Dear Mama,
The girls are napping and Bryan is out at one of the camps down the
road so I am going to take advantage of a quiet moment to say hello. I am
covered in flour as I write, especially my belly which conveniently bumps into
everything these days. I am baking about four dozen of your delicious earth
bread rolls in my little charcoal oven for Thanksgiving, which we will
celebrate tomorrow. Some SIM friends are slaughtering a sheep in lieu of turkey
and in the evening we will all have a big meal together. I made the rolls today
and the green mangoes are softening in a hot pot of cinnamon sugar right now
for a mock apple pie. Tomorrow I will make the cinnamon rolls.
Bethany and I have had to figure out how to cook four dozen rolls, three
dozen cinnamon rolls, three pies and some stuffing between my little charcoal
oven (that won’t completely close when my cookie sheet goes in the top) and her
big solar cooker. So we started a day early and I think will all have it under
control by tomorrow evening. Inshallah.
Oh mama, what an unspeakable blessing it is to have Bethany next door!
I didn’t know how long I could have stayed emotionally healthy without the
Graves there, and despite the handful of other Khawaja women around to connect
with, there is nothing like having another wife and mother within shouting
distance. In my wildest dreams I couldn’t have imagined God redeeming that
specific heartache and loss in this season so perfectly. Most days we are
running so busy with homeschooling, cooking, hosting, and our own individual
ministries and projects that we don’t get much more than I “Can I borrow some
yeast?” asked through a screen window. Life is too crazy here right now for us
to catch up sufficiently on the lives we led before our paths crossed. But
simply knowing there is someone close enough to call for out loud and who
intimately understands, that is an unspeakable gift. Isn’t it crazy that
I feel that close to someone whose birthday I don’t even know yet?!
Sometime last week Bethany told me she was hosting a girls’ night on
Wednesday and asked if it would be okay for all her guys came and crashed at
our place for a couple hours while we all hung out at her house. I was
impressed that she was up for hosting when Eli was just getting over a serious
bout of malaria and they have been hit with one logistical challenge after
another on their team lately. We have
only been back in for three weeks or so and I already feel the wear and tear of
daily life nipping at my hems. They have been in for four months and are tired.
But that is so Bethany, ever cheerful and eager to pitch in. So girls’ night it
was.
I walked all thirty feet from my front door to hers on Wednesday night
right at seven, admiring the enormous full moon peeking up over her tin roof
and the tea candles blinking in her wide windows. I was surprised to hear
voices inside already, expecting to be one of the first, having by far the
least distance to walk. I loudly salaamed everyone inside instead of knocking,
slipped off my shoes into the pile already outside on the porch and stepped
inside to a room full of friends and neighbors all standing to greet me with
big smiles. Vaguely confused I then noticed the paper chains hung over the
curtain rods and the pinks sign taped overhead that read “We love baby girls!”
My first thought was honestly, who else is having a baby girl? I am a
pretty suspicious person and I feel like it takes a lot to surprise me. But I
have to say, when I finally realized it was a surprise baby shower for me and
Sabrine, I was undoubtedly the most shocked I have been in a long time.
It wasn’t your typical baby shower. There was no diaper cake or punch
bowl, no pastel wrapping paper or silly celebrity baby name games (and of
course it would have felt bizarre if somehow there was). We drank cool Koolaid
out of plastic cups and ate charcoal-oven-baked goodies made from everyone’s
treasured stock of chocolate while enjoying the soft oscillating exhale of a
fan that kept the mosquitoes at bay. The conversation and laughter were sweet,
the prayers were precious, the blessings offered were priceless. They were a
gift because they were offered up by women – some who are mothers, most who are
not – who nonetheless live shoulder to shoulder with me in this beautiful mess
of a place and love it and hate it and wouldn’t trade it for anything just like
me. Women who again, in one way or another, understand.
