The Most Worthy Rescue Mission

I can’t get Nandi off my mind.

One month ago, I went to visit this 10ish-year old little girl and her family, only to find a mildly distressed mama telling me she had run away… again.

So, we loaded up her mama, her auntie, their additional 5 children, and a couple of Nandi’s friends who knew where she was hiding, and went to go find Nandi. I brought her home with me that night.

Lifa was ecstatic to have a sister for the night. Nandi took two showers just because she could. And there was a 4-year old birthday party on base that night, so we had a pool full of laughing kids… Nandi included. 

We gave a ride home to a woman who lives in a neighboring community, and she said, “I know this girl.” Nandi had shown up knocking on her door one night at 9pm looking for a place to stay. The woman had called the police, but they dismissed it saying, “She always does that.” Another young woman from another community looked her over and said, “Oh yes, I know Nandi.”

People know Nandi.

But nobody knows her story.

Nobody knows why they know her.

I was beside myself the next morning when I got to make two glasses of chocolate milk and two plates of cinnamon toast for my two kids. On the way to school, I did my best to communicate clearly to Nandi that she was to go home to her mama’s house right after school. She got it. She said yes.

My Dwaleni princess and the king of the car

Playing in the car on the way to school

 And they all lived happily ever after…

I wish we were to that part of the story. I can’t wait for that part. 

But today, we’re still somewhere between the “Once upon a time…” that took place in the purity, nakedness, and perfect relationship in the Garden of Eden and the “Happily ever after” of when the fullness of His Kingdom comes.

We’re still looking for leaves to cover ourselves and trying to make life work in a back-and-forth, Hokey Pokey kind of relationship with our Creator.

Today I can’t get Nandi off my mind.

I went to visit her again a few weeks after she spent the night with me. Her mama greeted me by saying, “Where’s Nandi?”

Uh-oh.

I told her I didn’t know and asked when the last time she had seen her was. She never came home after school that day. The mamas said they hoped she had been staying with me. It was easier to hope that – even though they knew it wasn’t true. Now the truth was in the yard sharing brownies with them, and they had to face it. Nandi had been gone for weeks.

One more time, we loaded up and hit the road. Nobody seemed phased. House after house with no luck. We never found Nandi that day.

We had to have Christmas Eve without Nandi.

Because she’s The Runaway. It’s just what she does.

Heads shake. There’s a generalized, “tsk, tsk, tsk.”

And people worry about the stress she’s causing in the family and community.

She always runs away.

And nobody knows why. It’s just what she does.

Yesterday we went to visit her again. Her mama came bounding out, cheering, clapping, dancing, and hugging all over me. Nandi came home on Christmas Day! I knew it was true because she was wearing the new shoes I had bought for Nandi. But Nandi wasn’t there.

They gave me a detailed explanation of where Nandi was… in SiSwati… so I just got in the car and trusted they’d tell me where to go.

Our third trip this month to find Nandi.

This time we went far.

A 15-minute drive. Then crossing over a major highway. Then entering a dirt-road, tin-shack community I never knew existed. To the end of the road, the back of the community, and into a bunch of warehouses.

Big warehouses full of beds.

And children. 73 children.

And a couple of 20-something caretakers.

Nandi came out with an unsure smile but with a sparkle of a little girl who was being rescued and redeemed. For the third time this month. She ran into her mother’s arms. They hugged each other deeply, and then her mama quickly pushed her away and sent her over to me.

I thought our hug would never end. And I never wanted it to.

You know how much I like words – especially adjectives – but there are no consonants, vowels or syllables that I could craft together to give you even a picture of what this place was like. Not if it’s good or bad, dark or light. It just felt like another world. I tried to ask so many questions. Conversations went something like this:

“Some other white people dropped her off. We think maybe her mother is dead.”

“I’m here with her mother. I’m friends with her family. But I need to know if she has said anything about being in danger, being afraid, or why she would rather stay here than in her own house.”

“If she wants to stay, it’s fine. If she wants to go, it’s fine. Let me show you our rooms!”

I tried to understand if Nandi wanted to go. She wanted to come to my house. But finally agreed to stay at her mama’s house if I would come visit her at her house.

We left Nandi at her house yesterday with a hug, a kiss, a promise of returning the next day, and a drive home filled with silent prayers for God to do what He does bigger than He’s ever done it.

