How True Is It? May 1, 2017.
We're back in the States for AJ's brother's wedding and his sister's graduation! On Sunday, we shared a message at our home church, Maple Avenue Ministries, titled, "Yet This I Call To Mind." It started as an email to you guys and kind of blew up into a smupdate (sermon-update), but it carries a lot of our experience with it. It's long, so take some time and read well if you dare, and take time to pray for what's on your heart afterwards. The manuscript for the sermon is below! Cheers.
Greetings friends, we bring many thanks and well-wishes from Guatemala, just 2000 miles from here. Personal greetings to those who have been. Thank you's to those who have supported and prayed for us. To those who have cheered on the Toros, given money to buy a meal for street-dweller in Bethania, a desk for the medical clinic, or a needy family down the road. Greetings to those of you who have sent us, and who have let Guatemala borrow us, to serve, live, love, and petition for hope in the true and living God in a context where hope is thin and scarce and tough. Greetings to those who do not know us because we left before you came.
We are AJ and Alaina Westendorp. We have been missionaries living in Guatemala City for the past 1 1/2 years. I am a nurse and works in a small clinin located around the corner from the garbage city dump and a slum, housing over 18,000 individuals who scavenge in the dump for their 'daily bread'. We live in part of the core city of Guatemala in a red zone community known as Bethania, where you can find AJ just about everyday directing the tutoring program, investing and eating with the local drunks, playing with kids in the park, and coaching the Toros Football team. Apart from all that, we help a ministry focused on homeless, drug addict youth living on the streets.
It is hard to share so much in so little space, but we hope to touch on little snapshots of a lot of the stories we walk with in Guatemala City. It's our joy to talk about God's work in Guatemala.
Today we bring a heavy message, based upon the true experiences and conversations we have had with people we know and love. It's heavy, but hang on, cause there IS hope in the end. We don't bring a heavy message with the intent of guilting, saddening, or burdening you, but being transparent, asking real questions and giving you a window into our daily lives and those around us. We want to wrestle today with the gospel, in its goodness and its fullness, and within the contexts that are not so good, are not so full. So I caution you, be not discouraged. Suffering here in this world yearns for, hopes for, a world without suffering in heaven where our citizenship is. Poverty here points to the richness of God. Hopelessness here points towards the hope of the gospel.
Spoken Word: "Paper Mache" by Alaina Westendorp (mp4 link attached)
One of our greatest hopes for our friends in Guatemala is that they might believe and think and act outside the myth of scarcity, and live into the liturgy of abundance. Because in the Bible, God is abundant, and rich, and utterly reliable. But the myth of scarcity, one the serpent loves to recite constantly, convinces people to settle for the status quo, teach them to not dream, or teach them to not seek new opportunities, and keeps us from taking hold of a real purpose for our life. My biggest passion in life is seeing people of all colors and backgrounds and statuses live passionately and enjoy God's love for them. You don't live passionately if you don't have hope and you don't have purpose. And that's why this subject stirs me so completely, like an industrial immersion blender. That's why we teach Bible lessons in the tutoring program about God's purpose for His world and for us--to live for His kingdom and His glory. It's why we make them learn what their homework is about, not just copy it. It's why we have them over for lunch or for Sunday Funday in the pool. It's why we care for people in the clinic beyond just handing out a bottle of meds.
It's why, when a Spanish-speaking group came down from Florida and had an extra day to serve somewhere, we arranged for them to drop into a few classrooms in the nearby school to share about their careers, show what they do, why they like their job, and "open the kids' eyes" a bit of something outside of their daily norm. There was a doctor, a nurse, an architect, a secretary, a pastor, a caregiver, a paint store owner...quite a healthy variety. And most all of the classrooms, it was a positive thing for everyone.
At the end of one of the presentations, the teacher of 4th grade class got up and said in front of the whole class, "Thank you for coming, guests. You just shared with these kids about a bunch of things they'll never be able to achieve." (Did she just say that?) (Awkward). (Shuffle towards exit).
On one hand, even though it aches us to admit it, she's right. This maestra's been around awhile and seen a lot of, well, nothing. Things don't change, don't progress, and the majority of kids in places like Bethania, people don't move up and out. The culture is not upward mobility. The culture is fear. The culture is stress. The culture is lack. And when there's lack, you can't afford to "take a risk," "try a new idea," "be an entrepreneur." The culture is status quo, because just getting by is better than maybe losing what little you do have. You can't apply for that job cause you don't have transportation or education to get there. And you can't get the education because you didn't have good schooling growing up and/or you can't pay the application fee and so it goes. Barriers go hand in hand mightily in the world of poverty.
