Today in which something sad happened

That something sad happened and honestly I didn't see it coming. Today I was going to be a good boy and do something that I have been putting off for years. Today I was going to keep up my part in a bargain that I made back in 2006. I was going to write. While I have made attempts at this at times past I have always found myself lacking in the follow through. Today was going to be my day, today I was actually going to do it. The email, yes email I know that it isn't exactly pen pal status but we are talking baby steps here. The email was returned no such address.

six years go I was introduced to two little girls in a park on the west side of a field. These girls were playing on the other side of a chain link fence and they came running up smiling at the person who was with me at the time. They at the time had no idea who I was and certainly had no idea what they would mean for my life. I was in Cuarnavacca Mexicali, Mexico. Nallim was four and half, and her sister then Rebecca was a mere two years old. When we crossed though the gate of the fence and entered into the playground there were two slides, three swings and only two out of the three support bars connected properly with the ground. It was janky to say the least, but it was clearly a palace that only Shell Silverstein could imagine. "mya muah mua" was said to me by the taller of the breakable little girls, the girl whom I had come with was only worth laughter at my expense and as I only spoke the spanish taught to me by a band by the name of Offspring, if it wasn't numbers 1-6 then it sounded like charlie browns director. When finally I was able to get an answer out of someone I learned that I was to push harder and from on the plastic seat of a jenky park swing I was given a smile that I will never forget. For five years I went down to see that girls smile and her younger sisters, later meeting and falling in love for her caring mother Gaby and her hard working mother who I know prays for me and everything in my life every night. Over the last few years I had gone Gaby would make us a cake for her birthday and on the piece of card board she would right us prayers for our lives.

Now I have a child of my own, and for two years now I have had to tell myself and Gaby an excuse neither of us believe but both of us accept as to why I can't come down to Cuarna vacca with my family in early april. Now I have a boy of my own who smiles at me, and a child that I choose to raise on the mission field. The mission field can be dangerous, dangers that I can not imagine and I will need prayer for this part of my journey. This is a job for a small family. A husband and wife who have lived in the same house for over 20 years to make sure that their daughters can grow up near where the missionaries come every spring. Today in which something sad happened.

There is a thorny tree that blossoms the most beautiful red flowers that grows just inside my favorite front gate. bugambilia is how it is spelled but bugamvilia is how it is said, with love and admiration for a desert flower that blooms like fire. Inside that gate lives that family and today I tried to write them a letter and the address that I had didn't work, but that wasn't the sad part. The sad part was that I couldn't remember spanish, while I know after a day or two of speaking a majority of it would come back to me, but for now it is all gone. I have lost the ability to speak to the family that I love so much, while I know that there are things like Google translator that do a better job than I ever could have, there is still something to be said for the broken spanish that conveys desire and effort. That was my sad day, but tomorrow is chapter two in which mark breaks out his work book.

My Descent Into Insanity

I have been a father now for just under four months and up until this point I have been pretty upset with the amount of information that is not being passed down through the generations. I have been upset because all the things I thought that I knew were wrong or just at least fairly incorrect. Now however I am at a point of insanity. Now I am at a point were I truly feel I have been done a disservice by the previous generations as far as raising a child goes. Guess what world This is my first child and much to contrary belief I know absolutely nothing about what it means to take care of another human life! Sure clean it if it poops, cuddle when its upset, feed when cuddling doesn't work. (which really tells us a lot about people who emotionally eat.) Past that I am utterly unaware!

You would think that your child would give you some cues. I have spent a considerable amount of time in Mexicalli Mexico and I would say that I am fairly used to talking with and communicating with people who do not speak my language and vis versa. You can use hand gestures, you can use body language, you can even just use facial expression. With a baby none of those things are useful. There is happy, middle ground, sleepy, and cut your throat upset. up until now we had only a few times been met with the last of those emotions and felt as though we might in fact have a handle on what it meant to be a parent, thinking well I guess the really hard part must come when he is a teen and realizes he hates our stinkin guts. But holy can of man eating sand worms was I wrong. Over the past two maybe even three days, our beautiful, well behaved son Rory has started to be inconsolable at night until he again finds himself either fed or asleep, and post mid-day nap finds himself in an even worse state. When he would scream in his car seat all the way up to Seattle we just thought that it was due to a dislike of his car seat. This however is different, no matter how much cuddling, bouncing, singing, swaying or shooshing we do there is nothing but time that can console him. Todays tirade was solved by removing his pants and bending his legs so that he could fart. (hehe I spelled fart) Tomorrow we may find ourselves with no such luck. I can't help but think that we could have been more prepared for this moment, if nothing less than being warned that it was inevitable. My mother in-law muses about the year she spent up all night reading books and watching the sun rise while holding her crying whaling son, but everyone says every baby is different. Yet our baby is looking more and more similar to those babies we were so glad we didn't have. I feel unprepared for this outcome.

