Category Archives: in the news

long journey on an ever-changing sea

April 15, 2010

For several months, I have been daily following the blog of a 16-year-old Australian named Jessica Watson. First thing in the morning, last thing at night and several times each day, I check for her latest post, eager for news – always hoping that news is good.  Since October  of last year, this young girl has been sailing around the globe on a small sailboat called Ella’s Pink Lady – non-stop and alone.  And since January, I’ve been tracking her perilous journey – every storm, every doldrum, every freezing night and stunning sunset, every knock-down and broken piece of equipment, every twinge of loneliness.

I am fascinated by the act itself . I think back to Ferdinand Magellan -  the explorer who set out with 5 ships and a crew of over 200 men to circumnavigate the globe in the early 1500’s. The journey was completed 3 years later with only one ship and 19 men remaining. (Even Magellan  himself didn’t make the distance. He was  killed in the Philippines while trying to convert locals to Christianity.) And there are other famous names like Drake and Cook – but now it’s being done in a 30 foot sailboat by a 16 year old girl.

Two 16 year old girls, actually.

There’s an American girl name Abby Sunderland out there now as well. She started her journey from Mexico and has just recently rounded Cape Horn on her 40 foot sailboat, Wild Eyes. And not to be left out, a 38 year old man named Alessandro di Benedetto is circumnavigating the globe in an even tinier 20 foot sailboat. I read with amazement his accounts of petting dolphins and seals, of listening to whales breathe nearby, of dodging icebergs.Last week his mast broke in a violent storm and first reports had him stopping in Chile for repairs, but he simply built another mast out of whatever he had onboard and is even now closing in on treacherous Cape Horn with his jury-rigged mast.

These adventurers all  have smart, sharp on-shore teams behind them – people with knowledge of the sea, of weather patterns, of navigation – but they are the ones out alone out there for months on end, fighting the daily battles – sometimes for forward progress, other-times simply for survival.

I’m surprised that I find all of this fascinating. I’m no sailor, though I have a deep love for the sea. Perhaps crossing the Atlantic by boat twice before the age of 7 left a deep impression on me. But looking at this all metaphorically – which I admit I’m prone to do – I do know why I find it inspiring.

Storms come and they go. Doldrums come and they go. The sea, winds and waves are ever changing – the key is learning to navigate whatever is thrown at you. A knock-down is not the end, – if you’re prepared and know how to get back up.  And no matter how much support I might have – and I have wonderful friends who are much smarter than me -  it still comes down to me riding out the storms, daily choosing  faith over doubt, courage over fear, joy over despair.

It helps that I know and walk with the One who tames the wind and the waves, who sets the boundaries in place  – the only One who can. Even when He’s asleep in my boat- and lately it feels like He’s been in a deep, deep slumber, I still have the promise of His words. When we started this journey together He said “let’s go over to the other side of the lake” – so I know He has plans to get me there, regardless of what rogue wave may slam me broadside or turn me upside down, disorienting me for a day or two.

These words may seem simplistic, and even trite. They  usually do – until a storm actually hits. Or in my case lately , a series of storms.

Jessica, Abby and Alessandro’s  journeys will all come to an end at various times in the weeks/months ahead. Jessica is only a few short weeks from home – though she’s currently fighting lightning storms and wicked seas in the Great Australian Bight. The latest storm knocked her down, tore her mainsail and flooded her cabin. But she’s up again and moving forward with her typical positive attitude.  Abby and Alessandro still  have a ways to go, but all of them want to accomplish the same thing. They want to conquer the storms, the winds, the waves – and themselves – and at the end, sail into safe harbor and hear the words Well Done.

As do I.

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jailed missionaries in Haiti

February 10, 2010

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I’ve been following this story with more than a casual interest and my emotions are engaged on several levels. First and foremost, I worry about the children and the parents who felt the need to give them away in order to save them. I wept when I read the stark commentary from one of these parents a few days back. She said “This is our culture. We often give our children to others to raise, so they will have a better chance at life.” Others may give one child away to finance the feeding of the other 6. These children are called restavecs – no more than child-slaves in the household of a better-off family.

I’ve seen this in Africa. I’ve had many conversations with grown women who, though they nonchanlantly tell their stories, have obviously never emotionally recovered from being given away as children. Most of them spent their childhoods tending cows, hauling water, watching younger children, cooking, washing clothes – and so had no opportunity to go to school. And when the sun set in the village, most of them were molested.

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Then there are the cow-boys of Malawi. Little boys taken far from their homes to tend cattle as slaves in another village. This is illegal in Malawi now, but I’m told that when government officials enter a village to inspect, they simply hide the boys until they leave. The law is nearly impossible to enforce in the  villages where traditional authorities and cultural practices reign.

