My mother sent our kids a box last week. The girls, of course, got clothes, and the boys, being far less excited about what covers their bodies, got Legos. Jake’s set included an alien, an alien defense capture guy (Jake would disapprove of my vague terminology), and a capture vehicle. He LOVED it and played with it nonstop for days.

Last Sunday, a few days after the box arrived, I was working on lesson plans on the deck when Jake came out to see me. He set his Lego characters on a small table while he showed me an adjustment that he had made to the vehicle. “Look, Mom…” That’s all he got out before IT happened. The small alien figure–Jake’s favorite–toppled off the table and disappeared down a hole in the deck.

“Oh, buddy,” I said, “that’s why I’ve told you not to bring your Legos out here.”

He was distraught. “What can I do? Can I find it? We have to be able to get it somehow!”

Usually my first inclination is to say, “Tough knocks–you learn from experience,” and I have to fight this hardness of my heart. This day, though, Jake’s curled-up face softened me immediately, and I was able to empathize right away.

“Come on, let’s look,” I told him.

We walked all the way around the deck, trying to find a way under it, but the lattice was screwed on tight. We went into the basement hoping one of the windows would open. Those, too, were screwed tight. But the empty flower beds lining one side of the deck were soft from recent rains, and in one there was a gap between the dirt and the bottom of the lattice. “If I dug out a little more of that dirt, would you want to crawl under?” I asked Jake.

He looked at me doubtfully. Jake is like me, cautious and prudent. “What’s under there?” he said. Then, “What about Patrick? I think he might fit.”

That made me laugh, but of course Patrick was game–until I actually deepened the hole and he stuck his head through it and saw the gloomy underbelly of the deck. He pulled back and looked at Jake. “Uh, no.”

“Would you go if Jake went?” I asked him. He nodded.

I dug out more, and Jake got down on his belly. “There’s no way he’ll do this,” I thought. He paused until Patrick, bold now with Jake’s leadership, got right behind him and touched his leg. “What do you see?” Patrick asked.

That did it! With a wiggle and a push from behind, Jake was under the lattice, and Patrick followed right after.

I was so proud of them. I walked up on the deck and found the spot of “disappearance.” “Right about here, guys,” I said, sticking a pen between the boards of the deck.

But the neon green alien could not be found (back in his own world perhaps?), and the boys emerged from their adventure a few minutes later empty handed and covered in dirt. I consoled Jake and thought that was the end of it. But though disappointed in the loss of the alien, there was a swagger to their steps, and a little while later they came out in full explorer gear ready to try again. I envisioned having to wash all the extra clothing and convinced them that explorers going through tight spaces can’t wear quite so much.

The second trip into the murky depths was also unsuccessful but by now they were too pumped to really care. I sat on the deck listening to their chatter beneath me. “Look at this!” “Ooh, that’s creepy!” “I wonder how long it’s been since somebody was down here.”

When they finally came out, it was as if they had conquered something.

Pretty soon I’m going to replace that little green alien. Somehow it just feels right.

A while back I wrote that I would tell a fuller story of our move and of God’s faithfulness in it. This is the beginning of that story.

We left Sterling sometime after 10 on Wednesday evening, July 6, after a LONG day. Dave and I, in separate vehicles, managed to get about three hours down the road before we needed to crash. We stopped at a motel and settled in. The next morning we decided to sleep in a bit and got on the road about an hour later than we had originally planned. A little ways down the highway, Dave called me.

“Jen, we’re going the wrong direction!”

“You’re kidding me.”

“No. How could I have done that?”

He continued to beat himself up, but the Holy Spirit gave me this really calm feeling. I told him. “Hon, we’ve got to trust that God has a plan for this. It’s happened. It’s okay.”

It took us thirty minutes to get back to where we’d started that morning. We were now two hours behind schedule and facing an even longer day of both of us driving.

When we stopped for gas, I noticed smoke coming from under the hood of White Lightning (what we semi-affectionately call Dave’s old Chevy truck). He popped the hood open.

Steam poured out.

The radiator.

The gas attendant directed us to a “great mechanic” just a mile up the road. The mechanic took a look. “Well, you might make it to Chicago just fine, but there’s just as great a chance that you’ll get an hour or two up the road, and that crack will split wide open and you’ll be stranded.”

Stranded in the middle of Iowa, where towns are about as scarce as they are in western Kansas and the ones you do find may not even register on the map–where we would have stopped for gas if we hadn’t gone the wrong direction that morning. We were beginning to see a purpose in our morning delay.

Instead we had a Subway within walking distance, full access to the mechanic shop’s waiting area, with its comfy couches, tv, dvd player, and toys, and a mechanic who put everything else aside and had our truck fixed in great time because, as he put it, “Well, I hadn’t planned on fixing a radiator this morning, but I reckon you weren’t planning on breaking down either.”

