defiant hope [jubilee rain]

 Dear Jubilee,

Like your brother and sisters, we thought a long time about choosing the right name for you. We wanted a name that is both full and waiting to be filled. Full with a richness of meaning as our gift to you, but also, empty enough for you to fill and define how you will, and return the gift to us as we learn what it will come to mean.

The inspiration for your name is drawn from ancient peoples, whose stories moved from culture, to tradition, to sacred scriptures, to the stack of books and papers beside our dining room table. Scattered through the book of leviticus of our bible in this messy pile, your name is found. The year of Jubilee, a promise of restoration and realignment, always just around the corner. In this ancient story God told his people that he was building a community of people who would be known for how they loved their neighbors. God gave this beloved community the idea of Jubilee. Every seven days, they would rest. Every seven years, they would let their land rest, trusting, inexplicably, that God herself would provide for them. And after seven times seven of these sabbaths, they would enter a year of Jubilee. In this sacred year, they would proclaim freedom - forgive debts, let the land rest & heal & be returned, & release those in the bondage of servitude. The people would live out the message that there is abundance & enough for all, if only we share.

Perhaps like other times in history, you are born into times of uncertainty. Our very presence on our planet is changing the home we live on. The fabrics of our societies are shifting under new pressures. The hopes for a more just and balanced world, seem more threatened. In uncertain times, it is easy to live into a vision of fear and retreat into the smallness of a protective posture. Our desire for you is that your name will be a reminder of a more hopeful vision. A defiant hope that may be more needed in your lifetime than it has been in ours. We hold this hope in our palms - a hope for restoration of land and generous societies in their rightful balance. The remembering that sharing is not a burden, it is a joy, an unexpected jubilation. Just like you, our “laat lammetjie”, our late lamb.

On the morning you were born, we woke in the night to wind & the falling of a heavy winter rain. As we drove to the hospital in the dark morning, our windshield sparkled with raindrops. As you enter the pilgrimage of life, we wanted to give you a middle name that connects you to a place to call home. Rain. We welcomed you in Terrace, whose dramatic beauty is often brushed and baptized with mist and fog. Rain can be cold and dark. In our corner of the world, it can hide the sun for weeks, bringing puddles and wet shoes that never dry. But in the moments when the light breaks through, this hiding reveals unexpectedly beautiful peaks that were with us all along.

Rain is also a powerful symbol of sustenance & renewal. We were grateful to observe many seasons of the monsoon rains of Southeast Asia and the savannah rains of Southern Africa. These rains brought desperately needed nurture for the soil and refreshment in times of stifling heat. And here too, they feed our rivers and nourish our soils. Rain embodies the sustaining & mysterious spirit of God. It is not always comfortable. But, as the ancient writer of hosea 6 wrote -

As surely as the sun rises,

He will appear;

He will come to us like the winter rains,

like the spring rains that water the earth.

So, Jubilee Rain we offer this name to you.

May you become a woman of defiant hope, with an improbable generosity & assurance that there is enough to share, and there is always a path to restoration. May this defiance in the face of brokenness refresh others, even as God’s spirit & presence restores you, whether with mists or deluges. May your name bless you as you grow. And in return may we be blessed by you as your name takes the shape you fill it with.

Love,
Mama and Papa

it might have been my worst birthday yet.⁣⁣

a 4am wakeup call from a child who hasn’t slept well since we uprooted two years ago. a child with a stomach bug. another’s meltdown that involved screams so deep they felt existential (& maybe like mourning). a job that has always felt beyond my grasp, which sometimes feels exhilarating, but this week (month? year?) has felt like drowning.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
we tried to keep it together for an evening of pizza & presents & then a dispute erupted (over sharpies & who signed their name to the presents where. sigh.) & the whole celebration exploded, ended prematurely with each of us in bed early, all in our own pool of tears.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
but i woke up early with a clear word & a sigh of relief in the remembering.⁣⁣

it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful.
⁣⁣⁣⁣
a reminder to myself – as time slips & the lines around my eyes deepen & i settle into new, unfamiliar curves.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
in this year – that has held so much upheaval, indecision, and loss.⁣⁣
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in this job – that aims at the roots of injustice & poverty, & that requires fighting darkness.⁣⁣
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& most especially with these kids – whose struggles hold mirrors, portraits whose gaze cannot be averted.⁣⁣
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the sun comes up & we start again. there was sweetness in the second try – in the early morning celebration with coffee & gifts & handmade cards.⁣⁣

it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful.
⁣⁣⁣⁣

free falling [zambia begins]