Upward mobility is what we love about the American Dream. That no matter who you are, where you were born, you've got a (fair) chance to work hard, move up, be successful, and live well. But that isn't reality that most Guatemalans (and Americans, see appendix after this email) live in. Maestra's got a point.
The maestra's comment made a lot of things come together for me. Like why, even though Bethanians will say that what Bethania needs is more businesses for the parents to work in, but when there's a business/start-up class offered nobody comes. Why? Because they don't believe that that kind of opportunity is for someone like them. Or why saving and financial planning just don't click...because all they know is trying to survive through the day. Or why getting a 75% in a class is a good thing, or why failing a grade getting held back happens so often...school is just something to get through. Or maybe even why churches in Bethania, and all over Guatemala, do so little in their own communities, because they, in the myth of scarcity, need to just pay the pastor and the rent...the church is the recipient not the vehicle of blessing the community.
But there's a spiritual side to this mindset too. Where part of this is about "dreaming bigger," it's moreso about hope. The same hopelessness that says, "These kids will never achieve anything better than what's here," also says, "There's nothing better accessible to me/us than my current situation." This hopelessness doesn't allow for the longing or yearning for God's kingdom and goodness and prosperity and love and justice to come like a flood, because all those things are just frankly beyond the scope of that person's reality.
What is seen overpowers the unseen. There's not resources or systems to bring the hope and justice and peace that we want to see, the shalom we want to see.
Hope is so hard to come by, and even hard to hold on to.
When Carlos' swollen knee with its oozing ulcer never gets the chance to heal because he has no money to get to the hospital that may or may not provide care even if he make it there. The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
When 90% of the kids in the garbage dump community schools have lice infested heads, but they're not going to pay the 30cents for community shared shower because getting rice on the table to feed the kids is more important. The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
When the rivers and soil and air are being fed by the pollution of tons of raw trash and sewage and black bus fumes because there is no culture of creation care The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
When there's protests on the highways of the street against racism, against corruption, against unfair land policies, common enough that no one really listens any more because the culture of change falls short even amidst the desperate cries of the voiceless. The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
When Nohemi is asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up? and she looks at you with blank eyes and blank heart because she truly doesn't have an answer. She doesn't know about the essence of dreams, living and growing up in this follower, status quo culture. The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
When a little village keeps with the tradition of incestual rape when a girl turns 12 years old because its tradition and its the norm. The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
When Jose's name goes up on the public shame board in church because he did not pay his full tithe to the church that month, when the church is broken, living in the shadow of the prosperity gospel, legalism, greed, manipulation and a God made in to Santa Claus. The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
When Daniela cannot read or write at age 11 because she's got a learning disability but the schools can't take time for her and the ones that would, she couldn't afford. The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
When Paola didn't go to a doctor for over five years as her volleyball-sized breast mass, leaking fluid and pus, grew and grew because she was told that the witches had cursed her. The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
When Alejandro cant describe to you the beauties of his own country Guatemala--volcanos, ocean, farming, caves, culture-- because he can't afford to travel outside of his cement-stacked neighborhood. The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
When Beatriz watches her daughter being raped just after they had violated her in the dark alleyway, and just a month after her house had burned down, and two months after her husband and brother were shot dead next to her in a drive-by shooting. But she can't leave the violent, gang-ridden shanty hood. There is no money. The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
When kids seem listless or act out in school, dropping behind in their homework and failing grades because back at home they don't sleep for fear of sexual abuse and don't eat because their mom spends it on liqueur. The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
When you have to be sneaky and cautious giving groceries to a needy family because it might increase their risk of extortion by the gangs who watch and threaten. The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
Pheeewwwww. Are you sad yet? Hold on, there's hope coming.
How are we Christians supposed to talk about hope in the midst of this? When daily needs are not bear being met? How do you present the gospel and the hope of the gospel in a context where there are threats and lies and lack. It's no more than Maslow's hierarchy of needs, folks, but it's wrong and it hurts and hope is hard to come by there, like oxygen up on top Volcano Acatenango.
