Pella, Poverty, Hope, and a Thank You.

I am in Iowa fund raising this weekend.  Most of the staff from the region are here working on developing their support base, sending emails and making calls.  It feels great to be sitting here inside 3rd reformed, the church I grew up in.  What an amazing place.  I am so thankful for the leaders here who have invested in me and this city.  I started coming here when I moved to Pella in 4th grade, and our building was near the square, where the library now stands.  We had cadets and sunday school in the house next door.  It has been a powerful testimony and example to me to watch this church become the ministry that it now is.   I just told an old man story.  Oh to be young again…

When I get the chance to come back and visit, I am always struck by what an amazing place Pella is.  Some out-of-town friends I have taken with me on some of these visits have lovingly referred to it as ‘the shire.’   While I do know that, like every place on earth, Pella is full of broken and hurting souls in need of a good God…this place is special.

I experience such a variety of emotions as I drive the clean streets here.  It is a community I grew up in, I know, and I love.  It is my home.  I can’t help but contrast Pella with that of the places I have been since leaving.  I have seen smoggy streets packed beyond capacity strewn with diseased and discarded children begging for food or too near death to move or speak.  I remember being approached by the bare feet of a 5 year old girl with a baby awkwardly burdening her tiny arms.  She knocks on the window of the taxi and looks right at me.  “Please uncle, no family.  No food.”  Motioning that she has no food to feed the baby.  This was not a rare occurrence in Calcutta.  In fact, it was commonplace.  There are literally hundreds of thousands of orphaned children, homeless, diseased, and hungry roaming the streets of that city.  Many are enslaved and abused by rich men to whom all their begging profits go.  In Thailand, countless thousands buzzing piously in and out of the ornate temples, burning incense and bowing down to man-made objects.  In Jakarta we shared the gospel with a widow who lives on top of a garbage mountain.  Almost all of the people she knows will die of tuberculosis as a result of the burning waste constantly filling the air with smog and disease.  The flies are maddening after 10 minutes.  The smell is overwhelming.  There is no sewer system.  The children use mountains of festering trash as their playground, and the adults are payed 90 cents for 10 hours of picking through the burning rubble to find recyclables.  In that same neighborhood we cannot paint a cross in our mural because the local pastor must remain under-cover for fear of death.  In sunny, beautiful, Oceanside Perth, Australia more young people are killing themselves than ever before.  Depression, cutting, and hardcore drug use are rampant.  Racial segregation continues.  The gospel is mocked.  Violent crimes continue to plague inner city America.  And the economy….oooh the economy….

So often in the midst of all those experiences abroad, and now watching the evening news in St. Louis, I felt hopelessness.  I felt like I wanted nothing more than to forget about the world and collapse in on myself like a dieing star.  At times I felt like I could not deal with the emotional trauma, especially in Calcutta while working at the Mother Theresa home for handicapped men and boys.  Every day I walked by human beings laying prostrate on the curbside in front of the home, hoping there would be room for the nuns to take them in.  Some were so sick and lifeless I honestly could not tell if they were alive.  Others were coherent enough to watch their own bodies be slowly ravaged by leprosy and diseased sores.  How could I offer these people anything?  How can I bring a message of hope when my own spirit is so overcome by hopelessness?

I think perhaps it was no coincidence that I was reading Lord of the Rings at the time.  It did, I must admit, serve at times as an escape from the overwhelming reality around me.  But in looking back I can see how the Lord used that story and that imagery to encourage my soul.  As I came to him discouraged and afraid, I spent time in prayer and spent time in his word.  I asked him for hope.  I asked for hope to return to my own spirit and hope for the burdened and seemingly forgotten people of Calcutta.  And I read what I now think are the most beautiful words in Tolkien’s story:

"There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a  dark tor
 high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle
 for a while. The  beauty of it smote his heart, as he
looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope  returned
to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought
pierced him that  in the end the Shadow was only a small
and passing thing: there was light and  high beauty for
ever beyond its reach."

