scrambled eggs

As previously stated, welcome to my heart. My scrambled-eggs heart.

This week has been a blur of SO many feelings, pretending to not have them, having all of them at once, and being SO loved on by friends and family that I am absolutely blessed by. Seriously, it's like your wedding day and you look back and realize how amazing your support system is, but you "can't/don't" in the moment because if you did, it would be so overwhelming and you would just crumble and weep and not get a single thing done.

I have had a long to-do list. And I have tried to hold my feelings about leaving (which are all of them, I have all of the feelings from so excited to nervous to blessed, to blaaaah), my family and friends' feelings, my clients' feelings, and my sweet husband's feelings. And there are just so many, so beautiful, so thankful, so many.

I ask for grace. If I have not seemed like myself-if I have seemed distant or zoned out or "trying too hard," you are so right, I have been. Not because I am not noticing how sweet you all are, not because I am wanting to be snarky, but just because I am surviving. It is so refreshing to be that real with people- when dear friends at work check in and see how I am doing and all I have to say is "scrambled eggs, I am all the of feelings, and all of the scramble" and they lovingly get it. AMEN!

I love that Jesus lets me be scrambled eggs, And He comforts me, and often he un-scrambles me. I know it will probably be awhile before I feel un-scrambled, and I want to be okay with that. I want to invite that, I want to invite what breaks His heart into mine and I would "ideally" like to do it without a wall up, but without feeling it all (yes, impossible, I know). Please pray for this balance. Please pray that He will bring the wall down and He will hold me as I feel it all.

Just a few more hours...(!) Blessings,
Mavis

"first post"

Hello all!

Welcome to the blog I will be using to prepare/process/update/debrief on while in Zambia this year. I have added a few posts from a previous blog as well to give a taste of what this process has looked like already and in previous trips. This will be my third time in Zambia,-my first trip was with Habitat for Humanity and Ridgepoint and the second was for Ridgepoint and Winning at Home. I am very excited to see some familiar faces while I am there!

Before we go any further, I will make a very honest statement here: I am not an English/grammer major. Nor do I care to be, this is not an essay for a grade. I am pretty good at putting my voice into things, and that is what this is. It's often messy, might be confusing at times, and could probably be judged along the way. My prayer is that you know this is my heart, please be gentle. 

Also- "Mapalo"- oh it's a great word in Bemba- it means "Blessing." Here's a little blurb from a past blog post that explains why I love this word....

The village our team worked in in Zambia in 2011 was named “Mapalo” which translates into “Blessing.” Sounds nice right? Here is a history on this village, now Mapalo, once called “Chipulukusu.”

“Chipulukusu in Bemba means “safe haven for criminals” – not exactly pride-worthy.  It got this name because around 20-30 years ago, people would commit crimes in Ndola (the closest city) and run to Chipulukusu to escape getting caught. As a result, the village was not well kept – and homes were built haphazardly and with very little resources.

As the years passed, more people moved into the community to live in these homes and rainy season after rainy season, the homes started to deteriorate.  Pretty soon this became a much bigger problem as the structures started collapsing and killing their inhabitants.  For the past 10-15 years, around 30 homes collapse each year taking 10-15 lives with them.

Habitat for Humanity has stepped in to help. Large progress has been made.

It was this improvement that spurred the community members to get together to change the name of their village – an attempt to wipe their troubled beginnings and provide hope to those around them.  The new name of the village is Mapalo, which in Bemba means “blessing.”

Blessings don’t often happen overnight. It takes careful, diligent planning to establish relief and rebuild a community. It takes effort-from more than one person. It takes time and commitment.

So- that's all for this morning, but I am sure more will be coming soon. I leave May 30th, so we are officially one week out and I am also officially starting my Typhoid and Malaria meds- hooray!

Blessings

Ms. Mavis

whiplash?

(originally posted 3/29/17)

My heart feels like a lone passenger on tilt-a-whirl lately. Sometimes I feel in control of the spinning, but usually not. Sometimes it goes dizzyingly fast and sometimes it gets annoyingly stuck, no matter how hard I try to sway the cart in a direction. Today I feel like both—stuck and detached yet uncontrollably whirling and spinning all at the same time.

