Legacy of Encouragement

It was our first year of marriage and we were at the Horn family farm in Cambridge.  Alma, who was in her early 80s, stood among the flurry of family and beamed up at us.

We were young and naïve.  We were also eager and hopeful and confident in our call (which often comes with being young and naïve).  The combination of being fledgling adults with such a clear yet highly unusual trajectory in life certainly made some people pause and question what we were thinking.  Other people didn't believe that we'd follow through with it.  Still others thought we were simply insane.

But that day at the farm, Alma looked at us as if we were more sane than insane.  She looked at us with joy and pride.  She knew of our plans - to go to Cameroon, then return to the States for medical school and residency, and finally go back to Africa for long-term missionary service - and she believed in us.

Her reassuring opinion of us newlyweds bolstered us because Alma and her husband Dale had done the same thing half a century before.  When they were young and naïve (and eager and hopeful and confident in their calling), they went to Asia and served as missionaries.

Alma saw a bit of herself in us.  We triggered memories and she told us of taking a boat to China and about their later transition from there to Japan.  She didn't give a sermon or a soliloquy (although her years of living overseas could certainly warrant such), but instead she spoke simple words of encouragement that made a forever impression on our hearts.  She encouraged us to stay the course of pursuing missions, even though it would take us years to get there.  She blessed the path before us and promised to pray for us.  That day, Alma created a milestone marker in our missions journey because her encouragement came from genuine excitement as well as first-hand experience.

Alma and Dale before sailing to China

Alma was Eli's great-aunt and she passed away this month at the age of 99.  Her husband, Dale, was Eli's Grandma Horn's brother, and although I never had the privilege of meeting Dale, we've been encouraged by him also.  A scrapbook we discovered at the farm during our first Home Ministry Assignment told a bit of his story of being called to ministry.  When one of his high school teachers asked why he was choosing to pursue ministry after graduation, Dale responded, "This is not my choice.  If it were simply a matter of choice, I would be choosing more scientific pursuits.  This is God's choice for me and I am just making His choice mine."

Alma clearly did the same, and together they obeyed God's choice for them by going overseas and eventually coming back to America when the Lord called them to return.

During our first year of marriage, when we were raising funds and putting things in order to go to Cameroon, we didn't even know what questions to ask Alma that day.  We couldn't possibly understand what moving overseas and ministering cross-culturally truly meant.  We thought it would stretch and grow us, but we didn't know how.  We imagined it would be a complicated mixture of joy and struggle, but we couldn't understand what that would look like day to day.  We had vague ideas but no concrete perception of how being a missionary would impact our hearts and minds.

But Alma knew.  And even though she didn't regale us with scads of stories of the triumphs and tribulations of life and ministry overseas, we knew that she understood what we would understand for ourselves someday.  She knew the delicate balance between ministry and family as well as the guilt when the balance fails, she knew the pressures of being responsible to supporters, she knew the depths of joy of cross-cultural friendships, she knew the satisfaction of toiling for something for years and finally seeing the goal realized, she knew the sensation of loving and loathing different cultural values, she knew the loneliness of not being able to articulate all the thoughts and feelings of missionary life in a meaningful way to anyone else but Jesus.  She knew things we were years away from beginning to comprehend.

That day at the farm was over 16 years ago, and although we've only been living overseas for 7 years now, we've come to understand some of what must have been in Alma's heart that day as she looked at two newlyweds wanting to embark on a similar path that she and her husband had taken.  And we appreciate her encouragement all the more now.  We understand the gratification of staying the course and actually moving overseas and raising a family here.  We are continually experiencing how the Lord transforms our worldview and increases our understanding of His ways - how He works in individuals and communities and cultures.  We know how blessedly diverse and beautiful the Church is.  We've seen that God's kingdom is built more with small bricks over time than giant blocks in a hurry.

But we understood none of this that day at the farm.  We couldn't have understood.  We were too young and naïve.  Thankfully, Alma saw people with potential, and she poured encouragement onto that potential and covered it with prayer.

Of all the legacies this 99-year old woman is leaving behind, that is the legacy she's left for us.  We can only hope that one day the Lord will put some young and naïve people in our path that we can encourage on their journey toward missions.  Because being encouraged by someone who's gone before you on such a unique and often questioned course can make an indelibly positive impact.

