Little Moments. . . Huge Gifts

I am not a robot.

Therefore, I have emotional reactions to things. In this new endeavor there have been many moments when my body just wants to go somewhere alone and talk with God. Our conversation in those moments would mostly be (and has been) - - - "Wow. Are you SURE you want me doing this?"

The past week of digging in and really connecting with kids and hearing their stories has been hard. I could not love it more, but it has been hard. I have flipped life on its head in that I don't want the weekend to come. Sunday nights are a fight to sleep through, not due to anxiety, but excitement.

And it's hard. And when I say it's hard, I mean, it's beyond hard. If I could shut off the part of my heart that reaches down and feels what the kids feel it might not be as hard. But almost every time my eyes swell up with tears and I have to hold them back for the sake of the client.

Today, God gave me an amazing gift. It was a magical moment where I let the tears (only a couple) roll down my cheeks. It was perfect.

CrossFit. Yep. I went to CrossFit today. The workout was called Nancy. Apparently Nancy likes to beat up homeless teenage boys, and today she did a phenomenal job trying. . . but the boys did better.

I was there to mostly "encourage and empower" as the CEO directed me. So there was H, an overweight kid who has some developmental delays. Before we left for CrossFit I asked him if he was ready to have fun. He told me, "CrossFit isn't fun if you're a fat person." Hilarious.

So we head to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department's training facility. (How awesome is that? These kids run, lift and bust their rears right along side the cops. I love it!) We get ourselves together and find out the workout is Nancy, which consists of a 400 meter run followed by 15 overhead squats. H's workout was modified to 200 meters and 10 squats with PVC pipe.

It was intense. He was finishing his second of three rounds and halfway through his squats, I was seriously worried he might not make it. And by "not make it" I mean, I thought we were going to have to drag H back to the van or call a medic in. So I stood with him and with each squat I told him he was amazing and the more he did, the less he had to do. Then I ran with him. My walking pace was quicker than his jogging, but he was doing it. He came back, finished ten more of the PVC pipe with a rest between each one. But. He. Finished. . . as the sweatest kid on the track.

So then to the most amazing part. Each time, the female police officer that leads the group hands out a teddy bear. Yes. A TEDDY bear. A brown fuzzy one. The kid that shows the most "heart" walks home with BABs, the "Bad Ass Bear." That means that twice a week, about twelve homeless teenage boys are fighting through intense workouts for a TEDDY BEAR. It could not be more perfect.

H won the bear. He won the freaking bear. This is when tears rolled down. It was this absolutely perfect gift of a moment where something beautiful happened right in front of me. . . then, when we were in the van driving back, he announced to everyone "Part of this goes to Megan, because she inspired me."

How do you NOT have emotional reactions to moments like this? Eat your heart out Hallmark commercials. The Outreach, Inc. kids have you beat any day of the week.

Night Street Lessons

Tonight I dove deeper into developing my role at Outreach. I went on a hunt of sorts. L, my fellow outreach worker, took me to a camp nestled between the mega-million dollar Lucas Oil Stadium (home of Superbowl XLVI) and the White River. There we encountered a strip of land known to some as "the Jungle".

We hunched down and went under the bridge on one side to see a scattering of used up travel shampoos, burnt plastic spoons, empty sanitizer containers and other evidence of a typical squat location. The array of needles and spoons made it clear that this was a popular place to hide and shoot up. This was a moment where I nodded my head and thought, 'this is it. this is reality.' This is the reality of the life these kids live, and the reality of the lifestyle they are on the verge of slipping into.

Its the reality of who my God is. He is bigger than all of it. He is capable of healing the hurt that leads to the hiding, and the breaking away from society. And, for reasons beyond my comprehension, He has led me into this position where I am reaching out to these image bearing individuals.

As part of my introduction into this position, I am reading a phenomenal book entitled When Helping Hurts. It is incredibly insightful to be meeting the people of this city in line with reading this book. The understanding of what Christ did with us, does with us and will continue to be doing in us helps me to further develop my view of what "working with the homeless" means in Indianapolis.

What is success in homeless ministry? Is it when they confess their need for Christ? When they pass a GED test? Land a job? Get an apartment? The answer lies in looking at our own lives. When am I considered a successful woman? When I graduated college? When I landed a good job? When I buy a house? When I get married? (Gosh I hope not!) Its no different in determining when 'success' is reached with homeless.

