Monday, March 21, 2016

"Yeah, It's Tricky Being a Ninja."

He’d been quiet and broody. My Mom Powers could feel the storm rolling around inside of his eight-year old spirit, but he didn’t know what it was or how to get it out. He just sat and stared.

One dad (Chris) was away for meetings in Swaziland. And as soon as Chris got home, we’d pack up and take Lifa to his other dad’s (his biological father's) house for the Easter holiday. Something had to give. One of us was going to implode from the unspoken storm surges that were stealing the spark from Lifa’s eyes. 

At dinnertime, I filled up a bowl with his all-time favourite food combo: beans, coconut rice, tomato, cheese and yogurt. (Yogurt goes on everything.) Spoon by spoonful of comfort food and regular dinnertime routines created some space for Lifa to name his internal battles. 

He was nervous about the upcoming trip to his dad’s. I watched the questions I asked him about his dad’s house not translate across his families' cultures. Things like, “Who takes care of you while you’re at your dad’s house?” And, “Where do you sleep?” He stared dumbfounded and asked what I meant. Those questions, things I thought were normal household questions, didn’t translate. He said, “What do you mean who takes care of me? Like, do what?” And, “Where I sleep changes. It depends on who is home."

The brooding and battling started to make more sense. One family’s culture, questions, routines, and lifestyle cannot fit in the same paradigm as the other’s. Just half a day’s drive away, Lifa leaves one world, one language, one life, and he joins another. He’s eight. 

Those questions unlocked something for him and for me. He’s old enough now to see the differences… and to get mad about some of them. To feel afraid, alone, and confused.

Why does love look one way in one house and another way in another one?
Are they both love?
Why do my parents act one way in one house and another way in the other one?
Do they all love me? Am I safe? Are they safe?

I had a Mom-storm stirring in my gut by this point. I’ve begged God for the past 6 years to take the pain away from him, even to tell me when to stop, to release Lifa, so that he doesn’t have to walk in this wilderness. I’ve offered buckets of tears to my Father, pleading that He would at least let me carry the pain instead of a little boy. God says to just keep taking that drive. And He meets us on that road every time.

“Lifa, is it hard to have two different houses and families?"

Eight year-old shoulders fell under the weight of two worlds at once. Somehow, relief and his typically awkward smile reclaimed his expression as he gave a big, satisfied nod. YES. 

He talked about how sometimes he wishes his life could just be like his friends at school. One culture. One family. One lifestyle. One language. He said it’s hard to worry, to be afraid and to go back and forth. HE’S EIGHT.

Many of his friends at school come from households where there’s no dad or no parents at all. They sleep in different places every night. There’s no dinner table and nothing healthy to eat. There’s not safety, security or soccer practice. But, on somedays, he’d give up his own Spiderman bed and take that just to be like somebody else. Just to stop straddling cultures. Just because he’s eight, and he wishes he didn’t know what he does know because sometimes that is safer. 

We talked and talked. I listened and learned. And then I leaned in and said, “Lifa, God told Dad and I a secret about you.” Suddenly, I had the most captive eight-year old audience ever… because God secrets are awesome.

“You know how we always call you a Mighty Warrior? Well, God told us He has a super-cool, super-secret plan for you to become a great warrior. There are a lot of stories in the Bible about little boys who had to live lives very differently from the other boys. BUT, when they got bigger, their different lives, the things that made it so hard when they were little boys, was actually training that made them strong enough to be good warriors. God said that He knows how hard it is to go back and forth, and He is with you always. And, one day, He’s going to look at you, Lifa, and say, ‘Now you’re ready, My son. You are a Mighty Warrior."

"So, right now, even when you go to your dad’s house, you’re in warrior training. Kinda like ninjas have to train for a long time to be really good ninjas. You want to be a ninja that wins, so you go through all the hard training."

Understanding washed over him now that he could understand this beautiful secret he was a part of. All of a sudden, the storm passed. And he said, “Yeah, it’s tricky being a ninja."

That was it. Challenge accepted. 

When the wilderness is warrior training, when you choose the battles for the victories, when you step back from suffering and get some perspective, it’s no less painful, but it’s somehow ok.

It’s tricky. And it’s worth it.

Whether you’re eight or you’re eighty, we want to know, to understand, to be safe, to be secure. We want for it to not be hard. During the long walk through the wildness, the Israelites just wanted to go back to slavery because, at least there, they knew what to expect.

But once you know, you can’t not know.
So, hear this and know: You weren’t made for that. Not for slavery or security.
You were made to stand between the world and heaven, and call down the Kingdom of God. You were made to straddle cultures, not fit in. You were made to walk into the wilderness with triumphant joy because you’re entrusted as an ambassador for a Kingdom. And you want to be ready for that. And you want your kids to be ready for that too.

I’m about to go wake an eight-year old warrior-in-training for the trip to his dad’s house. Pray for us today as we drive through the in-between and send God’s little ninja into another round of training. Pray for him to remember he’s part of eternity’s best secret and that in those scary times, low points and hard stretches, Lifa will remember his worth in the arms of Christ and that it’s tricky being a ninja. 

