Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

"The angel said to the women, 'Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee There you will see him.'" 
-Matthew 28:5-7



Thank You to everyone who's been following along on our Lent Journey! We have all greatly enjoyed sharing our thoughts, experiences and reflections with you all. While the 40 days of lent are up and we can joyously celebrate the Easter Season, it doesn't mean we stop discovering and deepening our relationship with Christ. This is only one step forward on our lifelong walk with Him.

Today, we're finishing the blog the same way we started it - with pictures of the YASCers celebrating Easter around the world!

{Becky Gleason and Claire Harkey attended Easter service at Iglesia Episcopal Espiritu Santo in Tela, Honduras.}

{Easter Egg hunt in front of the Cathedral after service in Santiago City, Philippines.} 

{Charlotte File attended services at St. Andrew's in Kiyosoto, Japan.}

"O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of your dear Son 

was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him 

the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life;

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, 

one God, for ever and ever.

Amen."

-Book of Common Prayer, page 283

{The cathedral in South Korea held an egg decorating contest. The English mission kids

 decorated our eggs with flags representing all the nationalities in our congregation.}

{The church in Dodoma, Tanzania, where Heidi Galagan attended service,

 is lit for the beautiful Easter Season.}

{Kids receiving communion on Easter Sunday at St. Andrew's in Kiyosoto, Japan}

"Rejoice now, heavenly hosts and choirs of angels, and let your trumpets shout 

Salvation for the victory of our Mighty King."

-Book of Common Prayer, page 286

{The lighting of the Paschal Candle at Saturday's Easter Vigil in Santiago City,

Philippines where Ashley Cameron attends mass.}

{Carlin Van Schaick and a friend at a potlock following Easter services in South Korea.}

{Claire Harkey and Becky Gleason lighting candles in Tela, Honduras during the 

Easter Vigil service on Saturday night.}

"The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation. 

There is a sound of exultation and victory in the tents of righteous"

-Psalm 118:14-15

{Rachel Carter and Joseph Morin pictured with seminarian, Carlos, attended Easter service at San Cristobal, Panama City, Panama.}

{Easter morning service at The Seoul Anglican Cathedral of Sts. Mary and Nicholas.}

{Nina Boe in Brazil.}

Alleluia! The Lord is Risen!
Alleluia! The Lord is Risen, indeed! Alleluia!

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Day 36: Do Not Be Afraid

"And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching." 
-Mark 11:18






“For they were afraid of him.”

The leaders of the time were afraid of Christ Jesus. Their fear of losing power, fear of losing their followers, fear of change, fear of the unknown guided them to crucify God’s only son – to kill him.  Fear clouded all their judgment and pushed them off the cliff to murder.

They could have stopped and listened to the Good News of Christ. They should have paused to see who Jesus really was. They would have if fear hadn’t stood in their way.

We’ve all heard the saying, “shoulda, woulda, coulda.”

Now I’m sure they justified their actions to themselves and their peers. We can all find reasons or excuses whether they be legitimate or not.  We’ve all been afraid. We’ve all let fear at one point or another stop us from experiencing an adventure, saying ‘I love you’, opening up to one another, to seeing the world.

I could be at home right now telling people, “I could’ve done this amazing year in the Philippines assisting entrepreneurs grow their business, experiencing a new culture, and learning what life is all about, but I was afraid of this, this, and that and passed on the opportunity. I was afraid of the what ifs and unknowns.”

Life is full of unknowns – one being the unknown of when we will die. But Jesus through his resurrection has shown us that there is eternal life. “Everyone who lives and trusts in me will never die.”

Fortunately, I trusted in God. I found him by my side feeding me courage to pack up and travel halfway across the world to have an experience of a lifetime – to live fully. Jesus, also, found courage and power with God at his side to say, “I am the resurrection and I am life.” With God by his side he looked fear in the eye and said I am not afraid.

How many times in the Bible do we come across, “do not be afraid.” Fear holds us hostage from the possibilities, opportunities, connections, love, relationships, and experiences that God desires us to be a part of so we can share the incredible news, to come and see.

