Conference Quotes

My past week has been saturated with conference activities. I have been to two different conferences in this time--and I am still at the second conference!

My current conference is called the North American Roundtable and it is put on by the Refugee Highway Partnership. People from all over North America have gathered at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix to share best practices, to give encouragement, and to learn from one another.

I have been to so many sessions that I don't know where to start! For this post, I am just going to share some facts about refugees and some quotes from the speakers that have stood out to me.

• There are 15 million refugees in the world. This number includes people who have crossed an international border to escape persecution. It does not include the many millions of people who are internally displaced (people who have fled their home but are still within their country's borders.) 
• Half of the world's refugees are children. 
• Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya has 150,000 people living in it, and 3000 new arrivals come each week. 
• Colombia currently has more forcibly displaced people than any other country in the world. 

Notable Quotes: 

• "He's not listening [to the speaker]. He's in the back reading his Bible." Dr. Kigabo Mbazumuntima
• Charity is transactional, not transformational. What transforms people is not intervention, but investment. -Dr. Gary Kinnaman
• "Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! This is the language of heaven." -Rose Mapendo
• "Anger is contagious. You can infect everyone you interact with." -Rose Mapendo
• Wholeheartedness is not a noisy virtue. -Dr. Larrie Gardner
• "What do we do at my organization? We do weird stuff that's hard to explain." -Cody Lorance
• The graveyard is full of indispensable people. -Randy Reynolds
• "The cost of ministry is more than we know." -Randy Reynolds
• Jesus did not fix every problem in Israel. -Dr. Larrie Gardner

I want to emphasize that these are simply quotes that stood out to me in the moment and that I had the time and energy to write down. Some of these are moments of humor, but the presenters did share wonderful information. If you click on the links above, you can learn more about some of the speakers. All of the presentations I have heard have been excellent, and hopefully in the next few days I can share about them in more detail.

For those of you who are wondering why some of the quotes are in quotations and others aren't, those in quotations are direct quotes I wrote down. The others I may have read in their presentation or heard during their presentation but the quote itself may have originally come from a different source. I am not sure, so if you are sure, let me know and I will update for accuracy! 

A Car, Kindness, and Conferences

This was an exciting week for me, mainly because I now have a CAR! I have been looking for several months now, and it feels surreal to finally have something. My car is a 2005 Hyundai Elantra. I am still figuring out what her name is, but she is blue! My car has already been making my life dramatically easier, and I feel like a "true" Arizonan with my Arizona license plate.

These were some other highlights of the week:

-On Tuesday, I went to the St. Francis UMC's Council on Ministries. It is a monthly event for church committee meetings. I met the new pastor of St. Francis, invited congregation members to the dinner we are having next week, and engaged in enjoyable and meaningful conversations about outreach and ministry.

-On Thursday, all the women in our office got temporary "Be Kind" tattoos. (I found some in a drawer I was organizing.) Be Kind is the motto of Ben's Bells, a local organization which promotes and recognizes acts of kindness.

-Thursday evening, we had our monthly Refugee 101 Volunteer Training. Heather and I give this presentation together. It is a long day, but I always enjoy it because the information is so interesting and the attendees are always so engaged. I love teaching people about refugee resettlement and having conversations with them about their own experiences with refugees.

-On Thursday night, I spent time with my friend Carly. We went out for a light meal of an appetizer and dessert. Our dessert was a s'mores pizookie and it was amazing -- chocolate cookie with peanut butter, marshmallow, and ice cream. (Pizookie=pizza cookie and I am convinced it is an Arizona thing, though you are welcome to tell me if you've had one elsewhere.)

Dragonfruit

Figs-all from one tree!

This week at Iskashitaa we harvested figs and dragonfruit! I now have a dozen fresh figs in my refrigerator!

-Last night, I spent the night at the YAV house (the house for the Presbyterian Young Adult Volunteers) with my friends Amy Beth and Heather.We made quinua pizza balls, watched Mean Girls, saw the sunset, and overall had a very enjoyable time.

The next couple weeks will be busy for me:

-On Monday, I'm attending a Food Safety class so I can get a Food Safety Certification in Pima County. I'm also planning to go to the DMV so I can register to vote in Arizona.

-On Wednesday, we are having our Food for Thought Potluck Dinner at St. Francis. This is a dinner we have every other month that I coordinate. It is meant to be a time of community building and a time for refugees to share their traditional foods. We usually have wonderful conversations, and at our last dinner we also got to hear some wonderful music!

-On Thursday, I'm going to a conference in Phoenix called Mission U. This is a conference put on annually by the United Methodist Women. I'm taking two different programs -- the Roma of Europe and the Church & People with Disabilities. I think it will be very informative and a great opportunity to connect with United Methodist Women in the Desert Southwest. I'm also leading a Focus Group where I will share about Iskashitaa and the US-2 program. The UMW gave me a scholarship to attend this conference, so I am very grateful and excited!

