Global Faith with Casely

Casely about global faith

Hi everyone. Welcome to 40 Minutes of Faith. My name is Barbara Cox and I host this weekly podcast to explore God's word and our relationship with God.

Barbara: I'm here today with guest Casely Essamuah to talk about faith around the globe. I met Casely in Massachusetts 22 years ago, and our families have traveled the globe separately since then. So we don't get to see each other often in person.

Growing up in Ghana, Casely was a pastor's kid and he was ordained in the Methodist church, studied at Harvard and Boston university school of theology, where he earned a doctorate degree. He and his family are now in Maryland, and Casely serves at the global Christian forum (GCF), which is an international group.

Caseley, how are things in Maryland these days?

Casely: Well, thank you very much, Barbara. This is a joy to be able to connect with you and through you to all those that will be listening to this podcast. We are doing very well in Maryland. We thank God that things are tapered off a little bit. We are still very conscious of those that have lost lives and those that are still safe, and none of us knows what the new normal will be, but we are leaning into it slowly every day.

Barbara: Indeed. Thank you for that update. Our Bible passage today is from second Corinthians, which is a book in the new Testament, almost at the end of your Bible. I'll read second Corinthians chapter five, verses 16 to 20 from the message version:

“Because of this decision, we don't evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong. As you know, we certainly don't look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone. A new life burgeons, look at it. All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other.

God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he's doing. We're Christ's representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God's work of making things right between them.

We're speaking for Christ himself. Now become friends with God. He's already a friend with you.”

Casley, this passage talks about new life from God. And I wonder if you experienced God calling you in a way that you didn't expect?

Casely: Yes. It's so refreshing to read and to be reminded again, that who we are is as a result of what Christ has done on the cross to settle the relationship.

that We have with God and we also enjoy and encouraged because of what God has already done, that we will settle out a relationship with each other. Each of us has this fresh start. I like that fresh start. And in the last, 25, 30 years, I've had the privilege of being a global missions pastor at two big churches.

One was in Boston, Park Street Church. And then also, here in Maryland Annapolis Bay area, community church. And I was fairly content with what I was doing, doing global missions all over the world, whether it is sending people to go to places like South Sudan or South India in leadership development, in, training of pastors in church planting, or going to Ghana to do evangelism and discipleship, go into Uganda to do HIV AIDS ministries.

We're going all over the world, ESL programs in El Salvador, in Poland. Wow. And I thought I was all set. And then the Lord redirected me a phone call came through. They were looking for a secretary for the global Christian forum. And the friend said, I think you'd be a very good candidate for that. And I said, I don't think so.

And she said, why don't you pray? And I committed to prayer. And after praying for two weeks and after consulting with so many different people, I was at a point where I was like, it doesn't hurt to make myself available.

And I think that's a good place to be. when you say I'm available for God to use me, I don't know what the future is. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I'm just going to be available. And there's been one thing after the other, just confirming just the willingness to be open. And I feel very confident that I am doing exactly what God wants me to do at this time.

I'm in my life. So I'm grateful that the Lord redirected me to this new calling.

Barbara: I have a hunch that many of us experienced redirection, and sometimes it doesn't feel fun, but that's irrelevant- the new path can open itself up to us. Sometimes, maybe we feel stuck, but that's not today's conversation.

Casely: Yes

Barbara: this is also talk about judging people by how they look or what they have. I know that there's still persecution of Christians taking place around the world today, along with persecution of other faith groups. Casley, what have you heard during your travels around the world about persecution?

Casely: That is the sad aspect of our lives. These days, that Christians in many, many places where they are minorities are being persecuted, whether it's discrimination in housing or employment, or even family issues and marriages. And then sometimes sadly Christians lose their lives all over the world. we are told that this century we have lost more than all the previous centuries combined.

So it is a very sad occurrence. It goes on every day. I think as Christians, there are four things we can do. I think the first is to pray for perseverance and for faithfulness, for those that are going through periods of persecution. But secondly, also to pray for protection for them, we know that nothing comes to any of us without going through the gracious hands of our sovereign God.

But we also know that he calls us to pray that we'll be protected from the evil one. So we should pray that Christians who are in all parts of the world should pray for brothers and sisters. The third thing I think we can do also to use legal means- government to government advocacy, whatever ways that we have, especially those of us in the Western world, where we have freedom of religion, enshrined in our constitution is respected by all other non Western countries. Also, most of them have freedom of religion, but they don't respect it, especially they are Christian minorities and we can use our influence in government, in policymaking to us that they just respect the constitution that they have, especially because we respect and allow everyone who is in the Western world to practice their religion, that they have.

The fourth idea is that, Christians in the Western world do feel marginalized. they will not call themselves persecuted, but they sometimes consider ourselves as being irrelevant to the societies in which we live in because people don't really appreciate the values that we have because we are more pluralistic in a more secular society.

And just as we find ways of allowing all faiths and all religions to practice in safety in the Western world, we should also, of course not discriminate against the very Christian heritage of the Western countries. We should have a balance where we can celebrate our Christian heritage as well as allow others to practice their religion.

And I think that will be a good witness to the whole world.

Barbara: Thank you. We're in times of strife and pointing fingers at each other these days. Do you have thoughts on how Christians can celebrate connections as we face common challenges?

Casely: One of the things that we all know about COVID-19 is that it shows us that we are all in this together. It doesn't matter where you live in the world, how resourceful you are, whatever it is. We are all in this together. And this is a global challenge. And, it also has revealed that we really don't know each other very well. Most times the knowledge that we have of other Christians or people in other denominations is based on caricatures and the weak parts of their behavior. We assume. We always highlight our best parts. That's human. That's what we do.  When I visit many parts of the world, I ensure that my network gets together, church leaders, and more often than not church leaders who would consider themselves evangelical will have a fellowship.

And then church leaders who consider themselves  ecumenical or their main line church, they will have a fellowship, but very rarely do they interact, very rarely do they intersect and through the GCF, as people get to know each other better, as they realize that they actually have much more in common than that which divides them.

As they get to know the roots and the foundations of how they came to faith and how they came to be people who love Jesus Christ and the before and the after. And what are the heroes of the faith that they have? You realize that they are just building bridges and they're tearing down walls that defined divide us. More often than not, when you pray with someone, when you share a meal with someone, when you look into another person's eyes, it's very difficult to fight them. It's very difficult to fight them after you do that. Now, let me just give an example. After one meeting, one of the leaders of the Orthodox church in Europe, and I mean a Greek Orthodox leader, said thank you very much for this, at which, my, previous, secretary retorted, You're welcome. And Nita said, I need to confess that this is a first time I've spoken with her Pentecostal. And the secretary said, Oh, that is wonderful. And then the Orthodox leader said, usually I am fighting with them. I'm not speaking with them.

And most of us can resonate with that, that a lot of our ideas about people of other faiths, it's more, confrontational than really getting to know them and getting to know the ways that we can build bridges together.

So we need to break down the barriers that we have constructed around ourselves and reach out in building bridges. For the sake of the kingdom of God, for the sake of the kingdom of God. Let me just say one other thing. Someone has said that the great commission, whether it is Matthew 28:18, or Acts 1:8, or the great commandment where Jesus says love God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, and then love your neighbor as yourself, or even what is called the great collaboration, which is John 17:21, which is: that they all may be one just as a father and I are one; or even the metaphor of the body in first Corinthians 12, Paul talks about all of these are just to being an idea for one church or one denomination to do it alone. And at the same time, they are too important for us not to try to do it with others.

It's too big to do it alone, too important, not to try to do it without us. And the only way that we can enter into that is humility. It's really recognizing what you said right at the beginning, that God, to be initiative in settling the relationship between us and God, and we need to take that initiative and settling relationships with each other, especially those that named Jesus Christ as Lord and savior.

Barbara: So more one on one conversations and less caricatures and looking at the worst and others and thinking the best of ourselves. My best time of meeting people of other faiths was the five years we lived in Germany participating in military chapel and military Bible studies because my Lutheran congregation has lots of folks and we don't all agree about everything, but we agree about many foundational items and you get a chance to travel all around the world and meet people. How about just in our own towns or in our own counties? Any thoughts on just meeting with each other individually?

Casely: Hospitality is always a great thing. Don't stop just asking people, how are you doing. If you go to a restaurant or a gas station or, a place where you go frequently, just have one or two questions, cultivate a relationship. And it doesn't take very long to actually gain a friend. And when you show that you are interested in them and you invite them, or visit a church every now and then the Lutheran should visit a Baptist church, the Catholic should visit an Anglican church and go with an open spirit, go not to see what doing wrong.

That's all necessarily different, but how can God speak to me even as I go there? Reach out. And you're very right. People who are immigrants, people who are not rooted in the area are sometimes very, very open to spiritual conversations- reach out, befriend them. It may even just be as a result of just trying to teach them some American cultural practices.

When we were in Boston, we were part of the focus ministry that just reached out to international students in Boston and. It was such a wonderful, wonderful opportunity to meet with people from all over the world. And you could have it, the spiritual conversation with them without any barriers at all, over a meal, talking together, listening to what it is they are going through and caring by praying for them.

All of these things, open many great doors for us to be able to be church, not just go to church, be the church, not just go to a building the church. Yeah.

Barbara:  Thank you so much. Those are some optional homework assignments for listeners or viewers. I would always rather talk about the elephant in the room.

I have a question that is really close to my heart. I wonder if you have some thoughts for us about how we connect with God through music and worship, because I absolutely love to visit other faith communities. And had that opportunity more often with military chapels. I have some struggles when I think about vibrant ministry, what does that mean?

It means something different to all of us. And I'm not saying one way is right, or one way is wrong. You probably wouldn't say that either. I'm wondering if you could talk to us a little bit about, maybe some of the more traditional services might be a little more white, and that might feel very vibrant to some people.

I love organ music, but I also love praise music and lively music, and lively preaching, too. So I guess that's a really open ended question about, just honoring God in different ways and how can there be perhaps more of a broader welcome.

Casely: I think that's a very important question because one of the blessings that I have is I almost have a ringside seat at global Christianity.

So I get to go to different worship services from different traditions, and I enjoy the Gregorian chants when you go to places that they do it very well, but I also go to places where there are loud shouts and the Pentecostal services, and everyone is shouting at the same time and everything in between.

But of course you and I know that what's really at stake in a worship is a condition of our hearts. And are we really adoring the creator as created beings? Are we really giving honor to our savior as grateful recipients of his grace? Are we really joining the heavily host singing Holy, Holy, Holy?

And, the Lord is giving me such a sense of openness of spirit. So I go in praying Lord, speak to me. I am here at this place and I need you to speak to me and it's just been wonderful. I would call myself an evangelical Christian. And when I'm working in Europe, usually I go for two, three weeks because there's a meeting the first week and then the meeting the third week.

So I have the second week and I don't want to come back to the U.S. and then go back. So more often than not our last. friends who are in monasteries and convents and all these, spiritual communities who will invite me to go and spend four or five days there. And when you are with them, you have to enter into whatever is going on.

And I, when I go there, you have at least three times a day when you have worship. And each is about an hour long and 67, 80% of what you're doing is either singing the Psalms or reading the scriptures. While you do that for a week, I realized that, Oh my goodness, as an evangelical, who believes in reading the Bible every day, who believes in praying every day, this is actually a very rich feast that I get to participate in.

And it gives you a better appreciation for those who are doing it on a daily basis and a better appreciation for the fact that you can really enjoy that one of thing, which I really enjoy when I'm in those settings. In present day Europe, a lot of these monasteries and convents and spiritual communities have people from all over the world.

It's not only Europeans who are there. So when you enter into worship, you are worshiping with people from all over you. Just a little bit of a slice of heaven, when you go there. One example is that of Taize. The thousands and thousands of young people who would come for two, three days.

And it's not the most comfortable place to be, but they're not for the comfort. They there for the serenity, for the silence or the opportunity to be with each other to worship. And it does something to you. If you go there, you will have a different perspective of Europe.

sometimes we think that Christianity is flourishing in this part of the world and not doing so well. You need to go to some of these places to see how God is moving among young people in these places.

Barbara: I really appreciate you pointing out that vibrant worship can be silent. It can be very meditative- some of the Taize music is really peaceful or in the monasteries. So vibrancy doesn't equal volume they're not synonyms.

Casely: No, they're not, the level of meaning fullness that you put into all of that and sort of an intentionality to it.

Of course we all know that if we do it without heart, if it becomes a rote repetition of something, God says it's not even useful to him. But if we do it with heart, then we really are connecting with God.

Barbara: And I know for sure that some people feel that their familiar prayers the liturgy that's the same every single week, is a tremendous comfort to them.

So I don't want to throw that under the bus, but to honor that there's different ways of worshiping that maybe engaging and welcoming to different people in a variety of ways. Yes. I like to ask who is missing from this conversation from the broader conversation of global faith and inclusion and welcome?

Casely: Thank you very much. one of the ways that we work at the GCF, the global Christian forum, which is basically. A gathering of church leaders, we have what we call the four pillars, the world evangelical Alliance, the Pentecostal world fellowship, the world council of churches and the Roman Catholic church through the Pontifical council for promoting Christian unity. These church leaders, whether it's on the global level or the national level, when we meet, we meet for only two or three things: we meet to pray.

Then we need to share faith stories. What is God doing in your life? What is God doing in my life? What is God doing in the life of your ministry? What's God doing in the life of your nation? And as we do that, we build bridges so that we can come to a place where we can confront common challenges together.

But whenever we meet, we also ask ourselves this question- who is missing at the table here? And who are those Christians who are not able to join other Christians in a fellowship such as this? And we ask that question because we believe that even though probably these four pillars will be, maybe 80, 90% of the Christian world.

They believe there's others that need to be part of that conversation. The second meaning of what we do is also to, let us remind ourselves that the church exists for those who are yet to receive and benefit from the grace of God. The church is not primarily just a country club for saved.

The church is a gathering place. We come together for encouragement. We come together to get our marching orders, to go out and share the good news to a world that so desperately needs to hear the good news. They need to see these words in action, words like, love, hope, forgiveness, joy reconciliation.

These are not mere words. We are Christ's ambassadors, representatives, as the message put it. And we go into a needy world and we embody these values until the world will then ask, why are you doing this? And then we are doing it because. God has settled the relationship as, a relationship with us.

And so we go out and we share what Christ has done with others. We always have to ask ourselves, even at a church, we have. 10% of the people in this community, 90% are not in church. They may not necessarily be in our church. They might be another church, but  who is not in church and like the parable that Jesus gave of the shepherd who leaves the 99 behind and then goes to find the one that is lost, who do we need to go after and bring them to come and enjoy the fellowship that we have.

Barbara: And it could be something like inviting someone you know to come with you, but then there's more to it than that inviting someone you know to come with you is wonderful. I'm not dismissing that. but there's other ways to show that love and that forgiveness and sometimes actions speak louder than words too.

Casely: Absolutely.

Barbara: How can we work on that during COVID when many churches have their doors closed and some are starting to meet again. And then with social distancing, wearing masks, with safety precautions, what are some interesting ways to reach out?

Casely: That's a very good question because every church, everywhere in the world is grappling with that.

Most churches offer online services, some call them e-services, during this season you take the church outside the walls, but also a lot of churches are thinking of ways of serving the community. Some big churches have made available their childcare departments, to host, the children of frontline workers who have to go to work, they have a safe place to leave the children.

Churches are sharing ways of encouraging their members even to go out and do life with each other, even though they have to do it at a social distance. And we know that in some places, there are more people who have tuned into online church services than ever.

So it's been a great opportunity to serve a larger community, but COVID has also revealed that there are so many inequities that we have in life. So many who are vulnerable, especially those who are Seniors. And especially those who don't have health insurance and minorities.

Some churches have realized that we cannot just limit ourselves to preaching about evangelism and discipleship. We need to be present in the public space, whatever form that we take, we need to be seen to be present. Not necessarily needing to take political sides, but we need to be active and we need to make sure that we address some of these issues.

So they're discovering new ways of ministry being bold, innovative. I see more and more people who are considered "lay" leading things.

Barbara: you don’t have to be ordained or go to seminary or be a minister

Casely: no, leading Bible study and putting it on Facebook for others to see it.

It's not always once a week, sort of the pastor comes and preaches, but more and more people are. So in a sense, it's something that we've had some sort of a silver lining. Of course we are sad. So many people have lost their lives, but silver lining in terms of ways that. people have been able to innovate in ministry.

Barbara: Thank you. And what I hear you also saying is that many people might think of this fancy word evangelism is sharing the good news, but you don't have to sit next to someone and open the Bible. You can. Absolutely. That's incredibly powerful, but just doing volunteer work to help with practical needs can be a way of showing God's love to people that will be recognized. Ultimately, you don't have to always talk about Jesus to people.

Casely: A quote, which, sometimes gets a little bit, controversial says, preach the gospel. sometimes with words. Not everybody likes that, but there is some truth to it.

Barbara: Thank you for that information and those suggestions. I feel like sometimes the world might seem like there's a lot of doom and gloom, especially for folks who know someone who has died or someone who is sick, all our frontline workers and things like that. But I suspect that you have some good news about faith communities around the world that you've seen in your travels. Do you have any stories or anecdotes about sharing the good news around the world?

Casely:  Yes. A lot of churches around the world of course, are putting their programs online. Yesterday I preached to a Ghanian Methodist church in Washington, DC, and it was on Facebook. About an hour after that, the first call I had came from New York city, someone from New York city watched it. So, people are reaching out in different ways and just trying to be present in the lives of others during this very, very difficult time. I know of stories of a seminary in India, decided that because they are sort of an enclosed community, they could, be a little bit more active, but they reached out to the community outside of the seminary, with some of the stored food stuff that they had over the years. They shared some of that with people who are outside, just making a witness with a gospel in a very, very, needy place.

Barbara: I looked at the global christian forum website and all of these resources will be on www.Fortyminutesoffaith.com as well as a transcript of the conversation. Is the information accessible for say ordinary folks to take a look at and to put into use? Any tips on, resources that folks might want to take a look at?

Casely: absolutely- we have a very good website, the global Christian forum and we have a Facebook page, which is also updated fairly regularly. So I'll invite people to just go and watch that. And we have YouTube interviews that I've had with people from India, Sri Lanka from, Brazil, from Italy, from Finland, from different parts of the world that they can get a sense for what is happening in that part of the world and how people are responding in this time of coping. So I invite all your listeners and viewers to go there and even have more information on these things.

Barbara: Thank you. And I would consider you to be a subject matter expert in global missions with your education and even your growing up years, all of the jobs that you've had, and I very much honor that. My church in many other congregations are so small that it's really up to folks who are there. They're not in a position to have one designated person to specialize in mission. So I'm wondering if you have any thoughts for regular folks, or even if they're not part of a church, what does outreach mean for folks who might not have a designated employee in their faith organization to focus on that?

Casely: I want to put in a plug for another organization is called Grace Bomb. The two words, as unusual as you can ever imagine, but grace bomb, which started with the pastor from our church, pastor, Pat Linelle, the idea is it's almost like I'm doing good for someone without expecting anything back.

It's like, you are in line, the grocery shop and then you pay for the person behind you and then you leave, just, a bookmark or something showing that this was done as a result of grace bomb. And then the person goes on that website and reads about the gospel and the fact that. You are just doing that in the name of Jesus Christ.

it's a very accessible way of sharing your faith, of blessing somebody else. I know a lot of people who, when these stimulus checks came in for COVID used that to bless others. They did not keep that. everybody can do that. You always find a way to just bless someone in the name of Christ.

And I think we do it or they ask us, why are you doing this? And then we have the opening to share the love that Christ has put in our hearts.

Barbara: I see that as pay it forward with a Christian twist.

Casely:  yes, absolutely. You have it. It is pay it forward with the Christian twist.

Barbara: I bet you have 10 million other websites or books to mention. Do you have just a few favorites on any topic of your choice that you'd like to recommend for anyone who's got time to check something out online or read a book?

Casely: I would recommend read books by C. S. Lewis. It's a favorite because he came to faith sort of, in midstream. He did so as an intellectual and did so wholeheartedly- it's a good one to read. And also J. I. Packer, “Knowing God”, which is probably the standard literature we have on the theology of who God is and how, an ordinary person can understand God in a way that is accessible language. It's not very theologically high language. whenever you see anything written by John Stott, Definitely. It's good. It's unfortunate I think all three of them are British, but that is what it is.

And they have had a great influence on the Christian faith all over.

Barbara: Thank you so much. Anything else on our Bible passage today? I know you referenced a few other Bible passages, any other thoughts in closing that you'd like to share?

Casely: I want to just highlight the last sentence we are speaking for Christ himself now.

And it's like he's making an appeal, become friends with God. He's already a friend with you. I think in this season where there's so much discouragement and depression and people are going through so much hardship. It is good for us to know that God has our back. God has our back. God goes with us. Yesterday, I preached on Genesis 28:16, where Jacob came to a realization after the dream. And he saw a stairway from heaven to earth and angels ascending and descending. And Jacob just comes to a conclusion and says, surely this is a place where God is. And it's as if God is saying Jacob, it doesn't matter where you are in life.

I am with you. My stairway goes with you. I have your back. I will protect you. I will watch it for you. I think those are words of comfort that I say to myself. I say to my family, I say to my friends and I share it with all the world: at this time, God is watching over us. Let us lean into him this season.

Barbara: I really can't help myself. I find almost every episode, I'm mentioning one of my favorite Lutheran tenets and that's law and gospel. People might feel either in their past, or even now they've been in a season of just law. You know, God has rules and we can't keep them. It's impossible.

So there's a concept of sort of punishment. But then on the opposite side of that is grace. That salvation is a free gift and sometimes people judge each other harshly the way they've maybe been judged or sometimes the Bible can be read as just judgment, judgment, judgment. So yes, there is judgment.

There is law and then there is gospel. And you just gave us that wonderful gospel message that even if you can't feel it right now, it's still there and hopefully you can feel it.

Casely: I think the sermon yesterday preached to me, myself, because I felt that if God could call himself the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, Jacob, with all his shady qualities and everything, then there's room for me too, then it is totally by grace.

It is totally by grace that God chooses us. And then he uses us the way that he designs.

Barbara: Yes, our biblical ancestors were not perfect. They did not have their acts together. They didn't always do the right thing. So there is absolutely hope that no one is beyond redemption that there's room for that grace and for that hope.

Casely: Thank you very much for doing this and thank you for inviting me. Wonderful.

Barbara: This has been terrific. Thank you for your time also.

