All Fired Up About Paper Chains

I love paper chains.

I mean it - I love them.

There is a paper chain-decoration movement at Ten Thousand Homes that I might have had something to do with. The 2-jillion pack of construction paper in my house, taunting me and the kids on base, leaves us with no other option but to create celebrations. How can you not have fun with a rainbow of school supplies hanging above your head? 

But I really love paper chains for another reason: countdowns.

I make them to countdown all things worthy of counting down – holidays, events, moves, transitions, celebrations - whether I’m plucking off a colorful strip of paper in excited anticipation or in trepidation of what happens after the last link is gone.

Coming to Africa:

When I left for the States last December, I made one for Lifa to count down the time until we’d see each other again:

But here’s the thing.

It’s not about getting to the end of the chain.

It’s about being aware of every part of the journey.

Every link matters.

Every piece means something.

I did not want to graduate from grad school – it meant getting hurled into “the real world” from the safety of a seminary bubble, padded by the most incredible spiritual community on the sandy, sunny West Coast. So I made a paper chain and hung it, obnoxiously and against my friends’ wills, in the hallway of our apartment building. (Amanda even wrote a song about how much she hated the paper chain. But she’s now embraced the countdowns.)  

I made it to remind us that we needed to live every link all the way.

It’s worth it to count each link.

A few weeks ago, I invited my GoGo and family over to the Ten Thousand Homes base. The base is called University Village, and it’s both the place where I live and the home base for a group of people believing in building hope and homes in South Africa’s orphaned and vulnerable children.

It was GoGo’s 60^th birthday! We rolled out the red carpet that night – the entire staff came out for Texas Tacos, cake, singing, dancing and joyfully celebrating a lady who lavishes love freely, despite the evidence of a wearying life etched deeply into her features.

Photo by Lindsey Kaufman

With tears in her eyes and her hands clasped around mine, she told me in SiSwati that night that she’d never had a birthday party or cake. Sixty years had come and gone with no acknowledgement.

In fact, we had the party on the wrong day because she hadn’t remembered her birth date correctly.

Sitting under paper chain decorations on GoGo’s first birthday party, I remembered why I love paper chains.

How much joy…

How much devastation…

How many moments…

How much of God’s love was enclosed in every link of GoGo’s story?

WHY didn’t someone… or EVERYONE… make a paper chain link for every year of GoGo’s life, one link at a time, rather than waiting until there were already SIXTY!?!

I met another 18-ish orphan yesterday, living in a shack made of wood and plastic. She had two or three children and no ID – which means her children probably have no ID. That means no funds, no job and no education. No identity. Nothing to even acknowledges their birthdays. Not even a starting link to say their life is worth a paper chain… or even visible.

WE WERE MADE TO BE KNOWN.

WE WERE MADE TO COUNT.

I know you know that.

Because you’re reading this. And you’re doing this with me.

I help write weekly Ten Thousand Homes updates that come with creative prayer challenges – Want to sign up?

But today, I want to use this space to challenge, to beg and to shout. (Caps lock is no accident.)

Make a 7-link paper chain today. Every night before you go to bed for the next week, remove a link and pray. 

PRAY HARD.

Pray for everybody who’s never had a link. 

Who doesn’t have a piece of paper to tell them their birthday. 

Who has never been counted, much less had a reason to countdown.

Pray for Bongi, the orphan I met.

Pray for Busi, whose home we’re building now.

Pray for Lifa and his family members without ID’s.

MAKE EVERY LINK COUNT.