Breast Cancer 3-Day

I have decided to do something "crazy."

I have never been much of an athlete. I call myself a runner, but I must admit that I am certainly not hard core. I will run 2-3 miles a day when the weather is nice, and only in the summer (coldness and darkness do not encourage exercise!).

It is probably surprising, therefore, that I have just signed up to walk the Breast Cancer 3-Day.

The Breast Cancer 3-Day is a 3 day, 60 mile walk supporting breast cancer awareness, research, and education. 1 out of every 8 women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in her lifetime. According to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, approximately 200,000 American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, and nearly 40,000 will die from the disease.

But it doesn't have to be that way. Together, we can make a difference. I am one of those people who firmly believes in the power of ONE--one person helping, serving, touching, educating--to make a difference. If we all do a little bit, then it begins to equal A LOT.

My committment to walking the Breast Cancer 3-Day includes a fundraising goal to help in the efforts to STOP breast cancer. My fundraising goal is $3,500. I MUST raise $2,300 in order to walk. Please visit my personal fundraising page to learn more about why I am walking and what this is all about. I hope you will consider supporting me financially. I also covet your encouragement and prayers.

Click here to visit my personal page or click on the link at the top of my blog to donate on my behalf.

Breaking Up and Breaking Out

I almost dropped out of seminary.

The reason for my "almost break-up" with the church, the "straw that broke the camel's back" is, at this point, mostly unimportant. I credit a good friend of mine for convincing me to stay. He told me I only had two options: I could leave and let the church stay the way it was (break up), or I could stay, and exact change from the inside (break out). I chose to stay, because at that time I could never see myself as being anything other than a Lutheran. Maybe the idealist in me really believed that this is still a "reforming" church, and not just the "reformed" church of Martin Luther's Reformation.

My blog has been silent for a long time. The last few months have been filled with wonderings and wanderings as I struggle with a church that falls so short of my expectations, and a call to ministry that even I don't entirely understand.

My struggle is with a larger church (i.e., not a specific congregation, but the wider church) that preaches the "priesthood of all believers" but doesn't live it. My struggle is with a church that doesn't know how to affirm my gifts for ministry not only as a church leader but also simply as a Child of God. I struggle with my own ability to be a diaconal minister (deacon, or servant) in this world and in a church that I feel has let me down. It has told me my service is important and then turned its back on my call in so many ways. In the semantics it plays between "ordination" and "consecration" and in the inequality in pay and responsibility between clergy and deacons, the church has made its stand. My call did not come out on top. I wasn't really hoping it would--equality would have been nice.

I could go on, but I won't. I am writing this blog so that others who struggle with questions of faith might know that you are not alone, and so that you know that even the people who "work in the church" are often plagued with doubt and misgiving. I also wish for something better for my church, and for myself.

The question that faces me today is the same one that has faced me for months, perhaps even years. It was 2003 when I almost dropped out of seminary.... in many ways my questions today are still the same....

Should I "break up" with the church, or "break out"? Is my role the role of a leaver or a reformer? I know that I want something better, but I'm not sure I have the heart to make it happen. I'm not sure I'm a reformer. All I want to do is be a diaconal minister (deacon, servant) in the truest sense of the word. I just want to serve... I don't want to spend my time convincing people it's a good idea. I'm not sure the church knows what this call to diaconal service really means. What about the preisthood of all believers? If we're all priests, then who says diaconal service needs to happen within the context of a "call" or a "consecration"? Isn't God bigger than even the church's box?

Homecoming

Have you ever noticed how love songs on the radio could just as easily be about God as about a lover (or maybe God is your lover)? They could also just as easily be about something or some place you love, instead of someone.

There's a song out recently by Chris Daughtry called "Home." I know you've probably heard it. The chorus goes like this:

"I'm going home,

Back to the place where I belong,

And where your love has always been enough for me.

I'm not running from.

No, I think you've got me all wrong.
I don't regret this life I chose for me.

