hannah overton/cc of the coastlands (part 7)

Tonight, 20/20 will air an updated report on Hannah. Please watch! And then, please pray.

Emma wouldn't let me hold her, at first.

She let me stare at her. She smiled for this picture. She even tolerated the touch of my fingers running through her irresistible curls. But when I reached to take her from Noreen and she found herself in strange arms, she cried.

Maybe she'd felt the weight of my gaze when they first arrived. I'd been nervous knowing Larry and the five children were coming to the resort pool to spend our last afternoon and evening with us, and kept darting anxious peeks toward the parking lot. When Noreen finally said, "Here they come," my heart began to tap-dance. What would I say to this man? What could I say? I didn't want to stare, but the staring began. And what a beautiful family to watch. The three oldest--Isaac, Isabelle, and Ali--ran ahead of three-year old Sebastian, and Larry, who carried Emma in her car seat. I believe my first words were, "You kids have the greatest hair anywhere!" And they do. Their thick, sun-kissed coils were in full motion, springing one way and then another. I wanted to touch every curl. But before I could reach out and embarrass us all, Larry and the younger two arrived.

"Hello, Sebastian," I said when we were introduced. He smiled shyly and let me take his hand. I got about twelve seconds out of him before he lost interest, but that was okay. It was time to meet Larry.

"We're praying for you back home," I told him.

"We'll take all those prayers," he answered.

And then there was Emma.

It isn't that she's hurting worse than the rest of them. They all miss Hannah. And I'm sure it's even harder on the others because they know exactly who they're missing. But this baby has been robbed. She's missed her mother bending over her crib and speaking to her in gentle motherese, and rubbing lotion on those little chubby legs, and smiling her to sleep. I wanted to hug all that hurt away. But she'd have none of it, at first.

So I woo her. For two hours, I make faces, ask questions she can't answer (although she tries), and give her my cell phone to chew and poke and drool upon. When we leave the pool to go back up to the condo, I risk a touch of her silky cheek and let my hand linger on that head of shiny black curls. She gives me a look, but she lets me do it.

I get to know Ali and Isabelle while in that room. When I offer to take Ali into the bathroom and dry her hair, she gives me a pensive look, hesitates a loooong half a second, and then says, "Yes. You can do that." Once that hair dryer starts up, so does her chatter. I hear "actual" this (she means "actually") and "actual" that, and "actual" everything in between. After six or seven references, I begin to think she actually likes that word.

We leave the bathroom as friends. Isabelle decides she might be able to endure a bit of that, so she's next. When she slips in a few "actuallys," I smile.

We sit at the table, waiting for the clock to say "dinner," and I watch Larry fathering his children. His voice is calm. His eyes rarely leave his children. And when he deals with them--to wipe Ali's hair from her eyes or move back a cup Emma is in danger of overturning, his movements are gentle.

At one point, realizing that he hadn't brought up the kids' change of clothes, Larry says, "I'm going to run down to the car and get their clothes." If it was any other father holding any other one-year old, I'd let the words out. I'd say, "I'll take the baby." But I bite back the instinct. It's so obvious that he wants to be with her, and she wants to be with him right back.

Isaac, Isabelle and Sebastian see him rise. "Where ya going, Daddy? Can I go to the car with you?"

Larry nods. When Isabelle reaches up to take his hand, he meets her coming down. And when the family-who-can't-get- enough-of-each-other slip out the door (Ali, talking my sister's ear off, is oblivious to their departure), I have to go in my room for a minute and release a bit of the emotion overwhelming me.

A bit later, we leave for Snoopy's Pier on Padre Island, a no-frills, good-eatin', fishermen's hangout. Just as I've been promised, the mahi mahi fish & chips melt right in my mouth. But what I'll remember about Snoopy's is that it is here, at this rough-hewn table with the lapping of the Gulf below us and the chatter of patrons and the smell of fish all around us, that Emma decides I am safe.

I reach for her again, and she leaves the haven of Noreen's arms. Looking up at me, she grins as though we've been friends forever, begins chattering a blue streak of nonsense, and shows me how she can point her index finger up in the air--giggling, as she does so, at her own dexterity.

She spies my cup of water and lets me know she's interested, so I start giving her drinks from the straw. While I'm doing so, Noreen begins to prompt her to say "please." I then begin to prompt her to say "thank you." Something about that hurts my heart. This baby doesn't need a village. She needs her mother.

We share a lemon wedge (which she loves) and then she notices the fish plaque on the wall behind us. "Fishie," I say, pointing. I say it again a time or two. But after just those few references, she points to it on her own when I say the word. She's brilliant. And she's kind. After testing a limp fry, she offers the other half to me. No sense in declining, because this child is on a mission. So I accept the half-eaten fry and taste her little lemony fingers as they poke the potato in my reluctant mouth. She's not content with my "thank you." I have to follow up with appreciative, "that's the best limp, half-eaten fry I've ever had" noises.

And then, finally, tired from all that brilliant poking, pointing and prodding, Emma rests her tiny head on my shoulder. My heart does a flip-flop. And I think, This is for you, Hannah. I'll do this for you tonight because you can't. But I'll pray for the day when you take it all back for yourself.

*    *    *
This morning, I'm thinking of black curls and lemony fingers. And I'm praying as hard as I have in a long while.

hannah overton/cc of the coastlands (part 6)

The body of Christ is a beautiful thing.

I saw glimpses of that beauty in Texas -- testimonies that stood in sharp contrast to the dark injustice of Hannah's ordeal.

From the beginning, Pastor Rod and Noreen Carver, along with several other couples, did the dance of court-ordered guardianship for the Overton children. Larry and Hannah--then out on bail awaiting trial--were not allowed to be alone with their own children. So the body in Corpus Christi surrounded them. In rotating shifts, these families enabled the Overtons to stay together around the clock, albeit with witnesses. Nothing was easy during that time--a trip anywhere required a minimum of three cars to accommodate everyone and fulfill the court's requirements. But no one complained.

