Worlds Collide

Have you ever had one of those moments where your worlds collide and no one in the room can relate to you?  Think about high school reunions.  If you’ve never been to one, you might someday.  This summer was my first experience in going back in time, stepping into old roles, meeting old friends, and I’ve got to say, it weirded me out a bit, and not because my friends are old.

Last weekend I had the privilege of singing with my high school choir from the 1970s and seeing photos of us on tour wearing pea green polyester leisure suits back when we lived in the same world.  Most of us come from affluent north Dallas neighborhoods—some much more affluent than my own, which wasn’t too shabby in the least.

What struck me as humorous was how diverse our lives are now.  The only equalizing factors were the choir robes and the songs we sang.  Somehow it tickled me to think that only one or two of my old choir friends have any idea where or how I live now. 

While many of them live in lovely big homes to rival those of their parents, successful by anyone’s standards, here I am, a lowly missionary with (gasp!) seven children, living in an adobe “hut” (compared to their homes, anyway), but still one of the richest people along my unpaved end of my southern Mexico town.

I just kept thinking, If only they knew. At the same time, I had another unexpected thought:  Why don’t they?  How is it that I disappeared from their world?  That seems unfortunate.  There are many reasons my home church never sponsored my ministry, but this weekend, it seemed strange.

After a packed summer of being introduced, honored, and appreciated at churches around the U.S. where people were glad to know me and glad to be part of what God is doing through my life, it was weird to be invisible at the one church I called home for eighteen years.

On the one hand, it was nice to have a weekend of not talking about unreached people groups in Oaxaca and about the need for audio Scriptures for non-literate indigenous people. It was great just singing the old hymns and reminiscing with old friends.  But on the other hand, it felt almost disloyal to put my real life behind me and almost pretend that I was a successful Dallasite (with fewer than three children), working a normal job.

Is this ringing a bell with you? Have your worlds ever collided?  Each week I write these different posts, holding my breath thinking none of you will get it, that perhaps I am the only one who has experienced this.  Then you all chime in with your own experiences, and I see that we are all in this together.  Oh, how I appreciate you ladies and your lives. 

IRL* If you happen to find yourselves in a collision of worlds where no one gets your life, you are not alone!

What's Your [Furlough] Blessing?

People genuinely do want to “bless the missionaries” while we are stateside.  Really they do.  Okay, at least some do.  Churches who regularly pray for us are the first to find tangible ways to bless us while we are here.

Hopefully all of us could share a long list of blessings we have received, and maybe we can even rejoice with our colleagues (without jealousy) in the provision of things we have personally never received.  I  once struggled with envy when I heard of other global workers returning home to free dental work, car mechanics, restaurant and gas cards, and trips to amusement parks as a family.

It’s taken 26 years to accumulate quite a list of lovely tokens of love and appreciation from friends and partners in our work.  But let’s face it, what is a tremendous blessing to me might fall short of that objective in your case.

For example, a friend gifted me with kefir grains, fresh raw milk, subsidized nutritional supplements, and even a kombucha starter!  All of my hippy, happy, just-a-bit-out-there friends will say “Cool”!  The rest of you are scratching your heads saying, “Huh”?

With this said, let me share some “blessings” my kids have experienced in real life on summer furloughs.  My oldest daughter remembers being in a supporting church at age six or seven, and being forced to stand up in front of about fifty children she didn’t know and share about life in Oaxaca.  (Don’t your children hate that?)

To make it worse, the teacher then said, “Because you are our special guest we will let you take our offering this morning … but first you can start us off by praying in Spanish!”  Now whoever thought that would be a treat for a shy little visitor?

Another story happened to one of my boys who was too young at the time to remember it.  One of our supporting churches is a lively little church, very different from the denominations we usually attend.  We were sitting on the front row, all however-many-of-us-there-were at the time. 

The pastor had asked people to come up for special prayer. He proceeded to holler at the devil, until one person after another fell at our feet, slain in the spirit.  When the pastor ran out of standing people to pray for, he came over to pray for us. 

My youngest son began crying loudly, “Don’t let him pray for me!  Don’t let him pray for me!” until I shushed him and rushed him out as though he needed a sudden diaper change.

Sometimes blessings fall a bit shy of their goal. 

What amazes me about WOTH is how they truly minister to such a diverse group of women, touching mind, body, and soul.  They “get” our lives in a way few people do.  It was a blessing to be a co-presenter at the Writer’s Workshop last week at the WOTH Furlough Retreat in Denver, and a pleasure to introduce many new readers to this blog! 

