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.

Trusting Who?

It's been longer than usual since my last post.  I've kind of been waiting for something worth writing about to happen. I went to Peru for three days with a few of my favorite students/really good friends.  We returned to a veterinary conference we'd visited a couple years ago. This time instead of being mesmerized with the simultaneous translation from the North American speakers into Spanish, I was greatly relieved that not much has changed in these past three years where I've been doing little vet work, reassuring me that jumping back into practice, if I ever decide to do so, will require some review, but not be completely impossible.     
                                                                          
We had a great time, we learned some things about animals, and shared some experiences about God, but nothing that merited a story.  Which was disappointing, because I've had this post brewing in my head for a few days, and I was hoping something easier would come along and take its place. I don't know about you, but I sometimes wish parenting didn't relate so well to my relationship with God. Couldn't it relate more to eating cupcakes or playing with puppies, does it have to instead bring me face to face with my own shortcomings so often??  (Plus, let's be honest, I just caught up with the rest of the world and started reading the Hunger Games, so you can pretty much count me out for the next three days, since I'm only half way through the trilogy.)                         

So before the "Hunger Games" started me endlessly comparing Jon to Peeta, I had thoughts like these running through my head, let's see if I can quell the images of the star-crossed lovers long enough to make sense of my own ideas:

I consider all sin to be a lack of trusting God. You may not agree, and I may not be right, but the way I see it is if we step out of God’s will for our lives (we’d all agree that’s “sin” right?) then it's just a matter of not trusting Him.  Everytime we do something selfish, or evil, or grumpy, or fail to do the right things (also sin) then we’re unconsciously saying, “God, I don’t really believe you love me enough,” or “God, you don’t really know what you’re doing.”

When I boil it down so simply it seems like it’d be easy for my conscious who does trust God’s unfathomable love for me, to tell my subconscious “Of course, we’re gonna trust that God knew what He was doing when He asked us not to do that." But more times than not it seems that if I can't see the immediate consequences the action would bring, I convince myself they don't exist.  And if I don't know what reward directly awaits me after doing something good, it's hard to get motivated. That's where parenthood reminded me of how much of a child I am with God. As a mother, I really don't like to live bouncing from one reward to the next, nor the alternative; threatening one punishment after another, so I sometimes find myself begging Angie to try to be good just for goodness' sake.  Well, maybe I don't directly quote the Christmas carol, but I am sometimes floored by her lack of incentive to do anything sweet or helpful, or just not flat out mean and selfish, without a prize or a penalty hanging over her head.

Ruby flew home a couple weeks ago to make it through Miami before the summer heat makes it impossible for her to get in. When I saw some of her canine friends searching behind me for her in distress on my next run, I realized Ruby never got to say goodbye to anyone, she didn't even know she was leaving, for all I know she's still unaware that she'll probably never see Bolivia again. As sad as that makes me, I kind of wonder if that would have been the way to go with Angie as well.  Instead, she has started to get nervous about the move and act out in her anxiety more than a month before anything happens.

Last Saturday, she started out by forcing me to cancel our plans to go play basketball and volleyball because it was going to involve English speakers and she's pretty much swearing off voluntary English now, an interesting transitional move into life in the U.S. A little bit later in the afternoon I wanted to go pick up the package with the MP3 players Mom had sent down to us after ours had been stolen when the car was broken into, but I didn't want to tell Angie about the prize, because I wanted her to trust me.  But she just couldn't do it.  Being dragged out of her already-in-progress-lazy-day, which she got used to when we were both sick and I let us use one Saturday as a sick-day that she mistook as the new normal, she could not do something sweetly if she didn't know how it would benefit her.  So she broke down in the car, hence I didn't show her what was in the box for a long time. 

I feel like I'm taking advantage of Ange's lack of English comprehension to write about her, but I think the parallel that connects us all to this little fighter clinging to every bit of control she can get her hands on while she feels her world is quickly spinning out of her control in the bigger scheme of things, excuses her behavior as merely childish and puts the greater blame on us; the adults who should by now know better.  How can I watch Angie refuse to trust that I have her best interests at heart, when clearly my interests are very often confused and flawed, and not feel convicted for not trusting our Heavenly Father's perfect flawless love and plan.

