I got mail!!!!

To me, there is still something magical about opening the mailbox and finding a letter with my name on it. Not a bill, mind you. Not a political solicitation or a "prize" notice...

A letter.

Meant for me.

Straight from the heart of another human being...from someone who sat down with a pen and paper and decided to share a bit of themselves with me.

It does happen, on occasion, and usually from one of my Compassion assisted kids. Today was a mail day, and I practically danced when I saw the envelope marked "A Message From Your Sponsored Child." I ripped it open, anxious for news. It was a first letter from 17 year old Estanly in Honduras, a letter written before my visit to him in June. His words reminded me intensely of his strong, quiet, observant nature that I had already had the privilege of seeing in person. I've read it about six times already. The line, "You are a very good hearted person when you thought on me and you sponsored me" plays over and over in my mind. I wish Estanly could see my pleasure.

I decided to experiment with mail. I write a lot of letters. As sponsor to now 14 kids with Compassion International, monthly mailings are getting to be a tad bit more involved. We spend a lot of time brainstorming over flat paper items to send to our kids, a lot of time putting together personalized packets that will deliver a message of value and worth to these very real extensions of our family. Here lately, my kids have taken an interest in the process. They will come and sticker with me or color a picture or design a craft. Something about the look on one of their little faces one time gave me an idea.

I write letters to my kids overseas...so why not write letters to the kids in my own living room?

Why not take a minute to fill a page with all the reasons why I love them, with how I am proud of them?

Why not draw a picture of something they love or tell them about something new?

Why not, for once, get to see the delight on a child's face when a package arrives, filled with a personalized stash of goodies, inscribed with all the love in my heart?

Why not indeed.

So I did it. I wrote my babies a letter. I made them each a sweet little lapbook (more on those later) filled with some of the things they like best. I put them each in a big envelope and addressed them to my little people. I surreptitiously sneaked to the mailbox and stowed the surprises.

Coming back in, I casually asked, "Hey Jonathan. Did you get the mail today?"

Jonathan: "Yes. You know I did."

Me: "No, Jonathan. Did you get the MAIL today?" (accompanied by a big wink and a nod in the kid's direction)

Jonathan: "Ohhh. I guess I need to check it. Can anyone help me?"

To which the obvious response was a mad rush to the door by Leah, Benjamin, and Lori.

If any of our neighbors noticed, they must have thought we were crazy...a family of five checking the mail together at 9:30 at night. Benjamin was only wearing underwear, which would normally have bothered me...but my excitement told me to let him have this moment without correction.

When they opened the mailbox, it took them a minute to realize that its contents was for them. They all recognize their own name, though, so when the reality of the situation hit, you would have thought it was Christmas! Leah came running to me, screaming , "Mommy! Mommy! I got a LETTER!
They ripped open the yellow envelopes like a birthday present and for the next hour, savored the contents.

My friends, it was sweet.

It is always sweet to delight the heart of a child. I don't get to witness the response from my sponsored children when they open their monthly mailings, but I can't imagine that the scene differs a whole lot from the little scene in my living room. I don't get to watch them rip open the envelopes and spend days reading and re-reading my messages, looking at each item, days later, calling a word or phrase of encouragement to mind. My kids see me every day; love is communicated to them in a hundred ways each day. For my sponsored kids, letters are a link. When I don't write, I miss an opportunity to lavish a little love on a soul hungry and thirsty for value and affection. When I don't write to my own children, I miss out on an extra chance to lavish worth on them. From now on, my mailing list will have 17 names on it instead of 14, and each month, I will be reminded, encouraged, by my own little ones of why I do what I do.

I'll be reminded, too, of the delight in my Father's heart when I rip into the letter He wrote for me, when I absorb and savor each delectable word, when I call His words to mind each and every day. I'll remember as I read, "Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy words were unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart..."--Jeremiah 15:16

What "relationship" means...

"Not by works of righteousness that we have done, but according to His mercy He has saved us..." -I Timothy 3:5

"A life is precious for what it is, not just for what it does." --Wess Stafford

I have a lot of acquaintances.

I have a few relationships.

I'm working on that.

Sometimes I say that I know somebody. When I think about that later, I realize that it is really not true. "Knowing" someone is more than knowing things about them, more than seeing them every day, more than carrying on a conversation with them.

As I have learned through sponsoring with Compassion, knowing someone is more than exchanging letters. I tell people often that sponsoring a child is not about money as much as it is about relationship...about pouring your. love, your prayer, your time, into the life of a child. What does that really mean? How can someone a thousand (or many thousand) miles away figure out when they "know" that child, the little person that God saw fit to place in their lives?

