.what i learn.

(Repost from February 2011. Because it's all still true.)

Throughout college, almost every single prayer I heard Matt pray out loud started with, "God, we thank You that You are all good". He had never noticed this until I pointed it out. I know the exact inflection of how he would voice this phrase, and it was always filled with joy. I heard him pray this through times of deepest pain. Often still, when I don't know how to start praying, from habit if nothing else my voice or pen will start, "God, I thank You that You are all good...".


Mayr and I prayed together on the phone a few nights ago, for a long time. She called Him Father, easily, over and over, through our time together. I hadn't realized how little I do that lately.

She painted Psalm 139 for me before I left for Bolivia. The words slant across the page, her pen and ink flying around the borders. A prayer through her friendship and her art. I find myself praying every time I look at it, instantly, in its words and images and love.


Steve's theory is that an ideal ratio for friendship is two hours praying for someone for each hour you spend with them. He has taught me to pray deeper for other people more than almost anyone ever.

Often when this wise friend prays for me, even if I am with him, he prays silently. He prays for a long time, and when he's done, he will cock his head to one side and smile at me. I am used to people praying out loud when praying together, and this unnerved me; I asked him once, what did you pray? He grinned. Shook his head. "That's for me and Jesus." Months later I told him aching things God was teaching me, wounds that were being re-opened and healed deeper than they had been, love that was growing and pain I was getting more willing to embrace. He grinned wider. "That's what I prayed for."

I now value silent prayers over others more than spoken ones sometimes. The One who needs to hear them still does.


It takes a lot for me to let someone take care of me. I am never scared to call Mary Wolf and ask her to pray. I never feel stupid even if the prayer request seems small and if it reveals my neediness, my insecurities, my sin. She has never judged and she has never been too busy to pray. I sat at a table at Starbucks, alone, a week after my mother was diagnosed with cancer, feeling panic rise to where I wasn't sure how I would stay in my body. I called her at work. "I'm scared. Can you pray for me?" She did, on the phone, immediately, with no other explanation needed. "Thanks. I love you." We got off the phone. It lasted three minutes. I remember exactly where I was sitting, the feel of fighting the pressure in my chest, my hands digging into the phone. I remember biting my lip. I remember that after we hung up, I took a breath and went to class.


For the last year, almost every morning the first thing I hear is my phone buzzing to alert me to a text message. "Hi, Matty," I think. I get this text almost every day: "I just prayed for you. Let God ____"- a wish, a Scripture verse, something I'd asked him to pray for. At first this was sweet. Then this scary year, it was a lifeline. Now I find myself willing to share prayer requests I would never have thought to even ask for prayer for before, because I know someone is committed to praying for them.


"How can we spiritually support you?", Christine and Heath asked. We had prayed together easily and often throughout our years of dorm life, apartment life. I got back from HNGR and I did not know how to pray, and I did not know how to pray with them. So that semester, twice a week, we would find our way to a couch in the reading room. We would lean our heads on each other's shoulders and compliment each other's outfits, we would laugh and talk about our weeks. Then we would open the Bible- to anything- and read it out loud. Sometimes for half an hour, sometimes for five minutes. We heard His word, which is living and active, and it fell on us together. This time was our prayer offered up; we held each other and He held us.


I hear the Mosoj Yan's staffs voices when I think some realities and the theology I want cannot be held in the same cup. "Sí, Señor... sí, Señor". Their heads in their hands, their faces furrowed, their work amazing. Their faith strong.

.grateful down to the marrow of my bones.

i spent all morning at a clinic for farm workers

where i will be working one day a week

through this spring and summer.

hearing fast spanish flowing

makes my heart happier than i can say.

sitting in windowless exam rooms

and twenty-minute appointment slots,

all of a sudden

i couldn't breathe for gratitude

at where He has sent me...

for bolivia,

where i learned this language,

where i got this fire in my bones,

where i met the girls whose faces propel me.

for my year with head start,

where i fell in love with this population

and learned how i can serve and know Him in others,

right here.

for grad school,

where i am so privileged

to be learning,

which lets me get to do this work.

yes,

yes,

yes,

yes,

yes.

thank you for every single one.

for the homesickness

and the nightmares

and the faith crisis,

for the times in that wheaton year

that were long and lonely,

for the exhaustion

and frustrations

and my misfit in this academia world,

yes,

all worth it,

i would take them all again,

to be here, now, with them;

for all the places i can't believe i've gotten to be,

i thank you.

