The Lollipop Parade

Yesterday, I took a bag of lollipops and went on a parade of hope and hope deferred.

GoGo greeted me with one of her perfectly sloppy kisses, a purple-dress body-roll, and a yard full of her grandchildren waving and calling my name.  The oldest boys threw their arms around me to celebrate their runaway dog’s return home, and the 5-year old jumped in the car with us to have playtime with Lifa.

Then we stopped by Ruth’s new, blue house. We sat in the yard, and talked about her dream to get a job, planning out the steps it would take for her to reach her goal. We talked about the unique qualities of her children and her family members, celebrating their special skills and counting blessings. We had the privilege of giving her little boy a new pair of tennis shoes, provided by a member of my church, and watch his face light up in hiding behind his mother’s legs.

Lizzie was in front of her brand-new house braiding hair. She chatted like we’ve known each other forever, and took us down to visit her neighbor Esther.

Last week, Lizzie delivered Esther’s baby. She didn’t know how to deliver a baby, but there just wasn’t time to get to the clinic. Esther always has her severely underdeveloped 1-year old twins wrapped around her, and is so frail that I didn’t even know she was pregnant – even when I saw her a week before she gave birth.

We found Esther in a tumbledown shack. She was happy, relieved and mortified that we were there. The1-year old twin who is able to sit up on her own was on the floor crying, covered in her own filth and in food that was probably not good for her tiny little body to ingest. Esther passed the newborn to me so she could tie the twin who cannot hold her head up onto her back.

Sweet, brand new, baby boy, Mangaliso is tiiiiny, with a head FULL of fuzzy black hair. His paper-thin skin is flaking off in the relentless winter dryness.

I was overwhelmed standing in the entrance to Esther’s house, passing the baby boy around that the women had tried to give to me on his birth day. We prayed and prayed for Esther – for safety, health, provision and for home.

We filled that one bed with babies as we passed them back to Esther, and we walked back up the mountain to Lizzie’s singing, dancing children. We filled them up with lollipops, and I guessed their flavors as I kissed them goodbye.

Later, we went to meet with some pastors who know and love their community. We were greeted first by bright-eyed, crooked-smiled, one-shoed Joshua, the son Pastor Jeffrey had been given after Joshua’s parents abandoned him at 3-weeks old, probably when they realized the left side of his body doesn’t work properly.

While Joshua, Lifa and the pastors devoured fruity lollipops, we talked about needs. We went down another side of the mountain and saw shack after shack.

One had 14 people living in two wooden rooms.

One had a family of 6 in one room.

One had a family of 11 in one room, with a baby on the way and a little girl named Promise whose dejected eyes beg to know a promise fulfilled.

There’s another family of 6 orphans in a shack in a different community we’ll meet next week.

Lifa danced around that mountain tour with us. He practiced writing his name and drew pictures on the bottom of the paper that I was scribbling names, stories and details on. On the way home he said, “Mama, can we just have some Mama-Lifa time? Can we go to a restaurant tonight?”

  

We colored by a fire while we waited for our meal. Lifa was thrilled to tell me the names of the colors, and he basked in my attention. He even snuck up to plant a kiss on my cheek while he switched from the blue to the red crayon.

If there is such a thing as a spectrum of hope, I think I saw the whole thing yesterday.

The new faces and families we met today: Malnourished, broken bodies piled high in deplorable shacks, filled mostly by their emptiness… barely clinging to the drive to survive.

And then the friends and families we’ve known and walked through life with: They are living in new houses, their shame is being replaced with freedom, and they are opening up their lives to us and to Christ.

And the little boy who is snoring in the bed next to mine: He opened the car door for me tonight when he took me on our “date”, and filled my ears with his laugher and stories about what he’s thankful for.

I’m not sure how to seal this blog up with hope. Not even with a mildly profound word. I’m not sure why I’ve been up since 2am thinking about the lollipop parade.

Passing out candy achieved only brief sugarcoated smiles and left a few more pieces of trash on the ground in South Africa today. It doesn’t build houses or build hope.