What a good God!

Now here’s the lesson that I’ve been remembering this week related to this. In the midst of a long time period of moving and Dave having to be out of town, in a time when I had to cling to God, I could SEE His hand at work in the small frustrations–or at least I was open to the perspective that difficulties have purpose. This week, the last full week of August, school has begun and we are finally getting into a groove, moving from the stage of “just hanging on” to “we’re in routine.” In the last few days I have found myself growing impatient with trains that have stopped my forward motion, my children for losing their lunch three minutes before we’re supposed to walk out the door, copying machines that jam–the little things.

Song of Solomon 2:15 says, “Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that are ruining the vineyards, while our vineyards…are in blossom.”

This summer has been a trial of sorts, not one of grief–and I’m incredibly thankful for that–but a difficult time when I had to hang on to my Lord for strength and peace of mind. Maybe I could liken it to a very difficult planting season, full of storms and setbacks, a ceaseless time of labor and stress when we had to help all my brood (and myself) pull up roots in one place and put them down in another. But now my “plants” are beginning to grow–mine, too). Will I let the little foxes of impatience and frustration and self-suffieciency destroy my dependency on Christ?

God, thank You for this time, this space. Help me to see that this is a gift, not something I have worked at for myself or “arrived at” because I “persevered.” I don’t want my little foxes to pull me away from You.

Verse for the Day: Our God is faithful in all He does!
All He does!
All
He
Does!
That’s mindboggling.

I cannot fathom being faithful in all I do. I try. I really do, but not only AM I not faithful (I don’t call my mother faithfully every week; I don’t schedule my doctor appointments on time; I forget when I last changed my kids’ sheets), I CANNOT be faithful in all I do. When I count all my “hats,” they would require me to have a clone—or maybe a couple of them. There are not enough hours in the day and enough brains in my head to even organize everything some days.

BUT GOD! He is FAITHFUL in ALL He does. And His number of responsibilities makes mine look like a single dot from an ultrafine point pen on a sheet of paper the size of China (to name one of my cultural contexts of this time in my life). Yet He is able, competent, and sufficient IN Himself to meet every single one of them, and to meet them well.

And not just “well.” He meets them PERFECTLY. He knows my needs, my children’s needs, my international daughters’ needs, my husband’s needs, my students’ needs, my mother’s and father’s needs, my in-laws’ needs…

His list goes on and on and on. And he is faithful in every single one.

Amazing!

I wrote this post a week ago but accidentally posted it to the wrong category on my blog and thought I’d lost it. I quickly wrote a short replacement entry, posted it, and then found the original today. It repeats some of the info of an earlier blog, but it’s a little fuller, so I’m posting it. Sorry for the repetition.

For the past month (starting on the very day we arrived in West Chicago) we’ve been working with the summer international student camp at Wheaton Academy. I taught a reading/vocab class (using two books from C.S. Lewis’ Narnia Chronicles–very cool); Dave shared basics of the Christian faith (there is a Creator; He loves you; He died to redeem you); and our family hung out with them during several of their activity times. Dave will continue this ministry since he teaches all the first-year international students in a special Bible class, but we knew it could also continue in our home if we wanted to host one or two of the students.

No way, we thought. We’ve just moved. It’s been an incredibly crazy summer. We’re getting back to teaching (at Wheaton Academy, where the expectations are wonderfully high). Our kids will be adjusting to new schools… The rational and logical reasons for us NOT to take in students went on and on.

But a still, small voice whispered at the back of my mind and heart. “Will you let these reasons–and be honest, the true reasons are really selfish–keep you from seeing me work in a student’s life AND your own?”

Then I decided to go transparent–generally the best choice with the God who knows all anyway! “I don’t want the bother. It will be uncomfortable and I don’t want to parent a teenager; sometimes I don’t even like parenting my own children. When will I ever get alone time? I’m an introvert–You created me that way!”

But the whisper continued–in Dave’s heart, too, I later discovered–and we moved Nina and Jane (their American names, not their true names) into our home last night. Jane is from Vietnam, Nina from China, and they are both beautiful, wonderful girls created by God and placed for this time very intentionally in our family and home.

So yesterday, when I had to share some interesting fact about myself in the Wheaton Academy new teacher video, I said, “This school year my family has four countries of origin: America, Uganda, Vietnam, and China.” It’s pretty amazing.

An absence of three years from the WA community means that nearly every conversation is an explanation of what we’ve been doing. I’ve also found myself, subconsciously, re-establishing myself, tooting my own horn, so to speak.
“See, I’m not really a ‘newbie,’ I’ve still got it. My time away hasn’t turned me into a clodhopper educationally. Look at what God’s been doing in my life.” (and that last is really “Look at how I’ve been following Jesus!”

