One year ago today, I was in Lima looking for some of our students’ parents. As I walked amongst the rows of identical, green houses, I saw this little guy, sitting all alone in the dirt. He had no pants on, and he was filthy. I asked some kids running by if they knew his name. Leo, they told me. I knew nothing else about him, but I remember leaving the village thinking how wonderful it would be to see Leo at Freedom one day.
Guess what? This week, Krista delivered Leo’s very first sponsor letter to him right there in front of his house! He didn’t completely understand what was going on, but he paused and gave the tiniest of grins when he saw the picture of his sponsor family.
I’m excited to see how Leo’s little life will be impacted in the months and years to come. While he’s undoubtedly endured some hardship already in the few years he’s been alive, he’s also got a lot of people in his corner. Sponsors, missionaries, and teachers are already advocating for him in some special ways.
Maybe in another year or two, I can share his adorable, round face again. We’re praying this sweet man learns what it means to love God with all that He has.
Sunday marked twelve years of marriage for Scott and I! Wow. My cliche saying of choice is “time flies,” and I use it pretty much every day. I decided to get out the family photos this year, and I thought I’d share a few here!
The following pictures may show smiling faces, sundry memories, and varying lengths of hair on Scott’s part, but there have been hard times, too. Both the good and the difficult have drawn us closer to each other and to the Lord. Looking forward to the next 12 years!
2008
College days
Engaged!
The soon-to-be in-laws invited me to surprise Scott on a family vacation!
Married!
2009
July 4th celebrations
Fishing with friends
2010
One last vacation before baby #1 arrived
We added this cute little guy to the mix
2011
Kisses for the little man
Local baseball game fun
2012
We moved to a foreign country! Hanging in the villages.
Leyton joined the family in February! He missed the “open-your-mouth-in-family-photos” memo.
2013
Funny how most of our pictures have shifted from us to the kids. 🙂
Visiting in Piñones
2014
Visiting family friends on furlough
Cubs/Reds game!
2015
Here comes Caleigh-gal!
Stealing my bed at the hospital!
2016
The fam complete!
2017
Lucky gal
Furloughs = lots of traveling. At least it’s with my favorite people!
We’ve crossed the halfway point of 2020! This past month, our team was excited to get back out to the villages as restrictions have begun to lift oh.so.slowly. I personally spent most of my time behind my computer screen as lesson planning continues, but the boys have been in the bateys each morning helping with school – social distancing style, of course. Here’s our June in 30 photos!
My 3 masked bandits
We finished up MK school a few weeks ago
Sad to see Josiah and Sydney head home!
Noah and Leyton made maps of Germany in class
I’ve been on a cookie kick recently, but very little dough actually makes it into the oven… Oops!
Some of our Dominican teachers returned this month!
Leyton in Piñones with Jade and Isabel
Hermes with his small group in Lima
The Ramon Santana crew
Kris continues his carpentry project for the new apt. building
The Hilgemans’ 10-year-anniversary in the DR happened this month!
Becky planned a fantastic potluck for the team!
The soup/bread/pasta salad bar was delicious!
The littles performed a song they learned in school.
We love our Freedom fam!
Just one of the new cuties that will join the PK3 class for the new year!
This guy’s leaning truck could stand for a trip to the mechanic…
Caleigh with her buddy, Bacon
Scott had a birthday! Abby cooked her amazing rice and carne, and Rach hosted a fun, at-home escape room!
This little one is loving her “nature walks”
And this little one visited me one morning in my office!
Becky snagged this amazing shot of one of our 4’s, Marilianni
Happy Father’s Day!
More nature walk fun with Rach
Our watchman has some baby bunnies!
These kids would kill for an indoor pet.
Hoppity!
We’ve been putting together some resource packets for our Change a Life Champions!
Mixing cookie dough. Training up a child in the way she should go. 🙂
Less time to read this past month, but still thankful for each minute!
I started another book that was gifted to me for my birthday: Cilka’s Journey. This sequel to The Tattooist of Auschwitz follows the experiences of a young girl named Cilka, a secondary character from the first book. While Cilka was a fictional character who dealt with a ton of trauma from her experiences, my mind often wandered to those who actually endured these horrific atrocities. Cilka was shipped off to a Siberian worker camp the day everyone was liberated from Auschwitz. I think I would’ve lost hope. To be honest, Morris is not my favorite author – her writing style and excessive use of language are simply not my cup of tea.