Like my body has stopped, but my insides are all still moving. Like whiplash.

Is this a spiritual whiplash? But like the opposite, like a pre-lash?

I have not been feeling well lately (really it feels like all of the whole winter I haven’t felt well, overgeneralization, but for real). A friend said today “maybe it’s just stress.” My gut reaction was “but I have nothing to be stressed about, I just need to get over it, this isn’t a big deal.”

So I could try to bully myself out of my feelings right now, or I could just notice them and validate them…

Yes, I am stressed. No, I don’t want to be and my inner perfectionist doesn’t think its “valid” for me to be either. But in reality, I am trying really hard to mentally prepare for this trip as if it’s possible. It’s like I am trying to either process through all the emotions I haven’t had yet, or I am try to build a wall so I don’t feel them because I am afraid to feel them.

The last two times I have come home from Zambia I have been grumpy. Really grumpy. And weepy and unsettled. I WANT to be those things, and I don’t at the same time. I WANT Jesus to break my heart, and I don’t at the same time. The blurry- it’s beautiful and it’s hard.

I am better at clear boxes. Black or white, yes or no.

Exams.

Oh I get so excited about tests and “measuring what I have learned.” Make it something more abstract like “let’s examine your soul” and then I get a little queasier and a little less confident. Blurry.  Whiplash-y.

What does my soul look like to you, Jesus? Where do you see joy, where do you see pain? Do you see them in the same places I do, or do you see something else? Where am I blurry, what parts are blurry? Are they blurry to you? 

This is way harder than studying for an exam. I don’t know how to define “progress” – because when I start trying to “measure” things that’s usually a great indicator that I am looking down the WRONG road and trying to judge myself again. Faith certainly does not fit in a spreadsheet. I can’t “cram” for this. I can’t process and feel my whole trip before I go, and I certainly don’t want to put a wall around my heart to avoid feeling it when I am there.

My soul needs some Dramamine (aka drama-queen as my sister calls it)

Psalm 4

¹ Answer me when I call to you,
    my righteous God.
Give me relief from my distress;
    have mercy on me and hear my prayer.

² How long will you people turn my glory into shame?
    How long will you love delusions and seek false gods
³ Know that the Lord has set apart his faithful servant for himself;
    the Lord hears when I call to him.

⁴ Tremble and do not sin;
    when you are on your beds,
    search your hearts and be silent.
⁵ Offer the sacrifices of the righteous
    and trust in the Lord.

⁶ Many, Lord, are asking, “Who will bring us prosperity?”
    Let the light of your face shine on us.
⁷ Fill my heart with joy
    when their grain and new wine abound.

⁸ In peace I will lie down and sleep,
    for you alone, Lord,
    make me dwell in safety.

bits and pieces

(originally posted 2/24/17)

Zambia. My thoughts for this Friday evening…

Friends, I am getting SO excited. Also nervous, scared, thankful, overwhelmed, confused, sad, loved, and a little dash of everything else in between.

I feel like God has just continued to put this on my heart. Zambia, the culture, the people, the souls. Each year, I know a group who is going and it’s a constant dialogue with the Lord of “okay, is this for me this year? What’s the plan, God, where do you need me?” The last two years have been a no-go; I have certainly wanted to go, but it just hasn’t been His plan.

 This winter I had been processing next steps, the feeling was there and it was strong, things kept happening and coming up that were saying “ahhh it might be time soon.” I had a conversation, okay many conversations, with my supervisor Emilie about dreams and hopes and goals and all that for our relationship with Zambia. How could God use me? What did He need? And then there was this gravitation, this yearning that said/thought/called “What about now? What about something different? What about listening?”

Listening. I am learning to listen. I like to talk, I like to try to grapple with English words to paint my heart- I am not great at it. The language of “soul” it tricky to put into English words, I try, I can tell when I am heard; I can feel it when I hear someone else in their “soul” language (and oh it is so beautiful and such a precious gift to find people who are really good at speaking soul in English words- shout out to Ann Voskamp and Kiri).