All these thoughts came to mind after an event that happened at school today. I got disappointed...hurt, even, by something that some of my students did. They made a big mistake. Am I upset about this? Yes. But at least I now know what my students struggle against, what choices they face. I know how to pray for them. And, in a way, by knowing these things, I know them. I see these kids every day. I know what makes them laugh, what they like (and don't like), I can read their emotions like a book. For some, I know their hopes and dreams. I see their successes and failures. I have a relationship with them.

All this to say that having a relationship with someone involves accepting the good and the bad. It can mean dealing with disappointment. As sponsors with Compassion, we sometimes miss out on that part. We hear the good. Sometimes we hear the heart-wrenching; but most kids won't write to tell us that they cheated on a test, or that they battle with a particular sins. To our sponsored kids, we are superhuman; just as their failings are hidden from us, so our failings are hidden from them. I hope, as a sponsor, that I realize that my sponsored kids are like my own kids or like my school kids. They aren't perfect. They make mistakes. Some of the things they say and do would disappoint us. When we pick up that child packet and see that adorable face, in our minds we may envision a perfect child; however, we do our sponsored kids a disservice when we forget that they are human...and when we don't pray for them, with them, against those human faults and failings. I think we also need to think about sharing some of our life-lessons with them, some of the struggles God has given us victory in. We need to relate (that word "relationship" comes from), relate not only to their suffering, not only to their spiritual experiences, but also to their sin and struggles. We share the good and the bad. Knowing the bad hurts, but if you don't know the struggle, you don't know the person. That's how it works in a relationship.

I'll give an example.

In November 2012, I met my beautiful Dominican son, Jeffry, for the first time. I had known him through letters for six years already, but nothing could compare to holding him in my arms, hearing his voice, learning his personality, all that his letters hinted at. I quickly saw his shy demeanor melt into a quick-witted mischievousness. He was adorable, charming, sassy, and confident. It was a start.

I returned to the DR six months later, this time taking the long road to Barahona to see Jeffry's home. We saw his center, met his class, sat on his front porch, petted his dogs, played ball in the empty lot, hugged his grandmother...we experienced the reality of his life. One thing that stands out to me in perfect clarity is when we were standing in the office of his CDI, looking at Jeffry's file. We gushed over his first picture, reminisced over his first letter, remembered each special moment of our sponsorship. Then came Jeffry's report card. Apparently, Jeffry had been showing more mischievousness at school than he had the quick-witted, natural leadership that I had so clearly observed in him. Straight F's were not what I had been expecting. I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach. When I looked up into Jeffry's eyes, he read the disappointment. But he also saw my concern for him...and since that time, I have not ceased to pour encouragement into his life. In that moment, we shared something. In that moment, our relationship grew deeper and wider. For the first time, the door was opened and unconditional love walked through. I realized that I wasn't sponsoring Jeffry to see results, to see the "end product" after he graduates from the Compassion program. I sponsor him because of who he is...a unique, priceless, intentional creation of our heavenly Father.

I don't know what Jeffry will become. I am only determined to measure the success of my sponsorship by how much love he felt. I feel like I know him--the good, the bad, the ugly--just like Christ Himself sees me. He didn't pick me because of what I could offer Him; He chose me because of the salvation and new life He could offer me. Christ knows me and loves me--knows my sin, my struggles--and loves me lavishly, pouring encouragement into my life, touched by the feeling of my infirmities. May I offer this kind of grace in the relationships in my life. May I never let a moment of disappointment scare me away from the delight of truly knowing someone.

A quiet place...

"Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed." --Mark 1:35

Some days, a lot of little things go wrong.

Like waking up with a toothache.

Like dealing with an argumentative student.

Like hearing that your kid was a little monster in class.

None of these things are tragic. None of these things (or the million other things like them) are life-altering. But they can leave me aching for chocolate (in spite of the toothache)...or, better yet, for that perfect, quiet place where even the tiny, nagging worries of every day life can't follow me.

I have two such places.

