Happy Birthday, William!!

Happy Birthday, William!  I can’t believe you’re 7 whole years old already.  I am SO proud of you — this year your big event was starting local first grade in Russian!  You have done so well, persevering with the writing homework and listening and understanding in class… your teacher told me how pleased she is with what a good student you are. Way to go!

Even more than Russian school, I have been so thankful for the way you are letting Jesus grow your heart.  Recently I noticed you really listening when Daddy points out things about your character - like learning how it feels to let Ben go first, or putting aside what you wanted to do to help your sister - and then later that day or the next day, I see you doing it!  That is the way to grow, Will… listen to correction, and then do it.  I hope you keep this pattern the rest of your life - it will sure help you grow into the young man God created you to be!

I love how attuned you are to God’s creation.  You’re always drawing my attention to a cool rock, or a neat flower, or a new colorful bird.  You notice the way the trees look against the sky, and you think about how things are made and how they work.  You have the mind of a scientist, engineer and poet all wrapped in one.  It’s so amazing watching you unfold!  

I couldn’t ask for a more wonderful first-born son.  I love spending time with you, just the two of us, reading (you love the National Geographic Science readers) or playing games (like chess, checkers, Connect4 and UNO)… you are a “quality time” kind of guy, and I love that about you.

You’re goofy too - you love to groove and beatbox, and your dance moves are legendary.  You like U2, Bluetree, Colin Buchanan and any other hoppin’ beat you can find!  You are a unique, quirky, wonderful kid, and I love you so much.  I love every day I get to be your Mom!  

I hope you have a wonderful, special birthday with your cousins in New Zealand this year, and know how loved and special you are!

XOXO  Love, Mom

Happy 2nd Birthday, Ruby Grace!

Happy, happy Birthday to my sweet, sweetie-pie!  

When you were in my tummy, I SO hoped you would be a girl.  I thought it would be fun to have a daughter after two sons, but I didn’t know it would be THIS much fun!  I love every single thing about you: the way your eyes crinkle when you smile, your chubby kissable cheeks, your sweet little voice, your infectious giggle, your spunkiness, your tender-heartedness that wants to kiss and cuddle anyone who’s hurt or crying, your eagerness to help me with anything I’m doing… “Doing, Mama?  Doing?  Hep me?”   

It warms my heart every time you push a chair up to the counter to “help” wash the dishes, or stir batter, or poke your fingers into bread dough.  You like to hand me the wet clothes from the basket while I’m hanging them up, and take the dry ones from me to put in the basket.  “Hep me, Mama, yaundry.”  You help me straighten the blankets on my bed, too, and “Tie up!” (tidy up) your room and your toys.  You are SO much more interested in all of this than the boys ever were!  It’s wonderful!  

Your latest new thing is your “BCB’s”.  Ben has started learning to write his alphabet letters, and you demand to sit right beside him and do your “BCB book” too.  You make tiny little “O’s” all over the paper and say, “Yook, Mommy!  BCB’s!”  One morning I was journaling in bed and you woke up early so Daddy brought you in to cuddle in our bed.  As soon as you saw me writing, you started asking, “Doing, Mama?  Witing?  Me, Mama?  BCB’s too?” When I wouldn’t give you a turn with my pen, you started kissing my glasses, over and over… 

You’re Daddy’s girl, that’s for sure.  Whenever you sit still long enough to let me do your hair, after I’m done you pop up saying, “Dad-dy?  Dad-dy?  Yook, Dad-dy!” and run to wherever he is.  You preen and twirl and he always tells you how beautiful you look - it seems to matter so much more what he thinks than what I think, and that is just fine by me!    

I love how you like to play tea party with me (just like I hoped!).  We make your bed into a “house” by putting your blanket over the top, and we crawl in there together and set up your doll and teddy bear. You are a great little hostess, offering “moah tea?”, pouring out tea for both of us, asking if I want “muk?” and “shoogah?” and then stirring something up and saying, “Cake?” 

I love how you cuddle your dolls and stuffed animals and put them to bed and kiss their owies.  But you also love playing “Tahguh Tickuw” (Tiger Tickle) with your brothers, and playing with their cars, trains, LEGOS, and anything else you can get your hands on!  

You really have a compassionate spirit.  When we took care of our various pets this year, you were the one who always remembered it was time to feed them in the mornings, and made sure they had blankets so they didn't get cold.  You smothered them with cuddles, and were so gentle.  Maybe you'll be a nurse or a doctor or veterinarian - or mommy - one day...

