Travel ~ Mexico

  When I was in my early twenties I went to Mexico. I was working with a man my age who had been in a tragic car accident when he was sixteen. He had sustained serious brain damage but he was a walking miracle. He was going to college to become an ordained minister. My job was to attend classes with him and help him maintain organization and read all his textbooks to him. During this time he took a year off to do a program that involved a missions trip to Mexico. I had never been there before but his parents asked if I would go for one week of the trip. His dad would go for the other week. He sometimes had seizures and he also had no bone in some parts of his skull and sometimes he would forget that he needed to be careful. My job was so try to make sure he didn't get too overtired and that he was reminded to take care of his body. It was not an easy thing. He so badly wanted to feel normal and just be himself. 

 This trip was for the purpose of building homes for people that did not currently have one. The home was built in two weeks by a team or teams of people that came from different parts of the world. It was a program put on by Youth With a Mission. The teams could bring down furnishings for the home if they so chose as well as choose the lay out of the home. We stayed on the YWAM base in rooms with multiple bunk beds. Girls were in one room boys in another. Our job was to support teams that were coming down to serve. I did not realize it would be cold there and did not pack proper clothing. I was also not able to go and help with the house building all that much as there was not enough room for me in the vehicles. I stayed at the base cooking and cleaning. It was a challenging trip in many ways. However there were a few things that struck me. We did get to go out one night to a restaurant and the food was so delicious and full of flavour. I loved Mexican food. Secondly there were tolls everywhere the roads. I had not encountered that before. Also there were random horses on the side of the highways and that seemed so dangerous. The water was beautiful as well but it was not like Belize and the beaches where we were were not clean. We did not swim much. 

 Shopping was a phenomenal experience because I had never even considered bartering in my life, but bartering in Mexico was alive and well. I bought a few treasures to bring home and throughly enjoyed arguing with the shop keepers to get a price that was a bit more fair. 

 I remember clearly when the house the team was helping build was finished. It consisted of a small front room that had a tiny propane stove. There was room for a small table and there was a door and a window. Then there was an opening to go into the back room where the whole family slept. This house was 'furnished' by the team so there was a table and two chairs, and a bunk bed. There was bedding and plates, cups, etc. It was the most simple small house I had seen. There was no running water or plumbing but when the family was brought in they were moved to tears. Their thankfulness was a good eye opener to me. This was their first home and it was a treasure. It was for a family of five I believe. 

 Another clear memory was visiting a home for elderly people. According to what I was told many elderly people were not cared for by their families in their old age. There were many who ended up on the streets. This is just what I was told. Our team was taken up a big hill where at the top of a very steep driveway was a building that held a room for woman, a room for men, and a kitchen/dining area. There were a few bathrooms and a courtyard. We were tasked with hair cutting and shaving and bathing people. Never in my life had I done that before. I tear up as I write. These sweet souls so rarely had kind touch. When we cut their hair in terrible hair cuts (because of dull scissors and zero experience) they beamed with thankfulness. We cut toenails and shaved beards in the sunshine. Many of the elderly women held dolls as we tried to trim their hair with dull scissors. All they had was a bed in a room filled with other woman in their beds. They were sweet and kind and deeply precious. We helped feed them lunch, and afterwards we did a little performance for them and then brought out a piñata. I don't know whose idea that was but it was genius. This brought SO MUCH joy to these sweet people who had really nothing to do. To see frail little ladies attempting to smash a piñata and just beaming for joy was the best thing really. We went back to the base determined to buy this place razors that actually were sharp and scissors that worked! We so wanted to help. 

 Like I had said, our job there was to be support to the base and help them with teams that were coming to build houses. Some of our team members drove big fifteen passenger vans through the streets of Mexico, with paper maps (no GPS ) to big hotels to pick up teams of wealthy people coming to serve. There were MANY close calls and the vans did sustain some damage. When I think back to what was required and how people just stepped up to do things they had NEVER done and in many ways were so dangerous....it is astonishing. It is also incredible and heart warming to think back. 

 I remember going to a prison there and my friend preaching to a room full of men who were going through so much. She preached a powerful message that impacted me deeply and them as well.

