Basement Beginnings - 2

Part 2 – Saint Joseph, Missouri
(Storage room)

Obstacles are often open doors of opportunity. Anticipate change and the hardships help you. All may seem dark and difficult in the moment, but if you will just continue to put one foot in front of the other on the other side you will be able to see what was impossible to see from your previous perspective. As you give a slight glance back at the door you just walked through you will be grateful.

One car meant that I had to go pick him up. The drive to the mall where he was part of the management team at a sports shoe store was a prayer filled few minutes. There had been some shifting around in upper management. When all was said and done all of the mid level managers were asked to leave. He was standing on the curb with a box of personal belongings in his hands. His eyes were puffy. He climbed silently into the car. My mouth, which had been running a mile a minute in prayer on the way over, was now quiet. I was relieved.

This all took place at the end of summer of ‘98. We sat down on the couch and looked at each other. We were both thinking the same thing. Not two weeks passed and we had moved down to Saint Joseph, Missouri. Most of his credits transferred to Missouri Western. We knew that being able to continue with school was the only condition. DaRonn felt that God had told him that he needed to get his degree before he went to the mission field. He prayed that we would be 10 years advanced as missionaries when we landed if we took the time to go through school. So what’s in Saint Joseph?

Backtracking a few months; before our baby was born in March 1998 we had been hunting for a church there in Omaha. Easter was coming and we had been invited by a friend (who was a newly hired associate pastor) to come and attend Word of Life Church. He had been raving about how wonderful the people were, especially the pastors. We made the 2 hour drive down with some other members of my family. We knew the hunt was over. For 5 months (March to August) we made the commute once a week to church. So it was only logical to us that when he had no more obligations to his job that we would make the move down.

On the map this move took us about an inch closer to Bolivia. I was happy that we were headed in the right direction. Not just the right direction physically; but I felt like this was a decision we made based wholly on our priority of preparing for the mission field. God had shut a door and another had opened before us.

We left the basement stage and were now in the storage room stage. Most of our ministry desires were fulfilled through volunteer positions with church. It was in this city that we learned how to trust God for, well, for everything really. It seemed like every single message at church during our two years living there was about faith. We learned to live by faith. We used our faith to kill the bugs in our apartment, to put gas in our car, for milk and diapers for our baby, to put food on our table, to pay the hospital bills for the birth of our second child, and for work for DaRonn. He worked mostly temp jobs, but there was one job that makes us smile every time we think about it.

The whole time we were there things were tight. One day we got a call from a business owner at church that knew a little about our situation. He alluded to a job. Wow, we were so excited! DaRonn went to his office. The man explained how the business worked. They sold fancy vacuum cleaners and took old trade-ins to offset the cost for clients. So he told DaRonn that he had about 50 old trade-in vacuums that he wanted to give to us. What?! He said that we could sell the vacuums; all we had to do was haul them. The old Century Apartments complex where we lived had storage rooms for each of the tenants. We filled that room with vacuums and vacuum parts. There were tubes and hoses hanging from the ceiling and canisters and uprights piled on the floor. Every time I tripped and stumbled over the vacuums to pull the string that hung by the light bulb in that room I had to laugh!

From borrowed basement beginnings to scraping by with a stuffed storage room, our next stop: a garage in a state where the wind goes sweeping down the plain.

Basement Beginnings - 1

Part 1 – Omaha, Nebraska
(Basement)

The birthing of big dreams conceived in the heart of man oftentimes takes place in the most obscure locations. Two famous examples are Bill Gates’ Microsoft and Steve Jobs’ Pixar Studios; both men began by building computers in a garage. Many scientists, inventors and artists have utilized garages, basements, and other such rooms relegated for nothing more than storage as a maternity ward in which visions that have only existed in their imagination come forth through the pangs of trial and error. If you think about it, even our Lord, King Jesus, was born in nothing more than a poor stable.

The beginning of Christ Nation Ministries is no exception. Upon graduating from high school DaRonn Washington was passionate about God; and he was homeless. His mother decided that it was time for him to get out on his own. The transition months were spent in a room in his pastor’s basement in Omaha, Nebraska. Amongst the college applications, job applications and scholarship applications he found time for applying himself to time with the Lord receiving strategies and dreaming about ministry.

His best friend at the time was none other than yours truly. He asked me to pray about what part I should take in the commencement of this newly named operation. It seemed that it was all that we talked about. He was especially convinced about the urgency of doing something multi-faceted on a grand scale. I felt that my part was to be his “right hand man”. I didn’t know that meant filing, spell checking, and running to the copy center all from the make shift office of that damp basement. Actually, I didn’t know a frazzling thing what it meant. I was just happy to be around such energy and decidedness.

During Thanksgiving break of his sophomore year at U.N.O. (the University of Nebraska at Omaha) we were married and moved all ministry operations to the confines of a tiny corner in our home: an 800 square foot apartment with walls that seemed to be made of cardboard and plumbing that was always backed up. The fundraising efforts for our first trip overseas together with Teen Mania to Costa Rica were realized during our first months of marriage at our wobbly kitchen table. Returning from that trip with the anticipation of our first child we moved to a slightly larger place on the third floor of an old apartment building. The place had character and there was even a little area that we turned into a study. DaRonn was working full time and going to school full time. I was a mommy.

Life was good, fun, and new. By this time we knew that we needed to prepare to be missionaries. The big question was: where? Our walls were papered with maps. Russia? India? China? Africa? While sitting in a geology class DaRonn’s teacher showed a video about Bolivia. When the faces of the people flashed on the screen a burning sensation burst in my husband’s heart and he felt that these words impressed on him, “That is where you start.” Infused with a sure direction we began to take steps towards this mysterious land. And then the phone call came, “Ang’ they just fired me.”

(to be continued…)

Moving Parts

My baby boy marvels me. The other day as he sat in his stroller watching his Papa eat a hot hog he began to flap his arms up and down. Seeing that this amused his parents he continued with a huge smile on his face. Also, when he gets his pants changed his new trick is to pull on his toes and rock from side to side. Lately he has been waking himself up and flipping over in bed from tummy to back. He is not an overly rambunctious child, but when he is awake he is making some part of his body move. If I was in movement as much as he is those extra baby pounds would have melted away long ago.

So I was thinking about my baby’s pursuit of discovery and a thought popped into my head. I thought about the body of Christ, which is comprised of the members of His church as stated in Ephesians. Our natural human body wants to move. The church body should also naturally want to be in movement. Just like my new baby wants to move and learn, a new Christian should also want to become an active member of the body of Christ by trying and learning new things.

Recently a relatively new Christian, an elderly man, in our church body sought my advice. Some well meaning members of his family had told him that he was taking this whole “Christian thing” too fast. They told him to slow down and not be so extreme. He asked me if that was correct. I quickly assured him that volunteering as an usher, attending bible school and being at church whenever the doors were open was not causing damage to his spiritual well being. Quite the contrary, all the activity was aiding and solidifying his growth.

Church is much, much, much more than just an entertaining show or a social club. Being part of a church means being part of a body. Bodies naturally want to move and grow. What are you doing as a response to this natural process? Don’t wait until you have it all figured out; you can learn along the way from members that have been exercised a bit more. Don’t wait until someone asks you to help; jump in there and become active. It is natural that you be a vital moving part of the body of Christ.

feet

My little baby boy turned 4 months old today! I love his pudgy feet.