Sunday, August 31, 2014

Dallas vs Hampton Roads: Driving Edition


There are always fun differences as you travel to different places. Here are a few I've noticed from my recent transition back to life in Hampton Roads. So if you're moving from Dallas to Norfolk or vice versa, or if you're just really intrigued by small cultural differences within the States, I present ...

Dallas vs Hampton Roads: Driving Edition


  1. Pedestrians vs Drivers
    When I was living in Dallas, I had this fear, an overwhelming fear, that someone would jump out in front of my car and I would kill them. "It's one of my goals in life," I would say, "to not accidentally kill someone." While Jacob could understand why I did not want to commit manslaughter, he did not really understand why this was a concern of mine. Until we arrived in Norfolk. Twice during the first week of our time here, we witnessed very very close calls. Closer than running out into the street like a moron (which we all know is danger) but "Augh! That man narrowly escaped being hit by that vehicle!!" Now Jacob knows the fear. Now the fear is real.
    On the other hand, driving in general is far better in the Hampton Roads area than Dallas. To drive in Dallas is to flirt with death. They are aggressive and feel entitled. If they are about to miss their exit, they have no qualms about shooting in front of you across three lanes of traffic to get there. They are the kind of people who reverse on the interstate to avoid making a U-turn. In Norfolk, driver's don't try to kill one another. It's quite nice.
  2. Downtown
    In my first week in Dallas, I went downtown everyday. I had thought that this is what you did in Dallas. I got lost multiple times a day until, Wednesday, I came to accept that getting lost was a feature of driving in Dallas. (I still stand by that.) Most people look at me like I'm crazy. "Why would you do that? Why go downtown with threat of death over you?" Finally, coming home, I remember why that seemed like a good idea at the time.
    In Norfolk, everything is downtown. Does a day pass when we don't find ourselves passing the Scope? Probably not. Jacob at first thought I was manipulating things to force us into Downtown a lot. No. That is just where you go.
  3. Smog
    In Dallas, there are smog warnings. Sometimes construction signs declare that you should roll up your car windows and try to stay inside as smog levels have risen to concerning levels. I never really noticed or smelled any difference.
    Norfolk smells like poison. I don't know if their emissions laws are super lax here because they haven't hit the problem that Dallas has. But, as a pregnant lady, Norfolk is rank with the smells of various emissions, burning rubber, construction odors and more. I've been surprised at how many different ways poison can smell, but a short drive down i-264 will give you quite an inventory.
  4. Size
    In Dallas, everything is spread really really far apart. Dallas is the pretty much in the middle of nowhere which means they have a lot of room to sprawl. Hampton Roads, on the other hand, is nestled in a bunch of water ways, giving us some distinct building limits. So we crowd together and build up. Everything is about 20 minutes from where I'm staying in Norfolk. In Dallas, everything was at least 10 minutes away and all the cool stuff was 40 minutes away. (Consequently, we had boring lives. Live in North Dallas, trust me.)

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Why Pray for the Will of the Lord?

In January, our Bible Study asked: What is something that you can pray for this year that, if it happened, it would totally and 100% be God who did it, no doubt?
I said, to be fully funded by the end of the year.
Jacob said, no, to be fully funded by my birthday. (which is Oct 3rd)
Fast forward a few weeks and we find out we're pregnant and due (drum roll, please) mid-October.
So look at that perfect timing! Our outrageous pray would have us financially set just in time to turn our attention to birthing our child.
Needless to say, we feel pretty good about this. We kinda feel like God placed that outrageous prayer on our lips when God prompted our Bible Study to ask this question, because He knew when we were going to have our family addition.

Do I think that just because God is cool with this timeline, that meeting it is a given?
No. Why? Because God kinda has this thing where He wants everyone to know that He is awesome. It's kinda a theme that permeates the entire Bible and time up to today.
So I expect that God will make me ask for it, beg for it, and scream that I can't do this on my own, before He makes a grand entrance. And in the spirit of beseeching the Lord for our needs, we ask others to come and pray with us, for us.
And on occasion, when I ask, "Can you pray that we'll be fully funded by Oct 3rd?", someone will bow their heads and pray, "and Lord, may your will be done."
...
.....
Now, I desire the will of the Lord in my life. I do, really I do.
But I just don't understand why people refuse to pray for specifics!

I think back to Abraham, who did not pray to God, "Hey, God, you seem pretty peeved right now. So if it's your will to totally obliterate Sodom, may it be done." No. He bargained with God. "Would you destroy the city if there were 50 good people left? Great! ...but what about 45? Ok! Good! How about 10? what if there were just 10?" (Now, it turns out that there weren't 10... But God did spare Lot's family!)

