Hope.

Do you remember the client that had the greatest impact on my summer in Rwanda? 
Well, hold on tight because this post holds little back. 

She was kidnapped, raped repeatedly and locked in a home where a candle caught on fire and burned her so badly her legs had to be amputated. Through counseling with her mother, we learned that she barely survived the genocide in 1994 and was staying in a shelter when a Ugandan man started "caring" for the women and giving them money. In exchange, he raped them. Jaime's mother was basically a sex slave for this man. When she got pregnant with Jaime, she stayed but hated suffering the man's abuse. When she got pregnant again, she finally left and left Jaime behind with her father.

When you watch the video, you see Jaime tell her story. She doesn't talk about the case, or about the intricate details of just how horrible her childhood was. She speaks of God's ability to instill hope when it seems it is lost forever.

I met her mother and father, who both abandoned her. Baraka, who speaks in the video, counseled with both of them and her father has actually been to visit Jaime and has helped financially support her. An incredible feat! I worked on her legal case against the two perpetrators. I met the principle one who kidnapped and raped her in court, and have never felt such a strange and disgusting feeling. The first guy claimed that he was under the age of criminal liability and caused us to go find his birth certificate. He was actually around 40 years old. As a legal strategy, we ended up asking the court to join the two men's cases together so that they would point fingers saying, "the other one did it" and that the Judge would see they both should go to jail for a long, long time. I do not know the outcome of the legal case, and it isn't relevant. I share this video with you because you prayed for her, because you prayed for me and my heartbreak after we met, and you pray for the incredible work that IJM does. The people and places in the video are REAL to me. I share it with you so that for four minutes, you have insight into IJM, into the emotionally charged nature of this kind of work, and into Rwanda.

Her smile is real, her hope is palpable, and her courage is astounding. I think its very possible no other client for the rest of my legal career will touch me like she did.

Please share her story, I know that I always will.

My original blog post when I first met Jaime: http://defineyourdestination.blogspot.com/2013/06/from-field-into-field.html

To read more from IJM and to donate to IJM's incredible life changing work: http://ijm.org/jamies-story

Free Refills

In a derogation from my series of Madrid posts, I wanted to write again about my experience working in Legal Aid earlier in the summer. Now that I've had some time away from it, it's easier to write about the challenges of working in such an environment.

One of my last days in the office, a man came in with a family law issue. He had just sat down when he burst into tears. It took him almost five full minutes to pull himself together enough to communicate that he had a child custody issue he needed our help with. This poor man's story was very complicated. He explained to us while using nearly a box of Kleenex about his three children that are all near the age of majority. His ex-wife had sole physical and joint custody and she wasn't allowing him visitation anymore. After asking him questions and trying to assess how to best address his custody order, we uncovered that he was also in tremendous debt. He owed thousands and thousands of dollars in another custody case from a previous marriage. He told us that he had a part time job, but that his entire pay check was going to Child Services to pay this debt. He told us about his mental health issues and his battle with depression and suicidal thoughts. I was overwhelmed. I was out of steam from dealing with clients so similar all summer.

This was client number twenty-two for the summer for me.
I was tired, not sufficiently caffeinated and completely emotionally barren.

I started to push through all of that and resuscitate some courage. Two other colleagues of mine and I started to work through the main issue - his impending court date in relationship to the current child custody issue.

About an hour into our meeting, we learned he is homeless.
Any strength I had just mustered evaporated.
I reached a total maximum.
It was like a newborn baby when they have sensory overload so they just look away or close their eyes. It's like that was my response because I had reached my emotional overload.
I excused myself. I walked into another room, opened my computer and started calling homeless shelters.

Legal Aid is a field of unimaginable hurdles and obstacles. In our limited scope representation, its very hard for us to feel we even scratch the surface on the iceberg of issues they have.

My colleagues continued to work for nearly three hours on his case, a complete aberration for our office. They poured their heart into encouraging him, and into giving him hope for a brighter future. I was proud of them. I was happy that they had been filled that morning, when I felt so drained.

I found him a shelter that would take him that night, and gave him all the contact information.
I do not know if he went there.
I do not know what happened at his court hearing.
I do not know if he is okay.

What I do know is that when I am dry, I ask to be refilled.
And He always answers.

Careful what you pray for kids, you just might get it!

I sat down to write you all an update on Dad - he is doing great!
It's such a joy to have him at my apartment, to be able to be so close and to spend so much time together. In my laundry list of factors going into my decision for law school, it was certainly a goal to be in California closer to where he worked. But New York and Miami seemed so much closer than Madrid, being in California wasn't the only factor. It's been so great over the last two years to grab dinner, to drop Grey off with him during finals, to go to his place for laundry for a weekend, and to play Nurse Stephanie... it should have been one of the only factors.

