Sometimes the pain seemed almost more than I could bear

 

During our three-month orientation course, if our staff drove to Nairobi for supplies they also brought back mail. Everything halted when mail arrived. One day we received a letter from our son Matt, age 23. He had written it on May 17, almost three months before Dave and I left the States. He didn’t mail it, though, until we got to Africa.  

 

I can honestly say now that I am very excited that you are going to Africa. Knowing that my parents are passionately doing God’s work not only gives me tremendous peace of mind, but it also provides an inestimable amount of motivation, courage, and drive to do so, myself, in whatever God has planned. I just can’t tell you how excited I am about it now. I will surely miss seeing you, but now I feel like our relationship supersedes life as most people on earth know it. If I never see you again on this earth, it matters very little to me, and I sense that it means little to you, too. Of course, that sounds worse than it is. I love being with you and I eagerly anticipate many more earthly adventures together with you. But on the scope of eternity, if for some reason we never are together again, big deal, because we’re just passing through this place, dedicated to a common holy purpose, heading for the same destination where we can spend eternity. Does that make any sense? Well, whether it does or not, it has given me a lot of peace and real excitement to see you on your way.

 

He set that letter aside for more than three months and resumed writing on August 31:

 

All of that courageous rhetoric is the way I feel when I’m feeling brave. Sometimes though, I feel like screaming as loudly as I can, “I want my mommy and my daddy!” I really miss knowing where you are and what you’re doing each day. That will take some getting used to.

 

Those words cut me to the heart. I’ll never forget them.

 

We also got a letter from our daughter Karen, who had turned 22 only days before. She was busy in Port Angeles as a middle school English teacher and Young Life Leader. She wrote:

 

Oh, my sweet parents, my friends, I got another postcard from you yesterday. It made me cry. I love you so much. I think of and pray for you every day. I worry about you. I do little things and think, “Oh! That sounds just like Mom,” or “That’s exactly what Dad would’ve said or done.”

 

My heart ached for my son and daughter. Sometimes the pain seemed almost more than I could bear.

 

When that happened, I took a mini-break and spent time alone with God.

 

I hoped and prayed that my children’s struggles would make them stronger and better, not break them. I wanted to ask God to prevent their difficulties but, instead, I asked Him to help them succeed within their difficulties.

 

In Psalm 138:8, David said he knew the Lord would fulfill His purposes for him, and those words gave me hope that God would fulfill His good purposes for my children.

 

I reminded myself that Christ, at the right hand of God, intercedes for each of us.

 

The Bible says we can give all our worries and anxieties to God because He cares about us (1 Peter 5:7 and Psalm 55:22).

 

The Bible also says “Don’t be . . . worried about a thing. Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude. Tell him every detail of your life, then God’s wonderful peace that transcends human understanding, will guard your heart and mind. . . .” (Philippians 4:6-7, The Passion Translation)

 

Trusting God to care for my kids

was the only way I could cope sometimes.

My requests were not always “faith-filled.”

Often “overflowing gratitude” eluded me.

And sometimes His peace

seemed to be beyond my grasp,

but God did guard my heart and mind.

I chose to believe that God was working out

good things for my children

and growing them in their faith.

 

And so, life went on.

In ways I’ll never fully know,

God helped me, and my kids,

moment by moment, step by step. 

(From Chapter 2, Grandma’s Letters from Africa)

 

“Tattered, breathless, and full of tales”

 

Tourists flock to Africa to see wildlife in its natural habitat, yet most of them stay in tourist lodges protected by walls and fences and guards. But during our orientation, we experienced Africa’s wildlife for real.

 

At Eleng’ata Enterit, in Maasai-land, in our definitely-non-touristy camp, one day our director, Brian, told us the Maasai had spotted chui—a leopard—near our camp during daylight hours.

 

We knew they wandered around at night, but they posed a different threat during the day when people, especially children, roamed freely—a tasty meal for a leopard.

 

Brian’s spare, monotone words, his tight throat, and taut face showed us his degree of concern. He asked everyone to pray for safety, and I rehearsed my friend Esther’s instructions on how to stare down a leopard.

 

God heard and answered our prayers that day.

 

We had a choice of two routes from our tent to the central gathering place. We could walk in the desert under blazing sun, or we could walk in shade under fig trees.

 

Walking in the desert posed challenges. Scorpions favored a path close to our tent and whenever I spotted one, I stomped on it because I remembered how my son suffered from a scorpion sting when he was a little boy.

 

So, there in Eleng’ata Enterit, after one stomp, unfazed, the scorpion usually skittered around on the sand to get away—or maybe to position itself to sting me—but by then the scorpion and I had engaged in a fight to the death, and I made sure I won.

