21 Take Aways from Honduras

Here are 21 things I learned from our mission trip to Honduras this past week to work with students at Plan Escalon just outside of La Entrada.

1. United Airlines out of Birmingham is absolutely awful! (We're sorry to intrude on your time by wanting to actually fly somewhere...)

2. UA workers in Honduras are pleasant to work with and seem to enjoy/appreciate their jobs


3. Moving with the groove and a conga line are requisite items for praise and worship

4. From 10 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. when that close to equator, it's hot as blazes!

5. Sidewalk chalk is great in any language

6. Not everyone heeds the one wipe in the toilet policy/warning

7. Today's kids have no idea how to easily open/close the windows on a school bus!

8. Was reminded why I don't miss dealing with this on a daily basis

9. The current use of the word "cougar" in the U.S. gets a bit lost in translation

10. Some people still call Birmingham, bombing-ham, who knew?!

11. Sara L. has mad plumbing skills (see number 6)

12. Young boys can indeed wash clothes

13. Honduran kids can do amazing things with a ball and their feet, but they can't throw a football worth a darn

14. The answer to the riddle of "how many Hondurans can you get into the back of a truck" is... one more!

15. All kids love to play and get hugs!

16. Guys like girls with skills, you know, like riding a burro with kickin shades on

17. I can barely get cell coverage in my house with a cell tower in our backyard, but in Honduras you CAN get cell coverage here...

and here...

and here...

Oh yeah, and if you are the read while you do your business type, here...

18. We found some help for Ingram the next time she needs to make chicken salad for thousands of people

19. We are all adopted into God's family and created in his image

20. God is doing some amazing work in some of the most remote places on the planet

21. I have some amazing brothers and sisters in Christ in my church!

Can Doing God's Work Screw up your Kids?

I can honestly say this is probably not something most Christians ever even wonder. I think most people I know would say of course not, how could that be possible? I bet if you ask a missionary though, you'd get a response like, "Well.............." If they were being honest anyway. Very few of us are ever put in a position of even thinking about this. We are never pushed to think perhaps there is even a chance of us doing something that might not be in the best interest of our children or even thinking God would ask us to do this.

This had been weighing on my mind a bit lately (more as to why in a bit) when I received an update from a missionary family our church supports. Within it was the following:

It was one of the harder letters I’d ever written. The gist of it was this: “Boarding isn’t working for your child, despite all the support you and we are offering.  You need to make a change.”

Let me clarify what a “change” implies: For a bush missionary whose child doesn’t “make it” at boarding school, almost everything about life must change. It may mean bringing that child back to the bush/village and homeschooling them, which may require one parent giving up part or all of his/her ministry. It may mean the family needs to move to a different location where the child can be a day student – giving up home, ministry, church, and friends. It may mean a return to the home country, giving up all the above as well as “Africa”. Whatever the cost, letters like mine are among those missionary parents hope never to get.

You can imagine, then, why this family’s humble and open response brought tears to my eyes. The gist of what they said was: “Thank you for sharing this. What should we do? We are praying for God’s wisdom and help in meeting our child’s needs.”

Seriously? I mean, I can't quite fathom having to wrangle with God on this. Here this family is doing what they believe God called them to do in the middle of stinking no where Africa for a people group they've been lead to, and it's wreaking havoc on their child. How could this not be screwing up their kid, and their family? Just think if they end up leaving and this kid knowing he/she is the reason their parents had to stop doing what they thought God wanted them to do. Holy smokes, that's heavy!

I had been thinking on this just a bit myself because I have been spending a decent amount of time organizing some missions opportunities for our church and I found myself telling my little boys, "no I can't play right now because I have to get this trip organized and some information out tonight!" I immediately felt bad about it, but then told myself this is what God has asked me to do right now, surely it won't hurt my kid's feelings too bad. Will it?

Please don't think I'm at all comparing my few Sunday afternoon and evenings of short term missions planning instead of tossing the football in the yard or playing the Xbox for the umpteenth time with my boys anywhere near this families struggle. It just got me thinking as both events occurred within the same week and as I dive more into short term missions, orphan/adoption advocacy, another adoption, and other generally "Godly" endeavors on top of my regular work a day life.

I don't have any answers other than God has my family and this missionary family in His hands and His grace is so overflowing that it will be ok, I hope, it will, right? So how does one balance God's callings and kids?

