The Chronicles of Janie

Dear Good Men, If you're reading this, then you know who you are, because I've probably told you in person at least some of what I'm about to write. Anyway, I’m sure that most of you would be terribly embarrassed that ‘Janie’s at it again’, if you saw your names here. So I'm leaving this letter open, in the hopes that maybe it will reach some of the other good men out there, as well (I trust there are still quite a few of you). Truth is, most of you have no idea (despite the fact that I’ve tried to tell you...I really am rubbish at conversation sometimes) of how amazing you are and how much you’ve impacted my life. You’re all just ordinary people, going about your everyday lives. You’re doing your best to love God with all your heart, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbors as yourselves. No-one is probably ever going to applaud you for doing what you do, but I feel you should know that you’ve changed the way I see the world. Men get ...

0400: We pick up the two that I will, at some point further down the road, begin mentally referring to as 'our Brazilians'. Sleepy goodbyes and kisses and Pedro telling too-loud stories in the front seat. We drive away into the dark. Exhausted, I settle in for what I hope will be a full day of catching up on lost sleep. - Sunrise over the scrublands. I open bleary eyes just long enough to drink it in, to admire the fact that Jon's music provides a nearly-perfect soundtrack, to savor that familiar, cozy sentiment of car travel. Then I give in to exhaustion once more. Silence, save for the road hum and the lilting of orchestral songs. A car full of somnolent peace. The 'good' road goes the way of all things. We lose not one, but two tires. We crack out the capulanas and the boiled eggs and wait for help to come. We amuse ourselves by politely greeting all of the people who walk by, staring doubtfully at us, and by watching the grou...

I sit here and watch the storm coming. Dark clouds gather above the dancing swallows. Tree leaves quiver in anticipation. Thunder rumbles distantly. Rain, here, is a sign of death: Houses flooding and rice crops washing away. Mud walls caving and killing people, and the persistent worry of a cholera outbreak. But it's also a sign of hope: Relief from droughts, a welcome respite from scorching heat. Water in dried-up riverbeds and wells. I sit here, and watch the falling drops splatter against the concrete, and I think about death and hope. Two such separate things, so closely linked in this, the place of extremes, where most of life seems to be either wonderful or terrible and there often isn't much in the way of a middle ground. I live in the midst of this seeming paradox.   In the space of a single day, I'll go from sipping cappuccino at a high-end café to walking the filthy pathways that thread between small houses with no electricity, no pl...

Just a random stock photo, because I'm too chicken to take a bunch of obvious photos when everyone's watching me March 8, 2017 I think I accidentally barged into men's hour. There are tables full of men - Somalis, Indians, Portuguese, Mozambican - and a group of them messing about with the ATM. Presumably they are restocking it (some are in uniform and the rest are looking impressive). There are two other women here, but they are with men... Oh well, accidentally turning up in 'men only' groups is one of my specialties. The original plan was to go to Riviera and pretend to be a character from Casablanca, but I was tired and footsore after hunting for a pair of shoes for Dino's wedding, so I succumbed, instead, to the nearest AC/bathroom combo. So here I am. The proprietor seems to be mostly toothless in front, and consequently, unintelligible. Well, to be fair, part of the problem is the absence of teeth and the other part if the presence of ...

Some things seem too familiar to be unknown. The peculiar lilting of a laugh. The certain bending of a road. An uncurtained window frame spilling yellow light. Perhaps a face...are we sure we haven't passed this way before? So it is, that we the pilgrims, sojourning in this foreign land, yet find glimpses of a home. Left behind Waiting ahead Half-imagined Eagerly sought Life isn't what we'd thought it would be when we first heard the call to, "Leave your father's home and go to the land that I will show you." Sometimes, the old seems new and the new, intimately old. How is is that, speaking the same language, we can yet so thoroughly misunderstand? How is it that language barriers are sometimes no barrier at all? How is it that the new can fit as easily as last year's sandals? So it is for those born of the Spirit... It's by leaving home that we learn to construct our own; to pick up the tools of faith, h...

Another unrelated image. But Mozambican rainstorms make for the best sunsets. Journal entry: January 24, 2017 When the water actually works properly, I aproveito to the hilt. Wash the hair! Wash the laundry! Wash everything! It began as a generic, zona -wide water shortage, which translates to practically non-existent water pressure in our fourth-floor apartment (or no water at all and having to dip into the reserve buckets). Then it escalated to our pump going out right before Christmas. No sooner did the new pump, after much trial and error and return visits from Sergio and Jorge, become fully functional, than the faucet in the tub broke off. So now the water supply to half of the bathroom is shut off to avoid having a mini fountain in our bathtub. Because, as posh as a mini fountain sounds, it isn’t terribly convenient. Fortunately, the mysterious workings of the Mozambican plumbing systems were in our favor this time around, and even though the tub faucet...

