Departure Plans on Hold

My plans to leave for Iraq are currently on hold. Continue to pray for Iraq and for the decision-makers whose choices affect the situation there. More to come soon.

Breaking News: Abbey Mac and Ir-aq

Iraq is making the news. Daily. I’m grateful that my connection with this turbulent nation brings this world-away into greater focus for many. It makes it more personal. Thank you for your continued interest in and prayer for the people locked within the geo-political borders we call “Iraq.”

Will I still go? Yes. Orientation was earlier this week. My leaders reminded me that for more than a decade Servant Group International http://www.servantgroup.org/ has maintained an uninterrupted presence in Iraq. Remember the Gulf War? Remember Operation Iraqi Freedom? Remember Saddam and Osama, Obama, and the waning of American interest in our sustained support? We were there, we were there, we’re still there, and we’re going back. And it’s God’s gift to me to get to join the team this go ‘round.

When I’m asked where I’m going to teach this fall I hesitate. (Is it safer to say ‘Iraq’ or ‘Kurdistan’?) Before I give my answer I must do a quick study of my audience knowing that, normally, the former elicits a dramatic response (“Uh, you know they need English teachers in Asia, right? Wouldn’t that be the smarter choice?!”); the latter, glazed-over eyes (“Where is Kurdistan?!”). When you think Iraq you think Mosul, Fallujah, Baghdad. You think ISIS’s brilliantly violent media campaign, Shia and Sunni blood baths, and al-Maliki’s fragile government. When you think these thoughts you have reason to question my sanity. But when you think Kurdistan what comes to mind? Like West Berlin of the Cold War, it is quite different from the Iraq you imagine.

When you think about Kurdistan here’s what you should think: They love America. (The last thing any Kurd wants is a dead American in their backyard.) They operate relatively autonomously, independent from Baghdad and the chaos therein. They are, like ISIS, Sunni Muslim and as such are not as much a target for the spreading violence. Additionally, being Kurdish, in a hierarchy of sorts, is more important to them than getting involved in sectarian rifts: the Kurds have an army posted along their regional border with the capability of stopping ISIS. If tested, they will.

When you think about Miss Mac’s departure in less than 40 days to teach history and literature to 60 + 9th through 11th grade Kurdish students, http://www.csmedes.org/ imagine with me different news headlines coming out of Iraq. Insha’Allah, I will be on the ground to report them.

Prayer Ideas: a War Zone, Goals, and my Indiana Bucket List

My final California Sunrise...

After an all-nighter packing (Thank you, Uncle Chip! The bike arrived safely!)

Family embraced me at the airport. A sign was waved, a homemade meal procured. Friends clamored around with interested questions, engulfing me within an affectionate circle of support.

But Indiana has not been as welcoming. Days One through Four I've awoken (waked? awakened?) to search for the sun only to be greeted with sky's blank-faced veil of grey. A thick, unimaginative grey that presses into my soul to pull out despair. A grey that suffocates. I'm allergic to Indiana, or she to me. One of the two of us vehemently rejects the other. Or perhaps, both. Will we part as friends?

Insha'Allah, as allies or adversaries in 54 days I depart for Dohuk, Iraq. If you are following the ISIS's recent movement throughout Iraq, Dohuk is a neighboring city to the recently seized city of Mosul. My research estimates that the distance between the two cities is 45, 75, or 95 miles; regardless of the actual distance, my Iraqi friend told me, tongue in cheek, prior to my Sacramento goodbyes that I'll hear Mosul's gunfire from Dohuk. The situation on the ground is very, very serious. We need to maintain the Iraqi people in our prayers, ALL Iraqis: be they Arab, Kurdish, ISIS fighters, civilians, refugees, governmental soldiers, Sunni, or Shia; all need the sovereign and merciful intervention of Allah on their behalf. Many of you are asking, will I still go? I don't know. I'm waiting to hear from my sending organization, Servant Group International. If they maintain the green light then Yes I will go; I want to teach in Iraq.

