All our hopes and fears are met in him tonight.

My parents got to travel to Israel last year where they saw where the birth really happened. But truth be told, they were disappointed at how commercialism and tourism had altered the sanctity of the small town. They left with a sense of historical importance, but did not so much get to see what it looked like, or smelled like, or the kinds of people who were there.

This Christmas I am more in love with Jesus than ever, because I’ve gotten to see Bethlehem and I love the people there.

A few months ago, when I went with some of the girls who were heading back to visit their different tiny pueblos, I was struck by the lack of cell phone service, of any farming technology, and electricity. The hills were void of buildings, full of patches of trees, patches pasture, the people did not smell very good, as it was too cold to bathe outside- the only option. The children were attending to the herds and the flocks and would sometimes gather at the central market place, that usually contained a restaurant, one small type convenience store, and good space where people would bring fruits and vegetables to trade on Saturdays. Families were always in transit, someone leaving to go the nearest city for one reason or another, most used mules or donkeys for transportation. The dress is tranditional, the women with thier wool skirts and top hats, and men in farming clothes and straw hats.

I was a stranger, a city girl with jeans who looked pretty strange in the midst of the trading, but I had a connection, the girl by my side.

As I sat with Tomasa in the middle of her pueblo, she would point out the people she knew- that’s’ my uncle- she whispered in my ear. She was too shy and anxious to see her mom to say anything to him. A few more familiar faces passed by and finally she whispered- that’s my sister!

The shepherd girl, with a malnourished baby on her back.

That’s your sister?

Yes.

Are those your family’s sheep?

Yes, I used to take care of them before I started working.

Jesus, my Jesus, came to a town like Tomasa’s. And if he were born in Bolivia, she would have been invited to his birth.

Mary was just about 15 years old, they say, when Gabriel came to her. My Maria at the house is 15. She is sweet as can be, and she is just starting to accept the hard lot in life she’s been given. She loves her baby, we all do. And she’s in a foreign city, and she misses the country, and she is doing her best. We pray for her, because she is starting to open up to God.

I look at her and realize the miracle of Jesus’s birth. God came to be inside a little girl from a small town who had a pure heart, just like Maria. He let her feed him. She probably had her own ideas about remedies and maybe didn’t know how to take care of him as well as some other women in other parts of the world could have. But he didn’t care, she was worth it.

See, Jesus came in the most humble way, so the Bible says. And I love him so much for it. Because if he understood what hardship looked like, then he understands my most vulnerable friends in the world, and came to be vulnerable alongside them to show them that someone does care.

Because just when Estefany was going to give up on life, he reached out to her on the harsh streets of Cochabamba (thank you Mosoj Yan) and brought her in. He was willing to inhabit our home, which was harsh, sometimes cold and smelled bad, so Estafany can now have a home.

I love Estafany so much. She wanted me to video her giving me a goodbye message, telling me that she loves me and won’t forget me. And three months ago this jem was on the streets without enough to eat. But Jesus came to Bethlehem, so he could be the living God of the streets of Bolivia.

And yes, God loves me so much that he called me too. But what I love and is so exciting is that if I lived back then, Tomasa and Maria and Estafany, the lowly “shepherd girls” would have been the ones the angels spoke to.

My girls would have told me about Jesus.

This Christmas will be different for my girls in the house. Some of them know Jesus, some of them know peace this year. I think they some of them are finally getting that while others pass judgment on them and their babies, while others looked at them so ugly thinking of them as street rats, or “sinners”, Jesus didn’t. They, I pray, are starting to get that he just came right up next to them and said- she’s with me.

           

I am nervous, anxious, excited, and at peace with going home. I am heartbroken to leave Albergue. They are all so playful right now. We decorated the Christmas tree, danced around, and made Christmas cookies.  And I know Christmas will be a hard day for them, as they miss family, miss what was, or long for a place of their own.

But I am not leaving them alone with all their hopes and fears. I am putting them in Jesus’ hands. The one who lived their life. The one who came to bring us all hope.

Thank you Jesus.

All our hopes and fears are met in Thee tonight.

If you want to make a difference and change another Maria’s life, change an Estafany’s life, consider giving a priceless Christmas gift and giving a donation to Mosoj Yan this Christmas. They need the funds, yes, but more so what they are doing is bringing the most lowly and vulnerable home to know the Jesus who came to be with them. Let me know, I will make it happen.

