Stopping to Smell the Ginger

Hawaiian ginger growing in my yard

Some highlights and events I experienced since my last post:

My Hawaiian ginger bloomed in the yard. They smell amazing! I know my guards think I am crazy, for lots of reasons, one being that when the ginger blooms every couple of months, I go around the yard smelling all the blossoms and taking pictures like I've never seen it before. I pretty well cemented that notion when I picked some one day and told my guard to smell it. Ha, ha, ha, you should have seen his expression! But he did smell it, and he did admit it smelled nice. 

I went back to the Mitendi Center and the Bandal Center with Jill. This young lady is making a table cloth to fill a customer order - mine! I can't wait to get my new table cloth and contrasting napkins. 

I am praying and giving thought to how God might want to involve me with the centers and these young women.



David and I both had birthdays, so our family went out for dinner one evening. Our conversation over dinner turned to Daniel's schooling and Daniel told his dad we were studying the Great Migration. Being a humble home educator, I decided to show off Daniel's knowledge and asked him to tell his dad the difference between migration and immigration. He replied that migration is when you move some where and immigration is when you water your crops. I am a great teacher.  

David had to go to Europe for a week for training on one of our engines. While he was gone, I visited with some friends, though not as many as I had planned to. I also wrote a post for the MAF blog (coming soon), worked on our newsletter (also coming soon), and cleaned out my email boxes. In one box, I am ashamed to say, I had mail dating back to 2008. I didn't completely finish the job because I kept finding good stuff to read in there. Kind of like when you start cleaning a closet and you find old photos you forgot you had and you are compelled to stop everything and look through them. I am glad I did. I found letters from dear friends who have been praying for us since we first signed on with MAF, before we even knew where we were going to end up serving. They are still praying for us! It was very encouraging to come across that reminder and it meant so much to me that I had to write to them and tell them.

My friend Christine has a little apartment and invited Daniel and me to stay there and be part of their family while David was gone. It was nice to have air-conditioning almost the entire time and to get to spend some time with her. We had been missing each other since I don't have a car and no longer live close enough to walk to her house.

When I arrived home, we found this little guy (or gal?) hiding in our electric box.

Our electric box is not exactly the safest playground for a kitten, so we shooed him out and blocked the door to keep him out. I asked our guard where he came from since we have eight foot walls around our house. He said the mother cat carried five kittens over the wall, one at a time, so that they could all eat my cat's food, which was on the porch during my absence. She had taken four of them back and left this little one. She came back for him a few hours later. Glad I could help out that tired momma for a few days.

Party In A Jar

designed by Daniel Burton

We are studying insects in school, so for an art project I challenged Daniel to construct an insect. The only rules I gave him were that it had to have six legs, a head, thorax and abdomen, and compound eyes. He could use any materials and the insect could resemble a known species or be imaginary. I gave him an A on his insect, pictured above. Very cool beans, Daniel. 

Not so cool are the other insects in our home right now. One would think that if no people, food, animals, etc were in the building for over six months that whatever ants or bugs were there would either get hungry and go elsewhere or they would starve and die. Nope. The ants found us on day one.

After a flying roach nearly hit me in the head, one crawled across my foot, daily wiping ants off the kitchen surfaces even when no food was left out, and a poisonous centipede was found crossing the living room, I decided to take offensive action. 

So yesterday I got out my recipes and made ant bait and roach bait. Centipedes like to eat roaches, so presumably getting rid of roaches would give them less incentive to enter the house. 

Eat your heart out, Martha Stewart.

I had to ask Daniel to make the ultimate sacrifice and drink a Coke so I could have the bottle cap. He's such a martyr.

Here is the ants' reaction only five minutes after I put the bait out.  

The recipes are obviously different, but both have boric acid as their primary ingredient. Boric acid is scarce here and I brought my own from the states. We can buy bug spray, but this is much less toxic, less expensive, and smells a lot better. My cats even ate the roach bait once and were ok. I put onion in the roach bait now and Elliot stays clear of it.  

