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culturati-club · 6 years

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The Sermon of LIFE

The Sermon of (My Current) LIFE

Standing at the altar of my hometown church, I feels surreal. My hands holding the micorphone as I look out into a hundred faces…

All the while, never did I imagine I would be here where I am now, standing before all of these faces of my youth…but none of us really ever know do we?

God leads us to places we could never imagine.

I was an anxious child. as many people remind me of the way I stuck close to my parents.

but now I know it was the anxiety to get out into the world and see what else it was God had created besides myself and what I had already known.

I went to an international art school.

upon graduating I didn’t know what to do.

no job felt right.

I had this hunger to see where so many of my friends were from.

I prayed to the lord and I reminded Him that he was in control.

I acknowledged and spoke—

“you are my guide

and you are in control

of my ride.

I am just here enjoying the breeze.

take me where i need to go— i trust you”

And so the lord brought me many places—

each experience mysteriously preparing me for the next.

Hk-Italy-China-Spain- now Japan

Each experience being the grace of God

people ask me, how did you get these jobs??

And honestly, all were the through the grace of God—all through who I knew through the church.

So many times I didn’t know where to go.

In result, I prayed it was all the power of God.

I acknowledged my needs of Christ through prayer.

The church— God is the base of all things

never did I truly see that until this experience.

4 years ago I came back from a life-changing experience in rural China.

An experience so unique and so special.

That is an entire other story for another day. I arrived home from China, and remember feeling like my entire life was all wrong.

I was depressed.

everything I had known before felt so different.

and no one could understand what I was going through.

no one knew or could ever know the personal life-changing experience I endured in that rural china town.

I felt like I a giant who could not fit into the human home id always known.

I was lost.

but God could understand me. and he brought me where I needed to go.

I researched everything to go and get out into the world again.

but I also had people telling me to find “a real job”

I tried finding whatever a real job was,

but felt it wasn’t right.

I struggled with that. too much.

my life felt hopeless.

but I got through it, and God answered my prayers.

God always knows what we know deep down.

And God leads us down this strict path.

God knows we have doubts, but he keeps us going down that path because WE prayed for him to lead us and guide us.

so I surrendered my doubts to Him and said, “TAKE ME WHERE I NEED TO GO”

its what we all should do. honestly.

it can change your life.

so, one day I was at the church with my Mom, and she was talking to people as usual. I just kept looking at her, like, let’s goooooo. Then, I looked down… I came across this brochure I had never noticed before…

It was for ELCA global missions YAGM—volunteer program.

I applied, interviewed, and was denied for my “overqualifications”.

I did not understand it. “WTF. WHY????”, I thought.

And so I went on to the next adventure.

I’d wanted to go to Spain, so I took some time there trying to figure out what I needed. I went there to live with a family (I found on the internet) who needed help with their English.

While in Spain, I got this email from ELCA Global Mission saying they had needed this paid position filled, and someone had given my resume.

Suddenly I realized why I did not get that volunteer position. This new position was much better with pay and amazing benefits.

They asked if I would be interested.

OBVIOUSLY.

And obviously, I got the job because here I am almost three years later!

God always provides. We may not understand something at the moment, but we have to step back and look at the big picture.

Last week I was at a conference with ELCA- Global Mission in Chicago.

I was speaking with someone who said:

“life is like a big painting. sometimes we get to close to one aspect, we move in and cover our eyes to focus on that one spot. we get so close that it becomes dark from the shadow. That is how we are when we become obsessed with one aspect of our lives. it is important to step back and remember that there is a whole picture. we need that entire picture to explain the small detail.”

It is so true. And God always knows that picture.

We can not worry about one aspect. especially when we have the power to respond to a situation in any way we like. We are in control of our minds and how to respond.

It is important to keep that faith in Jesus. For our own sanity.

The three years in Tokyo have shot by. I have experienced so many things in that time. that have helped progress the time.

My term was ending and I did not feel like I was finished.

I had felt like my time had only begun,

and a blessing, I was asked to extend my time there.

the church was going through a lot of transition.

we needed consistency and we needed someone who knew this location well.

So what do I do?

I work for ELCA: Global mission who partners with other Evangelical Lutheran organizations all over the world. I have colleagues all over Africa, Israel, Germany, Malaysia, China, Hong Kong, India, Brazil, Columbia, Argentina… the list goes on… I, as well as many others, are based in Japan. But I am the only one in Tokyo.

So ELCA works with the JELC: Japan Evangelical Lutheran Church, who has special programs with churches around Tokyo.

