Blog Tag

Eleven Random Things:

1. While I go by my nickname, Jessie, my favorite nick-nickname of all times is Messica, given to me by James and Oscar…a second close is Jessnut given by a bunch of guys from a Texas Chi-Alpha team last year – it’s still slowly growing on me ;)

2. My first residence outside of my parents’ house was an apartment in Manila Philippines, and I’m currently still living there.

3. To date, the most dangerous place and experiences I’ve had have been in is Chicago, Illinois.

4. The first, and only (so far), guy to ever admit that he loved me was a homeless young man on my caseload at my first job. He couldn’t speak English, so his confession was in Spanish – never knew I had the vocabulary in English or Spanish to let a guy down easy!

5. I almost dropped out of college to transfer to an online program, but God (and parents) put a stop to that one and looking back it was the best decision for my life!

6. Growing up, I hated sharing my birthday party with my dad, brother, grandma, and family anniversaries. I couldn’t wait for the day where I could celebrate just MY birthday…but since we’re all in different places I mirs the BIG shared birthday parties.

7. I ditched going to my high school prom to go paintballing for the 1^st time…and I ended up in the emergency room for a blood infection from mosquito bites.

8. I have never broken a bone, but had a cast on my leg for two weeks. While I was in Thailand, I was a klutz and tripped down the last stair…only a Drachenberg would do that!

9. I’m an UBER superhero fan! My favorite superhero is Batman. I have all The Batman Animation Series (4 Seasons) on DVD and I regularly buy Batman comic books/graphic novels.

10. I miss those late night chats with my brother and sister while we were all still living at mom and dad’s house...it was common for all three of us to stay up til 3am whispering in Christine and I’s room.

11. I’m 2 for 2 in “calling-it” for who my sister & brother-in-law were before my own siblings even liked them!

Christine's Questions:

1. If you could go back in time what is one thing you'd do different?

The day before Grandpa died, I drove passed the nursing home, had the time to go in if I really wanted to but instead I thought, “Egh, I’ll go another day.” and drove home. I wish I stopped one last time to tell him how much I loved him and all our fun times like our shopping dates & BWW lunches.

2. What's been your least favorite job of all time?

My 1^st real job out of college, theoretically it was the perfect job but the overseer didn’t do her job…in short one of the “non-life threatening” things I can share about that experience, I got reprimanded for a student spending the night in jail because apparently I didn’t give him enough stuff to do to keep him out of trouble.

3. Perfect vacation. Go.

I’ve been thinking about this recently…I’d love to go up to Alaska during the “Northern Lights” season – if that’s such a thing, it might be on-going - and spend a week up in a log-cabin bed & breakfast and just getting lost in the beauty of it all. …it would be fun to do this with family/friends, I’m tired of traveling by myself!

4. When was the last time you cleaned your bathroom?

I don’t clean my bathroom, but it’s always clean!

5. Have you ever met someone famous?

I saw Will Ferrell and Dustin Hoffman in Chicago when I attended the “Stranger Than Fictions” premiere party…but did I meet them like shake their hand and introduce myself to them, NO.

6. What is the most awkward question you've ever been asked?

“Where did you get your nose from?”

7. What's your favorite childhood memory?

German camp & Warren Dunes, they go hand and hand.

8. What's your favorite movie of all time?

Anything with Superheroes – except The Watchmen – I HATE that movie!

9. What do you do to wind down?

Watch a movie

10. What's the most important quality you look for in a friend?

Genuinity

11. What's your favorite dessert?

Cinnamon Rolls…and it’s so not good for me that Cinnabon in the Philippines is only $2 for the grande size roll!

My Eleven questions:

1. Who do you want to be when you grow up?

2. If you could have any 1 super-power, what would it be?

3. Describe your worst “series of misfortunate events” day.

4. Where is the last place you ever thought you’d be caught dead in yet ended up there somehow?

5. Who would you want to switch places with for a day?

6. Most “unlike you” thing you did to get a girl or guy’s attention.

7. What was your favorite game as a kid?

8. What new invention would you create?

9. Who was your most influential/life-impacting teacher?

10. Where is your favorite place in the world that you have been to?

11. What TV shows have you auditioned, attempted to audition, or thought of auditioning for?

Rules of Engagement to play:

While I'm not officially "tagging" anyone, please feel free to play along if you'd like.

- List 11 random facts about yourself

- Answer my 11 questions

- Write 11 questions of your own

- Tag & Notify those you're tagging to play along.

