The Prayer of a Christian Writer

You know how hard I've worked. You've been there, all those dark, lonely hours while I pinged away at a keyboard. You helped me tell the story, sustained me with time, a computer that didn't crash, a crooked little flashdrive that has never been lost. You watched me type the first word and the last word, and You knew when I changed the first word through 16 revisions.

You know how my ego has swelled with every compliment and You know how hard I have fought the battle against pride. You've seen me struggle to make myself less when my heart cries out for recognition, admiration, and fawning praise. You know how I yearn for that "someone" to notice me and make my dreams of success come true.

Don't give it to me. The same way You denied Moses when he asked to see Your face in Exodus 33:18, because You knew it would be too much for him.

If You don't go with me on the difficult road to publication, don't send me. Don't let my ears be tickled with compliments that will skew my view of myself. Don't let me hear encouragement that will push me farther than You want me to go. Don't let others whisper empty promises that deliver false hope.

Just go with me. That's what I ask. You and me. Knowing You are there and You are pleased is worth more to me than a contract, more than the pleasure of seeing my words in print.

To be published, respected, and influential--those are good things and You will guide me toward that in Your time, in Your way. I am not like the others. There are talented aspiring writers in the great big world who don't know You. They clamber for attention and due praise, and buy followers, and fight for room on a tiny stage. But I do not cross my fingers for luck when I query. I do not receive rejection bitterly. I do not blame. I do not pout. I do not lose hope as long as You are with me.

Your ways are different and your presence separates me from the pack.

Your presence is all I truly want. More than success, more than royalties, more even than sincere praise. Because those things don't guide my steps. Those things don't linger. Those things don't care about the souls of my potential audience.

So, with humility, I ask for Your presence so that Your presence will supply the boldness I need to move forward in this pursuit.

With All Due Respect, Taylor Swift, Get Over Yourself

Taylor Swift made the blog rounds the other day when she pulled her music off the streaming site Spotify, because, as she put it, streaming services undervalue artists. You can read about it on the website Acculterated. It breaks down the the math to show that streaming a million songs is the financial equivalent of selling 500 albums. I guess I can see why she's miffed.

I love Acculterated and I almost always agree with their bloggers. But this one has me struggling to care.

I call myself an aspiring author, which is code for: an undiscovered writer who's not getting paid. You'd think I would stand up and cheer for Taylor, to defend my own craft and the hallowed royalties that might be mine one day. But I just can't.

I'm a student of history and a lover of perspective and even though I'm an amateur at best, I can see without too much straining or effort how shallow and shortsighted is her position on art. She predicts that individual artists will determine the worth of their art and hopes they don't undervalue it, as if art and its worth is a new thing, yet to be determined.

As long as there have been human beings, there has been art. Cave walls, stories around the campfire, folk songs, stained glass windows, poetry. Being paid for what artists create is a very recent phenomenon.

Let's just go back, say, four hundred years. Only a handful of artists in a given generation were noticed by their king or their pope and commissioned for their work. That's it. Don't you think there must have been thousands of sensitive souls, crooning, writing, thinking, dancing, and creating whom no one knew about? No one paid them for their art. No one outside their immediate circle even cared.

Had they no value? (I'm going to borrow a quote that I found on Pinterest, a site so full of free art it has profit-driven artist quaking in their shoes and stealing hours from their craft to devote to fighting inadvertent copyright infringement and insisting on sourcelinks and other things enjoyers of their work don't think about when they notice a pretty picture and pin it to a board to show their enjoyment of it.)

"And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see -- or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read."

This was written by Alice Walker, a successful author, whose work has been recognized, celebrated, read widely, and bought and paid for. She deserves every cent, but read that quote again. She is describing generations of creative souls whose art, or "spark," never made it into the public sphere. Their beautiful thoughts and words and creations were never noticed, certainly never paid for, but were simply passed down. Perhaps Ms. Walker sees herself as the benefactor of all those thankless years that came before her.

Thank God that creative spark was passed on even though no one paid our ancestors for it.

The centuries that have passed have been kinder to artists. Gradually, the super wealthy began to pay for art and to preserve it, though the art itself was still almost entirely inaccessible to the lower classes. Books were unaffordable, traveling to see great architecture or installations was difficult, theater was rare and infrequent, music was limited to what they created in their homes.

When radios came about and public libraries popped up in every city, art was no longer limited to the super wealthy. A common person could read a brilliant work like Robinson Crusoe (the author died penniless in 1731, by the way) or listen to any type of music. FOR FREE. Anyone could take a work of art into their home and love it, be edified by it, read it or listen to it again and again and again. And they didn't have to pay for it.

The world has changed again in the last half century. People on the bottom rung of society have money to spare on cheap music, books, netflix, and other places to enjoy art. So many of us have internet, which makes virtually anything free and accessible. We have more artists creating more art than we can possibly absorb in one lifetime.  The best ones achieve god-like celebrity status. Even the mediocre ones are growing fat and rich off the populace who love them. It's a great world in which to be an artist.

Except for one teency thing. You know what, Taylor? Your music is not my thing, but my girls enjoy you and since you pass the mom test, I let them watch your music videos on youtube. They sing along and hum the tune you created for the rest of the day. But I've never paid a dime--not one single dime--on your art.

Sorry to disappoint. Sorry if this means I'm cheating you out of income that you have earned. I really am. (I am staunchly against pirating. Simply put, that's theft.) I don't dislike the notion of artists getting paid but I happen to be a non-employed starving artist. I have the luxury of choosing not to work so that I can use my time honing my craft instead of pushing papers around for a boss who will pay me money that I can, in turn, spend on your craft. I've chosen to forsake disposable income. It's not been an easy choice. We give up a lot for it. But I can still be exposed to the art I love because so much of it is out there legitimately for free.

Does this make the world better or worse? As an enjoyer of art, I assure you, it's better. I've never spent a dime on Alice Walker's art either but I've read her writing and watched the film adaptation of it, and I see the world differently--better--because of it.