 

One day while I walked in the fig trees’ blessed shade, the sun’s rays filtered through the leaves and highlighted a fine sprinkle of raindrops. Rain! What a blessing there in the desert. God had said, “I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing. The trees of the field will yield their fruit and the ground will yield its crops. . . .” (Ezekiel 34:26–27). Thank you, Lord, for rain!

 

Then I realized rain wasn’t falling anywhere else. I stopped. I looked up. I saw a colobus monkey high in the trees—emptying its bladder. Suddenly the hot walk in the desert seemed the better choice.

 

Groan! All I ever wanted was to live in a little white house with a picket fence and a rose garden.

 

I’d always imagined I’d be a traditional, quaint grandma like my grandma, the kind that sits in a rocking chair and knits baby blankets.

 

But no. I was not the quintessential grandma I’d always hoped to be.

 

Janet Bly’s poem captures my life:

 

I would rather

clutch my invitation

and wait my turn

in party clothes

prim, proper

safe and clean

But a pulsing hand

keeps driving me

over peaks

ravines

and spidered brambles

So, I will pant

up to the pearled knocker

tattered

breathless

and full of tales!

(Janet Chester Bly, "Breathless Tales";

used by permission)

 

You know whose “pulsing hand keeps driving me over peaks and ravines and spidered brambles.” It’s God’s. With Dave’s help.

 

They’ve led me over bumpy, muddy trails and up steep hills and around unexpected turns.

 

But what an interesting life it has been! (From Chapter 2, Grandma’s Letters from Africa)

 

Running my fingers through a psychiatrist’s hair

 

During our three-month orientation to living well in Africa, we learned practical, hands-on things like how to soak vegetables and fruit in bleach-water to kill amoebas and other critters.

 

We also learned to drive The Pearl. Ah, The Pearl. I haven’t told you yet about The Pearl of Africa, a 1974 Toyota Land Cruiser, perfect for travel in Africa.

Our director, Brian Caston, taught us to drive it across deserts and through streams and showed us how to change punctured tyres. He trained us to note our surroundings when we traveled and to remember key markers, such as a tree or dwelling, to help us find our way back to camp.

 

Brian also taught us to develop coping mechanisms—things that ease frustrations and make life manageable. For example, the twig shelves Dave made for our tent were coping mechanisms—they allowed us to unpack our luggage for six weeks and stay organized.

 

Do you remember how our friend Joy turned an upside-down basin into a makeshift toilet seat? That was also a coping mechanism. Developing coping mechanisms can make the difference between staying on the mission field or giving up and going home.

 

We also learned practical things such as how to sanitize the choo (outhouse) with ashes from our cooking fire.

 

And we learned how to cut hair. One day I helped my friend Nancy cut her psychiatrist-husband’s hair. Never in my wildest dreams could I have guessed I’d one day run my fingers through a psychiatrist’s hair.

 

One day Brian loaded us into The Pearl and another vehicle and we drove around the vast Maasai territory. We stopped in a remote, dusty, parched town, but it seemed like a lively city compared to our campsite, Eleng’ata Enterit. I spotted a man there who wore a tattered, faded T-shirt advertising Spokane’s famous Bloomsday Race—Spokane, Washington, my birthplace. We just never know where our thrift shop donations might end up.

 

We motored on and came to a stream and, since the temperature felt like a hundred degrees, people begged Brian to let them go swimming. He said they could but warned that the water might have microorganisms that make people sick.

 

A few people wanted to swim anyway, and they scouted around for a private place to change clothes—except for the Dutch family. They walked a short distance away and changed where anyone could see.

 

And oh, yes, critters did live in that stream and they made those swimmers sick, sick, sick for several days. Our nurse, Jenny Caston, and her trunk of medicine blessed us richly at such times.

 

I know first-hand how important Jenny and her meds were because while we camped at Eleng’ata Enterit, I got a urinary tract infection. I knew how serious those infections could become, so I shot prayers heavenward and God answered through Jenny and her antibiotics.

 

The meds kicked in immediately, yet I knew, too, that I had to avoid dehydration under that equatorial sun. On one afternoon, I knew I had to lie down.

 

There on my back, I watched a tiny insect crawl up our tent wall. It climbed higher and higher, but when it got to within a foot of the top, it flew off the wall and screamed in wild little circles. After ten seconds of this, it landed back on the wall, several feet lower than before.

 

Again, it climbed higher but, within sight of the top, it tore into its screaming fits and landed low on the tent wall.

