chrismc.net

puente graduation

Having a ball at our first "graduation" for Puente after school program. 35 Great kids and their parents are enjoying a fin evening of entertainment and awesome food.

Way to go Puente team!!!

bhutanese refugees, and michael j fox

Not only did we have our third child last week, and not only was CareFest 09 last week, but the night before Finn was born and two days before CareFest our next refugee family arrived in Chicago. They were supposed to be here in late March, but one of the kids contracted chicken pox so they could not fly. The timing could not have been worse for me personally, but I have learned the worst time for me is often the best time for God.

The family arrived late Thursday evening. Grandmother, 76, mom and four girls ages 2-8. We knew they did not speak English, we new they were Christian (rare!), and we knew they had been in a refugee camp in Nepal since the 80's, and that is all we knew. Of course you can research a lot.

Our first glimpse of the family was at the baggage claim. They were standing atop the escalator in the security area waiting to come down. Except they did not know how to negotiate the stairs. They had never been on an escalator! After 24 hours of travel, and probably without eating much, their first big obstacle was to get the down the stairs. I was with three people from our team and three Bhutanese who were going to translate for us. We were not sure what to do, we couldn't go up there without being arrested, and yet nobody was stopping to help them down. Grandma was the first to try the stairs. She was able to jump on board but nearly fell. I "caught" here when she reached the bottom. The three older girls were able to jump on ok and we caught them as well. Mom was very tentative and when she finally got on fell backwards onto her 2 year old. That is when of my team sprang up the stairs. A security guard of course appeared out of no where to "help" and I thought to arrest our heroic team member. Mom and baby were ok and we got them home safely. Nobody was arrested.

Culturally this family could not be more different than Americans. They eat everything with their hands, the stand on the toilet when they have to go, they flush diapers down the toilet (not god!) and other things they find normal. All of that is part of adjusting to the new culture.

We were able to furnish their apartment and moved them in last Friday after only being here seven days. We have already connected them to a local Bhutanese church and they really enjoy it.

Yesterday I took the mom and oldest daughter grocery shopping. They had never been in a grocery store. Ever. They were overwhelmed. They were afraid to touch anything. They were embarrassed by the amount of food they had in their cart. They had never had so much food at one time in their lives. The bill was $80. Eight zero. I am embarrassed to say I spent more on Mothers Day Lunch I cooked myself for three moms in my life. That is a blog for another time. The short version, we are rich, richer than can be comprehended until you experience real poverty. The Bhutanese family went from the hell of a refugee camp, oppression, aggression, fear were experienced every day, to downtown Wheaton in one week. Could there be more of a contrast?

Which brings me Michael J. Fox. I like him. Family Ties was one of my favorite shows in the 80's. Secret of My Success one of the funniest movies of the 80's. His battle with Parkinson's is truly inspiring. Which is why he makes me sad. I was so disappointed to watch the TV thing he just did on Hope. What a load of excrement. What caught my attention was the 15 minutes of the show spent in Bhutan. A nation of happiness. Seriously. That is how he saw it. The nation does not care about Gross National Product but Gross National Happiness. Really. It is clever disguise. Promote peace and happiness. A magical, physically beautiful country of harmony and peace. It would only take .21 search on Google to see that is a bunch of bull. Bhutan has generated more refugees than any other country its size. Apparently if you are unhappy with their government you are tortured and imprisoned and everyone one in your people group are expelled from the county. Especially if you are not part of the ethnic majority. The current government has "cleansed" the county of most ethnic minorities. I suppose that is one way to generate "peace". The real reason the people might be happy is because they are not aware of the prison they are in. Gosh it sounds like the Matrix!

Michael, hope will not come from happiness. Hope will not come from President Obama. Hope will not come from forced peace and harmony. Hope can only be found in a place not yet of of this Earth. Yes we will encounter hope here on Earth, in our lifetimes even.  But those temporary moments of hope are only a glimpse of the kingdom to come. And unless you find the King who brings true hope, you will never find the Kingdom He reigns over.

1 Peter 2

Chris 1 Peter_2

A few weeks ago I preached on 1 Peter 2. I thought it went pretty well. I always think I can do better. I love preaching but I don't think I would love it is as much if I had to do it every week.

I preach again on July 26th.

carefest 2009

Had a great day at CareFest on Saturday May 2nd. About 850 from WBC completed 69 projects around the County. Six other churches from the community also particpated. It was a perfect day in many ways. Great weather, great team work. Carefest has created a lot of good will in the community. Today I talked with a woman who was part of a PTO at school who was literally in tears as she described her joy of seeing color in front of her school for the first time ever. That is why we are out there! More about CareFest later. Here are some of the pics I took today.

jack and shay meet finn

Here are some pics of Jack and Shay meeting their little brother.

 

finn christopher mcelwee – the first good pics

  Today we welcomed our new son Finn. Eight pounds 10oz. A brute like his brother and sister. He is doing great as is mom. Here are the first pics. About 10billion more to follow.

Click for larger version.

 

 

 

 

 

 

sacrifice and carefest and obama and poo

There is March madness and there is my April madness, CareFest. CareFest was an idea we took from our friends at Fellowship Bible in Little Rock and brought it here to DuPage County. It is a day of service designed to build bridges of love and compassion into the community. It is as simple as that. And it works. Last week we had the Superintendent of D33 schools being interviewed in three morning services. He talked about the bridge we have built in the community. In fact it would have been much harder to launch Puente without the relationships that have been built over the past 4 years in WEGO due in large part to CareFest.

I heart CareFest. Every year I learn something new.

