God's sense of humor

So today I was beginning to feel lonely and sorry for myself. I love my job and I love where I am living, but I had very close friends and family in Michigan and it is hard not having them here. So... I looked in the bible, this time I checked out the concordance rather than playing bible magic eight ball and I found a passage for the word lonely in lamentations and this is what it said

1 How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow has she become, she that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the cities has become a vassal. 2 She weeps bitterly in the night, tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has none to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they have become her enemies.

Let me just tell you, that was not the comforting passage that I was looker for. Although I am just glad that I did not hit a blank page. As I was reading this and thinking about how I wished to be with all my friends chillin at bilbos or at the young adult worship service at birmingham, Emerge, I was not noticing that I was talking to seven people on-line. Seven.

It is so easy to overlook what is right in front of you. I prayed to God to help me not to feel lonely and God sent me seven friends to talk to. I mean seven is even a holy number and I wasn't paying attention. I am amazed at how God answers prayers. I am astounded at how comforting it is to know that even if I dont understand the answer it is there. My life has been touched by the knowledge that no matter what, God loves me. No matter where I am, no matter what I have done, no matter if I am surrounded by friends or feeling all alone, God is with me. I want to dedicate my life to showing that love to others so that everyone can realize God's love. Night!

The deaf choir at my church went to a four hour worship service last night that is an annual event for all the deaf ministries in the Baltimore area. About eight choirs preformed and three deaf speakers preached. It was a great service that was very affirming of deaf culture and the beauty in the way deaf people make music.

All the choirs were amazing and I am not saying that our choir was better because it was a worship serivice designed to showcase the many different deaf choirs. One thing I did notice though was the fact that all the other choirs signed to music. Which if you are really trying to preform a service for the deaf does not make sense for two reasons. One, the obvious reason, deaf people cant hear it; and reason number two being that the lyrics automatically put the signs into english word order, which is not american sign language.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with signing to music. It makes it moving for the hearing people in the crowd (like me) and it is making an effort to include deaf people. Although, if you really want to honor deaf people and their own language it is nice to allow them to do the music that they write and that they direct and preform.

The choir from my church is going to do a deaf choir tour in Michigan in November. I am elated. I can't wait to see my friends and family and my church families, and I can't wait for them to experience the world that I am living in now. I will post specific dates, times, and places in the month to come so that anyone who is interested can come see them. They are an all deaf choir and their music is culturally accurate and amazing. It is mindblowing the many ways god chose to give humans the gift of music.

I have so many stories that I want to write about at this exact moment that my brain is finding it hard to make anything sound interesting or complete. I will hopefully find some clarification soon and continue to write about my US-2 tales in a more coherent manner.

Below is a poem I wrote about the deaf choir after the first time that I saw them.

Caitlin’s Silent Choir
In honor of the deaf choir at Christ church in Baltimore.

Caitlin’s hands are crooked. Caitlin’s crooked hands are beautiful. She sways slowly and clucks…clucks…Caitlin clucks the beat, deep in her throat. She sings of her savior with silence. She signs of the savior with her crooked crinkled hands and the drum beats loud. Slam…Silence…Slam…Silence. Shhhhhh. Caitlin’s crooked hands conduct the silent choir. She raises. They raise. They praise. And they all sway. Slam… Silence…Slam. Caitlin’s choir feels the beat from their feet to their hands. Slam. Caitlin’s choir sings the praise of the lamb. Slam. Caitlin quietly voices the sounds she was taught. Ah. Ma. Zing. Grah. Ssss.

The Jig is up!

Unfortunately that day has come. My new good friend now knows me well enough to tell when I am faking the fact that I understand everything he is saying. Dangit! My sign language skills are improving although I have only been here three weeks so there are times when I still dont know exactly what is being said. In those times I like to look interested and nod my head as if I completely understand, which for the most part has been working quit well. I get to participate in conversations and add what I can. Since I have been spending a lot of time with Shawn* he now stops mid conversation and says to me. "You understand?" which of course then I nod and smile.

I usually understand concepts and mostly what is being said. He has also taken to responding with "ok then tell me what I just said." UGH! what a retched blessing to have made friends who know you well enough to challenge you. Shawn has not only taken to testing me he also makes sure to sign as fast as he can so that I am forced to pay close attention. After spending the day together my brain hurts. I am exhausted. I took ASl a year and a half ago and I have not had much interaction with deaf people until this recent move. Talk about immersion. Now 90 % of the people I know speak a completely different langauge then me.

