Standby…. site change coming

We’re in the process of changing over domain names, moving old content, & updating a few things on the site.   We’ll be syncing-up the site with our new name, ACACIA, in the coming days.  As such, we may not have posts up for a few days, so be patient.  Looking forward to the switch…. coming soon!!

Haiti: Horror & Hope

Two gripping photos captured for me the weight of the situation in Haiti.  One, shows a woman mourning openly in the street with bodies layed out feet from her.  The second, shows a different woman looking up at a destroyed church building…  almost looking for any hope in the aftermath.   These are pictures you can literally FEEL.    Last, at the bottom, a quick video shows a mini-miracle in the rescue operations.  A young boy and his sister were lifted out of the rubble yesterday after a FULL WEEK— alive & okay.  The smile from the boy when he’s finally pulled out to ground level is amazing!  Can you even imagine?

Community & the Great Commandment

Religion and devout feelings are useless unless they are expressed in action and in truth, that is, in real community. (1 John 3:17–18) Jesus says, Love God! And the other command is exactly the same: Love your neighbor! There is no true love to God if it is not a true love to our fellow human being, and vice versa. (Matt. 22:36–39) This has been our experience: Community is possible through the Spirit that comes to us from God. It is when this Spirit fills us that there is true love or our neighbor and full community among us.”  -EBERHARD ARNOLD / September 1935

Following Jesus’ call places us on a direct trajectory towards one another.  This is the church–  a people, called out & called together, in order to witness and realize God’s love together.  But this isn’t a simple process.  We return again and again to figure it out in the messiness of life together.  We’ll gather as Acacia the next few weeks to explore this identity together.  If you’re around, we meet @ 7PM in the GP Underground @ WBCC!  Below, a reflection on some of the scriptures that speak on the church:

Body of Christ

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Different Responses to Haiti

A few interesting responses to the Haiti Earthquake….  If you didn’t hear about the unfortunate words of Pat Robertson (700 Club Host), he decided to speak out about how the earthquake in Haiti was likely a move by God due to the Haitian peoples pact with the devil.  Yes, you read right.  Citing an apocryphal story about the Haitian break from France, (in which the Haitian rebels made a pact with the spirit of the land and drank blood in exchange for freedom), the statement was poorly timed at best and a tragically gross representation of Christ-followers at worst. (more on the Robertson story here)  Donald Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz & A Million Miles A Thousand Years) gave a thoughtful response to the Robertson comments on his blog.

It becomes apparent that offering opinion or insight into something like Haiti is an incredibly hard task.  This is no different for people of faith.  Shauna Gauthier described trying to engage the topic with her young girls on her blog.  The bottom line: no easy task.  At times, people of faith settle for oversimplification, prejudice, or just easy answers in order to remain “people with all the answers”.  But in some ways, this kills the act of faith.  And it also overcomes humility.  Trusting God in Haiti is certainly a mystery.  And anyone who hasn’t said, “Why God, why?” this week is simply fooling themselves.

Haiti: Aid, Poverty & Reaching Out

My mind has been consistently on the news headlines in Haiti this last week.  Its been hard to avoid both praying and shaking my head at the situation.  We live in a very visual culture… so if you’ve only read or heard a the news there, I’d encourage you to look at this photo journal from cnn.com to gain a little perspective on the scope of the devastation.  One of the more interesting things I read on the Haiti earthquake was written by David Brooks in the NY Times.  He starts his article with this crazy fact: On Oct. 17, 1989, a major earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 struck the Bay Area in Northern California. Sixty-three people were killed. This week, a major earthquake, also measuring a magnitude of 7.0, struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The Red Cross estimates that between 45,000 and 50,000 people have died.

On Break!

Hope you all had a good end to Advent & Christmas.  And we hope you have a wonderful New Year!  We’re taking a brief winter break from the blog, but we’re planning on some changes and lots of new material going into 2010!  Check back Week 2 of January.  For those in town, no group this Thursday (New Year’s Eve), but we will be hanging Sunday night (12/3) for soccer & dinner starting @ 6PM in the gym.  Regular group on January 7th.  See you soon!

