food, glorious food...

...no matter what it looks like!
We bought some mustard in Korea this summer. Real, American mustard, and it's been sitting in our fridge staring at us for months now. We admitted the other day that we both seem to drool at the sight of it, but can't think of much that we could eat it with except... maybe hotdogs! So Nate brought me some sausages that resemble hotdogs quite well and I baked some buns to put them in. I was so excited about this meal that I asked Nate to take a picture:

- He didn't think anyone would be very impressed - but we were very excited for this rare meal:

MMMMMMmmmmmm! WHAT A TREAT! First time having hotdogs in India - it was wonderful - so wonderful that I think we'll do it a few more times before we leave!

Another meal that has become a favorite for me is the basic Indian meal of rice and dal (lentils) with a side scoop of 'pickle'. I learned to make it myself last year and now cook it up every other day or so and eat the leftovers in between. It's Annie's favorite meal- the only thing we could get her to eat for a number of months, and it's grown on me too. Pickle has got to be one of the nastiest-looking things out there. They make it of lots of different things, but our favorite is Lime pickle. It's Lime pieces fermented in mustard oil with lots of chili and salt. Doesn't it sound delicious????!!! I didn't dare try it for our first three years here, and like the character in Green Eggs and Ham, once I finally got up the nerve to try it, I found that I LOVE it! I plan to bring some back for my dad to try someday- he'd like it too, I'm sure.

-my lunch plate almost every day-

P.S.

P.S.
-I have been informed by my family that the kids are not riding a horse, but a TIGER in a picture a couple of posts back.

- I have included my own responses to some of the comments I received in the comments section of the post on Babies and Thoughts - I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion! Thanks also for all the other comments you readers send me- I really appreciate hearing from you.

-My MARBLE countertop in the kitchen... one of the many things I will miss someday when we move away from here. I forgot to include this in my list of things I love in my previous post.

- Happy Santa Lucia Day today! Later, I'll post a couple of pictures about our morning celebration.

-Last but not least!! Click on this link to go to our friends' blog. They have posted a short video clip in which you can see how Will drums everytime we sing any song. :) Enjoy!

List 2

A couple of months ago, I wrote a list about the things I will NOT miss when we leave from here.

But there are many many things that I LOVE about living here. Here's what I can think of at the moment:

1. good fruit and vegetables all year around and great variety too
2. not owning a vehicle- just walking everywhere or taking a taxi/bus/train sometimes
3. living on the side of the mountain
4. not being able to see anyone else's house from our house - we're surrounded by trees
5. heating our house with a wood-stove
6. living in a cottage with a name :)
7. being close enough to school that I can visit whenever I want
8. having spent almost 4 years here, so we have made good friends and are able to reach out
9. my kitchen - it's a little small, but a nice square, so I have everything in my reach and cooking and baking is fun
10. I have learned to cook some Indian food and have learned to love eating some of it too
11. chai!
12. cool weather all year long- never too hot, but almost always nice, and sometimes cold enough for snow. (I can still hang my laundry outside to dry now in December.)
13. Monsoon. I love monsoon. I will miss monsoon.
14. tin roofs
15. pine martins along the hillside above our yard
16. our house - I LOVE our house! - it's really old with crooked walls and cracked ceilings, but it's just perfect for us
17. hiking - everywhere you go is a hike - there's no way around it, but there's nothing like walking on a narrow path along the side of a steep mountain
18. the spinner on my washing machine (I'll try to take a picture of it sometime to show how it works on here)
19. wearing sarees and salwar kamises (dressing Indian-style)
20. being able to attend concerts, recitals, plays and presentations
21. helping with after-school clubs and encouraging students and staff in their Faith in God as I have opportunity
22. being welcome to bring my kids to the school library, playground, and even pre-school class from time to time
23. that the leaves never fully fall off the trees, but instead leaves fall off as new ones grow in - it's neat!
24. Fellowshipping with staff once a week and hillside women once a week - this has been so refreshing for me
25. buying rice, flour, lentils, sugar - you name it - from big sacks in a shop in town
26. long saturday strolls with my family all the way through the bazaar and back (and dates with my honey walking miles and miles and miles together as we headed out to our favorite restaurant for dinner so many times)
27. viewing the snow peaks from the top of our mountain, and the sprawling city in the valley 6000 feet below us from our yard.
28. Calling up a shop in town, reading out my grocery list, and having food delivered to my house
29. making homemade yoghurt, homemade bread, homemade EVERYTHING - I am SO thankful that I have learned how to cook and bake from scratch scratch scratch! I love it (though it's a lot of work!)
30. being able to be creative here- sewing, knitting, quilting, singing, playing guitar, piano, cello, writing songs - I've enjoyed being creative
31. time with my kids. I'm glad I had some time to try teaching out, but I am loving having all the day long with my kids for the past couple of years.