Moses in Exodus 32 talked God down from smiting all the Israelites. Not in the numbers game that Abraham used but by appealing to God's reputation. "God, if you kill off all these people, then the Egyptians you just rescued us from will think that we weren't actually your people. Plus, you promised that the Sons of Abraham would be a great nation. And inherit the world forever. That can't happen if everyone dies." So God relented. (Only to have the Israelites disobey again and punish them with a plague.)

Jesus tells a parable about the persistent widow in Luke 18, who came to an unjust judge repeatedly, asking for the same thing, again and again. Now, the judge didn't actually care about the woman, he just wanted her to stop bothering him. So finally he gave her what she wanted. And Jesus said, "Listen, if a shameless judge would grant her justice, why wouldn't your awesome God answer your prayers?" It seems that Jesus is trying to tell us we "should always pray and not give up" (Luke 18:1)

Now, I know that Jesus, when He demonstrates praying, includes that bit, "your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven." But I think his prayer is a bit of a vague framework. I think "your will" here is more of a general,  that all the nations would praise you, kind of will. Which is totally what Jacob and I are after. And now we'd like to discuss specifics.
And I know that on the mount, Jesus prays for this cup to be taken from him, but if it's the Lord's will, he'll let himself be crucified. But, again, I think asking God, "must I obey You, because I don't like what You want me to do" is different than "will You in Your great majesty please take care of these needs by this time? Please."

Outside of the Lord's prayer and Jesus' example being the reason for this tendency, I wonder if it comes from praying for healing. Which is hard. You want to pray that people get better, but you're afraid that they won't no matter your prayers. And, in the event they don't, it's easier to say that it was the will of God, which you prayed for, that your prayers not being answered or receiving an answer you didn't like. For some even, these words might be a gentle reminder to the grieving that God has a plan even if we don't like it, which I do think is appropriate.

I just don't think we need to give God permission to do what He wants. He is going to totally do what He wants. Even if we can fathom why He wanted that, God does what He wants. But in prayer, we get to come before Him. To repent. To praise. To thank. And to beseech. We get to ask for things.

And we're asking to be fully funded by Oct 3rd!
And we ask you to join us.
(And you can pray however you want. We appreciate your prayers even if you pray for the will of the Lord! :) )

"Then Jesus told his disciples [this] parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up." Luke 18:1

Monday, August 4, 2014

Using our Kid as a Strategy

Jacob and I have spent our whole lives with the expectation that we would have children and we have been excited by that. So when I say that our kid is a strategy move for our ministry, I don't mean exclusively. We want the child for the reason most parents want a child aaaannd a few extra reasons...

Right before we pack our bags and head off into the jungle for the first time may seem like an absurd time to plan to have a child, but here's why it isn't:

1. Status
When Jacob and I were in the village, married, in 2012, we were put with the teens of marriageable age (whether or not married) who had no children. In the village, you weren't considered an adult unless you had kids. (I believe you could also skip that step and be an old person, but you needed some years to pull that off.) We feel like we can do a better job building relationships with people and doing our jobs if our peers are considered the adults of the village and not their angsty teens. For that to happen, we need a child.

2. Language Learning and Relationship Building
If you've ever tried to step out side of your comfort zone while people were looking at you like you were a circus animal and might do a trick or something, you know how valuable it can be to have the focus removed from you. When doing language learning and relationship building, there's a lot of forcing yourself to go outside and talk with people about.... ..... Forcing friends is hard. But when you sit a baby in the dirt, all the attention shifts to the kid and you have an easier time practicing your language and you have something to bond with nationals over. Aren't babies cute?

Furthermore, when our kid gets older, he will have grown up with this language as one of his own. When we come to a place of struggling with words, he might very well be able to step in and save the day. And even more impressively, he could do this with biblical concepts I can't seem to explain well to the nationals and we've found ourselves stuck on. My little translator in training!

3.  Life is More Fun with Kids
You can feel free to disagree with this one, but children are filled with wonder at the littlest things and that's contagious. I think back to some of my least favorite times in the bush and they usually involve me sitting on something I don't want to be sitting on for hours. But having a kid means I get to watch him toddle around and explore his new world. I get to focus in on him and not on - is that ANOTHER bug on my skin?!?!?!? On painfully boring days in the bush, I can pull out some bubbles and watch my kid race after them. Also, Jacob and I have a worthy excuse to bring Legos duplos to the bush.

So as you can see, for the sake of status, skills, and sanity, maybe making a baby right before heading out wasn't as crazy as you had originally been wondering!

Also, be sure to check out our 10 reasons (in more general terms) we're stoked to have a jungle kid.