You ask for your favorite songs every single naptime and bedtime - “Happy Cap Cap” (If You’re Happy and You Know It) and “Joy Joy Joy” (Down in My Heart).  You do all the motions and say all the words in the right places and grin at me the whole time.  It’s completely adorable.

You’re starting to pray at mealtimes: “Deah Jee-judge.. (moment of silence)… ey - MEN!” and at bedtime you’re starting to listen to stories about Him.  You’re beginning to learn how wonderful He is, and I can’t wait to teach you about Him and watch you come to know Him for yourself. 

You’re great at interacting with our local friends here - you say “Ashalom” (Assalam Aleykum) to my helper when she arrives, with a little inclination of your head and your hand over your heart.  She just melts!  All our neighbors love you and call you “Rubeeshka”, the Russian affectionate nickname, whenever we go out for a walk.  And you regularly ask about our best friends down the street by name: “Noda come howoos?” (come to our house)  She came to your birthday lunch and you were so thrilled to share your “Cake” with her.  

You have so many words now.  I loved how you talked over your birthday tonight before you went to sleep.  “Wooby birfday?  New trike?  Cake?  Boys?  B’lloon?  Gamma Skype?  Noda came?  Cake?”  This morning I softly came into your room singing a quiet “Happy Birthday to you…”  You were lying down on your blanket, but when you saw me you quickly sat bolt upright and said, “Cake?”

As you approached this birthday, you started saying “Shelf!  Shelf!” (self) all the time.  You really want to try things on your own: putting on tights (how’d that work out for ya?), reaching for your toothbrush, cutting your own pancake, putting away your stack of clean clothes.  (Yeah, just shove ‘em in there!)  You are so independent and already quite competent for such a little person - a force to be reckoned with!  

Yes, you are your mother’s daughter - verbal, stubborn, endearing, relational, affectionate, possessive, lovable, independent, spunky, cuddly, obstinate, winsome.  We love every minute with you, our precious little jewel,

Ruby Grace

of flying machines and grace-filled mothering

I wish I had a flying machine.

(We haven't actually seen this movie... this model came in an airplane kids' kit!)

Will and I made Yogi Bear's flying machine at “rest time” today.  I reluctantly relinquished my usual hour of lying-down-flat-in-a-dark-cool-room because he’s been begging me for several days to “make a craft”…

Ever feel like David?  “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove; I would fly away and be at rest!” (Ps. 55:6)

That refrain played over and over in my heart today.

My second son (4.5 yrs) currently idolizes screen time over every other thing in his life (including Jesus, his mom and dad, all his friends, and every toy he owns).  Practically all of his communication with me this morning consisted of complaining, whining, and begging for screen time, until I put my foot down and insisted “I can't hear you” as long as he continued to whine.  He finally forced himself to switch to a slightly less nasal tone just to get me to respond.

Oh, for the wings of a dove…

After sticking the flying machine together and taping feathers to strips of felt to make Indian headbands, I snuck into my room to lay down on my bed, but I barely got 10 horizontal minutes before Ruby woke up.  Ten whole minutes.  

Then it was up-and-at-‘em again, off to the shop, greeting the entire neighborhood en route to and from, the flurry of getting dinner, letting the dog out, putting the dog away, kids fed, bathed, toenails clipped, put to bed, phone calls made, emails typed, and… I’m still so wound up that even though I’m exhausted, I had to type the rough draft of this post before I could even start my bedtime routine.

I want to fly away on Yogi Bear’s flying machine, without anyone sitting behind me - just me.  By myself.  Alone.  Without anyone else.  Alone.  Did I mention, I want to be alone?

Oh…that I could fly away, and be at rest!

Where are my wings?  I kept glaring up at heaven.

Ever have a day like that?  What did you do? 

Desperate, in the middle of the afternoon, I made Ben write down what he was thankful for, and then I did the same - a purple prophecy written in hope, since it sure isn’t evident yet…

(in case it's not clear in the photo, Ben's list - made with help - includes "cousins in NZ, a cute little sister, 2 grandmas who love me, Gpa Tim and that I have his name, and a ride in a donkey cart today")

I went out after rest time and took pictures of sunflowers, each click of the shutter a tiny burst of helium in my heart, finally lifting it up off the ground to gain a bit of altitude…

I petted the dog… For the first time in my life, I’ve discovered how therapeutic it can be to scratch the velvety fur behind a dog’s ears.  I’m amazed it’s taken me 30 years to discover this!

And now, I’m writing this blog post, looking for wings, hoping the story of this day will encourage even just one other heart out there…

The next day...