.to hold.

I'm in Texas for a week at a training in Trust-Based Relational Interventions for kids coming out of traumatic backgrounds.

Just listen to that title... trust-based, relational interventions.

Can you think of something better?

I'm so thankful to be here for more reasons than I can say

and my heart and mind are exploding all over the place.

(Some of you may be noticing this from the amount of texts you're getting from me hourly or so...

sorry, yall.)

As we learn how to create connection, presence, mindfulness, felt safety, nurture and structure, gentleness and playfulness,

I have been aching for a house of girls and the amazing staff who live out these principles in a city in Bolivia.

A re-post of something I wrote in February 2010,

when I had been back just weeks

and those faces were on my mind every minute of every day.

...I spent the last six months cuddling with 15 Bolivian teenage girls. Really. It is a big joke among my HNGR class that every single one of my twice-monthly assessment letters included at least something about physical touch. But trust me, to leave it out would not have given a good picture of my time. Of course, it makes grad school applications somewhat complicated. "Description of Clinical Experience: Please list job title and responsibilities". Responsibilities... um... is there a way to make "Rubbed backs and braided hair" sound professional?...

I loved it. I loved every minute. Bolivian culture involves a lot of physical touch; these girls in particular were way affectionate. And plus hugging doesn't require perfect Spanish. But, it felt more important than that.

Did, in holding these girls, I get to communicate to them that they were unconditionally accepted?
Touch can say so much more than words sometimes.

To feel held is such a big deal.

Did loving touch from the staff and from me communicate safety to them,

when before, physical contact had been a tool for their pain and harm?

Did they feel loved when we lightly touched their head or rubbed their back?

When we cupped their cheek or tucked their hair behind their ear?

Did they feel known, like they belonged?

Was it easier, then, for them to visualize the love of God that Gonzalo told them about in devotionals every morning,

Tino taught to them as he structured and organized their days, counseled them on work, disciplined them when necessary,

that Gladys led them to in their counseling sessions?

 

One girl I literally spent probably an hour every day just cuddling on the couch with. She was a shyer one. She took awhile to warm up to me. But once we became friends, about half-way in, she wanted to be leaning on my shoulder or laying quietly with my arm around her as I chatted and laughed with everyone in the living room as much as possible. Mosoj Yan threw a goodbye dinner for me two days before I left, but I had forgotten some stuff at the house and had to run back the next day to grab it. I was going to try to make it a really quick trip in because I didn't want to have to see everyone again and start crying... "Yes, that's a good idea, don't let the girls see you. Maria Eugenia cried the whole night after you left." What did I even do that would be that important to her? I held her.

We receive love by having material needs being met: Mosoj Yan gave them good meals, clothing, warm and safe beds. We receive love by having hope and a future: Mosoj Yan teaches them skills, counsels them that they are worthwhile, works to get them education. We receive love through words: encouragement; through memories: laughter, dancing, pizza parties, good conversations.

And, we are bodies. We are physical bodies with physical needs, with needs to be touched and held and loved physically.

At times when my language skills weren't enough

but even more than that my brain and heart failed to be able to communicate to them

how deep God's love for them is,

how much I hated what had been done to them,

every hope and dream I had for them...

I could lovingly touch them.

I could pray that as I held them they could receive that they were hold-able,

acceptable,

worth knowing and loving,

deserving of more than abuse.

What a privilege, to be able to hold.

Don't miss the amazing pictures Tim and Ash have been posting from our time with the girls at Mosoj Yan this summer.

Bolivia "teaser".