 The trip was very hard for me in multiple ways. I wasn't really part of the team, I was an outsider but all the people on the team were people I knew. The man that I was there to support didn't want me there. My travel to Mexico was SO stressful. I took a plane from my country to California  and a taxi and a train to the borders of California and Mexico and then met people who picked me up and drove me over the border into Mexico. I had never been on a train, and no idea how to catch a train. I had no cell phone. I had to find a specific taxi at the airport and that almost didn't happen, and make the right train at the right time.  When I got on the train I truly did not know if I was on the right one. There were so many close calls and just sheer panic on my part. My first train ride made me feel motion sick. I remember seeing the beautiful beaches off in the distance and a lady behind me was talking loudly on her cell phone most of the trip. By the time I arrived in Mexico at my destination I felt like I had aged many years :) 

 I came home changed. I had met beautiful people, I had gone through hard experiences, and I was challenged in so many ways. I was married at the time so I was also away from my husband for the first time and that was hard too. I had been treated really unkindly at times and felt vulnerable and alone and had to serve and serve in ways that I did not want to. Yet it was so good for me to experience all of these things and have the opportunity to gain depth of character. 

Mexico is a beautiful place and I am thankful I said yes to going. 

Belonging

 Sometimes I long to feel like I belong so deeply.  There is such a deep ache I can scarcely manage the pain. Where have I felt I belonged? I have had times of belonging and they have been sustaining now for a long time. When I was younger I lived on a hobby farm and owned chickens, a goat, bunnies and a pony. We had other animals as well that were not my own. I felt like I belonged there. Our house was right by a creek that made soothing lovely sounds. Our neighbours owned Appaloosa horses and were so kind to me. My other neighbours were good friends and all the neighbours all around were other friends and we all knew each other and played every day. The street was beautiful, full of forest and field and we were safe. Each day I spent hours outside. We had a heritage barn with huge beams stacked with hay bales that I spent hours in. I climbed trees and built forts and skated on the creek and rode my pony and homeschooled and lived the best life I could. My parents were struggling extremely during this time and so life was not perfect, there were many hard things, but I belonged there. I was so close to the Ocean and my friends were so sweet and my pony gave me purpose. We had community and freedom. 

We moved when I was thirteen back to my home town, I went to my old school and it took a few years but then I belonged there as well for a time. After graduation life unravelled little bit by little bit. Because of my time at the farm I knew what community felt like, also because of my grade eleven and twelve years of high school I also know what community felt like. It was a beautiful thing that I missed for years in my adult years.

Community is not perfect, far from it, but there are so many cultures where community is a way of life. It has its challenges but it also makes so much sense if the community is healthy and supportive. All through my adult years I have hoped that somehow community would come. However, I have not done anything to foster community for a long time. As much as I long for it I don't have capacity to foster it. I hope that maybe in the future I will feel community with my grown children although I don't want to put that pressure on them. I just wanted to acknowledge this feeling that never goes away.

xo

Simply a Mother

 What is there to chat about when you have six children plus a son in law and a grandson and they all live in your house? I can chat about them! 

I'll start with my son in law. He likes to change up his hair style often. I love it because it reminds me of my husband in our early years together. He had so many different looks. My son in law loves his friends and his family. He loves to get outside and be steeped in adventure. He is a gift to our family in that he doesn't act like he is better than us. He accepts us for who we are. He is kind and funny and authentic. We are thankful for him.

Then there is my grandson. He is so full of joy and wonder and sweetness. I am so thankful for him. His smile makes his nose crinkle, his eyes light up, and he waves hello and just shines. He is a precious miracle in our family and has brought us all together again. 

My oldest daughter ~ my greatest gift from another. She loves to be out and about. She has always been so social, so sweet, so caring, so fun and loving of adventure. I appreciate her fearlessness and confidence in trying new things that she is interested in. I love going for walks with her with all her younger siblings and feeling so deeply thankful that we can do this! 

My oldest son is the sweetest human and so funny. He is gentle, kind and loyal. Life has been challenging for him. He has had to overcome a lot of challenges and he has been such a fighter. His imagination and capacity to care have been inspiring to me. 