But these places and these faces are getting old,

So I'm going home."

It is difficult to adequately explain to someone who has never had the experience what it was like for me to return to the African continent this month after FIVE years away. The last time I was in Africa, I was unmarried, was living in Minnesota, and hadn't yet graduated from seminary. My grandfather was still alive, and a life in Pennsylvania with my future husband was something I hadn't yet conceived of.

The last time I was in Africa (Cameroon) was five years ago, but the last time I was in Tanzania was NINE years ago. That was the first time I was ever in Africa. That was the trip that changed everything. At that time, I was still in college. My best friend Yulia, a summer fling, and a research project I was working on were the most important things in my life at that time.

Life has changed. Nine years ago I never would have imagined that today I would be in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, married to a Cameroonian, and working for one of the largest Lutheran churches east of the Mississippi River. Like the song says, I don't regret this life I chose for me (much of the time that's true, anyways).

Yet one thing has remained constant. A little less than three weeks ago, on August 7, when those airplane doors opened and I stepped out into the cool, evening Tanzanian breeze, I knew I had come home. The smell of wood smoke and sweat and history came into my nostrils and I kissed the ground. I had come home.

I was surprised this time around by how normal it all seemed. It seems like every other time I have ever been in Africa, there has been so much wonder associated with the experience. Naturally, every time you go somewhere new, there is discovery and wonder to be had. This time, the wonder was still there, but it was more an experience of experience. I had reactions like "I've been here before," and "That doesn't surprise me." Not that I knew everything or learned nothing... I was just surprised by how un-new everything seemed to me. For example:

1. When we arrived in Moshi, Albert, the diocese driver from my trip nine years ago, was still working at the hostel where we stayed.
2. On our way to Lushoto our car broke down and we had to disembark in the middle of nowhere while the driver and mechanic pieced things back together.
3. The police stopped us for vehicle inspections in hope of some extra cash.
4. The voices of children on the side of the road singing "Wazungu" ("white people" or "foreigners") were strangely reminiscent of my time as a "Nazara" in Cameroon.
5. Even the school where we stayed in Mlalo, the students and the teachers, reminded me in so many ways of our dear College Protestant in Ngaoundere, Cameroon.

There were many differences, too, and I would be the last person on earth to tell you that all of Africa is the same or that all Africans are the same. That is just not true! But I was amazed by how at home I felt. In many ways, it was as though I had never left. It truly was a homecoming.

This whispers to me about my future. Our future--Pierre's and mine together. Although we have returned to Lansdale, Tanzania, Cameroon, and Africa are not our past. They are not just some places we visited that we will look back at in photographs and say, "What a nice time we had," never to return again. This is not a Roman Holiday. This is our life. God is calling us onward in a direction that is ultimately pointing back across the ocean. Eventually, we hope to be home for good.

P.S. You can view photos from my trip to Tanzania by clicking here.

People Who Get It

Can I just say something?

I spent last week with an amazing bunch of young adults. Four of them were from my congregation, and six of them were from a Methodist church in Hamilton, New Jersey. We spent the week in Wyoming County, West Virginia, serving with Appalachia Service Project (ASP). We didn't all go together. Heck, we didn't even know each other before last week! But when we were placed at the same work site together, relationships were formed and magic happened.

I just want to say how easy it is sometimes to get frustrated with people who don't get it. Many Christians don't understand what it means to be Christian. They don't understand that the call to Christian life is the call to service. Day after day I constantly wonder how I am supposed to empower people to live out their Christian call to service when they think service is synonymous with "serve us."

I was really proud to be a part of our little band of four who embarked on a journey to serve in West Virginia last week. And, I was really honored to get to know the six from New Jersey. I felt like I had come home... I was really in my element, in service, hands (and just about everything else) dirty. And, I was surrounded by people who get it. Granted, we all had our moments of insanity. But I know that at the end of the day, these were ten devoted people who understand the meaning of Christian service. I needed to be reminded of what that feels like.

