A Heart of Flesh

Along with the rest of the world, the crisis in Haiti is weighing heavy on my heart and mind.  I cannot even watch very much news about it or read any articles because the weight of the situation is too much for me to bear. 

I want to adopt a Haitian child.  I realize the situation is impossible for us at this moment in our lives.  And I hate it that there is really nothing we can do.  The situation is so heavy and heartbreaking.

I can’t believe how long it’s been since I entered something on here.  There have been so many times I thought I should start again, but feel overwhelmed by how much I’ve missed out on sharing.  But, alas, my life is full of new and overwhelming things, so why not add this to the list, too? 

My last entry was about the day I found out that my sister, Jennifer, had breast cancer.  The big ugly word that threw all of us into a tailspin.  It was heavy on my heart throughout June, July and August.  Forget the fact that I had to pack up my entire house and life in South Africa and say good bye to the only home my children have ever known.  (Which, by the way, I somehow managed to do!)  

At the end of July, we headed down to Cape Town to spend just over 2 months with Clint’s family.  During that time, so many things happened.  Oh, I wish I would have blogged all those things!  The biggest event was the passing of Clint’s aunt, Nita.  She lost her battle with breast cancer.  This was especially hard because we were still unsure at that time what was happening with Jennifer and her cancer.  Clint’s mother, Lorraine, and I bonded during this time.  It was amazing to see how we could be going through something so different and scary and just learning to seek God together through it.  I have an amazing family of in-laws and during our 2 months+, I grew to love and appreciate them even more. 

We rejoiced together when we recieved the news that Jennifer is cancer-free and needed no further treatment.  Praise the Lord.

We said a tearful good-bye to the Barends family on October 7 when we left to spend the rest of the year with my side of the family.  We arrived in Indianapolis on October 8 and the kids started school on the 12th.  We made this big decision to enrol them into school for the 2 1/2 months we were in the States.  It turned out to be a great decision and it was amazing to see how the flourished in those weeks!

It was really a wonderful time with my family through the holidays.  We also had the opportunity to visit many friends throughout Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina and around the Indiana area as well.  Christmas was hyper on steroids with all the presents.  We were so spoiled!  As soon as Christmas passed, however, it was time to start finding a place in our suitcases for all our new treasures! 

We flew out of O’Hare on December 28 in the cold and the snow and arrived that afternoon in San Jose, Costa Rica to the warmth and sunshine.  So, the past 3 weeks we have been settling in and finding our way around this city that only speaks Spanish.

Last Tuesday, January 12, we began Spanish language study at el Instituto de Lengua Española.  You can check it out at www.thespanishinstitute.com

The girls are in school there, too.  The primary school is “Sojourn Academy” .  The entire facility is geared toward missionaries who are preparing to serve in the Latin world, so they are in regular school all day while we’re in language school.  They get at least one hour a day of Spanish, except for Julianna: she has it for 1/2 of her day, so she’s starting to pick it up quicker. 

So, this is a quick update about the past 6 months of my life.  I will be more faithful to put down my thoughts.  Even if no one reads this, I need this space to just air my thoughts.  There are so many.

Last Tuesday, my world became fuzzy and a bit cloudy. It’s weird how you can feel that way.  I was at the movies with my friend Anne when my sister called.  It was a call I was expecting, but not news that I was expecting.  The lump they found in her breast was, as it turned out, carcinoma.  Cancer.  Breast Cancer.  hm…

Jennifer is 38 years old and while we tease her that she is old, the truth of the matter is that 38 is still very young and definitely too young for breast cancer.  But, that’s the thing about cancer.  It is not a respector of age or gender or ethnicity or nationality.  It just is.  When it wants to be and where it wants to be.  It is. 

Hearing this news was as devastating for me as if it had been my own diagnosis.  All I have wanted is to go home to Indiana.  Even if just for 10 days.  I wanted to fly home Tuesday evening, to arrive on Wednesday.  That way, I could have gone with her to her appointment yesterday with the breast oncologoist surgeon.  But, alas, here I sit.  Still in South Africa.  I know in my head that it wouldn’t make sense to go home now.  All I could do is sit with Jennifer.  It’s not like she’s laying in bed and needs help or anything.  So, I stay here.  But I am prepared to drop my life in a moment’s notice if she needs – or wants – me to go home. 