This is a two-minute preview video Tim put together from our Bolivia trip. It is absolutely beautiful. This is the house I did my six-month HNGR internship in. More video coming!!

I love all of it, but my favorites are the clips of their beautiful faces, starting at about 1:32.

In the meantime, Tim and Ash are starting to post Bolivia pics on their blog, so make sure to check in over there!!

Mosoj Yan Teaser from Tim and Asharae Kroll on Vimeo.

A reflection on 2009-2010.

In three days I will have lived in Oregon for exactly one year.

I've been pondering how to explain what these last twelve months have been for me.

I realized that without planning to, the last two summers I've done a write-up reflecting on the year before.

As I collect my thoughts and heart on the past year, it is good to reflect also where I was roughly this same time as I finished, first college, and then my first year out of college.

This was written in July 2010, seven months after returning from a six-month, completely life, faith, and self-changing internship in Bolivia, and five months after my mom was diagnosed with advanced and aggressive cancer.

Prayer this semester didn't look anything like what I have known it to look like before. I couldn't journal. I couldn't sit in a coffee shop and follow any train of thought long enough to feel like I was praying. The cheerfully-voiced and neatly patterned prayers I said with friends in the cafeteria before meals bore little to no resemblance to the way God and I were actually talking.

Me and Jesus, the me and Jesus we have been since I was 12, wasn't happening. I didn't know how to talk to Jesus in a world that lets little girls get raped and beaten and abandoned. Not in a fake, "Well, I just don't know how to talk to you if you're going to be like that" haughty way. I mean I literally did not know how to talk to Him in this new world in which I found myself. Sometimes I feel like my entire foundation that I stood on has been taken apart and put back together and I'm standing on something I don't even recognize. Now that I can breathe a little bit more I'm realizing that what I'm standing on is still pretty good. Sometimes I get these tiny glimpses that it might even be better. Stronger. But I had to learn how to do all these things on it that I knew how to do before, but the ways I knew how to do them don't work here. And the main thing that didn't work, was praying.

Praying with the expectation life is going to work out just beautifully didn't work. That sucked, but it was good. That was a wrong foundation I'd had. That's not how God works, and it's not how He's ever said He was going to work. I'm not sure why I thought otherwise, and it's been- it is- painful rearranging that. But it's good.

And, praying with the knowledge that God is good, didn't work. Because I wasn't so sure about that all the time anymore.
That sucked, and it wasn't good.

I didn't know how to pray without knowing that God is good, which means I didn't even know how to pray about the fact that I didn't know God was good. And so praying (and pretty much everything else, actually) felt terrifying.

So prayer this semester felt like it almost never happened. Because it didn't happen in any ways I had known to recognize.

Prayer this semester, instead of feeling like I was "keeping company with God", instead of quiet times in Starbucks or Caribou or long letters to God in my journal, was a lot of long walks, in the snow, by myself, with my iPod. Sometimes if it was cold or too late at night instead of walking it was driving, through my neighborhood, through the campus, going the speed limit and using turn signals, going slowly and mindlessly over the same route again and again as I tried to line my heart back up, in the quiet, for just a minute with the God I was missing.

Prayer was chopping vegetables. Really. So much so that I once heard a housemate confess to her boyfriend that she "kind of love[d] it when Emily gets depressed because we get a good soup". Prayer was hymns playing in the background as I focused on the purpose of peeling and chopping and stirring and found peace in the rhythm and the use of my hands.

Prayer was reading Rilke out loud before bed with my roommate and being able to, yes, line my heart up to these words. It was lighting a candle for five minutes at night as I asked God to bless the girls at Mosoj Yan- candle-lighting is something we did on the HNGR retreat which I found helpful.

Prayer was interceding for others, which I didn't do enough out of sheer laziness, but which by some beautiful miracle did not hold the difficulty that attempts at casual conversation with God did.

