December 2016 Newsletter

Evidence Not Seen

 A bit ago my mom gave me the book Evidence Not Seen by Darlene Deibler Rose. For those unfamiliar, it is Darlene’s story of her time in a Japanese POW camp in (at the time) New Guinea (now the area she was imprisoned at is part of West Papua – the Indonesian side of the island).  The effect it had on me was one similar to when I read The Hiding Place.

I experienced confirmation and encouragement during at a time that has been, to put it mildly, strenuous, for our family. For those who don’t know, Evan has been working 6 day weeks off and on (more on than not) for a couple of months. This is due to continue through June. We are also marking a bit over a year of being on furlough, several months longer than we intended on being here. We know that we are still in the US because it is not right time for us to return, though sometimes this knowledge isn’t enough to stave off the feelings of frustration and sadness we feel at not being able to get down to work with the ministry in PNG.

We also are reminded almost daily, we are the parents of two amazing TCK’s (Third Culture Kids) who, the longer we live in transition between two worlds, bring even more challenges into our lives. When Liam tells me, “I miss my PNG friends, but I know when we go back, I will miss my American friends.” Or when Julien says “I want to go on the jet plane to Uka-grumpa (Ukarumpa) today. Why can’t we go today?” My mama heart just breaks and struggles to know what to say.

All this has been compounded by my health struggles which remain, so far, partially a mystery to us going on for a year and half now.

Being in this place of feeling two steps forward, three steps back, it was uplifting to read such insights as: “I was to discover, however, that when I took my eyes off the circumstances that were overwhelming me, over which I had no control, and looked up, my Lord was there, standing on the parapet of heaven looking down. Deep in my heart He whispered, ‘I’m here. Even when you don’t see Me, I’m here. Never for a moment are you out of My sight.’”

What a comfort! It is an assurance I am working on adding to the running loop in my head of heartening thoughts to turn on in times of doubt.

And what a joy it has been to be able to continue to have opportunities open up to us to share with folks here, why we are working so hard to return to a place and people we love, despite the wounds we have incurred (some we are still healing from), while serving there.  Often, after sharing the beauty and the pain of our first term,  I am asked, “So, you’re going back because…?” The first response that pops into my head was reaffirmed in Darlene’s book. Being where God wants us to be is better than being where we are “safe”. Because the reality is, bad things happen everywhere; and bad things happen even when you are walking in obedience to God. But walking the road that is covered by His Will is the best thing for us all, regardless of the risks and perils. For us, we believe, that path leads to returning to PNG to come alongside God’s people there in their journey of holistic restoration to Him.

Thus, I will try my best to live in the moment and place God has asked me to dwell in now, and learn, so that I will be truly ready for the day when I rejoice with my Papua New Guinean sisters and brothers like Darlene when she first came into the valley of the people group she and her husband were to serve: “I raised hands, waving to the people. My cheeks streaked with tears, I started running down the mountainside, singing at the top of my lungs, ‘I’m home! I’m home!’”

Whom shall I fear?

For a couple of months I have been wrestling with fears. Fear of not ever getting back to PNG, fear of going back “too soon”, fear of being a bad mother or a bad wife, fear of being a bad missionary, fear of letting go and holding on.

I have never been a soldier in a war, and I certainly do not claim to know what it is truly like. But from talking to, listening to, and reading accounts of veterans from different conflicts, I have gotten the sense that, at least in one respect, being a missionary is the same. You will never be the same person you were when you went as when you come back.

I am beginning to realize that for my situation, it has been ultimately for the better. I certainly did not feel that way many times while in the midst of circumstances that were cracking, breaking and at times completely shattering me. But in the end I have emerged feeling very much like a piece of kintsugi pottery; Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repair using a lacquer mixed with gold, silver or other precious metal powder. It is done in this way so that not only is the broken part not hidden, it is emphasized as a part of the object’s history of its existence; accepting that flaws and imperfections are a part of life and part of the story.