Resources:

2 Corinthians 5: 16-20

1 Corinthians 12

Genesis 28:16

C. S. Lewis

J I Packer, “Knowing God”

anything written by John Stott

www.gcf.org

www.gracebomb.org

Casely travels the globe in support of Christian unity

Human Rights with Heather, Part 2

Barbara: Hi everyone, and welcome to 40 minutes of faith. My name is Barbara Cox, and I host this weekly podcast. Today’s guest returns for part two of Human Rights. We had so much to talk about 2 weeks ago that we’re back for more.

I met Heather in Germany where she facilitated a weekly Bible study in the evening. She was raised as a Mormon and has lived in Utah since she was nine years old, except the three years she was in Germany.

Heather's parents were both Protestants who converted to the latter day saints church. She made a conscious decision six years ago to separate herself from the LDS church and has been attending a progressive nondenominational Christian Church for the past five years. She's not a fan of organized religion or being called religious, but I have witnessed that Heather loves God.

Heather holds a bachelor's degree in sociology and criminal justice, and currently works as a program manager for the United States air force. She's a single mom of a 17 year old daughter who is going into her senior year of high school. Heather's daughter is biracial and is one of a very few minorities at her high school.

As the area is 95% white. Another factor in being a minority is that they are not Mormon in Utah. Heather's engaged to a Nigerian who she dated while they were both in Germany, they are waiting for his visa approvals so they can be reunited. Heather would love to see her daughter grow up in a world that treats her as equal.

thank you for offering ahead of time to start off our conversation with the prayer.

Heather: Absolutely father God, we are gathered here today in your name.

I'm so thankful for Barbara for her leaning forward in this call that you've given her to reach out, to engage different members of your church on different topics to educate and enlighten anyone who happens to join and listen. God, we pray today that our discussion will be a blessing to those who will be inspired to hear it.

God, we pray that we will keep in mind that we are called to love and that as neighbors and friends and your church, we are called to do this without judgment. And also without fear, God, we ask you to guide this discussion with your spirit. We pray that it will be over this time that we have together.

I'm so thankful God and so grateful for this opportunity. To share some of my feelings and, and my experiences on this subject. And hopefully it will be a blessing. Thank you, father. God, we pray in your name. Jesus Christ. Amen.

Barbara: Amen. human rights is a global as well as a local topic. There are many resources from the United nations to faith groups, to the Bible.

We mentioned a passage from Mark chapter 12 during a previous podcast about the command to love our neighbors, which is in several books of the Bible. Part of a parable in the gospel of Matthew illustrates how we can care for our neighbors.

A parable is a story to illustrate a moral and or spiritual point.

Here's Matthew chapter 25 verses 35 and 36 from the message:

I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was homeless and you gave me a room. I was shivering and you gave me clothes. I was sick and you stopped to visit. I was in prison and you came to me.

There's more to this parable than just the verses I read, but they are foundational to human rights.

I'm intrigued that you had mentioned to me that you had some folks over to your home for a conversation about race. And I'm really interested in learning a little bit more about that. Is this something that you just kind of said, I want to do this and you figured it out by yourself, or is this something that is sort of becoming known that there's information out there that people can check out?

Heather:  since I felt highly engaged in social justice, human rights for the black population, specifically in the United States, but also when I lived in Germany, I got to witness for myself that there was a need there for that, group of refugees from Africa specifically. I got to interact with them quite a bit.

And I loved it. I didn't seek that out, but it found me and I love that God put me in a place where that happened and it was very motivating for me to continue to develop what I believe is my preparation to serve in this call that he's given me. And I still don't know exactly how I'm going to really do that. I'm a relatively new member of the Christian mainstream faith. So I'm still developing that walk with him as far as how he's going to lead me forward in it. But, as far as the discussion with my friends here, I had posted sometimes on social media. And I think people saw my heart on this issue for a long time. And, I want to stop here and mention that this is something that I've really struggled with because Facebook can be so enlightening, but at the same time, so frustrating that I took a long pause from it when I came back. I've been back home for a year now and I took a break. For a good four or five months.

I didn't look at it. I didn't post anything. I just was tired of the anger and the negativity I was seeing there. But I've kind of thought about that again and thought, maybe our voices have to still be heard. And maybe they're not always heard over the negativity, but I know that my friend reached out to me.

the one that inspired me to have this meeting, because she had seen what I had posted in the past. And so whether a person likes or comments or mentioned to you, a post that you've posted in love and in the right spirit at the time that you post it, they may be watching you and watching how you're reacting or how you're showing your feelings in your heart on whatever topic it is. Yes. And later it can bear fruit. So in this instance, this friend, who happens to be a member of my former church, the Mormon church, she reached out, knowing. That I have a biracial daughter and that I have a African fiance and that I have always advocated for racial justice and racial harmony.

she asked me if I could be a resource to her to answer some questions that she had, because the recent, movement in the U S and the tension around the racial justice movement that's going on right now had really awakened her spirit to an issue that she may not have really been aware of as a need to ponder. So she reached out to me and I was very happy to talk to her. give her my advice or my. Experience on the subject and point her two sons resources that she could look into and educate herself and become more aware of the issues surrounding this. But then she had a deep need to talk about it in person.

And it's hard to hear because. This state while I mentioned is very loving and very kind and generous. it's not very diverse and I I'm sure that that's the case in areas where other listeners that you have are living.  even in areas where there's a lot of racial diversity in the general area, we still tend as Americans to.

Be segregated when we go home or when we go to church. I think I've heard before. It's said that Sunday morning is the most segregated time of the week in the U S so, my friend didn't have any way to interact with the black community because it's not, easily accessible to do that.

In her circles and I didn't feel good about her reaching out to friends on Facebook and just, out of the blue to start talking to them, because that was something that we talked about in my discussion. That's not a great idea right now. if you have black friends and you haven't talked to them in a long time and you don't have a relationship and ongoing.

Communicative relationship with that friend. This isn't not the time to reach out and start trying to talk to them. And we can go into that if you'd like about why I don't think that's a good idea right now. I've heard

Barbara: it before also that to expect, any person to either represent any kind of group that they're part of or even one person might have five different people come up to them and say, Hey, teach me or something.

And we have many resources available to us and talking is great. So neither of us are saying don't talk to people, but there's other ways to educate yourself. there's already books written. There's already blog posts out there. There's a lot of information. Yeah to access, to get to first

Heather: you're so right, Barbara and, then I think, it's always great to read and to watch the fantastic documentaries that you may be able to stream at your home right now.

there's so many good ones. we could talk about that for an entire episode, but. around this specific discussion, this friend, she didn't necessarily ask me to have a meeting at my house. In fact, she didn't ask me , but as I was pondering, how do I engage this friend? without putting a burden on a community that right now is really hurting and has been for a long time and it's not their responsibility.

To educate those of us that may be feeling guilty or maybe being awakened to this movement and realizing the part that we played by not doing anything. It's not their responsibility to, shoulder that burden of education or, relieving guilt, because they have enough to think about and deal with right now around this subject. That we don't need to be adding to that. So, it just came to me and I'm sure it was the spirit leading that said, you have opened your home many times, Heather and I have this, sense that I really want to have community in my home. And I tried it in different ways. when I first.

Became a nondenominational Christian. I opened my home to a woman's Bible study that was before it went to Germany and it was wonderful. And, I learned so much, but I just have this desire to, to do that. And God reminded me of that again. And he, it was clear to me that having a discussion, an open, friendly, loving, and nonjudgmental space where people could come and talk about.

Sincere questions that they have and not be judged as ignorant if they ask them online or, if they engage the wrong person that doesn't have a loving spirit, that could go bad and it could push that person away from wanting to research and. Open their minds more to this topic of human rights.

So, I thought I'm gonna just put it out there. And I was really selective in who I invited to that first meeting. it was specific friends that I knew were open to this and that really desire to understand and that they could be an influence and maybe, That it would ripple out. So I was intentional in who I invited.

And unfortunately, a lot of people that I invited that were interested, for one reason or another didn't end up coming, but the one friend that inspired all this was here and another friend, and then my daughter and her friend, and we had a great discussion. I think it was great. I think it was helpful. I think we will definitely do it again because I had friends  that couldn't make it, would ask me to do this again. And so I'm really energized and excited to do that. I'm really excited to have women in my home. I have a very diverse friend group. I felt like this was a time for people to let their guard down and really be open to hear, on this topic. And I didn't want anyone to feel uncomfortable having To talk about maybe feelings that they've had.

Or that they grew up around on the subject of racial equality and be looking at a person that they may have slighted in their thoughts. So, I will do it again. And, I think next time I'll be more open just to questions instead of trying to prepare ahead of time, a list of things that I thought we should discuss.

Barbara: It sounds like you've created an environment where people could feel physically and emotionally safe and then have that conversation and there's room for more, for an ongoing conversation.

Heather: Yeah. And we're having it right now and I love that. And, you know, God made me a talker and he gives us all a different.

Mindsets different hearts, different behavior. And mine is to be really open to anybody to talk about anything. And I know that comes from God and I'm not boasting in myself only in God. So I love that. We got to use that, to advance this topic a little bit more in my community. And I love that there's more opportunity in the future to do that. I don't know where God is going to lead me with this. If it's ever going to become something that's established or there's some kind of organization around it right now, it's very loose. And I'm just seeing where there's a need in my community to help people understand better. I look forward to finding out exactly where I'm going to go with it.

Barbara: Great. It sounds like it's coming from your heart and that's one of your gifts. Not everybody, like you said, has the same gifts and that's okay.

 Heather: So, thinking about, spiritual gifts ,  there are gifts of grace that are mentioned enrollments, and. Prayer that you mentioned is absolutely one that I think we should all be doing, but some people are going to be led to specifically pray, and to be a prayer warrior and to pray for a certain thing or a certain cause.

certain group of people for other people there's gifts of mercy. And that might look like, Hey, I'm going to go out and I'm going to serve at a homeless shelter, or I'm going to go serve the refugee community in my area. Or I'm going to invite, people to fellowship with me either through my church or my home, or however that looks.

there's also people that God gives the gift of generosity and he blesses them financially.  I hope we don't pigeonhole anybody or ourselves. And to thinking the only way that I can help with this is either to become a community activist or to give money because that's not the only way.

And the easiest and the most cost effective way is to pray and ask God to bless that specific sector, that specific issue. But, if you have resources and you feel led to share them, whether they're time, money, or your home or whatever your faith, we should be sharing our faith.

And that is a resource that's renewable. And I should mention this because it's really important. I think, there's been a lot of talk about dignity. so I love that we're talking about that today. I want to make clear that as you help or as you're inclined to repent. Of any, judgment that you've had for certain people.

I don't feel that you are going to lose anything by trying to help others. You don't lose dignity by trying to help others to recover theirs. And so the fear that I think that some in the Christian Church have that they're going to somehow give up their rights to see the rights advance of another group.

That's not based in God's teaching at all.

Barbara: It's not a pie that if my slice is going to get smaller, I can see how it might seem that way. Yeah. And I'm willing to give up some of my privilege, but we're not saying during this conversation of radical transformation, that's a whole nother episode.

Heather: God doesn't give you dignity only to take it away and give it to somebody else. He's only asking people that have, the resources or the ability to help his children that may not be able to fully realize. The dignity that some of us are able to, because of the way society is structured is only asking us to help them.

Those that have less opportunity for that. It doesn't diminish mine at all. In fact, it increases my dignity to show love and to show forbearance. And to, allow God to work through me, to on behalf of other parts of his church in his kingdom. So I hope that people see that my heart is really heavy right now about how the Christian Church is so divided on this specific topic and how some people are seeing this as a scary thing that for me, who is called to.

support and advocate for the black community. It's really hard for me to see that there are Christians that I know are loving people, but they may have a hard heart about this. And they're seeing that this is somehow an affront to their faith or their freedom. I hope that their hearts change on that.

And I may not be the one that can be that, but I'll do my best with people that are open and receptive to it.

Barbara: I'm glad you mentioned that for some people making a contribution to an organization that's working on these issues might be a way that they can get involved. for some people how they invest their money can also have an impact on human rights and.

Like you said, even helping with your local soup kitchen, if you've got some time and none of that may be easier than the other thing you might think, Oh, it's easy to write a check or you might think, Oh, it's easy to serve soup, but sometimes it might be challenging.

It might be heartbreaking. People aren't always polite. I know you said that you're in a particularly friendly area, but people have the right to have messy lives and to have difficulties. And sometimes people say unkind things and I'm not inviting that. I hope you have a great experience if you want to do some volunteer work.

But it's not supposed to be tons of fun, although wouldn't it be great if there was a community of care around a certain issue?

Heather: So that's an interesting, thought Barbara, because I feel like what God calls you to and what you feel led towards. You're going to feel energized to do that and to work in that area and God won't make you feel it's a burden or a hassle.

And so any time that you get to engage with that, like I'm doing right now with you, I feel energized and I feel hopeful and I feel good and I feel positive. So if you're giving to an organization out of guilt or out of a sense of, I need to prove myself to God , I should be more enlightened on this, you need to really consider that God loves a cheerful giver. So, if he gave you the thought to give, you should definitely obey that, but think about why you're doing it. And I'm not talking only giving money, again, giving time giving of yourself, make sure that you're in the right place with that.

Make sure that your heart is in the right place with that. And if it's not, then you might need to work on why it's not. Or you may need to say, is this really where God is calling me to be giving? Maybe I need to step back and look at  where he wants me to be doing that. So, one thing that I was led to do in Germany, we traveled quite a bit.

It was fantastic to be with my daughter there because her eyes were open to the world, and she got such an education from these different cultures and I've always. Then incredibly interested in learning about other cultures. So, I am a very talkative and open person. Believe it or not, I'm actually kind of an introvert, but I can talk to anybody that I meet on the street or a homeless person, a person in a position of power and have a great conversation with them. And, and I always feel that God is leading those conversations. So I love it. It really energizes me. So, I talked to many times to people and one thing I decided on one of our early trips was any Euro that I had left in my pocket. When we were leaving that country, I would find somebody to give it to a stranger, or even while we were there and I saw panhandlers or, people, God would lead me by the spirit to certain people.

And I may have passed five on that block, but there would be that one that God would lead me to, and I would give to, and God will do that for you if your heart is open. An another point that I have to make is that we have to make sure that money isn't, our idol, possessions are not our idol.

So as we think about this topic of our blessings, our lives of luxury and those that have less. We have to make sure that we're not so tied to our positions, our money, that it hurts us to give it away because it's really only what God gave me.

And so my prayer going into Germany, because I was blessed with a little windfall, selling my house, I did pretty well. And I asked God, I want you to tell me what to do with that money. And I'm not going to tell you everything I did with it, because I think giving should be done anonymously and not to boast.

I did some big things with it. I did many small things with it. But I didn't feel that it was mine. So I love that God will lead you. And if you commit your time, your resources to that, he will show you how best to use that and not to condemn yourself , if you feel like you're not doing enough, or you're not doing it in the right way, that's not him.

That's not him because God will gently redirect you. And say, Hey, Heather, you know, right now I'm not calling you to give big sums of money because I know that you can't. but here's where I think you should be looking. And so you shouldn't feel bad Heather, that you're not giving to my children right now, because you're not in that position.

So, that to me is important. We all have these ideas and obviously I'm back in the U S now, and I'm not traveling all over the place because of the virus. So the practice that I had of giving what was left in my pocket, when I left a place, I can't do that. Right. You know, it's just not possible.

And I really miss that travel by the way. It's so fantastic. and those experiences, I'll never forget. I really need to document all these amazing different people that I talked to. I just think the people that God created are so amazing and it was such a blessing to be in contact with them.

And, I love, especially being in contact with people that have struggled and still have their dignity.  When God says do it to the least of these, we have to be careful also that we're not focusing on that word least and saying, Oh, God is saying that these people are less than me because honestly we could learn so much from people with less, with less resources, with less, maybe less physical material resources about how to really worship God in those circumstances and how, they are, to me, some of the most loving and open, people in their worship of God. And we should never say, well, I'm more in tune with God because he's blessing me with all these resources.

I actually believe sometimes that we're less in tune because. We are focused too much on what we have, does that make sense?

Barbara: Yes. God never said blessed are the rich, and in fact, in the new Testament, there's at least one place I can think of where the Beattitudes talk about the people who are downtrodden the grieving, the poor, the poor in spirit- for all practical purposes may be better off, will be lifted up. So something that's controversial in some circles, is to say I'm blessed- yes, I'm incredibly grateful for the blessings that I have, but it doesn't mean that I'm blessed and then therefore someone else's not blessed when things just feel like the sky is falling in this person's life.

It doesn't mean that they're being punished by God or that they're out of favor. To me, it means there’s sin in the world. And the way things are set up, sometimes things are just really awful circumstances for some people.

Heather: And sometimes it can be a redirection in your life and not a curse or that person sinned and so God is taking away from them. Sometimes it can be just a redirection to say, Hey, you were getting a little too big for your britches there, you know, to use an old school term. And, I'm gonna pull you back there because I need to humble you. There's been many times in my own life where I needed the humbling and God gave it to me.

And, then as humans, we get in this cycle where after a while we get back into that mentality where we're feeling too comfortable and we love our stuff and God will remind us again. Hey, you need to be humble. I see that as a learning experience and I don't ever want to judge somebody and say, wow, they're on the street and they're homeless because of their own.

Sin or their own fault because you really never, never know what's going on with that person. Something that I worked towards, that was a secondary, passion of my heart. I guess you could say it was homeless veterans. So we did a drive, in my workplace. So the base that I work at had a Group called the junior leadership council. And this was several years ago and we were asked for proposals for different projects. And I don't remember if I had just watched something about that trends that, were homeless or why the God had put that in my heart at that time. I just felt like we should do something for homeless veterans since we're part of the military community. So I got a hold of the VA hospital in salt Lake and. I found out that they have this annual homeless veterans stand down.

And we gathered around 1200 articles of clothing in our work group of about 600 people. we had donation Areas set up where people could bring in clothing that they wanted to donate to almost veterans. And, It was such a great way to, give back to this community of people that we enjoy the fruits of their labors, in the military and defending our freedom here in this country.

But through PTSD, any kind of trauma that they've had or different issues, addiction. They have become homeless and. It was really awesome. So there's different, ways that you can do that. 

Barbara: that's another great example of how can we serve our neighbor. So that's not where we started, but that's along the path of talking about this huge issue that impacts millions of people across our entire planet is what can just an average person do.

So we've listed a few resources already. Are there any other resources you can think of Heather?

Heather: I want to tell you about two groups that I'm involved with. There's a group called SURJ. It's stands for showing up for racial justice - you can find them online, they're active on Facebook. There should be a community in your area. And it's a network of human rights, advocacy groups.

I'm really impressed with them so far and I want to become more involved. I think the local chapter here in Utah had lost interest as far as members wanting to meet for a while. But because God has reawakened this movement recently, there's a lot of people joining and wanting to be involved in.

So I think they're going to become more active. There's probably a SURJ in your area. Another one that I am involved with as far as just discussion and education is a group called coming to the table. I found them through Facebook and  these are both multicultural groups where  their focus is to bridge racial gaps, economic gaps, inequality gaps, and just to come together in a spirit of understanding of support and, to help to provide that dignity for people that may not be able to exercise it right now and a group that is underserved or underrepresented.

Barbara: I really look forward to checking both of those resources out. And I love that you said just spending time with people can be nice. On the one hand you don't always have to expect someone to tell you their whole life story and to teach you everything, but maybe somebody wants to talk or just have a conversation about anything random.

Heather: you have to start there a lot of the times you can't just jump in with both feet into some of these societies where the people are very fragile and they're very weary of.

You know, Oh, here comes another person that wants to help. They're going to be here for a week or a month, and then I'm never going to see them again. Why do I want to open myself to that person? But I think the spirit can tell somebody when there's room to be open. And, so if you start with just listening to that person, then you kind of build that connection with them, but don't do that just for your own self edification to say, Oh yeah, I have friends that are homeless that I've talked to.

So anything that I mentioned today that I've done personally, it wasn't to boast or to say, Oh yeah, I know a lot of refugees. That was actually my curiosity and my being led towards those people and really desiring to understand their life. 

Barbara: I believe you're also coming from a loving heart that you're not doing research or wanting to retraumatize anyone to the best of my knowledge of you, Heather.

You're not like, Oh, tell me your story, even if it's painful for them, sometimes people don't want to retell their story all the time, but just out of sincere conversation. And I also believe that you agree that we can learn from other people just because we went to college or whatever doesn't mean that people need to always be learning from us far from it.

We can learn from absolutely anyone.

Heather: book learning, institutionalized learning is great and we all have our special field of interest, but I love to learn from people just through their life experiences. That really makes the most impact on me. And I think that's why my friends wanted to talk to me about, racial inequality, because they know that I have personal experience with that.

And we desire that connection as human beings, where we want to connect with somebody. When we're interested in a topic, we want to connect with somebody that has that, Background or that experience, that they can share it with us, but we have to be careful also that we're, don't exploit that person, that we don't really take the time to know them, but we just ask them, Hey, dump on me all of this experience that you have, and then I'm going to leave you.

what is our purpose for serving that person and how do we connect with that person? What do they need from us? Not just, how can I feel better about myself by asking you about your experiences? And then we never talk again. so make an effort to connect with people in different ways that you feel red.

But make sure that you're doing it in the right heart, in the right frame of mind. I think that if we all did that, that this world would be such a better place. we have so much work to do, to recognize and to see the humanity in every person. and it's hard for a lot of people it's just easier to.

Stay in your lane, keep your head down, do what you're supposed to do to get through that day and not go out of your way. And right now I'm not in a position where I'm really seeing a diverse community of people. Other than when I go to my church, which is a very open and, progressive church where we have all kinds of people.

But to me this time in my life is. More to impact people that are more like me and help them to make an impact on more people in their circles.

Barbara: That's an interesting perspective, because we might want to be in a certain environment where we're comfortable or where we feel useful.

So how can we be useful or serve right where we're at? Let's ponder that. I hate to draw this conversation to a close. Heather, this has been lovely. I really appreciate your wisdom and your heart and your insights. And I think we're going to have to do this again soon.

Heather: Yeah, I would love that any time I am keeping your podcast and your listeners in my prayers. and I am excited to see where this goes for you, Barbara. you're blending two things that I really love, which are podcasts and learning more about faith and talking about God. So I'm excited for you.

Barbara: Thank you.

Resources:

https://www.showingupforracialjustice.org

https://comingtothetable.org

Bible translations with May

 Barbara: Hi, everyone. Welcome to 40 Minutes of Faith. Today's topic is understanding different Bible translations, and our guest is Dr. May Persaud. I met May at Wartburg seminary in Iowa, where she has served as an instructor in biblical languages for more than 30 years. I struggle with addressing professors by their first names. This is not how I was brought up and it's the opposite of military culture, but it is the Wartburg way.

May is a pastor's kid from New Jersey and Kansas. During her postgraduate studies in Scotland, May met her husband, who's from Guyana, where they later lived and taught in the Lutheran church.