So, I like living here for so many reasons! I'd better stop now before I make Nate sign another contract! :) In reality, I have come to see that there is good and bad in every place. We're ready to enjoy different things and deal with different issues -smile. Getting excited to see what God has for us after this, but I'll definitely miss some things about this place. And if I start to think it's too wonderful here, I'll just have to click on this link!

So, what's GREAT about where you live?

We're in the market for a new place to live, you know...

HOME! and count-downs

Pappa's Home!

We're all so happy to have him back after a long week without him. The kids asked him immediately to play hide-and-seek and ride him like a horse (pictured above) - which, of course, he did. Now he's grading stacks and stacks of exams and he hopes to wrap up his duties for the semester in the next couple of days. That will make us 7/8 done with our semesters at WS !!!

And we're counting down now:
-6 months till we visit the US
-16 days till my sister arrives
-15 days till Christmas
-7 days till Nate's sister and family arrive

YAY!!

Lessons from potty-training

I have a 2-year-old who is potty-trained during the day (give or take a few accidents). She is very independent (as many girls are, I hear) and likes to get up quietly at naptime (after I've put her in a diaper and tucked her in her bed) and open the door to the bathroom and undress herself because she needs to go potty. This is very frustrating for me because by the time she finally gets to the toilet, she has already wet her diaper and since she can't get her diaper off on her own yet, I still have to come in and change it... again. Why didn't she just go two minutes ago when she was on the toilet?! The same scenario happens at night, too - every night, and every naptime... almost funny, but it gets old.

This afternoon it happened again and I ran to help her, hoping to get her to the toilet before she wet yet another diaper (because yes indeed, I'm tired of washing diapers all the time after 4 years of it!). I picked her up and in a yet-again-disappointed and exasperated tone, heard myself say to her: "You need to CALL me to come and help you instead of trying to do it yourself! Then you wouldn't make such a mess all the time. You need to say, 'Mamma! I need to go potty.'" Of course she repeated what I told her to say in the sweetest little voice as if practicing for next time. --And it was as if God whispered His truth to me right then. I realized that the scene is a perfect picture of how I am with my Father in Heaven. I take things into my own hands and speak too soon or try to do things my way in life and He's just longing for me to CALL to him FIRST so that He can COME and HELP me! Then I wouldn't make such a mess or have to do things all by myself.

Father, Help me!

Babies and thoughts

Well I'm back home after a long excursion down the mountain and back up again this evening to see my friends and their brand new baby! In the past three days I've held two newborns- even got to change one's poopy diaper and yes, he did pee all over as I did it... brought me right back to my own son's first months of life. :)

Today I was reminded several times of how blessed I have been. I am blessed to be a mother. Contrary to my many many years of thinking, not just any woman is given that gift. And I am a mother of two kids- a boy and a girl. Wow, what a gift, God. It's just gifts, see?

It was sometime during University that I began to learn of some couples I knew who 'could never have children'. It was also about that time that friends started to get married and other friends were planning out their lives. I didn't know any married friends who had kids (unless I'm forgetting someone at the moment) and many of them said things like, "yeah, we'll have kids someday"- in such a definite, decided manner, that I wanted to scream out to them- "By the way, YOU'RE not the one who decides that - God is!" - But I didn't. Instead, God began to sand away some of my rough edges about this issue, so that I was hurled into a search for truth by a challenge from my fiance: "What does God say about kids???" Guess what? Everything God says about kids is that they are His best blessing- the biggest gift He can give people for their lives to be wonderful here on Earth. He commands people to have kids. He tells them to MULTIPLY, bear children... GOD LOVES KIDS, and He designed marriage to result in giving birth to kids. Check out His Word yourself if you haven't yet on this topic (and if you find something other than that theme, let me know- I am always longing for Truth!)

But it's not just that easy, see. From my own observations, it seems that many people seem to decide to have kids in order to spice up their lives, do something different, collect another item that they don't have yet (a kid), or live on through their children. But I don't believe that God gives kids so that we can have the perfect life we design for ourselves. Instead He gives them- or withholds them- so that we can have the perfect life that He designs for us - that draws us closest to Him and shapes us most like Himself.

How awesome to me is the story of some of our friends who longed for children for several years and realized that they couldn't have their own kids. So they decided to pursue adoption. After a long process (as all adoptions I have heard about are), they finally welcomed an adopted baby boy into their home and the next month they learned that they were pregnant as well. They now say that they KNOW that God wanted them to have that boy in their home or He would have let them get pregnant sooner. They would not have carried through with the adoption if their own daughter had come earlier - after all, who wanders around with two kids who are only 9 months apart?!. Isn't God amazing? And His timing incredible?

During a conversation today, I was reminded again of how difficult it can be for some women to get pregnant and how they come to long for that stage of life. Long so much that they try everything- even artificial processes - and it made my heart sad. Sad for them. Sad that we people are so often driven to our own devices to get what we want. Does it make God sad to see us so desperate for what He has not given us?