But what does this mean for me, an aspiring author? Shouldn't I be more protective of other artist's work?

Not really.

Confession time: I write and I write and I write. No one knows how much of my time, mental energy, and prayers are poured out for my craft. I will continue to write until I have the confidence to hold it out, hesitantly, apologetically, to another human being. Maybe one day I'll receive a royalty check. Maybe I won't. Maybe I'll die penniless and unnoticed.

I don't really care.

That's not why I write. That's not how I validate my art or my worth. A true artist creates for his or herself, for God, and, yes, for that ethereal "someone" out there who will one day say, "I enjoyed that. I 'got' that. Thanks for making it."

Art is beautiful. Art is a gift. Art is a way we honor our Creator who is also an artist. I am in awe that we live in such an affluent world that talented artists can become as wealthy as their patrons, even surpassing them in wealth a hundred times, a thousand times, a million times over. It's all good. And so is the accessibility that we poor, we low, we struggling masses, can take advantage of. The world is better because artists have released their work, their sweat, their tears, their creativity, into it for people like me to enjoy at little or no cost.

To artists, big and small, successful and unknown, famous and obscure, please don't hoard your gift and keep it hidden away until someone offers you some money for it.

Get over yourselves.

Finding Grace in the Story of Joseph

If there is anyone in the Old Testament for us to root for, it's Joseph, that unlucky guy who was sold by his own brothers into slavery, and then falsely accused of attempted rape and imprisoned unjustly for it. We know that everything about this is unfair. He has gotten a punishment he doesn't deserve.

When a couple of men who personally know Pharaoh join him in prison, he thinks he's got a ticket out.

Joseph to Pharaoh's cup bearer:

Genesis 40:14 "And please remember me and do me a favor when things go well for you. Mention me to Pharaoh, so he might let me out of this place. 15 For I was kidnapped from my homeland, the land of the Hebrews, and now I’m here in prison, but I did nothing to deserve it.”

How many nights did Joseph stare at a rotting, festering ceiling and pray, with chains on his ankles, that God would free him? How many mornings did he wake to find that there was no answer? When he begs the cup bearer to plead with Pharaoh on his behalf it seems to be a move of desperation for Joseph, as if Pharaoh and not God has the power to free him. He is clinging to a spider's thread of hope that if God was willing, or perhaps if Pharaoh was willing, he might get to sink his toes into the desert sand as a free man again.

My heart breaks for him. I can't imagine the conditions of an ancient Egyptian prison where these human lives were worth less than livestock. But my heart doesn't break for the third prisoner, the baker, who is executed three days later in a disgusting and agonizing way, and I wonder why. Part of it is due to desensitization, thanks to a world history that makes impaling, beheading, drawing and quartering, gutting, and other horrific ways to die commonplace. But part of it is because I assume he was guilty of whatever he must have done to "offend his royal master" (Gen 40:1).

It is in our nature to want justice. The guilty should be punished. They get what they deserve.

But Joseph is guilty too, of his own offense. By chapter 40 we see a faithful, humble, intelligent Joseph, an endearing underdog who is no longer using dreams to tear people down, but to lift God up. But don't forget how we watched him in previous chapters goad his brothers to jealousy and hatred, (fueled also by their father) in a childish display of self-serving arrogance. Make no mistake. He is guilty too.

So, Joseph and the baker deserve the same fate, really. While we're at it, let's take this all the way to the top. Pharaoh deserves that fate too, as an unbelieving man, and I suppose his fate will ultimately be the same as the baker's, only it will likely be much less gruesome and will come much later. But what difference does it make how tidy your death is when it's what comes after that matters?

Pharaoh thinks it's his job, his prerogative, to administer this type of justice but that's just a game we humans play. God is over all. He's over life. He's over death. He's over dreams, and prisoners, and Pharaohs, and cup bearers who forget. He's over mercy and he's over judgment.

He was over Joseph at the close of this chapter, as Joseph faced another night staring up at that rotting, festering ceiling, with the chains still firmly clamped around his ankles.

When the time was right, God would act. He would not give Joseph the fate he deserved. Instead he would lavish mercy on Joseph. Before the end of the next chapter, Joseph would know freedom and luxury beyond what he imagined or dared to ask for during those late night prison prayers.

This is the kind of God we serve.

The kind who does not treat us as our sins deserve, but instead condescends to bend down to us, to hear our cries, and to deliver us from our chains, to exalt us in ways far greater than we can imagine.

Encouragement To Keep Writing

"Perhaps." 

Adverb. 1528. Possibly but not certainly.

"Perhaps the Lord will be with me," Caleb says in Joshua 14:12b. Which is it? Possibly? Or not certainly? Maybe or maybe not? If He is not with Caleb disaster will surely reign. Caleb will be defeated, probably humiliated.

I entered a writing contest last month.  I stumbled on it and I had just given my manuscript a read-through so I uploaded the doc and clicked submit before I could talk myself out of it.  I've been scared to submit it to actual publishers.  Scared of being rejected, of being criticized, of feeling foolish for trying.  Of doing it too soon, before the work is ready.  So, obviously it wasn't ready for a contest either but I prayed really, really hard that "perhaps" God would cause the judges to like my work. I thought it was good enough to at least place. Turns out it wasn't.  "Perhaps" turned out to be defeat.

I was discouraged the day they announced the top 30 and I went to bed without an email from them to say congratulations. My confidence wavered to the point where I wondered why I even do this. Why do I think up these stories and ping away at the keyboard of my mini-HP for hours and hours and hours? It was confirmed that my work was not that good (I even found simple, stupid flaws in it when I looked at it again) and I despaired.

I thought, perhaps...perhaps the words I string together are only intended to be shared with Him. Perhaps all the hours writing have been in vain. Perhaps God does not wish for me success the way I have defined it. Perhaps in 5 years I will look back on this time of floundering creativity and laugh at what I once thought possible.

Perhaps paralyzed me.

