Missing Armenia

Today is Sunday November 30th (I think) and I am sitting here writing this post from my bed at the Holiday Inn at London Heathrow. Joseph and I finished our 10 day visit to Armenia yesterday, flying back through Moscow on our way here to London. We got in last night and had dinner in our room, which was a treat, and then went straight to bed. I am feeling a bit more like myself, praise God, as this cold of mine in starting to subside.

We said goodbye to Roy and Chris Cochran yesterday, which was hard as they were our travel companions, co-teachers and close friends for the last 10 days. We also said goodbye to our Armenian-American brother, Tom, who became a great friend over these last 10 days. I told Joseph as we boarded our plane for London that it was like losing limbs as we said good bye to people. We said goodbye to Tom and we lost an arm. Then we said goodbye to Chris and Roy and we last our legs. All we have left is one arm each and so Joseph and I must hold onto each other for all we are worth :) It is good to be together just the two of us again but I sincerely miss the laughter, jokes, squished cab rides and long meals that we shared.

Everytime I try to sit and write about our time in Armenia in order to let friends and family know what it was like, I get stuck. I think my brain and body are still taking it all in and figuring it out. It was a hard place, for sure. The stamp of the Soviet Era is still well imprinted on the place. Tom jokingly taught us a phrase that sums up relations between most people which is, "I am fine, you are fine" (with thick Armenian accent). It's kind of funny to say but it is so true. The ethos i "I mind my business, you mind yours ... everything is ok". Here is an illustration. On our way to church on Sunday, we drove past a crowd that was huddled around a woman on the ground. Tom, Roy and Joseph got out of the car to see what was going on. Chris and I stayed in the car and prayed, figuring that they didn't need more people taking oxygen. When Tom came back in the car, he was flustered and a bit angry. The women, who was elderly, had been hit by a car and was bleeding from her head. No one was calling an ambulence and no one was taking her injury seriously. She just kept saying that she wanted to go home. When Tom suggested that she needed to go to the hospital, everyone got angry with him. As we talked about it more , I got the sense of oppression and how th enemy works in a cultural context.

It's breakfast time, so we're going to go eat. More to come later!

Preparations...

We just wrapped a planning meeting with the pastor and worhsip leader of our local host church. Our sharing and sense of common vision was beyond anyone's expectation. It iturns out that the pastor and worship leader are both suberb musicians. In fact, the pastor taught music at a seminary in Russia and also spent five years compiling and transcribing new and traditional songs of worship for a newly published Armenian hymnal. It is overwhelming and humbling to particate in this workshop.

We start things off tomorrow morning. About thirty people from seven to ten different churches are expected to participate. PLEASE PRAY FOR US! We'll work through a loose outline that I've been putting together. Each day we'll spend time looking into the Psalms. Also, daily we will worship together with various participants leading the group. We want to emphasize working together to articulate core values which are both shared and expressed in the context of diversity. It's still a bit fuzzy... so PLEASE PRAY for clarity of vision and communication.

Armenia ... we are here!

We have now been in Armenia for 2 full days. We arrived in Yerevan at about 3:30 in the morning on Wednesday (Tuesday at 3:30 pm US time). We were greeted by Darren who is the person who has invited us out to spend the week here. After getting into the guest house where we are staying, we met Tom who is running the guest house while we are here. We drank tea and talked for a bit before we decided to try to get some sleep. We were all able to sleep until about 1 pm and then got dressed to go out into the village where we are staying. We walked through the streets to get to the market. It was amazing to see the places where people live. Many of them have blown out windows with only light curtains. The Soviet era is very visible here. The ghosts and bones of a very ancient culture seem buried underneath the minimalistic buildings. We visited an apostolic Armenian church which was built in 1270. It was small and very beautiful. It is funny to me to think that it wasn't for another 200 years that we had the visitation of Columbus that we think of as the furthest back our Anglo history goes in America. After visiting the church we continued walking through the village. There is a particular smell in Yerevan because people don't have trash pickup but instead burn all of their garbage. The city itself is quite polluted and you can smell the ashe and smoke in the air. After getting to the market, we walked through the stalls until settling on some lamb, vegetables and herbs to take home. We took a very squished taxi ride home and began settling in for the night. We were all exhausted and unfortunately, the Armenian culture is a late culture. While dinner took a long time to prepare, it was well worth the wait. We had a dinner of roasted lamb, pasta, herbs, lavash and cheese. It was so amazing. They take the herbs, all different kinds, and wrap them up in the lavash and eat it plain. It was delicious. After dinner and clean up we were all wiped out. We went to bed with full tummies and thankfulness.

Day 1 - London

Since Joseph took a couple minutes to write something, I figure it is only right for me to do the same. If I forget how to spell, skip words or don't make sense, please forgive me. After the nine and a half hour flight from London and the four and a half hours waiting here in the London Heathrow airport for our next flight, nothing seems to be making much sense. We had a very fast flight into London and sat next to an adorable little boy named Nicholas. He was 10 months old and an amazing traveler. This is, of course, justification for our notions of travel when our little one is young and it was awesome to see a mom and baby travel so well and stress-free together.

