Arizona: I'm here!!

Hey Friends,

I am here at Immanuel Mission. Before I talk about life, here's some contact information:

You can always send me mail:

PO Box 2000
Teec Nos Pos, AZ, 86514

*remember, you can always send me packages! It's not like I'm in the army or something...

I have internet access in certain parts of the Mission, and I'll try to get online at least once a week so you can: email/facebook/comment on blog

I also have a phone in my room. There's only one line on the mission, so they say keep it to 20mins, but even that's not as big of a deal during the summer. I'm in the trailor in the evenings sometimes. It's one hour later than CA here.

917-254-4023 ext. 26

Ok so I got here. It was a lot of driving, but I didn't have to stop and sleep at all, I also did not hit a moose, and also I did not get blown off the road. The roads in Utah and Arizona seem a lot less tame than those in CA. I went slow; big rigs passed me on a two-lane road. But Utah is really beautiful in some parts. Especially Moab. I'd like to go back there. I think there's been road work on every interstate I've been on. I know people prayed for me, and I think that helped a lot.

Ok so when I first got to Immanuel Mission, there was no one here. It was so different from coming with VBC in July. It was abondoned and super windy:

I was first greeted by this guy:

John Bloom's dog I think. He hasn't picked a name yet I don't think. Some people call him "Go Home."

Then after about 10 mins the Tom's came by and let me into my trailor:

I love it.

So highlights from my trip so far:

- Going with John to an auction in Farmington, New Mexico. Can you say yee-haw? He bought some stuff for the mission. I met cowboys. It was definitely an experience. Wish I brought my camera. Maybe next time.

- Getting to know the first church group to visit. They are from Colorado. There's only one teen-ager. She's really talkative and she loves Chris Tomlin. She's the kind of girl you talk to and you think you've got her pegged, but everyone has a story... They are a really nice group of people.

- Meeting Loreena and Karen. We went out to one lady's house named Anna, who lives next to one of the missionaries. We cleaned Anna's house and had lunch at Kathy's (the missionary) here's a picture:

-Karen (the one on the left) lives in Kansas. A few days after this picture was taken Loreena (right middle) and I went to Durago, CO to drop of Karen. Such good conversation. She remarked how it really was the Lord that brought us together that time for lunch. How else would these 6 people meet up together in the middle of the Navajo Nation? So crazy.

-Some of us went to Big Sitting Rock (no one calls is that, but I don't know how to spell the Navajo name). Anyway we sat under the stars and I saw a full moon rise over a mesa. I can't even explain how beautiful it was.

I've been busy mostly with various work projects and being with people. Really good times of reading the Bible though. I don't really have a concept of time out here so I think it makes it easier to pray and read.

I'm really trying to get a feel for life here. Part of me loves this adventure, but another part of me always has to remind the other that this summer is not really about adventure, that beneath my "experience" is real, deep need. There are people here who have been faithful to a place with beautiful people and surroundings, but also great poverty and deep hurt. My summer is bigger than me.

Loreena talked to me a lot about her life and the life of the mission and you just get this feeling like man there is so much need, how can God hold this all together? You know? Like think of all the people you know, everyone needs so much love. And think of the communities you know, everywhere there are people and persons hurting. And our God is one that holds it all together. It's good and neceassary to remember that God provides and that God is big and faithful, but I think it's also important to live in the confusion, mystery, and tension that asks how? That's the God and man, that's the already, but not yet, that's Jesus.

So there's a lot more I'd love to talk to you about, but this is way too long already. Thanks for reading!

On my way to AZ: Traveling Mercies

Ok so tomorrow I'm getting up at 5am and heading for Utah. My Aunt lives in Park City and I'll stay with her fam for 2 nights, and from there it's almost straight down to Sweetwater, AZ.

I'm really nervous about the drive so if anyone is reading this before June 5th please pray for me and my car and my safety. I believe the term is "traveling mercies." I think my car needs mercy because it is a Saturn which is a product of GM which is a very destructive company that tax payers now have to bail out of bankruptcy. And I need mercy because I'm a helpless sinner who is traveling. Traveling Mercies.

