A Name

“Stories are light. Light is precious

in a world so dark.....

Make some light.”  

― DiCamillo, Tale of Despereaux

Luke, our oldest son, has always loved a good story.  The minute he was talking he was asking for a story.  I would knit words together each night as he stared, big  eyed, into the darkness.  The story would always involve Luke, taking adventures and discovering hidden treasure.  One of my favorite places to tell a story to him was around a fire in the backyard.  It was silent except for the crackle of wood.  Jeff would be holding Levi and I would begin, the whole time staring at Luke's face lit by the fire.  His most beloved story was not made up.  It was true and happened to Luke, and Jeff and I got to be a part of it. 

"Tell me again the day I was born, and what dad said to me, why you named me Luke."  I would begin the same way every time.  "I was very surprised, you see.  We thought you would come to us much later, years later.  Even the day you were born you surprised us!  Two weeks earlier than the doctor had thought, like you couldn't wait any longer to see what the world would be like.  "And did it hurt when I was born?", He asked this each time also.  "Yes, it hurt, but everything worth it hurts, and you were worth it.  I remember you came into the world not crying, and dad was worried, because all babies cry at first.  But the minute the nurses took you to see why, you let out a good, loud cry.  "And then dad spoke to me?"  Yes, He first kissed me and then walked over to get a good look at you for the first time.  He looked at your pink face and small belly breathing in and out.  And he looked right into your eyes, smiled big and said, "Hi Luke, you are my son and I am going to be your Daddy forever."  'And what did I say?" You cried, but I think you meant, I'm so glad your my daddy."  Luke would laugh at this part and stare at the picture that captured the time when father and son met.   Luke would end with, "But I knew him already, I knew his voice because he talked to me each night when I was in your belly."   He would continue to look at the picture quiet eyed and grinning.  

Luke would then ask about his name.  Why we chose to call him Luke Isaac Stables.  I always loved the name and as he grew in my tummy I knew more and more that would be his name.  Luke, means bearer of light.  Isaac means laughter.  I wanted Luke to bring light to people.  Truth in stories.  But that seemed a heavy mantle to carry, so Isaac means laughter.  And from the time Luke was tiny his laughter has been large, deep welled, and contagious.  It is a laugh that surprises people who only get to see a pensive boy with thoughts too large to express.  The contrast of furrowed brow in thought and belly laughing loud.  Luke always made sure we knew he was glad we gave him the right name.  What if you had named me George he would ask in horror. 

   
 How we come into this world is important but lasts only a moment.  A name is important and you carry it through your days.  It is how the world will first hear of you, how you are announced, called forth.  One of the most important things Luke will learn and relearn in life will be to know who he belongs to.  Who calls him by name in love.  Who began his story before we knew he would be written into our lives.  That story is the one that will become more important the older he gets.  What does your name mean? Who calls it forth in love?   To whom you do you belong?  Praying that you will hear his voice call you by name.  And hear the most important story to be told.

"You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made."  Psalm 139:13-14

Euskara and the Basque flag

In Basque everyone can speak Spanish and is willing to (phew).  Though their native tongue is Euskara.  The boys will be doing school 1/3 English, 1/3 Spanish, and 1/3 Euskara.  That is if we get in the government subsidised private school, the one with the two year waiting list.  Written Basque is as strange-looking as the language is strange-sounding, featuring an extraordinary number of x's and an apparent disregard for vowels. The Basques refer to themselves as Euskaldunak, or ``speakers of the Euskara''.   Language is incredibly important to their identity.   We will be learning Euskara along with Spanish.   The picture below is the Basque flag.  Hope you are enjoying learning a little Basque history.  Next time I will share about the three American couples we met during our February exploratory trip.  They encouraged us in many ways and let me ask any question I wanted.  Those who know me understand why I hold them in high regard for that! 

Fears relieved

"Our doubts are traitors,

And make us lose the good we oft might win

By fearing to attempt."