My bright eyed daughter who has always been precious. I think of her as snuggly and bright eyed, strong and determined. She often led the way for my older son in terms of things like riding a bike or learning new things. She was brave and he was not. She was determined and he was worried. She shone with joy and sweetness and so did he. They made a good pair. Now she milks three hundred cows at a time, is fierce on the basketball court, has the cutest giggle, and loves her friends and siblings. She is everyone's favourite sibling. 

My youngest son is the son I think of as 'my most Irish child'. During the years of reading many novels I have come to think of Irish men as strong, determined, fiery survivors. They are fierce warriors, loyal, determined, hot tempered people. My son is full of fire. He is also gentle and sweet and thoughtful. He is determined and his brain is brilliant. He adds so much to our family.

My promised daughter ~ my six year old. She came to me after two losses and in utero she could sense my thoughts and respond to me. She is so sensitive and so sweet. She is also creative and caring and would love to be a friend. She is a precious sister and a beautiful part of our family.

My baby girl ~ she is two and really starting to express her thoughts and feelings. She is sassy and busy and sweet and caring. She loves you and she tells you. She is so funny. She is also so coordinated and active. 

I cannot even fathom that these treasures are my own sometimes. I started out my married journey wide eyed and incredibly hopeful. After one year of marriage I got cancer in my uterus and was told I may never have children. Here I am twenty one years later. These children are my legacy, my loves, my heart. I have given all of myself for them. I have agonized in their agony, and I have waged war for them on every level. I have sacrificed so much for their care and keeping. And so, there is not much I can talk about now other than them. I am simple,  but this is what I am. I am a mother. 

xo

The Coming of the Violets

   The Violets are blooming in a tiny front plot in front of my house. They were planted by my daughter one year without my knowing and every time they bloom they fill me with hope and joy. Hope because Spring is coming, and joy because someone did something so thoughtful for me and something so lasting. They are a dark rich purple and so delicate. Violets ~ the heralds of Spring.

  My six year old has also been bringing me Snowdrops the last few weeks and I put them on my kitchen windowsill. I spend a lot of time at the sink washing dishes and those Snowdrops bring me a lot of joy. Once when I was walking with my young children down our road an elderly lady was in front of her very old home in town. I asked her if I could pick some of her Snowdrops as they were a variety I had not seen. She was so kind and said yes and we engaged in conversation. She had been living on that street for years in a big old heritage house. Her husband had died and it was just her now. Those houses were so cold in the winter as I lived in one myself. Her yard was large and unkept but her Snowdrops bloomed every year. I kept my eye on that house and over time I realized she must have passed away or had to move. The house got torn down and the Snowdrops lost, but I will always remember them. That is something I always wonder about other people. Do they remembered old long gone gardens? I do and I miss them and cherish their memory. Someone's creativity and artistic soul sewed the seeds, tended the bulbs and brought light and scent and beauty to their neighbourhood. How noble  and how kind.

  It looks like the perfect Spring day today. The sky is a light pale blue, the farther taller mountains are capped with snow and the closer mountains are looking a dark hazy blue. The air is crisp as is the air. My husband and two younger children are playing croquet in the front freshly cut yard. It looks so beautiful. You wouldn't  know that for the last three months we have not had more than a handful of days of being healthy. In fact the last three weeks some of my children have been so sick that I have not been able to sleep more than just a few hours a night. Thankfully the four sickest children are doing better and one is totally well. The last two that were desperately sick are on their way to health again. I am so deeply hopeful that Spring will bring health to our home. It has been incredibly hard to a be a nurse 24/7 plus a mother and house keeper and cook and chauffeur and more without any days off or even hours off duty. I have struggled to keep on. 

 I am grateful this winter is almost over as it has been particularly dark and ominous for me. I just have trudged through it one day at a time praying for light and strength. This coming year will be one of hard work, of choosing over and over to do the next right thing, of making sure my mind and soul are filled with sustenance and all the goodness I can muster in. It makes the coming of the Violets especially sweet. 

Travel ~ Taiwan

 When I was nineteen I went on a missions trip to Taiwan and the Philippines. We were there for almost a month between the two countries and they could not have been any more different! 

In this post I will reminisce about Taiwan. When we first got off the plane and were driving to our destination we were driving through a city but there would be places all through it where I would see elderly people in their pointed straw hats gardening. That was my first memory ~ the elderly people in their straw hats.

