Why It's Okay That I'm Not in the Top 7

Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook are overly aware that I’ve been competing in a competition to win a contest to travel to Rwanda with Noonday Style and International Justice Mission.  The top 7 will move on to the next round, and I ended the competition in 9th place.

Obviously, it’s disappointing.  This trip would have taken me to a country I’ve wanted to visit since I was a child.  I would have been able to network with some really great women about the issues Somebody’s Mama is working to address every day.  And don’t get me started on the feelings I have about the outpouring of obsessive-compulsive voting love that I’ve experienced throughout this process.  My village showed up in a major way, and that alone was worth being in this competition on a personal level.

So, what now?

Well, life.  In the midst of the flurry that was this week, I was still an Air Force wife waiting to hear back about when my husband might come home from deployment.  I was still a mom who got to feed and clothe and teach and snuggle two boys.  I was still half of Somebody’s Mama, working to finish out a maternity unit in Sierra Leone.  I was still a council member planning a spring stewardship fair at my church for this weekend.  I was still the daughter who got to fly in and surprise her mom at her retirement party.  All of those things happened while we were tap-tap-tapping away for votes on anything that would connect to the internet.

I shared this week—when I reached 8th for the first time—my thoughts on what would happen if I never moved up from 8th.

“…Because my heart is brimming, I'm questioning what happens if I never get past 8th place. What does any of this mean if this is as far as I get? So, in your honor, I have responded to every opportunity for kindness that has presented itself, keeping in mind the kindness that you have had for me this week.

TOGETHER, we shared pizza with a man whose sign said "Hungry." Together, we threw change into the fireman's boot for MDA. Together, we bought a Sophia the First DVD for a stranger in the line at Target whose card was declined (he hugged us and cried with us). Yesterday, we took leftover wedding centerpieces to my friend Erika's elderly neighbors. I wish that moment of watching our boys sharing fresh flower love with Carolyn (aged 102) could have been frozen in time. We did every single one of these things TOGETHER because I believe the love we take needs to equal the love we make.

I started counting up the number of people who have liked or shared the link and decided something should be done in your honor. I lost track at some point when the number went over 100, so I'm just going to round up and donate $150 to the Somebody's Mama maternity unit project on behalf of all this social media love. So, this morning, whether I move up or not, we are being love together, and I can love because you loved me first.”

And then, I DID move up from 8th.  In fact, this morning, I was still in 5th place when I woke up.  All day I watched as I fell further and further behind, baffled as person after person shared and voted in a frenzy.  In the end, I’m not going to say something stupid like “everything happens for a reason.”  The reason I didn’t get to 7th place is because other people got more votes than I did.  We tried our damnedest.  We really did.

We even made this awesome video that still makes me teary every time I watch.

I called on my village to rally, and rally you did.  And when the clock struck 11:59 (or 9:59 in the Pacific time zone where I am), people immediately started sending messages of encouragement.  Let me just tell you—I can die a happy woman after the nice things people have said during and after this competition.  I mean that—it was like a week long eulogy for which I didn’t have to die to hear.

So, THANK YOU again for all of it.  I blogged a million years ago about failure, and since then, I’ve been trying more and more things to get used to failing.  Maybe that sounds stupid, but I think it’s an important life skill to hone.  We’ve all heard the stories about how Michael Jordan’s high school coach cut him from the team and how Abraham Lincoln lost a gazillion elections before he became president.  Those guys turned out okay, so I’m pretty sure I will, too.

This whole thing started because they asked for storytellers to apply.  One thing I know about writing is that sometimes the best pieces go from good to great because of editing.  I have removed sentences, paragraphs, sometimes entire chapters to a make a story better, so that's what I think is happening here.  This chapter doesn't fit in my story, and my story will be better for it.

In the meantime, I’m excited to see how the rest of the competition unfolds and to continue following the work of International Justice Mission.  Excuse me while I go finish this maternity ward.

Friendsday #9

In 2003, I spent a semester at sea, working with Mercy Ships.  I’d dreamed of going to Africa for years, and volunteering in the hospitality department on the M/V Anastasis, a traveling hospital ship off the coast of West Africa, was my ticket.  I had just graduated from college and was engaged to be married, and I was every bit idealistic and passionate and ambitious as anyone should be at twenty-two.

In the five-month period that would become the basis for the story of my masters thesis in grad school, I met three girls—Sarah, Jessica, and Maro—who became my family away from family as we navigated the cathartic joy and bumbling pain of international travel.  

