Clare Marie Ferguson
The Next Steps in the Journey, Mission Year!
Hi Friends! Welcome to my page. My name is ClareMarie Ferguson, and I’m from San Antonio, TX. I have just graduated from Texas Tech University with a degree in Human Development and Family Studies with minors in International Studies and Dance. I am so excited to be a part of Mission Year, and look forward to all that’s in store for the next year.
Leading up to graduation I had the hardest time trying to decide what was next for me. Up until May 9th, 2008 (graduation day) I felt like my life had been more or less planned out, but now it was up to me to choose what my next step was. Yikes! I felt like there were too many choices out there, and I had very little idea what I was passionate about. I knew I loved people, I knew I wanted to do something that had lasting value, and really, I wanted my life to be used by God for His glory. So far I hadn’t narrowed choices down a whole lot. I found Mission Year through a book called “The Irresistible Revolution.” After reading practically every page on their website, I decided this was the “something” I had been trying to find.
I have had opportunities to volunteer in the downtown area before, but I always felt this degree of separation afterwards as I would drive back to my comfortable air conditioned home. Mission Year is so much more than that. It’s no longer a mission trip, or volunteer hours, but the people I’m serving are my neighbors and my friends. I’m looking forward to living life with the people I meet, understanding their struggles and circumstances while getting to share their joys and pains. I believe I will not only have the opportunity to share the love of Christ with them, but also I will be changed by the way God shows Himself to me through them.
I want to be transformed by the truth and reality of God’s kingdom in our world today, and I’m excited to see how I will be used in it. I want my life to bring glory to God and I want to be used so others know the great love He has for them! Please keep me in your prayers this up coming year because I know I can do nothing without Christ’s strength within me, and keep reading my blog because you know God’s going to be doing amazing things!!
About Mission Year
Mission Year is a year long urban ministry program focused on Christian service and discipleship. We take teams of young people, place them in an area of need, and help them to serve people and create community. We are committed to the command of Jesus to “love God and love people,” by placing the needs of our neighbors first and developing committed disciples of Christ with a heart for the poor. Learn more about our first year program…
Clare Marie Ferguson's Blog
Joy and the Goodness of God / Mar 5, 04:09 PM
There’s woman at my service site I have come to adore and admire. Partly because almost every week she is working to learn how to play a new instrument or has brought a book to share inspirational quotes with the other ladies, but my admiration really is for something much deeper. The woman’s name is Delores, but everyone knows her as Joy. I’m not if she chooses to be called that or if she just earned the name because of her character, but there’s no better title for this wonderful person I have gotten to know. Obviously homelessness is stressful and difficult situation for anyone, but she still carries with her a peace and joy that you know has to come from God.
I asked Joy one evening how she came to the Joshua Center. She told me a story that could really happen to any of us. Loss of job, savings ran out, and she was stuck looking to move into a shelter. But her story wasn’t sprinkled with complaints and bitterness. She explained that although she was upset with God for a little while, He reminded her that He takes good care of his children. They will not go hungry. So she trusted God to provide, and she came to the Joshua Center.
I listened in awe at the faith she placed in the love of our Father. I just wonder if I were in that situation how would I view God, as completely loving or as an absent provider? I think if I experienced her life I would be in a crisis of belief asking “Where are you God!?” But her trust is in God’s ultimate goodness; he won’t lead her to a place where he will not take care of her. In love God placed her at Breakthrough. He is with her every step of the way. I want to trust the Father like that. I want to believe in the Father’s love like that.
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Missing the Bus / Jan 12, 04:14 PM
Usually missing the bus is an unfortunate occurrence that only frustrates and inconveniences me, but this last Saturday was different.
Merritt and I were walking to the bus stop to go to Celestial Fine Arts Ministries on Saturday about 8:30am. Leaving the house at this time on a good day means we catch the bus after around 5-10 minutes and get to the Learning Center right on time. On a not so good day we wait 20 minutes, catch the bus, and obviously get to our destination much later than desired.
Today as we left the house we passed a neighbor that I’d not seen before leaving her apartment. Merritt and I said “good morning” and continued to the bus stop. As we rounded the corner we saw the bus coming up ahead. In hopes of catching the bus we started running to the stop, but the bus drove off before we could make it. Of course we were a little bummed knowing we would have to wait 20 minutes in the cold for another bus. We still decided it was better to wait at the stop than try to go home for a bit and risk missing the next one. Then up comes the neighbor we said hello to just minutes ago. Since we’re always looking for ways to get to know our neighbors, what better time to chat than waiting for a bus. I was actually thankful for a little more time to spend getting to know her, even if it was cold. Her name was Jennifer. She’s just recently moved to Chicago, and to our neighborhood.
Nothing spectacular, but not insignificant either. Maybe missing the bus isn’t as bad as it seems.
