Marvelous AND Messy
Dear friends,
Why does it take so long to know ourselves? Or maybe I should ask why it’s taken me so long to know myself?
I look back at the first few years of Refuge Coffee, and I only now see this pattern:
1. I have an idea.
2. I love my idea so much that I decide to share it with friends and family.
3. I believe—really believe—that talking about a good idea with people will make it happen. People are wonderful and sacrificial and kind and brilliant, after all.
4. And then the moment comes when I realize I have to say YES to my own idea, and that idea will require work and mistakes and ownership. It will also require these things in perpetuity if the thing itself is going to be perpetual.
Refuge is the perfect case in point for this personal pattern. I’m not complaining. Not at all. But I am having a moment of brutal honesty in which I see the pattern in my past, present, and future. Naivete + Idealism doesn’t work as a strategy unless you add Gathering + Hard Work. Idealism isn’t a yes. Naivete certainly isn’t either.
But once you say yes and others join you, well, then everyone else’s quirks in the form of their unique strengths (the ones you don’t have) come together to create a thing of enduring beauty. Again, Refuge.
I am watching a version this in one of my sons and his wife. Short version:
David and Callie began the process of preparing to adopt years ago. When David’s Air Force deployment took him out of the country in 2020-2021, they put everything on pause. And then at the beginning of this year, Callie told a friend that she and David agreed they were ready to revisit the process and that if someone came to their door with a child who needed to be adopted, they would say yes.
The friend asked, “Really?”
And Callie answered, intrigued, “Yes!”
That’s when they found out about a group of FOUR siblings who needed a home.
After lots of time passed, along with a whole lot of uncertainty, the four children joined David and Callie’s other three in their home just last week. Do the math: That’s seven children, total. Watching this process unfold (mostly as a bystander who steps in from time to time) has been one of the most delightful, hopeful endeavors to witness. Callie wrote recently in a text stream full of lovely photos (no sharing yet!) that makes me happy and tired at the same time:
I’ll never get over how you all jumped in with us this week. I know I’ve got big main character energy right now, but this story is yours too.
It was also mayhem and my house will never be the same 😂
If this feels familiar, it’s because it is. Bill used to say, “God made the wave. You just got on the surfboard.” My PT today told me to “stand like you’re surfing,” and I told him I had never surfed a day in my life. But maybe, in a way, I have!
Of course this adoption story started a long time ago and will continue even longer (one of the kids told one of his new sisters he was so glad he was in their “forever family”). Most of the surfboards I jump on are less permanent. But those yeses are similar, starting as a good idea that blooms into even better (and messier) reality.
And another story…
Last month, I connected with a group called Community Sponsorship Hub that—for now, at least—has permission to bring Afghan SIV refugees here through “sponsor circles.” As you know, it’s a miracle that there is any way for refugees to come here at all. This a narrow pathway, but it is a pathway.
There are currently no sponsor circles in Georgia, so I planned to host an informational meeting at Refuge with friends who are wonderful and sacrificial and kind and brilliant in the hopes that someone would take on the challenge of forming a sponsor circle here. That was the extent of my yes. Sound familiar?
And then last week I heard from the head of the Community Sponsorship Hub that an Afghan woman needed a small group of sponsors and a place to live here in Atlanta. And they needed to have this all lined up by the end of last week before making her travel plans.
So, as I was meeting four new grandchildren last week, I agreed to host and help resettle a new refugee. The coolest part? Two of our Refuge trainees will be a vital part of the sponsor circle!
All this to say that the best yeses are big. And messy. And hard.
And so, so worth it.
Saying yes with you is my favorite,
Kitti