It felt undone. Because we’re in the “…” part of the story. You know, the part between the “Once upon a time…” and the “…happily ever after.”

On this third “rescue mission”, the third time we were going to get a little girl who wasn’t sure if she wanted to be rescued, I thought about the story of Hosea. The book of Hosea in the Bible is a story about a wayward, adulterous harlot who married and had children with a man of God. She had safety and security in him. She was pursued, loved, rescued and wanted by him.

But being the harlot had become her normal. Her identity.

Just like being the runaway. How can you quit who you are?

How can you quit your identity- even if it’s prostitution or running yourself into unbearably dangerous situations?

Hosea’s wife, Gomer, kept running back into her old ways because at least she knew it. It was the easiest way to feel known. Everybody knew Gomer.

Everybody knows Nandi.

She’s The Runaway.

But nobody knows why. Probably not even Nandi.

Gomer had Hosea’s babies. The Lord told Hosea to name his daughter Lo-Ruhamah. It means unpitied. Lo-Ruhamah was the symbol of the plight of Israel. A wayward people who wanted to be known skin-deep, and didn’t care why or how. It was just easier.

But here’s what the Lord says about his wayward girls. His daughters. His Bride. About Israel. About Africa. About Church. About me. About you. About Lo-Ruhamah and her mother. And about Nandi and her mother.

“Call her Lo-Ruhamah, for I will no longer show love to the house of Israel, that I should at all forgive them. Yet I will show love to the house of Judah, and I will save them- not by bow, sword or battle, or by horse and horsemen, but by the Lord their God.” Hosea 1:6-7

“I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one called ‘Not my loved one.’ I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people’; and they will say, ‘You are my God.” Hosea 2:23

Hosea had to chase Gomer over and over again. He continuously rescued her when she didn’t know if she wanted to be rescued. Because God knew her true identity – His Bride.

I have a feeling that yesterday wasn’t my last rescue mission with Nandi. And that the more I learn about the family, the more tangled and dysfunctional it will become.

But she’s worth it every time.

To Nandi, to me and to you:

I know you deeper than your skin. And deeper than the identity people write on you. I won’t stop coming for you. And I won’t get tired of it. You are worth it. You have been redeemed. And I can’t wait for you to know it all the way, to live in THAT identity: Pure, Renewed, Dearly Loved and Mine.

Changing Languages and Paintbrushes

I always thought it was strange that there’s “American Sign Language”.

It’s sign language for crying out loud – or for dramatically, silently gesturing!!

In my “new normal”, it’s common to be in a room full of people with fragrant phonetics and consonants jumbled with vowels flying from an arsenal of languages, and me picking out what meaning I can and not even worrying about the rest.

Can’t sign language at least be universal?

I always say that, as the classic English-only speaking American, I can at least speak non-verbals. (Remember that time I used to be a Marriage and Family Therapist?)

We’ve all heard the statistics that our non-verbal communication is so much louder than our words. I can’t help but glean meaning out of gestures, tones and facial expression.

Last Monday, the day we went on yet another 4-hour road trip, to pick up Lifa for a visit (PRAISE THE LORD), I realized that I speak American non-verbals. And English.

And that’s all.

I spent the day sitting in worn furniture with chickens and children coming in and out. There were women gesturing wildly, Lifa’s father smiling, relaxing and chattering away, and Lifa sleeping soundly on my lap. My ears were filled with SiSwati and my heart was so full of emotional apprehension, I wasn’t sure if it was going to keep beating.

I couldn’t even try to keep pace with the conversation. Everything was completely in my SiSwati-speaking pastor’s hands. I trust him completely. So I just figured I would dust off that fancy-pants counseling education and interpret the non-verbal part of the conversation.

Big mistake.

Facial expressions, tone of voice and gestures in the Swazi culture don’t exactly translate into American non-verbal. By the end of the day, I was shaking with nerves and exhausted from the soap opera playing in my mind. I was SURE that the seemingly stony-faces of the women I had encountered meant they didn’t trust me and I wasn’t especially welcomed as the white girl gliding away with their baby in a Mazda. And then confused about why an auntie was clinging onto my hand during a prayer and thanking me over and over again.

I felt unraveled. All day.

Unraveled about being completely vulnerable and feeling out-of-control while walking in the unknown.

Unraveled about me finally saying, “Ok God… I’m in this all the way.”

