C-mail, promised application and lessons learned. Fin.

Howdy all,

This is the last C-mail! Rejoice or weep, this is it. I've also posted the whole story that I started in the previous email on the blog: pressonforjoy.blogspot.com. The little update tracker will have the encounter number. As for this email, it has two sections. If you are only going to read one part, read the second. If you're going to read both sections, thanks. If you're going to read nothing, well, don't blame me if you miss the meaning of life down there in the text. In any case, commence.

1st Section: Brief lessons learned (I'm saying this more to myself so I can look back at it. So apologies if it seems preachy).

1. Obey God. Just do it. 'Nuff said.

2. Life is not a movie. There are rarely grand climaxes and showdowns. Movies end right after the resolution. Life keeps going. Life, inevitably, gets boring. Movies can't afford too to get boring. I'd love it if someone made a three hour movie about someone just sitting there and doing something, or nothing. "Ferris Bueller's Morning Classes and Lunch Period" So the point of the lesson is not to expect drama, adventure, and tidy resolution. Rather, live life, every exciting and monotonous moment after another. Boring or otherwise, all the time we have is a gift from God. Use it to seek Him and use it for good. That's so much more satisfying than waiting for some epic to drop in your lap.

3. Don't buy into lies. Know the truth and let the truth set you free. When we got back into LA, during our first day of debrief, everyone was pretty much out of it. Our leaders, praise God, realized that we were being fed lies. They shared some of what they had heard, and here are some of my own mixed with others from the team. Thoughts that everything in Peru was useless, it didn't mean anything, I'm worthless, God wasn't in that at all, all of it was done in the wrong way, etc etc. Poppycock! Our leaders led us in some Gospel songs. Now, I've never really liked most Gospel music, pretty much because it is so repetitive, but that's the point. You sing the truth, you proclaim until you do recognize it. We have put our faith in Jesus, I AM a child of the King. He is our Savior. His power does not fail. Period, ain't nothin' changing that. He was with us on this trip. I know He wanted me there, and I went. So there. During that time of singing, I was reminded of how God had worked on the whole trip. How liberating it is to know the truth, and not just know it, but live in it, sing it, believe it!

4. People are far more important than any thing or task. This comes straight from Latin American culture, which, in terms of punctuality, is only a block over from the typical laid back college sense of time. Spend time with people, whoever you meet, doesn't matter what you're doing, honor them by giving them your time and attention.

5. Love doesn't have a language. I'm going to quote Henry Drummond (I love this guy, check out "The Greatest Thing in the World") "You can take nothing greater to the world than the impress and reflection of the Love of God upon your own character. That is the universal language. It will take you years to speak in Chinese, or in the dialects of India. From the day you land, that language of Love, understood by all, will be pouring forth its unconscious eloquence. It is the man who is the missionary, it is not his words. His character is his message."

6. If you ever do a missions trip, partner with the people who are working there as local missionaries. Not only does it help a ton, but it gives you such a better perspective of life in that place (and they get an outside perspective as well, which can be a good or bad thing). They are there longer than the particular trip, so they can keep working and building on what you've done together.

7. Life is much better when God is part of all of it. It is so important to seek God on your own. We had essentially no time/space to ourselves the whole time we were in San Antonio. Finding time to spend alone with God was very difficult for so long, but once I found it, oh man, good stuff. At the same time, God can be part of everything, because He is part of everything, just need to look for Him.

8. I can't really explain it, but I felt really alive down there. Perhaps it was living in community (and by living, I mean 24 hours a day, close contact. We had two rooms for 33 people. Our mattresses pretty much took the entire floor, no personal space, shared bathrooms, nothing private. Yet, I was rarely annoyed by those lacks. In terms of having to choose amazing people or stuff, take the people. And when there is stuff, don't let it get in the way of relationships) Living in Christian community is awesome. Even the church in Acts, they were always together, they were still in the world and reaching out to it, but they were not alone in doing so.

And there are many more lessons, but I need more time simply to process the whole trip; these are what come to mind easily. I know there has gotta be deeper stuff, but that will take some introspection to find. However, there is one more I'll talk about, but what I learned on the trip is more a continuation from something started earlier...

2nd Section: Living Justly/Rightly

Seek Justice. God loves justice. He cares for the poor. He does call everyone who desires to follow him to do the same. Check out Isaiah 58, the book of Amos, Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Once you see it, you see God's compassion for the poor, and His desire for justice everywhere in the Word. And He is so willing to bless those who walk justly too. Check out Psalms 37.

That means. 1st. You need to know God in order to seek justice in the world. Without knowing Jesus, and believing in Him, all efforts to seek justice are under your own power (which will fail) and it just simply doesn't make any sense. Jesus calls His followers to lay down their lives that they might truly live His life. If you are only trying to seek justice without seeking Christ at the same time, then you'll just wear yourself out, and either hate everyone else and work out of spite, or be hypocritical and criticize with your words while your life hasn't changed.

Instead, consider following Jesus. See what it means to have His power, His love, His hope, His compassion for you, in your life and see that extend to the world around you. This is the "why" of justice/righteousness. The basic message of the Gospel is that all have fallen short, no one is good enough to reach God. The world is broken, it is filled with broken people, evil people, ungrateful people, just like me. Yet, Jesus still loved us, enough to live with us in our sorry state and die for us that we might live forever (including right now) with Him. ! John 4:9-10 put it best. "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation concerning our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." That's the focus of justice, to love one another just as Christ loves us, no matter the person or their attitude: your mom, the starving kid in the slum in Calcutta, that annoying guy at work and Nelson from Lima who has to drive a bus from 5 am to 11 pm to make $3.50.

