October Ministry Stories/Newsletter

At times when the world seems chaotic and it appears that hate, evil, and other types of darkness are on the rise, the enemy can appear quite strong. This appearance of strength is actually one of its weakest times, because it highlights the contrast and makes God's peace, hope, and love shine that much brighter and be that much more evident when they do shine. That said, as believers, times like this are critical for us to be silent and listen to God, to be humble and move in God, and to allow God to work on ourselves so we are ready to walk with others in love and hope. In that vein of thought, I want to share with you today three-and-a-half brief stories of places I feel I've seen God work in the last month.

Short Story One: During one of the nights The Gamers Guild was open, we had a new fellow come in to the free store. He'd just finished serving his parole and had heard about us from one of his friends. It was a busy night with quite a few people wanting or needing things, but I felt like I should go show him around and let him know what services we offered. As we talked, it became apparent that I could do more good for him by sharing information on several food ministries and other services in the area, so I got some scratch paper and wrote down some details for him. While I did, I listened to his story of hardship and of gradual success, and I was able to applaud him for his hard work. At the end of our conversation, he told me he was starting a small business to do manual labor and construction, and he was excited and nervous about it. I wished him well, gave him some more resources, and then he headed out.

Many individuals like that will be one-time visitors to the free store. However, this fellow came back later—and he was excited to share that he had successfully completed his first job and might be looking for some workers to help with his next. He attributed some of his success to early support from our ministry, but I honestly didn't give him that many resources; I truly believe that the support he felt was more from God and from us respectfully listening to him share his story than from any actual direct resources we provided. After this visit, he came in one more time—this time he was excited to share that he'd obtained an opportunity to get new diabetic testing kits for free; he knew the free store had a fair number of low income individuals who might be able to use them, and he wanted to know if we'd accept them. I was personally fairly blown away—here was someone who had used much less resources off our shelves than many individuals, and he was touched enough to contribute back much more than he was given. It reminds me both of the crop yielding a harvest many times more than was planted and the idea that Abraham and his tribe were blessed to be a blessing to others. Even that evening he stayed around and helped organize some of our donations that had come in, though none of them were actually things he needed. He is looking for the opportunity to contribute back to others, and that is cool to see.

Short Story Two: One Monday night bible study a few weeks back, one of our members had brought a guest. She was a new grad student to Fort Hays, and she hadn't had a chance to make many community connections with COVID and all the restrictions. This individual was initially sweet and also somewhat shy, but she was welcomed and was able to share a bit about herself and her take on the scripture we were studying that first night. After prayer time, we stayed and chatted more, and we invited her to the Aikido classes as well since it seemed like she was looking for things to do and people to get to know.

The next day we saw her at an Aikido class, and the other students got to know her and work with her. Though Aikido can be quite challenging at the start, she did well and seemed to enjoy learning and meeting people. A week later, at her second time in small group, she shared that her week had gotten much better. Apparently she had been quite lonely and disconnected—mostly just sticking to contacting family and friends who were quite distant. She had few if any direct connections in Hays, and this was her first time in a couple of months actually feeling like she had people she could interact with. She explained that we in the small group were a large part of why she was feeling better, and I felt that it was a cool God connection and part of God's providence for her and for us.

Short Story Three: About a year ago, our ministry had been working with an individual who can be fairly challenging to engage with—part of that is because of their inability to understand all types of boundaries. At that time, they were unwilling to accept help within the boundaries that I had laid down, so they had walked away from us. A month or two ago, this individual showed back up wanting help again.

I had to do some internal prayer and reflection to come at this situation from a healthy place; thankfully, God has been growing me in the past year such that it has been far easier to work with this individual than it was back then. As such, my intention going in and my outlook going in to meeting with them has generally been healthy from the start; rather than having a spirit of obligation (which is where I eventually ended up last year), I have viewed it as a genuine opportunity and have been ok cutting off the time with them when it needs to be cut off for other things. In a sense, their mental health disorders and other challenges leave them constantly trying to make themselves the center of everyone else's lives, and this is a large part of where they constantly end up conflicting with my boundaries and other people's boundaries.

