Simply Complicated

I’m learning that Peru, Spain & Mexico have alot in common: es simplemente complicado 

• las cucarachas (look it up) - they’re in the shower usually, awesome. 
• internet - here & in every other developing country, inconsistent & at times no bueno (but don’t get me wrong, i’m crazy grateful for wifi)
• nothing is easy - it took us 3 hours to run two errands - traffic was horrendous, parking was an issue, we got pretty darned lost, we almost got in an accident (or three) and the people here drive like they didn’t to drivers ed & don’t have driver’s licenses... oh wait, many of them don’t... notice the painted lane lines?  they totes don't matter.

• clean - the term “clean” is relative in places like this.  blowing your nose & having it be straight dirt AFTER your shower is totally clean, right?
• on time - means about 20-30 minutes late.  i mean, what’s the big deal... everybody’s doing it.  

But I’m also learning alot about what it would look like to simplify my life... to live the way most people in the world do.  To stop “needing” so much of what we’ve thought we were entitled to and to start living more simply in order to be able to provide more for those who only dream of things like hot water, internet, a mattress and a washing machine.  

I did some laundry here in Peru tonight and there’s a sweatshirt I never dry when I wash it - you know, one of those “it fits perfect & if I dried it I know it wouldn’t” sweatshirts? That one requested special permission not to be dried so I decided to hang it out on the clothes line.  As I was clipping the little clothespins, I had a glimpse of simple.  I turned around and went back into the little kitchen with no dishwasher and no garbage disposal and thought, “This actually is the life.  This is the better way to live.” 

You see, I think sometimes we think we have it good because we have every modern convenience and everything we could want easily accessible and readily available, but I actually think it harms us.  I think hanging up my sweatshirt, drying my dishes, losing my internet connection and showering with cucarachas has brought more life to me in the last week than my hot shower, my automatic coffee maker, my super speedy wireless distraction tool internet and my strip malls have done for me in the last 10 years.

I think less is more... stay tuned to hear why.  

His ways are higher

A blogpost from our Haiti partners, Kerry & Joy Reeves about our God, about expectations, about how much we don't understand.  Click the link above...

Easter in Peru

Holidays are hard in another country.  I don't care who you are or how tough you think you are or how long you've lived in a different place than your family - holidays are when it hits you that this is not home.  Yesterday I got a glimpse of what it's like to spend Easter in another country.  I can't say I've ever done that before.  I've spent many Easters away from my family, but never spent one this far away from everything I know... except for these people who I truly consider family.

We woke up and had cereal for breakfast, per usual... except the 3 older kids had a little surprise on top of their cereal - a peep, I know, disgusting but I couldn't resist :)  We then headed to Peruvian church for Easter service.  There was something about worshipping in Spanish that took me back to how and where I grew up and it made my heart glad.

As much as I missed ROCKHARBOR's Easter service, baptisms & craziness at the amphitheater, it was amazing to see how easy it was to have a full heart despite missing what I think makes me happy on Easter.  I was sitting in church with the people I've spent the past 5 Easters with, worshipping the same risen God on what might be my favorite day of the year.  He is still risen.  He is still alive and active.  He is still in control.

We came home, had PBJ's for lunch - you know, your standard Easter feast and we hid some eggs in the yard for the kiddos, making our best attempt at keeping Easter as normal as possible for the 4 little people in the house.  All 3 of us adults called our parents & wished them Happy Easter, I know at least one of us felt a teensy bit triste that I wasn't celebrating on the lake with my family.

But we sucked it up - we played games, jumped on the trampoline, died laughing watching Blake & Sarah's wedding video, I got bit by something & my thumb swelled up and went numb, we treated ourselves to the only Mexican joint in Lima and we had a great conversation about missions - about Jesus being worth the sacrifices, about how stinkin' hard it can be at times, about transition and trust.    These people have been family to me for the last 7 years and on any day of the year, that is enough.  And we went to bed glad to be together.

