Power of Presence... God with us!

I know my days of listening to Christmas music are numbered and that makes me sad. I love the emotions of Christmas music and the way it just seems to totally melt my heart and prepare me for what Christmas is really all about. Ashlyn had a Christmas choir concert the other day and it took all the self control I could muster to keep myself from embarrassing her by sobbing like a baby as they sang “Silent Night”. But today I was listening to this song by Joy Williams called “Here With Us” and it got me to thinking about the mystery of God stepping into our life as an infant boy Emmanuel, God with us.

I am the world’s biggest scaredy cat when it comes to a lot things. But over the years, I have noticed by the calming effect of having my husband with me. Somehow his presence makes whatever fear I am facing seem not so intimidating. Like for instance, when I gave birth to our children and had back surgery… as long as Jake was with me, I was fine. If he stepped out of the room or even threatened to as a joke… I would start freaking out and let my fears reign. Even when we went to Haiti, in the middle of the night, when I had to make the scary trek out of the tent and down to the bathhouse with the voodoo drums playing in the background and the darkness of the night… sometimes I would wake Jake up and ask him to go with me. His presence makes me feel safe and somehow protected.

“Presence is a noun, not a verb; it is a state of being, not doing. States of being are not highly valued in a culture which places a high priority on doing. Yet, true presence or "being with" another person carries with it a silent power — to bear witness to a passage, to help carry an emotional burden or to begin a healing process. In it, there is an intimate connection with another that is hard to come by in our fast paced hurried lives.

I have heard people who experience great loss and grief talk about how a loved ones presence during that time was their lifeline and what made their grief bearable. Somehow having someone you love “just there” with you makes whatever burden or fear you are facing smaller.

I have not hesitated to be in the presence of others for whom I could "do" nothing. In nursing school and in my experiences as a nurse, the power of presence is confirmed at all spectrums of life. When Ashlyn was in the NICU after birth, I noticed that the premature infants who have involved and loving family visiting and caring for them daily made a huge difference in how quickly they got better. Their family’s presence directly impacted their outcomes. And at the end of life, those with family there as they cross over from one life to the next seem to have more peace as they do.

I have heard a lot about the various names of the Lord. There are tons of studies devoted solely to the names of God. . Throughout the Bible, there are over 100 names and titles are given to Jesus. And whether He is called "Bright morning star, Wonderful Counselor, the Alpha and the Omega, or the Lamb of God", each of these names and titles is rich with meaning. They all say something significant about who Jesus is. Yet at this time of year, all I can think about is the name given him in Mathew 1:23, “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel which means, "God with us."

His presence in our society is felt and experienced more intensely at Christmas time. And although every generation claims that that the days they are living in the most dark and scary… I truly feel like these days are indeed among some of the most frightening. Our economy crisis and the amount of global unrest is enough to make all us scaredy cats (like me) want to run and hide. Yet God’s promised presence is the lifeline I will choose to cling to. Whatever dark moments or scary night the next year may hold, God has promised His presence. Deuteronomy 31:6-8 says, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you." Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the presence of all Israel, "Be strong and courageous, for you must go with this people into the land that the LORD swore to their forefathers to give them, and you must divide it among them as their inheritance. The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." The bible is full of similar promises of God’s presence as the prescription for fear and discouragement.

As powerful as my husband’s protective presence is…. My God’s presence is even more reliable and powerful. I am so thankful for His presence not just on Christmas day but everyday!!

“Here With Us” Joy Williams
It's still a mystery to me
That the hands of God could be so small,
How tiny fingers reaching in the night
Were the very hands that measured the sky

Hallelujah, hallelujah
Heaven's love reaching down to save the world
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Son of God, Servant King,
You're here with us
You're here with us

It's still a mystery to me, oh,
How His infant eyes have seen the dawn of time
How His ears have heard an angel's symphony,
But still Mary had to rock her Savior to sleep

Hallelujah, hallelujah
Heaven's love reaching down to save the world
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Son of God, Servant King
Here with us
You're here with us
(Ohh, mmm, here with us)

Jesus the Christ, born in Bethlehem
A baby born to save, to save the souls of man

Hallelujah, hallelujah
Heaven's love reaching down to save the world
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Son of God, Servant King
You're here with us
You're here with us

There are no words for that...