Thanks family. Thanks for following, for praying, for supporting, for giving the clothes for the girls that we wrapped up for Christmas (they will LOVE them), and for loving Bolivia with me.

I am bringing home a beautiful Bolivian sister of mine to Chicago (who will be staying, working, and speaks perfect English)- look for us at church and I will definitely bring her to Wheaton in January. Thanks ahead of time for her warm welcome.

Love to you all.

I’ll be home Thursday.

God Bless.

yeah, that's the way this wheel keeps turnin now.

Have you ever experienced that moment where all the sudden you think – Shoot. This is really ending.

It’s that feeling that first came during the last concert, that came the night before I left for college. It came during rides to the airport, and after the break-up I never expected.  It came during the last check-outs after a great RA year, and it came when Rachel left for her honeymoon.

And that feeling, well, it came today. We were at a pool, I wanted to do something fun with the girls for my last weekend with them. We were playing, I was holding baby Susanna. The girls were telling me about the boys who were bothering them. And someone behind me said- what is today?

December third.

In two weeks, I will not be swimming outside, I thought.

And suddenly I hurt all over.

I am excited to go home. I want to see Tommy, my family, my friends, snow at Christmas.

But it’s just confusing and emotional trying to figure out what I am leaving and what I am returning to. It’s confusing trying to make sense of what home is-and why, when I feel it, does it get torn away? Home is there. Home is here. I feel at home with my girls. I feel at home with Abi and Daniel and Ruth and David. I feel at home when I eat a big lunch.

My home is in Wheaton. My home is in the south suburbs. My home is at Parkview. My home is in Cochabamba.

All of these places are home and yet none of them fully is. It’s frustrating. 

But as I come to understand this cycle deeper, I am learning to make peace with it.

Each goodbye is really a humbling reminder that I am so not home, but every goodbye is a reminder that I got glimpses of home, at least for a time.

Because God’s kingdom is the ultimate home I think I long for. And God's kingdom is present here, especially in form relationships.

So the fact that I ever felt at home in Cochabamba, or in Chicago or Wheaton means that I got to experience the beauty of being apart of God's kingdom on earth.

Entonces I go, I love, I experience home because I experience God’s kingdom. And I leave. And part of home stays with them. And part of it goes with me.

And it aches.

And it’s always worth it.

Shoot, this is really ending.

I leave here December 14^th. Pray for us as a little bit of home gets torn away.

13 going on 30…. Or 14 going on 40.

You know the movie 13 going on 30?

A little innocent 13 year old is in a hurry to grow up, and she wishes herself into her future. The 13 year old finds herself as a 30 year old woman with a profession and a boyfriend. She tries to navigate her new life with the perspective of a little girl who thinks sex is gross, people should just always be really nice, and peanut butter and jelly is the way to go.

In the movie, the girl missed all that happened in between year 13 and 30 and the redeeming point in the movie is that although the girl lacks maturity, she hasn’t lost her perspective. She lacks the bitterness and harshness life can bring, and makes good decisions based on her childlike spirit. She falls in love with the right guy and lives a great Jennifer Gardner life. It’s definitely a chick flick.

I wish one of my girls couldn’t so easily relate to premise of the movie.

I sat with my Teresa (a name change) before she left Albergue. And her body is 14 years old. But her eyes really had seen what a 40 year old might know of life’s heartbreaks. It's like she was taken away from a little girls' life and put in the middle of harsh reality. She didn’t wish herself into, and she is too hardened to say that she would wish herself backwards.

Suicide took her mom. She lived on a farm without much money. Her dad worked all day. Her sister ran away. She started cooking when she was 8.

I asked her what she learned as a kid. She said she learned to hide. To lie. To escape. That her favorite things in life will go away.

I know, she needs lots of psychological healing. She also needs Jesus.

But she wouldn’t stay long enough to get the first, and I pray one day she’ll get the second.

This 14 year old and I were talking about her plans now that she decided she was leaving the house. She would work, she would go to school at night, she would make sure to buy fruits and vegetables.

Will you go party? I asked.

No, how could you say that?

Because I love you, I thought, and you are 14. You lack the maturity and the perspective but you are living a 40 year old’s life.

She very seriously told me that she would take care of herself.

And I told her the most mature thing she could do is ask us for help when she needs it.

She said ok.

She tied a friendship bracelet on my wrist. I asked her again if she would stay.

No, she would go live with her sister. (who is 16.)

