There’s no place like home

There’s no place like home, but which home? Colorado or Chimoio?

What would I give for teleportation via tapping my feet in sparkly shining shoes.

I do have shiny sparkly shoes.

I wore these shiny glittery shoes as house slippers inside my home in Africa for two weeks. Then I clicked my heels….well actually then a got in a car and we drove for about 3 hours. I was reluctant to kiss my hubby goodbye one last time after getting my passport and residence documents stamped for my exit of the country.

I wonder what the officer was thinking when I asked him to let me back through the door to say my final goodbye. He let me embrace my stinker hubby one last time, and kiss him goodbye. I was a bit anxious on so many levels. I’m kind of a disaster traveling alone. I’m actually kind of a disaster traveling. It’s funny how people assume that I must be a great traveler. I do have experience. Lots of experience crossing over the big blue ocean, but I’m not. I’m probably among the worst travelers. I try not to let it out, but sometimes I’m so uncomfortable that I get gas. I also have to say that I don’t sit still. The people around me always have extra bumps because I’m tall. I hit their chair with my knees or bump their tray table. Oh its hard to travel, so I’m always happy for some extra leg room. I love the bulkheads. But here I go rambling off on the discomfort of travel when I was telling my exit story.

That’s right. Joao kissed me goodbye. I held his face in my hands for the last time in a month. I would be a tragic soldiers wife. Definitely crying at any deployment. I don’t just love my husband. I really like to be with him. We do stuff together every day. We are those gooey romantic people that some people love to hate, but we present pretty normal in social settings.

Goodness. I’m outing our romance. Our passionate silliness and all that jazz should be under wraps. I know, but I miss him. I hated saying goodbye. I managed getting on the first plane from Beira to Joburg without any problem. It was a smooth flight. No anxiety. I was just watching out the window looking at my other country for the last time in probably 10 months. It was fine getting from Joburg to London. I had a bowl of soup at Mugg & Bean in the airport and was able to use WiFi for 30 minutes. I loaded emails on my phone, and tried to post on Facebook. It was heavenly.

Then I moved through the airport trying to find where my gate was. It’s the hidden one in the international Terminal that has no loud speaker once you find it. That’s ok. A long line of travelers filled the walkway waiting for boarding to start while I sat on the floor and charged my phone in a plug on the wall.    

So, I can manage my way through airports, and I know where to find things like charging stations or just a random plug. But I’m still not nearly as confident as people might guess. I’m not mentally or cognitively afraid of flying, and therefore anxious. Something about how my eyes dry out, and my stomach always hurts speaks of physical anxiety from the movement. I keep an eye on the ‘doggy bag’ - seriously. I have some pretty good vertigo. People offer me motion sickness pill,  but it hasn’t helped up to now. I just suffer through and will myself to get over the nausea by thinking about other things. Read if I can handle it, listen to a book, or watch a movie. Mostly, I want to sleep on a flight so I can ignore my physical discomfort.

Anyway, I couldn’t eat much on the flight to London. I managed to nibble on almost every meal while what I wanted to do was not eat at all. I get emotional when I say goodbye to people for a while. I don’t like to eat when I’m emotional. I just wanted to cry. But I felt really vulnerable with the people around me. They were kind, but observant. I just wanted to be an oblivious blip on someone’s radar. I couldn’t cry. Watching something sad wouldn’t work either. The person next to me seemed to be searching my soul. I planned to spend a few hours in a bedroom pod in the London Heathrow airport before waiting for my plane from London to L.A. That was lovely. I had nice hot shower with running water after two weeks of no running water.

I laid on the bed with fresh white linens, then had a lovely breakfast before I checked out. I headed to the shop area and bought cold medicine from the drugstore in the airport. Then I found a secluded bench somewhere by a black baby grand piano that was fitted with a player. It was lovely, so pleasant to hear the rich sounds of a finely tuned instrument.  I finished my Sudoku puzzle from the previous plane magazine, and then checked the screens for my gate. They only show the gate number one hour before boarding time there. I found my gate and starting boarding just after grabbing a few magazines.

This flight was different. My row was empty until the last two passengers were assisted to board the aircraft. They were a lovely older couple from India. They spoke very little English, and I was literally thrilled. First of all, my first mission’s trip as an adult was in India. Secondly, they were just to cute and so precious. I loved helping them with the little things. Then they went to sleep. There was some kind of tenderness that gave me permission to cry. I cried off and on for one hour before putting on a sad movie that I cried through off and on. I finally got the emotional release that I was looking for.

The cold and flu meds I bought helped me to fall asleep. The broken rest was better than no rest. I landed in LA late in the evening, but it was still pretty bright outside. I had traveled about half way around the globe and crossed from the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere: Winter to Summer. I was greeted by a friend who hosted me for two nights to help me get over the jet lag, and an ugly cold or flu…or something from traveling in changing climates. Anyway, She’s a great friend. Any excuse to hang out with her is well worth it!

