you. We all hate you. You are an unwelcomed intruder and are invited to leave immediately. Your invasion into the body of my friend is an absolute affront to her and everyone who loves her – an army numbering in the thousands. 

We’re on to you. We know what you’re up to. Your invisible presence is now out in the open. The spot light is on you and will be on you until you are gone. We know that your goal is to take the strength, energy, health and ultimately the life of everyone you touch. You take health. You take money. You take security. You take hope. You’re nothing but a selfish, wicked, insatiable black hole of life draining evil. There is nothing good in you.

Your mission is evil and we will fight you with everything we’ve got. We will find every medicine available in this day and age to crush you. We will use any surgical procedure to cut you out. We will marshal the warriors of Heaven to storm the gates of the Hell you seek into impose. With unrelenting prayer and merciless prayer we will petition the Almighty God of the Universe for your complete annihilation.

We are not discouraged; we are energized. You wanted to crush our faith; it just increased. You wanted to instill fear; we just became more courageous. You wanted to tamp us down; we’re just getting started.

You think you’re a serious diagnosis? Diagnose this:

·         There are more of us than there are of you

·         God is on our side

·         You are alone in your mission - friendless

·         You’re trending downward in your victories

·         Your “best days” are way behind you

·         Even when you win, you lose (New Heaven; New Earth – what have you got?)

·         Anything you can do will be countered the Redemption of all things, so….

We didn’t want this war, but since war is thrust upon us, we will fight you with everything we’ve got. You’re going to wish you hadn’t started this.

Sincerely,

The Band of Friends

Rain Dances

Frantic plips pulse and fade

In confident puddles 

That will mud

That will crack

That will forget 

But not today

Insistent streams surge and swell 

In search of rest

That will irrigate

That will stagnate

That will evaporate

But not today 

Immersive rains quench and quell

In expectant thirsters

That will run

That will sweat

That will thirst again

But not today

Happy 4th of July

The emergence of the United States of America is a multi-faceted and complex social anomaly in history that has accumulated great power based on the vulnerable premise that there is no guarantee of self perpetuation. How America began could also be its own demise and because of this potential, there must be humility and generosity and the flight from tyranny at all costs. Accumulation of great powerr while maintaining an intentional flight from tyranny is perhaps the most challenging call to any social institution and at the same time is the only way to sustain it. Power, in its very best use, is leveraged for the benefit of as many as possible, not as few as possible. So long as America leverages its power for the benefit of the many and not the few, there is a bright future for this nation. ‎

The nostalgic future of clock museums

Time lost track of me

Oh the blissful abduction of flow

Unconscious

Hyperaware

Time flew by

And went looking for me

But I was here all along

Very here

So here

Extraordinarily here

More here 

Than time would have ever allowed

Hidden in plain sight

Cloaked in laughter

Covered in friendship

Clouded in love

Time tried to hunt me down

But I was too happy to be found 

And eternity went deep

Outside the radar

Undetectable

Undisturbed

And free

And when time finally found me

It couldn't contain 

Memories pushed back

On the intended occupation 

For memories of the past

Pushed right through me

And became anticipation 

Time failed

Time jailed 

Time wailed

And I...

I remembered the future

Can You Hear Me Now?

Can You hear Me Now?

 

An anxious heart can be many things.

 

It can be a call to silence.

It can be a call to prayer.

It can be a call to creativity.

It can be a call to work.

It can be a call to come clean.

It can be a call to slow.

It can be a call to organize.

It can be a call to risk.

It can be a call to forgive.

 It can be a call to stand up for yourself.

It can be a call to humility.

It can be a call to surrender.

It can be a call to rise up.

 

Oh this anxious heart,

So honestly undone,

Speaks the way it knows,

Unignorable voice,

 Anxiety, like fire to the touch,

Communicates, talks, SCREAMS like Jagger

 And you cannot be the same,

 With a voice like that,

 Committed to you.

 

Try, try to quiet the voice,

Try to smother in mud,

Try to suffocate it with pill-ohs

 It will scream ever louder,

 Until you hear nothing else,

 

Oh anxious heart,

Never forsake or abandon,

For without you,

How would we know?

Parasails, Little Boats, and Submarines: Little faith - big ocean

The ocean is really big and filled with stuff. It moves in waves, currents, and tides. Waves can be little laps of water on a sandy shore or tsunamis that swallow cities. Currents can be invisible, but carry objects thousands of miles. Tides rise and fall and there is nothing that can stop them. Furthermore, there are creatures in the ocean that are either massive in size, countless in number, or dangerous in nature. The power of the ocean is unstoppable, uncontrollable and unpredictable.

At the same time, the ocean sustains us with food. It regulates air quality, weather patterns, the recycling of water. Even for people in Minnesota, where I grew up, the ocean is an essential part of life and is unavoidable. We cannot not engage the ocean We cannot survive in its absence. It is essential to all life.