 I want to listen. I want to understand to the best of my ability- not just through what my lens is, but to put on some sort of “Zambian culture lens” in order to hear, validate, and understand better. To know souls and to know how to best reach souls, to speak the same language of Christ’s love and mercy. I want to feel more equipped when I return in the future, to know how to best speak Zambia soul; to know how to best support schools, volunteers, pastors, children. I want to spend time, give presence, and listen. I am so thankful for this opportunity to hear.

I am getting a little (very) anxious about bits and pieces of the trip. There’s the logistics- me traveling there alone, making it to a hotel in Johannesburg for a layover, finding my bags, finding my gates, making it through the customs and all that with the correct paperwork about vaccinations and name changes and all that weird stuff. There’s the “I don’t actually know where/who I am staying with yet, I don’t know where/when I may have access to internet (ridiculous, I know), I don’t know if there will be snakes or creepy crawlies (okay, I know they are there, I just don’t know if I will have an awful encounter…ahem anxious hang-up), I don’t know what the expectations of me will be, I don’t know if I will have to go to the store myself to get bottled water, I’m not sure where I will get food, I don’t know where I will keep track of my money, I haven’t scheduled in-country flights yet….blah blah blah, worry, worry, worry. (this will probably be an on-going part of posts…)

Jesus, you’ve got this. I find it so ironic that I have suddenly become so fixated on snakes (oy-the symbolism!). I could make sandtrays about it, I should and I probably will- maybe then I can stop dreaming about them and actually sleep at night again instead.

Anyways. I have the whole grab bag of feelings. Because that is the way God created me. And I want to share them, I want to authentically sit on the steps of my soul and speak the feelings, I want to feel validated and I know I need prayer. I don’t want to put on any show or mask, I want to genuinely feel. It just means some days I may need extra episodes of “This is Us” so I can cry lots of tears, Jesus remind me to feel. Give me the strength and vulnerability to let my heart break for what breaks yours, I want to feel it. I want to love just like you. 

....................................

Thanks for checking into my journey, thank you for your support and prayers. This journey will have lots of processing pieces, scattered, jigsawed, and all that jazz. Welcome to the steps of my soul. 

Zambia 2014

(originally posted 5/16/14 after my second Zambia trip)

Impact

I was asked to write a piece on what type of impact was made on our trip- insert awkward turtles. I have no problem talking about how I feel or how I have been impacted, but I don’t like to say how I think other people are feeling. It’s awkward. I also do not like any kind of power imbalances. Inequality pushes me over the edge. The idea that anyone could ever be more important than anyone else or have more rights than anyone else just makes me mad. In some ways, ok most ways, I felt like we were treated like movie stars. Some kids even thought we were movie stars. We're white. We're “rich.” We're AMERICANS! Being looked at this way absolutely makes me cringe.

Our beautiful, fierce and fabulous team of women.

Here are a few examples of when I felt this power imbalance-and what I learned from it.

During church, one of the pastors offered that the American women would pray over any of the Zambian women who would like prayers. After the service I had a woman- probably in her sixties, ask me to pray for her because “she couldn’t pray.” She didn’t speak English so we used another woman to translate and I am still not sure if I understood her correctly, but she said she just couldn’t do, she lost her words anytime she tried to speak. Meanwhile, we were speaking…I reassured her that God does know her heart and he does hear her prayers even if she does not speak them out loud. She looked doubtful, but I had her repeat after me while we prayed and showed her that yes, in fact she could pray. Overall she made me feel uncomfortable. It was as if she believed I could talk to God on her behalf, and he could hear her if I was talking for her, but not if she was talking for herself. It breaks my heart to think she might see her worth that way.

The Baptist church we went to on our second week and met with the women of the congregation.

During the conference for counseling children in Ndola, our team members split up into individual tables to help facilitate discussion among the attendees. There was one table of three men that I honestly said to myself-I will take any table but that one. I felt threatened by them, I am not sure why. Lo and behold, that was the table I magically ended up at J They were so kind, so eager to have me at their table and to translate for me when necessary. They treated me like I was their daughter and they loving called me “sister.” The man to my left, Paul, became protective of me and made sure I got all of our pens and markers back that we had set out on the table to share (some other attendees were carefully slipping markers into their bags when no one was looking). We had a great time dancing and singing together during worship, it was a joy to share this experience with them.