But I studied more closely the Joshua 14 passage and I saw that Caleb was not shrinking nor wavering in confidence. He approached Joshua with boldness, recounting all the ways God had been faithful to him over the years. He had equal boldness in facing the still uncertain future. Excitement even, energy and enthusiasm for what he expected God to do--what he was confident God would surely do.

Perhaps his "perhaps" wasn't a hesitating, self-defeating, doubt-filled request, but a proclamation of humble expectancy. Perhaps this is Caleb saying, "God is God and does not march to the tune of my fife.  It is He who makes the winds blow until the grasses bend and break under the howling, invisible force of it.  I am but a man who knows naught but what God has already done and what He promised so long ago."

Can I say the same thing?

God has done so much for me and I know his promise is this:

Yet I am confident I will see the Lord's goodness while I am here in the land of the living. Psalm 27:13

So maybe...what if...who knows?  Perhaps He is with me.  Perhaps He sees my efforts.  Perhaps He is in this fight with me. This fight to be heard, to bring Him glory, to get better at my craft, to get my words out into the world so that they would teach, edify, and uplift young readers who are barraged with words that tear Him down.

This is a fight that is so easy for Him to manipulate to His favor (it seems insurmountable to me but He is God after all). But how much would it please Him for me to go forth into the scary world of publishing, with everything I have, committing everything I do to Him? Trusting Him to help me when I cry out to Him for help, and patiently waiting for Him to act in His time, in His way?  Perhaps He delights to surprise His people with what He can do.  Perhaps "perhaps" is enough for me to venture my call on a God like this.

Perhaps the Lord is with me.

How God Comforts Through Grief

The Goodness of God in the Evening Breeze

Life is so good, sometimes I forget that God is under no obligation to make it so. This is where so many people get hung up on faith, I think: How can a God who is supposed to be good allow bad things to happen?  It's the burning question, isn't it?

We wonder about big things, of course, like cancer, war, famine, natural disaster, suffering on a grand scale, and the most ugly, fearsome father of it all: death.

But seemingly little, personal things are just as troubling, aren't they?
"I didn't get that job. Now look where we are."
"My friend betrayed me."
"I can't kick this illness/pain."
"The timing of this is just...awful."
Why, why, WHY?
My divorce.  My wayward kid.  My bully.  My addiction.  My inner-demon.  My parents.  My pride.  And on and on.  Isn't God out there? Can't he hear me?  Why won't he make himself known?  He's supposed to be good and kind and loving and merciful.  His mercies are supposed to be new every day.  This feels like a dead end.  It feels like a sort of death.

I could go on for 10,000 words, describing the senseless, often preventable suffering in this world.  Despite all of our knowledge, our GPS, our technology, our information, our compassion, our money, our resources, our superior intellect, we have not figured out how to eliminate it, or even to alleviate it.  Isn't that remarkable?  All the lessons humans have learned over the ages and we still make the same mistakes.  We still suffer for the same stupid reasons.

Yet, for all that is wrong in the world, I can still sit on my patio, which isn't really even mine.  I just get to stay here for a little while.  On it I have placed a cushioned chair and a table.  A cup of coffee.  A notebook and a pen.  A pleasant breeze.  A dog at my feet.  The sun is up.  The kids are not.  Just for a moment, this is really good.  LIFE is really good. My life.  It isn't perfect.  It would be melodramatic of me to say that I suffer but have my demons, I suppose, just like everyone.  For this moment they are quiet and THIS, my life, is beautiful.

I think this is what Adam and Even felt in the garden after they ate the fruit.  They didn't die like God said would happen.  Maybe there was a shaky sigh of relief as they walked away from the serpent, who, as it turned out, wasn't totally dishonest with them after all.  But something was broken in them and they knew it because they hid in shame.  It's difficult to fathom the dread they must have felt as they tried in vain to cover themselves, attempting to bandage what they broke by sticking a band-aid made of fig leaves to a wound that gushed and disfigured their souls.

I can only imagine (because the bible doesn't say) that before their eyes, what was once paradise became pestilence.  The flies and mosquitoes probably started bothering them.  The sun burned too bright and caused them to perspire.  Maybe Adam's sinuses began to swell with an allergic reaction to the pollen in the air.

And then God did something surprising.  Genesis 3:8 describes, "cool evening breezes."  Isn't that an interesting detail to include in this spare narrative?  God knew of their transgression, right down to the second it happened.  He understood it, probably better than they understood it themselves.  Yet he sent them the small comfort and joy and sweetness of a cool evening breeze.  He did that anyway.  An undeserved gift.

The hammer came down, as they knew it would.  They took the curse and walked out of the garden, sorrowful, humiliated, and realizing, finally, that God was truthful from the beginning.  There was a death sentence.  It just wouldn't be carried out right away.  They would get to live out their lives and yes, there would be suffering before it was all over, but there would also be "cool evening breezes."  There would be knowing smiles, and inside jokes, and laughter, and joy, and beauty.  There would be family, there would be friendship, there would even be art.

They deserved none of those things and neither do I.  God gives those gifts anyway and perhaps he adds to them the greatest gift of all--the dreaded death sentence.  With death comes the release from the suffering of this life.  Death brings life eternal.  Without death, there would be a never-ending life of shame and separation, which would be far, far worse than any suffering humans have concocted for ourselves on this broken earth.

Yes.  God is still good.

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A Mission Trip to Honduras

I am a firm believer that God gives us stories to tell.  This is one of mine.

Day 1 – November 2, 2012

We are standing in the airport at zero dark thirty, introducing ourselves.  There are 14 of us and we represent three Kearney churches.  I only know Snodderly but it’s ok.  Everyone looks friendly and I am happy but nervous about leaving the country and all the unknowns of the coming week. 

Snodderly has bright orange duct tape that he uses to mark every single bag—carry on as well as checked bags.  That way, he explains, when our things come off the conveyor or if we see a backpack on the ground, we’ll know immediately that it belongs to our group.  I’m so glad he’s done this before and already knows these handy little tips.

