Darkness has no Borders - The Sheahan's

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Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico

A constant question I get from many people is if I ever see violence when I go to Tijuana and if so, have I ever been caught in it.  My answer is always no.  I only hear the stories, see the newspapers, and once in a while I have seen the bullet holes in a wall here and there.

   One of those stories came today when I went to see Elva whom I’ve been mentoring for a while now.  We prayed together for one of her neighbors, an elderly couple that has 5 young grandchildren living with them.  One day as they are watching the evening news, they viewed a news report about their 3 kids, a daughter 18, a daughter 20 and their son 23, being arrested by the police because they had been kidnapping and torturing people for ransom.  Grandma and grandpa were devastated to say the least! This occurred a couple months ago.

   Today the sentence was given: life in prison!  People around the community are divided in how they feel.  Some say they deserve it and they cannot believe that the grandparents didn’t know their kids were involved in this kind of stuff.  Others are thinking of the little ones, buying diapers, bringing a kilo of beans or rice to help feed the kids.

    A few days ago, one of the kids got pretty sick.  They took him to the clinic, but grandpa had to borrow money from a man that owns a business in the colonia.  He borrowed 3,000 pesos, about $225.00 dlls, and had to give the title of his little hut of a home to the owner of the store for collateral.  When grandpa went to make a payment, the owner said “I didn’t give it to YOU in payments! I want you to pay me back all at once”. 

   I wonder what God thinks, what side would He take?  How does He want the believers in that part of the city to respond?  What is the future of those kids?  It's overwhelming! And somehow, in ALL this, I have to remember that God has a heart for children and the lost, and that He is beyond all the darkness around us, the darkness that has no borders… So, thank you for keeping us safe through your prayers!

 

Maria Sheahan 

Sheahan's update Dec 2011

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Liliana and Maria  Maria, Elva, Yasmin, Titi      Shaun and Maria 

I sat across from Liliana this morning listening to her heart  as she talked to me about Fernanda.  She said, I often go looking for her at her house so we can spend time together, but she is never there!  I have to go on the streets of her neighborhood to find her.”  Last time she was gone three nights, before she finally appeared.   The sad part of this is that no one looks for her.  If she came home good, if she didn’t come home, no one would even notice.

Fernanda has a mother and a father at home, but she is so overwhelming that people don’t want her around.  At school she was expeled.  When she comes to the kid’s club, they sometimes have to ask her to not come a time or two just to be able to have some control… Yes, you read it correctly, I said at the kid’s club.  Fernanda is 6 years old.

There  are only two girl’s that can make her mind them.  Those two girls  are Liliana’s daughters.  Fernanda would sit on one of their laps for maybe 10 minutes max  before she would go get into trouble again.

I hear Liliana’s frustration and at the same time her love for Fernanda. As we talk about some options and the “bigger picture”, she tells me that she feels that I  (Maria) am as much a part of loving Fernanda as she is. Liliana truly wants me to understand this.  “Maria, your investment in me, is my investment in Fernanda….and the other girls and women that I minister to.” 

It’s kids like Fernanda and families like hers that Liliana let’s the Good News flow to.  It’s people like Liliana, leaders like Liliana that God has called me to invest in.  Leaders like her, and Cristina, and Tere, and Lupe and Elva and others like them that are making a difference in Mexico…that are Good News to others.  This is the Kingdom of God, and that is one of the most exciting things I get to participate in.

Thanks for investing in us!!! 

Maria and Shaun Sheahan 


year-end gifts

John Hayes, founder of innerCHANGE and author of Submerge, Living Deep in a Shallow World, recently wrote this about our work:

 "There is a 'come and see' authenticity about NieuCommunities that is so reminiscent of Jesus calling the disciples out of fishing boats on the shore of Lake Galilee I can almost taste the salt air. At the same time, the "come and see" community is balanced by a "go and do" mission that gives me hope for inside-out change in neighborhoods in the global city."

"At a time when many are talking about missional communities, NieuCommunities quietly and expertly goes about doing it---forming young men and women and transforming neighborhoods. The vitality of NieuCommunities is less about what is being said than what is being lived."

