Are you BRAVE?

A BRAVE event is coming to Seattle in the spring of 2017. 

What is BRAVE?

BRAVE is a catalytic event for conversation and connection. This is a one day event where we will come together to remind a very specific demographic that they are worth celebrating; girls 12-18 who are in Foster Care. 

These girls are vulnerable and susceptible to violence, and coercion in illegal and sexually explicit behavior. 

BRAVE is a preventative event to remind these girls that they are valuable, lovable, and to encourage them to dream big dreams for what their futures can be. They come to this event, and in turn join a group of other girls who will be mentored in intentional ways by someone who desires to show them that life can be different than what they’ve known. 

Through this process, these girls will learn more about who they are and who’s they are. Then, if someone with sinister intentions attempts to encourage or force them into damaging behaviors, these girls will stop in their tracks and say, “You can’t do that to me. That’s what you do to an oppressed person, and I am free”. 

It is our hope that this event will change a generation. It has the potential to change the statistics for girls who end up in the sex industry, for girls who have babies too young, and to encourage girls to be BRAVE enough to become whatever they are meant to be. 

You can be a part of this movement. 

Are you BRAVE?

Self Grace

Be gracious to yourself.

These past few weeks I have been blessed with opportunities to enjoy meals and coffee and phone calls both with people that I have loved a long time and with people that are in love with the same mission as I am.

Through so many of these interactions I’ve heard stories of guilt, or grief. Stories of putting ourselves down and feeling like we’re just not good enough.
It seems like we are much harder on ourselves than we would be on anyone else.

Imagine you’re sitting at a table across from someone that you love with your whole heart. You both have your hands wrapped around the best cup of coffee you’ve ever had. 

That person you love is sharing stories of disappointment in themselves, or stories of lingering guilt, or shame. Maybe they’re sharing stories of how they wish they could be someone that they’re not, or they wish they weren’t someone that they are.

If they truly are someone we love, we would never look at them and say “You’re right. You really are an awful human. All you are capable of are mistakes and failure. Really, you should get it together or jump off a bridge.”

That would be absurd. We would never say those things or even anything remotely close to that to someone that we care about. We would look at them with eyes of grace with a heart that embraces them for who they are, and we would say things like “I know it’s been hard, but you’re not alone. You really been doing your best, things are going to get better. Just because you’ve made this or these mistakes that doesn’t mean that’s who you are. 

You are loved. 

You are valuable. 

You are wanted. 

You are appreciated. 

You are needed.”

If we would say such gracious and kind things to someone we love, why are those the last things we would ever say to ourselves? 
Life is hard. 

Why do we make it harder?

Beating ourselves up usually doesn’t make for a better choice on the next go. Cycles of guilt and shame produce more cycles of guilt and shame.

I wonder how different our lives would be if we were kinder to ourselves. How different would our lives be if we were as kind to ourselves as we would be with someone that we love and respect? 

That doesn’t mean that every mistake we make isn’t a big deal or that we shouldn’t try our best to do our best, but maybe we should just handle our wounded hearts with hands of kindness and compassion- as opposed to hands full of thorns and scorn. 

Grace. 

Give it. 

Live it. 

Receive it. 

BRAVE- A catalytic event for girls.

Yesterday: June 11 2016 my second book was released, but it’s not a book book… Let me explain. 

I’ve partnered with Danielle Strickland and some amazing women from The Church on 7th St in Long Beach. The women from this church have been doing this event- and Danielle came in and did one of the things The Salvation Army does best: create a foundational framework so this amazing catalytic event can be replicated in other places.

 
It starts with a one-day large event, similar to a one day Youth Councils, or high school age youth meeting. We have a manual on how to produce the event as if the people putting it on have never put on an event before. All information and how to and timelines are in there. All the way from how to start an advisory board, what to pray about, how to connect into the foster care system, how to recruit volunteers, and how to fundraise. 
It is an event that is a catalyst for connections and conversation. 

On the day of the event, the girls come together to be celebrated. Through this event they are shown that they have worth and value, and that there are people in their communities who want to join with them in some capacity. 

