This is the helmet conch, dad explained.
To a 5 yr. old, a glassy coated shell from the ocean is treasure beyond belief. I would carry it next to my ear, listening to the sound of the ocean. I asked my dad how it kept the sound inside. He told me that when a conch is taken from the water, it dies, and it will forever holds the sound of the sea…the sound of its home.
I think this is much like each of us, our hearts carry the sound of where we belong. It may be why we believe in destiny or fate, why
I love the idea of carrying who you are deep inside of you.
For years after my dad left, I would often take the shell and lay listening to its sound. Wishing the ocean would wrap me up, wishing my father would wrap me up.
Today, Thanksgiving day, I am missing the sound of the ocean and the sound of my father. There are no oceans and no shells anywhere around.
I went up stairs to be away from the busyness and in the closet I found a box with my name, Christmas presents from last year (can you believe my life is so busy I fail to open presents, it is true) but my mom had said she had bought some things for my house one day, and since I am no where near having a house, I left them wrapped.
Is God so purposeful that today I would opened the first present a year later, and my tears brim….I was looking at a carved wooden angel with long brown hair, and she was holding a beautiful conch shell up to her ear.
Who are You, God?
Monday, November 26, 2007
Monday, November 19, 2007
burning the vows
He was holding the scissors up to one of his dreads, questioning if he really wanted to cut them.
Do they free me or keep me in bondage?
The peace came, and he cut it.
He continued cutting them off, one by one and burned them. He said they smelled sweet like incense.
This is a tradition of the Nazarite - to grow their hair out when they make a vow to God. When they have fulfilled the vow, they cut their hair to signify its completion and then burn it.
As he watched them burn, he said he felt freedom come.
Do they free me or keep me in bondage?
The peace came, and he cut it.
He continued cutting them off, one by one and burned them. He said they smelled sweet like incense.
This is a tradition of the Nazarite - to grow their hair out when they make a vow to God. When they have fulfilled the vow, they cut their hair to signify its completion and then burn it.
As he watched them burn, he said he felt freedom come.
Not the Savior
I am listening to her words on the phone….
she is asking me if she is beautiful,
she is asking him if she is beautiful,
she is asking the world is she is beautiful.
I am asking the same question.
Each woman is asking the question.
If dad doesn’t answer it, if I don’t know how to answer it, if mom answered but I couldn’t hear her, then who will tell us we are beautiful? Because society tells me to be a slut and the world asks me to be a whore…and if my breast aren’t large enough, doctors tell me they can fix it. Fix it? Like it is some deformity or disease.
How will femininity be taught if there are few women who can remember the definition? What will I tell my reflection everyday? What will I tell my daughters one day?
I ask God about it often – see, I really want to be beautiful. I want to capture men’s approval, I want to collect the world’s affirmation so that I can feel beautiful. I want my husband to think I am beautiful enough to be faithful or my father to think I am beautiful enough to love. Why does that seems so impossible?
And He answers…you weren’t made to be the Savior.
We weren’t made to save them….a woman’s beauty is not a man’s savior. A woman’s beauty is supposed to ultimately point a man to God eternal glory, the truest beauty. Thus a man’s strength was not made to be a woman’s savior, it was to draw her into God’s perfect strength.
The battle is harder now, because men and women who have little sense of their beauty and their strength are trying to save each other. Women build their beauty upon the desire to complete and answer a man’s hunger, yet she will always fall short. She will always fail to satisfy his lust and he will fail to satisfy her expectation.
she is asking me if she is beautiful,
she is asking him if she is beautiful,
she is asking the world is she is beautiful.
I am asking the same question.
Each woman is asking the question.
If dad doesn’t answer it, if I don’t know how to answer it, if mom answered but I couldn’t hear her, then who will tell us we are beautiful? Because society tells me to be a slut and the world asks me to be a whore…and if my breast aren’t large enough, doctors tell me they can fix it. Fix it? Like it is some deformity or disease.
How will femininity be taught if there are few women who can remember the definition? What will I tell my reflection everyday? What will I tell my daughters one day?
