Pause for a Nyanja Update

Today started my 10-week intensive language class. Everyday, from 9-12. For 10 weeks.

Sounds like a whole-lot-a language class to me...

Even though it feels like a lot of time spent doing 'prep work,' and not 'real work,' I am encouraged and excited about it. Even more so after a visit to an official's office today, where my conversation with the receptionist went something like this...

I walk in...
Me- "Mwacoma bwanji?" How are you?
Her- "Bwino, mwacoma bwanji?" I am fine, how are you?
Me- "Bwino. I am looking..."
Interrupted by...
Her-"No, no, no. You started in Nyanja, you finish in Nyanja."
Dramatic pause for thinking...
Me- "OK, I think I can do this...Ndifuna kuona Bambo Chiti." I want to see Mr. Chiti.
Her- Big smile. "Ah, right this way."
Me- Bigger smile. "Zikomo."

Quiet Time- Part Two

‘Oh, but my quiet time is my favorite time of the day. I just love spending time with the Lord.’

I know this line. I have said it to myself and others a thousand times- and for the most part, I said it with a genuine heart. I love to study the Word. I am learning ancient languages so I can do so more intimately and carefully. I love to pray. Give me a prayer meeting with close friends and mentors, and I am a happy girl. And for years, that is why I prioritized it above all else- I just loved spending time with the Lord.

I was not only the teller of the analogy of Part One, but also a firm believer in the truth I thought it represented. In order for me to grow in my relationship with God; in order for me to get closer to my Best Friend- I needed to spend long hours studying the Word and in prayer. Problems arose when I realized the selfishness behind this belief and my quiet times.

Of course, I would try to dispense what I learned to others, but mainly- my quiet times were meant for me. It was my time with God; time that I chose to spend for me; time I needed to spend for me.

Red flags should always go up when we hear things like these go through our minds. And for me, those red flags eventually led to a white flag; one that went up as soon as my heart started to grasp the truth of this verse-

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
Galatians 2:20

I realized that the majority of my life was being lived by me and for me- not by Christ and for Christ. My quiet times were no exception. I was choosing to spend that time in a way I wanted, as opposed to the way Christ would want to live through me. And as far as I can see in Scripture, the life of Christ (and therefore the life of a believer) was always other-focused. For Christ to live through me, my selfish desires would have to be surrendered to that which benefited and blessed others.

Take another look at the requirements and recommendations from Part One-

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.
Matthew 7:12

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Matthew 22:37-39

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
Matthew 28:19

I appeal to you, therefore brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Romans 12:1

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
James 1:27

Notice a theme? I’ll give you a hint- it is not me. First and foremost- the life of a Christian is marked by sacrifice on behalf of others. Why? Because that is what marked the life of Christ, Himself-

By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
1 John 3:16

I don’t get to choose how I love God- He has already demonstrated and qualified in Scripture what love means to Him. It is the pouring out of my life so that others may benefit and be blessed. As this principle applies to my life in its entirety- my quiet times are most certainly included. They are to be for the benefit and blessing of others- not for me.

You see, if I truly understand my relationship with God (that He is completely sovereign, and therefore I am completely dependent), I am no longer required (or recommended) to live for myself. My dependency on and trust in God for all things frees my heart and life to be emptied of my own concerns and filled with those of others. And like I wrote in Part One, my quiet time is meant only to compel and propel me to that end.

It is my understanding that if I really want to be and live as a friend of God; if I really want to be closer to Him- quiet times are only the pre-game. They are the behind the scenes of faithfulness, not the main event. The show only really begins when we stand up from that time (caps replaced on color-coded pens, and last sip taken), and walk in obedience and faithfulness to that which we just read and prayed. Only then we will really know (and love) what it really means to be a friend of God.

(A rereading of what was supposed to be the second half of a two part post has me realizing there is still a Part Three.)

Quiet Time- Part One

With Holly back from her recovery trip to the US, I have had the last few days to settle back into my non-mommy routine. First on the list of my to-do’s was to spend lots of in the Word and in prayer- since the time I did get to spend over the past month had been intermittent and often interrupted. Today, for example, I remained at home while the Nelson clan went to the vegetable market (a plastic tent set up outside the BP gas station) in order to do just that.

Sitting down to spend time reading and praying, however, has my mind reeling on questions it has been incessantly asking over the past year or so- why do I spend time doing this? What is its purpose? What is its worth?