 

For fifteen minutes, I watched that little critter repeat its self-defeating behavior. I cheered him on and urged him not to have a meltdown and give up. He had climbed so close to the top!

 

I wanted to tell him the hardest part was behind him and if he could just hold on for a few more seconds, he’d reach his destination. But no, he always gave up just before he reached his goal.

 

Sometimes we humans do the same thing. Impatient and weary, we don’t realize how close we are to success and we give up and indulge in wild fits, and by the time we get back in focus, we’ve lost ground.

 

By God’s grace, our orientation course was aimed at helping us sort all that out. And it was good, so good. (From Grandma’s Letters from Africa, Chapter 2)

Brian and Jenny Caston, dear folks!

 

Our Maasai guard’s prayers for us brought tears to my eyes

 

. . . Dave and I bent down—the doorway opening was miniature—and stooped inside the home of our Maasai guard, John.  

 

Suddenly blackness enveloped me, and I caught my breath. Outside, we had stood in intense equatorial sunshine, but when I ducked through that little door, the sheer darkness shocked me.

 

Immediately I received another surprise: in front of me, within about two feet of the doorway, I came face to face with a wall.

 

I jerked backward, ever so slightly, back toward the light. . . . (Click on My heart still races when I remember those moments.)

 

I must have gasped because Dave took my hand and led me to the right. We felt our way down a short hallway and entered a small room, also dark except for a tiny hole in the roof—about four inches across—to let smoke escape.

 

Little sunlight entered through that hole.

 

Everything appeared dark—mud-colored dung walls, dirt floor, and smoke-covered ceiling. (I realized then that’s why the Maasai, their possessions, and artifacts always smell of smoke).

 

Gradually my eyes adjusted to the dark and I could see that the room measured about nine feet square. Some of our fellow orientees sat on beds—wooden frames attached to two walls, with loosely woven strips of cowhide for mattresses. I joined others who sat on a low, rough-hewn bench attached to John’s dung-mud-and-stick wall. We had entered the heart of that Maasai family’s world. 

 

A small pile of coals burned on the floor in a fire pit made of three stones. In the shadows, I noticed a couple of children and one of John’s three wives. He had children by all of his wives, and each family unit lived in its own hut within the compound. Apparently, John took turns living in each hut.

 

Our Maasai hosts had invited us for tea, and John’s wife squatted on the dirt floor over the fire where, in a large metal pot, she boiled milk, water, tea, and sugar together—that’s what they called chai.

 

Two things worried me about their chai, though, because they made it with water from the same dirty little brook that flowed beside our campsite—where animals waded, where people bathed and did laundry.

 

Second, I worried because I heard that Maasai clean their pots with cow urine and charcoal. This germ-phobic woman found the situation stressful. The primitive setting, the dwelling, the smoke-filled room, the furnishings—everything seemed alien. My nerves were on edge.

 

But then. . . . But then. . . .

 

When the chai was ready,

John prayed for us, in English and, to my surprise,

he prayed only for us. On and on he prayed,

asking God to shower His blessings upon us.

Only a man well acquainted with God

could pray the way John did.

His prayer brought tears to my eyes.

 

John’s wife poured the chai through a strainer into a metal teapot, and then John took over. First, he poured the chai into a metal cup and then into other metal cups—the kind with a rolled rim—and began to pass them around to his guests.

 

Our orientation leader, Brian, had warned us about those cups. Washed in water from the stream, the rolled rims could trap that filthy water. Since we couldn’t know how clean the cups were, Brian coached us ahead of time to pour some chai over the rim—as inconspicuously as possible—and hope it was hot enough to kill germs where we put our lips.

 

So, there in the dark, each of us reached down and dumped chai on the ground. I wonder if our hosts noticed—they probably did—and I wonder what they must have thought about us.

 

The room had no cross-ventilation and sweat ran down my back and neck. We visited for about an hour—John and Brian apparently conducted introductions and made speeches in Swahili—and then we hiked back to camp.

 

Along the way, I pondered how John and his family

lived in what Westerners would consider poverty,

and yet they were rich in hospitality, dignity, and the love of God.

 

I had worried about manure, soot,

cow urine, and contaminated water,

but in reality, I had stood on holy ground.

God lived in that place.

(From Grandma’s Letters from Africa, Chapter 2)

 

Now I look back and realize that John and his family were part of the “hundred times as much” God provided in answer to Karen’s prayer (click on When Jesus’words are difficult, sharp, and real.)

Our shallow little stream in the desert

 

My heart still races when I relive those moments

 

At first, I observed the Maasai from afar—my fellow orientees and I sat on canvas safari chairs in the shade of giant fig trees and listened to an American anthropologist’s lectures on the Maasai culture.

