Day 8 of Giving that Gives Back: Meet Mercy Goods

Mercy Goods

Good That Transforms

From early on in our time working as St.Bryce Missions here in Costa Rica, one of the things God began to build a passion and a vision for was job creation, skills training and meaningful work in our area. The area in we live and minister is one of the most rural regions of Costa Rica. It also has one of the lowest rate of family income in the country. For women, access to work outside the domestic arena is limited. If it is available, it is often located an hour or more away in the city. For single moms or moms with young children, it is nearly impossible to work in the city without having to pay for additional child care. And if a woman can't leave home to work for reasons such as being the primary care taker of an elderly or disables relative, her options for finding income for her family are non-existent.

After much prayer, conversation, and research, we began an outreach providing skills training and meaningful work opportunities to women in our area. We are in the process of rebranding and designing our shop right now, but the title above is the name of our social enterprise: Mercy Goods. If you click under my archives tab on "meaningful work", you can follow along much for the process as I brainstormed my way through to getting the enterprise off the ground. 

Our ladies produce hand made quilts and other items from reclaimed clothing that we source locally. We reduce our consumer footprint by turning bags of clothes that were headed to the landfill into usable, sellable craft items. We create a cycle of giving that gives back by first contracting our ladies to make quilts for a current partner that we choose to "cover in mercy". Sponsors donate the price of the quilt and the ladies are then paid to produce them. We at St. Bryce Missions deliver them to the partner. We have to date covered our local orphanage, the first licensed safe house for trafficking victims here in Costa Rica, and the Gleason House for ALS patients in our Mercy Covers quilts.

Tomorrow, we will open  the opportunity to contract our artists to create a waterproof quilt for the homeless this Christmas. Our goal will be to cover the local homeless community in the nearby city of Turrialba in mercy, as well as the community being served by our friends in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. This will mean contracting a total of 70 quilts. I do hope you will come back tomorrow and give this special gift that gives back three-fold: to the recipient of the quilt, to the artist and her family who are employed and empowered by your donation, and to you the donor who does to do good that transforms.

In addition to the quilts. we then give our artists the opportunity to take ownership over the materials and skills we provide them and create other items for sale. While we are waiting for our shop front to be ready, you can view the items available to purchase on our Facebook page. So today, would you stop and take a look around? Perhaps find an item or two you might like? And share this post or the page with your social media connections?

Building this kind of enterprise is way more challenging than I ever expected and much slower going than I thought it would be. Your help and encouragement keeps me and our artists pushing forward through the obstacles seeking to transform lives and families and communities. We truly appreciate that more than you will ever know.

P.S. I had all these great photos to add to this post. But blogger is all, "Hey, Lady, day of rest. Get it?" Bu they are all on our Facebook albums, so that just means you HAVE to head over and click around, right?

All posts in this series can be found linked here.

Day 7 of Giving that Gives Back: The Philippines

A many of you know, in the last couple of days, a monster typhoon has wreaked devastation on parts of the Philippines. The death toll is rising by the minute and news is heartbreaking. The typhoon is now headed for Vietnam where it could do even more extensive damage. It is hard for us to understand the magnitude of this kind of event in a developing nation. The death tolls are higher, the recovery is endlessly more difficult and many areas that are hit in an event like this never fully recover before another disaster strikes. The people live in an endless cycle of crisis, poverty and fear.

So today, why not stop where you are and think of a way you could intentionally scale back a bit this Christmas in order to be able to help in this disaster response. There are a number of reputable organizations already mobilizing their existing forces on the ground there to get food, water and shelter to the victims.

What if you skipped stocking stuffing this year for the chance to get a family into safe shelter? Or didn't give gifts to one another as a couple and instead helped provide meals to the victims? What if you offered your kids the chance choose something to forego in order to be able to help? Like a trip to the movies that might have been on the schedule or one gift they might have been expecting. In my experience, kids are simple and heroic in their responses when offered an opportunity to help the hurting. Let your kids' be heroes.So often, we try to shield our kids from the sacrifice necessary to make a difference. We don't want them to "suffer" for the choices we want to make. But you know what? I think if we really want to change the world, the direct impact most readily available to us is our kids. If we can give them the outlook that they have the power to bring hope to a hurting world rather than trying to shield them from it, we are going to launch young adults into this world with vision and passion for justice.

Ask them what they would do if they were in charge of the response. What are their ideas on how to help? You'll be surprised at how innovative and pragmatic they are. Then introduce them to organizations doing the things they have proposed. Ask them how they might support that work. Give them the chance to think big, hope long and be heroic.

