And they lived LADDly ever after...

Twice upon a time, in two faraway lands,

Two strangers moved to Africa, only bags and passports in their hands.

She packed her boots and told Texas goodbye,

She only bought a one-way ticket and didn’t know why.

Six years ago, she thought she’d be back “home” in a flash,

She became a South African mama as she let her own plans crash.

The message of God’s family was expanding into something much more,

She knew she needed a bigger tablecloth, but she didn’t know what for.

 

He packed his running shoes and left the Smoky Mountains behind,

He knew he was made for this, and there was another adventure to find.

The cooking mamas named him Hope when he arrived two years ago,

With every day and every project, his capacity and wisdom began to grow.

On the day Texas met Tennessee, it was more like a business deal.

He would provide food for her project; they chatted over a meal.

After work and lunch, he said, “Men are like waffles and women like spaghetti.”

Who was this man across the table -  a little extreme and incredibly steady.

Work and coffee cups turned to what she called “non-date” nights out,

The strangers became friends, separately wondering what this was all about.

A fateful December night, God met him in a tent to change his life,

He told him he was giving him a ministry to lead, and to lead he’d need a wife.

He remembered that Texas lady, and all the fears she aroused in him.

But he knew it was worth it, and his decisions are never a whim.

In February, Lifa underwear-danced while the two had a business meeting for a start,

From two separate couches they talked and decided to never do this apart.

Two single people moved to Africa because they knew there was work to be done,

God changed all their plans and said there’d be more power when they were one.

After long walks and hammock talks, they fell in love like the greatest surprise,

God gave them a mission together; family happened before their eyes.

They let God lead them on a hilarious journey, with not a single love story cliché,

They picked a wedding date en route to a gas station - these are the moments that stole her heart away.

They never waited until it fit right because family just keeps making space.

Friends sat on picnic blankets, and he kissed his bride in this faraway place.

They’ve traded their suitcases for a big table where they’ll share their highs and lows.

It’s where they’ll find each other every night, no matter which direction the day goes.

 

Tonight they sit at that old kitchen table with giant mountains to climb ahead.

She’s overwhelmed by how much she loves him. There’s nowhere she’d be instead.

They are better together, no matter what happens in this Laddly Ever After life.

At the foothills of His adventure, they’ll keep saying YES as man and wife.

And the story continues on from here at chrisandkacy.com

Marking the Era

It’s the end of an era.

The house is all boxed up.

The last load of laundry is on the line.

The final jumbo pot of chili is cooked.

Tonight, for the last time as a resident, I will spread out my favorite tablecloths, and we will eat together. We’ll spread them on the wooden planks of the deck, use disposable bowls, and build Dorito pies as high as the sky. We’ll share our highs and our lows, and we’ll be thankful in this most bittersweet, tablecloth-covered goodbye.

Tablecloths are becoming a thing in my world.

They punctuate. They invite. They set a tone.

Chris, Lifa and I had a serious celebration, with all 6 helping hands and 3 oversized smiles, the last time we unfolded and spread out a brand new tablecloth to have guests over for dinner. We’re table and tablecloth people. And I LOVE that.

There’s nowhere I’d rather be than sitting at a table (or at a tablecloth turned into a picnic blanket) and sharing a meal with people. That coming-together meal punctuates the comings and goings of our days and our lives. 

Tonight, there will be more food, more tablecloths, more people, and a lot more to gather around. Tonight, we remember more than 5 ½ years at Ten Thousand Homes.

Almost exactly one year ago, I spent my 30^th birthday dancing in the bottom of an empty swimming pool at the surprise party of a lifetime. The Ten Thousand Homes crew and a whole lot of good people from America shattered my understanding of celebration, love and knowing by surpassing anything I had ever experienced.

One year later, I will spend my 31^st birthday this Sunday spreading out chili-stained tablecloths in a new yard to make yogurt parfaits and to pray over the first home we will live in together as a married couple.

Chris and I will be married at my very favorite place in South Africa on September 12, 2015. I have left the ministry of Ten ThousandHomes in order to join my husband-to-be at Children’s Cup, where he serves as the South African Country Director.

It’s happening, folks, in two weeeeeeeeks!

