MAZ '15 Post 5: My Treasure Chest

From my notes of Tuesday, March 17, Day 4:

          The huntsman keeps me company through the night; Orion’s constellation is often the first thing that I see from my cot when I am awakened throughout the night here at the Gila River Indian Community. It always makes me smile as Orion is the first constellation that Cindy shared with me when we were dating.

From my notes of Thursday, March 19, Day 6:

          I missed a couple of days of note taking, or was it just one? That’s what can happen out here, getting caught up in a hectic pace, moving the team from there to here and back again. Maybe though it was more of a focus on the lesson that I delivered Tuesday night along with the rain coming in as a beautiful distracter.

          I felt Kim’s urging for me to share my little testimony but really had no idea of how to relate it to The Treasure in the Field or The Pearl of Great Price. It wasn’t until I had started my talk and was partly through the scriptures that I was able to find the parallel. If it reached anyone, it was God’s grace and His Holy Spirit at work.

          We reviewed the scriptures of the two parables and the group shared their experiences of giving up some stuff in order to get the good stuff. Then I gave my literal interpretation of The Pearl from Matthew 13: 45 & 46.

          Read verse 45 and stop: “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls.”

         

          It says that the Kingdom is the merchant who is searching. 

         Then in verse 46 he sells everything he has and buys it. “When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”

          Jesus is the merchant and when he finds us, he gives his very life in order to have us in His Kingdom. Jesus’ treasure chest has been filled with his people at the cost of everything he had, his blood, his life…

          Then I related my story of finding my heart again and obeying God’s voice to come on my first MAZ thinking that I’d found a pretty cool rock, a little caked in mud and covered in dust but fun to have nonetheless. Later during our time in Arizona that year we were asked to share our testimony with the students and I shared the pain and bitterness that I had been carrying against God for years and how the bitterness had driven a wedge between me and God.

MAZ '15 Team @ Stotonic
in front of the new vatu
Photo courtesy of Paul Hofmann
a gem of a guy himself

          As I finished my story that evening on my first MAZ the group of twelve and thirteen year-olds along with the adult advisers gathered around me a prayed over me. I was healed of the bitterness and that was when I found that the rock was really a Jewel, my Pearl of Great Price. Those kids and those adults then, every team in between, and the kids and adults on this year’s team occupy my treasure chest. It doesn’t feel like sacrifice to have them in my life.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

         

In His Grip,

jerry

MAZ '15 Post 4: Wake Up Call

From my notes of Monday, March 16, Day 3:

          I woke up before my alarm this morning – actually it was hours before my iPhone would chirp me awake or any biological imperative would make itself known to me. Perhaps it was the cricket that tried a kamikaze-suicide by running full-tilt into my head that was just barely sticking out of the top of my sleeping bag or maybe it was the anticipation of waking up nearly thirty teammates for our first full day of work.

Vah Ki Before Sunrise

At any rate, I was fully out and patrolling our camp well over an hour before sunrise. I was followed closely by three of the girls asking if they could work out and then Jacob asking if he could run laps. Anna, Sinclair, and Emily worked out and Jacob ran while I quietly moved the dogs out in a widening perimeter; my path was basically designed to keep watch on the athletes. Jacob’s self-defined route took him in and out of the early-morning gloom. I was thankful that I was able to pick up his return earlier with each lap as the sun inched its way over distant mountains.

          I walked through the dorm that we established under the huge meeting arbor by pulling together benches and setting them face-to-face to make what could be cozy bunks. They keep us off the concrete floor and away from the creepy-crawlies. Early on in my MAZ carrier when my daughter Lauren would be sleeping next to me as a young elementary school child, we would simply spread out a tarp and lay our air mattress on it until one morning I was woken up by one of the reservation dogs licking my face. We joined the kids on the bench-bunks that night. Nowadays I use a cot as do several of the other adult advisors. Age and experience have helped define our comfort levels here in the Sonoran Desert.

          Walking from the pink section (girls) to the blue section (boys) and seeing them all wrapped up like cocoons I didn’t feel like waking them up, a rare occurrence for me. I felt more predisposed to let them sleep, even if only for fifteen minutes longer.

Wake up!

My humane wake-up calls were met with heavy resistance from a couple of bunks. I imagine that waking up with my face inches from theirs while asking if I was “getting through” to them paid dividends later in the week. It couldn’t have been pleasant waking from their dreams to see this face. Brad Pitt or Jennifer Lawrence? Sure. My face? Not so much.

