When Dreams Die

“I think we know our answer, we just don’t want to admit it,” I said to him over lunch.

“I think you’re right,” he confessed. We ate in silence for a while after that. There wasn’t a whole lot to say.

That is what the moment was like when we finally laid to rest a dream we have had for nearly four years now. It was preceded by praying and talking and praying and seeking counsel and praying some more. And it ended with peace.

But that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt. A lot.

It’s hard to let go of a dream.

It was the dream of living in a village with an Indian tribe, learning their culture, living their ways. The dream of our children growing up with the village children, truly knowing their culture and language like we never could. It was a dream that we have had for nearly four years, but that had been meticulously planned for over a year.

And now the other side of our village was saying no. An adamant “no”. Myths and rumors permeate the culture as it is and somehow the idea had spread that we were there to steal their gold and their children.

Really?? After installing a water system, leading medical clinics, teaching, loving—that’s what they had come up with?? We were at a loss.

Now what? The land that our Indian brother had given to us was cleared. The wood (over $3,500 worth) was purchased, cut, and waiting for the FOUR teams of almost 50 people who already had tickets purchased to travel down in LESS THAN TWO WEEKS to build our house.

What in the world were we supposed to do?

The side of the village that did want us was encouraging us to move in anyway. ‘They will come around,’ they said.

But how do you share the Gospel and live out Christ when you start off ignoring the demand of the very people you are trying to reach? Should we really do like so many in the past who have used their status, skin color, and nationality to push their way around and earn the very reputation that so many missionaries have had in the region?

We knew that was not the answer, but the answer we had was hard to fathom: trust God was in fact closing this door that had seemed wide open for more than a year.

Talk about some BLIND faith. We had no idea what in the world He could be up to. We just had to trust He was up to something and that this new plan would in fact be for our good and His glory.

Once the decision was made to forego the house build, we decided to use the four teams to accomplish some of the other projects we had planned for later in the year at the Indigenous Seminary site. After all, we had plenty of manpower and the materials to get the jobs done.

The next four weeks were without a doubt the busiest of our lives. We hosted four teams from four different cities working in two locations on four projects. Thankfully God orchestrated each group so perfectly to fit the exact needs of the project at hand at exactly the right time. Everyone was super flexible (a must for any mission project) and despite the physical exhaustion, we arrived at the end of those four weeks feeling encouraged and so very blessed to be a part of the work that God is doing in this region.

So, where did that leave us? The Seminary site now had a fully functional bathroom and septic system as well as a five tank water system, but obviously that didn’t provide us a house to live in, as was the original purpose for these groups.

God was already on it way before we even knew we weren’t going to build a house.

Some fellow missionary friends of ours who live in the little Brazilian town of Benjamin Constant had asked a local pastor to hold onto a house he was trying to rent out to see if we would want to rent it.

We went and looked at the house to see if it would work for us.

Love. At. First. Sight.

Not only was it perfect for us, it was above and beyond what we could have imagined and the rent was 1/4 the amount that we were paying in Recife for 2.5 times the space. In fact, it was big enough to be able to host families. Its location was amazing at the end of a quiet street with jungle all behind and beside and a beautiful view of farmland out front. To top it all off, it was in a neighborhood full of kids in government housing who desperately needed the love of Jesus. And the town itself is only 20 minutes by speedboat to our village, 45 minutes to Atalaia do Norte where we work with the Javari Project. And the land that has already been purchased for the aircraft hangar with our missionary partner is less than a mile from the house.

Seriously?!

We couldn’t believe how perfectly things had fallen into place.

Not long after moving into our house, Richard and I found a passage of scripture that really stood out to me.

“I assure you: Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains by itself. But if it dies, it produces a large crop. The one who loves his life will lose it, and the one who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me. Where I am, there My servant also will be. If anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.” –John 12.24-26

Since moving here, I don’t know how many times we have thanked the Lord that He closed the door to live in the village. We have already faced many trials involving the Indians and their vastly different and difficult culture that we know would have only been more challenging had we lived there.

God knew exactly what He was doing and that we would in fact be much more effective in reaching these people by not living with them—something we didn’t see or understand before.

Where we are now, we have already been able to minister to the needs of our neighborhood while working with the Indigenous leadership in our village, traveling to Atalaia for Project Javari, and working closely with our aviation partner to get the program up and running.

Like the verse says, when we allowed our own dreams and plans to die—even though they seemed “good” all along—when we surrendered them to God’s best, we were able to see that our “crop” here will be much greater and more efficient.