And as I held those two newborns in my arms during the past couple of days, I was also reminded about how hard it can be for women to give birth. I have been blessed with relatively easy pregnancies and deliveries. But the difficulty of bearing children is also a great reminder to us of why Jesus came. Genesis 3:16 says it straight up: "To the woman he said, 'I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children..." So all the hard things that are wrapped up in having kids like the few I've mentioned, just go back to some poor choices in the beginning of the World. Sadly- I still make poor choices that have repercussions on my life.

I said I was thankful that I have a boy and a girl. I'm thankful because I think that those who want a baby are curious about what it is to have a son and a daughter. Well, it's not to my credit or my husband's credit, but to God's credit alone that He has given us the gift of one of each. Thank you, God. (By the way, I would have been thrilled if we had been given two of one 'kind', but still always curious what it would be like, I'm sure.) At the foundation of my gratitude and awe of God- lies a trust that I long for all people to know, and I long to know more fully. My husband and I have trusted that God will plan our lives for us and give us what is His best for our lives. We trust that He'll show us the next step, even if He rarely shows the whole path ahead. We trusted Him that He would give us children in His good time (and His timing has been so good- I must add here that even the miscarriages we have had proved to be blessings in ways I couldn't have planned!). Now we're trusting Him that He'll take us where He wants us to go next year and always, that He'll give us whatever children He wants us to have - in His good time. I feel peaceful and so thankful that our lives are in His good Shepherd hands.

Thank you, God, for new babies and all of Your goodness that they remind me of.

ramblings

I'm passing the days as a 'single mom' yet again and faring quite well so far. I just got word that my friend (pictured below in the last post) just had her baby this morning, so when the kids get up, we're going to hike over to the hospital (about a 30 minute walk across the mountainside) to see the new baby girl!!! YAY! I was SURE it was going to be a boy- funny how we really have NO idea about things like this, yet God has known since before time began.

So where has my man gone this time? To a maths conference. (It's always "maths" here in India.) I have heard from him that he's doing fine and is enjoying staying with some of our friends there. It sounded like the conference is going well and his presentation on technology in the classroom (actually I don't know what his topic was exactly) seemed to impress everyone. I'm really glad that he had this chance to go and experience a conference here and share some of what he's been working on with others who might find it helpful and useful. Too bad he's away for a week, but we're about half-way done with that time now!

During the past few days we've spent quite a bit of time with people, which is a lot of fun for me. We've had people over almost every night and been a part of some after-school activities a couple of afternoons this week. We made it down to the clay center to play with clay for awhile, and over to our (at that time) pregnant friend's house one morning, and now we'll probably spend the next couple of days going to visit them a bit and cleaning up the house for Nate's return. We'll probably attend some of the Christmas activities at the school too, which should be fun. You see, we're keeping busy and having fun, even though the kids keep asking if we'll see Pappa when we get home, or when he's coming home, or if he's at work... only a few more days!

Well, that's enough rambling for now, I suppose. No pictures to share since I don't have the camera here. Maybe I'll take some time in the next few days to try to write on some topics I've been thinking to 'journal' about on here.

Pictures

Last weekend Will and Annie helped their Pappa get some pine and cedar branches for decorating our house.

Then we set up our Christmas tree and the kids decorated it.

They loved doing it!

Annie got to put the star on top.

And here you can see the dresses I made for Annie and her doll for her birthday.

Here are the kids with a good friend of ours who is just waiting waiting waiting for her baby to arrive - any day now!

Happy Thanksgiving

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

A few days ago, we worked on making thanksgiving turkeys (see photo above)- a craft project that I found here. When we had completed it, Will shouted out with glee: "Just like on the computer!" I asked the kids what things they were thankful for and Will came up with a whole list, which we filled up the fingers ('feathers') with. Annie only had about 5 words to offer me and then her attention span was all used up. But here at our house, we are very THANKFUL to GOD for so many wonderful gifts that He gives us.

Two years ago...

I love this picture- just a few days before Annie was born.
That first day with Annie.

Annie's first bath. It was WONDERFUL that my mom was here to help us with everything to to just be family with us for 4 weeks!

Pappa of two kids?! He's an excellent dad.

2

Guess who's TWO?

Annie threw off our celebration tradition by being in my bed when I woke up... and then she got up when I wanted to get up and get her cake... and so I tried to lay back down with her while Nate got Will up and they came with the cake and candles. We managed a couple of lousy, out-of-focus pictures because our camera lens is still broken- but this picture mostly worked from when she was unwrapping presents and munching on breakfast cake in the living room still in PJs:

Will was a great helper. He helped me wrap presents, helped me put candles in the cake, helped bring the cake out. He helped Annie unwrap presents (!) and blow out her candles (!)... he's a good helper.

She got a 'heart cake' because she is well loved. :)

(Will is showing off a ball that she got for her birthday.)