In His Grip,

jerry

MAZ '15 Post 3: New Testament Style

From my notes of Sunday, March 15, Day 1:

Vah Ki bell and church

This morning, Sunday, March 15 2015, our MAZ team worshipped with the Vah Ki United Presbyterian Church. By ‘this morning’ I mean barely morning as their Sunday service starts at eleven a.m. That left the team time for an impromptu fellowship/quiet time and ‘light’ work around the buildings to neaten things up for our friends. I took a crew out to the Stotonic Church to scout our upcoming project to pour a concrete slab build a new vatu on top. A vatu is a small arbor to provide shade. We found the Stotonic worshipers in service right at ten a.m. so we did a drive-by scout and scooted back to add what we needed to Paul’s growing materials list.

The Vah Ki and Stotonic churches are yoked organizationally and missionally, sharing pastors as well as materials and equipment when needed but they maintain a distinct set of elders and deacons serving their specific congregations. The last time that I can remember these churches being under the care of an ordained pastor was well over a decade ago and even then she was a retired pastor mostly taking care of the duties requiring pastoral ordination; baptisms, officiating communion, and moderating session while only occasionally preaching.

The congregations are not now under the care of an ordained pastor and teaching elders provide messages from the pulpit on a weekly basis and in some sort of rotation. With each of the churches holding a Sunday morning service as well as a midweek service the elders have gained a lot of experience leading the church. The Presbytery supplies a moderator, occasional ‘pulpit supply’, and helps provide for regular communion.

This is the way that I imagine the Church during the times that the letters and gospels were being written that now make up our New Testament Bible; elders teaching the Word and running the church in the hopes that a pastor or even an Apostle would travel to minister to the congregation. I can see how the elders would be elevated and installed as Pastors to congregations as they grew. And, I can also see why the letters comprising the bulk of the New Testament needed to be written. Can you imagine a letter from Paul or Peter arriving and the elders of the church pouring over it to bring nuggets of wisdom and teaching to the people gathered in the common room of someone’s home? It is working here on the Gila River Indian Community now though I imagine that they struggle from time to time but what congregation doesn’t?

I imagine that this organizational structure and way of Christian life is very similar across our country in rural and poor areas and in ‘third world’ countries as well. It is how I imagine that church is being done where Christians are under persecution and how the church here could survive if authentic Christian worship is driven underground. We don’t require an organized church to reach the Father; a simple gathering of believers with authentic faith, worship, and love are needed for personal accountability, comfort, and to meet the minimum requirements that I see in two scriptures.

Matthew 18:20 (NIV): “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them."

John 14:6 (NIV) “⁶ Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’”

It seems to me that a letterhead is not necessarily required.

In His Grip,

jerry

MAZ '15 Post 2 - Leaders Players and Snakes

Morning of Day 1, MAZ '15:

Kim and Jakob Riffing

I get a sense of personal fulfillment when a young adult returns to Mission Arizona as a leader; I have to hope that personal fulfillment is permitted while in service to the King. Seeing them transform from a twelve year old student finding their way from one place to another on the reservation and figuring out just how much work they can do and that they really can pray aloud in a group into an adult leader is a very special thing to be a part of. It confirms to me that their lives were touched as students and that God’s Spirit has driven them to be a part of yet another group of student’s lives as they in turn experience the short-term mission life.

Their commitment to serve children, and so to serve Christ, tells me that they are on a right path. There is no denying that they also like to have fun while on the trip and that it’s not some unbearable yoke of drudgery to them. Leading, service, and joy walked hand-in-hand with them throughout the week.

This year we had three such servants including one of our new Youth Directors, Kim Cox. Looking back on the week, she did an excellent job of being out front and leading. She handled a bunch of adult old-timers very well and our adult team worked nicely together. Kim’s heart for the mission trip, for the kids, and for worship blended for a great overall experience.

Hofmann Estate

Jakob and Brian, college students and cousins, were a big presence during the week. Jakob’s guitar playing with Kim was a treat. Brian’s approach to a tricky problem of installing modern waterless urinals in an aging cinder-block restroom was invaluable. I especially liked watching the family interaction in and around Hoffman Estate with Jakob’s dad, Paul, and his sister, Mackenzie.

Afternoon from Day 1:

          I was the first on the scene to find a rattlesnake for the first time in my twenty-plus years of going to the Gila Indian Community; others have found the few rattlers before I was called to the scene, if at all. Paul is our lead snake handler and re-locater; he reported that the one I found came equipped with seven rattles; I estimated that it measured four feet or so in length – a sizeable old veteran.

          Somehow being first on the scene gave me more of a pause for concern. I don’t know why I was moved to peek behind the old 4X8 foot plywood sign leaning against the tool shed; perhaps it was only to have the snake quietly removed from the camp. In any case, I am grateful that the snake is now doing its job far away from the church campus and wasn’t found in a circumstance that was a danger to anyone and that it was the only snake reported for the week.