Philippine Adventures: Typhoon Pedring

Yesterday afternoon, I received an email from the US Embassy warning of a typhoon coming through Northern Luzon; however, Manila would only feel the tail-end effects of it. At this point, I wasn’t concerned and even went out with a few ladies that night walking to McDonalds around the block. I woke up this morning to an unusual sound though…silence. No cars were honking, air-con wasn’t functioning, no vendors screaming, “Ba-luuuut!” and I got a text message from an office mate informing us that the typhoon in Manila has reached Level 2 Warning, meaning no work today and the office is closed.

After waking up a little bit more, I made the connection that no air-con meant no electricity – it takes me awhile to wake up in the morning. I checked the ref, no power. I checked the lights, no power. I checked the water…it still runs!!!! Being that I’m a foreigner, not only to country but also to typhoons – coming from Chicago I’d know how to handle myself in a blizzard but beyond that…yea, no! - I went to the circuit breaker box, I flicked all of them off and then on again in hopes to spark a charge somewhere and get some power flowing through at least the ref. Still didn’t work.

In my semi-awake state of mind, I went into “survival mode.” I got my wash basin for clothes and filled it up with what I thought was the left over running water in my pipes. My thinking was conserve water and hopefully take a bucket shower today, tomorrow and however long the no electricity would last. I pulled out the phonebook that the apartment building gave me and I started crumpling up pages to stuff in the freezer – I heard from another missionary that newspaper is a great insulator when the power goes out. In addition to all this, I went around the apartment checking for water leaks – turns out that leak in the 2^nd bedroom is still there. From that, I had to strip the 2^nd bed of the wet sheets, and I decided it was time to change my sheets as well.

I resolved that I wouldn’t open up my ref under any circumstances to preserve the food already in there, but before I ate breakfast, which would consist of dried cereal, I decided to take a cold shower and then take out the trash.

Still my head in a haze, and hearing the howling winds and the ropes left from workers outside banging at my bedroom window, after my shower I proceeded to grab the keys on the hook before taking the garbage down the hall and shutting my door behind me. Walking down the stairs to the trash bins, I opened up the staircase window to feel the full effects of a typhoon winds. At that point it finally clicked! Rain/flooding wasn’t the cause for the power outage, it was the WIND! Heading back to my unit, I got my keys ready only to find that I TOOK THE WRONG SET OF KEYS!

GREAT! I would lock myself out of my apartment the 1^st time ever in over a year living here on the worst weather day I’ve seen. Looking at the keys that I had, I thought and prayed, “Lord, I know these keys shouldn’t work in this lock but by some miracle you’d allow it to work JUST THIS ONCE, I’d be really really really happy right about now.” I put the wrong key in the lock….and it didn’t work. I tried fiddling with the doorknob to see if by some form of osmosis my Dad’s German Ingenuity would come to me and I’d figure out how to unlock this door without the right key…and it didn’t work.

Thankfully, considering the circumstances of being locked out of my apartment, I smelled nice after taking a shower, but I was in swim shorts and a tank-top…again no electricity means no air-flow and it’s the tropics, so I’m HOT (quite literally)! The only other viable option was to go downstairs to the front-desk and see if they by some weird and unsettling reason they had a spare key to my apartment, but thankfully no such luck! He tried calling a locksmith, but with horrible phone service, howling winds, and typhoon weather it was impossible to get through to him and I was stuck sitting in the main lobby in my swim shorts and tank-top with Filipinos passing by in their hoodies and long pants (it's cold with typhoon winds) and staring at the strange white girl.

Luckily, after many attempts with the locksmith the lobby receptionist was able to radio the building maintenance to see if he was available to open up the door. His exact words to me were, “Ma’am we can have building maintenance come. He’ll destroy the door and then you’ll get in.” Did he just say, DESTROY MY DOOR?!?!? Yes, in fact he did. As unnerving as it was hearing that, the receptionist assured me that he could fix the door with the same lock after he destroyed it. So, destroy to him doesn’t mean destroy to me. Ok, I can handle that.

So for the rest of the morning, I stood by and watched 2 Filipinos try to break into my apartment with 2 screwdrivers, a monkey wrench, and an ID card. Watching them struggle breaking in made me grateful to have such an amazing lock on my door…but I didn’t want it to be amazing now! I wanted the lock to be opened. Turns out that the lock was so good that the only way to open it was to break the lock and replace it with a new one from the hardware store down the street.

