A Needful Thing

Believe me, it's not easy for me to do this.

I am getting ready to take an extended time away from my responsibilities as pastor of Highview Community Church - a church of extraordinary and astonishing people with extraordinary and astonishing hearts for God, and a pulse of movement and mission that makes her just one of the most favourite things in my life. She has a plan and a purpose to make a difference in our city, and in Regions Beyond, and in the hearts and lives of anyone within our collective circle of influence, for eternity. She is a place where coming together to engage in corporate worship with a phenomenal God, is a strong desire and a weekly reality. She has weathered storms that should have demolished us, and refused to give up in the face of the evils that have come against us. She is not a perfect place, but, when needed a contrite place, an honest place, a place where stumbling spiritual-journeyers like me, can stumble and journey in the company of grace and love.

And I'm going away from all that. For eight weeks. And it's not easy.

Last fall I requested and was granted a four week unpaid study break to be attached to my allotted four weeks of vacation time. That will have me away from Highview from June 7 to August 2 inclusive. The impetus for me making such a request was a growing understanding that the demands of pastoring Highview, and her particular story of the past two years, were accumulating in my spirit and psyche in such a way that some time away was going to be necessary. Really necessary. Necessary to regroup, rethink, refocus, refresh.

But believe me, it's not easy.

I LOVE Highview and all that I get to be and do as her pastor. It's not easy for me to leave for this long because I love what I do. It's a dream come true that I get to spend my day and my spirit fully engaged for the kingdom. And that's as true as I can speak it.

And then, the last 10% of truth? It's not easy for me to leave because, despite some serious soul work in this department, in the less traveled places of my soul, I still hold on to some kind of perverted thinking that the world needs me to run it. There, I said it. And that part of it makes it really, really good for me and for Highview that I go away from time to time.

So, it's not easy, but it is necessary.

I'm tired. I'm tired in deeper places, places that warn me it's time for time.

Pastor and author, Gordon MacDonald once said, "I came to realize that the most important gift, I could offer my congregation was a well-rested soul." I am currently not well rested. I have no gift to give you right now.

So even though it's not easy, I'm going away. Don't get me wrong. I fully intend to enjoy and receive what God's got in mind for me during this time. Most of it will be spent at the cottage, a place of holy quietness where I will read and sleep and cross stitch and study and feed the chipmunks and pick blueberries and go out in the canoe in the mist of the sunrise.

I will quiet my soul, let Him restore me.

I am beyond words grateful for those, so many of you, who will be making it all happen while I'm gone. For Derek and Paula and Renee and Ian, especially, in their Staff roles and how their own spiritual energies are devoted to Highview. For our Elders and their role as Shepherds. For the Creative Planning Team and all the Front Line Leaders who know how to do what they do so well and serve our church so faithfully. For every single volunteer in every single ministry role, who make up the extraordinary and astonishing place of grace that I know is Highview.

And while I'm gone, here's what I promise you. I will rest. I will listen. I will receive. I will sit down and shut up. And I will let God orchestrate whatever music He chooses, to bring me back to kingdom responsibilities, and bring me back to you, strong and ready and real.

And, oh yeah, I will eat jujubes.

Overnight Wisdom

I've been reading through 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles again, and that whole deal about Solomon. Gotta love that guy. Overnight he gets wise. At least that's how it reads. I'm pretty sure God did a combo thing for him, though. Part God-endowed - the overnight gift - and part just pain old learning from life.

Most of us acquire what wisdom we might attain from that last part. Which reminds me of the wise words of an important counselor in my life, Dr. Robert Lehman, who commented one day that most of us want wisdom, we're just not willing to go through the pain of life that brings it.

Or at least when we are going through the pain of life, we don't even recognize it as the wisdom delivery system that it is.

Tomorrow I will be in a meeting that requires much wisdom. Or maybe it will be one of those painful experiences that delivers the wisdom, I'm not sure. I just know that I'd rather do a whole lot of unpleasant things than do this meeting. I most certainly don't feel wise enough to navigate the relational/emotional landscape of it.

So, overnight Lord. Got anything for me?

Sunrise over Wiang Pa Pao

You will keep in perfect peace
Him whose mind is steadfast
Because He trusts in You

Isaiah 26:3

Yupa - Mountainside Mom

I looked up gentleness in the dictionary.

Here are the pictures.





