God Healed Our Washing Machine

No, seriously. A few weeks ago, our washing machine was broken — the water valve didn’t shut off, and the machine just chugged water until our house tank was empty.

We thought we were going to have to call a repairman (which, here? not always an easy experience). I waited a few days, hoping the machine would just start working again. It didn’t. So Cindy had the idea to pray for it.

“Why not?” I thought, and we did. Nothing long, just a quick prayer. Nothing happened, and I figured I’d call the service number the next day (a task which would require more prayer).

The next day the machine worked.

And the day after that, and the third day. As far as I know it’s still working (Sean took it up to the village for use there). I honestly don’t understand it, so I’ve decided to call it a miracle.

That’s right, I’ve decided. Some of you know my past with miracles. I don’t see them often, and I don’t always believe them. Often the ones I see can be explained away.

But that’s just it — everything that could be called a miracle can be explained away. Which means seeing is not, in fact, believing. Rather it’s the other way around. We decide whether miracles are real or not — we believe first. Then when something happens that we don’t understand, we apply our belief.

Once again, I am left with the realization that this whole God thing cannot be proven or disproven, not even if someone is raised from the dead (maybe they weren’t really dead) or a sea is parted (maybe it’s a fluke of the weather).

I guess that’s why they call it faith.

Nathan

We got Nathan about three years ago. His mother had only been able to care for him off and on for his first two years, and she finally decided she had to give him up. But they couldn’t find his legal father, and so couldn’t legally adopt him out, which is where we came in.

He didn’t seem at all sad to leave the people who sent him to us, though for the first few nights he would cry and cry even as we held him. He was afraid to step on the grass because he didn’t know what it was. Even though he’s a month older than Isaac, and Isaac was talking by that point, Nathan had very few words (some of them naughty).

Now he’s 5, and he’s grown out of all of that. He still has angry moments and will occasionally break things just to see what happens, but he loves us, he loves this family, and most of all he knows we love him. He’s very creative in his drawings — more so than almost any of the other boys — and he’s funny! His sounds and facial expressions are hilarious.

We took him in knowing we might never be able to adopt him — lots of our kids are like that. But it looks like we might actually have a chance. Nathan’s birth mom (who we occasionally talk to via Facebook, of all things) says she’s in contact with his legal dad again.

We can’t start anything yet — Thailand only allows you to be in the adoption process for one child at a time — but if the process ever ends with Asia, we might have to try Nathan next.

I Have an Agent (and What That Means)

So after three years of trying, I finally have a literary agent. This post is about what that means, for those of you (most of you) unfamiliar with how a book gets published. My other blog will have more details later in the week, if you’re interested.

What is an agent? A literary agent represents my work to publishers and others interested in getting the rights. She will also help negotiate any contracts, suggest revisions, talk about future books, and generally help manage a writing career.

So this is a good thing, yes? Very much. Aside from actually writing a novel, getting a literary agent to represent my work is the first step towards getting published. Most of the major publishers won’t even look at a novel unless it’s represented by an agent.

How hard is it to get an agent? Hard. You send them a one-page query letter about the novel. Out of hundreds of queries per week, the agent might request the first 50-or-so pages of a dozen of them. One in ten of those might be good enough for the agent to ask to see the whole thing. And only one in every fifteen or twenty of those full manuscripts might be strong enough, and fit the market well enough, that the agent considers offering representation.

So we’re talking about odds of one in thousands here. I’ve queried two other novels, to about 50 agents each time, but I’ve never gotten an offer until now.

So what happens next? After I work on some revisions, my agent will pitch it to publishers who may or may not buy it. (I’ve heard the odds here are like 60%).

When can I buy the book? The publishing industry is notoriously slow. I have friends who already have book deals, but whose books won’t come out until 2013. It could be as much as a year or more before I even know if this one sells. So the answer: I don’t know, but I’ll tell you when I do.

Like I said, you can learn more soon at the other blog, and I’m happy to answer any questions here in the comments.

Lest There is any Doubt We Are the Von-Trapps

(There was supposed to be a video with that last post, but WordPress ate it, so I’m reposting.)

