I wrote this post on Wednesday, November 7 2012, the day after the Presidential Election. I was too scared to post it then, but I am doing so now, one week later. Hopefully emotions have simmered down at least a little so we can discuss, kindly and openly, some issues that I view as very important.

Today I’m inspired to care for the unborn. If a pro-life president had been elected, do you know what I would have said? “Phew, thank God someone will be taking care of the abortion issue.” And then I would have carried on with my life per usual, thinking that the folks in Washington were fighting for the lives of babies so that I don’t have to.

I am learning that the mere pressing of a voting button and then going on with my life is not a way to affect change, nay, voting for pro-life candidates twice a year seems ineffective – we keep losing this battle politically! Then we throw our hands up in the air, say the country is going to heck in a handbasket and carry on as usual while a reported 3,300-ish American babies are aborted every day.

The reality is that women have been aborting babies for thousands of years, and no amount of legislation is going to completely eliminate this practice.  If you are pro-life, be pro-life. If abortion is one of your hot button issues, friends, don’t let it be merely political. Look at how ineffective we are politically right now – must we wait another 2 to 4 years for change?

Behind each aborted baby is a story. Women who are choosing abortion are doing so because they are being told (and telling themselves)  it’s the best option for themselves and for their baby.  They are being lied to. Some are scared. Some are alone. Some are ashamed. Most are being pressured by their partners or parents to get rid of the baby. Many don’t know the heartache that comes with taking the life of their child. They just don’t know. But… you.can.tell.them.the.truth!  There are women in your neighborhood, town and city who would accept your help if you offered it to them. They need you. They don’t need politics to take away their options, they need you to present different and better options. They need a friend. Guidance. They need to see the love of Jesus through you. This is how babies will be given a chance at life in the next four years and the four years after that and the four years after that.

Let us not place the responsibility of the unborn on our politicians alone. Christian friends, let us simplify our lives so that we can make a difference in the abortion issue. What can we eliminate from our schedule or our children’s schedules so that we can be involved in being pro-life? Not just voting pro-life, but being pro-life.

You you know the phrase “put your money where your mouth is”? I think for us who are adamantly pro-life it should be “put your time where your mouth is.”  We may be passionate about voting pro-life, but are we passionate about being pro-life? How much money do we really need to make? How many times a week do we really need to go to the gym? How many sports teams to our children need to be on? How much TV do we really need to watch? How many Bible studies do we need to participate in? We cannot answer this question for each other – every person and family is unique – but let us at least be willing to question ourselves.

There are pregnancy centers across America that offer free education and counseling to women {and their partners} who are scared. You can get involved. Support your local centers that are promoting life, education and options for mothers and fathers who would otherwise be sitting in the waiting room at Planned Parenthood.  Get involved with people. Make an intentional effort to claw your way into the lives of women who are “at risk” for choosing abortion. Put a face and a story to this political debate. Show them the tangible love of Jesus – the peace, the joy, the freedom. If we were to do this, if all of us do this at least to some extent, perhaps abortion would not even be viewed as a legitimately positive option for them.

Now that I think about it,  this goes for any hot-button political issue.

Does gay marriage get you all riled up? Befriend some people in the GLBT community. Put a face and a story to this political debate. Show them the tangible love of Jesus – the peace, the joy, the freedom.

Is illegal immigration the big one for you? Find a program in your area that supports and educates immigrants – a citizenship class, perhaps. Put a face and a story to this political debate. Show them the tangible love of Jesus – the peace, the joy, the freedom.

What about welfare? Why not seek some out a few people on welfare and be purposeful in shepherding them so that they feel confident in their ability to work and earn a living? Put a face and a story to this political debate. Show them the tangible love of Jesus – the peace, the joy, the freedom

I believe America can see fewer abortions, fewer gay marriages, fewer families on welfare and fewer illegal immigrants in the next four years. I intend be a part of this hope and change.

He (God) has shown you, O mortal (that’s us), what is good.

And what does the lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

And to walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6:8

* A word to my Christian Liberal friends: Admittedly, I probably would have breathed a sigh of relief and carried on with my life as usual if “my guy” had been elected, but I beg you not to. Let none of us rely on the government or any institution to take care of the issues that we feel strongly about. If you voted for social justice in this election, allow me to implore you to BE social justice to the oppressed in your neighborhood, town and city. Please, do not feel so at ease with the election results that you neglect to act on the principles which inspired your vote in the first place.  People need to see Jesus in action, not government in action.

The End.

Being a full-time youth pastor, my husband often comes across DVD’s of young people doing amazing things and shows them to his group of equally.if.not.more. amazing teens as a source of education and inspiration.  I remember one such video that we watched a few years ago. It was a documentary of sorts: three just-out-of-high-school guys travel to remote parts of Asia to share the gospel with people who have never heard of Jesus. Very inspiring.

