Gringa

It wasn't what I had expected, but it was a successful retreat.  Seven young girls to Flandes and back without major incident and only one case of vomiting.  There had been lots of time in the swimming pool and no one was sun burned.  We'd helped establish deeper friendships between the girls.  There had been opportunities to share about Jesus and His love.  The girls had been happy.  In fact, three of the seven had associated their time at the retreat as the happiest day in their life.   It had been good.  We had survived.  Why then, was I so relieved when two of my three assistants had gotten off the bus and had finally left me alone with the girls and my closest Colombian friend and partner in ministry, Janet?

It was hard to deny that the group of seven had been handpicked by the Lord.  Since attendance and good behavior were prerequisites, only four of those going were among the initial group that had been invited.   And one, who we'll call April, of those four had been disqualified until the Lord spoke in a dream (not a common occurrence with me at all) and told me to include her once more.  The remaining three guests were younger and included when the others were disqualified.

We were smart enough to ask for permission from the parents to administer Mareol if necessary.  That had nipped travel vomiting in the bud.  Ears popping all the way we had left the cold rainy climate of Bogota and arrived in steamy, hot and much lower altitude Flandes in time for a late breakfast.   We got the girls started on their assignment to make a beaded bracelet for each of their friends until the food had settled some and they could head to the pool.  They were thrilled.  When it was time for lunch we served build your own hotdogs and no crumbs had been left on the table outside.

It was right about then that I should have known something would be amiss.  I headed into the house to ask for our guest speaker to begin her activities since we had to wait before the girls could enter the pool again and the sun was at its hottest.  It was then that Janet informed me that our speaker along with our hostess had gone elsewhere for lunch. Apparently, due to health and food preferences, they didn't 'do' hotdogs.

At the time it was all about survival, so I pulled out the manicure equipment I had brought along and got the girls busy doing their nails.   That kept them happily entertained while Janet texted our friends at the local restaurant and asked them to hurry back.   Before too long our speaker had returned and we moved forward with activities.

Late in the afternoon, we had the girls back in the pool, and with little to no shade I did the 90 minute lifeguard detail.  I was quite the sight since I really had no appropriate summer apparel,  I was sweaty. sticky and my legs were completely smeared with inflamed black-fly bites.  Apparently the local bugs had let the word out that gringas make for a delicious mid afternoon snack.  I must have been the only one in town.

Did you catch that foreign word?  Now, looking back, I realize that this was why I had ended up feeling off balance about how the retreat had gone.  I was the gringa.  Truth be known that disqualified me in a way I had not even considered in light of the event.

I had not fallen in line with an understood list of dos and don'ts.  It was perfectly acceptable for me to foot the US$40.00 expense per child  that the retreat cost.  I received no arguments regarding whether I should pay that bill.  I had understood that from the beginning.   While transportation fees were higher than I had anticipated and had I known that prior to making the financial commitment I may have reconsidered, I had already accepted that I would pay.  Where I made my mistake was that I had assumed that that provided me with un-negotiable rights regarding what  food would be served and what would be bought.

I quickly learned that my menu was unacceptable, that changes needed to be made with it and there were not many alternatives now that we were where we were as to what those costly changes could be.   I will not even get into the fact that I had been told we could purchase food once we arrived and after the fact been told that wasn't really feasible and I should have let them know beforehand that purchases would be necessary.

I have since made a mental note that there is a major difference between gringo and latin digestive systems.  I am of a race that can eat fruit at night.  They are not.  And I also have the luxury of surviving the delicacy of added cream.

But you know, the biggest problem was my wardrobe and hygiene habits.  I dressed too casually.  They're right actually.  It wasn't until late the night before I departed that I realized I had no summer clothes and made a chin up decision to make do.  I didn't wear a lick of make up.  I would have loved to have had the luxury of time to make myself up for the event.   Clearly they did.  Being completely occupied trying to make sure everything else was taken care of had pushed that luxurious priority off the list for me.  Besides, large white woman that I am, I would have sweated it all off in the first five minutes anyway.  (Why don't these women ever sweat?)

