Breathe Reflections

I sit on a train, Lake Thune to my right, hills, clouds and mountains to my left, Switzerland is an amazing place to take a deep breath. To Breathe.

139 people gathered from all over the world, nations you and I may never dare go. From the hard to reach places, the isolated, to the populated, from hurt, from brokenness, from exhaustion and hopelessness, from the ups and downs of life in cultures not their own, they all came and gathered. Even though each story different, each wound unique, they gathered under one name.

This community quickly became a safe place, a place of heart to hearts and tears and real people walking through the real messiness, taking off masks and opening up, one day at a time. Story by story I was touched by the vastness of God, the intricacies of his love, his unique call, protection, grace and desire to work in each person, in each situation. It was a privilege and a joy.

In the kids program we spent our days singing and dancing and going on long walks, playing games, coloring and learning about the armor of God. I got to work alongside an amazing husband and wife team who were so full of energy, creativity and care for the kids. They read a book that was pretty profound for the kids. The metaphor will stick with me. In the book, the places the little boy lives are different colors and he becomes swirled with the colors of the different cultures and places that he has lived in. This led to a sweet and impactful discussion of how the kids are colored by the different cultures they have live in. These struggles of fitting in and finding a place are considered a third, sometimes fourth and fifth culture. I’m sure I learned more from their little hearts, than they learned from me. In this space they were understood, listened to and encouraged by others facing similar obstacles. They are little world changers.

The days were long and tiring in the kids program, but every morning when I awoke to the fresh mountain air and the sun beaming through the tall windows of the great room, I was refreshed too. We ate every delicious Swiss meal together, breakfasts of bread and cheese, meat and yogurt. One evening we had a chocolate tasting, one a wine tasting, another a cheese tasting. All within view of green pastures and snowy white Jungfrau, the highest peak in Europe.

I was able to connect with counselors who work all over the world, make connections and hear hearts that will influence what I do and where I go.

Yes, part of me feels like it was some kind of dreamland, where real people encounter real goodness and truth that bears souls wide open. I am realizing now that this is a taste of heaven, a taste of God’s healing and wholeness and his love.

Thank you all who supported me in this; my time at Breathe was both impactful, challenging, encouraging and all around a privilege.

Thank you!

 

Switzerland or Bust

Switzerland?!?

First things first, I will be graduating in May with a Psychology degree and plan on getting a master’s degree in counseling starting next fall! I have gone a year and a half straight through school and so thoughts of graduation have begun dancing in my head. How can I make the most of this time between undergrad and grad school? I asked myself.

It has been two brutal and shaping years since I’ve traveled abroad and I therefore I began praying about what to do with all this time I am about to have. Think fun and practical, something that furthers my career aspirations and yet engages my heart, serving and learning.

I was reminded of a family friend who started this retreat for missionaries…In Switzerland…. As I relayed the details to a friend I said, “That’s like my dream.” If I could get paid to do counseling retreats for missionaries I would in a heartbeat. I can think of nothing better than pouring into people who God has called to “go” so that they can more fully pour out and reach the nations…. And if that involves travelling as well, heck let me pack my bags. It soon became clear that I needed to dive in.

Eventually, once I have a Masters degree, I want to counsel missionaries who have been overseas, ideally while they are still on the field. If you have ever engaged with missionaries of any kind, you know that they work hard, give of themselves and strive in a lot of areas of life in order to do ministry in foreign lands. It is no easy road.

To my utter dismay I found that most missions organizations do not have good mental healthcare programs. Psychological care is needed… For all of us, but especially those in suppressed environments. When you combine learning a new culture and language, with spiritual warfare and the everyday stresses of finances and family and work, you get strain on all areas of life.

In short, the mission of this organization speaks to my heart, and God’s heart for those called to be missionaries.

I have been invited to serve on the volunteer staff at this conference called Breathe, a ten-day conference for missionaries and their families happening June 20 – July 2, 2016 in Interlaken, Switzerland. The vision for this conference is to care for and encourage missionaries who serve in difficult places. Many of these people work in “closed access” countries where it is illegal to be a Christian or to talk about Christianity.

This type of support for missionaries and other Christian leaders overseas is sorely lacking (or non-existent in many regions) and, as a result, many face on-going and overwhelming stress, exhaustion, family problems, illness and other forms of crises.

