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: 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-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-eight

I've mentioned that Fundamentalists have some strange views on music.  Reading through my diaries a few days ago reminded me of an incident at Bob Jones University my sophomore year.  I'd brought with me some music recorded and produced by Pensacola Christian College, in addition to a lovely recording of a Bible Conference at a Fundy church in Singapore (pastored by a BJU grad, it received many visits from the Joneses).

Well, one day, I was playing these CDs in my dorm room, when my room's spiritual leader turned to me suddenly and accused me of failing to get them checked.  I told her I'd gotten them checked the year before, and they'd been approved.  Not good enough, she said.  I needed to get them rechecked each semester, according to what the dorm sup had recently told her.  (I did find out later that she and my dorm sup this particular semester were actively seeking ways to reprimand me--I got that straight from from the dorm sup herself at the end of the year when she advised me that I'd have to be under spiritual counseling the next year.  She said they were trying to remove my stubborn will and "break my spirit" of pride.)

Since the deadline for getting music checked had passed, I was in trouble for "failing to follow instructions."  My perfectly acceptable CDs were confiscated and I was slapped with a penalty of 20 demerits.  The dorm sup said she was being merciful by not giving me 50.  I wished she'd stuff it with the mercifulness.  I never did get those CDs back.

My parents' rules about music were very similar (though they'd allowed the PCC music without question).  While home on a visit after I was married, my mom caught me listening to Phillips, Craig, and Dean worship music.  It's CCM, and she gave back my earbuds with a look of disgust on her face.  "How could that possibly glorify the Lord, Hannah?"  I'm still surprised she didn't fuss over me letting my youngest sister have a listen, and that shock is probably why I remember the incident so vividly.

To a person who has been weaned on Patch the Pirate and classical music, anything "other" is not only different, but evil.  Majesty Music, the production arm of Patch the Pirate's musical ministry, actually teaches that music has morals, and any music not in keeping with their standards is wicked and from satan.

For me, as a missionary kid, receiving that message was confusing up against my experiences.  In Grenada, we'd clap along to hymns, sometimes even getting really into it and keeping rhythm, which is bad, according to Frank Garlock of Majesty Music. In his view, that sort of thing is the reason for the high divorce rate among Christians, among other evils.  In Singapore, the music could be ethnic and beautiful, but we saw it as strange and odd and only allowed hymns accompanied by piano in our church.  Those churches that went wild with drums, Asian instruments, and songs in other languages--not in hymn format--were worldly. I don't think I would have survived India, with its gorgeous music--I'd have been too busy judging everything as sin, based on the principles I'd been taught.

It's a sad way to view the world, let me tell you.  The disdain and disgust at beauty isn't very Christian, I've come to realise, and I still struggle to be more accepting and appreciative of the things I never knew growing up.  Ironically, I don't much care for CCM anymore, preferring old hymns in my church worship and liturgy.  But that doesn't mean I think churches who use modern Christian music are damned by God just for worshiping with that style of music. Letting go of such tight control of "what is pleasing to The Lord" lets me appreciate and even admire a lot of beautiful music I used to think was satanic. And guess what? A lot of it IS glorifying to God, after all! Even Nirvana, in a strange way. It's true.

Lenten Project: Fifth Fearless Friday

The Schaefer family likes to travel and hike.  That's what we've done for years, together as a family, enjoying time together outdoors.

From the very beginning, in Grenada, we often went hiking together.  Grenada has some amazing mountains and trails, and even a few forts leftover from the colonial period.  We'd drive up to the old volcano-turned-crater-lake, Grand Etang, which the locals claimed was bottomless (it's only 20 feet deep).  If we were lucky, we'd see the remains of an animal sacrifice made by the Spiritual Baptists.  Some of our friends liked to tease us that a sea monster dwelled in the bottomless depths, but I never saw anything but fish, which we liked to catch in little nets we made.

Sometimes, Dad would organize country-wide church events, where all the other IFB churchgoers would be invited to go adventuring with us.  We went hiking up Mount Qua Qua and visited the Seven Sisters waterfalls, went mossy rock-hopping across rivers and streams (Mom always fell in), swung on the rope swing into the waterfall pools, ate off banana leaves, waved our arms to keep the monkeys from pulling our hair, and admired the beautiful, brightly coloured birds and flowers.

