Yours, Mine, and Ours

     JUSTICE CONFRENCE

     A few weeks back, Austin and I attended a live stream of the Justice Conference. We both care deeply about social justice, but wanted to find a way to actually apply our lives to the cause, not just turn the radio up when a cause is being talked about. So we went. And the topics discussed pulled on our hearts.

    "When we reduce people to projects, we de-humanize them."

-Eugene Cho

     Austin and I speak often to our boys of things that are de-humaizing. It is a hot topic for us. The boys get tired of our answer to why something is inappropriate, often being "because it is de-humanizing." One of the boys has even starting calling other kids out on it.

      "I don't watch MTV, because I believe the shows that are full of men, making a mockery and          sexual object out of women are de-humanizing." This one was hard for the boys to grasp at first. But now, they don't watch MTV.

     "Using racial slurs, even out of 'sarcasm' is inappropriate, because it is de-humanizing." The boys still   disagree with us on this, but we are standing firm.

     We talk about classist, racist and sexist issues with them ... on a daily basis. But I didn't recognize was that my own heart was in need of some mending. I care about this issue of treating people with grace and love, and seeing people as people. That is why Austin and I came to Florida, for this very reason of loving "those kids" who are often unloved and overlooked.

     I find myself often thinking about the kids we work with, sighing, and concluding in my heart that "they are just one of those kids." This job is difficult, sometimes it is too difficult. I find myself wanting to give up relationship because it is too hard. I give myself tasks, I start to see them as projects. And in this, I have de-humanized them. And this breaks my heart.

     OUR KIDS, not THOSE KIDS

     It is too easy to write kids off by labeling them "those kids." But what I needed to realize, is that "those kids" are "our kids." They are somebodies kids. They are your neighbors kids. Your sisters kids. They could be your kids. As a community, we/I have a moral obligation to be there for "our kids."

They are not projects.
They are not numbers.
They are not failures.
They are humans.
They are kids.
They are our kids.

     RETURNING TO WORK 

     When Austin and I returned from the conference, we challenged each other in living out these ideas. We concluded that we too easily hide behind our paperwork and think too much about our weeks off. If we truly came to Florida to love on kids, then we need to put pre-conceptions in the garbage bag and see our boys for the people that they are.

     As with Christy Huddleston, I found this to be a challenging task. I tried to view the kids in my life not as mission, not as projects, but as kids. This took me to a whole new place of vulnerability. Missions need enthusiasm. Projects need dedication. But kids, kids need vulnerability. And vulnerability bears all.

Romancing Evil

I recently read the book Christy, by Catherine Marshall. It is one of my favorites. The heroine is a young women during the turn of the 20th century who leaves her well to do home in the big city to teach, in a rural, Appalachian town. She moves to the town, trekking seven miles through deep snow and unseen roads only to find an impoverished people group with harsh customs and mean words. Her Anne of Green Gables "romantical" expectation is completely slashed open as she discovers the world to be nothing as she imagined.

Christy and I are kindred spirits. We both have "fits of passion" and can "come on too strong." We judge quickly, we care deeply, and our hearts are easily broken. Oh, and Alice Henderson is our hero. Near the beginning of her story, Christy's "mentor" Alice Henderson speaks hard words into her life. And they have found a way to leak off the page and into my heart as well ...

     "You see Christy, evil is real - and powerful. It has to be fought, not explained away, not fled.               And God is against evil all the way. So each of us has to decide where we stand, how we're going to live our lives. We can try to persuade ourselves and wink at evil. We can say that it isn't so bad after all, maybe even try to call it fun by clothing it in silks and velvets. We can compromise with it, keep quiet about it and say it's none of our business. Or we can work on God's side, listen for His orders on strategy against the evil, no matter how horrible it is, and know that He can transform it."

Christy, of course, choose to stay in the mountains and face evil. She choose to work on God's side and listen for His orders on strategy against evil. No matter how horrible it was. No matter the ugliness and the disparity and the cruelty.

I, like Christy, grew up in a beautiful home. Safe from the world and ignorant to many of it's evils. Over the past eight years, I have traveled the world, experiencing pain and desperation and ugliness and some of the worst of evils. I can not un-see what I have seen. I can not un-know what I now know. The world is evil, and it will continue in this until the King returns to call us home. There are days I dream of running from it all, to an island away from it all... but even there I would not be able to escape what I have seen and what I know.

We are in this evil world, and we are to be shining beacons of light. Until the father calls us home to that perfected forever.

Lets get technical

What does it mean to be sexually reactive?

It simply means, to react sexually to the examples of sex that have been displayed for you. 

Pre-sexualization is when a person is prematurely exposed to sexual things. This includes children witnessing adults performing sexual acts, watching mature television or movies that revolve around sexual themes, or even having an adult or another person perform sexual acts on or towards them. 