In the same way, we, the vessels of God do not come through life unscathed. And rather than hide the wounds, we ought to allow God to purify them and repair them, acknowledging the process and the end result as part of who we are now.

To that end I wanted to share a song and scripture that have been a help to me during these last couple of weeks as the pace of our journey back towards PNG has picked up. We usually attend both a Sunday and a Wednesday night service.

Firstly, where I got the title of this blog from:

The Chris Tomlin song: Whom Shall I Fear (God of Angel Armies)

Every time we sing it in church I feel encouraged to continue on, to not let the fears hold me back. 

So, when I was looking up the lyrics to post here, I was delighted to come across a video where Chris Tomlin is talking about writing this song, and there were two parts that really hit home for me. First, he said that he had decided he wanted to write a song with his friend, Ed Cash (whom he has written with before). When he texted him, Ed texted back how weird it was for Chris to ask because in the middle of the night the previous night when his wife had woken him up asking for prayer because she was feeling as if there were things coming against her. While he was praying he felt inspired to start singing a chorus that came into his mind. And in the morning he had thought he should send the portion of the song to Chris. So, they worked together and what resulted was Whom Shall I Fear. Secondly, Chris went on to say how some songs, like this one, are inspired and are like prayers. 

Both of those points struck me and are true in my life. I have more times than I can remember, woken Evan up and asked for him to pray for me, for our family. And, though I make absolutely no claims on being a great singer, when I do, often it is a prayer, a cry to God to work these things in me. Give me strength, faith, endurance, courage to continue to step into this life I never imagined having, but choose out of obedience to Your Will.

"Whom Shall I Fear (God Of Angel Armies)"

You hear me when I call
You are my morning song
Though darkness fills the night
It cannot hide the light

Whom shall I fear

You crush the enemy
Underneath my feet
You are my sword and shield
Though troubles linger still

Whom shall I fear

I know who goes before me
I know who stands behind
The God of angel armies
Is always by my side

The one who reigns forever
He is a friend of mine
The God of angel armies
Is always by my side

My strength is in Your name
For You alone can save
You will deliver me
Yours is the victory

Whom shall I fear
Whom shall I fear

And nothing formed against me shall stand
You hold the whole world in Your hands
I'm holding on to Your promises


You are faithful

That is the point isn’t it? We are showing our brokenness on the outside, where people can see, relate, and hopefully feel that if someone doesn’t have to be perfect to be a friend of God, all of us should be encouraged to seek Him too.  And it goes further than that.

In 2 Kings 19 Jerusalem comes under siege by the Assyrians. Before this happened King Hezekiah, who knew the Assyrians were coming, had the part of the spring of Gihon which was outside the city walls be blocked off and routed through the west part of Jerusalem in a tunnel (which still exists today) so that when the siege came, the people would have fresh water. There is reference made to this in 2 Chronicles 32:30. Even with this, Hezekiah needed encouragement, which he got in the form of a prophecy sent to him, recounted in 2 Kings 19: 32-34.

I believe that God doesn’t just come along at the end and repair us. He is with us through the times where we are getting tumbled, trodden and beat. He has provided us with an internal spring, a river, like the spring of Gihon that continually offers us refreshment, comfort and solace when we need it. And when we are not in dire straits our gates should be open to offer it to others.

Last night I was listening to a sermon on the book of Nahum. It has been such a cool thing to dive into the “sticky parts” of the Bible as the pastor likes to call them; because they are the portions which don’t get much read, much preached on, so the pages aren’t ever broken from their sort of stuck together state that all the pages start out like when the Bible is new. But I have come to realize, they are sticky for another reason. Sometimes the truth that emerges can be tricky and hard to know what to do with.

In Nahum 1:3 it says “The Lord is slow to anger and great in power; the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet.”

At first I was only struck by the second part. In Papua New Guinea, the skies are so big. When a storm or wind comes through our valley it is indeed awesome, and the clouds are immense. When the dry season comes and there is dust everywhere, and there is need for rain, there are fires lit in the tall kunai grass on all the hillsides. Unconfined fire crackling and being whipped up by wind, it is the first time I could truly visualize “tongues of fire” spoke of in Acts 2:2-3. It is tremendous to know that a God that is so big, so powerful, He is greater than all these things, and is IN those times where we are feeling surrounded in the midst of a storm.