But perhaps the most difficult moment was when the guest speaker who works for a government agency that deals with abused children started analyzing my children and informed me of their abusive situations and wanted to know what I, as 'boss' was going to do about it.  Now isn't that a nice can of worms?  If her evaluations were correct I just wanted to go somewhere first and weep for the girl(s) - at lost innocence and trust.  I wanted to applaud their ability as survivors to keep on living.  I wanted to give them this retreat as 24 hours of being safe.  We'd figure the rest out later.

I told this oh-so-knowledgeable-after-just-a-few-hours-one that I wasn't actually the boss, but I would speak with our director.  I told her years had been invested in building up trust relationships with families and we couldn't just charge in and start tearing families apart without giving some consideration to integrity and circumstances.  (How can you 'know' these things, anyway?)  She left me alone after my response.  She wasn't happy.  I was relieved - to be in the safety of solitude for a few minutes.

It was an odd night.  It felt spiritual but not oppressive.  April, as we had been forewarned, manifested a form of seizure during her sleep.  They went on throughout the entire night and woke us up.  Then we'd calm her down and try to fall back asleep.  Physicians have said there is nothing physically wrong with her except perhaps a hormonal imbalance due to her age. 

Many of the girls were afraid of the dark and collectively came running into our room asking us to pray with them.  It was a great opportunity to share about the Lord.  Janet ultimately ended up relocating to their room.  There were outside disturbances and I doubt I slept for more than 15 to 30 minutes at a time.  Yet God's goodness and presence, not that of evil, were palpable.

In the morning the girls each prepared the fruit they had brought to contribute to a salad bar.  They took it on as a community.  I stopped my two 'helpers' from interfering and convinced them the girls were capable of doing it.  It required me fiercely forbidding them to make fruit juice with any of what the girls had brought.  I was baffled by their insistence to interfere.

Nonetheless, the girls arranged a beautiful, ascetically appealing layout and we all went to our very own restaurant "Casa Buena Semilla"  where the girls could throw onto their fruit salad of choice as much cream and cheese as their hearts desired.   Apparently that is acceptable in the morning.  Or maybe they had finally given up on me.

There were several close out activities including another trip to the pool, where one of the girls introduced me to a stranger as her mother.  "Well," she added "my adopted mother."  I said, "That's probably true."  Most interesting to note is that I had had to work through some tough discipline issues with that same girl and that's where we ended up - happily adopted mother and daughter.

Throughout the retreat, Janet probably felt required to defend me to the other two assistants more times than either of us would care to count until they finally paid her the worst insult possible.  Janet is, unfortunately, just like me.  Poor thing!

It was a good retreat.  It really was.  Our hostess said that our girls are better behaved than her nieces and nephews.  That's the first time any of our high risk kids have ever been identified as better behaved than anyone.  When we climbed into the bus to return home, I encouraged the girls to thank both our guest speaker and our hostess and they did a beautiful job of it.  Then with no outside urging, they took it upon themselves to also thank the driver.  I was proud of each one of them.

But it was a hard experience for me.  Issues came up regarding the girls for which I now have the responsibility to take some form of action.  It was also hard on a personal level because I realized that I wasn't good enough.  That who I was and where I was from was an insurmountable problem that I am not ever going to completely get beyond.  That my money is quite frankly more desirable than me.

As a missionary I have stuck my neck out.  I have gone to a foreign land.  I have learned a foreign language.  I have put my money where my mouth is.  It doesn't matter how hard I struggle to understand and communicate, how hard I try to respect a different way, I'll never get it completely right.  And it is my job, my profession of faith to meet the people where they are - not within my own context.  I meet them in their language and in their culture and if that's hard for me, tough luck.  I will rejoice in all that God does.  I will be confident that I am called and that I serve a valid purpose.  I don't doubt at all that I do bring something valuable to the table.