I discover that a book review for a course I’m taking is due right now, so during “rest time” I curl up with my Kindle for a hasty reading session.  The book I’ve chosen to review is a thick tome on mentoring which came highly recommended, but my initial scratches (months ago) left me worried it might be quite dry.  Hah!  Completely the opposite.  I can’t stop highlighting.  

In the middle of Chapter 2, the author is describing how a good spiritual mentor can help us discern spiritual meaning in and through the events of our daily lives. These words jump off the page:

“[Eugene] Peterson compares pastoral ministry to work on the farm with its routines of unglamorous chores, such as cleaning the barn, mucking out the stalls and pulling weeds.  Spiritual mentoring is farm work in which we meet routinely with our mentor for periodic unglamorous conversations and prayer.  Though moments of grand epiphany burst in or around us, the heart of mentoring another is the modest work of the routine.” (emphasis mine)

This girl, who’s never owned an animal larger than a hamster, has been feeding chickens, scooping dog poop and pulling up huge fistfuls of garden weeds since the beginning of summer, so the “farm work” analogy currently has a - shall we say - pungent meaning for me.

But it was the end of that paragraph which took my breath away:

“Most pastoral work takes place in obscurity,” says Peterson, “deciphering grace in the shadows, searching out meaning in a difficult text, blowing on the embers of a hard-used life.  This is hard work and not conspicuously glamorous.”

I have a confession to make.  [stage whisper]  I’m one of those people who secretly likes being “conspicuously glamorous”.  Really.  I like getting attention, looking put together, receiving credit for what I’ve accomplished...

Guess what I’m discovering.  

Motherhood is anything but glamorous.  

(Big surprise, right?)  

Motherhood is “deciphering grace in the shadows.”  

When I read that phrase, I saw why God wants me to read this book: not because I’m supposed to go out and collect unsuspecting mentorees on which to bestow my vast depths of knowledge (hah!), but because I already have three little mentorees living in my house everyday, whose souls I am (scarily) responsible for shaping.  

I mean, of course if you’re a mother, you’re a mentor, right?  Yeah, ok - it should’ve been obvious, I guess.  But for some reason, I just didn’t connect motherhood and mentoring.  I thought mentoring was something older, more experienced adults did for younger adults… (so, um, that would be me, with my three little adults-in-training…)  

I know it’s God who works in all of us to will and to act according to His good purpose, and I know He is ultimately the One forming the character of my children, but I also have a huge responsibility to partner with Him in raising my kids to be godly, mature, responsible, joy-filled adults.  After all, He did pick me to be their mother - gulp! - and here in the middle of this book on Spiritual Mentoring, I am finally getting it.   

I need to learn how to become a good mentor because I already have three precious souls under my care.  

I need to learn how to “decipher grace in the shadows.”  I have this sneaking suspicion that if I can find grace in the shadows, I’ll find those wings I’ve been looking for.

photo credit

I scroll back in my Kindle to another quote earlier in the book which I highlighted in the context of adult mentoring but which takes on a new savor when applied to motherhood:

“The good mentor will help us ‘read between the lines’ for the hidden and quietly earthy messages that God will give because life is full of God.”

Yes.  To help my children read between the lines of life and unearth God’s messages for them because life is full of God. 

Or this one:

“The success or effectiveness of spiritual mentor may be directly related to the ability of mentor and mentor to move beneath the surface into the depths of treasures within the mentoree.  Anything that we bring to the surface has the potential to turn out to be silver or gold hidden in the rough, angular and random shapes of the earthly rock containers that carry these unique treasure.  The patient, sometimes tedious work of mining for the rich treasures within the seemingly worthless rocks is the work of spiritual mentoring.  These rocks are the stories of our daily lives.”

So.  Guess what?

In the midst of the tedious daily grind of dealing with bad attitudes and ungrateful hearts (often my own), dishes, laundry, farm chores, and cooking, I am mining unique treasures of gold and silver in the souls of my children.  I am helping them read between the lines of life for God’s messages.  I am “deciphering grace in the shadows.” 

Those glimpses of grace, when brought out into the light, become wings with the power to lift me up out of the mundane, into the holy. 

Does this resonate with you?  This doesn’t just apply to children, you know; we are mining for treasures with every friendship we have.  We are “deciphering grace in the shadows” in each conversation, each email, each train of thought, each journal entry, each prayer we whisper to the Holy Spirit in the depths of our hearts.  

We are all spiritual mentors for each other, and our holy work is the quietness of listening and paying attention to the “hidden and quietly earthy messages” God is every moment giving.

