Ministry is Messy

Hello All,

Since I last wrote, God has been revealing a lot to me as well as Steve.

We have both been thrown into the lesson of loving people. And all this time I've been thinking, "I love people. Look at what I'm doing here! I moved to this location solely to love on and serve people!"

The problem, though, is that I was looking for some sort of ideal person to be loving and serving. God has introduced into my life, a couple of women who continue to come to me. None of them were in my ideal picture. That isn't the point, though. That's what I'm learning. God is telling me, "Quit looking around and look at these three beautiful women I've put in front of you."

Serving and loving them has not been at all what I had pictured serving and loving would look like, but that's because - as I'm learning - each person needs to be loved a little differently.

There's one lady who is a single mom and without a job. She looks all day for a job, but is trying to find ways to keep her mind energetic as well as her body. So we go walking together in the mornings.

Another lady is a new mom and wants to be working again but can't find a job, so she's lonely. She texts me endlessly and always wants my time for coffee or shopping or something. It's exhausting to me, but I need to find time for her, because she's almost begging me for my time. What kind of person am I to even consider rejecting her?

Another lady comes to me to have coffee in our kitchen whenever she's having a bad day. She leaves feeling better and I close the door after her feeling as bad as she did when she walked in. Her depressive spirit is contagious. But she comes to me - no one else. Sometimes she stays for hours and sometimes just 30 minutes. But I just drop whatever I'm doing when she knocks on the door. Lately she's been a much happier person so I haven't seen her in a long time! But that's how she feels loved by me and I'm beginning to be okay with that.

The concept of loving people is not as defined as I thought. It is very difficult and it is tiring. Sometimes it's tiring because the person is tiring. Sometimes it's because the activity you are engaging in with this person is not your thing, so the brain has to be stretched beyond it's normal boundaries. Sometimes it's tiring just because it takes a lot of time to love people.

It's not just about being nice to them. It's about going out of the way - forgetting me and focusing on them.

And it's not clean. Spending time with these women, I have learned just a little of who they are and where they come from. They all have different stories with different morals and different ideals. After a while, my black and white Christianity is confused by all the lines that have been crossed and blurred together in these women's lives.

I am learning to be interested in one of these women's religion of Islam. She talks about the mosque and her obligations as a Muslim. But she welcomes my talk about my church. It is very strange to me to show interest in her religion because it isn't mine and I believe it is wrong. But it is love to accept all of her.

Ministry is messy because people are messy and ministry is about people.

Even though I'm a people person it has taken me this long to figure that out; and it is harder than I thought it would be.

So pray for us. We must be overwhelmed by and overflowing with God's love in order to have the capacity to love others.

I challenge you to find that same capacity as we are learning to find.

In Him,

Steve and Rebekah

Greetings All!
Christmas and New Year's have passed and January is nearly gone. Much has happened since then. I have gotten some tutoring on how to post pictures, because I have been greatly frustrated with trying to figure that out. So I'm trying out what I've learned.

Here are some pictures of our stocking decorating event. This was not one of the events we would have pegged as successful, but surprisingly, it was very popular. About ten people walked in right on time, when normally no one would have shown up until ten minutes after the starting time. We had fun and got to connect a few residents with each other.

One event, that we have now done twice, is the pancake breakfast on Saturday morning. We would like to do this one every month. Right now there are some areas we could work on, to make it even better and more attractive. With those improvements, it can be a great event for food, fun and meeting new people.
I was able to get four women talking together during our last breakfast. It was so much fun.

Since I last wrote, a lot of changes have occurred. Apartment Life is switching gears and refocusing their efforts. Starting in February, we will not be required to complete 70 hours of time for Apartment Life.
We will only be required to put on 3-5 events instead of 4-8.

The focus will be much more on visiting new residents and residents who might want to renew their leases in a few months. We are receiving some training for this new method and our apartment manager loves the new focus. She is excited to get it going.

Our relationship with our manager has become much more positive than when it began. We are communicating better with her and she with us. It is a much more enjoyable relationship now.

That is the latest news in a nutshell.
As far as "us" goes, a lot has happened there as well.
Steve's parents came to visit around the first week of
January. They left Georgia for four days just to spend time with us. We felt privileged to have them and it was exciting to show them our life together.

The day they arrived, I had begun a 24hr EEG. We have been trying to switch me over to a new medication for my seizures for a long time now. Part of the reason was just because it was time to switch, but the other reason is that we thought I'd been having partials seizures for the last two years. The new meds weren't fixing the problem, though, so I had an EEG to make sure I'm actually having seizure activity.

Wearing wires on one's head for 24 hours results in 9 washings before all the glue is out of the hair!

The test results came back yesterday. Whatever is happening to me, is not partial seizures. I still have epilipsy, because I have grand mal seizures, but these little episodes are not seizures, in fact they don't appear to be neurological at all. So, while that is confusing, we are still excited that I can stay on the new meds and come off the old stuff.

Another piece of exciting news is that we have begun the process of looking into mission agencies to see with whom we should serve overseas!

We had an interview with Africa Inland Mission (AIM) yesterday. We talked with the regional representative in a coffee shop for an hour and a half! We liked AIM before the interview, but now we like AIM a lot. We have not made any decisions, but we do know that, so far, we could happily serve with AIM if God sends us to them.

It is thrilling to be taking this step. I have waited over half my life for this moment to be real. And not only is it real now - but I have a partner to share this moment with and he wants it as badly as I do.

Please be praying for us:

As we begin the search for a mission agency

As we start this new focus with Apartment Life

As as we continue to switch me off my old meds

And as we figure out what these episodes are that I am having.

I'll be in touch soon!

In Him,

Steve & Rebekah