English always has been my favorite subject. I love to read and I love to write…. Basically I just love written words. But there are some things and some circumstances in life, where there just are no words to describe. Looking back at some of my journaling from the week we spent in Haiti, there seems to one phrase written over and over, “there are no words for that.” So as I try to somehow describe what we saw and experienced in Haiti, please remember the reoccurring phrase / theme throughout my journal was “THERE ARE NO WORDS FOR THAT!”

Coming back this time, it was the first time I returned to Haiti since adopting Jimso. Before any group goes there, they are warned not to give hand outs to beggars you encounter on the streets because you will not ever have enough and if you do you might be swarmed by needy people. On my first trip, one of the most difficult things to do was to say “no” to the beggars we encountered. But this trip saying “no” had a new and unexpected dimension to it. We were barely off the plane and had just found our seats on the bus that would take us to the orphanage, when I was approached by a little boy who stood outside my window asking for food and clutching his stomach. I tried not to look directly at him because I knew I had been told not to give anyone anything but for one brief second our eyes met and it took my breathe away because it was as if I was looking into the eyes of MY OWN SON whom I had left at home just several hours earlier. It was haunting to looking into the eyes of a little boy so similar in so many ways to my own son. It was gut wrenching to shake my head no and look away. My thoughts then went to the “What if’s” of Jimso’s life. What if God had not brought Jimso into our lives, what if he had not brought him to GVCM, what if he was still living on the streets alone? The “what if’s” have a way of consuming your thoughts if you let them.

There are no words to describe how much I love the people of Haiti. They are just completely beautiful to me. I have read in the book of Ruth where she proclaims to her mother in law Naomi, “Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. YOUR PEOPLE WILL BE MY PEOPLE and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me." I do not understand the how’s or why’s of it… but I know that I feel a divine connection and love for the people of Haiti. Maybe it has something to do with the adoption but I know God has placed a devotion in my heart to this nation and its people that will connect my heart with theirs forever.

Although we had many work “projects” throughout the week, the time we spent with the precious 57 orphans is what made the trip worth all the hard work it took to get us there. You see… We’re all born with a Love Bank that resides with our hearts. Our life experiences and everyday contact with others will either make deposits into our account or withdrawals from our heart. Throughout our childhood, most of us have the privilege of having loving parents and caring families who are continuously making deposits into the love bank that resides with our hearts. But the precious children we spent the week with had not been given some of that opportunity and if you could look inside their hearts, you would a love bank account that had been negative and in the red for years (work with me here, remember “there are no words”). These children were desperate for love and attention. Throughout the week, we learned to pick our seats wisely because within seconds of sitting down, we would find ourselves with at least 4 or 5 children planted in our laps just wanting to cuddle. In fact, they would even push and fight their way to find a coveted spot on your lap. My lap, although big, could not accommodate all the children reaching their arms up for me to hold them. There was no such thing as personal space or alone time, and I loved every minute of it (even as the introvert I am)! The first few days, the communication and language barrier was felt. But the more time we spent there, the more that barrier disappeared until I didn’t even notice the fact we spoke different languages. English wasn’t spoken in our play, Creole wasn’t spoken either. Love was spoken.

Another highlight of our week for me was spending time with Jimso’s biological brother Jedone’. For those who do not know, Jedone’ is Jimso’s 12 year brother. If only we had known about him before we adopted Jimso, he might be living with us now. But having the opportunity to spend the week with him was priceless. He is such a beautiful boy, with lighter skin and eyelashes so long that curl up. He looks a lot like Jimso… but they are polar opposites in their personalities. Jedone’ is shy and soft spoken and extremely sweet. He is the leader of the pack with the older boys and is such an amazing helper. I watched to parent some of the younger boys all week and wondered if he did that with Jimso when they were together. He loved the pictures I brought of Jimso. He proudly wore a button of Jimso’s soccer picture all week. And wanted to show all his friends the pictures of his "petite fray" (little brother). We also had the privilege of meeting with Jimso’s biological mother one morning. I tired to express our gratitude and what a blessing Jimso is to our family but once again “there are no words for that” and I felt completely inadequate. Haitian women are not emotional so I tried with every fiber in my being not to overwhelm her with emotion. She expressed how pleased she was with adoption and absolutely loved looking at the photo album we brought her. We brought her some gifts but honestly nothing we gave her would have felt adequate. She said she knew God had a plan for Jimso’s life and GVCM taking him in when she could not care for him, and us adopting him was all part of that plan. I can not wait until Jimso is old enough is accompany us on a mission trip there. I want so badly for him to feel connected to his culture and for him to understand where he came from and for him to share our love for these precious people.

