All My Little Secrets

I am not going to dish out all of my juiciest secrets here. Truthfully...I don't think I have many secrets, let alone juicy ones. Rather, I am making a determination for myself to HAVE little secrets.

We're coming up on Thanksgiving and Christmas. The- next six weeks are FULL of emotion - joy and loneliness, stress and busyness, gratitude and selfishness, openness and self doubt, all rolled into one delightful package we call the Holiday Season.

At this time of year, it's common for people to want to "give back" - to purposely take time apart and do something kind and selfless for others. Some people enjoy giving time more than money, so they volunteer. Others would rather write a check, so they give to the Salvation Army. Shopaholics love things like Angel Tree and Christmas Shoeboxes because they get to buy AND give. (You don't need to be a shopaholic to enjoy those things. I don't care too much for shopping, and I love doing shoeboxes.)

Last year in particular, there was a big push in Waxahachie during the Christmas season through a community effort among churches called "He is Greater," It's a good concept. The whole idea is doing something every single day that was NOT about yourself - something for which you received absolutely no reward whatsoever. It was just about doing something nice. They even handed out little half sheets of paper with a list of things to do each day - everything from buying coffee for the person behind you int he Starbucks drive through to donating a pair of pajamas to a homeless shelter. And they were all good, worthwhile things to do.

But then, there came the hashtag - #HeIsGreater.

I totally understand the logic. A hashtag on social media creates interest, and what is more worthwhile than individuals helping others, with the intent that God gets the glory for it? For weeks last year, facebook was full of friends and acquaintances who were so excited to have had their coffee paid for by a stranger. (That seemed to be the most common one. I have theories about why.) But I wonder at the effectiveness of it. Who got the glory and thanks? It was nice, please don't take me wrong...random acts of kindness are wonderful, and kindness is an incredibly large part of how God has called us to live.

But for me, just me, it didn't sit quite right. So this year, I am keeping all of my secrets. I WILL do kind things. Every chance I get, I will make an effort to love. But I will not tell anyone. I'm not trying to be a martyr and I am not telling everyone that they have to follow suit - I'm just saying that for me, this is a matter of conscience, and I must follow it.

5 Things in My House I Use Much Too Often

(And my quest to change it all.)

1. The Internet

The world wide web is a grand thing. We all know the pros and cons because, like many good things, it can quickly be turned into a bad thing. For some, it can feed addictions. For others, it allows them to indulge in a feeling of escape. For me, it’s a time suck.

 I don’t want to cut the Internet out of my life totally, because I do use it for a lot of good things.  It helps me learn Spanish.  (Hola, amigo! Como esta? Mucho gusto! No se como hacer el acento con el ordenador!) I totally googled that last one.

The Internet is where I turn when I want to look up the chords to a new worship song, or when I want to see pictures of my friends and family and find out what they’re doing, or when I want to chat with my mom. (We’re type-chatting right now. She’s coming to visit in three weeks, yay!) And I LOVE looking up copycat recipes. I’ve found a whole lot of great recipes from cooking blogs and recipe sites. So it can be good, but let’s be honest – it can also suck away vast quantities of time. I often find myself staring at “20 Amazing Animal Pictures That Will Change Your Life” or “31 Celebrities That Raise Chickens.” I click on links to articles that I see posted because, “Hey, my friend thought it was interesting, so surely it must be interesting!” One thing inevitably leads to another and before I know it, I’ve spent an hour on the Internet and don’t even remember why I sat down at my computer to begin with.

Well sir, no more. I’m putting on my perspectacles (blatantly stolen from a great blog post by “G” at momastery.com, one of the ones worth reading!) and seeing what I could be doing with all that time. Laundry. Reading to Bella. Bible studies. Prayer. Crafts. Talking with my nieces on the phone. Playing music with Josh. Writing blog posts that will challenge people to change their lives….er….you get the idea. I can be using that time a lot more productively.

2. The trash can

Bella and I have been reading the Little House books this summer, and one thing jumps out at me over and over again – how little they wasted. An animal that was killed was used up, piece by piece – bones, meat, fat, hide…everything had a use. When crops were harvested, the fruit went to the house, the tops and roots and chaff were used for animals. Scraps of food were fed to the stock. Apple cores were saved for the entire year and made into vinegar. Laura and Mary ran around picking up nails from the ground when Pa was roofing the house. If a nail was bent, Pa straightened it and used it. “It wouldn’t do to waste a nail.” Nothing was wasted, because waste was a sin.

Last week, I cleaned out my refrigerator on trash day, and threw away an entire bag of food. A whole bag of things I forgot about, thinks I never got around to, things that I meant to make but never did, things that had spoiled or turned. It was much more than I usually throw away because I had a terrible time keeping up with anything this summer, but as I hauled that bulging bag to the curb, I felt appalled, remorseful and shamed all at the same time.

