hollywood housewife

a picture

I went with Tony to meet one of the sponsored children.  We were chatting on the way, not exactly used to the scenes of poverty, but not as stricken by them as we were the first day.  We pulled up to the collection of huts and were told that this was government land, that the twenty or so small structures filled with people were encroachments. 

The land sloped down to a dried out creek bed, where a woman in a light sarong was washing herself with a bucketful of water.  Soapy, dirty, green water.  We met the child, a darling little toddler who was a little scared by our exuberance and photography.  We didn’t stay long, we didn’t want to further disrupt their day.  We crossed back through the creek bed, under the wobbly log bridge they must use during the rainy season when the water rises. 

It was then that we saw the water well.  Close to where the woman was washing, a hole in the ground ten feet wide and probably twelve feet deep.  The water was filthy, full of debris.  I couldn’t help but look around at the dozens of little children peeking out at us and worry about their physical safety in this environment.

This was the hardest site visit we witnessed, off the beaten path from where we had spent the rest of the day.

We climbed back up the hill towards the World Vision vehicle and I looked down the road at the row of shaky, squatting huts.  Instinctively, I framed a photograph in my mind of the structures contrasted against the tall palm trees.  I raised the camera and thought, “this would make a beautiful picture.”

Shocked, I lowered my hand.

This is not a beautiful picture.

*

I'm honored to be part of the World Vision blogger team traveling to Sri Lanka. To find out more about the trip or child sponsorship through World Vision, please click here.

giving locally, giving globally

I want to address something that might have floated through your mind, at least it has mine.

Why travel to the opposite side of the world to provide humanitarian aid when there is plenty of need right here in America?

I have thought this.  I still, occasionally, think this.  And I actually believe that if your resources are so finite that given the choice between only helping your neighbor or only helping Sri Lanka, I would choose to help the person beside you every time.

But this doesn’t give one a pass.

For many of us - most, I daresay, of the HH readership - the choices here are not mutually exclusive.  For years, my husband and I have supported programs both locally and internationally.  Really, the two things aren’t comparable. 

In the United States, we have homeless, hunger, abuse, disease.  We have private charitable organizations and faith-based outreaches and government-funded programs.  Some of these need a massive overhaul, many of these are doing incredible work on American soil.

In the United States, we have people who are down on their luck, we currently have the largest percentage of unemployment in my lifetime.  There is lots of hardship just down the street, genuine stress.

But still, even as our country reels, it is the land of opportunity.  At its most basic level, every single American has access to clean drinking water.  No one lives in fear of mosquito bites. 

Yesterday in Sri Lanka I met a family who has to walk miles to school in one direction and miles to work in the other direction, and over a mile in a third direction to get water.  They do it every day.  Because work is scarce, and education is the only way out, and well water keeps them alive. 

World Vision is new to their area, and they’ve already fixed the roads, making their daily travel much better.  There are plans to improve the water situation.  World Vision funds these changes with child sponsorships.

I’m going to tell you more about how the child sponsorship program works as we go along, as I see it with my own eyes.  I know that part of the “help America first” argument is fueled by the skepticism of sending money to a faraway place without knowing what’s actually happening to it.  I’m witnessing what’s happening to it, and you wouldn’t believe the miracles it provides.

Lately, because of the presidential election and my decision to take this trip, I’ve seen and heard some anti-American sentiment.  Rumbles of “selfish Americans,” et cetera.  This outrages me.  I do not believe this.  I think that technology gives a voice to extremes, for better or worse.  I think that, in general, people are good, that Americans are good and also generous.  I think that people do want to help other people, but they’re not sure what that looks like or if it’s even effective. 

I don’t know how to tell you to help your American neighbor, although I encourage you to do so.  I do know how you can help other souls just like yours - mothers, daughters, sisters, little ones - across the world and I’m trying to show you that this week. 

This is real life.  Theirs, and yours.