Prayer was and is, in an incredible gift of grace, the liturgy. It is going to church and saying and singing the same words every week, and in recent months being blessedly able to affirm them more and more. It is the gratitude that rises up in me that, in my inability to tell God these truths about Himself out of any spontaneity or warmth or even sense of friendship, I can sing them and raise my hands for an hour on Sunday mornings and get to tell Him them in that way. That I can find myself more and more knowing that I do believe these things, and that this liturgy, this church, is providing a way for me to affirm them before my own emotions or abilities are going to let me do so on my own. Oh, how grateful I am to get to praise God through words others have written and songs others are singing when my own heart is so confused and cold.

Prayer has been, greatly, others praying for me. That is something I think I underestimated the power of in these past seven months. People have prayed for me and that has been important.

Mostly as I have looked at myself and my interactions with God in the past seven months I have felt ashamed. Who am I to not pray? To not know how? To be so faithless? Clearly, to feel so far from prayer must mean I am far indeed. And how does this show gratitude to Mosoj Yan and the work they do?

But recently I have been realizing a bit more that it was a good thing for me to learn that prayer that does not look like journaling in a coffee shop and leaving with the feeling of peace, can still be prayer. That crying myself to sleep, God still heard me. That prayers lifted by others on my behalf and the behalf of my girls, do something powerful. And that if walking in the snow and chopping vegetables until my fridge was too full enabled me to be in front of God, then He was happy to meet me there.

I'm not very proud of how I lived the last seven months, but good things came out of them.

Mostly this year I felt like I couldn't pray. But maybe in His great and crazy mercy, He let me go for long walks and chop vegetables and rely on others' prayers, to teach me something about walking on without clarity or feelings of peace or any pride. Maybe He let me rely on the prayers of the church to teach me about the power of community worship, of the history of the big-C Church, of the importance of repetition for our souls, of the power that is in praising Him by choice and even by rote when we feel cold and dry.

I hope and pray that maybe in the long-term, these will be things that will let me see Him more.

Some words.

"I think it's good that you're experiencing the country and the girls in a different way.

You're getting to see every angle of this situation.

It seems holistic... in a really healthy way

to be approaching something like research from a place of love."

-Kendra

"...The combination of compassion with research

is much like the integration of head and heart we all try to balance.

Guess God is in both spheres.

He made both I believe."

-Paul
(small group host and one of my "Oregon dads")

"It is so good to see you

right where you're supposed to be-

being used by God how God wants to use you right now.

I'm encouraged and happy and excited to see it."

-Slagg

Lots of thoughts and prayers simmering for me,

as I spent time in Bolivia and now return to my Oregon life.

These words in recent emails from people I love and who know me

have clarified and encouraged my heart the last couple of weeks.

Bolds mine.

 Pic taken last month in yard of above-mentioned small group host,

as I picked cherries with his daughters and wife.
We then baked two pies.

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

Rape.

In the spring of 2010, an event was held at my school: Take Back the Night. Take Back the Night exists to raise awareness of sexual violence, to prevent it, and to decrease shame and isolation among survivors.

In my opinion, to work to remove shame and isolation is a holy calling. It is a picture of who God is, and it is His work. He makes broken things into beautiful. That is who He is.

At that point, I had been home about four months from my internship in Bolivia, where I had spent my days (and nights) hanging out in a group home with fifteen beautiful, hyper, joyful, crazy girls. Beautiful girls who had been hurt, objectified, made to serve others' evil whims, abused, raped. Adrienne, the president of the club organizing the event and a good friend, asked me if I would speak. I prepared and gave a short talk on a few themes of what I had learned: on our calling to watch out for those who are utterly unprotected; on redeeming physical touch.

An important part of the night is an open mike time, where people can step forward and share their stories. Of being hurt, of being objectified, made to serve others' evil whims, abused, raped. It is a safe space, and after each story is finished, together we all shout, "THAT'S NOT OKAY".

My clearest memory from that night, though, is not my talk, and it's not the open mike time. My clearest memory from that night is an upsetting one. It's not a bad memory, exactly. But it was jarringly painful to me when it happened and has been every time I've remembered it since- which, to be honest, has been often.