But this event is just the beginning. 

From there those that volunteered at the event will start doing small groups in the Foster and group homes. Maybe a cooking class or a crochet group. Maybe you will go and play basketball. Anything. Just to do something with that people group to show them they are worth spending time with that isn’t dependent on what they can do for you. 

That is what so many of them are used to, at least the girls who have been trafficked into the sex industry. You see, that’s the whole point. Out of the girls who are trafficked on the streets that are under 18 years old, 70% are currently in foster care. 
Let that sink in. 

But the good news is that we can do something about it. If these girls are in foster care, that means they are on someone’s caseload. They are known. They can be loved. We can intervene before someone tries to hurt or abuse them.
The small groups are really important for follow up care and relationship building. But as a companion to the small groups, I wrote a guided journal for the girls to go through to start doing some self exploration, some big dreams, some healing, and even some life skills.

The BRAVE journal can be a jumping off point for conversation. Your leading a small group, but not sure what to say? Ask about their journals and if they have read or written or drawn anything they want to share. 

Worst case scenario: a girl comes to this event, but doesn’t get connected into a small group. She has the journal so she can do some self guided healing, dreaming, learning, and exploration into a larger world. 

Big goal: I will write one journal a year for five years to grow with these girls- to be a constant in their journey and to help them see that if someone does try to traffic them, or take advantage of them- they can stand up for themselves. They will have the knowledge that they can not be exploited because that is what you do to an oppressed person; and they are free. 

This is all very new and we will be making this resource available online very soon as soon as it is, you will know.

 Until then, pray for this program to catch on and for leaders who are really willing to invest in this kind of Justice. 

Pray for the girls in foster care who feel alone and abandoned; that they would be safe and loved. 

Pray for the girls that have already been exploited, it’s never too late to heal and learn and grow. 
Will you be BRAVE?
Spread the word. 

Team Barnes is on the move.

We’ve served in The Southwest for over 5 years, and loved a solid ¾ of it 🙂

There have been some challenges, most being struggles of self (isn’t that almost always the case?). But standing at this end of our time as Divisional Youth Secretaries, I wouldn’t change it or trade it for anything.

I could say goodbye to the desert in a hot minute- pun intended, but the relationships and friendships we’ve formed will go with us forever (Caveat: there are some great things about the desert, like monsoons and haboobs <–That is a real thing, not just me being inappropriate). Since we’ve been here I’ve used the hashtag #FamilyYouChoose more than I ever thought I could, and no matter where we are sent or what our ministry positions are, the friends that have become family here will always be a part of our lives.

We are off to Seattle Washington to help run a Corps and Community Center in the White Center neighborhood. I hear they have a great team assembled, and we look forward to jumping in and being a part of the Kingdom work that is happening there. We are excited  for this opportunity, and thrilled to be Corps Officers again.

Here’s something kinda funny.

This is a picture of a picture. It’s been hanging above our kitchen sink for 5 years. It has a very common verse of scripture on it. “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.”
–Jeremiah 29:11-12

During my seasons of sadness or disappointment I remember standing over the sink doing the dishes or prepping dinners and I would look up at that picture and think, “Do you really, God? Because right now, I don’t think you do.” There have been times where I’ve felt alone or forgotten by God. Times where I felt like people made bad calls, and we shouldn’t have even come here. Times where I felt like I was lost, or dispensable.

But then I would look up… I know the plans I have for you. Even if you don’t know. Even if you don’t understand- I do and that’s all that matters. Even when you don’t get it, or when you don’t understand, I will listen to you.

Those are the words on the picture. But the picture in the center is the part that is kinda funny.

It is my family, before Hurricane Leilah was here… In Seattle.

We are in front of the first Starbucks at Pikes Place Market.

I know the plans I have for you…. And they are right here. They might not always be staring us in the face every day, but God knows them- and if we really believe that is truth, then we don’t need to see our future in  a picture hanging above the sink to believe that we are a part of something much bigger than ourselves.

