Thankful Thursday: Baby Steps

I finally had them all occupied. With my kids and the two other MKs staying with me splashing happily in the basin of water around back and soaking each other to the core, I quietly slipped into my bedroom for some “me” time.

About the time I unplugged the computer from the charger, my oldest walked in and in her newfound English speaking confidence asked, “Mommy, will you play game with me?”

No. I wanted to say it. No, I don’t want to play a game with you. I want to sit, alone, uninterrupted and try to get some things accomplished that have been calling out to me for days. That e-mail to the Consulate about the visa. Those e-mails to supporters. Those pictures uploaded.

These things were not going to accomplish themselves and as far as I could see it, now was my only time.

“Yes. What game would you like to play?” I felt the words squeeze from my lips. I regretted them as soon as they came out. But alas, it was done and I was walking back to the kitchen table to play a game.

She picked the matching rhyme game… the English matching rhyme game that I knew she didn’t know how to play. I held back my sigh. I didn’t want to play a game to begin with, but I CERTAINLY didn’t want to play a game I was going to have to teach.

And then it happened. She surprised me.

During rest time, she had worked with Jesse, another missionary kid who is staying with us for a few days while Richard is out of town, and had learned not only several new English words but also what they rhymed with.

To say I was shocked would be an understatement. She had taken the initiative and she had done something that she could be proud of. And I was proud, too.

And thankful. Thankful that I had taken the time out of my “busy” life to sit with her and be in that moment.

My mind went back to the little almost-savage girl that had sat in my living room floor just over a year ago, angry to the point of screaming because she couldn’t put together a simple puzzle made for a three year old. She was six and a half.

Thankful.

Some days—many days—are still filled with us struggling against that street girl who is still protecting herself from the cold world in which she survived her first six years. A world full of hate and abuse and neglect and hunger and abandonment. She does not yet fully grasp what it is to be adopted, rescued, chosen. She lies compulsively to protect herself because she doesn’t know what it means to be a daughter in a family that loves and speaks truth.

So I sat there and high-fived my brown-eyed big girl, amazed at how far she has come, though so keenly aware of how far she has yet to go.

Thankful for baby steps.

When Polygamy Saves Lives

I peeked ever so gently over the edge of the hammock, not wanting to disturb the little bundles inside.

As I gazed down at these two little black-headed sleeping beauties all of the sudden I was overwhelmed. I felt like I was on holy ground. Like I should take my shoes off because in front of me were two miracles of life that God Himself had knit together in the womb of this young Matis Indian woman.

When He did so, He knew that twins were taboo. That to gift this family with two babies birthed at the same time from one womb was to offend their culture and test their conscience. He knew that because He made their culture.

And the story is not simple.

Not long before I had the privilege just to look upon these two boys, Marcos Mayoruna sat on the floor with the father, Ian.

“If you don’t want to keep these babies, I have a place. You say the word and we will give them a home (referring to the home in Manaus that Richard recently visited that was established for this very purpose). But I need you to know that these are from God. He created these little humans and they are not evil. The time to decide is now,” Marcos, an infanticide survivor in his own tribe, spoke boldly. And those words must have been heavy for this man, a leader in his tribe. He knows his people, his culture, and the weight of this decision should he decide to keep what has for so many generations been considered a curse to his people.

“I will keep them,” he responded.

But the story goes deeper.

For years, Marcos has been building up a relationship with Ian, a witchdoctor. In fact, when we first met Marcos back in 2010, we met Ian and his wife as well. One of Ian’s sons, Tumi, was discipled through Marcos’ program and has become a strong believer and dedicated follower of Christ. They have faithfully lived out the Gospel in front of them and shown that there is another way.

There is still more to this story, though.

Ian agreed to allow his sons to live because of one, sovereign circumstance in his life. You see, he has two wives and for many years his second wife has not been able to conceive. He decided that the birth mother would raise one of the sons and the other wife would raise the other.

For the first time in the history of this tribe, twins would live.

Oh, please don’t let your rejoicing with us cease. So many missionaries and believers would mourn this as a loss. ‘What a tragedy,’ they would say, ‘that these children will grow up in this environment!’

But, no, we should rejoice all the more!! Not because of the practice of polygamy but because of God’s redemption of it. Were it not for this unbiblical practice, two little lives, knit together by God’s own hands would have been snuffed out.

Buried alive.

God in His sovereignty has allowed a pagan practice to save the lives of two boys that may one day be the voice of the Gospel to their people.

Praise His Name!

As they shared this story with me, I stood there humbled at what a God we serve. We “white people” are gifted in the art of “divide and conquer”. We often make it our responsibility to save the lost, to change their culture. To make them look like us, live like us, act like us.

