Jamaica Trip 1: Amos's Genes at PDX

Jenny is officially her Grandpa Yoder's descendant.

We're at the Alaska Airlines gate in PDX. We got here early because Paul wanted to see about buying a used stretch wrapper, so we did that first and got to the airport well ahead of time.

A while back they announced that there's a flight leaving for Seattle, and there's room for more if any of us are scheduled on a later flight and would like to go now. So Jenny and I went up to the counter and asked if we qualified.

We had checked luggage, so we couldn't. But just as I was turning away, Jenny leaned forward and said to the blonde Alaska lady, "Um, I have a question. Most people, when they have braces, their rubber bands go up and down. But yours go slanty across the front. Why is that?"

Gah. Should I apologize for my nosy daughter or what?

The lady laughed. It's because I have my father's jaw on top and my mother's jaw on the bottom, [she pulled it exaggeratedly to the left] and my teeth in between."

Jenny said, "Thank you. I wondered."

We went back to our seats. Those of you who know Amos Yoder, you know why I thought, yep, she's her grandpa's granddaughter.

Off to Jamaica

Jenny and I are about to head off to the Caribbean!

As you probably know, Amy is in Jamaica for a year at a home for orphans. She teaches the director's children and also helps with the care of the children and volunteers at a government orphanage, which you can read about here.

Amy was hoping that Paul and I could come visit, but Paul felt like he has too much going on and too many other trips coming up.

And then he said to me, "Hey, you haven't taken Jenny's "12 Trip," yet, have you?

That would be the traditional overnight outing that I do with each of the children, supposedly when they're 12 but sometimes it, um, gets delayed a bit. Like this one. And this one.

Jenny and I both jumped at that opportunity. I mean, if your husband/dad suggests you go to Jamaica, you'd be crazy to say no.

But first I sent an email to all the older kids: "This is way more than I did for any of your 12 Trips, and I don't want this brought up at my funeral, how unfair I was."

They all said it was ok.

We leave this afternoon, the Lord willing.

In the next week, you can all think of us basking in the warm tropical sunshine, sipping iced tea. And, of course, playing with orphans and sewing new curtains for them and hopefully being generally useful.

Quote of the Day:
"I went on vacation and forgot I had a neck!"
--Paul's Aunt Nadine, a summer or two ago. I hope I don't do that.
(I think she had hurt her neck just before that and was supposed to do therapy every day. Or something.)

On Leaving

Someone who goes by "Life of a plainlady" commented on a recent post, speaking of the Mennonite subculture:
"If there is so much 'coziness', I wonder why so many leave and go elsewhere?"

So I decided to explore that just a bit. These are my observations. Feel free to add your own.

There are at least three types of "leaving" if you're Plain.

1. You leave the community you're in and move to another one that's roughly the same scale of conservative as the original.

2. You leave the church you're in to join one up or down the scale.

3. You leave the Amish/Mennonite church entirely.

Here are some reasons people leave:

1. Practicality. A better job, getting married, living closer to aging parents, that sort of thing.

2. They want to do something with their lives that simply doesn't fit the practical parameters of an Anabaptist community. If you want to work in the space program, be a lobbyist in Washington, DC, or design bridges in California, it's really hard to do that and be a part of a rural, established Mennonite church.

3. They don't agree with the doctrine and interpretations of the church they're in. Surely it isn't necessary to part your hair in the middle and wear only solid colors--that sort of thing.

4. And I really think this is the most common: they have been badly hurt in the setting they're in. It's sad--the elements that make for a close cozy community can also make for opportunities to do some phenomenal damage.

5. I guess I should add the reason that gets the most blame--"Because they are stubborn and rebellious and wicked"--but I really don't think that's the real reason very often.

Often, it's a combination of the above.

I thought some of the Beachy-Amish rules were silly, but I could have stayed Beachy if I felt called to stay where I was (I didn't) or if I had been part of a church that didn't have the painful relationships mine had at the time. Paul was Mennonite--well, sort of--but not a member anywhere and still maybe half Wesleyan Methodist after going to Allegheny WM College. Definitely not Beachy. So we got married and joined a Mennonite church.

And eventually left that one to go on the mission field.

And came back to this Mennonite church because we had family here.

And have felt called to stay here ever since.

It's a different journey for everyone, and it's not for me to tell anyone what theirs ought to look like. However, it's definitely mine to make sure it isn't any cruelty from me that drives them away.

I think most people will stay a part of a congregation where they feel loved and welcomed and useful and nurtured and valuable and helped, and if those ingredients are present, an odd rule or two won't matter very much.

Like I said, feel free to add your observations and experiences.