I ask God about it often – see, I really want to be beautiful. I want to capture men’s approval, I want to collect the world’s affirmation so that I can feel beautiful. I want my husband to think I am beautiful enough to be faithful or my father to think I am beautiful enough to love. Why does that seems so impossible?
And He answers…you weren’t made to be the Savior.
We weren’t made to save them….a woman’s beauty is not a man’s savior. A woman’s beauty is supposed to ultimately point a man to God eternal glory, the truest beauty. Thus a man’s strength was not made to be a woman’s savior, it was to draw her into God’s perfect strength.
The battle is harder now, because men and women who have little sense of their beauty and their strength are trying to save each other. Women build their beauty upon the desire to complete and answer a man’s hunger, yet she will always fall short. She will always fail to satisfy his lust and he will fail to satisfy her expectation.
5 a.m.
It’s dark outside and the Texas air is a bit colder than my previous Central American mornings. Seriously, who likes waking up when it is still dark, I mumble to Kinsey as we brush our teeth. I got in late last night for Thanksgiving holiday, and to my normal expectation of family ritual, we are all up early going to workout at the wellness center together.
Five of us pile into the car as I laugh out loud at Uncle Steve’s brilliant white headband that lies in a straight line across his forehead. I think to myself that if I had this entourage with me, I might get up every morning to workout. Now stretching is a great preface, but as the song My Hips Don’t Lie begins our circuit routine – I can’t help but laugh as I watch my beloved family workout in their perfect form. Aunt Nicole’s arms are flailing vigorously as she lunges up to complete her set of sit-ups, Kinsey and Alan will not be left in the dust with their elevated heart rate apparent in each jumping jack and jump rope. Uncle Steve’s headband is methodically peeping at me in the mirror with every push-up. And little old me, well, I laugh as I attempt to balance on this exercise ball, certain no one has ever mastered looking attractive bouncing up and down on a circular rubber object.
It doesn’t end there, our $10 was not well spent until we walked out of the building only to run up a hill – now the hill country of Texas is a small feat to one who lives in the mountains, but to this flat land Louisiana/Florida girl it was quite the push. (don’t worry, I was the first one back!)
My only complaint to the morning was the dissonance of the ever-still darkness we drove home in. Somehow I am not conditioned to understand how people get up and finish such a task before the sun is awake. Yet I look forward to my holiday here, because with my family, it is always an adventure.
Five of us pile into the car as I laugh out loud at Uncle Steve’s brilliant white headband that lies in a straight line across his forehead. I think to myself that if I had this entourage with me, I might get up every morning to workout. Now stretching is a great preface, but as the song My Hips Don’t Lie begins our circuit routine – I can’t help but laugh as I watch my beloved family workout in their perfect form. Aunt Nicole’s arms are flailing vigorously as she lunges up to complete her set of sit-ups, Kinsey and Alan will not be left in the dust with their elevated heart rate apparent in each jumping jack and jump rope. Uncle Steve’s headband is methodically peeping at me in the mirror with every push-up. And little old me, well, I laugh as I attempt to balance on this exercise ball, certain no one has ever mastered looking attractive bouncing up and down on a circular rubber object.
It doesn’t end there, our $10 was not well spent until we walked out of the building only to run up a hill – now the hill country of Texas is a small feat to one who lives in the mountains, but to this flat land Louisiana/Florida girl it was quite the push. (don’t worry, I was the first one back!)
My only complaint to the morning was the dissonance of the ever-still darkness we drove home in. Somehow I am not conditioned to understand how people get up and finish such a task before the sun is awake. Yet I look forward to my holiday here, because with my family, it is always an adventure.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Burning of the Pines
We were driving through the Pine Reserves in the Maya mountains – this Reserve was once filled with acres of beautiful strong pine trees. In the midst of rainforest mountains, a wild piece of land grew with thousands of pines. Their strong backs in rows across the land.
The trees were plagued with black beetles and the entire reserve was almost lost. The only way to save it was to set fire to the trees. The fire, which stripped them of all of their glory, was actually their savior. The forest burned with brilliance only leaving small remnants of what resembles a tree. It no longer draws tourist in, the ash is all they see. But if you look close you would find deep under the burned bark, sap remains. Life is still beating deep in the roots.
