Unexpected

I had not expected to be here, at my kitchen table in an empty house, with a digital document on my desktop, signifying an ending. Something that had begun with celebration, with ceremony, with anticipation— with invitations sent to friends, our friends and friends of our parents, friends we knew, friends we did not know, with shopping for an expensive dress, shopping for fancy paper, shopping for flowers, cake, photographer. It began with weekends with a scanner at Bed Bath and Beyond, with pastoral counseling, with candles and rings, symbols and ceremony—something that started thus, does it end in an empty room in an empty house with a document signed electronically?

I had not expected to be here, outside the doors of a church office, unaware that I was not coming back. Something that had begun with words—words of concern and curiosity, words of comfort and correction, ended in a conference room with a dozen men around a table. I spoke my words. They wished me well, sent me home, then, silence—a silence that spoke. We invest in the living and not the dying.

Why is there no ceremony for this—this ending of a marriage? Is the harm performed in a marriage such an anomaly, such an aberration, that we must look away, speak of it in whispers, in our little clusters, like a diagnosis we do not want the patient to know?

I had not expected to be here.

Yet here, I find what I always find, though I never expect it.

There in my front yard, Annie with a broom, her three kids with shovels and rakes, Spencer with a pressure washer, Dave and Shaun cutting trees, clearing blackberry brambles, Elvin pushing a lawn mower, families in my garden bed, pulling weeds and cutting overgrown kinnickkinnick, five kids on the deck, sanding away old paint—the thing I did not expect. I had not sent out invitations, had not prepared a banquet, did not have the dress. But they came, all on that sweltering summer Sunday, helping me to prepare my house for sale, the house that I could no longer keep.

In the place where I was told I would be alone, I am not. In the ending I find a beginning. As I look at a tidy yard, at a clean house, at the court papers on my desktop, I find the surprise of as much loveliness in an act of care as in a church adorned with flowers, as much beauty in the sweaty handful on my porch as in hundreds of well dressed guests on my wedding day.

I had not expected that when Jesus said he would provide, he would provide.

I had not expected that when he said he would never leave me, he would never leave me.

Maybe I thought I needed to hold on tight, lest I lose something.

Maybe I thought I needed to tiptoe through life, careful lest I break something.

Instead, when I crashed into it as into the mirror of a lake, the scattered splinters splashed in a cascade of sunlight. I had not expected that at all.

World Cup, with Windows

What have I to do with the World Cup? I am really not a sports fan and I don’t pay all that much attention to news. So why say anything? But there’s this—

Ten years ago, I looked out the upstairs window of a Doha hotel— the hotel Matt and I stayed at for a rare date night while my parents, visiting from the States, babysat the kids. I looked out the window before going down to breakfast in a sunny dining room with floor to ceiling windows, white tablecloths, and fresh flowers. I looked out the window with my feet on plush carpet, a bed stacked with pillows behind me, my fingers pushing aside heavy curtains. For a few minutes, I watched the cars and people down below and the police cars across the street.

And then I went to breakfast.

Two months later, I looked out the tinted window of a prison transport van —the van returning me to prison after one of our numerous hearings. I watched with my hand cuffed to another inmates’, my shirt the same I had worn for the last few weeks, my fingers tugging at a borrowed shayla, wrapped not snugly enough around my face. I watched the cars, the shops, the people, and the sunlight that I would not see again until the next hearing.

That day, the van approached the facility from a different direction. Instead of the usual back alleys, we pulled into the parking lot from the main road. Then I saw it—a tall white building, it’s name in clear block letters down the side— the hotel. I now lived next door to the hotel.

That explained a certain tantalizing scent of sausages and potatoes wafting through a vent in the bathroom stall on weekend mornings. Breakfast.

But what has this to do with the World Cup? Perhaps nothing, except for this—

That in prison, I met an Indian grandmother who had arrived in Qatar to visit her daughter and newest granddaughter. Her plane had landed, but before she could reach her daughter, waiting in the terminal, or hold her granddaughter, she was arrested in front of them with no explanation given. “Why crying?” the police said to the distraught family, “Have food. Have bed. No problem.”

Though never given a reason for her detention, Jasmine was previously a domestic worker in the Gulf, so that must be reason enough.

And there’s this: the Kenyan woman escaping the home of her employer and bringing her friend with her, knowing that fleeing would mean imprisonment, but knowing she had to do so to save her friend’s life. So abused by the time she arrived in jail, the friend spoke not a word, ate and drank nothing, wept silent tears with her face to the wall, and that was all.

I met women who preferred to stay in jail than to leave the country because their employers had not sent their belongings. How could we go back with nothing? They implored. How could we face the shame of going home with nothing?

I watched women collect prison issued juice boxes to stash in amanat to take home as gifts for their families.

And perhaps Qatar could know none of this. Perhaps, like me from my upstairs window, they see from far away. While international reports estimated migrant worker deaths in the thousands, Qatar claimed that only three deaths have occurred in relation to World Cup infrastructure.

What, after all, does brand new stadiums, expansive malls, and luxurious hotels have to do with labor camps, confiscated passports and working without compensation?

There is food. There is bed. No problem.

But there is this also: an invitation. Come to the window with me.

Yet there at the window, I am still at a loss. How do we see when such things are so far away? Why should it matter?

Then I remember that it is Christmas. I remember that God came near, but not just near—proximity could still leave us worlds apart, as distant as a hotel from a jail—but he became one of us, by identity. Two worlds, impossibly different from each other, merged in the body of Jesus. He didn’t just see, he knew. From the inside.

So perhaps my invitation is not to the window, but to the bathroom vent, not to the hotel but to prison, not to the outside but to the inside. So enjoy the World Cup, celebrate your favorite teams, and perhaps see just a little more.

White Walls and Wild Joys

There’s a trail I often take near my house with a sign pointing to “Lily Fields”. For years I ignored the sign, assuming it was just a name.

Then one spring, as I was walking that trail, I glanced up through the trees and there, where before I had only seen rocks and yellowing grass—a riot of purple blooms covered the hillside. Oh…lily fields. The hill opened up to more fields and more fields—flowers dancing in every direction.