Many of you are also asking, How can we pray for you? Thank you for your kind concern. Rather than hand you a script to read to God, a grocery list of what Abbey needs and wants, I thought it would be funner (yes, funner, not 'more fun') for you, for myself, and for God if I answered this question by giving you my Indiana Goals and my Indiana Bucket List lists. (Goals are those lofty ideals for which I am intentionally laboring to either achieve or grow in; Bucket List items are experiences that I want to have.) Whatever captures your imagination within these lists perhaps can facilitate a nice conversation between you and the Holy Spirit.

Confession: It was Mamma's painstakingly personal preparation of my room that, upon my arrival home, made me break down into tears. This dear woman left a note, flowers, chocolate, even the BOOKS I love on display to welcome me.

INDIANA GOALS, 9 JUNE - 10 AUGUST, 2014...

Growth in asking for help: Miss Independence needs practice humbling herself to live inter-dependently, the way God designed humans to operate.

Walking regularly with Mamma.

Encouraging/affirming my parents in healthy lifestyle choices.

Building a stronger relationship with Taylor.

Becoming JK's friend.

Practicing how to be a big sis to adult siblings: Role change! I'm not their guardian and protector anymore. Now I'm stumbling through the oldest-sister awkward adolescent stages of figuring out how to be their sister and friend. As a peer.

Maintaining community with CA friends and family: If I'm coming back, I want to invest into the people to whom I'll one day return.

Read The Sacred Romance and Mayada: Daughter of Iraq

Begin to consider myself as heroine and Jesus as the HERO in the epic He's telling (let myself be romanced by Him).

Practice story-telling in everyday conversation: Middle Easterners love story. Westerners love a good story. Personally, I learn best through story. The Bible is mostly Story. Wouldn't it be eternally exciting to practice the tools to connect all those dots?!

Growing in my Forward (Future) Vision: Mamma rightly diagnosed it as myopia when I was in my teens but it wasn't until a recent conversation with Uncle Don that I realized why looking forward and making plans is harder for me than turning the Titanic. Uncle Don was 8 when his dad (my grandfather) died; my father was 2. Apparently, as they were growing up the two of them would talk through their reservations towards reaching the age of their father at his death (my grandfather must have been in his thirties). Uncle Don and Daddy David approached aging with dread curiosity : "Will I make it? Will I "outlive" my father?" Uncle Don did; my father did not. Unknowingly, I inherited their growing-up apprehensions but spoke of them to no one (I assumed I was a freak). Days and years were lived out within the underlying tension: Will I make it out of my twenties? I had no idea how to plan beyond that. I was just waiting to see. At 29, I had done it. I had "outlived" my dad. This wasn't a relief; it was more of liability ("Now what?!"). So at 30, I really have no idea what to do with myself. I'm fighting to grow past this and learn how to dream, make plans, and go for them. My conversation with Uncle Don comforts me because, as a man in his sixties, he confessed that the effects of myopia still linger in his peripheral and future-vision. And that's hopeful: I'm more normal than I ever suspected.

Identifying "Dream Team" friends (5-8 people) and sharing my Vision and Goals with them: Dr. Bryce Jessup, President Emeritus of William Jessup University, recently challenged our congregation to consider what kind of legacy we want to leave behind. He suggests forming a panel of trusted friends, mentors, and perhaps family members who know you best to vet your Dreams. They constructively critique your goals, ask hard questions, and kick you in the pants when you need it. You can listen to his fabulous message here: http://www.baysideonline.com/weekend-service/2014/04/bryce-jessup-if-you-only-had-one-week-to-live/

Preparing for Iraq: This is a multi-tiered goal, and the main reason I came back to Indiana. More to come.

...Indiana Revelries: Scenes from my Backyard...

INDIANA SUMMER 2014 BUCKET LIST:

Vision of Hope Race for Hope 10k.

World Cupping with JK and JW. (USA, USA!!!)

Recruit Task force; train and execute FishersSummerLovin Prank Campaign against formidable foes Mr. and Mrs. K, aka T&J.

Find alternative "third place" (that is NOT STARBUCKS) to hang out with Mamma.

Youtube marathon night (ESP. Studio C and blast from the past Julian Smith)!

Lord of the Rings marathon weekend!

Two dates. With boys.

