Borneo Wife

What My Sign Says

2013-05-13T06:48:00.002-07:00

I was so tired that I don’t even remember which of my kids was throwing the fit in the security line in some airport somewhere in America.

But I couldn’t make him or her stop, or move or hug or listen. Brad wasn’t with me—he’d gone on a different flight for some training. I was going to visit my parents in Colorado, but we’d gotten delayed along the way, adding another day to the grueling trip from Indonesia.

I looked around me and noticed the half-stares—the ones where people look, then look away. And I know what they were thinking.

That kid is out of control. That mom is a bad mom. What is wrong with them?

And I wanted to hold up a big sign that said,

“We’ve been traveling for four days through four countries with maybe, maybe four hours of total sleep and my kid is normally obedient, but he’s really, really tired and we need your patience.”

Just like sometimes I want to hold up a sign in this small town in Indonesia that says,

“Yes, I’m different. I do things that you consider to be weird, and I may get this whole living-in-your-culture thing wrong sometimes, but I’m really, really trying, and I need your patience.”

And thankfully, since Indonesians are about the friendliest people in the world, I usually get that patience, and maybe a piece of candy for my kids, and a free bag of rice from Brad’s passengers and help carrying my groceries to the car from the store clerk who knows my kids’ names and the chance to have some really special relationships.

But now, as I prepare to start a seven-month furlough traveling the States again, I need another sign. Like one that says,

“I don’t have it all together, and I both like my life in Indonesia and sometimes want to escape this life and while I’m speaking in front of your church, I don’t have all the answers, and my life isn’t really set to some beautiful spiritual song like you see in that video, and sometimes it’s really hard, but it’s hard to admit that it’s hard when you serve people with way worse problems, and yes, that’s probably my kid who took your kid’s toy in Sunday school, and I know I look American to you, but I don’t feel like I fit in here anymore, and I don’t really fit into Indonesia completely, oh, and I’m pretty tired because I was up all last night with my jet-lagged baby, and let's be real, I'm tired because I've spent years living in a noisy place where it's hard to ever get sleep, and while yes, I consider myself to be a deeply spiritual person, I most look forward to wandering the aisles of Target with a Starbucks tea in my hand and no one staring at me after I’ve finally gotten a decent haircut, and please don’t judge, and be patient with me while I take this break.”

Oh, and can someone give me a hand holding up this sign since it’s going to have to be a pretty big one?

So, if you see the lady with the screaming kid in the airport, it might just be me, with my invisible sign, asking for a bit of extra grace.

photo credit, Joe Shlabotnik

Identity Crisis--my guest post on MAF's blog

2013-05-06T18:23:00.001-07:00

It all took some sorting out. My Indonesian friend kept going on and on about some mutual friend of ours who is sick. I kept smiling, nodding, trying to figure it out, feeling stupid. But I didn’t recognize the name.

And then I realized she was calling our friend by one of the three different names she goes by.

I call my friend by the one her parents gave her. She also goes by her husband’s name. Or she could go by her firstborn child’s name.

In this culture, I’d be Ibu Rebecca, or Ibu Brad or Mama Evan. And that doesn’t include the many names I’ve been called when my American names aren’t understood. Ibu Radeka, Bule (white person), and even the all-too-often “Mister.” As in “Hello, Mister!” or “I love you, Mister!”

Those don’t include the identities I’ve experienced over the eight years of living in Indonesia.

Read more at MAF's blog where I'm guest posting today.

Bearing Fruit--a guest post on MAF's blog

2013-04-08T17:49:00.000-07:00

When I was getting ready to move to Indonesia, I was willing to give up pizza, my mom’s dirt cake and one-stop trips to Wal-Mart. But I had one hope in return—a fruit tree.

Any type of fruit would do—bananas, pineapple, coconut, or something else I didn’t yet know existed.
Thankfully, I ate pizza the first week I got to Indonesia. I figured out how to make dirt cake with local ingredients. And I’ve adjusted to the several-stop shopping that’s common here.

But my first house was crowded in by other slapped-together shacks. My second house was surrounded by cement ground. And my third house—finally one with a yard—didn’t have a single fruit tree in it.

Find out what happened next at MAF's blog where I'm guest posting today.

What I Wish I Knew Back Then

2013-03-24T04:54:00.000-07:00

The fight was a doozy. Back before we were married, Brad and I chased each other down the mountain trail in Colorado, our voices bouncing off rocks during a romantic hike turned heated.

We were discussing our eventual plans to join MAF, move overseas and live the dream of making a difference. But Brad was trying to get me to go deeper with my high hopes. I think it went something like this:

Brad: “What if we have to get our water in buckets from a stream and boil it?”

Me: “What?! I’m not doing that! No way. I do NOT want to spend all my time doing such menial tasks.”

Brad: “Well, maybe you won’t have to do that exactly. But what I mean is, are you willing to do the hard work, the boring tasks, if God asks you to?”

Me. “Why should you get to do all the exciting stuff…fly those planes into distant villages, meet ancient tribes, save lives, while I spend my days boiling water? Oh, no. Don’t ask me to do that. And God had better not ask me to do that either. I have much bigger plans, thank you very much.”

Cringe.

Fast forward some 15 years, and thankfully, I don’t have to carry my water from a stream or boil it. I have running water and handy dandy water filtering system to make it drinkable.

And yet, my life here in Indonesia is filled with other menial tasks. Waiting in long lines in the heat of the day to buy gas for my car while my baby cries in the back. Laying awake, sweating, in the middle of an all-night power outage. Making batch after batch of granola and yogurt from scratch to feed my family breakfast every day.

And then there are the tasks of motherhood…changing diapers, cleaning diapers, midnight feedings…all so very menial made even more challenging on a remote tropical island where life is a lot of work.