To be honest with you May, I cannot remember which translation of the Bible I heard as a kid, but it was probably not the King James version. I would have remembered if I heard a lot of Thees and Thous. May, when I'm in a group Bible study, our different Bibles don't have the exact same words. Can you help us understand why?

May: That's a great question, Barbara. I'm always being asked by students and also by members of Bible studies. Why is it that my Bible doesn't agree with what you're reading?

The old Testament, the Hebrew Bible is written in Hebrew and the new Testament in Greek and for us English readers, or for anyone throughout the world, the old Testament, the new Testament, they have to be translated into the language of the reader.

And these translations are called versions. So when we get together in a Bible study, odds are that people are going to bring some sort of version and Barbara, do you know how many English versions there are?

Barbara: I have absolutely no idea. I have a chart that I wanted to tell people about that has at least 10 different ones, but I bet it's more.

May: Yes, there are more than 450 English translation version, I always like to tell people what the current world situation is in terms of translations. I like to keep watch on the Wycliffe translators.

You can go to the internet and check them out. The Wycliffe translators, they go back to a Wycliffe in Britain who was the first one in 1415 to translate from the Latin Bible into English. And so the Wycliffe translators are named after him. He was condemned for his work because there was a fear that he would bring too many interpretations into the common language and people would just go crazy knowing too much.

The Wycliffe translators, as of last fall, they stated on their website cite that the Bible has been translated into 698 languages. And the new Testament itself has been translated into an additional 1,548 languages. And then portions of the Bible just portions have been translated into 1,138, but the startling word is that there are still 3,969 languages that do not have a Bible translation.

Even though many of those languages are very similar to languages that have been translated. And so some of those readers can read a language that's close to their own, but if you think of the English Versions as being 450, and that there are still 3,969 languages that do not have a Bible, you can tell that English readers are exceptionally fortunate.

Barbara: That really boggles my mind. I'm so glad you brought that to light. Cause it sounds like their work is ongoing. And just to let folks know, it's spelled www.WYCLIFFe.org  And that information will also be on the podcast website, which is www.40minutesoffaith.com

May:  I keep watch on this because I think it's very humbling as an English reader and it helps people in churches to know what is at stake worldwide. Translation and versions are a part of what it means to be in mission. And what it means is the church globally to be faithful. So this is a very important topic.

Another issue then when we start talking about our English versions and getting back to the original question, why does my Bible say something different than yours? because there are 450 translations. That means that as Christians, we need to know something about those different translations.

Lots of times people receive a Bible from Sunday school or they just go and they pick one up. But I think that more and more, we also need to understand what these versions do and become familiar with them in order to be wiser about our reading the Bible. Let me just say from the get go that all of translation work is an activity in faithfulness.

So I'm not a person who says, well, you should read this version and you shouldn't read that and I don't like to feel that some versions are inferior and some are superior, but the versions do different things. And you have to kind of know what it is that you need the version for in order to know what type of version you need to be reading.

Does that make sense, Barbara?

Barbara: It really does. And I know that we're going to be giving some examples coming up in a moment. I wanted to share a chart. Of course we can't share it visually in a podcast, but I can let you know where I got it. I don't know the original source. It's called a translation continuum.

That if you want to take a look at it, if you're a visual learner, like I am, it's currently on a website called www.olivetree.com  and you can search for Bible translation comparison. And again, I'll put that on the link for the podcast as well. That shows a word for word at one end and a thought for thought at the other end.

And I know that you'll help us to understand that in a little bit more detail. So this is not meant to be confusing, but to just invite a realization that there are different scholars of Hebrew and Greek.

In case this is a little bit new to you, NIV stands for new international version and the RSV stands for revised standard version. And then the “N” is new.

I wanted to invite listeners- you can have a pile of different Bibles if that would be convenient and possible for you. But I also use a website called www.Biblegateway.com . So that's another great way to look up different versions. And there's also different phone apps that you can have as well.

May:   when you look at a translation, which is a version, it's wise to know who did it? Is it a committee or is it an individual and what was it done for? And there is a book. called choosing a Bible by Steven Sheeley and Robert Nash.

This gives the background of all sorts of versions and not only versions, but versions that have been made into study Bibles- you can get things like Men's devotional Bible, life recovery Bible, women's devotional Bible, these different types of study Bibles.

And so it goes into the different versions who did them and what their mandates were, but it also talks about study Bibles and the different kinds of specialty Bibles that I get a lot of questions about.

 Barbara: Thanks. That's terrific. Cause we have the source doc as it is. And then there might be a different emphasis that might help folks. There's teen Bibles out there. There's children's Bibles that certainly wouldn't have every single verse. So that's a great resource. Thank you.

May: Great. And then approaches to translation- this can be a little technical, but on the other hand, the chart that you said that you were, making available talks about the spectrum of approaches to translation.

There are basically three different approaches to translation. There's the verbal approach where the translators strive to make the English be exactly following the ancient Greek or the ancient Hebrew. So it's kind of a word for word translation- now, most versions are not strictly verbal. So the verbal would be on one end of the spectrum.

And then in the middle is an approach to translation called dynamic. This seeks to understand what's going on and to reproduce the ancient thoughts and ideas in modern equivalency. So examples of this would be the NRSV, the RSV, the NIV. And the Jerusalem Bible, which was mandated by the Catholic church. So they're trying to stay with the words. And yet they're trying to not be just tied word for word. They're a little looser. It's dynamic. And then the final kind of translation approach is called paraphrase where the translators read the ancient texts. They think about what is going on? How can we talk about it?

And then in their own language they just kind of make a paraphrase and examples of this would be the living Bible and the message. And there are many other examples too. Usually when you're in a school setting, the school settings like to see a dynamic or a verbal. Most schools do not like to use living Bible or message because they're paraphrased. And you can't see what the Hebrew or the Greek behind the text is. Those paraphrases are really good for devotional work and personal reading and things in that area.

If you're in a study where you really want to get it, the language paraphrases are not the best, but paraphrases are very helpful for seeing what the general ideas are. So I like to have paraphrases in a Bible study. I'd like to have a mix of all of these myself. do you have any thoughts about that, Barbara?

Barbara: I grew up with a fairly intellectualized concept of church and relationship with God, which was fine. It worked for my personality and my family of origin. And when I first read some paraphrased versions, I felt that it was more heart than head. And for me, that was a good thing. I needed that, but I also respect that it might be helpful to have a balance.

And that's a little bit what I heard from you, that you don't have to read a bunch of different versions, but that there's some academic literal word for word translations from the original Hebrew and Greek. And then the paraphrases might be a little bit looser or maybe there's a better word for that, but that there's a place for different understandings.

May: Very definitely. And I'm always very hesitant to make a distinction between heart and head. People tend to do that.  I always say to my students in classes where we're translating, I like to see all of them, these versions be accessible because at the end of the day, they are all activities of the faithfulness of the church. I always love to see how that faithfulness comes out and then to put these versions together side by side, to think about them. I love it in Bible studies when people bring different versions so that we can talk and ponder together because that's what happens when you have different wordings and different versions at hand, people start saying, well, so what's going on here? And I think that that encourages us to delve deeper into the text. Also it encourages us in what it means for us to be faithful as we examine the text. So that's the bottom line of why I love so many versions and we're so blessed in English to have so many.

Barbara: I didn't mean to sound negative earlier when I had said about the Thees and the Thous, there's some verses that will always be on my heart. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God”, and “thy word is a lamp unto my feet”, that I just treasure.

May: there is room for all of them. Oh yes. And most of us know the Lord's prayer in the King James version or something like that. So I'm not taking that negatively. I just think it's important to really, embrace the fullness of our version activity in English, because it's such a blessing. Think of all the languages that have only one version or none at all. It's really humbling. 

Barbara: Yes. Do you have a moment made to take a look with us at Matthew 6:25, because I'm someone who worries and if there's some wisdom to be had about worrying or not worrying?

I have it at hand in the NIV, and I know that you'll have some insights into different versions, but Matthew chapter six verse 25 says, “therefore, I tell you do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink or about your body. What you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothes?”

May: Well, the interesting thing about this is that the versions are going to agree on this. They all say, do not worry. And this is where May Persaud when she teaches wishes that she could get a team together and work on an alternative reading of this.

The do not worry, grammatically can be translated either do not worry or stop worrying. Jesus is speaking to those who've come in and he's basically saying to them, I know you're worried, so let's just cut it out- to stop worrying. Therefore, I tell you, stop worrying about your life, what you will eat, or what you will drink or about your body, what you will wear. So he's stopping what is already going on in their hearts and minds.

And then after verse 25, he talks about the birds and he talks about how the father feeds even the birds and the lilies of the Valley. And he goes on: Don't worry about what you'll eat or what you'll drink. He's addressing the fact that he knows that they've been worrying about these things.

And then he says in verse 33, Strive first for the kingdom of God and God's righteousness and all these things will be given to you. So the bottom line is to lean into God. And then in verse 34, what does Jesus say? The text says, so do not worry about tomorrow. All of the translations agree with that, and that is a possible translation, but there's another possible.

And that is so don't even begin to worry. Which implies that the worrying hasn't started.  If I were working on this as a new version, I think I would imply Jesus stops the worry of the people who come. He re-centers them in God and God's kingdom and what God does leaning into the fact that God will provide in this COVID time, God will provide.

And then he says, so don't even get started as if it never was. I think that that’s an important way to look at this text. I don't think, do not worry and do not worry for me. I like to hear a little bit more. I like to hear Jesus say, don't even get started or to start by saying stop doing it.

Barbara: That's really comforting. And I suppose this passage is a whole entire other podcast episode because there's so much more to be said about worrying and working and there's all kinds of different judgments out there. And I always want to reference that we are wanting to be careful about we trust God.

And then we also know that our salvation is a free gift. So again, we want to be careful about works righteousness. Like if you do this, then this will happen. There are certainly promises in the Bible. but we also have earthly behaviors that we do out of love to care for our neighbors and knowing that there's sin in the world, but sometimes bad things do happen to good people.

So this is a whole complicated can of worms that I'm just opening. So we'll get to that another time.

May: Indeed. Yes.

Barbara: May, could I read a verse from the Psalms and then you could take us through how it got to that point in what are some different options for that particular Psalm?

May: That sounds good.

Barbara:  I did pick one thought for thought, because I know that you'll work in the other direction to help us understand. Psalm one 31 verse two, from the message:

“I've kept my feet on the ground. I've cultivated a quiet heart, like a baby content in its mother's arms. My soul is a baby content.”

May: Psalm one 31 is a Psalm that really shows how different versions have thought about this verse that you just read and how much translation is really at the end of the day, also interpretation. And this sometimes upsets people because they think that a translation is a translation, but you have to know that the translators themselves have interpretive assumptions. when we teach about, translating, we always say to students, all translation is also interpretation.

there are two types of interpretive. backgrounds for a version. There's the interpretive background where a version is the work of a committee.

And then there's the interpretive background where the translation is the work of an individual. So, when you have committees often as translators, we think that versions that are put out by committees are perhaps a little more reliable in that when there's a committee, that means that individuals are talking to each other about the wisdom of this translation versus that translation versus this other translation.

So that there's this input and that kind of stabilizes. The endeavor, as opposed to a single translator who only is working with himself or herself, and therefore they become the sole arbiter of what's going to be on the page. some of the versions that are committee backgrounded are the RSV.

The NRSV the NIV, the King James, that was a committee event in 1611. A version that emanates from a single translator is the living Bible by Ken Taylor and Ken Taylor was actually going from English into English. He wasn't going from Greek or Hebrew into English and he was doing this because he wanted to look at his English Bible and move it from being kind of an inscrutable form at some points and move it into language that his 10 children could understand. And so he had an objective and that was to paraphrase an initial version into his version so that his 10 kids could repeat it.

I love the living Bible, but there are times when I come across it and I'm, thinking, wait a minute, this isn't right, because Ken Taylor was working from English into English, but it's still an activity of a faithful Christian, and I believe that the Holy Spirit works. And so I myself read the living Bible. Does that kind of resonate with you, Barbara?

Barbara: my impression is that in some church bodies or perhaps academic institutions, there's one version that's more in favor and there seems to be some controversy over some of the more contemporary versions.

May: Yes. I'm always very watchful of having a group of people feel that one version is primary. And therefore what you're really saying is it's in a sense superior.

I'm very careful about that. This has to do with what were the versions. What were they intended to do? What audience, where they intended to reach? And when they were authorized, what were the mandates given to them for their work? when you get into an institution and the institution says, we need you to be reading XYZ, version, and it looks like they don't want you to read ABC version.

I think this is part of the issue and that is what were the mandates and what was the target, proposal for a certain translation. So for example, the living Bible, his target was that his 10 children could read the Bible in language. That was more on their level. Okay. And. And I love that.

I think that's wonderful. But if we look at the team translation, that would be the NRSV, the RSV and NIV, the King James, they are authorized, because they have to be funded and they, are given mandates. So for example, the NIV came out in 1978, the new international version. And it was authorized by the evangelical Christian community, largely in the United States.  they were given the mandate of bringing the language into a readable place, to sort of update it.

So for example, Isaiah seven, verse 14, that uses the word that is often translated Virgin.

Barbara: Behold, a Virgin shall conceive. Yes. If it's in the Messiah, I got it. It's not Messiah, it'll take me a few more minutes to pull it to mind.

May: Yes. Therefore, a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name, Emmanuel.

so they stuck with the idea of Virgin. Okay. Now that word in the Hebrew can be young woman. Not necessarily referring to whether she's a Virgin or not. And so for example, the RSV translates is as a young woman.

the NIV came out in 1978, largely with the idea of producing, a version that evangelical Christians could read in the language of the era in the seventies.

Then another example would be the NRSV has a very interesting mandate. This came out in 1989 and one of their mandates was to update the RSV. The RSV came out in the fifties. Also the NRSV in the eighties had more access to some of the ancient versions and therefore they wanted to bring some of the modern scholarship from the ancient versions into the endeavor to create the NRSV. And finally, and this is the big mandate for the NRSV. The NRSV was given a gender inclusive mandate.

They were to think about the old Testament and new Testament in terms of gender inclusive language. Now, originally they inclusify most of the language, but then later on, before it was finally produced, they went back and they de-inclusifide language for God. So you will read God “He.” An example of inclusive occasion for human language would be in Hebrew Bible.

The Israelites are called the sons of Israel. And they changed that to the children of Israel. Cause they figured there have to be women in the group. Another mandate was to show the reader when there were alternative readings, because there are sometimes many, many readings possible in the Hebrew or the Greek,  because they were dealing with greater access to ancient versions. For example, in Genesis one, one.

The traditional reading has been in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Yes. But there are also some other possibilities. And so if you look at the NRSV, they'll say in the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, and then in a footnote, they say, or, and the minute they say, or they're saying, well, there's an alternative reading again, right?

When God began to create. So when God began to create the heavens and the earth, so there are at least three readings there. Now some of those readings have to do with grammatical considerations. Sometimes they have to do with, variant readings in manuscripts, but the NRSV is committed to showing the readership these multiple possibilities, the NIV is not as committed- they're slightly committed, but not as much. So if you have an NIV, I know on Genesis one, they will have that marked, but many times the NIV doesn't show. So the NRSV had a different mandate and that is why often the interest  if you're in an institution such as a seminary or a school where you're working in a religion department or a religion class, often they will ask you to use the NRSV because of their access to these ancient manuscripts that is a little wider than other versions.

And also because they show alternative readings.  does that kind of help to clarify that for you a little bit, Barbara?

Barbara: Yes. I'm of a divided mind about this because sometimes I just want to read what I read and be done with it, but it's really neat to know that there's different versions out there.

 May: I want to go back now to Psalm 131, because this is where we can see the NRSV understanding of some updated thinking on grammatical issues  and clarification of the Hebrew that is in the text  with reference to other versions that have held to, an earlier understanding of the Hebrew.

Psalm 131 in the RSV, the revised standard version reads. This is verse two: I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother's breast. Like a child that is quieted is my soul. Now this implies a child quieted at its mother's breast means a breastfeeding child. And then the Psalmist goes on like a child that is quieted is my soul. So the Hebrew word there does not refer to a breastfeeding child, but rather to a weaned child.

And so the RSV begins in its translation by putting the texts and therefore putting us in our thinking, into a situation where you have a breastfeeding child. And then the Psalmist says, my soul is quieted like a child, right. A child at its mother's breast.

Now the NIV came along. And the NIV saw the issue of the weaned. And so the NIV chapter verse two, Psalm 131 reads, but I have calmed and quieted myself. I am like a weaned child with its mother. Right. So this is not a child suckling at the breast. This is a weaned child. That's independent of the mother may be running around or something like that.

And then the text says like a weaned child. I am content. So the NIV recognized sort of an error in translation with the RSV corrected it, but still says, I am like a weaned child, right? Now the NRSV comes along. It holds to the NIV, these understanding of weaned child, but due to some grammatical understandings, that and conversation and further thinking, this is what the NRSV came to.

So Psalm 131, verse two, I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother.

So that's exactly like the NIV and then the NRSV goes on and this is the claim. My soul is like the weaned child with me, rather than I am like a weaned child.

and this can get a little technical, but the implication is that the me is a mother. And so therefore the Psalmist appears to be a mother. Whereas in the RSV, in the NIV, we don't get that feeling.

And we get the feeling that the Psalmist is probably a male. So the NRSV has actually stepped out and has very good cause for its reading. It is the only version to date that is holding to that reading. It footnotes that reading and says that we still can think in terms of what has been done in the past so that the NIV reading is still valid and therefore the NRSV is giving us an option to read this new reading or the traditional reading saying that they're both valid. That's what the NRSV his mandate was about. Any thoughts on that, Barbara?

Barbara: Well, I was wondering, in Sunday school, sometimes there's a joke that says the answer is always Jesus. And I don't mean that in a disrespectful way, but just that the vast majority of things are pointing towards Jesus or God.

So when you were talking, I was actually wondering, is it talking about our relationship with God and I'm not sure, I could be way off base here. So please don't hesitate if I'm just wandering around lost, not all the Psalms are about our relationship with God, but maybe they are?

May: Yes, they are. And so if you read this Psalm, it begins, Oh Lord, my heart is not lifted up. So there's a person who's speaking. Right? My eyes are not raised too high. I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me, but I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother.

Like my soul is like the weaned child that is with me. So says the mother- now, the very stunning verse is verse three, where the mother turns to Israel and says, Oh, Israel, hope in the Lord. So that this mother is saying to Israel, hope in the Lord. So that this voice becomes one with all of the voices of the Psalter who are actually saying:

Let us hope, hope in the Lord, and that's pointing us towards God. So the Psalter is filled with witnesses who are talking about God's activity in their lives and therefore our lives and who are expressing joy and lament, but also who are exhorting each other, encouraging each other hope in the Lord. Fear not, things like that.

And that's not stressing the human side. That's stressing the response of Israel to the great activity of God in their midst. So in that way, yes, the Psalm is pointing towards God.

Any thoughts? 

Barbara:  I just looked up really quick while you were talking. This Psalm that you have been reading made me think of first Peter chapter two, verse two: like newborn babies crave pure spiritual milk so that you may grow up in your salvation- and they may not have anything to do with each other, but that's just where my brain went.

So that's kind of where I was thinking we're raised up in our faith tradition. We start off with the basics and then we move on to more complicated things in deeper understandings.

May:  yes, indeed.

Barbara: is there anything else about translations or interpretations or about language approaches that you'd like to share with us? May.

May: Oh one could go on forever ever and ever. But I always say to people, if you really want to delve into translation issues and version issues, come and learn Greek in Hebrew, and then we can really talk about it. So this is always a pitch to learn the languages, if you can. But of course, I know that people are like, Oh my.

Barbara: I can imagine- languages come easily to me, but I've never learned a language with a different alphabet. So that's another challenge. And I know there's some really interesting programs out there on how to learn language. You can take an official class, but maybe you can go online or to the library and check out some different resources that way.

May: Right. But I always say this as a tease because you know, if you're a language instructor, as I am, you must stand up for the languages. So I say this as a tease and everybody rolls their eyes and they're like, yes, yes, I'll do that in my next life.

Barbara: Yeah. When I don't have so much else to do, but you never know, folks might have some time on their hands. So that's a great encouragement.

And also knowing that learning a language with a similar alphabet can be a great challenge. Learning a new alphabet is a whole other thing, but Hey, if you've got the time, that would be really terrific.

May: Yes, indeed. Thank you.

Barbara: Of course. Thank you so much, May, I really appreciate it

May:  I'm so grateful for this opportunity.

Resources:

Psalm 131:2

Matthew 6:25

Isaiah 7:14

Genesis 1:1

1 Peter 2:2

www.wycliffe.org

www.olivetree.com

www.biblegateway.com  

Book: Choosing a Bible by Sheeley & Nash

May has taught Hebrew and Greek at Wartburg Theological Seminary for 30 years

Human Rights with Heather, Part 1

 Barbara: Hi, everyone. Welcome to 40 Minutes of Faith. Today's topic is human rights and our guest is Heather Brooks. I met Heather in Germany where she facilitated a weekly Bible study in the evening. She was raised as a Mormon and has lived in Utah since she was nine years old, except the three years she was in Germany.

Heather's parents were both Protestants who converted to the latter day saints church. She made a conscious decision six years ago to separate herself from the LDS church and has been attending a progressive nondenominational Christian Church for the past five years. She's not a fan of organized religion or being called religious, but I have witnessed that Heather loves God.

Heather holds a bachelor's degree in sociology and criminal justice, and currently works as a program manager for the United States Air Force. She's a single mom of a 17 year old daughter who is going into her senior year of high school. Heather's daughter is biracial and is one of a very few minorities at her high school, as the area is 95% white. Another factor in being a minority is that they are not Mormon in Utah. Heather's engaged to a Nigerian whom she dated while they were both in Germany. They are waiting for his visa approvals so they can be reunited. Heather would love to see her daughter grow up in a world that treats her as equal. She would like to go on mission trips and travel the world together. Heather, how are things in Utah?

Heather: Well, Barbara, I happen to work for the crisis action team at the air force base. So I've been seeing this firsthand for months. We've been watching the numbers very closely and Utah has maintained a pretty open feeling as far as businesses, grocery stores being open and restaurants have always been open, at least for takeout, if not dine-in service has been open. But our numbers are starting to increase as people get a little bit more relaxed and the mask wearing has kind of tapered off a little bit. So I don't know if that's part of the reason, but we're seeing somewhat of an increase. So praying that things get a little bit under control here, but we've been really blessed to be able to go out and enjoy the surroundings. I live in a very beautiful state- people here love to be outside and that has never stopped. But my prayers are that we don't increase in our deaths, but we continue to see people recover, which is God's favor on this situation.