Teresa, 14 years old is living like a 40 year old. She’ll try to navigate life without a profession, without thinking sex is gross, and maybe never knowing the comfort of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

When Jesus said he came not for the healthy but the sick, he meant it. He is here to be with her. The fact that he ever willing to enter into this world, where little girls live like this, is just really astounding to me. I guess that’s why we call him Savior.

Thank you Jesus for taking care of Teresa as she goes. Thank you for one day giving her the love that can transform her. Thanks for one day restoring her to the place where she can know the comfort of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

(watch over her please.)

Amen.

the she's and He.

She’s singing and dancing by herself downstairs. It’s her job to make dinner, and tonight we just eat bread and have tea, so while she’s waiting for the water to boil, she hears her favorite song come on and runs outside by the speaker.

Eres todo, poderoso                                                            You are all powerful

Eres grande, majestoso                                                You are great, majestic

Eres fuerte, invincible,                                                You are strong, invincible

no hay nadie como tu            ,                                                 There is no one like you

She’s dancing to it and yelling the words, and I am upstairs laughing.

She trusts now, in spite of the 8 years of abuse. And I bet her dancing is better than David’s.

Then there’s the other she. She tells me God is her best friend, that he always was. I asked her who told her about God.

No one, she said. God would talk to her when she was alone and crying… after bad things happened to her. Since then, she’s always trusted him.

Yet another she says that God, well, she never wanted to know him. And I assure her that he already knows and loves her, but she doesn’t care.

And I am weighed down by the last she. Until I remember that not too long ago the first she I mentioned, well, she told me God was bad.

And now she’s practically yelling the opposite.

And so I remember to keep praying, because he is todo, poderoso, he is grande, majestoso, he is fuerte, invincible, and there is no one like our God.

Turkey Day

None of the girls have ever eaten turkey before. They sell it in Bolivia, but it’s so expensive that I think if I lived here I would just buy chicken and tell my friends that’s what we do in the states.

But mom and dad were here- they arrived on Monday- and they weren’t going to miss the opportunity to give the girls their first Thanksgiving meal ever.

The three of us went to the supermarket with Hermana Tomy, and we set out to find all the ingredients we could possibly need- minus pumpkin filling… they don’t have that here. (can someone save me some pumpkin pie please?)

On Thursday morning we got to the house early to start the cooking. Dad peeled all kinds of vegetables and worked the microwave while my mom was busy directing some of the girls in the kitchen with charades. Occasionally I would hear one of the girls yell, “Lauren, what is your mom saying?”

Everything was ready and cooked to perfection by 12:30, and the girls were excited. As tradition, we went around the table and each person had to say 2 things they were thankful for.

As the girls started, I was shocked to hear them say things they’ve just never said so articulately before.

“I’m thankful that I am here.”

“I’m thankful for these people who love me.”

“I am thankful because I learned to read.”

“I’m thankful because I am here and have a place to sleep.”

“I’m thankful for this family.”

When we got almost around the whole table, one of the girls who is just very hardened from deep wounds- a girl who probably learned it’s just best not to cry when she was 10 years old- started sharing.

“I’m thankful that there are people who help me. I’m thankful that you wanted to share this with me. I’m thankful to taste my first turkey. I’m thankful…” and she started crying “that I could be here.”

Her hard shell cracked, and it wasn’t because of the tryptophan.

That, my friends, is called Thanksgiving.

Thank you Jesus.

THANKS to all of you who sent my parents with gifts for the girls and the house. I was shocked- we all were- at the gifts my parents brought from you all.

Hermana Tomy, caretaker who teaches them to do jewelry was far beyond overwhelmed. So from us to you, thanks a million.

You made their Christmas, and they don’t even know it yet, and you, in a very bold way said "we believe in this ministry."

 Here's a shot of us giving the gifts:

Moments that won’t make you cry

“Ximena, I want a baby that looks like yours!”

I said to one of our moms as I was playing with her beautiful oriental 5 month old, smiling baby.

“Hermana Lorena, that’s easy!” she said with a big grin.

Ronal is a year and a half. He and his mom are new at the house. I was watching him yesterday, I gave him his little foam ball and walked away. I came back and he had bitten of the foam and was trying to eat it. I removed the foam from his mouth and gave him some crackers.

Everyone asks if the dog ate the ball… no it was Ronal.

We went to a park on Saturday. One gringa, three babies, two cholitas (girls whose culture is traditionally from the countryside who dress in the traditional Quechan dress), and 8 other random teenage girls… there we were, playing, riding the train, and posing for pictures. I would love to be inside of people’s minds when they see us together.