 

THAT GIRAFFE. He's going to be at the wedding. His name is Gerry.

Boxes will be everywhere in the new house on Sunday, just like they are in the old house today. I’m still not 100% sure how to get there, and everyone is concerned about my ability to back out of the driveway. But we’ll be there on my birthday. And we’ll come with more disposable bowls and spoons because I won’t know where the dishes are yet. We won’t be married yet or living in the new house, but we’ll be there together and it’s the best kind of birthday I could imagine.

There will be tablecloths and people and remembering and celebrating.

We all have boxes to move. We all have to give back keys and get new keys at some point. We all have dotted lines to sign throughout this lifetime, and we make a lot of choices that affect a lot of people.

The things in those boxes will break one day. The dotted lines will fade away. And I lose keys at least once a week.

Lifa learning about the equally
important worlds of hangman
and hamburgers.

But it’s those choices.

It’s the way we punctuate.

It’s how we round it out, how we come together.

It’s what happens around the tablecloth at the end of the day.

The keys, the boxes, the ministry, the marital status may put some defining lines on an era, but those things are not the era. They are the details and the stepping-stones we have as we climb strength to strength. They are the stories we tell at the table.

At the end of the day, it’s not about the stories.

It’s about how we tell them and who we’re sharing them with.

Whatever your era looks like, whatever the details of your stories are written with, punctuate them with Truth, with thankfulness, with celebration. Spread out your tablecloths, fill up that slow-cooker, and be full wherever you are.

For more details about Chris and I joining our lives, our ministry, or to learn more about being a part of this adventure with us, email me at kacychaffin@gmail.com or check out www.chrisandkacy.com

A Baby in a Bucket and a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT

Six years ago, I had no idea that you could use buckets for everything.

Bath-taking, food-serving, dish-washing, house-cleaning, rat-trapping, water balloon-storing, laundry-doing, foot-washing, and even an indoor, night-toilet when life so calls for one. 

Disclaimer: NOT the same bucket for everything. Let’s not be gross.

Four years ago, I watched malnourished, 2-year-old legs walk too far to get a plate of food his body just couldn’t take in. Pre-school aged family members showed him how to dip his fistful of food in his juice to soak the food so it would slide right through his revolting throat.

I didn’t know his name or where he had come from, but I heard the Savior speak. “This little one has a King David anointing on his life. He’s just a little shepherd boy right now.”

I knew I would need a bucket.

I came back with a bucket, heated water, soap, a soft towel, a new outfit and lotion to anoint and clothe the little king-to-be. He took a bucket bath fit for a king in the back of a truck, and I spoke out his anointing as I rubbed his skin with lotion.

Kevin straight out of the bucket.
Here's the full story.

That was the beginning of Kevin and a new way of living in and for 

the Family of God, right there with that family. (Side note: Kevin is CRAZY. This story is not made up of Hallmark moments. It’s sticky and full of questionable smells. Pray for that little wild-man, leader-king. He’s basically the Tasmanian Devil.)

That baby in that bucket was the beginning of a life lived without bucket lists, and a life lived with full buckets.

A few days ago, I sat in Kevin’s yard with his whole family and a bag of fruit. His mom and I remembered all the bucket moments we’ve had together while the kids piled into one for scream-laughing and bath time. Cakes and cornbread, Christmas Eves together, babies born, family deaths, a new home, church worship, countless hospital visits, and a thousand moments in between.

Years of buckets, and buckets of memories.

While two babies sat on a bucket to dry in the sun, and while Kevin just continued to be Kevin, I shared with Mama Charity that my life is changing.

-THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT-

This year, I am joining my life with a man and his ministry. Chris is the Country Director for Children’s Cup South Africa, and we believe we were made to work together. 

The very beginning

I will no longer be a part of the ministry at Ten Thousand Homes.

God is expanding my capacity for living out the love story of His Family in the context of a new family. Here is my blog with a little more back-story about our family, and HERE is Chris’ version of our story. I think he’s pretty wonderful.

Chris and I will be buying a home in the same town that I live in now and serving local communities as part of Children's Cup South Africa. We believe God will do even greater things through us together than we could do on our own.

