"It's ok if you have to pour it out."
Evening, September 17, 2024 - Charlotte International Airport
After our experience with the miracle Saint Baggage Handler (written about here), we made our way through security. The security lines were small and not particularly burdensome, however mine and Selah’s carry-ons were flagged for a special inspection.
We have TSA pre-check, so typically, we do not have to take our laptops out of our bags. On this trip, however, I had four laptops in my suitcase. Before you gasp, understand that we have two old macbooks and a reasonably good, though lightly used PC, that I did not have the heart to throw away yet. I figured they could be sold here in Brazil, or perhaps given away in the right situation. The fourth laptop was a new PC that a Brazilian friend had purchased and asked me to bring down for him. Regardless, the baggage scanner threw a red alert when it apparently could not ram its x-rays through all 4 laptops, and an additional screening was called for.
The TSA agent had to parade each laptop back through the scanner, each in their own little special laptop tray. As each one of the four computers slid back down the conveyor belt toward me, I awkwardly loaded them all back up as the super-efficient, hurried, fellow TSA-pre-check-traveler-extraordinaires scooted past us with noses held high.
Selah’s suitcase was flagged for a different reason. At a summer camp earlier this year, she was given the opportunity to make one of those sand crafts. It is the craft where you get different colored sands and pour them into a bottle and as they build up on top of each other, they make a cool design. She was a little surprised to see the TSA agent pull that out and name it the culprit that caused the special inspection. Apparently, the x-rays could not push through the sand either. Afraid they would have to empty it out, she dropped her head and softly said to the agent, “It’s ok if you have to pour it out. I understand.”
This melted my heart. I had the same fear. After all that she had been through, packing up her home three times in a year, saying good-bye to best friends in Spokane, making new best friends in North Carolina, and then saying good-bye to them, bidding farewell to countless possessions and prized crafts, overcoming all these challenges, she still had a good attitude heading into the airport on this day. She was still upbeat and excited. She still somehow marched along with us, sad about the losses, but fully engaged with the mission of the day. And now, here, before even arriving at our gate, within an hour of saying goodbye to the bestie who took off school to bring her to the airport, here she was facing the prospect of another loss.
Way back in 2017, when we first started thinking about making the leap into missions and working toward joining a missionary aviation team overseas, I remember inviting one of my mentors out for sushi to discuss the idea. This mentor, Stephen Gilliland, was on the board of directors of the hospice company I worked for, and had also been my professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Arizona. He had a lot of business experience, and was a great mentor in that regard. But he also had a lot of life experience, and that was what I was mining at lunch that day.
I shared the idea that Alyx and I had to leave Tucson, work through the Moody Aviation program, and eventually move overseas to help somewhere. I’ll never forget his response, which came assertively and without pause. He said, “You should definitely go for it, and soon. If you don’t do it now, you never will. Life will become too comfortable, your kids will grow up to a point where moving will be too big of a strain, and you won’t be able to make the leap. If you want to do this, and it seems like a good thing, do it now, or you never will.”
I could not fully understand what he meant by all that until we were moving out of Spokane a year ago. By that point, 6 years had passed since the sushi lunch with Dr. Gilliland. Selah was 6, she had developed some good friendships over the two years she spent in school there, as well as some other friends from church who she had, to that point, essentially grown up with.
As hard as it was for me to tear myself out of the fabric of our community in Spokane, it was much more difficult to pull someone else, Selah, out of her community, and she was only 6! I can’t imagine how much harder it would have been to pull her, and her sister, out of their community at an age too much older than this. I understand people do, and I realize kids, even teenagers, can and do adapt. But the challenge would have been far greater, and it’s quite possible that had we waited much longer, we never would have done it.
Dr. Gilliland was right. In 2017, our window of opportunity to make the jump into this line of work was indeed closing, and as I stood there at the TSA counter at the Charlotte airport with my now 7 year old, it felt as though the window was latching shut. One thing Alyx and I feel strongly about with this move to Manaus, is that this is the place we want to stay for a while, perhaps a long while. We want to, as much as possible, provide the girls a chance to grow up in one place, maintain some stable friendships, and learn what it means to be a part of a community for a long period of time.
If you ever have it in your mind to make a big move, with your family, think a lot about the impact it will have on the kids. I don’t think I thought enough about it. Over the last year, I have thought about it a lot more. There are three basic takeaways that I have come away with as I’ve processed the challenges our plans impose upon our kids.
It is good for parents to lead the family, even if it is led down a path that is challenging. A family with a vision, a purpose, and a plan can tackle challenges together and come out the other side stronger. This also helps, from a faith building perspective, as children (and parents too) see how God can use them when they present themselves as willing to be used by Him to bring His love wherever they go. But for this to happen, there has to first be that intentionality on the part of the parents to say “this is the reason and the purpose behind why we choose to take on some of these challenges.”
Don’t diminish the fact that challenges are real. The kids, and the adults, need to have the space to share the reality of the pain they are feeling in the transition, and to have that pain validated. And the parents need to always be evaluating if that pain and those challenges are necessary. It is not uncommon for God to call us to one thing, and us to then call ourselves to a little bit more, moving our own goalposts further than they need to be moved, and working the team harder than was necessary. I speak from personal experience on this. Listen to the kids, hear their pain, and be ready to adjust as necessary to ensure they do not become collateral damage in the quest to do more than is expected of you.
God is faithful to not just comfort us, the adults, but also to be aware of the concerns of the little ones and to meet them in their own unique ways, as happened at the TSA counter back on September 17th.
The TSA Agent looked down at Selah as he held up her sand art creation in a bottle. “You made this?” He asked?
“Mmhhmm.” Selah murmured looking back up at him. “But I know you probably have to pour it out.”
“I can’t pour this out! This is a unique piece of art. It is one-of-a-kind! It has never been made before, and could never perfectly be replicated. I’m just going to wipe the surface of it and run those wipes through a little test machine to make sure there is no explosive powder on it, and then we will get it packed back up.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. I looked down at Selah, who was beaming. Not only had her artwork been saved, but she had been lauded as a one-of-a-kind artist whose works must be preserved!
From the TSA security line, we entered the terminal and made our way to the departure gate…
All aboard, sand-art safely stowed.