Ministry in Art

Above is a cool image that was made through a site sent to me by Kristin at Nativity. It is a cool, artful, take on some of the things that we do. Just something to check out during the week...

Seeing & Believing

I am still a little bit in an Easter state of mind. Experiencing Holy Week masses, the Rise Youth show, and the Easter Sunday...well...WOW! We are so blessed to be a part of the Church of the Nativity.

My family is a family that has so much to be thankful for. Besides a wonderful church to worship and serve in, we have so much. The food - to the brim - no, over the top as always for an Italian family! And add the chocolate and jelly beans, and we can't forget the Easter gifts - if you add children who are "tweens" or older to the mix - then what you have is an abundance. Our family does not just have an abundance of food; we also have an abundance of LOVE.

I want to share what our church has shared with us, and the love that our family has for one another with others. I want to take it half way around the world. No, it is not the Easter sugar high. I want to go back to Jos, Nigeria. I want to go back after an unbelievable eight months of learning in my life since I was last there. I want to help our church's new team.

After going to Nigeria, I literally saw things for the first time in my life. I saw what I saw and I can't forget it. I understand there is need and suffering in our country too. So after I've heard "...you don't have to go to Nigeria...", I agree - you don't. But there is something about going outside our country and seeing "the world" through another culture's eyes. I saw a version of our world stripped down.

I remember the day our team left the Faith Alive Family. It was a beautiful, clear morning. We all boarded a minibus that would take us to the airport. The whole town had come out and lined the streets to say goodbye. "Thank you!" they cried out. Everyone waved. They were saying "Please come back!" As the minibus pulled away, I kept looking back. I felt like a small child when they get in the back of a car with their noses pressed against the glass. I didn't want to miss a thing. I guess I've been looking back ever since.

Dr. Chris and his family were visiting the U.S. this month. I had the privilege of hosting a dinner for them on April 3rd. I invited the team members,friends and people interested in the Nigeria program. He was "fashionably" late! As soon as he and his family walked in I thought - here he is, in my home, God is so awesome to allow me to become friends with such wonderful people who live so far away. We prayed, laughed and cried together. Dr. Chris loves reading the blog! His wife and children are lovely. I didn't get to meet them last August. This was the first time the children had been in the U.S. Their three children were running around, having a great time with my two kids and the two daughters of our friends. Their youngest, 3year old Joseph, fell in love with my 11 year old, Christopher. At the end of the evening,Joseph did not want to leave our home.

God opens doors for us but sometimes we just don't see them. Maybe we can't believe the doors are open for us. My life changed when I walked through the doors of the Church of the Nativity. I feel like it was the church I'd been looking for all my life. Here was a church I could belong to. For the first time in my life - here was a church that I loved. Here is a church that has helped me to see the world a little clearer. Someone once told me that as we grow as Christians, we start seeing the world through our Savior's eyes. I have a long way to go - but it's less cloudy.

"When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows us completely.
Three things will last forever - faith, hope and love - and the greatest of these is love"

1 Cor.11-13

Teresa Pompa

Almost The End

Okay. Today is Holy Thursday. We're coming to the end of my stories from last summer's trip. I will post the last one next week. I could go on forever, but there has to be a period at the end of the sentence. For any of you who have spoken to me - you know I can be a rambler. When I'm excited or nervous, I talk too fast and ramble on. Although, I've been told I tell "good stories". I just need some processing time! I'm not the quick witty one.

I don't know if it's a good story or not, but I do have one to tell one day on my own blog, after my Nigeria experience stories. I would like for the story to be inspirational and give hope to people. It's about a little girl who never talked. Never said a word. She didn't think she'd have anything to say that anybody would want to hear.But that is another story. I thought I saw her in the eyes of the Nigerian children. Faith, hope and love hadn't fully entered her world yet.

