ballet slippers and juicy juice

When I was in a little kid, I could count on a specific weekly outing: dance class.

Picture yourself as a four or five year old. Once a week, you’d pile into the big Honda minivan with your leotard and little pink skirt on, blonde little whisps of hair somehow pulled back into a scrunchie, ballet slippers in hand, and probably a Juicy Juice for the ride. At class, you simply follow the leader: what teacher does, you do. Occasionally you’ll have to recall a previous lesson and built upon that, but your teacher and fellow dancers are always there to help you figure it out. Then at the end, never fail, you always get a few minutes of free time to leap and twirl and spin and play with all of your friends at your heart’s content.

You have a vague idea that all of these weekly get-togethers are leading up to a main event (your teacher keeps saying the words “spring concert,” whatever that means), but at the moment, all you’re interested in is leaping and twirling and spinning and playing, occasionally complaining to teacher that you stubbed your toe or you don’t like your hair like this or your skirt got untied or the Juicy Juice you spilled on yourself in the car makes your leotard look less pretty than everyone else’s. Which is okay. Because you’re four.

After class, you pile into the minivan again, forgetting a few important items that mom faithfully scoops up and brings along, and you entertain yourself in the back seat by watching all the pretty trees and signs go by. Eventually, you see that the car’s in the garage. You press the little automatic door opener button, rush into the house, and say hello to the fam’s not-so-little chocolate lab, Tootsie.

Ah, how blissful life is when you’re four.

Now that I’m nearly 24, I can better appreciate all the effort that went into making those weekly outings to dance class actually possible. First, mom did a bunch of research to find the best dance class for four-year-olds in all of Kingwood, work around her and your schedules to find the perfect time, and buy specific types of leotard, skirt, and ballet flats in specific colors and in specific sizes to make certain that you matched the rest of your class. She needed to make sure Jenn, my sister, was taken care of during that hour that she was out, that gas was in the car, Juicy Juices were in the fridge, I was washed and decent, dinner wasn’t going to burn when we were away, and Tootsie had some plaything to keep her occupied while we were away so she wouldn’t chew up the entire house (again). She must remember her keys, license, vehicle registration, cell phone, book, purse, extra quarters in case I wanted something from the vending machine, glasses, shoes, makeup, that little volunteer form that my teacher needed filled out. Once in the car, she’d navigate around the hundreds of other people also trying to get somewhere at 5 o’clock with driving skills perfected after 10+ years behind the wheel. There were bills to be paid and broken appliances to fix, but she still loved bringing me to dance.

At the dance studio, a few someones woke up early that morning to pay the electric and water bill, sweep the floors, unlock the doors, clean the bathrooms, Windex the mirrors, and fix the broken sprinklers. My dance teacher had spent the week preparing an entire lesson for us, praying that we’d actually remember what she’d spent so much time choreographing for the dance studio’s annual spring concert. The costumes were back-ordered, she was low on parent volunteers for the big night, there was some problem with rental contract for the concert hall, and her daughter just brought home a C in biology, but she still loved to watch us dance.

Sometimes it’s just easier to be a four-year-old.

We’ve been talking a lot about the difference between faith and belief in church and Bible study this week, and here’s my very simplified, “working” conclusion: belief is the knowledge that something is true, and faith is holding onto something with so much assurance and conviction that you can act upon your belief that that something is true.

Jesus teaches us to have faith like a child. So in reality, that means that I even though God wants us to be mature Christians, not shy away from the world’s problems, go deep in relationships, and make sacrifices on the behalf of others, we can still dance in the trust that he is good. He wants us to trust that he’s got us in the palm of his hand, he reconciles all things, and he already won.

But here on my walk to work, I see 8-year-old children who should be in school pushing carts full of plastic bottles and aluminum cans that they dug out of the trash dumps to sell for next to nothing. I see and hear domestic and child abuse on my street. I see the debilitating effects of a whole generation who was not taught how to read or write. I see girls trying to get free of the sex trade but having to go back again and again because it’s the best form of support they can provide for their families. Sometimes, it doesn’t seem like Jesus has already won.

Seeing the 24-year-old bigger picture is hard…and sometimes I don’t know if I can keep standing, much less dancing and twirling and playing in my tutu.

