Elizabeth’s

It’s 1am, and I need an Epi-Pen (Or, How Harm Avoidance Can Disrupt Your Sleep)

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If you are known for your 100% Harm Avoidance, and are awakened from a dead sleep by two insanely itchy mosquito bites, which are swelling your fingers into sausages, and preventing you from closing your fist because your swollen skin is stretched too tight, and your arm is numb and tingly all the way up to your elbow, you may become afraid that if that tingly feeling gets to your heart, you Might Die. (Wait. Is that the risk for snake bites? Or rabies infection? Or blood poisoning?) Then you just might wake your ER nurse husband out of his dead sleep to inform him of your fears.  This is a completely rational train of thought.  After all, he will probably need to administer the epinephrine.

But, if you wake him and say, “I think I’m going into anaphylactic shock,” he may very well respond by singing his “Hypo Hypo Hypo Hypochondriac, I’m married to a Hypo, Hypochondriac” song. Because although it may be the Worst Mosquito Bite of All Time, requiring no less than 3 applications of Benadryl cream to reduce the swelling and the tingling, you are, in fact, Not Dying. Unfortunately your husband will now know just how absurd you can be under the influence of Harm Avoidance. (But you can claim it was the 1am stupor talking.)

Not that I would know anything about that.

epipen

Good Samaritans (On Trusting My Neighbor and Engaging the Culture)

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After we’d lived in Cambodia a year, it was time to renew our auto insurance. Jonathan dropped off the documents at the insurance company office, and they were supposed to process them and return them to us.

A convenient time for them to deliver the documents happened to be when Jonathan was at language school. He gave them directions to our house (over the phone and in Khmer). The closest the delivery guy managed to get was the bank that is three blocks from our house.

So it was up to me to get those documents from that delivery dude.

When Jonathan called to tell me what I needed to do, I panicked. (Harm Avoidance alert.) “I can’t do that! I can’t leave the kids alone in this country!” He calmly instructed me to lock the kids in the house and run down the street to meet the insurance guy. Lock, and run.

Now there’s something you should know about walking on my street. I don’t like to walk too far. Dogs are always wandering around, looking for food scraps in trash bags. We see and hear these dogs fighting all.the.time. And you all know how I feel about wild animals.

So here I had myself quite the situation. I had to leave my kids alone in a foreign country. Not with-a-baby-sitter-alone. Alone alone. I had to walk down the street, past the place where the dogs congregate. Preferably hurriedly, since this guy was waiting for me at the bank.

Deep breath. I had to do this thing.

Thankfully the baby was sleeping in her room. I told the 3 older kids to stay in the living room for 5 minutes and play nicely. Mommy had to do something.

The neighbors were outside playing as usual.  An adult volunteer was playing with them. I locked my front door. Then suddenly, something clicked inside my brain. I didn’t lock the gate. I wasn’t worried. I didn’t even tell the neighbors I had to run an errand and was leaving my kids inside. These neighbors are always watching out for us. I trusted them not to allow an intruder to break into my house in broad daylight.

I told myself: Lock, and run.

So I did.

No tuk tuks asked me if I wanted a ride, even though 2 of them passed me. No one stared at the white lady walking down the street in a hurry. (No one walks in a hurry here.) We are neighborhood fixtures now, not a novelty.

It felt good, to know my neighbors take care of us. (And as an unrelated side note, it also felt good not to pass any rabid dogs.)

But our neighbors might move away. Several months ago the owner of the row house next door posted a sign that he wanted to sell the house. He gave the renters a one-year notice. When Jonathan learned that, he was sad. When I learned it, I was a mixture of sad and happy emotions, but mostly, happy.

Because they have lots of trash in front of the house.

Because they are always cooking with fish and fish paste.

Because they get in my personal space.

Because they get in the way of our van when leaving or coming home.

But that was before, and this is now. Now I’m not bothered by those things nearly as much.  On occasion I even think the fishy cooking smells good. (Gasp!)

Our neighbors are my main way of engaging the culture. I don’t have a lot of easy or natural ways to engage the culture – we homeschool all day, and I’m no longer studying language full time. But when I leave the house on my errands, they are always outside, available for chatting. (Most of the people in our row house don’t spend much time outside; these neighbors, on the other hand, are almost never inside.) After we finish school each day, we go outside to play, and the boarding school kids are always around for my kids to play with. They’re usually making supper about that time, and we talk in Khmer with both the kids, and with the adults who take care of them.

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If they move, I will miss those times.