Mom to 15 kids.
Taking it all in stride.
Giving it out in buckets.

Gentle spirit.
Mountainside Mom.

I catch a glimpse
Of what it means
To be an orphan
Welcomed in
Because you welcomed me
And mothered me
When I arrived on your doorstep
Too withered to know
How much I needed you
To help take care of me

May God grant you the stamina
And expand your heart even more
To keep on loving the homeless ones
Who aren't homeless any more
Because you opened your arms

To the Mountains

I life up my eyes to the hills --
Where does my help come from?
My help comes from the LORD
The Maker of heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot slip --
He who watches over you will not slumber;
Indeed, he who watches over Israel
Will neither slumber nor sleep

The LORD watches over you --
The LORD is your shade at your right hand;
The sun will not harm you by day,
Nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all harm --
He will watch over your coming and going
Both now and forevermore.

Psalm 121

What Beautiful Is

Hungry bellies eating
New parents protecting
Grateful hearts sobbing
Faithful servants resting
Illiterate children reading
Cared for widows weeping
Reclaimed treasures laughing
Exhausted wanderers sleeping
Otherwise orphans living in families

God's kids abundantly living
Becoming all He created them to be
And not mere shells of their human selves
In lavish love not impoverished rejection

Beautiful

God's World Wide Web

Father,

Of all the things that catch me off guard
As I seek to understand all the gifts
Of my Asian experiences
It's the way You've pulled together these two pastors' hearts

How could it be,
This bond?
Why so tight and delighted
Energizing and respectful
Kingdom-affecting,
When we live on other sides of the planet,
Exist in two completely different cultures
Can barely eat each others' food
Don't even speak the same language?

Statistically speaking
Every odd was against such a connection
But You made it happen
You did
And You keep arranging for its deepening
You do

And now here I am
With my brother
Eating, resting, worshiping, doing little bits of life
Laughing and making jokes
Comparing favourite worship songs
Reading favourite Scriptures together in each other's languages
Partnering to raise up 15 otherwise orphans
Knowing and being known
Loving and being loved

Your web of connectedness
World wide
World shaking

Give Us This Day Our Daily Rice

Providing Father,

Had an ice cap today
And knew how far removed I was
From the mountains and the rice that grows there

Daily sustenance
For a people whose gratitude for so little shames me

I thank you for the opportunity to eat rice every day
Every meal
And not like it
But be hungry anyways
And eat it anyways
To know more the realities of other places
Other lives

Thank you for the lavish comforts of my life
On this side of the planet
And for the great and humbling joy of somehow
Being part of something better
For someone else
By sharing those lavish comforts
And spreading out Your provisions

Looking Out the Window of the Church At the Lahu Village

Father,

You see it all
All the time
Your perspective is perfect
In the sweeping comprehension
Of humanity
And beauty of it
Anywhere

May we see through Your eyes always
Looking to the hills
From where our help comes

Coming Home

Thanks to the computer saavy of others, I have been able to post blogs to our missions team site during this most recent stay in Thailand. I would invite you to check that out at Highview To Thailand so you can get a feel for how Megan Ogilvie and I fared during our time at Hot Springs, about 30 minutes north of Chaing Mai, where 15 of the world's most beautiful children live.

We are packing now. Today at 1:50 p.m. local time (1 in the morning for those back home) we will get in a plane and and begin the long journey home. And while, physically that should only take us about an hour to do the final gathering of all our belongings, emotionally, spiritually, I have deliberately set my heart to that task starting three days ago.

I needed to do that because I had to be sure. There was something about this visit that was even more compelling, more separating than others. Perhaps it was the way this time I felt more like a family member than a guest. Perhaps it was the heat that laid me low and forced a complete shut down of any big thinking or mental processing. Perhaps it was the particularly demanding and draining season I have experienced in my ministry these past months. Whatever the factor, there was for me this time a sense of being lulled into just staying and being quiet and gentle among these quiet and gentle people for a long, long time. A lot longer than these mere days set aside.

I hope my honesty doesn't hurt those I love and love to live with and serve with back in my real world. It's not you, it's me.

God is astonishingly personal. He has moved in and breathed cool fresh wind into my limp and desperate soul. He pursued me all the way to Asia again, and did not let me out of His sight for a minute, stayed hovering always around me and in me and whispered encouragement after encouragement, love after love, joy after joy.