When lies prevailed and Hannah turned for one last look at her family, it was the body of Christ that did for her what she could not do herself. They held her children and comforted her husband and whispered the assurances most needed. They made meals and washed faces, brushed the girls' hair, stood by Larry's side at every court hearing, and clapped when Emma learned to roll over, and to sit up, and to crawl.

I met one woman who homeschools Hannah's children. I met another who can't wait for Wednesdays, when it's her turn to have the baby. Emma has twelve mothers now. There's something so clearly wrong about that, but also incomparably beautiful.

The body at Calvary Chapel of the Coastlands has written letters, petitioned officials, and endured hostility from those who believe the lies about Hannah. They've prayed faithfully. They've kept a steady flow of love-from-home letters to first one prison, and now another. They've brought Hannah worship.

It's that last image that brought me to tears during my visit. Anita, our retreat worship leader, explained how they did it. Before Hannah was moved 350 miles from Corpus, a large group of worshipers would gather on Tuesday evenings and unfurl large banners they'd made during the week. On the banners would be the name of whichever song they were singing. From her window on the fifth floor, Hannah--standing on tiptoe--would hold the song sheets they'd sent earlier. And though she couldn't hear a word of those songs, she'd follow the hand gestures the team had worked out for her ... and worship along with her church family.

The image has stayed with me. Now, whenever I think of the fellowship in Corpus Christi, I picture them pantomiming worship songs on the grass below the jail; the headlights of their cars trained on those banners, perhaps illuminating the mixture of joy and sorrow on their upturned expressions. And I envision Hannah, with just her eyes showing over the ledge of her fifth floor window.

This life is full of sharp edges and harsh tones, cruel jabs and empty promises. But God has provided a haven--sweet words to replace the bitter; a balm to soothe the blows, the hope of promise to counter the lies.

How beautiful is His bride.

hannah overton/cc of the coastlands (part 5)

A little knowledge can paralyze you.

In one of our early conversations about the retreat, Noreen had shared the story of one of the women in their fellowship--a woman named Linda whose daughter had been murdered five years earlier. I could relate to that situation because we'd gone through that ourselves, and at nearly the same time.

Then, just a few days before I left for Texas, Noreen told me that Hannah's mother, Lane, would be at the retreat.

I couldn't ignore the possibilities. What if I referenced Rachel's death and caused a pang of remembrance to Linda? What if I mentioned Hannah, and it happened to be the one second in a long day when Lane was not thinking of her?

I thought of them both during the first teaching and scanned the crowd, wondering which expectant face was the face of a grieving mother.

It wasn't until the second day that I discovered who Linda was. She happened to be the small, happy, battery-powered woman I'd already shared several conversations with. A self-described "Pilippina" woman (and I can still hear that delightful accent), Linda had been the first to welcome me to the retreat. By the time we stood together on the balcony of one condo room at the first stop of a progressive dinner, and she began telling me the story of her daughter, I felt like Linda and I were friends.

She began first by telling me a little about her life in the Philippines, and about coming to America, and then about how her daughter had shared Jesus with her. And then she told me about the plans her daughter and her husband had for adopting a baby, and how the day before that baby was to arrive from China, while Linda's daughter was leaning over the baby's crib arranging a quilt, a man who had quietly broken in the house came up behind her and began stabbing her repeatedly. Sometime before or after her death, the man raped her, then set the house on fire to cover up the crime.

"Do you know what?" Linda said. "The rest of the house burned all around her, but it didn't touch my daughter. That was God."

My head hurt from the implications of that story. When Linda told me about the phone call she received, and the blunt message, "Linda, your daughter is dead," I joined her in that long-ago room. I watched her fling the phone to the floor, and ran with her to the corner of that unseen room to huddle in disbelief. I felt the shattering of her heart as though it were my own, and I wondered how she ever stood up again.

"When you talked about Rachel," Linda continued, "it did hurt. It made me think of my daughter--my only daughter. But I know she's with Jesus." She then told me that when he was arrested, the accused stated that her daughter had, with her last breath, told him, "Take anything you want. I love you, and Jesus loves you."

I knew many things in the moment Linda shared that story with me. I knew that her daughter was healed and whole in the presence of the One she loved most, I knew that Linda would continue loving and serving God while she awaited her reunion, and I knew that as far as she and I were concerned, she was all right.

But I didn't know how Lane was feeling.

The following morning, just before I gave my last teaching, I was standing near the book table in the back of the room talking with one of the young girls. As we finished our conversation, I noticed a slight woman standing off to the side, waiting. Her eyes were kind; her face, serene. When the young girl said good-bye to me and walked away, I turned to the woman.

"I'm Lane," she said. And then, as I began to cry and we held each other, she said, "Thank you for loving Hannah."

We talked for a few long moments--about Hannah, about her children. And as I looked into those beautiful eyes, I knew a few things for certain. I knew that Lane trusted the God who was watching over her daughter, and I knew that she'd keep loving and serving Him, even though her heart was broken.

What I didn't know was how long He'd wait to heal her.

How long, Lord? How long will You permit this injustice to stand? Take all the glory You can from this. Harvest all the souls You desire. Bring all the lessons possible. But soon, Lord, soon ... won't You show Yourself mighty on Hannah's behalf?

hannah overton/cc of the coastlands (part 4)

After the first session, I came back to my room and found this picture waiting for me in my inbox. My cousin, Tracy Willms, had sent it to me--a memento from my visit last September.

That reunion was 26 years in the making. Though much time had passed and we'd walked very different paths, when he called me out of the blue one morning last April, we talked for three hours and caught up on key moments we'd both missed. By the time we said good-bye, I'd almost forgotten the years we'd lost.

Then in September, I went to southern California for a pastors' wives conference and to do a bit of writing-related work, and I finally got my face-to-face reunion with this favorite cousin. Sitting at his house, talking and laughing with him, I'd watch his face and sometimes catch glimpses of the boy he once was, back when life's challenges were small. I remembered afternoon barbecues, and running at dusk in our uncle's backyard. I remembered one surreal winter night when, without any discussion or planning, we both snuck out of our homes (just blocks away) at midnight and spent an hour playing in the snow together. I remembered the last night I saw him, just before he left to join the navy, and how the boy changed into a man right before my eyes. And I was glad for those memories, but glad too that we had time now to make new ones.

