Lenten Project: Day Forty

It's the close of Lent.  Now it's Easter.  Time to look forward, and rejoice in Hope.

Easter 2012, Messiah Lutheran Church, Mauldin, SC

I've learned and grown through these forty days of my Lenten discipline.  I've faced my failures, admitted my faults, remembered joys, and rejoiced in memories.  Looking back to where I've come and comparing my old self to who I am now, I know I have a ways to go on my journey of life.  But there's good in affirming how much has changed in me since I was a child.

I might still doubt sometimes.  When I do, I run to the cross, dip my fingers in the holy water, and remind myself of my baptism.  I still fail my kids in this mothering business. When that happens, I try to treat them with respect, apologise when I'm wrong, and model repentance to them.  I still have flashbacks and occasionally have a hard time talking about episodes from my past.  But that doesn't mean I shouldn't talk.

I'll keep on talking because over the course of this Lenten Project, I've received numerous messages, emails, texts, and comments from people who have been helped though my telling my story.  There are universal elements, things with which people identify, in each of my posts, stuff that unites us all in this human journey.  This blog series has sparked numerous positive conversations, inspired reconciliations, and reminded others of the Hope we have in Christ.  There have been horrifying stories recalled, funny episodes related, and lots of in between, just-tell-it-like-it-is kinds of posts.  I hope my Lenten Project has been a blessing to you, and I invite you to stick around for future posts.  I don't intend to stop.

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Which post has been your favourite these past forty days?

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Lenten Project: Seventh Fearless Friday (Good Friday)

One thing that missionary kids excell at is in reveling in their natural habitat. From swings to elaborate treehouses from which to launch on zip lines, we certainly created plenty of opportunities for thrills. 

Even when my family was on deputation, raising monetary support to go to Grenada, we had a nice wooden swing in the backyard of our house in Sharon, PA. There were some nice playgrounds in that area, too, and I have vague but fond memories of playing when I was a little girl. 

But it wasn't till we got to Grenada that our outdoor habitats got more awesome. At one house, an old plantation manor house with two and a half acres of land filled with tropical fruit trees, Dad built us girls a double decker treehouse.

This is one of the breathtaking views we had from that house.

We also had a little platform over some roots that was our hammock space. When Dad was putting up an even longer rope swing, he asked for a volunteer to test it with him. My sister Lizzy stepped forward, unafraid that Dad's knot tying might not hold. Sure enough, the rest of us girls had our doubts vindicated! On the backswing, the rope broke, and Dad and Lizzy fell to the ground, landing on some big above-ground roots. Dad landed on Lizzy, and Mom was certain he'd killed her or broken bones or caused internal bleeding. At first, Lizzy assured everybody she was fine, but when Mom continued to fuss and Dad kept acting so contrite, she began to ham it up, whimpering and letting her arms hang limply while she got carried with great fanfare into the house. She got to spend the rest of the day on a pile of cushions, eating the entire sent-from-America Tootsie Roll stash. With rewards like that, the rest of us girls felt sorry we hadn't volunteered after all!

At the next house we lived at in Grenada, we took it to the next level and had a four  storey treehouse, complete with super long rope swing. 

Come to think of it, we Schaefer girls haven't had much luck with rope swings, because Mary was swinging on this one once and ended up flipping over the nearby retaining wall to land on her back on some coconuts. Dad was so scared she'd broken her back that he drove the little red car down the hill to get her and drive her back up to the house so she wouldn't walk. But Mary was too good and honest to let our parents feed her all the American candy when she wasn't really injured.

Aside from rope swings and hammocks, the favourite contraption at MKs' houses was the zip line. A couple of our friends had great tree lines in their yards that were perfect for their zip line setups. We'd spend hours taking turns hurling our bodies from tops of makeshift ladders (slats nailed into coconut trees) while hanging on tightly to small metal pipes suspended from the zip line. Only be careful you don't slam into the tree into the other end!!

One missionary family lived right on the edge of the rainforest, so we'd go exploring and hiking whenever we visited them. There was a small quicksand pool that Darrell always told us we'd get sucked down into our deaths if we even stepped a toe in. Scared me spitless everytime he ominously warned us. If it was really that dangerous, I wonder at our parents for letting us go play around it! More likely he was just being his annoying self and teasing me (probably made all the sweeter for him since I swallowed it every single time!).

I grew up climbing mango trees and spending all day up there, reading. If I got hungry, I could always reach out a hand and pick a snack!

Growing up so close to nature is something I really appreciate about my childhood. While it's a miracle none of us ever got seriously injured, I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything.

Lenten Project: Day Thirty-eight (Maundy Thursday)

Lent is almost over. Today is Maundy Thursday. We've moved from self-reflection to a reflection on the ultimate selfless gift: Jesus' gift of dying on the cross for us.  We celebrate the institution of the Last Supper of our Lord, that time when He gathered together his disciples and taught them what is love and forgiveness.

This day is a holy day that's brimming with restoration and hope, looking to the future Easter, while remembering the beginning of the Passion.  For me, I keep in my heart the hope of reconciliation with my sister Elizabeth, though reality is discouraging.  Since my divorce, my sister, still a Fundamentalist, has been shunning me, denying repeated attempts to seek forgiveness or reconciliation, saying that I have the "spirit that worketh death" on me.  (I don't know what that is or how a Christian could be marked in such a way, and none of the pastors I've asked have understood what she means by that, either.)