If you’re not a history buff, you probably won’t enjoy this one. I’ll admit – it took me awhile to “get into it.” There’s no way I’ll remember all the historical details that were presented in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee with just one read-through, but I’m glad I finished it. Wow – much bloodshed, lies, and deceit on both sides of the battles that took place between the Indians and the whites who were moving westward. Hard to reconcile the wonderful ideals upon which our beautiful country was founded with the terrible actions of many of the men in the government and the military – even clergy. I loved that each chapter opened with a page of important events and facts from around the world. It helped me “fill more holes” in my understanding of history. I also appreciated the occasional glimpse of men from both cultures valuing and loving others even if it meant sacrificing something important to them.
I moved forward in a few other books as well. Here are some thought-provoking quotes that caught my eye!
"To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good," wrote Solhenitsyn.1
It makes my heart sick when I remember all the good words and broken promises...2
Oh, my brothers, the Almighty looks down on me, and knows what I am, and hears my words. May the Almighty send a good spirit to brood over you, my brothers, to move you to help me.2
There was no hope on earth, and God seemed to have forgotten us... -Red Cloud2
When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream...2
One fault, one crime, and one crime only, can rob the United Nations and the British people, upon whose constancy this grand alliance came into being, of the victory upon which their lives and honour depend. A weakening in our purpose and therefore in our unity - that is the mortal crime.3
We do not war primarily with races as such. Tyranny is our foe, whatever trappings or disguise it wears, whatever language it speaks, be it external or internal, we must for ever be on our guard....3
...I have recorded two characteristics of his which seemed to me invaluable in those days: first, his power to live in the present yet without taking short views; and secondly, his power of drawing from misfortune itself the means of future success.3
"When the heart sees what God wants," Oswald used to say, "the body must be willing to spend and be spent for that cause alone."4
I'm going away from my home now, like a bird leaving an old nest.... Here I have drunk in God, here I have prayed, here I have wept, here I have worked, here I have agonized, and now, Farewell home! I smile because of all you know and have seen, God has known and seen too. How grand, you'll never tell the secrets whispered by me in the ear of God, and God's whispered words in mine....4
1Cilka’s Journey, Heather Morris 2Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Dee Brown 3Churchill: The Power of Words, edited by Martin Gilbert 4Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God, David McCasland
Is quarantine over yet? We’re missing our students something fierce! Can’t wait ’til we can all be together again. Until then… here’s another month of isolation pictures!
Rachel threw a princess party for the little Freedom gals!
Rainy trampoline fun
We continue to introduce the boys to new board games. They aren’t fans of Carcassonne… yet.
New recipes during quarantine!
The view from our camp fellowship building. Breezy and peaceful!
My Mother’s Day coloring page from Cal!
We think Leyton will always be the cuddler and caretaker of the fam.
Walking home from church!
Proud of our growing girl!
Didn’t capture photos, but Leyton and Noah wrote me stories for Mother’s Day! Thanks for helping them, Mia!
Eight more apartment units going up!
Caleigh learning how to tally in preschool
Making germs!
Estaylin is growing up! Hard to believe I taught this little man back in Kindergarten!
Leyton with his brain project
The 4 Amigos
What awesome kiddos
Everybody has pitched in to teach during this time! Abby with the younger boys.
Adding another ground-level classroom that will be the new battery room for now.
Jade is awesome! She joined the construction crew for a day to help meet a deadline.
Hauling slurry buckets up four levels is a workout!
Sweet flower gal
Dishes crew
Somebody has stolen momma’s cup!
We defeated Pandemic – during the pandemic!
We’ve loved joining some MD friends for online games!
Noah is really enjoying cooking dinner with Mom
Pineapples can double as decorations, right?
Jade treated us to a coffee drink on a recent Capital trip to pick up some medical results and do some car maintenance.
Ang has been making lots of Spanish worksheets and lesson plans for teacher training!
Thanks for your continued prayers and support! Until next time!
Two sweet missionary friends (one who lives right next door, and one who lives halfway around the world) have been telling me for quite awhile that I absolutely had to read Stepping Heavenward by Elizabeth Prentiss. They weren’t wrong! This fantastic book, first published in 1869, is a coming-of-age story – journal style – that traces a young girl’s life as she grows up, starts a family, and deals with life’s various hardships and struggles. Prentiss so artfully shares how Katherine falls more in love with Jesus each day. The language and cadence may be difficult to grasp at first (it’s a 150-year-old work after all), but I wholeheartedly recommend this book!
I also worked through The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure. The authors, Lukianoff and Haidt, while operating from a pragmatic point of view, make some excellent points about the culture of “safetyism” that is overtaking America today. As far as I can tell, these two gentlemen are not believers. While they’ve missed the wonderful difference Jesus could make if He were invited into the conversation, they do a great job identifying problems and trends in our country, and they recognize that, as a nation, we must value truth more than comfort.