Ultimate Frisbee Sunday nights.

Mrs. Pam!!!

Granite Management "Reunion."

Camping with the 'rents!

The BOXES!!!

Fire pit. FIRE!

Red Mango with YoPros.

Dance Party.

Thank you for reading my prayer update and for praying! In a future post I'll fill you in on SGI training/my schedule and traveling plans. I will also shed some light on my fears, since many of you expressed curiosity.

Lastly for now: This is my support total (in USD) to date!...

My goal remains $12,000 so I am currently 73% funded! Thanks to all for your sacrificial giving and praying!! All my love! ~abbey mac

Forwarding Address

Running tonight. Like my sweat, when I saw what He saw grief and regret oozed out of me. It's time to move again, and my communication with God has hit a wall. I've been making sense of it to myself through the lens of circumstance:

You are sad to leave California. You are overwhelmed by the "Prep for Indiana" task List. You need to eat more vegetables. Run more. Read more. Pray more. Sleep more.

God cut through my chaos with one gentle word: When you talk to Me, Daughter, you don't believe I love you. So when you ask for My help it's reluctant and guilty, without the expectation of My reply. You wear yourself out asking.

Hosea gives me Hope. This is God's strategy, His remedy for my Doubt:

"I will allure you. I will lead you into the desert and speak tenderly to you" (2:14). I've never been in love. Thus far in my Journey I've been too fearfully self-protective for that nonsense. But I'm cracking. And love is becoming attractive, magnetic. His love is doing that to me, undoing me, wooing me.

So how does love respond to that kind of self-revelation? I'm encouraged to say that my immediate response was a plea for Him to please, please forgive me! for not believing the best about Him, for doubting His good heart, and for forgetting all His affection lavished upon me.

When I talk with God now about my departure next week for a 2-month Iraq prep back in Indiana, when I remember to Him the precious ones I leave behind, when I cry to Him for help hunting down that bike box and packing up my books and transferring the Chevy title to James, when I lay down exhausted at day's end and thank Him for living it WITH me may my sweat and grief remind me of our run, His revelation, and the realness of His love.

Bifurcations and Belonging

I worship at a mega church. I serve at a miniscule church. Both are dear to me.

Mega: I love the reverberating sound it is to be one of a throng of worshippers. One small amongst so many. To my imagination it is a taste of Heaven, where we humans purchased for God from every tribe and language and people and nation… made to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God and reign on the earth will join this chorus currently sung by the angelic choir:

Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise! (Revelation 5)

In this concert of praise I raise my hands to the Jesus we together worship. I sing loud and harm no one. I am one of hundreds.

It is here I feel small. Small is good, but not unknown. Unknown is dangerous. At my dear mega church, unknown, I am in danger.

The unknown scares me. It scares me for me, and it scares me for my church. How many other worshippers slide under the radar of healthy community?

But it mainly scares me for me. I fear my aloneness, the danger it is to my soul. What heart-foolishness hides, unexposed by my community-lessness? Who is discipling me? Who am I discipling? Who holds a mirror to my soul to expose the real Abbey? The Abbey who daily needs repentance and mind-renewal. To whom can I run for burden-bearing? Whose burdens do I bear? At my mega church, in this season the protection of community eludes me.

After worship, before the sermon is entirely over, I creep out, settle into my car, and drive. I drive out of Pleasantville through farmers’ enchanted lands. On the fringe of the city I climb a hill. Sometimes joggers and bicyclists are taking that hill and, excited, wanting to be them, wanting their sweat to be mine, I reply to these athletes’ exertions. They receive, unknowingly, hearty accolades and cheers from the car passing on their left. Through our proximity I exchange my enthusiasm for their endorphins. (So believes my imagination.)

