Forgiveness
RA is a dynamo! She is full of vision, leadership and wisdom. This year has been a tough year for her, she’s had a number of health issues and has had a number of issues emerge for the students in her care in residence. One such incident with a residence student triggered a traumatic event from her past, and she was caught in a hard place between caring for this student and being filled with anger at the incident and what it brought up in her. When she told me this story, she said, “I’m trying really hard to love this student but I HATE him, I really really hate him for what he’s done.” Just after our last meeting as a leadership team, she felt prompted to go talk to this student. She planned to let him know how he’s been out of line and all the pain he’s caused other people. She knocks on his door, and is completely disarmed when he starts crying. He confides in her that his mother passed away in the last month and he hadn’t been dealing with it well, and all his problematic behaviour was his way of not dealing with his grief. Now as all this is transpiring, RA is talking to Jesus, she’s annoyed because she knows He wants her to minister to this student and care for him in his grief because she’s been through similar experiences of losing someone close to her AND also knows how to distract herself with self-destructive behaviours instead of dealing with her grief. She knows that God wanted her to forgive this student and love him, not scold him as she had planned to do. She felt her anger melt away as she heard more of his story, and she was able to offer him words of hope and encouragement coming from her own experiences. She told her boss after this encounter happened, and her boss waxed poetic about how great she was for using her experiences to help and heal others, and she quickly asserted, “No, this is God teaching me about forgiveness.”
Students reaching Students for Christ
Often when I raise support, I invite people to help me reach students as they reach other students for Christ. This year moreso than any of my other years on staff it’s been clear to me that every single person who’s come to an outreach event, potluck or bible study has done so because of a relationship with someone in our community.
It’s been thrilling to come alongside my students as they boldly reach their peers and share the hope they have in their life.
“You spend a lot of time with these people,” is how a conversation started with AP and her coworker N started. For N, an international Masters student taking 3 courses and working 2 jobs; she couldn’t understand why AP would spend so much of the time she could be working on her thesis, on campus with this community. And so, rather than tell N all the reasons why she chooses to invest in this community, she invites her to come to dinner with us. And then she invites her to come to other outreach events we’re hosting. And then, this summer she’ll invite her to be part of a seeker study with some of their other coworkers.
When I think about the odd community of leaders I had serving alongside me this year, I’m struck at how they are remarkable and unremarkable at the same time. Did I lose you?
Here’s what I mean, each of the student leaders are involved in significant relationships with people outside of our community. RA as an RA in residence, Patchy in a large but intimate engineering program, AP with her Masters professor and colleagues, Dumplings with her Nutrition and Cooking Group friends and Swift, Pink and Beaker with their friends in classes and from high school. If I were to take a poll, none of them would say they have the gift of evangelism, but each in their own way have witnessed to those around them the redeeming work of Christ in their lives in ways that are both remarkable and seemingly unremarkable, as it just flows out of their lived experiences.
Each one has shared about this mysterious and intriguing campus group they serve with, and each one has come around as a community to love and care for each other’s friends.
X is a student who is friends with Patchy. He came to our last 2 events in the fall semester, and turned up at a bible study this February. The study was led by AP, and ended up being a space where X was able to ask his big questions about Christianity. AP then gave him her copy of a new seeker series we are launching designed by Becky Pippert. A few weeks after this study, RA went on a 2 hour walk with X to debrief his experience. She was able to hear his experiences, answer his questions and encourage him to keep asking questions and seeking to understand Christ. X is still on a journey of discovering Christ, but he now knows there’s a community that wants to journey with him.
Sometimes it means letting go
I had one objective going into the meeting: convince her to stay. I was terrified, I didn’t think I had enough trust developed, I wasn’t sure she’d listen and I was worried it would all blow up. But I felt the prompting of the Spirit to just listen and ask questions; to seek understanding before pleading my case. In the two hours we spent walking around the neighbourhood, I listened and I asked questions.
And she painted the full picture of what she had been experiencing in the last few months. Stories of pain, isolation and deep anguish. She spoke of the many costs and pressures she endures for the sake of being an international student in Canada. She spoke of how hard it has been being away from home, and how the home she’s made in Canada still lacks. She shared about how the psychological pain she’s ignored has now manifested into physical ailments. I heard the ways our community wasn’t there in her times of need. I began to see that even the BEST option here couldn’t meet all of her needs.