An obvious, but maybe less thoughtful answer would be, ‘well, because that’s what Christians do- they prioritize time spent reading the Bible and praying.’ I’ve often been told, and have often been the teller of the analogy that your relationship with God is just like a relationship with a friend- you have to spend time with them in order to get to know them and to show them you care about them. Relationships take time, right? And the best way for Christian to spend time with God is to sit down with a Bible, color-coded pens, a prayer journal and a hot/cold beverage of choice.

Here is the real nagging question in my head- where in Scripture does it say we are to do this? I can find no verse or passage requiring or even recommending this of Christians. And so, the follow-up questions roll on: why do I spend time doing this? What is its purpose? What is its worth?

Especially when the verses I do read about the requirements and recommendations of a Christian sound more like these-

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.
Matthew 7:12

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Matthew 22:37-39

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
Matthew 28:19

I appeal to you, therefore brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Romans 12:1

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
James 1:27

If these are the things required of us, why then do we prioritize quiet time above all else? If we are doing so for the sake of ourselves and even for the sake of our own relationship with God, we have gotten it wrong. You see, if we are actually Christians who have been filled with the spirit of Christ- our ‘selves’ are no longer and can never be the point.

The point of quiet times (and everything else for that matter), must always be God. Scripture is quite clear that the distinguishing factor in each of those requirements and recommendations is that they are not actually possible without God. Not in any way. Not even close. He is the One who brings them about and the One who actually accomplishes them in the heart and life of a Christian. We are completely dependent upon Him to do them.

It is this dependence that brings about the necessity and demand for time spent in the Word and in prayer. It is not a time to show God how much we love Him- it is a time to show our complete and utter dependence upon Him in order to love Him. Just like the Israelites depended on Manna from heaven for their daily physical nourishment (Exodus 16), we are to depend on the Bread of the Word for our own daily spiritual nourishment. Our quiet time should be likened to the time the Israelites spent collecting the Manna from the fields- we go to the Word in order to be fed and prepared. It does not demonstrate our faith- it prepares and propels us to demonstrate our faith.

So next time you sit, I challenge you to think about why you are doing so. Are you doing so because it is what you are supposed to do, or because it is what you must do? Does your life of faith absolutely depend on that time spent with God, or does that time lessen the guilt over the life of faith you do not live? The difference actually seems to make…a big difference.

What is Happening to Them?

Last week, when I met with a Zambian social worker and asked her this question, she didn't have an answer for me. "So, you are saying that if/when a child with a disability is abandoned or orphaned, there is nowhere for them to go?" Her simple “there is nowhere” hardly seemed like an answer at all. I wanted to stand up out of my chair and yell "Then where do they go? What is happening to them?"

And though I did not do so then, it is still a question that must be asked; one that deserves a proper answer. I understand that currently in Zambia (and most other southern African countries) there is nowhere for orphaned or abandoned children with disabilities, especially intellectual disabilities, to go. We have not yet found a place that will knowingly and willfully take such a child. But here is the thing, once abandoned or orphaned, these children don't just evaporate- so what is happening to them?

Perhaps the best (I use the word 'best' to mean the most satisfying amongst a very dissatisfactory list of options) answer comes in the form of statistics most widely recognized by the World Health Organization. For starters, 4 out of 5 of them die before they reach their fifth birthday (WHO states that in the developing world, the mortality rate of children with disabilities under age 5 is 80%). And since 95% of the worlds' 163 million orphans (numbers reported by UNICEF) are over the age of 5, speculation and extrapolation would lead one to assume there actually aren't very many orphans who have disabilities in the developing world. Most of them simply don't live long enough to have the chance to be abandoned or orphaned.

And so what is the rest of the world doing with these sorry attempts to explain what is happening to children with disabilities? For the most part, nothing. This week, UN leaders from across the globe met to discuss progress (or non-progress) in accomplishing the Millennium Development Goals set for Africa. These 8 objectives were compiled in 1990 and were slated to be achieved by 2015- and with only 5 years left and 'the current pace insufficient to meet the target,' I suppose it seemed about time to hold a summit in order to rally towards the finish line. While these leaders met in NY to discuss strategy and plans for Africa- my guess is that an entire people group was left out the development discussion. Rights for people with disabilities are not explicitly mentioned in any of the MDG's. Sure, one of the goals is to achieve 'universal' primary education for children in Africa- so children with disabilities must be included in that, right? Pretty big goal to accomplish within the next 5 years, considering the fact that currently only 2% of children with disabilities in Africa are enrolled in school. My guess is that they didn’t actually mean universal.

