A beautiful collision...

Though this day is our country's official holiday, I feel as though my Thanksgiving has already come and gone.

You see, last Saturday, Titus, some friends, and myself hosted a meal for some of our downtown friends. The spread of food ranged from traditional turkey to Kenyan mashed potatoes. The range of music flowed from Kim Walker to Jimmy Jackson. The activities ranged from chess games to soul trains. I could go on for hours.

So what does this meal have to do with Juja Java?

Everything. Absolutely everything.

Because at this meal, this feast, this celebration of life, I felt as though I was catching a glimpse of heaven. The types of people present at the party- heaven will be attended like this. The glory of a feast among saints and sinners- heaven will include this. Joy and love and company and music and food and laughter and utter contentment- heaven will be like this.

Though these things are present in heaven, they should be present on earth as well. I look to times when Jesus prayed that God's will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Therefore, I think that when heaven comes down to earth, it is a very glorious thing. It is a very sacred thing. It is a very breathtaking thing -- it will take the breathe right out from your lungs because it is the collision of two worlds functioning under perfect intent.

And I had the honor of witnessing these two worlds collide into one at this feast.

It was such a beautiful collision.

So I relate that directly to Juja because I long for that collision to be at the core of our focus. It only seems right that it should be.

And I do not pretend that we have the formula for the collision perfected by any means. I do not know how often we will have the honor to see the collision happen. I do not think we have reached the point of fully understanding how the collision should manifest itself.

But I do know that the beautiful collision on Saturday took my breathe away.

And I will fight and work and strive to bring about the collision in Juja Java.

"Then he turned to the host. "The next time you put on a dinner, don't just invite your friends and family and rich neighbors, the kind of people who will return the favor. Invite some people who never get invited out, the misfits from the wrong side of the tracks. You'll be—and experience—a blessing. They won't be able to return the favor, but the favor will be returned—oh, how it will be returned!—at the resurrection of God's people." Luke 14:12-14

It will be such a beautiful collision.

-B-

The overflow...

I have a couple thoughts backed up in my Juja filled head, but instead of stacking them into one post, I think I need to sequence this out. So for my first thought stems from the week I just had.

This week was rough for a variety of reasons. I will just throw it out there as it is.

I wrote on my blog a little bit about the theme that seems to be invading me right now-- the concept of leaving and staying.

As I see people physically and emotionally walking out of my life, I find myself staying fixed. And as I find myself physically and emotionally separately myself from people, I find others steady in their places.

Perhaps one of the hardest things about returning from Kenya has been the shift in the dynamics of my friendships. I knew that my relationships would be different when I returned, however the manifestations of that have exceeded my expectations. I left for Kenya, other people stayed. This brought and continues to bring change.

And so sometimes I struggle to embrace the changes that are produced by the act of leaving and staying. However, given time and stillness, I always come around to it. Christ always gets me to the place of understanding why others and myself sometimes need to leave and sometimes need to stay.

Yet in grappling with this concept this week, I had one very bright spot. It came from none other than... Erin Titus!

Because here is the thing that this week demonstrated to me so well--

Erin and I are not friends because we have a dream that we share. We do not join for the sake of the dream. Instead, Erin and I are friends who happen to share a dream. We join for the sake of friendship, of fellowship, and under all of that has emerged the beautiful concept of Juja Java.

So this dynamic of friendship is at work and it is so very encouraging.

I look over to Titus sometimes and tell her, "You know, we are real life friends now." And I say that to mean that we spent this summer with twenty three people. Some of them are friends in the context of Kenya. And others are friends in the greater context of life.

We have overflowed into real life now. And that is a beautiful, sacred thing.

Because regardless of who is leaving and who is staying in the rest of my life, one person that I have complete faith in is Titus. She could physically go to any part of the world, I could physically stay in any part of the world, and yet I never question emotionally leaving. She is stuck with me!

We have overflowed into real life now. Amen.

-Bethany-

Say WHAT?

"Even when we sleep, our desire does not. It is who we are. We are desire. It is the essence of the human soul, the secret of our existence. Our desire, if we will listen to it, will save us from committing soul-suicide, the sacrifice of our hearts on the altar of getting by. The same old thing is not enough. It never will be."

My desire is to love: to love God whole-heartedly and to love His people.

I once read that the story of your life is the story of the journey of your heart through a dangerous and beautiful world. About a year ago, my heart began to beat for Kenya; a heartbeat so loud I found myself living there for two and a half months this past summer. And it was there, that I came to know my God in a different way. I saw Him in a different light. He exposed to be how vast and wide He is, how big, how HUGE! It was there that I came to know my God of an unlimited nature. And this was so different to me because up to this point, I had put Him in a box; I had tried to contain Him. It wasn't until this summer that I let Him break free. There is no more impossible; only unlimited possibilities.

BREAK FREE. Wow. Sounds amazing, doesn't it?