Also, everyone says when your pregnant you'll glow, and you will love it, its such a magical time. Like the magic of, how many times can you puke before you need to go to the hospital? Like the magic of loathing the idea of being pregnant because you feel like you may have actually killed your wife. That is just being pregnant, a part of this process that I had .0001% involvement in. Once you actually get the baby there are a whole new set of misnomers to deal with. "Its your heart living outside your body." No its having a baby and being responsible for something that can't yet take care of its self. Now yes when I had to spend a few hours away from my son helping some friends move I did miss him but I wasn't worried he might die, I just missed him like you miss skittles when you reach the bottom of the bag. Now here is the crux of this rant, the sentence "so mad I could punch a baby." is wicked true and the part of this that I am most upset about.

Honestly I think its totally normal and natural to get frustrated with a baby, all they do is take, take, take and take from you and they only occasionally pay you back with a smile or finally the first giggle. Then when they decide to go on a tirade at 4am all you want to do is shake them, scream, cry and ask them to finally please tell you what they want. No one has ever told me that they felt that way. Man rule is to never screw with a guy who is crying because he will probably kill you, that should be changed to never mess with a new dad, because he is cried out. When I wake up to my son crying in the night and I know that my wife is getting no sleep and there is nothing I can do to fix it, upset does not even begin to cover the torrent of emotion that I feel. Last night I was going to call the cops and have myself sent to prison for life, minority report style because I had the thought of screaming back at my child. To anyone who has a child who hasn't felt that way please hear me when I tell you its normal.

The dialogue between generation has to be opened up, we can not live in a place of "young hooligans" and "old fogies". We cant let the future generations see us as the enemy, and a place marker for I have to do better than those before me with less help than they have. We have to treat our next generation as our only hope and trust that to be true. We need to warn them of our own mistakes and not smother them with stories of our triumphs. We can't tell our children the way they should do it, more we should let them know how we did it so they can make an informed decision. Key factor is the transfer of information, not just telling them what to do because we know better. I wish I had been told that my son would probably scream bloody murder and that there isn't anything I can do about it. I wish I had been told that when he does scream I might run out of patients and thats when I would have to love him the most. That just because I got angry doesn't mean I should kill myself.

So ill equipped for life are we. One baby can try my patients to the breaking point. One baby, one good baby can bring me crying to my knees. Never in my wildest dreams can I imagine the amount of pain that God feels for all his children, who unconsolably scream and reject his comfort. How he tolerates my one unrepentant ever sinning sole without picking me up shaking me and screaming at the top of his lungs for me to just listen. But instead of escalating the turmoil, he whispers in the darkness. He calms my spirit and gives me the patients that I need to proceed with life. Ever present, always giving my God never abandons me even when I run from him.

Yesterday florida was windy. Why do I know that florida was windy, because when it is windy in Florida, they have problems with their internet. Why does wind interfere with the internet in Florida, well... here ends my knowledge of florida. But to explain why I know what the weather and the internet are like in Florida are like is because I had a skype call with a couple in Florida. They are the regional directors for Latin America and the Caribbean missions. As Malia and I have been looking to get into long term missions we have been unable to determine what and where we would be serving. We have obviously spent time on our own to see what we might do and thinking about what we would like to do, but it is nice to talk to someone who is in the know with what our options are. There was alway a chance that something would happen. Not the world would end or something like that. Like something would happen in the sense that they wouldn't be able to accept us because they don't want a family, or because they just weren't accepting new missionaries this year or something. Much the the contrary they seem to be really excited to add new missionaries. We talked for about an hour and a half, they had a lot of information for us and they generally seem very nice and excited at our decision to join missions with the convenient church. 