If you can make a much needed year-end gift to help us keep living the life John has described, you can give directly through our web site. Your investment will help transform leaders, neighborhoods, and cities. And we will be deeply grateful.

Changes and Transitions

Two weekend ago almost all of us that are part of NieuCommunities San Diego (NCSD) went on a 2 day 'envisioning' retreat in Tijuana, Mexico. It was intense. It was a lot of work.  We are all about growing leaders and over the last 3 years we have done just that and done it well…so well that we have grown too leader heavy. So we needed to envision what God may have us do with this great problem. 
In short, we are going break up our ONE community to plant other missional communities that share and live out the Way of Jesus and they will be connected by our ongoing intensive apprenticeship (discipleship) hub. 
But let me share  my co-worker/elder and Directors, Rob Yackley's, words with you…he captured it well.   
 

Thanks so much for praying for our envisioning retreat in Mexico last weekend. God graciously shielded and guided us through an exciting but also emotional time for our community. As with the human experience of giving birth, the birthing of a new community is filled with both joy and pain. Seeing a new life emerge is amazing, but there’s also the sobering reality that life will never be the same once it happens. That’s especially true when you’ve really loved your life the way it is and you’re about to birth not just 1, but 2, or in our case, maybe 3 or 4 new communities.

Over the weekend we fought hard to lean into our future, to release one another to God, but also to tend to the hearts and relationships that God has lovingly knit together. We sensed we would need to be willing to transition from being a singular, self-contained community to becoming multiple communities that are uniquely different but somehow connected and mutually complementing, but we just weren’t sure what that should look like. But here's a picture of what I sense God is birthing:

Imagine a sunflower. At the center of the flower is a dark orangish brown eye, and around that center are lots of beautiful yellow pedals. Each part of the flower has its own unique look, texture, and function, but it's only whole when each part is connected. That’s a beautiful picture of what God is forming here in San Diego and perhaps how our communities will grow around the world. From what was once just a one-size-fits-all center, (our intensive apprenticeship), we are about to birth several missional communities all around us. Like pedals on a sunflower they will be more pourus and accessible to our neighbors and extend our reach into the city and even beyond it. Whereas the apprenticeship focuses on forming people for missional life, these missional communities will be more focused on living out that life in the neighborhoods they inhabit. And like the sunflower, the apprenticeship and the multiple missional communities that radiate out from it will remain intimately connected to one another and deeply rooted in the missio dei—the mission of God.

Rob

The Sheahan's position will change a bit. We are targeted to plant a "flower pedal"…I mean missional community in Sherman Heights as soon as God moves us there….yep, this is the place that housing is tough to come by. We will keep our eye open for a house but we really feel like it is important to keep our family a priority so at this point we plan to put off the intense push to move until Josh graduates from high school in June…but if that elusive home does pop on to the radar we will move forward. 

Meanwhile Maria and I will emphasis leading, teaching, coaching and mentoring the apprentice's (the middle of the flower) that we currently have and those will be are coming (there is a waiting list). 
We will also continue to be part of the "elder" team that will help encourage the new leaders that are heading up the new missional communities…I'm not sure that all makes sense but we are excited and will be busy taking on a bit more leadership as NCSD has a more profound and far reaching impact on San Diego and beyond. Of course our relationships in Mexico, the Refugees, our homeless friends and other assorted people that need to experience Jesus will still be a priority. 

We sure appreciate your prayers through this transition… 

Thanks,
Shaun and Maria 

Neighbors…Sheahan's

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Little Foot… really? Yep. Little Foot is a short energetic x-vet that lives near our home between Chula Vista and National City near and alongside the river. Homeless Little Foot peddles in front of our driveway several times a day on his way to ‘work’. There are 4 sections that the homeless occupy near the river. The Jungle (looks more like a forest to me), the Swamp (it’s definitely a swamp), the Ridge and the riverbank. Little Foot has been living for four and a half years in a tent on the Ridge. He’s a newcomer. Others have been there for 7, 17 and 35 years. Can you imagine? 

