My Brother, His Mission and Redemption Village

I come from a blended family. I have three brothers; one is a full brother, one is a half-brother, and one is a step-brother. To me there is no difference between them; they are just my brothers.  I am not the greatest sister when it comes to keeping in touch, but I am sure they would agree that they are not the best at keeping in touch either. I know we all mean to do better, but we let life get in the way, and if I am honest, sometimes we let “life stuff” hang between us. I have decided that I have to try to do better at putting away the “stuff” and focusing on the relationship. Today’s blog is dedicated to my Big Brother, the Missionary, and finally pushing some of that “stuff” out of the way. 

Many of you are probably already aware that my brother is a missionary in the Dominican Republic. You may have seen me like his page on Facebook or create events in support of his Mission work. What most of you do not know is that for years I was conflicted, even angry about the path he had chosen. For you to understand better, I have to start at the beginning. Rick had been working as a Food Service salesman, but had expressed a sense of unsettledness and a calling to the ministry. It wasn't much of a surprise when he started discussing his desire to work in the mission field, but his decision to move to the Philippines, did come as a bit of a shock. All the natural questions came to mind. “Is it safe to go there? Should you be taking a family there? How will you support yourself? How long will you stay? How will you transition back to the states when your mission is over?” These were just a few of the thoughts which raced through my head, but I was hesitant to voice them. I wanted to show support, not doubt. I told myself this was going to be a year to two year long effort, and when it was over, Rick would return and take a job working as a Pastor for a church somewhere. I was sure God had a plan, if he was putting all of the pieces into place. I could relax and let things unfold the way they were supposed to.

Rick left for the Philippines in the latter half of the 90s, and has remained in the mission field ever since only returning to the states for a few furloughs to raise support. Throughout the years, he and his family faced many setbacks and difficulties, but the two issues that seemed to continually plague him were medical and financial. After contracting an amoeba in the Philippines, Rick took very ill, and came home on a furlough for medical attention. I began questioning his mission. I started pressuring him to return to the states for good, but every time I would ask him not to go back, he would patiently explain to me that God was still calling him to be where he was. Despite the difficulties, he had to return to the Philippines. I am a Christian, but I didn’t understand. I felt like God was sending him enormous signs in big bold letters telling him to go home, and I was angry at him for ignoring them. When he returned to the Philippines I was heartbroken and bitter. I told him I couldn’t support his decision to be there any longer. I am sure that was a very bad day for him, and I still feel guilt and pain that I caused such heartache. 

Several years later, Rick returned from the Philippines, but only for a very short time before he moved his family to the Dominican Republic to follow his next calling. During this time our relationship was strained. Finally, two years ago, I decided I had to try and bridge the distance between us that I had created, so I booked a trip to visit him. Truth be told, I was incredibly nervous prior to getting there, because I still struggled with deep conflict about his life. I knew, however, if i was going to be a part of my brother's life again, I had to let go of that fear and just go. I am forever grateful that I did, because it opened my eyes in a way that could have never happened by just reading his updates. I was finally able to see first hand the difference he makes in peoples lives every single day.

My husband and I flew into Santiago on a Friday. We were about two hours from where Rick lived, so we rented a car and started on our journey to his home. That ride alone was eye opening. I felt like we were on Mister Toad’s Wild Ride. We fought our way through traffic on roads where traffic signs were ignored, a two lane road meant there would be four lanes of traffic and every car on the road was riddled with dings and dents from battling its way through the streets every day. Multi-passenger scooters weaved in and out of the chaos, and brave men and women waited for a pause in traffic to step out into the melee and sell their wares. We passed resorts flanked by slums, large homes surrounded by shacks, and villages teeming with people mere miles from abandoned neighborhoods. It was a ride marked by the disparity between the haves and have nots. 

While that ride was eye-opening, it was our visit to a place called Redemption Village that opened my mind and my heart again to my brother’s work. It was our second day in the country, and Rick was taking us on a tour of the places where he worked. As we drove towards the first village, he explained that one of his primary roles was something of an outreach coordinator. There were multiple mission groups in the local area all providing a variety of services, and he acted as a liaison who linked people in need with the right mission services to help them. Much of those efforts were targeted at providing basics; food, medicine and clean water. He also spent a large part of his time hosting mission groups who tackled large projects such as building schools, churches, and playgrounds. He was also involved in creating training programs that were designed to raise up church leaders in the small villages, and he provided counseling and friendship to whomever needed it. I listened as he spoke, trying to absorb all he was telling me, but I really had no reference point to frame the information until we drove into Redemption. 

