Our Disease

All of our training has prepared us for the inevitability of the onset of a period of turmoil known as Culture Shock. If you really want to know how to be praying for us over the next several months, it is related to this area. I've posted some notes from our training on our website www.themissionsociety.org/people/mersinger. It's in the top right above our newsletters.



Culture shock, and the inability to cope, is one of the primary reasons that 50% or more of full-time missionaries do not complete their first term or leave right after their first term is up. We've been here just over a month and have been loving the honeymoon stage of culture shock. Everything is new and exciting and fresh. However, we've started to feel the tension over the past week and a half that this portion is ending and an unsettling and chaotic period is beginning.

On a surface level it is largely simple things that aren't very significant, but if you dwell upon them they can bite you. I miss Reese's peanut butter cups, they don't have peanut butter in Brazil. Dulce de leite is AWESOME, but it's not peanut butter. I miss flushing toilet paper, throwing it in the trash can lacks a certain appeal that I'm sure you're cringing at the thought of right now! I miss Salvation Army half priced Wednesdays ~ "can't just some of you selfish Brazilians get rid of your nearly brand new clothes that you never wear because you have tons of others so that I can buy them for 50 cents?"

All of the above, and many others unlisted, are very simple things that we can laugh at and move past with a chuckle. Others have started wearing on us and they are what we really need prayer for. In a context where it can take four to five hours just to walk to a store, negotiate a price for a pair of sandals, and walk home can leave you feeling extremely useless and lazy at the end of the day. We say, "what did we do today besides go shopping, do some laundry, and cook two meals?" Then we realize nothing, because all of that took 10 times longer than it did in the states. We're picking up language and getting some of the culture and figuring new things out while we're doing all of this, but it feels extremely unfulfilling.

Couple this with the fact that even when you succeed in such a venture, you're still left feeling like a moron. You can't express the simplest of your feelings or ideas about life. You can get "things" that you want by pointing, grunting, and scratching your armpit like a caveman, but it's not due to the intricacies of your learned communication styles, but the grace and mercy of your hosts. However, none of that lends to the building of deep relationships and the formation of a community that you can lean and rely on in the midst of challenges.

On top of not being understood, is the inability to truly understand. Without knowing the language let alone the non-verbal signs and cues that are being communicated, it leads to a lot of ambiguity. For me, as a people pleaser, this leaves me very unsettled in wondering about expectations. What are they? What do these people whom I'm working with expect out of me. I don't know, so I'm left to my imagination, which is a dangerous thing.

These are the aspects of this season that we most need prayer for! In reality, we are feeling these tensions, but we're also learning a ton and experiencing the presence of God in the midst of them. One of the other aspects of culture shock that was emphasized in our training is that it creates an atmosphere that is conducive to spiritual renewal. Whenever I am confronted with the ambiguity of expectations, I have to lean back on the reality of my identity, a beloved child of the King. What are HIS expectations for me? What is HIS view of me? That is the audience of One that I have been called to live my life before. If I do that well, then I'm in the best possible position to be a blessing to those I'm sent to, regardless of whether they have expectations, whether I understand them, and whether or not they are or aren't realistic ones.

One final thing that we find encouraging as we head into this is that we have not experienced any major aspects of culture shock in terms of hostility towards the Brazilian people. This is a common aspect of the struggle, but we have found the Brazilian people very easy to appreciate and love, and we think that this is vital to our work here. Even our one small complaint; that whenever Caleb throws a temper tantrum in the home of one of our Brazilian friends, he comes home with five more new toys; is understandable to us. We don't appreciate him being rewarded for his behavior, but we recognize that Brazilian culture places a deep value on harmony in relationships. As our relationships deepen, we will in time express our feelings and values in terms of not rewarding this kind of behavior. But for now while we remain in this ambiguous position, we believe it is best to respect the culture and learn from it as we are able.

Cidade de Deus - City of God

During our time in Rio, we had the opportunity to visit the City of God. It's one of the more than 100 distinct favellas in Rio de Janeiro. It's also one of the more prominent ones because of the movie that was made about it several years ago of the same name.

We spent an entire day walking around with a man who pastors inside Cidade de Deus and has lived there his whole life. He was an arms dealer and drug addict for many years and had his life transformed by the gospel of Jesus. We've mentioned before the differences in the approach of the churches in these areas to issues like drug trafficking. They have standing relationships with the different cartels. They don't approve of what is going on, but they know the officials are corrupt also. So instead of directly opposing them through legal avenues (which we're told would not likely work anyways), they build relationships of trust with the drug dealers and seek to live out their faith and witness in the midst of a messy situation.