These homeless are different from the one’s downtown. Downtown has many rescue missions, shower options, free meal places, shelters etc. Little Foot and his 15 too 30 friends, have no rescue missions, food banks, free meal places, etc this far south. Once and a while a church will have free food days but that’s pretty sporadic. Mostly these Jungle/Swamp/Ridge/River people go out ‘canning’ for a living. They scavenge for cans and anything else that they can get to recycle for cash. They kill rabbits for an occasional meat dish. Many have bikes with homemade trailers they pull around to be their scavenged treasures on. Others hit a shift or two on the free off-ramps too. These guys are like modern Mountain Men living off the Urban land they roam.

They carry out their own justice too…most all these guys have been in jail at some point in their lives’, they know they don’t want ‘outside’ justice anymore. I assure you I would not want their form of justice either…those quicksand traps look pretty scary to me.

Fifty-year-old Little Foot comes from the ‘res’ in New Mexico. The tribes in the San Diego only deal with local tribes…he’s not local…he gets no help.

He actually works really hard at what he does. When he gets his break he wants to have a house and car, “you know, live normal” he says. The elusive ‘break’ is a common concept among most homeless.

He doesn’t drink or do drugs anymore…straight for 7 years he claims…I believe him.

These folks are real people with real stories and real daily lives. To have someone from the ‘outside’ just to  talk to and ask their stories is a pretty cool thing for them…it’s pretty cool for me too because Jesus always makes His way into our conversations… 

I'm reminded of Jesus question: 'and who is your neighbor?' For us, that would be Little Foot and his elusive friends...

Thanks for keeping us with our neighbors! 

Shaun and Maria Sheahan 


Marriage and Mexican's - The Sheahan's

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WAY TOO much of this. NO!                                               

We really aren't naïve about the condition of marriages today. Maria and I know how badly marriages are suffering both in the church and outside the church. It’s tough. They’re fragile...and to have a marriage that still has love, romance and respect after many years is hard to find too. But that's not only what's desired amongst married couples, it's also this Holy and Healthy reflection of Christ and His church that needs to be seen by our kids and the world at large. 

Thanks to many of you, we attended a 5-day marriage workshop from 9am to 9pm everyday to take up the fight for good marriages. The marriage workshop was amazing. We went hoping to gain more tools for our ministry toolbox, which happened, but we also were so very blessed with friendship, testimonies of His work in peoples lives, and an amazing tune-up for our own marriage. We actually started to do weekly ‘homework’ to keep the tune-up intact and we are soon going to start a small group of marrieds that might need what we were given. Blessed to bless. Thanks so much for sending us and praying us through this workshop…it was so worth it.  

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Spanish speaking parents receiving tutoring info.                     Maria translating the tutoring info. 

The line formed was WAY longer than we had imagined. It was a strange mix. The student would approach the registration table first, followed by the mom and sometimes dad. The young student would talk to us in English as the parent was forced to use their child to translate from  Spanish to English. Of course they were very excited that they could talk to several of us directly in Spanish.

They were there to pick up a new backpack full of school supplies and to sign up for after school tutoring for their child. In this part of town supplies and tutoring are really hard to come by for sure. What a great opportunity for ministry. Several from NieuCommunities will be tutors this year. Can you imagine the conversations? First grade through 12 grades have this opportunity for school help and friendship…pretty cool huh? About 200 are taking this opportunity. What a way to get to know our neighbors!

Thanks so much for standing behind us,

Shaun and Maria Sheahan 


August Rest?

August was designated as our ‘Sabbath Month’. That sounds like we actually took the whole month off and just rested huh? Not exactlyL We did suspend our normal scheduled meetings, trainings, and events but we didn’t hang out in hammocks sipping ice tea with little umbrellas either (why does ice tea need an umbrella anyway?).

What we did do was take time to do a lot of stuff that we had been putting off, couldn’t done, or needed to catch up on.

  For example, the cars received a lot of attention: Yep, We grease monkeyed our old cars in an attempt to get a few more miles out of them. Hope that grey tape holds for another year.

Books got read, you know, those books that grab your attention but gather more dust due to busyness. Some of those books actually got read. That was restful, challenging and encouraging.