When I was irritated by them, I didn’t really know them very well. As I got to know them better, I also got better at looking past the irritations. I forgot those irritations even existed. By the time of the Lock and Run escapade, I realized that I would no longer be happy about them moving away . . . not even a little bit.

My neighbors are Good Samaritans to me. Blessings from an unexpected source. A source that may or may not always be with me. But one I’m nonetheless grateful for.

Random Update

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I recently expanded the About Elizabeth page. I was hoping to give a rhyme and reason for what ends up on the blog (and what doesn’t). If you’re interested, check it out here.

A Sorrow Sandwich, and a Guest Post

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by Elizabeth

Most of the time living in Cambodia, I don’t feel like I am making huge sacrifices for God. In fact, I’ve found many things to love about living here. I’ve discussed this before, and in a future post, I plan to discuss more specifics about the joys of our life here.

I am so happy here that I sometimes forget that other people have made sacrifices for me to be here. Reminders come in the form of my children, when they miss the family and friends they’ve left behind in America. They come in the form of Skype sessions with my parents, when I realize anew how very much they miss us.

So I am sandwiched in the middle of two generations of people who have, in many ways, sacrificed more than I have – much more. My parents.  My children. I have caused people I love to suffer. And I did it voluntarily. You might not hear many people talking about this. You are more likely to hear people talk about the sacrifices of the missionaries themselves (whether or not it’s a missionary who is speaking). But I think that does an incredible injustice to the thousands of people in America who are sacrificing right now to send a loved one overseas.

My best friend in America was the kind of girl who dropped everything the day Jonathan’s dad was diagnosed with brain cancer, just to sit with me in my shock and grief. She’s the kind of girl who would drive to my house when my husband was out of town, so that after my kids were asleep, we could talk for hours and hours. She’s the girl I laughed with and cried with for eight wonderful years. She’s also a writer. So I asked her to write about how she felt saying goodbye to me. And this is what she wrote:

A Letter from Home

by Teresa Schantz Williams

Last year, Elizabeth and Jonathan and their foursome said goodbye to their families and friends and flew toward the adventure God chose for them. Those left behind, with none of the distractions of a new culture, slowly adjusted to their absence. The Trotters were missing from the daily landscape of our lives, and knowing this was going to happen didn’t make it less painful.

At first when they left, I kept forgetting. I’d pick up the phone, punch in their number and sheepishly hang up. Or I would think I saw Elizabeth coming out of the library and wave too warmly at a confused stranger.

It was like when you rearrange the contents of your kitchen cabinets and spend the next four weeks trying to relearn where you store the salt. Things weren’t where they were supposed to be.

Their pew at church was too empty. No squirmy bodies next to Elizabeth’s mother, Mary, munching on grandma’s snacks and vying for grandpa’s lap. Those first few months were hard on the families stateside, especially as news of distress and health crises came their way. Powerless to help, family prayed.

A missionary wife once told me she hadn’t understood what the extended family sacrificed when she and her husband left for the mission field. She had since come to see that they relinquished precious time with their children and grandchildren, forfeited shared memories of celebrations and milestones, and suppressed their instinct to rescue when things went wrong.IMG_0915.edits

Some are called to go.  Some are called to let go.

If you have to say goodbye, this is the century to do it in.  My grandmother had a dear friend who was a missionary with her husband in Burma during the 1950’s.  Somehow they held their friendship together with letters and furloughs, and in the long silences between, they prayed.

Facebook, Skype, blogs, email have closed gaps. Within the digital universe, both sides of the ocean can post photos and videos and updates. Elizabeth can share funny stories about the kids, so women back home can “watch” them grow. To celebrate their special days, one can browse their Amazon Wish Lists to find a gift, or select something from itunes. Even international travel is more feasible than it once was. Visits are possible.

Nothing substitutes for presence. These days, I can’t sit next to the bathtub and hold Faith while Elizabeth brushes the boys’ teeth. I can’t watch the boys wrestle or Hannah belly-surf down the stairs. I can’t go to a girly movie with Elizabeth and rehash our favorite parts on the drive home. I can’t watch her eat the frosting from the top of a cupcake and leave the rest because she only eats the part she wants.  I can’t hug her.

I concentrate on what I can do.  I translate twelve hours ahead and try to anticipate what they might need.  1 p.m. here?  Asleep there.  I pray that the girls aren’t waking them in the night, that their colds will soon be gone. I pray that they will be able to play outside every day this week. That Elizabeth can find hummus at Lucky’s grocery store.  I pray the details.

