On the outside.

on goals and community support after loss

Hi friends, I have a super exciting announcement today:

My trip is fully funded! I have met my fundraising goal for my volunteer trip to Lebanon and Jordan: $5,000 in just 7 weeks – exactly two weeks from the start of my trip!

I did it. You did it. We did it.

This alone feels like a miracle and huge relief to have it sorted, but today I’m dwelling on the sweet reminder that community can do really, really amazing things together.

As you may know, this is my third trip to the Middle East. Support raising was very different for me this time around. For starters, I only raised $3,000 in 2019 and it took me three whole months. It wasn’t even close to what I needed, but it was the best I could do at the time with what I had. Back then, I thought this was just as good as support got for me.

These are the times I love to be wrong.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot in the last couple of months – what’s changed? what’s new? what’s harder? what’s realistic? what’s even possible?

When I was raising support for my 2019 trip to the Middle East, I was freely handed a mic at my church and given opportunities to talk about my peacemaking work and ask for support in front of the congregation. This is how I learned first-hand that the issue of Palestine is tricky for many Evangelical Christians, and that this was not a welcome or safe topic for me to talk about with even my church where I was a very involved, trusted ministry leader.

This point of contention didn't go away after my trip to work with Palestinian refugees. It actually increased.

I was cautiously given the mic again to share post-trip about my experience. I disappointed and enraged some when I used that platform to talk about Palestinian refugee issues instead of converting Muslims into Christian believers on my trip (I was never on an evangelism mission, ever.) I disappointed people when I told the true history of the creation of the State of Israel at the expense of Palestinian life and livelihood. I disappointed people when I said Palestine is now occupied by the Israeli military who is enforcing the oppression and ongoing dispossession of Palestinians. I disappointed people when I spoke as if Palestinian refugees were valuable human beings worthy of dignity and not some obstacle to God's grand plan for the "restoration" of the holy land to its “rightful” owners, the Jewish people.

This conversation became a disruption for others and ultimately major frustration for me as I fought long for justice and a voice on this work in particular (meanwhile, I was given all the space imaginable to talk about womens ministry and my personal faith testimony as those better served the church than my inconvenient work with Palestinian refugees.) We had conflicting ideas about how I should be serving people in need as a Christian. Church leaders supported my work more and more quietly and then eventually institutional support came to a halt when I wouldn't walk the line of saying so little as to not offend anyone. My work was no longer mentioned in official briefings about missional support. I was never invited to speak on it at my own church home again.

My message was never meant to be offensive, it was just honest. My approach, always, was to pretend there was a Palestinian refugee in the room. How would they feel about what I was saying? Would they be encouraged or shut down? Would they feel seen or further marginalized? Would they agree what I was saying was true or would they feel like I was subverting their experience to appease a crowd of skeptics?

You can not live a brave life without disappointing some people.
–Brené Brown

Peacemaking work is brave. Eventually leaving this church was brave (for many reasons, but views on Palestinians among them.) You might guess church used to be my main source of financial and relational support for my volunteer missional work.

I left my church a couple years ago and one of the reasons I thought I absolutely could not leave was because of my volunteer work that is made possible only by communal support and giving. (Ironic, I know, because I was taught my mission to help Palestinian refugees was in direct conflict, it seemed, with the mission of the church.) I was afraid if I left, I'd have to forever sacrifice a wide ring of support for future peacemaking work. I know from experience how challenging it is to start fresh and build rapport enough to get new people invested in what you care about. I didn't have it in me to do that at a church again.

I still don’t have institutional support, and that became okay when I realized I had lost it long before I left the church. My church story is complicated and there’s certainly stuff unhealed that I'm not interested in working out online. There are many parts of this journey that aren't public and won't be, in the interest of protecting my heart and the people that have walked this with me. Also: not my point.

A church is made up of many people anyway – not just the institutional pieces that bring them all together – and the individual people kept showing up for me then and now. This is something I'm truly grateful for in my transition out of church: those who were all along truly invested in relationship and my work? They're still with me. (Hi, maybe it's you and you're reading this and seeing bits of our shared journey in these words for the first time. Thanks for sticking around through many iterations of what my faith and church life and peacemaking work has looked like. I love you so much for that.)

There's a former church small group that I co-founded with my best friend Maddison in 2018. It was called Middle East Understanding and Peacemaking, and for years this group was my cornerstone in this work. These people were the first to support my trips, the last to tolerate me still talking about it long after I returned. The ones who took an interest in Palestinian refugee issues and needed to learn more. The ones who actually wanted to do something about it.

As with many communities in the last few years, it's been through massive transitions. While those are not all my stories to tell, I can say this outward-focused peacemaking small group had to become an inward-facing peacemaking concentric circle in order to fight for our lives through a global pandemic, major losses, racial reconciliation, political upheaval, family evolutions, faith shifts, church divorces, and much, much more. We were a bit of a rogue crew making our own way within the limitations of our church structures, and ultimately would end up cutting those ties when we couldn’t make the pieces fit anymore.

It became church when our church failed us. And it still is mine.

We met a couple nights ago for our monthly potluck where we had a smorgasbord of fresh veggies and peanut sauce and chicken and rice for spring roll bowls. It was accompanied by chocolate cookies and Merlot and Caribbean mules. It was communion. It was heavenly. It was breaking bread in the fellowship of re-believers.

At the end of the night, I got to give out thank you notes and art prints and books. Every single one of them chipped in for my trip, asked about my preparations, wanted to know how to be supportive. I kept thinking about how they all gave toward my 2019 trip too, and they didn't walk away when I began to tell my story and amplify refugee narratives. They leaned in, surrounded me closer and said, keep going. They've been saying it for years now.

