becoming a human being

Here is a public facebook link to my Denver photos:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2017082&id=1183500282&l=fc294d231c

1 Thessalonians 2:8 "We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us."

Last Thursday I got back to my room, sat down on my bed, and reflected on all that I had accomplished in my work day: I made homemade brownies for the house, played Guess Who with a couple of the Treasure House kids, sat with various women on the back porch while they smoked, learned about the terrors of nursing newborns from a resident while we were in the waiting room of a doctor's office, went to Jamba Juice with a resident, set the table and ate dinner with everyone, folded newsletters, and watched Lars and the Real Girl with whoever felt so inclined.

I caught myself feeling a little pathetic. Really Hannah? You played games and ate food? What kind of work is that?
But I'm realizing that this is exactly where God is leading me. This is incarnational ministry. It seems so contrary to what I expected out of an internship. I came to Denver ready to conquer the world, eliminate poverty, and give homes to every single homeless person with whom I came into contact. But sometimes, we are called to just sit with someone. When we are honest that we don't have all the answers, we can move into spirituality instead of judgment. We can simply be among and be present. I'm so used to existing as a human doing...checking off a three page post-it note to do list. But this summer, I am learning to become a human being. I am learning to simply be, instead of do. I'm learning to sit with people and not just share the Gospel with them, but my life as well because they are so dear to me.

I'm learning how to take care of my soul. When our lives are only filled with chaos and irritation, we only bring more chaos to those whose lives are already chaotic. But, when we take the time to care for ourselves, we can be filled, rested, and the fruits of the spirit will flow from us. This summer, we have been practicing several spiritual exercises. My favorite has been an artist date. Each week, I take a date with my soul, doing something that my soul needs. From taking care of myself, I find myself more patient, available to listen, and open to divine interruptions. Today...my artist date is sitting in the Ink! coffee house on 16th Street Mall. It has been a beautiful morning to catch up on emails, listen to music, people watch, and drink coffee.

We have also been practicing an Ignatian spiritual exercise called the examination of conscience. At the end of the day, before I go to sleep, I try and do these things.
1. To get quiet and give thanks to God for everything he has given to me.
2. To ask for grace to know during the course of my day when I have been close to God, moving toward him and where I have felt distant and moved away.
3. Examine my thoughts, words, and deeds during each hour of my day - where have I moved towards God and where have I moved away from him?
4. Have a resolution for tomorrow to move closer to God and ask for his help in doing so
From practicing this exercise, it has blessed me and given me time to quiet myself before the Lord and reflect on my day. It has helped me recognize my own humanity - humbling myself and knowing that I cannot move towards God without his grace and help.

Blessings and love to you all.

double linkage

here is a link to the band - paper bird. they are denver natives and we went to one of their concerts on friday. they were so fun....kind of the dance around in your underwear while brushing your teeth and the sun is shining through the window music. mom, i think you would enjoy them. they're kind of folksy :)
http://www.myspace.com/paperthebird

here is a link to the church i have been attending - pathways. some girls and i go to their uptown location...where the pastor is gil. the sermons are definitely worth listening to...so if you feel like it, there's a link somewhere on their site to listen to gil's preaching.
http://www.pathwayschurch.org/

carried to the table

"We are not the healers, we are not the reconcilers, we are not the givers of life. We are sinful, broken, vulnerable people who need as much care as anyone we care for. The mystery of ministry is that we have been chosen to make our own limited and very conditional love the gateway for the unlimited and unconditional love of God." -Henri Nouwen, from In the Name of Jesus

There's a beautiful scene in the movie, Les Miserables. Jean Veljean, a character of scandalous grace, is caring for a young woman who has become a prostitute in order to pay for her daughter's medicine. The woman is sick and dying, yet continues to sell her body for sex in order for her daughter to survive. After getting beat up and abused by some men, Jean Veljean rescues her and cares for her wounds. With tender care, he nurses her back to health. One morning, he creates a breakfast feast for her. Jean Veljean carries the weak and dying young woman from her bed and seats her at the banquet table to enjoy a beautiful meal with him. Jean Veljean's lifestyle is grace. He humbly acts with the same grace he once received and transforms lives by the grace and love he freely gives.

