Category: Other Page 31 of 181

The Place That Was Home

On September 14, 2016

I was wrenched from my home at age 13. Of course, I say that figuratively, as we were in the States on home assignment when the war started in Liberia. However, many of my friends were literally wrenched away, on emergency evacuation planes.

We kept hoping that the whole thing would blow over, but as the war progressed, our mission made the decision to relocate us to Ethiopia. I cried that day like I never had before. The plan had been for us to spend the next four years in Liberia–which would have been all of high school for me. Instead, the course of my life changed dramatically.

I never had closure with Liberia. My roots were pulled up without my permission, suddenly and unexpectedly, and in the course of just a couple of months, deposited in another country. When you yank off a band-aid really quickly, it hurts pretty bad.

“For many of us [TCK’s], the only thing we feel we have left are our memories. We cannot go back to the place that was home.” (Marilyn Gardner)

It was the days before digital photography, when photos were sparse and treasured. And on top of that, we lost many of the photos we did have to the war. So for a long time, most of what I knew of Liberia was left only to my memories.

That is, until the recent years of social media. Those of us who grew up in the idyllic paradise that was the ELWA compound started networking. Maybe we only had a few photos each, but we started sharing them. A few people went back to Liberia, and took new pictures. And I saw before my eyes my childhood being recreated in pictures. Places that had only existed in my memories began to reappear in actual images. It’s been incredibly meaningful.

So today, you get to see my childhood too.

I should note that I don’t know who took many of these pictures, as they were shared on ELWA sites without names. But I am exceedingly grateful to whoever did.

This was my home. ELWA compound was established in the 50’s mainly as a radio station but grew into a hospital and school as well. The compound was a square mile in size and housed up to 70 missionary families at it’s height, as well as many Liberian families. For a few months during the war in 1990, it sheltered something like 30,000 people–until the bombs started falling there too.

The above picture was taken from one of the radio station towers–which used to broadcast all over West Africa.

As kids, we had free reign of this compound. We rode our bikes everywhere and our moms didn’t worry. All the families had motorcycles, and my dad would often take me in the evenings to collect the mail, riding backwards and barefoot as the sun set over the ocean. The center of the compound was still untamed jungle, and many a young boy (and sometimes the girls) would tromp through it on daring adventures.

The beach was our backdrop on weekdays and our playground on Saturdays. Many of the houses were built only fifty feet from the water. In this first picture, the house in the distance was directly across the road from our house.

The picture below was our house. This is fairly recent picture, taken by a school friend who visited a couple of years ago. The picture makes me sad, because the house looks so tired and worn out now, when it was such a place of joy for me. It used to be surrounded by palm trees and all kinds of vegetation, all of which were cut down during the war. When I was a child, the thick jungle in the back of our house was much wilder, bringing in the occasional green mamba.

photo credit: Ghada Abouchacra Tajeddine

This is one of the few pictures I have of me in that house. I’ve got my red-checked sewing bag next to me, which I made in second grade and used until seventh grade. Lost in the war.

Did you see that big porch? We had a hammock on that porch, and I would sit in it for hours.

And this? This was the view from that hammock on that porch. Whoever took this picture must have been standing in our yard. Sometimes, when it was raining, I would sit here and watch the lightning hit the water. We regularly got 200 inches of rain every year.

One time in that lagoon, millions of minuscule baby crabs hatched, covering every available surface.

This swamp was directly next to our house and across from the lagoon. Back when I lived there, it was covered with lily pads. Sometimes we would take a canoe out onto this swamp and walk around on the mangroves.

photo credit: Robin Shea McGee

This was the road heading away from our house, towards dozens of other missionary houses and my school. This is a recent picture, so the coconut trees are smaller than they were in my day. They are the replacements from all those cut down during the war.

photo credit: Robin Shea McGee

About twice every year during the rainy season, the lagoon would fill up so much that the sand barrier between it and the ocean would break open, creating a crazy crazy water slide which would only last for a day or so. Everyone always greatly anticipated this event. After just a few hours, it would slow down to the trickle you see in the picture below, but until then, we rode the rapids.

photo credit: Bethany Fankhauser

My brother and I in front of the lagoon.