Thankfully, God already had a pastor friend of mine working with them this time, and He had also connected them to another nonprofit ministry, so the support network was more spread out and better able to function. In addition, when I was praying about this another friend of mine who is retiring from her role as a lead pastor and who is going back into spiritual direction work came to mind as a person to introduce this individual to. I felt that this introduction would be beneficial but had to be cautiously done, as my retiring pastor friend has a sweet, supporting soul that could help this individual, but this individual's tendencies would cause them to ask for more than could be provided. I had to trust God and trust in my friend's abilities to hold to her own boundaries if she chose to develop a connection with this individual.

Thankfully, it seems that God has been using this connection more than I would have ever foreseen as not just she, but also her husband, have been interacting with this individually in very healthy ways. This further building up of the support network around this individual is a cool answer to prayer, and I'm excited to see what God will continue to do.

As a short story 3.5, there's a very Christ-centered homeless fellow who is a regular in Unite's Monday evening small group Bible study. He is in his late sixties, and he bikes around Hays and has been called 'homeless Jesus' by people in the community because he's always telling people about Jesus and trying to help transients, homeless people, or just individuals in need. This fellow is actually quite well-read and intelligent, and he frequents the free store to get items for other individuals (and occasionally some things for himself). One Thursday evening after getting back from teaching the FHSU Aikido Club, I walked into the dojo door and saw this fellow sitting at a table in The Gamers Guild playing chess with the individual I just mentioned in the third story—the individual who is now getting a better support network. Watching these two individuals who really should have no reason to interact from a worldly perspective share a game and talk about life was actually quite a heart-warming scene to me. Knowing each of them fairly well, I can surmise that each was likely growing from this interaction, being challenged, and also having some of their needs met. It's also two individuals who the world might often overlook or even actively avoid. Yet here, in this moment, God was drawing them together and helping them both grow through community. What a cool thing.

Thanks for your prayers—things are always moving here. The Kingdom of God is forcefully advancing, and we are trying to pray, listen, and figure out what our part is in it as it comes along. I'm only just now getting back into the habit of publishing the newsletter regularly, so if you know of anyone else who would like to read it, please feel free to send me their email address, mailing address, or to point them to our blog (http://uniteeph4-1-16.blogspot.com/). Blessings to you, and I hope things are going well in your part of this world!

Sincerely,

Brandon

Embody Peace--March 2020 Ministry Newsletter

Though there are several ministry updates we can inform you about and some projects we can request assistance on, I feel it is more important at the start of this newsletter to share some basic principles from scripture that have been challenging me regarding peace, focus, and fear.

Regarding fear, I see a universal call in scripture away from worry and fear and into prayer and trust. This shows up in the words of Paul and other New Testament authors, but I believe it is also clearly evident in Jesus's sermon on the mount in Matthew. In chapter 6, Jesus finishes contrasting the Pharisees and teachers of religious law, who live for earthly praise and worldly wealth, with the way that believers should live (seeking the praise of God) in a variety of activities from fasting to praying. It really sets a stage for focusing on God's approval (and not focusing on temporal things of this world) before jumping directly into several passages that discuss not worrying. Jesus tells the listeners not to worry about what they would eat or drink, about what they would wear, about what others were doing (the segment about not judging others has to do with us not worrying about others' sins but first fixing ours so we can help them in love), and it finishes with telling listeners to trust God and His providence. Unlike the situation for many of us nowadays, many of these things Jesus was telling people not to worry about were urgent necessities that were real concerns—to the point that not having them could result in a very uncomfortable death for many of the listeners.

Indeed, Jesus's overall call through this message and in other places was for believers to give up their own kingdoms/worries/lives that they would gain true life, and life to the full. While this life to the full was given in a very real spiritual/qualitative way, it also resulted in earthly hardship and death for many of the early believers—sometimes very brutal deaths at the hands of the Romans. Even so, believers still continued on—called to turn over worries and fears to God. I suspect that wasn't easy, and there are obvious examples that they didn't always succeed—Peter rejecting that he knew Jesus and the disciples fleeing from Jesus in the garden, to name two. Nonetheless, they were called by Jesus to give up their worries and fears, and many of them eventually succeeded in doing so even unto their deaths.

Can you imagine what was going on in Paul's heart as he was being stoned in Lystra and was then dragged out, thought to have been killed (Acts 14)? A mob bludgeoned him with stones until they thought he was dead, and then he turned around and went back into the city to strengthen the believers there later. This same Paul who was stoned has several places in letters in which he tells believers to cast all worries and fears onto God; the same is true of Christ's earlier call. Even if Coronavirus really is a life or death matter for you or someone you love (I know several people who are quite immunocompromised as of today), asking God to help us all return to a place of peace and calm in our hearts is of utmost importance for us as believers, as is striving to return to that place frequently. Not only does God call us to strive to do this for our own good, but I believe that being in that calm place of peace makes us even more accessible to be used to help and love others in this time.

