Stories From The Dominican: Sharing Work Gloves With A 10-Year-Old

Photo from SJB Photography 

When I was 10 years old, I spent my free time playing street hockey in our neighborhood, or at soccer practice complaining about sweating. A ten years old, I think I had two chores to get done throughout the week. Dariella is ten years old and she lifted cement buckets with me this week on her summer vacation.

My adorable, gentle friend Dariella. 

Dariella was in my VBS (Vacation Bible School) group that consisted of 8-10 year olds. The first day she came right up to me and held her hands up eye level with palms facing towards me with an expectant look on her face, slight smile. Being that I had watched the local girls all of 15 minutes, I'd seen enough to know she wanted to play a hand game with me in which I knew about... um zero of the motions. 

She patiently somehow taught me the game, while giggling at me for messing up a few times. Then she'd start me back at the beginning of the game and teach me again. So sweet and gentle in her teaching, I couldn't help but smile each time I laughed with her at my expense. We didn't really understand each others language, but I understood her.

VBS finished each day at around noon and the kids were expected to go home or go play as the Americans moved on to working the construction site to continue work on the school for them. 

After a few hours the first day of work, Scott (our leader from VisionTrust who basically ran the construction site) gave me a job to get everyone together to run the cement bucket line so we could lay the cement down in the courtyard area. Moving from the cement mixer to the other end of the site. 

I had already noticed that a lot of the Dominican kids had jumped in on a few of the projects; helping us paint or move things. Some of these kids were 14 year old boys, some were as young as 6 years old. As the cement was being put in a bucket and passed down the line of 20 people, each swinging the heavy bucket to the next, people grunted and strained. 

At the point where I saw too big of an opening in the line, I moved to the front of the line next to some American boys. While we waited for the cement mixer to finish a load of cement, I see Dariella stand in the line right next to me. 

I got a look on my face, thinking of how I could to explain to her that she wasn't able to help, that the buckets would be too heavy and hurt her fragile hands. I didn't know how to say any of that in Spanish. What was I supposed to do? 

So, I gave her one of my gloves. I demonstrated how we would both hold on to the bucket and swing it to the boy next to us together. Sort of like a four legged race, but with our hands. The buckets started coming so I smiled at her as we both grabbed the metal handle of the bucket and swung it. She looked up at me and gave me a thumbs up at our accomplishment. 

Obviously a REALLY attractive picture of me. 

But I'm looking past that to show how sweet Dariella is here as we share gloves.

My heart melted. A good five or six more buckets came by and we worked together, each using only one of our arms to move the bucket that usually took both of my arms and a good amount of strength. Each time, her gentleness would shine out of her through her sweet smile. I don't know if she was proud of herself, if she liked helping, if she wanted to quit the line. But when that load of cement was done and we had a bit of a break, she held her hands up to me, one of which had my glove on and wanted to play our hand game together. 

More pictures from the trip:

Photo by SJB Photography; Obviously the kids were all up in the work site, just wanting to help and/or wanting to be around us. I'm not entirely sure we Americans would have done the same in return, sadly. 

Photo by SJB Photography of the concrete bucket line. This was supposed to be an effective way to get the concrete down to the other end, but sometimes it just ended up being silly. The buckets were pretty heavy and we needed to wear gloves to the metal of the bucket didn't cut our hands. 

Our construction site from a distance. We eventually got the roof up by the end of the week.

Stories From The Dominican: An Overview

On Thursday, all the Americans cried. Cried because we saw how deeply these relationships formed with the kids and the community. Cried because we had to leave behind parts of our heart.

I really don't know how to explain how we can fall in love in only a few days with kids who don't even speak our language. This can only be through God's overflowing love through us.


The language barrier was tough, I don't know why we didn't think of brushing up on our spanish before heading down there. We desperately wanted to have conversations with these kids while sitting under a tree in the heat. I wanted to know what their life was like. I wanted to know if they had dreams, or if their struggles as an eight-year-old were the same as ours.

Samantha (my cousin) and I without makeup and good showers all week. 

But we loved these kids so much we didn't really care. 

But even without being able to put together full, complex sentences, we asked how old they were; we asked how many brothers and sisters they have, and if they liked school and what games they liked to play. After that, we ran out of ways to "normally" communicate. But this is what I learned about love: it can speak many languages and yet only one language. 