Usually, I feel like I waste less than the “average person.” (I put it in quotes because really, I don’t know what the average person wastes. But I know that when I take my trash out on trash day, I usually have fewer bags than most other houses, so there’s that.) I recycle everything that can be recycled in our city. I collect all paper and lightweight cardstock in a basket in my pantry, and when it’s full I take it to school to the paper recycler. I give all of our recyclable paper to Bella to draw on and craft with before I recycle it, so that she has a constant supply of paper without using up new paper. I compost and save food scraps for the chickens. And yet, there I was, dragging at LEAST $50 (I nearly choke thinking about it) worth of bad food out to the trash because I just never got around to it.

That is not pleasing to God. It shows a lack of respect for the bounty that he has given to me, and my goal is to stop that. I want to be diligent, to show good stewardship with all of my resources – time, money, food, everything. No more waste!

3. The dishwasher

No, I don’t have anything intrinsically against a dishwasher. It’s more about what the dishwasher represents. When Josh and I were first married, I never used this particular appliance. It came with the house, but I just didn’t use it. I use it to store my pots and pans. I washed my dishes in the sink, which is what I had done my whole life, because growing up, we didn’t have a dishwasher. Occasionally I would have a pile of them to do, but most of the time, I got them done in a reasonable amount of time.

Now, the past three years, I use the dishwasher because I feel like it is the only thing helping me keep my head above water. Some days I look at my counter and I am appalled at the pile of dishes everywhere. The past several months, actually, Josh has been doing the majority of housework and that is the only thing that has kept my head above water! I’d like to say that I just don’t have enough time to do what needs to be done, but that’s not entirely true. The truth is, I don’t use my time in the best way possible, resulting in a pileup of housework. If I were more diligent, and finished things as they came up instead of putting them off, I would not need to load up three loads of dishes. Again, it’s not the dishwasher that I want to cut out of my life, it’s the way in which I use the dishwasher – namely, to dig myself out of a hole that could have been avoided had I acted more wisely.

4. The scale

When I was 20 years old, I never weighed myself. I don’t think I even owned a scale for the first several years we were married. Ah, the good old days, when I could binge on Coke floats and Kit Kat bars with absolutely no ill effects. Not so, anymore. At 26 my metabolism suddenly changed (curse you, genetics!) and, to quote a dear departed German friend, “now I’m spreading out all over the place.”

Sometimes it’s like a weird mole or a nasty bruise. You don’t actually like to look at it, yet you feel compelled. The number on the scale never used to mean anything to me. I would step on and step off every now and then with this breezy little air. “Oh, I see I am still a twig. Excellent. Well, I’ll just be on my way then.” No relief, no burden to know….just idle curiosity.

Now, that same act is performed with trepidation. Where will the number be? I dare not hope it’s gone down, but has it gone up? The result of this auspicious moment in time can make or break my day. I must see. I simply must know.

And now, I resolve to stop. I am trying, every day. And some days are fantastic, and some are not. And I realize that I am not perfect, but I also realize that as long as I keep trying to be healthy, I’m never truly beaten. I’m not going to stop caring, I’m just going to stop being saddled to a number. The number is not me; it’s my daily decisions that define who I am. So I am going to focus on those daily decisions, and not whatever result they may bring on a scale.

5. The rinse cycle on the washing machine

Quite often, I throw a load of clothes into the washing machine. I go on about my business and realize, sometimes an entire day later, that I never put them in the dryer. After that length of time, I can’t just throw them in – they’d reek of dryer funk, as I like to call it. (You know, that nasty mildew smell clothes get if you wait too long to put them into the dryer.) So I have to rinse them again.

Then I go about my business, and sometimes, an entire day after that when I can’t find my favorite jeans, I realize that I never threw them into the dryer. Again. So they have to be rinsed. Again. Our washer is not the new breed of quiet, efficient washers. It takes 45 gallons of water for a load, or some obscene number like that. I’m wasting electricity and resources every time I fail to remember a simple chore.

Again, I am not lamenting my washer’s rinse cycle. What I am concerned about is the amount of carelessness that I allow in my daily life. I just don’t pay attention to something, even something easy, and it ends up costing me time, energy and resources. Not the way I want to live my life. There are other areas in which I struggle with carelessness too; the laundry is just an example. So my goal, ever moving forward, is to have a care – to focus on tasks at hand and see them through, so that I don’t end up with unnecessary waste and having to redo tasks that have already been done.

Obviously, a lot of the things in this list overlap in a very definable cause-and-effect type of way.  This is not a soap box or a rant. I’m not full of righteous indignation, thinking that you all need to be more like me and take up these same causes. But for me, they are specific areas of my life that the Lord has been dealing with me about, so they are things that I am forever working on.

The Ten Commandments (for visiting a waterpark)

The Ten Commandments

(for visiting a waterpark)

((or any other public attraction))

I. Thou shalt not leave thy cherry pits on the earth.

Or your peanut shells, or your pistachio shells, or your watermelon seeds. Yes, I know we’re technically outside, and so the urge is strong. “Hmm, I can just throw my shells / pits / seeds on the ground.” But no, you can’t. People walk there. It hurts when they step on hard pits and sharp shells. And other people have to go behind you sweeping up all that trash you left on the ground. Perhaps you think, “Hey, it’s all natural. It’ll compost!” Well…no again. See, whatever micro-organisms lived on the ground before the park was there were probably covered up when seventeen thousand tons of concrete was poured over them. Our paved walkways and fiberglass pools lack the proper biological life forms for composting anything, so that’s a bust. Do you throw shells on the floor at your house? I’m guessing probably not. So please don’t do it at the park either.