Shawn will not let me skate through life here easily, he has even begun to watch when I am talking to other people so that he can stop me and make me confess when I don't know what is being said. Accountabilty is tough. Romans 14: 12&13 says "So then, each of us will be accountable to God. Let us therefore no longer pass judgement on one another, but resolve instead to never be a stumbling block or hindreance in one way or another." Shawn is not holding me accountable to himself. He is not passing judgement he is challenging me through the love of christ and making sure that he is not a stumbling block for my communication with my new friends. He is forcing me to be honest about when I have hit a stumbling block and when I need help. He leaves the judging to the Lord and instead puts his efforts toward helping me remove the hinderances rather than enjoying them.

Stumbling blocks may not always seem bad, they can manifest themselves in laziness. It is easier for me to nod and smile, I do not come home exhausted when I spend the day noding and smiling, although I do come home missing half of what is being said. I come home missing half of the ministery that was taking place in front of my face. Shawn is being a great friend and making sure that I learn to be fully involved in the life of my new church family.

peace.

*I will always change names on this blog to secure the privacy of the people I discuss.

Maryland state fair

I never thought that enjoying rollercaosters would be something I would need for a job. Too bad I am severly affraid of heights.

Today I accompanied two deaf/blind men, a deaf guy, and another SSP (standar support individual) to the Maryland state fair. We spent the day watching the horse races and petting the animals at the 4H building. I am constantly surprised at how easily it is for deaf/blind people to get around if they have an SSP. I am really starting to feel like I am making friends. These people were great today. They are so patient with me while I learn to speak their language. Thank you God!

The Lord will provide. The thing I was worried about the most before moving here was the fact that it would be hard to make all new friends. I need to remember that the Lord will always provide. I seem to easily forget one of my favorite sayings. Or maybe I just dont listen to mself well. Let go and Let God! I know it is a cliche' now but for me I really pull inspiration from that. God, has never let me down. Why waste my time worrying about something.

I am so glad to be here right now. Also, I have been feeling like I am improving in my ASL skills which is great because if I didnt it would be a long two years.

Thank you Lord for providing for me and for my friends. Please bring everyone in the world peace this evening. Be with the Hurricane Katrina victims and provide for them as well. Lord we do not always understand but we have to trust that you have a plan. Love' Ya' God! Amen.

p.s I say I am learning, although today when my friend was in my living room setting up the old vcr and I was making popcorn in the kitchen he called to me and I responded by yelling "Yeah?" I still have a lot to learn!

X > ?

It is a weird sensation to arrive at your first job post college and begin to work feeling like you know absolutely nothing at all. Feeling like you do not even know what you have done with the past 21 years of your life. What is even more strange is when you are sitting at your first grant writing meeting and you realize. Wow, I'm not just making this up, I might actually know what the heck I am talking about. Awesome! I guess it is good to know that the thousands of dollars spent on college wasnt a complete waste. I'm sure my parents are happy about that too! The icing on the cake for me though is the fact that at no time during said grant writing meeting was I asked to explain Osmosis or calculate the value of X or Y. Take that Bio 112!

The first thing you learn about non-profit organization is that it is absolutely essential to have a concrete mission statement and committed board of directors. Although, I am quickly realizing that most of the non-profits I know of are too busy putting out the daily fires in their communities to worry about their mission statement or board of directors. Thats where I come in. I will now be spending a great majority of my time doing the work that other people find ridiculously boring. I will be gathering statistics, creating databases and making it possible for the Deaf Shalom Zone to apply for grants. I will also be researching and writing those grants. This is exactly what I feel called to do. I feel as though it is in line with systemic change. If the organization is to survive it will need to be... well... organized.

How wonderful is it that the Deaf Shalom Zone has been blessed with so many people who want to put out the daily fires. Hopefully the gifts that I bring of organization (my parents are giggling because this is probably the only time I have ever and will ever be referred to as organized) will be helpful for this already thriving organization. Peace.

I was asked to preach for our my new churches annual picnic and I thought that I would post the sermon since it tells a little bit about how I became a US-2 missionary. Obviously it isn't the ASL version. We had a great day at the picnic. many poeple showed up and we spent time playing softball and chatting with one another. It was a wonderful day for fellowship. Thank the Lord!


