the effects of our decisions, women’s day, and other thoughts…

A couple of weeks ago, I had a conversation with a friend about how my return flight to Amsterdam on the 15th of February had had an impact on possibly a hundred women…

The story goes that she was wanting to meet me at the airport to welcome me home, but had already made a previous commitment during the time that I was arriving: her weekly visit to women who work behind the windows in Amsterdam’s notorious Red Light District. As a result she came up with a brilliant idea to give Valentine’s cards to the women as an excuse to work a day earlier ; ) This excuse, resulted in a full-fledged project to make one hundred handmade Valentine’s cards showing dignity and value and worth to women who are daily, hourly even, mistreated and misused.

The handmade cards made a huge impact on the women. To receive something so special on a day like Valentine’s day, when every woman longs to be shown love, really touched the women and brought such a positive response that the volunteers who passed out the cards were inspired and motivated to come up with more holiday gift ideas for the future.

This is where today comes in. The 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day. Something I had never heard of prior to moving to Europe. Friends in the Ukraine told me how popular it was in their in Eastern Europe. Every year men give special attention to the women in their lives: mothers, sisters, grandmothers, wives, daughters, etc., etc. Particularly by giving flowers to the special women in their lives. So again, the volunteers of the Scarlet Cord decided to give cards to the women in the RLD. Many of the women who work as prostitutes in this area are also from Eastern Europe and would have a particularly strong connection to this holiday.

So my friend and I made 100 more cards, to be passed out today for Internationals Women’s Day; The following, as well as the first photo above are a couple of photos that I took at the Keukenhof flowershow  last year which we used for the front of the cards. During an Sex Trafficking Awareness Open-Mic Night on Sunday we had women and men sign the cards and write special messages to the women. It was beautiful to see people writing in so many different languages: Spanish, Romanian, English, Bulgarian…messages of hope, worth, value, and beauty to these women. One card was even signed by an ex-prostitute whose life turned completely upside-down after encountering Jesus 4 years ago.

I have no idea how this impacted the women today. Perhaps I will never know…

But I have been impressed by the thought of the effects of our choices… How extending my trip in the States, leaving 6 weeks later then originally planned had no small consequence… It’s an entirely different story how I even came to my decision to leave on the day I did and how I felt particularly led and drawn to leave on that day… but ultimately, I’m thinking about our choices and their power for multiplied good in our own and other’s lives or the reverse, affecting ourselves and others for the worse. One choice for good has the power to affect hundreds if not thousands of lives, also for good. One choice made selfishly, or dare I say, choosing sin, has the power to affect hundreds if not thousands of lives adversely. Hmm…something to ponder some more. How will I choose today?

in between worlds

A recent email from a good friend described perfectly what I’m feeling right now:

“I hope that your transition back to normal life is going good. It is funny that I said “normal” life. I guess the question is, what is normal? Maybe normal is what most of the world lives, which is like what you have just come from. And the way we live, is the abnormal way of living.

I wonder if you are in the place of inbetweeness, like in the first Narnia book. I.e. in the magicians nephew when they are in the wood inbetween the worlds. They have just come from one pool and are about to jump into another. They are in this world of feeling like they are still in the previous world, and not quite fully in the next one. Maybe you are in a similar place.”

But even in this inbetweeness (yes I’m a certified English teacher and I will continue to use this non-word!) I feel like I’m being quickly sucked into this vacuum, sucked into the pool of expectations, demands, and responsibilities. Life continues to move forward and doesn’t wait for me to be fully processed and ready to move forward.

The question I’m asking myself a lot right now: How do I live more according to what my heart is telling me to do? How do I listen more for the still small voice? Rather than all the other hollering noises, sounds, voices and songs that tend to crowd it out. In a way it’s easier to just go along with the noise of demands. If I stop to be still…I’m forced to face myself and God, my desires, my hopes…and the fears of those desires and hopes being left unmet. But even knowing what my desires are is a scary thing. I have a hard time knowing my own heart. I fear choosing the wrong thing and therefore missing out on something else.

Maybe that’s the problem of inbetweeness. I know too much. Have too many worlds that I’ve come to know and love. My roots are in Iowa. My growing up in Colorado. My becoming an adult and forging a new way of life is in Amsterdam. My 30 little new nieces and nephews are in Kenya…

There is always somewhere else I’d also like to be. Not rather, just also. Can’t I just clone myself into 4 people and experience it all?!

I just got a letter from the Immigration office today, that states that my visa has been renewed for another year in the Netherlands. When I first started reading it, I was trying to have a conversation over the phone and decipher the letter at the same time. Not smart! I was starting to see words in Dutch that looked like “rejection!” I had to stop myself and focus on the conversation at hand. But I couldn’t help but let my mind wander to thoughts like…“What if my visa isn’t renewed? What would I do? Where would I go? Am I ready to leave Holland yet?…” When will I know it’s time to leave? Will that time ever come?

Sigh…the woes of being an immigrant. Life is never stable or secure.