Because life is full of God, there is grace to decipher in the shadows.  

And that makes the shadows full of wings.

photo credit

going native

{Digging up a laugh from the archives four years ago, after our first year living in this village...}

Take a good long look. Make sure you catch the whole ensemble, including the blue long-underwear and fleece-lined crocs… this is the new me. 

I have finally arrived. 

I am officially enculturated. (Is that a word?)

The backstory: On Monday, my new house helper asked me why I wear “real clothes” (meaning a long skirt or pants and blouse) around the house every day.  Local women here wear housedresses pretty much all the time, made of light cotton in the summer and velour in the winter. They only put on “real clothes” if they’re going “out”, and walking up the street to the local shop doesn’t count.  My helper wears the same black and green striped housedress every time she comes to our house to clean (I wonder how often it gets washed…)

Anyway, I made the lame excuse that I haven’t had time to get any clothes here, so I’ve just been wearing the clothes I brought from home. 

(Which is sort of true—we’ve only been to the big city once since getting back, and we steered clear of the humongous bazaar where they sell local items like housedresses. The rest of the truth is that to be honest, I've had zero inclination to buy a housedress—I didn't think I’d be brave enough to wear it outside the house, and I didn’t want to have to change my clothes every time I popped out to the shop… plus housedresses in general are not very attractive, in my opinion.)

SO, since my wardrobe was obviously sadly lacking, and my helper’s latest project is collecting items from the big city bazaar to resell out of her house, she helpfully offered to pick up a housedress for me and sell it to me at cost. 

How could I refuse? 

Plus, I thought, I do want to fit in here, and if it looks weird to them for me to be wearing my nice clothes all the time, then I don’t mind “going native.”

“What color do you want?” she asked.

“Oh, I dunno—blue, I guess? But it doesn’t really matter…” 

Shouldn’t have added that last bit.

She was planning to go into the city to get more stock the next day, and I invite her to stop by our house for dinner since I knew she wouldn’t have time to cook. At 7pm she knocks at the door at 7pm, and sits down at my table to try spaghetti (which she liked, by the way).  

After a few bites, she says, “Wait til you see what I got for you—they didn’t have any blue, but I think you’ll like this.” She grabs her shopping bag and pulls out—well, an animal skin. 

I just burst out laughing.  

“Try it on, try it on!” she says, enthusiastically. “I told them you were my size but a lot taller… see if it fits!” 

Hilarious. 

What the heck, I thought, why not?  Laughing the whole time, I strip to my long underwear right there in the kitchen and zip the thing up to my neck. 

“It really suits you!” she’s exclaiming. “It came to the ground on me—it’s just the right length for you! But you need to unzip it a little—“ and she pulls the zip halfway down my chest—“there, it looks great!” 

I look like Eve walking out of the garden, but I hear myself say, “Yeah, wow, and it’s so comfortable!” And before I can stop myself, I add, “I could wear this every day! Look, it even has a couple pockets…” and she chimes in, “Yeah, and the zipper is great for breastfeeding—you just—“ and she pantomimes—“zip it down, and there you go!” 

I can’t stop laughing. 

I prance into the next room to show James, and his face registers “Shock-horror!” before making a few polite noises… I laugh even harder.  I go back and pull out money to pay her, thanking her the whole the time.  

As she’s going out the door she finishes with, “I like it so much—I’m getting one for myself the next time I go! Then we can match!” 

Oh my goodness.

Still giggling, I go back to James, strike a pose, and ask him what he really thinks. He just gives me this look that says it all. I die. 

Then I go find Will (then about 2 1/2): “Will, how do you like Mommy’s new dress?” A slow smile breaks over his face. “Mommy—angel!” he says with awe. And then “ ‘Pots! (spots)” he says, poking curiously at them. 

Laughing so hard, I have to go to the bathroom before I pee my pants, and while I’m sitting there catching my breath, I think, Could it get any better than this?

I wore my new duds all day yesterday and today too, and actually, if you can get past the dead animal look, it’s a very functional garment. It’s 80% cotton, washes well, has pockets for cell phone and chapstick, and is actually very convenient for breastfeeding… 

And even though I look ridiculous, every time I put it on I will think of my sweet helper and how much she needs to know Jesus.

Don't miss the huge black leather gumboots... I think they make the outfit.

