Earthquakes and Hurricanes and Drug Wars! Oh, My!

…And what they “think” they know, they know very little about.  Pardon me for jumping in the middle of an unfinished thought from last week’s post.  (That's a risk you take when you let a writer publish minus an editor.)  We were talking about our loved ones who cannot relate to our lives because they have never seen where and how we live.

What they do know about our host countries often has nothing to do with us personally.  How often have you gotten frantic phone calls and emails about some disaster that made the news, but that didn’t affect you in the least?

The first time I heard about an attempted coup in Guatemala was when the letters started coming (back in the pre-computer age).  We lived within a few miles of where the incident occurred, but it didn’t touch our lives at all.

Here in Oaxaca we are seldom affected by hurricanes, since we live in the high desert.  We might get a lot of rain, and some bridges might collapse, but very rarely.  Still people hear about flooding in Oaxaca and envision us floating away in a makeshift boat with our few belongings.

Most times the “earthquakes” people read about are only “tremors” in reality.  Even the earth shaking, truly frightening quakes we have experienced have never caused any personal harm or damage to our house or recording studio.  If people only understood, they would not be so impressed.*

Back in 2006 Oaxaca was in the news due to ongoing riots in the capital city.  Short-term teams saw the news and cancelled their trips even though we live an hour away from the airport.  Nowadays it’s kidnapping and drug-related violence that grab attention, even though most of the trouble is far away from our southern state.

But what does it say to people when they perceive that we live in these hotbeds of danger and unrest?  Are we fools to live and raise children in such unsafe places?

My policy is not to judge people based on the news and crime in their cities.  If I were to focus only on the Associated Press for my information, I might question anyone’s sanity for wanting to live in places like Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York City. (Shivers!)

The truth is that MOST people live in those places and are safe.  Most people can eat at a Cracker Barrel, attend public (or Amish) school or college, and visit the Empire State Building without witnessing a single shooting. 

The sad fact is that most people in the world have no option to pack up and go someplace safer even when danger is imminent and real.  I consider this when loved ones imply we should move “home” and be safe.  We are where God has placed us, and we will stay until He moves us on.

Even when the news stories affect us directly, we are better off in the will of God than in the safest town in America outside of God’s protection.

IRL:  If they only knew…..  Then again, maybe they wouldn’t pray so fervently if they knew how safe we are, so let’s leave them to assume what they want.

*On a serious note, were any of you adversely affected by the earthquakes in Costa Rica or China last week? I don't mean to make light of earthquakes just based on my limited experience.

The In-Between

One of my most memorable prayer letters started out with the shocking announcement that Jim and I were splitting up and leaving the children at the orphanage.  The truth is that while I was going to Canada for a son’s graduation, Jim was making a trip to South America, and a friend in Mexico was keeping the youngest kids for a few nights in the children’s home where she worked.

This summer is sort of like that.  The family is split up and all over the place.  I’m getting a small preview of the empty nest, which has its benefits to be sure, but it feels so unnatural.  The girls have been visiting their niece and older siblings for a few weeks, and Jonny, our youngest son, has been working with an older brother in another state.  We are all over the place geographically.

Meanwhile I am spending four consecutive weekends in four different states during this whirlwind summer tour – slash- “home assignment.”  Jim and I welcome the simplicity of traveling together, just the two of us, but it still just feels odd.  When I think of it, nothing feels right any more.

Next week is our designated time to have all the kids “home” again, although we aren’t really going to be home, but in at our temporary home base in Ohio.  Even having all our adult kids back together isn’t exactly natural.  I trust it will be wonderfully fun, but it’s just not the norm any more.

After that I will be in Dallas for a long weekend visiting with my mom and siblings in the house where we grow up.  We can’t wait to be together again like old times, but nothing about it will seem normal either.

A side of me just wants to fast forward and be home, at my own house in Mexico, looking at photos of the summer, sorting it all out in quiet devotional times.  Right now I am getting weary of too much food, too little exercise, too many thoughts and too little solitude.  Summer trips to the U.S. are like that. 

My heart cries out for normal, but as my international friends keep reminding me, “Normal is just a setting on the dryer, and most of us don’t even have a dryer.”  There is no such thing as normal.  Not until much, much later.

What I am experiencing this summer is sort of the in-between phase between big family and empty nest.  What I am living here on earth is this unnatural in-between thing between earth and heaven.  I feel it strongly.  My heart yearns for a normal that doesn’t exist outside of heaven.  For now I only get glimpses every now and then.

Scripture says that all nations will hear the good news, “… and then finally the end will come.”  I’m clinging to that truth.  That’s what keeps me going when the kids are scattered all over the globe and home doesn’t feel like home any more.  That’s what gives me strength to be so far away from my precious grandbaby and aging mom and dmil.

