Love Does-My Take on Things

I cringe when I start out to write a book review. I now personally understand the doubt, angst, joy, tears, and struggle that come with putting into words what your brain is still trying to make sense of. But because this book is gaining traction in America, I felt like chiming might be helpful as we process together what our lives should look like as followers of Jesus. *Minor spoiler alert. This is long, but I'd LOVE feedback on this.

I've only had one cup of coffee today, so I'm gonna keep this discussion at 3 strong points and 3 points of caution.


Here's where I thought he nailed it:

1. Love is messy. Many times as believers we can spin our wheels driving from one Christian event to another. Being a part of the world is messy and even scary at times. Bob Goff challenged me to make that phone call or invite that one person over for dinner that gets overlooked in most social circles. Throw yourself into the ring. You might get banged up but at least your playing.

2. Love demands sacrifice. To say we want to love someone will demand of us to give money away and say no to things that we would rather be doing. Love requires us to cash in when we say we want to bring dinner over or baby-sit for a neighbor. Bob tells stories of getting on a plane to fly to Uganda and aid in the rescuing of young boys from jail. He didn't sit back and pray for so long that his passion about it faded. He acted.

3. Love is dangerous. There are days, sometimes hours, that will require us to do irrational things for the sake of love. On a yearly basis, my father reminds me that if anything ever happened to us as a family, he'd be on a plane within 24 hours. Impulsive, irrational love. Like Jesus letting Judas play on his team with the other disciples. That was a dangerous call, but for the time, it was also incredibly loving. There are times we are called to include the Judas' or to give our brand new cars away to a single mom. Glorious, dangerous love.


Here's where I need to offer caution. (By 3 points, I actually meant 4. We're working on a curve today. Remember the bit about coffee?)


1. Love doesn't always have a large bank roll or important friends. Goff clearly has a few extra pennies to spare and more than a few friends who can make things happen. In most of his adventures, the focus is on spontaneity. Getting on a plane to London because your 10-year old says she wants to go isn't inherently Christian. It's just a really fun thing to do and it also requires quite a bit of liquid income.

It might sound ludicrous for him to just call up John Ashcroft like he did, but let's keep in mind he was also the Counsel for Uganda. It's not like I'M calling up John Ashcroft to come over and play checkers. Goff has connections, so let's not make decisions that in the same light, but without the same amount of money or friendship connections. I get nervous that people will try to emulate his spontaneity, but not have the resources to be able to bail them out when bad things happen.


2. Love does need knowledge of what the Lord is like. One of the chapters talks about his "Bible doing," instead of a "Bible study." I get where he's going with this; let's do more action and less learning and sitting. I did feel like he became a bit patronizing to studying the Bible though. If we are just sitting around with our Bibles in our laps talking about good things we should be doing, how do can we know that what we're doing is actually the heart of God?

We need to know what brings him glory, what makes him angry, how it is that he shows patience. I can learn to do good things by simply going to a Rotary Club meeting or watching Dr. Phil. The heart of God is what motivates us to action and sustains us when we're weary.



3. Love being given and love needing to be received are sometimes different.  Towards the end of the book, he briefly mentions that the Ugandan government was simply taking too long to give them approval for their school, so they went ahead and built it anyway. While this might look bold and radical to an American reader, red flags were immediately raised in my mind. Too often I see Americans coming overseas and assuming what they are doing is most helpful. They skip over doing research or interviewing and just assume the ministry they are offering is just what these people are needing. Overseas, Americans already have a reputation for coming in like a linebacker into a quilting club. We knock people over and tear things apart all because we just wanted to make a difference. I appreciate the heart to help. (Just this past week I linked a great video about thinking we're being helpful. It's a parody on Toms Shoes. It's funny and fantastic. Here's the link)

We have to be wise and usually slow. Governments work slowly. Local authorities work slowly. Sometimes the government and the person in charge are two totally separate entities. It takes time to figure these things out. Training and equipping ourselves before we jump into a project will lead to a ministry that will stay for the long term. Burning bridges simply because we want to see our ministry "succeed" is arrogant and imperialistic.