Politicians are one thing, but what about on an individual and family level- what are actual people around the world doing for African children with disabilities? Inter-country adoption has been on the rise for years, and yet children with disabilities are hardly ever the ones to be picked. The demand remains for healthy (well, relatively), typically developing adoptees, and therefore, orphans with special needs remain on waiting lists. “Oh, our family just couldn’t handle the needs of a child with disabilities. The best interest of the child would certainly mean choosing not to adopt them into our family.” And when you have a whole host of people looking out for the ‘best interest’ of these children in this way, you end up with a whole lot of children with ‘nowhere’ to go.

But then again, why would one expect the rest of the world to act, when the abortion rates of children with disabilities are increasing in almost every Western nation? I doubt the UN leader from France would be the one to recognize the missing piece of the development puzzle (the abortion rate of children who have Down syndrome in France is right around 90%).

You see, “What is happening to them?” is a question that actually needs to be asked in most places around the world, developed or not. There must be better answers out there somewhere, even if only in the fantasies of a few hopeful world-changing individuals. It is my own hope that some of those crazy dreams for kids with disabilities somehow become reality- my own wild aspirations included.

Further reading:
MDG's- http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/
WHO- http://www.who.int/disabilities/media/events/idpdinfo031209/en/

Madness Strikes Again

Yep, Mollie seems to have caught a bit more than the evidence of Sam's tummy virus- she seems to have contracted the full blown (I mean that literally, chunks and all, unfortunately) deal. Will you pray for her as her tries to understand and deal with what is going on in her body? And will you pray for us as we just deal?

A self-assessed progress report: I nearly jumped at the second chance to clean up the puke. Seems like this whole Mommy-boot camp thing just may pay off.

Lessons from Jacarandas

“Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead He set before your eyes the things that He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that?”
St. Augustine (354-430)

I have not seen a single drop of rain since I got here four and a half months ago. I guess when they say 'it's dry season,' they really mean it, but here is what I don't understand- it has not rained for months, and yet things are beginning to bloom. Specifically noticeable are the intensely bright buds on the jacaranda trees that line most streets...




















It simply doesn't make sense. And yet, they continue to bloom.

Perhaps this is one of those things woven purposely into creation by our glorious God. A tree that doesn't function according to the norm- but instead breaks out of the rules in order to shout forth the beauty of God.

This week, I have needed to hear the voice of God in these trees. We have hit some barriers-nothing major, but obstacles nonetheless that seem to suggest a much harder road than we anticipated in caring for orphans with intellectual disabilities in Zambia. Whether it be a heartbreaking visit with a family who doesn't know how to care for their child, realizing they may not even really want to care for their child; or a discouraging word from a social worker who doesn't want to take a 23 year-old white girl seriously; or just a reminder of all that must happen in order for this world to change for children who have disabiltiies- these trees have reminded me to hope.

I may not be seeing rain for a long time, but that does not mean God will not bring forth something beautiful out of this ministry. He does not have to work according to the ways of this world, nor does He have to comply with their expectations, but instead can shock and surprise us when, against all the rules, His purposes actually come to fruition. I certainly hope that is what these trees are saying, because right now, I think they may be some of the few voices allowing me to hope for these kids. Won't you hope with me?

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing.
Isaiah 35:1-2

I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.
Isaiah 41:18

And the LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.
Isaiah 58:11

Special Hope Elbows

No matter how sick we are, there is one thing that never fails- the Special Hope Elbows. It all started about 3 months ago, on the first day we did work with Zambian children who have disabilities. We had just met with two families, and run much later than expected, so went to a small cafe near our house for a quick dinner before bed. We were super excited about the day we had; that we finally got to do what we had been planning on, working to, and dreaming of doing here in Africa.

So, we felt it necessary to make up a new dance in order to celebrate. And since we were all sitting in our chairs and limited in our mobility, we did what came naturally- shook what we could, which turned out to be our elbows. Here are some basic steps to the official Special Hope celebratory dance:

1. Raise the elbow of your choice into the air, so that it is the highest elevated body part.
2. Shake it about so that you sorta look like a one-winged chicken.

Got it? Good, because we now use it in various situations- most usually to celebrate the playing of a particularly favorite song on the iPod or radio in the car. We have humored numerous people with our 'special' dance moves- particularly the men who sell newspapers and talk-time (pre-paid cell phone minutes) on the street. And since the back windows of our truck are tinted, usually all they can see are the typically-developing adults who are sitting in the front seat. They don't know that we are actually encouraging fun and exercise for the children in back, and so must just think what they usually think- crazy mzungus.

Like I said, no matter the weather, we here at Special Hope are gonna keep flappin our feathers!

