It's Hot Now

The thermometer reads 107˚ F. We've had a long spring, full of rain and thunderstorms. The wind a few days ago nearly blew away my poor chicks and chickens and the dust that came with it has turned the sky tan for days. But even this is something to be thankful for. After all, the temperature would be considerably higher if it weren't for the dust. Our swamp cooler is able to keep the house at a comfortable 85˚ F, for which we are quite thankful, now that the city power isn't on as much. We can run the swamp cooler off of generator power.

I've been walking at the park some mornings and we're considering moving it earlier because we feel sluggish walking in the sunshine even at 7:30am. Another group of girls has begun running even earlier and I'm not sure if I'll join them or opt for a gym fee and some air conditioning instead of the heat and dust.

I'm memorizing Psalm 23 in Kurdish today... or rather working on it today. I struggle memorizing Scripture in English. But I always tell my kids that memorizing helps learn language and gets you used to the patterns that occur in it. So I'm taking some of my own advice. I'm going to write it up on one of the tiles in my kitchen in wet-erase marker.

Other than that... I graded my tests, I mopped the floor, I started a load of laundry, and now I might just take a nap to ward off the head cold/allergies that I'm fighting. Life is good.

213. Laughter at the dinner table
214. Good wine
215. Kind friends who tell you nice things
216. New desktop sticky notes program
217. Kevin graduated
218. Chickens liking watermelon
219. Our swamp cooler
220. Being done grading my tests
221. Spring smells in the park in the morning
222. New breakfast ideas
223. New sister discovered
224. Student presentations
225. Pleasant picnic spots
226. B. talking to a small brown bird
227. Mr. R's charisma with the students... they're wrapped around his finger
228. Students' love for their teachers
229. Good conversations

After the hard times...

After the hard times filled with Satan's lies, after pushing through and demanding the snake's silence, after going back to my knees with thanksgiving, humility, and death to self...

Then it comes.

The vision of grace.



God's glory unfurled if only for a moment or even a series of moments stacked one upon the other. And I am thrilled down into my marrow at the seemingly random fitting into place. I am amazed at how God doesn't always call the people we think he will, he redeems the Moabite widow, the harlot of Jericho, the girl who cried in the hallway slicing her arms, Saul who persecuted the church, the boy whose atheism sounded loud through the years, and God builds his kingdom step by step.

And in a moment my heavenly family grows and I see how God put things together that I never could have and how the ugly is used for his purpose and how my failure was what what was needed and how our great mistakes can be the answer to someone's prayer.

Do you ever have days where the lies of the enemy crowd in around you and you can barely hear yourself pray because of the din they make in your mind? ...where you see the good work of others and despair because you know you will never be that kind of person, have that talent, be that impressive, have that charisma? The distraction of this cacophony can be intense like a screeching microphone during a speech. The pressure bows the shoulders and tries to push tears from the eyes.

The enemy says, "You don't impact these peoples' lives, why even try? You won't be remembered by any of these students. You don't make a difference. You might as well go back to the States for all the good you do here! Other people are far better at this than you. Why are you even here?"

But this is where He goes wrong. Being remembered isn't the point. And if I look only to myself each statement is true. But while I can't make a difference, God can and HE has asked me to be here. I can't accomplish good here, but God can and HE has called me to be here. Other people may be far better at this or more talented, wiser, more impressive, but God's power is made perfect in weakness. Myself must die; I don't matter.

As the lies of the devil lose their power, the noise quiets, and I am in the quiet again. How do people survive if they are really the center of their worlds, if it is really they that matter?

Does the leaf complain that it is transitory and falls to the ground instead of being a more lasting piece of trunk?

Empty and Full

Some Days...

Some days the internet is so slow that I give up on posting altogether.

Some days Easter is so sad to be left outside with the other chickens that I take her inside with me and even let her sit on my shoulder for a while as I write blog posts or try to load various searches and pages.

Some days the sky is the most beautiful thing I can imagine as it fills with rain, clouds, and lighting. But almost as much as that is the cool air it brings and the delay of the desert heat.

Some days I can barely think of my class work as I marvel at the change wrought in some by the Great God of Heaven.

Some days my allergies are so overwhelming that I just curl up and take a nap.

Some days I get to play games with my sister over Skype and how awesome is that!

Some days the chick falls asleep on my touch pad and makes it difficult to navigate.

Some days I want to do nothing more than clean my room but it still isn't high enough on the priority list to be accomplished that day.

Some days I pour water on the B-ball coach's head to make friends with the girls and to make them laugh.

Who doesn't need...

A Happy Chick Pic!

