Seasonal footwear

This past Friday was the autumnal equinox in the northern hemisphere.  My Facebook newsfeed was filled with posts both lamenting the end of summer and welcoming the start of autumn.  There were friends wearing flip-flops and shorts, holding onto the last rays of the summer sun, and friends putting on their boots and sweaters to go consume as many pumpkin spice-flavored products as possible.

If you leave your flip-flops on for too long, your feet are going to get pretty cold.  But if you put your boots on too early in the season, your feet will probably get pretty sweaty and smelly.  And when the seasons are in the process of changing, it's sometimes hard to know what to wear on a particular day.  It might be 85 degrees today, but drop into the 60's tomorrow.  I might put on my boots in the chilly morning but regret it when the sun is beating down on me at 2:00 in the afternoon.

Changes in life's seasons can be the same.  As I'm getting ready to move back to the US, I find myself waking up some mornings focused on the difficult parts of life here, wishing I could move back sooner.  But many mornings I wake up and marvel at the beauty of this country and the joy the children bring me and wonder how I'll be able to bear leaving them in less than two months.

It's a challenge to balance staying in the moment here while still preparing to leave.  I can't put my boots on too soon and mentally check out before my time is up.  But I can't leave my flip-flops on all the time and pretend I'm not leaving and just continue with life as usual.  There's a tension in the changing of seasons that you just have to lean into and be uncomfortable.  Sometimes I'll have to have my flip-flops on because I'm teaching these children until the end of the school term.  They need me to stay focused so their education doesn't suffer.  And sometimes I'll need to switch into my boots as I'm saying my goodbyes and turning over responsibilities to others who'll take over when I'm gone.  It's exhausting to have to keep changing footwear.  But that's what happens when the seasons change.

I'm surely not getting it right all the time.  I spend time planning for things I'll need to do in November and December in the US, and get behind on grading papers.  I'll spend a whole day working on the library, then realize there was something else I should have started a week ago that needs to be done before I leave.  I'm thankful to be surrounded by people who have grace for me in the moments when I'm putting on the wrong footwear.

If you're in transition and feel like it's always the wrong temperature for what you've got on, know that you're not crazy, and you're not alone.  The tension is normal, and we just have to go through it, not try to avoid it.  It's only a season, and soon we'll be able to put on our boots every day without having to check the weather forecast first.

"There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

a time to search and a time to give up,

a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace."

-Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Riding bikes

"My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest."  -Psalm 22:2

A book I read recently talked about how a relationship with God can sometimes be like learning to ride a bike.  You come to a point where your training wheels are off, and your parent is no longer holding their hand on your back.  They may be running right alongside you as you go, but not feeling their hand on your back can be scary.  You might fall and get scraped up.  You might get mad at your parent for not supporting you like they used to.  But you'll never learn to ride on your own if they don't let go.

Sometimes faith can feel like that.  You come to a point where your training wheels are off, you're out loving people like God calls you to, but you can't feel his hand on your back anymore.  You can't hear his words of reassurance whispered in your ear anymore.  It can be scary.  You might fall and get scraped up.  You might get mad at God for not being there like he has been in the past.  But you'll never learn to stand on your own if he doesn't let go.

If I'm being honest, some days, I look around me and wonder where God is:  when these children struggle with basic social skills because of what they've been through in their young lives, when we struggle to provide for the needs of our employees, when famine strikes parts of the country and children are dying while begging God for rain and food.  It just doesn't feel like he's there.

But, in searching for where God is, I end up finding out more about who he is.  I'm learning more about the ways he speaks to and interacts with his creation.  I look around and I still see evidence that he's at work:  Tania is planting tomato seedlings in its third greenhouse, employees who left have been replaced, we have a solid new head teacher, computer classes are happening on new computers, we're trying again at an egg-laying business with new hens after the last ones died or stopped laying.  Even if I can't feel his hand on my back, I can see evidence that God is still running alongside me as I give obedience a go without my training wheels.

When you value your feelings as much as I do (I'm an INFJ if you follow M-B personality tests) it can be especially hard when you can't feel God.  But God knows when (not if) those times will come.    And he reminds us that "if we don't feel at ease, God is greater than our feelings."  (1 John 3:20)  If you push into it, you can come out the other end with a deeper relationship with your creator.  And, once you get the hang of it, you can ride a lot farther and see a lot more beautiful views without training wheels.

