Haiti – A Life Overseas |

Four Things You Could Do

There is no shortage of instructions on the interweb.

In any given month it is quite likely you will be instructed on multiple topics. The list could include:

Ten things not to say to your single friends

Five things Christians should stop saying

Ten things for a healthy marriage.

Five reasons your teen is rebelling.

Those never ending lists just serve to overwhelm me. Say this. Don’t say this. Do that. NEVER do this.

I can barely follow directions. Kraft Mac and Cheese has one step too many for me.

There are SO many instructions and they all run together and before I know it I have applied one of the items to the wrong problem. After reading all those articles I learned that my teen was rebelling because I was too controlling. Somehow I got mixed up and became certain one of the keys to a happier marriage was to be more controlling.

As you can see, there is a HUGE margin of error here.

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Today, I shall add fuel to the fire…

My list of things you “should” do to care for yourself.

One caveat, I don’t actually care if you reject my entire list. These are just some things that have been helpful to us in eight years overseas.

Guess what? Just because they helped us, doesn’t mean they will necessarily work for all of you.

Therefore, today I present to you:

Four things you could do. (Four possible not mandatory ways to care for yourselves and your families while working/living/serving and growing “overseas” .)

Time Away/Rest
Community
EMDR and Counseling
Prayer

Time Away/Rest – I don’t have to tell you this, you have heard it a kajillion times. “Even Jesus took time away”. So do that. Be like Jesus.

We all do what we do because we believe it to be important, even necessary, work. There is a tendency in all of us to cast ourselves in a role that is irreplaceable, as in “without me this cannot happen” – so I cannot rest. Well, here is the thing: If that is true, you have got larger problems than just needing a rest.

Take time off. Leave work and “mission” for a time and regroup. I am not suggesting you be a lazy lard. I am suggesting that within a system of accountability you take time away every so often because that is good for you and your family.

Community – This is easier for some than it is for others. There is a great benefit to living in community with other believers. In this day and age there is a way to have an on-line community and an in-real-life community. If you can have both, you have the best of both worlds. There should be a few people in your life that you can share your deepest fears and joys with on a semi-regular basis. There should be people that you allow to speak into those things.

EMDR and Counseling – Right now you are wondering where the heck the train left the track, you did not see it coming. Stick with me, please. EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing and it is a type of trauma treatment. Any of us that spend significant amount of time living cross culturally are almost guaranteed some trauma. I could give you sixteen examples but I will simply share this testimonial: After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti we discovered that PTSD was not just something soldiers in combat have. EMDR seemed like hocus pocus to us at first, but we can tell you it absolutely helped us with the trauma of the earthquake and other previous trauma we had not dealt with at that time. It was an effective way of dealing with small and very large traumatic happenings.

If trauma is not your issue, perhaps basic therapy/counseling would be a way to process some of the stressors of living cross-culturally. Going to talk to a professional to get some advice, feedback, or help is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of being a real, living, feeling, human being. Marriages fall apart under stress and living abroad is stressful. I am no math expert, but after some rudimentary calculations I can see that perhaps counseling would be helpful for those doing marriage outside of their home culture.

Prayer- This is a big one…Maybe even the biggest one. There are two parts to this suggestion.

First, have a team of people in place that you know you can count on when you call or write them with a prayer request or urgent need. Whether they are your parents and siblings, your home church, or a circle of friends, you will find that you need a group that will carry you when things are very difficult.

During one of our years in Haiti we had a personally devastating set-back that made it hard for us to get out of bed for a couple of weeks let alone accomplish our daily tasks. There were those “back home” that carried us in prayer until we were back on our feet and able to face life again. On another occasion we were in a parking lot in Port au Prince when I sensed danger. I could not identify what it was, but I knew I needed to go back to the car with our kids. That afternoon when I returned home I had an email from my Dad that said, “Where were you at noon? I had a strong sense you were in danger and I prayed for you guys until it passed.” You will likely have times when these intercessory prayers will absolutely matter.

Second, make prayer a part of your breathing. As you go about your day, be seeking God in each interaction and task. Try to make family and spouse prayer times a high priority. Try to pray with your community and carry one another’s burdens. None of us were meant to do this work alone, call on your Heavenly Papa and ask for His help.

As soon as I finished this list I remembered that there is a fifth thing. I guess I failed at internet bossing, cannot even count it out correctly.

5. Excercise Regular exercise will help you feel better about everything that is hard about your life. You could give that a try too.

photo copy 8 — This ^ combines prayer, community, and excercise – three of the five happening on one run.

