Firsties

Here are ten of my most recent "firsties," things I did for the first time:

* met Rita Chapman, a missionary serving in Kikongo whom I've been hearing about since 2008. Very Cool Beans!
* washed myself with gasoline. Peeyou.
* "jumped" electrical phases in our breaker box. Needed to learn and now I have.
* went through a Congolese military checkpoint. Ok.
* led a group of high school girls in a Bible study. These girls are fantastic!
* made pickles that actually stayed crunchy. Too salty, but at least they stayed crunchy. (whisper: They taste like Claussens.)
* drove more than three miles one way from my house, and back. Survived. Barely.
* went to the consulate for the U.S. embassy to renew our kids' passports. Not fun.
* went to a parent/teacher conference for my daughter, a senior. Somehow when we were home schooling her it seemed way too odd, even for us, to have parent/teacher conferences. hee hee.
* took my new friend Hannah to the orphanage with me to play with the kids. This is Hannah.

There is just nothing like hearing a little kid giggle!

Obviously, God is not letting me stay in a rut or get too set in my ways. Living a Christian life takes "muscle," which brings me to the subject of my new post, "Move That Muscle" on the MAF blog. I hope you'll check it out.

Mussolini for Dinner: Ten Cool Gifts!

tortellini (Photo credit: scottfeldstein)

When I feel down in the dumps, I often turn to the Psalms and to my favorite praise music, making them prayers from my heart to God as I read and sing. This past week as I was feeling discouraged and asking God for help, encouragement and direction, the Giver of All Good Things responded lovingly and generously, beyond what I deserve.  Here are some of the gifts I received this past week, in order of my random thought patterns.

1. New friends – I met a lovely Christian woman, her father, and her new son this week and got to spend a couple of hours getting to know them. They are passionate about missions and it was a real treat to get to connect with them.

2. Generosity – This same family brought enough clothing, formula, and medicine for the orphanage to fill my trunk! My daughter’s school had a drive for the orphanage also and collected lots of food, clothing, and toys. There were many other instances where I was blessed by seeing people show generosity toward others.

3. Letters from home (well, emails, really)! And an email from my son!

4. Unexpected help – We literally had no clue how to look for a house here or what questions to ask a potential landlord before we made a decision on a house. In our prayers we told God, “we don’t know what we are doing or where to look.”  He sent a friend with experience in house hunting to help us!

5. Pumpkin! – Our new friends brought us a few gifts also, including REAL PUMPKIN! We are all very excited about having pumpkin pie with real pumpkin. We did a little happy dance in the kitchen!

6. Electricity – I don’t understand how our old cable keeps going other than God must be sustaining it. We’ve had more than the usual amount of electricity and it has been a nice break.

7. Prayers – Lots of people have let us know they are praying for us! We know God hears and answers, and knowing that folks are praying is encouraging to us.

8. Closeness – As the housing options have been narrowed down, our family has had to talk a lot about what is important in a home to each of us, what is not important, how we are all feeling about everything here, and we have grown closer. It is always a gift when your child desires to share their heart with you, especially as they grow older and more independent.

9. Possibilities! – We don’t have a house yet, but we have a couple of possibilities! Both have pros and cons and neither one is a sure thing yet, but we finally have found a couple of places that we know we could make work for our family.

10. Humor – Always a great gift! I wish I were better at making others laugh. I am sure it looked pretty amusing to our guard and my family when the parrot escaped, as I tried to catch her without getting bit. She actually chased me across the porch trying to bite my toes! Picture a grown woman feeing from a naked, running parrot! And if you want to know how the mind of a boy works, just give him a stack of cards from an Apples to Apples game and listen to him as he goes through them:

“I thought Mussolini was a kind of noodle.”

“If Dick Cheney was our vice president, then who was the bad guy in True Grit?” (That would be the character Tom Chaney.)

After being told that Al Gore was vice president with President Clinton: “you mean Hillary?”