Sitting in my condo in Corpus Christi, with this picture on my laptop screen, I thought of how good God is. I thought of His words in Joel 2:25, when He promised to "restore the years that the locusts have eaten." And then my thoughts turned again to Hannah.

Chase away the locusts, God. They've consumed enough. Bring the reunion Hannah longs for. Let the next picture be of that moment when she's engulfed in the arms of Larry and Isaac, Isabelle, Ali, Sebastian and baby Emma. And when she's holding the ones she misses most, let the memory of their absence fall away. Restore what she's lost, Lord.

hannah overton/cc of the coastlands (part 3)

Pretty much the moment Noreen and I settled on the retreat theme, months earlier, my internal debate began. I remember ending that phone call thinking, How do you speak for four hours on the subject of joy to a roomful of grieving women?

They need joy, the optimist in me said.

But you can't push them there, the pessimist argued.

Would my illustrations be insensitive? Would my admonitions be too bossy? Would it all sound implausible, impossible?

Every time I sat down to work on my teachings, those polar voices resumed their tiff. I'd have to la, la, la them to silence just so I could capture a few thoughts on the screen.

I chose my words carefully. I looked over every story, every illustration with an eye for Hannah, and how it might affect her loved ones. My aim was to lift up joy and say, "This can be yours."

When all was said and done, and I'd printed up the notes for my four, one-hour teachings, I dismissed those cranky voices and sighed in relief. It all felt right. It felt like I'd maneuvered myself through a minefield.

And so, on that first night of the retreat, when I sat down with my notes for one more look before heading down to the first session, my heart gave a little twist when I came to the first illustration and noticed I'd made a reference to prison.

How did that slip by? I wondered. I scribbled out the reference, thought for a minute, and replaced it with something a little less stark.

I turned the page ... and saw a reference to chains. The twist in my heart became a full shimmy. What had I done? More scribbling. More scanning. More heart galloping. Prison, prisoner, shackles, chains ... I'd done the very thing I most wanted not to do--I'd filled my teaching with words too familiar, too painful for this group of women.

My sister, Nancy, was in the condo's living room reading her Bible. "Listen to this," I said. When I'd finished, I asked her the question I was wondering myself. "Do you think this isn't a coincidence?"

Nancy nodded. "It all must be in there for a reason."

I thought about Romans 11:25, which says that "a partial blindness has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in." God, apparently, had granted me a partial blindness until I was fully away from my printer and unable to fix my words.

Noreen called from her condo just then to pray with me.

"You won't believe this," I began.

She listened, and agreed. "You have to leave it in." We prayed together, and then I gathered my notes and walked with Nancy down to the meeting room. I walked through those doors, looked at all those beautiful, smiling faces, and said another quick prayer. Father, don't let me hurt them.

I'm a big believer in laying all your cards on the table. So after worship, after a short vignette in what would be an ongoing play throughout our retreat, and after a brief introduction, I stood at the podium and told the women what had happened. I told them my hopes for our retreat, my fears over how my words might affect them, and my belief that it had to be said. And I told them what the Lord had spoken to me on the walk down from my room.

"There's more than one kind of prison. Sometimes, the chains we find around us are chains of our own making. I believe God will free Hannah--and I believe He wants to free you, too."

I shared my points, my stories, my verses. And I watched the same progression I've seen dozens of times in dozens of settings. The women didn't know me--and then they did. Polite smiles transformed into genuine smiles of connection and understanding. We went from strangers to friends, and I knew that by the end of the second session, we'd go from friends to family.

I held off crying until the very end, when, while praying, I had a vision of Hannah--Hannah not being in the room with us. So I prayed what I was thinking. "Tonight, Lord, give Hannah her own retreat with You. Let Your nearness be more real to her than it's ever been. Let her know how loved she is."

"And then, Lord, please bring her home."

hannah overton/cc of the coastlands (part 2)

The plan had been to grab a latte after dinner before heading to the resort. I have to point out here that Corpus Christi, population 300,000, has two, count 'em, two Starbucks ... whereas my little town of 30,000, situated as it is in the shadow of Seattle (otherwise known as the birthplace of Starbucks), has nine. For a time, we had ten, but that was back when someone thought it would be wise to place two in the same parking lot.

But while formulating our latte plan, Noreen said something about the weekly prayer gathering for Hannah.

"When is your prayer meeting?" I asked.

"Thursday nights."

Rising above my jet lag and post-steak lethargy, I made a quick calculation. "Isn't tonight Thursday?"

Julie nodded.

"Could we go?"

So we did. While driving to the church, I asked what I most wanted to know. How is Hannah? Why did they move her so far away? What is the status of the case?

Noreen took my questions one at a time and from her answers, a dark picture of Corpus Christi emerged. From my home now, two thousand miles away, I picture that beautiful place shrouded in a black cloud of deceit and corruption. Noreen told me about the flat-out lies the prosecutor told about Hannah. She told me about evidence that had been squelched--and something called the Brady Law, which, all by itself, should have overturned Hannah's case. It seems when the prosecutor heard a not-so-welcomed deposition by a trusted doctor, that deposition got filed--without being shared with the defense attorney. I learned that just 2 or 3 such inconsistencies usually overturn a case, and that Hannah has 18 ... yet she sits in prison.

By the time we pulled into the church parking lot, the image I held of the whole lot of them--judges, prosecutors, CPS workers--had sharpened. They were a gang of Goliaths, taunting us with their bellows. They were a court full of slobbery Jabba-the-Huts, gobbling justice to feed their fat bellies.

And there we stood--stoneless, and with no sword in sight.

We went inside. I saw Rod, Noreen's husband (and the pastor), who I knew from our first trip to Israel. We'd joined the same tour then. My enduring memory of Rod (who is something of a daredevil ... he surfed during Katrina) was of him convincing Matthew, another pastor on our tour, to skip the tram up to Masada and run up the hill instead. From my window on the tram, they were just two tiny desert dots, kicking up even tinier dust puffs as they raced us up the mountain.

