God, What Do You Want Me to Be When I Grow Up?

By Patricia Beal | @bealpat 

Hi everyone! Who’s excited about the second half of the year? I know I am. 

July always feels a bit like a second chance for the hopes and dreams of New Year’s Eve to come true. Don’t you think? Like a renewal, a revival, a do-over. 

I need it all. Renewal. Revival. Do-over. I’m feeling somewhat stuck though. 

How so? It’s like this... 

Did you guys watch the movie I Can Only Imagine? 

There’s this part about a major disappointment in the life of the band MercyMe. They have an opportunity to show their work to some powerful people who can make all their dreams come true, but when they finish performing, no one feels that they have what it takes to make it in the music industry. 

The band’s manager, Scott Brickell (portrayed by Trace Adkins), talks to MercyMe frontman Bart Millard (J. Michael Finley’s movie debut). 

This is their conversation—a conversation that makes tangible a feeling I’ve had for years. 

Watch the two-minute clip here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77gP1gb9unc 

or read it... 

Brickell: Can I come in, or do you want to soak a little longer? 
Bart: (silence) 
Brickell: So, you just gonna quit? Is that it? 
Bart: You’ve got a better idea? I’m tired man. I’m… I’ve got nothing left. 
Brickell: I’m gonna be honest with you, like I told you I would be. Sometimes when you’re up there, it’s like you’re singing somebody else’s music. It’s like a fake imitation. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe you. 
Bart: Well, that’s gone from bad to worse. Thank you. 
Brickell: But then there are times when I see something real. I see something authentic. But as soon as it shows up it’s like you’re afraid and then it vanishes just as quick as it came. And that’s what makes you a puzzle to me. Let me ask you something Bart, what are you running from? 
Bart: My dad. He, uh, he... 
Brickell: ...he beat you, didn't he? Ya ain't got no poker face kid. 
Bart: I carry that. I have to live with that, you know. I always will. 
Brickell: Then write about it. Stop running from it. Let that pain become your inspiration. And then you’ll have something people can believe in. But to do that, you have to face your fears, son. You know, Bart, I may not always believe in your music, but I do believe in you. You sold me, kid. Don’t quit. 

Isn’t this powerful? 

“But then there are times when I see something real. I see something authentic. But as soon as it shows up it’s like you’re afraid and then it vanishes just as quick as it came.” 

Wow! 

Do you ever feel that way? How do you deal with it? 

Brickell tells Bart to let the pain become his inspiration, to face his fears. 

Does that mean you write sob stories? “Woe is me” stories? That’s not what Bart did. I don’t think there’s a market for that anywhere but in a therapist’s office. 

What did he do? He hit the brakes and worked on unknotting his knot. The song reflects the resolution. 

Now what? 

What am I running from? How about you? 

What if there are too many things that are all knotted up in my life right now? 

That’s what, for me, brings up the question: 

God, what do you want me to be when I grow up? 

Do you even want me to write something real and authentic? Or should I focus on that pesky dying to self business I can’t master? Or the forgiveness thing that eludes me? Or the relationship that’s now an eleven-year struggle? Or the kids and their never-ending fights? The homeschool? Our special needs? 

God, what do you want me to be? 

Do you want me to continue dancing? This will be a decisive year. I’m in three studios. One wants me to switch gears and begin teaching soon. One wants me to be on stage and compete. The other hasn’t shared a vision yet. What do I pick? I can’t be in three places anymore. I need to pick one. 

Time to let go? But go where? ;)

Where do I even start? 

This summer I began a new novel. I’m trying to unknot the Asperger’s/autism knot with it. Maybe working on that knot will loosen all the other knots too. One can hope. 

And hope I will in this “demi” new year. 

Maybe this is the season for big things to happen. 

The translation of A Season to Dance comes out back home in Brazil next month, and it will be in every store in the country. The publisher lands books on national bestseller lists consistently. Could it be? 

An American publisher I really like contacted my agent last week, asking to see my second manuscript. I see so many possibilities with them. Could it be? 

I’m taking my son to a horse therapy place that God might use to bring about change we desperately need. Could it be? 

Or could it be that I’m just too messed up for those blessings and won’t see light until I get better at reading my Bible and praying every day and being thankful? :-/ 

God, is it me? 

What do you want me to be when I grow up? 

On a brighter note: 

An early reader of the A Season to Dance translation in Brazil was ready to leave a tough relationship and rent a small place for her and for their little boy. After reading the novel, she decided to stay with her husband a bit longer and give him a chance to stand up and be the man he needs to be. I pray this young husband and father will honor her choice and make a change. Praise God for putting something in the novel for her. I’m not sure how the book changed her mind. I’m just glad it did. 

Thanks for letting me share my heart with you. 

I pray you find something of value in the post and in the movie dialogue. Have a blessed second part of 2018, and I hope all your hopes and dreams will come true still :-) 

About Patricia 

Patricia Beal has danced ballet her whole life. She is from Brazil and fell in love with the English language while washing dishes at a McDonald's in Indianapolis. She put herself through college working at a BP gas station and graduated magna cum laude from the University of Cincinnati with a B.A. in English Literature. She then worked as a public affairs officer for the U.S. Army for seven years. 