I stand three stories up, solitary, the chilly morning breeze waking me even more than the cold shower I've just taken. I look out over the broken-glass, barbed wire topped, 12 foot concrete walls of the Iglesia Bautista para las Naciones compound in San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic. The world is quiet but for the rowdy roosters who crow indiscriminately day and night. Early risers emerge from their homes in the community of Las Colinas II silent, setting out on the long walk to work or school, perhaps awed too by God's message of hope written in the sunrise of a new day. I sit in the tiny prayer room...no cushions or comfort in the tiny, concrete cell. I am alone with God. Inside, His presence. Outside, a whole lot of purpose in the broken, needy community. Here, all the pressures of daily life in the U.S. are absent. I have nowhere to be and nothing to do that isn't a sheer joy to me, intensified by the blessedness of knowing that I am operating at the heart of God's purpose for my life. Even now, I can close my eyes and feel the breeze. Eventually, I must climb down the cold concrete stairs, pass through the sanctuary of praises sung in three tongues--Creole, Spanish, and English--and go out into the hurting world. But as I go my heart stirs in remembrance of the early morning, the cool sweetness if the Spirit's moving.

Now I stand hours away from this first place...in Barahona the beautiful. My eyes can hardly take in the splendor that surrounds me. Flowing down from the tropical mountain behind me is a river, cold as ice. It cascades down, laughing down waterfalls, resting for a moment in a pool as clear and deep as a mirror, then babbling down another fall and into another pool...five or six times like this until it spills with sweet release into the turquoise waters of the Caribbean. The Sea, in welcome, greets the river with rolling waves, lazily pulling back the tiny, smooth stones that are the beach with a sound more delicious than rain on a tin roof...or of passing through a bead curtain. Huge palms shade this oasis...old trees with thirsty, reaching roots sprawl out by the pools...rock bridges meander across the falls. One giant tree, allured by the call of the sea, lays whitewashed on the shore, ready to play pirate ship, diving board, or king of the mountain with me, Jonathan, or the four little Dominican boys we count as sons. It is a golden treasure of a day...the laughter of my boys, Jonathan's grin from beneath a waterfall, the simple pleasure of pressing a river-smoothed stone into my palm. I see a tiny Dominican boy, bare and brown eating a bowl of rice in front of the ramshackle shed-home where his mother sells Johnny cakes to beach-goers. This boy has nothing in this world but a view made for kings, and it thrills my heart to see God share His wonders to delight the heart of this little person. The little guy is an Adam for now, in a virtual Eden, satisfied with life as it is, not as sorry for himself as I am for him. I look at him and at the waters pouring out their song of praise and I feel free. Eventually, I will have to pack up and head home. For now, I am alive and satisfied, enjoying the delicious fruit of God's purpose in my life.

I wonder if Jesus' quiet place was like mine are... If it was a place where worldly cares were dissolved and the simple sweetness of God's presence was tangible. There no crowds could follow Him, no Pharisees could set a trap, no disciples could ask dumb questions. I wonder if when He came down, He could close His eyes and feel the cool breeze or hear the waves pulling back the pebbles.

Next time you see me with my eyes closed, I might be in San Pedro or Barahona, lost for a moment in a ripple of God's pleasure and purpose, untouched by the current circumstance. Give me a moment, please, before you wake me up...

Shedding the grave clothes...

This past year has been about change in my life. And it was a clothes line that did it.

I mark the beginning of this metamorphosis at November 2011, when I took my first trip to the Dominican Republic to meet the "son" we have sponsored for seven years through Compassion International. For weeks before the trip, I obsessed in prayer and devotion about the change that needed to take place in my life. I had started to feel like Lazarus. Not the dead Lazurus, but the newly raised Lazarus. The stinky Lazarus, wound up in grave clothes, alive as he would ever be, but not as free as he would ever be.

14 years ago, Christ raised my Spirit to life in Him. He called me out of the grave and into a new resurrected life, and he has, slowly but surely, been peeling off the layers of sin that keep me from true freedom and pure service. Every now and then, I look down and realize how smelly and wound up in this world I really am. One day, as it says in I Corinthians 15, this mortality will put on immortality...I will shed this cacoon of ineffectiveness and stand clean, new, and completely free in front of my heavenly Father. Until that day comes, I've got some unwinding to do...and the first bandage to go this year was the one from my eyes, mercifully allowing me to see my own bound condition and the condition of the desperately needy around the world.