I've emailed repeatedly, trying to keep the door to the relationship open, but all my offers and suggestions to restore harmony have been rejected. I honestly don't know what else to do.  She claims I'm unrepentant and unchanged since I divorced.  I suspect she believes, agreeing with my parents, that I'm a walking, talking adulteress.  That, unless I "prove" my penitential spirit by following a specific list made by her, I've not actually repented.  She and her husband reject the testimony of pastors (from several different churches and denominations--Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Baptist), friends, family, those who have counseled me, those who have observed my life up close over the years and see a pronounced difference in me.  She demands that I let her "hold all the cards" and dictates that I must personally apologise to everyone who knew of my first marriage and divorce, since I broke my marriage vows to them and dishonoured God. Why my not having done these exact things must result in her refusal to have anything to do with me, I'm still not sure.  Most of what she has said makes little sense when viewed through the lens of Scripture and the light of the Gospel.

Hannah and Elizabeth sing together, Singapore, 2000

My friends, I want you to know that Jesus says his burden is easy and yoke is light, and his forgiveness is freely given, not earned through apologising to everyone you know. Jesus doesn't seek to break those who come to him, but to heal their brokenness. When you start living a life of redemption, the evidence is clear to anyone who will look--repentance has occurred, is occurring, and will continue to characterise you. This is what Easter, Christ's Passion, is all about.

I will admit, I've been tempted to fall back into my old habits of just pretending, of saying what my sister wants to hear so I can create a false peace, have a shallow reconciliation. But one thing I have learned, something I think has been shown through my posts this Lenten season, is that faking it never works.  Pretending all is well, embracing passive-agressivism, or even willfully choosing blindness and stunted spirituality, results in death, not life.

So I choose Christ.  I choose living a life of repentance.  I am marked as a child of God, and I want to be characterised by reconciliation.  But I can't force people to reconcile when they refuse.  I can't force people to act like Christ when they believe His virtues (peace, unconditional love, free forgiveness to those who don't earn or deserve it) are anathema.

I don't give up hope for my sister.  But I give the struggle up to God.  Because trying to convince a spiritually blind person that God is good and forgives is futile until that person willingly hears the Holy Spirit's voice.

This was a hard post to write. I wrote, deleted, rewrote, deleted again, scrapped the whole thing, prayed, pondered, wondered, and rewrote it all again from the very beginning.  It was not easy.  But it's right.  Because reconciliation is my theme. Hope and life are together threads entwined to run through every story I've told in this Lenten Project.

Hannah, Mary, and Elizabeth, mid-90s, Grenada

I hope that someday this episode of my life will be a testament to the reconciliation found in Christ, that Lizzy and I can be friends, or at least speaking sisters again.  Until then, it's a story of how Christians can be stubborn, proud, and often very unlike the Christ they serve, but how forgiveness is always available, always free, not earned. My comfort comes from the Lord. I'm reminded every Sunday during the Eucharist that we are one Body, Fundamentalist Baptists, Lutherans, and Anglicans, and everybody else, united in Christ, whether my sister Lizzy can see it through her blindness or not.  The passion of Christ was not futile or worthless.

Lenten Project: Day Thirty-seven

After working so hard to secure employment at Bob Jones University, I felt like I'd achieved the highest level of spirituality.  Now, despite never getting to be a "spiritual leader" during my undergrad days, I was a respected staff member, someone who could influence students for Jesus, and also learn from the other BJU employees who had suddenly become my peers.

Senior portraits.
Why is it that yearbook staff always pick the worst pose?

I loved my job.  I was a staff dispatcher for the campus security, and often worked the 12 hour overnight shift.  Anything could--and did--happen in the middle of the night on and around campus.  One night, in mid-July, the campus watermain sprung a leak and flooded a part of campus.  I was on the phone with the fire department, coordinating the directing of outsiders to the cleanup crews to get everything under control, while also accomplishing all my other nighttime dispatch duties: recording everything on the blotter, paying attention to the alarms checking, and keeping track of entrances and egresses from the main gate of the campus.  It was fun, but also exhausting.  With all that, I barely had time to wonder about a summons I'd received that late afternoon from the head of human resources.  I was to report to his office in the morning, two hours after my shift was over (rather inconvenient and inconsiderate, since I'd have to attend the meeting on no sleep, plus find some way to keep myself awake for two wasted hours in waiting around on campus).  My coworkers had assured me it was probably just routine, to finish paperwork, or maybe even to get commended for working so hard all summer.

          

I napped in my sister's room for a couple hours, or at least attempted it.  Now that there were no distractions, my mind went to work imagining what the summons could be possibly be concerning.  Turns out, it was NOT for a commendation.

The HR head was there with the head of my department.  They weren't smiling.  HR glared at me and said, "I'm afraid I have bad news.  You are being terminated."

I was flabbergasted.  I stammered out a, "Why?" while I struggled to recall if I'd broken any rules in the two months I'd been employed. Nope, I'd been perfect, but BJU standards.

He said it was because I'd proven myself to be a bad influence and a poor example of Christ.  When I pressed him for example of what in the world he was talking about, he pulled out, quite dramatically, a sheaf of heavily highlighted papers.  He'd printed one of my emails to several of my friends who were still undergrads.  This email was one of those silly quizzes that kids forward around, what's your favourite food, what's your best childhood memory, what's the most daring thing you ever did, etc.  I'd filled it out a month prior, and sent it on to a few of my friends and coworkers.

Apparently, some of my answers on the quiz were less than pleasing and were downright evil.  I'd put The Patriot as my favourite movie.  HR head explained that, since that movie is rated R, I was being a bad example to the students by saying I liked it.  I shouldn't be even watching rated R movies, and definitely not leading others by example to appreciate or desire to watch them.

I'd said I'd gone skinny dipping. As a kid in the Caribbean Sea.  That was wicked to admit, because it brought to mind nakedness and encouraged young people reading my email to pursue wantonness.

