Day 37: The Peeps will Come

"Lord God, whose blessed Son our Savior gave his body to be whipped and his face to be spit upon: Give us grace to accept joyfully the sufferings of the present time, confident of the glory that shall be revealed; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen." 
-Collect for Wednesday in Holy Week




For the past week, everyday I arrive home at Sungkonghoe University, I get to feeling like I’m all of ten years old. Why? Well, the joy of the Easter promise of course. But not the whole Jesus-Easter-promise. No, no, no. My childlike anxiety is caused by the other Easter promise. The one of Peeps…glorious, fat, yellow, sugary peeps, thanks be to God. In other words, my mother has sent an Easter basket to Korea, and I am desperately awaiting its arrival.

But, in all seriousness, I’m 22 years old and have been living on my own for 5 years now, and my mom has never missed an Easter basket. I hope she knows how much that means. When I was a kid, Easter was my favorite holiday. There was a lot of pain and confusion growing up, and as any child of divorced parents knows, Christmas and like holidays can be complicated. I guess my family wasn’t religious enough for Easter to count as a complicated or sorrowful holiday.

And remember that fake, tacky, plastic Easter grass? I do. I remember one year experiencing an acute feeling of joy when I found the first piece inevitably embedded in the carpet during Holy Week. It meant mom had pulled down the basket and the peeps were on their final march to my belly.

No matter what the situation. No matter the stress, the loss, or the terrible fights that would pass between my mom and me. The Peeps would come, like a bright sprinkle covered ray of sunshine. More often than not, they would not arrive into a perfect household. The Peeps, throughout the years marched through death, divorce, depression, and now, thousands of miles. They never solved problems, but when the world feels like it has been pulled out from underneath you, the smallest consistency becomes very dear. And perhaps the best thing about Peeps is that they are always the same. They taste the exact same way now as they did when I was 9.

{*Nota Bene : I wrote this reflection on the train to work this morning. 

When I arrived home this evening, I discovered the Peeps had successfully completed their journey to Asia.}

And the way I have come to love Peeps, is so much like the way I love the Jesus that is presented to us during Holy Week. The Readings for today come passion and during this time, Jesus and his disciples will be thrown into the midst of despair. In the period of just a few days they will experience the betrayal of a friend, the death of a teacher, persecution by the government, self-doubt, the death of a son, a complete change in their world order, and even in case of Jesus, his own death. And it is a painful death; one that even he is his wisdom is scared of.

Take a moment, as lent closes to remember the pain in your own life. Reflect on those moments when it felt like God had abandoned you. And then try reflecting on the last days of Jesus’ life. Jesus is not outside of or above human suffering. He experiences it all with us. When his friend dies, he weeps. And he does not offer any explanation. He does not step away and explain that it is a blessing in disguise. He does not believe that it will simply get better. Jesus manufactures no coping mechanism for his disciples.

But He remains with them. Constantly.

There is misery in life. We feel it. And we are reminded of some of it’s forms throughout Holy Week. But Jesus is there with us in our sufferings. Understanding what we feel. He does not magically remove our pain, or reveal God’s plan. But he walks with us.

And likewise, the Peeps will come. They are constant and assured. They do not cure anything but they are a part of it all. Every year. No matter what. Their round and empathetic presence reminding me of the promise of next year and the hardship overcome in past years.

Dear God, this year, when we gaze upon Peeps, a wonder of Your creation, help us to remember that there is constancy. Help us to feel the promise Jesus made to be with us in all things human. Open our hearts to you may share with us in the sorrows that bear no expression in words, but can only be felt in the human heart.
Amen. 

Carlin Van Schaik is a 22 year old from the Diocese of Northwest Texas. 
She is currently serving in Seoul, South Korea teaching English 
and providing support for several social welfare organizations. 

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Day 35: Let Us Run

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us…” 
-Hebrew 12:1-2





One month ago, I flew home from Hong Kong to be with my father as he battles advanced, non-operable lung cancer. After twenty hours in the air and a drive across Dallas, I tore through the hospital like a magnet to his bedside, flung open the door to his room and pushed past the friends gathered, to hug him for the first time in over half a year.