My time at Ten Thousand Homes has been transforming, beautiful, and I am overwhelmingly grateful for the family I have here. We’ve danced, and we’ve cried as we have said our goodbyes. And we have been full.

 

Telling Busi in Dwaleni that I would be leaving TTH

In the midst of life being turned upside down by a handsome Tennessee man and a beautiful sovereign God, I am full. Not just full for the future, but full today. Every moment counts in this lifetime, whether they are moments of tears, dancing or turning.

Pamela celebrating a new life with me in Mbonisweni

No matter what your bucket is needed for in this moment, use it. Use it fully.

God is pouring Himself out for His Family, one bucketful at a time.

All we have to do is be there, together, every time He asks us to bring the bucket.

Thank you for being a part of my life, one story at a time. Thank you for joining me through prayer, support and for stepping into each bucket moment with me. I hope you will continue the journey with us into greater things ahead. If you would like to know more about Children’s Cup, my story with Chris, or to join in this story at a greater capacity, please email me at kacychaffin@gmail.com!

Setting the Table

Our dinner table is different now. 

One more seat is taken for several nights of the week. Lifa sets out one more placemat for Chris, a handsome man who loves God and lives out his faith with unwavering conviction. Chris came into our lives this year, and things got bigger. Bigger and better. More than just the number of placemats  set out, there is much more space in our hearts, mindsets, and at our dinner table with this man next to us.  

We sit together at that table and share meals, stories and laugh at Lifa when he takes "table naps" because he just can not stay awake past 6:30pm. Life and laughter together is transforming our dinner table. Or maybe it's the other way around.

Last weekend, we set the table for the kind of family we believe in and the kind of family we are becoming.

Epic Father's Day weekend.
Lifa’s father took a 4-hour taxi ride into a setting he’s never known, and we invited our pastor’s family from our local church. Lifa and I had been dreaming around the breakfast table for days about what it would be like to bring his dad into this part of his life and to introduce him to Chris. We planned for weeks about how to celebrate, honor and be a family together.

Family happens together. 
We were all made to belong in a family.

Lifa and I spent the morning preparing a father-style feast, making cards, baking cookies, binding the book Lifa wrote, and decorating with paper chains, a chalkboard message, balloons, and a banner. The boys (Lifa, our pastor’s son Blessing, and another friend Macbeth) and I set the table and picked out party clothes. Once Blessing’s tie was clipped on and the boys gave me giggly thumbs up, they welcomed their dinner guests with a dance performance. Of course.  

The guests were led to the table, where they each had a special seat marked by a personalized placemat. Lifa spent hours making them. The boys each served one of the fathers around the table and were beside themselves with the excitement of having a role to play in honoring the men they want to become.

The table presentation was beautiful, but the colors and placemats were only a symbol of the vibrant, extravagant beauty that happened at that dinner table.

Together, eight of us did what three of us usually do every night. We shared our highs and lows of the day; we talked about what we are thankful for; and we told stories. We talked about the kind of family we are and how family happens at the dinner table. The tension Lifa had been feeling about his worlds colliding washed away completely with the simple, steady rhythm of table talk and sitting at a place set for him.

That's Lifa's dad at the end of the table.

Chris sat on one end of the table and reached across to Lifa’s father at the other end of the table with words of affirmation, welcome and love. Lifa’s father beamed the same smile Lifa smiles in that same seat at dinner every night.

This was Lifa's father's first time to sit at a dinner table and eat with a family. And it will not be his last.

The more family you add, the more room you have.

It’s the economy of the Kingdom, not of this world.

Lifa doesn’t have to leave one family to be a part of another. Neither does his dad. There's space and there's a place for each one of us in a family that lasts forever. So we make meals and make family with that in mind.

We don’t have to know the future or make the meal plan. We just have to set the table for it.

Best Father's Day. EVER.

God is expanding our family, changing our dinner table, and inviting us to make space for something greater. There are great things ahead, friends, and we are inviting you to bring your highs and your lows, and pull up to a placemat for some table talk. More details to come soon.

Church together on Sunday morning

Adventure Love and Dentist Appointments

I want to be out adventuring. Getting my hands, knees and heart dirty.

