Paris, encore et encore

 I once spent a year in Paris. It was awesome. It was also hell-on-earth.

I often summarize the year by stating, "it was simultaneously the best year of my life and the worst year of my life." I wrote all about that year on this blog, so I won't go into detail about that year. Other than to tell this story.

It was a beautiful spring day. The day before, Erin and I made plans to take Dawson to school together and then take the train into the city, spending the day together in Paris. In what was a common refrain that year, well intentioned plans fell apart.  Neither of us handled this change of plans very well, leading to yet another intense fight. This fight was different than the others, though.

Somehow we moved from the Hotel de Ville till we were standing in the middle of one of the city's medieval bridges spanning the Seine River. What happened next will forever be seared in my memory. In the middle of a raging argument, time seemed to slow down and I became intensely aware of my surroundings; the feel on my skin of the warm sun combined with the chill in the air, the tourists passing us by and the cold, grey stone which composed the bridge. What struck me most, though was the beauty of the sun's rays dancing on the waves of the Seine. The bridges over the Seine, linking the two sides of Paris, quite possibly one of the most romantic sites in the entire world.

I don't remember the words but I can feel the intense anger.  I can also still hear my own voice inside my head, "well, this is it. Our marriage is going to die right here, standing on a bridge over the Seine in the 'City of Love.'" Maybe it didn't end right then but it was a serious nail in the coffin.

As I wrote in the first entry in this series, the death of our marriage (an inevitable event?) was sped up during our year in Paris. And yet, as you would notice were you to read a few entries from the blog I linked to above, I thoroughly enjoyed the year in Paris. As someone in our church remarked, "Every street in Paris is an outdoor museum." And I explored as many of those museum-streets as possible. I also tried to take Dawson to every park in the city. We often spent weekends exploring parks in every arrondisement of the city.

I lead so many groups and individuals around the city, both during that year and later with a collegiate study-abroad program that I finally tried to follow the advice of all those people who told me I should be a Paris tour-guide. Last year, I tried to put together a guided tour of Paris. A lot of people expressed interest and in the midst of receiving all that interest, N decided to join me on the trip. Well, none of those people who said they wanted to go ended up joining the trip, so it ended up being just the two of us; N had her own private tour guide.

It was an amazing week. We visited the touristy stuff sure but I was also able to show her some of the more hidden gems of that city. To her credit, N convinced me to try some places I hadn't visited during that entire year in the city. We even got to share a meal with some of the people from the church where I'd served as a volunteer pastor.

Some Parisian "joi de vivre"

The Versailles Church building

The Thursday afternoon in June meal

I was able to share the many aspects I loved about that city with an amazing travel companion.  Our last night was spent walking along the Seine, observing the various ways Parisians experienced their joi de vivre in a city full of sensual delights.  N turned to me and said, "I wasn't completely sold on Paris the first few days, but now I understand why you love this city so much."

That statement made my trip.  It was wonderful to experience the joys of that city with her.

As I wrote earlier, I broke up with her a few weeks later.

In response to that emotional decision, I decided to take another trip to Paris.  I did so in late September/early October.  While my trip with N was about exploring the light and beautiful parts of Paris, the solo trip ended up being about exploring the emotional darkness of the city where my marriage fell apart and about facing and reuniting with the congregation we tried to serve while we were there.

Back in October of 14, when leading the group of college students around Paris, we had the chance to spend a Sunday afternoon in the Versailles Gardens with some close friends.  While walking around the basin, feeding ducks and swans, the husband made an off-hand comment about how he can't understand why people can get a divorce.
That was a comment that I shamefully carried with me for years.

What I'm about to share, though won't be a surprise if you've been reading this blog...
When that couple found out about the divorce, they made a point to tell me that I'm still loved and a part of the church family.  I got to spend a wonderful afternoon with that family, an afternoon filled with quiche, wine, good conversation, laughs and grace.

The church even had a post-worship meal together, welcoming me back.  It's hard to put into words how wonderful that felt.

I also had the chance to spend hours talking with the missionary whom I worked with/for while there.  We talked about so much yet I can hardly remember the details.  I do know, however that the conversation will likely be remembered as one of the more significant post-divorce healing moments.

Making the conversation more significant was where Brian met me.  He met me at the park outside the apartment where we'd lived.  I told him I'd be spending some time there that morning, sitting on a bench, looking at the apartment where Erin first said she wanted a divorce and I eventually came to agree with that decision.

I had to feel that pain.  I had to retrace my steps, immerse myself back into the dark pain caused  by  the death of my marriage.  I had to face that apartment on Rue Parc d'Ardenay.  I had to face the congregation I was trying to serve while simultaneously knowing Erin and I weren't going to make it.  I had to have an honest conversation with the missionary I'd tried to help for a year while also trying to hide from him just how miserable my life was.

