Paradigm shift in foster care

Years ago I read about a church in Woodstock Georgia that was disheartened by the foster care problem in their county. In fact, they were so moved that they made it their mission to provide sufficient foster families for all the kids in the county. And if memory serves correctly, they did. I always wondered how they did that, and what would happen if more churches took that approach.

Last week I came across Faith Bridge – they’re turning the way foster care is done upside down. It’s a church based model that connects families in a community-centric model. The goal is keep foster kids from moving around so much by provide support networks for foster families. How cool is that? I’m not sure if they’re behind that Woodstock, Georgia story I read, but I know they work in and around Woodstock now.

I never thought foster parenting would be something I could handle. But if I were in a community like this, I think I just might…

Birthday joy

What a day it was! Yesterday I turned 32. It’s kind of the same as being 31, only with a rounder number (and quite possibly a rounder waist?). Wanna know what I got? I cleaned up good, yo!

Let’s start with this gem. It wasn’t actually a birthday gift, but it might as well be. Last week I won a contest at Crossway books and they sent me a brand new leather ESV Study Bible! It’s gorgeous. And I love reading it. Love, love, love the single column text, the really cool study notes and great illustrations. It’ll take a bit of time to get used to a format that’s different from my chain reference Bible, but that was NASB and this is ESV, and oh, I love it.

Then there was this. I married a man who does not cook. Does not generally step foot in the kitchen unless it’s to clean up a mess, make a sandwich, or well, let’s be fair, make coffee. I told him a week or two before my birthday that I only want 1 present. A homemade cake. Made by him. He laughed at me. Asked which bakery I’d like my cake to be ordered from. But I insisted, and he came through. Oh, how he came through. Look at how beautiful it is! Look how he decorated it! And oh, if you could taste it… But you can’t. Because I ate the whole thing. Well, I shared a little, but I would have eaten the whole thing. Holy smokes, my man can bake!

He had a little help. Only in my house we sometimes spell help as h-i-n-d-e-r!

Got milk?

And then I got this. I’ve been carrying a well loved Coach bag (a Christmas present from a while back) for a couple years. And the leather is wearing thin. And it’s starting to look a little raggedy. So my mom got me this. And check this out. My new Claire V. purse was made by women in Cambodia who have suffered the tragic consequences of genocide and land mines. And it’s silk. Silk damask, in fact. And oh-my-gosh-gorgeous!

And then I got this book, which is great. And this one too. It’s my 3rd copy of that one – I keep giving away my copy… And a few accessories for my iPod, err,  iPot, as Bean calls it. And best of all, my kids gave me some lovin.

We ended the day in my room with my iPod hooked up to my new iPod speaker (thanks, hubbs!) while me and my kids danced to Ingrid Michaelson, and finished that off with a few lively rounds of ring-around-the-rosie. Good times.

It was a great way to ring in 32.

Excitement brewing

Call me a nut, but there’s this movement getting off the ground and I think it’s super cool. See, traditionally if “we” (meaning those of us who live in highly developed Western nations) wanted to help out a starving community in, say, Eastern Europe, or a village in South America that didn’t have clean water, we’d find a non-profit charity type organization and get involved. Maybe getting our hands dirty, maybe just emptying our pockets in their general direction.

The problem with that is that when “we” show up with our foreign resources and build “them” a well we put the local well-digger out of business. We tell the “them” that we can take care of their community. We tell them that they need us. We teach them to ‘receive’ our charity, to wait for our help. And we also cut into the local roofer’s business (every well needs a roof), we cut into the pulley-maker’s business, and we probably install something that isn’t 100% suited to their situation.

The alternative is an industry that is still in infancy – social enterprise. It’s the business of starting businesses that are interested in more than just profit. Instead of shipping in tons of rice, social enterprise finds locals who already produce rice, and it gives them the training and resources to do it better.

Hubbs is in Moldova now, and among the many things he’s doing, he’s working on some social enterprise stuff. Empowering locals with the resources and training they need to address the poverty cycle from within. The potential impact of social enterprise is staggering. Instead of pouring foreign money in at dizzying rates, social enterprise creates local revenue stream, not just putting a band-aid on an issue like hunger or injustice, but giving local economies the boost they need to break the cycle. Why aren’t more people doing that?

