Want to Know the Back Story?

If you have wondered and wanted to know the story of how we got to this place, living this call to foreign missionary service, I was blessed to share our story at My Crazy Adoption last week in a new series Kari is running about other missionary moms and their journeys.

When God started to knock on the door asking for my heart, my life,whispering to me that He was calling us to return to the mission field, I did not think I could say “yes”. It was two years after we had lost our sixth son Bryce to SIDS at three months old in 2009 and then suffered a very difficult second trimester miscarriage a couple of months later in early 2010. I had been grieving and living in survival mode for that long when my husband began to see a new light dawning for us...head over here to read the rest.

Revive, Retreat, Regroup: Or What Happened to January

I have been rolling around in my head for a couple of weeks now how to come back to my space and pick up again, how to explain my January in words. I am rarely at a loss for words, but the events of this month were so, so big. Too big for any words that I have. It was a month of rare grace. And always the grace of God is so much bigger and better than words can express. And the things we experienced were so, so full. A play by play would take me weeks to type out and you days to read. And let's be honest, ain't nobody got time for that. So, I came up with the quick little outline above in the title. That's my month in brief. And here today I tell you the story of my revival:

Blessed indeed are the feet

1. Revive: In the final days of December and first week of January, we welcomed our first ever group of visitors to the mission: a group of young people who had been inspired by Kisses From Katie to seek out a missionary opportunity, a few of their parents and a youth minister, and a group of friars from the Franciscan Brothers Minor.

And my joy shall be in you and your joy shall be complete
A perfect description of these men of God

We had spent a year planning and waiting for their arrival. But to be honest, by the time Christmas rolled around, I was spent. The planning and constant pace life had taken on since the summer had worn me out. I was happy to have company, as I always am, but tending to the details of their stay and keeping life up in the mean time, not to mention trying live Advent and Christmas (I'm sorry to say I don't really feel like I did either of these very well), had me wound up in knots. I kept telling the Lord, "I am so happy to have people visit, really I am, but can't you see that more work is not what I need right now? I'm exhausted. I need revival."

And I will lead you beside still waters. Or raging waters, depending.
Either way, you will be revived. That's how the Lord works with me, anyway.

Well, as it often goes with the Big Guy, He heard my cries. And He brought me just what I needed in a way I never expected. The trip was, in fact, a lot of work and at times totally exhausting. But it also was exactly the thing I needed to revive my missionary zeal, my personal spiritual life, and the sense of community I had been desperately longing for. I hadn't realized how carrying the burden of lack of community had worn me out until I had people around to share my life with.

Thou shalt not pass...I cannot tell you how uplifting it was to laugh with these people,
to experience the joy of walking together with them.

It did me good to see our life in a bigger context. It did wonders for me to see the people we minister to through someone else's eyes. The effect of a long confession with a bit spiritual direction thrown in? In ENGLISH? Like my first warm soul bath in a year.

No words. Just, yeah, this. Brother Faithful is his name.

The witness of the Franciscan friars was, in no exaggerated terms, life-giving and life-changing. But the missionary zeal and perseverance of the young people was the thing that really watered my missionary soul deep down at its roots. They came to do something they dreamed of doing for a long time. They struggled. They got sick. They got tired. They fumbled over language barriers and culture shock. And yet they persevered. Until all that faded away and they were able to reach out a hand, make a connection, and say, "Here is your God. Here is your family. We are here. And we love you. Because He does."

The foot bridge into the indigenous reserve,
where our brothers and sisters still wait for us to come
with the message of love and family and hope and God.

A memory that will stick in my mind forever I hope is us walking up to the door a wooden thatched hut in the indigenous village we were visiting to little meet a little girl. She was in the door way crying. We had waded through mud up to our knees to get there. The rest of us stayed a bit back so as not to frighten her and one young girl from our group, Katie, approached her with a pink rosary in her outstretched hand. She stood in front of that little girl and smiled and waited. And the little girl sniffled and stood and stared. Moments passed and the rest of us looking on began to shuffle in the awkwardness and whisper to Katie to just put the rosary at her feet and leave. Katie didn't budge. And way past the point at which most of would have walked away, her perseverance was rewarded when the little girl stretched out her hand, took the pink rosary and put it over head.

Her. Just her. So worth it.