Last week was the last week of the homeschool co-op, and Cindy got the boys to sing a song for everyone. I’m very impressed. Last year, Isaac chickened out at the last minute, so I was worried some of them would do the same here. Not a single one backed out or even sang quietly. They just belted it out in front of everyone.

Lu Gets Baptized

I got to baptize Lutiya last Saturday. She’s actually been bugging me about it for a few months now. We wanted to make it a semi-big deal — you know, with food and friends and stuff — but the bigger a deal it got, the more we just put it off.

A couple weeks ago, our pastor spent some time talking about baptism, how you don’t have to be a pastor to do it, they don’t have to go through an 8-week training course, it doesn’t have to be in a river or an ocean, it doesn’t even have to be total immersion (he said they mis-timed the tide once, so they just found a puddle big enough and muddy enough and then shoved the guy down as far as he would go).

You just make do with what you got like the early church did. And I realized I’d been putting it off long enough.

Of course, Lu didn’t want to do it the moment I asked, so it got put off another week. But as it turned out, our friend Norbert was baptizing two of the girls in Lu’s dance class, so we asked her if she wanted to go along. I’m so glad she did.

The video below isn’t much, but it’s a record. We like those.

Panchewa

Panchewa (or just Pan, but pronounced more like “bun” than frying “pan” — figure that one out) is our oldest, both in age and in how long she’s been with us. She came to us around the same time as Alaypa and Lutiya and has been here longer than every kid but Isaac.

She had been living with her ailing grandmother, who was worried Pan wouldn’t have a family to care for her after she passed away. Pan’s mother died when she was in second grade, her father a few years ago. Her grandmother took good care of her, but because she lived in a mountain village, her education suffered. At the village school, the teacher would only show up once or twice a week, and even when the teacher was there, they didn’t do much in the way of work. When Pan moved to a school in the city for 7th grade, she could hardly read.

Now this girl is going to university, studying to be a teacher. She struggles sometimes, but she is an extremely hard worker (when she’s not on Facebook), and she has come really far in just a few years.

Now that she’s a college student, we don’t see her as much. But when she’s here, she’s quick to play with the kids or help out in whatever way we need. When we take her out, both Cindy and I feel like we’re hanging out with a friend, not one of our kids.

Mostly, Pan reminds us why we do this. She recently told me how she started actually liking church, and she’s going by herself now. All the time, she tells us (or others) how thankful she is to have parents who really care about her. She’s still got issues, no doubt, but she gives me hope for all the other kids in our family.

Joel and Sarah

These two are brother and sister. They came to Ban Suk Jai with their older brother about five years ago. Their older brother moved to a home for older boys, but they still get to see him at church.

The three of them escaped Burma with their father. We don’t know when or where their mother died. As a refugee, their father found it difficult to take care of himself, let alone three kids. When the folks from old Ban Suk Jai found them, they had nothing to eat except what they could scrounge up from the jungle.

That might be why today Joel is our biggest and fastest eater (or it could be that he is just the most energetic of all the boys by one or two orders of magnitude). This boy is loud, athletic, gutsy, and strong. He’s pretty clever too. He picked up reading faster than almost all the other boys (even Isaac, who had a head start).

Sarah is just sweet. She always has a smile and is always ready to help. She was the oldest at old Ban Suk Jai, so she’s used to taking care of little ones, and she does it well. Though none better than her little brother, whom she totally loves.

Joel will start school next May, probably at a different school than the girls (we’re not big on the government schools). When Sarah heard this, she said she wanted to go to whatever school Joel was going to — even though the school we’re looking at teaches in English two days a week and she’d have to learn fast.

I think she can do it too.

Furlough, Fundraising, and Other Silly Words

Let me start off by saying that I understand why these are things. A multi-month trip back home can be essential for a family having a hard time in a foreign country, especially when their primary income comes from the generous donations of their home country.

And I understand why people might have to leave the country after only a few years. God calls them somewhere else, the money runs out, immigration rules change, etc. It happens. I get that.