After a quick tour of the building, we joined a group of people in the church's coffee shop. Rod pulled out a guitar and we worshiped for awhile. And then the prayers began.

Nothing knits you to people like prayer. When one of the girls lifted Hannah before the throne, I nodded along with her. When one of the men began to choke up in the midst of his plea for strength, his tears filled my eyes. We asked God for refreshment, for comfort, for justice. I gave a silent plea for stones. But still, the sense of helplessness lingered.

And then, because I have a hard time keeping my eyes closed during prayer, I looked up and found myself counting the faces. Ten of us sat clustered at those coffee shop tables. Ten.

Ten. The word sunk in, and the Holy Spirit reminded me of something I'd tucked away long ago. Ten is the number of fullness, the number of completeness. In Judaism, you must have ten men in order to form a minyon, or a prayer quorum. God packed His law within ten commandments. Ten is enough ... enough.

We are a synagogue, Lord. And we who stand here with You are more than all who can come against us. Hear our prayers, Father.

We declare her innocent.

hannah overton/cc of the coastlands (part 1)

This Friday, February 19th, ABC will run an updated profile on Hannah Overton on 20/20. This woman means a great deal to a great many of us. I hope you'll watch this week ... and I hope you'll pray. Here's part one of a series I wrote after visiting with Hannah's church family, husband and children two years ago:

I've traveled to many places and spoken to many groups of women, but I've never before sent my heart on ahead of me the way I did on this trip to Corpus Christi, Texas. Long before I surveyed those 130 faces, they meant something to me.

We've been praying for this body of believers for months now. We've followed the story of Hannah and asked God to shake the earth and fling open those prison doors. We've waited for news. And as days and weeks have gone by with no such earthquake, no such miracle, we've shared in the frustration and fear and grief that Larry and Hannah Overton, Rod and Noreen Carver, and the body at CC of the Coastlands have felt.

So I awakened early (and I mean early) Thursday morning feeling jumbled up inside. I couldn't wait to finally meet these women; I dreaded saying anything that might highlight their pain. I was eager to meet Larry and the five Overton children; I didn't know where I'd find the words I wanted to say.

Before the clock even struck 4:00 a.m., Dave was at the stove, making a batch of farina for us. Grain is a good way to start the day. No time for coffee, as we had to pick up my sister, Nancy, by 5:00 and we still had a big pile to load in the car and a half-hour drive to her house.

Another 45 minutes down the road took us to SeaTac airport. Dave came into the airport with us, helped me shuffle my Bible and a few other items from one too-heavy suitcase to one with a bit of weight room, and kissed me good-bye.

Our Continental flight served breakfast, which was a good thing, because I'd squeezed every ounce of energy out of that farina by this point. But breakfast was cereal and a muffin. More grainy stuff. I ate it with visions of bacon and sausage and ham and chicken fried steak in my head. I might mention here that I'm just a teeny bit of a carnivore.

The first leg of our trip took us to Houston, where we had to dash to a far corner in the lower bowels of the building to catch our connecting flight. While scurrying there, we passed a number of restaurants offering all kinds of protein. I could see and smell dozens of not-grainy offerings, and I was so longing for meat that I toyed with the idea of "missing" our connecting flight. But I'm not quite that irresponsible.

We made it to the gate in time--time enough to hear an announcement. "Flight 5577 to Corpus Christi isn't here yet, but we expect it shortly and will announce when we're ready to begin boarding." With no more information than that, we couldn't risk leaving the terminal. So we sat, not eating meat, and waited for news. Eventually, growling noises forced Nancy and I to eat a granola bar each. I decided then and there that I hate grains.

Our flight arrived; we boarded. Just a few minutes into the flight, we were told that due to turbulence, there'd be no beverage service except for water. My hopes for a peanut evaporated.

We landed in Corpus Christi and headed to the baggage area. On our way, I heard my name, and there was Noreen and Julie, the assistant pastor's wife. We hugged and talked a bit about our flight. And then Noreen began to ask me a question. "Are you hungr ..."

"Yes."

She laughed. "What would you like to ..."

"Meat."

And that's how we ended up at the Texas Roadhouse. Nice and loud. Peanut shells all over the floor. A booth in the corner which enabled us to actually hear one another. I was so happy to be in that carnivore's heaven.

At Julie's suggestion, I ordered the rib eye steak. In the spirit of "When in Corpus Christi, do as the Corpus Christi-ans do," I also ordered a baked sweet potato. But I drew the line at ordering it with the works: butter, brown sugar, marshmallows, and caramel sauce. I can't go along with this notion of turning vegetables into dessert. Julie offered a bite of her loaded sweet potato; I tried it to be nice but couldn't restrain a shudder as all that sugar hit my tongue. My own, however, with just a nice shimmery layer of whipped butter, was pure bliss.

We talked about a whole variety of things in the way that women do so effortlessly. That means we tossed several topics in the air and took turns juggling. We spoke over each other as often as possible and finished each other's sentences at appropriate intervals. All this while eating. And laughing.

It was during all that talking, eating, and laughing that I broke down for the first time. I was just sitting there loving on that steak and listening to Noreen and Nancy and Julie, and all of a sudden I thought, I wonder what Hannah is having for dinner? The tears came; I couldn't stop them. It seemed so wrong to sit there soaking in all that pleasure, loving that moment in time and anticipating a weekend at the Port Royal resort, right there on the Gulf of Mexico, when Hannah was staring at walls that had no right to enclose her.

I finished my dinner. I couldn't finish my thoughts. They followed me out the door, into the car, and down the road to the resort. And I'd only just begun crying.

please watch

Running out the door, but I wanted to post and ask you to watch 20/20 tonight. They're doing an expose on Hannah Overton of Corpus Christi, Texas. The link in that line is to the posts I've already written about Hannah and her ordeal, or you can read about it at Free Hannah.