When I was four, running out of the grape flavor of Juicy Juice was a big deal. All I saw was that the fridge didn’t have any – we only had orange juice. Little did I know that there was a shortage of grapes that season or the truck that carries Juicy Juice to HEB got a flat tire somewhere near Dallas and didn’t make it to the grocery store in time to restock the previous day. I was just upset because I saw I wasn’t going to get my grape Juicy Juice that day.

I may be 20 years older, but I still get miffed when I don’t get my grape Juicy Juice. I’m discouraged when I don’t see instant results in my work or relationships don’t happen overnight. I’m frustrated when I can’t see how my impact here is so little compared with what God-sized tasks need to be done. I’m annoyed when the perfect apartment doesn’t land neatly in my lap after only a few weeks of searching. I feel helpless in the midst of all of the brokenness I see in Phnom Penh. I’m upset when I don’t get my grape Juicy Juice.

So here’s the thing: with mature belief and faith like a child, I can follow the leader at dance class despite all the mess that I see in Cambodia, delighting in what God delights in, twirling when Jesus twirls. When I forget what Jesus taught me last week, because I will (already have?), Jesus is patient – I’ll learn it again, in a new and different way this time. So even when we complain about our Juicy Juice, ask silly questions, don’t keep with the beat, get frustrated with our own blunderings, and don’t know how we’ll ever be ready for that spring concert, it’s okay. Just like mom and my dance teacher, God just wants us to dance.



the five-syllable challenge

Hello, all!

Happy late Easter and Khmer New Year! Katherine (my host missionary from California) and I just got back from a 5-day trip to Kompong Speu province where she and Hong Phally, the District Superintendent of KS, delivered a two-day training on servant leadership to new Christians from three different churches in the area. We then drove a few hours west, picked up another two pastors and their families, and spent a few days in Kol Kong to celebrate Khmer New Year, Cambodian style! I taught little Wesley (how very Methodist) how to build a sandcastle and collect the prettiest sea shells at the beach, laid out in the sun, gorged myself on seafood, and got some good beach reading in, which was wonderful. A few days of rays are highly underrated.   

Sok Nora and Hong Phally chasing a crab at the beach

so close!

 

but fifteen minutes later...

GOT EM!!!

Wesley proudly bringing me a tenth handful of seashells

our prized collection

Kol Kong at sunset

After a couple days of soaking up the sun, visiting the Thai border (apparently it’s the thing to do around here…), touring mangrove forests, and eating a few questionable items, we made the long road trip back to Phnom Penh, just in time to revel in a few hours’ worth of relative peace, quiet, clean(ish) air before torrents of people returned to the city after spending a weekend with loved ones.

before heading out to see the mangroves, I felt the need pause for a tribute to Texas

a pleasant meal of garlic-infused fried crickets

Sok Nora and his wife enjoying the creepy-crawly entrée 

rambutan - road food! (inside, it's kind of like a white grape with an almond-shaped seed in the middle)

to break up the trip, we did a quick pit stop at a waterfall in the mountains on the way home

for me, this was a first!

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me paint a picture for you. These past two weeks have put Phnom Penh into a flurry of excitement. But instead of dying eggs in rainbow splotches, buying Peeps and green plastic grass and multicolored wicker baskets, sneaking a few Cadbury eggs here and there, praying that the lilies will stay alive through Holy Saturday, and counting down the days until a Sunrise Service, it’s been a bit different on this side of the world.

Despite my many inquiries to nationals and expats alike, I have yet to discover both the original intention and the significance of all the festivities that go on for Khmer New Year. Little ones, students, and adults have been absorbed in all of these crazy games: hacky sack with a feathered ball thing, beating up a clay pot with a stick (Cambodian form of “piñata, piñata”?), acting like a hen protecting her baby chicks when a crow tries to peck them off, some form of “duck, duck, goose” with a towel twisted into a ring, and gambling and dice. Little ancestor worship houses are lit up with incense at every door, plates of food and drink lay out untouched (except for the flies, of course) on porches and outside doorways for dead relatives, major cities are evacuated as inhabitants flee to their home provinces to be with families and loved ones, and parties rage all night and all day in pagodas, houses, and little shops with no apparent care for the expense, day, or hour.

So…what’s it all for? Still not sure! I’ll bet me pondering Khmer New Year celebrations based on the games and hyper-use of incense would be a bit like a Cambodian trying to figure out what the meaning of Easter is based on egg hunts and chocolate bunny rabbits. Not that I’m hating on the bunnies or anything, but I can see where the confusion can bloom!