And I continue to pray that he will watch over this and that it will end at the time that he's appointed. So, things are good here.  I live in a very kind and thoughtful state. So we're blessed.

Barbara: Great. I don't hear that too often. That's amazing. That's really nice.

Heather: It's one of the draws to come back here , it's just such a kind and a beautiful place to be.

Barbara: Well, thank you for offering ahead of time to start off our conversation with the prayer.

Heather: Absolutely. Father God, we are gathered here today in your name.

I'm so thankful for Barbara for her leaning forward in this call that you've given her to reach out, to engage different members of your church on different topics to educate and enlighten anyone who happens to join and listen. God, we pray today that our discussion will be a blessing to those who will be inspired to hear it.

God, we pray that we will keep in mind that we are called to love and that as neighbors and friends and your church, we are called to do this without judgment. And also without fear, God, we ask you to guide this discussion with your spirit. We pray that it will be over this time that we have together.

I'm so thankful God and so grateful for this opportunity. To share some of my feelings and, and my experiences on this subject. And hopefully it will be a blessing. Thank you, father. God, we pray in your name. Jesus Christ. Amen.

Barbara: Amen. So Heather human rights is a global, as well as a local topic. There are many resources from the United nations to faith groups, to the Bible.

We mentioned a passage from Mark chapter 12 during a previous podcast about the command to love our neighbors, which is in several books of the Bible. Part of a parable in the gospel of Matthew illustrates how we can care for our neighbors. A parable is a story to illustrate a moral and or spiritual point.

Here's Matthew chapter 25 verses 35 and 36 from the message

“I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was homeless and you gave me a room. I was shivering and you gave me clothes. I was sick and you stopped to visit. I was in prison and you came to me.”

There's more to this parable than just the verses I read, but they are foundational to human rights.

Heather, there's so many aspects of human rights that we can talk about. What has your experience been with human rights? What have you noticed?

Heather: Wow, Barbara, this is such a deep question and we could talk about it for so long. my heart has been inclined to this subject for my entire life, as long as I can remember.

I know that it's something that God has I put in my heart and so this topic  has special meaning to me, and it's what I'm passionate about. So, hopefully I can contain myself and not get too far off course. What I love about that scripture is how he puts himself in the place of these different individuals in different circumstances.

He says, I was this, I was that- we know that we all have the breath of God within us, and that we are his children, his creations. So I love that he put himself in these different positions that some of us may see as inferior or lacking or needy or undeserved, whatever word is being used underserved.

And God put himself into the place of these people and said, when you serve these communities, these groups, or these individuals, you're serving me. I love that God set that forth as a call for us to do that. And to see that we are really serving him when we serve whatever community it is that he's put in our heart to serve.

I believe strongly that God has given us each separate and unique passions for different topics for different communities. And, I think that every Christian. We'll know either right off the top of their head or if they do some meditating and praying on it, that there is a definitely a community that they've always felt pulled towards.

It could be the homeless, it could be veterans, it could be, refugees. It could be handicapped people. It could be, people that are not currently walking with God. my. Community that's on my heart and always has been  black American and African people. I put that in my heart from a very early age and I really didn't understand it.

being a white female from suburban DC area, I was so privileged to be. In what I felt like at that time was the United nations. at my elementary school, we had every nationality, every culture, every race, every religion, it was beautiful. I absolutely loved that. And that gave me the foundation for the passion that I have in working and educating people on this certain segment of society that I feel God has called me to be, extremely compassionate and loving for. So I love that God does that. I love that he. Cause us to do different things, to bless each part of his creation. one of the scriptures that is always on my heart is Corinthians 12 where it talks about the gifts of the spirit and. What they are. I love it that we each have our own call and our own unique place inside of the church as a church body there, that we don't have to all do this the same way. it doesn't look the same for every person to serve. it doesn't even look the same as far as how you do it within the same element or sphere of service. So you're being called to serve God, and maybe serve people that are hungry for, a connection through a podcast and through Bible study and really understanding the word and. I may be trying to serve the same community, but I might do it in a completely different way by individually going out and talking to somebody.

And neither one of those is good. Or better than the other.

Barbara: yes, I'm so glad you brought that up because we have some resources to share. And again, these are, do what you feel comfortable and perhaps be willing to stretch beyond your comfort zone. This isn't a checklist, like every single person has to do every single thing.

I did look it up. And you were right. It's first Corinthians chapter 12, talking about the gifts of the spirit. And it's also in other places in the Bible as well, talking about our different gifts. And we're going to be talking about dignity in a minute, which isn't the same thing, but in terms of how we treat each other to say that they're not better or worse, they're just different. But I wanted to mention that some people learn by listening and some people learn by reading.

So a lot of the resources that we're going to be mentioning also do include the option for reading. And one of them is on a resource website that I had mentioned before, which is www.elca.org the Lutheran church that I belong to has social messages and social statements. And those are all written out on that website.

So there's a long social message about human rights, And the transcript of this conversation is going to be. On www.40minutesoffaith.com, along with all of the links to the websites that we're going to be mentioning.  one quote from that Lutheran document is that a society should not deny a person's dignity for any reason. Heather, how are our global societies doing when it comes to honoring or denying dignity?

Heather: Wow, that's a challenging question. And first I wanted to say that I did read that statement. I really enjoyed reading that as a sociologist, as a person that has been studying this different, groups of society.

I was really pleasantly surprised, because I haven't investigated a lot of the specific faiths and I wasn't aware that, your specific faith is so, open on this subject and that they have written the statement. It was really awesome to read it and. I enjoyed that. And, there was so much good stuff in there.

I'll probably go back and look at it again and see how I can apply that to my own faith walk. on your question about global societies, you know, God put me in such an amazing position as a single mom to go to Europe. I've always been globally minded, I think internally, but due to financial reasons or due to child rearing reasons my daughter and I had not left the U S before. So she was 13 when we went, and it was a great time. I was pretty newly divorced and I was somewhat newly a nondenominational Christian. And so it was like, God was opening the world up to me. And it was such an amazing experience to be there.

We traveled all over Europe, met all kinds of people. I had relationships, friend relationships and even romantic relationships with people from other countries. I got to hear a lot about how their society there. leadership in their home countries, we're handling human dignity, human rights.

 a lot of it was negative, but I think that we can expect that because we human humans seem to be ruled by the flesh and especially people that may be drawn into leadership. And. Those types of positions may be ruled by things such as greed or, selfish reasons. So I don't want to judge all leaders because there's definitely ones that God put in place that are doing good things.

 But I heard so many times from so many different people from so many different places. How their society, their country, their leaders were failing to treat people equally and as God has intended for us to treat others. So I would say in my experience, I saw that there are some countries that are doing pretty well.

I wouldn't say that I ever saw that any country was doing great. I don't think that our own country is doing great on this topic, but I know that we can because I'm a very patriotic and, positive and optimistic person. I choose to focus on the room for growth and the potential that we have as Americans to do better on this issue.

Barbara: another quote in the social message is that no person inherently has more rights or fewer rights than another. So I'm wondering how can we do better on that one? how can ordinary people help?

I know that sometimes it's government or bureaucracy or society or whatever, but, how can we do better

Heather:  this is such a confounding topic because we, as individuals may not feel that we have any influence on a larger scale, as far as.

How things go. And even though we have the right to vote a lot of times, who we vote for doesn't end up prevailing. So it feels like I have the right to vote, but is that making any kind of an impact? Something that God put in my heart a little while ago was I was thinking that I needed to reach out to like a big audience and.

 be talking about my experience or my philosophy of how to do this. And God told me to pull that back and just to do it more on an individual basis.  I've studied government a lot too. was one of my areas of study growing up and in college. I'm really into politics and my family is very political. I originally had thought that a way for me to make a difference was to become a politician. And that really was one of my goals as a young person. And I see that there's so much good that we can do, on a personal level and, influencing the community at our doorstep.

So, maybe one day, God will lead me there.  I don't want to close any doors, but I don't feel led in that regard anymore. So, as far as how we can do better, it starts inside of us. We have to first rid ourselves of any judgment that we have towards specific communities, and really do some soul searching.

We have to, pray and ask God to uncover that. And it can be painful, to reveal these works that we were trying to ignore or that just weren't coming to light. So. First thing we have to do is in prayer on this issue. And then, once we work with God on healing those things, because he is the great healer and we may feel really bad about some of the thoughts or the, ideas that we've allowed to stagnate in internally.

But God can remove all of those things from us. If we have a heart for him to do it, and if we allow him to do it, and sometimes it takes a little while, maybe we won't be healed right away, like a miraculous healing that Jesus performed many times, but it takes some work and effort depending on how long you've allowed those things to fester.

So the first thing I think is you have to work internally and you have to work with God on. Relieving you of those things. And I think also times when God really relieved people of those things very quickly, including myself, you know, there's been times where I prayed on different things for relief and God relieve me of them right away.

So he knows where you're at with that and he can work with you on it. So, another thing we have to remember is, it's not my right to determine another person's worth. And their rights. So the statement that you read said that no person has more rights or fewer rights than another. I don't set the rights of anyone.

I don't even set the rights of myself and I don't establish my own worth or another person's worth or how I should treat them with dignity or not. That isn't up to me. God established that when he created you. And my brother and my sister and, myself. So God gave that, that worth to me. And it's not my place to take it away from anybody, but to recognize and to, promote and help those that maybe society isn't treating with dignity, in different ways.

So, we have to keep those things in mind and. I think that is one way we can do better. and then after you feel that your conscience is clear, then. You can pray and ask God to lead you forward in what type of action you can do externally. So first internal second, external. And how do you, how does that look for you?

It's going to be different for every person. Not every person is going to have people coming in their house to talk about this and not every person is going to be on the street. Doing peaceful, protesting and not every person is going to be working in the homeless shelter with that community. So just because I do things one way doesn't mean that when you have this awakening or this realization of an area that you need to be healed, that you have to follow in my footsteps.

And so that's something as we work with others on, you know, human rights. So she uses. Make sure that they are in relation with God on that directly and that we're not telling them, Hey, this is what you should do, but here's some things that you could do. And why don't you ask God to tell you which one of them is going to be your lane?

Does that make sense?

Barbara: Yes. I really appreciate you inviting that. There's a variety of different ways. Starting with some internal works in prayer, work with God, and then we'll be providing some ideas, but certainly not an exhaustive list. There's probably plenty of other things out there too. Or what you feel kind of called internally.

And that sometimes is going to be really apparent from a young age. I knew from junior high that I wanted to be a social worker. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind about that. And then maybe sometimes in our lives, there can be different paths to, so you may be on the same path and that's great.

Or sometimes the situation changes something new arises. And so we'll be offering up some resources that are not exhaustive for folks to consider, Hey, could this be a good fit? Am I willing to try this? Am I willing to learn something new? Am I willing to pray about it? And one thing, when I read the social statement on human rights, I felt a little bit guilty because I don't like to think that I've ever treated another human being as though they were a commodity. But I do know that I benefit from laws and businesses practices, which abused people by virtue of work conditions, lack of benefits, like sick time, or even sufficient access to toilet facilities and running water to wash their hands.

So even though I might personally not be implementing any of those things, if I've benefit from those conditions, then I feel that I'm also accountable for it. And so the Lutheran statement asks us to advocate for people so that they are not treated as commodities. And I'm wondering what needs to happen to balance out the lives of luxury lived by so many people with the lives of destitution that are lived by others.

Heather:  you can immediately ponder this topic and become incredibly guilty feeling. start to condemn yourself a big focus of my discussion with my friends and with my own daughter. who's becoming a little bit of an activist in her own, right? As a young woman of color- and by the way, I absolutely applaud and love this young age group. They are leading us forward in this. And I absolutely love how passionate they are about their advocacy. They are definitely leading this, social justice movement. And I think we need to get out of their way and let them do it and see how we can support them because they have great ideas.

So, lives of luxury. Yeah, we are definitely blessed. I have more than I need. and I've seen firsthand, and been in refugee homes in Germany. I got to see how their life was different and, It was really eye-opening. they had come from countries where there was so much turmoil and conflict and they were just seeking a place of peace. And for them, this was like a place they could rest. Their spirit could, be a little bit more, free to praise God in this place that they were at. Not that they weren't before, but just that the burden of everyday struggle wasn't quite so bad. And so they could focus on some other things.  I felt like, my freedom was a little bit limited in Germany because of all the laws there, but they felt free.

And, it was interesting to see that paradox and to see that, It just totally depends on your upbringing and where you're from. And so do I feel like God says, Hey Heather, you're, you have too much stuff and you need to give it all away and follow me like the young man that asked him how he could enter the kingdom of heaven. And he said, you give up all your possessions and follow me. I don't believe that God calls all of us to do that. So I don't believe that our first reaction should be when we hear a statement like, lives of luxury and other people are struggling that it's like, Oh my gosh, God, you're telling me I have too much and I have to give it away. I don't believe that. But I do believe that God will lead you in ways that you can be giving and that you can make a difference. So there's so many ways that people are being abused and that labor is being exploited. that it's not possible for us to really research every single purchase we make- is that a fair trade purchase? Is that company treating their workers with dignity? There's absolutely no way because you know how the supply chain works. They're second and third level suppliers for all of the products that we use.

They're not made from start to finish in one place. So you could go in a research this tire company that you bought your car tires from, but you don't know what their rubber supplier is doing with their employees so we could absolutely go bonkers trying to figure out all of this.

So, it's not something that I personally do, like think, Oh my gosh, God, should I buy tires from this company? But I'll give you an example of, where, even in a progressive and an open system society like Germany, that. there is definitely abuse of workers' rights going on. So my fiance, he's a beautiful and loving and kind and hardworking person.

And he was fortunate to in the constraints that the immigration service in Germany gave him, he went and found his own job because they basically have to approve. Where you work and they do quite a bit of research to ensure that no German could have this job before they'll allow an immigrant to do it.

And one of the reasons that they have opened their doors so much to immigration there is that they have a labor shortage.  Germany has a low birth rate and in fact, a negative growth rate and they need young and capable workers in lower level service and manufacturing  industries, because.

Their population is becoming more educated and doing things like engineering that we associate with Germany, but they're kind of losing the manufacturing workforce. So they let a lot of different. people into their country for that reason. And some people may think that they did it out of the goodness of their heart, but I like to look at it from an economic standpoint, like what are they gaining from that?

And, so they regulate a lot where these people can work. My fiancé had a work permit. So he was allowed to work there, but he was told where he could work. He happened upon an, I feel God led him to, a theater company in our local area where he just asked them if they were hiring. And he has, a degree in business and accounting and a background in it, but he just felt like I'll take work, whatever it is because I don't want to be idle and I'm here. God had led him to Germany, and he didn't really know why. And I felt the same way, but we feel like it was for us to meet. So anyway, he goes to this theater company and they hire him and he is doing heavy lifting, building heavy theater sets, doing a lot of manual labor, but he really enjoyed it.

And he had freedom there. They traveled all over Germany, sometimes out of the country, for these different productions. And he really became a part of his team. He taught himself German and they really loved him. but the way that the work goes in Germany, you're under a contract and his contract expired and the immigration office was giving him a really hard time about the renewal of this work contract. And also we felt that it was time for him to go back to Nigeria because I was leaving Germany and he was preparing for his visa interview. So he stepped aside from that position and then he needed to work somewhere and he had heard through other refugees that he lived with because the government, forces you to live in certain housing, which is very substandard. sometimes vacant buildings that they convert into housing for refugees.

Anyway, there's a community. There are people that like to help each other. Hey, I know I've heard of this job. And so he went to work at this place and I felt the anxiety or, you know, thousands of miles away just listening to him. they were actually doing tires and, They were working at a Foundry or I'm probably saying that wrong, but where they literally mold the rubber into tires.

So I have pictures of him where he's standing in front of this blast furnace. It looks like, and the first day when he got there, nobody had warned him that you want to wear sleeves on your shirt. And he was there thinking this is going to be hot, hard work. So he's wearing a tank  top and, he had burns all over his arms from them. and then, he asked his coworkers, when do we get a break? And they said, you don't get a break. You're not even allowed in an eight hour shift to stop to use the restroom. So there was no lunch break. There was no take a drink of water break.

There was no, I need to use the bathroom now break. Basically these immigrants would watch each other's back. somebody said I really have to go use the restroom and they would  say, hurry. You need to go and then come right back to your station and we'll make sure that the boss doesn't catch you.

And I'm thinking, how is this possible in a country like Germany that is considered at the top of the economy in Europe? How is it possible that we have people working in these conditions? You have no idea what's going on right around you. So if that is an issue that God leads you to feel passionate about, I'm going to keep harping on that.

God is going to lead you to specific community or a specific cause. And if that's your cause workers' rights, I'm sure that he will lead you in how to support that for me. It's one, part of a bigger issue that I feel led towards, but I don't know personally how I can affect that, because I don't know, like if they were making tires for a specific tire maker and, if I bought those tires, I guess I didn't because they were in Germany.

So, how do I know that, and how do I, if I know, and I willingly. I'm complicit in allowing that to happen and promoting or consuming from that. Then I have a burden on myself, but I don't think that we should feel burdened, to research and. To understand the background of all of these things

Barbara: you could spend hours and days on end. If it becomes apparent, like you said, then we can choose what we buy or we can. Stand up. There's a couple of websites, that I had wanted to mention. And I really appreciate you being honest to Heather because everybody says vote, vote, vote, and I'm all in favor of voting.

Go vote. But I agree with you. Sometimes it feels disempowering that either, you know what the candidates promise on the way in might not come to pass. After they've been elected and it's often not up to one individual person anyway, it's a group vote, but vote anyway. Even if it feels that the results might not be immediately apparent of what you want.

And then,  workers' rights, something that's important to you. There are advocacy methods and then just  basic human decency and even prayer. I wouldn't say stop and end with prayer. We should pray for all oppressed peoples, but then, what action can we take?

So there is more information on United nations, their website, which is un.org and also amnesty their website is amnestyusa.org. And there are basic human rights. As far as I'm concerned, going to the bathroom is a basic human right, taking a break during your work shift and. In the United States, I believe it also happens.

There was a book a few years ago, so those exact situations might not be happening, but I suspect they are it's called Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. So I would recommend that book.

Where is your heart with human rights? It could be with human trafficking. It could be child abuse. It could be, the list goes on. Unfortunately, we haven't even begun to exhaust the list of how we humans treat each other badly.

Heather: Oh, absolutely true.

Barbara: Thanks for joining us today as we’ve discussed human rights. There is so much more to talk about that Heather and I will have a second episode coming in 2 weeks when we discuss how to talk about race with white people, volunteering and charitable giving. The next episode is about different translations of the Bible. Are any versions better than others? Seminary professor May Persaud enlightens us about Biblical language and why there are so many interpretations. Your comments are welcome at 40minutesoffaith.com

Heather shares her perspective on human rights

Gloom with Carol

Gloom with Carol

Barbara:  Hi, everyone. Welcome to 40 minutes of faith. Today's topic is gloom and stress, and our guest is Carol Espique. I met Carol in Germany through the military chapel. Carol grew up in a Christian home and got married at 21. After seven years, they divorced. And during that time she was diagnosed with anxiety. It was scary, but Carol was very proactive about her mental health.

She was trying to find herself and decided to focus on God before she went into another relationship. Carol never pictured herself moving, let alone marrying someone in the military. And now she's been a military spouse for six years. Carol and her husband want to put God first and follow God's will as is common.

For many military families, they moved to Georgia had a child and the air force sent Carol's husband on a deployment.  They  moved to Germany three years ago and are currently in North Carolina. Carol was taking online classes in Germany towards a social work degree. She wants to encourage others and talk about how we can get help or support in new seasons of life.

It's okay to ask for help. Carol, how are things in North Carolina this summer?

Carol: it's getting hot, so we just stay inside and stay in the air conditioner. But we did venture out this weekend and went to the pool here at our apartment. And this really enjoyed spending time, just me and my husband and our son.

We. Hardly had that time to do with schoolwork and moving in and therapies for Nolan. So it was just nice to have a couple hours to just focus on us.

Barbara: Great. That sounds really nice. Our Bible passage today is in the book of Amos, which is near the middle of your Bible, between the book of Daniel and the new Testament.

Amos 5:18-24 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

18 Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord!
    Why do you want the day of the Lord?
It is darkness, not light;
19     as if someone fled from a lion,
    and was met by a bear;
or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall,
    and was bitten by a snake.
20 Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light,
    and gloom with no brightness in it?

21 I hate, I despise your festivals,
    and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
22 Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
    I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
    I will not look upon.
23 Take away from me the noise of your songs;
    I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
24 But let justice roll down like waters,
    and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Carol, this might sound a little gloomy and depressing, but let's unpack it a little bit. Do we have seasons of gloom in our lives that could be depression and or anxiety?

Carol: I definitely think so, in deployments or during PCS season, which is “permanent change the station.” You can ask any military spouse and if your spouse is on deployment, the first thing is things just start breaking in the house. my friend, her husband's gone for first week. her dishwasher stopped working. It's just crazy.  It does teach you to trust in God.

 luckily being in the military, you just have such a great support system.  you don't have to wait around for people- everyone's in the same position and so open to accepting you. And there are a lot of, Hey, my husband can mow your yard. That's no problem.

Your dishwasher broke. We know someone.  We've just been so blessed that there's been so many people that God's put in our lives that have always been there. I've never really felt alone.

Barbara: That's one benefit to being a military family. And of course there's many, but also the challenges like you mentioned, and everybody's kind of in the same boat.

So you don't mind getting to know each other a little quicker, maybe the normal, cause you don't have like two years to wait around and get to know each other. Cause by then it's almost time to get ready to move on to the next place. That's a really a good example and a good resource. have you ever felt gloomy or separated from God?

Carol: I would say probably before I met my husband, I was definitely experiencing that. I think I was trying to find my path back to him, but also trying to figure out who I was. I grew up in a small town, so I always felt like I was  Susan and Jerry’s daughter or Jennifer’s sister, I never just kind of had who I was.

And until you know who you are, it's really hard to establish relationships with anyone else. And I think that's the same with even a relationship with God. Like you have to kind of know who you are so that you can trust other people

I go into a very small church, Southern Baptist in a small town and grew up there and it fit me for a little while, but you go through seasons and. You change and it's not good or bad, it's just life.

 I decided that it was time for me to define churches that I felt like fit more me.  we've tried some pretty extreme churches with a alive band where I felt like I was at a concert. And that wasn't really what I was looking for.

I finally did end up returning to my parents. And then once Edmond and I started dating, he had found a church he was established in and that had couples our age. So it was nice to start going with him.

I feel like during that time, God was just using that time for me to open my eyes.  I guess small towns are good for people, but I think maybe I needed something a little more.