My prayer for today is this: Please, my wonderful Lord, help me to be more YOU-focused, others-focused–instead of ME-focused. Guide me away from my own stories, away from the use of “I” and into deep, real interest in others’ lives.

May I decrease. May YOU increase.
In and through me.

One of the best things about living in a tiny town (Sterling’s population doubles each year during its 4th of July celebration–to 5,000 people!) is the understanding of the connection you have with those who live near you. You don’t take your car to Walmart to have the brakes checked because your neighbor works as the manager at the local mechanic and you want to contribute to her livelihood. You do most of your grocery shopping in town because you know nearly all the checkout clerks’ names–and they know yours.

We’ve been trying to keep this lesson in mind as we’ve moved back to West Chicago, with its 27.000 people and central downtown area. We’re getting to know some of the waitresses, by face at least,at El Coco Loco because we often eat there on Thursdays (that’s 99-cent taco night!), and Em and I have already visited St. Vincents, the thrift store on Main Street–one of our favorite places to shop from before our move to Kansas–in honesty I need to admit that it’s about the only place I like to shop. And we’ve become completely hooked on La Michoacana, the Latino ice cream shop a little further down on Main. They make all their ice cream on location, and the strawberry flavor tastes like my father’s-in-law homemade freezer jam. It’s amazing.

Well, this past Saturday, after our first family meal with our international girls with us (it’s continued to be busy), Em and I decided to take them to La Michoacana. It wasn’t until I was in the store and the families sitting at the tables started eyeing us that I realized what an interesting picture we must have made. One mama with two daughters who looked quite a bit like her, a little boy with skin the color of dark chocolate, and two girls from Asia (Jake and Dave stayed home). I had to keep myself from laughing.

Lili, the girl who patiently waited on us through Nina’s four taste tests and my 8-person order, was very kind when I told her the girls would be starting at the Academy next week. “You’ll get the hang of it soon,” she told them and shared how nervous she was when she first started at the public high school in West Chicago (she’s a sophomore there now).

It was a little taste of crazy good.

This has been a chaotic summer, with the move and the immediate jump into teaching at the international student summer camp at Wheaton Academy. I kept holding out for the end of camp. Though I would be getting myself and our four kids ready for school, there was a sense of a chapter finishing, some peace and order ahead.

Um, no. Last week a couple of international students remained without a host family, and I felt like God kept reminding me of that. I sent out feelers Dave’s way, hoping he would say, “Are you kidding? That would be ridiculous for us this year.”

I threw it out  casually. “Brenda’s still trying to find a home for a couple of girls.”

He grimaced. “Yeah. I’ve been thinking about that.”

Oh, no.

So here we are, less than a week later, with Jane from Vietnam and Nina from China asleep (or probably still awake) upstairs in our not-completely-converted-yet guest-room-turned-teenage-girl-hangout. I think we’re a little bit crazy and I’m exhausted and not seeing an end to the chaos of right now, but I feel God led us in this and I know He will provide every bit of the strength and love I will need.

It’s crazy but good, and I’m holding out for the redemption God provides when all I see is chaos. He doesn’t settle for the calm quiet I desire. He wants more for me and those I love than I can ask or even imagine.

He doesn’t just want “good.” He wants “crazy good.”

I think I’ll hold out for that.

Two nights ago, as I was putting Maddie to bed, she banged her heel so hard on the bed post that she began to cry. After I held her and she settled, she asked me, “Mommy, why do tears come out of our eyes?”

I launched into an explanation of tear ducts, but she stopped me. “No, I mean, if we’ve hurt our foot or arm, why don’t they cry? Why do the tears come out of our eyes?”

I thought for a moment and then told her, “I wonder if God put tears in our eyes—a part of our body we can’t hide from each other—because He wants us to know when others are sad or hurt? If they came out of our foot or hand, we could hide that more easily. People try to hide their tears from others, but maybe that’s not what God wants. Maybe he wants us to see others’ tears and help them, to reach out to them in their pain or sadness.”

We humans do a lot of this kind of pretending. I read a Proverb recently that showed me that God is very aware of this. The rich man pretends he has nothing, it says, and the poor man lives as if he has more than he really does, trying to impress others. God obviously doesn’t like this pretense. Be honest, He says, over and over. Stop pretending that you’re “okay,” that you don’t have very deep needs. Stop acting as if you don’t need Me, as if you don’t need other people.