We parked the car at the front of the village. As I stepped our and scanned my surroundings, the  first thought I had was that I had never seen this kind of poverty up close. I had driven through slums in DC. I had seen pictures in National Geographic or a documentary on TV, but I had never walked side by side with people who had so little. All around me were tiny one room shacks housing multiple families. Most had no electricity or modern plumbing. As we moved through the village, a group of children started to form around us. They reached for my hands or simply tried to touch me as I walked by. The further we walked, the more I began to feel like the Pied Piper of Hamlin as the group of children continued to grow around me. I was surrounded by beautiful little faces staring up at me; little brown urchins covered in dirt, wearing little to no clothing managing these huge smiles in what seemed to me should have been the saddest place in the world yet somehow these children were beaming with joy. 

Random thoughts kept jumping through my mind. “Where were the parents? Why were they letting these children wander off with strangers? How were children able to survive in these conditions?” I watched as my brother and sister-in-law moved through the village with ease stopping to check in with family after family to see how they were doing. Within the span of a half hour, my brother was presented with multiple requests for assistance. One person had a kidney infection, but had no money to see a doctor. By that afternoon, Rick had arranged for a free appointment and funds for medicine. Barb, my sister-in-law and truly my Brother’s rock, introduced me to a tiny little baby who was failing to thrive. The Grandmother who was raising her had been thinning the formula to save money. Barb had arranged for free formula to be provided to the family until the baby was able to reach to a healthy weight. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was actually meeting my future niece Mariflor who was abandoned by her family shortly after my visit.  The requests continued and so did the solutions. I was overwhelmed with the need, and awed at my Brother’s ability to see through the chaos to a solution each time. 

As we neared the end of our visit, Rick suggested that we purchase some drinks for the children. The money would help the local store which funded the village church, and I think he sensed I needed to feel as if i could do something to help. We reached into the packed cooler and started passing out drinks to the children. In a matter of minutes, the word seemed to have spread through the village, and the group of children swelled. We emptied the cooler and bought every drink in the store, but the children still kept coming. I was horrified that we didn’t have enough to go around. I was appalled that I couldn’t answer every child’s plea. As my brother swept me out of the store into our vehicle, I dissolved into tear’s with the realization that this was my brother’s life. Endless need, and never enough support to answer every request. I was brought to tears in less than an hour, yet my brother and his family faced this pressure day after day, month after month, year after year. I knew that only with God’s support and blessing could they possibly sustain the kind of commitment and strength they needed to face their tasks daily. I finally understood why Rick hadn’t been able to turn his back on this calling despite the hardships he had endured. 

My brother is facing a critical time in his mission work right now. He needs support. His wife's father has been struggling with some very serious health issues. After a short visit home it became clear that they needed to return for a longer furlough to allow time with her father. They returned to the Dominican to get things in order there, so they could feel free to return on furlough to the states for a longer period of time. Rick has a great network in place in Sosua with key individuals who will provide supervision over the mission work while he leads it from here. Rick is going to continue to go back and forth between both locations, but it will be challenging both financially, physically and emotionally, so I am asking for your support. Support can take many forms and whether it is a prayer to lift him up, a share to get his message out or dollars to fund his efforts, any support is appreciated. Rick and Barb are always lifting others up in prayer and support, it is my turn to lift him up by requesting your help. I have put a link under my suggested links to a web page which provides more information about his ministry and ways you can help if you feel called in any way. Thanks!

Remembering....

The day began like so many other days, a hectic race to get the kids off to school followed by a slightly less frenzied rush to get myself ready for work. I was excited, and a little nervous as I prepared for the day ahead. I had a trainer from the corporate office flying in to work with our staff on store presentation. As I moved about my room, a news report caught my attention. The Today Show was reporting that a plane that had just struck one of the towers in the World Trade Center. Katie Couric and Matt Lauer were speculating about what might have occurred. Was it an accident? Could it have been intentional? There was still a lot of confusion. As they panned to a live shot of the Towers, a second plane flew into view and straight into the Second tower. The disbelief, and shock that I felt in that moment was echoed by the news casters who had watched with me. I reached for the phone and called my husband at the Pentagon. He was surprisingly unaware of the events in New York, so I gave him a quick recap, hung up, and headed to work. I couldn't yet make sense of what I had just seen.

