Letter I recently sent out - long...and long overdue.

May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD, even as we put our hope in you. - Psalm 33:22

November 5, 2008
Hi friends and family,

Can you believe it’s been a whole year since I left the ad biz?? Sometimes it feels like yesterday, but mostly it seems like another lifetime. My journey took me on mission trips to Panama, Oman, Yemen, Ethiopia, Egypt, India, and Zambia to serve the poor. In actuality I ended up learning from the poor, working alongside the poor, and seeing God’s face in the faces of the poor.

This letter is long overdue, mostly because I have struggled to know what to say, with it being impossible to encapsulate my experiences in words. I haven’t yet fully processed everything myself. It seems that each week I have flashes of memories, with haunting images of a burned boy’s raw-skinned belly and forlorn gaze, a malnourished man’s toothless grin and yellowed eyes, an orphan child’s torn shirt and joyful giggle, a village woman’s dirt-caked calloused feet, a black-robed woman with only henna-tattooed hands escaping cover, or a dust-filled home made out of sticks, plastic bags, and tin. It seems like the minute I rest on a revelation or understanding of my experience more pleading questions arise. I have waves of pain and outrage for injustices I saw and still see, not the least one being the vulgar wastefulness of American lifestyles, including my own. Even our “poor” are wealthier than 99% of all the people who have ever walked on this earth. Even so, I would argue that, except in the face of devastating poverty or disease, we are no better off with all our material wealth; in fact the pursuit of it isolates us from each other and from our own hearts, and worst of all, from God.

Over the course of the year I had the opportunity to slow down and listen to God’s voice and my own heart, to ponder my purpose & desires, and to learn from faithful people around the world. I got to sit and talk and have tea – for hours. I got to wander. I got to see three of the wonders of the world. I got to be humbled and inspired. I got to be alone with God while never being alone. I got to live in community with gracious hosts. I got to be gripped by terror in the night and rescued by my God who was nearer. I got to pray and be prayed for.

The cost to do this was almost everything yet nothing at all. In pursuit of God’s call I gave up most of the worldly possessions and professional identity I had built up for myself over the years, and laid down my pride to ask for the help of family and friends. But looking back the only things I would do different now would be to have chosen more radical trust in God for my well-being and more willingness to serve Him. I marvel at His goodness and at the lovingkindness with which He has cared for me.

I also marvel at you guys, my faithful loved ones, who have stuck by me through the ups and downs of helping me live out my calling (a messy process at times) - inspiring many of you, terrifying others, befuddling some, and even offending a few. I thank you for taking the journey with me in the form of friendship, love, encouragement, shared wisdom, loving caution, financial support, help with packing and moving, and faithful prayers. It’s a journey that in many ways has just begun, and I truly thank you for being part of the team that helped me get started, even when the vision wasn’t clear and the outcomes were unknown (and still are!).

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Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
-Hebrews 11:1
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“And work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray
to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare…For I know the plans I have
for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give
you a hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and
I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
-Jeremiah 29: 7 & 11-13
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As many of you already know, my journey led me back to Austin where I am re-planting my roots in this new season of my life, after a period of discerning whether or not I was being called to mission work in Cairo, Egypt. God released me from that sense of calling in mid-May, coincidentally on the morning of the day I set out to co-lead a team of 30 people from my church on an “Urban Submersion Weekend” mission trip to East Austin to serve with an inner city ministry called Mission Possible. Mission Possible connects Christians from different churches, regardless of denomination, to serve the homeless, at-risk youth in nearby housing projects, and the poor and elderly neighbors around their community center, an old church building on a corner notorious for drug-deals and prostitution. It’s also an area that is experiencing the pressures of gentrification which pushes the poor out as the wealthy move in, “flipping” homes and tearing down affordable housing, which causes skyrocketing home values and taxes.

While I was in East Austin I sensed God inviting me to join the work He is doing right here at home and saw how some different aspects of my calling aligned with Mission Possible’s vision for community transformation through individual lives being touched by the love of Christ. In this season God has called me to go where others don’t or won’t go and then report back what I see and learn while on the front lines, or better said – to be a scout and a vision-sharer. It doesn’t really matter whether I’m in Egypt or East Austin. I am who God created me to be wherever I am. It's not about what I do, it's about His grace and love and my heart being surrendered to both. That weekend with Mission Possible opened my eyes to the plight of the poor, sick, addicted, abused, homeless, hungry and oppressed in my own city. I began to see God’s plan to transform this city of Austin that I love so much. I started to pray for an east side revival to spark citywide transformation, for people to be reconciled to God and to each other through the power of Christ’s love. Before the weekend was over, I told the executive director Tim Pinson Sr. that I felt like the Lord was calling me to Mission Possible.