The ocean gives life. The ocean takes life. We are certain that we need the ocean as we would all die without it, but at the same time, the ocean itself is uncertain in how it will treat us. We need it, but we cannot trust it. We live dependent on it, but we cannot put our faith in its care for us.

We must engage the ocean while having faith in something else.

Sometimes the ocean is fun and we para sail over it. High above the waves and currents and tides, there is quiet and calm, and we gently hover over the waters, seeing almost everything up so high. Although somewhat precarious being so high, we para sail in peace.

There are times of faith that feel like this. Confident and peace-filled. We see everything and it all makes sense. There is no sense that much is wrong in the world and we feel the joy of being above it all. These are good times of faith. We feel strong and mostly in control of things. Yes, we know that we could fall, but we don't fall.

But we don't always para sail. In fact, it is something we hardly ever do. Mostly we float on the ocean. Some people have nice yachts, but most people can't afford huge boats like that. We have our little boats. They float, but they are moved by waves and wind, by current and tide. Little boats on the ocean prevent us from having to tread water, but also shake when the ocean flinches.

There are times when our faith feels like being in a small boat in the huge ocean. It is a faith that keeps us afloat, but in such a way that we feel everything. Waves may splash over the side of he boat and get us wet. We could be carried away by a current. We rise and fall with the tide. Our little boat does not stop the ocean; instead, it helps us live in the presence of the ocean. Faith is not something that protects us from the world as much as it helps us live in the world. Faith is not an escape plan, it is a means of engagement. It is not a way to be unaffected, but rather a way to process the affect.

And sometimes we have to go under. We must get completely submerged into the ocean. Sometimes the ocean just wants to swallow us for a while and we have to go under. Of course this cannot be done by holding one's breath, at least not for long. We need to take extreme measures and climb into a submarine. Inside a submarine, so little can be seen. There is so much unknown and unseen being submerged.

There are times when faith is the only thing keeping us going, keeping us alive. Without it we would be drowned immediately. The submarine faith is powerful, protective, and persistent, but at the same time requires a lot of resources. In fact, it requires everything we've got in order to breathe. one small breach in the hull and there is absolute crisis. It must be strong. It must not fail.

Faith is dynamic and responsive to an ocean that is massively powerful and filled with creatures. Faith is going to look and feel differently depending on the situation. A strong faith is not deciding which situation to be in or what it feels like in that situation. A strong faith is one that addresses the situation, even if it feels like it is precarious. The strength of one's faith cannot be measured by the behavior of the ocean, but by the response of of the person.

Nurturing one's faith is making sure there are no tears in the para sail, leaks in the boat or breaches in the hull of the submarine. 

More familiar than home (A theological hack imagines Heaven)

I got it. I got it. I finally got it. From this perspective it is hard to see how I could have missed it for so long. For my whole life, or what I thought was the entirety of my life. The answers, all of them, were right here in front of my face, but for whatever reason, they did not feel like answers. It was not that I did not have access to the answers all along, but instead, the answers were too great for me or I was too confused to know them for what they were. But now that I am here I see that the answers are here, ready for me to grab and taste and touch. Now that I am here I must learn these truths and understand them.

For so long I just didn’t know and never believed much was even knowable. But now I see clearly that all is knowable and always has been. Yes, I must pursue these answers.

What’s it like here? Well, one thing I can tell you is that the ringing in my ears has stopped. It is gone. I never realized how loud it was. I never realized how quiet life could be. What a relief. And yet, the ringing is not replaced by quiet, but rather the excited hum and buzz of masses of people anticipating something great. And yet, it doesn’t feel like masses of people. There is plenty of space in this city and no one is in a hurry. Yes, the ringing is gone and replaced with anticipation. I can hear it and see it and feel it – something great is going to happen.

What else did I notice here? That weight, that weight of ambiguity is absent. My God how heavy that was. What’s different? Oh, it is so clear to me now. There are no competing messages. This is a place absent of lies. Wow. There were so many lies. OK, I understand, when there are so many lies, truth can be difficult to see. It has always been right here, but the lies tried to look like truth. Now the lies are gone and the truth remains. THAT is why it is familiar here. I have always seen truth, but did not know to name it as such. I could never be completely sure of all truth, but now there is no other way to see it. I still have choice whether to believe this truth, but now the choice is so obvious.

What’s it like here? This is Heaven and there is no doubt about it. I feel relieved, safe and free.  But at the same time, it sure isn’t anything like what I thought it would be. No, it’s way better. However, naturally, I had some questions. Not that I was complaining, but I just wanted to know how I had gotten it so wrong in some of my expectations.

