who is the thief?

Someone we know is stealing from us (*not someone who works in our home). it is mostly little things: a huge bag full of avocados from our tree to sell at the market; cups of oil here and there when we're not around. adding to the price of things they buy for us to take a cut. a lot of little things adding up.

But I'm torn. 

who is the thief here?

In Isaiah 3: 14 the Bible says:

"The LORD enters into judgment against the elders and leaders of his people: "It is you who have ruined my vineyard; the plunder from the poor is in your houses."

I look around my house. I see our three computers. our ipad. 2 iphones. 2 kids "ipad"s. 2 DS. A trampoline. A pantry full of food filled to overflowing chaos. bins of extra clothes for the next season. closets full, full, full.

it all feels like evidence against me. and temptation and infuriating injustice to others. 

People are starving. Today people are selling their bodies and their children's bodies to make enough to feed their family. A woman felt it necessary to revoke her rights to one of her children somewhere (MANY PLACES!) in the world today because she doesn't have enough to feed them. 

where's the plunder? it is in MY house. the plunder of the poor is in MY house.

My husband, so tender and growing in wisdom. His response to finding out more about the story: "I found out _____ has been taking more things. avocados. oil. etc."

Hunter: (big sigh and achy voice). "oh ____ must be so desperate." (big sigh).

stealing isn't the answer and has to have consequences. but my hoarding and consumerism is somehow a connected issue in the equation. we belong to each other in the world. There are many injustices that happen in the world, for which we all (rightly!) demand justice. And as Christians, instead of vengeance we encourage one another to wait for the appointed time and the appointed judge (not us). 

Someone in the world--my neighbors here in Rwanda-- are waiting for me to receive justice for my hoarding and their starving. my plenty and their not enough.  

Back in the States my body ached and sometimes I limped along knowing that my house was full of treasures for here on earth, which moth and rust were destroying. and yet I kept them. and now I'm here, living the life some people wish they could because their passion draws them to it, and what are we doing? 

the plunder of the poor is still in my house.

mercy, LORD. that's the only way to you. I can't live closer to the poor and snuggle babies enough to clear my debt. we cannot use our vocation to do good enough to make our way to you. 

Not the labors of my hands can fulfill thy laws demands. Could my zeal no respite know. could my tears forever flow. all for sin could not atone, Thou must save and though alone.

I stand hand in hand, brothers with the bloody murderer asking for mercy from the LORD. I have sinned.

But He has saved me. Paid the penalty I deserved.

I want to live differently, not to earn God's favor or OUT OUT OUT damn spot wash my way from the guilt. but out of his generosity towards me (in every way) I now want to truly share. to truly consider others brothers and sisters, for whom I would give up anything. 

someone we know is stealing. and it is both of us. 

let him who is without sin cast the first stone.

Proverbs 30: 8
Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
    give me neither poverty nor riches,
    but give me only my daily bread.

(PS, you can pray for us. we do need to have some hard conversations with this person. our added sin of consumerism doesn't take away their guilt. but I do pray it softens us).

he's coming mama, he's coming soon

When we told Lucy that we were moving to Rwanda she took it pretty hard. She's always understood the gravity of things more than I expect little ones to, and so she took it all in. The fact that she wouldn't get to see her cousins and grandparents. The fact that she wouldn't get to see best friends. The fact that there wouldn't be a Kangaroo Jacks where she could have her birthday party (didn't have so much compassion or patience for that plea. good grief) But a few of her responses were especially poignant and memorable:

1- One day with trembling voice and eyes looking down at her full plate at breakfast, she very quietly acknowledged to us: "I'm scared to go because I'm afraid the water will make us sick and we won't have enough food." 

she can't yet read but she can see.

I watched as my husband tenderly took her hand across the table and drew her eyes to meet his. He didn't make her feel silly for her concerns. He simply told her, "Lucy, I want you to know that we're moving to Rwanda because Daddy has a job there. And my job will pay us more than enough to have clean water and plenty of food." 

pause.

Lucy was listening intently, trusting her daddy and looking braver. 

"And Lucy, do you know what my job is going to be?" 

still quietly: "what?"

"I know it makes us sad to move so far away. it makes me sad too. but, Lucy, if I do my job well, some businesses will be able to hire more and more mommies and daddies to work and then those mommies and daddies will be able to give their kids enough food. and then their kids will get to go to school instead of help carry firewood or walk long miles to fetch water."

(ahem. yes you can now picture me on top of a chair beating my chest saying 'DAYUUUUUUM. THAT'S MY FREAKING HUSBAND PEOPLE'.)

I'm not exaggerating. in that tender moment she looked braver. not coerced, not manipulated or guilted. but braver and understanding a "big thing" but in an appropriate way.

this is a photo I look at as I pray for her courage and joy.

(now of course when we pulled away from our send-off party, she still screamed 'I'm NOT going! you can't make me. Jesus didn't put this idea in my heart.") But don't we all have moments of understanding and bravery and also sadness and fear? Peter seemed all so confident and trusting walking out on the water. until he didn't anymore. and God still loved and worked through him.

2- The second moment I'll share was the day that Lucy walked up to me with a look of determination and "I need to tell you something" written all over her body language.

