community: the buzz word

i can still remember the first time i heard it. a few years after relocating back to college station my best friend, jamie, posed an unordinary question. let me first say that it has never been unusual for her to engage my heart with a question that shakes something loose in me.

19 years old, a carefree conversation behind the wheel of just another teenage adventure.

so how would you respond if God told you that ya’ll needed to break up?

but why would He do that? for once i was sortakinda yielded in this area…His sanctification well at work in me.

we broke up within a few short months

like i said, shaking things loose

fast forward several years…another unordinary question

so do you feel like you are experiencing real community?

i’m sorry, what? can you say that again?

to my recollection i stammered off the names of a dozen people that filled my time, from bible studies & coffee chats to Gilmore Girls viewing parties.

long after our phone date ended the words rattled around in my mind

 real community

you see my life was full of people…but could i answer the question when i had no understanding of it?

i am still learning what it means to walk in biblical community but a few things are clearer to me since then.

we were made for it & our souls suffer without it 

from the beginning of creation God established that it was not good for man to be alone. we need deep & abiding relationships with safe, like-minded people. Hebrews 10:24 admonishes for us to not give up meeting together but to spur one another on toward love & good deeds…to encourage one another all the more.  

this is God’s heart for us

not that we simply come together in frequency but that we do so with purpose.

community means taking off the mask of religion, laying down our pretenses, and getting messy. only then can we really enter into life with others & let them love us in all of our unlovliness.

it takes God-sized courage & this coming from someone who has prided herself on “being transparent”. only recently have i discovered how deep my need is and it has rocked me.

i mean, really rocked me. 

hi! my name is andrea and i am needy. because you see, under this glossy surface are deep wounds, irrational fears & nagging insecurities. will you be my friend & remind me of Whom i belong to?

thanks be to God for cultivating community in my life- multiple people that do just this. they receive me as i am while reminding me who i am because of Him.

community doesn’t just happen… we must first value it, then seek it out.

the health of our souls depend on it

ryan recently received a question about community from a former college student. i learned from his response & have a feeling you might also. 

Question: "Do you think true community can exist through phone and email?"

Response: The short answer is, no, not if you can help it.  If you're forced to because of being in an isolated environment (missionaries overseas, long-distance dating, etc.), then obviously that's all you can do.  But, if there is anything you can do to actually share life with people, you must make it happen, even if you're attendance is sporadic. 

When we are talking on the phone, etc., the only insight people have in our lives is how we interpret it for them.  Unfortunately, we're not honest people (with ourselves or with others)... even the most humble of us can still shell out a good amount of manipulation.  We need people that interact with our lives, people that can sift through the BS and direct us toward Jesus.  And, we need to do that for others also.

We need to have people whose house we can go to after tragedy that will cry with us, or who can hear us work through our family dysfunction, etc.

Also, we can still be extremely lonely and talk on the phone for hours a day.  There is something about presence that "cures" loneliness.  And, loneliness can be a very dangerous spiritual condition.  

Did you know that for the first 300 years, the single most important act the church participated in was to eat together? not listening to sermons or even doing justice but breaking bread. The reason is that there is power in being physically present.

They understood that who we really are is frighteningly contingent upon who is around us.  Even today, communion is a critical part of liturgies around the world. Why is that?

So, although phone, skype, email are great tools for a few occasions, it can also be a very tempting false substitute for biblical community. 

It's just enough to help us think we are linked with others, but not enough to be truly and deeply transformed by them. 

I'm learning this stuff myself ... 
Ryan

so it’s my turn to ask the question… do you feel like you are experiencing real community?

may we enter into life with people & be transformed!

today is my last tomorrow

this blog post title caught your eye didn’t it?

because let’s face it, if you are like me (or the other bazillion people like us on planet earth) your mantra goes something more like this… 

i mean why do today what i can put off for tomorrow?

whose with me? 

i’m in a bible study with a few women, the kind of women that live out loud… exposing those raw, ugly places that are desperate for truth and grace. while sharing a personal struggle, friend-whose-name-i-won’t-mention said, “today is my last tomorrow.”

today is my last tomorrow.

does that hit you like it hits me?…right in the gut like the rotavirus.

it begs the question of me, “so what will you do with today?” 

because at least in my life too many tomorrows add up to mostly never and a million missed opportunities to taste abundant life and extend it to others.

i’m not talking about laundry people, for whomever would declare life in such a task. i find that no matter how many tomorrows i put it off or however swiftly i take it by storm, laundry migrates.