Disney - Snow White's Scary Adventure - Queen Witch (Photo credit: Express Monorail)

No More Anonymity

photo credit: Sandy Francis

I don't know why but in the last week my comment box has had a plethora of spam comments, most of them  benign but some are offensive. Since I moderate all comments, this saved my blog from having them posted all over the place but my email box has been flooded with them. So...I am not allowing anonymous comments anymore, since that is the avenue the spammers use. Can you still post comments? Yes. But now you must identify yourself using either your own URL, AIM or OpenID. If you have an ID with Google (think gmail), Yahoo, Blogger, Flickr, MySpace, AOL, or WordPress then you already have an OpenID and you can find out what it is by clicking HERE. I'm sorry for the inconvenience but I really would not look good if I pulled all my hair out and this was the alternative. Many of you already know me and prefer to send me comments via facebook or email, and that's fine too.

The Christmas season is the time of year when I get the most interaction with our national staff, even though David sees many of them several times a week. In addition to the Christmas worship service we do together for people who work at the airport (see photo above of David and some of the other guys singing!), we also have an annual Christmas meal together with Congolese food. I really like the fact that we work with our nationals to do the Christmas outreach event because besides sharing the gospel with others, it reminds all of our MAF staff that we are in ministry together.

Remember this? Last September we paid the local vet to spay our kitten, Lily. She nearly died afterward of complications. I suspected pneumonia.

We are about 95% sure that our SPAYED kittie is pregnant. We just went through this less than a year ago with her mama, Piper, and all the symptoms are the same. I was there for Lily's surgery and SAW the vet remove SOMETHING, but obviously it wasn't what he thought it was...

...anybody want a kitten?

We are having a wonderful time visiting with Josh! We had a nice, relaxing family Christmas with devotions and gifts and homemade treats and a ham dinner. I am working on a new post but might not have it up by tomorrow. I'm still getting used to our new computer (Christmas gift, yaay!) and our internet has been unpredictable. Pray for our water situation. We are out again, so tomorrow morning David will have to drive the truck to haul water for the third time this week. When we moved here the water was great and we never ran low. We have no idea why suddenly it's off most of the time.

The Potty Plant

Last week Emily started with basic white and mixed her own custom paint color for her bedroom. Here’s her new color. The photo doesn’t do it justice. In real life, the walls are darker. Much darker. But she loves it.

She doesn’t have as many choices and freedoms as her peers in the states and this was one area where we could let her have her way. Now she has a space that is truly hers, and she made it that way herself. All that’s left is for her to finish unpacking and decorating. Cool beans!

Emily's room on moving day

Yes, she is indeed stirring the paint with a broken broom handle. When you buy paint here, they do not give you a paint stirring stick thingy. At least at the stores I have been to, they don't sell them either. You use what you've got.

That white door off to the left is a ¾ bath. What teenage girl wouldn’t like to have her own private bathroom that her brothers do not have access to? Moreover, what boy would not be happy if he no longer had to wait for his sister to get out

Emily's room after paint job

of the bathroom? What mom would not be happy to have a little less mess to clean up? Now that she has her own bathroom, she gets to clean it herself. Good practice for college. Her future roommate will thank me one day.

For my introvert daughter, having her own space is a big deal and something she wanted for a long time. She’s had her own room before, so it’s not about privacy. It’s more about “fit.” She needed her room to be an expression of herself, a reflection of her taste and personality - and not just a place to set her suitcase. I totally get that.

We’ve made changes to the rest of the house too. Once Lily recovered from her near death experience of getting spayed in Kinshasa, we took away the litter box and now both cats go outside to do their business. Very nice. No more odor. No more emptying the box.

We’ve added our first house plant. It’s called “snake plant.” If you come visit me, you’ll notice that our snake plant, as well as all future house plants have sharp rocks on the top of their soil. That’s because Lily, still young and new at the whole go-outside-to-do-your-business thing, thinks "potted plant" means “potty plant.” The rocks have been an easy and effective deterrent.

Moving Day: Take Two!