According to the pastor, this has led to much fruit in the City of God. In the past two years, as the churches have united and worked together laboring in prayer, they have seen some radical changes within. There has been some transforming within the local political structures that has helped, but there have been some dramatic conversion experiences among top cartel leaders that have really shaken things up.

A local missionary asked us to continue to intercede for them. She explained that while we were being told truth, and that much had changed, there is still a long road to go. As we sat in the house of a woman who lives in the City of God we saw a clear presentation of the paradox of life in the midst of such circumstances. She had two sons who had gotten involved in trafficking, they both attempted to get out and were shot down and killed. She expressed her hurt, and her fears that another son was heading down the same path, but she also mentioned that she couldn't be too mad because these same people provide gas, running water, and basic necessities for her that she needs to live. The murderers of her children, still seem to care more and deliver more for her daily life than the elected officials.

One final story, I had a sweet moment with Naomi in the midst of our journey through Cidade de Deus. We were heading up an elevated portion of the favella along a hill side. As is normally the case here, the most impoverished are literally marginalized to the sides of hills and mountains where dwellings are less stable and accessories such as running water and electric are less available. As I carried Naomi, hopping from stone to stone, to avoid falling into the small stream of sewage that collected from tin shacks to run straight down the pathway that these people used to leave their part of the city, she asked me about the housing. She wanted to know what the buildings that we were passing were and why it smelled like poop. I explained to her that they were peoples houses. She started to tear up and got very concerned. She said, "but Daddy, I don't want them to have to live here". I told her I didn't either. Then she said, "Daddy, when Jesus comes to fix the world, will he make these people new houses too?". I asked her what she thought. She said, "I think He will Daddy, I don't think He likes it that these people have to live here either."

Unfurnished Brazilian Style

An interesting aspect of our hunting for a place to live has been the difference between unfurnished and furnished places. The furnished places are outrageous so we've mostly stayed away from those and began to search in the unfurnished places. We were warned before we came that getting furniture here would not be like in the states. There are no goodwills or salvation army's or garage sales. If you bought a couch ten years ago for $200, and it's not trashed, you could still get $190 for it. Basically, goods hold their value here.

What has come as a surprise to us as we began to look at some of the unfurnished places is that unfurnished has a vastly different meaning here. It's not just needing some furniture. When a Brazilian cleans out their place to rent it out unfurnished, they take the major appliances, sinks, cabinets, counters, toilet seats, and light bulbs!!! An interesting aspect of Brazilian culture to us.

The First 24 Hours

I am not pretending that this will be a daily thing, it won't! However, these first 24 hours have been somewhat remarkable.

It began with an inconceivable reality, we were not allowed to go to Brazil and would not be given our tickets. Apparently the guy at the US Air counter had some little piece of paper print out that said we couldn't come without a return ticket, although we had no immediate plans of returning. If it weren't for my brother-in-law Duane, and his precious technologically advanced phones we would've been in trouble. We asked if we could purchase return tickets and show them proof to obtain our tickets. We had to run to the gate but we were off!

In Charlotte we met this Brazilian lady who lives in Pennsylvania. She was returning to Rio to visit family. We had a good conversation and she ended up being near us on the plane. About 7 am this morning nearing the end of the flight, her daughter Bianca (about 4) had to go to the bathroom. She stands up, turns to the middle aged American man next to her, and asks him to hold her 6 week old while she helped her daughter in the bathroom. She promptly handed the baby over and walked towards the bathroom with little Bianca in tow. MAAmericanM or MAAM as I will forever call him, looked with bewilderment as six month old boy began to cry. I thought he was going to pass out at the unfolding of unexpected events.

This previous story combined with the thirty to forty cases of complete strangers in airports and grocery stores patting our kids on the head would be experience enough to cause some of our closest friends back home to completely stroke out :)! You know who you are!

While we're "normal" enough to see these things as completely odd. We're odd enough to completely LOVE IT! I'm sure as time passes there will be things that grate on us. But I think we're officially in the honeymoon stage and can see the plus side of some of these "oddities". Some of these "oddities" are simply the reflection of God's image through another culture and we want to value them, even if it is difficult.

Much more to come . . .

