.Stories.

Stories are so precious. They connect us, they inspire us, they embolden us, and warn us.  It is in a story that we find solidarity and so often find ourselves nodding along thinking, yes, me too. Humanity is found within the pages. There is a desire inside of us, no matter our temperaments, to know and be known, and stories foster this. This is one of the main reasons that I have been feeling the desire to come back to this little space and share again. I miss what happens in the sharing. I need what happens to me in the sharing. There is no better way to point to Jesus then for me to bare my story.

BUT.

And that but makes me hesitant, and question and sometimes it makes me stuck staring at a blank screen. Because the truth is, the story is not always easy. It is not always easy to tell, and it is most definitely not always easy to live. I want to write transparently, but I also really desire for it to be tidy. Tidy, however, is seldom authentic. Because this one wild life that makes up our one wild story is messy. Honestly, every great story has a mess, but think about the greatest stories, that mess is sometimes what leads to the most beautiful ending, those endings that take our breath away and make us feel alive. The tension is what makes us keep reading. It is what keeps us interested. I think maybe it is because the tension is something so many of us can relate to. It might look differently for you, than it does for me, but humans understand tension.

I really want a lovely story. I am a simple girl, and would like a simple story, but God has some crazy ideas about my story. So, here I am in Ethiopia, and the story is anything but simple, and many times far from lovely, and honestly, a lot lonely. 2016 started ugly and pregnant with tension. Hours into this clean slate, this beautiful brand new chapter and fresh start, the enemy came back with his old tricks and snuck in with things that we thought had already been dealt with and stamped out. I am learning that parenting really “messies” the story. It also refines and chisels. I made some very intentional parenting goals for this next year, and held onto that goal as a bomb was dropped in front of us. But then six days in,  I had already failed miserably, and the goal was nowhere to be found. Oftentimes in these failures, I recognize how much I am trying to do this alone, and am brought back to my knees again to face my failure head on and acknowledge my need for Jesus. And so the story goes - messy and full of chances to try again on the next page and in the next chapter. I suppose that is a beautiful way to describe grace – all these second chances to rewrite the narrative.

So, as we press into this new year, here is to our stories, our collective ones that collide and intertwine, and our individual ones that illustrate our unique plot. May we be brave in the telling, gentle in the living, and open to the hearing of the stories around us. The gospel was based upon the greatest story ever told, and its main character was the greatest storyteller who ever lived. May this example guide us to be courageous with our own stories.

And that bruise under my eye? It has a story. A story involving a water balloon. Sometimes the story is different than it appears on the surface, or that we create in our mind. Might we also be gracious and tender as we wait and listen for the truth of the stories bravely shared with us, because not every story is as it may first seem.

.It's Time.

We lived in a teeny apartment on the second floor. I had painted the miniature kitchen sunshine yellow. Her bedroom was soft green with cream pinstripes that my mom had surprised us with. I was a few weeks into this journey of motherhood. Everything had been planned, as it always was back then. We became parents when we decided to - not before, not after. We were blissfully naive and self-assured, and we were young, so young. A decade has risen and fallen since that moment in the teeny apartment, when my fingers first danced over a keyboard and created a space on the web for my words. It was at the dawning of social media; I had not yet succumbed to Facebook, but the blog world beckoned me. While everything had been carefully orchestrated, her birth was a startling jolt into reality, as nothing about it went according to plan. Almost losing my firstborn in her first moments on earth, lit something inside of me that may not have ever been otherwise ignited. Every breath, every cry every hiccup and milestone was a gift that, had those first moments gone slightly differently, I might never have known. I embraced motherhood with an intensity that I had never known. That made me not want to miss a thing and to take joy in the small things. Looking back, it really was a rather exquisite way to enter motherhood. So that first little blog was almost all about her, my Cadence. I weaved stories and photos together about those first years, and then we chose to birth another, and soon after, I needed to expand my blog to include him and our changing family. And I landed right here. Almost seven years have past right here.

But I am not the same person who launched a blog, with her infant daughter, in a bouncy seat at her feet, in that teeny apartment once upon a time.

I have been thinking a lot about writing lately. I miss the way that I used to work through thoughts as my fingers flew over letters. I miss capturing moments, and finding the extraordinary right inside the ordinary. I want to get back to that, but I have been hesitant. In some ways I don't know how to start again. When I go through the catalogue of old blog posts here, I cringe. Some part of me wants to delete them all away and forget how self-righteous and bitter I became in my journey. There is an arrogance that I read into those words from my younger self, a surety; one that I no longer feel. There is passion and fire, and there is icy coldness. I voiced a tiny bit of this feeling to Jim today. I told him that I wanted to start all over again, in a new space, because the truth is, I was born to write, but this space doesn't seem to fit me anymore. He urged me to stay and to pick back up my writing. As I have thought about it, I realized that while I have gone through a metamorphosis of sorts, it's all a part of my story. Even those embarrassing posts, where my passion was most definitely misguided, has shaped the woman who sits on the other side of this screen today. I cannot delete my story. I can only do better when I know better.

