'Twas the Day Before Christmas

‘Twas the day before Christmas, a perfect summer day,

We’d cooked, and we'd cleaned, and we were ready to play.

The stockings were stuffed with sweeties and love,

With hopes of turning hearts to the greatest gift from above.

We dressed all the children in their brightest and best,

Not knowing our joy would soon be put to the test.

I’d already written on the rock a bold proclamation,

Choosing God’s joy in all is my newest revelation.

I pulled into Dwaleni and heard no children chatter,

I sprang from the Condor to see what was the matter.

Mama Charity came out and said Busi’s brother was sick,

To go to the hospital – and to get there quick!

I made that too-familiar drive around that same old, big mountain,

Just in time to hear he was gone, to receive Busi’s tears like a fountain.

I wrapped arms around her and started to pray,

And my heart sunk thinking, ‘Why did I write about joy today?’

While we talked to the Father who gave His own Son,

I knew in a moment we must not get undone.

More rapid than eagles, His peace surely came,

As we leaned, and we trusted, and we called on His Name.

“Now Father! Come quickly! Your children are crying!”

“Come joy! Come peace! Even while sick and while dying.”

From the words on that rock to the sorrow of our hearts,

Can you really come and bring holiness to all of these parts?

As Busi stayed to mourn, we brought her baby away,

Sweet girl will still have Christmas and for her mom we will pray.

So back to the cottage, the Condor it flew –

Our hearts not quite shining as we wanted them to.

And then, like a whisper, I remembered what is True,

I opened the Word and knew just what to do.

I gathered the mamas and cried as I read,

He’s dressed us for eternity; it’s what His Word said.

Cloaked in a garment of praise, not a spirit of despair,

He offers the robe of salvation; it’s been waiting right there.

A bundle of peace exchanged for the cross on his back,

In His eyes, He sees a Bride. There is nothing we lack.

His eyes- for His Beloved; He’s dressing Her to marry,

Will she put on Her crown, Her inheritance to carry?

We had to take action, respond to His outstretched hand,

Because this baby King brought access to our Promised Land.

We prayed for Busi’s family, and then we decided to choose joy.

To celebrate the coming of this life-saving baby boy.

We put smiles on our faces and gathered all those curious little eyes,

And we pulled out the very most wonderful surprise!

It was time to play dress up, and we were keeping it real.

Adorning ourselves in delight, no matter how we feel.

Like a wink from our Healer as we put crazy wigs on our heads,

We knew, come what may, we have nothing to dread.

His Word rang true, and we went straight to joy’s work,

Light filled all our hearts, left darkness no place to lurk.

We shared a great meal and remembered how love grows,

With hugs and with kisses, our spirits all rose.

The kids sprang to their feet full of sugar and cheer,

And that when I knew it was time to get them out of here!

I’ll always remember one thing from this Christmas Eve.

I’ll trust His higher ways; His path I won’t leave.

Every day from now on, I will command my soul to rejoice,

Because Christmas is about when True Love made a choice.

Merry Christmas with love from South Africa!

Joy Bubbles: Lessons from a little boy

Lifa’s home!

And the cottage has turned into a comedy club.

Jokes, dances, and giggles are bouncing off these same walls that, just a week ago, I felt like were closing in on me.

This house feels different. I feel different. My perspective and countenance has done a complete turnaround as my arms have wrapped around this sweet little boy-giant. I’ve never been so thankful to be so tired, to wash so many dishes, and do so much laundry.

This little cottage felt barren and broken last week… or maybe that was me.

This week, it feels like it’s bursting with life, joy and baked goods!

There’s been bumper car driving...

Cookie rolling…

Cookie decorating…

Cookie eating…

 

LOTS of dancing…

Even a little tooth losing…

And lots of bubble-bathing.

Laughter… the real laughter that I’ve been praying would return… bubbles out of me. Pure, unrestrained love erupts through running, jumping, spontaneous bursts of affection out of that little boy who was once silent, withdrawn and invisible.

