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Meeting The Children

June 28, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                        June 27, 2013

This week, if you have been reading my blog, you know that I’ve been in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic as a part of a sixteen person mission team doing basketball camps and construction projects. The construction crew painted all of the classrooms and the hallways so that when the 400 students come back to school in August they will be greeted with a fresh look, a new beginning.

Today many of us were able to meet the children that we sponsor through VisionTrust. Carol and I have been sponsors for several years, but today was the first time I was able to meet our two Dominican children face-to-face. Alexa will be in sixth grade. I can tell that she loves to laugh and talk. She is cute as a button, and shared that she loves all food…even veggies!

I found myself getting emotional as I met her and talked, through our translator, with her. I’m not sure why my eyes got a little misty, but I think it was probably because today was a connecting point- connecting the sending of our financial sponsorship each month with who it is helping. I have to admit that Carol and I have sponsored children for so long that it has become easy to see it as a monthly bill to be paid instead of a gift to help someone in a different country. Just send the bill in with a check along with the utility bill and car insurance bill.

Today, however, gave me a completely new appreciation.

And then I met Johan, a third grader, who was shy and much as expansive in his answers to my questions as Alexa was. I’m sure it was a little intimidating for him to meet an old guy for the first time who kept asking a lot of questions about him and what he liked and didn’t like, favorite school subject, how many siblings, etc.

Alexa and Johan, two children who I will pray will be held in God’s hands, protected and growing each day.

It was a good day! A day of firsts. Perhaps tomorrow I will write about how I put my foot in my mouth on the first day of basketball camp this week and ended up giving away 91 basketballs.

 

P.S. The Cunfer family is awesome! They met the child they sponsored today also. Like me they connected to points that gave them a new perspective.

Categories: children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Jesus, love, Parenting, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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A Day of Humidity and Humanity

June 27, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                  June 26, 2013

 

The Dominican Republic is hot and humid. It is so humid that if you looked at yourself in a mirror your reflection would start sweating. Today was the most humid yet since we’ve been here. By the end of the first basketball camp session at 10:00 we were drenched. “Nacho”, one of our translators who also takes care of arrangements at the mission house where we saty, continually reminds us to drink water…to stay hydrated.

The humidity usually means an afternoon shower. If the rain shower happens, or seems like it about to happen, about the time our afternoon session is to begin the kids aren’t there. Today when it was time for our 1:30 session to begin there were no campers present.

1:35 the same thing.

1:40…we had one!

By 2:00, however, we had close to 40 there. It makes schedule-oriented people a little crazy.  Or should I say schedule-dependent Americans crazy? Dominicans might tell many of us Americans to lighten up!

But several things hit me today about humanity as well. The kids who are coming to camp this week love to laugh just like we do. The girls like to cluster together…just like many American pre-teen girls do. And the young boys here also like to wrestle…not pay attention…goof around…but give our coaches high-fives…just like little boys in America do.

There is no difference in behavior tendencies. Young boys here walk around with untied shoelaces and “barn doors wide open” just like American kids do.

There is also no difference between broken hearts of young kids in the DR and young kids in America when they lose one of their parents. Today at the end of our camp day Sydney Cunfer reminded me that we needed to pray with Christopher, a young boy about fourteen, whose father is presently imprisoned. A moment later Christopher was coming up the steps from the gym and we stopped him. Sydney, Emily Lundquist, and I asked him if we could pray for his and his father. I gently said to him that I had heard his father was having some difficult days. His face went quickly to a pained look of sadness. We prayed and hugged on him for a couple of moments.

Losing a parent tears at the emotions of any child. A little later on today before he left, Christopher came up to Sydney and thanked her for praying for him.

A day of humidity that has drenched us. A day of humanity that has gripped our hearts.

Categories: children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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Basketball Is Basketball

June 26, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                           June 25, 2013

 

On our second full day in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic one of the things that has become evident is that “basketball” is a universal language. As we teach it and play it with the people of Herrera, and we struggle to know the Spanish language, basketball is understood by all. When I played a game of three-on-three and got teamed up with two Dominicans we all understood “pick and roll” without saying a thing. We understood “give and go” without opening our mouths.

Basketball has therefore become a way of connecting when words fail us. It’s the bridge over the confusion.

