C-mail: Simple update. Sorry, no cool story this time.

Howdy all!

It's been great to hear from so many of you and simply to hear what's been going in your lives. Hopefully I'll get a chance to see some of you soon before I take off. And about taking off....

There are some new folks on the C-mail distribution, welcome!. As such, let me bring everyone up to speed and give a brief overview of the next few months. This last April, I had the privilege of taking a brief survey trip in one of the barrios (hillside slums) of Caracas, Venezuela. I went for the purpose of visiting a team of folks living and ministering there with a missionary group called InnerCHANGE. There I got to see and experience a bit of life among those in the barrios and what ministry in that context looks like. After returning back to Boise, some deliberation and a lot of prayer, I committed to join InnerCHANGE in Caracas for at least two years. Lord willing, I'll be there by early October.

As such, I'm currently in the preparation phase of moving down there. This includes support raising (prayer and financial), learning Spanish, reading about missions, and praying to be ready. This summer is going to full of travel as well. In early July, part of our team from Caracas and myself will be up in Northern Washington state for a training there. I'll also be doing a trip though California for support raising, visiting, and wedding attending in late July and early August. From the middle of August to the middle of September, I'll be in Guatemala for language school and hopefully getting to a point where I actually know what I'm saying in Spanish and not just pretending. In the end of September, the InnerCHANGE orientation in San Francisco takes place and finally after that, it's time to move down and start living in Caracas. It is a packed summer, but the end goal is so worth it. Even just writing this makes me excited! So that's the plan. If you're in California, Idaho, or Washington and would like to catch up, let me know.

As for future updates, if you are reading this, you are on my update/mailing list. Once I'm in Caracas, I'm hoping to send out updates monthly. Now I know some folks are huge into email and others would rather eat a bug than get on their computer. So, you have two options to receive updates. Either you can keep getting them via email, or you can get them in physical form in your mail box. Either option is wonderful, just pick whichever works best for you. If you want real letters, just let me know your address and you can pick them up as your friendly postal worker drops them off. If you would prefer email, you're already golden.

I hope this finds you all well. Let me know how you're doing too. It is always great to hear how everyone is doing and to encourage each other. Have a great week, seek the Lord and
Press on for Joy!
Cameron



Ok, so I said no story, but I just can't help it. However, this isn't my story. It was one I heard at Urbana that first got me interested in InnerCHANGE. Corrie is currently on the team in Caracas and has been there for almost three years now. This is one of her experiences of God's pursuing grace:

Last year I was held up by a young street thug who tried to take the gold ring off my finger. They got the purse I had on my shoulder, but after that, because they didn¹t have guns and seemed to be in a hurry, I was able to put up a fight with the ring, and the guy wasn¹t able to get it off my hand. The ring itself was inexpensive, but was a gift from my parents that I¹d been wearing since I was 13! Clearly it meant a lot to me to save my ring, but needless to say, I was definitely roughed up and scared as they ran away. In my nearly three years in the barrios, it was the first time I was held up ­and in my own neighborhood! That wasn¹t a good day. Though, fortunately, it wasn't the end of the story.


Several weeks ago, we were told that one of the street thugs in our neighborhood had been shot and was in the hospital. It was Calimero - the very guy who had held me up several months earlier. In those ensuing months, Calimero had been terrorizing the neighborhood, and the more we heard about him, the more we learned of his story. Davíd (his given name, before he took the street name Calimero) had basically grown up on the streets as an orphan. His brothers were in jail or had been killed, and his sister was a prostitute farther up the hill (can this story be real? I think to myself). So, with nothing to hope for and no life to believe in, Calimero fell into what surrounded him: the drugs and violence of the streets. Though most people around here have watched him grow up, fed him, and even tried to help, now that he has chosen this path as an adolescent, they all seem to be waiting for him to be killed off in the streets. No one believes there in is any more hope for him in this life. "May God forgive him," they say, "because I won't."


Darling, a friend from the neighborhood, invited us to visit Calimero in the hospital with her. When we finally saw him lying in that hospital bed, we were given a picture that will stay with me forever. We walked in, my team leader John, my teammate Ryan, and I (all of whom Calimero has robbed), and all stood around Calimero's bed. We were all a little awkward, and maybe a little scared. But soon we were all talking, laughing, holding his hand. We prayed for him; we prayed over him. They were just simple prayers, but so deep. We were thanking God for his life as we shared smiles and small jokes. We got to tell him that as a team we had been praying for God to spare his life, and that this was an answer to our prayers. We got to tell him that we cared about him and about his life. The grace of forgiveness was alive in the room, as if God had put on flesh and was walking among us. In fact, we were Christ¹s forgiveness alive in that room.


At the very end as we were saying goodbye, I squeezed his hand and held it. And I realized: Calimero was holding my hand - the same hand from which he tried to rip my promise ring to sell on the street for $3.00 just several months before. And because God is good, there we were again; able to tell him with love through just a glance that he's forgiven... in the very deepest sense of that word. To feel him holding that hand in such a different way and to hear him say as he looked me in the eye, "Gracias, Corina..." The gift of God for Calimero blew me away.


We don¹t know what will happen with Calimero's life. Nevertheless, I can celebrate the privilege it is to have been invited into his fear and pain and to share hope and life and something so much better... that's why I have wanted to be here, doing this.

There's much that has happened since this, but I'll share it later.