Even the exciting things involve hard, sweaty, tedious work. That exciting job Brad gets to do flying his airplane into the wild Borneo jungles? Sometimes he's bent over heavy boxes, loading them into airplanes in the middle of nowhere, on a hot day, with a bad back. No one there to see.

Those messages about love and hope and God I sometimes get to share over hot tea with a friend? They are sandwiches in between a million utterly mundane words spoken as I sit outside of my comfort zone, sweating out my fears. Those orphans I get to teach English to each week? I do it, shouting over the din of chaos, holding my handmade, barely legible flashcards, my 2-year-old running sticky hands through my hair while she sits on my lap. Oh and I’d better add another half hour to my outing to wait in line for gas so I can actually get there.

Sometimes I’m still that girl who forgets that if I want to reach for my dreams, I have to press my knees on hard earth. If I want to make big plans, I have to toil at the little things.

If I want to do something that lasts forever, sometimes it means I have to do something that will be forgotten by tomorrow.

If I want to be part of reaching the ends of the earth with love, some days it means I have to kiss my husband as he leaves for his amazing job while I stay home all day to hold a sick baby.

But when I don’t fight it, I get to watch my mundane matter, my “big” plans made even bigger, and my life be used by a God who believes in getting His own hands dirty, and making my dirty pride clean.

photo credit, AlphaTangoBravo/Adam Baker

When light is dead

2013-03-05T16:38:00.000-08:00

Our son is throwing up in the toilet while Brad holds a flashlight above his head. It’s Mati Lampu again. Literally translated: The light is dead.

The power company has instituted a new rotation of power outages, eight hours on, eight hours off. For three out of the last four nights, eight of those hours have fallen at night. We try to sleep in 90 degree humid heat, taking turns comforting sweaty kids, and in this case, a sweaty, sick 4-year-old.

We’re tired, and wonder when we’ll get to really sleep again.

Evan’s finally in bed, and Brad and I sit in the dark, a tiny battery-powered camp fan spinning thick air over our open Bible.

"Consider it pure joy,” Brad reads from James 2.

And despite all these trials, and despite the fact that my 2-month old just started crying again, this moment feels special.

While I bounce the fussy baby, we talk about the happenings of the last few days. Of the medevac flights Brad flew. The sick baby having seizures. The woman with the fever.

We discuss some difficulties at work. The long days Brad is putting in. Brad’s inability to work on his latest master’s course due to long power outages and intermittent Internet. We talk about whether or not our year-old generator, which the mechanic said is unfixable, can, in fact, be fixed.

I share about the one thing I managed to get done during a day of Mati Lampu. Writing thank you notes, going over the names of friends, family, acquaintances and people we haven’t yet met who give to our ministry. Seeing the response to our need for funds so we can be here.

And I laugh now when I think how I used to wish I was independently wealthy, so I wouldn’t have to need others’ money, so I wouldn’t have to ask for help. But today, those names, those gifts, their commitment provides comfort as we sit in the heavy darkness, sweating and reminding ourselves to believe.

And it makes us feel not so alone in this.

Somehow in this Mati Lampu, this Dead Light, a miracle happens in our tired hearts. Instead of grumbling, we give thanks. Instead of loneliness, we feel connected.

And in the midst of darkness, there is joy.

photo credit, JuhlDK13

Borneo Faith

2013-02-21T17:27:00.001-08:00

Our babies cry and we both do what we need to do. My Indonesian friend nurses with no cover. I hide under a blanket.

The differences continue. As is the local custom, her child sleeps with her in her bed, waking often. I put mine in a crib in a separate room. Her philosophies center around keeping a baby happy. I, as an American mama, like my kids to be independent…and hopefully to soon sleep through the night.

I won’t change to these local ways. She probably thinks my ways are crazy.

One thing we share is that we pray. And her prayers seem to get answered. Like when she couldn’t have a baby, and the doctor gave her medicine that she didn’t want to take. Who knows if it would’ve worked anyway.

“I knew God could make it happen,” she said.

And He did.

And then she tells me about how her baby fell off the bed, when she wasn’t looking…except he maybe didn’t fall. One minute he was on the bed. The next, on the ground, happy as can be. No bruises. No crying. Her explanation? An angel protected him—maybe caught him.

Who says things like that? Who believes in angels who hold our children and a God who really comes through? Her belief seems so…unbelievable.

While her faith may seem simple, life in Borneo is anything but that. She grew up with almost no electricity in a village a two-hour boat ride from the nearest town. Her parents are farmers who spend all day working in their rice fields. No machinery. Sickness means boat rides and plane rides to a small town hospital. This girl did not have the easy life.

I admire her. And I want to be like her. I want to say out loud what I really want. What I hope will happen. What I hope already did happen.

I want to believe in miracles and not mere coincidences. I want to hope for good things that could happen and not settle for the bad things that are happening.

I want the faith of a Borneo girl.

Saying Yes

2013-02-07T20:30:00.000-08:00

Just two days back in Indonesia and I was saying, “No” as in “Oh, no, no, no.”

My nice little plans were unraveling. In my eighth month of pregnancy, I’d cooked extra meals from scratch to store in my freezer for our return home from Singapore. I’d cleared my schedule for my return—no preschool yet for Evan. No ministry commitments to fulfill. My gas can filled for the generator and those power outages. The baby clothes all washed and organized.

All set up so that I could handle life on my own with three kids on this little Indonesian island.

But in the middle of the night on that third night—I was awake for a feeding for my baby—Brad told me he was sick. Really sick.

Oh no, no. no. Not this. Not now.

I'd heard about the flu-like virus that had been infecting our friends here, making many of them really sick for days, even weeks. Just two days back and Brad was so sick he couldn’t walk more than a few feet without falling over, his fever high, his stomach nauseous. A day later, my 2-year-old got it.

I spent my time torn, having to choose which crying baby to hold—the sick one or the newly born one. And I spent my nights torn between fear and faith. What if my tiny baby got the illness? Could he survive? What if I got it? Who would take care of everyone?

