Inviting chaos

As we all piled into the truck Friday, I enjoyed the feel of my hair being wet and clean at the same time. It wouldn't be long before the wet became sweat and being clean would be those precious seconds between the completion of a creek bath and the start of a sweaty, muddy walk back to the house. Papa sat in the front with Brian, I sat in the back next to Ray, Mama sat with baby Hannah bouncing in her lap on the other side of Ray, and one of Papa's many brothers sat in the bed of the truck with the cargo. We were going out to Yall village for the first time since arriving back in country. The bits of our family in the truck with us had come into town to buy supplies for a party the family was hosting on Saturday to welcome Ray home.

Ray dressed in a traditional grass skirt for her party!

Ray has three homes. Her primary home is with us in town. The flat is settled with our pictures on the walls and our clothes in the closets. It mostly smells like us too, barring the occasional waft of drying coconuts or processed tobacco (which is oddly similar to prune juice). She continues to love shopping and toddling around the office interrupting important happenings. Her other two homes are worlds apart. One is a combined home with her blood family in Texas and Delaware, where the houses of her grandparents are different but essentially equal. They are both temperature controlled, include running water, and provide consistent electricity. The cities they live in are full of busy people talking on smart phones. There are cars and fat dogs and general physical comfort. Ray's home in Yall consists of a house made of bush materials that comes full of friendly critters and is not meant to be used much beyond providing shelter at night, shelter for cargo, and shelter in storms. The village is lively during the day and deathly quiet at night. She has to go on a walk to get to her bath and, once arrived, doesn't appreciate being naked in the jungle standing on her tiptoes in a creek while people she trusts hurriedly splash cold water on her smelly hot body. But despite the glaring differences between all three homes, one thing is absolutely consistent: there are people in each that love her deeply and feel responsible for her growth.

I had a very bad attitude about spending this past weekend in the village. I'm comfortable in town and find that the older I get the less flexible I am about my living space. I like being in control of my surroundings, and going to the village entails a certain amount of unwelcome chaos. When we arrived, Ray immediately took to her family. They passed her from one person to another, making me a little nervous. As I watched Ray glide through the truck window into a sea of people, I knew I had finally arrived at the point where I must make the decision to either allow people to cart her off or to take a firm stand that she can never leave me. Fortunately, Mama made that decision for me. Ray was never carted off without Mama sending trusty Wilma to follow like a hound dog. "Lay Lay" is Wilma's self-appointed responsibility and since Wilma viciously protects anything she deems under her care, I let Ray go. 



Wouldn't you entrust your beloved child to this face?!?

The weekend was cut short due to the neverending struggle between Ray and sleep. She skipped napping the first day and had a fitful few hours of sleep during the night. She woke up at 1:15 in the morning and decided that was the perfect time to test the bamboo floors. She would shoot from one side of the mosquito net to the other, making the whole house shake. As the floor heaved and groaned under her small weight, she would pull up suddenly, stare at the floor, and laugh. Then she spent a period of time playacting that she was a battering ram. She would rear back and hit my stomach with the top of her head as hard as she could. More laughter. The rest of the night was spent vacillating between these bursts of incredible energy and standard meltdowns. Around 3:30, I fell apart. 

The next day we found out that Papa sat outside of our house during those wee morning hours to keep watch over us. They were worried about her lack of sleep and we decided, along with them, to leave a day earlier than intended. We'll try again in a couple weeks, and then again and again until she slowly adjusts to the village house. 

Mama trying hard to put Ray to sleep the PNG way... it didn't work.

On the day we left, we first went to a nearby village to worship and visit yet another family member. As Ray was being carried gently on slippery jungle paths by her "uncle" I took a moment, or several really, to thank God. I spent much of my time nursing my bad attitude and being frustrated to the point of anger at God for not helping Ray sleep. I almost didn't see the wonderful new relationships being formed and the new style of living that she clearly enjoyed so much that she didn't want to sleep! The variety between each of her homes will help her understand the vastness of the world God created. Nights of peaceful sleep will come and times of chaos will come. I'm working to allow both to be a part of our lives, as all those moments serve to grow Ray into exactly the person God intends her to be.