It won't be hard for you to find a group to help in the response efforts. I'm sure many of your favorite organizations would be a very worthy choice. I am going to link a few here for those who might be unsure of how to help. These organizations are groups that are already established in the Philippines and have the infrastructure in place to respond immediately to the needs that have resulted from Typhoon Yolanda. That is the one thing I would look for in choosing an organization. You want someone who has the ability to respond immediately and then sustain long-term recovery.

Here a few groups I know meet those criteria:

Feed My Starving Children

Food For The Hungry

Caritas International

Let's see what we can do this weekend to slow ourselves down, model care and compassion to our kids, encourage them to see the needs of a broken and hurting world and respond to them. However you decide to respond, I encourage you to make it a conversation with your kids. Let yourselves be surprised and moved by their hearts for their brothers and sisters and their creative problem solving skills. Give them a change to show you their inner hero.

All posts in this 31 day series are linked here.

If I Got to Pick

The life I live here in missions is a life that places me, for the most part, totally dependent on the Lord, His provision, His timing and His holy will for our lives. It is good. It is the way I really, truly desire to live.

However, it is totally contrary to my personality. I am a girl who likes to have a plan. I wake up in the morning and within the first two sips of coffee could easily tell you how I would prefer the day to play itself out in 15 minute increments. I can plan a vacation in my head complete with packing list at the mere mention of it over a dinner. I am the kind of girl who makes lists for fun, who would willingly pack for someone else simply because I enjoy the opportunity to organize. I once spent the night at a friend's house after a recent move. Our husbands were both out of town for work. There were boxes everywhere and she was totally overwhelmed. By the time she woke up in the morning, I had moved all the boxes to the correct room, labeled her closets and unpacked her kitchen and bathrooms. She had to call me for months afterwards to ask me where things were. It was some of the best fun I have ever had.

So you see, this life I lead can be hard for me at times. The trust it takes to leave timing and planning in God's hands is a huge leap of faith from my natural temperament. So is having five sons, but that's a story for another day. At the time that we left to take up our mission here in Costa Rica as the St. Bryce Foundation, one of the greatest challenges for me personally meant that it left leaving my oldest brother and his wife and his children and the rest of my family as we united with him in his fight against ALS. It was a sticking point for me with God.

My big brothers and I on our first night back in the States
February 2013

But my brother had always one of the most faithful servants of God I have ever met, and I knew he, more than anyone else, would want me to do what God was calling me to do. He assured me of this himself. Shortly after we arrived in the field, he entered into a medical emergency that threatened to end his life. I was horrified that it would happen that way, that God would take Him home just as I had left. That all my family would be there at his side and I would not. He did not go home then. He fought back, chose life and kept battling.

So many days it hurt that I did not get to pick the timing of things. That I didn't get to be there when I would've chosen. But I did get there. Last July, we spent quiet evenings together enjoying my sister-in-law's kick ass cooking and holding hands and watching So You Think You Can Dance. We had Skype sessions where I laughed at him sipping Red Stripe through a straw and he laughed at me sitting on a tree stump to get good internet reception. In February, we launched our candidacy for the papacy (There is no logical way for me to explain this to anyone who did not know my brother. I can only be sorry for you that you missed out. It was big fun.)

And in March, I headed home to see him again, this time with my whole gang at my side. Our first full night home we went out to dinner. Both my brothers and their families and us. It was glorious and heart wrenching at the same time. I was so happy to meet my sweet niece for the first time, to hold those big brother hands again, to hear my sister-in-law's laugh, to watch my boys giggle maniacally with their cousins, to share quiet conversation with the man who is my first nephew and open my eyes to what a stellar human being he is.

Cousins at dinner

But it ripped me up inside to watch my brother fight for every breath, to see the look of panic in his eyes, and to realize how tired he was. I went back to our guest house that night knowing deep in my soul he was ready to go home soon. And with a panic in my heart. I was there. Then. But I would leave again soon. What if the timing God chose happened to be the one that left me far away in that moment? What if I would have to leave knowing I would never see him again here on earth? And I was angry about the lack of control my life demanded of me.

Cousin Dinner

In the days that followed, my brother entered the hospital and we began to realize that his battle with ALS was drawing to a close. Difficult conversations had to be had. Hard decisions made. A birthday had to be celebrated. And seafood had to be eaten. And a family had to come together to figure out how to live, laugh, love and say goodbye. And do you know what? If God had said to me, "Colleen, I am going to take your brother home and you have no choice in that matter, but all the other details, I will let you plan", even in my eager to plan brain, I could not have come up with a more perfect scenario as we experienced in the days surrounding my brother's going home.