Will kissing Annie's head. Happy Birthday, Annie!

And last but not least- the present I made for Annie:

Matching dresses for her and her doll. The doll's dress fits great, but I have to make some adjustments on Annie's dress (but she DID wear it on her birthday- it just needs some hemming mainly). Since I wanted it to be a surprise, I didn't try it on her as I went along, but oh well. It was fun to do and she seemed to like it.

Celebrating Christmas

Yes, today is Annie's 2nd birthday!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANNIE!!
(I'll post some pictures hopefully later today or tomorrow.)


But while the kids are napping and the house is quiet, I've been browsing around the internet and have found a wonderful blog with lots of thoughts and ideas on celebrating the Christmas season and wanted to share it here. It has a number of posts with many ideas of ways to keep Jesus Christ as the center of our celebrations throughout the Christmas season. I recommend it! :)

Henna Hand

Yup, that's my hand. :) Last weekend a friend of mine threw a 'henna' party. Several of us got together and had our hands stained with henna/mendhi (sp?). (I'm not sure about the difference in those words). Now, a week later, the stain on mine is fading, probably because I do too much with my hands-smile. I think my kids were a little shocked to see my hand 'colored' (as they called it), and I have had to think carefully about my word choices in order to avoid their own experimentation of hand-coloring. (They're wondering about my 4 years of chirping out the theme: "We write on PAPER!!"- not on hands- not on walls- not on furniture - etc.)

It only took about 8 minutes to have done initially (the top picture), then about 2 hours to dry (hold still!!!) you peel off the dried bits (the other pictures you can see that part of it is peeled off) and your skin is stained an orange-brown, which usually wears off in about 2 weeks.

Indians use this type of decoration for all sorts of events and just for fun too (it's for making a woman more beautiful... I'm not sure I agree!!). It has a cooling effect (so my hand froze while it was drying), comes in several different colors, and is often put on backs/fronts of hands, tops/bottoms of feet, scalp, arms... my friend who threw the party got it done on her great big pregnant belly just for fun! :)

HALT!

good.bad.good.good. so-so.

That's how my days were this week.

The good days are days when I get things done, when I can hang out with people, clean my house, reach out to others, play with my kids, spend time with God, do something creative... the list goes on.

The bad days... when I feel so lonely, discouraged, frustrated, unproductive... bad days. I don't know why I feel so lonely so often. Is it the mountain setting? or the fact that I've never lived near another mom-friend during my whole mom-experience? Is it that I have no real home anywhere- nowhere that I can go back to where I know many people and they know me well? My poor correspondence? What about choices- have they made us walk a lonely road? In any case, the more I think about it, I imagine that although I feel lonely, I'm most likely not alone in that! I imagine that there are many lonely people around me, or far away, but people I have known or interacted with in the past. Often when I'm lonely, God reminds me of this:

HALT!
Hungry
Angry
Lonely
Tired

When I was in University, someone shared the HALT acronym with me, stating that when we're feeling those things, we are most vulnerable spiritually. It's like an alarm to me when I realize that I'm feeling any of those things (which is far too often!!!) , that I must stop whining about being hungry/angry/lonely/tired and focus on the One who offers to meet all my needs.

Philippians 4:19 "And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus."

All of them??????
All of them!

Isaiah 40:11 "He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young."

Train Ticket Purchasing

Lately, I've been spending a good chunk of my spare time finding and buying train tickets for next month. Amazingly, we are able to do this online! (Until recently we had to send a detailed request to our travel office who sent 'a boy' to the railway booking office in town, and he would see what he could get for us.)

Even though we're very thankful that we can get the tickets online, the website is rather quirky - but you would have to do your own searches to fully understand what I mean when I say that!

A few funny things that I must mention anyway:

-the site regularly logs you out or changes your date details in the middle of searching for tickets, so PAY ATTENTION and DOUBLE CHECK everything! - and if you don't have your password memorized yet, you soon will!

-at 11:30 pm I was about to purchase my last ticket and instead a screen popped up saying that purchasing tickets can only be done between 5:00 am and 11:30 pm Indian Standard Time. ummm... we figure it's because each time I order a ticket, some poor chap in a run-down office has to manually scribble down my details on his list so that my ticket is officially reserved and at 11:30 pm he gets to go home. Ok, maybe not exactly like that, but, what a funny way to run an internet booking site!

-So the next day, when I was about to again try to purchase my last ticket, I now had a screen pop up that said that I was only permitted to make 10 transactions in a month, and I had now reached that limit, so would not be allowed to buy my last ticket. Hmmmph. Solution: set up another user name and buy the last ticket under that account! FINALLY DONE.

It could be very frustrating if you don't see the humor in the system. And in the end, we have to just remind ourselves that -hey, at least it works, and it IS less hassle than it used to be!

New/Not-New :)

NEW:

Helpful hands in the kitchen!

Too-big, shiny black, clickety-clackety shoes complete with bows!