How to Exponentially Increase Your Husband's Stress

Photo source: Reusable Art

Some times when a person is under stress or having a hard time, blessing them is not the temptation that first presents itself.  We don't usually deal with our stress and problems by being all sweetness and warm fuzzies.  Often we drive people away.  But we married our men for better or for worse, and most days, my husband receives the "worse" and I receive the "better."  I know all sorts of things that definitely do not bless my husband (or anyone else) during  a stressful time.  I know, because I have at one time or another tried all of them in the 21 years we've been married.

How to Exponentially Increase Your Husband's Stress (subtitled: stuff I learned not to do after I had already done them):

1. Reacting instead of responding.
2. Assuming because he hasn't said anything more about it, that the problem has gone away.
3. Taking it personally when he is quieter than usual or when he says something he normally wouldn't.
4. Inviting people over to distract him from his troubles.  Never works.  Never.
5. Talking to him incessantly.  I don't know why, but they don't like this.
6. Trying to "one up" him - let him know how much longer my list of problems is than his.
7. Ask him when he's going to fix the car, the toilet, etc.
8. Tell him to just get over it or to stop making such a big deal out of it.
9. Committing him to more activities without asking him first.
10. Play the martyr.  Make a big production out of everything you do for him.

photo source: Reusable Art

I found an article called "10 Ways to Bless Your Husband When He Is Having a Stressful Week."  The big difference between the list that Sandra Peoples has written and my list is that her list revolves around the other person, not around self.  I like this little article because it is practical and do-able.  I don't have to read his mind or do acupuncture or learn to play golf.  Just look for real things I can do that give him one less thing to think about here, one less thing to do there, a few more minutes of rest in between, and a little less chaos.

So, if you are interested, check out 10 Ways to Bless Your Husband When He Is Having a Stressful Week.  Then just in case she's having a stressful week, leave her an encouraging comment.  I'd love to hear your ideas too!

Ten Things I Never Thought I Would Do. Ever.

Whack A Mole Fever (Photo credit: TPapi)

Ten years ago, the only missions experience I had was spending a week in a shelter for the homeless during my senior year of college.  I had never left the United States, unless you count a couple of hours at Niagara Falls during my high school senior trip.  I had no idea then, that I would be here now.

I've done a lot of things here - some smart and creative and some, well, otherwise - that I never, ever, ever thought I would do.  I didn't just think of those things and scoff and say "I would never do that."  I didn't think of them AT ALL!

Here are TEN THINGS I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD DO.  EVER!

1. Whack baby cockroaches on the counter with my fist in rapid motion, like a real-life Whack-A-Mole game! (I am afraid of cockroaches, so this is VERY out of character for me, but sometimes enough is enough.)  If you run to get a shoe or some bug spray, it is always too late and they've escaped.

2. Learn to like powdered milk.  I am way ahead of my family in this area.

3. See and greet men with automatic weapons on my street as if it is normal.  Isn't it?

4. Make my own sausage.

5. Give my child worm medicine, as in the same stuff we give our cats and dogs in the states, routinely.

6. Intentionally leave money in my pockets in hope that the smell will come out in the wash.

7. Cut my own hair (see Filling Holes).

8. Pick up a crying child who was not my own and was covered in his own waste without gagging.

9. Ride in the back seat of a car holding my child's leg in the air to slow the bleeding while we drive to a third world medical clinic (see Daniel's Bottle Bucket Battle).

10. Eat cheese that smells like dirty gym socks.  The orphan in item number 8 didn't make me gag, but the cheese did.

Some of these experiences were once and for all.  Some are experiences I will have repeatedly.  The Cool Beans is that all of them have had an impact on me.  Sometimes they revealed hidden strengths.  Sometimes they revealed uglier traits that I had not seen in myself before and had to ask God to change in me.  Sometimes, they made me laugh at myself, which is not a bad thing at all.  By the way, Whack-A-Roach can be a very effective way to vent stress and anger.  No one gets yelled at, and there are fewer bugs in the house.  Not that I'm saying you should try it or anything, but if you want to give it a try, you can come to my house!

How about you?  What sorts of things have you done that you never thought you would?