I wasn’t crying on my last flight from L.A. to Denver, and I wasn’t wishing that I could cry or forcing myself to eat at least a third of somewhat improved airplane meals.  I wasn’t even saying goodbye to my home for the last decade. I was finally hopping on a plane to see my kids after three weeks of being away. BUT, This leg of my flights  is where I was by far the biggest disaster.

Oh my goodness. It’s a miracle I even got on that plane after falling down the escalators. I’m serious. There was barely enough time to get to my bag drop after I walked to the first elevator at the end of the terminal. It wasn’t working. So my ten minutes was down to five. Then I walked to the other end of the terminal to find that it wasn’t working either. So I went to the third elevator outside and saw no lights, no nothing. 3 elevators not working, and my time was ticking away. You are not supposed to travel on escalators with heavy check-in luggage for a reason. They are cumbersome and heavy. But I was running out of options and losing any chance of getting my bag to Denver at the same time as me.   To my annoyance, I tried to get my 50 pound bag along with my 20 pounds of check-in to stand up neatly on the moving stairs. Only three steps up, we crumbled. Crumbling is so much better than toppled. It was like melting down, instead of dramatic rolling. So I was glad that I didn’t have any clothes or shoelaces caught in the moving steps. I have some bruised knees and an escalator burn on my left leg, but I got myself and the bags up to the next floor where the bag drop was. I managed to get to my feet, get the bags stable and somehow stumble up the escalator all the way to the top.

I power-walked from there, past the broken elevator in the middle of the terminal with a crowd of twenty people waiting while two service men worked on fixing the elevator, all the to the check-in desk, right as the cut off time for checked bags rolled over the clock. To my delight, the attendant quickly helped me get the bag tagged and on its way to the plane. I had paid for it online. All I needed was to get to that bag drop 45 minutes before my flight was scheduled to leave. The tag said that I was 1 minute late. In that one minute I had managed to share my woes with the lady, and she informed me that my bag would go to Denver on this flight or the next. I needed to head straight to security though. So I did. However, they sent me to the slow line. It was my delight (I’m more timid than anybody believes so that is sarcasm. I know its hard to read sarcasm, but just believe me its cynical) my delight, to kindly ask everyone in front of me if they would let me go in front of them since my plane was boarding. They were all so kind. I managed to get to my gate just as they made the last call for my boarding zone.

It was a huge relief to sit on the last plane home. I was actually a champion during the flight, no tears, no anxiety, no gas. Just wide eyed wonder as I watched the landscape beneath our plane change from Ocean and green mountains, to desert and canyons, and then mountains again. My mountains were at long last, beneath me. I recognized different mountain ranges and peaks. There was some kind of settling in my soul. It felt like contentment for the tradeoff of Chimoio for Colorado. Now I just needed to find out if my checked bag made it.

There were toys from Africa in there, and I wanted to be able to give them to my boys. I saw it, on the wrong baggage terminal thingy, but I recognized it from far away. I found a working elevator in Denver and went down to passenger pick up. My dad came to get me with mine and my hubby’s three boys. They came filing out of the car to hug and kiss me. I was so happy to see them. We had an ice-cream together as we headed home. It was a short drive, but so very final.

I have been spending these last few days just hugging my boys, chatting with my hubby who is an ocean away, catching up with some homework and emails, and resting. That yucky snot got pretty bad as the flights only irritated my sinuses more, so I saw a doctor today and he suggested more rest and more of the same meds. After all, I do know how to recover from international travel.

I feel like my heart has been divided in two. I’d rather it be my liver. It’s the only organ that can grow back when its divided, and therefore so much more like love. Love is not diminished when it’s shared, it only grows. So I could say that half my heart is on this continent and half my heart is in Africa, or I can talk about my liver. It grows, so It’s more like love. I can love two places and two people groups, and have my family in multiple continents. That’s ok. It was feeling like a broken heart, but its mended.

I feel more like I’ve shared my liver…..so it’s easy to spread the love.

This is goofy and I’m sorry for those who read to the end. I’m sure it’s the night-time Mucinex setting in and interrupting my ability to communicate.

Well, thanks for all the love and support! Your a champion if you've read this far.

Lots of love right back at you!

Missionary Momma Mia

S'not soup

Snot soup….that was the title of a book I read in 3^rd grade…nothing to do with my day, except for the way my head feels. Sorry folks. I’m not so poetic, romantic, or writing that great today. I know it’s kinda yucky. Sometimes I might just be a little to frank. The truth is, I’m feeling kinda tired and have a stuffy head. There is a little bit of snot in my head, or maybe a lot of snot. So I can’t smell much and I can’t think very well either.

So here it is: We are in Mozambique at the start of the winter season, but we just left the beginning of summer. I’m finding out that even though the temperatures are pretty close, my body is responding like its winter! I needed a jacket the other evening, and even had a cold when I woke up yesterday morning. Well, I’m kinda laughing because I feel warm, but at night my body is telling me that we are winter. Even after such a long time away, my body seems to want to acclimate pretty quickly.  

