Tuesday, August 7, 2018

Angel Armies


It was summer and the screen door was the only barrier between me and the evening.  I sat at my desk beside the door so I could see outside while I wrote a class paper.  The yard outside was dark as the streetlight hid behind the towering trees that lined the property between my little cottage and the parking lot beside. 


** Photo Cred: D. Boyte 


Crickets and distant traffic played a quiet song as city life battled nature.

I wrote.  I don’t know what I was writing or for which class.  I was feeling settled and safe.  The cottage was small, but quaint.  My belongings stacked up upon themselves around me.

I loved that the church was across the street.  The church where I volunteered, where I worshiped God, where I connected to people.  I felt less alone. 

I saw a bright light make its way across the lawn and I stood.  It was an odd angle and seemed as though it searched my yard.  I saw a car moving slowly down the street.  Ah, just a car turning the corner.  Back to work. 

Bloomington is a big-small suburb rich with diversity.  I liked it. I hadn’t been there long, only a couple of weeks, but I liked it.  I liked going to Starbucks and hearing several languages.  I liked walking to the grocery store without fear.  I liked that families played at the park and walked along side streets together. 

I heard a “whoosh” and thought I saw a dog run past the open door.  It was frighteningly close.  Instinctively, I jumped up and closed the door.

Before I could lock it I heard a shouting voice from the back of the cottage, the side of the parking lot, the darkest place in the yard. 

“Let me see your hands!  I have a gun.  I’ll shoot.”

“I ain’t got nothin’.”

“I said let me see your hands.  Drop the knife.  I have a gun.  I will shoot you.”

I moved cautiously to the middle of the cottage not sure where the safest place to avoid a stray bullet would be.  I wasn’t even sure where they were or why they were there or who they were. 

“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” I heard my own voice whispering.

Red and blue lights lit the other side of the cottage, the street side, and I realized I was definitely not alone.  Carefully I opened a piece of the blind and looked out.  The street was lined with police cars and officers standing at attention.  Some with guns drawn. 

“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.”

Just outside of the back door I heard a rustle and more angry voices, though I don’t recall what they said.  Emerging from the short walk between the garage and cottage two officers escorted a third man.  Wild hair, messy clothes, slumped shoulders.

I was too stunned to feel afraid or angry or sad.  I watched as they took him to the car, closed the doors, exchanged information and cleared the space.

In retrospect, I find it interesting that no one checked on the cottage inhabitants.  How did they know I was safe?  It almost felt like a dream or a movie or a book with me as the reality scene actress. 

At one point before the exit of the crew the Assistant Pastor, who lived across the street, called me.  

“Kris?  Everything ok over there?”

“Yes.  Inside is ok.  I have no idea what’s happening out there.”

“Ok.  Let me know if you need anything.”

“Thanks.  I will keep you posted.”

No shade on him or his wife for not waiting until the hullabaloo quieted before they crossed the street to check in person.  I sure wouldn’t go out there!

Though this happened many summers ago, I was reminded of it the other day.  I heard a line from a song about the God of Angel Armies being always close.  I wonder how many times I have been minding my own business, doing my own thing, unaware of danger around me because I am surrounded by unseen caretakers. 

There are times I could almost feel the shield.

The time when Kellie and I walked down a late, dark street on our way home and were met by a line of leering, drunken men.  We simply sidestepped them and kept walking as if we didn’t see them.  What stopped them?  Or should I ask what did they see that stopped them?

Accidents avoided, credit cards not stolen, purses recovered untouched… how many times was I obliviously living my daily, scattered life while I was surrounded and protected from harm? 

I’m not trying to be mystic or super spiritual or tell you to look for signs of halos and swords.  I’m just saying that there was a night when I was clearly in danger and I didn’t know it because Someone had sent someone to find someone who meant harm. 

Just in case you were wondering, the bad guy had stabbed someone about a block away from my quiet door step.  He hid in an alcove beneath my window and would have been safe in his darkness had it not been for a K-9 unit dispatched.  The German Shepherd was not fooled by the hiding place and lead the rest of his crew straight to the fugitive.  This story could have ended so many other ways, but God had other plans. 

I believe that God really does care about those details of our lives and He really does send angels to protect us.  Sometimes He even lets us glimpse them. 


Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Hidden Cost of Missionary Work

I am re-posting this very popular piece.  Not because I'm planning to go overseas anytime soon, but because it is now a sample of what you will find when the Moscow book is finally in print.  I am hopeful that will be soon. 


Also it's a reminder to those who go and those who stay that there are hidden costs and blatant blessings waiting for you. 


God is good.  


Are you planning to go somewhere this year?  Tell me about it!  Let me join your prayer team.


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There is a hidden cost of missions work that is overlooked.

