Home Again

Well, I've been back in North Carolina for about 42 hours now.  I promise I'll be writing more about my experiences soon - just give the jetlag fog some time to clear - but some random current thoughts:

  (1)  After a week of dressing to respect a culture that expects knees to be covered for modesty's sake, it feels positively wanton to wear skirts that hit just above my knees. 

  (2)  I missed you, cheese. 

  (3)  If you return to work the next day after a trip 7 time zones away, take notes on EVERYTHING because your memory won't be worth squat. 

  (4)  Even the prettiest skies in NC will pale in comparison to the skies of Maasai land in Kenya. 

  (5)  Seriously, how do people live without cheese?

  (6)  Oh how I missed my highest high heels! 

  (7)  Nothing beats the hugs you get from your wonderful husband and kids at the airport after 12 days away.  Nothing.  Not even cheese.  ;-)

Allergic to Change

This week we had a scare that Elaine might have strep. She felt run-down and had a rash all the way around her neck and strep has been going around in our school. For several hours and a visit to the pediatrician later, we find out she just is run-down from a late night the night before and the rash is from her brand new "Daddy's Girl" necklace Jason gave her for her birthday. It seems our girl has an allergy to her new piece of bling.

 

Within a few hours of removing it, she was feeling much better. The itchy, irritated skin was healing quite nicely. But it made me think about how so many of us - myself definitely included - are allergic to change. It makes us itchy and irritated emotionally and just leaves us feeling out of sorts, just like Elaine on Friday. But as adults, it is rarely as easy to backtrack from the changes and go on as if nothing happened. That's because change usually leaves behind those tracks on our mind and emotions that don't dissipate the ways mere physical marks would. And isn't that good? I hate change when it is happening. I mean, seriously y'all - I *HATE* it. But you know what would be worse? 
 

To never change.

 

Cause I know that some of those itchy, irritated reactions to change made me a better person. Let's face it - I think my kids are lovable but if they are the same people at 35 as they are now . . . Well, I bet not many people will want to befriend an adult who is whiny and impulsive and prone to stomping her feet and huffing off when she doesn't get her way, you know?

In four days (FOUR!!!) I leave for Kenya and some definite changes. Oh I'll look the same when I get home and I'll live in the same house and drive the same car to the same job but I'll be different. I'm facing now that it will mean some itchy, irritated feelings, something I don't always handle gracefully. But I'm going into thiswith my eyes open, expecting those feelings, and trying my hardest not to be whiny and impulsive and prone to stomping my feet and huffing off when I don't get my way . . .

 

FREE COUNTDOWN WIDGET

One logistical note: I won't be blogging in real time from Kenya. Besides the logistical difficulties of getting a solid internet connection, we have decided as a team that safety concerns are best served by not flooding social media, including Facebook, with our daily activities in-country. I will be writing though and plan to share those thoughts and experiences and even my allergy symptoms to change with you when I return. Thanks for taking this journey with me!

Countdown starting . . . NOW!

OK, so I've been radio-silent for several days now so maybe you are wondering what is going on with my trip. 

Let's start with the biggest part: I'm still going.  YAY!  Oh the trip will look a little different now.  No getting to know the urban jungle that is Nairobi.  OK, a little downer but NBD.  It also means no shopping in the Marketplace in Nairobi.  :'-(  Seriously people, if you know me you know I was digging the idea of combining two of my favorite passtimes: shopping and nagging.  I was planning on getting some DEALS.  {sigh}  But really, seeing Nairobi and shopping were going to be fun but that's not why I'm crossing the ocean and flying blu-million miles so I'll deal, 'cause I get to go play with them:

 

OK, so what have I been doing?  Well there was a successful fundraiser that helped cover a nice piece of my trip costs.  WOO HOO!  But during the fundraiser, I managed to injure my printer and slaughter my laptop.  It's dead, people.  I mean, deader than dead.  Oops.  Thanks goodness it was a work computer and IT doesn't ask too many questions . . .

This also happened:

 

Jason is off with a team from our church to serve with the Appalachia Service Project in Wyoming County, West Virginia.  I'm super excited for him.  I've been on three of these trips, starting back in college, and while he has heard all about it, I'm still not sure he has any idea what it is really going to be like.  He left today and gets home Sunday. 

 

In other news, Colby's Fairy Tale Ball is tomorrow at school and Elaine turns 9 on Saturday and my oil needed changing and my car needed to be inspected and oh yeah . . . .

