Footprints

A very wise young woman encouraged me a while ago to choose special markers of God's love, little "mini altars" if you will, as a way to remember his faithfulness throughout the day when they show up in my life.  For her, it was hearts; heart-shaped leaves, heart-shaped rocks, heart-shaped spills, reminding her in every situation how much God loved her. 

For me, it has been footprints; in the wet sand on a beach, on decals stuck to the front of a bus, even little footprints of "Renae, I just couldn't hold it" tracked through the entire house, reminding me in every situation that God is with me.  It's like having a secret handshake with a close friend; the littlest thing can really make my day! 

That said, sometimes God goes beyond the simple-minded limits we so often choose to be satisfied with.  He is loving and faithful, but that doesn't necessarily mean predictable! 

Just the other week, on my way back from a short visa-renewal trip to Costa Rica, I was sitting at a familiar gate in Juan Santamaría International airport thinking about how odd it was to be flying from "not my country" to yet another "not my country".  Usually, sitting in an airport means that I'm about to see my family or that I just got to see my family for at least a little bit, and while I'd just spent a wonderful week with an old friend, there's nothing quite like the comforting feeling of home.  This was the first trip I've taken from one relatively unfamiliar place to another and back again, and it was a rather odd feeling!

Hiking Volcán Barva in Costa Rica

As I sat there talking to God about this temporary homelessness that is living in a foreign country, I started daydreaming about how nice it would be to see someone from home, from church maybe, because there's just something about being with someone who knows where you're from, not just where you are.  I racked my brain for reasons why anyone I could think of would be traveling through that tiny wing of Juan Santamaría . . . finding none, I settled back down to reading my book. 

Except it seems that God wasn't through with our conversation, because who should show up just then but the pastor of the little church I call home in barely-a-dot-on-the-map San Lucas!  God sent a kind greeting not from Ramsey, not from my physical family, but something better.  It was as if he had put his arm around me and whispered, "You have a new home now, with me, and your family is bigger than you could ever imagine!  I am your Father.  I take very good care of my daughters." 

And it's wildly true. 

Beautiful Things

We've been singing this song a lot lately at the Oasis.  It rings so true against the backdrop of our girls' stories that some days, I just cry.

And then there's God whispering hope through Isaiah, promising that it really is possible to redeem unimaginable loss.  In fact, He already sees the world as it one day will be. 

Isaiah 35:1-2

Imagine the wilderness whooping for joy, 
the desert’s unbridled happiness with its spring flowers.  
It will happen! 
The deserts will come alive with new growth budding and blooming, 
singing and celebrating with sheer delight. 

Just imagine it!  It will happen!  As far as God is concerned , it already has. 

The one where my friends do the leaving...

Goodbyes are hard, terrible, beautiful things.  

Letting something go that you'd rather have stick around,
the death of something that will never be the same,
the opportunity to welcome something new and do some growing yourself,
and a unique place to realize how much you appreciate people.   

All in all, I'd say saying goodbye is a pretty interesting process.  

Our girls say many goodbyes: to teams, interns, missionaries and even tías on occasion.  For the newer ones and the younger ones, all this coming and going takes a good deal of figuring out.  Every time someone leaves the Oasis, a sweet little pair of dark eyes looks up at me and asks, 

"When are you leaving?"

. . . and I don't know what to tell them.  

It matters, because loving and loosing hurts.  
 I want to say, "NEVER!  I will be with you forever!"  and I want to fly to Ramsey, MN like, oh, you know, YESTERDAY.  How long exactly am I going to be here?  Fantastic question. . . one to which I have absolutely no answer and for which I can't plan.  Right now, I'm living what is and trusting that God has the next steps taken care of.  But I still ask Him what the plan is at least once a day.  

In the mean time, I get to learn what it's like on the staying-side of leaving.  These girls are teaching me a lot.  

Lots of love from far away,
Renae

Take a Chance!

I wish there was a magic fairy-dust that you could sprinkle on yourself as soon as you decided to "work for Jesus" that would take away all the bad habits and false motives and lazy attitudes and leave you with nothing but joyful selflessness, good favor with everyone, and an extra heap of wisdom.  But at the same time? I'm very glad there isn't!  There is breathtaking beauty in the journey from Point A to Point B and it has a lot to do with depending on God every day because I don't have it all together!  

Sometimes I think we expect moving to a different place to come with at least a free sample of some such fairy-dust, but... it doesn't.  Wouldn't ya know, I moved all the way to Guatemala and I’m still the same Renae.  In a lot of ways, my life looks a lot like it did in the States.  Some nights, I stay up too late and sleep through my alarm in the morning.  I leave dirty dishes in the sink for too many days and it takes twice as long to clean them.  I wear my hair in odd up-dos at night so it will dry curly but some days it just doesn’t.  I spend too much time on some projects and then I have to rush to finish others.  I can’t decide which brand of peanut butter to buy at the store and just last week I let a sweet old lady at the market talk me into buying way too much broccoli for any one single person to consume and it’s going bad in my fridge because I just don't know what to do with it all!

Dance party in the kitchen! 