Since his first strange episode with dizziness and slowed heart rate that sent him to the emergency room, there has been a lot of prayer surrounding him. My thankfulness for the prayers and support that follows us literally all over the world is unwavering. I'm amazed at the people who I cherish so dearly, whose emails or texts really do deeply brighten my day and calm any fear or unease stirring. I am deeply deeply grateful.
But I will state raw honesty to say such a cloud of prayer makes me feel uneasy. Such a cloud hung over us during Mom's cancer. In a month, it will be 6 years since she entered golden gates. Walking down hospital hallways, even for the most minor of surgeries, brings back truly horrible memories. I find as I grow older, those who I cling onto in seasons of change, terror, and challenge are those who stood as giants next to me in that time. It's those who I don't need to tell about the brick in my pocket, making everything weigh heavier than it should, than it would for someone else.
I am grateful for all the unspoken words that have gone back and forth between me and that special crowd, and I will continue to honor our friendship in any way that I can. The North Atlanta family, my closest sorority sisters, our dearest adopted family in Oregon... wow, we have so much love for y'all. 
This is not to say that we don't have some great support out here in California, but times like this, it is tremendously clear to me that real home is Atlanta. No one has showed up with a casserole! Real home is this nonexistent place where all of you are scattered. 
I've witnessed some crazy prayers prayed this last year. From boldly asking for healing, direction, confirmation, arrest of perpetrators, for a Judge to grant a case, for scholarship, for grades, for safety... and I've also seen answers in the wildest of places.

A friend recently inspired me by listening to God in what seemed like an impossible way. People always talk about the "power of prayer" like it is some bold, mystical way of God responding to us. It is. But it is so much more than that. It is, if you really believe, His way of hearing us, smiling and saying, "if you mean that, then watch this!" Or perhaps other times, He hears and responds by gently shaking his head as he looks at the mural of our lives and says, "oh no, this is what you actually need instead." The power, is not in our prayer, its in God's ability to answer it. And what power He has! Thus, what courage we must have to ask Him to use such power to respond to our requests and our questions.

The invisible prayer cloud on Thursday must have been the reason why the Dr implanted the pacemaker underneath Dad's pectoral muscle instead of under his skin. This Dr probably did 20 pacemaker implantation surgeries on that day alone, and of all he has done in his career, easily 90+% have been under the skin. But after just a few minutes of speaking with us, he went in, against his routine and put it under the muscle so it would not interfere with scuba diving gear, a guitar strap, his backpack he uses to travel, or a gun strap when hunting. We were really thrilled, and it comes at a cost of high pain in the short term. A price he is willing to pay to preserve his lifestyle and his many hobbies.
I can't imagine that anyone prayed for the Dr to put the pacemaker under the muscle. But I can imagine that people, possibly hundreds, prayed for the Dr to have guidance, to perfectly perform the surgery, for Dad to be able to return to his normal lifestyle...
Makes me think this tag line would look good on a poster in a Sunday school classroom: "Careful what you pray for kids, you just might get it!"

"This is my prayer in the desert, when all that's within me feels dry
This is my prayer in my hunger and need, MY GOD IS THE GOD WHO PROVIDES!
This is my prayer in the fire, in weakness or trial or pain: There is a faith proved of more worth than gold, SO REFINE ME LORD THROUGH THE FLAME. 
I will bring praise, no weapon formed against me shall remain. 
I will rejoice, I will declare, 'God is my victory and HE IS HERE!'
And this is my prayer in the battle, when triumph is still on it's way: I am a conqueror and co-heir with Christ!
All of my life, in every season, you are still God, I have a reason to sing, I have a reason to worship
And this is my prayer in the harvest, when favor and providence flow- 
I KNOW I'M FILLED TO BE EMPTIED AGAIN, the seed I've received I will sow."
-Desert Song, Hillsong

OMNIPOTENT

At 6:30 am, I woke up to all my windows sounding like they were being bashed in. I thought I was being robbed. I grabbed Grey, my phone, and buried myself under the covers. It was around this time I realized that everything was shaking, not just the windows. That was when it dawned on me it was an earthquake. Grey was shaking pretty intensely. For a few minutes the shaking continued. Just like something out of a movie. I was scared and frightened. And then it was over. Minus a proliferation of Earthquake-themed Facebook statuses, life went on just like it hadn't happened. Certainly the 4.4 Earthquake was trending on social media and it was the top story on the news reels. But there was no difference in the morning traffic, no new color of the sky, no noticeable difference to anyone's behavior that last night they had experienced a very real, frightening display of the natural earth's scariest power.

It got me thinking about God. Sometimes when I am looking for direction, or when I am waiting on an answer to prayer, I think it would be pretty cool if instead of letting me wait patiently, he'd just speak to me in a burning bush (or burning palm tree). He could choose to lead me with a cloud of fire I begin walking the wrong direction, or to heal a sick friend before my eyes. He could make the wool outside my door step dry, but dew on everything surrounding it, when I am doubting Him. He could ensure that a rock and slingshot is enough to kill a giant opposing me, instead of letting me fight the battle on my own. After all, these are all things He has done before! Sometimes its easy to look at these great biblical stories and think, why doesn't He speak to us like THAT?

And then, you experience an earthquake and you think, oh, He most certainly could. Perhaps I should instead be thankful that he doesn't. He moves and shakes us in a different way.
Instead of it being Earth-shattering enough to grab my attention in my cloudiness, it is gentle. It is a whisper. Its on me, to clear the cloudiness, to be alert. It is my responsibility to change my heart so that it's beating only for Him.
When the waves hit my feet on the beach, I think about the ocean and its vastness as a symbol of His love, His omnipresence and His omniscience. Now, I'll think of the tornado, of the earthquake as symbols of His incredible power that out of his love, He moves us and shakes us gently.