Reveling in Rain

The Orange Tree

(My late Monday post due to lack of internet)

This is the first year I’ve owned an orange tree. It is small and this year it put on three buds. I watched those buds and waited… I thought at one point that they were ready to bloom. I expected them soon. But time went on and the buds got bigger and bigger. They became nearly triple their earlier size. I had no idea how far they had to come before they would finally bloom. Would they ever bloom? Then one day one petal folded itself out of one bud. By the next day all three were open and fragrant, permeating the patio with glory. And at the same time, but waited for and prayed for many years rather than weeks, the full blooming of a new creature in Christ was born. And the fragrance was revealed before the telling and the permeating of God’s glory in this new creature will not fade like the flower, will not wither and will never die.

192. The American Christians in Michigan who help Kurds... such an impact.
193. Halparke
194. Beautiful fabrics that make me dream of my next jili kurdi
195. Me actually wishing for the baby I'm holding to spit up on me (how funny is that... I thought I wanted to go home.)
196. Fake cheering and applause played over a speaker
197. The bobby Dutch groom learning to dance Kurdish style
198. Writing thank-you's by strobe light!
199. Baby Zhian and all her cuteness and slobber
200. The servant-king/beggar-king
201. Staring at the sun, round and clear through the dust
202. Persian Rugs
203. Child prayers
204. The pigeon and his iridescent blue black feathers beside the soft brown koterie bird
205. Softy's continued flights carrying sticks up to build her nest
206. Black Highlander Grogg coffee
207. Toasted bagels with cream cheese
208. Good conversations with friends on the phone
209. Leaving messages for my family
210. The answers to my student's question being in God's hands not mine
211. The orange tree blossoms
212. New life in a person

The First Crow

I think Pushy is a rooster. The comb on his head is far higher than Pecky's... although Pecky seems to have quite the tuft developing. Today, though, I think he tried to crow. He became serious looking and lengthened his neck out and made a funny noise... something between clearing your throat and honking... but quiet.


I know, I know... I've got dozens of pictures of my chicks. They are just the most willing photography subjects and give me the opportunity to play with all sorts of lighting and movement. Chicken photos are my new hobby. =)

Phases

We all know that we go through phases in life. Some of these phases are determined by our likes or dislikes: a cooking phase, a stamping phase, the phase we went through in 5th grade where we only wore pink. (Most fifth grade girls have a pink phase... even in the Middle East!) Other phases are a little more out of our control. They can look the same, like my sister's phase of wearing pink that came not of her own desire but because all the hand-me-downs were that color. (Sadly, she hated pink and still does.) Others that fall in this category are phases of frugality or wealth, phases of business or more rest, singleness, motherhood, or retirement.


I am beginning a new phase. This is the phase of being alone. I've had phases like this before. One of the best things about phases is that you know they won't last forever. Nearly all of my close friends and housemates have left the country. It happens when you live overseas... people go back to their home country or they move on somewhere else. But when all leave at once it can leave you feeling a bit at a loss. There is loss. And in a life with much work and few believers it can be hard to find that friendship and fellowship that fits into the rest of life.

I am thankful for this phase of alone. I should be able to spend more time reading and doing language study. And I'd like to spend more time in prayer as well. I have high hopes.

And as one of my students so aptly reminded me... God is not a phase. Christianity is not a phase.

170. Drenching rain with my sister and one last lightning storm together
171. Giggling past 1am
172. Choking tears of finality
173. Buying a basketball rim
174. A successful Kurdish phone call
175. Leveled benches
176. Laughing over dishwashers and tea-bags
177. Coconut-milk in the refrigerator section
178. Laurel's visit and all the games and backrubs
179. Giving my students something to be thankful about
180. Student saying, "Oh yeah, he's cool." in reference to God
181. Listening to a French Quartet perform live
182. Bad acoustics
183. Plucked violins and cellos
184. People who say hello, good bye, good morning, good night, and thank you
185. Little chicken feathers and stretching wings
186. Nursing mothers
187. Fellowship
188. Spontaneous hairspray adventures
189. Praying during the call to prayer
190. The Iranian woman... and her story translated through
191. Fruit that looks like it is glowing

The Storm

I've been thinking. This is a problem. My brain can get ahead of itself. I have so many words, thoughts, ideas, concepts running through my head. The connections between them are lightning... fast, bright, crackling and sparkling. A moment after I can't really see them anymore but the imprint is burned into my retina and a shadow still remains.

I'd like to draw out a bubble chart as the Bible, One Thousand Gifts (by Ann Voskamp), Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl (by N.D. Wilson), and the Odyssey all collide in this tornado . I read Rasselas (by Samuel Johnson) next with my students and I know that that will only add force to whipping wind that swirls in my head.

