It was a wonderful day.

 (What I said in my toast:) 

One night, when we were in probably ninth or tenth grade, Mary and I made lists of qualities we wanted in our husbands.

(Because it's what you do as a Christian teenage girl, okay?).

She wrote down,

"I want to marry the person I respect most in the world."

Six years later,

she told me they were starting to talk about marriage.

Like really talk about it.

Like maybe, this boy she'd been dating, he was the one she would marry.

I said,

"Well. Is he the person you respect most in the world?"

And she said,

"Absolutely."

 Congratulations, guys.

I was honored to stand with you.

I can't wait to see the next fifty years.

Today.

(PS: A word of advice. The night before your best friend's wedding, refrain from asking her fiance if you can raise their children should they die in a plane crash. Oops.)

My Mary.

Back on American soil. Bolivia was... just incredible... and I will post more next week (in the meantime, you don't want to miss Ash's post on our final adventure).

But this weekend I am in Maryland and it is all about supporting and celebrating my bestest friend and her boy.

I love this beautiful girl so much. Can't wait to rejoice with her on Sunday.

Pic: Us last month at her bridal shower. 

(PS: I spent the first week of this month camping in a national park.
The next two and a half weeks running around urban South America.
And the last 60 hours internationally traveling.
On Sunday I am the maid of honor in a country club wedding on the Chesapeake Bay.
My stylishness standards are gonna need to jump a few notches fast.)

Verónica's mom.

"That's Verónica's mom," they murmur to me, as we pull up to a small, garbage-filled park by a traffic circle. They nod at a tiny woman sitting on a bench with a group of men. She is dirty, tired-looking. I know her to be in her early thirties, but her size suggests she could be one of our girls; yet her drug-aged face suggests she has lived through decades more.

Verónica's mom?? Stories flood back to me...

***********

"Why is Verónica here? She's younger than the other girls we normally have."

"She doesn't have anywhere else to go." Gladys explained to me about Verónica's mom: a street girl herself, Verónica born when she was just fourteen. Verónica, as a baby and toddler, sleeping on the sidewalk on the street corners, as traffic screeched by and drunk men called out terrifying things, laughing.

"Verónica was referred to us at ten, and we keep her longer than most... she just doesn't have anywhere else to go."

"Do they have contact?"

"Yes. Sometimes. She's visited."

"Does she love her?"

Gladys paused. Her composure fell a bit.

"Yes. Yes, she loves her." She nodded. "She loves her... but... she doesn't know how to be a mom."

***********

"Hermano, why aren't the girls allowed to get phone calls at the house anymore?"

"We can't screen them all, to make sure they're good for them. Verónica, for instance. Her mom calls, sometimes. We used to let Verónica talk to her. But her mom would be drunk, or on drugs... or, often, she'd have just been beaten up by a boyfriend. And Verónica would cry and cry and want to go to her. She'd say she needed to go take care of her." 

It's our job to protect you, hija. We can't let you go to her. We know you love her, we know you want her to be okay. But it's not your job to protect her. It's our job to protect you. It's our job to keep you safe. Because we love you. We're sorry, hija. We can't let you go to her right now. We're so sorry.

***********

"Verónica, it's your turn to go on a date with me. Just you and me! We can go anywhere in the city you want. Where do you want to go?"

The other girls, on their turns, wanted ice cream, or the park nearby with swings and slides. They were giggly and chatty, excited to be out alone with a worker, excited for attention and a treat.

Verónica was quiet. We got in a taxi and she explained to the driver exactly where to go, in fast Spanish I couldn't follow. We got out in la Cancha, the open air market. Without hesitation, she led me through the stalls, past the stores, to a dark, less populated section I'd never been to before. She pointed to a small, faded sign advertising fried chicken, and we entered the restaurant. "My mom used to take me here when I was little."

It was dim and dank inside. The food was cheap, just pennies for our meal, really, and when it came it was stale and the worker didn't smile, just tossed it on the soiled table and walked away.

I tried to make conversation with her, ask her about school and friends, but, uncharacteristically, she was almost silent, giving me one-word answers. Eventually I gave up, and we just sat together. She ate slowly, staring around her at the surroundings. Drinking them in, I realized suddenly. Given anywhere in the city, she wanted to come back here. Where she used to come often, with her mom.

