Jesus In a Minivan (And Other Unlikely Places to find a King)

I ran to the window and peered through the lace curtains to watch Jesus drive away in his minivan, "TX" license plates fading from view.

Only moments before he had stood at the end of the neighbor's driveway as his wife sorted through piles of pink and lavender baby clothes.  In just a flash of time, a caramel-skinned child, ran past him, her arms flung back in the delight of her dash down the driveway towards the freedom of the street.  He turned to follow her.

Fright lodged in my throat as I noticed the speeding car coming down the road.  Parked along the curb, the man's minivan blocked his view of the on-coming vehicle, but at the last minute he spotted it, turned, sprinted, and snatched his daughter from the street.

His face beamed.

He scooped her up high, laughing, tossing her, delighting in his prize, and she returned his joy with her own giggles and a toss of her black hair, unaware of the failed snatch of death just beyond her next footstep.  Her daddy did not scold or shame, but carried her in his proud arms, eyes twinkling with triumph.  He buckled her into her car seat and they were gone, but my heart was full of gratitude for what God had allowed me to witness.  Just like the Daddy, Jesus snatched us from peril and rejoiced in having done so!  I can imagine how his eyes twinkle and dance in the triumph of moment.

Jesus shows up in the most unexpected places, such as as the neighbor's garage sale last summer.  And tonight as the clock nears midnight, I am awaiting the celebration of Christmas Day when we commemorate the birth of our Savior in an unlikely time and place.

Living here in Haiti I have a great imagination for what it could have been like for Jesus to have been born to poor, common, rural folks.  No fanfare, no royal clothes or decrees, perhaps just a simple stick shelter off the side of the house with a laboring woman and a common birth.  I can imagine the cows and goats had been walked home for the evening and were standing nearby lending warmth and scent to the scene.  And here the Savior of the world quietly enters into humanity; Emanuel - God With Us.  He identifies with folks who are nobody to the world, from an unimportant tribe, and who exist in the lower strata of society, in order to let us know what is most important to him and that his values are going to look different than what we might expect.

I am pierced with the realization that I am frequently looking in the wrong places for the Christ.  I am more comfortable thinking about the bright star and angel chorus than the feeding trough and strips of cloth.  I think I would have checked out the palace first, just as the wise men from the East did in their search for the one prophesied about.  I am more comfortable thanking God for the extensive "blessings" in my life rather than thinking about how I might change my list of "needs" to better appropriate resources to those who live "without".

It might be a week early for resolutions but during this next year, I want to be on the watch for Jesus.  Where will I see and experience his moving in and around my life?  Will Jesus show up in an outdated minivan?  On the back of a ragged horse or a road-weary moto?  And in which ways will I grow in being able to anticipate where he might be found?

If you'd be willing to pray for me, please pray that God would unsettle my clinging to what is comfortable and set me free to see him and follow him wherever he leads in this Haiti adventure.

Joyful Waiting

When I was little, we lived in southern Ontario, far from grandparents in MN.  Every other year my Grandpa and Grandma Breems would come to visit at Christmas.  There was so much excitement for their arrival.  We knew when they came there would hugs through thick, cold, winter coats, kisses and smiles, Christmas presents handed in to place under the tree and a big box of groceries to treat the family with exotic items like Bugles, orange jell-o, and Honeycomb cereal -- things out of budget for my parent's income at the time.

I would know ahead of time they were coming and as the weeks of advent passed and the Christmas tree was placed in it's stand and brightly strung, Christmas carols were sung in church and at programs, snow piled high, and the frost grew on the windows, I waited.  I waited in eager anticipation for their coming.  Every day I would ask how many more days before they arrived, and time seemed so slow.  I don't think I ever doubted they would come.  My parents said they were coming and I believed that, but the waiting felt like long-suffering in child time.