I’ve realized I do a lot of pretending. I hide any hurt and need behind stoicism (“Yep, doing okay”) or bravado, wearing my busy-ness like a badge of honor. I always want to be the strong one rather than the weak, the one who helps others rather than the one who is helped. The result is pride and a really nasty case of “mommy martyrdom” (a phrase Dave coined for the times when I “serve” while nursing a secret bitterness). After a while, I begin to believe my play-acting. “Look at the load you can handle,” I tell myself. “Look at all the people who lean on you.”

God’s been opening my eyes to some of the ugly outcomes of this attitude, and Maddie’s question helped me to see it even more clearly. When some part of my soul hurts or is in great need, why do I hide that from those who love me? I want to learn to express need, to share hurts…to be human.

If I don’t, I can’s experience true fellowship, which only works, truly, when the two seeking it are willing to be honest and real with each other, to acknowledge their own great needs and then seek, together, THE Answer to them.

I want to learn to “cry” in front of others.

On Wednesday, after the Saturday-night going away party, final visits with close friends, the rush of packing and cleaning, I was ready to just be finished and on the road. Numbness had set in and Dave and I decided we would finish packing the van and truck and head out late this night (Wednesday) rather than early the following morning.

But when we returned to the house from a last ice cream goodbye with some friends, and I walked into the kitchen and saw the chaos that still faced me–with my kids, hopped up on sugar, careening around me–I panicked. “There is no way, Lord,” I told Him, and I began singing “You are my strength” to keep myself from slipping over the edge.

Suddenly the Suttons showed up, followed by the Smiths. “Aah!” I thought, as I stood on the porch chatting with them. “We’ll be up all night.”

Then, blessing (God has this way of breaking down my self-sufficient, “I don’t want to ask for help, just be the one offering it” attitude), Brooke asked, “How ARE you?” And as she and Anne listened to my false bravado: “It’s all in the kitchen now. We’re on the homestretch,” they shot each other looks that said, “Yeah, right,” and they pushed past me and headed to the kitchen, both calling for their husbands to follow. Another friend pulled up just then and came inside as well.

Within three minutes, people were carrying already packed things outside, and Brooke and Anne were following me around with the kitchen with a big garbage bag asking, “Is this trash?” If I hesitated, the item went in the bag. “At this point, pretty much anything can be trashed,” Anne said, and Brooke laughed, nodding her head.

Within 15 minutes, the house was clear, and we were all gathered outside staring at the huge mound of stuff that needed to fit into our already pretty full van. Twenty minutes after that, it was all in, though Chai, Jake, and PJ each had only a tiny space to sit. The coat tree sat like a divider between the boys’ seats.

The Watneys arrived, took Jake and Maddie to their house to fetch their youngest son, Josiah, so he could say goodbye to Jake, and came back. We went through the house one last time, closing storm windows and turning off lights and then gathered in the kitchen to pray.

“Do you want a few minutes to say goodbye to the house?” Anne asked after Dave finished praying and I had tears streaming down my filthy cheeks. “Or do you want a rousing send-off?”

I glanced at Dave. A rousing send off seemed to be in the spirit of what God wanted for this last night of community.

Dave and the girls climbed into the truck, and the boys and I climbed in the van with Chai (she’d jumped in an hour earlier, wanting not to get left behind and had relaxed when I didn’t make her get out again.) Our friends gave us last hugs and well wishes, and we pulled out at 11:15 p.m. Who knows how much later it would have been had God not prompted Brooke and Anne to act on the question: “Do you need help?”

I want to learn to be more honest in answering it, not just in crisis but in everyday life.

I went to a goodbye party tonight, both a wonderful and uncomfortable event. It was a joy to say a collective goodbye and see together, in one group, so many who have been very special to us these past three years.

It was also uncomfortable to hear people thank and honor us. I don’t like having to get up and make a speech when I know I’m going to tear up and have to fight my way through it. I don’t like being reminded that we mourn because these relationships will never quite be the same.

But in the middle of all the wonderful and uncomfortable, I kept thinking of something else: we rarely celebrate those who STAY–until they retire, that is. How often do we say (other than with the gift of a five-year plaque or 20-year wall clock), “Thank you for continuing, for staying”?

We’ve left a lot of places and attended a lot of goodbye parties in our “honor.” But tonight, as I looked out at a roomful of people telling me about the nice things they think Dave and I have done at Sterling College and in our community and church, I wanted to say, “Thank YOU for staying, for listening to the call to continue. Thank YOU for being willing to fill in the small places God called us to fill while we were here while you continue with all you already do.”

We romanticize leaving far too much, I think. In most of Paul’s epistles, he talks about those who travel with him, but he also mentions, prays for, and thanks the people who continue to stay in a particular church.

So thank you, friends, for staying. We pray that our friendships thrive even across the miles, and we look forward to hearing the great things God will do in this community and college through you who stay.