Having witnessed a first hand account of this in Thailand it is my hope that through my experience and my schooling I will be able to help missionaries lead healthy ministries in the future by getting the counsel and support they need to be healthy in all aspects of their lives.

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:1-2). The renewal of our minds helps us to walk out God’s will more fully as our minds align with His heart.

Since I am no Master… yet I have been invited to help with the kids program. Yippee! I love me some kids and as they live as third culture kids (not part of their culture of origin and not part of the culture of residence), we hope to provide them with some engagement and fun they might not get in the country they live in. This retreat is also a chance to connect with the counselors on staff and ask questions and glean from their experiences. Think annoying girl with notebook at mealtimes… but in all seriousness to be the hands and feet of Jesus to these missionaries that the body of Christ may be strengthened.

The Uniqueness of the Breathe Conference

• A full ten-day program (rather than a weekend seminar)
• Held near Interlaken, Switzerland at a Christian conference center central to missionaries coming from Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East
• Staffed by psychologists, doctors, therapists and pastoral counselors who have years of experience in cross-cultural ministry
• Offers a holistic approach that addresses physical, emotional, cognitive and spiritual aspects of the missionary
• Community focus through shared meals, family activities, & corporate worship
• Confidential counseling available for individuals, couples and families
• Medical consultations with trained doctors
• Leadership training for greater effectiveness as ministry leaders
• Excellent Children’s and Teen programs provide interaction with other Third Culture Kids (TCKs) (Many missionaries lack the geographical support of family members or adequate childcare. Most do not have a youth program or pastor.)

As you might have guessed, this requires some funding. In order for me to take part in serving on this team, I need to raise $2,500, which covers the cost of my airfare, and room & board.

Click here to donate!

Just two years ago, I was in Thailand and God put psychology on my heart, a passion then emerged for counseling and specifically, missionary care counseling. God’s faithfulness to this emerging dream brings tears to my eyes.

Thank you for reading and thank you for supporting these adventures with Jesus! Please pray for the retreat, the missionaries, their families and all the care they will be receiving while in Switzerland that it may impact them, grow them and push God’s Kingdom to the ends of the earth.

Blessings,

Chelsea

 

Under Siege

It’s been a year and a half of striving, striving for health on the brink of tears because the whole of my stomach and intestines in under siege from a microscopic organism….

My immune system is busted.

It is the roller coaster ride of a lifetime with symptoms getting better for month, then a bad week. The road to health is not a path as straight and precise as I would have hoped.

It has been one hell of a fight.

This particular morning I awoke in the most awful mood. Foggy, nauseous and utterly pissed at the world, the reality of the condition of my body and the spiritual collided into what I would call war.

I had a breakdown.

I’ve learned things about myself in these moment…. They are a soul-baring kind of event.

I’m face to face with my own nitty-gritty humanity.
I am not in control.
There is usually some kind of release or surrender happening through the tears and frustration.
Expectations for myself go out the window in a freeing kind of way.
It’s ok.

Everything that gets built up internally is real. There are no quick fixes here. We do more damage than good when we try and offer a quick way out of the uncomfortable emotions or an easy solution to a not so easy situation.

And God can be found in those feelings. He is not running from them like we often are.

In the early days of the parasite… in Bangkok, no matter how I tried I could not escape the depression and isolation sickness brought and that thought that I would always feel helpless and alone.

Prayers on prayers were said over me and nothing changed.

And what I felt after that was a sense of hopelessness, knowing that God could change my circumstances in a second, but that he somehow wasn’t….. and that added to my inner mantra that I was in fact to blame….I once again felt responsible for something that wasn’t in my control.

“I must push through this pain, slap on a smile choose joy, do something with my days.”

Fear weaseled its way in for many nights as I lay awake, heart racing, stomach throbbing.

When did I become such an anxious person?

And again… Sunday, the noise in my head wouldn’t stop. Everything, my flaws included all felt laid under a microscope. My body felt weak and unable to face the day. My situation consumed me like a dark, tunnel, closing in on all sides.

I told God I couldn’t do this myself and
Reluctantly I dragged myself to church…. Hoping the pain and nausea would subside long enough to worship or at least long enough to get some perspective.

I took one look at that bulletin and tears filled my eyes the rest of the service.
The title: Hopelessness.

And you know the Pastor didn’t have some fancy solution for hopelessness, or ten steps to bring you hope. No, he reminded us of the only person who can restore hope.

Jesus. (sigh of relief).