On the plane, Snodderly tells me that he can’t wait for me to see a million things while we are on this trip, so I begin to number them.

1.       The most amazing sunrise from 30,000 feet, somewhere over Texas I think.  A thin strip of reddish orange sandwiched between a sky that fades to black above and black below.  It changed so fast I couldn’t look away to write it down without looking up to see it different.

2.       Arrival in Tegucigalpa: A bumpy landing that gets an applause.  I later find out that it is very difficult to land here because it is surrounded on all sides by mountains.  Glad I didn’t know that before. 

Airport craziness.  Local people chatter in Spanish and poor English, with their hands on our bags, trying to take them and promising that we will see them again outside.  We are advised to NOT LET OUR BAGS OUT OF OUR SIGHT.  I can handle that.

I look around and kinda wish to be back home.  I’m pumping myself up, convincing myself that this is going to be fun and I belong here. 

3.       We spot another group of red-shirted, unapologetically suburban white bread folks on the plane with us, also on a mission trip to Honduras.  Not sure how I feel about this.

4.       Out in town.  Military presence is everywhere.  They ride in the back of a pickup truck, hanging over the sides like a bunch of carefree boys hitchhiking around town.  If carefree boys carried huge automatic rifles.

5.       Looks pretty much how I pictured.  Mountains covered in thick, green, tropical vegetation, bad roads, lots of traffic, horns honking, dilapidated but colorful buildings, folks out sitting, meandering, walking along busy and dangerous highways.

6.       Our destination.  La Villa de San Antonio.  We have a great hostess—a young, American-born woman with huge blue eyes and a great sense of humor named Heather.  She is here as a sort of liaison from Merge, who coordinates the trip.  She is newly married to Esau (pronounced Eh-saw-oo), a handsome, soft-spoken guy who’s company we will all come to enjoy very much.  They live in Nicaragua and make me remember what it was like to be newly married to my own husband.  We eat lunchmeat sandwiches, chips, and veggies with ranch for lunch.  Very American.

7.       Tired.  So tired.

8.       The town.  Trash.  Everywhere.  People sitting in their living rooms, watching TVs, eating, talking, playing with their kids.  This is not so strange—it’s the fact that they do it with their doors just wide open.  Sometimes there is a baby gate in the door way.  All we have to do is turn our heads as we walk down the street to see what they are doing in the semi-privacy of their own homes.  Crazy.

9. There are smells I notice as we walk through the streets, exploring this town.  Trash burning in the street.  Little piles of personal household trash.  Animal smells too.  Chickens, dogs, even a handful of cows seem to roam the streets with relative freedom. 

I smell freshly cooked corn tortillas, which makes my mouth water. 

I smell the body odor of an old man with missing teeth and buttons who comes out of nowhere, pushing his bike along, to tell us the history of the lone decorated ceramic tile that lays in the floor of the church we are standing in.  If we have translated correctly, that tile was formed and painted by a craftsman in 1870 who used a secret formula and died before he could share it with anyone.

The entrance to this beautiful church. I wish I had taken a picture of the tile inside.

10.   Dinner is the same: a really delicious combination of familiar and unfamiliar.  Chicken, refried beans, a tangy, crumbly queso that I love, very American French fries, and fried plantains.  All of it wonderful.

The streets, though laid out in a grid, are narrow and nothing but rocks and sand.  There are no sidewalks, really.  The people walk and bike in the middle of the street.  But that kind of traffic by far outweighs car traffic.  Cars crawl through the streets at a snail’s pace because there are deep pits and huge chunks of boulders poking up here and there.  They just slow down to a stop if someone is in their way.  No one is in a hurry.  They stare.  And then they wave.  Sometimes (often, actually) they say, “Hola!”  They never look menacingly at the gringos walking through their streets and I wonder sometimes if they ever get tired of the “Mericanos” who arrive in their expensive capris, and sandals, and straw hats, and backpacks to “do good.”  Or if the “good” we so desperately want to do has become a joke to them.  That’s cynical, I know.  But we come, we stay, we marvel at the culture, we feel sorry for them, we leave.  Though I have to say that they don’t seem to feel sorry for themselves.  I’m still wondering what I can possibly do to be useful here.

I hope and pray that when I have said good-bye to this incredible place I will feel as if I have made a difference to this community because I have already begun to see how they are making a difference in me.

Day 2 – November 3, 2012

So, I forgot to number the million things.

We have met our host family and they have graciously shown us around their beautiful home where the episode where Chandler almost proposes is on TV with Spanish subtitles. 

I love the way they live but it makes me cringe a little too.  The whole family in one casa.  All together.  They add rooms as the family grows so all (usually the sisters) can stay with Mama.  The houses become a wonderful maze of rooms and courtyards, different tiles on the floors of different rooms that have been constructed at different times in the life of the home where multiple generations cohabitate. 

In our house are two kitchens.  One with modern appliances and one that uses a wood burning stove.  The latter is fascinating.  There is a car in this rustic room because the garage doesn’t have walls.  There are clothes lines that zig-zag through the room for the laundry to dry.  Abuelita stands at the sink (which doesn’t have running water) and turns to our group in greeting.  I can tell by her face she wants to apologize for having wet hands because this means she can’t grab our hands affectionately the way people do here.  When she dries her hands and says hello properly, I am surprised by her icy hands.  She has been washing dishes in cold water.  She taps the lid to the well-used dutch oven resting on the grate that sits over the real-live wood fire and says, “Frijoles.”  “Yes,” I say, nodding.  “Beans.”  One of the only Spanish words I can decipher.  We walk on and leave her in peace.  I would have really liked to try those beans.

Back to what I both love and find cringe-worthy.

Ok, the cohabitation thing.  It is almost utopian how Lala and her adult kids sat around chatting with friends when we got home this evening.  The children (theirs and others I presume) are in and out.  Everyone loves and shares and knows what’s going on with everyone else.  They literally do life together.  In many ways, it’s very biblical.  It really is lovely and enviable, in a way.

