Something New!

Today I woke up at 4 am. I couldn't sleep. I don't know if it was nerves or excitement.

Today, is a new day! Today I get to pick up our first Mission Nanny! I have had Nanny McPhee here for short spurts of time, but the problem is she thinks I don't need her and she leaves. Nanny McPhee is irreplaceable to me. She keeps me sane. She is family. She is perfect with the kids. She helps keep me organized. She helps me on the computer. She shares her wisdom and reminds me where to find my peace each day. BUT... Nanny McPhee thought she was better used in other areas so for a long time I have been waiting and searching for a mission nanny!

Over the last year we had several responses, but the dates didn't work. Or something always affected the final decision and Honduras ended up not being on their list. TILL NOW!!!!!!!! Today I get to pick up our own interim nanny. She will be here until she starts school again. We are elated! I am so excited that my kids will have to endure their last eight hours in a car waiting for mom to complete all of her jobs. I am excited that maybe I can sit with a staff member for the first time and not have one of my own kids on my lap. I am excited that bringing home the extra babies will be a shared burden. I am excited that when I can't pick up Jayden from school and he sits waiting for me for three hours that someone else can go get him. OR that I can leave him behind and not make him miss class so I can try and get my projects finished. I am super excited that for the first time maybe someone else can see that my kids haven't had lunch before it is 3:30 in the afternoon.

Please pray that she can deal with the heat, lack of water, and power outages that frequent our lives. Pray that she is patient with me and can read between the lines when I stop talking mid sentence to run off and handle something else. Pray that she can deal with my crazy family and our wild stylings. Pray that she stays healthy while she is here. Pray for her blessings to be a torrential down pour as a reward for her sacrifice. Pray for me to be sensitive to her and her needs while she is here and not to abuse her.

Maybe we can actually have a date night!?!

Random Thoughts

Have you ever noticed how negativity tends to be more attractive than positivity?

1. The bad kids get more attention. (Yes, because he needs more correction. Just get my point, k?)

2. The sex title gets more reads.

3. The ass blog gets the most feedback. (Forget the 100 before it full of love, hope, thanks, grace.)

4. Target gets the most comments in your newsfeed.


Why can't people be supportive in the good? Why is it so hard for us to join good causes, but so easy to comment when something makes us angry?

Why is it so easy to criticize loved ones and so hard to be a genuine encouragement?

I know I am not the only one that thinks these things. It is human nature. It is easier to cut someone down in frustration and not build them up.

Why is it so hard to get people to push a good cause forward, but so easy for the negative news to spread like wild fire.

Half-Assed

For those of you that know me well,  you can hear me singing "Dominick the Donkey!" HEE HAW! If you don't know that song, you really need to look it up:  Dominick the Donkey

I said it. I never was allowed to say these things when I grew up. There were two phrases that my grandma used, but we could not whisper them.  First there was the smart ass.  And that smart ass probably got in trouble for doing something half-assed (the other word I dare not whisper.) I never understood what those phrases had to do with anything. I didn't really think about it until I used that word today. So silly me… I went to wiki-pedia.  I didn’t want to just assume. Assuming leads me to the same common denominator.  So, I looked up smart-ass. To my surprise I was informed that a donkey is a donkey. A smart donkey. A dumb donkey. It is all just a donkey. 

This is Wikipedias Smart-Ass, I couldn't find a half.

Then you have the half-assed. I have to admit. I typed it into google. I just wanted to know. Wikipedia was no help to me when I tried to look up the half-assed definition.  So here is what I found:

half-assed; half-arsed adjective 1 inferior, unsatisfactory, incompetent US, 1865. 2 incomplete, not serious, half-hearted US, 1933 -        A SPECIAL thank you to the New Partridge Dictionary of Slang.

Did you know that this phrase appears in a general court martial dating back to 1863? I didn’t either. Now we can be smarter together! 

There is really a game guys!
I think I may need to find it!

So here is the deal. How are you living? Are you full-heartedly committed to doing things in life? Or are you just half-assing it? (Side Note: I would really like to use a term whole-assed too, but it just doesn’t sound right!)

At work? At home? On the mission field?

Sometimes, what a person means to be as help, isn’t really helping me. Can you relate?