There, in the depths of despair, Sam and Frodo continued to put one foot in front of the other as they faced impossible circumstance.  An army of evil between them and their goal, and nothing to boast of themselves.  Two small, ordinary hobbits: Me and my team in Calcutta.  Death and failure seemed imminent.  And then, as he looked up and saw a white star twinkle, Sam’s heart was encouraged with the thought of eternal goodness and of enduring beauty.  This is not unlike the Psalmist, who sings, “My flesh and my heart may fail, But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (73:26).

What a great encouragement it is to me to know that there are places of worship and even communities of people on this earth that stand as beacons of light to a darkening world.  I am so incredibly thankful for Third Reformed and have come to think of Lake Forest Church in NC in the same manner.  These are places where God is honored, where people are loved, and from which missionaries are sent.  I love that Lake Forest is a Church for the unchurched.  I love that Third Reformed exists to “send out servant hearted disciples with a passion for God and the world.”

I love that rather than living in excess Christians in these places are both living the gospel and they are going.  They are going to Haiti, as missionaries to college campus’, to unreached people groups in Nepal, to teach in Universities, to plant Churches in surrounding communities, to orphanages in South America.  They are going to work at Vermeer and Wachovia and Pella Corp, and testifying to the truth in their everyday actions.  I am so happy to reflect upon the blessings that these communities have been to me and to the world.  I am so thankful that the living God we serve motivates our hearts to this end.

More than anything, I am thankful that we serve a God who, even when every worldly reason has been exhausted, gives us a reason to hope.  The shadow is only small and passing thing.  There is light and beauty eternal.  And we are going to take part in this glorious inheritance.  Right now the economy is giving many of us a good opportunity to feel hopeless.  Savings are evaporating into nothing, jobs are being lost, salaries are being cut, financial obligations are going unmet.  My prayer for you and I in the midst of this difficulty is that we will put our hope in him, the only worthy end on which our hope must rest.  And I pray that wherever we are, the beauty of our unwavering hope in him will pierce the hearts of those around us – at work, on campus, at home – as a testimony that there is in fact a good God who is our Father and will bring us through this into glory.

¹Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. ²Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. ³Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Hebrews 12:1-3

InterVarsity in the Lindenwood Newspaper

http://media.www.lulegacy.com/

Group starts monthly events for Lindenwood students

Hiroko Furuhashi

Issue date: 3/12/09 

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship has launched Culture Break, a monthly cultural exchange event.

Both international and American students will be able to share their cultures and foods through the event, said Krissy Pfeil, a staff member of InterVarsity.

“We wanted to throw some weekend activities on campus,” Pfeil said. “The international students cannot go home for the weekend like other local students do. So InterVarsity found a need for … the event [so] that the international students can feel at home.”

Freshman Coline Camps appreciates the activity. “This gives us things to do,” Camps said. “The campus is dead on the weekend. There is nothing we can do.”

Culture Break is open and free for anyone – another goal of the program is to enhance cultural understanding among students.

“I think this event opens up the chances for students to interact with other cultures,” Sophomore Jack Kennedy said.

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship was founded to unite a community of Christian students who will be mentored toward having a real effect on campus. It has helped international students by hosting events, taking field trips and providing transportation.

The first Culture Break took place at the Loft on Feb. 20. More than 100 students enjoyed foods from eight different countries. After the food was gone, the participants danced to foreign music.

Camps enjoyed her first taste of Nepalese food. Nepalese restaurants are not popular in her home country, France. “It was spicy, but tasted good,” Camps said.

Kennedy experienced sushi, a traditional Japanese food, for the first time. “I would never have tried sushi if I was not there that night,” Kennedy said.

Culture Break will be held once a month on a Friday night. Further dates have not been set.

Pfeil said the organization plans to have more music, dances and games in addition to the food at the next Culture Break.

“We hope that the event will let students meet new people, get to know each other, and bring fun activity on campus,” Pfeil said.

