Sermon- St. Paul's Cambria

I preached at St. Paul's, Cambria on September 28, 2008
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Exodus 17:1-7 Philippians 2:1-13 Matthew 21:23-32

Sermon- St. Martin, Davis

I preached at the Episcopal Church of St. Martin, in Davis California on September 7, 2008
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Exodus 12:1-14 Romans 13:8-14 Matthew 18:15-20

Sermon- St. John's San Bernardino

I preached at St. John's, San Bernardino on August 10, 2008.
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Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28 Romans 10:5-15 Matthew 14:22-33

Working in New York

It has been an exciting two months! I got to work for the Mission Personnel Office of the Episcopal Church, helping them prepare for and put on the two-week orientation course for new missionaries.

It was exciting to commute into Grand Central Station every morning, navigating the teeming crowds. I loved noticing the way the Chrysler Building makes a shadow on the mirrored surface of the UN building in the early mornings of spring, as I walked to 815 Second Ave, the Episcopal Church Center. I got to walk in Central Park, explore Time Square, and visit the Metropolitan Museum. But most enjoyable of all, was staying with my friends the Copley’s, being welcomed into their home and family, learning how to rock climb and kayak, going to church, discussing mission work, and on one occasion, attempting to help with math homework.

Working at the Church Center was challenging and interesting. I loved the team spirit of the Mission Personnel Office, and the chance to get to know David, Douglas, Yanick, Michelle, and Rebecca a little better. Getting to see all the work that goes on behind the scenes made me even more appreciative of all that they do for the missionaries in the field! We are in good hands.

The Mission Orientation I attended in 2006 was a life-changing event for me. Everything was covered, from the theology of mission in the Episcopal Church, to what medical supplies to bring with you. But most important was the community of support that developed amongst the missionaries. So I was very excited to be involved in another Mission Orientation. Getting to watch and participate in that community building was wonderful. It is an exhausting, action packed two weeks, with lectures, skits, games, enactments, worship, bible study, celebration, and pilgrimage. Each one of the new missionaries brings their own passion, skills, and desire to serve. I can’t wait to get their updates, and hear about all of their transforming experiences. You can learn more about them, and see their blogs by going to: www.episcopalchurch.org/missionworks

As part of the Mission Orientation, we took the group to the “Everyone Everywhere” mission conference in Baltimore (which will be held every three years). There were more than 400 people there, involved in mission work all over the world. It was great to get new perspectives, and make connections. I got to present a workshop on tropical agriculture, and handed out nearly 100 copies of the handbook on tropical agriculture, which I wrote for missionaries (if you’d like an electronic copy of this handbook, just email me, I will try to also post it on this blog).

I returned to California just in time for my mom’s ordination, and my god daughter’s baptism. It has been an eventful two months!

Hope

Hope is such an illusive thing. When I think of the terrible weight of suffering in the world, when I think of the world wide shortage of food, when I think of all the obstacles that Liberia has to overcome just to maintain it’s fragile peace, when I think of the horror that is war anywhere and it’s aftermath… hope seems so feeble and far away. And yet the presence of hope is our only hope!

Since returning from Liberia I have felt the weight of these things pressing down on my very soul. It is only in recognizing and feeling this profound sadness for the world, that I am able to also experience the profound joy of finding hope alive in the midst of all this.

This summer hope has come to me in many forms, and I want to share some of that hope with you. I have been on two different short-term mission projects with youth and young adults through the Sierra Service Project. One trip was our diocesan youth mission trip to Nevada for a week, where we worked and lived on the Walker River Piute Reservation, repairing houses, and learning something about community, service, and spiritual journeying. As the week progressed, I worried that the youth were somehow missing the experience by being caught up in their caffeine cravings and boredom and heat exhaustion. Finally on the last day I realized that the experience had happened without me doing anything to push it. That community and spiritual growth and commitment to service happened in the midst of caffeine cravings and boredom and heat exhaustion. So many times I feel like I have to move the Spirit, I forget that all I have to do is show up and look. The Spirit was there, in all of it, and that gave me hope!