So much has changed inside of me. I have been bruised and battered. I am more courageous and more fearful. I am louder and quieter. I am determined and unsure. I am growing older, time is passing me by, my children are no longer babies. I have spent a year on the mission field in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and stripped of all that was familiar, I understand who I am better than ever before. But I am also still discovering me, and who God desires me to be. I am not yet old, but I am no longer young. Friendships are more important to me than maybe ever before, but this year I experienced the ugly side of a fraudulent one that makes me cower from women and put up thick, heavy walls. I am guarded, and I am wary, and I need God to show me something different. It also made me seek out grace and forgiveness with an old friendship that I had single-handedly damaged in the past. But some things don't change - my desire to follow Jesus - even though that desire surely manifests itself in new, different ways, my love for my husband who gets me on a level that nobody else could, my absolute joy in being a mom and raising these children, and my penchant for writing, cooking, wearing gobs of mascara, and drinking coffee. All of those parts of me remain intact.

So I am tentatively trying again. It's kind of scary to open up my life and heart once more in this space that holds so much, but there is just so much to share. There is still story to be told. Someone might connect with my story and find solidarity here in these words. So, I will write again, because the truth is that I love to write. There will always be better writers, but I am done struggling with that, because nobody else can tell my story. There is space for me, even if I am not the best. My grammar will drive grammarians crazy, because although I am a perfectionist, I am also a creative - especially when it comes to writing. I want to fall back in love with writing. I have never stopped writing, but the story has been muted here, it has stayed in my head or in my journals, but it never, ever stopped. I am proud of that, but now it is time....

It's time to let the story back out.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. Maya Angelou

A few of my favorite characters in this story.

.The Tension.

It’s been nearly a year. Nearly a year since we landed in Addis and emptied suitcases and threw ourselves into making this place our home. It has been nearly a year since we have begun the laborious process of establishing an NGO here, so that we can actually DO what we were called to do. It has been a year of God growing us, changing us, and pursuing us in remarkable and extravagant ways. It has not been a year without hardships and tears and questioning, but looking back it has been one of the best years that we have ever experienced. We have seen Jesus like never before. We have seen his transforming power, and we have witnessed the Kingdom break into daily life.

We came here desperate to put off any arrogance that we had in preconceived ideas about this culture and about the “right way to do things”. We prayed that God would humble us and make us learners in this journey. He answered our prayers over and over. We thought that the “right way” to do missions was to do business as missions. It is such a beautiful idea, and one that we felt compelled to flesh out. It also, honestly, sounds so much safer and comfortable to be able to support our mission with a business and not have to rely on churches and individuals to support us. We were eager and sold-out on this model, and prayed up, certain that this is how God was leading us. Only to have God literally slam every single door to every single business opportunity here in Addis in our faces.

Every time a door slammed, we heard His gentle whisper, trust Me.

It soon became evident that our ministry plan for street children was wildly different and wildly counter-culture, and radically going to take all of our efforts, all of our energy and focus in order to be done in a way that will bring glory to God. And the truth is, we came for the boys not a business. The business was an aside – it was just supposed to support us, but God has very clearly let us know that at this time, He wants us to trust Him for the support. So here we sit, fully reliant on people across the globe from us. To be authentic, that is scary, and it gets scarier as Jesus continues to whisper follow Me, trust Me.

I felt confident that In order to keep support and gain support, we need to tell stories. We need to tell you about the lives that Jesus has touched this past year. The sad stories, the sad photographs, they tug at people’s hearts, and they share the real need that is here, and I really, really bought into the necessity of them. But sometime this year in the midst of the stories and photos, the pause button was jammed on, and I started seeing things differently and questioning my motives with throwing up a photo on social media of a person in a horribly sad, vulnerable position – perhaps even a person we were able to help out of that position. Something wasn’t sitting right with me. My heart was beginning to feel uneasy. It started to feel a little bit like exploitation, and even objectification. But I knew that it worked. I knew that people across the ocean would be more likely to make a financial donation if I shared the photos of people suffering and their sad stories. If I shared about the man who tried to hang himself and about literally cutting down the rope and tucking him safely into family, about the teenage girl who came home so drunk every night that she had to be nearly carried up the stairs and undressed and cleaned up and placed into bed, about the hours upon hours spent in a hospital and then the deafening screams that came with AIDS diagnosis, about the baby who died from AIDS because we were just too late, and the father who refuses to have her brother tested, because he just cannot bare to know. About the woman who mourns for her murdered son. About the teenage boy who never knew his mother and endures beatings from his grandmother and meals at our table because at least then he gets fed. And even sharing this is making me want to delete the whole post. Because these are REAL PEOPLE, and their story is not my story to tell. I have no right.