I often mix up the verbs for “to fight” and “to peel.” Often I end up saying how I am going to fight with various vegetables. The girls, almost always on cue, start doing karate moves on the tomatoes.

Yesterday, we celebrated the birthdays of all the girls who had birthdays in the last six months. While we were setting up, the girls wanted to know what we were doing. I said it was a surprise. They promised they wouldn’t tell anyone. So I whispered, “we are celebrating you beautiful births!” In english… and then walked away.

They tried getting out the dictionary, but didn’t have much luck.

Sometimes Beati doesn’t want to practice reading, so then I look at her book and I say “no wonder you don’t’ want to read, look it’s in English!” and she looks at it and says- “wait! “ Then she reads it… and exclaims, “No it’s in Spanish! You are wrong!”

She hasn’t figured out that every book we read is, yes folks, in Spanish.

Parents, if you are looking for a creative means of punishment, we’ve got one. Have your kids write “ I should not arrive late to the table” one THOUSAND times. They will not be late again.

News on "Maria"(from the last blog)- her mom called us, she wants to see her daughter. In January, we said.

Praise God. Praise God.

Pray for my parents' travels please! And for their luggage to arrive with them on time. They are coming on MONDAY!!!!! 

(always) (just) getting there.

            Last Thursday we took our trusty scooby-doo van and left at 4am fully prepared with a chicken and rice lunch that Tomasina, the amazing “mom”, cooked at 3 am, and we set out for a little town that I could not remember the name of for the life of me. Tino, the supervisor and resident wise father of Albergue, warned me with a mischievous smile that this would be a long trip. I now know that “a long trip” means driving eight hours through winding pebbled and dust roads where you occasionally honk at the mountain goats or wild pigs that get in the road.

            Goats or no goats, paved roads or not, we had a destination to reach and Tino and Tomasina were willing to do anything to get there. The three of us were going with one of the girls to a town near her hometown, where she would hopefully see her mother for the first time since she had her baby.  The meeting, we prayed, would start a crucial healing process.

            Maria, (her name is not Maria, but I felt like this story called for a name change) was dressed in her beautiful traditional Quechan dress and her baby girl was ready with little dress and yellow-flowered headband, which would no doubt help win the affection of grandma.

            For most of the trip Maria was wide-eyed, perched against the window, admiring the beauty of the mountains we were driving through. Her emotions were as unsteady as pebbled roads but she kept them as quite as the surrounding countryside. I watched her eyes. Excitement. Anxiety. Fear. Anticipation.

            “How do you feel Maria?” Tomasina asked.

            “A little bit sad.”

            Despite the roads and the anxiety of the situation, I was able to sleep on and off for the first 3 hours of our journey, thanks to some genetic miracle passed down from my mom’s side of the family. Each time I woke up, Maria would yell to me, smiling, “it’s the hour to wake up Hermana!” Her 8 month old daughter, sound asleep on the seat between us, was undisturbed by mom’s mischievous enthusiasm. I would yell back, “I don’t understand Spanish this early- I don’t know what you are saying!” and would go back to sleep.

            After I had really woken up, we passed the next 5 hours sitting together on the bench seat, admiring together the mountains, cows, sheep, shepherd girls, horses, donkeys, and the quaint towns we passed. Our bathroom stops often were on mountainsides somewhere. We had no toilets- but the view was fantastic. One of our stops Maria and I got out and were walking to find privacy somewhere in the woods. I asked her what kind of animals lived in this part. She answered matter-of-factly “cows and mountain lions.” And then walked away smiling to go find her bathroom.

            “Pasorapa” the sign read. At last we reached the little town that I couldn’t remember the name of for the life of me! We pulled up in front of the office of the Defensoria, the governmental child defense agency. And everything about Maria  began to change- her eyes filled with some replayed memory, her shoulders slouched with some kind of defeat, and she looked at Tomasina and said, “I’m not getting out.” 

            “It’s ok, Hermano Tino is going to go into the office, and we will wait here.” Tino went in. And we sat with Maria and the baby, who was now awake and fussing. She started sharing bits of the memories behind her eyes.

            “Over there-“ she pointed to a bench in the plaza where we were parked, “is where my mom had to leave me. I was just two months pregnant. We were both crying. Llorando grave. Crying hard.

            “She left me there. And then they took me on a big bus to the city. I was so scared.” Her memories were sharp, “ I didn’t speak Spanish, I had never left my town before, I felt sick on the bus, and I couldn’t sleep. For days, I just wanted my mom.” She was 14 when this happened.