She now writes contemporary fiction and is represented by Bob Hostetler of The Steve Laube Agency. Her debut novel, A Season to Dance, came out in May of 2017 (Bling! / Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas). A Portuguese translation will be out in her native Brazil in August of 2018 (Editora Pandorga). Patricia is a 2015 Genesis semi-finalist and First Impressions finalist. She and her husband live in North Carolina with their two children. 

Goodreads - www.goodreads.com/bealpat 
Facebook - www.facebook.com/patricia.beal.author 
Pinterest - www.pinterest.com/patriciasbeal 
Twitter - www.twitter.com/bealpat 
Web - www.patriciabeal.com

Wandering Wednesday: Discover Brazil with a giveaway!

By Lisa Harris @heartofafrica

In my last Wandering Wednesday post, I mentioned how one of the things our family has been blessed to do is travel together, especially while our kids were growing up. Today, I'm sharing a few memories from our time in Brazil back in 2008 and 2009. (Wow. . .has it really been that long?)

And since this blog is all about books, I also have to share the with you about the novel our time in language school inspired. No Place To Hide releases from Love Inspired Suspense this Sunday, and I'm so excited to share it with you! (Keep reading for a chance to win a copy.) 

Now while our time in Brazil was a bit of a rollercoaster for me--I was homeschooling for the first time, finishing up a novel, AND trying to learn Portuguese--my hero and heroine in this book have it a whole lot worse! She's a witness to murder. . .now running for survival. Thankfully nothing like that happened to us while we were there! Instead, we came to love the country and made friendships that have lasted for all these years!

I'll share a bit more about the book in a minute, but first, here are some highlights from our time in Brazil. We were able to take two short trips--we decided we had to see some of the beautiful country--so these photos are from Rio and the Amazon.

RIO

My hubby snuck me away for an overnight trip to Rio, which ended up being so much fun! One of the best ways to see Rio's spectacular views is from the cable car that transports you to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain. From there you can see the stunning Guanabara Bay, Rio, and the Atlantic Ocean spread out beneath you. 

We spent time browsing through seller's stands till midnight and walking along Copacabana Beach. 

Christ the Redeemer, the 125 foot famous statue that sits on top of the Corcovado Hill, is another incredible place to see the city of Rio. 

THE AMAZON

Our whole family flew into Manaus where we saw from the air the 'meeting of the waters.' 

Here the dark Rio Negro meets the pale Amazon River (Rio Solimões). Here the two rivers run side by side without mixing because of the differences in the waters temperature, speed, and density. After landing, we took a boat up the river a couple hours to our rustic hotel.

One of the favorite things our kids did was fish for piranhas--and I admit it was pretty fun! The cooks prepared them for our dinner and they tasted like chicken. And yes, they have very powerful jaws!

Another favorite thing was swimming with the pink dolphins. Definitely one of 

those experiences you never forget!

NO PLACE TO HIDE:

And now for another fast-paced romantic suspense novel. . .Former navy diver Ryan Kendall’s father sent him to Brazil with a simple assignment: extract compromised witness Ellie Webb. But with Ellie determined to trek into the Amazon, following a lead on her father’s murder, Ryan must protect her. As cartel members and pirates chase them, though, can they survive the dangerous jungle…and take down a killer?

*You can pre-order your copy now and it will be released on Sunday, July 1st!!*

Amazon                            Barnes & Noble                        Christianbook.com

GIVEAWAY:

I'd love to give away an ebook of No Place to Hide. To enter, please leave a comment on this post with a way for me to contact you. I'll pick a random winner from the comments on Friday, July 6th at Midnight PST.

LISA HARRIS is a Christy Award finalist for Blood Ransom and Vendetta, Christy Award winner for Dangerous Passage, and the winner of the Best Inspirational Suspense Novel for 2011 (Blood Covenant) and 2015 (Vendetta) from Romantic Times. She has over thirty novels and novella collections in print. She and her family have spent almost fifteen years working as missionaries in Africa. When she's not working she loves hanging out with her family, cooking different ethnic dishes, photography, and heading into the African bush on safari. For more information about her books and life in Africa visit her website at www.lisaharriswrites.com

Nearer To Thee

 This song came to mind this morning (click here to hear a beautiful version sung by the Sharon Singers of the Sharon Mennonite Bible Institute), and I listened, eyes closed.

Such a deep and powerful hymn - so close to my heart. I did not learn it from the "Titanic" movie, or from Elvis "singing the gospel." I grew up finding it in the dusty pages of the old green Baptist hymnal, or listening to its mournful, haunting tones echo against the wooden rafters of the Mennonite church of my mother's childhood.

It sums up everything I feel and long to say, now and forever.

Listen with me:

Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!
E'en though it be a cross that raiseth me;
Still all my song shall be nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!


Can you fathom what this is saying? That through any means, whether suffering or death or cross or shame, I am willing - if it brings me nearer to Christ. It is looking back on these days of agony at Hospital de Base in Brasilia, Brazil with our son, when he underwent emergency surgery for hydrocephalus and a clogged valve/shunt. Our little one's needle-punctured hand and cold fingers tucked in ours, and saying yes. His poor bandaged head, his stitches, and his tears, and saying yes.


