And the winner is...

For those of you who've been intimidated by my latest incredibly long blogs and avoided reading them, or have simply missed the news...

I'm heading to China in ONE MONTH! That's right. I leave June 28th and return August 6th.  I'll teach English to some middle school and high school students for three weeks after one week of training, then head to another country for one week of exploring the more long-term focus of the program I'm traveling through.

Until today, I had no idea which country I'd be headed to for that final week.  I mean, Laos and Cambodia were my top choices, and my coordinator said I'd most likely head to one of those.  I picked Laos because I have a friend whose sister is teaching there, but I've never met the sister or even heard about her experiences, so I have no real connection there.

The story about my Cambodia choice is pretty comparable.  A friend of a friend spent a year or semester or some extended period of time in Cambodia with YWAM and told me a little bit about her experiences when I met her at Tulip Festival (If you don't know what Tulip Festival is, Google it, then come to Orange City next year for the third weekend in May.  It's awesome, seriously.) last year.  I somehow developed a deep passion for girls caught in the sex slavery trade, so when Joy--my friend's friend--told me this was a huge issue in Cambodia, the country received the same passionate vigor.

So, I put down Laos and Cambodia as my first two choices and waited and waited and waited to hear back.  Seriously, I'm not the most patient person in the world, and I applied way back in August, so I've been waiting for quite a while.

But.. TODAY.. I found out that I will be headed to CAMBODIA for that fifth week of the English teaching program.  I'm pumped.  Part of me wishes I were doing something with the sex trade rescue missions now that I'm heading there, but who knows what God has in store for me in the future.. or even in that week!

Anyways, that's an update on my life...

I'll be traveling with Brendon, Rick, Michelle, Candise, Rachel, Abby, Joy, and our team's leader Amanda (a Dordt alum--woohoo!) to Hong Kong, and then on to Cambodia in approximately ONE MONTH.

People ask me if I'm ready.  Yes, I mean, no. I mean I don't know. I haven't really thought about packing. I'm kind of scared out of my mind. But the money's all in... in a more amazing way than I could ever have imagined. WOW. To be honest, I don't think I'll ever be ready. It's China.. I've never been there before. I'm teaching something I've never taught before. Heck, I'm teaching and I've never even really taught my own class before.

However, if you ask me if I'm excited, I'll respond with an exuberant YES! God has been faithful, so incredibly faithful, patient, loving, and grace-giving over this past year, and I know that He's going to pour that same beautiful character of His through me, my teammates, and the students I teach this summer.

One month, four days, bringing God's kingdom to China HERE I COME!

Shoot. This blog got long, too. Sorry for you reading-haters.

Short summary--China in 1 month. From there to Cambodia for the last week of July/first week of August. I'm incredibly scared and awesomely excited at the same time.  Not even sure how that's possible, but God is good.  SO GOOD.

Bittersweet: My Favorite Word

Seriously, it is. I don't know how many innumerable times I've described my feelings as just that. Bittersweet. The big days were certainly that--David moving to college, high school graduation, Grandpa's funeral, first day of college, last day of each year of college, the list goes on.  Each of these days are "bittersweet" because they're just that. They're both "bitter" and "sweet." Most of those big days also involve big changes, which makes the bittersweetness of them self-explanatory.  Obviously it's "sweet," happy, exciting, etc... for new changes to occur, but the "bitterness" comes with the old that isn't a part of my life anymore.

Grandpa died--a bitter thing--but I can have hope that He's in Heaven with our Savior--the most sweetest thing.  High school ended, along with many friendships, routines, activities, etc... That was pretty bitter. However, the sweetness of the friendships that have lasted, new relationships that have formed, and lessons I've learned from it all continues to grow every day.

I could describe those further, but I think you probably get the point. I'm even betting that you have many of these same bittersweet moments of your own. Everyone does.

However, because I love thinking of the contradictions in the word "bittersweet" and so often use the word to describe my feelings, I think I experience these moments more often than normal.  Because of that, today, a normal summer Tuesday, was bittersweet for me.  Here's why:

Today I slept in, worked out, went to work, dinner with friends, came home, filled out some financial aid stuff, packed for the Nykamp wedding in Kansas, and am now lying in bed watching old One Tree Hill episodes while writing this blog.