That is my list of ~~four~~ five.

What else would you add?

What ways have you found helpful when taking care of yourself?

Consumer or Consumed?

Like many of you, we are raising our children outside of their passport country.

Our two oldest daughters have returned to life in the United States. We are currently in Texas for a few months to be near our second-born as she navigates the transition and finds her place in a world that she hasn’t lived in for seven years. As you can imagine, there are plenty of challenges and painful things to process.

Our youngest five children have lived almost their entire lives outside of the Unites States of America, their passport country. Our Haitian born children identify themselves as Haitian-Americans without feeling that either country is their home. Our American born children identify themselves as American-Haitians without feeling that either country is their home.

Last weekend we needed to take our two sons shopping for shoes. They only own sandals and we needed to go buy tennis-shoes for their first practice. For the first time in their lives they are playing on an organized YMCA soccer team. The excitement is palpable, although we figured out that they thought they were playing in a big lit-up stadium with thousands of fans, like on television. The reality of it being at a cruddy junior-high field without lights and only a dozen or so bored parents watching made it a little less epic than they originally thought it might be. How awesome would it be to live inside of the mind and reality of a kid that sees himself as David Beckham before he even walks onto a soccer field for the first time? (Very.Awesome.Indeed.) Excuse me while I digress.

We entered the shoe store with our sons, ages 9 and 12, and began to search for the perfect shoe in their sizes. Our younger son spotted a pair he liked. He picked up the display shoe and said, “Oh this is a size 3. Do they have other sizes, Mom?” Behind the display there were dozens of boxes of shoes, but having never shopped for shoes in a bona-fide shoe store, he didn’t know the system. “Yes buddy, these shoes behind the display are all different sizes, see here?” I replied.

We began trying shoes on together. Our older son said, “Oh, they let you untie them? That’s so nice.” A bit later our sons said, “Mom and Dad, these shoes cost so much!” We said, “Well guys, these are pretty average prices for new shoes.” They continued to marvel at the expense of shoes. Finally Noah picked up the display shoe of a pair of baby-size shoes. “Mom, you’re telling me that $84 for a pair of baby shoes is a normal price?!?” That is when we realized they thought the prices on the signs were for one shoe. “No guys, the price is for a pair of shoes.” – we explained.

My husband and I made eye contact and engaged in long conversations that silently said, “Oh dear Lord, we are entertained and horrified by this all at once. What have we done?!?”

A few minutes later, our almost always-joyful older son began to act odd. “What is wrong buddy?” He couldn’t answer. He didn’t have the ability to identify what was wrong right then. Later, when pressed, he said, “I don’t usually choose my shoes. They just come to Haiti.” We realized he had a valid point. He is 12 years old but for the last 7 years I have been buying one pair of sturdy sandals on-line each year and they usually appear to him without much discussion at all, and certainly without entering a store. He was stressed out by the multiple choices and was shutting down, not able to make a decision anymore.

We love raising our kids in Haiti. There are so many things we can shield them from, not least of which is advertising and marketing aimed directly at them. There are huge benefits to them, but as parents we realize that we’ve not done enough to prepare our kids for the future. If they are going to grow up (it seems like they insist upon this – which is a very large bummer) and leave our home they are going to need to be able to face choices, make decisions, participate in commerce, and understand a shoe store. We find it a tricky balance, teaching kids how to be wise and careful consumers, without teaching them to be overtly consumeristic. They need shoes. They don’t need to be sucked into the advertising vortex that sells them the “shoes will make you happy and more shoes will make you more happy” idea.

The shoe store is just the beginning of the adapting and practicing they all need to do. We don’t think it is the biggest deal ever that they don’t know these things automatically, but we think it is important that we try to help them learn. Luckily, we have a few months in the USA to work on some of these things.

If you need us we’ll be at Famous Footwear, learning.

How do you strike the balance? How do you teach a child that is exposed to one or two choices to be able to make a decision when hundreds of choices are offered? How do you teach your kids to shop while raising them in places where there aren’t many shopping options? How important do you think this is?

Tara Livesay works as a midwife apprentice in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

blog: livesayhaiti.com | twitter (sharing with her better half): @troylivesay

Carrying Water

Today’s guest post comes from Tamara White, former domestic missionary, current international consultant and therapist.