And then right there in that living room, in the middle of “all the way”, He says, “Ok. But it’s not going to look like the color-by-number picture you’re trying to fill in. I am creating a work of art with colors you’ve never even seen before.”

What I did know right then and there was that God is working a story of welcome and belonging in that family.

And that I felt a warm rush of Truth over me – my adoption is Christ is complete. And His family is bigger and better than circumstances and stories.

That Lifa’s father ran up to our car with the same sparkle in his eye that Lifa had before I left for the States – the one that means he feels completely loved and safe in that love.

And that Something was moving amongst a patchwork, broken family. Prayers - your prayers -  are being responded to.

So now I’ll give you as much as I can of the translated version. Thanks for hanging in!

A family story unfolded as the day progressed.

Lifa’s father shared his story of abandonment. His dad left before he was born and his mother left before he could get a birth certificate. He’s never had identity documents – a huge symbol of belonging, identity and worth withheld by brokenness, injustice and neglect. He says he knows what it’s like to grow up without a father – with eyes full of love for Lifa. He shared some of his deepest sorrows and invited us in to his family by a large gesture of trust. I have to protect the details, but I am asking you to be intimately involved by praying with us for God’s favor as we respond to Lifa’s father responding to us. 

He’s living in a house with a woman he’s in a relationship with and her family. The woman wasn’t there, but the gogo of the house spoke about being passionately moved by God’s love. She couldn’t believe that we would travel such a long way for such a little boy. It goes against everything in the culture. Even my pastor’s extended family couldn’t get it. It’s like the disciples telling the children to leave Jesus alone. (Matt 19:13-15)

The gogo drank up the love we have for God and for Lifa. She was so moved that Lifa instantly fell asleep on me. She thanked us and begged us to come back.

Then we drove FAR… almost right up to the Swaziland border, which looked even more like an enchanted forest than it sounds like. We were going to meet the father’s sister.

And more story unfolded as old family photo albums were passed around, cold drink was served, and Lifa’s father brought out the one personal possession he had packed – the Kacy And Lifa book I had given him on our first visit.

Lifa’s father has been the estranged, prodigal son. It seems like he disappeared from his family around the time Lifa’s mother abandoned them, when Lifa was only 7 months. His sister did not even have his phone number and hasn’t seen them since Lifa was a baby. There are other siblings who haven’t even met Lifa. And a gogo who hasn’t seen him in years.

Lifa’s father called his sister for the first time after we visited him earlier in the month.

Family responded to family. And he decided it was worth it.

He saw the power of love for even the smallest, most helpless child. And thought there might be a chance.

He was afraid to face his family alone.

What I thought was an over-protective auntie asking for mine and John’s numbers to check up on us was actually an overwhelmed sister trying to reign in her emotions over her family finally coming back together. And asking for our numbers to stay connected, to repeatedly thank us for bringing her family back together, and to make sure she always had a way to find her brother in case he ever disappeared again.

On the way home, once I got the full story, I managed to re-hinge my jaw long enough to join in Pastor’s giddy praises and let God keep talking...

Lifa’s gogo and 3 of Lifa’s father’s siblings live in a community less than an hour away. Instead of making the 4-hour drive when it’s time to drop Lifa off in a couple of weeks, we are appealing to God’s adoption and restoration plan. The Father who’s watching eagerly and preparing a party for his estranged son’s return is scheming beautifully.

We’ve asked Lifa’s father and sister to take public transport to come this way and meet us at the gogo’s. We’ll pick up the siblings and end my first visit with Lifa with the biggest, most beautiful family reunion ever. Fattened calf. Gold signet ring. Nicest robe. Bring it all, Jesus! (Check out the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15)

The father and sister have agreed! Pray with us for the transport, timing, and planning to work out. As well as for the preparation of mine, Lifa’s and the family’s hearts.

Pray for Lifa. I can see months and years of abrupt transition and insecurity taking a toll on him. He’s having trouble controlling his emotions and trying to control anything else he can. He’s screaming and crying in his sleep. And he’s completely overwhelmed by constant change. Pray for healing in the very depths of his tiny body and beautiful heart. God is moving profoundly around this child – bringing family together through the love of one little boy.

His sparkle of resting in secure love isn’t completely back yet, but it is undeniable that he gets happier by the day. In fact, he’s feeling so secure now that we’ve progressed to temper tantrums! I tell myself every time I get drenched in tears and snot that it’s a good thing for the boy who was formerly afraid to disobey or even make a sound. He’s singing, dancing, learning English and playing like he owns the place. Everything just seems better with him home.

