Breaking Radio Silence

There are many reasons to maintain radio silence (or, erm, blog silence?). Sometimes you just don't have anything to say. Sometimes you have a million things to say, but they need to be said to your God and the people closest to you, not to all of cyberspace. Sometimes you don't know your next move. Sometimes you do know your next move but aren't ready to broadcast it yet. Sometimes your world is expanding and changing so quickly that your creative expression can't keep up, so you focus on just taking it all in instead of trying to document it.

There are many reasons to break radio silence. Ladies and gentlemen, it is time.

We have some catching up to do.

My amazing daughter is six months old now. She is crawling, babbling, pulling up, and loves the trashcan in the bathroom more than anything in the entire world except for maybe bananas. Her daddy and I are a close third.

  
My amazing husband graduated with a Masters in Social Science from the University of Chicago. I am at least three times more excited about this than he is (BECAUSE PRAISE JESUS IT IS OVER).

 

I'm not a school nurse anymore. It was too slow; I needed something more challenging. Now I work as a pediatric nurse at a residential facility for foster care kids with often complex medical needs called the Children's Place Association here in Chicago. It's pretty much the best thing. More on that at a later date.

We are, in a word, joyful. We have fallen in love with this city-- a twist I definitely didn't see coming. Oh, it has its problems, sure... the crime rate is a little irritating. Coming home last week to find that our apartment had been robbed was really irritating. The knowledge that winter is just right around the corner is the most irritating. But we love it. The way you love a dog even if it has fleas or occasionally poops on the floor.

This last year, our lives have been consumed with school and new city and baby and new job. We never stopped praying and considering our near future, but it was difficult to ascertain a clear direction or make any kind of real plan. Now that some of those stresses have resolved, we are elated to finally share where we are in this journey with you.

We believe, with all of our hearts, that we are called to return to Zambia. And that call finally seems attainable.

David is currently working on a Fulbright application that would provide funding for 9 months as well as invaluable contacts all over the country. If this works out, we will leave February of 2016. Zambia Fulbright applications go through two stages of review. We will know in January 2015 whether he made it through the first stage and by May 2015 whether his project proposal has been accepted.

We are also in talks with an organization called Teach Beyond that places missionaries as teachers. They're not currently working in Zambia but are very positive about starting a presence there. If Fulbright works out, we are hoping to do some of the leg-work required for this arrangement while we're in Zambia for those 9 months.

Last weekend we went with our church to a retreat center in Michigan. One afternoon we were playing cornhole and casually chatting with our pastor about our plans when a retreat center employee happened to walk by and overhear. Turns out his son's church recently started some very promising work in Zambia, and they need teachers and nurses. Hmmm... He immediately called his son and handed me the cellphone. At the very least, we are people with the same beliefs and mission working in relative proximity to each other, and that kind of support is invaluable.

These possibilities are all the result of several years of prayer, research, and sincere thought. We haven't shared every step of the journey publicly out of respect for our family and friends, who naturally struggle with the distance this will bring. We are sharing now because, above all else, we need your prayers and your accountability. No man (or missionary family) is an island. We welcome your questions and your thoughts. Feel free to leave them in the comments, or just shoot us an email.

Thank you for walking with us on this journey. May every step bring Him glory.

Teresa Leone

You are a mystery to me.

I expected to be overwhelmed, I think. I expected to be so awestruck upon meeting you for the first time… And I was, truly, but in a way I could never have anticipated. It was a quiet awe. A whisper deep in my heart. Because I think I have known you forever. We have been best friends since the beginning of time. You are an inseparable part of me.

Your daddy and I dreamed about you almost from the very beginning of Us. You have a wonderful daddy. The very best in the world. We picked out so many names for you and your brothers and sisters. They were just names at the time—names strung together by two fools who were so incredibly in love with each other and life together. And we still are, and we always will be. We didn’t even know you were missing from the dance until you joined hands with us.

I keep reaching for my belly to play “find the baby feet” with you. Those were the best worst mornings, when your persistent rolls and kicks would wake me long before the first rays of dawn crept through the blinds. You danced even then, twisting and twirling to the beat of your own little drum, contorting my belly into shapes I was sure it would never recover from. I would run my hands over your form and delight in your spunk, your refusal to be content in such a small and confined space. We are just alike in that way. Gypsies don’t do well inside stone walls, my darling, and you are the child of two gypsy souls. Someday you will wander the world… I know it. And I will encourage you in it, because as much as I will want to selfishly hold you close to me, I want even more for you to live with reckless faith and resolve, to value what is good and right over self-preservation.

But for now, you are most content curled up on my chest, your feet nestled in one of my hands and your face burrowed into the hollow of my neck. It really is okay if you want to stay that way forever.

This morning we watched the snow fall together, blanketing the city in a purity that whispers of redemption and hope and joy. I treasure the time we spend together when the rest of the world is still rubbing the sleep away. Your steely eyes seem to look right into my heart. I hope you like what you see, my love.

You are named after people who believe in the call and the promise of “on earth as it is in heaven”—people whose compassion and love and gentleness of spirit have taught your mommy more than you could ever know, though I will spend the rest of my life trying to teach you. There is a woman who shares your name from my childhood church that I was always very drawn to when I was younger. Her heart is gentle and tender and kind. I know that yours will be too. Teresa means “harvester.” Your daddy and I are drawn to a people and a world in need, both physically and spiritually. And yet, we know full well that change is slow, like a seed enveloped deep in warm soil, with tiny tendrils reaching out for water and light, ever so gradually growing stronger and taller. We want to plant those seeds, little one. Our deepest prayer is maybe, just maybe, you can someday harvest what we hope to cultivate.

Although really, truth be told, your daddy picked out your first name. He has a certain affinity for a saint and a nun from Calcutta of the same name. I hold a particular fondness for the latter, so it wasn’t a hard sell.  “I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich could get for money. No, I wouldn't touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the love of God.” I love that quotation, because it responds to the question and the misunderstanding that Daddy and I face so often—we go to those in need not merely for personal or professional reasons or because of some kind of sad pity or guilty obligation, but rather because Love compels us, and that kind of flame cannot be put out.

I picked your middle name out when I was in the 7th grade. God sent me a guardian angel, you see. Leone is her middle name too. She gave me my first real job. She taught me how to drive too fast. She tells the very best stories about her life, and so I love taking long car rides with her. She showed me how to crochet (which is why you  really have her to thank for your plethora of slippers and hats and blankets). She demonstrated, in a way I have never seen before, what it is to love unconditionally and to love “the least of these”-- even if it meant that other people didn’t understand, or got jealous, or lashed out at her for it; even if it meant that yet another person spent another night on her couch, or showed up at her family’s Christmas party, or conveniently visited around dinner time each night; even if no one said thank you; even when she was sometimes taken advantage of. She sat and read and studied scripture with me in a way that no one ever had before, and she confirmed the sneaking suspicion in my heart that God meant what He said in all of those verses and stories about Samaritans and little children and glasses of water given in His name, and so she steadied my fragile soul in the face of complacency and selfishness and pride and all of the other vices that your momma struggles with. I could fill page after page with stories about her for you, but somehow, that doesn’t seem right. Those stories should be whispered softly in your ear and held oh so close to your heart.

And there will be plenty of time for stories, and plenty of stories to fill that time. Adventures for our minds and hearts to share.

Until then, I will leave you with one-- one that I hope you will be a part of, Teresa Leone. Because Leone means “lion.” Teresa Leone. The Lion’s Harvester.  

Once upon a time, there was a Lion named Aslan…