That's just one leg in my body of support.

There are some people I've known more than 10 years who gave to support my first trip to Palestine in 2015. The ones who (along with myself) didn't know what I was getting into and showed up anyway. The ones who held me through the confusing transition home to integrate what I'd just witnessed. They're still around - they're my husband, my closest friends from the island, my parents and in-laws, my sisters, my brothers-in-law, my grandmas - still cheering loudly reminding me they've got me, where ever this takes me. Another strong leg.

You know who else is an arm in this body of support? A few from my former churches who are still interested and giving. Our relationships made the leap, crossed the divides. They remind me I didn’t lose the support that truly matters: friendship that can transcend both church membership and seasons of life that may shift our faith and beliefs.

Even more is true about this regenerative body. New, beautiful, real, deep community can be built in a very short amount of time if you show up and commit to making that a reality. Over half of the support I raised for this trip came from people I met in the last year, nearly all of them on my Italy retreat in September 2022, or spinoff writing circles from joining this community. This still astonishes me.

So today, I'm standing in awe of the breadth and beauty of community. Has it been messy? Has it been hard won? Has it been wildly complicated and fraught? Has it been worth it?

Oh, hell yes.

And I'll be the first to admit fundraising is no easy task, no matter how wide or generous your community is. Non-profits and missionaries fail and rise on their ability to do this well. There is specific language and tools and techniques to fundraising that I am only barely aware of. For me, it's mainly about community and believing we're made to take care of each other. It's believing in my work enough to ask for it. It's the humility to say, "I don't want to do this alone, please help me?"

The writing, marketing, publishing, setting up a store, fulfilling orders, developing presentations, hosting events, constant sharing on social media all adds up to a busy part time job. And honestly? It's actually less profitable than my actual full-time job. Meaning, in theory, I could work more hours in my freelance job and make the money I needed for the trip to fund it myself. But I choose fundraising even though it's time consuming and exhausting for an introvert like me who has to be much more direct and louder than I'd like to be.

So, why do it?

Well, it's community building, for one. It's sharing passion and creativity and mutual aid, which is all better done communally. It’s inviting you into peacemaking. It’s reminding each other we will show up again and again, as long as it takes, whatever you need.

It takes a village to pull together $5,000+ in just over a month and we've done it. It was an ambitious goal and we crushed it in record time.

I had no idea how big this would feel now after so much unraveling and rebuilding.

I've created this lifetime community village, and it continues to shape-shift in unexpected ways over time. But change has a way of shining an enchanting light on the good that she can bring. She’s one of my best ministers.

So, what’s changed? what’s new? what’s harder? what’s realistic? what’s even possible? A lot. I couldn't even try to name all of the good that emerged from this process, but here’s a taste:

• It's clinking glasses of Amarone (virtually) with Stan the night I booked my flights.

• It's making plans and agreements with my trip team (the Beirut and Beyond board) over shish tawook kabobs and toum garlic sauce at Phoenician Kabob.

• It’s summer salads on the patio talking through the real-life impact of this work on the human mind, heart, body, spirit, and soul.

• It's people buying artwork at 11:45pm the night I closed my Etsy shop, just to add a little more hope to the pile.

• It's people who've supported now THREE Middle East volunteer trips.

• It's the first event ever where my family, old friends, new friends, and work colleagues were in one virtual room.

• It's the unexpected donors and sharing and support from people I don’t know, or people I’d once known and didn’t know were still paying attention.

• It's holding a book in my hands that I made, full of stories and images I can't wait for others to enjoy.

• It’s people checking in on my progress who are absolutely invested in helping me meet my goal.

• It’s those who are encouraging me to show up as myself in this work instead of fitting some mold of how it should be done in their minds.

• It’s hand cramps from writing 35 thank you cards.

• It’s being able to name abundance instead of scarcity.

• It’s meeting an ambitious goal instead of believing I’m only capable of a humble one.

…the list goes on.

Above all, I didn’t think what we’ve done here was possible. I didn’t know belonging and this kind of mutuality was possible on the outside of church. How could I? It’s all I knew.

This is so much more than money raised, don’t you see? I hope what you can walk away with today is that community is worth it.

It’s about believing the possibility of outside whatever once was. It’s about you showing up for the people I serve even when the topic is controversial and the people are still worth it. It’s about reminding those on the front lines battling discouragement and limited resources that they have the hope to keep going. It's about continuing to try and be willing to change course when necessary. We change, others change, and we must allow our lives to adapt to changes that allow us to live in integrity.

It’s about the courage to ask your people to let you give and receive because that can happen and it can be exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or imagine, according to the power of love.

Thank you for doing love.¹

Because, truly, in the end, what else is there?

Keep going,

P.S. If you’d still like to support my upcoming trip to Lebanon and Jordan to serve Palestinian refugees with Beirut and Beyond (I leave June 4), you can make a direct donation to my Venmo or PayPal. I’ve met my overall $5,000 goal but the trip will cost a bit more. Donate here:

P.P.S. I started a secret Facebook group to share more detailed trip updates and on-trip photos (things I won’t be sharing her in my newsletter or publicly on social media), so if you want to be a part of that to keep up with my trip, comment below or reply to this email to let me know - I’ll add you!

1. “Doing love” is from Jen Pastiloff, who wrote On Being Human and hosted my retreat in Tuscany last fall. She’s offering a virtual writing workshop on June 3rd called, ALLOW. Do yourself a favor and sign up. Her prompts and exercises are fantastic, and the community you’ll enter is powerful and surrounds me as a writer with only good things. See you in there.