As I sit here awake at 4am thinking about all of those eyes I saw yesterday… the empty ones, the filling ones, and the sparkling ones… I can’t come to a bold and beautiful conclusion about this hope spectrum I paraded through. But I can hope that just the act of extending my full hand to those empty ones means something, starts something, changes something.

I’ve spent years extending my hand to reach for Lifa’s.

I’ve spent countless hours extending my hands to GoGo, Ruth and Lizzie’s families.

And today I reached out and gave Joshua a lollipop, and I wrapped my arms around Promise.

And, as the sun gets ready to come up, I reach out for the Son who willingly extended both of his hands on a cross to finish the spectrum of hope and fulfill a promise… for a little girl named Promise, a little boy named Joshua, and the boy whose name, Lifa, means “inheritance”.

I’m asking Him to keep reaching and keep coming, even though He came and He finished it. I’m asking Him to keep reaching for those mountain children, and to keep reaching for me and you – the ones with full hands. 

Because I think if we keep reaching, Hope can reach everyone.

Taking a "Chance"

We rip ourselves away from our own cultures, wriggle into a completely new culture, and somehow try to demonstrate the culture of the Kingdom. The culture we were all designed for.

It never fails that we also demonstrate some cultural faux pas along the way, as well as a few head-on, heart-wrenching collisions with humanity’s wounds and weapons.

It feels like we’re taking a chance with every new relationship we start, every new house we build, and every new direction we believe for. A vulnerable “chance” where we gather up all the affections, time and resources we thought we would lavish on our own extended families during summer nights at the pool or around Christmas trees. But we pour them out in hospitals, on construction sites, and over plates of food as we pass them out to runny-nosed angels who speak a different language.

There have been “chances” we’ve taken on people that didn’t work out how we thought they would.

…………

Almost two years ago, we started building Ruth’s house. We were so excited and so charged with what we knew God wanted to do in and through Ruth. Halfway into the construction, her abusive children’s father showed up and wreaked havoc. Our presence on Ruth’s property endangered Ruth, her children, and our construction crew. We were devastated when we had to stop building before we finished.

Ruth was crushed and angry. She stopped coming to church and would turn her back when she saw us. Rumors spun through the community about the father coming to steal the baby in the night, hurting the family, and taking the little food they had as he came in and out of jail. The church watched and checked on Ruth, but we had to keep a distance as to not bring more attention to her and invoke the wrath of a dangerous man.

It felt like a fail.

…………

A few months ago, we met Sifiso and Lizzy. They had three children, and their home had just burnt down. Everything was lost. You could see the powerful love in their family, even when they had nothing.

My leader, John the first day
we set foot on the property.

We have never built a home with a man still involved with his family. He had been out of work and was desperate to provide for his family. It was hard not to remember Ruth’s house, just a short walk away from this burn site.

It felt like a chance. A big chance – an identity transforming one – that left us not only creating Home amongst widows and orphans, but in father-headed families who needed to know too.

My leaders, John and Carla Shaw, felt God turning us to this family.  They saw something true and good shining through the despair in this family. We talked to Sifiso, the father, about Ten Thousand Homes’ values and work. Carla headed up construction. She told Sifiso that we’d love to build a home for his family, but he’d be required to help.

We would teach him, train him, and give him a new skill set. We would see his dignity being restored as he became a man who could provide for his family, contribute to something greater than himself, and feel a sense of purpose and hope that he’d lost some time ago… something he’d pass down to his children.

Sifiso and Lizzy began working
at the ground-breaking
 and never stopped!

We couldn’t have dreamt of how things would play out. Sifiso began working before our construction team could get to his house in the mornings, and worked after they left. He laughed; he played; he loved.

He ingested a Kingdom, Home-building kind of love. He became a bearer of Hope and Home – an ambassador for the Family of God. He became a part of Ten Thousand Homes. His family became ours.

The children immediately began giggling, glowing and bounding into the churchyard for every feeding and every gathering. Lizzy was on her hands and knees, waxing her new floor so it would shine just right, and then right beside us placing one tile at a time as we created a beautiful mosaic on her front porch together. We learned a new level of family together that shattered cultural differences.

