Monthly Archives: September 2014

Jennifer Lane: Military Ministry and Sister Saints in Sacrifice

September 25, 2014Uncategorizedaporterfield2013

This season after Pentecost, the Spirit is speaking to me through sisterhood: the unique and powerful sisterhood I have found in the Army Chaplain Corps.

Often these sister saints are other female Chaplains like Mary Miriti, Sharonda Watson, Lauren Hughes, Brittney Wooten, Delana Small and Roxanne Birchfield (yes, the one from “Survivor Phillipines”.) However, sometimes they are other women serving veterans like Rev. Jennifer Crane, VA Chaplain and Mary Ross, Deputy Director, OSDTN.

In the summer of 2013 after four beautiful months of nursing my new baby (Justice Ryan Lane) at home with family, I left for Chaplain Basic Officer Leadership Course (CH BOLC for short), where I continued breast pumping during the course of CIMT or Chaplain basic training and 16 hour grueling Army training days.

I learned the meaning of sacrifice.

Other amazing mothers and fathers at my school supported me in what was essentially an experiment in many ways:

1) Because Army funds were cut, the soldiers at Chaplain School would live in ‘barracks’ and eat in the Drill SGT dining facility (DFAC) like other none-officer soldiers.

2) We marched everywhere we went ( about 6miles a day.)

3) With unwavering encouragement from leadership, including CH (LTC) Karen Diefendorf, I proceeded to be able to finish nursing (from a distance) and boost my child’s immunities through mother’s milk.

Many female Chaplains including CH (COL) Kristina Moeller, CH (LTC) Karen Diefendorf, CH (MAJ) Renee Kiel, and CH (CPT) Delana Small have laid down a path for me of guidance, wisdom, love, and Esprit de Corps that is invaluable to new Chaplains in training.

Veteran women like Mary Ross at Operation Stand Down Tennessee, Inc. have also inspired me in following my call.

In the Army, I realize that the Saints next door are also the women who have come before me. Anything that feels hard to me was likely harder for them, and they persevered. “Hooah,” ladies!!

USACHCS (Chaplain School) did an amazing job of supporting me in this motherhood and ministry experiment.

I believe this should encourage other young women of child bearing age who might be on the fence regarding joining military chaplaincy. Where God calls you and commands you, God will provide the path to succeed in all you do! This includes motherhood and ministry, even in the military.

My battle buddies were as hardcore (“Hooah” in the Army) about helping me breastfeed as they were about helping me get through gas chamber training, rappelling and completing road marches.

One of my battle buddies, Mary Miriti, is from Africa. She grew up in the bush watching grazing goats alone in the dark. Did I mention she was barefoot?

She was not only helpful with my interesting situation–she was over-zealous! She would sneak me extra fruit and water so I had enough energy to breastfeed. She would hide with me in the back of Humvees in 100 plus degree South Carolina heat standing guard.

She would even offer to do it for me! Yes, you heard me right. She said that in Africa such behavior was polite. My American space bubble began to feel a bit small but I declined her offer even when exhausted.

With the love and support of Saints next door like Mary, and by the grace of God, I did graduate from CIMT that summer and CH BOLC on August 15, 2014.

Although leaving your family is intellectually, emotionally and spiritually jarring, the love of other female Chaplains made me feel like I could succeed and excel no matter what the challenge.

Mary Ross, a former Army NCO and Commander of the National Women Veterans of America explained to me before I left for Chaplain School that these friendships forged in tears, heat, and dirt could sustain me. She encouraged me to be honest about how hard it was to be separated from my family.

This is sacrifice. It does not feel good, but it’s crucial to our American way of life.

“Thank you for your service” is wonderful, but make sure to also honor our families and say thank you to them because some of the hardest sacrifices made are made by our families.

Those in the Christian community can be a great resource for our families affected by military commitments and loss as they remind them of God’s love and care and support them in whatever ways possible.

Although God’s love is strongest when I am home with my family, I have also been blessed to feel God’s love in the empathy of the other Chaplains at school going through similar feelings of loss and separation and in the hugs of those who have reached out to support me in my multi-faceted call within a call.

