InnerChange Exploration

An InnerChange (a Church Resource Ministries order among the poor) site is close to becoming a reality in South Africa. Becoming part of InnerChange has been my dream for the past few years now. The leadership of the organization is prayerfully considering having a site in South Africa. The area that InnerChange is considering moving into is the township of Soshanguve, where NieuCommunities South Africa has been involved in various ministries for the past 3 years.

The founder of InnerChange, John Hayes, recently came with his family to South Africa to help lead an exploration in Soshanguve. Before InnerChange moves into a neighborhood, a team of its members do an exploration of the area that leads to a prayerful discernment of how InnerChange could be involved in the community and which neighborhood(s) its members would live in.

The exploration team was enriched by the presence of John and Deanna Hayes accompanied by their two daughters Savannah and Alexandra, Annie Kirke from England, Hayden Sewall from InnerChange Cambodia, and NieuCommunities South Africa staff and apprentices. Unlike a normal InnerChange exploration that takes six to eight weeks, ours was done in 10 days.

For the first two days, we mapped out the human assets as well as the different places NieuCommunities South Africa have been involved in Soshanguve for the past three years. We also spent a lot of time praying and asking for God’s leading in our exploration. On the third day, we moved into Soshanguve to stay with families we are involved with. During our exploration, we met with different key people in the community to hear their vision for the community and to introduce InnerChange to them. Our host families and the people we met with were very excited with the idea of having InnerChange in their community. We did some research about the history of Soshanguve as related to individuals. We took an intentional look at the housing development in the community. We also checked on businesses to see how they are developing and to reflect on what still needs to happen, especially in regard to giving a second chance to people that might have made poor decisions in life at some point. We did not miss out on hearing people’s stories.

This experience was life giving to me. One day I was going to join my small group that was checking out the local businesses in the community. I walked by some street vendors and said hello to them as I was passing. They stopped me and asked if I was looking for my White friends. I said yes and they showed me where my friends were. As we were talking, they realized that I wasn’t a local. They then told me that my friends stopped by their place and were chatting with them until 10 minutes before I arrived. They said how uncommon it was for them to see White people hanging out in the community. They took time to tell me the red and green districts of the area. This interaction with the guys reminded me how important it is to know as many people as possible in the community I live in. Crime and violence may be an issue in Soshanguve, but the community will always protect their loved neighbors.

Through this exploration God confirmed to the team that He wants InnerChange to be present in Soshanguve. My family and I want to be part of InnerChange in Soshanguve, and will soon start to transition out of NieuCommunities and enter into InnerChange. John and Deanna Hayes have invited my wife Petunia and me to be part of the InnerChange apprenticeship program, starting from September 26, 2007. I will continue as a NieuCommunities staff member until the end of this year.

I request your prayers during this time in our family’s life. Petunia and I will need a lot of discernment for the next steps. We are still prayerfully considering which area of Soshanguve God wants us to live in, what kind of simple life would be healthy for our family, and when we are going to relocate to Soshanguve. We would appreciate your prayers during this time of discernment.

-Luc

The Beloved

I was recently having a conversation with Larry about the spiritual disciplines that we are practicing as a part of our NieuCommunities apprenticeship. I was telling him about how God was using the disciplines to shape my character, and how, in my opinion, character formation (becoming more like Christ) was the goal of spiritual disciplines. Seemed like a thought that would be hard to find fault with. Then came Larry’s response. A response, I might add, that has had me thinking ever since.

Larry is mature and, therefore, his response was gentle and full of love. It went something like, “Bryan, I just want to remind you that the disciplines are first and foremost for intimacy with Christ. Our goal is not simply for character change, or utilitarian in nature, but rather the disciplines are to help us fall more passionately in love with Jesus.” He went on to add that the pleasure I have in His eyes is not based on, or limited to, what I accomplish or how my character is conformed to His, but just on His unconditional love towards me.

Okay, I know I’m talking about Christianity 101, one of the simple, beautiful truths of our faith. Am I just slow or are there others of you, who struggle with truly knowing and living life daily like the Creator Of All Things loves you just because He wants to?