Tonight I’m going to sleep under another blanket with my socks and pjs on to see if I wake up less stuffy. Now I’m going to sip on some lemon tea, try to write some more for school or emails, pay some bills online, and listen to the local nightly news in the background.

Sorry to post a blurg….but this is as good as it gets tonight…

Thanks for patience and thanks for reading!

Lots of love,

Missionary Momma Mia

Celebrating our brain's quirks

‘Well this happened’ is a pretty common phrase, and it's ok to say.

We all learn how to edit out mistakes that our brain previously thought was okay as we gain more education and experience. Our societies have certain standards that help maintain order, such as language spelling and grammar rules. We learn to speak our national language according to the standards that will produce the greatest ease of communication. However, as children and babies, the majority of us were probably allowed to say words with ‘baby sounds’ or our own baby words for various things like bottle, mother, father, food or pets. Lots of parents help their children edit out baby words before heading to elementary school. We expand our vocabulary and understanding of grammar in order to be better more mature communicators. Our brain edits out the habit of saying, “me want numnums” to “May I please have a snack.” Why? I think it’s because after a certain age,  one form of communication produces the desired result much more rapidly. (I think its because of the use of the magic word).

Some of us would rather not have communication norms and spelling and grammar rules. But, it would be really hard to understand other people. So, what am I trying to say? Every once in a while an adult has published a post, article or blog with a few small grammatical mistakes, or even left out an entire thought that caused a book to be revised only a year later. This stuff happens. It could be because word did or didn’t automatically change something. I tend to think that it is our brain being quirky and reminding us that we were once children. The learning process was, and is amazing. At the same time, our brains might need to edit out more childish thinking.

I think of spoonerisms or accidental ‘tongue twisters’ more like a quirk, a twitch, or a need for editing. It’s probably not so far out there that a spoonerism would interrupt our lives and be a major concern. It could be weird if someone hears the speaker switch sounds for the first time and it is considered ‘no laughing matter.’ Someone might throw out that is a sign of impending doom. I think that you are not necessarily on your way to a nervous breakdown because you said “spork and foon”. If someone said that to me, then I would have to say, ‘So that happened.’ or  “I’m sorry that’s not what I intended to come out of my mouth.” I usually laugh or argue that is not what I wanted to say!….

If it happens to you, learn your stuff! Know your stuff! And also admit when you aren’t sure and need to learn more about your stuff. Do some research about your quirk. My dad told me that a college professor was famous for switching the starting sounds of words around in a phrase, so that little quirk was given his name. That brain quirk became a ‘spoonerism’. Talk about celebrating his brain quirk! This is like fifth hand information. I don’t remember if I properly researched it. I was around twelve or thirteen the first time I was emphatically explaining something and it poured over my teeth incorrectly. I argued that that is not what I said. Dad helped me through it. Was there a college professor named Spooner? I think so. I believed him, and it calmed me from thinking my quirk was singular and a sign of doom.  

I mean seriously, does your leg twitch? Your nose tickle, or your eye blink rapidly? There could be some much deeper explanations for these things. But, if it is not interfering with normal routine or your life in general, it is probably something to look into in your spare time for curiosity sake and to learn something new about yourself.

If a little quirk becomes intrusive in life then it is probably time to celebrate it enough to let your friends know: “Hey, sometimes I get super excited when I’m talking and this happens…..” When friends are aware of your little quirk it might become more clear if that is actually something that is intrusive, or was only a little bit embarrassing but not really a big deal. Celebrating a quirky brain, a little tick, or a bouncy knee might just ease the situation. It also give our friends and family permission to say something like, “I’ve never heard you stutter before, is that normal and I never noticed it?”

We might be able to identify real ‘red flags’ or warnings of too much mental stress, an oncoming migraine headache, or an indicator that our ‘mental wellbeing’ might be on the downslope.

I love to celebrate my little quirks called “spoonerisms”, but if I stutter I want to be told so I can figure out why I would do something I’ve never done before. A quirk could become a source of immeasurable concern if someone makes a big negative deal out of it. If we celebrate the way our brain works with it’s quirks and all, we might not be caught off guard by a little brain quirk mistaken for a red flag or vice versa. We could be spared from having an actual breakdown.

My point is, talk about how you understand what’s going on in your mind with friends and family. We all process things in an individual way, pretty similarly, but we have different foundations, languages, analogies, and belief systems. It is important to know and identify more about how we understand our own thought processes in order to weird, I mean weed out quirks and warnings or ‘red flags’.

I do believe it is better to be safe than sorry, so as a mommy, I would suggest celebrating and looking into your brain quirks and learning more about them. Don't be afraid of what you find. Take care of you, Love you!

That’s enough thinking for now. Well, its not a very missionary-ish blog. Its from my experience of missionary living though. Anyway, I’m not editing this again tonight….take my word for it. Missionaries need to research things like what culture shock and compassion fatigue does to thought processing and emotions.  We can get really quirky.....it's probably still ok for most of us....At least my friends and family can laugh with me. 