When kids are pre-sexualized, their sexual development exceeds their moral and physical development, and this leaves them in a merry-go-round of turmoil and confusion.

A sexually reactive child is one who acts out in a sexual manor, because of the pre-sexualization that has taken place in their life. Examples would include; a child trying to perform a sexual act on another child, copying something that they watched. Or perhaps exposing themselves in a sexually inappropriate manner... again, copying perhaps something that had been done towards them. 

When a child exposes themselves or performs a sexual act on another child, this is still a sexual offense ... but if they are deemed "sexually re-active" then they are not usually labeled as an offender. 

This is where it gets sticky. I believe that the victim comes first. Each. And. Every. Time. But when the offender is also a victim, then both the victim and the offender need to come first... What do I mean? I mean we need to treat both victims as victims ... but to the one that offends, they also need to be treated for offending. 

For the 12 year old boy who was victimized, but never shared the abuse until he created another victim... he needs treated as both an offender an a victim. But his victim needs to be put first. His victim needs to know that they are safe. Then, the 12 year old needs to be treated as a victim, he needs to know that he is safe too. A victim/offender  CAN NOT simply be treated as an offender if they have not dealt with being a victim. 

I am not saying that we need to be softer on sexual offenders, because I do not believe that to be true. I think that the law needs to come down hard. I think that sin needs to be exposed and that offenders need to be brought into the light. But, I also believe that we need to offer victim counseling to the victim/offenders if we really want them to recover. 

Pre-sexualization is abhorrent. We live in an over-sexualized world, and we think that dressing our little girls up in bikinis is funny. But it is not. It is sick. Our world is prematurely exposing our kids to Halloween behavior. And when they act upon what they see and hear, we slap their hands. And when they become a victim, we tell them to be quiet. And when they become an offender, we gasp and say "what happened to them!?"

Oh to sleep.

"Come to me all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28

The past 72 hours have been the most exhausting and trauma filled in my life. I watched as my husband used physical strength to keep multiple people safe. I woke in the middle of the night to alarms and defiance. I learned that the police who work graveyard shift are just normal guys who went to the dentist on Tuesday.

My heart is pulsing at a faster rate these past few days. I know. I've checked. The alarm system in our house is as loud as a fire truck. Sounds like a fire truck. Repeatedly says "Intruder Alert, Intruder Alert, Intruder Alert." And it is slowly cause small doses of PTSD in me.

Two evenings ago, Austin and I found ourselves on the floor of a storage closet, crying. Surrounded by mop cleaner, granola bars and contraband items. We were a mess.

Sleep. We needed sleep. Like that "I've been traveling internationally and stuck in a terminal for two days I need sleep," sleep." But this level of tired pushes beyond physical dreariness. This job has tested the limits of our mental capacity, our marriage, and our faith.

I to the NorthWest in 144 hours - but who is counting? All I want to count right now is sheep.

Man Sized Boy Children

This job makes us laugh. And I mean seriously, laugh. I live with one man, and five boys each the size of a man. That equals me and six man sized creatures. Kind of like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ... except I have seven dwarfs, and my dwarfs are actually giants.

In our cottage, we sing a lot of songs, we dig for gold, and I even talk to the little animal creatures outside. The songs are rap, country and screamo... Though there would be a lot of screaming if they found out I was calling it that. I find loose coins all over the house, every golden penny gets added to a jar. And outside, I find new creatures every day. This weeks creatures included roaches of variable sizes, biting anoles, and the famous annually appearing black racer snake.

Austin and I do a lot of laughing in this cottage. We laugh, when the man sized boy creatures throw tantrums like two year olds. And laugh at their facial expressions in response to finding out that we not only have a facebook account, but we also know the lyrics to Ed Sheeran's newest song. We laugh when we trick them into doing chores and when they catch us singing to each other as we do dishes. We laugh when they laugh. It's contagious really.

What is also contagious in a different way, is the weight that they carry. It surrounds them them like a cloud, a morning fog that never lifts; anything that settles in the valley is also clouded by the fog. The more that we learn their stories, the pieces that they share, the parts that they don't, the fog falls on us, as we settle in their valley. Those are the times where no amount of laughter can lift the fog. And it can be depressing.

Austin and I just ended 15 days on. Sitting at our favorite Farm to Table restaurant in Deland, we talked about the week. We started out by laughing, sharing favorite moments of things that made us smile. But inevitably, this turned quickly into stories that had been shared with us. Moments when the man sized boy creatures let us peek in their hearts. And it just hurts. And no amount of laughter can clean that slate.

Stay

We met our six giant "man-child" boys in the afternoon. We had a meeting where we got to know each other and get on the same page. When asked if they had anything to share, one brave young man spoke for the rest; "Don't leave." He looked at us earnestly, pleading in his eyes, he left the statement sitting on the table in mid air.

