Daffodil Fields
Okay, so yesterday was day two at the Farm. Day one we moved furniture and primed the ENTIRE house to be re-painted. I saw a lot of creatures that I never want to talk about again. Then, a couple of school girls walked me to their school house. I was surprised by how big it was. There were several buildings with different age groups in each building. Very different that the village school I went to last week.
Anyway, some of the kids at the Farm have stolen my heart. One in particular, Exhilda, a thirteen year old girl that just got to the Farm in July with her two brothers, Charles (6) and Emmanuel (3). They were being taken care of by their grandfather, who was abusing Exhilda. She was so quiet at first, (the three of them know very little English), but over the last three days she has really come out of her shell. She is very sweet, and very bright. During church I was turning through the hymn book, and she was so interested in everything i did. She didn't even know which way was up on the hymn book, so i showed her to put thenumbers at the top of the page. Then i showed her numbers one through ten in the book and on my fingers, and within a few minutes she knew them all. She does not go to the school, because they must know English. Webster (one of the Zambian MWB Employees who i adore) goes out a few times a week to tutor the ones that need help starting school, but she really isn't close yet. She has never been to school before. Her brother Charles would not leave my side after he got home from school, and Emmanuel is adored by everybody. Yesterday I went to check the paint in the bathroom, and he had fallen asleep up against the closed door. I had to scoot him back in order to get in and pick him up. As much as i wanted to sit and hold him, we had so much painting to do.
We painted our guts out yesterday and it turned out so great. Everybody on my team (with a few exceptions, which I will explain later), did a fabulous job. Flowers all over the girls room, butterfly's, various types of balls in the boys dormitory (they left a sign that said "mathers without barders this room is for somall boys" so we wouldn't sissy it up), and the most fabulous African silhouette mural behind their reading couches. We were beside ourselves with joy, and the kids and the staff LOVED it. It felt really great.
Then we got to team meeting and Kathy Headley completely crushed me. It wasn't personal, but I was definately as low as I have been. She started talking about all the people on her staff, whom I already admire and adore and respect, that are sick. Really sick. And I felt everything run out of me because it is extremely real to me that this is a nation of the walking dead. On Monday one of Kathy's good friends here, a nurse named Alice, was buried. She has worked for 25 years serving the street children in a clinic, nearly all the time without pay. Kathy has repeatedly tried to hire her, but she won't leave these kids. Anyway, last Saturday she went to the hospital becauseof her heart condition and died in her daughter's lap because they didn't have the funds for treatment and couldn't get ahold of the few people that might be able to help them. I cried and cried and cried. And cried. And then I got myself put together on the way back to the backpackers house (Kuomboka), and Billie, who is here with her son Knight (whom I want to marry Karen) and her grandson (Cody) wanted to mother me a little. I resisted, but she hauled me in her room and started talking to me. Okay, so I cried even more. But she told me some things i really needed to hear. One of the things was this:
There is a story of a woman in California that planted a million daffodil bulbs. (This is actually true.) Everybody that came to see this field of daffodils in the spring would ask her how she did it. She made a sign that said "It took me twenty years, and I did it one bulb at a time." And I guess I can only do one thing at a time, and it will take my lifetime, but I will have made a difference in the end.
After all of Kathy's bad news, painting a house seemed really silly. But Billie really helped me feel less futile. She pointed out that her husband, who suffered a life-altering stroke nineteen years ago, and Elder James Faust, whom her husband idolized, esentially have the same task. Learn to take their life, whatever it is, and turn it over to the Lord. Carol, a fifteen year old at the Farm who is dying of AIDS - she is too advanced a case for them to treat her - she was infected by a relative - has the same task that my eight year old perfectly healthy daughter has. Learn to turn their lives over to the Lord. Carol stood and sang to me two days ago.
"Freedom, freedom, freedom.
Freedom is coming, I know.
Yes, I know, yes, I know.
Freedom is coming, I know."
By law, the staff at the Farm is forbidden to tell Carol of her condition. But I know she knows. She spends all day singing about Jesus coming, and meeting Jesus, and I know she knows she is dying. She is an absolute angel and she breaks my heart.
So last night crawled into my bunk, in my room with eight other women, and finally slept. (I have not slept well since I got here. I finally took some drugs to sleep, and between that and my hours of weeping, I slept.
Didn't feel much better this morning, but my headache was less and i wasn't crying. So, we headed out to Mya Village.
Mya Village is even more remote than the one we visited last week, larger, and does not have a school. We were prepared to teach the kids the "values" (where we have developed skits, songs, and games to get across and idea, such as honesty, hardwork, cleanliness, etc.), play various activities, do medical screenings, teach crocheting, knitting, and sewing, and check on the status of the well. I helped set up the medical screening portion, but then I ended up teaching sewing the entire time. We made the shorts that my friends helped make patterns for, and the women of the village really wanted to make these cute hanging holders for their dish towels. So Irene, who sews a little and was interpretting for me, and I made up a pattern and helped them make one.