4. Love can also mean common sense. Goff is clearly an adrenaline junkie. I felt like so many of his stories were just ones of him having whimsical fun and then challenging us to live our lives like that. But Scripture also very clearly tells us that there are wise and unwise ways of doing things.

I fear a 19-year old guy getting a hold of this book and then consequently dropping out of school to live in the jungles of Peru, building wells. He would have no training and no resources, but he would living life to the fullest and somehow that's to be commended. There are absolutely times that the Lord calls us to things that make little earthly sense. But I would say that most often, he puts people in our lives and training in our paths so that we can be the most effective witnesses possible. Let's not forsake those so that we can post, "You Only Live Once!" on your FB photos from Peru.

There seems to be a wave of adrenaline seeking Christians who aren't thinking about getting trained or how to humbly enter a place asking more questions than giving answers. This kind of zealousness is scary. Action is important, crucial even. Adventure is temporary. The adrenaline does wear off and if we're going to be in a place to make a long-term impact, we have to intimately know the God who sent us in the first place.

Ethiopian Day for History

 

We are studying Africa in our History curriculum and Ethiopia was featured recently! A few extra hours were spent this week reading, map searching, and documentary watching. When I told Makaria it was Ethiopia night, she squealed in excitement. When I told Makaria that Mommy was making all the food, she solemnly replied, "Oh, that's not good." Thank you for that.

 

The girls performed a traditional dance while watching youtube videos. It was like karoake, but with dance moves. I think we should have youtube teleprompt what we should say in difficult situations. Like how to confront a friend. That would be an awesome invention. 

 

Charis' friend was spending the night. At one point, I heard her whisper to herself, "Well, I wasn't expecting this." Welcome to our home.

 

I made several Ethiopian dishes and served them on injera. My husband was excited that I found a non-fermented version of injera, which probably makes it non-injera. But for hubs, this made it edible. 

 

There were menus, welcome signs, burning incense, drumming, and traditional Ethiopian music. Before we ate, we thanked Jesus for the food and spent a few minutes praying for the Ethiopian church.  I love hearing our kids search the depths of God on behalf of these brothers and sisters there. 

The girls were the hostesses and ushered the guests to their seats while serving drinks.

  

The older 3 made replicas of the famous Lalibella church.

Each one gave a brief presentation of the building process and the festivals surrounding this historic place of worship.  These churches are dug into the ground into one solid piece of rock.

 

 

M-girl colored Africa and explained where Ethiopia was located. 

 

Despite looking like he just lost a bar fight, K-man also explained his map and spent 1 minute or so waving the Ethiopian flag and marching. 

 

My second oldest explained the demographics and economics of the country. Several times he pointed out Ethiopia's proximity to Djibouti. Emphasizing the pronunciation, "DID GYA BOOTY!"

 

My #3 danced and shared some more music with us. 

 

For desert, sugar cookies made by this dude. He arranged them in the colors of the flag. 

 

We had such a blast and I will say that the food was fantastic. My kids all requested we have Ethiopian food once a week. They all did such a spectacular job presenting their parts and learning about this fabulous country.

A little time away at the hot springs

 

 

These three wonderful people gave B and I a night away last week. Whenever we get time away, we always say we're just going to take a 7 hour nap. But we also want to do things that are only fun on paper when you are bringing 5 kids along.

 

Our city is famous for its hot springs. It never claimed to be famous for its clean hot springs. The frogs swimming around in this hot spring were not a part of the massage techniques, but rather a part of 

 

There were several pools with various additives such as wine, milk, and tea. You sat in almost boiling water (we're talking 113 degrees F). Most of them were too hot for us, but were a few that we could manage to sit in and still feel our feet. 

