Klew

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Kelsey who woke up to find herself in a very strange place with lots of international food and cows and strangers who didn’t seem like strangers at all.

Greetings from the Missionary Learning Center, where I shall be for the next two months. I’m here with about 100 other missionaries—about 50 other Journeymen like myself and 50 other career missionaries. We’re all going through the same training. I’m stoked to be here, but I gotta say, it’s weird. This environment feels sorta like camp. Complete with a cafeteria and a basketball gym.

One day at lunch I was talking with a group of my new friends. The topic of nicknames came up and I mentioned that I have never in my life had a nickname before. The people around me determined that this was unacceptable. So they began to question me to decide what I should be nicknamed.

“What do you like to do?” Was the question that somebody asked me.

I gave the first answer that popped into my head. “Missions.”

I had a good laugh then.

We’re all going to disperse to extreme corners of the globe. (Seriously, one of my closer friends here is going to Siberia.)We each have a different country and culture tattooed onto our hearts. And yet everyone is so incredibly like-minded. I’ve never experienced anything like it before.

It’s a strange feeling, being so comfortable around people I’ve only just met. We don’t know the details of each other’s lives yet, but the connection here is so much deeper than that. Nobody thinks I’m crazy for picking up my life and leaving. I have a hard time explaining my motivations to others about why I’m going. But here more than anywhere, I am understood.

After that unhelpful response of mine, my new friends just decided to mash up my name. So allow me to introduce myself:

Hello my name is Klew, pronounced like Clue. It’s easy to get antsy about Argentina, to just be ready to go ASAP. But for now, I’m just happy to be Klew for the next couple of months!

Fun Fact: Look who helped fund the International Learning Center!

An Update from Boot Camp

A month ago I wrote about my fitness DVD escapades. I just tried a little here, a little there for a week at a time since that was all the library would allow me. It was fun and I did realize I can stay in shape beyond running. But I’ve decided to GO DEEPER.

I’ve never really enjoyed watching The Biggest Loser. When I was bigger, it made me feel a little guilty to watch, knowing these folks were being braver than I was, living out their transformation for the world to see. But even since I’ve had my own transformation, the show still makes me a little uncomfortable.

Why, you ask?

Mostly because Jillian Michaels scares the crap out of me.

So call me masochistic, but when I saw Jillian Michaels’ Six Week Six Pack program on sale at Sam’s Club, I felt like the intimidation factor might be a good motivator. The purchase miiight have been further propelled by the fact that I was buying junk food IN BULK and felt I had to punish myself just a little. There was that too.

She's going to scare the fat right off of you.

So after letting the DVD collect dust for a couple of weeks, I finally worked up the courage to put it in the player and give it a try. There are two levels and I’m supposed to try each level for three weeks and each level has beginner and advanced exercises. It’s like Cardio + Pilates in one—so it burns fat while building muscle at the same time.

Added bonus:  It also makes you want to kill yourself!

I’m one week into the program and feeling so incredibly sore, but that means it’s working, right? I’m not sure if this body of mine is even capable of achieving a six pack, but we shall see. Right now, I’m currently rocking the one pack, but—according to my calculations—after one week of the program, that puts me right on schedule. (I don’t know–check my math on that one.)

In one week I’ll be heading to my two months of training in Virginia and I’ll be bringing Jillian and my yoga mat with me. We’ll see how this goes! If I’m honest, I think female six packs are a little bit . . . terrifying.  But at the very least, I’ll be arriving in Argentina the strongest I possibly can. That’s a good goal, yes?

Common-sensical

I’m packing up and moving out of my apartment in Columbia this week, saying a lot of goodbyes, so everything is making me a little sentimental these days.

I started thinking about the people I admire the most. I admire my friend Megan because she’s so stinking optimistic and encouraging. I admire Andrew because he sees the good in people. I admire Tabitha because she’s so incredibly hard-working. I could go on and on. I’m friends with a lot of great people.

And then I realized something pretty interesting, and simple, and well . . . duh. I admire people for what they do and who they are, not for what they don’t do and who they are not. To put it differently, these people are great not because they don’t do bad things, but because they actually do great things.

And then I realized how much effort I put into not sinning, as if that is somehow constructive.

And then I realized it’s not. Not constructive at all.

Goodness is not simply a lack of badness. Goodness is its own substance.

Duh, right?

Sometimes I just need reminding.

What I choose to abstain from, that’s between me and God. But the mark I leave on this world, the impact I have on anybody or anything, that’s based on what I DO.