The first two days of camp I have used fundamental skills and teachings of the game of basketball to proclaim the truth about God. Yesterday I used the perfect positioning of our hands on the basketball when we shoot it to talk about the perfect positioning that God’s hands have on our lives. Today I used an illustration about an impossible shot made possible to talk about how God can take something that in impossible for us to do and make it possible.

Basketball has become the filter to talk about the relational gospel. Tomorrow I will use another situation from the game of basketball to help me convey the truths of grace and forgiveness.

Herrera can be a depressing place to live in. We’ve seen some things here this week that none of us have ever seen before. The school we’re at, Grace School, is a beacon of hope in an area that many several years ago was rendered hopeless. Now the school is held in high regard by the community because the community has seen so many lives redirected and transformed.

One of the young guys who has been at basketball camp this week is named Christopher. His father is imprisoned right now, charged with a very serious crime. Christopher has been devastated by the loss of his dad in his daily life. His attendance at camp has been a time of happiness for him. Sydney Cunfer, a 15 year old exceptional young lady on our team, said to me last night, “We should pray with Christopher before we leave here.” I told her that we would look for that opportunity to happen.

Basketball has provided that opportunity to care, to connect, and be used by God to come alongside.

I’m learning so many lessons this week about my “middle-classism”, about how privileged, probably over-privileged, I am. That things I have come to expect are not necessities. That what I think is a need is really just a want.

I’m learning how to say certain Spanish words…and struggle in saying other words, but more about that tomorrow.

Praise the Lord for basketball, and the chance to talk in a same language with kids who we have come to love.

Categories: children, Christianity, Faith, Grace, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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Plan and Adjust

June 25, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                             June 24, 2013

 

“Plan and Adjust”

 

Today was our first day of basketball camp and construction projects here in the Herrera area of Santo Domingo. It was a day of adjustments. Kevin Hodges, heading up our construction crew ended up using his plumbing skills half the day… changing out a faucet…fixing a toilet…each a necessary thing that needed to be done…each a needed thing for the school we are at that serves 400 children.

The rest of the construction team ended up painting three classrooms in the school that were desperately in need of a new coat.

The basketball camp staff adjusted and adjusted. There, evidently, was some misunderstanding between the school principal and the students. Students were told that they could only come to one session of camp this week. She meant one sessions each day, either 8:30-10:00, 10:30-12:00, or 1:30-3:00. But some of the students misunderstood and thought she meant they could only come once…in other words, one day…the whole week. Our first session only had 9 kids come, but then our second session had about 25, and our third session 30. Evidently, word began to get out. When our afternoon session began, however…time-wise, there was only one boy there. We figured out it’s because it was raining at the time. Campers waited until the rain stopped. No parents were driving up to the school and dropping their kids off. No one drives up to the school except delivery trucks and motorbikes.

But by the end one had grown to thirty.

One of our groups meets in the sanctuary on the top floor. It’s cooler there, but the tin roof above it has openings that allow large puddles of rainwater to fall onto the floor. Teaching basketball in the sanctuary is fine, unless it rains. Then we must suddenly adjust so we can avoid people slipping and falling in the water.

So we went into Monday with a plan that quickly changed.       Plan and adjust, plan and adjust.

The student team members have been great. Sydney and Garrett Cunfer shared their testimonies in worship of Sunday. Samantha McKinney is a sweetheart to always wants to help people. Emily Lundquist is adjusting to situations as much as she needs to keep tabs on her diabetes and stay monitored. Hannah Lundquist is doing awesome as a basketball helper. Mason Ripple hooped it up with the young boys close his age; and Megan Lundquist got almost as much paint on the walls as she got on herself today…all with a smile.

We’ve adjusted to Dominican plumbing limitations. I will avoid explaining that too much here. We’ve also adjusted to showers that are two degrees warmer than cold, but feel surprising refreshing.

I adjusted quickly to Dominican coffee. Excellente’!

We’re adjusting to having translators, and we’re learning certain words that are helping us communicate.

God is in the adjustments! We’ll see if he has a different plan for Tuesday!

Categories: children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Grace, Jesus, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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Rhythm Preaching

June 24, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                     June 23, 2013

Our first full day in Santo Domingo was full of new experiences and meeting new friends. We worshiped with The Church of the Liberator, which meets on the top floor of Grace School in the area known as Herrera. The top floor, depending on who you talk to, is the fourth or fifth floor of the building. It is actually the rooftop with a metal roof above it. That may not make sense..unless you’ve been there!