A despised event was the time every year when all the Portuguese-men-of-war would wash up on the shore, thousands of them. You couldn’t swim that day; their stings were legendary.

Every morning, we walked along the beach road until we got to this path. There was a shortcut through those trees which led to school.

photo credit (and the next two): Robin Shea McGee

And this was that path.

This is a recent picture of the wall surrounding ELWA Academy, which was white when I was a kid.

To the right of this picture are school buildings, and on the left is the gym, which also functioned as our church and meeting hall.

Photo credit: Robin Shea McGee

photo credit: Matthew Molenhouse

There are still missionaries in Liberia, and the ELWA Hospital was the central point of the Ebola fight two years ago. The radio station was rebuilt after it was leveled during the war. However, most of the houses are now filled with Liberians, which is really how it should be. Big compounds filled with missionaries was the old way of doing missions, and thankfully organizations have figured out that there’s better ways to reach people than putting all the missionaries together. But it sure was an extraordinary place to grow up. And since I never did get to say good-bye, I’m so thankful for pictures that let me see it one last time.

When It All Blows Up In Your Face

By Amy Medina

On September 1, 2016

In Other

Sixteen years ago, my husband and I were all of 24 years old when we arrived in Tanzania for our first term. We had only been married nine months, and we were passionate and dedicated, but incredibly naïve. We had absolutely no idea what we were in for.

We were working in youth ministry in a local church plant, and my husband was coaching sports as a way to get to know young people. One young man came into our lives with a real interest in the gospel. He was earnest and really seemed sincere, and it wasn’t long before he made a profession of faith. Since he was from a religion that is usually opposed to Christianity, we were thrilled.

Over the next year and a half, this young man dominated our time and our prayer updates. He was in our home almost every day.

Then, six weeks before we left the country, we found out he had been regularly stealing money from us.

We returned to the
States utterly shattered. For many
other reasons, it had been an extremely difficult two years. This young man had been a bright spot, and
when that blew up, we were completely demoralized and totally
disillusioned.

By the grace of God, a couple years later we were back in
Tanzania, older, wiser, and a lot more wary.
Yet even the loss of our naiveté didn’t really prepare us for everything
we would see and experience over the next ten years. Like the ugly split of the indigenous church
we attended. Or the married missionary
of multiple children who ran off with a woman from the village where he was
church planting. Or that time when the national
leader who was raised up and supported by missionaries ended up being a
narcissist who abused his team. And the
worst? A local pastor—discipled, installed,
and supported by missionaries for over ten years—was discovered to have an
incestuous relationship with his adult daughter.

Boom. And just like that,
everything worked for, everything believed in, goes up in flames.

Though we weren’t intimately involved in any of those
situations, we were close enough to feel the shockwaves. And
they shook us to our core.

Disbelief.
Despair. Disillusionment. We can handle the loneliness, the
inconveniences, and the bugs that come with missionary life, but not this. Not this. Many missionaries would say that
they would rather be persecuted or deported than have their ministry blow up. How
could this have happened? Where we did
go wrong? Why are we even here? What are we possibly going to tell our
supporters?

Read the rest of this post over atA Life Overseas. Don’t worry–there’s hope at the end!

My Deepest Fear

By Amy Medina

On August 29, 2016

In Other

When I was about 15 years old and living in California, one warm evening I was baby-sitting a couple of little boys. I was watching them play outside, and they climbed into the bed of the pick-up truck that was sitting in the driveway. I remember that this made me nervous, as the boys were only about two and four years old, but they assured me that they were allowed to play there. So I went against my better judgment and let them jump around.

I was watching them carefully, but before I could stop it, the toddler slipped off the ledge and fell. Onto his head. Onto the concrete driveway.

He instantly started screaming. I brought them into the house in a panic. I did everything I could think of to calm the screaming boy, but nothing worked. He screamed for a long time. I can’t remember how long, but it was until his parents came home at least an hour or two later.