I’m thankful for what has been. I am thankful even for the times that have been difficult, because we’ve been refined. We have been strengthened, we’ve learned lessons in humility and trust. We’ve learned that God is so much more in control then people ever could be.

I am different than the Lisa that stepped into this appointment five years ago, and I look forward to the continue growth and change that is still to come.

Southwest Division, specifically my friends that are now family- Thanks for being there, for your love, for your laughter, and thanks in advance for coming and visiting us up north. You can totally crash at my house.

A book is born

 
It’s a strange thing when a project you’ve been working on pouring your whole friggen heart into for a year finally comes to fruition. I started writing my book, Love to a Whore’s Daughter: Life and Faith Through the Lens of Grace and Redemption last October. 

It took about 5 months to write the draft. Five months of 3-5 hours every night after my kids went to bed. Five months of reliving my past, digging through the rubble to find the remnants of Jesus and His prevenient grace for a sad, lost, abandoned girl. Five months of matching up the memories with scriptures to bring healing to the wounds; the gaping wounds I thought were already scars. 

I really thought I was okay. I thought I had moved on and was a totally different person. Going through this process showed me that healing and moving forward is much more of a dance than it is a linear process. Sometimes you go forward, sometimes you go backwards or even in circles. But any movement is better than stagnation. 

I’m excited for what this book is going to do for the other Lisa’s out there. The other people who have been hurt by those entrusted to love and care for them. For others who think they are too damaged for the healing of Jesus. For the adults trapped by the ghosts of their pasts. For the weird ones who think they can’t follow Jesus because they will never fit in with His followers. This book is a guide to faith for people just like us, and for those who want to love people just like us. 

I’m looking forward to conservatives giving this book a chance, even though the word “WHORE” is in the title 🙂 I hope that’s not just wishful thinking. 

This book will be available to you through the Frontier Press website, like it on Facebook for all the info. Preorders start October 1. 

http://frontierpress.org

Feel free to share this on social media to spread the word. 

See you later, Dave.

  
We first met Dave and Linda when we were in training school and they were running the Salvation Army in Santa Monica California. The Harmons had just come back from several years serving as missionaries in Guam. That was their passion, to love and serve in places like the Caribbean, and Trinidad, and where ever else they were needed. 
They were back in the states and their hearts were broken. Both Dave and Linda were honest about how sad they were to have left a place they loved so much. What stood out to me more than anything else, was that they didn’t let their brokenness define them. They didn’t let their justified feelings of sadness stop them from loving God and serving OTHERS. They didn’t try to hide the pain with a mask of who they thought they should be. They were real about their hurt, but did their best anyway. 

I was in school learning how to be a strong Salvation Army Officer, and I was thankful to have such a great example right infront of me.  So when it came time to pick mentors, I knew straight away who I wanted to ask. I wanted to fully seize any opportunity I had to sit at the feet of the Harmons and learn from them. 

I didn’t expect them to have all the answers all of the time. All I wanted was for them to show us a way to serve God that was covered in gentleness and grace, with integrity and compassion, with selflessness and joy. Dave and Linda have always been that for us, and for countless others. 

I’m also thankful for Daves sense of humor. He made us laugh every time we were together. It was crazy to hear about all his adventures, like being a pilot or an instructor at Asbury University, because feel like Dave only told the same 15 stories over and over… and they were mostly about eating shark tacos on the beach in the Caribbean. I know they were there to work and share Jesus, but they must have also eaten a ton of shark tacos.

I also loved when we would go out to eat with Dave and Linda because it was terribly confusing to the wait staff. Being that we are both interracial couples, but swapped the colors of spouses, people often didn’t know who was with whom. It was as if every server thought, “Younger and older. White and black. I just don’t know what to do with this checkerboard!”

  
When we told our son that Dave was gone, he cried his little heart out. Once he was able to compose himself, he said, “I will always miss Dave. But I know that our lives were better because he was a part of them.” I couldn’t have said it any better. 

Dave, you will be missed. You are a gift that many will treasure for ever. You had kingdom impact that will last for eternity. Thank you for who you were, and all you did. Your love and support will never be forgotten.

