Day Five: White Sands National Monument

Day Four: Albuquerque to Cloudcroft

Wake up.  Take forever to get out of the hotel.  Quick stop to Trader Joe's for snacks turns into eons of fighting over juice and shrimp rolls.  Spill peanut sauce over every square inch of the van.  Drive and drive and drive (four whole hours this time).  Meet Aunt Shelley and Kacie for ice cream, and the fun begins!  Arrive at the Alamogordo Zoo thirty minutes before closing.  Zip through the zoo on turbo speed. Head up the mountains to Cloudcroft.  End the day in a pile of legs and pillows and boy snuggles, as Jude has refused to nap all day and is falling apart.  Breathe the cool, fresh mountain air; my soul smiles and sighs.

Day Three: Moab, UT to Albuquerque, NM

10am to 8pm

Word of the day: “Albu-turkey”

Same as day 2, it took us forever to get moving this morning. It becomes blatantly obvious what Hank is good at when he is not here to do it (i.e. rouse the troops to motion). Of course, it didn't help things that we stopped three times in the first hour for a latte, bathroom, and The Wilson Arch. But how could we pass this up?

Further on down the road we came to Mesa Verde National Park, another lengthy but altogether rewarding detour. Upon entering the park, we immediately determined which cliff dwelling could be reached without a half-day hike and pack mules (okay, really none of them required those measures but at this point in the day I have a just-awakened three-year-old and a yet un-napped two-year-old). We zip down the trail to the Spruce Tree House ruins, a priceless visual aid to the history sentence we learned just a few weeks ago in school: The Anasazi of the southwestern US built adobe villages in the sides of the cliffs from 500 BC to 1200 AD. The kids and I enthusiastically inspected the ancient handiwork, and all the while I am peppered with comments from the park rangers and numerous retired persons as to my “full hands,” (read: kids wanting to climb the walls and ladders, peering dangerously close to the edge of the 15-foot-deep kiva, fighting over who gets to push the stroller back up the hill, and having fits when not permitted to climb said architectural exhibits).

We finished off the day with a late-night swim in the hotel pool with Hank's brother Sam. Uncle Sam was a great sport and skillfully extracted all the kids' remaining energy and screams by playing the role of The Shark.

One thing that is notably in short supply so far on this adventure is any type of personal “down time” for me. When we are at home, we generally have all the kids in bed by 8:45 or so. Then Hank and I have a little time to gather what's left of our sanity and patch it back together before another day begins. This generally involves a big bowl of popcorn, a French lesson or episode of Parks & Rec., an independent trip to the bathroom (woo hoo!), and a little reading before we turn in. There is none of that winding down for me in the hotel. It's lights out for one and all, way past the kids' normal bedtime. Maybe that's why I find myself wide awake now at 3am, mulling over the events of the day and eating half of the powdered sugar doughnuts I bought to surprise the kids for tomorrow's breakfast.

Day Two: SLC to Moab, Utah

Travel hours: 11am to 4pm, with lots of dilly dally stops

 

Word of the day: "Shiloh"

We listened to the story of Shiloh the dog as we drove today.

 

Beauty surrounded by beauty

 

In Arches National Park, with Delicate Arch in the background

Day One: Bonners Ferry to Salt Lake City

Travel time: 6am to 11pm

Word of the day: “baby gun”

 Other than DVDs, the winner for entertaining value was a pair of ten-cent water guns. Eva and Jude spent hours hunting wolves from the comfort of their five-point harnesses. Jude has heard Henry talking about his BB gun, and thus any gun to Jude is a “baby” gun.

At a rest stop

 

We took a little detour to the Lava Hot Springs about 10 miles off the interstate. This was a great way to ease our travel-weary bones after 12 hours in the car. We relaxed in the mineral pools for about an hour and a half before loading up for the last (what should have been) 2 hours to the hotel. Unfortunately due to a road closure and sketchy detour directions, we bumbled around the dark hills outside of Salt Lake City for an extra 45 minutes before we finally located our timeshare condo destination.

All in all it was amazingly smooth day of travel! Thanks for the prayers! Today we plan to have a much shorter driving day in order to explore God's breathtaking creation in Arches National Park.

My Independent Offspring

Something that makes me happy as a parent is to watch my kids learn how to do something and then  practice doing it well.  Here are a couple of snapshots of their very capable selves:

Eva is so proud to be able to cook her own scrambled eggs! 

Grammy taught her this when she came to visit last month.

 

 

 

Time for a buzz cut! What could possibly go wrong? The point is to get all the hair off anyway, so what does it mtter what it looks like in process?