(This was on the way to one of hubbs’ recent meetings. I’m guessing whoever lives here won’t be following me on twitter…)

With eyes wide open

Hubbs and I watched Slumdog Millionaire last night and we loved it. If you haven’t seen it, go now. It’s a great movie. If I could believe it to be a fictional tale, it would be what the PR folks have dubbed it – the year’s best Feel Good movie. (No worries, no spoilers here.)

For me the problem is that I see every day how very based in reality the movie is, specifically in its treatment of beggars and children begging. We see beggars daily here. I don’t give money – think what you’d like about me, but I just don’t. I’m not cold or calloused about it. But I don’t want to be a factor in perpetuating the cycle. The kids and elderly begging? It’s not like my 1o lei (roughly $1) will do a part in raising their standard of living and help them eventually buy a nice suit and get a good job – not even if I gave them $100.

If I were to give anything the whole sum would go to the ‘owner’, the very one who has a mansion down the street from me. And he would continue to exploit the needy, giving them just enough to remain content, and filling them up with manipulative warm fuzzies masquerading as conditional love. I don’t want to be a part of that cycle, as much as it hurts to see it.

There’s a woman who begs outside the store where I do most of my daily shopping. She’s there every morning, and every morning I wonder if I should give her some food or loose change – perhaps she’s really poor. Perhaps she’s not a part of the cycle. I wondered every morning, until this morning. This morning as I walked out of the store she pulled 2 bags out from under her coat. One was full of fresh oranges. Oranges, so you know, are ridiculously expensive here, somewhere around $5/lb. In fact, for the price of 1 small orange I could buy enough potatoes to feed my family for a week, enough rice to feed us for a month. Oranges are for the upwardly mobile, not the destitute. Her other bag was full of money, the money she’d collected that morning. The bag was clear so I could see just how full it was, and with what type of bills. Let’s just say, by 11AM she’d collected more than enough money to feed my family of 5 for a week, and with more than just potatoes. As I rounded the corner I turned and looked back. She was secretly peeling her orange under her coat with one hand, and with the other she was putting the money someone had just given her into the bag under her coat.

I don’t know her situation. I don’t know who she gives the money to at the end of the day. I do know that she’s pretending to be something she’s not. I also know that she’s not starving, unlike some others I’ve seen here. There was a man on my way home last week digging through dumpsters. He walked with a cane and a limp, and looked to be in his 70s. He started at the dumster near the store I go to and as I walked home he wasn’t far from me – checking every dumster along the way. By the time I got inside and gathered some food for him he was gone. I’ve seen him again since then, doing the same thing.

There’s real poverty here. I stare it down every time I go outside. My eyes are wide open. I cannot turn a blind eye to it. It’s easy to close yourself off from it when it’s an ocean away. But it’s at my doorstep. It sits next to me on the bus. It stares me down when I leave the store, produce in hand. It stands next to me at the market, hoping I’ll share.

God hasn’t tasked me to judge – who’s really poor and who’s not. But He has told me to be a steward of what He gives. I’m still trying to figure out what that means, but there’s something inside me that screams out against the cycle that exploiters have created here. I cannot in good conscience support a slave owner. But my eyes are wide open every day now looking for that 70-something man. My dumster-diver with a cane. Real poverty demands a response. And I hope – and pray – that our response to it here will bring more than just a meal to someone needy. Hubbs is doing everything in his power to change the political structures that turn a blind eye to exploitation, and he’s working at starting something that will employ the jobless. That response resonates. And it stares back, with eyes wide open.

Imprisoned!

This was our day. Those fuzzy white lines? Those are the bars on the windows. It really does make me feel rather like I’m imprisoned. Between that and the drizzly cold rain and gobs of mud, we stayed in most of the day. But, this afternoon a friend Nancy picked us up and took us to the House of Hope. It was my first time there, and it’s deep. It’s a house for women who have been trafficked, with a vision to provide them with short-term healing and long-term restoration.

