The Birdies, by Emma and Bella Bergen
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I Want To Go Home
Standing in our hallway, my daughter looked up at me with her big, brown, tear filled eyes and asked me, ‘Mommy, where is home?’
I paused, took a deep breath and told her that home is wherever we are, that our family is home. Four walls don’t make a home, a country doesn’t make a home, a family does.
“But Mommy,” she protested, “Canada feels like home, but now we are here and we are here for two years and then we only go back for a few months and come back here again. So, it’s like Brazil is home but it’s not, because I don’t feel normal here,” a tear left a wet trail down her cheek.
I fought my own tears. It’s a battle I have in my own heart almost daily. I have a heart in two places. As a child, a missionary kid, she’s considered ‘third culture’ a mixture of where she’s from and where she is she isn’t strongly part of either one. It’s a tough place to be in some days.
Yesterday was one of those tough ones.
Faith lay with her head on my lap, tears fell from her eyes and I wiped away each one. She cried for the friends she left behind, for the family she longs to see at holidays, she cried for the way kids make fun of her when she speaks English, she cried for the middle ground she lives in.
I held her and whispered in her ear that some days, Mommy feels exactly the same way.
‘I just want to go home, I just want to feel normal’ she said through tears and a trembling bottom lip.
What I couldn’t bear to whisper in her ear is that the reality is, there is no going home.
Even when we land in Canada a year from now, home will no longer feel the way it did. The comfort of ordered streets that are well paved, clear of litter and stray dogs will be replaced with a feeling of estrangement. It will feel oddly sterile. Friends have made new friends. The landscape has changed.
The puzzle you once fit into with ease, is still there but you, the piece of it that flew away to a far away land, you are no longer the same shape. Try as you might, your shape no longer fits the same way into the void you left behind.
No, I couldn’t tell her that part. She’ll learn that on her own.
Many times, often daily, I have to remind myself that God called not just Phil and I into this adventure, he called our kids too. They aren’t skin tags, along for the ride. They are part of this thing. There is purpose in it for them too.
This week our base leaders took there two youngest daughters to the airport to see them off, back to Canada where one will stay to go to University and the other visit with her sisters before returning to Brazil for her last year of high school. Another missionary family recently took their oldest son back to the U.S. for the same reason. My heart aches for the mothers who now live with thousands of miles between them and the children who have been beside them, working with them, doing life as a family in a way that most don’t get to experience. They have been together for every victory and every tear.
But all that closeness, it comes with a high price tag. One day, if we are still doing this missionary life, we may have to do the same.
My own words ring in my head, ‘home is our family’.
But what happens when your family is now in two places? It’s normal for your kids to grow up and find a life of their own, but normally they move maybe a couple hours away, not a continent.
The gifts in this life, they are enormous. The sacrifices are too.
The daughters of our base leader wrote a children’s story for their Mom. About a Momma bird and her four babies and how the Momma bird feels like her heart is flying away with her babies as they leave the nest. In the end, the Momma bird learns that she can learn to sing a
gain, she finds her song.
One of the biggest challenges as parents is letting our kids fly, letting them go and figure out this life. Even if they are still doing it with us. When Faith’s heart is breaking for home, I want to fix that hurt, I want to get on a plane and take us back. But that would be robbing her of the richness God has planned for her, that the pain and the struggle are some of the best nuggets in life.
Not only so, but we[a] also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. Romans 5:35
I know in my heart of hearts that the things she is learning here, the character that is being built in her at such a young age will prepare her to fly higher than I ever have or will in my life. And isn’t that what we want as parents? For our kids to fly higher, live larger?
If only it didn’t hurt so much in the midst of the struggle.
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May 2015 Newsletter
Dear Friends and Family,
Thank you for your prayers and support. They have been greatly appreciated.
I wanted to start this newsletter by saying how much I love being a missionary. I really do! I love how every day’s purpose is to advance the Kingdom of God. Although I believe that this should be the mission of any follower of Christ, I love the freedom I have to pursue this calling full-time – that my job description is to advance the Kingdom of God. I wouldn’t change a thing about my career choice. I hope to be doing this until the day that I die.
Although I love what I do and have not one regret, there are difficulties being a missionary and during the last several weeks I have experienced one of them. As many of you know, my mother was in a horrible car accident last week. She has multiple breaks in her arm and wrist, a huge laceration across her head that needed to be stapled shut, and scariest of all, she fractured 2 vertebrae. When I initially found out that my mom was in a bad accident, I had trouble getting through to my dad by phone. Eventually I did get through and he explained what had happened and that the doctors where doing test to find out the severity of the injuries. The following day Denise and I woke up hoping to hear an update on my mom’s condition, but we were unable to get through by phone and, not surprisingly, the internet was also out. It’s not that I could have done anything, but it’s a terrible feeling being cut off from the ones you love in times of crisis. It’s these moments when I feel the most isolated.
