glimpses

Diapers and Hermeneutics classes, reading seven chapters from "Foundational Bible Teaching" while watching three kids and folding laundry, logging work-detail hours while praying for the troubled boy met during community outreach, chatting with a friend in Mozambique about their recent country riots...and then calling a friend in Lexington to chat about child-rearing--these are just a few of the facets and responsibilities that have been occupying our days the past few weeks as we settle in to classes here at the New Tribes Mission Training Center. Our lives have felt a bit fragmented at times as we juggle our responsibilities with our growing family, the communities we are a part of around the world, and our classes here in Missouri.

Sometimes I even find myself wondering what God is doing. Wondering things like...

...why He's blessing us with another baby--in the middle of the semester!
...why we find ourselves putting our five-year-old on a school bus every day when had been looking forward to home-schooling.
...why we find ourselves back in classes in the middle of Missouri rather than a year at "home" in Kentucky

Over our last four years in Mozambique we have found that the Lord often clearly sets us off in a direction without always giving specific insight into why He is moving or what He is doing. We know He is acting but our perspective is so narrow that we mostly just feel the growing pains.

And then there are those rare moments when He gives us a glimpse of the beauty of what He is doing...

I saw my daughter's face for the first time the other day--in three-dimension--her tiny hands clenched up by her delicate features as beautiful as any face I've ever seen. I haven't met her yet--still another nine weeks or so to go--but it was such a special moment to get a glimpse of what God is doing as He actively forms her. It isn't that I have not known He's been at work--there have been some pretty clear signs! Like the fact that I can't hardly walk up the long hill from classes to our apartment every day without panting heavily...or that my 18-month-old daughter runs around the house chanting "belly, belly, belly" and asking for peeks at my ever-so-conspicuous one.

It can be so easy to focus on the uncomfortable things in our lives--the growing pains. But I am finding that it helps to remember that my perspective is so incomplete and that God is doing something through that process--that all the stretching is somehow for His glory--and maybe for something beautiful. He doesn't always show us...but it is pretty amazing when He does!

My daughter's strange connection to my suitcase

So in April we left Mozambique and the Indian Ocean, and began our travels back to America. For Stefan and I it has been coming "home" in many ways. But the reality is that for our children it was leaving "home" and everything with which they were familiar.

It is June now and we have been on the road and living out of suitcases for two straight months...with two more months of travel on the horizon before we finally settle down for a time. We have had so many neat experiences on our travels...visiting family in Germany, going to Virginia Beach to meet the kids' uncles and aunts, going camping in Kentucky and spending hours visiting with friends.

And it has been so fun to explore life in America through our kids' perspective as they take in so many new experiences...like wearing fun pajamas to bed every night, eating cheerios for breakfast, discovering the hours of entertainment that a playground holds, and watching a rabbit or squirrel in the backyard (strange animals compared to the monkeys and crocodile's they are more familiar with). It has been such a special time. But...we're still living out of suitcases.

Wesley in particular has seemed a bit unsure of all the movement and change and has developed a peculiar attachment to my suitcase. It probably has something to do with the easy access to things that she is not usually allowed to play with like Mommy's make-up or hair dryer. She takes great delight in rummaging through the neat piles of clothes and throwing them up in the air and out onto the floor. She occasionally completely re-arranges the items and I'll find she has re-packed my clothes in HER suitcase. But many times I find her just sitting there...watching all the movement around her. Or I find that she has taken her bowl of snack or box of raisins and, rather than sit in the living room or in the dining room with everyone else, she takes them into my room, climbs into my suitcase, and munches on them in there.

I'm trying not to read too much into it...otherwise I think of things like: "Perhaps this behavior is an indication of extreme insecurity. Maybe subconsciously she is afraid of being left behind and therefore positions herself by (or in this case IN) something that she knows will always be taken along on our journey..." (I know, I know...more than likely she just enjoys playing in a large box like any well-adjusted toddler).

A few weeks before we left Mozambique, I wrote out a memory verse for both Cohen and Christian...truths that I wanted to teach and encourage them with throughout our upcoming travels. Christian has been learning Psalm 46:1 "God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble." And Cohen has been memorizing "The Lord is good, a safe place in times of trouble. And He knows those who come to Him to be safe, " from Nahum 1:7. Obviously one-year-old Wesley is not quite old enough to be comforted by those words or her "own" verse. But the truth is, I think that at their ages (1, 3
and nearly5), all three of my children's feelings of security and safety and peace is much more dependent on the extent that I believe and appropriate those truths than to the extent that THEY understand them. Although it is great that I can remind them of those truths when they are showing fear or anxiety and unrest...I think the reality is that I need to be reminded of them even more. And as I rest in them, the tone atmosphere of my home is changed and the children sense peace and security. It's just something I've been thinking about...

And in the meantime...I'm enjoying the antics of my sweet daughter in her special, mobile, comfy "box."

visit to Ana

The other day Wesley and I took a walk to go visit Ana--the girl who works for us--where she lives on the outskirts of town in the "bairo." We rode the "chapa" (public transportation) for the first 30 minutes or so and then walked another 45 minutes on a less accessible road.

Ana lives in a cinder-block home surrounded by a walled courtyard with several fruit trees and an outhouse. She had her clothes hanging up on a line that she had washed by hand early that morning before making the trek to our place to work.

They don't have electricity or running water set up. But she had a large cement tank to catch run-off rain water from the roof during the wet season.

Wesley enjoyed the morning playing on the "estera" (mat) in the shade. She is used to having the run of the house and crawling and climbing wherever she pleases (what with our western culture of bleaching everything and 'baby-proofing' our houses)--but out in the "bairo" the surroundings are not so child-friendly. Typically all the food preparation and cleaning is done at ground level which allows things like hot coals, knives, etc. within easy reach (not to mention a plethora of broken glass, sharp metal, and other trash lying around). I've always been amazed at how Mozambican babies seem so content to play on a mat and sort of thought my rambunctious and curious babies wouldn't do it that well. But I found with a lot of re-direction, she eventually learned her boundaries and spent over an hour playing with a lemon and her water bottle...of course she did get a lot of attention from Ana.

After making the long walk to Ana's house, I wasn't really sure how long we would stay. But upon arrival, Ana sent her brother out to buy four little river fish...and when he came back and started cleaning them, I realized we were expected for lunch!

He and Ana prepared a simple and typical Mozambican meal of grilled fish seasoned with lemon and garlic and "xima" (cooked cornmeal).

Ana served our meal on plates with a side of water to wash our hands in throughout the meal whenever they became too..."goopy"...with the xima and fish. It was delicious! Unfortunately I had forgotten my water bottle...and after that 45 minute walk in the hot sun, a few hours of sitting around in the Mozambican heat, and eating a salty meal I was completely parched. So I braved a glass of water too. (To be honest, I think SHE was more concerned about me coming down with something from the water than I was--over the last few months she's worked with us she has picked up on how germ conscious we are--comparatively speaking--and I think she was convinced that within a few minutes my "weak" Western body would be in convulsions. We were both pleasantly surprised that there were no ill effects from the water).

Pink Icing

I have so thoroughly enjoyed having two rough and tumble boys that my pleasure in mothering a girl has surprised me a bit, I think. A year ago, our newborn baby ushered in a a whole new world of ribbons and dresses, baby dolls and purses, drama and sweetness. Sometimes I wonder how we ever existed without it.

I never really liked pink growing up myself...but it was absolutely delightful to put those drops of pink food coloring in the icing making cupcakes for my one-year-old daughter's birthday!