Category: Other Page 14 of 181

Good Dads

By

On June 17, 2018

In Other

It’s really not fair, my friends and I have complained to each other. Why is it that I can say all the same things and give out all the same consequences, but the kids still behave better for Dad than for me? 

There’s just something about Dads that makes kids pay attention.

Maybe that’s why these days I think more about the unfairness of the kids who don’t get good dads–or get dads at all. I think about the little guy who comes up to my window while I’m at a stoplight, begging for coins. I think about George, who told Gil, I want a Daddy too, when we went to bring home Johnny. I think about my grown up friends who never knew their dads.

I am one of the fortunate ones. I have a dad who tickled me until I couldn’t breathe, who lay on the living room floor and flew me around on top of his feet. He hugged me every bedtime and spanked me when necessary. He cried every time I got an award or graduated from something or left home for longer than a week. He introduced me to Africa and welcomed the stranger into our home and taught me to pray.

He was strong and funny and made me feel safe. He still does. And now he loves my own kids the same way.

My dad cried when he gave me away to the man who is dad to my kids. And every single day, I thank God for my kids’ dad. Because almost every single day, Gil plays with his kids. He plays football and basketball and xbox. The other day, he printed out pictures of tiny little heads of soccer players, and he and Josiah glued them to bottle caps so that they can simulate World Cup matches. He comes up with crafts for the girls. He coaches the kids’ teams. He reads to them most nights. He creates amazing birthday parties and Spirit Week costumes. He helps with homework.

But he’s also after their hearts, and the relationship he has formed with them is why they listen. He teaches them from the Bible and prays with them. He and I handle every behavior issue together. He doesn’t shy away from discipline or consequences, but he’s always looking for ways to make it positive. He is my kids’ protector and defender. He makes us feel safe.

When I see my kids with their dad, it’s even more poignant to think that they were once fatherless. They could have been that kid begging from cars. Or more likely, like George. Then they hit the Dad Jackpot.

My kids don’t yet understand how fortunate they are, but one day they will. Just like I did, they take for granted that they have such an amazing dad. As they grow older, they will realize that their kind of dad is not so easy to find. Which is why I celebrate my dad and their dad today.

When the Gate Fell

By

On June 2, 2018

In Other

It was Sunday afternoon, and we had gathered together for our monthly mission team meeting. The adults were talking on the second-floor balcony of our friends’ house, and the kids were running around in the yard below us.

In the background, we heard the gate slide open, and a car entered the property–a taxi ready to pick up some teammates. A few moments later, we heard the ghastly sound of metal crashing and children screaming.

I had a feeling run through me that is usually reserved for nightmares. We rushed downstairs.

Four kids–Josiah, Johnny, and two others–had been pushing the gate together. The force of all four of them pushing at the same time had made the heavy metal gate jump its runners and crash to the ground. The other kids managed to jump out of the way, but Josiah’s friend put up his arm to stop the gate, and it fell on top of him, breaking his arm.

Thankfully, the boy’s dad is a doctor, and he immediately took over and got his son to a hospital. He is okay now. Our kids were stunned and a bit traumatized, as each of them felt responsible that the gate fell. But everyone was okay.

Funny how something as serious as a broken arm suddenly becomes “only” a broken arm. It took six strong adults to pick up the gate and put it back on it’s runners. It was totally and completely an accident–nothing anyone could have predicted, and no one’s fault. We all looked at each other grimly as we contemplated the What If”s. What if it had fallen on a smaller child? What if it had landed on someone’s head? Everyone remembered a similar scenario a couple of years ago when a falling gate had killed the four-year-old sister of a HOPAC student.

Right before this happened, we had all been discussing some serious issues our organization is facing. We are getting advice, we are doing everything we can, and we are praying–but ultimately the outcome will be out of our hands. We think that by worrying we can somehow gain some control over a situation, but then something terrible happens that we never would have thought to worry about.

We are but microscopic organisms on the head of a pin in a vast universe. Are we subject to the whims of chaos, or is there an infinite God who is orchestrating billions of events every moment of every day, whether it be presidents or armies or the forces of gravity on a metal gate?

How we answer that question determines how then we shall live.

Be All There.

By

On May 20, 2018

In Other

Last summer at my parents’ house–handprints in cement.

Last night at bath time Johnny said, Mommy, I have an owie on my knee. He stood there with his big mournful eyes, and I noticed how tall he is now. He is almost to the end of kindergarten. And I thought about how it’s not going to be much longer that a child of mine shows me his owie.

Today was the annual garage sale at HOPAC, so yesterday we went through the house to find what we could get rid of. We loaded the car up with the booster seat and the foam blocks and the Ikea train set. You are taking away all of my memories! I whined to Gil. And he just rolled his eyes.

When you’re in the midst of it, every season of life feels like it will last forever. You can’t imagine yourself ever being old enough to get married and then suddenly you are; it feels like the babies will never be out of diapers and then one day you realize that everyone’s pee has made it into the toilet (mostly) for quite some time now. The years at home with toddlers feel like eternity and then one night you think you could be looking at your last owie.