When I looked at these kids, I can only hope they saw how much I adored them. I watched them sing songs about Jesus and concentrate deeply on properly doing their crafts. I can only hope they felt how much I adored them as I watched them live freely for a few hours while playing Dizzy Ball and trampling through mud. I held their hands while walking, I held their hands while standing on the sideline while they had to watch their one-year-old brother for the day instead of play. After I asked them to write their name on their craft, I drew a heart in the corner and smiled at them. My eyes twinkled (is that cliche? Oh well) as I watched them just live as a kid should.

Notice me rockin' the sunglasses to glam myself with these kids. 

But this love that literally flowed right through me really cannot logically come from me. As a human, I cannot fall in love with someone else's child whom I knew nearly nothing about personally. My flesh has a hard enough time loving the people I actually do know. We are flawed at humans with love that is fleeting and inconsistent.

I know it MUST be from God that this love is coming from. The one language God speaks perfectly, with no American accent, with no messed up conjugated verbs. God even loves us (Americans) so much that He allows us the be used to give His love. I only feel blessed that I was able to be used by God to love these kids.

There were many stories from this past week that I cannot wait to share. These kids are forced to grow up so quickly- getting jobs at 7 years old, providing for their family before they're 13. I just hope they felt loved for one week, and that there was so much love in this past week that keeps them going.

Yo, I am running 13.1 miles in my dream town!

Bad news is I am not a consistent blogger. By the time I finish work for my clients, I am surprised I can even look at my own Twitter feed, much less write up a blog post. 

Good news is that while I am not consistent in my blogging, I am consistent in my half marathon training! Today I am in Nashville running the St. Jude Country Music Marathon and Half Marathon. 

I've run this race with my mommy many times before, and it's our thing now. And I've spent many. many weeks running and training. In rain, in snow. In both because we all know how Michigan weather is. 

And really, I just love this race because I love Nashville. My heart feels home there, and I don't care how cheesy that sounds. So, I'll be blowing up everyone's newsfeeds with pictures. And a recap when I return. 

#runCMM

A #1833Miles Update and My Mistake

I've had a bar graph on my refrigerator since the beginning of the #1833Miles project. This bar graph was to show how much money I raised for my mission trip and it drove me a little insane because it didn't move for a while.

But today I get to finally announce that I have raised ALL the money needed for my mission trip. But really, this was all God. 

But I did want to thank everyone who donated and sent prayers and loving notes. It means the world to me that I have such an amazing support system and I'm so excited to travel the miles to see and feel God's love.

I made a mistake at the very beginning of this, though. I didn't even ask God if I could go on this trip. To some people, you may have rolled your eyes at me, but whatever. I just decided the day it was announced at church that I was going. Now the problem with not asking is that I chose to not involve God in it then. Here I made this commitment to walk every step of my life with God, and I didn't even ask if I could travel to another country.

In my family, we fully believe in that God will supply all of our needs (Phil 4:19) and that we can have all the desires of our heart if we delight ourselves in the Lord (Psalm 37:4) but I know those verses get taken out of context a lot.

So, I started to worry that I was basically saying "God I want this and I want to you supply all of my needs" which to me is similar as to when people use those verses to say, "God I want this huge new house and I want you to find me the money for it."

So, I prayed those prayers while I worried about the bar graph not moving and I started to worry about how bad I messed up. And if anything, I learned from all of this that even if I stumble up and accidentally forget to ask God to keep his hand in everything of mine, he can still look past it once in a while and bless me. (Try not to read the word "bless" as a cliche. I take this as a blessing completely because I really didn't deserve this.)

But bottom line: I'm ready to go on this #1833Miles journey even more so now! 

Quarter Life Conference #QLC Recap

I had March 21 marked in my calendar for the Quarter Life Conference probably from the moment it was announced. Whatever, I'm a loser/geek/nerd. I just miss school and learning, okay? 

The conference is streamed online, in the evening and it's free. It's meant for 20somethings, but even my dad overheard some of it and took something from it. There are four #QLC scheduled each with a different theme and different speakers. This first one was revolving around relationships. 