“For you, Lord are my hope: you are my confidence, O God,” proclaims Psalm 71 in today’s readings. When we are not afraid, we can hope. When we are not afraid, with confidence God can walk with us out of darkness and into the light of the world. When we are not afraid we can be more open to forgiveness, connection, love, and life.

For God asks us to not be afraid and we should respond, I am not.

Ashley Cameron is 23 years old and from the Diocese of Virginia. 
She greatly enjoys assisting farmers and small entrepreneurs grow their business through 
micro-loans by serving at the Episcopal Development Foundation 
of St. Mark's in the Episcopal Diocese of Santiago, Philippines.

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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 33: Focus on God

"O Lord, you have enticed me, and I was enticed; you have overpowered me, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughing-stock all day long; everyone mocks me.  For whenever I speak, I must cry out, I must shout, ‘Violence and destruction! For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and derision all day long.  If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name’, then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.  For I hear many whispering: ‘Terror is all around! Denounce him! Let us denounce him!’ All my close friends are watching for me to stumble. ‘Perhaps he can be enticed, and we can prevail against him, and take our revenge on him.’  But the Lord is with me like a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble, and they will not prevail. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonour will never be forgotten.  O Lord of hosts, you test the righteous, you see the heart and the mind; let me see your retribution upon them, for to you I have committed my cause. 

Sing to the Lord; praise the Lord! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers." 
-Jeremiah 20:7-13

We were warned in training for the YASC program that we would have cycles of high points and low points in our attitude and happiness throughout our year. This has certainly been the experience for me—I’ve had two brief breakdowns in my first eight months when I’ve questioned God’s mission for me in Haiti. Fortunately, these have been surrounded by longer stints of happiness and positive vibes. Given that I’ve experienced these ups and downs, it’s no wonder the bi-polar-like passage from Jeremiah was the reading for today that most spoke to me. I certainly don’t compare my low points during my time with YASC to the suffering that Jeremiah is known for having endured, but I can relate to the doubt he has in God and God’s mission for him.

The reading selected for today cuts short a section where Jeremiah is speaking to God after being persecuted by an officer. The selected reading begins with Jeremiah expressing frustration with God, but ends with high praising, “Sing to the Lord; praise the Lord! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hand of evildoers” (20:13). Pretty uplifting, positive stuff. However, Jeremiah’s speech keeps going and ends like this:

Cursed be the day on which I was born! The day when my mother bore me, let it not be blessed! Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father, “'A son is born to you,' making him very glad. Let that man be like the cities that the Lord overthrew without pity; let him hear a cry in the morning and an alarm at noon, because he did not kill me in the womb; so my mother would have been my grave, and her womb forever great. Why did I come out from the womb to see toil and sorrow, and spend my days in shame?” (20:14-18)

Wow, what emotion! I’m not sure I’ve ever read anything that articulates frustration and anger with quite the same force as this passage. For me his words are dramatic and rather disturbing.

It seems to me that Jeremiah’s frustration and anger come through when he focuses on what is wrong in his life and with the people surrounding him. People mocking him, his proclamations of giving up, the whispering people watching for him to fall, being persecuted and placed in the stocks by Pashhur—he certainly has a long list of negatives on which to dwell. His journey as a prophet was riddled with forces working against him, doubting him, and trying to pull him down. When Jeremiah is focusing on these things, he is in outright despair.

But when Jeremiah focuses on the Lord as his warrior, as an army to judge the wicked, as a deliverer of the needy from the hands of evildoers, he sings of hope! And he commits his cause to God.

When we focus on the flaws of our world, the wrongdoings of our fellow humans, and our own personal shortcomings, we become despondent, resentful and angsty. When we focus on God, we see light and are invigorated to follow a righteous path. When we focus on God, we see the Warrior manifest in the virtues of ourselves and others. When we focus on God, we recognize how we are God’s army of peace, messengers of love, and doers of good things.

Alan Yarborough is serving in Cange, Haiti, representing the Diocese of Western North Carolina 
and the Diocese of Upper South Carolina. He's working in economic development
 for Cange and the surrounding area in the Central Plateau.