[a classroom in one of the MCC supported schools in southern province, zambia]

a month ago we got on an airplane & left our whole life.  & here we are –  at the roller-coaster-free-fall stage of our ‘zambia years’.  

& this time there have been no gentle transitions – we ran smack into all the responsibility awaiting us & smack into that familiar (yet easy to set aside when the reminders aren’t quite so daily) stomach churning reality that we.have.so.much in a world full of those who have far less.  that we have no idea how most people under the sun live.    

where the cost of our children’s school uniforms is more than the zambian monthly minimum wage.  where our lovely, spacious bungalow house & tropical yard feels like joke when we walk the streets of “compounds” just blocks away.  (“high density – low income neighborhoods” our development literature calls them)   

in our office a team member explains his work in a prison & the horrific sexual violence & oppression & squalor.  & i blink, sip my tea.  we talk budget & process & when he leaves i can’t stop thinking about all the things he said that i wish were not true.  about the darkness this work & this world holds. 

& i am jonah.  

i don’t want to go to ninevah.  i dread the incompleteness of the story that will unfold there.  there is partly the children’s book-worthy tale – with the adventure & mercy & forgiveness & the second chances for obedience.  but there’s also the desert & the message that doesn’t have the anticipated response & the withering plant & the untidy, unresolved ending.  this, i know, will also be the story of our days here.    

(but i know, too, that this is the story of all of our days anywhere.)

so, in these early days, as the sun comes up & we start again - we take deep breaths, commit to seizing joy (which we've been given in buckets, that my soul knows very well) where we find it, pray for hearts brave enough to listen. 

& we open our palms – to hold the stories & the unfairness & the responsibilities of leading a team here, and also to offer up ourselves, 

just like jonah – who floundered & was swallowed by the storm, only to find out that his story was just beginning.

[jacaranda tree - a shot of beauty on our daily trip to school]

the tortoise's gift [a story from zambia]

 ‘a story from zambia’ seems a fitting title for the new chapter & adventure that awaits. 

in exactly three months’ time, we’ll be packing up these little ones (& the hammock!) & moving to lusaka, the capital city of zambia. we’ll be working with MCC - a relief, development, & peace organization (the same organization that we worked with in cambodia). 

we’re excited to go & sad to leave - excited to be taking on another role with an organization that we love & sad to be leaving a place & a community that we also love deeply. 

it’s a bit overwhelming to think of all that is coming & how much learning lays ahead, but here we are, palms open, looking forward to all that zambia – its people, its culture, its history, & its beauty has to teach us.

rising [women's march]

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

- Maya Angelou

To My Daughters,

We could have marched in Canada, but I needed to march there.  The country of your passports, but my birth.  So we journeyed & we marched.

We marched because I wanted us to show with our bodies, with our presence, that everyone is deserving of dignity & a voice.   People with every skin tone.  With any passport.  People from the LGBTQ community.  Those who feel excluded.  Immigrants. Refugees. People who have disabilities. Women. Men. Everyone on God’s green earth.

I hoped that our small presence could help to stand against the darkness that defines people as “winners” and “losers”.  That declares that people in some countries are more important, that they come first.  To sing over those lies with our songs & with our feet.  There are only God’s beloved on His green earth.

You won’t remember, tiny baby, but I want you to know that I carried your small body with me among thousands to fight for that warm flesh.  To say to the world now & to you, especially – that your body is sacred & beautiful & was not made to be judged in a contest, objectified in a gaze, or grabbed against your will.  Your body carries the image of God over all His green earth.