I want to be standing in the middle of every mess with a megaphone of hope and a backpack full of first aid supplies. Bring me the ooziest open wounds, the loneliest loudest wails, the bruised and  battered women and children. I want to be knee deep in the disgusting, to catch tears, to hold bodies, to know stories, and to call on Light where it’s dark.

I was made for that. I’m compelled to go to those places. Always have been.

And then there wasMay.

The month God said to stop instead of go.

The month I stopped, and I prayed repeatedly:

“Do whatever it takes for Your glory to be known.”

Whatever it takes. Sounds like the perfect invitation for diving deeper into wild- and whole-hearted adventure love, right?

Well.

What if “whatever it takes” means taking you away from all the ways you knew how to love, so that it really does become the story of His glory and nothing else? What if “whatever it takes” is completely un-adventure-seeming and kind of crazy-making?

I’ve sat with Lifa at his homework desk for hours, bought chapter books, made a lot of healthy meals, and had a lot of big boy talks this month long break from ministry. Honestly, some of these May days have felt like I was locked up in a monotonous, passionless prison – a prison decked out with the sweetest jar full of roses and a crock pot, but a prison nonetheless.

Today I prayed May’s “do whatever it takes” prayer again, and I committed my mind, body, soul and strength to anything and everything God would have me do.

Wanna know what He impressed on my spirit this morning after praying that prayer? As clear as day… “Take Lifa to the dentist.”

FOR. REAL.

And the very next person I spoke with “happened” to be a dentist. She said she would see Lifa without requiring any type of documentation (which he doesn’t have).

Next Tuesday. 4pm. We’re going to the dentist, y’all.

An adventure-lover turned dental appointment scheduler.

WHAT IS HAPPENING!?!

Whatever it takes.

The One who came and did whatever it took told me this morning to go to the dentist. 

He’s also said to make friends in town, support the local tutoring center, go to the library, and know the business owners. To live where He sent me – not for fantastical missionary adventures in a foreign land, but for living Love every single day, right here at home. 

He left His Father’s house to come and live – to crack open his hands as a carpenter, to dine with tree-climbing tax collectors, and to make breakfast on the beach for his buddies. 

Love lived with the people around Him, wherever He was.

There were megaphone moments and miraculous storm-stilling, dead-raising adventure stories. And then, He took naps, hung out with his friends, and built the Kingdom.

I have this sneaking suspicion that there might be just as much space to live love in libraries, dentist offices and tutoring centers as there is in government hospitals and dilapidated shacks. I will always love dirty, messy, crisis-responding adventure-love. I will always make sure there is ample time for me feet to get stained by red dirt and my heart to be broken for the things that breaks His.

But maybe my dirty feet can walk into the places those dirty faces might never see and leave some footprints on their behalf.  Maybe we can build this thing together – the hungry mouths and the restaurant owners, the dirty unkempt and the professional hygienists, the invisible ones and the voices of change.

The Kingdom is not built on crisis management, although it is valuable and necessary. It doesn’t come like a tornado – at least not yet. The Kingdom of God comes like a harvest, like a well-watered garden, like love lived out every single day, wherever you are and whatever it takes.

Soul Food and Cranky Town

And she’s back…  

I’ve been quiet on purpose.

For the purpose of prioritizing life and love around what God says is important.

For the purpose of the kind of rest that envelops you from the top of your head to the soles of your feet.

Soul rest.

It’s been more than two years since my feet have left African soil. My feet and my soul got a little soiled and weary in the daily grind.

(Cranky-town for days.)

After conversations with the leadership team at Ten ThousandHomes about taking a 31-day break from ministry, I thought the month of May would look like naptime, creative outlets and basking in a few hours a day to not be in charge of anyone or anything. There have been a few hammock naps and a lot of Americanos. To my surprise, however, my hungry soul didn’t seek satisfaction in wide-open spaces, under waterfalls, or on top of a mountain trail like it has before.

I sit here today, on this 21^st day of May, just now realizing something new in me:

My soul food is no longer a to-go order. It’s Homemade.

And there’s nothing convenient about it.

It uses too many dishes, leaves an infantry of crumbs on the stovetop, and sometimes leaves you wondering aloud (in the form of 4-letter words) if it’s worth it to have to finish cooking dinner with a headlamp on because the power just went out again – or if you should’ve just made PB&J.

