Detta är Dagen

This blog is moving

2010-09-16T18:35:00.002+05:30

Did you miss me for the past fortnight or so? I missed you! So here's the deal: I'm bidding this dear old blog goodbye and am making my move to a new location, where you can keep up with us... although it is taking me awhile to figure out how to navigate the new site.

Here's my new address:
http://joieburchell.wordpress.com/

WHY?!
Because some dear people who would sometimes like to view my blog are not able to (due to certain internet restrictions that block blogspot.com) unless I move it.
So I am moving it.

Beside the River

2010-08-30T16:44:00.003+05:30

This morning we strolled with some friends down to the playground that's located beneath the highway, by the railroad tracks, beside the river, and between the gymnastic/work-out equipment spaces. It was lovely.

Here's the biking/walking/jogging path that runs along the river. If I wake up early enough in the morning, I can run on it... but so far, only managed that once. It's really a great place to run, but ... we're talking EARLY.

It seems like every playground area is also equipped with work-out equipment. These spaces always have Koreans getting their stretching and exercising done. It's one of the neat things about this culture or city (I'm not sure yet which it is. maybe both.) I've never before seen so much work-out equipment placed everywhere for public use. It's great!

No More Night

2010-08-27T11:49:00.002+05:30

This is a recording that my family did this summer of the song "No More Night." It will be played tomorrow during the memorial service for my Uncle who went to Heaven this past week.

No_More_Night.mp3

Lyrics to No More Night :
Words & music by Walt Harrah

The timeless theme, Earth and Heaven will pass away.
It’s not a dream, God will make all things new that day.
Gone is the curse from which I stumbled and fell.
Evil is banished to eternal hell.

Chorus: No more night. No more pain.
No more tears. Never crying again.
And praises to the great "I AM."
We will live in the light of the risen Lamb.

See all around, now the nations bow down to sing.
The only sound is the praises to Christ, our King.
Slowly the names from the book are read.
I know the King, so there’s no need to dread.

Chorus: No more night. No more pain.
No more tears. Never crying again.
And praises to the great "I AM."
We will live in the light of the risen Lamb.

Bridge:
See over there, there’s a mansion, oh, that’s prepared just for me,
Where I will live with my savior eternally.

Chorus: No more night. No more pain.
No more tears. Never crying again.
And praises to the great "I AM."
We will live in the light of the risen Lamb.

All praises to the great "I AM."
We’re gonna live in the light of the risen Lamb

Pleased as Punch

2010-08-26T19:44:00.002+05:30

Will and Annie admiring Annie's new animal curtains.

I showed Annie the fabric after I had bought it, and then she wouldn't stop begging me: "Can you please put my animal curtains up, Mamma?" So I had to explain to her that I still had to make them, and it would be awhile. But she persisted over several days and finally I just sat down and sewed them for her. She LOVES them!
A new friend for Will to play with! This boy lives a couple of floors above us and Will has really enjoyed the many occasions they've had to play together.

joys of life

2010-08-20T10:43:00.003+05:30

Ok, you do the math: a brother+ a sister
+ lots of vehicles

+ baby dolls + a stroller
= our happy kids

*Correction: This is obviously bad math! We are well aware that toys are not what makes people truly happy, but just for fun, we wanted to share some things our kids have been enjoying lately. :)

Snacks and a view

2010-08-17T17:56:00.002+05:30

Snack time- the kids are loving Korean yogurt-drinks, pretzels, string-cheese, and cherry-tomatoes these days. Snacks are better in Seoul and they beg me for snack-time or snacks all day long.

The kids have continued their creative playing together. Here they've built a pile of pillows. Or rather Will built the pile of pillows...
...on top of Annie.

They sure have a lot of fun together.

Tonight I went to our neighboring apartment building up to the 10th floor where some of our friends live and took this picture.

It's hard to see - sorry, but we live really close to a couple of landmarks in the city:

Seoul tower and the Hamilton Hotel in Itaewon which you can see a little better in the picture below.

That's it. Maybe someday we'll hike up to the tower, but for now... we're enjoying only hiking when we feel like it. :)

Where's the camera when you need it?!

2010-08-16T19:15:00.003+05:30

Once a month, the stay-at-home moms group (mostly wives of teachers at YISS) goes on an outing to a park or a plaground to just get together and let the kids play while we socialize. Today was our get-together for August and I wish I had brought my camera! I've never been to such a fancy, expensive indoor kids' play area before - and my kids enjoyed it thoroughly. We would have gone to a free outdoor park, but the weather was a bit rainy, so we went to the "Children's Museum" - which is nothing like a museum. Just a big room with an area to jump around in balls and another space to play with baloons that are blowing around and another place to climb around with slides and trampoline areas and even plastic cars to drive! There was a little train that gave rides once each hour in a tiny circle to all the daring kids (Annie was NOT among them, although Will rode twice on it!), and an area that looked like a plastic pond... something... I'm out of words to explain it. Another part had a plastic kitchen area and dishes and food things for kids to play house with and Will busied himself serving up plastic containers labeled "oregano" and "dill" and passing them out to anyone who would accept him as a waiter. Annie found the short bathroom sink with an 18-month-old friend, and just soaked herself playing in the water, but had a blast. We moms spread ourselves out, some watching kids- just to be a little responsible, others of us sitting at nice tables, ignoring our kids for a couple of precious hours bought with $7.00/kid. It was very nice and I will try to bring my camera next time to show you the fancy places this city has for us to go, even if they're pricey. It's ok, it was quality time with new friends and I'll take it.

Velly Appy

2010-08-13T17:27:00.004+05:30

[This ended up longer than I intended, but it is an update on our kids' health for those who are interested]
Last week I took the kids to the doctor for checkups since Will needs a checkup anyway due to his epilepsy, and Annie has never really had a checkup. ever.
We got to the doctor and I didn't know what to expect or to tell the kids we were going to do, so I just said the doctor would check that they were healthy. We talked with him for a few minutes and I told him about each kid's health (rather- lack thereof) and he promptly prescribed a bunch of blood tests and a couple of x-rays. He told me what each blood test/x-ray was for and how it related to each kid's health, and I felt confident that he knew what he was doing. So we trotted along behind a Korean translator who took us place to place in the hospital to get all the tests done. It took about an hour and a half before we were finally finished. Both kids had bandaids on their arms and had stood very still for x-rays, and we were told that one of Annie's bandaids had to stay on for the next THREE DAYS (!!!YEAH RIGHT!!!), and we should come in this week for results.

So we did. We managed to keep Annie band-aided most of the time, and when we got back to the doctor's office, he announced that he was "Velly Appy!" He explained all the results to me and showed me that Will's epilepsy is being controlled perfectly and we don't need to change his medicine at all. His body is handling the medication just fine and the only thing that he needs is more RED MEAT. go figure. Thank you very much, Indian diet.
Then he showed me Annie's tests and explained that possible things that might be causing her delayed growth or development can be ruled out (i.e. thyroid is fine and she doesn't have TB). He said that her development is fine and she seems to be a smart girl. When he mentioned the x-ray she had of her hand, he again expressed that he was "Velly Appy!" because her bone density matched her age exactly. So, I guess she must really be 2 1/2, even though almost all the 1 1/2 year-olds we know here are bigger than her. :) The doctor's only requirement for her is to eat more red meat too. :)

I wanted to share this on here because it is an answer to our prayers and to the prayers of many people who read this blog. Two years ago we were overwhelmed with concern for our little boy who kept having seizures and we didn't have any idea what the future would look like for him and for us. It was a hard season. Then we realized later that year that our little girl was tiny and not really growing. She seemed frail, often refused to eat the food we tried to feed her, and passed out in our arms several times, so we were concerned about her lungs and heart. She hardly talked at all until she was two and we prayed that she was developing ok. We lifted all of these concerns back up to our Father in Heaven, who knows our needs before we even ask for them, and who promises:
"Even to your old age and gray hairs, I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you." (Isaiah 46:4)

And another promise that we clung to during the past 2-year season is that "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."(Isaiah 40:11)

We have felt gently led, sustained, and carried. We have felt God tending to our needs and drawing us close to His heart and He has given us peace about our kids' health. Their lives are in His good Shepherd hands. Thank you for praying and praising God with us. We are, as you can imagine, "Velly Appy!"

partial house tour

2010-08-11T19:43:00.002+05:30

This is Annie. She'll be our tour guide for the moment. She's just walked in the front door of our apartment. To her right is her bedroom door which you can see partially open, and to her left is the white door frame of Will's bedroom. The bathroom is across from Annie's room, but really, my camera doesn't have a wide-enough angle to take very good pictures of our apartment. So you'll have to just make do with what I managed.

Above is the dining room table and Annie on a newly inherited scooter. She's also claimed Will's dog as her very own, but he didn't mind because he's just that perfect child... ahhemm.... I mean he has lots of other things to play with and he doesn't even notice that she has permanently swiped it.

The Kitchen.

The view through my bedroom door into my bedroom, which is very large, but my camera can't really capture it, so you'll just have to come and visit and see it for yourself. In this picture you can see our bed, and by the window is a desk where I am sitting right now. We have windows that look into our screened/glass-windowed-in 'balcony', which is where we hang our laundry to dry.