I can’t help but remember the promises we started this year claiming… The Year of the Lord’s Favor. (Isaiah 61)

Less than a month ago, I was washing away my prayers as I wrote them with heart-broken, angry, burning tears. I was stomping my spiritual foot and telling my Maker, “YOU SAID YOU TURN ASHES INTO BEAUTY. YOU SAID you replace mourning with joy, garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. YOU SAID this was the year of Glory.”

Yeah.

I tooooold Him.

Yesterday, it wasn’t tear-washing that brought me back to that passage in Isaiah like it was a few weeks ago… It was Lifa-washing. At bath time. Because during bath time, Lifa had a dawning and life-changing scientific discovery: He realized he can add so many more bubbles to his bath by adding a little personal gas. He’s actually still laughing about it.

I laughed so hard. (And also explained to him what the word disgusting means.)

And, yes, I should be embarrassed to tell you that it was really that moment (among many others) that reminded me of my faithful Father.

He binds broken hearts and set the captives free.

Not always in the ways you think He will either.

I didn’t think bath bubbles (especially of the stinky persuasion) would do a healing work on my heart. And I didn’t think that adding more people, mess and chaos into this tiny cottage would set me free.

I didn’t think the Year of the Lord’s Favor, the Year of Glory, would end with me in this same little cottage, with this same back-and-forth ambiguous routine with Lifa, with no birth certificate, and with a taller tower of tear-filled journals.

It is ending with all of those things, but it’s also ending with joy. Complete joy.

And, guess what… I’m going to read Isaiah 61 again in 2014, and claim is as the Year of the Lord’s Favor again.

I’m going to call 2014 the Year of Joy. And I’m going to choose it.

Bath bubbles and Christmas cookies are fleeting… (at equally rapid rates!)

My circumstances and my emotions are like shifting sand.

But the Kingdom of God is unshakable.

“Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.” Hebrews 12: 28-29

I’m asking my God, the consuming fire, to burn away my expectations and my burdens, and to keep on exchanging those ashes for His beauty.

“Instead of your shame you will receive a double portion,

and instead of disgrace you will rejoice in your inheritance.

And so you will inherit a double portion in your land,

And everlasting joy will be yours.”

Isaiah 61:7-8

And I’m latching on to Joy – living, breathing, active, sovereign, complete Joy – within me and choosing it every day. He’s my promise and He’s my peace. Everything else can burn away… and make more room for beauty.

“Though the mountains be shake and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,’ says the Lord, who has compassion on you.”

Isaiah 55:10

Ocean View

I just got home from a week on the beach.

This rural plot on Old Plaston Road is only a 7-hour drive from the Indian Ocean. To make it even better, it was family vacation. Although a deep part of me was crying out to make cold(ish)-weather Christmas memories with the ones I love back in Texas, I was thrilled and blessed and loved to overflow this year when my close-enough-to-be-family friends and leaders, John and Carla, invited me on their holiday trip.

We’d been counting down the days until we left…

This year has been unbelievable on every spectrum.

There have been highs and lows that you can only know if you dare to love with everything. We’d spent the year urging each other on to deeper love - love that changes you.

And, quite frankly, we needed to take a deep breath and to step away from the extremities of our daily life, the highs and lows of loving all the way.

Speaking of extremes...
In Africa, there's no such thing as a typical beach vacation!

We needed to let the ocean’s tides wash over everything 2013 has washed up and to clear a space in our hearts and minds for new footprints, castles and dreams to be etched.

And it was going to be a REAL vacation. Not just a little 2-night, I-hope-this-helps dip into respite, hoping to subdue dried out hearts. We were packing our big girl (and big boy) bags, and going away for SIX NIGHTS.

I’d promised Mama Charity I’d come back with the same color skin as her.

It’s summertime in South Africa - BRING ON THE SUNTAN!

We were welcomed to our lovely beach cottage by… RAIN.

And the rain didn’t stop for FOUR DAYS!

We played Yahtzee. We memorized the aisles of the grocery store, even though we didn’t need to buy anything. Carla baked cookies. We signed up for pilates. I went on walks in the rain. And we went freakin’ stir-crazy.

