The Gift of Simplicity

Published in Light and Life's December 2011 online issue.

I love home makeovers.

I keep a picture of the best home makeover I've ever seen on my refrigerator. The “before” shot shows a ransacked, skeletal A-frame that was clearly smashed to pieces with great force; the “after” shot shows a completely restored home, covered in white paint. A family of five stands by the front door, smiling and radiant in traditional Indian clothes.

In a small way, I helped flip this family's house into something worth living in. Last year the Wabash Conference chose to re-examine the Christmas tradition of giving each pastor an elegant, inscribed keepsake ornament. Instead, our conference sponsored the roofing of five homes in Orissa, India – a region where hundreds of Free Methodist families have been persecuted for their faith. Rather than a sparkly decoration for our Christmas trees, we took home a simple before-and-after picture for our fridges. Sure, it's in a dollar store frame, but the worth of this image is so profound and lasting, it causes me to ponder the value of all my holiday purchases.

Don't get me wrong: I like the Great-American Gift Exchange as much as the next person. I like crowding into the living room, sitting beneath a colorful tree, and passing pretty packages to my loved ones. I like shopping for the newest gadget for my techie-husband, and watching my daughters' faces light up at each unwrapped toy. Being simpler in my gift-giving might alter these images, and that makes me uncomfortable. Breaking from tradition can be downright painful.

But on further examination, I have to wonder if that pain is due to the loss of a meaningful tradition, or due to a tradition that's lost its meaning. A few Christmases ago, one extension of our family traded in its usual gift exchange for an exchange of words. It works like this: we go around the room, sharing about the charities and organizations that our dear to our hearts and the good each is doing in the world. It's understood that the money we would have spent shopping for each other is paid out in the form of a monetary gift to these noble causes. The end result is creative pre-holiday shopping, and a rich family tradition that focus on the blessings we so often take for granted. Rather than driving home with a carload of store receipts and soon-forgotten toys, we leave those family get-togethers grateful for the simple things in life . . . if even just the sturdy roofs over our heads.

Simple, meaningful gift-giving ideas:

• Take a hearty soup or a basket of fruit to a financially needy family. Food pantries have an ample supply of cookies and sugary foods – especially around the holidays – so families short on money often lack healthy, nutritious foods in their homes.

• Contribute to FM or FM-affiliated organizations that provide jobs, education, and food for people around the world. A few Christmases ago, we challenged ourselves to donate the same amount of money we'd spent on Christmas presents, to worthy causes like International Child Care Ministries and the Bishops' Famine and Relief Fund. As you can imagine, the size of that check was much larger than expected.

• Give loved ones the book, CD or movie that had the greatest spiritual impact on you this last year; include a note of personal reflection. One year our family gave Elie Wiesel's book “Night” to our friends and family. It was a $5 paperback that could be read in a single sitting, but that story had changed our lives, and we wanted to share it.

Communicating in a Cross-Cultural Crisis

Published in the Fall 2011 issue of Verge: Travel with Purpose magazine.

After dining on hotpot in Tianjin, China, my insides were boiling – and it wasn’t just the soup. At some point my purse had been snatched from the back of my chair: a whole weeks’ pay from teaching English to college kids, down the drain. But it was when I realized what else was in my purse -- my apartment keys and my school ID – that my anger turned to dread. The previous year a foreign teacher in my apartment building was stabbed to death when thieves broke in, intent on finding her un-banked cash. I didn't want to be overly dramatic, but I also didn't want to be Tianjin's next headline.

Living abroad can feel like living with a mental illness. One day, skies are radiant blue and you gush, “I could just live here forever!” Next day, you’re cowering in front of the TV for hours on end, lapping up dubbed-over Charles in Charge like it’s comfort food. Culture shock can make a trip to the P.O. feel like navigating the Great Wall, let alone when a real crisis comes at you.

Fortunately for me, a Chinese woman at the next table offered to contact the police. Meanwhile, my husband headed back to our campus apartment to see about getting locks changed.