Just like me, they are not projects. They are people. People befriend people. They invest in people, they take time to genuinely get to know each other. This is called friendship. It's called living life. Success in ministry isn't in the accomplished projects or number of boxes filled in on a list, but in the process of loving someone. Is a friendship successful when you're close enough to go to their house, go to the mall, go on vacation together? None of that makes sense.


Of course in this 'field of work' there are milestones. Points when you look back and see progress, see progress done by an interactive and powerful God. Glimpses of renewed views of self, God, people and the world. Its a gradual morphing of unhealthy and untrue views of things into an understanding of truth that causes lasting change. An unveiling of how God sees you. It's what made me into who I am. I even spoke to a coworker and said today, "I am not who anyone thought or expected me to be. And that is completely because of God stripping away so many lies I thought about myself and Him and life and replacing those with truth."

So I pray, HARD. I pray for eyes to see the hurts that are rooted in lies. I pray for the nudge that I am learning to feel more and more that guides my into speaking truth in those places. I am in tears as I right this, hoping, yearning, praying with each click of the keyboard, to be a mouthpiece. To be a tool used in the story of some of these youth that I will meet that God uses to breath the fresh air of truth into places where healing has to happen to break chains.

Lord. Use me.

New Season! New Excitement!

Phew! It has been YEARS since my last post! I have been blessed beyond measure for a season of life in a church where I rested and grew and enjoyed phenomenal fellowship! Calvary Fellowship Church is officially my "home" where I feel rooted and loved. . .

But now. . . I am back out :) With my love, with my heart - in the city! Philly molded me, shaped me, HUMBLED me and brought me to an entirely different place in how I viewed myself in life and in ministry. Take that and add a couple of years of restful and amazing ministry in Chester County and I see how God lined things up in an amazing way to prepare me for this next phase.

I have decided to start the blog up again to share what is going on with everyone back in Pennsylvania. I have taken a job as a street outreach worker (SOW) at a ministry called Outreach, Inc. and I could not be more excited!!!!

As I am telling everyone, its the job I never thought I could get paid for! I will be the initial connection for girls (ages 14-24) that are homeless in Indianapolis. What I love about this ministry is that it is so in line with how Jesus loved us and reached us. Our relationship with Him is a friendship, and through that friendship, He guides us and changes us. The sinful thoughts, lies and misinterpretations of ourselves, our world and God Himself are brought out and cleansed and replaced with truth. This process causes deep change in us, it causes sanctification.

The beauty of Outreach is that it isn't a social service. It is friendship, and connection. We don't come down and 'touch' the homeless then go back to our lives. Each of us has committed to literally link arms with the kids and live life, being friends with them first, then as the Holy Spirit opens doors, we speak truth of who they are as image bearers into those darker places.

I sit here almost in tears of excitement, and anticipation for ways I know my God is going to show up and show that He is Who He says He is. It is extremely overwhelming, and that is exactly where I think every soldier of Christ should be. Overwhelmed, fully aware of the work that is out of our hands and completely  reliant on Him to prove Himself. . . which He seems to be in the business of doing - bringing glory to His own name.

I. AM. SO. EXCITED!

 Click Here To Check Out Outreach

Updates :)

Wellllll, this blog was originally about my Philly loves and my love for Philly. . . but since God has other plans for me then to spend all of my days with them, I turn my eyes heavenward and get really excited for what He does have planned. I think it's better that He keeps me in the dark sometimes because if I knew everything, I would try to do it all on my own - and we know how that would end up~ hot mess.

So here is what is going on right now. As of today, I have 23 days left of teaching in Philly, then I am moving on to grad school in the fall - Clinical Psychology. It seems like a huge leap, but, God directed it so clearly, I know it will be awesome. Mostly I just dread getting up so early every morning and battling the rush hour traffic both ways. My students are still amazing and cute and I love them, even when they bite me :)

Ministry - ahhh, well, I mean, besides teaching in the city - God has lined me up to work with the youth at Calvary Fellowship Church in Downingtown, PA. Oh. My. Word. These girls are hilarious, and there was definitely a 'God thing' that happened that helped me link with them quickly. Its awesome to see young people extreme about their faith and excited to grow in knowledge and truth. I mean, seriously, these girls are amazing. . . . I told God I would go anywhere but the suburbs, but I am very thankful that He didn't listen to me. :)

