A Whole Lotta Life...

In the next several days there's going to be a whole lotta life happening in and around our "village"--a neighbor's oldest son is getting married, other neighbors' first-born will deploy to Afghanistan, my brother & his wife will head to Jamaica to continue their Young Life work with girls' orphanages, Alexandra will lead at a Young Life middle school camp AND our Rebecca will leave to be on a Young Life workcrew in Eleuthera, Bahamas for 8 days.

I'm pretty sure they won't be on the Club Med side of the island--they're bringing Young Life camp not to well-off tourists but to teens who live on the island, teens who maybe have never even been off the island--teens who have probably never heard of Young Life. So Rebecca is a part of a group who will be bringing YL camp to them--complete with all the wonderful wackiness that defines YL camp--that makes it the "best week" of a teen's life! Games and songs and skits and great food and laughing and talks about this God who created their beautiful island, who sees their lives and loved them enough to send His very own Son to be among us. The workcrew kids are high schoolers  who have experienced for themselves the wonder of a week at a Young Life camp and because it so impacted them they decide to give a week of their summer back to Jesus and these campers. It is faith hard at work! Rebecca will helping to do "program"--something that is probably woven in her DNA, since she first watched her Uncle Patrick do it better than anybody when she was 18 months old @ Trail West family camp in Colorado! "Program" is games and songs and skits--she will be terrific--maybe she will sing like she did last night?

This is what I know--she will be about her Father's business. Remember what Jesus told his parents when they were upset that he had stayed behind in the temple? He said "Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” Luke 2:49 (NKJV) Those young people getting married, and the young man going to Afghanistan, and all who are serving with Young Life and our sweet Rebecca will all be about His business--loving, serving, protecting, showing others what Jesus with-skin-on looks like, sounds like, acts like.

Godspeed, sojourners, Godspeed Rebecca...

We are thankful for your lives, we are praying for you.

 



The Last Time I Saw Her...

Thirteen years--that's how long it's been. Thirteen years ago today, on the 15th of May, 2001, I saw my mother for the last time. She had been diagnosed with a glioblastoma--a nasty, aggressive brain tumor 5 months earlier. She had surgery in February to "de-bulk" the tumor, valiantly refused radiation when she knew it would only prolong her life but not improve its quality. She allowed us to bring in Hospice--they cared for her, for us for nearly 3 months. Between me, Patrick & Mary & Kathleen--one of us was always at the house with her and my father. The cruelest blow was that this tumor stole her speech away--in the last weeks she was unable to speak. Immediately after the surgery, we tried to do some speech therapy, the last good belly laugh we had together was working with flash cards. But by this day, she was silent--her eyes, those pretty blue eyes--just looked piercingly at you, straight to your heart.

It was time for me to go home to Williamsburg. Michael had brought the girls up on Mother's Day--2 days earlier that year--they were 4 & 5--and they said good-bye to her. We knew, Hospice had told us, that she was nearing the end of this battle. And so, late in the afternoon on that warm, sunny afternoon we sat on our back patio together.  I told her it was time for me to go. I took her hands and I told her that I loved her and then I said, "I think there are some things you would like to tell me so I will say them. I think you would tell me that you love me, that you are proud of me. That you are happy that I married Michael, that he is a good husband and father. You would tell me that I am a good mom and that you love those little girls." She looked at me--her eyes said "Yes!" I hugged and kissed her and said good bye.  I drove away crying and begging God to heal her. And He did--2 days later with my brother and father nearby, she died. I think of her so often and miss her and this time of year I remember those blue eyes looking at me for the last time.

Today is My Father's 86th Birthday...

Today is my father's 86th birthday. I have been thinking a lot about his life; especially in this November month of reflecting on what we are thankful for each day. If you've ever met my dad--Bliss--you know that few names have so aptly defined a person as his. It is his middle name, it was his mother's maiden name and some friends called him John but he is BLISS (when he walked into our high school basketball games, the whole student section would holler BLLIIISSS). Friendly & easy-going, he loved nothing more than a good Redskins game (or really any sporting event, to be honest), a very dry martini, his wife Nancy, all things Wyoming, his black lab named Chey, his 3 kids. He was born in Kansas City, Missouri but was adopted just a few weeks later by Gertie & Roy Cummings who raised him Hanna, Wyoming. He had no desire to find his birth parents (despite my mother's certainty that he was Walter Cronkite's younger brother)--Roy & Gertie were his parents--good parents. He graduated from the University of Wyoming, married Nancy and they began life in Cheyennne. They moved east, where he worked for the IRS. He coached teams, served on the Bowie City Council, took my sister and her friends skiing at Roundtop, supported my mother's ill-fated run for School Board, wrote me a letter nearly every week I was at college, often stopping in for a Cowboys football game on his way to or from work in Salt Lake City. He took us to church every Sunday, he was a part of "The Study Club"--several couples who gathered on Friday evenings to learn more about their faith, to share life, to eat meals together, to laugh and cry together. Every other summer, he loaded us into the station wagon and drove us west--to visit family and friends in North Dakota and Minnesota and Wyoming. He was solid and reliable and faithful. When my mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor--he simply loved her, stayed with her--he never panicked. After her death, he continued living, making new friends, visiting old ones. He knew when it was time to move closer to us, when it was time to move into Chambrel. He made it so easy for all of us--there was no prideful ego refusing to relinquish independence. He had a stroke 3 years ago and although his speech is slow--his essence--his Blissness remains. He never complains, he is happy to go along with whatever is offered. He still remembers all of us--his eyes light up when there is mention of his 7 grandkids. They call themselves The Blisslings--they are his greatest legacy. I just wanted to honor him today--Happy Birthday, Daddy--I sure do love you.  Your simple, well-lived life has taught me more about faith and grace in aging than anyone or anything. You will know an eternal bliss one day but in the meantime--I am so thankful God brought you into this world and that you are here with us today.