And please keep praying.

calvary chapel of the coastlands--part 7

Emma wouldn't let me hold her, at first.

She let me stare at her. She smiled for this picture. She even tolerated the touch of my fingers running through her irresistible curls. But when I reached to take her from Noreen and she found herself in strange arms, she cried.

Maybe she'd felt the weight of my gaze when they first arrived. I'd been nervous knowing Larry and the five children were coming to the resort pool to spend our last afternoon and evening with us, and kept darting anxious peeks toward the parking lot. When Noreen finally said, "Here they come," my heart began to tap-dance. What would I say to this man? What could I say? I didn't want to stare, but the staring began. And what a beautiful family to watch. The three oldest--Isaac, Isabelle, and Ali--ran ahead of three-year old Sebastian, and Larry, who carried Emma in her car seat. I believe my first words were, "You kids have the greatest hair anywhere!" And they do. Their thick, sun-kissed coils were in full motion, springing one way and then another. I wanted to touch every curl. But before I could reach out and embarrass us all, Larry and the younger two arrived.

"Hello, Sebastian," I said when we were introduced. He smiled shyly and let me take his hand. I got about twelve seconds out of him before he lost interest, but that was okay. It was time to meet Larry.

"We're praying for you back home," I told him.

"We'll take all those prayers," he answered.

And then there was Emma.

It isn't that she's hurting worse than the rest of them. They all miss Hannah. And I'm sure it's even harder on the others because they know exactly who they're missing. But this baby has been robbed. She's missed her mother bending over her crib and speaking to her in gentle motherese, and rubbing lotion on those little chubby legs, and smiling her to sleep. I wanted to hug all that hurt away. But she'd have none of it, at first.

So I woo her. For two hours, I make faces, ask questions she can't answer (although she tries), and give her my cell phone to chew and poke and drool upon. When we leave the pool to go back up to the condo, I risk a touch of her silky cheek and let my hand linger on that head of shiny black curls. She gives me a look, but she lets me do it.

I get to know Ali and Isabelle while in that room. When I offer to take Ali into the bathroom and dry her hair, she gives me a pensive look, hesitates a loooong half a second, and then says, "Yes. You can do that." Once that hair dryer starts up, so does her chatter. I hear "actual" this (she means "actually") and "actual" that, and "actual" everything in between. After six or seven references, I begin to think she actually likes that word.

We leave the bathroom as friends. Isabelle decides she might be able to endure a bit of that, so she's next. When she slips in a few "actuallys," I smile.

We sit at the table, waiting for the clock to say "dinner," and I watch Larry fathering his children. His voice is calm. His eyes rarely leave his children. And when he deals with them--to wipe Ali's hair from her eyes or move back a cup Emma is in danger of overturning, his movements are gentle.

At one point, realizing that he hadn't brought up the kids' change of clothes, Larry says, "I'm going to run down to the car and get their clothes." If it was any other father holding any other one-year old, I'd let the words out. I'd say, "I'll take the baby." But I bite back the instinct. It's so obvious that he wants to be with her, and she wants to be with him right back.

Isaac, Isabelle and Sebastian see him rise. "Where ya going, Daddy? Can I go to the car with you?"

Larry nods. When Isabelle reaches up to take his hand, he meets her coming down. And when the family-who-can't-get- enough-of-each-other slip out the door (Ali, talking my sister's ear off, is oblivious to their departure), I have to go in my room for a minute and release a bit of the emotion overwhelming me.

A bit later, we leave for Snoopy's Pier on Padre Island, a no-frills, good-eatin', fishermen's hangout. Just as I've been promised, the mahi mahi fish & chips melt right in my mouth. But what I'll remember about Snoopy's is that it is here, at this rough-hewn table with the lapping of the Gulf below us and the chatter of patrons and the smell of fish all around us, that Emma decides I am safe.

I reach for her again, and she leaves the haven of Noreen's arms. Looking up at me, she grins as though we've been friends forever, begins chattering a blue streak of nonsense, and shows me how she can point her index finger up in the air--giggling, as she does so, at her own dexterity.

She spies my cup of water and lets me know she's interested, so I start giving her drinks from the straw. While I'm doing so, Noreen begins to prompt her to say "please." I then begin to prompt her to say "thank you." Something about that hurts my heart. This baby doesn't need a village. She needs her mother.

We share a lemon wedge (which she loves) and then she notices the fish plaque on the wall behind us. "Fishie," I say, pointing. I say it again a time or two. But after just those few references, she points to it on her own when I say the word. She's brilliant. And she's kind. After testing a limp fry, she offers the other half to me. No sense in declining, because this child is on a mission. So I accept the half-eaten fry and taste her little lemony fingers as they poke the potato in my reluctant mouth. She's not content with my "thank you." I have to follow up with appreciative, "that's the best limp, half-eaten fry I've ever had" noises.

And then, finally, tired from all that brilliant poking, pointing and prodding, Emma rests her tiny head on my shoulder. My heart does a flip-flop. And I think, This is for you, Hannah. I'll do this for you tonight because you can't. But I'll pray for the day when you take it all back for yourself.

*    *    *
This morning, I'm thinking of black curls and lemony fingers. And I'm praying as hard as I have in a long while.

calvary chapel of the coastlands--part 6

The body of Christ is a beautiful thing.

I saw glimpses of that beauty in Texas -- testimonies that stood in sharp contrast to the dark injustice of Hannah's ordeal.

From the beginning, Pastor Rod and Noreen Carver, along with several other couples, did the dance of court-ordered guardianship for the Overton children. Larry and Hannah--then out on bail awaiting trial--were not allowed to be alone with their own children. So the body in Corpus Christi surrounded them. In rotating shifts, these families enabled the Overtons to stay together around the clock, albeit with witnesses. Nothing was easy during that time--a trip anywhere required a minimum of three cars to accommodate everyone and fulfill the court's requirements. But no one complained.