Thank you.

Running On...

You know, blogging can take a lot of time, which is something I haven't felt like I've had much of recently.

Part of the reason I have titled this blog "Running on..." is because sometimes I feel like that's all I do: running from here to there, working, taking care of household chores, going to the gym, keeping up with friends and family, and so on and so on. Sometimes I feel literally like I am running on "empty," but I just have to keep going because there is no other choice.

The other reason I have titled this blog "Running on..." is because it describes something I have been doing a lot more of recently; namely, running.

Let me backtrack a little bit. Last November when Trinity's pastors and I attended our annual Bishop's Convocation, we had a conversation with Tammy Devine, who (like me) is a diaconal minister, and is also a registered nurse and the ELCA Board of Pensions' Wellness Coordinator. Board of Pensions (BoP) is the church organization that provides health and pension benefits to leaders in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) like me and many other staff members at Trinity. Through that initial conversation and many after, Trinity came to be involved in BoP's new Wellspring Pilot, which is a program bringing BoP's messages of health and wholeness previously reserved only for those insured with BoP to the greater public through use in congregations, church organizations, etc.

Because of the Wellspring Pilot, Trinity's staff and congregation are becoming much more actively involved in many different areas of health and well-being. According to the Wholeness Wheel model, there are six different aspects of wholeness and wellness, all of which are integral parts of the whole person: physical well-being, emotional well-being, social and interpersonal well-being, intellectual well-being, vocational well-being, and spiritual well-being. Each of these areas of wholeness and well-being spring out of our baptism into Christ, through which we become "new creations in Christ" (2 Corinthians 5:17). Click on the Wholeness Wheel link in this paragraph to learn more information about the Wholeness Wheel and each of these areas of well-being.

Fortunately, Trinity has many very talented congregation members who are putting their heads and gifts together to help us all become more well. We are educating ourselves about being whole and well, and we are doing something about it. For example, one of our congregation members, Dr. Chris Cianci, is working with staff on a 12-week training program to help us reach our fitness and physical well-being goals, whatever they may be. Mine is to run again.

All of this is background to say that I have started running again. I ran quite a bit when I was in seminary, but then my Master's thesis hit me and I have never quite been able to pick it up again since. It is hard to remember that I ran 13 miles Easter weekend of 2004 and not want to pick up right where I left off. The truth is a no-brainer--after not running for 4 years, I can no longer run 13 miles. I was lucky when I started again if I ran one.

This is not just about physical well-being, however. It is also about all those other aspects of wholeness. My world is a busy, complicated world (much like yours is, I'm sure), where no one will take care of me if I don't do it myself. This world will abuse me as much as I let it. It is time to slow down and take back some time for myself. I need to stop running on empty, so-to-speak, and start running for myself. That includes taking time out to be physically well. That's what the running part is about. But, it also means taking care of myself in those other areas. It means saying no sometimes. It means not letting my job or my family or my chores eat away at my personal time. Sometimes it means staying home and vegging out on the couch with a bag of... potato chips? (I am more into granola these days than potato chips). Whatever. It means continuing education and personal devotional time and nurturing my relationships. It's a lot more complicated than just running. And yet, I feel like running is a good place to start. An added bonus is that I feel better physically than I have in years.

I will be running the Tex Mex 5K in North Wales on June 25th with Dr. Cianci and several other Trinity staff and congregation members. If you live in the area, come out and cheer us on! This is a great way for us to rally around people in our congregation who are living out their call to be more "wholly" stewards of themselves, and servants of God and community.

Zimbabwe

Please pray for the people of Zimbabwe as they work toward peacefully freeing themselves from a tyrannical government. I was almost a missionary there once.

And please read the post below that I just posted yesterday, if you haven't already.

