I Woke in the Middle of the Night...Thinking

My first waking thought at 4:59am was of a friend of mine.

Two summers ago, I remember sitting in the van with a Russian translator waiting for a Turkish lady to bring her children to us. I saw the door open and out came a beautiful woman wearing a powder blue suit with white piping. Her dark black hair was pulled up neatly in back. She carried a little blue purse that matched her outfit.

She moved her four children then nine months, 4 yrs, 9 yrs and 12 yrs along until they reached the car. When she got to the car I smiled at her introduced myself and helped everyone into the car. We went to our office to begin the process of registration for school.

Robert was at the office along with our children. We were met by our oldest daughter who had already begun to set the table for our guests. She had set tea out with cookies, nuts and candy. Our guest, L, sat down elegantly on a chair and began to drink her tea.

I had known from the minute I saw her leaving her front door that I would like her. She had a ready smile, a husband she enjoyed and loved and children who she felt the same about. She was a strong woman who had been through times of difficulty and was stronger for it. Not bitter and vengeful. I liked her. I like her.

One day not long after that first day, we went as a family to their home and visited, ate dinner with them. Monthly visits became a norm for us. Then one evening she was obviously having a difficult time. I asked her about it. Her husband told us that she had been to the doctor that day and been given the results of tests. She had cancer. Aggressive cancer. I went home and cried.

At the end of this summer she called me. I was sitting at a picnic table with my family meeting our children's new teacher when the call came in. I had been trying to reach her but had been unable to so I excused myself and took the call. I will never forget it. She said "Hello" and we talked small talk for a bit then she told me why she had called. She had neighbors who needed our help. "Would we help?" I said we would and then I asked about her, how was she? Her composure left. She started to cry. "I am still very sick. I am so sick that I cannot cook. Because I cannot cook my father-in-law left. He moved to NY." She cried. I let her. She struggled to regain her composure. I promised to visit her.

Over the next few months I tried to. But when I would got into her neighborhood without another refugee or without my own children she was never home. Finally again the other day she called. This time she got my message machine. I was in a meeting that I could not get out of. She said to my machine "Hello. This is L. I hope you remember me. I need your help. Can you call me when you are able?"

When I called her back I found a very hurting woman. Her cancer had gotten much worse. She had been doing so much chemo that often she was incredibly sick. A few times she had heard me at the door or on the phone but had been unable to get up to answer the door. Her husband had gotten a job and over the fall his job had taken a down turn. So in order to keep his job he had to work out of town. He had been out of town for the last twenty days. So now she was alone. Three of her children were at school now all day long and her youngest, Iy, was at home with her. Now he is three. He is a very active child. On the morning I called we talked about her trouble. She needs a place for Iy to stay during the day when they are alone. A place for him to play with other children, to be active. She told me what had happened the day before. She had chemo and had come home. She was so sick that she couldn't answer my call when I called. She couldn't answer the door. She couldn't move. She had just laid there crying. Her husband was 200 miles away and had been gone for 20 days. She and Iy were the only ones home and he had gotten so angry with her for not moving that he had started to hit her and scream at her.

This dear reader is the thought that awoke me this morning. Christmas is over. People will be getting back to business as usual and now I must begin research. I must find a good and safe place for Iy to go when his mother is sick. I will begin today with cancer support groups trying to find a place not only for him but for her as well. A way for them to be taken care of.

If you, are a prayer...please pray for me today. Pray for magic to happen and for God to bring the exact right person into this situation.

Ohhh... How I wish I had a picture

I got up early yesterday morning and headed out. Robert was at school and so I needed to do a bus appointment and I needed to get to a school for a registration. I was feeling a bit tense.

I was sitting in the car waiting in traffic when I first noticed the rain. It had been raining since I left the house but the rain was changing. A flake of snow had just dropped onto my windshield. Three days before Thanksgiving, it felt like spring yesterday, and now it was snowing. Ugh! was my first most honest thought.

