BEFORE
From the moment our daughter Tiffany told us she was going on the world race we knew of PVT (Parent Vision Trip). We hoped we could go but deep down doubted that we could afford it, so we tried not to get too excited about it so we would not be discouraged if we could not make it. Finally the email came with the dates and we had no money to do it. So my immediate reaction was to say “God, if you want us to go, you will have to supply”. A couple of days later I called my boss and in faithasked for the time off in case we were able to raise the money. Not even a week later I received the full amount from one donor. Wow, we were really doing this, we were going to see our daughter in Guatemala!
My emotions quickly went from doubt, to faith to fear. You see I was not afraid of going to a new country, or the plane ride or even the mission work we were going to encounter. I was afraid of my arrival being the worst part of Tiffany’s trip. In my head I could just hear her saying “everything was great until mom got here.”
You see, my relationship with my daughter Tiffany has never been the best one. Not because she was an awful kid, or because I was a terrible mother, but because we are so alike, yet so different. She is so very independent, strong, determined, and stubborn–just like me–but yet so free spirited, adventurous, and artistic. So much so that she has been able to experience things that I have only dreamed about, but because of being a security seeker, never dared to try.
So our likeness and our differences kept us from being as close as either one of us wished we were. So I was terrified! And instead of preparing for an amazing time with her, I prepared myself for being invisible. I prepared myself for standing in the sidelines. I prepared myself for watching everyone else have fun with their kids while I tried to keep myself from being disliked yet one more time. I prepared myself for not ruining her trip. But God had another plan!
As we got ready to send our kids on the race, we were told that they were going on a journey but that we as parents would be on a journey also. I did not pay much attention to that, I thought “well, maybe those parents who are very close with their kids will go on a journey of being able to let go of their kids or maybe I will miss her so much, we will become closer.” Well let me tell you that the journey He had for me was nothing like I imagined.
The journey He had for me was one of personal healing, acceptance and recognition. One of the ways the Lord speaks to me is through books. The first book he put in my hands a few weeks after Tiffany left was called Our Mother’s Ourselves by Henry Cloud and John Townsend. In this book he talks about the 6 different types of mothers and how each type has something they give their kids and something they lack to give. He teaches how each generation tries to do for their kids what their mothers did not and how every mom tries to be the perfect mom. But in fact we cannot be the perfect moms because we are imperfect people. Instead, our goal should be not to be the perfect mom, but instead be the “good enough mom.” So my healing had begun…
I was being healed from the idea that somehow I had failed because I was not the “perfect mom.” I, as many of us do, constantly compared myself to the gracious, patient, soft spoken mom who was loved and admired by her children. The one that her children could not live without and got multiple phone calls from her kids every day because they just needed to hear her voice. Instead I felt like I was the mom that the kids hated to see on their caller ID. After reading this book, I felt freedom in that. I no longer felt like a bad mom, but instead I felt like a “pretty good mom”, not the perfect mom, nor the good enough mom, but somewhere in the middle, and that was healing for me.
But then I began to wonder: so, really what does a good enough mom really look like? What is it that we, as parents, are supposed to do for our kids?
As the Lord always does, he provided me with that answer; he brought me to another book Love and Respect for Families by Dr. Emmerson Eggerich. In this book he talks about how when there is a conflict parents feel disrespected and kids feel unloved and when kids feel unloved they react in ways that may feel disrespectful to parents and when the parents feel disrespected they act in ways that might feel unloving to the kids therefore going into a crazy cycle.
He also explains what children need to feel loved and he explained it using the acronym G U I D E S which stands for Give, Understand, Instruct, Discipline, Encourage and Supplicate (pray). Through this book I felt I was given acceptance: the ability to accept who I was as a mother. As I read this book I felt God patting me on my shoulders and saying “Well done, good and faithful servant, well done.” Not only did I feel God telling me that I had been a good mom, now I was also telling myself that I had been an “ok” mom. (Still working on it!)
ARRIVAL
The day arrived for us to pack up our bags and leave for the airport. I always have a book on me, and for some reason, I left my book in the car. Of course I had to buy one at the airport and searching through the racks I found one in Spanish called How to Win the Heart of your Children by Jimmy and Aida Cornejo. This book was the icing on the cake. It almost seemed like I could have written it myself. So many times on the plane I would look at my husband Oliver and read to him sentences that he frequently hears me telling others. It was nearly every one of my life mottos written on paper. One of the things that this book really focused on was the difference between an inheritance and a legacy. An inheritance left to your kids is used now (when they receive it) but a legacy goes from generation to generation.
What is the best legacy we can leave our children?
To love and serve God above all things and to serve others.