And then the day would arrive.  My mom would say, "they'll be here in the morning" and then, "in four hours, and then "2" and then "any time now", and then I would flop across the arm chair near the living room windows or sit by the heat register in front of the lower panes and press my nose into the frost, perhaps scrape a patch free to see through or clear it with my warm breath before watching the crystals re-form around the open circle.  "How much longer…."
"Any time now…."

A car would come to the corner and look as if they might proceed down our dead end block, and then turn, or proceed and turn too early in a neighbors driveway.  A sparrow would land in the bare bushes in front of the house hopping from branch to branch looking for berries and then dash away looking elsewhere.  A dog might lope across the yard leaving light tracks in the deepening snow and then a sudden lightness would ignite the top of my stomach, a thrill to shorten my breath and someone would yell out, "they're here! Grandpa and Grandma are here!!!"  And the rush to the entry to be the first to open the door, the first to yell out in pure joy, the first to hug tight and see Grandma's blue eyes glisten with happy tears and Grandpa's gentle smile.  All the waiting gone in a flash and only joy and delight in seeing one so longed for.  My stomach tightens with the remembrance of all of those feelings so long ago!

"Presentation of Jesus" by Ron DiCianni

In church this morning Pastor Dan preached about Simeon and Anna and how they waited to meet the promised Messiah.  In Luke Chapter 2 the Bible tells us that Simeon was a pretty great guy, and he had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not die until he had seen the Christ.  We don't know how long he waited or how many times a day he dropped by the temple to check, but we do know he had been waiting a long time and could very well have been an old man.  So the chapter goes on to say that moved by the Spirit he goes into the temple courts and there he sees Jesus being presented by his parents.  He literally runs over there, takes the baby in his arms, shouts out a praise to God and prophesies blessing over his parents.  Jesus' parents "marveled"!

Can you imagine being told by God that you are waiting for the Messiah to come.  Unlike my grandparents visits, Simeon didn't even know when that time would be, but he waited, eagerly, nonetheless.  Imagine the day when he feels that stirring inside, he rushes to the temple searching past robed men and animals and there he catches a glimpse of the baby.  His heart confirms what his eyes are seeing and in a great dash he bursts out into joy, thanking God right out loud, runs over to the new family like he has known them forever, and snatches up the prize he has so waited for.  (How great would that moment have been!  (How freaked out would Jesus' parents have been?  But there was going to be more "out-of-the-ordinary being Jesus' parents…)

"Saint Simeon Nunc Dimittis" by André Durand

I think all of us who have longed or waited for something good can also can imagine the sweetness of that instant joy.  And so each year we practice that ritual of waiting and joy, waiting to celebrate Jesus' birth all over again.  At least I hope we do.  I hope it does not get squashed out by all the extra frivolity we have attached to his simple arrival.  I hope there is some space left for the simple expression of the heart where there is excitement and marveling at his gentle coming, a place where it feels our heart might not be able to take one more moment of anticipation and then the overwhelming JOY of his having come can overwhelm us.

We get to experience this kind of wait and joy cycle in many areas of our life.  Sometimes, the waiting part seems so very long.  There are days in our work here in Haiti, I wonder if the joy will ever follow the waiting.  When will the ache of hunger be released?  When will the grind of poverty be lightened?  So I wait with anticipation with all of creation and the people around me; I wait for joy.  And then I catch just a glimpse, as if through the crowd I see joy in the hearts of those who long for justice, I see praise in those who are bent low… and I wait for the moment of fullness, for ALL the joy to be released.

  All this, in turn, is jut a small practice of the greater wait we have for Jesus' return to reclaim all of creation!  In the Bible we are told we don't know the exact time he will return, only that he will and that it will be "soon".  And as I strain for just a glimpse because I know he is just a few steps away…

 So I'm putting my tree up, going to programs, celebrating his return, and waiting very near the window.  I might even scratch in the frost and feel the deep excitement in my breath as a wait for his return during this season of advent waiting… Maranatha (Christ come quickly)!