Other than walking around in a fuzzy cloud for the past 10 days, I have also been nursing sick children and myself.  Aliya was sick for 3 whole weeks, but is finally better after her second round of antibiotics.  I decided that we are done with antibiotics until at least the end of the year.  The doctors here are so medicine-happy and prescribe like mad medicine fools.  So, we will take lots of vitamins, immune system boosters and that will be that.  Gabi and Julianna are battling through their own infections but we’re doing it naturally with them. 

We are packing our house and as I do so, I realize that I have even more stuff than I first thought!  I don’t know if it’s all going to fit in the 7 boxes that we have.  Either way, we will make a plan!  It is so much stuff and I am already getting rid of so much other stuff.  I don’t want to make more sacrifices but I also realize sacrfice is the name of this game we’ve decided to play!

As I sit in my bed typing this, I can hear my parakeets chirping in the living room.  I see the sun just starting to peek its eyes over the horizon.  A Friday.  The beginning of a new weekend.  Good morning sunshine.

What a week this has been! 

Last Friday, Aliya came home from school saying that she didn’t feel well.  By bedtime, I could see that this was true:  she was feverish and lethargic.  Saturday was spent with her lying around, watching movies and running a fever.  I gave her adult-strength paracetamol, which didn’t bring down the fever.  So, I tried adult-strength ibuprofen.  Still no luck.

Sunday was spent with her condition getting worse and worse.  I wasn’t sure what to do and Clint was on his way to Durban (more about that later!) so I was all alone with the kids.  So, I phoned the doctor and she said I should bring Aliya in.  So, off we go to the doctor on a Sunday!  Confirmed:  Aliya was very very sick.  I was so relieved to hear that it was just a really bad sinusitis and pharyngitis, as I had thought it was something much worse.  I don’t remember a time in her life that she was THIS sick before, so I was really worried.  She ended up missing this whole week of school and going back to the doctor today to check that she doesn’t have mononucleosis!  Praise the Lord she doesn’t have mono and is well on her way to recovery, although it is still going to take several more days.

Monday evening around 5:30pm, Gabi came into the house holding her left hand in her right hand and blood was dripping, dripping, dripping from it.  One quick look and I could see imeediatly that she was going to need stitches.  She was crying and saying, “I don’t know what happened!  I don’t know what happened!”  There was just so much blood!  My friend Anne was here in the house so she ran up to call Claudia, who works with us here and is a pediatric nurse.  She came and immediately agreed that Gabi will need stitches. 

So, quickly, I organized the kids, got Gabi in the car with 2 towels wrapped around her hand and Anne jumped in the car to go with us.  We raced to the Wilgers Hospital (it felt like EVERYONE was driving SO slow, but we actually made it in less than 15 minutes!) Emergency Room.  They quickly saw to Gabi’s hand. 

The whole way to the hospital, I was trying to get Gabi to tell me what had happened; explaining to her that she can tell me whatever she was doing and she won’t be in trouble (I guessed that was why she didn’t want to tell me); telling her that the doctor will be able to help her better if she tells him how the gash happened.  She still stuck to her story that she didn’t know how it happened. 

To make a long story short, she ended up getting 4 stitches in her finger.  The doctor wanted to do a 5th stitch but Gabi was not going to let her do another one!  During the whole procedure, Gabi refused to look away!  She wanted to see everything that was happening!  (I am exactly the same!)

When we got home, Clint had returned from Durban and gotten the other two kids into bed.  So, we got Gabi cleaned up and into bed, reminding her that she still needed to tell us the truth about how she hurt her finger.  The next morning, she refused to talk about how it happened.  After they were at school, I decided to look around the back yard where she had been playing to see if I could find anything. 

Immediately, I found an ax and a piece of wood that had been hacked several times.  Both the ax and the wood had blood on them. I had found the instrument of destruction.  That evening, Clint confronted Gabi.  Again, she did not want to talk about it and told Daddy as much.  So, he produced the ax and the wood and showed it to her.  He said that Mommy had found it outside this morning.  She STILL said it wasn’t her! 

Clint said, “There is blood on both of these and it is YOUR blood, Gabi”.  That finally broke her.  She started crying and saying that she was scared to tell us.  So, Clint told her she can tell us anything and as long as it’s the truth, that’s all we want.  He said that Mommy and Daddy will talk about her discipline for the lieing and tell her what it is tomorrow. 

The next morning, I took Gabi into my bedroom and said that I wanted her to tell me what had happened with her finger.  She said, “I was playing with an ax.”  So, we talked about why she lied to us and that she can tell me anything whenever she wants to and I will listen and understand.  I have tried to explain to my children that they will never get in trouble for telling the truth but they will ALWAYS get in trouble for lieing. 