Like those lilies, joy is not always found in the expected places. Out in the wild, it grows in its own time, in its own way, quietly gathering strength in the darkness of the soil until—suddenly, it erupts like a song that can’t be contained.

* * *

From my upper bunk, I considered the once white walls now dusted with a fine layer of cobwebs. The lines of Arabic script, scrawled in pencil at various angles, marched across the walls—some in large blocks of text, and others a single line here or there, some with large angry letters, others more subdued. Above the bed were also the spotted stains of something that had once been adhered to the wall, a little bit like gum stains in a middle school locker room, uneven round smudges that formed letters, letters which spelled out words in all capital letters, “FIRST CHRISTMAS”.

I slept under those words, leaned against them when I sat up, and for the most part, ignored them along with all the other congealed substances in suspicious colors adorning the walls. I tried not to think too hard about what made them stick.

However, those letters whispered a foreboding tale: Christmas in prison was a possibility. What woman would decorate for her first Christmas in jail?

Then I realized—it was for a baby.

Baby Adam, for example, entered on Christmas day, the day after he was born. Many afternoons, his mother would rock Adam beside our bunks and discuss her hopes and plans. “When my boyfriend sends a marriage certificate, I will get out,” she told us. Or, “when my sponsor comes to court or gets me lawyer, I will get out.“ None of that happened.

I thought also of other babies—baby Sarah and baby Rosa, baby Samira and Majid and the two Hamoodis, sleeping with their moms on metal beds, their birth the crime.

Did a baby once gaze with unblinking wonder at my walls? Did Baby recoil at the residue, or was he content, nourished by prison issued formula, swaying in his mother’s scarf slung under the bunk bed?

“FIRST CHRISTMAS”.

What is Christmas like when we remove its familiar rhythms and joy seems out of reach? What is Christmas like if we have been disappointed so many times that we don’t dare to hope?

Joy is still there.

It grows in outrageous places — in a manger, under occupation, a baby leaping in a womb.

It’s a scrappy little plant, sinking roots into the waiting, hidden and strong.

Perhaps it’s in faces upturned, arms spread out wide, women rushing into a narrow prison yard to receive the first rain after a scorching summer. Perhaps it’s spontaneous dancing in the hallway to the drumming of overturned mop buckets. And perhaps it’s “First Christmas”—an ingenious gathering of materials, the careful glueing to the wall, one dot at a time.

Christmas in prison is a possibility.

Joy is not just in what could be, but in what is—the rising of joy within a gift.

As long as there is life, joy is a possibility.

Dare we reach deep for it?—deep into that silence, God’s excruciating gift quietly changing the world, one gummy splotch at a time?

Will we find there Christ in us the hope of glory?— Christ who came to us in obscurity, hidden in a womb, during a time of chaos and uncertainty, Christ who taught of a kingdom, small like a seed, a treasure buried, Christ who entered this world where joy and sorrow exist side by side, fully intertwined.

Grief and joy live together.

God with us.

But you see, even then, joy was brewing, breaking through, flashing across the sky for a moment—a company of heavenly hosts, a steady star, the song of a girl, the delight of an old man. Purple blooms.

May our wild, hidden joys also one day burst with a a chorus that alters the landscape.

This Way is Real Too

Teaching on Zoom feels like one of those weird dreams where bizarre combinations happen. Our homeschool at the dining table morphs into a classroom. Qatar sunlight behind a bouncing blue Skype icon warps into Zoom grids and a Pacific Northwest breeze through the porch door. My students remind me of my own kids on a homeschool morning, just with a lot more of them. Some are in pajamas rubbing sleep from their eyes. Others are leaping off their beds. The baby is crying in the background, mom is scolding, and someone is finishing breakfast. The siblings are at times arguing and at times giving the answers. At the mere mention of bird watching, one student disappears for half an hour intent on finding a bird book to show me while another immediately dumps all the contents out of a nearby shopping bag to rummage for binoculars she was convinced resided down there.

Online teaching feels at once like too much real life and not at all.

In a futile attempt to resist my virtual-ness, I peer into the screen at odd angles as if I could see my students’ off screen drawings that way. I long to reach over and tap the unmute button for a child clearly trying to speak, or step across and separate squabbling siblings sharing an iPad.

Yet I also receive the gift of unexpected hospitality.

I am introduced to well-loved stuffed animals and presented with Lego creations. I meet the pet ant that lives in someone’s bedroom. I am carried to the window to see the bus that drops off lunch. I admire pretzels, tamales, and ice cream cones. We watch each other eat, climb under beds, and peek into closets. I am introduced to random family friends and baby brothers. My own backyard chickens set off in a chorus of victorious egg announcement squawking and would not stop.

We invite each other in.

This leaning into a device, these little boxes on a screen—this way is real too.

In this virtual space, my lessons don’t go the way I want them to. The kids don’t respond the way I want them to. It all feels like a mess.

Yet daily, real surprises. A moment of connection—and I am awed. A word a child chooses to share—and I am honored.

With a click of a blue rectangle, it would all be over.

Good Friday Still

I remember the year when I was not ready for Easter. That was the year Easter arrived the weekend after our wrongful conviction in a Qatar court. I had many questions: “What were we convicted for? How long will the appeals process take? Are the boys okay with my parents? How much longer?”

“How will I celebrate Easter?” was not one of the questions.

Separated from family, church, home, and friends, I worried about the future and counted the minutes of each day. Instead of planning activities for my kids, singing songs of “He’s alive!”, or waving leaves and hiding eggs, I found myself empty handed that year, surprised by an Easter I had not prepared to celebrate.

I barely noticed.

Some friends stopped by with communion and resurrection songs. I felt embarrassed by our bare apartment, by our lack of enthusiasm, by my t-shirt and hand me down skirt.

I had not arrived at Easter yet.

I was still on Good Friday.

I needed the Jesus who stumbles with his cross, who walks in the dark, who sits in the awful silence and doesn’t get up—the Jesus with questions.

I needed “God with us”, no longer in a manger but on the cross— with us in everything, in all of it—

in wrongful convictions,

in unjust courts,

in families apart,

with us in racism, deception, greed, and conflict,

in loneliness and disease,

in hatred and violence and unrest and unknowns,

in all the evil that smothers life

With us. So near us —that it killed Him.