But then I stop and remember that I have been sharing my life with my parents and in-laws for the past four months and I am so “grandparented” out right now.  I wonder if the adult children ever feel this way, or if they enjoy raising their kids in the presence of all of these other people.  I personally long for my own moving day and all the work and stress and sad good-byes that go along with it because I want to be THE mom again.  Not a child in my parent’s house.  I want my space again.  I want to be left alone again.  Just for a little while.  Just every once in a great while.  I haven’t been able to write in months because I haven’t had a moment’s peace to quiet my mind as the perpetual guest in someone else’s home.  Surely the husbands of the adult daughters must have a teeny little bit of this inside them too.  I wonder how the young husband can be the head of his family when he is living under the roof of the head of his wife’s family.  It is an interesting dynamic I’d love to explore if I had more time here.

There is not much to do today since it is Saturday.  I work my way through a painfully long hour and a half of kids’ worship with the local children’s director, a surprisingly young, wispy guy who carries around an Algebra text book and sports a faint little mustache.  I wonder how much older he is than the kids he is serving but they really listen to him and obey him.  When my embarrassingly short lesson on Daniel is finished, he saves the day by leading several games that have the kids squealing and even the adults getting in on the action.  

They have a great ministry and I can’t help but still question God in my prayers as to why I am here.

Day 3 – November 4, 2012

I have experienced what is quite possibly the most incredible worship service of my life.  And they do this every.  Single.  Sunday.

The sanctuary is smaller than it looked in Snodderly’s pictures from last year.  Just a basic square with a tiled floor and a stage along one wall.  They hang flags from the ceiling proclaiming “Lion of Judah.”  I’m not sure I understand the connection to Israel.  I think it goes deeper than it seems.

They have a worship team that has produced actual recordings and is well-known throughout Honduras.  They do not disappoint.  They are amazing.  There is a young man on the stage who sits just behind a screen on which announcements are displayed from a laptop projector (they are very high tech).  I can see him from where I sit on the left side of the sanctuary.  The man’s eyes are closed and he rocks with the beat.  The rocking becomes what can only be described as dancing as the music continues.  He thinks he is hidden and does this for no benefit other than to please God.  It is a pretty cool sight.

As the music continues, dancers come out.  They are dressed in brightly colored outfits and wave coordinating banners.  It is obvious they have been practicing and take this very seriously. They dance in complete unison with their eyes facing upward and smiles on their faces.  There is no air conditioning here and I can see sweat begin to dot their foreheads and backs but they don’t slow down.

After a solid hour of worship, Pastor Peter gives the sermon, alongside his father, Peter Sr.   Peter Jr. (Honduran-born) speaks in English and his father, Peter Sr. (American-born) translates in Spanish.  It is a great sermon and I hang on to every word.

Toward the end, Peter Jr. wants members of his congregation to lay hands on the missionaries who are about to begin a week of work in and near their community.  I groan a little inside.  I hate being the center of attention and worse, being touched by strangers.  He wants us to stand right where we are.  He tells the women to lay hands on female missionaries and men to lay hands on males.  An older woman who happens to be standing next to me wraps her arm around my back.  She is so short my chin touches the top of her fuzzy gray hair.  She leans into me as Peter prays, her embrace more intimate than even my own mom.  The prayer goes on and on.  At first I think Peter will never stop.  The woman begins to rub my back in small circles.  It actually feels pretty good and I begin to really hear Peter’s words.  Then she raises her other hand to rub my chest in the same small circles.  It is a little shocking at first, to be touched in this way.  But, with the prayer, it feels right.  It makes me emotional.  I start to cry and I pressed my cheek into her head.  I have never experienced anything like this.

When Peter finishes the prayer, I blink in the bright sunlight and look around.  I wonder if anyone else has experienced what I have.  I’m a little disappointed it’s over.  For that moment, I felt so close to the people here and so close to God.  I know it is a feeling that will not be duplicated.

I am still riding the high of it when we go to Comayagua to sight see.  I very much enjoy my time in this beautiful, historical city.  

Flanked by mountains, it holds a church steeple that we paid $1 to climb to the top of with a tour guide who informed us that the bell is 1,000 years old and rings the time for the oldest continuously running clock in the world.  Amazing.

This is the prayer I find myself saying tonight: “God, You’re worth it.  God, You’re worth it.  God, You’re worth it.”  I miss my husband so much I just want to cry.  Which I won’t do.  I will try to put “me” away and remember why I am here.  I don’t miss my girls yet.  It will hit me in a couple of days.  Right now, it’s being around all these newlyweds in this culture that loves to show affection that has me aching for my husband.  I’m so fortunate that I get to chat with him on facebook tonight.  I never expected to be able to do that.  Our hosts set a laptop on the living room table and made clear that it is for us to use while we are here.  Tonight, I use it to have an actual flowing conversation with Brian—something that is new to me since he has been in basic training for the last 2 ½ months and we have only written letters back and forth since August.  

I saw my husband for two days in October before saying good-bye again.

Now he is in advanced training and can use his phone at night.  Still in the same time zone, we share jokes and “I love you’s” until his final formation.  Gosh I miss him.

I shut the laptop and turn away from it to rejoin the rest of the people here.  Not only am I around people ALL the time, but I’m around people I just met two days ago.  They are great, wonderful, sweet, inspiring, faithful, genuine, people that I have grown to absolutely love, but this is bucking my “I am an introvert, leave me alone” personality.  Being open and friendly with the young American girls (who I pray my own daughters resemble one day--spiritually, socially, and in many other ways.  They are fantastic company!) I find myself with is one level of anti-introvert behavior, and being gracious to our completely awesome but totally non-English-speaking hosts is an entirely different level.  Both taxing for me, as I have the urge to walk into the house and close myself off in my bedroom to think, and write, and process, and reflect, but I can’t.  I stay in the living room, making difficult bi-lingual conversation, take tours of this amazing maze of a house, and stare at the closed laptop that has been so graciously provided, wondering if it would be appropriate to log on to facebook  again and see if Brian has responded to my last message yet.

