I have SO much to say just from today alone (and it's only 1:45, mind you), but I know that if I don't tell you about the rest of the Memphis trip now, it may never make its way on here, so let's do this:
I ended last time on the Monday of our trip where we visited the Civil Rights Museum, and ate some AMAZING Gus's Fried Chicken. After that we worked in Uptown cleaning/organizing a church/community center (at the church where Michael Oher's youth pastor still works, how neat!). I spent most of my time on shuffling cans/food around in the pantry with Kaelye, Zach, and Chelsea just trying to make order out of chaos, and trying not to think about the dead mouse that I happened to find within the first five minutes of working. We got it done though, so we helped with other odd jobs around the building. I was so proud of how efficiently our team was working. No one complained a bit! We even finished early so we got to go back to our home away from home for a much needed nap!
Later that night, we met up with the Iowans (another mission group in Memphis the same time we were there) and got to do a Q&A with Ricky Jenkins, the preacher from Fellowship Memphis Downtown. He spoke a lot about racial reconciliation which was good for me to hear because my hometown is pretty diverse, but there are still a ton of problems to work through. Many hurt, lost people that we could be talking to but aren't, and it's all because of our silly racial divisions.
Ricky started off reading from John 4 about Jesus speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well. The background of this situation is this: Jews hated Samaritans so much they'd add days to their journeys just to avoid going through Samaritan territory. Also, women in that time were pretty much only valued for their ability to have children. So basically, everything in the world was against Jesus (a Jew) having a conversation with this woman (a Samaritan). In fact, he could have been dragged out of the city and stoned just for speaking to her. Did he let that stop him? Nope. Jesus' followers were bewildered that he was talking to a woman, much less a Samaritan woman that just happened to be a "lady-of-the-night." One of the big things to draw from this is, even when she wasn't thinking about him, he was thinking about her. Jesus found her just as she was and loved her.
As a result of Jesus' intentionality, someone who probably never would have been saved was, and it wasn't just an emotional thing like so many Americans get sucked into, but it was a heart change. Before meeting Jesus, this woman was an outcast in her own society, but after meeting Jesus, she went back into the town and joyfully told her story. Have you really met Jesus? If you said yes, has it changed your heart and your actions? Imagine what God could do with your life if you started being intentional about sharing the good news that is Jesus Christ!
We learned all of that to apply it to this: in Memphis (and really anywhere today), racism is organized- it is understood and expected, just as it was in biblical times between Jews and Samaritans. We have to accept the fact that people will probably see you as racist, even just by talking to other races, and especially when you try to teach someone of another race something (even if you don't mean it like that at all.) A lot of what Memphis is dealing with are old wounds. Many people think that "time heals all wounds," but Ricky said it well in saying, "God heals all wounds in time." People will not initially accept the racial reconciliation that these churches are trying to induce, but when those people actually see people living out what they're preaching, in essence, living out the gospel, things will start to change.
Another thing that Ricky talked about that I myself am guilty of is don't assume that because you're different from whoever you're speaking to you have to ask 40,000 questions. I'm the kind of person who LOVES learning about other people - their culture, their lives, them in general, so I'm sure I can fall into the category of the annoying-20-questions-girl sometimes. The best way to get to know someone is to lay down your rights, do life with them, and BE the gospel. As a college student, I will never be more available to do life with people than I am right now, so that really hit me hard. Life will pick up and life will get busy, but right now I have time to make the most of, and I need to start doing it!
I didn't realize that I was going to put in so much info, so I'll let y'all chew on that for a while before I talk more about the trip! Hopefully I'm not boring you to death, I'm just so excited for how God moved and what God is doing in the lives of the Memphians and in my own!
By the way, I survived my biology test. Don't know the grade, but I'm DONE. Yay for the weekend!
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