The Long Good-Bye

With our last full weekend in our house upon us, we are in a strange dichotomy of being emotional about saying good-bye and entirely practical about all that needs to be done before we walk away.  After a large moving sale this Saturday, we'll pack more boxes, make lists, call utility companies, and change our address for all of our mailings.  Some sweet friends are even joining me next week for a kitchen packing party.  I'll be supplying vino and sweets in exchange for their hard work.  Wink.

But today I gave myself permission to be sentimental as my kids played on their swingset for the last time.  Our fantastic neighbors will be inheriting it and will begin the process of taking it apart and moving it tomorrow.  So this afternoon Henry and Harper swang, and slid, and climbed for the final time.  Harper served her last "dinner" out of her restaurant, The Kissy Fishy, and Henry ordered his last milkshake (a pine nettle, leaf, and red clay concoction).  They have played hard and imagined well there. 

Selling a beloved home is a long good-bye.  I can't be weepy throughout the whole process.  But I am allowing myself moments to say farewell to small things knowing that the true treasures are the people who will be coming on the journey with me.

Over the years. . .

Barefoot in Honduras

Never has a Kentucky native been so proud of the stigma that all Bluegrass girls walk around without shoes.  Yes folks, I left Los Bordos barefoot on the final day of our visit.  I did it for Suyapa, a beautiful girl who needed some sturdy tennis shoes.  Her broken down sandals were filthy and her feet needed care.  So, as I returned to the van to say good-bye for the last time to these resilient, amazing residents of Los Bordos, I slipped off my shoes and socks and handed them to my friend Meg to pass to Suyapa.  And I cried.  And I told Meg that I think she's going to make it.  I think she's going to stay in school.  I think she's going to resist the culture of drugs and prostitution.  I think she's going to fall in love someday and get married.  I think she's going to get out of Los Bordos.  I think she's going to have a full life.

Giving away my shoes that day was a joy, but it wasn't a new concept.  Two other team members, Christa and Meg, also walked away from their journey to Honduras, their suitcases a little lighter.  There are tangible things that we can all do to help.  Think about some small things you can do:

• Save old shoes and socks, particularly kids sizes.  
• Don't toss the nail polish colors you don't like anymore.  The kids of Los Bordos love nothing more than a good manicure:).  
• Buy inexpensive school supplies on tax free weekend.  
• Have your kids make a slew of Rainbow Loom bracelets.  
• Collect small lotions and soaps from hotel visits.  
• Keep sticker sheets that charitable organizations send in the mail.
• Save your samples from the dentist.

Contact Sparrow Missions to find out how to send these items down with a short-term mission team (consider a donation to help with baggage expenses) or just save 'em all up and get on board for a trip to Honduras in the coming year.  You might give away your shoes.  You are sure to give away your heart.

Freedom Rings

Even in the bleakest of situations, there are glimpses of her.  In the children's cancer ward, a four year old boy named Joseph proclaims that he wants to be a doctor one day. She flashes past.  A little girl, Lesby, goes home with her parents.  We glance out of the corner of our eyes.  She stands there with us.  She is Freedom.  And on this great American holiday, we celebrate her in Honduras too.

There is Freedom in a women's sewing clinic where patterns are cut out of vibrant fabrics and women treat cotton and duck cloth as fine silk.  This is their new skill and they are meticulous in their work.  They listen intently to their teachers.  Their livelihood depends on it.  The sewing clinic brings freedom.  Freedom from going hungry.  Freedom from depending on a man who may or may not come home tonight with food and money.  Freedom from intense loneliness.  To see this sisterhood of women sewing together is to see a group of girlfriends laughing and helping each other.  Freedom rings in Los Bordos.

 There is Freedom in a men's rehab called Ministerio Vida.  The men come to get clean.  They detox right there on the property.  Cold turkey.  There is no grass in the yard; they walk it down as they pace and try to rid their bodies of the substances they used to dull the pain all these many years.  The emotion is raw, but so is the hope.  The men commit to being there for seven months.  A guitar workshop has been built in the back of the property.  There is freedom in cutting boards of Honduran mahogany and rosewood, shaping and sanding.  There is great pride in carving notches for the frets and watching a magnificent instrument come to life.  At the Ministerio Vida, Freedom's song is sung one clean life at a time. 

