I Miss Them

I love communication-listening, talking, writing, reading; I can't get enough of it. Anyone who knows me can tell you I am rarely at a loss for words. Like oil-well-in-the-backyard, lightening-striking, 80-degree-weather-in-January kind of rare (we are from Minnesota, people). Therefore, when I don't know how to articulate a thought or emotion, it can be...confusing. It totally throws me off my axis.

Anyway, I had one of these rare emotions that I couldn't describe when it came to how I felt about going to Africa. I knew going was right, but there was so much I couldn't explain. How do you explain to a non-believer HOW you know you've been called? They would suggest that maybe it wasn't God's will, but our will. Really? I know I've always wanted to live in a mud hut, not have real showers, be away from almost everyone I love for a year, coexist with scorpions, snakes, and insects, and be exposed to all sorts of fatal disease. Good times. Then there were the people that acted like it wasn't a calling, but rather a vacation. I would just smile at them and not say much.

I try not to make decisions based on emotion (see the Campus Crusade for Christ Fact-Faith-Feeling train). I knew all the facts behind our decision, I had faith the Lord had brought us to this point-He told us through prayer. But the ultimate decision also involved feelings: Josh and I both had an active sense of peace, an enthusiasm for the "assignment," and a burden to serve.

I experienced another overwhelming feeling, one I couldn't articulate, one that grows more intense every day. It was only through the movie Facing the Giants that I heard it described. When the lead characters wife talks about her desire to have a baby, she says, "How can I miss someone so much when I haven't even met them?" That is it; that is exactly what I feel. Only, it's not about my child, it's about God's children.

He has put a burden in my heart that is so powerful, sometimes I feel I can't even breath. I hurt for them, I cry for them, I want to hold them and put them in time-outs when they're naughty and care for them. I can't wait to meet them. I predict I'll spend a solid week just bawling after I meet them. I already love them.

But who am I, to meet such a need? Father, guide me. Give me wisdom, strength, energy, patience, love...

Their need is like none I've ever seen. My parents have done foster care my whole life, and I believe God has been using that as preparation for this time, but it doesn't compare. Disease, child soldiers, sex slavery, poverty, starvation, bitterness, and broken hearts. How can your heart not break???!!!

As the time to leave draws nearer, the greatest struggle for me becomes clear: it will be to leave the kids who have stolen my heart here. The Lovewells, Princess, and my new baby nephew have all taken a piece of my heart, and refuse to return it. But I know that I will see them again. It will be far to long a separation for my liking, but I will see them again.

When we leave Africa, we will most likely never see those kids again. I am already aware I will spend a year of my life pouring myself out, only to never see their future. From a purely logical standpoint, it doesn't really seem reasonable, does it? Nonetheless, God has so convicted me as to not even make it a choice; it is a command. A command to love and serve with my whole heart. A command to make sacrifices, to suffer for others...to put the needs of His children ahead of my own comfort...

How could I refuse? I can't.

Recent Events and Tree Farm Pictures

Last week was incredibly busy for us, with the multiple Thanksgiving celebrations, getting an assignment, my parents 25th anniversary party, getting a new foster brother, and our annual time with Josh's family to cut down and decorate a Christmas tree.

We had a good time wandering around at the tree farm, but it was pretty chilly. I was wearing half a dozen layers and was still cold, and by this point I was thinking we should just pick a decent-looking tree and go. Honestly, once a tree is decorated with lights and ornaments and tinsel, its flaws sort of seem to fade into the background. At least that was my logic while freezing.

During our quest for the perfect evergreen specimen, I decided we should take a cute family picture to commemorate the occasion. I instructed everyone to find a tree to peek out from, put the camera on the tailgate, and set the timer. The picture in which I am running and Josh and Zach are laughing at me was taken after the 2nd time I bumped the camera with my coat after setting up the "perfect shot." Yeah, I am a real professional.

Anyway, the last picture is really how it was supposed to turn out all along. In case you can't read the itty-bitty writing, it just says each of our names (l-r: Zach, Josh, Lori, Hetal, Ken, Chelsea, Nicky).

We have officially entered the Christmas season, and not just in the stores-want-your-money-so-they-put-Christmas-merchandise-out-in-September way. My goal this season is to remember to not get wrapped up in finding the perfect gifts and fitting any event we are invited to into our schedule. It's not about the decorations or events or music or gifts, or even about the people. It should only have one focus- Jesus Christ. I know that, more often than I care to recall, I have pushed Him down my list of priorities in order to make room for all the holiday festivities. The holiday dedicated to His birth. Yeah, I know it's messed up. It am trying to not be so busy with outwardly showing my love for Him that I forget to show Him my love.