What does this mean for us at this point. Well really it doesn't mean anything we have certainly learned a lot more than we knew last week, but everything can change at a moments notice, or even at no notice at all. We are accepted to missions short term for now and we will soon find out where we are going and what we will be doing, but for now that is all we really know. We might not be able to raise the money. Between the down economy, kickstarters, youtube, friends, family, our own money, micro enterprise, the church, or anything else that we can think of to make money fundraising might not be enough. We are currently looking at South America and there is always a chance that we could be pulled out as soon as we arrive due to drug wars. There are a million things that could happen to us that would stop us from being able to serve abroad. There are a million things that could go wrong but everything only has a 50/50 chance. 

Just as scary as the chance that something could go wrong is the chance that everything could go right. We could find ourselves in location that will require us to be there for our entire career as missionaries. We could find ourselves serving in a country that loves and celebrates our arrival. A location that takes care of us and we could have people who support us throughout the years. Rory could love living in the jungle, being home schooled, living on the mission field. We might never come back, it might be perfect. This chance is scary because we are fallen and the idea that the lord would bless us without us being deserving scares me. For those of us that fall into shame and despair, we don't understand how to accept the gifts from God. We will always be waiting for the other shoe to drop. I can read the bible I can accept the love of Christ and know that he died for my sins and that all has been forgiven and that no matter what I have done God will always be there for me. That doesn't me that there isn't still the chance that the other shoe may drop at any moment. I am learning to trust God more as I am unable and unwilling to stand ever ready for something tragic to happen. He will take care of my family and I know that, but the fear of both failure and success are still ever present.

I understand that as christians we are always on the mission field. I often think that all churches should have "You are now entering the mission field." on the overhang of the sanctuary doors just like the church in El Centro, who's floors I have ever so lovingly slept on for many years on my way into Mexicalli in early April, so that you see it every time you leave. But as some are called to the mission field in Detroit, others to Compton, some even in their own town, My wife and I feel called to international missions so that is where we are headed. God has blessed our path this far and we pray that he bless it further. For myself, my wife and my son we are looking at a potential year left here in America before we are able to head off on our adventure. This year will be packed, probably even more than the last and we can't wait. 

About Time

2 months and 24 days ago we came home from the hospital, two days prior to that my wife gave birth to our son Rory Heliuma Dullanty. So pretty much its been three months since I went through the "big  change" from guy to dad. Well guess what, not as much changes as you were lead to believe when you were a little kid. Ya I get up in the middle of the night to sometimes wipe poop from someone else's butt and now when I walk through city streets I think of how I would kill an attacker without endangering my baby. But all in all pretty much everything is the same. well lets be honest, the stuff that is the same is still the same but the things that are different are way way different.

First things first, back in my lone wolf days cock blocking was something that never really happened, firstly I was no Cassanova and also there is a certain level of respect among humans that just isn't shown in movies or on tv. i.e. none of my dude friends ever stole a dame from me, because well that never happens. But now I get cock blocked all the time!!!! There was a person years and years ago who told me a scary fact. "If you have two jars 1 labeled A and one labeled B, if you put a penny in jar A every time you have sex for the first year of your marriage. All sex pennies then go in jar B there after. The fact is you will never have as many pennies in jar B as you do in jar A." to which I declared "nuhhh uhhh!!!!" But her theory holds up and granted yes I am still only in my first year of marriage. No one ever told me that when you have a child there is a direct corrolation between when you try to get your swerve on and when they need to poop, cry, scream, snuggle, eat, and anything else that keeps you and your spouse from enjoying one another specially. I am literally convinced that the smell of soap upsets his stomach because every time malia gets out of the shower she immediately has spit up either down her cleavage or on the nape of her neck. The neck nape being my goto "hey ya wanna" hint I can genuinely say that there is something very dissatisfying about the smell of sour stomach milk being warn as a scent. In both our defenses you can't just wipe that stuff off, it soaks in instantaneously, especially to freshly washed skin. I hate to say it but there isn't anything sexy about spit up skin; and honestly thank God because that would be really disturbing.