And He has helped me point my heart towards home again.

Last night I got to talk on the phone with Abby for the first time since being away. She was very excited to tell me about the new caterpillar she discovered on our front porch and how she was able to pick it up so that it wouldn't get away. I told her that I was sending a hug over the phone and asked her if she could feel it. She said, yes she could. Then I told her I was sending a kiss over the phone and asked her if she could feel it. She said, yes she could. And I asked her to give Zachary as big, mwwwwaaa kiss on the face for me and she said, yes she would.

So today, in just a few hours, I will be on my way back to all God has called me to be and do for Him in Southwestern Ontario. I will have more memories and gifts and filled up places in my heart to bring to you all. I am not the woman who left. She was exhausted and sucked dry. I am now somehow transformed into something useful again.

A Quick Post From A Remote Place

Suradet is now sitting with me as we visit an internet spot close to Hot Springs. Mostly we have been able to post from our blackberries, but I am taking this chance to write something quick on my personal blog.

Please refer to the Highview To Thailand Blog for a more detailed update on how Megan and I are doing, and what God is doing, while we are away here visiting our Thai family. It's been amazing! So much has been acomplished, it seems, for good, and it is humbling and very rewarding to be part of it, even if in such small way.

As always I feel more that we have received than that we have given.

I wish I could post pictuers, but it's not possible right now. Later, when I'm home, I will retro post some pictures and videos. Meanwhile, I just want my family to know how much I love them and miss them. Such a great gift to be here.

And our very deep thanks to Suradet and Yupa and all the children for their love and hospitality.

bahn pii - Buddhist spirit house

Leaving for Hot Springs tomorrow.

Next two days sound full. First we pack up everything from Debbie and Mike's, with the intention that we'll not be back until May 16 or so, just before we get on the plane to head back.

Then we're heading to the airport to greet Mike who is returning from a time in the US with family. It's going to be rather ironic for me to be on the other side of the doorway as he comes through customs to be greeted. I plan on wearing my Thai shirt just to make it all that much more a reversal :).

Following that, Megan and I and all the Sponsors' packets will get in the truck with Suradet and make our way out to why we've come in the first place. The next ten days will be more rugged and less Western and more Thai and less English and more demanding and less scheduled and more core-shaking and less comfortable spiritually than what we have here. And it's why we've come. And I can hardly wait.

Restore. Encourage. That's what I believe God has called me to do while I'm here. And I'm about to really get into it now. These are the people with whom I am finding myself more and more at home....the family that lives at Hot Springs......and with whom I am pretty sure God will enable me to best do those two things.

Except "doing" isn't even the right verb for it. Because it's not a "doing" thing. It's more of a "being" thing. George mentioned this last year, that he could see why I loved being here so much. That there was this one only thing to be focusing on, and I'm not pulled in a hundred different directions during the course of any given day or week. And I agree.

But just now I'm wondering if there's a way of being here that is more Thai than Western, more internal rhythms than external schedules, more spiritual than strategic, more about being than doing.

And here we go. In for all of it. Going with the flow for all He's planned.

Oh...and here's an interesting something that has been planned. On Friday Megan and I are going to jail! There's a youth jail here in Chiang Mai and Asia's Hope does a service for the residents regularly. Should be interesting. I'm gathering my thoughts now in case I'm asked to speak last minute. Please be praying. I feel so incredibly inadequate to say anything of value to such an audience, with so many cultural barriers. Perhaps we'll get to observe, which will certainly make for a good blog posting.....when next I can.

Half My Heart

What an odd sensation, to be so far away and feel like you're home.

It's not the heat, although that familiar blast hits you the minute you're actually off the plane and walking through the ramp. It's not the Thai script that now dominates all signage, even with helpful English subscripts below in enough places. It's not the layout of the airport or the knowing what will come next in terms of processing. It's not even in finding myself almost automatically and without much thought greeting each official first with the wai and being responded to in that gentle, now familiar manner.

It's not all that, although all that is also surprisingly familiar where it once threw me off into strangeness.

It's the people. It's the familiar faces standing on the other side of customs, who when they see you start jumping up and down and waving and grabbing each others' arms and bragging that they saw you first.