We could have held on to that dream. It was, after all, a “good” dream. But when that one died, something even greater was born. Already we have treated medical needs, had a family in great need stay with us for four days, fed and bathed street kids, built solid relationships with neighbors, discipled new believers, encouraged leadership,  and strategized to reach the unreached… and it’s only been a month!

We are so thankful that God gave us the faith to follow Him on this journey and we pray are hearts always remain open to His perfect plans—even if it means the death of a dream.

Five Minute Friday: Home

It's Friday again and that means I'm linking up with Lisa-Jo for Five Minute Friday. Five minutes of writing from the heart. Go.

I don’t know where it came from, but I remember it clearly, sitting on the wooden shelf behind the sofa in the house I spent some of my most formative days as a child.

“Home is Where the Heart Is” it read, with a little red heart where the word heart would otherwise be.

Now I understand, though then it was just a fixture on the wall. Now it’s a very logical phrase.

A year ago, heck, five years ago, my home was a little gray house that I loved. A house filled with memories and the pitter patter of our baby boy and the scratches from our boxer boy on that beautiful hardwood floor that we polished to a shine right before we got married and moved there together. That was home after long trips and long days.

That home slowly became a house and then it was sold.

Now, as we prepare to move from our apartment we’ve tried to call home here in the city for the last six months we feel like nomads in a foreign land. Maybe because that’s what we are.

So home has, by necessity, become where our heart is. In a week we will step on yet another airplane and fly to the place we’ve longed to call home for four years now—the Jungle.

That is where our heart is. And that will be home. A different home, but a beautiful one indeed.

 Home is..

...where the...

 ...heart is.

Some days my heart is full and there is plenty I want to say but I have no way to say it.

That's when I just whisper to God, "Hear my heart."

And I rest in that.

Because He does.

 "The Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things,

 but one thing is necessary."'

Luke 10.41-42a

We Aren't the Only Ones

"I want to play iPad with Lita," he said from the backseat.

"That would be fun, wouldn't it?" I said, trying to sound upbeat.

"Yeah," he was more somber this time. "Because I'm sad."

He always puts the word "because" in front of his emotion. That's when my heart melts and I know things are serious. That's when we talk the hard stuff.

"Why are you sad, Buddyroo?"

"Because I just want to go to Lita's house and play iPad with her and eat chocolate."

His little almost-three-year-old brain remembers and I fight tears and wish that those thousands of miles were still just five miles and he looks out the window and I try think of the words to explain why that will have to wait for now.

We aren't the only ones who are "sacrificing" here.

In fact, I don't really consider what Richard and I do as much of a sacrifice. It's life and we know the call and we live it and love it and life is new and, even with the challenges, there is reward.

It's our parents, our families. They are the ones sacrificing.

When we left the US six months ago, our lives changed. We jumped right into a new culture and new adventures and new challenges. But our families, they stayed. They learned to live life without us right down the street and no more Sunday afternoon lunches at my mom's house and no more dropping Elliott off at Richard's parents' for a date night and no more "let's go to dinner with the siblings".

Life was new here and busy with having a baby and doing paperwork and meeting new people and planning.

But thousands of miles away it was just a new empty in the everyday.

That's harder.

Yes, there is Skype and Facebook to "watch" the kids grow. And thank goodness for modern travel that makes it just a 24 hour trip to get where we are. But there aren't hugs and kisses and sleepovers and birthday parties and summer swimming and walks in the park and "can you take me to the playground?"

And soon it will be harder. In just ten days we move to the jungle where communication steps back 15 years. Where internet is slooooooow and Skype is a rarity.

Instead of watching the steady growth of the grandkids it will seem like leaps and bounds as the months pass.

They watch from afar as we deal with illness and stress and disappointment and they can only cry with us and pray because no one has figured out how to send a virtual hug and teleportation has yet to be invented and when they close that Skype session or e-mail, life moves on and they can only wait for the next word.

It is hardest for those who didn't choose this path.

The scripture always comes to mind in Luke 14.26:

“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, and even his own life—he cannot be My disciple."

That verse used to bother me as a child. Why would a loving God require us to hate those we love most? Doesn't He teach love?

Now I get it. It feels like hate sometimes--unintentional hate. It even looks like hate to the world.

We wish it could be different. That we could have the best of both worlds. That our kids could live down the road from their grandparents and all of the holidays were filled with memories together and Skype was just an obscure word for something unfamiliar and that somehow we could still fulfill this calling and reach these tribes and love them like Christ.

