Harm Avoidance

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.

neighborpics

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.

Much-Afraid (Looking Back on a Year in Asia Part 3)

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Trust and obey, For there’s no other way, To be happy in Jesus, But to trust and obey.

That’s the chorus to my favorite hymn as a little girl. I’m not even sure I knew what it meant at the time. But it seems to have followed me throughout my life.

I had lots of worries.

My worries took on a life of their own during pregnancy. I would inevitably contract toxoplasmosis if I so much as walked into a house with a cat (which posed some problems for a youth ministry wife who might need to visit the houses of people who owned cats). I thought I would die of tetanus from a small tape dispenser scrape, even if I was up-to-date on my tetanus shots. I was absolutely convinced my baby would have fetal alcohol syndrome if I swished with Listerine for gum health. Or the cortisone cream I used in early pregnancy? That’ll probably cause my baby to have a cleft lip.

Unfortunately, I am not making any of this up.

But who worries about that kind of stuff anyway??

That would be me, the Hypochondriac.

I’m a Hypochondriac by nature, a Germophobe by trade. My husband even came up with a song for times when the Hypochondriac started taking over my mind: “Hypo hypo hypo, hypochondriac, I’m married to a hypo, hypochondriac!”

And he wasn’t joking.

My fears threatened to swamp me when I was pregnant with Hannah. But the words of Jesus in Matthew 6:25-34 have always buoyed me. Words like:

25Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life.

 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

 30O you of little faith?

34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

After Hannah’s birth, when Jonathan first suggested we apply with Team Expansion, I was Scared.Out.Of.My.Mind, but we still moved forward with the application process. We had to take various psychological tests — you know, the kind where you answer, all-in-one-sitting, exactly 750 multiple choice questions about yourself. Then we sat across the room from the nice head doctor in Louisville as he gave us the results. One of the categories was called Harm Avoidance. (The upside to the Insanely Long Psych Test? We finally had a name for my peculiar behavior.)

I had scored a perfect 100%.

No one avoids harm better than me. No one can top that score.

Jonathan’s Harm Avoidance score was 7%.

The psychologist told Jonathan, rather sedately, “you’ll probably have to be considerate of that in your life overseas.”

Hmmm.

Really??

If he only knew. Harm Avoidance was the only reason I had reservations about going to Cambodia at all.

But I live here without fear, at least of the daily, hourly, minutely type. (Is minutely even a word? Well, I’m going to use it anyway. Because it’s an accurate description of the hounding power of my former fears.)

Oh sure, I still startle easily. I still have an overactive imagination. And I’m still germophobic enough to bring Germ-X with me everywhere I go. (Hey now, who in their right mind wouldn’t bring hand sanitizer with them everywhere they go??)

But I shave my legs, brush my teeth, and wash my dishes in the tap water. And I don’t die of massive internal infection. (And neither will you, if you visit.)

I “trusted and obeyed,” in spite of my fears. And I said “yes” to God. That is really all that can be said about my part. God’s part was graciously taking away the fears. I said yes without assurance that He would take away the fears. I only knew He would be with me in my fears. And knowing that was enough for me to say yes.

I’m no longer captive to my Fears. This is the most significant part of my journey so far. It has the greatest impact on my daily life, and I cannot take any credit for it at all. God did this. In fact, if you asked me how He accomplished this in me, I would not be able to tell you. I only know He did.

I might not be Fearless. But I’m no longer Much-Afraid.

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Perfect love casts out fear. 1 John 4:18

Why Transition is Terrible, But Having a Sending Agency is Not (Looking Back on a Year in Asia Part 2)

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In light of my first post, in which I explain how much I love life in Cambodia, I felt it necessary (in the interest of honesty, which is, after all, one of my highest values), to talk a little about our first month here.

IT WAS TERRIBLE.

And we even had help. Lots of help:

Help #1: My mother-in-law and sister-in-law came to Cambodia one week ahead of us and bought the essentials like beds, washing machine, kitchen appliances. Apparently it was not the purchasing of the beds and refrigerator, but the transporting of them up to the right floors, that was quite the feat. (They may even have this on video.) Bonus: They stocked that fridge and made those beds, and when they were all done with that, they picked us up from the airport.

Help #2:  A different sister-in-law made the 24-hour long international flights with us, our 4 (sometimes motion sick) children, and 16 pieces of checked luggage. Bonus: She stayed for an entire two weeks to do whatever we crazed parents needed her to do, like, say, wash the dishes, or watch the children. This was not overkill, as I initially expected it to be. When Mommy got holed-up-in-the-bathroom-sick, she was there. When Mommy was camped-out-on-the-couch-wanting-to-die (that’s not a joke), she was there. Her and her Angry Birds game.

Help #3: When I was brand new to the country and didn’t know how to cook or grocery shop, three different families brought us meals.

That first month was the worst month of my life by far – and that is no exaggeration. Our luggage got stuck in Seoul, South Korea, and didn’t land in Cambodia with us. It didn’t arrive until midnight the next day, leaving us without such luxuries as diapers, shampoo, clean clothes, and tooth brushes for yet another 24 hour-period. (If any of you know my obsession with careful attention to clean teeth, you understand what a hardship that was.) I think I had brought some deodorant in my carryon. Oh yeah. I was real prepared for missionary life.

familyonporch

Fresh off the plane and smack dab in the middle of Transition.

Note the missing shirts, proof of our lost luggage.

Mosquitos ate us alive. Hannah and Faith were jet-lagged. We were jet-lagged. Jonathan had to drive that very first day in country (remember the lost luggage??). As a newbie driver, he got pulled over by police four times that first month — twice on the first day. Such a wonderful welcome to the country, don’t ya think??