NOT NEW:

Let's just say that the monkeys aren't the ONLY ones who tamper with the laundry...


Bad hair-days.

Growing up

Yesterday I got the kids weighed and measured.
At 3ft, 5 inches tall and 42 lbs, Will is a big boy.
Annie has only just reached 20 lbs and is 2ft, 7 inches tall. She has filled out a lot in the past few months, which makes her seem healthy, but she's still way below the average growth curve as she'll be 2 years old in a couple of weeks. I imagine that she's just petite and that's the way it is. :)

The best toys these days are:
-blunt kitchen knives to cut playdough with (ours have the same thickness for the handle and the blade!)
-playdough
-markers
-plastic people of various shapes and sizes, especially the duplo people and the favorites have hats and hair and can sit or stand - these are prized items at play time
-biggish vehicles that can be piled full of plastic people :)
-Sher Khan, the jungle book tiger (who is known as 'tiger' in Will's world of make-believe where he's a main character along with all the plastic people)
-Will's little blue monkey that keeps getting lost and Annie's two favorite dolls
-cricket bats and bowling pins that are both used primarily for banging on things to make a lot LOT of noise
-a bucket of water (but I rarely let them play with water because our water is a bit dangerous and it's messy and cold)
-a wet rag (Annie carries around a wet rag almost incessantly - she uses it to rub her chapped face, suck on, and wipe down furniture and tables)
-blankets
-backpacks (they've got 4 kid ones that they use all the time to tote toys around the house)
-keys... my keys.

I guess this post is probably not more interesting than my last one. Oh well. I think it's such a precious gift to watch my kids grow up and become who they are.

Psalm 23

Click HERE to listen to 4-year-old Will recite Psalm 23.

nothing new

I don't have much to write about and no pictures to post since our nice camera lens broke a month ago. I miss pictures. I'm not very good at figuring out what to write on here and I'd rather have pictures tell stories instead. Maybe a list will do for today.

-Will can now recite Psalm 23 - he includes a few comical errors from time to time, but his pronunciation and intonation are adorable and it's rewarding to have completed this 6-week project. Quite a feat for a 4-year-old.

-On Sunday we made wordless books for our little family 'church' time. I let the kids use staplers for the first time and they loved that! Will mostly understood the story too, I think.

-Will often says things like: "When I die, I will see God." and "Let's pray I'm gonna die in Korea"- he has a fascination with death and soaks up Bible stories and knowledge about God like a sponge. I am amazed at his interest and understanding. And Korea is all he knows besides India-smile (although sometimes if you ask him where he's from, he'll say Canada because we have friends who talk about Canada).

-Will now colors things in! It was an exciting breakthrough when he figured out that it's not so bad to stick with a project and color the whole thing in instead of giving up after a minute of trying.

- Annie likes to use markers - but her marker usually ends up on her cheeks, chin, clothes, walls, chairs... you name it. She also likes keys and changes her clothes about 50 times a day (usually putting on other people's clothes instead of her own).

-My most recent declaration about Naptime: "Naptime is for sleeping. And being quiet. And leaving people alone!!!" - I stated this to my almost 2-year-old who insists on getting out of her bed as soon as I leave her room every nap and bedtime. Replacing her every 5 minutes makes MY 'naptimes' very exhausting.

Perhaps that's enough for now. I'll try to think of something interesting to write about next time.

the single-mom life

I have a ton of respect for the many single parents out there - but I don't EVER want to be a single mom.
That said, this week was a tiny bit like being a single-mom for me since my dear husband was out backpacking for 8 days with students. I have had a very busy, quite productive week.

1. lousy meals! wai-wai (like raman noodles), packaged soup mix, rice and dal every lunch (much to Will's dismay), leftovers for supper (much to Annie's dismay), breakfasts of cornflakes... but I managed to serve lots of ice-cream to make up for it.

2. lists! I'm learning that I get much more done when I write a list. So I did. I managed to:

• make numbers 6-9 for Will to color in
• bake muffins before Bible Study on Tuesday
• knit a bit on my snowman
• write a newsletter that might get sent soon
• move all my email addresses to my gmail account so I can start using that
• make and purchase a photobook of our best India pictures
• email my sister-in-law on her birthday
• wash a sweater that's been sitting in a pile for months
• wash and fold lots of laundry
• bake pumpkin bread and remember to give some away and eat the rest!
• drop off my computer (but unfortunately I forgot to pick it up- at least Nate's is around)
• give Will all his meds
• pay my househelper (only a few days late)
• finish a batik that's been sitting around for a year
• order groceries
• order firewood (finally!)
• go to the clay center with my kids
• join the pre-schoolers on a day trip in town
• bleach some table cloths
• wash Annie's nasty babydoll, which now looks good as new!
• lots of other odds and ends that I don't remember right now including keeping my kids alive and mostly well :)

3. Much un-finished. I did NOT manage to work on Annie's quilt or any other sewing projects, but that's ok - I got lots of other things done that needed my attention.

