Sacrifice

With all of the uproar surrounding the news of Osama Bin Laden's death, and all of the coverage that mentioned the Navy Seals who so bravely faced danger for our nation's benefit, I was reminded of something that occurred two years ago.

Our family went to a beach here in Guate for a little R&R. We were blessed by friends to stay at a lovely resort and just relax for a few days. One night, we went to the hotel's restaurant for the buffet dinner and noticed a table full of American men near us. Now. My husband graduated from the Air Force Academy and spent several years as an AF officer, so he can pretty much spot a military man or woman from 80 paces. He knew immediately that these men were military.

We didn't see them again until the day we checked out. They happened to be checking out at the same time, and Steve approached them. He made small talk and mentioned that he'd been in the Air Force. True to military form, they ribbed him and told him they were sorry he'd been in that particular branch and then told him they were in Guatemala for some training. There was more small talk, during which they revealed nothing specific about their training, and, at the end of our time in the lobby, Steve thanked them for their service to our country. It was then that one of the guys really opened up and told us that, indeed, their duty had cost them each greatly. He told us that most, if not all, of the men in his group were divorced or nearly divorced. He explained that they were gone from their families for most of the year.

It was a very sobering reminder of just how much our military sacrifices for us. And a reminder that the United States, despite all of the flaws that are constantly pointed out to us by the talking heads on TV, is a country that has always been known as a country willing to sacrifice for the greater good.

There is nothing like living in another country to give you perspective on just how unique America is. We are willing to fight for those who don't have a voice, to defend the weak, to pursue justice to its end....sometimes to a fault....and why? Because sometimes individual people sacrifice their rights and, often even their lives for the greater good.

It has taken living in a "survival-driven" society, a society in which people have been taught to look out for themselves, a society in which daily needs like food and a place to sleep are very real worries to teach me just how blessed we as Americans are.

But working for the greater good isn't merely an option or a nice choice for us:

"Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too." Phil 2:4 NLT

I am so thankful for the United States, so thankful for a heritage we have of sacrificing for others. And hopeful that we will never take it for granted again.

Justice

I entered the United States Air Force in 1994 after graduating from the Air Force Academy. I was trained to think critically, to honor, to defend the weak, to promote justice. I was paid very modestly, but it didn't matter. I served with pride, my chest swelling to think I could be involved in something so incredibly intangible as the defense of our American freedoms. That whatever work I did behind the scenes as a support officer would save lives in battle.

Only a 2 hour plane ride from where I served in the military, Guatemala was in the last 2 years of a 36 year civil war. 200,000 civilians were murdered. The government committed horrible war crimes... through its military.

Tonight I came home to find a neighbor with one of his relatives waiting by my front porch with a letter in his hand. They asked if I could help them translate a letter. I was tired, hungry, and frankly, a bit annoyed to hear that the man needed it to be finished within an hour. I asked if I could eat dinner with my family and have it ready in two hours. He agreed to wait, and I agreed to help.

Here is an excerpt of the letter, with his name removed for confidentiality:

To Whom it may concern:

.... I served in the Guatemalan military during the Guatemalan Civil War, in which the military committed many crimes against humanity. On January 6^th, 1996, I deserted the military, due to direct orders contrary to my conscience, which were intended to cause harm to defenseless civilians. Specifically, we were ordered to patrol at night for unsuspecting youth, capture them, and force them into military service against their will.

On the 9^th of January, 1996, I left for the United States where I found gainful employment. On May 7^th, 2002, I crossed the border of the United States near Detroit, Michigan, and entered Canada (through Winsor) to seek refuge.

I sought refuge in Canada because I was afraid of the cruel punishment and reprisals that the Guatemalan military intended to make against me because I deserted. The reputation of the Guatemalan military was that it always hunted down and punished deserters....

Injustice. Most of the world suffers terribly from governments, politicians, or employers who oppress and take advantage of those they are supposed to serve.

However, justice is not just a right as an American or a Christian. It's a responsibility we have as human beings, to defend others who are too weak to do it for themselves. We snooze through our history classes, we chafe in the politically correct corporate training courses. We gloss over it when Jesus commands it. We become too bothered, too busy, too bored, to care.