I told them he had fallen, but I did not tell them that he had fallen out of the truck. I was overwhelmed by a terrible sense of horror that this had been my fault, that I shouldn’t have let him play there and I should have been watching him more carefully. I never told my parents, and I never told his parents what really happened. I was terrified of being deemed irresponsible.

As far as I know, the child was perfectly fine. But the scenario has haunted me since then, especially once I learned more about concussions and brain injuries and what could have happened that day. I realize now that my irresponsibility was less about letting him play in the truck, and more in my lack of calling for help.

A few years ago, while living in Tanzania, a young boy stayed with us for a couple of weeks while his parents were traveling. One night, the power went off, and since he was afraid of the dark, I lit two candles. I put one on the desk in the guest room, and one one the washing machine in the bathroom, in case he needed to use it. The candles were in plastic bowls.

The power came back on an hour or so later, and the boy blew out the candle in his room. But the candle in the bathroom continued to burn, and in the middle of the night, we were awakened by the boy’s cries. When I opened our bedroom door, the hallway was full of smoke. The candle had burned through the plastic bowl, caught the plastic lid of our washing machine on fire, and had continued to melt through all the plastic parts of the machine.

We were able to put the fire out easily, but the smoke was incredibly thick. To this day, I am haunted by the what ifs. What if the boy hadn’t blown out the candle in his room? What if the smoke had made him unconscious….or worse? And what on earth was I thinking in putting a candle in a plastic bowl?

Marianne Williamson famously wrote, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.”

I know this quote has been the climax of many inspiring movies, but I just can’t agree. I do agree that I am afraid of my power. But not in a good way. My deepest fear is the devastation I am capable of.

It’s not just my darkness–that creature within me that must be tamed–that I fear. It’s my frailty, my weakness, my humanness that terrifies me the most. The lapse in judgment that kept me from telling the truth to the toddler’s parents. The pure foolishness of putting a candle in a plastic bowl.

Like everyone, I suppose, I am afraid of what could happen to those I love. I have occasional anxiety about natural disasters or terrorist attacks. I am mildly OCD and triple-check the door locks at night. I am afraid because I know I cannot control my world. But what do I fear the most? That something terrible will happen, and it will be my fault. I cannot control myself.

I grew up as part of the self-esteem generation, which is why it is supposed to be our “light” that most frightens us. We were told that our top priority should be finding our identity, following our hearts, and reaching our dreams. The problem is that along with discovering our power for success comes the discovery of our capacity for failure. Serious failure. Because no matter how many times you tell me otherwise, there are times I will always be inadequate. Sure, I might do some pretty good stuff in my lifetime. But I will make the wrong decision sometimes, and other times I will make terrible decisions.

I can’t fix that. And so I am afraid.

So what’s the antidote? Looking in the mirror and trying to convince myself that I am smart, capable, and powerful is just not going to work. Or even the Christian version of self-esteem talk–I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me–falls flat.

The only way I can defeat my fear is to take the “I” out of the sentence all together. Why does it matter what Amy Medina is capable of–either good or bad? What matters is what God is capable of. He is all-knowing and all-powerful. He is good and can do anything He wants to do. He is the one who is in control of this universe. And even when I do something evil or just plain stupid, He is sovereign over that too.

“Does failure on our part to act prudently frustrate the sovereign plan of God? The Scriptures never indicate that God is frustrated to any degree by our failure to act as we should. In His infinite wisdom, God’s sovereign plan includes our failures and even our sin.” (Jerry Bridges, Trusting God)

It is there–and only there–that I am no longer afraid. The longer I look at myself, the harder I try to convince myself that I’ve really got my life under control, the more afraid I am. The more that I just stop thinking about myself all together, and focus on the One who created me, that’s where everything clicks into place.

Which is why I must continually lift up my eyes. Fear makes me focus inward, and ultimately that will only breed more fear. There’s not much in myself that can alleviate my anxiety. What I need is to look up. To look out. God gave us this mind-blowingly massive universe so that we can comprehend our smallness. The vastness of the ocean, the intricacy of a flower, the realization that something far, far bigger than us is going on. Who am I to think that I have the power to thwart God’s plan? I can rest in the knowledge that God is a trillion times stronger than me.

