Colorful

One more night at Door of Hope and one more day living in California! With my flight out of LAX leaving tomorrow night at nine, I have reached the end of a short journey through urban ministry and am about to begin an entirely new type of journey that takes me back to my roots for a while. I am ready to go!

My weekend was spent mostly with church people this weekend. I became very involved this year in a little church in Pasadena called Agape Christian Church. It is small in numbers but big in love, hence the name "agape" (a Greek word for "love" which describes the way God loves us completely and unconditionally, in spite of our rebellion against Him). I found a number of dear kindred spirits here this year: brothers and sisters, young and aged, people from various walks of life. How beautiful is the Body of Christ, so diverse in its components! Yet we are all one Body working together to see God's kingdom come, His one bride, and we serve one Savior. People from all over the world are represented at this church... I love learning from so many different kinds of people!


It was an incredible experience this morning as this great Body surrounded me, lay their hands on me and prayed over my next journey. I'm a crier, so you can imagine the waterworks that came. The tears held a bit of pain at the thought of leaving this family, but mostly they held joy at the love and blessings shown me during the past year. For each tear there were a hundred laughs to be had. We laugh a lot.

It's a good thing I have learned how to laugh at certain things. By "certain things," I mostly mean myself. It seems I am always running into furniture or losing my phone right after I set it down or getting lost in my own stories, and I do enough of those things to make an uptight person go insane. Maybe I am insane and don't know it... apparently that is what Global Partners is trying to figure out before they can officially "hire" me as a missionary to Albania. During my interview I had to take an hour-and-a-half-long test with questions like, "Do you often feel you are being followed?" and "Do you hear voices in your head?" and "Do you experience irrational fear at the sight of knives or needles?"

Whoops, maybe I should be a little worried because I actually do experience some anxiety around sharp objects...

Anyway, I was with my church friends most of yesterday for worship practice, Bible study, and then a BBQ. As we ate dinner, someone asked me what I would miss most about southern California. Not wanting to sound super emotional or sound ridiculous, I mentioned the food but wanted to somehow express my appreciation for the ethnic and cultural diversity of the city and even among our friend group. Keep in mind I was the only Caucasian sitting at the table:

"You know what I'm really going to miss? Being with colored people."

Colored people?!

As soon as it was out of my mouth, I realized I had blurted a racially-charged phrase that usually sounds very derogatory when coming from someone who is white. I'm pretty sure I turned into a "colored person" for several moments in my embarrassment, but after the shock of what I said set in and everyone's mouths dropped open we burst into laughter. This isn't the first time I have innocently blurted out something extremely politically incorrect, and I'm sure it won't the be the last. In my head things sound perfectly fine, but then when my thoughts touch air and meet the social pressures of language, I have already dug my own grave.

The great thing about us is that we recognize that even though we are all different, we believe like Paul said that "there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28) This does not mean we turn a blind eye to our differences and pretend they aren't there. Differences between people in the body of Christ should be embraced because God created them! Life would be terribly dull if we were all the same, and one of the reasons I came to Los Angeles was mainly to experience the excitement and beauty of ethnic and cultural diversity. God wants His people to work together in unity and love each other as He loves us. We might as well start getting used to it now because God's plan is to bring people from every nation, people, tribe, and language into His kingdom.

The kingdom of God will indeed be colorful. And by the way, I am a colored person too... white is a color :)