And then my helper, a young woman who helps me keep up with all the housework, asked for a few days off. Then a couple days later, quit her job to be married in very sudden, arranged marriage that broke my heart. I was torn between being glad she’d found someone and sad that she felt like the only option she had was to marry a stranger.

The meals I’d made that I hoped could be used spaced out over several weeks, were gone within a few days. No time to make anything else as I tried to keep up with dishes and dirty laundry and caring for the sick, washing my hands furiously as I went from sick person to new baby.

Sometime in the middle of one of those dark nights, I punched out an email to the MAF wives here, asking for prayer, for help—small kinds of help. As soon as I sent it, I regretted it, wishing I could unsend all that vulnerability.

I don’t like to ask for help. I don’t like to need others. I don’t like to be so much trouble. I prefer to be the one to give, hiding behind service and babysitting and casseroles.

I prefer to earn people's love with acts of kindness than drain them with my pleas for help.

Almost immediately, the offers poured in. Offers of meals, babysitting, grocery runs, even an offer of a friend to come over and clean my house for me. I felt embarrassed and opened my mouth, ready with my standard reply of “We’re fine. Thanks anyway.”

Instead, the word escaped my mask of independence.

“Yes.”

Yes, I need. Yes, I’ll take. Yes, I’m a wreck and can’t do this on my own.

We got through those couple of grueling weeks. Everyone is pretty healthy now. The baby never got sick. I never got more than a sniffly nose. My husband is back to being able to help me, able to hold his baby again. I can pile all my kids on my lap without worrying about the sick ones infecting the healthy ones. And thankfully, I have a new helper, with a sweet smile and a willingness to help me tackle those mounds of laundry and dishes.

But something more happened. A different kind of healing.

After a year of feeling burned out, of going through the motions of ministry with a tired heart, I felt new life. When I said yes and allowed others to give to me, they showed me that I’m worth their trouble. I don’t have to do this alone. And all that vulnerability that I like to keep tucked away behind a smile? They accepted it…and me.

I’m glad to be back in a position to be able to serve and hear others say, “yes” to my offers. But I’m even happier to do it knowing what it feels like to have people say "yes"...to me.

photo credit, mikebaird

Wearing Kids-A Guest Post at MAF's sitte

2013-01-28T16:35:00.003-08:00

The woman bounced down the path, her arms pumping strong on her afternoon jog. She looked so fit. So light. So free.

I did my own bouncing as my 2-week-old baby fussed in the Baby Bjorn strapped to my chest. My 4-year-old son was taking his turn in the stroller. My 2-year-old walked beside me, holding my hand that held onto the stroller.

Another person passed us—a biker—also looking fast and free.

I, on the other hand, with three small kids, felt a bit, well, full, and busy, and mostly, tired. And a bit jealous, wishing I could spend my afternoon jogging, or clicking, or, should I even dream of it? Napping.

Find out what happened next at Mission Aviation Fellowship's blog here.

photo credit, Tripp Flythe

Life and death in a Singaporean hospital

2013-01-03T00:29:00.000-08:00

She might have been just down the hall.

The night after Christmas, Brad and I had checked into the hospital, answering questions from nurses in between contractions that came faster and faster. I didn’t know yet about the girl—the one who was admitted that same day. The girl from India who was gang-raped by several men on a bus, her ordeal becoming international news as protesters spilled into the streets.

Badly injured, she’d come to Singapore to medical treatment, to the same hospital where I was getting ready to give birth to my third Singaporean child.

This third child of mine and my second baby boy was born quickly—though not quickly enough with all that excruciating pain. And I spent the next couple of days cuddling with my newborn, thanking God for my healthy baby, enjoying the hospital’s quality medical care. And watching the news of the Indian girl.

A couple days later, I beamed as I carried my bundle out of the hospital and into the waiting taxi to take us back to the place we were staying.

“Ahh, such joy, a bundle of joy,” the driver gushed.

Born in Singapore to Indian parents, he talked almost nonstop, his chatter turning quickly from the joys of parenthood to the horrors of real Indian life.

He had opinions, about how women are treated there. How the woman down the hall had actually been wealthy enough for people to pay attention, and to have a chance at good treatment. How other poor village girls get raped and murdered all the time, their bodies throw into the streets as trash. No one caring. Nothing done.

I held tight to my snuggly son as the horrible outside world pressed into my heart.

The next day, I listened to the news. Of how the girl had died in her hospital room, even as my son began to live.

And I prayed.

That my son would be part of the solution. That he would care about more than success and wealth and gain. That he would see the hurt of the women and children who live down the hall. Or next door. Or on the other side of the world.

And that someday, he would be part of bringing more life into the world.

Where is the hope?

2012-12-17T21:45:00.000-08:00

Four years ago, I sat in the adjustable bed in the first-rate hospital in Singapore, holding my newborn and reading the story in the newspaper that the nurse brought. A mother, in the midst of a cyclone in Myanmar that killed 78,000 people, had given birth by herself. On her dirt floor. While a storm raged outside.

And I cried for her. For her pain, her loneliness, her fear.

Then two years later, very early pregnant with my second baby, I heard about Haiti’s earthquake and the 220,000 dead. And I wept. For the people lost in the wreckage, and those left to grieve their empty arms.

The tragedies seem to hit when I’m pregnant or just had a baby. Or at least it feels that way, the loss all the more profound when my body holds new life.

And now with my baby still in my belly, I read news of the tragedy in the Connecticut elementary school. And I hear the fears of my Singaporean taxi drivers that the end of the world is coming. And though it’s sunny here and my kids are laughing, the questions come.

Am I ready to bring a vulnerable little baby into this dying world? Is life worth the risk—no, the certainty—that death will eventually happen? Am I ready for the aching love I will have for yet another child in a world that simply cannot promise safety for eternity? And what of the lives lost? The children gone? How can it be?

