What did my mom and Ian have in common?

Planting banana trees in honor of my mom.

Tomorrow is Ian’s 54^th birthday. It would have been my mom’s 88^th birthday if she were still alive. But that's not all they had in common.

As I sit and write this blog I am looking out over the Project Canaan farm and thinking of these two very special people in my life and how they have impacted my life, and so many others – my mom and Ian.

My mom was a fearless genius, a brilliant pharmacist, a renaissance woman, and a stubborn/tireless advocate. She would have LOVED everything about Project Canaan, especially the impossibility of the whole thing.  She would have wanted to be covered in grease trying to fix the bulldozer, but then she would have been researching how to get better yields of tilapia in the aquaponics system. She would have reorganized our pharmacy and tried to find medications around the world that aren’t available here and then she would have been finding new varieties of vegetables for our fields.  Her surname was “Willis” and there was a family play on the saying “where there’s a will, there’s a way” that said,  “Where there’s a Willis, there’s a way”.  That was my mom.

My mom was also a mighty woman of faith and trusted in the Lord for everything.  I remember seeing my first miracle on her couch in the livingroom above the drugstore where we lived.  One of her friends was born with one leg several inches shorter than the other, causing a significant limp and pain. My mom was a “new Christian” and read that Jesus healed the lame, so she laid hands on her friend and prayed for her friend’s leg to grow so that she would no longer limp and be in pain.  I saw that leg grow with my own eyes, and I saw my mom jump up and down and shriek, cry and rejoice!  Her friend never limped again (but did have “growing pains” for a few days after the healing).

Mom with Spencer on his 1st Christmas.

My mom’s faith was unwavering and she taught me to believe in a God who never failed.

In that way, Ian is very much like my mom.  His faith is unwavering, and I see that every single day. AND he is really excited about the unknown and the adventure of learning.

For those of you who don’t know Ian personally, he is a very humble man who models grace, wisdom and hard work for those around him.  He loves to learn and is the first to admit that he knows nothing about many things that he is working on, but he is also the first to buy a book about butchering to learn how to carve up a cow or read the latest book on bees to learn how to get our Aviary back up and running.  He loves to learn like my mom did and I love that about him.

Hundreds of thousands of beet root seedlings preparing for the field.

Making our own minced beef after slaughtering a cow.

Ian is also a man of faith and believes in a God who answers prayer.  And why wouldn’t he?  He knows that it is impossible for us (Ian and Janine Maxwell) to start a farm in the middle of a tiny Kingdom in Africa and then rescue 247 orphaned or abandoned babies and commit to raising them to adulthood.  We didn’t know anything about farming, construction or growing fruit trees, but Ian had faith that God would send people who did and now we have field crops as well as hydroponics and aquaponics, we have built 63 buildings, and we have an orchard of avocadoes, papayas and have cleared land for a banana grove!

Ian is my rudder.  He is the calm in my storm.  He makes me laugh and consoles me when I cry.  But more importantly his faith is a constant reminder to me that God is in control, that He loves us and He is our provider. 

Will you join me in celebrating Ian’s life by buying him a banana tree for our new banana grove?  They are only $12.00!  That’s the best birthday gift ever because they will provide fresh fruit for years to come!

Tomorrow is also the birthday of our children Moses, Robert and Bernice so if you would like to buy them banana tree for their birthday or if you would like to buy one in memory of my mom, please click on the links below. Thank you!

In the US click here.

In Canada click here.

Live from Eswatini … banana pudding will soon be on the menu!

Janine

My mom was a hoarder

My mom's Christmas tree.

My mom was a lot of things including (but not limited to); brilliant Pharmacist, passionate researcher, loving mother and wife, devoted Christian, exquisite dessert chef and collector of all things. She simply did not have the ability to throw anything out.  I mean nothing.

Two extremes that I can now share publicly (now that she has passed away) would be finding a drawer full of used wax – the kind that was poured on the top of freshly made jelly to seal it (and then thrown out when the jelly was opened, but not mom’s).   And then there was the zip lock bag in the freezer that contained yarn that she planned to use to knit a sweater.  The problem that I had with that was that the yarn was made from a collection of fur that she had painstakingly collected over the years … from my childhood CAT, Smokey. 

Not kidding. 

