What's up everyone?!  Really... what is UP?  Are your eyes looking up? Is your chin up?  I write to encourage you to look heavenward, where our peace, direction, and joy lie.  On March 26th, my husband and I woke up with a thought, a simple thought of a step we would take of selling our house and finding something more inexpensive to rent.  We had been seeking the Lord for His direction in the matter for some time.  This particular morning, something in us clicked. (It was His timing).  We just knew we should sell.  We prayed, and took the step...our house sold in nine days!   The Lord opened doors up immediately to move to San Diego, and here we are.  That's the nutshell.  We were in L.A. for 7 years, established, with family and friends, a church community and a home schooling path.  We were set, really.  We were so excited to start Ecclesia Classes, as it was exactly what we prayed it would become, and my girls looked so forward to more community and hands on learning.  After all that planning,  little did we know, we would be living in San Diego for the grand opening.  I write to share, not so much the details of all that has happened with us in this transition, as it would take pages to write; pages of God's hand in the details of our lives!  But, I want to share His amazing grace, love and miracles;  joys beyond our thoughts and hopes and prayers!  The Lord has done SO much!  Oh may He be glorified through our lives!  I just want to share the joy in following Him, no matter where He leads.  You can trust Him!  His name is Faithful and He shows Himself true to His name.  
Most days we all tend to live our lives with normal daily decisions, with a sense of schedule and  planning, our plans, with our ideas and our thoughts for the day, of what we will eat, drink, where we will go, who we will talk to, what appointments to keep, what store to stop at, etc. etc. etc.  But, then there are the BIG decisions, ones that take time to think on and pray on, and maybe even just to walk in.  These are the decisions of faith.  You know the kind...when the Lord gives you an idea, or a thought, an open door to something that you just know came from Him.  An opportunity presents itself, maybe even out of the blue, or He causes you to revisit something that you brushed off as, "Eh...not for me", or, "nah, not His will."  He brings you back with a sense that it IS HIM that brought this thought or open door to you, and this time, you need to pay attention to it.  That is what happened with us.  He presented an opportunity, an open door, and the only reason we knew it was Him, even though it started to rock our little world, was that we had tremendous peace.  That is the gift!  He gives peace!!  Sometimes taking the first step of faith is frightening!  Sometimes, however, you have to take it for fear to leave and peace to come. Trust Him, He will bring peace if it's Him.  If you have nothing but confusion, wait until peace comes.  Do not be afraid.  Maybe you are at a place where He has presented one of those thoughts, open doors, or a step of faith for you to take...trust Him, walk in it, then watch with anticipation of what He will do next.  I too want to encourage you in the sadness of what you might have to give up, in the step toward Him and His path, that He replaces with joy beyond your comprehension!  With the loss of loving fellowship, you gain more!  With the loss of a church community, He leads you to new experiences;  the loss of joy in schooling, or friendships, He adds more!!!  Really, our losses, or that we perceive as such, are really seasons.  Seasons of growth, joy, molding, shaping, even pruning, all for the steps ahead in your journey as a child of God.  His path is never wrong.  Difficult?  At times... yes.  Rewarding?  Yes!  And, better than you can ask for, think or imagine!  So, look up my friends!  Keep your eye on the upward call of Jesus Christ, even if it takes you to something you didn't think about, or somewhere new!  He has a perfect plan and is knitting your life-journey together for good, and His purpose.  
When things look dim, hard, or even impossible, that is the perfect condition for miracles!  And, maybe it doesn't have to be a total parting of the Red Sea, but just the miracle of getting to see Him at work in people, or circumstances around you.  Maybe He calls us to these steps because He just wants more of us, so that we will depend on Him and love Him more?  After all, He is jealous for us. 
  Whatever the case may be in your life, maybe you need a nudge in a direction, or clarity, or maybe He is calling you to a step of faith unlike one you have taken in a long time...just do it.  Just follow Him!  He is the Good Shepherd, He knows His sheep and they follow Him.  He says that SURELY goodness and mercy WILL follow you all the days of your life! (Ps 23).  There are no mistakes when your step is taken in Him, so fear not.  We are seeing that!  And, I can't live my life without telling everyone. He is just SOOO good!  He is good in the hard times.  He is good in frustrating times, in trials, in sorrows, in loss, in fun, in joy, in fellowship, in longings, in hunger and in thirst. He is good.  So, I ask you again, what is up?  Are you looking up?  May you find your peace and joy solely in Him. Trust Him.  He is Faithful.  He sees you. You matter to Him.  Take a step of faith today.  Watch and wait and  rest.  Peace will come.  Then, be ready for indescribable joy!  
Love to you, and grace be yours.  
Chin up.  
Kristin