Eli's grandma and her brother Dale

Writing and Life

This year has not been a great year of writing for me.  Even though writing is a creative outlet and something that often gives me energy, the fact is that it's also a lot of work and requires a lot of energy at the outset.

But this has not been a year in which I've had a lot of energy at the outset.

The demands of homeschooling wring out most of my allotted energy for the day, and the constant noise and interruptions that occur around our house throughout the rest of the day drain whatever energy may be left.

For the record, the noise and interruptions are not just from our own boys.  Our community has been blessed with many children and they do what children do: create noise!  Trying to silence everything around me so I can pull from the reserves of my creative energy has been a most difficult task this year.

And it's simply been a busy year.  Lots of visitors to host, lots of events to plan or participate in, lots of traveling for meetings, appointments, conferences, and weddings and funerals.  And for me personally, lots of hours logged on Zoom meetings for our field leadership team.  The number of available hours to sit and write have been few.

Besides the literal lack of hours in a day to write, I've felt a lack of emotional energy towards that end.  A lot of my emotional energy has been put toward a long season of trying to be an anchor while others around us have gone through seasons of stress and/or transition.  There's been a lot of transition within our community this year.  Constant comings and goings are a norm around here, but there've been some unexpected comings and goings on top of it all which have added another layer of grief and stress.  After nearly seven years of learning how to say goodbyes and hellos like it's our job, it's still hard, and harder still when it happens suddenly.  Despite how hard it is, these situations require people who are in a season of stability to step up and hold down the fort, to keep an eye on the community and plan the events and farewells, to be "the mom of the compound" and check on the kids whose parents are gone, to be "the keeper of the keys" to the houses that are empty and need cleaning and oversight and management of househelpers, and to host official hospital visitors that no one else is available to do.

Our family has been stable.  We haven't had any major life transitions or literal transitions to navigate (except helping each other process how the transitions of others impact ourselves), so we've tried to offer a sense of stability and normalcy for those around us.  We've made ourselves available to be the people others can come to, to be a listening ear or a logistics coordinator, to be an anchor.

It's been good for us to fill this role.  I feel (I hope) that we've carried it well for this season.  But it's demanded a lot of energy and has forced other endeavors to take a backseat, like my writing.

Although my personal writing projects have taken a hit this year, as well as regular blogging, the one thing I've been able to consistently maintain are my newsletters sent every few months.  That has been the most important way to maintain some level of connection with people interested in our missions journey.

And despite my overall discouragement at the output (or lack thereof) of writing, I've been recently encouraged because one of my projects this year was to print off every blog post and newsletter I've written since beginning this missions journey and put them in a binder so they could read like one big story.  To date, I've written 76 posts on our missions blog (including this one), 7 posts on the blog A Life Overseas, and have created 31 newsletters (and am about to send #32).  These numbers are significant to me because writing is how I process.  It's how I remember, reflect, and sometimes reorient myself in order to learn and grow and move forward.

I'm encouraged because, overall, that binder (which is actually two big binders at this point) is a kind of physical proof that I've done a lot of processing since I started writing missions-related material over eight years ago.  I've done a lot of reflecting, a lot of soul-searching, a lot of growing.  And I hope a lot of encouraging as other people have read my writing and been able to reflect as well.

It's humbling to know that other people read my writing even though it's just my unprofessional musings, and even more humbling when someone reaches out and tells me they were blessed by it.

My hope is that as we enter into a new season of more stability in our community, there will be a bit more time and space and energy for me to focus on writing.  There are no guarantees because if there's one thing that's true of this life, it's that there is always something else to demand your attention and relegate the non-essentials to the bottom of the priority list.  But writing is an essential for me.  At least, it's supposed to be.  I'm hoping it can feel that way again, like a core part of myself that serves a good purpose.

Because the ultimate purpose of writing, for me, is to process life.  I desire to live life and to process it so I can live it more deeply and graciously moving forward.

The Healing Ministry of Jesus

Although most people understand that we are medical missionaries, meaning that we work at a mission hospital and provide physical and spiritual care for people, it's not necessarily understood why we're passionate about this particular area of ministry.

Last year, during our Home Ministry Assignment, we explained to many people why we do what we do and now I'd like to write it down.

So, why do we do this medical missions thing?