So many of the details are too intimate. Words are great tools to express certain things, and for others, they are cheap. So much of what happened would be cheapened by them in this case. But here is what I would like to share. I do not have a family that has followed a cookie cutter path. We touch every point on the spectrum when it comes to personalities and temperaments, life choices, and religious, spiritual and moral orientations. But I am blessed beyond belief with a family who knows without a doubt how to love fiercely and stand in unity despite those differences. And I believe a large part of our ability to do that was won as we watched my brother live and fight his battle with ALS with that as his only priority -- to love well, to point people to the love of Christ, and to live with unbounded joy.

These apples don't fall far from the trees, y'all
Cousin Shenanigans

So in the moments surrounding his going home, that is what we did. We laughed loud and loved strong and teased relentlessly. We drank too much and ate too much and talked too much (so much so that we were "shushed" by the ICU nurses while we were still outside in the waiting area). We cried and we embraced and we figured out where our strength lay. So that in the moment that Kevin ran into Jesus' arms, we could leave all of our differences behind and stand hand in hand singing. And cheering him on his way. I have no absolutely no words to describe what that moment felt like. It is forever suspended in time for me. The woman my sister-in-law was in that moment has forever changed me. Being the daughter who first lost a child of a mother who now sent her little boy home is the most breakingly beautiful title of womanhood I now carry. Standing in the embrace of my remaining siblings is a moment I will take with me forever. The faces of nephews and nieces and their expressions of love for their father and their uncle and the love shared by our children, the great big band of cousins that make up this family is for me a joy beyond all belief, a hope for a future that shines with radiance. These young people that we raised? They are good, y'all. So, so good. You will thank us one day for our procreative gifts. I promise you.

Celebrating Kevin's birthday in the ICU waiting room the day before we cheered him home to heaven
Me with some of my favorite people on earth, my sister, my niece, and my cousin

I look back on that time and feel overwhelming gratitude to my God. I didn't want my brother to have ALS. I don't want him to be gone. But these are things God does not consult me on. However, I did want to hold his hand and be next to him when that moment arrived. And I was. I did want to feel a tight part of my family circle and share that experience with my mom and my siblings. And I did. I did want to see him one more time outside of the hospital when he was still "well" and I did. I did want to be able to tell him all the reasons I loved him and was so proud of him and I did. I did want to celebrate with joy when at last he had beat the beast and won the crown. And I did. I did want to sing to him the songs that had beat in my heart for him while I was far away and I did. I wanted my sister-in-law to know how deeply beautiful she was and how much I appreciated her. I wanted to say out loud to her that we supported every choice she had made in this difficult journey and we supported her as she began a new phase of life. And we supported her relief that the battle was over. I got to say those words. And I did want to laugh and have a good beer and eat fried stuff from the Gulf and talk in my New Orleans accent. And I did. I wanted a piece of my brother to take with me forever. He left me that. That man, he knew how to live well, and you know what, because of that, he knew how to die well. I know that sounds weird, but anyone who witnessed it would unequivocally agree with me, I know.

Crawfish and beer. It's how we live. It's how we love. It's how we roll.

I didn't really know how to write a to-do list for my brother's death. I didn't want to. But when the moment came, I knew, he knew, we all knew, how to live it. And if I got to pick, this is how it would have been. If I get to write the script for my own going, I want it to be just like his.

And just to keep reminding me that this was just a sweet tender mercy and not to let myself get used to it, God went back to his usual ways and put me back in my place of humble submission, when, on the morning of the funeral, I found myself late and lost and in the midst of an utter panic attack, screaming at my older sister on the phone for help. And then the brunt of the pastor's joke as I walked into the church having scorned my poor family into beaten little pulps in my grief and pain and the anxiety of things being out of my control again. Crying and laughing at myself, and seeing that once again, He had worked it all for good even when He didn't give me a say. And me, back to my sheepish little apologies and promises of greater trust in the future.

And do you know what? I'm pretty sure I could hear that man, my big brother, giggling at me from heaven. And I think he might have been tying my baby's hands to his shoes too. But that, too, is a story for another day.

Family bonfire in my brother Stephen's yard

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 Pause and Pray Often

I would venture to guess that with today's presidential elections and the future of our nation weighing heavy on the minds of many, many of us will pause often today to whisper a prayer to Lord about our hope for the future of our nation and the importance that rests in the results of today's election.

As often as we may claim that we find it difficult to find the time to pause to pray throughout the day or that life often puts us in auto-pilot mode and we forget our commitment to pray unceasingly, the truth is that when an issue looms large enough in our personal lives or our collective conscious as a family, community, church, nation or world, we remember to pray. If our spouse is on a plane or a dear friend is in labor, we remember to stop and pray. If a hurricane or other natural disaster threatens our area, we remember to pray. On the day of an important election, we remember to pray. I'll admit, I have been guilty of being selfishly attentive to prayer when something mattered to me and willfully neglectful when life was abuzz with activity and there seemed little time to slow down for anyone else's needs. But I do not want to be that way any longer. I want to battle that tendency that renders me a self-serving pray-er and be the person who pauses for the urgent needs of others, both those whose needs are close enough for me to see and those whose needs lie hidden in dark, rank brothels and trucking containers and ships in far corners of the world.