And then in the midst of this wrestling one day, our son came to us with trembling lips and big eyes and said, “please do not post photos of street kids sleeping on the streets. It is wrong.” We were taken aback. Street kids is who God has called us to, telling their hard stories seemed like a great way to raise awareness and honestly, money, in order to be able to serve them. But this son who came to us that day, so visibly distraught had at one time, for several years, been one of those boys. He had had countless foreigners come and take his photo, photos of him when he was most dejected, most vulnerable, and still very, very much a child. He had been enrolled in numerous NGOs and his photos were distributed and used and profited on. And he never benefitted from it, and even years later it still hurts to have been exploited at the most vulnerable and challenging time in his life. We listen to this child when he speaks of this, because he knows. God has used his voice to mold and shape many of our dreams for our future ministry with street children. His voice is the same reason that we cannot do a drop-in center and feed street kids only to turn them back out onto the streets, because this exact kind of thing hurt our child more than it helped. It is why we have to pursue family-based care starting with a small number. It is why we cannot do behavioral modification but rather passionate pursuit of the heart of children. Although, there are good ministries right here in Addis with very different philosophies and practices that do great things, we have chosen to join in in a way that looks a bit different.  

So, we are trying to learn a new way. We are trying to be creative with how we share and what we share. It is why so many of our posts lately just focus on our day-to-day family life here in Ethiopia. It is so NOT because there is nothing to share, or we have not seen Jesus in people’s lives, but rather because we are still trying to figure this out. The use of photos and stories of disadvantaged people and vulnerable children to illustrate what we are doing, and what we need to raise money for risks exploiting humans - humans made in the image of God. For right now, we have decided not to take that risk. This creates quite a tension for us as missionaries. It is important that we share what Jesus is doing. People are supporting us, and they need to know how their support is impacting the Kingdom. But I think that people, whether in poverty, whether vulnerable and in crisis or not, have a right to share or not share their story. It is their choice. It is not mine. It is what we have always clung to with our boys who came to us via adoption. Their story is their story for when and if they are ever ready to share it with the world.

This is an ongoing conversation. We continue to press into Jesus and into the people He brings to us, and we continue this dance of knowing when and how to share with you. I believe that the answer is creating an avenue for their own voices in their own time and of their own free will. How? I don’t know. What does it look like? I have no idea. But there has to be a way, and I am desperate to figure it out. We still have so far to go, and so much to learn, but until then we press on keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus 

What is Love?

It's been so long since I have written that there are too many thoughts trying to squeeze their way out my fingertips. I fear these fingers cannot dance across the keyboard fast enough to keep time with heart words spilling over. This may not be eloquent as the words just gush out. At first I thought this post would be about grace. God is teaching me so much about what His grace really is, and it seems like the message has been bombarding me for months from all angles. I have had opportunities to see it played out and to put it into practice. I haven't been able to ignore it. I understand now how much I misunderstood His radical grace, but I am not sure if I am confident enough to share all of what I have learned yet. It's still so new, and to be very honest, it is still strange and hard to grasp. The denomination that I grew up in taught grace in words, but the actions of grace - the fleshing out - often fell short, which even now, as an adult, is confusing, but as a child, even more so. I think this is where my misunderstanding began, and I think this is why I am hesitant to share. So then my thoughts turned to love, perhaps because this week marked my thirteenth wedding anniversary, and love has been on my mind. Perhaps because it has been swirling around social media. Perhaps because my teenage son is growing older and daily closer to love and marriage, and I am desperate for him to grasp true love and experience it first here inside of our home, so that he is capable and ready to give it away when the time comes. Perhaps because a friend and I had a mild freak out yesterday realizing that we were raising somebody's husband. {deep breath} That's heavy. As I have walked through these past few days knowing that I would eventually find myself drawn here, locked inside of my room, in front of a laptop, that I had to carve out the time to come here and fill up this space with words, I realized that grace and love are so mingled. The truest version of them is married together. Real grace cannot exist without real love, and true love cannot exist without true grace. When we encounter authentic grace married to authentic love it is one of the most beautiful reflections of the heart of the Father and the gospel of Jesus that we get the privilege to discover here on earth.

There has been a lot of talk about love lately. There are some heated debates swirling around social media. In truth it is rather ugly to witness. It's polarizing. I have remained quiet, because there are humans involved, and i have yet to figure out how to add my voice in a way that does not heap on hurt to one side or the other. So many people on all sides are hurting, and it is so sad. Let's be honest, in the spewing of arguments on social media, especially when they are not cloaked in genuine relationships with one another, nobody wins. In arguing about love; it just looks like hate. In the midst of all of this tension, though, I have personally been reflecting on love - what does real love look like? For several months now, actually since the beginning of this year, I have been meditating on I Corinthians 13; the passage known as "the love passage" in Christian circles. This passage is slapped onto wedding programs and sweetly read over naive wedding couples in numerous churches. It was true for my own wedding. The verses are made out to be cute and pithy and easy as two young people gaze adoringly into each others eyes, dreaming of the life they are starting together. Hollywood has glamorized love in such a way that is is unrecognizable to the real thing, and so many of us have bought into it, and our children are growing up mesmerized by the allure of it. They think that the fake kind of love, the selfishness, the lust, the mushy gushy feel-goodness that masquerades and parades itself as love, that is displayed all over movies and TV and sung about on the radio is attainable and desirable and right. And they think if they don't find that then they are missing out on what everyone else has. As I am writing this post the lyrics of that cheesy eighties song is bouncing around my head, What is love? Baby don't hurt me; don't hurt me, no more. But the truth is that silly song, like so many of us, has missed the mark on real love. Real love does hurt. Love deliberately gets up, goes again toward that person it is aimed at, and it understands that in the process it is choosing to serve someone and put someone's needs ahead of its own in a way that is so vulnerable and so exposed that when you truly love someone, hurt is unavoidable and it will happen again and again and again. 