We began the walk back to the school where we were inviting people to join us for an activity, a shortly after, noticed that this sweet little one was following us at a distance. If we turned to look, she hid. So we walked and let her follow. And then we watched her slowly let her tears turn to a smile. She blew bubbles with us and nibbled cookies and held our hands. And before the day was out, I watched one of the you people hold the cross at the end of that rosary up to her and introduce that little girl to her best friend, Jesus.

Oh how He loves us. 

I learned a lot that day. A lot about standing still in the moment, letting the awkwardness be what it is and waiting, hand outstretched. Waiting patiently for the tears and the fear and the shyness to ebb and the door to friendship to open. It is not easy to build relationships in a culture so different from our own, with a people who are shy and timid and who speak a language totally unfamiliar to me. I firmly believe that all evangelization has to be about relationship, and relationships are always based on trust. And building trust sometimes means that we stand in the doorway and smile longer than we might otherwise do, even when it feels really uncomfortable, until a hand reaches out and touches our own.

Here. This is where I lay down my life and hold out my hand
and wait for the door to open.

That is the revival I experienced over and over again viewing my mission life through the eyes of young people. They knew they only had a short while here. They knew their task held an sense of urgency. They were not going to let an opportunity pass them by. They charged up hills and crossed bridges and stood in doorways. They kicked soccer balls and trudged through mud. They held hands and shared cookies and loved and laughed and shone with the radiance of the life if Christ.

Missionary lunch -- picnic on the banks of the river

And I walked away knowing the supreme privilege it is to be given the chance to live that call every single day, and with a fervent desire to live it with the kind of perseverance and urgency these young people showed me. I got my revival. In the middle of the exhaustion, some new energy was born in me, the Spirit's flames were rekindled, the fire of His love began to glow bright again. And I am so, so grateful that my Heavenly Father knows just what I need and sends it in the most unexpected of ways.

Brothers Felix, Lorenzo and Fidelus play Baltazar, Caspar and Melchior
Epiphany - Yes, that's a good word to sum it all up.
An epiphany of joy.

The story of how retreating and regrouping followed my coming tomorrow. And then February begins to write its own story! I can't wait to see what the Lord has in mind.

Cannibals, Thieves and Other Missionary Miscues

I had hoped to get  back here and reflect a bit on the incredible January we have had before now, but life just has not yet allowed for that. Instead today, I am sharing a bit of missionary humor over at A Life Overseas. So while you wait for the scoop on our January journey would you join me for a bit of fun over there? It really is such a lovely community.
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Here's a little peak at my post: Because the stress levels that accompany missionary life can often be so over the top and we are constantly battling our fears and fighting for peace, it is imperative that we as missionaries keep our sense of humor and ability to laugh at ourselves...Now if you know me at all, you know how I love to tell a funny story. So head on over and read the rest and laugh with us about this sometimes funny always crazy life we lead.

Let's Thank the Guys Doing the Hard Stuff

A couple of weekends ago, a surprise meeting at the immigration office landed me in downtown San Jose with my husband for the evening. We stayed in a lovely old hotel and enjoyed a stroll through the downtown shopping area that afternoon. As evening set in, we strolled past an infamous "hotel/casino" in the heart of downtown that is widely known to be a front for a prostitution ring. You can find it listed in just about any tourist guide to Costa Rica and an image search of its name will give you an eyeful of what's really being marketed there. It is also widely known that most of the women (girls?) working the place are not Costa Rican. They are Columbian, Nicaraguan and who knows what else. Which of course led me to wonder how many of them got here by being trafficked here. And how many of them were under-aged and stolen and trapped.

For a quick moment, I wanted to tell my husband to march in there and have a look around, to scope it out and see if there were any girls who looked too young, who looked afraid, who looked like they had been hit or hurt, who looked like they were there against their will. I wanted to tell him to ask to see their boss. To ask if they were any girls for sale. To ask specifically for foreign girls and see what he said.
About a minute later, I realized, of course, that this was not an option.

We are not equipped for this, us two foreign missionaries. We proclaim the Gospel to an indigenous people. We build chapels in poor areas. We are working to provide meaningful work to women. We have committed ourselves to taking whatever action we can to fight modern slavery. I am humbled and feel a great privilege to be called to this work. God gave us the perfect job for who we are, what we know and  what we feel called to do.

We are not undercover investigators. We do not have the collective experience, the collaborative cooperation, the expensive equipment or the strong sense of purpose that sends us into the world's darkest corners to find, gain the trust of, record the stories of modern day slaves, then coordinate their rescue, the prosecution of their captors and the beginning of their journey to recovery.