Because it's close to the heart of Jesus.

Jesus healed people.  He spent a significant part of his time on this earth healing people - from the fever ailing Simon Peter’s mother-in-law to literally raising people from the dead and everything in between. 

Jesus was willing to touch people who shouldn’t be touched, such as the man with leprosy who begged for, and received, healing.  He was willing to incite the ire of the Pharisees and synagogue rulers by healing on the Sabbath, like the man with a shriveled right hand and the woman who’d been crippled for eighteen years.  He was willing to heal people He’d never even seen, like the centurion’s servant. Jesus even healed a person He didn’t know was asking for healing - the woman who’d been bleeding for twelve years and secretly touched his cloak. The ministry of healing was very close to the heart of Jesus.

This is why: healing points to the Father.  Jesus’s ministry of healing revealed God.  Healing was about physical healing, yes, but it was also about understanding spiritual truths, like our need to be forgiven of our sins, which Jesus taught when He healed the paralytic man that was lowered through the roof.  It opens our eyes to know more of God.

Here's another example: After Jesus raised the widow’s son back to life, “They were all filled with awe and praised God. ‘A great prophet has appeared among us,’ they said. ‘God has come to help his people’” (Luke 7:16).

Healing points to the Father.

Here's yet another example: A blind man named Bartimaeus was sitting along the roadside and cried out to Jesus to be healed.  Jesus did heal him, then and there.  “Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God.  When all the people saw it, they also praised God” (Luke 18:43).

Healing points to the Father.

When Jesus sent out the 72 ahead of Himself, one of the instructions he gave was, “When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is set before you.  Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God is near you’” (Luke 10:8-9).

Healing reveals God.  Healing and God go hand in hand.

Furthermore, the healing ministry of Jesus didn’t stop when Jesus left the earth and ascended into heaven.  In Acts we read of the disciples in the early church who were given the power to heal people in Jesus’ name.  Peter and John healed a crippled beggar outside the temple, and Acts 5 tells us, “The apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders among the people….  People brought the sick into the streets and laid them on the beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by.  Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by evil spirits, and all of them were healed” (5:12a, 15-16).

Even after Jesus was resurrected and ascended into heaven, healing was still an important part of spreading the Gospel, and it still pointed to the Father and still revealed Him to people.

And it still does that today.

So why do we do medical missions?  Because healing matters, it’s close to the heart of Jesus, and there is a great need for healing.

When we originally started looking into where in the world we could go and serve in medical missions, we wanted to find a place that had an obvious need as well as great opportunities for impact.  The Lord showed us Africa.

It wasn't until after we'd already moved to Kenya that we discovered the following map created by the World Health Organization.  It shows the global distribution of physicians.

Regions in blue have anywhere from 20-40 doctors per 10,000 people.
Regions in dark red have 0-1 doctor per 10,000 people.

We felt all the more convicted and confirmed that doing medical missions in Africa was a good and worthwhile thing to do.

Because it's close to the heart of Jesus, and it points to the Father.  Anything like that is a good and worthwhile thing to do.

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Scripture references:

Simon Peter’s mother-in-law (Luke 4:38-39)
man with the shriveled right hand (Luke 6:6-11)
man with leprosy (Luke 5:12-15)
the paralytic (Luke 5:17-26)
centurion’s servant (Luke 7:1-10)
woman bleeding for 12 years (Luke 8:40-48)
woman crippled for 18 years (Luke 13:10-13)
blind Bartimaeus (Luke 18:35-43)

Listening and Learning From My Children

Sometimes I wish that I could get out of the house more.  I wish I could pour more time into relationships, practice my Swahili, learn more about the culture, do something with my skillsets that helps people outside my house, or know more about what's happening at the hospital.  Being a full-time homeschooling mom sometimes feels like I live in a cave.  Have I seen the light of day today?  Yes, off in the distance, way over there, if I try hard enough, I can see the light.

Sometimes I imagine that I wouldn't be functioning with half a brain if I could switch things up a bit.  If I could think past the inane conversations about finishing the ugali on their plate, or the frustrating moments of reviewing for the thousandth time what the second step of long division is, or the exhausting exercise of extending grace to my child who took the precious Scotch tape outside to tape cardboard with his friends even though he knows we can't get more of that tape in Kenya...  If I could think past all of that, maybe I could be more productive or fruitful or lifegiving.