So thats that. Just waiting it out until teaching is done and pretty peaceful about the monumental changes taking place - because, with all the drama of the last couple of years, I have learned firmly that He is Who He says He is and He can do what He says He can do.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Here is a picture of 'lunch detention' . . . .its no wonder they end up complaining if they DON'T get to come up here at lunch :)

Laughter

"You turned my wailing into dancing...you clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing to you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever." Psalm 30:11-12

I listened to someone speak recently about how firmly we can pronounce our faith, stand strong in it - testify the strength of God without blinking an eye - and then when the storm comes - we panic. Like the disciples on the boat, who had just seen Jesus feed the five thousand, we FREAK out if the boat is rocking. We see our humanity, we see our weakness, but even more beautiful, we see His strength.

I new friend, through a series of long conversations said to me "You are so strong." This literally made me laugh out loud. I mean, seriously!!! I crumble when I face adversity, even something so small as someone who I will never know again does not like me - I want to cry when the wind blows too hard. So it made me think - PRAISE HIM! PRAISE HIM - because this girl is clearly not seeing me, she is seeing strength from somewhere else.

Since September, I have learned new depths of myself - and most upsetting, I have learned new depths of my faithlessness. I have seen women healed of infertility, injuries healed from prayer, lives changed by the Holy Spirit alone, and my own healing as well. Yet, when a storm came, and I could not see things clearly - I forgot about the plan, I forgot - mostly, about the love. So as I cling onto Him again - I remember who He is - and most excitedly, accept the grace for the time I pushed Him away.

Because as I look around at the change, I get SO EXCITED!!! People like Joseph, have to wait for years, even decades some times, to see how God works together for good, the things Satan meant for evil. I mean, since moving home, prayers have been answered before even prayed - and joy is abounding!

None of the current things would be possible without the pain, without the loss - but I also relearned some lessons that the Lord has been teaching me for years - GIVE OVER CONTROL - TRUST IN THE PLANS HE HAS - JUST EMBRACE THE GRACE AND BE TRANSFORMED BY IT!

And when these things are done, gosh - the laughter - comes so much easier - I have seriously been laughing so hard lately, my cheeks hurt more then not. Its great. Its joy - its trust. You must know the depths to know the heights - this is true - I just hope I remember this for the next storm :)

A man's steps are directed by the Lord. How then can anyone understand his own way?

The title is from Proverbs 20:24 . . .It pretty much sums up where I am sitting and what I am thinking right now. This blog was originally about my kids in North Philly. Quickly and boldly, God brought that season of my life to an end. Though the loss of consistency and connectedness with the kids was painful, I know that the transition was part of the Father working.

Through this transition time, one of the oddest sources of affirmation and encouragement has been Twitter. I follow and get text messages from John Piper, Oswald Chambers, Spurgeon, and others. . . so its delightful how I get texts of these amazing quotes to remind me of how God works. The following tweet was from John Piper -

"God never does only one thing. In everything he does he is doing thousands of things. Of these we know perhaps half a dozen."

It basically sums up how I feel about all of this change. In the past two months I have changed the following things in my life - my housing, my ministry, my church, my career, my circle of friends and my commute. . . Believe it or not, the only one of those that imposes any stress on my life is the last one. :) Honestly. . .

There is something to be said about the 'peace that passes all understanding.' With all of this chaos, I am calmer then ever. God is really, really, really faithful. I look at the Piper tweet and I am overwhelmed with joy because I understand that this is all in His plan. It reminds me of the story of Jacob, where "satan meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." This is perfect. I could have written this same blog post two months ago and filled it with the language of fear and uncertainty, but since moving home - ohhhh, yes, I said HOME - I feel really settled.

I am changing to a morning church, one that allows me to rest well before commuting the hour and a half to Philly every morning. It also was just time. I had few ties at Providence and all of them consisted of families connected to the nursery - of which I was no longer director. I have already connected with the youth pastor at my new church (he married my good friend!! perfect!!) and am diving right in to ministry there.

It is all REALLY REALLY good. These are the point of prayer I have right now -

1) Cultural transition - I know this is my HOME culture - but I am REALLY heavily hit with it when I go to the youth group at church. These kids are so different then any I have worked with.

2) That traffic stays not completely horrible on the Schuylkill. every. day.

3) Continued peace and joy.

4) A smooth transition into grad school - I am a little nervous about papers and tests again!!! eeek!

Scenes from 202