As of now, my mom’s prognosis is looking much better. After a few surgeries to her arm and wearing a neck brace for three months, the doctors believe she is going to make a full recovery. I am so delighted and relieved by this news! It could have been so much worse. But this situation has made me think a lot about how far Denise and I live from my friends and family. Throughout this year, there have been multiple situations when I wished I could have been home to love or comfort a friend or family member going through a hard time. I have had to get good at handing these feelings of helplessness, sadness or isolation over to Jesus. I have had to get good at asking Jesus for help – and Jesus has shown himself to be very good at answering this prayer. This might sound a bit silly, but I am constantly reminding myself that my missionary life needs to be dependent on Jesus. Imagine that! It’s important to have Jesus if you’re a missionary! 🙂
Prior to this difficult week, the last month has been great. My mom was actually here in Altamira with me for ten days! There was a pastor’s conference here for all the Vineyard pastors in Northern Brazil and my mom was one of the guest speakers. We had such a great time. Denise and I loved having my mom around. There is no sweeter person in the world than my mom. I love her so much and we had a great time together.
Mom preaching at Mirante Vineyard and Denise translating
Denise and Mom
Mom and me
The conference was also wonderful. God really seemed to show up and do some cool things in people’s lives. It was also a great experience for Denise and me! We are really excited for our move to Macapa, but we are also experiencing the anxieties of stepping into the unknown. We both felt that this conference was extremely helpful in equipping us for this next stage of our life. We were very encouraged by many of the pastors there as they blessed us in our upcoming adventure.
All the pastors who attended the pastor’s conference here in Altamira
Mom speaking at the conference
Another thing that we are excited about is our upcoming trip to Portel where we will meet up with a short term mission team from Vineyard Church of Delaware County which is my home church. We are excited to spend some time in Portel and on the river doing ministry together. We are also looking forward to being able to hang out and catch up with some old friends as well as good missionary friends who will be joining us in Portel. There will be missionaries from Portel, Maraba & Altamira along for the ride. It should be a great time!
Directly after this trip we will be heading back out on the river with another short-term missions team also from the Central Ohio area. We are excited about spending time with this team, too. Both Denise and I love meeting new people and making new connections. It should be a busy month, but also a very exciting month!
Prayer Requests:
- Please pray continued healing for my mom.
- Pray for safety and discernment as we continue to travel.
- Pray for grace and wisdom through the summer as the time of our move grows nearer.
- Pray for continued growth in our financial support.
Thank you again for your prayers and support. We love hearing from you!
In His Service,
Christopher and Denise
Contribution link:
https://xingu.org/opportunities/giving/meyer-ministries/
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A Quiet Answer
What is your common response when you disagree with someone?
Emma Bergen 2015
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The Praise Test
Proverbs says praise is a difficult test. I am naturally motivated to want everyone around me to be my friend. This is not always good. Do you have any experience with praise being a difficult test?
Bella Bergen 2015
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March 2015 Baptisms
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Complexity Theory
This week-end (in March 2015) we had our first TLC (Training Leaders of Communities) week-end. We have not done an event like this before so we decided to make it simple and to monitor the results. After identifying eight topics that center around church leadership we decided to make the meetings as interactive as possible, that each leader should make sure there were lots of good snacks, and to finish the week-end with a meal. Mostly, within this Complex Framework, things went really well.
In a Complex Framework there is a link between the cause and effect, but it can only be known after the fact because there are so many variables. Afterwards, when we evaluate what we did, we will identify what went well, and do more of that, and what did not go so well, and do less of that.
There are three other organizational frameworks. Each one is right for a certain setting, and each one requires a different type of leadership. And then there is the fifth area, known as the Difficult Framework. This is where we are most of our time as we are trying to identify which of the other four will best help us solve our current leadership challenges. (Our professor posted a Prezi, a type of slideshow, that explains the four organizational categories known as the Cynefin Framework. If you are a leader, you may find this helpful when your group encounters challenges. Click here to start the Prezi.)
The Worship Team Ministry
The Greeters and Servers Ministry
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Planning Ahead
This fellow wanted to buy our old car but he did not have enough cash. We traded for paint for the inside of the church and hours with his loader. Here we are moving dirt from one sloping area of our property to put beside our existing church building. We are preparing our nets for a bigger catch. As the group grows, we want to double the size of this building, and go to multiple services. One of the principles we follow is the principle of good restaurants, “If the food is good, the people will come.” While we are mostly thinking of spiritual food, we like celebrating too, as often as possible.
