Of hope and turning points

 

“I have found it very important in my own life

to try to let go of my wishes

and instead to live in hope.

 I am finding that

when I choose to let go of my sometimes petty and superficial wishes

and trust that my life is precious and meaningful in the eyes of God

something really new, something beyond my expectations

begins to happen for me.”

(Henri Nouwen, Finding My Way Home)

 

 

I began to notice new, good stuff going on in Lomalinda.

 

For example, Matt, in first grade, and Karen, in Kindergarten, studied Spanish. What a bonus that was! If they’d been enrolled in school back home in Seattle, they’d probably have had to wait until high school to study a foreign language.

 

And they enjoyed using their Spanish.

 

Local Colombians worked alongside us—in the commissary and offices, and as janitors, yard workers, and maids. One worker walked by us every morning on our way to school, and one day Karen piped up, “Buenos días” (hello).

 

That delighted my heart because (a) she wasn’t afraid of someone who spoke a different language than she did, and (b) she was confident enough to use the little bit of Spanish she knew.

 

The Colombians were friendly and patient with those who didn’t speak Spanish well. I had studied Spanish for three years in junior high but was a bit rusty. Soon, though, I began doing better—although I still resorted to hand gestures sometimes. Thank goodness for my Spanish/English dictionary. The maid, Rufina, and I had a good laugh whenever I said, “Un momento” (just a minute) and opened my dictionary. (And I thank God for helping me get accustomed to having a stranger—Rufina—in my home all day once a week. Click on Feeling like a big baby.)

 

And there was more good stuff. Remember how awful the locally made bread smelled and tasted? On one of our first days in Lomalinda, with dreams of making good ol’ homemade sandwiches, I reached for the bread I’d bought at the commissary, but when I untwisted the wrapper, an ugly odor poofed out—rancid lard and something else.

 

I examined the loaf. It looked like bread, but it sure didn’t smell like bread. It was far from fresh, yet I could find no spoilage.

 

I started to slice a piece off the end, but it crumbled apart. I sliced again with the same result.

 

We needed eight pieces for four sandwiches, and every stinking slice fell apart.

 

Well, even that scenario changed: Dave began baking bread on Saturdays. Sometimes we used it for sandwiches, but then one day he tried a Cinnamon Swirl recipe! What a treat!

 

More good stuff: A week or so into the school year, I wrote this in a letter to my parents:

 

Dear Mom and Dad,

 

Karen is reading! I can hardly believe it, and she’s picking it up even faster than Matt did. She has no difficulty with “The girl has a doll. The boy has a bike. Look at the child. He is a boy. She is a girl.” And last night was the first time she’d picked up that book. If we spell a word, she pictures it in her head and sounds it out. And she’s still only four years old.

 

Matt brings home a book each day and reads the whole thing aloud in the evening. Miss Wheeler has trouble finding books challenging enough for him. . . .

 

And, more good stuff: Inspired by Lois Metzger, I took on the challenge of making attractive meals from limited supplies in the commissary. I focused on variety, not just flavor.

 

I made stale bread eater-friendly by dipping sandwiches into an egg-milk mixture and frying them like French toast.

 

Friends sent recipes from home, and I scoured the pages of the cookbook Lomalinda’s women published, Mejores Malocas y Chagras (Better Homes and Gardens). I especially enjoyed Judy Branks’s recipe for Coconut Sweet and Sour Meatballs and Jerri Morgan’s granola, which I still use forty years later.

 

The book included recipes using fruit readily available—mangos, papayas, bananas, and pineapples—and recipes for pickles, relish, mayonnaise, salad dressings, and sauces, those things we really missed.

 

A friend returning to the States sold me her spices and dried herbs, and they added to my fun.

 

Making those foods required resourcefulness and work—we made most everything from scratch—but I thrived on the challenge.

 

And yet more good stuff: After living in Lomalinda for a month, our noses and mouths adjusted—odors smelled less offensive, and our taste buds stopped rebelling. Hooray! (from Chapter 11, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: AFoot-Dragger’s Memoir)

 

Looking back now, it’s clear to see that even though my first ten days or so in Lomalinda felt like I was on an out-of-control roller coaster. . .

 

. . . and even though I had kicked and blubbered and rebelled against living there. . .

 

. . . God had good plans for me.

 

He patiently waited for me to calm down.

 

God handed me even more good stuff, though it didn’t seem like it at the time: My sense of failure had exhausted me—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. (Click on last week’s post, “Without change, there would be no butterflies.”)

 

But that fatigue was a gift: It robbed me of energy that fueled my rebellion against Lomalinda.

 

Only then, in my brokenness, could I “let go of my . . . petty and superficial wishes,” as Henri Nouwen called them, and make much-needed attitude adjustments.

 

That’s what Nouwen meant when he wrote of the way God does “something really new, something beyond my expectations.”

 

Moving to Lomalinda was the last thing 

I’d ever have chosen to do.

But God interrupted my life.

So, I let go of my own plans and surrendered to His,

and He pointed me toward Lomalinda.

 

And there, He was offering me new opportunities.

He was offering me a new perspective,

a new way to do Life.

A new attitude. New goals.

 

New joys.