Here's to JOY and Lots of love!

Missionary Momma Mia

Mental wellbeing should NOT be in the shadows

Mental wellbeing should NOT be in the shadows for fear of labeling! Sorry to shout that out, but its been on my mind since I finished my mental health class this semester. I've hinted about facing fears, but it's time for me to start saying it like it is.

The blog I titled ‘Facing the shadows with confidence’ was a little bit about mental wellbeing. When I think of fears or frustrations that lurk in our shadow of the past and hinder us from facing the shadow of the future, I think of the need to face those shadows for our own individual mental wellbeing.

The idea of cultivating our individual mental wellbeing isn’t very common, or commonly spoken about in our western culture. I feel like our society would rather wait until someone cracks instead of talking about mental wellbeing on a normal basis.

We do have our fair share of blogs, medical journals, and advertisements, but I feel like it isn’t something that we want to say around the dining room table.  “So Honey, how do you feel like your thought process was going today? Smoothly, interrupted, overwhelmed or totally cut off?” or,  “ So kids, rating between 1 to 10, ten being the most focused, what was your degree of focused concentration in school today?”

I think of cultivating mental wellbeing as being aware and talking about: rest, thought process, ability to concentrate, face all of our emotions, and communicate honestly with other people around us. That list could be adapted to anyone who addresses mental wellbeing with their family. Those are the topics that come up in our family. Yes, my hubby and I talk about how the brain works with our children. We talk about being able to focus, the importance of rest, dealing with strong emotions, and communicating lovingly with people around us.

I feel like the western society hears the two words “Mental Health” and they immediately picture a terrible mad house from the late 1800’s or early 1900’s. People envision the worst of mental illnesses that transform the most societally acceptable person from attending dinner parties to sitting in a padded locked cell. I feel like our culture has come a long way to accept and appreciate individuals with some mental deficiencies, but refuses to see the inability of a brain to function in the 'average' way as anything but taboo. It isn’t considered something acceptable to discuss with family or friends because we tend to believe that it is something that needs a professional.

I get it. The reality of neurotransmitters rapidly misfiring overwhelming the senses, or toxic levels of chemicals fogging up thought process and invoking a very convincing memory or thought to be as real as if the person were sleeping and having a deep REM dream is just something that we have to leave to the doctors. Really? We can't touch on the subject and how it shows up in our behavior?

If we let our children get that far then they might be afraid to tell us if they are suffering with overwhelming day dreams, weird fantasies, or un-processable emotions. My hubby and I want to cultivate a safe place for our children to talk about how they feel like their mind is 'working'. It’s not every day, but we do ask the kids about their dreams, school work and emotions pretty regularly. Some couples might not like this, but we ask each other too.

I thought about writing about this stuff when I finished my last final, I took a mental health class. Big surprise for some, but my close friends know how important mental health has been to me for nearly my entire life. It became a lot more important as one of my areas of research and study when our family life demonstrated the need to better understand what is happening in our kids actual brains when they are unable to explain it. That research has never really grown exhausting. I keep finding another topic to read about, or study. The brain is amazing. It is just as important to me to try to understand some of the basic functions of the brain as understanding my gut.

Most parents are on top of teaching our kids how to warn us if their tummy hurts, why not warn us if they are not feeling rested when they wake up in the morning, or afraid of getting on the bus… Wait did you realize that some of your parent to child conversations might actually involve ‘mental health awareness’? Of course! We do actually have a pretty sound foundation for teaching our kids about rest and emotions. Maybe we even have normal questions about thought processing and communication. It would be a lot easier for us as a society to address our individual mental health if we didn’t consider ‘Mental Wellbeing’ a monster in the shadows. The monster grows as long as he is fighting for attention. Give the monster some uncomfortable attention and he is going to have to begin to step into the light, and probably shrink - might become less ugly too.

It’s important to consider the components of mental wellbeing, instead of fearing ‘Mental Illness’. I feel like some mental discomfort left un-addressed for too long probably develops into ‘illness’ in a similar fashion that a neglected cold evolves into an ugly sinus infection.

That's why I'm saying it's time to talk about mental wellbeing. I definitely think that questions should be very open, without projecting our perceptions or answers to the ‘problem’. If my son is having a hard time focusing and I automatically fix the problem for him, then he is going to rely on me. I want them to learn how to face these challenges, and I don’t want to project a ‘diagnosis’ for their problem. I want to raise up children who know that their brains are an amazing organ. They need love and care, just like a heart, stomach, and guts. Waiting to hear their perception of what is going on is a bit grueling sometimes, but their answers can be really original and informative.

They have answers that are usually keys to helping them solve their own ‘mental wellbeing challenge’. One of my favorite 'mental wellbeing' things was teaching my kids how to face the bad guys in their dreams at an early age. Each one of our boys had a phase where their dreams really stole their rest. They woke up sad, exhausted and concerned. We talked about the dreams and what they wanted to change about the dream. I was surprised to learn that each one of my boys changed their dreams in different ways. One time he became a ninja and beat the tiger, another time one of the boys went back to sleep welcomed the same dream and became a superhero who flew away from the problem. This is just one example of our family cultivating mental wellbeing.