At moments it's just confusion, at other times I've been drenched in the rain of revelation, where things suddenly make sense... a word or phrase fills me with understanding and sinks in deep, I'm wet through with it.

I am in a good place. It's hard place. But my God has given it to me and he only gives good gifts. Sometimes my favorite gifts are the thunderstorms.

Easter Thoughts

"What Have I Got to Do with Easter?!"

It's amazing how we use hard-boiled eggs to represent life and resurrection for Easter. I've never quite caught the vision for the parallel. It has always seemed an image pushed too hard, an attempt at Christianizing a symbol taken too far. After all, hard-boiled eggs? Really? Whatever might have grown in there is dead. Really.

It wasn't until I actually got chicks that this idea began to make sense. I've been researching about chicks and chickens a lot lately. I don't know if mine will be hens or roosters; I don't even know really how old they are. I looked at photos and drawings of the various stages of growth and gender traits. This is where I found "candling". This is how breeders tell if an egg is fertilized or not, by whether various certain details show up in the egg when a bright light is shined through it.

And while I've always known eggs carried chicks, I caught some of the enthusiasm for the coming life that eggs can be anticipatory of. As I imagined my own chickens laying eggs some day and how each of them came from an egg of their own, I saw how an egg could be a symbol of life. It became more real to me. That said... I love Easter.

153. The propane truck's ice cream song warbled with the call to prayer-makes me laugh!
154. Life is not an emergency.
155. Watercoloring with Laurel and her painting of a yellow umbrella
156. Funny Boggle words
157. Beautiful bagels in the oven
158. Borrowed eggs
159. Meeting new people in my cleaning clothes
160. Sunbeams revealed through orange dusty air
161. The smell of rain and the sound of rain on a covered football stadium
162. An orange and yellow sunbeam quilt with the word "Hope"
163. A little girl with her head on daddy's shoulder and wrapped in his arms
164. A deep Scottish voice leading songs on Easter
165. Man in jili kurdi, with guitar and sunglasses... a traditional "rockstar"
166. Young charismatic Kurdish man preaches and is translated by conservative middle-aged reserved Scottish man
167. Christ is risen and gives us new life
168. The glint of sun off of jili kurdi pants, orange, white, pink, silver...
169. The seed of woman is not limited to biologically birthed children

Last night I took 3000 photos

I kept these five.

When the head aches...

I step into the school building, a veritable flood of noisy children running and screaming in every direction, forming eddies around the pillars that hold up the swooping marble staircase. The whole place echoes, it wasn't made for any sort of quiet. The tile walls and floors bounce the sounds around over and over again, magnifying the effect on the ears.

Up the staircase and down the hallway, cliques of adolescent girls or boys gather like dust bunnies in corners or around trash bins. Their voices mingle with the crunch of chips, the smell of overcooked hot dogs, and the vision sunbeams showing in the dusty air.

Entering the classroom with no doorknob, accidentally kicking an empty water bottle left on the floor, and piling my things on the empty student desk at the front of the classroom, I let out a sigh and smile at the students who are milling around the room. It's warm today, but not bright. The haze hides some of the sun, and the students have pasted pieces of paper to the windows to keep from being blinded on the sunnier days.

I smile, nod. Some rush past me with a mumbled phrase in Kurdish or English. Rubbing hard, I erase that morning's math lesson from the white board, the ink well soaked in and all over. In a few minutes, the bell will ring... a mass of students, half of them screaming, will rush toward their classrooms. Others will dawdle, waiting until the last minute to enter, pretending to throw away trash or that they were in the bathroom. And then, then, I'll quiet them, then I begin. Then it finally gets quiet enough for me to hear the pain throbbing in my head and I am filled with wonder.

Thanks:
142. That the headache comes on a day where I have very little lecturing to do.
143. A silky bright orange scarf
144. Boxes with gifts from friends and family
145. Little cheepers running towards me for breakfast
146. Starting thankfulness lists with my Muslim students... who knows...
147. The painting Pauli made for me
148. New cross-stitch colors to fill in missing spots
149. Laurel's willingness to take care of me
150. Water... that we can drink it and it tastes good!
151. Language lesson revelations... I finally understood the word for wash in the present tense!
152. Giving away books and stories of others who have given away books

Five-Minute Friday: On Distance

Ok... I know it's not Friday. Maybe next week I'll get it on the right day. But here goes...



Over at Gypsy Mama, there's the prompt to write for five minutes without worrying about whether or not everything is all perfect and correct. So... I thought it would be good for me to try. The prompt was "On Distance".

So, here goes!