I poured the bucket of questions, cries and burdens that traveled with me into my journal since I couldn’t pour it into the ocean. I drained the ink of all my pens with the burdens of burnout, the worries of countless what-ifs, and with hollowing homesickness. I wondered what my faith was really made of and if it was strong enough to withstand the storm, both outside and in.

The rain kept falling.

And the part that drove me crazy is that it wouldn’t pour. It sprinkled, misted, drizzled and pitter-pattered. And if the heavens would have just released the torrent it was hoarding, WE COULD HAVE GONE TO THE BEACH.

 A light and steady resistance just kept falling.

Finally, we said goodnight on the fourth night at the beach cottage to the sounds of real rain. Loud rain. Real rain.

And the sun was up at 4:30am the next day! And so were we!

We had our beach umbrellas set up, sunscreen on, and feet in the sand by 7:30am… and we stayed for almost 9 hours to make up for lost time.

I walked along the shoreline with my Savior.

The tides washed my feet, and the Healer washed my heart.

I looked at that ocean that kept going.

Kept washing. Kept flowing.

It was there the whole time.

It was constant and unchanging during the four-day drizzle.

I’d just spent so many days staring at that little storm cloud icon on the weather map. But the deep kept washing, rolling and flowing the whole time.

We spent two full days of perfection on that beach. PERFECTION.

And, you know what, it restored me.

It washed me. It refreshed me.

In just two days.

As I walked along the shores of the One who keeps washing and flowing and restoring, I realized how quickly the rainy days were forgotten when the sun came out.

As soon as I stepped into the sunlight and let that water wash over me, I felt new. All the sounds except rushing water faded away and, for a minute, I soaked in what Forever will sound like.

Right now – and for the last 3 days since we returned -  I’ve been staring, daring and begging my phone to ring or vibrate or do SOMETHING that says Lifa can come home today. And for that one call that’s promised to come any moment, the one we’ve been waiting on for 2 ½ years, that says there’s a birth certificate with his name on it that is real.

And I’m back to feeling crazy. I’m back to feeling that constant drizzle, the unyielding resistance, that is filling my bucket of burdens.

So, I open all those pages I filled in the beach cottage. And I pour Living Water into my stubborn and struggling spirit. And water threatens to pour out of my eyes.

And I remember how I forgot.

I spent DAYS staring at a tiny storm cloud icon, when the ocean was there the whole time.

There were a lot of deferred dreams in 2013. And I bet there will be in 2014 too. Clouds come and block that radiant glow. But it’s still back there. And, when it rises and shines, the rainy days are washed away and joy wins.

But back in the farmlands, where the mangoes and the litchis are ripening, I remember that it takes rain and sunshine to make fruit grow. It takes the heavens drizzles and downpours to drain me of myself give my heart back to Him so he can do even greater things than this.

So, today, whether that phone rings or not, I’m going to set my sights on the ocean. On the Deep, Who keeps coming and healing and restoring.

There will be rainy days and sunny days, but I won’t set my course on a weather map. What’s True is not found on a tiny forecast icon. My vision and my home is higher and greater.

I’ll fix my gaze on heaven, where there is always an ocean-view.

And I’ll be thankful. Because He always comes, heals and restores. 

The Blubbering Turkey

‘Tis the season, in America, for the great holiday rev-up.

Today, a week’s worth of planning, traveling, grocery store lines, and cooking culminates around that famous and DELICIOUS traditional meal, hopefully a bit of giving thanks, and usually some football. Then, a certain species of Americans will push through 3am crowds for extreme Christmas shopping and fill their cold fingers with red Starbucks cups. Let the fa-la-la-la-la’ing and decking the halls begin!

It’s a litttttle bit different here…

Ok, it’s completely different.

The year winds down with some sort of lethargic gusto, if that’s even possible. School, structure and all things normal come to a screeching halt. South Africa seems to sway in a non-celebratory, non-structured haze for the month of December.

A year of growing relationships, digging deep roots, and investment can be sealed or discarded as the safety of routine dissolves and people revert back to how they know how to survive December.