I feel a lot better about my actual time on the mission. I have received peace concerning some of my anxieties. I'll write more about this later. Right now I want to get some decent sleep. Basically with this post I want to let you know that I'm going, thank you for any prayers you've spoken on behalf of me so far, and ask for more of it. Thanks.

Preparing for AZ: my doubts

So, I don't want to go to Immanuel Mission without some preparation. For me, this is mostly in the form of prayer/reading the Bible. These are things I know I should do anyway, but I guess I take them more seriously when I'm going to a mission campus in the middle of the desert. Silly, I know, but save me the sermon and let's move on.



So I'm praying more, and making it a big deal about going to this place. I wanted to take the last month to "get right with God" as they say, and be ready to serve wholeheartedly when I'm there. I wanted to eat, speak, and make my kidneys reabsorb gospel. I wanted to be totally prepared for the journey ahead in Arizona, except I'm finding this preparation to be a journey in itself.



In forcing myself to read the Bible and pray more I am faced with all my inadequacies. I see the way I trail off, and half-ass my prayers. I see how I am reluctant to share the gospel with friends and family. I see how I'm tempted everyday to turn from God. I see all these things in and out of me and I'm discouraged. First comes the doubts: How could God ever use me? Am I even ready for this? Then comes the fear: What will happen if I'm not ready? I'll let everyone down. I'll make a mess that someone else will have to clean up. I'm not a stranger to letting others down, getting in over my head, or making messes, will this summer be any different?


insert: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" sermon here.

Yeah. I know, I know. Grace, grace, faith, faith, hope, hope. My mantra. Despite my doubts and fears, something beckons me to that desert. Faith, curiosity, desperation, who knows? But the mission is called Immanuel. God with us, even me.



Please pray for me, if you do that sort of thing. If not, a positive thought is ok.

Preparing for AZ

So I'm spending this summer in the at Immanuel Mission in Navajo Nation in Sweetwater Arizona (Four Corners area). There's a lot of things that drove me to go, most of which I do not want to post on this blog, but suffices to say that I feel good about going. I don't know if I would say I was called to go, but I would say I feel permitted. I prayed about it. And at least one of those prayers was convincing.



So I guess I'll spend most of this blog revolving around my experience at the mission this summer. Not that I'm doing anything particularly revoluntionary, but this is my blog and my life and for me, this trip means something. I just don't know exactly what.

I'm going into this without a lot of information. I don't know where I'm staying exactly. And all I know of my work is that I'm going to be working with youth groups that come in.

As Kel would say, "Aw, here it goes."

journal entry from nursing school. this was from my same-day-surgery experience.

I want to take this journal entry to debrief about the breast augmentation surgery I saw. As a student, it was a good experience. The surgeon was nice and explained what he was doing and the difference between his sub-muscular implantation site versus sub-glandular which has more risks involved including higher rate of infection.
It is important for nurses to be non-judgmental, and to never let their own feelings interfere with their level of care, so of course I made no personal comments to the hospital staff or the patient. But, now I have space in this journal to respond not as “student nurse” (robot) but as a real person. My feelings about breast implants are some things I had never really thought about before the surgery, but as I was watching the surgery I started to feel really sad for the patient. I wondered who was pressuring her to get these. I wondered who she was trying to impress. I wondered if anyone had called her ugly or made her feel like she was anything less than a product of God’s workmanship intentionally created with love. I wondered if it was me. It’s a pretty easy surgery, there’s not much blood or cutting, the surgeon himself said it wasn’t “real surgery” (he also said that anything a obstetric surgeon does—including c-sections—isn’t real surgery either, but that’s another journal entry…). Anyway, all that to say that if the surgery is so simple, why did it seem so violent to me? Just seeing the surgeon separating her pectoral muscles and inserting a balloon and inflating it to an ideal size (450 extra mls if you’re interested), then inserting this ball of fluid. I don’t know, there was nothing sexy about it, you know? It was fake and expensive, it took a lot of drugs, and it took intubation.
What a metaphor for the vainity of life though. How often do we entrust ourselves fully in other people to make us who we are? Sedate me, paralyze me, give me an artificial airway, program my oxygen, make me beautiful, give me the drugs to deal with the pain of your procedure. It is not a disease that brings us to the hospital. Or is it?
But how different am I? I wear make up, I put products in my hair. I’m not saying I can’t understand where this woman was coming from, or that I hold her decision against her. I just really hated the surgery. I hated what they did to her. Even though the surgery went well, and she’ll probably be happy with the results, I thought it was a terrible surgery, and I would not recommend it to anyone. Anyway, that’s just my thoughts about it as a person.

