Thursday, November 30, 2006

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Has it only been a few days since I arrived here to work? This week has contained so many turns and switchbacks that I can hardly keep up. It seems that Judy Bultmann, the site director here at Bethel Lutheran Disaster Relief has been praying for a pastor for the disaster relief ministry. When I was here in June, I fell in love with this ministry and commented to Judy that if I didn't find a call when I returned to California I could come back to Biloxi where at least there would be a bed and three meals a day. "Oh, don't tell me that, I'll be praying you don't get a call," was her reply. She swears that she did not pray that I would not get a call in Southern California, but instead that a pastor would be available for a call to this ministry. Well, here I am.

It seems that my duties will entail things like working with caseworkers to give out grants, gather the resources and coordinate with caseworkers for special events like the Santa Shop in which parents can come and shop for their families from donated toys and other gifts. Much of my work will pastoral work for the staff and long term volunteers as well as being available as chaplain in the on-site medical clinic. I will be able to take a lot of the pressure off existing staff by offering followup and communication with other disaster relief efforts in the neighborhood as well.

This is definitely a multi-tasking environment. Nothing ever moves from idea through process to completion without a million interruptions. Often the complications are because so many agencies are involved in every project. Sometimes it's because there are always at least 7 things happening on this site at any one time. Sometimes it's because a new set of personnel is on hand for so much of the work each week, as volunteers do almost everything here.

Our population is low this week, with only 40 or so volunteers in residence. Still, the kitchen is busy all day long preparing breakfast, lunch and dinner and cleaning up. There is laundry all day as all the towels and bathmats are washed and dried each day and stacked in fragrant piles outside the largest of three showers. Floors are swept, the dining hall vaccumed and kitchen and bathroom scrubbed every day. The facilities coordinator is a long term volunteer, as are all the volunteers who do this ministry of support.

Teams go out every day to repair, rebuild and finish the restoration projects Long-time handymen and newbie college girls find themselves installing cabinetry, flooring and tile, as well as painting walls and trim. They come back filled with tales of their own accomplishments and with the stories of the residents whose homes they are rebuilding. This work is life-changing, there is no doubt about it. These volunteers bring the hope needed to rebuild the lives which have been devasted by loss, but they are inspired by the stories of courage and determination that they hear from the survivors they came to help. It is always amazing that those who give end up receiving as well. Participating in this work is such a blessing it is hard to describe.

There are many ways to participate, and contributing financially is still needed. Currently Bethel is in need of WalMart, K-Mart or Visa gift cards in $100 denominations for the Santa Store. So many people are still without resources for furniture, toys, children's clothes and food beyond the most basic necessities. Many who have moved back into their restored homes are sleeping on the floor because there is no money for new furniture. Adopt My Room (adoptmyroom.org) provides a complete bedroom for a child, designed to the child's preferences plus a kitchen kit for the child's family, all for $500. My siblings and I are committing to a room for a child instead of exchanging Christmas gifts this year.

I am so blessed to be part of this ministry. For many years I have laughed about being homeless, although sometimes it was pretty lonely to be without a home. I came to believe that my home was actually in my call, rather than in a place. Today, this ministry feels like home to me, and chance both to serve and to grow. When I said something about the surprise of that to Judy and some other staffers, they laughed. "Yes, we know all about that. We pray for food and get a truckload of mattresses."

Saturday, November 25, 2006

December 2006 Letter to Grace Lutheran Church

Waiting. Waiting is the lens through which I see the world these days. It is quite disorienting for someone who has been committed daily to a goal that has driven the last ten years of my life. Since I started study to complete my undergraduate degree in the fall of 1997, working, studying, sleeping, eating was all of life. Conversations with friends, movies, travel hardly existed. I became so disciplined at my monastic existence that I almost forgot what people do with leisure time. So the time I spent traveling this summer, visiting friends, seeing parts of the US and Central America, studying Spanish again felt like a well-earned rest. But even my rest was a carefully mapped-out adventure with just enough time to indulge in the various pleasures which had been sacrificed to my vocational call to prepare for ministry.

In September, all that changed. I have been fully engaged in waiting. I am waiting for a congregation to choose me as its pastor – the work for which I have now been trained and the work for which I have been longing since I recognized a call to ministry in the early 1990’s. Day by day I swing between wanting to make my peace with waiting and wanting to stir up more possibilities for pastoral work. The former feels like sitting on hold, my love and gifts for ministry idle and wasted. The latter is frustrating, pushing for something that just doesn’t happen, all my hopes raised at every opportunity, only to be dashed when things don’t pan out. “How long, O Lord, how long?” The Psalmist cries, asking God to wake up to the tragedies of the people who trust that God will answer their prayers because they are God’s beloved. Those words often mirror my own impatience, my need for God to answer me.