“I will call those who were not ‘My people, My people,’ And her who was not beloved, beloved.” (Romans 9:25)

Henri Nouwen, in the book Spiritual Direction, says, ‘God’s words “You are my Beloved” reveal the most intimate truth about all human beings… The ultimate spiritual temptation is to doubt this fundamental truth about ourselves and trust in alternative identities’ (p. 28). He goes on to say that we try to answer the question “Who am I?” with things such as “I am what I do” or “I am what other people say about me” or “I am what I have.”

Nouwen continues, ‘From the moment we claim the truth of being the Beloved, we are faced with the call to become who we are. Becoming the Beloved is the great spiritual journey we have to make…Becoming the Beloved means letting the truth of our Belovedness become enfleshed in everything we think, say, or do. It entails a long and painful process of appropriation or, better, incarnation. And this process requires the regular practice of prayer…I have come to define prayer as listening to that voice – to the one who calls you the Beloved’ (p. 33-34).

Slowly but surely this truth is being worked into the very fabric of my being. There are days when I want to doubt, but as I take the time to listen I hear the whisper of the one who calls me Beloved. This is the voice of the One who loves me just because He wants to.

It’s Quite Simple, Really

  There’s a certain abandon about children, especially under a certain age.  There’s a span in a child’s life that shows off all the more their wild imaginations, their concept of fairness, their acceptance of others, their creativity and how incredibly simple their perspectives on life are.  This is not a new concept to me, but it’s been a while since I’ve let these realities sink in.

Last week, at Home of Joy, as I sat with the younger children in one of the bedrooms with 5 pairs of hands mangling my hair into some fabulous creation  and later, while I was outside kicking the ball around with the older kids, a wave washed over me.  It was a wave of realizing that, to them, it didn’t matter what I’d done that day, whether I laughed or cried, hurt or was hurt, seen a success or failure.  Even if they’d known what I’d walked through that day, in their eyes, none of it mattered.  In all of this, I found myself becoming a kid again, which, as most of you know is not too difficult for me.   I saw my cares washed away by their acceptance and genuine, unconditional love for me.

Over this last posture of CONTENDING, and throughout other parts of the year, we’ve talked quite a bit about “The Kingdom,” what it encompasses, how we see it, and how God desires us to jump into that ever-swinging jumprope (to make the image a little more complex, it’s Double Dutch  that is God’s Kingdom.  So often, we choose to take the stance of standing on the sidelines, living in our own world.  Sometimes we see ourselves wanting to jump into those swinging ropes with the others, but are sometimes too afraid of what it will look like to others, what if I mess up, what it will mean, how it will change me and the ever popular question, can I even do it?  So many conditions and too much reasoning.  Now having explained a little what some of our perspectives might be in this scenario, try looking at it through the eyes of an active, no inhibitions, curious and wondering 6 year-old.  Does it change how you might approach or accept God’s invitation to be apart of His ever-swinging Kingdom?:)  I would hope that it would. 

                                                                                          

Two boys that I have come to love very dearly at the Home of Joy are a 6 & 7 year-old incredibly wild and rarely sedate band of brothers who, to me, exemplify what it means to approach the Kingdom of God through the eyes of a child.  These two brothers, abandoned in a house fire until a neighbor came to their rescue, blow me away by their vivacious appetite to just want to be apart of everything around them and their spark for life astonishes me.  I am compelled to ask myself why?  Yes, they are young and have not had much of an encounter with the outside world that sometimes prematurely imprints a harsh, “dog-eat-dog world” frame of mind, but then, it hit me.   

                                                                                                          

Matthew 18:3
And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 19:14
Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

Matthew 21:16
“Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him. “Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read, ” ‘From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise’ ?”

I believe that sometimes, we get so caught up in the world and life of what it means to be an adult.  With certain images or reputations that we sometimes feel we have to uphold, people to impress, and a general perspective that sometimes says I’ve got a schedule to maintain and there’s no time for make believe.  It’s all about me and my time.  How often have we found ourselves in this place?  I know that I have, more often than I would like.  Stopping at this realization, I have to ask myself, what am I missing out on by allowing myself to be in this position of business, schedule and a general path that suggests I’ve got some rather large blinders on?        