I had countless conversations with my parents about cleaning out their basement full of three generations of pharmacy bottles/jars/chemicals/pills/stained glass windows/clocks/piano(s)/ and other stuff from generations of relatives who had died before them.  My words fell on deaf ears (literally and figuratively), mostly because my mom was convinced that she would be “raptured” and so all of her “stuff” would be left to “non-believers” who would be “left behind”. 

Oh mom.

My dad passed away in 2005.  A few years later my mom was moved to a nursing home,  and I was left to deal with the “stuff”.  I was angry that they had left the mess for me.  I felt that I was trespassing by going in to their home and throwing out dumpster(s) full of garbage, giving away their things and keeping the odd item for myself.  But with a lot of help from friends and family, I made it through.

After the big clean out in 2010 we shipped a 20ft container of things from mom and dad’s house to Project Canaan.  As we unpacked it and distributed mom’s treasures all over the farm I found myself repenting for my anger (over and over again).  The Lord knew exactly what those things were going to be used for and He kept them safely in my parent’s home.

Last weekend the Christmas tree was put up at the Oasis and our children hung their ornaments on that tree. That was my parents’ Christmas tree. 

When a child has a birthday and we have visitors join us for cake, the plates that the cake is served on are my mom’s plates.

The stained glass window that hangs in the pharmacy at the El Rofi medical clinic was in the front window of my Great Grandfather’s pharmacy at the turn of the century in Uxbridge, Ontario (also found stored in my parent’s basement).

Stained glass window from my Great Grandpa's pharmacy circa 1,800's.

I am not saying this in any way to be boastful, but rather to share my thoughts on how God works, and to show that I believe that everything that we have, comes from Him. It’s all HIS STUFF, and He will use it as He wishes!

Yesterday another container arrived from Canada and while it was mostly filled with diapers, wipes and toys, it also had the last of my mothers treasures. Among them was a beautiful piece of hand carved marble that my parents bought in India, many years ago.  It is inlaid with semi-precious stones, each carved by hand by the very same artisan families who hand-carved the Taj Mahal. 

My parents had it shipped back from India in the 70’s and then had a table base made for it.  It was one of the few pieces of her own furniture that was in her nursing home room.  It truly was a treasure (and not to be out of her sight!).  Now it is here in Swaziland, Africa, and I am so thankful for it. 

Another one of her prize possessions also made the trip.  Mom’s baby grand piano arrived in the container and will be used for piano lessons for our children (just as it was for me), Christmas concerts and lots of other special occasions.

Mom's piano - being moved by our JCB (she may roll over in her grave for this one).

As Christmas approaches and I prepare for Spencer and Chloe to come home, I am reminded every where I look at the influence my own parents had on my life, both in life and in their death.  Their work ethic, their faith, their commitment to family and their commitment to their community has forever impacted my life, the lives of our children and now, the tiny Kingdom of Swaziland.

Christmas is a time when family gathers together, and even with all of my parents “stuff” that now surrounds me, none of it replaces having them here in person. 

Live from Swaziland … having a “moment”.

Janine

Dear Mom

Today I buried my mom.  My heart hurts and I am exhausted.  I know that there are many emails of condolence waiting to be read.  I am told there are hundreds of kind words on Facebook and I look forward to reading them tomorrow.  But for tonight, I wanted to share a few photos for friends and family who were unable to attend the funeral today, and to share the memorial I wrote to my mom. Spencer read it for me today as I didn't have the courage to do it.  Again, thank you for your prayers- they got me through the last seven day.

Dear Mom,

I always knew that this day would come, but then again, I often wondered if you might just outlive us all. 

Mom, you were the smartest person that I know.  You were a genius, with all the charm and quirkiness that comes with being a genius.  You were always ahead of your time.  You were the only Pharmacist in the 1970’s who was also into holistic Medicine. Your goal was to find a solution to any and all heath issues   

Dad was the perfect partner for you for 50 years, and he was a wonderful father for me.  As I recall he supported most of your crazy ideas, and even admitted that they were good ideas after they were complete.  The only time that I can remember him putting his foot down, for real, was when you wanted to by a hovercraft for the cottage at Watebeag Lake. That was a firm NO, and you were not pleased by his decision, but submitted to his wishes and lived with the remorse of not having had the only hovercraft in Northern Ontario.