And I did.  I faced it all.  The apartment lost its power over me.  The church welcomed me with open arms.  The missionary helped set me free from some false guilt and unwarranted regrets.

I did sit on my seat on the plane for the flight home, but I think I might've been able to fly back across the Atlantic with my own wings.  The absence of that emotional weight was physically noticeable.

I still love Paris.  I can't wait to go back. Again and again...

I just love wandering the streets of Paris

Paris at night, in the rain - a beautiful sight

After our Sunday meal

"Les esclaliers de la butte..."

Brian Ketchum, AKA "The Missionary"

Le divorce

This another rewrite, another edited version of the story I’ve felt compelled to share, another attempt to respectfully, yet honestly.

19 Parc d'Ardeny, Palaiseau, FR 91120Our apartment living roomMay of 2014

"I want a divorce."

That statement rocked my world but it wasn't really a surprise.  Things had been bad for years.  In fact, there is family a picture (which I’ve since taken down) at our son’s first birthday party in February of 2010, which I believe to be beginning of the end.  We had happy moments after that point and some moments of hope, but that’s when things started their inevitable descent toward divorce. 

During that spring of 2010, things started to change and by the time some formal family pictures was taken in June of 2010, I knew things weren't right, though I had no idea just how bad things would get.  My mom told me years later that she sensed the change in 2010 also, prompting her to start praying fervently for us.

In July of 2013, we packed up our belongings (or sold a lot of them) and moved to France to spend a year as Mission Corps Volunteers.   I had high hopes that this year in Paris, helping with a church, living in the "City of Love" and being removed from the pressures of every-day life at home would be the exact remedy our struggling relationship needed.  The opposite is what actually happened, though.  Being removed from the relational support of family and friends (and, to be honest, the distractions as well) actually served to speed-up the disintegration process.  With both hindsight and the knowledge of how much better life is now, that speeding-up process was actually beneficial.

I’ve received some many opinions regarding the different levels of disclosure I’ve made on this blog but I still believe this paragraph below, which I wrote at the very first, to be true. 

This is probably the time to state that out of respect for my ex-wife, whom I believe to be a good-hearted person and for whom I wish only the best (boy, that sounds trite, but it's true), I'm not going to share the details or causes of why our marriage died. I do however, want to share the agony I experienced over the last few horrible years of a sick and dying marriage.  I'm going to share the shame, grace and personal growth that I've experienced thee past few years via a series of blog posts.

Though I didn't actually move out until December of 16, the fate of our marriage was all but sealed that night back in May of 14.  We spent the rest of that week not talking (which was to become a common occurrence as we tried to co-parent and live separate lives while legally still married and occupying the same residence) and I went into Dawson's room every night that week, praying over him and crying tears of shame and guilt that my son was going to have divorced parents.

By the end of the week, however two realizations dawned on me:1) A lot of people whom I know and respect, people who truly love God, have gone through divorces.  Even this guy...

John Wesley sucked as a huband

2) A divorce and a fresh start might not be all bad.From the time my ex asked for a divorce (and I mentally assented to it, so it really was a two-way decision) till the time I actually moved out, we had two good months.  Those good months didn't last though, because the destructive habits reared their ugly heads and strangled the remaining life out of our marriage. Those two good months I mentioned were September of 14 (right when we moved back to Europe), a couple of weeks in February of 16 and about a week in May of 15.

Why did it take so long until we finally called it quits?  While I can't speak for both of us, I'd say it was two major factors; shame and hope.  The hope was stubborn; "maybe things will turn around?"

The shame was debilitating; "God, family, friends, when they know, they're all going to hate me and disown me."  I'm going to do an entire post on shame later on.

About 75% of the 2.5 years from The Declaration till The Move Out were spent just existing, clinging to some vague hope that things would turn around.  There were a few seasons of mildly sustained effort, though, like the few weeks in the spring of 16 that we spent going through Breakthrough.    Going into that, I stated that I felt like it was a last attempt to save our marriage.  For a couple of weeks, the save appeared to have taken place.  A couple weeks later, however the emotional high wore off and I realized the patterns hadn't really changed.

I had the sense, in June of 15 when I could tell Breakthrough hadn't changed anything for us, that weren't going to make it, but we stayed in the marriage another 18 months.I'll admit, it was incredibly easy to escape into a fantasy of what the next relationship might be like.  The counselor whom I visited often on my own and sometimes together, warned me that real life could never compete with a fantasy.