After that I served as a volunteer at Mission Possible for two months in order to get to know the staff and for them to know me, and on August 1st I came on staff in a full-time role as Director of Community Outreach & Communications. In a nutshell, my role is to network with church leaders and volunteers from all over the city, sharing Mission Possible’s mission and vision and getting them connected to serve in one-on-one relationships through the venues of spiritual, social, and economic programs we offer. The programs I oversee are under the umbrella of Community Outreach: a wellness center that provides free medical care to the homeless and uninsured, an in-home grocery delivery service for the elderly and homebound on fixed incomes, a free home repair ministry, and a community garden. I also do PR and media promotion for our community events such as His-Story, a live presentation of Jesus’ life with live nativity scene (complete with camels, donkeys, goats, and sheep – reminds me of my vet clinic days in Ethiopia!!). In the upcoming year I will coordinate a charity golf tournament as well as our annual banquet and silent auction. Plus I get to go to Camp Nikos with the kids and teach arts & crafts and the ropes course! It’s all hands on deck at this small-staffed ministry that runs on volunteer power and the faithful donations of individual donors, with no government grants and no corporate sponsors, just faith in God’s provision alone.


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He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. -Micah 6:8
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Eternal moments from the frontline…


THOMAS
During my second week on the job a middle-aged African-American man pounded on the side door of Mission Possible while I was upstairs working, asking if I had anything sweet I could give him. I knew that was a sign that he was coming down off of crack but decided his request was innocent enough, and his tone of voice didn’t sound malicious, so after rummaging around our food pantry I found some cookies to give him. Barely 10 minutes had passed and I heard another banging on the door. “Hey, um, yeah, say, can I have some cookies too?” the voice on the other side of the door said with an urgency that betrayed his faux timidity. So there I was, suddenly playing trick-or-treat with these guys, not knowing what it would bring next. That’s when I felt a check in my spirit that said “pray for him.” So I decided to go with that nudge and opened the door, but before handing him the bag of cookies I looked him in the eye and said with a playfully stern smile, “there’s only one stipulation, tell me what I can pray for you about.”

It’s weird but in that moment I felt like he was kin to me, my brother, and like I was supposed to be there to show love to him at that moment, but also like it was growing something in me to be able to be there for him, like he was there for me as much as I was there for him. I think he felt the connection too, because he instantly bowed his posture and then looked up at me with a plaintive look of trust mixed with desperation and said, “um, yeah, um, can you pray that I would get off the drugs?” I said of course and asked if I could pray right there (yes) and could I put my hand on his sweaty shoulder (yes) and asked what his name was (Thomas). So right there we prayed. Right there I was just a sister bringing her wounded brother before the throne of our loving Father, asking Him to show mercy to His struggling son. I thanked God for Thomas’ faith to even let me pray for him, and I pleaded with the Father to grant victory to Thomas over the drugs, and to restore the damage done to his body. I said goodbye to Thomas and went upstairs and cried in Tim Jr.’s office. At the end of that day, when I looked at all the things I didn’t accomplished on my to-do list, God spoke to my spirit and said, “Well done my child, you did what was most important to me today, you loved your brother.”


DOROTHY
One afternoon, as I was alone in the office and getting ready to leave for the day, a haggard-looking overweight Hispanic woman came to the door. When I’m there alone I’m more cautious about who I open the door for, but as a general rule I always let women in. Plus, she looked pretty desperate. I let her in and she explained that she’s been living in her car with her baby, and that the car was out of gas and she was broke and had walked several blocks to find some money and food and use a phone. I asked her name (Dorothy) and gave her a cup of water and invited her to sit down and talk. She was exhausted from the long walk in the heat and seemed so downtrodden and alone. We talked about her situation and I learned that in the past she had lived on the streets in Austin but had moved to Houston last year, but that Hurricane Ike has displaced her back to Austin to live in her car. She used my cell phone to call her husband and ended up getting hysterical on the phone, yelling back at him and starting to cry. She hung up abruptly and broke down sobbing, with huge tears rolling down her face and onto her t-shirt. I put my hand on her back and rubbed it gently to comfort her as she told me how her husband had left her and was now married to her sister. She was so dejected, and in that moment I felt such pointed compassion for her, such a deep connectedness to her pain. There was nothing I could do to solve her problems, but I could rub her back and sit with her in her time of sorrow, and I could pray. After I prayed for her she wiped the tears from her eyes and thanked me. We have an informal policy not to hand out cash to people, but I gave her $3 and packed her a couple bags of food for the road.

Two weeks later I saw her again at Mission Possible, this time in the morning as I came in to work. I excitedly greeted her, “Dorothy!! How are you doing!?” She beamed at me and said she was doing so much better than when I had last seen her. She was there that morning because she had come for our Tuesday Night Fellowship for the Homeless the night before, where we serve a meal to 100+ homeless people and have music and Bible study, and then invite them to sleep over on the floor of our community center. A doctor comes twice a month to treat and give out necessary meds free of charge. Our building used to be a church, so we have the dinner and worship serve in the old sanctuary, and when all those homeless people are crammed in there talking, listening, laughing, debating, arguing, complaining, singing, and smelling as human it gets - in those moments - you get the sense that you are in the presence of angels.