I wanted to get a picture of all the green that I see when I sit at my computer and look out my window. So here it is:This picture also shows how the apartment buildings look right here - ours is similar to the ones you can see across from us.

Ahhh! Yes, Pappa's home from his first day of work! Annie found him as soon as he walked through the door. Where's Will all this time? Very busy playing with hand-me-down toys. :) Maybe you'll catch him next time you visit. Bye for now.

Settling in

2010-08-09T07:09:00.003+05:30

We're getting settled into life here... slowly, but surely. Tomorrow Nate starts teaching, so today is his last day of prep before another school year. In our past couple of weeks being here, we have managed to figure out how to use the subway and bus systems fairly well, how to shop for groceries and whatever else we've needed for our home, and we've explored a few different stores and market areas. We're figuring out the garbage recycling here and I've figured out a system for getting laundry, dishes and floors done.

We were blessed to have some of our past students from India meet up with us and show us a bit of our new city that we hadn't seen yet and take us out to eat. Another student took me shopping and taught me how to cook a couple of Korean dishes for a meal... that was a HUGE gift! We've bought a Korean silverware set (which only contains long-handled big spoons and chopsticks), and Will is eager to eat his food with chopsticks like everyone does around here. Annie will stick with her small spoon for the moment, but she's soaking up the culture too, little by little. The other night she was praying and her prayer went something like this:

"Jesus, sank you I say 'Anyanghaseo' and bow my head and Anyanghaseo means 'hi' in Korean. Amen." So overall, we feel like we're getting settled into life here and are enjoying learning as we go.

today... and 'a time to mourn'

2010-08-04T18:03:00.005+05:30

To be honest, I did not manage to leave the house today until tonight when we went to our neighbor's apartment for dinner... but YESTERDAY we managed a 'play date' with another mom and her baby and 'almost-two-year-old'. The three older kids got lots of energy out on the nice playground by our apartment. You can see nearly the whole thing in the picture above. It's really nice, but busy in the afternoons. Let's see... today I kept busy with starting to write some emails to friends (I'm SO far behind in writing to people... -sad!), starting to iron Nate's clothes (which need to be ironed for the start of school on Tuesday), washing dishes, doing laundry, lanolizing Will's diaper covers (because they're leaking like crazy, but this should solve that problem), watching my kids (and all that entails!), and listening to music.

["There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: ... a time to mourn..." -Ecclesiastes 3: 1, 4]

I have to say more about the music, because it wasn't just any music... it was my family's music I was listening to. This summer we had a chance to sing together again, and I recorded our singing and today was the first time I took time to listen to it. I suppose it sounds like any other choir group/chamber music group, but when I listened to it I just started crying. I've been thinking about mourning lately, and about how much of the mourning I need to do is because of wonderful things that have passed. I realized that the music brought back so much sweetness of growing up with a family that sang together and did so much together. I haven't lost that family, but I do miss the times that are so infrequent now. I haven't sung with my brothers/sister/parents in two years, and it was just sweet to my soul to get to do that this summer. So today I mourned living close enough to make music together more often. It was time for me to mourn that and to find joy in knowing that our music has always been a special gift to our family from our Father in Heaven. In my mourning I am so thankful.

One of the songs I recorded us singing is a song that we prepared for our Uncle who is dying of cancer. It's a neat song with rich words full of hope. My Uncle has lived a very full, rich life in so many ways, and I am already mourning the loss of probably not getting to spend time with him again. The realization struck me today that it's ok for me to mourn already, because it is healing to remember the excellent times I've had with my Uncle. I have usually felt that I'm not supposed to mourn the things/people/experiences that I miss, and so this was just a neat feeling - like God was assuring me that there is, indeed, a time to mourn.

And He reminds me that there will be more times ahead to dance.

I don't think I'm done mourning many things. At the moment, I'm sure that I will mourn India and all that our life there entailed for awhile. But intertwined in my mourning, I am so thankful that we have had such precious friendships and rich experiences - that there is reason to mourn the losses. So for now, I'll keep mourning with great joy and peace that these things are right and good.

home life

2010-08-02T19:05:00.002+05:30

Welcome to our new home! Here you can see some make-shift drumming going on. It's a noisy place to be sure!
Annie has three huge floor-to-ceiling closets taking up about half of her room. Her bed just fits in the other half. It's snug, but she's happy because in one closet she has a shelf with her clothes on it and with the clothes down at her height, she can dress herself. Here's a picture of her sitting in her closet in front of her clothes shelf. We have a lot of windows in our apartment. Will loves to stare down at all that's happening below us. Often he shouts: "What's that, Mamma?!" and I have to go and tell him that it's a cement mixer or a garbage truck. He's enjoying watching city life.

Annie spends a lot of time re-packing her backpack with legos and other assorted toys. Then she wanders around telling me, "I'm ready to go on an airplane, Mamma." That's what she was doing in the picture below - check out how she's dressed for her next airplane ride. :)

A New Chapter

2010-07-30T09:30:00.003+05:30

I think I can look at this purple page for awhile, and I'm hoping that the change of look will be inspiration for me to add to this blog more often than I have in awhile.

It's 1:00 pm here in Seoul and I am watching some men collect the garbage below our window. Looks like we missed the trash pick-up yet again. Sigh. We have yet to figure out how to do the intense recyling that they do in this city. There must be about 15 different things we have to separate out! Not only that, but the separating bins are very often packed away, so the times we've tried to go and separate our trash, there's nowhere to put it. Thankfully our American neighbors have just arrived and I think they'll be able to explain what we're supposed to do!

This is a new season for us, and we are enjoying getting acquainted with life in South Korea. The city is big, traffic is busy, the weather is hot, humid and gray, everything is very expensive (!) and the people we've met are kind and friendly. We've unpacked, grocery-shopped, used public transportation and eaten a variety of non-Korean foods (Thai, Middle Eastern, Japanese, American)... but of course even non-Korean foods taste somewhat Korean when served in Seoul. I think I have enough ingredients in my cupboards to bake banana bread... except I still haven't found cloves - hmmm.

Nate is busy with getting ready for school to start - it promises to be a very busy year for him with a very full load of classes. The school is amazing - as are the people working there. We are so thankful to be in this place at this time and we are eager to see how God uses us and works within us during this new chapter of our lives.

A Southern Greeting

2010-07-02T03:50:00.002+05:30

Hello from Southern US! We've spent the past couple of weeks at an orientation program for our upcoming work in Korea. Now we're nearly done with it and tomorrow we get to head up to be with Nate's family for a week. We've enjoyed great southern cooking, although I shied away from trying grits this morning... maybe tomorrow.

I don't have pictures to post or much time to write, but I thought I'd put a quick note on here that we are well and have soaked up quite a bit of info on cross-cultural adjustments and the TCK experience. It's been tiring and we're looking forward to the next couple of weeks with family and just resting. Sorry I'm so quiet on here... we're just soaking up our short time in America!

We're Off!

2010-06-17T06:51:00.002+05:30

It's 6:53 am and I'm packing up the computer. The past few days have flown by as we have packed up our Indian lives and the time has now come to leave our mountain cottage. We'll miss so much from here... especially the people we have come to know and love in this place.
Now for a loooooonnnng taxi ride straight to the airport (we hope to get there within 12 hours!), and then our flight leaves tonight: 15 hours followed by 3 more hours. We are so thankful for how God has kept us healthy the past few days and provided for all our needs so that we are starting this journey somewhat rested. We're very excited to see some of our family in about 38 hours!! Thank you for your prayers as we travel.

10

2010-06-07T20:25:00.002+05:30

10 days until we leave this home of ours - most likely not to return.
It's been too long since I wrote on here, and I have noticed that I tend to let the blogging go when I get busy with moving and packing and traveling. This summer will likely be similar, but most people have probably quit reading my blog by now, so my upcoming 'lack of blogging' probably will just slip by unnoticed.

Here, the monsoon has just arrived today! Thunder-less, lightning-less, ongoing drizzle beneath a cloud-covered sky. I hung my laundry outside this morning and peered up at the sun, which was visible through the clouds, but seemed so small and far, far away. The laundry dried a little bit, and I've already sold my dryer, so I will probably hang it out again tomorrow, even if the weather is overcast. I like this season, but especially when I will only be here for 10 days of it, not 3 months like everyone else who lives here. I won't miss wiping mold off my walls, wishing I could escape the damp-damp-damp, and smashing scorpions and spiders this time around... and that's nice.

Will and I have been feeling a bit sick - probably from eating something in the bazaar. we'll never know what exactly causes each bout of sickness, but it's not fun and I won't miss all the sickness we've had in 4 years here, either. Unfortunately, this brings back memories of 2 years ago when Will got very sick just hours before we were leaving our mountain going back to the US, and both kids covered the plane floor with vomit - not from motion sickness, but because they were sick before we even got on the plane. We're praying that this won't be the case this time - it was miserable.

Packing is coming along. I am enjoying getting rid of many things. I am sad to leave some things, but it helps if I find a good home for my favorite green, wool, army blanket - and my living room rug, which I will miss very much. Most photos are off the walls and books are stacked in our packing room. We're passing along piles of things to the needy people around us, and it's a joy to give things to them and to see their faces light up at the treasures they are receiving - our excess. I feel very blessed to be in a place where getting rid of things means passing it to the next person who will certainly put it to good use.

