Love is Hard

If I have learned nothing else during my time here in Congo, it is this: love is hard.

The mood on the ship Tuesday was somber: we lost another baby.  That makes two so far - two little lives that could not be saved, two little lives that are no more.  The redeeming thing?  They were two little lives who were deeply loved during the days they spent on this ship, and I doubt anyone regrets loving them fully while they were here.  If you don't believe me, read my bunkmate's response to having the first little girl die in her arms, but grab Kleenex first (you can read her story by clicking here).  The dignity and love that is shown these families is achingly beautiful.  Once all the paperwork is finally done and the proper authorities show up to take the deceased away, the Deck department shuts down every office and closes every door between the hospital and the gangway, allowing privacy and dignity.  The care they show in making the family their number one priority is humbling.  Love is hard.

My new happy place is an orphanage in Ngoyo Plains.  There is little Moise, who at 14 months is already Mister Tough Guy; nonetheless, by the time we leave to head back to the ship, he's snuggled into my lap, soaking it up.  It breaks my heart to scoop him out of my lap and leave him behind each week.  Then there's Gaud (pronounced god).  He has cerebral palsy and autism, and I love him to pieces.  Often, he just wants to sit by me, passing an object back and forth every few seconds.  A couple weeks ago, I found the trick that causes him to grin overwhelmingly - the kind of grin that explodes across your face, that causes your chin to tuck into your chest as your shoulders rise with your cheeks.  There's Bozi, who raises hell with the best of them, but can quickly shut down if responded to with a critical word.  Junior is a scrawny little guy - I think he was malnourished, and he has some cognitive defects as a result.  He always has a huge grin on his face, and is the first to greet us with hugs when we walk through the gate.  There are two dozen other kids as well, each heartbreakers in their own right.  We faithfully return week after week, loving them with all our hearts, knowing that each new Saturday we are able to spend there, falling even more deeply in love with them, brings us one week closer to having to say goodbye.  Love is hard.

Our gangway is in fact a revolving door, and even the people you think will stick around for quite some time aren't always able to.  You step onto this ship knowing that there are people aboard this vessel that you will grow to deeply love, and that those relationships may only last for a season.  You jump in with both feet, open your heart, and hope that the next goodbye is still a long way off.  Love is hard.

The people who know you, who love you, who miss you are thousands of miles away.  They are still a part of you, and you are still a part of them.  You miss births, weddings, funerals.  You miss first loves and first steps and last words.  Still, you fight to maintain those relationships, no matter how much effort it takes.  Love is hard.

Without love,we are nothing and can gain nothing.  Choosing to love sometimes means recognizing that the other person has more to gain than you have to lose.  Choosing to love sometimes means feeling like your heart has been ripped from your chest.  But no matter how hard it may be to choose to love, it is always the right choice.  Paul knew this when he wrote his letter to the Corinthians.  So often, we use this passage in Scripture for the happy moments, like weddings, but it is equally true in the more difficult moments as well:

Love is hard...but it bears all things.

Love is hard...but it believes all things.

Love is hard...but it hopes all things.

Love is hard...but it endures all things. 

Love is hard, but love never ends.  

Following the Faithful One...

Tomorrow, I will see Africa.  Even if I had the enormous (and admittedly overwhelming) emotional vocabulary list I was given in Texas, I think I would still struggle greatly to articulate accurately the enormous breadth and range of emotions that accompany that incredible first sentence.  So I breathe deeply, close my eyes, and repeat it again quietly to myself, assuring myself that I am not dreaming:

“Tomorrow, I will see Africa.

Feet: be prepared to dance upon her soil.

Heart: be prepared to pound, creating a glorious tempo to which this jubilant dance of celebration will be set.

Mind: be prepared for the torrent of worship that will flow forth from the depths of my soul.

Eyes: be prepared to see, through tears as warm and salty as the tropic waters that we are sailing through, a most awesome sight.”

I have dreamed of this day for as long as I can remember.  Yet, if I were to be perfectly honest, this is a day I have never dreamed of.  Every other childhood aspiration and hope I have had has been decimated, abandoned or surrendered – so why would this one be realized?  The last several nights, I have climbed into my bunk here on the ship afraid to go to sleep, afraid that when I wake up this most astounding dream will finally be over.  Tonight will be the last night I will carry that fear with me into my bunk – what an incredible thought!

