Living on the Altar

If I were to write out a list of my favorite words and concepts, you could read for days without finding the word “sacrifice.” It’s not a word I can get excited about. While I’m eager to accept the sacrifice of others—Jesus’ sacrifice for my sin comes to mind, as well as the sacrifice military men and women make so I can live in my nice, free country—I’m not so anxious to sacrifice myself. Yet that’s what Romans 12:1 instructs me to do.

In the Old Testament, a sacrifice was completely consumed by God. You didn’t put something on the altar and hope to leave with leftovers. If you placed it up there, you knew it had to be totally surrendered to Him, and that didn’t come without cost.

There are parts of me that are easy, not so costly, to give up to God. I’m happy to put my talents to work for His service. He’s even been good enough to pay me for this a lot of the time. It’s not terribly hard for me to give money, and I don’t even think of the time I set aside to spend with Him as a sacrifice, although I guess it is. I’ve noticed that a lot of women are worriers, and surrendering their worries to Him is a daily, gut-wrenching chore. But I’ve never been one to worry much. I’m also not one who doubts much. I imagine some people have to wrestle their doubts onto the altar every day, but I find it much easier to believe than to doubt.

The parts of me I struggle to sacrifice seem uglier, but maybe that’s just because they’re mine. It’s a sacrifice for me to give up my right to judge other people. What comes natural to me is noticing and forming strong opinions—usually unspoken—on everything from someone’s parenting style to their food choices to their political fervor to their strange ears, so that it’s an intentional sacrifice when I heed the Bible’s warnings to stop it already and judge not lest I be judged. It’s a sacrifice for me to live out patience and grace in a world full of people who drive me crazy for one reason or another. I have to put that one on the altar just about every time I leave the house. It’s a sacrifice for me to put others ahead of myself. It’s a sacrifice to abandon my desire to be noticed, needed, applauded, and admired and to pursue humility instead. Yeah, I could feel the burn of that one even as I typed it.

Isn’t it interesting that one person’s sacrifice is another person’s walk in the park?

But no matter what we have to sacrifice to give our whole self completely to God, it’s always worth it. It’s worth it because sacrifice brings transformation. The Old Testament worshiper left the altar with a clear conscience and a fresh start. The elite athlete gets a disciplined—and likely chiseled—body for her sacrifice of time and sweat. My children grow in maturity when they sacrifice their will for the sake of what is right. And I am more like Jesus when I put others ahead of myself, when I freely give grace and patience, when I choose to live humbly. I am transformed in the best possible way. And the more I am transformed, the less the sacrifice feels like a sacrifice. What a beautiful thing. 

A Working Mom Again

It’s 8:45 a.m., and I’m pulling out of the driveway for the fourth time this morning. I’ve guzzled a quart of water. I’ve done dozens of sit-ups, push-ups, jump squats, and burpees. I’ve strengthened my core and conditioned my hair. I’ve brushed three other heads of hair and put in ponytails. I've checked the weather forecast. I’ve changed clothes three times and shoes twice. I’ve considered ironing and come to my senses. I’ve skimmed a chapter in the Gospel of Luke, knowing I’ve got six hours of intense Bible study ahead so I’m not feeling so bad about my skimming. I have prayed every time I’ve been in the car. I’ve returned several emails, edited a half-page of copy, and sent out the notes for the 6^th grade graduation party. I’ve packed three lunches—two of which look yummy, but sadly, neither of these is mine. I’ve unloaded last night’s clean dishes from the dishwasher, loaded the new ones from this morning’s breakfast, and plopped a pork roast in the crockpot for dinner tonight. I’ve poured multiple bowls of cereal and cups of juice. I have snuggled on the couch, dried tears, and reffed an argument. I’ve put a dozen eggs from the Happy Chickens Egg Farm in the cooler on the front porch. I’ve tossed a load of towels in the laundry. I have not made my bed. I have charged my Kindle and my cell phone. I’ve packed a collection of bags and lined them up by the door. (I remember in my previous working life that I was up to ten bags, but the kids can all man their own bags now, and I’m fortunately no longer in need of a breast pump.) I’ve signed planners and permission slips and somehow remembered to email the teacher about alternate pick-up plans for tomorrow. I’ve listened to math facts, chicken facts, and facts about Shelly the Class Turtle. I’ve yawned. I’ve used the bathroom five times.

And I still feel like a slacker for not getting to work until 9.  

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.