Well, I finally experienced it. Yep I had my first, probably not my last, big fall while trying to maneuver in a parking lot. I wasn’t surprised by this at all as my doctors and therapists had prepared me to fall but I was surprised at the reaction of my fellow human beings. As I laid on the cement in the parking lot trying to figure out what to do next, 4 different vehicles drove past me, looked at me lying on the ground and never looked back. I couldn’t believe it! Where was the compassion and caring that we should all show to our fellow man. My immediate thought (after my anger subsided) was “Wow, they need to hear about Unleash.” Needless to say, I am ok. My knee was cut and my pride bruised, but once my therapists came out to get me (thanks to my cell phone) I shook it off and did my therapy. Later that evening I was pleasantly rewarded by God’s faithfulness. Luke dropped me off at the entrance to the mall so we could go to a movie. As I approached the door a young man of 19 or 20 walked quickly past me. At first I thought that he was being impatient but then I realized it was not that at all. He had hurried ahead of me to hold the door and he began a conversation asking how my day was, what I was going to see and such. This young man didn’t know it but he had just restored my belief that there really are people out there who know what it means to show kindness and compassion to their fellow beings. May God’s blessing be upon the heart and the life of this young man and all who Unleash on those in need.
So a last week I was in Memphis over night.
As I was sitting in the hotel room, watching the local news, a story caught my eye.
They were doing a piece on some local churches. Actually on a group of women from several local churches. These women got together and decided that the lines that have existed in Memphis for generations need to come down. So, they formed a little group. Not really so little, around 200 or so at last count.
They came from what they called the large suburban mega-churches, which they said are predominately white and upper middle class, and they came from the small, 20-30 congregations of the inner city churches, mostly lower income and mostly black.
They decided to get together and live life together. They are having lunch meetings. They are have play dates. They are swapping baby sitting. Then something else happened.
The men in these families started to pay attention. Then the Church leaders began to pay attention.
Now they have a very large and very active intercongregational, inter racial group of people.
The women said they looked around and said “Now what?”
So they began to step outside of themselves. Started taking on projects in the city. Helping people with their homes. Running errands for people. Serving in all areas of the community before being asked.
Then something else happened. The local government began to notice.
This group of women have impacted some real change in their community. Real change in peoples lives. Real change in God’s people.
All because a group of women got together to see if they could do anything to help and get to know some other women they would normally have walked by.
I have been thinking about this a lot since I got home.
The boundary lines and years of aggression and stereotyping these women confronted must have been so very daunting. But they listened. They did as they were asked.
Would I have the courage to do the same?
Submitted By: Kaleena Steinke
A while ago my mom came to me with something on her mind. I quickly discovered that it was on her heart as well. As I listened to her thoughts and ideas, I recognized this need and knew we could do this.
Together we created this organization, “Food for NICU Parents,” to provide the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital NICU with free, healthy foods and snacks for the parents of the NICU babies.
A new baby should be a time of joy, but for some parents, their worlds are turned upside down as their new bundle of joy enters through the doors of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU.) As well as their main priority and concern(the health and progress of the baby,) they are also hit, at the same time, with the worries and concerns of the financial burden.
Babies are in the NICU for days, weeks, and even months. Most parents don’t leave their baby’s side. As a former “NICU mom” I know of the never-ending love, concern and hope for progress that we had for our son. Aside from our continuous thoughts and prayers for our baby, we experienced many other overwhelming fears, such as the financial burden of not only the stay, medications, and treatments, but also the out-of-pocket expense of food.
The University of Iowa provides the NICU parents with vending machines in the NICU lounge, but there is not a good selection, and they are usually picked through. Another source for food is the cafeteria. There the parents can eat healthy, but it comes with a high price and their only other option (if living in the NICU) is to leave and bring back fast food or take out. This option is also very pricey and not a good source of nutrition (keep in mind that the parents are there for days.)
All parents need to keep themselves healthy so they can focus on the health and well being of their child/children. This is the same for parents of babies in the NICU. But how can they eat healthy in the hospital at a reasonable price? “Food for NICU parents” goal is to help reduce the parents out-of-pocket expense for food.
We are working with our local Hy-Vee Food Store to steadily stock the NICU cupboards. Together my mom and I have created a web site, http://food4nicuparents.webs.com/, to inform the public of this need and ways they can get involved.
“Food for NICU Parents” hopes to keep the NICU cupboards stocked for many months to come!
I have recently been reading the book Soul Cravings, by Erwin Raphael McManus. I just happened to pick it up from my husband’s office one day. It isn’t my book, so I couldn’t do my normal ‘underline, mark-up and dog-ear the pages’. Instead, I have numerous yellow sticky notes coming out of the book at all angles. I should probably just buy my own copy. 
It has hit me right between the eyes. So many things have spoken to me that remind me of our vision, “We will be a thriving community of Jesus followers, unleashing relentless love to our broken world”.
One part especially spoke to me about the thriving community aspect:
“A healthy community is not a place of perfect people.
