I digress.

Here’s what you need to know. I’m essentially faking it till I make it, and so many other people in this world are much more qualified for the role I’m in. They’re better suited for this city and this ministry.

But they’re not here.
I am.

I am deeply unqualified, but I am here. And you are exactly where you are. This is not by accident.

The Father has put me here—sitting in the homes of refugees, hearing people’s stories, leading things I never imagined. He’s asked me to help men and women apply for jobs and help them understand the barrage of emails they receive from their child’s school. He’s opened doors for me to visit them, teach them, learn from them, and experience life alongside them.

I am deeply unqualified, but I am here. And you are exactly where you are. This is not by accident.

Our worlds may look drastically different. Our schedule and time and community may not resemble each other’s in the slightest, and that’s ok. I think so often we get caught in the comparison game. At least, I know I do. I look at other’s stories and life and the world I catch only glimpses of on social media and I think to myself, “Yikes! I’m not __ enough next to them.”

Fill in the blank with whatever you want. We’ve all been there.

But here’s what this neighborhood teaches me day after day, moment by moment. We don’t always have to be qualified or the most qualified to be used by the Father right where we are. Most people in our world aren’t really looking for someone who is qualified. They’re looking for someone who is consistent. They need a person they can count on, a person they can call, a person they can laugh and cry with, a person who sticks to their word. Most people need someone who won’t back out or back down.

Our world needs the consistent rather than qualified, because our Father will qualify us for whatever situation He gives us.

Our world needs the consistent rather than qualified, because our Father will qualify us for whatever situation He gives us.

This has been the constant refrain from the Father to me since I moved to Chicago. “Consistency, Kate. Be consistent.” Honestly, sometimes I just don’t want to be consistent. I’d rather back out of commitments or blame my inconsistency on busyness. It’s so easy to do, because guess what? It’s true. I am busy. I’ve never been busier in my life than when I moved to Chicago.

But consistency is greater than busyness, and if the busyness of life and ministry keep me from being consistent with others, the balance is off.

Sometime last Spring, a family I visited weekly moved far away—just far enough to stretch my 7-minute commute into 30-45 minutes one way. My boss gave me an out. He told me I could visit a new family. After all, the needs are so great in this neighborhood. He could connect me with someone else.

We won’t always get it right, but may we choose consistency. Because someday that consistency just might build something beautiful.

But that still small voice came again, “Consistency, Kate. Be consistent.”

Through gritted teeth, I battled the traffic week after week to see this family. I struggled through the parking nightmare at the end of each night, and I didn’t always have the best attitude. I’m human. Some days are hard.

Today, though, this family and I experience a richness in relationship that is unlike any I share with others in this neighborhood. The Father has opened doors and given me opportunities I don’t deserve to love on this family in His name. And that one thing that seemed so difficult in the moment has become the thing that built this beautiful relationship—consistency.

Friend, our worlds might look very different on the outside, but at the heart of it all, we aren’t so different. The Father has put people in your life. Some are easy to love and convenient. They are ones you look forward to celebrating and spending time with. Others are the opposite in nearly every way, but they are still in your life. I think more times than not, the Father looks around this world for people who will choose consistency, the ones who will stick with others even when it requires sacrifice and selflessness.

We won’t always get it right, but may we choose consistency. Because someday that consistency just might build something beautiful.

The post That One Thing that Will make All the Difference appeared first on Kate Berkey.

It was just supposed to be a work trip to the north side of Chicago, but since that day in 2015, a piece of my heart seemed to be forever stuck on the corner of Devon and Western Avenue. 

I think it happened somewhere between walking the streets that made me feel like I was in India or Nairobi or anywhere else but America. Or maybe it happened as I heard story after story of the refugee families who lived in the neighborhood. Quite possibly, though, it was that one phrase that completely captured my heart and made me dream a little differently with the Father. 

“God has brought the world to us.” 

Seven miles from the posh of Michigan Avenue and the tourists in Millennium Park lies an incredibly diverse community with well over 100 languages represented in just a few square miles. Nearly half of the residents here were born outside of the United States—many of them are refugees from countries devastated by violence against minorities or marginalized people, places Americans don’t have easy access too.

Afghanistan
Pakistan
Iraq
Somalia
Sudan
Burma
Just to name a few

God has brought the world to us—even in the heartland of America.

Bob Andrews, director of an organization in the community called the Devon Oasis Center, said that phrase time and again, trying desperately to help us see the opportunities in his neighborhood. 

Devon Oasis evolved from Bob and Lynne’s missional life, from the way they engaged their neighborhood, from the way they loved on and were Jesus to refugees. They didn’t set out to start a ministry. They were simply called to love their neighbors.

Today at the Center, they host English classes for adults, homework center for kids, and more, in one space. But communicating the love and life of Jesus is so much more than structured programs. It requires relationship—time together, grace and love shown time and again in friendship. So their team prioritizes going and being. They knock on people’s doors and stay for awhile. They build friendships—that all-important community. They give and they take. They serve and are served. They teach and are taught. 

And as that trust builds and relationships blossom, they encounter opportunities to love people more fully by sharing Jesus with them. It’s not a forced conversation. They’re not looking for quick converts. They’re simply desperate for people to experience the life, freedom, and love that Jesus offers us—His people made in His image. 

This—all of this—is what captured my heart four years ago. It’s what made me tell my friend in 2016, “I think the Lord is calling me to move to Chicago and work with Devon Oasis, but I don’t know why or when or what that would even look like.”