The building is gorgeous – by Moldovan standards it’s a little mansion on the outskirts of town. Heated tile flooring, a kitchen to make a suburban housewife drool, and enough space to house 10+ women comfortably. It’s really nice. I met one of the young ladies who lives there, and her 3-year old daughter. The 3-year old kept trying to carry Bean (1 month shy of 5) down the stairs – it was funny. She played well with Bean and Little Man and she was completely intrigued by Bruiser. Mom was pretty shy, and from what I understand she doesn’t handle strangers well. It took her a while to come out and say hello, but once she did she hung out with me and the kids for quite some time.

The issues there are complicated and the house is still in start-up phase, working out issues and looking forward to growth. I was really pleased with our visit, primarily because the kids had such a good time. There are a few toys there, and lots of space to run and play. That means they can come with me and hang out with the little girl there. The only catch is Bruiser – the house is entirely un-baby-proofed. Tile stairs all over the place, outlets right at his level, crayons and choking hazards all over the place. It’ll be fun.

Cool CD

My dad’s church has had a long term relationship with a mission in Zambia. They take regular trips there, do medical missions, church planting, scholarships for students – they’ve been doing it for years and don’t have an end in sight (in fact, my dad was on one of the trips, and hopes to go back).

To help raise funds for the ongoing work, they brought professional recording equipment with them on their trip a year or two ago. They’ve now produced a CD with music from the churches they work with, and the music is hauntingly beautiful. There are audio clips online, as well as a few pictures. Check it out. It’s great music, supporting an awesome long-term ministry.

A part of the ministry effort is to help them drill for wells to find clean water sources – but it’s more than that. The ministry brought in the drill and taught the locals how to operate it. They’re now supporting micro-enterprise development – training the unemployed in how to use the drills and supporting them in finding water sources to give them a source of employment. It’s cool stuff. They’re really changing lives over there. Even if you don’t plan on buying the CD, at least go listen to a few clips at the link above. It’ll stay with you. And when you listen, think about the fact that these are real people, offering up a sacrifice of praise in the midst of some pretty awful circumstances. Hear the joy in their voices as they worship.

On safety and missions

There are some pretty high-profile mommy-bloggers on a missions trip to Uganda right now – like BooMama and Rocks In My Dryer, along with several others in their team. I’ve been reading through their posts about their time on the mission field, and the comments people are leaving on their blogs.

I won’t go into the amazing things God is doing through them – you’ll have to go read about it yourself on their blogs, and I do encourage you to do so.  What struck me though – other than the awesome stories they share – is how many commenters insist on calling these men and women ‘brave’ and ‘courageous’ for what they’re doing (or in other words, for letting God do things through them). You can see Shanon’s take on it here, and then even after she admits that it doesn’t have a lot to do with courage, commenters continue to call her courageous and brave.

So what’s the problem with that? She left everything to go on a brief trip around the world, leave behind everything familiar, and entrust her children to be looked after while she was gone. That sounds courageous, doesn’t it? But let me ask you this. What’s really courageous about it? She’s facing her fears first of all. But that’s about it. And really, that just amounts to choosing to place her faith in Someone she can trust, rather than in worries and changing circumstances.

There’s a misconception that home is synonymous with safe, and Uganda (or Moldova or Bangladesh or anything else foreign) is synonymous with danger. After all, lions and tigers and bears – oh my! We’re afraid of what we don’t know, and that fear translates into an assumption of danger. But the fact is, safety is an illusion. There is nowhere our safety is guaranteed. There is nowhere we can feel sure of our safety. I could just as easily keel over from a brain aneurysm at home in front of my TV or get hit by a drunk driver and never make it home, as anyone else on the mission field could be overtaken by some unexpected tragedy. Safety is actually no more than God giving you one more breath to breathe. One more day to enjoy His creation. And He’s just as likely to provide it at home as He is somewhere else.  He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and He is the same in the US, Uruguay, and Uganda.  Safety is an illusion we give ourselves in an effort to feel self-sufficient, independent. There’s less need for faith when we believe in an illusion of safety.

As for this team serving in Uganda, what they really have doesn’t have a lot to do with bravery or courage. It’s faith (or at least it seems that way from what they’ve been writing). They have faith that God will protect their families while they’re away. They have faith that God will keep their puddle-jumping airplanes in the air. They have faith that He will give them safety in the midst of vipers, unclean water supplies, and a host of other concerns. They have that faith because they know Him for who He is – the ultimate provider of their safety. The Creator of the heavens and the earth. The all-powerful, ever loving Healer, Sustainer, and Lord of all creation.