Like you, I desperately long for the end to come, but at the same time, I want our loved ones overseas to hear the good news before He returns.  Until then, I keep striving ahead, muddling through the unnatural junctures of life, and embracing the reality that I am doing something worthwhile.

One lie saying I keep hearing this summer is “It’s all good.”  It’s not true yet, but it will be someday.  No one can convince me that “it’s all good” to be so far away from so many loved ones.

IRL*My diet this summer is like my life, it’s not all good, and it’s not all normal or natural, but it’s all for a good purpose.

Furlough Boot Camp: Getting the Lil' Soldiers Ready

Getting ready for a summer furlough is so much easier with only three children who are actually not children, but teens. It's an amazing blessing that they can each pack and carry (!) their own bags, decide what books and music they need for the trip, and even go to the store on their own for whatever snacks they might want for travel days.

In the early days I used to put the little ones through "furlough boot camp." To prepare them for a season of being completely thrown out of their routines, I would make the preschoolers take naps in strange places around the house. No more comfy cribs or familiar beds. I would put a blanket and pillow somewhere on the floor and say, "Nighty-night," and leave them to figure out I meant business. This did help once we were on the road and staying in different people's homes because they were accustomed to going to sleep wherever and whenever I told them.

During boot camp, no matter what food I served them, they were not allowed to comment unless they really liked it. They were never to beg for seconds unless I specifically offered them. They had to say please and thank you with a smile on their faces. I trained them to respond to a discrete snap of my finger, wave of my hand, or lifting of an eyebrow. We'd make a game of "coming quickly when called." We even practiced walking in tight formation so we wouldn't appear to be as big a family as we really were. Each older child had a younger one they were responsible for, and the middle child was responsible for the diaper bag (or dog when we were dumb enough to travel with a pet). By the time we left for furlough, we were looking good!

With this said, I must confess that I took the "training exercises" a bit too far, and pridefully drilled into my children how to be perfect little house guests. After all, we wouldn't want unruly children destroying the houses where we would be staying. Seriously! We do need to train our children, and furlough is a good excuse to go into high gear. On a deeper level, though, God only knows my true motives were nothing short of arrogance. I didn't want to risk anyone seeing what we were really like. Instead I painstakingly taught my children to become little hypocrites, acting the part of loving, well-mannered Christians, when their hearts were not quite there yet. I am sorry for that.

It wasn't until after I read the book Shepherding a Child's Heart (which I HIGHLY recommend, by the way), that I became convicted about only working on the outer appearances rather than focusing on heart issues. From then on I vowed to discipline my children for the purpose of training their hearts to fear God, not merely to make Mom look good in front of her friends. I'll never forget the time we went up with one teen and his big ol' afro, and other teen with his long stringy hair. It was still a struggle to not consider "What will people think?" but I forced myself to look at it from God's standpoint. No sin was being committed. Their hearts were good. Why should I require a haircut just to please our conservative support base?

Ironically, it wasn't until I stopped being so paranoid about our "real selves" being revealed in the presence of our supporters that people began to connect genuinely with me. I once had a woman tell me that she used to berate her children after we passed through as house guests, saying things like, "Why can't you be more like the Loker kids? They never...." Oh, my, what damage was done due to my pretense of having well-behaved children? This same woman was quite relieved on a later trip we made to the States, when she saw my children acting like the kids they really were, and even not acting very "Christian" (read between the lines: they were fighting!). Then she began to talk to me on a deeper level. No pretense. No shame. Just honesty. It was a good thing.

With that said, I have heard some frightening tales of things missionary friends' children have done on furloughs that made me glad I had trained mine to be inhumanly perfect. (Ha! Like that's possible.)

Maybe you can flesh this out with some real life experiences of funny things your children have done on furloughs.

IRL* The flip side is that I have fewer stories to tell.

Ask Jamie Jo: Reverse-Reverse Culture Shocker

Earlier this month a reader sent an email that deserves a serious and thoughtful response. I have written three entire posts attempting to address the issue of reverse culture shock in reverse--I kept starting over, feeling each time that it wasn't adequate. None of the three did it justice. I am counting on you to flesh it out with personal experiences in the comment section.

Nicolette spent the summer in the States after her first three years on the field. She had been warned to expect reverse culture shock back in the home country, and wasn’t surprised when it happened. What she wasn’t expecting was the wave of culture shock that hit when she returned to the field.

You can read her blog post “The Culture Shock that No One Tells You About” here. Basically she poses more questions than I can answer in one short post, but I will say truthfully that, yes, I still go through that shock of re-entry both coming and going. It does get easier, and the transition happens more quickly each time around, but muddling through the discomfort of a major change is inevitable.