The irony is chilling as I am looking for myself in this forest. Trying to find if I am still standing, if he is still standing? The disease was too deep, it had spread too far – we couldn’t catch it, all would have been lost. He dropped the match and walked away.
I wonder if God saw the light from up there? I wonder if He notices when we are burned up, if He too stops and stares? Seems our God is too wild for me. Only He would allow beauty and disaster to share the same scene. The fires take everything. Little is left.
I stare at the trees covered in ash, stare at my future and back at my past. Which one more beautiful, who is to say? Is it brilliance of glory that I am burned up by His mercy…and I am left to discover that their is beauty in what someone else said is an ugly, burned pine tree.
In a few years I will return to this forest - I will dance in its radiance, in the re-growth and the glory.
The trees were plagued with black beetles and the entire reserve was almost lost. The only way to save it was to set fire to the trees. The fire, which stripped them of all of their glory, was actually their savior. The forest burned with brilliance only leaving small remnants of what resembles a tree. It no longer draws tourist in, the ash is all they see. But if you look close you would find deep under the burned bark, sap remains. Life is still beating deep in the roots.
The irony is chilling as I am looking for myself in this forest. Trying to find if I am still standing, if he is still standing? The disease was too deep, it had spread too far – we couldn’t catch it, all would have been lost. He dropped the match and walked away.
I wonder if God saw the light from up there? I wonder if He notices when we are burned up, if He too stops and stares? Seems our God is too wild for me. Only He would allow beauty and disaster to share the same scene. The fires take everything. Little is left.
I stare at the trees covered in ash, stare at my future and back at my past. Which one more beautiful, who is to say? Is it brilliance of glory that I am burned up by His mercy…and I am left to discover that their is beauty in what someone else said is an ugly, burned pine tree.
In a few years I will return to this forest - I will dance in its radiance, in the re-growth and the glory.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Fighting crime and hanging hammocks
Boating to the mainland wasn't half as fun as packing into our 15 passenger rental van. After picking up a friend at the airport, we headed into the rainforest...passing everything from Taiwanese communities and the Haitesville jail, to finding ourselves a Mennonite! I must move on quickly through my story as the hitch-hiker though one of our favorite stories is one of many.
On our way to the Mountain Equestrian lodge, the Mennonite attempted to recruit us to his church - promising 20 men for every woman. We kindly thanked him for his offer as we let him out at his horse shoeing job...on to our weekend in the mountains! We spent our days cantoring horses through the rainforest (learning every plant antidote), hiking through waterfalls and pools, and our evening playing Scrabble and Texas hold'em by kerosene lamp...definitely the life!
We soon headed to Guatemala to climb the ruins and run from the "conejo (rabbit) hunters" better known as banditos! The land was beautiful...an untouched country with landscapes where huge lakes kissed mountainsides. The magnificence of a sunset over an untouched mountain surrounded by the sea took my breath away.
Since this adventure to the mainland, we have settled back into the normal. We spent our days at a fly fishing resort: kayaking to the reef, healing our mosquito bites in the ocean and still finding the occassional tick. My favorite is swimming into the middle of the ocean and letting the water carry me, the ocean seems to be the only place big enough to handle my heart. We are going to relax a few days....dad and I set up hammocks this morning and then ran to the bridge to report an attempted burglar who wears a gray hat and blue backpack...the elderly tariff collector at the bridge assured us he would keep a look out! i laugh at the simplicity of this place.
I miss my friends tons but who would fight crime here on the island if I weren't here. I am looking for a replacement so I can come home soon!
all my love.
On our way to the Mountain Equestrian lodge, the Mennonite attempted to recruit us to his church - promising 20 men for every woman. We kindly thanked him for his offer as we let him out at his horse shoeing job...on to our weekend in the mountains! We spent our days cantoring horses through the rainforest (learning every plant antidote), hiking through waterfalls and pools, and our evening playing Scrabble and Texas hold'em by kerosene lamp...definitely the life!
We soon headed to Guatemala to climb the ruins and run from the "conejo (rabbit) hunters" better known as banditos! The land was beautiful...an untouched country with landscapes where huge lakes kissed mountainsides. The magnificence of a sunset over an untouched mountain surrounded by the sea took my breath away.
