As a child, it’s fair to say what I knew of classic literature came from “Wishbone” and what I knew of church history came from “Adventures in Odyssey.” Each afternoon after school, I was transfixed during the thirty minute audio theater-style broadcast. I remember the dramatic episodes that introduced me to St. Patrick, the young slave boy whose faithfulness to God would change the face of Ireland. 

Patrick grew up in late 4th century Britain, the son of a wealthy deacon. By his own account, he ignored the religion of his family. When he was about 16 years old, he was captured by Irish raiders and taken back to pagan Ireland as a slave (circa 405). For six years, he was enslaved and worked caring for his master’s herds. Far from home and surrounded by a pagan culture, Patrick clung to the Christian faith he had previously shrugged off. He later attributes this season of his life with his coming to the Lord. Alone in the fields, he spent the majority of his time in prayer. After a dream instructed Patrick to leave and return home, he escaped and fled. A long dangerous journey led him home to the safety of his family. 

Shortly after his return to Britain, Patrick had another dream. I’ll record it in his own words.

“There, in a vision of the night, I saw a man whose name was Victoricus coming as if from Ireland with innumerable letters, and he gave me one of them, and I read the beginning of the letter: ‘The Voice of the Irish’; and as I was reading the beginning of the letter I seemed at that moment to hear the voice of those who were beside the forest of Foclut which is near the western sea, and they were crying as if with one voice: ‘We beg you, holy youth, that you shall come and shall walk again among us.’ And I was stung intensely in my heart so that I could read no more, and thus I awoke.”

I can only imagine. Violently captured, stolen from your family, enslaved in a foreign land—your youth lost in slavery. The last place I would want to return would be to the land of my captivity.

It’s been interesting to talk to the friends here and hear about their work. So many of them feel like they aren’t actually doing much—but they are, through living faithfully where the Lord has planted them. . . . All of us are called to live faithfully wherever we’re planted in the world and to make the most of every opportunity. All of us are called to love the people around us and seek justice for the oppressed—it just looks a little different for each of us. It’s not that one’s better or higher in any way. I’ve known all of this, but by listening to them, I guess I understand it better. Not at all to diminish what they’re doing here—it is a distinct and challenging call. But the day to day living it out might not actually look that different. 

—Journal entry, May 2011, East Asia

I loved listening to their stories—the adventures, the food, the language blunders, and the snake stories. As I got older, I marveled at the work God was doing around the world and at these modern-day heroes who left behind everything to traverse the jungles and villages of the world for the sake of the Gospel. Each year, my childhood church hosted a missions conference, providing a time for each of the missionaries we supported to share about their work. Each year, I soaked it up. Each year, I wondered if someday I would go to a far off land.

I knew I didn’t want a “normal” life. Increasingly this came to mean that perhaps I would go serve overseas or at least go into ministry. It wasn’t until later that I would come to understand that this life on mission is always the "abnormal" adventure of the Christian. What varies is not the mission—but the location. 

It was a year ago. I sat in a room filled with pastors, seminarians, and local church members. We gathered for the day to learn about one thing—the Syrian refugee crisis. It was already five years into the civil war which would send millions fleeing for their lives, but as horror piled on horror we were finally asking "What do we do?" 

After lunch, the World Vision presenter diverged from his presentation to draw our attention to a young woman quietly sitting in our midst. With tear-filled eyes, he passed the microphone to her. She had only recently come from this war-torn world we were talking about in the safety of a New England seminary. Curling hair framed her face as she shyly spoke in accented English. Her words were simple: "I just want to say, thank you for caring for my people." Even now, my eyes get watery.

In the year since that day, the refugee crisis has become an increasingly charged topic. The word "refugee" swirls in the midst of a political firestorm. And sadly this political battle has spilled into our Christian communities, creating division, anger, and pain. I'm convinced, though, this is an issue Christians could surround with united concern and compassion. We have a uniting call—to fight our way through the mess of the conflict to see the path of Jesus. We can work together—as the body of Christ—to clear away the fog of politics and of culture and the stories we see on social media to see what Christ-likeness looks like in these particular circumstances.

To the people of Israel being sent into exile, the prophet Jeremiah sent a message from God: “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile.” He tells them to build houses, do work, and nurture families. He tells them to pray for the Lord’s blessing on the foreign land to which they’re sent.

It’s a bit of a strange instruction, isn’t it? They are to seek the good of the pagan land that has wrecked and ravaged their land and either slaughtered or carried off their people?

The word for “welfare” here is rich with meaning. It’s the Hebrew word shalom, which has a holistic picture of peace, wholeness, completeness, prosperity, security, and health. “Seek shalom for the city where I send you,” he says.

In the New Testament, Christians are said to be in exile. Peter calls the believers to whom he writes “sojourners and exiles” (see 1 Peter 1:1, 2:11). There is a clear understanding that we are to be involved in the world, even honoring the government in place, while retaining a deep awareness that we are citizens of a different land. This is not where our hope lies. This is not where our confidence lies. This is not where our loyalty lies. 

