Journey ahead....

The map (which is clearly not in English, but is colorful and fun) indicates our route over the next nine days. On August 30th, we set out from Denver in a rental car. Along the way we will visit Jason's grandma and take some time to rest before we jump into the moving picture.

On September 5th, we will fly out of Dulles Airport bound for Dakar, Senegal. It is an 8-hour flight (not bad at ALL, huh?!) directly from DC to Dakar. Dakar, Senegal is a very big hub of activity and industry on the West Coast of Africa. It is an hour-long flight from there directly to Bissau City, but the flight costs about $600-$800 per person and a taxi costs a few hundred dollars total for us and Sheba and our luggage. It becomes a financial no-brainer. We will travel for two days by car to go from Dakar, Senegal to Bissau, Guinea-Bissau. We'll go through three countries: Senegal, The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. The first day of travel by car will be in what's called a sept place. It's a seven-seater car that we can rent along with a driver who will take us halfway. Our first night in Africa will be spent in Ziguinchor (zig-in-shore), Senegal on the border. The border closes at 7pm, so we will stay in a hotel in a compound in Zig that night and we'll wait until morning to cross. The most exciting part of this jurney is where we get to meet our friends, the Atkins!!! They'll be waiting for us in Ziguinchor so we can travel with them the following day.

Finally, we will reach Bissau and will get to see our friends there. Jason will meet his first Guinean EVER on the 7th of September and we'll begin our process of entering the world of Guinea-Bissau and learning their culture and working with the church there.

**Please pray for safe travels for us and for non-eventfulness in the journey! Pray for wisdom and alertness and safe arrival of us and our bags.

Busyness and Goodbyes and Hellos

"When you say goodbye, I hope it hurts. If it does, then you know that you have loved and been loved well." ~Vivian Wilson at MTI

It has taken me several days just to write this. I think it's because it's difficult to say goodbye. I have loved and been loved well, but it's hard to admit that we're closing this time with you. Saying goodbye means acknowledging that I am going through loss. It means that I can't be glib and just tell you that "we'll see each other again" or "a few years isn't that long." While those things may be true or may not, they are not the answer to what I have to do. I have to tell you that you matter and I miss you. You've taken up residence in my heart and I'll feel the distinct lack of you in my life. Yeah, I know there's really good and exciting stuff ahead, I can't wait for it, but this stings. We had our final going away party tonight in Fort Collins. We were SO thankful to see so many friends there, it's like having a huge, wonderful family. The people in our lives embrace us like family and we're so glad for that! It makes goodbyes hard, but SO important to do right. I still don't have the hang of it yet...clearly, or I wouldn't be working on this for days only to erase it and start over after our last goodbye party. I have a lot of work to do yet.

While we were at MTI, we spent a day talking about hellos and goodbyes. They challenged and encouraged us to "say goodbye well." Often, I insulate my feelings when I'm facing difficulty and the risk of hurting. I've done that a lot this year thinking it would protect me, but it just makes me act weird. Jason doesn't like it much. :) What I didn't know is that it's important for us to feel that hurt so we can move through it and into healthy "hellos" on the other side. When we say goodbye and do it well, we are giving the gift of a full-hearted hello to the group we'll join afterward. Goodbyes have a process and a culmination. We have said goodbye to many people at this point and have more to say in the coming days. We hope to convey to each of you just how much you've meant to us and that it will be a personal loss to us not to be able to spend time with you and enjoy the closeness we've enjoyed with you. And we also look forward to thoroughly embracing the hearts of people we don't even know yet in Guinea-Bissau. These are times of great paradox. It involves a lot of the unknown, God's great provision that comes in our eleventh hour, sadness that is sweet, joy that is full and moments that cement themselves to our memory.

"Closing time: Open all the doors and let you out into the world ...
Closing time: You don't have to go home but you can't stay here...
Closing time: Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."

These words are strong for me when I am going through times of transition. I like the comfort of knowing that looking at the end of a chapter means that there's a beginning at the turn of the next page. This is a new beginning. It is a time to be sad and happy. That's comforting in a way because it helps me know that this is all pretty normal.

The song above is beautiful and has granted me deep solace. I know that no matter where I am, He is right there with me and I am not alone. I can stop striving and take rest. Rest is beautiful and is right. Recently, I realized that in the USA, often we can value "busyness"....seriously, when was the last time you talked to someone and asked them how they were and they said "Busy!" It happens all the time. The tone I use when I tell people I've been "busy" sounds like I expect them to be proud of me for being that way. It's like, "See, I've got a lot going on, it's why we haven't gotten together, I am important" and busy-ness becomes a badge we wear. What if the next time someone asked "What have you been up to?" or "How are you?" I said, "I've been resting and allowing myself to recharge," or "I've had fun." Maybe if I'd give myself a chance to recharge and rest, I'd find that I was able to communicate what people mean to me and focus on them rather than hope they notice my "Been-Busy-Badge." What if instead of being busy and important, I said, "You're so important to me and I value the time I spend with you. I'm ready to invest in you in whatever way I can." It's so much easier to want close friends who walk with me through the hard things than to be a close friend who walks with someone through something difficult. If I allowed myself to rest in God's arms, maybe I could be that friend. Maybe being productive and being "busy" are diametrically opposed. Perhaps rest can bring more thorough satisfaction when we do work. God did set a great example by resting one day in seven, after all. Just sayin.