***********

Verónica, squeezing her eyes shut as she earnestly prayed out loud before a meal, thanking Papito Dios for how He provides for us. Verónica, begging to choose music to play as we did chores in the morning, always campaigning for reggaetón; Verónica, exlaiming, "Hermana! I have red hair dye! Can we streak your hair?".

Verónica, the girl who had been there the longest and who, though they'd never admit it, I think the staff think of most as their real daughter. Verónica, in Albergue the whole time I was on HNGR, and still there last summer when I came to visit. Eleven months ago, the day I flew away from Bolivia for the second time, she pressed a note into my hand at the airport. "Thank you Hermana Emily for spending time with us... I love you so much."

Verónica, now out of the house, working, finishing school. Verónica, living on her own in her very own apartment, but she comes back to visit every Sunday afternoon. Verónica, Gonzalo told me on this visit: "She broke the cycle. She used to want to go back to the streets. Now, when she has time to go 'home', she doesn't go to the streets anymore. When she needs something, she wants to come to Albergue."

***********

"That's Verónica's mom," they murmur to me, as we pull up to a small, dirty park by a traffic circle...

Verónica's mom... and though at our last stop on the streets, interacting with people unbathed and visibly drugged, I had felt uncomfortable and out of place, suddenly I am pushing out of the car, walking up to her, needing to see her face, to connect... Verónica's mom, and  I am suddenly reaching for her, introducing myself, looking deep into her eyes, somehow feeling like I owe her something, like I need to apologize. Most of all... I just want to know her. This woman... Verónica's mom.

I reach her, and then I stumble, falter. "Hola... me llamo Emily... yo conozco tu hija." I know your daughter.

She looks at me, nods. A slight, hazy smile, through a face I know to be aged by drugs, by street life, by more pain and less connection than probably I could imagine.

"Mi hija, conoces? Verónica es."

"Sí... Verónica... ella es muy preciosa a mi." Your daughter is precious to me.

I grab Asharae. "Ash. Can you take a photo of us? I want a photo with Verónica's mom."

Why? I don't know. This woman is the mother of someone I love. Someone I have gotten to have a tiny part in getting to care for. This woman standing in front of me, loves this girl we love... she loves her so much more than my twenty-three-year-old, childless heart can fathom. And yet we were the ones who got to raise her. I, a twenty-one-year-old American college student, got to feed her dinner and laugh with her and hear about her school day. I got to watch her pray before meals and see the results of her experiments with hair dye, got to hear her dancing to pop songs with her friends and giggling as she played tricks on Hermano Gonzalo.

I put my arm around Verónica's mom's shoulders. She grins at the camera, a gap-toothed, stoned smile.

"Gracias," I say to her, "Gracias,"... and I think I am thanking her for her daughter.

I'm sorry, I want to say, though I don't know why.

Because Albergue gets her now, and you don't. Not in the same way.
Because your life is this dirty park and these men who hit you;
because of the opportunities I've had, the life I was born into... someday when I have my babies I will get to raise them myself, but you didn't have anyone to teach you how to do that.

"Ella es muy preciosa a mi..." what else can I say to her? Why should she care what some young, American girl has to say about her child? "...I pray for your daughter."

She looks at me. Then looks away. "Sí... sí. Pray she will get off the streets. Not like me."

 ***********

"Does she love her?"

"...Yes. Yes, she loves her."

"Pray she will get off the streets. Not like me."

Gettin' my research on, Bolivia-style.

Godson on hip, and you can’t see it but the sweet girl answering the questions is doing so while nursing her two-month-old.

We are grateful to be called by You.

"...Give us courage for our different vocations,

and energy for our different Hope."

-Walter Brueggemann

On data collection, which is significantly harder than one would think!

"Do your best,

pray it will be blessed,

and let God take care of the rest."

-thanks, Keith Green.

And we feebly watch for You and wait.

"...Teach us how to weep while we wait,

and how to hope while we weep,

and how to care while we hope."

-Brueggemann

Sacred moments.

Tim, Asharae and I started our first Cochabamba morning sitting at the kitchen table for almost two hours, sipping coffee and talking.