Well, I'd better go and get some more things done. This week and next will be full of the "Last...." as well as many, many goodbyes, and we will leave sad, I am sure. National friends have said to me several times, "Don't leave!" and I wish we could stay. But mostly, I am glad to leave yet another place where our final sorrow testifies of our investment here. We have lived quite fully in this place and we will miss much, but that is a rich life in my opinion.

From Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem: In Memoriam
"I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all."

Silly kids and keeping busy

2010-05-19T22:43:00.006+05:30

We have so many pictures of this funny girl sleeping in such funny positions and places. In the picture above, she has her baby-doll tucked under her shirt... that's how we found her sleeping a few nights ago. Guess we've got too many pregnant friends! Below you can see evidence that she did, indeed, fall asleep while hanging half-way off her bed a few days later. How would she fall asleep like that? Her feet are dangling a few inches off the floor and she's just fast asleep. Seems like it'd be more comfy to just put your head on your pillow and lay flat, but you're right, I haven't tried sleeping this way!

The kids entertain themselves all day every day, although Annie is delighted if I offer to do a craft with them and both kids are thrilled if I read to them or play a game with them. But I'm pretty busy these days.
Here's what I found them doing not long ago. Annie often rides in this backpack when Nate or I are carrying her, but this time, she had gotten in it herself and Will was trying to carry her on his little back. It didn't quite work out - both because I found them rigging this up and because Annie is too heavy for Will to carry like this. Oh well, it was a good try. Who needs toys when there are real, every-day, useful items around to make use of?
So I have finally returned from too many days away from my blog. My mother will be after me sometime soon if I don't hurry up and post some pictures of the grand kids and fill her in on life at our house. In one month we'll be at her house, and we're all looking forward to that! I am realizing that with only 4 weeks left, I have TONS to do! I am working on all the hidden places - the closets and cupboards and storage areas - to clean and sort and figure out what's coming with us and what we can pass on to others - while leaving the house feeling like we can still live here. It has been really fun to be able to give to people who need and want our things. I am blessed to be able to fill other people's needs in such an immediate way - and I pray often that I will be able to be generous with our things as God would want me to be. I find it hard to know how much to 'provide' for our own family (esp. the kids) with toys and clothes and things, and how much to let go, knowing that God will always provide for us. I pray for a generous, considerate, and attentive heart. So far the kids have been incredibly generous and understanding as they watch friends and strangers walk away with their treasures. I am thankful.

I have also been quilting. quilting to no end, it seems. A group of us women has been making quilts for the past few months. We just gave one we made to our friend who will be returning 'home' to have a baby in less than two weeks! Here she is with the quilt for her baby:

Annie's quilt still sits mostly finished... I've got to get working on that. There are SO many things to do right now that sometimes I just wander around wondering what to work on next.

Some fun things we've done recently:

Crafts telling the creation story from Genesis 1.
The kids and I attended a concert together today.
Will is learning to ride a 2-wheel bike... sort of (but he's REALLY excited about it!)
Nate finished yet another university course toward his MA. (GO NATE!)
Nate took Annie on a date (hike up to the top of the mountain), while I took Will on a 'date' to a birthday party.
God gave us RAIN! - more on this in my next post hopefully!
The kids and I had a 'play date' with another neighboring mom and kindergartner, which was enjoyed by all of us.
I am LOVING being back to normal-sized laundry loads as Annie no longer wets her pants all day long! Yippee! It's been a VERY long potty-training season with her!
I made iron-on-Dora shirts with the kids
We've made numerous trips to the library to stock up on books - it's especially nice since our own things are finding their way to other people's homes.

Well, that's it for now. We are certainly staying occupied!

P.S. Thanks for all the kind notes about my music. I really don't deserve credit for the songs... they are songs that God has given to me and helped me to write over the years, and I feel that I am meant to share them so that they can be a blessing to you and others. But thank you for letting me know that you appreciated them... I am encouraged to continue writing when I hear that people appreciate my efforts- smile. Thank you.

NEW MUSIC!

2010-05-08T16:35:00.007+05:30

Well, one of my major projects is drawing to a close:
recording some songs I've written as a music album:
Heart-Spoken Lines

You are welcome to listen to it and download it - just don't try to sell it, please (by the way, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't sell.)

Where is it???
On the "MUSIC" page of this blog - just click on the word MUSIC (above) and it should take you there.

Let me know if you REALLY want a CD (which, I am realizing are growing obsolete) and for the making and mailing costs, I can get you one.

Enjoy! :-)

rain!

2010-05-07T13:14:00.002+05:30

It has been pouring rain for the past two days after months and months with nothing but dry thunder from time to time. I love the rain and I will soon miss the sound of it on our tin roof and the way we can hear it through our big, tall windows. I love to watch it splash on the ground for hours on end and see the tree leaves bent under the weight of cease-less rain pounding them down. I love the way the sky turns dark- as dark as night this morning at 8 am. We couldn't even see the path that's about 10 metres from our house - everything was so dark and the fog was so thick. I love the rain. Thank you, God, for sending so much rain. Thank you, God, for allowing a long stretch of dryness during the wheat harvest in the plains.

updates

2010-04-29T17:37:00.005+05:30

What HAS been keeping me busy?

Dishes, laundry, sweeping, scrubbing floors, tending my children, getting booster shots... who knows what else?!
Baking and cooking re-discovered and new recipes - I've recently been making Paneer (cottage cheese), and I tried my hand at hummus (though I was missing most of the ingredients, but still people ate it!) and I even managed to make donuts for my man!

3. AP CALCULUS PARTY!!!

The cake! (Thanks to my creative neighbor who decorated it!)

The AP Calc AB and BC classes were offered to take a practice AP exam after school on Tuesday followed by dinner at our house. 9 students took the teachers up on the offer, so we had a Calculus party!

"What does one do at a Calculus party?", you may ask...

This.

And this.

And hang out eating and talking about all sorts of things... including what certain calculators can and can't do, how impressive their physics teacher is to be able to do any calculation in his head, and has Mr. Burchell ever challenged that physics teacher to a "math duel"?!

It was a fun get-together all around.

------------

Then we've had some rain recently that has cleared the air a bit and I asked my photographer husband to go and take a picture of our valley - because I'll miss this view:

We're about 5000 feet above the city below us and we can see it from our bedroom window, although there are trees in the way. So Nate took the camera to a clearer spot and got a nice picture for me.

In 7 weeks we'll be on the other side of the world missing the view of this valley.

Good days

2010-04-16T11:07:00.005+05:30

Baby Dechen (and her mom) came for a visit and my kids were just thrilled!
We've gotten to play at the playground several times recently.

Will is learning how to 'pump' his legs on the swing.

Hiking all over. So many steps and the kids do so well climbing up and down them.

This is the kids' favorite 'rest-stop' on our hike home from school.

Will - taking a few minutes to lay in the brush and relax before the last 5 minute-hike home.

Annie LOVES baby dolls and spends most of her time wandering around with one under her arm or in a backpack on her back.

A date!

2010-04-11T19:55:00.003+05:30

Our neighbors (who are like family to us!) called last night to say that they would take our kids after church today and we could have a date afternoon. WOW! So we decided to take a hike away from town because we can't usually go very far that way when we have our kids in tow. We walked/hiked for about 3 hours, I think and had a really nice time being together and talking and enjoying the scenery (which is very dry right now). I took a couple of pictures of my handsome man and the surroundings. In the left hand corner of the picture above you can see the tall radio tower in the distance behind Nate. That's where we left our kids with our neighbors a few hours earlier.

Dry land. Those terraced fields are longing for rain.

Mountain Dew from a bottle! So refreshing after a long walk on such a hot, dry day.

We had such a lovely date together.

Math

2010-04-07T22:35:00.002+05:30

If you haven't already found it, I highly recommend this post (...by my amazing husband). It's very well-written and so insightful.

Progress Report

2010-04-06T22:59:00.002+05:30

This weekend all the students at our school got progress reports. The last quarter of the school year is underway and we're making progress at our house as well.

Annie's nose is all better as you may have noticed in the pictures from my last post! YAY!
My foot is almost all better and I am running again.
Nate made some good headway in his Narnia reading this weekend... now THAT'S progress!
Will is making some progress on learning the sounds that the alphabet letters make. If I'd just sit down and work with him more regularly, I think he might figure out how to read.
Annie is potty trained! FINALLY!!! - all day long (except naps) without diapers and only the occasional accident.
Our kids are great hikers! I just wanted to let the whole world know that they both plowed up our moutain and across it and back this afternoon without any complaining! Even I was impressed- and told them so! You'll just have to take my word for it, but they are an exceptional 2 and 4 year old on the 'hiking' scale.

And THEN...

2010-04-04T19:59:00.006+05:30

Here are lots of pictures to catch you up on our house lately. I think I have them in chronolgical order mostly. First, Annie has been helping Pappa make lots of chai these days.
And THEN there's the... ...cutting, cutting, cutting. One night I had accidentally left out the SAFE scissors (the plastic ones that can't cut anything but paper and are not sharp- n.b. grandparents!) and some scrap paper we had been cutting and I woke up at about 2 am to strange sounds from the living room. Sure enough, it was Annie, trimming away little tiny pieces of paper! Somehow I managed to convince her it was still bedtime and she should go back to sleep.
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And THEN: We've had a good week of celebrating Palm Sunday.