Thanks, Mom and Dad, for letting me do things myself when I was a kid.  I know that a three-year-old makes a lot more mess cooking lunch than Mommy does, but it means that I get four enthusiastic sous-chefs out of the deal!

Why Being Thankful is not Enough

Don't get me wrong--I'm not attacking anyone or any specific idea here.  After all, thankfulness is biblical, right?  But when I try to just sit still and BE anything--thankful included--there's something in me that malfunctions.  Maybe it's because I have not learned to truly be content.  Maybe it's because stillness is such an utterly foreign sensation in this uber-active household of mine.  Maybe it's because I grew up spending many days and nights on the road, sometimes even falling asleep and waking again to the motion of wheels on pavement.

Reading One Thousand Gifts left me feeling restless and incomplete.  Honestly, I never even finished it, and maybe it would have coalesced into action at the end.  I do appreciate beauty, and it is always nice to be let in on someone else's secret thoughts of appreciative reflection.  I felt like a dunce, though, for not being in love with such a gorgeous book and such revelatory words. 

This morning reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan it hit me why.  I wanted to scream YES!!! when I read these words:

Remember the story where Jesus fed thousands of people with one boy's small lunch?  In that story, according to Matthew, Jesus gave the loaves to His disciples and then the disciples passed them out to the crowd.  Imagine if the disciples had simply held onto the food Jesus gave them, continually thanking Him for providing lunch for them.  That would've been stupid when there was enough food to feed the thousands who were gathered and hungry.

But that is exactly what we do when we fail to give freely and joyfully.  We are loaded down with too many good things, more than we could ever need, while others are desperate for a small loaf.  The good things we cling to are more than money; we hoard our resources, our gifts, our time, our families, our friends.  As we begin to practice regular giving, we see how ludicrous it is to hold on to the abundance God has given us and merely repeat the words thank you.

I'm not altogether sure what that giving is supposed to look like in my life, today specifically or in the big picture.  That's one of the things we are exploring as we open our eyes to the world around us in a new way. So yes--let's be thankful in all things, but let's not stop there!  Let's hold onto these many blessings we have with a loose grip, ready to pass them on or offer them up. 

 

Photo journal of a big project



If you aren't the grandparents of these kids, this post will probably hold your interest for all of 3.2 seconds.  There is nothing profound, poetic, or otherwise exciting in the following pictures. 

 

Here's the low-down.  One day the Fed-Ex driver unloaded these two very heavy boxes labeled "trampoline."  That evening it was pouring rain and Daddy said there was no possible way we could get it put together before the weekend (still a few days away).

 

So the stubborn, impatient bunch that we are, we decided to figure out how to move these 70lb+ boxes without Daddy's help.

 

The game cart used for hauling elk carcasses out of the woods came in handy here.

The trip from the garage, up around the side of the house, and to the back yard suddenly seemed very long.

Thankfully, the help was eager and able.

This was when it really got difficult.

This was shortly before we conceded that we did, in fact, need Daddy's help.

And--voila!--Daddy came home from work, and we got the rest done in no time!

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's off to.....ZZZZZZZzzz ZZZZZZZzzzzz

I got four hours of sleep last night.  A little less, to be precise.  My first thought this morning was coffee, right?

You know when you have been hanging out lots with a particular friend, so much that instead of thinking your own thoughts in a situation, you find yourself first thinking "oh man, if so-n-so were here, she'd say 'yada yada...'"  or "I know that so-n-so would think this was completely ___________ ..." (fill in the blank).

So this morning, instead of thinking first about coffee or how rotten the day is guaranteed to be or how it's just not fair!!!, I thought, "this is a day where I am going to need some some supernatural fuel.  God, I need your strength to get up out of this bed and tackle my day!"

The old-school song came to mind "Oh Lord in the morning do I direct my prayer unto you and do look up."  It is word-for-word out of the King James Version of Psalm 5:3 which says,

My voice shalt thou hear in the morning,

O Lord,

in the morning I will direct my prayer unto thee,

and will look up.

 

In thinking about all the comforts and amenities that I rely on daily that I will not have regular access to if we indeed end up living in an African village, it also has me realizing all the things I think I need that are really just substitutions for the true moxie I need to fuel my day.  Is it sinful to follow an automatic early-morning path to the coffee pot?  No.  But if I am going there instead of to the life-giving, soul-satisfying, joy-amping fountain and thinking that I'm going to get the same results?  Reality check.

 

I know God put these thoughts in my head this morning, and come to think of it, it probably has a lot to do with the fact that we've been hanging out together a lot more lately.

 

 

 

*Yes, this entire post was written while I was drinking coffee. 

And yes, Burundi does happen to grow a fair amount of coffee. 