Where is the hope when horrible, unspeakable things happen?

And I think of the trite answers to the questions. That everything happens for a reason. That everything will be OK in the end. That what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.

And sometimes it doesn’t help. Sure, I’ve seen firsthand how God can use the hard things in our lives to bring about beauty. That life can come from loss, as my friend Heather puts it. That there are happy endings, if not in this world, then certainly in the next.

But I also think God hates it all as much—no, more—than I do. All this dying wasn’t part of His original plan. The evil wasn’t His idea. The sadness was something He wanted to avoid, that He died to eradicate.

My grandma worries about me living in Indonesia. All those earthquakes and tsunamis and terrorists and such, just lurking, ready to kill. But the reality is, it’s not safe anywhere. And death will happen. And pain will come.

Even for my little baby tucked beneath my heart, on the brink of arriving in this world of chaos.

But there is hope. Maybe not really in mankind. Not in technology. Not in wealth or even in democracy or success or security.

There’s hope in faith that good exists. There’s hope in love that happens in the face of evil—even the evil in my own heart. There’s hope in a Person born as a baby into an unsafe, dying world that would someday try to destroy God himself.

And there’s hope when those who are dying can someday live forever.

photo credit, LaserGuided

Living in the Pauses

2012-12-11T04:00:00.000-08:00

The pain rips through my abdomen, settling into my back.

I pause, having no other choice but to stop and breathe through yet another contraction that goes nowhere.

I’m supposed to wait to have this baby. Brad isn’t yet here with me in Singapore, instead, stuck in Indonesia due to a delayed visa from the government. So, I pause, and slow down and try to get this baby to wait for Daddy.

Her pain—my neighbor’s pain—presses into her curved back.

I pause, watching her face, Then I slowly, carefully massage hands that can no longer open on their own, this sickness turning my neighbor—prematurely—into an old lady. If I move too quickly, press too hard, I am afraid she’ll break. So, I pause, listening to her broken voice through her inner heart pain.

His pain—from my 4-year-old son’s hurt—leaks out through his tears.

I pause, listening to his words, wondering how many times I’ve missed moments like these in my busy mama tasks. But I don’t want to spend these years simply getting stuff done. Instead, I want to spend the time getting to know my kids’ hearts.

I’m not very good at the pausing. Preferring to move quickly than to slow down. Wishing I could get more stuff done in a place filled with endless delays. My ideas always bigger than the nap times available to accomplish them.

But then again, sometimes the best things happen during the pauses. Hearts are heard. Prayers are whispered. Pain is soothed. Energy is restored. Thoughts are ordered. Life is relished. Love is given...and received.

So, I pause, enjoying a short break before this baby arrives and I will have to keep moving, bouncing a fussy baby while I make dinner, eat, do life. Soon getting less done with my days, while somehow accomplishing the most important thing.

And even in the pausing, there’s no time to stop completely. The other kids are calling. The concerns of ministry continue to fill my mind and heart. Dinner still needs to be made. But in the pauses I do have, I breathe and listen and pray and rest.

In this busy season, do you have time a moment to pause?

photo credit, VinothChandar

Practical Ideas for Making Christmas Matter

2012-12-06T02:51:00.000-08:00

This is a reposting of a post I wrote a year ago. I'd love to hear your own ideas on how to make Christmas matter.

My son—then just 2—begged me to pull out the Advent Book—its beautifully illustrated pictures telling a life-giving story hidden behind ornate paper doors.

This reading of this gorgeous book has become one of my favorite Christmas traditions that matter. My husband reads it with the kids, huddled in our air conditioned office each night of December.

But last year, Evan wanted to share it with the young friends who sometimes stop by for visits. Their religion centered in mosques, their prayers said in Arabic—these kids gathered around as my son showed them the story of the baby born in Bethlehem.

I love this integration of family tradition with outreach—both done inside the home and outside of it. Temporary moments interlaced with eternity. My own messy, crazy life with kids spent in a way that I hope points others to the One who gives my soul hope. Traditions that mean something to me and my family shared with others who mean so much to Him.
Here are some other ideas for making your Christmas matter.

1. Bring gifts to those in need.

Our team of MAF women—the westerners and the Indonesians—have gathered gifts that we’ve brought to the local hospital to distribute to sick children. Most of these kids probably don’t even celebrate Christmas. But it has given us a chance to share generosity and hope with those who hurt; and a chance for our own kids to be the givers.

What could you do where you live? Could you visit a nursing home? Bring presents to an orphanage? Help a single mother with her needs?

2. Turn your tasks into opportunities.

Over the years, I’ve decorated hundreds of cookies with different friends—the friend whose son is autistic; the ladies who volunteer at a local clinic; the girl whose only sister died. Their kids and my kids and their sticky hands decorating and tasting; conversation flowing over frosting and warm cookies.

This tradition that tastes good and makes me feel all Christmasy becomes tied with relationships and love. Many of these friends don’t yet celebrate Christmas. But I hope this is a start to decisions that bring freedom and hope.

3. Throw a party—for those who most need it.

A few days before Christmas, we throw a party—complete with Indonesian food for our Indonesian friends—many of whom are in need. I put out the cookies that many of them helped me decorate, and we welcome them into our home in a country where hospitality means treating the guest as king. (And we finally get to attempt to pay back all the amazing hospitality given to us by our Indonesian friends!) The house gets messy and I get all sweaty and it always ends past my bedtime. But I hope they experience warmth that has nothing to do with the weather.

4. Say no and say yes.

Simplify and complicate. Cut out the things that make the season too busy, that are draining, but that don’t matter. But the thing I learn again and again each year? Not to close my door to the world and make Christmas about just my home and only my family.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed by my own inadequacy in doing this. I don't use the right words, or cook the perfect recipes, or have a clean enough or quiet enough home for my guests. (There was one year when I asked my friends to critique my cooking of Indonesian food and I definitely fell short!)

