Back in the Wilderness: Are we staying here?

 Well,  I'm honestly not even sure what I want to say here except that journaling some of our journey to get here was helpful and I have really liked being able to look back on it.  So here we are, 2 years and almost 3 months after moving our family across the country to serve in a church that is no longer ours.  For the first time in my entire married life (actually my entire time knowing him) my husband is no longer working and is not serving at a church.  That is pretty mind blowing to me.

We were exhausted and something had to give.  7 months ago the global pandemic grounded life to a halt as we knew it and we both had to attempt working full time while managing our five kids, their remote schooling etc.. with essentially no help or support because our family is across the country.  R. worked for 150 days with absolutely not one day off producing the online service for what was then our church.  He did it without complaint because that's the kind of person he is.  For the last two years he has worked so incredibly hard without opportunity to grow in creative leadership like he had hoped he would.  He never got a chance.  He was managing too many other responsibilities that took precedence over creativity.  He was disappointed but hoped eventually he would get a chance.  After 150 days of not taking a break he in a nutshell was informed he wasn't doing enough to be a magical unicorn. A magical unicorn in a lot of churches is one who can lead creatively while also holding the full time job of 3 other technical roles and do so with $0 of a budget.  So instead of destroying our family by adding another 20 hours a week to his already 55-60 hour work week, he resigned.  

I'm so beyond proud of him.  I am in love with my husband on another level right now because he chose us over something that has been called ministry for all of these years we've been married but honestly never felt like ministry.  It felt like some sort of unappreciated unbalanced torture that nearly ruined our relationship all in the name of Jesus and advancing the gospel.  There I said it.  That is pretty much how I have felt for the last 15 years.  I have felt like there was never room for my children and I in the world of technical and creative church production.  I've seen other wives struggle in the same way.  Our husbands work three times harder and longer than every other church employee with zero recognition, missing important events in the lives of their children for the sake of something more "important".  

 I believe God has something different for us and I'm prayerful that something is here.  We uprooted our whole lives to come here and I feel like digging in my heels right now because leaving doesn't feel like the right next step.  I guess we'll have to see.  

More than anything I pray God will strengthen and encourage my husband and land him somewhere, where the people at the top; the ones who make all the decisions. see what he brings to the table and values that along with the commitment he makes to both his work and his family.  While we hang out here in the wilderness place, may God be working that out on his behalf.  

One Year Later!!

                                                                               Hebrews 11:8-10

"By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God."

One year ago today we stepped out on a new journey to a place where we knew very little.  One year ago today loaded up 5 kids on an airplane across the country to a desert land that seemed so foreign to us.  And it was and is such an answer to so, so many years of prayer and waiting, especially on my part.  

I haven’t ever really told our story before of how we ended up here, but the four years before we got here were some of the hardest in many ways that we ever faced, and the path that led us here took so long to be clear.  But when it was clear, it was crystal clear.

This last year has been the best but hardest year of my entire life.  I’ve watched my kids struggle to settle into a new everything. I watched my husband traverse the ups and downs of a new position.  We struggled with being homesick.  We struggled with the seasons being different.  We struggled with everything being different.  

But everything was also so very good in so many ways.  We fell in love with the mountains.  We fell in love with the people, especially some very, very special people from far-away places like Myanmar, Bhutan, and the Congo, who also happen to play soccer. We fell in love with serving Jesus on a whole new level.  We also reconnected with some good friends!

I still feel like the verse above reminds me of this place that isn’t quite home, and maybe never will be, but is exactly where we belong, which makes it home in a different way.  So thankful for this year and the God who brought us here! 

In the Wilderness- I want to quit

I have wanted my husband to quit his job search a few times during the last 9 months, but never more than I did this weekend.  I literally told R. that I'm drawing a line in the sand.  "I'm done done done with it." I don't know what that would mean for us because we still live where we do in a situation that is unsustainable for a healthy family life and too far from our church for us to ever be part of the community there.  But it has felt many times like it would be much easier to just give up and accept things the way they are than to trust God will miraculously open a door for us to move on to something better for us.

And that is how I felt this weekend.  I told God and I told R. that I am finished with this.  We are currently waiting on a possible position at a church that is just about the only one we've both felt really positive about the entire of 2017.  And we haven't heard anything in over two weeks.  We were told we would be contacted to set up a Facetime interview together with them, but again that was almost three weeks ago.  This isn't the first time R. has been told he would for sure hear back from someone.  In fact it's happened a few times and despite him following up numerous times, we never heard anything.  Doors shut.