II. If thou hast thy kin at the park with thee, and the youngest of these must yet wear diapers, thou shalt use swim diapers.

Because regular diapers are NOT made to be soaked through, and definitely not for extended periods of time. I know, they’re a little more expensive than regular diapers, and store brands don’t usually make swim diapies, so you’re stuck with the price tag for name brand. But seriously, regular diapers are NOT made to be soaked through. They will fill with chlorinated water. They will swell to three times their normal size and make your child forty-two pounds heavier. And at the most inconvenient moment possible, they will burst, and their ooey-gooey sticky bead crystal thingies will spill forth onto the ground or the bathroom floor, and sit there like a ginormous pile of stinky shaved ice while you flee the scene of the crime. There is a distinct possibility that before I see the offending mess, someone will have complained to the manager about the state of the restroom, and I will have to make the walk of shame to clean up the diaper disaster not ten minutes after I left the restroom clean and sanitary.

III. Thou shalt use the little silver boxes in the restroom stalls only for their intended purpose.

This one gets gross, so I will not go into detail here. But, should you ever be tempted to stuff something in there that was clearly never intended to be stuffed in there, please refrain, for the sake of the custodian and for the sake of every person that uses that stall after you.

IV. Thou shalt wash thy hands after availing thyself of the facilities.

I know you’re about to jump back into water so loaded with chemicals you’d probably faint dead away if you knew about them all, but I can’t help thinking that if we were all dependable to be a little cleaner, maybe we wouldn’t need so many of those chemicals….?

V. Thou shalt choose a bathroom stall in ten seconds or less.

Ladies, this one is for you. There is no need to wander up and down the stalls, swinging the doors open, peeking inside, contemplating and wondering. They are all in a relatively similar state of cleanliness or uncleanliness. If you’re there when we open, there’s a good chance that your toilet of choice is sparkling clean. If you’re there in the middle of the day, then I’m sorry, but there is no way around it – at least a thousand butts have touched those seats. And I get it – you want the one that has been touched by the fewest and cleanest butts; there is, however, no way to tell. And honestly, I know we all like to think everyone else’s bottoms are gross while ours is sparkling clean, but it’s just not so. Hiney is hiney, and there comes a point in the day when every single toilet has been touched extensively by it. So as long as the toilet is flushed and there’s nothing gross on the floor (see Commandments Two and Three, above), just pick a stall and sit, and leave the rest to fate.

VI. Thou shalt not address the maintenance staff using combinations of adjectives and nouns.

I am not “Sweeper Girl.” I am also not “Blue Shirt Lady” or “Helper Person.” I’m actually wearing a nametag. Required. I have to have it on before I can even clock in. It’s there so that if you need something, you can tell me so without resorting to strange and awkward sobriquets. If I have my back turned to you, or in the event that you are near sighted and I am far away, a simple, “Miss?” or “Excuse me, ma’am?” is perfectly acceptable.

VII. Thou shalt not tell the custodial staff that you feel sorry for them.

This is unnecessary but it doesn’t actually bother me – I truly know you mean well. After all, I am crouched over the toilets for the second or third or even fourth time that day, and I know your sympathy is meant to be a kindness, so I take it as such. However….you needn’t feel sorry for me. I knew what I was signing up for when I took the job. I knew it would involve a lot of toilets and a lot of trash and a whole heckuvalot of sun. I don’t do my job in silent pity or shame. I hold my head high. (That’s technically untrue. I am nearly always looking down, either cleaning in the bathroom or scanning the ground for trash that needs to be swept. But you know what I mean.) When the park opens, I am proud that it is clean and safe. When you walk into the restroom and I have just cleaned it, it makes me happy (even though I know you’re going to wander around looking for just the right stall anyway). When I am there, I take ownership of the park. I invite you in, I greet you and smile at you and when I tell you that I hope so much that you enjoy your day, I really mean it. I am proud of the stage I set for your enjoyment – I take care of the trash and the bathrooms and the walkways so that you don’t have to, so that you can have fun with your family. So please don’t feel sorry for me. Don’t let sympathy for my plight interrupt the happiness of your day. Trust me, I don’t feel sorry for myself.

VIII. Thou shalt tell the staff when you need something.

Are you unhappy about something that happened? I can help you with more than you think. Most of the time, you don’t need to go directly to a manager. I’ll get him for you, of course, if you absolutely must see him. But try me first. Some things are a very easy fix, and you know what? I like helping you out. I really do. If I don’t know the answer to a question, I will know how to find out. I will put up your umbrella for you, take your glasses back to your table so they don’t get lost in the water, help you find the right size life vest for your toddler, clear away your trays and drinks. I want your day to be GREAT, because you spent a lot of money either on season passes or general admission tickets to bring your whole family to this park, and you’re probably still spending money, what with food and treats and such. I’m a parent on a budget too, and I understand your perspective. I want to help you. No, I can’t refund your money if you’re completely dissatisfied with the birthday party package you paid for; but, I can blow up more floats if there aren’t enough, and I can fix your chair when it breaks, and I can run and grab a new ice cream cup for your son who is wailing like a banshee because his just spilled all over the ground. I can do a lot for you, and I want to, so don’t let a relatively minor mishap ruin your experience here. Just ask me for help.