Nomawhetu, Freedom and Palesia. World's most loving children.

…………

Almost four years ago, I rattled with fear on Pastor Steven Yoes’ office couch. I told him that I had heard God. I was going to Africa, and the church was supposed to come with me. I wasn’t asking for a check or for a nod of approval, I was asking for a commitment… a covenant… and asking them to take a “chance” on this word from God.

…………

On Friday afternoon, I thought about this handful of chances we’ve made over the years. I watched and remembered why God invites us to take a “chance”… to walk in faith even when there are bumps and bruises along the way.

On Friday afternoon, we stepped on holy ground. The Ten Thousand Homes staff, along with Pastor Steven Yoes and a team from Citymark Church gathered together in the place that was filled with ashes a few months ago, and commemorated the promise of Christ replacing our ashes with beauty.

We welcomed Sifiso and Lizzy into their new home.

So thankful for my team and for our generous friend and donor for this new home.
Carla is an incredible advocate for Family and Home,
and had an extraordinary relationship with this family. 

We sang, and we prayed. We celebrated and we body-rolled.

Soooo many dance parties to come in Lizzy'snew house.
She said, "Yes! Yes! Yes, Kacy. Morning, noon and night." 

We shared the gospel and we blessed a home.

 

We believe this family will change their entire community.
This home will be a place of hope. 

We listened to Sifiso and his extended family absorb and proclaim the Family of God. We sang for Lizzy’s 28^th birthday that day, and gave her the first birthday cake she’s ever had.

That wasn’t even the end of it… Because it was not just a house-building celebration. It was a Family celebration – commemorating the Family of God that leaves no need unmet and lacks nothing when the Body comes together.

Pastor Steven Yoes and Citymark Church, that church that had taken a “chance” on me and made an investment years ago, did what the Body does… reaches, heals, completes. From their hearts and their resources, and by the strength of God and the congregation who sent them, Citymark Church stocked this home with furniture, birthday gifts, and a new wardrobe for the family who lost everything.  

 

An indescribable moment - Sifiso using his new keys to open his new home,
 only to find it fully stocked with furniture and gifts

Thank you New Hope Church for providing new beds, linens and electricity!
The Body stretches far and wide.

They've been sleeping on the floor of a shack for below-freezing winter nights.
 Everything has changed now thanks to the Body of Christ.

Citymark Church's newest family

Thank you for taking that "chance", Pastor Steven
and for creating Family around the world.

As we celebrated, I walked up to Ruth who sang loud on the front row.

In February, Ruth started coming back to church and pulled me aside. She said God had lifted her depression, and she had been set free. Ruth harbored no more pain and bitterness, but was leaning into the power of God. Right before the fire at Sifiso and Lizzy’s house, the father of Ruth’s children was incarcerated for 25 years.

And we finished Ruth’s home.

So she had come everyday to Sifiso and Lizzy’s house to help build their home.

Ten Thousand Homes photo.
Click here to read Ruth's story.

As I approached her at the party, Ruth hugged me and held me close. She said, “Kacy, God provides everything we need. He has come here to wipe every tear away.”

I almost couldn’t breathe. And I couldn’t stop laughing and smiling.

All I could feel was a resounding Truth through my spirit, “Everything was worth it.”

Those chances weren’t really chances after all.

Those chances were faith. And I’m not the measurer of worthiness.

Jesus wasn’t taking a chance on me or on you as He struggled up Golgotha with a cross on his back.

He wasn’t trying to decide if we’d be worth it.

Because He is the worthy one.

And He died and rose again so every cut, scratch, wounded heart, burned body, broken spirit could be called worthy and could be called healed.

There are another handful of “chances” we’ve taken that still feel like dead-ends. But the Worthy One rolled the stone away from dead-ends and called them a new beginning.

Hope is in the hospital.
Hope is everywhere there's faith.

Nandi and her family are not at a dead-end.

Given’s broken body is not a dead-end.