We’re teaching each other family and creating our own langauge.

It’s not about American non-verbals, SiSwati words, or any version of sign language. Leaving it up to my own interpretation just isn’t working anymore.

God is calling me to speak a language painted in colors of grace I’ve never seen.

 It’s time to let go of the color-by-number surrender plan I’ve been subscribing to and watch the Artist of Family, Adoption and Redemption create the Greatest Masterpiece I can’t even begin to fathom.

It’s scary… but I’m in.

Promise to post pictures and (much shorter) updates this week. Pray for me to get a working modem again so I can have internet access readily available!

Thank you for being a part of His Masterpiece in my little corner of the story.

"Take my picture! I'm a princess!"

Zoe is a 3-year old who lives on base at Ten Thousand Homes with her parents, Zach and Anneke, and her sisters Arielle (4) and Charlotte (1). I LOVE visits with Zoe and her sisters, where princess dancing and putting on “lip stick” (chap stick… preferably “red” cherry) is always appropriate.

Zoe is at jussst the right age – Lifa-sized, extra-cuddly and the perfect little voice that I secretly wish she’d never grow out of. (Remember when YOU were 3, Lily???)

Lately, whenever Zoe sees me, she gets the biggest and most beautiful excited smile on her face and starts revving up those little legs for a long and dramatic run and leap into my arms. Patrick Swayze and Baby got nothin’ on us! Sometimes we even have to do it over and over again.

When this little princess showed up at my door on Easter morning with a little knock and big plans, I couldn’t help but think of the way God loves His children.

“You must take a picture of me Taaaccyyy. I’m a princess.”

She came over to be delighted in and daunted over. No problem here! So of course, I made her twirl as I took photos and told her how beautiful she is.

The running and jumping. The uncontrollable giggles that spring out at first sight of me… because of the running and jumping immediately following. The knock-knock-knock just to be seen and celebrated.

Children really do get it… Which, by the way, is not an original idea at all.

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” (Matt 19:14)

I try to earn my way. I try to set my place at the Kingdom-sized dinner table.

And then I think of Zoe.

And Lifa.

I found out yesterday we are having some trouble finding a day for us to make the 4-hour drive to pick up Lifa to come home for a visit for a while. Just a calendar blip, not a shut-down or change of heart by anyone in anyway. But devastated is an understatement for how I felt... or feel, and it didn’t take long for the life and energy to run out of me and make the Easter party-pooper.

But, as I was snuggling up on some adopted Ethiopian 3- and 4-year olds (unashamed that I was using their hugs and storybooks as personal therapy), I kept thinking about how I love Lifa and how unquestionably loved these once-abandoned Ethiopian children felt as they showed off their Easter goodies and demanded all of our attention.

Lifa doesn’t ever have to do anything for me to love him as much as I love him. Every bump in the road on our story – and no matter how our story plays out – only surprises me at how much I can love him and that I can actually love him more and more every day.

He could never earn this kind of love.

He couldn’t do anything to make me love him more or less.

And although he is tiny, helpless and doesn’t necessarily “contribute” anything to the family…

He is a most precious and dearly loved part of my family and the Family of God.

No expectations. No requirements.

That’s the story of the Family of God. My place and yours. Already set. Already paid for. It only takes a knock-knock-knock, and let the twirling begin!

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” Luke 11:9-10

Easter is just one day to remember an every day promise. The promise of our adoption into the perfect Family. The Family that loves without condition, that welcomes you with outstretched arms for that classically undignified run-and-jump routine, and that only loves you more and more each day no matter where you are or what you do.

I spent the afternoon with my family in Mbonisweni. I pulled up in a little blue Mazda full of treats, cupcakes to be decorated, nail polish, a camera charged for a photo shoot, and an art project. (What’s a party without a craft? Oh man… Africa has changed me.) As we each colored a family member, I explained what Easter was all about.

“You love me so perfectly and welcome me into your family. That’s what Easter is. Jesus didn’t die on a cross just so we could be free of sin. He chose to make us pure so that we could be adopted fully into His Family – with no cost to us. Easter is a family holiday. An adoption celebration.”

Today I’m celebrating my place in the Family, and the place of all of His children. I’m praying to have arms open to catch every run and jump I can, and to run full-force, leap without regard, and to twirl around singing, “Take my picture! I’m a princess!”