I love listening to their reflections on photography and why capturing images of everyday life is so sacred to them.

Grateful for these friends; grateful to be here with them. Lovely start to my morning.

(our travel blog)

And this one time we flew to Bolivia.

Oh yeah so btw I'm in Bolivia. Did I mention?

It's sort of a long story. Basically, I got a grant from my school (I LOVE YOU FOX!!) to come down here to do a research project! (...and I am really, really excited about the research project, but yes, my first thought when I heard about the grant being available was "OMG FREE TRIP TO SEE EVERYONE!!!").

I'm looking at the factors affecting the girls' resilience: why can some girls thrive after our program, even after living through horrible traumas, and some we can't seem to reach no matter what we do??

A wise and lovely friend posted some about it here, along with her thoughts as a parent of children with early trauma backgrounds, on the importance of understanding resilience.

The hopes are that understanding what factors enable some girls to overcome their backgrounds, can help us to better reach all of them... please, Jesus.

And TIM AND ASH are going with me!!!!!!!!!!!

Tim grew up in Coch, they both speak Spanish and love Latin America, and we've always talked about how great it would be to all go down together. A casual text: "Wouldn't it be cool if we went to Bolivia together someday and you could take pictures of my girls?", "OMG yes, when?", "Well actually I'm applying for this grant...", crazy amount of details falling together, and... three plane tickets were purchased.

(More info here).

They will be photographing the girls and the staff, to tell and give dignity to their stories, to show the work Mosoj Yan does day in and day out to love on these precious children of God, and to also provide them with the pictures as means of raising awareness and funds.

So, yup. We met up in Miami, flew to La Paz, spent a crazy day there renewing passports after a stolen backpack (sad :-(), stayed one night in a hotel, and are now in the airport about to fly to Coch. Where the Mosoj Yan staff are picking us up from the airport.

I'M ABOUT TO SEE THE STAFF AND GIRLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And I'm with two of my favorite people.

And the air smells like Bolivia.

And I get to steward psychology and my opportunities to bless people that are so important to me.

This girl is thankful.

(Sleep deprived. But thankful.)

We are so appreciative of prayers- pray our projects will bless these girls and staff. Pray for safety and health. Pray all of us will know Him better.

We're keeping a tumblr here, which will exhibit much more frequent updates and also Ash's amazing photography.

xoxoxo

em

On the plane!

 

One of my all-time fave photos. At their wedding in 2010.

"Practice resurrection."

-Wendell Berry

a few more.

I love this pic. This was midway through a 12-mile hike, at the top of Shadow Mountain.

This is what we woke up to every morning.

 

Strong men, these! This was midway through an 8-mile hike two days after the 12-mile one. We're hard-core! (This is a replica of a picture taken of these two in a gorge in Canada in 2008).

Heather is so pretty.

True, deep friendships are an incomparable source of joy in my life.
So, so grateful for these!

Happiness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Four and a half days of this.

 Can't imagine much better.

Final Book List for Camping Trip

Camping in Colorado for five days with my best friends from college.

Hey, Emily...

Want to have five of your most favorite people in the whole entire world, all fly in to meet each other from five different states, to spend almost a week together with nothing to do but hike and talk and take pictures and play cards and journal and be together?

Why yes. Yes I do.

Yeah. That's happening. These people will all be there. And we will all be together.
GOING CAMPING. In Colorado (not the dangerous part).

I am SO happy about this.

 (Our two-years-ago (!! how did that happen) selves are saying,

"Wow, I really hope that even when we all live across the country from each other we'll still meet up in the summertime to go camping." Don't worry, graduating seniors, your future grad-schooling selves have your fun factor TOTALLY covered.)

(Oh yeah, and probably most people who read my blog also got my email.

But in case you didn't, immediately after Colorado I'm heading off for something else kind of fun. Crazy month for this girl...)

Out of a God of abundance...

"What does my faith require of me?

To be vigilant about justice,

to love boundlessly,

never to cease hoping,

and to be actively involved in the work of healing."

-Denise Ackermann,

in one of the books I would

most want for everyone to read

I read this quote at a perfect moment today.

I find both rest and reassurance,

and deep challenge in those words.