As I’ve read similar stories in Haiti, the frustration of the aid workers and doctors is palpable. Their hands are tied and they know it. But the 10 jailed missionaries shook off those ties.

I’ve been surprised at how emotional I’ve been about this event. I don’t even know where to start – but let me start here: I won’t impugn their motives. I understand the heart that took them to Haiti and respect their courage to wade into the carnage and try to make a difference. But even as we press against the things in the culture that victimize innocents, we must respect that nation’s laws at all times. The bible clearly states that we must respect those in authority – and any remnant of a colonial mindset that sets itself up as the law is arrogant.

As someone who has spent many long days and years in Madagascar running after some important little piece of paper – what we call “zee leetle paper” – I do understand the frustration. You need “zee leetle paper”. You go to social welfare and social welfare tells you to go to the ministry of whatever and the ministry of whatever sends you to the ministry of whatsit and 10 hours later there is still no leetle paper. But you don’t run around their laws unless you want to be their guest for a couple of decades. It’s called respect.

We tried to adopt a little boy from Madagascar some years back. For several years, we supported him in an orphanage run by a pastor and wife – who assured us he was an orphan and that they would help us gather his paperwork. We personally sent monthly funds and large sums to procure a birth certificate – but no such certificate ever materialized. To make a long story short, on a final trip when I thought I was in the last stages of the process, a mother emerged. He was not an orphan – something the pastor knew all along. The mother didn’t want her son back, however – she just wanted money.

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At that moment I had to make a decision that broke my heart. I told her to take her son back to the village. The little boy was inconsolable, as were my husband and I, but there was simply no way around this. This woman wanted to sell her son. In that split second, I knew I had to trust God with his young life. I could not violate child trafficking laws to try to save him myself. It wasn’t an easy decision but I still know it was the right one.

Which brings me to the jailed group’s leader – Laura Silsby. She is being villified in the press and now we’re told the group has turned against her, passing notes through the bars about her controlling nature and how she deceived them. I don’t know about any of that – but I can’t help but wonder why we always eat our own. Quote scripture all you want and sing Amazing Grace until you’re hoarse, but Jesus said they’ll know we are Christians by our love for each other.

On the other hand, I would call on Laura Silsby to act in love towards the team entrusted to her. Stand up and take full responsibility for your actions and ask for the immediate release of your team members. They trusted your judgment in an unfamiliar culture. They trusted your decisions and your word. These decisions – no matter how good the motive – have led them smack into this tense situation, causing fear among their loved ones. Speak up, Laura, it’s the price of leadership and also the price of love.

Photo Credits: Haitian Child by lauri koski; Cow Boy by Patsala, a young village boy in Malawi who participated in an Ancient Path photography project.

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8 minutes 24 seconds

January 6, 2010

I saw a 60 second commercial the other day featuring two well-dressed men discussing the clear reasons we should all own gold in this unstable world.  Well, here’s 8 minutes and 24 seconds  featuring the children who mine that gold in Congo. This is their unstable world.

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giving thanks

November 21, 2009

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I’m back from Africa in time for the Thanksgiving holiday – always a harder time of year to cope with “re-entry”.  I still remember melting down in the cereal aisle of a grocery store on my November return from Madagascar a decade ago.

It’s Thanksgiving eve and I’m hunting down pumpkin pie ingredients under screaming fluorescent lights when – without warning – my two worldviews collide in a very public-and messy-manner. The bright faces on the cereal boxes suddenly morph into the faces of dying children I have just left and I begin to sob incoherently about injustice and Lucky Charms. My husband has to carry me from the store.

Malaria may have had something to do with that particlar episode – but even after all these years, I still find it difficult to traverse back and forth between such starkly different worlds. It has, however, taught me to be grateful for even the smallest things – and to find meaning in each day.

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For instance, I’m so grateful for clean water flowing from a tap inside my house. I don’t have to haul water on my head, back and forth from a dirty river or a deep well in a neighboring village – or suck on dirty tree roots for my moisture. I’m grateful that I don’t have to chop firewood each time I want to cook even the smallest meal. I’m grateful that I have meals – even a simple bowl of soup and something as insignificant as a dash of salt.

I’m grateful for a warm bed and a house that keeps snakes out and won’t fall down when the rains come.The children have told me how frightening it is to find huge snakes curled up next to them in the middle of the night. Pythons, no less. (A little mouse would be welcome in their houses. Well, actually it would be breakfast.)  I’m grateful for soap, a hot shower and a clean towel, for books, music, art, beauty and a 1969 VW that still runs.

I know the US economy has taken a hit. We’ve had difficult times ourselves and are one of those families without health insurance – but I’m so grateful that we make more than a dollar a day, like 65% of all Malawians. (And no, you can’t feed and clothe a family on that – even in the Malawian economy.) I’m grateful that I’ve never had to send my children to bed hungry or choose which ones would go to school and which would go to work in a sweat shop.

