Detta är Dagen

This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

-Psalm 118:24


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Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Something for today.

"The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing."
-Zephaniah 3:17
It's a lonely day as some days are so I sat down to listen to God speak to my heart and turned to this passage. It reminds me of my relationship with my kids. When Will is sobbing about something, I pick him up, wrap my arms around him while he sits in my lap, and I rock him back and forth, back and forth. I rest my head on his hair and exhale deeply, offering him my calm - quieting him with my love. In seconds, he breathes slower and stops crying - as if he's listening for my breath and accepting the peace I've offered him. It's beautiful to me - this interaction - it makes my heart so glad to have him calm down in my arms like that. Such a picture of what God longs to offer me too - His Peace.
The rest of the verse lends itself to more parallels, but they are more obvious. What I needed today was a reminder of my son in my arms - and the promise that God will quiet me with His love even more completely.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

A good, ancient read

Picture it: Job 26:6-14
6 Death is naked before God; Destruction lies uncovered.
7 He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing.
8 He wraps up the waters in his clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their weight.
9 He covers the face of the full moon, spreading his clouds over it.
10 He marks out the horizon on the face of the waters for a boundary between light and darkness.
11 The pillars of the heavens quake, aghast at his rebuke.
12 By his power he churned up the sea; by his wisdom he cut Rahab to pieces.
13 By his breath the skies became fair; his hand pierced the gliding serpent.
14 And these are but the outer fringe of his works; how faint the whisper we hear of him! Who then can understand the thunder of his power?"


I am enjoying reading through the book of Job currently. This section really stood out to me as a beautiful passage as the author paints pictures with words and concludes with verse 14 which struck me tonight as incredibly poetic. To think that of all that we DO see of God's creations and working here on earth- all of that is "But the outer fringe of His works..." so well put. I also enjoyed reading Job 28- such a neat chapter!

I love it when these ancient Hebrew texts come alive for me. Hope you're encouraged too!

Friday, March 26, 2010

Spring tidbits

It's spring in Mussoorie! One thing I seem to forget each year is how spring here is the season of falling leaves. We have many Himalayan oak trees in this area which drop acorns in the fall, but keep most of their leaves all winter long. Once the weather warms up and the new leaves begin to grow on the branches, the older leaves begin to fall off. Our yard is covered with newly fallen leaves and I am enjoying watching bunches of leaves flutter to the ground as the breeze shakes them loose. Here's a picture I tried to take to capture how the old leaves are coming off the branches as the new ones fill out the trees. Other plants did loose their leaves earlier so their new leaves are clothing bare branches beautifully.

This is also the short Rhododendron season. I've been enjoying watching the blossoms come on a tree behind our house. Just a week or two ago they began to bloom and already the petals are covering the ground.

A few days ago we were invited to join some friends on a walk around the road at the top of our mountain. It was a beautiful day and very relaxing to spend the morning that way together.
Lunch at Char Dukan
Annie wanted to sit in this little shelter on the side of the road - she called it her 'ouse'.
Will helped walk a dog and did a very good job! He'll enjoy my family's dogs back in the US this summer... but Annie is scared to death of dogs. :(

I bought a papaya in the bazaar this week and we devoured it in two meals - it was excellent! I told Nate that every time I have bought a papaya in our marriage, it is because SOMETIMES they taste like this one! (we haven't had very good ones before this one)

And a few updates are due:
1. Above is a picture of the crazy quilt that I worked on with a few friends. This is the center of it- it turned out really neat and we're just finishing it up now. We each did a square and it's neat to see a group project like this come together so nicely.
2. The diaper cover I made out of a wool sweater DOES work... and perhaps better than expected, because we have had quite a number of days when Will hasn't wet his diaper at all! :) That's the goal, after all, so even though it took a few days to figure out if the cover would keep moisture in, we are pleased that he's started to not wet his diaper sometimes.
3. I stepped on a sewing needle yesterday on my floor, and more than half an inch of it went into my foot... so my toe is a bit swollen and my foot is pretty sore today. I guess running will have to come to a halt for a bit. Hopefully it will heal quickly and I won't get an infection. :)
4. Just one more thing I wanted to share. One morning this week when I was running early, the sky was so hazy that most of the mountains were completely hidden. I was pretty sure that I wouldn't be able to see the sun rise, which is something I usually look forward to so much. A few minutes later, I looked up and there was the sun- rising as a perfectly round circle of light - just beautiful. The thought struck me that in fact I could see the sun clearer in the haze than on a clear day when it was too bright to look at. I thought about how this relates to my spiritual life and how sometimes it's in the gloomy/hazy/dismal times of life that I have actually been able to see God clearer than during bright, clear times when all seems right. Maybe that thought will encourage you like it encouraged me.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

