Keitt Update - October 2013

Disciples and Dependents

You know those moments when you look back and think, “Dang, I did exactly the opposite of what I wanted to do in that situation.” That was what ran through my head about a year and a half ago after our “Kid’s Day” celebration at the church. 

What’s “Kid’s Day?” 

Glad you asked.  It is a great/horrible idea similar to Father’s or Mother’s Day that easily morphs into a month long “celebration” of kids.  Buying, consuming and stressing on the part of adults and demanding and expecting on behalf of those delightful children. 

Am I a crotchety old fart or what?

My dislike of silly Hallmarks holidays is not the purpose of this blog, just one of those tangents that I couldn’t pass up. 

Obviously prior to the day, my intention was to redirect how we celebrated “kids” with the kids and hopefully give a new perspective to these yougins. 

But guess who, guess who, oh yes this guy, muwaa, Tracey Keitt was that guy in line two hours before church kicked off with a buggy full of snickers, pringles, chocolate bars and basically a diversified plethara of junk.  I pulled out a bunch of “tricks of the trade” of youth ministry activities, competitions and games out of the bag that I’d developed over my 5 or so years of working with youth.

And how’d it turn out, you ask? Without a hitch.  An entertaining, fun, high octane, sugar buzz and sugar crash kid’s day that they won’t forget easily.  I, on the other hand, wish it had never happened. 

Now the “how” I got myself in this sitiuation is the crux of what I’m trying to explain to you and change about how I lead Sunday School, my ministries in general, and the overall way I go about life.  Details are not necessary, but I basically took the reins of a situation where everyone else had dropped the ball, planned none of their parts, organized none of their responsibilities and decided to “save the day”... in some regards. 

In other words, I decided that allowing for my fellow Sunday School teachers to grow as disciples was not important.

“I’m sorry guys but I can’t give you the opportunity to feel the full weight of your actions or non-actions.”  “Let me save you guys them from an awkward and possibly shameful situation.”  “The kids lack of a precious kids day will cause too much pain.”

I treated them as dependents, a dependent who can easily grow accustomed to someone else coming behind them and tidying things up so that everything looks shiny and nice on the outside.

Disciples or dependents.

The vision I see with Sunday school in let’s say 5 or 10 years has nothing to do with me.  I should not be in the picture.  No one should be waiting on me or any other single person to pull it all together.  I invision teachers who have learned and grown through trials, success and failures.  Disciples who have passed through frustrating moments, who have heard as well as shared necessary and yet difficult criticism.  I see a team who really takes ownership of Sunday School as a whole and who invests in each individual kid as a person.

Yeah, it is easier to just fix it up and pat these guys on the back.  “No worries, it’s ok, you don’t have to be responsible, because I’ll always be here to keep you as dependent as possible on me.”

It’s hard work on everyone’s part to do this disciplining thing.  It’s not always pretty, people fail, get hurt, hurt others, but it’s so necessary.  It’s what a long term healthy organization, team and church needs.  It’s what I hope we’re doing now. 

I am an Immigrant

I am an immigrant.

I am not always understood when I have to speak to customer service on the phone about a bill.  I can't see her face, but I know she's rolling her eyes when I ask her to explain it one more time.  

I eat weird foods, and not at the normal times throughout the day.

I don't sit with a group of friends at church that I have known for years.  I recognize the comfort and camaraderie that results from those years, and I am so thankful to have known it once myself.  

I watch my son spend time with his grandparents through a computer screen.

I know the joys of paperwork like no native-born Chilean ever will.

I am thankful that my nationality is respected here.  And I feel bad when my friends make jokes or complain about Peruvians and Bolivians.  Just because they have come to live in a country with a stronger economy, doesn't mean they came to steal all your money.  And no, I'm not laughing at your joke.

I offend people by my cultural differences.  I don't know how.  But I'm sure I do.

I am an immigrant, and I am forever changed.

And if, one day, I should cease to hold this label as my own, I will remember.

I will remember that it is hard to live so far away from your family.

I will remember how badly I wanted to connect with people from another culture.

I will remember how much I hated the scrunched eyebrows and slight frown that really meant, "I have no idea what you just said."

I will remember how easy it is to feel outside of the group.  

I will remember how good is is to make new friends.