Shouldn't we strive to commit ourselves to pray the urgent, begging rescue prayer we pray for ourselves for the needs of others on a regular basis? Shouldn't we be daily pausing to beg God to pour out His mercy on a world with so many of our brothers and sisters suffering? If it was your biological brother and his family going on three years living in a tent in Haiti, would you not remember to stop and pray? If it was my younger sister missing and in danger of having been transported into a life a sexual slavery, would I know be crying out continually for her rescue and safe return? If it was my own children who did not have enough to eat today or who could contract deadly malaria at night while they slept, would I forget to pray for them? If my closest friend risked an unjustly high maternal and infant mortality rate in her pregnancy, would I remember to beg God to protect her and her baby throughout those months? The cold, hard truth is, I remember to pray when something matters to me. God, make these things matter to me. Do not let me insult the suffering and oppressed by calling them "brother" and "sister" and then bidding them to keep warm and well-fed. Press their needs upon my heart with the same urgency the needs of my biological family press on my heart. Teach me to shun self-deprecating guilt that makes me turn away from their needs as too burdensome. Keep from the temptation to put on blinders or to filter the ugly truth about the world's brokenness in order to protect my own comfort. Free me from the fear of a broken heart, for the most broken of hearts is that which keeps its hands clean by walking past the dying man on the road. Give me, Lord, the kind of prayer heart the Good Samaritan must have cultivated for days and weeks and years before the moment he stooped to lift his brother from the dirt and bind his wounds.

In her book 7, Jen Hatmaker's last mutiny against an excessive life is to slow down the pace of her life by intentionally observing prayer pauses throughout her day. Similarly, Ann has been encouraging us all to slow down and breathe, to remember that life is not an emergency, and to count all the ways He gives and loves and blesses throughout every single day. As Catholics, we live this reality in the daily prayers of the universal Church we call the Divine Office. I have been able, through grace, to cultivate a pretty good habit of praying the Morning Prayer of the Church. But that's about the only pause I remember regularly. I have many friends who are excellent about daily making these pauses and I aspire to follow their example. Technology offers us all kinds of help, like apps to pray with wherever we find ourselves at any given hour and chimes to remind us when it is time to pause. 

But I am praying to God to give me a heart that remembers. A heart that breaks for the urgent needs and real suffering of so many around the world at every given moment. A heart that shudders to think that every minute, two children are trafficked into sexual slavery on the same planet on which I live, children known and loved and named by God and destined for a future full of hope but thwarted by a perverse evil. I am going to make an effort, while I complete this series, to make my prayer pauses throughout the day, and during them, to cry out with the psalmist as he pleads for mercy on the lowly and afflicted and justice on the evil-doers. I am going to beg God to open my heart and mind so that I can pray and remember with an awareness that ignites a fire in my heart rather than locks me up in paralyzing guilt. I am going to beg God for my heart to break in such a way that I know that only He can save. And I am going to pray that I can pause in prayer so that I can be inspired to action when the moment for it arrives. 

Will you join me in pausing to pray? And let me know how you are doing with it? We can share our successes and failures and maybe help each other along the way?

Let's Persevere in Fasting

I have been trying to take action against trafficking by fasting regularly.The A21 Campaign suggests fasting on the 21st of every month as one of their 21 Ways to Help. I am really, really committed to this idea. It seems to me a good way to make the whole thing personal, root it deeply in my heart. However, I overlooked one small problem with this proposal in my enthusiasm. I suck at fasting. No, really, I am terrible at it. I commit and recommit to fasting all the time and then fall apart just a short way in to the effort.

So on the first day of fasting from freedoms, I decided I would not go to the bathroom without asking my husband's permission first. Let me say this most important thing first: Y'all, I have a husband who will grin and consent to doing these crazy things I ask of him because he gets me and the things my wildly passionate heart prompts me to do. That's pretty awesome, right?

So the day commenced with his welcoming my reluctantly articulated request. I still get shy about making myself so vulnerable even though he never once, even when there was good reason, has made me feel foolish about something important to me. And then we moved on. The first time I needed to head to the little girl's room, I was sitting by the river reading the Word and journaling. I realized I was going to need to hurry. Stopping to ask his permission was going to make this a close call. And then I remembered that my father-in-law was sitting there in my house and would be privy to this conversation. And I hesitated even longer. If it's hard to risk appearing silly to my beloved, who is always so understanding about my wild ideas and strong passionate responses, I could not even imagine doing so with my father-in-law present. I mean, don't get me wrong, he's a lovely man, but I'm not really ready to bare the mist vulnerable parts of my heart and soul to him just yet.