P.S. Today I actually got up the guts to wear it out to the corner shop. The ladies who run the shop are all my friends, and I wanted to see their reaction. They loved it. “Oh, it looks so good on you! You shouldn’t wear those long skirts all the time—you’re so tall, you should show off your legs! You look like a model!” (which is the same word in every language) 

Well. How can I possibly argue with that?

of awareness and stray dogs {May Lessons in Listening}

{For 2014, I'm focusing on the one word "listen" - read more of my monthly musings here!} 

The heart of good listening is being aware.

In a conversation, a good listener is aware not only of the words the other person is saying but of their tone, their silences, their body language, and as much of their history and context as the listener knows.  All these elements together give the listener a more complete snapshot of the emotional, psychological and mental state of the person to whom he or she is listening.

Taking all this into consideration, the good listener is able, for a moment or two, to step into the other person’s reality and see through their eyes.  From that insider’s perspective, the love, care and empathy they offer is truly genuine, and any advice or counsel truly useful.

But in my journey towards deepening as a  Listener, I’m discovering that this awareness nurtured by a habit of intentional listening is gradually enabling me to become aware of much more than words and conversations.

I’m growing a kind of sixth sense, noticing and absorbing things which I would have previously overlooked.  Situations I might have thought “chance happenings” before are taking on new and deeper meaning.  (Can you tell where I’m going with this?)  

As my regular readers are aware, we recently rescued a stray dog, and he is quickly becoming “our” dog.  

(The “our” is in quotes because he’s only been with us a week, and I’m still holding my breath: will he sicken with a mysterious doggy illness and die?  Will a former owner turn up at our gates and demand his polite, gentle, well-mannered pup back?  I could never have predicted the storyline so far; I don’t dare try to predict the future…)

While I’m not sure I’m ready to say God sent him to us, I’ve definitely had moments this week where my as-of-January-2014-newly-pricked-up “listening antennae” have zinged slightly, and I’ve caught glimpses of what God might be doing?

Taking me out of my comfort zone.  I love my comfort zone.  Some of you probably think I must be outside my comfort zone all the time: living as we do in post-Soviet Central Asia, taking holidays in exotic-sounding countries, and spending half our “home” leave in a country I’ve lovingly adopted but which isn’t my passport country.  

All of that might sound pretty un-comfortable, but the truth is I actually thrive on it.  I really was made to live the life I’m living; it fits me like a glove. And the human penchant for familiarity and routine flows strongly through my veins, so I’ve actually become comfortable here, in this language I’ve been speaking for 10 years, in our third year in this house we’ve wrapped around us, in this neighborhood, in the role of wife and mother.  And - I like being comfortable.  

I do not like having my comfortable routine invaded unexpectedly and uninvitedly.  Which is exactly what has happened.

I think God might doing other things, too, with the arrival of this little dog, such as…

Thrusting upon our family a chance for our eldest son in particular to learn compassion and responsibility…

Opening a door for all three of our kids to learn how to care for something smaller and more helpless than themselves…

Providing a living parable for our neighborhood - in particular one little neighbor boy who spends part of every day at our house - to see Christian charity (in the best and oldest sense of that word) in action…

And also, I suppose, granting that little dog a chance to become the best version of himself instead of the worst, to learn how to develop mutually satisfying relationships with human beings…

(Not that I really care that much at the moment, to be perfectly honest, with everything else on my plate, about the development of the potential worth within a stray dog, but maybe - probably? - he’ll surprise me…) 

Learning to listen is like pricking up the ears of your soul (see? I’m using doggy analogies now) or swiveling your spiritual antennae to catch new sound waves of meaning in the ordinary things that happen every day….

Like hearing a redemptive analogy in the rescue of a scrawny stray.  

P.S.  For those of you wondering if we've named him, the kids have christened him “Wags”, after Wags-the-Dog from the Wiggles (ugh).  But I've found my own name for him, a word from my second language, a word I want to use every time I tell his story to a visitor…

I’m calling him “Shepket”.  Mercy.  

(Yeah, I know, it’s melodramatic - I can’t help it.  But hey, look - it shortens to “Shep”, the classic American dog name… and now you can laugh.)

ok, you can all breathe a sigh of relief {Part 2 of our stray dog dilemma}

So, all 100 of you (!) who read yesterday’s post and gasped in horror can breathe a big collective sigh of relief:

I climbed down into the manhole this morning, at 6:30am, to rescue that poor shivering pup.

Yes, I did.  I got soaking wet, since there was a pump down there spraying water, but wet jeans were nothing compared to how miserable the dog looked.  My main fear was that he (she? I haven’t gotten a good look yet) would snap at my feet as I came down the ladder, but nary a whimper.  Not a single peep.  He just laid back his ears and looked up at me.  