Despite the long, long hours of days on the homefront, I am deeply committed to my role as the anchor of the family.  I know how important it is to be home with the boys, to pour into them, to be a rock for them, to be their safe space and comforter and encourager.  I know they are benefiting greatly from my constant presence (which I remind myself of in the moments I want to run away and be alone for even five minutes).  I know there is much good coming from the fact that I am a full-time homeschooling mom.

But sometimes I just wish I could get out of the house more and do other things.

Since that's not possible, I find it particularly sweet when the Lord uses my children to bless me and teach me.  And isn't it just like Jesus to use a weak and small and less-learned child to remind me of great truths or show me the way forward?  And what a mercy that God uses the people around me the most, even though they're children, to grow me when life is so nuts that I don't have time to read Scripture or pray regularly (true confessions).

Here are some gold nuggets from recent moments with my boys...

After attending a building dedication at the hospital, which was hot and long (and boring for the kids who had never been to an event like this before), I left early with the boys after only sitting there for 2 hours.  While walking home, I explained to them why this was an important event and why it was good for us to be there.  I also explained why it takes the better part of a day to dedicate a building, to which Caleb replied with great insight, "Kenyans are way more patient than Americans."  And he is right.  We ended up having a great conversation about some of the ways Kenyan culture and American culture show honor and respect differently, and why I appreciate how Kenyan culture does it.  It was a beautiful reminder of how we can learn from each other if we take the time to participate in each other's cultures.

Learning about other places and cultures around the world is really important to our family, even when the news is hard to swallow.  As the war in Ukraine continues, we've had several conversations with our boys about what's happening and why it breaks our hearts.  One day Asa blurted out, "War is the worst thing ever!  Well, except for sin."  And he is right.  We proceeded to talk about sin and the corruption of our hearts and how that's directly connected to what's happening in Ukraine and Russia right now.  It was a powerful reminder of the severe significance of our sin - why it's so serious and why it matters, and therefore why Jesus' love and sacrifice is also so important.  Sin has led to every war ever.  But Christ came to deal with sin, to rescue us from sin, to give the hope of abolishing sin forever.  That is really good news, and my 6-year old helped me remember that.

Speaking of current world events, Kai is more faithful than any of us to pray persistently for what's happening around the world.  When we pray at meals, he will pray for God "to stop the riffraff in Afghanistan and help the people there" and "to stop the war in Ukraine" and "to please stop the coronavirus forever."  That kid remembers what needs prayer, and he is faithful to it.  He believes that prayer matters, that it helps people, and that God hears and answers.  And he is right.

Kai is also our kid with big questions burning in his heart.  A couple weeks ago he wanted to know why God would create Adam and Eve if He knew they were going to sin anyway.  Whew, good question.  We had a long conversation about that and it was good to think deep thoughts together and to rest in God's insane love for us even though He knew we would break His heart with our sin.

Most recently, Caleb comforted me in a unexpected but powerful way.  I was crying after hearing about a death in the family and was feeling terrible for filling the room with my tears yet again (since I had shed many tears in previous weeks due to hearing of several deaths in a row).  Caleb hugged me and I apologized for being so sad.  His reply: "It's okay, Mom.  You're grieving.  It's okay to be sad."  And he is right.  My child gave me permission to cry as much as I needed, and I felt infinitely more free and light because of it.

Moments like these make me forever thankful that I am a full-time homeschooling mom.  These moments are birthed out of the immense amount of time I spend with our kids.  I will never deny the desire to get out of the house more, or to have more adult conversation throughout the week, or to find ways to use my God-given gifts that remain mostly dormant in this season of life, but I will also never deny how much the Lord uses the little munchkins in my care to teach me and mold me and stretch me in transformative ways.

This life in Kenya has made that happen.  I am convinced that part of our call to missions was a call to listen and learn from my children.  I hope and pray I do it well.

Home Again

Even though it was the middle of winter when we left Michigan, we made sure to pack T-shirts, shorts, and flip-flops in our carry-on bags because we knew we'd get to wear them as soon as we made it back to Kenya.  It's been a beautiful 75 and sunny almost every day for the past few weeks and we aren't sad about it!

