Birthday Bash

Ann Marie frying okra

 

Shrimp & Grits, asparagus in the background. Steak, potatoes, salad, bread, and cake not pictured!

 Marisol's nephews careening around the race track

Uncle Dave receiving his birthday hat -- 58!

 Digging into the steak

She loves it!

Marisol

Let me help you with that!

My job

"So what do you do when you're not here for the summer?" It's a natural question, especially when they find out I'm not in school. I try to scrounge up something that answers the world's definition of Doing Something. I tell them I was a nanny in Germany before this, and a baker in Seattle before that. I tell them I don't know what I'll be doing at the other end of the summer.

What if I simply said, what if I truly believed that who I am is a follower of Jesus? What if that was where I found my truest identity? This morning I felt chastised along with the Galatians when Paul said, "You foolish Galatians! Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law or by believing what you heard?" It's not about observing the law, doing my duties, being productive, getting the job done. A life well lived is a life of believing, a life of receiving.

Instead I try to please others, to do a job well for my own credit, and to validate my existence, my being right here right now, by the works of my hands.

But the works of my hands will fall like the tower of Babel; they will burn like wood, hay, and stubble; they will crash when the rains come down and the streams rise up. At the final summing up, they will amount to nothing.

What will remain? Love, and I am not capable of love on my own. Like an infant who is not held and loved from birth, if I do not receive love from my Father I will suffer from spiritual attachment disorder, from failure to thrive. My job is pretty simple: look to the Father. Receive love from Him. Go deep in intimate relationship with Him. This is where heart transformation happens, where love comes from.

There was a little girl at kid's club in Warm Springs this past week who made me feel my inadequacy. Her name was Clarissa, and she asked me as we blew bubbles together where David and Kat were. I remembered David and Kat; they were team members from the first week. "Well, they had to go home," I told her. Her face fell right away, but she asked me a few more questions and as my answers sunk in she became increasingly depressed. "Are you sure they aren't going to be here this week? But Kat was my best friend. They aren't coming back?"

We puttered around the various crafts together, but her apathy increased. I read her a couple of books, and she put up with listening to the stories but her heart wasn't in it. She didn't want to head around back for story time, but I cajoled her to join us on the grass and she sat with me on the outskirts of the group, leaning against me, resigned, wearily eating her teddy grahams and sucking her Capri Sun.

When we waved goodbye, said "See you later!" at the end of the afternoon, I wondered if we were doing any good at all. Are we just torturing these children, already living lives of hellos and goodbyes, of fair weather friends and guardians? We come each day and leave after a couple of hours; the teams come for a week and then go home; the interns keep returning throughout the summer but at the end we all disappear and they don't see any of us for another year.

What am I doing here, I wondered? I come, the virtuous missionary with my packet of love and good deeds to pass out for my eleven weeks here. I am not entering into their pain, their lives, their community. While my need for Jesus is not one whit different than theirs, my actions seem to say that I think I have something to offer them.

And then I thought of that great missionary Jesus, and how he came. He didn't move in next door, setting up a store of heavenly goods to parcel out to passersby. He moved in WITH us; he moved into a human womb, took up the all the constraints and trials and dilemmas we struggle with. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

I have not done that. I have held myself aloof, not wanting to enter into the suffering and dirt of the human condition. I, who am of this race, will not stoop as He has done for me?

I do have a long term career goal: to be transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory. It starts with gazing long and steady at his face, all day, every day.

For Real

On the second day of the week, Kalani was surprised when I recognized her at Kid's Club. "How do you know my name?" she asked. 

By the end of the week she recognized me too, tapping me on the shoulder as she walked by the craft area, a vinyl tablecloth spread over dusty clumps of grass. "Hey, can I make one?" she asked. She sat down to work on her bookmark, diligently searching to find the letters of her name on the foam sticker sheets. She knew "K" was the first one, but wasn't sure what came next. "Maybe an 'a'?" I suggested. She pulled off a capital "Q." I said, "I don't think that one is in your name."

