I have been on a significant journey towards understanding Women’s Empowerment within me:

This is my second lesson…

If humility is learning to live for the sake of others, then I needed to move on from my preoccupation with falling and failing—and the differences between them—and focus on the art of lifting.

Empowered Women Lift Each Other Up

I was still sore about potentially putting women at risk of COVID-19 instead of figuring out how to empower them. So, I dove into another challenge with just the right amount of overwhelming and satisfying. I was learning to be a Community Navigator at our local Immigrant and Refugee Center.

I loved those words. I really wanted to grasp the essence of community. And I was already a horrible navigator of physical streets, but the thought of learning how to help resettling refugees navigate my beloved community felt like the perfect challenge.

Turns out Part Time Community Navigator is the perfect journey of learning to live for the sake of others. Hours of filling out forms that will hopefully remove just one of a gazillion impossible barriers that newcomers face as they bravely transition to a new world, in a new language, with limited resources. Turns out delving into the vulnerable circumstances of people’s lives, loved ones, and longings in order to fill out spaces on a form felt something like washing other people’s feet.

As a person who slips comfortably into a place of mercy, justice feels difficult to maneuver around in. This is precisely why I owned sparkly combat boots—to embrace a new aspect of myself. In this new navigator role I was barely scratching the surface of understanding injustice and privilege as I listened repeatedly to the monotonous melodies of WAITING ON HOLD with one government office or another on behalf of a client and their specific need. And every time a client got one step closer to their goal, I would lift my hands up in a celebratory cheer. Turns out that mercy, grace, and kindness towards someone facing injustice can really split a heart wide open. And when that happens, boundaries and zoning areas of comfort and capacity explode into beautiful chaos.

Turns out that:

Mercy pairs with justice.
Gentleness is a form of harnessed power.
Grace pours out of abundance.

I was learning to lift others up. I was learning to celebrate the big and small wins of many courageous people who welcomed me into their vulnerable spaces.

LIFT UP:

My second lesson in being empowered is learning to help someone else reach their goals. And… inviting others into reaching my own—the things we can’t do just on our own. Carrying each other’s heavy loads, together.

I love grammar and words and the linguistic study of Semantics. Some verbs require an agent:

Example: My friends and I carried the couch up the stairs.

My friends and I are the agents in this sentence. The couch was acted upon. My friends and I used our strength and decision-making skills to complete a goal together. That’s agency, and heavy lifting. That involves me putting down my own important stuff for a moment so I can put all my strength into lifting something that requires many hands.

Strength is limited. We can’t do heavy lifting alone or for long. We need to know that lifting is getting us somewhere—that there’s an end goal.

So many dear people have lifted me upwards over the years. And lifting others up is a privilege of loving and being loved.

Each of you is to take up a stone…
to serve as a sign among you.
In the future, when your children ask you,
‘What do these stones mean?’
Tell them that…
These stones are to be a memorial to the people forever.
Joshua 4:5-7

I paced up and down the gated driveway. I felt trapped inside the iron gate as cars whizzed by in this unfamiliar corner of the world. Even if I did venture beyond the gate, there was nowhere for me to go. A smaller mission would have to suffice. I continued to pace up and down the drive looking for the perfect stone. Nothing too ostentatious. I did have to fly home with it in my little orange suitcase. Flat, paintable, able to be cradled in the palm of my hand. The fascinating flora in our enclosed community felt like a lush green oasis. But in reality, we were on the outskirts of the ginormous city of Bogota—the wiles of concrete and winding roads.

In order to complete my mission, my precious stone would have to be plucked out of the driveway. I found a less-used corner of the drive that was made up of dirt, concrete, and a variety of rocks packed down by busses full of human cargo regularly deposited at the oasis. Would anyone notice one small rock dug out of the drive? I was willing to take that risk. I curled my fingernails around the underside of a small grey stone and popped it out of its firm dirt casing. I looked around nervously as I brushed off the dirt, wondering if I had triggered the alarms to sound. I slipped the rock into my pocket and went in search of my new friends for tinto–a Colombian coffee break between seminary classes.