Working out--sweet--I love it, I really do.

Working at Butler's--bitter--I'm really not a fan. There's an incredible amount of drama there. The managers play favorites, and I somehow didn't make the cut.  Plus, today I found out that for some crazy reason I wasn't scheduled at all next week.  However, the 5ish new employees all get scheduled, and the boss's favorites have over 30 hours.  I just don't get it. With a trip to China and busy semester ahead, quitting may be a decision I need to make in the near future.  Driving 20 miles for stress and unfairness just doesn't seem worth it.

Delicious spaghetti at the Fruited Plain with friends--sweet, obviously--Good food, good company, good times.

Filling out the forms--bitter--only a reminder of how poor I really am. And the lack of hours next week didn't help.

So here's the really bitter part... I came home from work and dinner after missing my pool meeting for the summer only to find that I was give less than part-time hours at the pool for the entire month of June. Add to that my frustrations about Butler's and the FAFSA forms, and I was pretty much stressed beyond belief.

Fortunately, some sweetness came in.. in the midst of filling out FAFSA stuff, I checked my email only to find out my placement to CAMBODIA after four weeks in Hong Kong and names and email addresses of my teammates for my entire 5 weeks in Asia coming up later this summer. I was stoked! Cambodia was my first choice, so I'm so, so incredibly excited to see how God may use me and what He'll show me through another culture of His people.

Unfortunately, thinking about the five weeks I'll be spending in China NOT making money soon brought back my feelings of bitterness. Tears streamed down my face as I spent the next hour frantically searching and applying for all the jobs I could find online in the area.  Mom and I wracked our brains for ideas, I emailed a couple of the lifeguards I knew would be busy with softball and let them know I'd gladly work for them, and kept job-searching and applying.

Exhausted and still needing to pack for my weekend trip to Kansas, I headed down to my room.  Suddenly, and even as I'm writing this, it's dawned on me that I haven't taken a moment to pray. In the midst of the stress and frustration, I never even thought until I began writing this how many times God tells me not to worry.  And here I am worrying.  Worrying about money, no less... the one thing God calls the "root of all evil."

Do you see the bittersweetness of my day?

I sure do.

Fortunately, I'm ending the day rejoicing in the sweetness of God's grace.  His grace that forgives me a thousand times over when I forget to call on Him, worry about money instead of His kingdom, and neglect the promises He's made to bless me and uphold me in His own way.  What a beautiful testimony this once bittersweet, now simply sweet day has been to God's grace and lovingkindness.

So what if I work 15 hours a week or find random and miserable lawn mowing jobs to add a few extra bucks to my bank account?


Daughter, He calls to me in the midst of the anger and confusion, trust in me.


But Dad, I reply, I need to pay for college.  I need to buy a car.  I need to put gas in that car, food in my mouth, money in the bank for rent.  I don't even have a dependable job. I'm sick of using every paycheck to pay my bills.  I'm sick of being poor, I angrily exclaim.


Daughter, trust in me.  He repeats.  Trust in me, trust in me, trust in me.  


And with that repeated command and promise, I'm content.  I'm at peace.  I'm resting in His everlasting sweetness.

Only He has my best interests at heart.  Only He knows what those are.  Only in Him will I place my trust.  Only in Him can I do all things.  Only in Him can I find the hope to get through another couple months of living paycheck-to-paycheck.  Only through Him will I be able to seek out the sweetness and rid the bitterness from my days.

Why "only in Him"? Isn't it obvious?

He is good, He is good, when there's nothing good in me.
Amen.

The Gospel as a Fairy Tale

I apologize in advance for this crazy spacing.. I can't figure out how to fix it...

I used the following story as an illustration in one of my final reflective essays over a book called Telling the Truth by Frederick Buechner.  Buechner's kind of a crazy old liberal, but the gist of His book makes sense to me.  The book talks about the Gospel as tragedy, comedy, and a fairy tale.  The tragedy is our horrendous sinfulness.  The comedy is that we are still forgiven, loved, cherished, and bled for by God's own Son.  Finally, the fairy tale is the Gospel's story of God's "extraordinary" love that makes "extraordinary things happen to [sinners] just as in fairy tales extraordinary things happen."  That's what the small commentaries about Buechner, tragedy, comedy, and fairy tale are about.