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I’m grateful that we’ve never been driven into refugee camps through war and violence – like so many African families. As I think of the increasing  violence in Darfur – or in Congo – I’m grateful for the peace in our nation and for the military men and women and their families who give up their lives to keep it that way. When I think of the corrupt and brutal dictators who stand with their boots on the necks of the poor, chopping off the limbs of innocent children, I thank God for democracy – that works better here than anywhere else in the world.

Our parents are all battling illness, and that has been painful to watch – yet I am so grateful for the skilled and compassionate professionals whose care beats back the cancer. And I’m grateful to God who allows us to enjoy our loved ones for yet another day. I’ve just left a country where people are stacked two to a bed – and under the beds – on teeming hospital wards. Where life-saving surgeries are canceled because the national blood bank is dry, where people die of liver cancer with no more than tylenol to ease the pain. Yes, I’m grateful. I’m grateful for a husband who treats me with loving respect, for the opportunities my children have had, for the health and well-being of my beautiful granddaughter.

But I’m also grateful for the songs of the African widows who never give up, for the woman with AIDS who radiates joy as she talks about the goodness of God, the skeletal orphan child who clings to me, laughing, singing, hugging, still hoping, still believing in life and the love of God. These are my teachers.

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And there is one teacher in particular that I think of every Thanksgiving – let me take you back a few years…

I’m in Madagascar.  Since arriving I have preached nine times in 3 days, trudged up and down mountainsides, stood helplessly, surrounded by starving street children and heard more horror stories than I could possibly digest. I’m tired, sick with fever, rapidly sliding into a bad attitude and I’m getting ready to preach again – on love, no less. I’m praying for strength, shivering as the cold concrete floor chills my very bones, when the pastor begins to lead us in the simple worship song:

Give thanks with a grateful heart
Give thanks to the Holy One
Give thanks for He has given Jesus Christ, His son
And now let weak say “I am strong”
Let the poor say “I am rich”
Because of what the Lord has done for us

And out of the corner of my eye, I see her – a woman who looks to be in her 60s or 70s but is probably younger than me. She’s wearing a head wrap, a ragged shirt and simple cloth tied around her waist; she is barefoot on the cold concrete floor.  As she sings wholeheartedly, head thrown back and arms extended, the tears roll down her wrinkled face, soaking her shirt. I learned in that moment how to give thanks with a grateful heart – and have never forgotten. That doesn’t mean I always remember to be grateful – but when I take time to reflect, God takes me back to this humble teacher who still instructs my heart each time I think of her.

I’ll be thinking of her on Monday morning when I have a dentist appointment. I’m even grateful for this – which is nothing short of miraculous. I’m grateful for my dear friend who gives of himself and his talents to care for me and my family in this way. I’m grateful for his skilled, compassionate staff who coax me into the office and into the chair. I’m grateful for sterile instruments, novocaine and antibiotics. An oh yes – let’s not forget the gift of nitrous oxide. (PS – Just meet me in the parking lot with the tank on high and then hit me on the head with something heavy. I’ll be grateful to you.)

But enough from me. What are you grateful for?

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more children

November 6, 2009

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Today we have 45 children packed into this small room. There is no breeze and we are all sweltering – even the children, who are used to this heat. But no one minds. The new flannelgraph board is leaning on the wall and the children lean forward in anticipation.

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Today Moses tells the same story that I told to the smaller orphan group yesterday – how the angels appeared to lowly shepherds in a field to announce the birth of the Savior. He’s animated and the kids are mesmerized. They love coming up to the board to place an angel, a tree, a bush. We change the scene to the birth of Jesus and talk about how He emptied Himself of all the glories of heaven and was born as a helpless infant into a poor family. They understand.
They begin to pray and raise the tin roof.

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It’s time for play and we’re a bit more organized today, though even more children have come. I love watching the joy in their faces at a tiny thing like a colorful lego block, or a 99 cent ball and jacks set. Blessings comes to show me that his matchbox car has a light and a siren – he can hardly believe his eyes…and ears.

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Outside they jump rope and play netball – the place is a flurry of activity. Inside, it’s chaos. I teach them how to get quiet whenever the leader raises their hand. When I raise my hand, they must raise theirs – and when their hand is up, their mouths are closed. To practice, we make a racket – and the moment I raise my hand, their little hands shoot up and the room is silent. We practice this several times and they like the game. Later, it’s not quite as efficient…but they’ll learn. This is all new. I tell them that now we are a family and ask them what that means. They tell me ” it means relationship”.

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Now it’s time to eat – little hands are washed and food received gratefully. Watching a hungry child eat an apple may be one of the highlights of my entire life. This is a real treat. These children would never taste an apple outside of the Chifundo program or another program like it.