Thank you for welcoming me today at your annual church picnic. If I sign slow I apologize, I am still learning American Sign Language. My name is Mary Gladstone and I recently graduated from Western Michigan University. I grew up in the United Methodist Church. My Dad is a pastor, my mom is a pastor and my brother is a pastor. I do not want to be a pastor.
I want to share with you how I became a missionary. I realize God has been leading me towards your incredible church for many years. When I was a sophomore in high school I attended a faith retreat called a Chrysalis Walk. During the weekend I heard testaments about spirituality, I sang Lord I Lift Your Name On High and Shout To the Lord with my friends, and I spent many hours in quiet reflection—which is hard for me because I love to talk—I was young and I was beginning to see my faith journey in a new light.

My pastor, Caroline Hart shared with the group her personal story of being called into the ministry. She told us about how she did not know what the lord was calling her to do with her life so she decided to open her bible to a random page and see what scripture god would point out to her. Mommy Hart—the name she was given by the youth group—saw a passage of the lord telling her to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with the world. I was astounded by this. I thought, why the heck didn’t I think of that before?

That evening during a silent evening of prayer in a candle lit sanctuary I prayed this prayer. “Dear Father…” This was before I learned to not limit god by placing the lord almighty into human gender specific roles. “…Please help me. I am a poor young girl and I have no direction in my life. I need to know the rest of my life plan right now. Please dear lord show me your plan for my life and I will give my whole self to you.” Then I began to play what I now refer to as Bible Magic Eight Ball. I dropped my pew bible open scrunched my eyes closed and jabbed my finger into the middle of the page.

That bible had one thousand six hundred and sixty three pages from Genesis chapter one “In the beginning God created the heaven and earth.” All the way until Revelation chapter 22 verse 21 “The grace of our lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen”. I managed to open to the page in between the Old Testament and the New Testament, the only entirely blank page in the middle of the bible.

Four Years later while sitting through an outdoor worship service at my campus ministry in Kalamazoo I was beginning to feel antsy. The sun was hot, I had recently switched my major for the third time, and I once again wanted to know what I should do with my life. I was reminded of the evening when I was a sophomore and I chuckled to myself. I grabbed the bible that had been placed on my folding chair when I sat down and prayed this prayer “Creator God, Thank you for everything you have given me. I am lost lord. I want to do your will but I do not know how. I don’t want to be a pastor lord; do you want me to be a pastor? I guess I will be a pastor if you want lord. Last time I was too young and I did not need to know where my life was headed yet, but now I am older and mature. I am making my life decisions and I must know what you want from me. Amen”.

Once again I dropped open my bible, scrunched my eyes and pointed at the page and once again I hit the blank page. I was in a different city, a different church, and I had used a different bible.
My favorite bible verse is 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 verses 18 “So we fix our eyes on the unseen, for what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal.” I believe that god has a plan for all of us, no matter where you come from or where you are going. God was calling me through those two games of Bible magic Eight Ball. God was calling me to give up; to stop fixing my eyes on the seen and begin to fix my eyes on the lord. God was crying out to me. “Cut it out dummy! I have a plan for you trust me. Give all things to me.”

I graduated in April with a degree in creative writing and non-profit administration. The February prior to my graduation I applied to become a missionary for the United Methodist Church. The missionary program provided a way for me to work within the church in a role that I felt called to serve in. I found out about your church and I fell in love. I cannot wait to learn from you and be apart of your ministry here I hope that I will become faster signer soon.
While I was writing this sermon my bible fell onto the floor and opened itself to Genesis chapter 12 verses 1 Now the Lord said to Abram, go form your country and your kindred and your fathers house to the land that I will show you.” God answered my prayers and led me here to this church.

God is worth our trust. God knows our hopes, our dreams, our fears and our desires. God will lead us in the right direction as long as we are willing to let go of our need to be in control and give all that we have to the lord.

Seeing Ghosts

There is a deaf/blind man in my congregation who has been experiencing an interesting problem. From time to time people who could see and then went blind will see images, like halucinations from their former sight. It is a disease and I have forgotten the name at the moment. This particular man is older and has been deaf/blind for a while. He has started to see these halucinations and because he is older they are very confusing to him. He is frightened and he thinks that they are ghosts that live in his house.

The man needed help with his medications which had lately increased. Another young man in the church had recently graduated from highschool. The young man asked the Deaf Shalom Zone to help him find an apartment so the solution was that the younger deaf man could stay with the older deaf/blind man free of charge if he helped with the medications and other house needs.

