Joel's Circle of Life

In searching blog archives, I was hoping to find for you the video of a 4-year-old Joel. He has always mulled things over in his head. You know he's really chewing on things, because out pops a totally creative new perspective. A tiny window on the world all his own. A completely different sense of this wacky world.

In the video he asks a good question:
"Since God can do anything, can He swim even where there is no water?"

I assume Joel would like to try swimming in the air when we get to Eternity... =)

My Creative Little Prince's wheels have been turning through First Grade.

Well, a couple days ago, he explained to me his version of the Circle of Life.
He's really put weeks of thought into it:

lions eat zebras
zebras eat grass
grass eats dirt
dirt eats water/rain
water/rain eats clouds
clouds eat airplanes
airplanes eat people
people eat lions
etc.

*insert cool circular graph here*

It makes me think, then laugh, then think again...

I think I love 'airplanes eat people' the best. It took me a long time to digest that one. Figuratively, people walk in and look like they are 'consumed'. Like a large animal swallowing up it's little passengers for dinner. Where does he come up with this stuff? But we've been in enough airplanes to consider them banale (French for 'commonplace', only better than just that).

Then the banale beast of prey disappears and is 'eaten' by a cloud. This is almost like one of those phone commercials where each new frame leads us to another world entirely. Don't you just love to see the way kids think? I hope Joel's Circle of Life gives you a chuckle today. We could all use a little more childlikeness.

I guess I do feel a bit like I've been in the belly of a whale after a 10-hr flight...

The Vortex

Okay, I admit it. I really have very little idea what a 'vortex' actually is.
I think it's supposed to be something that sucks you in whether you like it or not.
Like you're going down the drain.
A wild and powerful force
on the edge of uncontrollable.

Five weeks remain until we hit the friendly skies once again. The to-do lists are growing everyday with things to stock up on, de-plastify, carefully weigh in 50-lb. increments, and insure for the long-haul. Random things on my shopping list to give you the gist:
Bag zapper tennis rackets
Craisins
Multi-vitamins that expire after 2013
Math curriculum for 2012-2013 school year
4 laptops for Kent's work

If only I could buy me some peaceful TIME to do all this shopping...

'The experts', not sure who they are exactly, say that to completely unpack your emotional bags to live in a different place takes about SIX MONTHS. So, this time around, at only 5, we knew we wouldn't get that far. Trouble is, over the last wonderful 12 years together, we've only passed 6 months in the same house a few times. So this THING. This process of folding up your life in packable bits, moving it across the world... or across town, and unfolding it once again... This process is TRANSITION. And it is where we live.

In one of our orientation classes, a wise instructor gave us a gift.
A piece of paper really.
It's our emotional road map.
It lays out the emotional process of transition.
First, the folding up and shutting down.
Then the chaos in between.
Finally, the unfolding...
making mistakes.
Learning to trust.
Again.

We hang that roadmap on our bathroom door and often look at it and find ourselves in our relative processes. Such a relief to know that anxiety at this stage is normal. We have gotten to the point of taking it down once or twice, but usually it just lives on the bathroom door. Pointing us to the path ahead. Making our exit. Making our entrance. This path we walk... in transition. Following in dusty, bloodied footprints. Putting off the old life. Putting on the new. Maybe it's just good practice...

I call TRANSITION a vortex, because it seems to suck you in without asking. It feels like everything is powerfully out of control.

But it isn't.

This whirlwind of moving chaos has limits.


God holds it in his hands and does not let us spin out of control. He keeps our hearts pumping, minds thinking, friends praying. He holds us close. All else in the material world is packed, shipped or tossed away.

But we will always have HIM. And He is far more powerful than our little vortex.

Sunday Blessing

This afternoon God surprised us with this blessing, too large to fit in one picture:

May contain traces...

I have a pile of letters.
They remain letters unwritten.
I have wanted to tell you so many things.
But I also desire to say only what is beneficial and blameless,
so there have been few words.

We are squeezing in our fair share of fun, parks, ice cream, libraries, etc. Things we don't get in Africa. But we also needed to squeeze in quite a few doctors appointments and chase down some answers to what exactly is going on with our health.

