Report From Outside My Comfort Zone April 18, 2009

 

 

“Somebody once said, ‘Everything you want in the world is just right outside your comfort zone. Everythingyoucouldpossiblywant!’”

–Jennifer Aniston

Vogue, December 2008

 

I know what you’re thinking.  Joy abandons her blog for a month and then comes back with a quote from Jennifer Aniston?  Bear with me, though.  I can’t exactly remember when I first read this quote, but I think it was when I was at the airport in Oslo back in January, killing time before our flight to Germany for a two month outreach.  I knew I was headed for 9 weeks of being completely out of my comfort zone, so I took her words seriously as a little shot of hope to help me make the flight without wanting to jump out somewhere over Amsterdam. 

This whole 8 months in Europe has been a constant string of moments, large and small, outside my comfort zone.  And when you first get out there, you feel like you’re trying to walk around underwater. It’s no fun.  But now I feel like I’m almost accustomed to being out of my comfort zone…to that anxious fluttery sensation in my chest as I enter into another unknown, potentially awkward situation.  The meeting of new people, the adapting to new cultures, the learning of new words, the discipline of keeping one’s self in the moment instead of checking out and going on autopilot as a coping mechanism.  Now I feel I’ve figured out how to hold my breath longer and move a little more gracefully in the murky waters of new, uncomfortable situations.  I’m no expert, that’s for sure.  But I think I do a better job than I ever have at least appearing to be confident and to have fun.

Now the question is: in these 8 months outside my comfort zone, have I found everything I want in the world?  Well, yes and no.  The only reason I say no is because of the incredible drought I have experienced this year when it comes to guys.  I mean, seriously…I think I’ve gone months without seeing one man I am even remotely attracted to, not to mention a guy that I might actually be interested in (and, it must be said, the reverse is true.  It’s been a while since I’ve had to turn someone down).  So, I would like to meet someone, and that didn’t happen in my comfort zone or outside of it.

But.  A husband is definitely not the only thing I want in the world, or even one of the most important things.  I really have found so many things that I’ve wanted, and so much more.  I really can’t explain it, but when I came back from outreach for our DTS debrief week, and was back together with all the students from the school, it was like all the pieces fell into place for me and I could see the big picture of this time in Europe.  The first few days I would get all emotional and teary just being in the same room as all the students – the beauty of these individuals, of what they bring to the group, of the transformation God did in each of them over 6 months – it was too much to take. 

And on top of all of that, to think of what God has done in me these past months!  The ways He’s showed me more of who He is, and how it is constantly more beautiful than I could have dreamed…the security in my relationship with Him that I’m moving into, knowing that I’m His and that His joy is upon me…finally beginning to understand that God is good and He can be trusted!  These truths are worth so much more than all the things I could ever want in this world. 

Oh, and on top of it – the rich relationships I’ve enjoyed here with people from all over the world, the feeling of love and safety and belonging and people really valuing me enough to invest their time and resources in me – sometimes I feel like I don’t have enough arms to hold all of these gifts, enough heart to be as thankful as I want to be.

I guess, in conclusion, I’d have to say I agree with Jen…or the “somebody” she was quoting.  Now the question is, when I move back to Southern California, how can I keep pushing myself outside of my comfort zone?  But I’m not too worried about it.  Opportunities tend to pop up; I just need to say yes, hold my breath, and dive in.

From the Field February 20, 2009

 

In case you want to know more about what I’m doing with YWAM in Germany, I posted my latest update in a page here.  See in the upper right hand corner?  It says “Germany Update.”  Just click there!  Ciao.  (Yeah, they say that in Germany, too).

The above picture is Heidelberg, which is about 20 minutes from the city where we live.  The picture below is of me on Valentine’s Day (ahem, single for the *cough* year in a row…)  We passed out roses that had tags reading “God Loves Mannheim.  We Do Too.”  In German, though.  :)

Ich Bin Ein Berliner February 12, 2009

I’m not going to lie…when I first arrived in Berlin, I thought I had never seen such an ugly city.  But somehow, it got in my blood.  When one of my best friends came to visit last week, I showed Berlin off with pride, and that made me realize how much I’d come to love the city in a few short weeks.  Berlin is fascinating and full of history, color, energy, and creativity.  It’s one of the only places in the world that I have felt like I could totally be myself – not thinner, smarter, prettier, richer, whatever. 

Here are some other impressions I’ve had of Berlin:

-I like that people will look you in the eyes when they pass you on the street.  I mean, yeah, if you smile at them they still look at you like you’re crazy…but hey, at least you acknowledged each other’s existence.