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Today they hold out their hands for their “sweeties” – vitamins, actually – and chew them right up. Their reticence is gone. When it’s time to leave they line up for two things – a package of candy from Moses, and a hug from Amai. I’m surprised at how open they are to hugs already. This is the part of my job I love the most – taking each child in my arms – as if they are not my arms at all, but the arms of Christ, telling each one just how much God adores them. I’m here to be an apostle of love….we all are.  Nothing more, nothing less.

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a grisly trade

October 2, 2009

linda

The  jarring headline on the ABC news web page today reads: Africans with Albinism Hunted: Limbs Sold on Tanzania’s Black Market. They’re running the full story tonight on the popular news magazine show, 20/20.

I watch a brief interview clip of the BBC reporter who first went undercover to expose this horror. There is covert video and audio of her conversation with a local witchdoctor who cavalierly explains that he can provide charms made from albino parts. Since I was in Africa when the story first broke, I’ve heard it all before – but it’s still unbelievable to me.

The woman, who now lives in hiding, chokes back tears as she tells the story of a 7 month old albino infant snatched from a mother’s arms, and hacked to death. The barbarians, as she calls them, then run off into the bush carrying the baby’s legs which will then be sold for anywhere from $500 to $2000USD each – a small fortune in a country where the per capita income is less than $450USD. Hands, arms, legs, blood and genitals are then sold to witchdoctors and processed into potions. The witchdoctors maintain that these potions will bring wealth and good luck to those who purchase them. And there is a market – a growing market – for these special witchcraft charms.

Officials blame poverty, ignorance, and superstition for the grisly trade. For years, it has been a common belief that albinos, who are seen as ghosts and bad omens, don’t die – they just disappear. (Is it easier to kill a ghost, than a human being?)  Of course, they are no such thing. They are human beings who, in Africa, live difficult lives.

But try explaining to an illiterate villager who has been raised on traditional beliefs and stories that albinism is “a hereditary genetic condition caused by two recessive genes resulting in little or no pigment production in the skin, hair, or eyes”.  Just try.

Their belief systems run deep and their stories are powerful and frightening – especially in the pitch dark of a moonless night, especially when you are a vulnerable child. I have heard the stories of people who turn into hyenas and witches who fly at night on baskets and brooms, landing on your front lawn when they run out of juju – their supernatural power. The last time I was in Malawi, three people were given substantial prison sentences on the testimony of a 13 year old girl who swore under oath that her aunt and uncle were teaching her witchcraft and flying her around at night on a cooking spoon.

At this season of each year, our children in the west hear the same stories. We dress them in masks and costumes and let them watch scary movies and “cute” shows about witchcraft. We decorate classrooms with cardboard cutouts of witches riding on brooms and ghosts and skeletons. We decorate our lawns to look like graveyards – for fun.

In Africa, evil acts are committed in real graveyards. If a family wants to protect a deceased relative from mutilation, they will fill the grave with cement.  It is believed that the Nyau turn into animals in the graveyards and witches go there at night to “eat meat” from the bodies of the dead. Every child I have met in Africa lives in terror of witches – they sleep fitfully, in torment. They are too afraid to leave the hut to use the toilet at night.

On this side of the world we treat it all as some harmless fiction. Just another season, another set of decorations, another holiday.

But there is a whole other world out there – stranger than fiction.
Watch 20/20 tonight at 10 and catch a glimpse of it.

As for me, I’m getting out of town for Halloween this year.
On October 30th, I’m going to Africa.

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barefoot travels

September 23, 2009

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I was in Washington D.C. last month for a couple of days – supposedly just doing the tourist thing with Ken and Hana – though we’re not really the touristy types. We head immediately for the Holocaust Memorial Museum where we have a little delay getting in since the man directly in front of me is packing a full-sized machete in his pants. The guards are on it immediately. They just lost a comrade in June when a lunatic rifle-wielding white supremacist entered the museum and shot Officer Stephen Tyrone Jones dead – and they’re not messing around.

We eventually get in, but I can’t write about it. I bought the huge official museum book and read it cover to cover – I can’t count the number of books I’ve read on the Holocaust – but I still can’t write about it.  I’ve been to Yad Vashem in Israel and haven’t written about that experience either. I will one day, but I just don’t have words yet – except to say go see and hear for yourself.

Bear witness.

We head to the National Museum of the American Indian – which after the Holocaust memorial is a bit like stabbing yourself repeatedly with a shard of  broken glass. It’s all too much to take in.  And definitely impossible to write about until I have begun to take it in. One thing I did walk away with was a sense of awe at the artistic talent inherent in all humankind created in the image of Creator God.

We need to create art. We need beauty. It’s in the DNA of every people group.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning once wrote that “earth is crammed with heaven and every common bush afire with God, but only he who sees takes off his shoes. The rest sit around it and pluck blackberries.”