I feel like during that time I was able to experience other churches or just. Things more so than a small town. So that was good. I think it was meeting some of what I was missing in my life.

Barbara: Yeah. And you ended up all the way across the ocean on this military assignment in Germany, and now you're back and I'm pretty sure Carol, that I know you well enough.

If I can just double check this. When you said it was really nice that there were other couples of your age in this other church, you're not there just looking for social stuff and fun, but even when you're  in a Bible study , we can learn from our elders by all means. So having full respect, but then sometimes it's just nice to be on a faith walk with folks who were sort of in our same life stage, does that sound like it's fair to say?

Carol: I would definitely say that. I was probably the only person at my church who was about my age and everybody was either married and had kids. Or like in college, I was kind of in this, in between. I would help my parents with the  senior adult Christmas party. I was just looking for a connection, more my peers.

Barbara: Now some parts of our passage in Amos today sound a little scary and I'm wondering how can we approach times that feel like we're running from a bear. Then we meet a lion and then we get bitten by a snake. And I hope all that's  metaphorically, that doesn't happen with. Real life too often, but kind of when our souls might be facing some scary stuff.

Carol: yes. maybe some people feel like 2020 may be like this, you get through one thing and there's something else for you to face- it really can beat you down. But, I know in my head I had made a comment and I like immediately regretted even thinking that Oh, this is end times. I thought God was supposed to rapture Christians up and not be feeling all this. And then I immediately realized that, you know, what.

My husband still has his job. We still get our paycheck. Every other week. We have food in our pantry. None of us are sick. We have access to the doctor and like really Carol, like just shut your mouth because you have it really good.  I feel like God is just like, let's see what else is going on. Let's not focus on poor you, you're first world problems, but  like, Hey, I'm speaking to you. So I feel like he has used this time and, I'm just kind of buckled in and hoping for the best at this.

Barbara: What does that listening sometimes look like for you? I know you said be still a few minutes ago.

Carol: Yeah. I don't think we can ever be done going personally. So, as you mentioned, I'm going to school. when I first started into the program for social work, I really didn't know where I was going with it. And there have been incidences where I have been educated in situations to lead me to what I would like to focus on. So, in a way he is still working on me, but he's also using outside influences for me to see I think I have a heart and passion for.

Barbara: Great. So some of it might come from our own spiritual seeking discernment, and then we can observe kind of what's going on in the world and try to put it together.

You had mentioned going to school. Everybody has a different situation in high school and finishing up with high school and starting a family and working. So how did you end up saying, I'm going to really just give this a try. It might be hard. I might have some challenges, but I really want to go back to school.

Carol: I can honestly say that God blessed me with an amazing husband who supports me. And, it's definitely harder to get jobs overseas as you know, so Nolan was getting ready to go into preschool. My husband's been in school and he was like, well, maybe it's time for you to look at school.

And honestly, I had no idea what I was going to go for. I have an associate’s degree in early childhood development and I'd worked in the classroom and I had tried to go back for my four year degree, but it was not speaking to me at all. I really liked to help people.  I definitely had some questions about politics and just things in the world.

And I guess I just started looking back on things that I was raised on- things that I feel like people had different views on from what I did. And either I need to be more open minded or I need to look at the Bible and see what it says to make sure that these things that I'm feeling I want to support line up with the Bible. So first it just kind of started with looking at social programs itself because my husband grew up with out of father. So his idea of a social program was totally different than mine. Honestly, mine was, kind of people who just chose not to work and were lazy.

And my husband's like, well, what about the people who are trying? And his mom is a single mom. She has three boys She was an amazing woman- she raised three sons to be awesome fathers, great husbands. And she always made sure that her parents were around and her brother and his wife around to help shape these boys.

So that was amazing. They grew up on social programs because their mom works, but she has three boys and they lived in Florida and you're trying to catch up, but in situations like that, obviously you're probably not going to catch up on like a minimum wage job. And these things are playing a part in my mind.

I'm like, you know, wait a minute. There are people out there who are trying, but it's not their fault. So the more I looked I was just like, Oh, this class sounds really interesting. And it kind of all ended up under the program Social work, definitely not something I had on my radar at all. I'm taking classes that the changes in the world are happening right now. I mean, you were seeing so many oppressors that's group and they've always been there.

They've always been there. It's like you said, that it was in the Bible. They were there in the Bible.  we need to do something. I feel like I'm important again, or that I'm something besides a mom or a military spouse. It's definitely given me something that fits my own. And I love that.  I've really missed that. And education is something that no one can ever take from you.

So there's always something to learn. I was with all the changes going on and me questioning how I grew up, as a conservative Republican, most people are not really towards Social programs. I kind of always felt like it was bad or it's like a bad use of money.  I was just kind of really questioning everything. I was lucky to be able to go to a Christian college and that definitely helps, relate worldly views back to the Bible or what's going on.

 and if you think about it, Jesus was kind of a social worker. He was always hanging out with the crowd nobody really wanted, but those are the people who needed him. And there are so many people in the world. Who need us. I've just learned about all the programs where there's just gaps and people are just falling into them.

You think of kids who are in foster care and then they turn 18 and they age out and maybe they've just  been bounced around and then you're out of our hands now, what do they do?  they may not have had a good education. They may find themselves homeless and it's not the system's problem anymore.

Barbara: yeah, that's heartbreaking. There are some States that have programs in place, but  that comes down to money also- are the people in that state willing to have money go to support say, 18 year olds who are transitioning out of foster care because they may have learned how to budget their own money, but nobody can afford their own apartment?

Even the example you gave of your mother-in-law, you know, working, raising kids. Obviously that's not the exact same thing, but if you want to go to school and you're trying to do your homework and hold a job so that you can pay your rent, I don't mind paying a little bit more taxes if it means that these kids can get a little extra help as they're transitioning.

Carol: Exactly. I was really worried about that, being your first trimester and the clinic on base also offered a program for a home nurse to come to my house every other week. and, I think she may have been part of the new parent support program

Barbara: in Germany. It's still around.

Carol: so this was in Georgia at an air force base and, she would come out and, I want to say that it seemed like more of her caseload where probably like younger, airmen and their wives who struggle financially, or, she said that she knew that some families only have like one car. So if the spouse was at work, I mean, the other spouse was at home all day and really couldn't go anywhere.  it helped me out so much. And I just remember what, what a blessing it was to have her. She was like an angel sent, cause like, I needed that during that time, but I did suffer from postpartum after I had Nolan. she understood, she didn't just think I was losing it.

Barbara: That's nice. It sounds like you didn't feel judged, but you did feel supported. A big shout out to the air force, new parents support program. I know the army has something similar. And then there's also, non-military community organizations, kind of depends on where you live, but I'm so grateful Carol, that you are willing to be open and honest and maybe vulnerable because we sometimes think, well, depending on where you live or how you grew up, at least I was taught be strong, suck it up, figure it out. You'll be okay. But there's real benefits to having other people around. And whether it's a professional, like a nurse, or there's a group called mops, mothers of preschoolers, it's kind of like a peer group, that sometimes other people can be a wonderful resource to help us through our tough times. Didn't you end up volunteering to be in the leadership of mops for a while?

Carol: I had heard about the mops group in Georgia- I'm one of those people, I need connections. I need friends. As soon as we found that we were moving to Germany, I'm all over like Stuttgart page looking. luckily we were so blessed that my cousins were stationed in super with us. Wow. So we have family as soon as we got there, which was amazing.

I was got in touch with the coordinator and she's like, well, sometimes there are limited spaces available. So, she said that if you were a table leader or a coordinator, then you automatically, so he got in, so I'm like, shoot signed me up. I'll be the head of something. No problem. If that guarantees that I'm going to make some friends.

Barbara: I know some of the rooms were smaller and they could only have a certain number of kids.

Carol: So, I became a table leader. I really didn't know what it was. I had heard other people talk about it. And that was definitely a saving grace. When I got to Germany, the ladies. There were great. I made friends. And since I was on the steer team, I got to go to extra meetings, which was nice. Cause that was basically a mommy play date where we let the kids play and we would discuss what, we're going to talk about our next meeting, but it was also a little for us, for us to complain or just adult interaction.

And then the coordinator ended up moving back to the States. So me and another girl decided we would be the coordinators and we enjoyed it. And, we try to reach out to some of our community resources is because so many of the spouses don't know what's going on on base. We take care of the family- maybe people think it sounds a little 50th or whatever, but I think I've become so much stronger and so much more independent since becoming a military spouse.

My son was diagnosed with autism. So I was kind of introduced to some of the therapies and services that are offered to families on base. And if you feel like your child has any kind of  delay or you're just like, well, from a discounting, the myths, you can top them without having to get a referral from your BCM, which is very important with Tri-Care. So you can go to them and they'll come out to your house and do like a little screen for your child.

Barbara: it's called early intervention in some States and they do exactly what you said, the screenings and then provide different kinds of supports. Was that an emotional process for you and your husband to think about, do we need to find out if there's a diagnosis here in this situation?

Carol: I had worked in preschool previously. I'm definitely not an expert, but as a mom, we do always think of worst case scenarios, tell me it wasn't like it had never ran through my mind. I'm like, okay, we'll do the screening process. And, luckily we had a great PCM for Nolan who kind of caught things early.  when we first moved there to Germany, Nolan was a couple of months short from being two. And our doctors noticed some eye contact issues. So then, we go back at two and a half and he's kinda making some notes and then it's three. He's like, I think it's time for you to see a specialist, but there wasn't one there.

So we had to go to Landstuhl [Regional Medical Center]. I didn't particularly care for the specialists- not that I'm not saying he didn't know how to do his job, but what I guess I was expecting for him to do spend more time with Nolan and talk to Nolan and play with him. He didn't really do. He kind of looked more of a, some paperwork and ask some questions. And I felt like I really wish you'd spend more time with Nolan because obviously my answers were different than Edmond's answers on this paperwork we had to fill out. I spend more time with Nolan and I felt like even if he didn't do those things, he definitely had the capabilities to do those things that were listed on that paper. And then he said Nolan did not have autism. Okay. But he recommended early preschool for Nolan and for us to go ahead and get into, speech therapy and OT.

Once again, the stuff went to our doctor in Germany and he wrote everything out for the max, like, 50. So they were really quick on early intervention, which was good. I know, even in the States, people are missing it and they're getting those late diagnosis.

And by then those little times that their little brains are just like sponging everything up. They miss that. so, we started all that and then six months later I'm like, Oh, we should probably make an appointment with a developmental specialist, it's been six months, so we're still doing good. See if we see progress, but of course, military community, your developmental specialist that you sell six months ago is no longer there. And, she is like, your son has autism and he should have been diagnosed with it back in February.

autism is, isn’t something you develop, you have it when you're born. So if I just didn't have it six months ago, I wasn't expecting him to develop it in six months.

Barbara: Yeah. Some kids have more vocabulary in speech and then they regress a little bit, but that does not sound like it's what you had observed.

Carol: so we definitely had some times of sadness. there's also times of blame- you’re like,  maybe we should've done this or if he was on a stricter  schedule or, then I watch too much TV or just did anything that I guess you're just trying to really find a period cause no one really wants the comma. They don't want it to keep going. You want an answer and there just really wasn't one. so once we got that, then he qualified for ABA therapy, which is applied behavior analysis. And there's not like Asperger's and autism spectrum disorder- it's either a level one level two or a level three.

Barbara: So they've changed a little bit, the names, how they're identifying

Carol: Nolan was diagnosed with ASD level one. So autism spectrum disorder level one, which means high functioning and, the doctor says, it just made me this personalities a little quirky. we could not get the ABA therapy covered by Tri-Care until he had the diagnosis. So I've also learned so much through that. That, even as kids are borderline, sometimes they may go ahead and give that diagnosis just so they can go ahead and start those early services to get in start. Maybe improving the behaviors,

Barbara: or even seeing what works- ABA is known to be a helpful treatment for lots of kids. you kind of hate to play the game with the insurance companies, but maybe this is a great example of a time when a diagnosis is not the worst thing, if it gets to access to services.

Carol: It's exactly right. Because, without the diagnosis, he would not be getting the services. He's getting the preschool programs that are offered by the state, we would like for Nolan to go to like, a city school. And, having an IEP is not the worst thing for us to get him in the school.

Barbara: I'm not suggesting that people should lie and definitely not you folks, but even something like an independent education plan means this kid needs some extra help. And this is the reason why, and these are the specific measures that are going to be taken to help this particular child. So even for adults, we were talking a little earlier about maybe depression and anxiety, that  there's ways to get help, even if you don't have a diagnosis, but then there's additional ways of getting help if you do.

Carol: a lot of times children with autism are labeled with like bad behaviors. And my son is actually one of the most passive people you'll ever meet. He's actually. Never really even throwing a tantrum. So are people going to be like, Oh, I don't want that kid? Is he going to be labeled as a bad kid because of what's listed in his record? And even after preschool, if we want to put him in a mainstream classroom or, you know, quotation marks, normal classroom. Are people gonna be like, Oh, well he's got autism… We don't think he can function there when Nolan is,  very bright. Cause he can memorize things. So like, you know how to spell our names. He can spell his name. He can spell toy because he loves the movie toy story. And now he's really into math. So you can do like math problems and I'm like four year old knows how to do math. Right.

Barbara: I can see that there would be a fear then of that label of that diagnosis. So not to be talking out of both sides of our mouth here, but there's really pros and cons to this whole process. And I'm wondering if you been able to meet other parents or talk with other families that might have a similar situation?

Carol:  over the summer I was taking a class and we had to meet online and I   met two ladies from Liberty, which is another reason you should go back to school if you have the opportunity- you make new friends. I was worried. I'm like, Oh, am I going to be with a bunch of 18, 19 year olds? Like, they're gonna be like, Oh, she's old. I have met two women and we all have children with autism. And, my friend that I've met here, her oldest son just got diagnosed with it. And he had like the sweetest answer. He's like, Oh good, I can go through this with my brother and know and help him.

He's probably fifth and sixth grade. The oldest one, the youngest one, I think as a little more severe. So he's had the diagnosis already, so it's great to talk to her. before I got here, I was able to start finding out who's got where's the good speech therapist. Where's my ABA therapist. I was already reaching for those resources, resources are so important, you know, definitely educate yourself.

And then, the lady I met through my summer class, her son is the same age as Nolan, but they are just now going through the IEP process, the individual education plan and. She's like, this is so stressful. She's like they are testing him all the time and it is it's stressful and it stinks. Some people are like, Oh, well your kid can't do this. Can't do this, can't do this, can't do this. And you're making these goals and it sounds so awful, but it's going to help in the long run. And it is a long process. Like, I mean, buying a house, buying a car, I mean, things aren't short processes. And so basically you're making almost like an instruction manual for the next teacher or therapist who's going to be working with your child. It's a document. He needs the services.

Barbara: Yeah. We'd like to think of social work as a strength based kind of philosophy or even faith, you know, is there's good in the world and yeah, there's bad also. I don't want any parent to feel like they're getting hit over the head when they're like, well, your kid can't do this. Your kid can't do that. But if it's written down, then you can also see progress and are the treatments being effective. And I don't know if every state has this, but where I used to live in Massachusetts, the rule was to have a least restrictive environment. Try that first. And then if that doesn't work, then have more supports available. So when you were talking about, can you do the mainstream classroom?  there's still some time before that happens, but, let's see. Can that work?

Carol:  I was just telling the mom- you just hang in there. You need support, prayer, I'm here. it's just nice to know that they're going through the same thing as you. we discussed mops earlier and it's great to know that there's other military spouses or military moms who were, with kids overseas, so we could get together and discuss that, Hey, it stinks that our husbands aren’t home for dinner or, you know, they're gone for a week.

So, support groups are amazing. I think we have honestly been so blessed that everywhere we have been the people there to welcome us with open arms and offer support.

Barbara: it's a two way street, because you have this other mom that you had mentioned, her child is older than your child, so you might be able to learn things from her, but then this other woman is going through a process that you may have already been through some aspects of that process. So you might be able to share some support and wisdom with that person. the last question that I have for you, Carol, I'm wondering the verse talks about justice. What does justice look like for you at this time of your life?

Carol: justice is obviously getting treated fairly, but I don't think there is your life being perfect. I don't think that's the way it was intended, but I think at least for it to be having the right tools to be able to deal with the problems or giants that we're facing.

Barbara:  So maybe having access to some things that you need. And then also I want to give you kudos because I think it takes courage to reach out and to say, yeah, this might be a help to me. Like maybe some people would say, no, I don't want a nurse coming to my house. and that's okay. That's your right. But it sounds like it was wonderful for you or, picking up the phone to make that appointment for your son to, to see if there's a diagnosis or not. I suspect that that took a lot of, mental and emotional energy to make those happen. I suspect that there's a shortage of services for some people in some areas. And you had a little bit of experience with that, in the military setting, but I also would pray that we can advocate for each other in terms of accessibility of services. Are there enough providers? Are there enough programs, like you had mentioned earlier to provide for the needs of the people in that area?

Carol: there are some people who make too much money to apply for Medicaid, but you know, can't really afford like insurance and like a private sector. I've just learned that there's quite a few gaps in the social programs. I kinda just know like just the tip of it, but I definitely would like to be more educated in that so that hopefully we can figure out something because those are people that kind of get overlooked, I guess. Cause they're not poor, but they're not. You know, rich or

Barbara: just the in between, and health insurance is really expensive.

Carol: I honestly haven't had to think about it since I married Edmond who's in the military, but I guess when I started to feel bad for myself, I kind of have to snap out of it and just be like, no, you have a good, you're good. You need to think about other people. So that's something I do try to do is whenever I think my life is just going into a hole, I just try to remember that it could always be worse. Most people who do have it worse than me and not that makes me feel better, but it just reminds me reality check that, you know, just because like my phone battery died, that's not the end of the world.

There's definitely worse things. Or, my kid got chocolate ice cream on the couch, you know, I'm thankful I have a couch. I'm thankful I have a child. I'm thankful we had ice cream together. Oh yeah.

Barbara: That's such a nice way of saying it. is there anything else that's on your heart today, Carol, about any of the topics that we've talked about?

Carol: I just want to say that, if you are experiencing a season that just seems like a rainy season, don't be afraid to ask for help. Don't be afraid to ask as support groups or reach out to your primary care physician. I mean, there's a lot of resources out there and just to remember, sometimes it was rainy seasons bring, sunshine and they make us stronger.

We can learn from them. It's. We can't just have sunny weather all the time and that's kind of the way there's a better life. Like it just can't always be good or we'll never really grow or appreciate these things. So it's definitely, some of those seasons seems really long and

Barbara: like just, they're never going to end and you don't have a timeline on everything, but I'm so glad you said that there's people, there's groups, there's also phone numbers, there's websites, there's books, just depending on your style of maybe learning about different situations. And I'm hearing you encourage people to reach out.

Carol: Yeah. I have the Bible app on my phone. There's some little plans in there. Plans of encouragement. you know, this could just be a time that God's just trying to get your attention and to just not lose heart, to definitely seek help if you feel like you need it.

Barbara: One word of encouragement that you had said before was you connected in different ways with different people. So one provider, you kind of felt like you didn't really make a connection. And then the next provider, now you didn't ask for somebody different, you just got somebody different, but there was a different connection with the next person. So I would want to encourage that also that sometimes. It's just the conversation clicks more with another person. and we might not always find that right match, the first time. And I know sometimes there's not a lot of choices, but, that's a great example that you gave.

Resources:

www.mops.org

Carol and her family enjoying life

Waiting with Sabrina

Sabrina about waiting

Barbara: Hi, everyone. Welcome to 40 Minutes of Faith. Today's topic is waiting, and our guest is Sabrina Stewart. We met in Germany where Sabrina was my Bible study teacher facilitator. She grew up going to church once in a while, accepted Jesus and was baptized around middle school. In her teenage years, she went to youth group regularly, but never grew in her walk.

She felt stuck. In her later teen years into the beginning of her marriage, Sabrina just coasted through faith. However, God never forgot her and led her to some great friends in Christ where she learned about having a relationship with God, instead of just showing up at church and the fire and brimstone idea that she grew up hearing. Since then, she has built her relationship and is growing in her walk with Christ.

Sabrina has a bachelor's degree in maternal child health lactation consulting. She was born in the South and grew up moving around as a kid and as a military spouse to nine different states and countries, including Canada and Germany; currently in Texas. Sabrina has been a military spouse for 19 years and has homeschooled for three children for the last six years.

One of Sabrina's dreams is to write a book because she loves to read. She has also tossed around the idea of standup comedy since her family gives her so much material and her kids think she's funny. Welcome Sabrina. How are things in Texas these days?

Sabrina: Hi, it's warm and overcast and rainy off and on.

Barbara: I think your definition of warm might be everybody else's definition of really, really hot question mark

Sabrina: I am inside. So the air conditioner takes care of me. Awesome.

Barbara: Good. I'm happy for you. We didn't have a lot of air conditioning in Germany. That would be practically none.

Sabrina: Right? Very rarely.

Barbara: So let's take a look at today's Bible reading, which is from another short book in the old Testament, sort of in the middle of the Bible, between the book of Daniel and the new Testament.

You can read with me out of the beginning of chapter one and a few verses of chapter two, or just listen. Here's Habakkuk chapter one verses one to four in the new international version.

The prophecy that Habakkuk the prophet received.

How long Lord must I call for help, but you do not listen?

or cry out to you violence, but you do not save?

Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me. There is strife and conflict abounds.

Therefore the law is paralyzed and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous so that justice is perverted.

Here's chapter two, verses one through four, from the message version.

What's God going to say to my questions? I'm braced for the worst. I'll climb to the lookout tower and scan the horizon.

I'll wait to see what God says, how he'll answer my complaint, and then God answered.

Write this, write what you see, write it out in big block letters so that it can be read on the run. This vision message is a witness pointing to what's coming. It aches for the coming. It can hardly wait, and it doesn't lie.

If it seems slow in coming, wait, it's on its way. It will come right on time. Look at that man, bloated by self-importance full of himself, but soul empty, but the person in right standing before God through loyal and steady believing is fully alive, really alive.

Sabrina, I'm grateful that confusion and even anger at God's perceived abandonment are voiced in the Bible. As a social worker, I've been trained that all emotions are okay, but it's how we act on them that might be wrong or harmful. We are instructed to wait in this passage, which is usually a challenge for me. I feel badly saying to people in tremendous distress that someday things will be better. Ultimately, we have salvation, but on earth, there's no guarantee of a timeline for struggles to dissipate

Sabrina, how do you do with waiting in general? How about waiting on God's answer?

Sabrina: It's very difficult. I like to have the answer right away and be able to do stuff so waiting is very, very difficult for me. Yup.

Barbara: Me too. So as we're talking about waiting, I can imagine some different situations. Sabrina, what types of situations do we cry out to God in?