A Runner

Back in August, someone asked me, "Are you a runner?" To which I answered... no. I used to consider myself 'a runner', but 10 years of virtually no running puts me in the 'not-runner' category, regardless of what exactly defines 'a runner'.

I have now been running consistently for about 6 weeks. I get up before my family is up and I go for a short run. The first few weeks, it was still very dark and cold out when I went to run and one mile could take me as long as twelve minutes. I figured that running for 10-20 minutes a day, 1-2 miles was a very reasonable goal and I couldn't imagine running much more than that. I have a little mp3 player that is WONDERFUL and has made my running such fun. I LOVE to listen to music - to pay attention to the chord progressions or background sounds or places where the drums fill out a song pricelessly. I can't help but grin to hear certain salient notes drift in and out that I have perhaps never noticed before or have long forgotten. I love letting quality words and ideas seep into my heart- words of Truth and of Hope and of Encouragement- because I listen often to Sara Groves (!!!AWESOME!!!), Chris Tomlin, Jars of Clay, Christy Nockels and Caedmon's Call. I have been thoroughly enjoying listening to music while running- perhaps because I have always been so intensely connected to music - it's something I can't explain very well, but I am sure that my siblings understand at least - and probably many other musically-oriented people. Sometimes I have looked forward to running just because it's a chance to really LISTEN to music - not to just have it as background noise, but to listen to it.

More recently, I have been running longer and harder - trying to cut back on how much time it takes me to run while still increasing my distance. I run on the treadmill 3-4 days a week and the other two days I run at the top of our mountain watching the sun rise over the Himalayan peaks in the distance and talking tirelessly with a running friend. I will miss those runs dearly, but they're not done yet!

The treadmill runs are more intense for me because they're boring (!) - and I don't have THAT much music to listen to, so I started downloading John Piper's sermons to listen to because they are fascinating- so challenging, encouraging and I don't get bored listening to him preach. I recommend them! So now I listen to music some runs and sermons other runs on the treadmill and I have been working on cutting my time as I run and building my endurance, because I feel like at heart, I'm kind of a wimp. :)

Wimp or not, this morning I dragged myself out of bed yet again to hit the treadmill, thinking that perhaps I should do 2.5 miles this morning. I got an earlier start than usual since the gym was open when I arrived, and as I got running and soaking up my music, I reached 2.5 and thought that 3 miles would be good since I had time. But 3 miles came and I was enjoying the run so much that I decided to keep running- maybe 3.5 this morning. And as I reached 3.5 I figured I had a few more minutes to run and I could probably hit 4 miles no problem. So 4 miles it was in only 33 minutes - and it felt so good! I realized as I headed home, that perhaps I have now joined the ranks of the 'runners': those people who can hardly NOT run because they just love it too much. Who run just to run, who enjoy the challenge of maxium distance in minimum time. I remember high school runs in Cameroun with my friend Marcie. We'd run and run and run - as long as we had time, we'd run. We both loved it equally and would challenge eachother as we went along - 'let's make it to ________" and when we reached that place the other one would say, "let's keep going to ______" and so on. Such fun. And now I am running and enjoying it like I did those days. I am thankful for good health and a season of life that's allowed me to run again. God has blessed me with these things and I am full of joy.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Look ahead to summer


Although we're not technically counting down, we're certainly thinking often about packing, traveling, goodbyes and reunions that are coming soon! At the same time, we'll need to be embracing a new country, school and many new people.

