Community

Last night I got back from almost a full week in Tokyo. We joined the other Vers for the annual Family Christmas retreat at a Bible Chalet/retreat center, joined TBJ for New Year's, and finally headed home so exhausted I wondered if I could make it to my front door from the bus stop... :) After 12 hours of sleep, I'm feeling much genkier.

Going to Tokyo always involves some yelling, for some reason or another, and this time was no different...but it's always good. We are the most random group of people, tied together by work, pain, tears...when I first came to Tokyo, I ended up living with 3 other girls that I hadn't previously known, and going to class with 2 other girls who were strangers. I met, at that time, the other Vers who were scattered across Tokyo who were part of my new family...for about 5 months. Then, life completely changed and I moved out to be with Laura and Efrain as my closest family...some Vers went back to America, and the 3 other girls I'd been living with moved to different places. Basically, in our program, every 6 months somebody changes. Because I'm in Niigata, I've only seen the newest additions to our "family" twice, and I'll only see them twice more before I leave the country...sigh for relational upheaval. Somehow, through all the moving, we end up loving each other and learning from each other way more than we could have possibly guessed in the beginning...

I'm reading a book from my father called, "The Disciple Making Church," and in it there is this quote: "God not only wants to be pursued, he wants to be pursued through our experience of community. Together we need to learn how to become like Jesus, and to discern where Jesus is sending us next."

For me, the girls who came with me are very special. We've been through so much together, even though we're on opposite sides of the island. Over the last two years, there have been plenty of times when they've hit me over the head for something just when I needed the aforementioned punch, and I've done it right back to them. We've protected each other almost ferociously, and a common quote is something like, "The sheep that wanders off alone is the one most likely to be attacked." Our pursuing of God together, in community, has not only shown me much more about my own strengths and weaknesses (trust me--nothing like community to bring out your weaknesses! :)), but also shown me much more about who God is...

The most recent visit to Tokyo, however, had a different lesson to learn. We've watched others leave, we've said goodbye to them...now we need to learn to say goodbye to each other. The temptation is to cling too tightly or to separate too much--I think I spent my first 3 days with everyone simply thinking, "Good, I've been in Niigata a long time now, and I don't really have a place in this Tokyo community anymore. No one here really needs me, and I won't have to enter the community again closely...I can just kind of sneak off rather than have the long tearful goodbye..." Wrong.

In reality, I think, the healthy beginning of goodbyes looked much different. It looked like arguments, tears, people correcting misreadings that others had done and asking forgiveness for incorrect expectations...and in the end, an affirming of who we are as individuals and how God is using us as special people. We've fought for and through community...now there is somehow a fighting for who we have become as individuals through the community and a searching for "where Jesus is sending us next..." And even though there is and will be tears...it's good.