by jeannie | Jun 25, 2018 | Blog |
A year ago yesterday, we got on a plane and left Costa Rica. It was one of the saddest moments of our lives, second only to the loss of my sister and her husband. 365 days have passed and we too often have let the circumstances take more away from who we are and who we were as a family before we came back to the states. Tonight we gathered, cried, and sat out on our roof, and we talked about how we can take back our narrative, be light, have joy no matter our location, no matter how foreign this place feels, and continue on no matter how difficult things can be. And they can be very difficult. We gave our kids permission to be sad, and took a moment to manage their grief and ours, which doesn’t happen as often as it should. But we also told them to remember who we were, and how we lived free and bold and how we must get back to that. On our roof tonight, we declared ‘enough’. Yes, we’ll have hard times, and misunderstandings and we’ll question ourselves and we’ll keep going to therapy. But enough of a narrative that whispers ‘what if’ and enough time has already been spent on being angry and losing hope. We are free to let go of all the expectations we are not meeting and likely won’t, and free to tell anger and fear to take a hike, and free to love even when we get pushed away, and free to hope for great things even when we can’t see evidence of things...
by jeannie | Feb 17, 2018 | Blog |
The first time I ever visited a place of extreme poverty, the most unexpected thing was how I lost all my words when trying to explain or share the experience. In the moment, I was only taking it in, and nothing could have prepared me for what I would see there or how it might change me. The disconnection I felt to my words was new for me, and so was the experience. Over and over I would say, “I’ve lost my words.” or “I don’t know what I feel.” It was as if God had shut down my gifts of expression, and disconnected me from emotions momentarily so I could be present and pay attention. Grief has brought many of these types of memories to mind. Maybe it’s the issue of unchartered territory, and how it changes you but I wouldn’t really know. You never know how grief is going to play out in your life, and it certainly isn’t anything I could have tried to map out for myself or for our family. Now, add different layers of loss, and you’ve got a complicated suitcase to unpack. And if you’re at all like me, I leave my suitcases packed way longer than I should. I put off the inevitable, but there it sits, waiting for me to put things where they go and do the work. This has been true in the loss of my sister and her husband and in the folding in of their 3 kids with ours, making a new family. We are now a blended family, and we struggle to find what we’re...
by jimmy | May 25, 2017 | Blog |
On March 18th everything changed, for those that don’t know we lost both Jeannie’s sister and her husband in a tragedy and nothing has been or will ever been the same. That is just the truth of the matter and because of that event we have to come up with a new plan. Something we have been sort of calling Plan B after reading an article about the co-founder of Facebook who lost her husband. A friend told her “look, plan A is no longer an option but we are going to kick the the crap out of Plan B.” Good advice. Leslie had three kids and there are no words to describe the pain. Royce and Sally lost a daughter, my kids lost an Aunt and Jeannie lost her sweet amazing sister. This was not how we had it planned and we are all are struggling to come to grips with our new reality. There is a famous quote supposedly from Winston Churchill, “If you are going through hell just keep walking before the devil finds out you are there.” We are certainly walking through hell in this moment, but there is a peace and it is unmistakable and real. It is a power. It is supernatural. My faith is stronger at times than at others and this is one of those times that it is strong and not in a way that is desperate but in a tangible I know He is here kind of way. The bible talks about a peace that defies understanding and we are living in that. We have a thousand things that...
by Hampton | Jun 17, 2016 | Blog |
In both the American and Texas Revolutions, men outnumbered and facing impossible odds sent messages to their foes that they would not surrender. The Come and Take It flag is one of the flags that flew over Texas and is part of the story of Texas. The men in both instances told their foes that they would not be intimidated and would stand their ground. As Christians we are facing an enemy as well and one that is cunning and has battled us in more ways than we can count. Yet we have one thing going for us that the Texans in Gonzalez did not. We know as Christians how the story ends. We know as Christians that victory is ours. We know together, us and all of you, we must keep the faith, pray and stand in a gap for kids here in Costa Rica. That ‘gap’ has been bigger and more difficult than we ever imagined. … We honestly were not prepared for the full measure of work that laid ahead of us. Maybe we thought we would come down and walk alongside kids as they discovered a deeper faith. Sure, learning Spanish would be tough and the crazy driving conditions here might be a challenge, but anything is possible with God. We have battled so much more. Young Life in Costa Rica has been described in many ways to us before and after we arrived. And when we got here we found that while great things were happening, there were also some things that needed to change. Jeannie has been focusing much of her time away...
by jeannie | Nov 30, 2015 | Blog, buildingaboat, push to costarica site |
We head back to Austin in a few weeks for the first time since leaving. It’s the last place we considered home. Anticipating many questions, I’ve had a mind full, wondering how to adequately describe our first year and ½ in a new culture, language, team and life rhythm. I don’t think there’s a great way to encompass it all. It was both beautiful and heartbreaking. It was the hardest year of our life, and it was worth it. It’s taken us this long to acknowledge and accept many things about this journey and that acceptance has only come from God himself. Again, Jesus has again been enough, more than sufficient. As we wrestled through the costs, the emotional, spiritual, financial, and physical, we know that after an honest moment with Jesus, it’s not our costs we should be concerned about. But our flesh wants to count them over and over… Our heart wants to be known, understood, even just listened to… But this isn’t always a reality for any of us. God didn’t promise us this would be comfortable or that we’d understand or enjoy all aspects of this journey. But he does promise that He loves us. His purposes will not get derailed in the most dysfunctional of circumstances. I came to a realization over the past several months that I actually can do anything through Christ Jesus. I get it wrong all the time, but his power is available to me. I can be kind even when I want to scream. I can trust him to effect change. I don’t have to seek my own justice....