One of my favorite parts of the day at Faith Alive was Discipleship Class. It was how we usually started the day as a team. The class was for young adults who wanted to learn how to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. They studied the Bible. It was an amazing experience. The young people were so bright. They started the class together even if the teacher was not there yet. They would "praise sing". This means clapping their hands together to form the beat and just singing praise songs. It is very beautiful and unique. We were given the privilege to teach the class one day. We chose to speak on the Holy Spirit. Jason did a great job of being the teacher.

The classroom is this very small room. There is a chalkboard in the front and tiny benches for any visitors like us. The young man who was the teacher just put his head towards the ceiling as if he was talking to God saying, "One day it will not be like this. It will not always be like this". He had such trust that God would not only take care of them as they were, but that something bigger and better would be given to them by Him in the future. He said God gave this promise through His Son.

One day after class, the teacher let the students ask any questions they wanted. Well, let's just say some questions of all time came up. A young man was very honest when he asked (looking straight at us Americans) "Why do some of us have more suffering than others?". A man was sitting just outside the classroom (their was no more space in the room for him to fit). He said he was just visiting to listen. But suddenly he stood up and with a booming voice answered the question. And then just as suddenly he left.

"Who was that man?" our team asked. It seemed like the voice of God. We would learn later that it was Pastor Ben. Pastor Ben also ran the lab. You would find that to be common at Faith Alive. The staff with medical degrees also had theological education. Much of the staff perform double duties.

At Faith Alive, faith and medicine go together. There are so many unbelievable stories about the day to day activities in the hospital. There were so many talented and dedicated medical staff members. They need help desperately. Just your pair of hands will do. You do not need to have a medical degree to be of help there.

There is a support group for patients and staff every Sunday afternoon. I will never forget the two Sundays we participated. The first Sunday we had just arrived three days prior. The people gather and pray together on the first floor of the hospital. Pastor Estelle leads the support group and translates in English when needed. After much praise singing, anyone may stand up and give testimony. There was a man who stood up and thanked God for his illness. He said his illness brought him closer to God. And a woman stood up and said she knew God loved her and she did not "deserve" her illness. She was thankful to be alive and for her children being healthy. We would later find out her name was Comfort. Comfort brought great homemade donuts to our guesthouse one day.

On the last Sunday, a couple of days before we would be leaving, everyone from our team stood up, one by one, to thank the Nigerian people and to say our good-byes. I wasn't going to speak at first. I spoke the first Sunday. But I'll never forget my team's encouragement. Go ahead Teresa! Come on Teresa! You talk! I'll never forget my team. I spent two and a half weeks of one of the most awesome, yet stressful times of my life with them. Young and old - no, let's say older - were in this endeavor together. We ate, worked and lived together. How nice Jason and Paul were when I woke them up in the middle of the night because I heard "noises". Nothing was found at first, but the "noise" revisited. We did have a guest at the guesthouse. It was just a mouse who liked the Tootsie Rolls I had brought to give the children. That was not such a good idea!

The Nativity Nigeria Faith Alive team: Jason Hillis, our team leader, who brought his cultural and travel experience to the team, Pat Fowler, who is a nurse at Johns Hopkins, Paul Kowzan, who works at Stella Maris, Molly Laschinger, a premed student at Vanderbilt and Lauren Boyle, a lab technician, were all a part of "my experience". We laughed and cried together, and yes, got extremely frustrated with one another .... a couple of times :-) ! Sorry, God, for that.

I have so many memories packed into that two and half week period. The homecoming is a story in and of itself. Let me just say that after 20 some hours of airtime and waiting...there they were. My husband and two children, so happy to see me with a HUGE sign - "Welcome Home from Nigeria, Mom!" All I could think was God, You are an awesome God and how He had so blessed me. And now I think of - Yes Victory!

May all of you have a blessed Easter. It is such a beautiful tribute and celebration of "Victory" at our church - one of faith, hope and love. I pray that each and every one of you know of our God's love for you and any of you who are suffering, feel His healing touch.

"...But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord
Jesus Christ."