But The Exodus Road does. They've got all that. And they're using to set captives free. 

And right now they're inviting those of us who care passionately about the fight to end slavery to offer our support and encouragement to the men on the front lines -- the men who strap themselves up with undercover surveillance equipment and spend their nights in brothels in Southeast Asia collecting the information they need to rescue the underage victims of sexual slavery. That's a hard job description to carry around day in and day out. I am certain there are days they'd rather not do it. I am certain there are nights it feels hopeless. And I am certain they often feel all alone in those dark places full of scum bags thinking not rescue but ruin.

Would you take a moment to write them and express your gratitude some time between now and January 10th. Hand-written notes would be greatly appreciated. They can be mailed to The Exodus Road |  PO Box 7591 |  Woodland Park, Colorado, 80863. 
If you are unable to get a hand-written note in the mail, you can submit a letter online here. 
Could it be any easier than that? For those of us who want with all our hearts to fight this atrocity but have been called to the front lines of a different kind of work, what better way could there be to offer our hope, our support, our encouragement to the guys doing the hard stuff for us. 
I'm taking away your excuse that you don't know what you to say too. Here's Laura's letter. She and her husband Matt founded this work. They lived it on the ground for two years. The lady knows what she's talking it. Let her teach you. And I am pasting mine below too. So there. No excuses. 
Make a little room in your inn this Christmas and shine a little warmth into a dark world. Because really, what better way is there to honor the light of heaven dawning on earth?
So go do it. Do what you can. Don't wait. Night will come quickly in Southeast Asia and these guys will hit the streets once again. Let them know they are not alone in the dark.

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Dear Investigator,
I just wanted to take the time to tell you thank you for the work you do. I am a wife, mother and foreign missionary with a passion for the cause of ending human slavery and sexual exploitation. I want so badly to run right into all those places, wrap those little girls up in my arms and take them home. But that's not how it works, is it. You know that way better than I do.
The more I learn about what it takes to go nightly into the darkness of the world of human slavery, find and gain the trust of its victims, coordinate their rescue, prosecute their offenders, and put them on the road to recovery, the more I am humbled and grateful for your commitment, your sacrifice, your heroic passion.
I know there must be nights when you don't want to leave the comfort of your home and hang out with scum in dank corners of this broken world. I know there must be moments when you want to scrap the process and just punch someone square in the face, or grab a little girl up in your arms and just run. Yet you don't. You stay the course knowing what real rescue means. You do it night after night, fighting the discouragement and the hopelessness that hangs over these places for the ray of hope that is one person freed from captivity.
For this, I personally am so very grateful. I want to be part of the solution to human trafficking. I want to face the darkness of that reality and shine hope. I want to love enough not turn away from ugly situations. Often it seems that from where I am, there is little I can do. But I hope by letting you know that your work and your sacrifice are deeply appreciated by those of us who do not fight on the front lines, you will feel a little less like no one notices what you are doing,  a little less alone in the darkness, and a little more like you are a part of an army. Your back up might be far away, but we will not leave you alone. And we will not forget you. I will offer a prayer for your safety and the success of your work each night as the darkness creeps over my part of the world and hope it makes its way to you to be a small beacon of encouragement. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being the one who does the hard thing.
Colleen Mitchell

On Growing Up, Grief and Grace: Part 3, Grace

There's one last post to be written in this series about how growing up, grief and grace have changed me as a person, and as a missionary.

I've had a hard time wrapping my head around how to write about grace. It's not like God suddenly invented a new grace that has made this leg of my missionary journey easier. It's also not like I've suddenly become a saint and I don't want to write in such a way that anyone would ever think that. In fact, I've stalled on writing this post, because I've been struggling to keep up the discipline of the very practices I want to write about.

It comes down to this. I have always known that living the life of grace, both the sacramental grace offered by the Church and the grace of turning our daily walk into something sacred, was the both battleground and the victor's circle of the spiritual life. It is where we fight to stay strong and to persevere, it is where we get up again when the knock-out punch rings loud in our ears, it is where we dance with joy in our victorious moments and where we wipe away the tears of our failures. It is where we learn to walk in the light and where we learn to keep walking when there is no light.

But in my young faith life, this was all pretty much theory. I got the grace thing. But whatever the ups and downs of life were at the time, my hopes and dreams and boot straps were still enough to pull me and keep me going day to day. Then there was all that growing up and grieving. And those little bits of self weren't enough any more. I wasn't enough for me any more. I was really utterly dependent on God to sustain me for the first time in my life. And I learned what grace really was. 

