El Monte

Hello All,

I'll begin with some sidenotes:
1) In addition to our cockroach family, we now have another addition to our shower. A small, black scorpion. Luckily for likely both Leigh Ann and myself, I was the one that discovered this little fellow as I was in the shower. He left me alone, though, so I left him alone too. . .much to Leigh Ann's dismay.
2) We had ice cream the other day! I had a kind called Tigre which is vanilla, chocolate, and what we believe to be nutmeg ice cream. Very good.

This past weekend went very well. Yesterday, Leigh Ann and I ventured by taxi to a store called Mega in order to meet Debbie Somerville. We stayed with Debbie and Ed Somerville and their family this weekend at El Monte. (www.elmontemexico.com) To give you a little back story of how we came across the Somervilles, let me explain that Ed and Debbie lived in Pocahontas County, West Virginia when my dad was growing up in Hillsboro. Ed was my Dad's seventh grade English teacher, and Debbie was my uncle's first grade teacher. Growing up, my father often told us of the impact that the Somervilles had on his life--mainly that they were some of the first people who showed him what true Christians looked like and how they lived. My dad somehow or another heard years ago that the Somervilles had moved to Mexico to be missionaries. Thus, when I found out that I would be going to language school in Cuernavaca, we found out where they were located, and miraculously, they were only about an hour or so away. I happen to believe that this is a God thing. (And what a small world!)

I had never met the Somervilles before, but they so kindly opened their home and shared so willingly with me and Leigh Ann. It was such a blessing to meet them and their children--Becky, Scott, Rachel, and Walter. In all, the Somervilles have eight kids. The ones that we met were the ones still around for part or all of the summer. You can look at their website for more detailed information about their mission and ministry. In short, they run a large facility that is used for Christian camps, pastor retreats, and as a missionary training school. They have an amazing testimony as to how they got there and how God provided.

Any time I'm around missionaries, I once again feel like a sponge. At that party that we went to last week, Coco introduced me as a "misionera." I think that's the first time I've ever individually been referred to as such, and although it was in an odd social context, I felt the weight of responsibility of that title. I enjoyed hearing Ed and Debbie's stories of the way that God called them and showed Himself to be faithful, and I especially enjoyed hearing the honest input from their children about the pros and cons of being a missionary kid. Leigh Ann and I went to youth group and Sunday morning church with the Somervilles, and it was lovely to spend that time with them. I was truly touched by their generosity.

I also greatly enjoyed going to church with them. I have now been to a church in every country I've been to. While this may seem normal for someone who wants to be a missionary, it's rather odd for me personally. I hesitate to explain, not because I am ashamed or because my faith in God's leading falters, but because I have grown accustomed to the topic of church bringing about judgment and well-intentioned lectures. However, truth is truth, and God knows my heart.

I haven't been "in church" since I graduated high school. I grew up in a family of avid churchgoers, and I was raised primarily in nondenominational churches (whatever that means). My parents usually were involved in children's or youth ministry and were usually part of the dedicated, "inner" circle. Our family was generally there whenever the doors were open although I will gladly say that my parents did their very best to make sure that our family came before church. For that, I am very grateful. As previously written, my own faith, aside from my parents', developed significantly whenever we moved to Barbour County from Greenbrier County, West Virginia. I began to turn to God in my time of change and loneliness, and He made himself real. Like my parents, I spent many years being very active in the church, and I went to public high school with the knowledge that I only had one chance to show the love of Jesus to my peers. I didn't want to mess it up (although I know that I did countless times). Without really knowing it, I was still unconsciously trying to earn God's love and was bound by an unacknowledged belief that God would only love me if I was doing what I was supposed to do for Him. That was my means of operation for a while, and although I was still growing as a Christian, there was an unseen wall of guilt between me and God.

My journey toward missions and also to questioning the church began with World Vision. I worked at World Vision for the summer after my junior year of high school. World Vision is an international Christian outreach program that has a base in Barbour County. During that summer, I was kind of a miscellaneous worker, helping with the work teams of campers that came in to do construction projects and vacation Bible schools. During one of those weeks, we were stationed at Camp Muffly outside of Morgantown when I heard a life-changing message from a guest speaker named Mark. To this day, I don't know his last name. He talked about the importance of world missions and gave startling statistics of how much of the world had never even heard the name of Jesus, how much of the world consisted of nominal Christians, the poverty and persecution many Christians faced, etc. I had always grown up around missions as my parents have always been avid supporters of missionaries in other countries. But, that was the first time that missions was real to me. From that point on, I felt led to go on a short-term mission trip. In the weeks leading up to going to Honduras in my senior year of high school, I did a lot of research. My mission trip to Honduras was my high school senior project, so I stumbled upon financial statistics of how much of the Western church's money (without regard to denominations) goes to foreign missions. The results were heart-breaking and made me ask questions. My intense questioning only increased after I had been to Honduras.