Downhill ushers me into the country. When it was summer the sky would paint the fields and orchards in gold-dust. These golden lands through which I sped shone, pregnant with pastoral splendor, and to that the sky blushed blue. It was then that I would awe, the windows of my soul too small to drink it in entirely though, wide-eyed, I tried. And try still. On the edge of my seat through Winter weariness I labor to gather in line upon line of brown grasses, fallow fields, barren orchards. I strain to catch the song sung by thousands of December, January, and February stripped purple trees. They whisper truths only they now know (perhaps in May when I am among them their secret will be more of a shout). I stretch to imbibe the tall grey sky. It stands as a proud pillar supporting clouds whose names I don’t know. Clouds that frolic. Winter beauty, not unlike Summer, tempts my eyes with the deception that I may swallow it all. I try. But I come up short, always. This Heaven-craving soul that tells my body “I’m ALIVE!” shall always hunt for the beautiful remnants and shadows of it on earth while here I roam. However futile, the beauty-quest keeps me alive. Running keeps me alive.

The 45 minutes in my car between mega and miniscule are a temporary parade of what I shall forever enjoy once I finally find Home. For 45 minutes thanksgiving spills out, and laughter. I laugh at the wild beauty, the Creator’s mirth in sharing it all with me. My hands open to receive it.

Mini: Laughing, soul full, I arrive. It is a fellowship in the country, a church which has fed a flock since before worshippers began marking time within the century prior to our present one. The noses of a dozen parked cars stare sleepily at its relaxed, weathered grey walls. Children, many of whom are my little cousins, canvas yard and sanctuary. Very old folks sit inside on tired pews. Younger old folks congregate outside on cracked steps. From the doors, praise invites us inside. Gladly, I accept.

Here I will smile, sing, greet, teach, talk, pack, and away. I never earned entrance. I am “in” because my family is “in;” has been “in” for generations.

It is here I feel loved. Loved is comfortable, but dangerous: Missionary teacher. Can do no wrong. She must walk on water.

I fear. For myself, I fear my heart's propensity towards God-belittling self-worship: the parading of Abbey's righteousness. For my church, I fear their apprehension of the gospel message. Which do they believe? The Jesus-gospel? That we are completely helpless. We need a strong Savior to rescue us from our addictions, our idolatry, our morality. Or is their hope in a gospel of personal righteousness? Being present makes me good enough. My morality makes me acceptable to the King of the Heavens.

I shudder. All my righteousness is like crap. Isaiah 64:6. I think about that when I go to the bathroom: Abbey’s morality is like crap. Disgusting. Thank God for Jesus! The Lamb of God who takes away sin! At great expense to Himself, He cleans me. I get His righteousness.

I away. And as this week's Sunday morning gauntlet concludes I ponder these things on my drive out of the country. I ponder worship, and community, the gospel, and self-deception. I ponder my fears. I ponder Belonging, and I wonder, will in the next chapter of life I Belong? For in this one, I feel myself still searching for home.

Mega and miniscule. Dear to my heart, both. The dearness keeps me on my knees for big and for little. And that is a good place to be. The closest place to Home.

IRAQ: The Haps (Round 2)

Friends and Relations!

There has been a small hiccup in my Iraq-bound communication over the past nine months and I wanted to catch you up.

Last July I was unable, through circumstances over which God’s quiet providences are now better visible, to raise the $12,000 needed to teach in Iraq with Servant Group International this school year. With that door closed- at least temporarily- I chose to run through another opened one and for the past six months have been living the California dream in Sacramento with my gracious aunt and uncle. This time has been rich with my Heavenly Father’s lavish gifts- particularly as I enjoy my extended family.

I moved to Sacramento in August knowing nothing of the 2,000 + (and growing) Iraqi refugee population herein. (Sacramento is home to an even larger population of mid-eastern refuges from the neighboring countries of Syria, Jordan, and Iran.) Through my new home church this quickly became known and I was able to immediately plug into an outreach which, amazingly, incorporates teaching! Since September I have been volunteering weekly at a Christian center tutoring Arabic speaking young people in English. In all of Sacramento and her sprawling suburbs, the Arab American Learning Center (AALC) at which we meet is no more than four miles away from my workplace! Does God care about the details in the stories He tells?! Every good author does.

Through my time at the AALC I am getting first-hand exposure to mid-eastern culture under the wise guidance of women who love Jesus and who have years of experience ministering to this population. Their counsel and prayer are worth as much as the life-on-life opportunities I’m getting with the students themselves! As with so many of God’s gifts, the AALC is a multi-faceted one I never even dreamed of asking Him for! And He delivered it wrapped neatly with the affirmation that I’m following the path He has for me.