For me, D.C. is a barefoot experience from start to finish – crammed with thin places, where the veil between heaven and earth stretches beautifully and terribly taut. God is everywhere.

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There is the stooped Chinese woman fighting the wind to hang her garish red and gold banner protesting something or other in China. Just as she gets one corner tied tight, another collapses – and on and on it goes.  I watch for some time, transfixed by her tenacity and the traditional music squawking from her tiny boom box. No one is paying attention, the world is hurrying by, but she has something to say and she will say it – whether anyone listens or not. (yes, God – I caught that….)

The sound of live jazz drifts out of the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden as we pass by, so we drift in to see what’s happening. Teeming with young professionals picnicking on blankets and carrying large pitchers of overpriced Sangria to friends seated around the large fountain, it is obviously the place to be after work on a hot summer’s Friday night. I notice how well-heeled everyone is and suddenly feel self-conscious in my sorry, well-traveled crocs.

We edge close to the band (an excellent band whose name escapes me at the moment) and I’m just beginning to forget my cracked and crusty crocs and enjoy the scene when I see him. There are at least a thousand people here, but now all I can see is the sole homeless man, grasping his plastic bags, making himself small behind a stone column whenever a guard glances his way.  When it starts to drizzle, the man takes a flimsy poncho out of one of his many bags – the cling-wrappy disposable kind of poncho. He sticks his head through what looks like a crinkled bag with arm holes.

He isn’t strong and shifts his weight constantly to take the strain off his back.  When he spies a sliver of space between two women on a stone bench by the band, he makes himself visible and gestures feebly – silently asking if he can sit next to them. At first, they pretend not to see him, but as he inches towards them, they instinctively curl their  bodies inward, creating enough space for his frail, thin frame.

And there he sits – among the elite of Washington – gripping all his worldly possessions under his grimy poncho. He closes his eyes and his body moves to the rhythms, the emotions changing on his face with each featured instrument, each riff, each exhilarating ride. Here is a man who can see and has clearly taken off his shoes, drinking in the sheer mad beauty of sound. I wonder where he’ll sleep tonight. I wonder if he’ll still hear the music in his dreams. I wonder if he even notices the masses around him plucking blackberries.

We move on to two white-haired men weeping openly at the Viet Nam Memorial wall, tracing the names of their long -dead friends with shaky fingers.  What they have seen they can never forget and I can not even begin to imagine. But I can hear God breathing at this wall. There are angels here.

It starts to rain heavily, sending all visitors scurrying – except for us, of course, and one limping man who looks to be in his early 60’s. Wearing a ragged veteran’s hat and shirt, I hear his dog tags clatter as he passes by. Having just slipped on the wet walkway, and worrying that he might take a tumble on the slick surface, I catch up to him and grab his elbow, cautioning him to take care.

Don’t worry about me, he says with a smile. He stops and makes a sweeping gesture toward the wall – I live here. I spend every day of my life here with my friends.

He asks me where I hail from and when I tell him Ohio, he rattles off these words:

Panel 23W Line 112. Her name was First Lieutenant Sharon Lane and that’s where you can find her name on the wall. She was from Canton, Ohio  - the only woman actually killed by enemy fire in Nam. She was hit in the neck by shrapnel  at Chu Lai as she was bending over a young Vietnamese girl, pressing a wound to keep her from bleeding to death. 1st Lt. Lane  was decorated for bravery and there is a statue of her in Canton. Go there. Go see it.

As this man continues to talk, both of us oblivious to the rain, I realize that over the years he has memorized this wall – not just the names, but the panel and line numbers. He tells me that he spends every day here to honor the fallen, so that they will never be forgotten.  I can see that he’s not well, his arms and legs are swollen, his skin mottled, his eyes glazed. He didn’t survive the war either. There are different ways to die – some are quicker than others.

He walks away and I stare at my soaked shoes. I tend to see more clearly in the rain. This man makes me ashamed at how little thought I have given to the intimate price of war – each precious life represented not only on this snaking black wall but at the Korean War memorial, the WWII memorial, in the daily news coming out of Afghanistan and Iraq. Each life cut short – but their stories living on tortuously in the minds of those who love them, those who trace their names on aging marble or finger photos until the corners curl.

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I think of the price of one human life to God – and what the price of one human life should mean to me. Whether it’s a fallen soldier, a holocaust survivor, or another nameless, faceless genocide victim in Darfur.

Thin places always make me think. They teach me to see differently – and they are everywhere, every day,  for those who can bear to look.

