On swimming in poop.

In the South Bronx with Harv and Robyn Bowman was when the idea first began to entertain me, that poverty means sitting in your own filth. Poverty means you cannot be clean. Worse, that you do not know you are unclean.

We cleaned that basement of dilapidated 1800 Grand Concourse, where the kids from the hood snuck in to play, despite three years of sewage backed up over the floor. They didn't know how toxic it was. Or maybe they did but didn't mind. Liked it, even; they called it Turd Surfing. Here in Sabah too, the children sleep above and play in their poop.

I shoveled crap with work boots and gloved hands those days and washed up before dinner and bed. And these days I hold sickly children in slums and breathe the stench of their waste, excremental and non, covered by muddy high tides for half a day and baked in the tropical sun the other half. But at night I return to AC and running water. I am a visitor, with bottled water and soapy showers and shoed feet.

Why do you come? Why do you bother with us? Why do you care about our people, you are not even Filipino. Says the missionary who left her legal permanent residence to minister to the stateless refugees who could ask her similar questions. Resounding in every testimony is the memory of first being visited by Christ, who though he was rich, became poor.

Though he was holy, became filth. Even before he bore the world's wrongs and rags on the cross, he laid in a dirty manger. And before that even, he swam in an amniotic sac of his own poopies.

Poverty means I cannot make myself clean.

Blessed are the poor in spirit.

Visit us and make us clean, LORD.

SEAsia Update #1

7 July 2011

Hello from an air-conditioned condo in Singapore! It's 2:30AM here and I'm enjoying the AC while I can and the jetlag while it lasts.
Tomorrow morning I'll join up with teammates from EPC, and in the afternoon we'll be flying to Malaysian Borneo with _____ and with ____'s group of fifteen or so. Please be praying for us for wisdom to perceive the potential, power to do the Father's will, freedom to enjoy His promised provision, joy in the work Christ has done through His body, safety, unity, and preparedness. 

After everyone else leaves, I will be staying on in Sabah, then traveling to Dumaguete City, Negros (a province of the Philippines) to participate in Student Movement for Christ International's evangelistic campaign there. Including the two segments that bore me safely to S'pore Tuesday/Wednesday, I'll be on 11 different flights before returning stateside! Transportation and accommodations have been arranged but please do pray for me especially for my alone times in transit around Southeast Asia with my papers, cash, electronics... And for lonely times in general, that I would find and feel the Lord hiding me in His word when I crave comfort and company. I'll remember and be grateful for your thoughts and prayers! Feel free to write me.

I'm excited that God has prepared me for and led me to this point. I spent the last month in Chicago with my parents and with the church community that I was raised in. I also did a lot of Bikram to prepare for this saran wrap + blowdryer weather. For all the different ways I have been readying myself for this trip, I'm finding--and they are my witnesses--that God has used the last month to empty me. And that this is the preparation He has chosen. I hope to run faithfully before you as we watch and wait to see how He fills me and moves me toward greater freedom to choose Him! Pray that all my encounters with people will be a spilling over of His life in me and that I would not shrink from these opportunities despite knowing I may never meet the people I'll be meeting again after I leave Southeast Asia. I am grateful for the ways NYC in particular has stretched me in this area of welcoming people in and then letting them go.

I'll try to keep these letters short but will be blogging and reflecting more personally at http://estherogen.blogspot.com.

Thankful for you!

On airplanes and my praying mom.

When my planes begin to taxi, I begin to pray. Not that I've ever been afraid of flying, as far as I remember. In fact I loved riding in airplanes as a child, and I always took the window seat. For the view. And because then I get to be the arbiter of lighting.

I always took the window seat, and I always sat next to Mom who was usually the buffer between Josh and me. At takeoff she would always take our hands and pray, for safe passage and smooth sailing I think. Watch over us, Father, keep us. 

So now, though I've mostly flown alone since that first time in August 2007 when New York City upturned my life and God invaded my heart, whenever the seatbelt clicks and tightens and the airplane rolls to the runway, I instinctually begin to pray.