I call this section Inching Forward because we are planning for the years to come, one small step at a time.
I love the smell of freshly moved earth, and of freshly cut grass.
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May Amazon Update! – Steve and Elba
This month we had our annual pastor’s retreat. We were fortunate to be able to bring in Jerry Reddix and Penny Meyer to help minister to the pastors. The objective of this retreat was to get the pastors to stop and get re-centered back to the Lord. The pastors lives are mostly give, give, and give some more. It is easy to neglect their own needs and their soul. Jerry and Penny helped bring some more tools for these pastors so that they can go forward working in a more balanced way and not get burned out. We are so fortunate to be working with and serving these pastors. They have such great relationships with the Lord, and they are very faithful and dedicated to His call.
The church also had the opportunity to go to one of the local schools and share about Jesus. Such an amazing privilege to be able to go to a public school for the express purpose of sharing the love of Christ. Elba used a visual display to help the students understand Christ and sin in this world. She had three containers, one represented Jesus, the other sin, and the other us. The sin container contained dark colored liquid and she poured it into the “us” container and we became sinful. Then Christ enters our life. She then took the Christ container and pour it into the “us” container and then we became clean again. Here is a youtube video of the demonstration. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZN0DzWLthU. The children were in awe and loved their time. Camilly and their dance group also danced for the kids.
Camilly turned 10 years old on April 10th. She is now in the double digits. Time goes by so quickly. We had a birthday party with some of her friends. The girls also got the opportunity to go horseback riding at a local farm. They really had a lot of fun. The only problem now is that they want us to buy them a horse.
Please continue to pray for spiritual, physical, and emotional health for us. Thanks!
Love and blessings, Steve, Elba, Camilly and Alyssa
Tax deductible donations can be written and sent to:
The Xingu Mission
P.O Box 340785
Columbus, Ohio 43234
Or On-line donations at:
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Very Exciting News!
Hello to all my Gracious Friends and Supporters!
I have some news for you all that I have wanted to tell you for a long time. But first, I want to give you all the back story.
As you already know, when I first moved to Brazil, I quickly started teaching English at CDR. I decided to offer my students an extra class if any of them would be interested in more help. A few of my students came, but not many, expect for one. His name was Ronã Moura (pronounced in english Ronan), and he already spoke English very well. Twice a week for almost a year, we met together as I gave him stuff to read in English and then we would discuss it.
Over that time, we developed a friendship that continued as he went on to finish the 4-year program with other teachers. He has since gone on to continue to be apart of CDR in Altamira as a class assistant and teacher.
A little before I came here to Portel, we decided that we would like to know if there was a possibility for our relationship to grow farther than just friendship. Ronã and I discussed this possibility with our leaders and friends, and they suggested that we start a specific process that goes as such. Ronã was a member of a different church at the time, and my leaders didn’t know personally where he was at spiritually. They suggested that he agree to start coming to the Vineyard in Altamira, and start building relationships with the people there. They wanted to discover if he would fit well in the church and in our community. They asked that we would not date during this time to give Ronã a chance to grow.
Over that time, they saw Ronã grow substantially as he involved himself with a home group and practiced with the worship team. They began to see in him what I had seen. That he was kind, vulnerable, and had a very open heart to know and follow God.
Ronã is very unique to me. He reveals a tenderness that I find rare. He is funny and smart. As I said before, his English is very good and he is a teacher at CDR. He recently graduated from the Federal University with a bachelors in Science Education. He has a hunger for learning and excels at whatever he puts his mind to. I have so much respect for him and his attitude toward life. And of course, I think he is cute!
After having completed this process of allowing Ronã to become familair with our church, I sat down and had a conversation with Richie who is the Base Leader here in Portel. Richie said that he was pleased with how Ronã had progressed and with his connection to our community. Richie agreed that he and I could finally start dating. As you can imagine, Ronã and I are very excited about this as we have waited for this opportunity for a long time.
At this time, we don’t know what the future will look like, but I will gladly let you know more as things change.
I ask that you would pray for us that God would continue to direct our relationship and our future. Thank you again for all your support and love and concern for me.
I also want to personally thank all those who played an intricate part in this process. Their support and advice have been a true blessing: Christopher and Denise Meyer, Danny and Penny Meyer, Steve and Elba Dolan, Richie and Christie Bouthillier, John and Cathy Lieb, and Cleide Oliveira. I love you all and I thank you!
Love, Allison
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| Ronã with his mother |
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