One of the reasons I was late getting ready Monday evening

I was in my bathroom getting ready for a date night when Eika came in and told me that Jude had climbed up on the counter to get watermelon.  I was about to nix the whole endeavor, but then I realized how cute he was.  I mean the overalls sans shirt, the piece of melon as big as his torso...it really would have been a shame to just shut it down.  So I took pictures.

Reading and Feeding

We are on a road that leads to Burundi.  Our hearts are already there in many ways, but there are a thousand steps before our feet and hands will be there.  IF we do in fact go there.  The going could mean so many different things, and we don't really know what this road looks like further on ahead.  But in the meantime, in the waiting that is not standing still, there is lots going on in the discussions of our minds.  Feeding those discussions are a few profound books.

First, Dangerously Alive by Simon Guillebaud.
      In 1999, Simon Guillebaud arrived in Burundi, which was reckoned to be the most dangerous country on earth at the time.  "The book combines prayer letters, diary entries and reflections from ten years in a war zone," says Simon.  "It includes thoughts on witchcraft, miracles, evangelism, Islam, orphans, street kids, AIDS, and many stirring stories of triumphant faith in the midst of hideous suffering."

Simon wrestles throughout the book with the gruesome suffering of the warring people around him, admitting that many times he wishes to excuse himself from engaging with those in need.  His challenges to himself become challenges to the reader as he repeatedly chooses the path of true active faith.  He recounts the true story of a pastor who had told a homeless woman that he would pray for her but did nothing for her physical need.  She wrote the following poem, which subsequently found its way back to the pastor:

I was hungry,

And you formed a humanities group to discuss my hunger.

I was imprisoned,

And you crept off quietly to your chapel and prayed for my release.

I was naked,

And in your mind you debated the morality of my appearance.

I was sick,

And you knelt and thanked God for your health.

I was homeless,

And you preached a sermon on the spiritual shelter of the love of God.

I was lonely,

And you left me alone to pray for me.

You seem so holy, so close to God,

But I am still very hungry--and lonely--and cold.

 

Our longing increasingly becomes to GO and DO and TEACH.  Yes, there is a need for the bigger picture discussion of how to truly help a nation out of its poverty (which is why I'm looking forward to reading Poor Economics next). 

 

God, please don't let the overwhelming need of this tiny nation convince us that nothing can be done.  We have to pray and debate and discuss and preach (and listen!) in addition to, not instead of, taking action.

 

 

 



Dinner Conversation

What do dinner table conversations sound like in your family?  This evening we somehow found ourselves discussing blow guns.  Daddy described the long hollow bamboo tubes used to blow poison-tipped arrows forcibly through the air. 

Several minutes later we found ourselves in an all out blow gun war in the dining room.  It's a good thing that there were no poison dart frogs around (otherwise we may have ended up with poison-coated ammo).  See those white dots all over the place?  Those are dried beans.  We also found that milkshake straws will do in a pinch if you have no bamboo at your disposal. And man those beans hurt when they come flying at you!

 

I was able to call a pause in the shooting long enough to document the battle.

 

Day Eighteen: The Home Stretch

West Yellowstone, MT to HOME!

9:30 am to 7:00 pm

Amazingly enough, this was really the only day when the kids repeatedly asked, "How much longer?"

 

We enjoyed the breathtaking scenery (or I did, anyway) and beautiful weather. 

 

 

We took a quick break to throw some rocks in the Clark Fork River.

 

 

And then just like that, after a few of the fussiest, craziest hours of the whole trip, we were home.  And the epic road trip was over.  And it was time to unload the van.  And once again there were dishes to wash and beds to make and floors to keep clean.  And yes, it was good to be home and see Daddy (we missed him so much!), but I can't say that I wasn't planning our next grandiose undertaking as we pulled into the driveway...

 





Day Seventeen: I begin to realize I might be crazy

Denver, CO to West Yellowstone, MT

9 am to 10 pm

(Yes, I realize that this drive should have taken us a mere 11 hours tops, but this was the craziest day of travel by far.)

Some of the day's highlights:

• Got pulled over coming into Wyoming.  Somehow managed to look pitiful enough to forego the speeding ticket I deserved.
• Was distracted for the remainder of the Cheyenne outskirts, and didn't realize I needed gas until I was too far to go back to Cheyenne.
• Ended up in a little town called Chugwater that doesn't have a gas station anymore (you can find out why here.)
• Was sent to the home of a lady named Belinda who sold me at least 3 gallons of gas for $5 (again, I must have looked pretty pitiful with my car full of kids--I was beginning to look quite bedraggled by this point in the day).
• Drove and drove and drove across Wyoming.
• Realized it was a stupid thing to have ever even mentioned the existence of a place called "Yellowstone" to the kids, and that maybe we were setting our sights just a tad high on this one.
• Reached the East park entrance as the sun was going down.
• Saw some bison, took a couple pictures, and mostly just drove across Yellowstone in the dark (oh yeah, and almost hit two huge bison that were standing in the middle of the road just around a curve).
• Collapsed into our beds in West Yellowstone.

Ps. Please don't judge my parenting based on the apparent mental instability of those pictured here.

 

Day Sixteen: Tucumcari, NM to Denver, CO

Travel time: 9:30 am to 9:30 pm

Word of the Day:  "uwp-ess" (Wonder Pets, which was Jude's number one most requested DVD of the trip)

Two highlights of the day were:

Number One--my friend Tamra.  Despite the visit being far too short and unfortunately accompanied by vomit, it was fabulously refreshing to get a little peek into her life now.  Here are (some of) our silly kids together:

Number Two: Skies.  Probably what I miss the most about living in the Southwest.

Day Fifteen: Athens, TX to Tucumcari, NM

Travel time: 10 am to 7pm, plus an extra hour in the parking lot of the Quality Inn on the phone with Hotels.com, trying to cancel my reservation which had been for a hotel with a functional pool. 

Word of the day: gas (ps. your car needs it to run, and it makes the children very nervous when "Distance to Empty" gauge reads ZERO)

Long story short, we swapped hotels for one with a pool, which had been the only motivating factor for buckling the kids up after each potty stop.  We swam, we slept, we left.