Coffeemaker (Photo credit: Daniel Panev)

Cool Beans! We have moved out of our old home. But! - We are not yet into our new home. We are sort of in limbo, staying in a friend's home, until the new one is repaired enough for us to move in. So for a short time, home is not where our furniture and other stuff is, but where our coffee pot is. We have to be out of this temporary home by Friday so I really, really, really hope we can go straight into the new home and not into another temporary one. It would be nice to be able to put things away, rotate our three day's worth of clothing out for something  different, have access to all of the school books, stay in one place, etc.

Matthew Lind securing our water tower.

One reason we can't settle in yet is because in Congo, home is where the water is. We do not yet have a fully functioning bathroom or a way to store reserve water for times when the city water is off.

Almost everyone has "moving day" photos, but in all the times I've moved, I have never moved a steel water tower like this one, along with two big water reservoirs. Once the tower, tanks, and water pump are installed at the new house, we will have a much better water situation. Right now we have to get a concrete footing made to hold that tower.

photo credit: Jocelyn Frey

Another unusual item we moved this time: the chicken. The cats are with us, but the chicken and the parrot are both already there and being taken care of by our guards for us. We transported her in a little box to keep her calm and our friend Jocelyn snapped a photo of her leaping out of the box at her new home. Yep, that's our new gate back there. And it's my favorite color! That's Emmanuel in the photo. He and several other members of our team helped us move all our stuff before the big deadline. We are so grateful for the friends God has given us here! Because of their help, everything was out of the old house within a few hours, using just vans and a pickup truck.

Do I miss the old house? Nope. It had some nice features but I brought all the best stuff with me: my family, the things that made our house feel like home, my pets and flowers, and my coffeemaker.

No Place Like Home

Ruby Slippers (Photo credit: ZakVTA)

I just sat down to lunch, yeah, at 3:15pm. We've already had quite a day. My sandals gave me a nasty blister on my toe, which kept getting worse, so after Daniel finished school we headed for the house (we are staying at a friend's house down the road for a few days while we pack and move.). We were supposed do actually DRIVE to the house so that after packing for a few hours, I could return here to cook supper, bringing back my dirty laundry and the items we will need between now and when we move into our new home. My car decided it does not like this moving thing and it is not going to run anymore. So, blister and all, we walked to the house, discovered I had forgotten the key, walked back, returned with the key, and proceeded to pack until I ran out of boxes and realized I had forgotten to eat lunch and maybe that was why I felt so tired. Um, there's a lot of stuff still.

On the way back to my friend's house, the first time, I spotted the reason why I am packing in the dark in 94 degree weather with no fans or a/c. This is my power line. It's hard to see the details because I took this with my cheapo phone but that is a broken bottom of an office chair wedged between the wires to keep them from touching each other. The blue and white you see are plastic grocery bags that have been tied around the cable to "repair it." Throw in a few tree roots and you have my power line.

Here's another section of my power line, just a few meters from where I snapped the first photo.





I will miss my neighborhood and being close enough to walk to see most of friends. I will not miss my power line.



Saturday the vet came and spayed our 7 month old kitten. He was supposed to come to check on her the following Monday but never showed. By Tuesday morning she still had not eaten and was lethargic. Her breathing was rapid and noisy. I called the vet and told him I was anxious about her and he said he would come. He said "today" but he showed up on Wednesday. By that time, she had improved a little on her own but still sounded raspy. He gave her antibiotics and went on his merry way. Today she is much better. Lunch break is ending so here's one more photo. Next post will be from the new house!

This is how we keep our cat from licking her incision. I cut the ends off a clean tube sock. She is obviously humiliated at having to wear David's half-sock.  That's why she won't show her face for the camera.

Quitch Yer Caterwaulin!

Lily and Elliot

Lily, our seven month old kitten, is in heat for the first time. She was supposed to have been spayed in August but somehow I kept forgetting to call the vet. She's roaming the house, completely obsessed. Now I know where the term "caterwauling" comes from! Oh my! She is a very petite cat and it is hard to believe the amount of noise she is capable of making. The last two days we've had her crying in the house, at least two males crying on the porch, and the parrot doing a fair imitation of all of them. A regular cat symphony. Thankfully, the vet is coming today for another front porch surgery (see The Vet for explanation).