That fantasy was fueled however, by the fact that I'd noticed Christians who had gone through a divorce and came out stronger with healthier second marriages.  So at one of our last sessions, in August of 16, I asked the counselor (a Christian who has herself gone through a divorce) why she and I were wasting our time when we could on and find someone else whom we'd get along with better.  The counselor responded with something I'll never forget, "You're not wasting time.  You're spending time.  If your marriage doesn't survive, you won't look back at these difficult years with regret and label them wasted time but rather with satisfaction and peace, labeling them years well-spent."  Was she ever right.  The several years of the downward cycle that lead up to The Declaration  were difficult.  The years spent between The Declaration and The Move Out were relational hell-on-earth.

While it's impossible to know all future contingencies, when I moved out last December, I did so with a broken heart but also a heart full of peace and relief.  She actually thanked me later for having the courage to do what we'd both been wanting.It did, however, take me five days to have the courage to call my dad on the phone.  As I was sitting on the floor of my apartment, finally having a phone conversation with my dad, I was surrounded by piles of things I still needed to put away and was bawling my eyes out. My dad hurt with me.  My dad, whom I was almost too ashamed to talk to, offered his own love and acceptance.  He even offered the acknowledgment that he didn't understand why this happened to us nor that he really knew what to say.  He simply offered his assurance of his love for me, along with his knowledge of God’ unwavering love for me as well.

It's hard to understate the significance of a statement like that.

That reassurance came from a man who views marriage as the ultimate expression of our love for and commitment to God.  That reassurance came from a man who loved Erin like a daughter.

They were years spent, not years wasted.

I finally have the courage and motivation to start writing about all of this.  I think I know what prompted this desire to write but I'm not actually comfortable sharing that yet.I've been needing to write for a long time, though.

I have a pastor friend who walked through the difficult, death-of-the-marriage years with me.  At a Bible study about two weeks after I moved out, I was explaining to him how much better I felt and how my fears of everyone abandoning me (God included) were simply not true.  He then told, me, " "You need to write this out so you can share with other people going through similar struggles."  I wasn't ready back them to start writing but about a year later, I'm ready to do so.  This is the first of several blog entries in which I'm publicly going to bear my soul, think through some past events and try to find some healing.

Returned, Finally (part deux)

"Guess who's back, back again?"

We are back in Gardner after finishing our year in France.  It was an incredible year that I will not try to summarize here but will simply direct you to the blog I kept during the year, http://millermissioncorps.wordpress.com/.

We are about to embark on another European adventure, this time with MNU Europe.   I was thinking that I'd continue blogging about MNU Europe on the other site, but since I posted so many pictures I've used up almost all of the storage, I think I'll jump back on this blog.

I will also continue to post on issues of justice and nonviolence, including notes from the books I'm reading.  

We also have a new ministry adventure we're pursuing, though it won't start until we return from Europe in September.  So more on that later.

In the meantime, I'll work to get some content going again on this blog.

With a Year of Waiting in the Past, Next Up is France

As I've shared in a few posts like this one , this one and this one 2012 has been a year of waiting.  While those blog posts hint at that fact, I never actually declared on this blog that 2012 was my year of waiting, but that's what it has been.  While praying sometime early in this year, I had a clear sense that 2012 was to be a year of waiting; that God was teaching me patience, to trust him to guide my future (rather than trying to force things to happen) and to seek my significance in who I am as his child rather than what I do for him.  I've had to remind myself that 2012 is a year of waiting as I've spent the past year working an incredibly unfulfilling job and have been wrestling through thoughts and experiments for how to best use my ministry gifts.  All of 2012 has been a year of waiting.  In the exact middle of 2012, I was very close to landing a great job in a university setting.  In fact, I already had one foot out of the door of my current job and was thinking that I'd gotten off easy in this year of waiting; I would only have to wait 6 months for the next major step in my journey.  Then, in a way that was both humorous and painful, I found myself on the wrong side of nepotism and didn't get the job.  Again, God reminded me (I wish He could do it more gently sometimes) that ALL of 2012 is about waiting.  So I kept waiting and seeking and praying and waiting some more.

In late summer of this year, as we were sitting in our living room folding clothes, Erin announces "you know, if we're really going to consider serving a year with Nazarene Mission Corps , the next academic year would be the time to do it, since it will be Dawson's last year before kindergarten.  Erin's statement was completely out of the blue; I never expected to hear her say that.  I'd been talking with her about this idea for a few years but she had been a bit hesitant.  Honestly, I was hesitant, too.  While it sounded like a good idea, I wasn't sure we'd ever really decided to pursue it.  I had tried to get Erin to attend the Cross Cultural Orientation required for those considering Mission Corps, but she remained hesitant.  In fact, I tried pushing it pretty hard last spring but she told me, in no uncertain terms, that she wasn't ready to consider that major of a life change as we were not yet far enough removed from the previous painful life changes.  Last summer, however when she announced that it was time to think about it, I knew two things: 1) We'd both fully recovered from our season of loss and transition and 2) God was clearly speaking to my wife.