We could sure use your prayers over these next few months they're shaping up to be some of our most tumultuous, and we've weathered some storms...

Shawn Returns Again and Again

We made someone cry the other day at our VetRed lunch-meeting, it will probably live on as one of my favorite moments of our ministry.  I should explain.  

Dr. Shawn Kari is a veterinarian with an ambulatory ultrasound practice in Southern California.  He's been visiting us for the past couple weeks, updating the vet school on the imaging material he taught them the last time he came down three years ago, and the time before that.  

Shawn recognizes the importance of relationships even more than the value of his expensive equipment or topnotch skills, so he keeps coming back and keeps pouring into the people here who adore him.  Across the really steep language barrier he knows their stories, the names of their spouses and kids, even their favorite sports team.

Shawn training on the fancy new machine he brought down to share.

He affects the people he works with here so much because he cares about them personally and has something to offer that can drastically change their lives professionally as well.  As Dr. Moira told us, through tear-filled eyes, at our Bible study gathering, she knew absolutely nothing about ultrasound when Shawn came down the first time. Now she scans between 10 and 15 small animals every day in the teaching hospital at the university, she’s the vet that the city of two million people send their pets to for ultrasonic diagnositcs.  In May she'll speak at the veterinary conference here in Santa Cruz as the canine ultrasound expert! 

"See one, do one, teach one!"  Moira now teaches sonography to hundreds of students a year at the veterinary university.

Our VetRed office makes a comfy place for some training on cardiac physiology.  

I don’t think Shawn, or VetRed, could be any happier with how his teaching is multiplying.  He came down and taught, and now his students are teaching so many others. Sharing the talents God has given us to demonstrate Christ’s love and spread the free gift of grace is exactly what we’re here for.  

Just so you don't think his visit was all work and no play, here's a pic from after the students shoved his birthday cake in his face at his going away party yesterday. We couldn't let him leave Bolivia a third time without experiencing this classic local birthday tradition.

I love my job!

Perfect Timing to Demonstrate His Death and Resurrection

Baptism is such a cool dramatization of Jesus' death and resurrection; leaving the old behind under the water and rising again into your new life in Christ in front of your family of Believers. When else do we do something so symbolic, with such meaningful imagery?

To celebrate His death and resurrection this Easter, we headed out of town about five hours into the mountains for our first retreat as a church. More than thirty of us played together, worshipped, competed on an obstacle course, roasted marshmallows, built community, studied the Bible, ministered to each other, and together practiced confession, forgiveness, and grace. It was an awesome weekend for so many reasons, but I'd have to say the highlight for me was when we ended the obstacle course swimming in the river and spontaneously offered to baptize anyone who was ready to make that statement of faith. At La Viña, we only baptize once or twice a year, but what better time than Easter to express your understanding of HIs gift by encapsulating it so succinctly and beautifully.

Baptisms are always exciting, watching new brothers and sisters in Christ make that public display of their decision to follow Jesus, but this one was a bit more special than most for me as Angie was the first one jumping up and down eager to be dunked. And I had the extreme pleasure of helping dunk her.

After Angie, four other adolescents from our youth ministry followed suit. And as a sweet surprise for us all, a young mom who's been working at the baby home as a sort of internship to prepare to have her toddler back in her life, jumped in as well. She's just recently become more open to us and to God, and I for one had no idea she was ready to commit her life to Christ. Her story is one of true transformation and hope, and everything that baptism symbolizes, it was perfect.

I asked Ange tonight, if there was anything she'd like to share about her baptism. She said it was the first time she'd ever been baptized and that she liked it very much. I sure hope she doesn't say something similar on her wedding day!

It Just Got Real

I read in an adoption book last year that parenting teenagers keeps us honest. They don't let you get away with inconsistencies, they call you on your bluffs. Turns out it applies to 9 year olds too, but for all intents and purposes she's a precocious little teen in so many ways already.