And then it sits around the table as a family. With placemats and cutlery set with pride by a long-legged little boy who’s learning about table manners and life. It stretches hands around a salt and pepper shaker to pray. And then it plays High-Low together with giggles abounding and beautiful conversations dispersed between turns.

At 7-years old, this is the first time Lifa has lived full-time in a place of safety, security and stability. A whole new world is opening up to us. After 5 years of being family, we are just now saying goodbye to surviving life’s circumstances in exchange for thriving in abundant life.

God has added one more to our dinner table, is expanding the capacity and cravings of our souls, and is just starting to give me a sneak peak that it only gets bigger and better from here.

Real life: There is still a lot of bed-wetting (Lifa), breakdowns (me – and the washing machine), and I  almost just stepped on a cobra in the kitchen (small-ish and now dead). Abundant life and soul rest still finds me mopping up cobra guts, taking away bike privileges for bad choices, wearing ear plugs in my own house, and staying up too late eating too much peanut butter and chocolate.

Oh, and Lifa has also learned how to appropriately use the word “cranky” (me again).

The month of May has turned from a desperate need for physical rest into a season of discovering the roots of unrest. It’s another blog for another day, but the endless hours and mounting frustration that build at the dangerous bus stop, over spelling test practice, and through teacher text messages might actually be teaching me something about God’s heart for the future of South Africa. The everything-breaking and endless messes that have turned May into more cooking and cleaning than ever before is writing a love story about homemade soul food through my family.

I just might be on to something with all this cranky.

As Lifa would say, “It’s about to get real.”

 (So tempted to alliterate “cranky” and “crunk” right now, but have used “crunk” entirely too many times today to be a respectable 30-year old woman.)

The places that have felt the most burdensome and life draining are becoming the birthplaces for new life-springs. I’m not quite there yet, and I still have more days of tired and cranky than inspired, Kingdom-mindedness. But maybe they work together.

Maybe the things that are not ok with me are not ok with Him, and it’s ok to not be ok with those things. I can’t live in a hammock or in cranky-town, but I can stop by those places long enough to let the fidgety, unfruitful, restlessness become fertile soil for a harvest I have no capacity for by my own strength or demeanor.

Like Lifa’s malnourished body had to learn all those years ago, I am learning to absorb abundant life for my soul through the growing pains, the burden-bearing and the long hours that don’t make for heroic missionary moments or anything warm and fuzzy.

Right now it’s time to pull out the homework desk, work on the subtraction problems he hasn’t been taught yet, and sneak as many nutrients as possible inside a taco shell. 

It’s time to feed my family, and feed my soul this new food that takes some getting used to.

The Father is stirring up a new starting place for a hope, a future, and for soul food in South Africa. At Home.

What are you doing here?

We had prepared snacks, gathered supplies and picked up a specific group of children for a particular program and purpose. In true African fashion, I readied myself to make a welcome speech. 

Here’s how it went down: 

“Welcome to the base everyone! We are so happy to have you here with us today. Before we get started, I just wanted to know if you know what you are doing here.”

Blink. Stare. Blink. Baby pees her pants. Nobody’s fazed.

(So far, totally normal interaction.)

And then, one at a time…

“Because you love us.”

“Because you take care of us.”

“Because we are your family.”

My turn to be silent.

I looked again at that table, spread full of snacks, supplies and strategy. Instead of doing what I thought I was there to do, I took a moment to see what was really there.

I saw years of sliding down the side of a mountain while trying to carry groceries, clotheslines and mango branches filled with homemade cards for a Welcome Home party, and hands held in prayer for greatest fears revealed.

I saw picnic blankets full of spilled Kool-aid and pure joy, front porch stories shared, and late night phone calls when there was no mom to call for help.

Did I even realize what I am doing here?

It’s this.

I’ve been awake since 3am.

Every. Day. This. Week.

A girl can only use so much concealer under her eyes everyday before she has to get real and ask in that dark hour of the night, “God, what am I doing here?”

I’m on my second cup of coffee this morning, and I’m thinking about the last time I asked that question with that table full of children when I realised my plans, programs, and understanding are not what this is all about.