Since this adventure to the mainland, we have settled back into the normal. We spent our days at a fly fishing resort: kayaking to the reef, healing our mosquito bites in the ocean and still finding the occassional tick. My favorite is swimming into the middle of the ocean and letting the water carry me, the ocean seems to be the only place big enough to handle my heart. We are going to relax a few days....dad and I set up hammocks this morning and then ran to the bridge to report an attempted burglar who wears a gray hat and blue backpack...the elderly tariff collector at the bridge assured us he would keep a look out! i laugh at the simplicity of this place.
I miss my friends tons but who would fight crime here on the island if I weren't here. I am looking for a replacement so I can come home soon!
all my love.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Belizean Citizenship
So we've been here a week and dad tells me I should consider dual citizenship, I laugh as I think about my trip on the motorcycle last night that left me stranded asking the grocery guy to help me start it...i am not so clever when it comes to Belizean transportation: golf carts, boats, and motorcycles! It has been good to be here - the sea has welcomed me with her silence that heals my heart a little more. God seems to be giving me kisses through sea turtles as I have chased two in the last two snorkeling trips (and they are pretty rare!)
Autumn and I have been spending 5-6 hours a day on the book, and I must say I have never felt more vulnerable than to actually live out this dream to write and publish. I don't want to admit how much I love to write, that if people really would read it, I might write for the rest of my life!
If this wasn't exciting enough, I broke through another fear tonight as I sang karaoke with Bonnie and Autumn - picture a Latino bar with the smallest dance floor and a french woman who dances with such fierce abandonment I find myself next to her smiling and dancing the same! I have never seen so many latino men sing slow spanish love songs with more passion than I have ever seen in the movies!
If all these things were not enough yet I will try to win you over with this, dad thinks we need to practice if the world were to end...so we leave tomorrow for a weekend camping trip on the island! We are taking 10 of us and we are fishing and living on the land....dad says that reality t.v. is not his thing, and he wants to play Survivor in real life, so off to the island!
There is my update....heels and a machete will always be my preference!
Friday, October 26, 2007
disorderly beautiful
“God hasn't invited us into a disorderly, unkempt life but into something holy and beautiful—as beautiful on the inside as the outside. If you disregard this advice, you're not offending your neighbors; you're rejecting God, who is making you a gift of his Holy Spirit.” -1 Thessalonians, The Message
I am baffled by this verse, for what is inside of me is definitely a ‘disorderly, unkempt life’ – I mean, I only show you so little of loneliness, so little of my face – so what does it mean if God has only invited me into something holy and beautiful? It means that either I am in sin or I am redefining beauty. Is it beautiful to cry and curse till there are no longer words but silence the only thing that holds your heart, because pain can not be heard? Then that is what I will call beauty, in its elegance and grace, because all I have of holiness is by invitation He’s laced.
We read these verses blindly or we watch t.v.
and beauty and holy are no longer me.
They are chipped out and painted on canvas across my drive home,
of women and men yet I know their alone.
See the hurting and suffering our hearts try to lock
up, are bursting of pain - if only someone would knock.
Yet I falter to know if that is beautiful at all
when she’s left there naked and there is no you?
Stories upon stories I hear everyday and if hurting and pain are not holy, what do I say,
to all those who linger without limbs from the fight…. I pray that God redefines beauty alike.
I am baffled by this verse, for what is inside of me is definitely a ‘disorderly, unkempt life’ – I mean, I only show you so little of loneliness, so little of my face – so what does it mean if God has only invited me into something holy and beautiful? It means that either I am in sin or I am redefining beauty. Is it beautiful to cry and curse till there are no longer words but silence the only thing that holds your heart, because pain can not be heard? Then that is what I will call beauty, in its elegance and grace, because all I have of holiness is by invitation He’s laced.
We read these verses blindly or we watch t.v.
and beauty and holy are no longer me.
They are chipped out and painted on canvas across my drive home,
of women and men yet I know their alone.
See the hurting and suffering our hearts try to lock
up, are bursting of pain - if only someone would knock.
Yet I falter to know if that is beautiful at all
when she’s left there naked and there is no you?
