Making Plans

You know that old saying that if you want to make God laugh, just make some plans? Is that loving laughter I hear coming from heaven? Directed at me?

Last year, when my youngest was in half-day kindergarten, I methodically prayed over the school year to come, the one we’re in now. I knew I was entering a new season of life with no kids at home during the day, and I didn’t want to be caught off guard, wondering what to do with it. So for days, I sat with my Bible and my journal, making lists and, yes, making plans. I felt surrendered and open. I felt like I was in tune with the Holy Spirit, that I was listening. Maybe I should have been listening for chuckles.

Of the five new priorities I made for the year, two have panned out. Three went nowhere—two fizzling out beyond my control, and one that, despite my best efforts, just wasn’t a good fit.

Then there’s the things that weren’t on my list. Russia! Maybe God could have whispered the words “international travel” in my ear. Maybe He could have planted the idea of getting a passport so I didn’t have to pay a rush-delivery fee later. He could have even put Russia on my heart. I sat in that chair a while; it wasn’t like I didn’t give Him time to speak.

Or what about working in an office again? Just four days after I returned from Russia, I got a part-time job offer. Didn’t see that coming. At all. If I would’ve had a hint of that last year, I could have replaced some of my sweatpants with work clothes. Maybe researched some good crockpot recipes. Not signed up to be my daughter’s room mom! And certainly I would have polished up on my writing and editing skills. But working in an office, as much as I’m enjoying it, was the furthest thing from my mind three months ago.

Proverbs 16:9 says that while we make our own plans, the Lord is the one who determines our steps. It’s pretty unrealistic to live without plans, so I don’t think that’s the point of this instruction. What I need to remember in the midst of my planning is that all my steps—from the small ones to the refrigerator to the big ones that take me to Russia—are up to God. My life is completely in His hands, and He determines whether I can even walk at all. He opens the doors I walk through; He shuts the ones that require me to stand and wait. Sometimes I’ll walk the exact path I had in mind, and other times it will be a strange, unfamiliar path. But it’s still His path. And there’s probably a very good reason why He didn’t tell me about it any sooner than I needed to know.

James, the brother of Jesus, wasn’t nearly as lyrical as the psalmist when he wrote about this same idea. In his always-blunt way, he said: “You don’t even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14). So from one mist to another, I ask you, how tightly are you holding on to your plans?

I don’t think God minds our plans. My son used to wake up in the morning with plans to start a secret club that day and invite all the members over for a secret meeting. Nevermind that he was four and didn’t have friends or that what we were really doing that day was dishes and laundry and a grocery run. I loved hearing his cheerful little voice telling me what he was going to do, even while knowing it wasn’t going to pan out for him. Maybe that’s how God feels about us. Maybe He even delights in hearing our plans, especially at the end when we hold them up and say, “Or not, Lord. Up to you.” 

He Who Calls Is Faithful

I went to Russia with an American ministry founded by an American man who takes American volunteers to help Russians. It’s to be expected, then, that the success stories I saw had an American influence. No doubt there are Russian orphans who grew into happy, healthy adults without ever crossing paths with an American, but someone else will have to tell their stories.

My first night in Russia—at least I think it was night because it was dark, but since we hadn’t slept in 30 hours, my sense of time was foggy—we had dinner with four young adults in their late 20s. They grew up together in the Mstyora Orphanage, which just happens to be the orphanage my church, Woodmen Valley Chapel in Colorado Springs, has supported for 19 years. In the 11 years I’ve been attending that church, I’ve heard the name “Mstyora” dozens of times without knowing what it was or what the people of my church had invested there. Yet here I was, seeing the fruit of their labor right before my eyes. One is a successful businessman. Three are now parents themselves. There were a brother and sister with us, and when we asked the young woman if her brother is a good dad, she said, “Yes, he’s always been a good dad. He was a good ‘dad’ in the orphanage.” Everyone at the table nodded, knowing exactly what she meant. One mother said she kisses her young sons all the time and will never leave them “the way my mom left me.” The son who was with her that night clearly adored her. They shared the funny memories they have from Mstyora—one dumping a bucket of dirty water on the other’s head—and they talked about the love they felt from the people of Woodmen Valley Chapel. When they found out that’s my church, their eyes lit up. Did I know so-and-so? I don’t really, but I said I know of him. “Oh, give him my love!” said a young man whose life was clearly impacted forever by one man half a world away.