Your papa made a beautiful sign for you.  There were so many people with us, people choosing to be brave & strong, people on every continent, all over God’s green earth.       

I don’t know what the days ahead hold.  But I want you to know that we were there & that together

we were all a sight to be seen.

- Mama

Protesters on 42nd Street in front of Grand Central Terminal during the Women’s March in New York. 
Credit: Nicole Craine for The New York Times

four [ezra sparrow]

our sparrow is four.  

this spunky girl keeps us on our toes with her strong & yet sensitively spirited ways.  she is surprisingly independent & can spend hours alone, talking to herself, entertaining herself with daydreams & playing in the dirt/collecting rocks.  and yet, she's enamored with all things family/mama/baby related & cries the saddest tears when i sing "sweet baby james" because she knows its about a cowboy who misses his mama.  her artwork is fascinating - usually abstract, but with a detailed story to accompany it.  

she's fiercely stubborn, fiercely loving & brings us more delight than we ever could have wished for.

here are some of my favorite recent ezra quotes:

(yawning in the morning) "this isn't a tired yawn, its a wake up yawn" 

"when baby sneezes i say 'special bless you' because she's so special"

"God made some people with no arms, but no people with no heads"

"when baby selah grows up we will really miss our baby"

to both parents: "did you know, the more you get bigger the more you get fatter. I know because I see you guys a lot." 

"mama, what comes after thirty-twelve?"

"i don't want to help with diapers, i want to hold the baby because that's cuter"

ezra: "i love you around the galaxy two times, mama"

daniel: "and me?"

ezra: "one time"

"when selah was in your belly, it was hummmmmmmmongous.  your shirt couldn't cover your belly so your pants had to help it - like teamwork!"

weighted stillness [selah kiri talstra]

selah kiri talstra

សិលា គីរី

born may 5, 2016

3.4 kg [7 lbs 8 oz]

Dear Selah,

Like your brother and your sister, we thought a long time about choosing the right name for you. We wanted a name that is both full and waiting to be filled. Full with a richness of meaning as our gift to you, but also, empty enough for you to fill and define how you will, and return the gift to us as we learn what it will come to mean.

The primary inspiration for your name is drawn from music; from the music of ancient peoples, whose songs moved from culture, to tradition, to sacred scriptures, to the stack of books and papers beside our dining room table. Scattered through the chapters of the book of psalms of our bible in this messy pile, your name is found. A note of Selah, marks the breaks between the stanzas of these songs. Nobody knows for sure what these repeated notes mean, but our best guess is that they are a musical rest note, a call to silence and reflection.

We know the power of music to connect ourselves to bigger things and each other. The beautiful irony captured by the greatest musicians is that knowing what to play is often less important than knowing what not to play. It is the parts you don’t hear that make great music so compelling. It is the valleys that make the mountains captivating. It is in silence that we often hear the most.

Your middle name is Khmer; the language of the country your family lived in before you were born. Kiri means mountains. A mountain is a symbol of strength, the substance of our planet. Mountains embody permanence & steadiness & echo the faithfulness of God. As the ancient writer of psalm 125 put it

Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion,
    which cannot be shaken but endures forever.
As the mountains surround Jerusalem,
    so the Lord surrounds his people
    both now and forevermore.

In Cambodia, we escaped the stifling heat by traveling to the rural mountainous provinces of Mondulkiri and Ratanakiri. These were places of retreat. To us, Kiri symbolizes stillness and coolness. Our family traveled again, further to Terrace in northern BC, where we waited for you, a place surrounded by mountains on all sides. With lush mossy forests steeped in cool humid air, blanketed in snow in winter, brushed through with mist in fall, bursting with life in spring. We wanted to give you a name that connects you to a place, to call home. As deep as these mountains’ tectonic feet, know that you too are rooted here at this point on this earth in the vast expanse of space.

So, Selah Kiri, we offer this contrasting name to you. May you become a woman of humility and of presence. May the music of your life be framed by the space to let your song hang in the air. May your name bless you as you grow. And in return may we be blessed by you as your name takes the shape you fill it with.