Yesterday, the same day most Americans were making pie crusts and preparing the turkey, I found myself crying like a blubbering turkey in front of the South Africans here that I’m closest to. This week, it feels like all the cultural differences came to a head. Like a wave of this-isn’t-where-you-come-from crashed over me, and I couldn’t keep my head above water.

Because ‘tis the season in South Africa when you go back to your old ways… where it becomes painfully obvious that the people I love the most still default to being the one who’s enslaved and the one who’s orphaned.

This week I saw that, even though we’re doing so much life together, when the December default started kicking in, our differences were the loudest. I broke. I cried. I blubbered through a construction site, on the floor of a daycare, and through a teatime meeting. Then I stomped my foot and said, “IT’S THANKSGIVING.”

I looked at these women.

They are running back into their enslaved and orphaned identities to disappear into December.

They are learning about, but not yet claiming and tasting, their places set at the Father’s table.

I cried hurt, sorrowful and angry tears.

IT’S THANKSGIVING.

I told them about the holiday where work and school stop with the purpose of families coming together around a meal. I told them that people travel great distances, go through great expense, and are intentional about preparing the most extravagant fare. And it’s for the purpose of giving thanks with your family.

I told them that I left my family and my culture and my traditions so that I could be family with them. And I told them that it felt like our cultures, our languages, and my skin color was keeping me from being family.

I left my family to be a voice for His Family, and on this Thanksgiving week, I felt like a December discard. I felt like the white-skinned charity worker who gets put on hold while people slip away into a month of oblivion, secrets and back-pedaling.

Jaws dropped.

Eyes bugged out.

Heads shook fiercely.

“No, Kacy. No, no, no. That’s not it. We are family. We are one.”

They wrapped their black skin around my white skin.

And I longed for their orphan hearts to wrap around the Father’s heart.

I felt something break loose, in me and hopefully in them as well.

I realized how deeply in me I don’t want to work here. I don’t want to feed mouths, build houses and do the Africa song-and-dance of relief work.

I’m not here for relief work. I’m here because Family works.

And I thanked my Father that, on this Thanksgiving week, I’m walking around like a blubbering turkey because I want to be a part of this family, and I want them to know His Family forever. And it’s deeper in me than it’s ever been. It’s how I want to live and breathe and love.

Even when it hurts.

And then I laughed and remembered that this really is right on par with Thanksgiving week anyway, isn’t it America? A family’s history, love, personalities, expectations, and differences are crammed into one room and the dysfunctions seem to surface so much more quickly and blatantly. And it’s all because we want to feel like we belong together. It’s all because we want love to be whole.

I laughed REALLY hard when I remembered the Thanksgiving that the cousins, aunts and his mom were catcalling Cousin John’s catwalk as he modeled his new nipple piercings. And Uncle Neal walked up just in time for the pivot and caught the glimmer of the newly bejeweled man-nipple. Thanksgiving got a LOT louder and then a LOT quieter.

Ahh, family. It all comes up, all comes out, and all gets much more obvious when we all get together. (And now I will find out which family members read my blog!)

The differences and uncomfortable history I’m experiencing this week go far deeper than a difference in a taste of jewelry or acquiring permission for nipple accessories.

The differences have a lot to do with things I didn’t choose, like where we were born: a country founded on freedom with healthcare and education and Thanksgiving… and a country still wobbling out of slavery, with disease and poverty and oppression.

But we have the same Father, and He said we all belong at the same Thanksgiving table for eternity. So, just like any family, when we come together we can pretend we are the same and everything is fine, or we can decide to be one and to love anyway.

I’m thankful on this Thanksgiving. I’m thankful that I’m still  celebrating family with messy dynamics, increased emotions, and all the love that is behind those things. I’m thankful that, even with all the broken parts and holes, there is family and that it’s worth gathering for, staying for, and expecting greater things for. 

[Confession: Some of those tears might have been because I miss my family too. I love you and I wish I were with you today to hug you TIGHT, to laugh with you, and to eat so, so much of NaNa's stuffing.]

Happy Birthday Mama Charity!

I think the cake was a hit!

24 on the 24th! A special strawberry cake for her Golden Birthday.