We recognized the need to address mental wellbeing early on when we learned that cerebral malaria can cause delirium, hallucinations, mental confusion or severe sudden headaches before becoming fatal (often the fever, runs, vomit and other common symptoms don’t show up because cerebral malaria is attacking the nervous system and the brain). We realized that talking about mental health was going to need to be a common part of our missionary lifestyle.   

On returning to America after over a decade of living overseas, I have realized that American needs to worry less about ‘labels’ of mental illness that are unacceptable in society and start talking about Mental Health.

From one momma to somebodies child, What do you think is the most impossible ‘brain’ thing to talk about? It is quite possibly your gift to figure out something unique about that process or function in your amazing brain that is unique to you! That’s what I tell my kiddos. Your brain is amazing! No one has a brain just like yours. Take care of you. For starters, talk with your friends or family about emotions, rest, thought processing, and concentration.

Yes, doctors can really help when there is a broken piece, and therapy can increase and maintain mental wellness. I am not suggesting that talking about mental wellbeing at home is a substitute for professional care when it is necessary. I am hoping that more and more families will take that monster out of the shadows and be willing to say, “I survived a mental breakdown in my early twenties” “I am reducing stress factors in my life to increase my mental wellbeing.” And even, “ I need more than a healthy diet and regular sleep schedule to maintain my mental wellbeing.”

This is not intended as a judgmental 'rant' telling people who struggle to "get better". This is a cry for more conversations about mental wellbeing from a survivor of a mental break that culminated after a miscarriage, terrible case of malaria, and a sick toddler at the brink of dying. With the love and support of my husband, care from two doctors friends and family, I have come to the other side of a mental break. There was a bleak few moments in my life one evening when my thoughts didn’t function and I was not in control of my faculties. My husband was my hero that evening, he was just like Jesus in the flesh. I knew it was my husband’s voice and face near me, but after everything in my thoughts shifted back to ‘sound mind’ processing, I knew that my husband had loved me 'just like Jesus love me' through a terrible and scary event.

We had faced my greatest fear that I had shared with him before going into our marriage. I was afraid that because of my genetic make-up I would have a mental break-down and he wouldn’t love me after that. I feared that He would think I was ‘less’ than other people.That's not what he did. He prayed over me, prayed with me, and held me until I stopped trembling. He brought me fever reducer, I was also really sick. He brought me food and water and made sure that I followed the doctor’s orders and took to bed rest for the next three months. We learned a lot about how the physical condition of our bodies couldn’t be pushed beyond its limits. We learned that it is our responsibility to cultivate and maintain physical and mental well-being.  

We learned that we have to take care of ourselves. So, it comes from a heart full of love and a bit of experience when I write: Take care of you. Learn what you need. Jesus said it perfectly when he said: Love you and love others.

Lots of love,

Missionary Momma Mia

P.S. I don’t mean that we should take all of our wildest fantasies, ideas, and darkest dreams and tell the world so that we are rejected by society and then labeled with an unpleasant label.  I also don’t mean that you should share your hardest moments publicly, unless you are ready for ridicule.

We always tell green missionaries not to throw their pearls before the swine. It’s important when something is so precious to you that you would give up all of your valuable positions to own it, that you treasure it, and keep it safe. For me right now, I know its time to share. I will give my pearls of wisdom to all who want them. I’m not afraid of them being trampled. In fact, I know that some will grab the pearls just to trample them. That is the risk I am willing to take in order for one more green missionary to have a ‘light bulb’ moment when they realize that their mind was too fogged down to think clearly, or one more family to dine with their ‘mental wellness monster’ and realize he’s not such a bad dinner guest.

Remember to love

It’s hard to know what to write after the very serious blog that I wrote the other day. That’s where my emotions were. Now I need to figure out how to let them heal even more.

I know that I was planning on finding the first thing that I had sent as an update in 2004, but I couldn’t find it in my old emails. I might have uploaded it on myspace. And that has changed since then. Dad said that he might have it saved somewhere. Who knows.....

I ran across some paper print out of an update I emailed in 2004 that was saved inside a Bible, but it is not there now. It looks like I can’t use my earliest writings as a reference. Not today anyway.

But I can still remember, and getting things out is a big deal. I remember when there were no famous books or sermons to teach me what love looked like. I remember when there were no big famous missionary rock stars. I remember people listening.

That was a long time ago though.

I do remember that we had to back then was think and talk.

It wasn’t a lot of talking though, because we didn’t have many people to talk deep things with. Not very many people could understand. I did have my mom. She called me, and my spiritual mom called me. They both wanted to check on my and my husband and our bun in the oven. I didn't know exactly what to say. I did finally spill the beans to mom. She listened really quietly. I think I could hear her crying. I had really moved to a new place where death was one of my biggest culture shocks. I had so much to learn. I had so much to remember. I had to remember why I was there. I had to remember what my calling was, and how much God loved the people he called me to come and serve as a missionary. I had to remember so much.