"My mom said it has a circle and a tail," she said. I smiled, and we finally finished spelling her name: KQLQNI.

She wandered off but came back when it was time for snack and story. I was cleaning up the craft area. "Can I sit on your lap?" she asked. So I hurried to put away the craft items and we joined the rest of the kids sitting in dusty rows in front of Joshua. The team passed out snacks to all the kids while Kalani asked me name questions: what my mom's name was, what her last name was, what my last name was, what my second name was. Then Joshua started on the story. He reviewed the story from the day before, and then his actors, some of the kids, joined him to act out the story of the day: Jesus welcoming the little children. "I was in the story once," Kalani told me.

"What were you?" I asked.

"An angel."

"What did you say?" I asked.

"There were thousands of angels," she answered.

"Oh, it must have been the story of an important baby being born!" I told her.

We fell silent, listening to Joshua and his crew, but Kalani started her questions again in the middle of the story. "What's your mom's name?" I whispered to her that right now was time to listen to Joshua and hear the story. "I'm listening," she said. "I know what the story is about. He's talking about Jesus, who did bubbles with the kids and played with them. He loved the kids. My mom told me that Jesus loves grown ups."

I said, my cheek against her warm shoulder, my arms wrapping around her, "He loves kids too, a lot."

"For real or for fake?" she asked.

"For real. He really loves kids."

Joshua finished the story and we had a few more minutes to play. Kalani wanted to get on my back. She's only five, but she's a big girl and carrying her all over the field was a good workout! It was time to go, and Kalani asked me if I could walk her home, "to the brown house." Joshua said she could ride in the Suburban with us, so when we were all loaded up she climbed up into the front seat with me and we drove down the block to her brown house, where she hopped down and disappeared inside. See you later, Kalani. Don't forget, Jesus loves kids, for real.

Winnie

She was squirrely last night at Bible study. I was in the kitchen for the first part of the evening, before and during the meal, but I heard she was sitting by a friend and they were making little bits of trouble together. When we separated for adult Bible study, youth group, and kid's story and craft time, she was in the group I was helping with. She sat across the table from me, grabbed two markers, and began scribbling wildly on her paper without looking at what she was doing. Then she glanced down to see where the paper ended, moved her markers off the paper, and grinned at me as she kept scribbling on the table. When I reminded her of a rule I'm sure she was aware of (no coloring on the table) and enforced the rule by taking the markers away, she threw down her marker caps, slithered under the table, and began an underground escape. Stephen intercepted her, brought her back, sat with her till it was story time. Molly and I were kept busy trying to seat the other three girls in our group: Marie and Lorinda wanted to sit next to each other so they could chat and conspire, and little M.J. was squirmy and fussy. The girls wouldn't stay seated for more than about 60 seconds before jumping up to try to find a new seat, and they were making no effort to be quiet. Joshua was making great efforts to let his voice be heard above the roar, and we were fighting to make him successful. Then Winnie reappeared from somewhere and climbed into my lap. She sat there for the whole story, not always quiet but responsive to my reminders, not obviously paying attention but who knows what was sinking in? Joshua and the flannelgraph board told us the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt, and we went back to our tables. Winnie stayed on my lap, and I traced her hand, splayed on the table, with my finger as we waited for the other girls to gather and for Molly to pull the coloring sheets back out. I started coloring her scribbled-on picture. She was fascinated, and kept pointing out the next thing I should color, choosing markers for me to use. By the time the burning bush sand craft came out, she was a different girl than the one who had brazenly colored on the table earlier. She stayed in my lap, and worked diligently to squeeze glue, spread it with a paint brush, spoon on sand, and tilt the paper so the excess slid back into the bowl. Marie and Lorinda, though older, were more careless and silly, but Winnie was quiet and made every effort to keep the sand in the right place and complete her picture. When the bus pulled up outside the longhouse windows, she obediently put things away and we tucked her pictures into a paper sack for her to take home. And she slipped out, onto the bus, into the night.

