A life less comfortable

I am avoiding cleaning out our back bathroom.  It has this really ugly wooden closet that is literally falling apart and holds all kinds of medicines and bathroom stuff.  The odor of the closet is repelling.  The bathroom itself is functional but far from any place you'd want to spend time in.  So I read a book.  I planned English class for today.  I washed dishes.  And all the while that back bathroom mocks me.  It is winning at keeping me distant and disgusted at myself for not just tackling the disfunction.  I mean it's only a bathroom filled with bathroom stuff.  I was supposed to start on it yesterday and I successfully avoided it.  So today to put it off again I logged onto my email.  There in my inbox was a blog I subscribe to entitled, "Life is Messy".  Don't I know it!  I don't want to open up that ugly stinky closet and clean it out.  I don't want to deal with all the expired junk.  Who knows there might even be a mouse or two!  Also it's rea

"I think of how sometimes God puts people together, maybe more often than we realize.  We can disregard it, lie to ourselves, find the reasons why it's impractical.  But something within the creation of them connects.  I've been afraid of it.  There is something fearful in revealing our true selves, allowing others to peer intimately inside.  It takes such trust, and none of us are completely trustworthy.  It's a risk, and there will be disappointment, opposing views, disenchantment, but the fusing of two imperfect lives is something of the divine." -- "The Salt Garden" by Cindy Martinusen-Coloma Years ago Amanda and I challenged each other to define friendship.  It seemed such an easy thing, to define something both so ordinary and extraordinary and something so intrinsically woven into the human experience.   I mean childhood friendships predate being able to tie our own shoes or print our own names.  Yet I found it to be so illusive and difficult to

The dreaded time of being the last teammates in Libreville has arrived.  Hannah has flown away, Leanne has flown away, the Envision center is just a memory, and it is back down to just Steve and me as we live and breathe here in the sweltering capital city by the grey-green sea.  I skyped briefly with Hannah last night (before losing power) and we marveled that just over a week has passed since she left.  It seems much longer.  The last time we lost teammates here in Libreville marked the beginning of a very challenging and lonely time and I very much did not want to go back to that thorny place, thank you very much!  I felt we were fairly well recovered from that difficult time and on track for a new normal that involved being actively engaged with teammates and sharing in ministry together.  So I was sorely grieved to realize that new normal was to be tossed out and we were to be ushered into another period of adjustment.  One that did not include close teammates.  One that might tak

A few years ago I read a book called "Reluctant Missionary" written by Edith Buxton.  She is the daughter of famous missionary C. T. Studd and married one of his best known recruits, Alfred Buxton.  The title of the book beckoned me into its dusty pages and I related to Buxton's reluctance and was inspired by her rising to the challenge of being a missionary in the jungles of Congo in the early 1900's.  "The sea journey took three weeks.  On the last morning I was awake early and on deck to catch my first look at Africa.  It was a brown line on the horizon of a dull grey sea.  To those who are susceptible to her magic, Africa can cast a spell which binds you to her for ever.  I still feel that magnetic pull whenever I set foot on her soil.  The age-old earth at your feet, baked by an unremitting sun, sends a thrill through me to this day."  She writes with eloquence and vulnerability.  "Long before we reached Nala I knew I did not fit.  I did not like m

Amidst discarded beer bottles and other refuse on a weedy plot of land lies a cemetery on a high point of Libreville over-looking downtown buildings, rambling neighborhoods and the grey-green estuary spilling out into the Atlantic ocean.  Recently Steve and I went there to take some photos for a man who is writing a book recounting the lives of the first protestant missionaries to Gabon.  The grave stones are scattered somewhat haphazardly in a sad state of neglect.  After driving towards downtown Libreville and taking a cratered road that wandered and wound around an adjacent neighborhood we found the mission called "Baraka" which translates to "blessing".  Behind the mission building lies the cemetery.  It was a sunny hot day with billowy white clouds drifting lazily across a brilliant blue sky, occasional breezes carried up from the sea stirred the sombre air as we walked reverently around the old headstones searching for specific names to photograph for the auth

The other day while painting the Envision center with Leanne I found myself saying, "Yeah, it's been hard, really hard, but worth it."  In that moment I realized it was true.  What a gift!  In the recent past I've had thought patterns that run a rut around the same mountain of thought, that mountain being all the difficult and heart-wrenching challenges of the past few years.  And it's been truly the most challenging time in my adult life.  But here I am with different thought patterns running around a different mountain of thought, that mountain being gratitude. The reason Leanne and I were painting at the Envision center is because Envision is leaving Gabon.  The rented house that has been home to Envision for the last five years or so needs to be painted by Gabonese law before returning to it's owners at the end of an occupancy.  It seems a bit backwards to have the renters responsible for the interior painting instead of the owners, but that is just one