Dealing with disappointment of a closed door is actually way easier than waiting to see if a door that seems like it might be opening actually is or not.  That kind of waiting has a special kind of torture attached to it.  And it's one I'm just so achingly tired of.  I've had some tough talks with God.  I've admitted a lot to Him.  I've told Him I don't understand.  I've told Him I feel like He's playing with my heart.  I've told Him I am barely holding on to my trust in His goodness.

So we went to church yesterday and I was feeling all those things and felt sure I was giving up on this whole process.  I had been up since 4:30 because that's when our 10 month old baby R. woke up to be fed and even though she went back to sleep we get up at 5 am on Sundays so we can get everyone ready and out the door by 6:30.  My kids were begging me not to make them go to church, pulling covers back over their faces.  They actually love church, but they hate getting up while it's still dark and being gone 12 hours every Sunday.  It's a lot for them.  So we get to the city and there's a street festival being assembled, which meant there was no parking.  We circled for about 25 minutes to find a spot that was about a 15 minute walk from the church and hauled all five of them along the sidewalks until we got there.  At this point I am just completely downcast.  Why are you holding out on us God?  This is so impossibly hard.

By the time we get them situated in their classes the service has started so I make my way up to the nosebleed of the balcony.  Summon up everything in me to sing, listen to the choir, pass the offering basket, and then our pastor begins preaching.  And he talks about how the Sea of Galilee is like the life of faith.  When we get into the boat we are putting our faith in Christ and the journey is to the other shore and the other shore is heaven.  But the waters are rough.  They are so rough and they shake us to the core.  But the bible reminds us the Jesus walked on those waters.  He is standing on them, and he can calm them when He chooses to.  Then our pastor said, "Is there someone out there who is ready to give up?  You've drawn a line in the sand and you're done?  God wants you to trust Him.  He will answer you, but He wants you to trust Him and thank Him for the answer before you see any results."  That was me ya'll.  That was just for me.  I'm certain of it.

That was me yesterday and I was so full of faith, but already only a day later, I need more reminders because discouragement is a sneaky, naggy thing that just keeps coming back.  So I'm standing today and I'm choosing to trust God for something I see no evidence of.  I don't feel like trusting.  I don't feel like I have any hope.  But my feelings are not reliable.  I CHOOSE to trust God despite the fact that we have had nothing but closed doors, unreturned emails, promising things that turned out to not be promising.  I'm choosing to trust God even though I am tired and I want to give up.  I'm believing that He is working out our situation right now as I type this.  And I'm going to keep hoping that tomorrow might be the day that He reveals that to us.

In the Wilderness- I'm His child

From "Streams in the Desert" devotional

Just dropping off this gem from my devotional this morning.  It so ministered to me.  And there is so much truth to it.  I can't tell how many times I've looked at my kids knowingly when I ask them to do something they don't want to do.  I know how much it's for their benefit.  The same is true of God.  Oh let me not forget this!

In the Wilderness- Middle School

So for the second time in the educational journey of my children,  I had to send one of them to a school that I had bad feelings about.  The first time was 4 years ago when we still lived in NYC.  We had J. at an absolutely phenomenal school that we adored.  I had hopes I would be starting a job there as I was planning to go back to work full time and had a great relationship with his principal.  But my plans were not the ones God had for us.  I found out I was pregnant with I. right as I was filling out my paperwork to return to teaching.  Because the school wasn't zoned for our apartment, and I wouldn't be working there, the school asked us to to fudge our address so we could register M. (we never had to do that for J. because there was space for kids who were out of zone when he enrolled). R. and I agreed that we would get no where by being dishonest.  God would have to open a door for M. to attend without lying about our address.  Well, He didn't.  So it goes sometimes.  So I registered both boys for the school we were zoned for.  It was highly rated, but I didn't like it.  We sent them.  They did fine, but I honestly never liked it and we moved anyway at the end of that school year.

Fast forward to this year.  Recalling that I believed in January we wouldn't be here by the start of this school year because God was going to open a door for R. to find a new job, I didn't expect to be dealing with what to do about sending J. on to middle school here.  We're still here, and it's September so things obviously didn't go according to my plan.

