What Now?

We made it!  We arrived in the States on Friday more or less intact, minus some glass jars of dulce de leche and Angie's heart, neither of which made the trip completely unfazed. The dulce de leche's replaceable and Angie's heart is already on the mend now surrounded by calm, family, our dog Ruby, and probably her favorite: television. 

On our first morning in the US after a tumultuous full day of travel Friday we rode the metro to the National Zoo in DC. On the escalator ride back above ground I heard pan flute music as if we'd never left Bolivia, and had a bit of a Twilight Zone moment.  When we arrived at the top there was an Aymara man from La Paz playing his Bolivian tunes.  What a sweet surprise of God to make our transition a little more gradual.

We spent a wonderful weekend reconnecting with friends in DC and Baltimore and introducing Jon and Angie to my Mosaic church home.  Now we're finally settling down in Louisville at my parents' house until the wedding in July.  

One of the most popular questions I've been asked during this whirlwind is "What are you going to do now for work?"

So, here's an excerpt from my April prayer letter that addresses just that: 

One rock in the transience of our future, is Christian Veterinary Mission.  My country of service with CVM will change, but my role will remain surprisingly similar.  Brad Frye, my director, says that “CVM is all about the crossroads of the Great Commission and our Great Profession, or for many vets and students -- their great passion.”  Living at the intersection between our faith and our profession, brings new significance to our work, while serving Christ and the less fortunate with our skills brings glory to God.  

For the past three years I’ve been spreading this message, encouraging vets and students to find the sweet spot between their love for Christ and for animals, here in Bolivia.  For the next phase of life God has provided a way for me to do the same thing, but with a home base in Kentucky, to accommodate our growing family’s current needs.  In the States, instead of representing VetRed, I’ll be stepping into the position of CVM’s Southeastern Regional Representative.  Networking between seven regional veterinary universities, various conferences and state representatives, I’ll be working to challenge, empower and support veterinarians and students to hit the sweet spot for God’s kingdom.  Whether motivating them to serve overseas in short or longterm missions, or casting a vision for how vets can minister in their practices through the unique relationships they have with their clients, I hope to inspire an excitement for putting 1 Peter 4:10 into practice, “God has given each of you a gift. Use it to help each other.  This will show God’s loving-favor.”

As a “former” tennis player, I’m elated to say that I think this role will be the sweet spot for me as well.  Combining my love for working with college students, my history with CVM, my experience speaking to groups, my time serving abroad as a veterinary missionary, my affinity for administration, and the flexibility I’ll need to continue improving as Angie’s mom and start improving as Jon’s wife.

I will continue to depend on your support, even more so than before as expenses are much higher in the U.S. I hope that you’ll prayerfully consider how God would have you be a part of this ministry. Jesus calls us to multiplication, through your prayers and generosity we can disciple more followers to share His love through their profession.  If you’d like to hear more details over a meal, a jog, or at your church or small group, let me know, I’d love to introduce you to Angie, Jon and our new ministry.

T-3 Days!!!!!!!

With just three days left in Bolivia, there's no shortage of bloggable moments, on the contrary there's a shortage of moments to blog, and a lack of discretion about which moments to choose if I must. Instead of doing justice to each of the beautiful things that have been happening to us, and to spare you the far-from-beautiful times because no one reads a blog to be depressed; here are a few of the most memorable snapshots of our last experiences here.

Angie had a despedida (going away party) with a few of her friends. We bought the expensive popsicles, set up the projector for the movie, and ordered their favorite pizza. The sleepover was a hit and Angie had a great time with some of her dearest friends. Pray with me that we can find girls as sweet and fun as these for Angie to befriend in Kentucky as early as next week.

 We spent some time with Talita Cumi last week as Mosaic was visiting/working their butts off for various children's homes. On our last afternoon with them, Angie and I also said our goodbyes to the home that was Angie's first good home, where she may have had her first healthy relationships, and encountered God's love for the first time.  And I said goodbye to my beloved Jenny. TC you will be missed, but we pray for you more now than we ever have and you'll continue on with us forever.

