Tears

Moments after my last post, I experience a great sense of loss... first, I was referred to a blog through my good friend Kevin - the blog of a mom who has suffered the loss of a child. And as I was reading her amazingly-vulnerable post about the grieving of this loss, I received a phone call. Here is the story of the phone call:
About a month ago, I went to the home of one of my participant's for my work. I visit each of them Quarterly, but I didn't really need to do this visit, because this young man was leaving my program at the end of the month. So, there wasn't really any point in the visit, except to have the paperwork in my file showing that I did my job.

I have only been to this home once before, in January with my boss, who was the previous Case Manager. I didn't know anything about the family outside of the stories told by pictures on the wall.

On this particular day in April, I arrived after school was out, so I could meet the son (my participant). And as I arrived, his older sister was getting ready to leave the house, moving between the kitchen and the living room. I had seen her in the pictures on the prior visit, but had not met her... and I wasn't sure of her age.
But looking at the pictures on the wall, I thought she was in high school or early college. And I noticed she was pregnant.
I made small talk, asking some silly question I can't recall. And mom said, "Yeah, she looks a little different than in that picture, since she is very pregnant." I said, "I noticed that. How far along?" since it seemed like an obvious observations. But the next part of the conversation was amazing.
Mom replied, "She is 36 weeks. And she is giving the baby up for adoption."

Immediately, I realized that they had just shared some sacred information with me. They looked anxious to see a reaction.

I asked, "What agency will you be using?"
And what they shared touched my heart. Through the youth minister at their church, they had found New Life, our adoption agency. The daughter left for her doctor's appointment, and mom shared the journey to this point in life. It is too private to fully reveal here, but I will share the ending. Mom said, "We got to meet the to-be adoptive parents yesterday. Here is their profile." And she showed me pictures of 2 people I know from a previous job, a beautiful Christian couple I had known to be shattered by infertility, and trusting God to bring them a child through adoption. I was so excited.

I went home and emailed the potential adoptive mom, my former co-worker. I shared our adoption stories, the adventure of loving and losing Brooklyn, and the beautiful relationship development with Darin's mom. And we emailed a few times that day.

Jump forward to today:
So my (former) participant's mom just called to share the rest of the story with me. First of all, I feel blessed to receive that phone call. Second, here is the beauty:

On last Friday, May 12, at full-term, the birthmom decided she wanted to be induced to deliver the baby. Her totally unselfish goal in this date was to hand over the new baby after the mandatory 48-hour waiting period on Sunday = MOTHER's DAY.
In the midst of making the hardest decision of her life, this beautiful girl THOUGHT OF SOMEONE ELSE! It is amazing. I can't imagine that clarity, that love.

Please pray for her now, as she cries to sleep for the past two nights, with arms that long for a baby she has given as a gift to my friends. Pray for her as she graduates, and goes to college, with a secret loss that she is too ashamed to share with those around her.
The gift of your child is the biggest sacrifice you could give someone. God gave his for me.

I have so much to talk about, I don't know how to begin...

the Basilica Community

In case you didn't realize, Basilica started having a service 2 weeks ago... since some of our members love MySpace, they created a page and we are taking turns blogging about the service each week.

Reflections from 2 weeks of churchplanting

After months of planning, strategizing, praying, hoping, dreaming, guessing, we finally had a service on May 6. After this service was over, I realized one major thing:

We have to do this all over again next week.

There are many levels to this realization, but on the most raw level, I realized that the tiredness I felt, and pressure to get it all together for Saturday, would be repeated NEXT Saturday.

But actually, throughout the week after that first service, I realized that most of the work was done for another week, and Joel and Jessica would be doing most of the preparation for each week's services by preparing the music and the message.

Then my mind began to grasp what the main task would be for all of us now that a service had been successfully executed:

People. Loving people, demonstrating Christ to people, being the Church to people, spending time with people.

You see, there are HUNDREDS of "churches" for people to attend services at each weekend. And although the music may differ, and the time of day may be different, all church services contain similar elements - music to worship the Lord, prayer to communicate with Him, and a message challenging the people to live by faith in God.
And most of us think of this as "being a part of church".

But, when Joel received the call to plan a new church in Southeast Houston, we began to pray and observe the people God is calling us to reach out to... and these people are not becoming a part of the Body of Christ through a service.

How is Basilica going to reach people?
- NOT by simply inviting them to a service and expecting them to come on their own - they've been there, done that, and it didn't make a difference in their life. They were still on their own, but now they had people putting expectations on them.

I feel very strongly that Basilica will only be able to reach people the way Jesus did
- by going to where they are
- by spending time with them
- by demonstrating a new life in His Kingdom through a different way of living and everyday examples

This is intense, time-consuming stuff.... very exciting!

Where do we begin, though - in a practical way?

Making time for people more than ever... seeking them out, pursuing them, spending time talking about what is important to them, loving the, serving them, in ways that are above and beyond what most people do

Oh, wow, that's the same stuff you should be doing... I guess we are all missionaries.