Later I met two Natashas who grew up together in an orphanage. (Natasha, I’m convinced, is the National Name of Russia.) After aging out of their orphanage, they were sent to a tech school, where, supposedly, they would begin thinking about how to get by in this world. But their childhood scars left them detached and apathetic, and with no thoughts about the future beyond how to make it to the next day. Then they met an American woman, a missionary who had responded to a call to love girls just like these Natashas. She pursued them hard, which sometimes made them a little uncomfortable. Once she even threatened to lock them in a room until they told her what they were going to do with their lives. In what was primarily an effort to remove her from their backs, they both threw out the idea of studying English. Soon they were both studying with a private English tutor, paid for by the missionary and her church. Today, one works as a translator and office manager and the other as an assistant at the Canadian Embassy in Moscow. They are smart, well-spoken, confident, thriving, and beautiful.

Last time I wrote about Antonina, the orphanage director who kept her kids fed on whatever food she could barter for, using whatever plates and forks her staff could rummage up from home. Antonina pieced things together for eight hard years, and then a group from an American church stumbled upon her great need. This Pennsylvanian church provided beds, mattresses, and new windows to keep out the bitter cold. That was only the start. They befriended the children, and perhaps more importantly, they befriended Antonina and gave her the encouragement to keep at it. The orphanage slowly but surely turned around. With tears in her eyes, she recalled her deep gratitude to “Ray” and his team from Pennsylvania.

Time and time again, I saw that the love extended from Americans was multiplied many times over in the Russians who received it. Yes, we Americans are guilty of rushing in to meet a need and then leaving as quickly as we arrived. We can be culturally clueless and insensitive. We’re too loud, too proud, and too optimistic. But sometimes what we do works. If God’s in it, it always works. Hope wins and a life is changed. All because someone heard the call and answered. 

My mission field is so much smaller than the country of Russia. Right now, in addition to my family, it’s 17 little girls who I get to read and study the Scriptures with. They all live in nice houses with parents who love them, but the idea is the same: investing in their young lives by teaching them the truth of who God says they are and how much He loves them. I have to remind myself that just because it’s so easy to love and teach them—no pricey airplane ticket, jetlag, or cold Russian winters required—it’s no less meaningful a call. I believe that’s one of the big things God wanted to show me in Russia: the power of investing in one or seventeen or a couple hundred lives, of just faithfully showing up and doing what God tells you to do. When we respond to His call, He multiplies our efforts in ways we could never imagine. This is the Father’s business. How grateful I am that He chooses to let us in on it.

“God will make this happen, for he who calls you is faithful.”

1 Thessalonians 5:24 (NLT) 

The ’90s I Didn't Know

What were you doing in the ’90s? I was living the idyllic college life in Santa Barbara, followed by a move to Los Angeles, then back to Colorado where I began living out my dreams: a meaningful career, a wonderful husband, a safe home.

I clearly remember the Berlin wall coming down in 1989 and learning that communism had fallen in the USSR in 1991. Those were the headlines, and that’s where my awareness ended. In 1994 I wrote stories for The Navigators about our involvement with CoMission, an evangelical effort that sent hundreds of American missionaries into the former Soviet Union to teach “Judeo-Christian ethics.” Friends who traveled with CoMission reported rolling power outages and hot water that lasted only an hour a day. To me it sounded exotic and adventurous.

It was anything but that for the Russian people who lived through it. It was more like hell. While we were cheering the end of communism, they were living in political and economic chaos. Salaries were not paid. Life savings vanished in a day with the devaluing of the ruble. Homes were cold. Shelves were bare. Children were starving. Everyone felt it, but among those who suffered most were the orphans, the most overlooked group in every society. Put simply and crudely, it sucked to be a Russian orphan in the ’90s. 