Here's a nice view that has nothing to do with the post. Enjoy! For me, in Mozambique, the unsettling thing isn’t the heat, or the dust, or the water outtages or the public transportation, or the weird food shortages (one time, the entire city ran out of eggs). It’s the fact that I am constantly under observation.  Sometimes the observation is hilarious. A few days ago, I unwittingly provided free advertising for a chappa by the simple act of getting into it. The coprador started yelling, “this is a great chappa ! Even the white girl’s using it! Everybody, get on! What are you waiting for?” and I really felt like I should print some stickers, WHITE GIRL APPROVED, for them to affix to the bumper. Sometimes, it’s disturbing. Like the creepy guy who knew exactly where I lived and kept following me around asking for my phone number so that he could be my boyfriend.  And sometimes it’s gratifying. Like the time I (completely unintentionally) blasted a ton ...

I parted my hair down the middle this morning, and, with the way the light was coming in, I noticed all the grey. I'm going grey at the ripe old age of 24. The funny thing? I don't even mind. First of all, I don't subscribe to the notion that the only way to be beautiful is to look young. I've known far too many wonderful old ladies to ever believe that. Secondly, my grey hairs stand for something. Every single one. And here's a largely irrelevant photo collage because I'm pretty sure everyone wants to see me with cake on my face. I got my first grey hair at the age of 18, after my first trip to Mozambique. I joked that Moz had turned me grey. Ha! Ha! Little did I know... The return to Mozambique in 2014 gave me plenty more opportunities for hair-greying adventures. A prolonged sickness A bout of depression A painful change Another sickness Each left its mark behind. I've come to expect a further sprinkling of grey in ...

The Coyles on Burns Night, January 2011 Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P93 I don't know if Mom gets  The Missourian any more. She said that Joe and I were the only ones who actually read it...but that it was handy to always have paper around to start fires. I mostly read the People section, the advice column, and the births, weddings, and obituaries. I'm pretty sure Joe read everything else. It was a good system, because I figured he'd tell me if I missed out on an interesting article in another section. This photo, though not as high-quality as some, does a good job of expressing a certain aspect of my family; in the age of the internet, we read the newspaper. We also celebrate Burns night because somebody, at some point, had goat stomachs that needed to be used up and the natural conclusion to that was 'Haggis! Costumes! Celebrate the birthday of a long-dead Scottish poet!'And so the annual celebration of Burns Night, by people whose Scottishness ...

Baby Lucy, January 2011 Canon EOS 1000D When I jokingly told Candice that I was praying that she'd give birth past her due date so that I could have a niece for my birthday, she said, "Please, don't." But maybe Jesus loves me more...or (more probably) January 12 was just the proper time for Lucy to be born. At any rate, there she was, 4 days past her official due date, bright-eyed and with the most adorable stick-out ears...the best 'birthday present' I ever received. 

I took a stroll back through my photo archives. Oh, the memories! Oh, the cringe-worthy shots that seemed like such a good idea at the time. Oh, the unexpectedly decent shots that I got with surprising frequency even before I had a good camera or 'knew what I was doing'. Funny thing, but I can still remember the tiny details surrounding almost all of my photos...the emotions, the small events of the day on which it was taken, even the smells in the air. Strolling through the archive is more than just a photographic review. It's opening a time capsule into the life of the Janie of the past - what she thought and felt and found important - and to the people that surrounded her and made up her world. Richmond, December 2011 Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P93 We've a long-standing joke, my brother and I. He always said that we'd meet up in a warzone somewhere. He'd be in the military and I'd be there doing hum...

What do you do when you're sitting in the back of the car for hours and hours and hours? You start playing with your phone. And you film some random stuff. And then you make a video.

Funny thing, but I've gotten a lot more particular about my appearance since moving to Mozambique. Maybe because most of the people around me look like they ought to be fashion models, and I'm not a fan of being known as 'the grungy American'. Anyway, I've discovered that I actually like dressing nicely. It's kind-of a mood lifter on not-so nice days, and since I honestly don't know who I'll be interacting with day to day, it's a relief to unexpectedly encounter Really Important People with the soothing knowledge that at least I'm wearing well-coordinated clothes. Since I travel a goodish bit, and have an affirmed hatred for carting lots of luggage about with me, I've been working on perfecting my skill of packing light-ish and still looking nice-ish. Because it occurred to me that not everyone has as many opportunities as I do to mess about with packing trial-and-error, and also because I'm in South Africa, vacationing hard and aching...