I know that you didn’t like to cook at all and felt it was a necessary evil to keep us all alive.  But even in cooking you were ahead of your time. I remember back in the 1960’s you were mixing butter and olive oil to make a healthier spread. You were mixing 2% milk with skim milk to make 1% - 25 years before it was done for grocery stores.

Mom as a toddler and then as a University Graduate.

You might have cooked 90% of our meals in a pressure cooker, because the day slipped away on you and you needed to make dinner in under 10 minutes, but after dinner you would make up for it by serving pastry swans that you had made earlier in the day, complete with fresh lemon curd topped with whip cream. The dessert always made the main course a distance memory. I think my love for cooking may have spawned out of necessity.

After dinner it wouldn’t be unusual for you to go downstairs in to the back of the Drug Store to continue rebuilding the engine of our 1965 Sno-Jet (snowmobile) that you had taken apart at the back of the Pharmacy.   You always loved to see and know how things worked, whether it was mechanically or scientifically.  

Spencer read this memorial and did a wonderful job.

As I look back at my own life I can’t imagine how different it would be if you and Dad hadn’t adopted me in 1963.  You taught me to be strong, courageous and compassionate. You made sure that I had the best formal education, but then also made sure I knew how to do things like attend funerals, speak truth to people in power, or send an anonymous gift to someone in need.  You taught me to do the right thing, even when it required personal sacrifice or when it was not popular.  You taught me who Jesus is and my faith in Him was nurtured by your example. 

There isn’t a week that goes by in Swaziland that I don’t find myself talking about you. With so many babies coming to us from young girls who have been sexually assaulted, resulting in pregnancy I find myself being able to encourage them with my own story. 

It’s easy for me to tell them that my birth mother was 15-years old when she got pregnant. I share that her family was humiliated and didn’t want anyone in the community to know, and so I was given up for adoption right after birth.  When I tell my Swazi friends that total “strangers” became my parents, they are shocked, as that doesn’t happen in their culture.  But there I am, a total stranger, being the one to accept a newborn baby who was dumped in an outdoor pit latrine or outhouse because there was no hospital or government agency to help her in her time of need, like my birth mother had.  

With each and every one of these conversations I can see the hand of God on my life – and it all started with you Mom

It’s funny, I can’t even count the number of times that people would comment and say how much I looked like you, which made us both smile.  Of course there was always an awkward silence when I would say,  “Thank you. That’s interesting since I am adopted.” 

Mom was buried beside Dad.  The headstone at the back on the left has both their names on it.

But adopted or not, there is no doubt that am your daughter.  There is no question that I got my tenacity, my drive, my ambition and my commitment to fight against injustice directly from you.  I remember Kim hosting a birthday party for me many years ago and we all had name tags that said, “Where there’s a Willis, there’s a way.” And ANYONE who knew you mom, knew that if there was a Willis, there WAS a way.

The past six years in the nursing home was like a prison sentence for you - my highly intelligent, defiantly independent mom.  And even though you were unable to move anything other one arm, and your hearing was very bad, you were still able to dial the phone and order product from the Television shopping channel.

This past week the staff at Riverside Glen were fondly remembering the items that had arrived at the front door of the nursing home including:  the total gym, a full set of pots and pans, THREE sets of 50 knives, complete with wooden storage blocks.  Then there was the portable fireplace, the “NoNo” hair removal kit and the monthly delivery of the Victoria Principle beauty regime.  I promise, that is only naming a few.

Last Saturday I got “the call” from Kim and I knew that it was time for me to fly to Canada from Swaziland to say “goodbye” for the last time.  After a 40-hour trip filled with cancelled flight(s), cancelled car rental reservations and lost luggage I was finally able to join Chloe by your side on Tuesday night. I wasn’t sure if you knew we were there, but when I put a cold cloth on your hot head, you opened your eyes, and I knew then that we were together.  Oh, how many times did you sit beside me and put cold cloths on my feverish forehead?  Too many to count.

Nice to have cousins from across the country come and celebrate Mom's life.

Early Friday morning you went to be with the Lord, and I was thankful that you were finally out of pain.  You were no longer trapped in your own body.

Death is a part of life and it is something we will ALL face.  But as I reflect on your life, I can't imagine where my life would be if you and dad hadn’t adopted me, raised me in the knowledge of Christ and encouraged me to follow Him. Because of your example and support, Ian and I now have 107 Swazi babies whom we are legally responsible.  Why? Because we can, and it is the right thing to do.

