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The five children screamed, then, as they plunged beneath the surface of the lake, they closed their mouths just in time to keep the water from rushing in. Suddenly it was as if they had never been there, and the tiny waves lapped up against the stone wall that held the bank at bay, and the surrounding tree-covered hills peeked over my shoulder, and I felt the sound of weightless bugs making tiny v-shapes across the water’s skin.

Then an eruption: five children boiling to the surface, laughter splitting their sides, and all creation breathed again, a sigh of relief. Silence carries a particular heaviness, immeasurable.

The recently emerged children sputtered and wiped the water from their eyes. They shivered and laughed, giddy with wondering where the next monster would appear. My son, nine years old and looking adventurous, pointed to the far bank and screamed. The other four children imitated his pretend terror, and the five of them sank again. Again silence rushed into the space they left behind. The sound of wind through the trees. The distant rumble of thunder.

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We are so often propelled by fear. Of not having the right stuff. Of not being able to replace our stuff if we lost it. Of falling behind on the timeline of a “normal” life. Of straying from the responsible path. Of death.

Don’t misunderstand me – sometimes fear is a gift. Sometimes it alerts us to things that must be addressed, patterns that must be reversed, things that should be avoided.

But often the things that scare us are imaginary monsters, roaring from across the lake.

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There is wisdom in the play of children. These five children knew, so far as pretend monsters are concerned, that escape does not require running – it’s much simpler than that.

Sometimes all you have to do is close your eyes and ears to it.

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What imaginary monsters do you pay too much attention to?

My friend Tor Constantino is hosting a post of mine over at his blog today: “Theology is No Substitute for Time Spent Waiting Under an Oak Tree.” Please take a minute to head over there, check out my post, and then peruse Tor’s blog – he’s a great writer, and I know you’ll enjoy the stuff he’s written.

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I made a huge announcement last Thursday. It involves a text message, Sri Lanka, and my next big adventure. If you missed it, you can check that out HERE.

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If this is your first time at my blog, welcome! Some of my recent, more popular posts include:

Surviving the Worst Case (or, Finding a Stranger in Your Kitchen at 4am)
Sometimes You Have to be a Little Bit Crazy
Coming Back Early to See My Grandma and Finding a Map

I’ve written an E-book about hitting rock bottom and trying to make a living as a writer. It’s called Building a Life Out of Words and is available in all kinds of different digital formats. Best part of the book? Contributors include Andi Cumbo, Bryan Allain, Ed Cyzewski, Jason Boyett, Jeff Goins, Jennifer Luitwieler, Ken Mueller, Kristin Tennant, and Stacy Barton.

Rachelle Gardner, one of the best literary agents out there, was kind enough to host me over at her blog today. I shared Five Things I’ve Learned About Making a Living as a Writer (but it could just as well be titled Five Things I’ve Learned About Chasing My Dream Job). Click HERE to read the post.

* * * * *

I made a huge announcement last Thursday. It involves a text message, Sri Lanka, and my next big adventure. If you missed it, you can check that out HERE.

* * * * *

If this is your first time at my blog, welcome! Some of my recent, more popular posts include:

Surviving the Worst Case (or, Finding a Stranger in Your Kitchen at 4am)
Sometimes You Have to be a Little Bit Crazy
Coming Back Early to See My Grandma and Finding a Map

I’ve written an E-book about hitting rock bottom and trying to make a living as a writer. It’s called Building a Life Out of Words and is available in all kinds of different digital formats. Best part of the book? Contributors include Andi Cumbo, Bryan Allain, Ed Cyzewski, Jason Boyett, Jeff Goins, Jennifer Luitwieler, Ken Mueller, Kristin Tennant, and Stacy Barton.

When we returned from our epic, four-month road trip, things didn’t line up. I felt so different, so changed, yet there we were, biding our time in my parents’ basement, looking for writing projects to pay the bills, and squirming back into our somewhat normal lives. It seemed like nothing at all had changed.

Unfortunately, I didn’t yet understand the concept Terry Pratchett writes about so eloquently:

Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.

Because I didn’t understand this, I started to feel like I had never left. I started to feel like the whole trip, and its huge bundle of amazing experiences, may have been unnecessary. 

Then I got a text message from Matthew Paul Turner.

I had met Matthew in Nashville during our trip. He and I had grabbed a coffee just outside the city, and immediately I felt a connection. He’s a writer with a beautiful family, and our backgrounds share a lot of similarities. We talked about the projects we were working on. We stayed in touch as Maile and I continued around the country in the big blue bus, and he has been a huge source of encouragement in my writing life.

