MVP Award

Education is probably in the top 3 most debated/emotionally charged parenting topics. I’m figuring out these issues are hot because of the sweaty insecurity that lives in all of us who are making life shaping decisions on behalf of these little humans in our care.

I’ve doubted and second-guessed and done my fair share of sweating over school. I’ve eyed the greener grass of big city options with diverse populations and learning models, and easy access to the arts and community engagement, and ogled hard core. I’ve wondered if we were off our rocker to be sending our kiddo into the unavoidable chaos of a class full of first graders when we already have huge social hurdles. I’ve wondered if we were reckless to be writing tuition checks on top of a stack of daunting bills. I’ve wondered if we would end up riddled with regret sending her into a school where she was a major minority. I don’t have a single one of those concerns resolved.

But this week I watched Miss G speak a character award-turned-prayer over Cy. I thought about the number of emails she’s read and responded to from me; angsty, emotional deals that couldn’t have been pleasant reads. I thought about the times she’s paused while I’ve choked out words over yet another phone call, the way she put her arm around me when I all-out bawled during parent-teacher conference. I wondered how many prayers were sent up in those alphabet-covered walls the past 9 months on behalf of, or with, Cy. She has taught truth with tenacity. She has called out gifts and potential when as yet they were not manifest, in both Cy and me. She has told us over and over, “God has good plans. He’s going to use these hard things and turn them into something beautiful, just watch! He knew exactly what he was doing when He brought you all together in this family.”

We stuck a flower in her car and Cypress handed over one more marker colored note, and she wrapped us both in a hug and said, “Now you listen. Cypress is moving on to second grade, but I’m not going anywhere. I’m still in the same place, ready to talk to you ANY TIME. I won’t stop praying, and I’m here for you, no matter what. I’m still on your team.”

As my mom assures me so often, we only decide what is best for right now. Tomorrow or next year there may be a new option, a better fit, a change to be made. For right now, I’m realizing what we need above arts and culture and the most creative learning models, is fierce and loyal love. People who are knees-on-the-floor, crying out for God’s healing and wisdom and grace on our behalf, filling in when we are out of words or strength. Miss G has been that.

We all have gifts and incredible good to offer the world, but a gift can’t be given if there’s no recipient. She’s been pouring out her love through education for many more years than I’ve even been alive, and with tears she says she’s incredibly grateful every year that she’s entrusted with our children and gets to come back and do it again.

Miss G is another reminder that I wasn’t created to do this alone. She, at least for a season, has been a vital component to our family, our team, our village. She has offered Cy a gift I could never have given.

Look around for the people in your corner, the ones who have gifts to give, and open your hands and breathe a sigh of relief and receive them. It’s what we’re all here for.

We Are Human

This morning my room smells like rain. The air is cool coming in the open window, and I’ve traded Pandora for the tree frog songs coming from the pasture and the Red-Winged Black bird singing in the lilac bush. There’s a red squirrel running laps around the big maple tree. The grey squirrels, so common in the city, are rarely seen in the country. Instead we have the red ones, twice and big and half as tame as their city relatives.

I’ve watched a pair of wild turkeys march around the property several times the last few weeks. Coyotes frequent the field behind the bedroom, taunting my dog to a game of survival-of-the-fittest. A doe was enjoying the fresh green grass in the waterway nearest the house at sunset one evening this week, and I’m eyeing their favorite pasture area for my first sighting of fawns. Saturday when Jazz and I went for our walk, she startled a coon from his fishing in the creek, and he clamored up a tree and seated himself in the crook of a branch, then unabashedly gawked at us, his little masked face leaning side to side to observe Jazz’s every move. The blue herons have been busy doing whatever it is blue herons do in the spring, and Jazz will not have these giant-winged creatures invading our air space, so she takes off barking like a literal mad dog every time they fly over. We spotted a pair of mallard ducks paddling upstream in our creek a few nights ago, and I’m hoping some ducklings are in their/our near future.

Meanwhile, this morning flags fly half mast across the country of Ethiopia, as the villages of Gambella reel from a brutal massacre of more than 200 people, and mothers and fathers left alive weep for over 100 children abducted by the vicious raiders. In Ecuador there is already smoke curling from cemeteries as families began the process of burning the bodies of hundreds upon hundreds killed in an earthquake. In Libya there are bodies washing up onto beaches, the friends and relatives of which were rescued from the sea and taken to prisons, where they now may be sharing a room with50 others, sharing a toilet with 200. They are one of countless thousands exchanging one hellish experience for another because, in the words of a refugee, “everyone under the sun wants a prosperous life”. Desperate for freedom, they are dying for peace. Sierra Leonean farmers are planting their crops, watching the seeds in their grain room dwindle without a reserve since last harvest they spent their days in their houses, hiding from the Ebola ravaging their nation, while their crops were left to rot in the fields. In Ellensburg, WA, the city where my sister lives, a family is sitting with news that their son/daughter and spouse are missing, with all evidence pointing towards murder. Those are just the headlines.