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Day 21: More Questions

"One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’There is no commandment greater than these.” “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions. " -Mark 12: 28-34

What do you mean no one dared to ask Jesus any more questions? Wouldn’t you want to ask more questions about how exactly to do the Great Commandment? So I am to love God—what exactly does that entail? Is it praying, fasting, giving thanks, and going to church every Sunday? Is it connected to loving others because of the piece of God that lives in them?

I’ve spent much of my life around people who are very similar to me—similar religion, skin tone, socioeconomic status, nationality, physical and mental ability, similar criminal record (or lack thereof)—people who are easier for me to love, but how do I love those who are different than myself?

How do I love someone who kills, cheats on their spouse, or steals? Do I act impartially to them when I am around them? Do I extend them the same trust as I would to my best friend? What does forgiveness look like?

How do I love someone who experiences the mental and physical pain of not having enough to eat? Do I give them food? Money? A hug? Some of my time? Is love balancing my relative financial wealth with their relative financial poverty? What does solidarity look like?

How do I love someone who manipulates a charity for their own personal benefit? Do I excuse their offenses? Do I have to acknowledge them every day? Do I call them out? What does honesty look like?
How do I love people who make assumptions about me and treat me differently because of my race (or any other characteristic)? Do I explain/defend myself to them? Do I point out their prejudice? What does respect look like?

I’m to treat others as I would like to be treated, right? If I’ve not known the fear of one who doesn’t know where the next meal will come from, how do I love the hungry? If I have not known the bitter wind and cold for a night, how do I love the homeless? If I have not known immense wealth, how am I to love the wealthy? If I have not known the isolation of 20 years to life in prison, how am I to love the imprisoned? If I have not known what it is like to have power, how am I to love the powerful?

When I look to others claiming to express love, how do I discern what is actually love? Some believe homosexuality is a sin, and they call out gay people’s sin because they don’t want them to go to hell—is that love? I hear news about a priest who is put in jail because he believes same-sex couples should have the right to marry—is that love?

What does love look like over time? What is love in a fleeting moment with a homeless woman on the street corner? What is love with my significant other with which I’ll spend my lifetime?

I often feel like love is a verb, but sometimes I’m left not knowing what to do. Can I just spend time with others? Can I just listen to their story? Can I just be vulnerable with them? Can I just recognize and appreciate what we have in common? Is just being there enough, or is their more I can do?

What other questions do you wish the scribe had asked Jesus about the Great Commandment? Where might you find answers?

Alan Yarborough is serving in Cange, Haiti, representing the Diocese of Western North Carolina 
and the Diocese of Upper South Carolina. He's working in economic development
 for Cange and the surrounding area in the Central Plateau.

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Day 20: Thin Skin

"But this command I gave them, ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk only in the way that I command you, so that it may be well with you.’ Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but, in the stubbornness of their evil will, they walked in their own counsels, and looked backwards rather than forwards. From the day that your ancestors came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day; yet they did not listen to me, or pay attention, but they stiffened their necks. They did worse than their ancestors did. So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you. You shall say to them: This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the Lord their God, and did not accept discipline; truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips." -Jeremiah 7: 23-28

Whenever I read verses, my first instinct is to use these words as a meter to reflect on my own behavior. And it usually isn't positive or encouraging. A dear friend and I Skyped yesterday, and we talked about how we feel we're losing our magic receptors (or in this case, the ability to "incline their ear") - that sacred perspective where there's nowhere to be, nothing to do... there is just a freedom and a graceful ease with which to relish the world around you. I call it "thin skin" - where you can listen with your whole body and the world floods in, swallowing you and your egotistical identity in the process.

But then work happens, or TV ads that reminds you you're too fat, or a friend's Facebook profile that says you really should get your act together on that grad school thing, or Buzzfeed's Top 10 Habits of Successful People and you only have 3 of them... it's exhausting, and there's no end. And so, as I read this verse, I want to protest but I'm doing the best I can! It's not my fault no one ever taught me HOW to listen!