Days later, I realized that what had made the retreat hard for me was the burden of the field.  So when I am asked about the retreat there are two possible responses.

In the one I ramble about a lot of good things that God did.  I share about why we would seriously consider doing it again and why I would once more be willing to foot the bill through the mission funding we receive.  I would talk about how my heart was stretched in new ways, and how very happy the girls were.

The second response is most likely for those closest to me.  I would say, "I was alone, profoundly alone and I realize now that isn't going to change."

Understanding Jacob

Emergency vehicles and volunteers are roaming the streets of our barrio, offering help, free mattresses and mops.  Egipto, my pup is curled up on my lap, oblivious to the stress of this day.  My husband Lloyd and I are on the second level of our home, waiting for the final inches of the two feet of flood waters to drain out of our first floor.  Lloyd is sleeping it out.  I am too tired, too angry and too busy thinking to drowse.  It's well past midnight.

At 4:00 this afternoon Lloyd had called me at the children's foundation where I work, to tell me that I shouldn't rush home since our barrio was flooded out and I probably wouldn't be able to enter the house.  It had been a full day and that was not the news I wanted to hear.  Oddly enough I had been teaching the kids about Jacob wrestling with God.  It's a peculiar concept for young children and I wondered at first why the story would be included in a Bible for children.  What's the point of the story if it's not that fighting God pays off?  That somehow didn't ring well with standard Sunday school lessons but made it appealing to me for the very same reason.  Let's stir up some dust here and see what we discover about God.

I grabbed a bunch of candies, threw them in a plastic bag and clenched them in my fist.  "Okay kids," I challenged, "I have a treat for each one of you.  If you want it you've got to catch me and wrestle the prizes out of my hand."   At first they watched in disbelief as I ran away from them.  You could see the bewildered looks in their faces, "The profe wants us to fight her?" followed by a pregnant pause then an explosion of energy.  The battle was on.  Each group fought, giggled, pushed and pulled until they landed the prize.  They didn't give up nor did they stop fighting until they all had gooey candies in their mouths.  Then, and only then did they relax, contentedly.  I am finally beginning to understand Jacob. 

It's not about Jacob the deceiver at all.  It's about Jacob the man that knew the value of the undeserved gift.  He wanted his father's blessing badly enough to become an imposter.  Then he ran for his life.  And he wanted God's blessing so much so that he took on the Angel of God and hobbled the rest of his life for it.  That seems to be what God wanted from him - that passionate and obsessive desire for those good things - divine anointing.

Are we that hungry for the good things of God that we will pay any price at all for them?  It's not a particularly comfortable question because with Jacob's stories it insinuates wanting those things selfishly and at the expense of others as well as ourselves.  That's not very 'Christian', is it?

I had a lot of time to kill waiting for the flood waters to lower enough to allow me to wade home.  I had coffee with a friend, ate alone and went to a movie all by myself.  All the while I kept fighting with God.  I .was angry about our house flooding not just this time (the worst to date) but over and over again.  I was angry with Him for allowing mankind, not just us, to suffer in such a way.  Honestly speaking, compared to many of our neighbors we really did get off easy - especially since we have a dry second floor to run to.  But  why does our loving Father permit these kinds of conflicts and struggles in our lives? Why God?  Why? Why? Why?

Finally, in my mind I grabbed hold of Him hard and I had no intention of letting go.  "I want your blessing, God.  I'm tired of the struggle.  I'm tired of bailing water and watching the suffering happen all around.  I'm not letting go until you bless me."

I'm not even sure what I was really asking, what I wanted exactly, or what I was hoping God would grant me.  I just knew that I was tired and whiny and reasonably sure that God had something better in mind for me if I wanted it badly enough.

Lest you think all of a sudden the sun came out, the flood waters disappeared and I went home to a warm cozy house, think again.  It's not that simple when it comes to God and me.  We are still fighting this one out.  The only thing I am reasonably sure about is the bottom line, "I'm not giving up on this fight until I have your blessing, God.  I'm hanging on tight, throwing you punches until the good things you have intended for me are manifested in my life."