I walked away from campus after the program with one of my most beloved and respected friends. It had meant a lot to me that she had come, in the middle of the week in a busy semester; I knew it had been mostly because I was speaking and she wanted to support me.

We walked in the dark together, both silent. And then, after a few minutes, she told me that before that night she had not known that it is always not okay.

I do not have words to convey how much I love this girl, or how much I respect her. That day, and today, and every day in between. She has a heart which is more kind and humble than almost any I know. And, perhaps in large part because of my deep love and respect for her, I also cannot put into words how painful that statement was to hear.

The point of this isn't to share anger or shock or even pain. The take away from that interaction was that her information and therefore her opinion had changed. That is exactly the hope and the purpose of Take Back the Night. And, further proving my opinion of her, her life changed- immediately. As in, she went straight to her computer and wrote a letter to a friend conveying compassion.

I don't think I ever thought it was okay. But without Bolivia, would I know?

It is horrifying to me that there could ever, ever, ever be a question in our minds or a bit of indifference in our hearts about beautiful, beloved, image-of-God bodies and souls, and the protection they deserve.

I don't know everyone who reads this blog. I don't know your stories and I don't know if you think it might sometimes be a little bit okay. I don't know if you've ever had someone tell you that it was okay. It is not okay.

Removing shame and isolation is who He is.

(on prostitution.)

Send a Christmas card to a street kid in Seattle?

From one of the blogs that's had the biggest impacts on my life, an opportunity:

"Would you like to send a Christmas card to a street kid in Seattle?  This is a very simple opportunity to show love to the fatherless by extending kindness to a young person living on the streets – in a big city – where it rains all the time – in the winter – where it can be a dark and frightening place... Would you do a simple “mom task” for a street kid in Seattle?  You can Be That Mom by sending a Christmas card to a street kid that will be tucked into a backpack of supplies and passed out this month. "

More details here:  Be That Mom

Me with some of my faves:

1) I love Tim and Ash, 2) A long runway, and 3) Beautiful photos. (I have decided I love lists.)

I got to see two of my favorite people the other week!

(Dear Asharae, I am obsessed with your eyes. Love, Emily. PS I mean that totally non-creepily.)

 

1) Tim and Asharae, close friends of mine from Wheaton, moved to Seattle shortly after their wedding last summer. We have been eagerly texting all year about how great it would be when I joined them in the Pacific Northwest... and the day finally arrived!!

We met up at a town in Washington, found a random beautiful park,

and wandered the woods, laughed a lot, and (very normal for the three of us) sat and talked for hours.

It would be impossible to say everything I appreciate about these two (I tried a bit last year)... they are two of the most genuine people I know. They engage in life fully. Their marriage is beautiful and a privilege to behold. They are unfailingly kind. They are thoughtful and prayerful and wise and insanely, ridiculously encouraging (and I know a LOT of encouraging people). Whenever we hang out I always leave feeling strengthened to seek and love God and to be myself.

2) As we talked I ended up sharing a LOT with them about some of my thoughts and feelings and tentative hopes and concerns about entering a five-year program.

I am so excited to put whole-heart-mind-body-engagement into this education.

Into studying and practicing and pouring myself into learning these skills- out of true hope that it is the best way to steward the gifts God has given me. That it will enable me to serve Him and others in the long-term.

But still. There is this tension...

of memories of laughing and dancing with these sweet girls and praying over them as I tuck them into bed.

Of my arms that long to hold babies that need love.

Of so many needs everywhere-

and I'm burying myself in textbooks in a coffee shop??!

Really? Really, this is not the most selfish and ridiculous thing ever?

They talked to me about the concept of "a long runway"- something they learned about this past year. The idea that God is preparing us all the time and we don't know how He's going to use us in the long-term.

We try to serve Him each day, and we also hold our present with the idea that it may be "a runway"- work and preparation happening in our life and heart and skills, for something in the future we don't know yet.

And sometimes it's "a long runway". They reminded me of that idea.