Three Nuggets from Today

Hands reach over my shoulders as I sit on a dusty vinyl tablecloth on the ground at kid's club. "Julie!" calls a voice. I reach up to feel the hands. "Who is it?" I ask. It's Connie, just flitting by to say hello on her way across the park.


I sit down for snack and story time, in the midst of the throng but not with any child. A boy walks by. "Can I sit in your lap?" he asks, and snuggles in, leaning trusting against me and quietly reporting his thoughts and comments to me throughout the story time.

It's dusky evening, and we're standing in a semi-circle in the yard, the mountains circling behind us against the last light of the day and a few Granberry kids and friends on the roof in front of us. They've climbed up an old ladder and are scoping out this year's cherry harvest on the branches overhanging the roof. Beth throws a few down to Joshua; they laugh and hunt for the fruit and finally announce that there are actually not too many cherries this year and climb down, one by one.

A Day in the Life of a Sacred Road Intern at Warm Springs

Swing your legs over the side of your cot sometime before 6:00 in the morning. Pull on some clothes in the quiet semi-darkness and slip out the door so team members can keep sleeping; cross through the cool morning air to the kitchen's back door. Splash some water on your face in the bathroom, put up your hair and slather on a bit of sunscreen. Fill a coffee percolator and plug it in. Take a seat in the dining room with Bible and journal for the vanishing solitary moments of the day. Team members drift in, waiting for the coffee's "serve" light to blink on, sitting quietly at other tables with Bibles open before them.

It's 7:00, time to head into the kitchen. Lauren joins you, and maybe a team member appears in the doorway volunteering to help, so you pull out your list and parcel out jobs: wash lettuce for supper, bake a dessert, fill the roaster with chili or spaghetti sauce or meat and beans for taco salad, hard boil eggs for breakfast. Another team member has signed up to set out breakfast, so you direct him to the cereal, yogurt, eggs, fruit, and toast and he readies the buffet table. At 8 Scott prays for the group, 33 people from churches in Ohio, Tennessee, and Mississippi; they eat, and you hurry through the line after them and get back into the kitchen to supervise breakfast dishes and setting out lunch supplies, which are also team-manned chores. Lauren loads up her bins of kids club supplies and then helps with whatever is left in the kitchen. It's past the scheduled departure time of 8:50, so you fill up your water bottle, make sure your work pant pockets are loaded with cell phone and chapstick, and circle up in the parking lot.

Scott prays for the group and they load into their 5 vans; the 3 interns climb into the '89 15 passenger Ford van and lead the way to the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, about a 20 minute drive from the First Baptist Church in Madras where you're staying. First stop: Public Utilities building where Scott finds your contact man (a Warm Springs Indian who also happens to be the assistant pastor at the First Baptist Church) and gets the marching orders for the day. You meet the teams just down the hill at the park and Scott parcels out the jobs. You follow along, finding a place to work for the day.

Maybe it's picking up trash along the side of the road as passersby honk and wave and call out, "Thank you!" By the end of the week some have stopped and asked for prayer; others have thrust a stack of smoked salmon fillets through the open window as you drove the trailer through the Rez to pick up the bags of trash. Hatchery employees slung a bag of fresh salmon from the back of their pick-up truck into your van, filling your cooler to overflowing.

Another day you paint at the Boys and Girls' Club, doing a little painting and a lot of supervising, trying to help 19 team members keep busy. You pour paint refills, wrap brushes and rollers that have been left unattended, move tarps and ladders, point out areas that still need paint.

 Fellow intern Lauren

You keep working for another couple of hours after a sack lunch break, then head down the road to the community center to clean up a little before kids' club.

The vans caravan to the Boys and Girls' Club at 3:30; you pull up and the kids come running. You man the craft table, or wander with your camera taking pictures for the end-of-the-week slide show, or help Lauren organize kids for the skit, or play tag with Andrew. "Everything is base!" he says, running from tree to fence to post to bush. Then he grabs a branch off the bush and invents portable base. It's a rigged game, but Andrew's smile makes it worthwhile.