1 Cor 15:56-57

Teresa Pompa

Back at the Guesthouse.....Do Not Be Afraid

What we spent most of our time at the guesthouse doing was eating! This is where we were served our meals, and they were good ones. For most of the time at these meals - I don't know why - I would just watch and listen. I'm usually more outgoing, but it was a little overwhelming sometimes. There were 6 members of our team, a couple from another church and about a dozen Naval Academy students - of which only 2 were women!

Of course the Naval Academy dominated. Their loud voices, showing all the cool stuff they bought from shopping (too much?!) at the marketplace and their game of seat saving in the van when we had to go somewhere. The couple was from a Protestant church in Colorado. The man came up to me one evening when I was finishing a meal. He asked me where I was from and about our church. When he found out our church was Catholic, he stopped talking. He looked at the cross on my necklace and said "I thought Catholics only wore crucifixes".

I saw the couple (John & Kristen) again at the guesthouse and they were alone. At first I was afraid to talk about our church. But I walked over to them and started talking. They were touched by the story of our Church. I became friendly with this couple who were very kind to me. They thought I had a special gift for praying for people after witnessing me praying for one of Dr. Chris's patients.

I still remember this patient very clearly and her name - Zima. I still pray for Zima. One night at the hospital, Dr. Chris was counseling patients, and some of us were allowed to observe. The nurse suddenly flew open the door and spoke rapidly about bleeding. We were told to follow Dr. Chris to another medical room. The room was dimly lit and the night air was chilly. This young woman (Zima), who you could see was very beautiful but very afraid, was having a miscarriage. She was a young, unmarried and she had HIV. Dr. Chris scolded her for not following his instructions. He had saved her life. She was extremely ill when he had started treating her 5 years prior. And she had been doing great until this. A lady on our team prayed for her and she and some other people left the room with Dr. Chris. Then it was just John, Kristen and me alone with Zima, who was crying and obviously suffering. I had that old feeling come back to me of when I was young and in school and I didn't want to raise my hand. It was like when you want to speak but you can't. Why did I feel that way? This was no classroom and this woman was suffering. My voice pierced the quiet. "Zima", I said "Zima, God is not punishing you." "Oh but He is", she said, "I did the wrong thing and now I will be punished. I thought having children was my purpose in life." She began to cry even harder.

I felt I knew what she was feeling. I myself thought I was being punished, when I found out I could not conceive a child. I don't remember the prayer that came out of me when I put my arms around her, but I told her of God's love and reminded her about Jesus and that God did have a purpose for her life. She got rushed to the hospital that night. I heard she was OK, but I never saw her again.

This young woman made a huge impact on my life - this young woman from Nigeria. And I believe the reason why is that I felt some kind of connection with her. I've known this but I had never really felt it before. Somehow I really felt how we are all the same deep down inside. Scared and afraid - even if we don't know it. And we have a purpose for our life given by Him, even if we don't know exactly what it is.

I believe that people I met, both the Nigerian people and the other guests at the guesthouse, all had a reason to be there at that place and at that time. As for the Naval Academy officers, I will tell you 3 kindnesses they did for me while I was there. The first was when I got lost in the village marketplace (yes, lost). One of the young men ran after me, yelling my name, found me and took me to safety. And then there was the day I got sick to my stomach at the guesthouse, and the young man said to me, "Miss, please you can go lie down in my bed and rest". And lastly, one day I returned to the guesthouse on a day in which the rain was the heaviest. I was drenched and another of the young men said to me that I could have some of his dry clothes to change into.

What happened to me in Nigeria is -in that moment, at that time of my life - I felt my life really did have a purpose on a larger level than my immediate family and friends. I don't know exactly what it is - but I think it is to use whatever I have suffered, however it compares to the suffering of someone else - to empathize and use that suffering to help.

I realized you do not have to work miracles to change other people's lives for the better. Just small acts of kindness mean so much. And if you want to help a stranger, even pray for one, do not be afraid to do it.

Teresa Pompa