Now, it always bothered me that the Bible seems to speak in big generalities: they did not listen to me... They did worse than their ancestors. How can I be extraordinary or good if you keep bunching me in with the rest of humanity? If we look around us, some people are clearly evil, some are saints, and some are the in-betweeners. But, like my first reading, this is still all about me. It's all about what I think of others, it's my own classification system of what's right and wrong. Here in El Salvador, I see human rights workers, I see corrupt politicians, friends who's boyfriends beat them in private, people who complain too much, people who are far too generous, people who I think are lazy until I discover what they do when I'm not watching, women who cook the best meal in the world and charge $2.50 a plate... at some point my categories are inadequate.

One of my favorite authors, Saul Alinsky (the Yoda of community organizing back in the 60s and 70s) has a great quote: "It is equally difficult for you to surrender that little image of God created in our own likeness, which lurks in all of us and tells us that we secretly believe that we know what’s best for the people." So long as we hold the ultimate authority between our ears, it's a lose-lose as often we are both our biggest advocate and our biggest critic. I will never meet my own standards, but I also will never stop pushing myself to try. But over these past few months, as my standards get higher and higher, I find I've lost that "thin skin." When there is always something more to do, I cannot listen. If someone truly was trying to reach me, "day after day," I doubt I would hear them.
And so I went back a few verses to figure just what command it was that humanity failed to obey:

Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah, you that enter these gates to worship the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your doings, and let me dwell with you in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’  (Jeremiah 7.2-7.4)

God only seeks to dwell with us. We do not surrender our egos to supplant it with another authority whom we blindly follow. We just have to give up the right to be right. It is the scariest thing in the world, to admit you don't know, but if we are to preserve our ability to speak truth, first we have to admit that we don't know it. We can't condemn others, and perhaps most importantly, we can't condemn ourselves.

Hannah Perls is 24 from the Diocese of Olympia, WA. She is serving with 
human rights NGO, Foundation Cristosal, in El Salvador. Other common names 
now include Hanoch, Hannah Montana, and Broccoli Top (Broc top for short).

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Day 19: We Are Nothing Without Love

"Now, Israel, hear the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you.  Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you."
-Deuteronomy 4:1-2




I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know a lot about the Bible. I can’t quote verses or tell you what book comes before or after another book, but I do know that a lot of times verses can have different meanings depending on how you look at them. The first time I read this passage from Deuteronomy, I was a little annoyed, because I believe that spirituality and belief can be very fluid. “Where’s the flexibility?” I wondered. “You must neither add anything to what I command you nor take away anything from it, but keep the commandments of the Lord your God with which I am charging you” Deuteronomy 4:2. It’s very strict. But after reading the words a few times, I had an “aha” moment.

We learn, most of us, from a very young age about the Ten Commandments. And what do the Ten Commandments say really? Don’t hurt each other, love God and each other, and treat each other with respect. This is essentially what the Ten Commandments boil down to, these are the only rules we need to follow in our lives, and this is what I believe the passage is talking about. I believe that this passage is telling us that we have to treat everyone well and it doesn’t matter if their belief system is different from ours.

The Christian tradition, historically and now, is one of persecution. There has always been someone who is wrong, who is not welcome, who is different and we shut them out because of these differences. How do we follow the commandments God gave us, and only those commandments, if we continue to persecute people who believe in something different from what we believe? What are we teaching our children and our children’s children and those who come after with these actions. Are we really protecting each other, loving each other, respecting each other?

So what I believe this passage is saying, is that regardless of someone’s belief systems, race, sexuality, coffee preference, we don’t hurt each other. We love each other. We treat each other with respect. By doing this, we follow God’s commandments and only God’s commandments. We don’t add, we don’t take away. By doing this, we fill the world with love. We teach love to those who come after us. Because we are nothing without love.

Claire Harkey is 26 years old and from the Diocese of Mississippi. 
She currently spends her days hanging out with the high school students of 
La Escuela Episcopal El Buen Pastor in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.