I  had an overwhelming fear about sending J. to the middle school here.  There were a few reasons why.  Number one, I went to an extremely small private school in the area that costs gobs of money but was very safe, challenging, and nurturing.  Number two, our middle is huge.  I think there are 2400 students all together.  Number three, I have heard and read horror stories about our middle school.  Fights, bullying, 35 kids in a class, more fights, kids sitting on the floor of the school bus because there weren't enough seats for everyone.  I could not send my baby into that place.

So I was discouraged we weren't moving, but I solved that by deciding to homeschool him.  We started over the summer to make sure it would work well.  First of all I am 100% not a homeschool mom.  I'm just not.  I'm a teacher, but I believe in actual schools.  Nothing against homeschooling.  I'm just philosophically aligned with my kids going to school.  So there was that, but we tried anyway.  Guess what?  We were both miserable.  I couldn't help that kid with hardly any of his math questions.  I didn't really fair so well at math when I was in school.  And then I have 4 other kids, two of whom are really little so I had about zero minutes to really sit down with him and help him.

I prayed hard about it and determined that this homeschooling thing was only meant to be temporary until we moved, but God had not opened that door yet so it was unwise to plan around Him doing something He hadn't done or promised to do.  I felt like I needed to let go and send him to middle school.  Where was R. in all of this?  He always thought he should go, but being that I'm the educator of the two of us, he let me decide.  He also has a habit of letting me figure out God's plan the round about way.  It usually works best for both of us.

So the decision was made, but I was still worried it was going to be awful.  I went to "locker day" with J. where they figure out where all their classes are and there were maybe 8 gazillion kids there.  I was totally overwhelmed.  Umm J. was fine though so I should have taken that as a hint that it would be fine, but I didn't.

The first day of school comes and I'm beside myself.  I prayed all day that he would be fine, and find all his classes, and not get beaten up, and have people to sit with at lunch, and make it to the bus on time to come home.  Oh yeah and I also cried a little when he got on the school bus.  Sigh.  I wait for him with anticipation to come home and when he does he was so happy.  He loved it!  He thanked me for praying for him and said it worked because he had a great day!  Woo hoo!

We're a few weeks in now and he still loves it.  PTL!  He loves the independence, is acting so responsibly and maturely.  I'm so glad we went ahead with it.  We talked recently about the possibility that we might move mid year and he'll have to start over again.  I feel awful about that.  But I reminded him that he has had a few unique opportunities to be the new kid, starting over and God has always been faithful every time to help him make friends and find his place.  I told him if he has to do it again, it will be hard, but God will be with Him just like He always has.  And I also told him that someday once he's settled again in that new place there will be another new kid who knows no one and might not even know that God can and is with him/or her and J. can be a friend to that person because he'll remember walking in their shoes.  That encouraged him greatly.

Waiting, trusting, hanging on to God's promises, making tough choices through prayer, living every day for today.

In the Wilderness- The Overview

I'm going to privately resurrect this blog because we are in the midst of a major season of waiting on God.  A place that has us firmly placed in what feels like wandering in the wilderness and I want to chronicle it because I firmly believe God is going to answer our prayers and bring us into a new season.  It feels so close I could taste it, yet so far away it's completely out of reach.  I want to be able to look back and remember how I was feeling and how God helped me deal with it.

Long story short R. is prayerfully looking for a new job.  We live 2 hours away from our church, where he works.  Even when we did live there, it's firmly planted in the middle of a downtown area where it's very challenging to find parking and gain access with ease.  Because of that and because now we obviously live so far away the kids and I can't be part of anything except Sunday services; we are praying about making a change so that we can all serve and worship together and be part of our church community the way we feel God intends us to be.

This has been a very difficult decision and one I have wanted us to make for years, but have waffled about it because I know how much R. loves our church.  It's been the only family he has really ever known.  It's been the only professional job he has ever held, and it has afforded him the opportunity to do many amazing things for the kingdom.  But since having our kids (5 in all now!) I have felt so unbelievably cut off from it all and that longing to belong has lingered with me for years.  I have held onto hope that someday God might open a door for us to move elsewhere.  Living with 5 kids in a city where a 3 bedroom apartment averages 4k a month is just NOT feasible.  Living 2 hours away from that city and still attending that church doesn't really feel that much more feasible for our spiritual health and well being.