We see it all. the. time. down here.

And all the while we unintentionally and even perhaps unknowingly take God completely out of the equation. We forget that this is His party and He invited us.

So we do things like go in villages and preach that a man must only have one wife, forgetting that God told us to do nothing more than to preach the Gospel and make disciples. The Spirit will do the work. (Oh, how we love to preach the law!!) In our ignorance and pride, we forget that these women are dependent on their husband and to tell him to pick one is to leave the others helpless, hopeless, homeless. Widowed women and orphaned children. 

We long so badly for raised hands and numbers to report and stories to tell that these natives become nothing more than a people group for us to conquer and add to our evangelical lists of “reached”.

God help us.

We ignore the requests of the very people we say we want to reach, disrespecting their intelligence and culture, entering their land without permission or invitation. Meanwhile, solid, faithful Indigenous Believers who know the culture, know the language, know the Gospel and know how to present it in a relevant way to their own people are left in the wake of our rush to “reach the unreached” trying to mend broken relationship and retell the Gospel truth as it applies to their people.

Forgive our selfish ambitions, Lord.

As I listened more to this story, Marcos’ wife, Josi, said something that struck a cord in my heart.

“Several missionaries tried to take these twins. They thought if they could just take them and raise them that it would be another problem solved,” she shared with me, clearly disheartened by these attempts. “But it was an indigenous believer, Ian’s own son (who was discipled by Marcos) who said to his father, ‘No, you must keep them. They are yours. It is time to stop this practice of killing the innocent.’”

She continued, “If we don’t teach them, they will never know. We can’t intervene every time and expect change.”

Immediately my mind went back to the time several months ago when Marcos told us something else that I will never forget.

Sitting in the floor of his home, listening to his wisdom, he said, “We are not in a hurry. Foreigner Believers want to come in here and make things happen. They want to see people converted and whole tribes transformed. The reality is, we may never see that in our lifetime. And we don’t have to.

We are working on God’s timeline, not our own.”

God, help us to stop trying to save the world and just be faithful disciplers as you have called us. Help us to lose sight of the timelines and numbers that cloud our view from the miracles that are happening all around us. Lord, may  we stop preaching law and start preaching grace, knowing you are bigger than our sin. So big, in fact, that you can use it for your glory.

God, help us to put down the Jim Elliot biographies and pick up your Word, genuinely seeking Your will and our role in Your story, not an fantasized version of the glory days.

Help us to make You the Savior. Not us.

Meet Frankie

It was almost 9pm and Richard was coming back from running a late night errand. He would always glance down one of the side roads on our street, trying to catch a glimpse of the kids who frequented our home. Usually they were out playing in the street, dirty as could be, without an adult in sight aside from the occasional drunk man passed out on the side of the road.

This time was no different and he spotted little Frankie running towards him. He recognized his little voice shouting, “Estou com fome!!” (I’m hungry!)

He told me this when he got home and my heart broke just a little more for these kids.

That was more than a year ago now, back when starting a children’s home was just a whisper from the Holy Spirit. Back when we were still trying to ignore that voice because we knew starting a home would be hard and our life was hard enough.

As the months passed, we got closer and closer to Frankie and Rosa told us his story.

Frankie was neglected by his biological parents and was essentially raised on the streets for the first four years of his life by his older siblings. He constantly had open sores on his body and head and his teeth were rotten because his diet consisted primarily of Cheetos and candy.

He would have angry outbursts to the point of being violent at times, evidence of a child longing for someone to guide him. He was defensive, always protecting himself.

About six months ago, Rosa took him into her home. His biological mother signed away her guardianship without a second thought.

Before this time, Rosa was already his primary caregiver, though he still slept at home with his biological mother on weeknights. On the weekends, Rosa would let them sleep in her living room because his parents left him and his siblings home alone to fend for themselves. Rosa would make them meals and give them baths and clean clothes. When he first moved in with her, he still had anger issues. He hated baths and school and would eat until he was sick because he was afraid he wouldn’t have his next meal.

Since that time, he has grown into a strong, happy little boy. He is now six years old and loves to play spiderman and help Richard with the banana trees in our back yard. He’s learned to be polite and control his temper for the most part. He is even learning to read with the help of an afterschool program that Rosa has enrolled him in. He has grown significantly and no longer has the skin issues he once had.

Many of you who have traveled down on trips have met Frankie and you remember him because he brings a contagious smile wherever he goes.

Frankie calls Rosa “Auntie” but he knows she’s really his adoptive mom. Someone once asked him if he wanted to go back to his biological mom. He responded, “No!” When they asked why, he replied, “Because Tia (Auntie) Rosa loves me. She takes care of me.”