Stories upon stories I hear everyday and if hurting and pain are not holy, what do I say,
to all those who linger without limbs from the fight…. I pray that God redefines beauty alike.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
A tribute to friendship
What can I say about people who stand beside you in your struggle: hope for you, cry with you, laugh with you, pray for you, and commit to seeing you reach all that is within you. I want to love the way these women have loved me - i want to love all people with such freedom. There have been women in my life who have stood next to me (in this picture and don't forget Bonnie, Toni, Angie and Beth!) If life would bless us with only one gift, it should be love - at the end of it all we will be asked if we loved well. I want to love well....for all is lost if there is not love. It is worth more than anything I have, thus everything I will give to learn what it means to love. May we all experience it.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Mom's rocking chair
I tiptoe to the glass room with the phone in my hands
and crawl into the rocker set near the window.
Its dark and I listen to words from a distance
and wonder if relationship is worth such precision.
I trace the wood on the arms of my momma’s old rocker
the scratches left by my fingernails long ago.
As I sway in the rocker it takes me back to her songs
that she’d sing; back to the rhythm of the methodical creak.
Now a woman I sit but as a baby I lay in this rocker that held me,
that lessened my pain. Same fabric holds tears that it held long ago
and if mommas where wooden then here is where I’d go.
If I found her I’d ask her to sing to me please
because life and its brokenness has not offered her ease.
and crawl into the rocker set near the window.
Its dark and I listen to words from a distance
and wonder if relationship is worth such precision.
I trace the wood on the arms of my momma’s old rocker
the scratches left by my fingernails long ago.
As I sway in the rocker it takes me back to her songs
that she’d sing; back to the rhythm of the methodical creak.
Now a woman I sit but as a baby I lay in this rocker that held me,
that lessened my pain. Same fabric holds tears that it held long ago
and if mommas where wooden then here is where I’d go.
If I found her I’d ask her to sing to me please
because life and its brokenness has not offered her ease.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
mother of dan
Wilson has become one of my favorite of the Malawian staff here, as driver, he has been the one through the summer who has awakened many a smile on my face. Wilson has brought me to and from the village I lived in, he has been the one to carry in water or food for us…thus everyone loves Wilson.
So as we set out to Lake Malawi today for a staff appreciation event, Wilson makes sure I am sitting next to his wife and kids. “Abanda, you are about to meet my better half”, he tells me, as we drive up to his hut in the village. Eight people live in the little hut that I stare at, Wilson has been married 22 years and they have six kids. I look over at Jody reading a Francine River’s Christian romance novel and I wonder if I have any concept of true romance.
As Wilson’s son, Esau naps on my lap drooling down my arm, I study Wilson and his wife Pauline as they interact. She laughs at him quite often as Wilson is a character to say the least. I notice the name he calls her is different than her name – I still fighting my romantic make-up assume it is a pet name they call each other. By the time the picnic rolls around I ask Wilson what is the translation for the name he calls his wife. They look at each other fondly, “ I call her mother of Dan and she calls me father of Dan.” My little romantic notions are squashed. “Why?” I ask in Chichewa. He explains and what I got from it was that it was their first creation of life together.
It wasn’t a “he’s your son” comment, it was a beautiful mystery that somehow two people could offer their very selves in human form. Of course this beautiful epiphany was told over Wilson serving his wife cabbage and her breast feeding their 10 month old. It was a realistic picture, yes we have six kids and most days we are running with our heads cut off taking care of them, but we also honor the beauty and wonder of creation.
Later that night, Jody and I talked about her romance novel and the future husbands we dream about, but more intrigued by all of that we were speechless to think of the power of love shared that very night in a mud hut between a man and a woman and their six children.
So as we set out to Lake Malawi today for a staff appreciation event, Wilson makes sure I am sitting next to his wife and kids. “Abanda, you are about to meet my better half”, he tells me, as we drive up to his hut in the village. Eight people live in the little hut that I stare at, Wilson has been married 22 years and they have six kids. I look over at Jody reading a Francine River’s Christian romance novel and I wonder if I have any concept of true romance.
