Guadalajara!

Friends and Family,

I hope this letter finds you well...and warm!

For those of you who have not yet heard, I will be embarking on a new adventure in Guadalajara, Mexico from February-May 2015 with TEAM (The Evangelical Alliance Mission). Before I tell you more about this service opportunity, I want to share with you a bit of my journey up to this point, which will hopefully answer your question, “Why won’t this girl stay put?”

After two years teaching in La Paz, Bolivia, I came back home in July 2013 with uncertainty and a heavy heart. I knew intuitively I was supposed to be back in Chicagoland but didn’t know why, so my resolution became this: To mesh these two cultures, these different realities and my affinity for each. Over the course of the last year and a half, I’ve been blown away by how my worlds have meshed.

My experience in Bolivia prompted me to seek out other ESL (English as a Second Language) opportunities and work with older students. In His faithfulness, God provided great workplaces and ministries for me to be a part of. I developed a love and appreciation for awkward middle schoolers and hyped-up high schoolers, studied at a local college to obtain an ESL endorsement for my teaching license, joined a Latino church plant, and formed friendships and relationships that have been incredibly influential in my journey.

My time and work here in Chicagoland has transformed my heart and vision in amazing ways. In the last year and a half, I’ve begun to see more clearly how the passions of my heart, the gifts and talents God has given me, and the areas of growing need are intersecting.

Which leads me to Mexico.

Through the combination of all of these influences in my life, I’m beginning to see an intersecting piece--to serve locally through teaching the growing immigrant and refugee population in the United States, specifically the very large number of Mexican immigrants. My desire is reconciliation in a world full of division, poverty, and injustice. Meeting the needs of immigrants is a way for me to say to them, “Hey, I see you, and I love you as my brothers and sisters, and I am for you and will walk alongside you. I want to empower you in the way I have been empowered through love and opportunities and education.” 

I believe that in order for me to serve this population the most effectively, I need to see where they’re coming from. I desire to know the Mexican culture, to become fluent in the Spanish language, and once again have my perspectives challenged.

During the four months I’m in Guadalajara, I will be living with a Mexican family, teaching English at a cultural center and an orphanage, as well as working with missionaries and other interns to share Jesus’ love and grace through coffee dates, community gatherings, Bible studies, and various events.

I want to ask if you would consider supporting me prayerfully and financially in this endeavor. I need to raise $3,938 by December 21^st to cover the total cost of my airfare and living expenses for the four months I will be in Guadalajara. If you would like to partner with me, please go to https://team.org/give, click on “Give Now” and search for my name, or follow this link to get there directly: https://secure2.convio.net/team/site/SPageServer?pagename=donatenow&did=4343. You may also send a check to TEAM with my name in the memo line:

TEAM

PO Box 969

Wheaton, IL 60187-0969

As well, the orphanage that I will be teaching at, Rios en el Desierto, needs your help.

I will partner with other missionaries on a number of necessary, immediate projects for which the orphanage does not have funds. If you are interested in giving to this orphanage, follow this link:

https://secure2.convio.net/team/site/SPageServer?pagename=donatenow&did=4201, or send a check to TEAM (address above) and indicate that the contribution is for the "Guadalajara Orphanage Fund.”

Thank you so much for your love and support of me in this journey.

Grace and peace,

Julie Hogan

julieghogan@gmail.com

630-991-8637

Hard vs. Easy Rest

Exhausted, I stand. I produce. I emote. I serve. I carry with me worlds.

I am strong, so strong, I know that now.

And strength calls to rest.

In strength, we rest. In wisdom, we rest. In gratitude, we rest. In love, we rest. We rest when we believe, deeply, that we are loved, we are whole, we are strong, we are capable, we are worthy.

Rest is surrender. Rest is learned. Rest is uncomfortable. It is choosing stillness and smallness and putting a stop to our work in a world on steroids. This idea of "hard rest" that I want to discuss, is completely counter-cultural. We don't understand it. We don't see its importance.

We think we rest, but it’s the easy kind. It’s the Netflix rest. It’s the 7 hours of sleep each night rest. It’s the 5-minute newspaper-reading rest. It’s not the difficult kind, the real kind, the reflective, intrusive kind that forces us to face ourselves, to deeply know ourselves, to process the lives we live out daily. No, we flee from the hard rest.

We settle for easy rest; we think it’s enough.

I’m learning, if you have faith or want faith, hard rest is essential. Our souls are desperate, and I think this world is desperate for movements that come from periods of hard rest.

Our faith, our well-being, and others' well-beings cannot be sustained in continual service, continual movement. We must do the hard rest, the rest that requires us to dig and weed and examine and prune and cry and beg and confess and laugh and meditate and scribble and create and break and wrestle.

And so, after my job ends and before I enter into cross-cultural service once again in February, I am choosing to enter into hard rest with intentionality. I need it, desperately. I have forgotten what it is, what it’s been for me, and I’m excited for what it will do in me. This rest for me will include prayer, meditation, yoga, writing, playing music, cooking, reading, creating art, cleaning, donating, and anything and everything that gives me life and freedom. I anticipate it will also include a lot of laughter, tears, and wrestling, as I grieve, reflect on, and anticipate all my past and future work and the weight of the worlds I leave and enter into.

As my anxiety often threatens to eat me alive, these verses continue to be my spiritual water:

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” -Matthew 11:28-30