IX. Thou shalt wear shoes everywhere in the park.

This is for your sake, not mine. Just trust me on this one.

X. Thou shalt leave when the park closes.

We close at six o’clock. Six o’clock is when the park closes, not just the rides and attractions. Six o’clock is not the proper time to get one last drink, buy one last snack, have a refreshing rest at your shaded table, then head to the bathroom to shower and change all thirty-two of your children, and finally gather up your things to leave by ten ‘til seven. The park closes at six. All of that other stuff should be done by six. And for goodness’ sake, you just got out of seven hours in the sun and you’re heading home…do you really need to wash and dry your hair and put on makeup? I cannot clean the bathrooms fully until everyone is gone. I can try, but every time I clean a toilet, it will get dirty again; and every time I wash a sink, it will get used, and every time I wipe the mirrors, they will get splattered, and every time I sweep the dressing rooms, tags and brushes and discarded clothing will be left in it. So for all practical purposes, it is correct to say that I cannot fully clean the bathroom until you have left it. Chances are good that I have been working for the past nine hours in ninety-seven degree heat, cleaning up after and waiting on your family. And I’m okay with that, because that’s my job while I’m there. But now we’re closed, and it will take me another hour or so to get everything clean after you’re gone, and I would really like to go home to my family. So please leave when the park closes, not thirty to sixty minutes after. 

How My Mom Made Me a Better Parent

I firmly believe that our memories from childhood are key in shaping our lives as adults. Our experiences at six years old can impact our choices at twenty-six years old, positively or negatively, depending on whether or not we are aware of their importance in our lives. They can prompt us to act in a certain way, or they can convince us that we will NEVER act in a certain way. They can show us the good we want to be, or they can show us what we don't want to be.

On this day of recognition for madres everywhere, I thought it fitting to share some of my experiences as a child, specifically with my mom. I did not know when I was eight years old that she was shaping my views of motherhood - it's possible that she didn't think about it either, but she was. Most of these things are after-effects. I never knew that I felt this way or why until I became an adult, sometimes through conversation with other people about their own childhoods, and sometimes watching Isabella grow. And I am so grateful for the lessons that she taught me, knowingly or otherwise.

1. She never, ever talked badly about my dad.

My parents are still married after 35 years, and like all marriages, there have been times in their journey that were not as happy as others. They don't try to hide the fact that the beginning years of their marriage were difficult, and that sometimes, having four young children was the only thing that kept them together. I remember them fighting. I remember them being so, so mad at each other. I remember that occasionally my mom would come out of the house, pile us all into the car and take us to a playground for a while, which was a special treat. I realized later she did that when she was mad at my dad and needed to be away from thue house to cool down.

But in all that, one striking thing that was missing was any negativity about our father. Even when she was mad at him, so mad she had to take all of us and leave the house, she said not one bad thing about him. At the time I didn't realize it - I noticed only what was there, not what was lacking. But as an adult, I began to see other people and hear their stories of growing up, and I was shocked when I learned that some parents feel no qualms about trashing their spouse in front of (or even to) their children. My mom never did that, and incidentally, my dad never did that about my mom either.

Now, as a wife and mother, there are times when Josh and I drive each other just a leetle bit cRaZy. But that lesson sticks. Whatever frustrations we have are between each other. It's okay for Bella to know we disagree, and it's okay for her to see us argue a point. (Her experiences watching us handle arguments will guide her in learning how to deal with differences in her own relationships.) But I have vowed to always, always be aware of what I say about Josh and how I say it. I don't want her to ever feel that I don't respect him, and I especially don't want her to copy me and exhibit that same behavior.

2. She never, ever talked badly about herself, her abilities or her body.

Again, never realized this until I was an adult. I have moments when I feel like the worst mother in the word. I have moments when I look in the mirror and think how tired and old and worn down I feel. Sometimes I don't feel pretty. Sometimes I feel like I can barely keep my head above water. Sometimes I look at moms around me and marvel that THEY can somehow keep it all together when I can obviously not. Sometimes I am overwhelmed and upset and basically, a mess.

My mom had four kids, and reason tells me that she must have felt this way. Every mom feels this way, at least at some point. I don't think it was any different for moms 30 years ago. But my mom never called herself names. She never called herself fat or ugly, a failure or a mess, even if she may have been feeling that way. Whatever she was feeling about herself on the inside, on the outside she let us believe that she thought she was smart and creative and beautiful and confident. It never occurred to me that she might feel otherwise.

Now, I have a little set of eyes watching me, and little ears taking in every word I say. Whatever I say, Bella believes to be true, and that is a very serious responsibility. She believes everything I say. So if I tell her that I'm fat and old and ugly, and that she is young and beautiful and thin, then she is going to believe me. I would inadvertently teacher her that the reason she is beautiful is because she is young and skinny...and how badly that could mess her up! How that could skew her perception of beauty and self worth! Instead, I make a conscious effort to see myself as God sees me, to be mindful of my beauty and not just my failings. It's okay to know your weaknesses, because that's what we need to acknowledge before we can actively work to correct them. But God does not want our self worth to be defined through societal standards, but through his eyes of love. And like my mother, that is what I am trying to show my daughter.