As I drove on I noticed that snow was beginning to collect on the last remaining leaves, on the trees, it was building up on roof tops and it was laying on the ground. I arrived at my destination, pulled up to the apartment building and went to get my charge. Her very tall African father answered the door. He greeted me... in French... I spoke back in Haitian Creole...we got through it and then I remembered the snow. "Garde" I said "Ou bezwen garde sa. Neige... My friend gave me a funny look. "Neige?" He asked questioning. I realized he understood the word neige in the same way that I know the word cyclone. I know the word but I don't really know what a cyclone is so if I ever saw one I would not know what I was looking at or what to do. I realized that I was going to be able to experience someone seeing snow for the first time. It has been awhile since I have been able to show someone snow for the first time. I love doing it. It makes me happy.

So "A", my charges father followed me out, onto the sidewalk. A tall, thin, barefoot, African man. He bent over a bit and looked out around the corner to where it was snowing. I said "touche?" (touch). A huge grin covered his face. When he grins his whole face changes color, his cheeks become full and lines around his mouth form and become distinct. This is a refugee man who has seen terror, who may have nightmares about it regularly but who is still in the habit of smiling, in the habit of joy. You can see it in the lines of his face. Anyway, he smiled, even chuckled a bit and replied "no..."

He kept watching the snow until his daughter, "H", my charge came. She and I left for school. At school I took off my glove and grabbed a bit of snow off of the top of a wooden fence post. "Touche?" I asked. H giggled and waved her arms in response "awww...touche, come on." I pleaded. Again she giggled and said no. So I threw the little bit I had in my hand at the arm of her coat. It hit its mark and she laughed saying "Pas bien, pas bien" (not good, not good) I laughed with her and said "No, no, bien bien." (no, no, good, good) We went into the school laughing.

Half an hour later I had H taken care of and was in my car headed to another home for another family. It was still snowing and now there was even more snow on the ground and in the trees. It was another African home I was going to. One of the children greeted me at the door. I stood around waiting for dresses to go over little girls heads, for socks and shoes to go on and for coats to be zipped. When all of this had been done the little children and I went outside to wait for their mother "V" while she finished getting herself ready to go.

The three children stood on the stoop looking at the snow. Again I picked some up in my ungloved hand. This time I could only reach out with it and use the English word "touch." I knew they would not know the word but they would understand the action so I said "touch" and to my surprise each one of them touched it. They giggled. I threw the small ball at one of them and got them bouncing, laughing. I picked up another and got the coat arm of another little girl and my final shot got their older brother. They all laughed and scattered so I couldn't get them. When their mother joined us we were laughing in the middle of a full fledged snow ball fight. Happily we all climbed in my car and they headed to school for the first time. It was their first day with snow and their first day of school.

Storytelling...the need to tell

Hey guys- parts of this blog will be a bit graphic

so please be aware as you read it!!

Stories help people to become animated, alive and full of different kinds of emotions. Many places in our world are based on oral communication. For years and years every time Robert and I did a registration we asked the family to tell us their story, how they got to America. When we began with the Haitians in 93' we didn't know the importance of this request. As a matter of fact until Robert went to a conference in October by Dan Allendar based on his book "Wounded Heart, dealing with victims of sexual abuse" we still didn't truly realize the importance of telling your story.

A Haitian story is about a man who had a radio show. When the unrest began to happen with Jean Bertrand Aristide, this man let everyone know his opinion over the airwaves. He supported Aristide. The rebels came for him and his family. They had to run.

A Bosnian story... A lady sat in front of us "needing" to explain the Bosnian war. She talked about how under Tito things had been good. In the fifty years of his reign life had been easy. Then he died and leaders began to fight over land, money and power. They used the ancient religions as leverage. She had grown up with a brother named S. He had a best friend who had lived next door to them all of their lives. The two boys had be born within days of each other. In truth this lady had two brothers. F, the next door neighbor and her own brother. F was a Serbian while S's family was Muslim. When the war finally after years came to their village-- one day the fighting began and the last she saw of her brother was him running in the city square away from his best friend. F shot S in the back right between the shoulder blades. S fell to his knees and died. F left his body in the town square and moved on to others. That day this woman lost her father, mother and brother in the same way. She was able to escape the village with her husband and brand new son. She is a haunted woman today.

