Brown bag again.

Hey guys!  Man, I am sorry I haven’t written in so long.  I wish I had a really good excuse, like - “We lost power every Tuesday for the last three months!” or “I let a local friend borrow my computer and I just now got it back!”  I don’t have an excuse like that, but in all fairness, my computer was stolen and we did go on a three-week road trip across South Africa.  So life has been kind of crazy.

But to be honest, the main reason I haven’t written is that I’ve had a real problem with knowing what to write.  I think back on my Wednesdays in Lubbock and I remember loving them - brownbags were, to me, really cool and encouraging.  I loved hearing the awesome stories from far away, and knowing that there were people just like me out there who thought that this was all worth it...that was (and is) priceless to me.  

So when it came MY turn to write YOU letters, I wanted them to be a lot of things.  Fun.  Encouraging.  Wise.  But more than anything, I wanted them to be real.  I wanted you to see that there is a real world out there, and there is real work to be done, and that you really can do it.  I wanted to be real and truthful with you, and never cover anything up.  I wanted to be honest, and share with you what was going on in my life in South Africa.

You’d think it’d be easy to be honest, you know?  But I sat down at the computer on a lot of Tuesdays, just tapping my fingers and waiting for the words to come.  When those guys broke into my flat and took everything I had that was worth anything, I didn’t know what to say to you.  How could I tell you that it was all worth it, when I wasn’t sure then that it was?  How could I tell you that I knew God was really providing for me and protecting me, when I was scared to be anywhere alone?  It was a hard time.  I feel like I’m just now getting my feet back under me.

But looking back, I have seen God provide in bigger ways than I thought possible.  I knew from the start of AIM that God blessed me with great supporters, but they have really gone above and beyond in these last few months.  My home congregation, in Duncan, OK (woot woot!), agreed to help me replace everything that was stolen back in the end of July.  Since then, I’ve been able to get a new cell phone and help pay for my part of our car (a 1995 white Opel Astra.  We like to call him “Little Brucey.”)  And I was able to get a new laptop.  God is so very good to me - but shame on me for taking so long to see it.

Now, all of that to say this: I would really like to start writing you guys more.  I feel almost like I’m asking permission, which I know I don’t have to do, but I am very sorry that I’ve neglected to do for you what was so important to me.  Thank you for your Reply Sheet Thingies - they really are very encouraging.  Some of the things you wrote really made me laugh...you’re crazy!  Keep them coming, okay?

I just wanted to share with you something that I learned from Ken (one half of the Kendall-Ball Coordinating Team!) a couple of weeks ago, when he was teaching a class at church.  He was talking about the first chapter of 1 Peter.  There’s some really great stuff in there, but what he said about verse 22 has really helped me these last few days.  I’m going to put the verse right here (HCSB, anyone?) so we don’t waste any time.

“By obedience to the truth, having purified yourselves for sincere love of the brothers, love one another earnestly from a pure heart...”

There are a whole lot of things we could talk about in this verse, but let’s think about the ways this verse says we are supposed to love.  Sincerely.  Earnestly.  From a pure heart.  Ken did his homework on this one and gave us some really great cultural references.  The word “sincere” comes from the time when artists would make statues out of marble.  If they slipped and took a chunk out of what they were working on, they would fill it with wax.  It would LOOK whole and complete, but it wasn’t purely marble anymore.  It wasn’t whole.  It would melt under the sun, and expose its true self.  “Sincere” means “without wax.”  Love each other without wax. Be honest, be true with each other.  If you make a mistake, be real about it - and start over.  This is our job as brothers and sisters.  This is how we obey the truth.  Another word that Ken described is “earnestly” (or “deeply,” in some translations).  This word comes from the Greek word for “catharsis” - purged.  Pure, but cleansed in the most painful way possible.  What keeps you from loving somebody like Jesus loves them?  What keeps you from seeing someone like God sees them?  Whatever it is, get rid of it.  No matter how much you like it, no matter how much it means to you, no matter how much it’ll hurt to let it go.  Get rid of it and start loving people in a real way.

This is my advice to you - not that I am great at it, but that I know how important it is.  You can do it because God made you to do it!  I’ll be praying for you, and I hope you’ll be praying for me too.  Thanks for everything.

-Tara.

Shout-outs.

To Kris, Pat, and Barb - Thank you for everything.

To the AIM Assistants - I miss you all.

To Sarah Beth Hall - I miss you like Bert misses Ernie.  Do you have Skype?

To Matt Hoadley - Have you ever been to Thai Thai?  It's my favorite place to go in the LBK.  Go there for me sometime soon, hey?

To Cassey Clayton - You take beautiful pictures, sister.  I've been praying for you lately.

To Ivankita Chalco - I loved talking to you on the phone the other day.  One day, I'm going to take you to get some ice cream and I'll tell you all about how your sister and I drove along Beach Road singing, "Vamos a la Playa, oh oh oh oh oh!"