Another memory was the ornate temples in every town no matter how big or small. The temples were beautiful and sometimes a little terrible and very ornate and bright. 

We stayed in Taipei but then also smaller villages and towns. The city people dressed in very mismatched clothing that felt like they hurt my eyes sometimes.  In my country people were so obsessed with matching. The women wore shoes that were too big for them and that made a lot of them shuffle in some ways. The villagers and people from the mountains wore more simple traditional garb. 

The people were not warm or affectionate but reserved, guarded and respectful. Since we had just been to the Philippines this stood out in stark contrast to the warmth and affection of the Phillipino people. The people we stayed with were Taiwanese and missionaries themselves. They were so kind and caring. Taiwanese people were not very open to Christianity at that time so it took many years to build up a church community. We were, however, invited to a school where we shared what we had prepared. We spent time with the children and that was special.  

We went out to farmland and walked among rice fields. We met villagers who were astonished and kind to us foreigners. One family invited us into their home of many generations. It was such a special experience. They served us tea in tiny glasses and we visited as best we could with the language barriers. They had lived in their home time out of mind. It reminded me of a very long hallway with little rooms all along it. I think it was all made of brick.

We went up into the mountains and encountered the beauty of bamboo forests. We ate traditional food cooked inside bamboo. The bamboo as far as the eye could see was absolutely breathtaking. We also visited an area that had waterfalls and many steps to climb and traditional cultural performances. 

The trip was deeply beautiful and our encounters with people were impacting. I turned twenty while I was there. Little did I know I would be married at twenty one and life would be changing drastically at age twenty two.

I am so thankful that I was able to go to Taiwan. It was a stunning country with diverse landscape. 

Travel ~ Jamaica Part Two

 When my husband and I went to Jamaica again we had gone through a lot in a short time. When we had travelled to Jamaica before we had been married for a year and I was starting to go through my cancer journey and was going through a very long drawn out miscarriage. It was an amazing trip for us, but it had a lot of challenges for me. I was weak and sick and not sure what was happening to my body. I also was helping get ready for a wedding. It was very very hot where we were staying. When we arrived home I immediately started chemotherapy and my life was changed forever.

We decided to go to Jamaica again, because we wanted to visit our friends and see the children we had met the time we had been in Jamaica previously. In our hearts we wished to adopt them but adoption in Jamaica is almost impossible without living there for years and years.

At this time in our lives our friends had moved to a new town to start a church and I was very newly pregnant with my first son and we were also going to adopt our daughter. This time we went to Jamaica in the rainy season. Our friends didn't have a vehicle yet and so any time we were going to go somewhere we hired a driver or took a taxi. It rained a lot. It rained so much that our clothes wouldn't fully dry and the cement walls were weeping. I had pretty intense sickness from my pregnancy and while I was there someone I loved took their life. I could not attend their funeral which was very very hard for me. I was mourning and just feeling so heart broken. 

There were also such beautiful moments. We loved getting to see the children we had connected with. They were in a children's home and we so wished we could adopt them but that was not to be. We loved our time with our friends who continue to live in Jamaica to this day and have a seventeen year old church that is thriving. My husband and my friend's husband are kindred spirits and had so much fun dancing and sliding in the rain just getting to act like kids (which really we all still were) and have the time of their lives. 

Something else we did that was impacting to me was we attended a funeral for my friend's husband's grandmother up in the mountains. We rented a car and drove as far up as we could. The road was rough and more like a track. We caused some damage to the car for sure! We ended up going to the top of a mountain where a church was perched. It filled with people who were dressed beautifully and many women wore hats. The funeral was unlike any I had ever been to. There were many speeches and songs. It was a cultural experience that was totally sincere. Afterwards we also saw where our friend's grandmother had lived. There were small places close together and built with whatever material could be found.  There was no running water or electricity. There were fires for cooking. It felt like a different era.

This was the last trip I took before I had children. After that I didn't travel again until my oldest was nineteen years old. 

Going to Jamaica and suffering so much there (twice) made me never want to go back.  My husband has gone back three times and taken my three oldest children. It has been really incredible for them. Our friend's live on fifty acres now ( or something like that) and are camp directors. The property is beautiful and a wonderful place to raise children. They are amazing people and have been so impacting to thousands of people in their life time. 