When I was in Haiti, high up in a mountain village, I was greeted every morning by a little girl who carried water for her family. The container was as big as her torso, perched perfectly on her sweet head. It seemed too heavy for such a tiny girl and I mentioned this to the pastor’s wife. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘we’d like for everyone to have accessible water but really, it’s good for the children to carry water. It is the least of their battles.’ She, of course, was right. I was there to teach about PTSD but during my stay I was informed about their battles for education, gender equality, food insecurity, and opportunity.

‘Be kind, everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.’ Plato

That was my mantra as I dove into inner-city ministry twenty years earlier. There were fun battles. Walking through a foot of snow to the latest ‘hole in a wall’ food haunt with friends. Teaching the Sunday School lesson from on top of the classroom table with some nice hip hop moves for ‘Moses’ and, my favorite – being ornery late at night and blaring Luciano Pavarotti into my Tupac driven neighborhood. And, there were dark battles. Perplexing injustice and violence, exhausting vigilance for safety, and the loneliness of pouring myself into others when I was still becoming whoever ‘I’ was. But there was something even more destructive that was leaving my soul ragged and orphaned. Depression and anxiety.

I attended small groups with other twenty somethings living in the city. I probably looked like I connected but internally, I felt void and unmoved always feeling like I was looking in. In staff and community meetings I was robust in debate but would give a big sigh as I crawled into bed feeling a mere shadow of my former self. The only time I truly felt myself was when I sang. I’ve always sang and performed but during those years, I loved worship because I felt alive, like my inner and outer being had finally merged for those few moments.

I remember helping some friends from the Jesus People apartment out of their car. We were talking about simple things. Familiar things. I was ‘spirited’ in my share of the conversation. As the wife gathered her belongings from the back seat her husband looked at me over the top of the car and said, ‘you know, Tam, it is okay to be angry.’ Me, a sweet Kansas girl happy to serve and eager to go that extra mile, angry? Shortly after that conversation one of the young women in our ministry told me, matter of factly, that I was just ‘not real.’ No one had ever said something like that to me. I was the one people sought out not dismissed.

Those two interchanges were simple, almost benign, but enough observation to slice into my façade. I was angry. And, I was submerged, not real and not accessible. I didn’t have a clue what that meant or how to deal with it so I did what any reasonable person would do and had a breakdown and left. It would not be the last time I would slowly, imperceptibly, fade away, and fall apart.

That was before I made frenemies with my nemesis. Before the devastating symptoms there are alarming whispers and I’ve learned to lean in and listen but, mostly, I’ve learned to care for myself. To those who are also the prey of depression and anxiety, this may mirror your own effort to be present instead of being submerged and fighting to breathe. Often and sadly, as a leader, or missionary, or, ‘person of repute’ as my mother would say – you do not get to be depressed or anxious. Which means you are a fool or crazy or, the very worst – needy.

After numerous battles fought, with some won but many lost, I decided that my truest offering might be to merge my 20 years of experience in ministry with the artful ministry of the soul – counseling. I know from experience that the demands of ministry, particularly in impoverished and vulnerable communities, can ‘out-crisis’ my crisis any day leaving me to silently fade and flat line. In combination, I know how vapid and confusing it can be, when faced with the challenge of serving in communities with a prevalence of trauma and consequential mental health decay, all while trying to honor culture and expressed felt needs. But my offer to you would be through my new mantra:

“Living well and beautifully and justly is ALL one thing.” Socrates

When I am not congruent in mind, body and soul, when I do not indulge in beauty and creating beauty, then justice seeking is really a mirage of intention. The Gospel tells me that I am free to float to the top, to engage, to wonder aloud about all these pains and to live in kindness because my battle matters too.

After becoming acquainted with the battles of the people in that mountain village in Haiti, what was it then that unnerved me about that tiny, little girl carrying water on her head every day? Quite simply, it was because it said, ‘I am in need.’ It was Christ, at high noon, asking for a cup from the shamed woman at the well. I get to share a cup of water with Christ when I admit, ‘I am in need.’ And when we all gather at the well, the water just might turn to wine. It’s most often not our choice what we get to carry in life, whether it is water or depression or injustice. The real battle is to be present, flatfooted and standing in our space in this world. I don’t allow my battles to remove me from my life anymore. I carry them, on my head if I have to, so I can live well and beautifully and justly. And that is kindness.

What hidden battles do you carry? What would it cost you to carry them on your head for all to see?