I'd joked that I enjoyed kissing my husband (since all physical contact between genders is banned at BJU, I'd never kissed anyone or been kissed till I started dating and then married my husband, so it still felt a bit illicit, even to admit that I'd done it).  That was bad because it displayed my proud spirit, bragging about physical sexual contact to students who were not allowed to follow my example but who would be expelled if they tried to be like me.

And on the list went, HR man got really heated in his ranting and raving, while my department head just sat there, not saying a word in my defense.  I'd burst into tears after about five minutes, but HR man kept going, alternating between waving the sheaf of papers in the air and shaking his finger under my nose.  He spat, "You have no integrity. Can't you see that you're unqualified to be an example to students, to represent the University?"  He told me I should be becoming more reserved with my friends who were still students, because now I was staff and I had to be over them.  Never mind the fact that I'd been an undergrad too just a few weeks ago, or that school wasn't even in session yet.

What I was afraid of most of all was being barred from seeing my sisters. Friends I could leave behind, but the usual procedure for people who get fired from BJU is for them also to be blacklisted and banned from campus.  I'd been well-schooled in the Black Book during my time with campus security.  I knew how it went.  I finally broke in through HR man's incoherent sidetrack story of how he could not witness to people at his first job because he needed to glorify God by applying himself to working hard.

I asked him point blank if I'd be banned from campus and kicked out of the Alumni Association.  He said no.  He further said he'd make sure that didn't happen, since I hadn't actually done anything wrong, I certainly didn't deserve to be punished beyond losing my job.

With that, the meeting was over.  My department head finally spoke up and offered me a ride home. I could barely see through my swollen eyes, but I refused.  The man hadn't defended me or said much of anything at all during the entire meeting.  I didn't want any help from him if that was his definition of "stand up for and protect the ones in my department."

I walked home.  When I got there, I immediately checked my email to see if my campus account had been locked yet.  I found an email from my new brother-in-law, accusing me of being a horrible, inconsiderate, cruel, deceitful person, a slut, someone who he wished his brother had never met, much less married.  He'd sent a copy of his email to everyone in his family, even aunts and uncles I hadn't met yet.

One person on the recipient list contacted me and assured me his opinions were not shared by the family, but no one stood up to him directly and said what he'd said was wrong or that he shouldn't have emailed everybody like that. Even his brother, my husband, kept quiet. It made me feel so worthless. I was unworthy to be staff at BJU, and also not worth defending. All on the same day. 

I spent the rest of the day with my head in the toilet, throwing up.  A few days later, I received a letter from HR man and from the Alumni Association. I'd been banned from campus, blacklisted.

I blogged about that meeting, describing my feeling of shock, asking why it was morally and ethically okay for my personal emails to be read, printed, and held against me.  Why had it been acceptable for me to be closed in a small room with two older men I barely knew, one of whom then verbally abused me while the other watched?

I wasn't allowed to go see my sisters on campus (I had three sisters who were students that new school year).  It meant I was banned from attending their concerts, recitals, speeches, and even just picking them up to go shopping, or dropping off clean laundry in their rooms.  I was totally blacklisted.  (And no one I left behind knew why--that sort of thing is never explained, so everybody always assumes the worst.  People later told me they all thought I'd broken the law somehow, or had an affair.)

I wrote a letter to Stephen Jones, the president of the school, begging to at least let me be un-banished.  I didn't want my job back, I told him, but I shouldn't be excommunicated for forwarding a silly quiz to some students.

He wrote me back and approved my request to have my blacklisted period cut short (it's policy for all those who part ways with the University on not-good terms to have to prove their repaired testimony after one year of banishment has elapsed).

But before I could be allowed back on campus and special passes for my sister be approved, the dean of students demanded to see me.  He said that, while the University president had said one thing, he was saying another and would not let the un-banishment go forward till I met with him.

I went to see him, and he accused me of doing things I'd never done (he later called me up and apologised.  Apparently, he'd gotten me confused with my brother-in-law's fiance, who had also worked in campus security, and who had done some bad stuff, I guess. Yes, the fiancé of the same brother-in-law who had written me that horrible email).  He also waved some papers around (print outs of my blog) and demanded that I delete everything I'd written about my firing from BJU before my punishment could be lifted.  In order to have the privilege of my sister's company, I had to comply.

So, in exchange for reuniting with my sisters on campus, I did everything he told me.  I never promised never to blog about it again, though, and this is the first time since then that I have.

Bob Jones University is a terrible place, filled with abusers and enablers of abusers.  The focus is all Law (in made up rules which are hardly biblical), and little Gospel. Sure, sometimes the light of God breaks through and good things are accomplished, but it's clear that it is in spite of the people in charge over there, not because of them.  There is joy there, in small pockets, but not because Christ is modeled by the Administration.  There are good people there on staff and in the faculty especially.  I loved my teachers and respect them immensely, for the most part.  But even they are mistreated and abused by the school leadership. I sometimes feel like cursing them all for they did to me, for almost destroying my faith, for totally crushing my spirit, but I remember what the Scriptures foretell about those people's fate, and all I can only say may God have mercy on their souls.

Do I want BJU to be destroyed?  No.  I do, however want change.  I'm not the only one who was hurt while a student or staff member.  There are scores and even hundreds of others who have more horrific tales of abuse, sexual, physical, verbal, emotional, and spiritual.  Ignoring them won't erase the pain and won't bring about healing for anybody. Until BJU can admit past fault, without qualifications or excuses, and seek to actively repent, no change will be appropriate or effective.

Lenten Project: Day Thirty-six

I graduated from Bob Jones University on May 7th, 2005. I'd worked so hard to get to that point, and I don't mean academically. The spiritual abuse I'd suffered while living in the campus dormitories had squashed my faith, nearly killed my hope, and half-convinced me there is no god. Yet, even so, BJU was comforting in its familiarity.