Within minutes, a police car arrived on the scene, lights all a-flash. I was relieved; my crisis was being taken seriously. Perhaps too seriously, because the officers immediately decided my predicament required more attention than the usual hand-written, on-the-scene report. Instead, I was personally escorted to a crowded interrogation room.

I think in most cases being interrogated in a small room by uniformed men whose language I don’t speak is somewhat unsettling. Especially when I’m not the one who’s committed a crime. But the interviewer’s endless string of irrelevant questions -- Do you speak with a British or American accent? How does your husband grow such a fine beard? Why do you look so fat in your passport picture? – kept even my overworked translator in good spirits. Some cultures consider a good beating around the bush to be inefficient; not this one. Still, I did my best to answer each question clearly and honestly, remembering the value of mianzi, or “giving face” by showing proper respect. In turn, I was given a listening ear, gentle clucks of understanding, and some pretty sweet V.I.P. treatment.

Back at the university, my husband politely reasoned with the night guard – the same guard who notoriously slept bundled in his bed in the guard box, curtains drawn, while on duty. Couldn’t you just call in a locksmith? Isn’t it a good idea to keep the foreign teachers feeling safe? But the guard was adamant that we would be fine. Nothing would happen tonight on his watch. At his wit’s end, my husband asked advice from his English student/interpreter, who suggested an ultimatum. Either the guard must stay awake all night, or have our locks changed.

Within an hour, a new lock was installed on our door.

It was nearly midnight when I returned home via police escort, grateful for the new locks, but exhausted and seriously doubting my choice of how to spend an evening. Gradually, like the melting ooze of oyster sauce, it dawned on me that this was why I’d moved to China. Not necessarily to give the local law enforcement an impromptu English lesson (which I did), but to fully experience a new culture as much as an outsider can, to touch even its underbelly. Sure, I’d lost some money, and a good bit of innocence, but how many people get to brag that they’ve entered a Chinese interrogation room – and lived to tell about it?

Five Rules for Communicating in a Cross-Cultural Crisis

Enlist the help of a native speaker

If ever there's a need for translation, it's when tempers are hot and personal safety is an issue. Don't go it alone, even if you feel like your language studies are coming along well. A native speaker knows the language and the culture.

Show respect for authority

Listen carefully, follow directions, speak kindly – these are all ways to “give face” to an authority figure. Especially in Eastern countries, obvious displays of respect can lead to some powerful guanxi, or a favor-based relationship that will likely benefit you when you most need it.

Keep priorities in focus

Experiment with a barter, a bribe, or an ultimatum in order to get what you think is fair treatment, but remember to weigh in the value of friendship and reputation. Choose battles wisely.

Control emotions

Whether native or foreign, you’re likely to induce eye-rolling if you cry, whine or act paranoid. Chillax a little, and be reasonable with your requests.

Laugh

Sometimes mis-communications are funny. Sometimes they aren't. In either situation, try to keep a sense of humor and remember that, someday, this whole ordeal is going to make a great story.

Angry Letters

Published in the July 2011 issue of E-pistle

I am an expert on writing angry letters.

I suppose I've always had the skill, but I began seriously honing it while teaching English to college students in Tianjin, China, a recent college graduate myself. I'd never been so stressed out, what with the language I didn't speak flooding my ears, the constant cultural mishaps, the never-ending search for American cheese. One day I found myself at wit's end, plunging yet again my campus apartment's toilet which never fully flushed – and no, Mr. Maintenance Man, I was not throwing toilet paper in it.

I sat down at the computer and transferred my rage to the screen. I had an extensive list of woes – the rudeness of campus security, the inefficiency of the school library, the incommodity of our furnishings. These were issues entirely explicable by culture, but I was perhaps blinded by a touch of culture shock. Besides, it was therapeutic writing them all down. I reveled in the rush of power, knowing I resided in a country where it is taboo to complain. College students don't even choose their own majors because the government does it for them.