Now it’s your turn to share.  Please share with us some of the greatest blessings of your current or past furloughs.  I promise to rejoice without (much) envy, even if your list trumps my kefir, kombucha, and raw milk.  Feel free to add your own stories of things your kids have had to endure on furlough.

No pressure to comment, but I did tell lots of the women at the retreat that the stories in the comments are the best part about this blog, so don’t let me down! 

IRL* Blessed.

Flora. Fauna. Forgetfulness.

About a mile high.  Pomegranate.  80’s during the day, 40’s or 50’s at night.  Yes, it’s probably safe to drink that.  Another short while and we’ll arrive in the village.  You know, I have no idea.

Can you guess what I’m doing this week?  Yep, we’re hosting a short-term team from the States, and I am answering the same questions we are frequently asked.

What’s the altitude here?  What kind of tree is that?  How hot does it get here?  What’s the coldest it gets?  Do you think they boiled the water they used to make this drink?  How much further until we get there? 

I’m okay up to this point (as long as, in fact, it is a pomegranate or jacaranda or one of the other two trees I can actually identify).  Then we get into regional birds.  “Yes, that is a bird.”  (No idea what variety or species or however you identify such things.)  Then I resort to a long string of “I have no idea” answers until they finally stop asking. 

Just between friends (shhhh!), I confess I may at times make up a plausible sounding answer just to avoid yet another admission of my ignorance.  I shudder to think of visitors passing these fabrications as the truth.  Lord, forgive me - after You stop laughing.  (He gets my wacky humor.)

Personally I am always relieved with the visitors who consider what it would be like if I came to their neighborhood and asked them to identify all the flora, fauna, and the warm-blooded egg-laying vertebrates with beaks and feathers.  Probably they don’t know the population of every surrounding neighborhood, the daily income levels, and the occupations of each person on a given street either.

So why do I end up feeling unintelligent when people ask me all these things?  It’s just silly.  I don’t know.  I never have known.  Even if I learned it once upon a time, I probably forgot.  I can identify the few trees and most of the flowers in my garden, and usually I can call each of my children by the right name.  With that, I want to be content.

After being on the field all these years, you’d think I would know more than I do.  The fact is that the more I learn, the more I forget, and the more I discover that things I thought I knew were not exactly what I thought they were anyway.  Does this make any sense at all? 

This how it goes in my Christian life, too.  The longer I live, the more I see how much I still have to learn.  There is no point of “arriving” – at knowing everything.

IRL* Having teams is a humbling reminder of how much I have yet to learn. 

Is There Some Hip New Way?

Does anybody really care? Ha! Now I’ve got you oldie fans singing the Chicago song I’ve had stuck in my head all morning. Seriously, though, do you ever wonder if anyone really does care about where you live and what you are doing?

It’s been three years since I’ve been to Ohio, which is where our support base is centered. This June will be my first time to return since I’ve been more connected via Facebook and blogging. I wonder if it will make any difference. Do people know me better? Will that be a help or a hindrance?

For me, I enjoy seeing who’s gotten married, who’s become a grandparent, who’s made fabulous trips I have enjoyed vicariously by seeing online photos. It’s been fun “liking” these events on Facebook and leaving quick comments occasionally. I’ve been in touch when tragedy has hit certain friends, and I’ve been blessed to pray for them during the dark nights of loss.

But how will this affect my re-entry into their real lives?

Before this season of re-acquaintance via the computer, I noticed that friends’ lives are busier each time we visit the States. Even being in the neighborhood for a whole summer, I have little hope of seeing people more than once or twice. That’s just how it is nowadays. I get it—sort of—but it still hurts a little bit.

Don’t you ever long to see your friends and family, and secretly imagine a wonderful happy reunion where everyone embraces you, welcomes you back, and then honestly cares that you are there? I know I sure do. Deep down, though, I realize that friends are overwhelmed enough as it is. Their lives have very little margin to allow for free time to hang out with their missionary friend, even if they wanted to.

The nagging question is “Do they really want to spend time with me anyway?” Maybe they view me as a persistent Amway salesman who only wants to entice them to spend an evening so I can try to gain their support. Maybe deep down I really do wish they would get on board, even if I’m too chicken to ever mention finances.

Anyway, it’s funny that just as I have developed my “voice” in writing, and have met so many new e-maginary friends, all of a sudden I feel insecure with the whole “being in the States for a mini-furlough” business this summer. People know that the main reason we are there is to try to raise more support. Will they just try to avoid us? Will they even care? Will we have anything in common with our former friends and acquaintances?

Have you been there, done this recently? Can you talk me through the process again? What works? It’s not that I have forgotten, but I wonder if what I used to know is even relevant any more. Is there some new hip way to relate to others and still share needs from the mission field?

IRL* Help!