 

During that phase of orientation, I associated with the Maasai, ever so slightly, because several men worked as our night guards. (See the photo below; the head guard, John, wears the suit.) Since they did not speak my language and I didn’t speak theirs, mostly I nodded politely and kept my distance.

 

Because the Maasai needed money, the women asked us to hire them to scrub laundry in the little stream beside our camp. One day a handful of Maasai women came to camp with a gift—they danced and sang for us in their unique traditional way—but I stood back and watched. Only Chrissie danced with them—bless her heart. Looking back now, I wish I’d followed Chrissie’s example, but I stood back and remained an observer.

 

Then one day our head guard, John, invited some of us to his home for tea. After a fifteen-minute walk across the desert, we spotted his manyatta, a cluster of seven or eight huts enclosed within a thick wall of thorn bushes that kept wild animals out at night. The Maasai kept their goats and cattle inside the wall at night so manure littered their yard.

 

John’s children played in the yard, too, their faces dotted with tenacious flies. They walked up within inches of me, heads bowed—this was their way of asking me to bless them by touching their heads. I could no longer stand at a distance.

 

I reached out and touched their little heads and gave them their blessing but, looking back on it, I’m sure I received the bigger blessing.

 

Maasai women build their homes—squat, rectangular, dome-shaped huts about six and a half feet tall. They make both walls and roofs out of sticks covered with sun-dried cow dung and mud.

 

John led our group of twelve wazungu through a narrow door about four feet tall.

 

Dave and I watched the first few people follow John. When it was our turn, we bent down and stooped inside.

 

Suddenly blackness enveloped me, and I caught my breath. Outside, we had stood in intense equatorial sunshine, but when I ducked through that little door, the sheer darkness shocked me.

 

Immediately I received another surprise: in front of me, within about two feet of the doorway, I came face to face with a wall.

 

I gasped, jerking backward, ever so slightly, back toward the light. . . .

 

All these years later my heart still races when I relive those moments. I can still feel how startled I was, how disoriented, when I entered John’s home. I remember the choking, strangling anxiety, the panic, the need to turn and run away.

 

I was experiencing culture shock: “A state of anxious confusion experienced by someone exposed to an alien or unfamiliar environment,” according to American Heritage Dictionary.

 

There in that desert in southwestern Kenya, I needed to learn that God, “is Lord of the desert. Make that your desert,” writes Chuck Swindoll.

 

“The most precious object of God's love is His child in the desert,” Chuck continues.

 

“If it were possible, you mean more to Him during this time than at any other time. . . . You are His beloved student taking his toughest courses. . . . He loves you with an infinite amount of love.

 

“Jesus walked through the desert first. He felt its heat. He endured its loneliness. He accepted its obscurity. He faced down Satan himself while the desert winds howled. And you can be sure He will never, ever forget or forsake the one who follows Him across the sand.” (From Great Days with The Great Lives, by Charles R. Swindoll)

 

Thank God for that! I was not alone in my desert!

 

When you just need your mom!

 

Last week, I told you that several young ladies with us during our orientation course called me “Mom.” That was a surprising bonus, a blessing indeed, because I missed my kids so much—I missed having someone call me “mom” the way my daughter Karen and her brother Matt did.

 

The pain was nearly crippling.

 

In my Bible, in the margin alongside Psalm 88:18, I had written “Kenya, 1993.” The verse reads “Lord . . . You have taken away my loved ones” (NCV). Or, in another version: “You have taken from me the one I love and my friend” (VOICE). Friend. Yes, my kids were my friends as well.

 

Years later I thought of that pain when I read Romans 8:38-39, “I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God.”

 

And if nothing can separate us from the love of God, perhaps nothing can really separate us from the love children and parents feel for each other, no matter how far apart we might live.

 

Maybe we need to train ourselves to feel the love—the connection, the friendship—from afar.

 

One of the young ladies with us during our orientation course, Sue, was soon to have her birthday and no doubt she was missing her mom—perhaps as painfully as I was missing my kids.

 

Here’s good advice for all who miss their moms:

 

I Miss My Mother by J. H., Burundi/USA

 

“I miss my mother. This problem crops up everywhere. For most missionary women and mothers, we are overwhelmed with new surroundings and we ‘just want Mom. . . .’

 

“Try to communicate often. Stay in prayer, stay in touch. 

 

“Do not tell your mother everything; she will worry, and usually the problem is over before she gets the news.

 

“When you leave your mother to go to the field . . . find a relative or friend to put aside a gift for your mother (or mother-in-law) [to give her when you’re gone] to let her know just how much you have appreciated her. . . .

