You're all chickens?

Some writing "sketches" of a couple of scenes from today:

“This may be the dumbest thing I’ve ever done!”  I shouted to Courtney in the water below me.  

The tree was at least 20 feet above the water, and I balanced on the farthest reaching branch, my toes gripping the bark for dear life, one arm holding the limb in a death grip and the other reaching for the rope swing.  I had scrambled up like Tarzan, no shoes, wearing just my bathing suit.  The wooden handle of the rope swing was smooth, and I was having second thoughts about being able to hold onto it well.  I was also having second thoughts about scurrying up a huge tree with no other way to get down than to swing off into the river below on a homemade rope swing.  

I’m not gonna die.  All the local boys do this easy, right?  But this is a giant Tarzan tree.  I’ve never swung off a giant Tarzan tree into a river before.  But when’s the next time I’ll get to do this?  You never know, but you shouldn’t waste golden opportunities.  

                   1 Peter 3.  You are daughters of holy women, who put their hope in God, if you do not fear anything that is frightening.  Hope in God produces courage.  When we hope in God, we do not need to fear.  Anything.  Submission, the future, the present, a rope swing.  As a little girl, watching Carmen Sandiego on TV, I often wondered whether I might grow up to be some daring woman who could travel the world and try anything, unafraid in the face of danger.  I don't know that I've reached that point; I don't know that I ever will, at least on earth.  But over the years of my short life, I can see myself changing.  Or maybe I'm not necessarily changing.  Maybe God's just freeing me to be more how I'm supposed to be, more like He made me to be, more like that fearless woman a little girl dreams she'll be.  Crouching up in this Tarzan tree, perched high above the water, the Fiji sun lighting up everything around me with a brilliant evening glow, all this hits me.  I want my life to be an adventure, and I don't want my best stories to be about how my pump didn't work at the gas station once.        

                   But I can only think about it for a second.  All the local boys do this easy.  3,2,1...go. 

[It's really a Tarzan tree, isn't it?  Can you spot the rope swing dangling?]

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“Can you please take it!” 

It’s more a frantic plea than a question from Elias, a little Indian boy, squatting in a tiny tin chicken shed in his backyard, wrestling with a brown ball of feathers.  I’ve never carried a chicken before, at least not a full grown one.  

“Yeah!”  

I grab the bird by its legs and quickly carry it, squawking and thrashing about, across the yard.  We lift up the side of the new chicken coop, and I set the bird down as gently as possible, given the circumstances.  That’s the last one, and now the coop is full - five brand new laying hens.  

We’ve visited my friend again, and today is a celebratory day.  The new team that just arrived this morning has come, and we just finished building her new chicken coop - a half sphere of PVC pipe and chicken wire that is both affordable and moveable.  The land that gets fertilized by the chickens can be used to plant a garden as the coop moves around the yard.  

I sit down with my friend in her tiny house and we go over how to use her new ledger.  The money she spends, the money she earns, how to balance things out, save her profits and reinvest.  She’s starting with five chickens today, but she’ll sell them and soon five chickens will turn into seven, then nine, then twelve.  The plan we made on Wednesday is turning into a reality.    

“Today has been a busy day, but it has been a wonderful day!  I got to share with two people about Christ, and I bought my chickens.”  Her eyes glow.  She works so hard and wants to provide for her baby son.  He just learned to walk two days ago, she tells me.  

“What should it be called?” she asks, pointing to the ledger.  

“You should name it, whatever you want.”  

She smiles and names it for her son.  Zac’s Chicken Camp Book.  

[The Edge team became expert chicken transporters on their first day. :)]

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I don’t have much energy left for creative writing anymore, but I want to share with you all in more concrete terms what I’ve been up to lately.  On Wednesday, I visited my friend again, the one I’ve written about here.  She’s a single mom, my age, who lives in a large, very poor family.  I spent the morning with her family, and we ate another wonderful lunch together.  We talked about some business plans she’d been thinking over, ways to provide for her baby son.  We settled on a plan of selling chickens and their eggs on credit to the sugar cane cutters in the area.  I had the privilege of going through all the math with her, teaching her how to manage a ledger and considering together some of the possible issues that might arise in going forward with this.  She was super excited by the time I left, and so was I.  

This morning, then, a new team arrived.  (These three people are the Edge team, and I was in their position one year ago in India.  I'm so excited for everything they're about to experience!)  Shortly after they arrived, we went through a trial run, doing a test build, all of us learning how to build a chicken coop for the first time.  Then we disassembled it, loaded it in the truck and headed to the market to pick up my friend.  We picked her up, along with her five chickens, and headed to her house, the chickens riding on our laps in paper sacks with their heads sticking out.  We put them in a tiny tin coop, originally for the family’s one laying hen, until we could build their proper one.  

And when we took them out, just a short while later, we found the first egg - still warm and covered with a little poop from being laid.  We put the chickens in their new coop, and my friend’s little brothers and sisters rushed in with them, laughing and celebrating their family’s new prospects.  

“Ap log murgi hai?” I asked.  (You’re all chickens?)  

“Yes!”  was the delighted reply, the kids laughing partly at the question and partly at my funny Hindi.  

I’m so excited for my friend and really hope that this little business will give her great new opportunities and generate some very much-needed income.  And I feel so honored to be a part of the process of encouraging her to start all this.  Praise God!  

Tomorrow, I’ll leave with the new team to stay and work on the farm for a while.  Then we’ll be going to Homes of Hope in Fiji’s capital city, Suva, for a few days.  (Homes of Hope is a home where women coming out of sex trafficking can find healing and a new life.  My friend was there for a while.  You can check out their website.)  During these upcoming times, I won’t have internet access, so you might not hear from me until just before I return. 

 

If you’ve been reading these, I hope you’ve been blessed by these updates.  It means a lot to me to know that I have people thinking about me and praying for me at home.  Thank you!  God has allowed me some amazing experiences and lessons here, and I’m excited for more in the next two weeks.      

I love you all, and I look forward to seeing you (whether it be sooner or later), 

Brittany