Be still

In a world that defines identity by job title and accomplishments, it goes against the grain to take time to just sit and...be.

This weekend we drove out to Tyler State Park and took several hours just to spend alone with God - a date, if you will.  In previous similar retreats over the last few years I had found just sitting a challenge, and walked or wrote or sang as I prayed.  Apparently that wasn't what God had in mind this time.

After a short hike partway around the lake, I put up my portable hammock and settled in to marvel at the beauty of creation.  After months of almost-constant busyness, I had an exclusive invitation for the here and now - just to soak in the goodness and creativity and presence of God.  What a refreshing delight!

My job title and travels and adventures and struggles are not what defines me....my identity is secure as a child of the King.  God is pleased with a life lived out in faith, but He is also pleased with a people who delight themselves in Him and take time just to sit at His feet to watch and listen and marvel.



He says, "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."  ~ Psalm 46:10

Scorpion wranglers extraordinaire

After a thorough introduction to Mercy Ships history, philosophy, and support seminars last week, the 22 of us that remain will be learning together for the next few weeks in preparation for...Sierra Leone!

It has only been a week in Gateway so far, but already my classmates feel like family.  Nothing brings together a group of people like having classes and meals together, living together and sharing bathrooms, herding cattle and hunting scorpions.

To the right is the first unfortunate victim of our scorpion wrangling.  Little no-name showed up while many of us were hanging out in the family room, emailing or playing games.  After much excitement, he made it safely into a mens-room toilet and down the drain.






About 30 minutes later we were ALL invited to one of the ladies bedrooms for a group scorpion hunt, which was successful as well.

During our tour of the property, we stopped briefly at a farm on the property, and the cowboy invited us all to help him herd cattle.  Several of my "family" got quite excited at the opportunity, and we all enjoyed a tramp through the pasture guiding the cows while carefully avoiding fresh manure.  On a side note, please continue to pray for rain, as we are still in a significant drought.

We've done quite a lot of discussion this week on spiritual warfare and looking at attributes of the God that we serve - a great encouragement to delve deep into topics that will significantly affect how and why we serve the people of West Africa.

In between classes we've had a few Texas style adventures, and I look forward to many more as we move into the next week of personal and interpersonal development :-)

FMS

Week 1 - Packed with learning about foundational beliefs of Mercy Ships and finances...finished!  Above you can see our group (from 6 different countries), many of them I will be working with on ship and attending class with for the rest of the time in Texas!!

Flood

We stepped over a makeshift barrier – a wall of concrete blocks and weighted plastic across the sidewalk – and out onto the low bridge across the Susquehanna.  Other than occasional sirens it was eerily silent, the road lonely in the dusk and stripped bare of cars.  As we hung over the railing to watch, the river rushed by only a few feet beneath.  By the time we went to bed that night, the street perpendicular to ours was already mostly covered in water.  Life was a prayer for the floodwalls to hold.

I woke to a different world. 

"Residents of New Street, come to your doors.”  The police bullhorn instructing evacuation of the next street over continued as we began to pack for imminent evacuation.  The floodwalls held, but the river was still rising, almost to the top of the wall.  The top of a tan car was just visible above the restless brown of the street-turned-lake.  We showered in the dark as the water dripped through dark ceiling, watched as the water leaked over the floodwalls to creep up the street and cover the sidewalks, joked half-heartedly about kayaks to get across the river to the hospital, set out extra food and water for the dog, piled into the car to drive the few miles down the road to the University shelter that already housed almost 1600 people.

Little did I know when I left Potsdam the morning before that I would be spending Thursday afternoon on my former college campus. 

“Hi.  I got evacuated this morning and I’m a Registered Nurse…do you need any help?”  The rather harried-looking resident just looked at me for a moment, startled.  And then I went to work.  A rather faded Mercy Ships badge from the rear-view mirror of my car served as identification as I joined EMS, nurses, and medical residents in treating any sick and injured among the crowds already sheltered in the Events Center.  Cots covered the floor where I had once watched basketball games, families huddled in the ticket area with their pets, uniformed military and police guarded the doors and maintained order, and in a back room we had three cots set up as makeshift exam rooms.  Another basketball court served as a special needs area and pharmacy – staffed by volunteers and nursing students, and a few instructors I recognized from my own days as a student there.

When I left 8 hours later to spend the night at a friend’s house, our shelter was already full and the river had finally crested…25.7 feet.

Now in East Texas, I find myself ironically wishing for just a few hundred gallons of that floodwater – to somehow dampen down the tinder-dry foliage and see the hills green again.

The beginning - an update on life!

After a whirlwind few months of weddings, classes, support raising, work, and packing up life….the journey has finally begun!  I’m in Texas now as I write this, planning to be here for about 5 weeks doing additional Mercy Ships training, and then fly to Sierra Leone.

Two months ago I sent an email asking for prayer and financial support.  I'm now 60% funded for the entire next two years – praise the Lord!!   Thank you to those who have committed to joining with me. If you have not already done so, please prayerfully consider joining me in this next adventure – by committing to prayer or financial support, or by coming with me!