My fiancé had nixed my fantasy of living on my own abroad for a year before getting married, so I agreed we'd get married sooner (a week after graduation), and I needed a job. I figured, BJU had trained me and molded me, and the plea for students to "donate" a few years of their lives to the school that had sacrificed so much for them went out often from the chapel pulpit, so I'd at least be a shoe-in for some job on campus. I checked first with my student job's supervisors--sure enough, they encouraged me to submit my application and assured me they wanted and liked me. 

I applied. And was turned down. I had the jarring realization that BJU molding me into a caricature of myself still didn't make me good enough for them. And I knew that was wrong. So I fought. I met with the deans and tried to find out exactly why my application for employment had been rejected. I knew it wasn't just because they didn't have any positions open; it had to be some kind of character flaw or defect they held against me.  And if, after all that time being counseled, I still had character flaws, well, then, something needed to be done, right?

The dean of students told me unashamedly that it had been his recommendation that I be spurned, even though he personally knew me and had been following my journey through BJU since I arrived. 

He even came backstage and posed with me
for pictures before my opera performance!

When I asked him if there was anything I could do to get him to reconsider, he said I could write a letter explaining my position and he'd bring it before council. 

I slaved over that letter, pouring out what was left of my heart, begging the council (but really the dean of students) to see that the spiritual counseling they'd required had worked and I was a better person now. The dean of women told me she'd been led to believe (by the dean of students) that I wouldn't turn people in, since I never had as a student. A faculty/staff member is vital to keeping up the standards of the school by ensuring everyone is following the rules, she said. I turned two people in that week, to prove I didn't have too compassionate a heart and would make a good strict rule-abiding staff member. One of the people I tattled on ended up getting socialled and not allowed to speak to her own fiancé. Never more had I regretted my foolish attempts to prove my worthiness than then. 

I got the word that my letter had been well-received by the council, the dean of students had been overruled, and I could have a job at Bob Jones University.  I would remain in my department, but become a staff member instead of student worker.

This medallion indicated that I was
a second generation BJU graduate

So on graduation day, I walked into the Founder's Memorial Amphitorium relieved that my plans were working out and that God could still use me, even though I was pretty battered and barely believed in him. I claimed, "all things work together for good" for myself as evidence that God wanted me to serve him at BJU, because, obviously, the obstacles had been overcome.  It never crossed my mind that maybe God could or would use me anywhere else, because the sacrifice of BJU faculty and staff was always touted from the chapel pulpit as being one of the highest callings a Christian could have.  What other humble service could I possibly have wanted to dedicate my life to?

Lenten Project: Day Thirty-five

We used to have lots of kids' clubs for spiritual instruction in Grenada.  Not only did our mom teach all the boys and girls, but we kids, especially me and my sister Mary, were teachers.  We'd walk through a village and invite all the kids we saw on the street playing cricket to come on out to our kids' club under the mango tree up the road every week. Dozens of kids would come regularly, and we eventually started having these in our church, or in the other IFB churches on the island.

We used Kings Kids curriculum in Grenada because it was cheaper than Awana, plus it was KJV-only (even though we weren't--yeah, I never quite understood it either).  We had flannel graph, of course, and lots of stories of missionaries or kids who almost died, but got miraculously saved at the last minute.

Because I had to be a teacher, I was supposed to always have all the spiritual answers. But I didn't.  I could lead the songs (Stop! And let me tell you... and My God is so Big and Who's the King of the Jungle?) with lots of enthusiasm. Tell the stories using all the voices so that the kids were hanging off the edges of their seats, anxious to hear what would happen next.  I could lead kids to the Lord using the Wordless Book faster than Dad could shimmy up a coconut tree.  But in my heart I had so many questions and doubts that I felt like nothing but a faker.

There was little room in our ministry for a daughter who wanted to ask tough questions or be free to reject what she didn't believe.  I knew better than to rock the boat too much, because when I did, the whole island erupted.  And my questions never did get answered. So I learned to just keep on teaching, keep on leading songs, keep on acting out missionary stories during storytelling, and turn off my brain.

In Singapore, I was a Sunday School teacher.  Just a teenager, teaching other kids.  Nowadays I get uncomfortable with the very idea of untrained Sunday School teachers, and I prefer that my kids' church class leaders all have background checks and lots of training.

Lenten Project: Day Thirty-four

I had a few pen pals when I was a kid.  Most of them were picked up while we were on our furloughs in 1994 and 1998, from churches and Sunday schools across the States.  I'm an oddball who keeps everything, and I still have a lot of those letters and cards I received. I'm no longer friends with anyone who wrote me, but I still remember the thrill of getting mail from my pen pals.

One girl in particular was a friend from a supporting church, and she was going to go to BJU the same year as I.  So we wrote and made big plans about how we'd be the best of friends and inseparable.  My dad, when we'd visited her church, had made a joke about she and I competing for the affections of the pastor's son who was also going to go to BJU with us that year.  We kept the joke alive and would banter about it in our letters sometimes. It was a humourous postscript in our correspondence.

When I showed up to the Bob Jones University campus in the fall of 2001, I was confident and sure of myself.  I knew I would not be starting off in the new place all alone--I had friends in the incoming freshman class!  I sought out my friend and was completely puzzled at her cold and standoffish behaviour.  The pastor's son, too, wasn't very welcoming, though he knew I'd only been in the States a short while.  There were a couple others from that church who snubbed me in the first few days before classes actually started, and I was totally confused and hurt.  I didn't know what was going on.

