Sister Freaks (2 page)
I once read in
The Missionary Heart
:
Care more than some think is wise.
Risk more than some think is safe.
Dream more than some think is practical.
Expect more than some think is possible.
I was called not to comfort or success but to obedience.
There is no joy outside of knowing Jesus and serving Him. I love you two and my church family.
In His care,
Karen
Karen Watson spent her life for the cause of Jesus Christ among the nations, particularly one that appeared to be an enemy. People from that country took her life, yet her life continues on—as an ongoing testimony that God will expand His kingdom through those who dare to step outside of their comfort zones for His renown.
No one knows what Karen thought when she felt the bullets tear through her and the life drain from her body. But she lived her life without regret. Perhaps, as she grew closer to seeing Jesus’ face, she recounted one of her favorite Psalms:
Though a host encamp against me,
My heart will not fear;
Though war arise against me,
In spite of this, I shall be confident.
One thing I have asked from the
LORD
, that I shall seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the
LORD
all the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the
LORD
and to meditate in His temple.
(Psalm
27:3-4
NASB
)
joan of arc
The Brave Soldier
S
he rivals mythic characters such as Robin Hood and King Arthur, yet she was a real girl in history. Joan of Arc was born in Domrémy, a village in Lorraine, France, in January 1412. She was a common girl whose mother, Isabelle, trained her for the traditional female tasks of her day: cooking, cleaning, and tending sheep. She also learned her prayers from her mother, who nurtured her spiritually. Joan was particularly skilled in sewing and spinning.
Yet her life was to be lived out on a battlefield.
England had invaded northern France in 1417, and Joan experienced the devastation of the Hundred Years’ War. Then, when this daughter of a peasant was about twelve years old, she began to hear a voice telling her she must save France from the English. If you’ve already heard this story, this news might not seem like very much. But consider this: a soldier in the fifteenth century protected the innocent; girls needed protection. A soldier wore armor; girls wore frilly dresses and bonnets. So for Joan to dream of taking part in anything other than the usual female tasks of the day was a huge contradiction.
The amazing thing is that Joan’s father, Jacques d’Arc, once had a dream that his daughter was traveling with an army. Disturbed by such images, he told Joan’s brothers but not his daughter. He was fearful of what the dream might mean, and he vowed to drown her if she ever became a soldier. Such a thing would disgrace the family.
Joan doesn’t seem to have had a great attachment to her family. When the voice she heard intensified, she decided to leave her domestic life, pretending to go help her cousin, who was expecting a child. Her visions of Saints Catherine and Margaret, two early Christian martyrs, and Saint Michael the archangel, evoked her strong conviction that God was calling her to carry out a mission. After she left home, she never spoke to her family again.
Joan’s behavior was radical and unacceptable. Why would a girl who had never traveled ten miles from her home leave it? Yet it is known that she asserted, “Since God commanded it, had I had a hundred fathers and a hundred mothers, had I been born a king’s daughter, I should have departed.”
Naturally, her claims caused great speculation. Though during this time mysticism was popular in the church, it was still questionable for someone to claim to “hear voices.” But her passion was sincere; even though Joan never experienced peace in her homeland, she longed for France to be restored and a king to be crowned to lead her country. However far-fetched her desires seemed, she followed them because she believed them to be of God.
At the age of seventeen, Joan boldly approached Robert de Baudricourt, the lord of her local district, as if she were his equal and asked for her own army. At first Baudricourt was skeptical, but her persistence impressed him, and he finally believed that God had sent her. He granted her stunning request.
Soon Joan found herself on a journey to meet Charles, the son of Charles VI, who she believed would be the next king. Mysteriously, Charles gave her his favor and support, but he knew that in the current political climate, and with Joan claiming a calling from God, Joan would also need the support of the church. So he arranged for the doctors and archbishops of the church to interrogate Joan. They found nothing heretical about her visions and respected her simplicity and honesty. She passed their examination.
Joan was given a suit of armor made just for her. There she was, a domesticated peasant girl adorned in clothes of war. She was about to be a commander over men. A white linen banner was given to her with an image of the Trinity and two angels, which would become the sign by which Joan would be recognized. The banner read “Of the Party of the King of Heaven.” This was her public declaration of her divine calling to save her beloved country.
Then, with her four thousand men Joan faced the English in Orleans. The first night in the field, she lay weary and bruised from the weight of her heavy armor. One can only imagine how she felt, knowing she was finally fulfilling God’s call on her life.
Naïve, but full of determination, Joan soon found herself fighting battles within the ranks of her own army. Many of the men did not take her seriously and saw her more as a mascot than a military leader. But Joan knew she was much more than an ornament of war. Being a female did not limit what she believed God would accomplish through her. Despite internal strife and Joan’s naïveté, the French were able to conquer the English at Orleans, and Charles was crowned king. It seemed God’s grace was working on their behalf.
Because of Joan’s unconquerable spirit and ability to face the impossible, her men were strengthened and inspired. Her mission had been successful. Joan could then have returned home to live in peace, but she continued to choose the life of a soldier.
Despite all Joan’s victories in the field, as she worked to recapture Paris, English soldiers captured her in 1430 and she was tried by bribed officials as a heretic. They condemned her claims to have heard from God as demonic. Enduring eight months in prison, she was taunted by English soldiers, chained to her bed, and forbidden to take Communion. She was found guilty of idolatry both for hearing voices and for wearing men’s clothing.
On May 30, 1431, at Rouen, she walked in chains, silenced by the jeering, savage crowds who wanted to witness her death. Joan requested that a crucifix be placed in front of her as she was tied to a stake. Repeatedly she cried out, “Jesus!” Her passing was slow and agonizing, as executioners had been instructed to keep her at a distance from the flames to torture her. Focusing on the cross, Joan resigned herself to death.