C'mon man, this is crazy!

Do you ever find yourself asking, how did anyone live without the global connectivity and speed of the interwebz? I mean, coordinating a group outing by actually calling everyone on their home phone is so 2007, right?! I even recently pondered, how in heaven's name did missionaries actually get anything done in terms of communicating their activities, vision, and fundraising? How did anyone ever plan a short term mission trip for crying out loud with a missionary in the field? Are you serious, pick up the phone at some predetermined time to call half way around the world to have a sketchy conversation at best and try and organize something? Or God forbid have to do it by writing letters back and forth! How did God mobilize his armies and people around the world? How did He do that without all of this technology? I mean, seriously? C'mon man, how did all that stuff actually get done?! I seriously want to know how Moses created the first flash mob to make a run for it out of Egypt?

Just this week alone I've coordinated a mission trip to Honduras in 140 characters or less, Skype on my cell phone connected to a public wireless access point, and a crap load of email blasts. This alone was exhausting, I'm on the verge of carpel tunnel. I think I'd have to take the pencil to my eye if I had to have written everything i've digitally composed this week with said pencil!

Annnnd, we received a most amazing update on our advocacy for Xiao. Through the last blog post and a few emails from that, we received the following from someone on the ground, in China!

Last night we spoke to a US family living in Xi'an who are willing to bring him into their family as a foster child (and in this way we can get the right investigations done, get their immunisations done to international standards, and get them on ARV's (which they almost certainly are not on when they are in their orphanages)

Seriously, how crazy is that?! Now I'm not saying just because I was killing time surfing Google+ late one night in bed, and emailed an article to Melissa about a boy in China with HIV being neglected, then wrote a blog post about it, which had Melissa bumping around the interwebz for all things China, HIV, orphans, etc... to then run across someone on the ground there, who she emailed, who read our blog, who posted some feedback on our blog with another contact, who we emailed, and then began digging a bit, is why Xiao might be having a family to foster him... but C'mon Man, this is craaaaazy!

What an amazing example of how all things we create, dream up, build can be used to God's glory and to accomplish His mission. Keep praying for Xiao and we'll keep blasting emails, tweets, FB posts, and blog posts until we know he is where God wants him to be.

Why I celebrate Christmas

We were singing this Sunday during the observance of communion and couldn't help but think of Christmas.

How deep the Father's love for us, how vast beyond all measure, that he should give His only Son to make a wretch His treasure! How great the pain of searing loss, the Father turns His face away as wounds which mar the chosen One bring many sons to glory.

Behold the man upon a cross, my sin upon His shoulders. Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice call out among the scoffers. It was my sin that held Him there until it was accomplished. His dying breath has brought me life, I know that it is finished.

I will not boast in anything; no gifts, no power, no wisdom, but I will boast in Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection. Why should I gain from His reward? I cannot give an answer, but this I know with all my heart, His wounds have paid my ransom.

This is why I celebrate Christmas, to recognize and celebrate the coming of the one that paid it all for me yet passed His reward onto me.

Why do you celebrate Christmas?

11 Takeaways from Together for Adoption including cottage cheese

For the past 2 days I've had the privilege of representing Lifesong for Orphans at this year's national Together for Adoption conference in Phoenix. What a great honor and blessing this has been to be in the middle of such an amazing group of people and to share about the great work Lifesong is doing!

I've got so many things flinging around my head that it's difficult to string them together, but a few takeaways from the 2 days in no particular order of priority or seriousness:

it's still seriously hot in late October in the middle of the afternoon in Phoenix (the exhibitor tables/booths were all outside!)

there isn't near the volume of hipster christians at an adoption/orphan conference as there is at a Catalyst conference, but they are still seriously committed and crazy about orphans!

young couples with no children who travel to an adoption conference to learn about advocating for orphans and knowing God has called them to this journey deserve a HUGE amount of praise, respect, and support (and no they aren't infertile and don't "have" to adopt)

Noel Piper can draw a crowd!

God never calls you to do what YOU can do, but rather what He can do so there's no doubt who's pulling it off! @JeffVanderstelt

American Christians have to figure out concept of "enough" to make big kingdom impacts in areas like adoption

Christians should be about social justice because we have God's grace, shouldn't do social justice to get God's grace

If I was anywhere near Memphis I would definitely be trying to get to Bryan Loritts' church Fellowship Memphis

Black people, for the most part, don't/won't eat cottage cheese (see Bryan Loritts above)

Young pastors with families who start new churches in difficult places amaze me! (see @JeffVanderstelt above)

There are some crazy cool organizations doing amazing things for orphans and adoption in general and I'm learning so much about God's grace through it all!! 

