Yearly Archives: 2010

Illness: Round Two

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If we don’t laugh, we’ll cry. Come to think of it, there’s plenty of crying going on already.

 

Skylar, 2½, came alongside me as I washed dishes yesterday afternoon and tugged on my jeans. “Grandma Midgee? I don’t know what I should do next.”

I looked down at her pleading face and empathized 100%. As our family experiences a second wave of sickness different than the vomiting of recent weeks, none of us knows what to do in any given moment. It’s a sure thing that if we begin something, it’ll be aborted by the need to help someone in distress. So between efforts to calm and comfort, we stand and stare, wondering what to do next.

This time it’s fevers, headaches, coughs and colds. Eight month old Thomas, unhappy and unhealthy, spent time with a pediatrician today in an effort to get help. Was it croup? Bronchitis? Pneumonia? Strep? What was causing him to scream every 40 minutes throughout the night?

We’ve dug out the bulb syringe to aspirate clogged nostrils and administered maximum doses of baby pain relievers. Teething pain compounds crankiness, and babies aren’t the only ones out of sorts. Parents who get no sleep are in their own world of pain, especially if they’re sick, too.

This afternoon, as Hans waited for Katy to nurse Thomas before leaving for the doctor, he poured a cup of coffee. Plopping into a chair, his head dropped in sleep immediately, and the steaming mug began to lean toward his lap. I stood to retrieve it when Katy arrived, and Hans jumped to his feet before he could get even two minutes of rest.

We talked about the prayer of every young parent pleading for a good night’s rest. Despite their petitions, very few get a “yes” from God. Why is this?

One reason could be the nature of hands-on care, often a bonding time between parents and children, although none of us would choose it around the clock. Another reason might be the opportunity to practice servanthood up-close-and-personal. A third could be the forced giving up of rights.

Although these are spiritually relevant rationales as to why God might set up parenthood in this way, such training can become overpowering. The phrase “end of his/her rope” has come up several times at our house today.

And yet these four parents are passionate about helping their crying children. Being sleep-deprived doesn’t lessen their fervency to do right by them, which must be God’s gift, given even while he’s developing sacrificial character within them. I’m thankful they all recognize their children as created by God and sent specifically to them for purposes of eternal value. They are serious about their parenting and will, I am confident, prevail.

Little Thomas won the pediatrician’s heart today with his smiles, even as his eyes watered, his coughing was non-stop and he struggled to breathe. His illness turns out to be a virus that must run its course, but an injection has already helped him with breathing and nursing.

But as Thomas fell into the first solid sleep he’s had in days, his parents nearly giddy with delight, his twin Evelyn began to cough, clog and cry, the next virus victim. Linnea’s family is also under the weather, and all of us are wondering, who’s next?

As for Skylar, she thought of an answer to her question of what to do next. “Grandma Midgee, let’s go upstairs and have a dancing party in the hall!”

“I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!” (Matthew 25:40)

KAN-DO, Aftermath

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Every mission trip is a risk. Whether or not it qualifies as “successful” depends on each individual’s expectations.Our family mission trip to Greensburg, Kansas included 31 people and 31 different expectations, some high, some low.

When the initial idea for a Christmas service project began circulating among us via email, several responded resoundingly in the negative: “I’m flying home to spend Christmas… at home. My vote is not to go.”

Others were enthusiastic: “Great idea! Count me in!“

My personal prayers were for each of us to step closer to the Lord from wherever we currently stood as a result of the trip. In reality, we landed somewhere short of that but did, I believe, accomplish some valuable results.

Much of our construction work was done on a home being built to replace one lost in the storm. The new house, paid for by homeowner’s insurance, was going to be gorgeous with a room-sized entryway, a stone fireplace wall, an exposed staircase and a sizeable kitchen. Although this family wasn’t financially needy, emotionally they were starving.

The first day we worked at drywalling, taping and spackling, but several of our workers had sour attitudes. “These people don’t need us,” they said. “What are we doing here?”

