What About Those Spinning Plates?

Well I'm back. I've been pretty quiet on here as I processed all I saw, all I did, all whom I met. MIND. BLOWN. For the last 20 years or more, my life has revolved around words, whether reading them, writing them or speaking them. But after less than a week in Kenya, I was just out of words. Y'all, me out of words?!?! That never happens. Until Kenya. Kenya did that to me.

 

So I wrote a lot about my Spinning Plates before I left (here and here). I was really worried about how I would handle stepping away from my "have to"s to just "be" in Kenya. Well let me sum it up for you - it was awesome! Ok, so enough about that. . . .  Kidding! Letting go of my watch, my schedule, my to do list created a freedom I had never experienced as an adult.

(1) I was free to be in the moment. I could sit and talk with new friends without worrying about when I needed to be the next place or the next thing I needed to do. That freedom cleared my mind so I could go deeper in those interactions. I heard not just the words but the feelings. I was present to ask the follow up questions and dig deeper in those conversations. How often have I missed those deeper conversations with friends and acquaintances here in the US because I was rushing off to do something else?

 

Our Wonderful Team!

 

(2) I was free to enjoy surprises. I'll be honest - here at home, surprises often are just a hassle for me. That's because I tend to leave very little margin to adjust my schedule to accommodate surprises. But in Kenya, I had nothing but time so I could just genuinely enjoy the surprises God put before me. I sat on the ground while 5 little girls put about a million braids in my "slippery" hair. I could listen to their giggles, tease them, just soak in their excitement while we played Muzungo Kinyozi (white person hair salon).

 

And there was the time spent playing with the kids after church on Sunday.  Leading up to 40 kids in round after round of Ring Around the Rosie and The Hokey Pokey allowed the kids' infectious joy to seep into my soul.  How often have I missed opportunities for similar play with my own kids because I was too busy, too distracted to stop and enjoy the surprises life offers?

 

Mid Hokey Pokey!

 

 

(3) I was free to encounter God. If asked, I can tell you that God loves me and I love Him but in how I live my daily life at home, I really rely on my own self 99% of the time. MY calendar, MY to do lists, MY capabilities. Where has that left me? I struggle with stress and anxiety and an inability to say no when I really should. As an advisor recently asked me, "how's that working out for you?" Not good, let me tell you! But in Kenya, I didn't have a calendar, let go of to do lists, and didn't feel capable and low and behold, guess who was capable? God was/is! I found time to attend chapel with the nuns at 6 in the morning (me, up early?!? Woah!), where God gave me a verse in the service that lead into a conversation on the back porch before breakfast that gave me a huge breakthrough on my life-long struggle with anxiety. Why did I have to go over 3,000 miles away to have this encounter with God? God didn't need me there to tell me this but He did need me open and willing and available to Him. Apparently to become available to Him, I needed to stop thinking I could handle it all myself. How many other times have I missed opportunities to grow as a person and rely on Him but instead I relied on myself instead?

 

I've been home right at two weeks now and it's already hard to hold onto these lessons. I'm back to spinning plates, with lots to do at work and at home and for volunteer stuff and on and on, but now that I have experienced the freedom that came in Kenya, I crave it and will search for those moments, those surprises, those God experiences here at home.

 
 
 

Grace

Today I'm taking a 5 minute writing challenge and the word for the challenge is GRACE. 

<start 5 minutes>

Wow, that's a powerful word.  Grace saved me.  It doesn't make sense but God in His infinite grace saved me when I came to believe in Him. 

 

In Kenya, I started the long, really hard work of believing what God tells me.  I mean, I believe that the Bible is TRUE and the WORD OF GOD but do I believe that He intended everything in it for me?  That's a whole can of worms but for today that leads me here . . .

 

Grace towards myself.  I'm the beloved child of God.  I'm worthy of forgiveness and love and understanding.  I try hard to extend that to others but how often do I deny those things to myself?  Let me tell you, it's A LOT. 

 

• A lot of denying myself love. We women are trained early and often to use hate speech toward ourselves.  I'm too fat.  I'm too short/tall.  My hair is too curly/straight/wiry/fine/WHATEVER. 

 

• A lot of denying myself forgiveness.  If I lost my temper with my kids and asked God and the kids for forgiveness, they give it to me but I keep beating myself up. 

If I BELIEVE what God says, then I have to believe I'm worthy of GRACE.  Now I just have to start exercising that grace in my own direction. 

<end of 5 minutes>

 

 





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.