I finally got in to see a wonderful allergist - maybe the best of the four I've ever seen. I'm not just biased because his son is a linguist living overseas and his waiting room is stocked with overstuffed leather couches. Love. (You see dust mites can't move through leather - they are dust-free furniture!!!) I walked in with a pile of questions and walked out with answers.

For as long as I can remember I have reacted severely to tree nuts. Not just the nuts. Anything that has shared airspace with a nut. (That's right, no donut or cookie shops and certainly no coldstone.) We're not talking about a few scratchy bumps on the arm either. I'm an overachiever. I have the whole throat-swelling-shut, run-to-the-ER-and-stab-yourself-with-an-epi-pen reaction.

Way back when I was a wee bairn, food labels were much less informative and no one had ever heard of dying from a nut allergy. I actually didn't believe it could be dangerous. I had grown up eating Honey Nut Cheerios. I felt fine. Just avoided the Chex Mix and Russell Stover's at Christmas. Worked for me. There were two mysterious times I didn't understand where I ate a cookie at a potluck (potlucks are like Russian Roulette for people with severe food allergies let me assure you) that I found out later had almonds in it. My uneducated hypothesis was that the almonds in Honey Nut Cheerios and the potluck cookies must have been SO processed that there was really no protein left for me to react to. But... AHA! My allergist confirmed the truth that, in fact, I am NOT allergic to almonds. Just all the other nuts. =)

YAY! I've been happily eating my fill of Honey Nut Cheerios ever since!

Sorry, that was a really LONG way to say that I went in with my list of allergies and, for the first time in my life, got to cross one off! Sadly enough I had to add egg and soy to non-almond tree nuts, black bean, kidney bean and Nido milk powder. So you win some, you lose some.

I'm so thankful for a country that enforces good labeling (it is not so elsewhere in the world my friends). There really is a difference between 'manufactured in a facility...' and 'may contain traces'. I'm somewhere in between. For whatever reason, 'manufactured in a facility...' works for me while 'may contain traces' does NOT.

I'm also so thankful for doctors and the amazing tests that can be done today. It used to be that finding a food allergy was like finding a needle in a haystack and usually involved elimination and substitution diets that took months or years. The food often tasted like a haystack too. Now there are amazing food options and blood tests that tell us what your immune system is doing. Exactly. This week. Such an incredible gift.

As expensive as all this stuff is, I am very thankful also for all the different specialists out there who can really serve our needs. This next 10 days I will drive 90 minutes to one specialist and 2 hrs to another, but I know we will be getting an answer.

So pray we would get the answers we need to prepare well for our next 2 years in Congo. We leave in only 8 weeks...

You Know You're __ when __

You know you are raising a 'missionary kid' (MK) when your kids:

... think a snow angel is something like Frosty the Snowman.

... get excited about a library.

... see it's 30 degrees out and still can't be bothered to put on socks and shoes.

... always miss their friends, no matter where you live.

... make up a foreign language that only stuffed animals speak.

... see it's 30 degrees out and skip out the door without a coat (and then scream).

... think a 10-hr airline flight is normal.

... fight over which suitcase they get this time and know how to pack and unpack themselves.

... can't tell the difference between a long trip and a move.

Scary but true: Driving home from our 10-day Oregon trip last week, it became clear that Anna truly believed we were about to pull into our house in Congo. Her main concern: The toys made it alright. The simplicity of being FOUR.

Friendship

Our kids have close friends in Congo. They are used to playing with them every spare minute in a mixture of basic English and Swahili. Over time customs seep in unnoticed. In a good way.

When we arrived here one of James' first comments was, "I hope I find a friend." And we frequently pray for that provision when we move. Knowing this trip was short, I had not been thinking along those lines and had not focused on the kids finding friends.

His first day of Sunday School was a sort of indoor 'field day' where the Grade 2-5 students played various games. He bonded almost immediately with a sweet boy his age. I was a few minutes early to pick him up, so I waited on the sidelines. Then I saw James trying to grab this boy's hand.