Several years ago at Thanksgiving I read a book to my children called Squanto by Eric Metaxas and it moved me - truth and beauty in a lovely children's book. Then a couple of years ago he came to my church to speak about his new book, Bonhoeffer and I was touched by the story, the author and the way in which he seemed to understand Christianity on a level that few people do. It is refreshing to find an author who discovers the treasure of a person, takes that treasure and shines it up for all of us to see. He cares about role models and heroes and knows that we need their stories to awaken that place in us that may have been forgotten - the place that makes a hero - his new book is Seven Men and the Secret of Their Greatness. 

Here is an excerpt from a Publisher's Weekly article - Eric Metaxas: Profiling 7 Heroes - Now Metaxas uses his knowledge of great men in history to confront what he feels is a crisis of manhood in today’s culture. His newest book, Seven Men and the Secret of Their Greatness (Thomas Nelson, April 30) features profiles of what Metaxas calls “a subjective list of seven men whose lives are worth knowing about.” Adding to some of what he wrote about Bonhoeffer and Wilberforce, Metaxas profiles five other greats, including George Washington, Olympic runner Eric Liddell, baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson, Pope John Paul II, and Charles W. Colson, with whom Metaxas worked before Colson’s death. Metaxas is now cohost of BreakPoint, the radio commentary started by Colson in 1991. “These are great men whose lives are worthy of emulation,” says Metaxas. “I am trying to answer the questions, ‘What is a man? What is a great man? What is God’s idea of a great man?’ Faith is at the heart of what these men did and why they did it. 

Last night I went to Amazon to get a copy and they are temporarily out of stock, but I am sure they will have more soon.
Hopefully, just in time for Father's Day!
Shannon

THE POWER OF LANGUAGE

I grew up with two inspiring story-tellers.  My parents were wise, profound and impassioned.  My father’s stories were often gripping of the heart…the stuff that lingers for a lifetime.  

One of the many stories I grew up hearing was the sorrowful tale of how Stalin suppressed the Ukrainian people and crushed their spirit by starving them.  I remember hearing how they took away their food, cut off any outside help - virtually locking them in their towns to die, and then made it illegal to use the words famine or starvation.  The very language for their misery was taken away.

Quoting from The History Place  (http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/stalin.htm) -because my memory tends to run very imaginative): The Soviet Union wanted to seize the Ukrainian farmers’ lands but when the people resisted ... Stalin's secret police…systematically attacked and killed uncooperative farmers. But the resistance continued. The people … remained stubbornly determined to return to their pre-Soviet farming lifestyle. Some refused to work at all, leaving the wheat and oats to rot in un-harvested fields. 

In Moscow, Stalin responded to their unyielding defiance by …deliberately caus(ing) mass starvation and … the deaths of millions. 

Moscow needed the farmer’s wheat (think 1984) to sell it to other nations in order to generate cash for modernization plans.

By January 1933, there was simply no food remaining to feed the people of the Ukraine.  … (If the wheat had remained in the Ukraine, it was estimated to have been enough to feed all of the people there for up to two years)

Here is the part of the story that I most clearly remember…

When the Ukrainians Communists asked for help:  Stalin responded by … seal(ing) off the borders of the Ukraine, preventing any food from entering, ..seizing any stored up food, leaving farm families without a morsel. … By the spring of 1933, the height of the famine, an estimated 25,000 persons died every day in the Ukraine…. a person could be arrested for even using the word 'famine' or 'hunger' or 'starvation' in a sentence.

There were other points my father made when telling this story (like the silence of Journalists due to pro-communist sentiments); but the bit about the suppression of their language to describe their experience still haunts me.  

When words are taken away and a people’s experience silenced, something disturbing is afoot. 

Language brings things to the light – even if, at the time, the language is awkward or inadequate.  There are many ways that language can be takien away from us.  Folk may hide behind the precision of language in order to not hear, not understand; and when this happens, something un-christian has occurred, we have violated the call to not be easily offended.  (There has been a large shift in my lifetime from the onus being upon the listener  to seek an understanding of what the speaker is meaning (intent);  to the current state of the hearer’s right to be readily offended, and, therefore, no longer required to listen to, nor even respect, the speaker.)