One day, we shall arrive at Easter. We shall celebrate that dramatic absence with shouts of “He is not here, he is risen!”

Other days, we may just want him here, here where we are.

And that is what Good Friday whispers.

“I am here—fully.”

God. With us.

Fear and Ashes

Ash Wednesday, 2009.

Alone, I slid into an empty seat near the back of the chapel. Darkness and somber cello music concealed my fears but could not remove the weight settling with me into the pew.

Fears. So many of them swirling, chasing each other like the shadows and the light, like the notes and the silence, thick in the darkness of the church.

In a few days, I would board a plane for Ghana. If you had asked me what I feared, I would have pointed only at that. The rest remained an unwrapped bundle I dared not unravel, a tangle of questions without answers, unnamed possibilities I wished not examine.

Matt and I had planned this last leg of our adoption for months. We would travel and meet the children together. After that, Matt would return home while I stayed to wait with our children for their visas, a process the embassy in Ghana claimed would take no more than 30 days. As soon as we made our plans and purchased tickets, the embassy announced its new policy: expect a three month wait for visa applications.

At that, an overwhelming fear arose. Until then, perhaps the planning and anticipation and excitement had kept reality at bay. Perhaps bedsheets and stuffed animals and dresses and toy cars made our children’s homecoming feel inevitable, planned, scheduled—a family of four, a logical conclusion. That one announcement cracked open a chasm of unknowns, a deep chasm lurking just beneath the surface all along.

I had never traveled to Ghana before, had never traveled without a return ticket, and had never traveled alone. Further, I had never adopted before, had never parented older kids, or any kids at all. And further yet—after Ghana, then what? Life would look completely different on the other side of this trip.

If I wanted to, I could also consider the alarming political unrest leading up to elections in that country, or, even closer to home, the recent break in and assault at our children’s orphanage. I could research malaria medication and water born diseases and food safely for travelers. I could check the little yellow card that documented the slate of vaccinations I received in keeping with CDC recommendations for traveling to that area of Africa.

I could.

Or, I could hide in the back of the chapel and tremble with the weight of the fears.

I didn’t need to go looking for them. Beneath the deep cello voices painting in slow mournful tones, “What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul,” fear whispered its dark secret, “You will be alone in Ghana. All alone.”

Yet in the dark and in the silence, fear did not have the last word. By the time I slid out of the pew, by the time I felt a gentle finger on my forehead and heard the quiet words, “For you are dust and to dust you shall return,” I carried not fear but this: “I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” What do I fear for myself? The life I live is the the life of Another.

That night, I carried away words that gave meaning to the ashes—a reminder of death, a reminder of life—life overflowing, full, rich, and fearless.

Life, loved.

“This life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20)

He loved me.

I was ready for whatever came next. I was ready to face uncertainty and to do it alone because—

There is no alone when He lives in me.

There is no fear when He loves me.

In death, I fully live.

The Advent Song of Airplanes

Most years, Advent feels like the bustle and excitement of an airport. Bags packed, tickets in hand, we’re striding through the concourse with glimpses of planes through every window, ready to go.

But this year, I wonder if Advent feels more like the sound of a distant plane, heard, perhaps, through the vent of a bathroom in a Doha jail? The sound of longing, not sure what we long for?

Before incarceration, I never listened for planes. Walking through the airport, there’s too much going on, too much to see, to smell, to hear— announcements reminding us to keep our bags with us at all times, last calls for gates, the sound of luggage bumping through a scanner, the smell of coffee, the long line in front of Starbucks; I pass high windows, planes rolling into place, moving sidewalks, and I look for my gate, ready to go.

But when I lost the freedom to go to an airport, to get on a plane, and to go home, I heard planes differently.

I heard their language of yearning and hope.

I recall moments inside when I lingered in the bathroom stall, above a squat toilet, lifting up my head toward the vent to listen. A plane. Taking off. I longed for—what did I long for? Not the plane. Was it for family? For sunlight? Freedom? Home? Peace? I don’t know. I responded to the song of the plane with a longing I could not fully understand.

The night we got out, we stayed at a hotel near the airport. In the evening, I stood at the hotel promontory to be alone, to think, to wonder, to grieve, to let the events of the previous day, of the previous year, rise and fall like angry waves held back too long. I was out, but I could not go home yet.

Then planes began to take off, flying over the promontory one after another, so close I could see their white bellies and blinking wing lights, so close I might touch them, and yet so far. They thundered into the evening sky and disappeared with a lingering roar. I stayed until it grew dark, until a security guard interrupted my solace.

And for the year afterwards, when we were not allowed to go home, when we hugged our kids over Skype every night, the planes played the soundtrack of my longing. At sunset, I would be sitting at the kitchen table with a laptop propped on a shoebox, homeschooling my boys, and the planes would begin their evening song. Engines roared to life. I could imagine their heat waves shimmering in the dusk, enveloping a watery plane before it takes off over the desert sands.

So close. But so far away.

Longing.

What are you longing for this season?

Are you longing for travel and for family gatherings? For hugs and real parties? Or simply for the familiar—for Christmas traditions and holiday music in the malls, for candlelight services and cookie exchanges?

Advent, perhaps, is leaning into that longing, and letting our longings lead us to the manger.

We ache with wonder and hunger for Jesus--born among us, and we miss him.

We ache with anticipation and desperation for the day when He will make all things right.

We ache with delight and despair because Christmas has room for both—for sleeping in the manger and stumbling to the cross; for shepherds rejoicing and Rachel weeping; for peace on earth good will to men and the Son who must learn death; for a promise kept and a promise that will be kept.

We celebrate.

And we wait.

But we wait with Hope—

Hard and lovely hope,
bitter sorrow mingled with sweet peace,
a lonely Presence interrupting our utter alone-ness,
a wailing, hungry Christ child,
the promise of Mary’s heart pierced,
joy to the world,
dwelling among us,
all there,
somehow.

That moment,
like the sound of a plane in the dark sky.

Could the pandemic change the way we hear Christmas?

Let us lean in. Let us long for Jesus with abandon, because he has promised to satisfy—and satisfy fully.