So, in the midst of festivities settling down and the second half of my internship to dive into, I’m finding the true meaning of what Jesus called “patient endurance.” Gees, just the sound of that makes me feel impatient and flighty. You remember the parable of the sower? The last two lines of explanation caught me the other day:

“As for the seed that fell among thorns: they hear but, as they go about their daily lives, they’re choked by the cares, riches, and pleasures of life and their fruit doesn’t mature. But as for the seed that falls into good soil: when they hear the word, they hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and they bear fruit with patient endurance.” (Luke 8:14-15)

I have to be honest here. Being literally as far away from my family, friends, and fiancé as the east is from the west for a third of a year during the six months before I get married, move to a new city, and start grad school is a teeny bit rough. Any other logical, sane, rational creature would have surely not intentionally made plans to live in yet another foreign culture just months before her wedding. Learn how to be an unpaid intern rather than make money, gain engineering experience, and save up for her next few years of schooling. Risk getting dengue, malaria, and whatever else is floating around Cambodia while she’s still only in her early twenties. Anyone who’s known me for any length of time couldn’t have guessed two years ago that I’d be traipsing around the world doing volunteer work for the church. Sounds pretty nuts. Kinda reckless…a little too childish, perhaps? Are we sure this girl’s grown up enough to make her own decisions?

Fortunately (and I need to remind myself of this every day that I’m here, I’m not ashamed to admit), I can bet my life on the fact that God called me here. And thank God that God doesn’t work according to the world’s uptight standards of prudence, restraint, and control – because without his recklessly extravagant, completely inexplicable grace, then where would we be?

But I won’t pretend that I haven’t needed encouragement to remind me that I heard God correctly when I felt him nudge me toward Cambodia. Thankfully, it’s come in droves. Twice in one day (and many times thereafter), missionaries who I work with on a daily basis came up to me a month or so ago, sat me down, and told me explicitly that I was an incarnate answer to their prayers. Irene (known around the office affectionately as “Mamí”) had asked God for years to send someone who could help her bridge the gap between what she sees and witnesses God doing through her work here and her supporters, a mostly North American audience. Capturing stories on paper and sharing them with others is exactly what I came here to do, and even though it seems to me sometimes like I’m not much help to anyone at all. But the little encouragements I’ve received from Mamí and others, I know God’s using me.

So where does that leave me? Still wrestling, believe it or not. When Jesus was talking about the “cares, riches, and pleasures of life” choking those little seeds, he wasn’t kidding. It’s so difficult for me to convince myself that what I can offer here actually has worth, even though a fat paycheck, big company name, and sometimes even remotely tangible outcomes aren’t associated with it. Like the many other missionaries who work here, I’m in danger of being caught up in the “cares of life” in Cambodia: how little I can offer in the midst of such brokenness, the rolling blackouts in 98°F+ April heat, the miles of slums where people struggle to survive with less than nothing, the struggles of trying to teach even the most basic of lessons in the provinces. Pushed down by so many cares, of course I can’t allow my “fruit to mature” – how can you see anything clearly when tear-filled eyes?

So here's the challenge. "But as for the seed that falls into good soil: when they hear the word, they hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and they bear fruit with patient endurance."

I’ve seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt a lot this past year. Zambia, Peru, Cambodia. I've learned a lot about Christ, his church, his word, and myself. I’ve also seen lot of things that have made me want to break down and cry. A lot that’s made me want to give up, fly back to Texas, sneak into a well-lit, sweet-smelling, air-conditioned Starbucks, and lose myself in one of those massive overstuffed coffeehouse chairs with a $4 latte and a good book for the rest of my life. A lot that’s made me angry, defensive, inconsolable, and defiant. A lot that’s convinced me that after I’ve seen what I have, there’s no way I can go back to life as it once was. 

So here in Cambodia where waiting seems for me to be the hardest it’s ever been, I’m determined to “hold it fast” – cling to the faith and trust that God knows exactly what he’s doing in my life and to the ultimate hope that when Jesus comes, everything’s going to be great – with “patient endurance.” Patient endurance. Who knew that five syllables could ever be so hard?

As always, I love hearing from y'all and getting caught up in your lives and everything that's going on this spring! Thank you for your wonderful encouragement and prayers and support for me while I'm here - it's made all the difference!!!

Many blessings,

Stephanie :)