Before I get to Iraq this fall and step into the classroom I cannot know for certain what subject(s)/grade level(s) I will be teaching in the K-12 school to which SGI assigns me. One of the top three qualities SGI needs of their teachers is flexibility; a second quality they need is flexibility! As a substitute teacher in two Sacramento districts I am getting a lot of practice! Qualifying to teach as a sub is just another one of many details God has worked out to prepare me for this fall. As they say in Haiti, Mesi, Jezi!

Of the many discoveries I’ve made about California one of the most significant is that Cali culture does not naturally cultivate community such as I experienced in the Midwest. The transient, non-committal mind-set of my new neighbors is fascinating, liberating, and a complex, irresolvable irritant. God’s most recent gift to me in this California chapter of life has been to soothe this irritant through immersing me in a ministry training program called the Global Pipeline. A local church offers GP to its members who are focused on refugee outreach. They kindly invited me to participate (although I am not a member!). Through the community created by GP I am learning how Muslims think, what they believe, effective ways to love them, and best of all, growing in my own love for Jesus.

Thank you for your support over these past nine months of planning, pursuing, and practicing flexibility. Though I have not been actively support-raising, through your generosity I have already raised nearly 25% of my goal! That means that I have until June to raise the remaining $9,000. Please consider how you can help me! Once you know, you can donate directly by cutting and pasting this link into a new window: https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=67001 Donating directly through SGI ensures that your gift is tax-deductible.

Thank you for journeying with me! Please keep in touch through "following" my blog and leaving your comments. I will be making weekly postings on Wednesday/Thursday of each week. Bon weekend!

Inviting Jesus

I am learning that taking care of me is too big a task for me alone.

I fight hard, run hard, plan hard, strive, grasp, strain, feeding off the lie that “It’s up to me, after all” to execute this thing called Abbey’s life, to make life work.

Exhausted. That’s where the careening locomotion of my living deposits me- at the depot of Exhaustion. Here, at the leaky fountain I drink stale mouthfuls of disappointment. The oppressive air of loneliness is heavy. So much mass that it pierces past skin and assaults my soul. There are no other travelers at this station. I alone.

Because I failed, or forgot? to invite travelers along with me. I feel the lonely air weigh down body and soul. My fault, my own fault. Defeat is mine, this is what independent, self-reliant, practical atheists deserve. My portion, the dry taste in the mouth and the regretful ache in the heart.

Setting out on my bike last night. The Klings’ neighborhood; not my own. Unfamiliar. Brain racing as feet begin to pedal: “I must make this work. I must find a route. I must blaze a trail.” One hour before dusk and the task is defined. I am the train careening forward through the unknown. And the lonely ache rises, here, at the beginning of the Journey, disappointment enters.

Grace! The disappointment is His gift of grace to me in this moment. The rising loneliness whispers that life might be different. He intervenes. “You are forgetting Me, Abbey.” Yes! Lucidity. A moment of sanity cracks across my night soul more powerful than a thunderbolt across wilderness sky. I was forgetting Him. Forgetting my God. Forging forward alone into “great matters, things too difficult for me” (Psalm 131). A bike ride in Sacramento’s suburbia alone at dusk.

I respond. Penitent Lucy, saddened eyes ashamed to look full in Aslan’s face. “Jesus, yes, I was forgetting You. The rising empty ache tells me so. Thank You for that. Come with me, Jesus. Ride with me alone tonight. Show me the way. Let’s do this. Together.”

Acknowledgement of sin, of my practical atheism, destroys the bulwark Pride erected between my God and I. There is no barrier now. Together we ride. He shares with me a dirt trail, children relishing in cool evening air at the park, a smooth road, a hill to climb, then one to coast and climb again, sweat and breath, sight and movement. Quarter moon rises over silhouetted treetops, spindly pines and taller palm trees. Silvery wonder illuminates night’s blue black heavens. We share this, on this ride I take with Jesus. The one I am too small to take alone.