Let us strain our ears to hear…

Jesus, further than we can bear, nearer than we dreamed possible—

Jesus, here and coming,

Christ in us, the hope of glory.

Merry Christmas.

Just Making Pie

I had only banana cream pie on my mind that evening.

A jar of peanut butter started it. When our bag of supplies came from friends that week, Abby and I had pulled out the prayed-for provision—Skippy’s smooth, all natural—and grinned at each other. “Time for pie.”

The rest of the week, we ferreted supplies— prison issued yogurt from lunch, a packet of honey, and finally, the long-awaited banana.

That night, Abby drew out a can of cocoa powder tucked under her bed. I pulled out my carefully guarded plastic knife. We giggled with anticipation.

As I peeled the spotted banana, letting its fragrance burst into the room, I heard shouts, running, and a Filipino woman at the door, breathless and urgent, “Do you have a Bible?”

I glanced up, perplexed.

“Someone fell down. A Sri Lankan. Come!” Without waiting for me, she disappeared down the hallway.

Abby had just pulled back the foil from her yogurt cup.

“We will just go and see?”

Whenever something unusual happened in prison, everyone gathered to gawk and gossip. A group had already collected around this woman, who lay in the middle of the hallway, eyes closed, her bare feet sticking out from the bottom of her dress. She did not look uncomfortable, her head pillowed by her thick long braid. Already, someone dangled a crucifix over her head, and Big Mama, the Nigerian fortune-teller and resident exorcist paced the tiles, booming out “in Jesus’ names” that exploded like fireworks.

“Do you have a Bible?” someone tugged at me.

“Yes…?”

But I didn’t move to do anything.

Finally, I noticed a cluster of Sri Lankan women beckoning me from the side. I had never conversed with them before.

“She sick. She fall down,” the soft-spoken friend explained in English with an apologetic smile. “She wants Christ-ian prayer.”

“She’s Christian?”

“La, la, Hindu. Every day, you Christ-ians sing, and she sits on her bed, like this--” The woman scrunched her shoulders and pushed her fists toward her face in a tight ball. “She shakes.”

Before she could say more, we heard the shouts of a guard rushing in, yelling at everyone to stop and to send the sick one to the nurse. We dispersed.

I returned to cutting my banana.

Abby tilted the honey packet over the yogurt container, watching as sticky golden liquid landed in neat circles on the creamy top.

The little group of Sri Lankans helped their friend hobble out the main door. We heard the slam of the metal shutting behind them.

Abby spread the peanut butter, and I stacked the thin rounds of banana, layering with yogurt. We drizzled our own version of chocolate sauce over the top. We had perfected our pie recipe over the months.

The door thudded open again and shuffling footsteps returned. The footsteps stopped in front of our door and three faces peered in at us.

“She says you need to pray for her.”

They nodded to each other and pointed straight at me.

I looked at Abby. She looked at me.

“Me?”

Feeling small and clueless, I followed the trio to their cell, sat down on the bed and—prayed. I didn’t understand what the woman wanted, didn’t know what was happening, and we didn’t speak the same language. I just held her hands in mine and did what I knew how to do: pray. I prayed the way I would have prayed if I were at home, if I woke up to an insistent child whispering, “Mommy, I had a nightmare,” a simple prayer.

That was all.

I opened my eyes. She opened hers. She didn’t seem to expect anything else.

I returned to pie.

The next morning, three Sri Lankans beamed at me. “She is no more sick. She sleep. No more sick.”

How little I know of power.

And perhaps, that is as it should be.

We, little children of a powerful God, enjoy his daily provisions and care, taking pleasure in sleep, in laughter, in food, in beauty—while unseen powers in heavenly places tremble.

Then, at unexpected moments, we catch a glimpse of a hidden Kingdom residing in obscure places, a reminder of our surprising proximity to power.

Can we even begin to fathom what happens when a child of the King prays just one small prayer?

Our voices matter to Him. He hears and He cares.

He cares about the child awakened by a nightmare. He cares about a woman who cannot sleep at night. He cares about elections and presidents and nations.

And—I think he cares about pie too.

Fighting Like I Don't Belong

I felt an insistent tap on my shoulder.

I shook it off. My hand tightened its grip on the telephone receiver and pressed it firmly to my ear. From where I squatted, I lifted my eyes over the ledge of the barred window into the guard office. The clock clearly showed I still had four minutes—so why is this woman interrupting me?

I leaned my body a little closer to the wall, away from the intruding inmate. The tiles felt cold against my arm.

My Dawli International calling card, which gave me twelve minutes to the U.S., had not cut me off yet. I was well within my allotted phone time.

I covered my ear more tightly with my free hand but I couldn’t hear what my mom was saying on the other end, hard as I tried to ignore the scolding in Arabic and to maneuver around the hand tugging at the curled coil of my phone cord.

Finally, I turned my head sharply and signed for her to be quiet. I pointed to the clock. “Not time yet,” I mouthed in English.

Her words came faster. “Halas, halas,” she hissed. Finished.

My mom was still talking.

“Hold on, can you repeat that?” I turned back to the wall and spoke into the receiver while attempting to shrug off long, skinny fingers.

Suddenly, those fingers came down hard on the phone unit.

I reached out to intercept her hand—but too late. The dial tone pulsed in my ear like a blinking red light.

I shook with the audacity of it all. A phone call cut off in the middle of a minute meant losing the whole minute. Dialing and reconnecting cost another full minute. I yanked the phone out of her hand and sheltered the unit between my body and the wall. I frantically dialed again.

Two minutes left—and I was going to use it all.

That girl would have to wait.

In my haste, I skipped a digit punching in my phone card code. Cancel, enter again, breathing hard.

I made myself slow down.

When my mom picked up, I calmly apologized for the interruption and continued our conversation until time expired. I sat for a moment with the dial tone. After a studious glance at the clock, I slowly, deliberately clicked the receiver into place on the phone unit, turned to the woman behind me—“your turn”—and walked away.

Even before I reached the end of the hallway, I felt horrible.

I acted like I belonged here.

My hand reached for the top rung of my bunk bed ladder, ready to pull myself up, but I couldn’t.