Yes, it’s expensive to buy plane tickets, food and daily supplies, lodging, transportation.  Those are all budget items that are fairly easy to plan for.  We take our savings or retirement or offerings and sparingly apply them to stretch across the months, or years, we are abroad.  Those are expected expenses and we do our best to be wise.

There is the obvious emotional expense of unfilled heart time.  You know, the deposits made into our lives by those we love while we do everyday life with them.  When you’re abroad, you are not holding your grandchildren when they scrape their knee.  You’re not kissing away the sad days when a dog is lost or a friend moves away.  You’re not listening to the saxophone rehearsal, the reading practice, the math drills.  They can video you in, but it isn’t the same.  Your arms are empty and your heart is drained.  You are glad they are happy and healthy and living well without you, but your arms ache for them. 

Your peers, friends and family, don’t always quite understand why you’re gone, and that’s an emotional drain.  Some of them resent that you aren’t there to help with the life chores.  Someone else has to take mom to the doctor and call you with results.  You can’t be available to babysit or rideshare or decorate.

You pray they have found a new mother figure, a new best friend, a new co-problem solver so they are not facing the problems of life alone. 

You call to catch up and realize you have no idea who is married to whom and when the baby shower will be or what the garden looks like this year.  You realize that moments are slipping away in your time clock which can’t be re-stocked.

It’s hard to communicate what you are seeing and hearing every day.  The market buzz, the language difficulties, the smells of every day life.  You talk about baking banana bread and hoping that you have figured out what the notches on your oven mean.  They smile but can’t understand. 

If you’re really blessed you find a community that becomes a family to you on the field.  You commiserate with them in the morning after the long walk to work.  You hold their babies and plan their birthday parties.  You laugh with them about the awkward language exchanges in a grocery store or metro.  You find familiarity in struggles.  They may be from completely different parts of the world.  Their language base will not be yours, their history will be unknown to you. Yet, you find yourself walking beside them as if you are intrinsically connected.

They are living the same sensations and challenges.  They “get it” without explanation.

All of that is difficult, but not the hardest thing.  The hardest thing is after you’re home.  You return!  Yay!  Everyone rejoices!  There are greeting hugs and special dinners and welcomes of all kinds.  Then day turns to week to month to year.  You realize that your heart is in two places. 

You wonder how your friends over there are managing life. Are they still continuing the things you tried to teach them?  Did they pray today?  Are they reading their Bible?  Is anyone confusing them with a different message of God’s love?  Are they studying?  Are they working together to be better?

The handprints of the expat family members are deep within your memory.  You are glad to be with your family and friends, again, but you miss the others constantly.  You wonder how they are re-settling in their new life.  You pray they have found a new mother figure, a new best friend, a new co-problem solver so they are not facing the strangeness alone. 

You feel guilty for wanting to be back on the field after having missed so many moments with everyone.  You try to swoop back into the common paths, pick up where you left off. 

But you’re different.  You say weird things like, “pass the smetana” and then realize that no one at the table knows what that is.  You stand in a grocery aisle ten times the size of the one you had become comfortable with and feel overwhelmed.  You tear up when someone says the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag while everyone else repeats with boredom.  You watch the news with new insight and have new opinions that no one cares about. 

You try to share it.  That’s not always wise.  “In Russia we….,”  “When I was there …,” You see the glazed eyes of the listener and then the kids tell you it sounds like you’re bragging.  You realize they were busy living a different life which filled your spot in their path.  Meanwhile, your experiences pushed them out and they resent it. 


There is the real cost.  The shaping and pruning which happened while you were being stretched into a useful vessel for the work of God has made you different.  Your family and friends don’t want a new you – they liked the old one well enough. 

Why would someone pay all of those expenses?  Why would someone give up life-moments to go somewhere far away and face untold challenges?  Why would someone cash out retirement and savings to live like a pauper during – and after – a missions trip?  Is it worth it?

Each individual has their own answer to those questions.  For me, I see my life as a gift from God.  I know the failures I have amassed, the foolishness that I walked into full of purpose only to find my life at risk, my money gone, my need for a grace-full Savior to get me out of a mess.  My every day is a present.  I don’t deserve it.  I look at the full, good life of my family.  They live surrounded by goodness and hardly notice.  They are healthy, strong, creative Christians.  I know those are gifts from God and I owe God in return.  Not only my family, but also my abilities.  If I am able to teach and love, it’s only because God has shown me how.  Statistically, that’s not how I should have turned out. 

But God… in His goodness has made me who I am.

When He opened the opportunity, I was compelled to go.  I could not say no.  Not to Moscow, not to Milwaukee, not to wherever He sends me next. 