I am based at two locations in Tokyo: there is Hongo Lutheran Church who has a community Student Center and Koishikawa Lutheran Church who owns and operates a Girls Dormitory

I attend Hongo Lutheran Church each Sunday where I help with church activities and also teach Sunday morning English bible study. During the week I also go here and conduct English Conversation classes which sometimes result in more of a counseling session.

I have all ages… from 3 - 9-year-olds all the way to elderly adults in their 80s.

Many middle-aged moms come. and we have nice conversations and lessons about culture and self-love.

Honestly, when I was younger I loved kids. but after living in Spain, they kind of freaked me out. Then going to Tokyo I was forced to create classes for these little ones who did not know English. but God flows through me and somehow it happens. Now I love little kids and especially my little kids.

They are amazing. It is so cool how I, a 27 year old English speaking native can have inside jokes with little kids who speak Japanese natively.

My kids feel so comfortable and happy to come to the center each week.

My three and four-year-olds wear their princess dresses to class. It is awesome. They will dress up specifically for their thirty-minute sessions. Then we will sing and dance together. I have a little boy who has a stutter. He is three and is super self-conscious of it. He won’t speak. He will only tap and point. But he loves to come. The purpose is not to learn English but to feel welcome and loved. Each week he will bring a different toy to show me. He is always so proud.

In Tokyo, they don’t use cars. It takes to long. Moms have “mom bikes” verse “mom SUVs”. They tote their kids around on motorized bikes with car seats. Or they will walk if its close enough. So I just imagine these kids coming each week with these big toys and princess dresses walking down the street or on their bikes… so cute.

A lot of the mothers of my kids also will come to the adult classes.

I have kind of created a “moms class” and they come and talk about their lives and kids together in English.

Many elder students. I have students in their 70s and 80s. They make their way there every week. They have illnesses but they come! Its always awesome to talk to them about their lives. Many have come for almost twenty years, but have the same beginners English. We talk together through translations. One lady comes every week after her doctor’s appointment. Every week she shows her large full bag of medications. And every week I ask what it is. And every week she tells me. Every week she checks out my outfit and tries on my jacket. Every week she shows off her outfit and asks “how much?”… every week is a joy. Every week this lady comes to feel wanted. That is what I do.

Last year I started teaching English Zumba! I never taught Zumba or any type of exercise officially. but a student had approached me and asked to consider it… so I did. We have new students who come just to dance. We hold the class in the sanctuary one Sunday a month. It is a lot of fun. at the end of the class, we meditate on this Christian song called “Oceans” by Hillsong United. The parents especially love it to relieve stress.

This year I have started teaching English Photography classes.

Two Saturdays a month we meet— I present techniques and they go home and make prints and come back the next class for a critique and another lecture. It has been really great! A longtime student of mine—her parents are architects in Tokyo. they come to the class and it’s just really interesting to see their photos and hear about their work…

I have started these two classes specifically to get more people in the community to join our center. Why? English conversation is a difficult market. Especially in a busy city like Tokyo. Having classes with two ways of learning is good for Japanese who are busy and want to learn more than just English. They can come and learn photography, English, and build a nice community.

The second location I work at is the Girls Dormitory…

The dormitory is owned and operated by a Lutheran church. A majority of the girls who stay there are not Christian. And that is ok because true Christians do not discriminate or judge.

In Japan, Universities have dorms, but it is more common for them to stay in community dorms. Maybe it is cheaper.

Some girls come from out of state or country to study high school or college and stay in a dorm like this.

So my students are from all over Japan.

Some girls who stay there are returning students who were raised abroad with their families whose fathers work for a Japanese company in another country. Here I have an office where the girls can come to and talk with me. depending on their reason for the study, we have different topics. Usually, we talk about culture and have fun activities. The dorm gives me an allowance to do fun things with the girls. We have parties or go to dinners every once in a while.

They love when I have holiday parties at my home. We usually watch a Christmas movie like ELF and decorate Christmas cookies. I try to share with them, the real American way. Basically, my work is to share love and joy. Not talk about the word of God, but SHOW IT.

That is what we Christians should be doing every day. People do not respond to words, but they respond to action and spirit. And to tell people there is just a special story for each of us… big or small, we all have an important part in this world. your single existence is crucial to the balance of the universe.

We each have the opportunity to have a story as long as we turn it over to God with faith.

Look a the Bible… so many stories. The Lord has a special plan for each of us. No matter who we are and what bad we have done in our lives. WE are each redeemable.