I had the privilege of giving the sermon. It happened to be the 34th anniversary of my ordination service…but it was the first time I had ever preached with a translator. Reuben, a twenty-one year old Dominican student, who was a high school exchange student for a year in Minnesota, stood by my side and we started. The text I read was from John 9:1-9 about the blind man who Jesus made spit mud for and placed on his eyes. He follows Jesus’ instruction to go to the Pool of Siloam and wash it off, and when he does he can see.

I began cautiously. One of our young people said, “Wow, Pastor Bill! Just like back at our church…they didn’t laugh at your jokes either!” She was kidding…I think.

I talked about being blind to what Jesus is doing, and Reuben followed closely behind. I gave a phrase, and Reuben repeated. We got to a point where it seemed almost natural, like inhaling and exhaling.

Whenever I mentioned that Jesus frees the enslaved, or gives sight to the blind, or takes the burdened and gives them release…and then Reuben translated…there was a chorus of “amens” from the Dominican congregation.

The Church of the Liberator is attended by people who have experienced liberation. It is not a white collar suburban congregation, or a contemporary emergent generational church with high-quality graphics and sound. It is not a high-church congregation that prints off a 12 page bulletin each Sunday. Rather, it is a congregation of people who understand in new and transformational ways the rhythm of God in their lives.

Reuben and I preached. We danced the story of release of the captives. Pastor Osvaldo prayed a prayer of blessing over me, and he closed the service with a closing prayer of thanksgiving for the blessings of God, the grace of God, the gospel of God that The Church of the Liberator is proclaiming.

And to that, both Reuben and I say “Amen!”

Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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A 3 A.M. Start

June 22, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                           June 22, 2013

 

I arise at 3 in the morning tomorrow! There is something awkward about getting out of bed before Starbucks even opens! 3 A.M. Is one of those times where you’re not sure whether or coming or going…or both at the same time, so you smack into yourself!

The early start is so I can arrive at church at 4:00, so our mission team can pack up, pray, and be on the road to Denver International Airport by 4:45. Several people told me this past week that they would be praying for us…from their beds that morning.

For the next week I’ll be posting a Words from W.W. From Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. I’ll post something each evening about what has happened that day…about the people we meet…the children who will be attending basketball camp…the interactions between our team members with the Dominicans, and also with one another. I’ll try to share with you how we have been blessed, challenged, and transformed.

Our team of sixteen goes expecting to see God work, but, quite frankly, I’m sensing that God will be transforming each one of us even more than the people whose homeland we’ll be visiting. I’m expecting that new revelations about our own lives will come to us.

It will be long hot days in Santo Domingo. Our basketball staff will be conducting three camp sessions each day (8:30-10:00, 10:30-12:00, 1:30-3:00) for a hundred different kids each session. And then from 3:30-4:30 some of the young men in the community have been invited to come and play hoops with us (if enough of us are still standing). During the 90 minutes I’ll be presenting a devotional thought to start with. We call them Buddy Basketball values. They tie some aspect of the game of basketball to the gospel message. Basketball is a great teaching tool to talk about hope, to talk about good news.

Each evening we’ll spend some time as a team debriefing and sharing God-stories from the day. I’m excited to see what God is going especially do in the lives of the men who are a part of the team (Seven of us!).

It all starts with a splash of hot water in my face at 3 A.M, and my Keurig waking up about ten minutes later.

Pray for us!

Categories: children, Christianity, Community, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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Caught Between What Is and What I Hope

June 21, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                        June 21, 2013

As I stand in line at Wendy’s Hamburgers I’m having a “caught in the middle” moment. I’m caught between wanting to be healthier and wanting a Double Stack with Cheese. What I hope for is in a battle with “what is”, and “what is” is hungry for what my tummy says I urgently need.

Which one will win? More often than not it’s the “what is.” What I hope for seldom gets a grip on reality.

How often are our lives in similar tug-of-wars?

I want to become more knowledgeable about scripture, but I can’t seem to fit the reading of the Word into my life as a spiritual discipline.

I want to walk three miles a day, but the couch always seems to become more comfortable about the time I’m suppose to put the pedometer on.