I had to give my consent to have it destroyed and then pay the building maintenance to get a new lock. Bang! Bam! Boom! The door was open…and I was home again! I even got to keep a souvenir from today’s event, my broken door lock! The lobby receptionist even helped me get some power back on by flicking the circuit breaker on the Generator’s power switch…that was the ONLY circuit I didn’t switch…go figure! So, 30 minutes later I had a new lock placed in the door, I was eating my cereal WITH milk, and all I kept thinking was, “It’s just one of those days…”

Never Forgotten

Today, I had one of those "God moments" at church...and since I (along with most others) can share some of the most random stuff that happens to us during the day, why not boast about when God - the Creator of the universe, of the world, of you and of me - reaches down and touches our lives?!?

The day didn't start off exceptional, but when I walked into the sanctuary it was like everything that the morning, this week, month, year...just everything brought in with me was forgotten and left at the door. The worship team kept leading in songs and then they put out a challenge to the congregation for those with sickness or in need of a physical healing to come up to the front.

Over the past 5 years, I've gone up for prayer countless times for the cysts in my body (starting with the 1st one found on my thyroid when I was 18) - so today, I humbled myself and went up yet again to ask God to do a miracle; HOWEVER, today wasn't like the rest of those days. There's no clear way to describe or put into words what the presence of God feels like, the closest would be an overwhelming peace and love captivating your every senses.

I began to cry feeling as near to God as I can be this side of heaven; and as I normally do when I go up for prayer for these cysts, I checked to see if I could feel the little nodule moving up and down with every swallow that I took. I pressed my 2 index fingers on the right side of my throat, 1st swallow - felt nothing. Repositioned my fingers, 2nd swallow - still felt nothing. Moved the fingers yet again a 3rd, 4th, and 5th time - STILL FELT NOTHING! Now the tears just starting gushing from my eyes. Could it be? Could it be that God actually healed me?

Parallel to those thoughts running through my mind, I kept hearing stronger - what's like that little conscious voice in your head - God speak to me, saying, "I haven't forgotten about you. I haven't forgotten about you." over and over and over again. God began to remind me of things past that He's been faithful to fulfill, and now with this it was like saying, "This is only the beginning of the things I have in store for you. I haven't forgotten about you."

I felt so incredibly special at that moment. It was the realization that the God of the universe delights Himself in me and loves me...even when I'm far from my family, friends, and everything that I grew-up with, I'm never too far out of reach to Him. I love my God, He's the best thing in this world.

This is why I share Him with the world, so they can KNOW God too.

Ocean Shore

Sat on the ocean’s shore today…something I haven’t done since Swakupmond. Sitting there today brought back a lot of memories, not just of that time but what has happened all in between - some were good, some were necessary but not fun, and some reminded me how long. But the memory that I loved the most was remembering why...

It was on that beach shore that I knew I was made to be a missionary and that God would be enough for me. How? …well somethings are unexplainable, but you just know. It’s amazing to be able to look back to a time where the thought of being a missionary was near to impossible, yet here I am :)

March Newsletter

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Gratitude

As I’m closing in on my last week out here in the Philippines this year, I’ve been reflecting on not just the past 3 months that I’ve been here but the entire year as well. Thus far, Missions has been a real trip for me – and I’m not referring to all my travels.

Starting back at the beginning before I left my life in Chicago, I remember having a conversation with a good friend over a piece of pie. His words of wisdom were, “Jessie, maybe this next season of your life is just suppose to be you and God…no one else.” Oh how true that has been!

On many different levels, I’ve been stripped down to just “me and God” before being able to build anything back up again. It’s the best place and the worst place to be all at the same time. Through it all I’ve been learning about who I am, my identity in God, and who He is forming me into which has been awesome, and on the flip side He’s exposed all my insecurities, failures, and shortcomings which has left me facing what I’ve tried so hard to bury and run from – feeling vulnerable.

In my comfort zone, I had built a fortress that was impenetrable. I knew how to reinforce the walls that kept me in tact because I knew who, what, where, when, why, and how – everything was familiar. Looking back, within my comfort zone I’d learned how to compartmentalize where God fit and what He could have access to in my life.

God really had to do some demolition in me, which could be summed up neatly in my first 5 months on the mission field: leaving home, family, friends, culture, ministry, church and substituting that for 4 vastly different experiences those first 5 months in Florida, England, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic. In a good/necessary way missions had been nothing what I had expected it to be.

God has exposed my insecurities about my age, capabilities, relationship-status (a TOTAL lack-there of), and appearance – yes that even includes my height.

