My Moldova Adventure

My Moldova Adventure

Hello friends!

I hope you’re enjoying summer as much as I am. I’m loving the slower and more relaxed pace. I’m realizing I’ve needed it. For this July edition of our newsletter, I thought I’d tell you about a trip to Moldova I just took with Justice and Mercy International. Some of you who are familiar with me know I work with JMI in the Amazon (I wrote a little book about it called Wherever The River Runs), but I’ve also made three trips to Moldova with JMI. In case you’re wondering, Moldova is a small country that sits between Romania and Ukraine, roughly the size of Maryland. I only mention this geographical tidbit because before I had friends who regularly went there, I’m pretty sure I’d never heard of it.

I was a very small part of helping put on vacation bible school in a village that managed to turn out 150 of the cutest clamoring kids nipping at your heels for crayons and more plăcintăs (a Moldovan pastry), chirping in Romanian and occasionally a phrase or two in Russian. Yes, chaos is the word you’re rummaging for.

So, why VBS in Moldova, you ask?

Gosh, I’m so glad you brought this up.

Moldova has a grossly high percentage of girls who are sex trafficked out of the country, a high suicide rate for boys, and an enormously alarming orphan population. To combat this terrifying reality, JMI helps orphans and vulnerable children through its child sponsorship program. Many of these children we’re able to identify through our yearly camps. One of my greatest privileges of the year is sharing the Gospel with these children through Scripture and through all the ways a game, a skit, and a plastic cup of orange Fanta says “I love you.” But summer camps are just the beginning.

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When these children turn 16, whether in or out of the orphanages, many have nowhere to go. And if they do have a place to go, the scenario is usually horrifying. I’ve heard these kids’ stories firsthand and they’re too gruesome for me to write about here. But here’s the hope. Here’s why I love VBS in Moldova. Because JMI has two homes—one for girls called Grace House and one for boys called Boys to Leaders—that house 15 teenagers respectively for anywhere from two to three years. This isn’t just about shelter, this is about a home. These girls and boys are welcomed into a family where they learn life skills, flourish in school, receive counseling, go to church, get discipled, and learn about the love of Jesus through His Word. The transformation of these kids is nothing short of miraculous. As my friend Steve likes to say, I’d put these kids up against any kids in the world.

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Now, for the moment of my trip that impacted me the most. The little girl on the right in the picture above was in my bible study group. Her name is Nastea (I changed her name). My friend Brittany and I asked her the question, if she could go anywhere in the world where would she go? Without hesitation she said, “Moscow”.

“Why Moscow”?  I asked.

“Because that’s where my mom lives.”

Nastea hadn’t seen her mother in almost a year and she doesn’t know who her father is. This would be a pretty bleak story except for the girl on the left. Her name is Alla (you can watch her story here). Alla grew up in an orphanage. She intimately knows Nastea’s plight, her void, her aching loneliness. Alla also spent several weeks at vacation bible school during the summer, which is how JMI connected with her. When she was just sixteen and being thrust out of the orphanage, JMI reached out to her and she entered the Grace House. And all of life changed. She met Christ, received love, and is blooming like the cutest red headed bud you ever saw. For the past three years she’s been serving with us at the very camps she grew up in.

When Nastea told Alla and me how much she missed her mom, how she didn’t know when she was coming back, and how all the others kids have moms and dads, I turned to Alla and whispered, “this one is yours”.

I don’t know exactly what Alla said to Nastea because it was all in Romanian. But when I took two steps back to snap this picture, I realized I understood everything I needed to know. This is how the good news of the Gospel spreads. When Jesus rescues our life and we go and tell about it, and someone like Alla hears the news, she then in turn finds another little one on whose shoulders she places both her hands, and in a language I can’t begin to speak to a child whose story I can’t begin to understand, she says, “God loves you.”

And that’s why I do VBS in Moldova.

For more information about Justice and Mercy International, you can visit www.justiceandmercy.org.

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The Power To Believe You Are Loved

The Power To Believe You Are Loved

Morning Meditation, September 28, 2015

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge…” Ephesians 3:18-19

This passage of Scripture is not new to me, and perhaps not to you either. It’s one of the “hit” verses of the bible—to know how wide, long, high and deep is the love of Christ. Who doesn’t want to know this kind of love? And yet we often find God’s love for us incredibly difficult to grasp. We just know ourselves too well. We go to bed swatting away critical thoughts, fear consumes us, we’ve given in to our wayward lusts, or maybe it’s the shame of something from our past that seems to be the metal shield off of which God’s love for us will forever ricochet. It’s just so hard to believe sometimes that He really loves us. And even if we believe it in our heads—like we believe our mothers think we’re pretty, because they sort of have to—we don’t know how to coax it into our souls.

Given this common struggle I was intrigued when I noticed a word in this passage I’d never seen before. It’s the word power—as in, the power to grasp the love of Jesus. The Greek word is exischyō and is used only one time in the New Testament. Once. Right here. And it means, “to be eminently able, to have full strength, entirely competent.” In other words Paul is praying that we would have the power, the ability, the strength to grasp God’s overwhelming love because he knew it wouldn’t always come easy.