These verses we’ve read and heard so many times, but as a simple reminder, read them again and let them soak in.  Without even realizing, these two boys and many of the other children I work with see life around them as readily available opportunities and rarely are questions asked or conditions made.  Their eyes and heart are the eyes and the heart of Christ.  The world they see from their eyes, is the Kingdom and they don’t hesitate to be apart of it.

From time to time, try to view the Kingdom from the perspective of a child and don’t hesitate to jump into the full swing of the ropes that appear to be flying every which way.  Yes, you may trip and fall and scrape your knee, and others may laugh at you, but that’s alright.  The Father that created the entire Universe is there to patch up the scratch on your knee.  HE DOES THIS FOR YOU, HIS BELOVED, HIS CHILD WHOM HE LOVES…   AND SENDS YOU BACK OUT TO PLAY.   :)

Moving beyond sin and blame

We’ve been reading The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard during our current learning posture. The chapters we’ve read the past few weeks have been so rich and meaningful for me in connecting with the reality in which I currently find myself. Willard talks about how in the Beatitudes, Jesus proclaims the availability of His Kingdom to everyone, even those who are in the midst of brokenness, suffering, despair. He offers a few descriptions of the people who might make this list in our world today:

“Then there are the ’seriously’ crushed ones: the flunk-outs and drop-outs and burned-outs. The broke and broken. The drug heads and the divorced. The HIV-positive and herpes-ridden. The brain-damaged, the incurably ill. The barren and the pregnant-too-many-times or at the wrong time. The overemployed, the underemployed, the unemployed. The unemployable. The swindled, the shoved aside, the replaced…” (Willard, p. 140)

Back in California, every few weeks I would spend an afternoon or evening volunteering at a home for teen moms (or “unwed mothers”) in East Palo Alto. I once talked about this ministry with a friend who was looking for places she could serve. She said she couldn’t ever work with girls like that; that they were in that situation due to their own poor choices, and she wouldn’t have patience for that kind of thing.

So many people would say the same of the kinds of people on Dallas Willard’s list: It’s their own fault, really. It’s because of their sin, their mistakes, or their poor choices that they are where they are. While talking to my friend about her impatience with the teen moms I worked with, I remember feeling saddened by her attitude toward them, but also feeling just a little self-satisfied, a little more “Christian.” Lately I’ve realized that the same type of blaming attitude has long been present in my own heart, just in different ways.

John chapter 9 recounts a story of Jesus healing a man who had been blind since birth. The disciples come to Jesus with a similar question of where to place the blame:

His disciples asked him: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” (John 9:1-3)

Before coming to South Africa, when I heard of a person who had AIDS, my first question was how they got the disease. My thoughts echoed the words of the disciples in this story: Was it their sin, or the sin of another? Is it their fault, or is it someone else’s? What Jesus does in this story is to shift the focus away from the question of sin and blame. He simply heals the man, declaring that the work of God will be displayed in this man’s life.

Since being here I’ve encountered more and more people–friends–who have AIDS. And I’ve realized that my recurring question of “how did this person get AIDS?” has ceased to be relevant. However they contracted HIV, whatever the reason behind it, that’s not the biggest issue. It’s not a matter of finding out whose fault it is. It’s a matter of discovering how I can communicate the good news of the kingdom of God, even in the face of such a disease.

“Jesus offers to all such people as these the present blessedness of the present kingdom–regardless of circumstances. The condition of life sought for by human beings through the ages is attained in the quietly transforming friendship of Jesus.” (Willard, p. 140)

It’s not ignoring their present reality. AIDS isn’t something that goes away. But it is something God can walk through with them. And it’s something I can walk through with them, offering whatever I can of myself.

“You are really walking in the good news of the kingdom if you can go with confidence to any of the hopeless people around you and effortlessly convey assurance that they can now enter a blessed life with God.” (p. 138)

What the “hopeless” need to hear is that there is hope, even for them. Though there are things that won’t be fulfilled until heaven, the “kingdom reality” that God promises us is available now.

Ma Ntabiseng, widowed by AIDS. Martha, whose life was claimed by AIDS, leaving behind four children. Doris, Valrey and her daughter Motlope…all living with the disease, managing it as best they can, and at the same time, caring for those around them. How can I proclaim the kingdom of God to such as these? What does the Kingdom look like for them? What does that blessed life look like?