Were you building something? Yes, relationships

The first question we get upon our return from Zambia is some variation of the following:

Were you building something, a school, a house, a well, or what?

This seems to sum up the American Christian perception of missions; it's all about "doing" something. Or put another way, it's task oriented, it's about the accomplishment of something, the to do list of items to be completed, etc... There isn't anything inherently wrong with wanting to do these things for other people, but they seem to often take on the central purpose. Much has been written, spoken on, blogged about the whole short term mission idea and if it's even the right thing to be doing. Does it have to be all or nothing? Is there any worth at all in showing up in far flung places for a week with gifts, cameras, a VBS program, hammers, nails, and then leaving a week later?

There has actually been formal research on this and couched under the oxymoronic notion of When Helping Hurts. This is a great book by the way and should be required reading for any church sending short term mission teams out. It will challenge just about everything you probably thought you knew about taking the Gospel to the far reaches of the planet and especially the poor or "least of these". There has also been much anecdotal discussion from the perspective of those in the field and sometimes even heatedly so amongst fellow "brothers" and "sisters" in place like here, and here.

So what has my answer been to this ever present question of, so what did you DO?

We built relationships. 

We didn't build anything physical in nature.

We spent time loving on and playing with 200+ orphans and highly vulnerable children.

We listened to the Lifesong for Orphans school staff tell their stories, their testimonies, their dreams, their prayer request.

We listened to 12 and 13 year olds share their horrific life stories to date and how grateful they are for God's grace in rescuing them and a new found hope.

We listened to a caregiver in the local village share what she has to go through to scrape together enough for her $10/month rent and her dreams for her children.

We wrapped our arms around the missionary directors and their 3 children under the age of 6 and prayed over them.

We praised our creator and Father with a freedom rarely seen in the American Christian church.

I look forward to God cultivating these new relationships. And from these relationships will come true understanding of need, mutual respect/love, and Kingdom building opportunities.

Because at the end of the day, everything we saw Jesus model was relational in nature.

But, but, but...

We've all been there right? We whole heartedly believe God wants us to do something spectacular, jump in with both feet, do something requiring stupid faith, right? Right! So we commit, and we tell people we have committed to _____, and we say to ourselves,

whew, glad I'm obeying that call, glad I've got some time to figure that out, i've got some time to figure out how to ask others for $$ to pull off this God sized project

And then.... it's "some time" later and we/you/I have that, oh crap! moment, it's just around the corner! We then go through the but syndrome.

• but God, I'm so busy right now
• but our septic tank just went out
• but work is really chaotic and time off might not help my career
• but that's a really long time to leave the wife and kids at home
• but that's a stinking long way from home
• but those travel arrangements are ludicrously difficult
• but I feel REALLY cheesy/grimy/slimy asking people for $$ to do something God asked ME to do
• but....

I'm now at that point where I asked God to open doors for me to use my education, training, experience in missional ways, and you know what, he brought them to me. But... they are in Honduras, Zambia, India, Liberia, etc... and those are a long way from home and cost a lot of $$$ to get there and back.

Dutch and I are going with Lifesong for Orphans  to their orphan care ministry in Zambia at the end of September. So here it is much closer than I had in my mind, and we don't have extra piles of $$$ laying around to get us to Africa and back (we do have 5 kids after all). Those of you who know us, know we've been to Guatemala and Honduras this past year or so, but didn't have to raise any money. Going to Central America isn't much different than California these days, airfare and other things included. But going to Africa is on another planet for airfare and logistics!

However, we are being faithful, committed to going, committed to using the skills and knowledge God has provided me to help their teachers and 200+ orphans and highly vulnerable children. Will you consider helping us go and serve these children by donating $25, $50, $100?

Will you help us begin to change their story? (link to fundraising page or you can talk do me directly)

Brush to Berries from Lifesong for Orphans

We are officially way over the white trash line!