Craft table

 

 Playing catch

Foursquare

 

Kickball

Fellow intern Scott

Story time

Andrew waits for his turn to come on stage

 

Tag with Andrew

One afternoon you have to call off a boy who liked to jump rope but kept jumping in out of turn and annoying the other kids who were jumping. Before you leave you learn that his name is Terrence and make a point of saying goodbye to him, hoping to have a better interaction to end the day on. "You're going?" he asks. "Who do you have to see now?" You tell him you're going back to the church where you are staying to eat dinner and spend the night. He doesn't want you to leave.

Face painting

Turning the jump rope

Terrence jumping

At 5:30 you pile into the vans and drive back to Madras. You arrive around 6:00 and hurry to unlock the kitchen door. You check the roaster, hoping dinner was cooking all day while you were gone. Scott and Lauren come in to help set drinks on the tables and get the buffet ready. You find serving spoons, cut the dessert, finish chopping things for the salad. Team members file in after cleaning up a bit, and you pray and they flood the buffet table, eagerly emptying bowls to fill their plates. You eat a quick dinner and supervise kitchen clean-up, go over your kitchen plan for the next day, chat with Scott and Lauren, or join the casual worship and sharing gathering. If you have time and are feeling brave and dirty, you head out to the shower trailer. There are no showers in the church, and the solution is a four shower head trailer with insufficient partitions and (supposedly) solar-heated drums. You wear a bathing suit and hold your breath as the cold water hits you; it's actually refreshing and feels especially clean to shower out under the open sky.

Checking out the shower trailer before we pulled out in Wapato

Then you brush your teeth and head to the girl's quarters. It's maybe 10:30, and some are in bed but there's still plenty of energy. Around 11:00 (if you haven't fallen asleep in the midst of the noise by then) you remind them that it's lights' out, and fall asleep.

Bonfire at Sunset

 

We've had two days of orientation - gathering in the Granberry's living room with notebooks, Bibles, and listening ears. Mary fixes meals for us and we eat them at three tables, our dining room sprawling the width of the house, from entry way to office nook. Slowly the awkward silence punctuated by icebreaker questions shifts to shared smiles and deeper sharing as common ground builds (or as we recognize the common ground we all shared to start with). After lunch we try not to sleep, sitting on couches and cushions and folding chairs and taking in more words about culture or the youth group, Isaiah 58 or intern guidelines. Then Chris says, "Let's take a half hour break. Anyone want to play volleyball?" and we take our positions in the grass on either side of the net. Sun and wind and laughter revive us, and we gather again, maybe on the deck this time, to brainstorm about a team covenant or discuss the questionable reliability of first impressions.  

And then it is ten to six, and the kids are arriving. About twelve from the youth group will be joining us for dinner tonight. They come in smiling, wanting to know our names, but shy; we are shy too, not wanting to trespass against cultural rules, unsure of how to build bridges. Then again, I think, maybe it is more like planting seeds than building bridges. You prepare the soil, get the seeds in contact with the dirt, tend and nurture, and see what God will grow, what fruit He will produce. 

After barbecued pork sandwiches, mac and cheese, fruit and jello, we migrate to the volley foursquare court. It's a fast-moving variation on volleyball with four teams of four playing on a two-net court and rotating around the four squares to the king square. The wind blew cold, but there were smiles on everyone's faces. Chuck, the youth leader, announces it's time to move to the bonfire Chris as prepared for us, and we circle up in the setting sun to roast marshmallows and get smoky and warm. 

As the sun disappears, Ann Marie gets out her guitar and we pass out song sheets.

Chris prays over us, and then we are free to go but no one does. We huddle closer around the fire, laugh, roughhouse, visit. Chuck rounds up the kids and they pile into the van to ride home. We linger longer, listening to Chris and Uncle Dave tell stories. At last we too gather our things and head home, the boys to their campers on the Granberry property, the girls a few miles down the road to our house.

"I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow." (I Corinthians 3:6)