Due to his fear of the ghosts in his apartment the older deaf/blind man has now begun to cover the house with spray bleach, or globby furniture polish in order to make them leave. The younger man knew that this was a problem so he gave his older roomate a spray bottle of water and told him that it was holy water and it would rid the house of it's unwanted guests.

These events reminded me that we all can be hunted by the ghosts of our past. Bad decisions, family and loved ones who are no longer with us, lost jobs. By trying to rid ourselves of these "ghosts" alone we put ourselves in danger of making a mess of our current life, our current home. By inviting God into our lives and realizing the help and love that comes from the Lord we allow our creator to cleanse us by the baptism of holy water so that we can be washed anew and rid of our ghosts.

I was reminded once again to let go and let God. praise be the Lord. goodnight.

Reality Check

Today was the day that I realized how important this ministry is to the deaf community in Baltimore.

Last night a deaf member of the congregation was murdered in his apartment. He was an older man who lived in low income housing that was built in the 1970's specifically for empoverished deaf people although the state would not allow the housing to be only open for deaf people and they mandated that the housing would be for all people of disablilites. Now only 30 deaf people live in a complex with 150 apartments, the rest of the apartments are filled with people who have been paralized due to drug addictions or other such disablilites. The apartment complex is providing a place for people in need but it also is an unsafe atmosphere. I spent the day job shadowing my boss and pastor while they counseled the remaining deaf inhabitants. We tried to pursuade them to make tough dicisions like leaving their home and their friends for safer housing.

Later this evening I occumpanied my supervisor to a meeting with two of the youth of our church who have been excepted into the secondary school program an hour away at galludet. Tomorrow we are driving them over to take a look at the school and fill out paper work. One of the young guys has been living with the other young man's family. He has led a tough life and was taken in by this blessed family. Through the hard work of this family and the deaf shalom zone this young man will now finally recieve the education that he deserves. Praise the Lord.

God has placed this organization in the middle of death and new opportunities. I am blessed to be spending my two years learning from and shadowing these amazing people that God is working through. wow.

Dear God please be with the members of the low income housing. Please be with the man who was killed and all who knew him. Thank you lord for providing good education for gentlemen who deserve it. And thank you for blessing the world with gracious families and co-workers! Amen.

I have been in Baltimore for four days and I am already right in the thick of things. This job is great for my A.D.D brain. Friday night I went with a group of 20 deaf people from the church (two of which were deaf blind) to an interpreted showing of Grease the musical. Saturday I had lunch with my supervisor and then Sunday I went to my first deaf service which was loud because of the giant gong they beat and the base drum that is slammed upon during songs that we sign together.

After church the pastor of the church, and I went to Spring Field mental hospital to pick up a deaf women and take her to dinner. I do have to admitt I was a little scared when on the way Peggy told me that the woman had been kicked out of group homes for stabbing employees. Although all my worries disappeared when I met her, she was a great woman and I had a blast talking with her over pizza and ice cream.

I am beginning to notice how uncomfortable some hearing people can be when they are in the presence of a deaf person. Our waiter at dinner was absolutely beside himself tonight. I understand that it is a different situation for hearing people to be in, but it is a little funny to watch people squirm. The waiter was flumbling all over himself and kept staring, poor guy.

This week should be an exciting one. I will keep this blog "posted" ha ha get it... =) peace all!

Arrival in Baltimore

"I will sing to my lord a new song: O Lord, you are great and glorious wonderful in strength, invincible." Judith 16:13

I have finally arrived in Baltimore! My brother Carl and I made the 10 hour trip yesterday, leaving his house in birmingham at 7am and arriving in baltimore at 5pm. I have been anticipating this move since January and now I can relax and begin to sing my new song to the Lord.

My supervisor from the Deaf Shalom Zone met us at the church and drove us to my new house. Carl was a great help; I do not think I would have been able to carry all of my belongings up three flights of stairs without him. Last night we walked to a great local resturant for dinner and enjoyed the vegetarian, organic, cuisine.

Today Carol took us out to lunch at another great local resturant called the Paper Moon and then directed towards the Inner Harbor where we spent the rest of the day site seeing. We went to the Maryland Art Place, The Power Plant (a touristy shopping plaza) and watched street magicians.

We ended the day with a 2 hour sail around the harbor on a huge sail boat called the Clipper Ship. We were lucky enough to buy tickets for the "pirate cruise" and spent the evening saying "Rrrr!" with many little kids dressed to the max like pirates.