And we placed our palms up and simply asked for more.

By the end of the service I sure as heck didn’t feel better, or walk out the doors skipping. Nope.

God didn’t change my circumstances that morning, but he did meet me right there, in my despair.

Hopelessness may come in the form of a long-term problem like a parasite, it may come in the form of bombardment (a lot of problems at once). It can be relational, financial, health related or otherwise.

Hopelessness comes….even to the believer.

God may or may not change the circumstances you are in right now. He may or may not change them a year from now.

Your flesh will fail, but God will not.

Keeling over in pain, I chose to change my mantra that morning….
Repeat after me,
“GOD IS BIGGER THAN MY CIRCUMSTANCES.”

“The Lord is my strength and my song, he has given me victory.” Psalm 118:14

Singleness and Surrender

This blog is real life… you’ve been warned.

It’s a Friday night and I’m sitting at home in my fave flannel shirt and some new winter leggings after a nice long week of work and school. Made even longer due to the post-wedding-low I’ve been experiencing since two of my best friends got married last Sunday (a mega-beautiful, God-filled, tear jerker wedding!). It’s been months since I blogged, but I just had to write something non-school related in this moment; especially with the feelings I am having that so many other women out there feel as well.

Once again, its Friday night… and my options come down to: homework, which I have been extremely unfocused on all week, or watch T.V. with my parents (whom I dearly love), but neither of these options happen to be the social-interaction I’m craving.

My friends? Well they are beyond great…the biggest blessings in my life.  They’re all busy, though. Busy on dates, married, or on their honeymoon in St. Lucia. Shucks.

As I was having this dialogue in my head about some vulnerable stuff, I thought, “hmmm, maybe this blog will benefit some Jesus-loving single ladies out there… Perhaps the post-grad types who live at home; the ones who also feel kind of alone on a Friday night.” Holler!

This vulnerable “stuff” is the kind that I’m only now really speaking about. It’s the vulnerable “stuff” that really should be talked about, because it’s real.

Let’s just agree to be real here.

Someday I want to be married. There. I said it.

Once upon a time I lived in Thailand. I still had this deep desire to get married, but it seemed to suppress itself a little more when I was out “doing things for Jesus.” Can anyone else relate?

Most days I have no problem being single, in fact, I enjoy it… but that was easier to accept when I was across the world & I felt like I was “using my singleness.” This has been harder to accept this Friday night when my options consist of watching T.V. or doing homework instead of going to the red-light district with other single friends to love on prostitutes….

Every time I would head back to America for a visit, this being single thing got a little harder. Each time more of my friends were in relationship with truly wonderful guys.

Relationships, beautiful ones I support, and love hearing-about daily are just in my face. I don’t want them to get out of my face. I just want what they have in the way God has for me. I’m in a season where I am forced to confront that.

I say that not with disgust, but with complete honesty.

Perhaps the things that are hardest to confront are hard to confront for a reason.

And I think we should let God speak to that.

At the bottom of it all, I found myself asking, “Do you I God with my future spouse?” “Do I trust Him in my singleness?” “Do I trust Him even though a guy I could have possibly gone on a double date with, the one option I could see, now has a girlfriend?” “Do I trust Him even when I’m not living across the globe?”

And those questions are important ones….

Marriage is not the answer to our problems.

So why is it just so dang hard tonight when I know I’m right where I’m supposed to be?

I don’t think the answers are easy.

I also don’t think surrender is supposed to be easy.

If you are surrendered, it doesn’t mean you won’t think about marriage until you meet your future spouse.

There is a big difference between suppressing something and surrendering it.

Suppressing something only means explosion at a later date….

So let’s all just admit what we’re really feeling, admit to God that you want to be married, or don’t. It doesn’t make you less Holy because you do….

They say admitting is the first step.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

Tonight I’ll go to bed, still thinking about this, but before I do I’ll do my best to present it to God in surrender, and tomorrow I’ll have to surrender it again. Maybe tomorrow it won’t be such a struggle. But right now it is, and it’s real and I think that’s ok.

Sometimes being “the single one” isn’t easy, but if God is writing my story, I know it is a heck of a lot better than if I tried.

An Unexpected Homecoming

The world around me is spinning. And I can’t seem to find the ground.

Words have escaped me for weeks now. There is disconnect between what I want to say and what I should say and that bugs the heck out of me. The only place I find suffice enough to share everything is on scattered journal pages and people close to the situation.