Will working on our story board - adding palm branches and t-shirts for Jesus and the donkey to walk on.

And THEN there was Good Friday:

I made hot-crossed-buns that we had warm for breakfast on Friday. I figured it was a good day to do it as we were going to talk about the cross and we could eat leftovers for the next two Easter mornings as well and keep talking about the meaning of the cross.

And THEN it was shorts weather and my Will has outgrown some of his old shorts, so I sewed this alligator pair for him and he was thrilled. Not your typical "new Easter pants" I guess, but perhaps more generally useful.

And THEN we decorated Easter Eggs:

And THEN it was Saturday:

Saturday we spent the day hiking to Flag Hill. Will tried climbing all the trees (there are LOTS) and Nate kept him from getting too hurt in the process.

(also, check out his cool shorts!)

Annie collected pinecones and had a blast watching Will and running around the open space.

The rhododendrons are still blooming, but many are now dressing the ground with their faded pink petals.
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And THEN today, Easter Sunday, we got up while it was still dark and walked for about 45 minutes to an Easter Son-Rise service at a Church in the center of town. 10 Churches held the combined service outside on a lawn. It was really neat to walk and meet other Christians from all the different Churches all heading to the same service before dawn. Some were singing, some talking, and always the greeting of "Happy Easter!" and "He Is Risen!"

When we returned home, we ate the last of our hot-crossed-buns and Nate hid Easter eggs for the kids to find. They LOVED this 'game' and once they had found all 26 eggs, they ate the trail mix that was inside a few of them and begged to do it again. I think that in total we have hidden and found Easter Eggs about 20 times today! They don't mind that the eggs are always empty - they just loved finding them. Thankfully at the end of the day we managed to get Will to hide them for Annie so that we could just sit and sip chai and watch!

Happy Easter! JESUS IS RISEN!!!

Something for today.

2010-03-31T13:45:00.003+05:30

"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.

A good, ancient read

2010-03-28T22:53:00.005+05:30

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!

Spring tidbits

2010-03-26T11:52:00.004+05:30

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.

A Runner

2010-03-24T14:11:00.007+05:30

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.

Look ahead to summer

2010-03-23T22:27:00.002+05:30

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.

random news of the week

2010-03-20T23:02:00.004+05:30

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.

Learning how to read again

2010-03-16T21:31:00.006+05:30

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

2010-03-16T15:16:00.006+05:30

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!

A few favorite things

2010-03-11T22:45:00.003+05:30

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.

Since I last posted pictures:

2010-03-08T15:18:00.003+05:30

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!

2010-03-08T12:50:00.004+05:30

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."

These days

2010-03-04T14:06:00.002+05:30

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.

Sick of this:

2010-02-23T20:36:00.007+05:30

This is THE conversation starter for (almost) every person we run into:[No, not the bad hair day- cuz they all know that's just her normal look.] But everyone who hasn't seen her in awhile, looks at her and notices right away the huge sore on her nose -then they seem to need to know "what happened?!" Well, if she has a beautiful scar on her nose in 20 years, I just want everyone to know that it's not our fault! :) The trouble is that she's had this sore on her nose since about October or November (?) when she fell and scraped her nose - and since then we have tried everything to help it heal up. Many days it seems to be almost better and then we turn our heads and next thing we know, she's picked it AGAIN and we start back at square one: bandaids on at night and sometimes during the day, socks on the hands when she's in bed, clipped nails, lotion/antibiotics/anti-itch ointment... everything.
Then today I saw that it is again, ALMOST all healed! If she gives it another day or two, maybe we'll be done with our nearly 4-month conversation starter and we can talk about something else when we meet random people. :) Bring it on! I'm ready for a new topic!

Enjoying

2010-02-22T14:36:00.000+05:30

These days I'm really enjoying (in no particular order) :
1. early morning runs- a beautiful thing! sometimes inside on a treadmill listening to music, sometimes outside on the roads... watching the sun creep up from behind the mountains in the stillness of the morning. I am loving this.
2. great weather! now my laundry dries in just 3 hours outside in the bright sunshine. My kids play together in the dirt (and I'm longing for a summer of playing with water that won't be dangerous for them).
3. giving my kids grapes and ice cream - they love grapes and ice cream. No, not together, but it's so wonderful to give them things they enjoy. -Makes me think of God. I think He also, as our Father, loves to give us things we enjoy when it works with His plans. :)
4. my husband- he's such a great husband and I am really enjoying this 6th year of marriage to him. We communicate well and help eachother well, I feel - what a gift.
5. living availably. I feel free to do things last-minute, to invite people over, to drop in at other people's houses if they might need my company for a bit. I love being able to help where there are needs and having relationships well-enough established here that I can bring people together and encourage those who need it. I think I was made to live like this- but not every season of my life has permitted it. It's so nice to feel like I can live like this right now fairly effectively. I wonder how long it will be before I am well -enough established in the next place we live to be able to live like this?

Bob The Builder and Will

2010-02-20T20:53:00.003+05:30

The other day we had some friends over for the afternoon. Will was playing with the older two kids. Before long, H (who is also 4) came in and asked me if we could watch Bob The Builder (which Will has seen once when he was babysat back in December). "Sorry, we don't have Bob The Builder", I said. "But Will said he has it!" H insisted. "Well we don't." I re-iterated.
H went back to Will and said, "You don't have Bob The Builder." So Will said, with all the expression you can imagine: " I DON'T???????!!!! I don't have Bob the Builder??????!!, Awww, come on!!!!"
"Well, let's just go back and play outside." H said.
"Ok, yeah, we should go play outside." Will agreed. And off they went. Maybe you had to be there, but it was a very funny conversation and Will was so surprised that he didn't have Bob The Builder. Sometimes he makes things up, I think, and just kind of lives in his own little world imgining that a cardboard box is a laptop and he can just watch Bob The Builder all day long on it. It was a rude awakening to have his friend tell him that actually Will doesn't have that DVD.

Babies

2010-02-19T14:30:00.003+05:30

Today at breakfast, I was thanking God for the food, when Annie started in with "jesus, baby mohala, baby ducha..." and when I had finished praying, she scowled at me because I had not included her prayer requests in my prayer. So Nate told her that she can pray for baby Mohali and baby Dechen whenever she likes - which seemed to go over well. Here are our kids looking at the two newest babies we've seen who were born to our friends just one day apart here in India in December:

Annie LOVES babies! Here she is holding baby Mohali:

Then Will got a chance to feed baby Mohali:

Annie nearly threw a fit, so Mohali's mamma saved some milk for Annie to feed him:

Here's a little quilt I made for Mohali before he and his parents headed back to Australia. I miss you guys!!

Baby Dechen is still around and we'll spend the rest of the semester hanging out with her and her parents, so that's nice! Like one of my friends commented: "It's raining babies here at WS!" That's nice- lots of people having babies, lots of friends pregnant - and I finally have people to pass baby things to!

count-down: 4 months to go

2010-02-18T17:23:00.002+05:30

We're counting down - Four months from today, we'll arrive in the good old USA. I'm looking forward to that. (That's an understatement, by the way.)

Today I had a play-date with two other mom-friends here. That consisted of hiking to the top of our mountain with my kids where we met one family (who had hiked across the mountain about 15 minutes to meet us there). Then we all headed down the mountain and picked up our other friends on the way back to our house. We had lunch, put the youngest 3 kids down for naps while the other 3 kids played in the yard, and we 3 women talked. It was lovely. Then we got some time all together outside before one mom headed down the mountain and the rest of us went back up. All the way up to the top of the mountain to drop off our friends at a managable place (one mom with three kids 4 and younger! yikes!). Then all the way back down again to our cottage.

That's why I'm tired. But it was lovely and we'll do it again, I hope.

To the Gym

2010-02-16T22:58:00.003+05:30

It snowed here... was it last week? I can't remember. Anyway, here is my boy saying: "mamma, take a picture of me!" on our walk through the snow. :) Back at home, where we spend the majority of our time, Will keeps occupied with toys and books. He's pretty creative and figures out how to make the toys he has serve his purposes:

(He has a duplo tractor and is using a toy rake on the back of it in case you can't see it very well.)
************

Then there was Valentine's Day. At our house, we did nothing until supper time when I whipped up some heart-shaped pancakes and we spread chocolate sauce on them before devouring them.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

*****************
Ahhh yes, the GYM!

This school year we have been spending a lot of time in the gym. I have had play-dates with other moms in the gymnastics rooms, and often, I just go there myself with my kids for a change of venue. Today we did errands and ended at the gym where the kids climbed on mats and jumped around for an hour or so. They love to watch the older student in the PE classes playing on the basketball court below too and I figure that's gotta be worth something- you know, I'm sure they're learning 'sports appreciation' or something like that. (Lots of times I try to dig up 'educational' expressions for how my kids and I spend our days... our 'home-school' program wouldn't really pass any scrutiny, I'm afraid).

SO, here is a picture of our big basketball court for any of you who haven't gotten to see it:

And here's the gymnastics room (sorry the picture is a bit dark):

And my kids playing, playing, playing:

Then it's time to hike home. We only live a stone's throw away from the roof of the gym, but because of fences, gates, stairs and the mountain, we have quite the hike to get back home. All the way down and back up again. The pictures below are taken from the last stretch of stairs right before we reach our house. Sorry the got all out of order, but you can get an idea of our outings anyway. This is the kind of hiking my kids are accustomed to:

This is the view we have of the gym from right by our house- so close... yet such a hike to get inside of that building.