One of the most heartbreaking stories I heard in Russia came from Antonina, who was an orphanage director in the ’90s. When she started her job, she had no idea what she was getting into. Suddenly in charge of 148 orphans, she realized she had only worthless government vouchers and a pile of spoiled cabbage to feed them. Their kitchen had less than 20 plates and cups—for 148 children. Hopeless, she decided she couldn’t do this and would have to resign. She had her resignation letter written when she went down to the kitchen and saw some children fighting over a scrap of bread that one of the staff had left behind. With tears in her eyes twenty years later, Antonina told us she knew she had to stay and find a way to feed these children.

Searching for food became a full-time job. She learned to barter and work the system. She asked her staff to share anything they could with the orphans. She kept her children fed. They were the lucky ones. One of our translators grew up in a different orphanage in the ’90s, and she did not fare so well. The director of her orphanage actually stole the food from his orphans, leaving them to forage in fields for whatever they could survive on.

These stories filled my head as I spent day after day in Russia with these “older orphans.” They are now in their twenties, and many have children of their own. Some of them have beautiful redemption stories. Others are still stuck in the hopelessness of their painful childhoods. I learned the hard way not to ask them about their hopes and dreams. This is an inappropriate question for people who grew up in chaos and instability and never learned to have dreams for themselves. How can you have dreams for the future when you don’t know if you’ll have food for the day? They had much to teach this smiley American woman who’s never known a day in her life in which her government, her money, and her security were not assured.

And yet the success stories I saw in Russia are many. I’ll tell some of those next time. 

The Russia Beyond Sochi

The news reports are starting to pour in from Sochi, and Russia’s looking more laughable than respectable. Sure the mountains are pretty, but people are scratching their heads over the palm trees that also line the streets of this home to the winter Olympics. Western journalists are also aghast at the, um, unpredictable conditions they've found in their hotels and restaurants.

While the rest of Europe was progressing and thriving in the 20^th century, Russia was under the influence of anything-but-progressive Communists. Americans think of Russia and picture Hunt for the Red October’s floating missile arsenal or weapons of mass destruction that could take out whole U.S. cities. But while impressing the world with its military might, Russia was letting its citizens make do with whatever was left over, which wasn’t much. For example, you still see a few Russian cars on Moscow roads, but most of them broke down so often and so quickly that they were hardly worth driving.

Russia is old. Its infrastructure is old. So are its roads, its buildings, its heating systems. Many of the students we met at tech schools are being trained in “refurbishing.” It makes sense that you would need this skill in a country with old walls, old floors, old heat, and old chairs.

Russia wants to put its best foot forward in Sochi. I find myself rooting for that, too. Not because I want Russian politicians to shine in the international spotlight, but because of the real Russians I now know. Before my trip, my 12-year-old daughter asked me why people live in Russia. I wasn’t able to tell her, but I told her I’d find out. I came home with a very simple answer: They live there because they were born there, and they are proud to call Russia their home.

When the world laughs at crazy Russian toilets or poorly translated signs (and for some reason, all their signs are poorly translated into English), I picture the proud Russian women I saw walking the streets in their fur coats and hats. Their faces were tired and old beyond their years, but they still get up every morning, bundle up, and walk two miles on icy streets to do their shopping. I picture the proud older orphans who survived conditions none of us can imagine and are smiling and happy today. I picture the hardships generations upon generations of Russian people have endured, and I marvel at their strength and stamina.

I hope you’ll think of them as you watch the games in Sochi. They are the real Russia. 

Things Learned in Russia

I am back from Russia! What an amazing, educational experience it was. I feel like I learned more in ten days than I have in the past ten years. I’ll have much to write about in the weeks ahead, but here are some of my lighter impressions.