I knew going on this trip would push me extremely far outside my comfort zone and it definitely has.  Maybe not so much as another person who hasn’t an interest in other cultures, or God, or healing hurting people.  I at least have those things going for me, but this whole experience is still emotionally challenging in a way that I just hope will cause me to grow by the time it’s over.

Day 4 – November 5, 2012

When we first got here I couldn’t say for sure where the hurting people were.  The ones in La Villa certainly don’t live the way Americans do but they also don’t seem to be hurting.  They don’t miss what they’ve never had and see no problem with their bucket showers, lack of niceties, and way of life in general, save for the problems that affect us all: too many unsaved, violence among the youth, unemployment, drugs.  The church here is thriving, the worship is unmatched, the congregation is healthy.  I’m not really into the remodeling updates and painting in the church.  I don’t know…it’s just not my thing.  I still have to recite “righty-tighty, lefty-loosy” before I turn a screw and tape measures scare me a little bit.  All those little tiny black marks and fractions and math….*shudder*

But then we went to San Nicolas. 

San Nicolas is like nothing I’ve experienced in real life before.  I’ve seen images of the scene on starving children commercials and now I’m truly glad to have seen it with my own eyes, smelled it, touched it, known for a fact that it exists, and that there are people in the world who know about it and want to alleviate the suffering there.

There is lots of dirt in San Nicolas.  Nothing is paved, of course.  Children and dogs are everywhere.  The children know not to touch the dogs.  Both suffer from skin diseases and I wonder if some of the kids suffer from the same sense of abandonment as the homeless wandering dogs.  We are told the kids come to this tiny school that has zero funding and is practically insufficient in every way (compared to American schools) because they get so little love at home and they know at this school they will be cared for in a more personal way.  I get the feeling dads don’t hang around long in these kids’ lives, though about half of them come in the white button down cotton shirt and navy bottoms that seem to be the national school uniform.  Their teacher is a thin, lovely woman, with skin drawn tight across her face.  Her voice is small like she is when she speaks through an interpreter to us, but picks up in volume and cadence when she chants letter and number songs to the kids.  I wonder if she is professionally trained.  It’s hard to tell.  She is at home in the classroom and seems professional to me.  I would be surprised if she lives here but it would be a pleasant surprise. 

The school is deep into the village, which can only be reached by hiking a rocky narrow trail of discarded shoes and empty chip bags and random, twisted, flattened pieces of fabric.  We just step over them and after a couple of times through the trail it ceases to be so strange.  I tried once to count the shoes I stepped on to get to the village but I kept getting distracted, wondering who wore the once lovely shoe, where its mate was, and how it came to be on this winding path.  Surely in a place like this, things are recycled until they are no longer of use to anyone and then cast aside to a pathetic little half burial in the dirt.  After enough time passes the former owners probably fail to see them at all.

Along the trail before we arrive in the village is a shanty home, pieced together with remnant pieces of wood and metal.  Raw sewage leaks out in a wet stream which darkens a narrow trough in our path.  We look up to see the family who lives in the shanty.  The older kids hide in half darkness in the doorway.  The younger ones are out in the yard, unashamed of their sad existence and of the fact that they are naked from the waist down.  They wave at us with shy smiles on their faces from behind the ever present fog of smoke that hovers in the yard.   We never see these kids at the school.  This must be the lowest of the low.  We walk past this every time we enter and leave the village.  I don’t know what else to say about it.  I’m kind of in shock, seeing it, to be honest.

The kids at the school don’t seem overly skinny or malnourished though they hardly bring anything to eat for lunch.  When the teacher says it’s ok, they clamber for ratty old lunchboxes with Hello Kitty and Sportacus on them.  In early November my kid’s lunchboxes are still clean and practically new, replaced every August at the start of the year.  These kids’ lunchboxes have endured many years in the lunchroom long before these little kindergartners became the proprietors of them. 

They open up the lunchboxes and pull out a plastic container (no ziplocks—nothing disposable, although a look around the community gives the impression that every single thing is disposable…eventually).  Pulling the lid off the container reveals a little pile of rice and beans—not even enough for one.  But three or four crowd around a dish and make a spoon out of their four fingers. 

No one is selfish.  Especially not the lucky one who actually brought the lunch.  

Girls share with girls and boys share with boys.  I saw a boy pick up the last chunk of food out of his container.  Between his fingers, it was about the size of a peanut M&M.  He pulled off a smaller nibble and set it on the table for his friend who was watching him.  It wasn’t done ceremoniously.  The boy wriggled in his seat, restless for lunch time to be over.  They popped their treats into their mouths, giggled at each other, and ran off to play.

It freaks me out to see them licking their dirty fingers because I am so programmed to be clean, and germ-free, and carry my travel-sized Purell everywhere I go.  All I can see are the wet bits that cling to their skin with their fingers hanging out of their mouths as they lick them and talk and laugh with each other.  I wonder, as I often have since I’ve been here: which is better?  To be so consumed with cleanliness that your delicate immune system doesn’t  hold up when you get out of your environment?  Or to go your whole life never washing away a single germ and building up a system that can hold up to primitive water sources and life among animals.

I am about to find out.

Sickness has taken over my body.  After getting through a lesson on Gideon which I THINK went pretty well (I’ll never know—it’s completely gone from my memory), I laid down flat on my back on the grimy, lumpy, cement floor of a covered porch because sitting up and holding a paper in front of my face to read it was just too much effort.   I tried to choke down a pb and j for lunch when we got back to La Villa, then I pretty much slept the rest of the day and the next night, which was a gift from above. 

Day 5 – November 6, 2012

I am miraculously over my sickness and am able to eat a hearty breakfast.  I am ready for the day.  Tuesday is a full day of teaching.  San Nicolas in the morning, then a lesson on Joshua the Spy at the church in La Villa in the afternoon. 