This particular video, however, was slightly troubling to Greg and he used it as an incredible teaching tool in such a way that 5 years later, I am still affected by it.  The documentary goes on forever and ever, with the guys in different cities along their journey continuing to say things like, ”tomorrow we hope to find the people who need to hear about Jesus” or “today we are traveling to find the people who need to hear about God’s love…man, I wish we could just find them!” Meanwhile, they are passing impoverished people on the streets, being driven around by families (with children) who most likely have never heard of Jesus, staying in hotels with noisy, “lost” people, etc. I saw the documentary twice and I honestly cannot remember if they every FOUND the people that they were looking for; you know, those people who needed to hear about Jesus. These 3 boys that were so determined to tell a specific people group about Jesus missed the chance to share divine love with a whole bunch of  lost, hurting, broken people right in front of them.

We do that, don’t we? I know I do. I grew up on the mission field (spent ages 2-10 on Guam), have been to Philadelphia PA, Newark NJ, Mexico, Scotland and pre-Katrina New Orleans on missions trips, but {this is so embarrassing} I’ve never made intentional time to reach out to Sabina, my 84-year-old widowed neighbor. You’re totally judging me right now, and you should.

Let’s just let that sink in for a moment.

…

Local and over-seas missions trips are incredible. They allowed me to sacrifice myself in a way that was beyond my American understanding. These ministry trips broadened my horizons, opened my eyes to other cultures, showed me what what real poverty is and allowed me to serve people who posses a peace that many of us have never experienced. We should never forsake mission trips. But how long do mission trips last? A week? Maybe two? Let us not forget that our own neighborhoods, our cities are made up of lost, broken, needy, hurting, dying and destitute people. If a short-term missions trip is our missional focus for the the entire year, are we not missing something? 

What about Reading?

I am privileged to live less than a mile outside the poorest city in America. I know that “poor” is a tricky term. I get it. I know that there is a culture of homelessness. There is a culture of welfare and dependency on someone else to work/provide. I understand. I agree. But let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. There ARE hard-working people who feel genuinely stuck where they are. People who do not speak English or understand our American culture, need help improving their circumstances, are desperate for friendship and community and would be very open to the gospel.   

I am not an expert; this is a brand new journey for me.  I understand what it’s like to grow up in the church and not even know how to impact the people outside of the bubble. This may sound strange, but for me it was easier to get on board with a mission trip than it was to make the effort to discover how to impact the outside-of-my-church world around me. Unfortunately {or maybe it’s very fortunate}, I am not able to join my husband in Haiti this summer or any of our church members on one of the 8 trips to  Mexico, Haiti or France in the coming year. I’m stuck here. In Reading.  America’s poorest city is less than a mile away. My elderly, lonely, widowed neighbor literally shares a wall with my family. I can do something.

I am not sure what it takes. In processing it all, I honestly think the number one hindrance for me in reaching out has been time and (mental) space. If my life is busy, I don’t have eyes to see Sabina or the beautiful people of Reading. My life is busy…with really good and “important” things. But maybe there’s one or two items on my agenda that I can cut out during the week so that I can be intentional about showing God’s love to my neighbor.

Welcome to the newest journey of my life. What are your thoughts? How do you reach out and show tangible love to your neighbor?

This summer I was challenged by Jen Hatmaker (my buddy…I wish) who was challenged by Francis Chan to take Jesus’ command love your neighbor as you love yourself seriously. What would it look like if I showed love to my actual, literal neighbor? Not just my white, middle-class Christian neighbor – I’m pretty good at that already. No, my America’s-poorest-city-of-Reading-that’s-one-mile-away neighbor.

You can read here and here about the process that I went through over the last few weeks. To sum it up, I’m now volunteering for a ministry called Wisdom31. It’s a group of women who meet at a church in center-city Reading and teach English as a second language (ESL) for free to anyone who is interested.

Ok, so let’s chat about this. My class is the Level 3 class – the students speak decent English. I teach once a week on Thursdays, sharing the responsibility with another (dear) girl who teaches on Tuesdays. The first week, I was so freaking nervous that I don’t know if I even made eye contact with anyone. The next week my little cherub, Owen, got sick and I had to bail (how’s that for ministering to the poor?). The following week, last Thursday, I went in to the class resolved to make connections. I am there because I want to get to know people. I want to practice loving my neighbor. I want my heart to care about people that were previously not on my radar.

I had a great time getting to know the women: Lizbeth, Maria, Martha, Leimy, Maritzah and Wenru, our only non-Hispanic member. Unfortunately I misunderstood some directions and ended up covering things that they had already learned. For.Two.Hours!  Fail.