I had to remember to love. I had to relearn how to love. Now just because I was a newly married wife and an expecting mother. I had to learn what love looked like in the new place we were living. I trusted missionaries who had been there longer than me, and national pastors who were are dear friends to help me understand what love typically looks like in the mew culture I found myself deeply swallowed in. Learning to love from friends is good, but it isn't perfect. It isn't the whole picture.

Learning what love looks like from anyone other than Jesus is going to produce dutiful attempts to love. Love looks like something. It really does, but it’s not only about giving food to the poor and clothes to the naked.

Love does look like something to the poor and to the rich. Love looks like someone a little bit different to each one of us. When we are too focused on ‘loving’ others we forget that love flows from an intimate relationship with someone who is the source of pure love. Jesus is love.

If we just use our connection with God and Jesus as a wish list for helping other people, then our energy will eventually dry totally up. Imagine that our love or ability to help someone in need is like water in a swimming hole in a river. When the swimming hole is cut off from the rest of the river it eventually gets shallower and shallower, until it dries up.

We do need to ask God for strength to be light and salt, but it’s pointless to ask without receiving.  

A good father knows how to give gifts. I didn’t have to ask my dad two times for money to go out to eat with my friends. How many times are we rattling off our requests? "Dad, I really need medicine for this little boy, I really need food for this widow. I really really need medicine, and food. Can you please give me what I need?" The answer is on the way. And the pause between when the medicine arrives and the food is ready isn’t always a delay I his answer. Sometimes we need a few minutes to stop and wait on his thoughts about how to give the food or medicine. Sometimes we need a few more minutes just to sit and Breath with God. We need to look at his face and see our reflection in his eyes. He loves us so much. His love is our strength. Communion with him changes the way we think. His thoughts become our thoughts, all the sudden we can see that there is something blocking the flow of his love and compassion to our swimming hole, our water well.

Sometimes it’s time to unbury the "well" by digging deeper because the dam is too strong. Maybe God is redirecting the flow for a season for us learn how to dig deeper down. Maybe God is giving us a tool to tear down a sloppily thrown up dam, or clean up some garbage that is dirtying the water and turning it into muck and mud. The answer to our prayers is different because each one of us are facing different needs, different seasons and different abilities to steward the flow of God’s river.

If a large deep river gets stopped up that’s a gigantic dam, and a huge effort to fix the flow or redirect the flow into something else. It’s going to change the environment around where a river used to flow freely. It might be the season for that environment. We don’t always know all the details or plans God has. He might actually want to see changes in a place that we don’t feel comfortable with. The flow of water is still present, but it is harnessed for a different purpose. Sometimes a gulley or a channel is being dug to join different streams together. It can be dirty work, causing the river to muck up for a while until the dirt settles back to the newly formed river bed.

We don’t always know what is happening with the flow of God’s Holy Spirit. We don’t always understand why his love is washing over us in waves or flowing through us as a hot spring that bubbles up from under the ground. It’s too difficult to say that God’s presence is only this, or only that. That his love goes this way, or only in this direction. We don’t always know his thoughts. Even though we could know more of his thoughts. We could just spend time with him and learn more about his thoughts and his ways. We could begin to see how he sees and move how he moves. Imagine so much unity that we flow with God like a seamless dance partner. 

We could begin to identify different aspects of his character that are new to us, we didn’t ever taste that kind of mercy and kindness before, or miraculous provision of finances, or multiplication of food. There are so many details that only God has taken into account and made a fabulous design. If we spend time talking with God, listening to God we spend more time delighting in his perfection. More of his perfection will be revealed in our lives.

The food is ready right on time to go and feed the kids and give the medicine, but I didn’t wait on God to hear everything that Holy Spirit was explaining or look at the details of the vision to get a better understanding of His plan. It’s important to sit with God and listen. I learned the hard way. I got what I needed to give away and ran out of enough love to follow every detail of instructions available to me. I could have been more attentive to one child’s needs and learned much more quickly how to treat malaria. I mourned the loss of our cute little neighbor. I also learned right away, and never forgot, that I needed to sit with Jesus and focus on his lovely face. I said “ok” to trying to save as many people around me from suffering as possible, that I began to suffer deeply. It is one thing to share in the suffering of Christ, but completely another to suffering needlessly out of duty.

Christ doesn’t want us to be servants tending to everyone's needs. He also doesn't want us to grieve endlessly for the loss of his little pumpkins, or pretend like it doesn't hurt. He knows that we are living in a world where we will face sorrows. He weeps with us. One of my most treasured scripture verses as a teenager was: Jesus wept. (John 11:35 shortest verse in the whole Bible) I felt so comforted by a real person with skin on and emotions, it showed me that his heart broke when he was deeply sad. I felt like a person who was understood by the creator of the universe.