It was always so cold up the mountains--at least 70 degrees!
So we'd bundle up in sweatshirts every time.

Our love of hiking didn't end when we left the West Indies.  While on furlough in '98, we hiked all over the States' East coast, enjoying the Appalachians and Smokies.  We'd goof off and have fun together.  My sister Elizabeth liked to do "tour guide" voices and make things up as we trekked along, and she always had us in stitches, laughing as we hiked.

Hannah and Mary attempt to murder the tour guide

Singapore has a hill in the middle of it.  I say hill because, after Grenada's volcanic mountains, Singapore's little Bukit Timah is like a backyard stroll.  We still had fun hiking it, though.  We laughed at all the rules and restrictions--that's Singapore for you!

And even more recently, with so many of us girls grown and married, my parents would come back to the States every year and occasionally rent a cabin in the mountains of North Carolina or Georgia.  We'd go hiking in the Appalachians.  

Dad's antics have only gotten crazier over the years, and they've rubbed off on the rest of us. One time, in Grenada, Dad grabbed a snake from the bushes along the trail, and instead of slithering away in fright, like usual, the snake wrapped around his arm and wouldn't let go.  One of the church girls had to pry it off of his arm where it was constricting him.  That incident hasn't stopped him from snatching at snakes and critters on the trail, though.  He still does it!

Like that time he wore a dry cleaners bag as a poncho

Dad likes to be as embarrassing as possible when we pass other hikers on the trail, and it used to make us girls want to dive off a cliff.  Now we all join in and try to embarrass our spouses, or better yet, Mom.  Lizzy is still the master at "tour guide voice," though, and her husband is the perfect foil.  Since we grew up in Grenada before it was as heavily tourist-ised like it is now, we're used to trails with no signs and no rules.  Our only guidelines were: make it up as you go along, bring a compass so you don't get lost, and always respect the map reader in the group.  Also, stick close to the designated snack-carrier.

  

These more recent family get togethers provided time for catching up, family pictures, and relaxing.  We haven't been all together since a year or two before my divorce, though. Most of my family hasn't even met my husband, much less my stepson and new daughter. And now that my beloved sister Mary is moving to Togo with her family to serve on the mission field, a complete Schaefer family gathering will probably be put off till many years in the future.  Hopefully the next time we're all together won't be a funeral or something, but that's the reality we face, since our family is now scattered all over the world. Missionary problems!

   

 

My fanciful dream is that we can all forgive one another and leave behind past hurts in order to forge a new future of unconditional love and acceptance for those in our family, setting aside personal interpretations of the Bible and theological beliefs to really live out the Gospel to one another.  It would take a lot of humility, which is not a staple in Fundamentalism.  But someday, someday not too far away, I hope we can all go hiking together again, joking with one another again, listening to Lizzy's "tour guide voice" again. There is a whole generation of grandkids who haven't yet been embarrassed by their grandad on the trail, or heard their grandma freak out that they'd die if they climb that tall tree/eat that fruit/jump over that stream/touch that unidentified animal.  And before the chance is gone, I'd like my kids to experience that, along with their cousins they've never met.

Lenten Project: Day Twenty-three

In the summer of 1994, I was 11 years old and traveling all over the States with my family on a short furlough. We lived in a trailer which we pulled around with a borrowed truck.  At one point, I was riding alone in the truck with Dad.  I don't remember where the other kids were--maybe riding in another vehicle with Mom.  At any rate, it was just and my daddy, and I was thrilled to get some alone time with him, since usually we all had to share him.  (Large family problems, y'know.)

The inside of the small trailer. The youngest child got her own bed...in the bathtub. So lucky!

I remember watching the white lines on the highway disappear under us, and vividly recall gazing at the glove compartment, absentmindedly staring at the plastic latch button. Nothing much was going through my mind, other than a stray thought that I wished I could think of something witty to say to impress my dad.

Hannah, 11, with two of her sisters

Then, out of the blue, he said, "Tell me your spiritual experiences, Hannah."

And I had no idea what he meant.  I asked him.  He just repeated what he'd said.  "Share with me your spiritual experiences with our Lord."

I got scared, because I didn't have any. And I didn't know what he wanted me to say.

Now, in the Fundamentalist world, the hatred for charismatics is strong.  The only context I had for "spiritual experience" was from sermons raging about those mushy minded Bible twisters and stiff-necked heretics called charismatics.  I didn't have any of those experiences, and if I did, I wouldn't be a true Christian.