Hopefully the final update on Naomi :)

Family and friends, we wanted to let you know of some great news!
So, as some you know, we had an appointment with a geneticist down in south Florida on the 4th and wanted to write and let everyone know how things went. We met with Dr. Benke and part of the way through the appointment he stated that he felt like he knew what was going on. He said that, based on the labs and our explanation of what we’ve been dealing with the last year, he felt like Naomi’s body is having difficulty processing an organic acid called Glutaric Acid. He was really straight up with us that he was giving us a presumptive diagnosis, but said he felt strongly that this was what was going on. The only way to definitively diagnose this disease is with a spinal tap, but since he didn’t feel like Naomi’s case was severe enough to warrant that, he told us to decrease the amount of protein that she gets in her diet and she will start taking something called Carnitine which is used to detoxify the brain. We had some more labs done today to cross off a couple of other things that could possibly be causing this and will be talking to Dr. Benke on the phone or via email when those results come in. Even though this is another presumptive diagnosis, we feel like this is the first time that a Dr. looked at us with certainty and told us what we were dealing with. He taught us how to treat it, expected it to be dealt with in this manor, and gave us instructions to determine if his assessment was wrong. He’s been in this specialty for 35 years and told us he was confident about this diagnosis and hoped that with this treatment we could avert the spinal tap and see our daughter well. He also finished by giving us a website that had 25-30 different metabolic specialists in Brazil that we could work with and was willing to communicate with them. We want to thank you all for your prayers and for being with us as we are continuing to walk this crazy journey. This is the first time that we have had a peace about a diagnosis and felt that everything Naomi has been going through was explained. We are very excited to be in this position and are thankful to have you all praying in our corner.
We love you all!!!
The Mersingers

Ode to the Boy

Anyone who knows us, understands that this year has been a difficult year for us. It's been good, much growth, much maturing, a tightening of our bonds as a family, but still hard! Most of that has centered around the challenges with Naomi's health. It's placed us in a position of ambiguity where we have to constantly remind ourselves that we do trust One who knows no ambiguity. With that said I wanted to celebrate someone special to us and make something clear that we haven't communicated well.

It could be possible that, with all the attention placed on Naomi, some might wonder if that little blonde boy in the pictures gets left out. Any of you who have had the pleasure of being geographically near to us know that such a reality is not a possibility. For those of you who haven't been around us much, I wanted to take some special time to celebrate our son, Caleb Samuel.

Many of you know that I wanted all girls. Not because I don't think boys are awesome, but because I was scared to be a father to a son, scared of my own insecurities, and frightened of my own inadequacies. I knew the strength of love and affections I held for my daughter, but feared that I would not know how to be the same for a son. My father and I had a horrible relationship growing up, it's gotten really good as I've gotten older, but I know that I'm capable of the same things my father was and feared to pass it on to another son of another generation. I fought that fear and laid it before the cross and begged for help, but still was unsure and afraid that I would fail this little life that popped out onto the back seat of my van on September 14, 2007.

The events of his birth endeared him to my immature, adventure-seeking, having a good story to tell persona, but the insecurities were still there. I had said with Naomi that children have an uncanny ability to root out your deepest insecurities, baggage, and issues and toss them out on display for the whole world. You can either hide from it or deal with it. With Caleb there was already so much bound up in me to be tugged at, and it didn't help that he came out looking like the mailman's kid. Thank Jesus I was a mailman at the time :). His first few weeks he was so much more difficult and couldn't keep food down. He vomited after every meal and left Shannon and I crying and exhausted, worried about his growth. He seemed clingy to Shannon (like most kids are to their moms) and I felt like he wanted nothing to do with me, which I recognized as a manifestation of my own baggage rather than any reality in the mind of an infant. In the midst of exhaustion, frustration, and worry it seemed like I was pressed with many excuses and reasons to reject him, to refuse to love, or to love with less intensity than I knew I was capable of. Every bit of selfishness was pressed with seemingly reasonable options for holding back, withdrawing, and writing off.

There have been many times in my life that I've known I was capable of horrible things, but since I've started to try to walk with Jesus, I've seen the reality and possibilities of what I'm capable of, are no match for abandonment to, and trust in, the One who is molding me into someone capable of love, especially love for others. I know what could have been, what hardness could have done to the bonds that I longed for with my son and now have realized. That would have been a different blog. As it stands, by grace, I set out to win my son's love. To pour out my heart for him and let it overflow even if I risked another bout with rejection.

When I began to stay home with the kids, Caleb was just about a year and a half old. It was a challenge with the two of them, much harder than when I had stayed at home with only Naomi during school. I began to notice the fears fading, loyalties arising, love strengthening. I knew I wanted a bond with my son that was healthy, strong, and affectionate. I recognized that I truly believed this only happened in movies, but at the end of the day it must be a reality that God longs for in all humanity. If we were meant to bare His image, and He is One who displays unconditional love for His Son, then could it be possible that He can enable us to represent His image by bearing that out?

As time went on, I began to see so much of myself in Caleb. Though we look nothing a like, our personalities are so similar. He is such an emotional being, fiery and passionate, but lacking self-control. I think that exact line was written on my Kindergarten report card. He is sensitive and caring, yet simultaneously guarded and defensive. I feel like I have such insight into how to love him because I understand how he wants to be loved. I understand what his fears are and why he gets confused. I understand what needs to be said even if it is not always what I want to say.