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Day 17: To Be of Service

"Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy. Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God. He stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel. So please accept a gift from your servant.”
-2 Kings 5:13-15



As a YASC missionary in her second year, I can’t tell you how many times people have asked me exactly what is is that I do. Additionally, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve kind of gotten the feeling that people expect a more exciting or spectacular answer. My first year was essentially administrative and communication support, with travels to various dioceses in Brazil to get to know the wider work of the Episcopal Anglican Church here.  My second year has exciting opportunities in human rights work and community outreach…and yet, I’ve come to realize that I’m not really here to change much anything at all. After a year, it’s been clear that I’ve been changed to a fair degree. But when I’m honest with myself, I’m not here to change Brazil, or the world, however much I’m passionate about that — the real game-changer is God, and the beautiful and mysterious ways in which the Spirit works in, with and through us and others.

I was particularly struck by the story of Namaan in today’s readings. Here we have a man with a very serious situation—leprosy. As would most people in his situation, he sought to be healed from his affliction. No doubt he was in much discomfort, and was willing to do nearly anything to be relieved from it. Furthermore, he also had the distinction of being in possession of enough resources to be able to do nearly anything for it…and yet he is noticeably displeased with the simplicity of Elisha’s response. There was no clap of thunder, or mystical appearance of God in the midst—Elisha didn’t even make a personal appearance; he sent a messenger. Namaan was not exactly thrilled with the response.

 But his servants approached and said to him, ‘Father,  if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, “Wash, and be clean”?

Namaan obeys, and is healed. His life is changed.

In mission work, we talk a lot about the concept of ‘ministry of presence.’ As the name might suggest, it is mission enough to be — to be in community, to be amongst people, to participate in their lives, to walk with them. This isn’t necessarily an easy thing to do, as we so often feel like we have to do more, be more, make something, and maybe it has to be big and noticeable and make me feel like I actually did something worthwhile. In that sense, Namaan’s story is a good one for me to keep in mind: had God asked me to do something difficult, I would not have hesitated…what more then that he asked me to do something so simple? To be here in Brazil, in community, amongst people. Simplicity doesn’t negate its importance, but it’s made me realize that so very often, I try to overcomplicate things—and it’s not about that.

As author Victor Hugo wrote, “to love another person is to see the face of God.” And what is it that we remind ourselves before Communion? That we are to love the Lord our God, and to love our neighbors. That everything else we believe, why we do what we do, rests upon these two things. It is so beautifully simple, and yet we know in practice, it can all be so beautifully complex, and difficult to do. When we try to do it, life happens. God happens…and everything changes.

Nina Boe is working in the Anglican Diocese of Rio de Janeiro, part time 
in support of the Office of the Bishop and part time with the Church 
of the Most Holy Trinity's human rights ministry and community outreach.

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Day 14: Judgement and Grace

"The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side.* He called out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.” But Abraham said, “Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.” He said, “Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.” 
-Luke 16: 22-28

When I first looked up the readings appointed for today, I gulped and chided myself for signing up to write reflections on these passages without actually having read them first.  Today's readings, particularly the Gospel passage, are rather, um, heavy.  'In Hades, where he was being tormented', 'Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals', 'The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away'.  What am I supposed to say about all this?  On a blog?  That might be read by people who don't know me?  What did I just get myself into?

The Word of God is full of judgement.  Lots of us like to picture the warm and fuzzy Sunday school Jesus, but He also had another side.  Think of Him overturning the altar tables (I wonder whether Teresa Guidice from Real Houswives of New Jersey knew that she was copying Christ?  Just a little something to think about...) or shouting 'You snakes, you brood of vipers!  How can you escape being sentenced to Hell?' (Matthew 24:33).  Does anyone else find these images a little uncomfortable, a little hard to reconcile?  I think it's very tempting to thank God that we're not the scribes and Pharisees that Jesus was talking to here.

But wait a second.  Aren't we?  Today's Gospel passage tells us that 'it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one letter of the law to be dropped'.  Who can live up to the law, all of it, all the time?  No one!  We're all law breakers, and those of us that have the benefit of knowing the Truth and hearing the teachings of the Church even more so, because more is expected of us.  So if no letter of the law passes away, then we're all condemned to the flames, and deservedly so.  Let's all just take a minute (or the forty days of Lent) to think about that.

