dedicated to Dr. Jennifer Phillips

This is from Jennifer's graduation tonight. She is now Dr. Jennifer Phillips, Healer of Broken Bones and Ligaments.
Left to right: Heather, Kelsey, Dr. Phillips, Ashley.

Tonight at the graduation, I looked at Kelsey and said, "Are you going to make fun of me if I take notes?" I wasn't really listening and recording the words of Dr. Fisher, Belmont's current president. I was more inspired by the atmosphere, coupled with the conversation Kelsey and I were having before the ceremony began. She has just returned from a summer of working as the worship leader for CentriKid. All night she was bubbling with excitement over her desire to be full of grace for those around her, to be an "atypical christian", meaning she wants to find a way to minister, to be Christ, to the world right here in Nashville. She is the third person in the last year that has said, "Ashley, I feel called to America." I've never heard this before, it totally takes me off guard because it sounds so odd at first. But each time someone says it, I undesrtand more and more what they mean. And tonight, as if God himself had decided to step up to the lecturn of my heart and give a speech of truth about this topic, I couldn't help but write it down. Here is exactly what I wrote:

Called to be in America:
at a university--raising up multiple generations of potential leader of the Christian faith. challenging their traditional "opinions". giving them a worldview. promoting an awareness of injustice and 3rd world poverty.
Each student is a potential missionary, activist, politician, changer of the world at large. Therefore, the value of continuing this (education) is immeasurable. As a "Christian country", founded on these principles, and as a person who values this faith in a country that really doesn't, or whose value of it is degenerative--it is ESSENTIAL to at least maintain (if not increase) this foundation, this core of who we are. It's as valuable as any other service of God because it's like the womb from which these leaders are born. Growing and nurturing these values, these principles, these leaders is key to sending them out into the world.

God showed me the invaluable need for maintaining the bare minimum Christianity we have here, all the while trying to build upon it. In order for people to become impassioned about something, they must know about it. In order to know about it, someone must tell them. I know I'm quoting Paul in Romans, but I also mean it in an "american missions" sort of way. It's from college trips to China and my church's missionary focus that I became focused on Asia, willing to give 3 years of my life to living there. I will always care about the world around me, I will always love the adventure and the rawness of such experiences. Just reading through Colossians last night, my heart beat faster when it mentioned Paul coming to them, becuase I thought of how exciting it would be for Paul to go on that journey. I have something inside of me that loves to be overseas and loves to share the gospel there. But tonight there was this deep conviction, yes...it was conviction b/c I've underestimated this in the past--for the excitement of being involved in the enabling process. Being a professor, a pastor, a teacher, a representative of justice, a fighter for those who cannot defend themselves: but doing this in America. Continuing to pass along the torch of passion and purpose handed to me in my Philosophical Ethics class with Dr. Ronnie Littlejohn at Belmont. It all came full circle.

I'm glad for my new value of such work. I believe one day God will ask me to stay here in America, to plant my feet a little, to be here with my mom and dad and brother, to continue my education in one way or another, to learn how to be salt and light in my own country, to mentor and educate a younger generation about the very things my heart breaks for: the Armenian genocide, the famine in Ukraine, South Africa apartheid, India's democracy, China's Nanjing Massacre and Tianamen Square, Civil Rights in the South, special needs children, down syndrome, drug addiction, orphans, lonely old men eating alone at restaurants, girls with bad skin who think they are ugly and unwanted, single mothers whose husbands loved them and left them, young girls who have lost their sense of value as a child of God when they lost their innocence to a man...I could go on and on. My heart hurts the same for all these issues, there is no degree of suffering which I feel for one over the other.

I'm so excited about my future. I don't have a CLUE what it holds, where it will take me, when it will end, or who will be there with me. I'm just glad to be alive, to have the knowledge of Christ, and the health to share him wherever I am. I'm excited to be going to Asia while I'm young and single, while I have the desire and the means to get there, while it's open to allowing me to stay. I'm excited about being with my parents as they age, watching their own lives grow and change. I'm excited about starting a family one day, or at least adopting children who need a mom. I'm excited about hanging out with my friends here, there, everywhere. I'm excited about going to South Africa and working with the Thomas' for however long God says. I'm excited about traveling to India and Africa in the next 2 years, about working in Asia in the meantime, about staying in touch with people back home, about sharing what God is doing with those who listen to me, about writing, about reading, about exercising, about learning.
I'm excited!!!! It came full circle tonight. Belmont did me right! They taught me how to be consumed with knowing more and more, about being aware, about presenting my case, about listening, about researching, about working HARD, about loss, about friendship, about knowing what you believe and doubting it everyday, about respecting your elders and submitting to authority.
Jennifer, thank you for studying hard for 3 years, for graduating tonight, so that I could see all this come together, and share it with you. This post is dedicated to Dr. Jennifer Phillips!
Love to you all--AL