This year, I have learned it is a lot easier to ask a business for a donation than you think. I always say to myself, no way this business is going to give us free stuff. No way they are going to give us THIS much free stuff. The economy stinks, they can’t afford it! I am often surprised by the generosity of others. Especially when they find out what we are doing. I mean come on who wants to help churches? It turns out a lot of people do.

Each year at the rally I try to talk for just two minutes. I want to say something meaningful, something inspirational, but I don’t want to preach nor do I want to take away from the energy in the room. All week long I have been wondering what I should say. Tonight after a looong day I was listening to Obama’s press conference on the radio in my car and came up with something. Obama was talking about our soldiers and how impressed he was with them. He was impressed with how well they do their jobs and their sacrifice. And that is it. Sacrifice. I believe the church has lost a big part (not all of it of course) of her witness because Christians blend into the culture way to much. And in the suburbs we blend in because too few us are unwilling to sacrifice.

Obama is impressed with a soldiers sacrifice. I am too. Long days, crummy pay, thankless, nameless tasks. Danger. Risk. Death. Sacrifice. I am impressed too.

And in our culture, the suburban culture, there is too little sacrifice. In fact, I bet if we would think about it, we spend a lot of energy figuring out ways to not sacrifice. I wonder if convenience is an enemy of sacrifice. And if it is, it is an enemy of the fuller, deeper life if Jesus. Isn’t life in the suburbs about convenience? Having a bigger car is convenient. Paying someone to mow your lawn, wash your car, make your food, and pick up your dogs poo and then twitter about it on your iPhone is about your convenience. I think expectations are also an enemy of the deeper life (I think Goetz calls it the thicker life?) We have all sorts of expectations on us. The kids will play sports, we will own two newer cars, we will live in just the right school district, we will have a fabulous vacation, we will be at church at least twice per week, etc… But what happens when we choose against convenience and expectations?

Sacrifice.

The world is not impressed when we strive for convenience like they do or that we meet expectations like they do. They are impressed when we sacrifice. When we sacrifice we give the world a question. Why? Why would you sacrifice anything when you don’t have to. A soldier might say, she loves her country, or it is a good path to better life. Those are fine answers. But not nearly as compelling as “because while I was a far away from God someone paid the ultimate price from to free me from the poor choices I had made with my life”.

Sacrifice leads to the deeper life. It also leads to the opportunity to share the reason for our hope. And sacrifice is rarely threatening to the world. It is something the world understands and mostly respects. Yes sacrifice is also resented, but that is even more a reason to practice it.

So on Saturday morning when I get up in front of 1500 purple shirted friends. I am going to tell them the sacrifice they are making by spending some time at a school there kids don’t even go to will not go unnoticed. And it will lead to larger conversations that will lead people to conclude that God might have sacrificed for us.

I am also going to ask them to not make Saturday the only day of sacrifice this year. That as a family and church they will offer up other times of sacrifice in order to continue the bridge building that is necessary to carry the message of hope we have.

 

CareFest Promo Video from Wheaton Bible Church on Vimeo.

from nuclear to nuclear

Right now our family is nuclear, 2 kids, 2 adults. But on Friday we go NUCLEAR by adding baby #3. I am really excited. Laura is too. But we are both nervous with a third c-section. I wish the stork could just drop it off on the front porch in the morning. But we have to have a “procedure”. Laura had a hard time shaking off the effects of anathesia last time. Hopefully this one will be more like the first. Uncomplicated.

I am already feel nostalgic for Shay and Jack. They have less of idea of what is about to come then we do. They no a little brother or sister is coming but they don’t quite understand how time works just yet. They also will most likely have a hard time wondering why mommy is in the hospital for so long. Thanksfully all the Grandparents will be around next week. And Laura’s sister is coming at the end of May. So lot’s of excitment around here in May.

Here are some of my favorite pics of the kids from the last couple of months.

 

puente news

People keep asking me how the fund raising is going. Very well thank you very much! Right now we are more than half way to our goal of $228,000. At last check after Easter we were at about $117,000. And this does not include the generous gift of the Mueller’s of waiving our rent! So if you include that we are about at about $132,000. These are tough times to be asking over and above giving. But we are thankful for every cent we get.

This morning the Herald had a full front pager on Puente in the Neighborhood section of the paper. How cool is this…  http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=289194&src=2 

But what is even cooler is the awesome video feature they created for the website. Not to keen on the extreme close up of my mug but Paul Michna really did a terrific job! Paul took the photo’s, wrote the article and did the video piece from shoot to edit. Impressive!

Check out the video http://www.dailyherald.com/multimedia/?category=9&type=video&item=337

big week ahead

In order of importance… Baby #3 coming on Friday via c-section. (Planned, everything is fine.)

and in a distant 2nd CareFest 2009 on Saturday. And also big our next refugee family arrives on Thursday night.

So Bhutanese on Thursday, I’m picking the family up from the airport.

Friday morning. Baby.

Saturday CareFest, I’m one of the leaders sending out 2000 volunteers around the county.

And then I’m taking two weeks off! Which I think I would be doing anyway!

I have not been blogging too much. I have been twittering a lot so if you want to follow me lookup chrismc or click the link on the right side of blog.  I also post a lot of things I find interesting to my link blog which you can subscribe to http://services.newsgator.com/ngws/svc/ClippingsRSS.aspx?uid=132719&fid=5340063 or just see it on the right side of my blog.

when you don’t have anything to say, don’t.

I think I do this about every 5 weeks or so. I have lots of thoughts. Most of them not good so I don’t write it down. I am coming off the busiest three months ever at WBC. So much going on. Honestly I am just a little wiped out.

But this was the funniest thing I have seen in a long time. There has got to be some sort of Biblical Application…

ribs

Oh yeah.