On that note the Second major difference, I never shower anymore and neither does my wife. No I don't mean either of us are gross, but more often than not its probably been three days since my last shower. Between dinner, a three day attempt at finishing blogs like this, the occasional vaccume or load of dishes and guess what, the first thing to go is the showering. next comes the vacuuming. No matter what you think you can't do, with more coffee you can do anything. So when it finally comes down to it, you have to shower and when you finally get that chance you end up realizing that showering was awesome, its warm, it smells greats, did I mention that when you get out you can actually feel a lack of sweat grime on your skin. I realize that there has been a severe paradigm shift in my life when I am noticing a lack of grime instead of the other way around. Ive obviously spent my fair share of time not showering, either on a mission trip or just trying to flex my man muscles by seeing how long I could last without being disgusted but now its different, different because now Im not making the choice about whether I have time to take the shower of the will power to stay up the extra time to step into that shower knowing full well that when I get out there will be a baby who has just woken up from a lovely power nap and wants to play.

A baby always wants to play, sometimes they tell you this by cooing or making some other adorable noise that makes you happy with your parenthood decision, other times though the que to play is given with a blood curdling scream from a hammock placed just a foot or two from where you sleep at night. Not only does a baby always want to play but he always wants to play his way, buzzing your lips isn't always the right choice. Tummy scratches aren't always the right choice. sometimes playing is just holding and swaying from side to side all morning because he has a grumbly tummy. The real difference here is that I now feel stupid all the time. This counted as playing this morning but now its just cause for screaming and real tear crying. What was a funny face yesterday is the scary clown under your bed today. For the most part I would say I am pretty intuitive about people, not that I always heed my intuitions but now that this baby is here I've got nothing and that seems to be the nature of the beast. When you remove diction and communication you are left solely with trial and error when it comes to comforting.

This is my baby he came into this world at 6 pounds and 14 ounces, he loves long walks and is a big fan of women with dark hair. He is a flirt and will give just enough attention to lure you into smiling at him just before he buries his face into the neck of whoever is holding him keeping you on his hook of cuteness. He loves fart noises, he just found his fingers and loves to put them in his mouth to investigate. He can hold his head up, if he wants to but would really prefer it if you just held him close so he can nap on your shoulder. He farts and burps like a champ, if he pees in the tub its liable to go over your head and fall like rain if you don't deflect it in time. This is my son Rory and while there are things in my life that have stayed the same since his birth there are far more that have become incredibly different. My life will never be the same from one day to the next and while that will be a struggle from time to time I can't think of anything that makes me more excited.

The Rider

Today I met a man, whom reminded me of a man I met years ago. These men are good men at heart, or so I think; but thats not the point. The point is that these men are confused, they are wrong and for that I pity them. They talk of the end of days and they are full of conspiracy and all knowing knowledge. They have done all the math and seen the signs and those signs say that the end is near. they have seen that there are 6 stars on the top and 6 stars along the bottom with 6 lines between them on the back of a 2 euro coin, accompanied by the woman riding a bull on the opposite side. They think that daniel prophesied that the great white snake is North America, That the oppression of Israel started with the appearance of Allah. That there are aliens, that there are secret societies lurking around every corner and that because of the era they grew up in they know and you are too young to understand.

The end might be near, it might be tomorrow. (Matthew 24:36-44) No matter how much reading, how much math no matter what you think or what era you were born in you will never know the day or the hour that we will be taken from this earth. Now aside from that all I really want to tell these two men of God is that they have a fundamental misunderstanding of the bible and the God who wrote it. While scary imagery is always used when talking about the second coming of christ; (Rev 19) but just because Christ is coming back as a badass doesn't mean it is going to be horrible. If we are counted among the followers then we will not have the mark of the beast on our forehead and we will be watching from the sidelines with popcorn in one hand a foam hand with a hole in it on the other. Get it its a hand with a hole in the middle, because its repin Jesus. I for one am excited as hell to see the rider on the white horse. I have revelations 19:11-21 tattooed on my chest because I always want a reminder that when Jesus comes back, its not the caucasian surfer Jesus on the wall of the prayer room of my old church. Its the Jesus whose robe is dipped in blood; the Jesus who has a tattoo, who pulls a sword from his mouth. When Jesus comes back he will right all the wrongs that have been done in this world... ever... all of them.