Missionary Flash Mob

We had a flash mob yesterday at MTI. We planned it ahead of time and didn't tell anyone in our class. Our South African instructor, Robin, had no idea we were planning it, but he sure jumped in and went along! You can see that some of the classmates are shocked. :) Much of the material we covered in class was fairly heavy, so when we decided to have fun, we went all out.

The night that we babysat, we also created a video of the kids here at MTI. Give it a watch if you'd like. It's fairly funny. :)

Silence before the storm

A quick word before I begin this blog, a few people commented about our previous blog, and I wanted to clarify what I had said. When I said that it is not our job to determine "right" and "wrong" in Guinea-Bissau, I am saying that in regard to the culture there, and in no way mean to negate the idea of absolute truth.
Back to this blog.

We're just 2.5 weeks from our actual flight to Guinea-Bissau, and in ways, I feel no more prepared than I did a year ago. Our last 2.5 weeks, however, have made a difference in the feeling of emotional, mental and spiritual preparedness.
How have we prepared? Oh....in so many ways.
There was yesterday when we spent time preparing for grief and acknowledging all of the things we're experiencing loss with. We cried and actually felt the feelings we've been suppressing for so long. It struck me that distance from each of you is a great loss where we miss the closeness with you and are grieving the lack of that. We hope that a new kind of relationship can spring up where we are able to enjoy a deepening of our relationships even as we're far away.
We spent time preparing to deal with stress in a way that was beyond anything I expected. We had a real-life simulation of very stressful events that missionaries might face. It was very intense and very unexpected. We experienced a lot of stress and then later examined our reactions and behaviors. I can't even describe to you the many things I learned about myself in that time! It's a lesson that's valuable and challenging on so many levels.
A few days later, we learned about the unsettling, resettling and chaos process of leaving for the field. The staff here had a makeshift "bridge" to simulate the various stages of transition. The bridge involved unstable chairs and a series of yoga balls to walk on. We practiced crossing the bridge and talked about the effect that chaos and unsettling and resettling have on relationships. This made us realize just how flexible and patient and kind you've all been to us as we're now in the middle of the bridge undergoing CHAOS! We know we haven't been as present and gracious at times as we would like to be, and we are thankful for your grace. Thank you for your support that has shown through patience and understanding.
We've spent time learning how to handle cross-cultural encounters with grace and understanding, and now the challenge is to apply the head-knowledge we've obtained. We spent time doing simulations of various cultures so that we could examine our pre-judgements and thus become more aware of how we see the world.
We have one full day of training left and then half a day on Friday and we're done at MTI. We are going to miss the people here so much. Just having a community of people going through the same strange thing we're going through has been so vital.
A week ago, I organized a parents' night out for the parents here. The singles and marrieds-without-kids (often, its easier to just lump in with the singles) were matched up with particular families and were given family-specific instructions. There was dinnertime....a unique experience for all 21 adults and 23 children, and then play time. Many parents confided to us that they hadn't had a date night in so long they couldn't remember the last one. We, of course, played with the kids and had a blast. Jason played the part of the bridge troll for over an hour and I helped put babies to bed.
We've been tremendously blessed by the kids here and are sitting beside the playground now listening to them play before dinner on our second to last night in this unique place. This has been a place of rest and renewal and has also greatly prepared us for what's ahead. As we go forward, we will be glad we did this.
We'll update you again soon. We've sent out a newsletter and hope you've received it by now. The next one will be sent while we're in AFRICA!!!