I was half way to my office when they started reporting that a plane had struck the Pentagon. My first thought was disbelief. The reporter must have gotten events confused. Still, in the pit of my stomach, I felt the first flutter of fear. I pressed my foot to the gas and drove a little faster. I needed to get to a phone. Six minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot of my store in full panic mode. I raced past my co-workers. My hand was shaking, and my heart was racing as I dialed my husband's number. His line was ringing, but no one was answering. I hung up and called back, this time I got a message that the circuits were busy. I started repeating the same two statements in my head. " The Pentagon is huge. Chuck is fine. The Pentagon is huge. Chuck is fine." After several unsuccessful attempts to get through again to the Pentagon, I switched tactics and called my Army "Sister" whose husband also worked in the Pentagon. She had not been able to get through to her husband either, but she had learned that the area where the plane had struck was in the area where our husbands worked. I hung up the phone, turned towards the TV in our office and watched the images flashing across the screen. That was the moment I finally realized that the world as we had known it had changed, and would never again be the same.

Twelve years later, I still vividly recall the overwhelming relief when my husband walked up the path to our home, and later, our children's faces as we picked them up from their schools. I had thought they would be sheltered in their schools from the new reports only to learn that they had quickly been apprised of events by other students with cell phones. We spent several more hours that day waiting to hear news about each member of our military family, and felt relief and gratitude each time we learned that someone else made it home safely mixed with sadness and grief as we learned of colleagues who weren't as fortunate.

My feelings and emotions are as conflicted today as they were twelve years ago. Relief, gratefulness, joy, guilt, anger and bewilderment mixed together. I am forever grateful that I have been able share the last twelve years with my husband. I can't help but feel joy in my heart for the gift that God gave me that day, yet I feel selfish and guilty for allowing myself to enjoy my good fortune when others are burdened by grief. I harbor tremendous anger towards the individuals that committed those acts of terrorism that day, and bewilderment as to how anyone could twist and distort a religious belief into a call to murder. I'd like to forgive, because I know that is what God would want me to do, but I am not sure that I am there yet. I will never forget.

A Reluctant Gym Rat

It’s been about 5 months since I posted anything about my ongoing adventures in trying to turn my non-athletic self into a gym rat. That is because shortly after my last post, I started experiencing worsening GI symptoms which triggered a series of medical procedures including gall bladder surgery.  It has been a tough five months of medical management for motility issues affecting my esophagus, stomach, gallbladder and intestines, but after much trial and error, I believe I am finally to a point where I am having more good days than bad days. 

Throughout that period, I lost 15 pounds and then gained back ten. I found myself turning to whatever foods my body would tolerate, and developed a pattern of gorging on comfort foods on the good days and fasting on the bad days. Italian wedding soup, Cream of Chicken soup with added chicken and smoothies became my go to foods. Exercise routines were non-existent as all of my energy was spent just getting through the day. Now that I have finally reached a point where I have better control over my body, I am trying to slowly move back into a routine where I am making healthier food choices again and am able to carve out time in my day for a little exercise.  I began with short walks around my office several weeks ago, moved on to longer walks in my neighborhood and finally yesterday, I hit the gym for the first time since this whole episode started. 

It have to admit that it felt great to begin again, even as I quickly realized that I was going to have to start from scratch. I managed a very slow twenty minutes on the step machine, only lasting that long, because I had made the wise decision to take my daughter along. I was simply too embarrassed after telling her to set her timer to thirty minutes to step off after only ten minutes like my body wanted me too.  Our weight routine went far better than the cardio, and I was pleasantly surprised to be able to manage Ab exercises post abdominal surgery. I even managed to complete multiple sets despite my daughter dissolving into giggling fits next to me when I added pelvic tilts.  When I started this blog over two years ago now, I knew that I needed a distraction from the distasteful part of getting fit...the exercising. I needed outside motivation to push me, and in reaching out to those around me for support I helped set myself up for success. With everyone's support, I accomplished something that I had never managed before in my life. I maintained a steady fitness routine for almost two years. But towards the end of the second year, I learned the hard way that a small break in that routine is enough to derail all of the hard work that had gone on before, and even prior to my medical malfunctions, I was struggling to stick to a consistent work-out schedule. I am hoping that this new start will be my last start, but I'm not going to make promises that my body might choose to break for me. For now, I am going to take it a day at a time, but I am also using a page from what worked previously. I'm trying to distract myself from the distasteful part of getting fit, so I’ve enlisted my daughter as a partner in crime. She signed up at my gym yesterday, and we’ve committed to work-out dates with each other.  I’m not sure how long I’ll have her or even how often her schedule will coincide with mine, but for however many sessions that may be, the time together is the perfect motivation for this reluctant gym rat. 