It irks me when people comment about the immense ‘courage’ of missionaries.  It’s not about courage. It’s about a conscious decision to place your faith in the One you know will not disappoint. It’s about choosing to have faith in the most Faithful One. And it’s about knowing that in all reality, He is sovereign, regardless of where you are.  After all, is anything too hard for the Lord?

WFMW: Salad dressing & brownies

(No, not together silly!)

This is the Brand Loyal edition of Works for Me Wednesday. So here’s my run-down of brands I have to have.

Salad dressing: Old Cape Cod brand, Toasted Sesame Soy & Ginger. It’s all natural, kosher, fat free, and cholesterol free. And full of flavor.

Brownie Mix: No Pudge. Any. All. All the time. Gotta have it. Did you know you can make single servings? Now those are some smart brownies.

Salt: Salt Sense. Yes, I’m picky about salt. It’s lower in sodium than regular table salts, and I’ve found that when I run out and use regular salt I don’t like the flavor anymore. It seems that Salt Sense has turned my tastes.

Pasta Sauce: Ragu Chunky. Mushroom and Green pepper, but only for lasagna. For everything else I use Classico or Barilla – whichever flavor strikes my fancy. (did I really just say strikes my fancy?) And no, I don’t make spaghetti sauce from scratch. Not since I moved back to the US of A where there are a multitude of companies that do such a wonderful job already.

Jewelry: I try to purchase all my jewelry from NightLight. They have a truly amazing ministry that rescues women from slavery and trains them to do something that is worthy of respect, therapeutic, and creative. It’s high quality and I feel good knowing that my purchase brought light to someone living in darkness. The more they sell the more women they can rescue. Truly amazing.

That’s about it for me. I’m not picky about clothing brands, shoes, or anything like that. Just food. I’m a girl who knows what’s important in life (like brownies and salad dressing). For more tips on great brands to try, head over to Shannon’s place at Rocks in My Dryer.

Consumerism: an antidote?

There have been some thought provoking posts of late about Christian consumerism at Inspired by a True Story, and I highly recommend reading that. The YouTube video below points out what happens on the other side of the world, where the problem is quite the opposite. The video is about a minute and half. It’ll get you thinking.

Trade as One Story (short version)

After you’ve seen it, head over to Trade as One to see what it’s all about. (Yes, this is a shameless plug for a friend’s business. But it’s also something I firmly believe in. Check out the awesome stuff they have there.)

A snapshot of my week

Our friends from Moldova, the R family, moved to our town on Saturday. Mom doesn’t speak English. Dad isn’t here yet. The 4 teens have varying levels of English. We’ve been helping them settle in and as it turns out, there’s a lot more involved in that than I thought.

Saturday: Spent morning helping Mrs. R sign lease and settle bank accounts. Got home in time for my kids’ naps. After naps took R family to buy furniture. Hubby took kids home, fed them, put them to bed.

Sunday: Church, with some of R family.  Naps. Dinner together as a family.

Monday: sick as a dog. Hubby had to stay home because I couldn’t drag myself out of bed. That was after I came home from 3 hours at the doctor’s office.

Tuesday: Took the R family to the school district building for international student registration. For the entire day. Hubby stayed home with our kids.

Wednesday: Took the R family to the health department for school vaccinations and testing. Again – took all day (thanks to the fact that the entire planet was there). Mrs. R stayed with my kids and I pretended to be her kids’ legal guardian for the sake of documentation.

Tomorrow: Take R family’s 3 oldest to high school to register. Take youngest to middle school to register. Expect that to take all day. R kids will take turns watching my kids.

Friday: Hopefully I’ll have some time to spend with my own kids.

I miss my kids.   All of this would be a lot easier if we were in Chisinau (except we’d have to pay bribes for it all). But here in the suburbs everything is so spread out I’m using 1/2 a tank of gas a day just shuttling people here and there. And I really miss my kids. It’s nice to help neighbors in need, and I hope my kids are learning that this week as well. It’ll all get easier next week when the R family kids start school.