Finally we're home. Such a nice outing- do you want to join us next time?

Woah!

2010-02-12T11:52:00.002+05:30

What's up with the different look here?

Somebody got tired of black, that's all.

Enjoy some other colors! :)

Dal Recipe

2010-02-12T11:24:00.006+05:30

One of my big projects at the moment is compiling recipes in an effort to make a proper recipe book. So I finally typed up my Dal recipe for that (and also so I won't lose it) and I thought I'd just share it here for any of you curious cooks.

Dal

1 cup dal (lentils)
1 litre water (about 4 cups?)
2 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp turmeric (haldi)
1 ½ tsp coriander powder (daniya)
1 tsp garam masala (perhaps this is like curry powder?)
½ tsp chicken masala
1 onion chopped fine
6 cloves garlic chopped
3 Tbsp oil

1. Put dal in a pressure cooker and wash dirt off well by running it through fingers, pouring off dirty water and rinsing again with fresh water. Do this several times until the water is pretty clean. Then pour off the water and put 1 litre of clean water into the pressure cooker.
2. Add salt, turmeric, coriander, garam masala and chicken masala to the dal and water.
3. Put lid on pressure cooker making sure seal is tight and cook over a high stove flame. Note the first time that it whistles and then let it continue cooking for about 15 more minutes.
4. Turn off flame and let pressure cooker sit for at least 5 minutes before letting out the steam.
5. Let all the steam out of the pressure cooker so that you can add the last ingredients as soon as they're ready.
6. Heat oil in a pan and fry garlic and onion until well-browned. Add them immediately to the dal in the pressure cooker and mix well.
7. Serve with rice and roti as desired.

Serving size: 4-6 servings
Cook time: ~20 minutes

Options: This recipe is not at all spicy, so you can add ¼ tsp red chili powder along with the other spices if you wish. Otherwise, we enjoy this dal with a spoon of lime pickle on the side.

reading

2010-02-12T09:51:00.003+05:30

Since I wasn't there, I told Nate that he needs to post a re-write of a recent conversation he had with Will in which Will 'read' some stickers to Nate... I'll stop there, but hopefully soon he'll share the story with you all- it's GREAT!
Happy FRIDAY!

Church

2010-02-10T14:55:00.005+05:30

One thing that has been a very valuable insight for me/us during the past 4 years here- has been a new perspective on Church. A few years ago, my husband and I decided to make attending Church a priority because it is Biblical and is meant to be something that is a part of a Christian's life. We had to make this definite choice because Churches are not perfect and they don't always suit our needs and desires, and perhaps you can identify with me when I confess that we often don't FEEL like going to Church. So we have been attending a Church (a 40-minute hike from our house) and it has been interesting to see what the Church is in this part of the world - (although to only see it, we could have just attended once or twice.)

One thing I did not anticipate was the encouragement that I would eventually find in regularly attending Church. For many years I felt that we were supposed to attend Church to worship God alongside others with similar beliefs. The focus was on God- the songs were about/to God, the sermon was about God, and we didn't really talk with people before, during or after the service because no one just hung out for that: it seemed we had come 'for God'...

So Church here doesn't 'draw me to God' the way other services have felt to me- and that always disappointed me... until I realized that maybe there was something I was missing in my own understanding of what Church should be. "Let us not give up meeting together..." (Hebrews 10:25)
WHY?
-because we meet together to encourage one another. In fact, I realized that perhaps even in simply attending Church, I can be an encouragement to others who also attend. I have found that I often look around and am so encouraged to see students that I know from school or other teachers in the service. Perhaps it encourages the surrounding community to see that we, staff at the school we work at, are believers - they need to see us there to be reminded that God is working at our school too. And we need to see the community members and hear about struggles and persecutions happening in our area so that we can lift those up to God and be reminded that we are on a team here and are not isolated at our school.

When we first determined to attend Church, I had no idea that God could use that to encourage others and I had no idea that He could use OTHER people's attendance to encourage me so much.

My family is unable to be much more involved than simply attending, but I have learned that perhaps worshiping God happens when we build each other up by simply making Church attendance a priority. It doesn't have to be in the songs or style of music we prefer, or sermon that speaks to our hearts- but simply in gathering as common Believers for His glory -and so He can use our interactions in a positive way.

I don't know if any of that will make much sense to people who have not lived in a similar sort of cross-cultural situation as we are in, but I thought I'd attempt to express my thoughts about it because it has been helpful for me to see another side of 'gathering together'. Hope you are also encouraged to figure out what He has for you through those seemingly dry seasons when Church just isn't 'filling' you up.

The Happy and the Sad

2010-02-09T22:33:00.002+05:30

HAPPY!
It's been raining here yesterday and today -interspersed with hail, thunder and lightning. I stopped over at our neighbors' house breifly tonight and was thoroughly surprised and thrilled to see that it had SNOWED while I was inside chatting with them!!! I LOVE the snow!!! Maybe it will last until tomorrow and the kids can play in it!

SAD.
Tomorrow Nate starts teaching again... the end of our wonderfully long holiday has finally arrived.

cheesy

2010-02-06T16:53:00.002+05:30

I sure like those kids.

another cheesy family picture, but it's been awhile.

Dusting off what remains

2010-02-04T09:41:00.006+05:30

It's February.
I don't really do 'new-year-resolutions' and I don't typically set goals anymore because I wanted to live more free than I have sometimes... (and I also got tired of feeling so defeated by un-reasonable goals.)
But this past year has been a different season of life for me and I've been privileged to have more restful days and more time to accomplish things. So it seemed right that I set some reasonable goals and live more disciplined so I could reach them.

I spent the past several months telling myself: "I will start running again in February". If I just get up a little earlier, I can fit in a run every day before my family is up. But when February 1st arrived, I lay in bed wondering why I thought running would be a good idea. However, now I've managed to run 4 days in a row and I find that I enjoy it so much once I get going. I haven't really been a proper 'runner' in about 10 years, but this time, I would like to keep up my running long enough to finish a big race (like a half or whole marathon) in the summer or fall.

Besides running again, some other goals have sprung up and I am now committed to making a community cookbook with some friends and recording an album of my songs just for fun. I also continue to struggle through elementary-school piano pieces and re-visit scales that I haven't thought of in years, and this afternoon I plan to play cello with a pianist friend - which I'm looking forward to immensely! French is fast-disappearing for me, so I am trying to listen to French radio for about 20 minutes each day... just listen- so I don't completely forget. And I have now downloaded some Korean flash-cards, because I would like to learn Korean and what better time than now?! I wonder if I can still learn anything, but it's worth a try.

So many parts of me that have been shelved for many years need dusting and use. It's always hardest right at first to see how much I've lost over time and tonight will be another one of those moments, I think, as I've been invited to play soccer with some of the other staff here. It's been so long since I've done all of this stuff, but it feels good to get to do them again and I am praising God for this season He's given me.

Precious Moments

2010-02-03T16:27:00.003+05:30

After Will took a bath and got dressed the other day, the conversation went like this:

Pappa: "When you get your pajamas on, you can stand by the fire and get warm"

Will: "Shame, Pappa, you're so nice to me."

******************

My favorite line so far goes to Annie, however- this weekend she said: "Me yikes us. Me yikes Will, me yikes Pappa, me yikes Mamma, me yikes Anna - me yikes us!"

These are precious moments I hope to not forget.

December Pics

2010-01-29T07:56:00.005+05:30

Well I found some pictures from December that I didn't post yet, so above is a pillow I made for Claire for Christmas. We had a really lovely Christmas together with family.

We've been seeing lots of Pine Martins around our house. They're hard to get pictures of, but Nate got this one not long ago. They're so graceful and beautiful. I'll miss seeing them around when we leave this place. I've heard they're also one of the monkey's only predators here. I like them! :)

Family meals around our table.

Annie and "baby Claire"
Annie really loves babies. She always called Claire "baby Claire" and usually she wanted to hold her on her lap. However, Claire, while almost a year younger than Annie, weighs more than her and is almost as tall, so sitting on Annie's lap was NOT Claire's idea of a good time. It sure was cute, though, to see them together. "sit my yap, baby Claire"

Bedtime

2010-01-26T17:50:00.003+05:30

When it's bedtime, Will would rather read or play with all the toys he neglected all day long. Usually he just gets to go to bed, but last night he got to read for a few minutes. Our high-maintenance Annie needs even more care at bedtime. She has a lot of sores that won't heal because she keeps picking them at night so those need bandaids. She also picks sores on her head, so we convinced her that wearing a hat to bed would be really cool. However, if she's wearing her hat, she wants her "baby Dechen" (which is named after our friends' baby) to be laying beside her, also wearing a hat. And we can't forget to cover her doll with a nice, warm blanket. But aren't they cute when it's all over with?

About time!

