2014 - Page 2 of 4 - Gina Brenna Butz

Seeing God in Legos

Post author:Gina B
Post published:September 26, 2014
Post category:faith

Seeing God in Legos

My title is not meant to imply that I have seen the face of God in a Lego creation, a la the Virgin Mary in a piece of toast (especially not the creepy little guy above, courtesy of Ethan); rather, that in watching a young child play with Legos, I saw a bigger picture of Him.

We start our conference days with worship. This morning, the worship leader’s young son was sitting at our table. He availed himself of the large Lego blocks on the table (they’re great – yesterday I made an iphone holder out of them for myself). Over and over he attempted to build a structure using all the blocks, arranging and rearranging them. At this point, I wouldn’t peg this kid as a future structural engineer – a little top heavy, kiddo – but every time the blocks collapsed he laughed. When it was completed, it became a car he drove around the table. Sometimes it carried the candy on the table. Mostly the candy went in his mouth though (who can blame him?).

I was amused. He was fun to watch. It occurred to me that I wasn’t the only one enjoying him. God was having a great time watching him too. In fact, I thought, if I can find such joy in watching this little guy, how much more does God? He created our capacity to enjoy, and no one can enjoy like He can.

Do we think of Him that way? So often our view of God is too serious, like He would frown disapprovingly and shush a child playing during worship. The reality is He loves kids. He loves their creativity, their lightheartedness, their pure joy. He made it. He participates in it.

I think God laughs and enjoys His creation more than anyone. How could we enjoy something more than He does? The word says that He inhabits the praise of His people; He inhabits our joy as well.

I want to hear His laughter in ours. I want to see His smile in others’ faces. I want to be conscious of Him enjoying life with me.

Our inclination toward joy is from Him. I saw it today through some Legos.

Redeemed . . . or . . . DIYing Again

Post author:Gina B
Post published:September 20, 2014
Post category:faith growth

DIY Bench

For weeks, Erik and I have intended to continue our DIY activity by making a bench out of the reclaimed dock wood we have. We kept having this conversation:

Gina: We should make the bench.
Erik: Do you have a plan for it?
Gina: Yes!
Erik: Where?
Gina: In my head.
Erik: Could you write it down?
Gina: (blink. blink.)

It finally dawned on Erik that when he said, “plan” what he meant was “detailed schematics of how this bench will be structurally sound” and what I meant was, “vague idea of cool looking bench, probably held together by nails and magic.”

So he made his own plan. And it was good, as you can see from the picture.

I love doing this. I love taking something others have discarded as worthless and making something new from it. Not something perfect – there will always be flaws, but that’s part of the beauty of it. That’s what makes it one of a kind. It can still be something useful, something good, something that gives life.

I love it because it is a picture of redemption. We all have places, moments, chapters, in our lives, that we could count as wasted. Worthless. Ruined.

God isn’t close to finished with them. In fact, that’s where He starts. He takes our broken places and our discarded moments and our lost chapters and he makes something new. These are the places from which we have the greatest potential to give life to others.

What a great gift – anything can be redeemed. Old dock wood. Us. It’s all good.

Just Enough Light for the Road I’m On

Post author:Gina B
Post published:September 16, 2014
Post category:faith truth

One of the downsides of living this far south is that the sun doesn’t come up early, and I’m an early morning girl. It puts a damper on any outdoor exercise in the am, mostly because we live in the boondocks where there are no streetlights. People live out here specifically because they want to get away from all that pesky civilization with its fancy electricity that might light my way.

This morning, I decided to brave the darkness with Scout in tow so I could prayer walk around the neighborhood (is that three birds with one stone, since I also walked the dog? Multi-tasking at its best!).

As I walked, it seemed like there were just enough front porch lights, or kitchen lights of early risers, on to light our way. And during the stretches where there was no light, a car or two drove out of the neighborhood and helped us see.

Just enough light. Not the brightness I would like to feel completely confident, but enough to show me what was next.

I so want to see far ahead. I want to know what the next year, two years, 10 years will look like. But God gives me only enough light for the next step, and not always when I want it, but when I truly need it. Hopefully it keeps me walking slowly, looking to Him for what is next, trusting that what I have seen in the light is still true in the darkness.

“Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path.” Psalm 119:105

Experiencing God

Post author:Gina B
Post published:September 3, 2014
Post category:faith transition

I’ll never forget the phone call from my husband in Singapore, telling me that we’d been asked to move there. The blood drained from my face at the prospect. I didn’t even know where Singapore was. I thought it was near Fiji (it is not near Fiji).

With less than 5 months to process this change, many details had to fall into place. We arrived on a Thursday night, hours after our co-workers there had been given the key to our new apartment. The next morning, as we sat in our empty dining room, we prayed that our shipment would arrive (we’d heard not a peep from the movers). Within 5 minutes, the doorbell rang. It was the moving company.