4. Anxiously waiting... By the second or third day, we were ALL ready for Nate to return. "BAPPA?", Annie squaks frequently. When I had run-ins with Will (usually over rice and dal), he'd sob: "I want my Pappa!" And it's too quiet and lonely here when my honey is gone- especially at night. But we made it.

5. Last comment before I get lunch for my kids. Nate called me (NO WAY! HE NEVER CALLS! - WHAT A GREAT SURPRISE!!!) last night to say he'd finished his hike and would be back tonight after a long long drive. He said it went well and he sounded like he had enjoyed it overall. What a great husband! I'm SO thankful he'll be coming home soon to end my 'single-mom-stint'. Hats off to all who do this regularly.

Knots.

Annie is obsessed with twisting up her hair into terrible knots. She just sits and twirls away at it until it's nearly impossible to get out. Here's the most recent knot up close. (She puts these things all over her head.)

In other knot news:

-I took Annie and Will to join the Preschool class at school this morning (as we have a habit of doing on Fridays), and the class got to spend about an hour in the gym climbing wall area. Will and Annie both got into harnesses and 'climbed' up a little bit on the walls. (Don't worry, they were securly fastened with ropes and knots), and they got to swing briefly way up high. They LOVED it.

-"KNOT" bad: Will hasn't had a seizure in 10 months! We praise the Lord for medicine that he takes well.

- "KNOT" great news: the Pappa is packing his bag up for a week-long hike, and we'll be on our own for too many days. He hasn't left yet and I already can't wait till he gets back.

calories?

Last night I went to the gym by myself for the first time. I played 2 on 2 basketball with three very athletic guys and being very out of shape myself, I was certainly no competition for them, but they humored my interest in playing the game and I lasted for about an hour. Then I headed to the weight-training room which is usually full of intimidating "weight-trainers" and I have very little experience weight-lifting. Last night there were only two guys there and they were busy being serious about their weight-lifting, so I took advantage of the emptiness and tried out all the machines- a little of this, a little of that... it was nice. I went finally to the treadmill, and asked if I could use the T.V. that's mounted above it (ok, I admit, the only reason Nate and I talk about ever using the treadmills is to watch T.V.) I watched the news (I'm generally pretty out of touch with the world), which was interesting for a few minutes. Then I glanced at the treadmill screen. It was telling me about my 'workout' - how fast I was running, what the incline was, how good it was for my heart, and then the word "calories" popped up in front of me and I thought: CALORIES?! I just wanted to laugh out loud. You see, after gaining about 20 lbs my freshman year of college, I began to mildly keep track of calories as I ate and exercised. I watched them when I was pregnant with Will - at first to make sure I didn't overeat, and then the doctors told me I had to eat more and more and more because I wasn't gaining enough weight with him. (He turned out ok anyway- was 8.5 lbs at birth!) and then I quit counting calories.

That was 4 years ago. I haven't even THOUGHT about calories since then. The closest thing I can think of is this past year and how I'd compare milk and food labels to see "how many grams of FAT does it have in it?" ... because our diet here is super lean and I've been desperate to fatten up my little girl, so we now stock up on all the fatty foods we can find and we try our best to get her to eat them heartily. :) It's worlds away from my college days of calorie-counting, and it was just weird to recall a life I can barely remember now.

I imagine that when I move back to the world of great food, I'll count calories again since I'll want to eat tons of everything. But for now, I am appreciating loving rice and lentils and getting to eat as much I like of sweet treats like cake and brownies with full-fat cream on them. Calories...mmmm!

Another Birthday Boy

It's my Nate's birthday today... he's such a great husband to me. I have really enjoyed the years we've been given together and I have loved watching him become a father - an amazing one! I love how he plays 'rough-house' with our kids and is so gentle with them and how he listens to me and supports me and gently corrects me when I'm wrong. I love his enthusiasm for things in life that are beyond my comprehension- like the beauty of the Golden Rectangle, Game Theory, and Calculus. I love that he can re-read Sherlock Holmes endless times because he just loves a good story, and he can keep up with Roger Penrose in his "Road to Reality". I love the way he clearly expresses himself all the time in contrast to all my fumbling around for saying what I really think I just might mean. I love his devotion to God and the quiet way that what he knows is true- is such a firm, integral part of who he is. He is an incredible listener and he asks great questions. I love his honesty and his tactfulness when speaking with anyone about hard things. I love the way he always accomplishes what he needs to do (and does it well) and doesn't drag projects out or procrastinate. When I interact with his colleagues, I feel like he is respected among them and well-liked. He's a hard worker, but he sets a good example for me of making time to rest and play and laugh. I think he's the most handsome man I've ever met and I can hardly believe that God has blessed me with getting to build birthday cakes and wrap presents for this birthday boy for the rest of our days. This list barely touches on a few parts of who you are, but mostly I hope you know that I love you, Nate. Happy Birthday!

quilts 'n blankets

Here's Annie's quilt, which I started two summers ago and am now working on hand-quilting:

And here are my kids sitting in front of the blankets my mom made for them awhile ago:

I've been sewing/quilting/knitting lately and it's been fun. I hope to finish Annie's quilt before her birthday (or at least before Christmas!) and I also hope to finish making a snowman for Will
before Christmas. We'll see how I do. I've got a few other projects in process that will hopefully be completed before Christmas as well- but I'm probably just dreaming about getting all of this done.