After days of this, one of the kids from that church found me in the campus bookstore and mentioned, almost under his breath like he was revealing a secret, that the whole group had been told about the joke of my dad's that had been made a running joke in our letters.  Only, they didn't think I'd been joking.  They thought I was serious.  So they were all avoiding me and didn't want to be around me at all.

I'm not sure what they thought would happen if we all were friends like I'd envisioned.  I was flabbergasted and shocked.  And really hurt.  A friend who I had been exchanging letters with for years believed the worst of me and hadn't even bothered to try to talk to me about it.  What's more, she'd told everyone else about her concerns and they'd all agreed to push me away.

I told the guy who'd enlightened me that I did not actually believe I would be competing for anyone's affections, that I knew my friend liked the pastor's son, and I'd been hoping they'd get together.  (They did eventually get married.) He shrugged and said that people believe what they wanna believe and it's hard changing their minds.

How I ended up with a picture of his family, I can't recall.
Maybe my friend sent it to me as part of the banter.

The pastor's son eventually tracked me down and apologised for the "misunderstanding," inviting me off campus to a barbecue with the kids from his church and their parents who had brought them to the start of the school year.  I declined.  I had no desire to be made a fool of.  I don't think we ever spoke to one another again.

It seems so petty now that I'm all grown up, but I so clearly remember the cutting blow of suddenly discovering that people I thought were my friends actually didn't even like me.  It made me question every other relationship and friendship I had, and I became a lot more tentative about making new friends.  If people say you'll be friends, they were probably lying--that's the lesson I took to heart and kept close during my years at college.

But another thing this episode revealed to me was that my world was a lot smaller than that of these American kids.  They had lots of friends--friends from school, friends from church, friends from their neighbourhoods--and had many different interactions with different people every day, while I might have had one or two a week, not counting my family.  So every letter I received was precious and a big deal.  When my pen pals wrote, "Friends forever," in their cards and letters, I thought they meant it.  The focal point of my days were narrowed down to those letters from the States or interactions with MKs.  So I elevated my pen pal acquaintances to idealised friendships, believing my pen pals were viewing me in the same way.  But they weren't.

Lenten Project: Sixth Fearless Friday

My sister Mary has always been my best friend out of everybody in the world, probably because she's the person who I've been closest to the longest (by virtue of the fact that we're only 15 months apart in age).  She's been my foil, my sidekick, my confidant, my confessor, and my challenger.

From the very beginning, Mary has made me a better person, a better sister.  Even though I'm the oldest, she was always the designated "girl in charge" when our parents went out and left us kids at home.  It's because she's the most responsible kid.  And she has the gift of peacemaking, which is a good for being in charge of the rest of us rabble-rousers.  She's taught me through example how to love my sisters and respect my parents, even when I don't agree with them.  She perfectly bridges the gap between being her own person and being loyal to others.

As kids, we shared a room (along with all the the other sisters, of course), and got along the best. I frequently fought with my other younger sisters, but Mare and I rarely squabbled.  Even though I was the bad kid and she the good kid, we evened each other out.  I've been daring and liked to push the limits with our parents, and she's been safe and liked to quietly conform.  We meet in the middle to compromise and it works really well in our sisterly partnership.

One time, though, we both agreed to be bad together, and it was glorious!  Here's the whole marvelous story, in her own words:

One night Hannah and I were aching for pickles. We were only allowed ½ a pickle on grilled-cheese-sandwich nights. We longed for more. After the house was quiet and we heard dad march up to his room, we sneaked down to the kitchen. Hannah was the first to take the glass pickle jar from its gleaming pedestal in the refrigerator door.

“Quick! You’re letting the light out!” I said.

She sat down on the floor with the jar between her feet and tried to turn the lid. It was too hard for her. I had always been known as the jar opener. Even Mom sometimes came to me for help with jars of jelly that were to tight for her. I was proud of my reputation. I took the jar from Hannah and tried to open it, but it still wouldn’t open. Finally I gave in to the old knife trick. Hannah handed me a butter-knife from the silverware drawer and I banged its butt against the lid. After two or three taps the lid gave and I pulled it off.

The next minute we were indulging in the wonders of pickled cucumbers. By the time we were satisfied, the jar was empty. Hannah said that no one would suspect us if we just put the jar back into the fridge leaving the pickle water in it. So that is what we did. And she was right. No one asked us if it was us . . . specifically. Dad did ask a few days later, “Okay! Who put the pickle jar back into the fridge EMPTY!?” He hates it when we do that.

When she joined me at Bob Jones University as a freshman in 2002, she became my roommate (along with two others in that tiny room).  We went to meals together, attended Artist Series programs together, reminded one another to brush our teeth and write to Mom.  Since, after Christmas break, classes often started on or around my birthday, she'd be the person who celebrated with me, who never forgot I was a older by another year.

She was a bridesmaid in my first wedding, and I've always been the tiniest bit offended that she didn't ask me to be in hers. I did have weird hair that year, though, so maybe that's why.  She's the only sister who RSVPed 'yes' to my sacramental marriage ceremony last year, the only sister who chose to come and celebrate my new marriage and new family.  Her van broke down on the way, but, dangit, she was actually trying hard to be there, and that counts so much in my eyes, since none of my other sisters even bothered to try (I don't count my youngest sister, who was there with my parents, because she's still a part of my parents' household, and when they changed their minds and decided to come to my wedding, she, by extension, was brought along).

Even though I'm the eldest Schaefer girl, she's the one we sisters all look to for leadership, the one who makes the wise decisions we can trust.  When Dad was busy and Mom was distracted by whichever new baby we had at the time, Mary stepped up and took the reins.  She's like a mini matriarch to us.  She's always been like that.  She's our mother hen.  Mother Mary.