"We drove 3023 miles, just to come live with you. We left everything and everyone we know to be here. We are not leaving."

My words felt so empty. Unconvincing. The silence that followed seemed to echo off the high walls. What could I say to convince them that we were here to stay? What could we do to convince ourselves?

The words were so simple, straight forward. Yet they were complex and vague. These "man-child" boys are like toddlers, crying after a mother who goes to Starbucks without them. They, like the toddler, lack an understanding of time and promises. The mom on the way out the door always says "Honey, I will be right back." But the child wails on, "No mommy, take me with YOU." And these boys, these almost men, they look at us with eyes that say "take me with you."

Coming to Florida, when people asked how they could pray, we asked that you pray that we would be the couple that would "Stay." We have heard the rumors about how many staff have come and gone with this specific group of boys. They are losing all trust and hope. We want so badly to be the people who stay. I want to grab hold of their face and promise them with all my might that I will never leave ... but I cant on a good conscience do that. I get angry about the people in their life who have let them down, who have not fulfilled promises. I get angry at the adults who have left them, who have given them up, or given them back.

We were off shift for the last two weeks. It is always a little nerve wracking coming back, we don't know what unfolded during our absence and we have to muster up all the courage we have. I wonder if any of them will be happy to see me. The school bus brakes release, I hear running feet, "Mr. AUSTIN! Ms. HEATHER!" I am so glad you are here!! I am so glad  you came back!"

We smile. "Yes" we say, "We were visiting family. We are back. We are not leaving. We are here to stay."

Invite me in

My Mama tells me stories of a church her and my Daddy attended when they were in their early years of marriage. She said that each week, a different family from the church would put lunch in the crock pot at home, ready to invite a guest over. If a guest was at church that morning, the ready family would invite them over for a home cooked meal. She said their church grew tremendously during those years.

As Austin and I moved away from our home, from our friends and family and church; we are starting to get a glimpse into the world of hospitality and understanding it in a new way. We, who are so far away from everything, long to be included ... in anything. It would absolutely make our entire month if someone would simply invite us over for lunch.

Looking for a new church community is a hard, sometimes painful process. If you have ever moved, or needed to find a new church for any reason at all, perhaps my words will resonate with you.

"Welcome to our church, if you are a guest today, please don't put anything in the offering ... fill out the information card in front of you and take it to the hospitality desk following the service (or drop it in the basket, hand it to the usher, leave it on your seat etc.) We have a free gift we would like to give you, we wont solicit your name..."

We have turned in the cards. We have given our name. We have sent emails. We have received the "gifts," the free coffee, the worship CD, Our Daily Bread Devotional ... We have received a lot of "Wow, you moved from OR-E-GUN? It's snowing there right?" We've gotten the, "We have a lot of men with beards here, you will really fit in." "Do you have children? No? ... Well when you do, we have a great children's department!" We have met people with firm grasps and people with flimsy handshakes. We have met people who looked us in the eye, and people who eyed us up and down.

What we have not yet received is an invitation for lunch.

And I know this is like against our culture. I know we are not in the Middle East, the magical place where strangers invite strangers in for tea. I know that we need to put ourselves out there. But of all the "free gifts" we have received, what we would really love is someone to have lunch with.

At each of the churches we have been too, we have straight out said "We are new, were looking for friends,  they don't even need to be our age, what do your small groups look like?" And we have been referred to the website. Every. Single. Time.

Now, I am not trying to gripe about churches here, because I really could write another blog on the great things about each of the churches, but I think something needs to change about the way that we as the American Church run our "hospitality desks." Most people are not looking for a free pamphlet about your church, most people, if they are new, are looking for someone to eat lunch with.

I write these words and feel guilt rushing over me like a broken shower. How many people have I instinctively shaken hands with on a Sunday Morning and never once invited them out? What makes it worse, is that I can think of times when I thought of asking people over for a meal, but I justified it with statements like:

"I am having lunch with my friends today, bringing someone new would be weird."
"I was planning on a quite day at home."
"Maybe if I see them again next Sunday?"
"Maybe someone else is taking them to lunch."
"Maybe they don't want to go out to lunch with me."
"I have too many people in my life, I don't have room for anyone new."

Its that last one I think that usually gets me stuck. But this time, I am the one that doesn't have enough  people in my life, and I wish I knew someone that I could invite over for lunch.

I guess this is an urging, to be open to sharing a meal with someone you don't know. To ask a guest at your church if they have lunch plans. I know that I am waiting for the opportunity to turn this around and ask someone to join in a meal with me. And when I do, I will let you know.

"For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in. For whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me." - Matthew 25:25