i am talking about the good stuff…the stuff of the heart, mind and soul. the hidden things that drive our thoughts, behaviors and relationships…both for good and for bad.

only you know what those things are for you….or maybe just like me you stuff them down, wrapping them up with the busyness of life, tying them off in a bow of denial.

so long as we present well, what does it matter if we wait until tomorrow?

it matters much.

for many years i have sensed God asking me to lay some things down.

go figure- i said no. again and again. too afraid to peel back the perfectly pressed corners of paper, exposing my tattered box of hopes deferred.

to take a good hard look is painful…the debilitating kind of pain i’m certain causes internal bleeding somewhere within me.

through a series of events He is teaching me afresh that i can trust Him with my offerings, no matter how broken their condition. i can say yes to Him today because He meets me in the deep places.

i am also learning that saying yes to Him sometimes means saying no to others.

shocking, right?

YesGirl that i am, that’s about as far as i’ve gotten with this seemingly far off, yet life shattering truth.

will let you know when i am closer to wrapping myself around it but i do know it changes things. it forces light into darkness, exposing things for what they really are, and sometimes for what they are not.

more pain

more grace

and so i declare (me, myself and i) that today is my last tomorrow

i will choose today

i will say yes to ripping off another layer, exposing the pain

to having His light so shine on me

to letting His rescue come 

For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.

2 Corinthians 4:6-9

let’s choose today together, shall we

party pics have arrived!

this being the official 4th birthday and all, i think party pics are in order.

it’s no secret that small people love superheroes, so this party theme made for some SUPER fun!

several people have asked about how i did this invite…

Printshop is dreamy, but with a few shape text boxes and some colorful Word Art, you can do something similar in Microsoft word. i snapped the pics in our backyard and edited on picnik with the HDR effect to give it a cartoonish feel.  

the same week the twinks decided on a superhero party, i saw this table cloth & birthday banner in the check out line of old navy. they looked comic-y enough so i designed the word bubbles around the banner.

i made the masks from felt & will have them to thank when i am diagnosed with carpel tunnel. you can get 3 masks per sheet of felt, so it is an inexpensive gift if you are in the market! the party favor containers were in the party section at walmart… another super find!

the character rings were a hit, along with these super cute crime fighters.

now on to this incredible photo backdrop, painted by two amazing college girls! if i could facebook tag them here i would but a bloggy shout out will have to do for now. thanks, jerica & andrea!! and thanks to their roomie, taylor, for the inspiration! while i am in the spirit of thanksgiving, thanks  also to mandy for taking pics for me!!

by the way, a very special thanks to my mother in law, mimi, for transforming two elmo-ish cakes into these for me…

brilliant me forgot to put in the order for two small cakes, assuming they would have plenty the morning of. you see where this is going. mimi to the rescue. two stores later, and two orange elmo cakes later. (i’m sure some sesame street lover is correcting me on the other side of their computer but elmo is the best i can come up with). they had eyeballs and hair and look at them now! BIG thanks to mimi & cousin amy…especially for dealing with my perfectionism!

back to the oh-so-fab backdrop….so i texted our college supergirls on thursday when my time was running out and they joyfully worked their magic so i could have it done in time for the party. are they not UHmazing!?? the subjects below are pretty great too.

the early childhood educator in me cannot miss an opportunity to provide developmentally appropriate play experiences, which is where gotham city came from…

superfriends were able to literally paint the town. need a creative way to pass the time with your wee ones this summer? put out a few boxes with paint, rolls of tape, cups of water, sponges, brushes, you name it…then just see what happens. as they say, a child’s play is a child’s work!

the kids also loved decorating their very own super hero masks…and you can’t beat the prices at oriental trading company.

so there is no such thing in TX as an outdoor event in june without water. and what is more fun than a water slide? especially when it takes up half of your backyard. ryan and i laughed out loud (more than once) at the size of this inflatable beast! if you can’t tell, it was more than twice the height of our privacy fence! so not joking.

it also was no joke how much fun was had! their faces say it all!

thanks to our family & friends that joined us for our super celebration! birthday letter coming soon.

ka-zaaaam!

the supertwinks turn FOUR in two short weeks. FOUR!

just.like.that.

i think the coolest kids in the world are four… which is why i fell in love with teaching head start. grown up just enough to hold a silly, sometimes poignant conversation. still small enough to wipe the tears away from a skinned knee or bruised heart.

and so it is… FOUR. old enough to have been in my classroom. this realization leaves me dismayed, a childish “so not fair” swells up in protest.

and it isn’t. the hands of time tick round. i scratch my head and ask that age old question, “where did it all go?” 

so now that i’ve got us all depressed… the good news about turning four is that it’s party time. and you know how i love a good party.

especially when it involves costumes.

my sweet girl, you know the one who prefers “basketball shorts” over ruffles and batman over barbie? she just might be more excited about the party theme than her superbrother. what do you think?