Tamara White, MA, NCC – Ministry: www.zoeroots.com Practice: www.zoecounsel.com

Tamara has over 20 years experience in urban, international, and diverse populations serving complex situations of individuals, teens and families in crisis. She founded and directed two nonprofit organizations in Chicago and Denver serving homeless families, teens, gang members and single mothers, with a focus on addictions, attachment, trauma and life skills. An undergrad student of theology, organizational development, and communications she holds a Masters in Counseling Psychology. Her areas of expertise are trauma and PTSD, addictions, pre/post adoption, therapeutic parenting and attachment, grief and loss and, of course, depression and anxiety. Tamara is a single, adoptive mother who resides in Colorado with her children who amuse her, pets who shed, and friends who make her laugh.

On Driving and Unsurpassable Worth

Jesus said things.

‘Love your neighbor’,

‘Love one another’,

‘Love your enemies’.

As we go about our day in the capital city of Port au Prince, we are frequently given a chance to demonstrate a higher level Jesus-variety-type of love. In the reverse we are given a chance to be an overtly aggressive giant ass that makes the local population shake their head in disgust.

In full disclosure, I fear that I must admit that the latter is more my natural bent. I don’t stay a demonstrator of high-level love when sitting with a steering wheel in my hands. Jesus didn’t specifically say, “Love the guy shoving his car up into yours making it impossible to move.” But, being a quick study, something tells me that maybe that guy falls under the “love your enemies” heading. I don’t know about you, but I feel like my enemies multiply in developing world traffic gridlock.

These things happen, then more of these things happen:

While in sitting-still-traffic, cars and trucks will jam up against you on every side, creating “lanes” where a lane-never-once-existed or even thought about existing.
Three inches between cars all headed the same direction is not seen as worrisome to most drivers in Port au Prince.
Brushing driver-side mirrors with oncoming traffic is not uncommon or worth talking about.
While you wait to turn left, in what is theoretically the only left turn lane, someone will come up on the left (technically in the lane of oncoming traffic) to turn left to the left of you. (That is not to say that someone won’t also turn left from the right side of you.)
As you approach a line up of traffic and cars not moving, cars from behind you will come around you on either side of you and try to get into the standing still line before you.
Slow down to be polite to someone turning into your lane or direction of traffic, the car behind you will honk and be annoyed with you for not jamming up against the next car ASAP like the rest of the insane world.
When the intersection is complete grid lock and there is literally ZERO movement in any direction, save the wind, a giant blaring MAC truck horn will blow unceasingly. (Because that’s helpful.)
None of this is forbidden. There aren’t really “rules” per se. There are a few intersections in the city that are notoriously ridiculous.

Between that sort of nonsensical driving, too many cars on very rough, insufficient roads, and many hours spent in those conditions on certain days, it can sometimes cause a person to feel enraged. I’m telling you, it is challenging. Perhaps this does not resonate with some expats or Haitians, but we have found one of the very hardest places to keep Jesus in our mind and actions and words – is from behind the wheel on the roads of Port au Prince. A patient person becomes impatient. A mellow and happy person becomes quite irritable.

My better half, Troy, starts out as a more cool-headed driver than I do; no news flash there. Driving makes me agitated. I try not to go far very often. My over-developed sense of justice just cannot take it. I am very much a “lets take turns and be fair” kind of person and the lack of polite turn taking pushes every hideous button in my soul.

When I do drive I have to talk to myself about it first. I need to say things like, “It doesn’t matter that it is not fair. It doesn’t matter if someone is rude. Your job is to be polite and calm.” Some days are really okay and I might not even get annoyed. On a really good day it is all funny and entertaining. On a bad day it feels like everyone is trying to crash into my precious children and it is harder to keep from muttering curse words at the idiocy of it all while employing the “if I cannot beat em, I’ll join em strategy”. It’s madness I tell you.

Recently Troy and I were together at an intersection that was meeting every single qualification for high level annoyance. It was the type of annoyance that can quickly morph into anger. Troy was driving. I was the passenger. As the less refined driver, I was watching him closely. It was truly everything I described in the list above. Troy kept making sweeping arm motions toward other drivers while saying out loud, “unsurpassable worth” – “unsurpassable worth” – “see there? unsurpassable worth!” – as jack-asses plowed into the intersection from every which way causing the already difficult situation in that intersection to become more chaotic, more ridiculous.

I was impressed that the statement itself seemed to calm my annoyance from the passenger seat. I accused him of showing off and being uber-spiritual but he said, no, it is important for him to actually think those words. He needs to literally remind himself of that in order to keep from getting very angry at times.I think I’ll try this the next few times I come up against insanity on the roads to find out if it works. I also think I’ll try it when I read the news, or see friends fighting about politics or whatever-thing on Facebook, or when someone lies to me, or steals or cheats.

