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.

Utterly Defiled and Contaminated

I seem to be on a roll. The toilet roll, that is. After last week’s post I had another incident. Of course I learned my lesson to check carefully which restroom I entered, but I’m figuring maybe I should give up using public facilities altogether.

On Sunday I got locked inside a nasty bathroom stall. I could NOT get out, and to my hyperactive nose, it smelled bad. Thankfully a df* was there to patiently talk me through the process of sliding backwards under the door face first. Even though she was laughing at me, her presence was nonetheless reassuring in a humiliating sort of way. Thankfully no one else witnessed my wallowing on the filthy floor.

Utterly defiled and contaminated, I rushed to the sink to wash as much of my arms as possible, only to realize why the toilet was not flushing properly: there was no water! If laughter is good medicine, surely I laughed enough to counter any icky germs I encountered on my way under and out before I found and slathered the hand sanitizer all over myself.

After all these years of meticulously instructing my children the art of flushing, opening doors, and doing all manner of business in public bathrooms without touching ANYTHING, this whole episode strikes me as extremely ironic.

Plumbing problems and bathroom scenes seem to be a recurring theme for 2011. Dh* is still pulling up muck from a hole in our bathroom floor, bucket by bucket, to clean it out every week or so. Someday soon, hopefully, it will be running and draining properly, but for now it remains a stinky issue.

Meanwhile I am occupied with a semiannual prayer letter announcing all our happy news, and trying to minimize all the pesky problems. Two biggest personal items are the grandchild we are expecting in November (yee-haw!) and the upcoming wedding in August. Yes, it looks like I am to be a MOG* again for the third time in four years. That’s another recurring theme. A future theme will hopefully involve the arrival of many grandchildren. Life is sweet.

Since no “Ask Jamie Jo” questions were submitted this month, I’ll ask one of my own. My question for you is regarding prayer updates, newsletters, and websites:

Do you ever wonder if anyone reads them?

What do people prefer, electronic letters or ones with a postage stamp?

I seem to get a lot of traffic on my Facebook page (friends wondering what silly predicament I will face next), but my ministry blog gets little to no traffic. Monthly prayer updates generate almost no response unless there is a crisis of some sort. In fact, I skipped two months of writing, and no one seemed to notice. I’m sure correspondence is important, but I wonder if people aren’t bombarded with too many emails these days. What do you think?

IRL* The times are changing, but I don’t know which way the winds are blowing.

Am I Alone in This??

This week I literally have nothing worth saying. I started out answering a common question we have all pondered, and in the process of answering it, became too emotionally involved and found that I need more time to search my heart for a proper response that is not silly or trite.

The question, just to get you thinking, is this:

"How do you respond when your closest friends and your own family seemingly do not support your ministry?"

Mind you, the question is not necessarily about finances, but also in prayerful support, visits, and emails. Each of these could take up a whole blog post. What I want to somehow acknowledge is that yes, it hurts when we have certain expectations that are not met. It would be easy to give some platitude about "trusting God and looking to Him alone" or to just be silly and quote a phrase I heard from a movie I never saw: "Maybe they're just not that into you." However neither of these approaches quite address the issue.

A friend just recently told me about the frustration of sending emails before a furlough asking people to let her know if they want to get together while she is home. Then no one responds. How can that not be received as a personal wound? We could explore lots of reasons why people don't call, don't write, don't offer hospitality, don't give a love offering or pledge monthly support. We could give all our friends the benefit of the doubt, saying each one has their own ministries stateside, or outside ministries they support, but does that erase the effect on our hearts?

What about when you desperately need a certain amount of money for a critical need, and you think you have plenty of friends that surely would each give a small amount until the need is met, and then no one does? How do you keep trusting God and not feel resentful that people do not respond? They don't send an email assuring you of prayers, they don't send a check, and in fact you wonder if they even read your emails. For many of us, this is reality.

We all have seen what loving supportive friends look like, and we all long for that. Some of us are blessed with a bunch of them. Others are not.

I'd like to hear from your own experience on this subject. Feel free to write your story anonymously in care of our editor, Cindy.

IRL*sometimes the closest to you can seem the most distant.

Purple Cow

After all I said about our oddities, when will I ever just grow up and recognize that it's okay to be different? Maybe this is another people-pleasing/ pride issue that I battle daily, but as I get older I still struggle with comparisons.

I'll never forget the time I sent out one of my earlier email ministry updates full of fluff and family nonsense. When I clicked "send and receive" (remember when those things didn't used to be automatic?), in came a prayer letter from a very articulate, erudite, "real" missionary (as opposed to a stay-at-home mom). The contrast was downright embarrassing. He was exegeting /exegesising (?) Scripture, and challenging his readers. Okay, I didn't understand half of what he said, but he said it so well! It's a wonder I didn't give up writing forever.

Just to torture myself, I went back and reread my opening paragraph in the letter this same man would be receiving from me. I had begun with a silly observation about a small herd of cows the local priest had blessed and painted purple. It made me remember the old children's poem, which I quoted in my ridiculous never-should-have-sent email:

I never saw a purple cow

I never hope to see one

But I can tell you anyhow

I'd rather see than be one.

Yep, folks, I actually started my update by admitting my remorse over never being able to honestly quote that poem again.

The comparison made me want to crawl under my bed and cry. From that day on, I'm not sure my prayer letters were ever quite as light-hearted. This blog is therapeutic for me, because I can be myself and not feel the need to defend my existence on the mission field, even if my ministry isn’t as “out there” as some.

Honestly, though, isn’t it a pain to write a ministry update on those months when it’s just the same ol’, same ol’ stuff? What more can we tell the folks back home about our life that has become mundane?

IRL*I have seen the purple cow...