Did I need phone time as if I did not expect to go home soon and talk freely, for as long as I want—face to face? Did I really believe that I had family and friends who cared enough to provide for my needs? Did I believe what I claimed—that God the King was my Father?

Or did I need to fight for every piece of it on my own?

I paced up the corridor again, where now, the skinny fingered woman and her friends crouched around the telephone.

I paced back down.

She should not have cut off my call and wasted my minutes, I thought, still angry.

But do I belong here?

By the time I had walked back to the rung of my ladder again, I knew what I needed to do. I climbed up.

Reaching for a little red gift bag beside my pillow where I kept my most valuable possessions: toothbrush and toothpaste, contact lens solution, a notebook, and phone cards, I pulled out a Dawli international card.

She would be able to call Ethiopia, her home, with this card.

Before I could change my mind, I made the trip down the hallway once more. The Ethiopian woman was not on the phone, but still crouched beside the unit with her friend. Most likely, she did not have her own phone card and waited for minutes her friend could spare.

I approached and thrust the Dawli card at her. “I’m sorry.”

She stared at me.

“I’m sorry,” I tried to sign, and left the card in her hands.

I don’t think she understood at all.

But I did.

I was free.

I am free.

When I don’t belong, I don’t need to wrap my fingers around every minute and every scrap of comfort the place affords.

When I don’t belong, I can pursue justice and mercy here with joyful boldness and wild generosity.

And I can fight like I don’t belong.

The Glass Between Us

I had not expected the glass.

Perhaps I expected to meet in an office, to sit on a couch or some grey office chairs. Perhaps I expected to chat on a bench in the lobby. Or perhaps, I expected something like the police station waiting rooms that I had come to know so well.

I had not expected a barrier during visits.

So when they opened the door into the visiting room that first time, I hesitated. My eyes blinked to adjust to the darkness and to take in the evenly spaced windows lining one wall. Yellow light came from the other side of the windows.

Two familiar faces smiled at me through one of the panes. My friends grinned and waved.

I felt two things at once— absolute delight at seeing their faces, and a jolt of dismay over the reality of where I was.

In my excitement, I dragged a stray chair over to the window, not caring that its legs scraped against the floor with a jarring clatter. I plopped down into the seat and leaned toward the window. “It’s SO good to see you!”

And it was.

It didn’t matter that we had to bend over to speak into a ledge with little holes that barely carried the sound of our voices, or that in bending over we lost the ability to read lips and facial cues, or that the horrible echo in the room in turn distorted, magnified, and muffled our voices so that it was almost impossible to carry on a conversation.

It didn’t matter. They were there and we could see each other.

All the while, the glass stood between us as a constant reminder that I was in jail. Like handcuffs, it told me where I belonged and cut me off from those on the outside. I could not reach out, but depended on others to come to me.

And they did. Week after week, friends, and strangers as well, braved Doha traffic to spend a few minutes across the glass. We let our eyes meet; we struggled and laughed and nodded through garbled communications. They kept coming back.

One day, an eleven-year-old friend waited for me at the window with an invention. “It’s a Hear-o-matic,” she held it up and demonstrated by placing the large end of the contraption down toward the ledge. She tilted her ears to the opposite end and waited for me to speak.

She was determined to hear me.

Another time, the Kenyan women who used to visit my recently released bunkmate came to visit me instead. “Stay strong,” the tallest of the women leaned in when she saw me.

I had met her with a smile, but she saw right through that smile. Though my own soft voice did not carry well in that room reverberating with scraping chairs and the voices of other inmates and their visitors, I heard her firm voice as clearly as if she were beside me. “Stay strong, sister.”

She stood up, placed her hands on the glass, and held my eyes with her gaze. She waited for me to place my hands on the glass, my fingers meeting hers. Our fingertips pressed into each others, into the cool pane of glass.

“You have to stay strong.”

I looked back at her, and slowly nodded.

At the end of summer, Elsbeth, an American friend, came for her last visit before moving back to the States. I had watched her baby grow up through the glass over the months. It was time to say goodbye.

“I want to give you a hug before I go. Will they let me?” she asked.

“You can try.”

“Going to America? Take me to America!” came the enthusiastic, unexpected response from the large guard who pointed her to an unused metal detector. Elsbeth stepped through and I met her with a hug.

“Hug?” a short guard waited expectantly behind her, arms open.

Elsbeth turned and gave her a hug. Then the guard gave me a hug. The large guard wanted one too. We exchanged hugs all around.

“You go America too, inshallah.”

Elsbeth and I glanced over at each other, amused. What a strange moment. Then, with one last goodbye, she was gone.

I longed (and long) for the day when we no longer “see through a glass darkly” but instead, face to face. Even so, my friends approached the glass as a window rather than a barrier, a way to see, to listen, and to meet—face to face.

What will we do with the barriers between us today?

How will we strive to see each other beyond the partitions that separate us? In spite of the noise, will we hear each others’ voices? When we can’t hear, will we still look and let our eyes meet?

Will we leave blended fingerprints on the panes?

Not Allowed

They herded us all into the cafeteria and shut the door. 

“Mutabikh! Mutabikh!” The calls had echoed as I joined the flow of feet moving toward what we called the “kitchen”, too late to turn back to grab a book. 

Women squatted on the benches around tables or leaned up against frigid tile walls to wait, perhaps for an hour or so, or perhaps all afternoon. Whenever this happened, none of us knew how long we’d stay in there or why. 

Abby and I found each other near the back, around a corner, and settled on the floor to wait. Abby, my Kenyan bunkmate, carried one of the Filipino babies with her. 

The kitchen with it’s tiles and metal tables and closed double door magnified all the voices into a clamor of meaningless babble in multitudinous languages. Baby Noah fussed, and Abby started to rock him, singing, “There is pow’r, pow’r, wonder working pow’r…” 

I joined her, softly at first. 

Back and forth flew Noah. “…in the blo-o-o-d of the La-amb, there is pow’r, pow’r, wonder working pow’r…” 

As usual, Abby speeded up with each verse until our tongues tripped around the words. 