Blurred Lines: The Zimmerman Trial, Paula Dean and the Freedom to speak my Mind

It seems I have become a rebel rouser in my late 40s. I don't know if  the phenomenon of social media has emboldened me, or if the realization that it is more important to speak my own truth than worry about how other people react that has become more freeing. The day after the verdict, I spent most of my time completely distracted by a Facebook debate. I should have been enjoying my day with my family, but instead I found myself glued to my News Feed waiting for notifications of the next posting. Truth be told, I have been consumed for weeks by the social networking storm surrounding both the Zimmerman Trial and Paula Dean's fall from grace. I have engaged in multiple facebook debates, spent many an hour in discussions at social events (I think my friends have started tossing out statements for the fun of seeing what  ensues) and found myself yelling like a crazy woman at the TV. My husband and children have patiently listened each time a status, statement from some pundit or article inflamed my senses. I have found my soapbox, and I can't seem to step away from it.

The verdict this weekend did not surprise me. I did not believe that Zimmerman's actions could support a Murder 2 charge. I had followed the prosecution's less than stellar performance in arguing for a charge they couldn't make, and hoped that the jury could somehow get past reasonable doubt to get to a Manslaughter charge, and of course they could not. A young man had lost his life, and no one would be held accountable. A person had made an assumption about a this young man's character, not based on the observation of a criminal act, but based solely on his appearance. That bad assumption drove multiple other bad decisions which led to his death. I am not writing to revisit the trial and my feelings about the verdict, because I'm sure most of you already know exactly where I stand from my previous postings, but my heart is heavy, my mind is racing and I know somewhere in this needless death there has to lie a lesson.

We have come a very long way in our race relations over my lifetime, but clearly we have not come far enough when a trial can divide a country and the perception by too many is the scales of justice are still weighted by the color of your skin. We have integrated schools, promoted equality in the workplace and created more opportunities than ever before for advancement of minorities. We have broken the barriers in support of interacial marriages and families. Blended families are more and more common, and our youth of today are becoming increasingly more color blind, but as the lines have blurred it has fostered a false perception that the playing field has been leveled and racism can no longer harm an individual in the way it once did.

Since the verdict was released, there has been a continuing debate about the role that race played in the events surrounding the Zimmerman trial. I have had numerous discussions with people I respect, people I know to judge individuals based on character and not color, who believe that this case should never have been made about race, and have been appalled and angered at the media and politicians who have seemed to promote this. These same individuals seem evenly divided on whether they shared the belief that Zimmerman was guilty of manslaughter or instead believed Zimmerman was justified in using lethal force as a means of self defense.  I, on the other hand, believe that you can't separate the racial undercurrent that is attached to this case. I need only ask myself the questions, "If Trayvon had been white, would the DA have viewed Zimmerman's injuries as evidence supporting a claim of self-defense or would he have viewed them as evidence that Trayvon was fighting for his life? If Trayvon had been white, would he have supported the arrest for manslaughter as lead detective had originally  recommended? If Trayvon had been white would, Zimmerman have had a defense fund fueled by strangers and a high powered attorney willing to take his case on?," and finally, "Would Zimmerman have been as suspicious of a white boy in a Hoodie as he was of Trayvon in a hoodie? " This may surprise you, but the only question I feel ambivalent about is the last question. I am not convinced that Trayvon's race was the primary driver in that first bad assumption. I am not convinced that Zimmerman wouldn't have pursued any young man in that age group he deemed out of place because he fit some stereotypical profile whether that was a hispanic boy wearing colors or a white boy sporting piercings and tattoos.  Either way, whether race was the deciding factor  or his age group was the deciding factor, this case is a clear illustration of everything that is wrong about profiling.