Noah was a drunk, Moses was a murderer… God redeemed them with important tasks.

Many of us are not Noah or Moses. We have not done such bad, but the Lord does not judge based on that. The Lord wants us to thrive. Allow yourself to listen to what YOUR story is that the Lord is saving for YOU. Smile to people who seem sad. Share the joy. Your one small gesture has the ability to change someone’s entire day, and that person will go on to inspire another and another. It’s the ripple effect.

that is our mission as Christians. NOT to make people Christians, but to heal people. Make people feel loved. Make people feel inspired to live their life and shine brightly just as they were meant to. Our mission is to share the peace and understanding; share the unconditional love.

In your work, in your path, you have an opportunity to bring change. No matter what your job is. You have the power to inspire and save a life with a smile. You have the power to react the way you choose.

All this time and it is easy to forget what brought me here in the first place. those are my experiences.

We need those experiences. They are the small roads that lead you to the major intersections that take you to this big destination. Enjoy your path and remember to ask GOD for guidance.

Tell God you trust in him and the path he needs to you take. On that path, make sure you inspire and share this with those who may not know it either

Words and imagery by Jennifer Jarvie @clubjarvie

#japan #tokyo #sermon #church #spiritual #philosophy

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gordonwilliamsweb · 3 years

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Delta Variant Surges in Colorado as the Bands Play On

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — Dr. Rachel LaCount grasped a metal hoop at a playground and spun in circles with her 7-year-old son, turning the distant mesas of the Colorado National Monument into a red-tinged blur.

LaCount has lived in this western Colorado city of 64,000 nearly her whole life. As a hospital pathologist, she knows better than most that her hometown has become one of the nation’s top breeding grounds for the delta variant of covid-19.

“The delta variant’s super scary,” LaCount said.

That highly transmissible variant, first detected in India, is now the dominant covid strain in the United States. Colorado is among the states with the highest proportion of the delta variant, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Mesa County has the most delta variant cases of any county in Colorado, state health officials report, making the area a hot spot within a hot spot. A CDC team and the state’s epidemiologist traveled to Grand Junction to investigate how and why cases of the variant were moving so quickly in Mesa County.

At her hospital, LaCount has put in orders for more rapid covid tests as the caseload has grown. She’s seen the intensive care unit start filling up with covid patients, so that hospital officials are placing two in a room against normal practices.

Despite these alarming signs, many in Mesa County have let down their guard. The rate of eligible residents fully vaccinated has stalled at about 42%. LaCount has noticed that few people wear masks anymore at the grocery store. Thousands of people recently flocked to Mack, 20 miles from Grand Junction, to attend the Country Jam music festival, which could accelerate the variant’s spread to the concertgoers’ hometowns.

“We’re making national news for our covid variant and the CDC is here investigating, but we have a huge festival where people aren’t masking,” said LaCount. “Are we going to get herd immunity over here just because everyone’s going to get it? I mean, that’s probably going to happen at some point, but at what cost?”

LaCount’s worries aren’t necessarily for herself or her spouse — they are both vaccinated — but for their son, who can’t be vaccinated because he is under 12. She is uneasy about sending him to school in the fall for fear of exposure to the variant. She is reluctant to take him to birthday parties this summer knowing there’s a good likelihood he’ll be teased for wearing a mask.

A few yards away from LaCount and her son on the playground, a man fished in a still pond with his 10-month-old daughter in a backpack. Garrett Whiting, who works in construction, said he believes covid is still being “blown out of proportion,” especially by the news media.

“They got everybody scared really, really fast,” said Whiting, slowly reeling in a sparkly blue lure from the water. “There’s no reason to stop living your life just because you’re scared of something.”

Whiting tested positive for covid about three months earlier. He said he doesn’t plan to get vaccinated, nor does his wife. As for the baby on his back, he said he’s not sure whether they’ll have her vaccinated when regulators approve the shot for young children.

The delta variant is one of six “variants of concern” circulating in the U.S., according to the CDC, because the delta strain spreads more easily, might be more resistant to treatment and might be better at infecting vaccinated people than other variants.

The delta variant has raised alarms around the world. Parts of Australia have locked down again after the variant leapfrogged its way from an American aircrew to a birthday party where it infected all unvaccinated guests, health officials said, and after it also jumped between shoppers in a “scarily fleeting” moment in which two people walked past each other in a mall. Israel reissued an indoor mask requirement after a spate of new cases linked to schoolchildren. A leading health official there said about a third of the 125 people who were infected were vaccinated, and most of the new infections were delta variant.

