Hello All,
I think oftentimes I’ve written about the story that is my Honduran family, but I’ve avoided writing about my story as a missionary. With my family getting ever smaller and with my truly having to cling to the promise of Isaiah 54, I’ve had to face myself in many ways. The loneliness, at times, is devastating, and I’ve been grappling with that question of identity all over again. For the past two years, I’ve been mami. I’m still mami, but I have so fewer people to fight for, so much less to throw myself at 100% in abandoned service that I feel as if I have to recalculate who I am. In short, I’m in a transition phase from 100% mami to 100% I don’t know what, and to be blunt, at times, I’m bored. Since moving here, I’ve been committed not to move in ministry or mission without God’s leading even if that means I have to wait for Him and feel useless, which is pretty much where I am right now. In losing Josuan, the child who first made me a mami, I’ve had to ask myself if losing Josuan has meant that I’ve lost that part of myself or if I’m mami simply because God made me mami. The real answer is, of course, the latter.
But, I think at the heart of this season that God had already prepared for me is finding the green beneath the deadwood. It’s getting past the pain of what’s been lost, choosing not to harden my heart (which would only bring spiritual death anyway), and to let God show me how to unearth what will actually grow.
It reminds me of a chapter from The Secret Garden:
“Will there be roses?” she whispered. “Can you tell? I thought perhaps they were all dead.”
“Eh! No! Not them–not all of ’em!” he answered. “Look here!” He stepped over to the nearest tree–an old, old one with gray lichen all over its bark, but upholding a curtain of tangled sprays and branches. He took a thick knife out of his Pocket and opened one of its blades.
“There’s lots o’ dead wood as ought to be cut out,” he said. “An’ there’s a lot o’ old wood, but it made some new last year. This here’s a new bit,” and he touched a shoot which looked brownish green instead of hard, dry gray. Mary touched it herself in an eager, reverent way.
“That one?” she said. “Is that one quite alive quite?” Dickon curved his wide smiling mouth.
“It’s as wick as you or me,” he said; and Mary remembered that Martha had told her that “wick” meant “alive" or “lively.”
I have four rose bushes that Raúl planted for me the last time I was in the States, but the ants here eat everything. So, two not only survived but are thriving and will soon bloom. But, two are so pathetic-looking, just dry and lifeless. There are days when I’d prefer to be deadwood, to cover myself over and not let my heart be vulnerable again. There have been days in the last three and a half years when I’ve told God, “I don’t want to love anyone any more. It hurts too much.” But, I always let Him have the last word.
Revealing the innocent green has come in small moments of hearing His voice, usually when I least expect it. I’ve been asking a lot of questions about who I am, and just as it was my senior year of college and first year here, I’m again grappling with that truth that I am not what I do.
When I first moved here (and I think this is really the case for any missionary), I was doing my absolute best to assimilate. That was the primary goal. And, for me, that also meant being willing to toss much of my US cultural customs to the wind. For a long time, it was easy for me to assimilate here because I could so quickly dismiss my country. I didn’t feel like I belonged in the US anyway even when I was there—too much materialism, too much convenience, too much competition, too much religion, too much ignorance about how the rest of the world lives, too much self-ambition. I didn’t want to be associated with any of that. And, frankly, the more articles I read about millennials, and the more I observe my own peers via social networking, the more I feel like this discontent is a generational reality. We want something real even if we have nowhere to turn to find it. So, my focus in my first year or so of living here was being like them—like Hondurans—as much as possible. I learned the language well. I picked up street vocabulary and gestures (that still make my family laugh). I learned how to cook Honduran food and take buses to my destinations. I went to urban areas and rural areas. I went to different churches and spent time with different families. I ate whatever was given to me—cow intestine soup, beef tongue, cow udder, chicken feet, and fish head. I washed my clothes by hand (still do). I bathed from a bucket with cold water. (I’ve upgraded now to heating water on the stove.) I rode in the back of pick-up trucks and learned how to drive in the chaos of motor bikes and cars where stoplights are often obeyed only when police are around, the speed limit is relative, and passing is fair game really anywhere. I didn’t buy imported food but learned to eat rice and beans for every meal every day when necessary. I learned to flow with Honduran time. In short, I did everything possible to smell like the sheep I hoped to have some part in shepherding to Jesus. But, I will never forget the realization, that try as I might, I would never fully be a catracha (what Hondurans call themselves). As much as my heart churned with frustration, the way that God made me (thanks possibly in part to my mother’s prayers for a blonde-haired, blue-eyed child) made it impossible to just blend in. In Honduras, though I hate calling attention to myself and would rather hide, there is no escaping me. And, I remember tearfully sending an e-mail to Alvin, struggling with being such a white girl and feeling like I just didn’t belong—not in the US, and not really here either. The majority of people here see me and think of money, a chance at a visa to go to the States, and someone to do their English homework. Many people assume that I’m judging their poverty or that I can’t speak Spanish. I’m the only white girl who lives in my neighborhood, which means that everyone knows me. I walk down the street, and people I’ve never seen before call out to me by name. And, one only has to reach my neighborhood and ask anyone where the gringa lives, and they’ll get to my house just asking around. For someone introverted, who had operated in such a longing to just assimilate and belong, the reality was hard to accept.