Why us? Why Ethan? Why this child, why the blockage in the tube? The only answer I know is yes. So long as it draws us closer to You, then yes, Lord.

After all, I could ask the same questions another way: Why were we chosen to love and care for Ethan? Why this child for us, and not another - and how are we so fortunate - so blessed beyond all reason? Why this child born into a country with medical care and free neurosurgery where millions die on the side of the roads from disease, from starvation, from war and neglect? Why a mere blockage that was swiftly corrected, and not a terminal disease?

And this time we fall on our faces in thanks for yes.

For yes always means nearer. Nearer, my God, to Thee.

Is this not the whole goal of life? Of every breath? To draw nearer to Christ in his life and in his sufferings? To know Him more fully, and become more like Him in his love and in his death?

I think of another yes more than fifteen years ago, on a green hillside in Churchville, Virginia. A gray granite stone marked with my mother's name. In memory of the day she burst forth in life in 1952, and the day she said yes to God's call to come home forever. Walking in obedience and faith, day after day.


Ask her now if she regrets her following, her faith. Ask her now, secure with her Savior and resting at last in the Everlasting Arms, if God's often difficult will for her life, for her early death, was unfair.

No - for now her dreams have been fulfilled.

Nearer. She is nearer to her God - she is with him! - as we all will be. She tastes now the joy that we all secretly long for, with every heartbeat and every breath.

And that's it exactly: the secret we try so hard to avoid. That God is good no matter what, and His plans for our life are good as well.

"God is good," people said when we heard the joyful news that Ethan's CT scan showed a wonderful blank gray of healthy, fluid-free brain tissue, and his life and healing may continue. And He is good!

But God was good, too, fifteen years ago when we lay my mother's body to rest in the cold February ground at a mere forty-three years of age.

He would still be good if the scan was bad, if the neurologist came to the operating room door with a bowed head and teary eyes, if the car we got into after the hospital never made it home. He would still be good.

Because He is good.

There is no other way for Him to be otherwise.

Read with me the rest of the words to the hymn:

Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down,
Darkness be over me, my rest a stone;
Yet in my dreams I'd be nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!

There let the way appear steps unto heav'n;
All that Thou sendest me in mercy giv'n;
Angels to beckon me nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!
Then with my waking thoughts bright with Thy praise,
Out of my stony griefs Bethel I'll raise;
So by my woes to be nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!

I think of the story of Jacob in the Bible, in the book of Genesis, as he fled from his brother Esau. He slept on the ground with a stone under his head, and God sent him an amazing dream of stairs leading to heaven, with angels ascending and descending on its bright steps. "Jacob's ladder," we call it.

Where else have we seen this image in the Bible? We find it again with the stoning of Stephen in the book of Acts, when he looked up and said, "I see heaven open, and angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man."

Of course! The Son of Man - Jesus Christ Himself - who bridges the gap between earthly us and the perfect Father. The precious link between heaven and earth. The tower of Babel that the ancients tried unsucessfully to build - why? Because they needed Him. His sacrifice and atoning death.

Without the Bridge, the Ladder, we cannot reach the righteousness of God.

We don't need Babel and confused syntax. We need the WORD. The clear and understandable Word that speaks to us, and for us. For "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

Jacob's ladder - and ours, too. That brings us nearer, my God, to Thee.
It is the only thing we will ever need.

Or if on joyful wing, cleaving the sky,
Sun, moon, and stars forgot, upwards I fly,
Still all my song shall be, nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!

Forever, from now until my last breath, all I need is Jesus.

In every joyful moment, all I need is Jesus.



In every God-given, sacred, shimmering moment of tear-filled thanks, all I need is Jesus. To say yes. And so to draw nearer - nearer to Thee.

All I can say are the words of Job, after God appeared to him in the windstorm: "My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes.”

For I do not deserve this:



And yet when I open my eyes, he is there. With his shy smile and stitched head, which has grown into thick and beautiful curls. Scars forgotten. Life, and health, and joy! After five months we can no longer tell the place of his incisions. "He needs another haircut," my father says.

A gift. God's gift.

All of it. The pain and the sorrow. The delight.

Every moment, as long as as I live.

For all of it brings me, moment by moment, nearer to Thee.
--

Jennifer Rogers Spinola is a writer, author, and speaker who just relocated from Brasilia, Brazil - after two years in Sapporo, Japan - to rural Belle Fourche, South Dakota, with her Brazilian husband and son. Her second book with Barbour Publishing, "Like Sweet Potato Pie," released March 1.

Thinking of Good-bye

It's been three months today since the little EmbraAir jet (Brazilian, appropriately) taxied onto the snowy runway in Rapid City, South Dakota. Through frosty plane windows, my son, Ethan, and I watched tropical fields of banana trees and red Brazilian clay fade into ocean, into night, and then into snow-dusted patches of prairie flanked by rugged Black Hills.

We have left Brazil and made our home in South Dakota - for good. My husband joined us in December, and I cannot remember a time I've been happier. All the years stored up waiting have finally come to pass. We are here - we are home!