Want to hear something crazy?  What leaves me most in awe isn’t actually the fact that I am really, truly going to be in Africa – what blows my mind is that this is absolutely not the way I ever imagined it would happen, and yet I cannot think of a more amazing way to experience this.  I have been reminded that not only does God know my heart, He created and designed my heart; therefore, He is able to fulfill the desires of my heart in ways I never dreamed possible – both the grandiose as well as the seemingly inconsequential dreams:

·         He knows that I have always longed to see Orcas, free to roam the open seas…and He sent Orcas.
·         He knows my heart thrills at being able to do random, geeky, uncommon things…and so we sailed through the “golden X”, where the Equator and Prime Meridian meet – the most rare of the line crossings.
·         He knows that few things cause me to feel more aware of His presence than being under an awesome, star-filled sky…and so He placed me on a ship in the middle of the ocean, hid the moon, and told the stars to rally their brilliance.
·         He knows that I have fought to make my work be my worship…and now I work in an office where I can sing along to awesome worship music, with a team that prays together, and for a man who has tasked me with finding an outreach opportunity I can partner with weekly during my work week!

The best part?  He knows that not every day will be like today…that there will be days when I think “anywhere but Africa!”, “any office but this one!”…that there will be times when I find this to be less of a dream and more of a nightmare.  He knows those days are coming far better than I do, and He will see them coming far before I do.  He will remember the covenants He has made, and He will prove Himself to be sufficient.  All I have to do is trust, obey, follow…because I serve a God who knows me, and Who leads me to places I never truly allowed myself to believe I would go – like Africa.

To know and to be known

For the last several days, a lot of my mental time and energy has gone into processing the concept of being known.  If I am honest, my moments of greatest frustration over the last 2+ weeks have one common denominator: I am in a community where I am not known.  Do not misunderstand me - we have spent copious amounts of time trying to figure out ourselves and one another.  My team knows that I'm from the PNW and am proud of it...that I crack wise every now and then...that mornings do not suit me - in fact, just today, I was told "you're a fun person - just not in the morning!" (this is one of the many reasons I appreciate our German staff guy Stefan, who tries his best to appear intimidating but somehow fails to sound gruff even when speaking in German).  Make no mistake - my team is meeting the real me.  Nonetheless, there is a profound sadness that comes with realizing that everyone around you was a complete stranger just a couple weeks ago - and I think we're all feeling it.  

Whether we like it or not, I truly believe that we each have an intrinsic desire to be known; in fact, I absolutely insist that we each were created to be known.  1st Corinthians 8:3 says:

"...if anyone loves God, he is known by God."

God created us to be in relationship with Him, to love Him, to know and be known by Him; furthermore, He created us to also love and know and to be loved and known by one another.  Here's a quote from Tim Keller's book The Meaning of Marriage:

“To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.”

So what do you do when you find yourself apart from the community that loves and knows you?  To get more honest and personal: what have I done now that I am apart from the community that loves and knows me?

Oftentimes, my first response is to ignore and suppress - put it on the back burner until I have time to process obsessively and analytically.  I rebuke myself for being so weak.  I tell myself to buck up.  I remind myself that all of us here are in the same boat...and it will happen all over again when we're on the same ship (see what I did there?).  I remind myself that I chose this, and that my decision was informed.  In short, I condemn myself for desiring the things that God created me to long for.

Wow - that is what finally stops me in my tracks.  In a desire to make the situation more bearable, more easily endured, I deny my own God-given desires.  In an attempt to pretend that my heart is not the least bit saddened by the separation from those I love, I tell myself that being the way God created me to be is not what will serve me best.  

In doing so, I dishonor myself, my community and my God.  I dishonor myself by attempting to convince myself that the person I have become is somehow weaker than the person I was when I lived life as an island.  I dishonor my community by pretending that the relationships we have are not worth missing, and that the distance is not worth grieving.  Most importantly, I dishonor my God by pretending that I know the best way for me to get through this, and that I apparently do not need to be in community; I dishonor Him by failing to rejoice in the truth that even if I were standing on a literal, deserted island, I would still be in community - held firmly in the loving hands of my Savior, in unbreakable community with my triune God.  So I repent.  I ask for His forgiveness...for His strength...for His presence.  I ask Him to bless this new community I am becoming a part of.  I ask Him to mend my little, sad heart...and the hearts of my teammates who are smack dab in the middle of the same mess I am in...and I beg Him to not let me forget that He created me this way so that I could know and be known by Him...so that I could love and be loved by Him.

Howdy, y'all!

*Disclaimer: though I am usually quite anal about my spelling and grammar, I am completely and utterly drained both physically and mentally, so at this point I could easily spell my name wrong and not notice.*

That's right - I am in Texas!  I now have 11 whooping hot Texan days under my belt, and after consuming copious amounts of H2O I have somehow survived.  I have battled stealthy scorpions, been slowly devoured by man-eating bugs, dodged red and black wasps, and played with 3' snakes.  I have to admit - Texas is a pretty good precursor to Africa!