*

I'm honored to be part of the World Vision blogger team traveling to Sri Lanka. To find out more about the trip or child sponsorship through World Vision, please click here.

a parade of hope and gratitude

So a big part of the trip to Sri Lanka is to show us an area of the country where World Vision is on its way out after more than a decade of aid contrasted with an area of Sri Lanka where World Vision just arrived with a long-term plan.

sri lanka market and fire-walking ceremony

I got a ton of rest on Saturday evening, despite my body being really confused.  I took a short nap in the afternoon and then forced myself to join a group for dinner at the hotel.  I managed to sleep almost the full night and woke up fairly refreshed.

On Sunday we were supposed to have just a short meeting and then a little sight-seeing.  It was a for more time zone adaptation since our travel time was so long and since we didn’t arrive at our hotel until Saturday morning.  We got a slow start.  Everyone is still figuring everything out and Sri Lanka doesn’t move at the same pace as Los Angeles.  We had internet connectivity issues until just before lunch, so while we waited on a fix I sat on a couch in the hotel restaurant and talked with Allison about our childhood faith and marriage.

safely in sri lanka

 

We arrived safely in Sri Lanka.  The travel time from my airplane departing in Los Angeles until I set foot in the hotel was thirty-six hours, including a six hour layover in Dubai. 

I was the last one to join the World Vision group gathered at a restaurant close to our gate at JFK.  They were almost done with their meal, I was tired and a little nervous.  On the surface, the blogging team is all very different from one another.  We live in different parts of the country, write on different topics.  Most everyone is polite, exchanging pleasantries before we embark on such a big trip.

friday links - craft cabinet edition

Last week I attended the Craft Cabinet SoCal bloggy meetup at Salvage Life in Long Beach, hosted by Andrea of Four Flights of Fancy and Jules of Pancakes and French Fries.

Salvage Life was just the cutest little boutique.  I spent more time poking around the store than socializing or crafting!

the world vision sri lanka bloggers

As we head to Sri Lanka today, I wanted to introduce you to the other bloggers making the trip. 

Matthew Paul Turner writes Jesus Needs New PR.  I first became aware of Matthew on twitter.  The title "Jesus Needs New PR" caught my attention, then his consistently funny tweets about everything from church signs to American Idol made him tops on my list to read.  I became friends with his darling wife Jessica, who writes The Mom Creative, and now he has invited me to join the World Vision blogger team on this trip.

Joy Bennett from Joy In This Journey.  I met Joy briefly at a lunch at Blissdom in February, but it is over the past several months that we have become good friends online.  She is a beautiful writer who knows so much more about life and mothering, and I love reading her wisdom.  Joy was also on the World Vision trip to Bolivia last year, and I remember reading her words.

Allison Olfelt from O My Family.  Like Joy, I met Allison for a few minutes at the Blissdom conference, but it has only been since then that we've become friends via the world wide web.  I've actually read Allison's blog for a couple of years now, watching her experiences as a mom of two boys.   

Tony Jones writes for Patheos, Darrel Dow writes the super funny Stuff Fundies Like, and Shawn Smucker had me the John Irving quote atop his blog. 

From World Vision, Carla Swanson Gawthrop, Lindsey Minerva, and Roxanne Wieman will be joining us. 

We are all very different, so I think it will be interesting to follow the same story told nine ways.  Follow along on their blogs or facebook pages for their angles.

Wish us luck!

(prayers appreciated, if you're the praying type.)

I'm honored to be part of the World Vision blogger team traveling to Sri Lanka.  I'll be posting, tweeting, facebooking and Instagramming my way across the globe this week, I'd love it if you'd follow along. To find out more about the trip or child sponsorship through World Vision, please click here.

packing for sri lanka

As much as I travel, packing for Sri Lanka is a whole different mentality.  I probably won't be able to purchase anything I forget, so I have to be even more organized than usual.  And the attire and atmosphere isn't exactly what I'm used to, so I have to think carefully about what I bring.

For example, this is not my typical footwear.  I'm bringing an old pair of Converse, a pair of Patagonia drifters, and Birkenstocks.  Birkenstocks have to be the most un-HH shoes I've ever owned.  But I cannot stop wearing them.  They deserve (and will receive) a full post of their own.

I'm bringing a lot of cotton maxi-skirts and dresses.  Light t-shirts and tunics.  A magenta rain coat.  The weather is supposed to be in the 80's with the occasional thunderstorm.   

