A fruitful journey (PART 1) and an exciting announcement!

Almost a month ago we set out on a journey. To go to the PEAR inaugural assembly in Denver, Colorado. I was excited about going, not excited about leaving Eleonore for a few days, but heck, when she's with Nana and Papa, I think she forgets she who gave birth to her (me, in case you forgot).

It was a pretty exhausting journey and we started by going to St. Louis to spend the night at Jake and Kenz, our brother and sister in law, so that we could make our 6 AM flight. Yeah. Color me brilliant for trying to save a few bucks by taking a flight that early. Guess what. Even when not flying with a toddler, IT'S NOT A GOOD IDEA! 

I was convinced I would get sick on the plane. Oh, and here goes the announcement. I'm pregnant, and there will be another Hopping here in May! 

Believe me, there will be another post, about how that all came about (not in that much detail, COME ON!) and what it has meant in our lives sometime soon. 

And so, pregnant as I am, I was sure I would get to use a barf bag for the first time. 

When we got on the plane there were only middle seats left. I found myself sandwiched between a gentleman already snoring and a gentleman with bad 90's alt rock blaring in his headphones.
What's a queasy pregnant lady to do? 

Well yes, I tried to lean my chair back. And it was broken. I ended up trying to sleep with my forehead imprinted upon the seat in front of me.
No amount of crappy skymall imaginative purchases of fake fireplaces, change counters that recite the constitution, and steps for Luci up to our bed was going to make this better, (and it normally does). 

This is what I told myself, because I couldn't find the barf bags. 

"Meredith, if, and only if you have to jump up from your seat to get to the bathroom to puke, this is how it will go. You don't get many chances for this sort of thing, so you will jump up and yell since you are sitting next to the wing,  "There is something they aren't telling us, there is a colonial woman on the wing churning butter" and then you will run like the wind to the bathroom, puke, and then come out , blaming the hormones."

It didn't happen. A little sad? Me too. And if you don't know what I was referencing there, feel free to ask! 

We proceeded on a public transit expedition from Denver Airport to the Denver Tech Center, only to end up at the wrong hotel. But we made it. My stash of Dove Sea Salt and Caramel Dark Chocolates helped when it seemed like I wasn't going to make it from the wrong hotel to the right one. If I'm honest it wasn't the inspirational sayings that got me through it. I ignored those because at that point in our journey I probably would have shoved the foil up a concierge's nose after being triggered by the "syrupy sweet slightly condescending to women message" I would find underneath my chocolate. 

After a nap, and some mexican food, it was time to go to the opening service. A wonderful colleague Rev. Rick from Ohio had a rental car and we were saved from the hassle of public transport. That first day he even offered to take us to the airport on Wednesday, and my forehead, my intestines and my feet were awash with relief. 

What followed that evening was fellowship, worship, and the ordination of our new Bishop, Steve Breedlove.

Eucharist during Bishop Steve Breedlove's Ordination Service

 (Picture from PEAR USA Facebook Page)

Now,  for those of you who have ever been a part of a conference, or assembly, you are thinking "OK, big whoop, sounds pretty normal." But what came through again, and again, and again, and just when you didn't think it could hit you in the head again, you heard it again.

"We have a Gospel Imperative. None other." And even here you might be thinking this is normal Christianese jargon.

But when you are told this, by your Rwandan Bishops it's different. When you are told this by people who survived the genocide, who saw people they love not survive, and actively forgive those who killed family members and friends, it becomes a little more real. It becomes a lot more jarring, and begins to materialize for you in your mind and soul in the way I think the Gospel is supposed to jar your mind, jar your body, jar your soul.

When your leaders have you sit around around table and pray for one another for 30+ minutes before we even get started with anything else, you see priorities put in place by those that are your leaders.

How refreshing.

How life giving.

How necessary.

There is this beautiful non-profit, Land of A Thousand Hills, thats make quite delicious coffee, and partner with so many PEAR churches.

Their story is something that spurned out of a Gospel imperative to react to what the world so sinfully ignored in the Rwandan Genocide.

This video does a beautiful job of explaining why I feel it such a privilege to be partnered with Rwanda as a church. That my Arch-Bishop comes from Rwanda. Because even a video can feel disconnected, you can walk away from the video, you can forget the video. You can't forget this when someone (Bishop Mbanda) looks you in the eyes who met you and your husband once a year ago and says "How are you, how is the church plant in Bloomington?" Who encourages you and uplifts you in your ministry who experienced this, and who has forgiven (and continues actively to) like this, and who has lived this.