It has been a wonderful five years in Columbia, South Carolina. I have come to call her my home and I am feeling the loss already. I’ve prayed for Columbia and the people in it a lot this week. I could have done more, could have been bolder, could have loved better while I’ve been here. But I hope the Lord is pleased with the work he has done in and through me in these five years. I hope I’ve made him proud. I hope he has been glorified by what I’ve done here. And I know he’ll keep working here after I’m gone.

Because he’s a God of goodness and of action. Duh.

For as much as I love this city, it is such a comfort to know that God loves it more.

Hope is January white.

Feliz Año Nuevo!

2011 is now officially over. It was a full year.

It was full of accomplishments and endings and goodbyes. It was full of pain. But it was the good kind of pain that means I worked and loved and laid down roots and I am reminded that a painful goodbye is worth it for all of the memories that precede it. I learned the difference between loving someone for who they are and loving someone for what they do for you or give to you (which is nothing but love of self.) And that truly loving people means hurting every now and then, plain and simple. But oh, it’s worth it.

It’s true, 2011 was a year of endings. But 2012 will be a year of beginnings, of new things, of culture shock and awkward situations. I really can’t wait.

Do I have any New Year’s Resolutions? I’m so glad you asked!

There are the measurable, straightforward ones. I’m going to improve my Spanish and read the Bible through in 2012 as well as continue to chronicle the coming year of change in my journal. But those are the boring, routine things that aren’t worth blogging about.

My real New Year’s Resolution is to FALL MADLY IN LOVE. Dr Lincoln preached a sermon a few months ago in which he said, “Many people fail at life because they never fall in love with anything.”

So this year, I want to fall in love with . . . yeah, you guessed it: with Jesus. He won’t be changing or going anywhere and Lord knows I need some stability these days. I do love him, but I want to be less cautious about it, less quiet, less awkward. And not awkward in the other-people-think-I’m-awkward sense, more like the poor-communication awkwardness. I want to start living like I know the veil has been torn, holding nothing back. No barriers. I’m ready to be wounded by love, over and over and over again if he wants. Because I love him for who he is and not what he does for me. Oh, it’s worth it.

I’ve got just a couple more weeks with friends and family before I head off to Field Personnel Orientation, where I hope to make a whole new set of friends for the journey ahead, the first new beginning of many. As always, I’ll keep you posted! In the mean time, listen to this:

 

Faith(,) In Words pt.2

I like to write. This blog is called Faith(,) In Words because A.) I write about faith a lot and B.) I put a great deal of faith in my writing to release stress and work through my thoughts.

SEE HOW CLEVER I AM?

Also, isn’t it cool, the difference a comma can make?

I have a lot of thoughts, as you may see here or on Twitter, but the unfiltered majority of them are saved for my journal. I write a couple pages a day and it really helps me sort through the thoughts that keep me up at night, find the lesson that God has hidden in a trial, find a rhyme or reason for the seemingly random. The writer in me wants to find patterns. The writer in me likes black and white, or at least a straightforward bottom line.

But recently the writer in me is frustrated. The same few issues keep coming up in the journal over and over as I try to mentally prepare myself for moving out of Columbia, leaving this phase of my life behind. “Why is this still bothering me?” I ask myself over one issue or another, “I’ve dealt with this.”

Some days I am able to say, “Yes, Lord, this is good.” Other days, not so much. I weigh the good against the bad and get different results, depending on my mood.

As it turns out, not all experiences or relationships can be summed up into a simple, gift-wrapped bottom line. I think, when it comes down to it, our spirits perceive more than our minds can comprehend. The heart of flesh the Lord has placed in my chest is too nuanced and complex for the often brusque inadequacies of language. In converting feeling to thought and thought to words, there is too much lost in translation.

This has to be by design. Maybe some human experience was never meant to be spoken, was never intended to be boiled down to its bare bones and shared like an anecdote at a party. These unspeakable, overwhelming moments can only be shared with the Creator.

Though it’s tempting, I won’t simplify all experience for the sake of sharing. I will leave the wordless feelings be and simply let the unspoken moments pull me closer to him. I will thank him for every nuance, every joy, every pain, every lesson, every comfort, every moment of cognitive dissonance. Each one is chosen for me and afforded by the vastness of his being and the intricacy of his loving design.

“The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.” Romans 8:26-27

And yes, let’s take a moment to revel in the irony of this blog post as a whole. I would write a blog about the lack of preciseness in writing.

