Humira Shots, Haircuts, and Wedding Dresses, Oh My!

So, once again it’s been a long time since I’ve written! This year continues to be one wherein very little is “normal”, and in some ways not writing about it but just experiencing it has been the best way to process it. However, God always seems to bring me back to a place where I must recall that putting words to difficult things takes the power out of them… We name something, shed light on it, and invite Community into it, and suddenly the fear-swirl that comes with it must diminish. When I’m silent with something for too long, there is a temptation to see it as bigger than me, and what’s worse, that creeps into the feeling that it’s bigger than God, and the lie that we’re alone. I end up folding, thinking that speaking about things equates to whining, but that’s just a trick to make us feel judged, petty, small, and guilty, when Christ’s real perspective is one that caters to little children crawling up in His lap with little-children-worries.

The funny part is that these emotions seem to come out with the “wrong” triggers! Sickness itself was so bad. This last flare-up was so strong, so altogether crushing, that maybe there just wasn’t time to feel things as they happened, and now, months after the worst of it, the tiny things are the button-pushers.

This past week I had to cut my hair off. The rounds of powerful medicines we had to use for this flare-up made it rapidly fall out, and by the time this month came around it was clear that it wasn’t salvageable and that I was going to be a short-haired bride afterall. Not what I’d always dreamed of, but also NOT a huge deal; it’s definitely just hair! But somehow the no-choice-in-the-matterness of it all shook me up more than I expected, and on the happiest of girly days—when I got to go pick up my wedding dress and do the first fitting—I started to weep. Maybe these tangible things exist to put form to something we wouldn’t be able to process another way. Lost tresses and the way they change my face force me to move forward, to take a deep breath and chose bravery in the small stuff, leaving loss behind and pursuing confidence again after feeling tossed around by feisty circumstances.  

And I have been given the BEST support team for this stuff… two brothers and a sister that came along for the chop, and didn’t make me feel silly in any way, a mom that wiped my tears at the bridal salon, a pappy that nuzzled the words “you’re beautiful” into my cheek, and a fiancé that has only gushed delight, excitement, support, and anticipation at a lifetime of seeing each other grow and change.

A few days later, we needed to administer the second “loading dose” of the new “biologic” medication (given in my arm this time, instead of the initial 4 in my belly – see the pic!). This one is replacing the Remicade that was causing the hairloss, exhaustion, and brain-fog. We’re really hopeful that this is the one we can stick with for many years to come, and are praying that as it gets in my system, I will become able to wean off the steroids again and remain on only 1-2 medicines! It’s awesome to be able to give myself the shots (it’ll be 1 shot every 2 weeks now), and to no longer have to plan around intravenous infusions every 8 weeks! This medicine still suppresses my immune system, which potentially still limits where Johnny and I will be able to serve with Wycliffe in the future, but that “limit” no longer feels scary, and I stand firmly on the knowledge that no medicine will wrangle any limitation on God’s will.

So change pummels forward, but good things are afoot. Smiling today at the oddity of this summer, and thankful for all the ways this body is calming down. 

CanIL's First Scripture Celebration Day and some Mon-thoughts...

To say a class is changing my life might be an overstatement; but to say that I have experienced quite an incredible shift of understanding is not nearly saying enough. Goodness, Scripture Use has taken everything I know about the concepts surrounding Bible Translation, and carved open the chest on it, exposing a wild heart, and some complicated, throbbing veins.

Where other Linguistics courses I've taken so far teach the technical ins-and-outs about what we need to know about language in order to get any of this right, this class throws an anchor back into the discussion and reminds me about all of the living layers of things we must learn about people and cultures in order to not mess the language and translation stuff up!

Week after week in this class, we receive an arsenal of stories of how the "smallest" of details can deeply matter in how a different culture receives the Word of God, and daily I find my heart thrumming with the grace-filled, glorious fact that He has placed bits of HIS image in each of these people groups, and we must find the pieces of that, and point to them; indicate HIM in the places that they will recognize Him, and then show all the other facets of who He is that are maybe completely counter-cultural.

One of the things that Scripture Use focuses on, then, is local arts within a culture, so that when the Bible begins to be translated,...when there's even just ONE VERSE, believers within the culture can begin working with the translation team to spread the message through indigenous songs, print-media, dramas, works of art, traditional paintings, ANYTHING that speaks of God to the culture from the culture. 