My sleepless nights and subconscious anxiety these past few weeks have probably been the outflow of all the questions I can’t or don’t want to know the answers to.

I don’t know what Lifa’s life has looked like or what he has experienced for the while he’s been away at his dad’s house. I don’t know how his life, perspective, faith and development will be impacted by these years of living in two different cultures. I don’t know what he’s seen, heard or experienced during all these nights we’ve been apart.

But the sun is coming up now.

And I’m going to go get in my car and drive that 8-hour drive to bring Lifa home that always makes me question what I’m doing here.

When we get home, he will immediately jump on his bike. We’ll make a cake and sing happy birthday loud enough for my mom to hear in Texas, and then we’ll pile into a Spiderman bed for a bedtime story.

Tonight, I will ask Lifa the same questions I always ask him:

“Do you know how much I love you?”

Eyes will roll. A smile will crack through. And then he’ll open his arms wide enough for me to tickle his armpits.

“But do you know WHY I love you so much.”

“Because Jesus loved you first.”

For him, it’s just a fact.

“You can love me sooooo much, Mama, because Jesus loved you first and gave you enough love for me.”

That’s what I’m doing here.

That’s what’s real when the sun comes up and in the dark hours of the night.

That is where my soul finds rest.

I’m here because He loved me first.

I’m here because we are a family.

I’m just here, and I’m with Him.

I’m a cranky, cross-eyed, exhausted mess, and 87% of everything I’ve eaten this past week has been made of chocolate. I’m not even exaggerating. I haven’t gotten good at this. But, right in this moment, I know what I’m doing here.

I’m coming back to the Father and asking for peace, for soul rest, and for help remembering He’s right there in those dark hours of the night.

And, right now, I’m going to go get that kid and kiss the crap out of him.

Pants are important.

This year, my world has been gradually shifting…

Or maybe it’s been more like a life-rattling earthquake…

Whichever…

Lifa is home. I’m no longer the high capacity, solo, unstoppable lady with the big, red playground/dance floor on wheels. 

I’m a mom who promised a long time before I became a mom that I would be an ambassador for the Family of God and do whatever it takes to live like His Family lives.

That’s where His Kingdom comes. And that’s what lasts.

So that’s what I want to be about more than I want to be about the marathon ministry moments, the amount cups of tea I sip at GoGo’s, or how holy-crammed my schedule is. I’ve talked the talk in shacks, hospitals and in food-serving lines. Now I have to walk the walk in my own house.

But I’m sneaky.

I’ve figured out ways to do both. I’ve packed a planner and put my slow cooker to good use in order to keep my missionary gold stars and to try to run a household with routine, health and joy. 

Ain’t nobody got time to disappoint.

Totally. Under. Control.

Or something.

Or not at all.

FINE.

My sneaky plans are backfiring in ridiculous and embarrassing ways this week like forgetting where I’m driving, talking in circles, filling the kitchen with smoke, and not being able to keep up with anything.

This is what I know:

God stays the same.

Hallelujah.

Because I cannot stay the same anymore.

Lifa is learning this week that big boys do not run around the house (or outside or anywhere and everywhere) butt-naked. It’s a legit growing pain for that little dancing free-bird, but we cannot stay the same. He’s growing into a thriving, healthy, joyful, world-changing man of God.

Pants are important.

Our wardrobe and our todays have to change.

(I found him naked booty-dancing to Uptown Funk this morning on the couch… Still a work in progress, but the kid has moves.)

I’m trying to wrap my reality around being a mom that is entrusted with showing this one little boy who God is through the way our family lives and loves. Lifa’s learning how to wear pants (sort of), and I’m learning how to let go of the ways I lived out family ministry before.

God’s promises stay the same, therefore we cannot.

We have to dress like the big boy he’s made us to be.

We have to let go of family as we know it, and let the Father lead us deeper into the ways and realities of His household.

And I’ve found that getting to participate in what feels like ministry mcnuggets compared to the super-sized schedule I had before has a lot more impact. When we let go of our ways, He does it His. All the strength I can muster up for 18 hours a day can’t hold a candle to the Light of the World, Whose voice, leading and loving changes eternity in an instant. So I’m sticking with that.