As Wilson’s son, Esau naps on my lap drooling down my arm, I study Wilson and his wife Pauline as they interact. She laughs at him quite often as Wilson is a character to say the least. I notice the name he calls her is different than her name – I still fighting my romantic make-up assume it is a pet name they call each other. By the time the picnic rolls around I ask Wilson what is the translation for the name he calls his wife. They look at each other fondly, “ I call her mother of Dan and she calls me father of Dan.” My little romantic notions are squashed. “Why?” I ask in Chichewa. He explains and what I got from it was that it was their first creation of life together.
It wasn’t a “he’s your son” comment, it was a beautiful mystery that somehow two people could offer their very selves in human form. Of course this beautiful epiphany was told over Wilson serving his wife cabbage and her breast feeding their 10 month old. It was a realistic picture, yes we have six kids and most days we are running with our heads cut off taking care of them, but we also honor the beauty and wonder of creation.
Later that night, Jody and I talked about her romance novel and the future husbands we dream about, but more intrigued by all of that we were speechless to think of the power of love shared that very night in a mud hut between a man and a woman and their six children.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
African Faith
Chance and Henri stayed and talked with me tonight after dinner. We started to talk about the statistics of divorce in America versus Africa. They told me of differences they face in relationships, they spoke of how in the church women of strong faith are lacking. I said from my perspective it is the opposite in the states as it is the men who are lacking of strong faith within the church. I asked them about whether they believed there was one person made to be your soul mate. We got into a deep discussion of God’s will and His sovereignty. Chance says God does not want to hide His will for us from us. He says if we are seeking Him the Father will be faithful. It sounded so simple, profound and true standing there in the kitchen in the middle of Africa. There was no doubt, no fear in what they spoke. I thought of my friends back home; ones who are still waiting to meet the right spouse, those who are divorced, and all the pain of relationships that I have heard or encountered. Could it be that simple? The Lord wants good for us and He is faithful.
I told them I have been praying more and I ask God each time, give me African faith.
I told them I have been praying more and I ask God each time, give me African faith.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Give them the world
I was probably no older than 8 when my aunt Jinx gave me a world map for Christmas. Don’t ever say I didn’t give you anything, I gave you the world! I didn’t really understand it, but she and my aunt Nicole did take me and Valeska on a trip to Europe that summer. Something came alive in me when I would travel, the countries and the cultures became my favorite teacher – I began to see and learn things that I would have never known.
Thus in our small village of Chiwengo this summer we built a library for the children we taught. The outside of the library has an empty wall which I decided needed some livening up…thus I gave the children what my aunt gave me….the world! It was my favorite contribution – a room full of books and a wall with the world! Check out the picture!
Safari in Zambia
Much has happened, I have actually just returned from safari in Zambia and it was amazing! Crossing the border was a little harder than expected but once in the jeeps scouting animals, I was so excited! We took morning, mid-day, and evening tours – I saw water buffalo, monkeys, elephants, leopards, hyenas, elk looking animals, lions, and even cubs!!! Absolutely breath-taking!
The animals were so close to us, it was phenomenal, my only disappointment was not seeing an actual kill! BUT I did have an elephant outside my lodge looking in my window!
Now I am back to the base camp, the interns have gone home, and I am just tying up loose ends. I will go back to see the children one more time! I have exactly one week till I get home!
All my love!
The animals were so close to us, it was phenomenal, my only disappointment was not seeing an actual kill! BUT I did have an elephant outside my lodge looking in my window!
Now I am back to the base camp, the interns have gone home, and I am just tying up loose ends. I will go back to see the children one more time! I have exactly one week till I get home!
All my love!
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Happy Birthday Kinz and a dedication to Klemmer!
It seems like I am always surprised by how my attitude changes by just 2 liters of cold water, a coke, and a candy bar! Now for those who know me that is not my regular diet but after hiking mount Kasunga that is what left me a really happy woman. (please note here that I am a cheap date!)
Story goes we took over 50 of the children in our village to hike Mount Kasunga, well picture me, first with my charge of 15 interns and then 50 more African kids - it was incredible, and I stayed centered the entire time!!! So my bag is packed with pb&j sandwiches and boiled eggs for everyone's lunch and we rent a huge coaster that we stand for the hour drive to the mountain.