And yet we have not forgotten all the faces and days we left behind in warm Brazil, where afternoons smell of sunlight and dried leaves, of summer grasses and salt breeze and hibiscus blooms.

Here is something I wrote back in September, never imagining that two short months later I'd be buying American furniture and winter coats and car insurance.

And yet - by some strange miracle, we are.

--

Sept. 3, 2011

I’m sitting here in the Galeão terminal overlooking Rio’s misty, jagged mountains. Lighter spots of favela housing dotting the hillsides like patchwork quilting. A heavy, gray tropical sky. Yesterday I saw the beach, a clear gray-blue under overcast skies, and pale, wheat-colored sand like sugar. Soft as powder beneath our feet. We stripped off Ethan’s shoes and he jumped and danced, barefoot, leaping and rolling and tossing handfuls like he’d been marooned at sea for months. “A mess!” he said in giddy joy, sifting handfuls down over his brown toes.

I just checked in at an automatic check-in machine, entering my numbers and making the mistake of punching “English” for the language option and choosing my nationality as “The United States of America.” Because then, of course, the machine promptly asked for my passport number. Which I didn’t have with me because I don't carry my passport for domestic flights. “You should have said you nationality was Brazilian,” smiled the TAM worker as she helped me punch in my RNE (foreigner’s ID) number instead.

I wheeled my single small suitcase through security, speaking and answering in Portuguese, and found the gate myself. A man just came over to ask me if I’d picked up an Internet connection at the airport. And no, I hadn’t. In fact I couldn’t get one yesterday, either, at the Maingots’ house, because I'd inadvertantly messed up the wireless configuration on my laptop.

All of this I told him in Portuguese without thinking twice. Then I turned back to my laptop to finish editing my third novel and watch the planes take off across dove-gray morning. The mountains disappear, jagged, into the deep, dark, tropical haze like they did in years ago in Fiji.



All at once tears spring close to the surface as I realize, for perhaps the first time, the extent of what I will leave behind. This trip to Rio—our morning spent in the American consulate—has just nearly finished our process for immigration. As soon as they receive my tax forms and Athos’ police report from Japan, they’ll mail us the visas we need for Athos' green card. Ethan will become an American citizen the minute he sets foot in an American airport. We can count the months now, and perhaps even the weeks. The process has gone staggeringly fast—so fast that we are not quite ready for it. I felt the same way in 2009 when, from Monday to Saturday, we became parents of a fragile infant. The mess, the cribs, the trying to figure out how to use a diaper and a bottle—all sprung on us in a few days’ time.

Now I sit here and stare out at the moody runway, a straw color through the tinted glass, and realize that, in a few short months, we will step off the plane into blustery South Dakota winter. Equally unprepared. Our suitcases filled with linen pants and green-and-yellow short-sleeved soccer jerseys. Sleeveless silk blouses and strappy sandals and thin cotton skirts. Jobless and homeless and wondering, as I did the day we carried that warm little bundle into our tiny, one-bedroom-apartment living room and put him in a borrowed crib: "Have we done the right thing? Can we possibly live up to the enormous responsibility required of us, and can we make it work? Make it a blessing?”

“Do we have what it takes?”

“Are we what it takes?"

Suddenly it hits me: For the first time in ten years, I will leave behind my international life. I will no longer be exotic, odd, a curiosity. I wonder, with the first tingles of apprehension, if I will forget my Portuguese. The way my Japanese disappeared, like a reluctant cat, under the bed—toe by toe. Until I can barely coax it out into the light.

I will no longer breeze through international security lines at huge airports in São Paulo and Atlanta, switching languages as easily as I switch international documents. No more chatting in Portuguese about Brazilian soccer while I wend my way through the quicker “Brazilian” line. No more switching coins and currencies. No more blast of warm, tropical air as the airport doors swing open, Brasilia’s concrete terminal verdant with plants and glinting from rippling reflecting pools.

No more chilly green coconuts hacked open with a knife, in three perfect strokes, and pierced with a straw—the severed wedge given as a spoon to cut out the jelly-like white interior. No more macaws screeching from the trees as I run in early morning coolness just before sun-filled heat. No more nodding hibiscus flowers or clear-water beaches or fresh payapas and pineapples, like the sweet, pale yellow cubes I ate this morning for breakfast.



No more bitter Brazilian cafezinho coffee, piping hot and sugary-sweet, in tiny demitasse cups and saucers. No more golden loaves of ubiquitous French bread. No more fresh-squeezed orange juice or mangoes or bananas fresh from the tree at Athos’ grandfather’s farm, or walks through his plantations of blue-silver cabbages and striped zucchinis—dry red soil clinging to our shoes. No more round limes plucked from the limb or thick layers of dark coffee beans roasting in the open sun. No more conversations with my brother-in-law Kyle while we sit in his parents’ wooden house, rain pouring down outside in heavy sheets.

No more sultry bossa nova, at least not without a twinge of what-used-to-be-familiar-now-turned-exotic. No more airline instructions that I understand in either Portuguese or English, and do not remember which language was used. No more palm trees or beach-swept, salty hair or pungent scents of espresso or sautéing garlic.

