chapter four, in which megan explains why she is not moving back to kansas city yet

This is real.

I have a new job. And it's my dream job - I think? I think I'm too young to have my dream job.

Maybe, probably, I will have new dreams in two or five or ten years, and that's fine, but for now, it is, in fact, my dream job.

I'm so thankful. And at the same time, my thankfulness over the last few months has been laced with discontentment. I keep asking God if I can move back to Kansas City. I want to pick up my little sister for lunch dates and be a respite caregiver for the Peery House and play on the playground with UCA's inaugural kindergarten class and go to my dad's shows and plan a Camp CUMCITO Teen Girls retreat and let my friend Kyla chauffeur me around with her shiny new driver's license and become friends with the man who's dating my best friend. There are so many good things going on there that I would love to be a part of, and so many people who I want to live daily life with.

And I feel like God doesn't get it, because I keep hearing "Not yet." I forget my dream job and the dearly loved family I nanny for and the healthiest church that I've ever been a part of and the community that has truly become my West Seattle family and the sunset over the mountains over the ocean and I start daydreaming and wishing and whining to God, and then I get angry, because he's not letting me live every good story that I want to live all at the same time.

He's been so patient with me. He has not yet raised his voice with me. But he has said in loving firmness, "Do you really think that your story is better than mine? Do you really think that it is all about you getting everything you want (which is too much for you to cram into your mouth anyway)? Infinitely greater and more beautiful things are at stake."

This morning I was reading an excerpt from the writings of Saint John of the Cross, and the editor of the book advised an assignment: "Be patient with God this week. John of the Cross consistently counsels us not to fuss or fret and take our spiritual lives into our own hands, but simply to receive what God would have us receive, no more, no less. Learn the discipline of gratitude for the small things." The Holy Spirit whispered to me, "Even though you think you're missing out on so many things in Kansas City, stop fussing and fretting. Trust your God's guidance. Trust that he knows what he's doing. He has opened doors for you here and now that you should not walk away from because you are greedy or discontent, but should keep walking through because they are good and because you are his. You are not your own. You have been bought with a price. It is not about your desires, but about his glory. He is writing a better story. And in the end, you will not regret following him instead of following your own wisdom."

I don't know how to communicate that to all of the people who I feel like I'm disappointing by my decision to stay here, but maybe they'll read this post.

There are deeply wounded and out-of-place men and women here who I get to intentionally and practically love full-time through smiles and individually tailored English worksheets and caring about them as human beings and being excited that they're here and crying out in prayer over the waves of difficulty that threaten to crash down over them. There is a thirteen year old boy who is asking big questions about who Jesus is and listening to my answers. There is a church who is pouring itself out to make God look as good as he is in the avenues and alleyways of Seattle. These are the doors that I'm going to follow God through. God, help me not just walk, but run.

the stranger

This film is coming out next month - check out the trailer: http://www.thestrangerfilm.org/

I haven't seen it yet and can't recommend it or not, but the issues it raises are huge and close to my heart - immigration reform is needed terribly, and the church needs to lead in welcoming the stranger as we have been so radically welcomed by God.

You can read what God says about how we should treat the stranger here: http://evangelicalimmigrationtable.com/iwasastranger/

And check out this book for strong, wise, perceptive, and Biblical insights about immigration reform: http://www.amazon.com/Welcoming-Stranger-Justice-Compassion-Immigration/dp/0830833595

And then let's talk! Tell me what you think!

come visit

World Relief Seattle has a blog, and it's amazing. All of the staff contribute stories, and sometimes our refugee clients contribute stories too. If you're interested in meeting some of my amazing students and their families, and getting to know the work that I have the privilege of being a part of better, but you don't have the money for a plane ticket up here, come visit by taking a minute to scroll through our blog and check out some of our stories (although if you DO have the money for a plane ticket, COME!).
Click here: http://worldreliefseattle.wordpress.com/

impact

12 months at World Relief Seattle in numbers: http://worldreliefseattle.org/impact/

friday top five

1) Returning to full-time teaching at World Relief!

2) Skype date with Karen Elizabeth

3) This song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9V1eiLPgtc

4) And this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvDQy53eldY

5) The kindest dude ever who stopped on his bike in the middle of the floating bridge during rush hour traffic and offered to change my flat for me


What were your top five this week?

focus

Today was my last day as an administrative assistant / volunteer coordinator at SUA - I'm returning to teaching ESL at World Relief full time through AmeriCorps (and continuing to nanny as well). The kids and staff surprised me with a box of sweet notes. The notes were sweet, but sobering as they confirmed through their words that the connections I had made with a few of the kids were still in fragile infancy and may or may not survive my transition. And yet that affirmed recent decisions.