But yeah. The point is, if I don’t stop and be still, I stop enjoying the ride. I can only take each day, one day at a time. And enjoy my time here in Amsterdam for as long as it lasts. Even if I miss my little friends in Kenya…and the presence of my mom and dad and wacky brothers and sister-in-law in Colorado…and my other friends scattered across the world (yes that means you: Claire! Steph! Ross! Sam! Lesley! Katy! …the list goes on.) Even when it’s raining, the journey is still full of  joy.

wild times

to see, to smell, to touch

I still have a couple malaria pills to take. My skin is still peeling from the sunburn on my neck. I’ve discovered a couple of ringworm spots on my arm, and I have hundreds and hundreds of pictures to sort through… The evidence is all here. I really was in Kenya for 17 days. And yet it feels as though it were a dream. How can it be that I’ve already gone and come back?

Every time I share stories of my time there, I’m surprised by what comes out. The new things that surface from my memory seem to have no particular rhyme or reason for their appearance. Although each new question seems to draw out a side of the story that only moments before, were buried deep within.

Personal experience far outweighs a good read. I realize that there is nothing that I could write, or photo that I could share, that would bring someone to fully grasp what happened in those 17 days. I can’t recreate the sound of the crying donkey or the thousands of bird calls in the early morning, I can’t emit the smells of burning charcoal and cedars through the internet, or send sensors that fashion the feel of the children’s hands in my own.

But I feel the need to tell and to share.

I hope that by writing this out, I can somehow make sense of it all in my head and in my heart. That I can somehow find balance amidst the wrestlings in my head. I was just in a place where water, 3 meals a day, and education a privilege for the élite. I return to a comfortable home: resources seemingly endless. I find myself finding delight (with a hint of guilt) in the simplest of things: a warm shower, a ‘normal’ toilet, a good cup of coffee…the freedom to go wherever I want without fear or feeling like everyone is staring at me with a dollar sign hanging over my head.

More than anything I return with a greater sense of gratitude for what I do have. And yet, there’s something in me that also feels like I have it all wrong. There was something in the people I encountered that goes far deeper than the pleasures of a warm shower. There is a greater joy to be had than the amenities we’ve created for ourselves as Westerners.

I spent two days interviewing the orphans to evaluate their current needs and progress of the 2-year-old Safehouse. I was humbled by the children’s responses. They were more than thankful for the opportunity to live at the Safehouse. “I eat well. I sleep well. I have the opportunity to go to school. I’m learning about God.” When asked if they would want anything to be different: their main requests were to have a water well, and a bigger house so that more children from the community could come to live their too!

The irony of the orphanage is that it is a privilege to live there. They do not have our same standards of living and yet they are being given so much in comparison to what they would live with were they to stay with their relatives. Many of the children’s relatives are too poor to pay for school fees or school uniforms. They can barely afford food for their own family and need their children to help by working the farm or other means to earning a living.

Nationwide, about 2% of children under 15 have lost both parents, and 12% of children in Kenya have lost at least one parent. Orphanhood as a result of HIV/AIDS has increased to 37%. And yet, I mention these statistics realizing that they don’t allow you to really know the children affected by these realities. It takes meeting them face to face, knowing their name, hearing their voice, making them laugh, noticing the quirks in their personalities…

I hope I can at least share some of this with you in the coming days, weeks, months as I reflect back.

The least I can do is share their story with you.

trees give rest

see Rebecca dance

The girls were still at it. I had had enough of dodge ball. Even as a young girl I hated playing dodge ball. Although I have to admit, playing with a bunch of girls in dresses is much more fun then in a gym with both of the sexes at war with one another. But these girls can throw! Getting hit in the face hurts just as much as ever.

I decided to sit on the side and play with my camera some more. The music was still playing in the background from the day’s earlier festivities. It’s the first day of the new year; the community surrounding the orphanage, including any living relatives of the orphans had been invited to join in the celebration. The kids had shared their talent of singing and dancing with the guests, but with not nearly as much gusto as I saw Rebecca dancing before me now.

Rebecca had noticed me picking up my camera and without any hesitation, she started dancing before me. I gave in to her silent request to adore her, snapping photos of her every move. She didn’t even bother to exit the playing field. She just kept swinging and swaying right as the other girls continued running past: back and forth, back and forth.

Rebecca can dance. She’s only nine and knows how to swing her tiny almost non-existent hips, while swaying her arms in perfect rhythm with every beat. I’ve decided all Africans can dance, and although I’d tried to pretend that I could dance as well as these kids, joining in their every step and sway, I now look back on the pictures and videos and admit I’ll never be as smooth.

But why is Rebecca dancing for me? She doesn’t bother to run to me, to see the pictures like usual. She’s finding sheer delight in the fact that I’m watching her.

Only now do I look back on that day and wonder how much that afternoon had impacted the childrens’ hearts? Although all the relatives of the kids had been invited, few had actually shown up. Even if they did come, they barely spoke to the kids or showed any form of affection. I know for certain that Rebecca’s relatives were not present. The caretakers of the orphanage later shared the story of finding Rebecca and her sister Deborah in a one-room house. Their mother had passed many years earlier and their father had been heavily addicted to drugs. Since the time that Rebecca had been taken into the orphanage, her father had never once shown his face at events such as this, nor made contact with any of the caretakers.

I can only wonder how much Rebecca longs to be watched: to be watched as any young girl who longs to be adored by her father, longs to be loved by her mother.