With each of the six speakers, I tried to absorb as much knowledge as I could. As I sat and listened/watched to the #QLC live, I probably took notes as fast as I did when I was in college (plus I live-tweeted it) So, here are my notes:

Speaker: Annie Downs
(Blogger/Author. Writes mostly for high school and college aged women. Liked her obviously based on the fact that she's a Nashvillan)

• Posed the question "How many season's have we missed because we were so busy trying to date/find "the one" etc.?" and I immediately thought of all I possibly missed/messed up on because I was too concerned.
• Don't make life revolve around marriage, like many of us women do. It's something we either put as something to check off our life list, or we treat it as a solve-all for our problems. That's not the way.
• Do things that make life interesting, so when you do find someone you can share an interesting life. Or you can use those things to help you get introduced to people of like-minded taste.

Speaker: Bill and Pam Farrel 
(Authors/Co-Founders and Directors of Love-Wise organzation. An overall adorable older couple that make my heart melt a little bit)

• Explained the difference between men and women. Women connect everything in their lives, and men put everything into boxes and move from box to box. 
• Men get frustrated by the way women process stress. Women (in general) process stress by talking through it. Men process stress through "easy boxes."
• This is a physical difference in men and women too.
• BUT this is a learned skill to understand. Don't try to fix it, but just change how you understand the other.

Speaker: Justin and Trisha Davis
(Authors, and also have a crazy marriage story that made me break down and cry)

• This story really is amazing. Basically, they married young and assumed that the longer they were married it would turn it into a better marriage. But what happened was he started to have an affair with her best friend. And instead of getting a divorce, God fixed their marriage after something that would probably eternally hurt me. After the affair, Justin said, "God broke me down."
• Both men and woman have a desire to be fully known.  So, we might look EVERYWHERE for that. In our spouse. In our work. 
• The only person who can FULLY KNOW us is God. "...Fully known by God and as we allow ourselves to be fully known, it is then that we are able to defeat fear" [when talking about our insecurities]
• *Note- the was the most transparent speaking I've seen in months. Worth watching the whole conference just for this knowledge. 

Speaker: Gary Thomas
(Author of 15 books including Sacred Marriage: What if God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than Make Us Happy) 

• Infatuation has a lifespan of 12-18 months. What happens after that? 
• Christians singles don't get married for any better reasons than non-christians. Sexual chemistry, romance, a bunch of small minded reasons. 
• We aren't enthralling enough to keep people entertained forever. 
• How many couples get married just because they have a good time together? 
• On marrying a non-christian: Do you want to get THAT vulnerable with someone who isn't moved by the Holy Spirit? 
• Most changes in marriage happen because of prayer and worship .

Speaker: Joy Eggerichs
(Director of Love and Respect Now, daughter of authors who wrote the well-known book "Love and Respect") 

• We put people into boxes and then live in those boxes. These people are crazy, these people are distant. Etc. 
• [In talking about calling people "crazy" ] "When people are labeled long enough, you start to believe it." 
• Re-look at those labels we use, "Is it someone specific that I'm using these words about?"
• 72% of women feel unloved after conflict. 80% of men feel disrespected after conflict. 
• Women want love, men want respect. 

Speaker: Gary Chapman
(Author of wildly famous The Five Love Languages and honestly, the reason I was SO pumped for #QLC)

• We show love five ways: physical touch, words, gifts, acts of service, quality time.
• Most have a top one or maybe two that they prefer over the other.
• Typically, we show love the same way we want to receive it.
• It's important to understand the differences your partner may have in showing love so you can serve them better and also feel love better.

More information can be found on the Quarter Life Conference at their website. The next conference is June 20 with the theme of Church. And guess what? 
THE WHOLE STREAMED CONFERENCE IS BELOW. 

How Do I Know What To Charge?

(So, I realize I am pretty much breaking the rule about having a blog- I have no direction/niche decided for this specific blog. I'm coming off a deep series about my emotional problems and then here I go now back to business. Bear with me, I'm still figuring out what I want this to be.)

The proper response when a potential client asks what you charge is probably not:

"Uhhhhh......" 

I hired a friend/colleague to help me with a client recently. She is great at what she does, but only did it on the side for fun. So when my client asked about pricing for her work, we both drew a blank and stared at each other.

This is the hard part when taking this career path; the road less traveled doesn't really have a great road map. This step of pricing is an on-going challenge. I told you about the time I sold myself short, but even after realizing that I still didn't have a formal number.

The other day Freshbooks uploaded this to their Facebook. I use Freshbooks for my accounting and invoicing and love their stuff (if you need a suggestion, I recommend using Freshbooks instead of shelling out the crazy money for QuickBooks.)

