Smiles

It is easier for me to write about the day-to-day happenings of our trip, but just this morning, I began to process our trip on a little more personal level. I was happy in Africa…really, really happy. When I look at the pictures of myself holding sweet babies, laughing with kids, and teaching in classrooms there, I see a happiness in myself that is somewhat foreign to me. It’s like when you hear your own voice on a recording. You know that it is you, but it always sounds so different. My smile, it’s just so different.

What makes my happiness in Africa so surprising to me, is that for the past 8 years, but especially the past 6 months, I have struggled in a major way with depression. I am on medication, but even with that, I have slumps. I look at my life, I look at my marriage, my kids, my Jesus, and I know that I should be happy. I know that I am blessed. I just have a really hard time feeling it.  

I went to a counselor last November after I was journaling and sobbing as I wrote about how hopeless I felt and how everything around me just felt so overwhelmingly hard. I was struggling with whether or not I deserve the life that I have because I sure was not enjoying it like I should have been.

I wrote:

“I don’t want to spend my whole life working so hard to find happiness only to realize I was living in it all along unable to recognize or accept it. I don’t want to keep changing what we have, what we do, or how we do it hoping beyond hope that I will finally make the right alteration to our lives that will allow me to enjoy life. I know the dangers of thinking “I will be happy when _____” and yet that is how I am living.”

It makes me sad just to think about those slumps and all of the emotions I feel during those seasons. I do believe that there is something biological/chemical/physical in my body that causes the depression. I do believe that I need medication to keep that negative, critical voice out of my head, but so much of the fuel for that voice is a state of mind where I compare my life to others.

In Africa, I didn’t have to try to be happy. I just was. When I held those kids who wanted nothing more than my loving arms, the whole world felt right. There wasn’t a list of things that needed to get done or a big agenda for the day. Our job was simply to visit orphans and love on them in a big way. What a blessing that was, and continues to be. What a lesson for me about how to live.

The focus of life in Africa, for most, is simply living day to day, which causes people to truly live in the moment. There is purpose in each and every thing that they do. Nothing is wasted…not resources, not time, not energy.

In America, we read books about living in the moment. We write bucket lists so that we can feel like we really lived while we were here. We coin phrases like, “YOLO”, as if it some brand new idea. In Africa, I feel like I was really living; living for the moment, living for the smiles, living for the fun, living on purpose.

Our kids think that they need more because we’ve conditioned them that way, but what if we let them experience a life where everything that they did had purpose? What if we could live in America with purpose? It is hard, and I don’t have the answer to that. There are many distractions in our life. I do have the insight though. I do have the goal. God took me to Africa to help me learn about living. 

The Adventure Begins

You all have been waiting so patiently, so I will skip the details of the 20+ hour flying time, jet lag, 8 hour time change and airport layovers that it took to get to Africa. It could have been worse, and it was for some members of our team. (Shout out to Tina and Ashlee! J) Chloe had never felt tired like she did by the time we got to Paris. There were some tears and a great nap in a random chair at the airport.

We flew from Paris into Nairobi, Kenya, and then we took an hour plane ride to Entebbe, Uganda. It was dark when we arrived at about 2am their time. Thirteen suitcases from our team (2 of them McMorris’) did not make it all the way to Uganda, so we spent at least another hour filling out paperwork in hopes that we would one day see our luggage again.

Oh, and the scary military police with giant guns…holy moly. They held these machine guns like they were ready to shoot at any moment. I kept Chloe close and didn’t let Dave do anything too dumb. We did have a little fun while we were waiting though...

We drove through Kampala and saw our first glimpses of the red dirt roads, dogs everywhere roaming the streets, and so many boda-bodas (motorcycles). It seriously felt like we were in a movie. The scenery, the buildings, the shacks…they were all just like you see in documentaries. We were seeing it in real life, but it was so surreal that we kept saying to each other in disbelief, “We are really in Africa.” Dave and I kept reminding each other of the days when a trip to Africa was just a crazy idea we had, yet here we were.

Our first ministry was one that truly captured my heart from the moment we met the pastor. We were staying in a beautiful guest home that was newly built. Each “home” had two bathrooms, 4 bedrooms, and a kitchen, though they cooked all of our meals for us. There was even wi-fi…that was a happy surprise! This was by far the best accommodations we had for the trip. We were a little spoiled to have gone here first.  