And it’s true. Rosa has the gift of caring for these kids as her own, much like God loves us as His own.

 Because Frankie is not Rosa’s biological child, she does not have access to any financial help from governmental programs. If you would like to help support Rosa through sponsoring Frankie monthly, follow this link.

To make a one-time donation to Grace House, click here.

Frankie is the second one from the left. Love this kid!

A Breakfast Date in Eternity

I’ll never forget it--the day that Bro. Ron asked me to show him how to use Facebook. Everyone in the office gave me that look like, “Are you sure you want to do that?”

They were kidding of course—mostly.

I opened him an account and the fun began. Initially he didn’t know how to do anything so he would have me print all of the comments on his page, all his friend requests, and all his messages. Then he would hand write responses and statuses for me to type in and I would upload pictures.

When you are Ron Bishop, your friends list grows FAST so it wasn’t long before maintaining his Facebook seemed like my primary job.

One day I told him, sort of nonchalant-meets-hopeful, “You know, I can show you how to run this pretty easily.”

“Let’s do it.”

Not long after that I was watching as my newsfeed blew up with statuses and pictures and shares with “Ron Bishop” as the poster.  I would still get a random phone call with a “how to” question here or there, but those became few and far between and eventually he was set.

And that was how Bro. Ron did things—full speed ahead.

“Let’s do it.”

Long before I had the privilege of working in the home office of SCORE International and serving as a SCORE missionary, Bro. Ron was the interim pastor at my home church, Calvary Baptist. When I was just 11 years old, I remember him speaking on what he loved—missions, reaching the Nations with the Gospel. I sat on the front pew of the church on a Sunday night and I hung on every single word that came out of his mouth.

And I was sold. The Spirit was saying, “This. This is for you.”

I went forward that day with no idea what it even meant to “be a missionary” and said, “I’ll go.”

Fast-forward almost 17 years later and I can see that not only did the Spirit use Bro. Ron’s message that day to speak to me, He used Ron’s very life.

In the following years, Richard and I went on countless mission trips through SCORE, served as interns and translators, and eventually became missionaries. Bro. Ron paved the way for us to attend Word of Life Bible Institute in Argentina where we studied Spanish and the Bible. It was there that we met some Brazilians and God knit our hearts for the Amazon.

Along every step of the way, there were Bro. Ron and Mrs. Pat, cheering us on.

Shortly after we were married, Mrs. Pat called and asked if I would be interested in working in the home office of SCORE.

Um. YES!

Not only did they provide me with a full-time job, they allowed us to travel, leading teams and visiting Brazil, the very place we would end up.

All along the way, they were supporting us prayerfully and financially.

We had many lunches with Bro. Ron and listened to him speak and pray and share. I listened as Mrs. Pat would pray during our staff prayers and would weep for those who were hurting. God used them to shape me.

Working in the home office gave me a unique look at the day to day. I watched his passion and watched him plan and dream. I saw him shoot for things that didn’t succeed and watched him regroup and try a different way. I watched him rejoice when souls were saved and grieve at lives lost. I saw him make mistakes. I saw him apologize. Even from his mistakes I learned. God’s grace is good that way. After all, no one is perfect and it’s His mercy in our lives that uses even our shortcomings for His glory and our good.

As I look back over my life and where we are today—running full speed ahead in a ministry here in the Amazon Jungle—I am so thankful for the influence and the legacy that Ron Bishop had on our lives.

I would not be wrong to say that God used this man’s life to influence our spiritual journey more than any other human being.

My last conversation with Bro. Ron was via Facebook. We were in the States not too long ago and had hoped to get together for breakfast with him and Mrs. Pat. Our time flew by and we never got the chance.

I wrote him to let him know it wasn’t going to work out due to our limited time and I told him we planned to be back in town this fall. Then—then we would get together.

But God had other plans.

I wish we had gotten together, but the reality is God is sovereign. He knew our paths wouldn’t meet again this side of Heaven and He purposed that. His last words were that he loved us and that he was praying for us. And I believe that.

We loved Bro. Ron so much and will miss stopping by to see him in the home office or meeting him at Moe’s for an impromptu lunch. We’ll miss his encouraging words and his Facebook statuses. We hate that our kids won’t know him like we did.

But in all our missing, we rejoice that he is in the presence of our Savior. We rejoice that God worked through him and that he said “yes” to that call. We celebrate the life that God allowed him to live and the lives that were affected for eternity because he was led by the Spirit.

Thank you, Bro. Ron, for your example, love, encouragement.

We look forward to finally having that breakfast date in eternity. We’ll have all the time we need!