So I thought it was a test.  Was my dad was trying to trap me into admitting that I was a heretic, or an unbeliever?  My mind scrambled with something convincing to say, and I may have babbled something mostly unintelligible, but it of course didn't pass inspection.

He repeated himself several times while I dissolved into a sobbing mess, my lack of "spiritual experiences" to share making me believe I was unsaved and on my way to hell.  I could imagine the heat of the flames, ready to swallow me up for not being a true believer. Maybe I failed the test by crying for ten miles.  But if I had had any spiritual experiences to share, it would have proven I was a heretic.  So it was a lose/lose, and I was the biggest loser of them all, having fallen from God's Grace.

Two of these girls don't belong. One isn't even a Schaefer girl (and none of us remember
who she was), and the other (Hannah, second from the left) was a doubter of her salvation.

This encounter formed a foundation to my childhood suspicion that I was not very tightly held in God's hand, that not only were my parents ashamed of me, but God also wouldn't mind if I didn't turn out to be one of the Elect after all. Sure, the Fundamentalist teaching is "once saved, always saved," but there are plenty of things a person can do to prove that he or she was never actually saved in the first place, like coming out as gay, getting divorced, or becoming a charismatic.

Apparently, there was some sort of "spiritual experience" that was acceptable for a Fundamentalist, and necessary for proving one's status as a believer.  But, at eleven years old, I couldn't figure out what it was.  Later on, in college, I'd be asked something similar: "How do you know for certain that if you die tonight, you'll go to heaven, Hannah?"  And my answers then would still not be satisfactory ("Because I asked Jesus into my heart when I was three.").  It wasn't until I discovered Sacramental theology that I realised my assurance in salvation comes from nothing I can or have done.  It all rests squarely on Christ, and His work in me through the waters of Baptism.

Lenten Project: Day Twenty-two

"When I grow up, I want to be a marine mammal biologist!"

I said this many times as a kid and teenager, because I had my heart set on it.  I don't know where this desire originated--maybe one of our family trips to Sea World--but I latched on to the idea that I could be someone who studied and discovered more about God's creatures.  And I was consistent in it, never changing my mind or seriously considering other possibilities.

I adored the World Wildlife Fund, even though my parents told me it was worldly (those tree-huggers didn't understand that the world would end in fire, so their conservation efforts were futile and misdirected, amen?). I got books about marine mammals and created quizzes to test my knowledge.  I collected anything I could get that had a dolphin or whale on it.  I used old calendars as posters on my bedroom walls.

But my family, with my parents as the ringleaders, and my younger sisters following their example, mocked me.

"Why do you want to be a marine mammal biologist, Hannah?!  How does that serve the Lord?"

For a Fundamentalist female, there are few choices in what kind of life a girl can have, or even desire.  For a missionary kid or pastor's kid, the options are even more limited, because the belief that "people are dying and going to hell today," was kept ever forefront in our minds by our family's vocation.  How could we choose anything other than a life of service to save the world?  And by world, I mean people, because animals are just creatures, far below humanity in God's esteem.

The choices I felt I had, when I was privately honest with myself about the futility of pursing anything to do with environmentalism, or conservationism, or even just plain old science, were to be a nurse, a school teacher, pastor's wife, missionary, and, of course, the highest calling for a girl: a wife and mother.

I had no role models besides other missionary women.  My own mother had an unaccredited degree in elementary education from a Fundamentalist college, and now she was a wife, mother, missionary, and church piano player.  So this notion of mine that I could do something different with my life puzzled my parents, I'm sure.

And they did all they could to discourage it.  "You can't glorify God if you're pursuing your own interests....Sometimes God asks that we sacrifice our lives to his service....Don't you want to serve God, Hannah?...You'll never be a marine mammal biologist, so just give up that crazy idea now....If you pursue this, you'll only ever end up a traffic director in the parking lot at Sea World."

Not pictured: the parking lot is bigger than the park!

Yes, more than once I was told to just give up.  I remember the pain and anger I felt at being told that what I loved and desired was worthless, that my dream wasn't good enough to please God. And I honestly couldn't understand why studying a part of God's creation was so bad, anyway.  I could see that saving souls and saving dolphins weren't exactly the same in value, but why did that mean I couldn't still choose to do the latter and remain pleasing in God's sight?

