The Testimony

Pre-script: thanks for those who've shown concern for my recent mango poisoning. I'm happy to report that I seem to be well on my way to a full recovery.

This week God has been proving himself to me so much that I just have to pause for a moment of public acknowledgement and praise.

Last Sunday night I bought my plane ticket to Quito. This was my second time to purchase a one-way ticket to a foreign country, and I'm happy to report it being a bit less scary the second time around.

What was NOT less scary, however, was the moment (Monday morning) when I logged onto my online bank account and realized that my savings had dwindled, with the help of the substantial ticket purchase, to nearly nothing. Because I've only been working part time, I had anticipated this happening at some point, but I guess in my head "some point" was a little closer to August than to May. In any case, my mind set to work immediately, analysing any big purchases which would be upcoming between now and my first regular paycheck from my job in Quito.

That industrious organ of mind spun and chugged and steamed its way through lots of figures and estimations and calculations and decided that perhaps I could survive without a grocery run or a gas fill-up for a couple weeks, and manage to hobble back home in June without going bankrupt. I was panicking, and feeling a little let down by my God.

This whole semester I've been praying that if the Lord wanted me to be working more hours, that He would provide another job. When nothing surfaced, I assumed that was His answer- a season of rest. A breather, between a busy season of school and what will in all likelihood be a busy season of teaching. And until the fateful checkbook balance moment, I had rested in that answer.

Suddenly, the numbers were causing me to doubt. Was I just being lazy? Should I have tried harder to find a full-time job? Should I have cut back on my spending and used my savings less quickly? Did I misunderstand?

And God reached down to my brain and stopped the spinning. He said, "Leslie, beloved, after all this time, after years and years of proving myself to you, do you still doubt me? Do you still think I won't meet your needs? Will you let me prove myself faithful to you again?"

And I said, "Oh, yeah....right! I remember! I remember somehow having $800 leftover in my bank account when it was time to leave China- money I can't explain. I remember a friend telling me about a travel agent who got me a ticket home for a few hundred less than I could find online. I remember cards with cash from family members that arrived in time to pay a doctor bill or to pay for school books. I remember the generous gift of a car, sold to me well below its value. I DO remember your faithfulness, God. And I will trust you to be faithful again."

So that day was a battle. Stressing out, remembering, peace....stressing out, remembering, peace. Seventeen years, I've been walking with the Lord. Maybe after 27 or 37 I'll be able to skip the "stressing out" step?

Then they started falling- the blessings. Or rather, the blessings CONTINUED falling, and God opened my eyes to them. My God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and he sold a few for me this week.

First the Spirit opened my eyes to a blessing that had already fallen; I had nearly missed it. I'd been looking for a sub-leaser for June and July, but until last weekend I'd only been able to find someone for the final two weeks. I would still have to pay 3/4 of the rent for the two months I'd be home. But that weekend another girl had called looking for a place beginning June 1st; the day after I will move out. She wants to room for the whole two months. That's two months rent I won't have to come up with.

Then I remembered that a friend owed me a good chunk of money for a shared expense, that I hadn't calculated in. She's paid me back now, and my balance has risen.

Soon after, I realized that I would be getting $100 from my landlords, as a thank-you for finding a replacement for my room in the house (they really like us, and they didn't want to find new leasers). I had forgotten.

Tuesday I got an email from World Relief (I teach ESL through them) begging for help for their annual benefit auction. On Friday I worked there for over 9 hours, at my normal teaching wage.

While I was at the auction, another World Relief teacher asked if I would substitute teach in her class, the Tuesday before I leave town.

Wednesday, a roommate of mine had breakfast with a friend of hers that I had never met. Somehow my tight financial situation came up, and that friend said, "Hey! I'm going to be gone for three weeks at the end of May and I need to find a temp to fill in. It's standard office work stuff- do you think she'd be interested?" My roommate brought me her name and number. This Friday I'm to come in so she can show me around. Next Monday I'll start working there. 20-25 hours per week, for the middle two weeks of May.

Big blessings and little ones. Reminders of my Father's faithfulness. He has promised to meet all my needs. Sometimes I feel like those needs are pretty darn big. But my God is bigger still. I don't understand how it works. It's like magic, but better. It's the power of God- Jehovah Jirah, the God who Provides.

I've Been Poisoned

Last Sunday night I went to an Asian food market with my friend, Elizabeth. It was incredible, like stepping off the streets of Naperville, Illinois into a store in Guangzhou, China. I'm not sure where the store is based; maybe Korea? The characters aren't Chinese, anyway. This store sells everything from rice steamers to the plastic lunch boxes we bought in China to pig's ears to fresh seafood to produce from around the globe. And to top it all off, it smells like a Chinese grocery store. It's a strange mix of odors that I can't really describe. You just have to experience it.

Among other things, Elizabeth and I bought a box of mangoes to share. Mangoes are a new love of mine, acquired during my time in southeast Asia. I was as happy as a little clam with my four mangoes, and the next morning I promptly cut into one. In China I was taught to eat a mango like this:

Slice the fruit in half, slightly off-center to avoid the large, flat pit. Use a knife to cut a cross-hatched pattern across the fruit; just just down to the peel, but not through. Holding on to the edge of the peel, push the fruit inside out, so that the squares of mango flesh stick out. Eat them off the peel.

