This past June I faced the unique
experience of traveling to the U.S. twice in one month! Dates and
commitments worked out in such a way that, after over a year of not
visiting the U.S., I made both a personal and a ministry motivated
trip within a week of one another!
These back-to-back experiences, the
activities in which I engaged, the people with whom I traveled and
the amount of time spent in the U.S. led to some interesting
feelings, challenges, blessings and lessons!
For the first trip, (Lord willing I can share about the second trip another time), was a personal trip to
Florida on which our three biological children accompanied me, which
represented the first time I have traveled with just the three of
them ever! The legal status of our other children makes it
impossible for them to travel outside of Mexico and, not wanting to
emphasize that difference, we had never made such a trip before. Time and circumstances, the Lord's peace and His provision, provided the opportunity to visit my parents in their new retirement location near my brother's place in Florida. What a joy to experience Grandpa and Grandma's (Dave and Diann
Claassen's) new home, visit Uncle Dan and Aunt Teri and cousins, as
well as have so many great experiences with Josiah, Caleb and Ruth;
but, just as my heart rejoiced as I sat at the Mexico City airport
waiting for our flight to Tampa, my heart broke by not having the
opportunity to experience those same joys with ALL of my children! Can't wait for Heaven....no borders, no passports, no visas, no guardianship papers!
Despite the fact that Grandpa and
Grandma live quite close to Disney World, we didn't even need to
visit there because doorbells, mailboxes and water fountains provided more
than sufficient entertainment!
You see, several of those apparatuses,
while they may exist in urban areas in Mexico, do not have a use
where we live! Doorbells? Due to the warm climate (rarely ever
below 50 degrees Farenheit nor above 75 degrees Farenheit), our doors
stand open most of the day! Since we live on the top of a hill, we
can see, and hear, visitors driving up the road long before they can
even see the house! No doorbells for us! (Unless our two Saint Bernards count as doorbells...they certainly advise us of any visitors!)
However, Caleb became fascinated with
Grandpa and Grandma's doorbell! Every time, and I mean every time,
he left the house he would ring the doorbell before coming back in! He even started going outside just so he could ring the doorbell! Eventually, whenever the doorbell rang, my mom and I would look at
each other, laugh and say, “It's Caleb!”
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| Caleb in front of Grandpa and Grandma's house...ready to the ring the doorbell! |
Mailboxes? Here in Mexico our mailman comes directly
to our home, on a motorcycle, only when we have mail...which is
usually once a month when our phone bill arrives! Ruth loved Grandpa and Grandma's mailbox! Most days we would go someplace as a family....to a park,
to the zoo, to the store, but, as soon as we would get home, Ruth
would make a beeline to the mailbox! She became especially excited
when Grandma asked her to mail a letter and explained about raising
the little red flag!
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| Josiah riding bike in front of Grandpa and Grandma's house...and I see a mailbox! |
Water fountains? These definitely do
not exist in Mexico as the water is not generally safe to drink. So,
everywhere we go we have to take along water bottles. With a family
of 20, that results in a lot of water bottles! Josiah found it a
relief, and rather fascinating, that we didn't take along water
bottles because there would be water fountains....at the store, in
the park, at the zoo, at church, in the library! We all knew that
wherever we were, Josiah would scout out the nearest water
fountain....and be sure to try it out!
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| Water fountain time! |
My heart ached with a certain
melancholy, a certain longing, a certain sadness, yet a certain
entertainment and joy to watch my kids be thoroughly enraptured by
doorbells, mailboxes and water fountains....three items that formed
such a normal part of my growing up that I never even gave them any
thought!
Those three items became symbols to me
of the “left behind” as a result of obediently following God's
call on my life to Mexico. As a parent, part of raising kids is
sharing with them things that formed a part of who you were as a
child and young person. Watching my kids' fascination with
doorbells, mailboxes and water fountains, I had to come face to face
with how different their lives are compared to my life at their
age...not bad, just really different! Heck...they speak two
languages and love hot sauce...two things I didn't know existed until
I was 16!
I would never, ever consider not
following God's purposes for my life, nor regret having done so, just
to have a doorbell, a mailbox and some water fountains around.
However, those funny little things did cause a tinge of nostalgia in
my heart (not to mention the bike riding around the block!).
I wonder if Jesus ever felt nostalgia?
Did anything here on earth ever remind him of streets of gold, or
angels' voices or living among the cosmos....that He created? Did
Jesus ever miss the throne or His Father's immediate presence? Did
he ever tire of dusty feet or a grumbly tummy that required
sustenance several times a day, rather than His self-sustaining
Heavenly existence?
I don't know. But, I think I can come
to the conclusion that if we are to obey Almighty God's purposes, if
we desire to be used to shine His light among others' darkness, if we
hope to live a life that goes beyond our breathing years on this
planet, then we might have to give up doorbells, mailboxes and water
fountains, or maybe even streets of gold and angelic choruses'.
Is Jesus calling you to give up any of your own doorbells, mailboxes or water fountains?
"In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!"
Philippians 2:5-8