3. She let me and my sister try absolutely everything she did.

My mom is extremely artistic, resourceful and creative. She always has been. And growing up, she let my sister and I try everything she did. If she took up cake decorating, she let us try it too. If she was painting, we got to try with her. If she learned needlepoint or cross stitch or sewing, then we had our own small projects that we got to make alongside her.

At the time, it made perfect sense to me. Why would I not be allowed to use paint or play with icing? What reason could there possibly be to keep me from using resources, taking over the kitchen table or handling sharp objects? Now, of course, I have a daughter of my own and I realize how exasperating it is to include your child in everything you do. First of all, she makes a total mess of everything and then of course, she doesn't want to clean anything up, so that's a battle. And I get so much less done of my own project because she constantly needs help or supervision. It takes twice as long to teach her something as it would take to just do it myself. And it's a real test of patience when you are trying to teach someone who has the attention span of a carrot.

And yet, my mom survived it. Multiple times. And I am grateful for it, because I got to try so many things when I was little. I did art and crafts and building projects of all sorts, and some of them never amounted to anything, and some of them did, and some of those experiments turned into lifelong loves, and some were tossed away as quickly as they were started...but I got to try. My mom always let us try, and now, I try to do the same for Bella. I let her cook with me, chop vegetables and stir the pots on the stove when it would be much faster and easier to do it all myself. We get out paint and glitter and paper and glue, even when it means that I have to sweep and scrub when we're done. I want her to look back on her childhood and say, "My mom did so much cool stuff with me." Because for me, a lot of the benefit was about the memories of my mom, and I want Bella to have those same good memories of me.

There is more. I could write more, but I am running out of time and space. I've told all this to my mom before, but I feel like it was time to tell everyone else about it. Happy Mother's Day, Mimo!

Easter Birthday

If you know me at all, then you probably know that one of my biggest pet peeves - one of the things I dislike so intensely - is the commercialization of all things good and sacred. I have written multiple blog posts about ridiculous gift giving standards at Christmas that promote feelings of inferiority and entitlement at the same time. I have done more than I ever intended at Valentine's Day because I have been gone the last three years, and so I usually leave Bella presents to try to "make up" for it. But if I were at home, there may be a Valentine's Day present, or there may not. There certainly wouldn't be many.

Along those lines, I have never liked the idea of giving actual presents at Easter. A basket is fine, throw in some plastic eggs with a few treats inside, and possibly a little stuffed bunny or something, and that's okay. But extravagant gifts at Easter bothers me. At Christmas, I get it. It's tradition based on history dating back centuries. But at Easter, it seems like another attempt for commercialism to invade my life.

I'm not pretending to be immune to media. In fact, I am susceptible to it, which is why I try so hard to be aware of its influence on me. I walk past store aisles full of must-have Easter essentials and I am tempted to try for the perfect Easter meal, the perfect baskets overflowing with the perfect gifts, the perfect cookies and treats and crafts that make me look like the perfect mom who always has the perfect activities to do with my daughter; and in the process I spend $150. That's $150 to perpetuate a lie (I am NOT perfect), and $150 spent that has absolutely nothing to do with the reason we actually celebrate Easter anyway. So I'm not immune. I'm always tempted - every year, for every holiday - to go overboard. But I rein it in, because I don't want to lose sight of what is really, really important.

That being said...

This year was special because Bella's birthday also happened to be today. This coincidence of happy events is not likely to be repeated very often - if ever - in her lifetime, and so in spite of my aversion to gifts for Easter, I did want to make it a little bit bigger celebration. Finances at the moment are on pretty strict rations, so I couldn't go too big anyway, but I did do some things.

Every year I hide maybe a dozen eggs or so. I usually only put one little treat inside each egg. (Most of the candy we get at every holiday ends up sitting on top of the refrigerator for indefinite periods of time before we throw it away, anyway.) So today I only had 12 eggs, and 6 of them had treats in them. The other six were tied with a pretty ribbon and had a miniature pony inside. She LOVES My Little Ponies, so I knew it would be a big hit. I also found, in the "Easter Basket stuffers" section, a few little medium sized ponies that I hid around the yard as well.

I got her three semi-small birthday presents and wrapped them with pretty Pony paper. I hid those around the yard too. See how the ribbon is light and dark pinks? Those are Pinkie Pie colors. I had another one that was blue with red, orange and yellow curls for Rainbow Dash, and the other was pink and purple for Twilight Sparkle. I spent 20 minutes doing it, and they were SO cute. And in true kid-fashion, she totally didn't notice.

She loves to hunt for eggs. Every year, it's this fun thing we do. We hide the eggs multiple times through the day and take turns hunting for them. 

The dress this year was a blessing from our good friends, the Landry's. I had refrained from buying a new dress for Bella, and Heather just happened to be getting rid of her daughter's size 5 pretty dress. Bella came into our room at 7:15 this morning, already dressed in her outfit. I hadn't even gone outside to hide everything yet!