But the the Hershey's syrup to jazz it up?  That's a different story, my friend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roger that?

When I'm teaching in front of a classroom, occasionally the chatter and whispering and shuffling papers and thumping desks and tapping toes begin to drown out my voice.  I made a deal with the students that instead of trying to speak louder and louder and LOUDER, I would give the signal (three loud claps) and they would drop everything.  Then they have to glue their eyes to me and point to their ears with both pointer fingers to silently say "Yes!  I am listening to you!"  I wait until everybody is doing that, have a few seconds of utter frozen silence, and then I go on with my lesson.  It works wonders, and come to think of it I think it's time I implemented it at home as well.

Anyhow, this whole blogging thing feels a little like standing in front of a classroom in which nobody is paying attention.  Are people clicking on my link, reading the first sentence, and then distractedly wandering away to check the weather and update facebook status?  I mean, I don't really care if you aren't entertained by my ramblings--I don't pretend to be Kristen Howerton or some such blogging celebrity.  But can we make a deal so that this isn't just one more area of my life where I feel like I'm repeating "shut the door!" ad nauseam and nobody hears a word I say?   How about that for every 10 or so posts you read, you just give me a smiley face or thumbs up or "roger that," for the sole purpose of preserving my sanity.

:) Thanks.

Scrapping the Scrap Book Ideals

Henry asked tonight when we will go to Africa.  Our answer: there are lots of things that will need to be figured out and accomplished before we can go.  If God wants us there right away, those things will happen quickly, but if He still has things here he wants us to do for awhile, then it could take several years.

One of the things on the "to do before Africa" list is finishing my kids' baby books. It was my missionary sister who got me thinking about this, as they are on furlough and one of her goals for this year has been to finish her youngest's baby book.  This was no simple task, as finding the pictures involved having someone go through boxes that were stored 5 years ago, moved around, and stored some more.

So instead of inviting friends over to play this afternoon (or cleaning or making very much for dinner), I enlisted the kids to make a couple pages with me.  This step in and of itself was a really big deal, as anything involving designer paper, journalling pens, adhesives, and my creative process were things heretofore only utilized in my "art room" with the door closed.  But I made a couple decisions about this whole goal.  Number one, there is no way I will ever be able to sit down and create a perfectly coordinated chronological collection of each kid's most precious moments.  What I have to start with is already somewhat mix-n-match, and I never really love the way a page looks even after I have put a bunch of focused energy into creating a pinterest-worthy masterpiece.  Number two, I will be getting rid of all this stuff anyway, and my previous stinginess with my pretty things has got to go.  Number three, I am pretty sure that every kid would rather have a crooked page with misspellings and second-grader handwriting than a blank page.

So here it is--Henry's 4-minute interpretation of scrap booking!  And I love it!  Now, not only do we have the memories of the events in the pictures, but also the memory of him making the page.

On patience and planning (or lack thereof)

If you're reading this you know by now that our family is prayerfully considering whether God has a plan for us to move to the wilds of east-central Africa to join a team of medical missionaries. I (Hank) would primarily be involved with teaching dentistry (and of course still doing dentistry) and living and sharing the Gospel. I'm sure that over the coming weeks and months you'll read a lot more about how we got this crazy idea, all the logistics that we're considering, and all the plans. But for this, my first blog post EVER, I would like to share what happened this afternoon and the little life lessons that God taught me.

First, let me set the stage. I don't work at the office on Mondays; it's often an errand and busywork day for me, or I may help with school, or take care of the little ones while Hannah does schoolwork with Henry and Eika. As it happened, Hannah had an appointment with the optometrist and then a massage this afternoon. I suggested that she also take time to go to the gym, and, while she was gone, I would take the kids swimming. Yes, all four kids. I don't know what I was thinking. Just across the border in Canada (about a 35 minute dive) is a great indoor aquatics center that we like to visit especially in the winter months.

So, Hannah left the house and the kids and I got all the swim stuff (goggles, towels, swim diaper for Jude, change of clothes for everyone) ready. We all donned our swimsuits ahead of time and some of us threw pants on over our swimsuits (It was only about 45 today and we had SNOW this morning). They put all the other dry clothes and the swim diaper in a backpack and we hastily made our way to the van.

As I was pulling out of the garage I decided to run back in and get a hat and coat for Jude just in case there was a break from open swim time when we arrived. That way we could go to the playground while we waited. Ok, we're finally on the road.