It's the hugs, long and hard, and the kissing of those same familiar, well loved faces, and the sense of joy that's electric between you. It's Suradet in getting-better-all-the-time English, in a moment of uncharacteristic-for-Thais vulnerability telling me that as he waited for us, knowing the time of our landing, "My heart," and then he taps his chest quickly saying, "pit, pit, pit" and knowing exactly what he means, not just because I feel know this brother so well by now, but because the same thing"s happening inside of me.

It's being surrounded by love and welcome and joyful reunion. And the connectedness of something so unlikely yet now so intrinsically part of my soul.

Last time here I sat with Miki under the shelter of the dining area at Hot Springs and tried to tell her. I drew a heart and sectioned off a good sized piece of it.. Then I drew a line out from that piece, and said, "Meung-Thai" (Thailand). She smiled and shook her head yes. Then changed it to a no shake, and took my notebook and pen from me. She then drew a line right down the middle, pointed to one side of it and said, "Ca-na-da." Then she pointed to the other side and said, with strength, in English, "Thai-land." And I looked at her and had to admit it. These people have so much of my heart it's scary.

So here I am again, home so far from home. In the crazy, stress-filled weeks preceding this, I've been having times with God that more resemble clutching than serenity. And I've asked Him how it could be that he would send me again, being as tired and depleted as I was. How could I arrive in such a state, I wondered. What good could I be to anyone?

God responds to my clutching like no one else does by holding me closer, grabbing on tighter than I am. And all I could hear Him whispering was that this wasn't about me or what I brought to the table. It was about what He has in mind to do, and that's all. Again I was invited/rebuked to abandon my plans and purposes, and release myself - and all these amazing Thai friends - to His.

Today will be recovery day. I have just woken up from two 5 hour sleeping stints, and while I am slightly groggy, I feel more rested this moment than I have for months. Today will be recovery day. Out for lunch. Visit the Doi Saket homes likely this afternoon or evening. Perhaps, if our swollen feet are up to it, a trip down to the Chiang Mai night bazaar. But mostly, just resting.

The trip to get here is behind us. The God adventure is ahead.

So for right now....I'm just reveling in the home-ness of it all.

Deconstructing My Heart

For various reasons, the week just past has been a garish collusion of my frail humanity. On the eve of a lavish gift, this once-again adventure to the other side of the word, I find am undone by a sense of complete inadequacy for any task at all.

The pressures of responsibility have been crushing in particularly draining ways of late. The results have been that my personal character flaws and natural inabilities have come squishing out the sides like too much relish and ketchup on a too-big-for-your-mouth hamburger. Seems I've been wiping up one mess after the other.

Too many important things forgotten, too many details overlooked, too much harm done, albeit inadvertently but just as woundingly, to the very human souls I've been sent to love and lead. My sense of self is distorted and refracted in the mirror-list of all the mistakes I've made this week, and it's not a pretty sight. Embarrassment stings. Regret stinks. Self-loathing lurks in dusky places, waiting for a chance to take a piece of me home for a trophy.

And in the middle of it all, I'm packing for Thailand.

Doesn't seem right somehow. Shouldn't life-restoring missions trips be the reward of those who've executed their smaller ministry tasks properly? Shouldn't there be a sense of sending those who've been faithful with little out into the adventure that is the much more that God wants to give us? Shouldn't I be strong and confident and capable on my own turf before I'm allowed to trip all over another culture?

I guess not. Because I'm none of those things right now. Yet for some reason, God is letting me go back for a fourth time. That's four. Four times around to the other side of the world and the impossible delights of small-statured but huge-faithed kingdom warriors who have let me be their friend.

Funny, but I am right back where I was on that first trip in the winter of 2008, when God deconstructed my heart in a painful but necessary renovation that allowed for the expansion of His plans and purposes for 15 orphans in the foothills of the Himalayas. Right back to the awful, wonderful understanding that this is not about me in any way whatsoever, but all about Him being God in any way He so chooses, and me going along with it.

So off I go, without any illusions that I do so because of anything that comes from me, and a sharp awareness that I very clearly do not deserve this.

I promise to listen to the lessons of this particular trip. I promise to let Him be my sufficiency and allow His grace to fill up the gaping holes left when I've given all I've got. I promise to come back something better - more humbled, more loving, more faith-filled, more yielded, more bold for God - as God might choose to provide these things for me to receive. I certainly have good teachers in all of those things in the astonishing brothers and sisters there.

Tomorrow the gift begins. But right now I will make a good attempt at sleep.