Each of you is to take up a stone… Part 1 of the mission accomplished.

Part 2 of the Mission: In the Future…

It sounds easy, but from decades of rock collecting, I knew that keeping track of my stone from June until November amidst the bustle of normal life was no easy task. The goal:

Don’t lose the rock.

Don’t forget which small, grey, unexceptional stone came from that risky mission in that specific faraway corner of the world.

Part 3 of the Mission: To Serve as a Sign

The idea is to encapsulate the essence of 2021 in a word, in a sacred Scripture, and within the boundaries of a small stone and a limited array of paint markers.

Humility was something my husband Steve and I were growing more familiar with this year—learning to live for the sake of others. Learning to offer our whole selves. Learning to delight in the offerings of others. Learning to let God do the heavy lifting, in the privileged places alongside some of His most precious children—Zoe, our oldest daughter, and her steps towards leaving our nest; Ella, our middle girl, as she navigates the wild world of a huge high school; Jamin, our middle schooler, and his newly kindled motivation to understand grammar and poetry and success in learning;

Khalid* the translator and his very real struggles of translating holy Scriptures for his own people in another part of the world;

Cesar* the young linguist who settled on the far side of the sea, learning a language no outsider has yet studied;

Hortensia*, the 15 year old who has worked her way into my heart, and her big, beautiful family learning to thrive as newcomers in our neighborhood;

Naya*, the bright teen I hope doesn’t slip through any cracks;

Yendra and the gift of deepening friendship;

The unique personalities and intense stories that come out of my interactions as a Community Navigator at our local Immigrant and Refugee Center;

The sometimes overwhelming gift of being a good listener;

The adventure of sitting on the Council of Elders—the heartbeat of our church—pondering and praying for the deeper complexities of a thriving church family.

Touring college campuses. Sitting through countless doctor, dentist and vaccination appointments in service to others. The small, daily work of dropping off and picking up precious preschool cargo. Travels to Colombia, Kenya, and Germany—and all the wonderful and difficult places Steve and I connect with virtually as an International Media Consultant and a Language Learning Coach, respectively.

The year has been full. Our position in the lives of others is privileged. Access to people’s hearts is always accompanied by joy and sorrow–the practice of rejoicing with those who rejoice and mourning with those who mourn, our emotions trying to keep up with the quick tempos of life. 2021 has been full of struggle and victory and pain and celebration and barrier and clarity. The rhythm slows just long enough for a deep breath and a moment of beautiful surrender.

Our 2021 Stone:

Location: Colombia

Word: Lifted

Scripture: 1 Peter 5:6

Humble yourselves under God’s mighty hand,
that He may lift you up in due time.

I don’t know who God will lift, or when. But He will. In due time.

And if we are in the privileged space to see Him do any of the heavy lifting or launching—then we too are lifted up.

The Greater Mission: What Do These Stones Mean?

After a lifetime of this familiar rhythm of rock painting as a family—Zoe, Ella, and Jamin know how to join in. They tell their own stories of remembrance and listen to ours.

Steve and I lifted each of them up with specific promises painted on their stones:

Zoe—prosper—Jeremiah 29:11

Ella—belonging—John 14:23

Jamin—focus—Ephesians 2:10

Lifted, belonging, and focus were all placed in the medley of rocks that tell the stories of God’s faithfulness over 22 years of Thanks-giving together. A few stray rocks have gotten in the mix. No one is sure who painted them, or when.

As for prosper—that sits on a smaller shelf of rocks painted by Zoe over the last 10 years of her young life. The rhythm has become her own. She’s building her own altar of thanks and remembrance. Who knows where the rocks in her future will be lifted out of—gated driveways on the outskirts of Bogota? Southern California? Khulna, Bangladesh? Near a French castle or along an Italian riverbank?

To Be Discovered… in due time.

And to be part of a memorial… forever.

* some of the names of my precious friends are pseudonyms

On My Mind

by Georgia

community navigator

LIFT UP: Women’s Empowerment Lesson 2