I am a Millennial, still in the Church... Now let me share why and what I struggle with....

First of, I am a 32 year old millennial born near the start of my generation.  I grew up half with Gen Xers, half with Millennials.  I am a woman.  I was raised on the Kansas prairie.  And I was a APK (associate pastor's kid).  I was raised in a Pentecostal church, interned at a Lutheran and an Evangelical Free Church, and have been Baptist since I got married, though I have Anglican and Catholic twinges. I am white. I consider myself a Goth, (Desert Gypsy Goth),  and a devoted Believer.  Why do I say all of this?  Because this does effect my views, as it is my story.

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1) Discipleship:  One of the major reasons I stayed with the faith is I was taught the faith and the core traditions not just by one teacher, but by many throughout the years.  But, I say I also sought out a mentor, or two throughout the years, as I believed firmly then as now what Bridget of Kildare stated, "One with out an Anam Cara (soul friend/mentor) wonders about as one without a head."

2:) My faith is personal and deep.  I did not go down the aisle to give my life to Christ, I was not prompted at some big event.  I gave my life to Jesus at the age of 4 1/2 alone in my room in the still of the night (ask me my story).  I felt called to the mission field while sitting be served enchiladas while 3 teens from my church told us grade schoolers about their resent trip to Mexico when I was just 7.   After a time of struggle, I chose to be baptized when I was 21.  Even after the untimely lose of my mother last year (and yes I did struggle for a bit), my faith got me through... 

3) Prayer is a Bedrock in my Life:  I started having daily prayer times when I was 13.  By 15, I often prayed "covered".  I have a prayer closet.  I seek to know my friends prayer request and really do take them to the Lord in prayer until such time as I know they are answered, thanks to my prayer journal.

4) I love Sacraments of the Faith - Baptism and Communion... I love to see my fellow believers take their stand of faith, and I love the sweet Communion with the Lord, His body and blood broken and shed for us.  It saddens me greatly, when I dont see these happening in a church.

5) I am Engaged, but I think Outside the Box:  I am a missionary, but I dont serve overseas.  I work with the underreached, unreached, and often ignored groups of Native America and the Subcultures.  I follow the key teachings of the faith, but how I engage the lost might just look different what your use to, at least in state side ministry ... (ask me more...if you wish).  And I have had mentors who have encouraged and walked beside me in this, realizing I dont march to the beat of the same drum...

6) Reverence for God's Word - The Bible:  I honestly love the Bible, with all its imperfect people, so in need of a Savior.  Yes, I have read it cover to cover a few times.  Yes I know there are alot of bad things that happened.  But I also see how God redeemed people out of that, as bad as things were, how much more can He from my own troubles and trails....  And YES I do believe it is Holy God's Written Word (literal translation of Diyin God Bizzad  aka Bible in  Navajo).

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Now, let me share some things that might surprise you. 

1) I hunger for deep teaching in church, I understand the need to reach the lost, but also what about those of us who need meat?  Discipleship/Mentoring, please, I beg of you... and just because I am a missionary, dont think I wouldnt love a woman of the faith to honestly walk beside me and to talk to and ask questions especially about being a christian wife... I am motherless, I dont have this guidence in my life.

2) If you are going to tell a story or share facts, do your research. Nothing turns listening ears off faster than Pastors and Teachers who get their basic history and Bible story facts wrong.  If you get that wrong, what else are you getting wrong???  If you make a mistake, and realize it, please be honest and if you can correct yourself.  It shows humility and honestly, and personally regains my attention and trust.

3) Dont be surprised when I know alot about Church history, some Greek and Hebrew, and might be able to point to places where assumptions have been made, not fact.  I want honesty when something is not known... not assumptions made.  I try to do the same thing....

4) Dont set me on the side lines, even if at first I have to clean bath rooms, also be teaching me and finding out my callings.  Help me get engaged in reaching the lost, the poor, the widows, reaching the world, and if I know of needs not being address please list (like the Apostles did when they learned of the Hellenist/Greek Widows not being cared for - 

5) I adore the hymns.  I adore some of the contemporary stuff.  I love to discover old songs of the faith not sung in years, and those like Be Thou My Vision which date back nearly 1500 years!  But I also like to experiment with style, and I even have some songs memorized.  That is I can sing them without the music sheet or hymnal, and without insterments too.  I also love the old church chants and high church music.  Please be open to using old and new....

6) Communion, Baptism, Reverence for the Word: These are important to me, VERY important.  I shutter when a church does not have Communion at least once a month, and feel deprived of a vital part of my faith. 

7) Community: Genuine community building, being honest friends, staying connected even when one is far away...after all this is the age of technology!  I have better connections with many in the Christian Goth community and those outside of the church, than friends from past churches...even though I try to stay connected.  Why is this?  (I honestly wish to know.)

8) Church Clicks:  Ok, adults.  We harp and harp and harp on our teens and kids not to do this.  Why are we doing it as adults in our churches?  I am so thankful for the churches that are not like this!  As a missionary, who comes back to churches off the field sometimes for a few months to a few years... this can be very hard to deal with.

9) Dont change the Truth to fit me!  Teach me the Truth, so that I might change!  It is sad when I see everyone but the church tightening up on what they believe, while those who have called themselves "little Christs" are not living and loving and holding to the Truth as He did.  Jesus was  and is Authentic.  Do we even know our own Bible, faith and church history enough to be authentic to it - - - especially to what Jesus taught us?