            We were quiet. All we could do was hug her. Then the baby started fussing, so I took her out and walked her around the plaza, leaving her mom in peace with Tomasina.

            The small garden/sitting area in the plaza was beautiful. The sun was shining, brightening up the bright-blue fences that kept the lush green plants from growing out into the stoned walk way.  In the center of this squared central garden was a circular stoned patio with benches. Here in the middle of the patio, where this baby’s life started, is where I started to sing the Michael Gungor song:

 http://youtu.be/uumI-PdeZzY  (here is a link to the song.)

You make beautiful things, you make beautiful things out of the dust.

Why was I singing? I don’t know. Maybe more out of desperation than faith.

You make beautiful things, you make beautiful things out of us.

Yes I was playing with a beautiful baby girl, but I still had so many questions- … what exactly about this will be beautiful?

You make me new, you are making me new.

I stood baby girl up on a bench and made her dance. She started giggling.

            Tino came out with a woman from the office. They went over to the van with concerned and disappointed looks on their faces. I watched as they explained something to Maria. Then her head fell into her hands, her chest into her lap. She began to sob. Tino’s face hurt for her, he kept telling her something. He turned to talk to the woman who was apparently a lawyer and they gave Maria some space. She fell into Tomasina’s arms, weeping. And I grasped the baby, who, with a smile wrapped her chubby little arms around my neck.

And I stubbornly kept singing.

All this pain. I wonder if I’ll ever find my way.

I wonder if my life could really change at all.

You make beautiful things. You make beautiful things out of the dust…

            Maria would not see her mommy. Her mom didn’t want to see her, what were we suppose to say? I went to the lawyer’s office with Tino and listened. It could be that the men in the community didn’t want her mom to leave, explained the lawyer. They have their own rule of law there, afterall, and are afraid that she might say something to put even more of the men in jail. …Or maybe, they both said, Maria’s mom really doesn’t want to see her daughter. With eyes looking down to the ground we all knew this was possible.

The baby, after all, is not just her daughter’s baby. It’s her husband’s baby too.

            Mary Oliver once said, “ There are things you can’t reach, but you can reach out to them all day long.”

            This is something we could not reach. All we could do is reach out. All we could do is send gifts to the mom from her daughter, all we could do is call her aunts and uncles and try to let her see someone in her family. All we could do is keep reaching, keep driving a little further so she could feel some sense of family. All we could do is hold the baby and pray over her- God bless the despised, the innocent. All we could do is promise to help her make a new home somewhere else, because this little girl, this little innocent mom, would not be welcome in her own town ever again. And she knew it.

            After  we did manage to find  her aunt and uncle. We got to visit their house that night and we saw them loving Maria and playing with her baby. They were very poor, but bought a coke to offer us, their guests. We took turns drinking, sharing the only two cups they had. We joyfully sat in their home and played with their kittens, that they kept trying to sell me.  (I finally said I had allergies.) And before we left Maria’s uncle brought us at 10 pm to a dried up riverbed where his tomato plants grow. And he gave us a box of tomatoes to bring home.

            The drive the next day was long. There was a roadblock on the highway, so the three-hour tour turned into 10 hours. We ventured through some sketchy “off roads” in the Scooby van, we pushed the car through an old potato farm, and we laughed at our misfortunes. Maria was still deeply disappointed. After all, we could not reach in that far.

            But as we made the effort to see her uncle and aunt, as we showed her we were her family and would stick together through potato fields, as I held her baby when she couldn’t, we silently promised her we would keep reaching out.

            By the end of the day on Friday, Maria, full of scars, very protectively embraced her sleeping baby. We laughed a bit about our adventures and she told me, “I think God really helped us back there. For a while I didn’t think we’d ever get out of that farm.” But we did. We made it home paved roads or not, goats or no goats. And one day hopefully, we will make the journey again.

PRAY.

Pray that one day Maria’s mom will love her and that they can reunite. Pray that mom and granddaughter will embrace- because this is not outside of God’s power. Pray that Maria can move forward planning her work and life, accepting that she will not have her mom’s help.

Pray that we can keep reaching out, even though we can’t fully reach in.

And when our prayers become still, pray that we can dance in gardens with babies who were never suppose to exist and sing:

All around, life is springing up from this old ground,

Out of chaos life is being found, in you.

You make beautiful things out of the dust.