Turning the Last Pages

This from Lena:

Back when getting lost in a novel for days at a time was a normal practice for me (I was an avid reader as a young girl), I had the feeling often. I would lose myself in the characters and their private struggles, and as I would near the ending, I dreaded it. Sometimes, I admit it, I peeked at the end. The better the book, the stronger the regret as I flipped the last few pages, dreading the moment when I had to leave the little space in my mind that I had created to hold my hero and all their defeats and joys.

What I am feeling now feels a lot like that, but the hero of the story is my oldest daughter, Hannah. For those of you who have already launched some babies, I guess I have to plead a little patience. It is just that I have been forced to realize recently---through the onslaught of college applications, talk of financial aid, and the rest---that I am in the last pages of this book of daily-present parenting.

I am among the most fortunate of parents. The hardest things ever got with my girl were just totally normal things—practically rites of passage. We did our best to train her. We held her in our laps, we worshiped with her, we brought her to so many ministry events that she started to believe (and act!) like she was already a minister of the gospel! I remember chuckling that it was probably a good thing we were taking Hannah to the mission field when she was 12, because she often had something to add to her dad's teachings to the college students, and I didn't relish having to ask her to hold back a bit.

So the thing that I am feeling right now doesn't have much to do with worrying about her being able to cope (although I have all the normal concerns). It is mostly that I will lose the dailiness of our relationship. I will lose the moments when she feels like talking and sidles up next to me on the couch, signaling me that it is time to chat. I won't know as often if she had a good or bad day, or know the personalities of her friends so that the stories of her day take on that novel-like space in my mind, so that I can delve into the story with her.

And very selfishly, I will lose all the pride that fills my heart when I feel the Holy Spirit rip through an auditorium or a little shack-of-a-church in the countryside when she opens her mouth to lead in worship. I will SO miss that. I vividly remember the first time I realized the gift that was on her. We were at our home church in Cincinnati, and she had a song to sing in Spanish---she was only 12, and she barely knew what she was singing at the time, but the gift was evident, and I was embarrassed by the flush of pleasure that raced through me. I had had my suspicions—but that day they were confirmed. What a gift. What a special gift!

A dear friend of ours had a dream about Hannah that she shared with us yesterday. In the dream, Bill had been training her to do a special dance for church that involved her dancing over a map. She was still learning the dance. At one point, Bill could no longer see her doing the dance, but she could, and Hannah was touching people and walls and prophesying to them, as she danced all over the map. She wanted to tell Bill that yes, she was doing the dance and it was beautiful, even though he couldn't see it. She learned the dance.

Tears streamed down my face as she finished telling me the dream. The part that hurts is the not seeing. We are so blessed that our pain is that of missing victories, of skipping chapters that we would have liked to savor. It could have been tears of disappointment or fear that her life would be fraught with consequences of poor decisions, but she is so grounded that I highly doubt it. No—much more likely that we will simply miss out seeing the dance.

I am slowing down a little in these last pages, taking it all in. I am being a little more selfish with my time with her, savoring the words as I deliberately turn the page instead of hurrying on to the finish. All too soon, she will be a continent away. We bought the expensive leatherette coat for her birthday-- I didn't even care that it wasn't on sale. We look for holes in the schedule where we can separate family time. We are thinking about what we will regret not having done in two years that we can do something about now. Family vacation? How many more opportunities will there be for the six of us to be all together? Pages are turning, and I can feel the weight of the spine shifting to the front with each turn.

The sequel is going to be good, I can tell. I probably am going to have to content myself with reading the reviews, but that doesn't make the book any less a good read—it just means I won't know first-hand. Regardless, I will always be thankful for this one that I have enjoyed thoroughly, drinking in the characters and crying and laughing out loud through it all.

Pictured above:  Hannah (15)preparing to dance the Marinera (a traditional Peruvian or Chilean dance, depending on which you happen to be) for a school event.

Bakersfield First Assembly Missions Team

A missions team from Bakersfield First Assembly came down and worked in the Catacaos, Piura, heat to raise the walls of a new high school and bring healing to sick families. Thanks to all of them for joining us in the mission of spreading the good news of Jesus to Peru and blessing the poor through Latin America ChildCare.

Please click the link to see photos of the team: Bakersfield First Assembly Missions team

Dancing the Marinera

While the Bakersfield First Assembly team was working in Catacaos (a suburb of Piura, Peru), the pastor asked two individuals show us the Marinera. It is a traditional dance from that region and is supposed to be two chickens courting. I love it!

Gotta Dance

So we were preparing to close the meeting, a little bring-a-friend tea at my apartment, and one of our friends from church leans over to one older lady in particular who was a guest in our meeting, and says, “Would you like to receive Jesus as your Savior?” Sarah (our missionary assistant) and I both had to cover up a wave of culture shock, as back in the States, we tend to make our altar calls a little less “outing.” Then the relief came when she said, “Yes!” Then not only her, but 3 others after her. Wow.

The whole night was a series of cultural shock moments for me. Hosting a tea in Peru was a bit of a risk, as I had only been to one so far, and it was less formal. I was mostly guessing with what to serve and how to do it. I had good help from the ladies, but there were moments when I felt like I was on another planet. How do you serve? Can people help themselves? How do you politely help people to hush? How direct can we be? How do you pray for people in a group setting when there are visitors?

I found myself thinking a lot through the night about part of the teaching I had prepared for the evening. I was talking about what it means to be truly beautiful as a woman, and I told them about Abi’s ballet class, and how all the girls there were so sweet, and their feminine beauty was showing, even as they were trying (and mostly failing) to do the little jumps and follow the teacher. One was crying because she didn’t have a plush toy to dance with. Another was sulking because she didn’t want to dance. They were less than graceful as they bumped into each other and made lines that looked more like squiggles.
Anyone watching them could see that they were only beginning and that it would be some time before they would do anything that looked like the graceful ballet they aspired to. Still, with time, the squiggles will straighten, and graceful gestures will replace the awkward ones I saw that day.

It is the same way for me. I found myself doing something I love to do—talking to women about the things that really matter in our lives in a small group setting. Yet, in this new culture, and with this new language that sometimes leaves me grasping when (as women do) someone gets emotional about what they are sharing, or speaks through tears. I feel sometimes like I am dancing ballet with steel-toed work boots. It’s awkward. I am unsure of things that come easily in the States. With time, I’ll work my way out of those work boots, but the only way to get rid of them is to wear them out. There is no other way to get to the place I want to go without taking the risk of dancing a pretty crazy- looking Swan Lake. If you want to dance in a new culture, you gotta dance. It isn’t possible to learn any other way. If I am the one who doesn’t get the plush toy, or someone knocks me in the head, or I can’t seem to do the little jumps how I want to, so be it. I am going to dance. And people are going to meet Jesus, because He wants to meet them, and because we were willing to look a little silly to risk it.

Wanna dance, too?