Since it was Easter AND her birthday, I did buy her two separate cards. Our school, a few weeks ago, had a couple large boxes of beautiful, overstocked Valentine's cards donated to us. I laughed because there was a whole stack of cards that were for Valentine's birthdays, and I thought, "Surely that can't be in very high demand!" When I was looking for cards for Belle, I thought, "Man, I wish I could find a card that was for Easter AND birthday!" Ironic, yes? It made me chuckle.

She actually read both the cards herself. So proud.

The Pinkie Pie headphones were her favorite, I think. We also got her the Frozen soundtrack, which I had forecasted to be the big winner, but she seemed to love the headphones the most.

And she was delighted when she realized that the ribbon eggs were special.

And I did a bunny. Because it was so cute, and I love pink bunnies. How can one NOT love a pink bunny?

And really, that's all we did. We did let her choose a restaurant to eat for lunch, and she chose Panda Express. (Absolutely no surprise there. The surprise was only that she briefly contemplated Olive Garden. That was a first.) After church, we got home and she played outside with her ponies and her fairy house. We rented The Pirate Fairy, and it was a lovely day. 

I am so grateful for this little girl, for the wonder and the blessing she is to me. She has enriched my life in so many ways - not just because of how I love her or how she loves me, but because she has helped me understand my relationship with God the Father on such a different level. I believe that was part of God's design - but that's another post. For now, happy Easter and happy birthday to my sweet, six year old girl!

About the Work

So, I have spent some time talking about reflections, lessons learned and opportunities I have had to grow and change. What I haven't spent so much time talking about is the work we are actually doing. Partly, that's because there is so much to cover that it truly feels like a huge task. But I have an afternoon of down time today, so I want to get it done. We do so many things here, and I want everyone to see exactly how MAMA Project works and what a difference it makes in the lives of Hondurans!

Normally, on a one week trip, our team would be flying right now. Saturdays are comings and goings. Since half of our team is staying through the second week, we two-weekers spent the morning working at the Nutrition Center, then had an afternoon of relative relaxation while the second week team makes their way here to the mission house.

The Nutrition Center is right next to the mission house, just up the hill. It's common for MAMA staff to identify malnourished children in various communities. There are many other humanitarian organizations currently working in Honduras, and sometimes families are referred to MAMA Project by those organizations who cannot meet the needs of a family. For example, there is another group called the Barnabas Project, and they are able to do heart surgeries. However, they do not have the facilities to take care of malnourished children; so when they find one, they might refer the family to MAMA. More often, though, the children in need are identified through medical brigades with missions teams, such as ours. 

These are the ladies and children that are currently at the Nutrition Center receiving care. 

This week, in the four villages we visited this week, 21 children were identified by the doctors as being moderately to severely malnourished. These families are invited to come live at the Nutrition Center, where they will receive healthy food and medical attention, as well as parenting and health education. Some families accept the invitation; for various reasons, others do not. The staff of MAMA do their best to follow up with those who choose not to come, to see if they change their mind or if there is another way they can be helped. Those who do come stay anywhere from a few weeks to several months, depending on their health and the amount of care they require. These services are all free of charge to the families.

This is Maria. She and her younger brother Dennis are currently receiving help at the Nutrition Center.

Sarah and I spent some time reading stories and coloring with the children.

The ladies who live at the Center help with some chores, such as cleaning the buildings and taking care of the grounds. These women are raking up fallen leaves.

The Nutrition Center is also where the medicines and resources are kept. We usually spend half a day there sorting out medicines and organizing the pharmacy to get ready for the medical brigades. We did that a few times this week, actually. Also, I wrote earlier this week about construction of the wall. That has been an ongoing project for several years, and the construction crew (usually the men of the team, but women are welcome to help too) has worked on that several days this week.

The Center is at the top of a steep hill, but the wall itself is down on the other side of the hill. The truck can get the blocks up to the top of the hill, but not down into the construction site, so they all have to be carried down. The men spend a LOT of time moving rocks, moving blocks, hauling water and shoveling sand.

See all these rocks and concrete blocks? They all had to be moved. Guess who moved them? All the guys. I'm not kidding when I say they work their tails off.

The dirt is dumped in a pile and then tossed through a sifter, so that only the sand goes through. Then the sand is wheeled down to the construction area to be used in mixing the concrete. The work teams find it easier to mix the cement in large plastic tubs, but Hondurans are accustomed to mixing it directly on the ground.

I love this sand pile picture, because those holes up the side of the pile are the footprints of one of the little girls who is currently living at the Nutrition Center. She was hanging around playing while my dad was shoveling sand.

This is the same process that is used to pour cement floors in homes at each community we visit. MAMA staff drive ahead to each home and deliver the materials that will be used. The home owners have to supply the water for the project. Sometimes they have a hose or a water faucet right there at the some; sometimes the men have to carry water and sand up or down hills during the entire process. These pictures really don't do justice to the process. Trust me, these men work hard. The finished floors are a major step in helping prevent malnutrition, by preventing parasites that can be contracted through playing and even sleeping on the dirt floors of the homes.