…but what I love, and what I’ve been learning, is when God brings me to a place of feeling vulnerable He doesn’t keep me there too long; He begins to encourage me and put me together again and I begin to understand more of who I am in Him. God sweetly reminds me of Psalms 139,

For you created me in my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

God knows me better than I do. He’s seen me unraveled and undone…and even the mess that I am, God chooses to create me into something more than I could ever dare to hope for or imagine. I’ve been learning that God’s placement is never wrong, and for me to doubt myself in turn doubts God… it’s taken awhile for me to get this and believe it but I love it that God’s patient enough for me to understand it J.

For me, the Philippines has been a place of reconstruction personally, spiritually, and emotionally. I’ve finally been able to find my footing in this season of my life. I am now starting to build upon relationships, ministry purpose, church life, and simply who I am without such drastic changes. There are still vulnerable moments here and there, where God’s refining me…but I have to say that now, I’m grateful for these tough breaking moments because I know that in the end He will erect something beautiful from my broken pieces.

God deserves all my gratitude this year.

What more can you do?

As I’m sitting here typing away trying to sort through all the emotions and experiences from my latest trip to Malaysia, never have I experienced God move so strategically in individual’s lives than on this past trip…He even started before I thought the actual “trip” began.

On the flight over, normally I’d zone out in my iPod, a good book, or a movie but this time I sat in the middle right next to a talkative and shockingly open guy about his life. For the sake of anonymity, I’ll call him Eugene. I found out that Eugene is originally from England, is 22 years old, has been living in Thailand for the past year of his life, was in the Philippines to get his divers license, and is currently attempting to get back to Thailand and become a diving instructor. Since he was SO open in sharing all this with me, I guess he felt the right to know about me and so he began to ask me questions: What brought you to Manila? Why are you going to Malaysia? How long have you been in Manila/stay in Malaysia? The normal friendly talk, but after these generic questions he began to ask why I do what I do? – Why am I a missionary? – After explaining my story of what God has done in my life to get me to this point in life, he then began asking about thoughts on religion and spirituality, knowing God, the way to heaven, and ultimately how someone would accept the love of Jesus for themselves? This was not the type of conversation I was expecting to have on a flight to Malaysia, yet I was able to share with him how to make Jesus part of his life and that it’s a free gift of love that God gave to us. He seemed very responsive to what I shared with him about God. We then parted ways at immigration and the Malaysian experience began.

Driving to the guesthouse that we were staying at, I heard the call to prayer as well as seeing eloquent looking mosques one right after another. Throughout the majority of the trip, it was an adjustment for me learning about the culture, different ethnicities and their religions represented in the nation, as well as the structure of the Christian churches/organizations within the nation. It was not only an eye-opening experience but it was also a good challenging experience for me personally. As a group, we met with leaders who genuinely care about the youth and their spirituality and we interviewed them to gain insight on the youth from their perspective. Separate from these leaders, we also conducted focus groups with the youth themselves to hear from them what were the things youth their age face, deal with, and simply their ideas about life. A few focus groups stuck out to me because of the discussions that occurred afterwards.

Two instances, I had youth come up to me after the focus group to share with me more about common issues they face in life…but what made these talks stand out to me more than the group discussion we held were the depth and sincerity of these students faith. Some didn’t know if they were doing enough or how they could do more, and what they should do when faced with opposition spiritually. There are some restrictions that other religions have here, and to hear these students desire to do more or simply to share in light of that blew my mind away. I didn’t know what to say specifically when they asked if they were doing enough…but God was again faithful to provide an answer. I encouraged these youth that the fight all of us are fighting isn’t a physical fight, and while some may use words or actions we’re not always asked to retaliate the same way. Even though it’s not a physical fight – it is a spiritual fight - we are not defenseless, we can fight through prayer. God is the only authority over the world, and He can either change circumstances or sustain us through it. I was then able to pray with these youth and to stand alongside of them in prayer, fighting with them for these needs they face.

Beyond the research with interviews and focus groups, others in the team were also given the opportunity to talk with our cab driver, who has become a transportation contact while in country. Similar to my experience on the plane, this cab driver was questioning about his faith, spirituality, and genuine encounters with God. Not only were they able to answer his questions and share with him the Good News, before we all left Malaysia we were able to give him a book for him to read and discover for himself who God is.

After such an experience, hearing and seeing those who have a strong/deep faith I was left with this question that was first posed to me 5 years ago by a good friend of mine: “What more can you do?” So now I’ll ask you as well, “What more can you do?”