Rants

Typically I love a good serious, thought-provoking, faith-inspiring exposition. However today, I'm just in the mood to rant about all sorts of things. So grab a drink, sit down, put your feet up, and enjoy a taste of my life.

First of all, birthdays are really important to me. The last few birthdays I've had have not been great. Last year only one of my close friends called me to tell me happy birthday. Each memory of my birthday brings with it an onslaught of terrible thoughts and memories. However this year, I felt so blessed on my birthday. Still none of my close friends from college came to celebrate (but at least they all called!), but there was still an incredible group of people with us. Most of them I've only known the last year or two, but it's been amazing how close we've gotten so quickly. So Mexican (Buffalo chicken quesadillas), Mango Margaritas, mojitos, hookahs, cheesecakes and other desserts made for a great night. As well as some of GREAT gifts.

Secondly, my friend Kristin and I have started a bra company. Affectionately called "Dueling Gazelles." We figure women need a Victoria's Secret quality store, but one that's a little less pricey for such small amounts of fabric. So far our "line" ideas are: "Purity", complete with hidden Scriptures throughout the seams; "Forbidden Fruit", quite possibly scented with fruit embellishments; "Armor of God" which is more of a bondage themed line, but unique and wearable nonetheless. Who doesn't want to feel hot under their clothes? No one has to know but you, and I'm sure you'd walk around with 15 times more confidence than normal- but maybe that's because this line would also be completely bullet-proof and flame retardant. Yep, it's that good and multi-purposed (inspired by the woman who got shot and her underwire kept the bullet from getting to her heart). We're still working out the details of our "Cupcake/Dessert" line but haven't gotten it quite sorted out yet. However we do have a conflict with our name. We were hoping for a really clever Song of Solomon reference, and "Dueling Gazelles" is what we came up with. But when we studied Song of Solomon a little further, we learned that the man is called a gazelle and the woman is called a stag. Yikes. So essentially our name means "Fighting Men." Great. Although catchy, it speaks to the potential problems with our garments, rather than the solution we want our customers to be drawn to. So we're open to suggestions.

Last rant: I think I deserve a prize for healthiest eater. And by healthiest eater, I mean most horrific and terrible eater. I hate vegetables. I started to work on tomatoes and peppers, only to find Im developing slight allergies to those. Awesome, really making progress here. I also learned that my system is too acidic which means....cut down on the fruit. Really? Thats the only healthy thing I eat, and you're telling me I eat so much of it that its actually having a negative impact on my health? You've got to be kidding me. My response: first I made French Toast with powdered sugar and syrup. Then I had an ice cold coca cola classic with a homemade chocolate chip cookie. I made sure to work out first so that I wouldn't feel so guilty about such a great meal, but one lap around the apartment complex and 10 lunges hardly puts a dent in the amount of powdered sugar and syrup I used on my French toast (but i did wear ankle weights!!). But I felt better about it for sure, and let's be honest...that's really all that matters.

Thanks for reading and maybe I'll post a few more rants soon. I'm slacking on my blogging. Sorry.

Social Justice

Recently over the last few weeks I've become exposed to the need for social justice. For years I thought social justice was merely a "liberal" thought or tactic for people to gain money and recognition for themselves or their organization, or it was for people who had nothing better to do with their time...people that wanted to help but had a few lousy ideas that sounded good, but weren't practical and realistic. Or maybe it was just for people who wanted to look like the "church," rather than just BE the "Church."

Straight up, social justice just wasn't for me.

I didn't understand the issues, I didn't understand the importance. I didn't know the facts, and I didn't understand the heart of the matter. But a lot of things have changed over the last few weeks. I ended a year of spending time with the homeless in downtown Atlanta every Sunday, I've been following a lot of stories from Heidi and Rolland Baker in Mozambique, as well as Compassion International. I've also gotten plugged into Exodus Cry...a group based out of IHOP Kansas City that deals with raising awareness and building prayer momentum for the sex trafficking industry. All of these things have shaped my view and my heart on what social justice is really all about.

On our last day at Taskforce for the Homeless, the poorest and least-equipped homeless shelter in Atlanta, we discovered something that might have changed the way we did ministry all along. We learned that even this poor, dilapidated shelter provided the homeless men with MARTA cards, bus passes, ids, access to computers, telephones and beds. Churches came in every day of the week serving 3+ hot meals a day and delivering clothes to the men and women. The homeless were not without at all. They receive social security checks and welfare checks every two weeks...some checks are for even more than Patrick and I get week to week. But for some reason these men are still homeless. They have access to just about anything they need, but they are still homeless. No amount of government money or aid is going to encourage them to get out of their situation. The streets of Atlanta are comfortable and familiar.