I think back to the days after Bryce's death, of the cloud of grace that carried me through to the other side of the darkest days of my life, and I am humbled to the point of tears. I think of coming home from a D & C to a cleared out house and mound of suit cases and departure for the mission field looming four days ahead, and the grace that carried me forward to the hospitality of waiting friends, the love of people who wrapped my babies in their arms and held them for me so I could grieve once again, and the grace that made my feet go when my head could not think straight.

These memories, when I think back on them, feel like a dream. I know they are real experiences, but the memories is not sharp and painful like some memories. They are soft and wispy. Bittersweet. But sweet. They are surrounded in a cloudiness. It is grace.

And that cloud has surrounded this whole first year here in this mission post. It has not been easy. Neither were those things I just described above. It has not been without its ugliness, mistakes, and failures. I have battled self long and hard here. I have been disappointed and hurt. My husband lost his mother. My brother fights a terrible disease daily and I am not there. And yet, the walk through all of that has been made possible each and every day. And I have found peace and consolation in being where I am each and every day. This is grace.

I can point to three things that have kept me living in that cloud of grace over the last year. Habits that have been formed in the years of growing up and grief and learning to live dependent on grace. Habits that have become a focus and cornerstone of our life over the last year because of the strong leadership of my husband and the faithful spiritual direction of a holy priest. Habits that dear sisters mentored me to form. All gifts. Gifts given to me by someone else's love, sacrifice, sharing.

Because isn't that the essence of grace? It is the redemptive work of mercy in action. Sacramental grace is won for us by Christ's ultimate sacrifice and administered to us by the shared faith of our Church. And the actual grace that comes into our lives too most often comes my the love and service and sharing of another.

The first gift is the gift of speaking grace. I am user of words. Lots of words. Verbally. Written. Read. I like words.  I have learned from some of the loveliest women the power that encouraging, building-up words have to transform those around us. And to transform our own perspective. When we make a commitment to speak of our daily walk in a way that highlights the beauty and the grace we find in it, the world is made better by it. So I have worked hard to cultivate the habit of using my love of words to communicate all that I see as good and lovely and noble and true about the journey we have been on for the last year. And it has transformed the way I look at the journey. Shrouded it all in that cloud of grace that makes both the hard and the bitter sweet. Progress on the verbal end of this habit is still faulty and flawed. I have that punched in the gut feeling when I relive my own words in my head way more than I would like. But imperfect progress is still progress and I am going to keep honing this habit of speaking grace.

The second is gift if finding grace. I used to think that grace was something that appeared miraculously in over lives, happy moments that were sure signs that God loved us and was with us. And then there were the days of little wooden coffins and still ultrasound screens and miracles that flitted into our lives and faded out before they were real. And if I was going to continue to call myself a believer, grace needed redefining. And there was this voice in my life. This melodious gift of words that told me that grace is found where we look for it. That we can count the ways He loves in the lovely but we can count it in the ugly dark too. This voice that told me that to walk in grace is to realize that eucharisteo is about brokenness, not the warm smell of fresh bread, that the fragrance of the hurting and wounded heart who seeks His presence right there in the hard places is a perfume for the spirit. A voice that said, " Don't just look casual. Don't stumble upon grace accidentally. Don't hurry through the hurt and the chaos and the confusion. Live it. Look it in the face. See that He is there. Over and over again. In myriad ways. And count them. One by one. Count them. Until there are a hundred then a thousand, then more. Until you are forever changed." And I did. And I have been.

The third gift is the gift of the greatest grace. When my husband told me that our spiritual director was suggesting that we make an hour of prayer in front of the Eucharist a daily habit for our family in mission, I chuckled. A cynical chuckle. A chuckle that said, " Clearly, he's a good guy and a smart guy and holy guy and doesn't have a clue." Because getting myself to holy hour once a week for silence I relished and savored was already a bewildering conundrum and getting my boys through 15 or 20 minutes every now and then was enough to rob me of the grace earned in that hour.