This need was brought home to me most in the tiny quote of a Tanzanian pastor that my friend told me about the other day... Her parents are missionaries, and a few years ago this pastor-friend relayed a message of years of pain and wounding that came from initial missionary-efforts, many years ago. He said: "When you brought us the Word, it was like a loaf of bread, SO nourishing, but wrapped in the Westerners' baggie. We were so hungry for it that we ate the whole thing, and now we are choking on the plastic."

This breaks my heart, and it isn't Christ's intention in the least. Although Western hymns and ancient traditions can bring life and meaningful teaching, if they are the only way that we deliver the Word or "establish church," we lose so much, we dwarf the hearts and the image in those hearts of the One who saves, whose Personality is vivacious, vivid, color-on-fire, holy and utterly, creatively magnificent. Instead of showing this though, we show "new rules," new heart languages that "can't be spoken", wordlessly communicating ideas about how God can only be reached with Western ways and that the LIFE of their community might be bad. His heart, though, is for all to know Him, and to express that seeking, knowing, learning, teaching, and worshipping out in the context of the culture that He has lovingly planted them in.

Scripture Use is teaching me to empower local artists and believers in any culture to engage with what the Word says, so that they can create for their church Body, for themselves, for their local radio programs, for their children's church, so that ALL might hear inside the glorious nuances of the cultural soil their hearts and identities have grown in, and so that we do not squelch what the Spirit is doing by presenting the Bible in a form that will cause great harm, misunderstanding, pain, or sharp mis-teachings simply because we didn't know enough about the people, the history, and the culture before we thought we could use certain words or forms and assume that they would communicate the same thing.

All this to say, my head and my heart are so full....so prayerfully FULL of new things to step boldly and delicately with. It has been so encouraging to take all this in, and to know that even though this spills a daunting light onto the intricacies of the task, it also shows me more of my Lord's glimmering sides.

In the process of this learning, I got to take part last week in something truly special at school... For the first time, the Canada Institute of Linguistics threw a sort of community-party focused on celebrating Scripture, and presenting some "commissioned artworks" that our class's students presented - [ask me about "mine" sometime, and I'll tell you about this great kid named Isaiah that rocked a piece of Spoken Word Poetry via video, and the process we underwent to make it happen!!!]..  

So the Celebration included a group of us as presenters to a crowd of around 250 people, as well as a cyclists' "Ride for Translation" in the morning, that did an incredible job or raising funds for future CanIL student scholarships, a lunch banquet, a Parade of Nations, and several mini-modules that guests could choose from about Linguistics topics like Phonetics and testimonies to what it's like serving in closed-countries...

Below are some photos taken by the incredible Jacob Bowdoin and Moss Doerksen, to give you a glimpse into the day.

A weekend jaunt before classes began -or- A Place from Another Time

Today is the second day of classes, and it’s been a happy whirl of a gray-skied morning, running about and finalizing costs and textbook-acquiring, along with a Social Insurance Number so that I can work my small cleaning job on campus this summer…

I can’t wait to tell you more about these classes and how they’ll prepare me for work in PNG, but I thought today, that in honor of “the calm before the storm” of coursework, I would take a moment to celebrate the slow-paced lovely weekend I had, getting to know some of the women in the home I’m living in and re-acquainted with the little town the school is situated in...

On Saturday, I walked myself into Fort Langley, which is a little village in the already little township of Langley, and it’s the cutest! The walk was beautiful, and very good for clearing my travel-head and unpacking-hands. Here are some highlights for those that want to “visualize” my first few days back here:

This woman and her amazingly calm sidekick-pup were volunteering at the old rail station. They show guests around a lonely caboose that sits in a grassy yard, and she unlocked a lovely, tiny, whitewashed room for me in the back of the old station that held some local artists' paintings. 

Another volunteer was waiting in the caboose to show me some relics of the Canadian National (CN) rail. She pointed a long, serious finger at the white cloth suitcase in the center, and said “Do you know what that suitcase’s name is?”... And then answered herself with a cheeky grin and “Its name is ‘Please-Don’t-Rain’!”  

I KNOW some of my family and friends (ahem!..Paul A. and my cousie’s Joyce and Mike!) who watch “Once Upon a Time” might recognize this… They’ve filmed some of the show’s early scenes here, as Storybrooke’s town hall! It is actually the Fort Langley Community Hall.

And then back again…

I've arrived in Canada! And here's some about my travel day...