But then my son reminds me about the story. The one hidden behind ornate doors meant to be discovered every day. The Story that was born—and lived for the least, the forsaken, and the hurting.

photo credit, *Vintage Fairytale*

When you don't measure up

2012-11-24T04:52:00.000-08:00

I knew these women had to be strong. I was at MAF’s headquarters for the first time, and feeling small. The women there had lived lives overseas. Some had been through riots, evacuations, malaria. They’d had babies in foreign lands. They could speak foreign languages. They could pluck a chicken with one hand while creating gourmet cinnamon rolls with the other. From real scratch.

They had stories and experiences and strength. And I had nothing. The most I could do was utter a few words of high school Spanish and heat up a frozen lasagna from Wal-Mart.

So, I spent my first few years in Indonesia trying to measure up. Trying to prove that I could be strong, too. Trying to sacrifice for Him, give away all I had. If I had a need, I kept it to myself. If I wished something was different, I tried not to complain. When the hard times hit, I dug deep inside, hoping I’d come up with something resembling strength.

Fast forward a few years and in some ways, I am stronger. I know a foreign language. I’ve lived through a riot in my town. My family had been through its own trials, sicknesses. I’ve had babies overseas. And I’ve learned to deal with many of the stresses of life here better than when I first came. (Though I have never and never plan to pluck any chickens.)

But in many, many ways, I grow weaker. I came without babies and now have been through three hot, nauseous, anemic, exhausting pregnancies that leave me weak and lost. I’ve entered motherhood with all its sleepless, worrisome, hormonal vulnerabilities. I’ve made responsible, wise plans only to have them dashed by the uncertainty of life here. And I’ve lived with a heart broken for the people here—solutions long in coming, sometimes never coming.

And it gets harder and harder to pretend, my own weakness oozing through the cracks in my skin-deep strength.

The truth is, I still don’t measure up…not to what I want to be. Certainly not that strong wife and mom who can roll with the punches, handle any problem with complete flexibility, plucking at that chicken with one hand and rolling out dough for gourmet cinnamon rolls with the other.

Instead, I am a sweaty, teary, weary mess, waking up at 2 a.m. with that sick child and my dark thoughts. Too many times, I put my faith in myself. Not asking Him for help. Not trusting in His sacrifice for my own joy. Not letting myself hope for His answers.

I’ve told myself that He demands my sacrifices, expect me to buck up and be strong, and requires me to accept the lack instead of hope for His abundance.

Then more lies. That I have to do all this because He isn’t strong enough or good enough or cares enough anyway. It’s all up to me. Messy, teary, weary me covered with smiles and shrugs and shallow, shifting human “strength.”

But during a recent dark, teary night as I watched all my plans fall into a heap before me, I opened that book of promises. Filled with urges to ask Him, to lean on Him, to trust Him. Filled with truth of His love, His sacrifice, His strength.

And I realized, I don’t have to pretend. I don’t have to be strong. And it’s not all about my sacrifice, not when He took care of all that with His own.

Sure, life will continue to be filled with struggles, even if I beg God to take them all away. But I don’t have to go through them on my own. That promise is clear.

I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.

photo credit, michal_hadassah

Giving my Thanks Away~A Guest Post for MAF

2012-11-19T16:44:00.000-08:00

The corner store is smelly, and crowded with others like me—coming for something quick and small. Some vegetables to make dinner maybe. Gas for the stove. For me, I’m searching for more time—for my phone.

These are my neighbors. Some live in houses like mine—with furniture and plants and tiles on the floor. One of the ladies, though, lives in a shack made of scrap material—her stuff plucked from the trash piles.

I count out my paper blessings and pay the store owner the maximum amount of minutes to last me, I hope, for a couple of months. But I’m embarrassed as I pull out the cash. My neighbor probably has that amount to buy her family’s food for the month.

Find out the rest of the story of how I am learning to both give thanks and give it away.

photo credit, Saxon

Great Expectations

2012-11-05T14:40:00.000-08:00

“Have I lost all hope?”

I asked Brad the question in the middle of yet another power outage—this one unscheduled.

I wasn’t surprised by the outage, wasn’t annoyed. In fact, I’d been expecting it all day, as if living with a strange form of shell shock. All day long I’d been flipping on switches, turning on fans, pushing buttons on appliances, bracing myself for them not to work.

Just like I wait in the long lines for gasoline at the pump, kids screaming in the back, and when the pump runs out right as I pull up, I’m not surprised. Not annoyed. All hope gone that things will go right in my world.

Just like when I make one more cultural or language mistake among a people I may never fully understand in a world in which I'll never really fit. Not surprised. Not even embarrassed anymore. Never expecting to ever get it completely right.

In some ways, this is the healthiest place for an overseas worker. At least that’s what all the books and retired expats and good trainers say. “Keep your expectations low.” “Move overseas with no expectations of how it will be.” “Disappointment comes when we expect things to happen a certain way.”

Best to surrender, they say, which sometimes sounds like a fancy way of saying to give up.

But at my core, I’m a glass-half-full dreamer who wants to fight for things going right. And only with living year after year in a world that continues to go wrong have I tempered that with reality.

And maybe that’s one of the gifts about living here in a world of less. Not able to be fooled with wide smooth roads and unlimited electricity and stores that never run out. Not enticed by a world of wealth that promises things it was never meant to give. Not tempted to think higher of ourselves and our education and our technology than we ought. Not expecting happiness from circumstances that look like rocks but shift like sand.

I have the luxury of seeing the truth. That this world isn’t a place to which we should cling. Wealth is not a pursuit for which we should giving our souls. Safety as the highest priority cannot promise eternal life.

Instead the longer I’m here, the higher my expectations grow in my God. I expect Him to provide in ways I couldn’t have imagined. I expect Him to show up when no one else does.