  

here is the party invite i made this weekend…

stay tuned for party pics!

football and superheroes

am loving this weekend…especially that it kicked off last night with hearing from three fantastic women and the stories God has written into their lives. will update more on this event another time… no worries, it will not be this long. promise.

but i do hope you take time at some point to read about how you can Be Part of The Solution.

so this morning was the first open practice for the aggie football team. look who was ready for the action

one of many admirable qualities of our sweet berk is her intelligence!

   she calls hook’em horns a “potty word”. this one’s just for you, papa.

does anyone else find berkley’s expression somewhat funny?

or in my case, beyond hilarious.

here’s another look if you’re unconvinced.

on that note, can you tell by this pic she is a bit of a tomboy? don’t be deceived by that super cute cheerleading skirt …underneath is a pair of “basketball” shorts, as she calls them. i can almost hear ann, my mother in law, laughing through the computer as she reads this. ann, i’m on my way back to target now! :) inside joke.

just this week i put her in this cute, gymboree (as if i need to qualify gymboree as cute) … strappy watermelon top. she insisted on wearing a sweater jacket over it, not wanting her girlish figure to show, i suppose.  seeing as how it’s 80+ degrees in texas i didn’t expect it to last. i was wrong.

along with her “basketball shorts” berkley has a love affair with superheroes…not that she wants one to swoop down and rescue her from some obscure villain… she wants to BE the superhero!

she has a closet full of costumes, dripping in sequins and tulle. she prefers superheroes.

“i’m batman” she declares in a raspy growl.

a stunningly accurate impersonation, i might add. spiderman is her all time favorite.

so instead of fight it, why not build a theme party around it?

while the poehl four dropped like flies around the house last week…i used our down time to start designing superhero signs. here are just a few.

 

what almost four year old isn’t obsessed with crime fighting super powers? just another reason that i love kids! so get ready for some crashing, blasting, ka-powing good times this june.

til then…

Part of the Solution

if you are reading then you’ve likely seen me reference Part of the Solution, the missional arm of the Masterpiece Conference. many of you prayed for the college girls attending, the nations being impacted through them & even for me as i pressed into Jesus during this season of life. some have asked to see pictures & hear updates. grab the pop corn and be amazed.

amazed at the desperation, the depravity

how little we know, really know, what it means to suffer

i mean really suffer

and by “we” i am speaking of me… sucking down a starbucks venti, pecking letters on a laptop in a bed three times my size. 

just hang with me…keep reading. you will be amazed.

at His heart for his people, all people. every nation, tribe & tongue.

amazed at His holy work in the world… in the lives of the oppressed

the most needy of the needy.

amazed at how He is calling ordinary people to participate in His extraordinary plan. 

ordinary people who want to touch eternity…. people who are touching eternity.

the entrance of Part of the Solution - “Touch Eternity”

a little back story… Masterpiece is a ministry of Breakaway, a college bible study at Texas A&M. last i know of, 7,000 plus college students attend on a regular basis. i am one of thousands before and behind me whose life was changed through Breakaway.

fresh out of high school, jamie and i carpooled every tuesday night… getting there in just enough time to squeeze onto the balcony. hanging on every word and on the edge of our seats.

our debrief sessions lasting hours and ending with more questions than answers..all the while God increasing our faith, drawing us closer to Himself.