Talk about by the Grace of God! I have not sewn anything other than mending for more than ten years, and I thought it would be like riding a bike. NO! It is not like riding a bike, and it does not all come rushing back to you. I showed them the pockets wrong, but after that it started working. I have also sewn on a treadle machine now. I really like electricity, and will never curse my machine ever again.
Long story short, I didn't get to play with the kids, but I don't know if i could have handled it. Today worked for me, and I don't feel like crawling in the gutter and dying. Progress.
Tomorrow we have a six hour bus ride to Livingston, where we will actually relax and play a little. I am not sure how I feel about it, but here we go.
I am so busy I don't thing about my family all that time, but I so love them. I love to share their pictures and talk a little bit about them. If they had any idea how little EVRYBODY I meet has, I know they would say, "go, do, be whatever you need to for them," because the disparity between our lives is impossible to fully comprehend.
I still maintain, though, that we are more alike than different. They want the same things I do. Health, happiness for my children, love. It is so simple it boggles the mind.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE you all! Thank you all for making this possible for me to be here. I will recognize my mission a piece at a time, I think. I hope we all can.
Anyway, some of the kids at the Farm have stolen my heart. One in particular, Exhilda, a thirteen year old girl that just got to the Farm in July with her two brothers, Charles (6) and Emmanuel (3). They were being taken care of by their grandfather, who was abusing Exhilda. She was so quiet at first, (the three of them know very little English), but over the last three days she has really come out of her shell. She is very sweet, and very bright. During church I was turning through the hymn book, and she was so interested in everything i did. She didn't even know which way was up on the hymn book, so i showed her to put thenumbers at the top of the page. Then i showed her numbers one through ten in the book and on my fingers, and within a few minutes she knew them all. She does not go to the school, because they must know English. Webster (one of the Zambian MWB Employees who i adore) goes out a few times a week to tutor the ones that need help starting school, but she really isn't close yet. She has never been to school before. Her brother Charles would not leave my side after he got home from school, and Emmanuel is adored by everybody. Yesterday I went to check the paint in the bathroom, and he had fallen asleep up against the closed door. I had to scoot him back in order to get in and pick him up. As much as i wanted to sit and hold him, we had so much painting to do.
We painted our guts out yesterday and it turned out so great. Everybody on my team (with a few exceptions, which I will explain later), did a fabulous job. Flowers all over the girls room, butterfly's, various types of balls in the boys dormitory (they left a sign that said "mathers without barders this room is for somall boys" so we wouldn't sissy it up), and the most fabulous African silhouette mural behind their reading couches. We were beside ourselves with joy, and the kids and the staff LOVED it. It felt really great.
Then we got to team meeting and Kathy Headley completely crushed me. It wasn't personal, but I was definately as low as I have been. She started talking about all the people on her staff, whom I already admire and adore and respect, that are sick. Really sick. And I felt everything run out of me because it is extremely real to me that this is a nation of the walking dead. On Monday one of Kathy's good friends here, a nurse named Alice, was buried. She has worked for 25 years serving the street children in a clinic, nearly all the time without pay. Kathy has repeatedly tried to hire her, but she won't leave these kids. Anyway, last Saturday she went to the hospital becauseof her heart condition and died in her daughter's lap because they didn't have the funds for treatment and couldn't get ahold of the few people that might be able to help them. I cried and cried and cried. And cried. And then I got myself put together on the way back to the backpackers house (Kuomboka), and Billie, who is here with her son Knight (whom I want to marry Karen) and her grandson (Cody) wanted to mother me a little. I resisted, but she hauled me in her room and started talking to me. Okay, so I cried even more. But she told me some things i really needed to hear. One of the things was this:
There is a story of a woman in California that planted a million daffodil bulbs. (This is actually true.) Everybody that came to see this field of daffodils in the spring would ask her how she did it. She made a sign that said "It took me twenty years, and I did it one bulb at a time." And I guess I can only do one thing at a time, and it will take my lifetime, but I will have made a difference in the end.
After all of Kathy's bad news, painting a house seemed really silly. But Billie really helped me feel less futile. She pointed out that her husband, who suffered a life-altering stroke nineteen years ago, and Elder James Faust, whom her husband idolized, esentially have the same task. Learn to take their life, whatever it is, and turn it over to the Lord. Carol, a fifteen year old at the Farm who is dying of AIDS - she is too advanced a case for them to treat her - she was infected by a relative - has the same task that my eight year old perfectly healthy daughter has. Learn to turn their lives over to the Lord. Carol stood and sang to me two days ago.
"Freedom, freedom, freedom.
Freedom is coming, I know.
Yes, I know, yes, I know.
Freedom is coming, I know."
By law, the staff at the Farm is forbidden to tell Carol of her condition. But I know she knows. She spends all day singing about Jesus coming, and meeting Jesus, and I know she knows she is dying. She is an absolute angel and she breaks my heart.
So last night crawled into my bunk, in my room with eight other women, and finally slept. (I have not slept well since I got here. I finally took some drugs to sleep, and between that and my hours of weeping, I slept.
Didn't feel much better this morning, but my headache was less and i wasn't crying. So, we headed out to Mya Village.