I knew when I decided to adopt that my life would change. People kept asking me if I knew that, of course I knew that! But somehow, in their words they couldn't convey the extent of what they meant by change, and I had no idea, it's not their fault, they tried. I think about one person in particular, coming from left field, knocking me off balance, telling me I wasn't ready for this, I didn't know what I was getting into, adopting Angie was a bad idea. And to her I'd say, now after 15 months, "you were right."

But so was I.

I had no idea what I was getting into. I wasn't ready. It's rocked my world. But it wasn't a bad idea. God's ideas never are. Just because an idea makes a mess, looks ugly for awhile, it doesn't lose its inherent goodness. Just because we get ourselves into something expecting one outcome, for instance daily gratitude and fun, and we get something completely different, let's call it real life, doesn't mean we shouldn't have done it, but it might mean the reasons we had in mind for doing it were not the reasons God was thinking of.

Nonetheless, among my motives, truly was the idea of becoming less selfish. A single person can look holier than holy to the world, sacrificial, spiritual, just generally good, because there's no one looking close enough to see all their flaws. I think I knew this. What I didn't fully understand was that there's also no one asking them to prove their sacrificialness, their spirituality. I could give what didn't hurt, I could give of my excess time, my excess clothes, my excess money, and if it was more than the average middle class person was giving it looked altruistic. But as all of you parents and spouses know, and I was the last to find out, the singles that look so altruistic have no idea what selflessness is, and maybe won't until there's someone else making them look their selfishness in the mirror every single day. Oh man, it's hideous. It's hard to say thank you to Angie and Jon for making me stare at this revolting part of my being, but it wouldn't be very kind of them to let me walk around with garbage all over my face without telling me, so they're doing the right thing. Keep up the good work guys, keep being agents of God's refining change in my life, sorry I'm not always gonna thank you, but sometimes I will.

This is not at all what I wanted to write about. I started out thinking I was going to write about my car being broken into.

My beauty (used in the most sarcastic of tones) of a ginormous car was broken into for the second time on Sunday during church, sitting right outside the building in a busy market, on a main street. For the second time, the face of the cheapest stereo I could find was stolen, this time along with our ~5 year-old iPod Shuffle, our speakers, and the control to the winch. It's life. It's not blog-worthy. But last night when I was telling a friend about it, I revealed that when we found a little blood on the shattered window and on the seats the bad guy had crawled across to get to the stereo I felt a little sense of justice, not compassion. I was glad the jerk had suffered a little, while destroying our stuff. I'd mentioned this thought to a couple people fairly unabashedly, but last night I hesitated because Angie was sitting there, Angie the queen of compassion herself. But you know what, instead of feeling bad for the guy and thus condemning me to be the spiritually immature grown-up in comparison, she kinda smiled as well. Instead of saying "Mommy, you shouldn't want revenge," she felt the same satisfaction that I had that the new owner of our precious little music had to pay for it a bit.

And in her commiseration with me instead of the bloody dude with all our gear, I saw my inconsistency. We started off joking about how Jesus wouldn't have wanted me to beat him up, as I'd threatened I would have done if I'd caught him in the act. And we began to talk about what Christ would really have done if he'd left church to find someone bleeding in his car tearing apart his dashboard. And then it got real. "If someone slaps you on one cheek turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them." We semi-kidded that instead of pepper-spraying the thief, he would have handed him the keys to the ignition. And we said that's why Jesus didn't have any stuff. But was it that He didn't have any stuff so He wouldn't have to be giving it away all the time, or did He not have any stuff because He was always giving it away all the time. Either way it's pretty clear His example is to not hold too tightly to our things.

So, the next time, if I surprise the guy breaking into my car, I'm not going to be able to call it manslaughter, because I've premeditated it, and I think I know what Jesus might do. My inconsistency's been brought to light. I'll have to at least bandage his wounds, if not give him the whole car. Who knew parenting would be so expensive?! Who knew following Christ would be so costly?! And I, for one, had no idea the two were so intertwined.