the start of the melting

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i remember the day that i melted. i think i will always remember. it was the very first day that i dared to question what was laid in front of me. i was seventeen with eyebrows tinged white from the missionary mime make-up. it was merely days after the quietest moment of my life. my toes were on foreign soil, in a land that has forever woven a spell over my heart.

it was the night of the talk. you know the one. we were gathered together, boys and girls and men and women. the words spoken to us were inspirational. at the time, they conjured something different than they would now. it was a type of shame, it made us blush. but we knew the drill :: we'd all heard it before, and the feeling it brought was familiar. they talked about shirts too low and jeans too tight, they looked us dead in the eye and told us to protect our brothers.

they taught us how to hug, arms draped around the shoulders from the side, never too long. they taught us about closed doors and warnings and dreaded plane trips home should we embrace too long, should a boy-toe ever enter the room of a girl. 

and then the talk ended and the mood changed. there was laughter and friends chatting during a short break, an appropriate hug exchanged here and there, but everyone was careful. it was ingrained. we knew what to do.

and then came the mention of the yearly mother-daughter cruise. there were cheers. there was excitement. and then the lights dimmed and the slideshow started to roll. and something inside me melted like wax.

the fabric was bright. blues and whites and yellows and greens and pinks. typical bikini colours. it was a cruise after all, all full of mothers and daughters bonding together. and they were on a ship in the ocean, and BarlowGirl was singing, and the girls were wearing bikinis.

i felt his hand on my shoulder, my friend, my heart-brother. i remember the look in his eyes, the way he whispered with head buried in hands, peering up at me through his fingers,

are they watching me? is this a test? i don't know where to look.

i remember when the lights came up and the burst of courage filled me. i was seventeen. i had never questioned anything before, not like this. but i couldn't let it go. i couldn't forget that look in his eyes.

with shaking fingers, i walked to the woman who ran the show, the one whose face we all knew, the one who smiled at the door each morning and spoke God to us each night. i touched her arm and took a deep breath.

"i'm sorry. but that didn't seem right. not after what you just said. all those girls in bikinis, the guys were confused. i was confused. i don't understand. it felt wrong."

i knew what i was expecting. i was expecting an answer, an easy one, some sort of explanation as to why. but she looked at me and pursed her lips and said, the Devil likes to cause turmoil at times like this. we don't need that kind of attitude here. 

i cried that night into my pillow, my roommates gathered around me with their hands on my back. it didn't feel right to them either. they told us not to look, they told us to keep our eyes closed and bodies covered. they whispered shame but screamed contradiction in our faces.

but what could we do? we were just teenagers. we were just girls.

i was so confused, everything all twisted up inside. was this what purity meant? i always thought it was something holy, something bright and white and glorious. i didn't know it then, but this was the start of my uncovering. my casting aside the millstone and taking a lighter yoke on my shoulders.

at the airport, two days later as we all winged our way from South America to long-missed families, my soul-brother hugged my neck.

i've never forgotten.

this is why i'm a Jesus feminist.
this is why i fight.

slow-stepping out the shadows, allowing the dark soul-night to teach me something. i'm learning how to put a face to the shame, slipping a voice against the palm of the voiceless.

{this is a piece of my journey. join with the wild mystics for a deep journey into the dark night}

compassion

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church made me ache this morning. 

not one of those cringing aches in which convictions floods my soul and begs me to bring about change. no, this was different.

as Wess Stafford, the President of Compassion International, spoke of the need in the hearts of children around the world, i began to feel it then.

the ache of longing, of sorrow and grief and the strangest feeling of homesickness.

i ached for Peru. 

and i ached for her children.

i landed in Lima, Peru for the first time in 2006 on a two-week mission experience with then-Brio magazine. the minute i arrived, my soul knit with that place. 

it was the longest and shortest two weeks of my life. i could not be stopped, and so i returned to that same area again the next year...and then the next year after that. 

i still dream about that place. i step outside some mornings, and find myself stopping to sniff the air...because i smell Peru on the wind. it bears that distinct aroma of burning plastic and spices and tears and love and suffering and Jesus Christ. 

i dream about it sometimes -- almost as though i am there. when i wake up, i find myself weeping because i am not there, and it was only a dream. 

because those people are beautiful. that place is so full of emptiness and need. they are so hungry, starving for the Saviour. 

{photo by DramaticElegance, 2008}
me with Trian in Peru

the need is immense. these souls have nothing but the currency of Love, and they are more than willing to give you their very last dime. 

and i miss them. 

Peru's children are not the only ones that cry to be seen, to be heard in this broken, twisted shuffle. 

there are thousands of these dirt-streaked angels in a thousand countries, all with upturned faces and whispered words in a hundred languages. 

love me

please?

and the voice of their only Advocate whispering in reply

feed My lambs.

it costs less to sponsor a child with Compassion than it does to buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks every day. 

what life could you change with a handful of dollars?  

sponsor a child with Compassion.

and feed His lambs.