There should be no shame in missing our families, even in a Hooah Army culture.

When the bravado comes crumbling down, God’s love is there in sometimes surprising ways to fill your heart with joy until you are reunited with those who know you best.

A chaplain candidate in the U.S. Army, Jennifer Lane, JD/MPA, is in her final year at Vanderbilt University Divinity School. She has studied internationally and served with numerous nonprofits, most recently as a chaplain with Operation Stand Down Nashville, working with homeless veterans. Jennifer and her husband James have a toddler son, Justice Ryan Lane.

Alicia Davis Porterfield: Danielle Glaze: An Ordinary Sister-Saint

September 17, 2014Uncategorizedaporterfield2013

North Carolina’s Campbell University Divinity School (CUDS) has a Commissioning Service for incoming students every fall. The worship service is carefully planned to welcome in new students, inspire them as they begin their academic journey and affirm their call to ministry.

As simple as it sounds, the service reflects the school’s intentional commitment to provide loving, supportive community for the students it shapes and shepherds for serving God, the church and our hurting world.

Every time I go to that service– or anything CUDS offers–I sense the deep roots of that loving community. And I wish I had experienced that kind of care back in my own Divinity school journey. Thankfully, I get to absorb it now, and it is a balm.

This year, I attended the service as the invited guest of one of my dearest sisters in ministry: the Reverend Danielle Glaze.

Colleen Kelly, CUDS graduate, and Daniele Glaze, CUDS first year M.Div. student — Colene Kelly, CUDS graduate, and Danielle Glaze, CUDS first year M.Div. student

Danielle is one of the most authentic, secure-in-her-faith, joy-filled people I have ever met. She simply radiates God’s love and presence. Having faced the valley of jarring loss and come out on the other side, this single mother of two teenagers inspires me with matter of fact, living in the moment trust in God.

One of my favorite things about Danielle is her ability to acknowledge fully the pain and struggle of a hard time in my life or hers or anyone for whom we are praying . . . and yet hold that hard time in the larger context of God’s great and abiding love for us.

When I share my heart with Danielle, I know absolutely that I will be heard, honored and prayed for in that moment and in the days to come. She has that ability to be in the pit with me while letting me know that the pit is not God’s last word for any of us.

So it was with great joy that I attended her Commissioning Service as an invited guest. This service marks a new part of Danielle’s journey, one she had wondered about and prayed over for a long time: Divinity School.

A dedicated student of scripture, natural teacher and gifted preacher, Danielle will flourish at CUDS. I have no doubt. It is my turn in our sister-friendship to know that truth while she is living into it.

I can’t wait to hear what she is learning and how God is at work in this first semester. I can’t wait to hear how much the people at CUDS appreciate her and value her participation in their loving community.

Thanks be to God for Ordinary Saints like Danielle, who inspire, encourage and model what it means to trust God every step of the way. Blessings as you study, my sister! So grateful to be on this journey with you.

Alicia Davis Porterfield writes, ministers and mothers three boys in Wilmington, NC. A Life Coach and retreat leader, she moderates this blog and edited A Divine Duet: Ministry and Motherhood (www.helwys.com).

Holly Sprink: On an Ordinary Somali Saint

September 10, 2014Uncategorizedcross-cultural friendships; cross-cultural ministry; women and friendships; transformationaporterfield2013

You are a busy woman. You have a lot of people to love, a lot of people counting on you, a lot of entries on your “To Do” list. Your iPhone announces it’s time for you to make your weekly visits, so you drive a little too fast in order to meet others with lives and stories and calendars pretty much like yours.

You’ve decided to make these weekly visits together, so you carpool and chit chat the fifteen-minute drive away. There is slushy brown snow everywhere, making for a longer drive: you turn on the heated seats in the subfreezing temperatures. You are all a bit frazzled from the day, for you are busy women. You have a lot of people to love.

You exit the highway, mindful to lock your doors and keep purses out of view. You drive by signs you can’t read, restaurants serving food you don’t recognize, and all ages of pedestrians. The windows in the car are icing over.