But Christians need to hope, need to give hope. We want to teach poor people, all people, about Christ and allow them to experience Christ because only He gives reason to hope. The gospel is the same for the comfortable and the tortured. Believing in him demands hope and demands obedience. He makes us citizens of another world, subscribers to another reality, even in the midst of conflict and turmoil he calls us to subscribe to peace and truth and justice and love in this world and the next. Subscribe like Shadrach who said God can save us and even if he doesn't we still won't bow down, because we will still subscribe.
God calls for the unseen reality to overpower the darkness of the seen. And the good news of the gospel is that Jesus HAS already overpowered the darkness of the seen. He calls us to clamor, to lament, to cry out to Him while longing for the restoration of all things and to put our hope in Father who is bringing that restoration.
Lamentations 3:16-33 (read it)
There's a note on our friend's fridge that says, "Hope comes from truth rehearsed." But the converse is also true that, "Hopelessness comes from untruth rehearsed." Folks in poverty (spiritual and/or financial) have lived deeply into the myth of scarcity, been wounded by it, buried by it, and paralyzed by it. They don't look for the myth, it shows up on their front doors as daily as a newspaper and rehearses itself in their lives whether they like it or not. But if the TRUTH is rehearsed, there is hope, and in the worst of times, one can recall said truth, like Jeremiah, who says, "For this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope..."
It's this practice, this truth that caused black slaves to hope and petition for freedom in this world and write soulful songs for freedom in the next, even though the seen farse was enough to make them give up on that hope. (DeepRiver, my home is over Jorda, Deep River, Lord, I want to cross over into campground).
It's the same truth that caused my Dutch ancestors to hope for a place to worship freely and to make a new settlement in Michigan. It's that truth that caused Maggie Hollis to push for multi-cultural relationships and churches and prayer while facing plenty of walls. The truth that caused the Dr. Reverend Denise Kingdom-Grier to embrace instead of hate (she's a fiery one you know). The truth that caused Jay and Laura VanGronigen to set up camp on 18th street and to take his aging mother in.
The truth that brought hope to Job, who wrote, in his immense suffering,
25 I know that my redeemer[c] lives,
and that in the end he will stand on the earth.[d]
26 And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet[e] in[f] my flesh I will see God;
27 I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!
We know and love what this truth does and changes, so we try to rehearse truth alongside folks in Guatemala, that hope might spring up as God makes it grow.
Many in Guatemala don't have the opportunity to learn that principle of "dreaming big." Many don't know much about the world (real or fantastical) outside of their little neighborhood. There's not travel, there's not books, there's not story-telling, there's not imagination. And that bothers our American-Dream-saturated realities in one sense, but it also bothers our spirits. Cause it's OK, and sometimes better if you don't "climb the ladder" per se, but it's not OK if you don't hope, or you don't have the capacity to hope. And so we'll keep working towards this end. The maestra might be right in a lot of ways, but even if the kids don't achieve a life much bigger than their parents', if they can live in hope that springs out of rehearsed truth of God's love and God's salvation, they will live in true abundance.
How true is it, what the maestra said? The seen "truth", the apparent one, the daily newspaper one, has some strong evidence. But the unseen truth tells another story and that's what we'll live into, wherever we are. Together, always together.
But there are indeed stories of hope, friends.
The darkness of the seen and the myth of scarcity can make people live and think day to day, but God provides day to day too, his compassions are new every morning. There is darkness and reasons not to hope all around us in Guatemala, but there is light. There is hope. Of course there is, because there is God. This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.
The darkness of the seen can make people worry about debts that they owe, but the hope of the gospel for Celestino means he doesn't worry about his debts at night anymore, and he wakes up with joy. He doesn't pour out his meager earnings at the liquor store. He's moving on. This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.
The darkness of the seen can make people curse the families that abandoned them as kids and turn to the bottle or the street, but the hope of the gospel made Hans, abandoned by his birth mother at less than a year old, into a disciple of Christ. He edifies and cares for his fiancee and her absent-father family, making it more stable and loving and God-filled . Oh yeah, he could have reacted with hostility towards the church when they condemned their dancing at that quinceñera they saw on Facebook, but he walked with grace, with maturity, and lived in the truth. This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.
The darkness of the seen pushed Little G into gangs and drugs and prison, but the hope of the gospel has him now pastoring a church in poor neighborhood, leading praise bands having never touched and instrument until just a few years ago. This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.
We can complain about the darkness, we can complain about poverty, comiserate about urban problems, shake our heads at the youth and the education, and make excuses for the lack of movement in communities. Some people use these things to argue that the gospel is not active, is not all it's cracked up to be.
