what i've learned so far...

downtown Los Menucos, aka Curi Leuvú


We've only been here eight months. We are by no means experts. On anything. We only know our own experience, what we are living. What I will tell you is that we've learned a few things since we've been here in Argentina, on the mission field.

There is nothing like missions to bring it all to the surface. I am amazed at the junk that God is revealing in us. Ew.

God has sifted and shaken and pruned and cut, cut, cut, and opened eyes and brought conviction and has made us see things I know would have taken years, not months, back home. I want to say I am thankful, because that would be the correct "Christian" response. I guess I am.

Yes.

I am.

But it's been ugly. Sin likes to hide. It likes the dark. Kicks and screams when dragged into the light.

That's pleasant for no one.

There is nothing like missions to bring what is hidden and dark to the light.

There is nothing like missions to bring you to your knees and make you cry like a baby.

There is nothing like missions to show you that YOU are the worst sinner in need of salvation, God help your soul.

There is nothing like it.

There is nothing like living on the edge, and still feeling like you take up too much space.

There is nothing like leaving it all for Christ and feeling like most people don't think you are sacrificing all that much, and the rest seem to have forgotten you.

There is nothing, and I mean nothing, so hard as simply trying to do what is right, and being criticized or misunderstood for it. {The Christian Condition, right?}

There is nothing like doing what is right, and not getting the same thing in return. Day after day. Month after month. Year after year?

There is nothing like feeling like the very people that should love and support you, don't. Won't.

There is nothing like sitting at the computer at one in the morning, pouring your heart out to cyberspace, because that's all there is.

There is nothing like missions to teach you, really teach you, all about grace. Not the grace thrown around in Christian circles - but REAL grace.

grace noun \ˈgrās\

unmerited divine assistance given humans, approval, favor, mercy, pardon, a special favor, privilege, clemency, a temporary exemption, reprieve... {ah, reprieve}

~ Merriam-Webster

Oh, if people only knew!, I sometimes think to myself. 

Really, there is nothing like missions. There is nothing like being in a foreign country, having left all you know and love and that is familiar, to do what is good and right where no one particularly makes one iota of a big deal about all your "sacrifice".  The consensus seems to be, "Yeah, whatever spoiled, first-world people. You're really suffering living here. WE live here, WE know suffering. You can go back to your first-world country, WE live here. WE know."

Really, there is NOTHING like having only the Lord, and no. one. else.

You know what I've learned since being here?

Missions means nothing.

Following the Lord means SOMEthing.

We are not called to follow a cause. We are called to follow a Person.

Truth. Love. That's all that matters.

Do that and you fulfill the Law.

sickies

Tony is very sick. Same thing he had when we got here. Hard core antibiotics, various analgesics, cough meds, nebulizer treatments.

Notice the shower curtain I hung (taped) as a temporary curtain - nice, don't you think? And Tony's lovely, red, sparkly necklace placed there by a certain three year-old playing princess.

Driving to the pharmacy in the church's truck... ours is only half-fixed.

The roads on the way back...

Just another day in paradise.

barn turned house

This is the story of the barn which became someone's house. The hard way.

The bricks from this barn will soon become Marcela's and Ceferino's (and their five kids') house.

Sometimes the cross is heavy, and it hurts, and it cuts your hands and makes you sweat. The cross of Calvary, True Love, an example we Christ-followers are called to walk in and to imitate.

Sometimes the cross takes the everyday form of bricks. LOTS of bricks.

the barn before

the inside of the barn

the top half of the building's bricks dismantled



all taken down by hand



Victor sledgehammering the bricks out

Tony and Victor working hard

they couldn't start one of the hand machines, so wrapped a wire around it and pulled hard til it started

 

the first shipment of bricks ready to be loaded -
the church's pick-up truck in the background, being put to good use



loading the bricks onto the flatbed for delivery

Tony, always smiling :)

loaded and ready for delivery

arriving at Marcela and Ceferino's (I can't say house, because they don't have live in one yet)

unloading the bricks

Tony, Victor, and Dani after a hard week's work

Reaching people with the Love of Christ, and eventually with the gospel, is hard work. Breaking ground in a new place the gospel hasn't reached (this little corner of the slums) takes various forms. Sometimes it physically hurts (Tony was achey, in back pain for days). It costs, it requires sacrifice - just as my salvation cost Christ everything - reaching others will cost, too. IT MUST COST. There is always a price. But don't be afraid to get dirty or sacrifice for what is good, becauuse God's economy works this way: It is more blessed to give than to receive.

week three: the valley of the shadow of death

"For troubles without number surround me... and my heart fails within me." ~ Psalm 40:12



the view from our apartment turned hospital

 That about sums up week three for us here.