We're extremely grateful to my parents for their help in getting us to the airport and then helping to manage all of the luggage: 15 checked bags, car seat bag, plus carry-on bags and backpacks for everyone.  We're a bit of a traveling circus every time we head back to Kenya.  Between all the homeschool curriculum and books, supplies for the residency, chocolate chips and other America food essentials (pepperoni, cheese powder to make mac 'n cheese, taco seasoning, etc.) we easily filled all of those bags and bins!

The flights back to Kenya went well, praise God.  Our flight out of Amsterdam was delayed, so by the time we landed in Nairobi and retrieved our luggage and arrived at the guesthouse, it was 4am East Africa Time. But all in all, that was a minor hiccup and we had no complaints.

The boys did extremely well overall with only a couple mini meltdowns from Asa.  Caleb barely slept the entire time but somehow didn't suffer for it.  And Kai was as happy as a clam as long as he could play games on the screen.  We are extremely thankful for such wonderful little travelers!

leaving Detroit

happy campers

collecting our luggage in Nairobi

breathing the fresh Kenyan air

We spent a few days in Nairobi to get over jet lag, see some dear friends, and visit the dentist before heading back to Chogoria.  Then it was time to head home!  The boys were hyper as we drove out of Nairobi.  We were going home and everybody felt it in their bones.

The drive to Chogoria is beautiful with a wide range of scenery.  We pass pineapple plantations, rice fields, banana groves, and tea fields on the way to Chogoria.  My favorite parts are the rice fields (because they offer a vast beauty with plenty of white egrets scattered across the fields) and the tea fields (because they're picturesque against the lush green hills, and it means we're almost home).  We live in such a lovely place on earth and we don't take it for granted.

herding cattle

donkey cart

one of the many rice mills we pass by

a typical means of transporting large items

tea fields

When we reached Chogoria town, the boys began chanting with excitement.  Caleb shouted, "We're here!  Somebody hug me!"  So Kai said, "Okay!" and gave his brother a giant squeeze.  It filled our hearts to be surrounded by such joy in our boys!  Knowing your children are happy in the deepest part of their soul - well, there's nothing like it.

Goodness, it felt good to be home again!

The boys jumped out of the car straightaway and found their friends.  The Webbers were waiting for us and Asa and Jack fell over as they hugged each other intensely.  A sense of rightness filled the moment: we are where we belong.  The gift of being confident in knowing you're doing exactly what you're meant to be doing in the exact place you're meant to be doing it cannot be discounted or underestimated.  We all take turns wondering what we're supposed to be doing and where, so being in a season where all of it makes sense and there's peace to go along with it offers a particular kind of contentedness.  We are thankful.

In an instant we jumped right back into life in Chogoria!  So many friends came over to say hi and to play with the boys.  We were greeting people late into the evening and felt so loved and welcomed.

We were blessed with a week without any official responsibilities so we could get unpacked and settled back into our house, as well as meet with lots of folks to get up to speed on everything.  It was a fairly gentle reentry, for which we are thankful.

And then real life began.  The first week of homeschooling was exactly what I expected - a bit of a struggle to get back into routine and to get the boys to focus well on their work.  In their defense, it's hard to focus when the perfectly sunny days are calling you outside where trees are begging to be climbed and chameleons are waiting to be found a pair of black kites are swooping around the yard to find sticks for building a nest in a nearby tree.  Adventure awaits!  But school needs to be done too, so we're figuring out the balance day by day.

Eli hit the ground running, as you can imagine.  But he's happy to be back, especially to be working with the residents again.  The residency breathes life into him, and it makes me happy to know how much he enjoys his work.

And me?  I've had several Zoom meetings since donning the hat of Director of Member Health again, and have dived deep into planning our annual retreat (which I'm in charge of), and have led our weekly Bible Study, and am doing all the things on the homefront like managing the brood of boys that seem to end up playing at our house most days and baking bread and making granola from scratch and other domestic things required in this setting.  The days are full, but life is good.  We are grateful for this season.

Because goodness, it's good to be home again!

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[This is a shortened version of a post on our family blog.  You can visit here for more photos and visit our Instagram account if you want to see a few videos of our drive from Nairobi to Chogoria.]