We get there, hike to the top, enjoy our lunch, I enjoy the less weight and then we say a quick share time about the incredible view from the mountain's top....and we head down. Now, in the midst of watching everyone half run down, half stay at the top, me staying centered...i remembered my silent hill climb with group in San Diego, and I began to look at ways to live differently even in the hike down. So I am suddenly aware of two women who are rolling logs down the mountain, we are talking big logs that crash down and I am first fearful of the kids getting hit. Then I am in awe of having a job of rolling logs down the mountainside in the sun...with babies on your backs and barefoot. (noting to myself I will never complain about being too tired to vacuum!!)
As I am in awe of these women I yell to the group to think about what it would be like to have this as your career. I then take a log and give it a couple of rolls, wow, definitely hard. Then I decide, what would change the world here? Maybe if we all rolled a log down, the women might remember us as the azungus who helped them work? So I began to roll a log (note, they roll 3 logs at a time!) but I could only do one, so I am rolling it for awhile and I look back and the woman is just watching me and when she sees what I am doing, she smiles!
Well, even with my encouragments I only got one other log roller (i think the Klemmer group might have responded differently) but I was different when I made it down the rest of the mountain.
Climbing onto the coaster, my girls kept telling me Christy, I was so proud of you. I was so proud of you as my leader, pushing those logs down. And I thought, I want to live this way everyday, looking in the most ordinary places to live beyond.
(not that hiking a mountain in Africa is an ordinary occurrence!)
love you guys!
Story goes we took over 50 of the children in our village to hike Mount Kasunga, well picture me, first with my charge of 15 interns and then 50 more African kids - it was incredible, and I stayed centered the entire time!!! So my bag is packed with pb&j sandwiches and boiled eggs for everyone's lunch and we rent a huge coaster that we stand for the hour drive to the mountain.
We get there, hike to the top, enjoy our lunch, I enjoy the less weight and then we say a quick share time about the incredible view from the mountain's top....and we head down. Now, in the midst of watching everyone half run down, half stay at the top, me staying centered...i remembered my silent hill climb with group in San Diego, and I began to look at ways to live differently even in the hike down. So I am suddenly aware of two women who are rolling logs down the mountain, we are talking big logs that crash down and I am first fearful of the kids getting hit. Then I am in awe of having a job of rolling logs down the mountainside in the sun...with babies on your backs and barefoot. (noting to myself I will never complain about being too tired to vacuum!!)
As I am in awe of these women I yell to the group to think about what it would be like to have this as your career. I then take a log and give it a couple of rolls, wow, definitely hard. Then I decide, what would change the world here? Maybe if we all rolled a log down, the women might remember us as the azungus who helped them work? So I began to roll a log (note, they roll 3 logs at a time!) but I could only do one, so I am rolling it for awhile and I look back and the woman is just watching me and when she sees what I am doing, she smiles!
Well, even with my encouragments I only got one other log roller (i think the Klemmer group might have responded differently) but I was different when I made it down the rest of the mountain.
Climbing onto the coaster, my girls kept telling me Christy, I was so proud of you. I was so proud of you as my leader, pushing those logs down. And I thought, I want to live this way everyday, looking in the most ordinary places to live beyond.
(not that hiking a mountain in Africa is an ordinary occurrence!)
love you guys!
Monday, July 30, 2007
Baby Bridget
Baby Bridget has just come. She is our newest baby. When we first got her she was the boniest little baby who couldn’t cry because she lacked the strength. Thus the first time she cried was when she saw a white person. We automatically apologized but the aunties were elated because Bridget had cried. They explained to us that to be healthy enough to cry was what they had been praying for. I was once again amazed by the perspective the Malawian hold, to think of the optimistic side, the idea that to cry means you must first be healthy enough, you must know the good side if there is ever a hope for knowing the lack of.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
All That I Have Sown
I realized today how it bothers me that I am getting older. My friends are marrying, having children, and starting the next step in their lives. So the not so kind critic comes to question where I am in life, who I have become, and what have I accomplished thus far.
“How many transportation vehicles have I sat journaling in as I tour some obscure country?” I ask myself. Have all my deep thoughts and longings accomplished anything for me up to now?