I find myself carried to the table of the Lord time and time again. As we come together for supper at Treasure House, a family comes together to share in each other's aches and pains. As we're seated at the table, passing bowls of pasta and salad, I rub shoulders with women who were heroine addicts, drug dealers, prostitutes, homeless, mentally ill, are suffering from broken relationships, and live in complete poverty. Yet my own broken, naked self is exposed. When you live with broken people, it becomes hard to hide your own pain. But I have learned that this is a beautiful thing. As I hear the stories of these women, my heart cries out for them. Yet as they hear my story, they hurt for me also. When you live in the grace of God, your shit doesn't smell better than the next person's. It all smells the same.

We are all wounded and broken. We are all fallen human beings. Yet we are all image-bearers of Christ. When we are seated at the table of the Lord, we are redeemed and restored.

Wounded and forsaken
I was shattered by the fall
Broken and forgotten
Feeling lost and all alone
Summoned by the King
Into the master's courts
Lifted by the Savior and cradled in his arms
I was carried to the table
Seated where I don't belong
Carried to the table
Swept away by His love
And I don't see my brokenness anymore
When I'm seated at the table of the Lord
-Leeland

scary me

today i was walking down 16th street mall on my way to barnes and noble. as i walked, i overheard the conversation of a group of guys and girls behind me. after i walked for a block in front of them, i gathered that they were Christians who had come to evangelize in downtown Denver.

pink shirt: but who are we supposed to interview?
white shirt: anyone. but it's not like we interview them about God...we just have a conversation with them.
pink shirt: okay. so should we just look for people and approach them?
green shirt: yeah. how about the girl up there with that bag? (referencing me)
pink shirt: okay. should i tap on her shoulder?
green shirt: i don't know. i'm scared.
pink shirt: yeah. i'm really nervous about talking to her. let's go to someone else.
white shirt: yeah. i don't know about her. how about the guy over there? (referencing a guy covered in tattoos with a spike jetting out of his arm)
green shirt: yeah. let's talk to him.
pink shirt: sounds good.

hmm. i guess a baby pink shirt and pearls are a bit more frightening than i thought :)

lament

Last weekend as the rain poured down and my roomie and I waited at a bus stop, we met a lady who shared her story with us. She freely shared stories of being a nurse and loving the elderly she served each day. She had worked jobs in every field available, including hard farm work that never ceased. She missed her daughter who no longer wants anything to do with her. She hated waiting at the bus stop, but today she decided to go to church. Her fingers were gnarled from a life of hard labor and little rest.

On the same bus, I let a man with a cart containing his life's possessions have my seat up front. As I sat down in my new seat, he handed me a pink flower from his cart, smiled, and thanked me for letting him sit down.

A resident and dear friend at Treasure House told me that she hated people looking at her feet. I asked her why and she told me it was because they were ugly. I gave her a puzzled look and told her that I didn't really agree. She responded in saying that her feet were ugly because they were tired - they were battered and bruised. Her feet carried the weight of her burdens and a life of pain she had lived for so many years. Her feet were ugly because they carried her through too many ugly situations that caused too much pain. And her feet were tired. They were tired from walking, crawling, and struggling to keep going each day.

Treasure House is a unique place. The three houses where Open Door Ministries now resides used to be havens of sex and drugs. The main office building was once a strip club and the women who worked there lived in the three houses as prostitutes. The block of houses was condemned and in utter ruins. Jeff Johnson had a vision to restore the houses and create ministries for broken women in them. Now the women at each house are a reflection of the process that went on in the physical homes years ago - a process of transforming brokenness and pain into healing and restoration.