Wouldyou-o’erevil-avictorywin? There’s pow’r-intheblood-pow’r-intheblood… 

Our voices grew louder, and our bodies swayed with the swinging baby. 

There’s wonderful power in the blood.

No one minded us. Distant construction noises, banging and drilling, joined with the clang of metal and the reverberations of hard women’s voices mixed with soft voices, voices arguing or complaining, laughter, and the occasional male shout heard from outside the door.

There is pow’r, pow’r, wonder working pow’r. 

I felt the women around me shift slightly, leaning in toward the door, and I stopped singing to tune my ears back to the frequency of the room. 

I heard her before I saw her—the bang of the door opening and shutting, the harsh voice, rolled over us like a bowling ball, heavy on the ears, knocking over any noises in its way—“Girls! Listen!” 

Mama Lela, the policewoman, stepped up on a bench to demand our attention, a diminutive but formidable form in a blue jumper, her face framed impeccably by her black head covering, her police cap on top. Her disproportionately large voice bounced around the room, first in Arabic, then in English. 

“Starting this week, no ziara. NOT ALLOWED!” 

She paused for impact. 

“No visitors. Clothes and cigara only. Food NOT ALLOWED. Other things NOT ALLOWED. Visitors, NOT ALLOWED. Family only!”

I cringed with every “NOT ALLOWED”. 

No visitors? I held my breath as fears crash down in waves. I’ll lose every last connection to outside. I can’t. I can’t.   

Next to me, Abby grimaced and shrugged. “Anyway, Alisha is family.” 

Alisha, my small group leader from church, regularly visited my Kenyan friend, connected through phone calls and delivered supplies. Abby called her “Mum”. A Kenyan herself, Alisha could possibly pass for family. 

But it’s not so simple for me, I thought. How would my friends, with their Mexican, Canadian, German, South African passports, convince the guards that they were family? None of them looked remotely like me. 

I shivered, suddenly cold on the tile floor. 

The room buzzed with questions, asked and unasked. 

“NOT ALLOWED! NOT ALLOWED!” The words pressed in like the drilling emanating from the other side of the door. I remained glued to the spot, dizzy with fear. No visitors. Cut off from the outside world. 

There is power, power, wonder working power. Abby picked up where she left off rocking Noah, singing with grim determination and affected non-chalance. Beneath those words rumbled her resistance, “Who cares what they say? God decides.” 

I inhaled, threw back my head,  and joined her— in the precious blood of the Lamb. 

I began to breath again. The song melted into the din of the kitchen. We’re stuck, we don’t know what to do, but who cares? We’ll keep singing. 

Suddenly, Mama Lela barged into the room again, her voice preceding her, but this time, she had someone behind her, someone pulling a rolling suitcase, someone whom—to my horror—I recognized. 

It was Alisha.  

I sat up, tense, every receptor in my body alert, working at deciphering the situation, making quick mental calculations. What is she doing here? I noted her suitcase with a sliver of assurance. Surely, she wouldn’t have a suitcase if they had arrested her. They would’ve strip-searched her and sent her in with just the clothes on her back like the rest of us. 

But what is she doing here?

Alisha stood quietly behind Mama Lela, a patch of blue sky behind a tornado. 

I couldn’t read her face. 

If she saw me, she did not reveal recognition. 

I held my breath. 

“This is Mama Kenya, girls. She is coming to teach you something. Girls, you listen to Mama Kenya.”

Abby beside me had stopped rocking Noah. The air between us pulsed with the unspoken question: Is Alisha okay?

Alisha’s calm, confident voice reached our corner, “Do you want to earn money?” 

With one sentence, she had captured the attention of every woman in the room. She knew what she was doing.

Alisha opened her suitcase. “I will teach you how to make these.” She held up beaded necklaces. “Then I will sell them on the internet. See? You can earn money, not just sleep and worry about your family.” 

Lela interrupted her, reiterating everything five times louder with the addition of exclamation points. 

“Do you want to earn money, girls? Tomorrow morning Mama Kenya come. She teach you everything. You make money, girls.” She barked this like an order, her stern face small in it’s tight circle of fabric. She seemed pleased with herself.

Done, she marched out the room, motioning Alisha to follow. 

“I’m going to talk to her,” Abby thrust Noah to me and dashed toward the door. The two Kenyans exchange smiles and a few words, perfectly natural in that context.  

I held back, wary of arousing suspicion with any familiarity. Instead, I tried to make my eyes speak across the chasm of the kitchen the thanks I longed to say, even as I blinked back tears of gratitude and wonder. 

Through multiple closed doors, present and future, she found a way in— just when I needed it most.   

When they finally let us out of the kitchen that afternoon, I did not carry the weight and fears of all the “not alloweds”. No letters? No visitors? No nothing? No problem. 

I know One who will make His way to me.  

Photo credit: David Clode (Unsplash)

*Names have been changed to fictional names

Trying to Be Heard

Jina promised drama.

For days leading up to her court hearing, Jina rehearsed the whole scene—placing the judge there, the man and his wife there, the audience there—to the delight of her inmate friends. She played all the parts and enacted her flawless arguments. We looked forward to her courts dates as much as she did. Although she had about as much success as the rest of us, we appreciated the entertainment.   

You see, the rest of us had learned not to expect much from court. A typical court hearing took a matter of minutes and carried on a predictable script:  

“What do you want?”

“I want to go out.”

“Come back two weeks.”

We would come back and wait two weeks and repeat it all again. Most of us in that facility were compliant Asian women who could not dream of speaking up. 

Besides, we had given up. “Qatar crazy,” we shrugged. 

But Jina was different. She was everything I was not: out-going, loud, flamboyant and full of exuberance and—drama. She chaffed against the injustice of her situation and was determined to make something happen, do something, fight, be heard. 

Nineteen-year-old Jina had left Kenya for a promised office job in Qatar only to find herself employed instead as babysitter in her employer’s home. She was not allowed to leave the house, her employer kept her passport, and the husband began to drug her and use her at night. Sometimes, he shared drugs—and the babysitter—with his friends. Finally, she knew she had to run away. “If I stay here, I’m going die,” she thought. She escaped, found her way to a police station, and reported the man for drug possession. The police took her to the house, found the evidence—and sent her to prison. 