The letter was never intended to be sent, but I guess that power went to my head. I printed the document and handed it politely to our school's foreign affairs liaison, knowing he would take great pains to translate it word-for-word for his superiors. The next day four Chinese university officials knocked on my door. They sat uncomfortably in my living room chairs (which were uncomfortable anyway), and listened as I stood and proudly spoke my English, a translator on my right. With bowed-head apologies, they promised the arrival of a new toilet that very day.

I was floored. Who knew justice could be so swift – and intoxicating?

My career of angry letter-writing had begun. When a perilous shuttle bus ride on my journey back to the States nearly cost me my flight, I typed an angry letter and won all my money back. When a furniture store nicked up my headboard, an angry letter prompted an apology, as well as a peace offering of $150 in gift cards. And when my husband – my poor, poor husband – made all the mistakes a new husband makes, you'd better believe he got himself some angry letters.

My pen had become my sword; it meted out my justice on a regular basis. I kept it strapped conveniently to my side … for defense purposes only, of course.

Perhaps word of my no-nonsense stance against tyrants had leaked out, because one day a sobbing woman approached me and poured out her own troubles. Mariko was my Japanese neighbor, the wife of a seminary student and mother of two toddlers.

She had a toilet problem.

Through tears and broken English, Mariko painted for me a picture of the war zone her apartment had become: A foul odor hung in the air. The children were obsessively bathed throughout the day, especially the crawling one. And she and her husband, already feeling alone and secluded from other students due to the culture barrier, were also at each others' throats. Why? Unbeknownst to the other tenants, the septic system in our complex was severely damaged and leaked raw sewage into Mariko's family's quarters several times a day. The previous tenants, an American couple, had moved out because of this very problem, but apparently the school found the apartment fit for a family from Japan.

Mariko had written her own letters, but no one was reading them. Foreign affairs didn't speak Japanese. She'd called maintenance personnel, who came out and admonished her for throwing food in the toilet. Mariko claimed not to even flush toilet paper. She'd asked to be moved to another apartment, but the school claimed none were currently available, knowing full well that a foreign student couldn't legally rent from a private landlord. And so their family was stuck in a stinky flat, in a country they'd begun to hate, with rules they didn't understand.

I sat down at the computer and transferred my – no, Mariko's – rage. I channeled her broken spirit as best I could. I printed the letter and handed it to foreign affairs, and the next day four school officials knocked on her door. They sat awkwardly in her living room listening to Mariko and her husband weep and tell their stories. Then, with tears in their own eyes, these four individuals sincerely apologized for their negligence and offered Mariko's family a new apartment. One with a functioning commode.

This time the rush of power to which I'd become accustomed came with a prickling sensation … conviction. I opened my Bible.

There is a Proverbs 31 woman who is not quoted nearly so often as her end-of-the-chapter counterpart, perhaps because she is not so pleasantly quiet and, let's face it, annoyingly submissive. She is King Lemuel's mother, whom I like to picture with a hand on her hip and a finger wagging. Knowing full well the extent of her son's power and the authority of his position, she commands him in the early verses of the chapter to spend his strength and vigor not on his own petty troubles, but on the needs of the oppressed, the perishing, and the impoverished. “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed. Speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice” (NLT). In her best mom-voice she preached to me, “Get over yourself, sweetheart! You don't know real injustice until you've looked a sobbing woman in the eye and wept for her.”

And I did weep.

Needless to say, the incident of Mariko's toilet has changed my career. I still write angry letters; it's the subject matter that's different. When my city threatened to close six libraries in poor neighborhoods, I wrote an angry letter, prompting a host of read-ins and marches and rallies. The libraries were spared. When the local Medicaid office – which provides health insurance for the majority of my city’s children – began ignoring phone calls in favor of longer smoke breaks, I typed up TWO letters. Finally someone answered the phone. And now, when I learn that my beloved state of Indiana is seriously considering blatantly racist legislature that will ensure the torment of thousands of immigrant families, I cannot help it. I find my fingers furiously tapping at the keyboard...

A Playdate to Remember

Feeling cabin-feverish, I invited a friend and her young sons to our home on a chilly January morning. After a snack the "big kids" – our two three-year-olds – went upstairs on their own to play.