The circle of life was once again completed this week.

Thank you Mom.  I love you.

Jan

68% of Swazi's polled believe it is justified to kill your lover if they have cheated on you with someone else ... and a few other thoughts from me.

Life in Swaziland is complicated, yet in the same breath I can say that life in Swaziland is simple.  There doesn’t seem to be any small talk or conversations about the weather or who won the game last night.  Everything discussed is important, and it is usually directly linked to life or death. 

This week I learned that my mother, who has been a follower of Jesus her whole life, now believes that Jesus has forsaken her and left her to die alone.  She has cut off all prayer and communication with Him because he has abandoned her.  She wants a gun so she can end her life, but refuses to acknowledge that she has suicidal thoughts.  Lord, please help me understand why you are allowing this to happen. 

The same day I heard about my mom I got a call from Helen who had taken little baby Jeremiah to the Baylor Pediatric AIDS clinic.  Sadly, he tested positive for HIV.  Jeremiah was found at a bus stop in Mbabane when he was only one week old and is now a month old and has been growing and thriving … and now we know he is infected.  It’s like getting a kick in the stomach, but I will still give thanks that El Roi saw Jeremiah and send him to us for love and care.

Life is complicated, and yet simple. Whether praying for my mom or for all the babies at the El Roi baby home, I am reminded that my focus is to be on HIM and Him alone.  I can’t do any more for my mom than I am doing and I can’t do any more for Jeremiah.  I have to do what I can do and leave the rest in HIS capable hands.  His ways are not our ways and His plans are not our plans – and I try to remind myself of this every single day, or else I will go mad trying to fix things that aren't mine to fix. 

Those are some of my thoughts for this week in Swaziland, but keep reading because I want to share some interesting (and terrifying) statistics from a poll take by a Swazi newspaper.  I saw originally in a blog post by Benjamin Verhulst, who is also living in Swaziland.  These will give you a little different perspective of how Swazi’s think and what we are dealing with around us.  

Living in Swaziland is complicated ... and not.

Janine

Today we move to Africa, for real.

The 365-day countdown has come to an end.  Today is the day we get on a plane and move to Swaziland, Africa.  This year has flown by, but this past week seemed like it took another year.  Transition is hard and I can't say that I have handled it well…there were many tears, too many times snapping at my family, and then more tears.  But today is the day I have longed for since 2003.  It is time to move and serve the Lord whom I love on a continent that I love.

I wondered what to do about the Maxwell's Moving to Africa blog and, while the URL will stay the same, I think I will change the name of it to "Live from Swaziland ... it's Saturday morning" (said in my best "Live from New York... it's Saturday Night" voice).  I will try to blog every second Saturday if I can.  At this point we don’t anticipate having regular internet service, but hopefully it will improve with time.  I am an eternal optimist.

We have been building a house on Project Canaan that won’t be quite ready for us when we arrive, so we will live in the long-term volunteer housing until it is finished.  All our furniture and "stuff" is stuck at the border and they won't release it until we arrive, so it looks like we won't have the soft landing that I had hoped for, but at least it is there.  The water filtration system is in the container as well, so we won’t have drinkable water until the container is released and the filtration system is installed.  The electric fencing is still being installed, and we are not sure about whether we have electricity yet (which is obviously required for the ELECTRIC fencing to work).

Chloe will start school on June 6th - parachuting into the middle of 10th grade (they call it Form 4 there).  The school year runs January to December so she will have some work to do to catch up. She scored really well on the admission testing and she is a straight A student, so we are confident that she will do just fine.

Spencer is coming with us on May 31st and will stay for three weeks to help get us settled.  I am so thankful for that.  We will come back in August to get him settled at Florida State University (and shed another bucket of tears I am sure).

Last week my mom was sent to a hospital in Guelph from the nursing home where she was living. She will be moved to a mental hospital next week where they will try to find a way to stabilize her mentally so that she can return to the nursing home and have them provide proper care (which she has been refusing).

I am hit with waves of emotion that seem to be uncontrollable and at times unbearable.  I long for this time of transition to be over.  While we have worked in Swaziland since 2005 (Spencer calculated that he has been in Africa for 70+ WEEKS since he was ten years old), I am sure there will be things that we are not prepared for. That is okay. We will be home, finally, and for that I am grateful. 

