What were you doing there?

On our 28 hour bus ride back to Boston from New Orleans I was asked this question by a number of people - the Alabama welcome center lady, the cashier at Cracker Barrel in Tennessee, and the gas station attendant in some state I don't remember. After telling them that we were doing relief and rebuilding work all three of these people were surprised. I could visibly see their surprise as well as hear it in their speech: "Oh, really?" "They still need that?" and "Oh, you weren't partying?" It struck me how quickly the country has forgotten about the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. In some ways I'm glad that people think things are back to "normal" because the city needs the tourism money. But the responses I got when telling people we were rebuilding made me really sad. Driving anywhere around the city besides the French Quarter, it is painfully obvious that there is a lot of work to do in a city that is still hurting. Numerous houses still have the spray painted marks made by the rescue teams that came through neighborhoods. Many houses are still in the middle of being rebuilt by owners who can only afford to come into the city one weekend a month to work to repair their homes. In the Lower Ninth Ward all that remains in some house lots are the front steps that lead to nowhere.

The media and their cameras packed up long ago, coming back briefly for "One Year Later" stories, but largely ignoring people and residents who are in need. It's old news and unfortunately the earthquake in Haiti is becoming this too.

We each can't care for every tragedy and natural disaster in the world, but we can care for one. I'm eager to continue to care for New Orleans by bringing student teams down each year and wearing my "ReNEW Orleans" t-shirt that starts conversations that help me communicate the need that still exists.

From the Recent Reading List (Part II)

I've had the good fortune to read many great books since my last post of this kind, but here are five that I found super helpful/inspiring/thought-provoking and would highly recommend:

The Gift of Being Yourself by David Benner. Far from limiting who we are, following Jesus actually allows to become more and more fully who we were meant to be. Every page of this book taught me something about who God made me to be.

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen. Some of the advice in here is embarrassingly simple, but it has made me a lot more stress-free and a whole lot more productive, as advertised!

Love is an Orientation: Elevating the Conversation with the Gay Community by Andrew Marin. In a time when the divide between the gay and evangelical communities grows tragically wider, this is THE book for anyone who cares (and as people who want all students to know Jesus, we do!). The beautiful thing is that Marin doesn't just talk about bridging the gap--he lives it!

The Other Boston Busing Story by Susan Eaton. First-hand accounts of Boston children who attended schools in the more affluent suburbs. A helpful perspective on what it's like for people live as minorities, as well as the gap between the higher education world of Boston and many of the people who actually grow up here.

The Reason for God by Tim Keller. I've never encountered such concise, clear, and readable outlines for why the Christian faith makes sense in light of some of the most pressing questions and objections of our day. A super book for both skeptics and believers alike!

This Stuff is Really True!

I meant to post this weeks ago, but at our area's Fall Conference in mid-October, I had a moment of joy and wonder. I was standing in the back of the room as a throng of 200 students sang worship songs. We were singing a familiar chorus that I'd sung hundreds of times before, "People of every nation and tongue... we worship you."

As we sang, I looked up, and directly in front of me was a student born in Egpyt, next to a Nigerian student, next to a Vietnamese student, next to a White American, next to a Korean American, next to a Hindu (who would decide to follow Jesus later that night), next to sisters from a Muslim background. And that was just the row right in front of me!

The previous hundreds of times I'd sung that chorus had always felt like it described hope for some future reality, but I was brought to tears that night as I sang of people from every nation worshiping God and it described the present reality before my eyes.

I guess Jesus wasn't kidding when he said that the kingdom of heaven is AT HAND!

The Call

"Jesus said, 'Follow me...' and immediately they left their nets and followed him."
Today I was imagining what it would have been like if Jesus looked at his early would-be followers and thought, "Geez, they seem busy with their fishing, I'd better not bother them." It sounds ridiculous, and these early followers would have missed out on the chance to step into a bigger and better world than they'd ever imagined.

We minister among people whose lives often look very full. Thus calling them TO Jesus often means calling them FROM something else. The calling FROM can feel risky, but it seems like anyone who's ever been called to anything great has been called from something else.

I can see it in my favorite childhood movies--Luke Skywalker had to LEAVE his home on Tattoine in order to defeat the Empire; Superman had to LEAVE Smallville to step into his destiny as a superhero. And in my own life, any degree of adventure and impact on the world I've enjoyed has involved the walking away from something else, sometimes in costly ways.

I feel challenged to remember all of this in the face of students' full lives--as hard as calling FROM can feel for them, it's often the path TO the bigger and better world Jesus has for them.

- Paul

10 years? Really?

It hadn't occurred to me until a friend pointed it out yesterday, but this coming September will begin our 10th school year of serving with InterVarsity (8th full-time paid year, but they all count). I can hardly believe this is our tenth time gearing up for a new year and for the Fall "New Student Outreach" (NSO) season.

Several things have changed since our first NSO-- we are married now, we no longer pass of undergrads when we're on campus, and our energy for late nights is not what it used to be. Our role has also changed from young novices to overseers whom other staff look to for guidance. And whereas our early years were focused solely on BU, we'll spend this tenth Fall on campuses all over Boston.

But some things have not changed at all in 10 years: our level of excitement and anticipation for a new year; our level of affection for Boston-area students and campuses; and our level of joy in meeting new students and seeing God work in their lives are every bit as high as they were when we started. In fact I'd venture to say that our excitement, affection and joy are greater than ever!

