The Novi Community – 11/17/2024

Welcome and Prayer: Jim Calhoun

Come Lord, join us here today.
Sometimes we get it all wrong
Sometimes we ask the wrong questions
Focus on the wrong things.
Sometimes we are confronted by a situation
A problem
A disaster
And we ask ourselves
If we are clever enough
Or strong enough
Or rich enough
To handle it, manage it,
beat it back
Or make it go away.
Or maybe we try to ride the wave of circumstance hoping,
hoping everything will be okay,
at least for us.

Acting like this is a solo project
And we are on our own
The beginners and finishers
The ones in control
Like we are some kind of super hero
Or just folk lost and forgotten,
alone.

And this is our mistake
And we ask your forgiveness
For in truth we know you are with us.
We feel it in the cool breeze
We feel it in the warmth of the sun
We see it in the warmth of a smile
You are with us in all the ambiguity of life
In all of its complexity
In all of its brokenness

And Lord, we are with you
Willing
Remembering just who you are
And who you have been to us
Knowing you are steady in ways we can never be
Trustworthy in ways we can never be
Concerned and considered and loving in ways we can never be

And we are with you
Partners by your invitation
Made family by your invitation
No longer slaves but friends
Working together for the things your hold dear

Come close today Lord
Hold us dear
Fill us with your concerns
And fill us with your joy
And send us out
Together
To do as you ask
Full of expectation
Full of your peace
Knowing all shall be well
Because You are You
Amen

Morning Talk: Steve Gumaer

Steve and his wife Oddny founded The Novi Community, an non-profit organization devoted to the care of children in war-torn parts of the world. With the help of a clinical psychologist whose passion and mission has been to help children process the traumatic experience of living in a war zone. Without the loving support, close attention, and interaction with care givers who understand their needs, children are left to deal with the cruelty and chaos on their own. Novi provides much needed training to teachers, therapists, and parents to meet these needs. The majority of the training they provide is hands-on, showing care givers how to make use of play, games, personal interactions, and other projects to regulate the hearts, minds, and bodies of these young souls.

The first big question we ask in life is, “Who am I?”
– at first, our sense of identity is derived from our parents
• later on, it is society that is telling us who we are
◦ besides these influences, we are also affected by how we fit in at school and are treated by other kids
• having some idea of who we are, we try to settle into our place in the world
– then life throws us a curve and we get a shock
• perhaps a divorce, or the death of someone we hold dear, or the loss of a job
◦ then we realize we’re not who we thought we were
• at this point, we begin our adult search, “Who am I now?”
◦ we peel back the layers of a self defined by others
◦ we want to get down to the essence of our true self

When I began this adult quest for a sense of self, I read books
– at first I read the Bible
• I assumed that if I did what it said, I would become my true self
◦ I was dutiful in my reading and compliance to scripture,
◦ but I discovered that it’s not that simple
– I read other books as well
• high on my list were books on psychology
◦ from them I learned:
The true self is often hidden by what happened to you as a child
• I realized that was what had kept me from finding the answer to who I am
◦ my early trauma did not result from living in a war zone, but from my childhood home

[It turns out that following Jesus requires us to lose our self in order to find our self (Mt. 16:24-25). We need to see that our “perceived self,” defined as it is by the world (parents, culture, and other influences) is not our true self, which we find in following Jesus. Paul makes a similar contrast between the old self and the new self (Eph. 4:20-24).]

Early in our marriage, my wife Oddny and I found ourselves in Thailand
– we were visiting refugee camps, providing desperately needed supplies to survivors of the ethnic in Myanmar
• during one of our visits, we met Rose, who was a well-known figure in the camps
◦ she had a reputation for the many ways she had assisted others
◦ she launched a program to assist children who were being overlooked in the refugee camps, because they came without parents or older siblings, and had no one to look after their welfare
• Rose had created a “library” for the women refugees
◦ the library consisted of stories the women shared with each other in small groups
◦ Rose’s compassionate leadership allowed them to feel safe enough to tell their stories of being violated by Myanmar soldiers
– in spite of all that she had suffered personally,
• we witnessed within Rose a power, an inexhaustible energy to do good for others
• as I observed Rose, it seemed to me that she had more of Jesus in her than I