All was well until my friend's son came downstairs – shivering, drenched from head to toe, and naked from the waist down. While his mother interrogated him, my daughter Lydah tiptoed downstairs, also drenched and half-naked.

Turns out our two preschoolers had discovered the fun of filling up a half-gallon-pail of water in the bathroom sink and dumping it out in various places in the bathroom – like on the walls, the cabinets, the toilet and floors (they somehow missed the bathtub) – and of course, on each other. Our deep-sea divers must have decided the jig was up when they got cold, so they depants-ed themselves and went in search for dry clothing. (I know this because I followed their little wet trails all over the upstairs bedrooms.) And finally, out of desperation, they decided to ask their mothers for advice.

After a few chilly minutes in her time-out spot, I toweled off my sobbing daughter and explained to her that there are certain messes that are okay to make, and others that aren't. “We don't make messes with water, Lydah. You can make messes with toys or books, but not water. Water is too hard to clean up."

"Just milk next time?" she asked genuinely. (We have had similar discussions before, like when I discovered she'd used the contents of her sippy cup and a pair of socks to "clean" furniture.)

“No Honey,” I pleaded. “Please, not milk.”

Meanwhile, my friend had no choice but to clothe her otherwise quite masculine son with a pair of Lydah's lacy underpants.

After helping me soak up the mess, Lydah said with a fresh set of sobs: "Mommy, I'm sorry I had a bad attitude." Which, when translated into adult English, means, I'm sorry I covered myself and my friend and the whole bathroom with water.

"It's okay, Lydah," I assured her. "I forgive you."

She smiled at me, wiping the tears from her face. "I forgive you too."

Green Beads

Published in the June/July 2011 issue of MomSense.

A hot afternoon. The house was silent inside, everyone napping. A little voice crept out from the back bedroom. The baby was up, so I tiptoed inside to find her standing in her crib, holding out her arms.

I can always count on Eve to be cuddly after a nap. She nestles down in my lap and rests her head against my chest while I rock her in the Lazy-boy. I delight in these short, peaceful moments. I allow them to linger before my active toddler realizes how much energy she’s been storing up for playtime and struggles out of my hold, bolting for the nearest object to climb onto and fall off of.

But for now we rock. She looks up at me; I can smell her sweet-sour big-girl breath. She’s my baby, my youngest daughter, but I am getting little indicators all the time that she will soon be a child, then a pre-teen, then a teenager, then an adult. The changes are gradual and creeping, but in quiet moments like these they are undeniably clear. I smell them coming in her breath.

She sits up suddenly; our tender moment is struggling out of my grasp. But instead of wiggling to the floor, she begins to tinker with the beads on my necklace.

It’s a multi-strand necklace. Tiny gold chains looping through emerald-colored beads. They are slippery and smooth, shiny and translucent, and when the light catches them as it does now, those stones dancing along my neckline must look like precious drops of dew. Or maybe delicate candy pieces, because my 19-month old handles them with rare gentleness for a child her age. Her chocolate-brown eyes are wide with wonder.

“Pretty,” I whisper, pointing to them. “Pretty necklace.”

Then I point to Eve’s head, her nose, her chest, echoing the same word: “pretty.”

She looks down at herself quizzically, searching for the invisible necklace. She settles for a printed flower on her shirt and caresses it hopefully.

“No, no.” I tell her. “You are pretty. Pretty Evie.”

I don’t have much to offer my child. I am not the most accomplished, nor the most creative, nor the most purposeful of mothers. Little words for a little girl – that is my specialty. But maybe my words, and all the gushing-out love that I hope to convey with them, are enough to guide my daughter gently into a life of peace with others and God and self. Maybe she will remember these little moments as a grown woman and, despite how disappointingly short they seem to me, she will string them together proudly, like emerald beads on a gold chain. Maybe she will savor them, treasure them, twiddle them in her fingers, and cling to them when life seems devoid of warmth, lacking in sacredness.

Maybe she will remember her mother’s breath like I will remember hers.