I really needed to get some work done. So Mr. Wonderful stayed home to help with the kids. However, staying home  meant asking me to back up his phone. Making food because someone was hungry. Him taking the kids outside to play and after two minutes calling me to come get the baby. After five minutes calling for me because Jayden was thirsty. Twenty minutes later finding that the baby I had recently walked inside had a diaper that was soaked with water and exploded all over the floor that I got up early to clean. Help? Did you say help? It would be easier for me to lock them in their rooms so they can play and so I can focus! But… He tried to help! I recognize the effort orrrr lack there of. His help was not the kind of help that I was desperately seeking in the moment.

At work? What did you only spend half the time doing because you were too busy on Facebook? Everyday I have staff members that I have literally been requesting things from since October not hand in the completed project, but by golly there are ten new posts on Facebook and a hundred new pictures being sent to all of the gringos that come to visit. Where are the reports? Why were the forms not filled out properly for the government? Why did you not make that meeting? Did you forget you were supposed to be working?  Why didn't the guys have the materials on time so they could work? And that leads me to this... How did you let your company down today? Are you reading this when you should be working? Please, don't let me be your distraction. My tangents can wait until your break.

This happens on the mission field. If you want to know the honest truth, ask the missionary that you support to tell you.  We all talk about it when you all go home. Short term groups are known for coming in, blowing up, and taking off. Are they beneficial? YES! Do we love to host them? YES!!! But do they many times create more work and cause more damage? YES!!!!!!! Could they improve their actions and accomplish more thus providing more support to the missionary? YES!!!!!!!!!!! Just ask us how!

Short termers come in and throw around money to staff and/or the people receiving the ministry causing the people supported by the ministry to get delusional thinking every American has the money and I should be paying them more and they immediately forget every blessing received by the ministry up until this point. The new car. The $1,500 for the surgery. The old car repairs. The no living expenses all free living plus an income. Yea... All of that! It gets forgotten. Like it never happened.

Teams are known for bringing down limited budgets to work with and maybe not being able to have the funding or time to complete a task, but they attempt it anyway. Leaving messes for the people on the ground to clean up. Starting projects with outsiders that then look to the on the ground people to follow through when maybe we had no clue there was even a contract.  Or sending and supporting a family that is in need, but privately we (the on the grounders) know the true need is because of their own foolish ways of not picking up the fishing pole to fish so we (the on the grounders) have moved our resources to an area that is known to have more fertile soil. This isn't to be mean. Missionaries are not picky or selfish people. We are the ones that really will go hungry to make sure the needy are fed. We see the real need behind the smoke screens that the homeless kid on the corner begging is showing you. (His mom is sitting there behind him in the parking lot or maybe that little boy just ran away from another orphanage and is begging just so he can feed his drug addiction.) 

Sometimes, I think it is because as humans we don’t have respect for what is going on behind the scenes. Sometimes… It is because deep deep down we don’t truly consider anybody else, but ourselves.  Did you give because you have a heart that is desiring to meet the need or was it to make yourself feel good and ease your conscience? Not that both are not desired.  We need both types of givers. 

Do you know how much a ministry, any ministry would thrive if more than 20% of the givers actually cared about the true needs and tried to meet them? Have you asked your pastor what your church NEEDS and rallied behind him to help accomplish it? I am mean really hear the desires in your core and ask to better understand so you can be a bigger part and meet the larger need! Not the silly, quick, easy, superficial so I can pat myself on the back for helping need. I mean the one that aches you to finish and that is a real sacrifice for you to make because just like you there are a thousand others that kind of want to help if they don't have to sweat or bleed. How would your own church grow if more than 20% of the congregation started to give back with their time and resources? How would your business and workplace blossom if more than 20% of the staff gave 100% of an effort every day?  This is a hard thing to ask, but how would your own family be affected if when you came home at the end of a long day and actually connected with them for more than just fifteen minutes before bed? And what about a day of no tv? WAIT!!! That means no news!

What if every church member cared as much for the church as the head pastor? What if every employee cared as much about the business and its customers as the business owner? And what if every member of the family cared as much about how clean the house stays as the one that cleaned it?