The beauty of these (admittedly rather unsettling) passages is that they allow us a glimpse into how amazing, grand, and wildly disproportionate the grace of God really is.  This terrible fate of eternal separation and despair is what Christ saved us from, and doesn't that make God all the more wonderful?

The concept of grace has been on my mind recently.  My favorite book, which I read for the first time while on my mission here in South Africa, is Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.  This novel is a masterpiece, and I really believe that every Christian should read it.  Grace is a central theme to Gilead, and Robinson writes some beautiful passages about it.  'If the Lord chooses to make nothing of our transgressions, then they are nothing.  Or whatever reality they have is trivial and conditional beside the exquisite primary fact of existence.  Of course the Lord would wipe them away, just as I wipe dirt from your face, or tears.  After all, why should the Lord bother much over these smirches that are no part of His Creation?'

To me, today's readings remind us what an extravagant God we serve.  God's grace is even more impressive when you consider what we had condemned ourselves to, through our own fault.  The fact that the Devine chooses to bestow His embracing, all-encompassing love and grace upon us wildly unworthy humans just makes Him all the more grand.  I think Robinson sums it up well when she writes, 'There is an absolute disjunction between our Father's love and our deserving.'  She also says, 'There is no justice in love, no proportion in it, and there need not be, because in any specific instance it is only a glimpse or a parable of an embracing, incomprehensible reality.'

So the reality of God's grace is much bigger than we mere humans can even imagine.  In light of that, all our faults don't even register against the fathomless mercy and love of God.  That's the truth about the God we serve.  Isn't He awesome?

Keri 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 7: See the Signs

"When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, ‘This generation is an evil generation; it asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be to this generation. The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgement with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here!" 
-Luke 11:29-30, 32

When I was in high school, I had a friend ask me about when I became a Christian.  I couldn’t answer her.  She was looking for a story and I didn’t have one.  She went on to tell me about a moment she had when she was a kid when she was so overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit that she began weeping.  She felt God’s presence in her 7 or 8 year old self and from that point on had no doubts.  For her, this was the moment.  This was the sign from God that she was loved and she was His.

This got me thinking.  I grew up in the Episcopal Church.  I’m a “Cradle Episcopalian.”  I had never before been asked about the moment I became Christian.  As far as I was concerned, I had been a Christian since I was baptized as a baby.  I have been accepted and loved by God for longer than I remember.  It’s not that I doubted her story or found it unbelievable or unnecessary.  In fact, I had almost the opposite reaction.  I thought something was wrong with me.

I began to hear of people who would give testimony, who would tell the story of how they became Christian.  I was jealous.  As a teenager, I didn’t want one more thing that would make me stand out from others, especially other Christians.  Weren’t we all basically the same?  I began hoping and praying for God to send me a sign like he did to my friend.  I knew I didn’t NEED one, but I felt like it was something that was supposed to happen; that it was a normal part of being Christian.  I don’t know what I was looking for exactly, but imagined a “Bruce Almighty-like” need for something.  “Give me a signal!  Send me a sign!”

)

I have felt this same sort of need at other times in my life as well.  More recently, a little more than a year ago, I was wondering if the next, most faithful step for me was to leave the great life I had built for myself to serve in a different country.  Wouldn’t it have been nice to have a note that said “Yes!  Do it!” hit the ground in front of me?  In my experience, that’s not the way things work.

Luke 11:29 says “When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, ‘This generation is a wicked generation; it seeks for a sign, and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah.”  In verse 32, it continues to say “The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here!”

In case you need a refresher of the Jonah story because the last time you heard the story was in Sunday School 20 years ago or more (or even if you remember it completely,) here are the basics.  God told Jonah to go to Nineveh because the people there were misbehaving.  Jonah didn’t want to (and really who could blame him) so he decided to run away and hide from God.  Well, anyone who has read much of the Bible would have told him that this wasn’t going to work.  God got mad at him (understandably so) and caused a huge storm to come up around the boat on which he was fleeing.  The only way to save the boat and crew was for Jonah to be thrown over by a reluctant group of men, where he was swallowed up by a big fish (or a whale in some translations.)  He stayed there for 3 days and 3 nights before he decided to pray to God and ask for forgiveness.  It worked and God commanded the fish to spit him out.  God told Jonah again to go to Nineveh, which he did this time.  (It’s amazing what 3 days in the belly of a whale will do!)  As soon as Jonah started talking to the people, they believed in God and repented.

