Grace from His Fullness

Sitting there in the corner of that little 500 square foot house, I looked around the room at the little faces of the kids that had gathered together that Saturday afternoon, almost thirty of them. It was hot and cramped and little two-year-old Francisco was not happy that his mom had brought him there.

Taiwani sat next to Mariclene and my mind went back to when they ran the streets together. They were like the dynamic duo, stealing fruit from the trees in our back yard and throwing mud at the house when we said it was time to go home. Now Mariclene has been part of our family for a year and a half this month, and oh how she has transformed. But Taiwani still wakes up to the same troubled house she lived in when we first met her two years ago. The stories I know are horrific.

I see the others. This one being raised by her elderly grandmother because her mom didn’t want her and her dad got remarried and his new wife didn’t want her either. This one who will likely not make it to thirteen before she has a baby of her own because all of her four sisters before her have walked that same road. This one who is so selfish and overbearing because her parents give her every last thing that she wants because it’s easier than teaching a child. After all, no one ever taught them.

Then there is little Chico who stands outside the doors all wide-eyed. He refuses to come in because he prefers to “run the streets”. He’s five.

There is Rafaela who has the sweetest little timid voice and I swear she hasn’t grown an inch these last two years. Her dad is a drunk, but her mama, who can’t read a single word and asks Rosa to count her money because she doesn’t know the difference, works hard to provide for her and her brother and sister, always smiling as she walks several miles to work and back.

And so many others sitting there laughing and coloring and listening and learning. I know pieces of their stories and this room feels so much smaller.

I feel so much smaller.

It’s always made me a little uneasy when I have people tell me that the ministry we do is “amazing” or “incredible” or “awesome”.  

To me it feels heavy and not enough. I feel inadequate and overwhelmed by the needs. I look around and I think, “We could never do enough to change-really, really change--this town.”

I know how weak I am. I know my own faults. How many days I just want to go away, back to the comforts and familiarities of my homeland. Imperfect, unable.

I know Rosa’s family struggles. I see the personal battles she faces and I watch as the “church” criticizes her every move as she seeks to be faithful to the calling He put in her heart twenty years ago. Imperfect, unable.

I know the financial needs. The funds are limited and I feel like we aren’t doing enough but a dollar only stretches so far so we have vitamins to supplement the physical lacking and prayer to increase awareness. Imperfect, unable.

I know the stories of these littles as they file in and out on Saturdays. I know many of the houses they go back to and I wonder, “Does this really even matter?” Imperfect, unable.

And then I hear it. When I step away from myself and all this imperfect, it’s there. That still, small voice again that faithfully reminds me:

“I AM enough.

I AM sufficient.

I AM here.

I AM at work.

I AM the Creator of all things.

I AM the Sustainer of all things.

I AM amazing.

This IS amazing. Because of Me.”

{Or, in the words of Francis Chan, “God says, ‘This is MY party and I invited YOU!’”}

And so I applaud this ministry and say at the top of my voice that YES! this ministry we are a part of IS amazing. YES! the work we do here IS amazing.

Because we are so very weak, but He is so very strong.

Because we can’t see past this difficulty or that obstacle, but He holds the future.

Because we are so far from perfect in our endeavors, but He sees the intentions of the heart.

Because... Grace.

“Indeed, we have all received grace after grace

from His fullness...”
John 1.16

If It Were Me

We drove by her in the taxi today. Her daughter was by my side and I pulled her in closer to me, just in case she had spotted her, too.

I felt it in the pit of my stomach, rising up as it does every time we cross paths. Even if she doesn’t see me, I see her and a wave of emotion overcomes me as I think:

What if that were me?

I glance over at my blonde-haired loves and wonder what it would be like to forget them. To know that they were out there somewhere, but to not really care. I pull my brown-eyed beauty closer still.

And I remember. Grace. That is the only difference.

Because sometimes I am tempted to be angry with her, this woman who gave birth to my daughter. I want to lash out even and say, “How could you?! Don’t you see what you have done? What mother can do that??”

Especially after long days when the thoughts try to enter my mind of how this woman abandoned this girl and now we are left piecing things back together while she goes on merry her way.

But it’s not really like that at all. Not one bit.

Because not too long ago, she was also that broken little girl. She was longing for love and a place to call home. I don’t know much about her, but I imagine she didn’t plan this life this way. I imagine in the beginning she didn’t plan to abandon her own flesh and blood, to leave them begging in the streets.