Across our property a thousand leaves are unfolding on waving branches, and purple wild violets make the ground look like fancy carpet. Across our world a thousand thousand voices cry out for mercy. For some fully unknown reason, I’m here in a quiet room listening to raindrops and a scolding robin, while much of the world groans in pain.

There is no need for distanced pity. No need for attempted explanations or weak platitudes. No place for heroic notions or savior complexes. The Lord knows we are all just as broken as the next. We in our sprawling properties or safe suburbias aren’t the blessed and special ones of the world, though we’re endlessly tempted to think so. This is simply a call to make space. To weep with those who weep this morning. If there is an action in front of you, however small it may seem, take it.  If there is a gift you can share, whatever it may be, share it. Because whatever we have is simply that; an unearned gift that’s been given to us. I don’t have a list of ways to donate or make a difference today. I just have the words of the refugees from the video above ringing in my ears, and I want to stop and sit with the ache of it:  “We are human.”

You are heard.

Your suffering is felt.

You are not forgotten.

Your name is known.

Your tears, your sweat, your blood, see? We’re not that different.

We are family.

We are human.

I Didn't Expect It--Raw Feelings and Photos from Sierra Leone

I  didn't expect it.  

I didn’t expect the air to burn so hot when it rolled across my face as I stepped off the plane and onto the dark tarmac.

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I didn’t expect the dirt roads to be so red against the gigantic sky.

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I didn’t expect the palms to wave so exotic and the bananas to hang so lush on trees above a ground so littered and scarred.

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I didn’t expect the smell of sweat in every inhale to be a scent that filled my nose not with repulsion but rather with humanity.

I didn’t expect to find unity in hot skin against skin, sweaty palm against palm, for sticky arms hugging shoulders to be our common ground.

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I didn’t expect to ingest so much dust, to thirst so deeply, to be so filthy every night, and yet feel so alive.

I didn’t expect the disparity of hospitality. To be treated as royalty, served chilled sodas and heaping plates of steaming rice and chicken, all while a dozen sets of little eyes gathered on the outskirts to quietly watch every motion of spoon to mouth.

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I didn’t expect the extravagant generosity, gifts given with pure joy from hands who knew hunger to hands who knew no physical need.

I didn’t expect my heart to throb again. I thought I was prepared for the cracked lips, the skinny arms, the protruding bellies, the sheer desperation for a bite of sugar.

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I didn’t expect to feel the helpless ache of love. I thought the years had scarred over and even calloused the cuts Ethiopia left. I thought I could visit and learn and embrace and then come home without the hurt this time. But the callouses are rubbed off and I feel raw again.

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I did’t expect to sit by John and feel at home.

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I didn’t expect to carry the mother-weight of worry, fear over the future of a boy I’ve only seen a total of 3 times, back with me across ocean and continents.

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I didn’t expect the juxtaposition; Ebola signs and barren school rooms and wells that run dry and naked children and so many scars on so many arms and legs, set against the loud singing and clapping and dancing and smiles that fill entire faces and hugs and hard work and hopes for a better tomorrow.

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I didn’t expect to come home so conflicted. To laugh or to cry? To stay present and ache, or to move on and mute the pain? To promise to return and feel it all again next year, even if my only offering is a few days of companionship? Or to spend my money supporting from afar, less dollars on 20 hours of plane travel and more for a college fund and bags of rice?

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I didn’t expect to be writing this from the dark of my closet because I am too restless. Because my house feels too big again, like it did after my last trip to Ethiopia when I couldn’t stand the sight of the two empty chairs at our kitchen table for weeks after my return.

  I didn’t expect to encounter such a tenacity of human sprit in Sierra Leone, to see such persistent optimism from people who’ve known suffering at its worst. Such dedication to their education and studies from students who have so little. John showed me his meticulous biology notes and diagrams, how he’d named every part of a microscope, the steps to preparing wet and dry mount slides, and the details of how an amoeba eats. He’s never even seen an actual microscope, let alone looked through the eyepiece.

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I did’t expect to feel such an urgency that I have to do all I can to change the story for one. A familiar notion, but it hit me with new fervor. One high school degree, one college education, one good lawyer or health care worker or pastor… maybe it could be the difference for a family, a village, a generation?

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I didn’t expect the hope that would fill me when I witnessed this strength of character, how the sum of all my fears about the looming obstacles in his path are still less than the total hopes I have for John's bright future.

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Choose to change the story for one. The impact on a child's life, and yours, will go beyond what you could ever expect!

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Bombali Bana and Lessons from the Piñata

When we arrived in Bombali Bana, they circled up wooden chairs and benches under the shade. A few grinning boys carried out a table to place in the center of the chairs, and we sat with the school headmaster, many of the teachers, the community leader, the head of the School Management Committee (SMC is similar to our PTA), and Mariatu, the child sponsorship coordinator for World Hope here in Sierra Leone.  