THERESA
Again, I’m upstairs in my office, working on my computer, doing things that could pass for your typical cubicle job in corporate America. Emails, phone calls, paperwork, following up on this and that, the usual. In comes Theresa, a 42-year-old Caucasian woman with scraggly blond hair and thin as a rail. She’s been using crack cocaine for 20 years and her skin, teeth, and body have aged accordingly with the damage it’s done. She had just been in Terry’s office talking to him. A retired IBM guy and then missionary to China and Russia, Terry counsels some of the homeless people and neighbors in our East Austin community when they are in need of someone to talk to about spiritual concerns and matters of physical and economic need.

So Theresa bounces into my office and says “I need a card, do you have a card??” I thought she was asking for my business card, like maybe so she could keep it handy to call me for stuff, but something told me to ask her what kind of card she wanted. “A greeting card” she said, “like the kind you give to someone.” She then explained to me that she has a crush on Brian, one of our regular volunteers who serves the homeless on Tuesday nights and on Sundays at Church Under the Bridge (under the I-35 & 7th St. overpass). She went on about how he is so kind to her and to everyone else and that she would love to marry him, but that she knows he would never marry a crack addict like herself. I commiserated with her, as women do when talking about unattainable men, and encouraged her to think of it like this: maybe God was showing her a guy like Brian as a wake up call, to show her that He has good plans in store for her in the future, maybe to inspire her to seek victory over crack. I think Terry had given her similar advice, so she was content to just dream but still wanted to show her appreciation for his kindness.

Right then I realized I had a greeting card in my desk that I had planned to give to a friend but hadn’t gotten around to (sometimes procrastination has unforeseen benefits). I pulled it out and gave it to Theresa. She was so excited because it had a violin on the front and a message that said something about being created to play a tune that only you were meant to play, and on the inside it said “Play on” and had a meaningful Bible verse at the bottom. She ran out of my office giddy, and ten minutes later ran back in waving the card at me. She kneeled down by my desk and showed me what she had written in huge scribbly handwriting that could have been that of a first grader. She was so genuinely excited to do something nice for this man who had been so genuinely kind to her, and I was so happy to be able to help her do it. And in that moment, conspiring to commit that random act of kindness together, we were sisters.


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And he will answer, “I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.” -Matthew 25:45
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Three things will last forever – faith, hope, and love – and the greatest of these is love.
-I Corinthians 13:13
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I can’t say that every interaction with the homeless has been as pleasant or meaningful for me or them. I’m not even saying that those moments meant a hill of beans to Thomas, Dorothy, or Theresa in the grand scheme of their lives or in helping them to get off the street or off of drugs. But I do know that God’s Word says that only three things are eternal: Faith, Hope, and Love. For me those were moments of obedience to the Holy Spirit’s nudge on my heart, obedience that God sees as an act of love towards Himself and other people, who the Bible says over and over that He loves and sent Jesus to die for, to reconcile to Himself. So if these little moments of love are pleasing and of eternal value to the Lord, then they are treasures for me to hold dear, treasures so valuable that I am compelled by His love to share them with you.

It’s not easy doing inner city ministry, and some days it feels like too big of a burden to bear. But those are usually the days I find myself working in my own strength instead of God’s. It’s His work, not mine, and He will accomplish His purposes with or without me! I just thank Him for inviting me to be a part of His plan. And when I work in the peace of that knowledge He uses me to bless others, which is the greatest blessing of all to me.


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But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from
God and not from us. -II Corinthians 4:7
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If you would like to donate to Mission Possible you can specify on the mail-in envelope provided that your donation go to the general fund or to one of our three ministry areas: Homeless Ministry (Church Under the Bridge), Project Intercept (kids after school programs and Nikos camps), or Community Outreach (medical, groceries, home repair, community garden). You can do a one-time gift or an ongoing monthly donation. For questions about giving you can call our administrative assistant, Billie Robinson, at (512) 494-0953.

I am personally fundraising for the purchase of a MAC laptop for business use and for general personal expenses that will enable me to continue doing ministry long-term. If you would like to donate to my personal ministry please put #1006 on the envelope or attach a note to your check. If you do not receive a hand-written thank you note from me within six weeks please contact Billie or myself to verify proper accounting of your funds.

As I move forward in this ministry I ask for your ongoing prayers more than anything else. There is nothing, NOTHING, of greater value, blessing, protection, and provision for me than prayer. Thank you again for your friendship, love, and support!

Love,
Susan Joy
Personal contact info:
12401 Los Indios Trail, #28, Austin, TX 78729, (512) 773-3240 cell

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Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to
us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. –I1 Corinthians 5:17
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