It is hard for me to turn off my phone and email.  Guess what I do when I can’t sleep? Guess what I do when I am stressed and want to disconnect? What is right beside me as I make dinner?  Technology has ruined us in many ways. There are great benefits to being able to live around the world and in seconds receive a picture of a loved one or even video chat. There are also great threats to our success as a human race; as a parent, a spouse, a minister, an employee, or boss. 

I know this isn't for everybody. Many of you are way better than me. And I recognize that many of you are putting in way more effort than I will ever see. You are not the majority!

Bottom Line: I don't want to give a kid with a desire to be a butcher a spoon. I want to find him a sharp knife so he can get started and begin to practice. I don't want to give an aspiring chef an additional plastic bowl to boil soup in... The plastic bowl, he already has one. What he needs is a stock pot. Did you ask what he needed? Do you care about meeting the need, or are you just excited to give something away?

I don’t want to be an ass.  I want everything I do to be whole hearted and with excellence! Don't you agree?

Go Ye... Donde?

You remember the feeling you felt as you walked down the hall in high school for the first time? The way your hands and knees trembled. The feeling that ached in the pit of your stomach as you were called up front for something by the homeroom teacher. Of the uncomfortable and awkward stress that engulfed every inch of your being as you sat in the huge lunch room. For those that went to a small school, maybe it wasn't like that. It was easy for me to be a big fish in my small private school. The year I went from a school of 200 to 2,000, something changed. I became insecure. What is funny about that is the way that every single one of those 2,000 kids had those moments, but rarely was it spoken about.

As as adult... Maybe because of random experiences, I developed more of an I don't really care mentality. (Most of the time that is.) If you want to try and make me care then I find myself pushing myself away from you.

Explanation:

If you are a valued member of my life then I respect your thoughts and opinions. I will share information with you. If you are not one of these members and try to force your opinion on me I become cold or just neglect to value what I hear. There is nothing wrong with this. I ask for advice from those I respect. I do not give respect nor do I value advice from those who have not earned it.

That is normal.

Respect is earned. Respect is to be valued. Respect is not demanded or commanded. It takes playing a part in the lives of the people around you.

This is so true in leadership. A true leader will fight with you. A true leader pauses to see what the hold up is on their teams and evaluating resolutions and working through to the finish line together. Osea (Like), Leading by example.

I am often dumbfounded by the way visitors tend to give opinions and thoughts on missions never having lived on the mission field, or lived in Honduras, or worked with abused children. I sometimes start to feel the high school intimidation consuming my body, then I quickly remind myself that I am starting to act like a child again and push myself beyond that moment. The problem really isn't me here. How do I know this? Because the criticism would be followed up by assistance to accomplish the correction if the criticism actually came from a person of value (in the instance a leader). And a true leader or person of value would not try to make you feel nor desire for you to feel the awkward intimidation.

Everyone has felt that intimidation. All of us have experienced the awkward feeling of not measuring up and not having value. From the Class Clown to Mr. Popularity. The difference is how we react. Do we embrace reality and press in so we can move forward? Or do we give up and back away?

I am trying to teach my son to be a little like Simba and "laugh at the face of danger." In other words push through uncomfortable moments and recognize value in the people around him. This is hard. So much of the confidence he will one day have comes with time. It comes with maturity. There is part of him that recognizes when he is acting shy. He is learning. He now reports when he is feeling this way. Teaching him to press in, pass it to the side, and do what it is he came to do is complicated. Little by little, we can get there.

Telling him these things is great. It doesn't mean much though. Living by example, well...
The other day I had to run for a meeting. I tried on several outfits. I fixed my hair and face four times. (I didn't look any better than before I started.) Jayden asked me why I was being silly. I recognized that I had regressed all the way back to my childhood. I had to be honest. "Jayden, I think I am just uncomfortable because I know they will be pretty. They will be professional. They will be prepared." I was coming from cleaning up baby poop and dealing with high school problems because one of our kids isn't doing very well in math. I didn't feel like I could put on a different hat to go meet with an attorney in the moment. The funny thing is that the attorney was asking to meet me because they needed help with a case. It had nothing to do with something on my end it was them seeking something from me. Isn't it funny how quickly we get consumed and start to feel inferior?