I just got back from my second mission trip this summer. I went to Honduras for two weeks with a group of young adults. We built (most of) two brick houses for impoverished families in Danli. The days were long, and the work felt back breaking. It is difficult to see hope when you have sore muscles and are surrounded by insatiable need. But I saw hope in the young people in our group. They are very much members of their popular culture and times, and yet they also were willing to sacrifice, to sleep on the floor, to go without running water, to work harder than they had ever worked, and to commit their remaining energy to building relationships with local people and learning about the struggle that is life in Honduras today.

I have found hope in other places this summer too. In Tegucigalpa our group visited an organization that takes in street children. We spent a couple hours there, and it seemed to me that hope was singing out of every wall, every bouncing ball, every footstep, every laugh. The door of this facility struck me as a sacred gate: its very existence gives me hope for the world. There is a door in Tegucigalpa, and any young person who approaches it day or night, will find it open, and behind it is a world of hope, sanctuary, and love. They will find there the Love of God, incarnate, and if they choose they will be transformed by it.

I have found that the reflections Bishop Mary has written to our diocese about her time at Lambeth Conference are full of hope, hope for our diocese, hope for the Anglican Communion, and hope for humanity as we struggle to live in a global community, a global communion, bringing our different truths to the same table.

There is a door in Tegucigalpa, there is a table in Canterbury Cathedral, there are young people stepping out in service, and there is you and me. Flawed as we are, we show up, we come to the door, we come to the table, we step out of our comfort zones, and the Spirit will do the rest.

Peace and Hope,
Robin
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Bishop Mary’s Reflections: http://www.stlukesatascadero.org/bishop.htm

Casa Alianza (A home for street children in Tegucigalpa, New York, LA, Canada, and Guatamala): http://www.casa-alianza.org/en/news.php

Sierra Service Project (youth mission trips to Native American Reservations, urban LA, and Honduras): http://www.sierraserviceproject.org/

Update and Reflection from El Salvador

Dear Friends,
It has been 9 months now since I returned from Liberia, how the time flies! I want to thank you all again for your support. I have compiled a 30 page report of my work in Liberia which I have delivered to each of my 9 sponsoring parishes. If you would like a copy, I can email you one.

I have been keeping busy, helping coordinate a new mission network for our diocese, finding paying work here and there, and getting ready for some short-term mission work this summer. Right now I'm working at the Episcopal Church Center in New York for six weeks, helping out with the mission orientation course for new missionaries, and staying with my good friends the Copleys. In June, I'll be presenting a workshop on Tropical Agriculture at the mission conference of the Episcopal Church, called "Everyone Everywhere 2008".

I am in the process of discerning a new mission placement, which will most likely be somewhere in Africa, beginning January of 2009. I will let you know as soon as I know where I will be going! I have begun fundraising for my mission fund again (details below), to support the two short term mission trips I will be going on this summer, leading youth to fix up houses on a Native American Reservation in Nevada and to build houses in Honduras (see blog entry below). The work that I do is not my work. It is made possible every step of the way by the financial support, emotional support, and spiritual support of those who choose to journey with me. It is our work.

I got back a few weeks ago from a trip to El Salvador. I was there visiting my sisters, who are both missionaries in El Salvador now. Amy is a priest with a church and a school, Audrey does youth leadership development through agriculture, and Amy's husband Vince has a music ministry with the diocese, and coordinates mission groups who are visiting. I was there for only 10 days, but had a wonderful time. I got to see a lot of the country that I had never seen before. And I got to do a little agriculture work of my own. I talked with an agricultural engineer about the importance of the Moringa tree, and advised him on the Moringa project he has started. I also gave a workshop with a group of women who make up an agricultural work group, on the use of Moringa. (Moringa is a tree that can be used to treat malnutrition. The leaves have protein, vitamins, minerals, and kill parasites).