And a special guest! Look who came Laura UHC!

We start with our hands

We spent most of our last full day in Uganda with Sam Kisolo. He’s adopted more children than he can count throughout the lifetime of his family. Literally, I asked him how many, and he answered my seemingly irrelevant question by saying, “I don’t know how many. I just know their names.”

Upon hearing that answer, I started to wonder if his house was just a place to stay with named-rather-than-numbered little bodies walking around, eating and sleeping. Until I went and saw for myself.

The traditional greeting in Uganda is for a child to bow on bended knees before an adult and extend their hand for a handshake. As we sat on the Kisolos couch pouring through their family photo albums, the children started returning home from school. Each came to greet their father first. (I lost count too.)

Every single one of those children who bowed before their father and reached out their hand was reached back for and pulled into their daddy’s lap. Sam would lovingly pull those children in and put his hand on their face.

There was a secret, intimate conversation - a named and not numbered interaction between a child and a father. This home was not just a place to meet the basic needs of orphans, widows and elderly… even though they are indeed doing that.

This father’s biggest dream for all of his children is that they know who they are in Christ and live it out. He wants them to know they are created in the image of their Creator and to create.

Some of his older children are studying agriculture, some business, some catering... And they are taking these passions, skills and giftings and putting them into practice. They are going together into desolate, hopeless villages to plant gardens, grow organic foods, bring that food into town, start a restaurant and create jobs for other people. 

You know that African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child.”

Sam Kisolo is raising a village of creative children to transform the nation. 

This is what family is.

It is reaching out your hand, pulling them into your lap, touching their faces, and whispering secret, transforming Truth into them… and knowing that they’re going to grow up reaching, pulling, touching, whispering, and transforming others too.

I was so excited to get back and reach my hands and heart and secrets to these people I love in South Africa. Especially Mama Charity. Because God has been whispering transforming Truths to us at Ten Thousand Homes about her.

(If you’re just tuning in, it might help you to read this background story and most recent update.)

We gathered around the picnic blanket at Sunday Lunch this week, so happy to be back together. And as I told this orphaned mother the story of a reaching father, she leaned in.

Her eyes bulged; her head bounced up and down in the most eager agreement. It was like she was waiting for me to touch her face.

I told her that Ten Thousand Homes wants to live like that family.

Like the Father’s Family.

I told her I wanted to live like that – with her, with the Sunday Lunch crew, and with everyone I come across.

And I told her that, maybe, if we learn how to reach out our hands, pull people in, and live like real family with them, there won’t be orphans any more. Maybe our hands reaching out can change Dwaleni, the community she lives in.

I realized when I looked in those suddenly overwhelmingly childlike eyes that this woman with five children who has only experienced abuse, abandonment and being taken from has never been invited into something bigger than herself.

She’s never been pulled onto the lap of her father. And never been whispered to about the mystery of that kind of love that comes in its fullest when it’s given away. But she wants it.

She physically leaned in toward me during that moment, wordlessly proclaiming she wants to be a part of that thing that’s bigger than her… the Family that transforms.

So I told her we start with our hands. With reaching.

I pulled out paint, stripped the spaghetti-covered shirts off all the kids, and we started making art. Everybody at Sunday Lunch reached out their hand and added their perfectly-designed print to this family creation. It is BEAUTIFUL.

I proudly held it up, and showed Mama Charity, “This IS how you build Home. Everybody reaches and puts their hands in.”

And then… drum roll please…

I choked back tears but didn’t even try to fight the smile as I told her that this reaching, beauty-making piece of art would be the first thing we would hang up in the new home Ten Thousand Homes is going to build her.

She was so surprised she didn't know how to react. :)

WE’RE BUILDING MAMA CHARITY A HOUSE!!!

I’M SO EXCITED!!!

But better than a house, we’re building a gathering point, a reaching place, a beacon of light in Dwaleni. We’re building a family that is learning how to love and transform like family.

And I’m believing that this is going to be a turning point for Dwaleni.

For orphans of every age.

I believe Family is going to win.

My name is Jane, and I am HIV positive.