I’m begging for truth to surface in all of this…. but I don’t know if it will unravel itself, or if will have to be forced out.

It’s a tangled web.

In a late night conversation, dark circles ringing around my tear filled-eyes, my mission’s Pastor listened and affirmed, offering advice and wise counsel. He left me with some big decisions to make. One of which was to return to the homeland or not.

America. Woah!

I hadn’t thought of that really deeply until then, Thailand is my home……but 24 hours later, there was no question.

Returning home is best thing for me right now.

Simply put, Monica and I have resigned from SHE. We are returning home to process, heal and ask God what moving forward looks like.

It has become very obvious that’s what needs to happen.

The vision of a coffee shop/ prayer house and training center is still very much alive in us. We can’t let go of God’s heart for that place.

We’re just pressing pause, because that is what the Lord is speaking. We plan on returning in a few months to walk forward in the vision.

I’m entering into processing, the good, the bad, the ugly, allowing thoughts and emotions to come out of the abyss and into the light.

Although I could write pages and pages, I won’t do that here.

I’ll be back home in Colorado for a few months starting May 21st. If you want to know more, I am willing to tell you where my heart’s at, as scrambled as it feels now.

Just know that I appreciate your readership, your love and support and especially your prayers.

God bless,

Chelsea

 

Humans vs. Robots

The nature within me is always warring against the flesh. In fact, the Bible tells me so:

“For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.” Galatians 5:17

I sit in a room filled with light and heat yet I feel ice cold.

Cold to the things that God sees.

I feel as though I am staring at robots,
un-relatable, clanky, mechanic, predictable.

They muster about their day completely distant objects to me.

I can’t understand their beeps and movements because they are…..robotic… at war with the humanity in me. Flawed though it may be.

I stare them in the eyes and feel nothing.
I shake their hand, I feel nothing but cold metal against my warm flesh.

I rattle my brain and try to see… I know it’s there. The robots trapped in the mechanics of their minds.

from pinterest

What I would give to peel back the layers and see the skin beneath.

I fall to my knees and I see glimmers of hope.

Eyes become flesh-like, deep and full of thought.

Slowly but surely I see the humanity within.

That I am just as broken as a machine.

I go back and forth. I see the metal hands and heart turn to flesh, again relatable and I get excited. Can robots become fully human and humans fully robotic? This I am not sure of. The answers lay deep in the processes of the mind. Lay in my belief in the God of the universe and His power to change even a heart of stone. Surely metal is no problem for Him.

But in the daily battle of the robotic vs. the human, I wonder how it will all turn out. The weapons I’ve been handed can surely endure.

“But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.” Galatians 5:18

Grace is the law that governs, no law of my own mind or law of man, and I am convinced that truth will set free. The battle goes on, but I surrender. Surrender that in Humans vs. Robots, if God is the victor then I am the victor.

 

 

Eggshells

White, stark, empty

They lay on the ground as far as the eye can see

I walk cautiously

They crunch underneath me as I walk

I cringe

Trying to keep the silence

Every step feels out-of-place with each crunch and crack

I take a bigger step and the cracks grow louder

I feel the sting as they slice my feet

Some are as thick as glass

I go back to moving softly

But every part of me knows that the bigger steps are superior,

Necessary and life-giving

The sensitive bottoms of my feet grow weary

The wounds grow deeper and more painful

There is no going back to the small steps

I pause and catch my breath

If I wait too long I won’t want to start again

The trail is long ahead

Mountains grow large in the distance

They are covered in eggshells too

As I press on I develop a rhythm

A dance amongst the eggshells

I come to a fork in the road

If I go left, my feet may become callous

Oh what it would be to dance with no pain!

To the right, confidence, but it’s not my own

I take a deep breath and choose

There is only one real choice, so I take it.

The night of 400 flowers

“For God so loved the world he gave His one and only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16

 

For God so loved…

A million things are contingent upon that statement

The love of Christ, so endless, so thick.

Valentines Day

I find myself in a room overflowing with flowers, 400 of them.

Trimming, cutting, praying, we prepare to take them into the bars

Love shared in yellow and white, in smiles and in sawat-dee-khas 

Carrying beauty into the darkness.

Fresh, fragrant beauty

Pure unlike the setting

It’s what my soul longs for, especially in that place,

The reflected image of Christ brought to every soul in Patong… and beyond.