Love actually does hurt.

Real love entwined with grace is wild and different. It's mature and wise. It's strange and unnatural. It fights against our flesh and our human bent. Just look carefully at I Corinthians 13. It doesn't look very much like the love in the movies. There is so much more to the depth of it. It is the heart beat of our life. It is all that matters. Without love, nothing we do or say even makes a difference - it's all empty. We are given two commands from Jesus to live out our days. The first is to love God with everything inside of us and all that we are, and the second is to love others as much as ourselves. (Matthew 22:37) He promised that if we could love Him and others that everything else would fall under that. Can you imagine what the tapestry of our world could look like if Jesus followers actually practiced these? Almost everyday I hear myself quoting these two commands to my children in hopes that they will comprehend and live out what so many of us have forgotten. But what does this love look like? If it is not the Hollywood love, what is it? The Message version says that we are bankrupt without love, and then in verses 4-7 clearly spells out what love is, what love does. And it is pretty radical.

Love never gives up.

Love cares for others more than for self.

Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.

Love doesn't strut; doesn't have a swelled head.

[Love] doesn't force itself on others.

[Love] isn't always "me first'.

[Love] doesn't fly off the handle

[Love] doesn't keep score of the sins of others,

[Love] doesn't revel when others grovel.

[Love] takes pleasure in the flowering of truth.

[Love] puts up with anything.

[Love] trusts God always.

[Love] always looks for the best.

[Love] never looks back, but keeps going until the end.

Love never dies.

I Corinthians 13:47 The Message (emphasis mine)

Love shows up and shows out. It is not dependent on the love of the other person. It is active and pursues, and fights again and again and again. Yes, there are all kinds of love, romantic love, friendship love, family love, etc., but all real, genuine love have these same above characteristics at its core. To never give up, to care more about another than oneself, to forget wrongs, to cling to truth, it's all hard, and it all hurts at times. But it is always worth it, and love like this - the real deal kind of love is enduring and the greatest gift we can give to another human. But if love hurts so much, and is so self-sacrificing, and demands so much of us, why would we want it? The truth is love chooses to hurt, because love chooses to love. It sounds cliche' to say love is a choice, but honestly it is. Love is a daily choice. Our perfect example of flawless, true love was Jesus, and He chose you. He chose me. He looked at us in all of our weakness and brokeness and mistakes - past, present and future, and with a love that cannot be comprehended, He tenderly cupped our chin with his scarred, nail-pierced hand, and said, "I want you". We did nothing to deserve His choosing, His love. We could do nothing. We were incapable. His love chased us down, pursued us, and His love sunk into our mirk and sat in the mud with us, embraced us right where we were and accepted us wholly, completely - as is. It's a wild, untamed, alluring kind of love that is not afraid of our filth, and in the filth is where its partner grace enters in, grace goes right into the mess, holding hands with love, and rescues us and carries us out, while we are helpless and unable to rescue ourselves. When Jesus, perfect Love incarnate, allowed Himself to be carried to that cross and murdered, He saw you and He saw me. He saw everything we would ever be and do, and He saw that we were incapable of anything on our own, and He lovingly came anyway to get us. He LOVED us. And now we are compelled to love, because He first loved us with an unfailing, never-giving up love. A love that is yours and mine despite us, a love that we could never sustain, and we don't have to! We cannot make God love us, He already does. I cannot earn His love, and I cannot do anything to deserve it, and wrapped up in that truth rushes in love's mate grace. Authentic grace is cloaked in love and it races in hot pursuit after us and meets us right, exactly where we are, looks us square in the eyes, sees our innermost ugly, and loves us into a beautiful invitation of abundant life. Because love compells it to, grace so gently and tenderly drags us out of the murk and into life.

I am speculating that the way we love others will look a lot more like I Corinthians 13, rather than the phony Hollywood love when we finally recognize the complete way that we are loved and accepted. The way we love must change when we truly understand the outrageousness of the love that was poured over us, while we were so unworthy, love that manifested itself in drops of Jesus' blood, and when we finally get that this perfect love has absolutely nothing to do with us, and the grace that is married to His love crashes over us and transforms and breaks in and heals and changes us. This marriage of love and grace that is ours is explosive, and it it permeates everything about us. Perhaps when we truly grasp how deeply we are loved, we will stop feeling so threatened by the world around us, and instead will see people as people just like us- some still sitting in that murk, not needing our rhetoric and lectures and debates, but needing us to pursue and flesh out the kind of love Jesus has for them. I Corinthians says without love we are nothing. So, perhaps, maybe when put our attention on loving God and loving humans, and just focus on that, maybe then Love really will win.