I’ve got to be honest, I’m not feeling like a worthy example of how to minister to your neighbor. Even this post is difficult to write. Truthfully, I don’t have much to say about it and I wouldn’t be saying anything at all, but someone gave me a swift kick to the pants tonight and told me to include you, friend, in my thoughts.  I am just in the infancy stages of all of this…my hope and prayer is that you will appreciate the pilgrimage and perhaps it will inspire you to think about embarking on a similar journey.  If you’re looking for a how-to, you’re going to have to find another blog. I’m sure there’s plenty out there that will give you a 12-step plan of how to love your neighbor. I’m not that girl. I’m really not sure how to do it and be a wife/mom/friend and have a job and continue to minister in my church (that I love).

A common thread among the women in my ESL class is that they don’t have a community of friends. Most of them have emigrated to the US in the last 2 years, so I don’t know why I was shocked to hear them say that they don’t have people to hang out with. So this Thursday I’m going to see if they want to start coming for lunch after class. Here’s the thing: I feel like this is too easy. I thought that when I opened the “minister to Reading, PA” door, God would lead me to feed the homeless or hang out with drug addicts. Having a group of really nice, clean {don’t judge me} women to my house for lunch isn’t really an intimidating sacrifice, it’s actually really fun and exciting to think about.  

So I guess my take-away is this: Sure, sometimes God leads us to do scary things. But a lot of times he just wants to use the gifts that he’s already given us to bless people that are outside of our normal bubble. Do I know how to teach? Yes. Do I enjoy being with people? Yes. Do I have a home and food to share? Yes. Doesn’t get much easier than that.

As Jen says,

Life is more than blessing extremely blessed people…  

 …But it doesn’t have to be complicated, I don’t think.

Last Sunday morning before church, I published a blog post about how I have recently been convicted about my lack of caring/acknowledgement/love for the poor. I described how I’ve been researching ministries within our church that would allow me and others to serve the impoverished of Reading (America’s poorest city).  An hour later, after nearly losing my salvation trying to get the boys out the door, I walked into my Sunday school class and found a paper with the following information printed upon it:

The Global Impact Committee is presenting an outreach opportunity for our people to make an impact in the city… We believe God is leading us to do something in the city for both the physical AND spiritual poverty that exists among the people. …We are asking your class to plan prayer walks in the city of Reading…Start your walk about 4-5 blocks from an ethnic restaurant, greeting people and asking them if they have anything they would like you to pray for and also asking them how we as a church can help the people of Reading. Then at the restaurant, talk about the things you have heard while you enjoy the ethnic cuisine…Please bring your answers and thoughts back…The Global Impact Committee will be collecting them  to help guide us for other outreach plans…

The timing of this could not be any more exciting. The church is concerned about the poor. I am {newly} concerned about the poor. The church is working on doing something about spiritual and physical poverty. I can be a part of it. I will be a part of it. Destiny?

Perhaps my biggest take-away from reading 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess is that the christian life is about more than simply blessing the already very blessed people of our American church. Serving the church body is important, and I will continue to do it happily. There are also people who are not necessarily connected to my church living in real poverty with no foreseeable hope of escaping it, literally one mile away from my front door. Literally.

I have researched and prayed and considered how I can physically, tangibly help people in my city, which happens to be America’s poorest city. I have decided to be a part of Wisdom31, teaching ESL to adults.  Every Thursday morning, the boys and I will drive into the city (5 minutes away). The boys will attend a little preschool class with the children of the ESL students. My boys will be interacting and playing with kids who are not a whole lot like them. Awesome. Can’t wait for the teaching moments that will inevitably ensue. I will be instructing the advanced level ESL class. This means that I have an easy job compared to the other Wisdom31 volunteer teachers- my students are advanced – they’ll know a lot of English already. YAY!

I am not the type of person that would normally get nervous about, well, anything. I am usually confident to a fault. I’m working on being more humble and maybe this is one of the ways that the Lord is playing that out in my life. I am very nervous about teaching a class of 5-10 adult ESL students by myself for an hour and a half! Yikes!

I am also very excited. I will have opportunities to use my gifting AND get to know some people in my city that I would not have been in contact with were it not for this class. I get to serve people by helping them with the English language, but I also hope to create friendships and serve them as my “neighbor.”

I’m inviting you to come along this journey with me, friend. Let me say that as a girl who has been christianized since she was a fetus, I am ashamed to admit that regularly and intentionally serving my community is a new venture for me. I hope to blog about my experiences and introduce you to the precious people that I meet. I would LOVE it if you would post ideas of how we can serve our respective communities together, put “love your neighbor as yourself” into action and think outside the four walls of our homes.