So, check out this conversation that went down in Sunday School this past Sunday.  I had just told the kids the story of Cleopas and his friend and their walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus.  As Cleopas and his friend are walking, they are discussing how sad they are that Jesus' body is missing from the tomb.  The women have told them that He is alive, but no one has seen Jesus, so Cleopas and his friend still believe His body has been stolen or something.  Jesus joins the friends while walking, but they do not recognize Him.  When they reach Emmaus, Jesus breaks bread for communion and reveals Himself to the men.  As suddenly as they realize who He is, Jesus disappears.  Cleopas and his friend journey back to Jerusalem to tell the 11 disciples that Jesus is alive.  At the end of the story, they are rejoicing and happy because JESUS IS ALIVE!   

This is beautiful.  The next generation is going to be spreading the Gospel like a pandemic.

“Kids, should we be happy or sad about this story?”  

“Sad!”  

“Why?”

“Because Jesus died.”  Wow.  I never get anything but “GOD!” on the first response.

Okay, so I’ll go in that direction.  “That’s right.  Why did Jesus have to die?”

“Sins!”  Where are these answers coming from?  We talked about that two weeks ago, and these kids rarely remember a word from the memory verses we work on each week.  Whatever the case, I decided to keep prodding answers out of these kids.

“Right, Dakota! And whose sins?”

“God’s!”  Oops.  There’s that “GOD!” answer as usual.  “No, Jackson, ours!”  The female twin just corrected her fraternal brother’s answer.  I am so impressed right now!

“That’s right, guys, we should be sad because Jesus had to die because of ours sins, because we are naughty and don’t listen to our parents, hit our brothers and sisters, steal candy when Mom and Dad aren’t looking, and don’t listen to our Sunday school teachers.  We should be very sad that Jesus had to die because we are naughty.  But can we be happy, or do we always have to be sad?”

“Happy!” This was a chorus of shouts from all of the kids except the boy who was chewing on his toes in the corner.  I had sent him to the ‘timeout’ chair in the corner before this conversation began. 

“Right!  We can be happy!  Do you know why?”  Here comes Buechner’s “comedy” (7).

“Because Jesus is alive!  Because of  the big stone!”  We acted out the stone being rolled away from the tomb in a previous week.  That’s what she meant by that.  But still, wow. 

“Yes! Because Jesus died and now lives!” 

I went on to describe how Jesus died on the cross because we were supposed to die for our own sins and was buried in the tomb, and then came to life again.  Because of our tragedy, Jesus lived out the comedy.  I explained to the kids that because Jesus lived after dying for our sins, we no longer had to die for our sins.  This is the truth of Gospel.  By mere coincidence, no, by God’s great and extraordinary means, I was able to share the Gospel story of tragedy, comedy, and fairy tale with my students. The kids listened, were attentive, and learned what God was using me to teach them.

As a future teacher, this has been the most exciting teaching moment of my entire pre-service experience.  I do not know that any student teaching or future teaching experience will be able to top it.  An entire room of preschoolers understood the Gospel.  As I explained more and got more excited, my students got just as excited.   Eventually, I was standing, bouncing, and jumping next to the table they were seated at.  

"Yes, kids.  That's right!  We should be sad because we are sinful and Jesus had to die because of that.  But we can be happy, we can be SO happy (this is where I started jumping) because Jesus is alive.  And because of that, we can be alive in Him!"  I was trembling at this point and covered with goosebumps at the beauty of the Gospel.

“Jesus is alive, Jesus is alive!” They chanted and sang as they followed me upstairs to their parents after Sunday school.  

Cute, yes, but they understood what this meant.  They knew the tragedy of the Gospel.  They understood the comedy that “Jesus is alive,” and they knew that they could live a fairy tale because of that.  However, unlike fairy tales, this story is REAL.

So wonderful.  So, so, beautifully wonderful.  Praise the Lord for His amazing faithfulness.