This knowledge of how much we are loved, changes how we love. Because HE first loved us.

.A Spoonful of Honesty.

We are headed into our eighth month living here in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We continue to love this city and the people, and to feel as if we are exactly where God wants us to be. We have spent half a year  intentionally leaning into God and His purpose for us here. Some original plans fell through, and God clearly has pointed us in the direction of creating a brand new indigenous NGO for street children. This is way bigger than what we had prepared for, but it is exactly how God loves to display His perfect strength - in our broken weakness. As God’s purpose and plans have been unfolded we continue to solidify our methodology and philosophy for working with children, and at its simple core it comes down to pursuit. For years we have seen how the Gospel, how Jesus, pursues. Jesus doesn’t wait for us to be ready for change or to even have a desire for change. He doesn’t wait until we have cleaned ourselves up, or have outwardly changed our behaviors, so that we look as if we measure up to His standards, because the truth is there is nothing inside of us that can change or even be ready with a desire to change outside of the working, initiation, and pursuit of Jesus Christ. If we are to be imitators of Jesus, then we must pursue, and that pursuit must be relentless and not dependent upon anything that the child/person does. Through much thinking and praying a three part purpose for Mercy Branch Inc. emerged. A purpose that we believe in and see beautifully exemplified in the Gospel. The three parts must coexist but flow from the first one, and are as follows: relentless pursuit of the whole person, radical grace, and reverent mercy. That’s easy to write, and lovely to think about, and I really do believe deep inside that it is the core of the Gospel. But let me tell you, that there are far, far easier philosophies and methodologies out there than this one, and the past few weeks as we cemented God’s plans and purposes and committed to establishing an NGO that echoes the Gospel, the enemy has attacked the very heart of what we want to do. It’s as if God is allowing us to be tested in this very commitment right here in our own family.

Is this what you really believe?

Are you really willing to pursue like I have pursued you? Because it is hard, messy, and it hurts.

I am going to try to be transparent with you, and yet be ambiguous enough to still protect the privacy of my family. Although we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are exactly where we should be, these past few weeks have been very, very hard for our family. Everything kind of crescendoed today when my children found their puppy had died. It’s time for a little honesty and to get our spiritual boxing gloves on, and to gather our people around us in solidarity and prayer. I am sick and tired of the cowardly way that Satan is attacking our family – by targeting our children. It started way back in February, when it was brought to our attention that rumors were flying, and apparently had been for years, about our family. Disgusting, filthy, and grotesque accusations that “Christians” were giving ears to and seemingly perpetuating. We were crushed. It seems so many times when we seek out authentic community with believers, we are instead wounded and betrayed. Sadly these rumors really involved our oldest child. Satan is very crafty, and he knows our weaknesses and insecurities so intimately. He knew these horrible speculations would plant a huge seed of doubt in our child’s, already traumatized heart. He knew the way to do it was to attack family and have adults question his very identity in our family. It literally makes me shake with anger even as I type this. As parents we desire to protect and nurture the hearts of our children and give them security as a member of our family. This is an especially unique challenge when your child has spent years rejected, abandoned, abused, and not part of any family. Unfortunately, Satan used these lies to manipulate, not only the minds of people, but also our child. He used other lies as well, but all of the lies built upon these rumors. These lies culminated in us coming dangerously close to losing our son. I cannot and will not go into specific details – none are needed. It was the most horrifying, terrifying, and painful experience that we have ever had as parents (and we have had our fair share prior to this). This is where the rubber met the road, and we had to put all of our beliefs about the Gospel into practice – we had to pursue and pursue and pursue. Behavior modification and trying to make a child follow rules is so, so much easier than pursuing the heart and the entire child with grace and mercy. Let me tell you that as a family, we all HURT, and although it looks as if we are slowly limping to the other side, it still hurts, and we are still pursuing – all four of our children through this ugly time.

Satan absolutely hates families. We believe that it is inside of a family that healing can take place, and Satan would much rather traumatized children never heal. We believe that street children can best experience true healing and freedom in Jesus inside of a family – a family that pursues at all costs. Our son is NO longer a street child, and we have treated him as nothing less than our beloved son (because that is WHO HE IS), but we have had to and continue to have to pursue him in crazy, intense ways. Knowing so much about us and about families, course Satan is magnificent at attacking and destroying families. BUT HE CAN’T HAVE MINE. We are surrounding ourselves with truth from God’s Word, with the knowledge that Jesus is pursuing each one of us, praise and worship music and very, very tangible reminders that we are a family – family that God miraculously established. We have a team of counselors firmly surrounding us, and we have God for us. To be honest, we still desire to find community here with other Kingdom builders, but sadly we will now proceed more cautiously. God has given us just one precious family to steward, to cherish, to protect, and to build up for His Kingdom. This is our primary role here on earth, at this time, no matter where we live, or what else God has called us to.