Recently, Nate and I have been having discussions about what we'll take and what we'll leave behind and neither of us could quite remember exactly how many bags we brought with us when we packed up our american life and moved to India in 2006. Above is a picture taken in the airport - and we did indeed check 9 bags (one is behind the suitcases) as well as a guitar and stroller and 9-month-old baby!

As I was going through old pictures in search of that one, I also found many pictures of summer 2008 when we returned to the US with our 2.5 year-old Will and 6-month-old Annie. What fun that was! And how the pictures of that summer reminded me of all I'm looking forward to in our short summer ahead. Here are a couple of precious ones that I thought I'd post:

(My grandparents with Annie)
(Will and his Uncle Danny)
So what will our packing look like this time? How much junk will we decide is worth dragging around the world with us again? 8 bags? 9 bags? more? I am finding that it is SO much easier for me to look at everyone else's stuff and decide what they should leave behind, but when I try to sort out my own clothes or books or treasures, I don't want to part with any of it! I long to store up my treasures in Heaven and let these earthly things run through my hands and go to others who can use them if that's where they're better placed. I hope I can be wise enough to only hold onto the things I should hold onto, and give up the things that I really don't need.
Stuff.
As I look around, I have a lot of sorting to do! I pray that God will help me sort well.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

random news of the week

Annie has been enjoying building houses with these little blocks. She puts two pieces of any shape and size together and says, "yook, I build a ouse".
Will has been building airplanes out of duplos - the other day he made two of them and sent them swooping through the air. He's very excited about going on an airplane to Korea. First we'll be going on an airplane to the USA! Just 3 months to go!
I have been very bad at giving my kids structured activities to do lately, but this week I DID manage one art project: we painted Will's helicopter that he received from A&K&S&E and the next project we'll do will be putting it together. The kids really enjoyed painting and are excited to finish it up whenever I'm in the mood for glue. not today. maybe in a few days. :)

Yesterday our friends came over for a few hours and Annie got to hold the REAL BABY DECHEN. You can see her thrilled grin as she holds the 3 -month old baby on her 27-month-old lap. She LOVES babies!
The last thing I should mention about yesterday was that this dear friend of mine agreed to chop off a little more than a foot of my hair, which has been feeling very heavy as I run each day. I have been ready to chop it shorter for at least a month and now it is shorter... but not short enough for anyone to really notice! We were at the Hostel Dorm Opening Ceremony later that afternoon and of all the people I talked with and ran into there, only TWO people even noticed that I had gotten a haircut and I was wearing my hair down! I even had to point out to Nate that I had gotten a foot cut off. SO, yeah. I'm back to the same look I had my senior year of H.S./freshman year of college. Speaking of which - that's ten years ago this year. Seems like it's gone quickly.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Learning how to read again

I am learning Hangul (the name of the Korean alphabet.)
Having spent four years here in India NOT knowing the language, I am quite eager to begin learning a language that will be useful for me when we move to Korea in just over 4 months. I really enjoy learning languages, but most of them served their season of usefulness in my life and then faded away into the recesses of my memory - almost completely forgotten now. Here are the languages I've learned so far in order of current fluency: English (as fluent as I'm going to get!), French, Swedish, Hindi, Lingala(almost all forgotten), Spanish (never knew much) and now Korean(just beginning). People say that when you get back into a situation and start using the language again, it comes back quickly. I have yet to witness that... maybe SOMEDAY we'll move somewhere where I already know the language! : - )

Anyway, I have always wanted to learn a language that uses a different script. Hindi came into my life at a very stressful and difficult point for me, so I didn't manage to learn the script at all, and just learned spoken 'survival' Hindi so I could communicate basically with the woman who was caring for my son at the time.

I find myself thankful for another opportunity to learn a language that has a different script. To stare at a page of characters with no comprehension of what meaning they might contain, and then to slowly attach meaning to them and begin to make some sense of what I'm looking at - which is someone else's native language. It's fascinating to me and I'm enjoying some time and energy to work on memorizing the Hangul characters. I know I will thoroughly enjoy being able to read and understand some things when we get to Korea. It's also a precious experience for me since I have most recently been a language teacher- as a teacher, it's so easy to forget what it's like to be a student beginning to learn something so completely foreign. Languages are so neat!