Source Sometimes, it's  not who we are, it's just where we're at.  We don't actually dislike people, we're just too tired to put forth the emotional and physical effort to make a connection. We're not actually lazy, our bodies are just asking for a break. We're not actually quick-tempered, we're just under enough stress that extra things seem unbearable. We're not actually afraid of the future, we're just surrounded by so much uncertainty that thinking ahead to even more uncertainty feels terrifying. There are days when we must wake up, look ourselves in the eye, and say, 'this is how I feel, not who I am.' There are days when it is a real fight to silence guilt and ask for grace. To stop listening to the voice that hounds you with reminders of what a terrible person you are, and to ask, instead, for reminders of who God created you to be, what He wants you to do, and the strategy for how to be and do that in your curr...

I was on my knees, yet again, exhaustion clamoring even more loudly in my ears than the speaker system, discouragement hanging as heavy as the dust clouds that blocked my lungs, more vast than the crowd that gathered, half-seen, at the edges of the light. There are times when I can face a mountain of problems, break them down into manageable pieces, recruit help, and have faith that we will overcome. This was not one of those times. The normal list of impossibilities had expanded and blossomed into something completely unmanageable, and I was left staggered, and wondering, 'how do you change a world that is so, irreparably, broken that it's falling to bits around you?' I did the only thing I know to do. I got down on my knees and I lifted my hands, and I said, "God, I know I'm here for a reason. I know You have things for me to do. But right now, everything looks impossible. How do you change a world that is so broken?" The answer came in the w...

Mozambicans make the best chicken. If you doubt this, come and visit. I will turn you into a believer. So you can understand that, living in the land of people who take their chicken very, very seriously, I was a bit intimidates when 'Frango Friday' came along and I had to cook chicken for everybody because Dona Ana was at a funeral. Would I get it right? All I can say is, that this recipe received applause and Dino was putting his rice into the chicken dish so that he sould soak up the last of the sauce, and two people have since asked me for the recipe. I'm going to label that a success. Tangy High-Stakes Chicken 1 chicken, skinned and cut into pieces. I'm not the best chicken carver, so I just roughly divided it into legs, thighs, wings, neck, and the torso into four parts. 1/4 cup oil 1/2 cup vinegar 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon black pepper 3 medium tomatoes 2 medium onions 2 medium carrots 5 cloves garlic 1 teaspoon basil 1 teaspoon oregano...

As so often happens here in Mozambique, I found myself seated in a shop, waiting for someone to show up so that I could ask about buying something. And, as also happens more often than not, I fell into conversation with the store owner, in this case, a Muslim guy from India. We started talking about our respective home countries, and what it's like to live in Mozambique, and then he commented on how well I speak Portuguese.  "Oh, thanks!"  And then I started in on the story about how I'd prayed to learn Portuguese when I first arrived, and how God had sent me my friend, Fifi, who didn't speak any English at the time, and that was how I'd started learning. And there I was, chatting to a Muslim guy about my faith. Jesus with Mary & Martha; African artist, unknown I was part of a Baptist church for a number of years, so I've been to  all  of the trainings about  all  of the evangelistic methods. I rea...

One day, God asked me, Are you willing to work for justice for others, even if it means that you are treated unjustly? It was one more step on a path I've been walking for a very long time; the path of total surrender to God. It's fairly easy to say, "here I am, God, send me." But it can be terribly hard to let go of the individual things that your humanity holds dear. So God asks me, from time to time, "Are you willing to let go of that? What about that? Can you trust me in this situation?"  There are many things I've fought to hold on to for a long, long time - friends, safety, dignity - but when I let them go at God's request, it's always such a relief. The more I learn to stop fighting for myself, the more I get to see God fighting for me. And He's a much better fighter than I'll ever be. Aslan & Lucy concept art | Justin Sweet Living as a foreigner in Mozambique is never dull. At it's best, ...

I originally joined the media team as a photographer.  And then I learned how to shoot and edit video, and how to arrange cables and projectors and slide shows, and the whole photography thing kind of got left behind in the dust kicked up by more important concerns.  When I got asked to go to the special women's service to shoot photos, I actually stared blankly at the camera for a couple seconds, trying to remember what all those buttons do. It'd been a while. I think it's good for a person to quit doing familiar things in order to learn something new, or to leave behind the things one likes to do in favor of doing what needs to be done. But it's also nice to go back every once in awhile and remind yourself of the reason why you love the things you do.  As I wandered around the church, jostling for good angles and better lighting, trying to capture the spirit and the atmosphere, I could almost feel my soul letting out a huge sigh of relief. Ahh,...