Aside from all of that he is the Jesus that is going to bring about new Jerusalem. He is going to bring it crashing down onto new heaven and new earth, and whether you think we will be cherubs or if we will just start a new existence like in C.S's Great Divorce, I don't really care. Why you ask? Because Im going to be hanging with Jesus!!!! No matter how horrible a live Ive had here on earth; doesn't matter. No matter how hellacious my death, poor my burial, My resurrection will always be through Christ. If I believed writing in all caps meant shouting I would be doing it right now because I am so excited. Oh and did I mention eternity? Ya thats a thing in heaven too.

I dont fault these guys for not thinking the way I do. Its more that I feel bad that when prompted I don't listen to what Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:12, that just because they are my elders doesn't automatically make them right, nor does it mean that I as a young man don't have some wisdom to impart on an older generation. I'm going to go read Revelation 19 now because it gets all my excited juices going. Ill proof read this later.

Own Ideas

Do we die to our ideas and our life. This is my life, my family our ideas and our dreams. They may not be the same as anyone else's, but what they are, are MINE. That is something that so many people don't realize. we go around (and I am just as guilty) judging everyone else's path for life and to/with christ. sometimes that translates to, oh he drinks or oh she sleeps around; but less often and more hurtfully we don't  realize that what we are judging  are the big things. oh he is a stay at home dad; they are trying to go on mission with a baby! They understand that text that way? They read that translation/ go to that church, they won't go on the mission field or even travel beyond the small sphere they know.

My family is going on mission, we haven't left yet, and honestly we don't know where we might go, possible Africa, maybe Central America that still remains to be decided. My family includes Malia, Myself, and Rory. We are leaving, we are going to go wherever we choose because we feel called from christ to go live in the mission field away from the place we were born. We do not feel afraid of the world. Muslims didn't bomb the world trade center, germans didn't start either of the world wars, Russians didn't try to put missiles on cuba, and lybians didn't storm the embassy; Nor do I believe that Americans are hunted down like prize rhino horn and murdered to be used as aphrodisiacs on the black market. There are few streets I won't walk down in mexicalli mexico, however there numerous streets I wouldn't walk down in seattle. there are even whole sections of seattle malia isn't allowed to go on her own. This world is not a place of terrors unless you let the actions of a few dye your perception of the whole world. I refuse to let the actions of a few limit the scale and scape of the word being spread throughout the world. 

This is the write choice for my family of which I do not consider myself the leader of. "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." -Gen 2:18 Then there is the flesh of my flesh bone of my bone stuff and no where in there does adam say "hey babe you owe me, your my wife now and I own you, Im your master and your my slave. So malia and I are in agreement on this issue, and two are better than one and a three fold cord is not easily broken. The great commission "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. and surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."  -Matthew 28:18-20 of all the nations includes Egypt, Syria, China, America and Timbuktu, I get that I should also be concerned with my home town but that doesn't mean that I neglect the former assuming people in those locations will take care of themselves. I also bring as A key point of reference the disciples, while traveling they would make sure to hit a different jewish temples and cause enough commotion to be cased out of town while fleeing flying stones, which more than once led them to wake up in the care of a hospital or a nurse made. Not to say that Malia and I have plans to run into mosques and spout about christianity, Im just saying WWJD does apply to our situation.

This is my wife, she came to me from God and we are a team. In 2009 she left her family and her home to move to Cusco Peru where she stayed for 9 months, moved to Washington D.C by way of New York and eventually took a craigslist add for a nanny of triplet boys in Italy. This job took her Vermont after falling in love both with the triplets and her host family, where she felt called by God to move back home. Upon moving home, she shortly there after found her brother in the hospital in Chicago in a coma. During this time she was also able to attend the funeral of her beloved Hawaiian grandmother, who still resides in a small palm box on our bathroom windowsill. 6 months after arriving home from Vermont she was introduced to a strapping young lad with cute hair and a nose ring. Within 8 months we were married and pregnant with a baby who is now a beautiful boy named Rory. That can not be considered coincidence, because that would make us the biggest stream of coincidences to coincide in the history of coincidences. Up until a few months ago I was the only church going member of my childhood family, both brothers and my parents would never consider going on mission let alone long term mission. Upon meeting, marrying my wife we became an unstoppable force for christ and because we can directly see his hand our story we acknowledge that his plans for us continue on foreign soil. We know this because before our marriage and until we sought out the Covenant Church I had applied and been in communication with multiple missions companies none of which would even honor me with a response email; and now we are coming up on the completion of the decrement process, hoping to leaven within the next year and a half.