Because Mom taught me in the way I should go, when she would take my hands to ask for travelling mercies, that it's not ultimately this heavy, metal gravity-defying tube that upholds me in the air, nor its hurtling through the clouds that ultimately bears me to my destination. She taught me to pray.

Airplanes remind me of my praying Mom and her desire that I, too, would rest my faith beyond , airplanes, and that I would commit my sinner self into the hands of God who is merciful at home and abroad.

Airplanes help me to be grateful for her. Thanks Mom, for picking up my antibiotics, hemming my linen pants, and for doing and buying everything you could think of to make my trip even a tiny bit more comfortable. I didn't choose to come to be comfortable, and I know that this frightens you. I am thankful for your heart behind the meticulous care. Don't worry, Mom I am in good hands. The ones that hold airplanes, the universe, those nails, and me. And you.

On praying on airplanes.

These last four years I've flown in and out of NYC a lot. My plane-ride prayers are different now than when both of my clasped hands could fit neatly into one of Mom's.

It's not so much now "please don't let us crash or get lost" (quite literally--I used to marvel that the pilot never had to stop and ask for directions at a refueling station or something)... Sometimes now I pray for that great city as it shrinks below my window. Should I not love it? Surely it's not so overwhelmingly out of control from Your side of the sky. In fact it is quite small and still shrinking... What is NYC that You are mindful of it?

Or sometimes I pray, LORD ready me for where I am going. Because whether it's Naperville or NYC I have variously felt trapped--crap, why did I get onboard?--a lamb to the slaughter.

Today though as UA 835 lurched away from O'Hare, it was simply, Thank You Jesus for staying beside me, for staying with my heart.

My heart that sometimes needs airplanes in order to remember that He's there beside me. But He is kind to remind me. You always stay. I was moved to grateful tears that He would comfort me this way at the beginning of this vision trip, there is nothing else, no greater vision, that I need to glimpse but the face of Him who says Take heart, do not be afraid, it is I.

It was enough to settle yesterday. A thousand yesterdays. But yesterday in particular, was not a celebration of freedom for me, but a day of eating, drinking, and being... sorry? Quite possibly the weepiest shakiest 4th of July ever. The Independence Day that laid bare my misdependent heart--divided over many losses and the heartbreaking incompleteness of relationships. I ran to and from the wreckage, through which You stay beside me. I know I am Your choice. There is joy beside You, so thank You for yesterday. For making me Free.

Grateful for the hugs hankies and prayers of so many sending friends. Ellen Carissa Steph Christina Jessica Pearl Selina Danny Charlie Mike Jerry Jon Rebecca James Andy Jimmy George Michael Larry Franklin and the ones who will forgive me for leaving them out. Who have seen how the last month has emptied me. Who will see how the next month will fill me.

Christ commissioned, "Go... I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Matt 28.18-20)... so here I am. Shanghai airport now, Singapore tomorrow, Kota Kinabalu the day after, Sandakan Sabah... Coming because He invites me, going because He is with me always. May every move we make be made toward Him, to be with Him, to see the One who stays beside us, Emmanuel.

finds all its strength in the heart of the King

thank You for loving us enough to conquer our hearts without coercion.

- - - - - - - -

The soul does not love like a creature with created love. The love within it is divine, uncreated; for it is the love of God for God that is passing through it. God alone is capable of loving God. We can only consent to give up our own feelings so as to allow free passage in our soul for this love. That is the meaning of denying oneself. We are created for this consent, and for this alone. // S. Weil



Naught of good that I have done, but simply being a conduit, a vessel, of the Godhead's Trinitarian self-Love.

Team Rocket!!

to protect the church from condemnation!

to preach the gospel to every nation!

to pronounce the goodness of truth and love!

to extend our praise to heaven above!

*wistful*

JESSICA!

JAMES!

along the Way

teacher, how do i know if it is Zion i climb?

there is joy. much, much joy.