Yesterday, Jim got to explicitly share the Gospel with someone whom we love like family.  For almost eight months we have been praying and pursuing this person, and we have gotten the privilege of watching Jesus pursue him. This morning we hung up a gallery wall of family portraits to daily remind us that we are in this together, and that we truly are FAMILY. At nearly the same time that we experienced these glimpses of grace and mercy poured out over us, the childrens’ beloved puppy unexpectedly died. They are grieving and hurting, as she has played a vital role in comforting them here in a strange country so far away from what they are familiar with. This is not just a coincidence. Satan is alive and well, and he is not done with us. He sees something in us that perhaps we cannot yet see. He is forecasting a future for our family here in Ethiopia that terrifies him. I don’t know what he plans to do next or how he will attack, but we are readying ourselves for this battle. Jim and I are praying over our family, our marriage, and our future ministry with children here in Addis, and we humbly ask you to do the same. We are so not special or super-spiritual. We are messy. We are broken. We are normal – just a family who desires to follow Jesus. We know that God wins in the end, but we desperately desire to come to the end unified and together. Our family can’t be a casualty. So I share this to ask you stand beside us in prayer. None of us were meant to do this alone.

.The Life I was Missing.

Four years.

It has been four years since I first set foot in this country. Four years ago today that I held my youngest child for the first time. Four years ago Monday that my oldest son completely ripped my heart from my chest, and a burning passion was lit inside of me for children who have had their childhood stolen from them. Four years since I left my blonde little babies an ocean away, and in turn radically changed the life they once knew. Four years since this country captured my heart and beckoned me here. Everything changed in those first moments. Little did I know that four years ago 31 year old me was about to have her world completely turned upside down. I didn’t know what I was getting into, and I am glad because I am mostly a coward. God knew that, so He kept me in the dark until I was too far smitten to do anything but follow the wild path He set my feet upon.

Looking back it all started rather simplistically. We wanted another baby, but my pregnancies were rough, so that led to tender hearts toward adoption. Ethiopia had what appeared to be a crisis at the time-  a crisis of orphaned children needing families. We were a family. We wanted another child. It made sense. So we said yes to adoption and to Ethiopia, and then to our special, sweet Jamesy, and then to Habtamu, and all the while our world tilted off axis and lines, that we had once drawn, blurred. And in it all I held my breath waiting for everything to right once again and return to normal. I waited for friends to return, for the American Dream to take hold again, for our family to blend back in, for life to return to the easy pleasantness that it once held, for Jesus to stop asking us to do crazy, wild things. Our yes was over, and it was time to get back to normal.

But normal never showed back up, and a new normal took its place. Sometimes in my most honest moments I grieve the loss of that normal, but mostly I embrace this adventure that my Jesus has so lovingly invited me into. I feel as if I am one of the lucky ones, as I get to look back to a specific moment in time, four years ago exactly, when everything changed.

I now live this one, wild life back in the country where it all began. There are late nights with no power and cold showers and spiders and dust everywhere. And there is laughter and life and love. I cannot walk outside the safety of our gate without being surrounded by children. Some of them are teeny tiny and some are bigger than my own big boy. Some dirty and tattered – so dirty that to touch them makes me stink with them. And some not as much. My hands are always grabbed and smiles are abundant, as are hugs and kisses. My hair is touched, my clothes yanked on, and always a silly grin is plastered across my face in a contented happiness I have never before known.  My heart is continually stretched, and I so desire to pick up the life of Jesus here – to make every person that I encounter feel as if they matter – because they do. I have been making this my goal every time I walk out my gates. It is simple and yet I believe it is exactly what Jesus did. I cannot help everyone who comes to me, there are just too many. How can I pick and choose the countless street children that I encounter? The magnitude of the needs just outside my door are surreal. The number of starving children and half grown men addicted to chat and young mamas begging on the corners overwhelms me. How do I choose who to help? Most days, unless the Spirit clearly prompts me, I can’t choose. But I can look every person in the eye and acknowledge them as another human being. I can love in big ways just by giving a dirty street child a hug and a squeeze – just by noticing them when everyone else hurries on by. I can imitate Jesus just by seeing them. I am learning this and putting it into practice every day, and it is changing everything. It is changing me.

At home my lap is constantly full, sometimes with my blonde babies, sometimes with brown-eyed babies, and even still sometimes with my teenage boy who even after two years of security still questions whether this mama can really love him. Our house is seldom quiet. Languages collide and shouts and giggles echo off the walls. Currently I answer to “Mom” from seven people, and my head swims to keep up with who needs what from me. And every day, although most would see this as mundane, I fall more and more in love with this life. For me this is what my heart has ached, longed and cried out for. Four years ago, the moment my feet hit the dust here in Addis I knew something was missing, but I couldn’t possibly understand what it was that was missing. 