It was also in Kenya, that I met this crazy radical passionately pursuing God in the same way as me. Her name is Bethany:) We instantly bonded through the love of our Savior, but also through the love we have for people, Kenya, and coffee. And in a place so far away from home, she was my home, my safe-haven. And it was the start of a beautiful friendship that opened up the dream to a beautiful partnership.

With the talk becoming a reality, I realized the comfort of home found in her was not just something in Kenya, but something I experience everytime I am with her. As we collect cookbooks and share in the dream God has laid on our hearts, we surrender fully to the Giver of Life.

As I sit listening to Hillsong, "Show me Your heart; show me Your way; show me Your glory", I praise the One who finds us worthy of the call. Because it's ALL about Him, not us. So whether the plans change along the way, the goal remains the same: loving our Father with abandoned delight and responding to His voice.

-Erin-

The potential of home...

Fun note: I am currently sitting in Knoxville next to my co-conspirator. We are sipping tea. We are melting into the sound of melancholy music. This is beautiful.

Actual substance: It has been interesting to watch Juja Java slightly evolve from a conversation to a future reality.

I have had a lot of conversations in my life which have included, “Hey, we should do that together!” Yet most of these conversations have ended being just that- a conversation. No intended action.

Yet such is not true with Erin and I. Instead, I actually believe that we are going to accomplish exactly what we intend to do, Lord willing.

Thus, I consider this venture that we are on to be a rarity in the world. I consider it to be a very magical and sacred thing.

I find evidence of this venture, the future reality, all around me.

Nearly every hour Erin and I are together, we will inject something in our dialogue which usually consists of, “Oh and that can go in Juja. And what do you think about that?”

It is as though the dream is whispering to us all the time, in every location. The list and magnitude of Juja is growing. Bookshelves, check. Couches, check. African dishware, check. On and on.

And if this visit to Knoxville is anything like the last, I know that I will drop into a somewhat depressive stupor come Monday. It is the feeling that follows every visit with Erin. I can only associate the feeling with being homesick.

It is not at all that I feel homesick for the city of Knoxville. I suppose it is more that I feel homesick for the sentiment of a shared purposed. I feel homesick for the personification of the dream that I find in Erin. I feel homesick for the hope I find in the future when I am sitting next to my joint visionary.

And as I sit in Knoxville this weekend, I feel at home; home being defined as the place which is closest to the heart of our dream.

So we stand outside of our home, which may have been thought of and forgotten by others before us. Though the paint is chipped and the front porch is sagging, we believe in the potential of home- the potential of the dream before us.

I close with the words of the wise theologian Shel Silverstein:

Listen to the mustn'ts, child
Listen to the don'ts
Listen to the shouldn'ts
The impossibles, the won'ts.
Listen to the never haves
Then listen close to me--
Anything can be, child
Anything can be.

For just as in your own home, anything can be. I say in Juja, anything can be, child.

Anything can be.

-Bethany-

Welcome...

I went to Kenya in search of a definitive calling for my life. I wanted the moment, the “ah-ha” moment, that would bring clarity for the next phase of my life.

In coming to the near conclusion of my undergraduate education, I find myself in the same position I was in at the end of my high school education. I find myself standing with the question, “Well… what is next?”

Despite my search this summer, I did not have my “ah-ha” moment in Kenya. I had so many other moments. God moments. People moments. Love moments. Fulfillment moments.

Yet in a way, I came home from my summer in Nairobi with more direction than I imagined. Sure, there was no moment- I did not hear God in the earthquake so to speak. Instead, the clarity that I have found has stemmed from the amalgamation of twenty one years with one incredible summer.

From working in a micro-enterprise business office, I gained the concept of how small investments can have large effects on people. From my teammates, I learned to live in community as well as be a part of a team. From the Kenyans, I acquired their perspective of relationships- the ability to have an interruptible life for the sake of others.

In learning those things, I found Erin, my fellow comrade, my sister, my friend. And while we were sitting over coffee and cake on July 12^th, more pieces regarding the future fell into place.

Two counseling majors. Love for Christ. Love for coffee. Love for food. Love for hurting people. Love for Kenya. Throw it all together. The result, the dream, is what we like to refer to as Juja Java- Loving Christ and others through a coffee shop, hiring hurting people while spending a year counseling them, and incorporating the country of Kenya in every way we can.

So this summer was not a boom, a glaring moment of absolute clarity regarding my future. Instead, it was God whispering to me. It was God whispering to Erin. And the whispering has been building and sweeping us along ever since we returned in August. The dream is growing.

Therefore, this blog is yet another symbol which confirms that our desires for Juja Java are indeed manifesting themselves. Moreover, as our dream continues to expound and unfold, we have concluded that there is no better way to document this journey than to blog our way through it.

And I have concluded that even if Juja Java never comes to be, even if we end up living as two hippies in Kenya, even if whatever, the vision before us does not change- we seek holiness that hurts the eyes. Thus the task of our journey remains the same.

So welcome to our journey…

-Bethany-