I may or may not have said, in a rather loud voice, while gingerly climbing backwards down the ladder of a manhole in Post-Soviet Central Asia, “Jesus, I cannot believe you did this for us.  And now I’m doing it for a dog!”

Wearing cloth gloves, I picked up the dog and carried him awkwardly back up the ladder with me, talking to him all the time, and we reached ground level in safety.  I wrapped him in an old towel I’d brought with me, carried him the 10 meters back to our gate, and deposited him gently in the big old doghouse just inside our yard.  

(The owners of this house used to keep a huge, ferocious, terrifying Rottweiler to discourage break-ins.  The entire street, especially the kids, used to be terrified to even walk past this house.  It’s a good thing we’re the last house on the street.)

Yes, we have lived in this house with a ready-made dog kennel for three years and don’t yet own a dog… But here I need to say a brief word about me and animals: The largest pet I’ve ever owned is a hamster, and while I was sad when I found poor Clyde stiff and cold in his cage, and shed a few tears as I buried in the backyard with a popsicle-stick cross, I have to say that losing Clyde did not break my heart. 

I did not grow up on a farm like my husband, who laughed at me on one of our early dates for meticulously avoiding piles of animal poop as we walked down a rural dirt road.  “It’s poop!” I exclaimed.  “I don’t want to step in it!”

“Yeah, but it’s just animal poop - all they eat is grass,” he reasoned.  “Now human poop, or dog poop - that’s a lot worse.”

And now, I have a real, live dog temporarily living in my yard.  (I say temporarily because I really have no idea what’s going to happen next.) 

I have zero practice feeding dogs, interpreting their body language (ok, most of it’s pretty common sense), dealing with things like fleas and worms and vaccinations, and especially no practice dealing with any of that in a barely-one-step-up-from-a-third-world country.  

So you could say I’m pretty overwhelmed by the whole situation.  Granted, so far the first day has gone relatively peacefully - no snapping or growling when we’ve fed him/her, and even some feeble attempts to show it wants to please.

By far the best moment so far, however, was my conversation with the scrawny little neighbor boy who spends half the day at our house almost every day (who’s actually here with me right now on the front steps as I type this, telling me a story lickety-split about a dog they had once who they fed and fed until it got really big, and then someone stole it, or it went into someone else’s yard and they never saw it again…)  

This little boy turned up at our gate around 8am this morning, and when we showed him the dog in the kennel he asked if it had snuck back into our yard.  (He’d helped fill in the hole with rocks yesterday but missed the drama with the manhole in the afternoon.)  

“No,” I said, “the dog got thrown down the manhole (didn’t know that word, had to pantomime) over there.  I couldn’t stand the thought of it being in there, so I climbed down this morning and…” I hesitated, trying to think of the right word.  Suddenly it popped into my head: 

“Man uni kutkuzivaldim.”  

(Literally: I managed to cause it to be saved.)  

It’s exactly same word we use when describing what Jesus did for us. 

(Okay, go ahead and get all teary now.  It is just a dog, remember, not a person; I have a whole other post brewing about that topic… watch this space!)

P.S. The kids have done really well with the whole thing.  William looked relieved this morning at breakfast when I announced I'd retrieved the dog out of the manhole.  "It just wasn't right," I said, and he nodded.  "I TOLD those boys not to throw it down there, but they didn't listen to me," he said.  All three kids helped me bring it food and water, and have checked back in periodically all day to see how it's doing.  So... object lesson in progress!

a stray dog and a moral dilemma

{I was going to post about something completely different today, but this is what's been happening at our house the last couple days... A disclaimer: It's been brought to my attention that some of the content in this post may be disturbing to those of you living in more developed countries than the one we're in... YES I am still grappling with this, and YES I hate that this happened, and NO I do not want to see it happen again.  There is no humane way to deal with stray or unwanted animals in this culture, nor are there any organizations in our town to deal with this kind of problem - if I suggested that, or told people what we have in America, I'd be laughed at incredulously.  So keep that in mind as you read... and yes, I do want your honest opinions.}

(Will's dog he used to sleep with at night, hung up to dry...)

Two nights ago, a stray dog snuck into our yard.  It spent the night curled snugly in the mesh seat of Ruby’s umbrella stroller, where James found it in the morning when he went outside to check on his cherry seedlings.  

It’s a scrawny scrap of a thing, gray and mangy, hardly more than a puppy, and it had a pointed little face and two of the saddest eyes you’ve ever seen.  

I tried not to look at those eyes while we resolutely shooed it out of the yard three times that first day.  Then it snuck back in overnight.  