-As my friend Anne-Mai said, the official Berlin animal should be a dog, and not a bear.  I saw more dogs in my 4 weeks in Berlin than my 5 months in Norway.  They are everywhere, even on the trams!  None of them wear leashes, and none of their owners pick up their poop.  Seriously, walking up our street (nicknamed “Poop Street” and not by us) to the tram stop is like playing hopscotch, leaping and skipping to avoid the fresh piles laid every day.

 -Fredrichshain, the area we lived in, was so freaking cool.  It’s populated by yuppies and also anarchists who are against the system and form squatter communities in five story buildings that they completely cover in graffiti.  They even have steel doors to keep out the police when they try to evict them.  So there’s all these beautiful European buildings punctuated by amazing colorful graffiti.  Okay, and funny story about that: I was walking down our street and a guy was walking a little Jack Russell dog that started to jump up onto my friend’s legs.  The guy said, “Don’t jump, Pete!” and my ears perked up when I heard he was speaking English.  So we had this little conversation:

  Me: Hey, where are you from?

  Him: Canada.  You?

  Me: L.A.  

  Him: Oh, cool.  What are you doing here?

  Me: I’m on a missions trip.  What about you? 

  Him: [Laughing cynically] I’m an anarchist.  I live here [points to graffiti covered entrance to squatter flat]. 

  Me: Oh, cool.

  Him: [Sarcastically, as he enters his flat] Have fun.

Moving on…

-Berlin is SO full of history.  I totally want to learn so much more about it, especially about life in East Germany under the GDR.

-There’s a bunch of Starbucks locations in Berlin, but you know what?  It doesn’t matter, because you can’t freaking get iced green tea outside of the United States.  Boo.

-I love that Berlin has its own dialect, like they say “ick” instead of “ich” for “I.”  Like I went to a concert down the street from my place and the local band had a song called “Berlin, ick liebe dir” which is “Berlin, I love you” in the local dialect.  I bought the t-shirt.  

-I can’t say this definitively, but it seems like Berlin is devoid of “scenes”, at least for a metropolis with a thriving population of young people.  For instance, when I went to a ska/reggae show a couple weeks ago,  there wasn’t a certain type of person or style there.  There was every size, shape, color, and style there.  It’s so freeing!

Okay, that’s all I can think of right now because I’m watching “What Happens in Vegas” and it’s much funnier and more interesting when I’m not watching it on an airplane in the middle of the night! 

In closing, I think I can identify with JFK when he said, “Ich bin ein Berliner.”  Although, I’m still a little unclear on what he meant by that…

Pictures below.  If you want to see more, look at my Facebook albums.  Oh, and shout out to Katie, who flew all the way from Southern California (ahem, with an extended stopover in London) to Berlin to hang out for a couple days.  I love the way we keep meeting up all around the world!

My team on our first day in Berlin; that’s the Reichstag, the government building:

Starbucks at Brandenberg Gate – alas, alack, no iced tea.  :(  Too cold anyway.

Walking through the Holocaust Memorial 

Pretty buildings in our neighborhood of Freidrichshain and one of the punk squatter buildings - 

Katie and I in front of a chunk of the Berlin Wall…this is ranking up there with my favorite pictures of us!

 

Quotable Friday, Vol. 29 (Road Trip Ed.) November 4, 2008

“The challenge to the missionary does not come on the line that people are difficult to get saved, that backsliders are difficult to reclaim, that there is a wedge of callous indifference; but along the line of his own personal relationship to Jesus Christ.  ‘Believe ye that I am able to do this?’ Our Lord puts that question steadily, it faces us in every individual case we meet.  The one great challenge is – do I know the power of His indwelling Spirit?  Am I wise enough in God’s sight, and foolish enough according tot he world, to bank on what Jesus Christ has said [...], which is the only call for a missionary, [namely], boundless confidence in Christ Jesus?”

Oswald Chambers,

My Utmost For His Highest

It’s amazing how quickly one loses perspective in this race we’re running.  This week, I’m leading an outreach for a week on the West coast of Norway.  Today I was confronted with my own fear of what people will think when we get home if we don’t have an exultant success story from the week’s outreach.  Because that puts a LOT of pressure on my shoulders, as the leader.  It’s funny, because all I really need to do is believe that Jesus can do what He says He can – that God is who He says He is.  And that’s where the last part of this quote comes in and really rings true…because if I really believe these things, my thoughts behavior will naturally and gradually change, leading to more reckless gambling of my life on the promises He’s made, and inevitably, more foolishness in the world’s sight.