Three months after Matthew and I met, and about two weeks after Maile, the kids and I returned from our trip, I got this text message from him:

Well…I MIGHT have an open spot on my August World Vision trip to Sri Lanka…I’ll more than likely be inviting you to travel halfway around the world with me. :)

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There’s this thing I’m learning about adventures.

They usually have a start date: the day you leave for college, or start that new job, or step on to the plane. The moment you say “yes” or “no” or “I do” or “Let’s give it a shot” or “It’s a boy!” or “It’s a girl!” The minute you sign the contract or the check. Sure, there’s a lead-up time, but there’s also usually something marking the date when the whole thing will kick off.

But what I didn’t understand about adventures was this: they don’t end easily. If you’re haphazard enough to embark on one adventure, and you’re not careful, another one will follow after it. The reason for this is rather simple: adventurous paths have many more off-shoots than the normal paths, because the pounding steps of most of humanity have worn the normal everyday paths into deep ruts. Deviations are difficult. Believe me. I know.

But adventurous paths, so rarely trod, are smooth and slippery and wind into the most unlikely places. Once you set off on one, your footing becomes rather unpredictable. In order to continue, you’re forced to lean on something other than your own strength.

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So I’m slipping into another adventure. In about four weeks, from August 23rd through September 1st,  I’ll be flying to the other side of the world with a small group of bloggers, all of us guests of World Vision. We’re traveling to Sri Lanka. I’m eager to share what World Vision is accomplishing there and also to introduce you to some of the communities benefiting from their child sponsorship program.

There are so many different opportunities for you to be part of this trip. Consider helping out in the following ways:

1) Sponsor a child through World Vision. If you would like to sponsor a child in the area I will be traveling to, email me as soon as possible at shawnsmucker@yahoo.com. I might be able to meet them in person and deliver a gift, have a picture taken with them, or give them a hug for you. But this kind of meeting takes a lot of planning, so let me know as soon as possible.

2) Help me spread the word by sharing my World Vision blog posts on Facebook, Twitter or by telling your friends about it. Stories change the world – if one of the stories I tell in Sri Lanka resonates with you, please share it.

3) Read the posts by the other bloggers traveling along with me on the trip, and share those as well.

4) Pray that our trip would be productive, informative, and that our presence would encourage those we come into contact with.

You all were such a huge encouragement to Maile and I while we journeyed around the country. I can’t wait for you to join me on this next adventure.

Which of your own adventures has had the biggest impact on you? How did you feel when it was “over”?

Returning from the dust of Laredo, Texas in 1982, we moved into one half of an old farmhouse. We were poor then, I guess, by any standard measurement of wealth, but I felt rich with newly discovered cousins, and aunts that teased me, and uncles that wanted to wrestle or play basketball. I was six years old, and in the timeline of my memory it feels like the birth of my existence, shining and aware and filled with the happy chaos of hugs in rooms filled with too many people.

And my father – I often wonder how he felt, nearly a decade younger than I am now. Not only was he a poor pastor – he was a poor assistant pastor. So my mom sat in the chair at night while we watched television, a needle tucked between her lips, her fingers moving moving moving the thread, first piercing the needle, then weaving like a stream, binding the loose edges. Her quilt money bought us new school clothes each fall.

This is what we did for one another: as a family, we gathered the material of our lives and bound the loose edges together.

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For three or four years we lived in that old farmhouse. It was a treasure trove of a place for a child, like a theme park, but one that usually smelled of manure. There is the story of the bull that jumped the fence, and the time I caught the monster carp, and the lightning that struck the oak as my mom walked beneath it. There was the storm that somehow messed with our well, bringing shitty water up through the pipes for a day and a half.

After school I often helped my friend Daniel with his chores (his father worked the farm, so he had responsibilities, real ones, and sometimes I envied him for that). We used wide brooms to sweep the long smooth cement walkways in the dairy barn – swishing bristles – then enjoyed the fruits of our labor by racing on Hot Wheels tricycles over those same walkways.

The cows stared sullenly at us, swishing their tails. Their long tongues, like bright pink snakes, frightened me. I pedaled faster.

* * * * *

The news that we were going to move didn’t affect me one way or another, although by then there were three of us kids, and the news that we would each have our own room seemed inconceivable. What I didn’t know at the time was that my father had walked down to an Amish neighbor to see if he could borrow the money to build the house – no bank would take us in, not on his $15,000 per year, not even with my mother’s quilt money thrown in for good measure. The Amish man agreed, and for the next ten years or so my father would drop off the mortgage check on the first of the month, and the Amish man’s wife would write it down in her little notebook, and I don’t think anyone ever signed anything.