No more TAM, and no more Brazilian phone numbers with the Brasilia (61) prefix code. I will not need to write +55 in front of my phone number or “BRAZIL” after my address.

After hours in the over-air-conditioned American consulate Friday morning, Athos and Ethan and I walked under palm trees, past tropical blooms and chattering macaws toward Botafogo. Then I took off my fancy heels and walked in the sand along the beach, listening to the waves roar and crash against the beach of Praia do Flamengo. Past empty cabanas where vendors sell coconuts, soccer jerseys, beer, and flip-flops during the summer months. Right across from those black-and-white wave-patterned sidewalk tiles—Portuguese in origin, yet so distinctively Brazilian.

Eternal summer, for better or for worse, is about to become a distant memory. Replaced by snow and cold noses and bitter mornings and brown autumn leaves and simple American addresses and phone numbers and postal codes. When I attend the American Christian Writer’s Conference, I will no longer be “the girl from Brazil.” I’ll be instead “the girl from South Dakota,” with a normal life and a normal residence. Only that I’m not really from South Dakota. I’m from Virginia, but I’m not really from Virginia, either. I’m from South Carolina. Although I’ve never really lived in South Carolina. It’s complicated, really—when who you are becomes somehow who you are not at the same time.



Should we move? Of course we should. We’ve been waiting for this day nearly seven years. I can’t wait to drive a car again. To speak in English and not answer questions constantly about where I’m from. To buy American clothes that fit me, and pay American prices that leave me with a little (or in some cases a lot) more left in my wallet. To earn money again instead of dividing precious reais with my husband and coming up short, all in hopes that we can both pay our bills for the week. To be near my family for a chance—my friends, my memories—and remember a bit the girl I used to be. Back before I left first for North Carolina and then for Japan so many years ago.

More importantly, Athos needs to go. He’s been blocked in here with his education and his job opportunities, neither going up nor forward, nor finding jobs in other cities, and we find our possibilities and assets decreasing almost daily in super-expensive Brasilia, which now boasts a higher cost of living than New York City. Athos needs the peacock fan of opportunities the U.S. can provide—in jobs, in career options, in movement, in locality, and in personal growth. He plans to get his master’s in the U.S.—more cheaply, more quickly, and with a wider array of choices, each of which suit him brilliantly.

My family needs to know Athos, the Brazilian in-law they love but know only as a distant acquaintance who appears in letters, notes, and occasional phone conversations. And Ethan needs to know his American family. The American life God has given him, too, which is equally as important as his Brazilian life—which he knows virtually nothing about.



We want to homeschool, which is illegal here. We want to drive and live in a relatively safer environment, pay lower taxes, choose our own schooling, and earn money to bless others, buy our first home, and adopt again. We want to plant a garden and show Ethan how a tomato grows—in our own backyard. We want him to run free, learning about trees and soil and animals and rugged life, rather than living out of a city apartment and running with whatever ill-behaved neighborhood children happen to congregate below us. We want him to step over snowdrifts and blooming columbines rather than discarded toilet paper and snack wrappers.

It’s done. We decided to move back to the U.S. ages ago, prayed toward it, and when the doors began to open, they opened so rapidly we nearly had to run to hold them back so we’d be ready. Life is never static--always moving, always changing. We cannot dig in our heels and refuse to change when the world around us is shifting, squeezing our family in directions we don't like. The time is coming; the time is nearly now. We will move forward with confidence.

For God's presence will follow us wherever we go--surrounding us like the pillars of fire and cloud as the Israelites camped on the banks of the Red Sea.

Yet I remember now, sitting here in the gray morning of the airport: that whenever we give up something, even for the exponentially better, there is always, always a loss.

I feel it. A little twinge of something sorrowful, a sob rising below the surface. That yes, Brazil, the land I once called the land of my dreams, the place that has torn me from blessing to torment and back again, I will miss you.

I cannot stay here, but I will miss you.

Seven years has woven you into my life like the patterns on a homespun hammock—in glistening, brilliant colors and darkened bands. Beautiful and deceptively strong.

And I will always carry a piece of you with me, wherever I go—like the ivory sand that sifted from my cuffs from when I unrolled my jeans after walking on Praia do Flamengo.


Jennifer Rogers Spinola lives in Belle Fourche, South Dakota, with her Brazilian husband, Athos, and three-year-old son, Ethan. She has lived in Brazil for nearly eight years and served as a missionary to Japan for two years. Jenny is the author of Barbour Books' "Southern Fried Sushi" series (second book released March 1, 2012) and an upcoming romance novella collection based on Yellowstone National Park (also with Barbour Books).

Communion

I never expected I'd be writing a post about this. About our little three-year-old son Ethan, who clapped his hands around a birthday cake and thrilled over a toy backhoe, just hours before we whisked him to the ER for vomiting and more symptoms of shunt complications. Ethan has hydrocephalus, and we adopted him more than two years ago: a tiny thing with gorgeous black eyes that looked, looked, looked up at us as if seeing into our very souls.

Since then we've spent three days at the local Brazilian public hospital, which runs together with all the hours and days spent in the previous week doing CT scans, taking blood, waiting in hospital waiting rooms to hear verdict after verdict. His shunt, which drains away the built-up cerebral fluid, had apparently malfunctioned, leaving him with dangerous levels of brain pressure.