Joan’s partly charred body was shown to the crowd in order to prove that she was indeed a woman. Then the body was completely burned. Heretics at the time could not receive a Christian burial, and Joan’s remains were cast into the Seine River.
The brave soldier died alone at nineteen. Legends soon followed. Some said they saw a dove swoop down over her at the stake. Others said her heart would not burn and remained in the ashes. Whatever legends continue to surround Joan of Arc’s controversial life, her single-minded devotion to her calling was clear.
In the Middle Ages, it was unheard of for a woman to mark history outside of her traditional role. Women were viewed as objects of men’s desires, not as vessels the Lord might use to change history. Yet indeed, Joan of Arc did change history, despite the odds.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
(Ephesians
6:12
)
anna mikelson
A Smooth and Steady Pace
O
lympic silver medalist Anna Mikelson had long envisioned herself competing in the world’s most famous games—but not on the water, and not with a team of seven other female athletes. Anna began running track when she was five years old, and she imagined crossing the Olympic finish line among other runners. God had other ideas.
Raised in the Seattle, Washington, area, Anna competed in track, cross-country, and basketball in high school. Her father, brother, and sister-in-law all ran for the University of Washington Huskies, and Anna hoped to follow in their footsteps. There was just one problem: every track and field coach who looked at her height, weight, and race times believed that she had maxed out in her sport. Although her times were good, they weren’t certain to improve a great deal.
But Anna’s high-school cross-country coach knew the rowing coach at the University of Washington, and Anna was invited to join the crew. The coaches at Washington took one look at her tall, athletic build and said, “You would be really good at this.” Wanting to believe in what the Huskies envisioned for her, Anna walked onto a national powerhouse rowing team, earning a scholarship the next year. “They sought me out and taught me what to do with a big oar,” she says simply.
Anna proved to be a quick study in her new sport. A four-time NCAA national champion rower, two-time College Rowing Coaches Association academic All-American, and three-time Pacific-10 academic All-American, she was the recipient of both NCAA and Pacific-10 postgraduate scholarships. As a collegian she rowed on the “women’s eight” national teams in 2001 and 2002, placing fourth and first respectively in the world championships, and graduated from the University of Washington in 2002 with a degree in communications and a 3.6 GPA.
In August of 2004, Anna and her teammates rowed to a second-place finish in the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. In their qualifying heat, the women set a new world record of 5:56 for the women’s eight—a two-thousand-meter race with an eight-woman crew. In the final, they battled two-time reigning Olympic champions from Romania and were well pleased with the first medal for the United States in that event in twenty years.
Today Anna divides her time between continuing to train on the water in Seattle and working for the University of Washington Athletic Department and the National Rowing Association. She also speaks to corporate executives and students of all ages about team building and motivation. “We use our boat as an example for teamwork,” she says, “and we encourage younger kids just to have fun and be healthy.” She hopes one day to work in athletic administration, but whatever the future holds, it is sure to include a constant that she has pursued with a passion equal to her sport: building relationships to share the love of Christ.
“In high school I was discipled by a woman in my church who worked with our youth group,” says Anna. “She really made a difference in my life and is still a significant person to me today. Her example caused me to want to do for others what she has done for me.” As a sophomore at Washington, Anna was living in a Christian house, but God was growing in her a love for her rowing teammates. “I wanted to reach out to them, but it’s really hard to apply your faith in all areas of your life—to have it fully integrated into your world and not compartmentalized into one tiny little section.”
Soon she started attending meetings of Athletes in Action (AIA), a ministry of Campus Crusade that was active on the U of W campus. Together with an AIA staff person, she started a Bible study. She continued to nurture small groups as an intern and later a volunteer for Campus Crusade at Princeton University.
“So much of my sport and my life are about relationships,” she says. “I’ve loved rowing with these seven women. We’re not just fellow athletes who train and compete together. We’re women who can also pray for each other and share life together.”
Anna is currently discipling two other rowers, a process she admits is time intensive and deeply relational. “There’s a fine balance of feeling each person out and determining what level of communication and interaction she is open to,” she says. “I want everyone to know the great joy in Christ—but the privilege of sharing that comes over time by caring about people no matter where they’re at, asking questions to know them better, and whenever possible, using Christ as an example.”
Anna’s message is simple, and it’s straight from the pages of her own life: God has a plan for you. “I have always thought the pop culture ideal has a quick appeal,” she says. “I wanted to have a made-for-TV life, but I guess I always knew it wasn’t that easy. I understood that the things I focused on—sports, school, family, and friends—were the foundation for a great life if Christ was my center. He made them have a deeper meaning, and now I would say that my life is like the perfect movie because God is my Director.”
Even though she may not line up exactly with the world’s standard for feminine appeal, Anna’s comfortable with being “a tall, strong woman.” She explains, “The world tells us that our performance, plus what others think about us, equals who we are. But that’s not true. We are who God says we are. He establishes our identity, and out of that will flow our performance and our relationships, not the other way around.”
Refusing to be satisfied with her present set of skills, Anna is adding another challenge to her agenda: she is learning to row sculls instead of shells and becoming adept with two oars instead of just one. With those added abilities, she’ll be able to compete for any rowing spot on the 2008 Olympic team.
But her focus is flexible. “We’ll see what happens,” she says cheerfully. “God may have other plans. It’s like the verse says: ‘“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the
LORD
, “plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope”’ [Jer. 29:11
NASB
]. I’m taking it one day at a time, one year at a time. We’ll see what He has in store. I don’t view life as a series of big moments—even moments like winning an Olympic medal. It’s more about the process for me.”