I sat there and wept. Then wept some more.

Always the perfect gentleman, my father asked if I’d like to eat the salmon he had ordered himself for dinner. Without thinking, I, in front of the multitude of friends and family present, retorted in my most exasperated tone, “Dad, I still don’t eat salmon.”

Five words. Those words are the ones I chose to say to the most caring father imaginable. To my beloved father who was loaded up on more painkillers than I could count and attached to an oxygen tube and heart monitor. Those words still feel like a punch to the gut when I remember them. How could I have been so selfish in that moment? Why could I not exercise control over my words? How did that even happen?

Upon first reflection, I hated that an assembly of witnesses, both family and friends, had overheard me being such a brat. In the end, it was those gathered who ended up exonerating me.

My father’s best friend, a priest who had flown in from North Carolina, laughed at me later, telling me to think about how refreshing it was to be able to maintain a “normal” daughter-father relationship at this time. She told me, in the way only a Southern woman can – with a kindly tone and a spine of steel - to get over my mistake and focus on helping him now.

So here I am.

One month later, I’ve only just begun this (hopefully) long and (definitely) difficult race. I have no idea what the future will look like. For the race that is set before me, I’ve learned to set aside the memories of the times I could have acted better. I need to keep on running.

Katie Webb is 23 years old and from the Diocese of Dallas. 
Not only has she served with the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Archives,
 but also she spent last year working at the Episcopal Church Center as YASC program staff. 

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Day 34: We will be Reunited

"But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, ‘You know nothing at all! You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.’ He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God." 
-John 11:49-52



I remember when I met all the other YASCers for the first time. We spent a long weekend together in Florida way back in February 2013.  It seems like a long time ago now, but that weekend turned out to be pretty pivotal in my life, and I'm guessing the same is true for all of us.  That was when we learned all the details about the program we're currently serving in, and it was when most of us decided to answer God's call to mission service with a more or less resounding 'yes!'

One of the people whom the Church brought to help teach us about the YASC program was a former YASCer from a few years ago named Robin.  When she talked about her experience in YASC, Robin said something that has stuck with me in all the months since and has particularly been on my mind recently.  She talked about how difficult it was to come home after her YASC year and how the only thing that comforted her was looking forward to the kingdom of heaven.  At the time, I remember thinking she had to be wrong - surely it is harder to leave one's family and friends and home and country for a year than it is to come back to them?  And what does she mean about the kingdom of heaven?

Fast forward 14 months.  Here I am loving every frustrating, exhilarating, swiftly fleeting second of my time in South Africa.  It has been such a privilege to share my nursing knowledge somewhere it is so desperately needed.  It has been awesome to meet my friends and coworkers and to spend time exploring and falling in love with this incredibly diverse and stunning country.  And now I'm realizing that Robin was right.  I believe that leaving South Africa might be one of the hardest things I'll ever do.  You see, when I left my home and my family to come here, I always knew I would come back to them.  But when I leave South Africa, there is no guarantee that I will ever come back.  I hope I will, but let's be realistic, it's a long and expensive flight and life gets busy and even if I do come back for a visit sometime, it won't be the same as living here for a year.  The people I've met here, the patients I serve, the carers I work beside, the friends I share meals with, these people have been my entire life for the past year and I am, quite frankly, freaking out at the thought of leaving them.  I guess you could say I'm feeling like one of the 'dispersed children of God'.

Today's readings are very comforting to me, which might be ironic since the gospel passage, taken in context, is leading directly to the crucifixion, but the message I'm getting right now is one of hope and reassurance.  What sticks out to me from these passages is God's promise that we will be reunited.  He will gather His kingdom from everywhere it is scattered in this huge world, and we all shall be one.  I think that's exactly what Robin was trying to say about the kingdom of heaven all those months ago.  Goodbye is not really goodbye.  We will be together again, me and my family at home and my family abroad and all the YASCers and all their people from all their placements and everyone reading this blog.  God will gather us all together in the end.  That's His promise.