As I laid in bed at 4:30am listening to the cacophony, in my stupor I began to think about cats, and God, and people. I thought about all the times I have whined to God, cried out to Him or acted self-centered and obsessed. I thought about all the times someone else around me has acted self-centered, or whined, and given me a clear picture of what I must look like when I behave that way. Oy!

When the neighborhood cats are doing their caterwauling on your porch while you are trying to sleep, after a while you lose patience and frustration grows. You want to throw a bucket of water on them or something to make them quiet down.

I'm glad God never says the kind of things to me that I have said to/about my cat (and admittedly, my kids):

"Can you believe it? She's little but boy can she make a ton of noise!"
"Can't you see I'm trying to rest here? Tone it down a little!"
"Aaaaaagh! Stop the whining!"
"Where's my water gun?"
and one I heard when I was a child, possibly from my grandmother: "Quitch yer caterwaulin!"

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?”

Two Stories to Every Side

I feel as though a lot more time has gone by since my last post than actually has. In addition to our two cats, our hermit crab, and the chicken that adopted us, our menagerie now includes an African Grey Parrot. That's her in the photo. We don't know why she is almost naked. I do know from having pet birds in the past that a bird that is stressed or bored will over preen and/or pull out its own feathers. The African Grey is a very intelligent species and needs a lot of attention and stimulation to keep them entertained and happy. We plan to buy or make some toys for her cage and spent lots of time nurturing her.

We've learned some interesting things about her already. For one, she bites. Hard. She drew blood her first day here. For another, she likes peanuts. A lot. We've been experimenting with various foods to find out what she likes to eat. So far peanuts are her number one choice, followed by palm nuts, mango, papaya and cabbage. Also, she has quite a repertoire of sounds and at least one comprehensible word: "hello." She can do several whistles, including cat calls, and perfect imitations of the following:

a cat
an owl
the little toy plastic whistles that the police buy and use here
a chicken
a car horn, this was pretty impressive. She totally fooled us.
a person laughing
a magpie, we aren't so impressed with this one
the loud and squeaky wheelbarrow they use everyday on the construction site across the street

We are really hoping that we can find a house and move before she has time to learn how to imitate the neighbor's Guinea fowl, or their constantly crying baby, or their habit of screaming their guard's name loudly.

Speaking of moving, here's an update on our housing situation and a Cool Beans story. After a wonderful week of having power almost constantly, Sunday morning our line went out again. The story from the electric company on Monday was that 25 meters of line was burnt and needed to be replaced. A year ago we paid $75 for three meters, so we figured that to mean it would cost $625 or more. We have to move in less than four weeks, so we told them we could not pay for that. There are other people on the line but it seems like our family is often the only one willing to pay for repairs. We resolved ourselves to having no power until the move.

Fast forward to yesterday. I had caught a stomach bug from David and hadn't been eating, which caused me to wake up with a migraine on top of the nausea. Then I couldn't get the generator to start. I called David and he came home and fixed the generator and took care of Daniel, including making sure he did his school work, so I could go to bed. In the midst of all that the guys from SNEL came and told us their "new assessment" (sound suspicious?) of our power situation.

"That story was for the birds!"

The new verdict was that only ONE meter needed to be replaced and it would cost $100.00. David gave them $20, partly since we knew it was only $20-$25 per meter just last year and partly because it was all we had on hand. He told them that should cover our share and to knock on the other gates if they needed more money. Amazingly, by 6pm we had three phases of electricity for the first time since May. By 7:30 we were down to two again but we were still happy. If it lasts today, we will have made our money back on what we would have spent in generator fuel and we will have had a cold refrigerator, hot water, and a dryer. We are hoping and praying it lasts until we move. I still have a headache today but not a migraine anymore, more of a residual effect that is slowly wearing off. I wanted to share all this because I know lots and lots of you were praying for us yesterday and we could tell. Not only did God take my migraine away and enable David to get the generator running, but He gave us electricity when we thought it was impossible!