These are the great points Jim Hopkinson makes about your pricing:

1. People don't do enough research
When my collegue needed to nail down a number, she actually called another business in the area and acted as if she was interested in having similar work done. They gave her a price and she changed it accordingly. While this may seem sketchy, it's harmless. She never signed anything, just a quick phone call. Don't be afraid to try that.

Hopkinson says to also check industry related blogs, Google like crazy, ask friends you have who do the same thing. If you ask friends, take into account their area of the country they are living in, their experience, and anything else. But this helps get a general idea.

2. Never discuss pricing in first meeting. 
This is hard because most businesses make their decision in lue of pricing. But I completely agree with this tactic. Too many times have I given a price upfront in the first meeting, and then realized down the line the client was expecting more time/more work that would have effected the price I gave had I know. So, Hopkinson says, take some time after the first meeting, research more (can't say it enough) and come back with a formal proposal.

Plus, coming from experience, if you spell out what you are doing, it may save your butt down the road when it comes to client expectations. This is something I would love to try out with my next client. The first meeting is fun, and brainstorming and bouncing ideas is a blast. Keep that excitement for your clients as you tell them: "Let me get back to you with a specific price and proposal."

3. PRO, PRO, PRO!
Just because you "work in a coffee shop with a hoodie" doesn't mean you can charge like you do. Professional headshot, portfolio, etc. If you look pro, you can charge pro. This is kind of obvious, don't show up to a meeting in a hoodie.

Vulnerability Series: Logic and Relationships

*This is part two of a series about how I basically don't feel feelings and I hate opening up. So, basically I am a robot. 

After we are hurt, we find ourselves changed. It's a defense mechanism logically. The same way you learn not to put your hand on a hot stove. But I'm unsure of how closely related logic and relationships are.

I don't think God meant for us to be cold-hearted. They say "guard you heart" and protect yourself. If something hurts you, don't let it. Fight back. We are reminded of verses in the Bible about guarding our precious, fragile heart.  And then I remember the first time I read Emily Maynard's article about vulnerability, it was such a relief to be told that was wrong.

"Until I discovered that you can't shut down part of your heart and not shut down all of it. You can't block all the negative emotions and still have enough space for the positive ones. It's impossible to have a life overflowing with love in all areas when your heart is blocked up with fear and shame." - Emily Maynard

I may be a little dramatic. I've been told that I feel things too deeply. But I believe it's important to feel ALL emotions. If you block any emotion at all, if you block anything from feeling, you're blocking God from it too. You aren't allowing yourself to feel it, but it still exists in your soul.

God doesn't want us to block him out. If he's blocked out, he can't get to those hurts and emotions we've barried and chose to forget about. So they change our lives for years, and we don't realize why we do the things we do because they are reactions to these deep hurts.

A few nights ago, the boy I mentioned in my first part of this series started popping in my head more, people asked me if I knew how he was, etc. I wondered why I was hearing about him again, why I was feeling these things again. Not even going to lie, I played a few Taylor Swift songs. I immediately felt like God had his hand in this somehow. I had been praying that God would come in and heal these hurts for a while back and thought God had already worked on them and I was fine. But clearly, there was something unresolved. God knows me pretty well, so I'm sure he had looked past whatever hurts I hadn't let him touch for a better time.

These conversations prompted me to feel emotions though. The same ones I had shame about. I admit, feeling upset five years later about a high school sweetheart hurting your feelings logically doesn't make sense, and is something looked down upon. But like I said, I don't think logic and relationships should have anything to do with each other.

It's so funny how much our flesh and spirit battle. Logic verses Love. The world and it's lies told me that I had to be strong. I made agreements with Satan that if I didn't protect myself, then who would? So I protected my feelings because I felt feelings so deeply I was so worried somebody would literally destroy them, and me. And I knew how it felt to be destroyed, at the age of 19 nonetheless.

But, I've learned that it's not important who is protecting your feelings. It doesn't even matter if they are protected, I think. Because God wants to heal them the moment they are broken.

As we are holding our broken, torn feelings so tightly, with arms wrapped around them and turning ourselves from anyone who tried to even take a look, God wants dearly to come to us with a warm smile and ask us to give them to him. He kneels down to our eye level, and something in his voice tells us that if anyone can fix something so broken, he can.  God has the tape, the Super Glue, the drillsaw that Dad said I'm not allowed to use, and God craves to fix them right then.

It's scary to hand hurt over to God. But if we don't, we leave that hurt broken in us forever.