Easter was still Easter and He is still risen.  Yesterday's grew my appreciation for my friends all over the world who have sacrificed much and spent a ridiculous amount of holidays away from family because Jesus is worth it.  I have a feeling this may just be the beginning of the holidays-on-another-continent journey for me.  And my first year, I think I'll be TOTALLY open to amigos joining me - come one come all... wherever it is that He's gonna have me.

Happy Easter from Peru to you.

The Spanglish Debaucle

It's me... out of the country again.  Did I mention I love my job/my life these days? Because I do.  You may be saying, Bree, where are you off to this time?  Well, let me just tell you.  Some of my very favorite people on the planet moved to Peru in January.  If you ask me to rehash the goodbye at LAX, it won't be pretty, so don't ask.  They left because they felt called to this awesome ministry called Krochet Kids, which is busy changing lives of impoverished women in Uganda and now, because of Blake and Sarah's faith and obedience, in Lima, Peru.

As you could imagine, this whole moving to Peru, not knowing Spanish, having 4 little kids thing is a bit of a difficult transition.  So I decided to show up... do a little kid spoiling, a little Sarah's birthday-celebrating and a little "He is risen" celebrating Peruvian style, a little translating, a little checking out the ministry they are just beginning and ALOT of laughter and honest conversation.  We're really good at that.

All that to say, I'm en route. I'm in Costa Rica on the 6 hour layover of death, but not so death-like since I found the wireless :)  But now to my debaucle... I spoke Spanish once upon a time.  Fluently in fact.  I lived in Spain so fluency was a requirement.  I also lived in El Paso so quasi-fluency was a requirement.  Well, I don't use it as much anymore and here's the awkwardness I've found myself in today.

SCENARIO #1
Older woman on the plane (in Spanish): Can you get me my umbrella? (from the luggage compartment)

Me (in Spanish): Yes, ma'am

Older woman (in Spanish):  Thank you very much.

Me (in Spanish):  You're welcome!

*at this point, I'm thinking, "I'm good to go, it's like riding a bike."  Si senora and de nada?  Really Bree?  Side note - everyone automatically speaks Spanish to me instead of English because I look like I belong - finally, I've found my people.

SCENARIO #2 - ordering coffee

Young Costa Rican barista (in Spanish): How can I help you?

Me (in Spanglish): Can I get a latte with vanilla (Spanish) and can you fill up my water bottle (English)
*what the!?!?!? Not sure what was going through my overtired brain.

Young Costa Rican barista (in Spanish, looking at me like I'm crazy): Yes, a latte with vanilla and you want water from the sink?

Before I could really register what she said, I nodded.  Oops and then proceeded to see that right next to the coffee stand was a water fountain.  No wonder she thought I was crazy.

What I'm realizing is that it's not quite like riding a bike.  I understand everything.  That part's easy.  I can hear people's conversations and know exactly what's going on.  No big.  But as soon as I try to find vocabulary words in the recesses of my brain and then try to conjugate a verb my mind goes to mush.  Hopefully it's the red eye flight & 3 hours of sleep!??!  If not, it's gonna be a Spanglish kind of week...

Mighty to Save

 Kerry wrote this morning:

When we moved to Haiti in 2009 we believed that God was calling us to live by a different model of ministry. We truly believed that God has a deep love for His Haitian children and a plan to lift them out of their despair and into lives of freedom through knowledge of His love. We believed that if God has a plan to do work then He Himself had the means to fund that work. We believed that if we would be faithful to throw ourselves completely into finding what God wanted to do and then spent our time in that, then He would send the money to do it. I did not want to spend several months each year doing fund raising when instead we could be rescueing babies and taking care of the sick and dying. I was totally unsure how it would all work out but truly believed God would provide the funds.

In July 2010 the river in Montrouis flooded due to many factors including a poorly designed bridge and extensive deforrestation. The flood washed away many homes in our fishing village leaving dozens of single moms and their kids homeless. Tents were provided but that was almost a year ago and the tents have been destroyed. We felt God wanted us to reach out to these desperate women and give them hope.

