Looking at the World through God's Eyes

For me, it meant reformatting my iGoogle homepage.

I took a deep breath, and deleted the RSS feeds to CNN and BBC. Feeling bolder, I then moved my “Verse of the Day” gadget from my random stuff tab (that I looked at once a week) to the main tab, which is in front of my face anytime I open up the Interweb.

I’m a news junkie. Mainly international news, but now that I’ve lived in the US for a few years, I’ve become more interested in what’s going on here. And entertainment news is a guilty pleasure. I chose CNN and BBC as my news outlets of choice because CNN is definitely slanted towards the US, and BBC is definitely slanted away from the US, so I figured I got a balanced view. Plus, those were the two news outlets we could watch in South Asia, so there’s a sentimental factor, too. (BBC’s soundtrack is AWESOME!)

At any rate, I had gotten to the point where I was checking CNN and BBC about 10 times a day. Each. That’s a bad thing for several reasons, but most importantly, I’ve realized that the huge amount of time I was spending studying the horrific problems of our world was discoloring my view of humanity. It was making me doubt the effectiveness of missions. It was making me doubt the power of God.

And I work for World Gospel Mission.

You would think that someone who works for a missions agency would be utterly convinced that God can save the world, and that He is in complete control of how that will happen. But to be quite frank, I was starting to doubt. The images and words that were constantly in front of my face told stories of fear, war, crime, famine, death – and so many people living in utter hopelessness. So, so many people. Under the surface, despair was starting to creep in.

I didn’t even realize it was a problem until a brother in Christ started asking questions I was shocked to find I couldn’t answer. Something needed to change. So that’s why I got rid of the proverbial carrot when I deleted the RSS feeds from my homepage. I vowed to only check CNN and BBC just once per day. And to keep me accountable, my wonderful husband set up something so that it would send him an email if I checked them more than once during the day.

On top of that, I’ve started doing some online Bible studies through Urbana’s website. Urbana is a huge missions convention for students that happens every third year in Urbana, Illinois. The one I’ve started with is all about missions, surprise, surprise. Sometimes in order to heal, we need to get back to the reasons we do what we do.

I’m not trying to bury the problems of the world in a flood of “Christian stuff.” But I need to re-learn to look at the world through God’s eyes. I’m still a global person, but I’m just switching out the lenses that I look at the globe with. I’m not really sure what that means, exactly, but I think at least I’m on the right track.

From Luke 22: “The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.”

Missing Grandpa Crane...

Steve and I went to a Fernando Ortega concert tonight at Taylor (nice, peaceful inspirational music. And a darn funny storyteller.) It was parent's weekend, so it didn't feel weird at all that we didn't have parents with us. Ah, the joys of being MKs.

One of his songs was "Mi Abuelito" which means "my grandfather" in Spanish. The cool thing about Fernando's music is that he uses pictures in the songs to convey meaning. In this song, you could really see his grandfather, as he lived on this one mountain, sang old songs, etc. It also is a goodbye song, as well, as he and his family buried his grandfather on that mountain. Anyways, I started thinking about my Grandpa Crane, who passed away three years ago this month. And naturally, I might have gotten a little teary. Grandpa was incredibly loving, kind, gentle - just a wonderful man. I remembered that while Mom and Dad were in the US taking care of him and Grandma, Dad spent a lot of time scanning old family pictures into his computer, and he gave copies to all of us.

When I got home from the concert, I started looking through them, and as the memories came flooding back, I decided to post a few. So, Dad, thanks for these....

This is one of my favorites of my grandparents. They lived on a hay farm just outside Lansing, Michigan, that had been in the family since the 1870's. Their farm was a haven for my family - a safe place that was always there for us to go to first as soon as we got to the US.

Grandpa was a flight instructor during WWII. He and Grandma got married in 1944, at the military base where he was stationed in Florida. (Wasn't he cute?!)

And I wanted to have one of Grandpa with the three of us on the farm. I'm the one all scrunched up on the right.

Grandpa was just shy of his 89th birthday when he passed away. Grandma had died the year before, and they had been married for 60 years. They always loved being together - even towards the end of Grandma's life, she still made it clear she wanted to be where he was. I loved them both very much, and I still miss them. So, thanks, Fernando Ortega, for helping me remember.