Climate and creatures aside, my time in Texas has been truly wonderful so far.  We sit in class all day long talking about Jesus - it doesn't get much better than that!  Trying to take in all this new information is a bit like trying to drink from a fire hose, but it is at least interesting, and the staff do their best to make things interactive and get us up and moving every so often, and keep the coffee pots full.  The weekends are mostly free; however, they do a good job of keeping us busy with homework, so "free" really just means I get to pick which assignment I'm going to work on and when.  Aside from class all week, we have 3 different books we are going or have gone through, journal assignments each week, language learning, homework from our classes, small group assignments, and some studying to do on Congo.  It's utterly pitiful how tired we are at the end of each day.

In addition to all of that, we still have our biggest, on-going project: TRANSITIONING.  Everything in our lives is new: everything.  New environment, new people, new jobs, new churches, new food (and lots of it!), new bed mates (looking at you, nasty scorpions), new choices (and by "new" I mean "fewer"), new cultures to interact with, new accents to discern...the list seems endless sometimes.  There is so much to process that my mind just stalls out sometimes.  By the time I get out of class, I am completely worn...yet when I finally finish up my homework and crawl into bed, my mind begins to heat up all the things I'd shoved onto the back burner that day: how do I get to know so-and-so?  what does Mercy Ships think about such-and-such?  what did so-and-so mean when they said blah-blah-blah?  how do I tell my story without sounding crazy?  does what I am hearing match what I read in the Bible?  and of course, the question that pops up every. single. night: WHY AM I STILL AWAKE?!

Thankfully, I feel I have been fairly well-prepared for most of what has been thrown at me over the last 11 days.  Some things do catch me by surprise, though: realizing that I miss being known; missing the culture of the NW; the humidity (seriously - it still surprises me every time I walk out the door and feel like I'm being pressed into the pavement); being with my church family on Sundays (especially Sunday evenings!).  I stepped into this opportunity aware that it held a great potential for growth, partly because it meant I would be around people who have to take me for who I am now, rather than being around people who are just grateful I'm alive, functional, and surprisingly sane; however, it is still really weird to be around people who only know me for the person I am now, who don't have the context of reference many of you have.  There have been so many moments in the last 11 days when I have thought to myself "Lord, really?  I could have never done fill-in-the-blank two years ago.  Really?!  Why are you so good?!", and while my heart praises and rejoices just fine on it's own, there is no one here who can celebrate that with me.  In those moments, I just have to stop my mind and remind myself of what I have been clear of from the beginning: this new life, this blessing that He gave me - He did not do it purely for my sake, but so that I could be a blessing to others and so that He could display me as His "trophy of grace" as two different friends have put it.  So off I go to experience all that it means to live out my life after the "Resurrection of the Broken" (that's what my name means, by the way).

Now that we have meandered through most of the crooks and crannies of my cranium, perhaps it is best that I stop blogging and start getting some homework done - another day begins in 9 short hours...  I will leave you with this: a picture of my team and where we are all from (note that not everyone in the picture is going on to the ship - some of them will be working here in Texas).  If you click the picture, you can see it larger.

Reality is catching up to my dreams.

Yesterday I submitted my job resignation.  After more than a decade of working on the hill, it seems strange to think about working anywhere else.  I know this hill like the back of my hand – the obscure, hidden tunnels; the hidden spots that provide unbelievable views of the valley and mountains; the best places to sit for some quality people-watching.  In a weird way, OHSU feels like home in a way few other places do.

Last night I sat on my loveseat with my best friend, who left insisting that our quick hangout most certainly did not count toward the two reserved hangout times we’ve posted on our calendars.  She is the first person I will have to say my goodbyes to, and we have only two short weeks remaining in this chapter of our friendship.  How do I say goodbye to someone who has been by my side so faithfully for the last 6 years?

I try not to, but every Sunday I catch myself counting my remaining Sundays at Hinson.  I have four left – four.  Hinson – my home, the place where my family can be found, the place where I have had the challenge and privilege of being taught and guided by some truly amazing men and women – people who love me because they understand what it means that Christ loves them.  The time to say goodbye is almost here.

I am learning that goodbyes are hard, and that I do not like them – not one bit.  Yet even as I prepare to say all my goodbyes, I find there is joy even in goodbyes.  As I prepare to close this chapter of my life, I realize how incredibly spoiled I am.  God has blessed me beyond what I ever imagined, particularly through the relationships He has provided and worked through.  I have so many things – I am not in want or need.  I have so many wonderful friends – I am not an island.  So as my heart breaks with each goodbye, I am also brought to my knees in gratitude.  My God is faithful.