 

“We need mothers; we are lonely and begin to look for ‘mothering substitutes.’ Usually God brings older women into our lives to show us the way. And basically they show us: How to schedule our days. How to use local products to make familiar recipes. And tell us ‘don’t forget to sift your flour.’

 

“Pray and ask God for someone who is older and wiser; one who has lived successfully in the country that God has called you to. Chances are that the very friend you have chosen to speak with, and open up to, was dreadfully homesick as well.

 

“God understands, and He says to us, “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother, or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29).*

 

“Trust Him with this desire for your heart.”

By by J. H., Burundi/USA. © Women of the Harvest; published in Women of the Harvest Magazine, Sept/Oct, 2001. www.womenoftheharvest.com. Article used by permission.

 

Sometimes God asks us to serve Him in ways that break hearts. The Bible teaches us to count the cost (Luke 14:25-33; Luke 9:57-62). That cost can include the pain and loneliness of living apart from loved ones.

 

But as James Hinton said long ago: “Never be afraid of giving up your best, and God will give you His better.” When we do that, we need to remain alert—be attentive and focused—and watch for the ways God carries that out.

 

*Be sure to read my daughter Karen’s post

about Matthew 19:29.

Click on When I read her words,

tears stung my eyes and the earth buckled.

 

They called me “Mom”

 

Last week my daughter Karen blogged about reading Matthew 19:29 the night before her dad and I left for Africa: “‘And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.’ (Matthew 19:29.)” (Click on When I read her words, tears stung my eyes and the earth buckled.)

 

Karen continued: “I remember thinking I needed to trust God for the promise in that verse, both for me and for my parents: that we would receive a hundredfold. 

 

“I prayed that for my mom that night. I asked God to give her a hundredfold for all her sadness, for all she was leaving behind.

 

“I remember writing the verse down to give to her. I wanted her to know that I understood, that I trusted God, that I believed Him and His promises—for myself and for her.” 

 

Not until years later, not until Karen wrote—and not until I read—her guest blog post, did I know she prayed God would give me His “hundred times as much.”

 

Bless her dear heart! Now you know why that, when I read her words, tears stung my eyes and the earth buckled.

 

Little did Karen know the many ways God would answer her prayer.

 

In Chapter 2 of Grandma’s Letters from Africa, I wrote about arriving at the second locale for Kenya Safari, our orientation course. Even though my husband, Dave, was still recovering from illness, we had to clear undergrowth and pitch our tent.

 

A couple of young ladies in our group struggled to clear their land so Dave, weary and weak, helped them too. I don’t know how he did it, but he did! (Click on Strengthening the sick beside streams in the desert.)

 

I wrote: “Those gals seemed comforted by our presence and before long, they started calling me ‘Mom.’” 

 

Do you see it?! 

Jesus said those who leave children 

for his sake 

would receive a hundred times as much, 

and Karen prayed for that.

 

God answers prayers in various ways—some of His answers are deep and spiritual, others are everyday things—and there in Maasai-land, God provided a few young ladies to call me “Mom.”

 

That probably didn’t fall into the deeply spiritual category, but believe me, I was delighted to add a few kids to my “family” that day!

 

Shortly after we arrived in Maasai-land, one of the young ladies, Sue, had a birthday, and it was within a day or two of Karen’s birthday. I wrote: “I felt heartsick—I wanted to see my Karen on her special day.

 

“Then I thought of Sue’s mother. No doubt she longed to be with her daughter on her birthday.

 

“That’s when it occurred to me that, in a small way, I could stand in for Sue’s mom, so I gave Sue a birthday hug and told her it was from her mother.

 

“I prayed that someone would do the same for my Karen Anne.” (Grandma’s Letters from Africa, Chapter 2) 

 

So, you see, people who leave children (like I did) and leave parents (like Sue and the other young ladies did) receive more than spiritual gifts and blessings from God—He also gives us people who stand in for loved ones.

 

The lovely ladies you see in the old photo (below)

are part of the “hundred times as much”

God gave me.

 

I’m smiling. Are you smiling?

 

Here’s an old photo of the residents of what someone nicknamed The Thomas Estates, our adults-only community in Eleng’ata Enterit (in Maasai territory). Along with Ma and Pa Thomas, you’ll see the young ladies who honored me by calling me “Mom.” They are Jennifer, Diana, Sue, and Joy. (And notice the size of that tree trunk!)

 

Has God blessed you with special people to stand in for your family? Tell us your story. Leave a comment below or on Facebook at Grandma’s Letters from Africa: A Memoir.