I was almost too busy to help this man. Afterwards, he asked me how much he owed me for translating, and I was speechless. He had already paid me. He had given me an appreciation for something that I had assumed was normal, universal, my right, everyone's right. An appreciation and a reminder of something I have taken for granted for too long.

Gratitude

Instead of starting out the new year with a list of resolutions that are destined to make me feel like a failure before I turn the calendar page to February, I am resolving to live a year of gratitude, a year of being thankful for the astounding number of gifts in my life.

Gratitude for the beautiful gift of my family, from parents and siblings to the children that run down my stairs each morning with limitless energy and joy, ready to see what the day holds for them.

Gratitude for the chance to experience life in a different country. Along with its challenges and frustrations, it also gives me a new perspective and appreciation that I don't think I could obtain any other way.

Gratitude for our health, for the wealth of food in our kitchen, for the comforts of our home that we take for granted over and over again.

Gratitude for the intangible things...the way God is changing and sifting and growing my heart, giving me new desires and new dreams.

Gratitude for the chance, every now and then, to get a glimpse of lessons taking root....those things that I have taught my children, the whole time wondering if the words were even being heard.  To see the seedlings pushing their way up through the soil is perhaps the most beautiful thing I could ever witness.

Gratitude for a multitude of things. Many more things than those frustrating, and yes, let's be honest, often discouraging and disheartening things that I routinely choose to focus on. That's the key anyway. To choose. I am old enough and cynical enough to know that I will fail at that choice quite often in this new year and will throw myself one amazing pity party. But I can get up the next morning and clean up the wreck of that party and choose again.

To be grateful.




"I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder."
Gilbert K. Chesterton 

"Tortillas and Coffee as Baby Food?"

Video: ABC News Special on Malnutrition in Guatemala

Expectations

Several months ago, someone gave us very good advice. "Don't bash the country you are living in," they told us. "Especially in front of your children."
Now, this might not sound like a big deal, or might not seem that it would be difficult advice to follow. It is.
No matter where we live, we are still very American. We are American in our thinking, our way of getting things done, in our expectations, and that can cause quite a bit of stress in our daily interactions.

We expect to order something and have it arrive on time, from little things like food to big things like construction materials for team projects.

We expect to be able to go to an ATM and get out cash.

We expect to pay the same price for vegetables that the person next to us is paying.

We expect to have the customer service we'd find at say, a Target store.....things like employees offering to help find something, or opening another register instead of requiring people to wait in line for 45 minutes, or not stocking shelves in the busiest part of the day in a 3 foot wide aisle.

Difficult? You bet. There are times that we complain and whine about how things are messed up. And yet, when we stop, take a breath and remind ourselves that people are mainly trying to survive, to get through the day, it changes our perspective and gives us a bit more patience.

Now, we're not perfect at this. Far from it. I still haven't gotten used to riding the chicken bus and having my foot stepped on 14 times or being shoved out of the way in the market, but at least I don't take it personally anymore. Well, mostly.

My wish is that, one day, when we move from Guatemala, whether it's to the States or to another place, we will be able to hold onto the lessons we're learning here, that we'll never adopt a sense of entitlement or superiority, and that we'll remember to look behind the differences and see the similarities....that people are people, with the same hurts and desires and hopes, no matter where they live, that we will consciously choose to look for the good in people.

Another good friend gave us more valuable advice. She told us to remind ourselves that, "It's not wrong, it's just different." So, on those really crazy days when we are tempted to see everything in a negative light, we repeat that phrase.
 A lot.
And sometimes even out loud in the middle of that so-very-unlike-Target store. Until we can say it and mean it.

Happy Birthday, Nate!

It was the perfect fall night.
The stereotypical fall night, actually. The smell of woodsmoke, the crisp air, the changing leaves. And it was the night that I realized that my life would never be the same.