I am recognizing more and more the importance of not just suggesting... Not just speaking... But actually being the example. It is one thing to have the ideas. It is another to take the time to implement them help change the action.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. (Thank you Mr. Warren! This and your talk about absolute power follow me every where!)

If I want to cause a positive reaction, I have to create and be part of the positive action.

Whether it be in motivating my child to change or motivating staff to move in a different direction.  I can't expect an outcome if I am not willing to be part of the movement. What are you willing to invest to be part of the change? What is it that you don't like and why? How are you going to help change it? Words... they are just words. Change needs action! Action not hesitant because of intimidation.

In the last two years we have been surrounded by some really amazing churches. They may not have all the money in the world to help accomplish and change everything in the moment. BUT they have the hearts. Their people are full of love and compassion. They recognize the imperfection amongst all of us. They see our hearts are trying. Their pastors and staff have offered so much guidance and encouragement. They don't say "Hey! You guys have it all together!" NOPE!!!! They do say, "Keep going. You will get there! Keep growing!" Then they help us grow. One block and bag of cement at a time.  I learn so much about leadership by watching them lead. Watching their honesty. Hearing their stories. It is refreshing.

They have taught me that change needs action and it doesn't happen because you order it to. Unfortunately, Genesis has God resting on the 7th day and never saying that He empowered us to speak new change into being without actually becoming the change. In fact, I think when Jesus came into play it became more of an example than ever of the way we are supposed to be. Read that again. The way we are supposed to "BE." He is our example to follow. He became the change. Touching one life at a time. He didn't save everyone. He did save the few that He could. AND Other than demanding illness to leave and calling down miracles... where is there a story about Him commanding anybody into action? One exception, "GO YE!" He commanded us. Not some of us. He commanded all of us to take part in this change. High school intimidation step aside... Now Just GO! Take action! Be that change!

Scary? Yes, I know. One step in front of the other. Start now. Don't go buy that Starbucks! Stick that $5 aside to make a change some how, some way... You doing it. You sending someone to do it. Or you sending it to someone that is already doing it. You have the power. Start that mission or support that mission.

I, like many others, am running on very little sleep. I have a new born. She isn't mine. Can I be honest? I don't even want her. I am tired of raising kids. I know that nobody else seems to care for babies the way my momma would and it disgusts me so I sacrifice and keep her with me. I could just pay someone to be a nanny, but we don't have enough funding. I just had to turn away five kids last night. I can't take on any more kids. I am out of beds. I have two kids sleeping on the floor. I had to tell five kids between the ages of four and eleven that I could not take them home with me. I left them sleeping in the holding cell at the police station. I am trying to do all that I can to impact the lives of the kids that surround me. I need help. I need funds. I need people!

Are you hearing me? If you are supposed to be here helping... PLEASE COME!!! We need you!

I know that bills are forever showing up in the mail. I know that you probably already give to ten different charities, but if you can spare just and extra $5 a month... please give it! It doesn't have to be to ODM. There are plenty of people that are desperate for your assistance. Give more. Do more. Be a part of the change! Take some action!

GO YE!!

Dirty Little... Slut?

"Don't come home until you can bring me 500 Lempiras!"  I am sure that she was never told to sell herself. I am almost positive that she never wanted to offer her body to make the money. But I know that making that money in one day in this country doesn't happen very often. Unless, you are willing to work the streets! Every day the words, names, actions that surrounded her implied what she was to become. "You dirty little slut! You are worthless! You are good for nothing! I would rather be spliced with chicken wire than have to continue to look at your face! Don't you dare come home without that money."

I know that this week my own family is eating the basic rice and beans because we just haven't had the income. In a country where even with a college degree you are probably only going to make $600 a month. In a country where meat, gas, eggs, and milk are more expensive than where I lived in the States. In a country where the average income is only a few dollars a day. I can kind of "get it", you know? 

What if the label already ran in the family? Why wouldn't an hour of my time, no matter how miserable it was, be okay if it meant I had milk and bread for my kids? There are many that do it for free. Why is she more guilty? Because she received pay? Isn't sin, SIN? Who has the power to rate the degree of sin? When you speed? When you don't wear a seat belt?  Isn't it all breaking the law? How and who gets the priveledge of defining the level of offense? This has been my reply to my staff.