Just outside the gate of our guest home lived some roosters and chickens. We arrived around 3:30am, and the roosters were already crowing. We did manage to get a few hours of sleep before it was time to wake up, meet some kids, and worship with this community.

Sunday

Words cannot explain what we experienced as we walked onto the property that Return Ministries rents for the 300+ kids to have somewhere to worship, play, and receive meals.

Our group of 22 “Muzungu”(white people) walked down this rutted out, garbage lined, red dirt road and came to a clearing in the trees. Before we could catch our breath, 300 children came running for us. At least 10 children grabbed each of us and pulled us to sit with them. They wanted to see our skin, our sunglasses, our hair. They wanted hugs, they wanted us to notice them and think that they were special. Some of the children wanted us to take their infant siblings from them so that they could simply be a child for a little while. It was awesome and unbelievable and heart-breaking all at once. There were only a handful of adults there for church, but so many children.

We were all swept away from each other as these kids so desperately pulled for our attention. I had no idea that this would occur, so I hadn’t had time to prepare myself, let alone Chloe. So, as I tried to love these kids, I was also frantically searching for Chloe in the mass of bodies. I was terrified that she was overwhelmed or being pulled on by children. I felt so uneasy not being able to see her.

Quickly we all found our way to some seats, and what I saw was the most precious thing that I have ever seen in my life. The only picture I have of it is in my memory because I was frozen in awe. Once I realized that I would later want pictures, I captured these...

This is Paul, who Chloe wants to adopt as her own.

I looked over to where I had last seen Chloe, and my 10 year old girl was holding a sweet pudgy baby boy on her hip and bending down to talk with a gaggle of other little kids. She wasn’t overwhelmed or afraid for a second. She was all smiles, as if this is exactly what she had expected. I could have just turned into a ball of mush in that moment and cried. I was so proud of her. That was the first moment on this trip where I could see that God had big plans for her on this trip. She just grew up in the blink of an eye.

Chloe sat with those kids and held on to that baby all through the church service. When we stood up to sing, she bent down and sang to the kids and tried to get them to dance with her. It was like she was made for this. It was so natural for her.

I was with some sweet, sweet girls named Precious and Pretty. They are sisters. They had glitter all over themselves (no idea where that came from), and as we sat on the wooden bench for worship in this clearing, they picked single pieces of glitter off of themselves and placed it on me. They were so proud to share this prized possession. They wanted me to be like them. A ribbon fell off of Pretty’s dress, and she quickly tied it onto my pinkie. So generous. We were their guests. They would have given us anything.

Can you see the glitter? Such a gift. They were sad when I had washed it the next day. :-(

Little Pretty

After worship we watched the older kids move the wooden benches to create 3 large circles, one for the babies, one for the young kids, and one for the older kids. The children crammed on these benches as they prepared to be served their meal for the day. Little babies balanced precariously, but never seemed to fall. Little bitty kids held onto even little bitty-er kids. They all knew the drill. They tried to not fall off the benches as they waited for their plate or bowl (or, if they ran out of dishes, their Frisbee, brought by previous guests) of rice and beans was delivered to them by one of the teenagers.

I think we all headed back to our guest home for our lunch with our jaws on the ground. We had just experienced our very first of many unbelievable moments. We were really in Africa. These children really will only get this one meal today. If it weren’t for Pastor Samuel’s work, they possibly wouldn’t even get this.

Chloe’s quotes from the morning:

“I have never felt so much love!”

“They are so grateful for everything!”

“More people should come here so that they can see that we should all be like this!”

And, the one everyone anticipated…

“So, can we adopt some?”

Almost to Africa

Thus life began with the 3 “New McMorrises”.

(I should also mention that we have a total of 7 children, for those doing the math. Mara, 20, is my step-daughter, who is every single bit a member of our family and a child of mine. She is one of the most beautiful young women I have ever met both inside and out. She is brilliant, has a heart of gold, and has more sense than half of the people her age. I am honored to parent her in partnership with Dave and Wendy and Gary. That is a whole other blog, but I wanted to include “Sissy”, who God has also used to grow me in amazing ways.)