God reminded me of the purpose statement my husband and I had written for our marriage years ago:
“Our Purpose: To raise our children to be fully equipped, spiritually mature, personally responsible, self sufficient, God loving and serving followers of Christ.”
By now I was feeling pretty good. I thought, “You know if I have done one thing right its that I have taught my kids to love and to serve God.”
After a relatively short flight, we arrive in Guatemala. That night I had the honor and privilege to see my daughter lead worship for all the racers and parents. This time though, something was different. It was not watching her lead worship that struck me. It was with the passion, the love and the total devotion she worship with. I had seen her before many times, and it was no different from when she worshiped at our home church, but this time I recognized it. I could recognize that I had left a good legacy–one that goes beyond material things, that goes beyond time, that will go beyond my lifetime and will reach my grandchildren and great grandchildren. This time I realized that His grace went beyond my mistakes, and his love allowed me to see that He was not only writing her story, as I had said many times, but He was also writing mine. PVT was an important chapter in both of them.
MINISTRY
PVT was not only fun it was really interesting. My husband and I had never been out of the country except for on a cruise. We had never been on missions trips either so we had never truly experienced other cultures. During our time there we had the opportunity to serve in 3 different ways.
The first day we were taken to a home for cerebral palsy children and adults. Although it was very sad, it was also very impressive to see how well they were being taken care of and the love that they were treated with in a country with very limited resources. During our time there, my husband and I fell in love with a little boy named Roberto. He was about 7 years old and had just recently been abandoned by his parents. Roberto cried all the time calling for mom; but just for a few moments, Roberto stopped crying and even laughed a few times as we played with him by tossing him a ball and racing him on his wheelchair. We were only there for about 2 hours and although I had to turn my head a few times as I held my tears back, when we got ready to leave I felt I could have stayed a few more hours.
The next day we visited 3 families in the poorest of neighborhoods. This was not the kind of poor I had experienced in the past. To me this was probably worse than the homeless situation we see back in the States. One of families we visited was a family of 7; mom, dad and their 3 girls and son in law. They lived in a neighborhood where someone had taken a piece of land and divided it with cyclone fence and called it rental homes. Their walls were made out of bamboo sticks tied together. Their roof was a piece corrugated zinc sheet and their floor was made out of red clay. Their mattress sat on some kind of blocks to keep them from touching the floor when it rained. The sounds of little chicks coming from an upside down plastic basket and a cat sleeping in a plastic basin on what we would have called the living room, but was actually their patio. There was no living room, no chairs, no sofa, no TV, no phones, no electricity, no washer, no dryers, no microwave, and no refrigerator. The kids unable to go to school because of them being so poor that the school would not accept them.
As we prayed for the family and brought them a little bag of food and a bible, the father arrived with his 8 year old son from harvesting avocados. This little boy so strong, so hard working and so humble helped his father bring down a huge net full of avocados down from the horse. Wow, while our children watch TV in their comfy chairs and complain how they don’t have the newest game console, this little boy has just spent the whole day picking avocados from a tree.
The following day we visited a “grandpa’s house” AKA a nursing home. Again we were very impressed with just how clean and how well taken care of they were. We took them out for a stroll in the park, talked to them and even sang songs to them. We really enjoyed it as much as they did.
We took a walk through the park where we practiced what the racers call ATL, which basically means “Ask The Lord.” We gathered in a circle and asked the Lord where he wanted us to go and who he wanted us to speak to. One of the racers had a vision of a pitcher pouring out into a cup and overflowing of water, and God revealed to her that we are full of his Love and we were to just pour into other people’s cup. So we set out and found a young girl in her early 20s who apparently some kind of mental delay and because of it was harassed, abused and made fun of by others. We then had the opportunity to pray for her and show her that God loves her.
At night after we got back to the church where we were staying, we were received with a hot meal and another amazing time of worship. Some nights some of us would stay up way past our bedtime to play games with our kids, and boy did we get in trouble!
One night we were divided between the men and women. One of the parent facilitators asked questions about our experience since arriving in Guatemala. A few moms shared how they saw great changes in their kids and how mature they had become. At one point the room went completely quiet, and I felt a burning in my heart to share the journey that God had just put me through. I did not want to do that, I really wanted to keep my mouth shut, but I could not. As I began to speak I could see how a few of the women there began to cry.I could feel how God was healing them also.
For the next 2 days moms kept coming to me to thank me sharing my story and to tell me how that was exactly what they needed to hear. This was yet another way of God showing me, that he was writing every detail of not only our lives but of this trip as well.
When the time came to say good bye, I thought I would be crying my eyes out. Instead it felt different, this time I was not saying good bye to my little girl. I was saying good bye to a young woman who was exactly where she needed to be.