She's Home!!

Our recent high school grad, soon-to-be Wahoo, Nicaraguan missionary is home! As she sits at the kitchen table telling us about her 10 day mssion trip with orphans and the workers who care for them, she glows! She is tired, she is glad to be home, but she radiates enthusiasm and purpose and then she says "I feel like in Nicaragua--everyone is their best version of themselves." And then she tells about 3 guys on her team who bring her & a couple others their lunch becasue they were sitting and listening to a Nicaraguan woman tell her story and they didn't want to stop listening just to get lunch. So, unasked--these guys did something they not have done at home. "In Nicaragua, everyone is the best version of themselves..." Is that what she meant when she said "Nicaragua always wins"? What happens there that gives these kids the freedom to be their best selves--their most loving, serving selves? How can we create space for that to happen here? She tells us the lack of  "distractions" (cell phones, social media, etc) is a big contributor to opening up eyes and ears and hearts to being their best selves. Sounds like a good reason--without those distractions they are "in the moment"--focusing on immediate needs or even just discovering that which they might not have ever even seen/noticed. Her glow, her stories make me want to be the best version of myself. By God's Grace, by His Grace--welcome home NICA team--we love you, you inspire us. Keep being God's version of yourselves...

"Nicaragua Always Wins"

That's what she told me this afternoon as she sat on the floor of her room packing up her 10, gallon-size ziploc bags. It is her 3rd mission trip to Nicaragua and she's learned how to pack economically--they only carry a backpack and 1 other carry-on. I was asking her about everyone who is going--some of the "first-timers"--wondering how they would do. She shrugged her shoulders and said, "Well, I don't know, but Nicaragua always wins. They can do what they want but they'll learn--Nicaragua always wins." She continued with her packing, I got up to finish making dinner--I didn't ask her what she meant--what that phrase meant, where she'd first heard it. But now as the night wears on, dinner is over and she is laughing and talking with her sister and a friend who's come to say good-bye--I can't stop thinking about what it means "Nicaragua always wins"--what do they see, what do they experience--that they've never seen before? Another friend tells about his first visit to the orphanages around Managua that these students visit--he tells about how it "wrecked" him, shook him up, turned him upside down and inside out--he saw the "least of these"--the ones Jesus talks about and now he sees everything differently--"Nicaragua always wins". This is not an easy mission trip--it is steamy hot, they often do physical work in the steamy heat, the food is different, the lodging barebones--but of the 51 seniors on this trip, many are going for the 3rd time--as hard as it is--they can't wait to get back. Nicaragua always wins...

Less than a month away...

It's almost that time of year again--when our Alexandra will fly off to Nicaragua for her 3rd mission trip. She is already excited. But before THAT adventure there is another milestone to mark and now it is less than 1 month away--her high school graduation! I have been looking through pictures lately--gathering just 100 to go into a video montage my sister gives as a graduation gift to her nieces and nephews. Just 100 pictures from the last almost 18 years of this child's life.  So looking at these moments--catching these glimpses of our "alpha baby",

our "pumpkin pie"(our favorite nicknames),

our "Xandra" (Rebecca's name for her big sister)

--it is almost too much for me. How can it be? She is so grown up now--dinner conversations are about her perspective on everything from world affairs to U.S. government to the kids she babysits to how she's just not quite sure she's ready to leave this house she's always lived in, this sister who's her best friend, these parents she needs to talk with everyday (yes--she did say that)! The time is coming...but for now I will "be in the moment"--the famous advice I have always given her. This precious moment...

Somewhere out there...

Do you remember that song from the movie "An American Tail"? I started hearing it in my head last night--"Somewhere out there beneath the pale moonlight, someone's thinking of me and loving me tonight..." (Here's a link to a YouTube clip of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkI-B2JWSZI&feature=related ) Well, it just got me. You see Rebecca is now out in Missouri at a Kanakuk camp adventure--and I could just imagine her and Alexandra singing that to each other--or me singing it to the two of them. All of us singing to our missionaries in Nicaragua...our Abba singing over us. "...He will rejoice over you with singing." Zephaniah 3:17

It reminded me that when we are in Christ we are never really separated from one another or more importantly from Him. Take a Sabbath rest today, dear friends--rejoice, worship, praise Him, rest in Him, trust in Him...