Poetry Corner | A Time to Talk, by Robert Frost

When a friend calls to me from the road

And slows his horse to a meaning walk,

I don't stand still and look around

On all the hills I haven't hoed,

And shout from where I am, What is it?

No, not as there is a time to talk.

I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,

Blade-end up and five feet tall,

And plod: I go up to the stone wall

For a friendly visit.

the ministry of showing up

On Friday evenings I co-lead a church youth group.

Those who know me well will recognize the irony of this fact.

I never attended youth group. (Actually, I think I did for a brief season, but I expunged the experience from my memory.) I always preferred joining my parents for their Bible studies.

Even as a teenager, I had very little idea how to interact with your average teenager. Give me a book or a grown-up. Or a soccer ball so we can play a hard game of soccer and not bother with awkward small talk.

So when I joined the team that leads the youth group, I had no idea what I was getting into. Literally: the group for 20-somethings I attend is called Jugend (youth), and the group I co-lead is called TeenKreis (teen circle). So it did not once occur to me that I was volunteering to lead a youth group until I walked into our first meeting. Yes, I can be painfully oblivious.

I did a quick survey of the room, realizing that there were around fifteen kids between the ages of 13 and 17. Lounging on couches, talking in cliques, the girls with braces and the boys with changing voices.

Oh my gosh. This is youth group.

Not gonna lie, I had a moment of wanting to turn around and walk right out the door.

But I was there as a leader, so I made conversation. At which point I realized Challenge Number 2: this is a German group. So I'm supposed to engage with and teach teenagers - a group I've never been able to relate with - in a foreign language. Super.

I went home that night and poured out my frustration to God.

"Why am I doing this? What have I gotten myself into? I don't know how to relate to these kids! Even if we were interacting in English I would have no idea what to say to them. And we're speaking German, for crying out loud! It's all I can do to keep up with the conversation, and then I'm supposed to say something meaningful and be some sort of role model? This is not what I signed up for. Ok, maybe it's what I signed up for, but I wasn't aware of it, and that's almost worse."

And He quietly answered, "Kate. They don't need you to relate to them. They need you to love them."

Oh.

Ok then.

There's really no other answer to that.

So on Fridays, I show up, struggle through conversations, and pray that these teens will experience some small taste of the love of God through my presence, even when I have no idea what I'm doing. When I run into them in church on Sundays, we make small talk. With lots of awkward pauses. This Friday night, I'm in charge of the devotional: 45 minutes to talk about plagues. (We're working through the book of Exodus.) I'm looking up all the terms I think will be important, trying to come up with meaningful discussion questions, working to anticipate their questions, and praying for the grace to handle the inevitable language mix-ups with poise and humor.

Mostly I'm praying that they will know the God who showed His power with a mighty hand and outstretched arm over Egypt. Praying that they will know His love and power and presence. That they will be amazed by Him.

*

I feel like there should be some sort of clear point to this, but I'm not quite there yet. The closest I can come is this: Something that the Lord has shown me recently is that often I'm not supposed to know what's going on. I'm just to faithfully be present and expect Him to work.

I've started calling it "the ministry of showing up."

So that's what I'm doing: showing up with my meager offering and expecting Him to be faithful in serving His children.

I have a feeling I'll probably be writing more about this "ministry of showing up" in the next few months, since it's a part of many areas of my life, not just youth group.

Where is God calling you to show up and be present?

Things I Learned This Month | September 2018

I have a confession: I have been resenting the onset of fall. Usually I welcome the advent of sweater weather, but this year I clung to the last remnants of summer. Now that it's October, fall and I have made our peace and I'm enjoying bundling, but it's a struggle. As is usual with the close of a month, I'm sharing a few things I learned during September - mostly ordinary, some extraordinary.

{Also, I had the chance to write a guest post for The Write 100 Challenge last month. Check it out here.}

1. All the chicken things. I listened to The Lazy Genius Cooks Chicken a few days ago. Its a 40+ minute episode on all the different cuts of chicken and different things to do with them. I'm now dying to try change-your-life chicken. Also braising.

2. Pumpkin soup, which I already loved, is ratcheted up a notch when you add ginger, garlic, curry, and coconut milk. Yum. I'm so not a pumpkin spice latte person (hello tea-drinker), but I live on pumpkin soup in the fall.

3. Scrubbing the kitchen floor is THE BEST feeling. I moved back into my Munich apartment this month. Last year when I moved in, there were already people here, so I couldn't do a real deep clean. But this year I had the apartment to myself for a few weeks, and I attacked that kitchen. It probably hadn't been properly cleaned in five years. The final step was the floor. I got down on my hands and knees with two buckets of water, a scrub brush, and a rag and SCRUBBED that floor. End result, a job well done and a kitchen that feels clean for the first time since I moved here.

4. There is a tool to get at those pernicious weeds that root themselves in cracks in the driveway. It's a speed weeder and it is a beautiful creation. (Also it has a red handle. Score.) I found this randomly in a hardware store and bought it on a whim. This thing works wonders. You still have to apply a lot of elbow grease, but it's actually effectively applied elbow grease. My usual experience is huffing and puffing and straining and failing to get the roots of those weeds. This thing is easy on the wrist (directs force through the shoulder) AND gets the roots. Beautiful.

5. Dordrecht might be Holland's best-kept secret. My parents and I found this little gem of a town on a fluke and absolutely loved our stay there. I'm hoping to do an actual post on it eventually, but let's just say it has antique/junk shops galore, terrific seafood, idyllic canals, and a nature reserve where you can kayak. And everyone is incredibly friendly. Basically it's the perfect weekend getaway.

6. The Cinque Terre is one of my favorite places on earth. I knew this already, but I forgot how much I loved it in the 7 or 8 years since I've been there. I went this weekend with friends and fell in love with it all over again. There is nothing better than hiking hard along the Italian coast all day and then diving into the Mediterranean to refresh.

7. That word translated "angels" in Psalm 8? It's actually a word almost exclusively used for God. The word "angels" is actually 'elohiym. That word shows up 2,606 times in the Old Testament, and it's translated "God" 2,346 times, "god" 244 times, and then miscellaneous other things like "angels" the remaining 16 times. I could write a whole post on why this is awesome, but I'll content myself by suggesting that you go listen to Marty Goetz's song inspired by this Psalm. It pulls out the link to Christ as the Son of Man in such a cool way.

"When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than the angels,
and crowned him with glory and honor."