Go! Spread! Fire!

We spent six perfect days reaching out to the community in fun ways. None of us wanted the week to end! Highlights of our weeklong Go! Spread! Fire!

1. Cold Water for Jesus
We gave away 1,200 bottles of cold water on sweltering days in Washington, Bethesda and Rockville. (At times, Patrick's van became an intense assembly-line for labelling and laminating the bottles between destinations!)

2. Rebuilding Ancient Ruins, Metaphorically
As a surprise, we cleaned the Bethesda church where we've started to rent a room for Sunday mornings. When we got there, we heard they'll have a new pastor soon, so here was an instant opportunity to beautify his yard! We bought garden tools to do the same thing in the Twinbrook church, new site of our evening service.
These two churches have gone through a lot, and the idea was to encourage them and possibly light a spark. (I'd never pulled weeds before... Made me think about the value of removing little-noticed weeds in our lives!)

3. Dollar Bills
We dropped and hid dollar bills wrapped around tracts in a mall. It was harder than we imagined to drop them covertly!

4. Free Fotos... Really!
That was the slogan on our tee-shirts. We walked around the greatly inspiring World War II Memorial with digital cameras and portable printers, offering to take and print pix on the spot for visitors. The pix are also on the deeperthandermis website for downloading. Along the way, we engaged in amazing conversations... We met a brother and sister in their twenties who live in different cities and found each other on MySpace!!

Similarly, we'd love to create bonds and bring smiles to Washington, our hometown, mission field and global hub.

I'll remember this as a week that mingled creativity with compassion. It was immense fun and so spontaneous, involving out-of-the-box thinking, prayer, hard work and, importantly, a willingness to speedily change plans as we listened to the Holy Spirit. Lots of planning + an undoing of plans when God revealed new paths. It's the way life should be, Su said.

We also wrote a tract that we printed, laminated and memorized. We were self-conscious when we role-played the evangelistic encounter with each other. Great practice. It's OK to be fools for Jesus. We'll either be fools now or later, PD said.

It's all about SOULS!

Also WONDERFUL was the 8 am devotions that we started the day with (to seek God's heart and the day's marching orders), and the evening revival meeting that we ended with (for refilling).

You can tell that I learned and experienced LOTS and LOTS! One other lesson is to persevere and laugh more. For example, our photo ministry (see above) started discouragingly some weeks back. But we refined our ideas, sourced printers at one-third the original price on overstock.com, and went out again. It worked!

Similarly, reaching out to Rockville was easier than Bethesda and Washington, cos we'd spent three years as a church in Rockville and prepared the ground. About two years ago, I'd also given away cold water with my former church in Bethesda, and the reception was a little chilly. But, I'm sure a few seeds were planted at that time. Indeed, last week, more people grabbed our water bottles in the same place in Bethesda, near the trail.

It's been a fuller than full week, and greatly transforming. Still bubbling over. It's exactly what Jesus said about giving us life to the full. What's a little surprising to me is that mostly we were five people in the team, and the planning and shopping for supplies was done mostly on the first day. We had two people who were computer whizzes who could design labels and tee-shirts and other stuff on the go. We were a mixed bunch of people, from a high-school kid to career women. We were all focused on outreach and souls and worshipping God.

This tells me that creative and powerful outreaches can be replicated in our communities by little teams, especially our generation of youths who have so much passion and are reform-minded.

I'd planned to join the team a couple of days, but was unstoppably hooked from Day One. My friend Sue would say I'm ending my Washington days on a high note and that's the way to go. I pray that this is transferable, whether in reality or in spirit.

Hey, Tyson, I thought of you, PS and your international group and the Seattle youths!! Have an adventurous summer!

Snapshots

What's an image of Lubriderm moisturizer doing here?

Really soothing in winter, Lubriderm was an early discovery for me when I first lived in the US. Auntie Minar introduced it in a motherly gesture. But my Indonesian librarian friend is more than sweetness and light. On pure logic alone, she once out-maneuvered a team of car salesmen to sell me a Toyota Camry (another early purchase) at a great price.

I've been taking snapshots these days, hoping to catch fleeting butterfly memories of life in America before I head home.

This afternoon, I bought Whole Food cranberry-orange scones and took a picture. A little silly. I used to love these scones a decade ago, before I scrutinized nutrition labels. Each scone weighs in at 270 calories!

Other Pictures: The house-shaped box of crayons that occupied Julie, Megan and other little visitors. Can't ship it back. The Ikea crockery that my parents packed in their luggage for me. The cherry dining table, which still conjures up guests and good times over the years.

I'm so grateful for these amazing years in the US. As Ephesians 3:20 indicates, God has been doing in my life "exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think." What's next? My good friend TS, at a really sad moment when he and his family left for Seattle, said it best: "Look ahead."

Jamaica II: Sunglasses

My lost sunglasses travelled back to me.

I'd left them in the tour van on our last afternoon in Jamaica. A few hours later, we were walking through a crowded, boisterous part of Montego Bay city when a tall smiling man stepped up.

