Today the skies are dripping and grey in the Indiana town where we find ourselves unexpectedly staying with Zach's parents. I sit pumping...again. It's an essential, repetitive role that yields so little satisfaction for me in this swirling season of life. Despite the clouds around us, only 20 minutes away, there are these incredible, fragile yet feisty little girls that decided to show up two months before their due date. I read a devotion yesterday morning, while pumping at 4am, about storms in our lives. I visited the girls at 5:30am, and realized that in the midst of this seeming storm, the fact that I can hold Acacia and Olivia in my arms and that they get stronger every day is one way God has spoken his peace to me.
Peace...how far I have to go to grasp what this really means. So many of us are looking for inner peace, and what we often want to do to find it is escape. In the last 10 weeks, my understanding of what peace looks like as a follower of Christ has been transformed.
We went to Nigeria in late October, and originally planned on returning on January 2nd. We were asked to return earlier due to our pregnancy with twins. Despite my annoyance, we did change our tickets to December 4th, and I felt peace in that decision. The 5 weeks in Nigeria were VERY full. I did about 5 trainings to build a facilitation team and 3 teacher trainings both in Jos and surrounding villages. Kirstin (my sister in law) ran another training with facilitators I'd trained in Northern Nigeria because I couldn't travel. This was an answer to many years of praying for opportunities to train children's ministry workers, and God led the way as teachers responded beautifully to the trainings. The schedule for the trainings was given to us a few days in advance of each training, but there was peace.
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| Women's literacy class |
During these 5 weeks in Nigeria, I also visited the schools where we have children enrolled, talked with teachers and principals, visited the Orange Hat
(read more here), encouraged the women in the literacy class, wrote lesson plans and curriculum to keep things rolling, visited the children's Bible study at the church where we've served the last 4 years, said goodbye to so many special people, and, with the help of my neighbors and Kirstin, packed the house we've rented the last three years and moved out. This was a last minute decision, and we don't know where we will go when we return, but there was peace. We were still packing when our ride arrived for the airport. We traveled the 5 hours to Abuja, and said bye to Aunty Kirstin there, the next day boarding our flight to Chicago via Ethiopia.
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| Our new home in Michigan |
The flight time itself was 24 hours, not counting layovers. We arrived in Michigan to find our rented house had been repainted beautifully and the girls' room decorated and gifts of books, toys, and matching clothes were neatly arranged. New snow boots, coats, and snow pants hung in the entryway and the cupboards were stocked with food. We settled in for two weeks, visiting my family and figuring out how to survive again in America when it came time to travel to Indiana for Christmas. I felt exhausted heading down to Indiana. I spent most of the holiday with Zach's family in my room, either totally nauseated, in pain, or sleeping. Finally, I was having cramping, and we decided we needed to head back to Michigan. That same morning, we went to the hospital to make sure everything was alright before heading through 4 hours of cornfields on our way to Michigan. It was January 2nd, I was 31 weeks pregnant.
What the doctors found were two babies eager to get out, already forcing their way down, feet first. I guess they got the "hit-the-road-running" gene from me! But I wasn't running anywhere this time. After an emergency C-section, our little girls went to the NICU where they will remain for another month, at least. It is a forced "STOP!" Yet, these days are anything but restful, surely not the escape I would have wanted to find peace. They consist of a lot of driving to and from the hospital, spending as much time with Mariama and Lydia as possible, sleeping when I can. Surprisingly, in the midst of it, there is peace at the core of my being.
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| The girls' beautiful room |
Yesterday, after reading that devotion on storms, and having a sweet time with my baby girls, I fell flat on my face in the hospital hallway. It shook me a bit, but I got up and drove home. Then, on our way back to the NICU, one of our car tires burst, and we didn't make it for the feeding time. In fact, we arrived 3 hours later for the next feeding. One of my bigger girls wouldn't sleep last night, so I spent two hours in the evening loving her and snuggling before pumping twice in the night. Yet there is this deep sense of well-being, this resting, as Acacia and Olivia do in my arms. I have never been so tired, yet I feel so peaceful. "I do not give to you as the world gives, do not let your hearts be troubled,"
said Jesus. Isn't that the truth!
In ten weeks, we have changed cultures, homes several times, food, wardrobe, jobs, pace, and we've gone from a family of four to a family of six. I never had time to sit and just feel my babies kicking, to buy them clothes, to prepare space for them or think about what life might be like with 4 little people to care for. But here we are, and there is peace, and I'm so thankful that peace does not come from clear skies and lack of activities, but it comes from the God of peace who calms the storms of our hearts because he's in our boat (
Matthew 8:23-27), and he is "the God who sees me" (
Genesis 16:13). In August, when I found out we were pregnant with twins, I was very fearful about our babies not making it. I asked God what he wanted me to do, and I felt that he said, "Trust that I'm good." Not easy in a world where evil seems to prevail and children die of hunger, starvation, or being born too early. But throughout this pregnancy, he asked me to trust him. He didn't promise my girls would come at their appointed time or even that they would live, but he did promise me his goodness. Today I listened to a song called "Trust in You" by Lauren Daigle that says:
"When you don't move the mountains I needed you to move,
When you don't part the waters, I wish I could walk through
When you don't give the answers, when I cry out to you
I will trust, I will trust, I will trust in you."
(Listen to this song)
As I listened today, tears rolling down my face, I realized that these 10 weeks have been a continual lesson teaching the truth and living into the truth that the peace I crave comes from resting in the Father's arms and trusting that He is good.