You are heading to a friend’s apartment, one that takes you down a handful of stairs to reach the front door. At the bottom of the stairs, you and your friends discover three inches of water, along with plastic milk crates someone has upturned in order to make stepping stones to the front door.

You wondered how your friend, an aging diabetic, stepped over these stones wearing her long, flowing jilbab. You wonder that the water hasn’t frozen into a miniature ice rink. The apartment, adjacent to the furnace room, has always smelled strongly of gas. The addition of the standing water has surely made the apartment uninhabitable.

You are relieved not to find your friend at home. You call. She answers, happy to hear from you, but unable to tell you “I’ve moved,” at least in English, and you don’t speak Somali. You picture her talking to you on her flip phone, fitting the top part of the phone into her hijab and then letting it hang there like she always does. “Sook, sook,” she says, “sook, sook.” A phrase you know: “Wait, wait.”

You wait in the cold with your friends. After hearing a flurry of chatter on the other end, you meet eyes with the others. A neighbor, who can speak a bit more English, has been handed the phone. “Move, move,” she says. You think you hear the words “new apartment.” You thank her and ask her the address, but she doesn’t understand. She says they are close by.

You say, “I’m wearing an orange wool coat. Can you see me?” You make your way between parked cars out into the slushy street, scanning the surrounding apartments and turning in a circle, as if surrendering.

You see each other. She is standing outside in the cold, gesturing. You and your friends walk a block or so and hustle into the warmth of her new apartment. There are warm kisses for cold cheeks, hugs, and shoes piled at the door. You add your boots to the pile and all sit down, cross-legged on the rug. You and your friends compliment the new apartment while she flies to the kitchen and brings out a tray with bottles of water for each of you.

You have the same conversation you always have. There are only so many words. You ask about her family. “Good. Good. All good.” You ask about her health. “Blood sugar,” she says, and shows you her prescription bottles. You talk a little about your own families and the other Somali friends you have in common. You ask her how her reading is going. “Good. Good. All good,” she says.

But conversation comes haltingly for one who was denied the opportunity to read or write in her own language, let alone someone else’s. You take in the prayer rugs, Arabic letters, and gold-gilt pictures of the Ka’aba on the walls. The unsteady words fall to silence.

“Sook, sook! Sook sook!” she says. She jumps to her feet, grabs boots and a coat, and is gone before you have a chance to speak. You didn’t think she could move that quickly.

Suddenly alone, you look around at your circle of friends and laugh. She must’ve gone to get the neighbor again to help with translation. You chit-chat amongst yourselves about your own lives, your own schedules. Conversation flows easily again, even in this dim, incense-scented room.

It is increasingly awkward for you to be in this apartment without its hostess. Five…ten…fifteen…twenty minutes go by. She is still gone. You are busy women with a lot of people to love, your children will be getting off the bus soon, and so forth. At what point do you leave? How would you lock the door?

Through the front door she comes, at length, bringing the frigid temperatures into the room with her. She is carrying a disposable metal tin, steam escaping its edges. Cumin and curry signal your senses before your minds can comprehend her gift: she left you, walked several blocks to the nearest Somali store in sub-freezing temperatures to buy hot food for you, and walked back again.

You think of her sacrificial love as your hold the warm sambusa in your hand, and wonder over the pocket money she spent on you. Is it the curry bringing on tears or your prayers, as you ask God to help you love others as she has loved you just now? For she is not a busy woman and she doesn’t have a lot of people to love.

Holly Sprink received a B.A. in English from Baylor University and an M.Div. from George W. Truett Theological Seminary. She is the author of Faith Postures: Cultivating Christian Mindfulness and Spacious: Exploring Faith and Place. She enjoys the adventure of life with her husband, Matt, daughter, Lucy, and son, Mikias. You can probably find her somewhere in the Kansas City area writing, knitting or connecting cross-culturally.