2010-01-25T15:27:00.005+05:30

It's about time I got blogging again, I suppose. Now I'm way behind, and we took too many pictures for me to try to sort though, but I'll put a few on here that I like from our past month or so. We had a great time with family visiting us and we enjoyed resting at home and sight-seeing with them- it has been a really nice vacation for our family. We wandered around our town quite a bit and enjoyed the beautiful weather.
I like this picture of my sister and my kids. She's such a fun Aunt! Thanks for visiting- we miss you!
And here's a picture of me and the kids at the Taj Mahal. Too bad most of the pictures I took there have a crooked Taj Mahal in the background... sad!

We got to see some really neat forts and other buildings. Above, the kids are looking out a little window in the ladies' quarters in the Agra Fort.

Such amazing architecture. Nate got a lot of neat pictures of the geometric carvings and in-laid stone designs that we saw.

I like this picture of my wonderful husband and our little boy.

OH, MY CUTE LITTLE NIECE! She was SO busy and smiled so much. Something I think about often is how much I'd like our families to know and enjoy our kids. It was special to have this time with family and get to know our niece too.

There's our tourist group. :)

I think camels are neat...

... and funny-looking!

Let's just say that the camel ride was a lot more rickety than the elephant ride.

And then there were the train rides. Our kids occupied themselves pretty well during all those hours.

My sister's visit

2010-01-13T11:58:00.002+05:30

My sister came to visit us!!! Above is a picture of us at the Taj Mahal a couple of weeks ago. We were tourists for a week while Nate's sister and family were here, so we have lots of pictures (like over 1000) from our week of traveling around seeing sights together and it was really fun.

One thing that my brother-in-law wanted to do in India was ride an elephant. Since none of us had ridden an elephant before, we thought it was a great idea to hunt down a ride. Elephants are much taller than camels, which we also rode - I didn't realize they were that much bigger.

My sister's favorite animal is the elephant.

Back at Redwood Cottage, we've been being lazy each day - sleeping in, watching movies, playing games, talking, eating, going for walks sometimes. It's nice to just hang out. My sister and I made Fiskebak's bread (honokaka), which we subsequently devoured as you can see in the picture above.

My mom sent some bubble bath for the kids. Will thought it was great! Annie didn't like it one bit until we found a toy for her to scoop it up with. Thanks for all the treats, mamma!

Aunt Yad has been humoring the kids in every way - even crawling into the school bus with them so Will can drive her to the train station. :)

And my sister gave me an early birthday present - she cross-stitched the little table cloth above for me. Isn't it beautiful?!

That's all for now. I'll post some earlier pictures of our time with Nate's sister and family sometime too- just wanted to share a glimpse of life here right now. And today we woke up to snow!! I love the snow! We've had excellent weather- so nice and warm, and then today it's snowing. SO NICE.

too much to write about

2010-01-06T18:11:00.003+05:30

Before an entire month passes in between posts, I thought I'd just drop a note to say hi to anyone who has been thoroughly un-impressed with my blog lately. We have been keeping very busy, enjoying special visits from far-away family members, celebrating Christmas together, being tourists together and now being at our home together. It's very wonderful to have family come and visit us and see us in our home here. We got to visit the Taj Mahal and ride an elephant and camel and see the Amber Fort and an old abandoned city palace outside Agra, which were some things I have been wanting to see and do for a few years now. It was really great to do it with my sister and sister-in-law and her family.

So I have too much much to write about and will just stop for now since Nate has fixed us another mug of chai which I'd better go sit and enjoy. My sister is here for another couple of weeks and after that I might manage to post a bit more regularly again.
So long for now! :)

food, glorious food...

2009-12-15T22:29:00.004+05:30

...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.

2009-12-13T10:30:00.005+05:30

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

2009-12-10T21:00:00.007+05:30

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:

good fruit and vegetables all year around and great variety too
not owning a vehicle- just walking everywhere or taking a taxi/bus/train sometimes
living on the side of the mountain
not being able to see anyone else's house from our house - we're surrounded by trees
heating our house with a wood-stove
living in a cottage with a name :)
being close enough to school that I can visit whenever I want
having spent almost 4 years here, so we have made good friends and are able to reach out
my kitchen - it's a little small, but a nice square, so I have everything in my reach and cooking and baking is fun
I have learned to cook some Indian food and have learned to love eating some of it too
chai!
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.)
Monsoon. I love monsoon. I will miss monsoon.
tin roofs
pine martins along the hillside above our yard
our house - I LOVE our house! - it's really old with crooked walls and cracked ceilings, but it's just perfect for us
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
the spinner on my washing machine (I'll try to take a picture of it sometime to show how it works on here)
wearing sarees and salwar kamises (dressing Indian-style)
being able to attend concerts, recitals, plays and presentations
helping with after-school clubs and encouraging students and staff in their Faith in God as I have opportunity
being welcome to bring my kids to the school library, playground, and even pre-school class from time to time
that the leaves never fully fall off the trees, but instead leaves fall off as new ones grow in - it's neat!
Fellowshipping with staff once a week and hillside women once a week - this has been so refreshing for me
buying rice, flour, lentils, sugar - you name it - from big sacks in a shop in town
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)
viewing the snow peaks from the top of our mountain, and the sprawling city in the valley 6000 feet below us from our yard.
Calling up a shop in town, reading out my grocery list, and having food delivered to my house
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!)
being able to be creative here- sewing, knitting, quilting, singing, playing guitar, piano, cello, writing songs - I've enjoyed being creative
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

2009-12-10T20:46:00.005+05:30

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

2009-12-08T14:04:00.003+05:30

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

2009-12-07T23:05:00.006+05:30

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

2009-12-05T14:24:00.003+05:30

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

2009-12-01T20:21:00.007+05:30

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

2009-11-26T10:26:00.000+05:30

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...

2009-11-25T22:17:00.002+05:30

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

2009-11-25T21:34:00.006+05:30

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

2009-11-24T15:07:00.003+05:30

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

2009-11-22T15:09:00.003+05:30

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!

2009-11-20T13:31:00.005+05:30

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

2009-11-15T13:49:00.004+05:30

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 :)

2009-11-13T20:23:00.005+05:30

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

2009-11-12T10:30:00.004+05:30

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

2009-11-10T22:49:00.003+05:30

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

nothing new

2009-11-10T16:35:00.006+05:30

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

2009-11-07T11:47:00.005+05:30

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.

2009-10-30T21:52:00.005+05:30

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?

2009-10-29T11:12:00.003+05:30

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

2009-10-27T14:51:00.003+05:30

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

2009-10-25T16:46:00.003+05:30

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

2009-10-21T21:00:00.008+05:30

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.)

vs 3 - "...these men have set up idols in their hearts and put wicked stumbling blocks before their faces..."
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.
vs 6 - "...This is what the Sovereign LORD says: REPENT! Turn from your idols and renounce all your detestable practices!"
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.
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.'"
vs 13 - "If a country sins against me by being unfaithful..."
I find it interesting that Noah, Job and Daniel [?] are God's chosen "even if"righteous examples (vs 14, 16, 18, 20)
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.
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!
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

2009-10-20T13:23:00.004+05:30

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"

2009-10-19T13:07:00.006+05:30

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?!

2009-10-19T11:00:00.003+05:30

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?

2009-10-11T21:05:00.011+05:30

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!

list 1

2009-10-09T13:18:00.014+05:30

It's been a long 3 years- now just 8 months to go. I've restrained myself from writing this list for too many months/years, so I apologize for being negative, but this is real for me these days (and I suspect that it will be an important list someday when I am gone from here and am remembering how perfectly marvelous this place was).

Things I will NOT miss when we leave from here:

monkeys stealing my laundry off the laundry lines and making my little boy sob in anger as he watches them steal it

the fear of the monkeys whenever we go for a walk, play outside, dare to eat outside... i hate the monkeys.

feeling excluded in such a small community because i am a stay-at-home mom

endless computer/internet problems

having spent all last night walking in the Bazaar, trying not to forget to buy anything, dragging it all back home, only to find that I didn't even think to buy ribbon, which I have to have for my little boy's birthday party tomorrow. OH to have a car and a store nearby where I could go with my kids to pick up last-minute things when I forget.

feeling like a failure every time someone asks me if I speak Hindi... that was just one of the many things I didn't manage to do during the past 3 years here!

having to have a lady helping me clean my house 5 days a week (i know it sounds great, but she doesn't do a great job and i'm tired of having her in 'my' space all the time.)

borrowing a hand-crank sewing machine that barely works, although I AM thankful for the use of a machine at all... it's just frustrating

my teeny tiny ovens (although I am very thankful that I even HAVE an oven! -in fact, 2 ovens!)

having to wipe black mold off the walls every week

dreading figuring out something to cook for dinner almost every night because the options that we enjoy are so few and so much work

butter shortages, milk shortages, "no cocoa powder until Monday, Ma'am", no molasses, weird-flavored vanilla 'essence', no good cheese, no beef, and rarely lettuce. I just won't miss these things!

skype frustrations and any other downloading of almost anything, which take eeeeeooooonnssss to complete (oh yeah, I already said internet problems, didn't I?!)

getting sick from food/water so often and having to deal with the health centre/hospital and all their run-around-info

Well, I'm running out of things to complain about for now, so it's probably a good time to quit. The wonderful thing about this sort of list is that as I hunt for lousy things, I remember scads of things I WILL miss. That list will come soon, I promise! :) I DO have it pretty good, I'm just so weary of some of this stuff. Of course, every place has some good, some bad...