Boot Camp

Hola, me llamo Kelsey. My español is a tad bit rusty, as evidenced by my scary skype language interview earlier this week. With January quickly approaching, I’ve got quite a growing list of prep-work to do, including Spanish boot camp. I’ve been advised to start reading my Bible in Spanish out loud every day, memorizing verses in Spanish, tattooing Spanish phrases onto my arms, and dancing salsa alone in my room for three hours a day.

I might have edited that list a little.

Oh but the boot camp doesn’t end there. I like to run and I’ve gotten a good bit faster since I got back in the habit in July. I’m running a 5K in great time. (Mediocre time really, but it’s faster than ever for this former fatty.) But I have a feeling that I won’t have much room to run in the middle of Buenos Aires, a megacity. So I’ve decided to try out my local library’s collection of workout DVDs to see how I like working out in my apartment. I’ve tried mostly Pilates and Yoga with some success. I much prefer Pilates. (And by “prefer,” I mean I “loathe.” But it’s the good kind of loathing.)

But today was a whole new adventure in physical fitness. I checked out “The Ballet Workout” last night, thinking “What the heck?”

Heck indeed.

All the confidence that I garnered from Downward Dog and the Mermaid disappeared when I tried to make my feet point in impossible directions. As if my hip sockets have WD-40 for cartilage. I’m really very thankful nobody was around to see my pitiful jetés and pliés.  Should’ve known by the French terms that it would not be a très bonne experience.

I tried. I really did. I ignored all the leotards and legwarmers and 80′s hair. I made it through most of the workout, also ignoring my screaming hips. But the last straw was when the lady in the video did this:

You want me to do what?

I miss you, Downward Dog. I miss you, Mermaid. I think I’ll stick with Spanish and Pilates thankyouverymuch.

Excuses

So I’m moving to Argentina. (Nope . . . still hasn’t gotten old, writing that.)

And funny how in a moment of victory all of the reasons you aren’t qualified for the job start to present themselves to you.

I mean, I don’t feel qualified to be a missionary. I know girls who fit the picture of “missionary” in my mind. They’re sweet and gentle and kind and peaceful in all situations. They say things like “OMGoodness” and “God Willing” in normal conversation without feeling all awkward about it. They’re good with kids and are the all-star babysitters at church. If they weren’t missionaries, they’d be counsellors or teachers because they are so full of compassion and love and rainbows and butterflies.

And then there’s me. I might have lived the life of the girl described above, but I’m not that girl. I’m sarcastic and occasionally passive aggressive and I often laugh at inappropriate things. I don’t like to be told what to do because I secretly think I’m a little smarter than you. I feel a little awkward around children and I studied business because it was the sensible thing to do. I’d much prefer football and coffee to rainbows and butterflies and though I’m getting better at it, I have to try really terribly hard to show love and compassion sometimes.

I carried all of these silly reservations to the Journeyman job expo in October and compared myself to all the other girls who seem to fit the bill a little better than I did. But then something funny happened. I found a job that seemed to have my name on it, using my skills, in a place I think I’ll fit in really well.

I can pick out any silly, random attribute about myself and use it to argue my own inadequacy. I’m really good at that.

But to God, the only things not measuring up were my excuses.  Essentially my insecurities are like saying to him:  “Sorry, God, I know you’re sovereign and the creator of the universe and all, but I just don’t think you can use me. I mean I know you made me the way I am, but I just think you missed the mark a little.”

I really can’t say enough about the IMB and the creative job listings that were made to exploit the gifts and talents of the Journeymen. There weren’t just jobs as preachers and teachers. There were jobs as baristas, journalists, sports coaches, and researchers. As it turns out, there’s a place in God’s work for someone like me, using the things I’m good at. God uses what you’ve got. I guess you could call him resourceful.

As for my shortcomings, I don’t think God minds those so much either. If he required perfect people. . .  well, nothing would get done around here. So I’m going to curb my desire to point out my flaws and use that energy to be productive for the kingdom.  Who’s with me?

Don’t Cry for Me…

I found out officially on Saturday that I’ll be moving to Buenos Aires, Argentina for 2 to 3 years.  I’ll be going as a Journeyman through the International Mission Board and my primary job will be doing demographic research in the city. I’ll go to eight weeks of training in Virginia at the end of January, then peace out around early April. I’ve lived enough and tried to capture time enough to know it’ll be here before I know it.