After spending five days last November in a country where those who have food, clean water, shelter, and clothes for the day are content, I returned home and was slapped in the face by my own excess. At the first Compassion Center that I visited, I was taken to the home of a young mother named Gwendolyn. Her 15 x 15 home was immaculate, a protest against the squalor of the surrounding community. The wardrobe of her four-member family, minus what they were wearing, hung on a single clothes line, and yet she was proud to share with us God's blessing and provision, always wearing a sweet, shy smile. That day, my mind leaped to the thousands of clothing items possessed by my family, to the home that sat cluttered. I brushed the event under my heart's rug, unable to process it at the time with all of the other emotions related to what I was seeing and feeling. When I came home, God kept calling sweet Gwendolyn to my mind. Her face haunted me. She, in her simple satisfaction, revealed to me my sin, and each day I was home, the weight of it all became heavier and heavier on my soul. While her simple home was a reflection of a humble heart before God, my home was the reflection of a proud heart, a heart that had ceased to see a need for God. I had been an absolute fool, spending my entire adult life accumulating worthless junk--the kind of treasure that moth and rust corrupts and thieves break through and steal. Where was my treasure in heaven? The only things that last for eternity are people, and I had wasted a lot of time investing in riches instead of relationships. It was painful to realize that I had been living the terrible lie that riches satisfy. I repented in tears, sitting (appropriately) in a mountain of laundry in my daughters' room, confronted at last by my shameful excess, my mind's eye forever stamped with the picture of a clothes line a thousand miles away. God had opened my eyes to see how I had mummified myself in worldly things, bound from serving Him by debt and lust for treasures that don't last.

This past year has been about ripping off bandages. Painful, yes...but also incredibly liberating...and satisfying to the soul. I feel so hardened sometimes that it is good to know that even I can be changed...my Lord sanctifies me, setting me more and more free from my sinful nature to serve Him.

This year, I'm inviting you to join me on a journey of un-binding. Starting September 1, I am going to get rid of something I own that I don't need (probably never needed) and give it to someone who does. I'm pretty sure that this process will be painful at times, revealing and shameful. You will probably witness some tantrums. In the end, I hope to see that I have spent a year constructing relationships and permitting God to tear down the stronghold of worldly wants with His truth.

I hear the Savior calling me to more freedom...the drop your nets, stand up and walk, go and sin no more, come forth from the grave kind of freedom...and my soul longs for it. I'm ready to shed. Do you want to join me?

3 Lovely Ladies...

These little ladies belong to a new Compassion Project in Jhansi, India. St Paul's Child Development Center, IN978, has only been open for a month. A few days ago, when I first looked up IN978 on the website, 10 girls were waiting for sponsors. Now, just 3 girls remain on the site! I don't know who sponsored them, but I do know that God has heard my prayers. I am continuing to pray for these last three girls.

My little Leah wants to use her "whiteboard money" to sponsor Kajal...I'm not sure we can swing it right now with our other commitments. But Leah told me that Kajal is beautiful and she needs a sponsor! Kajal likes to play with dolls and play house. She is just 5 years old, like Leah.

Little Shilpa and pretty Neha are also five. Would you like to make one of these girls part of your family? Follow this link to view profiles for these girls:

http://www.compassion.com/sponsor_a_child/child-search-results.htm?ums=False&ageMin=3&ageMax=22&txtProjectName=IN978

Here are a few things you should know about this area...
1. Only 2% of the population is Christian. You could be instrumental in sharing the hope of Christ in this unreached region.
2. An article was written about human trafficking and the cycle of poverty in Jhansi. Follow this link to the Los Angeles Times:

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/dec/01/world/la-fg-climate-loanshark1-2009dec01

Leah's Ears

More than once, I have seriously considered getting Leah's hearing checked. My girl has a problem with listening. While I would sometimes prefer to believe that there is a physical issue, I am afraid that, in reality, the problem is good old-fashioned stubborness. We frequently go back and forth like this:

Me: "Leah, did I tell you not to change clothes again?"

Leah: "Ummm, I don't know."

Me: "LEAH. I told you THREE times not to change clothes."

Leah: "But I wanted to change clothes."

Me: "I don't care what you wanted. I TOLD you NOT to change cothes."

Repeat conversation, at least three times a week. When do the words sink in? Of course, sometimes a wooden spoon helps the words sink in faster. I would just think that, at some point, things would click, she would remember the rules, and she would be the compliant, robot child I often want.

And then there are the times when I am surprised at how closely she has been listening, and not always to my words. Maybe she hasn't caught on to house cleaning rules or back-sassing rules, or go-to-bed rules, or be-quiet-while-I'm-on-the-phone rules, but there are some other things she has been catching on to.

Everyday after school, Leah comes to my room, where I teach high school, and washes my whiteboard for me. Today, she wanted to know if I could pay her some money. Ensuing conversation:

Me: "You want me to give you money?"