The passage of time here in Tanzania has surprised me. Living as overseas as a foreigner feels like it should be temporary. But days have a way of blending into years, which have eventually become Grace’s entire childhood. And me? I was 23 when we moved to Tanzania. I’m 41 now. Enough time has gone by that we have replaced our wedding towels and watched trees grow from seedlings to towers and seen first teeth grow in and later get covered by braces.

So much of life is sullied by longing for the next thing. But then you get to 41 years old and realize that the next thing always comes, no matter how far away it seems.

I like Now. I want to live in Now. As Jim Elliot exhorted, I want to be All there. Until that Day, the Day when all will be made new, all I have is Now.

I’m listening to Grace and her best friend in the backyard while I write this. They are supposed to be working on a science project, but judging from the hysterical laughter, I’m not sure how much is being accomplished.

I sit here, and I listen to them laugh.

When Your Mom is the Principal

By

On May 13, 2018

In Other

1. School becomes your second home. You help yourself to office supplies, you leave your shoes under the secretary’s desk, and you have free reign of the staff lounge.

2. Your friends start to get a little nervous around you, because if they are naughty, it always gets back to the principal.

3. But this isn’t such a big deal because you yourself keep your mom humble by managing to be naughty in almost the exact same ways as the other naughty kids who get sent to her office.

4. Which means you can’t get away with anything. Which kind of stinks.

5. Your parents don’t get surprised or depressed or anything when you bring home your report cards. Because your mom has already seen them and signed them and told your dad about them, so the report card just gets tossed on the table.

6. Speaking of which, your mom sees your teachers every day and visits your class all the time. Which means that she knows everything.

7. This also means there’s nothing exciting to tell your mom. At dinner, you could say, “Hey Mom, next week is Book Week!” and she will say, “Yes, Darling, I organized it.” On the other hand, you also get inside information about upcoming events. This comes in very useful with your social status.

8.  Your mom is always around, so you get to hug her multiple times a day. This is great, unless you are a 10-year-old boy. Then you just give your mom glances that say, “Please don’t embarrass me.” But she inevitably still does.

Josiah helping Johnny during “Buddy Time.”

We Went to Slovenia

By

On May 8, 2018

In Other

I decided I needed new shoes.

All but one pair of my shoes are sandals. I was going to be traveling to Slovenia, so I figured I definitely needed another pair of closed-toed shoes.

That was a week ago Friday, and Gil and I were scheduled to leave for the ACSI administrator’s conference in Slovenia that night. But I didn’t think about my shoe deficit until a few days earlier, and market day is only on Fridays. Which meant I had to go to the market to find shoes just a few hours before I got on a plane.

The Friday market is just down the road from our house. So after school last Friday, I dropped off Gil and the kids at home and rushed over to the market.

As usual, hundreds of vendors were out. Some had set up tables, but most used large pieces of plastic on the ground. Some were selling vegetables, kitchen supplies, toiletries, or school supplies, but most were selling piles of clothes and shoes, second-hand cast-offs from American thrift stores.

I pushed my way through the crowds, my eye out for black shoes. Luckily, about half of the shoes for sale in the market are black. Not because they originated that color, but because the vendors dye as many shoes black as possible. It’s the color required for school uniforms.



You look beautiful, the vendors would tell me every time I tried on a pair of shoes. I shook my head. These are too small, I would complain. Like Cinderella’s step-sisters, they would insist, No, they’re not! See? They will stretch!  

Finally I settled on Aerosole flats (dyed black) that would have to do. I wove my way back through the crowds, finished packing, and left for the airport at midnight.

Fourteen hours later, I was standing on the canal-lined streets of Venice, Italy.

The conference took up a good portion of our time, which meant we had just four afternoons to cram in as much European sight-seeing as possible. So we spent an evening in Venice and visited the famous Postojna caves. We toured the Slovenian town of Piran with its medieval architecture and stepped into the postcard that is Lake Bled, complete with castle and lake island church.

We stuffed ourselves with grapes and pasta and salami, and ate dessert way too many times. We walked along cobblestone streets with flowers poking through wooden fences. We delighted in the glass trinkets in Venice, the gelato shops on every corner, the pristine beauty of the Adriatic Sea.

And it all seemed like a universe away from the market down the street from my house in Tanzania.

I loved this trip. The conference was energizing, the weather was incredible (I could have worn my sandals after all!), and we were with best friends. The beauty filled our souls and we joked repeatedly that maybe God was calling us to be missionaries in Slovenia.

Venice

Piran, Slovenia

Postojna caves, Slovenia

Lake Bled, Slovenia

It was amazing.

But you know what?

I love the market down the street in Dar es Salaam. I love treasure-hunting there; I love the friendliness of the people; I love the unpredictability. I would much rather buy one dollar second-hand shoes at that market than the designer high-heels that are standard for European women.

Europe is extraordinarily beautiful, but so is Tanzania. Dar es Salaam can be dusty and humid, but Venice was covered in graffiti. Beauty and brokenness always live side by side. On any continent.

Venice
Home–Dar es Salaam.

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