In my lifetime, I have celebrated 30 Thanksgivings, but none of them will ever be as memorable as the one I spent in Haiti. For the life of me, I can not even remember what I did last thanksgiving but I will NEVER forget what I did 11/28/08. We treated 97 gravely ill people in an impromptu medical clinic. People who were willing to wait all day to be seen by us. Some of them had never been seen by a medical professional in their entire life. My thoughts and prayers are still consumed by them but especially by a few in particular… the women who had a terrible infection resulting from an abortion she had a few days earlier; the young mom who was so septic she could hardly walk, let alone care for her baby; an elderly man with heart disease and blood pressure so critically high he could have had a stroke at any moment; the two young children with malaria; the young man withering away from what seemed to be AIDS; patients who had critically high fevers like 104 or 105 yet continued to work all day as if they were fine; a young mother who was so blind she could not see the medication syringe well enough to administer the necessary antibiotic it to her young children that we had to teach the 4 year old daughter how to give it to herself and her younger siblings. There are no words to describe those kinds of health care needs. And once again, I felt inadequate. Most of what we saw was all so preventable and treatable yet it could be fatal in circumstances like these. I can’t wrap my mind around it. Nor can I look into their faces and pretend anything about their circumstances is just, fair, or right. I hate the starling fact that in our world, your place of birth drastically determines your quality of life (it determines your access to health care, access to education, access to clean water, ability to feed yourself and your family). We ended our Thanksgiving with homemade pizza for dinner with the orphans. They weren’t sure what to think of it but in the end, I think they liked it and it was the most memorable Thanksgiving of my life.

The day after Thanksgiving is usually a day full of shopping for me and millions of other Americans but instead we got to meet our friend Bob (the 8 year old boy we sponsor through Compassion International). He has incredibly sweet and meeting him face to face and seeing the difference just $30 a month can make was incredible! I am completely amazed at that organization’s kingdom work! Seeing this kind of extreme poverty everyday… it would be so easy to just get overwhelmed by the vast needs that exist, yet they are truly making a global difference.

The day we left the orphanage was the hardest day of the entire week. OShellie cried as she said goodbye to Chelsey… which opened a floodgate of tears for us all. And as we tried to say good-bye, express to them our love, and promise them that this goodbye was not forever… the language and communication barrier seemed to reemerge.

Adjusting to life at home has been difficult. Once again, I left a huge hunk of my heart in Haiti and trying to adjust to life without that part of my heart has been hard. This week I found some little friends, named scabies, have taken up residency under my skin. Someone asked me “Now that you got scabies, do you regret cuddling so much with those orphans?” To which I honestly replied “No way… I regret not cuddling more. I wish I would have taken shorter showers, spent less time eating, and made more time for what mattered most... loving on those little kids.” My lap is empty, my heat is hurting, but there are no words to describe how much that week meant to me!”


“Once our eyes are opened, we can not pretend we don’t know what to do. God, who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls, knows that we know and holds us responsible to act!”

Haiti Mission Trip Highlight Video

Its so hard to put 5 hours of video footage and over 1000 pictures into one song length but I think Jake did AWESOME job! It's also very hard to describe with words all we experienced but this is a taste of it!

Grown Up Christmas List

Jimso came home from school Friday and told me that he had written a list to Santa at school. He told me that he asked him for a guitar and a microphone and a video camera so that he and Ashlyn could make a Jonas Brothers music video. Then he said Santa would be delivering the gifts on “Thanksgiving” morning (this is only his second Christmas celebration in his 7 years of life so he is still a bit confused on the details and how this whole “present day” works).