I know a picture exists of all four of us leaning over the reception desk on the ship,
but this is the only picture I could find that I had saved digitally--
Sarah and I at a dance party/lunch in Sierra Leone.
One of the best days of my entire life.

In the past eleven years, we’ve seen each other in spurts.  This one was able to go to that one’s wedding.  These three gathered because the timing was right.  When our family found out we’d be stationed in WA, we were overjoyed because it would mean being within an hour and a half of both Jessica’s and Sarah’s families.  Maro was still waaaaaaay over in FL (which was nice when we lived in Charleston, SC), but the other three of us could gather semi-regularly.

Sarah and her husband, Kris, took assignments doing international relief work in Kenya and then South Sudan for a good portion of our time in WA, but we saw them on their trips home and happily stored all their belongings in our garage.  Last month, when Kris and Sarah were officially home for good, we got a message from Maro's husband, Rich, that their family was thinking about trekking out west for a vacation.

Within two days, Jessica, and her husband, Andrew, had organized a long weekend in Leavenworth, WA—a Bavarian “Christmastown” known for its charming downtown and snow-related activities.  The plan was to pitch in food and go where the wind took us.

And we’d all be together.  For the first time in eleven years.

Maybe you’ve got friends like these—you first met at camp and saw each other every summer for seven summers and then not again for ten years, when you ended up living in the same city.  Or maybe you were roommates during the one year of college you spent away from home, and you meet up every time she’s in town for business.  Maybe you shared a short assignment to a remote Air Force base with very little to do for entertainment and haven't lived in the same place since.

These kinds of friendships are different than the ones you create with your mom’s best friend’s daughter, who was your best friend before you were born or the girl who sat next to you in first grade who still calls you once a week.  Those friendships have had time to simmer slowly and are obviously delicious.  But these other kinds of friends—the kind of people who have lived through intense moments of life together—they make for instantly deep friendships with a level of love and commitment that defies reason.

As I packed our bags for Leavenworth, I thought about the fact that I didn’t really know what to expect from the weekend.  If I travel with the people I hang out with on a regular basis, I know what to expect—who likes to stay up late or be the first one up, who’s messy and who cleans up after everyone.  But this group of people—we don’t share life daily together.  In fact, the last time we did, none of us was even married.  Now, we’d be heading to a house in the mountains with eight adults and eight (and a half) children.  And you know what? I wasn’t worried one bit about any of it.

I know this to be true about humans: good people are good people.  When you’re “picking up where you left off” after eleven years with good people, it just works.

The four of us squished on a love seat

Throughout the weekend, I watched as one mom fixed a plate for all the kids, not just her own, while a dad wiped the face of a kid who didn’t belong to him.  We shared food and mittens, played games and went sledding, stoked the fire and shuffled around a giant house in slippers.  And it felt like we’d been doing it forever.

The night before we all headed back to real life, the kids (who had been getting along freakishly well all weekend) were tucked into bed, and the adults were snacking on all the things we’d hidden from the kids during the day.  We asked questions of each other about all the things that needed “catching up”—how is your brother?  How has your pregnancy been?  What’s this new business venture?  What’s the next step in your career?  How’s the adoption process going?  Big questions with big answers that kept us talking late into the night.

The Fruits of our Labor

And one with Sarah's growing Fruit included

The weekend was peppered with reminiscing about moments on the Mercy Ship—that time when we were young and goofy and just stepping into the skin of adulthood, when we were thrown together for a few months on the other side of the globe.  As I watched each of us handing off an upset child to her spouse or nursing a baby or baking good morning rolls or organizing the mountain of snow boots and coats, I couldn’t help but be supremely happy.  There is no greater joy in this kind of friendship than realizing that reality is infinitely more beautiful than the picture you had created through nostalgia.

Jessica still has perfect timing with her smart, quiet jokes, and Sarah’s and Maro’s laughter is still the perfect response.  I like to think we are more comfortable in our adult skin now, but if you peel back the layers of years of living on opposite coasts and navigating marriage and family life without daily interaction, we are still very much the four girls who met on a ship off the coast of Sierra Leone.  We planted the seeds of friendship in the soil of intense adventure and watered each other with our love for justice and mercy and laughter and grace in such a way that our roots have inextricably intertwined.  Our family tree is broad and beautiful and still growing.

Thanks to all three of you for this weekend.  And for everything.

Sixteen and a half people all looking at the camera
at the same time while the camera is on automatic.
Nothing short of miraculous.