Rather, these things, these dark things, illuminate the gospel. The darkness of the seen can make ever brighter and more beautiful the grace of the unseen if we rehearse the Truth, if we come back to the hope we have in Jesus Christ.
The darkness shows us how much we need the gospel. How much we need our Savior, the One who came for sinners--us, who get caught up in the chaos of the darkness. He stands there with arms outstretched, He the only answer to it. He has overcome this darkness. He has won. And He invites us into this reality, that though it might not be seen like flowering tree nor felt like a drop of rain on our cheek, it is very much real. So when darkness knocks on our door, we look to the cross. We rehearse the truth, and there is true hope found there.
Hope, then, springs from truth rehearsed.
This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.
Thank you God, for being the hope we need and the truth we need to rehearse.
------end------
Thank you, reader/listener, for being a piece of that hope and for sharing these stories with us. It's such a valuable encouragement having you with us.
Strength in Christ,
AJ & Alaina
Appendix:
Something that really fascinates me is the capitalization rate, or the upward mobility index. It goes back to the whole "wanting to see people live passionately" thing, because it's hard to live passionately when you're crippled by lack of opportunity and daily attacked by the myth of scarcity. They've got a statistic for that.
Turns out, America's not as good as the American Dream as we thought. You're actually twice as likely to pull it off in Canada than in the US. But even within America there's a lot of variation on how often poor kids, from the bottom 20% family income bracket, move to the top 20%. You're 3 times as likely to do so in San Francisco or D.C. as you would be in say, Charlotte, NC or Atlanta, GA. The biggest correlating factors that make some communities good at mobility and others not so good are things like family structure stability, income inequality in that community, quality of school systems, social capital/involvement of community organizations, and the segregatedness of the community. So if you're into this kind of stuff there's a bunch of links below that inform, banter, myth-bust, and illustrate some things.
American Upward Mobility Explained With Legos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2XFh_tD2RA
How Poverty Changes the Brain:
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/04/can-brain-science-pull-families-out-of-poverty/523479/
What Does America Do For The Poor Smart Kid? (great podcast(s))
http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/04-carlos-doesnt-remember
Economic Mobility Statistics Explained
http://inequality.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/SOTU_2015_economic-mobility.pdf
BUSTED: America's Poverty Myths (great podcasts)
http://www.wnyc.org/series/busted-americas-poverty-myths
Greetings friends, we bring many thanks and well-wishes from Guatemala, just 2000 miles from here. Personal greetings to those who have been. Thank you's to those who have supported and prayed for us. To those who have cheered on the Toros, given money to buy a meal for street-dweller in Bethania, a desk for the medical clinic, or a needy family down the road. Greetings to those of you who have sent us, and who have let Guatemala borrow us, to serve, live, love, and petition for hope in the true and living God in a context where hope is thin and scarce and tough. Greetings to those who do not know us because we left before you came.
We are AJ and Alaina Westendorp. We have been missionaries living in Guatemala City for the past 1 1/2 years. I am a nurse and works in a small clinin located around the corner from the garbage city dump and a slum, housing over 18,000 individuals who scavenge in the dump for their 'daily bread'. We live in part of the core city of Guatemala in a red zone community known as Bethania, where you can find AJ just about everyday directing the tutoring program, investing and eating with the local drunks, playing with kids in the park, and coaching the Toros Football team. Apart from all that, we help a ministry focused on homeless, drug addict youth living on the streets.
It is hard to share so much in so little space, but we hope to touch on little snapshots of a lot of the stories we walk with in Guatemala City. It's our joy to talk about God's work in Guatemala.
Today we bring a heavy message, based upon the true experiences and conversations we have had with people we know and love. It's heavy, but hang on, cause there IS hope in the end. We don't bring a heavy message with the intent of guilting, saddening, or burdening you, but being transparent, asking real questions and giving you a window into our daily lives and those around us. We want to wrestle today with the gospel, in its goodness and its fullness, and within the contexts that are not so good, are not so full. So I caution you, be not discouraged. Suffering here in this world yearns for, hopes for, a world without suffering in heaven where our citizenship is. Poverty here points to the richness of God. Hopelessness here points towards the hope of the gospel.