 

The smoking, half-toothless manager brought us around the corner to the fish massage place. B had never done this before, so I was excited to see his reaction. 

 

And well, here was his reaction. These fish eat off the dead skin on your body. It's a complete mind over matter thing because it just feels like bubbles, but is in fact tiny fish feeding off your flesh. We stayed there for a long time and tried not to think about the fish excrement that was entering our ears. 

 

Another pool area was filled with different types of jets. The one I'm in here was a chair lined with small jets. I wanted to bring this home. 

 

 

We ate cream puffs. 

 

Took a 2 1/2 hour nap. Walked.

 

Ate hot pot. 

When you've got 5 kids, getting away like this is virtually impossible. Our sweet friends swung a little homeschool, multiple meals, devo and prayer time in the morning, and still managed to remain our friends.  Awesome.

Reflecting on a Living Hope

 

**The eery part of this post is that I wrote it about two weeks ago and set it to post today...the same day that the Boston Marathon bombers were brought to justice. 

What does it mean to be born again to a living hope?

What is a living hope?

A hope that isn’t confined to death and discouragement. 

A hope that is not victim to evil usurpation.   

Immovable and defined by the only one who has the power to define a promise like that. God. If God grants that hope is living, He has to be able to cash that in when we despair. We have to sit back and trust that when he says “Living Hope,” he means it and will do whatever is needed to assure that his hope does not fade.

Our inheritance is also alive. 

Alive in the sense that there will be no corruption or perishing when we obtain it in heaven. However heaven looks, we can be assured that God will command all things to life. 

Death will have no inroad. 

Despair will not be considered. 

Defilement will find no place. 

Life will rule the day. 

Life will define all our relationships. 

Life will be defined by goodness. 

Words spoken will be put together with letters of hope and joy. Pauses in our days will be filled with a silent worship, not devising schemes of revenge. Anger will be held at bay. Racisim will never occur to the minds of a people who are surrendered to a living hope. These bouts of corruption are out of place in a kingdom that God creates. A infalliable place where both joy and worship work symmetrically together to give us a peaceful place to exist for all of eternity. If nothing else, this should give us hope. 

It should make us stop when we are anxious about work and find gladness in our future grace. This type of promise should allow us to breathe deeply when we find ourselves broken and depleted of all goodness.

Life here doesn’t make sense. On many levels. We end our day with more questions than answers. With feeling more discouraged than alive.

But there will come a day. A day that we will be able to express a joy in God that we can’t seem to grasp here on this earth and for this time.

But there will come a day.  A day when no orphan will wander around looking for arms to curl up into.

But there will come a day. A day when we can look around at our brothers and sisters around the world and not reject others on account of cultural differences, but rejoice in the creative design of our Father. 

It's in these things that we can get up each morning and proclaim that God is good. Not because of our desire to escape this world, but because we understand that hope is obtainable. Goodness is an option. 

God has prepared a place. 

**It is this very hope that will bring us to pray for not only the victim's families, but the bombers' families too. Hope is not reserved for those whom WE deem fit. That's the Lord's job.

My girl on guitar

 

I have been teaching my baby girl how to play guitar for the last 6 months. It involves a lot of you tube videos and use of the words, "I don't know." We have had a blast. Last week, for the first time, she lead out on the musical part of worship. It was one of the the most satisfying things I've seen and heard in 2013. To watch her give back to the Lord and surrender herself to the task of playing guitar in front of people was simply beautiful. 

Adjective, Hide yo' Wife...

"Adjective.

Adjective…

Adjective, hide yo' wife, hide yo' husbands."

This is a verbatim quote from my 5-year old son last week as we studied grammar. If you have been stuck on some remote island near Guam and haven't seen this video, here it is.

Help me now.

Us Lately.

I'm working on margin. I've said 'yes' to others while saying, "Um, no time for that," to my kids and husband. Hence the lack of updatey type of blogs. So I'm cramming several months into one post. It's all about pacifying blog guilt. 