Standing with the Space-Maker

A little girl watched them all fall away in the midst of the pulsing, ravaging HIV crisis in this land. By the time she was 12-years old, she was left alone in a shack to raise her 8-year old brother. That was in 2006, and now that little girl has her own little girl. At the age of 21, she is desperate to pass grade 10 so she can complete school and make a better way for her family. 

Last week, we started a tutoring program for her family and another family with a similar set of circumstances. We loaded seven of them and their ginormous backpacks into our vehicles, and they sprawled out their insecurities, questions and calculations with visiting mission teams at the Ten Thousand Homes base.

After she finished her homework, I took that 21-year old girl for a walk to the construction site for my new house. I couldn’t help but think back to 2011 when we built her house. Some of my most powerful memories in this country are when we went to her construction site every week with truckloads of people to sing, dance, teach God’s word, and bring that Kingdom down as those walls went up. Here’s a story about it. That was real-life church in the yard.  

I stood there in my own pile of bricks with the girl whose house we sang up in 2011. She popped out her hip and didn’t skip a beat, pointing to the pile of dirt that will become the bedroom she would like to spend the night in. Then I watched all the sass and silliness melt away as we stood under that doorframe and she said, “Kacy. I dream my mother.”

This young un-mothered mother who just tries to keep her head above water, much less pass that geography test, poured out her secret dreams of her mother crying from her grave. She shared, for the first time ever, the story of her mother dying in her 12-year old arms.

I have nothing to offer in these moments.

We stood together in the messy place that is becoming a house.

And I had nothing to offer except standing together.

I stayed up late and woke up early thinking about that moment she trusted me with. I don’t understand why there’s so much broken or why she trusted me with those stories. But God is making space for them.

…..

The very next day, a woman walked into the churchyard with a smile on her sweat-beaded face as she pushed an un-toddling toddler up the bumpy hill in a wheelchair.  This is a lady who’s been in hiding as we’ve watched her older 3 children struggle and starve. She locked herself up in the self-made prison of shame in the formerly-beautiful home we built a few years ago.

We never saw her new baby for the first 2 years of her life, but had only heard a rumor there was a new family member. For some reason, now this mother has emerged, and we can see this immobile, unseeing baby girl with a spinal cord injury is the object of her affection.

I wanted to pounce her and kiss her and do a dance around her when she entered that church gate. SHE CAME! I didn’t even care why she had come.

She came.

I figured that, after two years of locking her door and pretending she wasn’t home when she saw my Condor, I should play it cool and just bring her a chair and a plate of food instead of going in for the kiss on the lips. (That’s real self-control in action.)

She speaks no English, so I just lingered long enough for her to know she’s worth lingering and loving. Not long later, a young woman from the church came to me to tell me why that mother had come. She had found work and wanted someone… someone white... someone who is me… to care for her baby full time while she worked.

I was shocked.

This mother has taken great measures to not see me, know me or be known by me for years, despite her incredible need and great effort on my part.

Now she was reaching out and trusting me with the most treasured part of her life. I was devastatingly humbled. I stayed up late into the night wanting to give up every other responsibility I have in this world to take care of this little girl’s broken body and to acknowledge this mother’s reach. Instead, we will stand together with her and pray for the right resources and the right support system for this family to thrive. Please pray with us for this.

I have no idea why she came or where she got the strength to reach. It didn’t come from her prison house, and it didn’t come from me. God is making space.

He’s lengthening, and He’s strengthening. He’s building up His Family, even when His kids have nothing to offer and when His households are messy. I’m going to stop trying to understand or trying to build up a storehouse of things to offer. I’m going to spend myself standing together in messes and in beautiful.

He’s going to keep making space that I don’t know what to do with.

And that is beautiful.

"Enlarge the place of your tent,

and let your habitations be stretched out;

do not hold back; 

lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes...

For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed,

but my steadfast love shall not depart from you,

and my covenant of peace shall not be removed," 

says the Lord who has compassion on you

from Isaiah 56

Grace Puddles

This morning we woke up to an incredible amount of pee.  

