The Ministry of Mommy.

Los Miser dressed for the 4th.

Being on this new journey of mommy to two and being freshly back in this country we call home, but also where we're called to be missionaries, has had me thinking.  I will always feel a sense of responsibility to fulfill the mission God has given us (which seems to be ever changing but always the same- get me?), but I've started seeing life here in a new way in the last few months and especially now that we're back.  Mommies of more than one know what it's like to be pulled in several directions at once and just sit down to get something else done when one or the other needs you.  Although this can seem frustrating some moments, the Lord has been faithful to remind me that "interruptions" are what being a parent are about. The ones who are inhibiting me from being "productive" are the ones that I am here to serve and love and care about as #1 priority during my day.  If nothing else gets done- so be it.  So, besides the normal feeding, rocking, putting to sleep, and intellectually stimulating the baby and reading to, playing pretend with, entertaining, disciplining and teaching the 3 year-old, there are a few other things to do.  Walking up and down the stairs a half dozen times to set my cheapy washing machine to the unique and varied cycles necessary to effectively clean cloth diapers takes a bit of time.  Disinfecting, chopping and preparing vegetables for our new, mostly-vegetarian diet also takes time.  Baking quick breads from scratch so we can have something healthy to snack on has been a big part of each day since we've returned.  That's not to mention things that need to be done outside of the house!  I'm feeling kinda like I do when I have a newborn- unable to imagine doing much more than this....ever again.  Our house has been in disarray since we've returned, which doesn't help my overwhelmed feelings, but I know it will get there.  All that to say, I feel OK with all of this.  Scotty and I have been reading a book called Disciplines of a Godly Family by Kent and Barbara Hughes that has really been challenging us in many ways.  In the intro to this book, they quote Robert Dabney as saying "The education of children (in context of parenting) for God is the most important business done on earth.  It is the one business for which the earth exists.  To it all politics, all war, all literature, all money making ought to be subordinated; and every parent especially ought to feel, every hour of the day, that next to making his own calling and election sure, this is the end for which he is kept alive by God- this is his task on earth."  Whoa!  That's a wonderful and heavy and convicting idea.  I consider that my children are with me for a few short years of their lives before they enter into school, where they spend the majority of their waking hours, and I want to enjoy and maximize every minute.  I don't feel the same drive to prove myself as a missionary in the way that I did before.  Like, being able to list off all the churchy activities I am involved in and sound like I'm staying busy with out-of-the-family ministry.  My husband and children are my ministry and my passion.  If I can love them well and raise my kids to know and love the Lord, while inviting families over to eat and share together (which is really the ministry closest to my heart, besides family)- I will be greatly satisfied and I believe the Lord will be as well.  Of course, with this conviction comes some amount of fear and trembling.  Church leaders and their wives often have very high expectations placed on them.  The real and perceived sets of eyes that are on me always have me feeling like I'm not quite measuring up.  I want to be secure in this call that God has given me and not be afraid to set boundaries that some might think too closed in.  Although I have come to appreciate certain aspects of Bolivian culture, I have not learned to implement some of those in my life.  The way family structure and routine is done here is sometimes very different from what is comfortable to me and I hang precarious in that constant balancing act of wanting to protect myself and my kids, while being culturally sensitive and obliging.  It's easy to say that I will spend the brunt of my time focusing on raising my daughters and imagine that to be in the comfort and privacy of my own home.  But if I'm not doing it with a mind to impacting for God's glory other families around me- I am off base.  So, I am confident in what I want these next few years to look like on a private level, but still wrestle with how this plays out in the local body of Christ.