Of Socks And Sweaters

I've had a lot of fun over the past few days making tights and diaper covers out of used clothes. YOU, TOO can make these things - so easy, (but I have yet to see if the diaper covers really will work... my husband has many doubts!)

Start with a pair of socks that are headed to the garbage can (like the one on the right in the photo below), and chop off the bottom part that is pictured on the left hand side in the photo below (this is the part of the sock that CAN go to the garbage can!). If you then trim the heels off a bit, you should be left with a lovely pair of socks that looks like the image above. Sew up the bottom part (so they fit baby-doll feet), and cut a 2-3 inch slit down the top of each sock and then sew them together to make a pair of baby doll tights:
(the inside-out view)
TA-DA:
Yup, I came up with that idea all by myself. It took a total of 10 minutes to complete a pair!
And now "Baby Dechen" is WARM... and has a pair of tights to match Annie's tights. :-)
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My second project was a diaper cover for my big boy who still wets his diaper nearly every night. He's at least 10 lbs heavier than the max weight on his current diaper covers (which are therefore ripping and too tight on his legs and waist) and I have tried several times fruitlessly to get a cover big-enough for him from the US. THEN I stumbled upon a tutorial for making your own wool covers complete with a pattern and lanolizing instructions. I dragged my family to the Bazaar to buy two wool sweaters for about 8 dollars (but YOU can certainly get them much cheaper if you have thrift stores nearby). I felted them, cut them up like in the pictures below, and sewed them back together according to the instructions given on this website.



The finished product!
Today I lanolized the covers and am waiting for them to dry before we get to try them out! Yippee!! If it works, I'll be a super happy mamma!

Thursday, March 11, 2010

A few favorite things

Asterix et Obelix
Will has discovered comic books- French comic books (but we have the English translated versions). He calls them "soldier book" and is absolutely fascinated by Obelix: "He's carrying a BIG ROCK, mamma!" he often says as he points to his hero. :)
Tub activities and reading The Jungle Book
Another of Will's favorite books is The Jungle Book. He 'reads' it all the time! The kids love to pull out our bathtub and pretend it's a boat or flip it over like a drum, or pile blankets in it like it's a bed... they play the days away like this.

The Great Outdoors
The kids love to play outside- in the front yard or backyard. Here they are sitting in front of our gate reading and playing together. They love to talk with anyone who walks along the trail and often Will invites people over in his brief conversations.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Since I last posted pictures:

We made sugar cookies together. The kids actually did a great job - such a good job that I just told Will that when I'm done with this post, we'll go and make chocolate chip cookies together. We're both excited to eat them!
Serious bakers!
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The kids love playing in our backyard. They would never come inside if I didn't make them. And we are enjoying beautiful sunny, warm March days.
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Here's the Crazy Quilt square I finished.
It turns out that Embroidery is not really all that hard, and can be quite fun. Maybe I'll make another one of these someday.

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ONE T, TWO T, THREE T, FOUR T!
I weighed the kids on Saturday: Annie weighs 20 lbs, and Will 42 lbs. She has quite the collection of clothes and typically wears things of all sizes from 12 months to 4 T. In the picture above, her yellow shirt is 2-3 T, tank-top is 12 months, shoes are for a 2-3 yr old, tights are 2-4 T, skirt is 2T... I was hoping she'd fit 18-month clothes now, but as I pulled out summer clothes, I was glad I had held onto some 12 month stuff- she fits that best right now (since she's 27 monhths old, you know?!). GROW, ANNIE, GROW!
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And a couple of posts back I mentioned that I was making pumpkin bars for 50 kids. Here are my pans of pumkin bars with maple frosting... MMMmmm! They ended up serving one group of 50 kids and another of 20 kids - and my family even got to eat a few edges! I love baking!

No, the monkeys are NOT cute!

For any of you who think they are, well, they're just NOT!