And so we handed him over to a neural team to replace the valve and insert the new one.



Ethan was recovering well, his head wrapped in a bandage "cap," but the doctor's face didn't smile as he looked over the newest CT scan this morning. "There's bleeding in the brain," he said, pointing to some white streaks in the dark area of brain tissue. "If it clots around the valve and obstructs it, we'll have to take this valve out and insert a new one."



I felt like a wall had crumbled and hit me, sitting there in a third-world country hospital room overlooking city lights and a prominent shopping mall. The TV didn't work, the one chair in the room broken, and there were dark red stains on the concrete shower floor like blood. I shut every window and door to keep out the dengue-carrying mosquitoes which tormented my son, and both of us had to hunt down nurses to help us squeeze dangerous air bubbles out of his IV. It took an hour and forty minutes to track down help during the night. I'd slept on the bathroom floor on a single towel covered by a used hospital scrubs shirt. My husband has barely eaten any food in three days.



I could barely breathe, thinking back over the hours spent in the ER just two nights before - sights I'll probably never forget. Sick and injured people packed on gurneys lining the walls, no curtains between them. People sleeping on the bare floor and in folding chairs. To get a sample of brain fluid to test for infection before surgery, the neurologist helped carry Ethan to the only spot available: a counter in the midst of a busy trauma unit. We stepped through open stretchers full of mangled people just pulled from car wrecks, blood pooling on the stretchers and dripping in puddles on the floor. Body fluids glistened on the concrete floor. Medics rifled through the cabinets just over Ethan's head as we held him down, screaming, for a needle to drain out a syringe of fluid. He cannot even see a nurse doctor in a white coat without panicking now.

The nurse on duty got angry when I didn't know how to tape Ethan's IV tube myself, instead enlisting the help of a nearby patient. They used no anesthesia. Ethan's sheets were stained with something orange, and when they put in his IV, blood spilled into a small scarlet pool on the floor. When I walked by hours later, long after we'd been released to the neurosurgery section, those same spatters were still there on the floor - along with the stained piece of cotton gauze they'd used to stanch his bleeding.

In the swirl of shock, revulsion, and utter exhaustion, after spending twelve long hours in a crowded corner of that same ER, a pink-clad hospital worker brought all the accompanying parents a piece of bread and a cup of weak coffee for breakfast. My husband, stalwart soul that he is, refused to eat any of it and gave it to me, so I took it in my shaking hands and broke it open.

It struck me, in one of those unexpectedly jarring moments that rises to the surface of our consciousness like an afterthought, that I was breaking bread. Just like the disciples around the table with Jesus, splitting open a simple loaf. Communion - right in the middle of a busy ER, with a boy across from us sobbing, a girl asking for a trash can to vomit just inches away, and my son crying in his cramped bed while we tried to help him turn over with the painful IV in his hand.

"If you remain in me...

(EVEN NOW)

...then you will bear much fruit."

Is it really that simple, Lord, to remain in You, to remember You, even without words? To "do this in remembrance of Me" - and speak the simple prayer of faith in silence?

To know, even thought my outward body is exhausted, dirty, stained, and tear-streaked, that the One who calmed the storm and raised the dead lives IN me?

I ate, chewing the softness of broken bread, remembering His broken body on the cross for me, for my husband, for our precious son. And then when my back hurt from sitting so long in the backless chair, I leaned my head forward onto Ethan's bed. Resting my eyes just inches from a fish pattern on the woven blanket.

Bread. Fish. Christ again, there in the ER among tubes and poles and cell phones and people moaning for help. Was it not the Son of God Himself who multiplied miracles using simple fish and bread from a little boy's lunch? Feeding thousands with complete sufficiency? Certainly He has enough for me. I close my eyes and watch Him walk the shores of Galilee, telling His disciples to throw their nets on the other side. And even disbelieving, disheartened, they obeyed - pulling up a catch bigger than they could haul into the boat.

"The miraculous catch," we call it. Because what we really need is a miracle.

We need the miracle of salvation - the sacrificial death of Christ to atone for our sins so we can grasp the righteousness of God.

We need the miracle of faith - faith that rises up in the midst of scans and bad reports and tears and says, like the saints of old, "I believe in HIM!" - and in whatever comes from His hand as a gift.

We need the miracle of His constant presence - His "I will never leave you nor forsake you" - and His strength to deal with the long hours, the hard floors, the grim face of the doctor. To swallow our own fears and reach through the metal bars of a hospital bed and grasp the hand of an exhausted woman and say, in my stumbling Portuguese, "May I pray with you?" To look into our son's agonized face and kiss his fingers, and say, "The Lord loves you, and He will only do good to you?"

We are home now, with my son's shaved head and stitches and painful tears, and we are awaiting another miracle. The clotting of the blood in his brain, and the desperate prayer that it will not obstruct the valve and require yet another surgery.