 

We will start in Jan. with the birthday of my second oldest. Every good celebration involves silly string. And velveeta cheese. Living where we do, silly string is in abundance because it's sprayed on brides as they get out of the car. Velveeta is not. Moment of silence.

We also celebrated my #3. These two little people pretty much rock my world. Malachi is introspective, thoughtful, a thinker, has a strong sense of justice, and loves playing with little kids. Charis is silly, gentle, free-spirited, compassionate and always roots for the underdog. 

 

 She requested homemade donuts for her birthday meal. I'm not a big donut fan, but I wanted to name my next kid after this recipe. And yes, that's after the realization that I'd have a kid named "Chocolate Donut." They were that good.

 

A friend who lived in our city for 6 months sent us an awesome package. Because he had lived here before, he totally understood our need for good coffee and chocolate that didn't taste like a crayon. 

I had hair issues. I had to travel to Hong Kong in order to pick up my daughter's ADHD meds. In China, they will give you 7 days of ADHD meds at a time. After that, it's back to the hospital to get re-evaluated. Because you might have heard of my love for Chinese hospitals, this is a non-option. While there, I forwent the hair cut and decided on a body wave instead. They are cheap and allow me to do something with my hair other than put it in a clip. Everyday.

  

I was waiting for friends to join us for an Easter egg hunt. I decided to try those non-smiling pictures. Others seem to take these types of pictures and look wise, pensive, thoughtful, contemplative. I look like I'm trying to keep bodily functions from escaping in public.

 

This family that we did our vacation time with joined us for a few days. It is beyond humorous to walk in public with them in China. People assume we're an international school on a field trip. 

 

We got to hang with some wonderful college students and do a little Easter discussion. It was super fun. 

Anyway, there's the debrief of our last few months. I've got some great link-ups that I'm wanting to share. I'll get to that in the next week or so...hopefully.

Starting to Write

I have people all the time tell me they have wanted to write a book. They dreamed about it, sat down to start, got distracted with life, and eventually quit altogether. This isn't an exhaustive list, but here are a few places that you can land that might help.

Rachelle Gardner is a publishing agent and super down to earth. I find her advice helpful and not pretentious. She seems to rally behind the author and not just the next buck to be made.
She has a great post titled, "Sometimes you Fail, and it Sucks."  For an author, that's always an applicable blog title.

She also has some great links here. 


Lucid Books is the publishing company that I used...and loved. Their blog always has some practical tips on writing, publishing, reading, and selling effectively. This post titled, "Mastering the Art of Writing," that has several great resources linked up. They also have a helpful post called, "7 Tips to Improve your Writing."

Most of what they write is easy to put into practice and makes you think through your writing/publishing process.

 

I gave props to Anne Lamott's book, "Bird by Bird," in this post. It will spark creativity and give you some handles for starting the writing process.

 

Douglas Wilson's Wordsmithy is a quick easy read. He explains the power of words and how to use them most efficiently. I found this helpful in my intentionality with word choice. 


I could link up hundreds of helpful sites and resources, but at the bottom of all of this is to answer these two questions:

If so, what excuse are you currently using as to why you haven't started?

What fear is whispering to you?

I've chronicled a bit of my writing process at "How the Heck did you have Time?"


People often tell me that they want to write. My advice every time is...then start writing. Everyday, write something. Tell your fear to back off and start writing.

It's Gonna Rain and Grace in a Chinese Computer Store

For the last few months, it's been much easier (and if I'm honest, much more comfortable) to put on complaining, frustration, resentment, and judgement. 

The people in the apartment below us have been drilling non-stop 8 am-6 pm everyday. 

Our electricity goes out several times an hour.

We currently have no hot water. 

On Monday, I will be getting in a taxi, a bus, an airplane, and a subway to simply pick up my daughter's ADHD medicine. 

You see, complaining is easy. And sometimes it seems justified, especially living overseas. Usually  my complaining comes because I am comparing my life here to what things would look like in the States (or at least as I've contrived them in my head.)