Peru Christmas Part 3: Possible For All of Us

All this week, we are sharing reflections & pictures from the team that just returned from Lima, Peru.  Their journey was part of an effort our community made to share gifts & hope with a community we’ve worked closely with for seven years.  After raising nearly $7000 between our group and others @ WBCC, we were able to buy Christmas gifts for kids in Lima, Pachacutec, and Iquitos.  We also bought two brand new moto-taxis as sources of income and employment for the church and those they reach-out to.  Finally, we completed funding several smaller infrastructure projects that weren’t yet finished at El Shaddai.

POSSIBLE FOR ALL OF US                                      Katie Cooper

I don’t think I knew what Peru would become in my life the first time that I went. I knew that I would enjoy it since I had done similar trips with the church in Mexico, but it has taken on a role in my life that I may not have anticipated early on. Now that’s not to say that every time I’m there I’m totally comfortable and at ease, or that I love every minute, because I don’t think that is it at all. But I fit in some way. I’m not always totally comfortable in my life here at home either, nor do I love every minute, but I have a role and a place here. There are obvious differences between the two, since my roots here have developed with friends and family for the twenty-four years of my life. Still I can’t help but feel that the bond that continues to grow with our friends at El Shaddai, this relationship we have worked for, hasn’t happened by accident. That even though I didn’t know what Peru would become, God obviously did. He must have had a plan for it. And for the record,

Peru Christmas Part 2: Finding Love in Lima

All this week, we are sharing reflections & pictures from the team that just returned from Lima, Peru.  Their journey was part of an effort our community made to share gifts & hope with a community we’ve worked closely with for seven years.  After raising nearly $7000 between our group and others @ WBCC, we were able to buy Christmas gifts for kids in Lima, Pachacutec, and Iquitos.  We also bought two brand new moto-taxis as sources of income and employment for the church and those they reach-out to.  Finally, we completed funding several smaller infrastructure projects that weren’t yet finished at El Shaddai.

FINDING LOVE IN LIMA                     Shaya Lawrence

As I reflect on this last trip to Peru, and on the Advent season I have noticed a common theme this year for me. I realize it is an often talked about theme, however it is one that to me is the most mysterious, most difficult to truly grasp, and one in which will take the rest of my life to seek and still may never comprehend even a little of what it is. The theme is Love. I have always truly struggled with this word/feeling/action contemplating; what does it mean to Love?

Peru Christmas Part 1: The Measure of Beauty

All this week, we are sharing reflections & pictures from the team that just returned from Lima, Peru.  Their journey was part of an effort our community made to share gifts & hope with a community we’ve worked closely with for seven years.  After raising nearly $7000 between our group and others @ WBCC, we were able to buy Christmas gifts for kids in Lima, Pachacutec, and Iquitos.  We also bought two brand new moto-taxis as sources of income and employment for the church and those they reach-out to.  Finally, we completed funding several smaller infrastructure projects that weren’t yet finished at El Shaddai.

THE MEASURE OF BEAUTY                                Cassie Nason

A dozen smiling Peruvian faces greeted us in the airport terminal in Lima…at 1 a.m.   I was the only member of our group who had not been to Peru before, and therefore hadn’t experienced the midnight greeting from Pastor Elsa and her varied crew of neighborhood kids and family.  It was also these smiling faces that were my last memory of Lima after our three-day whirlwind tour.   And I think there is only one word for these people I met there.   Beautiful.

Before I was able to absorb the beauty of the people I met in Peru, it’s important to relay to you my first impressions.  First of all,

embryo of hope

Check back often this week as we share details on our Christmas project in Peru from those who were able to go!  For now, enjoy this beautiful post by Cheryl Lawrie of http://holdthisspace.org.au/ that she wrote ahead of a visit to a prison in the midst of advent.  A call to hope!

there are few things more fragile
than an embryo of hope

given its chance of life only by those who say ‘yes’
to its promise

like the prophets who said yes to God’s urging
Mary who said yes to an angel
and Joseph who said yes to his Mary

like the people of faith through all of time
who have said yes to the promise of love

and as we sit by the side of our wall
- whatever that wall might be –
surrounded by the rubble and rubbish
of broken dreams and lives

what faith does it take to imagine
an embryo of hope
being brought to life here?

what ‘yes’ are you able to say
for it to be born in our world?