Sugar and spice and everything nice...that's what little girls are made of.

And that's what we'll be having sometime in January...

Let love be without hypocrisy.
Abhor what is evil.
Cling to what is good.
Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love,
in honor giving preference to one another;
not lagging in diligence,
fervent in spirit,
serving the Lord;
rejoicing in hope,
patient in tribulation,
continuing steadfastly in prayer;
distributing to the needs of the saints,
given to hospitality...
Do not be overcome by evil,
but overcome evil with good.

9/6/11

dear little one,

today i mailed your blanket
the one i've been making all summer long
i had to pack it in a box and i couldn't fit
so i sent it without me
i wish i could be there to give it to you
we'd play peekaboo and then you'd run to my arms
and we'd laugh and laugh

the geese are flying south
i saw them yesterday overhead
and i wished i had wings because i'd join them
and fly to you

the colder the days get
the more i'm reminded that this is the time of year
that i'm supposed to go to your country
[the distance is quite simply much too far for me to row
it seems farther than ever before]

my heart aches and longs and sometimes
i think it will burst out of me
because it can't stand to be so far from you
my little love
[i need you so much closer]

i went to the police station and got fingerprinted for a preschool lab
and remembered back to one year ago
and the year before that
at that same spot, getting paperwork done
so i could fly to you

i am so proud of you
the way you've grown
the things you've learned
your heart of joy
your first "i love you"

baby i have missed so much
it has been too long
don't grow up too fast without me

i hope you never hurt the way i do
i hope you don't miss me
but i hope that you remember
that you are loved

and your momma holds your heart in hers

concrete and swings

by Alanna

Two weeks ago I started college again. So now its back to the mundane things of life. Work, school, homework, fighting. Always fighting for joy. I know that this is where God wants me. Here, in America, for a year. Working and saving money, being a testimony to His goodness, learning patience, helping my mom with the little ones, being a part of my family's life again. I am so thankful for this time that He is giving me. I have a whole year of good things to look forward to. Friday night prayer meetings, Wednesday night chances to pour into the lives of kids here, Sunday morning place of encouragement and worship. I am fighting to keep my eyes wide open for His graces. But then of course, my heart aches to be in Africa. Most of all, I am homesick for my little one.

The day after school started, I found myself laying on our driveway. Face pressed to concrete, tears staining the ground, moaning my questions to Him who sees. Why am I so far away from the son of my heart? If You gave him to me, Lord, then why does an ocean divide us? And why here, why a whole year? Nothing relieves this pain in me. But also, I am sure that He sees. And something beautiful will come of this, because He has promised to make me more like His Son. [for those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son] And I claim that promise for me and my little one.

Some days later, my parents went on a mountain excursion for the weekend, and I found myself being mom for the weekend to my three little sisters. We packed a lunch, went to the library, and played in fountains. We went to the park and I sat on the swings with my little sister. Swinging reminds me of the hanging I do every day. Hanging on only the Lord and His promises, because really I have nothing else to cling to. And I started to realize then, that I can be so blind to the joy and opportunities in this year of waiting. If we have to sit on this swing with our feet dangling, why not feel the wind through our hair? Why not laugh and hang backward and stand up and spin around? My youngest sister taught me so much that day. And after our friends were done playing ultimate frisbee, we all gathered to pray together. I knelt on a rock and spoke thanks. Remembered back to the concrete, and my heart aches. In this joy there is so much pain. And in the midst of my hurt, there is also so much joy. If only I'd open my eyes.

"Hagar and her boy were dying of thirst with a well less than a bowshot away. What insanity compels me to shrivel up when there's joy's water to be had here? In this wilderness, I keep circling back to this: I'm blind to joy's well every time I really don't want to see it. The well is always there. And I choose not to see it. Don't I really want joy? Don't I really want the fullest life? For all my yearning for joy, longing for joy, begging for joy- is the bald truth that I prefer the empty dark?....Do I think Jesus-grace too impotent to give me the full life? Isn't that the only reason I don't always swill the joy? If the startling truth is that I don't really want joy, there's a far worse truth. If I am rejecting the joy that is hidden somewhere deep in this moment- am I not ultimately rejecting God? Whenever I am blind to joy's well, isn't it because I don't believe in God's care? That God cares enough about me to always offer me joy's water, wherever I am, regardless of circumstance. But if I don't believe God cares, if I don't want or seek the joy He definitely offers somewhere in this moment- I don't want God."

(One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp)

one for you, love.

By Mary

I love you more today than I could have dreamed when I met you on a small island that fall, surrounded by turquoise water and warm breezes. We played board games and told jokes and bought random candy at the little store across the street and it felt like we’d known each other for years, not hours.

I love you more than when a dozen roses showed up at the front door and I couldn’t help blushing bright red because “just friends” don’t do those kinds of things.

I love you more than when we met again in an airport at Christmastime and we were like a couple of tongue-tied kids meeting a stranger .You only talked to my family and barely looked at me the whole rest of the day.

I love you more now than when you said I looked adorable, the first compliment you ever paid me in words. I floated on a cloud when I went to sleep that night.

I love you more than the first time we said those three words to each other and I thrilled head to toe. We said them many times over every phone call we had after that.

I love you more than when I was singing lullabies to my last few darlings still awake during their afternoon nap on a South African winter day far away from you. Another girl came in, saying I had to see something and I wondered what it could be that couldn’t wait. I got a gorgeous basket of flowers from you that day and told the story of us a dozen times over.