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random thoughts, fresh perspective

June 5, 2009

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I’m sitting on our back porch beside the river, enjoying the beautiful June weather. It doesn’t take much to create a place of beauty and peace – an ancient green metal glider brought from our old Cleveland house, covered in a patchwork quilt; metal chairs snatched from someone’s treelawn and transformed with periwinkle cushions, an old table made from pine planks and branches, sea shells from Madagascar, rocks carted home from sundry travels, an old wind chime – an anniversary gift from our children years ago, leafy ferns, wicker baskets, oil lamps…

We had hoped to have a family gathering on this porch last night, but my father wasn’t strong enough to come – so we took the party to him. 11 people spanning 4 generations gathered in the room last night. Not a very big gathering since most of our immediate family is scattered across the US and our extended family is in Ireland. But my aunt and uncle were with us – a couple who have served faithfully here in the US for 30 years as missionaries from Northern Ireland and are now returning there. (Does that sound strange to you? We Americans never think of ourselves as needing missionaries from other lands, do we?)

I notice how we have all aged, including Poppy. She’s turning over onto her tummy now. She sits up in her Bumbo chair turning the pages of a fabric book that once belonged to her father. She pulls it to her mouth and gnaws on it just the way he did. The spot on her forehead reddens with effort, just the way his did.

I look at my daughter-in-law, who is becoming one of my closest friends, and remember that she was younger than Hana when she first caught my son’s eye and stopped his heart. My eldest daughter, who has grown into a beauty, inside and out, turned 30 in April and still makes her grandfather laugh like noone else. Hana cooks dinner while I play with Poppy. When did she learn to do that? When did she grow tall enough to reach the back burner?

I sometimes worry that I have missed too much in my years of service to the Church, but then Jesus’ words come to mind :

If you love your father or mother more than you love me, you are not worthy of being mine; or if you love your son or daugther more than me, you are not worthy of being mine, if you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine, if you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it. ( Matthew 10: 37-39 NLT)

As I look at them now and see who they are becoming, I know there is no cause for worry, no need for regret. God knows my heart – and loves them more than I ever could.

But it all goes by so fast, doesn’t it? The birthdays come and go too quickly, as do the seasons. We decorate Easter eggs, blink and suddenly it’s time to put up the Christmas tree. We shovel snow, turn our backs and suddenly it’s time to plant tomatoes. Sometimes I lose all sense of time. Sometimes I feel like a speck of dust on a chunk of spinning rock. Which, of course, I am.

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Some weeks back I read an article about Nasa’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory which captures images of the galaxy as it orbits the earth 360 miles above the surface. They recently captured an image, dubbed The Hand of God,  of a star exploding in a supernova. The explosion spawned a fast-spinning twelve-mile-wide star called a pulsar. Nasa tells us that the pulsar is creating a dust and gas cloud so vast that it would take 150 years for light to travel from one side to the other.

But here’s the piece of information that literally took my breath away. They estimate that the moment depicted on this x-ray – the explosion that  formed the ghostly image that looks a bit like a hand touching fire – actually happened 17,000 years ago.

It has taken 17,000 years to reach earth, traveling at 670  million  mph.

Another scripture verse comes to mind from Psalm 8:

When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers – the moon and the stars you set in place – what are people that you should think about them, mere mortals that you should care for them? Yet you made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor. You gave them charge of everything you have made,  putting all things under their authority…. ( NLT)

So, perhaps we are a bit more than a speck of dust on a chunk of spinning rock.

As I chew on this piece of science, as I meditate on the vastness of the galaxy and the incomprehensible nature of Creator God, as I remind myself that the earth is filled with His unfailing love – time slows down. My father’s illness, my aunt and uncle’s move back across the ocean, my too-quickly growing children, the daily trials and troubles of day to day life and ministry seem minute compared to this great God and His great Love.

Time comes and goes, running on parallel tracks of joy and sorrow, gain and loss. Both cut through our hearts, but one day sorrow will come to an end. It helps me to think of it and to remember that my home is in eternity – and I live in that eternity now.

Photo Credit:  Plasma Explosion 4 by Flavio Takemoto, Brazil

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my own

May 22, 2009

hana-referral1I like to read comments on major news articles. Sometimes I enjoy the readers’ comments more than the article itself. But I never write a comment myself. I figure there are enough people out there with clashing opinions – there’s no sense adding another voice to the din. But this time, I just had to say something.

It was an article on Madonna’s failed adoption bid of the little Malawian girl, Mercy. And it wasn’t just this article that pushed me over the edge from spectator to participant – but a series of articles in the same newspaper.

The common thread was adoption and the fact that I was offended by the language in every article – and I’m not easily offended. I can only hear the term “children of her own” so many times before something blows.

“Madonna has two children of her own and a boy from Malawi.”  Or “Nicole Kidman only has one child of her own and two adopted children.” Or Angelina has 3 children of her own …. You get the point.

I’ve heard this phrase for years, of course. When our eldest daughter, Jen Jin Ok was a toddler, people would often ask in  front of her – “do you have any children of your own?”

I would answer – Yes, one.

Boy or girl? Girl.