Is it worth it?  It is.  When I look back at all of the details of my life, when I consider the experiences and the sharing and the praying and the blessings … in spite of the cost … I would do it again.  I am richer for it.  I have learned to hold my memories in boxes.  There is an American box full of fireworks and coffee sipping.  There is a Russian box full of walking and laughter.   There are boxes full of brilliant, rich friendships. 

Life is full of complications wherever you are.  You may as well go where God sends you.  Live fully.  Don’t be afraid to do what is at the end of your hands to do.  Don’t be disappointed when a door closes.  Trust the Author and Finisher of your faith to know what is best. 

In the end, you will find a blessed life with full pages. 

Sunday, April 1, 2018

Easter - Death and Life


I must always consider this season greater than others.  I see rainy, sunny, cold, snowy, sunny Sundays in my Easter history.  It’s always in Spring – the season I dislike more than any other.  Spring has taken so much from me. Mocked me with its motto of new life by taking those who I love the most.  Taunting me with bright skies as it clogged the air, making breathing for this asthmatic simply painful.

For God to come to me over and again so personally in Spring is always a surprise.  

It was Easter season at a Lutheran Church when He spoke very clearly to me, “take up your cross and follow Me.”  I have no idea if anyone else heard Him, but I did.  I can still see the austere arched ceiling, hear the creak of the wooden pews, smell the 100-year old stale air.  Feel the pull of a Force I struggled to understand. 

It echoed the words of yesteryears when I, as a very young girl in Catechism class, went through the Stations of the Cross.  I recall standing before Simon wishing I could have been there.  I vowed I would have done the same. I wanted to be Veronica wiping the face of Jesus, caring for Him.  Easter promises never forgotten. 

Another year, another difficult season in my life, I made my way to church to honor Him for Easter Mass.  I remember the rain, the crowd, what I wore.  Alone in the crowd, the service did nothing to fill my emptiness.  I stood on the steps outside waiting for my ride and considered the fresh cleanness of the air.  Wondering if God could give my life some cleanness, some freshness.  Was I too deeply entrenched in sin that I couldn’t be forgiven anymore?

Through that year, He worked on my life and my heart.  Turning everything I knew upside down.  Conflicts, problems, situations compounded as I struggled to make sense of my life.  My survivor skills were in high gear that year.  Again and again I felt Him reaching for me until finally He compelled me to take a chance on Him.  Lay down my life.  Shift my paradigms.  Face the fear of rejection.  He showed me I needed to die for Him to breathe new life into me. 

A kind voice, a simple message, a clear direction.  Repent – die.  Be baptized – buried.  Be filled with the Spirit of God – born again. 

Simple, but profoundly life changing.  To this day, 32 years later, I can’t explain to someone what happened or how.  It’s my experience alone.  I can retell the story.  I can write about it, talk about it, draw about it.  But there are no words or pictures that can really describe the girl who went into the water and the one who came out.  Not perfect, but new. 

Now, so many Springs later, I still see the joy of life He has given.  Never breaking His word, never leaving me.  There have been dark and difficult days when it was hard to see how I would ever make my way through.  Poverty of love, money, abundance of heartache and lack of peace days. 

Never has He forsaken me, though I deserved to be left behind.  Never has He let go of me, even when I tried to pull myself away. 

The slightest whisper, the smallest gesture, the minimalist plea – He has heard.  Never turning himself away from me.    

Spring.  Easter.  Death and life all twisted together.  Thanks, God.  I am so grateful.  

Saturday, February 24, 2018

Quick Notes

Yes, I know I need to be writing more.  Yes, I realize there are people who benefit from my rambly words.  I'm sorry, really, that I don't stop still often enough.  But life is very full and rich and deep and I'm only now coming to terms with this season.

Back in Milwaukee.  Teaching amazing and brilliant students.  Working with a top-notch, class act staff of educators.  Part of a church community that is totally next level.  I am floundering in blessings.

I'll be speaking tonight at a Singles group and then Tuesday evening at a Mom's group.  I really just am beginning to realize that I'm old enough, experienced, enough to have something worth sharing.  Some things that will help someone else overcome a tough season.

As I was preparing today, I realized it is the anniversary week of my dad's death.  So many miles have been walked since then. So many very hard and very good days have been lived.  I do miss him.  Truly.

In his honor, I share again the most popular piece of my writing:  Daddy's Hands.  I hope that it will encourage you to tend the bridges in your life, hold someone's hand and forgive.

Here is the link :  Daddy's Hands

If you enjoyed this piece, you might also be interested in my books, The Book of Pages About Crossing Bridges  and A Friend Named Jesus.  They can be found on Amazon.com by following these links:

A Friend Named Jesus     The Book of Pages 

Thanks for reading.
God bless!
Kris