I pray you are blessed and at peace. Thanks for reading. 

Ready for home

In the life of a missionary there are long periods of time where you are working to find what is the “new normal” for you and your family. You see, once you decide to become a missionary what is “normal” is a constantly changing denominator. You find yourself struggling to define it but, usually, when you hit it, you find you are breathing a little easier.

We stopped having “normal” about 9 months before we left Papua New Guinea to return to the US for furlough. Some may wonder why so long before the actual event we were so disrupted. Packing our house and readying it so it could hopefully be rented while we were gone, try to arrange for phones, housing, transportation, and as much of daily living details before landing stateside, saying goodbye to friends who have become like family, for our children to say goodbye to their home (they don’t have any memories of America), fund-raise for Evan to be able to make it to Thailand for the BAM conference. Get Evan to Thailand and back to PNG in the cheapest and most efficient way. Live apart while making the final preparations and goodbyes for the last month of our time in PNG.

Throw in there a health scare that nearly resulted in a medivac to Australia and a logistical nightmare I am still thanking God about and also still wondering what is wrong with me…

Anyway, since landing stateside (March 25) we have continued to spend a lot of time not being normal. We made a major shift in resigning from our mission organization and began to filter our funding through another. To put it mildly, this has not been a smooth transition.

I have struggled these three years with barely making it from month to month. In fact, truth be told, I struggled with an awful lot while we were following God’s will. I absolutely hated that no matter how many “overtime” hours Evan spends at the shop it has nothing to do with how much will come in or whether it will cover the bills.

I was torn up with hearing how much of a sacrifice we are making and how brave and amazing we are and then feeling forgotten 24 hours after our latest newsletter is delivered.  Then feeling guilty for feeling fed-up; knowing that if the roles were reversed I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same thing; lapsing back into my kids’ playdates, work, dinners…you know. Life.  Life is what happens when you leave a previous spot you occupied in a certain corner of the world and make a new space for yourself in another corner. The old spot gets filled up with other people and other things. When you come back, room is made, but you don’t have your old spot and you never will again.

I knew this. I had read books, blogs and talked to experienced people on the field. I knew that when I came back it would be a hard thing to find a place for me and my family. There would be reverse culture shock. And boy is there ever.  But, just as you truly don’t know what is like to live overseas until you do it…you don’t know about furlough until you do it.

I am ready to run away. But not from home, I am ready to run away TO home. But home is no longer here. And there, it is slowly getting further away, as I see by the facebook posts. Of friends living life in a space I used to occupy and hope to occupy again, friends leaving for their own new spaces, some are new, new spaces…another mission, another country. And some are new, old spaces. Time to resettle in birth countries, for now or for always. I am happy and sad for them all.

I often feel I am a bit like Scrooge on one or the other of his first two ghostly visits…my life past and my life now…standing in the midst but not being seen.

I don’t like putting up these blog posts because it seems like I am doing nothing but complaining in them…And I certainly don’t want to make it seem like I am fishy for a pity-party, a “How is your faith?” inquiry (believe me, I talk to God every day…and I can’t get through my days without Him) or anything else.

But I have also received encouragement from various fronts to be authentic . So. I here am.

A little bit stuck between.

Business as Missions...some thoughts from Evan

Business As Mission: Some thoughts…from Evan

What does endemic poverty or political corruption have to do with redemption?

I have been learning about ways in which God has commanded us to interact with the world and how the Kingdom of Heaven is supposed to look on Earth.  As a result, I have also seen parts of the picture we as Christians have overlooked in the past few generations and that oversight has become the norm.