Quote of the Day:
"It's like with Smucker men, if you keep asking, they dig in their heels. You ask one time and then you be quiet and then after a while you say, "Uh, did you hear me?" and they're like, "I'm THINKING."
--an observant young relative and friend of Jenny's

Help Me Decorate?

After putting it off way way way too long, I've been painting the living room.

Maybe part of the reason I put it off was because I knew I'd have to "decorate" it then.

Some of you are very artsy and gifted in this area. I am not. So, I put it to you, dear creative readers, what would you put on this empty wall?

Emily said, "Big family pictures in country frames," which I like but I want more ideas to choose from.Here's Jenny on the right and her friend and second cousin Dolly on the left posing like cool teenagers, just for perspective. They are not permanent fixtures. Neither is Dolly's bag of dress-up clothes there toward the left.

Just fyi--the wall is now a light yellow called Lemon Souffle. All the doors and woodwork will soon be the same white as on the lower right. Most of the furniture is a blue plaid. I like red accents.

This is a 100-year-old farmhouse, just so you know, and I am not really into trendy stuff like little pictures of steaming coffee cups. I like wall words, kind of, as long as it's not just one mysterious word like, "PERSPECTIVE." I'd like something that looks at home there and won't be out of style next month. Something cheerful.

I'd be open to a narrow sofa/console table as long as it didn't have terribly fragile/valuable things on top, because it would get crashed into in this household, we know that. The door to the outside is just off the picture, to the right.

Links and pictures would be great, even stuff on Pinterest.

So, what would YOU put there?

Quote of the Day:
"Is it possible to keep a beautiful home and still be a nice person?
--my friend Judy R.

Pretty and Ugly

Like most young Christians I hoped to do great things for God, and most of all I admired the Christian women I knew who had that magic way of connecting with people, and to whom people poured out their stories and their hearts.

Like my sister Rebecca, for example, who had such an incredible gift that at my grandma's Amish funeral, four different relatives told her, weeping, about their wayward children and asked her to pray for them, this despite the fact that the weepers wore long black cape dresses and white coverings, and Rebecca looked pretty wayward herself, an anomaly in that plain crowd, with a sweater and skirt and short hair.

But it wasn't just that I wanted to keep up with my big sister. Hearing and helping people one on one was what I longed to do, more than, say, medical work or teaching or street evangelism.

It didn't happen for years, though. People just never seemed compelled to tell me their problems. Oh well. I didn't obsess about it, but tried to do what showed up in front of me to do, which is a good strategy for anyone.

It was while we lived in Round Lake that IT started happening. Maybe I was becoming one of those select Christian women at last.

But it didn't take me long to discover something else. People's lives are not pretty. Somehow I had always pictured a certain sort of woman across the table, dripping tears into her tea. The dynamic, slim, popular, smart, manicured type that everyone liked and admired. And I would have just the right wisdom to neatly fix her problems.

Well. The ones who showed up in my life were not the smart and popular type. They were terribly overweight and struggling with diabetes but still they would eat six homemade cookies with their tea. They had addictions. They did phenomenally stupid things. They had messed up their minds with chemicals and didn't make much sense. They abandoned their children. They had no skills. They were not the sort you wanted to sit beside at a picnic or go shopping with.

And generally I had no clue how to help them or fix their problems.

Jesus said, "They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick."

So, if our ministry is going to be Christ-like, it's going to be to the sick, damaged, chaotic, ugly, twisted, unpopular, and embarrassing. And sometimes all we can do is love them and make more tea.

Of course, I found out after a while that the slim and manicured often have their own reasons to cry into their tea; they're just a lot less likely to admit it.

I've re-learned this many times since: People's lives are not pretty. But that's why Jesus came, because all of our lives are hopelessly ugly without Him.

Now you need to go read the post that inspired my cogitations this morning. It's called Ugly Ministry and is written by a young man named Asher who works with his family in Los Angeles, and he puts it way better than I can.

Quote of the Day:
Me: Jenny, Rachel told me she saw a hole in Janane's skirt and Janane said, 'Oh, that happened when Jenny and I were lighting candles and one fell on my skirt.' So. What's with this??
Jenny: [flippantly] Oh, Janane and I were lighting candles and then we'd take them to the bathroom and put them under the faucet to hear that hissing sound and one fell onto her skirt.
Me: Where was I????
Jenny: Oh, you were in Minnesota.
Me: WELL. Just. so. you. know. From now on you ABSOLUTELY. NEVER. play with candles and matches when I'm not there. EVER. You two could have burned the house down and yourselves along with it. Dear me, the stuff you find out after the fact.
Jenny: [sigh]
Ben: Jenny, if you don't like those kinds of lectures, it's a good thing you're going into entomology and not chemistry.