  Three trips were made to John Wayne Airport in Orange County where they are doing some big time remodeling. We were able to rip out a bunch of coffee shop equipment for free that will help us start our community coffee shop in this up coming season. I mean we filled a 12 by 20 foot trailer full of stuff they were going to throw away. Some stuff we’ll sell because we can’t use it while other stuff we’ll use.  We have another run to make this month too.

  We did take a long weekend to Phoenix to see my mom and another weekend in Bakersfield for a memorial service. Both hot places…what were we thinking?

AND NOW: We are gearing up for this next season that started Labor Day Weekend by moving two of our teammates to a new home.

  Two big things that will come up quick: In mid-September we are scheduled to attend a week long marriage workshop designed to give us tools to help others strengthen their marriages. We think this will have some great applications in our community and those we minister too. But, this will be a great time for Maria and I to ‘tune-up’ our own relationship as well. The workshop is intense. Five days from 9am to 9pm with sessions over lunch and dinner. Wow! Intense. This comes a week before we celebrate our 22nd anniversary. Would you pray for us during this workshop? Pray: Endurance,  learning mind/heart, openness and vulnerability to allow the Holy Spirit to work deeply in our marriage and equipping us for others.

  Some of you gave some extra $ so we could afford this opportunity…that means a lot to us. We intend to make that a good Kingdom investment. Thank you so much.

  The Second big thing coming: Whether you're in a big church or a small community, you have probably felt the tensions inherent in community and mission. Should you spend your time with the neighbors, developing significant and meaningful relationship? Or with "your people" worshiping God and shaping people to live missional lives. We often struggle to honor the church gathered while simultaneously rallying and releasing missional communities for our cities. Well, we (NieuCommunities) are hosting a weekend conference that will talk through these tensions. It will be a lot of work. I think it will be really worth it.

Of course our crazy, wild and wonderful regular rhythm of mentoring, training, refugees, Mexican’s, homeless, college students and more starts up too. Looking forward to it all…

Pray for us…and let us pray for you. Let us know how we can do that.

Thanks so much for partnering so well with us.

Shaun and Maria 

Refuge for Refugees

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Raj and Chandra Family, Cousins and friends

I think I have mentioned Maria's work with the refugees that live in the Auburn Apartments located in City Heights. This place is where many of the refugees that come to San Diego get their start in the US. San Diego is a designated refugee city, so City Heights can look like a UN meeting with all the mix of languages, cultures, foods and clothing.

Maria works with Laurie Yackley our good friend and co-worker, teaching English as a Second Language...and they do teach English but that is almost secondary to the amazing relationships that they are building with a Buthaneese family that have been their focus.
Chanrda (dad), Raj (mom), and their 3 kids somehow pull off life with all odds against them. In fact they are ripe to be exploited in so many ways. It's not uncommon to hear about these refugee men working hard 12 hour days for $3.00 hour. Ouch! Chandra works really hard for 12 hours a day in a restaurant that pays him 8.00 an hour...but any tips that come in go straight into the owners pocket. It could be worse.
The kids are learning English. They go to a really rough school that boasts 42 languages spoken on campus. Wow!All that to say, it's not easy!

But there is Good News that Maria and Laurie bring each visit. The Good News of friendship with no strings attached. The Good News of someone that cares and they aren't even paid to care. The Good News is a strong expression of the incarnate Jesus through Maria and Laurie every week.

Others from NeiuCommunities like Janny and Carli who go to tutor a Somali family's kids weekly are Good News too. The scent of the Kingdom is there.
Chandra and Raj rarely ask for anything but once in a while they ask if it's possible for them to see the ocean. It's five miles from their home but they just don't have the means to make it happen. It might as well be 500 miles away for them.
This a a major undertaking. When one family from the Auburn apartments goes to the beach suddenly their family grows in numbers with cousins and friends that just show up. We never really know how many will actually need rides no matter how many times we tell them that we only have seats for 14.
It is moments like this that Maria and Laurie recruit their husbands(Shaun and Rob) to mobilize several cars, lots of snacks, beach chairs, tons of sun block, and a readiness to both heard cats and get ready for to play the role of Life Guard. These people don't swim.
After double buckling (because they exceeded the limits and we just can't say no) we roll. We strategically set up on the beach as close to the lifeguard tower as possible. Then the 3 of us that can swim well stand on the beach and just constantly count little brown heads over and over. It's like herding catfish.