Somebody's Mama

I have started a "mommy blog" of sorts.  You can find it here.  In honor of Mother's Day, our non-profit, His Healing Helping Hands International Ministries (4 H. I. M.) is launching a project.  Read below for more information about how you can be involved: 

If you are receiving this message, you’ve got a mama.  A lot of you already are mamas, and many of you hope to be one day.  I am excited to announce a new project of 4 H. I. M. called “Somebody’s Mama.”  I hope you’ll want to be a part!

The concept behind the project is this: women all over the world are dealing with complex issues such as lack of education or proper healthcare.  These issues often lead to more complex issues like cyclical poverty and human trafficking.  Anyone who works in the world of humanitarian aid will tell you that the best way to find a solution to these problems is to empower women.  In developing nations, women are marginalized yet remain the backbones of family and community structures.  

With “Somebody’s Mama,” we want:

1) To bring awareness to issues affecting women across the globe.

2) To create a community of people who care deeply about finding real solutions.

3) To turn ideas into action.

Most of you know me well enough to know that I have been involved in worldwide humanitarian work for most of my life.  During this season of my life (the one where I take care of small children full-time), I am not able to actually GO and DO the hands-on work involved in improving the more marginalized communities in the world.  I decided it was better to turn the frustration into inspiration.

Because of my background, I’ve got a lot of connections with non-profits and ministries that are already doing tremendous work both locally and globally.  There will never be a lack of need.

I want to invite you to celebrate Mother’s Day this year by helping Somebody’s Mama.  We (4 H. I. M.) are collaborating with the Bushenyi Alliance for Rural Health & Development (BARHD) to help some mamas in Uganda.

Recently, BARHD built the first maternity ward in Kyeibanga, a village in southwest Uganda.  They are attempting to build latrines and a “placenta pit” for the maternity ward.  We can all appreciate the importance of having sanitary latrines at a hospital, I’m sure, but you may be wondering like I did what a placenta pit is.  In Uganda (and in many places in the world), blood-born diseases exist at staggering, sometimes pandemic, rates.  The pit is quite literally what it sounds like—a pit for the disposal of placentas where the placentas can sanitarily biodegrade.

We can provide this for the women of Uganda for $2,500.

Somebody’s mama will have a bathroom rather than a hole dug in the ground to use after giving birth for $2,500.

I have personally given $250 toward this project, and I urge all of you to think and pray about how you can be involved in the completion of the Placenta Pit Project.

There are 3 ways to give:

1. Visit www.4-him.net.  Click on “Help Now.”  Click on “Donate Now.”  Choose “New Donor.”  Fill in the appropriate information.  On the drop down menu labeled “For the benefit of,” choose “Somebody’s Mama.”  (Your information is safe, and no one is going to start spamming you!)
2. Mail a check to:

4 H. I. M.

2410 W. Memorial Drive, Suite C #133

Oklahoma City, OK 73134

3.  Facebook me, and make a coffee/breakfast/lunch/Jamba/dinner/play date with me, and bring the funds with you!  I am always up for some girl chat and fundraising.

PLEASE let me know if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions.  This project is new, but the problems aren’t.

Thanks in advance for all that we’re going to do together!

Happy Mother’s Day!

Leia J.

Would You Like to Pet My Peeve?

I totally overuse the phrase “That is my biggest pet peeve.”  I mean, I probably say it in conversation at least once a day (which tells me that I need to stop being so uptight probably) and it’s usually about stuff that doesn’t really matter. 

For instance, when I’m sharing a bowl of queso with someone and he dips and then scrapes the chip on the side of the bowl making the excess cheese drip down the side of the bowl, I get really irritated.  

I also get jittery when I see someone in jeans and tennis shoes with their pants tucked into the tongues of their shoes.  I have been known to lean down and pull the person’s pants back over the tongues.  I mean, I always introduce myself first.  To be polite.

I have a hard time taking someone seriously if I hear her say “I could care less.”  After that, no matter what comes out of her mouth, all I hear is “I say things that don’t make sense blahblahblahblahblah.”  I really can’t go down this road any further because if I start talking about the things that drive me crazy about people talking or writing, we’d be here for DAYS.

How about this one?  When I’m playing Monopoly with an adult and they count out the spaces, I want to scream.  It’s ten spaces to the end of each side.  How hard is it to figure out without taptaptapping across the board?  (I know, you’re like--what a yotch!  Why would anyone want to hang out with her?)

So, now that I have effectively proven how shallow I am (and driven off potential friends by the droves, I’m sure), let me share with you something that is a LEGITIMATE pet peeve of mine.  Like, I just want to punch someone every time this happens.