So, how does one care for the poor, the ones that are overlooked so often yet God cares about so much. How does one live justly? That's a tough question. Honestly, I'm not entirely sure that it is possible to be 100% perfectly just in all that is done, that's why we need mercy to begin with. But, start looking into the hows. Get involved in a helping the poor. Maybe start by just talking to a homeless person, perhaps visit the elderly, what about mentoring kids from the not so nice part of town. What kind of things do you buy? Who made them? Were they paid a fair wage? I can't even begin to think of how many products we have that are produced at the expense of someone else's well being, health, or life. I'm not going to tell you what products, research them. The internet is a valuable resource for this (here's one site I just found:
http://www.newdream.org/consumer/shop.html. Its a decent site to compare companies and how they do in terms of fair wages for workers and environmental concerns.) Although, as I mentioned above, there is a lot of cynicism and dislike for pretty much anything under the sun from a lot of people trying to live justly. Don't get discouraged by this, rather look for the good with the bad, temper everything with mercy. Its impossible to do everything from the get go, or even at the end. That's why its a process and its so worth it.

Two examples and I'll quit.

1. I just opened a basic checking/savings account with Wells Fargo yesterday since my local account in SLO wouldn't be of much use while I'm here in Boise. While I was looking up sites and resources for this letter, I noticed one of the sites reviewed banks. Curious, I checked out Wells. Well, not so hot. I'm not going to tell you what their problems are specifically, it'll mean more to you if you find out. However, many of their practices are not fair at all to many people and they have been rather slow to change. So now what do I do? People are being treated unjustly by the bank I just opened an account with. Do I firebomb my local branch? No. Do I judge everyone that has an account with them as horrible people? No. Do I make snide remarks every time I make a deposit? No. Do I close the account? Hm, that's tough. After a fair amount of thought, I've decided to try to work on behalf of the people who are getting the short end of the stick. Since I'm a customer, I can send letters that might just hold that much more weight. Also, they aren't going to benefit from my accounts all that much. Would I open a loan with them if they don't change their practices? No. I'm not sure what exactly I'll be doing in six months, either long term missions or sticking around in Boise, or who knows, but I figure at that point I can reevaluate and either continue pursuing justice (with mercy!) in their bank as their customer, or I can try to find another bank that perhaps helps support good causes and has fair lending practices. Is this the 100% just path? I don't know, but its something. God directs our steps, when we trust in Him. I trust that He calls us to pursue justice, and once I've started to do that, I know He will guide the specifics.

2. Last summer, a friend of mine, Ryan (howdy!), was given some extra money for a job he did. He decided to put it to good use and invited me and another fellow to go and find a homeless person and buy dinner for them. Previous to this, I had seen a number of homeless folks around town, and I knew God was wanting me to talk to them or something, but honestly, I just didn't have the courage to do so. That fear of awkwardness of going up to a stranger and trying to start some sort of conversation about who knows what was too much. I agreed, and we went. It was amazing, we met a homeless man and asked him if he wanted dinner, he said yes, we asked him if he would come with us, he said yes, and so we ended up going to Applebees. My friend paid for his dinner and we had an awesome conversation. In fact, the guy we met was super encouraging in so many ways. Way to go Ryan. First, even to look to generously help out someone is great, but also to invite people along at the same time is amazing too. And it was an awesome time.

If you remember the very first e-mail I sent out, I mentioned many of the verses in Luke about how to follow Christ, He called his disciples to pretty much abandon everything and follow Him. I also mentioned that pretty much no one had done this, except for, well Joe. That was the homeless fellow's name. He had left working on an oil rig in Texas, at the age of 19. He was pulling down a really good wage, but the long hours and long stretches of time left him without any time to spend with God. So he quit. He seriously up and quit, everything. He figured he should have time to spend with God and so he just planted himself along the side of the road with nothing but his clothes and a bible. He's been out on the road for over 20 years now. He works mostly as a minister to the other homeless, preaching the gospel and helping them out as he can. The stories he could tell of how God provided for him time after time blew my mind. What really
amazed me was when I invited him to church on Sunday (howdy Grace folks!). A) he found Grace Church and showed up (I had invited him on Friday night) B) when the offering parcel came around, he dug in his pockets, pulled out the change he had and dropped it in. I thought, this can't be real. This guy has essentially only whatever "little" God gives him, yet he gives it back so freely. And it wasn't like it was hard, that was his life, and he lived for God therefore God's life was in him. Yes he was homeless, he smelled, his teeth were a mess, he has some mildly crazy ideas, but that's not what's important. He is an amazing guy following God the best he can. Maybe you'll meet him one day. Justice is not a one time act, its your whole life, submitted as an act of service to your neighbors and an act of worship to God. I hope this makes the point. Follow Jesus, obey and love him, live justly. It may seem weird or out there. It may sound costly (it is), but it is seriously the only way to live.

Alright, that's enough. You are all so truly amazing. I have cherished every response, even if I haven't been able to replied to it. I cannot thank you enough for all your prayers. They were totally effective, even to the point where I could tell when people weren't praying for me:) I hope you have been blessed by the emails, if not, let me know how to improve them so that if I'm ever in a similar situation, they will be better. I miss you all, but now I hope to personally catch up with you. Stay strong, seek the Lord, and
Press on for Joy!
Cameron