A research crew came to Myanmar

They were there to document the plight of the ethnic peoples who were being driven from their villages, and either killed or enslaved
– the crew visited one burned out village, where at first they found no survivors
• but a soft cry led them to one little girl
◦ either her parents hid her and their own bodies were among the dead around the village
◦ or she was separated from them when others fled for their lives
• the crew brought the little girl to Rose
◦ fortunately, the little girl had heard of Rose, and trusted her
◦ Rose became her foster parent
– Rose needed financial support to care for the child
• when asked how much money she would need annually,
◦ she sat down and began calculating what it would cost for food, clothing, and education
◦ she determined the amount necessary to meet the girl’s needs would be $30.00

This, and other experiences like it, sent me back to the Bible

In all my previous study of the Scriptures, what had I missed?
– what I found was a beautiful thread that began in the first five books and ran all the way through to the end
• again and again, God emphasized his concern for the widow, the orphan, the stranger, and the poor
◦ and again and again, he revealed to his people that it was their job to care for the widow, the orphan, the stranger, and the poor
– when Jesus was asked what one must do to “inherit eternal life,”
• he affirmed the two greatest commandments:
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind,
and love your neighbor as yourself
• when asked, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus told the parable of the “Good Samaritan”
◦ the parable illustrates what Jesus taught elsewhere,
◦ and the message is anti-racism, showing love to the enemy, caring for the stranger
But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth (1 Jn. 3:17-18)

Today’s news is filled with sights and sounds of the devastation and atrocities of wars around the world
– the suffering and heartache of it is so distressing that we can’t handle it and turn away
• that’s okay to turn away, but it doesn’t mean that we do nothing
• we return to the greatest commandments for instructions as to how we must respond

When Rose took that little girl in and become a mother to her,
– she wasn’t just being a “good Christian”
• she wasn’t just obeying a commandment
• she was love in action
– Rose did not have to advertise her ministry
• people simply knew that they could come to her
• the great commandment is not about doing our duty
◦ it’s about pulling back a curtain and revealing love
◦ to reveal love, is to reveal God to others, for “God is love”

Who am I?
– when we discover the truth, it becomes a whole new source of life and energy in us

Why is The Novi Community in Ukraine?

Why are we in other war zones?
My wife, Oddny, was in Iraq during the United States conflict with Isis
– one night she and her team had to take shelter from a wave of missle strikes
• in the morning they exited from their shelter to a mass of human bodies
◦ out of the rubble, a father came to her with his twelve year old daughter
◦ one arm was bound because it had been severely damaged by shrapnel
• Oddny told the father, “We have to get her to the medic right away”
◦ but he waved her off and speaking English he said,
“Her arm is not her biggest problem. No, her biggest problem is that she is not talking, she is not eating, she is not sleeping, she is not responding to anyone or anything.”
◦ his next words will ring in our ears forever
“It is nice to heal her body, but who will heal her heart?”
– that question has become our challenge
• how can we heal the hearts of children that have been broken by war?

With that goal in mind, we found a clinical psychologist whose research and work has been helping children traumatized by war
– he has been going into Ukraine with us, training teachers, therapists, parents, and other care givers
• they are learning how to work with children to help the process the enormous challenge of living through the nightmare of warfare

Conclusion: The Novi Community is about healing a child’s heart
If their hearts are not healed properly, they’ll be incapacitated to ever live a normal life,
or they’ll be reactive and neurologically dysregulated, unable to control their actions,
or they will be forced to adopt other ways of coping, which may include crime and violence
We have learned from the research of qualified specialists,
that the most reliable to predict a child’s potential healing is
“One adult that the child can trust”
So we go
to war zones
to be with the children there, and walk with them through the nightmare
The person who goes out to love, becomes the embodiment of love
And that is what we strive to be
But the work before us is massive, and we can’t do it alone

We are told that humans are social creatures, that we belong in communities
And it is true; we are all connected
Reflexion–your spiritual community here in Orange County–is a part of The Novi Community
We are one
We are grateful for your love, prayers, and support
You are alongside us and assisting us to have boots on the ground,
providing resources that are helping and healing a generation
Thank you