So Steve has strongly encouraged me to write a blog.  He's just looking out for me.  He loves me.  In fact last night as I lay in bed, with sleep eluding me, I marveled at his love for me.  We've been married 19 years and he still makes me feel beautiful and witty and wise.  I'm not trying to brag but I am married to a stud pilot with stunning blue eyes that sparkle with humor more often than not.  He just gets better with age. That being said life lately has been somewhat challenging.  My latest challenges being that I have become a facebook stalker trolling the profiles of my kids (and I must admit, sheepishly, also their friends) for any photos or comments that shed a bit of light of their far away life in Cameroon.  This is the third year we have taken them to a foreign country and moved them into a home and then either driven or flown away.  It still seems crazy to me.  I love the people my kids have become.  They are funny and wise and kind and love Jesus.  Part of

We slipped the surly bonds and took flight last Thursday morning with a couple of kids from Hope House, the home for at risk and orphaned kids here in Libreville.  Henrica is a beautiful 15 year old girl who many years ago was hit by a car which knocked out one front tooth and seriously tattered the other front tooth.  Since then she has covered her smile.  Our good friend and dentist, Paul Kruth, from York Alliance Church came out in February and said it would be an easy fix but would need to be done at Bongolo.  Famou was with us as well.  A year or so ago Famou was in a serious bus accident killing 10 of his fellow passengers.  Famou broke his tibia and it was set wrong by medical personel here.  He needs surgery to re-break his tibia and have pins put in to allow the bone to heal correctly.  He is 18 and we had a guardian, Flavienne, come along with him as he needs to stay at the hospital for a couple of weeks before he can head back to Libreville.  His surgery has most likely alre

                  Holy Sonnet 14 Batter my heart, three-personed God;  for You As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend Your force, to break, blow, burn and make me new. I, like an usurped town, to another due, Labor to admit You, but O, to no end, Reason Your viceroy in me, me should defend,  But is captived, and proves weak or untrue. Yet dearly I love You, and would be loved fain, But I am betrothed unto Your enemy. Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again; Take me to You, imprison me, for I, Except You enthral me, never shall be free, Nor ever chaste, except You ravish me.                      -- John Donne Dear friends it has nearly been a month since last I wrote.  I am continuing to surrender and accept God each new day.  God is speaking to me and it is wondrously amazing.  Every Wednesday night we host a Bible study for English speakers.  Most of the time it is made up of Steve and I and Han

I've been memorizing Romans 12: 1-2 and focusing on the renewing of my mind, asking God to transform my thought patterns.  Robert S. Miller echos my prayers in saying, "I asked God to deliver me from looping thoughts that were leading me around the same mountain and filling me with heaviness and despair."  Since my epiphany I have been steadfast in praying and seeking after God with an attitude of surrender and acceptance.  It has brought a new level of peace.   In other news I am missing my kiddos with an aching longing.  I got to speak with Joe for 88 minutes the other day and it was glorious, I used nearly $40.00 in phone credit but it was well worth it.  With their busy school schedules and power outages and internet issues talking with them can be challenging.  I am proud of my kids and the way they are thriving in Cameroon.  Their school and hostel are providing great opportunities of growth and care.  Even though Steve and I aren't with Joe, Meg and Sam in t

I had an epiphany yesterday.  It was in fact a banner day for me my dear friend Leanne pointed out as we wrapped up our LIFE group meeting last night.  I have been struggling and wrestling with God for a long, long time now. The subject being peace or more precisely a lack there of.  I know from reading the Word of God that God does give peace to his people, a peace that passes understanding and I have experienced that peace many times in my life.  It is a gift that I seek out and bask in whole-heartedly.  Lacking that peace has caused many sleepless nights and frustrated prayers and conversations. When I first began to pray about whether or not we should move to Gabon God was curiously silent.  I wrestled for about three months asking God to direct and lead us as we sought out answers on moving to Gabon.  Finally one day after listening to a Derek Webb song entitled "New Law" that ends with Webb singing 16 times, "do not be afraid" I cried out to God once more to

"Lectio divina is the strenuous effort that the christian community gives to rehydrating the Scriptures so that they are capable of holding their own original shape in the heat of the day, maintaining their context long enough to get fused with or assimilated into our context, the world we inhabit, the clamor of voices in the daily weather and work in which we live" -- Eugene Peterson "Eat this book" Confession- I struggle to read the Bible in an alive and vibrant fashion, often I am left dehydrated after reading "living water".  I have felt frustrated and have often given up only to try again.  Don't get me wrong, I believe in the Bible and I believe it has the way, the truth and the light within it's covers.  I just struggle to unlock the life that I know lives in the Word of God.  I have experienced it from time to time.  I have faith and believe but my ability to stay tuned into and focused on the printed Word of God is often anemic.  I know

Last night while comfortably snuggled up with my sweetie watching tv something bit my belly and when I jumped up to brush whatever it was that so rudely bit me I was bit again, this time on my pinky finger.  I was outraged and each bite burned for some time afterwards.  I didn't know what it was that bit me and after searching the floor nearby I found the offending insect.  It was an ant so large I could practically make out an expression on it's mean little face.  Steve smashed the ant into a smear on the tile floor.  He's my hero. We were relaxing after coming back from a short trip to South Africa.  The trip was to renew Steve's Gabonese pilot's license and of course one has to travel to South Africa to renew a Gabonese license... it makes perfect sense...  We were a long way from Libreville while in South Africa, not just in distance but in almost every possible way.  From driving on the opposite side of the roads to the roads themselves, the largest being 12