My first random thought is that flying has a lot to do with it. In the early years we used to drive back and forth from Guatemala to the States. In that way, we could ease ourselves in and out of cultures gradually. Flying makes the re-entry so abrupt at both ends of the trip. That could be a factor. Think of the old-time missionaries literally taking the slow boat to China. By the time they got there, they were ready to be there. This isn’t necessarily true with air travel.

Secondly, I think we tend to idolize our adopted country while we are stateside. We paint such a rosy portrait of life overseas that we start to believe it ourselves. Returning to the nitty gritty of reality can be a bit of a shock and disappointment just as intense as the disgruntled feelings we experience in the U.S. Neither place seems quite right any more.

I could hang my head in shame having to admit that I haven’t arrived, but the truth is that I am not home yet. It is only natural that I will feel out of place both here and in the U.S. Neither place is my home. The unsettling discomfort of homesickness and culture shock is a wonderful reminder that I will always be in transition until the day I land in heaven. That’s the good news, my friends.

Meanwhile, culture and language learning is a lifelong process. It’s never finished.

And lastly, may we never be so naïve as to forget that there is still a villain in our story who wants to rob us of our joy and replace it with confusion and misunderstanding. Keeping a journal is a wonderful way to document and analyze the wild swings of emotion we experience on the field. I mention it often, but a great tool and weapon is to make a list of things that make you thankful.

IRL* I am thankful most of all that this is not my home!

Paranoids are People, Too

Exactly one day after sitting serenely in cap and gown with thousands of other identical Baylor graduates, I traveled to Thailand, thus beginning a career of being “different.” From the early days as a single teacher in an Asian culture where my height, skin, hair, and eye color were a novelty—to later years in Guatemala as a mother with a string of blonde children attached to me, I was destined to stand out in any crowd.

For two or more years at a time, I used to long for a brief respite in my home country of Texas where I could finally become invisible again, blending effortlessly with the culture. At one point, I confessed to a friend that I was becoming paranoid. Even in America, people seemed to be staring at me as some kind of oddity. My friend tried to conceal her amusement as she gently suggested that maybe the stares might have something to do with the now-seven children tagging along wherever we traveled, when 2.3 was the average number in a “normal” family.

By the time the kids had finally grown responsible enough to occasionally stay home and babysit the younger siblings so that I could freely roam public places, I still was not inauspicious, even in the U.S. Rather than keeping a low profile, as I had always dreamed, I was recognized as “that missionary with the big family” who had spoken here or there, particularly in Northern Ohio.

I’ll never forget one incident at a thrift store in Cleveland. After an episode of hollering at the younger ones to stay corralled in a general location and then arguing with an older child about a heavily worn item that was not a good value, a woman approached me with wonder in her eyes, exclaiming, “Why, you were the speaker at our Ladies’ Tea back when…!” I have no idea how much of my tirade she had witnessed, but I was mortified. That was just one of many times God did not vaporize me on the spot as I had wished.

During one of our summer mini-furloughs, I was tired of being recognized wherever I went and a bit weary of people in general. One of our last stops was Orlando, where our home office is located. Back then I only knew a handful of people outside of Missionary Ventures in that part of Florida. Jim graciously agreed to stay at the mission house and watch the children so I could go to the mall and “be invisible” for the evening. Coming out of a lingerie store, I heard my name being called. I couldn’t believe it! Of the six or eight people I knew in the city, one was there at the Orlando Mall, and it was none other than Steve Beam, the founder of our mission.

My lot in life is to stand out and be different. Like it or not, I must guard my words, actions, and attitudes because others are noticing. Maybe it’s just as well. Whether I am a “farang” (foreigner) in Thailand, a “gringa” in Guatemala, or now a “güera” in Oaxaca (pronounced “weda in wah-HAH-kah”), I am bound to be watched by those who know I am attempting to follow in Jesus’ footsteps.

IRL* Aiming to be a good ambassador for Christ whether I’m invisible or infamous.

My Old Restless Companion

In the early years our visas only lasted six months at a stretch. We made the dreaded border runs twice a year to renew them. The absurd thing is I actually enjoyed those journeys, especially the trips to Texas, which allowed me a visit to Stuff-Mart* to restock on things we needed and frivolous items we simply preferred.

On our last official “border run,” we were bummed to only receive sixty days instead of the usual six months on our visas. No way could we pack up however-many-kids-we-had-at-the-time and run back to the Rio Grande every eight weeks, even if the children managed to outgrow their clothes that fast! We finally switched over to more permanent resident status.

That’s when I noticed that my coping mechanisms seemed to only last about five months; after that, I became antsy and ready to plan a trip of some sort.