 I couldn’t help but notice that two of my table mates, now pastors, continually talked about how they used to be drunks and do “terrible things” until they found Jesus. They seemed to be seeking my approval and Paul repeatedly talked of how incredible, kind, and generous Americans are. He really thought we were saints. Insert: feelings of incongruence, guilt, shame. I began to shake my head and explained to Paul that while we may be rich materially, we don’t come close to the generosity, connectedness, and spirituality of the men and women I have met in Zambia. And because I can have a problem with oversharing, I let Paul know I have done some pretty terrible things myself in my life, and I am still a daughter of the King. I am not sure what he thought of this, but I hope he felt some relief. I did.

 A few hours later, we had a grieving ceremony where we were all invited to light tea light candles in the center of our tables in memory of loved ones who have passed on and talk about the legacy they have left for us. We read some scripture and the footprints in the sand poem before the ceremony. Paul began at our table by lighting a few candles and sharing that all four of his children and all of his siblings have passed on-without shedding a single tear. As he passed the box of matches to me, and as I listened to “Bless the Lord O my soul, O my soul, worship His holy name… (10,000 reasons by Matt Redman), I broke down. Recently one of my best friends, with the most beautiful heart, lost her younger sister. My heart hurts for the Williams family. I pulled out an inspiration tag I made in memory of Halie Kay and shared how I will strive to feel every emotion completely and to love endlessly, without limits to continue Halie’s legacy.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t hold myself together. This was a difficult moment for me; I wrestled with the idea and expectation that I was supposed to be here for my table as a strong source of support and to help them grieve, but instead they were trying their hardest to comfort me. They shared their favorite verses with me (1 Corn 15; John 5:24, Psalm 23-also one of my favorites) and prayed over the Williams family for me. Paul continually said, “sister no more tears, she is with Jesus, there is nothing to be afraid of.” Paul has placed his entire world of trust in God to meet his needs and to comfort him with each loss. He explained that as long as he has a best friend in Christ, he has everything in the world and he will see his loved ones again very soon. One of the attendees lead us in worship and it felt like a weight lifted off of my shoulders. What a healing experience. What a blessing.

In some ways, I think that my outward display of emotion impacted these men. I allowed them to see me openly grieve (not like I controlled that, though) and I think it gave them permission to see me as an equal, another human with a heart. I hope I was able to build up their confidence as I shared with them how eternally grateful I was for their support and kindness.

My tablemates

I think sometimes we get caught up in the day-to-day tinnie-tiny differences and growth that is being made and we forget to see the impact we are having on a grand scale. Ridgepoint sponsors over 75 kids. The money for sponsorship allows children to pay their school fees and there is also some left over for food/investment for the family to use. An average family has 7 members. 75 kids x 6 other family members = 450 people. Ridgepoint works with the Jubilee Center, where the mission is to be the Salt and Light of the Earth. Jubilee works with 94 churches from Lusaka to Ndola. I don’t know what the average church population is, but if I had to guess I would think it would be at least 150. 94 churches x 150 members is 14,100 people. In the churches we visited, most also had “cell groups” and “support groups” that do bible study and that visit the sick and needy. One church out of those 94 churches that Jubilee Center works with has a volunteer system of over 100 volunteers that care for over 900 people who are sick with HIV, TB, or a combination of the two. They are literally the hands and feet of Jesus, caring for the needy. These volunteers have their own families too and many of them are HIV positive themselves. How many people are being served in Zambia as a direct result of the Jubilee Center? Or of any Christian organization?

If you were the only human being on the planet, Jesus would still die for your sins. You don’t need to be a part of a large statistic; you are worth his grace and love all by yourself. Each of these Zambian children and adults are just as worthy.