This worked quite well in GZ. A bit messy, but very effective. I thoroughly enjoyed my half a mango.

And then the next morning I awoke to find my lips red, swollen, and sore. I had been mango-poisoned. Dang. Who knew?!? So I've been on the internet, checking out this phenomenon. It seems to be relatively common. Turns out that the skin of a mango contains an oil that's related to poison ivy. Perfect. So I've been taking antihistamines and trying to pretend that I'm a movie star who paid big money to make my lips look like this.

My roommate, Sasha, tried to convince me that it isn't noticeable. Perhaps not. We do tend to think of our own appearances more than anyone else as a general rule.

Sigh.

Stupid mangoes.

Spring Flowers

During my morning constitutional today, I was particularly aware of the beautiful spring flowers along my path. I've never NOT liked flowers, but I guess I haven't ever spent a lot of time thinking about them. But this morning I did, a bit.

Few smells on this earth can contend with the clean, fresh aroma of a growing flower. Today I decided that my favorite spring flowers are daffodils and hyacinth. My all-time favorite flowers are lilacs. It is sad indeed that they bloom for such a short time.

I'm not even sure carnations should be allowed to be called flowers. They smell bad and they're ugly. What is a flower, if it's not pretty and it doesn't smell good? I mean, seriously. It's like "white chocolate". Give me a break.

Flowers seem to hold lots of deep truths. One lies in way that the very act of picking a flower kills it. And speaking of killing flowers, I was reminded this morning of the time when I was about eight and visiting Grandma Nell. Grandma is my mom's mom, and she is a true nature lover, since before that sort of thing was politically correct. I was old enough to know that Grandma loved flowers, so when I saw one in her yard (probably in a flower bed, actually) I was excited to pick it and present it to her. As you might imagine, I learned that day that picking = death for flowers.

Yesterday at Curves a woman who was working out next to me mentioned that she knew spring has finally arrived, because that morning she had gotten her first dandelion bouquet of the season. She's a kindergarten teacher.

Here's wishing you a spring full of fresh dandelion bouquets.

A Season of Rest and a Brush with Poverty

I'm trying not to chaff under the gentle friction of a Divinely appointed season of rest.

This is a phrase from an email I recently wrote to a friend, and I think it accurately describes where I'm at right now; trying not to chaff...

I'm waiting. Classes and graduation have faded, blurred and distorted behind memories of the holidays and the months since. Ecuador looms big in my future. But in between I'm floating in the shallow waters of a Season of Rest. I like remembering that it's a season. It somehow makes me better able to appreciate it, rather than resenting it.

Soon enough I'll be busy again. Soon enough I'll cringe as I set my alarm, and fall exhausted into my bed more often than not. Soon enough reading a good book will be a treat, rather than a daily occurrence. Soon enough. No need to rush.

Today I got a glimpse of poverty in America. I've seen lots of poverty in my travels. Sprawling slums of falling-down shacks in the Dominican Republic. Malnourished and under-attended orphans in Russia. Street kids running almost-naked through the dirt-packed side streets of the ghetto in China. But except for a few homeless men on the streets of big cities, the bigger part of poverty in my own country hasn't made my acquaintance.

We dress our poverty nicer here, but it's still around, under all the trying-hard-but-never-really-succeeding government programs. The poverties of crime and violence often overshadow the lack of food or shelter. We still hear reports of people dying during cold spells and heat waves, but here in Chicago, poverty most often looks like grim, gray government housing complexes, gang violence, rampant teen pregnancy, and appalling public schools.

I felt it surround me today, as I waited for my name to ring through the dull roar of a community health clinic waiting room. I sat next to a pregnant girl- she couldn't have been more than 15. On her other side was another high schooler. This second teen was working on a word search for school. She asked if the girl next to me knew a particular word on her paper. I looked up from my book as I heard my young neighbor reply that no, she didn't know the word either. It was "prerequisite". Seeing my glance, the question was repeated for me.

I defined it for her and returned to my book, but I couldn't focus on it. Our brief interaction had set my mind in motion. The storyline in print before me faded as I looked about the waiting room. Do most teenagers know "prerequisite" by high school? I can't remember. But they should.

The room was a mass of humanity. Little kids. Adults. Elderly people and teenagers. What were the experiences of these people? What was life like from their perspectives- growing up black or hispanic (and presumably poor, given their presence in the clinic) on Chicago's south side? Were they, by now, immune to the long waits and extensive paperwork that inevitably accompany anything funded by the government? What did they think of me, the only white person in the room? Or did it even cross any mind other than my own that I was a pale, lonely minority?

I've been a minority before, am that every day in my ESL classes. But not being in a position of authority or respect changes all the dynamics. It occurs to me that few people downshift like that if they feel they have a choice. We'll go where we blend in. We'll even venture to go where we don't blend in, if our nationality or wealth or education still keep us high up on the totem pole. But rarely will we choose to be a minority, without honor, without privilege. I suppose it's natural, but the thought is still new to me, and worthy of contemplation. How different would my life had been, if...

So many undeserved blessings.