After 2 hours of counting, handing out snacks and building sand castles we head home with the same number that we arrived with...Hallelujah! They were thrilled to have this moment at the beach. That's part of the Good News...Part of the Kingdom in action. Part of letting others know about our King.

Thanks,

Shaun and Maria

A day in the Life of Shaun

I TRY to see Luis once a week but Church Planting conferences, hosting a Road Trip (Mission Exposure Trip) and life got in the way of getting down there.
Luis and Aide run the home for boys in Tijuana. Luis has a been a friend for more years than I can count. I go so we can encourage one another. I go to see his 20 plus boys, and his amazing wife and the other workers. And when ever I go I try hard to take someone with me. This time it was Nick one of our apprentices. He'd gone through some tough stuff lately and needed a break from the norm and what better way to get cheered up than wrestle around with 20 fun boys.
While at the home Luis told me about one of the new boys. I had heard Carlitos (not his real name) had come but had yet to met him. He wanted to come. he was so glad when he got the news that he was going to get the privilege to live in an 'orphanage'. Wait...nobody wants to intentionally end up in a home for boys do they? Well, no, that is, unless his own home life was so miserable that a boys home looks good. That's sad but that was Carlitos' story.

Luis explained to me that Carlitos had been beaten in the womb. I mean, this kid wasn't even born before the harshness of life got to him. The father hoped to kill Carlitos but Carlitos was born alive... but not well. He needed a surgery to correct some things in his little body. One of the surgeries left a part of his intestine hanging on the outside of his body. His mom put a zip lock bag over the exposed intestine to catch the 'stuff' that would come out. That was a really sterile way of dealing with it huh? I saw a picture of Carlitos with a huge smile as he lifted his shirt to expose the gross baggy. I didn't get the reason for the smile but he was joyful in his suffering.
Here's the real tragedy: the doctor that started the surgery would not complete it until he was paid in advance and in full. Carlitos came from NO MEANS. Paying a doctor was not going to happen. Carlitos lived like this for 4 1/2 years. Unbelievable huh? Why didn't infection kill him?
Along comes Rita, an American, that should not have been in the same scary impoverished neighborhood as Carlitos but she was...and she saw Carlitos and God's plan was unleashed. Money was raised, surgeries were performed and zip locks were thrown away but the scars still remain.
Carlitos, now 10 years old, has still got the smile. He is such a happy kid. He's so excited to be with Luis and Aide and they are absolutely the best to be with...God has spared Carlitos life! Makes me wonder what God has in mind for this broken but healing little man...it must be something incredible.
Shaun

(Carlitos is one of the happy boys pictured below)

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Sheahan's with Sayid and others.

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It looked like a picture from a UN refuge camp in some far away country. Over 40 languages represented. Styles and colors of clothing were amazing. The kids were going crazy as though they had never seen balls and balloons before...It was total chaos it's in most beautiful form. At any moment I expected a UN truck to pull up with load of food stuff for this refuge camp but that only happens in true refuge camps. This was taking place in the Auburn Apartments in an area of San Diego called City Heights which is a designated refuge center here in the US.
We took some friends from Seattle there to just have fun. Water balloons. Face painting. Games. Dancing. The kids exploded into balloon sword fights mounted on the back of their human horses or played homerun wuffle ball and painted way more than just faces...it was like they had never played before!