Mya Village is even more remote than the one we visited last week, larger, and does not have a school. We were prepared to teach the kids the "values" (where we have developed skits, songs, and games to get across and idea, such as honesty, hardwork, cleanliness, etc.), play various activities, do medical screenings, teach crocheting, knitting, and sewing, and check on the status of the well. I helped set up the medical screening portion, but then I ended up teaching sewing the entire time. We made the shorts that my friends helped make patterns for, and the women of the village really wanted to make these cute hanging holders for their dish towels. So Irene, who sews a little and was interpretting for me, and I made up a pattern and helped them make one.
Talk about by the Grace of God! I have not sewn anything other than mending for more than ten years, and I thought it would be like riding a bike. NO! It is not like riding a bike, and it does not all come rushing back to you. I showed them the pockets wrong, but after that it started working. I have also sewn on a treadle machine now. I really like electricity, and will never curse my machine ever again.
Long story short, I didn't get to play with the kids, but I don't know if i could have handled it. Today worked for me, and I don't feel like crawling in the gutter and dying. Progress.
Tomorrow we have a six hour bus ride to Livingston, where we will actually relax and play a little. I am not sure how I feel about it, but here we go.
I am so busy I don't thing about my family all that time, but I so love them. I love to share their pictures and talk a little bit about them. If they had any idea how little EVRYBODY I meet has, I know they would say, "go, do, be whatever you need to for them," because the disparity between our lives is impossible to fully comprehend.
I still maintain, though, that we are more alike than different. They want the same things I do. Health, happiness for my children, love. It is so simple it boggles the mind.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE you all! Thank you all for making this possible for me to be here. I will recognize my mission a piece at a time, I think. I hope we all can.
posted by Michelle at 7:15 AM
13 Comments:
I am so impressed with all you do. Keep working and do the best you can with what comes next, and try not to think about the rest. You are the best. I will e-mail you later.
John
You are the best, Chelly. I think that daffodil analogy was spot on. I hope this place isn't too jarring on you when you get back.
I know there are things,like painting a house, that seem silly when compared to such loss and grief, but they are things that help ease that grief and that load. A Subway sandwich in a park doesn't seem like a big deal until you look at the effect it has in the long run.
You are amazing.
I'm a little teary right now and I thank you for sharing all of this.
Michelle,
What an amazing experience you are having. Keep planting daffodils.
Everything is good in Hyde Park. Your kids are about as perfect as they come! We're having lots of fun.
I can't help but cry reading your post. I also can't help but be overwhelmed by the experiences you are relating. I'll be thinking about you.
Dear Michelle,
My favorite quote. "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." From Marianne Williamson (sometimes incorrectly attributed to Nelson Mandela).
Thanks for not shrinking. Thanks for your light. Your experiences are making a difference for us back home too.
Praying for all of you, Joani
There are things that change our lives forever. Over 7 years ago I had a complete eye opening experience. I just happened to be in France during Kosovo. Here I am at the train station watching refugees getting off the train after escaping their own country. I just sat there and cried. Women and children that were bleeding. They had no posessions. Men getting off and praying. They were all given a blanket and a packet of food. Then sent to stand in a line so that the Red Cross could send them with a local family.
Never again have I looked at the world the same.
Neither will you.
I really wish you well. Safe... always safe. /sigh And take that medication if you need it. I wish I had some right now. /wink
I miss you so much that I want to cry. I am proud that you are helping little orphanages. If I was there, I would think the walls were great! That is what I would say.
Love,
Grace
hey mom, I hope your head does not hert to much from crying.
Michelle, I just left a post on another comment - I thought it was for this one, but I guess not! Oh well! I hope you are okay. Remember how when this all started Kathy said that you would come home a changed person? Well, it's true, but how exciting is that? Becoming a changed person is a painful process, but the whole point of our existence. It just adds so much richer color to our life's tapestry. Thank heavens we can become changed. You have never been one to bury your head in the sand and remain blind to problems. You have always attacked them head on and have made this world a better place everywhere you've been. You are wonderful. Keep changing and find joy in that. What a beautiful "painting" you'll have to share! Lots of love!
Michelle,
Thank you for sharing your unforgettable journey with us. Your writing is beautiful and impressive--the blogging was such a great idea. Having just returned to the States myself and having been a wee bit homesick while away, I don't know how you are doing it. What you wrote made me cry, as we have so much here and don't really know it.
You hang in there, Sis! You're half-way there and just look at all you've done. You don't know the extent of your efforts, but they are obvious from here. You can be proud of your contribution. --Looking forward to seeing you soon.
Hugs,
Kris
michelle,
we read each entry and can hardly speak because it's so amazing and so moving. we miss you and know you are making a difference where you are (like you do when you're here!) just keep swimming and know that you're in our thoughts and prayers
steph and kt
I should not read you at work. It makes answering the phones hard with a lump in your throat. What you are doing will have such an impact no only on you, your family and those you are serving, but on all who read this and those in generations to come who will benefit from what you are doig right now. You are such a beautiful daughter of God, who is magnifying her calling. Thanks for the blog.
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