Since we arrived in Patagonia on Saturday we've been to the hospital four times, four days in a row. We would have gone two more times, only we were blessed to have two different doctors come for home visits - a little light in the midst of all our hardship. Thank you for your prayers - I'm convinced those home doctor visits were God's provision when I just couldn't take any more midnight emergency runs to the hospital with three sick, unhappy children.

Saturday's hospital visit was for Tony's accute sinusitis and baby's conjunctivitis.

Sunday's visit to the hospital was for baby, again. Shortly after going to sleep she got another fever. Called our missionary friend Lee to see if he could pick up us, dragged the two older, very tired and cranky kids out of bed to rush baby back to the hospital. I was just sick. You know when you're just sick to your stomach from nerves and fear? It was like wham, wham, wham. The trials just weren't letting up. We were about to crumble.

Verdict? Ear infection. Probably caused by the same virus that caused Tony's laryngitis, ensuing sinusitis, baby's croup, and conjuctivitis. Our body's are so run down that we keep getting sick.

More meds, antibiotics, and back "home" (although I'd hardly call the bare, dinky apt. we were in a home, but whatever). We've been nursing all five of us round the clock since then. I have a sheet for everyone, what meds they are taking, what time, and how much. Otherwise I'd poison someone, we are on so many meds.

That night, as the kids were finally settling in bed at 2am, I asked my boy how he was doing and what he thought about us going back to the United States. He covered his eyes and said he was upset. Oh, no. I went over and asked him about what. He said he was upset because we came here to do missions and we hadn't done anything yet.

(Wow, did he really just say that? Couldn't he have said, "Yeah, let's go home! I miss playing the Wii." or something a bit easier for me?).

He said we were failures.

My girl chimed in and said, "Yeah, we're losers."

My heart despaired. I cried and felt like I just wanted to die at that moment. I explained that we weren't failures and we aren't losers, we're trying - we just never expected to get this sick. I said we've done more than some people would ever attempt to do - that doesn't make us failures, it makes us brave. It's not our fault if it's not working out.

My son just said, "What will people say if we go back? What will they think of us? So many people helped us and we haven't done anything yet. We can't go back. Just think of Jim Elliot and those other missionaries in Ecuador - they gave their lives. They sacrificed everything. We haven't done anything yet."

Monday Tony and I just fell into a pit. I told him what our boy said and he just broke down and cried. He sobbed. And sobbed and sobbed and sobbed, saying, "Lord, why did you ask us to come here? Why??"

We were depressed, tired, sick, worried, and feeling major doubt and regret over our decision to come here. Did we miss God? Had this all been our idea? Does God exist or is this just an invention of my mind?

Yeah, it was bad.

My chest was tight with anxiety and I felt like I was going to go over the edge at any moment. I had been telling Tony for a week that I was feeling horribly anxious, and that prayer and chamomile and valerian tea were not helping. I needed something more to get me through this. I was trying to be honest and just admit that I'm not superwoman, and was most certainly feeling like the worst and most unqualified missionary ever. I knew that Tony couldn't handle one more thing, and neither could I, so for the health of everyone it was time for mommy to take care of mommy or we'd surely crumble totally.

a rather small portion of the medicines we have been taking

So we called Lee (for the millionth time, what a great guy, he always comes to help with a smile), and he came and picked me up to take me this time to the hospital. Poor Tony had to stay behind with all 4 of them sick. On the way to the hospital when he asked how we were doing I just cried and told him all our troubles - that we are just not handling things very well and were talking about possibly throwing the towel in and going home. We felt like failures, complete and utter failures.

At the hospital the line to be seen was very long. I waited for two hours. I sat there talking to Lee, also a missionary, pouring out my heart about how miserable everything was, and cried some more. The girl sitting next to me turned to look at me. I was in such a state, I didn't really care, and figured she didn't understand what I was saying anyway. And if she did, well, she just heard our entire sob story.

No one seemed to be calling anyone in to be seen, so I knocked on the doctor's office door to see how much longer it would be. The doctor who answered asked why I was knocking and informed me that it would be "a while". How long is that? Just "a while". We left.