Home Ministry Assignment 101

It's been rather quiet on this blog for awhile.  That hasn't been because I haven't had things to write about or things to communicate, but because we've been on Home Ministry Assignment (HMA) since June and our time has been filled to the brim with other things.  Good things, but lots of things!

Back in January, when we looked toward our HMA halfway through the year, we weren't sure what would be possible in terms of meeting with people and doing our normal HMA routine.  By the time we arrived in the States, the world had begun opening up again and we found ourselves able to do HMA with relative normalcy.  We've been extremely grateful for that because it's allowed us to travel and speak at churches and simply spend time with people.

Even though we've been doing this missionary thing for over 5 years, we've realized there are still many questions about what this time in the States looks like for us.  In light of that, here's a brief "Home Ministry Assignment 101" to help explain what we do here.


Mission Headquarters

We travel to our mission headquarters for a time of rest and renewal, as well as a debrief of our last term on the mission field.  It's a time when we can reconnect with all the staff at HQ that works on our behalf and also to meet with people in our Member Health department as needed.  It's a time when we pray together and worship together and tell stories.  A childcare program takes care of our kids and even does age-appropriate activities to help them debrief also.  The boys love going to HQ because it's always a ton of fun for them!

Additionally, this month we will participate in a training event with our mission headquarters.  It will be virtual, but we'll still see people from WGM and discuss topics that pertain to the administrative side of ministry.


Fundraising

We also fundraise every time we're in the States.  Fundraising is necessary for various reasons, such as attrition of previous support, increased ministry expenses due to inflation over time, and new ministry projects that need funding.  Often we'll make our needed expenses known when we speak at churches.


Speaking at Churches

We always visit our supporting churches and speak about the ministry in Kenya.  That happens while standing around a display table we put in the lobby, as well as when we have the privilege of speaking from the pulpit.  We've also engaged with people through other creative means, such as organizing a book club discussion, speaking at an evening fireside chat, having a drop-by open house, and speaking at a mid-week luncheon.  Basically, we travel around and talk about Kenya a lot!

Connecting with Supporters

We spend a significant amount of time connecting with individual supporters in person.  It requires a lot of scheduling and communication beforehand, but then we get to hang out with people and talk more about Kenya!  We often share meals with people as we do this, and sometimes that means going from a breakfast meeting to a lunch meeting to a supper meeting all in one day, but that's one of the reasons we're in America: to connect with people who care about what God is doing in Kenya.


Working at the Hospital

Eli picks up shifts at an ER every time we're in the States.  He does this to maintain connections and work relationships here, as well as to simply keep doing medical work while we're gone from Kenya.  It also helps our personal finances so we can afford to do extra things as a family while we travel across the country.

Attending Conferences

We have the privilege of attending some conferences when we're here.  The most important one is the Global Missions Health Conference that takes place in Louisville every November, which offers helpful and pertinent sessions, as well as the chance to connect and network with others in the medical missions world.

Time with Family

This should be obvious, but perhaps the most important part of our HMA is spending time with our families.  Living half a world away from them is not easy, so getting time with them is crucial and refreshing.

Life Chores

This isn't a fun part of HMA, but a necessary part.  There are always things to do - what we've termed "life chores" - that we can only do when we're in America.  Things like sorting through our long-term storage, scanning and printing documents, calling banks and insurance companies, updating our technology, finding size 14 wide shoes for Eli to take back to Kenya, etc.  We're always surprised at how time-consuming these chores are, but they must be done.


Planning for Homeschooling

I do my best to take advantage of the access to education resources here in America.  I try to plan 2 years of homeschooling in advance so I know what to bring over ahead of time and what to ask visitors to bring over when they come.  I stock up on supplies that I can't get in Kenya, like Scotch tape, glue sticks, folders, etc.  I spend days (literally) looking through homeschool catalogs and scouring the internet to compare curriculums to decide what to use with our boys.

Rest and Rejuvenation

It's actually hard to find time to rest and rejuvenate on HMA because we're so busy traveling or recovering from traveling.  But I must emphasize how important this is for us, especially for Eli who's at the hospital nearly every day in Kenya.  Living cross-culturally can be tiring, and living/working at a mission hospital is particularly tiring because of all the effort required to work without resources, to be constantly understaffed with patients constantly coming through the hospital doors, and to be surrounded by so much death.  Having an extended time to be away from the hospital is extremely important for Eli's mental health.  When we return to Kenya after HMA, Eli's strength has returned and he is ready to dive back in to work at the hospital.