We had a friend that agreed to help us rent homes for 18 of the women. But we did not want to stop there. Paying for someone's house as a handout is more detrimental in the long run than helpful. So instead we decided to start a program for these women to reach out to their own community. Joy has a heart for the elderly and widows and we were already taking fish to many widows in our area on a weekly basis. But Joy had a desire to start a "Meals on Wheels" Haiti style. So we are now taking the 18 single moms that are the outcasts from their society. Many have multiple children from multiple men. All are uneducated and fundamentally illiterate. Most have been raped and abused. We want to help them become active participants in changing their community and their lives. We want them to know that God has a better plan for them and that although they have never believed it, they are valuable and lovable and loved.

In order to be in our housing program the women had to agree to several conditions. First of all they have to come to weekly Life Lesson classes. These classes involve life skills training like hygeine and mothering skills. It also involves Bible study that teaches them abstinance and the true value of their body and their lives. In addition to the classes the women agree to work in our feeding program. They will come three days per week to prepare and deliver the hot meals to the elderly shut-ins. They will also be taking clean water and vitamins. We are training them to look for signs of illness and to spend time with the client. Our goal is to help them understand the principle of investing their lives in others.

The first two days they work each week will go towards paying for their house we rented. The third day they will get paid and taught how to mange the money.

The program will feed about 150 hot meals per week and employ the 18 single moms. We pray that in the long run the effects will change many families and help many to come to know the love of Christ.

I did not know how we would pay to fund the program but we went ahead and started renting all the houses. This past week a man we met while here in Haiti called and said he and his wife really wanted to find a program they could get involved with. I emailed him the outline of Meals on Wheels and he called me tonight and said they had all the expenses covered and would start sending a check every month to cover all the costs. God had a plan. He chose by grace to reveal it to us. We started it by faith. And He provided the funding. In the words of Hannible from The A Team, "I just love it when a plan comes together!" 

This is exciting news from Haiti.  This week they are doing medical assessments on the elderly in Montrouis and will determine those who have the most dire need to part of the new feeding program.  God is so faithful.  Just a month ago, I remember conversations with Kerry about how he was going to get all these women employed & housed by July... 

OUR GOD IS MIGHTY TO SAVE. 

From our partners in Turkey

Ramazan and Karen amaze me... they have an awesome story of how our great God redeemed their lives and they live a life of sacrifice for the gospel.  I am inspired by the way they have counted the cost (potentially even their own lives) and found Him worthy of it all.  And plus... they have THE CUTEST kid in the world :)   Enjoy!

Greetings brothers and sisters in Christ, our dear faithful prayer warriors. We are so grateful for you and as we see answers to our prayers, we praise God for providing each one of you as an intercessor for us.

Our 7 weeks back in Turkey have been very busy. We have been catching up with our friends and family. It has been a blessing. It has been especially encouraging to see how the Lord has worked in individual church members’ lives as well as in the church as a whole Body. Since Christmastime, three new people have committed their lives to Christ. It has been such a blessing to see the Lord working in their lives.

Our old meeting place, St. Paul’s Cultural Center, continues to be closed and we continue to be a “homeless” church. However, the Lord has provided a full-time meeting place for us! It is the upper room of a restaurant on the same street as St. Paul’s. We are now renting this building with the international church and can use it every day rather than just Sunday mornings. Praise God for provision! We organized a calendar with the international church which allows us to share the time we have in this building. This is a 6 month solution with hopes that the St. Paul’s Cultural Center will be reopened soon. Continue to pray for that. 

This week a new young adults group will begin. The church youth group has been attended by students and young adults ranging in age from early teen to mid-thirties  For some time now, the older members of the youth group have been ready to split off into their own fellowship group. There are several married couples and some singles, about 20-25 people in total, who will move on into the new group. Everyone is very excited to start meeting together. Please pray for our first meeting this week and that the fellowship of this group will be a blessing. Pray that the Lord would knit our hearts together and that even more people will join us. 