Looking back on it, I felt God’s tenderness. He knew how hard it was for us to move to Singapore, to leave behind the life we had. All those details falling into place felt like gifts from Him, saying, “I’m going to get you through this.”

Five years later, when we moved back into East Asia, the process wasn’t so smooth. Visa and shipping issues tied us and pushed our leave date again and again. I finally cried out in exasperation, “God, last time you were so tender with us! Why don’t I see it now?”

His answer was clear, “Because that’s not what you need now.”

It was true. I was overjoyed to be moving back to our previous home. I didn’t need comfort. I needed restoration after a long two years of ill health and loneliness. That summer was three months of glorious God-given re-everything: restoration, refreshment, rejuvenation, re-you name it. And through it all, I felt God rejoicing in giving it to me, cause that’s just the kind of God He is.

After those times, I was curious to see what aspect of His character I would experience most in moving back to the U.S. We moved back two years ago today (what??), so I thought it would behoove me to reflect upon it (and also, I like the word “behoove”).

I think more than anything, I have experienced God as the rock who anchors me. He has been my constant, my solid place. He has kept me from drifting too far from home. He has been the place I can rest when the waves are too strong for me. His strength has tethered me when I have reached the end of my resources again and again. He is the deepest truth about who I am when everything else is shifting sands.

What will He show me next?

A Year of Disney

Post author:Gina B
Post published:August 31, 2014
Post category:gratitude parenting

A Year of Disney

Yesterday, our Disney annual passes ran out. No more Disney for us.

The first time we went, last September, I took the kids to Magic Kingdom, just the three of us. I was the “best mom ever” for taking them. It looked like we were going to have a year long vacation full of happy, loving, family times.

But did you know that kids can get to a point where they don’t want to go to Disney anymore? It’s true. They can come to the place where the suggestion, “Let’s go tomorrow” is met with, “Again?!?” Yep. Possible.

But then the last two weeks, as we squeaked in a few more days, and did the “we haven’t done . . .” moments, suddenly we heard, “We should have gone on that ride . . . We should have done . . .” I tried to remind them of the times we had to drag them. They didn’t really remember. It almost made us want to renew our passes. Almost.

We learned a few things. Always use fast passes. Tomorrowland’s really empty right away in the morning. Bring your own food. Mission: Space, the Tower of Terror, and the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party are not for those with weak stomachs. Sit in the back on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. And most importantly, by late afternoon, the Magic Kingdom is no longer the happiest place on earth, judging by any family who has brought a child under 5.

But happy, loving, family times? They happened. We laughed. We schemed how to make the most of our time. We park hopped. We rode rides, got off and got right back on again. We got caught in the rain and thought it was awesome. And last night as Megan skipped down the fastpass lane at Soarin’ with her beautiful red hair flying I thought, “I would do this all again.”

I’m so thankful for our year of Disney.

Parenting Is Worth It

Post author:Gina B
Post published:July 9, 2014
Post category:parenting

It’s all worth it.

That’s the feeling I have while closing down this day. I spent the evening with a group of wives and moms who are about to go overseas to work. We talked about what it’s like to be moms in another culture, the ups and downs, the challenges, the joys.

I walked in the house after the kids should have been asleep (no fault of my husband’s – they’re getting older and summer hours are different). I found one waiting just to lay some of his emotions at my feet, needing to hear a good word to calm his anxious heart. I found the other so excited I thought something spectacular must have happened in my absence. Turns out she just thinks my return is worth that kind of reaction.

What a gift.

Those are the kind of moments that make it all worth it, no matter where you raise your kids. We talked a lot tonight about how hard being a mom can be, and that is so true. But to get to be that person for your kids – the one who calms fears and brings joy and makes the world right enough to sleep . . .

It’s all worth it.

Back to Normal, for Now

Post author:Gina B
Post published:July 7, 2014
Post category:third culture kids transition

The other day, our daughter said, “If we could bring Scout out here, I would want to stay here forever.”

So it seems she is enjoying the summer. And why wouldn’t she be? Two of her oldest and dearest friends are here with her, along with a couple dozen other TCKs (Third Culture Kids), for six weeks. Weekday mornings we have meetings, during which the kids are together doing fun activities. The rest of the time we all live together in college student housing all centered around a common courtyard. We’re back to the days of, “I don’t know where the kids are, but I know they’re having fun. They’ll probably come home when they’re hungry.” In other words, it’s their paradise.

It’s also their normal. Our kids came into the world when we lived in a building with 29 other people we worked with, as well as nine kids under the age of 5, most of us within 5 stories of one another. We bought a security door with our American neighbors and placed it 10 feet down the hallway (instead of each of us having our own outside our doors) so that we could leave our own doors open for the families to go back and forth at any time.