-Paul

T.G.I.F(undraise)!

Earlier today, I met with a potential donor to share the vision of our ministry and invite him to consider supporting InterVarsity financially. Truth be told, when I first came on staff, I hated this element of the job. I wished we didn't have to raise support ourselves and just go about doing the work on campus.

Well, having appointments over the years like the one I had today have changed my mind completely. Stepping out of the day-to-day to talk about the big-picture vision of what we hope to see God do on campus raises my own level of passion for this vision. Having someone get excited about what we're doing provides a deep sense of encouragement and the sense that we're not in this alone. And having someone step out in faith by putting their finances behind this ministry inspires me to go about the work on campus with a renewed dedication and sense of purpose.

I never would have imagined saying this seven years ago, but: Thank God I Fundraise!

Fenway Faith-full

I keep feeling like I need to have something truly profound to say before blogging, so I put it off. And the longer I do that, the better I feel the next one must be, and so the cycle continues, resulting in no new posts. I think I'm missing the point, which is to share thoughts as they come. So here's a random one:

I recently read a book by my favorite sports columnist. He recounts in emotionally-charged detail the years leading up to the Boston's 2004 World Series win. I had forgotten just how it felt to be a Red Sox fan prior to 2004-- the constant dread, the cynicism, wondering how they'll blow it this time, and the nagging sense that no matter how good things may have looked, certain doom lurked just around the corner. I remember that I once felt these things, but two World Series wins later, and I can hardly remember how it felt.

Generally, I was always more hopeful in ministry than in baseball, but still.... thinking back to 2006, InterVarsity hadn't planted a new ministry on a campus in Boston in many, many years. Like Sox fans born after 1918, we'd heard victorious tales of planting, but had never actually seen it with our own eyes. This was more from lack of trying than from gut-wrenching defeats, but either way, we wondered how it would ever happen.

Three years later, with new chapters at Northeastern, Mass Pharmacy, Curry College, and emerging ministry at UMass-Boston, Mass Art, and BU Athletes, it's awfully hard to remember what it felt like for planting to exist only in the realm of far-off hope. But it did, not too long ago!

For better or worse, Sox fans now have a certain confidence (ie, cockiness) about them. But definitely for better, these last three years have given me a level of confidence in God (ie, faith) that I did not have before....

- Paul

Humbled by Recognition

This past weekend Paul and I attended a few graduation ceremonies of the schools we serve, marking the end of the school year. It’s been a wonderful year and this past month three of our fellowships got recognized by their respective campus student bodies for their work in serving the campus. Students at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences voted InterVarsity as the “Organization of the Year” on campus (see photo on right). It’s an award that is usually given to the professional organizations and clubs at the college so we’re grateful to God that the activities and outreaches of the fellowship have been noticed by the larger campus community and has impacted it positively.

The two InterVarsity fellowships at BU, InterVarsity-multiethnic and Asian-American Christian Fellowship, co-sponsored an event called “Injustice” in March. They put on a daylong event that included interactive displays, testimonies, and group discussion about the issues that three of their students saw while on a mission trip to Uganda last summer. (See more about this event at http://people.bu.edu/buaacf/main.html). At such a large university, there are many, many, many events put on each year by the 400 student groups that exist, but BU’s Student Union Allocation Board voted unanimously that InterVarsity’s “Injustice” event be named the “Program of the Year” for the quality of the event and participation.

Our vision is that the InterVarsity groups we lead would engage and impact the campus. We are extremely grateful to God that the groups we are growing on campus are not “holy huddles” in the corner, but are front and center on campus.

Perhaps!

I'll be leaving for New Orleans in a matter of hours, and am drawn to an obscure story (which I love) from the book of 1 Samuel. In it, Jonathan goes marching boldly into battle, and says "Perhaps the Lord will act in our behalf." Perhaps?!?! If this is true, then it's also true that perhaps things will go horribly wrong and he'll get killed!

Well, this is our fourth time going to New Orleans, and still I feel a bit like Jonathan. There are so many "perhaps"es. Not only are we heading into a city that's still in a lot of disarray, but we're taking our largest team ever (75 students), and when your business is people, you just can't know the outcomes, no matter how many times you've done it before.

All I can do is dive into a big "perhaps"-- I'm acutely aware of many things that could go wrong, and I'm aware that lots of unexpected things will happen. But I'm also aware that, like Jonathan, it's on the other side of "perhaps" where all the glorious possibilities lie, where the Lord acts on our behalf. So it's time to head into the unknown and trust that God will create wonders as we do....

- Paul

Fun Moment

Yesterday I was on campus helping some students run what we call a proxe station in the school's atrium where many students pass by. A proxe station is an interactive display that is designed to draw attention to itself by it's size and colors in order to engage the student body on a campus with deeper themes than are normally talked about on a day to day basis in a student center. We've done a number of these at MCP over the last two years on topics like "How much of an atheist are you?", "Rate your last relationship," and "What are you here for anyway?"

Yesterday's topic was "Where is God When It Hurts?" in preparation for an outreach event we are having tomorrow. In the midst of this heavy topic a fun moment happened. While we were asking students to take part in this interactive survey, one of the InterVarsity students leaned over to me and remarked, "Liz, this feels so normal now. The first time we did one of these proxe stations I was so nervous, but now it just feels normal." Yes! How incredible that engaging your campus on spiritual and deep topics feels 'normal'. Wow.

- Liz