Also we MAY have found a house. We are trying to line up a meeting with the landlord and our program manager and work out an arrangement that both parties can agree with. I won't go into details on the house until we know if it's the one. Thanks for praying for us!

Give Me Back My Ziplock Bag (and other things people say in Congo)

The above photo is of our pet chicken.  She literally was washed into our yard by a thunderstorm one night and we couldn't find the owners so we feed her and she stays.  She follows us around like a puppy.  I asked our guard the other day if she ever lays any eggs and he said no.  He said chickens only lay eggs if you feed them "people food." We already were feeding her people food: vegetables and grains.  Unless he meant "people food," as in food made of people.

I often hear people say something funny or absurd and think I’d better write that down or I’ll forget it. That led to a small collection of quotes. These are all statements I have overheard here in Congo. Some were spoken by missionaries and some by nationals. Names of original speakers have been withheld to protect the guilty and/or clueless.

Most of these are just funny, especially if you don’t know the context from which they were spoken and just overhear them from another room:

“I have to speak slowly when I talk to myself.” (my favorite)

“Don’t lick those wires.”

“I wet myself every time I do dishes.”

“Do you want your trash bag back?” (used, that is)

Other statements were made in the context of Congo and the life and climate here:

“Wow! That gift is wrapped in REAL wrapping paper.”

“He painted it a couple months ago. We don’t know why it’s sticky.”

“You can have these cinnamon rolls if you give me back my ziplock bag.” (ziplock bags are like gold here)

“Hey, does this smell bad to you, or just nasty?”

Some, though, are serious and reflective rather than funny. Often life here is challenging and exhausting on all levels: physical, spiritual, mental and emotional. We try to make our home a safe place to “vent” and be honest about how we all feel and at the same time hold each other accountable for bad attitudes and encourage each other to press on. These next two quotes came from some of those types of conversations and pretty well sum up why our family is here right now.

“We live in a dung heap!”   “I know we do, that’s why we moved here.”

 “Of course, if you aren’t going to heaven, Kinshasa is a beautiful place to live.  Consider the alternative.”

Steve Camp has a song called “Run to the Battle” that goes like this: “Some people want to live within the sound of chapel bells, but I want to run a mission a yard from the gates of hell.”  The first time I heard that song I knew nothing about Kinshasa or the Democratic Republic of Congo.  This city, the entire country, is definitely a battleground.  I can't say I always wanted to run a mission a yard from hell's gates, but I sure can relate to another line from the same song: "We may not be many, but we serve a mighty Lord!" And I can't even put into words the way this line affects me "look around you as you hesitate, for another soul just fell."  How could I listen to that song and then tell God that I would not suffer a few inconveniences for the sake of those souls? Pray for all of  God's workers here, that we may not hesitate but be always ready to give an answer to everyone who asks us the reason for the hope that we have (I Peter 3:15).

I Did THIS for YOU!

Of all the frequently heard sounds in our home: laughter, talking, movies/games, kittens, etc; there is one sound I hate to hear.  I don’t know how to describe it, but if you’ve ever heard it you will know what I’m talking about – that nasty popping noise that occurs when an appliance or electrical outlet “blows up.”  Twice this week we’ve turned on a light switch and heard the “pop” while sparks rained down from the light fixture to the floor.  This morning I lost my kitchen outlet while brewing coffee.  So, in a week’s time we are down two lights and our outlet.  

Yesterday I had to deliver two of our kittens to TASOK so they could go home with their new owners.  We just got a new MAF family this week, the Linds, and I invited Lisa to come along and eat lunch on the campus.  On the way home the car broke down again.  Welcome to Congo, Lisa.  I was very grateful that we were within sight of the house when it happened, but a bit disappointed.  The breakdown meant two things for me. First, David and two friends of ours spent all that time working on it and the problem still isn’t repaired.  Second, I won’t be going to the orphanage for a while.  The car can’t make it that far.  To add to the day’s adventure, my daughter came home with one of the kittens.  The boy who was supposed to get the kitten couldn’t take it home because his father had neglected to tell their driver, who refused to allow it in the car.  