-William Shakespeare

      "I don't want to look back and regret that we missed being a part of something way bigger than ourselves.  That we played it safe, and that was okay, but missed out because of fear."  We circled back to this over and over.  Jeff repeats with gentle truth his stand.  Should we leave home, our support system, our family and friends to be part of starting Young Life in Basque Country, Spain?  When it came down to it, the marrow of it all, I was afraid.  I saw the doors open as clearly as Jeff, but we had just cracked a window to get fresh air, I did not expect the front door to swing wide. 

Fear has been my friend you see.  The thin, hard, fragile egg shell that makes me think I am protected because I am separated from it all.  Fear, the reality I believed for so long, a reality that has no room for God.  For His tender mercies, or abiding love.  It makes no place for grace and joy and peace.  Fear makes you believe that scars are shameful and trophies are wanted by Him. 

The opposite is true when I read scripture, His word living.  When I read about the men and women who trembled and stepped out in faith in scripture He promises He is with them, with me.  And they fell... some fell and evidence of healed wounds stayed.  Scars of misstep and sin all woven in His forgiveness to tell a story bigger than themselves.  So we said yes, knowing skinned knees are coming, that there will be no bronze plaque that is given at the end.  But we will get to take a leap of faith like many before us and see God present in a story that is not written in fear. 

Praying you get to crack open a window today.  That you will let God write this chapter and not fear.  Can you imagine the new things you would see and be a part of?  What cobwebs would be cleaned out with new light brought in? 

Therefore, since we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.  Hebrews 12:1

Life overflowing

"Materialists mistake that which limits life

for life itself."
-Leo Tolstoy

"I am grateful, I just..."  this is the mantra of my struggle.  I am happy, I am grateful, I love my life of  dirt rimmed sinks and tender husband.  But I still want, I still feel the lack of something.  And my wants are silly ones mixed with deep.  A coat I pick out and not one given secondhand, the living room carpet clean and fresh, a book I purchase and read because I want to.  None of these are bad things, but I put importance where it was never meant to rest.  And surely there are so many others who have more, and who are much more ungrateful than I am.  This is the smoke screen I justify my want with. He has taught me time and time again that what I have is enough, that I live a life overflowing, and that He has so much more to give I just don't see it.  I know I don't see it clearly, as if I am waking up trying to focus on something with tired eyes. I even feel it when someone I love is given something beautiful.  I rejoice and laugh wonderment with them.  But then it comes.  The small voice that wants to know why it was not given to me also.  Maybe something not quiet as beautiful, even ordinary would do, but something.  Can I know the Giver but still question His giving.  When my vision is tired from want, the gifts given to others will seem too generous and mine too meager.  But if I look at the Giver's heart, the heart that knit me together in my mother's womb, that calls me by name, who loves me more than I am able to comprehend,  my vision is focused sharp.  I see that His will is perfect.  And if His will is perfect then so are His gifts.  Even the ones I didn't ask for.   And all of these little gifts I desire, the silly ones, would bring me great joy, but the joy would begin to disappear as soon as the coat frayed, the carpet stained, or the book had been read.  So, I pray that in this season of gifts you can focus on His heart and not His hand.  That we will be able to live in His love, His sacrifice, and the ultimate gift ever given.  And that we will thank Him for a life overflowing.
         
              "And my God will meet all of your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus." 
                                                               Phillippians 4:19

Basque

       Did you know that the Basque are the OLDEST surviving ethnic group in all of Europe?  Or that scholars have yet to discover the exact orgin of the Basques?  Did you know their language, Euskara, is considered a language isolate?  It is not linked to any other language root in the world.  The Basque country (north, west Spain and into the south of France) is bordered by the Pyrenees mountains and the Bay of Biscay.  This may be why they were able to be isolated and unconquered for so long.  Are you getting curious yet?

The Wonder of it All

"And is this the art of life-to keep awake to the wonders in His Word and this world?"

