the women we don't know what to do with

When I was a little girl, I attended a church that supported a dozen or so missionaries. These missionary families would visit every so often and when they went up front to share, it was a pretty standard gig. The husband stood on the stage and his wife stood four inches to his left and and two inches behind him. He held the microphone. She wore either a denim jumper or floral skirt, because the 80s were the holiest decade. He finished talking and then half-started to hand her the mic while asking, “do you want to say anything?” And she would giggle and wave her hands ‘no’ and the congregation would giggle right back because shy women are so cute.

I’m sure it happened in other ways too, but this is what I remember. From my 16 years in that church, that was the defining memory I had of missionary couples, and in particular, missionary wives.

A few years later, in college, I was majoring in a foreign language and this thing they called “government” because I liked words and leadership and wanted to dabble in both. The summer after my freshman year, I was invited by my then pastor to attend the Global Leadership Summit. I was the only student invited and one of only a few females. I had no idea why I was there, really. Our church wasn’t small, so, why not invite someone important? During one of our breaks, out in the parking lot as we waited for the rest of our carpool, that pastor turned to me and out of the blue asked, “Do you think you have a speaking gift?”

He might have said more to me after that. I might have responded. I think I was pushing gravel around with my flip flop. I don’t remember. My brain was too busy trying not only to answer the question but also to sort through the ramifications. Do I have a speaking gift? Maybe? So what if I do? Will I ever get to use it? I mean, do women ever get handed the mic? Had I ever seen that happen? How do I develop a gift if I can’t practice it?

Good question. You join the Peace Corps, that’s how.

I spent two years talking, learning another language. Practicing cross-cultural communication. Overcoming fears of rejection and looking stupid in front of people. Trying new things. Making mistakes. Reading and writing and thinking. A lot. I taught things. To men! And no heads exploded! It was incredible!

Fast forward a few years. Newly married, back on the field with my strapping husband. Ready to go be amazing. And I had a complete and utter meltdown. We called another pastor friend and told him I had lost my mind and he said, “Mmm, no, I think you’re just having an identity crisis.”

Is that even a real thing? It must be, because I lived it. I came to realize through time and soul searching that in the transition to wifedom, I had lost myself. Quite suddenly, I wasn’t just a person, I was a missionary wife and I had a very narrow picture of what that meant. I had never really seen any missionary wives do anything other than look cute. The flashbacks from my childhood told me that the husband did all of the important work and she, well, she giggled and said she didn’t want the mic – and everything that implied.

I didn’t even own a jean jumper! What on earth was I doing with myself? The thought of tending the hearth and darning the socks and nourishing my dear husband to strengthen him for daring expeditions into the bush made me feel more purposeless than I’d ever felt.

Thankfully my husband is more of a feminist than I am and he had fallen in love with the Peace Corps/courageous/“of course I can do anything,” version of me, so in his loving leadership, he basically shoved me out the door. 

You are good at organizational management. The school should be yours. No one relates to women like you do. All maternal/child stuff should be yours too. You write better than I do. I feel like you should do all of the newsletters.

He wasn’t asking me if I had some gifts, he was telling me frankly that I did, and that I needed to use them. I said to him what I hadn’t said years earlier at the Leadership Summit: “Do I really get to do that?” And Jeremy’s loving and blunt answer back was simply – “Well, why not?” (His theology is more robust than that, but accountants are also really good at cutting to the chase.)

I stammered to answer his rhetorical question. Well… well… because I thought I was just supposed to wear ill-fitting clothing and cook and stand behind you?

God bless my patient husband.

We figured it out together. He pushed me to write more and speak more and lead more and I began believing that that was ok. Even for a “missionary wife.” For Jeremy, it was never about “man’s work” or “woman’s work,” nor was it some gender-based affirmative action. It was about what needed to get done and who was best gifted for the job. Period.

In God’s goodness to me, we started connecting with churches in our region of Zambia who stretched me all the more. We started getting invited to do a lot of speaking and when we confirmed what exactly they wanted, the response was always, “Both of you. We want both of you. We need to hear from Bethany too. She has something to say to us.”

She has something to say to us.

She has something to say to us.

She has something to say to us.

My soundtrack started changing and each time I stood up to speak, a new picture filled my head. Slowly; repetition will always do its work. Bless you Zambia for giving to me what my childhood memories did not.  

It’s remarkable how the pictures we see – or don’t see – in our youth shape what we think we’re capable of when we are older. In some circles they call it mirroring – the idea that we need to see our future selves in the adults around us. The key principle is this: we don’t become what we don’t see. I didn’t grow up seeing Christian women lead and teach outside of children’s and women’s ministry. My struggle to accept myself in co-ed speaking/teaching/leading roles was a struggle precisely because I had no picture of that in my mind.  

Stepping into water known to have the sharks of disapproval is basically terrifying. I went back to the states this spring for the sole purpose of public speaking; that thing I had never seen a missionary wife do. Every state-trip before this, Jeremy and I had always done our presenting together, and somehow his presence always seemed to make mine more acceptable. Flying solo was a whole other deal. I started out with my knees knocking.

The number of times I was asked, “So why isn’t Jeremy the one doing this?” – approximately 563 million.

The number of times Jeremy was asked, “So why aren’t you the one going?” – approximately 974 billion.

At first I made excuses – a lot of them. Oh, well, he had conferences to run and I had a wedding to attend and this and that and the other (all of which were true,) … But after the 800^th time, I borrowed Jeremy’s confidence and script and just said, “Well, why not?”

Why did I come instead of my husband? “Why shouldn’t it have been me?”

The struggle is real. While my experience is not at all universal, I know it’s also not unique. In a hundred subtle ways it gets communicated that missionary wives are background decoration. From the missions articles women aren’t featured in and the mission conferences women aren’t speaking at. From the classes women aren’t leading and the policy they aren’t making. From the gatekeepers who say that wouldn’t be appropriate anyway.

The lack of affirmation translates as condemnation and creates a setting in which every feminine move feels controversial. I have sisters who have accidentally breached boundaries and have been questioned why they feel the need to do this or say that and in those places. And if they answered, “Well, why not?” they were branded “contentious.”  

It took me eight weeks of presenting to really find my voice – to feel like I was joyfully sharing my gift and not timidly auditioning on behalf of women everywhere. The churches along the way that were clearly used to working with women were inspirational. She has something to say to us! The Zambian soundtrack had followed me across the ocean and I stood up a little straighter because of it – only to be taken down a notch when later someone would say, “Wait, they let you speak?!?!”

When a woman feels called to be a wife and mother and has a heart’s desire to serve quietly in the church nursery, this is easy – for everyone. But when a woman feels called to lead or teach or preach, and is actually gifted to do so, it is real work for her to figure out the right spaces to do that. And the question plagues me, and so many others – should it really be hard at all?

Indispensible people with essential gifts are being tragically neglected as whole swaths of the American church can’t seem to figure out what to do with these women. Too often, the action plan is to have them serve children and other women – basically keep them busy – but heaven forbid they might actually have influence!

And all the little girls are taking notice.

they are watching. and who they see matters.

Those girls will grow up, you know, and some will end up following husbands to the far reaches of the earth. This is my story, and my experience is this: global missions is hindered when 50% of the population doesn’t even know what they are good at.

We met a fellow missionary couple some time back and in the course of getting to know them and sharing about our respective ministries, Jeremy and I and the other man all talked about our areas of expertise after which the other woman just stared at us blankly and then finally said, “I don’t know what my expertise is. I guess cooking.” And then she did that shy giggle thing.

Maybe she’s following her heart’s desire. Maybe she’s meeting others’ expectations. Or maybe she just never had an picture of anything else. Now that I’ve been spoiled, all I can think is, Where are all the Jeremys???

Where are the brothers serving as cheerleaders for their sisters saying:

You have a gift of compassion – you should be running this outreach.

You are an amazing teacher – you should lead a co-ed class (because the men need to hear this too.)

You lead brilliantly – take this seat at the table and share your views with us.

Where are all of the men saying on repeat, ‘you have something to say to us’?

We have a job to do, and there is no logic in marginalizing half of our best talent.

I know that there are young girls who are growing up with amazing examples. Those who see women up front every Sunday. Who hear them preach and watch them lead. Who see ladies on boards and serving in a variety of places outside of the nursery and I am so excited for their future. These girls are actively developing their gifts while they are still young because they can see themselves using those gifts when they’re grown. And when they go out? They are going to hit the ground running and will have no need for identity crisis because they’ve known all along what things would look like. And they will gift us with Christ in them, without explanation or hesitation.

And the world will be blessed.

the mission of motherhood… all you need is love?

Back before I had a life overseas, I attended a missions conference during which the speaker stood on the stage and told us to anticipate three profound keys to making a difference in a person’s life, a region, and the world. His three points were, (1) Relationship, (2) Relationship, and (3) Relationship. When I joined the Peace Corps, we were forbidden from doing any “work” for three full months with our one and only job being to build relationships. Recently, I had a conversation with a local counterpart about how to remedy a sticky situation and over the course of our thirty-minute discussion, I heard the word relationship at least seven times.

Relationship, it seems, is crucial, not just because it makes us feel warm and fuzzy but because relational connection is essential to effecting change. That sing-song phrase – people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care – it’s annoyingly overused because it’s true. In the realm of community development, progress comes hard, and often, not at all, unless whole people are engaged, hearts are connected and friendships are born.

We spend time regularly taking our relational temperature within our community. And spoiler alert, it has nothing to do with dollars spent. We understand that how much we do for people is altogether separate from how well we connect with them. For this reason, we routinely ask for feedback on how well we are loving people. Recently, a friend told us that some of our habits are culturally awkward. “Stop having people over for dinner,” he said. “It’s American and it’s weird. Just go sit with them in the afternoons. Watch football. Shoot the breeze. Love your neighbors the way they love each other.” It’s awkward to be awkward, but we learn. We adjust. If we want to make a difference, this love thing is a non-negotiable. Sometimes I walk around and hum to myself, (especially if I’m hitting a brick wall in a particular area)… All you need is love, love. Love is all you need.

I’m thankful for the lessons community development has taught me. My pre-kid life gave me lots of practice in the realm of behavior change and connecting across a divide, which are PHD level skills in mommyhood. After all, we are charged with transforming tantrum throwers with no frontal lobe who can’t even wipe their own bottoms into productive members of society. No small task. I’ve noticed how the relational compass we’ve adopted for the village has also done a good work in guiding our home. I often gaze down at my kiddos while they sleep – all still and for once not talking, and as I pray over their delicate selves, my most constant request is that they would know how much I love them.

There is a common fear amongst ex-pat and missionary parents – we are neurotic about not screwing our kids up. We know too many TCK’s and MK’s who have gone off the deep end, and it’s terrifying. I have googled all the articles, read all the blogs, searching for answers, wondering what I need to do to assure that my children turn out globally-awesome and not wholly-dysfunctional. I’ve made it my duty to ask this question of every parent I know who has raised their children overseas. The data for this topic in my head is fathoms deep and all the answers basically say the same thing: kids need to know that they are loved. Who would have guessed?

It makes sense that loving my kids would look different than loving the lady next door, and thankfully, many wise people have contributed to fleshing out what this special brand of third-culture-love looks like. There are many ways to do this well, but a common theme that arises over and over focuses on this: making sure our kiddos know that they are more important than the work. They need the security to know that they are not second to the mission. They are not extra luggage. They are loved more than all the other things. They are not missionary kids they are Colvin kids. Family comes first because these precious short people matter.

The other day I was playing “phone” with Bronwyn. It’s a good chance to work on her conversational skills, and for me to quiz her on details. What’s your name? (Bronwyn Colvin Bupe) How old are you? (4) Where do you live? (Center Zambia) What are your parents names? (Bashi Winnie Jeremy Colvin and Bana Winnie Bethany Colvin) Who are your siblings? (Beauty, Michael, Timo and Leonie.) (Beauty, Michael and Timo are not her siblings, but I let it go because it’s too cute to argue with.) I held my breath a little when she answered my last question – a stretch for her, I knew. What do your parents do for a living? I asked, and waited while she thought. Her answer went like this:

“Well, you cook my supper… and read me all the books… and walk me to preschool… and… do whatever I ask you!”

My first two thoughts were, (1) remind me to never make her the key-note speaker at a Choshen fundraiser, and, (2) good grief, I sound whipped.

But in the same heartbeat I registered, she thinks my job is to meet her needs… I love that. Maybe it’s my uncompromising, attachment-parent self that is amplifying my ex-pat mom anxieties… but that my daughter identifies that my job is to be responsive is the highest compliment.

Truth is, team Jeremy and Bethany works its collective tush off to be productive human beings, using our gifts and talents for the good of humanity while at the same time raising little people in the knowledge and security that they are more important than all the good things we could ever do. For Bronwyn, that means all the physical affection and book time on the couch that her little soul can handle. For Leonie, it means on-demand nursing and a strict “if she cries bring her to me” policy. It means limited use of the words “I’m busy,” and if I truly am busy, it means communicating how soon my attention will be freed up. It will surely mean different things as they grow older, but it will always imply, “you are the most important thing in my world.”

I can consider it a gold star to hear that my kids don’t know how much “work” I do – not because I don’t work hard but because my hard work is clearly not in competition with my demonstration of love for them.

All you need is love? 

I'm sold.

You?

the idolatry of minimalism

Spawned by a 1970’s art history movement, minimalism became the choice descriptor for simple art and design. It kept a low profile for several decades until something (the mystical powers of the mommy bloggers) in America caused the term to broaden its meaning beyond art and into every day life. Suddenly, the internet was giving us all the directions on how to downsize our wardrobes and discard nick-nacks and shrink paper piles and everything in between. Minimalism spawned whole new species a la minimalist parenting and minimalist cooking and minimalist hairstyling – and bit by bit, the fad became wisdom and we all realized that fat and cluttered and complicated were not actually recipes for happiness.

I bought into the minimalist philosophy long before I knew it was cool, long before Becoming Minimalist started telling me to do all the things I was already doing. My first house after college was a tried and true minimalist hut. The entire structure was made of earth. Good, clean dirt and grass and water and clay. I especially loved my dirt floor – I could drain my pasta water right next to the fire which was also dropping embers onto the floor of my kitchen-living-dining room. It was infested with rats and bats, and I loved everything about it. (The Peace Corps tends to attract not-high-maintenance people.) I had no furniture save a bed, a table with no chairs (because the village carpenter was clearly not looking for money) and a rough hewn shelf. And it was all I needed.

Not what most Americans think of when they hear "starter home," but I loved it.
Also, unrelated side note: baby face Aggie on my left there is graduating from high school this year. *tear*

Marriage and children pushed my minimalism boundaries a bit. Jeremy insisted on a not-dirt floor. I'm a good wife, so I conceded. When Bronwyn came along and started sleeping with us and none of the spaces in the house was big enough to fit our new bed, change was necessary. Bit by bit, we've pushed walls around and added a few amenities, taking a “step up” every year or so… and every time, I’ve felt super guilty about it. It’s like my inner minimalist is being asked to commit perennial felonies and I hate it.

I still find the simplicity of it stunning

the bungalow/rondoval/yert we custom made to fit our co-sleeping bed 

this is how we reno: Jeremy with power tools on top of a chair on top of a chair on top of
a table being stabilized by three boys pretending they are Jet Li. Call us for bookings, HGTV.

Principled is my middle name, and my minimalist principles are chiseled on stone tablets. One of the principles of our work is that we live with and like those around us. We believe strongly in the power of integration for effective communication and we’ve seen the fruit born of such an ideology. Rich people living amongst the poor must acknowledge the baggage they carry unless they want their dialogue to sound like this:

 “Hello! My name is $$$. I’m so happy to be here for the sake of $$$. Would you like to partner with us on $$$? Maybe we can get together and talk about $$$? Ok, well sounds like $$$ would be a good idea? Let’s chat more about $$$. Thanks! Bye… $$$$!”

True story: I have actually had people greet me (outside of Fimpulu, thankfully,) with the words, “Hello, Dollars!” Its crazy unsettling and it totally confirms the need to establish a different name lest we adopt $$$ as the super-inappropriate default.

Hard work pays off, and I’ll be purple duck if living in the bush doesn’t qualify as hard work. After several years, people commented on it – a lot – to us and to others. “Hey, there are these white people in our village and they live in just a house like ours!”

I’ve heard that no less than a dozen times, and I always pat myself on the back a little for it.

happy little homesteaders

Equally strong as our convictions around simple integration are our convictions around the science and theology of minimalism. Studies have proven that less clutter correlates with greater happiness and verily verily, we can attest that throwing junk away feels good. Furthermore, Jeremy and I are both proper Sunday School graduates and we know this to be true: Don’t store up your treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy. Have less crap, says the Teacher. And all God’s people shouted Amen.

But life is a forceful tutor. My baby got malaria. And then she got it again, just as Jeremy and I had too, and this happened over and over until our family malaria count is somewhere around 20 and we stopped counting because that’s silly. Our roof started to slowly dust away to nothing and we unloaded 10 cans of insecticide to assassinate the beetles eating it, and I don’t even want to think about the brain cells we killed with that choice. We’ve all had weird skin ailments and are far too comfortable with conversations about diarrhea. We had a season of hairy spider infestation too. Our newest thing is that we now have an indoor “water feature,” a tranquil waterfall flowing down the side of our kitchen wall collecting in a small pond that touches every square inch of our living room. So vogue.

One afternoon, I watched Bronwyn skype with Grandma, naked and fevered, lying on the floor and looking painfully pitiful. To say that I felt like a bad mom would be an understatement. That same day, Jeremy read me an article from a study in Uganda claiming that tin roofs, when compared with grass, saw a 50% reduction in the incidence of malaria. The wise husband started asking me if we should make some changes and I said “NOOOOOo!” faster than he could say “MALARIA.” My heels are dug in pretty deep in this Zam-mud. I dogmatically recited our mantra. "We live simply. As do our neighbors. If they can do this, so can we. We do not need more comforts than what we have. We. Do. Not.”

But I slept on Jeremy’s question all the same. For many nights... and mornings, mopping up the lake in the livingroom and dumping the mosquitos out of our little night-light-bug-sucker thingy and swabbing anti-fungal goo onto Leonie’s face and killing all the spiders of the world for Bronwyn.

The staunch conviction that we must live JUST like our neighbors started to waver a bit as I was rattled by my lack of hospitality towards my own children.

Hey Guilt Hey! Our minimalist principles are hard and fast, and so by conceding to change, it felt like we were wimping out, throwing in the towel, and embracing that which we’re most adamantly against. In our case, however, “go big or go home” is more than a tagline. It’s a mandate linked to real possibilities and real consequences. We understand that if we don’t take care of our family, we’ll have to opt out of this gig all together and it would behoove us to make sure that doesn’t happen. Alas, the hubby is right.

We’ve emphasized how simply we live to everyone who has tracked with our work. It’s kind of been a thing we may have bragged shared about more than once. (oh hey extra layer of guilt). But we’re going to have to change our story. Because we done gone ripped our roof off. We sure did. We tore some walls down and we we have begun operation hospitality: the effort to turn our house into a home. Dear everyone, the goals have changed.

Once upon a time, the goal was to live as simply as possible, idolizing minimalism and embracing an almost-ascetic brand of discomfort. I judged hard-core anyone who commented that they couldn't live like we do because truth is, yes you can - we are not special. But. Just because one can doesn't mean that one has to or that one should, and I've spent near on a decade parsing this distinction out. There’s a difference between seeking comforts because of a materialistic spirit and/or an immature avoidance of hard things... and seeking to not be so sickly and tired all the time. 

The goal now, therefore, is not to live comfortably, but to live comfortably enough. To have enough space that we can think and breathe without thinking and breathing on top of one another. To have enough of the household amenities that we aren’t stressing our bodies or our time to complete basic tasks. To have enough distance from the outside that we don’t feel like we are at constant war with the environs. To have enough aesthetic beauty to lift our spirits when needed. To have enough rooms and bed space so that the parents don't have to sleep with all of the kids forever and ever amen!

Enough.

Not all the comforts, not more comfort for more comfort’s sake, but enough.

Enough is defined by a matrix of culture and age and personality and gumption and grace and when it comes to "how much is enough," one size fits all is inadequate and lame. We have had to draw the lines in our own (literal) sand, and we've done so prayerfully and with great forethought. 

There have been seasons when we've embraced less for less’ sake, and we’ve hurt ourselves. We stand actions of starting off in the village sans fanfare. We acknowledge that it is because of our early choices that today we are not dollar signs, but rather friends, neighbors, helpers, and co-workers. By the same token, it is because of our history and friendship that at this stage in the game no one gives a rat’s rear whether we change our roof or add some square footage. Truly, they don’t care. Because after nine plus years, surprise, surprise, the intrigue is gone, and people are genuinely happy that we are doing something nice for our family. (Confession: because guilt is a twisted friend, I compulsively polled people on this to make sure we weren’t making a huge mistake and that our friends would not covetously despise us forever. Weirdo.) But when we received the equivalent of the Papal blessing from the neighbor folk and the grass came flying off the roof, we knew it was ok.

When we were fresh and pink and smelled like we had just stepped out of Wegmans, the people of the village were watching to see what we were all about. Now years later, we have children, and THEY are the ones watching to see what we are all about. As a principled mother, I want them to see frugality not futility. I want them to see moderation, not masochism. There’s a way to not bow to the god of mammon and still care for your body, mind and soul… and there’s a way to responsibly spend the money to do so.

Today I stood in the original house, the one the size of my parent’s bathroom, stroking the walls and tearing up, saying to Jeremy how I would miss that precious structure; the one in which he carried me over the threshold, to which we brought home our first child, where we made a name for ourselves in more ways than one.

"We’ve come far," he said. "And we’ll go farther still," and back to demo he went.