That, we could say, was phase one. Then I became mami, which brought its own criticisms and oppositions and questions about why my kids didn’t look like me and why I was so young. That was hard for both my kids and I to process. In the midst of so much rejection, I think as is natural whenever we are raising children (whether young and biological or older and adopted), I discovered a desire to share with them my childhood and my culture and who I was in the States. I think this is part of creating family. I took new foods to Teen Challenge, hoping to get my kids to try dishes from my home. I bought imported food items just so they could try them. I longed so much to continue the Christmas traditions that had been in place in my house with Raúl and my kids. I talked about my childhood. I talked to my kids in English, which sparked an interest in Josuan. I raised my kids hearing my dad’s words coming out of my mouth and using many of the same rules with which I was raised. I taught my kids how to save and manage money and be people of their word. And, in recognizing all the things that I’d had growing up with my family in the States, I think I valued some things about the States and began to re-evaluate my quick dismissal.
Culture shock really arrived late for me. I could deal with the slowness of Honduran time. I could eat the same dinner of beans, eggs, cheese, avocado, plantains, and tortillas night after night (and often still do). I could even deal with the general elevated level of danger and being robbed various times. But, what destroyed me and still makes my blood boil beneath my skin are things so much deeper—it’s the machismo and attitude towards women. It’s seeing women whose husbands openly cheat on them with their self-esteem in the dirt still faithfully ironing their husbands’ clothes and putting their dinners on the table and smiling at them knowing fully that after dinner they’re just going to go visit their mistresses then come home and give those devoted wives STDs. It’s been reversing my sons’ attitudes that it’s okay to cheat on girlfriends and boss me around or expect me to always be the one cooking and cleaning. It’s dealing day-in and day-out with people who are not ever true to their word, who make promises and never keep them, and even laws that are not enforced because the police are so easily bought and corrupted. (Is it any wonder than Hondurans don’t trust anyone?) It’s the lack of integrity. It’s the anarchy that ensues when a government is bought by the highest bidder in drug trafficking. It’s constantly being approached with an attitude (even often from Honduran friends) that I owe them something just because I’m a gringa or that if someone’s going to sacrifice in our relationship, it should be me. It’s the opening my heart over and over again only to be used, with the assumption that I’m just supposed to take it because I’m a missionary and that’s what I came here for. It’s everything that you would expect with a cycle of children raising children and adults who never mature. And, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about my adopted country—there are still lots of things we, from the US, could learn from Honduras. There are lots of things about the US that make my blood boil and brow furrow. But, I mention these things because they’re the very things that show us our need for grace and our need for a Savior and because they’re the reality that I live that is bringing me into a new phase.