So by the time I finally made my way home to abashedly ask my husband's permission, I was doing the three year-old's potty dance. He smiled and give me his consent as I whispered my first sheepish request. I wanted to feel satisfied by this commitment I had made. I wanted to think profound thoughts about attempting to live in solidarity with trafficking victims who are denied basic freedoms like this every day. I didn't. I hated it. I felt stupid and foolish and raw and bared to the world. And it made we want to cry. (I told you, I'm REALLY bad at this.)

The next time I needed to go, my husband was on his way to the bank in the city. Driving in the car. With his dad. Same issue. Which for some reason was harder for me to commit to over the phone because I couldn't whisper it quietly right at the entrance to the bathroom with a blush in my cheek that my husband would know indicated my vulnerability and would respond to in love and with respect. So I cheated and went without asking.

The same mental battle ensued the rest of the day. And I didn't cheat again. But I didn't feel very inspired or successful in my efforts either. I felt foolish and weak. The next time I fasted, I decided I was going to drink water using only my cupped hands that day. I lasted an hour. (This is the craziness my family has to put up with. Y'all can add not having to live with me to your gratitude lists tonight.) I know the Bible tells us to fast in secret, and I try, but we're together in close quarters, all the time. They notice.

I have been fasting from mass produced chocolate these last weeks too, and while I haven't caved and eaten any, I will admit that the thought of trick or treat bags filled with Reese's peanut butter cups and snack sized Snickers almost brought me to tears yesterday. My flesh continues to crave, begs me to forget injustice and just feed me what feels good.

But as I have made the effort and felt the sting of my weakness, I think I have come to realize that this, this is the point of it all. We fast to be reminded of how weak we are in the flesh, how denying ourselves the smallest things makes our flesh writhe and rage against our spirit. And we know for certain the work we need to do and just how dependent we are on the mercy of our Savior.

What does all that do for trafficking victims? Well, first of all, it reminds me that the sense that it is all too big and that there is so little I can do, is real. And it brings me back to heart of the matter. If I want to make the world a better place, I have to look to Him first. The better place is the place where His kingdom has come, not mine. Which is good, because if the perseverance I show in fasting is any indication, mine would remain half-finished for eternity.

Secondly, it reminds me that their suffering is real. These little contrived fasts are a trifle compared to the reality that is life for a human slave, a little girl sold as a sex machine. And I find them hard and humiliating and fail to live them. And this keeps me praying, begging Him to save and rescue and heal these real people suffering real horrors.

Thirdly, it motivates me to try and try again. To remember that spiritual fruit is born in the working out, the long-suffering, the persevering effort at sanctity. Just as the results of action against trafficking will also bear fruit over the long length of days we remember, we pray, we fast, we fight.

And lastly, it reminds me that sometimes it is okay to admit our limitations and scale back. Perhaps drinking water out of my cupped hands was a bit overzealous? Maybe today I can just drink only water? Or skip my coffee? Or eat simply? And accept that if the effort is sincere and the prayer it inspires real, it is enough. Just as it is with this work, this action effort. I don't think I am changing the world all at one time. But I am making  progress in my own heart, in my own awareness. I am giving many friends a chance to join the action. I am making connections with others who are fighting too. And I am sincerely trying and earnestly praying. And it is enough.

Let's Not Forget

It's been a long stretch of blogging about action to end human trafficking. And I'm nearly halfway there. And to be honest, it's starting leave me tired and raw. Reading about the atrocity. Thinking about the pain and the problem and the solution. Writing letters. Waiting for results. Reading about the work of those on the front lines. Fasting in solidarity with the victims. Hurting for those who are hurting? Well, it hurts. Facing the horror and suffering wrought by the most inhumane of injustices? It painful and heartbreaking.

I have asked the question of a few friends this week. How do we know these things and live? How do we bypass ignorance or selective knowledge for action and avoid depression? How do we battle the weariness of operating machines to wash our clothes and preparing the food that feeds our families without feeling like utter failures for the Kingdom? Because on this earth where our bathrooms beg our attention and we can't find the energy to give it and where we fuss irritable at kids who won't head to beds or stop kicking a soccer ball in the house, on this earth where we raise our hands in praise to a merciful Savior, little girls live in cages and are groped by perverse men and teenage girls are being trucked across the highways of our prosperity to a life of slavery and poverty sends people running ignorant into a life of exploitation. And we bear His name and so must bear His pain at it all. And yet we must live and love and serve these in our midst and not forget our first duties. And sometimes it makes my swim and my heart beat too fast.