Until we are with you in paradise, see you later brother. 

  

“I am the architect of my own destruction”

It’s Thursday night and I’m standing in the back of the chapel of Camp Redwood Glen at Western Youth Institute 2015. The worship band is singing a great new praise and worship song. Most everyone there is singing and praising God with their voices, arms lifted. Not me though. I mean, I’m praising God, it just looks a little different. Mostly because I really hate singing. So I stand there and think about the lyrics, asking myself if they are applicable to my life and my journey with Jesus. If the words don’t align with where I am and what I believe, I think about what I need to do to get back to God being the center of it all.

Up to this point it has been an amazing week where about 200 young adults and their leaders traveled to the Santa Cruz mountains to be renewed and refreshed while having more fun than I have words to share in this blog, maybe I’ll share some of the fun in the next one…

Here I am standing in the back of the chapel, worshiping how I do- probably looking like I hate life (I lost track of how many times I had to explain to people that I wasn’t grumpy, or tired… I just have an at rest face that often looks a little… intimidating. I know, and I’m working on it. Just kidding I’m not really working on it. It’s just my face)

So I’m standing there, and I notice a girl standing in front of me. Amy Jo (her real name, used with permission). I met her on the first day. She caught my eye because… she is a weird girl, just like me. She has almost the same shade of unnatural fire engine red hair as I do. She is also pretty well covered in tattoos, just like me. When I first saw her I thought, “Oh! My people are here. I wonder if there are any more of us.” There were a few, but Amy Jo was different.

Thursday night was the first time I read the tattoo that took up the entirety of her right forearm. It is written in typewriter script, which I like because it’s a technically difficult style of lettering. All that to say, she goes to a good tattoo artist.

This night I notice the tattoo because her arms are lifted in unabashed praise. I read the tattoo. It says,

“I am the architect of my own destruction”.

My first thought was, “I think that might be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen”

Not the tattoo, but the contrast of what it was saying while her arm was lifted in praise and the lyrics of a powerful song projected on the huge wall in front of us.

It was like being able to see the past and present and future all at once.

Here was my thought process, judgment included, please forgive me:

“I’m sad that a girl so young would have that message forever on her body”

“She is either very brave or very crazy”

“I wonder if she still feels like that”

“(Here comes the honesty, please don’t judge me)

“I think there were lots of times in my life where I have thought the same thing. I’ve thought that I was the architect of my own destruction, but I would do all I could to keep it a secret.

I think about when I was in high school and my emotional pain and confusion were so severe that I took a razor to my skin in desperation. All I wanted was to feel normal. To feel loved. To feel wanted. I didn’t even have the vocabulary to explain why I felt the way I did so I hoped that if I cut then the emotional pain that held me hostage would flow out too. It didn’t work. The cutting just left me scarred. Scars you can see and scars you can’t. I was secretly the architect of my own destruction. “

There were other times too, but some days you feel okay about sharing your junk, and some days you don’t. Today, I just don’t. Sharing that one example is about all I can muster. My bravery is running low…

I loved talking to and getting to know Amy Jo. I loved to hear the stories of what God is going in her life, and to learn of the meaning behind the tattoo- that I misunderstood. The meaning behind it is different than what it seems at first glance.

I am thankful for the reminder that some of us wear our wounds on the inside in secret, some wear them on the outside, and some who are still struggling… do both. But no matter what we’ve been through, or have tattooed on our bodies, or what emotional pain has commandeered our brains, God is really just getting started. He’s in the business of healing and hope. Restoration and rebuilding. 

Grace for all. Grace today. More grace comes tomorrow.

Camp in the rear view

This morning I woke up in my bed in Phoenix. Before this morning I had spent the past 2 months in the White Mountains of Arizona leading the team of camp staff with my handsome best friend at Camp Ponderosa Ranch. The word ‘Ranch’ in the name is very deceiving. There is no ranch, no animals, or other things that one would correlate with the word ‘ranch’. But that’s not really the point of this blog, so I will move on.

This was our 5^th full summer in this place, this sacred space, this secluded place. We have loved every summer, even though they are all very different.