As you may recall, we have asked many times for prayer to begin a church in Alanya. A few months ago, our church sent a missionary couple there and they are now meeting with the Alanya believers on a weekly basis. Our church sends delegates to Alanya once a month to encourage the believers. Please pray for this missionary couple working in Alanya. Please also pray that more people would join the church and come to Christ. 

We are looking for a flat to buy. This process has been quite frustrating for Ramazan. The most important thing for us to consider when buying an apartment is its location. Because Ramazan is a Christian pastor and quite well-known in the city, not many neighborhoods would be eager to have us living among them. There are many conservative areas in Antalya and we want to buy a flat in the area where business professionals live. These people are typically less Islamic, more democratic and open-minded, and probably more willing to accept us living among them. Unfortunately, the cost of apartments in this area is a bit high. Please pray that the Lord would provide a reasonably priced flat in a good neighborhood. 

Joshua is now seven months old. He is a joy and blessing to us and keeps us both laughing and smiling. 

Thank you again for blessing us through your prayers. 

Much love,

The Arkans

Glimpses of Hope

On Sunday afternoon in Haiti, we were sitting at the snack bar, enjoying some sandwiches for lunch & talking about what life would bring once we got back from Haiti.  Jarred told me he was planning on going rock climbing at a national park in Utah in the month of April.  To which I said, "Why don't you come back here?  They need you here way more than the rocks do :)"  Jarred is a PA (Physician's Assistant) and has an incredible giftset (medical and non) that is ridiculously useful in Haiti.

Long story short, Jarred is back in Montrious.  He is there through the month of April and in the 4 days he's been there has already done his fair share of ministry.  When we were there last month, we met this little guy named Johnny.  He had some sort of incident in November - they're not sure if it was a stroke or what but a kid who was normal - able to speak, walk and play can no longer use the right side of his body.  We found him at his home just sitting in this chair.  He doesn't move... all day unless his dad takes him somewhere.

I will never forget standing outside Johnny's home in the fishing village, tears streaming down my face and hearing Jarred & Holly (our team doctor) say, "There's nothing we can do for him.  This will be his life."  He's a kid for crying out loud.  It is SO unfair.

When we got home, we decided the least we could do is try to get him a wheelchair.  Someone donated the perfect size wheelchair and today Jarred posted pictures of Johnny's glimpse of hope.  I know we can't save this little boy and he'll never walk or talk again, but we can make the time he has left on this earth better.  And from the pictures and the way Jarred talked about it today, the ear-to-ear grin and him spinning in circles in the wheelchair is just one of the reasons Jarred needed to go back.

It is Christ using his people to reach down to the least of these and say, "You're worth it.  You matter. " And that's awesome. That's the gospel.

Vision of Splendor - Backdrop of Squalor

Haiti - a vision of splendor on a backdrop of squalor.  

This island is beautiful.  There are few places in the world with palm trees, turquoise Caribbean beaches and sunsets that take your breath away.  I've been to a few and have loved my vacations there.  But Haiti?  It's not one of those vacation spots.  If you just flew straight to a hotel on the coast and saw only this vision of splendor, you might think so.

What you don't see in this picture is the people behind the camera.  Standing behind us, while this picture was taken was a village of lost, broken people - orphans, elderly, earthquake refugees, unemployed single mothers... and the list goes on. While taking this picture, we were all standing in a group in the fishing village, surrounded by locals who are desperate for help.

Mothers who were asking us to take their children back to the United States, fathers and husbands begging for Kerry to help them get jobs to feed their families, single women who want nothing more than to be educated and learn a trade so that they can support themselves, elderly women who love the Lord and are trusting him for their next meal, orphans wanting nothing more than to be held and loved.

The backdrop of squalor in this nation is something that will also take your breath away and cause tears to well up your eyes because it seems unfair.  And it is.  It seems hopeless.  But I can tell you that because of Jesus Christ, it is not.

Richard Stearns puts it this way in "The Hole in Our Gospel" (which I guarantee you will change your life if you read it)...