So what's the problem?

After reading through some blogs of those on the Compassion trip to India right now, and hearing stories from Mozambique and Thailand....there are some significant things that I've started noticing. 

One: There are many countries that are so poor that there is no option to work harder and make more money. When your crop fields are flooded, and so is your entire country...there are very few resources. Even the government can't do anything. When your town doesn't have roads to it, it's hard to bring relief in. When everyone in your town lives in mud shacks, it's very hard to find the money or resources to live in something different. 

Two: Those that have nothing are the most hungry. The homeless in Atlanta are not hungry. I'm not talking about physical hunger, I'm talking about spiritual hunger. The kind of hunger that can linger on one simple Truth about Jesus for months. The kind of hunger that searches for answers when there are no answers. The kind of hunger that burns deep and won't stop until something inside is satisfied. 

The thing is, we can't change people's hearts or mindsets. We can do things to call forth dreams and creativity, but we can't stir up someone's hunger. And the people that aren't hungry, don't want answers. But there are countless people that are hungry, but don't have access to the answers. Like the poor in Mozambique, or India, or those involved in the sex slave trade. Even some of the homeless. It's our responsibility to provide answers when there are none, even if the people aren't hungry. 

Sometimes you don't realize how hungry you've been until you have eaten and gotten full. 

So we can't withhold answers just because someone doesn't "look" hungry. Because deep down, they are probably hungrier than they realize. Hungry for love. Hungry for Truth and for grace. Hungry for honesty and generosity. 

Go Green

So, it might be time for me to jump on the "Go Green" bandwagon. Why not learn how to be more efficient with your energy and money?

Today Oprah provided a variety of small ways that make a huge difference in the impact on our environment. One of my favorite being making your own cleaning supplies! Click here to see how some basic household items (vinegar, water, baking soda...etc) clean well but are also great for the environment (can save you up to $600 a year). 

There are tons of other ways to make your home more green. For example: 

1.Clean out your dryer lint regularly to help increase the efficiency of your dryer and lessen the amount of power needed to dry your clothes (not hard and keeps your bill lower). 

2. Switch from incandescent lightbulbs to LED bulbs. Although they are just short of $40 to start, they last for ten years and save you $740 over the life of the bulb, as well as being way better for the environment. 

3. Use weather stripping around all the openings in your house to keep out the unwanted heat/cold. 

4. Keep your blinds closed when you aren't home so that your house is not heated unnecessarily.

5. Invest in a water aerator that cuts the amount of water that comes through your faucet by 1-5 gallons daily. They are $2 and don't change the pressure you feel coming out of the faucet. 36 towns will face droughts over the next few years so this is a way to reduce the amount of water you use, as well as cut down on your bill.

6. By buying a water purifying pitcher for $30, you save over $300 a year in bottled water (not to mention how much better it is for the environment to not be using so much plastic.

7. Drive the speed limit, reduce the amount of aggressive driving and lane switching and save money on gas. 

8. Use only reusable containers for lunches, snacks and water. 

9. Choosing to not eat meat one day a week is the equivalent of taking 20 million mid-sized sedans off the road. By pushing meat aside, you bring fruits and vegetables to the center of your plate which means you eat healthier. 

10. Eat foods that are living and will eventually rot. Processed foods cause the most waste while also taking the most fossil fuel to produce. Eat foods around the outer ring of the grocery store, that's where the healthier choices are. 

11. If you can afford it, buy organic and sustainably grown food. Most regular fruit and vegetables only have 50% of their original nutrients (requiring you to eat more in order to get all the benefits), while organic and sustainably grown food still have a majority of their nutrients. 

I've never been a "tree-hugger" but many of these suggestions save you money, protect the environment, and are ten times healthier. Why not choose to go green?

Excerpt from "Always Enough"

     "They were hungry, tired and penniless. This was our first conference in Nampula Province, a major event. Some of our pastors had walked from their villages for two days without food to get here, sleeping on the dirt by the side of the road at night. Others walked four days, and one six days-to learn from us. All came with only the poor, threadbare clothes on their backs. Now they were all waiting to see what we would do. Guy asked them, 'What are you most afraid of?' 'That our children will starve to death while we are here,' they answered simply. They didn't even know how they would survive going home. What did we have to say?