I can look over Elizabeth’s shoulder and see the frontlines of world missions and watch God’s plans unfold.  I can see what the Holy Spirit has done in her, enabling her to do things I wasn’t at all sure she could do. (Bugs, germs, smells, change in all forms.) And through her blogging, the special qualities I knew were inside her are out where others can see (humor, insight, modesty in all its expressions).

Perhaps it sounds overdramatic, but I’ve concluded that for me, missing my missionary friends is a standing invitation to resubmit to God’s plans. My true and proper worship.

“I thank God for you—the God I serve with a clear conscience, just as my ancestors did. Night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. I long to see you again, for I remember your tears as we parted. And I will be filled with joy when we are together again.” (2 Timothy 1:3, NLV)

When Cross Cultural Living Makes You Stupid (Looking Back on a Year in Asia Part 6)

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ponyrides

Bilbo Baggins (of Hobbit fame) once reflected, “Adventures are not all Pony-rides in May-sunshine.” Sometimes, though, unfortunately, those pony rides can lead to stupidity. Or maybe it’s the May sunshine?? Whatever the cause, for me, the end result is the same: Stupid. Here is my proof that cross cultural living can, indeed, make you Stupid.

My Knight in Shining Chacos

We purchase our drinking water (in the form of 5-gallon containers) from a man on our street. His type of in-home shop is very common here. These shops sell drinks, various packaged candies and junk food, and paper and cleaning products. We really like our water guy. He is cheerful and eager to help. He always knows what we want and has enough water on hand (which is quite a lot in hot season). He will even deliver the water to our house.

One evening in January we were playing outside. The sun was creeping lower in the sky. Suddenly we remembered that we were running low on water. I decided to walk to our water shop and buy some water, which means taking empty containers and exchanging them for new, full containers. I had been pushing Faith in her purple push toy, and Jonathan suggested I just take her with me. Hannah wanted to tag along too. I thought that would be a fun little outing for the three of us girls.

I managed to push Faith and hold a water jug with one hand, and hold onto Hannah with my other hand. Hannah also had to hold a water jug in her tiny hand. Jonathan wondered if we’d be ok. I assured him, yes, we’ll be fine. It’s our water guy, it’s our street, no problem. So I left Jonathan at our house, playing football with our sons, feeling quite confident in my errand-ing ability.

The water place is just past the dress shop. At least, it has been all year. But when I got to our water shop, our trusty water guy wasn’t there. Some guy I didn’t recognize was sitting on a chair. And he didn’t recognize me either.

Ok, Elizabeth. It’s time to put the two water jugs down. And do some thinking. I think to myself, is this the right place? I’m just past the dress shop, where we always get our water.  I’ve been here 100 times. And this shop doesn’t look the same as my regular shop. Instead of having lots of drinks and junk food, it’s nearly bare, except for a washing machine against the wall (which wasn’t there before).

Is this not the place?? I ask myself if it could possibly be past the alley with barking dogs? I shook my head. No. We never pass the alley to get to the water. I stand stupidly at the edge of that alley. There I am, with two little girls, a purple push toy, two containers in need of exchanging, and the money with which to do the exchanging. I didn’t even have to talk to my regular water guy. He knew what I wanted when I showed up with empty containers, and I just handed him the money. I might have to talk to this new guy. Except my brain is tired after a long day of homeschooling the boys, and I had neglected to put on my Khmer Thinking Cap. (In all fairness, I didn’t think I’d need it.) In my confusion I cannot get ANY intelligible Khmer out of my mouth.

The sun in the sky is in that eerie, almost-twilight stage. I can see my own house as I stand there. But where in the world am I???? I am completely lost. I am convinced I must be in a parallel universe. And I don’t even believe in parallel universes.

I am so confused, and I look it. What should I do? I know I’m not at the right place to buy water, but how can I just walk home with empty hands, er, containers? And what if I’m not in the right dimension after all? I might never make it home, even if I try.

Then, there he was. A Man in Sandals, walking towards me. Jonathan’s keen observational skills had told him that I was in need of assistance, even from 100 meters away. Oh thank goodness. I don’t have to believe in parallel universes after all.

Jonathan HAD put on his Khmer Thinking Cap that day (as he does every day), and he talked a bit with the guy who has taken over our old water shop. Apparently when we weren’t looking, that family moved away. Now we have to buy our water elsewhere.

But I’ve seriously got to watch out for those pony rides in May sunshine.

And here is my message to you:  In whatever myriad ways you may have embarrassed yourself today, take heart in this one simple truth — at least you didn’t get lost on your own street.

photo source here