Of course, now, she's all grown up, and she's a real mother.  Her husband and two sons are weeks away from flying away to Togo, West Africa, to minister on the mission field.  Second generation missionaries (both of them, since her husband, Andrew, is the son of missionaries, too), serving God and loving others.

Mary is the only sister who has intentionally set out to get to know my husband right from the start, to actively be a part of my life.  She's the one who has visited my family in DC, who has called, emailed, messaged, and texted when too long has passed between communication.  She's the only one out of my whole family who has met all my kids, who rejoices with me when new milestones are achieved, who drives for hours to come to birthday parties, who listens without judging when I whine about the tough parts of parenting.  She's the one who is willing to discuss theology with me, even though we don't agree on everything anymore.  

Mary is an encourager, a vibrant model of Christ.  She is compassion personified, a reconciler.  I'm going to miss her when she's gone, far away to Togo.  But I'm confident that doesn't mean she'll be out of my life, because she's the kind of friend who will never forsake, never abandon.  Mary is the one I want to be like when I grow up.

Join the conversation

Yesterday was National Siblings Day.  (I found that out after this post was planned, coincidentally.)  Tell me about your favourite sibling and why you look up to him or her.
If you're an only child, is there any one in your life who you wish was your sibling?

Lenten Project: Day Thirty-two

Since I grew up Fundy and went to FundyU, I didn't really learn to dress myself properly till I left college.  I remember going into Goodwill with my family during short trips to the States, and just looking through all the clothes for something I liked which would also fit in the strict modesty guidelines of my parents.  I never looked for the correct size or for matching pieces.  I used a lot of safety pins, and many of my clothes were either homemade or altered in some way to make them fit and also be more modest.  I was wearing a lot of size mediums when I should have been wearing extra smalls.  Or I'd pair a regular tshirt with my lovely god-honouring culottes.

I had an awesome dark green denim jumper dress with a floral cotton skirt, but it was an inch too short, so my mom added a long ribbon of lace to the bottom of the hem.  Viola!  It was modest. It was also really odd looking.  I thought I was so cool wearing it, though, because the colours were unusual and, I imagined, rather grunge.  Incidentally, a missionary kid from a neighboring island wrote me a letter after a short visit when I'd worn the jumper and told me she could no longer be my friend because of my wearing that worldly outfit. She said it indicated a heart problem.  We tried to become friends again in college, but it never worked out.  I was just way too worldly for her.

When I came to the States for good, I was so confused by styles and what was in and what was out.  I still didn't understand that clothing was made in sizes and I probably had a size I ought to be looking for, instead of just a style.  I never got both right at the same time.  So when I bought my first pair of shorts (a huge milestone for me, who grew up believing girls who wore shorts were slutty), I was thrilled that the waistline fit me perfectly, and didn't notice that they were old man shorts.  I thought I was being so daring and cutting edge, fashion-wise, because my knobby knees were showing.

The first time I ever wore a real bathing suit, I was in my teens, and it was only allowed by my parents because I was helping at our home church's summer camp, and during the counselor/helper swim time I needed something other than a dress to swim in (for safety reasons, the rulebook said).  So they got me a hand-me-down one piece bathing suit that was way to big for me.  I would have been more modest if I'd just gone swimming naked, because that swim suit gaped in the crotch like you wouldn't believe, and the straps didn't stay up.  But I didn't know that bathing suits were supposed to be skintight, so I had no idea that anything was wrong--I was so excited just to be wearing "normal" swim clothes like all the other girls.  One camper asked me why on earth I was wearing a bathing suit that clearly didn't fit and was ugly besides, and it dawned on me that I wasn't like all the other girls after all.  I was incredibly mortified.

Once I got to college I realised that I could really have a little fun with this old fashioned dress requirement (even though I still had no clue how to match clothing--I thought brown shoes went with black dresses just fine, and a blue belt made the outfit perfect!).  I found this old fur coat at a goodwill and would wear it during every fire drill.  Bob Jones University at the time conducted the fire drills of the dorms at night after lights out, so all of us girls were in nightgowns and pjs.  The Public Safety officers (mostly male students) would leer at us as we filed out of the dorms, and it was pretty humiliating.  So covering up with a huge coat had a dual purpose of keeping me warm and fending off the boys' stares.

Have you ever worn something that you thought was cool, only later found out was about twenty years out of date, or horribly ill-fitting?

Lenten Project: Day Thirty-one

Confession time: when I was 15, I had this amazing mix tape with country music on it.  I thought it was heavy metal because I'd been taught all music with a beat was "rock," and therefore evil, and the designation, "heavy metal" just meant really, really bad.  I'd never listened to any real heavy metal, so I honestly had no idea that calling country music (Shania Twain!) that was ludicrous.

I got this bad music mix tape from my best friend, who, when I begged him to make me a copy of his Lion King soundtrack (also banned in my house, due to the wicked African beat), went a step farther and mixed me a tape full of jamming tunes, the better to corrupt me. He also taught me how to lie with a straight face when my parents suspiciously asked what I was listening to on my walkman.  ("Patch the Pirate, of course!"  Only, you don't say, "of course," because then it's obvious you're lying.  Just look distracted, make brief but not sustained eye contact, and try not to appear guilty.)

Ahh, Michael taught me many things, but how to say I'm listening to Patch
when I'm really listening to Shania is probably my favourite.

One time, I was home alone with my youngest sister while everyone else went on the grocery shopping trip.  I'd gotten to stay home and take care of the baby, and I knew I had at least an hour and a half before they all got back.  So I started recording a duplicate of my precious bad music tape.  I'd already been caught with it more than once, and had managed to save it from destruction, but I knew next time I'd better have a backup copy so my life wouldn't be over if it got ritualistically unwound and burned before my eyes.

That's my walkman, but it really IS playing Patch the Pirate here.