Love,
Mama and Papa

journey's end [6 years in cambodia + 1 year in canada]

[ some thoughts from june 2015 as we marked the one year anniversary of leaving cambodia & returning to terrace]

a year ago, tomorrow, we stepped on an airplane & left our whole life.

& i felt for sure that my heart wouldn't be able to stand the shattering.  the way ming kohm bent low to kiss a sleeping ezra, to stroke her cheek one last time.  how could i know that our season of losing was just beginning?

in stillness, looking back, i can see the losing intertwined with a year's worth of celebration like a spider's web.  a matrix of pain & wonder.

we threw off the shackles of work, of chasing injustice & celebrated a summer of home.  we felt freer than the birds on our cross country road trip.

& we arrived to a home tinged.  to a father's body fading.  to hospital visits stretched long.  

we unpacked.  we celebrated one last thanksgiving.  & we saw him give her roses for one last birthday.  

we mourned the loss of a grandfather, a whole wide continent away & taught our children about trick or treating.  & when we brought our pumpkins home, we called an ambulance for a father's pain without mercy.  

on the day my family in the u.s. celebrated thanksgiving, we heard the doctor say there was nothing left to do.  we sat with him & sang day & night.  daniel's violin echoing down the halls.  & on st. nicholas' day, a day brimming with gezellig memories, we lost him.

on my 33rd birthday we celebrated his life with a funeral that filled the church.  

we celebrated new year's eve  in the same hospital with a grieving widow, slowly losing all her muscles had learned.  

we celebrated valentine's day with news of a baby; a spark of hope.  & after an easter celebration we planted a tree to symbolize that loss. tiny & fierce.

i never wrote a reflection on our 6th year in cambodia because i couldn't wrap my head around the experience, around everything we saw & heard & did & learned.  about the way we learned over & over about all that is beautiful & broken.

with a year of pondering behind me, i'm still waiting to grasp the metanarrative.  i read somewhere that the memories we rehearse & weave into stories make grooves in our brains, between our neurons, sparking between our synapses & changing us.

as we close this chapter, these are the stories i chose to etch.  the memories, the folktales, the stories that cambodian people have woven into their selves - of palaces & rice & colorful angels & dancing godesses & sweet mangoes & cool baths on warm evenings.  of the mystery of the kingdom on the mekong & the deep beauty in shy smiles.

& i choose to remember this, my story, to wear its grooves into my history - the year we left.  & lost.  & celebrated.

celebrating 5 [cedar james]

we celebrated cedar's 5th birthday party with a friends & cousins, hot chocolate & snacks, party hats & a lemon cake that looked like chirp (from cedar's latest magazine obsession), & a winter pinata to boot!

celebrating 3 [ezra sparrow]

we celebrated ezra's 3rd birthday with a small party of cousins, friends, tacos, pin-the-hat-on-the-birthday-girl & a cake with a rainbow teapot with a bird flying over it (as requested by ms. sparrow) 

ezra expounds [age 2]

celebrating 4 [cedar james]

we celebrated cedar's 4th birthday with a small, winter evening party including pennants, fake mustaches, tacos, cousins & friends.  

cedar got to choose his cake & he chose a rainbow cake with a tea pot on top which made us all smile.

celebrating two [ezra sparrow]

we celebrated ezra sparrow's 2nd birthday with a late summer backyard hot dog roast, birthday hats, cousins & dirt dessert.  

 

cedar sounds [age 3]

the holy dare [5 years in cambodia]

[amanda, daniel, cedar & ezra: cameron highlands, malaysia 2013 

photo by steve chee]

here is our (very belated!) christmas card + some thoughts from last fall, as we wrapped up our fifth year in cambodia.  sometimes its hard to separate out how much of what we're learning is just the natural course of "growing up", trying to hold tight to what we've known to be true - to all the right & beautiful things we've known, while witnessing the brokenness everywhere.  these lessons are not unique to cambodia, but our context here has helped bring these lessons to light for us here, in this place, in this year.

Our fifth year here has flown by - with such joy & also such sadness.