The hardest thing is recognizing how much he watches me, how he always sees what I am doing. He sees me as an example, but does he know how much I DON'T have it together? There's part of me that wants to try to "pull it together" to be an example, but more often I've simply sat down and shared with him how I struggle, then watch his 2 year old mind spin, relate it to a movie he likes, and compare it with how he doesn't want to stop punching people.

There is so much to this kid, more than words could write. As his 29 year old father, I rejoice sometimes when I look at him and see a 2 year old that is often more content in his identity than I am in mine. I thank God that I've had a role in that and pray that it remains so through elementary school, puberty, and the discovery of girls. Not that who he is is perfect, but that he knows where he is at in such a remarkable way.

Perhaps the best way to finish this celebration is to share a story and a picture or two. Caleb is sensitive and sweet, but he is also a warrior. It's a good thing and a bad thing, but in this case, a freaking adorable thing. He received a boppin bag for Christmas. He was not overly impressed, it was a piece of plastic in a box the size of a deck of cards. It took me about 45 minutes to get it blown up correctly (I didn't know you needed a water or sand base and couldn't figure out why it wouldn't stand up). He still wasn't overly impressed but came at my begging. I told him to punch it, and he did nonchalantly. As the bag rose up to meet him . . . here is what followed . . .

New Naomi Update

I'll try to keep this quick but comprehensive. Naomi had another episode on Wed, which started with her getting weak and then she had a seizure. When we called 911, she was already coming out of the seizure, but was transferred to Sarasota Memorial Hospital. We had spoke with her neurologist previously about the possibility of going down to Miami to meet with a geneticist there. They were unwilling to transfer Naomi to Miami because of the distance, so she was transferred immediately to All Children's Hospital. Unlike the other hospital trips, this time they began an EEG within an hour of arriving at ACH. This was the quickest EEG after an episode we have had... before this the earliest had begun 24 hours after the episode began. As we expected, the EEG showed nothing abnormal. Essentially nothing was "found" but some of the question marks were more definitively ruled out. They discharged Naomi last night and Caleb and I picked her and Shannon up from the hospital.

At this juncture we have a couple of things left to pursue. The geneticist at All Children's was not a specialist in metabolic genetics, so we still need to meet with the geneticist that our neurologist wanted us to consult in Miami. This is to rule out a couple of different possible genetic metabolic disorders. In addition to this, our neurologist at All Children's thinks there is a possibility that Naomi may be struggling with something called Alternating Hemiplegia of Childhood. It is a rare neurological disorder with less than 250 diagnosed cases worldwide. There is little research done but all indications are that it is not terminal and does not lessen life expectancy. The range of experience for people diagnosed with this is extremely varied, but many of them experience episodes that last for days or weeks (which is not the case with Naomi). There are several things that don't totally connect with this diagnosis, but will be researching a bit more about it and will bring it up to the geneticist when we see him.

We're kind of kicking ourselves for not following the food sensitivity diet more strictly during Easter, because then we could have ruled that out as a significant factor. As it stands, we feel strongly that we're on to something with the LEAP food sensitivity results. It may not be that any particular food is "causing" these issues, she may very well have some type of neurological disorder that we can't pinpoint. However, the LEAP test measures the reactivity of her immune system to particular foods. It may be that in exposing her to foods that weaken her immune system, it allows for more severe manifestations of this disorder... who knows? In either case, this provides us with a stronger motivation for sticking to these findings. The dietitian that was sent in to us at All Children's had never heard of LEAP but encouraged us to stick with it strictly if we noticed two months straight with no episodes or symptoms.

Thank you all so much for your prayers! We have felt strengthened throughout this particular event. We're a bit stressed but don't feel like a crash is coming, so please keep praying. After these hospital visits it normally seems like it takes two weeks for life to "reset". We're not feeling like that's the case right now, as we're doing pretty good right now and we're hoping it won't be like that this time but please keep praying. We are in Orlando right now for probably our last visit with many supporters and friends. Please keep praying as we press on towards Brazil and remain diligent in following out the process of obtaining all that we need to in regards to these issues with Naomi. Shannon and I were just remarking as she began walking around this morning sharing new toys with her brother, deciding which of her new toys could go to which of her friends when we leave for Brazil, and asking us significant, meaningful questions about these recent events; that each time she goes through this, she comes out more mature and stronger than before. It still scares the poop out of us when it happens, but we're thankful for Jesus' mercy in the midst of it all. As she was coming out of the seizure at the hospital, she began to cry out for Jesus to come. She's so young and has been through so much, but it is a mercy to know that in the midst of this she's already learning where to turn as she lies in the depths of darkness!

We love you all and are thankful that we have so many wonderful people who are choosing to live life with us -

The Mersingers