That place just doesn’t exist. We all are flawed. If there was a perfect community, it would be ruined the moment I joined it. And it’s easier to be patient with people when you realize they’re being patient with you. When we don’t come clean up front, it creates an unhealthy environment that leads to pretension and hypocrisy.
Strangely enough, the best opportunity for building meaningful relationships is admitting up front that you’re not perfect and that you’ve got issues. Honesty is the only context in which intimacy can develop. For either of these to have a chance, there has to be trust. Love, no matter how you come at it, it a huge risk. It makes it easier for me to remember that God will never reject me because I’m not good enough and that any community that has His heart will embrace me as I am. Jesus invites us into a community where imperfect people can find acceptance, love, forgiveness, and a new beginning.
Eventually, though, this will require you to have to take the chance and see if God can really love you through people.” (Entry 16, Soul Cravings)
I am not perfect. You are not perfect. But God is. And He can do amazing things through us if we become transparent with those all around us. It starts with us. I want to be part of a thriving community, alive and well, so that we can unleash relentless love to those around us. Do you?
It’s just a small leak in my shower…at least that is what John told me.
John has spent 10+ years in a refugee camp in Liberia, Ivory Coast and Guinea. He lived in a tent, and I am sure he used an outhouse (if that). I doubt he had a bathroom or a shower. But now he is the very proud owner of an older house in Muscatine, filled to overflowing with a blended family of people rescued from war-torn Liberia. And now the basement bathroom shower was leaking.
I offered to help. Before you laugh, that meant I picked up the phone and called a plumber who has a big heart and gave him my sob story. Dave showed up and was glad to help, for a very small price a fraction of what he would normally charge. Finally, help was on the way.
But then we had some bad news—the shower was leaking from the drain, and to get to the drain we had to remove the shower, and to remove the shower we had to cut out the wall, and to remove the wall we had to dismantle the ceiling, and to dismantle the ceiling we had to remove some paneling, and to remove the paneling we had to hammer out the studs, and when we hammered out the studs, we found that there was a dip in the floor which would have to be leveled, and to level the floor we had to clean up all the stinky, sewer water….you get the picture.
In the meantime, the entire family of 7-15 (depending on visitors) was using the one upstairs bathroom. John informed us that in his culture, it is not appropriate for children to use the same bathroom as adults. He explained that he had always hoped to separate the bathrooms, and so this was the perfect opportunity—downstairs for the kids, upstairs for the adults. But could we turn the shower into a bathtub??
There you have it. A small leak turned into a major bathroom remodel. And all I know is “righty-tighty, lefty-loosey.” Thank God for Dave who knows what he was doing. And we got to taste some wonderful Liberian stew in the process, with rice and chicken and beef and shrimp and palm butter oil.
That’s what UNLEASH is all about—helping people where they are get to where they want to be.
In case you missed it or don’t get the paper, check out the front page article on Calvary right here.
Over the last few weeks I have heard the phrase “It’s about quality, not quantity” spoken out loud quite a bit. For me it is all about the quality of my movement, but it made me think about how Jesus wants us to live our lives. Jesus doesn’t care if we only reach one person or if we reach 100, He cares about the quality of our connection with those we are reaching. We are called to love as Jesus loved and to act as Jesus acted. This is what Unleash is all about. Unleashing relentless love on our broken world can look different to everyone, it’s all about the quality!
Kids Against Hunger – Food Packaging Day from Calvary Church on Vimeo.
A total of 26,500 meals were packed in 5 hours and they raised $2500 more than was needed to fund the whole event!
Last Thursday night Lea and I participated with Cassie, Karen, Marla, John, Sue, and 50 other area folks to experience the reality of financial poverty. Each of us was given a role to play and we were asked to face the challenges for one month (condensed to one hour). (A detailed report from another “player” is in the Friday edition of the Muscatine Journal.) I was a 30 something divorced mother of two, working 20 hours a week. We quickly realized this was no game. Life dealt us some gifts and some blows. We actually survived the first month–our 18 year old got a job and the local church paid our utilities or there would have been no way. However, I think for the first “two weeks” we got by eating TicTacs as I forgot to visit the grocery store!
Yes, for some, brokenness is connected to finances. I discovered how important it is in that situation to maintain dignity. I felt like no area of life was in our control (perhaps I need to experience that more often). We were so close to the edge. It was exhausting to realize that almost every bit of information was a potential setback–school called off, grocery store closed, unpaid utility bills, eviction notice, ex husband out of work (no child support), etc.
I think I’ve gained a better view of how to “unleash relentless love” in such circumstances.
i woke up this morning
i realized that God was calling me
He was calling me to be…well, me.
God doesn’t want me to be like everyone else, He wants my best
He wants my true heart because anything else would be wrong.
we have been given many examples of how others are experiencing Unleash but we must be careful not to confuse these examples with an instruction manual.
God doesn’t want carbon copies, he wants our uniqueness.
He deserves our best. He is only asking that we take our unique talents and put them to use in our community for His kingdom.
He is asking us to unleash our talents and abilities in all of our uniqueness for him. I don’t think that’s too much to ask, do you?
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