The Travel Bug

I’m pretty lucky to have a job that helps assuage my Travel Bug. As much as I sometimes gripe about being a low-level munchkin who doesn’t get to do the fun overseas travelling, the reality is, in the last twelve months, I’ve gotten to fly to three states for work purposes that I’d never been to before. The important thing is: being in an airport. I LOVE airports! Most TCK’s (third culture kids) would agree that airports are their favorite place to be.

Obviously, my preference is international travel. (I know, I sound like a snob, but I so dearly love to use my passport!) The good news is that I get to go to Peru in November! The real Peru, not the town about 20 minutes from here. (The locals tend to pronounce that one “Pee-ru”) My whole department is going to do a media work trip: we’re going to get video footage for a field video and web clips, photos for publicity use, web content, brochure content, stories, etc. Basically, anything media-related that we can do to help the missionaries, we’ll do.

Peru is a relatively new field to WGM; we only have three missionaries there right now in the city of Cuzco (Emperor’s New Groove flashback!). They are partnering with several national churches and working in humanitarian outreach. They’re all veteran missionaries from Bolivia, so they’re doing great as “pioneers.”

And for our day off, we’re going to see the Incan ruins at Machu Picchu! Man, I love my job! My only real concern for the trip is the altitude. Cuzco is really high – about 10,000 feet. And, well, I grew up in a place that was about six inches above sea level, and now I live in Indiana, which is, of course, known for its majestic peaks. The last time I was in a place that elevated, I got winded just turning over in bed. Fun times, let me tell you.

Maybe I should give my Travel Bug a name, like Hermie.

Love for the fam

I've been thinking lately about how very much I like my family, and so I'm bringing them in to my blog. My own blood family is very interesting: we have Dad, a OB/GYN development worker in South Asia who is "chief cook and bottle washer" this year while Mom is getting her masters in ESL, Mom (who is getting her masters in ESL) teaches English and MKs, older sister Becky, who just got married, has a masters in English and is now trying to find herself in Grand Rapids, younger brother Joe is a first lieutenant in the Army Reserves and married to Karley, who is as weird as Joe is. In a good way.

Joe, Becky, and I at Becky and John's wedding a few weeks ago.

Dad and Mom in South Asia with some friends.

Steve's parents are missionaries in Budapest, Hungary, and they're the best in-laws ever. His brother, Phil, lives in Wheaton, Illinois, and he's all artsy and awesome.

Oh, and then there's my amazing husband, Steve, who is crazy studly in this picture! Funny thing my outfit (Both my skirt and purse were from Thailand): A guy came up to me at the wedding we were at, and asked me if I'd been to Thailand. I said yes, and he said, "I was pretty sure when I saw your skirt, but then I saw your purse, and I knew it!" It made me feel good. :)

A Scot in America

On Wednesday, my second family from Clare came to visit. Cathy and Jack sort of adopted me during college when the folks were out of the country. (Geez, some people. You’d think they were following God or something) They are missionaries with OM (lived in Britain for a long time), and have two daughters, Caroly and Susan, and Susan married a Scottish dude she met while serving on OM’s ships. Andy has the thickest accent you ever heard. And amazingly enough, a lot of Americans have a hard time understanding him. In fact, one day they were talking to one of the older ladies at church, and she said to him – totally innocently, “Andy, it’s okay. I know a lot of people here can’t understand you. But I work with mentally disabled kids, so I can understand you PERFECTLY.”

Fortunately, he can take it. We went to Payne’s for dinner, and he had a fun time trying to get them to give him some “tomato sauce” with his dinner. (Except he pronounced it “to-MA-o soos”) “Oh, you want ketchup?” said the confused waiter.

Steve’s birthday present was Rockband for the Wii, so of COURSE we had to break it out. There’s nothing better than rocking out on fake plastic instruments with two MKs and a Scot.

Two MKs and a Scot would be a cool band name.

Daddy's Girl, Part 2

So, the reason I haven't blogged in about a month is because I GOT THE PART!!! And four nights a week, for about three hours, I'm at Marion Civic Theatre, trying not to be too awful.

It's a fun part, though. A confused, sort of clueless waitress. And it's okay that I haven't done very much waitressing because I'm supposed to be a really bad one! It really has been a lot of fun to do something different and get to know new people.

You should come! We're showing the first two weekends of October. Tickets are $11. Check out the Marion Civic Theatre's website for more info!