Those are what has kept me in the church... and what I struggle with.  I am just one Millennial, but if we all start speaking up... maybe we can help the church move forward, and at the same time stay strong in the core tenants of the Faith.  I pray that it is so!

~ Morria

Figuring things out...

Sometimes I wish I knew more... Understood more... Could peace the puzzle that is life together better... Here I am 32, and sometimes I think I had a better grasp on life at 16 than I do now.  Then there are moments when I think I am beginning to glimpse  the path, only to have it disappear into the shadows again.  I thought I knew who I was when I was 13, when I was 16, when I was 19, when I was 25, but now at 32.... I can honestly say, this Gypsy Gal has no clue who she really is...  Am I the herbalist?  Am I the missionary? I am the wife, who dutifully aids her husband so that he can better provide for them?  Am I the scared girl, who has forgotten her way?  Or am I something more... that I have not quite figured out yet?

Dont get me wrong... I love the life I have lived thus far.  Yet, ever since last year... when my adopted mother died just after I was "stabbed in the back" by someone else I trusted... I have felt displaced, out of focus, not quite sure of the world.  It is not like I have not faced death over and over.  It is not like I have not dealt with betrayal before and come out alright... but this time it rocked me to my core.

I keep think I am coming out of it... I keep think I am getting better... only to find myself still in the dark cave still marveling at the light, but not quite ready to crawl all the way out yet.  Yeah, I may be closer to the opening than I was 6 months ago... but I am not out yet by any mean... "O, God, help me! I cant do this alone!"

~ Morria

Rediscovery...

They say when you get older you know yourself better...  sadly that is not always true.  I think I knew more about who I was and where I was heading at 16 than I did at 21.  I hit the "real world" and thought, "Hey, I was a kid, I thought like one, I can't do any of that as an adult."  Well, I was wrong.
1) I wanted to be a missionary living out in Dine Bikeyah. - VERY Do able! 
2) I wanted to use and teach others to use herbs. - Working towards now!
3) I wanted to live off the land.  - Working towards our own homestead!


Why did I stop working towards those last two?  Because well meaning adults told me to grow up and join the "real world", you can survive and provide doing those.

So now the door swung open...  I can see clearly the path that was hiding just beneath the fog of lies.  I can be the woman God created me to be.  My love of Herbs, of the Natural world, of tending to others, and living off the land... they do have a place in the 21st Century.  I am not just some crazy dreamer.  I am the Desert Gypsy Goth/ Gypsy Goth Gal that I am suppose to be.  This backward look, for forward purpose, has been a true blessing... a journey of rediscovery of the Morria I have always been underneath...

~ Morria

Same Thing, Same Way?

It saddens me when people over and over and over again, do the same thing, the same way, never changing their methods, when over and over it is falling apart.  If something is broken, not working, or failing, it is time to step back and see what is wrong.  It doesn't matter if you think it cant be done differently...

This is especially true when it come to ministry.  I have seen so many people fall flat, Robby and my self included, because we have tried to do the same thing the same way, when it didnt work right the first time.  That is part of why Robby and I  are thinking about stepping back, to focus on our vocations, so later on we CAN be bi-vocational missionaries.
But just because no one has ever done a ministry a certain way in a church, as long as it is not un-Biblical doesn't mean you cant be the first.  Yeah there are risks, but there are souls at stake too.  What if you not doing it, means God has to find someone else to reach that person, or maybe they dont get reached at all?  That is what has been weight on my heart...  That is all.

~ Morria

Motherless Mother's Day

Mother's Day is here again, and for the first time ever, my dear "Merami" is not here with me.  LOL, for those who knew us well, you know we never did see eye to eye on many issue, but we still had a deep reckless love for eachother.   She was the one who put wings to my dreams, but also taught me to see where the ground was to land, without crashing... Not that I am great about the not crashing part.

She could see all my flaws and still see the strong woman beneath.  She could see the wild, untamed spirit, the recklessness, and the dreamer, and found a way for me to harness them and become both a woman, missionary, and a gypsy.  For years I did not see how she was helping me do it, but know grown and over 30, I see it.  Thusly, this first year without her for Mother's Day is very hard.  So much I wish I could tell her...

While I will always miss her greatly, I will always know the woman I am today is largely in part to her.    Thanks, Merami!

~ Morria

Graduation!

OK, so today it is official.  I am graduated from High School!  Bev, my best friend, Deidrea, my sister-cousin, Kegan, my cousin, and alot of others came to my after graduation party.  After today, I am only 10% away from going  to New Orleans end of July!  But mostly it was a fitting finish to a closing of a chapter forever... no longer am I a home schooler, now I am a home school graduate.  Who knows what the next days and months hold....

Goals for Morria's Life

• Travel to ALL 50 states!
• See as much of the World outside the USA as possible. 
• Get Married.
• Find my journey-task or journey-tasks.
• Have and keep 5 close friends.
• Be a missionary some where for longer than two months?
• Graduate College somewhere.
• Learn to Drive a Car.
• Swim acrossed a lake.
• Swim in the Ocean, if possible all 7 Seas...
• Go to Estes Park, CO.
• Explore New Orleans more than once!
• Explore Chicago.
• Explore Phoenix.
• Explore Seattle, Portland, and Coos Bay!
• Journey Back to Dine Bikeyah (at least 1 time.)
• Explore Ireland!
• Live a life of Love, Faith, and Kindness...
• Be someones gypsy gal... maybe even their gypsy queen!
• Live in such a way, that when I pass... many lives will have been forever change... even if I never know how I touched their hearts...

~ Morria