But they were stalwart these two men. Stalwart in the face of my I-know-so-much-better-than-you pride and stubborn will. And we arrived in this mission post and we put feet to dusty road and we went. Every morning we went. Just us. Sometimes silent, sometimes begging repentance and conversion, sometimes singing praise. Some days boys slept and some days they sneaked outside and climbed high in the limbs of trees before we noticed. It was not perfect. But there before Christ, there was more than enough grace for all those imperfections. Grace to cover loneliness and loss and worry and fear and pain. Grace to keep us near to Him and remind us to stay out of His way. Grace to remind me that the miracle is not in the big Hollywood action scene life but in the daily walk on the dusty roads that says to others, "I am still here", just like His quiet presence in the silence of our Churches says to us.

These last few weeks have been a bit off kilter for us. Our schedule has been flipped on its side and spilled into chaos by sickness and surprise runs to immigration office and a million other things. I have failed to live the greatest grace--the going to Him there fully present, divine and real, and drinking of the fullness that fills and drowns out all that is broken and ugly in me. And in the midst of it, I feel myself creeping in, getting in the way, wanting it my way, seeing the ugly and not counting the grace, speaking the ugly and not the lovely.

But the good news? I recognize the way out. I know where to find the cork that will plug my grace leak. It's in heading back to the greatest grace, breathing in the fullness of Christ present in the Eucharist, breathing in the air of perfection, the light of hope, listening to quiet whisper of His voice that says, "Don't run so fast next time, and maybe you won't fall as hard." That says, "You know, breathing is good. When was the last time you checked to see if you were still breathing. Be quiet. Breathe with purpose. Breathe grace. That is where you will find strength. I am the Breath of Life."

And in a great mercy, I see it now. When I start to feel the shoulders tighten and the jaw clench. When the thoughts flow ugly and mean long before the words ever do. When there is so much me I am too heavy to carry, I want to run to Him. Sit under the protection of grace. Be called back into a life of grace by forgiveness of my sins, wiped clean by the grace of confession, my emptiness filled by the bread broken and blessed, the Eucharistic body of Christ.

Sometimes, I'll feel the weight of brokenness heavy in my heart and think, "Wait. I'm getting all in the way again. How long has it been since we went to adoration? To Mass?" And to my surprise I will realize it has been a day. And when I see how much of mess I can make of His lovely work in just one day without Him, I wonder how I ever lived, breathed, survived before this. I count the blessing of the greatest gift -- the fullness of His love and mercy made present to me every day so that it is not my boot straps that pull me back up when ugliness and brokenness and hurt knock me down but the river of mercy that flows from Him. 

And so I receive the greatest grace. And I seek it. And I count it. And I speak it. And I walk out of the brokenness and the darkness and into the light once again.

Let's Take Advantage of An Opportunity

This has got to be the easiest way of taking action against human slavery I have posted yet in this series. And it's lovely too. And full of joy and HOPE. Sweet, sweet Hope.

So here's what you do.

1. You go read over at Ann's blog. You read about Hope. And you read about Ashoka. And you read about Mary and Jesus and Ann and her Mama. And you be moved to your core by the faces and the beauty amidst the ugly and the truth born into the middle of it all.
2. Then you click on over to this amazing story. Don't just click to buy straightaway. Pay the women of Freeset a visit. Get to know them. Get to know their work. Learn how you can fight trafficking with them.
3. Then you can scoop yourself up one of these awesome bags. Buy the message. Buy it and be all in. you are blessed and you can bless. Because He was born and broken for you and turns it all beautiful. Buy a big bag full of hope. For you. For Ashoka. For Hope herself.
4. Then live it. Live the message. Be the message. Be broken and beautiful and blessed. And bless. Bless everyone you meet by leaking the grace given right out of you and into their hands, their lives. 

See, easy. Now, what are you waiting for? Go. The time draws near. He comes. Do you not want to be about His Father's business when the heavens open to announce His presence and sing 1,000 "Hosannas"? Do you not want to already have sung His goodness with your life? I do.

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. 

Sharing My Heart In a New Place

I have often written about how one of my greatest struggles in living life as a missionary is a battle with loneliness. After nearly a year in our current mission, I find that some hard growing up over the last couple of years has helped me to accept the burden of loneliness that comes with this life. But I’m facing a new struggle this time around, one that pains my heart worse than my own loneliness ever did. It is watching my teenage son adjust to the reality of life in this place, battle the unavoidable loneliness it brings.....

Read the rest of this post at A Life Overseas where I am honored to be guest posting today. A new community where we discuss and share on the realities of life as a missionary or overseas worker. It is a lovely space filled with the collective wisdom of truly generous hearts. Come visit!