My Third Culture Thoughts

Kids of missionaries have been called MKs (missionary kids) for a long time. MKs have now been renamed. Perhaps it's because we as a society thrive on renaming things, or because MK was taken by some other acronym, perhaps for no reason at all, but there’s a new term for them. TCK—Third Culture Kid—and it refers to the situation arising from people who are raised in a culture other than their own. It has nothing to do with being in a third world country, but refers to the third culture that begins when a family or person travels from their “home” culture to another culture. An American moving overseas will never be fully American again, but they will never fully embody the culture that they’re living in either. A third culture results from the situation leaving that person or family in a fairly narrow category field.
Jason and I realized today that we will not be entirely American. We will not be entirely African, Guinean, Fula, Balanta, or any other culture. There will be no point at which we blend in...ever. We will be a third culture family. Like something from another planet; or a poorly-written Science-Fiction novel. The people we’ll relate to the best will be expatriates, other missionaries and military people who've been deployed. We're in the process of adopting a culture of our very own.
Here at MTI, they talk to us a lot about paradox. As an English Major, paradox excites me. It’s ideas like beauty in sadness, joy in pain, etc. It’s very real. My life is no longer straight-forward. I haven’t known what word to apply to it, but have felt that in a very real way for a while. It means that I won't just think in a single language, but a menagerie of languages. I will think half a sentence in English and the other half in Kriol. Jokes that are funny in one language aren't funny in another. People who relate to one half of me will likely be confused by the other.
As we go to Guinea-Bissau, it is not our intention to determine "right" and "wrong" as we view in their culture, but to examine "different." Guineans are very light-hearted people, and some of the things they joke about will not seem appropriate to our American sense of humor. Just because they offend our feelings does not mean that what they've done is wrong. Maybe we need to lighten up. Maybe it is funny that we're so white. And maybe it is funny to reply back in the same way! Of course, there are still distinctions of right and wrong, but maybe a lot of things are just different and we can enjoy them. We're being taught to suspend judgement, to wait to decide what we're seeing until we can understand it. Maybe we can become students of the culture of Guinea-Bissau and maybe we can understand it well enough to function well within it. We'll never function seamlessly. When we walk down the street, we'll always be called "White things with no color" and when we go to the market, we'll always be charged the unofficial "white tax," the goal is not to blend in, but to function genuinely and well. With God's grace, we can do that!

A quiet place

We arrived at MTI today. It's where we'll spend the next three weeks working through culture shock and other personal and challenging aspects of being missionaries.

There's a book I am in the process of reading right now, too. It's called "Through the Outhouse Floor". The thing I love about this book and the reason I am mentioning it here is that it addresses the fact that missionary life is not a popcorn candy ball with sugar coating. It's downright tough somtimes. There are days when we won't be able to tolerate the smell of garbage or the sight of hungry people any more. There are times when, on a somewhat selfish level, we won't be able to handle another mosquito bite, another bug in our house, another disease we caught. And yet, there's grace and peace in the midst of even those moments. This book covers many of those challenging aspects and advises people how to pray for missionaries. I guess when you'r understanding how to pray for missionaries, it's also probably going to help you be a better one, too. :) The cool thing about the book, and I'm realizing it about our lives as well, is that it's also not a big "complaint-fest" it's a balanced perspective. Sometimes, when the ants crawl in your chocolate frosting, you mix them in....they are brown after all. And other times, when your clothes mold, all you can do is laugh/cry/move on.

We're so excited to be at MTI. We arrived late today. We had complications with our third rabies vaccines. They are supposed to be done at a particular time, so we drove back from San Antonio in time to get the vaccines before leaving town again to go to MTI....only to find out that they sheduled us incorrectly and we didn't make the appointment. Apparently, the "African" sense of planning can occur anywhere. As we walked in the doors at MTI, we had missed Orientation completely, but no one was upset. There was a room full of people who were sitting down for dinner, and they were all talking about where they were going, how they'd been called there, the challenges and joys of fundraising, and so on. It was SO incredibly good to walk into a room FULL of people who understand where we are right now.

Being busy with work in a traditional job is something that's easy to comprehend, but being busy as a missionary is weird. You spend a lot of time with people, and when you do, you try to make sure you prioritize that time with those people. You have TONS to do, but you don't do it because your time is about people. This is a wonderful thing, and one of our favorite parts of our new job, but the funny thing is, we never look that busy to anyone. Haha. We just look like we wander around chatting with folks and having fun. Then, behind the scenes, we work like Santa's workshop. Some of you have seen it, no doubt, but hopefully not often. :)

Either way, it's both restful and restorative to be surrounded by these people who are in the same place we're in. We look forward to classes like "Keeping the Sabbath" (something we're AWFUL at).

Please pray for this to be a wonderful time of learning and growth for us. We hope to be better equipped at the end of these 3 weeks!

We're also finding that we're unique here. We're the only people being sent from a local church. It's funny because everyone we've talked to outside of here asks if we're going through a local church, but the majority of missionaries we meet are going through organizations. It's something we're really excited about. We get to walk into a country and ask the locals what they want and serve them in their area of need specifically. A lot of organizations do that as well, but we are excited to see the literal workings of it.

Thank you for being you. The thing we've been enormously aware of lately is how VERY blessed we are to have each of you. Your sincerity, love, prayers, and you sharing your lives with us as well are so important.

I've got to go to bed, but hope you sleep well and we'll give updates about MTI as we go. Thanks for providing us the funding to be prepared enough to attend a class like this. I think the training will be vital.

Oh, and if anyone is looking for reading material, "Through the Outhouse Floor" is a great book. And I'm not one to recommend books. ;)