The Tattooist of Auschwitz was a birthday gift! This story falls into my favorite genre. I finished the book contemplating the various decisions each of these characters was forced to make to stay alive. Are there any instances when compromise is OK? What happens when personal decisions affect the lives of others? This story is certainly not a pretty one, but I continue to be drawn to the experiences of those who lived through the atrocities that Hitler unleashed. (From a writing standpoint, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m old-fashioned. Novels written in the present tense usually tend to annoy me. Overall, I was much more impressed with the survival story upon which the book was based than the actual writing. Five stars for storyline, 1 star for delivery.)
Below are some favorite excerpts I read this month!
We are all very happy together when nothing goes wrong.1
I came away, and all the way home I fought this battle with myself, saying, "He loves me!" I knelt down to pray, and all my wasted, childish, wicked life came and stared me in the face. I looked at it, and said with tears of joy, "But He loves me!" Never in my life did I feel so rested, so quieted, so sorrowful, and yet so satisfied.1
Then I began to hem those handkerchiefs Mother asked me to finish a month ago. But I could not think of anything to do for God.1
I see that if I would be happy in God, I must give Him all. And there is this wicked reluctance to do that. I want Him--but I want to have my own way, too. I want to walk humbly and softly before Him, and I want to go where I shall be admired and applauded. To whom shall I yield? To God? Or myself?1
I wish I did not take such violent likes and dislikes to people. I want my religion to change me in every respect.1
"...the first thing you have to do is learn Christ." "But how?" "On your knees, my child, on your knees!"1
If Christ do all, what am I to do?1
It is easy, in theory, to let God plan our own destiny, and that of our friends. But when it comes to a specific case we fancy we can help His judgments with our poor reason.1
Instead of fancying that our ordinary daily work was one thing and our religion quite another thing, we should transmute our drudgery into acts of worship...1
...if I had been told what I was to learn through these protracted sufferings I am afraid I should have shrunk back in terror and so have lost all the sweet lessons God proposed to teach me. As it is He has led me on, step by step, answering my prayers in His own way; and I cannot bear to have a single human being doubt that it has been a perfect way. I love and adore it just as it is.1
We can all be more thoughtful about our own speech, but it is unjust to treat people as if they are bigots when they harbor no ill will.2
"I don't want you to be safe ideologically. I don't want you to be safe emotionally. I want you to be strong. That's different. I'm not going to pave the jungle for you. Put on some boots, and learn how to deal with adversity."2
... Americans are now motivated to leave their couches to take part in political action not by love for their party's candidate but by hatred for the other party's candidate. Negative partisanship means that American politics is driven less by hope and more by the Untruth of Us Versus Them. "They" must be stopped, at all costs.2
Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child.2
Having people around us who are willing to disagree with us is a gift. So when you realize you are wrong, admit that you are wrong, and thank your critics for helping you see it.2
... thinking is social. As lone individuals, each of us is not terribly smart, for we are all prone to cognitive distortions and the confirmation bias. But if you put people into the right sorts of groups and networks, where ideas can be shared, criticized, and improved, something better and truer can emerge.2
He must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see that some great purpose and design is being worked out here below, of which we have the honour to be the faithful servants.3
1Stepping Heavenward, Elizabeth Prentiss 2The Coddling of the American Mind, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt 3Churchill: The Power of Words, edited by Martin Gilbert
Has it been scientifically proven yet that time moves faster the older you get? Either way, April 2020 is in the books – just like that. Have these 30 photos of our month in quarantine!
Leyton is the cuddlebug of the fam
Freedom work day!
Our MK’s got in on the workday action
Eliangel’s cheesy grin melts hearts!
By the end of the day, the tarantula count was somewhere around 12!
One of our bigger friends hiding under the grass piles
Learning new board games
Katie teaching the littles all about butterflies
Reading the Easter story together
Cal’s got two handsome bodyguards
Jason and Pam fixed us another scrumptious Easter breakfast!
Happy Easter!
Little Gracie took some selfies for me
College pals celebrating Easter on a tropical island during a global pandemic. Times are strange.
Coloring in the rock garden
Testing Newton’s laws of motion
Bubbles!
Noah absolutely loved his class on Ezekiel
The Hilgemans surprised us with iced coffee one morning. Day made.
Just 4 girls trying to do a 2-week grocery run for our families. It took 5 hours!
That’s a lot of groceries! Our bag boys graciously posed after all their hard work.
Spirograph fun
Feeling proud of my first time regrowing green onion
Pretty avocado colors.
Making cars
Swinging sweeties
Heather’s getting married! I think our team should’ve won the “Design the Dress” competition with our Corona veil.