In America:

 People don't destroy and then rebuild their apartments while others are still living there. 

You don't share electricity with the local grocery store.

There is always hot water.

I drive through at CVS and pick up medicine in my air-conditioned car. 

You see where this is going. God's words to "Put on...compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, love, peace, thankfulness..." don't give me an out because of where I'm living or what situation I find myself floundering in. Paul asks of us to purposefully put these things on because he knows that if we don't, we will pick up the nearest pair of comfortable jeans in the form of complaining and ungratefulness. Those are secure friends that justify our desires and lusts of every sort. This has to be a conscience act of putting on holiness. 

It's gonna rain. Let's just all own this together. It's gonna rain. Life is going to splash you in the face, dizzying our focus and crippling our ability to stand upright. It's going to swipe at us from the side, buckling our faith in goodness. The rains will slowly fall for so long that we no longer understand what it looks like to be dry. And we become accustomed to being so bound in our own lives that freedom simply becomes wishful thinking.

 

I picture putting on the clothes of holiness as these umbrellas. Pauses of grace and allow us to keep walking from rainstorm to drizzle to fog to typhoon. When we put on thankfulness, we hear our kids asking why God made water instead of complaining that it's not hot. When we wake up and find peace, we can light a candle and allow the family to eat like frontiers instead of sighing about the electricity again.  

Pauses of grace.

They allow us to breathe.

They give us a moment to wipe our ragged, tired, wet hair out of our eyes so that we can see what's ahead instead of habitually putting one foot in front of the other. 

They remind us that gray clouds do eventually blow through and it's in those moments that we find ourselves even more grateful for the soft touches of the sun.

They allow us to look heavenward and remind us that we aren't forgotten down here. That in wearing compassionate hearts and patient words, we are among holy moments.

The rain is a guarantee, the pauses of grace are the gift.

 

One moment of grace happened yesterday as we were shopping for a computer cord. As this song came on...I paused. Wondering why on earth Chris Tomlin was playing in a Chinese computer store, I smiled. Hubs and I thanked God for the 3-minute moment of remembering that grace will find us, we just have to be willing to see.

Thailand Vacay

I'm not even going to commentate on all of these because there are 27 pictures. Just know that anytime you give me awesome women, thailand, and a croc wearing Spider-Man, that a good time was had. 

Can you read the tired all over my face? I traveled with the kids by myself and decided it was a good idea to do the dentist and immunizations for all of them before Daddy got there. Hence the fatigue and the 30 oz. Thai milk tea I'm about to consume. 

This was Makaria's first time at the beach. The sand freaked her out at first, but she is in love with the water. This girl swam from dawn to dusk. 

At some point before college, I'm going to have to break it to Kesed that people in America don't wear swim caps. Ever.

This was the eating area. It was 15 seconds from the beach. Perfect.

Our sweet friend broke her arm the night before we left for vacation. She was a trooper though. 

We love this family. I love sitting around the dinner table with them, thankful that their kids are in my kid's lives. The same goes with the parents. We just love them.

The only time we left the resort was to take a trip around the islands. Monkey Island was the first stop. 

These monkeys freaked me out. A friend told me about a random strain of hepatitis that we were sure to contract, so already I was panicky about them jumping on us. 

When you have a child who's afro requires gel, the attacking monkeys will try to eat her scalp. I was not ready for that. 

They all thought it was hilarious and asked to do it again. Everyone...except for me.

This is the most relaxed position I've seen him in for a long time. It's a "post PhD" pose.

We have vacationed with this family several times and every time we walk away refreshed, encouraged, and excited about the Lord. And I will say, vacationing with another family is a gamble. But with these guys it's a good choice every time. 

And I leave you with this. Do I not look totally thrilled to be wearing a muddy, hepatitis carrying, greedy little monkey. Thrilled. To. No. End.