“I want to know why I’m here.” Her arm swept the room as she glared at the invisible judge at the foot of the bunk. “Let me go out and steal something. Then you can put me here. At least it’ll make sense!”

After court, she took the stage for replays. She described each hearing—what she said, what the judge said, the expressions on the faces of her employers—with great flourish and exaggeration and even as we laughed, we secretly wished we had her pluck. It thrilled us when she got a judge to see her, glance for the first time at the file in front of him, and direct a question in her direction. She got him to notice. 

After weeks of her stories, I decided to screw up my courage and try it for myself. I resolved to say something at my next hearing. What did I want? I asked myself. I’ll ask for my children out of the orphanage. More than my own freedom, I wanted the safety of my boys. 

The opportunity came soon enough. “I want my children back,” I squeaked up at the judge.

He did not even look at me. At my elbow, I heard the even tones of the interpreter, “That is not the concern of the court. Come back two weeks.”

Before my mind even registered his answer, we had been escorted out of the courtroom and I couldn’t shout back, “If not you, then who? Who’s keeping my children?” 

Another court hearing, over. 

It’s not that I would’ve shouted anyway. I didn’t speak Arabic, no one would’ve listened, that’s the way the system worked — I accepted my invisibility. 

But in the end, neither Jina’s drama nor my compliance made any difference. All of us felt helplessly stuck in a cycle that made no sense. After awhile, even Jina stopped rehearsing for court hearings. She got into the van without a word, head down, not bothering to answer the teasing of the guards. It didn’t matter. Why bother trying? 

There is such helplessness in knowing that no matter what you say, nothing will make a difference. No one will listen. Come back. Wait. That’s not our concern. 

Here and now, is that not the frustration of our black brothers and sisters? With yet more senseless deaths, it seems evident that neither fighting nor silence made any difference. The same nonsense happens over and over. Do we say, “Racism crazy,” and shrug?

What are they supposed to do?  

Even though I had given up on the courts, friends and family and supporters did not give up advocating on my behalf. I don’t know all that happened on the outside, the letters and phone calls and petitions, the work of raising awareness, the practical and financial help that it took to get me out. I just knew you were there.

In spite of my helplessness, I never felt abandoned. 

And Jina? She, too, gained freedom with the help of my friends.

Some inmates assumed that I counted on the power of my passport. “You are lucky. America embassy strong.” 

“No,” I shook my head. “It’s not that. It’s the people. They believe in doing something about injustice.” 

Today, I hope I was right. 

When I Needed Easter

Easter was there when I needed it most. 

The year my daughter died, I celebrated Easter alone, isolated from friends and family and church. I celebrated alone in prison in a Muslim country. 

I needed Easter that year.

I needed the dark despair of Good Friday and the silent hunger of Saturday; I needed the ridiculous anticipation of joy after death, the familial songs of Home, the outrageous hope of resurrection. 

We teach our children to memorize their addresses and phone numbers. Why? So that if they ever got lost, they’d have a way to find home.

All my past Easters—they were rehearsals for this. I had a way Home.

***

As soon as the cleaners put away their mops and sapatas that morning, I slipped into the mutabikh to carry out my plan. I had thought about this for weeks and spent many hours sawing lilies out of white paper with a bladeless plastic childs’ scissor, wrapping the blooms in folded paper stems and curling each petal around a pencil.

Now, I worked quickly, going to each of the long aluminum tables to arrange paper vases on paper placements and inserting bouquets of lilies into each vase. I opened a precious bag of chocolate eggs and scattered them around the base of the vases. 

Finished, I stepped back to look at my work.

Suddenly, it all seemed so silly, so pathetic—a bunch of paper that belonged in the trash. What did I think I was doing? 

As the women trooped in for breakfast, I turned to sneak away, embarrassed, but couldn’t help hesitating just a bit to see their reactions. Most took no notice, squatted on the benches and snatched their share of pita bread. Others gathered up the chocolates. One stopped to ask me in English, “What this?” 

“It’s Easter,” I shrugged sheepishly.

“What Easter?” 

I didn’t have an answer for that.

The women already whispered among themselves that I was the crazy Chinese who murdered her child and who called herself American. What’s one more thing? 

Maybe they were right. 

I was crazy to believe in life after the words, “she died.” I was crazy to believe in a Savior who didn’t save himself, in a Love that penetrates prison walls, in victory that looks more like loss. 

I believed Easter.

They didn’t know that earlier that morning, I had awakened before dawn to show up for sunrise service. With my Bible and a Belvita biscuit tucked away for the occasion, I stepped into the darkness of the narrow prison courtyard enclosed by high walls. Tilting my head up, I peered into the rectangle of a still dark sky criss-crossed by wire netting. I watched as sunlight, a bright slice of mustard yellow, hit the top of one wall.  

“The Son is risen,” I grinned to the empty sky. 

The diagonal line delineating light from darkness continued to move slowly down the wall and eventually leaped onto the adjacent wall, extending the block of sunlight downwards towards where I waited in the shadows. I paced in a tight circle and sang all the Easter songs I could remember and many half-remembered ones too. I imagined the local fellowship meeting this morning singing the same songs. I imagined churches all across the time zone joining in. I imagined, for a sliver of a second, my daughter twirling in her butterfly dress. 

Because if resurrection was possible, anything is possible. 

What if all our Easters were practice for an Easter like this? Like forms in martial arts, we have rehearsed this Truth, training our muscles to memorize the shape of the resurrection for a day when we need it. The moment when we need it most is usually the moment when we’re least prepared. Have we absorbed so deeply the story of our hope that we respond instinctively?

We carry the songs of dawn into the dead of night. 

This Easter, I’m not sure what I will do yet. I think I’ll inhale the wonder of wind and sky right outside my door. I’ll set the table with the beauty of pancakes. I’ll have the privilege of live-streaming a service and watching the chat box fill up with comments and greetings. I will sing the songs of Home and I will not be alone. 

Maybe I’m crazy. 

Or maybe Easter is crazy. 

But it will be here, just when we need it most. 

