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

101-109

101. People who will brave the crazy sandwich shop to get me dinner.

102. My parents willingness to research and advise on camera choices.

103. How thrilled people are here when I dress in their traditional clothing.

104. All the birds that live on our house.

105. Coffee in the morning.

106. Vacation where I can spend an hour reading (not school stuff) and not feel guilty.

107. Eucalyptus mint lotion from Bath and Body Works.

108. Feeling very protected and safe, even on a busy street full of people, even when I stick out with my blond hair.

109. Having accomplished a lot on my lesson plans.

Happy Newroz!

94-100

94. New camera anticipation. I've been dreaming of taking pictures again for weeks now as I researched various brands, prices, bells and whistles. Decided on the Panasonic FZ40 as a good balance for my needs here.

95. The smell of hyacinths

96. Spring temperatures

97. Dinner and games with friends with no two people from the same country!

98. According to above... that I even have friends!

99. Happy flashcards (bright colors and unusual combinations!)

100. My parents who buy me whatever I want (the day after I send them a list) and send it to me! (Aren't they just so sweet to me!)

On Buying a New Camera

Ok... so as some of you might know, my camera is taking a long (most likely permanent) vacation in a lost and found storage room somewhere between Seattle, WA and Istanbul, Turkey. Since then I've been searching around for a new camera. Now, I like taking pictures and I do need one for some of my work here. I've saved up some money, but certainly not the thousands of dollars needed to buy a truly fantastically amazing more-than-I-could-ever-need sort of camera. I'm not interested in one of those anyway. But I've learned more and more about photography and I do want something beyond your most basic point and shoot. Did you know there are about 3million options out there online? How's a girl to know? I've read tons of reviews. There are pros and cons to every product. One person raves about a camera's awesomeness... another says it was the worst purchase EVER! Scary. And a purchase here isn't some short term trial. There's no send it back the next day sort of thing, someone has to carry it back halfway across the world in a suitcase.

The one I'm looking at right now is Canon SX30IS. Anyone know anything about it? I've read tons and it looks like it could be a good fit and would allow me to take images from a safe distance as I hate to feel the tourist in the place where I LIVE. Awkward.

Pondering

• Ancient Greek History... condensing years of education into roughly a month of classes.

• The Odyssey... interesting, fruitful, and self-directed activities relevant to 10th graders.

• Kurdish Language... verb tenses, pronouns agglutinating into verbs, and vocabulary in general.

• Plants... when will they grow!

• "I will glory in my Redeemer..."

• Conflict and Confrontation... how does one communicate these sorts of things without freaking out, how does one know when these things ought to be communicated.
  

• Vacuuming and Clothes in the Dryer... waiting for the city power, will it come back before midnight?

85. Successfully hosting team dinner
86. The plant selling Arab man's smile
87. Quiet
88. The pigeon-dove cooing with the hymns playing
89. The orange-red chicken on my sidewalk this afternoon
90. Wind-- the rusha-ba
91. People who hug me and help me with dishes
92. Understanding the "Betterness" of some things
93. Dreams that seem so real and tangible that they teach something

74-84

74. My first sprout in my garden... one in the flower box!

75. A cherry tree near my language teacher's house in full bloom.

76. People who care about me being alone.

77. Getting through my whole stack of language flashcards before my next lesson.

78. Sangria

79. Settlers of Catan game nights with friends

80. Beautiful journals with small lines

81. A clean kitchen

82. Friends to serve

83. God's peace after a storm

84. Two weeks of holiday!

Not Exactly Twitterpated

Twitter is a huge fad: one I always hoped to avoid.

Then the people I work for decided that this huge fad would be a good way to communicate and hopefully do some recruiting for more teachers in my area.

So, today, I signed up for twitter. I officially made my first "tweet". And I gave myself one more thing that I have to keep track of.

Why are they called "tweets" anyway? Is it because "a little bird told me"? Sounds like the perfect excuse for accelerated gossip to me. But what is used for evil the hands of some, God can use for good. So here goes...