At the time, most of the mainstream Christian messages that I heard on TV, at church, from other Christians, etc. were about prosperity and God's blessings. "God's about ready to bless. . ." was a frequent echo in my ears. Before Honduras, I was already questioning what true worship was, why we have pastors, why we have buildings, and why we are constantly struggling to bring people into churches to "get saved." I was even questioning the use of ostracizing "Christianese." When I went to Honduras, I was exposed to a beautiful people who, by the United States' standards, had nothing, yet they worshipped God with their songs, their sacrifices, and their entire lives--not asking God to give them prosperity. They didn't hold back. They brought their needs to God, sure, but their hearts were different. They brought their needs to God with a humble attitude of dependency--not an inflated sense of entitlement. It was humbling to hear sermons in the Honduran church of serving one another, encouraging one another, and sacrificing of oneself for more of God. Simple, but they seared to the heart of my questioning. They were real Christians. The lives that they led showed true dependency on God. They were content rather than restless, and passionately seeking Him at all costs, rather than complacent. Honduras was real life.

Needless to say, I experienced great difficulty in returning to the church in the United States. Let me make clear that it wasn't just a specific church that troubled me--it was the entire attitude that I saw in the Christianity portrayed in the U.S. We went to church the following morning right after we got back from Honduras, and I spent the entire service bawling. Since that Sunday, nearly every time I go to church, I cry. I can't really explain it, and it can be for any number of reasons that I know or don't. Perhaps, that is my natural response to God. I don't know. At any rate, I struggled with anger and frustration while I was in church, and when I moved to North Carolina for the summer following my high school graduation, I left, relieved to know I wouldn't have to go to church.

I, sadly, spent that summer in a rather complacent, bitter state. To put it bluntly, what I was going through was a form of church-detox. I had to realize that my entire identity and foundation as a Christian was not Christ Himself but was the church--the appearance of innocence that being a churchgoer brought, the validation that doing things for God provided, etc. I had to understand that my entire Christian existence was less of a personal relationship and more of a fearful performance. It was a difficult realization to contend with at 18. When I went to college, although I went "church shopping" a few times, I just didn't want to have anything to do with church as an institution. I stopped going. Instead, I started spending every Sunday going to the park, taking a lunch, and reading the Bible and praying on my own. While this may not have been the best situation, God worked through that time to heal my heart and to make Himself more real to me on a personal level. It wasn't long after I stopped going to church that my family, who had also been struggling with the same questions, stopped going as well. They had been having "house church" for a while where there was no leader, everyone present was free to share whatever God was speaking, and there was no time frame or agenda. This is a practice that my family continues from time to time, although presently, my mother has found a new church that she attends with my brother and sister. Meanwhile, my dad and I are still the black sheep of the family who don't go.

I want to make clear that although there are many things about mainstream U.S. churches that I don't agree with, I have reached a place where I am no longer angry or upset with church. I have reached a place where although I don't want to be a permanent member or to serve an institutional church in the United States, I can go to any church happily. Of my own choosing, I have been to Quaker services, Assembly of God services, Methodist services, Baptist services, etc. over the past year and have participated in their services as God leads. Generally, any time I go to any church, I simply tell God, "Lord, today, I just want to worship you and be obedient. This is about me and You, and I just want to be in Your presence today." I usually close my eyes during worship and stand still and silent, crying before God. And, each time, no matter what kind of church I am in, He honors that request.

I know the stigma that goes along with not being "in church." I know it well because when I was younger, I would have been one of those people silently judging someone's absence from church. Now, though, the center of my life as a follower of Christ is Christ Himself. Jesus is our way to the Father, not a pastor. I fully believe that God wants to and can speak directly to each one of us. I fully believe that we are all on the same equal playing field. Yes, God gives each of us different gifts, but we are only at the mercy of our Father. I think He expects us to ask questions.

During my time out of church, God has made Himself unbelievably real to me. He exposed some insecurities and past guilt that I had never dealt with, and He revealed to me my own tendency to keep both Him and people at an arm's length. Since the surfacing of those deeply-rooted hurts, God has uprooted much of my past and has healed my heart. After I surrendered my preconceived notions of who He was and what He was like, He showed me who He really is. After I gave up my own plans and my own view of myself, He began to show me who I really am in Him. It is beautiful. Sometimes He speaks through the Bible, sometimes through a sunset, sometimes through a song, sometimes through a roommate, sometimes through homework, sometimes through a pastor. However He speaks, I have finally reached a place of vulnerability with Him that I am willing to listen. In short, the time that I have spent out of church was totally necessary, and I believe was God-led. Without that time, I would have continued on a spiritual foundation of sand. Without that time, I would never have dealt with the walls that held me back from truly receiving God's love because for me, church was the perfect environment to continue to try to earn God's love rather than getting real with Him. Without that time, my relationship would have stagnated and remained superficial.

I share all of this lengthy story partly because it shapes who I am but also partly because it makes me truly appreciate those times when I am in a church and feel the sincerity of the people. This was the case for me in the Somervilles' church. While there were elements of the service that were different for me, as I closed my eyes, I could feel the intense sincerity of their worship. For the first time since I walked out of the airport, I felt at home here in Mexico. He is real no matter where you go, and there is an overarching sense of family among Christians truly seeking Him. When I am in churches like these, I feel so very privileged and think, "If you only knew how rare this is. If you only knew how blessed you are to be in a worship service so pure, so free from show and hype."

I can't pretend that I know what's best for others, and I would never direct someone to stay at or leave a church. I would only ever advise that in all things, you seek God confidently for yourself, daring to believe that the Creator loves you enough to speak words of love and direction directly to you. Jesus is our way to the Father.

With love,
Sarah