          I was reminded of the first rattler that I had seen during a MAZ experience. It was dead and its head was in a shovel having already met its demise at the hands of marauding teenaged boys on the hunt for just such a prize. My ensuing response seems to have made its way into the lore of old MAZ trips.

          All of this followed the quietest night with a score of teenagers that I can recall under the arbor. What a wonderful place!

In His Grip,

jerry

MAZ 2015 - In Summary

Sunrise on Vah Ki

Please let me put my little summary of Mission Arizona 2015 (MAZ ’15) into perspective from where I'm sitting now and then I’ll follow this up with specific thoughts about this year’s trip in a couple of following posts.

As I write this I am able to look up and out of windows that give me a panoramic view of Oregon mountains and the pine forest dotted with madrone and hung with Spanish moss that surrounds my parent’s home. The clouds that had graced the area with rain the night before are scattering about now and I’ve been reminded that less than a week ago I awoke early in the Arizona dessert one morning after it was washed by an overnight rain. Before thoughts of MAZ ’15 get too diluted by the activities of carrying for my dad following his heart attack on the night that we returned to our La Crescenta Valley I am offering my summation of the trip, such as it is.

          There are so many points of interaction during a week with nearly thirty people that you can lose the constellation for the Milky Way. Summing up such a week is a difficult task at best.

          Sure, I could list off all of the projects, big and small, that went on during the week; replacing a plastic sign-cover strewn with graffiti, cleaning an 1890’s adobe church for an upcoming revival, replacing bathroom fixtures with waterless (and working) units, building and painting a new rostrum for the large meeting arbor, building a new ‘vatu’ for shade with a concrete floor, or a dozen other small kindnesses done to, in, and around the Vah Ki and Stotonic Church campuses. Oh, I must not forget the weeding after a season of rain to help make the grounds presentable for the people. The dessert grows in a rush with any rainy weather and the growth was prolific, even in the tiniest crack between building wall and concrete walkway.

          I could list all the good things kids and adults did through the week for each other; the fry-bread dinner fixed for us by our Pima friends, our kids carrying small children around on their backs for hours after a long day of hard work, the simple consolations of one person to another in moments of need…

          I could tick-off the quiet time lessons and evening fellowships about wise words and making wise decisions, or I could summarize the revival sermon, and even pick out the keynotes from prayers spoken through the week, both from our team and from others on our behalf.

Even with all the lists and summaries poured into a mixer and shaken, not stirred, of course, I could scarcely describe or capture the week in a brief post. It’s best said by the expressions of our kids and the fountain of words and emotions as they reconnect with their families and as they part ways with mission teammates, even if only for a night. When you connect those dots the constellation that shows MAZ for what it is becomes clear.

In His Grip,

jerry

Dear Roland,

          I was saddened when I heard that you’d passed away this last June. I don’t know if you know how much I cared for you and how much respect that I carry for you still. With all the hustle and bustle of our week with you at the Vah Ki Presbyterian Church, those little things can get lost in it all. The couple of times that I stayed home from our service week over the last twenty years or so you were one of the things that I missed most; I’m sure that it will all sink in when we arrive there in a couple of weeks and you aren’t there to greet us. I will miss seeing your face and the wise eyes and ready smile that you always carried whenever you were around our kids.

Roland Stewart

In many ways, you have been the face of the Gila Indian Community to me. You have been welcoming, warm, and genuine. When I am on these trips with our kids, even for the adults, I feel like a shepherd and it gives me great satisfaction when I find a person who takes that role with our kids without even having met them. Thank you for that. You helped take care of us when we arrived and made us feel welcome and at home while we were away from home.

 

Roland with the 2004 Team

          I have always appreciated your genuine faith and the openness about your love for our Lord and Savior. I also appreciate how willing you were to share your testimony and through that, your wisdom. It has been good for our groups to hear you speak, to hear and see you play the piano during services, and to watch your reverence for Jesus.

          Thinking about you now in the presence of our Lord and Savior I have to tell you something that has come to mind. You remind me in many ways of my Grandpa Matt, my maternal grandfather, who passed away many years ago and shortly after my wife and I were married. It was likely in the way that you both walked about and observed and taught by your words and actions. I was close to my grandfather and still feel him close by me now. I can easily see the two of talking together and probably getting a laugh out of some of things I do and say. There was a kindness in his laughter as there was in yours.

          While I’m writing this from my own heart I am pretty sure that many of those that have been with me on our trips feel the same way and would say “Amen” as to how we see you as our friend. I am also pretty sure that you were welcomed into His presence with open arms and heard something like, “Welcome home friend. Well done my good and faithful servant”; words that all the believers hope to hear one day.

         

Peace my friend,

jerry