 Mosaic's third short-term mission team to Bolivia kept their streak of greatness going as they loved on nearly 150 kiddos throughout the week, accomplished more for Cristo Viene Girls' and Talita Cumi than I could have imagined, and took care of me so well as they always do. Thank you Dottie, Stephanie, Joyce, David, Brian, and Kevin.  You were a blessing to so many of us in so many ways, I pray you were blessed through being a blessing.

And yesterday, after I said goodbye to the team at the airport, Angie and I started our goodbyes with Bolivia.  The church service La Viña had to honor us, was the most touching tribute anyone's ever offered me. It was a precious time of closure with our Bolivian church home, and for Angie it was the moment when it all became real. After they gave us each a beautiful necklace with the Bolivian stone I took the microphone to respond to all the unmerited praise everyone had spoken and Angie started to sob and just clung to me hiding her face in my stomach. We've cheered her up since, but she's wise enough to appreciate the friendships she has here and recognize how hard relationships like that are to come by.And last night, the people who's friendship I realize will be impossible to replace; Misty, Heidi, and Bill, threw us a goodbye party so relaxed and fun that I forgot to get any pictures until probably half the guests had come and gone. When we did finally settle down for a shot, Angie refused to participate without making bunny ears; an eery foreshadowing of wedding photo-ops I'm afraid.

Tomorrow, I have to say farewell to the hens in our homemade henhouse, it will be a tearful parting on both parts I'm sure. It really is nice of God to give us so much to look forward to in the U.S., otherwise leaving would be unbearable. 

Black Friday/Saturday Bolivian Style

If there were a "Black Friday" in Bolivia it would be the semi-annual yard sale at the Santa Cruz Christian Learning Center, Angie's school.  Twice a year, parents and staff of the school fill the gym and the surrounding sidewalks with someone else's future treasure, and it's complete madness.  Last night, after I finished setting up most of our remaining possessions to find new homes, I drove off as dedicated buyers watched from their chairs in line TWELVE HOURS EARLY!  I felt kind of like a Beatle; people were gonna wait overnight to see me, but mostly a little depressed that people were that excited to buy my junk.  When I woke up at 3am to pouring down rain I felt far worse for those people soaking to buy our hand-me-downs.  But this morning as they carried out their armloads of loot just minutes after doors opened at 8am, they didn't seem too upset about dripping all over everything.

Enough about the great sale where we sold everything we took to sell, praise the Lord, even more exciting is that Mosaic's here!  Well, six of their finest at least, have come to visit us and work with our church and the three children's homes they've established a relationship with over the past three years of their visits. After their overnight flight I settled them into the guest house to rest and get cleaned up while I returned to finish unloading all our kitchen goods, that we'll now have to figure out how to live without for the two weeks we have left here.

In the afternoon, a semi-well rested Mosaic team jumped into our church's monthly adolescents' event. The plan was to pick up some kids from the neighborhood of our youth leader and join them up with the youth from our church for a soccer game, but at this point it had been raining hard for 12 hours.  We stalled for a bit with an ice breaker game, a lesson on Daniel and his friends' determination and strength against peer pressure, some songs, a testimony, yummy cake, and teaching the kids how to play table football.  When we could stall no longer, one of La Viña's adults suggested if they really wanted to play soccer that badly, we should just ask God to stop the rain. Her husband helped one of the reluctant neighborhood kids, who'd probably never prayed before in his life, to genuinely ask God to stop the rain.  I can't be sure of what the North American team's opinion of that suggestion or prayer was, I would imagine it was similar to my own skepticism.  But when it worked no one was rolling their eyes, they were too busy taking pictures of the double rainbow God replaced the downpour with. And no one was complaining when we spent more than an hour in the cool weather bonding through basketball and soccer with the neighborhood kids.