Jesus in the Pharmacy

I saw Jesus today.  I was on my way over to the main campus to bring back some meds we didn't use.  I walked into the pharmacy and there, kneeling on the floor washing and bandaging a man’s fungal feet, was Rachel.  I tried to look away before seeing any nastiness, but realized quickly the washing and dirty work had already been done.  If Rachel held distaste for her task her face did not belie it.  Instead, she calmly wound gauze between toes filled with healing cream and went on with conversation as if being knee-bent on a gritty tile floor holding a stranger’s rotting toes was nothing out of the ordinary.

A few weeks ago it might have been different.  A few weeks ago during a conversation about nursing at COTP the same young woman had worried eyes as she admitted feeling inadequate and unsure about how to be useful with a limited skill set.  Rachel graduated from nursing school just months ago, and instead of settling into a predictable 3-11 shift in OB or serving up tidy med cups at the nursing home, she said yes to an adventure outside her comfort zone.  Before any nurse friends out there get too upset, I know there are more difficult aspects of nursing care than "predictable shifts" and "med cups", but those things fall within the expected course after graduation.  Starting a volunteer position in a 3rd world country with no real job description, and an expectation to work outside your skill set, is not.  Few nurses in the States ever have the expectation of having to diagnose and treat Typhoid, be the only help for a woman laboring to birth a baby in the back of a speeding pick-up, stitch up a motorcycle accident victim brought to the front gate, or tell a woman and her children she is likely dying of cancer and there is nothing we can do to help.  Our nurses do these kinds of things because they are there and are the only hope in those moments, but those are not moments they were trained for.

It was not really what she had come for -- this foot care thing.  She had come with more experienced nurses, with more experienced supervision, with hopes of structured med routines and baby care, and safety, but as often happens in life, plans did not go as expected and she found herself with more responsibility than she was up for.  She didn’t know if she could handle it.

And then Jesus stopped by.  He scooped up a big ‘ole ladle of grace with an extra pinch of peace and slopped it all over her soul – spirit food if ever there was any!  And she gobbled it up, because in this land of poverty -- of hungry eyes and too thin arms, where the rawness of the poor presses in so closely, she was hungry.  

I talked with her a few days ago when she was overseeing blood draws and setting up meds for our baby house kids and asked how she was doing.  The more experienced nurse she had come with had to leave unexpectedly to be bedside of someone she loved who was nearing death, and the supervisor she had hoped to work under was gone on a visit stateside.  Plan A had slipped away like a piece of paper, snatched by the wind and tossed just out of reach.  

She said she was surprisingly calm.  She thought it was grace.  And I think so, too.  The kind of grace that covers you when you don’t know much about babies and are not even sure you adore them, but have to care for a crying one all night.  Its the kind of grace that allows you to float over personal inadequacies when in reality you should be drowning.  The grace that carries a heavy special need boy all over Milot Hospital in search of x-rays and answers, long after your arms ache from fatigue and your back tightens with the strain.  Or the kind of grace that fills a heart with joy for service even with a stranger’s stinky feet.

Rachel Peterson - short- term volunteer nurse

Rachel is reminding me again about allowing God to work when we don’t have it all together.  Don’t get me wrong; she’s a competent nurse and her confidence adds to her beauty, but we don’t always feel like we have it all together and God doesn’t need us to.  I am trying to remember he chooses to use us in our brokenness because that is where his glory shines.  He doesn’t need me to be prepped and polished; he needs me to be teachable.  He might even use me if I’m not, by his grace.  

As I leave the pharmacy, I know Rachel has no idea how God has used her moment of service to teach me how to be used.  She just joyfully serving in the moment he has given her.  And as I walk back out into the bright Haitian sun I pray,

"God, thank you for bringing me to this place, with these people, to help teach my heart to trust yours!  Ready me to be used even when I don't think I have what it takes, keep my spirit soft, and let me see service in simple moments of caring for those you love."  Amen.