Last year, I asked for prayers that this year we would have eyes to really see & that we would have perspective to Be.Here.Now.

As it turns out, some prayers are soul scorching.

As the year unfolded, more often than not, the seeing felt like a dare.  Were we brave enough to look into the eyes of the old woman begging at our ankles, as we traveled festively to the Christmas dinner?  Would we watch the mentally disabled young man wandering the streets outside our office every day - look & not quickly glance away in discomfort?  Watch the videos, the too-gory-for-our-sheltered-eyes photos of young people, the ones who make our very clothes, bleeding in the streets in pools of rage & shattered hopes?  Know that we were here, but not there? Look & see all the times we couldn't stop anything.

Would we see & see & keep seeing?  Open our hearts to all the ways the world is bitterly cruel & tragically unsafe?

& at the same time, proclaim (in broken whispers, nothing more) that God is Good.  God is Love.  Because of his Love we are Not Consumed.  Did we dare to do that?

the 5+ years of absorbing tragedies, the Seeing has left our eyes scorched.  The world will never be the same wide, adventurous invitation again.  bursting with beauty & wonder - yes! (emphatically yes, we have known much, much more than our share of this goodness this year) but also lined with betrayal & a darkness that often feels unquenchable.

And somewhere in the midst of all this seeing , I found myself watching as a tiny body - born, but not to life - entered the flames.  And as his parents melted in grief, the only prayer any of us could muster was a pleading "Be.Here.Now".  In my request at this year's beginning, I had envisioned those words, that prayer, as a triumphant call to find joy in the moment. (And this year has held such glory for us - new words, first steps, travels, dance-filled bluegrass shows, overwhelming fellowship & love beyond what we ever could have asked)

[first steps for ezzie: kep, winter 2014
photo by steve chee]

And yet, this year the prayer was also turned, flipped right upside down into a unrelenting call for Divine Accompaniment - repeated over & over for days (maybe a lifetime?) on end.
Immanuel - God.With.Us. the only answer to Job's dilemma & ours & the whole wide world's.

And so I come to the end of this year with palms (at times begrudgingly) open - thankful for the sacredness that filled a year's worth of spaces & walking on in that Promised Presence.

Come what may.

ladies weekend [bangkok]

[on valentine's day weekend jodi, julia, amie (+ little arwen) & i hopped on the short flight to bangkok for a weekend of wandering, market shopping, coffees, eating (yes, that IS a 'bacon shop' street stall you see there) & all around ladies fun.  bangkok is so close & yet feels dramatically different from phnom penh - it was a wonderful change of scenery & weekend of relaxing.]

survival mode [perspective]

[perspective: the view from our porch as a thunderstorm rolls in ]

because it seemed that the days had been coming in frantic rushes.  there were details to remember, a farewell party to coordinate, daniel's show going late, late, late cutting into precious sleep, arranging babysitters, a saturday board meeting to chair.  round & round she goes.

& i sat in the tuk tuk & exhaled deeply. mind racing, i thought:

"we've been living in survival mode ever since cedar was born.  when will it end?"

& then i remembered.

i remembered the woman with the recycling cart & her newborn slung in a scarf between the bars that she pushed, walking the streets asking for others' trash., unable to rest - where was her maternity leave?

i remembered the boys huddled at the bus stop sniffing the glue bottle.  so young & beautiful & already longing to be numb.

i remembered our own ming kohm & how she had to leave her tiny daughters to go work in the rice fields.  how she heard their cries when a neighbor lied & told them that she was never returning.  how she showed me how she would bind her breasts so she could go the whole day without feeding her baby.

i looked down & remembered that the coffee i was drinking as i whizzed through the city costs the daily wage of the construction workers i watch from my kitchen window.

 oh, right. 

i have never, not ever, known what it is like to live in survival mode.

sometimes perspective is like a swift slap to the face. 

 [but the good kind, like the kind that snaps you out of navel gazing & jolts you into gratitude]

snapshots [october 2013]

a trip to the beach [otres for pchum benh]

seasons [ezra & amanda]