As I have been wrapping up things and finishing my packing and goodbyes in New York, I headed down to Binghamton a few days ago and arrived just in time for the flood!  We were evacuated from my friend's apartment as the water began to come over the flood walls and up our street, and I was able to spend some time volunteering as a nurse at one of the local shelters.  In Broome County alone, at least 20,000 people have been temporarily displaced from their homes.  The Binghamton U events center is housing between 1600-1800 people, many with specific medical needs.  I joined the emergency responders at this shelter for several hours, treating any evacuees with injuries or illness, then I volunteered briefly in the makeshift "hospital" set up for evacuees with special needs.  I’ll be writing more about this as I have time to process, but praise God for safety and for good interactions with many people!

As you pray for our time in Texas preparing to serve, please also remember to pray for the people who have been significantly affected by flooding in Binghamton and across the Northeastern US...for spiritual awakening and revival as well as help for physical needs.

In His footsteps,

Laura

personal space

I took the train into Manhattan last week, and the subway, and walked the streets of midtown and Chinatown in the rain.  I may be from New York State, but this was the first time in at least 15 years that I experienced New York City on a personal level...if this could be called personal.

People everywhere - in the streets and the shops and the rain, crossing the street without even looking to notice the sea of taxis bearing down on them.  The air smells like car exhaust and people and fried food and coffee.  The people are multicolored, but still somehow I do not fit.  The practical cargo pants and rain jacket and sneakers are out of place among suits and shoes that could feed a family for a year. Cell phones and earpieces and sunglasses and coats.  No one will meet my eyes.  No one accidentally brushes against me in the crowd.  There is no friendly idle conversation.  Each person is alone.  I am alone.  I am a stranger.  I am not here.  I do not exist.

There is a homeless man in the doorway of a classy hotel, wearing all the clothing he owns, sleeping in oblivion.  The rough red rash on face and hands marks unwashed and untreated skin; the sign and upturned hat next to him mark an unwanted man.

"Help.  Homeless.  HIV positive."

There is nothing in the hat.  No one can see him.  He is alone in the crowd.  He too does not exist.

I couldn't help but step outside myself for a moment and compare this city with the one I have recently called mine, the bustle of Freetown, Sierra Leone.

It is a pressure cooker of people: hot and loud and close.  People push up against me from all directions, sellers call out and advertise their wares in 4 different languages.  There is a small hand in mine.  I look down to see an unfamiliar child grinning up at me, calling me Auntie, wanting to touch and to play and to question, joining us with five other friends as we are carried along with the people.  The men look and whistle and suggest and propose.  The ladies call and smile and ask about my health and wonder aloud where my man is.  A poda-poda (bush taxi) side mirror whizzes past, just missing my shoulder as I step off across the open sewer.  There are no cracks, no spaces, no room in the flow of traffic and people to just slip through, and everything smells of trash and goat and human body odor and cooking oil and soap.  It is a city of war refugees-turned-residents, an unexpected population explosion that stayed, a casual stream now at flood capacity.

I am different.  I am the funny colored one.  The one who smells strange and has shiny straight long hair and doesn't wear a bright-colored lappa with a baby snugly tied in back, who speaks English with an American accent and not the usual Mende or Temne or pidgin Krio.  But I am known and accepted, welcomed and protected.

"Massy Sheep", they call us, with a light in their brown eyes that maybe wasn't there before.  "Massy Sheepa!  Sista! Come, please, is ma yay (eye)...ma leg...ma pikin (child)."  Even just walking to the market, in civilian clothes, we are still known.  There are so many who need help and good food and clean water and medical care.  Too many who have lived for years waiting for a miracle.  For the outcast and the hopeless, too often we are their last hope.

Two cities, two continents, two worlds.  One impersonal and individual and alone, the other personal and noisy and filled with life.  Both still have the outcast who call the streets home, the needy who call out to be heard.

Do you hear them?  Can you see the value of a person behind the filth and the mask and the deformity and the smells?  Will you see enough to come close and touch, to meet the hopeless when they need it the most?

    “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

    “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

   “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’  Matt 25:34-40

Binghamton...babies and blueberry picking

It's nice but a little strange to be back in Binghamton, albeit a little temporarily.  I've been seeing friends I haven't seen in a year (or years) and got an exclusive tour of the ED I started at 5 years ago - the beautiful new beds and spacious rooms completely different, and a staff I have dearly missed.
I'm at peace back, knowing that my place is no longer here, and so I'm able to simply enjoy things one moment at a time.  The last few days have been a simpler life: homemade pizza and a movie, blueberry picking with friends in the sunshine surrounded by the rolling greenness and cut-grass smells of the Southern Tier, singing 7-month-old Shawn to sleep as he fretfully chews on my thumb, curling up with a good book in between studying for ACLS, time to rest and enjoy God and his blessings.
It's a refreshingly peaceful pause in the middle of a wildly intense summer.  All I need now is a good place to put up the hammock...