And they would walk away clueless that I was talking about the little girl in my lap – the one with the almond eyes and jet-black pigtails who looks absolutely nothing like me. The one who has captured my heart – the one we still  call our firstborn. It’s hard to explain to people who don’t get it that whether a child is born via your womb or your heart makes absolutely no difference. They are your own. And when anyone says differently, especially in ear shot of our girls, I can’t stay silent.

Our youngest Chinese daughter, Hana Jun, just celebrated her 13th adoption day. This is the day that we tell and re-tell the stories of how we became a multi-cultural family. We  talk about the day the seed was dropped in our hearts and how their names were chosen. We remember all the paperwork and home studies and the financial miracles. We remember the painful waiting period, and the trials – like the dying room scandal and the day American warships parked off the coast of Taiwan. We remember the day that our referral came and finally we had a picture – a face to go with the name. We recount the endless hours in the empty nursery, praying and weeping, waiting for the arrival day  or the travel date. We remember the fear that something could go wrong, that perhaps our beloved child is hungry or cold or sick and we can do nothing but pray. We recount the day each of them were placed in our waiting arms and the inexpressible  joy and sense of completion as our family circle closed around them. We talk about their birth parents and the desperation and hope for a better life that must have driven them to relinquish children they must surely have loved.

Hana never tires of hearing her story – and this year is even more special. This year I gave her a gift that has been tucked away in a memory box for safekeeping until just the right time – a small cream-colored journal where I recorded my thoughts, prayers, hopes and fears during the waiting period. The other night,we snuggled on the couch as I read excerpts aloud from its pages:

December 29, 1995

I’ve been guarding my heart, a little afraid to see all these hopes and dreams on paper staring back at me. But we are so far into the process and it is so real…you’re already imprinted in my heart and mind, Hana Grace.

The time has gone quickly and yet has stood still. I don’t know this little girl and I ache for her. This little life on the other side of the world…a foreign language, foreign culture, foreign worldview. Foreign to me anyway. And yet she is so knitted to my heart – and that love transcends all that is strange and different.

March 23

Before I go to sleep tonight I just want to tell you that I love you and I long for you to be here. (I can see your little face poking over the crib already!) I wonder what you’re doing now? It’s morning in China.  I know you are fed and sheltered and covered in the shadow of His hand. He has called you out and will rescue you…

March 26th

Ken hung red fringe on the white Chinese lantern yesterday and we suspended it in the center of Hana’s room. It’s perfect. But another day and no news. It gets more and more difficult. Perhaps you’ve already been chosen and assigned to us and we just don’t know it yet. Maybe today…

April 1st

Hana’s picture came today! When we woke up this morning we were shocked to see about 7 inches of snow on the ground. The happy result, however, was that the kids had a snow day and were here when the package arrived. Once we had the FedEx envelope in hand, the four of us went into Hana’s room and sat on the floor under her lanterns to open it. Inside was a tiny color photo of our beautiful beautiful girl wrapped up in a little lavender cotton jacket. All of us laughed with pure joy and were fighting over her picture. Jennifer and Jacob had to have a copy for their wallets and a big one for their desk. I have the original in a small gold frame that I carry in my purse. And I have put her in my locket, close to my heart.

April 2

Ken is so emotional right now. It’s wonderful to see. He’s overwhelmed with love for Hana and gratitude to God – he’s really experiencing adoption. Tonight he just wept.

April 5th

Oh, little sparrow, I wish you could know the love and thought and prayer that’s going out for you right now! The tears that have been shed, the deep longing to hold you and see you safe and warm and healthy. And you will be…

But the days have slowed down and we feel like time has stretched to make you further away. Daddy dreams of you every night. Jacob takes your picture to school and sets it up on his desk. The other day he came home and said “Man, I stared at Hana’s picture all day and you know what? The more I look at her, the more beautiful she becomes. (Your brother is 13, by the way) That’s the way it is with real love and real beauty…

April 14th

I’m sitting in your room right now, in the rocker, with your picture next to me. The sun’s coming through the Irish lace curtains; your lanterns are gently swaying and the birds outside are singing. I think it’s finally spring and I long for your arrival! For you to be in your own little bed, surrounded by people who love you and treasure you and know your worth. Do you have any idea, little sparrow, the significance God places on your solitary life? The lengths that he has gone to to rescue you and give you a future and a hope? His deep unfailing love for you? You are his treasured possession – and mine as well. I’ve never held you, I haven’t seen you face to face – and yet I love you. You are my own daughter, born not of my flesh, but of my heart.

I think of you across the world, totally unaware of us. You do not know we are coming to bring you home, you do not know that you belong to this family. But we’re coming to you my daughter, Hana Jun Grace.

May 11th

Only a few more sleeps for you without a family.