From InterVarsity.org…

Student Ministry Not in Recession February 12, 2009

“How faith is formed and reformed during young adult years is clearly a matter of importance for young adults. It is also of enormous importance for our society as a whole,” said Sharon Parks, who has been studying the spiritual development of college-aged people for the past thirty years. “Within a distracted, indifferent, or exploiting culture, however, young adulthood may be squandered on dreams too small to match the potential of the young adult soul, or simply may be at adrift in the unexamined currents of mere circumstances.” For more than sixty-six years, InterVarsity has provided mentoring to students that cuts through unexamined currents and circumstances to produce significant, long term results. With our society facing huge economic and social challenges, it is important that the energy, passions, and futures of college students are not squandered on wrong dreams. As we begin a new year and a new political administration, we also begin the second half of the 2008-2009 school year. We are delighted to report that God is at work through InterVarsity. While there have been many downturns in the world around us, the number of students actively involved in our witnessing communities on campus was up more than 1,800 in the first semester of 2008 compared with the same period last year. * 31,796 students and faculty participated actively in groups this past fall * 1,000 students made new decisions to follow Christ * 750 InterVarsity student groups are now established on campuses across the U.S. For the past several years, we have been studying how to successfully start new groups on campus. We have been working carefully with forty-four new groups, and we are excited that those groups now have more than 1,400 students involved. Remarkably, fifty-six new decisions to follow Christ came from those forty-four new groups. Of course the real impact of our work is not in the numbers but is in the hearts and minds of students and faculty and the lives of alumni who will be living for Christ many years from now. We can neither report all those stories, nor can we guarantee what today’s students will do in the future, but here are a few snapshots from last semester and reports from past students who give us great hope.

We are thankful for all that God is doing and for the way our donors have partnered with us in ministry. We are committed to continuing our mission to the campus in the second half of the year.

Please pray for:

• Schools and staff in areas where the economic downturn is particularly severe
• Students who are seeking spirituality but have not come to know Jesus Christ

Feb. Update

Hey Everyone! Three weeks ago I wrote you all that I was just moving in with a family near St. Charles and starting part-time on campus. It feels so much longer as I reflect on all that has happened since then. Here is a brief snapshot of how your support is effecting lives. — I co-lead a weekly community group of 7+ students. We are studying through Acts and applying it to our lives as we find practical ways to serve a specific group of international students on campus. One manifestation of this is that we are offering a ‘free taxi’ every Wednesday afternoon for international students who don’t have basic necessities and don’t know where to go get them. — We have a ‘core team’ of 20+ students who are involved in everything from community groups, to international student outreaches, to leading prayer meetings, to GIG’s (see below). — During march each of our core team students has been asked to lead a GIG. A GIG is small and informal gathering of friends focused on asking questions about God and faith. We challenged them to invite 2-3 people they know who they think would be open and interested to this discussion. GIG’s are one of the primary ways InterVarsity has seen students come to know the Lord. I will be co-leading a GIG with one of our students who hopes to meet with three of his muslim friends. (We are meeting them tonight for tea in order to build the friendship and would appreciate your prayers). — This Friday we have an event called “Culture Break.” We expect to have 100+ students come for a night of free international food and fellowship in an effort to build relationships with them and create a real sense of community where they can be exposed to the love of Christ. Many of our events now are focussed on forming relationships as we begin to form a real community of comitted missional followers of Jesus who will reach across cultural borders on campus and eventually back in their home countries as native missionaries. I ask for your continued prayers as we build this missional community at Lindenwood. Other prayer points: 1. Still looking for a part time job. Not many people are hiring right now so this has proved more difficult than anticipated. 2. Fundraising is almost at a stand still this month, and am really needing to make new connections here in St. Louis for the remaining $20,000 of my buget this year. 3. For my relationship with God to grow amidst the emotional and spiritual stress of this transition THANK YOU for being the Church to me. I am deeply grateful. As always, would love to hear the latest from you! Jordan Kologe https://ourministry.wordpress.com/