Joseph and I have been blessed with what feels like great favor from where we sat on the plane, to the people who have helped us at ticket counters, to good food and feeling healthy. It has also been great to have some time to continue our preparations for the workshop we will be doing in Armenia. We are off to our next flight in about 2 and a half hours ... Moscow first, then Yerevan, Armenia!

LONDON LAYOVER

Hey... it is Joseph here. I am stealing a few lines on the blog while Jaime is not looking. WE ARE SO GRATEFUL! Wow. The outpouring of support has been a huge blessing - which makes the feeling of grace and favor even deeper. This is an amazing privilege!!!

As the Eagle Flies. Thank you Catalina Family!

This morning, Joseph and I got off the Catalina Express boat at about 11:15 am and said goodbye to some dear "family" that we got to spend time with this weekend praying, worshipping, laughing and just hanging out.  Our friends Annie and Fran invited us out to Emerald Bay for their weekend retreat with Derek and Terry from Harvest Rock.  We came out ready to be refreshed through worship and fellowship but I'm not quite sure that either of us were totally prepared for the encounter we were going to have with God's Holy Spirit.  At least, I wasn't prepared for it.  I expected to get to have a great time of fellowship and to enjoy the beauty of our surroundings. What I was met with was the thick fog of the Holy Spirit.  Saturday afternoon and evening were filled with worship unlike anything I've ever experienced.  For me, it felt like there was so much freedom and connection.  Many people shared feeling and seeing the presence of angels around us during worship.  It was as if we were all being prepared for something through the process worshipping together.  Truly, that is what I believe was happening.  It seemed that everyone that was there was there for a specific reason.  This was only impressed upon me more on Sunday.  Each of us had the opportunity to be commissioned for whatever God might be calling us to.  It was so powerful to be prayed over and to feel sent out from this group of people and from God to do the work that has been set before us. As the praying and prophecying happened, I felt the burden of fear, anxiety, stress and unworthiness fall right off of me.  I felt so absolutely connected to everyone that was in the room.  As each one went up for prayer, though I had just recently met many of them,  God really touched my heart for them and brought to a place of deep prayer and groaning for each of their live's missions.  This weekend in Catalina was ordained by God!  We are so immensely greatful to the Lord for the opportunity to be there and so immensely greatful to our Catalina Family for sending us out and supporting us spiritually and physically.  It is humbling to be loved in so grand a manner!

Trees, Fruit, Conformity and the Like

Last night at our youth group for the ladies Katie brought the goods and continued our conversation about what it means to buck conformity to this world and to find our identity in Christ. She really did well dealing with the truth that even those of us who have rebellious streaks and take pride in not conforming are doing just that by finding our identity in non-conformity. We all conform to something whether we like it or not. We talked about the fact that Jesus Christ didn't conform to the world because he understood his purpose and the way the Father loved him. He even chastised others for getting in the way of the will of the Father. At one point, we discussed why we feel the need to conform to this world. The answers varied from acceptance to belonging to the need for identity to the need for love. Katie dropped the bomb when she told us that the desire not to conform can become an idol in our lives. The desire to be different can be so powerful that we can put it above what God wants. "Kimmie, what if God doesn't want you to write anymore?" "Jaime what if God wanted you to give up singing?" "Niki, what if you couldn't wear black anymore?" "Katie what if God wanted you to dress like a prep and take 10 showers a day?" Gulp! Are any of us really willing to give up our identity for God. I think that in light of ministry, I would have to ask the same thing. I think that often those in ministry make idols out of their desire to be known as the pastor or the worship leader or the whatever. I know that often when I had positions of leadership and or ministry at Fuller I had a really hard time giving up my title and my desire to be seen as important and useful in that role. I think that many times that idol in my life led me to leave God out so that I could do what I "knew" was best. Man!! Looking back I had the opportunity to do a lot of damage. Praise God that he protected me as well as others from me.
Katie ended our discussion by talking about John 15:1-8 and the imagery of the true vine, the gardener, the branches and the fruit. It was cool to see the group (myself included) really come to study and understand the idea that for our own good and the good of others, God cuts off those branches that don't bear fruit. Sometimes that represents people and sometimes that represents parts of people. I think that for most, the analogy means to say that God in God's loving nature, lops off those parts of us that don't produce good and loving actions and ways. He lops them off so that we can't hurt ourselves and others. I pray that God would continue to go to town on me, lopping and sawing and trimming and clipping until I bear the kind of heavy, ripe and wonderful fruit that pleases God. Oooooh, art project for us girls: To bring in a picture of us and draw around a picture of our face the tree that we want to become. May be silly, but I'm visual. It could be a powerful reminder of who we are when we abide in Christ.