But it ends up creating a missionary culture with a lot of turnover. Ministries, church roles, and worst of all relationships are started and abandoned and started over again.

As I said, I get that this is the way it is for a lot of missionaries. They have no other way to get money, or their kids need a foreign-culture break, or their organization (which supports them in lots of ways) requires it.

But I don’t like it. Some ministries can handle this sort of turnover, being short term by nature. But most missionary work is based on relationship, and relationships take time. (I also doubt the wisdom of spending thousands of dollars to go back to a home country where the purpose is to raise thousands of dollars. But that’s its own post.)

My main problem, though, is purely selfish: turnover like this makes it hard to make friends. People start to put their guard up against any new relationship, just because the pain of saying goodbye is too much. We saw it in the kids at Im Jai, we see it in many missionaries we meet, and we see it in ourselves.

(Granted, my introversion doesn’t help. Nor does the fact that visitors to our house must willingly subject themselves to being wrestled by midgets. But that is BESIDE THE POINT!)

My motives are selfish, but I do think it’s a good idea for missionaries to actually be rooted in the culture they’re in. I’m always excited to meet missionaries who have no plans for going back (which, you may recall, was what we started out saying), or who have figured out how to make money here and so don’t have to go back.

I understand that not everybody can do that, but I think that should be the goal. “Home country” shouldn’t mean “my real home.” I miss a lot of things about America, but if I still considered it my home, then my heart would never really be here.

Josiah and Sam

Josiah and Sam were two of the four kids who came from Ban Suk Jai children’s home last year. We actually knew them when they were brand new, since Ban Suk Jai was run by some friends of ours. Both of their mothers were just teenagers when these boys were born, and they weren’t ready for the responsibility. But they did make sure their boys had a good home that would take care of them, and that’s how Josiah and Sam came to be at Ban Suk Jai.

Josiah is a quiet boy who prefers to play inside, often by himself (something his new Daddy can understand). He’s gentle and sweet and quick to smile. When he first came here, he had this chronic heat rash that made his back all red and itchy. Da (our house helper who came with the Ban Suk Jai kids and has worked at Ban Suk Jai for years) said he often got it, and nobody knew what to do.

After three weeks of praying for him, his rash left. It hasn’t come back in over a year.

Sam is also pretty quiet, but he can be loud when he wants to. Emotionally, he’s probably the most solid of the boys (physically too; he’s built like a linebacker). Although when he first came here, he had these bouts where he just shut down. He would get upset and then not move or speak to anybody, no matter what we did. I asked the old director of Ban Suk Jai if he did this there. Apparently he did, and the director would just take a walk with him or something until he got over it.

Thing is, he doesn’t really do that anymore. He gets upset, and he still gets real quiet when he’s upset, but I haven’t seen him completely shut down in months. If I sit with him, he’ll answer my questions pretty quick.

I’m always astounded to see changes like this. You guys know not all of our stories have had happy endings. That’s one reason I write these stories here: so I remember we’re actually doing good. It’s easy to forget.

The Chair Analogy

In my early Christian days, I remember being told that having faith in God is like having faith that a chair will hold you up. It’s fine to say the chair will hold you up, but if you don’t actually sit in the chair, they’re just words.

Cindy and I were talking about another side to it. Because a relationship with God isn’t just like sitting in a chair. It’s like sitting in the most awesome chair EVER.

It’s so awesome, in fact, that we think we need to bring something to get the most out of it. We think we have to clean ourselves up and put the right clothes on before we can sit. We think we need a pillow or a good book to enjoy it properly. We think we have to add something to the chair so it will support us the way we want.

But God doesn’t care about all that stuff. He just wants us to sit!

A relationship with God is like the most perfect chair ever. It’s like a beanbag chair made out of masseurs! We don’t have to shower because it’s self-cleaning (it cleans you while it massages). We don’t need a pillow because no pillow in the world is more comfortable than this chair. We don’t need a book, because once we’re in this chair, we won’t want to do anything else.

In fact, anything we try to add to this chair will actually distract from it. The only thing we have to do is sit in the chair and relax with God.

Seriously. Try it.