Adoption, I have come to find out is a funny thing. The anticipation, the process, the waiting for it to be final, it consumed all of my thoughts and energy. Again, it was a goal that I was waiting to attain. Although we did life together and adjusted in the very practical ways to our new, larger family, it was not the heart changing experience that I had hoped it would be. The adoption phase of life is so busy that God can easily get hidden by the doubt, the paperwork, the frustrations…

We spent the first year with Brice, Halie and Jasmine simply adjusting…bonding, loving, teaching, learning, counseling, trying to figure out how all 6 kids could get a shower before we ran out of hot water, and how much of our favorite dinners Dave needed to make so that we all could get seconds…and Halie could get thirds.

The second year, as all of those systems began to work themselves out and we could say that all 6 of the kids had adjusted successfully to this new life, we began to see areas where more help was needed. We began to explore areas that needed intervention and that would NOT just work themselves out with extra hugs and kisses. We identified delays, health issues, and behavior disorders.

The third year, the rubber hit the road. Once we began to understand who these kids were and what needs they had, we could begin advocating for them and making changes to our lives that would allow us to be the best parents that we could be for them. This includes lots of doctor’s appointments, second opinions and meetings at school. It included a lot of time and energy.

Closing my daycare was one of those changes that I knew needed to be made. I knew that while pouring myself into all of my daycare children and running a business, I didn’t have the resources that I needed at the end of the day to be a great mom. I knew that God had called me to be a wife and a mother before He called me to be a daycare provider, and I have always wanted to bring glory to God in my ministry of motherhood. I had to truly put my family first.

Knowing that I would be closing my daycare brought Dave Ramsey into our lives. J We began to “live like no one else, so that later, we could live like no one else.” We committed to spending money only on “needs” and not on “wants” for a period of time. We also started tithing to our church…what a crazy concept. we went from giving 1% of our income to giving 10% and God blessed every single cent of it. We paid off all of our debt, and we refinanced our house so that we would own our home before our kids started college. We shouldn’t have been surprised, and yet, we always seem to be when God works miracles in our lives. Within a year we had turned around our lives financially, had a savings account, and began feeling called to serve in Africa. It still seemed like a crazy calling, but at least the thought had entered our minds.

We were very confident in our American lives as we laughed and said, “Sure God. Africa would be cool. If YOU ever give us the money to go there, we will do whatever you want us to.” We went on living life with that attitude towards Africa. We had some boys from Uganda live with us for a week as their choir was touring the USA, we helped friends fund raise for their Ethiopian adoptions, we thought about Africa, but never in our wildest dreams did we think we could or would ever set foot there.

August of 2012, through a situation that could have only been orchestrated by God, we came to know and love a community of homeless people in Bloomington. 

We began serving them meals, loving them, and hanging out with them.  We learned so much about our homeless friends and about the life of extreme poverty. Again, God was stretching us, growing our kids, giving us ample opportunities to lean solely on Him when what He asked us to do didn’t make sense to on-lookers. We learned to ignore criticism. We learned that we had to live a life of Christian action if we wanted to teach our children that is what God called us to. No Sunday School class was ever going to teach them what we could by sharing our Christmas morning with our friends.

Living our lives with this group of people and reading a little book by Jen Hatmaker, called “7”, helped us to identify the excess in our lives and begin to refocus on what God had called our lives to look like. Believe it or not, God wasn’t calling us to live with cable and electronics and new clothes and vacations. Jesus taught others that the secret to happiness was serving others. He told us that loving others was the most important thing that we would ever do next to loving God. We decided to take Him at His word. We wondered if we could possibly be happy if our goal in life was to love others unconditionally and to make more of God through all of our actions and all that we put into our minds. We didn’t jump off the deep end, we just refocused on our family. And it was wonderful. We played board games and went for bike rides. We cut down on so many bills, and we started going to the library. Not crazy stuff, just stuff that had seemed to get lost in the hustle and bustle of life.

Here I was again, not comfortable just being on this journey, but always looking for the conclusion, always trying to get one step ahead of God…or at least I thought that I could catch up with Him. Again, I thought I had figured “it” out. I thought that we were called to serve the homeless in our town. Awesome. I must have just been wrong about that Africa-thing. We will just serve the homeless forever.