May 16th

We are here in your city, little one. And today is your adoption day. Today you will come into our arms and our home, but you are already in our hearts. He has made a way for you little one – and today is your day!

holding-hana-for-first-time

As Hana and I read these -and many more excerpts together, our arms and legs entwined, our hearts entangled – we both wept. I experienced all over again the miracle of her conception in my heart, a seed that grew for many months in that heart, the months filled with turmoil and discomfort, the hope and the fear. And then the joyous day of delivery – the day we first saw her peeking through the bars on the orphanage balcony. The day she was finally placed in our waiting arms.

I have three children  – all miracles, all deeply cherished and all unique. I share two of my children with the memory of birth parents they do not know, but whom we honor. We know that their life story did not start with us. But my prayer is that we would learn new language to speak about adoption in ways that respects the process as well as the incredible children that we are privileged to call our own.

Happy adoption day, Hana Jun Grace!

hana-bw-close-up

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social distancing

May 3, 2009

974527_19668402

There’s nothing like a global pandemic to bring out the best in human nature. CNN tells us that as swine flu – or the pork industry’s preferred title, the H1N1 virus - spreads around the world, people are withdrawing from one another.

Dr. Richard Dawood, the director of a London travel clinic, elegantly dubs the trend  social distancing. He says that “People don’t want to get too close. There is going to be a move towards less handshaking, less greeting people with a kiss.”  He  also predicts that fear of infection may lead the business world to conduct fewer face-to-face meetings.

Well , I say hurray for that. The world could do with a few less meetings and alot more walks in the fresh air. But as an unabashed hugger who believes in the power of touch to convey love, friendship, acceptance and warmth – whether I have known you for 30 years or 30 seconds – I also say let’s fight this new social trend.

For a start, people are getting hysterical, as we tend to do when the media fans the flames.  A recent London newspaper headline – Swine flu Could Kill up to 120 Million with it’s accompanying photos of machine-gun toting Mexican police in surgical masks  – would make anyone push their dresser up against the bedroom door and pull the blinds tight.  Newscasters reporting through masks – with only their perfectly coiffed hair and furrowed brow visible – make for good entertainment, but also give us new reasons to roll up our borders, lock our doors, and hide our families away.

Dr. Dawood worries about how people will act as H1N1 continues to spread, noting that “People historically have resorted to socially ostracizing those who have suffered from diseases like typhoid and leprosy . Hopefully, we don’t see that again. We will have to control our urges in our relations to other people.”

This, of course, is as old as time. A story in the gospels tells of Jesus healing a leper – and what amazed the crowds as much as the miraculous healing was the fact that he physically touched the man. Lepers were complete outcasts from the community. No one walked on the road with a leper, let alone touch someone afflicted with the disease. When Jesus touched him, he healed the man, body and soul. But he also was showed us what fearless living looks like – and said “follow me.”

madagascar-family

All of this brings a certain memory to the surface. It was some years back, in a remote village in Madagascar. The village had been wiped out by a cyclone and most families were left without even a spoon – their most precious possession. (A Malagasy wife has been divorced for breaking or losing the family spoon.)  Our partners had been working hard to restore the village and we were there to bring hope through an arts presentation called The Story of Love, as well as supplies and funds.

After an afternoon performance, we walked through the village and into the few mud huts that remained standing. Peeking through the doorway of one tiny, dark hovel I saw what appeared to be a pile of rags on a makeshift bed. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could make out a figure under the rags when she began to cough uncontrollably, A young woman stepped out of the shadows to apologize, telling us that her mother was dying of cholera.

We were still standing at the threshold, out in the fresh air. We could have blessed the dying woman from a distance and moved on. No one would have blamed us if we had practiced a little social distancing.  But the  next thing I knew, I was holding the frail sickly woman in my arms, and kissing her face. In a moment, she was surrounded by all of our other team members, touching her, stroking her hair. The tears rolled down her cheeks – and her daughter’s -  as we told her of the love of God and prayed for her recovery.

I looked at the other faces in that dim room. Healthy faces, loving faces of people who had raised their own funds, taken out loans, worked extra hours just to be there in the fetid atmosphere of that little hut. It never dawned on them to distance themselves. If they did stop to consider the fact that cholera is an extremely contagious and dangerous disease, it didn’t show. No one flinched. On that day I saw perfect love in operation – and that perfect love cast out all fear.

I wouldn’t trade that moment and the memory of that moment for anything. My travels have taken me into countless less-than-safe scenarios over the years and at the end of each one of them are people desperate for love, for warmth, for hope and truth. The funny thing is, I used to be a terrified person – afraid of everything and flying to scary places was at the top of the list. Not too many years ago, I would probably have stockpiled surgical masks and pushed the dresser against the door.

But there’s something about the beautiful love of God that frees you – that changes the way you not only see the world, but offers a whole new way to live in it.  Fearlessly.

dzeleka-camp-kids-malawi


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