As for me, this time in the States is extremely important for getting help with the kids.  We have easy access to grandparents and friends and babysitters who help watch our boys and pour into them.  It's one of the biggest ways that I can take a breath while we're here.

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So that's what we do on HMA!  It's a busy time.  An important time.  An encouraging time.  It's something we're grateful for because it enables us to keep doing what we're doing in Kenya.

Reflections on Ministry

As we are on the cusp of another major transition, I am finding myself in a mode of reflection.  Our second term on the field has blessed us with some of the highest highs of our life, and has also cost us some of our lowest lows.  It's an enormous task to process the past 2+ years, where we've lived in a place that has felt more like home than anywhere else in years, and where we've experienced so much loss that when I made a list of griefs and losses I almost forgot to include Covid-19.

Interestingly, what I've found myself thinking about so much lately is the medical ministry.  Perhaps that sounds odd - aren't we always thinking about the medical ministry and aren't we medical missionaries after all?  Yes.  Well, at least half of us are.  Eli is a medical doctor working in medical ministry every day and it does consume much of his thoughts.  I, on the other hand, have little to do with the medical side of our ministry and think of it rather infrequently.  Despite that, I am fully committed to the medical ministry in the sense that I am fully committed to supporting Eli and I deeply care about what happens at our hospital and with our residents and I desire to see God's kingdom built up because of it all.  But my daily life has nothing to do with medical anything (which is probably best for all involved).

Yet what my husband does every day is the whole reason we live and serve in Kenya.  What my husband does every day impacts our family and requires commitment from all of us.  What my husband does every day is ministry and that is what keeps us doing what we're doing.

We are not humanitarian aid workers.  We are not adventure-seekers.  We are not tourists.  We are not transplants who find enjoyment in living someplace different for its own sake.

We are missionaries.  We have a specific purpose.  We have a mission.  We desire and hope and pray to have lasting impact by what we do.

If we didn't desire to have an impact - a Kingdom impact - then we wouldn't live and serve in Kenya.  

There are many expats who live in this country who don't have a mission to be impactful by living here.  They are doing all manner of other occupations and living normal lives.  Sometimes I envy them.  Living a normal life in this country would be wonderful.  There's so much beauty here in Kenya, so many adventures to experience, so much good food to enjoy, so many cultures to appreciate, so much good fun to be had.

But that's not what we signed up for.  We signed up to be on mission, to have an impact by what we do and maybe even see that impact come to fruition.

And that is why this life of ministry can be so hard.  If we didn't concern ourselves with patient outcomes at the hospital, if it was neither here nor there what the spiritual ministry of the hospital was, if discipleship wasn't a main motivation behind all that we do, then our life would be much easier.

But we do care very much about all these things and we pour ourselves into them.

We moved to Kenya to be in medical ministry.  No one goes into ministry because it promises success or happiness (although it can and does offer such).  People go into ministry because they are called and because they believe in the impact of the Gospel.

We are such people.

And it's because of a life of ministry that we've experienced some of the highest highs and lowest lows of our life.  Some of our highs would have never been enjoyed if it had not been for ministry.  Some of our lows would have never been suffered if it had not been for ministry.

We have been shaped by our experiences these past 2+ years.  We've learned more about ourselves, we've been strengthened and humbled, we've endured and pressed on.  We've been lost and confused, found and encouraged.  I actually thought when we started this term that it would be easier than the last, which goes to show how naive I still was.  I'm not sure seasons of life ever get easier - they are all hard in different ways, just as they all have blessings to be enjoyed in different ways.  This term was hard, harder than we expected, and it was also good.  We're grateful for it, and we're hopeful the lessons we learned will help us with the lessons we have yet to learn.

Because, Lord willing, there is much more ministry ahead of us.

When Callings Collide

I recently read a novel that was hard to finish, not because the storyline wasn't interesting or because the pacing was off, but because the main characters were entirely too one-dimensional.  Each of the main characters had a specific calling in life that guided all their thoughts and actions.  They were passionate about their callings, but singular in them.  What I mean is, there was nothing else to motivate them or drive them, nothing else to talk about even.  The characters were rather myopic in their outlook on life.  Their entire worldview was funneled through the one lens of their one calling.