While in San Nicolas, I helped to make tortillas for the kids.  Tuesday is one of the two days a week that a woman who lives in the village opens up her kitchen to provide food for the kids.  Even though I am finally feeling comfortable in my “teaching shoes” I look back on my time making tortillas in the primitive little kitchen in La Villa as the moment when I served in my best way.  It began with two local women and Alanson, adorably clumsy while operating the broken tortilla press they used to press out hundreds of the little things.  Even though he was great company and was making everybody giggle, I shooed him out of the way and got my hands dirty for really the first time.  Not with mud or plaster, but with masa and water. 

There was a huge plastic bowl full of the pale yellow mixture.  At first glance it looked like a solid mass but was really quite soft and malleable.  I suspect it takes several years of watching mothers and grandmothers combine the two simple ingredients before these young ladies learned to make the ratio just right to produce the perfect texture.  My job, which I managed to pick up right off, was scooping up a golf-ball sized amount with my fingers, rolling into a ball, then laying it in another bowl, squished slightly so that it smashes evenly in the press.

These ladies use a recycled piece of plastic from a store bought package of tortillas to line the press because, of course, there is no Pam in this kitchen.  Then, because the press is broken and slides all over the place, they have to line it up carefully, smash down the top and lean on it with all of their weight.  If they had a proper press, they would only have to close the lid and press the lever.  It would be so much more efficient if they only had ONE working press.  A tool that I could buy at Bed Bath and Beyond for 8 bucks. 

After Alanson escaped the hot, dark kitchen to find some kids to play with outside, the women and I formed a smoothly running assembly line.  We didn’t speak because I don’t speak Spanish and they don’t speak English.  But it didn’t matter.  I knew what to do with my hands.  We formed, pressed, laid the tortillas on the fire, flipped, and tossed them into yet another basket, piling higher and higher in a perfectly concentric stack of toasted tortillas.  We worked fast, handing off to one another as if we were a team, already accustomed to working together.

It was a pretty cool moment for me.

Day 6 – November 7, 2012

Back in La Villa, I am eating my lunch in relative luxury with my sunglasses on and palm fronds waving in the breeze, casting long, skinny shadows on the red checkered table cloth.  The kids at San Nicolas sit in the dirt and eat the fried chicken and grape tang we helped prepare today.  Not sure how I feel about that.  Shouldn’t I be in the dirt with them?  Does that have to be my place in order to leave this country feeling as if my time, energy, and talents were used in a way that will make and leave behind a lasting kingdom impact?  Or is that an equation that can never be solved to satisfaction? Like saying, “I’ll feel like I have enough money when I have $1000 in the bank.  Or $10,000.  Or $100,000.”  When is it ever enough?  Having or doing more will only ever leave me feeling as if I could have had or done more and it wasn’t enough.

How could it be?

I spent the day telling God’s stories to a bunch of kids I will never really know.  I already ache for them.  For their future.  I can still see their faces.  The thick eyebrows that craw across the face like a fuzzy worm—but in truly the most adorable way possible.  The brown front teeth that show unabashedly when they smile.  The ponytail held together with an old ratty neon elastic holder.  It contains dirty hair that hangs dingy and stiff.  The boys’ buzz cuts reveal sores where the hair doesn’t grow.  And eyelashes caked with dried mucous from last night’s sleep keep the color of their eyes hidden from me because I can’t bear to look too long.  Not that I need to see their eyes to know what color they are.  With a few surprising exceptions, they look remarkably similar and share so many traits.  But I am irritated at that little chunk of mucous.  I want to gently swipe it away so I can see what’s behind it.  Not to examine the color, which I know will be brown, but to see what lies inside those eyes.  Is there an innocent naiveté—a joy in the absence of knowing just how cruel this world will be for them?  Or have they usurped that stage at the ripe old age of Kindergarten and seen for themselves what is really the cost of living in a broken world? 

For me they are giggling, joyful, shy.  When the soccer ball, which carries with it the smell of rot and decay, comes out, they pounce on it, exuberant, full of energy.  They are like us.  For a second.  And then we leave and who knows?

I am as shy as they.  I don’t yet know how to hold them, how to love on them.  It is a gift that I see in others that I am lacking.  I also lack the gift of working with my hands.  I can’t reconstruct the front porch, or hang a line of electricity so the school can have a light bulb for the first time.

But I can tell them about a God who loves them.  I use an old curriculum, more than two years old, written for an audience of privileged, spoiled, American kids who live in the suburbs and enjoy everything that comes with that life. 

It is shocking to hear how differently the words from the lesson ring when I say them to these kids today.  “God loves you,” I say.  And I hope desperately that what I say, heard in the voice of the translator who sits next to me, will implant itself in their minds and take root in their hearts, never to leave.  I pray that my words, “God has plans for you, plans for good and not for disaster,” will stay with them when the day comes, as it surely will, that the devil sneaks into their hearts to tell them they are nothing, they are subhuman, they are forgotten by a God who has blessed others.  That those Americans with their perpetual hand sanitizer and bottled water don’t really love you.  That they feel sorry you, yes, but they only come here to tease you with a spark of hope that someone out there cares.  But they only dangle it out there for a ridiculously short couple of days, and then return to their white children who they REALLY love.  That they only to this to feel better about themselves. 

That would be the deathblow because there is such a cruel little nugget of truth to it.

But maybe, just maybe, they will, one day, a long time from now, think back on a time when a bunch of gringos dropped out of the sky, interrupted their school day, and let them sit in their warm and loving laps while telling them about a God who has a purpose for their lives.  And maybe this memory will be enough for them.  Because the paper and the crayons and even the electricity will one day be gone. 

God help them remember.

Day 7 – November 8, 2012

Our time here is almost at an end.  Before we left San Nicolas for the last time we presented the teacher with little bookbags filled with basic school supplies to pass out to each kid.  I am so happy to stand in front of her and pull out each item, one by one, displaying it for her while the translator tells her what it is.  

Next, we presented the woman who makes lunch for the kids with two shiny new metal tortilla presses, purchased by our group at the local Walmart.  Such a small thing that will make such a huge difference for the women who cook every week.  Awesome.