What’s more, I realized that this was my first baby shower ever, which
made it even more special! Having all
three of these babies in Africa has made traditions like baby showers … impractical,
shall we say, though we have never been lacking for anything. In fact, I am
pretty sure when I was pregnant with Annabelle some sweet ladies Bible class at
a church back in the States actually threw us a shower and sent us boxes
overflowing with adorable clothes and burp clothes. But a baby shower in absentia
is just not the same thing, and Wednesday night felt so incredibly meaningful
to me. I knew you would want to hear about it, to know that there are sweet
souls out here who love your baby and your baby’s babies, even the unborn ones.
I am so thankful for Bethany.
In fact, in this stressful season for her, I can only hope that living
next door to someone who understands means as much to her as it does to me,
because I sometimes feel like a pretty crummy friend. Juggling nonstop guests (we
have calculated that by December 9th, we will have had guests with
us 47 of the previous 50 nights), this literacy training course, homeschooling
and all regular life and work stuff, I have not been much help shouldering any
of her burdens. This has been a good week for me and I have felt incredibly encouraged
about life in general, but a couple weeks ago, when I was hiding from my
children in the latrine bawling and having something akin to a panic attack, I
know her presence on the compound was a subtle, but very real, comfort to me.
A few days ago their sweet little kitten Oreo got bit by a small snake
one night or ate some neighbor’s rat poison or something equally dreadful and
started into a slow and miserable demise that was just heartbreaking to
witness. Every morning I would quietly ask, “Is she gone yet?” and be horrified
to hear that she was steadily shutting down, completely paralyzed and
unresponsive, but still breathing. It made me think of that blasted, precious
baby dik-dik I had when we were still up North across the border and his sad
end. In this place where there isn’t enough mercy to go around for all the
human beings that need it, it can feel so confusing to grieve for animals, and
yet at the same time, crying over anything that is suffering always seems
worthwhile to me. And frankly, after all the other losses the Faders have had
to endure in the past year, losing a kitten so painfully just seemed like such
a low blow. I kept praying that God would let it die quickly, which didn’t seem
like that big of a request really, but for whatever reason, he didn’t.
Yesterday the whole Fader family was out in the afternoon and I had the
sudden passing thought perhaps I should help nudge the poor thing across the
line it was hovering on, though the thought terrified me. I ultimately didn’t,
mostly because I was afraid of the Faders coming home and their three boys
finding Aunt Libby having snuck into their house and in the middle of smothering
their sick cat and not only emotionally scarring them for the rest of their
lives but also ensuring that they move away forever. But later that night, when
Bethany was coming over to put something in our fridge and said in sadness and utter
relief that the poor thing had finally died, I admitted to her my very real temptation
from earlier in the day and we laughed with tears in our eyes. Because really,
what else can you do?
Anyway, the point of that sorry tale is that she is that kind of
person. I wouldn’t put a kitten out of its misery for just anybody. But I would
do it for her in a heartbeat.
I meant to tell you all about how the literacy training is going but I
will save that for another day. I should close for now. I hope you guys had a good
Thanksgiving all together. Abigail’s messages about Thai food and ice storms
made me feel very far away but somehow happy too imagining you together and
warm with curry and fireplaces. Bits and pieces of news also sifted through
poor internet connections and patchy cell networks about the Roaches daughter
dying in the car accident and Deb and Josh’s puppy getting loose and being hit by
a car. The thanksgiving and the grief always seem to go hand in hand don’t
they? Different colors bleeding into the same sunset.
My prayer is that those whose hearts are hurting - bruised or
completely shattered, whether from the loss of a small animal or from the loss
of an only sister - may they sit in the company of someone who understands. I
am pretty sure that is God’s greatest gift to us in this fragile life. People
who ultimately can’t fix anything, but who know intimately the texture and feel
of your deepest griefs and joys. I’m not sure what else to hope for on this
side of that line.
I will write more soon. Your grandbabies, filthy and running around the
yard with three little boys they have come to adore, send their love. I need to
take bread out of the oven.
Love you so much.
Elizabeth
My surprise shower with precious ladies! (Bethany is behind me on the right)
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