Author: Wick

Husband, Father, Pastor, Missionary, Writer, Poet, Friend, reader, coffee enthusiast, hockey Wing-Nut, musical participator, etc...
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campin’

Posted on by Wick

Last week we took the family “tent-camping” at Warren Dunes State Campground, just over the south-western border into Michigan.  I grew up visiting those dunes, and frequently took trips even in college.  It was a special trip I’d been wanting to make with our girls for quite sometime.  Here are a few highlights:

campin1. Conquered the Rain-Fly.  Seriously, we all know the number one pain of all tent-camping is getting the tent to fit back in the bag.  The number two pain?  Figuring out the rain fly.  I patted myself on the back every time I looked at our tent those 3 days.  Even hung some Christmas lights.

2. I let my wife plan meals.  That means, instead of eating Pop-tarts for breakfast and raw Ramen for dinner…we had “hobo dinners” and scrambled eggs/sausage.  Sure, it meant bringing quite a few more supplies than I would’ve packed.  But my mouth and stomach weren’t complaining.  You’ve had S’mores; but have you had a roasted banana filled with peanut butter, chocolate, marshmallow, and sprinkled with crushed Golden Grahams?  Also, if you’ve done the “meat/cheese/potato/onion/carrot” thing for hobo dinners…next time try “polish sausage/sauerkraut/carrots/potatoes”.  It was crazy good.

3. Sunscreen works, everywhere you apply it.  We spent most of Friday at the beach, with me in the water.  You could see visibly where my hands couldn’t reach on my back….bright red.   My 5 year old said, “Dad, next time I’ll put it on your back.”  And on Labor Day….she did.  Gently…daddy still hurts.  Thankfully our girls have mommy’s skin.

1269373_10151572183671339_365288859_o4. Disney Movies happen every day.  I climbed a giant sand dune with my two oldest daughters.  When we reached the top and looked back, mommy was staying with Ruby about halfway up.  At 4 years old (daughter, not mom), she was struggling hard..naturally.  They were going to turn back and wait for us at the bottom, but I wanted the family to enjoy the top together.  So I ran halfway down, put our daughter on my sunburned back, and hiked her up the rest of the dune on my hands and knees.  The cross-country team gathered at the top began applauding, and I heard inspirational music in the background as I carried her all the way up.  I’m pretty sure I injured something, and completely sure the picture was worth it.

5. Sleeping outside can surprise you.  There were definitely raccoons that waited for our site to get dark each night.  We heard them explore our picnic table after we went to bed.  We took turns having knee-jerk reactions to what we thought was 1167669_10151572184541339_2050085235_oan animal in our tent at 2am…both times smiling at how silly we were reacting to a clingy little girl sleeping next to us.  It’s great being “alone” with my wife in a world of little people camping.  So many things that brought smiles to our faces…I love sharing life with this woman!! 🙂

6.  God’s Creation sure is good.  We sat on a blanket as the sun began to lower, reading a kids book on sand and how it’s made.  We climbed giant dunes, and looked out over miles of forest one direction, and miles of lake the other.  We hiked through thick woods to use the restroom, each time stumbling as a daughter would pause the world to appreciate the beauty of a fallen leaf’s colors.  I held a giant inflated tube as it coasted over small faef33f2128411e3af571231390ef217_7lake waves, as my 4 year old daughter soaked up the sun, falling asleep far away from shore – simply because she trusted her father.  Our girls oooh’d and ahhhh’d over hundreds of rocks, as we searched for petoskey stones, reminding me that God’s beauty is in so much more than we’re looking for…

Oh yeah, and this happened on our way home…

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difficult good news.

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It’s hard to believe that what is actually “good news”, can cause so much confusion and hurt.  Yesterday we received an update from our agency about the girl we were on our way to adopting.  The girl who’s mother they were told had passed away.  The girl who’s father even signed relinquishment papers declaring he could not care for her, and is letting go of that burden.  The girl we thought was going to become our daughter.

Her parents came to pick her up.

Just like that.  As if it was some long summer camp, or extended babysitter and now that season was over.  It’s a confusing place to be, because honestly we don’t know who to be upset with.  The parents obviously thought the orphanage was the only option for the survival of their child temporarily, and did what they had to do, in order to survive.  The orphanage responded based on the information they were given.  Our agency was acting in what they believed to be the best interest of a child they were told was an orphan, and a family who wanted to care for her.