Testing flight patterns
This little guy decided to visit my classroom one afternoon.
Mia getting in a workout and helping out the construction crew all at once.
Zipped through some fiction books this month and made progress on a few of my non-fiction reads.
One of my favorite librarians left me Things I Never Told You on her last visit to the DR. I enjoyed reading about these three sisters who work through their broken relationships and try to process their fourth sister’s death. (From a writing standpoint, I’m still not sure how I feel about the switching between first and third person, but it didn’t bother me enough to quit reading.) Not a 5-star read, but I liked it enough to purchase the second of the Thatcher Sisters trilogy for a couple bucks on my Kindle.
Moments We Forget, book #2 in the aforementioned series by Beth Vogt, continues the story of the Thatcher sisters, focusing on Jillian and her battle with cancer. I liked “getting to know” the three girls better. It was cool watching another sister become interested in developing a relationship with the Lord.
More than a Carpenter is a classic read that I’m not sure I’ve ever picked up before. This new edition was co-written by Josh and Sean McDowell; the study questions were well-thought through. This is a great read for new believers or anyone curious about Christianity.
Candle in the Darkness by Lynn Austin was my favorite read this month! I downloaded this piece of historical fiction awhile back, and it’s been sitting dormant on my Kindle for several years. I accidentally opened it a couple weeks ago and thought, “Why not give it a try?” Ended up loving it. The characters were fantastic, Caroline’s slave Eli being a favorite. (I was reading this simultaneously with Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a non-fiction book about the same time period but focused on events out West. Neat to see Lincoln mentioned in both. I was able to make some more big-picture connections in American history.) I know life doesn’t always bring the happy ending for everyone, but it felt good to see things resolve after so much conflict/loss.
I tried awful hard to pare down my favorite thoughts/quotes from this month, but I wasn’t very successful. Skip them if you must.
How did forgiveness work? The divine interacting with the less-than of mankind. How did the supposed goodness of God not get overpowered by the world’s darkness?1
Mark Twain said this--'I've had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.'2
But maybe...maybe faith wasn't so much about believing enough. Being enough. Maybe faith was realizing the truth of who God was, and what He promised, was enough for all her doubts.2
Forgiveness always has a price.3
As G.K. Chesteron says, 'The purpose of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to close it again on something solid.'3
Christianity is not a religion; it's not a system; it's not an ethical idea; it's not a psychological phenomenon. It's a person. If you trust Christ, start watching your attitudes and actions because Jesus Christ is in the business of changing lives.3
'He put us where we are for time being and give us a job to do. And even if I can't see a reason why, I gonna do this job for Jesus. I gonna love white folks, whether they love me back or not, 'cause that's what Jesus tell me to do.'4
'Seem like a mighty hard thing to change someone's mind,' he said. 'Most folks won't change their mind unless they have a change of heart first.'4
'Some of these men never once thought about Jesus their whole life,' he said. 'But they crying out to Him now cause they hurt and afraid. Jesus wants to answer them. He wants to help that poor dying boy out there, but the only arms and the only voice He has is ours.'4
'Can't never go by your feelings. Got to go by the word of the Lord.'4
'I won my freedom long before the Yankees came,' Josiah said quietly. 'I was free the moment I picked you up and decided to forgive Missy Caroline and her daddy. You can start living as a free man, too, once you forgive...."4
Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured. But I fear - I fear greatly - the storm will not pass... There is no chance of a speedy end except through united action.5
You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: it is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.5
There are vast numbers not only in this island but in every land, who will render faithful service in this War, but whose names will never be known, whose deeds will never be recorded. This is a War of the Unknown Warriors...5
Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.5
Be of good cheer. The hour of your deliverance will come. The soul of freedom is deathless; it cannot, and will not, perish.5
Goodnight then: sleep to gather strength for the morning. For the morning will come.5
'There are bad white men and bad Indians,' [Black Kettle] said. 'The bad men on both sides brought about this trouble.'6
If you see yourself or your fellow students as candles, you'll want to make your campus a wind-free zone.7
A culture that allows the concept of 'safety' to creep so far that it equates emotional discomfort with physical danger is a culture that encourages people to systematically protect one another from the very experiences embedded in daily life that they need in order to become strong and healthy.7
1Things I Never Told You, Beth K. Vogt 2Moments We Forget, Beth K. Vogt 3More Than a Carpenter, Josh and Sean McDowell 4Candle in the Darkness, Lynn Austin 5Churchill: The Power of Words, edited by Martin Gilbert 6Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Dee Brown 7The Coddling of the American Mind, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
Not sure how to describe this last month – bizarre, perhaps? While some events were unexpected, the last few weeks have also been full of incredible blessings! Here’s our March in 31 pictures!