I was playing the tape while it copied on the stereo, enjoying being able to listen to it through regular speakers out loud in the sunshine instead of through my crappy earphones in the middle of the night.  The sliding glass door was open, but the gate in front of it was closed and locked.  The front door was also locked.

I kept going outside to check the driveway and squint over the hill to see if the van was coming home, so I could rush back inside to turn off the music and hide my tapes.  I held the door open each time, since it could swing closed and automatically lock, but on the last time, it slipped out of my fingers and slammed shut.  I was locked outside!  The baby was trapped inside, alone, the evil rock music was blaring, and any moment my family would come home and I'd be so much in trouble!

I slid to the ground in front of the door, crying and begging God to help me.  I ran around the house, trying to figure out another way in.  There was none.  All the windows had bars on them, which even I, skinny as I was, could not squeeze through.  I swore to God that if He saved me, I'd give up my evil rock music lovin' ways.  Finally, on the porch, I stopped and peered in at the baby, happily gurgling at me.  She couldn't open the door, or even give me the keys.

The keys!  I remembered that we'd kept spare keys hanging on the end of the curtain rod over the sliding glass door.  If I could pull the curtains down, the rod would fall, and I could pull the keys out and let myself back in!

It worked.  I was saved, and just in time, too.  Shortly after I got up from kissing the baby, kissing the ground, kissing the keys, kissing the stop button on the stereo, and kissing the bad music tapes, the family van roared up the hill and into the driveway.  The Fam spilled out and conscripted me to help put groceries away, never suspecting my bad music tapes were safely tucked away in my hiding place.

This is the gate and the curtains that saved me,
and this is my bad music lovin' self.

I didn't make good on my vow to God until I'd listened to my tapes a few times more.  Then I put them in the burn bin out back.  I even ripped out their guts and tied knots in the tape so I wouldn't change my mind and go dig them back out again later.  I wish I'd kept them.

Do you have anything in you got rid of in your past, but wish you'd kept?

Lenten Project: Day Thirty

After the disappointment I experienced with the "youth" of one church, it took me a while to gather up the courage to try again. When I did, though, I went head first right into another bad situation with more loneliness as the result.

In 1999, I started going to youth meetings at another Independent, Fundamental Baptist church in Singapore. I devoted myself wholeheartedly to this youth group, believing it was heaven-sent just for me. I went to the watch night service on New Year's Eve, volunteered during vbs, sang in special youth services which I attended while not at my parents' church, and basically spent all my time with the kids at this church. My parents blessed my activities, and encouraged me to continue my participation, knowing the American missionary couple who ran the church were keeping an eye on me.

The youth at this church were mostly teens close to my age, but also ranging up to people in their late 20s. I got dragged along as they went door to door witnessing, inviting people to special services. We played a lot of table tennis and practiced playing musical instruments together.  I enjoyed the late night meals at hawker centers. This was a time that I embraced Singaporean culture and learned to love this country and its people. I invited my sisters to come see this amazing group of friends I'd found, and two of them started going regularly, too.

But slowly I started to notice that I wasn't truly fully accepted into the group. I was a tagalong, a wannabe really, who inserted myself into these events because I desperately wanted to belong. But when I skipped events, no one called or mentioned later that I'd been missed. I wasn't a vital part of the group, and sometimes it was obvious I wasn't wanted. This youth group had a serious case of the cliques, and I didn't belong.

It's possible the reason I never fit in totally was because I'm white and American. Or maybe I was just too opinionated and obnoxious. Perhaps my trying too hard was so obvious it was a turn off. I don't know. All I know is that no matter how hard I tried, I was never fully accepted, never fully a member of this youth group, even just with the other youth.

There were several other kids who didn't attend the church but were still members of the youth group, so I wasn't the only one. The pastor strongly urged the kids to all become members of his church, though. Those of us who came from other churches always felt like second class citizens. It wasn't enough to be Christians, or even attenders of a church.  We had to be members of his church to be fully approveable.

After almost a year of throwing myself into this new venture and only getting hurt over and over again (the girls my age I tried to befriend were cold, the boys standoffish, and the American missionary daughter went off to college, leaving me behind), I finally woke up and realised I have more value than settling for whatever meager friendships (really acquaintanceships) I could scrounge. I was so over being a group's unwanted addendum. I didn't have to paste on a smile and pretend I was happy to have no close friends, alone in a group. Of even bigger importance to my self respect, I didn't need to force myself to endure the pastor's wife's sharp criticisms. Gosh, was she critical! And rude. And really cruel, especially when she was criticising me in front of others, like the time she loudly proclaimed me a miserable failure when I played a chord wrong on the piano during practice one day. It took me a long time to understand that that kind of behaviour is not okay.

So I quit going. And no one called. No one tried to contact me to see what had happened. My sisters kept attending, but didn't bring back greetings or questions for me. On the home front end of things, I observed the changed dynamics of our family, with kids who were constantly leaving to go to youth and church activities across town. They had little time to devote to our family or even our own church anymore. It made me really sad to realise that I had caused that by convincing my sisters to go get involved with this other church with me. My sister Elizabeth especially was really sucked in and rarely had time for family anymore. She was always over there at the church, hanging out with the youth group.  I had been like that until I took that step back and stopped going. I felt really responsible for the breakup of our family's unified front. No longer were we working together in one ministry. We were spread out and sometimes even working against one another. 

After some time had passed, my sister Lizzy invited me to a special service at the other church. I went, and noticed how hardly anyone spoke to me in the youth group to which I had dedicated myself all that time. They had no time for a "deserter" like me. The mentality was if I wasn't all in, for them, I was against them. 