Her Story: My Story

Nafissatou

This weekend at Trinity's annual spring women's retreat our topic was Her Story: My Story. We studied biblical women and their legacy for us as 21st-century inheritors of their stories. The first night we were there we all shared about the women in our lives who have most influenced our own faith. For me, there have, of course, been many such women. My mother and grandmother are very important parts of my own faith journey. But the women I chose to talk about this weekend are Hadja, Hanizou, and Nafissatou.

These women are three very faithful Muslim women who live in central Cameroon. Nafissatou was my student when I taught English there. Her mother is Hadja, and her little sister is Hanizou. I know it may seem strange that I would name three Muslim women as important influences in my Christian faith journey, but there it is.

I have many stories that I could tell you about Nafissatou and her family. What is important to know for this story is that her mother and father took care of me, loved me, and treated me like I was their own daughter. To this day, I am Hadja's daughter, and I am sister to Nafissatou and Hanizou.

The Thanksgiving after I left Cameroon, Nafissatou's father, Sadou Daoudou (or as we called him, Baaba Sadou, or "Daddy Sadou") came in from his morning walk and fell down and died in the middle of their living room floor. He was 74 years old, and had lived a very rich and fulfilling life. He served as Minister of Defense in the Cameroonian government under President Ahmadou Ahidjo during the early years following independence. This had made him and his family very worldly people, which I think is one of the many things that so endeared us to each other.

Anyways, the summer following Baaba Sadou's death, I was back in Cameroon for a visit. Pierre and I went to visit Nafissatou and her mother and sister after church one Sunday. Hadja was still very sad over the loss of her husband. We came and sat in their living room, drinking tea and talking. When we left, Pierre forgot his small blue Gideon New Testament that he had placed on the side table. We never even remembered we had left it.

Three months later, I was standing in our kitchen in St. Paul, Minnesota, at lunch time when the phone rang. I picked up the phone and heard the familiar delay we often get on calls from Africa. "ALLO?" I heard a voice say from far away on the other end of the line. It was Nafissatou.

"Hello? Rebecca, I am calling to tell you something important," she told me.

"Is everything okay?" I was a little worried. I slumped back against the kitchen counter. It was snowing outside.

"Yes. Do you remember that Bible you and Pierre left at our house last summer when you visited us?"

I admitted to her that I did not.

"Ever since the day you left it, my mother has been reading it."

This was one of those missionary moments where your breath catches in your throat. "And?" I croaked. I wasn't quite sure I wanted to know the rest. Will these people still be the people I love if they become Christian? Part of why I love them is because of their heritage and family life that center around the practice of Islam. The selfish part of me wanted them to remain exactly the way they were.

"And, I am just calling to tell you that Muslim people love Jesus, too. We love Jesus."

I started to cry.

That is why Nafisstou and her family have had such a profound impact on my faith. I am pretty sure now that they will never become Christians, and that is OK. They don't need to. In many ways, the greatest Christian love I have ever experienced came from this close-knit family of Muslim women. Their openness to understanding my story, to having an experience with my God, and to loving me all the same has had a profound impact on how I live my life today as a Christian.

They are also a great example for me of what it truly means to be a missionary. Mission is about relationship. Hadja never would have read that Bible in the first place if we didn't have such a deep love for each other. Nafissatou never would have shared what she did with me if we hadn't already been bonded together as sisters. In so many ways, this family has ministered to me more than I could ever care for them.

Nafissatou is the reason that I have a Master's Degree in Islamic Studies. She and many of my other female students--Aissatou, Mairamou, Hadjijatou--they made me want to know more about who they are. The practices of Islam are so intimately bound up with their everyday lives that I couldn't know them without knowing about what they believe and practice. In many ways, we made an exchange... Nafissatou got that Gideon Bible, and I got a Master's thesis on Modern Women in Islam.

I wish that more Christians could show our Muslim brothers and sisters grace and godliness like Nafissatou, Hanizou, and Hadja showed (and continue to show) me. Nafissatou and her family are some of the most faithful, godly people I have ever met.