Later, I find myself with a piece of paper in my hand, writing down a list of all the things the teacher would like to have for her classroom.  Curtains would be great, she says.  We measure the windows (and by “we” I mean “someone else”).   I write down the measurements and hope that they will come to fruition very, very soon.  But I also know that the likelihood of me returning to give them to her is not good.  That makes me really sad.

Back in La Villa the congregation of Linaje Escogido has planned a big dinner to say good-bye to our team.  I spend the afternoon in the de Hearne’s kitchen, helping to prepare authentic Honduran food.  

We make dough for flour tortilla and let it rest while we halve and seed avocados, brown sausage and eggs, cook packaged refried beans (I am surprised by this), and combine ingredients for a sweet, warm drink.  I love this and I CAN NOT WAIT to eat this food tonight.

Lots of us pitch in and help form tortillas.  They must be browned on each side and filled with one of three fillings we have prepared.  There are dozens and dozens of what we would probably call soft taco-like concoctions.

Everyone fills their arms with platters and bowls and walks across the street to the sanctuary where tables and chairs have been set up.  So many members of the congregation are there, waiting to share this meal with us.  I sit with Martin, who is one of our translators, and who happens to share many political leanings with me.  We became fast friends. 

When it is our turn to fix our plates, I eagerly place three of the smallish tortillas—one with each type of filling—on my plate, along with lettuce, pico de gallo, and some of the incredible sauces we prepared earlier.  But as the congregation goes through the line I begin to notice something.  They are running out of food.  People are only taking one tortilla so that it will last.  I feel like such a glutton for taking three.  At first I try to cover them with lettuce, hoping no one will notice my rudeness.  But I spot a woman walking toward our table with a plate that has nothing BUT lettuce on it.  I feel terrible.  Without a word, I pick up one of my tortillas—I don’t even know which one—and toss it on her plate as she passes by.  She looks at me, surprised, but smiles and says “Gracias,” and goes on.  I am relieved she doesn’t make a big deal out of it and try to refuse it.

Now, I can finally enjoy my meal and my company.  And it is fantastic.

Day 8 – November 9, 2012

Saying good-bye blows.  It just does.  It is maybe because I am somewhat socially awkward.  Hugs, hopes to stay in touch—genuinely. 

Deep breath.  No tears.

So far, our flight is on time.  Standing in the airport, I say to Snodderly that as long as they get me into the States, I can handle any hiccups and inconveniences because I will be in America and capable of getting myself home no matter what surprises come up.

Those were prophetic words.

The flight to Houston is great.  No worries.  We are sitting directly behind the same red-shirted group we flew to Honduras with last week.  This makes me laugh to myself but instead of having cynical thoughts as I did in the beginning, I find myself truly hoping that they have had a productive, life-changing week.

No mixed feelings about being in the US.  Although I feel like I should have some.  I won’t lie.  I am so glad to be on US soil.  America, America, God shed his grace on thee.  And by extension, me, because by a lucky accident of fate (or God’s design), it is the place of my birth.  May I never squander it.

We have about 45 minutes to get 14 people through customs, retrieve our bags, recheck them, go through security again, and take the shuttle to another terminal.  Not gonna happen.  But instead of missing our flight, they delayed departure.  For our group alone??  The world may never know.  They deny it but I have my suspicions.

Another delay.  We are taking it like champs, using it as an opportunity to continue discussions about God, life, faith, relationships, the future, etc.  It is a good use of time. I so dearly love these girls with whom I have shared my life for the last week, as well as the rest of the group from Northern Hills.  I’m actually grateful for this extra time with them.

We are in good spirits when we finally board the plane after 3 hours of waiting and being shuffled around from one gate to another.  But we are on the plane at last.  And we sit.  And sit.  We haven’t even pulled away from the gate after 20 minutes.  Something is up.  It would appear that we have been delayed so long that the flight crew can no longer legally be on the clock.  Flight cancelled.

I can’t imagine the stress on Kurt and April as they have the task of making sure we are all (including several minors) checked into hotel rooms in Houston and ready to go at 4 am the next day for a 6 am flight.

We are still taking it like Champs.  Can’t say that for all of the other passengers who found themselves grounded for the night.  But we are accepting it with smiles on our faces.  Alanson says, “Houston, we have a problem,” which elicits a round of laughter from the whole group.  And then Snodderly makes a brilliant suggestion.  Why don’t I see if I can get a later flight and drive over to San Antonio to spend the day with Brian?

So I do. 

Conclusion

There are so many things I didn’t include in this journal—things that it would have taken many more pages to describe.  Kevin’s healing, the opening of the senior center, the little girl, Genesis (pronounced Hen-ee-sees) who became attached to me one evening outside the Hearne’s home.  Maybe one day I will try to include it all. 

For now, I will leave you with concluding thoughts based on Pastor Peter’s sermon from Sunday that I was so privileged to hear in both English and Spanish:

“To be a missionary is not to come and change a temporary moment.  It’s to change the spiritual world.”  Billions of dollars are poured into Africa but nothing changes because they change the outside world, not the spiritual.  To change the world we need to stop behaving as if we don’t have an all powerful God who is still seated on his throne.

Revelations 22:1 describes a river that flows from the throne of God.  It is the water of life.  The river flows down the center of main street and on either side healthy life bursts from the ground—fresh crops each month, producing medicine that brings healing. 

This is the design of God, Peter says, to bring healing.  Staying connected to this river (the word of God), and to this “main street” (the community we are in) will produce fruit, resulting in healing.

People grow cold to the church and what it can do because they don’t know how hungry they are for God.  If you’re not connected to God, what’s the point of meeting every week?  What’s the point of fighting for your dreams if you’re not connected to God?   

We—you and I—are the ones who will change the world.  God has placed me as a river in my family/business/community/church/etc. but I HAVE to stay connected to God.  I have to stay hungry and thirsty to be in the place where God is.