Glass Houses

Posted by Rachel

Its been a while since I posted, but I have lots to say.  I've started this blog no less than 3 times and erased what I had to say.  Sometimes, my mind and heart are not in good places and today its finally looking up to finish this. And I know we cover this subject quit a bit, but like the college we all went to, I'm just going to keep rehashing it until you all implement it into your life and heart.  So here goes.

I am a youth group leader.  I love being a youth group leader, I love mentor ship and I love multi-generational small groups (Thank you to those who accepted and cared for me during my college years, that was an amazing and trans formative time, you know who you are).  Back to youth group, I have been doing it several years now and the one thing that has been so apparent to me is the fact that students and young people don't seem to know what community or the church really means and how it applies to their life.  But they are trying desperately to find it whether through social media, television, clubs or even poor choices in their own life.  I didn't understand it when I was their age ei
ther, so I can't blame them, but I also had an amazing family who taught me the basics and then amazing college that instilled it into me and then amazing friends and mentors who lived it out and taught me what it really means.

So here's what it means:

• Living a life free from secrets, somebody knows everything about you, cause then Satan has less of a foothold to do tragic work.  Its scary knowing that other broken people hold a part of your heart and sometimes they don't treat it perfectly, but that is where the grace of Jesus restores both the people and the relationship.
• It means choosing to do uncomfortable things, like tell 14 year old girls you mentor at youth group -appropriate- but sometime vulnerable things.  
• It means choosing to love people so much it sends you into an ugly cry every time you say goodbye, which is far too much, because each of you know you are where God has called you and that is unfortunately many miles apart. 

It means so many things more...  

But here is truth, sometimes it sucks being single.  You look around and  you see happy couples(trust me you don't see the miserable ones when your single), couples who have someone to go out and do stuff with on Valentines day or New Years or just cause.  Sometimes you look and you yearn so deeply nothing but Jesus can carry you through that moment.  But here is the cool part, singleness actually doesn't suck that bad...most of the time.  Because I choose to live my life as a glass house, a temple where the Holy Spirit has made his dwelling.  Therefore nothing is mine to keep anyway.  

All my stories are actually his and therefore I speak them, because someone needs to hear them, someone needs to see God through the Holy Spirit's story.  Because the Holy Spirit is actually also in my Pack or flock or Community as well.  He in some great mystery resides in all of us and binds our hearts together even from great distances.  This is the great miracle,  I am a glass house to expose whatever selfish sinful shenanigans myself or Satan is up to in my life but even better is to expose the world to God, which is only done through the church and through my community. Living your life as a glass house sounds a lot worse than it actually is and trust me its a rush! 

Family Small Group

Posted by Laura

Small groups, community groups, missional communities, or whatever you want to call them have become increasingly popular in the modern church. I love the idea. Community is so central to the Christian faith, and sharing life together with a group of Christians is super important. The church I grew up in didn't really emphasize groups like that a ton, but they did have small groups for middle school and high school students. I joined one in middle school and participated in one during my junior year of high school. Those groups definitely had value, and I became a youth leader later in life in order to facilitate that kind of group for young people.

The church I was at as a young adult had a big push each year for members to join a community group and share life with the people of our church. I joined the one Sarah and Rachel were in at first, but couldn't continue being a part of the group during my undergraduate years. At one point while I was in college, the church tried to create a singles group, and somehow I got roped into it. For about a year, the singles group at our church was me and the two leaders who happened to be two of my close friends at the time. The three of us hung out anyways, but our hangouts somehow became church functions, so we watched High School Musical in the church auditorium because all three of us had church keys (well, two of us, and the third one knew how to break into the building in a pinch). A couple years after that singles group fell apart, I joined another community group that was me and four wonderful couples, three of whom had kids in our youth group. I loved sharing life with them, but I also occasionally felt a little out of place as the only single person in a group of married people (there was also one older woman who briefly attended at the start who was at the time single but had grown kids and young grandkids so I felt alone in my place in life).

I was recently invited into a family small group here in Germany, and after my first visit, my excitement small groups was reinvigorated. It was the first time I was in a small group since starting grad school when I had to leave my last one because the meeting time conflicted with my night classes. This group, however, is far from small, and the significant difference from the community groups I've been in before is that it's a family small group. The kids range from middle grade school to seniors in high school (plus a few college students during school breaks). The parents cover a range of ages as their kids' ages suggest. I'm one of three single women who's ages are spread out as well. The format of the group is gathering for a meal that's eaten spread across whoever's house we're in before rounding everyone up into one room for a short game or activity followed by a devotional led by one of the adults. We then split into several small groups and discuss - as equals - some questions given after the devotion. The kids' input is just as valued as the adults, but they also are regularly exposed to the adults' critical thinking and personal responses to deep questions.