The adults loved watching as they gathered on the outer perimeter of the chaotic parking lot turned sports field. Few spoke english so most were translating into one language and then another to get through to communicate to neighbors and us.
But Sayid (the name he let us call him) spoke pretty good English. He and his family just arrived two weeks ago from Pakistan where they had lived the prior year but they were actually from Afghanistan before that. He and his family fled because their live's were being threatened for their mere association with the Christians.
Sayid had seen a lot. Too much death, wounding and misery in my way of thinking. He worked for a Christian organization that was bent on helping his people. It was clear that Sayid knew Jesus...both the Jesus of the bible and the Jesus of the Koran. I am not sure I would call him a Muslim but nor would I call him a Christian. The only thing that was clear was his passion for knowing and following Jesus.We were abel to exchange contact info before we were pulled away from Sayid to go have tea with our Butanesse friends but later I saw my team mate Matt praying with Sayid. That was good.Sayid and his family were moving to a another place the next day. They had no idea where in San Diego county they would end up but before we parted ways he promised to get hold of me when the dust settled...he also ask for prayer as they try to settle in this new place that has a lot of strange dust.
I really hope we do have another opportunity to be with each other. I really hope and pray that the Jesus he follows leads Sayid into the middle of God the Fathers's heart...Jesus is good at that.
Thanks for keeping us in peoples lives like Sayid and his family.
Shaun and Maria

PS...
This just happened:In faith we just made an offer on a house in Sherman Heights. There are no rentals available that our family can fit into there and even the house we offered on is only two bedrooms BUT it's in the neighborhood near our team. Sherman Heights is a Latino barrio full of homeless men and women wondering the streets Sherman Hts. is located a mile from down town San Diego and two blocks from the notorious Logon Heights gangs that are starting to resurge a bit. I know, it's not 'the American dream' neighborhood but it is where the Kingdom needs to be...Will you pray for this house. For our faith finances. For our family in this potential transitional time. For His will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven....
I will let you know what happens ASAP and THANKS for Praying :)

Homeless? My friend on the Street.

We teamed up with the experts in the homeless population in our area and went to hang out with some of their friends that live on the street. We brought a garbage bag filled with individual sized bags of a variety of chips, a box filled with packaged snacks, and hot coffee with the fixins...
Our frist friend was sitting on his neatly laid out sleeping bag. This former Marine from many wars back was sitting cross-legged with his legs covered by the entrance of his unzipped sleeping bag reading a book about horses in pre-historic times. He was positioned just off the side walk far enough against the fence to be considered on the property of the restaurant that he 'worked' for because he knew the police couldn't run him off from private property that gave him permission to perch.
Dale (not his real name) worked in exchange for coffee, a meal, bathroom and his little sleepig-bag-sized chunk of land that allowed him to sleep overnight. He was always there and almost always with Ben (again, name changed). Ben's stuff was there but Ben was out when we arrived. We offered Dale, chips, snacks and coffee. He only wanted coffee for himself but took some snacks and chips for Ben that would be returning soon.Dale was glad to see us. He has been on the streets for a long time and in this spot for several years. He was glad to field our questions and he was real good at at conversing...

Dale had been a career jockey and loved it. In fact his son in West Virginia was jockeying for a living as we spoke. He told us all about the profession, how bets were place and how jockeys were paid. He loved the job but with age came weight and with weight came the need for another job which he found on the pipe line in Louisiana.
That shifted our conversation to the intricacies of Oil Platforms and that whole industry. He held 5 of us spell bound with his stories, close calls, storms and just the way life was on an oil platform off the coast of Louisiana.
Hanging over the sea on this man made barrier reef for all those years also made him an expert on sea life. He knew all the latest research on whales and, yes, sharks including the statistics of shark attacks on humans (Im not taking up surfing anytime soon).
Again we marveled and hung on his words...and then all of time froze for a split second while I remember that Dale was a poor, crazy, ignorant homeless man....The thought struck me like a bolt of lightening: he is homeless but he is not ignorant. He is out of a paying job but he is working. He has reason to despair but he is enjoying us instead. He is suppose to be either crazy or strung out on some chemical or something and he is about as clear thinking as anyone I have ever met.
He is hopeful that he will get paying work soon. Dale should have been miserable but he was quite content. We were suppose to be 'ministering' to him but...well, you get the picture. This was a Kingdom moment.

I may have put all homeless into one sad box. My bad.

But later that night we met James...but that is another update on another day...

Imgres

(Not Dale)


Shaun and Maria Sheahan