Ezekiel 14

This is rather un-related to my previous posts, so just release that thread of discussion for a moment if you will, and let God speak to you through some eye-opening verses.

I recently read a very rich chapter of the Bible: Ezekiel 14 and wanted to share ten points which God used to speak to my heart. (Just a note- the book of Ezekiel contains so much absurdity that I find myself sometimes shocked and appalled as I read it, now laughing, now nearly in tears picturing the life of a man who was created to be a SIGN -12:6 - and hearing God's message through him. I've read the book before a few times, but it seems that I have completely forgotten the storyline since then - and God is blowing me away as I read it anew these days.)

1. vs 3 - "...these men have set up idols in their hearts and put wicked stumbling blocks before their faces..."
2. vs 5 - "I will do this to recapture the hearts of the people of Israel, who have all deserted me for their idols." - God speaking about the terrible things he will do to the people he loves so deeply.
3. vs 6 - "...This is what the Sovereign LORD says: REPENT! Turn from your idols and renounce all your detestable practices!"
4. vs 7 - "When any Israelite or any alien living in Israel separates himself from me..." This reminds me that God has always called Isreal AND other peoples to align themselves with Him.
5. vs 11 - "God says he'll make things terrible for all who turn from Him -->SO THAT His people will not stray or defile themselves, but instead, "...They will be my people and I will be their God, declares the Sovereign LORD.'"
6. vs 13 - "If a country sins against me by being unfaithful..."
7. I find it interesting that Noah, Job and Daniel [?] are God's chosen "even if"righteous examples (vs 14, 16, 18, 20)
8. vs 15 - If God sends "wild beasts throughout that country... so that no one can pass through it because of the beasts..." - Monkey terror where I live makes me able to almost feel what this would be like.
9. vs 22 - "Yet there will be some survivors... and when you see their conduct and their actions, you will be consoled regarding... every disaster..." WOW!
10. vs 23 - "You will be consoled... for you will know that I have done nothing in [Jerusalem] without cause, declares the Sovereign LORD."

...that blows me away.

clarifications

Thanks to all who have shared valuable insight with me in our conversations, in the comments of my posts, through emails. I want to state a couple of clarifications since I have opened such a complex discussion on living for Christ in a foreign land (or anywhere, I suppose.)

First: I pray that what I have written in my previous post "First or Nothing", does not come across as a judgment on other Christians here or elsewhere. I am NOT trying to condemn, but rather to ask some important questions that I have found easier avoided for a long time. Now, I think, God is stirring my heart to consider how He wants me to see the cultural-spiritual battle and how He wants me to live for Him in relation to it all. In many ways, I am the one confronted by the Truth through wrestling with these things. I pray that my written thoughts will spur you on toward the Truth as well.

Secondly: From what I'm learning about Yoga (correct me if I'm wrong!), it seems that the goal is to be joined/one with the god Brahmin (sp?) and therefore in practicing Yoga, one is practicing drawing close to that god, becoming that god. Three wise older Christian friends with whom I have talked about Yoga (now that it's on my mind and I don't know much about it), have advised me that it is treading shaky ground to 'practice' Yoga, no matter to what extent, because at the heart of it, to quote one of them (from my memory of what she said): "Satan knows that you're inviting him into your life when you do these hindu things, even if you don't know you're doing that, and he will take advantage of the offer". Valuable perspective, I think. I don't want to forget that there's a spiritual realm that is very active especially in this place* and the people who I think will best be able to discern which things are cultural and which are of the evil-spirit realm, are the 'natives' who know the Lord.

*One friend actually witnessed a metal craftsman making an idol for a shrine here in town, and the people of this community actually invoked spirits to come into the idol.

"First or Nothing"

I read a wonderful book (A Severe Mercy) this summer that I have been coming back to frequently in my thoughts on a couple of issues. When Nate and I watched "Slumdog Millionaire" last night (which is, from what I've seen of India, quite realistic), I was reminded of a number of social injustice issues that I think about but don't know what to do with. I often have to lay aside the frustration of being unable to do anything to change the world and focus on: How AM I living for God where I am right now? Lots of times I see how bad things are around me and I just pass by because I don't know what to do. I think that's how most of us are. Some people are able to actually make a practical difference... I have so much more thinking to do about all of this- maybe I'll write again on it sometime.