I’m quite the suspicious character. 

Or at least that’s what the Canadian border officers thought this time! I flew on Wednesday from Atlanta to Dallas, and Dallas to Vancouver, and other than some weather making the first flight's take-off a little late, everything went very smoothly until I arrived in Canada. I had some dear friends from last summer meeting me at the airport, but the process from landing to finally getting to meet them behind a glass door took about two hours! 

The Vancouver airport was considerably quiet in the evening, and by the time I was in line to sort out my student visa, we could see staff was a bit low and everyone had been working for many hours already..   I was part of a motley line of mostly forlorn faces---one plaid-clad young man explaining that he'd been Ecuador-bound but "no one from his charity had been there to meet him, and so he was sent back", one American couple distraught over lost bags, one South American family with an adorable child that needed to breath from his nubilzer treatment while they waited to situate entry plans. There were so many stories, tired and waiting, in front of me, and I found myself grateful for the workers before us, trying to stay positive and discerning  as they looked over each person's documents and asked them questions..

When it was all said and done, everything for my entry was fine, I just hadn't brought official- enough proof of the address I would be living at or of the small on-campus job I will be working. I was granted the visa and was able to tromp out to my waiting chariot of people, and groggily chatter with them all the way to Langley to crash to sleep after 20-some hours of being awake!

The rest of the travel day was beautiful though, and I took a few photos out of the plane windows for you of some of the things that caught my breath:

Sunset over the British Columbia coast as we circled for a landing!

Redeeming what could have been "Stranded Friday"

[A Friday morning song I'd love for you to hear (referred to later in this post!)]


I never have trouble understanding that “no man is an island”.

This feels like in-grown knowledge that I’m always certain of, and more often than not, it’s harder for me to handle being in situations that make me feel like one. I don't dislike solitude, and longingly crave it sometimes, but this week has been one of those funny convergences of lots of solitude that just sort of happened by default…  Krissy and Chris have been on vacation, so this big house has been devoid of anyone but me and the Great Companion Scout. I have been working a lot this week too, because everyone in the office is at a conference, and whenever this has happened anytime in the last 3 years, I’ve been the Fort-Holder-Downer for the team…that’s just what we do, and it works wonderfully. 

BUT—It also means that the office has been down to one or two people, and much quieter than usual. THIS much quiet (waking up to it, driving to work in it, rolling in it from 9-5, and returning home to it for a quiet evening) for days and days in a row has historically made me squirrelly, itchy for people and stories, voices and interaction. It's just how God wired me. 

BUT—This week I've found Him beautifully pushing on those wires, and making enough quiet room for me to have space to notice His provision. In the midst of this plan for the Silent Bustle Week, my car broke down. I was running to go meet a dear woman for a we-haven't-done-this-in-TOO-LONG coffee-chat, and it was going to be my reprieve from the first few days of being on my own. "Err-errr-ERrrrrrr" went my little Sentra, and nothing I could do would coax it out of stubborn stuckness. 

BUT—I keep being reminded that His timing is good, even for brokenness.
The breakdown happening this week meant there was a vehicle to borrow, and work has gone on just as it needed to. Such a blessing! I was able to get to the needed, nourishing conversation, wherein we out-night-owled the coffee shop, and I've been able to have the time and solitude in the evenings that I've needed to re-kindle fervent prayer — Prayer about provision and "first world needs" like car repairs, about habits that I want to strengthen in my life that I have time to notice when it gets hushed and still, about awesome decisions that are coming up concerning Papua New Guinea, and the name of a region that I've been asked to pray about working in once I'm initially settled in... 

It is only in solitude that things like this get to roll around my mind and tongue the way they should... In this solitude, my heart readjusts its need to process out loud with someone, and finds itself reminded that Christ knows my voice and wants to hear these things first. He knows the name of this region in PNG and knows every person there. He knows what's wrong with my car and how He will sort out every worry of mine, so much so that He would prefer I let the air out of those worries before I decide it's holy to fill them up and let them fly upward like wind-hoisted balloons...

So this morning was about a joy-filled, weightless, extra-early drive to work in a borrowed car, where my heart found thanks and felicity dribbling out of it (to the tune of the song above!), with the comfortable knowledge that it is well, and that we ought to be singing while we wait to see the surprising, jubilant provision of the Lord. Happy Friday, dearest loved ones. May you feel Him so warmly in your rush or silence today too.