And now, four years later, it seems like the Father has said one word, and it is beautifully clear—Go. 

So, friend, I am doing just that! In March 2020, your girl plans to move to Chicago. I am being sent as a missionary by my home church, Nappanee Missionary Church, and will carry the official title of Missionary in Residence. Honestly, this is just a fancy way of saying that I will live and do support-raised ministry among the people I get to serve. They will be my neighbors, and I will be theirs. My days will look like joining Bob and his team in what they are already doing—teaching English, helping with homework, etc—as well as meeting one-on-one with women and discipling those who are seeking Jesus.

And I am so excited! 

This isn’t taking the place of Thailand. In fact, I will continue to work alongside Braverly and make annual trips to Mae Sot. This is simply in addition to the work the Father has called me to. In so many ways, it feels like He’s brought me to a mini Mae Sot of sorts. Right now many of the refugees flooding Chicago are from Burma, and in Mae Sot, many of the people I had the opportunity to love on were from Burma. When we finish the book, we hope to translate it into Burmese which will make it an incredible tool in Mae Sot and Chicago. This place, this community, this city only two hours away from my hometown is filled with opportunities to bridge the gap between ministry happening in Thailand and America.

Somedays I felt like Thailand was a detour from what the Father was calling me to, but in so many ways, it seems like it was just another step in the journey—just like Chicago is another step. Because we never quite arrive, do we? As followers of Jesus, we’re constantly asking the Father to lead us. Sometimes He takes us halfway across the world. Other times, right outside our front door. And it’s always so good. 

So how can you help me on this journey? 

• Give: Chicago isn't cheap, and I will need to raise nearly 3x what I raised for Thailand! This number feels so daunting to me, but I am trusting Jesus to provide in ways that only He can. Would you consider being part of the answer to this prayer? To give, click here and write "Kate Berkey" next to Missionary Support. 
• Pray: More and more, I am humbled by my own limitations and so grateful for those who are covering me in prayer. In the midst of another transition and lots of new, I need prayer warriors on my team!
• Follow the journey: I would love to stay connected to you on Instagram and Facebook.

Thanks for being part of my journey, whether it’s simply by reading my blog or joining my support or prayer teams. You are amazing, and I couldn’t do this without you!

The post A Life Update: Just a 2 Hour Drive but a Whole World Away appeared first on Kate Berkey.

Recently, Kristy and I were talking about this insane life we get to live in Mae Sot. It's chaotic and beautiful and unpredictable and wonderful. It's stupid hard and surrounded by the unfamiliar, and it's also our normal.

Every day we have the opportunity to do life with incredible people on the border of Thailand and Burma. Sometimes this looks like having a casual conversation with Hser Ku Paw while we order our morning coffee. Sometimes it looks like teaching English to 150 middle school students. Sometimes it looks like youth group and Burmese church. Sometimes it looks like vulnerably telling our stories through writing or gathering our Braverly women at our house for small group. No matter what, it looks like using our gifts, talents, and passions to build God's Kingdom while also praying desperately for the Father to grow our capacities.

This is our yes.

It's wild to me that a year ago this month, I got on an airplane headed for Thailand for the first time. My short week in Mae Sot confirmed everything the Lord had been saying for months. This was my yes.

And a year later, I found myself sitting in a coffee shop with my dear friend in this city that now feels like home. As Kristy and I talked, we commented on how often we hear people say, "I could never do what you do!"

What they mean, of course, is that they could never move across the world. They could never change their life that much. They could never be a "missionary." I believe that this phrase, "I could never do what you do," could be one of the most dangerous phrases in the Church today.

This is the mindset that elevates people to a position they can only fall from, and it devalues the place and position of everyone else. This life and town and team is my yes, but it might not be yours. I'm not here because I am more courageous than the next person. I'm not here because I am a super Christian or because I love Jesus more than you do. I am here because I knew what my yes needed to be.

For years I wrestled with the Father, searching and seeking and asking Him to show me where He wanted me to go, what He wanted me to do. I knew that where I was not where He wanted me to be forever, but I didn't know where my next step was supposed to take me. And then, ever so slowly over the course of years, He began to help me see the path ahead. He began to show me my yes.

This yes happened to lead me to Mae Sot. It happened to lead me to missions and nonprofit and ministry. It happened to lead me far away from my family and all the comforts of my world in Nappanee. This was my yes, but it might not be yours.

I am confident of this–we all have a yes that is burning in our hearts. It's a yes we are still discovering or searching for, or maybe it's a yes that we've recognized all along. I believe the Father isn't looking for more people to sell everything they own and move to another country. He isn't looking for more people to become what they think they are "supposed to" become. He is looking for the people who pause long enough to recognize the yes He planted in their hearts so long ago.

My yes was to Mae Sot, Thailand. Your yes could be right where you are; it could be staring you in the face. Or just maybe, your yes might lead you far away. If there's one thing I've learned about saying, "Yes," it's that it will always lead us into deeper dependency, desperate courage, and abundant life in the Father.

But, friends, we need to stop comparing ourselves with those around us. We need to stop saying things like, "I could never do that."

Because you could.
Because there's nothing extraordinary about me.
I just said yes after years of searching and seeking and saying no to a lot of other things.

There is a "yes" burning in your heart that only you can say.

Be the kind of person who says, "Yes," to the Father.

The post One of the Most Dangerous Phrases in the Church Today appeared first on Kate Berkey.