The school musical is finally finished.  Emily had both acting and singing parts in the musical and did a wonderful job.  Yes, I am biased, but she really did do wonderfully!  I imagine that David and I looked pretty goofy sitting in the audience with our big grins and beaming faces.   She is already focusing on her next extra-curricular activity: auditioning for the school talent show and assisting Mrs. Francis with the auditions for the elementary school students.  

Tomorrow our church is meeting at sunrise by the Congo River.  Sunrises make me feel hopeful and expectant.  It’s like opening a present on your birthday and finding inside a gift that someone lovingly made with you in mind.  Tomorrow I get to look out over the vast Congo River as the sun plays on the water, coloring the clouds, and think not just about this beautiful world God made, but also about the sacrifice Jesus made, and in my spirit hear Him saying “I did THIS for YOU!”  Have a wonderful Easter! 

Bad Tasting Medicine

photo credit: Reusable Art

Daniel was sick this week.  When you live in or have traveled to Africa, and you develop a sudden high fever, it is prudent to test for malaria.  Daniel tested negative and it turned out to be just a "bug."  He's much better now.  He's a pretty smart kid, getting sick during the school week and then recovering in time for the weekend.  The rest of us seem to have managed to fight off whatever it is he caught thus far.  Emily's youth group is going on a retreat next week during spring break, so pray for their safety and for the speaker.  Last year Josh and Emily came back spiritually refreshed and physically exhausted.  The kittens have opened their eyes and are starting to actually walk, as opposed to dragging their little bodies around with their front legs like seals.  We are really enjoying them.  I can't say the same about their mama today since last night she decided to sharpen her claws on my Bible and tore up parts of John and Acts.  I was tired and left it on the table, opened, when I went to bed.  I should have known better.  She's always had a paper fetish.  

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

I count it a privilege as well as a calling to home school.  Once one of the kids, at a young age, came to me with a question about the history lesson on the life of Abraham.  “Mom, what’s circumcision?”  I explained.  A couple of days later, the same child asked, “Mom, what’s weaning?”  I explained.  The next day, as my child was getting out books and preparing to read a history lesson, I heard this proclamation: “I don’t think I wanna ask anymore questions about history!”  I asked why and my child replied: “cause I don’t like the answers.”

            I love that my kids feel comfortable being honest and direct with me, even if it means telling me they don’t like my answers.  When I heard my child’s statement, I suppressed my laugh and we talked about how even if what we discuss isn’t a fun or comfortable subject, I would always give truthful answers.   

            Sometimes I have to hear truths that I don’t find enjoyable.  Like this morning when I woke up and my husband told me the cat had torn up my Bible.  Or when someone I love was diagnosed with cancer.  Or when God reveals something to me that I need to repent of or surrender to Him.  Sometimes I feel like saying to God: “I don’t think I want to ask you to search my heart anymore.”   Other times I don’t want to ask God what his will is about something because I already know it, or think I do, and I don’t want to hear it.  Sometimes the truth is like a bad tasting medicine.  It tastes awful, and we don't want to take it, but once ingested it works for our good.

            I’m grateful that I can trust God to always give me truthful answers.  He IS the Truth.  I can be confident that even if what He tells me is unpleasant, it is for my good, so I need not be afraid to hear it.

The Truth Will Set You Free (John 8:31) (Photo credit: technovore)

On Being Jealous of a Cat

page created with "Doodle Pets" kit by Michelle McCoy of Scrapbook MAX!

     A few months ago a half-grown, starving cat wandered to our home.  “Piper” quickly became part of our family.  This week Piper had kittens!  She tried to have her babies on a prom dress that had been given to Emily.  I caught her clawing at it and shut her out of Emily’s room.  She was so determined to use that dress (We girls do like pretty dresses!) that she stood outside Emily’s door for a very long time and went into labor in the hallway so we had to move her. 