I'm still mulling on the concept and it will probably turn into its own post at some point. In any case, I was so encouraged by their words and their affirmation of where I am right now. I left feeling strengthened.

3) They run their own professional photography business and they are incredible at it. If you need anything done in the Seattle area through the fall or the Raleigh, NC area after that (or they travel!), I cannot recommend them highly enough.

Gotta love hanging out with friends who can make a walk in the woods turn into this:

 

(I stole their camera and took some of them, too, because as you can see they're way too cute to always be behind it.)

 

I love you guys SO much! Thank you for letting me into your life... thanks for loving on me soooooo much... I am so happy we are in the same region :-).

 

 

 Ah, friendship. You are my favorite.

(All images are Asharae Marie Photography. Yay!)

.nuestro Dios todo lo suplirá.

I sent this email to some close friends today. I'm never sure who's reading here, so thought I'd post it here too...
<3

Hey friends,

Lauren H., who is the current intern at Mosoj Yan, my organization in Bolivia, wrote this blog post this week. It captures beautifully, and painfully, some of the battles we fight for our girls there, and the lives they have been through.

I was incredibly moved by her words and reminded to be praying for these girls. I've been thinking a lot about how... eternal... (sorry, I don't know how to make this non-Christian-ese-y) the work they do at that home is. I was so so so so blessed and reminded of that in my two weeks there this summer. Just that they are truly loving girls who ARE "the least of these".
That the staff are doing work, not because it is fun or easy or what they want to be doing all the time, but because it is what they are called to, the purpose for which they think the Lord made them.

I've been thinking a lot about how much these girls matter to God, even if no one else knows their names. And what holy work it is to work for loving even the tiniest, least significant-in-the-world's-

eyes life.

On her blog Lauren invited her friends and family to fast and pray on Thursdays with her for the girls and I am going to take that challenge. I wanted to ask a favor- that you would consider joining in that. To be honest, I am not planning on fasting from food. I'm not sure what yet, probably the computer, which is maybe really stupid but so far every time I've fasted from food it's just been disastrous and I figured it was more important that I at least do something (because too often when I fast from food I end up giving up and not fasting at all).

I truly hope this does not feel like a guilt trip and I will never ask if you do it (and wouldn't be upset if you didn't!). But you have all been a big part of my life/Bolivia journey and I wanted to invite you in on this part too.

Please know how much of my journey to those girls and their place in my heart and life and prayers is due to each of your HUGE RIDICULOUS INSANE investment in my life. Your prayers and love on me has truly touched girls in Bolivia who you will probably never meet. Which I think is really cool. Yay for life and friendships and love.

Thank you so much for your prayers- love you guys!!!
Em

Our girls.

Please read Lauren's blog post today-

and please pray with us for God's protection over these precious girls.

...mi oración en el desierto, cuando todo en nosotros seco está

mi oración en la necesidad

mi Dios todo lo suplirá

mi oración en la batalla, cuando el triunfo no puedo ver
somos coherederos y conquistadores , en Cristo permaneceremos

Te alabaré , Te alabaré , contra nosotros nada prevalecerá
Me gozaré , declararé...
Dios es mi triunfo y Él está aqui.

    

Lauren Is Beautiful.

  

I love, love, loved getting to spend time with the lovely Lauren during her HNGR internship while I was in Bolivia.

She is doing an INCREDIBLE job loving on the girls, using her gifts of energy, warmth, "RA-ness", hard work and kindness to brighten their days and light up their lives. They adore her.

And even during times when it was stressful...

(This was us post running the house alone for a full weekend) 

 ...I absolutely LOVED getting to love on these girls with her.

 

I enjoyed and learned so much from her wisdom, thoughtfulness, desire to serve and strength of faith and character. And she is just really fun, great to stay up late pillow-talking with, and makes me laugh a LOT. It was such an amazing blessing to process stuff with her and be a part of her HNGR journey.

Thank you so much for loving on me and letting me into your time down there, Lo! I love you!

Check out her Cochabamba life and what she is thinking about here.