A friend, hearing our cry for help and prayer, reminded us this way:

--

Hello Jenny,

I am sorry for these late news. But I am sure that Ethan has a whole army of Christians who love him praying for him. Do you remember when you first picked up Ethan, and the doctors said the valve needed to work, and the fluid on his head had to be drained, or he would have to do the surgery again? Do you remember how you asked so many of us to pray, and how Ethan got well, never needing to redo the surgery? We will all continue to pray and hope in the Lord. Ethan belongs to him. Please, don't let your spirit be dismayed. Hold firm! God can do what we can't - even help you to look at Ethan's stitches and seeing God's love and mercy in them.

Always remember: you are not alone. The Almighty One is with you!

Praying for you all.
Love,
Lila

--

What a beautiful reminder that this is not the first time Ethan has needed a miracle - and been given one. When we brought him home from the hospital at five months, his valve had begun to leak fluid under the skin - and nothing the doctors did, for an entire month, was able to stop it.

Until we prayed.



And I don't mean "we" in the sense of my husband and myself. No, I mean the "we" of a greater community of faith. After five days of unsuccessfully trying to reduce the water-swelling under the skin, my husband and I sent out an agonized email to praying, Christ-believing friends all over the globe - from Japan to Indonesia to Cameroon to the U.S. And when we got up the following morning, all of the liquid had completely receded, never to appear again.

For you see, we are the body of Christ, and in Him we are made complete. In Him our gifts are distributed and apportioned for the building up of us all as a whole.

In Him, we have communion with one another and with God.

I do not know what tonight will bring. What tomorrow will bring, or the next moment. As I huddled in our borrowed Taurus with no air conditioning for the ride home, cradling Ethan's shaved and stitched and precious head, I wondered what we would do, and how we would cope, and what if God did not come through for us in the way we wanted?

And then as I gazed out at the passing cars and trucks, speeding down a dusty, overcrowded road toward the edge of town, I remembered the trauma unit. The huge number of traffic fatalities that caps the top of the list of deaths in Brazil. The premade ER sheet at the hospital we'd just left which listed eight different types of traffic accidents for the attendant to check, since apparently it happens so often it's not worth writing it down each time.

I realized, as I held my son, that we may not even make it home.

We are not God, and we know nothing past this singular passing moment.

Except our faith in Him.

Instead I was reminded to close my eyes and enjoy the feel of my son's warm breath on my arm, and his little body sagging against mine. His thick eyelashes closed against beautiful clay-brown skin. The tiny heart beating, by God's grace, that could have stopped on the operating table yesterday. Or three years ago, never giving us a chance to know and love him beyond all reason.

As I think over these precious gifts, I am breaking bread again.

And I am asking you to join me - in communion with Christ for our son Ethan.

Guest Post: Southern Fried Writer

By Jennifer Rogers Spinola

I know many readers assume that since we international writers live abroad, we probably can’t wait to fill up our novels with details about sugar-white Brazilian beaches, ice-cold coconut water, and hot, salty, sand-like farofa manioc flour, right?

Nope. Not for me, anyway.

People often ask me—an American who’s been living in Brazil more than seven years now and two years in Japan before that—how Brazil figures into my writing, and especially my debut novel series. Well, simply from the title, “Southern Fried Sushi,” you can tell my mind is somewhere else.

Precisely.

Because many times, in the grunt and strain and sweat of pushing a heavy baby stroller on broken sidewalks in the tropical heat, or cheeks reddening as I make one more mistake in Portuguese and everybody in the grocery store or overcrowded bus turns to gawk at me, the misplaced American, I wish I WAS somewhere else. Somewhere familiar. Somewhere I’m not introduced as an American (and subsequently judged, according to the hearer’s opinion). Somewhere I can buy peanut butter and grits and not have to explain ANY of it. Somewhere where I could regress back into my un-teacher-like Southern drawl, or look around the table and see everyone holding and cutting with a knife and fork like I do, and don’t have to answer the hundredth (antagonistic) question about Bush or American international policies—while two listeners whisper and giggle together about my accent.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Brazil. I’ve loved Brazil since my first trip here as a journalist in 2000, holding dust-streaked children in rural slums near the Pantanal. It was my dream to come back. My husband and son are both Brazilian, digging into black beans and rice, pouring on the farofa, and shouting “GOLLLLLL!” at every soccer match. And I jump in with the best of them.

But—under my tropical-sun-tanned skin and deceptively Brazilian long haircut and Havaiana flip-flops—I am simply. Not. Brazilian.

I am American. A South Carolina-born Virginia native. A lover of the Rocky Mountains and ice-cold streams and mist-covered pines. A NASCAR-watching, corn-shucking, bluegrass-loving Southerner who’s somehow detoured in countries far from her own. And that’s okay. That’s my life, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

So what does this have to do with fiction writing? For me, everything.

Instead of writing about the environment I find myself in, I often find myself turning to writing—a blank page or a white Word document—to unburden my emotions. The places I miss. The memories I hold dear. The Fourth of July fireworks I don’t see, and snowfalls I long so deeply to feel against my face, just for a moment. A breath of crisp fall that I have nearly lost in years among sunshine and palms.

And so I write.