Moving on to Paul Dean. There seems to be as much, if not more debate on her fall from grace. There is a camp of supporters who feel she has been unfairly targeted by both the media and her sponsors, and believe that she shouldn't be held responsible for something she said years before. There is a camp of supporters, who acknowledge that her actions are more egregious than
simply using an inappropriate word in her past, but they still empathize with her inability to shed her southern roots and the prejudices that she learned as a child when open displays of racism were the norm. They see their parents or their grandparents in her, and believe she should be held accountable on some level, but believe that the consequences of her actions have been too harsh. Finally, there is the camp that believes she is a racist through and through, and deserves everything she gets. I fall somewhere between the last two camps. I see Paula as the last vestiges of a generation of people that grew up when prejudice wasn't questioned. It was simply a thread in the fabric of every day life. She has learned to adjust to a changing world, and probably is far more progressive in her views than she was twenty years ago, but even so, she will never understand the nuances of why a Southern themed plantation party sporting Black servants might be perceived as offensive or how the use of the "N" word to describe a criminal says more about her than the person she was referring to. But I can't seem to label her a racist. Racist is one of the ugliest words in our vocabulary. To use the word racist, I have to believe that you are first and foremost driven by hatred, and I have so far only seen that she is driven by a bias so ingrained that she can't see the fallacies within it. As a business owner, she let her employees down by either ignoring an environment that promoted discrimination and harassment or participating it. She is currently being held to task for those actions, and it is understandable that a business would be uncomfortable with her as a spokesperson for their product.

Where ever you land on both of these cases, they clearly illustrate that there is still a real divide in how Americans view race and racism in this country. Within that divide is an undercurrent of suspicion that continues to separate us. This suspicion colors our perceptions of each other and our reactions to these kinds of events. If we are to be honest, we have to acknowledge that the seeds of racism lie within all of us. They are those unconscious thoughts that creep in when we stand out in a crowd or are in unfamiliar territory. It is what we do with those seeds, how we allow ourselves to be driven by them that ultimately separates the racists, the people who allow hate to feed those seeds, and everyone else who is just trying to navigate in a complex world filled with racial undercurrents. In our vigilance in stamping out discrimination, we have to be careful not to confuse differing opinions as prejudice, because if we truly want to find a way to level the playing fields, we have to learn to respect in each other what we are often most suspicious of.

Habits, Gimmicks and Choices

I once heard that for an action to truly become a habit, you have to do the same thing every day for thirty days. After thirty days of repetition, it becomes a habitual part of your daily routine, and you simply continue to do it without consciously thinking about it. While I never really believed that exercising would become habit to me after a simple thirty day period, I did believe that once I passed the year mark of exercising regularly, I would have accomplished the habitual part, and would not need gimmicks ( my blog) or encouragement to keep me motivated any longer. This last year has proven me very wrong. 

It has been quite some time since I last posted, and that silence has been a reflection of my commitment, or lack there of, to a healthier lifestyle. This time last year, if you had asked me, I would have told you that I was still very dedicated to my quest even as I was already demonstrating signs of a lessening commitment. Truth be told during the first six months of 2012, I still found myself a fairly regular visitor to the gym, but I certainly wasn't as strict with my schedule or as willing to push myself to the next level as I had been the previous year. As I neared my daughter’s wedding date in September, my exercise routine went from fairly regular to irregular. I stopped making fitness a priority as I focused all of my free time on wedding planning.  Ironically, it was after the wedding was over and free time was plentiful again, that I really lost my focus. At first, I told myself that I deserved and needed a break. I promised myself, that I would start back into a good routine at the beginning of October, which turned into November and finally December. 

I threw my back out just before Christmas and spent most of the holiday supine on the couch. In addition to my bad back, i was fighting a third sinus infection in a four month period. My body was telling me that I had let it down, and my head was echoing the same thing. I knew I needed to get back on track, but guilt, pain and illness, all seemed to be standing in my way.

I began physical therapy in early January, and while I haven't been released from PT yet, I did get approval to start back to a limited work-out routine in the gym in between sessions. Monday was my first day back in the gym and consisted of a very slow walk on the treadmill. It certainly wasn't at a pace I could be proud of, but it felt good just to be making the effort.   All I can say is, I am taking this journey one day at a time again, and I’m going to use whatever gimmicks it takes to help me stay on track. I've come to realize that it can't just be about getting healthy, it has to be about staying healthy. I will have to renew my commitment each and every day for the rest of my life, because living this lifestyle will never be habitual for me; it will always require effort.  I will always struggle with the voices in my head that whisper, " It's OK to skip, just this one time!" But this past year has shown me that it is far too easy for “Just this one time...”  to turn into, “Not today, not tomorrow, not the next day.”  Ultimately, it comes down to choices. Today I made good choices. Tomorrow I wake up and fight myself again.