A rise in delta variant cases delayed the United Kingdom’s planned reopening in June. But public health officials have concluded after studying about 14,000 cases of the delta variant in that country that full vaccination with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is 96% effective against hospitalization. Studies around the world have made similar findings. There is also evidence the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are effective against the variant.

Los Angeles County recently recommended that residents resume wearing masks indoors regardless of vaccination status, over concern about the delta variant. The World Health Organization is also urging vaccinated people to wear masks, though the CDC hasn’t changed its guidelines allowing vaccinated people to gather indoors without masks.

The variant arrived in Mesa County this spring, when it accounted for just 1% of all cases nationwide, said Jeff Kuhr, executive director of Mesa County Public Health.

“We were winding down just like everyone else. We were down to less than five cases a day. I think we had about two people hospitalized at one point,” Kuhr said. “We felt as if we were out of the woods.”

He even signed off on Country Jam, which bills itself as the state’s “biggest country music party.”

But in early May, the delta variant appeared in a burst, with five cases among adults working for the school district.

“It started to hit the children, those that were not of the age to be vaccinated,” Kuhr said. “That was telling me that, you know, wearing masks in school was not providing the protection with this new variant that it had previously.”

The county then started to see breakthrough cases in fully vaccinated elderly residents in long-term care facilities. The hospitals began to fill once more. Nine vaccinated people died, seven of them since the delta variant’s arrival, though it’s still unclear whether the variant is to blame. All were at least 75 years old, and seven lived in long-term care facilities. Now, Kuhr estimates, “above 90%” of cases in the county are delta variant.

The county is seeing the same trend as the state: The vast majority of people testing positive for covid, and people being hospitalized with it, are unvaccinated. “It’s a superspreader strain if there ever was one,” Eric Topol with the Scripps Research Institution told Scientific American. But he said people fully vaccinated with Pfizer or Moderna shots “should not worry at all.” There is less information about the protection offered by Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine.

Mesa County health officials considered canceling the music festival, but “it was really too late,” Kuhr said. After the announcement that the festival was on, about 23,000 people bought tickets.

Officials weighed banning alcohol or trying to get attendees a Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine in the weeks leading up to the festival. In the end, they settled on messaging: signs warning people online and at the venue that the area was a covid hot spot.

According to CDC guidance, outdoor events were low risk. A sporting event at the end of May in Grand Junction that filled a baseball stadium had resulted in only one known case, which made Kuhr optimistic.

“We put messaging on Country Jam’s website, and then in their social media pages, saying, you know, ‘Mesa County’s a hot spot. Be prepared,’” Kuhr said.

A stormy Friday dampened concert attendance at Country Jam. But on the last day of the festival, the sun was out and throngs of cowboy boot-clad concertgoers stepped around prairie dog burrows and kicked up gray-yellow dust on the path to the venue entrance.

Many reveled in being able to attend a summertime event like an outdoor festival, taking it as another sign that the pandemic was waning.

“Covid is over in Colorado,” said Ryan Barkley, a college student from Durango who was playing beer pong in an inflatable pool at his campsite outside the gates.

That day, 39 people in the county were hospitalized with covid, and a CDC investigative team had arrived just four days earlier.

Inside the gates, an open field was filled with stages, concession stands, and vendors selling cowboy hats, coffee mugs and hunting clothes — and crowds of people. Chelsea Sondgeroth and her 5-year-old daughter took in the scene.

“It’s just nice to see people’s faces again,” said Sondgeroth, who lives in Grand Junction and previously had covid. She described it as one of the mildest illnesses she’s ever had, though her senses of taste and smell have not returned to normal. Watermelon tastes rotten to her, beer tasted like Windex for a while, and her daughter said Sondgeroth can’t smell certain flowers anymore.

Sondgeroth said she’s holding off on getting vaccinated until more research comes out.

Waiting in line at the daiquiri stand, Alicia Nix was one of the few people in sight wearing a mask. “I’ve gotten people that say, you know, ‘That stuff is over. Get over yourself and take that off,’” said Nix, who is vaccinated. “It isn’t over.”

Amid the music, beer and dancing, a bus turned into a mobile vaccine clinic was empty. A nurse on duty played Jenga with an Army National Guard soldier. Just six people of the thousands attending were vaccinated on the bus.

“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink,” Nix said from behind her blue surgical mask.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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