Listening to Christmas music is one of my favorite’s things to do (I started in October). One of my favorite Christmas songs is “Grown Up Christmas List” (I know old and cheesy but the cheesier the better when it comes to Christmas music). Here are the lyrics…..

Do you remember me?
I sat upon your knee
I wrote to you with childhood fantasies
Well, I'm all grown-up now
Can you still help somehow?
I'm not a child, but my heart still can dream

So here's my lifelong wish
My grown-up Christmas list
Not for myself, but for a world in need

No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
Every man would have a friend
That right would always win
And love would never end
This is my grown-up Christmas list

What is this illusion called the innocence of youth?
Maybe only in that blind belief can we ever find the truth

No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
Every man would have a friend
That right would always win
And love would never end

This is my grown-up Christmas list
This is my only lifelong wish
This is my grown-up Christmas list

Coming back and transitioning to American life after visiting a third world country is difficult. You look at some of the “stupid” ways we spend money in our consumer driven society and endless pursuit to desire more “stuff”… and you can’t help but think of the faces of poverty and how much wiser it would be to invest in causes other than our own. Coming back from Haiti at the peak of Christmas advertizing has in some ways haunted me. Advertising (and even our own delusions) has seemed to reclassify luxuries as necessities. The other day I was watching a Disney show with my kids and all the commercials seemed to send the same message… material possessions will bring joy and fulfillment. These commercial seem to scream that these products would somehow satisfy our deepest needs and inner longings for love, acceptance, security, and fulfillment.

I had the privilege of spending Thanksgiving week in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere last week… and I honestly say that those people are some of the most contented and most fulfilled people I have ever met. They have nothing in the way of material possessions yet they have more faith and more joy in their little pinky than some of us have in our entire beings. I desperately want to be like them… I want to look to people and the Lord alone for my sense of security, love, and acceptance. I want to be like them and like the apostle Paul when he said in Philippians 4, “I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” If tomorrow I woke up and EVERYTHING was gone (my house, my possessions, my health, my family), I would want to be able to say that my God is enough and He is all I need. One of my favorite worship songs says “Rich or poor, God I want you more than anything that glitters in this world. Be my all, all consuming fire. You can have all my hands can hold….”

I have been leading a small group through a curriculum called “Hope Lives” and it looks at poverty and what the bible says about the poor and marginalized. This morning, I asked my Sunday school students, in light of all we have studied, to come up with a grown up Christmas list. Here is my list:

1.Every orphaned child would have someone to tuck them into bed each night and tell them “I love you!” (every 14 seconds a child is orphaned by AIDS, if 7% of people who claim Christianity would adopt one orphan per family then there would be no orphaned children globally)

2.That this present generation would be the ones to stand up and say “Your place (country) of birth will NOT determine your quality of life in regards to your access to education, health care, food/water, shelter, and other basic human needs and RIGHTS.

3.That every person would have access to clean water (currently 1/6 of the worlds population does not, 1.1 BILLION people)

4.That we would be passionate and persistent about eliminating global health crisis’ like the HIV/AIDS epidemic, malaria, tuberculosis, etc. (malaria kills 1 million children per year, most of them under the age of five, 2.3 million children are living with HIV and only 10% of them are being treated, one child dies every 5 seconds due to hunger related causes)

5.Children and other victims of abuse would find their voice and we would not tolerate those who intentionally inflict pain upon children. (300 millions children are subject to physical, emotional, and sexual abuse every year, 1.2 million children are trafficked every year for sexual purposes)

6.As Christians, we would embrace our calling to be the church that God dreams we could be. We would be more like the first church and like that described in Acts 4 “All the believers were united in heart and mind. And they felt that what they owned was not their own, so they shared everything they had.”

7.Everyone on this planet would grasp the fact that love ALWAYS trumps hate, good always beat evil (at least in the end) and that we would birth extremists of love not hate!

This list is far from complete…. But they (my small group)had even better things on their lists .So what is on YOUR “grown up Christmas list????”