I am thankful for the two times I was able to travel to Jamaica because I was able to be in my friends' wedding and see the country she adopted as her own.  I also am thankful that our husbands could become life long friends because of these trips. 

Assurance in Obedience

 I read a book last night and there were passages of it that I hope I can hold before me often. I look around and see other people living lives that seem 'better' than my own. I feel like if I could just get over certain walls that have been created by my past, or that I have built for myself, that I could do more, be better, and I could help. Help who? I don't know! Do more of what!? So many things. I just have this nagging feeling that I am doing something wrong. I wish I could bring in an income for my family and cook healthier meals and exercise, parent much more effectively, and the simple list is pretty extensive. However the list comes from a place of feeling like I am going to end up a failure, because I have not been able to do these things that I value and feel is vital with regularity or to the extent I would like to.

When I try to stand back and look at this I realize that this is the life my parents led and still lead in many ways. They are both still alive but their past trauma and their situations led them to a place now where they have a lot of pain and regret and bitterness and it's eaten them away. I want to walk towards something different but I often feel stuck in the battle. Like I am trying to scoop up the incoming tide and throw it back.

Is there truth in this? That I am doing something wrong? Not enough? Yes I think so. I also think I am doing what I can. There are days when I could do more and I don't. But more often than not I am doing every single thing I can do. It's just embarrassing that I can't do much. I think I always thought I was capable of more. Then the world sort of laughed and said nope. 

Last night when I read this though ~ it resonated with me.

'This, at least, was Molly's working theory of life. She saw plainly that her business - every day, every hour, every moment - was to order her way as He who had sent her into being would have her order her way. Doing God's things -that is, what God gave her to do - God's thoughts would come to her. God's things were better than man's thoughts, man's best thoughts the discovery of the thoughts hidden in God's things. Obeying him, perhaps a day would come in which God would think directly into the mind of his child without the intervention of things! For Molly had made the one rational, one practical discovery of being - that life is to be lived, not by helpless assent or aimless drifting, but by active cooperation with the Life that has said 'Live'. To her everything was part of a whole, which, with its parts, she was learning to know. She was finding out the secrets of life by obedience - that is, duty done - for developing even the common intellect. Those who obey are soon wiser than all their lessons, while from those who do not obey, even what knowledge they started with will be taken away."

'The Poet's Homecoming' by George MacDonald

This is a long quote but in reading it I felt a peace come over me. I so often forget that I can ask God what He would have me do. I forget to quiet my spirit and listen. I am overstimulated with the noise and clutter and energy. I am going from thing to thing not accomplishing much. However if I am doing what God has asked me to do - which I think I am that is enough. He has given me children to raise, a house to steward, relationships to give to if at all possible. It has not been much I realize compared to so many - but it is what He has given to ME. So instead of casting my eye around and looking at my lack and failures and regrets I can refocus. I can realize that in obedience I can rest in assurance. 

Maybe it doesn't make much sense. 

It has been long day and my body and brain are exhausted. My husband, daughter and son in law went snow boarding on a mountain close to us. I try to advocate for my daughter to get to go once a year. She loves to snowboard but it is an expensive endeavour and until she is older and can pay her own way this is what we can offer. Today I was home with all my children and grandson and it was a truly lovely day. Of course every day is filled with a lot of fighting between my children, a lot of whining, and I wash many many dishes and process many loads of laundry and make food over and over again. This holds much loveliness in the moments of eyes alight with thankfulness when I serve a snack that was asked for. Or when I read to someone or snuggle someone or look up when they are calling for me to watch them do something they think is absolutely mind blowing. Today I cleaned the bathrooms and washed barn clothes and cut up cabbage and read a Hardy Boy's novel to my son, and snuggled a baby to sleep multiple times. I went for a walk with my children in the beautiful sunshine and we dressed up like we were venturing out into the Arctic. I worked until my body ached. The three snowboarders came home tired, sore, bruised and happy. They had a great day. We all had a great day. Feeling peace today in amongst the chaos came from knowing that what I was doing was enough. It was what was laid before me and I obeyed. 

I am thankful