Why Go to Africa?

April 10, 2013April 10, 2013 / Erin Kirk / 3 Comments

Sitting in a church in Colorado years ago, I stared at the maps on the walls with photos of missionary families stuck to them, and thought,

“In a million years I would never be a Christian missionary.”

This July, I am traveling to Zambia, Africa to be a Christian missionary. Something I’ve talked about here and here and here. As you can see it didn’t take a million years, it took a decade. Maybe God can work with me after all.

But I vacillate constantly. I know in my gut the Lord wants me to go, but I don’t get why I have to fly to the other side of the world to spend two weeks in a bush school, with 100 kids and five unpaid, overworked staff. Doesn’t my big American self just add to their burden? And what about all the money it takes to get there? Why don’t I just raise it and send it to Pastors Jasper and Zion, then stay home and pray for them furiously?

Honestly, what impact can I reasonably expect in to have in 14 days or less, that justifies the cost of the endeavor?

The answer I think is this:

It’s not really about Jasper and Zion and the children of Chongwe.

It’s about me, and I know I’m not supposed to say that.

I’m supposed to say, I’m bringing my servant’s heart to an orphanage, where I will repair plumbing, plant gardens, tend to medical needs and share the love of Christ. And to the best of my ability, I will do those things.

But what if it’s my life that’s meant to be changed – not theirs?

What if Zambia ruins my comfortable American life?
What if it forces me to really obey Jesus, by caring for widows and orphans there and in the US?
What if I’m humbled by the relentless service of people who feed and educate 100 children every day for free?
What if I can bring it home and replicate it?
What if my experience in Zambia gets you thinking about social justice, salvation and ways to make your life matter more – especially if you are a follower of Jesus?

Is that worth the money?

Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? James 2:5

Telise (left) Fidelise (right)

That’s what I want. That’s why I’m going. My gift to them may be pumpkins or prayer or pvc, but their gift to me might just be bigger, richer faith.

This is a weird way to ask for money but that’s what I’m doing. Through the loving support of my friends and family I have raised $2500 of the $4200 mission cost. Will you help me with the rest?

In addition, two of the ten orphans Pastor Jasper and Zion are raising, cousins Telise and Fidelise, need tuition and uniforms for high school. I think it’s $400 per three-month term, each. I’m believing God for that as well. How cool is it that a month of Starbucks cash can send Zambian kids to school? Sorry Starbucks.

Many people have said to me, “Wow, I wish I could go to Africa too.” By funding this mission YOU CAN! Because I plan to pour out what we have on Zambia, fill up with what they have for us, and bring it all home to you.

Maybe together we can make something beautiful.

SCRUBS Medical Mission is a registered 501(c)3 and all donations are tax-deductible. You can find out more about them here. If you’d rather send a check, write it to SCRUBS with Erin Kirk in the memo line. Mail it to SCRUBS Medical Mission 15434 Brittain Court, Lindale, Texas 75771

On Dead Cows and Miracles.

April 3, 2013April 4, 2013 / Erin Kirk / 3 Comments

Coeur de boeuf tomatoes (Photo credit: Franka-in-London)

This afternoon, Sam and I butchered a 500-lb heifer in the woods behind our house. Her insides smelled like milk, which makes less sense than you might think, since we raise beef cattle.

All that may sound like metaphor, coming from the girl on the right in the wedding dress, but it’s not. I’m a Texas ranch wife and things like this happen. The heifer broke her leg. Sam called me at a friend’s house and said, “hurry home, I need help butchering this calf. Bring ice.”

This post has little meaningful purpose other than to explain the kinds of things I get up to when I’m not sitting at my desk thinking about Jesus. Some of my followers from Kirk Ranch Organics miss crispy, down-home ranch stories like this, this and this, so…

This is him.

Sure enough, when I got home, Sam was waiting with his .38, a rope, sharp knives and four coolers. He’s kind of a bad-ass in this department, a son of the deep American South with years of deer and elk hunting under his belt; a fact that reminds me, if things go south on this planet, like the doomsday preppers predict, I will be hot on his heels.

I’ve been on plenty of hunting trips, but like most people, I’m usually on the skillet end of the animal, not the slaughtering end. So today was my day.

“Hold her right here,” Sam said. So with both hands, I grabbed the bones of her brisket that he’d just split open. She was well and truly gone, but still warm under my gloves. Then I watched her lungs spill out of her body and I touched her heart – coeur de boeuf tomatoes mean something to me now. Once I got over my revulsion, I got curious about her stomachs, and her veins and the green grass still inching through her intestines.

Maybe this sounds revolting, but if you appreciate a medium rare filet mignon, like I do – well, this is where they come from. Big fatty, steers are better for sure, but we’ll make do. Thanks little heifer #992.

More importantly, when you consider the profound stillness of a rapidly cooling heart in your hands, this life, here, right now, seems much less a smash-up accident, and more the exceptional miracle it is.

“There are two ways to live,” Albert Einstein said. “As if nothing is a miracle, or everything is.”

God Needs Your Art.

March 28, 2013March 30, 2013 / Erin Kirk / 9 Comments

Slipping off to adult summer camp for a week is one huge benefit of being a Christian. I came home yesterday from the Mt. Hermon Christian Writers Conference, brimming with the joy of the Lord and holding the business cards of three agents and four publishers who asked to see my book.

I had a large time.

Mt. Hermon is a 107 year-old Christian conference center, nestled among the Redwood trees, high in California’s Santa Cruz mountains. It’s a place bent on reminding weary adults how alive and organic Jesus was when we were kids. Just breathing under those giant centurions robed in red bark is a relief I didn’t know I needed, like stepping off a crowded street into a store playing Bach.

At Mt. Hermon, Jesus is taken seriously in the best way possible.

In between pitching our stories to agents and editors, we gathered to sing and pray, remembering that while we are all building writing careers, Jesus is the foundation.

At Mt Hermon it doesn’t sound weird when strangers stop you and say: “You know you’re glowing right? The spirit of the Lord is all over you.”

Nor is it strange when someone promises to pray for you, but then rethinks it, sets down her coffee and does it on the spot, praying a rangy, open-sky prayer that echoes something you were thinking five minutes before.

At Mt. Hermon creativity is treated like the gift it is. At each gathering, the person known to be the funniest delivers announcements while some marketing-department creative explodes with a little audience-participation stage art.

I’ve wandered through a lot of wilderness since I decided to follow Jesus, but at Mount Hermon, I finally found the meadow I was looking for. I was perfectly myself there and perfectly peaceful at the same time. This is no small thing.

The good news is: God is no respecter of persons, so you can do it too.

All the creative energy relegated to your daydreams is there for a reason. Use it. Or as key-note speaker McNair Wilson said:

“What if you really are as magnificent as God made you to be? If you don’t do you, you doesn’t get done and God’s creation is incomplete.”

Jesus is the foundation for everything I want to build, but that wasn’t always the case. I built many high-maintenance structures without him, but they were shifty and eventually crumbled. What I’m doing now satisfies me in ways I can’t explain without crediting Jesus. He is the reason I write.

So, what are you born to do? What daydreams are trapped by your cubicle? Need some practical tools for freeing them? Mt. Hermon gave me a bunch, I’ll share next week.