Even after that conversation, we wrestled with our doubts.  After one difficult conversation on a Saturday night, God immediately addressed Erin's fears.  The very next morning, God spoke to Erin through our pastor's morning message and a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that she heard on PBS, "Faith is taking the first step, even when you can't see the whole staircase."  As I'm tempted to interpret challenges as a sign from God that we need to stop pursuing this, I heard my mom's admonition, "now that you've committed to this because you know God is leading you, don't let the inevitable challenges stop you from doing it."  So despite the numerous challenges we face in moving overseas to spend a year volunteering for our Denomination, we're determined to do our best not to back down from the challenges.

After committing to spend a year with Mission Corps, our next big challenge was to decide where to spend that year.  My first two thoughts were: 1) I'd love to go to France and 2) No way we could consider a year in France as mission work.  So we started exploring all the other options.  We talked with Dave and Betsy Scott in Croatia , the Sunbergs  about Budapest and a coffee shop in Krakow, Poland   CaribbeanNazarene College  and some teaching opportunities in the AfricaSouth region .  We knew all along, though that our hearts were with the Eurasia region. 

While all of those opportunities seemed exciting, they also all had obstacles that didn't exist with the opportunity in Versailles, France.  So after all those opportunities faded away, we were left with our original hope, a year in France. 

Our decision to choose France was the result of two factors.  First of all, we're intrigued by the culture.  Several years ago, we spent some time in France and really liked the culture.  I realize that a week touring a country doesn't give one a true sense of the culture, but just like we felt in 2003 when feeling drawn to Gardner, something seems to be drawing us to France.  When talking with the Missionary in France, Brian Ketchum , he told me that if I were talking about Hungary the way I was talking about France, he'd tell me to get off the phone with him and immediately call the Sunbergs, but since we seem to have a draw toward France, we need to trust that God has a reason for planting that desire in us.  Randy and Lorie Beckum, mentors of our from college and who also served as missionaries in France, told us to not assume that mission work means we go somewhere we'd rather not be but rather pick a place where we would enjoy living and to know that God will use us anywhere.  For us, that's France.  Really, could you choose a better place to spend a year of one's life than Paris? 

Secondly, and this was the main factor, we already have a solid base in the language.  At the end of a year in Budapest, we might have finally mastered the basics of the difficult Hungarian language.  We're going to France with a basis in the language and with the possibility of being close to fluent by the end of the year.  While English is the international business language (meaning people across Europe speak English) and we can serve despite language barriers, we're excited about both serving in a place where we can have simple conversations and where we can become fluent in a second language (a language spoken in many other parts of the world, too). 

I started my French studies in the fall of 2008 on a bit of a whim.  While working on French homework one day, I had a congregation member, Joe Kumor ask me why I was doing all this work.  I told him I wasn't quite sure but that maybe God was preparing me for some future mission work and that I've found that God has always turned my hobbies into service opportunities.  As I look back through some blog entries like this one here ,  I see that four years ago, I was already thinking about the possibility of serving in France.  In this entry, I explain the possibility of serving and teaching in Versailles, which is exactly what I'll be doing next year.  Finally, this blog entry makes me laugh.  I was writing about starting my semester at KU and I finish the blog entry wondering how God will use this intense language study.  Well, now I know. 

I became convinced that France is the place for us about two weeks before Erin came to the same conclusion.  Her decision was made on the fact that we can fill a ministry need in France.  Our year in France will be spent doing three things: 1) Serving the Versailles Community Church of the Nazarene, helping them during a pastoral transition and helping them think through ways to serve their surrounding community.  2) Helping train future pastors for the France District.  Currently, there are no trained pastors to take the place of current pastors (should they leave) nor to start new churches.  There are people on the District who have answered the call to ministry but now need the training.  I'm pumped to have the chance to teach and spend time with future pastors.  3) Learn how to build partnerships between US churches and French churches.  There are already some partnerships growing but we'll have the chance to deepen and expand those partnerships.  French pastors can be a great resource to American pastors since American pasors will eventually face the same cultural challenges pastors in France are already facing.  The possibility of a long-term relationship with the France District helps us know that our ministry in France will extend past this one year. 

After Brian explained all the ways we could serve and help the France District, Erin became convinced that we really would be doing mission work, not just going on a long vacation.  I have to admit though, we will be doing mission work in the country visited by more tourists each year than any other country.  I guess that's called, "suffering for Jesus."

As I shared with my home church in Burlington, IA last Sunday, I believe that my experience planting/ pastoring Trinity Family has brought us to a place where we are open to and possibly even partly prepared for the ministry context of France.  As this post is already too long, however I won't go into all of those details.  Maybe later.  For now, we have two big challenges to overcome before we leave sometime in July.  1) Raise the $30K necessary for a year serving in France and 2) Find someone to rent our house.  Prayer and donations (a website will be set up soon) will be appreciate.