I've spent hours sipping lattes in cozy coffee shops. I've curled up in the corner of a bookstore, reading, writing, and people-watching. I've sat on many street benches, waiting for a bus to come. I've met so many people...sooo many people. And in all the chaos of Denver, I find peace, and restlessness, love and hate, condemned homes in the projects and million dollar houses in the suburbs. I spend time at Starbucks and on street corners. I love both the noise and the calm. The rain pours the same hour the sun shines. My life is filled with paradoxes - side by side, together. And I think that's how it was meant to be. We need each other. We have different stories, different cultures, different views of God...and they crave each other. I feel comfortable in my own skin here. I feel like all aspects of who I am are celebrated...I'm a girl from South Korea, raised in Iowa and here in Denver...and I'm learning what that might mean. I'm learning what it is to be made in the image of God, beautifully and uniquely. There isn't an "us" and "them" here. We're together. We're all made in the image of God. We break bread together...whether that's a McFlurry or piece of fried chicken...it's sacred.

In class, we've talked about so many things I wish I could tell you all...it's really good stuff. The best class..and the hardest class to sit through was about lament. We talked about the lost art of lament, which is the poetry of truth-telling. Here are some things to ponder:

The first condition of healing is to bring the pain and suffering into view. -Kathleen M. O'Conner

Covert despair and repressed hopelessness characterizes the spiritual condition of North American culture. Unlike despair of poor and afflicted around the globe who know too well of their true condition, the despair of the dominant culture of North America is a denied despair, not merely hidden by wealth and power but forcibly refused. -Douglas John Hall

When God must be praised at all times, prayer becomes a lie, a cover-up, and a warrant for the status quo. -Walter Brueggemann

If you're not being transformed by your pain, you're transmitting it. -Richard Rohr

If one cannot question God, to whom does one direct the questions? -S. E. Balentine

We talked about how we try and mask our pain, afraid that it reveals a weakness about us. We're taught that God is in control and so the pain was a part of God's plan...yet we fail to properly mourn and grieve a loss, afraid that it compromises our knowledge of God's sovereignty. When we don't allow suffering, we have an inability to articulate or accept our own suffering - as well as an inability to enter imaginatively into the suffering of others. Christ invited us to lament - to cry out to God and be real with him. David writes in Psalms "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" While Christ is on the cross, he cries out the same words - "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He lamented.
And so, at the end of class...we lamented.

How long O Lord, how long?
How long will you keep your people in bondage to their past,
afraid to move into the future?
How long will your children continue to be slaves -
slaves to addiction, fear, money, drugs, sex?
How long will the lady at the bus have to keep working?
How long will the man on the bus have to keep walking?
How long will our feet be ugly and tired from carrying us through too many hard places?
How long will we hide our pain?
Lord, let your people free.
Let your children have freedom from their captivity
and liberation from their fear.
Lord, we're weary. Restore us.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr-AhzqfRDg

tired feet

We walked so much this weekend. $2 Old Navy flip-flops are not the shoe of choice for a carless girl in a big city. Lesson learned. Here are some photos from the weekend :)

by the civic center before hitting the santa fe art district on friday night

walking home in the rain/hail with stomachs full of Mexican food.

denver art museum - dress up bin number one

number two :)

before the fray - friends and family concert :D

at the concert....

Other weekend highlights:
- seeing GREGORY for an hour saturday afternoon!! he and his team are in denver this week - living 3 miles from my internship site. on saturday morning he called me up and asked if i wanted hang out. he came to issachar and i got to see him for a bit. soo good.

-going to wal-mart and happening upon my aunt as my checker.

-sleeping on a PILLOW :D i forgot to bring one, so i had been sleeping on a pair of sweatpants.

Also, here are some photos of my denver home at the joshua station:

our room :D

the closet.

food.

where we sit to pick up the wireless

(right outside our door)

the front yard :)

victory

I made it home on the buses today, successfully decorated a strawberry cake, spent three hours at a bookstore, and felt like I had a family at Treasure House.

Lindsay is a gift from God. Her husband was deployed to Afghanistan two months after they got married so we have both thoroughly embraced talking about the men in our lives whom we miss so much. It's fun to swap love stories with someone and know that you're kind of providing a bit of therapy for each other in the process. There are so many things in her life that she's come through that I find myself currently struggling with. God definitely placed Lindsay in my life to not just be a supervisor, but also a mentor and friend. Last night after we visited a resident at the psych ward, Lindsay took me out to 16th St Mall to grab some dinner and just walk around. It was a blessing to talk to her about life - and not just work. I look forward to the days ahead when we get to spend more time together.