Most of the time I really like living here and I am so thankful for all the ways that God has provided for us.

Hanumanchatti Hike pictures

2009-10-05T22:58:00.005+05:30

Here are some pictures from our hike. I've been experimenting with panoramas so here are a couple from way up high. (I think you can click on them to see them better.)Above, a panorama from just above Seema- where we camped our last night. Below, a panorama from way above Seema- where Beth and I climbed up to early in the morning. Her head is near the center of the picture,where we were standing, and we were thrilled to finally get up to that ridge where we could see the mountain ridges falling far below us on almost all sides.

The start of our hike: Hanumanchatti - and yes, those are massive piles of potatoes.
The Hanuman Ganga river.

Donkeys hauling potatos:

Where we camped above Kondola:

The field we camped at above Kondola:

Seema- the mist rolling in:

My man fixing a campfire for us with soggy wood:

Nate's night photography of the Bandarpunch peaks- check out the stars and all the colors that showed up in the long exposure:

Bandarpunch peaks up close (you'll recognize these peaks from my title picture-they're to the left of the first D of Detta ar Dagen. I took the title picture from the top of our mountain, so you can see approximately how far we went from where we live-the peaks are much bigger here):

Beth up on top of the world!

It was a great hike!

Time away from the parents!

2009-10-04T22:22:00.003+05:30

Will and Annie had lots of fun with our friends who took them for a little holiday for the long weekend. They did a wide variety of things, and passed on lots of pictures to us, but I wasn't there, so I'll just put a few of them here. Check out Will's face as he's just jumped into the pool above. :)

The fancy place Will and Annie got to stay.

By all accounts, it sounded like Annie happily threw things into the pool, but wouldn't dare go in it herself!

Watching TV on a very fancy 4-post bed. This is the life! What a huge gift it was to all 4 of us that our friends took these two on a little trip for a few days.

Safely home

2009-10-04T13:43:00.006+05:30

Nate and I returned safely home last night from our backpacking trip. We're still waiting for our children to return from their adventure with our friends who took them for the past 4 days, so in this peace and quiet that I've been given, I'll try to write a bit about our hike and I'll post some pictures later.
We went with another couple after school got out on Wednesday afternoon, drove for about 6 hours through the mountains until we reached Hanumanchatti, a small village situated at the confluence of the Yamuna and Hanuman Ganga rivers at an altitude of about 1800 m. Even though we arrived at about 8 pm, the town was bustling with potato sack haulers, piles of potatoes, and trucks loading up sacks and sacks of potatoes. We ate an expensive meal of mediocre rice and dal (that left me reeling in the middle of the night), and put up our tents on the small flat area in front of the GMVN after I argued for about 20 minutes that we should only have to pay 50 rs per tent instead of the 100 rs the man claimed was the government fee... I won! Even though I slept poorly and was very sick in the night, morning arrived and we packed up our tents and things, hoisted our bags on our shoulders and headed up along the Hanuman Ganga river toward Seema, a high-altitude meadow which was our final destination. We followed donkeys with empty sacks on their backs heading up to the mountain villages on rocky, muddy trails, and were met by on-coming donkeys loaded with potatoes coming down into town. By the time we reached the tiny village of Kondola at around 1, we stared up at the cliffs high above us, the rain clouds approaching, and decided to call it a day. Kondola is at an altitude of 3050 m, so we had already hiked more than 1000 metres height that morning. We had lunch, set up our tents, and the rain came down. We all stayed dry and just rested for the afternoon, reading or napping in our tents. When it cleared up a bit, we hung out a little bit together, but the rain came again just as we were getting ready to cook dinner, so we settled for snacking in our tents and going to sleep early while the rain splashed around us. We got up early and headed further up the mountain- trying to find a round-about way up. We lost that trail and eventually stumbled across the other trail that went straight up the side of the cliff. It was like climbing stairs up another 400 m, and finally we reached Seema, which is at an altitude of 3450m (that's about 10,350 ft). A friend of ours pointed out to me that the altitude difference between where we began our hike and where we climbed to is about 4950 ft (a mile is 5280 ft), which we did in 2 days.

We were rewarded at Seema with an excellent up-close view of Bandarpunch (a mountain with a peak at 6316 m, which we can see sometimes from the mountain we live on). We enjoyed relaxing that afternoon together: collecting water to drink, playing cards, reading a bit, building a fire and fixing supper. The clouds gathered above us and dropped some rain, but Nate managed to make a roaring fire that kept us cozy until 9 or so, when the clouds cleared and he tried to get some night pictures of the Bandarpunch peaks... we have yet to see if any of them turned out. The next morning, Beth and I got up early to hike up another several hundred metres to see if we could get a better view of all the surrounding mountains. After about half an hour, we got up to where we thought we'd be able to see, but instead there was still another ridge in our way, so we climbed that one, and were faced with yet another one and then another. Finally we scrambled up one more ridge and there below us, spread out dozens of mountain ranges layering into the morning mist as far as our eyes could see. It was truly spectacular to stand on that tiny ridge and look far below us all around at the himalayas in all their beauty. I have never seen so many mountains all at once nor felt so on top of the world. We figure we were at an altitude of about 11,000 ft. We soaked it all up for a few minutes before heading back down to our campsite. The guys had started packing things up and we ate oatmeal together before bidding those high mountains goodbye. Down, down, down we went all day long, back along the steep paths we had come up the day before. We sat down for lunch where we had camped and decided to carry on to Hanumanchatti, in hopes that our taxi driver would be ready to drive us back home that night, even though it was a day earlier than we had told him we would leave. We had all just enjoyed our time out there but were ready to get home and have a day of real rest in the short break. Thankfully, when we arrived in Hanumanchatti, the driver was napping in his van and was ready to go immediately, so we made it home last night at about 9:30 and have enjoyed the precious gift of having an undisturbed night of rest and wonderful quiet around our house. The kids will be arriving soon to liven this place up, and I feel refreshed to spend all my time with them again. It's been a lovely long weekend and we're looking forward to hearing what our kids have been up to soon.

Quick, Quick, It's Midnight!

2009-09-25T23:54:00.002+05:30

It's midnight and I have to get to bed, but FINALLY my internet is working well enough to paste some pictures here. Will and Annie at the Cobbler's- getting slippers custom made.
Last weekend we camped with friends on Flag Hill.

Monsoon is now done - the ferns are turning brown.
Check out the daliya flowers that cover the mountainside. The picture below is taken from eyebrow path looking straight up.

So many beautiful daliyas!

Gotta go, it's 12:01!

News of the day:

2009-09-23T20:24:00.004+05:30

Here's the most exciting news of the day:

I'M AN AUNT AGAIN!!!!!!!

and finally,

I HAVE A NEPHEW!!!!!!

YAY YAY YAY YAY

And Happy Birthday to my Mamma today too!

Rock-picking

2009-09-18T23:00:00.006+05:30

We live on the side of some mountains in the Himalayas. Because of haze/clouds/rainy weather/laziness, we haven't seen the snowy peaks for several months, but on Sunday, when we got to the top of our trail, we were rewarded with this view:

It was a beautiful day for a walk after church, so we took the long way around to chardukan and 'let' both kids walk. (Annie LOVES walking and throws a fit every time we put her in the backpack.)

She was happy to walk.
.......................................
Later in the week, I needed something for us to do for awhile, so we took a walk to pick wild strawberries. However, we had tasted them previously and they don't taste like anything at all. They're tiny, bright red, and beautiful, but... sorely disappointing in the mouth.

(Heading out to fill up our buckets!)

One bucket filled! But not with strawberries after all...

... with rocks.

Busy busy rock-picking.

The glamour of picking rocks wore off after awhile and I convinced Will he should hang out in our neighbor's swing while I tried to take some nice pictures of him. My favorite is above, but I think the one below here 'brings out the Burchell' (I think he's got his Pappa's chin and this picture reminds me of some of his uncles).

He's such a happy kid!

running and more

2009-09-15T13:45:00.004+05:30

I thought I'd just write something quick here. Some noteworthy items:
-We got good rain last week- praise God, because this land needs the water.

-Woodstock had it's annual cross-country race on Friday, and I ran with the 11/12 grade girls and came in 7th. I haven't run even once in a full year (since last year's race). I wondered what event the girls thought they had signed up for as some of them started out the 3 Km race walking, and I passed about 20-30 more who would jog, then walk... (yes I said THREE KM- and it was FLAT).
Someday I would like to run. a proper race... a scenic jog around somewhere... a marathon... just run. It was fun to do and I always feel like I'd enjoy it even more if I were more in shape. Maybe I'll start running again this year- but it will require an earlier bedtime!

-Annie is VERY accident-prone... in the potty-training sense of the word! she likes to tell me she doesn't need to go and then a few minutes later she looks down at the puddle on the ground and says urgently " Mamma! blabla!" But sooner or later she'll sort it all out, I'm sure - and at the moment, I'm happy to have fewere diapers to change every day!

-Will is almost 4 years old. I can hardly believe how big he's gotten. He's been really enjoying playing with duplo toys by himself- lining up cars and people and telling stories. The people, cars and animals all talk to eachother and time seems to fade away in his world. Last night we had sewing night at our house and I gave Will a cardboard sewing with a shoelace to work on. He hasn't tried 'sewing' in months, so I thought he'd need lots of help- but I went to do something and came back and he had nearly completed it and had done it very well - all by himself. He likes to walk by himself on the trails now, and he gets his own quiet reading time before he takes his afternoon nap. (That's one of our schemes to get naptime and bedtime more under control in our house!) He's growing up and it's so neat to watch.