Regarding focus, Paul says to 'be excellent at what is good and innocent of evil' (Romans 16:19). This principle is likewise in the Sermon on the Mount that I referenced earlier. Jesus brings up many teachings in which the Pharisees were excellent at following the letter of the law while entirely missing the spirit of the law. Jesus goes through several Biblical principles to illustrate this; the law says to not murder, but Jesus says that calling someone an idiot is dangerous and cursing someone is dangerous enough that we are 'in danger of the fires of Hell'. Likewise, the law says to love our neighbors, but Jesus said we even have to love our enemies (and in other places expands on who our neighbors are). While 'being excellent at what is good' seems straightforward in these two examples, I note in my life that the world seems to want me and other believers to be more like the teachers of religious law—to focus on being excellent at 'not doing what is evil', while occasionally doing what is good. At the start of Jesus's sermon on the mount, He warned that unless listeners followed the law better than the teachers of religious law that they wouldn't even enter the Kingdom at all! This subtle-seeming difference is actually a life-and-death difference. To give a different angle on this principle, Mother Theresa said, 'I will never attend an anti-war rally; if you have a peace rally, invite me'. In this case, focusing on anti-war still focuses on war, and it makes our hearts, thoughts, and minds center on war and opposing it. In reality, this fills our minds and our hearts with concerns, worries, thoughts, strategies, and countermeasures—all related to war. This is makes us more akin to being excellent at the topic of war (even if it is avoiding war) than it is akin to us being excellent at peace (what is good). Being truly excellent at what is good would have us focusing on better ways of embodying peace, spreading peace, sharing peace, cultivating peace and love—even in hard times. Our hearts and minds would be focused on peace and learning about it such that it would even start to radiate out from us and show up in our thoughts and actions. This seemingly small shift in thinking, in heart, and in how our internal voice engages the topic has a major shift in how it affects our internal landscape and how it affects our external responses. There is a verse in Proverbs that talks about how a rudder is so small, yet it can change the direction of an entire ship; this verse is referencing our words/the tongue, but the principle of a small thing making a huge difference also applies to the difference in focusing between 'not doing what is evil' and 'becoming excellent at what is good.' In fact, the Proverb itself directly applies when we realize that our thoughts and intentions are internal words, and those internal words influence our heart, which Proverbs says affects everything we do.

All of this is to say that the above principle applies fully and deeply when it comes to finding peace at this time. If we focus on 'not worrying about Coronavirus and the measures being used to slow it,' then we are still focusing on fear and worry and are preventing ourselves from getting optimal growth out of this and from having an optimum impact on those around us. Instead, we as believers can focus on turning over worry, on finding God's peace, resting in God's peace, embodying God's peace, and spreading God's peace. This may be a time for us to seek God in our own lives and the lives of those very close to us. It may also be a time for us to reach out and love others in safe and wise ways—I've enjoyed stories of young musicians serenading home-bound elderly folks from the corners of their lawns. It may even be time for both internal and external focus and growth. I hope during this time that you can pray, reflect, and see how God may be already moving in your life and how He may be gently leading you to step out and shine hope into the lives of those around you. Times that seem dark like this are actually some of the best times for light to have a resonant impact and are some of the greatest opportunities for believers.

Regarding peace, hope, and opportunities—we do have a few needs for volunteers at this time. If you or someone you know is willing to install operating systems onto laptops that will be given out to low-income individuals, we'd greatly appreciate your help. If you have the knowledge to pop in hard drives and memory sticks on desktops and do the same, that would also be helpful. The computers have been untouched in a back room long enough that they should be sterile as far as COVID is concerned, and we can be sure to get them to you in a safe manner. We could also use volunteers to organize the free store—volunteers would come in after the free store had been closed for more than 72 hours (to keep maximally safe) to help re-arrange items, restock items, and sort new donations. We could also continue to use food donations and donations of low-stock items like toilet paper to the free store.

Thanks again for your prayers and support, and may God use you to help spread peace, love, and hope to others in this time. I'm excited to see what all He has going on!

In Christ,

Brandon

Unite Ministry Leader