There is a radio personality here in Birmingham who has a large family and is always cracking jokes about his non-environmentally friendly passenger van, the never ending "handles" a plethora of children can get you into, as well as the Lord's ultimate blessings through them. One thing he has always joked about is that once you hit 5 children, you are now white trash. To note however, there is absolutely no financial or socioeconomic consideration in this designation according to him. Once you have 5 kids, you've crossed over the white trash line, no matter how big your house is, the size of your 401k, or disposable income. It's of course all in fun and tends to go hand in hand with the discussion around what kind of defensive scheme does mom and dad have to play depending on the number of children.

So we've obviously already crossed over this line into white trash territory with our 5 kids and now that we live in a house with no garage, more often than not it looks like a toy box has exploded into the front yard adding to the WT moniker.  We are fairly old school and "kick" the kids (especially the boys) out of the house on a regular basis. I just know there have to be people who drive by and think, that's sweet that family lets their maid's kids come over and play when cleaning, until they realize we must have a maid over a lot after they continually see two ethnic children roaming around all the time.

We are now officially sprinting across the WT boundary and not looking back when it comes to kids in the Freeman household! It's sort of like that scene in Forest Gump where he's running the kickoff back for the University of Alabama and he just keeps running past the endzone and keeps sprinting into the tunnel of the stadium; run Forest run!

Yes indeed, those are adoption papers for the agency we work with here in Birmingham. We have submitted our initial papers to add number 6 to the quiver! I had told Melissa under no circumstances could we do this until she had completed the re-adoption paper work for both E and F with the state of Alabama. Melissa is a pro at getting the kids home, not so much on the follow up details after they get here. I guess that's what makes us a great team! (or something like that) She finally held to her end of the bargain and now I have held to mine. This had become such a running joke with our friends at Villa Hope that every worker there had a directive to not let us turn in new paperwork until we "proved" we had submitted re-adoption papers to the state for E and F, they love us!

Psalm 127 tells us, blessed is the man who fills his quiver with children, so I'm guessing we should be getting some serious blessing sometime, right? I like to think we are simply increasing our odds of a great retirement plan, or at least enough kids to share responsibility in taking care of what for sure will be two seriously ornery people in our old age. More details to come as we progress down this path with God again.

You have 17 volunteers? No, 70!

Yesterday was a day I'm sure many from our church will not forget. We were allowed the opportunity to help in part of the clean up in Pratt City, one of the worst hit areas in Birmingham. Our church had done a little immediately after the tornado rampage on 4/27 that left so much destruction across a large swath of the Alabama landscape, but this was the first big organized attempt at getting deep into the community.

We had finally been able to get a bit organized and in touch with some relief groups in order to be able to bring a group of willing volunteers into an area in dire need. We didn't want to be one of those groups just showing up and getting in the way. The guys carrying big guns don't seem to care too much for that these days! I just happened to be the lay person asked to be an organizer for this Saturday trip with one of our youth leaders. When we got to the staging area in Pratt City I found the volunteer sign in location and began the process of getting our group signed in. It was chaotic to say the least but everyone was trying to be patient and helpful. Once they understood I had a large group out front they finally just gave me the clip board and asked me to get everyone's name down. I had originally thought we had about 40 people maybe when we lef the church parking lot. After we got everyone to put their information down, I counted 72 people that had caravanned out to help! The ladies attempting to get people signed in about fell out of their chairs when I brought the 2 pages of names back. One of them finally looked at me and exclaimed, "Praise Jesus!"

One of the ministers directing volunteers to head out (usually in groups of 4 or 5) was finally notified I had our group out front and ready. He kept thinking they were saying we had 17 volunteers ready to go. I kept saying, no we have 70. After restating this at least twice, he finally said, "oh crap". Then he asked, "do you have chainsaws?" Once I said yes, we have 4 or 5, his face lit up and said, "follow me"! We then regrouped our 70 folks with chainsaws and tools in hand, and he led us on a car caravan past the police and national guard barricades to the farthest part of the residential area that had not yet been cleared of trees and said "GO"!

We met some wonderfully nice families who expressed heart felt appreciation for the assistance. It was a bit overwhelming at first to see such destruction. We learned that whatever can get cut and hauled to the street will be removed within the next 30 days. After this, anything left will be up to the individuals to deal with. So we worked as diligently as we could with all of the leg work we had to get as much as we could to the street for these people. We got to hear their stories, let them talk, hug on them, and pray with them. It was a good day. Below are some images (click on each for larger versions) from what I have started to call the Covenant Presbyterian axe men.