I love you more today than on those days of misadventure when you were just trying to get on one knee and ask me to spend life together as your wife [and I was swallowing a bite of cheesecake as I said yes]

I told you the other day that my personality would be compatible with just about anybody but you had to have someone like me. We laughed and there was truth in it, but the truth is I need you too. Truth is you grow me in a thousand more ways than if we just got along comfortably. And God knew it. Maybe there isn’t just one person in the world a person could love and be happy with, but I know that God chose you for me forever.

On our anniversary you asked if marriage gets better after the first year. I smiled and said that I hope so. But in my head I wondered too, has it really been so bad? Because when you smile at me and hold my hand, all the fights and hurt and anger and the times we just can’t understand one another, those things don’t matter. I can see them making us closer by God’s redemptive plan.

Our story has been one of redemption from the start, of failures and habits and walls of distrust, of mercy and grace and beautification. Still He’s restoring the years eaten away by sin and the now moments of sarcasm and impatience, the harsh words that leave our lips unguided by His grace. Every time we talk it through and we both really share and stop to listen, a wall goes down. We know each other more; we took a step along His path, more together.

Our romance isn’t always like the movies, but I see your love when you come with me every time to the grocery store and push my cart, or listen to my girl talk when there’s no one else to hear it, or take me to a concert even though you’re tired. I see it when you work hard every day to provide, surprise me with a trip to Starbucks, or take our dog out for me because you know I’m just tired.

I loved you so soon after we first met and through everything life has brought along. But I don’t love you only for what we’ve shared or the things you do. I love you-who you are, who you’ve been, the person God is making you. I love you in your mistakes and successes. And everyday you become another reason for me to thank God, a daily gift for all our life together.

I love you...then and now and always.

when comes the rain

By Mary

The skies are slate gray, heavy-laden with water just ready to fall down in torrents as it has the past several days. There was a river of it running through the grass when we took our dog out last night and with dripping hair and wet feet I think again of God's perfect timing, His good gifts, how He sends the rain to the earth in it's season.

In the past month, there have been two special dates marked in blue pen on my calendar. One year since I married the love of my life, two since I met the children who stole my heart forever.

I remember so clearly choking back the tears when Alanna and I said goodbye to our families at the airport and ventured through security. I remember sitting, waiting to board a crowded flight, catching up on the last week or two that we hadn't seen each other much with our last minute preparations and spending time with people we'd be leaving behind. We griped about not even knowing the time because we left our cell phones. And we wondered why had decided to go to a city as far away from home as we could get in the world when we were perfectly happy with the lives that we had.

And oh how overwhelmed I felt when I wandered up to the nursery the morning after our late arrival with the dishes piled high next to the sink and baths underway and people going here and there with a job to do and however was I going to fit in here? I didn't know til months later that the hardest thing about the entire experience would be leaving.

And then our wedding--all fun and bliss and dreams come true. Two people so in love--and stubborn, impatient and oh so sinful. I've read so much about marriage and heard such great advice and somewhere along the line I began to think that it takes hard work to make a marriage perfect ntil I realized that a marriage is hard work--and it will never be perfect.

We have our starry-eyes and our giddiness and our fights and the times when our favorite person on earth seems like the worst one we've ever encountered and even in this first year our commitment has come down to such an ugly-beautiful as "I know God hates divorce so I won't".

So I look out at the rain falling in sheets and I see more clearly every day that God has a plan far beyond mine. Sometimes the rain feels sweet and warm and sometimes it's cold and stinging. Sometimes the days just seem so dry--and never is life what I expect it.

God reaches beyond my expectations and allows me to serve and live in beautiful South Africa, to love well snotty noses and spit-up and sticky kisses and dirty nappies, to break my heart for precious lives and grow me through the year and a half away from them.

He shows me His love for me, not just when my husband and I love each other as He's called us to do, but when our relationship shows us how much patience and compassion He has for us-His bride, His children, His people. What sacrifice for sinners, what tender mercies for His broken redeemed.

You visit the earth and water it,
You greatly enrich it;
The river of God is full of water;
You provide their grain,
For so You have prepared it.
You water its ridges abundantly,
You settle its furrows;
You make it soft with showers,
You bless its growth.

You crown the year with Your goodness,
And Your paths drip with abundance.
They drop on the pastures of the wilderness,
And the little hills rejoice on every side.
The pastures are clothed with flocks;
The valleys also are covered with grain;
They shout for joy, they also sing

--Psalm 65:9-13

lasting brokenness

by Alanna

So the news has finally reached American soil, and even though it hasn't made big headlines yet, if you search for it you can find stories of the drought in eastern Africa. They say that the drought has affected an estimated 12.5 million people. The biggest refugee camp in the world, Dadaab, Kenya, now holds 400,000 people. Children starving, political violence, families fleeing. Always, requests for money to help alleviate suffering. This reminds me of the disasters that came before- the tsunami in Asia, the earthquake in Haiti. We are faced with a choice, as always. It's not a hard choice though, really. To open up our fat wallets and write a check. To mail the almighty dollar as we close our hearts and turn back to our petty sandcastles. Will this be like everytime before? A small snippet in the newspaper, months later, explaining that the Red Cross actually didn't send that aid to Haiti. The harsh reality, one and a half years later, that the crumbled down buildings still lay where they fell. And all of us still walking about, one more callous added to our already impenetrable hearts. I pray that this time, we recognize that maybe money is not enough. That maybe money was just meant to be a start, and maybe God meant what He said when He said to care for orphans and widows in their distress. I pray that this time, we don't move on from another disaster. I pray that our hearts stay broken. That we remember and grieve everyday for the millions of individual God-images, that are starving to death all the time. I pray that our grief and our brokenness, move us to action. And that our hearts remain pliable, broken shards in the hands of our Creator. Mourning for the lost, begging God with tears in the dirt, for Him to come and restore all things.