I wanted to note my thoughts

Amazing how much my blogging habits have increased since I've been fasting* facebook for lent.

Anyway, I just had a cool conversation and I wanted to note my thoughts. Lately I've found myself in this struggle in ministry: I want to give, but how much do I give? Life is full of tensions, I am convinced of it. If anything is certain, it's the idea that you will always been uncertain about some things. For me, I am uncertain of this idea of giving. Is it trusting to ask how much do I give? OR is it irresponsible not to?

"Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well." Matthew 6:33

"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'" Matthew 25:21

I must be faithful in my works, but I must also be faithful in the God whose works are above my own. This is the God who holds all things together and is bringing all things together.

It is in this tension that we find the Freedom of Christ. Freedom of Christ is that when I am operating with Christ's love, there is no wrong answer. I may choose to pay off my debt so that I will be able to give more freely or I may give from the little I have (borrowed) trusting that God will provide.

The heart, the attitude, is one of love. Either work is one of love. If love is there with a genuine desire to be obedient and faithful, there is not a wrong decision. Either work requires a heart of trust. It is in this freedom of choice that I find joy.


*Pastor John Wright said in his Ash Wednesday service that he doesn't know what to do when Lent becomes trendy. When all we do is ask "what are you giving up?" do we really experience what it means to fast and to share this discipline with the Father who sees what is done in secret? I think that a Lenten fast is different from an ordinary fast. A Lenten fast is one that is shared with the Church catholic. In a fast which we all participate in together we are able to do more than ask "what are you giving up?" but we are able to keep each other accountable and to learn from each other. Lent is a time when the church shares the same journey in the midst of our own journeys. This journey is the suffering of Christ. In Lent we acknowledge the incompleteness in ourselves, and the completeness of the community of Christ brought together by the Holy Spirit.

An American Girl's Letter to the World

Well hello World,

Nice to meet you. Though I don't know you very well, you seem like someone who I'd like to know better. I'm rather frustrated with some I know of you so far, but I realize that there's a lot more to you that I haven't seen yet. I think you're mysterious and enchanting. I've become quite infatuated with you actually. I think you must be full of beauty.

I think there's people and places where things are more organic. And by organic I don't mean the kind that has the sticker and is washed by automatic showers every hour. That's the way it is here in America. We expect synthetic, we expected modified, we expect artificial so the more natural, the more real a product or resource is the more marketed it is. But world I think you are organic in a different way. Your realness is not advertised or labeled, it's dirty and painful. But I like to imagine that there is joy in you too, that there is hope and love as raw as your suffering.

World, I also know that there is more to you than what I would see if I were to visit you today. I know you have stories. You have a history. You've been blessed and cursed, and seen victories, tragedies, and triumphs. Teach me these. Tell me about yourself: who you've been and how you got here. The American dream is to forget the past, but I know the world remembers and values what has happened.

World, you might not want to know me. You may think that we have nothing in common. I've chosen department store over handmade, I shop at grocery stores not markets, I exercise on machines when I could walk outside, I'm part of an Internet community that replaces the face to face, I drive my car over paved earth, I straighten my hair, I take pain-killers with carbonated water, I use light bulbs and coffee to defy the sun and the night's opportunity for rest. And though these habits and lifestyles are much apart of me, I confess that am not created to eat Big Macs and shop at Wal-Mart anymore than you are.

World, I know God your Father and Mother. Your Creator is mine as well, and we are made of the same dust. The truth is I am in you and you are in me and God is in us. Though I more often worship under moving powerpoints and electric guitars than shaded trees and singing birds, we are made to praise the same God. This is the God that will bring us together and reconcile our differences and forgive our sins.

World I pray you have grace with me. I am made to love you. I am your neighbor. I'll see you when I see you.

With love,

Maddie