For example, there was always this part of Heaven that I sort of feared. It was the accounting of everything I had ever done wrong. And yet here I am in Heaven and no one asking me to explain anything. No one is explaining their sin. No one is groveling. I was so perplexed by this absence of this part of the Heaven experience that I asked about it.

“And where,” I asked someone, “where is the big video screen where I review all my sin?”

“Who told you that is what happens here? That’s what they do in Hell,” he said, “and you’re free to pay a visit there if you like, but don’t take too long, not much good happens there. There is a lot of explaining and justifying and arguing and, well, people can get really pathetic there. Hell is a sour and foul medicine that doesn’t work for an illness that doesn’t even exist.”

“Sin doesn’t exist?” I asked

“Either sin exists or Jesus exists, but not both.” 

“But I…”

“Shhhhhhhhh, believe me, Jesus exists,” he said.

That was all I was going to get out of him and he moved along pressing toward the greatly anticipated something – something that I still was not sure what it was.

 

I had another question about Heaven. I thought there would be all this singing of hymns. I didn’t hear any hymns. Where were they? Would we sing hymns at some point? Frankly, it wasn’t the part of Heaven I was looking forward to. I mean, Amazing Grace is, well, amazing, and Oh Thou Fount of Every Blessing is about as honest as it gets, and Just As I Am evokes a certain humility, but how was being in Heaven going to improve on what we already had going? And really, endless singing gets old, doesn’t i?. We had endless singing at the gospel meetings and Zoe Conferences, and well…

Anyway, instead of endless hymns, I heard waves of sounds of anticipation and excitement. Something great was about to happen. I did hear some songs, if hearing is what you want to call it. And what I heard certainly weren’t hymns. In fact, they weren’t even songs, really. They were like pure emotion that can be detected by all the senses. One person poured out the emotion of gratitude for being healed of AIDS. I could hear the feeling, but I could see it in full color and I could even smell it, like walking through a field of roses and honeysuckle, only way better.

Then there was another person, belting out her passion while playing guitar. The song had no words, only sounds, sounds so beautiful that I didn’t want to stop listening. I was terribly interested in what she was doing. The whole area had a bright orange glow to it with the smell of bread baking, a rich yeasty bread and my mouth watered. And then the meaning of the song came to me. She was no longer hungry and neither were her children. It was a song of praise, but not one that had even been written. It was being created as it was being performed. It was the perfect expression of her passion. It was a new song, a unique song, a song that only she could sing.

And then I recalled the church hymn, “They’ll sing in Heaven a New song.” I got it. It all came clear. We are not all singing one new song together, but rather each of us is singing a song so personal and so exact that no one else could even begin to sing it. It would not make sense performed, experienced, and expressed by anyone else. The singing in Heaven is not hymns written by other people, but rather it is the experience of expressing our deepest passions with no self-consciousness or shame. It is enjoying the privilege to really know someone else through their songs. It is the privilege of knowing everyone else for who they are.

In Heaven I am as me as I can get and that is the very thing that is desired. I am not coerced to be something I am not. I am not pressured to take on an agenda. I am not saddled with confused passions or inhibited by fear of judgment. I am me and that is best expressed in what I am calling a song for all the senses.

And then something else became clear to me. Everyone’s passion, though personal and pure was also in celebration and service of others or God or both. The person singing passionate gratitude for being AIDS-free highlighted everyone who walked with him through the shame and fear of the disease. The woman who had been hungry praised God for teaching her what it meant to want something more than anything else. It was the most honest and deep and beautiful redemption song. She understood the incomprehensible and thanked God for it.

And at that moment the songs of the masses began to swell. I could hear everyone’s song, see everyone’s song, taste and smell everyone’s song. I felt it all at once in my bones. Suddenly I was able to see everyone all at once. So many people. So many people that it could very well have been everyone. All singing. And the feeling of anticipation rose to such a height that I finally sang my song.

 And now I understood that my song was so perfectly me that I was not allowed to know it on my own. I could not know it on my own for being on my own isn’t being me – if that even makes any sense at all. Rather, I could only sing my song when God himself sang it through me. This added so much more meaning to being an image of God. I had always been an image of God in the world.  I am still in the world and I am still an image of God – but now without limits. God has ALWAYS desired to sing through me and now it is finally happening. I was finally doing what I was meant to do all along. Now I was singing something I felt like I had only fleeting glimpses of for so many decades. This was the greatly anticipated thing – that I, together with what seemed to be everyone, was finally freed to sing.

Heaven is not about going to a safe place to tell God how great he is. Rather, heaven is what God has been trying to do all along with me and everyone else – sing love into the world through us. The only difference is that we are no longer burdened with sorting out competing narratives.  Heaven, it appears, is Jesus singing through us expressing who he really is through the uniqueness of who we are and Hell is us trying to figure out who we are without Jesus.