When lies prevailed and Hannah turned for one last look at her family, it was the body of Christ that did for her what she could not do herself. They held her children and comforted her husband and whispered the assurances most needed. They made meals and washed faces, brushed the girls' hair, stood by Larry's side at every court hearing, and clapped when Emma learned to roll over, and to sit up, and to crawl.

I met one woman who homeschools Hannah's children. I met another who can't wait for Wednesdays, when it's her turn to have the baby. Emma has twelve mothers now. There's something so clearly wrong about that, but also incomparably beautiful.

The body at Calvary Chapel of the Coastlands has written letters, petitioned officials, and endured hostility from those who believe the lies about Hannah. They've prayed faithfully. They've kept a steady flow of love-from-home letters to first one prison, and now another. They've brought Hannah worship.

It's that last image that brought me to tears during my visit. Anita, our retreat worship leader, explained how they did it. Before Hannah was moved 350 miles from Corpus, a large group of worshipers would gather on Tuesday evenings and unfurl large banners they'd made during the week. On the banners would be the name of whichever song they were singing. From her window on the fifth floor, Hannah--standing on tiptoe--would hold the song sheets they'd sent earlier. And though she couldn't hear a word of those songs, she'd follow the hand gestures the team had worked out for her ... and worship along with her church family.

The image has stayed with me. Now, whenever I think of the fellowship in Corpus Christi, I picture them pantomiming worship songs on the grass below the jail; the headlights of their cars trained on those banners, perhaps illuminating the mixture of joy and sorrow on their upturned expressions. And I envision Hannah, with just her eyes showing over the ledge of her fifth floor window.

This life is full of sharp edges and harsh tones, cruel jabs and empty promises. But God has provided a haven--sweet words to replace the bitter; a balm to soothe the blows, the hope of promise to counter the lies.

How beautiful is His bride.

calvary chapel of the coastlands--part 5

A little knowledge can paralyze you.

In one of our early conversations about the retreat, Noreen had shared the story of one of the women in their fellowship--a woman named Linda whose daughter had been murdered five years earlier. I could relate to that situation because we'd gone through that ourselves, and at nearly the same time.

Then, just a few days before I left for Texas, Noreen told me that Hannah's mother, Lane, would be at the retreat.

I couldn't ignore the possibilities. What if I referenced Rachel's death and caused a pang of remembrance to Linda? What if I mentioned Hannah, and it happened to be the one second in a long day when Lane was not thinking of her?

I thought of them both during the first teaching and scanned the crowd, wondering which expectant face was the face of a grieving mother.

It wasn't until the second day that I discovered who Linda was. She happened to be the small, happy, battery-powered woman I'd already shared several conversations with. A self-described "Pilippina" woman (and I can still hear that delightful accent), Linda had been the first to welcome me to the retreat. By the time we stood together on the balcony of one condo room at the first stop of a progressive dinner, and she began telling me the story of her daughter, I felt like Linda and I were friends.

She began first by telling me a little about her life in the Philippines, and about coming to America, and then about how her daughter had shared Jesus with her. And then she told me about the plans her daughter and her husband had for adopting a baby, and how the day before that baby was to arrive from China, while Linda's daughter was leaning over the baby's crib arranging a quilt, a man who had quietly broken in the house came up behind her and began stabbing her repeatedly. Sometime before or after her death, the man raped her, then set the house on fire to cover up the crime.

"Do you know what?" Linda said. "The rest of the house burned all around her, but it didn't touch my daughter. That was God."

My head hurt from the implications of that story. When Linda told me about the phone call she received, and the blunt message, "Linda, your daughter is dead," I joined her in that long-ago room. I watched her fling the phone to the floor, and ran with her to the corner of that unseen room to huddle in disbelief. I felt the shattering of her heart as though it were my own, and I wondered how she ever stood up again.

"When you talked about Rachel," Linda continued, "it did hurt. It made me think of my daughter--my only daughter. But I know she's with Jesus." She then told me that when he was arrested, the accused stated that her daughter had, with her last breath, told him, "Take anything you want. I love you, and Jesus loves you."

I knew many things in the moment Linda shared that story with me. I knew that her daughter was healed and whole in the presence of the One she loved most, I knew that Linda would continue loving and serving God while she awaited her reunion, and I knew that as far as she and I were concerned, she was all right.

But I didn't know how Lane was feeling.

The following morning, just before I gave my last teaching, I was standing near the book table in the back of the room talking with one of the young girls. As we finished our conversation, I noticed a slight woman standing off to the side, waiting. Her eyes were kind; her face, serene. When the young girl said good-bye to me and walked away, I turned to the woman.

"I'm Lane," she said. And then, as I began to cry and we held each other, she said, "Thank you for loving Hannah."

We talked for a few long moments--about Hannah, about her children. And as I looked into those beautiful eyes, I knew a few things for certain. I knew that Lane trusted the God who was watching over her daughter, and I knew that she'd keep loving and serving Him, even though her heart was broken.

What I didn't know was how long He'd wait to heal her.

How long, Lord? How long will You permit this injustice to stand? Take all the glory You can from this. Harvest all the souls You desire. Bring all the lessons possible. But soon, Lord, soon ... won't You show Yourself mighty on Hannah's behalf?

calvary chapel of the coastlands--part 4

After the first session, I came back to my room and found this picture waiting for me in my inbox. My cousin, Tracy Willms, had sent it to me--a memento from my visit last September.

That reunion was 26 years in the making. Though much time had passed and we'd walked very different paths, when he called me out of the blue one morning last April, we talked for three hours and caught up on key moments we'd both missed. By the time we said good-bye, I'd almost forgotten the years we'd lost.

Then in September, I went to southern California for a pastors' wives conference and to do a bit of writing-related work, and I finally got my face-to-face reunion with this favorite cousin. Sitting at his house, talking and laughing with him, I'd watch his face and sometimes catch glimpses of the boy he once was, back when life's challenges were small. I remembered afternoon barbecues, and running at dusk in our uncle's backyard. I remembered one surreal winter night when, without any discussion or planning, we both snuck out of our homes (just blocks away) at midnight and spent an hour playing in the snow together. I remembered the last night I saw him, just before he left to join the navy, and how the boy changed into a man right before my eyes. And I was glad for those memories, but glad too that we had time now to make new ones.