As modern Christians our paradigm of the nature of sin has so narrowed that we no longer even recognize how the world is broken.  Our command to “disciple the nations” has broken down to “save souls” or “plant churches.”  And that seems to be mostly what we do.  That's a good thing and important.  But it’s also a very small view of the divine narrative; God working to redeem the whole of creation.  It is the story from Genesis through Revelation.  We have learned to read only a small part of it, and that through a lens. 

The first two chapters of Genesis is the account of God's creation and the value He invests in it.  At every step God said, “It is good.”  This includes work, companionship, stewardship, the whole physical and spiritual world that He had created.  There is nothing – not even the physical – which is not good.  When our first two ancestors messed up this balanced system the entire rest of the Bible is the story of God redeeming the world to Himself and bringing in the values and characteristics of the Kingdom of Heaven to Earth through those who obey Him.  The Ten Commandments are a boiled down, concentrated slurry of values that describe the heart of God; firstly, who God is and who we are.  Then how we are to interact with God, each other and the rest of the world.  The book of Deuteronomy is the practical interpretation of those laws in that time and place.  It is a concrete example of how God wanted to “bless the nations” through Israel.  Most of the time the statement to Abram (“the peoples of the Earth will be blessed through you” Genesis 12:3), is spiritualized.  The interpretation is that eventually Jesus would be the blessing which came through Israel; which is true, but not really the point.  In fact, the Old Testament is full of methods – not just theory – of how to build a community which reflects the values of God.  It is one which not only takes care of itself, its own weak and vulnerable but also weak and vulnerable foreigners within its borders.  It describes how to build a community that values government, economics, family, science and technology, communication, arts and entertainment, education, religious instruction, health care, law and justice and all the subcategories within those.  In short, it is the discipleship of a nation.  We have forgotten that and only disciple people.  I believe that God is not a generalist; He does not desire a theoretical blessing.  And He has given us the tools for real blessing without being a prosperity gospel. 

Business As Mission is based on the understanding that God calls EVERYBODY to some kind of work.  There is no sacred/secular divide – an artificial distinction between what we consider God-ordained and everything else.  The sacred/secular divide can be lumped into broad categories.  The first category might include missionaries, evangelists/church planters and pastors.  The second category might include... well, everybody else, really.  Apparently everybody else's primary job is to support “ministry work.” 

Regarding the concept of “full-time ministry”…  To indicate that a person is “called into full-time ministry” is to indicate that others are number one) not called.  And number two) not doing ministry.  This is to reassign value based on our own prejudice.  More to the point, we are nullifying the value that God has assigned, saying, “I know better than God what is sacred,” and then saying the work we are doing is God-ordained.  When God has deemed a thing as sacred, it is not our place to deem it otherwise. 

A less extreme example but at least as prevalent and harmful is what I will call the Spectrum of Holiness.  At the top you've got missionaries and pastors; typical ministry work.  Next there are the doctors, aid workers; humanitarian type work.  Slightly below that are teachers and social workers.  Then there are just the people with jobs; poor souls.  Not even on the spectrum are business owners, lawyers and politicians.  They are the necessary evil because somebody has to do it.  I've heard more than once the question posed whether real Christians could even participate in some of these professions because obviously a prerequisite must be moral leniency. 

As a result, much of the redemption that Christ-followers are supposed to be injecting into culture (salt and light, remember?) has been long absent.  We have abandoned governance, higher education, science and business professions to those who adamantly claim there is no standard by which to live.  And then we wonder why our culture is going down the gurgler?  Our culture has little remaining positive Christian influence in many realms because we have willingly abandoned the influence to whoever would like pick it up.  The devil will not leave such an opportunity idle.  Even worse, it is not an uncommon accusation from well-meaning Christians that to be successful or to have influence is un-biblical.  So we tear down the Christians who might actually be in positions to most concretely affect the community when we should be holding them up and affirming their sacred calling. 