Hopeful Seeds

Seeds are hopeful things. We plant them based on the pictures we see on the fronts of the seed packets: cosmos, zinnias, sunflowers, or perhaps cucumbers, pumpkin, tomatoes. The seeds themselves are so unassuming, so small and brown and dry that we’d marvel if we knew the powerful life stored up within. 

I decided to start my garden from seed one year, raising the seedlings indoors to protect them from birds and pests. I brought home peat pots, soil, and a collection of exciting seeds, and after I planted them, watched as tiny first leaves emerged and continued to reach up toward the sun streaming through my kitchen window. The stems shot up, long and thin, and I eagerly awaited the next leaves. But to my disappointment, all of them fell over one by one. The leaves had grown too heavy for the spindly stems; they stopped growing and died. 

I learned that even seedlings need time outdoors, in the sun and wind. The wind stimulates the stems to grow strong. Only with strong stems could they continue growing new leaves, and the leaves to gather the energy for flowers and eventually, fruit. Those seeds were designed for the rough reality of life, and in protecting, I had squandered their strength. 

Like those seedlings, we who have the life of God flowing through our veins are stronger than we think. It is in the wind and the cold and the sun that we reach our full potential. It is as we face pain and pandemics, scarcity and solitude, that the life of Jesus flows all the stronger through us.

Romans 5:2-5 says, “…We know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit…”

As we persevere through these difficult days, character unfurls like new leaves. It might be the moment when you notice yourself singing instead of fretting, when you hear your own words of kindness replacing irritation, when worry for self transforms into caring for neighbor. Joy bubbles up unbidden, peace lingers like a scent, and Love leaks out like juice from an orange when it is squeezed. 

When we see glimpses of character--those actions we know we could never have been done on our own—then hope blossoms: God’s love is flowing through me, through you. We are His. We’re looking more like Him each day. 

Seeds are hopeful things; they point to fruit. God has planted the seed of His love in our hearts, and He is growing us each day, in just the right conditions, to produce the joyful fruit of lives that exude Jesus. Like vibrant plants, may we persevere and reach upwards, growing in hope. Fruit is coming. 

The Christian Journal, April, 2020

Weak Enough for Strength

In the mornings, I go to the gym and feel my weakness. My body protests and tells me that it has limits. Strain as I might, there are some things I simply cannot do, so why do I still go? Through weakness, I am made strong. 

Have you ever felt your own inadequacy? No one likes to be weak. We are good at covering over our failures with a strong exterior. We find ways to look capable, intelligent, beautiful, happy, even though we feel painfully our own inability to measure up. 

Often we feel the weakness of our own faith. We hear around us stories of the “power of faith” or we are told “just have faith” but we wonder if we have what it takes. We struggle with doubt, and we can’t imagine that God would be pleased with such puny faith. Perhaps we try to speak the right words and go to church and look like we have strong faith, but inside, our faith muscles feel like jelly. 

But what if faith did not depend on us? 

In Romans 1:16, Paul tells us, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes…” The gospel is the power of God, and what is that gospel? It is the gospel of a God who took on weakness so that the weak may become strong. It is God experiencing shame to take away our shame. It is Jesus on a cross, dying, so that life—new life—could happen. 

I remember once playing at the pool as a seven-year-old when I did not yet know how to swim. I was in the water floating on an inner tube, watching others splash around me, when somehow I found myself slipping. It seemed to happen in slow motion—I was aware of what was happening but had no power to stop it. I ended up under the water and felt myself sinking. Before I had a chance to panic, strong arms came around me, and the next moment I was out of the water, sitting on firm concrete at the side of the pool. A woman had seen and rescued me. 

Instead of feeling grateful, I was embarrassed. I wanted to hide and was afraid to look her in the eyes. She had witnessed my moment of weakness. 

Do we do that with Jesus? Do we do that with the gospel? We want to have our own strong faith. We want to come to Jesus on our own two feet. We feel embarrassed about our own neediness. But there are some things we simply cannot do, and that, precisely, is the power of the gospel. We are helpless and he rescued us. We need not be ashamed. 

I am not ashamed of the gospel. Through weakness, I am made strong.

The Christian Journal, January 2020

Time to Go Home

“Do I have parents?” 

“Is my family coming?”

The children of Eban Home did not know what “home” meant, but they all knew they wanted to go there. 

When I went to adopt my children from Eban Home, the other children called me “mommy” too. Younger children tried to climb on my lap. The older ones stared from a distance while my new daughter flaunted her new position and held on tight. I distributed photos and little gifts and cards from adoptive parents waiting to travel. 

“Your parents are coming soon.” I could give that assurance to some of the children. They beamed to hear that. 

To others, I could only say, “We’ll find your parents soon.” And they’d nod and look away. They don’t have homes to look forward to yet. 

Hard as it was for the children to wait, they waited for something they did not know. For the parents waiting to pick them up, the wait was different: they had seen the faces of their children. They had caught a glimpse of something in a tiny photograph and their hearts knew: these are our children. Before the children had an inkling about families, these families had been filling out paperwork, paying fees, praying for their children, and meeting with social workers. They had lovingly prepared photo albums and gifts to introduce themselves to their children. And as the adoption court date approached, they hoped for a favorable result and hoped that it would soon be time to buy plane tickets. And in the moments when nothing seemed to be happening and the day to pick up their children seemed impossibly far away, the wait felt excruciating. Their hearts yearned for their children and all they could think was, “It’s time for them to come home.”

When Jesus said to his disciples, “Let not your hearts be troubled,” (John 14:1) He was not just comforting them. This was not a mere, “Don’t worry, I’ll be back.” No, He pointed to His own yearning for them. He was working, planning, preparing, building a home: “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:3)

We think about heaven. Sometimes. When things get tough, we long to fly away. We say we’d rather be home with Jesus. But most days, if we’re honest, we forget. We’re busy playing in the playground or fighting over toys. But Jesus is not like that. Every moment, His thoughts are for His children. Every day, He acts on our behalf. He never forgets us. Though we do not know what home means, He does. He looks around the rooms that He has prepared and imagines our faces. He whispers our names. One day, we will look up and see Him, our faces tear-stained and our shoes full of sand. He’ll pick us up and carry us home.  

The Christian Journal, December 2019