Sitting in my condo in Corpus Christi, with this picture on my laptop screen, I thought of how good God is. I thought of His words in Joel 2:25, when He promised to "restore the years that the locusts have eaten." And then my thoughts turned again to Hannah.

Chase away the locusts, God. They've consumed enough. Bring the reunion Hannah longs for. Let the next picture be of that moment when she's engulfed in the arms of Larry and Isaac, Isabelle, Ali, Sebastian and baby Emma. And when she's holding the ones she misses most, let the memory of their absence fall away. Restore what she's lost, Lord.

article on hannah

So many of you have written to tell me you're praying for Hannah, and to ask for updates. The current issue of World Magazine contains this article about Hannah's case. If you have a minute, please read.

And keep praying.

calvary chapel of the coastlands--part 3

Pretty much the moment Noreen and I settled on the retreat theme, months earlier, my internal debate began. I remember ending that phone call thinking, How do you speak for four hours on the subject of joy to a roomful of grieving women?

They need joy, the optimist in me said.

But you can't push them there, the pessimist argued.

Would my illustrations be insensitive? Would my admonitions be too bossy? Would it all sound implausible, impossible?

Every time I sat down to work on my teachings, those polar voices resumed their tiff. I'd have to la, la, la them to silence just so I could capture a few thoughts on the screen.

I chose my words carefully. I looked over every story, every illustration with an eye for Hannah, and how it might affect her loved ones. My aim was to lift up joy and say, "This can be yours."

When all was said and done, and I'd printed up the notes for my four, one-hour teachings, I dismissed those cranky voices and sighed in relief. It all felt right. It felt like I'd maneuvered myself through a minefield.

And so, on that first night of the retreat, when I sat down with my notes for one more look before heading down to the first session, my heart gave a little twist when I came to the first illustration and noticed I'd made a reference to prison.

How did that slip by? I wondered. I scribbled out the reference, thought for a minute, and replaced it with something a little less stark.

I turned the page ... and saw a reference to chains. The twist in my heart became a full shimmy. What had I done? More scribbling. More scanning. More heart galloping. Prison, prisoner, shackles, chains ... I'd done the very thing I most wanted not to do--I'd filled my teaching with words too familiar, too painful for this group of women.

My sister, Nancy, was in the condo's living room reading her Bible. "Listen to this," I said. When I'd finished, I asked her the question I was wondering myself. "Do you think this isn't a coincidence?"

Nancy nodded. "It all must be in there for a reason."

I thought about Romans 11:25, which says that "a partial blindness has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in." God, apparently, had granted me a partial blindness until I was fully away from my printer and unable to fix my words.

Noreen called from her condo just then to pray with me.

"You won't believe this," I began.

She listened, and agreed. "You have to leave it in." We prayed together, and then I gathered my notes and walked with Nancy down to the meeting room. I walked through those doors, looked at all those beautiful, smiling faces, and said another quick prayer. Father, don't let me hurt them.

I'm a big believer in laying all your cards on the table. So after worship, after a short vignette in what would be an ongoing play throughout our retreat, and after a brief introduction, I stood at the podium and told the women what had happened. I told them my hopes for our retreat, my fears over how my words might affect them, and my belief that it had to be said. And I told them what the Lord had spoken to me on the walk down from my room.

"There's more than one kind of prison. Sometimes, the chains we find around us are chains of our own making. I believe God will free Hannah--and I believe He wants to free you, too."

I shared my points, my stories, my verses. And I watched the same progression I've seen dozens of times in dozens of settings. The women didn't know me--and then they did. Polite smiles transformed into genuine smiles of connection and understanding. We went from strangers to friends, and I knew that by the end of the second session, we'd go from friends to family.

I held off crying until the very end, when, while praying, I had a vision of Hannah--Hannah not being in the room with us. So I prayed what I was thinking. "Tonight, Lord, give Hannah her own retreat with You. Let Your nearness be more real to her than it's ever been. Let her know how loved she is."

"And then, Lord, please bring her home."

calvary chapel of the coastlands--part 2

The plan had been to grab a latte after dinner before heading to the resort. I have to point out here that Corpus Christi, population 300,000, has two, count 'em, two Starbucks ... whereas my little town of 30,000, situated as it is in the shadow of Seattle (otherwise known as the birthplace of Starbucks), has nine. For a time, we had ten, but that was back when someone thought it would be wise to place two in the same parking lot.

But while formulating our latte plan, Noreen said something about the weekly prayer gathering for Hannah.

"When is your prayer meeting?" I asked.

"Thursday nights."

Rising above my jet lag and post-steak lethargy, I made a quick calculation. "Isn't tonight Thursday?"

Julie nodded.

"Could we go?"

So we did. While driving to the church, I asked what I most wanted to know. How is Hannah? Why did they move her so far away? What is the status of the case?

Noreen took my questions one at a time and from her answers, a dark picture of Corpus Christi emerged. From my home now, two thousand miles away, I picture that beautiful place shrouded in a black cloud of deceit and corruption. Noreen told me about the flat-out lies the prosecutor told about Hannah. She told me about evidence that had been squelched--and something called the Brady Law, which, all by itself, should have overturned Hannah's case. It seems when the prosecutor heard a not-so-welcomed deposition by a trusted doctor, that deposition got filed--without being shared with the defense attorney. I learned that just 2 or 3 such inconsistencies usually overturn a case, and that Hannah has 18 ... yet she sits in prison.

By the time we pulled into the church parking lot, the image I held of the whole lot of them--judges, prosecutors, CPS workers--had sharpened. They were a gang of Goliaths, taunting us with their bellows. They were a court full of slobbery Jabba-the-Huts, gobbling justice to feed their fat bellies.

And there we stood--stoneless, and with no sword in sight.