Instead there are goodbyes and we'll talk again soon and maybe see you in October.

That will have to do for now.

But through it all--through it ALL--our families have stood with us. They've supported us every single step on this journey even though their hearts ache and they wish it were different, they know and understand the call because they love this same Jesus.

For that, we're forever grateful.

We're grateful for the sacrifice that they make that is so very real and the tears that they cry because it makes this all a whole lot easier when there isn't bitterness and "why?" Instead there is "we are proud of you" and "we miss you so much and we can't wait to see you" and "I love you and I'm praying for you". There are big hugs and tears of joy when we're reunited instead of guilt trips and "don't go".

So we say "Thank You" to our families. Thanks for believing in us and letting us follow Christ without making it harder than it is. Thank you for praying and giving and loving and encouraging and being there and understanding even when you don't really understand.

Thanks for sacrificing.

And this can be repeated for all the families out there who say goodbye as their children and grandchildren and brothers and sisters and loved ones follow a call that leads to another city or country.

So next time you pray for us or another missionary family, say a prayer for the families who stay behind.

 

This is their sacrifice, too.

 

 

 

Airport Goodbyes, August 29, 2012

 

 

 

 Family Visits, December 2012 and January 2013

 

 

 

Five Minute Friday: Ordinary

Joining in again this week with Liso-Jo and Five Minute Friday. Five minutes of writing from the heart. This week's word is "ordinary". Go.

“It’s amazing what you guys are doing! I could never do that!”

‘We are so very, very ordinary,’ I think to myself each and every time I hear those words. 'I wish you could see that part.'

Because while there is jungle and river and village and canoe, there is also dishes and bedtime and whining children and “we forgot the toilet paper!”

As I battle every day through the ordinary that fills our lives only sprinkled with brief moments of extraordinary that come from God Himself, I feel very small and unworthy and unprepared for all of this. I tell a friend that I feel like there is nothing I have to offer and she reminds me that it’s the ordinary ones that God used the most in Scripture and today is no different.

So I write and share and live and try to convey this: we are just ordinary people striving to glorify and extraordinary God.

And aren’t we all? Even those we serve and those who give so we can go and those who go—all just ordinary. It’s not until the God of the extraordinary gets His hands on the molding clay that we are turned into something beautiful and even then it’s not our beauty, but His reflecting through us.

So there will be babies born with nothing and Indians traveling for days to hospitals and flights to carry sick to the doctors and all of this. But those dishes still stack up and didn’t I already sweep twice today?

And it’s those ordinary moments that seep humility into our lives so that God can be big 

and we can remain so very small. 

 Washing dishes in the river... Ordinary Indian life.

Five Minute Friday: Beloved

Linking up for Five Minute Friday again. Five minutes of writing, straight from the heart. Go.

"I bet you didn't picture yourself here nine Valentine's Days ago, huh?" He asked me with a smirk and a flirt in his eyes. 

"No, I absolutely didn't. No one warned me," I say with a wink, returning the playfulness. 

It is probably better that way--that we don't know what the future holds. 

I imagine that if someone would have laid out the past nine years in front of me when I was just 17 years old I probably would have run in the opposite direction. 

Because this journey has to be slow, one faithful step at a time. This growing has to take time. No one can drink from a fire hydrant. 

Now we sit together on a tiny sofa, barely big enough for the two of us, with two--yes, two!--kiddos fast asleep in our tiny apartment here in the middle of Recife, Brazil. Just four weeks from now we will once again pack up our possessions and move, this time to the Jungle where our hearts have resided for over four years now. 

And my heart is full. 

If I had seen this nine years ago, I probably would have been scared. But to say "no"…. I would have missed out on so very much. 

"Thanks for walking this journey with me," he says. 

I smile. 

How could I not? What's better than an adventurous life with my love, serving my Beloved?

Let's do this thing.

Me and Richard on our very first trip to the Amazon, April 2009. 

Praying Bold

We are praying bold these days.

After Richard's most recent trip, we don't have a choice.

The needs are tremendous. The potential is unbelievable. The passion is overwhelming.

Our hands are empty and our hearts are full as we ask God to move in hearts, provide for needs, 

glorify His Name.

We ask Him to do what only He can--perform miracles.

Will you join us in this prayer? 

Will you join us as we ask God to make His name known in some of the darkest regions on the planet where His name has never been mentioned?

Some of Marcos' disciples

These boys traveled six days just like this to carry the Good News to their people.

"The prayer of a righteous person has 

great power as it is working."

James 5.16b