I expect Him to carry me through the hard days, growing my faith strong even as my body becomes weak. I expect Him to put dreams and fights in me in the midst of a world gone wrong with an expectation that some things can be made right. That change deep down can happen.

That hope—in Him and Him alone—will never disappoint.

photo credit, seyed mostafa zamani

Seeing the Possible

2012-10-29T18:07:00.000-07:00

Hot day. Six stores. No battery available anywhere for our generator.

“Remember that day when we drove across Arizona right before we left for Indonesia?” Brad said as we got back into our steamy car (the air conditioning wasn’t working) after stop number six. He pulled out onto the narrow road, motorbikes buzzing around us in our small town on this tiny island in Indonesia.

I tried to look past the problems around me to that clear, cool day almost eight years ago, driving on wide roads laid across orange glowing land, returning to MAF’s headquarters for a couple months of training before leaving for Indonesia.

The possibilities back then seemed like the sky—endless.

Each year, living on this small island has seemed to get harder—logistically anyway. The gas stations experience almost daily shortages. And when they have gas, the wait to get it ranges from a half hour to two hours—usually closer to two hours. And even then, we are only allowed half a tank of gas.

The electric company has us on rolling blackouts for several hours a day, two to three times a week. And those are just the scheduled ones. Every day and almost every night, the house’s power goes dead for some unknown amount of time for yet another outage. And I sit with my 8-month pregnant belly, sweltering in the still air with a generator that I can’t start, and that is empty anyway—of gas.

Some days—many days lately—it seems like we live to buy gas. Gas for our car, for our generator, for our stove. We spend our days just trying to keep things running. To keep ourselves running.

And often, everything seems impossible. Impossible to find a battery. Impossible to make dinner with my empty gas bottle. Impossible to get sleep at night with sniffly kids or get a nap with a 2-year-old who thinks she’s done with them.

My prayers these days are short, the fogginess of my anemic brain chasing away the eloquent, leaving behind the urgent. “Give me patience for my kids!” “Help me find gas!” “Keep away the nausea so I can make a simple dinner!” “Fill me with your love for the people we serve!”

And on that hot search for the battery, the prayer, “Help me to see the possible again!”

And then the grace comes. In the midst of the impossible, I see the little things. My son, who prays for others with a genuine simplicity. The chance to hold the hand of an elderly neighbor who is dying. The husband who sees and cares and tells me to go sit and rest. The chance to become weak so I can be rely on His strength.

And my small faith grows deeper as I run out of my own gas and fill up on His goodness.

photo credit, PhillipC

Words that Changed my Life--the Bad Ones

2012-10-21T23:02:00.000-07:00

This is the third part in a series on Words that Changed my Life. Read more in parts 1 and 2.

You and they.

They’re the bad words that have been laced throughout my years in Indonesia. Sometimes shouted. Sometimes whispered. Always lying. Almost always convincing. Until recently.

They go something like this. You are not loved. You are too much trouble. You are invisible. You are no good.

They, however, are beautiful. They are wanted. They have it all—or at least what you want.

And sometimes, at their deadliest, they merge. They judge you .They don’t want you. They don’t even see you.

It’s that deadly game that starts with my own insecurity, is layered next with the amazing talents, gifts, looks, popularity of friends, acquaintances, teammates, strangers—anyone who seems more important than I feel. Next comes my own jealousy, topped with more dark thoughts that are intent on destroying both me and them.

You’ll never have what they have. They probably don’t deserve what they have. You are no good. And neither are they.

And it tumbles down from there.

But for the past year, I’ve been talking back to the words. Calling out the lies. Searching for the truth. Cheering on the good things—especially when they happen to other people.

I’ve been focusing on the Him, not the You or the They. Enjoying what He says about Me. That I’m valuable. That I have been given my own set of gifts, my own good things. That I’m called to be part of Him and His big plans. That We can believe these truths together, choosing better words than You or They.

Words like love, not jealousy, hope, not despair, blessings, not curses.

What about you? Do you hear the accusations? Do the lies prey on your thoughts? Does the envy destroy your friendships? Will you join with me in searching for freedom once and for all?

photo credit, crdotx

Words that Changed My Life--Part 2

2012-10-08T01:22:00.001-07:00

This is the second in a series on how certain words changed my life. To read about how my mom's three words changed me, read here.

I knew how the story was supposed to go. Girl falls in love. Girl gets married. Girl has babies and lives happily ever after.

I knew because I lived it—as one of those babies, anyway, growing up in a stable home that just happened to have many different addresses.
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I saw good family life lived in my own home, watched love lived out. So, I guess I always figured I’d have a family, too. Except that I wasn’t one of those girls who absolutely adored babies and wanted to have bunches and bunches of them.

I was fine with falling in love, though. And when it finally happened to me, with a good guy, who loved me back, I happily married him. And stayed happy. But I just wasn’t so sure about those babies.

And so I waited and waited and waited, hoping for the right time, the details to get easier, even as my life became so very complicated by moving overseas.

Then one day, we decided to just jump into those diaper-infested waters of parenthood.

It was wonderful and hard and exhausting and beautiful and challenging and natural and crazy. And then, when I finally heard that one word, "Mama," after months of giving and giving, I knew I was hooked.

It changed me. Not into one of those moms who can come up with a craft on a rainy day or who has her daughter’s hair in bows and her son’s Legos all sorted out according to size.

But I became the Mama that was just me. The one who likes to have adventures with her kids. Who loves watching her kids find the same faith that I find every day. The one who sees children without mamas and longs to give them what I’ve found. The one who has found new fears with the responsibility of caring for these little ones. But who has also found new strength, bigger courage, deeper sacrifice, and greater joy.

I love words. And I love hearing this one. It reminds me of who I’ve become and who I want to strive to be.

Words that Changed My Life--Part 1

2012-09-30T04:48:00.000-07:00

My backpack was filled with fresh new school supplies that I was embarrassed to use.