So this past January, we decided together that we would prayerfully put ourselves out there, apply, and see if God would open up something for us.  At first there were two opportunities at churches where we knew people and they seemed to me like either one would be wonderful.  I'll be honest.  I was naive.  I thought R. would have this in the bag the minute he sent out a resume.  I think he's pretty amazing. I guess in a way he's my special snowflake husband.  No one is as fabulous as he is!  But yeah, God had other plans for me (and for us) and those plans have consisted of months and months of waiting, closed doors, like really slammed in our face doors, uncertainty, wondering if God would ever answer, doubt, lots of seeking and prayer, and finally determining that there was nothing I could do to change our situation and nothing that R. could do either.

It. has. been. hard.  I've wanted to will myself out of this wilderness place so many times.   Like just give up and say "Okay that's it.  There's just nothing better for us." So  many aspects of our situation make finding a new position seemingly impossible.  I won't bother with the details.  So here we are.  We are still waiting.  I am still choosing to trust God.  R. hasn't really ever wavered on that, but I certainly have.  And I'm just going to leave this here along with every other post I make until God ends this period of waiting on Him with an open door.  I trust He will.  I want to chronicle this journey.  I actually wish I had started back in January because He has taught me so much along this path I am on right now.  Anyway,  that's where we're at right now.  Stay tuned.

The Wedding Banquet

I had never had a Muslim friend before.  I knew little about the religion or the cultures that are predominantly Muslim.  But we lived in a neighborhood that has one of the largest Muslim populations in the US, so it was no surprise my oldest ended up going to school with children from Muslim families.  Actually the school had mostly students of Chinese decent and since I don’t speak Chinese, by default I ended up speaking to the only other mom on a class field trip that I attended who spoke English and she happened to be Muslim.  She dressed in a hijab and told me her family was from Yemen, but she grew up here and lived here her whole life.  Shortly after that I met her friend, a Moroccan whose husband was from Yemen.  Little by little we began spending time together with our kids outside of school and they were gracious enough to introduce me to their culture, their food, their customs, but also they were very much American which my white American self related to very much.

One day they invited me to the wedding celebration of a family member.  I had never been to a Yemeni wedding before (duh), but I was apprehensive.  I felt safe with my friends, but with hundreds of people I didn’t know and didn’t know me, I wasn’t sure.  Still I was honored and more than a little bit curious, so I went. 

When I walked in the banquet hall I was completely overwhelmed.  There must have been 300-400 women all covered in black.  I actually forget the name of the kind of dress, but there is a name for it.  They had their heads covered.  In Yemeni culture, men and women celebrate a wedding separately.  As for me, I stuck out like a sore thumb: blond haired, blue eyed, wearing a purple dress.  Everyone stared at me.  I mean can you blame them?  How many white chicks show up to a Yemeni wedding celebration?  No sooner had I begun to panic, that my friends found me, seated me, and made sure I had some food to eat.  I started to feel better.

Shortly thereafter the bride and groom arrived and began a procession in to have their first dance.  When they did all the women in the room pulled their veils over their faces (because there was a male in the room).  After they danced, the groom left to celebrate with the other males, and the bride remained to continue the part  Once the groom was out of sight, the women (literally all 300 of them) dropped off their black robes, to unveil the most beautiful, colorful gowns.  Their hair had been done to the nines.  They were so beautiful.  And then they danced.  And danced and danced.  They danced with so much joy.  And then they invited me to dance with them.  So I did.  It was one of the most joyful experiences of my life.  I don’t know why it surprised me that they just seemed so…?  Well they seemed just so much like me. 

There are a lot of misconceptions about people that are Muslim in this country.  I’m not looking to discuss the nuances of their holy book.  That’s not what I’m sharing here.  I’m sharing about what I saw, what I loved, what I experienced behind the veil of some incredible women that I call my friends.  Friends who hurt every single time there are people who kill other people in the name of their religion.  Friends who have been harassed, bullied, and spat on simply because they wear a hijab.  Believe me, if they didn’t wear one, you would never even know their background.  My one friend’s husband is currently in the process of becoming a police officer and his command of Arabic will be extremely beneficial to the department.  My other friend dreams of becoming a police officer one day herself.  In every group of people there are people that very poorly represent the whole.  I think it’s important not to forget everyone else.