Walking along, love is unsuspecting

How will they even begin to know the vastness of His love if we don’t show them?

They are searching. 

They temporarily fill, stuff and squeeze the antithesis of the real thing their hearts long for, if only for a night. 

The flowers, white and yellow

A reminder of the joy that is in Christ

My eye catches the rays the flowers give as they spread throughout the street

In the hands of prostitutes, lady boys and street vendors 

All loved extravagantly, they just don’t know it

Not yet.

Tonight, I believe they see it in our eyes, in our smiles and our words.

The beauty of those flowers dispersed around the red-light district make my heart beat a little faster.

Tangible is His love, so full of life

Visible

God’s love so intentional and untainted, it’s all around, found in the most unlikely places.

And the night of 400 flowers allowed us deeper into the picture of God himself, manifesting love wherever His children go. 

Stirred, not shaken

It was my Birthday morning; I awoke in the dark and pulled my sheets up tighter. The mornings have been cold here and I absolutely love it. I made some coffee and went outside to see the light of the morning just peaking through the fog. The jungle that surrounds the SHE Center is stunning, so lush and green. For Heaven’s sake I live on a tropical island!!

My heart couldn’t be more eased that I am here. That God not only brought me to this place, but also since the day I saw the blueprints and before, prepared my heart to be here.

It was a whirlwind, spinning, an unwrapping and re-wrapping of the heart. As I reflect back on all the things I worried about, all the things I thought I simply couldn’t handle, my deep fears, they fade in the peace of this place.

Between hugs from familiar faces and greetings from new ones, I have been welcomed into a community of believers that deeply cares, one that’s open and honest and hungry to see the glory of God.

It’s been a week, but it feels like I’ve known this place forever. Deep in my heart there is peace and joy because I’m right where I’m supposed to be. Bangkok, great as it was, always had the slight taste of transition, but this is what I’ve been waiting for, even when I wasn’t waiting for it at all.

It’s no doubt the honeymoon phase with just 3 days of work under our belts, but I’m believing that what God is birthing here is an accumulation of the prayers of many; prayers that will manifest in days and months and years to come.

I’m believing for breakthrough.

So, when I asked the Lord what He was speaking over my life that morning, in all the excitement, joy and newness, He said, “You have been stirred, and you cannot be shaken.”

Drink reference aside, it just clicked in my Spirit.

“Therefore, since we are receiving a Kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful and, so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.” Hebrews 12:28-29

I’ve been stirred, wrecked and filled, but The Kingdom of God cannot be shaken, and that is what I’m standing on, not the leadership, not whether this world values me, not what’s going on around me, God Himself and His Kingdom.

Unshakable. I like the sound of that.

Waiting in Wonder

The snow falls gently but steadily to the ground in another wave of winter chill.

Sometimes it doesn’t even feel like January has taken its blustery toll yet. It’s as though I’m still waiting for the New Year to unravel in all its wonder.

I waited, stomach pestering me on test results to see what treatment I needed to be healthy again. I waited for those same results to determine when we would fly back to Thailand.

I’m waiting for complete healing.

I’m waiting to set goals, and hear what the Lord is speaking over this year.

I’m waiting to dive into ministry.

It feels like Christmas is long gone, but I’m here waiting.

I’m waiting until I’m focused, but America’s distractions go untamed.

I hear God whisper that He is setting the scene for His glorious intervention, and I wait some more.

I hadn’t identified it until this moment, but this time at home has been a season of waiting. It’s not an antsy wait either as January blows on by me. I’m along for the ride.

Thailand seems like a world away, a world I love, but it’s distant none-the-less.

Times of waiting can be grueling. I’ve experienced long, drawn out seasons in my life, the kind that seem to drag on like a boring lecture, the kind where the exclamation point seems to come almost too late.

But God is never too late. In the quiet when it seems like you should just give up, just get out of there, just do something, anything to avoid it. Whatever that it is.

Waiting upon the Lord is a glorious discipline.

Wait, pray, trust, repeat.

And it’s in the lighting of candles late at night I find myself sitting in the silence of the wait without a definitive answer and without definitive prayers, but with so much peace.

Waiting, even when we wait with joy and contentment can be some of the most refining time that we receive from God.

So, if you are waiting for something this year, big, small, unspoken or not, know that you aren’t alone.

“For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.” – Romans 8:19-21

God is in the waiting, the longing, the most desperate parts of us.

God is with us.