Spoken Word: "Paper Mache" by Alaina Westendorp (mp4 link attached)
One of our greatest hopes for our friends in Guatemala is that they might believe and think and act outside the myth of scarcity, and live into the liturgy of abundance. Because in the Bible, God is abundant, and rich, and utterly reliable. But the myth of scarcity, one the serpent loves to recite constantly, convinces people to settle for the status quo, teach them to not dream, or teach them to not seek new opportunities, and keeps us from taking hold of a real purpose for our life. My biggest passion in life is seeing people of all colors and backgrounds and statuses live passionately and enjoy God's love for them. You don't live passionately if you don't have hope and you don't have purpose. And that's why this subject stirs me so completely, like an industrial immersion blender. That's why we teach Bible lessons in the tutoring program about God's purpose for His world and for us--to live for His kingdom and His glory. It's why we make them learn what their homework is about, not just copy it. It's why we have them over for lunch or for Sunday Funday in the pool. It's why we care for people in the clinic beyond just handing out a bottle of meds.
It's why, when a Spanish-speaking group came down from Florida and had an extra day to serve somewhere, we arranged for them to drop into a few classrooms in the nearby school to share about their careers, show what they do, why they like their job, and "open the kids' eyes" a bit of something outside of their daily norm. There was a doctor, a nurse, an architect, a secretary, a pastor, a caregiver, a paint store owner...quite a healthy variety. And most all of the classrooms, it was a positive thing for everyone.
At the end of one of the presentations, the teacher of 4th grade class got up and said in front of the whole class, "Thank you for coming, guests. You just shared with these kids about a bunch of things they'll never be able to achieve." (Did she just say that?) (Awkward). (Shuffle towards exit).
On one hand, even though it aches us to admit it, she's right. This maestra's been around awhile and seen a lot of, well, nothing. Things don't change, don't progress, and the majority of kids in places like Bethania, people don't move up and out. The culture is not upward mobility. The culture is fear. The culture is stress. The culture is lack. And when there's lack, you can't afford to "take a risk," "try a new idea," "be an entrepreneur." The culture is status quo, because just getting by is better than maybe losing what little you do have. You can't apply for that job cause you don't have transportation or education to get there. And you can't get the education because you didn't have good schooling growing up and/or you can't pay the application fee and so it goes. Barriers go hand in hand mightily in the world of poverty.
Upward mobility is what we love about the American Dream. That no matter who you are, where you were born, you've got a (fair) chance to work hard, move up, be successful, and live well. But that isn't reality that most Guatemalans (and Americans, see appendix after this email) live in. Maestra's got a point.
The maestra's comment made a lot of things come together for me. Like why, even though Bethanians will say that what Bethania needs is more businesses for the parents to work in, but when there's a business/start-up class offered nobody comes. Why? Because they don't believe that that kind of opportunity is for someone like them. Or why saving and financial planning just don't click...because all they know is trying to survive through the day. Or why getting a 75% in a class is a good thing, or why failing a grade getting held back happens so often...school is just something to get through. Or maybe even why churches in Bethania, and all over Guatemala, do so little in their own communities, because they, in the myth of scarcity, need to just pay the pastor and the rent...the church is the recipient not the vehicle of blessing the community.
But there's a spiritual side to this mindset too. Where part of this is about "dreaming bigger," it's moreso about hope. The same hopelessness that says, "These kids will never achieve anything better than what's here," also says, "There's nothing better accessible to me/us than my current situation." This hopelessness doesn't allow for the longing or yearning for God's kingdom and goodness and prosperity and love and justice to come like a flood, because all those things are just frankly beyond the scope of that person's reality.
What is seen overpowers the unseen. There's not resources or systems to bring the hope and justice and peace that we want to see, the shalom we want to see.
Hope is so hard to come by, and even hard to hold on to.