Then, 1 John 1:9 came to my mind; that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us of all our sins and cleanse us of all our unrighteousness.  So, I explained this to Gabi in terms she could understand and asked if she was willing to tell Jesus that she knew she shouldn’t have lied and ask Him to forgive her.  So, she did.  Then, I said, “You know, you could ask Jesus to be your Savior and to forgive you for all the bad things you’ve done.  Do you want to ask him into your heart?”  She said, “Oh, yes!  Because I forgot to do that on my birthday!”  So, right then and there, we prayed and she asked Jesus into her heart.  It was such a special moment to share with her. 

She has still been grounded for the past three days, strictly forbidden out of the house except to go to school.   I hope and pray that this has been a real learning lesson for her.  I think teaching honesty to children is one of the most difficult things because it is such a vital part of character-development in a young kid’s life.  I only pray that we will have much wisdom as we deal with this.  I pray that my kids will grow up with this as a part of their character, not because we force it on them but because they truly desire to follow the way of the Lord.

Last Thursday Clint flew down to Cape Town to surprise his mom, who turned 60 on May 5th.  I desperately wanted to go so I booked a ticket of my own and flew down Saturday afternoon and shocked everyone – including Clint!  It was such fun to see them all so super surprised! 

Sunday we had a surprise party for Ma, which wasn’t really a surprise.  She knew about it but didn’t tell anyone because she didn’t want to ruin their fun.  I knew she knew but no one else knew.  It was a wonderful party with about 70 of her closest friends and family.   

Monday morning, we got Gabi’s guitar.  She has waited patiently since her birthday for this guitar and she LOVES it.  Clint has started showing her some chords so she can really play.  She is so cute playing it and singing along not at all worried about being in the same key. 

Julianna is trying our patience and it becomes harder and harder to stay consistent with her discipline.  She is so stinkin’ cute and she knows it.  She will be 5 soon (on July 1st) and still struggles with wetting the bed.  It is better than it was 6 months ago, when she would pee the bed 2 or 3 times a night.  If she does it now, it is just once, but most mornings she is still dry.  We try not to make a big deal of it but sometimes it is just so gross! But I can see her diappointment when she wakes up wet so I don’t want to add to that disappointment by getting upset with her.  We started making her take her wet clothes off and her wet sheets.  It’s a bit job for a little girl, trying to get those sheets off the bed.  But that is part of the learning process.  Not to mention, it saves us having to touch the wet sheets.  But I think she’s learning and starting to figure it out.  I know she’ll get it and she just needs encouragement from all of us.

Istill have so much to pack and sort out before we leave in 10 weeks.  It feels like the overwhelming task, so I am procrastinating.  I am going to regret it if I don’t start soon.  The first thing I need to do is get Gabi and Julianna’s baby scrapbooks finished.  Then I can sort through all my scrapbooking materials and decide which ones I will take and which I will give away.  Once that is done, I will start packing away our household stuff.  Once I know what is definitely going with us, I will have to decide on those items that are maybes.  Actually as I write it out, it doesn’t feel like that much stuff.  Hopefully it won’t feel like a lot once I start! 

So, this is my ramblings for today.  I think I will bake some cookies now.

Julianna’s playschool is having a Mothers Day tea today.  Is it weird that I’m so excited about it?  After almost 5 years at Patches Playschool, this will officially be my last Mothers Day tea in the garden!  And I told Thandi she can help Julianna serve.

Thandi is the little girl who has captured my heart.  She is four years old and a little black girl.  It’s strange to me how much I love this little girl who isn’t even mine.  Thandi’s mommy died suddenly and unexpectedly last December.  So, it’s just her and her daddy.  She so desperately desires and craves a mommy’s love, as I can tell every morning when she runs into my arms when I drop Julianna off at school.  She has come home with us a couple of times and slept over for the night once.  She loves being here and having friends to play with.  I think about leaving her in July when we leave Pretoria and I just about can’t stand the thought of it.  Will there be another Mommy who will love her?  Will she recieve the affirmation and care that all little girls need?  What school will she go to next year?  Can her dad afford to send her to a good school to get a good education?  I just don’t know.  And I want to take her with us.  I want to bring her into our family and ensure a good education and lots of love. 

But for now, we will have Mothers Day tea and I will love on her while I can.  And I will be thankful that I can, for a little while, offer her the love she needs.  At least for now.