Our eighth graders this year will be reading a book by Vishal Mangalwadi about William Carey.  William Carey was a missionary  to India in the early 1800s.  William Carey understood the power of language.  

Precious excerpts from our book read:

Carey’s generation believed that it was necessary for us to freely dialogue and debate truth,  because we all tend to believe rationalizations that are untrue.  Freedom of conscience is  incomplete without the freedom to change one’s beliefs, to convert.  A state that hinders conversion is uncivilized because it restricts the human quest for truth and reform….(p.85)

In order to carry out this aim of reform, Carey sought to develop India’s vernacular languages (everyday spoken in the street language vs. the language of academics and books).

Crucial to the European Protestant Reformers such as Martin Luther was the knowledge that, in order to transform His people, Christ used the language of the common man, Aramaic, rather than the Hebrew of the sacred Jewish Scriptures.  Until the sixteenth century “the languages of learning” and therefore of the elite had been Latin and Greek, whereas ordinary people in Europe spoke German, French, or English.  This allowed the privileged elite to exploit ignorance.

In order to liberate the masses, to make the knowledge o f the truth available to all the people, the Reformers began to translate the Bible into the languages of the common people.  Martin Luther himself translated the Bible into German.

Obviously, to have the Scriptures translated into the spoken language of the people ... the people had to learn to read and write the language they spoke.  This then further effected the government of the people.  It is not possible to have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people that functions mainly in the language of the elite…. The genius of the market economy is that it liberates the energies of the masses for making contributions to the economic life of the country in which they live.  This contribution is impossible if an elitist language becomes a barrier over which ordinary citizens cannot climb….

A feature of medieval society is its use of an elitist language (such as Latin, Persian, Sanskrit, or now, English) as a means of discriminating, and also as a method of granting unearned privileges to an aristocracy.  It became possible for India to make the transition from Persian as the court language, to Urdu, and then to the regional languages… because of Carey’s labor and leadership in turning the vernacular languages into literary languages through Bible translation.

Quoting from two different peers of Carey:

Mastering the complex classical speech and literature of the learned and priestly class, and living with his Master’s (Christ’s) sympathy among the people whom that class oppresses, Carey takes the popular dialects which ...[the medieval-minded pundits considered a language ‘fit only for women and demons’]and grew them into an effective language.

Carey refused to have English as the medium of instruction in the college he founded…He was well aware that the vernacular languages of the people were not developed enough … to use for higher education…He strove therefore to develop both the vernacular languages and the literature.  After a team… would complete the Bible in a language, he would encourage them to translate educational books in that same language.

The Power of language…

Ecclesia Classes is deeply desirous to give our students the gifts of language and ideas.  Mangalwadi writes about how the fertile fields of ideas go on to create human awakening music and art.  We want to see our students’ hearts, minds, souls awakened (both individually and corporately as the body of Christ) to all that we are meant to be as those who reflect well the image of our loving Father.

From censored language or, simply, insular language to becoming folk for whom the language of ideas does flourish, we want our students to be capable of conveying eternal hopes and dreams… to be literate in the fullest sense of the word.  Not elitists but visionaries, who can speak with heart and soul, naming the things that need to be named, conveying the dreams that Joel tells us they are to be dreaming.  Speaking truth in love, liberating themselves and the world about them from the superficial realities of which Jeremiah writes so well:  “you have become a superficial people for you worship superficial things” and again, "They have healed the brokenness of My people superficially, saying, 'Peace, peace,' but there is no peace.” 

Rather, to be a people of substance in the light of love.

For all you Father Boyle fans - don't miss the wonderful opportunity to see the Documentary on Father Boyle and Homeboy Industries that opens at the Laemmle Playhouse 7 in Pasadena on April 25th.  (There are several other locales should you not be a Pasadenan.)

Father Boyle's story and the stories of the beautiful people for whom he had the eyes to see, the heart to imagine and the ears to hear new songs of their true human  becoming  is Kingdom inspiring. 

From the Laemmle site:  “Nothing stops a bullet like a job.” This is the story of a remarkable odd couple. There’s “G-Dog,” aka Father Greg Boyle or Father G, a white Jesuit priest who’s spent some 25 years in the toughest part of East LA, and then there’s the tough, street-smart, and amazingly sweet young people – all former gang members – whom G-Dog loves and helps, and who love him in turn. For Father Greg’s remedy for what he calls "a global sense of failure" for kids at-risk is radical and simple: boundless, restorative love.