"Christ is either God incarnate, risen from the dead, or He is not.  There is no halfway position here... if Christ is God, it changes everything - there is nothing more important, more authoritative, or more central to the human race, to the way we live our lives, and to our very understanding of the world.  Christ is an all-or-nothing proposition, and one way or another, every one of us has already made a choice about Him.  We have either committed our lives to him whole-heartedly, or we have not."  

I can tell you this: Kerry and Joy Reeves and their kids have 100% surrendered everything for the sake of following Christ and being his hands and feet in a dark backdrop of squalor.  They have sacrificed things you and I couldn't dream of parting with to live a better story.  This is a man who had it all - a successful optometry practice, the house, the cars, the American dream.  I will never forget him saying to us how hard it was to give that up but how rewarding it is to be fully dependent on Christ.  Here's the thing... Kerry and Joy could have chosen to say, "I think we'll wait until our kids are out of school" or "Maybe someday" or "Maybe after we get a little more experience and money saved" or "Nah, this just isn't for me."

But instead they said, "Let's not waste another day living for ourselves.  God is writing a big story in Haiti and we could choose to be part of it or we could let him choose someone else."  And this changed everything, for hundreds of people.

Even as we speak, they are doing a crusade for the next few days in Montrouis.  Saturday they will baptize over 80 people.  Every single night he is getting to speak the hope of Jesus Christ over the people of this dark land that is less than 10% Christian.  I am blown away by Kerry and Joy - by their dependence on Christ, their faith in his provision, their commitment to Haiti, their model of discipleship and love and their broken hearts for the things that break the heart of God.

Kerry wakes up every morning, gets on the bus and prays, "Lord, I need you today.  I can't do this without you.  Let's go change this village for your name."  This is a dependence on Christ that you and I know we don't have in our oh-so-comfortable worlds here in the states.  It's something to be sought after and something that can only come with complete surrender.  They amaze me.  They inspire me.  They make me want to be more like Jesus.

Because of this, God has put it on our hearts as IMPACT and Operation HOPE to start an Intern Program there called "Haiti Discipleship."  Our hope is that this will encourage our dear friends who've given their lives to this mission, that God will write the story of Haiti on the hearts of the many who will go and that the kingdom will be expanded through more long-term work in this place.  Stay tuned for a post about the program :)

Let Me Be

I drive to work on the most beautiful highway in the world - PCH (Pacific Coast Highway).  It's exactly what it its name describes - a highway that is right along the Pacific Coast.  This 30 minute drive is my thinking time, my praying time, my music time.

Tuesday I was driving to work, praying about my life, thinking about how much I want to go back to Haiti and this song came on.  It's a song called "Let Me Be" by my all time favorite band called Caedmon's Call.  I heard it once and then put it on repeat 3 more times until it sunk into my soul.  And now I've been living in it this week and this is my prayer:

"Lord, you are the maker of my heart.  The framer and reshaper of my soul.  Master and Creator, Healer and Sustainer, I will put my trust in you alone.  Teach me to be faithful to confess.  In this way my spirit will be blessed.  Though my sins are daily, you have loved me greatly, removing them as far as east from west. 

Let me be open, let me be humble, let me find the joy of my salvation in your cross.  Let me be broken whenever i stumble, let me remember the great mercy of my God.  

Give me the full measure of your grace, as it is reflected in the work.  Faith and reassurance, mercy and endurance - carry these to those who haven't heard. 

Let me be open, let me be humble, let me find the joy of my salvation in your cross.  Let me be broken whenever I stumble, let me remember the great mercy of my God. 

All I have needed, I lay at your table and all my achievements, I lay at your feet.  Alive in your spirit, I'm willing and able... make my joy complete.  

Let me be open, let me be humble, let me find the joy of my salvation in your cross.  Let me be broken whenever i stumble, let me remember the great mercy of my God."

When I think about IMPACT, about missions, about my recent trip to Haiti, I think about the line that says, "Faith and reassurance, mercy and endurance - carry these to those who haven't heard."  That is our job and that is why I love my job.  

We get the chance to offer the hope we have in Jesus Christ to people around the world - what a privilege.  Lord, let me remember the great mercy of my God today.