From this my first published novels were born. I thought, again, one January morning, of the places I missed. The smell of black powder and fall woodsmoke and delicate spring hyacinths. The slope of dusty purple Blue Ridge Mountains. Even the tang of soy sauce and clatter of the Japanese subway system that I’d come to love, and—like everything else—left behind in a blur of visas and passport stamps.

If you’re longing for familiar places, or even longing for some inspiration, consider your past. It may be that, like me, your old loves, and even old hates-turned-loves, will reward you with passion, details, and emotions that you never thought possible.

Jennifer Rogers Spinola lives in Brasilia, Brazil with her Brazilian husband, Athos, and two-year-old son, Ethan. She teaches ESL private classes and is the author of Barbour Books' "Southern Fried Sushi" series (first book releasing in October and now available for pre-order here!) and an upcoming romance novella collection based on Yellowstone National Park (also with Barbour Books). Jenny is an advocate for adoption and loves the outdoors, photography, writing, and camping. She has previously served as a missionary to Japan, a middle- and high-school teacher, and National Park Service volunteer. Jenny has a B.A. in English/journalism from Gardner-Webb University in North Carolina.


Valerie Comer's life on a small farm in western Canada provides the seed for stories of contemporary inspirational romance. Like many of her characters, Valerie and her family grow much of their own food and are active in the local foods movement as well as their church. She only hopes her creations enjoy their happily ever afters as much as she does hers, shared with her husband, adult kids, and adorable granddaughter.

She is represented by Joyce Hart of Hartline Literary Agency and has recently sold her first work, a novella, to Barbour Books. Visit her website and blog to glimpse inside her world.

Is Your Soup Staring at You?

A young Brazilian friend, filling up on
rice and beans at lunch.

There was a chicken head in my soup.   Between the grains of rice and bits of tomato and parsley floating in the yellow broth, his unblinking eye looked up at me. While a chicken staring from the soup was no doubt perfectly normal to the Brazilian family at the next table, it was somewhat disconcerting to me, an American missionary. (My husband across the table pushed aside the clawed foot that reached for the sky from his own bowl.)

What do your characters eat? People in different places enjoy different foods. A hard boiled egg, aged to a mottled purple, brought back delightful childhood memories to my Chinese friend while I made it a point to breathe through my mouth. My friend assured me that what gets called “century eggs” these days weren’t really that old.  “Probably no more than forty.”

Century eggs

Foods are always an important part of culture.  If you are writing about another country, researching local foods is important. Within a country as large as the US, regional differences may give your writing authenticity or make it obvious to the reader that this writer doesn’t really know and thus invalidate your whole story.

For those of you living outside the US, making us smell and taste your foods in your writing (and creating the same emotional response you would have to it), is a good way to draw an American audience into your character’s world.  There is nothing like a Christmas cookout/braai/barbie at the beach to let your readers know they are not in Kansas.

Food preparation plays an important role in women’s socialization in many cultures. I once watched a Mozambican woman glide gracefully across our churchyard with a five-gallon kerosene can of water balanced on her head. Her arms swung easily at her sides, and she never spilled a drop. A little girl of about eight followed with a restaurant-size butter tin of water on her head, held with one hand. Behind the little girl came a toddler, clutching a soup can to her head with both hands. Water sloshed out at every step.

Me, trying my hand stamping grain in tandem
with the ladies at a church conference

Mozambican women spend hours stamping, winnowing and grinding grain to prepare the staple mealie porridge (hard corn meal mush to my Southern US friends). It is a daily activity for traditional Africans. Clusters of women gather in back yards to chat while they work. And if it is a conference, there will be a dozen women or more sharing tasks around several wood fires that give the food that smoky flavor I can’t replicate on the kitchen stove. An urban African woman with a fulltime job outside the home may well grab a bag of dry mealie flour at the supermarket, but she will undoubtedly lament that although it is quick, it doesn’t taste as good. And she will miss the socializing around the huge log mortars that she remembers from her childhood.

Food preparation can provide a background activity while your characters carry on a conversation that reveals character or moves your plot forward.  The preparation itself will give readers insights into the setting. The way a character wields a knife, pounds a chicken breast, or responds to a spilled glass of milk can demonstrate aspects of your characterization. (I once heard a lecture that defined spiritual gifts based on response to spilled milk. The giver says, “Don’t worry; there’s plenty more,” and jumps up to refill the glass. The helper grabs a cloth and mops up the spill. The encourager says, “That’s all right; I know you didn’t mean to spill it.” A teacher like me irritates her kids by saying, “Next time set your glass further back from the edge so you don’t bump it with your elbow.”)

Brazilian "salgadinhos" ready for a party

My teen novel Between Two Worlds includes a scene of food preparation for Brazilian-born Cristina’s longed-for fifteenth birthday party. In that scene I show the different reactions of characters to such a non-American event.  I was also able to bring out differences and similarities (pizza!) to a typical American teen party in a natural way.

So how have you used food in your writing?

If I were to write about your region, what are some foods or food-related activities I should mention to make my story sound authentic?

___

LeAnne Hardy has lived in six countries on four continents. Her books for young people come out of her cross-cultural experiences and her passion to use story to convey spiritual truths in a form that will impact lives. You can find out more about her books and travel adventures on her website and blog.