                        Random Things Learned in Russia

1. Someone told us that a coat is to a Russian what a car is to an American. You spend all your time in it and it says a lot about you. Younger women wear sleek, belted non-fur coats. At around 35, they switch to full-length furs. And yes, that’s real fur. Clearly no PETA presence here. The men in the family will save up to buy the coat for their sister/daughter when she is “of age,” and she’ll have it the rest of her life. She’ll likely have a big, puffy hat to match. And you know how here it’s hard to get out of the parking lot after a big public event? You don’t have that problem in Russia where everyone takes public transportation; instead, the logjam forms at the coat check.
2. They need the good coat, because it is every bit as cold as we imagine it to be. My brother-in-law, who I met up with in Moscow, used to live in Minnesota, and I asked him how the two compare. The difference in Russia, he said, is that you’re always out in it because you walk everywhere. After shopping for 90 minutes at the outdoor market and eating shish kabobs outside, I was as cold as I’ve ever been. As much as I didn’t enjoy it, I’m glad I got to experience the cold, which is so much a part of Russian culture.
3.  “Tea” is not tea in Russia. It is a smorgasboard of desserts. At “tea,” skinny Russian women down four fried cottage-cheese pancakes, drenched in sour cream, without a thought. Salad is not salad in Russia. There is no lettuce involved. You’ll be lucky to find a few sprigs of parsley on a salad bar, hiding out among the many mayonnaise concoctions, usually made with a host of unidentifiable ingredients. Sometimes they’ll sneak in squid.
4.  When Russians learn that you have four kids, they gasp in horror. Even though they get paid to have children—an effort to increase the population since Stalin took out tens of millions of his own people a few generations ago—two is the most you see. And they’re usually spaced further apart than our American children. This makes sense when you see their tiny flats. Whole families sleep in the same room, which would provide about all the birth control I would need.
5.  The words “Soviet times” come up frequently in daily conversation. It’s their frame of reference. Although their transition out of communism was brutally hard, leaving them without wages, food, electricity, or any semblance of stability for several years, they seem thankful that “Soviet times” are a thing of the past. When I expressed surprised that Lenin was still hanging out entombed in Red Square, my young Russian friends said, “Yeah, we don’t know why he’s still here, either.”
6.  If you’re born in Russia, it’s likely that you’ll live your whole life in one place. Each citizen has an internal passport that records the region of their birth, and they can’t just decide one day they want to live in Moscow, pack up, and leave. It’s not that it’s impossible, but a lot of work would go into securing legal housing and pay in another region. This means that I would have been stuck in Oakley, Kansas, for the rest of my life. Hard to get a good college education there, and not much work available outside the local truck stop. I will stop taking for granted our freedom of travel and movement in the United States.
7.  “You never know” is the standard rule of thumb when traveling in Russia. You never know if you’re going to walk into a café bathroom and find a toilet with a seat, a toilet without a seat, or a mere hole in the ground. You never know when you bite into that rolled-up pancake they call blini if you’re going to get yummy cream-cheese-and-raisin filling or cow’s tongue. You never know in a restaurant if all the guests at your table will get their food at the same time, or if one dish will come an hour and a half later than the others. And you never know when you buy a ticket to a Russian circus if you’re going to get Olympic-caliber gymnasts doing outrageous acrobatic stunts or “trained” parrots sliding down a slide. (In our case it was both.) What you do know, however, is that there will always be heavy traffic in Moscow and you’ll have to fight for a table at every McDonalds, regardless of what time of day it is.
8.  Everyone’s an artist in Russia. Everyone knows art history in Russia. Everyone knows about great Russian literature and great Russian music. And when they get to know Americans, who can’t name a single American poet or artist, they wonder how in the world we got to be as successful as we are. (I figured out the answer to this pretty quickly. We’re a young country, and we got to learn from everyone else’s mistakes. That and capitalism have worked out well for us.)
9.  There’s no sensory sensation in the world like having dinner in an Azerbaijani restaurant with sweaty Georgian dancers popping in and out, waiters offering hookah, strange foods coming and going at strange times, words flying across the table in Russian and English with translators frantically trying to keep up, and 80’s Madonna music playing in the background.
10.  While it’s acceptable to talk about cat castrations at a Russian dinner table, it’s not OK to ask people about their hopes and dreams. You just never know.

 I may never understand Russian culture, but I love that they have so much of it. And, oh, what lovely, fun, vivacious people we met. There were several I wanted to bring home for you all to meet.

Stay tuned for more serious reflections on my time in Russia in the days ahead. 