With that in mind, we’ll see how our last two days of outreach go…

…And We’re Off! September 14, 2008

The Discipleship Training School began today, and all week I had this weird nagging feeling of dread, like, “Oh my gosh, life as I know it is over.”  But then I kind of shook myself and was like, “What??  This is the reason I came to Norway in the first place!”  And then I started to get excited.  Because the whole time I’ve been here, I’ve been in a bit of a limbo state, kind of a holding tank before being released into the wild and sometimes murky waters that make up a DTS.  

Death and All His Friends July 1, 2008

Two weeks ago, I woke up to a couple of crazy text messages: “Jeremy Earnshaw is missing on a lake in Alaska” and “if you havent heard jeremy earnshaw is missing either in a lake or the ocean please be praying.”  Bewildered, all I could do was pray.  Later that day I got the real story, of how Jeremy, 23 years old like me, staff at YWAM Newcastle where I did my DTS, was washed off the rocks by a freak wave and never seen again.  

I was reeling.  Such a crazy accident, so far away; and yet everything came rushing back to me: the smells of the Lewis House hostel where we lived, working in the Youthstreet office beside Jeremy with our matching black Macbooks, seeing Jeremy and his girlfriend Christina working the morning shift together in the cafe.  I felt almost embarrassed by how unglued my emotions became, by the fog I walked in for days.  Death tapped me on the shoulder and wouldn’t leave until I acknowledged its inevitable presence in this story called life that I had once dared to call predictable or even mundane.

Now I’m For Real March 10, 2008

Okay, the true test of being a missionary is not the capacity to finish your meal after finding an unidentifiable bug wading through your stew, nor the ability to nurse one’s own wound after being stung by a scorpion.

No, you know you are a real missionary when you can talk about poop freely and openly with just about everyone.

I’m proud to say I’m a real missionary.

I used to be SO shy about bathroom goings-on. I think I can even remember the first time I even vaguely talked about pooping with my best friend. It was in college. However, during the lecture phase of DTS, the girls got pretty close. While we were camping, we were all having so many stomach problems that we just HAD to talk about them. It found it so freeing, to just say, “Man, I’ve really got to poop right now.” And to encourage each other, “Wow, you were finally able to poop today? That’s great!” I feel like it bonded us more. But I was still fairly guarded, and I still couldn’t imagine myself talking about my own personal pooping experiences, habits, and needs with BOYS.

Then I went on outreach. Josh, or Yoshe, was pretty much my best friend on the trip. We crack each other up, and nothing makes us laugh more than talking about pooping. I don’t know when my defenses fell, but I’m glad they did. And as I sat in our debrief meeting today and listened to everyone’s “shart” stories about pooping in their pants, I thought, “Now we’re missionaries!”

Senioritis February 24, 2008

I hate this feeling…of being so close to being done that you feel like you just can’t go on anymore.  We really have only about a week of ministry left here in Mexico.  It’s been amazing, and I’m glad God brought me here.  So glad, really.  But I just feel so over it.  I think I’m exhausted and burned out…and so excited about going back to Australia and seeing everyone again that it’s hard to focus on the last few things we’ll be doing here.  Why is it so hard to finish well?  When I’m on a run, I can usually get myself to sprint the last bit.  It’s harder to sprint for a week, though.

Last night as I thought about going home, and leaving this family we’ve created, I felt my heart squeeze in my chest as I anticipated the loneliness of our separation.  So even though it’s still hard work, at least these last couple weeks I’ll be working with people I’ve come to love and who have loved me, even when I don’t deserve it.

Sick Again February 7, 2008

Homesick, I mean.  A bunch of people came down to the base to help with Carnaval, and now they are all going back home to their friends and families and most importantly: rooms and closets and bedsheets that smell like them.

Don’t worry, things have been getting better since two posts ago.  But I’m not going to lie, I just want to go home sometimes.  The worst part is, that I wasn’t happy at home.  I was lonely and bored.  So I know it’s not about the place, it’s about whether you’ve gotten your ish taken care of or not.

And I guess that’s what DTS has been for me.  I packed a trunk full of issues and brought them halfway across the world to Australia.  God helped me unpack them, sort them, and either throw stuff away or make it into something good that we can use.  I still had a hiker’s backpack full to drag to Mexico.  For my return trip to Australia, I’m looking forward to a much lighter load.

An Excuse January 28, 2008

All right, this is why I haven’t blogged in a while: I’m in Mexico on the outreach portion of my DTS.  You might say, “Oh, so you have limited Internet…I understand.  It’s cool.”  But I’ve actually been able to get on the Internet almost every day here.  The reason I haven’t blogged is because to be honest, I’m having a pretty crappy time here.  And I didn’t want to launch that negativity into the blogosphere, but there it is.