Mery with 3rd graders at their first weeklong camp!
Love that these kiddos can dig into God’s Word!
Elementary art show!
Students judged their classmates’ artwork!
Neat to see their creativity coming out.
Ms. Lizzy reading to 2nd graders!
A 1-day VBS in Lima, where it all began.
Miguel and his older sis Miguelina attend school with us!
Proud pre-schoolers!
Becky captured these fun colors/textures on the construction site.
Everybody loves “Baby Ana” who is growing up fast!
A team did some landscaping around the apartments a few months ago! So nice to come home to this!
Ang continued to spend mornings with teaching staff in training sessions.
Olga, Lillian, Marielys, and Jane working on an assignment.
On the way home from the store, we saw these guys putting up a mosaic.
Bummer – one of Mom’s new plates broke!
All smiles as we head over for our rabies vaccinations!
Waiting in line at the local hospital
Despite Scott’s face, this lady did an excellent job!
Noah likes to take a turn at drawing – here’s his attempt at the Celtics’ logo
There are just some strange creatures around here.
Noah working on his homework packet now that school’s out
Our kids are really beginning to enjoy board games! Yay!
People often ask me what I miss most about life in the States. Family and Kroger’s ice cream aisle are pretty high up there, of course. But – nerd alert – I think the library would make my “Top 10” list as well!
The last few weeks, I’ve been reminiscing about the endless hours I spent as a young girl in our public library. (There is a literal ache in my chest when I think of that place!) I absolutely attribute my deep love of reading to my camping out at the library. I felt such a sense of wonder every time I walked into the main atrium of whichever branch we decided to visit on a particular afternoon. It was almost overwhelming for my indecisive little heart – which section should I peruse first? Sometimes I’d stand there amongst the rows of books, not really searching for anything in particular. Just being in the middle of all that knowledge and fun excited me!
It hurts not to have that same access to physical books. I can’t check out a giant pile of good reads (with my very own library card, of course). There are no weekend trips to listen to an author do a read-aloud. While my kids humor me by taking part in reading challenges at home, it’s not the same as going through our library’s summer reading program. I’m much more thankful these days when I get my hands on a good book, and my Kindle quells the sadness a bit, too.
I’ve digressed. I’m supposed to be sharing about my March reads.
This month, I finished Paul David Tripp’s book, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family. To be completely honest, I’ve been feeling a lot of “mom guilt” recently in regard to how I handle my growing kiddos and their various struggles. One of my biggest takeaways from this book was the reminder that, while I have the incredible responsibility to be an ambassador of God’s love, grace, mercy, and discipline, my children will ultimately be changed as they choose to walk with Him. My biggest criticism of Parenting is how repetitive it felt. Tripp could’ve gotten his point across in half the number of pages. Overall, I’m glad I read it – I was able to slow down and think intentionally about how I can better draw my babies toward Jesus in each precious, mundane moment.
Awhile ago, I was talking about The Boxcar Children series with Krista, a fellow missionary. I was fairly obsessed with those books at one point in my childhood. Freedom’s school library has a few of them in English, but I wanted to read the first one aloud to my kiddos to set the stage. I was elated when Krista told me her girls owned a copy! This month, Noah, Leyton and Cal were forcibly introduced to the enchanting world of Henry, Jessie, Violet and Benny. Such fun – for me, at least!
Below you’ll find a few of my favorite quotes of the month.
Since change is most often a process and seldom an event, you have to remember that you can't look for a dramatic transformational conclusion to your encounters with your children. 1
What kind of picture are your children getting of God's authority by the way you exercise yours? 1
It's not your weaknesses that you should fear, but your delusions of strength. 1
Parenting is about the willingness to live a life of long-term, intentional repetition. 1
If the mind developed through blind, material process of Darwinian evolution, then why should we trust it at all? Why should we believe that the human brain--which was the outcome of an accidental process--actually puts us in touch with reality? 2
What does national unity mean? It surely means that reasonable sacrifices of Party opinions, personal opinion, and Party interest should be made by all in order to contribute to the national security. 3
It is curious how the English-speaking peoples have always had this horror of one-man power. They are quite ready to follow a leader for a time, as long as he is serviceable to them, but the idea of handing themselves over, lock, stock and barrel, body and soul, to one man, and worshipping him as if he were an idol; that has always been odious to the whole theme and nature of our civilisation.... 3
1Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family, Paul David Tripp 2More Than a Carpenter, Josh and Sean McDowell 3Churchill: The Power of Words, edited by Martin Gilbert
The Mitcheners 