Keri Geiger is 27 years old and from the Diocese of Virginia.  
She is a registered nurse in the United States and is working as 
the coordinator for inpatient services at Hawston Hospice in Hawston, South Africa.

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Day 16: Love and Compassion

"Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock that belongs to you, which lives alone in a forest   in the midst of a garden land; let them feed in Bashan and Gilead as in the days of old.  As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt, show us marvellous things. Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of your possession? He does not retain his anger for ever, because he delights in showing clemency. He will again have compassion upon us; he will tread our iniquities under foot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will show faithfulness to Jacob and unswerving loyalty to Abraham, as you have sworn to our ancestors from the days of old." -Michah 7:14-15, 18-20

As I say in most of my blogs, I am not much of a writer. I really don’t know how to express myself, unless it’s through dance and singing, yet alone do a reflection for Lent. What I have learned throughout my years was to just write what you feel. In today’s reading, it talks about compassion and how to help others. In my opinion, the book of Micah first talks about how to help others when in need, and to also to see compassion. In verse 14, Micah talks about how one needs to “Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock that belongs to you.”

        From the first time I started working with kids, I felt that it was a calling from God. When I first started working at a non-profit, I struggled with coming to terms that kids were going to be part of my future. After about three years and counting, I was able to see that helping kids and teaching them was a bigger aspect of my life than I had planned. I know, many people hear the same clichés like, “you don’t want to be a teacher”, or “the education system is something you don’t want to deal with”, but, for me it is not being a teacher. It’s about showing the future that we can leave a legacy of change and hope for them.  In Micah, we are here to help the community and show that we are all one. Every time I go to work, I felt like I was shepherding the people or the students.

        This year I left my community to also see what Micah said in verse 15: “As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt, show us marvelous things.” I went to Panama, for what was going to be a discernment process of over a year.  As I like to note, I have never left the Rio Grande Valley, yet alone the country. It was hard at first, but since, I found learned marvelous things. In times where we are blinded from the words of the Lord, we must have courage to know how to listen to the Lord. Through the readings, I believe they show a point of why I love working with kids. My love for seeing their smile or being the person they can talk to when they need it is just marvelous. God works in ways you can see and in ways you can’t. I love to say that I can see both ways, but in reality, you can never get what you want.

  The second part of Micah shows how god is compassionate. In my most recent years, my faith has grown drastically. It has been a learning concept, but within time I will continue to grow to my full potential. God shows us compassion, yet I have struggled to do the same.

Compassion from God is shown throughout the bible. In Psalm 103 it states: “The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.” Most people that know me know I don’t have compassion or mercy. But with the guidance of the lord, I have grown to have it.

This part is difficult to me because this is about the first time I will say this. My brother, you know what you have done to me and throughout the years, I have never shown you mercy or compassion because in my eyes I believed you did not deserve it. However, this process that I have taken to walk in the eyes of God, has shown me that I forgive you and always had. I forgive you with all my heart and all my soul. I forgive you and know that you are not alone, you have me and the family. I love you. Don’t forget that.

Throughout the seven months I have been in Panama, I have seen many things. Most of all I have seen the people show compassion wherever you go. God is truly in the midst of us, open your eyes and let the world around you show that the lord will bring us to a better tomorrow. I would like to end with a prayer I got when I attended the Global Leadership Summit a few years ago. I say this prayer every day and know that helping others and showing compassion is something that is spoken in this prayer.

My morning prayer
God, this is a new day. I freshly commit myself to the role you have invited me to play, as you are building your church in this world I am awestruck again today that you include me in this grand life-giving, world-transforming endeavor. So today I joyfully offer you:

My love

My heart

My talents

My energy

My creativity

My faithfulness

My resources

And my gratitude

I commit all of myself to the role you have assigned me in the building of your church so that it may thrive in this world. And I will “bring it” today. I will bring my best. You deserve. Your church deserves it. It is the Hope of the World.

Joseph Morin is from Texas and serving in Panama with Iglesia Episcopal San Mateo. 

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