“I think you should go home.” What? Did I actually say that? Yes, I did. Even though I have a huge stake in her staying. Even though I thought some of her reasons were rubbish. Even though I walked into that meeting with the purpose of convincing her to stay. It was clear, if she willed herself to do it, she could manage, and she would make it work if she stayed. And I listened as she rattled off all the voices in her life telling her what to do and why their reason was the best for her life. And though I planned to be another one of those voices, I just knew, she couldn’t keep going like this. She needed to prioritize her healing, and she wouldn’t if she stayed. I prayed with her and released her to spend more time discerning with God what he wanted for her.
She called me a few days later to let me know she decided to spend a year at home. To transfer some of her schooling and take time to attend to her health, with the plan to return and finish her remaining credits the following year.
I will miss her, and I will deeply feel the loss of her on campus and in our community, but I trust that God will use this time to replenish her and strengthen her, to heal her and transform her, and I look forward to the day when our paths cross again.
Pi(e) Day Celebrations
For the past few years, I’ve enjoyed celebrating the somewhat nerdy holiday of Pi day, which happens on March 14 (3.14 in honour of pi). This year’s pi day was even more special because it would be 3.14.15!
Last year I celebrated with pie and a private viewing of Life of Pi at my house, which ended up being a sleeper hit with a vast variety of students and fringe acquaintances attending. This year, I brought the party on campus, but we celebrated one day early (so we wouldn’t make the students come in on Saturday).
We made pie flyers, a variety of pies and set the room to welcome people well. I decided this year to show a few clips of the movie and then allow space for more focused discussion. The clips got people deeply invested in the story and the discussion helped us reveal how and what we resonated with. As we finished with the big question of which story did we prefer the one with the tiger or without and how it is the same with God, I could see the moments when it all clicked into place for the students. After the event, one of my leaders who was wrestling through a big decision saw her story in the movie and realized that the thing she was trying to hold onto was like the mysterious carnivorous island, what once was a very good life-giving thing for her now was destroying her, and she needed to let it go to move on.
One of my highlights from the event was how we started off the event with pie-themed haikus (pie-kus) and had a pie-ku battle. I started off the festivities with this gem:
I love cherry pie
It is my jam and so good
Wouldn’t you agree?
Here’s some of my favourites written by my wacky students (clearly some struggled with the rules of writing haikus):
I enjoy all pies
Savoury as well as sweet
Which do you prefer?
We are so fly eat-
Ing blueberry apple pie
Why won’t you be mine?
Roman numeral
It’s used in mathematics
Math, math, circle, math
You smile with you eyes
Cuz we got loads of pie bloat-
Ed but we won’t die
Today I ate pie
However I did not die
Because pie saves lives
And the one that closed down the competition:
3.141
5926535
8979
Theology of Work
For three consecutive Saturdays, students and staff from across the GTA gathered to be participate in a course designed and executed by my dear friend and colleague, Christa called the Theology of Work. The first week outlined how we define our relationship with work and challenged students to see all work as worship. The second week gave the students some space to assess their spiritual gifts and talents. And the final week gave some practical teaching on giving and stewarding money and power.
Each week we piled into Christa’s apartment and ate brunch as we worked through the content.
The food was delicious, the teaching was sound and the students were challenged. I enjoyed the opportunity to work with my colleagues, as I’ve missed planning and leading events with other staff.
I only had a few of my students attend, but for those who did they really came away with a renewed vision and set of resources.
Pancake Tuesday
Usually when Pancake Tuesday rolls around it goes by uncelebrated. This year however, it fell during winter reading week, and since I knew RA was going to be staying in the city for reading week, I asked her if she wanted to make pancakes with me. This is what we came up with:
Baking pies
One of the first things that I learned about RA, after her love of God and her international student status, is her love of pies. In particular, apple pie; and it became the thing that I and others would bring or make to draw her out to events.
As she stepped deeper into leadership, both with our community and as an RA, I knew one way to spend time with her would be to teach her my pie-making ways.
We started in the fall by making apple pie.
Then we moved on to making pumpkin pie. We baked the pies in her dorm room, set off the fire alarm too many times to count, and filled the hallway with smoke. And what of the pies? To give her credit, I admit pumpkin pies look pretty gross before you bake them, and this face really says it all.