Uh-oh.

I realized a bit too late that James was going to learn about this cross-cultural difference the hard way.

You see, in Congo, you show someone you care and value their friendship by holding hands. Boy to boy or girl to girl. Holding hands is important. I hadn't realized James caught that. So here he was applying the Congolese rules for friendship to a sweet unsuspecting American kid. At first this kid was trying to make it a spin-the-arms-around game. Sheer politeness. After a while I watched him start to avoid James. The Mama Bear in me wanted to run out there and make it all better, but I had to let them finish the game and bite my tongue. It's hard to watch kids make their own mistakes. Parenting older kids is new for me.

Over a snack at home I gently broke the news to James that holding hands means friendship in Congo, but has much stronger connotations in America.

"Like you want to marry someone?!"

"Pretty much."

He blanched. "I had NO idea!"

I guess crossing the world is much more than getting off a plane.

P.S. They continue to be friends and plan a playdate after basketball season is over, so our foibles didn't ruin anything long-term. We later explained to this boy's mother as well, who was very understanding. Just need a little extra grace getting our cultural bearings.

Capri Suns and Vacuum Cleaners

There are too many experiences to list them all for you. Everyday my children experience another piece of this thing called their 'passport culture', and we hope that one day when they must return to fly solo the pieces of the puzzle with come together and be less overwhelming.

So, today's anecdotes about how our kids are learning and coping: Capri Suns and Vacuum Cleaners. Growing up with cement floors and little electricity means lots of sweeping and mopping... and no vacuum cleaners. After most of their lives overseas, both Joel and Anna are still terrified of these beastly machines. They just aren't used to the loud noises. But then how could they be? For now, James is the designated chore vacuumer and his younger siblings run for cover.

Almost everyday I find people gazing curiously at my kids. Last week they were given Capri Sun juice pouches for the first time. After drinking them, they discovered the fun of puffing them full of air! Nearly balloons really. So then came the tilted head of a new acquaintance. And me explaining that they've never seen a Capri Sun before.

Everything is new. There is always something fun to discover. How mail works. How a dishwasher works. How clean water is at your fingertips in every drinking fountain. How fun it is to blow dry your hands in a public restroom, or drive thru a restaurant and have yummy food and toys thrown into your car. Or blow up Capri Suns like balloons.

So when you see my kids doing something strange, just tilt your head a bit and I'll explain once again, "They've never done this before."

So sorry for the 2-months of silence here... I have heard several of you encouraging me to continue blogging even while we spend a few months in North America. It has been quite a huge transition, naturally, from living in Central Africa to living in the States again. We have been away for two years, and a few things have changed. TV shows are now online instead of on TV. Pants are tight instead of loose. Boy's hair is down in their face and leg warmers are back. Makes me see visions of jr. high... Now I feel old.

Anyway, James remembered lots of things right away, being the oldest. So he knew all about drinking fountains, restrooms with air blowers, automatic toilets and faucets, city parks, even remembered how to work a vacuum cleaner and that the bakery ladies at Fred Meyer have free cookies! Joel, on the other hand, mostly remembered family members and friends. He was old enough to understand we are here temporarily and moving around a bit, so he's along for the (fun) ride.

Then there's Anna, who was only just 2 when we left and really didn't remember much of anything about our fast-paced, tasty, cold double life.

More on our adjustments to come...

Savor

You know how it goes... take time...

stop and smell the roses...

drink in the sweet moments...

treasure up all these things in your heart...

Savor.

The French use a different word: profiter, from the same root that we pull the word 'profit'. Make the most of every opportunity. Well, we are being given an absolutely HUGE gift to spend Christmas across the world with our family, so we will be doing just that - savoring.
It will be a bit of a shock to go from summer to winter, from flip-flops to snow boots in 29 hours, but we want to make the most of it!

You will likely not hear much on this blog for the next month,

but know that we are wishing you the Merriest of Christmases!
We hope this season is filled with True Hope for you and yours!

Savor something good,
even if it is just sunlight on snow.
All good gifts are from Him,
the Father of Lights.

Blessed Advent!