We fly out of Atlanta today, May 31^st, and will arrive in Johannesburg on June 1^st, where we will be met at the airport by Kaleli Mulli, and my second best friend (next to Ian of course), Ralph Glass, from Canada.  We will drive to Swaziland on Saturday, June 2^nd and I will try to give you a report somewhere along the way.

So with that I say thank you to all of you who have followed us on all or part of this 365-day journey.  Thanks for your prayers, your encouragement and your friendship.  You will never know how much you all mean to me.  Thank you Jesus for choosing our family to go and serve and thank you for giving each of us the courage to say “yes”.

Janine

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Will I ever learn?

There are so many things that need to be in place before we can pack up and make our move to Swaziland.  Not just our children's education, selling our house, building a house, driving our cars back to Canada because legally we can't sell Canadian cars here in the US, but also the situation with my mom.

As some of you know, I was adopted as a baby by Bernice and Russ Willis.  As the story goes, they were hoping to adopt a boy, but when they saw my charming smile and strawberry blonde curls they couldn't leave me in the store window.  Well, some of that is true.  They were both wonderful parents, and like all of us, did the best they could with what they knew.  I believe in my heart that most if not all parents do the best with that they know and what they have.   Maybe I am alone in that.  I am thankful for their encouragement, love, support and for the countless hours/days/weeks my mom spent on her knees in prayer for me.  I have no doubt that it carried me through many dark days, and phases in life.

My father passed away in 2005 after a grueling 18 month stint in multiple hospitals across southern Ontario.  His passing was sad, but I was thankful that at last he was out of his pain.  My mom has been struggling with MS (Multiple Sclerosis) for almost 20 years and in 2009 had a heart attack and stroke that further limited her mobility.  She spent months in a local hospital and then we had to make the decision to move her in to long term care facility in Guelph where she would receive excellent 24 hour care.  She was not pleased (a GIANT understatement).

My mom is one of those brilliant, no, genius level people, being one of the first women to earn a degree in Pharmacy.  She has been a trail blazer  and was always ahead of her time in health, wellness and natural cures.  She also had determination like no one else I know and she fought to change things that needed changing.  Although I am adopted, I do believe that much of my tenacity and determination was "learned" from my adopted mom.  In the past year mom has been diagnosed with frontal lobe dementia, which among other things, removed the "filter" that we use to filter our thoughts, actions and language.  The woman who never used the word "darn" because it was a replacement for "d-m" is now using "alternative" language with her health care providers (I will admit - THAT makes me laugh and I will also admit that I am thankful she doesn't have access to the internet).  It is just a part of her aging process.

This is getting too long, so let me get to the point.  Now mom only has the very limited use of one arm and is in terrible pain due to the degeneration of her entire body (basically stated).  She is in and out of hospital and fiery mad because in her dementia she believes she can still walk, and plans to move home, buy a new van and get on with life at the age of 80.  Yesterday she was rushed to the emergency room and was refusing care as they tried to get her to sign a waiver to do a CT Scan.  My cousin Kim, who has been a true gift in caring for my mom as she also lives in Gueph, called me from the emergency room. I could hear my mom screaming at everyone in the background like a caged animal.  She was NOT going down without a fight and taking as many people with her as she could.

I was standing in the kitchen with my friend Annemarie who said, "Why don't they sedate her?"  I thought, what a GREAT idea, so immediately texted Kim to ask her to have them sedate her so they could do the tests without her fighting.  I was SO thankful for Annemarie's suggestion and wished I had been so thoughtful and clever.  Kim texted me back and said,  "No need, I prayed for her out loud and she settled right down."

Wow.  So I ask myself, will I ever learn?  Will I ever get to the place that I automatically think of Jesus instead of an alternative "human" solution?  This is not about false guilt or beating myself up, but rather about realizing that if I am going in to the mission field in Africa, I need to spend more time in spiritual preparation so that I am in a place of total dependence on Him.  That is where I want my heart to be, and it is not there yet.

Today I encourage us all to lean in to the truth and knowledge that He is our all in all.  He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords and we need nothing other than Him.

Thanks for reading a most personal, and maybe unusual posting.

Janine

PS - I love you mom.