It was boring to read about them.  It was frustrating because it didn't feel realistic or relatable at all.  I almost gave up on the book because the characters bothered me so much.

In reality, most people have more than one calling at the same time.

In reality, most people have doubted those callings at one time or another.

In reality, not every day is full of joy because you're living out your calling.

In reality, discovering and living out your calling in life is often a sticky, jumbled mess full of high highs and low lows.  It is, quite simply, complicated.

The messiness is multifaceted.  Some callings are lifelong, some are seasonal.  Some are thrust upon us, some are chosen by us.  Some are obvious, some are difficult to discern.  Some are ours alone, some need to be shared and navigated alongside others.  Some are vocations, some avocations.

And many of them exist in tandem.  I don't set aside my calling as a mother in order to pick up my calling as a missionary.  They coexist today, and will coexist again tomorrow.  The same goes for everything I'm called to.  I'm called to marriage, to motherhood, to missions, to writing.  Every day of my life I am a wife, a mother, a missionary, and a writer, and it's the regular collision of these callings that is so difficult to balance.

Things can get very messy when callings collide.

But that's true for most of us.  I am certainly not the only mother out there struggling to find time and energy to pour into my marriage at the end of a long day on the home front.  I'm not the only missionary in the world needing to process my cross-cultural life through writing and finding next to no time to do it.  I'm not the only spouse on the mission field scrambling to justify the label "missionary" when she spends all day at home teaching the kids while her husband spends all day helping and serving the poor.

When callings collide, it can be rather difficult to keep track of all those callings, let alone live them out all at once.

Which is why it's so complicated, and also why we need God's grace every day to live out the callings He's given us.

It's nearly impossible - if not actually impossible - to succeed let alone excel in multiple callings at once.  Most days I completely fail at one or another, and sometimes I fail miserably.  A couple weeks ago my son told me how upset he was because I'd broken a promise to him and, compiled with a bunch of other negative emotions he was experiencing at the time, he said to my face, "I'm just done."  Meaning, he was done with me.  I won't attempt to explain the depth of my grief at being told by my son that I was a failure of a mother, but I use it as a recent example of how hard it is to fulfill even one of our callings let alone anything more.

Today marks the day that I had set a particular writing goal for myself on a certain project.  I set the goal months ago, thinking I could actually achieve it in time.  Well, today is here and I'm nowhere near that goal.  I have completely failed and I'm forced to wonder how this failure figures in to my long-term writing goals.

What does it mean to be a wife and a mother and a missionary and a writer?  What does that look like day in and day out?

I honestly don't know.  Because even when I focus solely on one calling at a time, I don't do it well every day, or even most days.  I get annoyed with my husband, I yell at my kids, I shut myself in the house to avoid any cross-cultural encounters, I ignore my writing project because eating chocolate and watching Netflix is just plain easier.  I fail, and fail, and fail, and fail again.

BUT.  But God's grace remains just as constant as our failures do, and His grace speaks truth into the lie that we probably weren't actually called to this and God must've made a mistake (which is a lie I've been battling a lot recently).

God's grace declares, "You were made for this even though you aren't perfect at it."

His grace speaks, "Acknowledge your failure but also acknowledge My presence and My strength to hold you up."

His grace breathes, "I created you and I chose you for this.  I still choose you for this.  I did not make a mistake."

When callings collide, so does God's grace and love and mercy.  He is gentle with us when we fail.  He is comforting when we grieve.  He is kind in His encouragement, tender in His care, patient in His guidance.  And perhaps more than anything, He is bold in His continued claim of us.  God never called me to be a perfect wife, a perfect mother, a perfect missionary, or a perfect writer.  He called me to be these things and to make of them whatever I could, with His help.  When He called me to them, He knew I would fail at every one of them.  And He still claims me as His own.  And He still invites me to fulfill these callings.

I think God is pleased that I accept the callings He's given me, and that I wrestle through the difficulty of when those callings collide rather than throw them away because it seems too hard or downright impossible to figure it out any other way.

So I keep taking them up, these callings of mine, and wrestle with balancing them most days.  And I pray that God will always send this reminder when I need it most: when callings collide, so does God's grace and love and mercy.