One thing I do NOT want to do is put up 'stumbling blocks' and live in a way that confuses people about WHO I live for. This is hard, especially in a 'christian' culture that seems to cry out: "embrace everyone and everything - be a nice person!" and in the midst of a national culture that lures people of many nations to hunt for 'peace' through hinduism or buddhism. I wonder what messages we foreign Christians send when we put up buddhist prayer flags, take yoga lessons, burn incense, celebrate Diwali, decorate our bodies like Hindus, admire Hindu and Buddhist temples and practices... the list goes on.


I am confident that my God is above all things and is alive and well. I am also certain that evil not only exists, but we are in the thick of a spiritual battle that rages in this land. I find it very difficult to sort out the 'cultural' from the 'spiritual' here and I had one short interaction with a canadian yoga instructor this weekend that clarified it a bit for me. In response to someone asking him if his draw to yoga was physical or spiritual, he answered, "I see them as completely related." (I would have answered that too, but I suspected that I thought that because I am a Christian... now I find out that someone who is deep into yoga also sees the connections- they really must be there.)


Somone else brought up the point to me that we're all essentially searching for the same things in this life and yoga is yet another type of worship - the worship of self - stripping everything else away until you are simply your 'perfect' self. In Christianity, however, I believe that I am only to worship God - He is what completes me and makes me whole and peaceful. He is the source and the end of all I am. And I want to live that out in a real way for people to see - and I pray that my embracing of certain cultural things here does not invite evil into my home/heart. I pray that I and fellow believers here will be very discerning and wise. I want to learn how to engage others in discussion about how the spiritual/cultural of this nation does or doesn't fit with what we believe. And I want to do it in a way that is 'seasoned with salt'.


I want to be First and only, God's child.


"Christianity was a faith.
And by now we knew that it was important. If true... - it was, very simply, the only really important truth in the world. And if untrue, it was false. No halfway house. First or nothing. I wrote:
It is not possible to be incidentally a Christian.' The fact of Christianity must be overwhelmingly first or nothing. This suggests a reason for the dislike of Christians by nominal or non-Christians: their lives contain no overwhelming firsts but many balances."
-excerpt from A Severe Mercy - by Sheldon Vanauken, chapter IV : Encounter with Light

ah! Many balances. Isn't that what so many cultures are striving for today? It's dangerous, though, I fear, and if we're not careful, we'll get tricked into settling for 'a balanced life' too.

*** If you have insight or responses to these thoughts, I want hear what you have to say. I wish so much that I knew more about all these other religions and could sort things out better than I can. Thanks for bearing with me as I fumble for words and meaning to make sense of it all.

Where HAVE I been?!

A: In my house, without internet and therefore no blog posts. Oh yeah, and my computer crashed and I had to re-format it ALL BY MYSELF... for the 3rd time this year. and now it's finally up and running -mostly.

I have thought of a number of things to blog about and I have thought of lots of things I need to write to people about - and I've even started thinking about writing snail mail letters again since I don't have much way to communicate... we'll see.

One great benefit of not having a working computer and internet is that I've been able to get some sewing done. I'm finally doing the hand-quilting on Annie's quilt that I started last summer. I've also pulled out a couple of other old projects and think I might actually be able to finish them up sometime soon. I've borrowed my neighbor's sewing machine and it's working perfectly, so that makes sewing lots more fun!

Well that's a word from my corner. I'm off to cook some rice and dal for lunch! YIPPEE!!! (more about rice and dal and PICKLE later I hope!) All for now.

Where did the time go?

Not so very long ago...

... and then we had to show him off to everyone:

...and a great big crowd came to our tiny apartment to welcome him:
... and all of our siblings became aunts and uncles and our parents became GRANDparents for the very first time!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WILL!
Today he turned 4 years old! So yesterday we had a birthday party for him.

• When I asked Will what kind of cake he wanted, he promptly said: "an airplane cake!"
• I baked a round cake
• Nate proceeded to draw and cut out from paper how he would use EVERY piece of that round cake to make an airplane shape.
• I was a little disappointed that I wouldn't get to nibble the extra bits, but very impressed that my man could manage this (you can see the little paper circle he used to brainstorm the idea on the bottom left corner of the picture)

The kids were so excited to watch us decorate the cake.

Then our friend Beth came over to our house, helped with the last-minute decorations, and ran a bunch of games with the other 3 and 4 year-olds who came to celebrate with Will.

There's the cake, all finished and lit up.

It was a beautiful afternoon and the monkeys left us alone for once, so the kids could eat and play in the yard. Presents!

More games:

(Thanks Beth and Dave for all the fun games!)

It was a very happy birthday party.

The next morning we woke Will up with traditional singing and candles and cake:

This 4-year-old wanted to cut his own cake by himself:

Now they know how to show how old they are on their fingers:

We had a wonderful birthday celebration.

Happy Birthday, Will! May Jesus Bless You!