by jimmy | Jun 20, 2015 | Blog, buildingaboat |
One year ago today…..we got on a plane and arrived here in Costa Rica. We began a journey that as I look back on it a year later seems it is only beginning. We have experienced so much over the past year that it is impossible to quantify in a post. We have learned to speak a new language. We are learning so much about this new culture. We have made friends in a new school and continue to search out a church home. We are in our third trimester of language school and while we have learned a ton of Spanish, this trimester has been by far the hardest of the three. We are both ready to be done with school. The amount of rules and ideas are just simply overwhelming. It is hard to imagine that we will ever be able to speak fluently but we know only time here in the culture will fill in the gaps in our language. We are told we are doing great and that is a huge blessing to have friends willing to help correct and improve our language. Our meetings are now in Spanish and it is amazing to be sitting in a meeting and finally be tracking along and speaking at the pace of the meeting. It is hard to explain, but when you are in a meeting with Nationals your brain just kind of switches over to Spanish and you find yourself thinking in Spanish. It is without a doubt one of the cooler experiences in my life. We are in a season of huge blessing from our...
by jimmy | Mar 8, 2015 | Blog |
Many of you have shared a desire to help on projects when we found a need. After being here for several months, we have identified two very worthy projects. Join us in serving Granadilla: We would like your help in raising funds for a community center in a small town called Granadilla and to construct a home for a generous Young Lives volunteer. Early one Monday morning I joined the Young Life National Director at a meeting of a few community leaders to discuss the building of a community center in a small town called Granadilla. Young Life has a strong presence in the community and they have been holding club at the current community center for years. The current community center is below. It is hard to explain my thoughts after visiting, but it is basically a tin building built with scrap metal and wood. There are, I believe, two light bulbs that give light to the inside during evening meetings. There are no windows, but some light flowed in through the walls during our morning meeting. The people meeting us do not work for the city. The city would not attend a meeting like this because they have no funds to make improvements. These are citizens. They are like you and me. They care about the lives of kids in the community and want them to have a place to go and things to do other than some of the poorer options available, like drugs and gangs. We are meeting to discuss the building of a community center and trying to confirm that we can start with...
by jimmy | Jan 9, 2015 | Blog |
Happy New Years to you all. We are so grateful for each of you that join us in prayer and support. We have seen some amazing things transpire in 2014 and we look forward to a great 2015. Please let me know how I can be praying for you. Each morning I prayer for as many as I can remember and I would love to be praying for specific things. Our first Work team We just ended our very first work team here in Costa Rica and it was an amazing time. We were asked a few months ago to host a service project for a couple of families coming to CR. They wanted to come on December 26th and after some prayer I felt like the Lord wanted us to grow in some ways so we decided to agree. Like always, when we say yes to what the Lord has for us great things happen and this was no exception. I thought I would recap a bit of what took place over the four days they were here. There were two families of five, the Crawfords and the Mays, with kids from ages 13-19 they were both from Austin and both were very familiar with Young Life. We ended up having many mutual friends and it was great to have visitors in from Austin. Both were great families and we had a wonderful time getting to know them. A couple of the kids organized a clothing drive and they showed up with 6 huge duffel bags full of clothing and shoes. The clothes will go to bless the...
by jimmy | Dec 31, 2014 | Blog |
We sent out an update the week before Christmas sharing some highlights of what we’ve seen here in our first six months! We know for so many of you, a video is another great way to share the same message. So here you go! God has shown us great things so far! We can’t wait to continue sharing all that’s happening here in 2015. Happy New...
by jimmy | Nov 14, 2014 | Blog |
When we got here to Costa Rica we had one car and it was tough. Because it basically means we are together as a unit always. For those of you back in the states just think about that for a second. One car. So if two people need to be in different places at once or heaven forbid three places at once with three kids it is very challenging. Just think through the execution of that in your life. We decided early on a second car is something we should purchase and we did. It was a 1987 Russian Lada Niva. We bought it for a $1000. We spent some money fixing up the motor and the dashboard which was torn up and the lessons the Lord was teaching us began immediately. It was hard to drive at first and on more than one occasion I “battled the russian” like the time I could not find reverse and had to get pushed out of a parking spot by a couple of guys. As I started to roll down the window I pulled off the crank and so I had to just yell “empuje” out one of the side triangle windows. It was humbling from the beginning I had big plans for this little car. I was going to get it painted and get a radio put in and a few other things like some new wheels and such. Nothing too crazy; maybe another $1000. I did my research and I knew that was about the cap for resale so I figured I was good. Then it happened. One morning...