Random 'news'

2009-09-09T23:02:00.006+05:30

I walked into the living room to see it like this... such a funny pair they are!
There he is, standing next to his tower of cushions and wearing his beloved necktie. He rummages through his big toybox to find it every time he wants to play drums or when his Pappa is putting one on. Lots of times he just wanders around the house with it on. He's a character!

This picture was supposed to go with my last post, but our home internet connection has been really TERRIBLE so it was left behind. But before I get whining about our internet... I AM thankful that we even have internet, and I'd better stop there and head to bed! :)

P.S. other random 'news': -on the potty-training front, today Annie only wore her underwear around the house all day long and didn't have any accidents! WAHOO!! -on the Mamma front-I've had a lovely couple of days- even managed to write a song yesterday and made chicken pot pie yet again... and I might be addicted to york pepperment patties (which is bad because I only have one bag left until next summer... yikes! but they're oh so yummy!!!) -on the Pappa front, grading grading grading-and I think he's just amazing!

Ok, I'm off to bed!

sunsets, a cook-out and annie's hair

2009-09-06T22:50:00.003+05:30

We've seen some really terrific sunsets lately.

Last week we had a fun campfire cook-out in our back yard which included 'hobo dinners' and marshmallows! :)

Here's my girl and her cool hair-do:

Nate took this awesome picture of the light stretching out to the valley below the clouds.

For My Mamma: Story/Craft time and Bullar!

2009-09-01T22:57:00.006+05:30

One thing that reminds me very much of my mom is when I attempt to tell my kids Bible stories or do crafts with them. I'm not nearly as good at it as she was, but I remember so vividly how she so often did these kinds of things with us when we were small.

This time, I had the kids make Necklaces with a Needle and Noodles (which got very confusing: "put the noodle through the needle, i mean the needle through the noodle..." and I decided we should learn the letter N along with this craft... Will enjoyed it thoroughly.

Another thing that reminds me of my mom is when I bake. Especially when I bake bullar (Swedish cardemom bread). I made this last week for my family and they are just so yummy, I had to take some pictures before they disappeared.

Here's what my counter-top looks like when the baking is done:

My counter-top oven:

MMMMmmmm! Fika anyone?

I sure am glad that my Mamma taught me how to bake- it's come in so handy the past few years! :) She taught me a lot more than that too... so much about being a wife and a mom. Thanks Mamma! I miss you!

pictures

2009-08-31T22:39:00.005+05:30

When there's no cello at home... ... just use a guitar and a bowling pin!

The kids like to race around the house chasing each other with these mesh laundry hampers over their heads. I've personally never tried it, but it does look like lots of fun when they're giggling uncontrollably.

Annie fast asleep in her 'new' bed- notice we even have a side rail for it so she won't fall out (except for the time that she was leaning on the rail and tipped herself over the edge onto the floor... but she should have been sleeping anyway instead of playing, so we didn't give her much pity for that one!)

There's something peaceful about seeing dozens of clean diapers strung out to dry on a laundry line in the sun.

Last Saturday we took a hike to visit some friends of ours. We were bringing them a crib mattress and walking on this narrow path that clings to the side of the mountain with a steep drop-off down into the valley hundreds of feet below. We thought our mothers would appreciate the pictures:

We haven't gotten many pictures of Annie being messy at meal time because she really generally keeps fairly clean. Here's a good one, though, bad hair-day and all:

another weekend down.

2009-08-31T10:16:00.004+05:30

One of our friends who does not believe in Jesus Christ told us one time that he does not throw around prayers lightly. Neither do I. And because of that, I want to thank those of you who did pray for me this weekend on the retreat- I think it went well. I did not stay the whole time because there were a lot of chaperones and weekends are precious family time for us, so I came home after I was done speaking, which turned out to be a good thing because when I arrived home, Nate was in the middle of cooking lunch and had just run out of gas in our gas cylindar. It should be an easy fix- we SHOULD have an extra one in our house, but NO, we tried for several months to procure one and finally gave up out of cultural and communication frustrations. SO it was good that I came home and could send Nate over to finish cooking lunch on our neighbors stove. We got a man to replace our gas cylindar two hours later.

Saturday afternoon we sorted through our shed and broke up a bunch of scrap plywood to burn this winter. Nate cut a board to cover my ironing board (because there are screws sticking out of the top of my ironing board) and we found a board that will work for my stories I like to do with the kids. I found a bunch of clothes that will fit Annie in a trunk that was sitting out there and then after supper, Nate and I watched "Stand and Deliver" - a 'math teacher' movie :).

I talked with an Indian friend of mine on the phone because we've been meaning to get together. In our conversation, she told me that her son was potty-trained by the time he was 6 months old!!!!! Indians typically potty-train their babies very early like that, but still.... How in the world do they do it??? I imagine a lot of laundry and accidents... I'm pretty happy to have Annie mostly out of diapers by 21 months (but 6 months- that would have been great!-smile!)

keeping busy

2009-08-28T13:32:00.003+05:30

I have been wishing for some time to post on here, and now finally, I'm just taking some time to do it because my brain is too scattered to do anything else at the moment. I've been keeping busy the past couple of weeks. It's been generally good -a bit too full for my liking, but the bulk of what I've spent my time on this week has been preparing for speaking and helping organize the High School Spiritual Retreat (read that as: focused on the Christian faith but students of all beliefs are welcome... or something - I will be speaking about Faith in Jesus Christ!). That work will be done this weekend, so maybe my days will feel more manageable.

So today and tomorrow I'll be helping with that retreat and yesterday I asked a high school girl if she was coming and she said, "I'm not really into organized religion." ! kinda deflating after all my hard work. But then, that's how most of our efforts in this place have landed: falling flat on the ground.
It's ok, though. I've been trying to think of the ways that God has used us here and of the good things, the times we have felt appreciated, the love we have received and been able to give, the message of Hope that I pray we've been able to share here.
I'm at that place of wrapping things up here- not wanting to pour too much in because it hurts to leave if you do that - but wanting to live fully here until the very end, because it's so much richer all the way around. When I get discouraged about where I'm involved and where I'm not, I just try to tell myself that it's better to not be too involved anyway. The things that I AM involved in, I desperately want to be able to pour myself out in them... but it's so hard when I have my family that needs me too.
So this retreat is one of those things. Something that feels like it'd be easier to just show up, do my part, and leave... but maybe I should make more of an effort to hang out with the students and listen and be a part of the whole thing... and then I know I'll get hurt because it will take a huge amount of effort for me to do that and I know I won't be awarded much appreciation. That's just the way it is. Is it that way everywhere?

I think that I'm more sensitive to appreciation than I used to be because spending all my days with two ungrateful kids leaves me very rarely feeling appreciated- it's just not the same thing as having a job and getting the reward of accomplishing tasks, getting recognized publicly by people for what you achieve, having relative strangers say 'thank you'... this is largely why many women don't want to be stay-at-home moms, I think.

But I want to be doing what I'm doing - staying home with my kids- and I just think it helps me to fight those discouragements if I can push them out and address them somehow- like just writing here.

I've had some bright spots too lately- like the Women's Bible Studies I've been able to be a part of - they've been so refreshing! And I've been able to help out with both the Middle and Elementary School after-school Christian clubs- which is nice for me to be able to do. And my family continues to be such a bright spot for me- I love doing pathetic crafts with my kids (but they think my craft ideas are cool, cuz I'm their mom!-smile), and spending evenings with my honey talking and watching the canadian tv show: Corner Gas (watching a TV show?! what's become of me????!). So that's some rambling thoughts from my fuzzy brain for today.

If you pray for me this weekend on this retreat, please pray that I will shine out God's love to the students and that He will give me only His best words to use as I speak to them. And thank you for praying - It's the most powerful thing we've got.

Tuesday! :)

2009-08-25T17:44:00.003+05:30

It's Tuesday today, and guess who's almost potty trained? My 21-month-old ANNIE! :) I'm a happy camper- you bet! I'm already dreaming of upcoming days when I can put away most of my cloth diaper collection-wahoo!! And I won't miss washing washing washing nasty diapers, that's for sure.
Annie was completely dis-interested in re-starting to potty-training after we returned from Korea, but in the past two weeks she's gotten interested again, and yesterday and today we've had great success!!! One time I even came into the bathroom to find her cleaning the toilet with the toilet brush, with no underwear on. When I had finished reprimanding her for all of that, I looked down at her potty-chair and saw that she had gone again, without my even asking her or making her try it. Oh, it'll be great when she's out of diapers!
Besides keeping an eye on Annie, I washed laundry, wrote some planning emails for this weekend, ate some more pumpkin bread, and hosted Bible Study this morning, which was nice. Our group is doing Beth Moore's Esther study and it is such a neat study. This afternoon, I fixed us a chicken pot pie (from scratch scratch scratch like everything else we eat!) that only took me about 1.5 hours to make- and now my whole house smells yummy. My honey just got home and it's supper time so I'm off! Just wanted to share some of life from our happy home.