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Photo courtesy of www.juleeduwe.com photography

 

Paul prayed for the strength to grasp God’s love

Paul prayed that the church at Colossae would be able to grasp God’s love. This tells me that God’s love is so beyond us that we will need His help to receive it on meaningful levels, to truly understand it and believe it in our bones. This inspires me to pray for those who can’t seem to receive the tender love of our Savior, even if they intellectually believe it. It inspires me to pray for myself, that the Lord would give me the capability to more fully grasp how wide, long, high and deep is the love of God. Though God’s love is a gift He lavishes upon us, being able to comprehend that love requires a certain strength, and Paul reveals that he prays for that strength. I believe we should, too.

God’s love is best understood within the community of believers

Notice Paul writes about being rooted in love together with all the saints. Believers in Jesus who isolate themselves from the body of Christ will have difficulty grasping Christ’s love for them, because part of comprehending His love is experiencing it within the community of Christ. I have a friend who’s been going through a hard season with health issues, her husband lost his job, and she and her new baby were recently in a car accident. She told me how our home church has reached out to her in such overwhelming ways that she’s receiving the wider dimensions of God’s love for her in places she’s had difficulty accepting it before. It’s taken the body of Christ to help her experience God’s love for her more fully.

God’s love surpasses our finite knowledge

I see another insight into why I sometimes have a hard time internalizing God’s love for me, really letting it seep into my being. This passage tells us that God’s love surpasses knowledge. And isn’t it typically our knowledge that stands in the way of us believing in God’s love? It’s the knowledge of the hurt in this world, the loss of a loved one who God could have healed, the guilt we can’t believe can be washed away. It’s all this knowledge of our circumstances that sometimes makes His love hard to grasp. Yet at this precise place, the love of Christ surpasses our limited, finite understanding the way a winning runner flies past the competition. Our knowledge, intellect, reasoning, understanding will never, not ever, be able to beat out His love. His love will always surpass what we know.

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The Amazon River in Manaus

My friend Kari recently returned from a trip to the Amazon. When I asked her what her most profound moment was she explained how the Amazon is simply the most vast thing she’s ever witnessed. “I’ve never seen a more magnificent river than the Amazon”, she said. “Overlooking the river reminded me that the love of God is wider, longer, higher, and deeper still.”

And still He gives us the power to grasp it.  

 

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How To Be Fully Known (And Know You Are Fully Loved)

How To Be Fully Known (And Know You Are Fully Loved)

Morning Meditation, September 14th

Psalm 139:1, “O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.”

I used to watch the Cosby show as a kid and I’ve never forgotten this exchange:

Boyfriend: “I think I’m going to just spend some time trying to find myself.”

Cliff: “And how long do you think that’s going to take?”

Boyfriend: “About five or ten years.”

Cliff: “In that amount of time you could find yourself and a few other people.”

I remember thinking this was funny but also wondering what in the world this meant. How could someone be trying to find himself? Didn’t he know who he was? Wasn’t he just who he was and that was that? This was before I grew a little older and realized that knowing who I am is more complicated than I once thought.

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Hannah Smith Photography

God Knows Me Even When I Don’t Know Myself

In high school and college, discovering who I was seemed determined by what I liked: sports or theatre or spending time in the library. Who my friends were said a lot about me—or who I wanted to be. But all this shifted around a lot and made me wonder where I fit and who I really was.

Even now I have days where I don’t know why I reacted so harshly to that innocuous comment, or why someone’s kind smile left me sad, of all things. I wonder why I’m anxious in an environment that’s supposed to make me happy, or why some days I’m not quite sure what I even want. Today during my Pilates routine I teared up, for no apparent reason, when a hymn came on the radio (that I listen to hymns while exercising is another phenomenon altogether). What I’m telling you is that I can’t always explain why I think this or feel that, but I should be able to. Right? Because, after all, it’s me. Not fully knowing who I am is such a strange thought because I want to say to me, Hey Kelly, it’s you. Don’t you know you by now?

When I can’t understand myself, God says, I have searched you, I perceive your thoughts, I am familiar with all your ways. (Ps 139:1-3) 

God Knows Me When People Can Only Know Me So Far

Proverbs 20:5 says, “The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.” I adore people who do this for me. I am crazy about these people who—when I can’t get a handle on what I’m thinking or feeling— reach into the swirl of my being and tug on the one piece of yarn that unravels the whole mysterious ball. So, that’s why I’ve been feeling this way! But people have their limits. Even the super wise, prophetic, godly ones can only reach so far.

When people can’t reach any further into my soul, God says, I created your inmost being, I knit you together in your mother’s womb. (Ps 139:13) 

The Lord Knows Me Even When I’m Afraid To Be Known

Haven’t we all wondered that if we’re fully known we might not be fully loved? Or if we’re fully loved we’re afraid it’s because we’re not fully known? I lived so many years hiding from God what He already knew. My frame was not hidden from Him (vs 15). I was sure the darkness I sometimes felt in my heart, because of what I’d done or what had been done to me, was too dark for Him to peer into. But even the darkness is not dark to God. (vs 12).

I’ve wondered that if I were fully known could I be fully loved? And the whole of Psalm 139 says ‘yes’ to this ache in our hearts with a crescendo. “I praise you,” the Psalmist says in his naked exposure and vulnerability, “because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” (v14).

When I’m afraid of what being fully known means, the Psalmist says, The thoughts God thinks about me are precious and vast. (Ps 139:17) 

To be known more wholly than we can know ourselves. To be known more deeply than others can know us. This is the knowing with which God knows us. But do not be afraid…for He loves us wholly still.

 

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