On Distance

Rich Mullins has a song about how the “other side of the world is not so far away as I thought that it was…” and sometimes it feels true. I live on the other side of the world and my home is not on either side of the world and on both sides I have homes. What is distance when this is the case? How far away is heaven? Even 3 days of airports and airplanes can’t get me there. But it takes longer, a lifetime, and shorter, a moment of death.

That is the distance that seems the furthest and yet the end is coming sooner than it seems. And yet, some days I feel like I have come farther than I wanted to; I am ready to leap into heaven. Why do I feel this way when so many people I know cling to life like it is everything? I do not plan to leave friends and family, do not wish to make them sad, but to be truly home? What better thing can I think of? There is no home on earth for me. I yearn for it, while I make temporary homes here in one country or another.

I feel the foreignness more than most people I know, I think. I cannot delude myself into thinking that I belong here or where I grew up. I can taste my difference.

131-141

131. Our new table in our kitchen, the smell of wood and varnish

132. Boggle games with my sister and finding the words league and malaise

133. Cooking fresh green beans

134. Learning new vocabulary

135. Cilantro and basil sprouts

136. The word home cut out of an orange magazine page

137. Enthusiastic student speeches reveling in classical music

138. Fresh homemade bagels with my sister

139. This year's Starbuck's Tribute blend of coffee

140. Being able to listen to Christa Wells even though Amazon won't let me buy her music because I don't live in the U.S.

141. Sunsets caught with my new camera

Jeepers Cheepers?

This is Pecky.
This is Pushy.

I now have 4 chicks:two older ones, and two new little ones. Fortunately they are all getting along great. Now we just have to wait and see if they are hens or roosters.

These two are Twitch and Hermes.

121-130

121. My mom and sister flying half way around the world to visit me!

122. Lizzy's back!

123. New photo possibilities with a new camera... hopefully more to come... once I figure out how it works... =D

124. The sound of my sister waking up in the morning.

125. My mom making a whole pot of coffee in the morning.

126. Pecky and Pushy nesting in my sister's hair.

127. A tan sky about to pour rain

128. Sugarfree cinnamon gum

129. Waking myself up in the middle of the night speaking Kurdish

130. Ten copies of "One Thousand Gifts" by Ann Voskamp to give away (soooo excited!)

Good Work...

There are some days where I enjoy nothing so much as housework. Today was one of those. I dread the pile of grading that awaits me. But cleaning my house for the arrival of a good friend, my mom, and my sister thrills me to my toes.

I have realized however, that my house looks a little ghetto. Nothing matches. I've been so blessed to inherit things from a wide variety of households (this means I actually have enough bedding, etc, to host people!), but it also means that none of it was bought with any thought for the other things in the room. Thus, coordinating colors or decorating themes are not even to be dreamed of. That combined with the style and patterns found in Middle Eastern items makes it even less cohesive than it might otherwise be.

Part of the amazement in this is that I don't normally notice these things anymore. I don't think about it again until I try to look at it with my mother's eyes. When I see how my sister (who's amazing decorative abilities have painted nearly every wall in her house) might see these places and items, I'm a little embarrassed. It's a good thing she's so nice!

But none of that makes it not worth it for them to come. I'm SOOOOO excited! =D

The Smell of Warm Dust

It is amazing how certain smells, however unpleasant, can be the triggers of amazing feelings of home, warmth, or happiness. In the winter it is the smell of kerosene and the heater fumes which although minimal, permeate everything. The other day I walked past a man who was smoking a cigar and it smelled exactly like a smell in my pastor's house in the States. I also once met a man here that wore the same cologne as my brother and it really caught me off guard. But now, in April, there begins a new smell... a summer and adventure smell... the smell of warm dust. It blows in and coats every thing every day. I hate dust. But the smell of warm dust is exciting and full of promise to me. I know; odd. But it is one of the many things I am thankful for.

110. Brightly colored flash card pile

111. That chicks have distinctive personalities... who knew!

112. Finding a notebook with colors and words that I am not ashamed of carrying around... it says "Nautre show charm to express the greatness of God." Misspellings and grammar problems included for everyone's enjoyment!

113. My students helping me with confusing vocabulary.

114. Finding the Odyssey read aloud by Ian McKellan

115. The birthdays of little girls and seeing people grow

116. Being considered a ravishing beauty here... trying to be thankful... it does feel nice to be admired... right? Being thankful even when it creates awkward situations because I don't know how God might be using it in the lives of the people who see how I respond... (like everyone in the grocery store).

117. Star Trek... comforting in an odd sort of way... reminds me of home and when I was young.

118. Prshing... sunbeams!

119. Having a headache go away

120. Bananas that are more amazing than any I've had in the States