Sabrina: the first ones that come up are the distressing ones, the things that upset us, that we don't want to do, but we know we have to do those are the ones that I think about more often. I don't really think about crying out during the waiting until it reaches that point where it's just overwhelming and I need to want to do something.

And I fight for leaving God in control and not taking it from him just so I can do something

Barbara: exactly. When do peoples of the world crowd in distress that might not apply to us right now?

Sabrina: there's a lot of crying out in distress right now with everything that's going on. It seems more obvious of an answer because of the things that are happening with COVID and the way daily life is interrupted with it. And then the political atmosphere and

Things that are going on in society. There's just a lot of disruption and upset right now.

Barbara: I'm so grateful that I don't need to cry out to God because I'm hungry that there's a shortage of food. I've never been afraid of being imprisoned for either religious reasons or  racial profiling.

Sabrina: I have been very thankful and grateful that I haven't had to deal with many of those situations; reading in the Bible about imprisonment and all these things that people have experienced because of their faith and had to endure.

I find astonishing because I start to doubt how I would do, and then it makes me really nervous about, well, what does that say about me? But that's kind of my goal is building that faith to where I don't have to have that little thought of I wouldn't be able to do that, but refocusing and knowing that I have the faith and the strength in God and Jesus that they will take care of me no matter what that everything will be Okay. Even if it's horrible to me, experience wise that it's not all for nothing and it's completely worth it.

Barbara: That's exactly what we're talking about today. Do you think that we sometimes feel despair, but we're not sure if God can help us?

Sabrina: I do. I think it's really easy to feel that way. I am reading this book on prayer and they were talking about how the enlightenment  era and some of the other things in history has changed our focus from God and faith based to society and reliance on that. And I just found it interesting because I feel like that that's where my natural thought process goes to is more of a societal type thing instead of automatically grounding and what the Bible says and my faith. So I think that we automatically feel that way because God doesn't work in the way that we do.

He doesn't think in the way that we do. So we automatically think nothing's being done. God isn't hearing us, God forgot about us. Or he doesn't have time for us when he just does things differently. And we can't see the whole picture. Like he can. So I feel like we do that way more often than we should as believers.

Barbara: Yeah. And it seems to me like a message that I have perceived is in American culture is like, try to figure it out for yourself. So there's society stuff. Like you said, like what kind of systems can I access that will help me in this case, but also what can I figure out by myself, which is not always the healthiest way to go about things.

Sabrina: we need community; in being a military wife in reading and building my faith that God wants us to have community. I feel that like I function better. I grow more in a community, having those people around me to support me, but then also support others and walk alongside them.  So then doing it by myself seems more disappointing and upsetting. So those who don't take care of themselves and do it for themselves are looked at as either weak or lazy because they're relying on other people and- granted, that there probably are those in those situation were built for community were function better, and God doesn't want us to be alone. And so I was just really interesting to see that and then start yearning for that.

And then now trying to find a way to get a community feeling in the situation that we're in now.

Barbara: It makes it a lot harder. I noticed that in some other cultures in the world, I don't certainly know all cultures, but I've observed that historically and even to this day, there are some cultures that are way more community oriented.

I am used to the American way: you finish your education and you move out of the house and you get a job and you get your own apartment and you do your own thing, but that's not the only way that things are done in the world. And certainly not through history either. So I appreciate what you're saying about that.

We do need community as much as we might want to be independent.

Sabrina:  through getting my degree and the lactation and breastfeeding aspect of it, because a lot of people now when they have babies in America, mainly just because that's what I'm familiar with, this is where I'm from. They're just, Oh, you have a baby.

Let me see the baby. And then they kind of leave you alone. Whereas like you said, in other parts of the world, everybody pulls together and helps. Like there's the support and  somebody there taking care of the mom while she's healing and learning the baby and just having that time.

I know from my own experience when I've had to do it by myself and whenever I've had other people be able to come in and step in and just be there, not even do all the work, lives are better whenever you do that because you're not alone struggling. Moving around and the military, I go back and forth with seclusion.

I feel isolated and alone. I don't have anybody. I've got to figure it out for myself. And then I go through trying to build that community. In the area that I'm in and whenever I'm able to connect with people and have people there for me that I can be there for two, it feels so much better. And so with experience, it has shown me that it does work a lot better and it's not lazy or weak or dependent.

It's, it's a good way to live and grow.

Barbara: It's easier for me to feel despair when I'm alone and isolated. And it's harder for me to feel despair when I'm with other people and knowing that right now, some people are still depending on what state you live in needing to do more social isolation and physical isolation.

But I feel great even being in the zoom meeting now, there is such thing as too many online hours in the day, but it's nice to keep in touch even over the phone or something like that.

Sabrina: I was worried about that actually in the situation that I'm in. A lot of people were worried about how I would take it because they know I'm a social person and we just moved from Germany and this, and then they're like, how are you doing with the virus and everything?

I don't really have any friends here. I got here, but I haven't been able to get out. So some days it hits me and it feels, it feels kind of. Bummer. I wish I could go out or I wish I had somebody I could just call. But the funny thing is, is I was in Germany, totally different country, telephone communication with internet and things like that makes it easier, but there's still the time difference.

And you can't directly call and talk on the phone with people back in the States without. It costing some money. So being here, I was able to use the time to go back and reach out to all these people, all my friends here that I couldn't easily just send a text to, or, or a message. And, and I feel like that helped a lot because I was still trying to reach out and I'm connecting to my extended community.

I don't have my direct one right here, local, but I have all of my other ones and I feel like it makes a difference because I feel like I'm having a connection, but then I've had several people tell me that they were surprised and very happy to receive either a letter or a text or a phone call or whatever, because I have the time now to do that when it could just easily fall away.

God was able to let me still work on a community, even though it wasn't the way I wanted it.

Barbara: Exactly. And that's part of the conversation too- we might think we know what it is that we need or how we want things. And sometimes it's a different answer.  do you have the title and the author of that book about prayer?

Sabrina: It's “A Praying Life” by Paul E. Miller. It's connecting with God in a distracting world.

Barbara: We might have fewer distractions now, but things still can weigh heavily on our heart.

I feel a lot of sorrow and anger in the world and that's okay. A lot of that is totally legitimate. And I'm, I'm wondering Sabrina, how can we feel hope seeping in during stressful times, has there been an example in your life or when there's hope somehow at the end of the tunnel?

Sabrina: well, when we heard we were moving back to the States. When we were in Germany, I really did not want to leave. I really fought and dug my heels in. And, you know, I was in that place where everybody's like, it'll be okay, God's got a plan for you. And I'm like, I know, but I don't want to hear it. Like I do not want to, I know this, but I am not happy at all.

So I struggled with that a lot.  I had my process, I ignored it because it really upset me thinking about it. And even though in this whole time, I asked people to pray for me. I was praying, I know I need to accept this, but I don't want to, like, I was really throwing a tantrum. Like my kids would. And.

It stayed that way for a while. Even when we got here, I was still trying to be open minded and my whole thing was okay, God, you're going to make me go. I have to go. I'll try. Even though I was like in the back of my mind, I'm like, it's going to be horrible. I know it. because I know everything.

Not really, but we got here and it was better than I was expecting, which of course. I also saw that we left Europe. Like I loved being there. I loved traveling, but nobody got to travel. Nobody's really traveling now because of what happened. So it was like, I would probably have been really upset, stuck in my house in Europe, still not being able to travel if I was there.

Now I'm just stuck in my house in the States where I really didn't want to come to anyway, but. He's used this time to really helped me concentrate on, I know he's going to take care of it, of everything, and it's all going to be okay. As much of a fight that I put up being here, I've been able to connect.  I started reading the book about prayer because I feel like that's a really weak place for me. And it's just really helped make connections and apply to a lot of things that have happened or is happening right now when it's enforcing that. Even though it feels like despair and distress and everything is going wrong, or I'm really unhappy that it's going to be okay.

God is going to pull through, he's got all of these examples. And the way that we reinforce that and know is by connecting with him daily, by being in prayer with him. Then that's when we get to really feel it and see it because when we're not, and we're disconnected the despair and the hopelessness just, just crowds in and takes over everything because our focus isn't where it needs to be.

And that's something I've recently learned is how to concentrate on where I'm putting my thoughts and my focuses on. It's still hard. It's really difficult. Especially when my natural tendency is to on some days wallow and the depths of despair and feel really whiny.

Barbara: I'm so glad you gave an example of some ways that becoming more connected with God were helpful for you. You mentioned time of prayer and this particular book that you read, and I'm wondering if anybody on earth has acted or spoken to you with a message of hope and reassurance.

Sabrina: I have a couple of friends that they've known me for 20 years and I can reach out to them and just be honest and just say, I'm struggling really hard. And they always have scripture. They're there with prayer and they let me whine whenever I need to, without making me feel bad for feeling bad. They understand that I do need that little bit of time that I need to just kind of like complain and whine and get it out of my system. And then they're able to let me kind of make that full circle, like everything's going to be okay. And they're like, yes. And I'm here for you and praying for you and things like that. So I'm really blessed because I know that I could just reach out and receive that reassurance and that support there.

But then I've also had it come as a surprise. Like just as people I'm not really close with, or I kind of know a little bit, but not even that much. And they've reached out saying here, I thought of you and some are not Christians and some are, so they have various ways of when they reach out.

But I see that God laid on their heart, that she needs this, send her a hello or send her this. I could see God working through other people for me to reach me, not just directly because I'm praying or asking for it. And that he brings in that community, that community of people to say, look, I'm here.

I see you. He just makes sure that he reaches me many different ways.

Barbara: Those are amazing examples because on the one hand, it's great to reach out and say, Hey, I'm really struggling here. Can you pray for me? People tend to give words of encouragement when we do reach out.

And sometimes it's either hard to reach out or we're so overwhelmed or we don't even know who to reach out to. So that's really neat that people just came to you and said, I want to offer you either this prayer or this physical item or this type of support or encouragement.

Are there any ways that we can be the hands of God to assist our siblings on earth and their distress?

Sabrina: I've been trying to be more sensitive of whenever I feel that little nudge of you should text this person or I come across something and I think of somebody and I'm going to  send a little note. Lately, since I really tried to be connected and listen to those nudges from God, it's come back.

I have a friend who sometimes I reach out for prayer or support. And then sometimes I just text just say, Hey, was thinking of you, miss hanging out.

But she is really good at how are you? And, most people are like, Oh fine. And she's like, no, no. How are you really? And so sometimes it's like, I'm fine.  nothing else is going on. I'm really okay. And other times it's like, Oh, Okay. So listen, like she knows that I'm not just going to ask you how are things and leave, she  wants to know, how are you really doing?

Emotionally, how are you doing mentally, physically? How are you doing spiritually? I want to be there for you. And it is just been so great to have somebody take the time to push enough.

Barbara: how do we stand and watch for God that was in the Bible verse? How do we listen and wait actively for God?

Sabrina: I still struggle with this I don't want to just believe whatever- that's one of my biggest fears worries. However you want to say it is in the Bible.

When it talks about, you know, coming on the end of times, there'll be somebody who says they're God and they're not- I don't want to be so naive that I just believe the wrong person just because, and so I constantly pray for that help to know when is it God. 

I feel bad because then I feel like questioning God, like Gideon whenever he's like, okay. Do this this morning. And then I know it's you, and then he gets it. And then the next day he's like, well do this.

And then I know it's you.  I kind of feel bad because I don't really want to question you, but I want to make sure I know it's from you. So it is really hard. I feel like a lot for me recently have been the quiet, small things. It's not a B two over the head obvious thing. It's a, it's a small thing.

So I've started having to slow down and have the opportunity for those to be noticed.  It goes right along  with the Bible. And it's a still small quiet voice. It's harder to hear with everything being so distracting.  I feel like he works that way a lot more than we think.

And it's really difficult for us culturally and society to slow down and be still and quiet in order to hear or see that, that that's how he's answering.

Barbara: I love the Bible study about the book of Gideon, which was written by Priscilla Shire. On the one hand I thought, well, Gideon had a lot of nerve testing God, but the answers came back really clearly in an amazing way, but then there are other passages in the Bible that tell us we shouldn't be testing God.

 To say,  God, if you really care about me, then you will do it this way. That's more manipulation. That's not kind of prayer, but we are then also told that it's okay to pray for what we want. But then we're back to the question about waiting, that it's okay to pray for what you want, but the answer's not always going to be Yes. And it's not always going to be fast. I don't mean to be talking out of both sides of my mouth, but just to say there's kind of different perspectives.

Sabrina:  I totally feel that same way because I do that. That book talks about, asking like a child and that you're not necessarily going to get it the way that you want.

Having kids  has really helped me understand a lot of perspectives on probably how God views us-  it's  so funny because it turns around and bites me because I'll tell my kids, you know this, why are you doing this? And then I'll catch myself.

 I know God is saying, you know, this, why are you doing this?

Barbara: that's a great analogy. we have the law, like you're talking about with kids, we have the 10 commandments, we know what we're supposed to do, and we can never fulfill all of those to perfection.

So then we have the gospel and to know that salvation is our free gift. And when you had told me a little bit about your growing up years, you mentioned the phrase fire and brimstone. So, yes, there is the law. But that's not all, then there's also the gospel and salvation. So that makes a difference to our behavior that we're like, I want to help my neighbor out of love.

Sabrina:  I grew up terrified because the fire and brimstone, it was, if you don't save people, you're not doing what you should be. You're not really a Christian or all  these technicality things.

I was sitting there terrified because I'm like, how am I supposed to save people when I don't even know what I'm talking about?  it just felt really wrong.  I didn't understand. And it didn't seem like anybody wanted to make sure you understood why it was just do, or the consequences are going to be horrible.

That's what really led me away. And then whenever I reconnected and was shown through my friends, with the relationship aspect, I was like, Oh, I can do this and just seeing how they lived out their faith and belief. And it just clicked like, yes, it's important to reach out and, be an example.

Everyone wants to be able to say that they help save somebody,   led them  to Christ because  it's amazing and you should know, but it's not the anvil hanging over you, you have to do this sort of thing. 

Barbara:  there's no score sheet at the end of the day or at the end of our lives.

Like, you saved this many people. And I definitely agree to share about God's love.  For example, you were a Bible study facilitator and not everybody's going to be a Bible study facilitator, but that's okay. Some folks invited a friend to come with them and sometimes it's planting seeds - it's a process. It's a journey.

Sabrina: I would never have thought of facilitating a Bible study- like that I have to have all my stuff together.

But that's really not it. And it's so funny because there was another study I went through and it put it in perspective of admitting you're wrong.

A lot of people don't like to do that and they feel like it makes them weak or the person, think badly of them when in reality, if we can kind of swallow that and admit it, I feel like people are more willing to connect with you to trust you. And it doesn't have the weak connotation that we think it does.

Barbara: No, that's another societal thing, because it's like, I'm strong. I'm right. I've got this figured out, but that's the difference between repentance and just an apology, which apologizing is great. But repenting means you turn in a different direction. You can say, I did mess up and I don't want to mess up anymore.

And sometimes we still keep messing up, but we're trying really hard at least. Most of the time.

Sabrina: the people who were still struggling just like me, who don't have any answers either, they made more of an impact. Then the other people who I think that they need to have it all together in order to be a Christian and to be doing it correctly.

And then of course, there's all the stories in the Bible where nobody has their stuff together, they messed up, but this good happened and God's still used them.  I start thinking about that, like, Oh, I don't have to know everything. Just like I admitted earlier about my praying.

I’m terrified of doing it, in group settings.  I do not feel confident in that.  I'm trying to work on that for myself.  That would be something before all of this that I would have been like,  I can't facilitate or do anything because I don't do this well. Or I don't think I do this well.

and then I just learned, I'm going to do this, but then whenever it came down to it, it was totally God led. And that's the only reason it did. Well people are like, Oh, that was so great. I was like, I had no idea- that was completely God, because I couldn't have done that at all.

Barbara: Your words of encouragement to somebody who might not feel really confident. I've facilitated Bible studies before, so I don't have any problem talking to you about the Bible, but this whole podcast business, the technology scared me so much. Cause I'm not confident at all. And there's still stuff I have to do that I'm like, please, God, help me figure this out, cause I have no idea. Thank you for the encouragement that we don't have to have our act together to move forward. Cause then nobody would ever move forward with anything.

Sabrina: Right. Exactly.

Barbara: I mean, maybe you have a college degree in a certain thing, so you're confident in that subject matter, but when it comes to matters of the heart, I don't believe that anybody on earth is perfect, even if it looks like it.

Are we striving for perfection that looks like it on earth or just for a closer relationship with God? And that's my last question for you, Sabrina. You had already mentioned a little bit about it before, but I was wondering how do we listen for God's voice? And you said it's not easy. And you talked about being still and that's something that might not come, as quickly for some folks.

Sabrina: it does not come quickly for me either. I have to say I like doing things. I like being, involved in interacting and talking and animated. So it is so hard for me to just sit so I can sit still and read, but I'm doing something, you know, my mind is active. My mind is engaged.

I did have to find out one of the ways to be still for me is I have taken to writing it out.

Barbara: There's still some activity with the prayer is, but it's focused.

Sabrina: I'm not trying to pray and then do something else and then completely forget where I'm at.  I found that that helps a lot. and it does two things. It keeps me focused and it keeps me engaged. while I'm maybe thinking on what I just wrote and prayed, It gives me that little bit of quiet, or while I'm thinking of, who to pray for next or, or what I want to pray for next or what I want to talk to God about next.

I have that little bit of quiet, so. It does give me a little bit of still, but I'm still focused, but then it also records it. So when God does answer my prayer, I can see, look, I prayed for this sin and this is the follow through from God that I can see, because just saying it, I can easily forget about it, or I feel like it's hard to make that connection of well, did he answer it?

Barbara: And it could be months, sometimes it's years. Sometimes it just feels like an eternity. So for people who like to write, that's a great way, write it down and keep your prayer journals, and then you can go back and see how those prayers were answered over time. And it's okay to, if writing is not your thing, if you're doing chores around the house.

Sabrina: They color sometimes. Like they'll write like a one word that kind of sums up the focus or topic of their prayer, and then they just color and design it. while they're just spending that quiet time, communing with God, just, focused on that.

And there's so many different ways that I didn't know about. Like instead I just felt like there's this one way that I had to do it correctly and I'm learning all this stuff and I'm trying to see what works for me because I want that connection. And I want to know that I'm hearing from God and I'm taking that time out, but it doesn't work the same for everyone.

Barbara: Exactly. thank you so much for your time today, Sabrina, 

Sabrina: we touched on some really good things.

Resources:

Book  “A Praying Life” by Paul E. Miller

Bible Study “Gideon” by Priscilla Shirer

Sabrina loves to read! Fiction, Non-Fiction, Bible Studies, etc!

Resources from all episodes

2020

Bible verses:

Malakai 3:1-4

John 15:2

Luke 10:38-42

Mark 12:28-34

Joel 2:21-27

1 Peter 4:12

Jeremiah 29:11-13

Isaiah 40:3

Psalm 18:2

Psalm 23:1

Hosea chapter 14:8

1 Kings 19:12 

Matthew 25:35-36

Psalm 131:2

Matthew 6:25

Isaiah 7:14

Genesis 1:1

1 Peter 2:2

Websites/organizations:

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America www.elca.org

ELCA Social Statement about church and society https://download.elca.org/ELCA%20Resource%20Repository/Church_SocietySS.pdf?_ga=2.49441250.572738045.1590622907-1006791731.1589050443

United Methodist Church Justice www.umcjustice.org

Sojourners community at www.SOJO.net   

World Relief is www.worldrelief.org

Amnesty https://www.amnestyusa.org

Planting Roots www.plantingroots.net

Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries https://www.elm.org

https://www.reconcilingworks.org/

www.queergrace.com

Author & speaker Nadia Bolz-Weber https://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/books-by-nadia/

Mothers of Preschoolers www.MOPS.org

United Nations www.un.org

www.wycliffe.org

www.olivetree.com

www.biblegateway.com  

Books:

“Surprised by Hope” by N. T. Wright

“A Praying Life” by Paul E. Miller

“Nickel and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich

“Choosing a Bible” by Sheeley & Nash

Bible Study:

“Gideon” by Priscilla Shirer

“Discerning the Voice of God” by Priscilla Shirer

Relationship between God & us with Hillary Baggett

Hillary about relationship with God

Barbara: Hi everyone.  welcome to 40 minutes of faith. Today's guest is Hillary Baggett. We met in Germany, which is one of the 13 different homes that Hillary and her husband of 24 years have had during his service in the United States Marine Corps. She was raised Catholic and practices faith in the Protestant nondenominational traditions.

Hillary has been an occupational therapist with newborns to 95 year olds over the last two decades, as well as facilitating Bible studies with Protestant women of the chapel in Germany, Okinawa and Norfolk, Virginia, Hillary, and her family currently live in Colorado. And her dream is to help people to love themselves and each other and live in unity.

Welcome Hillary.

Hillary: Thank you for having me, Barbara.

Barbara: Would you lead us in an opening word of prayer as we prepare to talk about relationships between humans and God?

Hillary: I would love to. Father God, I just come before you first with gratitude for who you are for this opportunity to speak openly that we are able to speak our minds and speak our heart.

Just  lead us in this conversation, Lord, that we will bring you glory and that we will help others feel that they are not alone, that they have a voice and that they can be heard. thank you for Barbara for her bravery, for, leading this podcast, 40 minutes of faith. Cause I know for me, Lord, that I need, a little bit more faith every day.

In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.

Barbara: thank you so much, Hillary. Today's Bible passage is from the book of Malachi, which is near the middle of your Bible. It's between the book of Daniel and the new Testament, in case you'd like to follow along or just listen. Malachi chapter three, verses one to four in the new revised standard version.

See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight. Indeed, he is coming says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like Fuller's soap.

He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.

Hillary when I was growing up, I learned to pray, but I don't remember thinking or feeling that I was in a relationship with God. I loved singing hymns that speak about God's blessing. And I knew that Jesus died and rose again for me yet. I didn't understand the words, “what a friend we have in Jesus” from the song. Later in college when I heard non Lutheran Christian praise music, I was moved to tears about how the relationship between God and human beings was sung about in a good way. Has your relationship with God changed over the years?

Hillary: Oh, absolutely. I feel like I grow deeper in my faith as I take the next step in faith from infant baptism to being received in the Episcopal church and later being baptized in the East China sea in Japan. And each time I thought, am I demonstrating that I had a lack of faith that I need to do it? But instead I realized I am making another public step towards God and my understanding of that relationship.

So it was kind of a recommitment and a refining kind of like you said, in the book of Malachi, how the Lord really refined my heart, my purpose, my direction with each of those faith steps.