James didn't have time to deal with the dog in the yard before work, and sitting at the breakfast table this morning, after James had left and the kids had been excused, I had a fight with my conscience thinking about that mangy dog.  I was afraid of worms and fleas and a mysterious dog diseases… I didn’t see any signs of rabies, but then, you never know - can rabies be dormant?  

Despite all that, my conscience is still niggling, because after watching yesterday’s drama with getting the dog out of the yard, Ruby said this morning at breakfast, very clearly, “Do-k.  B-ed (bread) -kiss, kiss- “ because that was the noise we were making to call it out from under its hiding place.  Was she wanting to cuddle the dog?  Get rid of it?  Was she scared of it?  Maybe all of the above, but she sure wasn’t missing any of what was happening.

And then, this morning, as we stood on the steps and watched James trying in vain to lure the dog out from under the petrol tank before leaving for work, Will said, “Mom, it’s just like Giovanni, right?”  

(Giovanni being a pathetic orphan character in a Five In A Row book we read this year who begs his bread and sleeps in doorways.)  

Great.  My six-year-old is comparing this mangy mutt to a human orphan, implying we should give it bread and a bed to sleep in - and isn’t that what the Bible says to do, too?  Good grief!

My conscience was more conflicted about this than I felt it ought to be.  I begrudged the mental energy spent worrying about what I should do, and resented the “mangy mutt" for taking up valuable brain time.  And then, at other, more grace-filled moments, I contemplated feeding it, de-worming it, giving it a bath for fleas, and saw grand visions of gospel grace being enacted in front of my kids - a story they’d remember for the rest of their lives.  

“Remember how mom didn’t just throw that awful puppy out on the street, but spent hours looking after it, and it became our favorite pet??”

I have a friend who wouldn’t have thought twice about adopting this dog.  She sees it as part of her mission in life to redeem stray animals.  They’d only been living in this country a few months and had already added two dogs and two cats to their household, at least one of which had been picked up off the street, spur of the moment.  

For her, there would have been no agony of indecision, just, “This is what God wants me to do, show compassion,” and the dog would’ve been in her arms.  Aaahh!  Compared to her, I feel like a grace-less, compassion-less person.  (She would disagree - she would probably say we just show grace in different ways.)

Ok, so then why is this way of showing grace so hard for me?  Is it because of the cost?  The personal cost to myself?  I would have to give up hours of precious time, and money, trekking all around town in a taxi looking for the right medicine, and then administering it in ways I can’t begin to imagine.  (I grew up in a family with no pets larger than a hamster, so you can see why I'm squeamish…)

Maybe it’s just selfishness.  Maybe it’s that showing grace to this mutt would require too much breaking of my routine, too much upheaval, too much time and sacrifice, and I'm just selfish and I don’t want to give up control of my life, especially for a measly dog.  Now, if it were a real baby left on my doorstep, that would be different… 

I call James in an agony of indecision, but he doesn’t have the brain-space at the moment to even contemplate the problem.  His response is pragmatic: “Well, keep it if you want to, but I grew up on a farm having to dispose of litters of puppies which we couldn’t feed and couldn’t sell… I’m afraid I can be pretty matter-of-fact about these sorts of things…”  

Reason intrudes, and I realize the dog could possibly bite one of the kids, or worse, and I truly don’t know what kinds of diseases it has.  I’m pretty sure they don’t sell worm medicine or flea powder in our puny town, and I don’t have the means or the time or enough Russian to go hunting around the bigger town 15 minutes down the road for medicine for a stray… 

So now I flop to the other extreme and decide it’s the most disgusting creature I’ve ever laid eyes on, and we have to get rid of it as soon as humanly possible.  

The dog is somehow getting into our yard, so when my helper arrives I enlist her in hunting for the hole, and we find it outside our fence and stop it up with huge rocks.  She dons a pair of old gardening gloves and a scrap of bread, and I grab a big stick, and we shoo the dog out from under the huge petrol tank in our yard which the boys use as a pirate ship.  It had quickly become his favorite hiding place since the tank’s belly hangs very low to the ground; he must’ve felt safe underneath.  

He yips and whines pathetically (Ruby and the boys watching the whole time - can’t get them to go inside!) as my helper and a neighbor boy carry him several hundred yards down the canal and turn him loose (notice how I wriggled out of actually getting my hands dirty).  

My heart cringes at his whines, but I harden it successfully and we all high-tail it back to our yard and shut the gate.  