When we arrived at the pool we realized there were several problems. Someone had neglected to put the backpack of dry after-swim clothes in the vehicle. This meant that Henry and Jude had nothing dry to wear afterward and Eva had no shirt (she was wearing her suit with pants). I also came to the realization that Jude had no shoes (yep, 45 degrees today), no swim diaper, and no clean diapers excepting the one he was wearing (clean for the moment...). Ok, I thought, we can work around this. Kids can bundle up, wrap a towel around themselves, wear their coat with no shirt underneath... I was wearing jeans over my swimsuit, I'd just have to be a little cautious zipping up after swimming...

We walked into the facility and found out that open swim didn't start for another 70 minutes. After getting over the initial shock and wiping Eva's tears I told the kids that we could just go to the playground for a bit and then swim when they opened. Oh, but Jude is wearing his swimsuit and has no shoes. Ok, let's run to a thrift store and see what we can find. Alas, no shoes (my kids are Idaho tough though!), but I did come away with two (two would come in handy later...) pairs of toddler sweatpants for the price of one and a sweatshirt for Henry (in typical fashion he was wearing everything he brought which included only his swim shorts and a t-shirt).

We got to the playground and the kids piled out and headed for the jungle gym. I started to put the sweatpants on Jude only to discover that his diaper was no longer clean. No problem, he can go commando for now. Within 30 seconds of putting the thrift store sweatpants on he peed. On the slide. Ok, no problem, that's why I got that second pair.

We had a blast at the playground, went swimming (bought a swim diaper at the counter), bundled up afterward, and made it home without a hitch. The kids did great and their attitudes were positive all along the way. As I was driving home I thought about what life might be like on the African mission field. Certainly, we won't have the amenities we have at home. No doubt there will be many times when we aren't prepared for whatever might happen. Yes, there will be frustrations along the way. But in the midst of all that turmoil we'll pray for patience, we'll try to remain flexible, and we'll work to model that attitude for the kids.

This afternoon gave me several opportunities to exercise some of the fruits of the Spirit. I could have lashed out at someone for forgetting the backpack, I could have been angry that there were no clean diapers in the van, I could have been frustrated that we had to wait an hour to swim. Thanks be to God that He gave me the patience, peace, kindness, and self control that was necessary.

I pray that as we seek God's direction for our life and all along the way He would grant us the grace that we will need to get through our lack of planning and foresight.

What if?

Before you begin to envision our family heading out all alone into the African bush, let me introduce to you the team of people we are pursuing a partnership with. They call themselves the McCropders, and here is their blog.  Follow the tabs marked "Where We're Going" and "Burundi" to understand a bit more of their goals and background.

Burundi has only 5 to 10 dentists in the entire country of nine or ten million people.  For a long time we have thought about making yearly trips for Hank to provide dental care to the people there. But what if it was more than that?  What if God has a plan to use us alongside so many other amazing people who are investing their lives to help the Burundian people rebuild their nation through education and healthcare?  What if?

The Triangle

When Hank and I were engaged, I remember receiving advice regarding pursuit of each other within our greater purpose of pursuing Christ.  Think of a triangle, with Hank at one bottom point and Hannah at the other.  God is at the top point, and as we are each individually moving toward God, it would simultaneously bring us closer together.

The past 8 months or so have been like this for us, although this time it's a tiny nation in East Africa at one bottom corner and our family at the other.  Over the winter we participated in a study on the church by Jim Wright, a teacher at Capernwray Bible Schools.  It was a refreshing time of growth as we discussed what it means to live as the true body of Christ. Throughout our time reading his book and meeting with friends to walk through it together, we (as well as others in the group) spent a lot of time asking questions of ourselves and how we line up with Christ's purpose.  We looked at Jesus' commands to his disciples, as well as the continuing commands to all Christians throughout the New Testament.  Are we obeying those commands?  Are our priorities Christ's priorities?

Meanwhile, our interest in a place called Burundi has gone from being casually curious to entirely engrossed with all aspects of life there.  The main question in our minds these days is, "Is God calling our family to live and serve in Burundi?"  There are a hundred other related peripheral questions, of course, but we'll take those one at a time as we seek His leading. 

The Path Ahead and the Stones Behind

We look forward; we plan our days and our years. We look behind us to our foundations--what are we built on? As Hank and I evaluate where we are and where we are going, we can't help but look behind us to where we have been.  Just as Samuel set up a stone of remembrance so that the people would never forget God's sustaining presence, we also want to stop along the way to display evidence of God's goodness.  We see these stones in how He has built our family--we can't look at the faces of our children without being reminded of His careful orchestrating hand.  Here on my back is another  reminder, the scar from surgery that is a one-inch-long summary of the seven years of constant pain  and weakness He brought us through like fire. 

These words are stones. Taken and set up, stacked upon each other, my only goal in this blog is to build something that reminds us and points others to the evidence of God's help, his strength, and his goodness to us his people.