One of older guys had left for college a couple months prior, gone away to BJU to study for the ministry, and I received an email from him around this time. He accused me of having a divisive spirit, of actively and purposefully trying to harm the ministry by abandoning it.  Others would see my leaving as a statement that they should stop being Christians too.

Honestly, that was the gist of this guy's letter.  It hit me pretty hard.  And further convinced me that his church was a cult.  Because if not going to this one little church meant he believed I probably wasn't a Christian, there was something seriously wrong with his indoctrinisation.

So I renewed my efforts to save my sisters. My sister Mary was okay, never having fully committed herself, but Lizzy was wholly enamoured and overtaken by them.  One of her good friends from that group continually urged her to spend more and more of her time there, so I wrote him an email telling him he needed to encourage her to spend more time with her family.

I'm afraid I wasn't very nice to him in my letter.  I basically accused him of helping to steal away my sister, since I believed that the cult was of a higher priority in her life than anything else.

My parents, who still monitored all my email (I was a few months from turning 18 at the time), were not pleased at my interference.  I was put "on suspension" and denied all computer privileges indefinitely.

That's when I gave up.  My intention had been to repair the damage that I'd helped cause by dividing our family's loyalties, but I'd been severely reprimanded for it.  Instead of recognising that I'd finally decided to fight for our family, my parents punished me for my misguided attempt to fix it.  So I went headlong into rebellion.

Lenten Project: Day Twenty-nine

In the hot winter of 1999, I went with a church group to Youth Camp.  It wasn't really camping, and the people who went weren't really youth.  What's more, my family didn't even attend that church.  But my parents said this would be a great way to meet people closer to my age (we didn't have any youth in our church at the time), and this could be exactly what I needed to cure my loneliness.

The "camp" was held in a resort hotel across the water in Batam, Indonesia, though the church group was from Singapore.  We took the ferry over, and that was really fun.  Most of the "youth" were college students, but two or three were still secondary students like me.  They seemed really young, so I mostly spent time with the college-aged campers. Mentally, or socially anyway, I was younger than the youngest kid there (13? 14?), but I admired the college kids and wanted to be like them, so I was thrilled when they seemed to include me in their group.

The daily preaching sessions weren't spectacular, but in between those were enjoyable events like billiards, swimming, visits to the local markets, eating out, and hanging around and chatting.  During one of these hang out times, I, still very new to Singapore, and trying hard to make friends, opened up and started talking in depth about some of my struggles with a handful of other campers.  One guy in particular nodded and smiled as I talked, making me feel like I'd possibly found a person who was interested in my life, interested in my struggles, would admire me and want to be my friend.  Every time he smiled like that, seeming to be understanding and encouraging me to speak, I opened up a bit more and kept sharing.

I told him how I struggled with my parents.  How I didn't understand a lot of Fundy rules. How hard it was to leave Grenada.  How my mind seemed to live wired all the time, and I was always thinking of five things at once.  What I liked to read.  How nervous I was about going away to college the next year.

After about 45 minutes of talking, he interrupted me and said, "Can I tell you something?"

I thought he was going to speak a word of encouragement, or make a comment on how things would get better and, yeah, being a teenager was really tough, but I had good things to look forward to.  Or something like that.

What he actually said destroyed me.  He said, in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, "Your problem is that you are egotistical.  You think everything is about you, and you're really nothing."  He quoted some Scripture about making ourselves less to that Christ could be magnified, and then looked at me expectantly.

I was flabbergasted.  I'd been sharing some of my most personal struggles and he dismissed me as being egotistical.  I knew, in that moment, that I'd never be close friends with anyone from that church.  I felt shamed, humiliated, worthless.

I stammered something and left, ran to my room, and sobbed for the next couple hours. The two girls who were my roommates wanted to know what was wrong, but I couldn't get a word out, and didn't want to tell them anything for fear they'd have the same estimation of me.

When it came time for the evening preaching, I cleaned up my face as best I could, but I imagined it was obvious I'd been bawling like a baby.  The guy I'd been talking to came over to me and was acting like everything was normal, as though he hadn't crushed me with his words a few hours previous.

I couldn't understand why he was even talking to me at all.  Why in the world was he asking me my opinion on the preaching sessions so far?  He'd said my opinions were self-centered!  He thought I was a disgusting, egotistical jerk!  So why did he act like my words mattered now, when they'd been worthless earlier?

I tried my best to avoid ever visiting that church again, though my dad worked closely with their American (BJU grad) pastor, and even served as an interim when that pastor went on furlough at one point.  I closed up and kept to myself, smiling on the outside, but counting down the days till I would leave for the States, for BJU. I made certain not to bare myself to any Singaporeans again.  From then on, I only pursued close friendships with other MKs, even though my mom said they were really bad influences and limited my time with them.

The look on Joanna's face is what is hidden behind my smile.

A couple months after camp, I discovered that this guy later asked my parents if I'd always been this way, so disrespectful of my parents.  I suppose one of the reasons why he was so cruel was because Asian culture elevates respect for and honour of parents, and there I was, not doing it, so he couldn't have respect for me.  But it still hurts, even today.  While I may understand in my head why it happened, in my heart, it still stings that I was so dismissed and misjudged. I have never brought up the incident with the person who hurt me, though I see him interact with my parents through Facebook occasionally. I wonder if he even remembers or if, for him, it was not something even worth remembering. I wish I could forget!  But because it was my first meaningful conversation with what I'd imagined would be my first Singaporean friend, I find I can't erase it from my memory.

Join the conversation

• Have you ever felt misunderstood in such a way that you withdrew or it affected you in a significant way?
• Have you ever experienced a significant culture difference in your conversations and relationships?
• How did you navigate repairing those misunderstandings/hurt feelings when pursuing reconciliation?