Part of the reason that the connections were slow to deepen was my frenetic pace in the first half of 2013. I like to think I can do everything, and maybe I can, but I can't do everything well. I survived working three jobs and volunteering twenty hours a week and taking two classes all at the same time. But I didn't thrive. And I didn't love well. My time with people was rushed, my enthusiasm continuously low, my investment and openness checked by self-protective instincts. I couldn't connect with kids outside of school, I couldn't accept my students' frequent invitations to their homes, I ignored my neighbors, my money management flew out of control, my physical health declined, my time with Jesus became hurried, and I neglected my family and friends. The summer has been a season of reflection and the fall a season of change - relinquishing my grasp and narrowing my commitments so that I can focus in on being a good steward of my top priorities. It seems so obvious, but it's so hard to accept the limitations of smallness with graceful humility. I was reminded through the lack of depth in the notes, both in their knowledge of me and in my knowledge of them, that being overcommitted had pushed me to this point of having little relationally to show for a year's worth of time at SUA and that I needed to focus in to pursue what I value and what I think I'm made for, which is fewer significant relationships rather than more shallow ones.

The other reason that the connections I made were so incremental was that my position at SUA didn't center around direct engagement with the students. I didn't get to spend all day with them in the classroom, or even work logistics out directly with them and their families as our Office Coordinator does. Instead we only traded small talk and occasional chats, sincere though they might have been, when we happened to be in the same space or as I served them lunch, and most of my engagement was with volunteers and other staff. I need to work in a directly relational position. I am sure of that now. I need a job in which I can spend my days learning to know and be known by real people who are journeying through dark and scary places of life and who could use a companion along the way, and figuring out how to love them well like Jesus loves me well. (What does well mean? Sincerely, openly, humbly, diligently, relevantly, practically, committedly, securely... that's a whole nother conversation.) That's why I love teaching so much, and why I've chosen to focus on that over the next year. I have so much opportunity to connect deeply and consistently and practically and servant-heartedly with my students and I want to focus in on that incredible opportunity that makes use of my loves and my strengths. If I ever went back to working at SUA, I would want it to be as a teacher. They get to be on the front lines, and that's exactly where I want to be. I have learned some good things through my time in the logistics chain, but it's not the right long-term fit for me.

So I'm sad to leave the SUA students and staff, but not sad to leave my role there. I'm encouraged by the opportunities God has opened up for focusing in this year and I'm hopeful that he's going to use it to make me a better vessel of his love.

"Send us now into the world in peace, and grant us strength and courage to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart; through Christ our Lord. Amen."

straight from the horse's mouth

I have two new young Somali brothers in my class, and after class today one of them came up to me and said "You're a good teacher. I've never seen a teacher like you before!"

Uhh, thanks?

At least he preceded it with a compliment.

love looks like lesson planning

Lesson planning is hard. It takes all of my mental agility. It takes creativity I don’t have. It takes discipline of will. It takes humility, because more days than not I have to admit I have no ideas and ask my co-teachers for help. It could always be done better. It’s frustrating because it rarely turns out the way I expected or hoped. Every day that I triumphantly complete my lesson plan, it lasts two hours and then it’s done, and I have to start again from square one for tomorrow.

That’s what love’s like. Every lesson plan is an act of love to my students. Loving people well requires time; it can’t be done in a hurry as one task to be checked off the list. Loving people well requires that you know them, that you know them well, their strengths and weaknesses and interests and insecurities and their unique process of learning and knowing. Loving well demands focus and discipline of mind and will. It takes courage and humility because you can’t make people be the way you want them to be, whether your desires for them are noble or selfish. Loving well goes against all of my natural inclinations toward pursuing ease and cherishing independence and thinking about myself first and wanting other people to be conveniently manipulatable.

I see every day that my love is not patient, nor kind. It envies, boasts, and is proud. It sets up rules where there are no rules. It is always calculating the cost. It keeps mental record books, but only for others. It compares in hope of determining itself worthy. It always has mixed motives. It is sluggish and unreliable and often frankly unrecognizable as love.

But I am first loved. Before I love well, before I love at all, before I save the day or even make one tiny sacrifice, before I fix what is broken, before I make myself loveable, I am first loved. That is the wild kind of love that is teaching me how to love.