Our first stop in Uganda was a joy-filled face and a piece of land brimming with possibility. She sat on a mat on the floor next to the beans she was drying. Her eyes, her words and her voice celebrated our presence in her humble, welcoming home.

Teopistar’s words tumbled out in Lugandan, and, through a translator, we heard a story that was somehow laced with hopes and dreams.

Without flinching… well, without her flinching, she said, “I am HIV positive. My husband died because of the sickness and left me with nothing. I had so many small children, and no way to provide.”

I had to remind myself to breathe.

Not because I was sitting with a woman infected with those three letters that come to steal, kill and destroy… but because I was sitting with a woman whose identity, hope and joy was NOT infected by HIV.

She spoke with no shame.

Her face was not covered with those weary, shame-laden trenches that I know so well. She was not aged far beyond her years on behalf of her burdens and her body’s condition. Teopistar’s voice… her laugh… sang a freedom song. “God is so faithful and has provided for me so much.”

She walked us around her land where she grew and sold vegetables in order to expand onto the one-

room home she was left with. Not only does she have enough space for her family now, but she is also building extensively and renting out rooms. One of her daughters greeted us with a smile and showed us her brand-new graduation picture. She wants to open her own cosmetics shops one day.

I was floored.

This is not what I know. This is not what I understand.

In South Africa, you don’t talk about “that condition”. You don’t even use the word “sick”. You don’t ask how someone died. You don’t use any letters… not HIV, not TB, no positives or even negatives.

In South Africa, you can see the stigma smeared on their faces.

Or their secrets stay buried and the sickness spreads.

But there’s no freedom.

And there’s no hope-songs, no glory-giggles, no dream-daring.

Teopistar laughs and hugs. And she smiles.

Later, on that same day, we went to Jane’s house. Jane wasn’t feeling well that day, but it didn’t stop her from welcoming us, sitting down with us and sharing every detail of her story.

“My name is Jane, and I am HIV positive.”

Same freedom voice. Same freedom smile. Just like Teopistar.

Also like Teopistar, Jane is a widow. She was left with six young children and incredibly destitute conditions.

The events of her lifetime were flogged with loss.

The story she told was narrated with faith.

I could not make sense of this reality I had entered into with a handshake, a hug and a genuine, “You are most welcome.”

But I could identify abundant life.

 I could see that Jane was living in something… It’s the same thing that I have been sitting on my comfy couch with my over-sized coffee mug and iPod, and begging God for.

I could hear that her heart, her words, and her eyes were set on the glory of God… not on the afflicted child wrapping himself around John, not on the cramps in her stomach, not on the things or the people she could not have in that moment.

I knew the letters written on her medical chart and the letters that could have been written on her husband’s grave… but I looked up in that little living room, and I saw the letters Jane had written on the wall.

And then, while telling the most excruciating part of her life-story, she said the words that are re-writing everything in me.

“I went down into the lowest pit of HIV/AIDS… 

And it was all for the glory of God.”

And Jane smiled.

Jane began our conversation that day with, “My name is Jane, and I am HIV positive.” And she ended it with that smile and that satisfied promise, “It was all for the glory of God.”

That’s it. That’s abundant life. That’s what’s really true, Jane.

Jane still has HIV. Jane still has sick kids and not enough of a lot of things.

Jane has what’s really real – and she has it for eternity.

It always starts right here in the present-tense, with names and circumstances and comings and goings.

But I want to my story to end with that smile and that hope.

I’m not sitting on my couch and begging for it anymore.

I’m welcoming people in to see what’s written on my walls, no matter what I feel like today.

I’m praying for a heart and a mind and a smile like Teopistar’s and Jane’s.

I’m exchanging the words of my story in the name of the One who exchanged his life for mine.

I’m smiling and I’m telling the story that goes, “And it was all for the glory of God.”

There were mango trees.

We are in Jinja, Uganda going house-to-house, greeting-to-greeting, smile-to-smile.

John, Carla, Jen and I are here to learn from a network of families that are really living it out. Living like Family.