-Ann Voskamp

       We ran breathless up the station ramp, the double decker one, to reach the train before it pulled away.  A long freight carrying over 100 cars.   In our haste to get to it we didn't realize it was only inching forward with it's heavy load.  Suddenly it screeched, heaved again and abruptly stopped groaning as if it was dying on the tracks.  Still and now silent,  it filled up our whole view on the station platform.  We waited while I warned, Ian on my hip, for the older boys to stand back, it was sure to lurch forward at any moment.  We had never been so close.  
Only a broad yellow paint line infront of the drop off separated us from the frieght.  Ten minutes past and it didn't move.  We walked up and down it reading graffiti marks and examining the steel wheels.  I let Ian down warning them all again to not go near the worn paint line, to not touch the grimy sides of the box cars.  

Ian excited, chattered only words he could understand and walked up the platform slightly ahead of us.  Then, Ian slowed and stopped staring at something on the ground.  It was near the stone wall and massive plate windows.  The windows ran along the entire platform and all the way up to the overhang.  It was dead bird in the shape of a heart, wings folded and head to the side.  It must have just flown into the window breaking its neck while we were further down the platform.  My instinct was to move Ian and the boys along, away from the broken bird.  But Ian was mesmerized.  He thought it was sleeping.  He stood silent and wide eyed.  This thing that had only fluttered way out of reach of his chubby fingers  was now lying still at his feet.  He stared and whispered, hushed and thoughtful.   He didn't try to touch it or get too close.  He sat and looked down at his hands and back at the bird trying to figure out why this one didn't fly away.  A moment earlier I was snapping pictures of happy boys framed by a large boxcar behind them.  I snapped a picture now of this moment.  I had never seen Ian wear this expression, this body language.  His little hands resting on folded knees so calm.       

     
It was wonder, unanswered and unexplained that stilled him.  For me to explain why the bird was lying at his feet, why it couldn't fly, would have offered nothing to the moment.  He didn't need it explained to know it was sacred.  I love answers.  Days and blog posts that tie up neatly.  Weeks planned and lived out with a checklist in hand.  Lost in the busy rush of the days I forget to stop and look at God's world with wonder.  Especially the parts that are broken and damaged.  I rush past the moments that should have been something else, something better.   Struggle to look with awe at every twig and feather much less the muddy bare spots in the yard.  Can I stop and wonder.  Stop and praise a God who created, and gives and takes every moment we breath in and out.  

 I hope you get to stand in wonder of His gifts today.  I pray that God opens your eyes to see the way He creates beauty in all things even the broken ones.  I want to approach each day knowing it is a gift to be lived out intentionally, with joy and wonder.  Wonder that is not made up of naivety or  choosing to not see what is hard in this life.  But choosing to see it with new eyes.  Stopping to look at what He is doing and has already given.  And being able to say it is good because it is from Him. 



  Against all the hard cold steel, we were suprised to see bright green grass
growing from clumps of dirt on several of train cars.

"Every good and perfect gift is from above,

coming down from the Father of the

heavenly lights,

who does not change like

shifting shadows." 

James 1:17



Heading back to the van, our five minute stop turned an hour long.



Donostia, Basque

Go ahead and google Basque Country!  We had to when we got the first e-mail.  But be careful, what began as curiosity for us has unraveled into a wild adventure.  Isn't it amazing that over a year ago we had never even heard of the country we are moving our life of three boys to?  Even if you are better versed in geography than we were take a peek.  It is one of the most amazing, dynamic, and culturally mysterious places on Earth.  Our heart strings have already begun to be tied.  We are currently at 20% raised in support.  That is based on a three year committment and with the knowledge that 90% must be raised to be able to leave in June.  When I fisrt started fundraising Jeff Hall from International Younglife kept saying, "It is all about God doing a work in people, it is all about relationship and not about money."  Funny to hear that when looking at the European sized budget.  But he has been proven right every time we meet with someone to share the vision.  We will not go alone.  We will not go with one big check written because some one can.  But with many people joining with us to share who God is and His deep love with the Basque people.  Thank you for reading and praying and asking questions along with us!  Here is a picture of the city we would be moving to: Donostia, Basque/Spain.