One meal was just . . . rice. Another was eaten in the haze of burnt French toast. The plastic-y cheese on those first grilled cheese sandwiches never did melt. Even our kids have bad memories of those days.

I didn’t have any privacy — we didn’t have curtains in the bedroom yet. We didn’t have padding or carpeting for stair safety, and the gates hadn’t been installed yet. (Everything is concrete here, and the stairs are majorly steep. My Harm Avoidance had kicked into Overdrive.) And I couldn’t for the life of me convince the hot water heater to produce hot water, no matter how many exasperated sighs I let out. (My husband, on the other hand, had no such issues with the water. He did, however, find the nightly sighing sessions quite humorous.)

We didn’t know where to buy anything, and we didn’t know the language to negotiate a reasonable price if we had.

And everywhere we went, Cambodians touched my kids. They hated that.

My feet ached from walking barefoot on the concrete floors.

I was so hot. And we came in cool season.

Everything was so dirty.

And I was so miserable.

While Help #2 watched the children, I lay on the couch and wanted to die. Jonathan cried. That’s very characteristic behavior for us, by the way. Under the influence of stress, I shut down; he cries. (He tells me this is the Trotter Way, and he is ok with it now.)

We sent out a desperate “please pray for us” email. (Thank you for praying! We felt all your prayers from the beginning and continuing throughout this past year.)

Then one day, three weeks in, I got curtains in my windows. Privacy! Yay! My stress levels went down by 50%. That was the day I decided I could live in this place. (“They” say transition ends when you make the internal decision to settle in the new place.)

Then a week later, gates were installed on the stairs. Now I didn’t have to follow my toddler around every.waking.minute. My stress levels went down by another 50%. If you’re calculating correctly, I was now functioning at 25% of the first week’s stress — although it’s debatable whether lying on the couch wanting to die counts as “functioning.” That 25% slowly but steadily dropped to pre-flight levels over the next couple months. (Sporadically, levels do pop back up, but only temporarily.)

That first month is what we call Transition — the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad period of physical, emotional, and spiritual Chaos. (To read actual journal entries from that time, click here.)

I’d like to take a moment here, to say, that without the training and support we received from Team Expansion, we’d probably still be drowning. We use the material from Team Expansion’s required training multiple times a week. Our sending church’s elders also requested that we attend a week of intensive marriage counseling before leaving the States, and we use that material nearly every day as well.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: Transition is Terrible. Sending Agencies are Amazing.

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Post Script:

While my first month overseas was by far the hardest month of my life, it does not follow that my first year overseas was the hardest year of my life. That distinction belongs to 2008. I do not merely speak for myself in this; Jonathan agrees. That was the year he began work as a first-year nurse in Truman Medical Center’s Emergency Department, while continuing to work part time at Red Bridge Church of Christ. He had to work nights and attend extra trainings and was extra tired. I was pregnant with Hannah, endured intense morning sickness, and fought overwhelming fears about health throughout my pregnancy. 2008 definitely beats out 2012 for the Hardest Year Award 🙂

When It Rains Cats and Dogs

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— by Elizabeth

It was my turn to lock the gate for the night. And because I picked that very moment to go, I have this story to tell:

I heard a loud noise overhead as I pulled the gate closed. It was an unfamiliar noise, so I thought to myself, “that must be gunfire.” (Here my inner paranoid reveals itself again. You too can discover your inner paranoid by moving to a different country. Then again, I possessed an inner paranoid in America, and you might too, so on second thought, an international move is not required.) No one else was running away or screaming, though, so I figured I was wrong about the gunfire.

I stood at the threshold looking nervously toward the noise. Suddenly two animals fell off my roof – a roof that’s 15 feet high and made of metal (perhaps explaining the gunfire-esque noises?).  These animals were locked in a fight. I’m afraid of wild animals – oh, let’s be honest, I’m pretty much afraid of all animals. So I did what any normal zoophobic would do: I hid inside my house.

A yellow cat flashed by. I waited a minute longer, just to be sure the other animal wasn’t going to come after me (again, PARANOID). I peeked around the corner of my door, and saw the neighbor’s dog, standing next to him, calm as can be. And all the neighbors were calm, too, as if nothing extraordinary had just happened. But I was like, “A cat and a dog fell out of the sky. That’s not normal!”

Sure, it feels like it rains cats and dogs during Cambodia’s rainy season, but it’s ordinary water. Two hydrogens and an oxygen, bonded together in a delightfully polar compound. It wasn’t rainy season anymore, but cat and dog rained down at my house that night.

Literally.

How Not to be Kidnapped in the Global South

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— by Elizabeth

 

1. Call your trustworthy tuk tuk driver when it’s time to run errands.

2. If he’s not available, accept the replacement he sends.

3. Bring your daughter along with you.

4. Begin to worry when he takes an unplanned detour into a gas station yet skips past the pumps. (Think: He didn’t mention anything about this. Remember you have your 4 year old with you. Is he meeting someone here to exchange drugs? Are you going to be kidnapped? Held at gunpoint? Robbed? Should you call your husband, so he knows exactly where and when you were last located?)

5. You notice he seems to be heading toward the compressed air.  That must be what he needs. No, he passes it, turns around, and gets back on the main street. Breathe.

6. Don’t freak out when he turns into another gas station, gets out, and walks away.

7. Do not panic when you start rolling backwards toward the busy street because he forgot to put on the brake. Look around calmly. Try to judge the point at which you and your daughter will need to jump out.

8. You can relax again when he turns back, apologizes, and uses the brake to prevent any further rolling.

9. Watch him go directly to the public bathroom and return 5 minutes later, presumably from Montezuma’s Revenge, Delhi Belly, or some other geographical intestinal affliction.

10. Continue with your planned errands and determine to put your paranoid tendencies to death.