When we moved to Singapore, we again had numerous families we knew all centered around a common courtyard, this time with a pool. Every day at 2 pm, that’s where we were. Our last two years in Asia, most of the people from our office lived within a 2 mile radius of one another. Between us there were 60 school age kids, and most of them were homeschooled. There wasn’t a day that went by without friends.

Then we came to the States, and our kids didn’t know what to make of it. Ethan’s managed to find some friends a couple blocks away, and they are over as much as possible, but we’re still praying for Megan to have at least one good friend in the neighborhood. They are realizing that what they grew up with just wasn’t the norm.

Throughout our transition, this has been one of the places of deepest grief for our kids. As much as they want life to be the way they knew growing up, they simply cannot make it that way. They are still trying to figure out how to do without.

And then we come here, and life IS that way, and we’re all kinds of happy and thankful and relieved (it’s hard to think of things to do without friends!).

So what is my conclusion? I confess I’m tempted to look ahead and gather my emotional energy for the fallout of losing this environment once again. I’m trying instead to simply be grateful for the gift of having this amazing community.

After the Storm of Transition

Post author:Gina B
Post published:July 2, 2014
Post category:transition

Have you ever walked through the woods after a big storm? You can hear the water still dripping from the trees, the animals venturing out again. The ground is soft, you find new puddles, maybe some downed branches. There’s a quietness in comparison to the fury of the storm. It’s back to normal, it seems, but great storms rarely leave things unchanged.

My last post was over a month ago. I could blame the end of the school year, or travel (we’ve been up to Minnesota and are currently in Colorado helping with a training). I’ll admit that the frequency of my posting is often directly proportional to the amount of time I spend with God. That might be part of it.

But mostly, I don’t have much to say. I feel like I am wandering through the woods of our lives after a great storm, surveying the land, wondering, “What next?” I am so accustomed to life being turbulent, I don’t quite know what to make of the relative calm.

That’s not to say we’re done transitioning back to the U.S. A friend out here said the other day that she’d heard it takes one year for every four overseas. That leaves us with about 2-2 1/2 more years to go. That’s both overwhelming and comforting, strangely.

Our time out here involves training people who are about to move overseas and go through their own storms of transition, so I just might have more to say about it. At the least, I think it will help me make some sense of this new view after the worst of the storm.

Longing for the Past-the Pangs of Transition

Post author:Gina B
Post published:May 19, 2014
Post category:transition

My Enneathought for today was, “I release feeling jealous of others and their good fortune.” Apparently, the people at the Enneagram Institute are aware that my husband is currently staying in our old apartment on the other side of the world, enjoying plates of gong bao ji dingr and catching up with old friends. I want to go to there.

He’s asked me repeatedly what he can bring back for me, but it’s not an easy question to answer. Can you bring back some gan bian dou jiao? Some jiaozi? Yao guo ji dingr? A honey lemon with aloe CoCo drink? How about some Lao Beijing yogurt? Ok, I’m truly not a foodie, but how could I not ask?

Actually, what I’d like even more is if he could bring me a head massage, followed by a foot massage, followed by a full body massage, preferably by a blind masseuse. In addition I’d like an hour or two to peruse the jewelry floor at Hong Qiao, a stroll down a hutong or two for some photo ops, and why don’t you also throw in some kind of “I have to blog about this” crazy experience on the street? Maybe involving an animal someone’s trying to sell me? And then absolutely you must bring Sung and Tammy and Elaine and . . . and . . . and . . .

Sigh. “I release feelings of jealousy of others and their good fortune.” As long as he can figure out a way to bring me some of it.

The House Checklist

Post author:Gina B
Post published:May 2, 2014
Post category:transition

People often ask me here, “So, are you in Orlando for awhile?”

And I answer, “Yes” warily, like I’m putting all my chips on red and crossing my fingers.

The reason is that I have never been in a place I thought I might stay. It’s hard to imagine that we could be here for 10 years or more. To date, Erik and I have lived in eight places in 16 1/2 years, if you don’t count my parents house (and we should, because actually altogether we’ve probably spent more than 2 of those years living with them on trips back). You can understand why I don’t have a long term mentality about housing.

On the one hand, there’s something appealing about being grounded. I bet I would know a place well if I lived in it for 20 years. Our kids could say, “This is where I grew up,” at least partly. On the other hand, I hear people talk about other places and a part of me says, “Where do I sign up?” The thought of one place for that long sounds kind of boring.

I have a list in my head of how long we have lived in different houses, and I am mentally checking them off as we pass each mark. So far, we have lived in Orlando only longer than the foreign student dorm (three months) and Bi Shui (13 months). Next up is our Minneapolis apartment at 17 months, followed closely by Euro-Asia Park at 18 months. Already, it’s feeling like we’ve been here “awhile.”

I don’t know if we’ll be here a long time or not. I guess I’m learning to hold places loosely. We’ll see if Orlando earns the record of “longest stay.”