 

I LEAVE IN ONE WEEK. 

 

One week y'all.  ONE WEEK.  Pardon my shouting but what the heck?  Where did September go?  Forget September, where did August go?  Anyway, I've been distracted to no end so this sort of snuck up on me.  Some might think that is a bad thing but I'm seeing it as a gift.  If I think about this too much, that is when the butterflies get going and my mind starts swimming.  I want to plan and make lists and mark things off lists and all those human things we do when we try to control God-sized dreams with our human-sized capabilities.  So I'm embracing the mundane distractions.  Not because they are more important but because I trust God has got this.  God gave me this dream.  Then He told me to WAIT.  Wait a lot, people.  Two years of waiting.  Then He said Jason should go.  And I should still wait.  But now He says go.  He is in control of this.  He doesn't need my butterflies and swimming thoughts - He just needs my obedience.  So I'll live my mundane life for the next 6 days.  But on the 7th, I obey. 

So THAT happened.

Obviously recent news out of Nairobi has been pretty tragic.  I'm bewildered that this violence would break out so close to my planned trip to Kenya.  I mean, what are the odds?  Kenya hasn't dealt with a terrorist attack of this magnitude in many years.  It would be really easy to let fear and worry take over at this point.  Sadly some Americans were injured in the Al-Shabab attack and French, Dutch, South African, Indian and Canadian nationals are among the dead.  That's scary, y'all. 

Westgate Mall in Nairobi (photo from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24206913)

I'm a wife, a mom, a daughter, a sister, an employee and a volunteer.  And those are just the hats I've worn in the last 24 hours.  It would be really easy to stay home, where I can expect to be safe, and just keep being all of those things.  But Jesus never said "follow me and be safe."  I can't find that anywhere in my bible. Instead, Jesus says "follow me" something like two dozen times.  Yikes - that's pretty consistent, almost like we are supposed to take a hint . . .

 

OK, so clearly I'm supposed to follow Jesus.  I get it.  Eventually stuff even sinks into this thick scull.  So I'm following and the path, for me, leads to Kenya.  I figured that out weeks ago.  But what now?  Well, thanks to my new life group and a great Andy Stanley video, I found myself in Nehemiah yesterday.  Specifically focusing on Nehemiah 6:3.  First, let's set the scene.  Nehemiah left his home to go to Jerusalem and rebuild the wall that would protect that city for the first time in a generation.  The local warlords didn't want that work completed and tried to lure Nehemiah off the wall, with plans to kill him.  Nehemiah sent back this response:

 

I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down.

Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?

Now I'm not sure that what I'm doing qualifies as a "great project" but God has a plan for this trip.  I can't lose focus of that now.  And I can't see why God's plans should be interrupted due to some hateful group.  So I will push down the worry and the "what ifs" and press ahead.  Kenya, here I come!

I'd love for you to read more about why I'm going and how you can help by checking out this post.

When the Plates Stop Spinning

So last week I wrote about Spinning Plates and this past weekend lived up to that theme.  We ran this way . . . and that way . . . and entertained . . . and hosted . . . and wrote . . . and painted . . . and well just about everything until I just crashed Sunday night.  I was so tired, I started to feel like I had the flu.  So I did the only thing that I never considering doing through all of that - I actually went to bed.  Well, "went to bed" sounds a little more civilized that what really happened.  What I really did was stumble up the stairs and fall into the bed in a stupor as soon as I got the kids to sleep.  The original night owl, asleep by 9:30pm. 

 

From http://leens.be/2011/11/16/if-silent/

But even as we ran all over creation, a thought wouldn't leave the back of my mind.  What is going to happen when I'm in Africa and away from all of these distractions?  You see, friends have filled me in on "Africa Time."  Things move at a different pace there.  Slower.  Sometimes MUCH slower.  Not to mention there will be no running to Facebook or blogs or any of those other digital distractions to busy my mind even when my body is seemingly at rest.  WHAT THEN?!?!

 

To steal a phrase from the incredibly talented Jen Hatmaker, I suspect I'm going to feel "Big Feelings about All the Things."  YIKES.  Y'all, I move fast and constantly in part because I struggle when the Big Feelings start.  I'm only starting to really recognize that about myself.  Yep, only took 37 years to get to that tidbit of self-awareness . . . So guys, I'm seriously begging you.  Pray.  Pray that I can see God in the Big Feelings.  Pray that I can channel the Big Feelings in productive and honest directions.  Pray that the Big Feelings lead me into His will.  