Just last night, I was at Raúl’s mom’s house with the whole family. These are precious people I’ve been around for three and a half years, and I’m more than used to their tumultuous relationships and the loving yelling and the quirky personalities. Like many things, all of that was a novelty for me when I first moved here. Now, like many things, all of that is something I deal with. But, now that I’m in a relationship with Raúl, I wish that he could have the same experience with my family. But he doesn’t even speak English to be able to even call my family. I long to be known—not just as Honduran missionary Sarah but as toe-headed little girl Sarah and awkward homeschooled Sarah and overachiever student Sarah and proud-of-being-a-Crickenberger Sarah. I ache to have just one person have even a small grasp of what I left behind to maybe have more compassion on me. Just one person to make an effort to learn about my country, culture, language, and family as I have about Honduras. Just one person willing to sacrifice as much for me as I have for others. This is the human me talking. I am more than aware that Jesus made that all-important sacrifice. I am conscious that we take up our crosses, and we follow Jesus. I recognize that everything I do, I do for Him. I know that I’m not ever alone because He’s always with me. But, I also know that we are the Body of Christ for a reason. We weren’t created for isolation, and this is just me being real about what it means to be a missionary.
Raúl’s mom recruited me to help her make dinner (because I’m the girlfriend and clearly in this culture should be the one cooking), and I obediently started helping though I already knew how it was going to turn out because I know her. I don’t know if it’s because I’m the backward misfit in this culture or because she tends to see the worst in me, but I can’t do anything right—ever—which is particularly devastating for such a perfectionist who thrives on excellence. So much has to do with those tiny, unspoken cultural cues. It’s as simple as I’m respectful (according to my upbringing) and don’t like to invade anyone else’s kitchen or take control over someone else’s parade whereas her expectations were for me to read her mind and know exactly what I was supposed to do without her telling me. After two failures in her eyes over something so insignificant, I could feel the emotions climbing from the pit of my stomach towards my eyes, so I started breathing, calming myself down. Lucky for me, Raúl knows me enough to see when I’m reaching a breaking point, and he jumped in to save me, taking over the cooking before I could fail anymore (with his mother giving both of us side-eye). All of those thoughts and feelings from the previous paragraph were coursing through my brain, but I heard God say so clearly to me, “I like the way you cook.”
“Really, God, do You even eat? Are You like sneaking spirit bites whenever I’m cooking? How can You like the way I cook?”
“Because you cook with passion. I see the love and attention to detail and excellence that you put into cooking. I see your creativity when you’re making original recipes, and I made you that way. I like that you enjoy a gift I’ve given you when you cook. It’s a way of loving Me. I see that even when others don’t.” And the tears I’d been fighting so hard to hold back just dove from my eyes like liquid kindness overflowing from the fountain God was giving me.
And, this is the phase that I’m coming into—that I don’t want to assimilate to a Honduran culture, nor do I want to retreat to a US culture, nor do I want to be the missionary who is extremely busy because that’s what my examples are. I don’t want to worry about giving forth fruit or how much I fail or how much it seems I have failed with so many of my kids abandoning me. I just want to be His girl. I just want to bring Heaven to earth and let His Kingdom culture shine through me wherever I am. And part of the wick green that God’s peeling away to in my heart is that idea of enjoying who He made us to be and not being ashamed of who we are—white girl who sticks out like a sore thumb; single, too-young mother; una loca enamorada de Cristo included. I don’t want to be so assimilated that I turn a blind eye to a lack of maturity or enable the people around me to deny the excellence of honesty and maturity that God is calling them to. I want to be the example they’ve never seen before. I don’t want to be so comfortable with where I am or where I come from that I’m too lazy or ashamed to stand for His reign. I want who I am (not even necessarily what I do) to ALWAYS challenge those around me, to force them to see what’s possible. I think for the past few years I’ve been so focused on that element of sacrifice that I’ve forgotten how to delight in Him. It’s just been pain and suffering and nose to the grindstone determination to obey. What a novel idea—that enjoying and using my gifts, even something so simple as cooking, brings Him pleasure and joy. Being who I am, who He’s called me to be, without shame, without hiding, and without fear is a way of worshipping Him. That concept makes the idea of worship and spiritual warfare and ministry and living out the Christian life so much less of a burden and so much more of a natural, flowing rhythm of grace and identity.
I will eventually give you all an update on my kids and what’s going on, but for today, I wanted to put some thoughts, rolling like marbles in my head, a place to rest.
All my love,
Sarah