At 8 am this morning I had had a good run, made breakfast, sent my honey out the door, and thought to myself that it would be a slow day. Maybe I'd manage to sit with my little boy and help him learn some of his alphabet letters. "I'll just start some laundry first," I told him. Then I realized just how much laundry I needed to do today - since our little princess is super picky about what clothes she puts on these days, and she changes her mind every half-hour and helps herself to a clean set of clothes... but even if she didn't change her mind, she still can't be bothered to use the toilet all the time and very very often wets her pants - or more likely, poops in them. Nasty.

By 10AM I figured I'd already had quite the morning- I counted about 6 loads of laundry I had ahead of me, smashed a nasty centipede on my bedroom floor, and then I got soaking pillows and scrubbing pillowcases (because Annie is still scratching her nose and getting blood all over them at naps and bedtime). Then a panicked Annie cried out to me and come to find out that this time she'd pooped all over the coir matting that covers our floors (terrible mess to try to scrub out of the coconut fibres!). After cleaning her up and the floor, I sent the kids outside. I put the soap outside to dry in the sunshine along with the soap holder because they get so nasty with little kids using them all day long. Our weather has been beautiful, by the way- 70-80 and sunny all day long. It's probably even hotter in the sun.

So the kids played outside until they were fighting so much that I had them come in. Both kinds of monkeys (rhesus and langours) were in the trees and walking on the roof, and I felt nervous as I always do, that they were going to steal my laundry. I tried to scare them away a few times, but they didn't really care. Then, while we were all inside, I looked out the bathroom door and saw a big langour holding our nice bar of soap! HEY! I shouted at him and opened the door to come at him, and so he jumped on the roof - WITH MY BAR OF SOAP!

Needless to say, I was mad! I shouted at him some more and Annie asked me if I needed Pappa - yes indeeed! But he's at work.

I looked out again to check the laundry- and the monkey was back- but no bar of soap, only my soap holder was in his hand this time! GRRRRR! I shouted at him again and this time he hopped up on my roof -WITH MY SOAP HOLDER!

Now I was really mad- and again, Annie asked me if I needed Pappa! :) Too true, but he's at work.

Well, I recovered, prayed so hard that God would send the monkeys away and protect us and our laundry. Pretty soon, the monkeys headed elsewhere. They didn't take any of my laundry and I had come to accept the fact that my soap and soap holder were gone for good. Then I stepped outside to bring in the dry clothes, and suddenly, the soap holder dropped from above just in front of me! NO WAY! (If the monkeys take stuff, they usually leave it in impossible places and we never find the things again). I looked up and thought that maybe God had dropped it from heaven just then. I saw up in the trees a little baby monkey just above where it had come from- ah ha! Well, it's still a God-thing. Every monkey-encounter leaves me feeling protected by my Father in Heaven. I don't like the monkeys and they are certainly not cute and stealing my soap was not funny. A verse that Will has learned recently came to mind several times this morning:
Psalm 32:7
"You [God] are my hiding place; You will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance."

Thursday, March 4, 2010

These days

I should post something on here.

That's what I've thought for the past week... but what to write? We're doing fine- but I'm keeping busy. We had a busy weekend and I have been working on a few projects that leave me feeling tired at night and scattered the rest of the time. scattered.
However, I just finished one project - a crazy quilt block. I'll post a picture of it sometime soon.

My other current projects are:
-making a community cookbook- haven't gotten very far on this yet
-running - this is wonderful and going well- but very time-consuming and I don't have a race to run yet - which makes me feel like it's a project without an end in sight.
-recording some songs I've written - this project is nearly completed -yay!
-writing a song for the Talent show... almost done, but not quite
-Annie's quilt - I stalled out on this one. hmmm. not so good.
-write a prayer letter - if you want to be one of our prayer partners, let me know and send me your email address! :)

That's all the projects I can think of right now -it's better since the weekend is over. I was helping to organize a baby shower that took place on Sunday - it was fun to do, but it makes my to-do list shorter now that that's done and the crazy quilt block is done.

Besides that, I've been working on paperwork for moving to Seoul, watching kids all day, learning how to cook a few new dishes, doing laundry, dishes and other housework, and spending time in God's Word. These are quiet days and I don't have much to blog about, I guess - just plugging away at my projects and keeping the house running. Now I'm off to bake pumpkin bars for about 50 kids.