Forgive me now, this will probably be too much for you to handle. 

I have an employee that was/is a prostitute. And I will not fire her because of it. I am not capable.

For two years I have had the desire to work with prostitutes. I have longed to have donors designate funds for me to pay the girls for their time. Take them to dinner. Love on them. Be a friend. And send them home. Why? Because I know most of them are required to perform this way. They know without money in their pocket they will be beat. They know they will be gang raped on their way back home when their performance hasn't pleased El Jefe. They know their family will be hurt. They really don't have many options to escape their inevitable reality. Even if they don't want the red light outside their window the gang will just put it back up again tomorrow.

I believe she started for the same reason. I know that she was forced into some acts by family because of stories she has entrusted to me. I just never knew the depth. I never knew how recent. I never knew... Maybe I should have asked.

She is loyal. She is a hard worker. She is the most dependable worker we have. She is grateful. She is so grateful that she comes to me weekly with hugs and tears full of gratitude for the opportunity. On Easter Sunday she profusely thanked me for changing her life and allowing her to feel loved for the first time.

Frankly, I don't care what she was known for in her past. I know that she can have a future. I don't see her past choices affecting our kids. Actually, I see it helping her encourage them more in their studies and helping her to constantly remind them of their current opportunities. 

This wasn't my idea. I never planned on having a prostitute for hire help us with the ministry. Rahab married into one of the leading families in Israel. I can only imagine the judgement that came upon them. I would bet a million dollars her husband never dreamed he would one day marry the town whore. And the in-laws... I laugh as I think about dinner conversations as he suggests the idea and says "Mom, I'm gonna marry her anyway." What was God thinking as He allowed all of this to happen? Oh, you know, probably about how He could best accomplish His work because she was the willing servant that didn't give a crap about anything other than doing what she believed was right in her heart.

The balls it took for Rahab to betray her people. She was already an outcast. She was viewed as less than. She was probably disowned by her only family because of her lifestyle. She still stuck her neck out on the line for these "men of God". When you read the story and actually pay attention, she acknowledges that these men were sent "By the ONE true God." Imagine that. She chose, I mean the harlot decided, to help accomplish the will of God. Because of her heart to serve she married up! Not a little up... Big up! And check out the genealogy... The blood line that leads up to our Savior.

She is beautiful. She is valuable. She is worthy of second chances. She can bring a piece to the table that we are all missing. Help me love her! It is easy when I feel the need and can relate. It is easy, some of the time. In the midst of the ridicule... It is so hard. (I feel kind of skitzo because in my head it is more like this:  She is beautiful, slut. She is valuable to her pimp daddy. She is worthy of second chances to bring home more dough.) I want to cry as I write these thoughts. Whether flying through my head in a joking manner or not. It isn't fair. Not to her. Not to her family. Not to her kids. She is a treasure. Not because of who she can blow and how much dough she can bring home. She is a treasure because she, like me, is covered in the same blood. Her Savior, is mine. Her daddy, He is mine. He sees His daughter. His beautiful little girl. Worthy of nothing, yet she inherits EVERYTHING. She is the daughter of the same King. Her father, like mine, owns the cattle on a thousand hills. She is adopted into the family, forgiven of everything, crazy history wiped clean... I mean blank slate.                  She is beautiful.                 She is a princess.

So many times my part in the ministry has nothing to do with the kids at all. It is more about the staff. I need an open heart that is always willing to go the extra mile. Even if an entire town will judge you for it. I need the strength and stamina to continue pushing and pulling out staff in the right direction. Helping them heal and leading them to wholeness. I need the understanding so I don't join the rest as fingers are pointed and as judgement is cast down. Wisdom to say the right thing at the right time and that it would help to bring a calm in the midst of chaos. I need... To not care about the ugly truth of the past of any of them, but to continually see them as He does.

I didn't plan to save a prostitute. It just kind of happened. Now I have to not throw in the towel and quit on her like everyone else in her past...
Hey Val! I guess we finally started that side of the ministry. Ready or not. It just kind of happened! Help me!