I didn’t know where to put them. My desk? My cubby hole along the wall that had a blank space where everyone else had a colorful name tag? What about that box of Kleenex? No one else had one sitting on their desks. Surely, the teacher had collected those on the first day of school—for those kids anyway—months ago.

One thing I knew. I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

I stole glances around the classroom, trying to figure out my new school in Virginia. Did most people bring their lunch? Use a lunch box? A brown paper sack? Buy from the cafeteria? What did the kids here wear? Were jean jackets cool here?

For a couple of weeks, I kept my stuff in my backpack, afraid to commit to my guesses at how things worked here. I tried to shrink, hoping whatever I did would go unnoticed, because it was probably all wrong.

I was 8. This was my fifth state and my fourth school. It was February. And I was the new kid. Again. Only this time, it was worse because I’d missed most of the year at this Virginia school going to the first new school of my second grade year in Kansas.

The daughter of an Army soldier, I moved a lot as a kid. A scared kid. At least that’s how I saw it. Still sometimes do.

Fastforward to adulthood and the letter my mom sent one hot tropical day after I moved to Indonesia. She’s a prolific writer who puts her heart into words. And in that particular letter, she put my heart into a sentence I never want to forget.

“You are brave.”

Always had been, she wrote.

Me? Brave? Did she know I didn’t even want to unpack my backpack? Never felt –no, feel—like I know what I’m doing? Did she know that I walked to each new school with my head down, telling myself to take each step because that’s all I could do?

I love good words like I love chocolate mousse. If a book uses language that rolls around its meaning, I’m a happy reader. If a movie uses a line that makes their world my own, I watch again and again. And if someone I know says something that reaches past all the negative words in my head, I remember and relish them, coming back to them again and again, indulging in their rich, life-giving messages.

My mom’s words are like that, reminding me again and again that I am something I never believe myself to be. Brave.

And as I take each step through this life, I say the word over and over. I am brave. I am brave. I am brave. My head rising as the words sink its power into my soul.

So, in these next few posts, I want to highlight some of the other words that have changed my life over the years. What about you? What words have changed you, have rewritten the history--and the future--of your life?

photo credit, latteda

Talking with God

2012-09-23T04:34:00.000-07:00

This week, I’ve been talking to God about…

-Aziza, the girl with no parents, no siblings who just moved to the orphanage in town. So young—just 7—so quiet, as I showed her the MAF airplanes on our field trip to the hangar.

-Ita—the other new orphan girl, who at age 12, just started school for the first time. My heart aches, wondering what else has been missing from her childhood.

-My own sweet kids, and more patience from me to raise them with abundant love.

-My unborn child—who has already started keeping me up at night---but who lets me enjoy so many special miracles.

-My husband who loves so well, wrapping Renea in his arms after a long day of flying, making friends with his passengers even as his back aches, showing Evan what it means to be a man, knowing me well and loving me with everything.

-The thoughts that hound me in my tiredness, the ones that only go away when I send them into His hands. The worry for troubles. The accusations of my downfalls. The untrue things about my worth.

-The places in my heart where I struggle to forgive.

-My thankfulness for the ways He has met tangible needs.

-My community, its poverty, its needs, its beauty, its faces, its beliefs.

-The ideas for changing hard things around me, and my fears to do more than think, plan and hope.

About what are you talking to God this week?

photo credit, lel4nd

Growing Roots in the Soil and Soul of Borneo

2012-09-16T19:23:00.000-07:00

I hold my breath against the stench of smelly fish as I pull out the blue bill that sometimes still looks like monopoly money to me. I need just 50,000 rupiah worth of minutes for my phone. But the man who owns the tiny store where I buy my minutes and onions and eggs tells me that I owe him another 50,000 rupiah. He’d accidentally given me 100,000 rupiah worth instead of 50,000 rupiah worth of minutes on my husband’s phone last week, he explains.

I am annoyed that his mistake means that I have to go digging in my purse for more cash, while the odor of smelly fish from his shop turns my stomach. He apologizes and I force the smile on my sweaty face. I thank him for the transaction and walk away from the place where I’ve been coming for six years.

Then it occurs to me. I’ve never bought anything at any place for that many years in a row.

I grew up as the daughter of an American military officer, moving from place to place, making friends, then leaving them, memorizing addresses, then starting again with a new street name named after a general.

More than six years ago, my husband and I moved to the small island of Tarakan, off the coast of Borneo to work with Mission Aviation Fellowship. My husband spends his days flying hundreds of kilometers in the jungle of Borneo, serving the isolated villages there. I live my life planted on this tiny island volunteering and teaching English and taking care of my kids who have never moved. And in the midst of living and sweating and eating rice, I learn about friendship and community and growing roots.

And sometimes my cell phone-minute-selling neighbor is my teacher. I bought water from him the first week I moved into my house down the street from his. He delivered the jug on the back of his motorbike, no extra charge. A couple weeks later, I hired his relative to do some work on our house. A few months later, I began teaching his daughter English until she left for college.

Sometimes I sit next to the man’s wife in our neighborhood church, her Down’s syndrome son on her other side. She always gives my own 3-year-old son free candy when he joins me on my errands. I’ve seen their wedding pictures several times—whenever I have time to do more than buy onions and cell phone minutes—time to sit and chat with this neighbor in this community.

Another neighbor of mine threw a big party for their son and daughter-in-law’s wedding four years ago. The party lasted for days—and nights. The street was blocked off and I had to park my car a block away and carry my groceries past several houses, sweat running in my eyes. The smoke from the wedding reception permeated my house and I grumbled inside, while pushing out a smile when they called out to me. But after all that, I didn’t need my groceries because I didn’t have to cook for days. They invited me to eat all my meals with them, welcoming me as if I were family.

Their daughter-in-law--the bride that day--became a close friend, her son and my son friends, too, trading words while they shared toys.