My dad carried the small package to his office and carefully began to open it. It had weathered its Atlantic crossing well, and the array of international stamps on the cardboard box told the tale of far it had come. The smell hit him when he opened the plastic bag inside, and it was strong enough to trigger a gag reflex. With two reluctant fingers, my dad pulled out what was purportedly the most disgusting pair of socks he has ever seen. The filthy pieces of cloth were peppered with holes and frayed at the top—and the stench! It would have required extra effort to concoct a specimen this wretched. His face broke into a wide grin, and he burst out laughing, “He got me good this time.” A small donation for your ministry in Pennsylvania.

This infamous pair of socks came from a good friend, who has spent most of his lifetime as a missionary in Europe. It was the crowning glory of a humorous exchange over the (for lack of a better word) junk he and his family have received over the years in name of charity. They are not alone. Holey socks, used underwear, ratty clothes—things in such shape they can’t even find a home at the Goodwill. Fortunately he has a sense of humor—and friends to make light of the situation.

dis·trac·tion: 
noun  1. a thing that prevents someone from giving full attention to something else.

In a culture obsessed with accomplishments and performance, the word “distraction” has taken on a negative connotation. Distractions are things to be avoided, to be overcome. They keep us from our work, from our goals. They detract from something more important. And in many instances, this is the case. The drivel that keeps me captivated to Facebook, or at the very least keeps me entertained enough to avoid my work, is definitely a distraction to eliminate.

But not all “distractions” are bad ones. Take for example a phone call from a distressed friend, or an invitation to get coffee, or a conversation at the store. They could be things that get in our way, slow us down, and keep us from accomplishing our tasks for the day efficiently. But they may also be invitations from the Lord to follow His plan for our day (and lives as a whole).

Do not misunderstand me, some of us need to work on good old-fashioned self-discipline to finish the tasks at hand. A distraction can be just that—a distraction, which keeps us from more important things. But something or someone that we could at first consider a distraction could actually be the main event, and our sense of drivenness or our desire to set our own agendas could be the true distraction to what God has put in our path.

I met two men coming out of church last Sunday. They were sitting on a bench, under the shade of a tree. Their worn backpacks rested on the wooden boards between them, and resting relaxed between their knees, their hands each grasped a well-worn walking stick, covered with names written in black marker. Their faces were weathered, framed by graying hair and long beards.

They had been out in the downpour that had swept through. I remembered the lights flickering, as tree branches bent and twisted in the wind outside the windows. I remembered realizing, as the rain pounded in erratic sheets, that our windows were open and had worried about the puddles of water we might find on our windowsill and floor. They were wet through, and held up their dirty flannel shirt sleeves and baggy pants to demonstrate.

“Do you go to that church?” they asked, gesturing across the street to the building I had just exited. I nodded.

The leader of the two said, “Some kids from your church talked to us last week. They gave us coffee. They signed my stick,” and with this, he pointed to one of the signatures on the thin piece of wood he held. “When they left, they told us they were going to bring us back sleeping bags and tents—but they never showed up. We even prayed together.” He said it in such a way as to suggest that praying had sealed the deal, like a handshake after a business arrangement.

“I thought Christians were supposed to be people who kept their word and stuff,” chimed in his buddy, “but I guess I was wrong. It’s okay—I’m learning now. You know, adjusting my expectations.”

Do you ever watch the news or overhear a conversation and think “Oh Lord, what is happening to your church?” I find myself in this position particularly when I hear of ways that the Gospel is being distorted into Law and bondage, and when what should be the “hospital for sinners” is turned into an exclusive club of the self-righteous and proud.

If I’m being honest, I often grow discouraged when I look at the state of the church in America. As a general trajectory, those who call themselves Christians in this country are compromising on mission for the sake of popularity, emphasizing moralism over Gospel transformation, abandoning basic biblical ethics and beliefs, undermining the authority of Scripture, and giving into hypocrisy. I’m sure many of you have seen these things in your own experience and on the news. We cringe, we weep, and we defeatedly accept it’s “just the way things are.”

It can become easy to bash the church—either the whole or our current individual one—criticizing its flaws and imperfections. We pick up and leave because such-and-such a church wasn’t “meeting our needs.” We give up on corporate fellowship entirely, and consider occasional online sermons, walks in the woods, or our own personal piety sufficient.

And so we abandon the Bride of Christ—and run her name through the muck.

But the discouraging things we see are not the end of the story. 

Scott and I recently moved to New Hampshire, what we fondly refer to as “the land of the free,” to the outskirts of a cute up-and-coming town. At some point in the process, I heard someone say that we were in a “sketchy” area. Why? Because down the road from us is a “club” which hosts meetings for people in addiction recovery.

Every day, a few minutes before noon, I see cars parking along our street, and I watch as women and men, some arriving in pairs, begin the walk down the hill. Apparently this person was convinced the recovery center would pull in “all sorts”—thus the “sketchy” label. But if you watch the people walking to their AA meetings, or returning to their cars, they look very normal. Some of them drive nice cars. Many are dressed in business attire, clearly slipping away from work on a lunch break. Just normal people, putting one foot in front of the other, profoundly aware of their weaknesses, fighting to put (or keep) their lives together. When I see them, I don’t think they’re “sketchy”—I think they’re brave.