And you all thought I was the teacher.

i have a job

So to catch up those of you who don't know, I have a new job.

The organization that I was interning for, World Relief, offered me an AmeriCorps position at the end of my internship, and I accepted. I am now an ESL teacher for our refugees.

I have 35 students in a room that holds 20 comfortably. I have a full range of levels, from students who don't know how to hold a pencil because they're illiterate in their own language, to students who worked as English interpreters in their home countries and are fully fluent. My students come from every background imaginable, Western urbanites to nomadic camel herdsmen. I teach two hours a day, four days a week, but for every hour in class I spend five outside of class planning these multi-level lessons and designing materials tailored to my students' needs. New students show up in class every week, and stay anywhere from two months to a year, depending on how long it takes them to find a job. It's a crazy job. And I love it.

I feel like the luckiest person in the world that I get to have this job. I love my courageous, humorous, vulnerable students. I love the insanely cool staff I work with. I love the heart of the organization I get to work for. I love the journey of learning the art of teaching well.

I'm excited for you to come with me on this journey.
Maybe it will even make you want to find ways to befriend the lonely in your community.

why am i here?

I am doing this internship because...

I have committed my life to God's passions.
God cares fiercely about the vulnerable and broken.
I want to proclaim the gospel by loving people in the darkest and scariest places of life.
Refugees exist, by their identity, in one of the darkest and scariest places of a broken, sinful world.
I love working with people, am fascinated by languages, and have an instinctive desire to understand international dynamics.

All of these things add up to make me think that maybe one of the places where God can use me really well for the service of his kingdom is in the field of refugee work. This internship is a first tentative step of faith. It is being faithful to what little vision God has given me. I pray often that if he can use me better elsewhere, that he would make that very clear to me. My heart has very strong, conflicting emotions about being here and doing this, especially because it means that I can't be present and invested in Kansas City, but I am relying on the steady, faithful wisdom of God to guide me.

If you take the time to pray for me, I would ask that you would pray this from the first chapter of Colossians: "We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light."

Thanks for reading, ya'll.

"Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms." 1 Peter 4:10

another new city

Hi all! I'm in Seattle!!

I moved here last week to do an internship with an organization called World Relief: http://worldrelief.org/ They are an international humanitarian organization that does sweet work in a bunch of countries around the world, primarily through the local church. The organization also has offices in the U.S., and these offices focus on refugee resettlement, which is what I'll be learning the ins and outs of this summer.

Our refugees come from all over the world, but we have high concentrations from Burma, Bhutan, Iraq, Somalia, and Eritrea. They have all been persecuted, most to the point that their lives were in danger, for their ethnicity, religion, class, political position, or other aspect of their identity. They have all fled to another country, many congregating in refugee camps within which they often become prisoners. Very few ever succeed in being accepted for resettlement in the U.S. or another third country, less than one half of one percent, and that is after an average stay in a refugee camp of eighteen years.

When refugees are accepted by a government like the United States to come resettle within that country, they are connected with one of a few accepted agencies such as World Relief. WR and other resettlement agencies welcome the refugees when they arrive at the airport, set up host homes for their initial arrival, arrange apartments or houses for them and assist them with rent, orient them to the culture and the country, help them shop for groceries, help them learn public transit systems, teach them English, enroll their children in school, take them to the doctor and dentist, help them find employment, help them apply for social security cards, state IDs, medical insurance, benefits, etc., and try to welcome and connect them to their new community. The government only assists refugees for the first 1-3 months after their arrival, and agencies are typically able to offer services for 3-6 months, though we try to connect the families to volunteers who are willing to befriend them and followup with them for the long haul.

It's rough. These people don't necessarily dream of moving to the United States, but they are forced out of their homes by oppression, violence, and persecution. Many come here with no connections. Many leave family behind, even children or spouses. Many were farmers and have no transferable job skills. Many grew up in refugee camps and know no other life. Many know no English. Some have never even learned to read and write in their own language. Many have severe psychological trauma from the violence they have endured.

In light of all that, it's exciting and hope-giving to step into an organization like World Relief that cares about these vulnerable people deeply and strives to serve them with excellence.

So why am I doing this internship? That's another blog post entirely, but I'll try to make it soon. Until then, if you want to keep in touch, send a care package, write a postcard, look me up on Google Earth, etc., my contact info is:

1208 E. Smith St., Apt. 3
Kent, WA 98030

meganallynkennedy@gmail.com

skypename: megan_allyn

I love you guys.

Peace.



"When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the Lord your God." Leviticus 19:33-34