When Carlos' swollen knee with its oozing ulcer never gets the chance to heal because he has no money to get to the hospital that may or may not provide care even if he make it there. The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
When 90% of the kids in the garbage dump community schools have lice infested heads, but they're not going to pay the 30cents for community shared shower because getting rice on the table to feed the kids is more important. The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
When the rivers and soil and air are being fed by the pollution of tons of raw trash and sewage and black bus fumes because there is no culture of creation care The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
When there's protests on the highways of the street against racism, against corruption, against unfair land policies, common enough that no one really listens any more because the culture of change falls short even amidst the desperate cries of the voiceless. The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
When Nohemi is asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up? and she looks at you with blank eyes and blank heart because she truly doesn't have an answer. She doesn't know about the essence of dreams, living and growing up in this follower, status quo culture. The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
When a little village keeps with the tradition of incestual rape when a girl turns 12 years old because its tradition and its the norm. The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
When Jose's name goes up on the public shame board in church because he did not pay his full tithe to the church that month, when the church is broken, living in the shadow of the prosperity gospel, legalism, greed, manipulation and a God made in to Santa Claus. The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
When Daniela cannot read or write at age 11 because she's got a learning disability but the schools can't take time for her and the ones that would, she couldn't afford. The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
When Paola didn't go to a doctor for over five years as her volleyball-sized breast mass, leaking fluid and pus, grew and grew because she was told that the witches had cursed her. The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
When Alejandro cant describe to you the beauties of his own country Guatemala--volcanos, ocean, farming, caves, culture-- because he can't afford to travel outside of his cement-stacked neighborhood. The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
When Beatriz watches her daughter being raped just after they had violated her in the dark alleyway, and just a month after her house had burned down, and two months after her husband and brother were shot dead next to her in a drive-by shooting. But she can't leave the violent, gang-ridden shanty hood. There is no money. The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
When kids seem listless or act out in school, dropping behind in their homework and failing grades because back at home they don't sleep for fear of sexual abuse and don't eat because their mom spends it on liqueur. The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
When you have to be sneaky and cautious giving groceries to a needy family because it might increase their risk of extortion by the gangs who watch and threaten. The darkness of the seen overpowers the hopeful unseen.
Pheeewwwww. Are you sad yet? Hold on, there's hope coming.
How are we Christians supposed to talk about hope in the midst of this? When daily needs are not bear being met? How do you present the gospel and the hope of the gospel in a context where there are threats and lies and lack. It's no more than Maslow's hierarchy of needs, folks, but it's wrong and it hurts and hope is hard to come by there, like oxygen up on top Volcano Acatenango.
But Christians need to hope, need to give hope. We want to teach poor people, all people, about Christ and allow them to experience Christ because only He gives reason to hope. The gospel is the same for the comfortable and the tortured. Believing in him demands hope and demands obedience. He makes us citizens of another world, subscribers to another reality, even in the midst of conflict and turmoil he calls us to subscribe to peace and truth and justice and love in this world and the next. Subscribe like Shadrach who said God can save us and even if he doesn't we still won't bow down, because we will still subscribe.
God calls for the unseen reality to overpower the darkness of the seen. And the good news of the gospel is that Jesus HAS already overpowered the darkness of the seen. He calls us to clamor, to lament, to cry out to Him while longing for the restoration of all things and to put our hope in Father who is bringing that restoration.
Lamentations 3:16-33 (read it)
There's a note on our friend's fridge that says, "Hope comes from truth rehearsed." But the converse is also true that, "Hopelessness comes from untruth rehearsed." Folks in poverty (spiritual and/or financial) have lived deeply into the myth of scarcity, been wounded by it, buried by it, and paralyzed by it. They don't look for the myth, it shows up on their front doors as daily as a newspaper and rehearses itself in their lives whether they like it or not. But if the TRUTH is rehearsed, there is hope, and in the worst of times, one can recall said truth, like Jeremiah, who says, "For this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope..."
It's this practice, this truth that caused black slaves to hope and petition for freedom in this world and write soulful songs for freedom in the next, even though the seen farse was enough to make them give up on that hope. (DeepRiver, my home is over Jorda, Deep River, Lord, I want to cross over into campground).
It's the same truth that caused my Dutch ancestors to hope for a place to worship freely and to make a new settlement in Michigan. It's that truth that caused Maggie Hollis to push for multi-cultural relationships and churches and prayer while facing plenty of walls. The truth that caused the Dr. Reverend Denise Kingdom-Grier to embrace instead of hate (she's a fiery one you know). The truth that caused Jay and Laura VanGronigen to set up camp on 18th street and to take his aging mother in.
The truth that brought hope to Job, who wrote, in his immense suffering,
25 I know that my redeemer[c] lives,
and that in the end he will stand on the earth.[d]
26 And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet[e] in[f] my flesh I will see God;
27 I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!
We know and love what this truth does and changes, so we try to rehearse truth alongside folks in Guatemala, that hope might spring up as God makes it grow.