Joanne Costantino: Kathy Vermitsky–Ordinary Saint, Extraordinary Mothering

September 3, 2014Uncategorizedaporterfield2013

Soon after the birth of my first grandchild,Tayler, my daughter Katie searched for childcare for her newborn baby as she was about to return to her job. She searched and interviewed several people and places and seemed to find something lacking in every person and place. This was a brand new mom looking for someone to take care of her brand new baby.

On the day she found the right person, Kathy Vermitsky, Katie phoned and excitedly asked if I would come right away to meet Kathy, who ran an in-home daycare.

“She’s perfect! You’re going to love her! She reminds me of you!” Katie gushed. While I took that as flattery, I reminded Katie that this was her decision and not ours.

“I’m already going to sign up with her–I just want you to meet her and she wants to meet you.” And so I did. That very day was the serendipity of God’s blessed plan.

Kathy and her family were very active in our church. She was a Eucharistic minister, her husband John helped run the St. Vincent DePaul society, her son was the altar server at Katie’s wedding, and Kathy’s uncle was the founding pastor of our parish, St. Jude’s.

When I met Kathy I did find her to be much like me, plain spoken and forthright. I liked that. We both had little tolerance for conversational tap dance. At this first meeting it was obvious that she ran a “tight ship.”

Granddaughter Tayler began daycare with Kathy the following week. Over the next 15 years Kathy and I also built a friendship that was based on more than the fact that she was the daycare provider for my grandchildren. She and I shared a mutual philosophy on child rearing: “love ’em and feed ’em and leave ’em alone, but give them structure and rules.”

When my infant grandson suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury, and required therapy and early intervention, I took a leave from my job. My daughter Chris found herself a single mom with a baby with special needs . . . so I stepped in so she could continue to work.

As I began to get my grandson’s therapies in place, Kathy insisted she take him in her care.“You need to go back to your job, and this is my job.”

Kathy took his therapist visits into her home and worked them into her daily routine with the other children in her care. While most children aged out of Kathy’s daycare, she kept my grandson in her care for the next 13 years, arranging with his school bus to pick up and drop off at her home. She was essential in his progress and development.

Kathy mothered and nurtured every child who came into her care, even if she didn’t have immediate affection for the parent. When it was time to leave daycare and attend school, every child was fully prepared for kindergarten. They could read, write and recite the alphabet, print their name and recite their address and phone number. They were accustomed to structure and routine mixed with play and down time and afternoon hugs after nap time. The children had a singular love and respect for Kathy that was unique . . . different from their own Mommy, but not very different.

Kathy celebrated with us: birthday parties, christenings, communions, proms and graduations. She simply meshed in. Upon her arrival the kids would excitedly chant, “Kathy’s here, Kathy’s here!” Soon they would jockey for turns to sit on her lap or nestle under her arm. Although these events were supposed to be her day off, she would simply wave it off. “It’s fine,” she’d say and take another kid to her lap.

Kathy was a Mom’s Mom. She ran a tight ship from the comfort and security of a home where toy boxes and miniature toy kitchens lined the walls of her living room. Her back yard was peppered with trikes, bikes and wagons. Every child who passed through her loving and capable arms understood what was expected and what was accepted.

She not only mothered the children in her care, she mothered the Moms. It was more than her job. It was her vocation. When one of the young Moms would complain about some disagreement with Kathy, I reminded them, “She takes care of your children while you go to work. Do you know someone who can do it better?” And that would be the end of it. Kathy made our life easier.

Kathy’s sudden death, three years ago this September, left a sudden vacuum that can never be filled. When she died, it was the first death and loss of a loved one that my older grandchildren actually grieved. At her funeral mass, the church of St. Jude was packed with folks she touched in her years of service to the young people she shepherded.

They are the legacy of Kathy’s unconditional love and extraordinary mothering.

Joanne Costantino is a Philly girl and “cafteteria Catholic” laywoman living in the wild suburbs of South Jersey, where she still pines for city life. She graduated from college in 2008, two weeks shy of the birth of her 4th grandchild. The “accidental matriarch” of a life she didn’t sign up for, chronicles that life at http://www.weneedmoresundaydinners.blogspot.com.

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A divine duet of calls