A couple of years ago, a friend and I took our kids to see the Backyardigans Live! here in North Charleston.  There was dancing and singing and adults dressed in giant foam costumes--all the things necessary to entertain children in the under five set for an hour and a half.  We were beebopping along, enjoying our time when the characters started talking about how people are different all over the world.  Feeling a little proud that my child was being exposed to a lesson in multi-cultural dynamics, I hoisted Will on my hip and said, “Did you hear that, buddy?  They are talking about Germany!  Oh, listen, we’re talking about Brazil!  And Russia!”

At the time, Will was slightly obsessed with his globe (owing to the fact that we had nearly hourly conversations about where Daddy was), and at the age of barely three, he could identify close to 40 countries (again, see: smug suburban mom).  Next, one of the characters said something to the effect of “I’m from China!”  And we all applauded and reveled in our new knowledge.

And then it happened.  Truly, my biggest pet peeve.

The next character said, “I’m from Africa!”  

<Insert record scratch.>  Stop the damn dancing.  And count down from 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

Africa is not a country, people.  Germany!  Brazil!  Russia!  China!  Africa!  Let’s sing it together in our best Sesame Street voices, “Which one of these is not like the other?”

You have no idea how often this happens.  It happens in kids programs all the time, but it also happens on adult programs from game shows to news programs.  Because people know I have traveled to “Africa,” it also comes up frequently in daily conversation.

My cousin’s wife grew up in Kenya.  Some of my best friends’ dad travels to South Africa on business on a regular basis.  My mom used to work with a woman from Egypt.  We know a couple of guys who have been deployed to Djibouti.  Several friends have hopped down to Morocco during trips to Europe.  Another friend traveled to Madagascar to (among other things) learn about vanilla beans.  I have done humanitarian work in Sierra Leone, Ghana, and Togo.  All of those places?  Yeah, those are countries.  

And in the same way that no one would ever say, “I traveled to North America!” when they really mean Mexico, well, I think you get the point...

And climbing down from my soapbox...now.

Middle of the Night Muse

When I was younger, I woke up from dreams (and sometimes nightmares) often.  I would pull out a piece of paper, a napkin, anything I could write on and jot down notes to use in my writing later.  I don't know when or why I quit doing this.  About a year ago, I was startled awake from a dream about my kiddos in Africa, and the notes turned into this the next day:

I AM AFRICA.

               I AM YEARNING.  I AM DUSTY BARE FEET 

        AND CALLUSED HANDS, YELLOW EYES AND PINK 

    SMILING LIPS. I AM THE PROMISE OF A RAINBOW IN THE 

  MARKET FABRICS, THE NOURISHMENT OF YAMS, MANGOES, 

AND FISH.  I AM THE MISSING ARMS OF WAR AND THE HALF-

DEAD LEGS OF DISEASE.  I AM DRIPPING SWEAT ON MUSCLED 

SHOULDERS, STRENGTH TO CARRY THE WEIGHT OF LIFE.  I AM 

GAP-TOOTHED, BIG-BELLIED LAUGHTER.  I AM THE CRY OF THE 

ORPHAN, THE DREAM OF THE WIDOW.  I AM DRUMS AND 

CLAPPING, DANCING AND SINGING.  I AM REJOICING IN THE MIDST 

OF SORROW.  I AM HUMBLE FATHERS, PRAYING MOTHERS, JOYFUL 

SONS, AND RISEN DAUGHTERS.  I AM SUNSET COMMUNION WITH 

  SUNRISE WORSHIP.  I AM BROKEN LIMBS, BROKEN BODY, POURED 

         OUT  FOR MY PEOPLE.    I AM SWEAT, BEADING ON THE

                           FISHERMAN’S SUN-TANNED SKIN.  I AM

                            THE ACHE IN THE SEAMSTRESS’ FINGERS, 

                             THE PAIN IN THE CARPENTER’S JOINTS.  

                            I AM LAST YEAR’S TEARS, THIS MORNING’S 

                            SONG, AND TOMORROW’S MYSTERY.  I AM 

                                ARMS STRETCHED OUT, HEART OPEN,

                               EMBRACING CHANGE TO COME. I AM 

                                THE BREATH OF LIFE IN THE FACE 

                                  OF DEATH, DAYLIGHT ON THE 

                                 OCEAN’S HORIZON.  I AM QUIET 

                                   PASSION.  I AM BOLD BEAUTY.  

I AM RENEWED STRENGTH. 