But now I know. It was the African sunrises, and Habesha food, and cold showers, and grubby hands reaching for me, and grown women, who missed out on childhood, calling me mom, and a spunky little two year old who is too precocious for her own good. It is watching my belly babies love in ways I did not know they were capable of, and seeing my brown-eyed boys back in their home country and finally healing from wounds that should have never been. It is catching my husband’s eye across our crowded and crazy living room, as children twirl and dance, and adults laugh and sip buna and nibble popcorn, and in that single glance a thousand words pass between us, all  resting on the knowing that this is what we sacrificed for.  It’s roosters crowing and dogs yapping and the low growl of hyenas. It’s seeing Jesus in the dirty street children or the young man who finally realizes that life is worth living. It’s opening my home to strangers and witnessing the miracle of how quickly love crashes in making us a weird, jumbled-up family. This was all missing in my former life, and while nothing looks the same as it once did, I wouldn’t change this new normal for all the white picket fenced houses in the world.

I know that I am here because God has put me here. In some little way I know that He is using me to change the world. He is using me in simple ways, and I want to give my life away right here. There is no place else I’d rather be than right here. Four years ago I could never have known that this was the life I was missing. Now I know.

.On Mission.

We are entering our fourth month here in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It is nothing and everything that I imagined it to be. It’s hard to know what and how to share life here. I want to be authentic and transparent, yet, at times transparency looks dangerously similar to complaining. As a newbie missionary being welcomed into this beautiful foreign country, I am sensitive about complaining about a culture that I am still getting the hang of. In all honesty, we have been welcomed and embraced here better than some foreigners are welcomed into our home country of America. So, I want to be respectful, and this silly, yet profound quote keeps swimming around in my head.

When the bull is in a strange country, it does not bellow. -Old Zulu proverb

At the same time, our life is far from glamorous, and most would be surprised to peek inside it and see how closely our mundane mimics your mundane. We are just doing life, living incarnationally, looking for ways to follow Jesus practically by loving and sharing the Good News with the people He places in our path, but we happen to be doing it across the ocean from many of you. And then there is also this silly myth that swirls around regarding missionaries, especially missionaries who sugar-coat life on the field. The myth that says missionaries are singled-out, special, elite, highly-talented, spiritual giant, super Christians. Well, I am here to blow that myth out of the water, because we are anything but that. Maybe there are missionaries who do fit that description, but we are not them, and most that I have met are not them. There is nothing super about us. We have fears and doubts and anxieties. We argue and bicker and make mistakes and messes. Some days are complete washes and we yell at our kids, worry too much, grumble and complain and wish for different circumstances. We are so very normal (or as normal as we can be). We are messy people who love Jesus just like you.

It is true that not every follower of Jesus is called to move overseas to live, but don’t let Satan fool you into thinking it is only the special ones that are called to be on mission. We are all given a mission field. Having moved here has actually opened my eyes wider to the fact that we had a mission field back home, the same as we have one here. God uses us all exactly where He places us when He places us, and no follower is more special because of what field God has placed him in. Each person is intimately equipped for the very place and time God has placed her in. For some that will be Africa or Asia, and for others it will be rural and suburban USA.

In just a few hours our calendars flip to a brand new year. It’s a fresh start to embrace the mission field that we each have been called to. Some are sent into the corporate business world, some into hospitals and medical clinics, some to villages in Africa, some to rock babies and cook meals and tend homes, some to churches and schools; no matter where you go this new year, you go, not just because it is your job or the rhythm of your life, you go because you are being sent to these very specific places by Jesus. You are being sent for this exact moment in time, and you are irreplaceable. That changes everything doesn’t it? No longer do we need to classify Christians into elitist groups, but rather we are unified as we realize that truly we all have a hand in building the Kingdom exactly where we are sent. The role of a missionary has been assigned to all of us who follow Jesus. So, this year, let’s tear down the silly pedestals and let’s throw ourselves into the field that we are sent to, supporting and encouraging one another, and their unique fields, along the way.

This is the day the Lord has made for me:

 This is the place the Lord has put me in...

 These are the people the Lord has given to me...

 Let me rejoice and be glad in them.

.Confessions of a Rookie Third World Missionary.

My family and I have now lived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for a little over a month. It has been everything and nothing like what we have expected, but slowly, surely it is becoming home. Here are a few things that I have experienced, learned, and observed along the way.