In fact, I would hit a downright slump twice a year right on schedule. I would wake up in a funk with no logical explanation. Once I figured it out, I just laughed over it, and then went on with living cross-culturally with no escape in sight.

Today, things are different once again. The three remaining children at home are Mexican-born, and therefore need no visas. That’s nice. I’ve learned to cope with Mexican living, the good with the bad, year-round. More or less. Some days I still get overwhelmed with the noise and stench interesting smells.

I was doing fine, pondering our lovely summer in the States—a time of blissful invisibility while some wounds healed over. I was enjoying our first week of home schooling, hosting a young teacher while she looks for housing, and honestly feeling content. Then one morning I woke up with my old restless companion, and I felt a funk coming on. This is way too soon to start feeling that again.

All I can say is that life has become too routine, too predictable. My old norm (especially when there were seven children living at home) was high-stress, crazy, and anything BUT predictable. I had no time to even think about contentment or lack of it. Now I find myself on auto pilot. Life seems too easy somehow. I’m not sure I like it this way.

How ungrateful can I be? God has blessed me with every good and perfect gift, and I am momentarily discontented. After what I said (and thought) last week in my blog post about “those” kinds of missionaries, I can honestly see the potential to become a snarky, bored missionary if I’m not careful. Yikes. Pardon me while I run back to the true Source of all contentment.

IRL*Striving to restore my old sense of adventure, minus my old restless companion.

Women Who Defy...

Jamie Jo is on her way back to Mexico this week. In order to give her a break, this week's content is provided by the sole respondent (thanks, Karin!) to her request last week to submit their nomination for a woman working cross-culturally that defied the missionary stereotype. Thank you, Diane, for nominating Lil in the comment section of last week's blog--she sounded like an amazing woman!

Here's Karin's nominee:

"Dear Lady"

Our years living in the village in Central Asia were not a beautifying experience for me physically. The water was scarce and hard, the weather had no grace. Summers were baking hot and winters freezing cold with very little heating. Life was primitive with not many body products for sale to smooth rough skin and quench dry brittle hair. If you were willing to haul some beauty products in your suitcase from abroad it could come...if you had the weight allowance.
I still smile at my interesting observation. When we ladies living and working there would come back from our trips from our home countries we would have the newest haircuts, cute clothes and shoes. We even put make-up on daily. Then as time passed, our beauty routines would slowly fade. The hairstyles would become a daily ponytail, the make-up lessened and the clothes would fade. It was the more natural look—at times even leaning towards looking somewhat neglected.

One day a dear lady came to our town. She gathered the women together for a time of visiting and sharing. I vividly remember us sitting in a circle around the typical low table with flat mattresses on the floor with green tea being served in round Chinese printed cups on a brightly printed plastic tablecloth.

She shared from her heart about her personal experiences and difficulties. Then she hit our hearts full on with these words; "In twenty years time you ladies are not going to be the beauties in the world. Your skin is going to be telling a story of many hot summers and cold winters. You would have probably suffered diseases and hardships. Life would have taken its toll on your age." We did not need to hear much more than this. I felt the tears welling up in my eyes. The lump in my throat testified to the truth of what she was saying, as I looked across the table, I did not see one person whose eyes were not full of tears. Life felt harsh, I did feel run down and the mirror did not lie. Yes, when last did I have a good haircut?

She continued: ”But God says you are going to be beautiful to Him in your hearts and souls. You would have walked a life of suffering and faith. You would have endured much. You would be strong in Him. You would be the spiritual giants of this world.” Some of us were wailing now. We were touched to the core. What a beautiful opportunity we had to share our hearts and longings that day to understand one another's needs. We prayed together and were comforted by the beautiful truth of this message.

She then played this song by a group called Delirious:

"FIND ME IN THE RIVER...find me in the river find me on my knees. I've walked against the water now I'm waiting if you please. We've long to see the roses but never felt the thorns and bought our pretty crowns but never paid the price.

Find me in the river; find me on my knees with my soul laid bare. Even though you are gone and I'm cracked and dry...

Find me in the river...I'm waiting here.

We didn't count on suffering we didn't count on pain but if the blessing is in the valley then in the river I will wait."

...see sidebar to click on the YouTube screen to hear it.

Looking back, now almost twelve years ago, I fondly but thoughtfully carry this message in my heart. I do think the weather and difficulties of life have taken its toll on my age and physique. But I do hope that one day I can look into the mirror of my heart and see myself as He sees me. It is true: physical beauty fades with time. But I do believe what lasts are those beauties in our hearts: the choice we make to forgive, to turn the other cheek, to walk the extra mile, to do without some things so someone else can have, giving to others from ourselves more than what we hoped or planned.

These things then would be the true jewels in our hearts.