Annoyed with someone? Repeat after me: Unsurpassable worth, unsurpassable worth… Unsurpassable worth. Fine, be annoyed … but if keeping the annoyance from turning to rage or bad behavior is a sub-goal of yours, just try it with me. Jesus told us each and every one has unsurpassable worth; that all alone they are worth the price He paid.

Yes, even drivers in Haiti.

Tara Livesay – works with women (and drives) in Port au Prince, Haiti

Blog: Livesayhaiti.com Twitter: @TroyLivesay

Some more humorous articles on A Life Overseas you might enjoy:

“Thieves, Cannibals, and other Comic Relief”

“My Kid Can Cuss in Two Languages”
“You Owe Me Grace”

Storytelling

As I interact with the precious people of the island I inhabit, and as I build relationships and get to know women on deeper levels, something unusual and confusing happens in my heart and mind.

I find that I want to honor and remember every last detail of every story shared with me – AND – I want to forget immediately, all of the painful things I am trusted with each week.

When we first moved from Minnesota to rural Haiti, long before I could authentically say, “I love this place and I love these people”, I found it quite easy to take photos and paste stories on the world-wide web about the lives of other people. Many years into our journey, I write less and my husband takes fewer photographs than he did in our early years here.

I think a lot about the responsibility that comes with telling the stories of Haitian people. We’re not journalists, we’re not hired to tell stories, we’re not experienced professional writers. We’re sharing Haiti from one unique perspective that certainly cannot even begin to cover all of the angles. We’re not experts on this culture or country. We never will be. We are searchers. We are changing day by day because of our experiences here. We are learners that care about this tiny little piece of land in the Caribbean.

“It’s about collecting other people’s pain and trying to hide it, write it,

catalog it, transform it, understand it, avoid it.”

Emily Troutman

Every day, month, and year on this beautiful and complex island brings us to a greater realization of how little we understand. The only “experts” around here are the people who have been here a couple of weeks or months. (Ouch. Was that too much snark? I repent for my snarkiness and admit that I give myself this pass to be snarky because with time a lot of us realize that we know less. Most of us laugh at how little we understood back when we thought we knew it all.)

We’ve come to care deeply about this place and her people. Our biggest fear in sharing our experiences in Haiti is that we, in places of discouragement or frustration, might disrespect the people of Haiti or generalize when generalizing is simply unfair. We never want to do that. We don’t wish to preside as judge of anything; it is impossible for us to completely understand the complexities of the lives of the people of Haiti. It is unlikely that outsiders and newbies could ever totally comprehend history and culture.

A large portion of what happens each week is never written. The stories left untold usually remain that way simply because framing them without all of our personal biases and disillusionment would be impossible. Those stories are for late night exchanges between trusted friends over a bottle of wine. They are to be trusted to God in humility and prayer. Some stories are so difficult we simultaneously want to remember and forget.It is painful to read comments from people who despise this little island. We get them occasionally and over time we’ve found that it doesn’t hurt in the least to be told we’re crappy parents or people, or that we’re stupid or abusive to “force” our kids to live here. Our skin has thickened enough to take that. But when people say terrible things about Haitians it grieves us. The level of animosity and prejudice can be shocking. Those odious words have actually served to help me be more aware of the times I am “down on Haiti” and making generalizations based on one discouraging encounter.

We’re grateful to know that there are those in the world that follow along and pray, that care deeply about the struggles of the people of Haiti. We are grateful to know that the Internet allows each of us to have a team of prayers, givers, and lovers of our respective lands – standing with us to love the worthy and beautifully unique people we walk with around the globe.

Our prayer and desire is that we share the stories with the utmost care and respect for the dignity of the people that we so want to esteem and uphold. We are guessing that is your prayer too.

~ ~ ~ ~

Do you struggle with which stories to tell, and which stories to hold close to your heart? Do you ever feel frustrated by unkind feedback from the stories you share?

Tara Livesay works as a midwife apprentice in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

blog: livesayhaiti.com | twitter (sharing with her better half): @troylivesay

Short Term Missions and a Church in Haiti

Guest writer and missionary to Haiti, Shannon Kelley, shares a short term missions experience.

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It’s a typical Sunday. My family walks over dirt roads about a mile to a little cinder block church. We are the only non-Haitian’s there. We sit amongst our friends – people with hard lives that get down on their knees and pray prayers that make Jesus feel palpable in that room. The kids sit mostly well-mannered in fear of being shushed by some of the elders in the church. There is no fanfare. We sit in our usual seats. A couple guys bang on handmade instruments to worship. It is beauty.