Now that I know, now that I have experienced this Gospel imperative in such a real way, how could I ever look back?

peace to you,
meredith

(more to come about the adventure later this week). 

(for more information on PEARUSA, click here. For more information on Land of a Thousand Hills, click here.)

Halloween. . .in a handbasket.

Halloween came and went. And for those of you who know the Hopping family, you know the Hopping family DOES Halloween up. 

This year we had a theme we were going with and it all went kablooey at the last minute. 
That's fine, us Hoppings, (both former Theatre majors) had something else up our sleeves. 

The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe!

The costumes contrived and genius as we thought they were, were not, I repeat, NOT, a hit with the general public. 

On the contrary, there was maybe one person who got it. I'm not even sure if they got it, or if it was one of those "I don't know that I really want to engage in conversation right now with strangers so I'm just going to say, "Great costumes. Really great! And walk away."

I found myself wishing I had brought literature tracks with me to hand out of the "wardrobe". Little thin copies of C.S. Lewis brilliance. Then I could have said "Take this, it will fill your insatiable hunger for delight and imagination and truth." Leave it to the Hoppings, and Meredith in particular to make Halloween a dramatic meta experience for 4 year olds. 

Unfortunately (fortunately?) I didn't have the resources or the room in my wardrobe to have 50+ copies of the book on me. So I went through the painstaking process of explaining:

"No, that isn't the Cowardly Lion and Glinda. And no, I am not the house that fell on the Wicked Witch".

"Would you like to look in the wardrobe? (Because I had pieces of fur on a dowel, a landscape of Narnia and an battery light behind the lamp-post.) The kid looked in, even grabbed a piece of fur (slightly awkward due to placement of said fur) and said "Neat". As he passed us he turned to his Mother and loudly said:

"Totally didn't get it". 

We had decided to get Flingers with our friends Deb and Greg and Wolfie who were traipsing around with us. As Mr. Flanders, a Starbuck's Barista and Ronald McDonald, one had to wonder if they felt the heavy burden of going around with this abstract trio. 

Ronald was a huge hit. Huge!

But as soon as we got our table it was clear it wasn't going to work. So Deb and I in our maternal wisdom (desperation?) decided to walk the kids back to their apartment (a few blocks away), and then the gentleman could bring the pizza over there. 

My little White Witch was absolutely enamored with the moon. She kept shouting "My moon!"To which I try to convince her every time, "No Eleonore, we all share the moon". She didn't like this, and apparently the weariness of the day caught up to her right at that moment. 

She began to refuse to sit in the stroller. With all her heart, mind and strength. When I very firmly and clearly said "No you will not get out",  she turned around and said "Deb?" hoping that Deb would give her the answer she wanted. 

Deb didn't. 

And with a voice that seemed to have come from the power behind the White Witch himself (get it?), she bellowed:

"NO, NO, NO" all while pointing at Deb. 

I was mortified. But just had to keep pushing my child to the house. There was no point in saying "you have a time out when we get to Deb's", because she wouldn't get why she had a time out by the time we  got there. 

When we reached the promised land of the house, My White Witch took off her fur cape and her crown, and Ronald McDonald got a bath to take off the red stuff in his hair. Eventually they were both just in diapers and t-shirts, running around willy nilly stuffing pizza in their faces. 

Us four adults sat exhausted, stuffing pizza in our faces. 

It was messy, it was icky, it was exhausting. But in the midst of all of it, I couldn't get out of my mind, that sometimes church planting is like that. You can go days on end feeling like you are going around in a costume no one gets. With a vision that no one gets, with passions that no one seems to understand. And then when they do it doesn't always look like you thought it would. It doesn't always look clean and neat and pretty. Sometimes church planting is sitting exhausted with a piece of pizza in your hand, and a piece in your mouth with a cup of (here comes a confession) Coca-Cola (shudder), while your child runs around in a diaper and a borrowed t-shirt. 

And you choose joy in that moment. Because you've felt it before, and you know it's there. You've heard it, the name of Aslan. And it is that name that causes you to keep going on the days that no one gets it, until someone gets it. Because they will, and oh what beauty that is. 

“None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do; but the moment the Beaver had spoken these words everyone felt quite different. Perhaps it has sometimes happened to you in a dream that someone says something which you don't understand but in the dream it feels as if it had some enormous meaning--either a terrifying one which turns the whole dream into a nightmare or else a lovely meaning too lovely to put into words, which makes the dream so beautiful that you remember it all your life and are always wishing you could get into that dream again. It was like that now. At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in it's inside. Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of Summer.” 

                                    ― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe