closed for inventory: the gift of coronavirus

Our one grocery store in the province does this curious thing where every so often it closes for inventory. In the middle of the day. During peak shopping hours. 

In times past when we’ve made a special trip to town, all excited for meat and cheese, and have been greeted by the rejection sign on ShopRight’s door, I’ve observed that it’s impossible in that moment to NOT become “exclusively American” and question why the store doesn’t do this at night and why is there no concern for the inconvenience to customers and who on earth approved this from a profit and loss standpoint? 

Alas. There are no answers. 

Drama aside, the sign telling us to come buy cheese another day is a minor annoyance… but it’s a major reminder. 

Here in Zambia, we finally joined our friends around the globe in “shut down mode.” Your jobs, schools, stores, and gatherings have been closed down for a while now, and as of this weekend, ours are too. I keep thinking about the sign on ShopRight’s door: Closed for Inventory, and I find myself transitioning into a familiar practice. 

You see, this Covid-19 crisis isn’t our first rodeo. Going through the files of my memory, I believe this will be our fourth lockdown experience in 13 years. None of the previous threats were, in retrospect, as deadly as Coronavirus, but their features of marshal law, shortage of food and quarantine resonates with what’s happening globally at this time. And while Corona promises to register much higher on the death scale, our other Zambian experiences have, I think, matched Corona’s psychological impact in terms of not knowing how bad things would get or how long the crisis would last. 

Our lock-down experiences have fallen under the categories of political violence, public health crises and good old-fashioned cultural upheaval (aka, witchcraft,) each ranging in duration from three weeks to three months. During these times, the severity of the threat has ranged from mild concern, to actually lying awake at night waiting for someone to come and kill us. 

What I’ve learned over the course of many shut-downs is that these life-interrupting, life-altering events that make us curse and cry and question why elected officials can’t get their act together, are actually prime opportunities to do a special kind of turning inward. “Closed for Inventory” reminds us that when life as we know it closes down, this is our call to take stock of absolutely everything.

When Cholera demanded our work be suspended, I noticed how unnerved I was and started reflecting over my job: What do I love about my work? Why am I anxious right now doing nothing? Who do I really work for? What about my work makes me tired? Where do I feel energized? When things resume, what do I want to be different? I TOOK STOCK. 

When we ended up spending ALL THE HOURS OF ALL THE DAYS together as a family, and that made me feel stir-crazy, it presented more questions: What are our goals as a family? When our kids are old, what do we want them to remember about this time? Do my kids know how much I love them? How would they know that they are important to me? When things resume, what do we want to be different? WE TOOK STOCK. 

When our emergency evacuation insurers told us we were too remote and they couldn’t get us out, even if we were in danger, I felt vulnerable in a totally new way. As I noticed the cortisol flooding my system over the idea of being stranded without a safety net, I began to ask questions: Are we being smart? Which ranks higher: my desire to serve or my desire to be safe?  If I get really sick, am I actually afraid of dying? I wrestled with what my responses exposed in my worldview concerning life, death and purpose and pondered the false security that things like insurance tend to provide. I came to a place of acceptance regarding my own sense of control as well as my mortality. I got real meta, in a way that mattered. I TOOK STOCK. 

When “stuff” was hard to get (INCLUDING TOILET PAPER, YA’LL – WE SEE YOU) and I noticed my heart racing when certain items disappeared from shelves, we evaluated our commitments to minimalism and radical contentment. In times of greatest resource-insecurity, we made conscious decisions to downsize. Yes, downsize. We simplified our meal plans and wardrobes and reduced clutter in every space in the house. This sounds counter-intuitive when most people globally are currently hoarding, but we found it incredibly liberating. When stuff was not available in shops, we asked the question, Can we manage if certain items never return? Is this a need, want or addiction? Would changing our expectations actually serve our minimalist goals? When our grocery store burned to the ground (next one being roughly 400 miles away) we said, well then, this will be different. And we pivoted. The loss of material security does not mean the end of life, it means the end of life as we know it. In times of crisis, life is different, but not over and paying attention to what we want/crave/miss when its gone is informative. WE TOOK STOCK. 

I need to confess; this healthy introspection didn’t happen instinctively the first time around. When chaos erupted and big men with big guns started patrolling and everything was canceled, oh we freaked out – like normal people. The default reaction in human beings when faced with danger and insecurity is that our limbic-brain engages and we go into fight or flight response. “Panic mode” is the factory setting, despite not being very productive. I think for Jeremy and me, we were able to shift from panic to productivity simply because, even though we were wrapped up in our first crisis, it wasn’t the first crisis for the people around us. Instead of panic and worry, our neighbors immediately launched into story mode, and it was fascinating. They told us about Independence in ‘64 and whatever outbreak in ‘80 something and the riots in the early 2000's. They told us about how they learned to greet each other by tapping feet and bumping elbows. They told us about changes in local economy and food and what they did and how they felt about it then and now. They narrated from the past what we were seeing in the present and then declared like bosses, Twalikwanisha. We managed. 

Something about their crisis management plan made us both curious and jealous. Their obvious mastery over that default, limbic, panic-setting was winsome and compelling, and it was probably the thing that made me ask the first of all the introspective questions. Through their measured response, I was confronted with a significant contrast: People are throwing rocks and stuff is literally on fire and I’m terrified of anyone who breathes on me and it’s not like the people around me aren’t living with this chaos too… but I’m watching them gracefully change course… and it’s speaking to me that I’ve got some work to do. 

And I did. And as a family, we did. The key to thorough inventory is to pay attention to the felt emotions in your body and observe them with curiosity. When you feel anxiety, fear, anger, panic – any form of disturbance whatsoever – there is a question begging to be asked. And when a question is asked and answered, new awareness and therefore new emotions may arise that need to be observed and engaged, and that process needs to be repeated until you come to a place of ultimate inquiry: Is the way I’m coping with my situation actually serving me, and if not, what is in my power to change?

Now, as Corona presents yet another forced opportunity to stop and notice what’s bubbling to the surface and make a conscious decision about how to respond, I’m oddly grateful. Just because I’ve done this a few times doesn’t mean I’ve reached some sort of crisis-management nirvana. There’s a lot I’m not worried about because, been there, done that. But I’ve still got my stuff, obviously, and Covid-19 is presenting new circumstances and begging new questions.

I’ll just be transparent and share that I'm leaning in, and it’s already uncomfortable. Unlike previous crises which were isolated to Zambia, the fact that America is struggling at the same time means our funding has taken a significant hit and I’ve been feeling the growing pit in my stomach and a racing mind keeping me awake at 2am. As much as I’d rather mindlessly scroll Instagram right now, I now need to stay present to those feelings and ask, If funds continue to drop, where is the fear in that coming from? What does it mean to “have your needs met?” If you have to pick and choose, what populations or programs matter most? Can Fimpulu live with a Choshen scale-back? Who are you trusting for your provision? I NEED TO TAKE STOCK. 

From lived experience, I know that this is important… and the only way to do crisis well. At least I know that if I press into the discomfort, the fruit of introspection will last long after the crisis is over. This is the gift of Coronavirus.

The sign has been hung. This is our time. All of us. To do our work and take stock. Don’t waste it. 

re-framing the adoption narrative

She came to us on a Saturday night, after lying alone in a room for nearly 48 hours. We hadn’t planned for her. In fact, earlier that morning, I stood together with Jeremy in the storage shed while we debated getting rid of all the clothes our youngest had outgrown. 

We’re done, right? 

Uhhh… I think so???

…

Let’s just hang on to them a little longer, ok?

Ok. 

And an hour later, Bana K was at our door explaining what happened. 

Mom had been on the way to the clinic when baby M came. Somewhere between home and safety, she birthed, bled and died. A neighbor pulled them both into a hut and the funeral began. Baby M was wrapped in a blanket and placed in a back room. With no one to nurse her, the family prepared for not one, but two burials. 

Something in her cries that night must have pushed the family to think differently. Several of the funeral attendees knew us, and a messenger was dispatched. I arrived to find Dad, his seven other children, and the 200 or so mourners typically found at a village funeral. I was ushered into a two room house. The four-year-old on the other side of the brick wall was wailing for his mom who wasn’t coming back. The family sat with me on the dirt floor while other curious bodies crammed in, blocking what little light would have come through the door and triangle windows built into the exterior walls. Dad leaned on the wall across from me, no longer coping with the two-year-old fussing on his lap. The fifteen-year-old next to him was little help. They both looked like they'd been run over by a truck. 

The family asked me to speak, and I asked first to just listen. In turn, old women said the same thing, one after another. “We need help. We can’t manage. Please help us. Please help.” I said, “I want to help. She needs to eat. It has been too long. I can have milk here in a few hours.” 

They had already decided though what kind of help they were looking for. 

“Take her.”

“Uhhh…”

“We just can’t right now. We’re not managing with the other seven. We need you to take her.” 

There we sat, between a rock and a hard place. A shell-shocked family desperately asking for help. Me, rolling over attachment theory in my head. Above the clamor expressing this challenge and that, I blurted out, “She needs her family!” And they upped the volume a notch and yelled back, “We need YOU.” And ten minutes later, someone was shoving into my vehicle a bundle of blankets, at the center of which was a darling little girl. 

Every year when Adoption Awareness Month (November, fyi) rolls around, I get this sinking feeling in my gut as I see the internet filled with stories and pictures of happy adoptive families who would center the narrative around the beauty of adoption. And truly, adoption is beautiful. To choose to love is beauty incarnate. But, truly-truly, it is beauty from ashes. We owe it to the adoptees in our midst to acknowledge that ashes are a bi-product of something being burnt to the ground. 

There is no other way to arrive at adoption other than extreme trauma and loss. A mother dies. A family breaks. Addiction. Disfunction. Abandonment. We can’t manage - take her.

Sometimes I feel like we are so busy celebrating the redemption that we hold precious little space for the tragic. It is both lovely and awful at the same time. Like my favorite Ann says, “Joy and pain are arteries of the same heart,” and intentional orphan care means we handle both well. 

It might seem unreasonably pessimistic to even suggest re-directing the conversation towards trauma. Who doesn’t love a happy ending? What’s wrong with you, Emo Adoption Lady? 

What’s wrong with me is that I grew up in the first world and have lived my entire adult life in the third, and now as a foster and adoptive mother, I see the trajectory of orphan care from two different continental views, and I’m still unsettled. 

In America, we have focused on keeping children safe, and with family when possible, which means we major on two actions: removal and reunification. “The system” is swamped and foster parents, bless them, are doing their best. In Zambia - to our shame - we have largely focused on crisis management which has meant institutionalization. As I’ve written about before (here and here,) the funding flow out of the West fuels the glorification of orphanages and the result is thousands of children in “care” (a misnomer) while their DNA is out there. 

What has my gut twisted in knots and wrapped around my heart is that, on either continent, in any context, when I hear talk about adoption awareness, the thing that I’m NOT hearing people talk about is prevention. 

Every single adoption is the result of a brokenness which we, the community of privilege, have failed to prevent. I think about this for our own son, and for all of our adoptee friends. I cry about how scared my son’s birth mom must have been, and how someone clearly wasn’t there to support her. I think about the parents who sign papers and hand kids over because no stepped in to say, “keep your child, I’ll pay for everything.” I think about the homeless mom and the addicted one and the one with an abusive boyfriend and I feel the burden of responsibility. How many steps along the way were we not there for you? 

Baby M stayed with us for three weeks at which point, I won’t lie, we kind of wanted to keep her. There’s something about waking up every two hours at night to feed a baby and wearing her close to my heart throughout the day – I think any mother would have to be a little off to not feel the bonds of love forming. And truthfully? It would have been easy to make her ours. 

Her family already had asked for a long-term placement. We could have shown off our house and resources and promised her the world and her family would very likely have made a “smart” and terrible decision to leave her with us forever. And we would have been praised by the internet as a beautiful, adoptive family. But thankfully we have super good and reliable friends who snapped their fingers in our ears and just repeated, “She needs her family. She needs her family.” And they were absolutely right. So we set our feelings on the shelf and got serious about getting her home.

Convincing the family to receive her back was easier said than done, but we kept at it because we know it was right. We can never bring her mother back, but we can work to PREVENT the trauma of adoption. 

And work it is.

The first week baby M was home, Grandma called me several times after midnight just to say, “M is crying and won’t stop.” I never slept after those calls. On my first visit to the home to deliver more formula, I was given a list of things they needed. She wreaked of pee and I noticed that the rats had chewed through every one of her bottle nipples. We talked about burping and why babies cry and why laundry soap is too caustic for newborn skin. I taught them what a selfie was because the day deserved some levity. I drove away feeling like the band-aid had been ripped off too fast. 

Driving home, the thought rushed into my mind and I pushed it out the other side – This is a huge commitment. We are paying for everything anyway - it would be easier to just keep her with us. Thankfully the grace of conviction swelled again – prevention is worth the work. 

Unfortunately, our adoption culture celebrates the exact opposite. How many times have I seen a viral facebook post of a cute couple offering (begging) to adopt some other woman’s baby. We christen them as saints and speak nothing of birth mom’s story out on the margins. And after 6 million likes and 50,000 shares, the words “We’ll take her!” have become more admirable than, “We’ll move heaven and earth to make sure she stays with you!” And just like that, we facilitate loss instead of preventing it. 

Is it possible that the narrative of redemption in adoption has desensitized us to the flaming mess we didn’t address on the front end?  Is it possible that we aren't serious about family preservation because we don't yet believe in the primal wound we are inflicting? Do our meager efforts through pregnancy centers and WIC programs really amount to all that we can do? Are we skilled at putting out fires before they create the ashes out of which adoptees must then rise? 

I don’t think so. Not yet. We’re not nailing access to health care, marriage counseling, education, mentorship, therapy, childcare, job support. Not even close. Smart people have made these lists for us: they have curated research around what destabilizes parents and what kinds of structural and relational safeguards must be in place to support and preserve families. The stats are there: we're not doing it.

It feels like, in November, of all months, when we are supposed to be most “aware” of adoption, that prevention is the message we should be pouring over. Prevention is what we should be discussing and rallying behind and setting goals for. Because we love our adoptees more than life – this is a fact – but we need to get honest and admit that our adoptees wouldn’t have needed the "traumatic blessing" that is adoption if someone – WE – had done the hard work of prevention in the first place. 

Obviously not every person of privilege is in a position to help every mom and family in crisis – for reasons of geography if nothing else. None of us is omniscient and unknown crises are impossible prevent. Which is why I think the overarching narrative around adoption is so important – because while you may not be the neighbor to the newly pregnant woman who needs long-term support to keep her child safe and in her own home, that facebook friend of yours who thinks adoption is all rainbows and sunshine certainly is. It is our responsibility to cultivate a climate that is wise enough to know what needs to be done, and courageous enough to do it. 

For my part, I write words. I hug my son and mourn his loss with him, and celebrate the beauty of our forever family too. Together, we deliver tins of formula and become full-time cheerleaders of families preserved. We pour out, and advocate and hope. We do our best, which is all we can do. And we pray that you will too. 

the real reason missionaries don't stop

I lay flat on my back, unwilling to disrupt the IV awkwardly placed in the crook of my left arm. I inhaled – slow and intentional – a barely-there blood pressure not allowing for much vigor. I stared vaguely at the ceiling – white particle boards stained by drip spots. I closed my eyes and let go the words: “this is so nice.”

I caught that thought mid air before it had a chance to float very far. Then, talking back to myself, a revealing conversation followed.

Me: I’m sorry… what? Sickly in a third-world hospital, in no way classifies as “nice.”

Also me: Yeah, but no one is expecting me to do anything other than breathe. And that feels so good.

Me: …

Also me: Dear God, how did I get here.

I would spend the next six weeks in recovery: physical, mental and emotional. My goals were getting my organs back into the range of “alive” and psychologically unpacking the twisted relief I had clearly found in hospitalization.

The lead up to the breakdown should have been predictable.

We’d been on the field for three and a half years without a meaningful break. We were trying to adopt: a logistical and emotional battle we never foresaw. We were expanding our ministry: a spiritual and mental battle we foresaw, but still. Three kids, two in diapers: enough said. Malaria: times seven. A season of grueling meetings with no conclusions. Midnight wake up calls. Other people’s needs. Mom guilt. Bureaucracy. Police Corruption. Loneliness. Exhaustion.

Despite being a recipe more obvious than a pb&j, it still caught me by surprise. After all, burnout is something that happens to other people. And yet I was apparently oblivious to the dwindling fire within. I kept putting on my brave face, telling myself and others , Yes this is hard. But it’s a season. I can do anything for a season. So I kept going. Always ramping up. Never letting down… But the season wore on, and my humanity –  ie the part that can’t lie – ran out of flame.

In my weeks of recovery, I accepted responsibility for my self-care failure. I was clearly beyond tired – which only happens to those who never stop. But why, exactly, had I failed to stop? I honestly didn’t know.

I set my mind to unpacking my mess. The habit of rest hinges on conviction, doesn’t it? I had solid theology on this point: God gives sleep to those He loves, and the Sabbath earned a spot in the Top Ten for a reason. Furthermore, I had read and accepted the research that proves that setting aside work and recharging properly improves not only happiness but also work performance. And yet… a stumbling block in the way of life-giving rest clearly remained.

After my discharge from the hospital, Jeremy, in his good-husbandness, packed up our family and took us to the capital so that I could get some advanced medical care and heal in a place where no one was demanding my participation. During that time, we received a call from one of the pastors in Mansa who was checking in on my progress. He said to Jeremy, “Tell Bethany not to even think about us. She needs to be well.” And as I heard his voice through the phone at Jeremy’s ear, the dammed up tears of a decade forced their escape. While Jeremy hung up and pulled me in for the hug, I found the words that explained my emotion: he gave me permission.

Permission to stop. Permission to withdraw. Permission to let go completely.

That phone call revealed a crucial felt need. Pastor Bwalya’s words were a healing balm on a wound that’s been festering for a third of my life – as long as I’ve been in Africa. And finally I realized more clearly that, even as I receive permission to rest from God above, and hold tight to self-granted permission within, I still consistently struggle with the lack of permission from a very important third party: other people, and specifically, “the donors.” 

Be gentle with my soul as I bare it for you here, dear friends. For those of you reading this who support missions – and in particular, support us – this is neither a guilt trip nor an accusation. It is purely honest. You need to know that I’m coming out of a very crowded missionary closet when I confess that there is a tension between finding the rest that we need and meeting the expectations of our donors.

My burnout story is not unique – which is part of what makes it so important to tell. There is a legitimate crisis in our modern missions culture as defined by missionaries who do not feel free to retreat from their work for the purpose of self-care without judgment and or financial consequence from those we depend on. 

The tricky thing about this topic is that any descent Christian would encourage their missionaries in keeping the Sabbath – so long as it’s not more than one day and it’s not away from home – ie, it doesn’t look like vacation. I’ve talked with our missionary friends about what this means in reality - how the implied constraints on Sabbath rest are so destructive that “Sabbath” often ceases to be Sabbath at all.

To give you an idea, Jeremy and I Sabbath at home weekly. It usually looks like a “peaceful” day starting with pancakes, followed by a three hour church service in a foreign language in 90 degree heat, followed by a late lunch with overly-exhausted kids who eventually will snap-and-nap (bless it), at which point the adults might try and relax by reading a book or watching a movie, during which we will  be interrupted a mere sixty-seven times by neighbor boys wanting to borrow a soccer ball, pregnant women wanting a baby hat, someone with a nasty wound needing a bandage and young men looking for work. The evening will be spent solving the crises that only happen after dark and apparently can’t wait 12 more hours. Throughout this day, shutting the phone off and closing the door is out of the question. The callers will always send a child to ask us in person why our phone is off and if we try and ignore him, said child will stand outside and yell our names until we open the door. (Record yelling time: 37 minutes. Not one thing will dissuade the child who knows you're in there, my friends.) We try and hurry these interruptions along so we can get back to our peace, but alas: African time. And so, most Sabbath days, we can’t wait to go to bed so that we can rest from our rest. Lovely.   

Certainly, different missionaries have different living and working situations, allowing for different amounts of “closing out work” for the sake of rest and proper self-care. But a significant portion of missionaries around the globe have determined through trial and error (and hospitalization) that the only way to truly recharge in a way that is healthy and holy is to literally LEAVE –  which is a scenario most Americans have a hard time relating to. The idea that “home” would be anything but a haven sounds unnatural.

It's the lack of division between work and life for missionaries that makes “Sabbath on the field” extremely difficult to achieve. Our proximity to the pressing needs, the interruptions at the door and phone calls reminding us of the problems we have not yet solved – even  sights and sounds themselves that keep the mind in the “on” position. For many, Sabbath in the village – or island/jungle/city/wherever they serve – isn’t Sabbath.

It just isn't.

Some missionaries have explained that expecting them to “stay home and rest” feels kind of like expecting a surgeon to Sabbath in the waiting room of the ER. It’s like asking a factory worker to heal without stepping away from the assembly line. It’s telling a soldier to take a nap in the middle of the battle field.

And so the word to the wise is that sometimes you have to get away… which unfortunately to outsiders looks an awful lot like a vacation.

church meme committee nailed it

We know missionaries who are criticized for Sabbathing at a “resort” because that’s literally the only place to go where the water won’t kill them… Missionaries drawing heat for flying somewhere to Sabbath because the country next door is cheaper…. And all African missionaries’ personal favorite, the subtly snarky: “Gee, I wish I could go on safari for my Sabbath.” (Side note: You can, America. It’s called the zoo.) The fact of the matter is that many missionaries have figured out exactly what it takes for them to find real rest, but it’s the negative feedback that keeps many from even bothering to try.

To be fair, opinions on how missionaries should use their time and money is absolutely a spectrum with as much diversity as my six year old's style.

But disapproval of missionaries resting away from home squarely rests at the top of the opinion bell curve. This is one of those “off the record” covos your missionary friends are having amongst themselves. Precious few have been bold enough to pull back the curtain and reveal their own journey but if you read those who have, you’ll notice a common theme: their words feel risky – scandalous even – as they share their stories. The pieces I've appreciated include:

ten things your missionary won't tell you (hone in on number six)
the day the missionaries went on vacation
missionaries are supposed to suffer... so am i allowed to eat lobster?

There’s not a ton of published material on this topic - compliments of its taboo status. And in case you can’t blog hop right now, I’ll share a handful of comments we’ve either heard said to others or personally received over the years.

“We don’t pay you to go on vacation. We pay you to do ministry.”
 “I don’t think its right for you to go on vacation if we can’t afford to.”
 “You’re going on vacation? Maybe don’t tell anyone.”
 “We thought our missionaries were responsible... until we found out they went on vacation!”

Depending on how you personally feel about missionaries taking vacation, you’re probably either saying “amen” or “ouch” or “wowza” but let me reiterate that these are typical sentiments driving missionary families either to the brink of exhaustion or into actual hiding… and the results are not something to be proud of. Do a little research on missionary burnout, trauma in missions, mental health and missionaries or other related topics and you’ll quickly see how deep this rabbit hole goes. (I recommend getting lost for a while on Sarita Hartz's blog for some of the most thoughtful pieces in this genre.)

I believe that most mission supporters have strong feelings about this topic because it wrangles not one but two of America’s most precious commodities – time and money. Particularly in white American culture, it is not acceptable to waste either. Giving money to support church planting, clean water or outreach to children will make many a donor-heart sing, while funding the missionaries to sit on a beach and watch the lapping waves produces frowns. But missionary care is never a waste, and this is where a shift in missions culture needs to happen.

Wayne Muller in his book, Sabbath exposes the negative impact of serving apart from Sabbath rest. “We are a nation of hectic healers, refusing to stop,” Muller writes. “Our drive to do better faster, to develop social programs more rapidly, to create helpful agencies more quickly can create a sea of frantic busyness with negligible, even questionable results. In our passionate rush to be helpful, we miss things that are sacred, subtle and important.”

The western church-missions culture would benefit substantially from appreciating that when funds are responsibly used for the sake of missionary R&R, it has the effect of amplifying effectiveness in literally every other realm. Spend some to get much more is not waste – it’s wise. The economics of human resources decrees that we need to keep our people in tip-top shape in order to achieve maximum output.

I can hear a distant amen from my missionary friends across the web. We know experientially that busy, fatigued, harried service does not draw out our best. We know – even intuitively – that if we could just step out of it all for a time, we’d be able to come back and serve better, which is our hearts desire.

While Muller speaks exhortation to those who refuse to stop, I feel a great sympathy for all of the missionaries who simply fear to. Many are afraid because they experienced the push back once and vowed never to do it again. Others are afraid simply by the perceived disapproval that seems to float in the air. Regardless, I believe that it is vitally important for both the senders and the goers to join hearts and commit to self-care, soul-care and Sabbath rest.

We, the missionaries, need to stop sheltering our supporters from important truths about our work environment, the pressures, and our need for release. We need to stop our work – and leave home if need be – not hiding our actions in the closet thereby perpetuating the myth of the super hero missionary who never takes a break. 

And as for the broader church culture, we need to stop praising missionaries who over-produce, and we certainly need to stop leveraging financial power to reward those who never stop while withdrawing support from those who do.

When we get this right, I have a feeling that kingdom efforts the world over will find for themselves eagles wings.

you didn't fall in love with Africa

Remember that time I accidentally dated Jeremy for two years and then we decided to just do that forever so we got married? Not once did we go out for dinner and a movie. We never even went bowling! We did dine by candlelight, but that’s only because my hut didn’t have electricity.

So I clearly have no idea how modern romance works.

I fell in love in Africa, which, of course, is a very different thing than falling in love with Africa – something that seems to happen quite regularly for other people. I gladly accepted living in Zambia. But I loved Jeremy. And we felt like God had ordained that our work was to continue here. So we stayed. But lovie dovie feelings for the country itself were never really a part of the equation.

my earliest photo of the now husband

I think this is why I’m so intrigued by the number of people who travel abroad – to Africa and elsewhere – for a two week trip and “fall in love.” And sometimes those people who visit for two weeks and vow to return really do make their way back to the continent, which is equally intriguing to me.

For me it begs the question, what does it really mean to love a place?

There are many things I love about Zambia:

I love the fresh air.

I love that there is no such thing as a bad time to visit your neighbor.

I love the way the flying termites come out after the first rain and all the kids and birds run around like crazies trying to catch them.

I love that you will always be invited to dinner even if they hadn’t planned on you.

I love the footprints down every bush path showing big toes and little toes.

I love that the clock controls nobody.

I love that any woman will mother my children like they are her own.

I mean, what's not to love about this picture?

Zambia is an extremely loveable place. It’s easy to understand how someone could come here for a short trip and “fall in love.” But as my story with Jeremy reflects, I’m not exactly the romantic type. I love Zambia for reasons beyond its natural beauty and inherent charm. In fact, I love it despite its flaws – of which there are many.

I love it despite the fact that “I’m coming” does not in fact mean “I’m coming.”

I love it despite the fact that the same roads have been under construction for a decade with no finish in sight.

I love it despite the fact that venomous snakes are constantly watching me with their beady eyes.

I love it despite the fact that people are more concerned with being cursed than of being honest.

I love it despite the smoldering trash heaps lining every road of every town.

I love it despite the fact that no one can tell us the rules of the country, including the rule makers.

I will never love this. Look closely to count the eggs in that snakes belly. That was my breakfast, spawn of Satan.

 And this is how love goes – in marriage and in residence. True love does not put the good and bad on a scale and choose to follow which ever side carries more weight. True love is about choice and commitment which means that Zambia’s virtues and vices are, in many ways, irrelevant to me. I love this place because I have committed to it whether it scintillates my senses or grates on my nerves.

And this is where all the short term missionaries who in two weeks time announce that they’ve “fallen in love” with whatever third world country make me nervous. I see this happen every year as fall arrives and the season of short-term missions comes to an end. In all the reports, the love theme is prolific. From what I gather from most fresh returnees to America, excitement and wonder are captaining the good ship happy-feels and it’s apparently too easy to believe that this is all one needs to know.

This whole scenario probably wouldn’t even catch my attention (I mean, what kind of cynic poo-poos on love?) except for the number of short termers who “fall in love,” vow to return, and then actually act on it. It happens more than you think – we meet them here, and learn about them elsewhere: missionaries who have moved overseas on a long-term basis with their main explanation being, “I spent two weeks here last summer and totally fell in love.” And every time Jeremy and I bump into this story, we take two steps back, fully anticipating the fairy tale to blow up at any moment.

The pitfall is obvious if you borrow from the marriage analogy again. Anyone who dates for two weeks and rushes to the alter would be well advised to slow things down lest they find themselves rushing to divorce court soon after. Of course it works for some, but not for most. There’s a missions equivalent to this too. Short-termers who fall in love and rush to sign up for forever have basically speed dated an exotic country and mistaken infatuation for committed love. And their happy story doesn’t end in divorce, but rather missionary attrition which is helpfully well-documented. The mis-step here is ignorance to the universal law that true love can only be substantiated through the test of time – a luxury that short-term workers do not have. 

One of the hardest parts of our long-term work here is the constant. The constant requests. The constant threats to our work and wellbeing. The constant push to make things happen. The constant barrage of people coupled with the constant feeling of isolation.

When a team or individual comes to partner with us, their experience is categorically different. As good hosts, we’ve dealt with most of the hassle ahead of time so that their work can come off without a hitch. We’ve mitigated risk so that challenges and inconveniences are minimized. We’ve made arrangements that set a team up to complete a successful project in a specific amount of time.

In short, we work hard to buffer short-term visitors from real life. Our ‘constants’ do not phase the short-termers because their time has a liberating end.

I’d be enamored with my life too if it always ran so smoothly. But in reality, it doesn’t. And it can’t. Not on this scale – not for this duration. Dealing with hassle is a default setting. Risk of failure, injury, disappointment and disaster are every single day occurrences. Nothing happens in a two-week time frame. Not. One. Thing. And vacillation between triumph and tragedy is just inherent in moving a ministry forward.

Efyo caba. That’s how it goes.

But in contrast, for those two weeks, everything stays (relatively) golden for our visitors because the time-frame ensures it. When folks walk into an African hut and find it “cozy” and “romantic” that’s because that grass roof hasn’t dripped on you every day for half a year. Truly, a person can sleep anywhere, eat anything, interact with anyone for two weeks. This is not hard and requires no real adjustment. It’s easy enough to hold your breath for a fortnight. But long-termers who too once held their breath have all had to exhale… and then inhale again. Our time-frame ensures it too. The lumpy beds that were comical for two weeks are tortuous after two years. The kids on the porch who ask for sweeties every day are endearing at first but eventually become emotionally draining. The local cuisine is no longer “delectable” once the stash of Cliff Bars has run out. Time will always do its work, and there is no speeding that up.

And how we watch this play out time and time again is that last-summer’s short-termers who come back as newly arrived long-termers typically try to function in ways that are reminiscent of their previous trips. Perfectly understandable, but detrimental still. In most cases, these folks try to live a life that is both unrealistic and unsustainable for long-term work and they burn out so fast. They run full speed through a parallel and imaginary universe where everything is magical until their bodies, minds and souls collapse from disillusionment and unmet expectations. Over the years, our observation is that every last one of them cries out, “this isn’t how it was before!” and then goes home.

And its my compassion for this scenario that underwrites this post. At this time of year, when so many people are still riding on the highs of the trip they took this summer, I pray these words speak a most gentle truth into the swirl of excitement.

For those of you who went on that trip, I know some of you are committed to returning. Your lives were changed and now you feel you need to get back to where you went and this time its going to be forever. I love the passion wrapped up in this. I want success for you. I don’t want you to become an attrition statistic. I want real and lasting joy for your service. And I truly believe that the best way to achieve that is to be brutally honest about the ways that short-lived emotions tell a fabulous and false story.

My challenge to you is to put it all on ice for a while and take the time to assess the source of your confidence. If your desperation to return to your host country is fueled by your love of the people and the warmth of the culture and the inspiration of the work, then stop looking at one way tickets. You are setting yourself up for tears and a demoralizing flight home. Those loving people will eventually sin against you, and the culture will eventually stand on your last nerve and the work will eventually feel overwhelming and then the good feels will be gone.

If, however, you feel like God is asking you to go, then pray into that. Happy feelings alone will always fail you, but a call of the Lord will sustain you in the dark nights. Only God can give you a love for a place teeming with corruption and trash heaps and juju and when he places that kind of love in your heart, you’ll know the peace of living sent.

Seasoned missionaries: Anything you’ve observed that you’d like to add?

Short-termers hoping to return: Anything you’d like to ask? How can we support you better?