This is me, petting a dolphin.  I wanted to do this for the rest of my life.

I went to college in 2001 and majored in biology.  When I registered and declared my major, I did so with a bit of obstinate glee: "I'll show you all!"  My whole family openly took bets about how many weeks it would take for me to quit and change my major to a more "respectable" vocation.  I enjoyed my classes, though, and stuck with it. I even took zoology my second semester, way before I should have, since it was an advanced class and I wasn't prepared for real science that wasn't just out of a textbook (which is all I'd had, being homeschooled). I loved it.

My family still mocked, saying, "When are you going to change your major, Hannah?  Just admit it already! Be a teacher; you'd be good at that."

Between my freshman and sophomore years, the years of pressure and mocking from my family combined with the similar cultural expectations of women at BJU to finally bring me to the breaking point.  And I quietly, shamefully changed my major to English.  Not English Education, because I didn't want to teach.  No, just English.  Because I liked to read.  A lot. I figured, if I couldn't have one thing I loved, I'd go for another thing I loved, and maybe they'd stop making fun of me.  Sure enough, the sarcastic comments stopped once I was in an acceptable degree program.

Looking back, I know I probably never would have worked directly with marine mammals. For one thing, I'm scared of deep water (too many Jaws marathons late at night will do that).  I have an irrational fear of putting my face underwater, too, probably developed when I nearly drowned in the rough Atlantic during a beach trip on the seaward side of Grenada in the mid-90s.  I'll never forget the overwhelming helplessness when I felt the pressure of the deep water on my body, realised I had no more air in my lungs, and couldn't figure out in which direction was the surface.  I now associate the feeling of being underwater with a resignation that death is imminent.

I'll keep my feet firmly planted on dry ground, thankyouverymuch. Let the fishies come to me.

Yet, I can't help but wonder if there really is no way to honour God in a vocation like that. Could I not have ended up as some sort of researcher?  A scientist seeking to promote the care of God's creation?  Why is that so disreputable and shameful?  And even if I'd ended up working at Sea World the rest of my life, why would that have made me a failure in my family's eyes?  Can't a Christian serve God anywhere, even in the Sea World parking lot?  More questions that Fundamentalism can't satisfactorily answer.

My youngest sister is about to go away to BJU, and she wants to be an archaeologist.  Yet no one in the family makes fun of her, even though her dream is way more unreachable than mine ever was.  Not only is it a vocation not on the list of acceptable ones for Fundamentalist women, but it's a career that is almost impossible to achieve without a handful of terminal degrees (from reputable, accredited colleges, which BJU is not).  My jealous little heart beats violently with indignation that she gets a "free pass" to pursue the improbable, with full encouragement from everyone in our family, while I was mocked and shot down till I caved and gave up.  I'm trying to be happy for her and encouraging, but it's difficult to forget the past, especially when every girl (but one, the lucky dog!) in my family has followed the same path to BJU, and ended up married to a Fundamentalist within a week of graduation.  Our journeys into BJU all look the same, except I was the only one mocked and belittled for my choice of major.

Join the conversation

When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Did you family approve, or steer you in another direction?
Do you think certain vocations are more pleasing to God than others?

Lenten Project: Fourth Fearless Friday

My family is a modern, blended family, and it is beautiful.

Divorce is never a wonderful thing.  It's brokenness embodied. But the fact that something lovely has grown out of something so tragic is amazing and should be celebrated.

When I got divorced in 2012, I honestly never dreamed I would be married again so soon. But the hand of Providence is so clearly evident in the forming (and reforming) of my family.  It's been a long time getting to where we are now, and grace and redemption have brought us to a level of restoration that wouldn't be possible without our faith.

When I remarried and moved from South Carolina to Washington, DC, my ex-husband moved back to his parents' house in North Carolina, taking our son with him. Originally, we'd agreed to have him stay in Greenville so our son could finish out the year in his school (I didn't want too much upheaval all at once for the little guy). That plan got changed suddenly when my ex informed me he was moving, barely a week before it happened.  I wasn't pleased at all, but we found a way to compromise temporarily.  Then, we started fighting over what the next years would bring, and it was not pretty. There were threats, a restraining order, lawyers, depositions, court dates, angry phone calls, and lots of tears and grief, until, finally, I quit fighting.  I was weary and getting more and more broken with every frustrated and blocked attempt of getting my way. And I knew that my child would look back someday to see the fights and the bitter feelings between his parents, and it would not make him feel more secure or loved.