God answered that little boy's prayer, maybe his very first.  I bet he'll never forget the time when God stopped the rain for us. Or maybe he will. Maybe at the naive age of about nine, you wholeheartedly believe that when God says things like "Ask and you shall receive" it's really as simple as that, so what's the big deal.  Maybe it's us, the skeptics, the weathered, somewhat wearied, travelers on this complex road of answered and seemingly-unanswered prayers that needed to see a miracle to be reminded that God's listening even to the least of these, so why not ask.

Fattening Up and Slimming Down

Disclaimer: This is not my dress, nor veil, but it is a good action shot to capture the feeling of being lost in wedding details that I'm sure I'm not the first bride-to-be to experience.
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We're getting married in 75 days!  But who's counting?  Really, the wedding website told me.
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I bought my wedding dress in January.  Maybe a mistake.  Worse though was having it altered in February. Now for five months I can't gain or lose a pound.  With the stress of finishing up my three years of ministry here, supporting Angie through maybe the biggest transition of her life, preparing for culture shock/reverse culture shock, and planning a wedding I can't let it affect my metabolism at all. Somehow I have to perfectly balance every calorie I consume with one I burn.  It's a sensitive equilibrium that's making me wish my dress consisted of more elastic.  
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But really it's a balance we all deal with every day between being obese and being anorexic, or more commonly between putting on a few pounds and needing to put a new hole in our belt. 
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When we're young and growing we have much higher nutritional requirements. Angie can eat two or three times more than me and never has to get up early to go for a run, she barely even knows what a sit-up is, she only grows in one direction -- up. But eventually almost all of us have to start thinking about sliding out of bed in the morning to do some form of exercise or we start expanding in other less desirable directions.
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I'd venture to say it's important that we find a similar equilibrium in our spiritual lives as well. 
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If the "calories we consume" are God's Word through the Bible, sermons, wise counsel, and community with other Christians, then it's important to take in as much as we can when we're initially growing in our faith as young believers.  But at some point if we don't start burning those calories they'll just build up into some unsightly love handles.
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For the first ~21 years of my life I consumed calories. I sat in the "pews" taking it all in. Attended the youth groups, read the Bible, prayed, gorged myself on the spiritual food, I was fat. Finally, when I found a church plant in veterinary school that could use my help I started serving. Serving for me led to more endorphins than even running, thus I got hooked.  For those four years in Auburn, AL I spent the time I wasn't studying, and probably some of the time I should have been studying, leading community groups, attending campus ministries, going on short term mission trips, being used where God could use me, maybe subconsciously making up for lost time. 
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After graduation, I didn't slow down, but moved on to serve at Southeast for three years, a different church in almost every way, but with just as many needs.  Then to Mosaic, back to church planting where my heart still is, for a year. And now I'm finishing my third year in Bolivia with La Viña. 
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After learning about God and His grace in the written and spoken words of the Bible and other Christians for so many years, serving has brought me to a whole new understanding of His love and compassion. It's not only a necessary step for sharing His blessings, but for fully grasping them as well.
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However, just like with exercise, you can only get so far without replenishing your energy stores. Now between the church, the ministries and the single motherhood, some days if I turn sideways I might disappear.  And that's no credit to me, it's to say that sometimes I let the needs and the endorphins take priority over what's even more important -- nourishment to my soul. If I don't meditate on His Word daily and communicate with my Father, I'm not abiding in Him, I'm not filling myself up to spill into others.  
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The danger of becoming weak and puny from lack of intake is felt more by those around me as I'm cranky or short, or nearly murderous toward the Aerosur office when they cancel my flight and decide they're not going to re-book me with another airline. I imagine it's different for everyone, but I see the pitfalls of being "overweight" as leading to self-righteousness, a holier-than-thou attitude, an unhealthy slant on knowing the Word instead of living it.  
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So in light of all this, I'm going to try to get back on track now, get in shape, and find the balance. But unlike the countdown to fit into the dress, this program doesn't have an end-date, I'm going to be perfecting it for the rest of my life.