I want to surrender myself to worship, but I’m always afraid of what people might think.

I want to get my taxes done early this year, but April 15 always seems to be the day that I finally file.

I want to start saving money to have when it is time to buy a new car, but Kohl’s is having a once-in-a-lifetime sale this week…and Target is giving $10 off for every $100 spent next week.

But here’s the “caught” that I’m seeing more and more in churches, and that my denomination, the American Baptist Churches, seems to be struggling with. It’s the “caught” that leaves us conflicted.

It’s the hope of new life without leaving the old life.

It’s “the Abraham moment”, where he took the step of faith. Hebrews 11:8 describes it this way: “By faith Abraham, when called to go to as place that he would later received as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” (NIV)

God promised him that he would inherit a place that he had never seen. For many of us we would not be able to go any further until the realtor’s review of the place had been secured, complete with pictures. We know how the “what is” looks already. The “what is hoped for” has to look as good.

If it had been brought up for a vote, the Hebrew people would always have voted for Egypt and slavery over the unknown and freedom.

I’ve pondered what it was that drove Abraham to get up and leave what he knew to go to a place he did not know? What took him from being a settler to being a pioneer?

Briefly put, Abraham received a call and he had a vision.

The call was from God to go, and he showed Abraham where it was he was to head to after he actually started moving. Carol knows that is a picture of my dream vacation. Get in the car and then decide which direction to head in. (Hasn’t happened yet! I guess you can say that I haven’t received the call from Carol to do that!)

What is God calling me to? What is he calling you to? Truth be told, few of us are aware or even looking to receive a call.

The vision that Abraham had was of a city with foundations, whose architect and builder was God. He had a picture of what could be. That must have been very difficult to stay on course with that vision when night after night he was sleeping in a tent with no buildings in sight.

Call and vision for people who are caught. What determines our decision?

Health vs. Double Stack with Cheese.

What determines whether our denomination, that this weekend is meeting in Overland Park, Kansas, and will talk about new hope, new possibilities, and new directions…and then face the reality of congregations content with the “what is”…what determines if the ABC actually moves?

Call and vision to something that isn’t yet, but more and more people can see.

That is the “caught moment!” Double stacks with cheese are always the easy way out!

Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
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Running The Mile Twenty Days In

June 20, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                      June 20, 2013

 

Today is my twentieth day in a row of writing a post for my blog, Words from W.W. I wish that I could say that I’ve found my groove, but the life of a pastor has no groove. The last four nights have found me in four different locations for either meetings or group activities. Carol and I had dinner last night at 8:30. Tonight we had to eat separately.

The only consistency so far in my thirty day writing challenge is that I’ve written each day. Diana Stucky, my administrative assistant, has been great in sending my words out to our congregation. Sometimes she gets the article in the late morning (Seldom!), and sometimes she gets the words in the evening (Often!).

Day 20 means I’m two-thirds of the way. The last week will be a challenge in that I will be in the Dominican Republic, but I’m hopeful that I can post something about our mission experience there each day.

Two-thirds of the way is the point of commitment. If you quit now everyone will wonder what your problem is. They will just shake their heads in a kind of pitiful disgust at your inability to finish anything.

I was a miler back in high school. Lap three was the hardest lap of the four lap race. Lap three was about guts and not feeling sorry for yourself. As a runner I could tell if an opposing runner was beat by the facial expression during the third lap. If his look said “Somebody feel sorry for me”, or he seemed to be looking for his mommy, the race was over.

The third quarter mile was about maintaining a fast pace when your legs feel like jelly.

It seems that there are a lot of sprinters in life trying to run a mile. What I mean is they burn themselves out in the first few moments of an important leg of their life journey. There’s a beginning sense of excitement and exhilaration about this new venture, or pursuit of a new calling, or launching of a new idea.

And then a few strides into the journey reality hits that this is not going to be the piece of cake that the person thought it was going to be. Sprinters are about cake. Milers are about oatmeal (I’m not sure where that came from! It just came out of my mouth.)

The Christian journey is a long-distance run that takes in beautiful landscapes, but also desolate desert. It’s easy to sprint in front of the beginning cheering masses, but commitment is required to get you through the periods of aloneness and depression.

The third lap is when people take a hike and never come back, but it’s also when the committed stays the course.