Today I walked down Colfax and spent a few hours in Tattered Cover - an amazing bookstore in an old theater. I went to pick up some books for Lindsay and then spent some time reading books, magazines, and exploring. My favorite book was Love Letters of Great Men. It contains love letters that men like Beethoven, Van Gogh, and Mark Twain have written to their wives or points of admiration :)

I helped one of the residents make dinner and also spent some time holding her twin babies. I love laughing with the women and hearing their stories. Treasure House is an intense program for incredibly broken women, but it is amazing to be a part of a ministry that God is blessing and using to transform lives from such a hurting place. Lindsay was briefing me on the women and told me that one of the residents was just a miracle. It's truly amazing to be getting to know women who truly are miracles because they have gone through so much hurt and pain, it's a miracle they are still alive.

So, at the end of the day - I am filled. I am learning and growing, being stretched and humbled, laughing and crying. I am learning that God has a crazy plan and a crazy love for his children. And even when hope seems lost, he hasn't totally let go of the ones he loves.

a new home

Last night I fell asleep in the dim light of a green exit sign outside my window. This morning we woke up to a downpour of rain - an oddity for Denver, which experiences 350 days of sunshine a year :)

I've felt afraid, lost, disoriented, at peace, hungry, tired, and excited today. This morning we began with a staff meeting...but this staff meeting was full of tears, laughter, prayer, worship, lecto divina, holding hands, and funny stories. The staff at Joshua Station are real. Their prayers were beautiful, because it was a time of authenticity - crying out to God, admitting sins, failures, and fears. It was refreshing to be around people who have nothing to hide because they are in a place where they are loved. I felt home already.

This afternoon - after eating the most amazing sesame chicken at a Vietnamese restaurant, we began to tackle the bus system. We are using public transportation this summer, which takes you just about anywhere you want to go in Denver. I have absolutely zero sense of direction and it was all too confusing. I felt so overwhelmed. The commute from Joshua Station to my internship site is about 39 minutes in the morning. I make a couple transfers and I'm deathly terrified of getting lost. I know it's bound to happen...but I just think that my lost is much worse than someone else's lost. I talked to Greg F. - the Denver Urban Semester director about it all and he is going to ride the route with me in the morning. Pray that I can have a supernatural sense of direction coming home :)

After the bus routes I was feeling so discouraged. I was afraid and not confident that urban life was really for me. I love the big city, but it's not so great when you can't get anywhere :) I was hungry and didn't have time to go to the grocery store or a means to get there. But God is faithful. Lindsay - my internship site director came and picked me up and took me to Treasure House, where I will be interning Tuesday-Thursday. I was able to eat a delicious Mexican meal with the women there and began getting to know them. Food was in my belly...oh how God provides. We met up with the women living in the other houses on the block - all a part of Open Door Ministries and we had a Beth Moore Bible study together. At the end of the study, we got down on our knees and prayed together. It was another time of unashamed honesty.

After the Bible study, I started talking to one of the woman who lives in the house. She had told me several times how excited she was to have an intern for the summer. She is a few months pregnant and told me that she was going through an adoption agency. I told her I was adopted and how thankful I was for that gift. I talked about what a blessing it was to be in the family I am in now. I told her about going back to South Korea last summer and learning more about that culture. I asked her about the adoption process and she told me she had 12 families' bios to pick from and was going to get them tomorrow. She then asked if I would help her pick which family her baby would go to. We talked about the kind of family she wanted her baby to grow up in - she said a family that wasn't filthy rich, because she had grown up in poverty and wanted her child to know what it was like to work for everything. She asked me if I had any tips for her in things to look for. Something I've always felt blessed by was that I never felt different for being adopted - my parents had two biological children, but I was never treated differently than them. I told her I thought that was really important - that the parents were going to love their new child regardless of how they got him/her. She thanked me and told me again how glad she was that I was here.

I've been here for barely over 24 hours now and there is so much that I have learned. I am so humbled to be here.