I may be hobbling but I have a hunch that now that the battle has been declared, both God and I are in it for the long haul.  I hope I fare as well as Jacob did.

Passion-ately Simple

All this Lenten season I wanted to be passionate about the Passion.  I planned to read, to write and walk myself through the drama of it all once more.  The process would yield  profound observations and insights to share.  What went wrong?

It is Resurrection Sunday, the clock is ticking and I am at a loss for words. It is not that I am empty, quite the contrary.  Yet the fullness is different - profound and childlike and my pen seems strangely hesitant.

I am much like our three month old puppy who we took outside of the concrete jungle this week for the first time in his life.  Losing all sense of familiarity and comfortableness as quickly as our truck was eating up the highway, left him regurgitating yesterday's meal all over his master.

Finally set free on wild, perhaps even holy ground and with some reservation, he started to nonetheless enthusiastically expand his horizons. Whenever the thrill of new ground became too much for his senses he would run back to home base.  Yet each time he journeyed outward he pushed his old limits further beyond until he had claimed much of the new turf available.  His world became not only larger but freer.  Since he accompanied us on this out of town trip, he will never be completely satisfied within city confines again.

However, what was most amusing was the huge rawhide bone we had brought along as his toy.  Dare I liken it to our spiritual treasures and gifts that the Lord abundantly provides for us along the way?  The pup instinctively knew that it should be buried and seasoned in the rich earth, hidden from thieves until he had need of it.  While he got quite good at hiding it, he never did master the art of finding it once more.  Time and again the rawhide bone became a distant memory or forgotten treasure while he returned to his master fully expectant of  a fresh and free handout.

Recently I have found myself on such unfamiliar spiritual turf, beyond concrete city limits and out in wild country.  While I enjoy the newness of it all I do have a habit of regurgitating yesterday's lessons learned in urban confines and expecting them to work with untamed territory.  Much like the children C.S. Lewis created in the Chronicles of Narnia I can feel myself nearing a magical world  just out of my reach.   I swing my arms wildly trying to grab hold.  I can taste the reality just beyond.  The Lord is so close, but I can't quite grasp this greater reality in faith and back I go to safe, known territory.

Nonetheless, my heart refuses to let go of what it knows to be true.  There is more!  It is just around the corner.  It is  good!  It is God!  He is risen.  Resurrection power is up for grabs.  Hallelujah.  That's what I wanted to sing today.  I wanted it to ring throughout Easter traditions.  I wanted the Body of Christ, his people, to come together in community and shout it from the mountain tops because I believe it to be true.

There were glimpses, moments when joy took hold and we knew that what we sang, what we celebrated was Truth itself, the resurrected Christ.  But mostly just as we got Him out of the grave, just at that point when collectively we could have been changed by the power of life over death, we hesitated and dare I say buried Him alive - put Jesus back on familiar turf like that rawhide bone which my dog is still puzzling over.  Where did it go?   Where did I last tuck my risen Christ away?

What does it mean for Jesus to have returned from the grave?  It means resurrection power has been set loose.  That power, an unrestrained love pushes daisies up from the ground in celebration.  It yields new adventures just when we think we have things all figured out.  It opens doors that cannot be closed.  It surprises us with joy.  It defeats death. It changes completely what it means to live and to die.  It gives us the open ending we wanted, an eternal substance.

I close my eyes and let the world end as I have known it.  I reflect on a cross that allowed evil to have its way as never before.  I let all hope die.  I sit in the darkness of the buried Christ.  And then in the wee hours of the morning I gather my spices together and wonder who will roll the stone away so that I can say good-bye to all I ever dreamed.  It is a heavy journey to the tomb. 

It is not so much that I discover upon arrival that the stone has been rolled and the tomb is empty.  It is that question directed at me that transforms my life and I am forever changed, redeemed and set free,  "Why do you seek the living among the dead?"

He is risen indeed.  Hallelujah!