Barbara: So looking at our Bible verses for today, Hillary, what might it look like if God sent a messenger to tell us to get ready? Are there people or situations on earth now, or in recent history, which serve as messengers?

Hillary:  I have come in contact with people who have really encouraged me to think about that exact, message - what is someone trying to say to us and are we in the place to hear it?  What does that messenger kind of look like? For me, it's looked like a dear friend sitting in the other chair or on the other end of the couch, as we talk and reflect on God's word. Sometimes it's in Bible study where a new truth is revealed to me; that the truth has always been there, but it's not been as evident to me as in that moment.

 I think we  sharpen and refine each other- kind of that iron sharpens iron, which I never really understood until maybe the last five or 10 years of what does that actually mean to be sharpened by someone who's matching me where I'm at, either in my faith or in my struggle.

Barbara: So a messenger could be a person. It could be something that you're reading or maybe hearing in a Bible study. You know, if you're reading a book, it might have been written for you sort of through the spirit, but it generally is written to the public. So there could be different ways of us understanding messages, or even as we mature.

Hillary: Absolutely. I agree. And even in the weekly sermons, we attend church weekly and due to COVID-19, we've been, attending online for almost 12 weeks. So I really do feel like when the pastor or person giving the message is really speaking within the will of God, that that message is written and spoken directly to change something within me or to point me back on the path or back on the flight path, if you will, to help me work towards that direction. That maybe we don't have as much time as we think we do. And even if we do have all the time in our lifetime or in the world, what are we going to choose to do with that? And what kind of legacy or memory will we leave for others?

Barbara: We don't know how long any of us has on earth. And also the scripture passage tells us that God is coming soon. Yet in our lifetime, does it seem like we've just been waiting our entire lives? And we don't think that God is going to be coming in the foreseeable future?

Hillary: Yes. I wonder that often when people say you've got to be ready, it could be any day.

And I think, well, gosh, people have been saying that for a few thousand years now. and so how do we keep our hearts and minds and spirits ready and willing to be ready at any time? Also knowing that only God knows the date and time, that it will all happen.

Barbara: It seems to me that if we live as if God were coming soon, then it's okay if it happens, or if it doesn't happen in our lifetimes, if we are doing our best to live a good life and serve our neighbor and many of the other things that are in the Bible, and some of which we can talk about today.

Hillary: sometimes I think God is such a patient God, because he's certainly been patient with me. And I like to think that he is such an optimist, that he wants to give us all a chance to get our lives right. And live with the right mindset and the right actions in loving each other. And I think he wants to give us time to all get to know him and that beauty of that personal relationship.

Barbara:  when we think of a relationship with God, sometimes I just feel love and happy and safe and trust. And then sometimes I feel in my own human nature, uncertain, and sometimes I feel judged. And that might be more from a human point of view, but I'm wondering this passage clearly talks about being refined.

So I'm wondering Hillary, if you have any example of when do humans maybe feel refined by God? Has there been a season when we've learned that something in our life has to go and is that an easy or painful process?

Hillary: I have experienced a season, of refinement or pruning, depending on which analogy, since we're using refinement here.

The first time I really remember that refinement process was leaving North Carolina, where I was born and raised. I was already married and we were moving to Germany for the first time in 2007.  The words I had spoken to my husband where, “I don't care what your job is, we're going,” because I thought finally, God was going to give me the- you can laugh now if you like- but God was going to give me finally, what I had been praying for was this adventure and living abroad and really seeing the world.

And what I learned was that I was actually leaving my family of origin. I was leaving my friends. I was leaving my country, that I was familiar with. I was leaving my career behind because it was not easy to work as an occupational therapist in Germany in 2007. And it was a serious time of grief and loss of, wanting to enjoy those hopes and dreams of travel and adventure and being immersed in the German experience, showing my children and husband, what living overseas could be like. And I was surprised at the challenges that I had and all the things I had to let go of, in that process. Kind of the best story though, was before I left for Germany, a friend had said, “Hey, you need to look into this Protestant Women of the Chapel” (PWOC).

That's a Bible study and that'll be a great way to plug in. And so the first day we got off the bus that took us from one small base to another, and I saw this woman and I said, “Hey, I'm looking for some information on PWOC.” And she said, “well, I am the president.” And she said, “Oh, we're in the middle of our Bible study, for the summer, but it's come when you can, come as you are, there's still three whole weeks to go.” And I thought, “Oh gosh, that seems a little strange to join something in the middle of it, but I'll try it- clearly there's a reason that I asked you about Protestant women of the Chapel.” And so I showed up to that Bible study and it was “Discerning the Voice of God.”  I thought in that time, can we really hear God speak to us? Could we understand? Does he speak to me with a message for me that's relevant to where I'm at that day? And over the course of those three and four weeks of transitioning to Germany, the answer was yes.

That, it's not always easy in the refinement process. It's certainly not comfortable, but he was right there the whole time. So years later after we had left Germany and were given the opportunity to return, I thought, “Oh, this is the chance for me to go God's way. Instead of Hillary's way to Germany,” and our friends that lived with us the first time they said, “but remember that was a hard time for you.”

And I said, “yeah, I think God's giving me a do over to not think I need to do everything just right. I need to be everywhere. Join every organization, have the perfect European experience. I just need to kind of take each step in faith as we go. “

Barbara: Those are wonderful examples. Thank you. You said a few things that I just wanted to follow up on.

When you had mentioned the pruning of the branches I had that actually written down ahead of time. That's in the book of John chapter 15, verse two. And for people who are familiar with plants or farming, I had no idea about this stuff in my growing up years. Plants actually do better if they're pruned.

And the first time I saw that happen, I was heartbroken. I thought, you know, my parents were killing the hedges around our house. And then the next year I saw what they did was to help the hedges to thrive. And I just didn't understand that. So our pruning process in our lives can be uncomfortable or even painful, but the purpose is for improvement in the end. It's not to kill, it's to strengthen.

I'm so glad you mentioned prayer too, because even though this particular passage, doesn't talk a lot about prayer. That's a consistent theme. I believe in our relationship with God is that if I pray for something, I might get a yes right away. I might get a really long, no.

Or I might get a later and there's really benefits to all of that. That might not be apparent right away. Or your prayers get answered in a different way than what you asked for.

Hillary: I agree wholeheartedly.  I thought that God only gave us yeses and nos, in my early faith years. And as I've grown in my faith, I realized that a lot of the wait or later, is more relevant and the blessings that come from it, the sweetness of that fruit, when the answer prayer comes, It's just amazing.

During my greatest periods of waiting, which I will confess it feel on the painful side, I have not historically been the most patient person, unless I'm working. But I'm not very patient with myself and I've learned to ask better questions in my prayer time with God of, okay, Lord, here's the desire of my heart.

you know, where would you like me to serve you? in fact, a time I was living in Japan and was praying about serving in Protestant women of the Chapel. And I prayed and the leadership that was preceding me said, we think you're being called a leadership. And I said, I agree. And, God entered a period of silence.

And I entered a period of waiting and I waited. And when the Lord gave me just one word after this several weeks of silence. And I was actually in devout prayer, which sometimes I falter and I'm not faithful at praying every day or all day. And the word he gave me was Foster, which was the name of a Marine base that was not where PWOC was happening or permitted. And so when I had to go to my sisters and say, well, I've prayed about this. And I think I've gotten the answer.  I'm to start a Bible study on Camp Foster, the Marine base. And they said, but we're not allowed to have PWOC there. And I said, I know , that's the hardest part. I had to tell these women who I had grown in faith with over a year had grown to love and value our moments together.

And I had to tell them that God was calling me away to something different. It was so hard to do. I went into the chapel and just cried, just letting my heart out, but it was a cry of peace that I had discerned God's voice and his will for me and it, while it didn't look like what I thought it was going to, it turned out to be exactly what and where the Lord wanted me for that next year.*

Barbara: So our prayers can take kind of twisty roads. And also I'm wondering about seasons of rest Hillary when we're called to serve. I think it's really amazing that you're talking about this. Cause that was one of the questions I had in a few minutes, but now is a great time discerning service sometimes can be difficult.

How do you know when it's just okay to receive, that you don't have to be giving. All the time?

Hillary: Oh, great question. well I think it goes back for me to that quiet time relationship with God, because I have a bit of a Martha heart historically and practicing the Mary-ness is a challenge for me, but really necessary.

 I used to kind of have that rubber band arm that I would reach up and volunteer for anything that I thought was worthy or had a value, or I could serve in. I could fill that hole. And slowly, the Lord revealed to me that by not jumping in. And filling that void, was actually providing an opportunity for someone else to fill in that space.

And there are times after service where, a period of service that I felt so depleted and maybe I'm not sure the right word, really. Well, maybe just a bit empty and then God really would call me back to, I think you just need to refresh, rest, be still and receive, and while I'm capable of teaching or leading or, Having lots of great ideas, sometimes he just wants us to step back and one allow someone else to fill that space or that position and to, to really be prepared and rested for what God has next for us. I've seen way too many people stay in a position because it's comfortable for them and they've done it. And I thought, Oh, God never gives me that opportunity to stay in my comfort zone.

Like usually, when I walk into a new Bible study, I look around and if I see a lot of people, I know, I usually think, Oh, I've stepped into the wrong room, which has actually happened before. And when I enter the room where I know no one, the teacher, any of the other ladies, like, Oh, this is where he wants me to grow and stretch beyond my comfort zone.

Barbara: So sometimes service to others is absolutely meaningful and valid and sometimes it can be in our comfort zone. We might be having fun or feel like we're needed. And the parable that you had referenced, Hillary, I just want to put that out. There is in Luke chapter 10, verses 38 to 42 that it's okay to sit and listen and learn and not always be working.

Even though we're certainly called to labor and we're also commanded to Sabbath. So I'm going to actually put that down as a future podcast episode because Sabbath and rest, I think gets a bad rap sometimes. And it's not always the same thing as self care. 

Another thing that our passage in Malachi references is offerings. And for some people that can be a sore subject- in some churches, there's a lot of talk about money and in other faith groups, there's not too much talk about money. What Malakai was talking about was that sometimes people gave halfhearted offerings or there's other examples also in the Bible of people putting on sort of a show of their faith.

And I think that it could still happen in this day and age. I'm wondering if we might still, even in these days, make half-hearted offerings to God and not only financial, not just the money, but in our behavior.  Part of what I'm wondering is, is what does God really want? And this does not mean a certain dollar amount or the oft quoted answer of tithing.

And let me also say up front here, I'm not asking anybody for money. That's not what this is about. This is just talking about this verse and Malachi is talking about offering. So I thought, Hey, let's talk about this. How can we talk about offerings to God without sounding like we're judging each other, but to encourage each other.

Hillary:  I am a person of questions, so I ask a lot of them. And when I was going through, my pre reception into the Episcopal church, I had so many questions for the priest.  I think I wore him out a little bit. I think he seemed retired after I left. Not because of me. No, not at all.

But the question of tithing and I'm a pretty concrete thinker. So if someone says, well, it says in the Bible, you should tithe that I'm like, is that really 10%? Do I have to give 10% before taxes after taxes and the conversation I had with Father Cook is his name. I still remember him to this day and that's been about 25 years ago.

He said, you know, tithing, God really cares about your heart and your attitude when you're giving. And by tithing, he said, let me be clear. God is not asking only for our money. sometimes he's asking for our time, sometimes he's asking for our talents, our skills, those gifts and abilities we have to share.

Instead of getting stuck on the amount of money that you're giving to your church or the organization of your choice, you know, think about what you have to give and what is your heart of that sacrifice. And is it something you can give joyfully or is it something that, is painful for you to give?

And in those reflections, I really still ponder and chew on that of what does that mean? Am I giving, am I doing enough? Which is one of my traps. If I'm being honest, am I doing enough? I've got these skills, these abilities, these gifts. I should be, doing more giving more.

It goes back to that personal relationship and prayer time with the Lord for me. I don't need to meet someone else's expectations of my time. I need to check with God and he's writing my story - it's written and he's with me every single day. And maybe he needs to change my path on a detour a little bit before I can get to the next part of what he has for me.

So it's that moment by moment, choice of, relationship with God. What   am I offering to him? And the halfhearted resonated with me when you said that, because sometimes I think, am I giving a 10th of my heart? You know, and attitude to God in worship and in service. Am I giving half a heart or am I giving my whole heart or am I giving wholeheartedly?

I did have a, a prayer warrior friend of mine say, Hillary, it's so important instead of I have to do this, I get to do this. That fine distinguishing word of I get to give an offering to God. I get to volunteer with these women. I get to pray with someone or I get to talk to my friend.

Oh, that is the way into my heart and love language right there.

Barbara: So considering giving to be a privilege is one way to look at it. And I want to mention as often as I can, that we are not buying our way into heaven or into a relationship with God with either our money or our time, because our salvation is a free gift, which we then return in love, like you mentioned.

Hillary, another dream of yours that you shared with me is to write a book, sharing your journey of faith, to encourage the skeptics doubters and those young and faith that hope is real. How do you pray about your dreams and discerning God's will for your life?

Hillary:  I am a kinesthetic learner, meaning I learn and remember by writing out. And so my muscles will then send that message up to my brain and remember what I've written.  I'm a list maker. Sometimes I lose my list, but if I have a dream, I'll usually write it out. And I'm learning with those dreams that they can also be kind of goals.

Sometimes I put those kinds of concrete, “smart” goals with the timeline, are they measurable, timely, achievable? And sometimes I kind of put the Hilary timeline on it and what I'm learning is with that dream, one lifted up to God to have that conversation of Lord, this is what  I'm thinking you're actually leading me to do.

What is the timeline that you have instead of what I think?  Also, I need so much encouragement in my faith.  People can look at what I do on the outside and think, Oh, you're set, you're golden, you've got it together. And I have struggled with my faith throughout my life.

I have been a skeptic. I have been a doubter, and I have struggled with hope and faith.  I just see myself coming alongside people and walking with them, letting them have their questions. Since I'm a fan of questions myself and saying, hey, can we look at this together? Here's some experiences I've had.

Maybe this will draw you closer to a relationship with the Lord that's to encourage you that today is not the last day for most people, right? That this is not the end of me or my life, that there's more out there. And even after this life, this, human life that there's something more and we don't have to fully know and understand, but that's the beauty of faith and believing.

Barbara: I'm really grateful that you are willing to be vulnerable because I think, we want to put our best foot forward, put our best face forward and maybe put our best faith forward. So you see someone and you think, Oh, they look like they have their act together.

Or gee whiz, I don't know if they have their act together, which is totally unfair because we've all been on a faith journey in some of ours. Faith journeys are longer or shorter or virtually nonexistent. So I love that you want to give a word of encouragement because none of us are perfect and we can't ever be perfect.

We might strive to be better, but that you'd like to encourage people in their relationship with God.

Hillary:  I was really kind of turned off of faith through many different parts of my life and left the church for a while, stopped going for many years.  I needed someone to make space for me to ask my questions and not feel judged or condemned for my questions or my doubts or struggles.

And, faith is such a personal journey, but how do we encourage someone to show up to church. If they're just going to feel condemned or criticized in that or that it's not enough,  it's not a faith race. I think people feel like it's a competition. 

Barbara: I love that. It's not a faith race. Let's make tee shirts that say that.

Hillary: I don't think you're getting to heaven any faster than I am. I don't know. I think God really wants us to all show up.

Barbara: I just want to give a shout out to Planting Roots, which you volunteered with, Hillary, for two years. They support military members, military families, military women. Do you want to say anything about that ministry to encourage people to check it out?

Hillary: Oh, absolutely. You know, the women of Planting Roots have such a heart for military women and wives. it was such a blessing to serve with them for those two years. In fact, when I was asked to serve with them, I was meeting with the director Kori Yates and she and I would pray together every week and chat and I thought, gosh, she's amazing.

She's just mentoring me. This is awesome. And she said, well, Hillary, I'd like you to pray about the next prayer coordinator. And I said, absolutely. I love praying for people to hear their call and follow God's will for them. And a few weeks later, I said, Kori, the person who's  going to fill this position has no idea that they're being called to this position.

And we were at a coffee shop in Stuttgart, Germany, on Patch Barracks. And then the lightning bolt hit me. And I was like, you were asking me to pray about me serving in that position.

Barbara: That's what I heard. When you said the question, that's what I heard that she was asking you. This is the greatest story ever. Well, besides the Bible.

Hillary: it was a funny thing in the look on her face. You really weren't getting it. Kori- I'm a very concrete thinker. I need it spelled out very specifically because it's, Hey, will you pray about this? Pray about the next person filling this.  We had a good laugh in that. I got the chance, the opportunity to serve with them and I felt so unqualified. I can tell you, I felt I don't have the skills or abilities. What do I have to offer?

Barbara: That is amazing for you to say that, because I see you as eminently qualified. So maybe that speaks to do we see gifts in others, more clearly than gifts in ourselves.

Hillary: Absolutely. and, and it was a pattern on our team, on our staff. People said , I don't think I'm qualified to do this.  You have the right heart then because God's our qualifier. If we felt ready, capable, and confident, then that's probably not the area he needs us. To grow us.  There was such a sense of worth a great sense of sisterhood in serving with that team.

And we hosted, conferences in several states, several countries, and the opportunity to connect with other military women and wives, say, Hey, we've walked in your shoes or we're still walking in your shoes.  So that is a great resource.

Barbara:  Thank you so much.

So it sounds like we're still being refined. I wonder if we sometimes resist being refined, the stretching kind of, that you were alluding to. Doing new things, things that we feel uncomfortable with. And then sometimes also it seems to me like we feel judged by others. I don't mean that I feel judged by you, but in our society.

Hillary: I think the comparison trap is intense and real. And I think looking at someone who's so capable, in their position and you're like, well, of course they were born to do that position. And think, Oh, well, I couldn't be like her.  I think what so many particularly women miss out on is that God's not calling you to be like her. God's calling you to use your gifts and skills that he's given you, equipped you with. To do what he's called you to do. And he doesn't need two Hillary's in the world.

One is more than enough, you know, but he needs a Barbara to do what he calls Barbara to do. It's such a trap. I still fall in at it sometimes like, Oh, I wish I could, pray like this person or be a mom like this person, or be a wife like this person, or be a therapist like this person.

And it's like, well, golly, that's like being four different people. I think God's given me enough. It just turned to be me. and he can grow me in his way. And in his timing.

Barbara: Yes. My last question for you, Hillary is how do we delight in drawing near to God? I don't really think of delight and drawing near to God.

That's not the first thought that comes to my mind, but one of my classmates in school asked that question and I thought, I really want to spend some time with this question.

Hillary: I can be in prayer time or Bible study and in worship and just feel this peace throughout my whole being and just feel like I am connecting with the God of the universe, the creator. And then I step out of that space or I leave the altar area or leave the church or, leave my prayer time.

And then, then the reality hits me. Oh, now how do I find that delight in the Lord? Wow. Dealing with, you know, a teenager that doesn't want to take out the trash or a dog that's barking or, the grace of words to a husband, or encouragement, you know, am I delighting in the Lord and being my human self?

Barbara: Oh, that's wonderful.

Hillary:  That's a challenge for me personally.

Barbara: for sure. So ideally. Private time with scripture, maybe with music, maybe in a place of worship that sort of designated time might come easier than when we've got the hubbub of chores and real life.

Hillary: Yeah. And I think it's kind of like the daily recharge at your faith battery, right?

Like you've got to plug in, plug into the Lord, the Holy spirit, you know, regularly. And for some of us it's daily for some of it's throughout the day. I know for me, once a week, attending a church service is not enough cause I'm human and I forget.

One of the chaplain's wives years ago said, Oh, I just shoot up a prayer arrow, Hillary,  sometimes I don't have time for a really long drawn out conversation with the Lord. So I'll just shoot one up there.

And someone else said,  I just have the conversation with the Lord throughout every single day while I'm working on the car while I'm helping customers , it's just that constant back and forth of how am I doing Lord and my pleasing you am I bringing you glory? is this what you'd like to do?

Barbara: And I believe that people can also praise and worship in their own way, either through art or music or just walking down the street when you're. Picking up the mail or whatever. It could look different ways for different people.

Hillary:  Yes. In song, and I do not have a gifted voice for song. My children will attest to that. But I still like to sing. God must have some special kinds of earphones that translate the tone of my voice, which is not gifted in song to sound pleasing to his ear when I do. So it's more of the intention. I think God appreciates that.

Barbara: God has special earphones. Let's make another t-shirt with that on it.

Is there anything I haven't asked you, Hillary, that you have on your heart about either the passage for Malachi or anything we've talked about or anything that we haven't talked about?

Hillary: I think we just have to never give up on there being hoped and reaching out for the person that has maybe walked that path before us and can help guide us along. I'm a tangible person. Sometimes when I struggle in my faith, it's because I need to hear a human voice.

I need to feel a human hand in prayer. I need to hear those actual prayers. So instead of just reading the Bible, sometimes I just have to say it out loud for it to have a different impact on my mind. 

Barbara: that makes me think that as much as we want people to reach out to us and to support us into encourage us, we can also be that to other people. We don't always have to be everything to everybody, but maybe even without knowing it, we can be supporting and encouraging other people or reaching out and lifting people up either, both physically or in prayer, just the way that we would like that as well.

Hillary: That is so true. And I fall into that, especially with COVID. I think, Oh gosh, I really miss seeing my friends and doing things. I thought, well, we still have email and Marco polo and Facebook messenger and phone. The telephone still works. And all of these great ways to connect with our friends and family to say, Hey, how can I pray for you this week?  that's a big blessing that gets me out of my own head. So that's why I really love to pray with and for other people.

Barbara: Thank you so much, Hillary.

Hillary:  thank you so much for the opportunity to share my reflections and to chat with you, my friend.

*Bonus information: due to budget and child supervision matters, PWOC had not offered programming on Camp Foster. Hillary was told that she could offer a Bible Study “if we were willing to use what they had in the cabinet. When the chaplain asked what book I wanted us to study, I replied, “Discerning the Voice of God” by Priscilla Shirer. You can imagine the look on the Chaplain’s face when he opened the book closet and saw there were 15 copies of “Discerning the Voice of God!” Volunteers were found who provided child care during Bible studies for 12 months in the new location.

Bible verses:

Malakai 3:1-4

John 15:2

Luke 10:38-42

Resources:

www.plantingroots.net

Bible study:

“Discerning the Voice of God” by Priscilla Shirer

Hillary has blessed many people with her gift of prayer.

Church and social justice with Deb Teagan

Deb about church & society

Barbara: Hi, everyone. Welcome to 40 minutes of faith. Today's guest is Deb Teagan. I met Deb in Stuttgart, Germany, where I lived for the past two years. She's been a military spouse for 25 years and has volunteered for 10 years with the air force and army chapels and family groups. Deb is an ordained clergy person in the United Methodist church, serving as both a local church pastor and as a college campus minister.