Many in Guatemala don't have the opportunity to learn that principle of "dreaming big." Many don't know much about the world (real or fantastical) outside of their little neighborhood. There's not travel, there's not books, there's not story-telling, there's not imagination. And that bothers our American-Dream-saturated realities in one sense, but it also bothers our spirits. Cause it's OK, and sometimes better if you don't "climb the ladder" per se, but it's not OK if you don't hope, or you don't have the capacity to hope. And so we'll keep working towards this end. The maestra might be right in a lot of ways, but even if the kids don't achieve a life much bigger than their parents', if they can live in hope that springs out of rehearsed truth of God's love and God's salvation, they will live in true abundance.
How true is it, what the maestra said? The seen "truth", the apparent one, the daily newspaper one, has some strong evidence. But the unseen truth tells another story and that's what we'll live into, wherever we are. Together, always together.
But there are indeed stories of hope, friends.
The darkness of the seen and the myth of scarcity can make people live and think day to day, but God provides day to day too, his compassions are new every morning. There is darkness and reasons not to hope all around us in Guatemala, but there is light. There is hope. Of course there is, because there is God. This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.
The darkness of the seen can make people worry about debts that they owe, but the hope of the gospel for Celestino means he doesn't worry about his debts at night anymore, and he wakes up with joy. He doesn't pour out his meager earnings at the liquor store. He's moving on. This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.
The darkness of the seen can make people curse the families that abandoned them as kids and turn to the bottle or the street, but the hope of the gospel made Hans, abandoned by his birth mother at less than a year old, into a disciple of Christ. He edifies and cares for his fiancee and her absent-father family, making it more stable and loving and God-filled . Oh yeah, he could have reacted with hostility towards the church when they condemned their dancing at that quinceñera they saw on Facebook, but he walked with grace, with maturity, and lived in the truth. This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.
The darkness of the seen pushed Little G into gangs and drugs and prison, but the hope of the gospel has him now pastoring a church in poor neighborhood, leading praise bands having never touched and instrument until just a few years ago. This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.
We can complain about the darkness, we can complain about poverty, comiserate about urban problems, shake our heads at the youth and the education, and make excuses for the lack of movement in communities. Some people use these things to argue that the gospel is not active, is not all it's cracked up to be.
Rather, these things, these dark things, illuminate the gospel. The darkness of the seen can make ever brighter and more beautiful the grace of the unseen if we rehearse the Truth, if we come back to the hope we have in Jesus Christ.
The darkness shows us how much we need the gospel. How much we need our Savior, the One who came for sinners--us, who get caught up in the chaos of the darkness. He stands there with arms outstretched, He the only answer to it. He has overcome this darkness. He has won. And He invites us into this reality, that though it might not be seen like flowering tree nor felt like a drop of rain on our cheek, it is very much real. So when darkness knocks on our door, we look to the cross. We rehearse the truth, and there is true hope found there.
Hope, then, springs from truth rehearsed.
This I call to mind, and therefore I have hope.
Thank you God, for being the hope we need and the truth we need to rehearse.
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Thank you, reader/listener, for being a piece of that hope and for sharing these stories with us. It's such a valuable encouragement having you with us.
Strength in Christ,
AJ & Alaina
Appendix:
Something that really fascinates me is the capitalization rate, or the upward mobility index. It goes back to the whole "wanting to see people live passionately" thing, because it's hard to live passionately when you're crippled by lack of opportunity and daily attacked by the myth of scarcity. They've got a statistic for that.
Turns out, America's not as good as the American Dream as we thought. You're actually twice as likely to pull it off in Canada than in the US. But even within America there's a lot of variation on how often poor kids, from the bottom 20% family income bracket, move to the top 20%. You're 3 times as likely to do so in San Francisco or D.C. as you would be in say, Charlotte, NC or Atlanta, GA. The biggest correlating factors that make some communities good at mobility and others not so good are things like family structure stability, income inequality in that community, quality of school systems, social capital/involvement of community organizations, and the segregatedness of the community. So if you're into this kind of stuff there's a bunch of links below that inform, banter, myth-bust, and illustrate some things.
American Upward Mobility Explained With Legos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2XFh_tD2RA
How Poverty Changes the Brain:
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/04/can-brain-science-pull-families-out-of-poverty/523479/
What Does America Do For The Poor Smart Kid? (great podcast(s))
http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/04-carlos-doesnt-remember
Economic Mobility Statistics Explained
http://inequality.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/SOTU_2015_economic-mobility.pdf
BUSTED: America's Poverty Myths (great podcasts)
http://www.wnyc.org/series/busted-americas-poverty-myths