Leah: "Yes. A dollar."

Me: "What do you want a dollar for?"

Leah: "Ummm, I want to give it to a little girl that's not got money. I want to sponsor her so she can have money and eat."

Big smiles from me. My baby girl may not always listen to my words, but she hears my heart. And I'm so glad that I hear her loving, tender little heart and that it is beating with sympathy for a little girl half a world away. I don't know if Leah can sponsor her own girl yet. We'll see. But I do know that she's getting off to a good start in the love department. We will work on the rest :)

Someone's Listening!

I must say, it is nice to know there is someone out there who hangs on my every word.

We all know what it is like to compete to get our voices heard. In my case, it happens frequently. I have classes who love to chit-chat, babies who love to back-talk, and a husband who would argue with a rock...and they are all louder than me.

However, I do have one audience who waits anxiously for my voice...my sponsored children. Jeffry, Cesar, Luz Maria, Andrea, Jhoselin, Israel, Arbaj, Mohamadi, Estanly, Genesis, and Ilda, treat me like a celeberity. They save my letters and carry my pictures around with them. Out of all the people in the world, they want to meet ME. When I first met Luz Maria, it amazed me to discover that the sweet girl had practically memorized every word I had ever written to her. She knew all about me. Every time I think about that I am humbled by the power that my words can have. I have the incredible power to pour an endless supply of love and encouragement into my sponsored children. While Satan is whispering these lies in one ear...

"You don't matter."

"If God loves you, you wouldn't live like this."

"You live in garbage, so you must BE garbage."

I have the great privelege, backed up by the truths of Scripture, to sing into the other ear words like these...

"You are BEAUTIFUL."

"God has a plan for your life."

"I love you."

For me, someone is out their listening...and sometimes, I'm pleased to discover that those who listen aren't so far away. I want to try to remember that people everywhere, not just those in poverty, need someone to speak truth into their lives to combat Satan's lies. His tactics don't necessarily change based on your economic status. Satan is a liar, and he always has been. I am thankful for those in my life who are encouragers, who always seem to choose the right time to inject a little truth into my world. For all of us, someone out there is waiting for those words of affirmation...

My Voice...

I have had this blog set up for a while now. For some reason, whenever I get on to write my first post, I always get about halfway through and erase what I have written. I will be surprised if the words I am typing now actually make the cut and are published. After all, what do I have to say that the world wants to hear?

I think about this at school when I am teaching British Literature and U.S. History and see pretty clearly that my words aren't having all of the influence I would like for them to...

Or when I tell my kids 300 times to pick the same toy up out of the floor...

Or when giving advice to one of the Single's that Jonathan and I minister to and find out later that the advice wasn't taken...

Or when I tell Jonathan something and discover later that he completely missed it...

We all use a lot of words. Some are important, and some are less so. Sometimes people don't want to hear what we have to say, and sometimes our voices are drowned out by all of the other voices that are competeing for attention. But that doen't mean that our voice is unimportant, and it doesn't mean that we shouldn't use it!

This blog is an extension of my voice. The question is, do I have something important to say?

I think about John the Baptist...he was, if you remember, known as "the voice of one crying in the wilderness." He was, put simply, a Voice. The message he had to share was both powerful and important. It was the message of salvation, of the coming Christ, of hearts laid bare and ready. I think all who carry this same message feel like they are crying into the wind sometimes, their voice lost in the chaos of this life. But that Message is everything, and it must also be my message. If I speak anything, it should be to declare the risen Lord, the saving Lord, the sanctifying Lord, the coming Lord. It should be to urge those around me to prepare for his return. For the Christian, that's what life should be, right? The Bride preparing for her Bridegroom to return? And if this is true, then there are many other messages I must speak...

I must speak love and affirmation over my husband, words of encouragement, comfort, joy, and discipline over my children, words that echo the words that the Scriptures breathe into me.

I must use my voice as an advocate for the helpless, for those who cannot speak for themselves, a voice that vies for attention in a world where everyone is "looking out for number one."

I must be a voice that not only pleads for the cause of the poor, but also one that pleads with the comfortable, reminding others (and myself) that the only things in this world that last forever are people...making them the only things worth spending time on.

I must pour out praise to my Savior, using my voice as a gift to the one who loves me lavishly...

God gave me a voice. I may not always use it as I should. Others may not always like what I have to say. But I DO have something important to say...the message of Christ and His transformational work in our lives. A little at a time, I want to share with you my voice...