Regarding the template that God laid out, the methods for discipling the nations are described in the Old Testament; much of it in the books that have been deemed by some to “not have any relevance to modern Christians because we are no longer under the Law.”  To claim such is to miss the point of both the “Law” and the nature of redemption.  The principles of discipling a nation are integrated into the Old Testament narrative.  Though they are affirmed in the New Testament, they are not repeated.  Therefore, if one was to only read the New Testament then Christianity is no longer redemption; it is reduced to sin-maintenance.  True redemption effects all of creation, all of life; not just afterlife (John 10:10). 

To say that much of our current practices and paradigm are wildly divergent from biblical principles of affecting a community is not mis-stating the situation.  But though we have missed the mark (which happens to be the Hebrew understanding of sin, by the way), look at how open the way is for true transformation.  God has not only sanctioned our involvement in business, politics, science, entertainment and the like – He has ordained those professions as holy and pleasing to Him.  This is the freedom to fully embrace whatever God has gifted each of us to be and do even for those who are not pastors. 

A Season of Letting Go...

I have been preparing in many ways for probably a good 6 months to leave Papua New Guinea. I have done this because I have been told by many people over and over that it is important.  That in order to be a healthy missionary, you need to say proper good-byes, and you should start gearing up to go back to a place which is not entirely home anymore. I love planning. I love making lists; it makes me feel accomplished to check things off. So, I was more than willing to “make a plan”.

Well, the plan hasn't worked the way I have wanted it to in many respects, which is another story. But I have started to realize that this is the beginning of a season of letting go for me, and furlough is just a part of it.

There have been times in my life where I have had breakthroughs or major shifts in my life direction. Sometimes they come in the form of epiphanies, sometimes it is achieved through gradual clarity. But, always, ALWAYS these moments come with pain and loss of some kind.

So, for the last 6 months there have been changes taking place, picking up speed in the last month.  Mostly I have only told a few close people around me. Because it was hard and painful and frankly it is doubly hard to be world-wide honest with people when  the wide-spread perception is that missionaries are very spiritual people who have it all together, otherwise they wouldn't be doing what they are doing…I feel particularly this view still strongly applies to missionary wives.

First came the letting go of material security. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, we live off faith-based support from others, we gave up our house in America, the house we own here could be taken at any time as the land our center exists on is leased from the PNG government….etc, etc.

But, for a long time I have known that having things, “hoarding” in the sense of we won’t be going through the supply anytime soon but you never know when we might need that thing…is like Linus’ security blanket for me. It is always there, I can open the door to the storage space (because, yes there was so much that there wasn't room in the rest of our house) and look and know that our family is protected from…something…

Anyway, there was painful prayers and conversations that happened and I started letting go. First the easy things, things I knew we would never use, had been sitting since they came out of the boxes we shipped here 2 years ago…and the more I eliminated, the easier it got, the more free I felt.

The gates had been opened. I started examining other areas where I could improve.

I had known for a while that I had been slowly gaining weight. At first I thought it was just the diet here, lots of rice, noodles, sweet potato. Then I really got honest. Maybe it was some of that, but given that we eat a lot of vegetables as well, and I have been walking everywhere since April, there had to be other explanations. Looking at my cupboards I lifted my blinders and saw. I was using food as a way of controlling my stress, because that was one of the few things during this time I thought I could control. So, when I had a bad day, I drank a can of soda. Something I very rarely did in America.

My body had become addicted to the sugars, and the serotonin it produced. Coming down off that has not been easy, Christmas time is a bad time to say I am cutting my sugar and fats. And I haven’t lost really anything yet. But most days I feel better and I hope that the weight loss will happen, and that I will not backslide badly while Evan is away.

Side note: Prayers for the time when Evan is separated from us will be greatly coveted. Honestly, e-mails of encouragement would really bless me too, as this will be an incredibly stressful time for all of us. I will be guiding our boys through saying goodbye to their friends and their home. I will be saying goodbye to a place that after three years I have finally started to feel settled and figure out my place in, to go back to a place where even loved ones have gotten used to not having me around and I am not sure how to navigate.