And so, Francoise will continue to be named Francoise.  She’s with her parents now, as we would want her to be.  We’re so thankful for the rescue that has come to her life.  At the same time, we grieve.  We mourn the brokenness of a world where confusing situations like this can happen.  We are angry at the systems of oppression and corruption that have led to these moments.  We are exactly where we were before…waiting on God, and praying for Him to bring healing and redemption to the people of the DRC.

It’s hard to let go.  To find the pictures we had printed, the ones we’ve been looking at every night before bed.  The background image on my phone.  The picture we may have given or sent to you.  To tell our children, with smiles on our faces, that Francoise’s mommy and daddy were able to come bring her home, trying really hard to say it as good news.  Yet still offering to hold them – knowing somewhere in them is a sort of “letting go” as well.

If this all raises questions for you, welcome to where we are.  There’s a lot we don’t know, and much of it we won’t ever know.  We’ve shared what we can at this point.

It’s at this point where I would usually turn the corner, and offer a hope for what comes next.  A few words that clean up the mess I’ve talked about, and package it inspirationally.  I don’t have that this time.  I pray for Francoise and her parents as they begin a new life together.  I pray for the renewed search for a young girl who needs a family, and for our journey to raise what’s still needed to bring her home.  I pray for encouragement from God.  Please join us in praying.  Thanks.

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I love the VMA’s (here’s why)

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I missed out on all the VMA fun last night, thankfully.  We don’t have cable, and I wasn’t even aware it was happening, until I woke this morning to the twittermath.  (aftermath + twitter)  Apparently the producers of the show were a big fan of the recent movie “The Purge“, which I also haven’t seen thankfully.  It’s a movie based on the premise of allowing people freedom to do whatever they want with no legal consequences for a while, as a natural way to “purge” society of it’s “unwanted elements”.

Mtv_moon_manThat seems to have been the aim last night, as all sorts of madness hit the stage.  (Which apparently is nothing new, looking at a quick history of the VMA’s…there was never any promise of moral decency.)  Most of what I found about the VMA’s quickly, and rightly so, flagged the content filters we have on our internet.  But just in case they weren’t justified, I was able to read articles on a few news-sources.  Giant teddy-bear dancers surrounding a barely-clothed Miley Cyrus going to great lengths to prove she’s no longer a family-friendly Disney star?  A morbid Kanye West performance with more bleeps than an elevator ride up the Empire State Building?

It seems like something out of a really bad post-apocalyptic science fiction movie. I’m guessing there were other performances of the evening too, judging by the awards given, amount of time JT was on stage, and an NSYNC reunion.  Some of those might not have been horrible.

Unfortunately, the effect of these attention-getting acts is nothing close to a “Purge”.  In fact, the publicity these artists are getting for unbelievably horrible performances only seems to increase ticket and album sales.  I doubt anyone is still lamenting allowing their daughters to be “Hannah Montana” fans.  That innocence was lost years ago.  But I would definitley hope people are realizing that allowing “popular culture” to have influence on their children is much more hazardous to their health and morality than they realized.  And, well, we know what scripture tells us.

But before I come across as a completely cynical “Debbie Downer”, I want to offer a bit of hope.  There are amazing sources of role-models out there “off stage”.  There are women young and old who are caring for others, changing the world, and transforming lives.  There are men and women of all ages making incredibly beautiful art, and creative music that expresses hope, suffering, and other aspects of our humanity.  There are men both young and old who treat women with respect, and know how to use the English language enough to not be overly offensive.

One of the tasks we have as parents, is to give our children older role-models and relationships that will influence and inspire them into who they’re becoming.  This is a VERY important part of parenting, because if you leave this task unchecked…we see what our culture is offering them. Who is someone, either famous or famous-to-you, alive or from the past, that you are purposefully connecting the lives of your children to as they grow??

I’ll start with a quote by one of ours, Phoebe Palmer:

“I see the new creation rise, I hear the speaking blood;
It speaks, polluted nature dies, Sinks ‘neath the cleansing flood.”