I will remember to be intentional about being kind, being inclusive, and welcoming to anyone who is on the "cultural outskirts" for any reason.

And I will be thankful for the opportunity to reach out to those who are living the life of an immigrant, as I once did.

   

3 Year Anniversary

This year we took advantage of our 5-day holiday weekend to celebrate our anniversary!

Yes, we were 6 months late.  Our true anniversary this year was spent taking care of a 6-day-old and dropping my mom off at the airport.  

So we packed up the Subi with way more than we've ever packed for a 2 day trip and headed to Punta de Tralca, a small beach town about an hour and a half from our house.

It was a great weekend to celebrate our marriage and get some time away as a family.

(If you want to see more pictures, check out our album by clicking the lego camera on the right.)

September Update - True Confessions

This morning as I thought about this blog, I thought about how good much better we have been this month at posting blogs.  And then I realized that we both completely forgot about the monthly update!  After 2 1/2 years of doing one every month, it took us both almost a week to realize we missed it.  Not sure how that happened, but I do find it terribly ironic considering the pre-chosen theme for this blog.

The Lord has kindly and very clearly revealed two realities to Tracey and I (separately) this last month.  They aren't pretty, but they're honest:

1) We don't pray for our ministries.  This is the truth, the ugly truth.  We are so deeply blessed to have a multitude of loved ones and strangers pray for us and our work here, and maybe that has somehow led us to act like ya'll do the praying and we do the "working."  Eeeeesh. That was ugly as soon as it hit the keyboard. And I'm sorry.  Not sorry I shared it, just he sorry it's the truth.  

What we do believe, however, is that prayer is the most important thing we can do in our work.  We believe it is not only necessary but essential to any progress in our ministry.  We believe that we (you and us) are a team, and that we need your prayers as much as we need us to pray for what we are doing.  

I don't know why we haven't been acting like we believe all of that.  

Undoubtedly, this ugly truth plays a large role in our second confession:

2) We believe we are responsible for the "successes" and "failures" of our ministries.   House of Hope is still in a rough place financially.  Our enrollment has declined.  We have been unable to involve businesses and churches this year like we wanted.  And now the municipality is threatening to take the building away from us.  

Tracey asked me this week if I thought the ministry would just have to shut down.  I told him that this ministry has been so close to being shut down so many times before, we might as well call it, "House of Hope, the ministry you just can't kill off."  But then my thoughts mostly shifted to myself: How embarrassing it would be for me that my primary ministry failed, that everything I have done with it for the last year and a half would have been in vain.  That I have people supporting me to do a work and then I have to tell them it's closed down.  That what I have done wasn't good enough.

Kind of like the one time I taught that sex class.  Although it was 3:00 in the morning, I did feel like the class of 40+ girls were effected by what I said.  One high school girl came up to me crying at the end and opened up to me about how her and her boyfriend wanted to stop sleeping together.  It was a wonderful time of prayer and honest sharing.  I felt so used by God!

And then she got pregnant a month later.  And I felt like a failure.  

On the other side of the spectrum, I can't deny the fact that when I look at the funds we have raised for House of Hope, part of me does think, "Man, what would this ministry do without me?  Where would we be if I hadn't done all those church presentations last fall?"

(Eeessshhh.  Do you see why I titled this "True Confessions"?!?  It's hard to admit these things to yourself, let alone type them and share them with the rest of the world...)

There is a constant temptation to steal God's glory when we see positive change in the work we do.  There is a nagging lie that says, "Good job today, look at what you accomplished."  Sometimes it's disguised by us giving God praise for the talents and abilities he has gifted us, when what that really means deep down is "Sure you gave me the ability, but I made it happen."

When the reality is:

It's never about me.  

The good, the bad, the everything. 

God has shown himself in amazing ways through House of Hope, people have stepped up and given tremendous amounts of support and many other random/miraculous things have occurred.  I'm just a part of a bigger picture.  I do the best that I can, but it's not because of my presence or my actions that keep this ministry alive.   

Just like that high school girl didn't get pregnant because my talk sucked.  

I cannot rely on the outcome of man-made goals created from a human perspective to add to or take away my confidence.  My value, in who I am and the work that I do, comes only from being His.  And whatever I do, the good, the bad, the everything, will always be for His glory.