Expectation

From Beth Moore’s study on the life of Jesus:

“I do dearly love surprise encounters with Jesus Christ, but I think He is pleased when we live our lives in expectancy. He delights in faith that fully expects Him to act.”

Do I live with a sense of expectancy? Do you? Do we wake up expecting to see God in everything we do? Do we expect to be amazed?

I know that God is “just right there” and He could blow my mind at any minute, but I have to admit that I am not as expectant as I’d like to be. I can recall a few times in my life—crisis times, no surprise—when I looked for Him at every turn, when I was aware of trusting Him every waking hour, when I desperately needed Him to show up and was almost certain He would. Of course I was not disappointed, yet as soon as the crisis faded away, I went back to my non-expectant way of functioning.

Today I am filled to the brim with expectation. The cool thing is that I’m not even in crisis. I’m just going to Russia. People do that every day. I’ll be on a plane loaded with other people who are doing just that. But will they carry the same sense of expectation I have, the hope and belief that they’re about to encounter God in a most unusual way? I hope so because it’s a pretty terrific feeling.

I have asked God to let me see a glimpse of His glory on this trip. I know people talk about such things all the time, but my ask was not made lightly. I have a very healthy fear of the Lord and His glory. When Isaiah caught a glimpse of it (Isaiah 6), the first words out of his mouth were, “I am ruined.” In order for Moses—Moses!—to see God’s glory, he had to be hidden in the cleft of a rock with his eyes covered. This is not something we should ask without some serious consideration.

In case you’re wondering, no, I don’t really expect to see the face of God, or even His back like Moses did. But I am filled with expectation about seeing His power. I believe I will see prayers answered, that I’ll experience Him in ways I’ve never imagined, and that He might even slip in a miracle. I long to have my preconceived notions about who God is and how He works stripped away, to have my mind blown by how much bigger He is than I’ve ever guessed. (Those of you who have been on missions trips are surely thinking, “Oh, girl, you better hold on! You just might get what you wish for.”)

I admit that a good deal of my thoughts right now are wrapped around questions of bodily comfort (Will I have a decent pillow?), eating (Is it better to know what’s in the soup? Or not?), and staying warm (Do these layers make me look fat?). But because I’m taking my first overseas trip at 43 and not 18, I’m aware that such issues, while practical, can rob me of the heart issues that are far more important. Every time I start to get worked up over the trivial things, I ask God to direct my focus again to preparing my heart. More than I need warm gloves or electrical converters, I need a heart fully prepared to meet Him there. A fully expectant heart.

Eight days and counting. 

My 2013 Reading List

2014? Really? Doesn’t that seem really . . . late? Like when my son turned 13 and still seemed like a little boy but then turned 14, which sounded so much older?

Let’s stick with 2013 for a bit longer. This was the year I got a Kindle—it was a gift—but I still find myself buying books or checking them out from the library and hauling them around in a worn and heavy tote bag. Old habits die hard, and I’m not sure there’s merit in killing this one at all. While I might be able to enjoy a novel on the Kindle, for deep, contemplative reading, I need real pages and a real highlighter. For now, the Kindle is reserved for Downton Abbey and mahjong.

A review of the books I hauled around, and read, in 2013:

Favorites

The Cure: What If God Isn't Who You Think He Is and Neither Are You? by Bill Thrall, Bruce NcNicol, and John Lynch. I will return to this short book again and again for pithy truth that reminds me of the God who is rather than the God my shame creates. Can He really be as pleased with me as this books insists? Is my view of myself really the greatest commentary on my view of God? So much to think about here that I could only read a couple pages at a time. Some people don’t like Lynch’s style, but he had me from hello, and I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t need a little something of what he’s teaching in this book.

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand. The movie will be great, but read the book first. My fascination with the “greatest generation” continues, and this book caused me to read newspaper obituaries for months. I knew this would be a tough one to read, but I had no idea it would also be one of the greatest redemption stories I’ve ever read.

Love Does by Bob Goff. I’ve never read anything like this before, and it left me wondering, “Is this guy for real?” He is, and I’ve got to believe that if God picked favorites, Bob would be right up there. His unbelievable stories challenged me to think less and live more.

