Sunday, August 22, 2010

"Crooked little smile on her face, she tells a tale of grace that's all her own..." (aka The Fundraising Sermon)

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” Think of how many times you’ve been asked this question… or there’s that other gem, “What do you do?” Career plans are some of the more important plans we make over the course of our lives and a common topic of conversation both among people just starting to get to know each other and friends who you’ve known for decades. They’re important, but don’t’ necessarily require a person to dig too deep… like they would if the conversation took a turn towards talking about vocation. “Where is God calling you?” is a question that just sounds heavier from the start and is a whole lot more meaningful in the long run.

Over the course of the five years I spent at the University Delaware, my career plans and ideas of my vocation have been flipped upside down more than once. God’s call is full of surprises; if you want to hear Him laugh, tell Him your plans. Answering that call to start the ordination process in our diocese was one of the most exciting decisions I have ever made… even if it wasn’t at all part of my original plan. It was a decision preceded by a lot of prayer and asking the questions “Who me? Really? Are You sure that You want me to do that?” But even if He is working in mysterious ways all along, God makes His call clear, even if it takes time for us hear it, which it did for me, especially with the call I’m now answering to spend a year abroad as an Episcopal missionary.

It all started three years ago, and I didn’t even realize that anything was starting at the time. I had the honor of being selected for a two-year term on the national Episcopal Student Leadership Team. At our first team meeting, we had dinner with another group of young adults a few years older than we were who called themselves YASCers, who were training for a year abroad in a program coordinated by the national church office called the Young Adult Service Corps. Each one of them was about to spend an entire year abroad in a new place somewhere in the Anglican Communion away from everyone and everything they had ever known. It sounded kinda awesome, but mostly terrifying. I remember thinking to myself, “I would never do that! Leave everyone I love for a year!” Still, I admired them for what they were about to do, and I enjoyed hearing more about the Young Adult Service Corps as I continued to be involved with the national church.

Now, flash forward to almost two ago. In November 2008, I started thinking about this program again, and, much to my own surprise, I started thinking about it as something that I might do – that I might just feel called to do. The Young Adult Service Corps accepts applications every January, and since, at that time, I still had plenty of time until graduation, I was in no rush to apply. Still, I seized the opportunity to talk to past participants and 2009 applicants and the directors of the program, and I resolved to keep the idea in mind for the January 2010 application date… and for a full year, that’s exactly what I did. Through work and classes and discernment and campus ministry, I quietly kept this very intriguing possibility in the back of my mind - all the while excited at the chance for adventure, but still wary of the idea of being so far away from everyone for so long.

Last fall, with the application date getting closer and closer, I looked for ways around this call that just couldn’t be… For awhile, I thought I might just go right on from college to seminary, and then, unexpectedly, I gave my heart away to someone wonderful in a way that I had never done before. With all this happening, why would I want to leave when I was so sure I had everything I wanted? But then my discernment timeline changed, giving me an extra year, and it turned out that the timing just wasn’t right for this wonderful guy to keep holding onto my heart… but after all the dust settled and the last of the leaves had fallen from the trees, I could see that my heart was still holding onto to something else.

So, after a few advent Taizé services at Newark United Methodist Church and a whole lot of prayer, I decided that, at the very least, I was called to be part of the Young Adult Service Corps application and interview process, but by the time that my paper application was complete, I already realized that I was called to more than just a follow-up interview.

… Which brings me here before you today, telling you about my journey so far, and how I got to be here. On Wednesday night, I get on a plane for Cape Town, South Africa, where I will be working for a relief organization run by the Anglican Church in South Africa called HOPE Africa and the Anglican Student Federation of the Province of Southern Africa (probably with some special attention devoted to the campus ministry at the University of Cape Town). This is where my call to mission work is directing me. This is where I will be serving as a missionary of the Episcopal Church in the USA – specifically, as a missionary of the Diocese of New Jersey. I grew up attending the Church of the Holy Cross in North Plainfield, NJ, where every Easter I looked for an “Allelulia” egg, where I ran up and down the aisles with my friends on the day of our first communion – all of us wearing white dresses and red American Girl capes, where I learned what confirmation was all about, where where I feel safe, where where I can talk about God, where I learned how to be the best me out there, and where my journey began. Before that journey led me to South Africa, it brought me to St Thomas Church in Newark, Delaware, home of the Episcopal Campus Ministry at the University of Delaware; my time as a member of the St. Thomas family shaped my journey with all that changed and grew in my life while I was there and enjoying the many blessings offered by the community of the St. Thomas parish and campus ministry.

The Young Adult Service Corps missionary program is all about community, but it goes beyond the diocesan boundaries and focuses on building relationships in the Anglican Communion around the world. There’s nothing I do that I ever really do alone. As a YASCer, the Mission Personal Office of the national church sponsors me with $10,000, but, like every YASCer before me has successfully done, I as well will need to fundraise $10,000 to support this mission by asking the dioceses that I have the pleasure of calling home. So, here, I ask humbly for your support by both prayer and money; please take one of my envelopes and join me in my journey as a missionary. Also, follow me on my mission blog. The funds I am trying to raise will pay for my living expenses, travel, training, housing, and health insurance, and I am grateful for every bit of support. After all, that $10,000 breaks down to $30 a day or $200 a week, and looking back on our own lives we know that even one day can make a difference.

Sometimes, when I think about what the next year holds, anxiety overtakes my excitement, but each time, I know to pause, take a deep breath and pray it through… because every time, I come to the same conclusion. There is not a doubt in my heart that this is the right thing for me to be doing. This is where I hear God calling me right now. Even if I don’t know what exactly it will bring, and that what is does bring won’t always be easy.

I’d like to leave you with some wisdom from theologian Frederick Buechner whose words have become my mantra. He wrote “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet,” These words summarize how I feel about my call to mission and my continuing discernment beyond just career plans, but to a deeper sense of my vocation.