What a cool experience for these students to grow up with adults modeling how to grow in their faith while also receiving affirmation for processing what they think and feel about their faith. That stood out to me right away as a benefit of this model of family group, but I also recognized that as a family group, I didn't feel awkward as a single person. Instead of sticking out, I felt like I more easily blended in because there is such an emphasis on intergenerational value.

Love On!

Posted by Sarah

It’s Valentine’s Day! The day of love. The day when the single population takes a collective, depressing sigh. It’s Hallmarks favorite holiday and the least favorite of anyone who has experienced heartbreak or loss.

The internet is buzzing this Valentine’s Day: Bloggers and commentators are weighing the virtue – or lack thereof – of the newest horror film out just in time for the holiday (aka: 50 Shades of Grey), there are countless articles on how to ramp up your love/sex life, every couple on Facebook is posting pictures of dinners out and beautiful bouquets of roses, and a large c contingency of single people are gathering in honor of S.A.D. - Singles Awareness Day – the title speaks for itself. And that is just the beginning.

I’ll pause here to remind you how much I love holidays and celebrating. Each one holds special (and some hard) memories. Any reason to celebrate is a good one and any chance to gather with family and/or friends is A-OK in my book. And while I admit that this holiday is a little more difficult than some (as anyone whose waited all day to see if their crush will, in fact, acknowledge them can attest), it’s still a holiday and, therefore, a good day.

In fact, my biggest beef with Valentine’s Day isn't the day itself but how sexual it has become. Why does the one day we purposefully celebrate love have to be about sex - it’s sad really. What a better place this world would be if we took this day to celebrate love in all its forms – to intentionally tell the people in our lives how much we love, value and appreciate them. For example, yesterday I got a surprise visit from a dear friend and her son with a note reminding me that they love me. It made my whole day.

This year for Valentine’s Day I am not sitting around in the muck that is my relationship status on Facebook, I am having a girl’s day with my 5 year old niece, Ellie. And honestly, I can’t think of a better way to spend my holiday then being with my sweet girl.

Someday I look forward to being married and celebrating love with the one God has for me – but my life isn't on hold until then.

Love is going to get the heck celebrated out of it this year!

So go do something fun with someone you love today, whether it be your husband/wife, boyfriend/girlfriend, mom/dad, grandparent, dog, your bestie or your niece! Love On!

Underachiever

Posted by Laura

I teach at an international school with teenagers who come from host countries all over the world and multiple different passport countries are represented. On Friday, I had the daughter of a Wycliffe Bible translator teach the class - she's way more of an expert in biblical translation theory than I am. Based on her knowledge of her peers, she created this fantastic activity where she picked a verse in English to have a Korean volunteer translate into Korean followed by another Korean speaker translating it back to English. It was then given to a Mandarin speaker to do the same with another student who could translate back to English and pass it on to a German speaker finally having it translated a sixth time ending in a barely understandable sentence and aptly demonstrating the difficulty translators face when trying to convey the message of Scripture across languages.

I love the activity so much I tried it in my next class, but I only had one student fluent in Korean, and no Mandarin speakers. I just had three German speakers, one of whom was also able to speak and hear Lao fluently though he couldn't write it. I did have three fluent French speakers as well, so we completed the activity English-French-English-German-English, and I discovered that I only have one out of fifteen students in that class period who is monolingual. Oddly enough, the girl who can only speak English is a full German citizen with German parents and a German passport raised in Germany - on American military bases.

As the verse was being translated in each class, I chatted with the students about languages. The two Korean volunteers in the first class also each speak a third language after Korean and English - one Arabic and the other Russian. 

"So not only do you speak three languages, but you know three alphabets." I said, "This is incredible to me."

"It's not that big of a deal," the girl said, "The concept of alphabet is still the same, so you just learn another one as easily."

No way. 

The next class period I had a student tell me how embarrassing she found it to come to our school and only know two languages. "Well so many people know three or four. I mean Hannah knows like five," she explained. 

I'm so impressed with my students' grasp on languages that it often makes me feel like an underachiever. Some of these kids knew three languages before they hit puberty, and what have I got to show for myself? Sometimes I desperately need a reminder that I had a masters degree at 24, but even if I didn't have that, I've still done a lot by my mid twenties. And I'm still doing a lot. I've also always surrounded myself with these sort of overachievers at life who are constantly busy doing multiple incredible things. Sarah, Rachel, and Jordyne are those type of people. The four of us are living awesome lives, and we feel compelled to share some of that here on this blog, but we also lead such full and rich lives that there isn't always a chance for each of us to sit down and thoughtfully compose a reflection of our day or an insight worth reading.

We noticed a lull in posts here last month, but I promise you that it's not for a lack of excitement in our lives. Stay tuned, because we are anything but underachievers.