Before going to seminary to become a pastor. Deb worked as a blood bank technologist for 10 years. She's from South Carolina and has survived. 11 military moves, Deb dreams about buying a travel camper and visiting lots of national parks. Deb, how are things in Germany? I've heard places are opening up after the pandemic is easing and there's also protests.

Deb: today is a big day because restaurants are open for indoor eating. Again. We have been since they 15th of March, so almost three months. I think that people are getting ready or happy to be getting out, but people are still required to mirror wear masks inside on public transportation.

There was a large protest in downtown Stuttgart on Saturday, mostly a silent one. It was really well attended with absolutely no trouble at all, but a lot of support for, Justice for people all over the world who are needy in need of it. So, it it's felt like it's been a good thing.

Barbara: that actually fits in with today's theme, which is church in society. And that can really mean different things. What I see is partly why are we here? And also, how are we here? So both of the church bodies that we belong to have websites and the Lutheran one has documents called social statements, which are at www.elca.org and the United Methodist church also has a long history of advocating for social justice and there's resources at www.umcjustice.org

Deb, one of the quotes from the social statement about church and society is that we are called to be wise and active citizens.

What are some things that come to your mind when you hear wise and active citizens?

Deb: Think that it means thinking before doing it's very easy to just react to a scene that's happening, but I have found that if I stop, take a breath, pray, think about sort of the biblical implications of whatever struggles are going on in society.

and then at that, of that model, that tends to be something that's much more long lasting than just doing the first thing that comes to my head, which is usually something out of anger rather than something out of love. And I

Barbara: have a hunch that for you being thoughtful does not necessarily mean being slow and plodding and methodical. Cause I get the sense that there's also some anger out there. You know, we've been talking about this for hundreds of years. And how much progress have we made. So being wise doesn't necessarily mean just thinking about it for so long that nothing ever happens.

Deb: No. and I think that, that, that is, that could be, that has tended to be the struggle is that we have said, well, let's just study this a little bit longer.

That is tradition has a long history of general conferences and commissions, where they say, “let's study this issue” and we take four years to look at it and then we basically lose our momentum. And so you are correct for me, it doesn't necessarily mean not doing something in a timely fashion, but it does mean not just jumping on the first bandwagon that drives by, it means doing research and trying to figure out, is there an organization, maybe it's my church. Maybe it's another church. Maybe it's a non government organization. That's doing something that I want to be connected with. And then asking myself the question, how can I make myself a part of this journey?

Barbara:  And I also want to honor that anger has a just place. I'm not going to tell anyone don't be angry, but one of the things I'm hearing you say is that acting out of anger may bring different results than trying to hold your anger and turn it into a constructive tool. If at all possible,

Deb: it's sort of like when I was a kid and I would do something wrong and my mom would make me go sit in my room for 15 minutes. Before I got to come back and we got to talk about what happened 10 minutes was this much for her, as it was for me, what it did was it led us both sort of set ourselves and then being able to have a more constructive conversation that just being immersed in the emotions of the moment. Yes. I also see that in the current situation protests, but also throughout time, that we need to gather ourselves and sometimes that to ask ourself, the question is my first thought.

Self protection or are there some new lessons that I need to be learning in this process? Because I can assure you that in 25 years of marriage and also 30 years of ministry, that I have traveled a path that has taken me in a different place now than I was when I first started.

Barbara: Can you give an example?

Deb: I think that in the beginning of my ministry, I was very focused on the interior life of my faith and the interior life of others people's space. So it was about spiritual discipline and it was about Bible reading and it was about sort of getting my own faith journey in and as I have lived these last 30 years, I have realized that I can spend my whole time looking at my own faith journey. And if I don't ever go outside and Put my faith into practice, then my faith isn't really being used to its full advantage. I had a confirmation statement said to me one year, well, Deb, I only have like 1% faith - I'm not sure I want to get up there and say, I'm going to follow Jesus. And I said to her, God could do a lot with that one percent. And so we don't have to totally know what it is we believe, or we don't have to be totally a hundred percent rooted and. Our faith journey. if God is leading us, if we hear that voice of God saying, no, I want you to go do this.

Sometimes we just have to go and we grow in that whole process.

Barbara: So it's okay if you don't feel like you are an expert in all these different things or you're just thousand percent rock solid on everything, but to just consider what can I do to contribute to the betterment of society?

Deb: Yes. And I just finished teaching, my fifth confirmation class in the six years.

We've been here in Germany and we each year have taken on this passage from Mark chapter 12. it's the story of the teacher of the law, coming to Jesus and saying, what's the greatest commandment? It says to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.

in my early Christianity, I spent a lot of times wondering what are the things that I shouldn't do. And what does, is there just two things you should do Love God, I love your neighbor. once I started focusing on those things, then the courage to get outside.

My own comfort zone came a lot easier because I wasn't worried about is this going here and making a mistake? I had a pastor friend of months tell our church if we're not failing at stuff that we're not trying hard enough. Which was like freeing for us. It was like everything we do doesn't have to be a success.

We just have to go out there and say, Oh yeah, this works. But yet this didn't work so well, how can we tweak it? What do we need to do different? Does that make sense?

Barbara: Yeah. So what if loving your neighbor could be kind of risky because. I find that some people are easier to love and some people are harder to love, but we are not called to love the people who are easy to love.

And that's not to put blame on anybody else. It's totally about my own issue. If someone's acting hateful or something like that. in preparation for our conversation today, Deb, I looked up neighbor and depending on what translation of the Bible you use. The word neighbor is listed 150 times, including in the Hebrew scripture, which Christians call the old Testament as well as in the new Testament.

our neighbors are not just the people who live on either side of us.

Deb: Right. we tend to live in places, are at least to the United States, we tend to live in places where people, our neighbors are like us. I think living overseas for me has really expanded this concept of what being a neighbor is all about, because I'm surrounded by people who are different than.

Space pick up different language than me. I have a street that runs in front of my house and there's of four apartments there. And for Muslim families live there and, we wave at each other and we speak halting German because German is not the common language for either one of us. And. Our understanding of what it means to be a neighborhood, how to sort of relate to one another has really expanded through the differences between us, not through the sameness.

And so when I hear God saying, love your neighbor, those two commandments that Jesus talks about are actually distilling of the 10 commandments. The first four commandments are about loving God. And the last six commandments are about loving your neighbor. it's about understanding someone as a neighbor means actually putting the neighbors interest on par with, or maybe even ahead of your own interest.

Barbara: And I agree with what you said a minute ago, that it seems to me a lot of churches focus on don't do this, don't do that.

And it's okay to have these guides in our lives that are designed to protect us and our neighbors and God's creation. But at the same time, Living, always on a focus of don't do this, or be in fear of I'm going to get in trouble for this. That's not leaving room for grace, because like you said, there are also things that we should be doing.

And that's what this conversation is about. I'm curious about the concept of compassion in this day and age.

Deb: I think that some people think that compassion means weakness. I think that compassion means strength. It means that I have to be vulnerable to other people. I have to understand that perhaps people are going to reject the things that I want to offer them, but I still have to offer them. I have this thing happen before I was even a pastor right after I graduated from college. I started volunteering with youth missions, in South Carolina and we would go for a week and we would rehab people's homes and we went to this lady's trailer and did some repairs, but she also had a bunch of trash from the house. there were 10 of us and we spent a whole day clearing away the trash and taking it to the dump. And when we got back the next morning, she had thrown her trash out the back door and the kids were very mad and we had to sit down and have a long conversation about expectations.

they were like, I don't want to work here anymore. She's not going to treat us right. And we had to have a long talk about why we weren't doing this to make ourselves feel better or to make ourselves look good. But that we were here to model the kind of compassion we would want people to show for us.

we had to make sure that we understood that we were working to make her life safer and that we didn't need her to buy into our expectations in order to serve her.

Barbara: And in some cases that may have to do with our own upbringing, this is what I was taught. So I think it's right. But does this mean it's right for everybody on the planet? Well, maybe, but maybe not to show respect for other people's beliefs and even dietary restrictions or, just honoring how people live, how different cultures exist.

Deb: Right. And it's hard. there's nothing like getting out of your own comfort zone, like moving a dozen times in your adult life. I actually say military families are often able to adjust to new situations fairly easily or more easy than some other people that I know, because we have to go in and we have to sort of like make a new life every two or three years And then if you compound that by moving overseas or living in a place that is dramatically different from what your expectations are or what you've experienced before.

for me that the ability to do that comes from just the joy of experiencing new things and meeting new people. But it also comes from  the understanding that I'm not in this by myself wasn't the right exit that we're supposed to get off, but it's okay because we can get back on the highway and get off at the next exit. And it'll be fun to, I mean, I think we think, Oh my gosh, I have to do this exactly this way. There's this one path and my experiences that God is on every path. And that gives me a lot of freedom.

Deb: I'm a ordained United Methodist minister who hasn't served in a local congregation since 2010, but I still use my ordination and my seminary training and my years of experience every day. and did I imagine that this was what my life would look like? No, but is it exactly where I'm supposed to be? Yes. it feels like, God said I can do a new thing. Are you along for the ride?

my daily existence is about realizing that I work in the world as a Christian, it means that I just get to go out there and figure out, okay, God, where am I? I serve today. And many times that work comes to me just through the needs that I see. and often those are not religious needs.

Often those are needs of friendship or companionship, or, Hey, I need somebody to bring me a meal or, those kinds of things. I think people often think, Oh, well, if I'm going to serve in society, I need to be out there. It needs to be a quote unquote, explicitly Christian message. But Reinhold Niebur, who was a great theologian on 1950s, said, “preach the gospel daily. Use words if necessary.”

Barbara: Actions often do speak louder than words. And I believe that you and I share the same belief that we're not doing good deeds to earn points with God, but we're doing it out of love for neighbor, which we're commanded to do. So there's a fine balance between that. And also people who aren't Christian do good things to help

Deb: Right. Hey, I'm thrilled. To go to heaven, but that's not why I do these things. I mean, I'm here to live out the joy, that comes to me every day through my experience with Christ. And, I look at the biblical story and I see Jesus say, the kingdom of heaven is now. And so we're not just expecting the kingdom to come in the future.

The kingdom is where we're living now. And what is it that I am doing to build up the kingdom?

Barbara: our question is what is the church's responsibility in society, both as a larger church body and as each of us individually, one example from the Lutheran statement is that we should talk about moral decisions together.

We should learn, use reasons and feel. That's a direct quote from the Lutheran social statement. I'm curious, how do we work together with larger church bodies as well as doing the individual work that we were just talking about?

Deb: the United Methodist, justice page. They're pouring money into programming To combat poverty, climate change, the health initiatives piece. They also work with the United nations and with the United States Congress to try to pass laws, which will help make justice more possible for people out there.

And they also take volunteers, both paid and not, they have missionaries that go out and work in the world, I had to pick an area that I wanted to have emphasis on because I wanted to, be able to focus on some main topics.

 for me,  this idea about poverty and, Justice are the places where I have felt lately, mostly most called to  learn about.  that means I contribute to the ministry of the church, with my dollars that I do a lot of reading of articles and books.

Trying to learn about different perspectives and about issues that I didn't know anything about before. my church has also gotten me in the habit of writing my Congress, people, my representative, and my two senators. I've learned to be much more vocal about sort of how I'm participating in that process. And, for me, that means that, I've had to get much better at listening. And not trying to always be the one to speak. And so that's why I've been, of written reading, especially in the last month or so a lot of new authors that I had not heard that I had never known before.

I guess if there's one good thing that came out of the pandemic has been that I basically have left my house about five times in the last three months. I've spent a lot of time reading

Barbara: I had the opportunity to listen. When I traveled to Texas earlier this year, before the pandemic hit to learn about issues at the border land. And I much preferred to listen in person.

To listen to a human being's voice, but when that's not possible, reading to me also can be a way of listening, especially if we're seeking to diversify our understanding of a certain issue. And then as long as we've got internet, we can listen to recorded information from lots of different perspectives as well.

Deb: it's just helped me realize that my perspective is small I can say, Oh, well, I'd never thought about that. That way before.

how can I incorporate this into my experience of faith and into my experience of a serving I'm out in the world, all the needs that need to be met.

Barbara: And many of those needs are listed on two other websites that you gave me, which I'm going to list out in a minute.

And they also address in part the question that we're called to stop discriminating and being indifferent to social and economic inequalities. And there are resources in many different formats. One that you had suggested is the sojourners community and they are at www.SOJO.net  and world relief is www.worldrelief.org

So I really appreciate that. You said Deb, that there's so many issues out there. We don't have to do everything for everybody, or eventually we'll kind of feel crushed too, but we might feel. Especially called to a few issues and want to learn more and act on those and the websites that you suggested also provide some guidance.

Like you said, writing letters to senators and representatives. There might be someone who's like, well, I've never done that before. And I don't know what to say, but organizations have models on their websites that you can either hand write it out, which is really meaningful. Or you can just click a button.

I know that Amnesty has letters already written. And I'm wondering if you have any other tips or thoughts on reducing discrimination and indifference to social and economic inequalities.

Deb: in this political season, we can't be fooled into thinking that the top jobs in the land are the ones that are the most important.

I've been realizing is that it's local city council races and it's state,  house and Senate races and it's school boards. every elected position is important because. all of the, discrimination laws that happen in the world in the country are not happening just at the upper level.

They're actually happening all over the place. one of the issues that I didn't know anything about until about six weeks ago is this idea of bail reform. Yes. And how crazy it is. It's horrible that people. Have a small crime often to do with money. And the solution in the system is to charge them more money or send them to jail.

Barbara: And they have to stay in jail before they're convicted. If their family can't meet that money, which is totally possible in many cases,

Deb: Correct. Or like in the state of Florida where they passed, an amendment to their constitution, which said that people who have served their sentence and are no longer paroled to get their voting rights back.

And then somebody found a loophole and said, well, if they have court costs, they should have to pay those court costs. Well, often those court costs are thousands of dollars.

Barbara: And it's going to take a long time to pay that off. And that's time when your voice can't be heard through

Deb: voting, correct, or the process of requiring identification and then closing the offices where the identification can be.

Barbara: So it's a matter of social justice that we can work to advocate for people's voting rights so that their voices can count.

Deb: Right. And the Bible doesn't say anything about voting rights or bail reduction or any of those things, but it does say you need to take care of your neighbor. And again, I come back to this idea of how do I want to be treated?

I think that for me, that's one of the reasons why this right injustice issue has, has sort of hit me like a wet towel in the face is that, as a white woman, I get certain privilege just for being a white woman. I have friends who do not get that same privilege because they are women of color.

I need to stop assuming that everybody has exactly like I do. And so that's one of the reasons why I really started trying to listen to the experiences of other people.

Barbara: Thank you for sharing that the concept of white privilege and white fragility is something that some people say, well, it doesn't exist. You know, this is the world for everyone. And it's not, if you don't know that white privilege is real, then you've probably lived it and don't have any concept of how other people's daily lives play out.

Deb: And I will say this Barbara five years ago, maybe even three years ago. if someone said to me, Oh Deb, you're just a liberal Christian left leaning person.

I would've probably tried to argue with them. And now I say, aha, because big liberal doesn't mean what people think it means being liberal just means that we want equality for everybody. We want everybody to be treated the same. I have sort of had to shrug off my shame for being the thing that I have always been and then just climbing it.

Barbara: I think there's a lot of fear in the world and fear that I don't necessarily agree with., when I was in Texas, it seemed to me like people are afraid of - Okay - So let me not generalize because saying people isn't fair, either. Maybe there are folks who don't think that immigration to the United States should be as open as it has been in the past. And I hear things like, well, people are taking our jobs. I'll tell you what. I picked one flat of strawberries a few years ago. And I said, thank you, thank you to the people who pick strawberries. My back was killing me. I said, I never want to do this again. And that's maybe the worst example but I was so grateful and I thought, I don't think a lot of jobs are being taken away from people who really want to pick strawberries or other fruits and vegetables or things like that.

Deb: if there's anything that this coronavirus thing has shown us, is that if they are not, if they're not people available to pick with crops, then the crops go to go to waste. I just can't separate my life as a Christian from the ways that I'm called to live in the society and to Recognize and then address the needs of the people in the society.

Even if they're not like me, even if they're not Christians, even if they don't come from the same place that come from, I do feel like if there's something that I can do, then I need to try to do it. It took bravery in the beginning. And now it's so funny. Cause my husband says, if we move back to the United States, I'd just spend all my time bailing you out of jail

Barbara: because you're promoting social justice and people are going to be mad at you and afraid of you

Deb: just go chain myself to something, I don't know. And the reality is that I'm really not that brave that I would go out there and purposely get arrested. There are people for whom that is a calling. I don't think that that's what my calling is, but, I do find that. if somebody says something that I really disagree with, I try very nicely to say, well, that's an interesting perspective. Have you ever thought of this perspective? And I at least try to vocalize, a more justice oriented Christianity. Then perhaps some people are used to.

Barbara: hearing and that might feel like a huge risk to some people who could be rejected by their family, by where they live, for their quote, radical beliefs about justice inequality.

Deb: right.

Barbara: Earlier, you had mentioned about praying and trying to discern God's will, or maybe feeling a calling. And I'm wondering if you could talk about that for a minute, because not everyone just kind of hears a voice out of the sky that says, Deb, go do this. So how do we get a sense of these nudgings or God's will and praying there's not really sort of a formula or if you do this, then you'll immediately get this sense.

Deb: There is certainly not a formula for me. It comes in. Several different ways. It might be an article that I read or a news story that I hear about. And I want to go check out more information about it. It might be something someone says to me or, sometimes it'll be like, I should really do something about that thing.

I should really, write my Congress person about gun control, And then I hear six stories on the news and I get three things in the mail and I have four emails and I have somebody have a conversation with me about it. I'm like, well, apparently this is the topic of the day and I should pay attention to it.

And so sometimes it's just paying attention to the things that all around you. And I do say, Lord, please help me go out. That helped me to serve you in a way that's kind of honored you. And be able to be something that will honor People who are working for this goal. I'm not hearing God say, “Deb, you should go do this.”

what I'm paying attention to is all the places in my life where I'm seeing information or hearing stories about things that people have done. then I take it from there and say, okay, well, this is the way that I could be a part of that process. it takes ears to hear, you have to sort of filter out all the other stuff that's happening around you.

Barbara: There's a lot of negativity and some people experienced self doubt. And even though we talked about, when we pray or, or discern what to do, that doesn't mean we should slow down. I do want to also acknowledge that sometimes the process might feel like planting seeds and you're writing letters to government officials and sometimes we feel like we've been just writing letters for decades and maybe something improves. And then later it gets repealed or a new law gets passed. So it's like two steps forward, two steps back, but to keep going to not feel discouraged. And I also wanted to acknowledge that sometimes we decide that we want to do something and then we're trying to figure out how can I do this? And it might be going back to school I saw the movie, the outsiders in junior high, and I knew that I wanted to be a social worker. So I had to finish junior high. I finished high school and then go to college, but you can still do things along the way towards that goal of supporting other people. I just loved what you said, Deb, that you just had a little, two sentence conversation with God and sometimes prayers can be really long and really earnest and groaning. And sometimes it's okay to just talk casually with God.

Deb: Yes, I certainly have a more formal prayer time most days, but I'm home alone a lot these days.

And sometimes I don't have the TV on, sometimes I just have conversation with God and in the process of what my day looks like. And have you ever had this idea in your head and it just won't go away?

Barbara: Yes.

Deb: And you say to yourself, where did that come from? And, that seed planting often starts with us, that a state gets planted in our head.

And we think, I don't even know where that came from. Sometimes it comes from somebody saying something and you say, I think I really agree with that point of view. Let me figure out why that is. Or maybe it comes from, Oh my gosh, I never thought of that. That way. Now let me figure out what else I need to know about, I read this great book called surprised by hope, by NT Wright, who was an Anglican Bishop and a new Testament scholar. And he wrote this very accessible book about how Jesus’ resurrection and Ascension and the day of Pentecost is sort of the framework of what the church is supposed to look like. And he said in this book, every thing that we do can work toward bringing the kingdom of God to be more present today, whether it's the small things or the big things, and you have to have confidence that God is gonna bless you in all of the things that you're doing.

And boy did that give me confidence that- to talk to you today, to do the sort of stepping out of my comfort zone on things to know that God wants us to try. Maybe we're not always going to get it right. he, but he wants us to try and he wants us to grow and. That for me, that's meant saying, Ooh boy, I got that all wrong back there 25 years ago.

I'm glad that I've taken the opportunity to grow into a new understanding of this issue or, or this, or interpreting, a passage of scripture. and so for me, not just as a pastor, but just as a Christian, I love the fact that I'm just better at doing this faith thing that I was a long time ago.

I feel like I'm better at doing this marriage thing that I was 25 years ago. And both of those things give me great joy and give me the courage to be a witness out in the community in a way that I might have been more afraid to do before.

Barbara: That's a great encouragement for folks, as we mature to say, maybe we feel more confident now and also to give a shout out to some of our young people who are just doing amazing things in the world in terms of advocacy and not everybody has the same gifts. And we honor that as well. Some people may have the gift of writing. Some people are artists, some people can sing their heart out. And I feel closer to God when I hear that kind of music. So just honoring our many different gifts and knowing that God can use them in different ways to make the world a better place.

Deb: I'm in awe of the young people who were allayed leading a lot of the social justice movements of today. four young teenage girls who posted on Facebook, Hey, we want to have a gathering in Nashville and 10,000 people showed up

Barbara: that boggles my mind. And hopefully we give each other courage at all different ages and stages to make the world a better place.

Deb, is there anything else on your mind or on your heart about church and society for today?

Deb: my faith has grown as I have been willing to look outside my own needs and to be able to pay attention to, and work toward meeting the needs of others.

Some of the best lessons that I've learned about homelessness, where the times that I volunteered spending the night at a homeless shelter.

And having conversation with working people who were homeless to totally erase all the stereotypes I had about what it meant to be homeless. And so I guess my encouragement to people would be if you're afraid, it's okay, but take a step outside of your comfort zone because you're going to be amazed at how God is going to bless you in the process of stepping out into the world and say, here, God use me.

Barbara: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Deb.

Bible verse: Mark 12:28-34

Resources:

ELCA Social Statement about church and society https://download.elca.org/ELCA%20Resource%20Repository/Church_SocietySS.pdf?_ga=2.49441250.572738045.1590622907-1006791731.1589050443

United Methodist Church Justice www.umcjustice.org

Sojourners community at www.SOJO.net   

World Relief is www.worldrelief.org

Amnesty https://www.amnestyusa.org

Book “Surprised by Hope” by N. T. Wright