Lately a quieter voice enters my prayers. It is a voice that calls me to open my heart to the gifts of this time of waiting. What if the confusion of this time is of my own making? What if it is a struggle between what I want to see and what already exists for me? So I have decided it is time to accept the invitation back to Biloxi, Mississippi, where there is ministry to a community still suffering the effects of the biggest storm ever experienced on the Gulf Coast. I spent a week there this summer working as a chaplain in the medical clinic and washing the towels for 100 volunteers working to rebuild homes. I don’t know exactly what my days will be like or what my duties will entail or even how long I will be needed. Right now, all I know is that having a chance to use my gifts of ministry is a gift to me, an answer to my longing.
The Apostle Paul says that the whole creation waits with eager longing, groaning in expectation for the full revealing of God’s redemption. I know that I am not the only one who waits. In this season of Advent we all enter a time of waiting, of looking more deeply at our longings. Where is God at work that we have not noticed? What is the gift that waiting with openness can bring to each of us and to our community? What adventure awaits?

It has been so wonderful to be with you again these last few months. Grace is home, my solid ground. I will miss you all, but know that we are together in our work in God’s service. May God continue to bless you.

December 3, 2006 Bluegrass

Church this morning was a Bluegrass Mass composed and presented by a band from Faith Lutheran Church in Lebanon, Tennessee. Morgan Gordy, currently their pastor, is a diaconal minister who was assigned to the Bishop's Office for the Gulf Coast before she decided to become a parish pastor. She brought the group back to the coast for a concert fundraiser last night and church this morning. They helped to raise $5000 to rebuild the home of Bethel members Vince and Judy Moto. The Moto's have had to move out of the area while their home was being mucked out and during the rebuilding. There was a lot of toe-tapping during church this morning. It was joyous and reverent at the same time. One of the parishoners said she'd go to church every day if it was like that. They arrived on Friday for a concert at another local church, and left after church this morning. all except the keyboard player, a nurse who wanted to stay a few more days and work in the clinic.

This kind of generosity is astonishing, but all too common around here. Last week a box full of quilts arrived from a woman in Wisconsin. She had volunteered in the clinic in May and seen the manager give quilts to a few families. She was so touched by their appreciation, that she began quilting when she returned home. In the last five months her friends have donated the materials, she has designed and stitched the tops, and she and her friends have quilted 10 twin quilts and 4 crib quilts. She has designated them for people who are returning to their homes. I got to unpack the box and unroll the quilts to shake them out and refold them. I could feel the love and prayers the quilters had stitched into each blanket. Beautiful.

If you or your church are interested in adopting a family or kid's bedroom, let me know. If you want to come to Biloxi and be part of this, shout out.

Biloxi

Here I am back in Biloxi. I will be working as a volunteer chaplain again at Bethel Lutheran Church's free medical clinic. There is still so much to do here, even though it has been more than a year since the hurricane. Bethel lost the funding from Lutheran Disaster Response at the end of September, and has committed to funding the few paid positions that enable them to provide housing and food for a continuing army of volunteers who come to rebuild homes and staff the clinic. In the meantime, Direct Relief International gave them nearly $50,000 to support the medical clinic and increase the range of services it provides. The clinic provides free medication and medical and psychological care for a population that was already underserved before the hurricane destroyed what little infrastructure provided for them before. I was able to make the connection to DRI for Bethel when I was here in June. It is an organization that provides medical supplies to disaster areas both international and domestic, and is located in my hometown of Santa Barbara, California. It was so gratifying to be able to put the clinic in touch with an agency that specifically supports the work they are doing here.

When I was approved for a call to a Lutheran congregation in the spring, I was assigned to the Southwest California Synod. During my summer of travel, I returned to Southern California for an interview with a congregation that didn't hire me. After my return to Santa Barbara, I interviewed with another congregation who also felt that I was not the right pastor for them. I had an invitation from Bethel to return to serve as the chaplain in their clinic, and here I am. I will include in this blog the December "Letter to Grace" column from my home (Grace Lutheran Church, Santa Barbara, California) congregation's newsletter, as it explains my process of waiting and my decision to come to Biloxi.

Tonight as I write this I am the only one awake in a room of women sleeping on donated Tempurpedic mattresses thrown on the floor in one of Bethel's Sunday School rooms. The others are all from Carlton College in Minnesota, part of a team that starts working on rebuilding tomorrow morning after church. They will be here for a week. More volunteers are due tomorrow, and although it has been pretty quiet here today, the place will be full by tomorrow night. It is exciting to be part of such energy and dedication. but just as often it is overwhelming to be surrounded by people. This will be a test of my need for privacy.