Here are some of the guys from our first week team: Russ, Felix, Kevin, Eddie, Dave, Wilson and Jim.

Mixing the cement in tubs.

I picked up one of these buckets. I could hardly lift it with both hands.

The water also has to be brought in buckets.

The MAMA truck brings the guys and the supplies to the work site.

While the floors are being poured in the homes, the medical brigades are ministering to the needs of the rest of the community. Everyone has an opportunity to have their blood pressure checked, receive vitamins, receive reading glasses, receive deworming pills, and be checked for anemia. Not all teams do this, but our team also sets up a donations table where we give small gifts to the people in the community – especially family and children's Bibles. At least one doctor and one dentist are also available, although depending on how large the community is and how many doctors are available, it often happens that not everybody is able to have a consultation.

Hector helps a woman find reading glasses that will suit her needs.

Dr. Lindsay and Celeste, her translator, consult with a patient.

One of our nurses, Zenaida, listens to a woman's breathing. Asthma and respiratory problems are very common in the communities.

One of MAMA's leading staff, Mary, conducts introductions in a community. She prays, introduces the team, and tells the people what they can expect and how the brigade will work.

After waiting in line to register, the people wait in one line after another for the brigade. They are so patient and thankful for the care that they receive. This line is for deworming pills and Vitamin A.

The dentist, Dr. Luisa, consults with a young lady about her teeth.

She loves her Pillow Pet! It was the same one my daughter has!

This little girl got a stuffed bunny. The animals were all very popular this year!

Mary and Angel working in the pharmacy, handing out medicines that the doctors prescribe.

This mother and her young son have their fingers poked to have their blood checked for anemia. The little boy was most displeased.

Earlier in the week I helped the dentist. Along with the pharmacy, that was one of my favorite jobs last year. This year it was a young girl named Luisa. (She looks 17 years old but she's actually 27. That's kind of common here!) The blood and drool is a little gross, but the worst part of it is hearing teeth break. I wince every time. I also had the job of holding two children down while the dentist pulled out multiple rotten teeth. That was pretty intense. They needed to come out though, or they would have caused serious, serious problems – especially since these children obviously did not have regular access to dental care. I went home and sent Bella a message saying that she needed to brush her teeth without fussing! I really like the job, however. I haven't totally figured out why yet!

Toward the end of the day, Luisa (very unexpectedly) had me scrub my hands and actually help her with an extraction. She didn't need help, she was just letting me help for the experience. It was a little crazy. She even had me hold the pliers with her while we pulled this poor lady's tooth out! (Yes, they use local anesthetic as well as numbing shots!)

You can't actually see my face in this picture, but I was a little terrified.

I couldn't do anything to help as Luisa administered the shots, but I have seen how terribly painful it is for the patients, so I just rubbed this woman's shoulder and held her hand.

The people we meet here are wonderful. 

I wish I had time and space to say so many more things about them all, but I just don't. They are kind, and thankful, and just like me in so many ways. They want their kids to be healthy. They love their families. They work hard to do their jobs. And at the end of the day, I can relate to them in so very many ways. So could you, if you came here and spent a week with them.

Hey, you know what? You should do that...

The Sum of Love

We think about numbers a lot. Numbers help us keep track of things, they make things orderly, they provide labels, they bring sense to chaos. I cannot even conceive of a time before there were numbers. I don’t know how people survived.

I wonder about Jesus’ numbers sometimes. We, in a sense, are doing what Jesus did. We are traveling from place to place, ministering to the needs of the people there, praying with them and showing the love of God. How tired he must have been. How often he must have longed for time alone, but when he came to a new place, his reaction was always the same. He saw the crowds, and he had compassion. Regardless of how far he had walked, how hungry he was or how much he wanted to be alone, he always had compassion. But when he did, he always knew that he was doing his Father’s work, and it brought him joy.

I like to imagine what his numbers would have looked like. Maybe….

500 miles walked

40 days in the desert

12 close friends

3 years of ministry

5 loaves of bread

2 fish

10,000 people

10 lepers

1 betrayal

39 lashes

3 days walking the pits of Hell

1 victorious resurrection

His numbers were hard, but he knew it was worth it. His numbers were an act of love.

Our team went through a lot to get here. We were weary, and wondered if things would work out. We persevered and hoped and prayed in spite of everything. Sometimes, in the back of my mind, I wondered if it would be worth it. Sometimes, I thought it would be easier not to come to Honduras. My numbers look more like this:

115 take home meals made

300 hours cooking food and making cookbooks

1,000 dollars donated to me by family and friends

2 donations from people I have never met

1 missing passport

11 missed days of work

20 stuffed animals

4 hours in flight

10 much-anticipated Honduran friends

2 bouts with motion sickness

14 days without my family

6 Spanish children’s books

1 joke about an ant and an elephant

And like Jesus, when we get to the place where we are going, we see the crowds and we always have the same reaction. Compassion. We realize that every hardship is worth it. Every moment of stress and frustration and fatigue is worth it. Jesus had his moments, I am positive, where joy overtook every other emotion, because he knew he was walking the road that God had told him to walk. We can say the same thing. And we too have those moments, where joy overtakes us.