I don’t think he was communicating to tell his friends, “I have a great plan here, my Dad has got this taken care of.” With his tears. No, he was genuinely sad. His friend died. Yes, He knew that his Abba Papa God would be glorified through the miracle that would follow. He also knew that his friend had suffered. I saw his compassion and his love. He doesn’t celebrate our suffering. He weeps.

My heart was mended by knowing that verse. Many times those words were like balsam over the wounds in my broken heart. I don’t literally blame myself anymore for the deaths that happened near me during my first months as a missionary. I repented so many times for not looking at the details. Papa God comforted me. I did learn incredibly valuable lessons through my experience. I did repent many times when there was a thing that I should have done differently. I did also learn to trust that God in his awesomeness knew all of my weaknesses and inabilities. His ability to save the life of a child or young mother was not hindered by my feeble attempts to love the poor around me.   

I have to trust him. I have utter hope and dependence on God because my abilities and skills are so tiny, his are infinite. That little guy isn’t suffering anymore. It is truly solace for my soul. My typical inflow of spiritual food and water was changed when I moved far from the community where I had lived for years. I had to learn how to unbury wells for dry seasons, and prepare the riverbed for a flash flood. I had to discover new sources of energy and strength to be a missionary.

It wasn’t easy but the most important thing I learned in those first few months of being a missionary was to stay thoroughly soaked in God’s river. When it was harder and harder to stay soaked I had to begin to steady my gaze on his eyes and find the details of his plan. When I was finished digging down, and he was ready to let the rain fall, I had to climb back to the surface of the riverbed, or I would be drowned in the bottom of the well. When I came up I found the clouds ready to drop buckets of rain. I knew I had a fun swimming hole to come back to anytime I needed refreshing while he was redirecting the flow of the bigger stream.

I love swimming. I had to remember to love me first. 

Take care of you. Spend more time with God than you think you can afford. Not just praying while driving and stuff like cleaning and praying; but really meditating on God’s word, his goodness and his great plan for you. That’s loving you. He might direct you to get a manicure, or discover a cure for cancer. He’s clever. He’s perfectly wise and knows how to love us, and he knows how to love other people through our lives laid down as a living sacrifice.

He’s not looking for a burnt offering. He wants a living, burning passionate lover. Then it will be difficult to NOT spend time with him. He will have to remind you to get back to cooking or cleaning and the other important stuff. He knows how to love us, and all we have to do is let ourselves be loved.

Remember to love you….as much as you love you, will be the measure that you can love somebody else.

Lots of love,

Missionary Momma Mia

Where indifference is a blessing, caring is a curse

I  tried to post last night around 1:30. The website was down. For a brief moment after I edited and re-finished the post for lastnight, the website page came up, but it did not work long enough to post this. I hope that anyone who feels badgered from an account of strong emotions and deeply sorrowful events will feel free to read something else. It's not my intention to break your heart. I'm trying to unburry the broken pieces of my heart and see if they can be pieced back together again...

Were indifference is a blessing, caring is a curse

I am thinking about my first weeks in central Mozambique.

As I wrote early Sunday morning, I was remembering the emotions and the frustration of having lost a neighborhood child that I had visited with another missionary in the earliest weeks of arriving in central Mozambique. We had helped his blind grandmother treat her four year old and six year old grandsons for scabies and other parasites just a few weeks before the littler one died of malaria. It was a devastating blow. We had bathed him, brought food, and treated his soars.

I remember the first time we saw him. He looked like a toddler, not a small child of four years. Mama C and I had walked through the village lanes near our community home. She had arrived to central Mozambique before my husband and I did. Mama C had learned how to treat scabies, foot worms called ‘mataquina’ , intestinal parasites and other easily treatable problems that poverty stricken families often faced.

The local hospital was a near enough to treat the illnesses of the children and families living nearby, but they charged the smallest amount of money for the hospital visit, and the medicine. These widows and aged grandmothers didn’t have coins to pay for medicine, or food. They ate food from their fields and sometimes their animals – if they had any. They came to care for their grandchildren for different reasons. Some of their grandchildren had a mother who couldn’t or wouldn’t care for them. Some of them had lost both their parents. The mission base was just starting over again. There were 13 boys living in a reed room on base. We were thrilled to take care of them, and other children near by. It was our desire to help families stay together, even if the circumstances were dire, we needed to assist in whatever way we could without separating the vulnerable children from their relatives.

The mission was supposed to comfort me. It didnt. I don’t actually know if I have forgiven myself for that little one dying so young. We honored the grandmother’s wishes and helped her care for the children in her one room mud hut. We visited two and three times each week for a while until their swollen bellies had shrunk to a healthy normal size. Both of the brothers were so cute. They helped their grandmother beg in the nearby market. It was grandmother’s only form of survival after having gone almost totally blind. She would receive a little maize flour or rice and green leafs or beans to make for one meal for the three of them. We brought some food and medical supplies on our visits. Then one weekend we found the two boys suffering with high fever. They had been bit by mosquitoes carrying malaria. A nurse visited them with us and explained how often they had to take the malaria tablets. I never thought that we should go check on the children each time they needed to take their malaria tablets. The little one might not have taken his medicine properly, I had no way of knowing if he did take the medicine with the food and juice that we left for him or not. I imagined myself to blame that the little one died of fever from the malaria.