An Iraqi story... one of the police officers came. He had been an officer in one of the cities that had rebelled against Saddam. The Americans were due to come in and overtake Iraq. They had promised. On the night the invasion was supposed to happen, he was on duty, waiting... the word finally came from the Americans. They had made a deal with Saddam. They were pulling out of Iraq. He ran! He couldn't go back into his village. He had to leave his family. They didn't even know where he was for years. They didn't know if he had survived that night.

An Afghan story...The family woke. The mother helpe her sons get safely to school. This was a very dangerous thing for her to do but she did it daily. The father was just leaving their home for work when a few members of the Taliban broke in. They killed him that day and threw his body in the back yard. During that day the wild dogs found his body. After school the eldest son of the man found his father's body in the back yard. I must tell you that it was at this story, listening to the anger, hatred, and festering pain in the wife/mother that I began to not want to hear stories. She told me that story for two hours, in perfect detail. It still rolls around in my head occasionally. I had a very hard time removing the graphic details that played a movie for me. Sometimes this work can be gut wrenching.

A Congolese story... He was a student. She was pregnant with their first child. They were newly married and beginning a life together. The war broke out. He was from one tribe and she was from the other. She had the baby and within days the war came to their city. They took the baby and ran. At one point they were starving, her belly was very bloated and sore, she was trying to feed the baby. They found fruit that had been eaten and discarded. It was decomposing. They ate it. They found an open sewer with other people drinking from it. They drank too! They prayed "God deliver us!"

This couple was amazing. As they sat on our couch blessing us with their story they got very animated. Emotions crossed they face... anger, hatred, bitterness, terror, disgust, peace and thankfulness. It amazed me that day what the human spirit can take and get past.

An African story... a young woman lost her husband to the rebels in Sierra Leone. She took her baby boy and they escaped to a refugee camp. They had no family so the camp was more dangerous then normal for them. They were starving because she was unable to fight for enough food in the camp. One day a man came to her tent. He had rice. He offered it for sex. She accepted. The next day another man came and then another. It had gotten out of hand. She was now a camp prostitute. She had more children. Now she sits in front of us. We ask her where the father of her children is. She makes up a convoluted story that we know doesn't work. We wonder. She is ashamed. The older kids know where they came from... they are ashamed. But she and her son survived. They are in America in a home, going to school and eating food.

Our story. We have been listening to these kind of stories weekly since 1993. As I said after the Afghan story I began to not want to hear them. They were too hard, too disgusting, to frightening, to painful and too ugly.

Then life got hard for us, for Robert and I. Our world was turned upside down, our finances were in trouble and even our marriage. We just stopped asking about stories and got through our day, our duty.

During this time, we turned our face to God. We talked and even fought with Him. Eventually things got better. Robert went to this conference and brought back with him many things but one of the most important was the power of story.

He asked a Congolese family their story last week. Another Congolese man who had come to visit us at the same time we were doing the registration sat and listened to the story. He explained cultural things to us that we did not understand. At the end of the story time he prepared to take his family home. When he stood with Robert at the door he asked Robert, "Why did you ask them their story but you did not ask me about mine." Robert was amazed. This man was jealous. We set up a time to go to their house for dinner and listen to their story. They need to tell it and we are able to listen. Perhaps we need to hear it.

July has it really been since July???