This summer was our Gideon summer.

We had 20 less staff than we did last year. 20 less. Twenty. Less.

I experienced panic like never before at the prospect of starting this season with 20 less staff than we had the previous year. There were important positions that we just couldn’t fill. There were staff members juggling two jobs. And the part that made me the most anxious (yes Christians, I said ANXIOUS) was that we had just enough counselors to cover the number of campers we were expecting. This sounds like a perfect fit, but every year we have had to let staff go for various reasons. By the end of the season, if we had any less counselors than what we were expecting, we would be in a pickle for sure. OH! Also, this was a full summer. I think we had just one camp with less than maximum capacity for campers. So there is that. A great blessing, but it didn’t help with my anxiousness…

By the time the season ended we still had all the staff we were expecting to. I couldn’t believe it. It was almost like God was in charge and wanted to remind us that He is much bigger than our small staff, or our needs, or our anxiety.

Small numbers. Big need. Even bigger God.

At the end of the season I share with my staff how many little souls turned toward Jesus with my favorite mental picture.

After I kick the bucket I picture walking around heaven. For me, heaven looks a lot like the central coast of California…. I imagine walking around a meadow with lush hills and grass so soft it feels like feathers under my feet (because OF COURSE we aren’t wearing shoes in heaven). I’m walking with Jesus (who to me is short in stature with dark brown skin and dreads. I really feel like that is a more historically accurate visualization of Jesus, as opposed to the Swedish lookin’ Jesus we see in pictures) and He and I are talking about life, the good the bad and the ugly, and He tells me to look to the hill on the left.

In the distance we will see a small army of people walking toward us. And Jesus will say, “You see there, those are the souls who started their journey with me because of Summer 2015 at Camp Ponderosa Ranch”. Between first time acceptance and re commitments we had 556 kids make decisions for Christ.

All I can think is… woah. What a privilege to be a part of. I don’t share this to point to the number as just a number; that would be selfish and prideful. I think of that picture in the green velvet hills of heaven and the 556 SOULS. Those are kids who hopefully will never be the same. Kids who will know that they aren’t alone with they feel afraid. Kids who maybe don’t have parents who love them, but they know that Jesus does and the body of Christ does, and they will be okay. Kids who have been abused and because of the intervention of our staff, the hurt ends now.

Maybe one of them will be my pastor. Maybe one of them will be the president. Maybe one of them will start a global revolution.

I am thankful for our Gideon summer. I am thankful for the team God assembled and for their hard work. I am thankful for the transformation that happens in all of us present. I am thankful for the new believers. I am thankful for those who will disciple them back home. I am thankful for a God that shows up and moves mountains. I am thankful for a God who loves me in spite of my fear and anxiety. I am thankful that He isn’t done with any of us yet.

My three year old Feminist

We were stunted for nearly five years while infertility held our family in its grip. We had our son years before, and I think he wanted a baby more than anyone else did.

During those years waiting I spent countless hours daydreaming about the baby our hearts longed for. Would he or she look like our other son? Would we have a little boy who love trucks and sports, or art and reading? Would we have a little girl who liked to build things, or was crazy about pink sparkly things? Even when it felt like our marriage was falling apart, and on the days when my faith went from desperate to non-existent I held on to the daydreams. With the daydreams came hope. I had to have hope, and when The Lord seemed distant the daydreams gave me the hope I needed to get out of bed and fake it enough to get through.

When we moved to Phoenix we tried one last thing; Southwest Fertility Center. After all that time and heartache, we got our desert flower with the first round of treatment. Before I knew it she was here, and even with those hours of daydreaming, picturing what she would look like, or what her personality would be… I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Leilah is tough as nails, not a people pleaser, appreciates music and dancing, and loves deeply… once you make your way through her defenses and give her time to decide if she’s going to let you in. After spending even the shortest amount of time with her, most people will comment about how she looks just like her father, but her personality is all me. Translation: When she is 31 she will be friggen amazing.