Lifa walked out of his room naked, dazed and dripping. BUCKETS of pee. His first words of the morning: “Go look at my bed!”

AN OCEAN. Standing water. In his bed.

And by water, I mean pee. This is my real life.

So, like any responsible mom would do, I busted out the baby wipes and wiped that little boy down till he smelled just like a clean baby’s butt. Because we also woke up to a house with no running water.

As I pulled out wipe after wipe, I remembered all the moments and memories that were far more repulsive and inconvenient than this one. I remembered Lifa’s night terrors and going days without sleeping because he was afraid to. I remembered both of our tears while he learned safety and security the hard way. I remembered the disgusting journey of training his body to absorb nutrients – even the sideline details like having to teach him how to chew and swallow without worrying that someone was going to take his food away from him in the process.

Our story of resiliency, redemption and grace comes with a lot of body parts and malfunctions. It’s been messy, and it often smells real bad.

Today’s river of pee actually made way for a tidal wave of gratitude from the deepest places in me.

Look at how far we’ve come.

He has a bed. He has a house, a room, Spiderman sheets. He can come out naked, find his mom, and laugh about his uncomfortable, inconvenient mess. He knows it’s going to be ok.

I couldn’t help but think this morning about how overwhelmingly thankful I am to have an entire half of a house that smells like pee and some soaking wet spidey sheets.

If this is the biggest manifestation of all of the transitions and hardships Lifa’s seven years have taken him through, then that puddle of pee is the greatest reason to celebrate I’ve ever seen! 

I don’t ever want to forget how far we’ve come. I don’t ever want to stop seeing the small victories along the way. Even when it looks like pee puddles.

Last week a woman sat in a churchyard and released her own buckets of body fluid. (I'm almost embarrassed that this is really a point of connection for me... please forgive my imagery and ridiculousness. I spend a lot of time with 7-year old boys.)

Tears streamed and soaked the bruised face of the mother who faithfully comes twice a week to cook for hundreds of children at our after-school program. She shared with a group of volunteers and staff at Ten Thousand Homes that she had been beaten all night in her one-room shack while her 11-year old son watched in horror.

Her night terrors are still alive and active.

Her long nights rage on.

There’s a long way to go before the celebrating starts.

But there are still puddles of proof that something is happening.

This weeping woman is the same mother who stayed locked in her own prison of shame for 8 years after her second-born son was stolen from her arms in the night. She never let a tear fall, and she told another person. She stayed strapped in the bondage of victimization and brokenness until just a few months ago.

I was there the day she opened up. My arms wrapped got to wrap around hers in the midst of that  miracle moment.

Today, my arms feel tied and  I’m wrestling with anger and disillusionment in the middle of this dark and lonely chapter in her life.

She did the right thing. She shared. She cried. She reached. 

But they won’t reach back.  Culturally, my reaching for her would only escalate the situation and create a more strained and dangerous environment for her and her child.

Why won’t the people and the church reach?

They don’t know there’s such a thing as a reach with open hands instead of closed fists. 

They don’t know a touch that doesn’t scandalize, steal or shatter. 

How can they reach if they’ve never been reached for? Where do we go from here? I still don’t know that answer.

So, on the same day I giggle over a new morning’s soaked Spiderman sheets, I cry for the lonely bruises in the darkest hour of the night. I am celebrating the puddles of proof on that little boy’s bed that there have been some hard years and some long nights.

A new morning has come and this new day’s problems only remind me of how far He’s brought us.

I have to remember that same truth for this mother and son also. Because there are puddles of progress and promise running down her face. That face was locked up like stone for years, and now it flows with tears that reach.

The dark nights aren’t over.

There will still be sheets to wash.

There will still be bruises to heal.

And when I don't know what to do, I’ll keep looking for proof that something is moving.

Someone is still making streams of grace that moves through the desert places.

The Kingdom came on a messy, dark night.

The Kingdom is coming on a bright new morning.

On that morning, Grace will no longer stream like messy puddles in the middle of a sullied story, but will reach with strong, scarred hands to wipe away those tears and to close the gap.

We celebrate sheets, and we celebrate the scars. But we don’t get used to them. We keep reaching, and we keep finding new puddles of grace to celebrate.