I feel calm. I feel as though this is the right decision for my life right now and that I am truly called to be here. I am excited to start working on writing grants and casework with the deaf in the community. I am excited to start sign language classes at the community college. I am excited to meet new people in my new home. But most of all I am excited to sing my new song. Praise be to God. Amen.

starting off on a good foot

My goal is to keep these entries fairly devotional but I thought that I better add this funny story.

This week my pastor from Baltimore wrote me and asked if I could write a paragraph about myself for their newsletter. She also asked me to send a picture of myself. I finished the paragraph and had planned to attach a picture from my moms computer files that was taken of me at the gbgm. I noticed before sending the email that the picture's title was carlsmary.jpg and I asked my mom about it but she told me it was just the name of the folder and to send it anyway.

The next day I recieved another email from my pastor saying "Thank you for the information, we were unable to use the picture that you sent us... did you mean to send that picture?" apparently what had happened was that I had sent the copy of my bio photo that my brother had gotten ahold of and had fun with in paintshop. To my embarassment I had sent a pic of myself with a birdsnest in my hair, a booger in my nose and a big sign across the chest that read I LOVE DORKS. I am so glad that my future employers have a god sense of humor. I leave in three days. Thank you God for the funny moments in life!

Bittersweet

Leaving home has proved to be a tougher task than I had anticipated. I was/am so excited about beginning my new job and finding my way around baltimore that I forgot it would be really tough to say goodbye to my friends back in Michigan. Today was particularly tough; after spending a great week at junior high camp with some of the best counselors on the planet I realized how real it was that I would not be back for quite a while.

God is continually pressing forward in my life and I am thankful to have this bittersweet moment. I am sad that I will not see my friends for a while but I am looking forward to the great new people that I will meet when I arrive at the Deaf Shalom Zone. Carl and I leave early wednesday morning in order to meet Carol around 4pm at the church. I still have a lot of things to do before I go such as being a bridesmaid tomorrow, sending all my media mail, setting up a dentist apointment, and finishing up packing.

God has been working through music today in my life. When I got in the car after saying a sad goodbye to my friends the lyrics that were blarring on the radio were "I'm SO moving on! YEAH YEAH!" then later in the car while deep in thought another song came on that had the lyrics "I'm moving on, at last I can see, life has been patiently waiting for me." those were weird moments in my day.

I am off to bed to pray for the two years that lay ahead for myself, for the people at the deaf shalom zone, and for the people that I will not see for a while. I am thankful for everyone and everything in my life that has brought me to this point. night!

Three more weeks to go until I leave for Baltimore and I feel like there should be more for me to do.

I have spent the past four summers working as a Mission Intern of the Detroit Annual Conference which has without a doubt fueled my passion and prepared me the full-time mission field.

On August 17th I will jump in my car with my brother and head towards Baltimore to work as a US-2, a social justice missionary commissioned by the General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church.

The US-2 program places young adult missionaries in a social justice role for two years in various sites in the United States. My US-2 class is comprised of eight young adults traveling to California, Alaska, Georgia, Colorado, New Mexico, Washington DC, Mississippi, and Maryland. I found out about the program rather backwards. I was spending a lot of time in January wondering what every senior wonders "What am I going to do with my life now?" I did a google search on the internet for "United Methodist Church + Deaf" and found an organization called the Deaf Shalom Zone.

I decided to write the pastor of Christ Church of the Deaf, the church that houses The Deaf Shalom Zone, and see if she knew of ways for me to be involved with deaf ministries in Michigan. She wrote me back an email telling me about the US-2 program and how there would be a possibility for me to work with there organization.

I was accepted into the program in early March and then spent two weeks in New York City training. We learned about "isms" and culture shock, privileges and managing health.

I am now finishing up my summer job as a detroit annual conference mission intern and packing in the evenings I can't wait to get to my site and start learning from the great people in the congregation. I have decided to start this blog so that I can chronicle my memoirs for the next two years of service. I will update it regularly so that anyone who is interested can stay informed as to what is taking place in baltimore.

Micah 6:8 states "and what does the lord require of you? To do justice, love mercy and to walk humble with your God." I want to spend the rest of my life striving to do justice and love mercy I hope that this will be the first step in a lifetime of service.

Read my thoughts and comment all you want! I will appreciate the feedback! Peace!