If I truly believe in the sovereignty of God, I have to accept that, whatever the past mistakes that were made, this is where we're at now, and I need to find creative ways to nurture life, not speak death.  So I stopped fighting the status quo and instead looked forward, trying to love my son and make him confident of his security in his family, even though it is spread out and a little different than the norm.

It's not been easy, let me assure you.  I still fight with my ex sometimes (a hallmark of our tempestuous marriage, I'm sure!).  We're both saddled with astronomical debts to lawyers, and I honestly don't know we'll pay them.  I hope God will provide, somehow.  But we try to resolve things with our son in mind now.  It isn't a game to see which parent wins and who is the loser.  Because when fighting happens, our child is the loser.  And I don't want that.

Currently, my son lives with his dad in North Carolina, where he is close to graduating from Kindergarten.  Maybe he'll attend a great DC school in the future, but for now, I get him about every other weekend and on school holidays.  Sometimes he comes here, and other times we drive down to my in-laws' place in NC, a couple hours from where my ex and son now live, since we like to visit them a lot.  And there're always the Skype calls!

These have turned into Lego builds via Skype calls.  We line our computer screens up just right,
and we can watch each other make awesome things, giving suggestions, and telling stories while we do it.

My husband is also divorced, and has a son. He shares custody with an ex who lives just 20 minutes from us, and we get to have that son a lot more often.  I coordinate school pickups and dropoffs with my stepson's mother, and we all work hard to get along.  We're friendly to one another, and no, it was not always like that!

I still can hardly believe, when I think of the antagonism we've all lived in for so long, that we are actually friends now, all working together for the sake of our children.  It's hard to thrive when you're filled with resentment, someone told me recently, and it's so very true.

Being a stepmom is tough.  It's made even more difficult when the son I birthed is so far away in a different state most of the time.  Add in a new baby, and you'd think my affections would be varied for each of my kids, right?  But the miraculous reality is, I love all of my children an infinite amount.  It amazes me.  Sure, it can be tiring at times. I maintain the custody calendar to coordinate the rotation of two different boys between three separate sets of parents, in three states!  My son has pretty severe ADHD, my stepson is four (with all the struggles and hardships that come with being four), and I'm exclusively breastfeeding, babywearing, and cloth diapering a five month old daughter! But it's so worth it, because my kids know they are loved, and we, their parents, have worked hard to create a safe space in our family. We are Lutheran, Episcopal, and non-denom/Baptist, and all of us to are good parents to our kids, committed to raising them in the faith, even as our family grows.

Of course, with an unconventional family like mine, we don't grow in the usual ways!  My stepson's mom got remarried last year, so now there's a new stepdad (whose name is the same as my son's, so we tack "Big" in front of his name to differentiate), and they coincidentally had a baby girl same time as my daughter was born. The girls were born literally days apart.  So my stepson has two half-sisters!

My ex just got engaged to be married to a divorcee with four kids, so there will soon be lots of step-siblings for my son.  We've got step-siblings and half-siblings coming out our ears! But it's so beautiful.

This Christmas, we went to the National Zoo for ZooLights, and most of the family was there, minus my ex, who had to work.  On Christmas Day, my son's father came and celebrated with us together as a family.  Birthday parties have been combined family endeavours. I hope we can have lots more of these blended family events where we're all together.  Maybe it looks a little weird, but in the long run, I think it paints a beautiful picture of restoration and reconciliation.

One really great "side-effect" to sharing custody of our sons with their other parents is that we don't have them all the time.  Yup, that's right, I celebrate that fact!  It means I get to be a mother of three, yet still enjoy bonding with my husband, and, with my newborn, in a way that a newlywed and then first-time parent enjoys.  I get to go grocery shopping with only one kid to wrangle!  It is certainly a luxury I don't take for granted.

Join the conversation

In what ways have you seen relationships restored in an unusual or surprising way in your life?
Do you have broken relationships with people with whom you wish you could pursue peace?
If you aren't there yet (and that's okay--it takes time to heal; believe me, I know!), in what ways do you save the space for them, in hope of a reconciliation in the future?

I ask, because there are still people in my extended family who refuse to repair the broken gap, and I need encouragement to not give up on them.