We went inside. I saw Rod, Noreen's husband (and the pastor), who I knew from our first trip to Israel. We'd joined the same tour then. My enduring memory of Rod (who is something of a daredevil ... he surfed during Katrina) was of him convincing Matthew, another pastor on our tour, to skip the tram up to Masada and run up the hill instead. From my window on the tram, they were just two tiny desert dots, kicking up even tinier dust puffs as they raced us up the mountain.

After a quick tour of the building, we joined a group of people in the church's coffee shop. Rod pulled out a guitar and we worshiped for awhile. And then the prayers began.

Nothing knits you to people like prayer. When one of the girls lifted Hannah before the throne, I nodded along with her. When one of the men began to choke up in the midst of his plea for strength, his tears filled my eyes. We asked God for refreshment, for comfort, for justice. I gave a silent plea for stones. But still, the sense of helplessness lingered.

And then, because I have a hard time keeping my eyes closed during prayer, I looked up and found myself counting the faces. Ten of us sat clustered at those coffee shop tables. Ten.

Ten. The word sunk in, and the Holy Spirit reminded me of something I'd tucked away long ago. Ten is the number of fullness, the number of completeness. In Judaism, you must have ten men in order to form a minyon, or a prayer quorum. God packed His law within ten commandments. Ten is enough ... enough.

We are a synagogue, Lord. And we who stand here with You are more than all who can come against us. Hear our prayers, Father.

We declare her innocent.

calvary chapel of the coastlands--part 1

I've traveled to many places and spoken to many groups of women, but I've never before sent my heart on ahead of me the way I did on this trip to Corpus Christi, Texas. Long before I surveyed those 130 faces, they meant something to me.

We've been praying for this body of believers for months now. We've followed the story of Hannah and asked God to shake the earth and fling open those prison doors. We've waited for news. And as days and weeks have gone by with no such earthquake, no such miracle, we've shared in the frustration and fear and grief that Larry and Hannah Overton, Rod and Noreen Carver, and the body at CC of the Coastlands have felt.

So I awakened early (and I mean early) Thursday morning feeling jumbled up inside. I couldn't wait to finally meet these women; I dreaded saying anything that might highlight their pain. I was eager to meet Larry and the five Overton children; I didn't know where I'd find the words I wanted to say.

Before the clock even struck 4:00 a.m., Dave was at the stove, making a batch of farina for us. Grain is a good way to start the day. No time for coffee, as we had to pick up my sister, Nancy, by 5:00 and we still had a big pile to load in the car and a half-hour drive to her house.

Another 45 minutes down the road took us to SeaTac airport. Dave came into the airport with us, helped me shuffle my Bible and a few other items from one too-heavy suitcase to one with a bit of weight room, and kissed me good-bye.

Our Continental flight served breakfast, which was a good thing, because I'd squeezed every ounce of energy out of that farina by this point. But breakfast was cereal and a muffin. More grainy stuff. I ate it with visions of bacon and sausage and ham and chicken fried steak in my head. I might mention here that I'm just a teeny bit of a carnivore.

The first leg of our trip took us to Houston, where we had to dash to a far corner in the lower bowels of the building to catch our connecting flight. While scurrying there, we passed a number of restaurants offering all kinds of protein. I could see and smell dozens of not-grainy offerings, and I was so longing for meat that I toyed with the idea of "missing" our connecting flight. But I'm not quite that irresponsible.

We made it to the gate in time--time enough to hear an announcement. "Flight 5577 to Corpus Christi isn't here yet, but we expect it shortly and will announce when we're ready to begin boarding." With no more information than that, we couldn't risk leaving the terminal. So we sat, not eating meat, and waited for news. Eventually, growling noises forced Nancy and I to eat a granola bar each. I decided then and there that I hate grains.

Our flight arrived; we boarded. Just a few minutes into the flight, we were told that due to turbulence, there'd be no beverage service except for water. My hopes for a peanut evaporated.

We landed in Corpus Christi and headed to the baggage area. On our way, I heard my name, and there was Noreen and Julie, the assistant pastor's wife. We hugged and talked a bit about our flight. And then Noreen began to ask me a question. "Are you hungr ..."

"Yes."

She laughed. "What would you like to ..."

"Meat."

And that's how we ended up at the Texas Roadhouse. Nice and loud. Peanut shells all over the floor. A booth in the corner which enabled us to actually hear one another. I was so happy to be in that carnivore's heaven.

At Julie's suggestion, I ordered the rib eye steak. In the spirit of "When in Corpus Christi, do as the Corpus Christi-ans do," I also ordered a baked sweet potato. But I drew the line at ordering it with the works: butter, brown sugar, marshmallows, and caramel sauce. I can't go along with this notion of turning vegetables into dessert. Julie offered a bite of her loaded sweet potato; I tried it to be nice but couldn't restrain a shudder as all that sugar hit my tongue. My own, however, with just a nice shimmery layer of whipped butter, was pure bliss.

We talked about a whole variety of things in the way that women do so effortlessly. That means we tossed several topics in the air and took turns juggling. We spoke over each other as often as possible and finished each other's sentences at appropriate intervals. All this while eating. And laughing.

It was during all that talking, eating, and laughing that I broke down for the first time. I was just sitting there loving on that steak and listening to Noreen and Nancy and Julie, and all of a sudden I thought, I wonder what Hannah is having for dinner? The tears came; I couldn't stop them. It seemed so wrong to sit there soaking in all that pleasure, loving that moment in time and anticipating a weekend at the Port Royal resort, right there on the Gulf of Mexico, when Hannah was staring at walls that had no right to enclose her.

I finished my dinner. I couldn't finish my thoughts. They followed me out the door, into the car, and down the road to the resort. And I'd only just begun crying.

gone

In just a few short hours, my sister (Nancy) and I will be boarding a plane for Corpus Christi, Texas. I'm doing a women's retreat for the ladies of Calvary Chapel of the Coastlands this weekend.

I know I'll have much to write about when I get home. This fellowship has been through an extremely painful two years. If you have a moment, please go to Free Hannah.com to read about Hannah Overton and the unbelievable turn of events her life has taken over the last two years.

And after you've read her story, please pray.