But after all the drama we spent some time discussing RA’s wall collage that depicted how beauty is depicted in the media, and how diversity in terms race, ethnicity, and physical imperfections is minimal; and how that affects us as women of colour.
Before we knew it, the pies were done, and though they looked gross going in, they tasted delicious coming out of the oven. But don’t just take my word for it.
Yeast starter: Part 2
“Well,” she paused and broke into a big toothy grin before continuing, “about that…”
On the day of the first study where we would introduce the yeast starter application activity, I had a previous speaking engagement. I was set to speak to the Mission Circle at my dear friend Bonnie’s church, and I would completely miss that afternoon’s study.
Now, as you can probably guess from my previous post, I was pretty excited about the whole yeast starter both in its actuality and the ways it could foster a culture of hospitality (I’d have to be in order to endure those 10 days). But I had to sell my bible study leaders on it. Most were not bakers or scientists so my whole “It’s cooking science!” exclamations didn’t really captivate them. I eventually began to win them to the concept of the Friendship Bread, but I knew I’d likely have to be the one to explain the activity during the study, forgetting that I would miss the very first study where it would debut.
Much to the dismay of my student leader AP, she would have to go from being intrigued conceptually and skeptical of its actuality to being the one to win the confused and the skeptics in her study to the vision of this application activity. The night before I sent her additional resources to help her explain the process and hoped for the best.
I arrived on campus later that day in time to debrief how the study went and prep for the next week’s study. I met her in the Pitman cafeteria and asked her how it went…
“Well,” she paused and broke into a big toothy grin before continuing, “about that…” Since this study happened to fall in the week before reading week, most of the usual attendees of her study did not come. But, an hour into the study, student X came in. Student X is an engineering student and is friends with one of our student leaders. He came to our last two social events in the fall semester and eagerly engaged us in conversation that started light but went deep. He’s not a believer, but has a keen interest in spiritual things and wants to know more about Christianity and the Christian worldview. The day he came to AP’s study, he wasn’t sure if he’d fit in or if his questions would be welcome at the study, but decided to pop by anyway. Instead of doing the study, AP and student X got into a long conversation about faith. He asked her a number of questions and shared where he was at. She later told me she felt like she may have flubbed some of her answers, but found he was gracious with her answers and continued to probe deeper into the conversation.
As AP tells me this story, she mentions how before he walked in, she had just been looking over the Uncovering the Life of Jesus book and had it on the table as he came in. She later gave him her copy of the book and told him to use it as a starting point in his discovery of who Jesus is and to follow up with her or his student leader friend with more of his questions. AP also tells me that it really felt as God had set aside the time and space for this conversation as it ran longer than her allotted bible study time, but didn’t have people waiting to use the library study room and thus interrupt the flow of the conversation.
As she recounts this all to me, full of wonder and some residual shock of what just happened, I found myself full of joy and making note of how gracious our God is, and how good it was that this happened when I wasn’t on campus so that He could use AP as his instrument, for I’m sure if I had been there she likely wouldn’t have said much and the dynamics of this conversation could have been very different. I noted the humour in the situation and told AP that she’d been prepared to offer one type of yeast starter, but instead offered another, and only time will tell how it will grow.
Yeast starter: Oh my housemate, she suffered
One of my former housemates has a common refrain when talking to others about the ways I would be gracious to her, “Oh, my housemate, she suffered.” And this refrain is true for my current housemate who suffered on behalf of the “stoodents”.
As we continued on in the Gospel of Mark, I looked for ways to make the text more tangible and engaging. As we arrived at Mark 8:14-21, the passage about the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod, I realized that the average student these days doesn’t have a practical understanding of how yeast works. So, for the application activity for this exercise, I gave each student a yeast starter so that they could make Amish Friendship Bread. The hope being that they would understand how a little bit of yeast has a large impact in the life of this bread and also that they would be able to extend hospitality by sharing their starters and the breads they would make and that this hospitality would continue to grow and multiply.
In order to get ready for this application activity, I made 4 batches of the yeast starter, much to the dismay of my and my housemates’ nostrils. Let me tell you, these were the longest and smelliest days we encountered, as I lined my sewing table with 4 plastic bowls full of starter and stirred and fed it over the course of 10 days. I tried to convince my housemate we’d eventually go noseblind to the smell, as Febreeze advertisements would have us believe, but no, those ads are full of falsehoods, our whole apartment was engulfed by the odour of the starters and we were aware of every moment of it.