What I can do, is do the best of my ability with the work he gives me each day and trust Him entirely with the outcomes.  I can make myself wholly available.  I can be obedient.  I can give Him all the credit because to him it is surely due.  And I can stay faithful to His calling for me above analyzing what I perceive to be my level of usefulness.

So there is it, people.  The good, the bad, and definitely the ugly.  The good news is that God's really great at convicting us in ways that make us want to change instead of feeling like total crap.  And as an added bonus, Tracey and I are completely on the same page! As everything, it's a process.  The important thing is that we are in it.  

It is good to confess.  It is good to repent.  It is good to grow.

October Prayer Requests

1) For us in this process of changing the way we see our ministries

2) That we can be disciplined to pray more for them

3)  Leadership to maintain this momentum that we have right now with Sunday School             

Claiming the Gift

Why is it always so difficult to live in the present?

We have spent so much of the last year of our lives in places other than the present moment: Counting up and then down the weeks of pregnancy, counting down the days until our epic hiking trip with epic friends, waiting those eternal 13 days after Lil' Man's due date constantly wondering which moment would finally make us parents, counting down the days to when we get to see our familes and friends again...  and then afterwards, looking back at pictures and videos and remembering it all over.  

One more day of work this week.  Three more days till we get to celebrate our anniversary.  Possibly 4 more months until we can step on another international flight.  

There is such a tendency for me to turn to the future.  But I also love reminiscing about the past.  The other night, for example, when I couldn't sleep at 4am (p.s. Did you know that green tea actually does have caffeine?!?!)  I was trying to remember all of the names of the families that lived in the neighborhood where I grew up.  I love visiting places of my childhood, remembering moments from last year, last summer, college, high school, growing up, whenever.

It's not that these thoughts in themselves are bad; it is necessary to plan ahead, and it is appropriate to be thankful for things of the past and those yet to come.  But I have never been able to feel a deeper sense of gratitude than when I am choosing to stay in the present moment and experience it for what it is - 

When I can sit, utterly enthralled by a 5 month old - the way he moves, reacts, and changes miraculously every day...

Being so engaged in conversation that it is impossible to think of anything outside of it for the moment...

Feeling so profoundly grateful to be in a place, with the people I'm with, that I forget about everything I have to do when I get home...  

When I get lost in the past or future, I miss the moments that are given to me right now.  I also miss out on the gratitude that those new gifts evoke in me.  

I am grateful for the ability to remember and be thankful for the past, and to be excited and grateful for the future.  But I want to be more disciplined in experiencing and engaging my present.  For me, that looks like respecting, but not living by, my agenda.  It's being aware of each of my 5 senses wherever I am.  It's limiting my time looking at photo albums.  It's resisting the temptation to believe the lie that playing with Coen on a floor surrounded by dirty dishes, unwritten lesson plans, and an overflowing Inbox is "wasting time."

Living in the present, for me, is undoubtedly a discipline, but one I have found to be worth it. It's a gift we are all given, but one we must intentionally accept.

What does it look like for you?
       

Not yet in the air (some odd weeks ago)

I would like this plane to never land, better yet for it to never kick in those engines to depart from this wet tarmac but obviously that is out of my hands. It's just that the present is so nicely situated between the past and the future. The past two weeks have been a blissful compilation of spending time with the lovely Reeve side of my life, more specifically new aunts, uncles, grandparents, great grandparents, great aunts, second cousins.  The incredible meals, runs by the river and brews are but second level in comparison to the people, but man were they good as well.

When you've got such limited time with those you love, there's a clarity about life that grips your throat, not to take your air away but to make sure that every molecule that passes is appreciated and savored. There is no complaining or rushing and worrying about a month, a week, a minute ahead.  It's avoided. I absolutely love the intentionality that it forces because what happily rises most at some point sadly descends, so as we glanced out on that filthy beautiful Ohio river and shared moments and words, I knew it wound end, I knew we would come back to earth. Undeniable horrible and yet wonderful.

Everything stays romanticized at this present non-take off state. The hugs, people and laughs can be imagined, can be anticipated, can be loved, the fall back down to earth can't begin since the the beginning hasn't engaged yet. Having tasted the weight of that fall two years ago and developed such deep longing for such a long time, you only wish to sit, romanticize, and imagine right here in this present, so finely located between past and future.