Thursday, March 10, 2016

Hope Doesn't Float: It Flies Helicopters

We spend a lot of evenings around the dinner table laughing at Lifa’s inability to stay awake between bites after 6:30pm. Being 8 years old and a soccer ninja is just exhausting. 

#ninjalife
A few nights ago, he actually got too tired to chew. So he just started swallowing his food in big, loud gulps. In effort to keep him awake, I started telling stories about some of our very first dinners together. 

I talked about what it was like to teach little Lifa how to chew and swallow his food before we even spoke the same language, and how his body was slow and super-ultra-gross in learning how to digest nutrients. Before our dinners, he had mostly lived on flavourless porridge that slid down his throat without requiring chewing and without delivering any nutrition to his swollen little body.

Although his bones were melting from end-of-the-day exhaustion, our healthy and happy Lifa held his fork and knife just like Chris taught him, and thankfully ate his healthy dinner. (And then spent the remainder of his energy trying to convince us that surely not all food had to be chewed… Chewing cheese seems ridiculous!)

We live in a nation full of swollen starvation.
People are starving to death, and they’re not hungry. 
They have no idea their bodies, minds or hearts can feel different because they only know what they’ve tasted and seen.

Yesterday, we loaded our car with big-hearted mamas who spend their days cooking and serving healthy food to the beautiful little mouths of their own communities. Hundreds of children flock to them after school each day, eager for the plate of food and the safe place these ladies offer. 


As we traveled to the seminar we were hosting for them, Chris turned on Justin Bieber and I started asking questions to stir up conversations and dreams. (We make the perfect team.)
I asked the car: “If you could learn ONE THING to make your life better, what would it be?"

While my family answered things like learning how to fix stuff (Lifa), fly a helicopter (Chris) and get really big muscles (me), these ladies laid out their hearts and dreams… because there was finally a place for them. The first mother said the one thing she wanted to learn about was how to talk to people better. “So the children can feel safe and I could help when there was problems with other mothers. I don’t know how to help. I don’t know what to do.” The next one said, " I’d learn how to be a better parent so my kids will feel loved and not manipulated."

We were dreaming dessert kind of dreams - flying helicopters and building biceps.
They were begging for basic nutrition. Something they could chew on.

The women leading CarePoints - the ones who, in my eyes, exemplify the healing, filling, meaty hope of Christ - sat in the backseat and dreamt that there could actually be more than what they know. 

I bowed before them that day and taught them about loving humbly, something they already live so well. They ferociously scratched notes on this word, “humility” that they had never even heard.  Then, my handsome husband stood before them and taught them the basic Biblical principles and practical steps of managing conflict. Their eyes unlocked and smiles broke through - just like the day Lifa finally understood what it meant to chew and swallow before taking the next bite so he wouldn’t gag himself anymore.

The most handsome man giving Mama Edith a certificate
of completion for yesterday's Equip Day seminar. Photo by Angi Bittle.
They’ve been hungry for so long. Not starving for physical nutrients, but for spiritual and practical ones.  

A thought flashed before my mind for just a moment in that car ride. I wondered if I should feel ridiculous for dancing to Justin Beiber and dreaming aloud about squats and lunges and an awesome butt while these women were dreaming of the most basic life-sustaining nutrients. They just wanted to know how to save their kids. 

But you know what… Hope is fancy, not flavourless. Hope craves, dreams, desires. Hope comes with dessert and an awesome butt. Hope talks about muscles and helicopters and fixing stuff. Hope even comes with a catchy soundtrack and a music video. Because where hope comes from, nothing is spared.

Just surviving… letting porridge slide down your throat so you don’t feel like you’re starving anymore… makes you lose your appetite for life.

You have to see the menu to know there’s something else available. 
No I'm not sorry.
Yes, I own that music video.

You have to see someone who is healthy to believe in health.
You have to smell a juicy steak to know what to crave.
You have to hear a Justin Bieber song to know how to dance.  

My job is not to end world hunger.
It’s to dream about dessert, and to get really big muscles.
I constantly ask God to increase my imagination because His Word says He can do more than we can even imagine. (Eph 3:20)

I’ve given my life to Christ. Why would I just slide through this world without craving, moving, growing, learning, yearning, and doing?

Jesus came and worked, healed, taught, cried and died. He flipped over tables, and He said, “Lifa, you have to learn how to chew that cheese because the meals only get better and better.” 

Jesus did stuff. 

Hope doesn’t float.
It learns how to fly helicopters. It goes to the gym. It fixes stuff. 

Hope does stuff. It moves. It breathes. It pushes the roof off so you can see heaven.

What if our job wasn’t to solve the world’s problems by shouting about what people don’t have?

What if the world started to change because we change ourselves? What if we increase our imagination, our abilities, our capacities to whet the appetites of others who just didn’t know. What if two ladies in the backseat of our car saw healthy parenting boundaries and that was enough for them to start wondering if there was something more than manipulation, threats and fearfulness for their families? What if that was enough to chew on for them to take a new idea to their own communities and show the families there? What if a healthy family wildfire started in that backseat?

Want a taste of this stuff that changes the world? Want a bite of hope? Go do stuff. 
Change yourself so the world can change. Somebody needs to see it so they know they can do it too.