Face

With the first snow fall of the season, there is a face that I can't seem to forget in light of the cold. Aged, dark skin wrinkled with lines, whips of sparse white hair, sometimes hidden under a baseball cap. Moon-shaped asian eyes. A face that occasionally pops out of the dumpster in tattered, worn out jog suits following a series of cans flying out of the dumpster. I've seen him walking down the street, holding on to garbage bags jangling with collected cans, probably to redeem for cash.

All I can tell is that he is about 60 or 70 years old and that he does not speak English. The two times that I tried to speak to him, he just nodded his head and smiled, revealing his missing teeth. I think I tried Korean too, but he had the same blank look on his face (although it could just be my inability to speak Korean). I'm guessing he is Chinese, but that's just my own assumption. I often wonder if he has family, where he came from, where he stays when it is cold. I'm sure people have probably seen him around, but I wonder if anyone knows him.

This also reminds of a face of a woman that I met in Indonesia in the village of Jogjakarta. Similar to the man, she had white hair with dark wrinkled skin, decayed teeth, bright smile. I don't know her name, I don't know what she was laughing about or saying in Javanese. All I remember is her face. But her face was ingrained on my mind whenever I close my eyes to pray on for Indonesia. I guess God felt her face was important enough to remember. 

It's not that I have a thing for old people, or that my heart somehow gets all gushy for the elderly. I definitely do not, especially after nursing hundreds of the geriatric population. However, for some reason there are faces that get ingrained in my mind and I don't know what else to do but pray for them. But...it is hard to pray for someone who you don't know at all. I will probably have no idea if any of my prayers are answered, if that man will find enough to eat on the days I pray for him, or if he stays warm on the nights I pray for him, or if that woman will ever come to know Christ. I guess that's what prayer is...faith, confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 

Anthem

I'm back from my missions trip to Indonesia to both visit and partner with those at our HMCC church there. It was awesome how we were on the opposite sides of the world, yet we could still share the same heart. I've heard that was the case many times, but I think more people need to see it in order to really believe it.
On the two Sunday Celebrations we spend in Indonesia, we sang the song "Send Me Out" by Steve Fee to both start and finish our missions trip:
Jesus, Lord of my salvation, Savior of my soul.Send me out to the world to make You known.Jesus, King of every nation, this world’s only hope.Send me out to the world to make you known.Send me out to the world.
I wanna be Your hands & feet.I wanna be Your voice every time I speak.I wanna run to the ones in need, in the name of Jesus.I wanna give my life away, all for Your kingdom’s sake.Shine a light in the darkest place, in the name of Jesus.In the name of Jesus.
Carry to the broken-hearted mercy You Have shown.Send me out to the world to make You known.And to the ones in need of rescue, lead me I will go.Send me out to the world to make you known.Send me out to the world.
Here am I, I will go.Send me out to make You known.There is hope for every soul, send me out, send me out.Here am I, I will go.Send me out to make You known.There is hope for every soul, send me out, send me out.
When we first sang this song I was shocked that such a young church (JKT church is only like 3 years old) could sing out these words. Its a bold song and those are radical words. As I heard it being sung, it took me a little while before even I could follow along and actually sing those words myself. I was pretty impressed with this church, and I kept thinking, "Man, I wonder if our church in Ann Arbor could sing a song like this and mean it." Surprise, surprise...when I come back this is the song that we sing in Ann Arbor:
send me i will go
send me i will
to this city, to this nation
and to the nations of the world

send me i will go
send me i will go
i will procalim the truth
that Jesus Christ is Lord

i stand before you pleading from my heart
that by your spirit you would set me apart
to bring good news and liberty
to see this nation on its knees

i cry out for every family
you'd open blind eyes and set people free
that as a nation we would turn back to you
and see revivel sweep this land

as we humble ourselves
and seek your face
fall on our knees
turn from our ways

you will hear our cry
wipe our sins away
come and heal our land we pray
"Send Me" by Planetshakers. In the end, I was so blessed to see our churches singing with the same heart. Sometimes you have to do it or say it in order for your heart to be in it right? Praying, especially for myself, that its not just words that we sing, but hearts that are changed to obey, follow, and be sent out to the world. We're one church and this is our anthem.

Words

In a limitless world, if you could be anything other than your current profession, what would it be?

That is one of my favorite icebreaker questions as it really helps you get to know people beyond the title of their job. It reveals layers of passion underneath the image that a person would often portray in a typical introduction. My typical introduction is, "Hi, my name is Grace and I've been working as a nurse for about a year." But what if I weren't a nurse? Some people may assume that my answer to that question above would be a doctor, or a pharmacist, or some other health-related career. Other have guessed songwriter or something musically-related just because I used to play the keyboard in front of the church. Then others who know me on more of a surface level might guess a sun-tanned socialite or the owner of all things pink. But what would I really want to be?

...a writer!

To this day, out of all the different classes I've taken from high school through nursing school, my favorite class was always English. Yes, I did like Biology and the dissection of different animals was always fascinating...but, English was the class that could really make me think about myself, about the world. I saw that words put together could shape such profound thoughts and ideas. Words can challenge, comfort, influence people. Words have power.

God used words to call the world into existence. Oh yea, not to mention that Jesus was the Word.

This is kind of weird, but my love for writing was developed by writing personal obituaries for my uncle and grandmother. Maybe I was reminded of how exactly a year ago writing helped me cope and find closure during tragedy and heartache. Words helped me give meaning to their lives and remember.

So here we go. This is my attempt to actually write via my first-ever blog (except for the xanga that I had in jr. high)! I know this is not an limitless world, and I'm nowhere near becoming a writer, but why not use words right? I'll do my best to use my words well.