He comes back, of course, and skulks around outside our fence for a few hours, but I figure as long as he can’t get through the hole he’ll eventually look elsewhere for food.

Then, a few hours later, after a bike ride, the boys accidentally leave the gate open.  Like a flash, the dog takes his chance and darts back into the yard and under his favorite hiding place.  

Now I was just plain mad.  

I had to leave him there, reluctantly, while I made lunch and fed the kids, but after lunch I immediately enlisted a gang of neighbor boys who appeared at our gate wanting to play.  

We re-enacted this morning’s scene: me pushing the dog out from under the tank with a stick, and a bigger boy donning the gloves and grabbing him, yelping, on the other side.  You would have thought we were tearing his legs off, the noise he made.  

Ruby, watching, was very distressed, and kept whimpering, “Do-k!  Do-k! B-ed!”  

As in, “That’s a real live animal making that sound and all it wants is some food!”  

I swing her up to my hip and tell the neighbor kids to take it far, far away.  Well, they’re back in two seconds, and when I asked them where they threw it, they point at an empty manhole 20 yards away which - I thought - leads to the main water pipe for our town!  

I freak out, envisioning a rotting dog contaminating the whole town’s water supply, and race towards the manhole with Ruby bouncing on my hip.  The cover is off and a long tree branch has been stuck in it; the bottom is full of rubbish already.  

I see all this while the boys eagerly inform me this manhole was for the old system of water pipes which had recently been turned off.  I find this information dizzying, since I’d seen a crew with my own eyes installing that manhole just last summer (so how could it be old?) and I was pretty sure I’d heard water flowing under through it on one of my recent morning runs...

But there's the tree branch and rubbish to prove their story, and I’m in such a rush to get rid of that awful dog, I nod and say, “All right then,” and we all troop back to our gate.

And now it’s the afternoon, and I’m sitting here writing this, thinking about horrible empty cisterns and a helpless puppy who’s never really done anything to me, except whine and look pathetic… and the fact that even throughout this whole post I’ve picked words like “mangy mutt” and “skulk” to describe him.  I’m trying to imagine if I’d feel any different about him if I’d used words like “poor little thing” and “thin, starving, helpless”.  

I’m thinking about grace, and how hard it is to give and receive.  

I'm thinking about the fact that Ruby woke up from her nap sobbing her eyes out, and when I went into her room she was sitting in a corner of her crib, crying, “Do-k!  Do-k!” over and over.  I was sure she’d had a nightmare about that ridiculous dog, and I don't know if it was because she was afraid of the dog, or just sad and traumatized by the awful yelps it made as it was dragged out? 

Have I scarred my child for life?  I think miserably, as I lay down on our bed with her and make soothing noises while I stroke her arms.  She’s soon fast asleep again, limbs splayed out, flushed cheeks, sweaty hair plastered to her forehead.  I look at her sweetness, and… 

I still don’t know if I did the right thing.  Ok, I probably didn't.  Feeling worse about it all the time...

Now, at 9:30pm, after hearing her say “Do-k?  Do-k?” twice at dinner (to Daddy), twice more during her bath, again during teeth-brushing, again during story reading (every story we picked seemed to have a dog in it somewhere!) - each time accompanied with a squinched-up face and arms clutched to her chest, whether in sympathetic pain or a mother-cuddle-instinct, I couldn’t tell - 

I finally decide she is definitely getting a complex, and pray accordingly:

“Dear Jesus, please give Ruby peace about the dog.  Please help her know You’re looking after it (in the cruel cistern!).  Please don’t let her have any bad dreams tonight (about her mother’s abuse of stray animals!), and please help her not to think about the dog anymore!”  

She quieted down and laid calmly in her bed, but I'm wondering how many more days of “Do-k?  Do-k?” I will have to endure before she forgets about it?  

Maybe never?  

If you were me, how would you teach your children that God values all life in a context where life is so undervalued?

P.S. Tomorrow I plan to have a heart-to-heart with my boys, and discuss the fact that it's a terrible thing to be mean to anything God has made, and that God of course doesn't like it... and that maybe we can keep some supplies on hand at our house in case this kind of situation happens again.... any other suggestions?

P.P.S. I've found myself wishing whole-heartedly that we lived near a really good vet, so I could have just scooped that dog into the car and gotten it de-wormed and vaccinated, and we probably would've kept it.  There's just no such thing in these parts, which is what makes this whole thing so difficult.

P.P.P.S.  In case you're wondering, I did NOT sanction those boys to throw that dog down into that cistern, and after they did it, I felt even sicker - but I just had no idea what to do.  I still don't.