Things unseen

Originally published March 13

Many people in the church have a misconception about missionaries. They believe we're the infallible, the upper echelon, the holy-and-set-apart warriors of God. Or something like that. A little known fact is that we prepare ourselves before going to our home country to deal with the inescapable pedestal that we're put on. For me it's uncomfortable and always awkward. I feel burdened and inadequate with statements like, "Oh, you're amazing. I could never do what you do. Praise God for you... someone who will go! Impressive and excessively brave!" I'm not impressive. I'm not amazing. I'm not even all that brave. In reality, I'm doing the exact same thing people at our home churches are doing every day. I'm completing the task God put in front of me, and often not completing it very well. But He put it in front of me, not in front of you. If He put it in front of you, you would do it. Whenever I reflect on the careers people have that are supporting us, I feel certain they are the brave ones. Really, who wants a career in psychiatry? Yuck. Or teaching? Been there, done it, failed. Doctors of any sort? Gross... insides should be left to the inside. Church ministry? Terrifies me. Vague political jobs in DC? The ministry there is so huge I wouldn't even know where to begin. And I honestly don't even want to begin. God has His people in each of those areas and thousands more besides. So let me tell you a piece of life for an infallible, holy-and-set-apart warrior of God that will hopefully help debunk the general theory that missionaries are any more Christian than other believers.

Ever since we arrived in PNG one month ago, I've been struggling. Not with adjusting to the heat or the smells or the food or the people. Nope, I'm good on all that. In fact I love being back here. The heat isn't bothering me so much right now and I'm even becoming courageous enough to drive around by myself (that's huge for me). I'm struggling with something much deeper than the surface level transitions: my character and my walk with God. I'm easily frustrated, which quickly develops into full blown anger at any moment. I feel distant from God and have little to no desire to fix that. Studying my Bible is daunting right now and my prayers are mostly selfish. I would love to blame my thyroid levels, but I'm pretty sure they're in tact. I could also blame hormonal imbalances and, well, the heat, but in the end it's just me. Or so I thought and so I've been taught to think.

Ray has not developed a good sleeping routine here. She just can't sleep through the night. Something happens to her, some nights around 11pm and other nights around 2am, that wakes her up with no desire to go back to sleep. Nothing is actually wrong with her physically. She's not too hot or too cold. She's not dirty, though I always take the opportunity to change her diaper. She's not hungry. She's just scared, or mad, or insecure. Or maybe a combination of all of them. It doesn't happen every night, but it happens regularly. We haven't known what in the world is going on because she wasn't like this in the States. Being practical in thought at all times, we assumed she has started to have nightmares as a result of her malaria prophylaxis. It's an unfortunate side effect, but better than having malaria. So we comfort her the best we can, and try and get sleep the best we can. It's hard.



A rare moment where Ray is happy in her crib!

These two things may seem unconnected, but I'm not sure they are. Yesterday evening some of the national translators came to Brian with a minor problem about the dormitory. As he sat with them on the front stoop of the dorm watching the cool evening rain, Ray started crying in our house. Her tears motivated the men to address something with Brian that they've been concerned about for quite some time. Different men from different language groups have all felt the presence of evil on this property. They believe it's an evil spirit invited by previous tenants and never kicked out. It harasses them at night causing anxiety for themselves and they believe it's also harassing Ray causing her to wake up the way she does. We live so close to them they can't help but share in our sleepless hours with her. Instead of being frustrated at her or us, they are certain she is sharing their experience. 

Papua New Guineans are more deeply connected to the palpable spiritual world than we are as Americans. It's part of life for them. For us, it's always medicine or sickness or just a bad attitude that needs to be dealt with. I would never assume an evil spirit is attempting to wreak havoc in my life or my child's life. But we're in PNG now and I trust these men. I trust their instincts and their sensitivity to evilness in this form. They are afraid, but they are not cowering in fear. Their first reaction to hearing Ray cry out in the night is to pray for her.

They prayed for Ray... and I didn't. I, the infallible superhuman Christian didn't even think about our battle against things unseen. I was too busy being angry about nothing and trying to meet Ray's physical needs to fix the nighttime crying problem. I should have been praying for Ray, for Brian, for myself, and for the men living behind us. I have little doubt that my faith will be developed and strengthened through our interactions with Papua New Guinean Christians. I would say they are the real infallible, holy-and-set-apart warriors of God, but then I would be doing the same thing to them that many American Christians do to me. We are all running the same racing, plagued by the same evil, saved by the same grace.