The Shouldas

Shoulda Woulda Coulda

It's easy for me to feel bound by what other people think. It just hit me this morning that over my lifetime, many people in authority over me have had plans. They feel it necessary to tell me of these plans.

You should.

You could.

Hey, you should consider becoming an artist.

You should write a book!

Could you promise me you will get a PhD? (strangely enough I got that one twice)

You could write a book! I would totally buy it.

You would make such a wonderful natural childbirth educator or doula!

And while I would probably do okay at these things and enjoy them... what don't I enjoy? I know they mean well, but theirs are not the plans that matter.

You see, God has planned my days. Each and every one of them. He's planned yours too. There are good things laid out for us to do. And I have felt called to do good things (though no one has ever said, "Hey! You should be a Bible translator!"). Why don't people say:

You would be a great homeschooling Mom!

You could raise godly kids!

You could attend to your needy child with beautiful patience and endurance!

You would be good at coming up with yet another healthy dinner!

You could scrape all the grime right off toilet seats!


Yet these are the plans, the calling, that I live. We are called to something higher than what human eyes can see. We are not bound by what others think. Motherhood and household management deserve a better reputation.

Doesn't pay overtime.
Little short-term return.
Huge long-term gains.

"A wise woman builds her house,
but a foolish woman tears it down with her own hands."
Proverbs 14:1

Build your house. Don't tear it down. You are doing one or the other.

I often have to stop what I'm doing and remind myself to 'build my house'. Not with wood and nails, but with wise words, contentment and endurance. So to all you ladies out there, I invite you to join me today in building your house. That will look different for each of us. Build your house.

This is God's plan for me right now. I'm throwing out the shoulda-woulda-couldas.

flower

I feel like I have had precious little to put into our yard, but God has been gracious.  In the back there is a stand of banana trees that, in addition to producing far too many bananas (once they do), produce the most wonderful flowers.  Anyway, here is a taste.  you can sort of see the different stages as the flowers are more and less mature, with the ones at the top already being pollinated, and ripening into bananas.

Where the Wild Things Are

Well, a HUGE thank you goes out to all who prayed us through a very long, but very smooth trip across the globe. Many people helped us pack up, Grandma and Grandpa put in lots of last minute babysitting, etc. Even the ticket agent checking our mountain of luggage was pleasant. The people waiting 'forever' in line behind us where totally supportive and even told fun stories of growing up in Zimbabwe. You just never know how God will provide. This was likely our smoothest trip yet!

I still do not recommend two consecutive overnight flights with a long Heathrow layover in between, but we seem to have mastered the art of getting a napping couch in a busy airport. =) Besides, we got to meet the police squad in between snoozes after Joel left his backpack unattended on the other side of the couches. =)

There was a classic moment of panic when the policeman, who strolled up with Joel's bag, asked me for ID. I don't know if it was the fact that I hadn't slept more than 3 hours in the past 27, or that we had walked several miles to get to the napping-couch-section with 3 kids in tow, but I couldn't come up with my ID for anything. Kent had our passports, and he had gone to the security desk to inquire about the very bag elusively floating between two tall policemen and myself. It was a bit surreal. "I know this looks bad, Officer, I just can't find my ID right now." Strangely enough, I could recount every item INSIDE the bag and could probably give an approximate replacement value... Mommy brain at its best. Fortunately, the police had pity on my groggy self and the repentant 6-yr-old at my side and gave us the bag anyway. Grace.

We are back to Where the Wild Things Are! Home in Congo. Our yard had gorgeous 6-ft sunflowers all over, our basil looked more like a bush, and the marigolds spelling 'welcome' had grown waist-high! I LOVE being warm! Our kids are thrilled to romp in the backyard in sandals and shorts and we are eating as many mangoes as possible. =)

In the past 4 days, we got mostly unpacked, got a swing up in the loquat tree, welcomed our two puppies to their new home, got a little sunburned and failed miserably at sleeping on a schedule. Our house is very dusty and many things are needing to be done to get us back in working order, but we are safely and happily home!

Even had 3 monkeys up on our roof this afternoon!
Wild.

Adios amigos!

Sorry this past month has been so crazy, and words so few.
We are packing up and weighing bags.
Our overnight international flights leave in 3 short days.
The 'stuff of our life' carefully divided into 50-lb. increments.

God has used this past few months for his glory. He has loved and showered us with blessings over and over. He has answered some medical questions for us. We (once again) leave behind some precious new friends knowing that we will see them all again one place or other.

It's always hardest to leave our family. They pay a higher price than we do. I'm getting a tougher skin, having done this a few times now already. What turns me back into a puddle is watching my kids' tearful goodbyes. I read somewhere that if you feel pain upon parting, it is the proof that you have loved well.

So my kids have loved well and been loved, and while it feels like an end, it is just the space between chapters. This chapter is about written, and the next one is coming soon.

Goodbye homeland, land of sunbreaks, land of berries, land of connectivity and electricity, land of English-speakers, land of snowy mountains in the distance. See you again in a couple years. Sunshine - here we come!

We appreciate your prayers for us 5 traveling through 10 time zones with our 17 pieces of luggage. Next post will be from the other side of the pond!

Happy Song

Just had to leave you this happy song. Smile with me. How fast they grow up!

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...