I cannot write one entry on the impact we may have had on Zambia or the impact Zambia will forever have on me. I could write a whole book-that is, if the readers would be ok with my random tangents and thoughts-I am not too good at organizing or censoring my thoughts. These are the things you can’t measure. These are the lessons and blessings that can only be experienced. When you feel like your heart is so close to Heaven as you hear beautiful voices singing hymns in another language-you don’t know the words, but you can just hear the emotion and the TRUST. That’s precious. When the same table of men who terrified me were staring into my soul praying that I would feel peace, that’s irreplaceable.

My hope is that this experience will allow me to love more deeply, to feel emotions more strongly, and to have continued trust in God each day that His will will be done in my life. I pray that sharing my journey so candidly will allow others to open up and feel it in the same way. I am confident that I will continue to have a renewed sense of purpose and passion for my interactions with families-adoptive, biological, foster, whoever. The alternative to living life with this much passion is so empty, so void of meaning.

 Thanks for being a part of my journey.

Blessings,

Mavis 

Zambia 2017

(this was originally posted on 2/13/17-- just wanted to add some of my previous posts to this blog)

Ok folks,

IT'S HAPPENING! And sooner than I feel like I can plan for... 

Below are some of the details of the trip and my fundraising letter. I will be also mailing this to some people (we moved in the last few weeks, so finding my address book is on my list, but it certainly hasn't happened yet). Please let me know if you would prefer a hard copy mailed to you. While pieces of me know that fundraising is a giant piece of this, the awkward, uncomfortable part of me hates this part and likes to avoid it. Because it means fully trusting God to provide. And I struggle sometimes to "accept" support; as a perfectionist in "un-training", my insecurity prefers to "do it myself."

I can't do this myself. I don't feel like I am even the one doing it- it's 100% the Lord. I am just thankful to be the medium and for the opportunity to love and trust without borders. 

I will continue to post as I prepare for the trip. Thank you for joining me! 
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I am so excited to share with you that I have signed up to return to Zambia this summer for a service trip with Winning At Home! It is a blessing to be given another opportunity to serve and foster the relationships I have already made at the Jubilee Center.

In the past, we have gone for about two weeks and usually have very time-targeted missions. For this trip I will go for a bit longer; I will be gone from May 30^th through the end of June. This extended time will give me an irreplaceable opportunity to learn and understand the culture in a more thorough way; which will help us most efficiently and effectively support this ministry. During my time, I will focus primarily on how Winning At Home can continue to support a newly developing counseling center, an interim home (a new sort of “foster care” system), volunteers, schools, and churches. I will be spending time in Ndola and Lusaka with the Jubilee Center, founded by Pastor Lawrence and Martha Temfwe. For the final week, I will meet up with my supervisor, Dr. Emilie DeYoung and Dr. Catherine Mueller-Bell. These two incredible ladies have written and presented a manual to Zambian pastors as well as volunteers about the importance of caring for children and trauma in previous trips. We will revise this manual with cultural implications and spend time with the counselors who are actively using it.

While a door has been opened for me to develop a greater heart of compassion for God’s people around the world, the exciting part is that you will be able to share in this journey with me. I will need many prayers for this trip- prayers for courage, peace, wisdom, health, travel, discernment; prayers for the impact on my heart and on Zambia. Prayers for my family, friends, and clients while I am away and lots of prayers that I don’t see any snakes - please! I plan on keeping a blog and posting photos while I am there when I can get access to the internet.  

I also need financial support. My trip will cost around $6,000 and I trust that God will provide. This will cover my transportation, lodging, food, and other expenses for the month. If you are able to give financially, please make checks payable to Winning At Home and send to:

ATTN: Mavis Winning at Home

 300 S State Street Suite 13

Zeeland, MI 49464

Please add a sticky note onto the check (NOTE: NOT in the memo field***) that says “Mavis-Zambia.” Please send in your donations by April 28^th. You will receive a tax deduction letter from WAH for 2017. 

 I am so grateful for your prayers and if you feel led to contribute financially, your support will be greatly appreciated as well.  My heart is so thankful for this opportunity to love on God’s children and so many other incredible people.

Blessings,

Mavis Szubelak