(jamie, if you’re reading this i owe you a phone call! missyouandloveyou-okaybye!)

over a decade later, a new director named ben. follow me closely, this gets confusing… ben’s sister, mandy, was and still is one of my favorite people. the kind of people that God uses to shape your life… to speak words of redemption over you without even meaning to. you know the kind.

i hope you do.

so mandy was in our wedding almost 9 years ago. (she & her husband are missionaries in Madagascar now & have two little ones.) click here if you want to learn more about how they are touching eternity!

flash forward…mandy’s brother ben leads breakaway and his wife, donna, is the director of Masterpiece/ Part of the Solution. she also leads worship and is an incredibly gifted artist. if you don’t already have her albums get one. get them all. i promise you will thank me later. so God gave donna the vision for Masterpiece and somewhere in that vision He included marci & i.

rabbit trail: just to confuse you further, marci’s husband, trey, works at Grace with ryan and they are in a secret club. well, it’s not so secret but they do do have a name for their accountability group. i will refrain from sharing it here… not because it’s obscene but because i’m still in trouble for posting our tacky sweater christmas photos from 2009! you’re welcome, trey.

by now you know this is going to be a long post but my nickname wasn’t motor mouth for nothin.

motoring on… i love these two women and am grateful to have served alongside them. we were friends before Masterpiece but i know their hearts in a much deeper, sweeter way as a result of working with them. they know & believe that He is the Solution and they invest their lives in eternity.

it took many many more people to pull off Part of the Solution…too many to name. but we could not have done it without the men & women who turned out to move furniture, build sets, hang signs, drill dozens of pallets together & a million things more. you might have been one of the lucky recipients of my desperate emails asking for manpower, tools or random materials. see pictures below to know why i was asking for your trash.  

before i dive in, you will want to pause the “90s greatest hits if you were a foxy playlist” on my right side bar (toward the top of the page). another inside joke that will have a few people rolling- others rolling their eyes. never mind me.

music paused- and we’re off!

we designed a physical space where girls could be a part of what God is doing in the world. i encourage you to click on the links in this email to learn more about the ministries that help bring Hope & Healing to hurting people.

even if you have to pop in a few times, please come back to read about the amazing work going on in the world & how you can pray, give or even GO!!!

the Part of The Solution entrance included a market place highlighting Into the Streets of Ethiopia and Sseko Sandals.

Into the Street’s goal is to tackle poverty and loneliness in Ethiopia one child at a time. All donations support their basic needs, including formula for orphanages as well as educational programs & materials. Click on this button to learn more.

Sseko Sandals is an amazing ministry changing the lives of young women in Uganda.

(the sandals are also the coolest ever- see picture below on the top/left)

Sseko \say-ko\ Designs was created to help women continue their education. The Ugandan school system is designed with a nine month gap between secondary school and university. These nine months are intended to allow time for students to earn money for tuition before continuing on to university. However, in an impoverished and male dominated society, many of these young women struggle to find fair work during this time.

Sseko Designs hires recent secondary school graduates for this nine month period to live and work together, while earning money that will go directly towards their university education. These women will not make sandals forever. They will go on to be doctors, lawyers, politicians, writers and teachers that will bring change and unification to a country divided and ravished by a 22 year-long war.

so check out Sseko sandals…maybe even sport a pair this summer.

testing 1,2 …is this thing on?

i hope you’re still with me because what’s next will make your head spin and your heart break. that’s because we are talking about As Our Own.

No girl dreams of a future as a slave laborer, forced to work in organized begging or the sex trade. But this is the horrific reality for millions of young girls caught in the poverty cycle throughout India. As Our Own has seen the plight of these children firsthand and is actively rescuing them out of treacherous situations and welcoming them into their care where they are loved and nurtured “as our own” children.

donna had the incredible vision for the As Our Own booth- it’s hard to use the word incredible when describing a brothel but what you are about to learn is incredible. incredibly tragic.

and don’t be fooled by the smiles on these precious girl’s faces. they serve with As Our Own and were helping to get the booth ready.

pay close attention to the statistics written inside the walls of the brothel.

i cannot begin to fathom these numbers. sweet Jesus move my thoughts heavenward as i go about my white, middle class day - strapping on nikes, sipping iced lattes & googling the latest-greatest-party blogs. give us eyes to see the hurting and hearts to put love in motion.

these are pictures and prayer requests of girls that have already been rescued.

do you see it, we can touch eternity? let us not grow weary in doing good!

we provided journals for girls to write in… to be sent to the children & young women in India. the college women also had the opportunity to paint pictures.

i have updated this post to add a few pics, courtesy of black tag photography. thanks, julia!

we also had a henna booth which was always full!

henna pictures from julia at black tag photography

next up is Living Water. 

Unlike war and terrorism, the global water crisis does not make media headlines, despite the fact that it claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns. Unlike natural disasters, it does not rally concerted international action, despite the fact that more people die each year from drinking dirty water than from the world’s hurricanes, floods, tsunamis, and earthquakes combined.