But she did.

And so will many others. Hopelessness.

And God knows I don’t have the answers to this cycle of hurt people hurting people. It’s a vicious cycle and when you live in the midst of it and you see the kids all around you that are just one short decade from statistically becoming the abandoners instead of the abandonees, it’s overwhelming.

Grace. It’s all there is.

And so we pray for this generation in this little Amazonian town that maybe God would allow us to be a tiny speck of a part in showing them what it can be like when the orphans have a true Father. When the abandonees can grow up to be men and women who love, give, serve, forgive.

God gave us one that is now tightly knit in our family forever.

For three others, He called us to start Grace House for them to find Refuge.

This year, we are praying that we can do even more in this little town to show God’s grace to these littles.

Will you join us? Will you commit to pray for Grace House and the abandoned and abused of this Jungle town?

Let’s be the church and watch as Christ transforms a generation that can impact generations to come.  

I Finally Let Myself Say It

I finally let myself say it.

I've been waiting for someone else to say it. Another mom. Another missionary. Anyone really.

But no one ever did. They'd say, "Wow, how do you do it?" or watch while I fumble--oh how I fumble--at trying to control screaming, whining, disobedient children, be a “good” missionary, maintain my sanity.

A house full of sinners just like me.

And all the while I kept thinking, "I don't know how I do it. I just know I do because I don't have a choice." I have been in survival mode for months now and I just wanted someone to take my stubborn, I-won't-ask-for-help-but-please-offer-it-and-I’ll-take-it-in-a-hartbeat hand and say, "It's ok. This thing you're doing, it's hard work."

I wanted permission to feel overwhelmed and burnt out. I wanted to hear that this "if-I-can-just-get-through-the-day" mentality is normal at times—or almost always—and does eventually pass.

But no one ever said that. Which in my mind just confirmed that something was wrong. I should be able to do this with a smile on my face and patience in my voice.

Then I read this book and I felt the greatest sense of relief because finally someone said it.

This is hard, overwhelming, exhausting work.

And I'm doing just fine.

I'm doing just fine because I realize I can't do it right on my own. And I'm learning—learning to lean on the One who can make all things right and new.

There are days I can muster up just enough strength to get out of bed after a long night with my one year old who still wants to nurse and stumble to the kitchen as I remind my whining, apparently famished older children that, yes, they will get breakfast this morning, just like every morning.

I go through my days of washing dishes piled high and sweeping the floors for the umpteenth time and wiping noses and settling disputes and running to grab the laundry off the line because its starting to rain again. Somewhere in there I mean to sit down and practice the alphabet with my oldest and work on numbers again with my boy, but my littlest is tired and now it's time for lunch and I need to pump more water and my washer is beeping at me and a family of Indians just showed up and well, I'll just remind myself that my kids won't be 30 years old and not know their numbers and letters.

I look at my life and remind myself of this:

Raising little humans is hard work.

Being a wife is hard work.

Living in the jungle is complicated, hard, exhausting work.

Constantly thinking and speaking in your second or third language is mentally exhausting.

Adopting a child out of birth order, with a traumatic past, and that doesn't speak your first language is exponentially challenging.

Rarely getting to speak to or see family and friends is emotionally taxing.

Living in another culture is frustrating, lonely, exhausting at times.

Now take all these and add them up and you get a messy, tiring, hard job.

So I'm trying to lighten up a little myself. Let myself mess up every now and then [or often, as the case may be] and rather than beat myself up over it, I'm learning to slide back under that umbrella of grace and say, "Thank you, Jesus, that your mercies are new every day and that your grace endures forever".

I'm so thankful that God is sovereign and that He has a plan for my children, my husband, and me that can't be thwarted. I can freely acknowledge my incompetence and failures and it is in that freedom that I find the motivation to try again.

To lean on the One who makes all things new.

To let my failures be growing moments instead of defeating mountains.

To trust Him as he takes me through the fire to make me pure as gold.

To stop worrying about what others think and say, because God knows me.

God knows me.

This is hard work. Just like Jesus promised it would be.

But oh how sweet to know He also promised He'd walk us through it, patiently, lovingly, always.

Is it time you let yourself say it, too?

“For it was You who created my inward parts; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise You because I have been remarkably and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, and I know this very well. My bones were not hidden from You when I was made in secret, when I was formed in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw me when I was formless; 

All my days were written in Your book and planned before a single one of them began.”

Psalm 139.13-16