The number add up, and the result is beautiful. The sum of all my numbers is love.

Life With Limitations: A Day of “Not Enough”

Today was our first day working in communities, and for those of us who have been here before, we always know that it will be a day full of conflicting emotions. The community we visited was large – well over 200 people. I worked in the pharmacy, which is one of my favorite jobs, and throughout the day I found myself thinking with sadness about how limited I am.

People come from all over the community – i.e., all over the mountain side – to visit the medical brigade. Sometimes they wait all day to catch a ride with someone, and sometimes they walk for an hour to get there. Sometimes they come alone, and sometimes they bring an entourage of children and family members. They all come with a specific purpose: they want to see a doctor and get medicine.

We had three doctors available today to see patients, and yet that wasn’t enough. Maybe half of the people that came through the brigade got to see a physician. The brigade itself is beneficial, because the people receive anti-parasite medicine, get vitamins, receive reading glasses if they need them, and have their blood checked for anemia. But really, the people want to see the doctor. There was a nurse helping out at the beginning of the stations, trying to identify which of the people truly needed to be examined, but of course, many people were disappointed. And we thought, “We just don’t have enough doctors.”

The doctors themselves had disappointments. They identified people with pneumonia, and knew that these people needed more serious, long term care at a hospital, but they also knew that in spite of the referral, most people would not be willing or able to go. Sometimes they don’t have the money, sometimes they don’t have transportation, sometimes they have a family who is unsupportive or a spouse unwilling to allow them to be gone from the home. In spite of the mobile pharmacy, there are conditions and medications and tests that are simply not available to the physicians during the brigade, and they have to watch as people walk away, knowing they will not receive the care and attention they need. And we think, “We just don’t have enough help available.”

Before the trip this year, we all knew that we would be short on gifts and donations. Because of so many people coming for two weeks and the way the available suitcases worked out, we had far less space for bringing donations and far less money to buy them. During the brigade, the donations table ran out of Bibles and ran out of gifts, and still there was a line of people waiting to come through. And we thought, “We just don’t have enough resources.”

And there was a dog. There was this dog that broke my heart, and it was kind of the straw that broke the camel’s back. Most of the animals here are too thin and look unhealthy, but this one was especially mangy and had a broken leg. It kept coming in to the room where we were eating lunch, hoping for a crumb or a scrap. I wasn’t hungry (even before I saw the dog), so I was just picking here and there at my baleada. (Tortilla with beans, eggs and cheese.) With the people in the community, I see and know how much some of them need, but I have the power to help them. It might be temporary and it might be just a little bit, but I can do something for them. I cannot do anything for that poor, malnourished, crippled, nursing dog. I couldn’t even toss it the crust of my tortilla. We were in an open area, and there were children and adults gathered around waiting to see the doctor; they could see everything we did. And I knew that I couldn’t feed that dog my crust when there were children watching who were hungry themselves. And I almost cried.

So it’s easy, when we consider all of these things bombarding us in a day, to get frustrated and feel like our efforts are futile. We don’t have enough. We can’t do enough. We are not enough.

And then I stop, and I remember.

We are not enough. But God is enough.

When we agree to be his hands and his feet, his voice and his heart, we allow his power to work through us. We see only a portion of the picture. We only do one bit of the work. We pray that the people of the Lord will respond to his call for workers, those who are willing to be both hearers and doers of the word, and that others will come to continue the work which we have started. We ourselves have come to continue the work that others before us have started.

And then, suddenly…we are enough, because God is enough.

So before I leave for the night, I do want to post some pictures and share some highlights of our day. It was full, and challenging, and wonderful at the same time. (Also, disclaimer: I did not take a SINGLE picture today. I was too busy. These pictures were all taken by our team leader, Angel.)

The drive there was more than an hour and a half, literally up and down a mountain on a washed out gravel path with hairpins turns. But the view was amazing.

We passed a couple of boys on horseback and stopped to ask them if they would let us take their picture. They agreed, then one of our team gave them a couple suckers, which they accepted. And I thought, “I wonder if their parents taught them not to take candy from strangers.”

When we got there, we prayed with the community before we began the brigade. For the first time, the community joined in! MAMA Project has worked in this community before, but this was the first time for our team. When Mary, our fearless leader, said the prayer in Spanish, nearly everyone in the crowd began praying with her. The team members all looked at each other in wonder. It was an amazing experience!

The stations portion of the brigade consists of blood pressure, hemoglobin test (to check for anemia), vitamins and deworming medications, reading glasses and donations.

Working in the pharmacy, I gave out a lot of medication. There are many, many people who receive pain relievers like aspirin and ibuprofen.  There are also other over the counter medicines available, and a lot of prescriptions medications as well. Some people come through and need only one or two basic items – things we normally stock in our medicine cabinets at home, but it may be the only time they have access to it for weeks or even months. Other people come through and have five or six or even more medicines that they need.

And the highlight of my day: there was one paper, a paper that made me so happy. It was for an infant girl asleep in her mother’s arms. The medicine checklist was blank, and the note said, “Healthy 5 month old baby.”