Those abandoned children on the mountain are not at a dead-end.

The immeasurable amount of children and people without identity documents are not at a dead-end.

And you are not at a dead-end.

Let’s praise Him for that today.

There's Another Option

On Thursday afternoon, I was so excited to return to the Dwaleni feeding program. I found the yard in disarray. The new playground was still a beacon of delight, but there was trash everywhere else. And the two giant, shade-giving, fruit-bearing trees had been cut down, damaging the feeding’s washstand on their way down.

I talked to the local volunteers, who run the feeding and dream for even more in their community, about stewarding what we have. When we do well with the little we’ve been given, we are entrusted with much. They nodded in agreement, but, as they looked at children wrestling in a trash-filled yard, it seemed like nothing registered as unusual…

Chaos is the norm.

They’ve never been outside of what they were experiencing in that yard.

How could it seem unusual? How could they want more?

......

Friday afternoon, three other TTH staff and I went to talk to a local pastor/care-giver named Jeffrey. Through Jeffrey’s limitless compassion, we are just starting to become acquainted with a family that needs to be known.

Five children, ages 5 – 14, live in a shack on the side of a mountain. They have been without parents for three years. They have had a grandmother at least checking in on them, until she died a few weeks ago. These children have no money, even though they are eligible for government grants. There’s no adult to be responsible for it. The next of kin lives just down the mountain from them… but would use the money on their own alcohol, only endangering the children more.

The kids keep going to school. They keep taking care of each other. And they eat at the feeding program Jeffrey is a part of 5 days a week. Sometimes on the weekends, they come for meals to Jeffrey’s nearby home.

As every detail of the story unfolded, we churned, we longed, and we begged for there to be at least a glimpse of glory woven into Jeffrey’s matter-of-facts.

Even he was at a standstill.

He didn’t know how to protect them. He didn’t know how they could receive money for food. He didn’t know what’s next…

On that Friday afternoon drive home from Jeffrey’s, we discussed that roadblock feeling of hopelessness. Jeffrey serves these children five days a week, and then they come over for food on the weekends. And he just can’t think of another way to help them.

We talked about asking other pastors and officials if they knew of ways to help the children get government money in a safe way. You always, always have to ask around to gather pieces of truths to get a bigger picture. It seems like no has the ability to grasp the whole truth, to understand systems clearly – even the systems don’t understand the systems completely.

Confusion prevails.

“Impossible” is the word most often used by government officials. The inability to think of tomorrow, or even the next step, is woven into the fabric of this culture.

Chaos is the cadence, and there’s just no ability to hear, see, think or know beyond it.

As we drove, I shared with the other TTH staff what had happened at the end of Thursday’s feeding program. We had made a plan to build a new, really really great washstand for Dwaleni. I was asking one of the volunteers, Joyce, where in the yard they wanted us to build it. She scanned and thought… and settled on putting it right back where it was before. Only now it would have no shade and they would be standing in mud.

I began to talk to Joyce about the dreams they have for Dwaleni and the dreams we have. I mapped out a picture of possibility, a way to bring order to the yard and make things easier on the volunteers, all by changing the location of the washstand. We were factoring dreams for the future into today’s project plans.

Suddenly, Joyce lit up. She erupted in giggles, hugged me and started clapping out thanksgivings.

Hope hit.

She just needed to know there was another option.

When chaos and confusion are all you’ve ever known…

When your enemy is gaining behind you and you’re facing a Red Sea dead-end…

When an entire kingdom is being threatened by a red-faced, larger than life villain…

When a hillside stadium is full of hungry people and you only have a couple of fish and some bread…

When there’s no way we can atone for our own sins and access God by our own means…

There is another option.

When the other option became a man and gave Himself for us…

When the heavens begin to rip, rattle and roar…

When Life kicked the tombstone of death out of the way…

We gained access to always having another option.

Hope is having another option.

Sometimes it’s as simple as moving a washstand or asking questions.

Sometimes it requires a full-fledged sea-parting, stone-slinging, food-multiplying, death-defying miracle.