Have I sown all I have to offer…
I am a small girl who has become more now to resemble a woman, a warrior princess learning to be a queen. My heart has to this point been given to many: some broken pieces to men, some tearful places left around the world, mostly it has been stitched within the laughter and smiles of those I love dearly.
I don’t know if I’ve done it right, don’t know if I’ve missed paths which could have offered me more but I hope for this, that all You have for me would not be lost, not one moment or wish – for my greatest accomplishment thus far has been finding one who dreams for me beyond what I could….and then giving Him all of me.
“How many transportation vehicles have I sat journaling in as I tour some obscure country?” I ask myself. Have all my deep thoughts and longings accomplished anything for me up to now?
Have I sown all I have to offer…
I am a small girl who has become more now to resemble a woman, a warrior princess learning to be a queen. My heart has to this point been given to many: some broken pieces to men, some tearful places left around the world, mostly it has been stitched within the laughter and smiles of those I love dearly.
I don’t know if I’ve done it right, don’t know if I’ve missed paths which could have offered me more but I hope for this, that all You have for me would not be lost, not one moment or wish – for my greatest accomplishment thus far has been finding one who dreams for me beyond what I could….and then giving Him all of me.
Time takes its toll on us
Time takes its toll on us. Time takes away but love remains. There is a quiet excitement that rises within me, it is early morning and the bus ride back to the village is welcoming. Africa is good for me and God is good to me. Hosea 2:14 runs through my head, “ I will allure her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. That’s where I am going back to, the desert, to a place I have come to love. Vulnerability. True authenticity.
There are certain questions that always find us when we are quiet long enough. Questions of the past, wonders of the future. I have lived in the silence that leaves one restless but now I touch momentarily on the resting that leads to silence. All the wondering, the doubts, the hopes, the hunger is met though not answered. This journey of intimacy is my life, not just an African theme, no it is the life You’ve called me to. In the lost chapter of my story I have begun to question vulnerability – whether intimacy remains intimate when plastered for all to see…yet the answer is no one can know us even if our souls paraded naked on paper. For the soul can only be reached by one touch, the touch of it’s Creator. So as you read my heart across this screen know it can only be seen because I have been loved by the greatest of Fathers, lovers, and Kings. My heart is here for you to see because it is no longer my own.
The call of authenticity is only satisfied through vulnerable intimacy with the author of silence.
There are certain questions that always find us when we are quiet long enough. Questions of the past, wonders of the future. I have lived in the silence that leaves one restless but now I touch momentarily on the resting that leads to silence. All the wondering, the doubts, the hopes, the hunger is met though not answered. This journey of intimacy is my life, not just an African theme, no it is the life You’ve called me to. In the lost chapter of my story I have begun to question vulnerability – whether intimacy remains intimate when plastered for all to see…yet the answer is no one can know us even if our souls paraded naked on paper. For the soul can only be reached by one touch, the touch of it’s Creator. So as you read my heart across this screen know it can only be seen because I have been loved by the greatest of Fathers, lovers, and Kings. My heart is here for you to see because it is no longer my own.
The call of authenticity is only satisfied through vulnerable intimacy with the author of silence.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
defining wealth in africa
Okay, so we went to Lake Malawi this past weekend for a retreat with our teams – it was gorgeous! We took a boat out to an island and went snorkeling and cliff diving! It was incredible, don’t worry about me guys, loving the orphans in Africa is a blast! I have to say though, it messes with your mind to go back and forth between such poverty and such wealth. I have gotten better with the struggle. It seems there are pros and cons in every place and I must say the same with poverty and wealth, it seems as if it is a matter of perspective. I love the freedom that financial wealth has given me yet I find there is something in the African people that I long for, something that no American I know can afford....I sat in a village today shucking maiz with the Malawian women and there laughter filled the lulls of our limited conversation - I think I laughed more with them than I have for a long time in America. My friend told me the other day that he smiles more here than he ever has, really smiling...that is what I find here, they smile from the depths of their hearts and I am touched in a place I haven't been touched when I am home in the states. How can that be...the richest country can't offer me what the poorest has lavished upon me?
building a definition of wealth.
all my love
building a definition of wealth.
all my love
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