Beauty and the Beast

I woke up in the middle of the night once again feeling overwhelmed by the task of starting a school in the DRC (Congo). This included feelings of incompetence, doubt, fear, being giving too much responsibility, and unrealistic expectations placed on me. 

Along the beautiful Crocodile river

Phil, Alex, and I are on a combined work/vacation trip in South Africa, since Phil’s job brings him here. Yesterday here at Kruger National Park was an amazing day of witnessing God’s nature in harmony with its creatures. 

Those are hippos not rocks

Beauty, harmony, and creativity at its best….”Wow, God was even creative when he made animal’s private parts”, Alex pointed out as he noticed and commented on the the blue monkeys’ “bright blue balls!”

The vervet monkey

Alex enjoying a ride through the Kruger

But as I lay awake at two in the morning, all that amazement and awe disappeared and all I felt was a weight of bricks on me, and the replaying in my mind of an animal drama that we had witnessed the evening before.  Across the river from where we were staying, a couple of water buffalo had separated themselves from the rest of their herd. With them was a little calf.  When we arrived on the scene, drawn in by a little crowed watching with binoculars, five lions came out of the bush and slowly, but strategically approached the water buffalo, seemingly with their eyes on the calf.  One of the female water buffalo kept chasing off several of the lionesses. Time after time she tried to scare them off.  Unfortunately, after about 40 minutes, the largest lion lunged towards the calf and took it down. Several cries of horror went out from us spectators on the other side of the river.

If you look really hard you will see the male lion approaching the water buffalo

In my “out of proportion, 2 o’clock in the morning reasoning space” I was comparing myself to the female water buffalo, possibly the mother of the calf, who was trying to save her young one…..but lost in the end.  I was glad to wake up to an amazing new day in Krueger Park.  I took in more of God’s wonderful creation. 

South Africa's funny Guineafowl

“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matt. 6:26)

I have to let it go.  I cannot carry it on my own and should never think that I need to. Phil often reminds me that “God does not need our ability, but desires our availability”, quoting Ian Thomas of the Torchbearers.

So with this blog I lay down my worries, which are mostly connected to my lack of ability…

- worry about the teachers getting adequate training so that they’ll be ready to start teaching

- worry about where the $30,000 needed for the renovations on the school building we plan to use will come from

- worry about the timing of the rental contract for the school property

- worry about how the school principal is going to be able to raise enough support to get to Kinshasa by summer time

- worry about African “timing” - will we be able to open our doors in September 2015?

… in order to once again make myself available to be used, and to serve through God’s strength alone! And to remember that the Creator loves his creation!

Thanks for listening.  Maybe these thoughts will resonate with you.

The beauty of the Kruger Park

The Paper Tie

The Stuart Family 1975

When I was a little girl I remember giving my dad a special tie for Father’s Day. It was one that I made in my kindergarten class. It was made out of paper. We had cut them out and decorated them especially for our dads.  Mine was quite colorful with my own special designs. It was kind of silly looking, but I was proud of it, because it was something I had made for him. I remember giving it to him and how he graciously and lovingly received it with a big smile on his face. I also remember being a little embarrassed by it because it definitely didn’t live up to the many other ties that my dad wore.  My dad was a pastor and often wore a tie. One morning he showed up at the breakfast table wearing the tie I had made him. He loved it and was going to wear it to work. He couldn’t have made a little five-year-old happier!

Tammy in Kindergarten

Standing in front of our "likely" Congo, Kinshasa school building

Today, 40 years later, I still feel like I am making “paper ties”. Not for my dad any longer, but for my heavenly father. Whether the tie I make comes in the form of the project I am working on to get a school starting in the DRC (Congo), organizing a fundraiser Freiheitslauf(“freedom run”),  trying to connect our church women’s ministry to the needs of the many refugees that are moving into this area of Germany, perhaps cooking a meal, or singing in our town’s Music Verein (local choir). These “ties” are all things I enjoy “making”, with my limited knowledge, experience, expertise, passion and love…

The other day while reading in the Bible I was reminded that when God created men and women, He created them to reflect His own image to the world.  It hit me that the gifts and passions He specifically gave me were given so that I could reflect that aspect of Him to this world.  I don’t have to be ashamed of them, or feel like they are “less worthy” than others, because I know he has made me to reflect that part of His image in me to the world around.
 

Happy Birthday Dad! ( Feb 21) Love you! 

I have a delightful picture in my head - a picture of God wearing a different paper tie every day. Ones that each of us have made and given Him which show our own individual uniqueness, culture, gifts….ones that reflect something of Him in us. And yes, He is wearing them with a big, proud smile on His face!

Long Distance Family

We put Amanda and Michael on planes back to the US the last weeks after having them “home” for Christmas break. We had a great time together! 

Yes, the house seems empty now. Living 5000 miles away from your children is not something I find easy. I usually spend a couple of days after they leave feeling the “empty space” that comes with their departure.