And all of these things are accessible when we put our hope in the One who lived and died for it.

Some of us need to know there’s another option today.

And some of us need to help people reach for that other option.

Most of us need both everyday.

Deep and Wide

I’ve only been back in South Africa for a few days.

Somewhere, miles above the spaces between Houston and Johannesburg, I started feeling like a fish out of water.

Every time I leave, it feels like I have to pull up the most deeply rooted parts of me, slide them through customs, and transplant them with my family and friends in America. I spend a month or so absorbing the ever-changing lives of the people I love there, and then turn back around to do it all over again.

I want to belong everywhere. I want to have forever-stories with everyone. I want to not be transient. I want my presence to matter.

On some days, I want that in the right here, right now, day-to-day kind of way… On some days, I remember I was made with Kingdom gills that weren’t designed to suck in and survive by the few breaths we’re given on this earth.

I came back and celebrated incredible improvements, breakthroughs and Kingdom-comings that have happened here at Ten Thousand Homes. I’m delighted that I’ve been invited into this heavenly sweet spot. I’m blown away by these people and how they love.

I also came back to updates of the places and people where I’ve poured myself into this year...

The Dwaleni feeding has gone wild – fists are flying and chaos reigns as the children are exchanging peace to recreate the broken households they live in.

Elton was dropped back off over the border with his abusive parents.

And Nandi’s gone again.

I felt like my presence and the impact I left stuck like Scotch tape on cement. And like I had to start over. I started gasping, desperate to fill my lungs with something that would stick.

All around me, people keep talking about more. God has shown us that there is tremendous growth ahead for Ten Thousand Homes and for me personally. I shudder and ask how I could possibly be given more when the few things I was entrusted with seem to be worse off.

I wasn’t really asking… I was telling the Father I couldn’t handle more. Couldn’t be trusted with more. Didn’t want more.

And I got the silliest song in my head.

If you happen to be from the Bible Belt or Vacation Bible School culture, you have probably heard it. And now you’ll be humming it all day.

Deep and wide,

Deep and wide,

There’s a fountain flowing deep and wide.

Wide and deep,

Wide and deep,

There’s a fountain flowing wide and deep.

Yeah, that’s pretty much it…. Until your Sunday School teacher gets crunk and you get to add hand motions and replace the words with sound effects.

So, there I was, sitting there with my journal and coffee… trying to have a grown-up temper tantrum at the foot of the throne of the King of Kings… and that song comes to mind.

I never understood the song. What kid does? What does it even mean?

Deep and wide.

I’m afraid of the deep and wide.

I’m afraid that, as I keep going deeper, things still aren’t going to stick. It won’t be authentic. It’ll all change when I leave without ever growing wider.

Wide and deep.

I’m afraid that, if I stretch my arms and my heart wide, there won’t be enough of me to go deep. It won’t be authentic. It’ll be dry and shallow.

There’s a fountain flowing deep and wide.

The Spirit sang louder than a whole church pew of 7-year olds with sno-cone moustaches and missing front teeth.

He reminded me that it’s His fountain, His Living Water that flows deep and wide. His Glory has room for everyone.

He let His Son die so His reach could go deep and wide and eternal. The Holy Spirit came so there’d be enough for everyone, even today.

His resources, His reach, His depth do not run out. Living Water never runs dry, and it’s the only water that will never let me go thirsty again. It’s the only place I really can breathe.

Today I had to let go and repent. I had to come before the Alpha and Omega and say that I didn’t believe, didn’t trust His reach and His room. I thought I had to make room for the deep and the wide in my hands, in my heart and in my lap. And it’s just not in me.

I had to surrender and remember how to live in Living Water. I had to remember it’s not really about me. I had to give thanks for the deep and wide, and for being invited into it.

I gave thanks today that my God gave me the gills to taste and see, to dive deep, and to walk on top.

He invited me to dive into the deep and wide. Not to become it. And he made enough room for everyone.

And that is something to sing about, celebrate, and breathe in deep – no matter what’s happening in the air around me.