During this time I started reading As Soon as I Fell: A Memoir by Kay Bruner. It was very surreal to read as in portions of it, she was speaking of where I live. I know the literal dirt-road corner she is talking about where she finally came to a point where she could not take it anymore. I found so much of myself in her words it scared me, but it also comforted me.  It opened up conversations with friends here who could relate and commiserate.

But it also signalled another time for self-examination and a time to let go and change….

In my seemingly endless sorting and packing of our house, I have come across several things I have held onto because I have a not so secret hope. I want a baby girl.

Evan and I had talked in loose terms before we came to PNG about the possibility of adopting a girl to add to our family. We waited for a bit for the dust to settle and then, we began an investigation into the possibility.

At this point I don’t want to say too much about it because, well, I guess I haven’t entirely let it go…J

But I began to form an idea in my mind over Christmas. When, about a week ago we were at my best friend’s home celebrating her youngest daughter’s birthday the realization flew dramatically to the fore-front of my mind.

Looking at the 1 year old little girl in her red party dress, smiling and loving her mama my heart was screaming; Why not me? Why couldn’t I have one too?

The response was: Maybe I’m not meant to. I don’t know yet if this is truly God closing the door. We are still exploring an option, but regardless, I have reached a place where, no matter how sad it makes me, I must give away (among other things) that pink changing pad (which, yes I used for my boys, but am not holding onto for sentimental reasons). The ache, even as I write this is strong. I can feel the pressing of tears behind my eyes. But I am still saying, now is a season of letting go. And I must let go of this too.  

Are my children pre- or post- grievers? Or...The art of saying goodbye.

I recently posted a blog that explained I am a post-griever. You can read it here 

A couple of weeks ago a friend of Liam’s left for furlough. I didn’t think he was that affected. He saw this friend at school but didn’t spend that much time with him outside of that. But, yesterday he announced he was going to make a card for this friend to send to him in America. Then he said he also wanted to make a card for another friend “for when she goes to America too.” That’s when I realized Liam is already aware of his own feelings of loss and finding ways to deal with it.

As our own family gets closer to our own departure from the place we, and more particularly our children (they have lived in PNG now more than half their lives), call home; I have been pondering what is my children’s grief going to look like and how can I help them process it?

We all experience good-byes. The impact and our ability to verbalize and process these goodbyes vary widely based on many factors including our age and mental well-being at the time. Jesus experienced goodbyes the same as us. In Joyce Rupp’s book Praying Our Goodbyes she writes:

“He, [Jesus] too, had many moments when he felt pulled apart, knew the hurt of leaving behind, felt the emptiness that comes with deep loss. Jesus was not spared the ache and the struggle of letting go.  He knew the price of goodbyes.”

As our MK children grow, they will experience more goodbyes than their non-MK peers. My hope is that I will be able to learn the art of saying goodbye like Jesus so that I can teach and help my children to do the same. I don’t know yet whether they will be post- or pre-grievers but either way I am determined to be there with them, if they want me, so that they won’t feel they are alone in their grief.

Liam, at least right now, shows signs of being a post-griever like me. He doesn’t seem that bothered or sad before his friends leave. But, his melancholy and upset words and attitudes a week, two weeks and even sometimes a month afterwards speaks differently. Those words and attitudes say, “I miss them. I am sad. I am looking forward to when I see them again, but I am unsure when that will be. That uncertainty makes me a little sad and frustrated.”

He certainly is not that verbally articulate, neither is his brother for that matter. Nor will they be when it is our turn to depart. In fact, I anticipate that in addition to these emotions, they will also be wrestling with thoughts similar to, “I am worried I won’t have friends in America. What if no one likes me? What will happen to the friends and things I leave behind?”

I write these things now to not only remind myself but to also ask you who read this, and will be part of our lives when we are in America, to please be aware of how hard this will be for them. After the novelty of the new place wears off, they will go through a period of missing their friends and home. And when they do, they will likely be more grouchy, tearful and generally unpleasant from time to time.

They will be little boys who have had to say goodbye to all that is familiar and home them. And they have a mom who is only just learning how to do this well herself. Thank you in advance for graciousness and patience.