525,600 minutes

One year ago, I made Kenya my home.  It was a day I'd dreamed of and prayed for for years.  I wanted to mark the day with a blog post, but was having trouble finding the words.  As the song from the musical "Rent" asks, how do you measure a year?

Here is how I'm measuring my year:

In airports

In sunsets

In hands held

In trees planted

In broken faucets

In mud

In washings

In blessings

In weddings

In holidays

In lost teeth

In hugs

In flags flown

In baby nephews

In flowers for my hair

In power outages

In smiles

In achievements

In heartbreaks

In kittens

In rainbows

In laundry

In dreams realized

In chickens

In new skills

In family

In puppies

In remembering

In exams

In flat tires

In laughter

In recorders

In silliness

In new friends

In rainstorms

In clovers

In wildlife

In awesome import foods

In new growth

In kisses

In birthdays

In books read and coffee drunk

In love notes

Measure your life in love.

Love until it hurts

"I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, then there can be no more hurt, only love."  --Saint Teresa of Calcutta

The first time I read that quote, I thought it sounded beautiful.  Like, if I invested enough of myself into someone else and loved them deeply enough, I could transcend to this mystical state of being where nothing could hurt me anymore.  Or maybe God would somehow reward me with a life free of pain, at least when it comes to the people I love that fiercely.

But, the more I love people, the more I'm finding that that's simply not true.  Things still hurt.  I am investing my life into the kids and staff here at the Tania Centre, but times are still hard.  The food storage room still goes empty from time to time.  We still stress about where we'll get the money to pay the electric bill.  Our teaching staff is still in constant flux, so our students still don't get as much consistency as they should from term to term.  The children still have hurts in their lives, people we know and love still get sick and die.  I still have personal hurts--I miss the people I love back home, I miss the food, I miss the illusion of control over my life.  I come down with malaria, I deal with cars that don't work, I deal with students who don't do work.

I have loved and it hurts.  But the hurt doesn't magically go away.  God doesn't look at me and say "Wow, Beth is doing a great job loving those kids!  Time to make sure she's good and comfortable for the rest of her time in Kenya!"  The hurts are still there.  They don't go away.

But, the more I pour out myself, the more I see that those hurts aren't just hurts--they become something more.  I could go live somewhere away from my family and friends, and it would hurt to miss them, but when I go to live away from my family and friends out of love, the hurt that I feel becomes an act of love.  I could stop eating my favorite foods, or move somewhere that doesn't have my favorite foods, but when I move somewhere that doesn't have my favorite foods out of love, the discomfort of eating unfamiliar foods for months and months becomes an act of love.  I could get sick anywhere, but when I get sick because I moved to a malaria-endemic country out of love, the pain of the illness becomes an act of love.

Pain without a purpose is just pain.  But pain that comes as a result of love, while it remains painful, becomes something more.  It becomes a thing of beauty.  And it is no longer hurt, it is love.

"Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends."  --John 15:13

Lessons

School has been closed here at Tania, and throughout much of Kenya, for the month of August.  Many children go home with parents, guardians, or foster parents for the break, but others who have nowhere to go stay here.  Because of these children, we're never truly on a break here at Tania.  Someone has to make sure these children are clothed, fed, and safe.  And, even though I'm not teaching in a classroom for this month, there's always something to be taught.

By setting and enforcing "office hours" when students can visit me in my house, I teach boundaries and time management.

By having kids help me to catalog and organize the library, I teach a love of reading.

By involving students in the care of my pets, I teach compassion.

By exploring the property with students, I teach an appreciation for God's creation.

By setting aside my plans to spend time with a child having a hard day, I teach that people are more important than projects.

While I enjoy spending time carefully crafting lesson plans and making sure we cover all of the material for class each term, I think these impromptu life lessons during school breaks may be my favorite lessons.  These children may not remember how to correctly conjugate irregular verbs, they may not always keep their fingers on the home keys when they're typing, but I suspect they'll remember the time they spent helping in the library when Teacher Beth got so excited over finding some of her favorite books, and the time we hunted for four-leaf clovers together.  They'll remember how I let them come visit every day, and they always knew what time to come.  They'll remember the one afternoon when silly Teacher Beth had four dogs, two cats, and a hedgehog in her room at once.

We're gearing up for the third and final term of the school year to begin tomorrow.  As a teacher, I know the value of a classroom education, but I have really treasured the lessons that happened outside the classroom over the break.