On the one hand I was fascinated by the process and seeing how each day the mixture looked different, it felt like I was reliving my elementary school science experiment days. On the other hand, I couldn’t wait until day 10 when I could divide out the starter and freeze that which I wasn’t using and have our apartment return to its usual non-yeasty aromas.
As day 10 finally arrived, and after divvying up the starter, I made my first loaves of Amish Friendship Bread. I read on a blog somewhere that, “it’s the smelliest process for the most divine bread ever” and sure enough as this bread was baking our apartment filled with its sweet aroma, a welcome change to the scent of the starter. My housemate came home in the midst of my baking extravangza and was pleasantly delighted by the smell. The recipe made 2 loaves, so I brought one to the potluck for the “stoodents” and kept one at home for a party we were hosting later that week. The blog did not lie, once I got to taste the bread, which had called for pudding powder to make it more moist, I could immediately tell it was the most delicious sweet bread I had ever eaten.
I still have some starters in my freezer, if this post has whet your appetite and you’d like to try to make some Amish Friendship Bread, let me know and I’d be happy to send you a starter.
Tubing redeemed & other stories
Often when I tell the story of how I got connected with IV, I start it this way:
In my first year of university, I went on the worst retreat of my life…
It was a regional retreat at Muskoka Woods that was for college and career groups from across Ontario, and I went with my church’s college and career group. I won’t go into all the gory details, but I can say that after this experience, one thing was clear: I wasn’t giving up on Jesus or Christian community as a whole, but I knew this group was no longer a good fit for me nor was it a place that would equip me for the mission I felt God had called me to (reaching out and being witness to my fellow design students). I was deeply grieved by this realization, this was the first church I had joined that I really felt connected to and the thought of leaving and starting anew was not something I was looking forward to. In the end, I felt called to stay at my church, but to seek out a Christian community on campus that would be present for me when I was on campus and equip me with the skills and training I needed to be missional amongst my classmates, and after a few divine appointments, I found IV. (There’s more to this story, but I’ll save that for another post.)
One of the many painful memories of the above mentioned retreat was that it housed my first tubing experience. I’ve wanted to go snow tubing ever since I knew it was a legitimate activity and I was through the roof with excitement that we could go tubing during this retreat. The lead up to the tubing was long and my patience was tried as I waited for my slow moving retreat roomies to bundle up so we could go. I could have guessed with their lackluster attitudes about being outside that these folks may not be the best company, but I was so excited it didn’t seem to matter. We finally got outside, and I went down the hill which was much smaller than I imagined a total of 2.5 times, and then my bored and cold roomies went inside and I was left to follow them. Had I known it was to go inside and do nothing, I would have stayed out tubing, but I was young and female bonding and FOMO (fear of missing out) were way too important to me.
Since this time, I’ve had those friendships and retreats in general be redeemed, but it wasn’t until Ryerson’s winter retreat this past January, that God was able to redeem tubing for me. I haven’t always had the best experiences with camp in the past, but I was excited by the possibility of having a winter retreat at OPC, especially since I had students who had worked at camp in the summer coming and I also had built new relationships with camp staff at the National Staff Conference. When it came time to select activities, I was thrilled at tubing was an option. And so, ten years after that first retreat (almost to the exact date), tubing was redeemed for me. As I sped down the hill (so many times I lost count), I was struck by how “right” it felt to be there at OPC, with these students and the alumni that joined us, and that God was so good to give me this redeeming experience with them.
Another highlight from this time include an interactive study of the Rich Ruler in Mark (Mark 10:17-31). The text challenged us as we considered that sometimes we can make the blessings that God has given us into idols and how we are called to let them go in order to put God first. We applied this passage by identifying what we root our identities in or what binds our decisions and then depict that thing in a creative way on a piece of paper. Some of the students drew pictures, some wrote poems, one who was an English Masters student wrote a 6 page paper! After we shared our answered with one another, we then put our papers in the fire as a symbolic representation of putting God above those things. It challenged the students as they wrestled with what it would mean for them to actually allow God to come first before those things.
The Arch 