To Everybody Else - Have a really wonderful break and consciously enjoy being with the people you are around.  Take too many pictures and laugh too loud and eat just a little too much.  And I will talk to you soon!  Love you guys, and I'm praying for you.

To a blonde, dorky girl from Oklahoma.

Hey all.

You know, I have always loved writing.  Seems like since I was little, I always loved buying journals and pens and pencils.  I loved the opportunity to sit down, open the notebook, and write anything.  That freedom is priceless to me.  There's just something in me that feels relief when I get all of my feelings out there into words on paper - or on the computer screen.  It's like a purging, in a way.  The most painful type of cleansing.

Which is how I knew I needed to write about the break-in.  But I needed time to get my feet back on the ground and be able to write down what I remember without freaking out - which is why it's taken me so long.

I know you've heard about what happened.  Maybe I've told you things myself.  But it's just time for me to get it all out there, you know?  So just bear with me and hear me out.

In our old house on Clevedon Road, I lived out back in the "grannie flat."  The flat (which had one room and a bathroom) had been used as a storage room for a good while, and it was in need of some serious fixing.  It also wasn't really hooked up to our security system in the house, which means I really should have reconsidered staying out there.  But I really wanted my own room, and I didn't think of the security.  I guess hindsight really is 20/20.

One night, Sasha and I went to a late yoga class at the gym.  We came home and they were hanging the brand-new curtains in our huge windows in the the living room.  I decided to go to bed a little early, but I asked Tyler to come out before he left so that I could tell him something (I've forgotten now what I was even going to tell him).  It turns out that when he came out there, I was already asleep, so he left.  

A few hours later, a loud noise woke me up, and I thought it might be Tyler trying to come in to talk to me.  I put my glasses on (I'm basically blind without them!) and sat up, but didn't really see anything.  So I laid back down and started to play some music on my computer, which was on my bedside table.  Then I saw something moving outside the window, and when I looked over there I saw two black guys, one was wearing a white bandana.  A few seconds later, they threw a brick in my window, opened the latch, and climbed in.  They made me get out of bed and they were yelling a lot of things.  One of them had a broken bottle and kept acting like he'd hit me with it.  The other told me to go into the bathroom and cover my eyes.  I told them I had money (around R6000, which is about 600 American dollars - I had been saving to help buy our car).  They asked where it was, but I told them I'd get it if they would just leave.  So I got the money, unlocked the door for them, and they left.

I know all of this sounds kind of peaceful on paper, but it wasn't.  I yelled - a lot.  (The police even said they had calls from a few blocks down because they could hear me yelling.)  They yelled - a lot.  They really tore my room up - there was glass everywhere, and all my things were scattered, my bed was a total mess because they'd looked under the mattress.  They went through everything.

I didn't know if they had gotten into the main house yet, or if they were really gone, or if the girls were okay.  When I had seen the guys walking around outside before they broke in, I called Sasha and told her I thought there were two guys outside.  I remember saying, "Just stay with me, Sash, just talk to me."  She could hear me screaming when they broke in, and then they took my cell phone and turned it off.  After they had left, all I wanted was to be inside.  I wanted to be with the girls, safe.  I didn't want to be alone anymore.

So I went to the backdoor and unlocked it and started yelling, "It's just me, it's just me, it's just me" - because I knew they'd be scared it was someone breaking in.  And then Brittney comes out of the door to the hallway and she's carrying a big ax handle (she was going to go outside to help me and she was prepared!).  I ran to her.  When she hugged me, I just started crying.  I have never, never needed to be held so much.  We went into her room, which is where the other girls were waiting.  (They had pushed wardrobes in front of the doors.)  I ran to the bed and we waited - for the police to come, for the security company to come, for Ken and Judy to come.  It seemed like forever that we were there, waiting.  I needed to do something, anything, because all I really wanted to do was scream.  So we got the Bible and I read Philippians 01 out loud.  Everybody came and made sure the place was safe, and I had to give a statement to the police.  We got some clothes for me and went to Ken and Judy's for the rest of the next day.  Momma Judy made us pancakes, I got a hot shower, I called my dad, and we started to think about where to go from there.

So there it is.  I don't mean to scare you, or to make you sad. 

Because look at how things are now.  I am sitting here in my very safe apartment, on my new computer, using the Internet through my cell phone, uploading music to put on my new iPod.  And we have a great car (named Bruce!) in the parking garage.

I have learned many, many things through what happened.  But if there's one thing I've learned, it's this:

God is good.

When those men were about to break into my room, I prayed - "Dear God, give me love and wisdom."  He has done a lot more than that.  He protected me, that night and every moment since then.  He provided.  He has answered that prayer by using others to show me what love and wisdom look like.

I will never understand why God is so good to a blonde, dorky girl from Oklahoma.

I love you, and I'm very thankful for you - for your prayers, for your encouragement, for your consistency and reliability.  Thank you for being here for me, with me, through all of this.

-Tara Ann.