It was raining and miserable outside. Later at the apartment Edgardo, our pastor friend, stopped in with a friend to see how we were fairing. He said, "Wow, it hasn't rained here in nine months, and now it's raining like crazy."

It hasn't rained here in nine months?

In nine months.

Not a drop?

Not a drop.

Great, even the depressing rain was for us. Yay.

Edgardo's very nice friend, a believer from the church, said he knew a young doctor he could call for us. So he did, right then and there. Within an hour the doctor was there in our apartment looking at the kids, and asking me what was going on with me. He reassured us that the kids seemed fine, that 90% of the city was not doing well because of the ash, and that the baby is on the right track with her treatment. He didn't want to give me any anti-anxiety pills, which I understood, but then he had pity on me and our sorry state and said he had a few at home and if I could wait til later he would bring them back for me. Good thing, since I still had enough dignity left not to beg, which I was seriously considering doing.

He showed up at 1am, and our cell phone beeped that he was downstairs. I went down in my robe and he handed me two little pills. I don't know what they are and I don't care. I'm just glad I have them. I haven't taken them, I'm just glad that they are there if I start teetering too close to the edge. For now, trying to be strong in the Lord and the power of his might.

But, if that doesn't work, as my chiropractor said once: there is better living through chemistry.

Tuesday Lee came back to see how we were doing (we have been SO BLESSED by Lee and Dori and Edgardo and his family. I don't know where we would be without them!). They invited us to stay at their house [a nice, big, comfy (albeit empty) one, they had just rented] so we wouldn't have to be alone. They didn't seem to worried over our sickness, although the last thing we wanted to do was pass it on the their two small children.

A couple prayers sent up to protect them from what we got, and we accepted. We packed all our belongings up and left that little, depressing apartment where we had been alone and sick. We have been here for for days now and it's been a huge blessing, HUGE. Lee and Dori are experienced missionaries and are very laid back. They are doing great here, they are so positive and happy (and healthy, I don't get it),  and are a great source of encouragement and help to us in every way.

Wednesday morning, the first morning we were here at Lee & Dori's house a couple from the church (the one we haven't had time to visit) showed up and said they had come by our apartment to take us out to breakfast. They didn't find us, so came looking for us here. Marta is a really nice, sweet, sincere Christian from near Buenos Aires. She met her husband Adrian at the university. They got married and moved 16 hours away back to Patagonia where he is from. As I told her my woes, she said, "I understand. I've been there. I left my home and family, too. You can do it. Nothing is impossible with God. If I can do it, you can do it. We came here for a secular job, you guys have a calling."

As we talked, her husband started asking about the kids. Our boy had deteriorated by then and was hacking a horrible, deep, resonating cough. He couldn't stop coughing. Adrian asked what the kids' symptoms were, what they were taking, and then asked my boy to come over and cough for him.

Turns out Adrian is a doctor (!!!). He took one listen and said yep, that's bad. He has tracheobronchitis. Do you hear how deep that cough is? He needs antibiotics. He said he would come back after lunch with stronger ones for him and Tony, who was also not really recovering well after 5 days on antibiotics.

After lunch he did just that. He came back and handed us some heavy duty antibiotics that he said would knock the infections right out. He also gave us some others meds for this and that if we happen to encounter allergies or bug bites. When I asked how much we owed him for the meds, he said, "Nothing, it's free." Praise the Lord, because we have spent a small fortune on meds since we've been here. Thank God the medical attention itself has been free, or we don't know what we'd do.

Ah... I was beginning to feel a little bit better... like maybe we can do this. If the kids get better, we get our health back, and we find our own home to live in instead of these suitcases, wandering around like nomads, then maybe I can do this, I thought.

Thursday Tony was able to squeeze an interview in at a local TV station. Hoping it goes somewhere.

It is now Friday and all five of us just came back from the doctor and pediatrician. We all have various forms of the same thing: laryngitis, pharyngitis, tonsilitis, and bronchitis. We are all on antibiotics, nebulizer treatments, pain meds, and cough meds. The docs reassured us that it's nothing uncommon in these here parts and that we will be fine in 5 days. I hope so.

Thank you, prayers, for praying for us. I am convinced your prayerss have sustained us through some of the hardest weeks of our lives. God knows I was ready to get on a plane. There were a few days there that I even wondered if God really existed or if it was all a fantasy. That is how much despair we were in. And for us to get this far and seriously consider throwing in the towel, things had to be really, really bad. And they have been. The only thing worse would have been death. And it felt like we were one step away from it at any minute.


Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
For Thou art with me;
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. ~ Psalm 23:4

"It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him." ~ Lamentations 3:22-25


Pressed on all sides, but not crushed.

sweetly broken

These past few weeks have been hard. Really hard. I think I've cried every day for some reason or another (and I can usually go awhile without crying). There is physical exhaustion, mental pressure, emotional strain, unending packing, overwhelming stress, tension, too many migraines, and the beginnings of grief and goodbyes.

The following song and Isaiah 53 have ministered to me A LOT this week. Jesus suffered, as will we in this life. He identifies with our pain, our affliction, our grief. He was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.... we forget that. We like to forget that. He was broken, bruised, crushed - yet Isaiah 53 says it pleased the Lord. It does me good to remember Jesus's suffering (as if my life should be free of it?). I find myself broken these days... but sweetly broken.

Being broken is not bad, in fact, it is a good place to be. It is the example Jesus left us....



SWEETLY BROKEN by JEREMY RIDDLE - LYRICS

To the cross I look, to the cross I cling
Of its suffering I do drink
Of its work I do sing

For on it my Savior
Both bruised and crushed
Showed that God is love and God is just

At the cross You beckon me
You draw me gently to my knees
And I am lost for words
So lost in love
I’m sweetly broken
Wholly surrendered

What a priceless gift, undeserved life
Have I been given through Christ crucified

You’ve called me out of death
You’ve called me into life
And I was under Your wrath
Now through the cross I’m reconciled

In awe of the cross I must confess
How wondrous Your redeeming love
And how great is Your faithfulness


ISAIAH 53

3He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.


5But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.


6All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.


7He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.


8He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

9And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

10Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

if I wrote a letter to my mother

Thinking of leaving, and thinking of all we are leaving behind, I think of my mother. My parents, my whole family, my friends - we are leaving them all. It's hard, it really is. My parents are older - in their sixties and late seventies. I can see they are aging. Their health is relatively good, but that doesn't mean it will be tomorrow. That worries me a little. The hardest thing about leaving is knowing how sad this makes them. I don't want to hurt my parents. It makes me sad that this makes them sad. I don't blame them, though. I can imagine how I would feel if my daughter told me she was leaving the country, maybe forever, with my three grandchildren, and moving half way across the world to live a life of danger and sacrifice in order to do missions in a third world country.

I love my mom. She gave me life. I am forever indebted to her. So, after my husband brought me coffee in bed on Mother's Day (I don't need much more than that), we went over to my mom's to wash her clothes, clean out her garage, fill up her bird feeders, cook her lunch, and wash her dishes. I can't think of a better way to spend my Mother's Day than showing my mom how much I love her and appreciate all she's done for me in my life. I will miss her so much! I am so sad for my own kids who ADORE their Mom-Mom. In their eyes, she is just perfect. Mom-mom can do no wrong, and that's just the way I like it. I do hope we can come back and visit. But, even with that, we have to trust the Lord. I can't imagine having the money to come back at all, but we do pray we can at some point.

If I were to write a letter to my mother, this is what I would write. Hudson Taylor, famous missionary to China, wrote this letter to his mother. He sailed for China and never saw her again. We have it easy compared to Hudson Taylor's day. He put my feelings into words perfectly in this following letter to his mother:

"Do not let anything unsettle you, dear Mother. Missionary work is indeed the noblest mortals can engage in. We certainly cannot be insensible to the ties of nature, but should we not rejoice when we have anything we can give up for the Saviour? . . .

Continue to pray for me, dear Mother. Though comfortable as regards temporal matters, and happy and thankful, I feel I need your prayers. . . . Oh Mother, I cannot tell you, I cannot describe how I long to be a missionary; to carry the Glad Tidings to poor, perishing sinners; to spend and be spent for Him who died for me! . . . Think, Mother, of twelve millions - a number so great that it is impossible to realize it - yes, twelve million souls in China, every year, passing without God and without hope into eternity . . Oh, let us look with compassion on this multitude! God has been merciful to us; let us be like Him. . . .

I must conclude. Would you not give up all for Jesus who died for you? Yes, Mother, I know you would. God be with you and comfort you. Must I leave as soon as I can save money enough to go? I feel as if I could not live, if something is not done for China."

~ from Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret

Christ's Call

This speaks to me. I hope it speaks to you.