A Quiet Day on Base and I Suddenly Become a Verbal Processor

Ok… I’m obsessed. After stumbling across the Christian Alliance for Orphans blog, I found – and devoured – the book Reclaiming Adoption: Missional Living Through the Rediscovering of Abba Father. I loved it! I felt compelled to respond to it here – with my people.

We can’t make things better. It was already perfect.

We can’t earn our keep. Jesus already died for that.

God knew all of us – even the parts that hurt - before we even existed. And it was worth the cost for Him from the very beginning. He wanted the fullness of us enjoying the fullness of Him.

Mmmmhmmm… Did you feel that? It feels better than a sno-cone on a summer day. Even better than a running, leaping Lifa hug.

The fullness of God and adoption are not selective. They are the gospel.

God, am I really living like I want this very Fullness for the orphaned and vulnerable children I encounter every day? I mean, the same fullness I want for myself?

THAT level of intimacy, being THAT known, feeling THAT celebrated?

All the best things in Life – Kingdom things - apply first to the last.

Orphans desperate for all kinds of nourishment at feedings in Africa or those who feel orphaned through isolation and estrangement in America’s hustle and bustle.

Widows raising their children’s children from a shack or widows desperate to feel some sort of presence from an empty bed and tear-soaked pillow.

The sick who don’t dare mention their status and are callused from years of being deemed untouchable or the institutionalized, socially-labeled who have never known or can’t remember what it feels like to be respected. 

The criminals on the cross or the ones in the county jail.

That homeless guy on the street you pass every day on the way to work – What was his name again? I wonder if he has a family.

Do I really love them with all of me like He loves me with all of Him?

The least of these will be first.

I can’t help but think of Lifa, the very definition of “the least of these” when I met him over a year ago. God has put a new name on that 3-year old picture of the Kingdom: His Greatness.

We’ve all been estranged from our Father and the perfection communion of Family: The Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And we have all been redeemed by that cross, that empty tomb and that sinless sacrifice we celebrate with new dresses and ties at the Easter sunrise service.

Just like in the Prodigal Son (Luke 15), our Daddy is waiting for us and hikes up His robe to come running to us as soon as we’re ready to come home and take our place at the dinner table… plentifully set every night, just in case.

Adoption has always been the master plan. If you haven’t yet, come home.

If you have, rest in it. Live it up! Feast on the riches of your inheritance! You are chosen and dearly loved. You belong.

We can’t come home to our very own spot at the dinner table, set by Perfect Love – and feel like a foreigner. There’s no holy etiquette except to eat like you live there. Don’t worry about which fork to use first. I’m pretty sure in Heaven we’ll just eat with our hands anyway.

Before we ever existed, the Family had perfect love and perfect intimacy. There never was and never has been room for it to get better. He’s not asking us to come make it better, to do the dishes, or to do anything at all. He just WANTS us. HE doesn’t need us. He WANTS us.

He calls us WORTHY and LOVED.

We’ve got to get this part first.

I have to get this part first.

I’m learning. I think I’ll always be learning.

If I live like an orphan, how can I extend the love and peace that comes with belonging in the Family of God?

I’m on a mission… to live like a child! His Beloved child made worthy and called valuable.

I’m on a mission… to love like a child without holding back.

I’m on a mission… to abandon my own mission and live for His.

Pray with me this week. Friday, Pastor Sthembiso, John Shaw (TTH staff), and I are going to meet Lifa’s father, Jobulani, for the first time! Lifa won’t be there, but our hope is to begin building a relationship with him that welcomes him into this story of Reconciliation and Adoption that God’s been authoring since before time ever began.

Also, pray for the details and that God will handle the red tape with us. It’s what He does anyway – so I’m calling faithfully on the prayers of His children to join in:

1. Pray for patience and efficiency as we are waiting on a donation – already well on it’s way – to make it to our USA bank account and transferred to our SA account to BUY A CAR that we can take to visit Lifa’s father.

2. Pray for registration details of the car and the roadworthy test to come easily without needing a 3 year visa finalized and without any unexpected hold-ups along the way.

3. Pray that I am able to register car and then turn in my application for my visa by Thursday so I do not have to leave the country again to renew a tourist visa.

I’ll write more details, prayer points, and info about a family fast soon!

Thank you. I love you.