But when the owners came to greet us and thank us for coming, the wife described their four minutes of terror as the monster tornado roared through town. She broke down and wept as she told of their fear for family members when they couldn’t bring everyone together. One of their children still hasn’t returned to Greensburg because she can’t shake nightmares about the tornado. Another was making plans to move away permanently.

Before we left at the end of the week, this same woman asked if we would all put our signatures on the concrete walls of her new basement storm shelter. During the next tornado (and there are many in Kansas), she knew they’d all be edgy, even protected by walls two feet thick. But, she said, “I’ll gain courage by rereading your names, remembering the love that prompted you to help us.”

Was it really love? For some it was, “I don’t want to go, but know I should, so I will.” Was there a positive result even for these?

Those of our children who’ve been on many mission trips say there’s always a mixed bag of results. One important benefit is being required to live in community with others around the clock. This includes a willingness to eat simply and occasionally not at all. It means sleeping on the floor, waiting for the bathroom and being patient to teach others how to do the work. All of this happened with excellence on our mission trip.

I also remember watching unusual conversational groups pop up as we worked on four teams. Mild competition injected laughter into the tasks, and evening get-togethers saw high school kids partnering with oldsters, and babies in the arms of non-baby people. Cousins with a decade of years between them talked and came to appreciate each other in new ways. Extended time with family and without access to cell phones or computers was unique in our history, a tremendous blessing.  All of these unexpected benefits are treasured still.

Would we ever do it again?

In a minute.

”Serve the Lord with gladness. Be thankful unto him, and bless his name.” (Psalm 100:2,4)

KAN-DO, Preparation

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The following account of our family mission trip (Christmas of 2007) was written for a church presentation shortly before we climbed onto a cruiser bus and left the Chicago suburbs for five days in Kansas:

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“On Labor Day weekend this year, our family began brainstorming about how we could get away from the materialism of the holidays, the shopping, spending, competition and so on. The rush to buy gifts for each other every year and to get together at one party after another for ourselves seemed more and more off point. A couple of our thirty-somethings suggested we focus on helping someone who was needy, since none of us need anything.


“Long story short, 31 of us, ages 68 down to 5 months old and all related, will be leaving on Christmas Eve in a rented coach bus to drive 15 hours from Chicago to Greensburg, Kansas. A mile-wide tornado mowed down the entire town last summer.

“We’ll be gone for five days and will be dry-walling, painting, cleaning up yards and anything else the people in Greensburg will ask us to do. We’ll be sleeping on the floor in a church basement ten miles down the road. We’re funding the trip with the money we would have used to buy Christmas gifts for each other, and this year there are no gifts under the tree. We’ve created a group motto, which is ‘Working together as a family for the benefit of others.’


“People have asked if this is a mission trip. It’s more like an experiment, something new for us. We’re trying to approach Christmas in the way Jesus would, setting aside the shopping, gifts, wrapping, spending and overeating in exchange for service hours that will benefit someone else.

We’re hoping good things will come of our labor for those in Kansas but also good stuff amongst ourselves as we join together for a common purpose while working and living in tight quarters. It’ll be a stretch, but we feel God has been involved in the planning and has some surprise blessings ready for each person involved.

“Some of our family members are excited and enthusiastic about the trip while others are skeptical but are going anyway. Our family newspaper, The Kansas Chronicle, has conducted contests, outlined medical advice, forecasted Kansas weather, shared packing lists, detailed prayer requests and explained the history of Kansas.

“Each team member, in addition to working on construction crews, has an additional job: photographer, nurse, videographer, journalist, cell phone control, food prep, child care, budget chief, athletic director, program director and more. One of the cousins won a ‘Name-Our-Trip’ contest with KAN-DO… ‘kan’ for Kansas and ‘do’ for ‘We can do it!’ “

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When we arrived in Greensburg, what we found was utter destruction.

Tomorrow’s blog: How did it go?

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.” (Ecclesiastes 9:10)