Several weeks later I sit within those same walls. This time a group is visiting on a short-term mission trip. Today there are plants and decorations lining the “stage” and the crackling of a mic with a short in it makes it impossible to understand much. The pastor spent last week’s offering on gas for a little generator to power a mic and keyboard player just for today, for the group. The handmade instruments I love sit unused in the corner. The blan (white) pastor leading the team gets up and introduces his team by name, making them parade to the front.

As the service wears on, a few of the moms of the group motion for some kids to come sit with them. They proceed to chat and play with them while, unbeknownst to them, the congregants are praying. The elders that typically shush the kids shake their heads and don’t say anything because they don’t want to insult the visitors. The kids know this and take full advantage of playing with cameras and phones and other gadgets, being generally disorderly in comparison to the usual way they’re expected they behave. I sit there and wonder how we would feel if we were sitting in a church in the States and a group of people from another country came in and acted that way.

Church ends and the visitors go on to do their week of serving the community. I watch as the labor they do takes away jobs from the nationals, like construction and painting. The money from their airplane tickets could provide employment for Haitians which in turn feeds families.

Sometimes service from foreign groups can be fruitful and I can see the need for it. They leave the village better off by training pastors, educating Haitians, and supporting the long term missionaries. I wonder, though, if the risk of having a group who might do more damage than good is too great.

I’m struggling with the good of short term missions. I see the side of it that is good because it shows people a different part of the world and challenges their faith. But are we searching for substance in our lives at the mercy of those we came to help?

I don’t know the answer. Let’s talk. What has your experience been with short-term teams? What methods effectively help all those involved, nationals and foreigners alike?

More on STMs: A Case for Short Term Missions | Is the Price Tag Worth It? | Rice Christians and Fake Conversions

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Shannon Kelley lives in a rural fishing village with her family on the Southern tip of Haiti where they fight for families. Follow their journey here:
www.shannon-kelley.com/blog

Reminiscing and Dreaming

Today’s guest post comes from missionary mom Shannon Kelley. Here, Shannon shares a practical idea for being intentional as family as we leave last year behind and look forward to the New Year.

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I’m a big fan of the New Year. There is something hopeful and exciting about it. I love reminiscing over the past year and dreaming about what will be in the next. This New Year was very different from years past. Instead of hanging with family and watching the ball drop went to sleep at 8, since the sun goes down here at about 6pm and we now think 8pm is late. We celebrated by pumping water into buckets for a shower and trying to not jump every time a homemade firework went off right outside our window.

Before we moved to Haiti our family made a couple promises. One was to sit down yearly and have a family meeting where we are truly honest about: where we are, what needs to change, and are we still aligned with what God called us to. In an effort to spice up New Years in a little remote fishing village in Haiti, and keep our promise of sitting down as a family to really talk about where we are in this crazy journey of following God, we did just that on New Year’s Eve.

It’s not really about resolutions. It’s about coming together to be honest and take inventory over the past year and prepare as best we can for the New Year. It’s about realizing life is too short to not really dive in to what God is calling us to. Want to join us?

Make it fun. Make snacks, give everyone fun paper and a pen to write on, make it a game or sharing time. Give the kids crayons so they can draw their answers if they want. Or if your kids are older, designate a “scribe”. Take is seriously but make it fun! If you are single or want to do this alone, find your favorite place to cozy up, grab your favorite journal and make it a special moment just for you.

Write it down. Don’t just talk about it. Writing it down makes it a memory, holds you accountable, and helps propel you after this exercise is over.

Pray. Ask for blessings and honesty during this time. Take time for the questions; force yourself to authentic answers, past the pat answers.

Here’s the list we use. Feel free to modify the questions to suit your situation. Grab some pens and paper, get some popcorn popping and ask your family some or all of these questions.

-Think back over the past year. What would the theme of the year be for you?

-Where did you see God specifically move?

-What worked for you and your family and ministry?

-What could have been better?

-Set aside 5 minutes of brainstorming big dreams for the New Year.

-What are you letting go of in 2013. Quit something.

-2012 was the year….

-2013 is the year I will…

Now share some of your answers, even if it’s just with your immediate family. Telling others has boldness in it and inspires others while empowering you.

You can leave a comment here with some of your family’s answers so we can motivate each other. I added some of the answers from our family below.

Shannon Kelley – lives in a remote fishing village in Haiti working with Harvest Field Ministries. blog: www.shannon-kelley.com/blog twitter: @alohashannon