When my parents sold the house, they paid off their debt with the Amish family, and that was that.

It’s too bad, really, that this doesn’t happen more often. You know it’s a good world when someone will loan you a significant amount of money because they know who your parents are, and you will pay it back no matter what because you care about your standing in the community.

It’s a good world, when people reach out their hands to others.

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On Sunday afternoon, with a 10-hour drive looming on Monday, Cade turned to me with tired eyes.

“Dad,” he said, “I’m tired of moving.”

I feel the same way. After four months on the road, and a few months in my parents’ house, then a few weeks at Maile’s parents’ house, it is time for us to put down roots. To put the parking brake on this crazy life and find a place.

But a few weeks on the road remain, and we’ll be away this week with spotty internet coverage, so there won’t be much going on here at the blog. But please come back next Monday – I have a huge announcement that I can’t wait to share with you. Or you can like my Facebook page; the announcement might show up there sometime this week.

Today’s compelling post was written by Sonya Judkins. We met Sonya and her husband Kevin while living in Virginia, and the heart they each have for the least of these is simply unbelievable. Please leave a comment if you can – Sonya and Kevin will enjoy reading them when they return from China with their second adopted child.

When Shawn asked me to write about a powerful moment in our experience with adoption, my mind immediately went to the fall of 2009. My husband, Kevin, and I had been waiting for a year for a referral from Ethiopia. Our home study was about to expire and so we had started the process of renewing all the mountains of paperwork.

There was one document that we were struggling to fill out: The Health Questionnaire. It is a document listing every medical issue imaginable.  Next to each condition are the words “yes”, “no” or “maybe.” Our answers were to help our adoption agency match us with a child.  The first time we filled out the paperwork we went through each condition thoroughly and then decided which conditions we thought our family could handle.

But that was a year ago.  That was before God started us down a journey of learning that adoption was less about us and more about God’s amazing love for orphaned children.  That was before we learned about all children waiting with no one pursuing to adopt them for reasons beyond the child’s control.

Once God begins to open your eyes to the reality of the world, you can no longer pretend not to know.  Our hearts began to break for these children.  The kids who would give anything to be a healthy baby so that a loving family would take them in and love them forever.  Children who instead found themselves too old or too sick for anyone to consider adopting them.

So this time when we looked over the checklist we were torn.  While our hearts broke for these children, we questioned whether we were really the ones called to take them into our family.  This decision could drastically change the way our family spent our time and resources.  Every reason we could find to say “no” just sounded disgusting when we said it out loud.  And yet we were so scared to take that leap.

Then one night I had a dream.  In this dream, Kevin and I were sitting on our couch watching T.V.  and we heard a knock at the door.  We peeked through the window to see who was knocking.  Outside stood two little girls in old, tattered clothes.  Somehow we knew they were both sick and they wanted to come inside.  We faced a choice – open the door and let them in or go just go back to watching our television program.  It was one of those dreams that was more than just a dream.  The kind of dream where you wake up shaking and feeling like it was so real you could smell and feel everything that happened.

Even though I was scared, I didn’t want to miss out on those girls outside the door.  My husband agreed.  With trembling hands we filled out the health questions, but this time checking “yes” next to every one.

At the same time, on the other side of the world, a little Ethiopian girl was being relinquished to the care center in her home town.  As we signed our papers, another paper was being signed in Addis, placing her at our agency’s orphanage.  There were many, many families waiting ahead of us in line.  We shouldn’t have received a referral when we did, but our paperwork was the first one that said “yes” to a child with spina bifida.

We are so thankful for a dream that called us to move off of the ledge into the unknown.  A dream that led us to our precious Ethiopian flower, Faith Shetu, who today has no health problems at all. A dream that stays ever close to our hearts and helped us to find the other little girl standing at the door.  Her list of medical issues was very long and at 5 years old she is definitely past the baby stage, but we knew from first glance at her face on our computer screen that she was supposed to be part of our family.  And in just a few days time, Eliana Hope, is going to come home to a door swung open wide for her to enter in.

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To follow the Judkins’ story, please head over to their blog. If you’d like to submit a post telling the story of a poignant moment that occurred during adoption or foster care, please email your 500-word submission to shawnsmucker@yahoo.com. Thanks!

Prior adoption and foster care posts include:

Because Someone Has To: Adoption Stories With Shar Halvorsen
Momma For a Moment: A Foster Care Story, With Tamara Out Loud