It broke my heart to hold his big brother and comfort him and his grandmother. The nurse told us that the little one’s malaria had become cerebral even though he was taking the malaria tablets because his malaria was a far more complicated case than his older brother’s. The world became an entirely different place after I heard the news of the little boys passing.

There was little solace for me. I imagined him missing medicine or vomiting up treatment because his fever was to high causing dehydration and upset stomach. Before that, I had thought that malaria was something that could be conquered in every case. The reality of my situation hit me as an expectant mother, a wife, and a missionary with children and employees that I felt almost entirely responsible for their wellbeing. My husband and I along with a hand full of other missionaries were full of vision for the village we lived in, we had a vision for the mission base and the surrounding churches. We felt God's presence there and he gave us dreams. In spite of the paon, we went forward. We did have victories. We built a nice house for the children. But I never forget the first child I lost. My heart stays broken for his little life expiring so early, I only shared this pain with a select few. It didn't heal all the way. I wanted to understand how the villagers around me could stop grieving after 7 days. I wanted to pretend like the happy stories consumed me, like the boys first ever trip to the beach was more present in my thoughts than how many coffins we bought during my first month of living in Africa. Talk about culture shock!

But Jesus knew how much I longed to feel less. 

Indifference would seem like a blessing in a place where innocent children die of treatable diseases. In the weeks that followed my heart broke into a million pieces, the care and concern I felt for the people around me felt like a terrible curse.

Witnessing firsthand the injustice of suffering children and elderly widows ignited a fire of fury to keep going forward with the food distribution programs for orphans, vulnerable children and widows. But that fire did inevitably burn up. Fury and anger are not endless. There is only one fire that is endless. Love.

Remember to love. Remember to let Jesus love you. I had to learn how to say “no” to some requests for more food, or help. I had to learn to shut myself away with Papa God and let him love me.

There were so many times when I had nothing to give, if I didn’t press into Papa God’s heart and love him for his faithfulness I wouldn’t have even had a prayer to offer to the mother or child who asked for something from me. There were so many times that I wrestled with God for my sanity, for my family, for our children and staff. We pressed into God to tell him our thoughts, concerns and desires. We waited for him to show us his plan. Holy Spirit reminded us of his promises for that mission base, and even for that village. Papa God showed us his faithfulness by meeting our needs, and the needs of those around us. He also showed us that his success wasn’t dependent on our abilities and asked us to give everything that we were holding onto back to him.

It was one of the hardest things to do, because we cared so deeply. We wish we could have felt indifferently towards the village, the churches and children because saying goodbye was even harder than comforting friends after the loss of a family member.

We wanted our hearts to grow numb, and our emotions to be like stone. God showed us over and over again that no matter what we tried to do, we couldn’t stop loving them. We had to learn to feel deeply and say goodbye. We had to remember to love when it felt like such a heavy burden. It wasn’t about an emotion of passion or desire. Remembering to love was about a commitment to care, and to challenge the cultural norm of indifference.  

Remember to Love. Give lots of love, especially to those who don’t or can’t love you back. Then you will give all of yourself, and either give up, or go back to the source of all Love to feel his heart beating inside you and be filled up with his heart of love.

It’s ok to want to give up, it’s ok to feel intensely. Even Jesus asked his Dad if there was another way. He drank a cup of suffering for the Joy set before him. Sometimes are full of more suffering than others. We can remember to love. Remember we are his Joy, and he is ours.

I really am writing to you with lots of love,  

Missionary Momma Mia   

P.S. I have to say that blogger wasn’t working for me to post a few minutes ago. I just wanted to finish quickly because sometimes my heart breaks to remember the pain. I also don’t want to cause any one to suffer needlessly. I hope that if you are choosing to read my blogs, you know enough to love yourself and close it if it is too much.

Anyway, I prayed about my blog, and decided to finish it properly and then when I finished writing the second time, blogger website was working again for a few moments. Maybe it’s an interesting coincidence. Maybe I should pay more attention to details. I had more time to perfect and conclude tonight’s ramblings because the server was down. It was more important for me to fully write about what was stirring my heart, than to try to get a blog in before the day was over. So I digress….I had asked Jesus a simple question,  "If I really should post this journal entry as a blog, a nice confirmation that it's your idea would be a working website. "

It worked for a moment. Its not working now, and I should sleep. I’ve faced all kinds of computer and internet problems before. So, Jesus  I trust you, and bless the website to work when you want it to, so I can post this when you know it is best.

I love you. And I trust you with my heart, and my scribbles. If you want other people to be able to see what I’m thinking about I will share it , and it’s up to you to help the web savvy people to fix their web site.

 I love you! Goodnight.