Man vs. Wild

One day back in early September (before our assignment to Kenya fell through), I decided to watch a show called “Man vs. Wild” with Josh. We aren’t huge TV watchers, but I knew it was a show he enjoyed, so I thought I should check it out. The basic premise of the show is that a former member of British Special Forces is dropped into uninhabited wilderness, charged with the task of reaching civilization using only what he finds along the way. Some examples of "survival techniques" presented on the show are eating raw game, eating beetle larva and other insects, filterig urine into drinking water (using a found plastic bag), spearing and eating stingray; you get the idea. It often takes days to reach his destination, and the environment is truly inhospitable.

Entertaining.

We had recorded a few episodes, and one description said it was in Namibia, a country in Africa, so I chose that one as my introductory episode of “Man vs. Wild.” It’s a long way from Kenya, but what do I know about Africa? Any knowledge is worth something. On this particular episode, he was dropped by helicopter to a rocky coast consisting of 60 miles of desert. It is impossible to safely reach land from the water, as the piercing shoreline will demolish any ship. In fact, the reason they chose this location is that many individuals have survived these shipwrecks only to die in the desert. I looked at Josh and said (with a sigh of relief), “Praise the Lord He’s not sending us there.”

Guess where we are going, people. Yeah, that’s right. We have a new assignment- to Namibia.

Shocked? Me, too.

Laughing so hard you just fell off your chair? Hmm.

I decided to keep my mouth shut and just never say anything like that again, ever. Well, it’s the thought that counts, right?

Thankfully, the location of our assignment is pretty much inconsequential to Josh and I. We are just thrilled to have an assignment. I think we may end up loving Namibia.

What is Love?

The following is an excerpt from recent journaling. If you have any thoughts, please share them. I want to become more like Christ, so I must at least endeavor to understand His prominent characteristics.

In Greek, there are four different words for love- "eros" (passionate/ romantic love), "storge" (familial love), "phileo" (brotherly love that often presents in the form of community), and "agape" (unconditional love). However, in the English language, the only word for love is... well, love. Of course, we attach all sorts of adjectives to it to delineate different types, but maybe having one word as a catch-all term is confusing us.

If you asked 100 people what "love" means, I would predict you would get at least 25 different answers. What would you say?

Although "feeling" love is really a very small part of the entirety of love, I believe we have gotten to a point in which people only associate love with feeling. If they don't have butterflies in their stomachs every time they think of their significant other, it is time to end the relationship. Maybe someone decided to term all forms of "warm fuzziness" love; no wonder it can be confusing.

Maybe the thread that ties all of these forms of love together is choice. I can choose to love and care about someone even when I don't like them. Maybe the Hebrew language gives us a hint; "ahava" has a root word "give." Not in terms of words, gifts, or service (necessarily), but rather of oneself in a sacrificial manner. We choose to care for them in spite of how they hurt us, even if they have mistreated us to the point we can't be around them anymore. We want the best for them.

Easy enough, right? Right.

Our greatest example of love is love personified in Jesus Christ. But His love doesn't fit into a little neat category. How do we emulate it if we can't comprehend it? His love included fellowship, emotion, sacrifice, discipline, accountability...we have descriptions of His love, but studying only them seems akin to getting to know a person through his or her friends.

I want to dig in, to analyze this (go figure), to understand it.

But I am looking at it the wrong way.

If God is Love, this explains my soul-burdening desire to know God's heart.

Falling in Love All Over Again

A while back, as I was doing my devotional, the book I was reading was talking about the character of Christ, and how we should reflect it better as we come to know Him more. I was expecting to read something about being committed and willing to sacrifice, and exhibiting Fruit of the Spirit. Specifically, we should “become a progressively more joyful, loving, and winsome person.” I completely agree with the first two, but winsome? Hmm. I wanted to know exactly what the authors meant by that term, so I looked it up. Synonyms include charming, pleasant, likeable, attractive, engaging, endearing, and appealing. Our relationship with Christ cannot be akin to the friendship with our childhood best pal. We seem to forget He is God. I found the following online, and decided I couldn’t say it any better:

“…we’ve tried to present Jesus as someone people should like, someone who is
“relevant” and fun and always good to have at parties. But mostly this “new
Jesus” ends up looking about as interesting as the store manager down at
Office Depot. He’s friendly, tame, middle class and safe!

No, you can’t re-imagine Jesus! You can’t turn him into the ‘nice guy’ down
the street. You have to take him for Who He really is – as He’s revealed
Himself in Scripture. And there you find that he’s rarely “safe”. As Mr
Beaver says to Lucy in C S Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia (the book, not the
movie!) ”He’s not a tame lion!” Nor is He “safe.”