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Being The Student As You Are Teaching Others

June 19, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                      June 19, 2013

 

Everyone of us learn in different ways. Some are audio learners; they simply have to hear it. Others are visual; there has to be a picture for them to see. Still others have to be hands-on, they have to be touching something for it to click in their heads.

On Saturday I head to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, as a part of a sixteen person mission team that will be conducting basketball camps and doing construction projects at Grace School in Herrera, and inner city area of city. I go to teach and preach, to help children discover new things, to speak about the love of God and hope of Christ.

But I go as a student who will be teaching others!

How often does that happen? For me, quite often. I learn as I lead. I go as the “expert” who will end up being taught more than he imparts. It demands a sense of “teachability.” How often did Jesus meet with the teachers of the law who were going to teach him a thing or two? There were a few moments where the teacher was taught by the Teacher, but most of the time it seems that the teachers got angered at the idea that Jesus either knew more than them, or that he didn’t agree with them.

Teachers need to be taught. If not they become hardened opinionated “sticks-in-the-mud!”

I’ll be going into a completely different culture where life happens each day in a different kind of normal than I’m used to. Not normal for me is a Starbucks shop that is empty. This is going to challenge my understanding of not-normal.

Different language! I barely passed Spanish in high school, and that happened only because I could cheat off Betsy Wolfe’s paper in front of me. (No relation!) I’ll be learning every day. The excitement of learning will be tempered with a fear that I inadvertently say something that “You mama’s breath smells like cow dung!” I wonder how that would go over?

“Lord, help me know when to just nod my head! Help me to communicate non-verbally in ways that speak the love of Christ! Lord, help me to learn things that I never knew; and experience things that will transform me as a follower of Jesus!”

It’s going to be awesome, and I hear they have good coffee there as well!

Categories: children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Grace, Holy Spirit, Humor, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
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Churched Practical Atheists

June 18, 2013

WORDS FROM W.W.                                                                  June 18, 2013

In the clergy group that I’m a part of it was recently stated that there’s a growing population of “practical atheists.” Let me define what a practical atheist is.

There is the atheist who does not believe in a higher power. I know, I know…that is not really new news for most of us.

A “practical atheist” is someone who believes in Christ but lives as if he doesn’t exist.

How is that possible, you might ask?

Easy! Unless a person has been crucified with Christ he thinks it’s still all about him. He is the center of his universe. There may be verbal buy-in to Paul’s words “For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:21), but not belief buy-in. Belief buy-in is being so committed to a belief that I am willing to order my life around that belief. It becomes my life priority.

I’m afraid that I seem to be hearing more and more horror stories from pastors across denominations and across the country that minister in churches where people can’t get over themselves. They say they believe and yet the message their lives convey communicates a lack of belief.

It’s not just absence from worship. People can be as regular in worship on Sunday as “left-overs” night was a Tuesday dinner ritual for us when we were growing up. (Friday was Chef Boyardee Pizza! Domino’s didn’t deliver…because Domino’s didn’t exist!)

It isn’t the absence of good intentions. Good intentions abound. There are multitudes of people who have good intentions about praying for a person they know, but they just don’t get around to it.

It isn’t that practical atheists aren’t nice either. Most of them are super people who you’d feel comfortable eating pasta bowls at Noodles with.

It isn’t for a lack of Bible knowledge either. There are throngs of practical atheists who can turn right to the passage that the pastor is about to preach about. They know the Word. Give them a subject and many of them can immediately share a passage of scripture that speaks to it.

It’s just that…they don’t believe in a way that changes everything…that changes their view. It hasn’t gripped their lives, it’s just become another subject in their curriculum.

Practical atheists are like people who haven’t shown a bit of interest in their college basketball team  until it reaches the Final Four, and then they buy tickets and buy school jerseys to wear to the game. These practical atheists believe in a Gospel that their lives are not rooted in.

There isn’t a detection machine that identifies them, like the metal detectors at the airport. Only God knows who these people are, even though we know they exist!

The difficulty is that the corporate church is hampered by practical atheists. We become comfortable in systems that don’t change much, and associate God tugging on their hearts as acid reflux from that morning’s free cup of coffee before worship. They believe that this too shall pass!

As I said at the beginning, however, the number of people who believe in Christ but live like he doesn’t exist is growing. And, this, untimately affects the effectiveness of the church.

 

Categories: Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
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