Is now the time to mention that I have serious food anxieties?  Probably not.  Let's just say I'm bringing some backup.  And I couldn't get enough bug spray with deet.  I'm going to smell like a daisy! 

I don't want to have to worry much about how I look, so I'm bringing several scarfs for my hair.  I let the pink tips fade away (but plan to add them back next time I'm at the salon), and want to be as low maintenance as possible. 

We had roughly 400 different kinds of power adapters in our travel closet.  I'm bringing a handful and hoping that one of them works.

I'm determined to keep my carry on light, but I am looking at 60+ hours without my bags, so I have to bring some neccessities on my person.  Thank goodness electronics just keep on getting smaller.

The countdown clock is almost up. 

I'm honored to be part of the World Vision blogger team traveling to Sri Lanka.  I'll be posting, tweeting, facebooking and Instagramming my way across the globe this week, I'd love it if you'd follow along. To find out more about the trip or child sponsorship through World Vision, please click here. 

 

two fun summer reads: snobs and gone girl

I know it's the end of the summer, so sharing a good beach read is about three months too late.  But I read two things over the summer that were so fun - and so different - that I've been telling anyone who is looking for their next good novel.

I picked up Snobs by Julian Fellowes on the recommendation of Shauna Niequist, who I always trust with such things.  From the creator of Downton Abbey, it's what you can expect from a gossip-y class-struggle novel set in 90's England.  That would be the 1990's.  For some reason, this cracked me clean up.  Just like whenever I hear a rap song roughin' it up in the LBC in '93. 

Okay, nothing like that.  Except they both make me smile.

Snobs is nothing more than a light soap opera, with some romance and lots of raised eyebrows.  Think of it as the Lifetime mini-series that you accidentally got caught up watching and devoured every second, pint of mint chocolate chip demolished.  Not as quick-witted as Downton Abbey, it shares the same fan base. 

My favorite book of the summer was Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.  I saw someone talking about it on twitter and then saw it at the bookstore the same day.  I don't want to say too much about it.  It's really best to go in blind.  I knew nothing about the story when I cracked it open, and it kept surprising me all the way to the end. 

If you are equally fascinated and disturbed by the media whenever a woman or child goes missing, you will like Gone Girl.  If you've ever watched Nancy Grace while cooking dinner, you will like Gone Girl.

A college friend texted me when she was about to get on a plane for vacation.  She was desperate for a good, not-too-heavy-but-still-well-written novel for her trip.  Without hesitation, I wrote back Gone Girl. 

And then I wish we could have a secret post where we could talk about it.  That's something to ponder over actually...

What have you read lately that blew your socks off? 

You can read my past book reviews here or follow me on GoodReads here. 

well-rounded

Mondays belong to Moms at HH. 

I think before I had kids I would have guessed that it would harder to leave a baby overnight than big kids.  But for me, that hasn't necessarily been true.  In the first 18 months of her life, Pigtail stayed with grandparents when I had to travel for memorial services, and then for eight days when The Gorilla and I went to Europe on the press tour for his last movie.  We missed her, of course, but I wasn't worried about her.

As she's gotten older, it's been harder and harder to be apart.  She recognizes when one of us is gone, and raising a toddler is a lot more layered than feeding, changing, and bathing an infant.

Now, of course, that infant is her brother.  And they are always together.  They thrive together.  It is a solace to me that they have each other, if ever The Gorilla and I are gone at the same time.

Ten months later, I am really starting to get a feel for our family.  The foggy newborn days have faded, the kids' personalities emerge more and more each day.  My perfect day involves nothing more than being with these three people.  

So I hate leaving them this week, even if it's for something that is important.  I worry, about all the things you expect a mom to worry about.  I fret, about all the things that keep every other mom you know up at night. 

I remind myself that a really lasting impact of my own parents was that they always had their own interests outside of our family.  They had jobs, hobbies, trips, friends.  They were better parents and I was a better kid for it.  So when nothing feels more instinctual than hunkering down and being mama bear forever, I have a rich example of why I pursue what I do.  That it is satisfying in the short term and the long term.

Just like parenting.