Bombala Bana is the location of a pilot project for World Hope, their first school partnership. The vision is that the entire student body in the school will have a sponsor. The funds from the sponsorships will be used to first meet educational needs; school supplies such as books, backpacks, etc, training and a stipend for teachers, improved classrooms and such. It will also provide rice or basic food for families. The funding could then extend to meet broader needs as more sponsors join. Latrines, wells, and other community necessities can be aided by the collective funding.

In the partnership, the school must agree to give reports on the teachers’ training, provide an assessment of each child once a year detailing how they are doing in areas of academics, health, family, etc., and ensure that the children are photographed and write a letter to their sponsor twice a year. The vision for this is that there would be a more holistic approach to the needs of the students/school/community, but still provide the encouragement, support, and prayer a personal relationship between a child and his/her sponsor gives. World Hope only wishes to give the school a boost, and after a time the intent is that the school will be in an empowered facility, equipped to thrive independently.

  I realize I’m in the minority here, but I love meetings. Especially when they’re outside under an African sky, and pertaining to things I’m passionate about. It was wonderful to listen to them discuss the partnership, the mutual agreements, the specific roles, and questions about how the program is to run. Angie is such a gracious coordinator. I’ve loved observing how she listens, and then thoughtfully responds. She is here to learn as well as share, and her spirit of camaraderie, of coming along side rather than from a place of superiority, is inspiring. Her passion to equip and empower and maintain long term relationships, all the while giving preference to the leaders here, is something that I love about her, and a general posture of World Hope I am happy to see.

  When the meeting concluded, we told the staff we had some fun activities for the teachers. I suspect they may have qualms the next time Americans visit and want to have some “fun”, as what ensued was slightly less than ideal.

With the help of a few scrambling boys, we strung a piñata in a tree, borrowed a sash from one of the girls and a stick from the bushes, and taught the kids a silly North American game. It started off well. However, within a few minutes, I realized two problems. 1-our crowd had grown from beyond our attempted controlled size, to a number of roughly 100 sweaty bodies, who were all fully intent on being as close to the action as possible, leaving me in an increasingly shrinking diameter along with the piñata and the stick-wielding kid. 2-African kids can maneuver sticks with ferocity like I’ve never seen.

I would blindfold and dizzy a child up a bit, and then promptly take to cowering back against the crowd as the stick was whipped from side to side. The bodies behind me were unfazed by my physical contact and only pushed in harder. When the piñata was finally decapitated, there was no waiting for the candy to fall to the ground. In a flash, the colorful donkey was yanked from the tree and thrown beneath a writhing mob of candy-craving children.

It was not the last mob of the day. At one point Angie disappeared beneath a red dust cloud and a surge of bodies when they saw the silly string appear from her bag. I did my best to hold them at bay, standing in front of a long and deep line that by this time numbered in the hundreds with my hands up sternly and my best military/mom face on. But all at once they surged, and in what Angie describes as a scene from Braveheart, they thundered around and over me and onto her. The teachers stood on the sidelines shouting and waving their sticks, but the stampede had turned feral over hopes of more sugar from the ones who scored a piece, and anger from the ones who had missed out, and there was no authority strong enough to thwart their intentions. The day accumulated enough incidents to warrant a temporarily mission name change to #whibandaid, as the #whijoyspreader efforts took a sharp decline.

When we later recounted the experience from our different vantage points, and Wesley shared his perspective from behind the camera when the furry broke loose, we laughed until we cried. I washed more dirt off in the shower than I knew a body could hold, and fell asleep laughing. I hope the students felt our love and goodwill, and sensed our great hope for their education and future, even though our expressions were tinged with dysfunction.

I can’t wait to hear updates from Bombali Bana as the partnership takes root. I think there are great things in store for the school and the staff and students alike, and even the whole village. It was an honor to visit, to receive so many warm welcomes. I certainly learned some valuable lessons about crowd control and careful candy dispersion that will be applied at birthday parties in the future. But what I learned the most, what I am learning more fully every day here, is that though my mission on this trip has been to be a joy-spreader, to represent the love and care and relationship of sponsors to the children being sponsored, I have scattered a few joy seeds and already reaped a 500 percent return. We give these little bits of love and joy imperfectly here and there, and it’s given back to us in tremendous measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over.

  I will say it again and again, I know, but the need is so great, the results are so convincing, and the timing is so good to choose to be a sponsor. Whether for the first time, or to widen your circle and add in another child, I hope you’ll consider choosing one, choosing love for a little person half way around the world this moth of love. World Hope International is the place start.

If you have questions about our experiences, the school partnership, WHI’s methods/beliefs/priorities, or simply have something about our time in Sierra Leone you’d like to hear more of, would you let me know in the comments? I can’t answer most of them, but I can point you to people who can, and I’m happy to discuss anything that’s on your mind!

  Sending you love and plenty of sunshine and sweat (that I’m not a bit sad about),

~C