She is there in a school full of children.  Putting pencil to paper.  Freedom dwells in each new concept grasped, every lesson learned, granting children the gift of education.  Their ticket out of certain poverty.  That no longer has to be their fate.  The generational cycle can break here.  There is Freedom in offering a chance to change the future.  The children understand that better than we know.

On this day of independence, we celebrate from afar.  Our country is the greatest in all the world.  We know that and are proud.  But today and always, we make more of true freedom.  This is the purist form of the word.  And this freedom has the ability to dwell inside us no matter the circumstances of our lives.  No matter our country of origin.  Freedom did not limit herself.  She is available to all through Christ. 

"Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." 2 Cor 3:17

"For freedom Christ has set us free." Galatians 5:1

In the poem The New Colossus, Jewish-American poet Emma Lazarus famously wrote,

Give me your tired, your poor,

your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

 the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. 

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

The bells of freedom toll loud today.

They Came Running

There is so much to say.  So much has been witnessed.  A lifetime of newscasts and clippings on world problems could not do it justice.  Those come in neat plastic rolls thrown onto my driveway for me to pick up and ingest in spurts.  I can shake my head and cluck my tongue and may even share with my husband when the news is particularly disturbing, then close the pages, smooth the lines, and walk away.  I can't do that here in Honduras.  I've seen too much. . .

 

Yesterday, we turned a corner on a back street in San Pedro Sula and I was introduced to true squalor.  Los Bordos.  A community of the shunned and forgotten.  This dirt road, lined on either side with ramshackle housing made of old wood, scrap metal, rocks, and cardboard, winds back under tall green mountains.  We don't know how far it goes.  We don't know how many people live there.  The mission teams will only go so far. 

 

Our belongings bounce and jostle over crater-like holes in the road.  There are a few curious faces peeking over tin walls.  And then they came running.  Children.  Dozens and dozens of them.  They hang on the moving vehicle and shout.  We pray quickly.  Lord, let us be your hands and feet.  And then the van door slides open and the team steps out and there are hugs.  Oh, are there hugs!

 

We go look at an improved dwelling of a woman the mission team knows well.  Her home was broken into after the death of her husband, while she and her children slept inside.  She was raped.  The missions team built a new structure for her.  She has a lock now.  Her babies feel relatively safe.  She beams with pride as she shows us around.  There is an oil painting on a wall.  Her sister and her children are visiting for a while.  They are happy to be together, but there are new mouths to feed.  The returning team members remark that the children haven't grown in the last few years.

 

This is the case for many.  A twelve year-old girl cares for her seven brothers and sisters.  She is only a little taller than my seven year-old.  She holds a sleeping baby.  A new sibling.  She has seen much.  Responsibility weighs heavily.  Her childhood is gone. 

 

Meg leads a children's discipleship class in a bright blue building.  The children listen intently and respond with energy to a story of David and Jonathan.  I paint nails for little girls.  Green with sparkles.  Their faces light up and I realize they are not so very different from my girls after all.  I paint the nails of a five year-old named Carol.  She is precious.  We begin to talk and hold hands.  I pick her up, her once floral pants faded long ago by the sun.  We stay close the rest of the afternoon.  I promise I will look for her tomorrow. 

 

Back at the mission house last night, we read Ephesians 1:5: "God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.  This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure."  God took great pleasure in our adoption.  We have full rights as sons and daughters.  Our inheritance is assured.  Yet, we still live at times as spiritual orphans.  Digging for scraps from yesterday's trash.  Choosing isolation because some pain is too heavy to share.  Continuing to remain in squalor because we perceive we aren't good enough for the spoils. 

 

As we encounter the true orphans this week- the teenage girls at Las Casitas (many of them with babies of their own, removed from their care), the elderly with no known family at the Asilo, the children at Los Bordos bringing up their sisters and brothers- our desire is to tell them in simple terms of this great adoption.  We want them to receive their full rights.  And we tell them that it brings their Father great pleasure to do so.  