And then I remember that all my strength for the battle lies not in me and my weak-kneed terror at the battle, but in Him and in His victory over it all. And I remember that if He can save me from me then somehow He is able to save them. And that I am not the Savior but the sick needing saving. And on the days when I am not incapacitated by my own sickness, He mercifully lets me play the role of servant, rising up like Peter's mother-in-law to serve those in my midst. And I remember that the medicine I need to stay strong, to suffer with the suffering without breaking, to embody at the same time death and resurrection, is there in Him -- in His Word written across the ages, in His presence waiting, hidden in the facade of sustenance we call bread, in the caresses of those who love me and of the encouragement of others who love in His name. And I run back to the heart of prayer where He waits to mend my brokenness and tells me that it's okay to admit that I'm the one who needs to be rescued and healed today. That He will give me what I need and strengthen me to rise again to serve. And it takes only moments -- silent moments -- to know the grace is enough. To feel the questions that threaten to paralyze fade away and the paralysis loosen its grip. And my heart slows to rhythm of mercy once again and my feet begin to keep pace with the Spirit once more. Over and over this is how I live. This is the breaking heart of the broken.

So today, I invite you to pause and remember with me that prayer is our first weapon. It keeps the warriors fighting and heals the wounded. It moves the heart of the only real Savior and reminds us of the victory. It meets in the tomb and transforms it into resurrection glory. So if you take no more action than this today -- or tomorrow or ever -- this is something. Something big. It is the way the saints suffer and break and yet still live.

So keep praying with me? Our collective prayer:

Or the missions rosary devotions I've been contributing over at Suscipio:

For Africa

For the Americas

For Europe

and today, for Oceania.

Because He has promised that wherever two or more gather in His name, He will be in their midst. And oh how I need Him in my midst.

Feeling Tense?

I am taking a break from my 30 Days of Action posts to write about something that has been rumbling and bubbling and then finally settling peacefully in my heart these last few weeks. Something prompted by a thought that has followed me since I read Heather King's Shirt of Flame: A Year with St. Therese of Lisieux in July. It's about being tense, or more accurately living in tension. And how that differs from but is not totally different from what we call guilt.

I have had many conversations with people who have read books or articles full of inspiring stories about people who are living radically, sacrificing everything and making huge differences in the world. While on the one hand they are inspired by these stories, on the other they find themselves battling scruples and guilt over the state of life in which they find themselves. Often overwhelmed by the latter, they toss the inspiration in order to free themselves from the weight of the guilt.

This is a feeling I am quite familiar with as a missionary. I battle with myself all the time about how much is too much for us, how little is too little and is asking too much from our kids, how much is just enough. I put things in my basket at the grocery store and then take them out. I stand at the corner giving myself the luxury of hailing a cab then wave it off when it stops and head to the bus instead. Recently, we discovered that one benefit of living in this mission with a car is that it has revolutionized food purchasing.

When we could only get to the very nearest city and that by bus, our purchasing opportunities were quite limited. Turrialba, while it is a city, still remains very typically Costa Rican and the stores market mainly typical fare in regards to food. In addition, whatever we purchased had to be loaded into recycled rice sacks and lugged to the bus where it sat for two hours on the ride home. Then we carried it on our backs to our house. Even when we had the occasional ride to the store, we were always eager not to be overbearing and so limited our purchases. Even then, we bought way more variety of food than the typical family in our pueblo.

But with our car to drive, we have a wider variety of options. One which we recently discovered is the opportunity to take a monthly trip into Zapote, a suburb of sorts of San Jose, to shop at Price Mart (this is apparently how you say Costco in Spanish -- who knew?) We went for the first time last month. After filling out our forms and having our candid snapshots printed on to plastic cards, I turned to find a long forgotten wonderland of flavored coffee creamer, donuts, toothpaste in four packs, pancake mix and maple syrup, barbeque sauce and feta cheese. I was totally overwhelmed.

We walked through Price Mart reveling in purchases we had not made in eight months. Olive oil. Syrup. French vanilla coffee creamer. Dark chocolate granola bars. We passed on the lovely cheeses, the sticky sweet donuts, and a load of other processed foods that appeared lovely in their familiar packaging but that we have learned really taste no better then the packaging itself. We bought a lot of food. Good food at good prices. We bought toiletries and medicines to last a long, long time at the best prices we have found yet in Costa Rica. We treated the kids to the cheap pizza and got an oil change for the car. We priced out some items we will need when we are sharing our mission with groups and other families. It was a good trip, and while we indulged ourselves some, I don't think we did too badly.