There is a profound comfort in understanding my insignificance in the universe, and yet my significance in God’s sight. It is there that my fear dissolves.

Starting Fifth Grade is a Big Deal for Both Grace and Her Mom

By Amy Medina

On August 24, 2016

In Other

Grace and Miss Finocchi

My girl started fifth grade this week. Fifth grade isn’t usually one of those landmark years, but for me, it is pretty significant.

Fifteen years ago, I came to Haven of Peace Academy to teach fifth grade. It was 2001, and I walked into that same classroom. I was 24 years old. HOPAC was only six years old, and that classroom had just been built. Cement dust was still all over the floor and not a single bulletin board was on the newly painted walls.

I was fighting my own internal battles as I prepared for that school year, many days barely coping. But that class walked in on that first day, and we fell instantly in love. After teaching in California, I was relieved to have a class that was not jaded by a culture that made them grow up too fast. That classroom was my haven, and that class fed my soul.

When Narnia was being born, you could stick a hunk of metal in the ground and it would grow a lamppost. Those days at HOPAC were the same. The school was young and everything was new and we got the privilege of creating culture and tradition. Some of the things my class did that year are still happening today, like Roman Day and the annual trip to the Amani rainforest.

I spent two years with that class, teaching them sixth grade as well as fifth, and many of those students have been a part of my life ever since. Now fifteen years have gone by.

2002

2016

I watched them graduate from high school and I have celebrated their graduation from college. They are now the age I was when I taught them. They are my friends, and I think they teach me more than I taught them. Many of them have returned to Tanzania to change their world. In fact, Dorothy (center) leaves tomorrow to get her Masters in educational policy at Harvard, and then she’ll come back and transform education in Tanzania.

So yeah. For my own girl, fifteen years later, to enter that very same fifth grade classroom? Pretty darn cool.

The Grass is Always Greener in Arusha

By Amy Medina

On August 21, 2016

In Other

Lauren and I have dreamed about Arusha for a long time. We always knew that this northern Tanzanian city was in the region of Mount Kilimanjaro (home to where your Starbucks coffee is grown), the Great Serengeti (home to Simba), and is lush and green–at least 10 degrees cooler than Dar es Salaam. As far as we were concerned, that made it a paradise.

So when the opportunity arose for all of us to attend Swahili language school in Arusha for three weeks, we jumped at the chance. After all, we all needed to boost our Swahili, and a chance to spend time in Arusha would just be icing on the cake.

So we went. We headed ten hours north on the two-lane road, buses and semi-trucks dodging us at breakneck speed. We passed miles of sisal plantations and scrub brush savannah and villages of small mud houses. We went with our long-time friends Ben and Lauren, and our new friends Luke and Amber, and a gaggle of nine kids under the age of ten.

Arusha did not disappoint us. We stayed in guest cottages on a mission compound that is a version of Eden, where the chatter of monkeys woke us in the morning and the avocados dropped from heaven like manna. The temperature dropped into the sixties and we shivered in our hoodies and bought thick socks at the market to wear at night. We discovered that the grass really is greener in Arusha.

Of course, the bulk of every day, from 8:30 till 4, was spent on things like the seven noun classes of Swahili, and if you don’t know what a noun class is, then you can thank your lucky stars that English only has one. Our heads worked hard and words words words sorted themselves into slots in our brains with labels like “causitive,” “stative,” and “passive.”

that gaggle of kids with their teachers

the kids’ Swahili classrooms

It was hard mental work, and we were exhausted many days. But we were in such a beautiful place. And we were with beautiful friends who are like family, and we ate meals together and the conversations were as nourishing as the food. We walked the half hour to and from school every day, through corn fields and over streams and across a pasture of purple flowers. The kids spent every afternoon roaring around on scooters and slept every night on a wooden loft, snuggled under blankets in the frigid sixty degree cold.