love, honey-san

When I was home a couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of borrowing my dad's spaceship car. Okay, it's a Toyota Prius, but it's very spaceshipey. I drove it the 7-minute ride to the beach for some solitary sun-bathing.
When I got there, I opened that little compartment between the driver's seat and passenger's seat to hide my cell phone when I spotted a slightly crumpled piece of paper that had my mother's handwriting on it. Nosey as I've ever been in my life, I picked it up and read the whole thing.
It was a love letter! From my mother! To my father!
The realization of what I held in my hands rendered me immobile for a short minute. It was a bit saucy, that letter, which both horrified and delighted me at the same time.
I put it away--exactly as I found it--and walked out onto the blinding sun and sand.
My parents have been married since 1982. That's 28 years of a variety in terms of good and bad. I'm not entirely sure they really knew each other when they got married, but I'm not entirely sure anyone does.
They definitely signed up for the black diamond of marriage slopes, moving all over the world with 2 little girls, following God's voice wherever they heard Him calling. I remember living in a tiny little Parisian apartment where the washer was stacked on the dryer in the kitchen and the carpet was so rough that I skinned my knees on it. Long distance calls to the USA cost big bucks if my Mom ever needed to talk to her mother about a how to be a good one on a bad day, and there was no e-mail. I'm sure my dad wondered more than once if he was doing right by his little family. He spent 8 years building a church out of nothing, and then watched it crumble from a hospital bed before feeling peace enough to move on. Those were hard times, and I don't remember much candlelight or romance when Mom had to leave our whining selves with friends to go to the hospital and sit through scary, foreign procedures in support of her husband. 'In sickness and in health' becomes less cliche when it's reality.
Life eased its burdens for a few years, but there were plenty more mountains for them to climb on little energy after we moved back to the states. I'm sure it would have been easier for either one of them to decide to go it alone after a while. I definitely did. I took off to Kansas City by myself when things were hard. But they didn't.
My world makes sense because my father loves my mother. It's the foundation on which I build everything else.
I know well enough that there have been several years in their 28 where they were married just because they were married. I heard some ugly fights from the inside of my bedroom door more than once, as every child in every family does.
Being a professional Christian doesn't mean you're not a human anymore, and there's nothing more exhausting or debilitating than trying to keep a perfection gloss on your life. We all gave up after a while.
Somehow, somehow, they made it to today together. They made it to three grown children and nearly 30 years and they're still writing love letters to each other, just like in the beginning.

I'm just so grateful.

If this were my town

I would be so very very sad.

Pray for Nashville.

the weekend of dad

I pulled off an epic weekend.

It involved most of my favorite things: Rod Boatwright, airports, surprises, birthdays, Ben Boatwright, dresses, events requiring a date, the beach? (since when do I love the beach?) dancing, Donna Boatwright, walks, and watching people I love be loved by others in public.

It was the weekend of Dad.

Une Confession Publique

It's time to confess a secret I've been hiding and snickering about for several months now. And you read it first here on the blog.

I work in communications for an international media ministry, and a lot of my work is fielding written responses from donation partners all over the world. Even though my team and I are only supposed to get e-mails in English from the U.S.A, the U.K., and Australia, sometimes letters in unknown languages land in our inboxes. In this case we have to determine where they are from in order to forward them on to the appropriate regional office.

The first time this happened to my co-worker and long time friend Genavieve, she got an e-mail written in French and sent it to me to read and translate for her, since I speak French. This allowed her to find out exactly what the issue was in the email so she could forward it to the specific staff member in the Europe office who could handle the issue, which was a much more streamlined process than sending it to a generic european inbox first.

Gena was so impressed with me that she tried her luck further with a Dutch e-mail, knowing that I spent two years living in Holland when I was in middle school. My Dutch proficiency was barely conversational when I moved away, and I've lost nearly all of it since then. However, I did manage to get the gist of what the partner was saying and relay it back to Gena.

News started to spread in the office. "Bethany is a master linguist, she can help you with any foreign language question".
Next came a letter in Afrikaanse, a language very close to Dutch that is spoken in South Africa. Then one in Creole, a near-French dialect spoken in Haiti. When these e-mails landed in my inbox from my team-members with "Help?" written in the subject line, sending them back undeciphered was simply not an option for me.

Enter Google Translate.

It's a fabulous little Google tool that is not entirely accurate (don't even think about using it in a language class) but adequately useful. I started entering the mystery text into the translation field and having it do the work for me to generalize what the letter said, then responding to my co-workers with "Oh, this is just someone telling us how awesome we are" or "this person needs to change their monthly donations" or whatever else the letter said.
The requests for translations have gotten more and more obscure since then. I've "translated" Croatian, Estonian, and even Bulgarian.

I am legendary.
And somehow they all have no idea.

So this is my public confession. If any of my co-workers find my blog, they have full permission to call me out during morning prayer.

Till then, I'll keep my office identity of omni-lingual genius.
Dank je wel.

Pieter

Last night over dinner, I sat next to a new friend from out of town.
Out of the country, actually.
Pieter Boersma is the leader of a baby house in Mozambique. His ministry is dedicated to rescuing babies from abandonment, usually because of AIDS. I was telling him about how my old roommate, Tiffany, came back forever changed from a summer spent changing diapers, pushing toddlers on swings, and generally falling in love with the babies at the baby house that Pieter founded with his wife, Rika. Pieter responded by saying:
"It's so strange what God does. They're just babies you know, but everyone who comes is really impacted. I've learned a lot more about God by caring for orphans these last years than by sitting in church my whole life."
www.allnationsmozambique.org

Grandma Vencie

Hey Grandma,
I just saw your note about your sister. I'm so sorry! Are you doing okay?
I love you and I'm praying for you!
-bethy

...........................................................................................................................

Thanks Bethany,
You remember Aunt Libby. Cancer is brutal.
I had an awesome experience last Sunday at church.
A young man sang.
I bowed to my knees and cried Holy. When he sang it at one point my body started shaking and I could have cried or shouted for the Spirit of the Lord said to me, "Let her go on and be with the Lord and with Mama and Dad”.
I knew then that it wouldn't be long.
I just wanted you to hear my heart.
Love you Bethany and would love to hear how the Lord is working in your life.
Grandma

*published with permission

Aunt Bev

I got a wonderful surprise yesterday.

My mom called to inform me that while spectating the World Synchronized Ice Skating Championships in Colorado Springs, her sister Beverly got stuck at the airport due to an overbooked flight to Cincinnati, and since there were no flights available for the next two days she had to drive 9 hours to Kansas City to catch a flight out early this morning. This meant that I got to show her around Kansas City and host her in my home for an overnight stay!

The first thing you need to know about my Aunt Beverly is that she is a slightly above average 50-something:

She's hot.

"You mean you belong to this gene pool, Bethany?"

Why yes. Yes I do.

Aunt Bev is a Synchronized Ice-Skater. For real. This is her team:

Synchronized Ice Skating is a very serious sport. Did you know that? Imagine synchronized swimming, but on ice. Bev is sure it will be an Olympic sport so very soon.
Do you need a visual? I can provide.

We just had the best evening together, she and I.
Aunts are wonderful because you can tell them things you wouldn't tell your mother and they laugh with you like a sister. I couldn't have asked for a better Sunday.