My mother-heart feels heavy, I might shed some tears, and sometimes relish in the memory of the very familiar feeling that “being a whole family” brought back. I’m sure many of you can relate. The long distance family is no longer an unusual phenomena in our global world.

I often struggle with what this means for us as a family. Does the long distance define us?  How do we balance a live meaningful relationships as a "long distance family"? 

How much should we "hold on" and how much should we "let go"? 

A fun ski outing over Christmas break

Cheese fondu prep

I

I visited a refugee center in a neighboring village this morning, 7 km from my house. 

40 people arrived just 3 days ago from various countries that have been ravaged by war, poverty and economic crisis, and 140 more will join them in the next couple of months.  I assume that most of them felt they had to leave their “home” and likely even family members to hopefully find a new place to begin again.

 As I sat with them in a room listening to the social worker explain, through broken translation, the refugee center’s “Hausordnung”, you could sense their apprehension, questions and uncertainty about this new place and their future lives.

Good times with Grandpa!

 What I did notice is that most of them sat together in what I assume were families; father, mother, children, some grandparents.  They held on to each other, touched each other, moms stroked their little girl’s hair, little boys sat on their dad’s laps, daughters whispered comments to grandparents..... and there, amidst the unfamiliar, foreign, and frightening new situation, was a kind of security, connection, and a sense of strength through the family unit which enables people to face the unknowns of the future together.

Family is important! It is a gift to have one, whether long-distance, displaced, patch-work, or if you all live in the same town.  Cherish your family, make your relationships a priority. Be open to sharing “your family” with those who don’t have one. Phil and I work with so many children who don’t. 

Pray for each other, encourage each other, carry each other, and love, love, love.

Winter Wondering

Black Forest beech tree

It is that time in the Black Forest when the sky is dull, heavy and grey, and the cool dampness in the air makes you want to sit for hours in front of a warm fire place.

Winter is here, dark is more prominent then light, time seems to have slowed, as well as the earth.

…..It is a time of waiting

...yet of expectation. 

Something IS to come.

ADVENT- coming, arrival

I wonder if the earth felt that kind of anticipation two thousand years ago. Did it sense an advent was upon it? That something was coming? That a Savior was to be born?

He didn’t come with the clash of loud cymbals. He arrived in a way which most people would never have noticed: poor, a refugee, a child. 

He came in the most vulnerable of ways.

"Do you see what I  see? "

If we don’t slow down…we will miss It.  

Miss what most don’t see,

Miss the message, 

Miss the small but beautiful, 

Miss what is the biggest, the paradox.

 Miss what we can’t afford to miss: LIFE. 

 Schauinsland, Schwarzwald, Germany

 "He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to those who received him, he gave the right to become children of God." 

John 1:10-12

"Wandering" in Schauinsland with good friends

Not your Typical Thanksgiving List

Here in Germany the temperatures are slowly dropping, the wind in blowing,  the fall-colored leaves are falling and there is that moist dampness with a hint of fermented apple smell in the air that reminds us that winter is fast approaching.

Enjoying a walk in the Black Forest with Sigrid a good friend visiting from Austria

As I sit here in the quiet of my cozy home in the still dark morning hours before the house awakens to a new busy day, my thoughts turn to the theme of thanksgiving and the preparations for next week. 

Menu planning, who will cook what, which table decorations… Will dad be out of the hospital and able to come? The absence of our college kids, … how we will miss having them here. What “thanksgiving thought” will we share?

I begin to think back over this past year and the many life changes that will be represented in the group that will be gathered here on thanksgiving day; many exciting changes, some hard, some scary, and yes, some very challenging.

It is easy for me to thank for all the good things, and there have been so many of those this year. 

Got to join Phil in South Africa last week for his OSWW staff retreat

But what about all those things that were not so easy… plans that turned out differently from what I had hoped for, those unanswered questions, unending challenges, mountains that seem insurmountable, battles of my mind, disappointments, and perhaps the letting go of dreams…what about those?  Do I give thanks for those?

I read a quote by Spurgeon this morning that really spoke to me:

“ There is no greater mercy that I know on earth than good health, except it be sickness; and that has often been a greater mercy to me than health…. It is a good thing to be without a trouble, but it is a better thing to have a trouble and know how to get grace enough to bear it.”

Rough waters on cap Agulhas ( the southern most tip of Africa)

I breathe a sigh of relief… yes, that is it.  That is what I am truly thankful for… the knowing that there is someone who provides “grace enough to bear it” … and not just for me, but for my family, friends, the children I think of because of our work in Africa, whom I carry in my heart.

So I pick up my pen and continue writing my “list of thanksgiving” for the things present in my life that are not your typical thanksgiving items, but are items for which I know God has given me, given you, given them ... grace enough to bear.

 

Phil's OSWW team confronting the  massive challenge of Africa's marginalized children

Dad recovering after his heart surgery