This is the best and only choice for my family. This is my family and this is our choice, you do not have to agree with us, you don't have to join us. while we would love to see anyone we know visit us while we live our lives on the mission field, that is your choice to visit us or not, either way we are still leaving. I have stood by in the protection of politeness keeping my opinions to myself about my family's path and plan. That time is over, you don't have like it is the best choice for my family and if you dissagree I will fight you. I will defend my family and our choices regardless of who you are. They are my family in Christ, ransomed from hell with the blood of Jesus.

underwear and capes

When do our dreams stop growing? When we are kids we are told to dream but, not really, our dreams are supposed to be rained in and not be too ridiculous. We tell our children to reach for the stars, but you better apply to 2 backup colleges and get a respectable job so you can take care of your family, have a 401k or at the very least a IRA. we say dream but we don't really mean it. I for one was going to be batman, until I realized that the rooftops in Maple Valley were really far apart and not as much crime happens on rooftops as you would think. I would wear a pair of (respective) superhero themed underwear on the outside of my superhero pajamas so I would look more like said superhero, that was being portrayed at that time. But then I was told to maybe bring my dreams down from the stars to the clouds. culinary school/art school, became get a job. Get a job became lost my job and I suddenly find myself dreaming for ground level. A job any job even if I hate it at least its a job. But when 5 year old me gets ahold of my brain I realize, I hate that idea! 

My dreams haven't gotten smaller or lower, they have changed and become more dense, while they have been hiding away down in the depths of my brain they have been percolating, boiling and reducing in something much better than 5 year old me could have ever imagined. The dream for a good job is only the adolescent in my seeking fame and fortune. The real me has always sought to be a lifesaver. That has always been the title of my paper. That has taken many years to develop. It has taken thinking about being an occupational therapist, making people walk again; more like listen to people whine and get a cortisone shot instead of do the exercises. Becoming a chef and subsequently a bartender let me be a therapist without all the pesky degrees, keeping people from leaving thier husbands/wifes or jumping into traffic; people just want someone to listen to their first world problems and to keep the opinions to a paying customer basis only. Missionary...   (am i the only one who loves Pj funny bunny?)

Just after high school I had been going on a spring break mission trip, down to mexico to teach vbs camp. They told me to pack my cape, they told me to bring cash, a hammer, wet wipes. They were wrong the people were far cleaner than I was (wipes are useless). They had really nice houses, they just weren't 3 stories (they own hammers). I didn't need money because they had their own and they would give me the shirt off their backs if I had only asked them, even if I didn't ask them. I didn't need my cape! they fed me, they loved me, they cared about me and prayed for me. My favorite thing is when people don't realize how empty their lives are. when I am home and looking at my shiny new computer, or my slightly older shiny computer, my printer my printer thats right ladies and gentlemen two computers two printers, all Malia and I can think is how excited we are to be on the mission field without all this stuff. Doesn't fit in the suitcase, doesn't go.  My dreams are different than most people, my dreams are different than they used to be. They are better they are more refined and I know more about them than before. I know I don't need a cape, and throwing money at anything doesn't solve anything. They aren't blank and I no longer have ideas that I'm going to go save people. My 500 square foot flat is too big, my clothes don't have nearly enough dirt on them, and I'm tired o. I want to smile at people in the street and not be looked at as though Im crazy. I want to be a nomad. I want my son to grow up with brothers and sisters all over the world from different places. I want his life to be better than my own, not easier but better.

Find a job you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life. Well guess what jobs we love aren't as easy to come by as we were led to believe, and what do we do until we find that job we love. What if, what if, what if? For some time I will have to work a job I don't love, that time will be spent refining my dreams, desires and hopes for the world. At some point I will be free and I will be able to unleash my dreams on the world and unlike a dictator I will work under the radar.  With a bible and a shovel I will be changed by every person I pass, I wont wear a cape, I wont have any money. But I will be as happy as the 5 year old me with batman pajamas. It wont always be easy but he will be proud of the work being done