Now more than ever, God’s faithfulness is coming even clearer into focus. I’m starting to look back and realize those seemingly random occurrences and interests and events have all led me to this. Never did I ever expect to use my economics degree, much less in a ministry position. When I gobbled up any foreign language available to me in high school, never did I predict it would take me to places that would fill my American-bred eyes with poverty and break my American-bred heart for the lost. Never did I think that these last few months of stressing would make this decision so staunchly peaceful and clear. It’s as if this job had my name written on it before I knew it even existed.

God isn’t wasteful with the lessons he teaches and the talents he gives us. All pain has a purpose. Every trial is another jagged puzzle piece that has a perfect place in life’s hindsight. What a merciful and constant God we serve, that he completes the good works he begins in us, cutting and stitching with careful, gentle precision.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10

I gave myself up to this masterful remodelling a while ago and it has been worth all of it, all the jagged edges, all the precise cuts and stitches. He prepared me for good works and he also prepared those works for me. As Solomon wisely wrote:

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.  Ecclesiastes 3:1-4

Now is a time to dance and rejoice! God is faithful! So here I go:

YAY! I’M GOING TO ARGENTINA!

Manna

“Nothing gold can stay.”  I remember reading that Robert Frost poem when I was a kid, unaware then of the nature of time and of change and that it’s true—nothing gold can stay. I can’t officially say where just yet, but I’ll be leaving soon, moving overseas. There’s something about expiration dates that makes me get all sentimental. The irritations get less irritating and I feel myself scrambling to memorize every temporary thing I took for granted just last week, before I knew I was leaving. Mental snapshots, souvenirs for later.

It has been an interesting six months since graduation. This period of transition has taught me a lot about faith and God’s provision through the seasons of my life.

When Moses and the Israelites were wandering through the desert in search of the Promised Land, God sent them manna from heaven every day for food. Everyone gathered it each morning according to their need, and only just enough for the day. It rotted overnight. It took faith to believe that the manna would be on the ground again the next day. It took faith to trust in the Lord’s daily provision.

God has given me manna too, blessed provision. A fun, restful job. Dear friends. Just enough money to live on. Hope found in plans.

But here’s the thing with manna: it’s so easy to put your hope in the manna rather than the provider of the manna. Despite God’s instructions, some Israelites tried to hoard it. And so it rotted.

God is teaching me not to cling to the manna in my life. Some relationships are meant to last just for a season. Some jobs or circumstances are right for a time, but then it’s time to move on. Everything in this life is temporary to one degree or another.  Don’t cling to any of it.

The only permanent fixture is the Provider of all things.

It’s amazing how this setup makes it all more beautiful. That manna tasted even better because it wasn’t promised for forever. Relationships and goals and circumstances are all the more wonderful because they can’t last. And the Lord is all the more beautiful because all other ground is sinking sand. His permanence is such a staunch contrast against this constantly changing backdrop he’s placed around us. And we were made to hate change and seek permanence. Funny how things work out that way.

Today’s manna will be rotten tomorrow, but there will be new manna. Just be present. With a grateful heart, learn to receive and learn to let go. Letting go is painful, but it’s a good and necessary pain. Letting go takes faith and courage, but–wouldn’t ya know–the Provider gives that too.

“I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” John 6:48-51

Correlation ≠ Causation

The Giver of Life

Life Itself

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s my latest addition to the meager gallery of things I’ve painted, a set of two 8×10′s. I only started painting somewhere in the middle of my junior year of college, completely on a whim, with zero intention of taking myself seriously. Painting humbles me because my hand isn’t as steady as I want it to be and it’s a process of trial and error figuring how to make the paint do what I want it to. But it satisfies the creative hunger in me to translate a formless amoeba of concept in my brain into a physical, tangible work in front of me.  I love that.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the Lord and his provision, his follow-through. That’s what prompted these paintings. So many times I catch myself work, work, working at life and godliness. I was raised in church and while I’m blessed by that, sometimes that upbringing trips me up. I forget why I’m doing all my good-girl striving. My sense of fairness starts to kick back when I think about all the things I “deserve” from my striving.

Then there’s grace.

Listen: God blesses us not because we’re good, but because he’s good. He provides grace and comfort and just-in-the-nick-of-time hope. He is really all we need. He is the giver of life. He is life itself. C.S. Lewis writes, “God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”

Is all my striving my attempt to earn grace, to earn blessings? Backwards backwards backwards. When I rely on grace, the actions are a natural response of gratitude. But I’ve got to let go of this sense of fairness. Grace trumps fairness.

After all, he is really all I need. As Kahlil Gibran writes, “We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us: Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all.”

He is the giver of life.

He is life itself.