In that same passage from the book, Lucy asks Mr Beaver if Aslan, the Lion representing Christ, is “safe”. To which he responds, "Safe? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."

If I recall correctly, Jesus was not most concerned with people liking Him. In fact, he was rejected by many, if not most. He was bold, wouldn’t support sin, and offended people in the process. But he also had a spirit of ready forgiveness when people repented. He cast out evil spirits. He was and is mighty and loving and confident and kind and He works miracles with no strain at all. He secured His own death by refusing to acquiesce to Jerusalem or Rome. It doesn’t seem to me that His priority was to be winsome at all.

This week has been a time of refocusing, and I am so grateful the Lord called us to it. Time is important in missions, but not more important than keeping our eyes on God. I have fallen in love with Him all over again, not just as my Savior, but as the one who knows everything about me, even the less-than-winsome parts, and loves and adores me anyway. I can't think of a better way to prepare for our time on the mission field.

Refocusing

This picture seems to pretty much sum up part of our lives right now. We have been presented with several opportunities (a blessing), but really that means we aren't positive which ones God wants us to be involved in. For example, right now we are considering two assignments simultaneously. How do we know which to choose? We are [im]patiently waiting on the Lord to make that abundantly clear to us.

At this point, the best choice seems to be continuing to move forward, but with cautiously and prayerfully. We know part of God's plan (missions together in Africa for at least 1 year), but the rest is all a little sketchy. Therefore, we have decided to step back from it all (for at least this week), and refocus. Instead of seeking after the answers, as we've been doing, we need to seek after the Lord with our whole hearts. After all, it's because of Him we are doing this in the first place.

Lately, my quiet times have been...lackluster. Usually I am excited to dig into Scripture, pray, and listen to what God has to say, but recently it has become a spiritual discipline in a new sense of the term. This week, I am committed to challenging myself to meet God in new ways. This morning as I was driving, I was awestruck by the beauty and complexity of the natural beauty I witness every day. The amazing part is that He probably made it in less time than it takes for me to remember my own name. I was inspired to spend a little time with God, photographing His creation. [None of these photos have been edited].

After all of the dreary weather in the past week, today's bright blue skies were a welcome respite. I drove (it was cold!) around the "neighborhood" (a 3-mile block), and actually took many shots from our car.
This photo is a great reminder to me to consider perspective. As a detail-oriented person, I sometimes focus too much on the little things, which breeds anxiety.

Sometimes, you just have to back up and look at the big picture- same angle, completely different view depending on where the focus is.
That's what it's all about. It's not about the 5- or 10- year plan, or money, or even family. From the Christian perspective, although it often seems to be about ministries or missions or programs or churches, it's not. Those are only tools. The purpose is to glorify God, and to show others how to know Him [better].

I literally drive past these views almost every day, but I never notice them- pathetic. I am usually too "busy" with my to-do list or worrying about something that is probably pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of life.

This is my favorite sight in the world. Even after visiting the Eiffel Tower, the Rocky Mountains, and the Great Wall of China, nothing compares to coming home. This week, it's about adjusting our focus in the spiritual equivalent.

Thank yous

Here is a thank you right now to everyone who has supported us through prayer or financial donation. You will be getting a more formal one in the mail, but it might be a while. I sat down last Saturday to design thank you cards to be printed- they will have a design on front and be blank on the back-when I realized after looking at about 500 pictures (literally!) that not a single one will suffice. It is important to include at least a small picture of us for those people who may have a hard time remembering us by name, and AIM has quite a few strongly-suggested guidelines regarding any pictures in any sort of missions literature. We already made a mistake with our initial support letters, in which we included a wedding picture (rule #1 is no bare shoulders). Women should not show knees or have any sort of remotely low neckline, and men should not wear shorts, as that particular fashion is consider boyish in Africa.

I love taking pictures, but the majority of them are either landscapes, animals or other people- which doesn't really do us any good in this situation. All the rest of our shots were group pictures, of us kissing (making up for lost time), with sunglasses on, etc.

We decided to make an effort to rectify the situation by taking an appropriate picture outside. It had been snowing and we thought we'd get in, get out, be done. We asked our friend Liz (see picture) to help us out, and she graciously agreed. I later found out she had written earlier on her Facebook page that she was avoiding the nasty weather by staying inside- oops...Yes, she is an absolute doll.

Well, we decided that we should give our best effort at around 4:30. Oh, yeah, we forgot about the time change and all. So, here are the resulting pictures- fine, but probably not going to make the thank you cards. There is just something about missionaries being surrounded by a cloud of black that I think gives the wrong impression...