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A Message from Abel / Dec 12, 03:01 PM
The week of Thanksgiving I was sorting food in the food pantry at Breakthrough. We were collecting food donations for the more than 175 turkey baskets going out to the Garfield Park community for the holiday. Cranberry sauce, stuffing, green beans, cake, sweet potatoes… and then I find it mixed in with all the cans and boxes. Some one donated a used canister of icing. Really? An open, half empty thing of icing? Who would want that? As I think to myself about what must be going through some one’s mind to donate this, I think about Jesus’ commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. Whatever you would want for yourself, do for others. Or in this situation, think of whatever wonderful Thanksgiving foods you would like to eat, and give that for some one else. I thought of the phrase “Something is better than nothing.” But is it really? Is that love? Or a selfish action to justify that you’re a good person? In Genesis 4 both Cain and Abel gave sacrifices to God, but only one was pleasing to the Lord. Abel gave from his best; Cain gave from whatever he had left.
So for about a week or so I was feeling pretty good that I had picked out this terrible mindset that some faceless donator had, but somewhere with in the past week God smacked me pretty hard with my own self righteousness.
The “Something is better than nothing” attitude doesn’t just show itself in food donations. It shows itself every day I go through the motions at Breakthrough without acting through love to the people around me. It surfaces when I think just “doing” Mission Year is good enough, or when I focus on my “to do” list, and not people. Is it really honoring for me to be physically present, but not be motivated by Christ in how I interact with people? God is pleased with our joyful obedience, not reluctant obligatory action. Giving every ounce of ourselves in love for people, because after all that IS Christ’s example.
By FAITH, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. Hebrews 11:4
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Jesus Falls a Third Time/Stations of the Cross / Nov 18, 12:01 PM
My meditations from the solitude retreat MY Chicago took last weekend:
I saw you as you walked along the road to the cross. I saw you fall, and I felt your humanity. I was relieved when someone came along side you to help you carry the cross. When you fell again I didn’t want to look. It hurt to know you were so weak, the savior of the world.
I saw you fall a third time. My heart broke. Were you thinking of giving up? That you wouldn’t, couldn’t make it all the way? Were you afraid you would die in the road? I could almost hear you thinking, “ No, I have to make it. They have to hang me on this cross. I have to die for them.” Your love was strong enough to keep you going. You were that desperate for people, for my neighbors, for me.
Give me that same desperate love for my neighbors. The love that overcomes awkwardness, my own inefficiencies. I need love that moves past my humanity, and steps into your holiness. Where my love is overpowered by the presence of your love. This is my humble cry that says “ Savior I do not have what it takes, fill me with you.”
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Luck of the Draw / Nov 11, 11:06 AM
Sorry it’s taken me so long to write. Writing a blog for all to read is a little intimidating for me, but here we go:
A couple weekends ago the all the teams from Chicago participated in a urban solitude retreat. We wore clothes from a clothing closet, slept on a cold hard wooden gym floor, panhandled for lunch, napped in the park, and spent some time getting to know some homeless people in downtown Chicago.
Ruth and I walked around together downtown. We tried to panhandle, but only made 20 cents, 10 of that being what we found on the ground. We definitely didn’t have enough to buy food for the day. We tried to talk to a few people, but with the exception of a man named Tony we didn’t really meet anyone who wanted to talk for long. We were both kind of disappointed with the day. At least we were promised dinner that night during the closing of PRoP. Besides a sandwich from breakfast, Ruth and I had gone without food for the day so we were very hunger and ready finish the day.
When we got back to the church where we were meeting we were asked to draw a slip of paper with a country/continent on it. We were having a banquet of nations. We were being fed proportionally the amount of food the country we picked consumed. I drew Europe; Ruth did not. They took each group to the tables one by one. I had a box of pizza, a bag of chips, 3 liter bottle of soda, and a package of cookies placed in front of me. When Ruth was brought in with the rest of Asia and Africa she sat on the floor with a newspaper as a plate, and shared a container of rice with 18 other people. Then it hit me…
Just because of what I drew I didn’t need to worry if I would have enough to eat. Because of what I drew I would have excess. Because of what Ruth drew she sat on the floor and ate off a newspaper while I sat at a table and chair with plate and cup. Because of what Ruth drew she may have to wonder if there was enough to go around. Weren’t we both hungry? Didn’t we both need a good meal? All humanity feels these same needs hunger, thirst, to hope, to dream. But where we’re born dictates whether we get these “luxuries.”
Do we sit idle feeling righteous that we have sympathy for people who don’t have enough. Maybe it comes out sounding something like saying we are so thankful that God has blessed us not to be in that situation. That we aren’t like those other people who have to suffer in that way. Scripture has something to say about sympathy with no action: James 2:15-17 Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”
After the weekend my team mate Justin prayed that the experienced we had at the urban solitude retreat would never sit well with us. Like the hard gym floor we slept on the first night, we would never be comfortable with what God showed us. I pray I never am; I pray the same for you.
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