But when my friend came over and told me that someone in her small group was thinking about going to Africa, I couldn’t jump on board fast enough. “Let’s plan it! Let’s all go serve together! You all are smart, faithful people, if God is calling you to Africa, then it must not be as crazy as I thought!” One of those couples had introduced us to a book called “Kisses from Katie”, and that gave more focus to our big idea. The book is about a young, American mission worker named Katie Davis, who fell in love with Uganda when she was there on a mission trip and then moved back and adopted 14 girls and opened a school…all before she was 25. Sounds like my kid of girl! Dave and I were dead set on going. We assumed it would be with that group of people, but God had other plans in their immediate futures, so it was up to us, on our own we thought, but God had a plan all along.

I had spent all of those month saying to God that I would go to Africa if He provided, and He was about to see if I meant what I said. As we had identified excess in our lives and began living with less, we were finding that we had more money to save. As our savings account grew and we continued to give money away, we realized that we would have enough money to go to Africa. I got on the computer, and I booked our trip with Visiting Orphans, the organization that Katie Davis worked with.

Little did we know, at the time I was booking the trip for Dave, Chloe and I,  God was writing a story in the lives of 19 other people across the United States who would join us in this journey and become like family.

Africa: The Prequel

I wanted to write about Africa, really I did, but all of this needed to come out first evidently. :-) 

Our trip to Africa just ended, but the journey truly began many, many years ago. From the time I was a child, about 10 years old, a passion for adoption began to grow in my heart, a passion to be a mother to those who needed one. 

Hearing about these children far away who were orphaned broke my heart, but at the same time, the issue was so distant from the reality of my life. I was surrounded by family and friends and others who would do anything for me. It was a reality that I had no way of grasping until I was much older.

So, life went on, Dave and I got married, bought a house, had 3 biological kids and though we always felt like we were struggling, we were living a comfortable American life. My goal was to give my children things that I felt I missed out on as a child. We had piles of presents under the tree every Christmas, we took that family trip to Disney, and we spent money like we deserved every bit of it. I was slightly convicted with the level of comfort that we were living in, but you know, compared to “everyone else” we were still living so modestly.

God introduced us to 3 wonderful children who happened to be in the foster care system, and for the first time, the issue of the orphan was literally at our front door. I was caring for these children in my daycare, and it was just so obvious to me that God was calling us to adoption through foster care. We happily took the classes, got our license and thought, “This is it! This is what God is calling us to. We have arrived at the pinnacle of our lives.”

Then, foster care was HARD. Our hearts were broken on more than one occasion…and not the nice kind of “broken for what breaks the heart of God” that we always talk about…it was the miserable, screaming, swearing, ugly-crying, hitting-the-walls, “God, what are you doing?!?!” kind of heart broken.

Even in all of my anger and resentment, God picked up each and every piece of my broken heart, and He put it back together. The difference with each heartbreak though, was that when the healing began, there was so much more of God holding my heart together.  I drew closer to Him and longed so much more to understand His plan for my life. I wanted, I needed to know Him better in order to know where He was leading me. I had to get off of committees and get out of groups that were not life-giving, we had to stop running around to activities, we had to let go of some really good things that we did, in order to find God’s BEST for us. We spent the 10 months from September 2009- July 2010 focusing our energy on God, not making any crazy life choices to distract us from knowing Him better. We had committed to a YEAR of “no crazy”, but in July of 2010, we met Brice, Halie and Jasmine.

After agreeing just to watch these kids while their foster parents were on vacation, Dave said to me, “I think Halie is our daughter.” For the very first time, Dave was feeling called and leading us towards adoption.  At the time it felt like it took forever, but by the end of August Halie and Brice were in our home with the goal of adoption, and by October, Jasmine was with us as well.

Again, I really was feeling like, “Okay, God. I see what you did there. You used our pain to mold us and change us. You drew us closer to You. I’ve sung songs about that before. Cool. NOW we have it figured out…NOW we have arrived at our life calling.”

And wouldn’t you know, He just wasn’t done with us yet.