Fix-it Success

For over a year now, our dryer has had some sort of problem with it's handle. It wouldn't spring back after it shut. It took some fidgeting to get it to latch so that the dryer would actually run. Today, it suddenly occurred to me that I should see if I could fix it. I took out all the screws in the door and it came apart pretty easily. Then I had the handle in my hand and two little pieces of rusty metal wire of some sort. This is what it is supposed to look like:

On ours the two metal wires with loops were broken off about half an inch past the plastic. It took me a while to figure out what it was supposed to look like... searched and found this image online where you could buy a replacement part for a different brand. Hmmm.... heavy duty wire, that bends, but returns to it's original shape... This is not something I have in piles around my home. But, being a teacher, I do have these:

So I took one of the silver metal parts and fit it into the handle next to the broken wires. (They were still holding some parts together.) And then I tested it out. It worked! Our dryer handle is fully functional now... just hope it stays that way.

Thanks to my awesome parents who taught me to think creatively and how to fix things!

67-73

Knowing when it is the right time or topic to confront someone is a tricky thing. It doesn't matter what the issue is, big or small, but it stresses me as I walk and pray and walk and pray. It is something I would choose NEVER to do if I had my way. If people don't understand what I say and become defensive, I get nervous and even more unclear. It's all lost at that point. I should just walk away. My inner child (if I have one) crawls in under the stairs and weeps. It might be something else weeping down there. And this leads me to some of the reasons I am thankful...

67. I work with a team of people who are gracious and will forgive.

68. They say thank you even when I've been a jerk.

69. They teach me not to assume that everyone understands things the same way I do.

And in other things...

70. Electricity in the morning

71. Food in the house so that I can cook

72. Progress on the compost bin

73. Sunshine and warmer weather

What's in YOUR Wallet?

Marijuana

I need the perfect, sinless sacrifice of Jesus Christ who can take all the broken messes and make them into mosaics of Grace. --Ann Voskamp

My students laugh at me when I tell them all things are grace. They tell me that I sound like I'm on drugs. I am... I've found the cure.

Blessings

Did you know that some people buy ambient noises for their homes, like ocean waves and birds chirping. Well, here, that's the kind of thing we get for free! Not the ocean sounds, unfortunately. But there are some birds nesting in the hole in our wall that is for the AC/heater cords and hoses to go out. It makes for some interesting listening in the morning especially. I think they are some sort of sparrow. It was a little unnerving one morning, however, when I found a feather on our floor under the hole.

59-66

59. Dirt and the hope of a compost bin

60. Reminders of God's promises from others

61. Going jacketless to language lessons

62. Having people I can e-mail when I'm broken

63. A 'cuppa' with some old friends

64. Getting my grades entered into my computer

65. 800 mg Ibuprofen

66. Being totally out of my comfort zone

55-58

I don't feel like being thankful today. But I am thankful:

55. That no one is threatening my life.

56. That I enjoy my Kurdish class even when I'm tired.

57. That God convicts me of sin and that even when I don't want to let my bitterness go I see that it is worth it because God is worth so much more than my hurt feelings.

58. For my quiet bedroom.

A Day in My Life...

The alarm went off at 5:55am, which wasn't too bad since I'd been to bed on time the night before. I got up, called my mom and we talked for about an hour until the power went out at 7am. I took a shower, got ready for the day, and began my fifteen minute timers. Fifteen minutes in the living room, fifteen in the kitchen, fifteen in the bathroom... I skipped my bedroom one because I cleaned it pretty well yesterday and used it to mix up a batch of bagels instead. I took the trash out that Molly had bagged up, removed the "Die America" sign from the windshield of my car, and carried up a new propane tank. Did you know that if you want that rusty colored jeans look all you need to do is carry a large rusty propane tank up your stairs! Voila! $100 dollar jean look for only 7,000 dinar! It's a deal! I did some grading and got the bagels in the oven. Now I'm off to a homeschool mom's meeting and it's only 11am! Happy Day!

The Disciplined Life

Today: Feeling convicted. How often am I one of those who "joyful rise"? Do I offer each morning to God? It's his anyway. Why don't I? Elizabeth Elliot put it well:

We make a huge joke about our self-indulgence and treat with amusement our failure to pull ourselves out of bed early enough to get to work without a hectic rush. An eighteenth-century hymn by Thomas Ken would seem quaint nowadays:

Awake my soul, and with the sun
Thy daily stage of duty run:
Shake off dull sloth and joyful rise
To pay thy morning sacrifice.