-After I get back from Mission U, I'm headed off to another conference called the North American Round Table. This is a conference held annually at a different location somewhere in North America, and this year it is in Phoenix. It is a gathering for people in ministry with refugees. At this conference I'm doing a table talk about Iskashitaa's harvesting model. I'm looking forward to meeting people who work with refugees around the continent!

out of dust

Inspired by the song "Beautiful Things" by Gungor.

All this pain, I wonder if I'll ever find my way?
 I wonder if my life could really change at all?
All this earth. 
Could all that is lost ever be found? 
Could a garden come up from this ground, at all? 

I feel that everyone has these thoughts at some point. The lyrics convey a sense of hopelessness--a desire for things to be different, but an uncertainty of whether or not that change could be reality. Such thoughts come frequently for me here in Tucson, where I have thought more deeply about the problems in my city, my state, my country, my world.
Sometimes I wonder not just about my life changing, but about the world really changing. Could a garden really come up from this ground of greed and selfishness, of hatred and violence? Could those who are lost in suffering and oppression or in power and wealth ever truly be found?

These questions cross my mind when I see news headlines and read blog posts of my fellow missionaries in service. Natural disasters destroying homes and ending lives. Families desperate for futures, for freedom. People groups hungry for justice, thirsty for righteousness. Countries plagued by fear, oppression, and violence.

Can a garden come up from this ground?

All around 
Hope is springing up from this old ground
Out of chaos life is being found, in You 

Yet in the midst of pain and despair, in the midst of hardships and grief, I still see hope spring anew. I see it in the refugees that I work with every day. I see it in the brightly colored flowers and plants that thrive in the desert. I see it in my coworkers, who can dance in the rain after a stressful day's work. I see it in my fellow young adult missionaries and volunteers, who continue to seek justice and love mercy, even though it is hard.
I see people who, in the midst of chaos, are choosing life, are choosing hope. And that gives me hope.

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us 

All of us are dust. When I think of dust I think of insignificance, of dirt. Of something useless and troublesome. Yet this repeated chorus reminds me that despite the hopelessness I feel and the doubt that anything good could come from me, God still makes beautiful things. He is still working. The story is not over yet.
God can make anything beautiful. Even dust. Even us.

A Special Experience

A few weeks ago, I went home to Michigan for a visit. While I was there, something very special happened. There is a family here in Tucson of refugees from Sudan that have become good friends of mine. The oldest brother, who lives here with his wife, children, and two younger brothers, told me months ago that he had a sister living in Michigan. So, when I went back for a visit, he gave me his sister's phone number.

Two nights before I left for Arizona, I called his sister. I was nervous. So many things could go wrong--she might not understand me or she might be confused about who I was. She might not be home, or she might not have time to meet me. But she answered the first time I called her, we understood each other, and she agreed that I could come visit her the next morning. So the next morning I drove an hour to her house.

I came inside the apartment complex with a box full of tomatoes and a stack of books. Even then, I still worried. What if she wasn't home or I had come to the wrong place?

She answered the door. I gave her the tomatoes and explained that I brought them from Tucson, and that one of her brothers had helped picked them. We talked about her experience so far in America and about where she had been before coming here. She showed me photos of her family and friends, most of which were taken in the refugee camp. She woke up her two elementary school aged daughters, and they almost immediately began to look through the books I had brought. This was perhaps my favorite part of the visit--seeing these girls, the nieces of my friends in Tucson, looking so eagerly at the books I had read in my own childhood. As they looked through the books, they caught each other's attention when they found pictures they liked and wanted to show the other.

After I had been there a while, a knock came at the door and a little girl came in. She was clearly a regular presence in the apartment and she started looking through the books, too. Later her mother stopped by and brought some food. I had seen pictures of her and her daughter in the photo album.

After the girls looked through most of the books, the older daughter went to her room and brought back a notebook and pencil and started trying to draw the Rainbow Fish. Her mother smiled and said her daughter liked to draw. The other daughter showed me a picture of her class and pointed out which students were her friends.

Before I left, we took a picture together. She kept thanking me for coming, and I kept thanking her for letting me come. She walked me out to my car. I wished I could stay longer. I wished I could come again, soon. I remembered what one of the other brothers said when I told him I was going to try and see his sister: "Bring her back with you." I wished that I could.

A few days ago I talked to her oldest brother on the phone. After welcoming me back to Tucson, he thanked me for going to see his sister, and I thanked him for connecting me with them.
I look forward to visiting her again when I go home in December for Erica's graduation.
And I wonder how I became lucky enough to have such an incredibly special experience.