"Mama?"
"yes Lu, what's up."
"I'm still really sad about us moving to Rwanda and don't want to go. (pause) But I've been thinking about it. And (with the most matter of fact voice a 5 year old can muster). Well I been thinking about it and I thought that it isn't very fair that Isaiah has lived where we are from but we haven't yet lived where he was from. so it only seems fair, ya know?"

That girl.


















Fast forward to why I'm telling you these stories today. This week a new friend asked me how Lucy took our decision to move to Rwanda and I told her those stories of her varied responses: fear, resolve, anger, yielding. Her response was "wow, those are pretty big thoughts for such a little girl. How is it that she started processing things like that?"

And immediately the memory came to mind.  

Lucy stuffing donations into the suitcase before we leave to bring Isaiah home

Lucy was just two years old when we entered the hardest part of the wait for Isaiah. Between September and November of 2009 I felt like I limped along barely breathing. It seemed like I couldn't even pull myself together enough to parent sweet Lucy. It was like how at the end of a pregnancy when the weight of the child grows heavier and heavier inside and the space for breathing is negligible-- it's just so hard to breathe. just so hard to function.

Except that was thing thing. Waiting for a child who is currently living in an orphanage is not like a pregnancy at all. Waiting for a child at the end of a pregnancy is hard because you're uncomfortable and excited. I felt those feelings 41 1/2 weeks pregnant with both Lucy and Micah. But while you wait you know they're in the safest place: the mother's womb. It is a precious impatience. 

Micah- born August 18, 2011

Not so when you are waiting for a little one living in an orphanage.

Isaiah Christmas day 2009 at Home of Hope

At that point in my life I'd seen a bit too much to feel just excitement about Isaiah coming home. I was grieving. The One who is the defender of the weak and the same One who hears the cries of the afflicted had begun to share with me his fierce love and compassion for the poor. I'd had the enormous privilege of living with girls who'd been orphaned by AIDS in Zimbabwe. I'd been in too many orphanages. I'd seen the poverty. The pain. The brokenness. And I'd read how fiercely God feels love and compassion for them. I'd read about His promises to restore. His eternal and Holy intolerance for suffering and anything less than His design. And I started to feel more and more like that. 

Waiting for a child who lives in an orphanage is a very, very difficult thing.


And so I sat with my 2 year old daughter as she ate lunch. 

As she ate plenty I wondered if Isaiah was getting enough. As she got full attention I wondered if he got any. With all these too-big-for-me thoughts I eventually was caught up in close to despair, and I literally laid my head onto the table and wept. 

And not unlike her father towards her years later, she reached over and tenderly touched my hand and then cheek. And she told me "He's coming mama. He's coming soon."

Those are big words and thoughts for a little girl. He's been sharing parts of Himself with her too, it seems.

the day they finally met. she brought gift after gift over to him. "dis is por izayah. dis is por hiim"

He's coming mama. He's coming soon.

Today as I spent my morning at Home of Hope, I felt that the whole time. I grieved and ached for the kids, but not as one without hope. I groaned along with creation for things to be made as they should be. For legs to walk. For kids to have mommies. For eyes to be able to see. 

But as I groaned and ached and felt compassion, I never felt alone. I felt that whisper: 

"He's coming mama. he's coming soon."

I looked around the room and counted how many beds there are. And I counted how many of the kids have significant special needs. And how many don't have any significant special needs. oh except that huge one: a family. I would groan and then I would remember and even feel His compassion and love which led Jesus to die to redeem far as the curse is found. 

He's coming mama. he's coming soon.

And I looked around the room trying to figure out with all the shaved heads which ones are boys and which are girls. And I would groan and feel His assurance that He knows the number of hairs on their heads.

"He's coming mama, he's coming soon." 

I spent my two hours today holding and spoon-feeding the sweet six year old (who looks like a two year old and moves like a newborn because of an issue at birth that would have been no problem had he been born in the US). yes it took 2 hours to (comfortably) feed him, though the caregivers don't have time to be so slow and careful. there's just not enough time. 

he's coming mama, he's coming soon.

and as I fed him I sang to him and groaned for him. 

at one point I got to the last verse of the great hymn "How Great Thou Art"

"when Christ shall come with shouts of acclamation and take me home, what joy shall fill my heart. then I shall bow in humble adoration and there proclaim, my God how great Thou art."

I'd been singing already about God's love for this sweet boy. I'd been spending lots of time groaning about how he can't move. groaning about how he has to lay soaked in urine for so long. rejoicing at how he gave me a few full on belly laughs. the sweetest noises I think I've ever heard. rejoicing and groaning at how he tried to sing along with me a little bit. making noises with me.

But then we got to that last verse.

And I thought about my drummer friend Zach who does a parade march at that part of the song, welcoming and introducing the King. so much anticipation! And my heart leapt as I thought about how when Christ comes my sweet six year old friend will be taken HOME. When He sees Christ as He truly is he will first LEAP to his feet showing Christ's redemption and power over his previously broken body. But then as the song says, he will willingly--not because he is lame--bow down and sing: "how great Thou art."

He was with me the whole time. 

He's coming mama. He's coming soon.

As a Christian I groan with Him, with others, with all of creation almost in defense of God's glory--how He intends for the world to be. Groaning is supposed to be a significant part of this waiting world, friends. But we groan, we work, and we wait...but not as ones without hope.

"Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." 

though it linger, wait for it.

He's coming mama. He's coming soon.