This is a silent crisis experienced by the poor, and tolerated by those with the resources, technology, and the political power to end it. Yet this is a crisis that is holding back human progress, consigning large segments of humanity to lives of poverty, vulnerability, and insecurity.

Living Water International, is addressing this most basic of needs by helping deprived communities acquire safe, clean water. Our goal is to substantially ease the global water crisis while addressing root causes such as injustice, oppression, and abject poverty. As this happens, communities and worldviews are transformed—both among those in desperate physical need, and among those who have been blessed with much.

(if you have not already done so pause the music on the right side bar).

here was our booth for living water

girls had the option of going on a water walk. what do you mean, waterwalk? well you see those HUGE yellow jugs of water? imagine carrying one in each hand and walking.

for miles

well, our water walk was a short loop outside and then back again but you get the point.

so glad you are still with me. or that you came back to keep learning & asking how you might get involved.

many of you have heard about Compassion International but may not know much about the Bite Back Campaign. this campaign helps to provide mosquito nets for people in Sub-Saharan Africa. did you know that 2,000 children die from malaria EVERYDAY?

check out this amazing, mere 2 minute video

the bite back booth included bunk beds/ nets/ sheet rock walls with stats

you’re almost there, i promise.

and are you not more thankful as a result of reading? or maybe, like me you are overwhelmed by the deep suffering i warned you about when i first started this epic post.

can i tell you my hope? i am praying that everyone reading (yes, you) will choose to do something.

anything.

buy water to give water.

provide a $10 net.

pray for young, enslaved women and their children.

we can touch eternity TODAY. 

next is Campus Crusade – our sending arm at Part of the Solution. did you know that Crusade has a ministry presence in 191 countries!? girls attending Masterpiece had the opportunity to pray for specific countries on our atlas. i don’t have the final count but many indicated praying about going overseas.  Today, nearly one-third of the world's language groups representing 340 million people are still waiting for the Bible in a language that they can understand clearly.

One Verse is a program of The Seed Company that enables you to support local Bible translators as they make God’s message available in the language of their people.

we adopted an isolated people group, the Rutara People. in just 2 days, the women of Masterpiece helped the Rutara people have all of John 15 & 16 translated!

we are on the home stretch, friends.

next is a local ministry called HOPE Pregnancy. HOPE provides resources and support for young women with crisis pregnancies. counseling and parenting classes are also available. did you know HOPE gives away 80 THOUSAND diapers a year?

for their booth we set up a nursery.

the girls filled the crib with donated diapers.

the other half of Part of the Solution was creating a space for the Cup of Hope Coffee House.

our passage for the weekend was from Isaiah 61

for the stage we built a back drop from old corroded tin. and by we i mean the amazing crew of men that worked their tails off while i stood and watched. kidding. sort of.

with the help of a few oh-so-fabulous-girls i painted:  “they will be called OAKS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, a planting of the LORD that HE MAY BE GLORIFED”.

to tie in our passage we had trees throughout the conference… outside the entrance, on the stage, etc.  the color in this pic is off because we were playing with the stage lighting but you can make it out enough i think.

friday night was the coffee house concert with three amazing amazing artists:

 jill dezwaan  

sarah degroat 

 erin woods (artists pictures are from black tag photography)

i have blogged before about this album from jill dezwaan, one of my favorites! other artists at the coffee house were sarah degroat…here’s sarah getting a look at her album, Old Moscow, for the very first time!

other Masterpiece musicians were donna stuart,

jourdan johnson

 christy nockels

 

and lizi bailey.

click on their names to learn more or browse music.

during worship, jamie wells worked on this painting. (pic from julia)

she & her husband are phenomenal artists… check out their work here. and do not leave this post without watching them in action. blows me away.

and Masterpiece would not be complete without one of my favorite modes of art, dance! Talitha is Masterpiece’s very own dance company, led by stephanie lee.

pull out the blow horns, we made it!

wheeewww… i was determined to finish this post tonight and it’s officially tomorrow (12:23 am)…far too late to wrap this baby up in a way that pulls everything together. chances are your brain hurts anyway. 

so let me just say, i still have a few lamps & a chair that does not belong to me. if you loaned me items and are sitting in the dark or on the ground, shoot me an email! in the mean time they are in safe keeping.

thanks for reading. thanks for praying. thanks for being a PART OF THE SOLUTION.

sweet dreams.