  I AM A NEW GENERATION 

 OF PEACE.  I AM THE SPIRIT 

 AND HEART OF GOD.  I AM 

    A CONQUERING LOVE, 

         LIVED OUT LOUD.

            I AM AFRICA.

       I AM.

How I Became an Actual Princess

Every few years, the UN releases the Human Development Report, which includes the Human Development Index.  The HDI uses objective data to measure the quality of life for citizens in 182 countries in the world.  (The countries not included are left out because of insufficient data.)  

The United States has routinely been ranked in the low teens (currently #13 on the list) in a group of 38 countries considered to have “Very High Human Development.”  The top ten includes: Norway, Australia, Iceland, Canada, Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden, France, Switzerland, and Japan.*

The greener the country, the higher on the HDI list.  The redder the country, the lower on the HDI list.
So, it turns out the grass is actually greener.

The rest of the countries are listed in categories of “High Human Development,” “Medium Human Development” (the largest category), and “Low Human Development.”

In 2003, I joined the crew of the M/V Anastasis, a traveling hospital ship with YWAM’s Mercy Ships.  For four months, I lived on the ship, working in the hospitality department (a story for another time, as I have been blessed more with the gift of hostility, not hospitality).  During my time on the ship, we were docked first in Sierra Leone and then Togo, two countries in West Africa.

Both Togo and Sierra Leone fall into the category of Low Human Development.  Togo (#159) is a place that has found its way into the center of my heart, and I will most certainly be writing more about that later, but this story is about how I became a princess, so let’s spend some time in Sierra Leone.

 

Sierra Leone actually ranks #180 on the list of 182 countries.**  So, Sierra Leone is literally “one of the poorest nations in the world.”  When moms say, “There are starving children in Africa who would eat those green beans,” it’s the kids in Sierra Leone they’re talking about.

When I was there in 2003, Sierra Leone was still in the direct aftermath of a twelve-year civil war.  The night after I left, my dad was watching the news and saw an interview with an American soldier in Afghanistan.  When asked if he worried about his safety, the soldier replied, “It’s not like we’re in Sierra Leone or something.”

The week I joined the Anastasis, docked in the capital city of Freetown, we were placed on restriction for three days, when a group of rebels raided an armory, and riots broke out in the streets.  We were told we could not leave the ship until further notice.  At that point, I had only seen the country of Sierra Leone in my traveling from the airport to the port (which included a trip by car and ferry), and I don’t think I really understood the severity of the situation beyond the port.  When I look back now, I thank God I didn’t know what was really going on, or I might not have ever left the ship.

Luckily, the restriction was lifted, and I was able to travel in-country on several occasions during our two-month stay.  Here’s the short story: met a lot of people, did some great things, came home and told my dad.  Fast-forward about four years,*** and my dad had started taking short-term teams to SL to work with orphanages and communities of widows, partnering with existing ministries and organizations (including the only hospital in Freetown and the UN’s World Food Program).

Okay...the princess part.  So, my dad had been working in SL for a few years at this point, and the people he was going to help during this trip told him there would be a special ceremony.  When he arrived, they brought out a special outfit (apparently fitted for an African man, NOT a pudgy white man, as he later split the pants while dancing) and handed him an ornate staff to use for walking.  He was told the ceremony was to make him an honorary paramount chief.

We have traveled all over the world and been given plaques, been introduced with all kinds of crazy titles, and been handed babies for picture ops (this never gets normal).  But when my dad stepped out of the car and people started bowing, he was taken back.  I mean, people in the streets were stopping and bowing reverently, shaking his hand, and talking quickly over each other in dialects my dad couldn’t understand.  After an hour-long parade through the streets of a village, my dad finally asked why all this was happening.  That’s when he found out that the only other white man to receive honorary paramount chief status in Sierra Leone is former prime minister of Great Britain, Tony Blair (or at least that's what they told us).  Like, whoa, right?

Even though it’s an honorary position, it holds all the authority of an actual paramount chief.  The actual paramount chiefs in SL are non-partisan members of parliament and are essentially tribal leaders appointed to settle matters of law in different regions of the country.  The best part?  Sons and daughters of paramount chiefs are actually princes and princesses.

So, I am a princess in the (almost) poorest nation in the world.  Bizarre, huh?

*If you are someone who really digs statistics and charts, visit http://hdr.undp.org/en/ for more information than you could possibly want to know about the HDI).

**Niger, a country not too far from Sierra Leone is ranked last, and Afghanistan is next to last (this is the first time Afghanistan was included on the list since 1996).

***The story of my time on the ship became my masters thesis, and I will definitely write more about this later.