There are “core families” and “satellite families” within the partnering organizations called Foster Family Network and Orphans Know More. Core families are married couples with their own children, who have taken in other children and welcomed them as their own. Their complete love and all-the-way-through-them joy is overwhelming; their burdens are underwhelming.

Besides their own homes, full of bustling children and chickens, they have taken in “satellite families” as their own extended family members. Satellite families are widows with children that they stand with and stand for in every way you can imagine.

It’s the real thing.

And the best part is that it’s not glamorous. It’s not polished.

It’s not a super-funded program built by overseas super-heroes.

It’s Ugandan people loving Ugandan people.

The structure and the terms came later… after life was already going, the kids were getting married, and the roots of redemption had wrapped around the hearts of so many.

The only thing extravagant is the love… and the pineapple.

It’s unbelievable.

An overview won’t do it.

So let me tell you about Mabel’s house.

We found ourselves on lumpy couches, watching and waiting, while a starving cat sang a hoarse hunger song, and a hen and her chicks ran wild across the floor. I wasn’t sure if the construction of the house was complete, and I was bracing myself to hear a widow’s story from a satellite family.

And then Mabel walked in with a smile as big as Africa and exclaimed, “You are welcome!” with hugs and gushing love. Suddenly, this held-together house and that I-don’t-know-what-that-is-on-my-skirt became the most strikingly beautiful background for a fantastic love story that is changing everything. This was a core family that I want to live like from the core of my being.

She had always wanted a family. One day, God told Mabel that she was going to have a family that was bigger than what she dreamt of. She would welcome into her home the people that needed family.

“The first one, she is called Susan. She followed us home from outreach one day. She told us her story, and we took her in.”

Margaret, another orphan-made-family came in to join us with sparkling eyes. She had just finished university, but wanted to volunteer before beginning her career to “give back” for the ways she’d been given to.

Joshua, a high school student with perfect posture, came to the door with his suitcase from boarding school, a common education policy in Uganda, during our conversation. Mabel’s words stopped as her eyes lit up. “Joshua! Welcome home!!! How were exams? Come and greet our guests!”

Joshua was happy to be home. As he kneeled before each one of us in respectful greeting, Mabel kept going with her story.

This strength and this faith that made her and her husband a core family was not from growing up in a household like Joshua and Margaret’s. Mabel had grown up in a Muslim family and was disowned when she chose Jesus.

She was orphaned when she accepted the adoption of Christ… and then she started adopting.

“God intended that human beings grow up in families.”

Exactly.

Mabel lives something I want to live.

Her giggles escapes like glory-bubbles when she tells the parts of her and her children’s stories that should release tears and mourning because she so obviously encountered Christ in those moments.

Living like the Family of God didn’t start with a rock-solid home life for Mabel.

And it didn’t start with a financial foundation, enough space, enough food, or enough of anything.

It didn’t wait until things were ready.

We asked her how it started… where this came from…

“There were mango trees,” she said.

Mabel knew the God who designed us for His Family. To be welcomed and loved and known.

So all she had to say, with those glory giggles and matter-of-fact gestures was about the place they were living when it all began:

 “There were mango trees, so they could come. “

It was really that simple. That obvious.

There were mango trees. So why would she not live the way she was made to?

In a country flogged with HIV, with parents being claimed by sickness, there are children who wander. There were mango trees at Mabel’s house, and they wandered there.

“They could sit, relax, be free, eat mango. I can cook for them, serve them, and they can tell me who they are.”

Loving God.

Living like family.

And mango trees.

Mabel reminded me that’s all there is to it.

Sometimes, for me, it’s a pot of beans and rice in a too-small cottage. Or a band-aid and a make-it-better kiss. A hug, a handshake, a smile.

For some, it’s a cup of coffee and a conversation. Or just some time together.

It doesn’t matter what the mango tree looks like… There is a way today, in this very moment, to live the way God made us to live. We may not feel ripe, but the harvest is ready. Mabel didn’t wait. I won’t either. 

Mabel's house

Margaret on the far-left and Mabel on the far-right.
Mabel's husband, Dickson, was attending a burial.
They have 15 in their family + a widow with four children.