"I'm your driver!" he announced. It was our tour van driver Errol, just then moonlighting as a cabbie.

"Errol! Hi! Did you see my sunglasses?" I asked.

"They're yours?'' he asked, surprised.

And that's how we landed in his cab -- a safe haven after the manic hustling cabbies we kept encountering -- and picked up my sunglasses from his boss' house, before returning to our hotel.

Sue was intrigued, and definitely me too. I'd sensed God's timing at work two days earlier, when our new Jamaican friend Pauline literally opened the door to our tour possibilities on a Sunday afternoon when the tour agencies were closed.

Surprising Pauline at her workplace two days later, we invited her for dinner. She found us a local place and later told us that she didn't have money for lunch that day. She knew it was God's provision when we asked her out.

The sunglasses, the tours that Pauline made possible, and her unexpected dinner -- God displayed His beautiful timing three times, not simply once. It was a generous assurance that His timing is perfect and He is all sovereign. It amazes and comforts me, particularly at this moment just before my big move to Singapore.

Jamaica

I love the dazzling sea in layers of turquoise, azure and aquamarine that I saw everyday in Jamaica.

Also I enjoyed the odd trip to Bob Marley's village where the dreadlocked reggae star once spun his songs and now lives on as an icon for other Rastafarians. Plus our plantation lunch amid music, the high-spirited children who performed for us (above), and our nature walk near a little town of isolated Germans.

The vacation was also marked by hustling, poverty and a sense of that Jamaica could be so much more.

What lingers however are the encounters with people like big-hearted Pauline who sweetly opened the door to our Jamaican excursions and made sure we were safely transported to our hotel, twice. And our introspective tour guide Paul who had much to share after we discovered his church-planting role. Jamaican pastors like him have to work it seems.

My encounters with Jamaicans in the US certainly spurred an initial interest in Jamaica though I had very few mental images of the land. One Jamaican I know in the US is Pastor Andrew, who has such a shepherd's heart and still calls or emails sometimes though I was in his church only six months. Bonds with people are living gems.

Snow!

Delicacy, purity.
Praying, remembering.
Wondrous to walk in falling snow.

Today, I walked for 1.5 hours in the snow. Someone commented that the pearly-gray sky added to the feeling of weightlessness. I stopped often. Taking pictures. Journal-ing in my mind and on an increasingly damp scrap of paper. Looking at 13 puffy-headed birds with pale yellow chests, resting on the upper twigs of a tree. Staring discreetly as an indulgent Dad took his three little colorfully wrapped children out to skitter down a baby slope on tiny snow-saucers. Kind of like the days when my own Dad, hour after hour in Singapore's burning equatorial sun, pushed the swings with me and my sisters on them. I don't think he's seen snow, much as he loves traveling to new places.

I remember another Sunday, in 2003, when a snow-storm caused our little church to worship at a home. Later we walked down the empty street, so transformed, all white beauty and exceptional hush. Our friend Peter walked ahead with exuberant little Michael on his shoulders. Two other wonderful friends later gave the middle name Snow to their lil daughter, who just turned two. How beautiful that those days of church-planting and God's favor are so embedded in my heart that the snow today easily stirs memories of my friends, now a scattered family.

Today, it was mostly the glorious solitude that made it natural to be abandoned to Jesus -- and to know it's possible and desirable to be faithful whether I'm here or there. These couple of years, I've had to embrace the transition and the absence of certainty. It's been a time of growing while waiting. Of making the utmost of my days in the US and discovering so many gems, like the dreamy Berkshires, all nations in my workplace, new creativity, an irrepressible little church, the dazzling edges of revival.

God remembers His promise to me, Jeanne said during our intercessory circle. And He makes all things new, according to Revelation 21:5. That's a verse I always quote and pray! How perfect is that?

Thanksgiving 2005

Fallen leaves swirling skyward,

A wild dance, mimicking life.

Light draining, early and indifferent,

From this city I never embraced.

The absence of all of you,

Trails --

A pearly vapour

Suffusing Thanksgiving.

Our stories disconnect,

Yet persist, suggest

Marvellous light,

Not our own, divine.

I decided to spend Thanksgiving Day in solitude and prayer, away from the celebratory hubbub that always delighted me. I longed to step into a new season of walking in God's marvellous light, and glimpse (or see with eyes of faith) the outlines of a path out from my long transition. I missed my absent best friends with whom I'd celebrated Thanksgiving and served God in our church-plant these amazing years till last December.

I believe my prayer is being answered in the heavenlies. Meanwhile, one overnight fruit (yes, 24 hrs!) of my quiet day was this poem. I'd not written for such a long time, and I thank Jinsook who sweetly, insistently, unabashedly reminded me to write, week after week. She must be one of those people who know how to knock on Heaven's door. : )

I really want to write again. Not indulgently like in my college years, but maybe to flip open a few more windows in this vast online space to God's glory.