But in the weeks that followed, I was haunted by guilt over the French vanilla coffee creamer. I stressed about buying it. I stressed about using it up too quickly, not fully appreciating it. I scrupulously only allowed myself only one cup of coffee with the creamer and then drank plain. I would see families walking down the streets of our town and wonder how much rice I could have given them to feed their children with what I spent on my coffee creamer. I was so shell-shocked that I have not suggested another trip to Price Mart since then. Some people in my house are still lamenting not buying the big box of chocolate covered almonds they saw and I have feared I would be like some indulgence monitor, putting things in the basket and then guiltily taking them back out and stashing them on the wrong aisle, much to the chagrin of the Price Mart employees, I'm sure.

A couple of weeks after that shopping trip, I found myself sitting on a beach in southern Nicaragua reading the book 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess and pondering a lot of over-indulgence, consumerism and lack of gratitude. And how hard it is to overcome a lifetime if living in a culture that embraces all those things. My time as a missionary has opened my eyes and changed my heart in so many ways, but it has not taken away the impulse to buy more shoes than I need or the desperate craving for Coke Zero in Sonic Ice. Or my love of sticky sweet donuts and flavored coffee creamer. And sometimes, in light of the poverty I see every day, my affections for those things make me feel what in the past I had labeled as guilt.

But reading and thinking on the tenets in 7 and some of things I had read about St. Therese in Shirt of Flame has caused me to rethink what I call this haunting feeling that pervades my thoughts, my desires, my affections and makes me weigh them against the stark realities of poverty, sickness, human slavery and death. What we have labeled as guilt and thrown out as an unhealthy emotion, I think, may not be something altogether bad. Now, I am certain, as many people have commented to me in the aforementioned conversations, that our merciful Savior does not want us to live a life hindered by crippling, debilitating guilt. After all, it was precisely this kind of law that Jesus came to free us from. But I also think we have been a bit quick to toss out some really good inspiration because we were afraid to go where the initial guilt was taking us. We do not need to be a people of guilt, but I think when we begin to hear a warning cry in our hearts every time something makes us see our own ugliness and brokenness that says, "No, run, don't think about that. That's too hard. Jesus doesn't want you to feel badly about yourself" that we need to respond like Christ did to Peter when Peter shouted a similar warning at Him -- about the very hard and ugly way in which He would redeem the world -- "Get Thee behind me, Satan."

Why? Because while I think the Lord does not want us to be encumbered by a burden of guilt over which He has already risen victorious, I think He's perfectly okay with us living in a constant tension. It is the reality of our lives on this side of heaven. We live redeemed but sinful. We worship a merciful but just Savior. We serve a broken and beautiful Church. We are dying every day that we live. And we die in order to live forever. We pray to know better our Savior and He teaches us to know better ourselves. We eat bread that is His body while it still looks and tastes like bread. And we buy and we consume and we live while others beg and starve and die in a world He created. This is our reality.

And as Christians completing, as the Word telsl us, what was lacking in His sufferings, I do think we would be woefully amiss if that reality did not weigh heavily upon us most of our days. If my coffee creamer makes me think painfully of the hungry in my midst, it may not mean I need to toss the coffee creamer, but it also should not mean that I push aside the painful reminder of the poor. Perhaps there is something He is asking me to do, and the tension in my chest with each sip of delicious creamy goodness is His way of knocking. If that experience makes me think long and hard about what I purchase on our next trip and helps me to leave behind some indulgences and replace them with basic foods that can be shared, it has indeed done a very good work in my heart. And if I deliberate long and hard over each item and allow us only three indulgent purchases per trip, is it that really some kind of debilitating guilt? I don't think so. Maddening as it may be for the poor men who are forced to endure the shopping trip with me, I think it does us all some good to pick and choose intentionally as a family and to see the alternatives we are afforded when we bypass overindulgence.

Heather King says St. Therese lived in this constant tension. Feeling at once favored and special in the eyes of her Sweet Savior and alternatively small and humble and feeble in His service. Wanting with all her heart to be a missionary and yet embracing the call to the silence of the cloister. Being childish and simple and yet a spiritual giant all at the same time. If this is what embracing the tension can produce, then who I am to wave it off because sometimes it gives me a stomach ache?

I will be the first to admit that sometimes living in this constant tension does not make me the happy smiley girl I want to be. Sometimes, I just freaking want a Pumpkin Spice Latte and a Coke Zero with Cherry flavoring and extra ice. In a separate cup. There. I said it. But I have come see that that too is okay. This is where His tender mercy sweeps in and makes something beautiful of the mess that is me. You see, while I'm tempted to sulk and whine and grant myself way more indulgence I deserve in repayment for my measly sacrifices, He swoops into my struggle and draws me to Him--says to me, "Sweet Princess, there are no lattes today. But I am here. Come close. Rest from the struggle. Breathe the sweet incense of my presence. Feel better, little one? Good. Get up and do what I have asked." And then, one day when I least expect it, right in the midst of serving and doing and falling and rising, voila, a pumpkin spice latte appears out of nowhere, with the extra whipped cream I never even dared ask for even though I wanted it really badly. Because my Daddy loves me. Deeply, tenderly and intimately. And He loves to lavish me with gifts and surprise me with loveliness.