46-54

46. Pouring drenching brown rain that turns everything to mud including the tile patio, but it makes the sky clear!

47. Not getting days off for local rioting because it means my kids (students) aren't curiously wandering about the streets getting hurt.

48. Helping resolve issues peacefully between friends.

49. Ranch dressing... enough said.

50. Talking with the neighbor lady and being able to be a friend who knows what it is like to live in a different culture and learn a new language. (She's used to living in the UK, but doesn't speak English.)

51. A water bottle full of Airborne to drink all morning in class.

52. Being caught up on my grading (even if it was only 12 hours!)

53. Whoever it was that switched on the neighborhood power breaker to our house (we were running the dryer)... thank you!

54. Reading Psalms with my kids... we can't get to God... SO MUCH TRUTH!

I can't even think about anything else anymore except good conversations with my students as they walk themselves through their own depravity. The Word is so logical. Everything follows. How amazing is that!

Praying

I think I am learning to pray for things that I've never thought of. I prayed for a table and God has promised me one. I've prayed for years for the harvest here and I was told it was here, ready, now by a great man. And now, when I go to pray for something that is not as big and certainly not as important, I hesitate. Is this really what God wants? Is this really something worth praying for?

As a young girl I remember my mother teaching me that nothing is too small to pray for. Having searched through the shoe basket what seemed a hundred times I was then praying to find my lost shoe to put on for church.

NOTHING is too small for the God who made cells and atoms and electrons and amoebas and fingerprints and isn't this a horribly and amazingly complicated "backdrop" for the story that God is so flamboyantly writing?

So I pray for books. Enough to give away to aching expat women. Pray with me.

40-45

40. Pictures of my friends babies. (So cute!)

41. Texts that wake me up at 3am from a dear friend 11 time zones away.

42. The toys and puzzles in my house getting played with.

43. Green tea and white pear scented candles.

44. Relying on God for provision in every area of life... and how this becomes a habit after extended practice.

45. Having lasted longer in the psychological war with my students than they expected. (They tell me they are now going to bring out the big guns!)

Happy

34-39

34. The smell of bacon cooking. I live in the Middle East; this is truly an amazing thing.

35. My yellow tablecloth.

36. Asking God for some kind of extra time off and actually getting it. (Who knew that a celebration of Muhammad's birthday could be an answer to prayer.)

37. A clean house.

38. Listening to sermons on Ecclesiastes. I'm so excited to teach this next week.

39. Molly wearing a camo adventure hat.

My students' next writing topic...

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man's spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshipper entertains high or low thoughts of God. For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself.”

- A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy.

Molida

Here, there isn't 24 hours a day of electricity. The city provides anywhere between 6-12 hours of power which lately has been at about half power, leaving lights dim and the refrigerator off. Then we have Molida, or a neighborhood generator. This gives us what we pay for, about 6 amps. It isn't enough to run heaters or the hot water heater but does great for lights, computers, and the internet. We've discovered that it will also run the microwave... but only in segments of time less than 30 seconds. After 30 seconds it will flip our neighborhood fuse.

This all leads up to the point that I just spent almost 10 minutes heating up my soup in 30 second increments. Sometimes I wonder where the time goes... this is one of the places.

26-33

26. Gerbera daisies in bright colors

27. New lamps with bulbs that are more than 20 watts! I love light!

28. A team who loves me in spite of my faults.

29. The book of Judges and how it, too, points to Christ

30. The aroma of Highlander Grog Coffee

31. The eyes of someone desperately concerned about their sin

32. Making dinner for a large group of people! (As a single girl with one roommate this isn't everyday for me!)

33. Having made it to the age of 27.

I Win!

I managed to celebrate my birthday without my class being in an uproar, without a super dry oil frosted cake, without silly string or crazy snow, and without any perfume being given me as a present. I win!!!

Thankful... trying...

I am remembering that this large pile of grading means that I have students who are working hard and turning in their homework and learning things.