 

Continued Pursuit of All Things Lewis

Just when I think I’ve landed on my Lewis favorite, I read The Weight of Glory, reread Mere Christianity, and decide it’s fruitless to choose among them. Lenten Lands, written by Lewis’s stepson Douglas Gresham, was a behind-the-scenes look at the man who I’ve come to appreciate so much. I’m halfway through Alister McGrath’s new biography, C. S. Lewis—A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet. It has a text-book feel, but I’m eager to pick it up each night and gobble up more.

Christian Non-Fiction

A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband "Master" by Rachel Held Evans. Evans is a rising star in the blogging world, and she is a captivating writer. I follow her blog occasionally and find flashes of brilliance, though her repetitive messages and ubiquitous apologies on behalf of the church get old. Still, she’s thought-provoking, controversial, and someone to watch.

Follow Me by David Platt. I was gripped by the first chapter, then just felt in a headlock the rest of the way. Platt’s earlier book, Radical, didn’t affect me this way. It put wind in my sails. This one sucked the wind right out. I couldn’t even finish the last 20 pages. Love his heart, love his style, but someone who struggles with finding identity and purpose in doing rather than being (me) should avoid these kinds of books and stick to The Cure.

Undaunted: Daring to Do what God Calls You to Do by Christine Caine. A good follow up to Platt’s book, which left me feeling guilty and unproductive. Caine uses stories from her life to demonstrate what it means to be in tune and responsive to the Spirit. Am I interruptable? Am I willing to cross the road? The priest and Levite in the Good Samaritan story were not described as bad guys; they were just too busy to be interrupted by God and cross the road. Caine has crossed the road with victims of the sex traffic industry, and she didn’t start until she was a 40-year-old mother of two with a slew of her own issues to work through. There’s hope for us all.

Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons by Frederick Buechner. These short essays offer good insight with excellent writing. Describing the appalling nature of Christ’s humble birth, Buechner says, “Those who believe in God can never in a way be sure of him again. Once they have seen him in a stable, they can never be sure where he will appear or to what lengths he will go or to what ludicrous depths of self-humiliation he will descend in his wild pursuit of mankind. . . . It is where we least expect him that he comes most fully.”

Pseudo-Christian Non-fiction

Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife by Eben Alexander. When I started this book, I couldn’t figure out why Christians weren’t talking or writing about it. It seemed like Heaven’s for Real for the intellectual sect. The doctor writes about the scientific perspective of the soul—basically that we don’t have one—and it was interesting to see what it took for him to believe the things that are second nature to me. But a Jesus-less heaven? I’m not buying it, and apparently other Christians aren’t either.

Fiction

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Reminded of this classic because of the movie, I read it again, knowing it will pop up one of these days on my kids’ required reading list. The writing is every bit as good as I remember (this is the book that made my teenage self want to be a writer), but the story is meaningless and sad. Why do we have our 17-year-olds read this? To learn about unfaithfulness and wild parties and stunted morality? Surely they can learn that from teen culture and not “great literature.”

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. With vivid characters and a riveting plot, this one should have been great. And really, I could barely put it down. But if you’re looking for the feel-good book of the year, this isn’t it.

Before I Go to Sleep by SJ Watson. I’m normally not a reader of thrillers, which became clear when this book took a major twist that I didn’t see coming. The edge of my seat is not my favorite place to read a book, but every once in a while, it can be kinda fun.

Friendship Bread by Darien Gee. This one was recommended to me as a book I would love. Love is a strong word. I’m not sure “like” is even the right word. But as light, unoffensive reading goes, this was decent.

Oh-Dear-I’m-Going-to-a-Country-I-Know-Nothing-About Reading

I wish I could list several great Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky classics here, but as I’ve only known about my trip to Russia for seven weeks, all I’ve crammed in is A Brief History of Russia by Michael Kort. And I confess, it was in the teen-book section of the library. Still, I learned all I wanted to know about czars and serfs and communists and lots of assassinations. Every time I opened the book it felt like I was crawling into a sad, dark cloud. If my aim was to grow in compassion for the pain and struggle of the Russian people, it worked.

If you have any book recommendations for 2014, send them my way!