So these days, I am working at seeing all these impulses both indulgent and guilty as the forces that pull taut my spiritual heart rope, that keep me sober and alert, intentional and dependent as I try to be who God has called me to be in this crazy upside world that reeks of sin and shines with glory all at the same time. I think the Lord only pulls that rope as taut as we permit Him too. Sometimes, life demands that we let it fall slack while we put all our energies into growing a baby human inside us or rekindling love in our marriage or serving the demanding needs of our families or recovering from an illness. Other times, I think He asks if we will let Him pull it uncomfortably tight, so that it strains and stresses and pulls at us until we grow up just a little bit more. But I do believe that we are called to permit the tension to live within us, the feel its weight and to embrace it, not as guilt, but as another tender mercy meant to bring us further into the abode of His heart. And I think the spiritual progress we make is directly related to just how taut we permit him to pull our heart strings.

So if you are feeling the tension today as I am and battling the guilty grumpies as I often do, slow down rather than pushing it away. Run to Him and let Him show you what He needs you to see. Seek Him in the quiet and the stillness and, yes, the pain of your heart. Move past the guilt and give Him permission to pull your heart strings tight. And then see what He might do with you. And then happily, one day, if He is merciful enough, we might find ourselves sipping a double whipped cream pumpkin spice latte inside the gates of the Promised Land with no more pain or suffering, where our hearts strings fly loose and free in the light of His glory. Walk with me?

***P.S. Following any of the Amazon links in this post or on the sidebar and making a purchase will generate a small amount of credit for me. All credit will be dedicated to purchasing items for the Blessed Zelie Martin Initiative laid out in this post.

I have added this post to this week's Walk With Him Wednesdays link up at Holy Experience.

Let's Listen

One of the hardest parts of the life of an exploited victim is never being able to speak up for yourself and be heard. The feeling of helplessness and hopelessness of being totally silenced is a terrible aspect of stripping away someone's humanity.
For survivors of this terrible atrocity, there remains the terrible feeling of no one wanting to hear your story. I know just a little bit of this feeling from my loss of my son Bryce. There is an overwhelming feeling when you meet people to let them in to this part of your life that marks you so deeply and makes you who you are. And then there is a shame for having that need. No one wants hear your ugly, painful reality. You make people feel awkward. It is taboo in our society to be that real, to tell that much truth. So you sit instead with a lump in your throat and pain searing your soul while you smile and chatter idly.
For survivors of trafficking, it is necessary to share their stories when they have recovered enough to do so. In order to re-enter society, they need to be able to trust people in general again. They will never do that if no one ever listens to them, if no one is ever able to go there with them, to the hard and hurting and painful places.
It is easy to read the facts about human trafficking. It is harder to listen to the real horror stories. I want to shut it off myself. To say, "I get it, I don't need to hear any more." But the truth is, if I am going to choose justice and mercy for these women and children, it is not about what I need to hear. It is about listening. It is about the fact that they need to be heard. To help them heal, we need to listen.
So today, I invite you to follow these links and read, listen to the stories. As it pains you, as it makes you want to turn away, let the Lord break your heart for them. Pray for them. And pray for the valiant people every day who are working in the recovery effort, listening daily to this pain, trying to sop up the emotional and physical and spiritual wounds of this atrocity.
Let's not turn away from the ugly and the pain and the real. Let's show mercy and take action by being willing to listen.

• Survivor stories at the Polaris Project
• Facing the real and the ugly of these stories at the blog Jammed True Stories
• This Is Our Story can be borrowed for free on Kindle
• Here is a list of videos that come up when you search Human Trafficking Survivor Stories on You Tube
• When your heart is breaking over these stories, maybe you could pen a note of encouragement to Maria at Salvando Corazones and thank her for being willing to give up her life, her business, her home, move her family to Costa Rica and daily live with this pain, daily try to instill hope. You can post your note here, e-mail it to me, or Facebook message me. Or you can post it on the Salvando Corazones Facebook page. 

Let's listen to the hard stories because we know we must. And then let's thank the people who are listening every single day. This is living mercy. This is living justice. And you can do it. Now. Today. Please do.

And don't forget to keep praying our prayer. And sharing these posts and the prayer with others. Don't be discouraged if no one responds. Do the right thing anyway. God will work with what you give.