A week earlier, I had given birth to a 9 1/2 pound baby boy. Now, my whole pregnancy had progressed perfectly. No problems, no worries. Until the end, when things just started to seem "off" and I began going in more often for monitoring. This normally would not have been a huge cause for alarm bells to go off in my head, but, tragically, two of our friends had lost babies very close to their due dates, and so I began to worry. A lot. I began to obsess with getting my baby born, healthy and whole. I knew if I could just make sure he made it through delivery o.k, then I could breathe a sigh of relief and all would be back to normal.

Wow. I really had no clue what was about to become of my peaceful little in-control world.

First of all, nothing went as planned for the delivery. Nothing. I had imagined some scene out of a movie where I'd be looking spectacular, with freshly-applied lipstick and perfect hair. Perhaps my mom or Steve would be blotting my face and  bringing me sips of water. Yep. None of that really happened. I know my mom and Steve were fabulous during the whole ordeal, but I clearly did NOT look amazing and I did NOT have the storybook moment of bonding and happy-crying and holding my baby immediately. Instead, 36 hours into labor, we made the difficult decision to have a c-section, and then our son was born blue and unresponsive.

All I remember was thinking, "This is not happening. There is no way that he is not going to be ok!" I kept sending Steve over to check on him, and I know now that he was trying to comfort me, because he kept coming back to tell me that, "He's fine!" when, in fact, he wasn't.

I didn't get to hold him until that night, and although he was covered with alarms, wires and had an I.V. stuck into his little arm, he was beautiful, and I marveled at the fact that he belonged to us.
We were very blessed, because our story ended well and happy after that initial week in ICU, and I know that others don't have that happy ending.

I think it was this understanding that gripped me on that perfect fall night. We'd left Nathan home with my mom so we could take a stroll, just Steve and I. And that's when I began to panic. I'd been banking on the fact that, once he was born, I wouldn't worry about him like I had when I'd been the only person who could care for him, and now I was shocked and actually scared to realize that my heart had been laid wide open by this little person, and that we were totally, utterly responsible for him. I was scared to death.

And yet, somehow, here we are 12 years later. Miraculously, he is healthy, well, happy, strong, and one of the most amazing people I know. When I say it is by the grace of God, I don't exaggerate. We have walked (and sometimes been dragged!) through some heavy stuff, and so we don't take a thing like a birthday for granted. We celebrate like crazy people, because we know just how blessed we are to have each other.
And really, isn't this how life is? Things rarely turn out the way we envisioned....college, job, marriage, parenthood, you name it.

The challenge is whether we get stuck in the "what if's," the "I-can't-believe-this-is-my-life" pity party, or whether we believe that there is a Greater Love, a greater plan, a greater hope.
And even if there are still difficult times ahead, and even if it still doesn't turn out the way we'd wanted, we don't have to waste today worrying. We can just take a breath, enjoy, and choose to be grateful.

If I could go back and talk to that very young, very scared new mom, I'd tell her that she would not believe how ridiculously fast the years would pass, how many things she would wish she'd cherished along the way, and how, no matter what, it was all going to be o.k.

Then I'd tell her to throw her hands up, let go, and enjoy the ride.

Happy Birthday, Nathan!

El Es El Camino - He is the Way

This is the official name for the new community built for 12 of the families who lost their homes in Agatha. No less than 5 different churches have worked together to clear land, dig ditches, and build 6 homes from July through September.

We expect the remaining 6 homes to be built by the end of October, and remaining infrastructure (bathrooms, kitchens, electricity, etc.) should be completed by the end of the year. But, it's also about building relationships.

Here are a few photos of the outreach opportunities with the families impacted by the storms.

South Tulsa Baptist Church shares their morning devotions with over a dozen workers from the city of Pastores.

Pastor Ted Shares the Gospel with 10 of the 12 families who will receive houses. The mayor of Pastores is reading his copy of the Bible (one was handed to each family and worker), and Abner (Steve's co-worker) helps translate.

A Pastores worker reads his new Bible during his break.

Some of the young construction workers show their new Bibles.

The families visited their new homes (that were in the process of being built), and were also given baskets of clothes and food as a house-warming gift.

Steve with Abner and Mayor Miguel Lopez of Pastores.