Things that make for an extraordinary adult, don’t always make for the most endearing of toddlers. Loud, strong personality, independent, fun loving, rule avoiding, and ready to conquer the world. Once she has a filter, and chooses to use her powers for good… who knows what phenomenal things she is going to do. Hopefully it will be much more than I could ever do.

Because she is so much like me, I spend a lot of time thinking about what I wish people would have said to me when I was growing up. I want her to know she is so good. I want her to know that her body is strong and perfect. I want her to know she can choose her own steps and decide what amazing things she will do each day. I want her to know she is loved beyond measure, and that no person can ever dictate her value. I want her to be brave and confident. And I want her to know that the creator of the universe is in her corner, on her side, and smiles at who she is.

I want her to be a Feminist. I tell her to eat her vegetables because it gives her muscles, not because it will keep her thin. I tell her that she should climb the highest towers and latters at the playground because nothing is too difficult or beyond her grasp. I tell her to be kind because we love Jesus and everyone should be kind. I don’t tell her to be a “good girl”, there’s no fun or dignity in that.

When Leilah does something brave or strong it is then that I use the words girl, lady, and other feminine pronouns so that she associates her gender with great things, not oppressive things or what people expect nice girls to be.
This child is amazing, and well worth the wait and hurt it took to get her here. Not because she is like me, but because she is just who she was intended to be, and I am privileged to be one of the people chosen to take care of her until she is ready to take care of herself. And even then, I look forward to journeying with her as she explores life, and makes mistakes, pulls herself up and puts her feet in her strong feminist shoes and kicks fear in the face.
She makes me want to kick fear in the face. Hurricane Leilah. I wouldn’t trade her for the world.

Released my expectations and found joy

I’m so happy. Like really really, kind of in your face and moderately annoyingly happy.

And I know why. One reason… JESUS!

Okay, two reasons. Jesus is the obvious number one, but the second is… I have given up expectations.

Please hear me (or read me… but that sounds weird) correctly, I still think there should be a standard. I still think that we should be people of integrity who do our best at all we are given. But that’s not what Imma sayin’. I think this crazy-in-your-face-joy has come from the releasing of the expectations of what life should be. Or what ministry should be. Or what family should be. Or what friends should be.

When we get stuck on our expectations on what things should be, whenever things deviate from that- we take it as a hit. A stupid self-imposed-good-for-nothin’ hit.

We’ve been in our current ministry for nearly four and a half years. I love what we get to do. I love camp, and supporting youth workers and OTHERS in ministry, and connecting people with areas of their passion, and hanging out with kids way more than I hang out with adults, and speaking at cool events, and serving with my handsome best friend, and all the other things… but this hasn’t always been my feeling about my ministry.

For the first two years…TWO YEARS… I struggled with some depression. I felt lost and a little hopeless. I felt like my ministry and work for Jesus had lost its value because I wasn’t a local pastor anymore. My little flock was gone, and my heart was ripped to pieces.

When I signed up for this, I EXPECTED it to always look a certain way, and when it didn’t, it really through me for a loop; and for much longer than I would usually like to admit to.

Once I released the expectations of what my ministry should be, things got better straight away. Nothing on the outside changed, but I changed. I decided that life is what it is, and I didn’t want to take any of it for granted anymore. As time progressed, I have tried to give up more and more expectations that don’t serve any purpose other than to let you down when they don’t happen the way you’ve pictured.

I am so thankful for every day I have in this ministry. Thankful for the new things I get to do, and in a way, I feel like the longer we are here, the more opportunity I have to redeem the time I wasted while stuck in my own yuck. I was a turd in the punch bowl (the quickest way to ruin the party) for too long. And no matter what God does with us, I don’t ever want to be that person again.

Life isn’t perfect, and people and situations will still disappoint. But things can look very different when we accept them as they come, and just do the best with what we have.

No more getting bent outa shape when things don’t happen the way we thought they would. Expectations, you can kick rocks. I choose joy.

Here is a picture of me and one of the great friends I’ve met since choosing joy.
Sometimes the joy makes me have a nerdy smile when pictures are taken in the middle of a crack up.

I’ll take it 🙂