Mother/Servanthood

For the past several weeks, while Holly has been sick with the measles, I have had the privilege of being enrolled in my own personal 'mommy-boot camp.' Measles, especially serious cases, appear to be no fun at all and often cause their hosts to be immobilized in bed for approximately 2 weeks. The aftershock of the virus can also cause complications with the eyeballs, and since we around here consider proper vision to be a precious gift, we thought it best to send Holly back to the States to get the medical care she so desperately needed.

All of this means that I have gotten to step into Holly's (way too big for me) shoes in order to see that Maggie, Mollie, and Sam receive the care they so desperately need. Now, I have lived with these children for 5 months, and have gotten the chance to get to know and get to serve them in lots of ways. None of it, however, compares to the learning and serving I have done in the past several weeks, and will continue to do for a couple more.

Being a mother always seemed like such a wonderful concept. Having children who depend on you, having a house to manage, having meals to prepare- it all seemed to be right up my highly-domesticated alley. The idea of it all seemed great- the reality, however, is altogether different than I had expected. Especially because these children who depend on me are children who really depend on me- for almost everything. The uniqueness of their disabilities and personalities blew my motherhood-perceptions out of the proverbial park, and have spun me down to my very last thread, in many instances.

A story to explain (beware, it involves some potentially nauseating details)- the other night, Sam was 'really not feeling well.' Nor was I, and so assumed we had a bit of a stomach bug going around the house- not at all unusual for mzungus (Swahili for a person of European descent, used commonly here in Zambia to describe us white people) here in Lusaka. Sam, however, tends to be a bit of a drama queen, and so I did not take his complaints with utmost seriousness. My attitude changed, however, the minute Sam jumped up from the couch and began running to the bathroom. I ran after him when I heard the beginnings of his hurling, only to find that there was a standoff going on between the just-had-gone-potty Mollie and the just-about-to-puke Sam. A winner could not be decided in the mere seconds left before the vomit began exiting (with force, might I add) Sam's mouth. So, unfortunately for all players involved, Mollie's feet and legs were covered with the evidence of Sam's stomach virus- as was the rest entire bathroom.

I stood in the hallway, hoping that Eric would come to the rescue and that I would be able to put off this lesson for another day. Eric certainly did come, and like the good father he is, took the more difficult task of cleaning up the bathroom. As this was not a one person job, I realized my hopes of skipping out on this mess needed to be crushed under the reality of the need. Mollie was still covered- standing there next to me, not knowing what to do. So, I took her hand, put her in the tub and washed it all off. Next was Sam, who was now crying and covered, also needing to be hosed down. If you are wondering about Maggie during all of this, she had quickly moved to a front-row seat right outside the bathroom, making sure that she didn't miss out on any of the 'fun.' You know her, she's always up for something ridiculous.

As I dried them off, I thought about this whole 'being a mom/servant' thing. This is not how I would have chosen to serve. I mean, seriously, give me as many meals and loads of laundry as you want- but cleaning up puke when I am already feeling sick is just a little bit too far. Especially because I didn't even get a single 'thank you' out of the whole deal. Mollie simply walked away, not phased by my kindness in the slightest. Sam kept on complaining the rest of the night, and woke me up several times for phases 2 and 3 of the vomit escapades. And Maggie, she just sat there making her normal noises and reminding me that she was 'happy,' and that I should be 'glad' that she was.

I guess I really did fail the whole 'you'll know the reality of your servant's heart when someone actually treats you like a servant' test. Throughout mommy-boot camp, I have definitely been treated like a servant and certainly expected to drop whatever it is I am doing for the sake of whoever and their current need. And my response has been not unlike the paragraph above- laden with a selfish and overall crummy attitude.

Upon further reflection (I find second thoughts usually better than firsts), I am actually deeply thankful for the opportunity I have been given over the past few weeks. Especially for the gift I have been given by Maggie, Mollie, and Sam- I know I am not actually, nor will I ever actually be their mom (God clearly has Holly picked for them for several significant reasons), but they have still given me the gift of 'non-recognition,' I guess you would call it. I don't get to choose how to serve them, nor do I typically receive much heart-felt thanks for doing so. But, in that, they have taught me what it actually means to serve. They have taught me what it actually means to go to the Father for approval and delight, and not to the accolades and applause of others. They have taught me that to serve (especially kids who have special needs) is the utmost privilege, though also the most challenging thing I have yet been called to do.

Would you please pray for my last couple of weeks in boot-camp? I still have a lot to learn...