     Heidi and I deliberately came to Mozambique to face situations like this. We came to test the Gospel and strip from our preaching everything that didn't work and wasn't the Truth. We came to give people the living Jesus, not to try out our mission strategy on them. We came to love the poorest of the poor into the Kingdom, not to promise them a cheap road to health and wealth. We came asking Jesus to kill us, destroy us and remake us however He wanted so that we would be useful to Him here. And now we faced the test. 

     These people were suffering. They were sick and weak. They had seen their children die in their arms. Muslims persecuted them. They saw no hope outside the Good News we brought. So we preached the purest, simplest messages we could, straight from Scripture. We had no confidence in any other ideas we might have. They needed words that the Holy Spirit would back up. They needed to know what Jesus will bless and support, what will attract His company and presence. They needed content they could depend on to the death."

These are three of the most significant paragraphs in this book to me, for obvious reasons. I love these paragraphs, they are so challenging and life-speaking to me. 

Always Enough

So, I'm reading a book right now that is plucking every heart string that I have. It is called "Always Enough" by Heidi and Rolland Baker. Heidi and Rolland are missionaries in Mozambique and they work among the poorest of the poor. They spent years in Hong Kong and Indonesia living in trash dumps and slums with people. Then they ended up in Mozambique with orphans from the streets. Children that would get dropped off on their doorstep that had been abused and raped and watched their parents be killed...and Heidi and Rolland would just listen to them and hold them and love them. They found ways to get food and shelter and clothing for these children and show them the love of Jesus. And what started out as a handful of children from the dump turned into hundreds, and now there are over 7 thousand of children that Heidi and Rolland are "parents" of. 

They planted several churches over the course of a few years, and then they got radically touched by God's presence in Toronto. Once touched by the Presence of God, they came back to Mozambique and started thousands and thousands of churches in a very short amount of time...full of thriving people who are seeing God show up in so many ridiculous and unexpected ways. 

They live so much on God's faithfulness that they would not be able to live if God didn't show up. They have very little money or possessions and count on God every single day. Their hundreds of children wouldn't eat if food wasn't multiplied daily. They see the blind and deaf healed regularly and have reported over 100 people being raised from the dead. Everything is about the love of Jesus in Mozambique. They feast on the love of Jesus. They spend hours in praise in worship every day. They love to talk about God and the miracles that He is doing among them. 

When Heidi and her teams go to new villages, they call up all the blind and deaf and heal them. Once the town sees these people that they've always known to be blind or deaf, healed, they immediately are open to hearing the Gospel. Heidi's team then shows the Jesus film and spends time ministering to the village. It is so cool that God is so good and powerful and full of love and hope, that people can be brought out of any circumstance and be transformed through one touch by the Father. 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6oB0UTwNK0  This is a video with some clips of Heidi in Mozambique. Just thought you might be interested in seeing "Mama Aida" (Mama Help) and her precious children in Mozambique. www.irismin.org/p/home.php   This is the Iris Ministries website. 

I definitely encourage anyone and everyone to read the story "Always Enough" and see how good and faithful God is despite some horrific circumstances. 

Psalm 126

When the Lord brought back the captive ones of Zion, we were like those who dreamed. Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with joyful shouting. Then we will say among the nations "The Lord has done great things!" 

Ps. 126:1-2

Guyana pictures

Above: our group on the boat

Below: Patrick and I after "playing" Pahgwah

Above: the house where we stayed

Below: a typical house in Guyana...up on stilts with a stream that runs in front of the house

Above: Part of our group in the "black water"

Below: where the boys slept on the porch

Above: a Guyanese woman

Below: Our group minus Alan Winter 

Above: berries at the market

Below: Patrick and I on the front of the boat

Home from Guyana

We are home from Guyana! What an incredible trip we had. God is so good and faithful all the time.


Some highlights of the trip include:

• all 14 members of the team staying in one pastor's house
• eating extravagant amounts of East Indian food (lots of curry)
• trying countless new fruits none of us had ever heard of
• seeing over 240 instant miracles!!!
• lots of Guyanese came to know the Lord
• we "celebrated" Pahgwah with the natives (a Hindu holiday)
• the boys slept in hammocks on the upstairs porch
• we took a boat across the Demerara river and then up a long winding tributary with a picnic of bbq chicken, macaroni and cheese, rice, vegetables, a homemade heart-shaped lemon cake with icing, and a cooler full of water, sprite and coke
• we visited an Amer-Indian Reservation accessible only by boat
• we swam in "black water"- it gets its name due to the large amount of tanic acid in it that comes up from the ground
• we all preached and led at least one service a piece
• we saw the largest wooden structure in the world (an old church in Georgetown, the capital)
• getting well acquainted with all sorts of bugs that bit- I had over 40 bites and a rash that made parts of my arms and legs swell up pretty bad
• we rode on a horse carriage/buggy one afternoon
• learned how to play cricket with a nationally known cricket umpire
• ate lunch with one of the highest ranked military officials of Guyana
• learned about the different forms of Hinduism
• spent several days at Save-R-Kids Children's Home and had a chance to pray over and give words to every single child individually
• then the children put on a singing/dancing program for us
• had lemon shandy- a low alcohol content beer that is a very popular drink in Guyana
• got up at 4am in order to get to the airport in time and to start our 18+ hours of travel

Although this isn't an exhaustive list, it still gives you an idea of some of the things we got to do. The list of spiritual things that happened and that we learned would take up an entire set of encyclopedias. We saw God show up in some strange and crazy and awesome ways. I'd love to share if you want to hear more! Shoot me an email at maryhwest@gmail.com or call me. Pictures are up on facebook, but I'll post some here as soon as I can. Thanks to everyone who gave generously to this trip! It really was remarkable.

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve in Zion- to bestow on them beauty instead of ashes, oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of dispair. The will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor. Is. 61:1-3

Listen to "Desert Song" by Hillsong on youtube...I listened to this a lot.

Guyana

Tomorrow I leave for Guyana and I couldn't be more excited. The coolest thing to me is that we're the first mission team being sent out from Bethel Atlanta. Last night at school we had a chance to be prayed over and get words from everyone for our trip. That definitely revved me up like crazy. I feel like our whole class is getting to travel with us. We've become such a tightly knit group that one person's victory is everyone else's victory. So I know that we're going to advance the Kingdom and re-claim territory for more than just us. 

Guyana has a really unique mixture of people. It's one of the only non-Spanish speaking countries in Latin America and most of it's residents come from either Hindu and Muslim influence.  I've been fortunate enough to do lots of different mission trips before, but this is one trip that will be completely new and different and challenging to me. I'm excited to learn about the Guyanese culture and to really  be stretched. 

I've been reading the Happy Intercessor by Beni Johnson and it has revolutionized the way I pray for different things. It's all about how to get strategies from heaven on how to pray. What's been cool is that I've been digging into this book before our mission trip so its been neat to see some different things in God's heart for Guyana. I'll be excited to get down there and  see what I have heard clearly from God and what I haven't. It's so important that we keep checking ourselves and fine tuning our Spirit so that we can start to hear more clearly and act more effectively. God is so good and wants to show up in big ways in Guyana. I can't wait to see what happens!

Love you guys!

Best Friends Reunited!!

So....let's just say, God is good. All the time.

When I first met Christina, I thought surely someone like her in the world couldn't actually exist. Fortunately for me, I was wrong. I met her one of my first weekends at UGA and it truly was love at first sound (we had a long talk on the phone before we actually met in person).  Her brother was the college pastor at my home church and he was insistent upon us meeting each other. So we talked on the phone and met at a Starbucks in downtown Athens one night. We must have talked forever and very quickly learned that our friendship was very different from anyone else's. 

Christina is one of those people that you feel instantly known by. She automatically sees good and beauty in people and allows them the freedom to be themselves. She is radiant and compassionate, gracious and honest. Two or three years into our friendship I came to the conclusion that our friendship mirrored that of David and Jonathan. She got to know me quicker than anyone ever has and found ways to meet me where I was at. She would crawl into the dark places with me or she'd celebrate any victory. She'd pray for me and fight for me in ways I couldn't believe. We both used to study and do terrible on all the same tests. I maintain that we are both very smart but horrific at taking tests. We could talk about anything for hours and enjoy the most random things. I liked to think that she was the introverted version of myself. However, she knew how to act like an extrovert. 

Unfortunately, through a system of events, we took a 2 1/2 year hiatus on our friendship. We were both hurt through several things that started as out of our control but motivated us each to make some poor decisions that didn't help our friendship. We slowly backed away from each other for different reasons and in the summer of '06 parted ways. 

But the good news is GOD IS GOOD. So so good. Full of healing and restoration and beauty. He has brought the most precious person in the world back to me. And I feel so honored and blessed right now. I feel like part of my heart is back again. Christina is truly the most beautiful and compassionate person in the whole world, and I hope you all have an opportunity to meet her.