 

 

 

Understanding Fishing Metaphors

If there was one thing we did regularly during our week in Iowa, it was fishing.  My kids love water, so I knew it was going to be fun, possibly messy, and we might all leave smelling, well. . . fishy.  But sitting on those banks and watching my children learn to cast a line and wait patiently for the trout to bite, I thought of a few lessons to be applied to life.  Like Flint Lockwood in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, you might say, "I don't understand fishing metaphors!", but I'll do my best to break them down.

1.  When seeking the best location, find a good guide.  

We would have been lost without my Dad this week.  He took us to the perfect trout stream where the water was cool, the shadows were long, and the fish were abundant.  Without him to show us the way, we never would have caught our full potential.  

Likewise in life, don't we all need that person of experience and wisdom?  Call it a mentor, parent, spouse, or friend, we want someone who has gone before us to proclaim that the best is up ahead and the bounty is plentiful.

2.  Learning to cast requires patience and practice.

The night Graham taught Maddox how to cast out a line, her initial motions were slow and unsuccessful.  It wasn't until she got the concept that casting is all done in the wrist that she began to improve and her hook hit the water instead of the ground behind her. 

In life, it's easy to take the back seat.  To let someone lead the way and step in at the last moment to reap the reward.  But until we learn for ourselves the work behind the gain, we can never fully experience victory. 

3.  If the water is clear, you may not get a bite.

The first night we arrived at the trout stream, the water was crystal clear.  We could see that the stream was loaded with trout, but the problem was they could see us too.  We came up shorthanded that evening.  But after a good rain the next day, we came back to a murkier fishing hole where the bounty under the surface was promised, yet harder to detect.  That night we caught our limit.

As in life, when the way seems crystal clear because of our own best made plans, we may not be fully living into the future intended for us.  There is wisdom in allowing the water to muddy up a bit.  Learning to live with less clarity helps us press in on the source of our life's plan.  "Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand."  Proverbs 19:21  Let's resolve to plan less and pull up deep and greater treasures, one by one.

 4.  When wading into the water, you might get wet.

Despite their rain boots and instructions not to wade in too far, my three water babies couldn't help themselves.  I suppose getting wet helped to solidify the experience of going to the stream and although it brought them some discomfort, it also brought a lot of joy.

Sometimes to get the full experience in life, we have to be willing to get our hands dirty and our feet wet.  To take risks.  Accept challenges.  And realize that though we may not be pretty when we reach the other side, we will have learned some valuable lessons along the way. 

5.  You've got to live with your catch.
On the night we caught our fill, those fish came home with us.  But they couldn't be neglected, not even for a day.  Long after the children were in bed, my dad and Graham were up cleaning fish.  Thankfully Mom forgot to cook them up for breakfast the next morning.  (I'm not really a trout-in-the-morning kind of girl). 

The age old adage warns, "Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it!"  The people, places, and things put under our charge have to be tended to and cared for and protected.  Be it our children, our jobs, or our homes, we bear the responsibility to live with our "catch" and choose gratitude.  After all, we can't curse and bless at the same time.  I think I'll try thanks.

Kindred Cousins

There's something about a cousin.  With a face that resembles yours.  A similar hand gesture.  A familiar look.  A feeling that you've found someone who understands.  Who gets the wonky parents you've been living with all your life because your parents are siblings.  Who celebrates the holidays the same way you do because it's tradition.  Who loves the same grandparents.  Who hears the same childhood stories.  Are sung the same lullabies. 

 

I grew up amid a sea of cousins of whom I was one of the oldest.  Many of us lived in the same town and saw each other every Sunday for lunch and a pool day when the weather was warm.  We lived for birthday parties at Grandma's.  And we stood by each other as we got older.  Those are sweet memories and I have often hoped for similar relationships for my children with all of their cousins.

 

This week, our family is visiting my parents in Iowa and for the first time, all seven cousins on my side of the family were together.  The bonding was instantaneous and we had to practically tear them away from each other when it was time for my sister and her family to go back to Minneapolis.  They are growing up a thousand miles away from each other.  Who knows when we will all be together again?  Yet, friendships were formed, memories were made, and my little people now know more now about the special friends they call "cousins".