In a lot of ways, not much has changed! But at the same time, little by little, I’m learning about how trauma affects children and what we can do to help them.  Little by little, I’m learning how to love people who are really difficult and confusing to love, how to set good boundaries for myself and also for the girls I interact with who don’t yet have their own moors.  Little by little, I'm learning how to share truth when it’s time to share truth and how to listen when it’s time to listen.   And in the learning, I mess it all up.   
Mucho.  
Often.  
Because as much as I would like to get it right the first time, I’m quite human.  I quite honestly don’t know what to do in many, many situations every single day. But even there… there’s something fragile and weak and dependent and beautiful about who God made me to be. At the end of the day, I’m a recovering rebel who is loved by a holy God. In each and every daily, boring, exciting, overwhelming thing that comes up, I have a chance to see God’s strength perfected in the filling of my weaknesses. Am I willing to take it?
 

Love from a very weak, very happy 23-yr-old!

“My salvation and my significance depend ultimately on God; the core of my strength, my shelter, is in the True God.”   Psalm 62:7

Leaving the Domain of Darkness

Today I got to play with some really fun girls.  Someone had a pair of very child-sized orange plastic glasses that came to represent a character we’ll call la maestra , “the teacher.”  Whoever had the glasses on was responsible for worrying about the behavior of everyone else, preferably out loud, and preferably in a crazy teacher voice.  We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  ( I was very thankful for my training in the school of Mr. Bradley Kent Fiddlesticks! )  

 
We spent the hour between homework time and dinner time running around outside , playing chinese jumprope , and swinging higher than today’s clear blue sky.  

And then a little friend asked me to play make-believe.  

“Let’s say I was an invalid and you were my mom.  You go get that stick over there--to hit me with.” 

My heart dropped a little bit.  I laughingly told her that I would never in a million years hit her, even if she were the worst-behaved child in the world.  To which she replied, “It’s just a game…” 

Except it’s not just a game.  Every kid grows up playing house and teacher and cops 'n robbers and orphans, but this is different.  This isn’t “pretending our parents abandoned us so we can make-believe that we live in the adult world.”  This is life for our girls before they come to us.  And it doesn’t magically go away with the first hot shower and fresh change of clothes they receive at the Oasis.  

Why would she want to re-live it?  Maybe it’s a need to process her trauma, maybe she's learning that things can be different, maybe she's trying to figure out what normal is because her experiences say one thing but her heart longs for another.  

 

And because it’s most likely more than all of the above , I pray like a desperate mama that our girls will hear their Saviour whisper this “other” truth : that they are loved , that they are wanted , that they are forgiven. 

“The Father rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”  --Colossians 1:13-14

And I cling to the hope that they can be made whole :

Though we be dead… He makes us alive.  ( Colossians 2:13 )

the power of relationships

Working at a home for emotionally wounded girls has me thinking about relationships … a lot .  Recently, my mom pointed me to this amazing resource by Leslie Vernick, and it voiced something I’d been trying for a week to put into words:

“The way someone treats you, whether it be good or bad, has little to do with you. It reveals something about who they are.” 

Umm… read that again!

This rings true on so many levels.  I want to live this way, and I want our girls to be able to live this way!  


First of all, God loves us. Greatly. This in spite of our obvious flaws and shortcomings. His loving response to us reveals more of His endless goodness than can anything else!  I can trust His character.  Despite mine. 

Secondly, if someone hurts me, physically or emotionally, it is not my fault. In the same way that God’s love depends on Him, not me, another person’s response to me depends on their character, not mine. That’s frightening and freeing at the same time. I did not cause it, and I can not control it. 

That brings me to number three: No one else is responsible for how I respond to them. They do not have the power to control my reactions. I may choose to be happy, angry, afraid of them, or what have you, but I am always responsible for what I think, say, and do.  That choice reveals my character, not theirs.

The vast majority of our girls come from places where this truth has been sabotaged since Day One. A healthy understanding of relationships just doesn't grow out of the soil they were planted in.  Part of the miracle that God does when they come here is to transform their sweet, wounded hearts from

frightened,
weak,
needy,  
o v e r - d e p e n d e n t ,
dishonest,
manipulative,
controlling,
angry,
violent,
b i t t e r ,
indifferent, (or a progression of a l l of the above) 
 
into confident, 
loving,
strong, 
g i v i n g , 
kind, 
honest, 
caring, 
p a t i e n t , 
compassionate, 
open, 
forgiving, 
passionate young women.  

It's a long process.  

When a girl spills kind words instead of bitter ones, my heart jus wants to praise God for the miracle He is working in her!

 

When a girl pushes the limits of my patience and understanding, I can thank God that she is here, and that He loves her, and that this is a good place for her to heal from the ugliness that’s pouring out. 

 When that girl is me… God’s grace becomes that much more personal.

 

God is working. Please pray for us. We need it!

 

When white looks black, Part 2

God almighty offers me LIFE! 

and all He asks in return is my complete trust and joyful, satisfied surrender.  I need a new word to refer to what I think of as “my life” - This thing I’m being asked to hand over is much too insignificant to deserve the title.  

from James 1

Every good gift bestowed… is from God. 

He calls us to life by His message of truth so that we will show the rest of His creatures His goodness and love. 

It is possible to open your eyes and take in the beautiful, perfect truth found in God’s law of liberty and live by it. If you pursue that path and actually do what God has commanded, then you will avoid the many distractions that lead to an amnesia of all true things and you will be blessed. 
- the Voice -

Abba, save me from the many, many distractions that cause me to forget for Whom I was made . . .  Open my eyes and I'll open my hands - what my flesh considers precious, let me value as rubbish - that I might gain Christ!