So what’s the difference between the generation that Jesus is speaking to in Luke and the people of Nineveh?  Why does he call those he’s speaking to wicked and insist that the people of Nineveh will condemn them at the judgment?  It all has to do with this thing referred to as “the sign of Jonah.”

The story of Jonah in a way mirrors the story of Jesus surrounding Easter, at least in plot line if not setting or scale.  Both were sent to do God’s bidding.  Both were reluctantly given up by men they were close to, though for Jonah this was more in proximity than any emotional attachment.  Both spent 3 days away from humanity; Jonah inside the big fish and Jesus in the tomb.  After the 3 days, both came back to share a message.  

So what’s the difference Jesus is speaking of?

The Ninevites were not seeking a sign.  The sign came to them.  They recognized what they saw and that is what caused them to change.

Not seeking, but instead seeing.

When we stop seeking a sign for a specific need, we open ourselves up to seeing the signs around us.  The signs we see are often more powerful than the ones we seek.  If I had spent too much time seeking the lightning bolt of a sign I prayed for as a teenager, I would have missed the signs of love and community I had at my church and with the mentors I found there.  Imagine how the movie would have been different if Bruce had seen the signs in front of him instead of seeking the one he hoped for.

As we enter the second full week of Lent, I challenge you to forget about what you seek.  Look instead for the signs you can see.

Heidi Galagan is 28 years old and from the Diocese of Wyoming. 
She is currently teaching at DCT Canon Andrea Mwaka Primary School, International in 
Dodoma, Tanzania where she enjoys teaching Standard 1 and Standard 4.

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Day 6: Seek the Lord

"Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near;... For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do no return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it." 
-Isaiah 55:6-11


Seek the Lord where he may be found.  One of the temptations that I think affects missionaries, both short and long term missioners, is the concept that we find God best by going away from where we lived before.  We seek God in the faces of those we are serving, in the actions of our lives on our mission.

And you know what?  We find it.  We will absolutely find God in the faces of those whom we are serving, and those who serve alongside us.  God is there when we look.  And because we started looking so intensely for God on our mission, when we need it the most, we decide that God can best be found away from those we know best.  God is found in other places, away from home, away from our familiar environment.

There’s the fallacy.  We find God by seeking, but if we start out by excluding people and places from our seeking, by never looking at those which are most familiar, at the places we know best, it’s easy to decide that God isn’t in the normal places.  We go home, and because we only start looking for God amongst the stranger, we don’t let ourselves see God in the ordinary and familiar home life.  It’s a let-down, coming off of a spiritual high of our mission work.  So we keep going away.  We keep looking for new places to go, new spiritual experiences which will push us to find God again.  And by restricting the God experience to mission trips and spiritual retreats, we cut out other ways of experiencing God, and we restrict the people who have access to God to those who can afford the time or expense of going on these retreats and mission trips.

But the thing is, if we honestly do believe that God is present throughout the world, in all peoples and in all times, then it’s not that we can only find God by going away.  It’s that we’re only looking for God in those far-off places.  God is not restricted, but we are restricting our own experience of God.

It’s another way of making the God-experience safe, by putting the divine away into a box that we think we can control and regulate.  It’s harder, scarier, to say that God is just as present in your ordinary life, when you go grocery shopping at your local store, or hunting for the dishes that your family members use and never return to the kitchen to get washed.  It’s hard to say that God is present in the neighbor who plays music loudly too late at night, or fights with her husband when your kids are trying to take a nap.

It still has to be the goal.  Seek the Lord while he may be found.  Paradoxically, the work of mission isn’t done until we go back home and apply the task of mission to our own lives.  We haven’t found God in the world until we can return and still seek God in the face of the person next to us.  

Margaret Clinch is 28 years old and from the Diocese of Southern Ohio. 
She is serving as a teacher at Easter College in the 
Diocese of the North Central Philippines.

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