So for the past month I have been thinking about the moment in time when I would actually get to sit down at this computer and write to you all again. For the past month the first line that I wrote in my mind was always this one...
glub...glub...glub..... aah....!
I have gotten to the top of the water line and can breathe again.
Oh yes and there is Robert beside me.
I haven't seen him in awhile.
Normal life is pretty busy but since July I truly haven't been able to sit long enough to write to you. So instead of telling you how busy we have been how about if we tell you a little about what we have done for the past few months.
We all had a great time doing summer reading and were sad to see the summer go. The kids were great and we have enjoyed hugs this summer. On the first day of school I can't tell you how many of our kids in the schools said "I know you! You read to us!" I find that funny since neither Robert or I read very often but who can complain if a kid associates your face with books. Not us!
One of my favorite stories was the day we took a little Burundi child into the school with his family for a school tour. For weeks I had seen him and played with him at summer reading. Our kids played with him often but I had never heard him speak a word of English. On the day of the school tour he walked in the front door trailed by his parents and this little tiny first grader looked down the long hallway to the shelves that lined each wall. And then his little voice filled with awe... said quietly books............ He knows the word book in English. Yay!
Then there were the billions of pieces of paper that we wrote out, notarized and explained to parents, signed and finally delivered to most of the schools in the valley. Each group of papers came with usually three hours of orientation, an hour for a school tour and a half an hour to deliver back packs and put kids on the bus bright and early in the morning. Typically Robert & I have run the first day of school by ourselves but this year we had Jeremiah and Jay to help us out. The day went well. Later in the day when I was visiting a school to make certain all was well Jeremiah came with me and was able to secure a position in the school as a volunteer to grab some good volunteer hours for his scholarship. That was good!
One of the very different things about this year (This happened some last year but a lot this year) was that as we went into the neighborhood to take our cases to schools other people came to us needing their children registered into school. You see it is our goal that all of our cases are ready and set to go by the first day of school. Buses are ready, schools found, backpacks given, smiles and hugs and the first day of school in America is begun on a positive note.
So the first day of school was over and then we began the "please give our kids a school bus"; and "please I need to talk to a school counselor and I don't want to stand in line for the next hour to do it."
I forgot to say that we had also spent the weeks just before school getting documents translated, zipped up and given to BSU for new college students. We also went on BSU tours and to orientations with new students.
Right now the busy work is slowed down and Jeremiah is running Joy through her reading vocab while he waits to get onto Robert's computer to finish his BSU online math quiz. Roya is on her way over to study math. Our kids babysat Deborah, a little Kenyan girl, while her mother was at BSU attending an art history lecture, Sang came before dinner to do math and finally kids are in bed, and I am writing to you. The pace has slowed a bit.

The Weekend As We Knew It

Hello all...
The weekend was fun and very busy. On Friday we got to got to the African Children's Choir with a couple of CATCH! volunteers and some Kenyan friends. It was fun to sit with Sally, one of our friends from Kenya and get a play by play on language and information being given to us.
On Saturday we went to a Bosnian/American wedding where Robert played the "marryin' man." We enjoyed going to Katherine Albertson's Park for the ceremony and then a big party at the Basque center. It was so much fun.
Then about 11 o'clock pm we went to the Jewish Synagogue for a Bantu Muslim wedding. It is a nice place for a wedding-this being our second there. It was very hot as there were about 300 people there. One of my favorite girls got married to one of Robert's favorite translators so that was fun. Last week when I caught him in the neighborhood I went through my normal "hand on his shoulder- light squeeze- slight threat in my voice." So she has another year of school and then college....is she going to both? If she doesn't you will have to work three times as hard to get your family to eat. It would be best if she went to university. He smiled, having already anticipated my question and gave all the right answers. We will see if they actually come true but at least he KNOWS the right answers.

Fourth of July at Plum House

So we set out to have a lazy 4th. We had told Jill & Jer our plans and invited them if they wanted. We also knew that my parents would probably join the festivities.When we were visiting one of the neighborhoods, J came up and asked if she and her sisters could come stay with us for a couple of days. We said yes and so yesterday we had three extra little girls.That afternoon we went to the parade, my parents, our kids, Robert & I and three little girls. We enjoyed watching little girls who had never gotten to see a parade except for on TV. They had fun running for candy with our kids, waving at the people in the parade, clapping for the veterans and getting soaked at the end of the parade. It was a fun time.Then last night Jill and Jer joined us with one of their neighbors for fireworks. We had planned to get together with our neighbors for a firework show so with Russ, Robert and Jer's fireworks we had quite a show. We pulled lawn chairs out onto the side of the street and watched the guys and the kids run up and down lighting things, deciding on the perfect sequence and just general having a great time in controlled mayhem.At the end of the night when our visitors had gone all except our three little guests we heard a little voice say..."That was the best day ever!" and off to bed we all went.

Lunch at Plum House

So we are eating goulash for lunch. Our lunch time sort of ran into our meeting. As people came we were still eating so we offered them food. So as I sit here writing this we are eating with Jim Wright from TRIO, Boise State, Abubacar, a Somalian man and Sally, a Kenyan woman all of us, sitting around eating goulash and working on getting registered for fall term at Boise State.I could see my fall work sitting in front of me.