     I’m a little bit jealous of Piper right now.  Not because she had five babies in one day OR because she now lives most of her life in a laundry basket.  She’s strong.  She only meowed once through the whole ordeal of birthing five kittens.  My own labors were a teensy bit less serene.  She had her old figure back within 24 hours.  (absolutely NOT FAIR!)   She always seems to know what to do for her babies.  Piper is a good little momma.  She never seems to get upset or angry.  She EVEN looks like she is smiling while she’s laying there in that basket nursing five babies at once for twenty hours out of every day.  Even if she could talk, I don’t think she would complain.  It's not her nature to complain.  Elliot, our other cat, complains enough for both of them anyway.

     Piper instinctively knows what I too often forget: “It’s not about me.” I want to see even the most mundane tasks as golden opportunities to bless and nurture my kids.  I want to be more patient and gentle.  I want to go about the business of managing our home pleasantly, not with grumbling and complaining.  I want to “shine like stars in the universe” as I hold out the word of life to my children and to everyone else around me. 

     I am grateful for God’s mercy and grace when I make mistakes as a mom.  I’m also grateful that I can trust Him to continue transforming me into a more Christ-like person and finish what He has started in me.

Surprise!

When we arrived in Congo, two MAF families here had recently been blessed with litters of kittens. As soon as they were old enough, we acquired one female from each litter, hoping they would become good mousers and buggers. (Is "buggers" even a word? How about "roachers?") We named them Lydia and Fiddlesticks, Liddie and Fiddle for-short. Well, Liddie rapidly learned to catch roaches, earning her lots of brownie points in my book, since I detest them so much. We'll just say Fiddle has other endearing qualities. I happened to glance up as Liddie was walking away from me the other day and I noticed she did not look quite right. Liddie, we discovered, is a boy cat. So, now I have a boy and a girl, both rapidly approaching sexual maturity, and I am thinking I need to find a vet AND FAST. Emily and I decided this morning that calling him Lydia just won't do, and unless the rest of the family votes it down, we want to rename him "Elliot". We thought about naming him Merlin, since he tricked all of us, but he really does look more like an Elliot. This will take some getting used to. We all keep calling him a her out of habit. Poor guy. Here are some photos. The little calico on the bottom is Fiddle. The one on top with stripes is Liddie, I mean Elliot.

Full Speed Ahead

I haven't forgotten to blog, I just haven't had time. We have had our van in the shop again. Old story. Hopefully it will be finished soon. We went camping this past week with some friends of ours. Primitive camping. Bring your own water and dig your own potty camping. We were right on the bank of the Current River. The kids got to play in the water. Our friends have horses and brought them along so we all got to take turns riding horses in some really beautiful country. We had a blast until Friday. Friday morning, David woke up in pain and having trouble breathing. By the time we broke camp and drove four hours to home he was worse. One of our friends with us is a doctor so he checked David out and promptly sent him to the hospital. He has pericarditis, an inflammation in the sac surrounding his heart. We aren't sure if it is viral or if it was brought on by a response to his yellow fever vaccine. He got to come home yesterday and is slowly regaining his strength. The doctor said his heart wasn't damaged and he should be himself again in a few weeks. We are going crazy packing and sorting. Last week we also said goodbye to our dog and turned her over to her new owner. She went to a really sweet lady who I know will be kind to her, but it still hurt all of us to let her go. We miss her. We also celebrated Daniel's 8th birthday. I have pics from the campout but in all the chaos of taking care of David I left my cameras at our friends' house and didn't have it for Daniel's birthday celebration. I used Josh's camera but his flash is broken. If any of them turn out I'll post some later. We are taking some stuff to David's brother's for storage, wrapping up loose ends, packing for Canada, trying to plan a yard sale, and hopefully leaving on Monday, so I'll probably not be blogging for a while. We expect to arrive in Canada on the 24th. We'll have a week to get Josh enrolled in school and get school supplies and learn our way around town before school starts. So, our adventure is going full-speed and about to take a turn in a new direction. We are excited, but there are constant reminders that we can't do this in our own strength. Praise God that we don't have to and aren't supposed to!