Up and down this street, I know the faces, and many of the stories. The woman with the autistic son. The woman whose husband died suddenly. The family whose husband (and dad) left them for a new family in Java. The woman who used to be married to a man who beat her, until she left him and married a man who beats her less often. The woman who tried for years to have kids and now has two.

Some of them are my friends, some just neighbors. Some have annoyed me. And I’m sure, I’ve annoyed some of them, too, as I fumble, mixing my own culture with theirs, never getting the mixture quite right.

But through the years of language learning and teaching, we’ve traded words while sharing lives.

I’ve lived my life for moments, with many friendships that didn’t last; in places, not always in communities. But when I moved to the other side of the world, I learned more than just Bahasa (language) from a culture that does community well. I’ve learned that parties can be loud, but there is always enough food for one more guest. I know that the guy who sells you cell phone minutes is also the guy who knows your son’s name. I’ve figured out that everyone—even the lady with the obnoxious dog—lives with circumstances that break their hearts...and mine.

And I’ve discovered that people make mistakes, but that patience makes friends.

And I watch my roots grow deep in the rich soil and soul of community on a street I have memorized but that I probably pronounce wrong. Not moving away, but changing in place.

Believing in the Lost Causes

2012-09-12T22:57:00.000-07:00

The simple wooden coffin was placed carefully in the back of the MAF plane behind the passengers.

It was over for the 30-something-year-old man. He was going home to his village after he'd already gone to a new place, hopefully a much better one.

My husband, Brad, was his pilot. He does these funeral flights occasionally, which is always too often. The way the story usually goes is the sick person leaves his small village for a bigger city, his fever or tumor or blood-filled cough clinging to him, as he and his loved ones cling to hope.

And we all hope and pray that a life will be saved. That the story becomes one of rejoicing all around.

But then the sad ending nobody wants. Death. Away from home. After thousands of dollars’ worth of medical care and plane gas money spent. After thousands of prayers were begged in tear-soaked faith.

And I can’t help but ask, “Why?” Why not the happy ending? Why did the young man or mother or child have to die when we all believed in the miracle that never came?

Why did the husband never return, his children forever abandoned, his wife broken hearted by shattered promises?

Why did the womb never open to the life wanted by a mother who will never be one?

Even after watching hardship after tragedy after loss unfold through the years on this side of the world and back home, I’m still a sucker for the lost causes. The ones that probably won’t end well. The ones that need miracles for change to happen. The ones that require the Supernatural to bend to the will of the mortal.

Sometimes the lost causes win. Prayers are answered with YES. Reconciliation happens. Families are healed. Forgiveness erases evil. And life cheats inevitable death…at least for now.

But as my meager faith grows, it’s not these slim hopes of winning that make me put my heart into the lost causes.

I love seeing the things gained even in the loss. The community that comes around the mourning. The money collected from nearly empty pockets to pay for the slim chance of healing. The strength grown in the weakest body. The faith sprouted when doubt is simply more realistic. The forgiveness that is chosen even when the hurt has never been repented.

And most of all, I yearn to see the love raised from the dead.

Losing Power {My Guest Post for MAF}

2012-09-10T18:30:00.000-07:00

Everything went dead.

Great, I thought. This power outage would probably last at least eight hours. The list of tasks that needed electricity ran through my mind. No laundry would get done. No email could be sent. No bread would get made—unless of course I wanted to do it by hand. Which I didn’t—not while holding my teething, fussy toddler.

For the rest of the story, visit Mission Aviation Fellowship's blog here, where I'm guest posting today.

photo credit, Ryk Neethling

My "To Be" List

2012-09-05T17:47:00.000-07:00

If you came across my day planner, you might think I was writing in code. Or maybe writing under extreme duress, a gun held to my head, in freezing temperatures, blind-folded.

The lists slant past the lined paper, the words scribbled as if I’m afraid I’ll forget the item before I have a chance to finish writing the word. Usually, while they look frantic and disorganized, they give me temporary peace. I know they are now in a place where they can’t be forgotten, instead of in my tired brain.

But recently, I used my best handwriting to create a list that has remained in my life day after day—in a good way.

No longer a “to do” list, it’s a “to be” list. I’ve needed it in a time of my life when the other lists keep growing, my life feeling too overwhelmed with each day’s tasks that may or may not actually get done.

Things like “loved, compassionate, available, patient, wise, joyful, grateful” became my daily list.

Though I sometimes wish I could simply throw away those messy “to do” lists, I can filter them through my other list. Have some paperwork to do? Do it with patience.

Need to cook a meal for a guest, or just my family? Boil, bake, slice with compassion.

Need to answer some email, but my kids are hanging onto my arm? Leave the email on the list and be available to play with the kids.

Feeling like I’ll never get it all done, never get it done right, and never be more than a list of mundane tasks? Stop doing and rest in the fact that I’m loved.

My “to be” list focused me less on tasks, more on people. Less on the temporary, more on things that last. Less on scribbles on paper, more on yearnings from my heart.

It’s a list that both inspires me and humbles me.

Will you join me in being more than the list of things we do, and more of the hope of what He could give us?

Our Borneo Summer {In Pictures}

2012-09-02T20:43:00.000-07:00

Summer never really ends in Borneo. But here are some pictures from these past four months.

Renea's second birthday.

A first visit from Uncle Jon (my brother) and Aunt Erin (and a trip interior on an MAF airplane with them).

...and a hike across some rickety bridges, through jungle, past some rice fields, Renea singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" the whole way.

Beach time with new friends.

Playing in the river in remote Borneo.

Picnics in the backyard

Brad's first solo in the Kodiak...

...and the MAF tradition of dousing him with water after he lands (his friend and Indonesian MAF employee is putting ice down his back).

Growing a baby (now six months along!)

Brad's two-week trip to Africa (a project for his master's thesis)...

...learning about Rwanda's 1994 genocide there.

...new friends he met there

...falling in love with the cute, friendly kids.