• ·      The weather is absolutely perfect. I have always been one to embrace season changes, and I become as excited as my children over snow days. However, to have this consistent, warm weather every day, to see the sun shining warmly in my bedroom window every morning at 6 AM is amazing. We are experiencing Ethiopia’s summer – their dry season. There has not been a hint of rain since we arrived. Of course I will miss the snow days and the magic they bring to the holidays (Elvis Presley Christmas music playing in my kitchen is helping some), but to be tanned and warm at the end of November is pretty lovely.
• ·        Nothing is easy here. I prepared for this and expected it, but honestly there is no real preparation for living it. Every menial task takes at least three times as long. Sometimes that is due to power outages or water outages, sometimes it is due to lack of convenience products, appliances, and sometimes I just have no explanation for why everything takes so long and is is so hard. It just is. Traveling is hard. Shopping is hard. Cooking is hard. Cleaning is hard. Communicating is hard. Life really is harder, BUT, even though we are probably still in the honeymoon period, I dare say it really is sweeter. Accomplishing any task is so fulfilling and rewarding. I fall into bed so happy when I know that I have washed, dried, folded and put away a basket of laundry AND cooked a good, safe meal for my family. I am sleeping better than I have in years, because I am so exhausted. Life here is difficult. It is hard. It is rewarding. It is worth it.
• ·        Now I say nothing is easy here, but to be completely honest, I make things harder on myself (big, fat surprise to those of you who know me – snark, snark). The majority of Americans that we know (missionaries included) have hired domestic staff. There are so many reasons for this; one is respect for the culture and to give back to the culture and economy by hiring Ethiopians. Another reason is because, as I mentioned, everything takes three times as long, and in order for most people to come and do what they are called to do or hired to do, they have to have help with the day-to-day tasks, or else there is just literally not enough hours in the day. But my first priority mission field is my husband, my children, and my home, so right now that is where I pour all of myself into. Because of this. we have not hired a full domestic staff, however, we have hired a part time housekeeper that will help me with some of the cleaning, and we plan to hire a nanny for Jamesy. Once I start homeschooling again (we are still on our summer break) we may have to reevaluate and hire additional staff – specifically a cook. This is hard for me to let go of, though, and I am really praying through what God is asking of me as we live here. And so, right now I do a lot of the stuff that staff would typically do for foreigners living here.
• ·        The city has really been built up since we were here two years ago.  There are stoplights and traffic signs and things are becoming more modern. Police (or “traffic” as most people here refer to them as) are everywhere. They seem to be quick to {try to} pull people over, but I am learning that most people just duck their head, avoid eye-contact and drive on! It is pretty wild to see. Driving in general is wild and crazy. I am really proud of my husband for getting his license and driving all over the city. I, on the other hand, have no plans {ever} to get my license {shudder}.
• ·        Produce here is plentiful and cheap. We load up on produce every week and really love the availability of so many fresh fruits and veggies. Being from upstate NY, there are only a few months of the year that we were able to have access to fresh produce. Most of the time, it was shipped in from other climates and sub-par. Most of the produce (save watermelons, but perhaps we got a bad one) taste better here, too. The oranges are actually not orange, but greenish, yellow and they are so sweet and juicy! It is time-consuming, but for our safety, all of our produce has to be very carefully sanitized before consuming or really even handling too much. With the amount of produce we purchase, this is an all-afternoon task for me, but once done, we really enjoy grabbing fruits to snack on, and I love the abundance of veggies to cook with.
• ·        Hyenas are very, very loud. I never knew the noise that hyenas made, but every night around midnight they travel to our neighborhood and howl and yelp for about an hour. It is quite an experience to hear, and because we live in the mountains, the echoes are eerie. One of these nights, we are going to take a spot light, go onto one of our balconies and try to shine it on the pack of hyenas to see them.
• ·        Spiders are everywhere. Every. Where. Every night I check my bed for them. They are huge and gross. I have bites all over my body, and I am trying to just pretend they are normal mosquito bites. And I found a HUGE mouse (maybe rat) on my stove burner. Enough said.
• ·        My children are awesome. I already knew this, but seeing the way they have acclimated to a new culture and to so much change is amazing. They are resilient and strong and encourage me every single day. They are doing so great and loving so big. I am so proud of all of them.
• ·        We could not just land in Ethiopia and immediately begin our mission work. This has probably been one of the toughest things. However, the government is really cracking down, and we must follow all of the laws, so that we do not ever have to fear being permanently banished from this country. So we plug along, working towards our NGO status, then work and residency permits. Thankfully, we found out today, we are here on the right visas to do this and should not have to leave the country for two years as originally planned. This whole process goes back to what I said about everything takes T-I-M-E. But in the in-between God is already giving us opportunities to build relationships and love big on people – we don’t need a work permit to do that, and I believe that even during this space and time God has plans for our family .So we forge ahead learning how to just live life here and sharing the love and mercy of Jesus with whomever it is that God places in our path on a given day. We are living life on mission, and I could not love that more – every day is truly an adventure!
• ·        God is here in this city. He is working and moving and His Kingdom is being built. He didn’t need us to move here to accomplish His work, yet He invited us in. I am truly thankful and excited to see what is ahead!

There is so much more that I could write, but for now this will do.

Wifi is pretty sketchy, but I am hoping to get this to publish. Thank you for your continued support, prayer, and encouragement – we feel it!