 

Why am I going to Africa anyway?  Check out my plans (and how you can help) in this post.    

Spinning Plates

Life. Is. Busy. You know it is. It is busy for me. For my friends. For my family. For my coworkers and students. Culturally we not only embrace busyness but we applaud it in others.

"Look at all he does! That's awesome."

"She is such a superwoman. I wish I could do all of that."

We brag about out own busyness too.

"I would love to read that book but I'm SO busy!"

"Gosh, I have no idea how I get it all done everyday!"

Oh sometimes it is couched as complaining but really aren't we patting ourselves on the back, even if for only surviving our own hectic schedule and to do list?

I'm not judging you if you are in this category. I AM YOU. I can barely look myself in the mirror as I prepare to post this because I know I do all of this. Heck my to do list right now is literally entitled "Spinning Plates" cause that's what my life feels like I do. ALL. THE. TIME.

 

 

 

So where am I going with this? It would have been so much easier to say no to this opportunity. Going to Kenya ain't easy, people. Working out my schedule. The kids' schedule. The books I need to read. The stuff I need to buy. The packing. Oh goodness I cannot even think about the packing. And the laundry. Jason does not do laundry. I have a wonderful husband, guys, but he just wasn't gifted by the laundry fairy, and after 15 years of marriage, well I'm not changing that fact in the next few week. That's an issue when wife/mommy/chief laundry engineer is leaving the country for nearly two weeks!

But I'm supposed to go to Kenya. My heart has screamed it for years, even as my head said "ain't no one got time for that!" But God has something planned for me there, for the people I'll encounter there, for the relationships we'll form. So busyness be damned, I'm going. I'll say no to some things. I'll decide some things can sit, can wait. I'll even ask for and accept help, and I'll find it doesn't kill me to do so. Or so I'm told.

To understand why I'm going and how to help, see this post.

This October . . .

Usually as we head into October, I’m watching the Saints play football and settling into the kids’ school routine and starting to plan for Christmas (yep, I’m one of “those” people!).   This October will be different.  Instead of the usual, on October 10th I will be heading to the airport at a most unreasonable hour of 5:30am to take off for Nairobi, Kenya.  Once there, I’ll travel by van into rural southwest Kenya to work with The Kilgoris Project.  After volunteering with TKP locally for three years, I couldn’t be more excited to finally see the Project at work in Kenya. 

Now, if you know me at all, you have heard me talk about The Kilgoris Project (TKP), whether to invite you to the Marketplace each November or fill you in Jason’s trip with TKP back in January or about how – ONE DAY – I would go to Kenya.  But you might not understand WHY I talk about it so much.  Officially, TKP operates schools, provides daily food and clean water, and fosters economic development in a Maasai village in southwest Kenya.  While accurate, this description doesn’t really explain how TKP captured my heart though.  As a mom, it’s the kids: 

* I imagine having to send Colby off to school as a preschooler, walking miles to school by himself, knowing he will have to walk all the way home before he can eat again. 

* I imagine wanting Elaine to go to school, realizing that there is no school in our community or she is too sick to attend. 

* I imagine being a mother who wants to send her children to school but being without the means to afford to send them to the not-so-free state sponsored schools. 

TKP is addressing these concerns day in and day out in Kenya.  TKP is education – we have opened 4 preschools and two primary schools which offer award-winning education in communities with few or no other schools.  TKP is health – every child at the school receives a nutritious meal every day and regular health screenings and medication to increase the number of days they are healthy enough to attend school.  TKP is opportunity – we operate a tea farm which helps fund the schools and also a women’s cooperative to help women in our students’ families develop local businesses and create goods to be sold in the US. 

Education + health + opportunity = HOPE. 

This why I have volunteered with TKP locally for years and why I am so excited that God is leading me to Kenya in October of 2013.  I cannot wait to work with the students in our schools and the women in the coop and generally just put my skills and experience to use in whatever way God allows. 

If you are reading this, I would love your support.  Prayer support most importantly!  Please pray for strength and clarity and purpose as I prepare for and go on this trip.  But if you are so inclined, financial support would be most appreciated too.  Tax-deductible donations can be made online via PayPal or by checks made payable to Journey Church and mailed to me at 20431 Willow Pond Rd, Cornelius, NC 28031.  PayPal donations can be made here.  Thank you for taking the time to read this and for being my friend!

Yours in service,
Laura