Last Thursday, I travelled 11 hours down to King William’s Town in the Eastern Cape for the wedding of my friend, Megan. She is American and has been working in South Africe for 2 years with AL-HARVEST.  She met and fell in love with Thembelani Daniso, a black African man who also works with AL-HARVEST.  A cross-cultural marriage of massive proportions.  It is even more diverse and foreign than my and Clint’s cultures. 

Saturday, she walked down the aisle looking radiant and so very in love.  Thembelani was cool, calm and collected as he said his vows but I could see his sincerity and the love in his eyes.  I hope and pray they will build an amazing God-centered life together and that they will supercede all the differences of their cultures to find the one path for them. 

When we arrived in KWT Thursday night, I was met with the fact that I have officially lost my writing job as a freelance writer.  Clint phoned to tell me that I received an e-mail from my writing boss saying that he is finished working with me.  I have a problem with deadlines and this is what has cost me my writing job.  At first, it was all I could do to hold back the tears.  This writing job has been my crutch for the past 6 months.  We desperately need this money, as we have a monthly debit that comes off of our American bank account every month and no source of income from that side.  However, I comforted myself with the fact that there are always people looking for writers and I should be able to find a new writing job as soon as I get back home.

But I think God has something else in mind for me.

Over the course of the weekend, as we set up for Megan’s wedding, took part in the wedding and reception, I had this nagging feeling creeping up in the pit of my stomach.  This feeling that I am not supposed to c0ntinue writing.  At least for now.  I feel like God has been secondary to my writing.  I have been trusting in my own strength to make this money that we desperately need and I am not trusting God.  The whole time I’ve been writing, I never felt at peace about it.

I realized that I was actually feeling relieved about not having to write, instead of sad about it.  I think getting “fired” was God’s way of waking me up to make me analyze where my trust has been – and it hasn’t been in the right place.

So, I told Clint all of this last night when I got home and he said that he never felt that I should be writing.  Confirmation?  Yes, I think so.  For now, I will not write.  This makes me feel insecure and out of control.  But I know this is where I need to be to trust God.  So, I again have to choose to trust Him.  Even though I want to trust myself. 

This is such a journey and I am beginning to wonder if it is a journey that ever ends?

Today is Gabi’s 6th birthday.  She’s my middle daughter.  Today we had 23 children, ranging in age from 1 year to 12 years old, at the birthday party.  But even through all the craziness and chaos, I have been reflecting about the past 6 years of my life.  What a journey it’s been.

Six years ago, Clint and I went into Pretoria East Hospital in Pretoria, South Africa, in the early morning hours of April 24 for our scheduled C-Section.  My pregnancy had been healthy, with regular workouts at the gym, including water aerobics (which I highly recommend as a fabulous pregnancy workout!).  We had planned for this baby, prayed for this baby and anticipated every good thing, just like with our first baby. 

At 8:55am, Dr. Sher announced, “It’s a girl!” and we knew her name was going to be Gabriella Jade.  Under the flourescent lights of the operating room, I saw my Gabi for the first time.  But something wasn’t right.  She was not cute.  Not at all.  She was perfectly round – everything about her was round.  But she did not look the way I thought she should look.  (I thought she should look like her sister, Aliya, had looked 21 months earlier.)  After all the excitement and anticipation of waiting for this little bundle, I didn’t feel excited.  I suddenly felt a new thing:  dread.

The 3 days I spent in the hospital were very different from my experience the first time around.  I didn’t want this new baby in my room.  She cried all the time.  And I mean, ALL the time.  She was breastfeeding okay but I didn’t like it.  As soon as I was done feeding her, I would take her back down to the Baby Room and let her stay there until her next feeding time. 

The first few weeks were a blur for me.  Then, when she was 6 weeks old, we flew to the USA for furlough – Clint and the now 22-month old Aliya had gone 2 weeks earlier.  Those two weeks had been hell.  Now I had to spend 24 hours flying with her.  She cried and cried and cried and I can only imagine now, thinking back, how frazzled and stressed I must have appeared on that flight.

Let’s jump ahead 2 1/2 years.  Here I have this toddler who continues to be difficult for me.  Plus, we’ve added another little girl to our family.  Julianna had been born when Gabi was only 14 months old – a surprise to us all!  At this point, I was not coping with my life as it was.  I couldn’t deal with Clint being gone – even when he would go to use the bathroom, I would stress out that I was alone with the kids.  Absolutely everything felt out of balance and out of control.

Then, Brooke Sheilds wrote a book titled, “Down Came The Rain”.  It chronicles her battle through post-partum depression.  I read an excerpt of the book in a magazine.  For the first time in 2 1/2 years, I felt like I was reading words that actually expressed what I didn’t even know was in my heart!  It made so much sense.  In a moment of time, there was light. 

I finally got the help I needed, although I didn’t like it.  No one wants to admit that they have to see a Clinical Psychologist.  No one wants to admit they are on anti-depressants.  But I could not deny the help these were to me.  Within a week, I felt like Becky again.  She had come back and she was just as fun and crazy as ever!

Today, I am still on anti-depressants and it’s still hard for me to admit it.  But just like a diabetic needs insulin, I need the extra help to regulate my chemicals.  And now that I have the help I need, I see my little girl in such a different way.

Today, Gabi is a beautiful and vivacious little 6 year old and the only one of my kids who inherited my freckles!  She is sharp and very clever and can do anything.  She surprises us constantly with her natural musical talent.  She picked up a pair of drumsticks and sat down at a drumset and started playing.  And she’s good!  She desperately wants to play the guitar, which is why that is her present for her birthday, along with 3 girl-colored picks that her Daddy chose for her! 

Not only is Gabi musically talented, she excels in everything she does at school and in sports.  She is fearless and determined, but at the same time, possesses a sensitive soft heart. 

I love Gabi more than I ever thought I would.  She fills my heart with something so unexpected and fresh.  And today, I thank God for giving me this precious little treasure for now.  I pray that I can take everything she is today and help mold her into the woman she’s meant to be.

As I was driving the girls to school this morning, I was looking at all the scenery that we passed by and thought about how short our time here is.  All the trees that I usually take for granted, all the people walking on the sides of the road, the traffic, the good, the bad – soon it will be my last time for all of these experiences.

After 7 1/2 years living here, I don’t think my heart has fully comprended the finality of our leaving.  I know it.   I know we are leaving.  I know we will be saying good bye.  But it doesn’t feel real yet.  South Africa has become so much my home that I cannot imagine how life will be somewhere else!

I once heard it said that once Africa gets in your blood, it will never get out.  I feel exactly that way!  Not only is my husband from this land, but my kids are 50% African (truly African-American!) so there will be no escape.  There is something so earthy and natural about this country.  And it feels so much a part of who I am now. 

Africa is in my blood.  But, ever so slightly and ever so slowly, Panama is creeping into my heart.  I feel myself more and more drawn to the colorful Latin culture that will become my new home.  Isn’t it amazing the way God prepares your heart for what He has planned for you?  I never thought we would live in South Africa and here we are in our 8th year.  I never thought we would live in Central America and here we are on our way there.  And my heart skips a beat in anticipation. 

So, while the end lies ahead for one chapter, the new chapter is just starting to be written.  And I can’t wait to see it unfold.

I walked through the grocery store this afternoon fighting off tears at every turn.  As I meticulously wrote down every single item I put in my cart and its price, I was continuously reminded how broke we are.  It seems some months we are okay, but most months, like this one, we have no money at all and it seems there is no light at the end of the tunnel. 

Friday is Gabi’s 6th birthday and as a mom, I want to make her last birthday in South Africa a special one.  I want to give her everything she asks for (which is only a guitar – she doesn’t ask for much) and I can’t do that.  My bank account is too small.  But I acknowledge that my faith is even smaller. 

Sometimes I find myself getting angry with God about my money situation.  I KNOW that He could give us loads of money.  I KNOW that He could send someone to our doorstep with just the food we need for the month.  I KNOW that He’s capable of so much more than I can even imagine.  But I FEEL He doesn’t do these things for me.  He can, but He doesn’t.  And then I get angry with him.

I called my blog “A Heart of Flesh” after a life-changing verse I read in Ezekiel in 1998 which transformed my life.  I’m sure I had read it before that time but that particular day, the words jumped off the page and soared into my heart.  The entire passage reads, “For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land.  I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.  I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:24-26

Not only is that passage beautifully poetic, it is also a promise that I have had to come back to over and over again in the past 11 years.  He has promised me so much and never once backed down on those promises.  And yet, I doubt Him.  I doubt His love for me.  For me…oh me of little faith. 

And so, today I choose to trust Him again.  It doesn’t come naturally and it isn’t what my heart wants me to do.  I have to make the decision of my will and believe with my head that He will provide.  My heart will catch up.