I also got the chance to go to some of the pilgrimage sites in El Salvador I had not been to before. The most difficult and moving experience by far was our visit to El Mozote, the site of what is considered the worst massacre in modern Latin America. More than 1,000 unarmed men women and children were rounded up on December 11, 1981, they were separated, and all the girls age 12 and older and all the women were raped, the men were tortured, and then all of them were murdered. The youngest victim was only 3 days old. Only one woman in the whole town survived. The government soldiers who planned and implemented the massacre were armed with ammunitions provided by the U.S. and trained at the U.S. Government sponsored school "The School of the Americas" in Georgia (which is still in operation under the name "Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation"). The U.S. Government claimed that reports of this massacre were propaganda, and refused to send personnel to investigate. It wasn't until 1990, when human rights groups began a project to exhume the mass graves, that the truth of this massacre was finally recognized.

We arrived in El Mozote, expecting to find a ghost town, but El Mozote is alive again. The family members of the dead, who had fled to Honduras before the massacre, had returned to rebuild. Bomb craters still litter the fields, and there are still houses that are in ruins, but there are also new houses and fresh coats of paint. There is a monument to the dead, which has the names of those whose bodies were positively identified. We were given a personal tour by a local resident. She spent a couple hours with us, showing us the places where these things took place, and telling us the story. The church, where the children had been locked up and murdered, had been burned down afterward. But the people of El Mozote built a new church. I have never seen such a church. Covering its walls are vibrant, dancing, joyful colors: colors of triumph. On one side there is a mural of the history and culture of the town. The other side of the church is dedicated to the children. It has an incredible mosaic, with children dancing and playing with suns and balloons and flowers and stars. Along the bottom of the church are the names and ages of all the children. And all around there was a garden. In the moment I saw it, it was the most beautiful garden in all the world: flowers of all different colors, roses, and benches and paths, all beautifully, lovingly tended. I wanted to sit in that garden forever. It was not joy that I felt there, for how can you feel joy when our world contains such evil. The beauty of El Mozote is in those who live, and what they have chosen to do with their grief. They have poured love over these gaping wounds. Wounds where loved ones were violently ripped away from them. They have poured love over broken, burned, and bloodstained ruins. And over mass graves they have planted gardens of love. The violence, the pain, the loss, the evil of it all cannot be washed away. But Love somehow has conquered it.

We live in a world that seems to be teetering on the edge of destruction. We are daily bombarded with the reality of increased food and fuel prices around the world, with news of conflicts, riots, disasters, and wars. And it seems that everywhere we look in the world there is injustice, oppression, hunger, and fear. Who will deliver us?

Love. It all comes down to Love. Love doesn't wash away the pain and evil of it all, but somehow Love can conquer even this.

Upcoming Mission Trips

This summer I am going on two short term mission trips with youth. The first trip is to Nevada for our Diocesan youth mission trip of the summer. We will be joining other groups of youth and chaperones from the western US at Walker River Reservation near Fallon, Nevada. The program is run by a group called the Sierra Service Project. My first mission experience ever was as a chaperone on an SSP mission trip to Nevada in 2005! (Photo above) I had such a wonderful time, working with the youth, meeting the local people, and learning a little something about their heritage. And I got totally hooked on mission! So I am excited to go back, this time with a large group from around the Diocese, and with our Bishop, to help people fix up their houses, to learn about their lives, and to help youth with processing their first experience of mission. Our trip begins June 29, and ends July 5.

The second trip is a two week trip to Honduras, and is also run by the Sierra Service Project. I will be the only chaperone for this trip, but will be meeting up with two project coordinators once we get to Honduras. I am excited about this trip because the schedule includes more than just building houses. We will be working with local people, and meeting with local youth. We will also be visiting cultural centers and museums to learn about the history and people of Honduras. The youth and young adults on this trip all have some prior mission experience, but I look forward to accompanying them through what may be their first international experience. For more information you can go to the SSP Honduras project webpage: http://sierraserviceproject.org/honduras_info.htm The dates are July 14-28.

I need to raise a total of $2,440 to cover the cost of both of these trips. The cost of the program includes travel and building materials on site. If you are interested in contributing to my mission fund, which will be used to fund these projects as well as my future long term mission assignment, please see the "Financial Support" in the side bar for donation information.

Thank you for your prayers and support!