Category — Life

I just finished the book “The only road north” – the story of 2 brothers and their 2 friends, young men who rode motorcycles from “Cape to Cairo” (a dream that my Erik has always wanted to fulfill.) You may have heard of them, because they were victims of a suicide bombing in Cairo, and one of the brothers was killed. They are all believers, and the surviving brother is very honest about the challenges to his faith this experience has brought.

Tonight I got an email from my life-long friend Esther asking us to pray for the village she grew up in and her Doctor friends there – in Bundibugyo, Uganda. Ebola has appeared there, has killed a Uganda doctor and many others. All the non-medical team members and kids have evacuated, leaving a doctor couple (the Myhre) and a physician assistant (as well as the CDC, Doctors without borders, etc.) (read the Myhre’s blog for more details.)

This afternoon I had a long talk with my nursing school friend Shannon, a medical missionary with her doctor husband in India. I pray daily for my missionary friend Dierdre in Malawi and my sister Meg who is a missionary teacher in Tanzania. Erik and I continue to long to live in Africa, to raise our children there, to feel like we are really making a difference in Africa. I long for a simpler life, for a life that really makes a difference.

Yet God has called us to live here for now. And I’m scared to leave the comfortableness of life in America, and my church and my wonderful friends here. And then I wonder: “will things really be any different in Africa, or is that just my childhood idealism coming through.” I know that life in Africa is hard and often inconvenient, and if I can’t find simplicity and purpose here I probably can’t find it there. And my highest calling right now is to raise my children in godliness, so how can I do that here and now.

These are my deep thoughts late at night after working all day, and reading about Africa all night. Thanks for listening.

This picture cracks me up!!

Yesterday morning I was icing my foot (planters faciitis), feeding Coriena, eating breakfast, and reading my book, all at the same time.  Aren’t you glad you know that!

I thought I’d tell you about some of my adventures in motherhood/wifehood over the last couple weeks:

- fishing a whole roll of toilet paper (thank you, Coriena) out of an unflushed toilet (good thing I have rubber gloves at home!)

- designing a pink and purple airplane cake for Lauren’s 5th birthday party

- taking apart my dishwasher while Pam looked on the internet trying to figure out why it’s not working (we didn’t figure it out, by the way)

- watching Lauren’s huge grins of excitement as she figured out how to swim

- push starting Tukel (our VW camper van) – thank you nice security men at our pool for pushing us, and Dad for teaching me how to “pop the clutch” many years ago

- experimenting with a couple new recipes this weekend

- jumping starting Pam’s car

- giving Coriena her first haircut – bye, bye “baby mullet”

Over a year ago a friend suggested that I donate my hair to Locks of Love. At the time I didn’t want to do it, but that idea staying in the back of my mind since then, and I thought about it often.

A couple weeks I was with my parents, and asked my mom to trim my hair. And then I thought, “I don’t really need my hair, and some little kid could use it in their wig.” Also, I was getting a little vain about it, since it was waist length, and people were often commenting on how long it was.

So my mom chopped off 10″, and I mailed it off the other day.
The moral of this story – you never know the effect a little comment that you make will have, even if it takes a long time before the person acts on it.

I’m in the middle of a crazy couple weeks. Last week I took the girls to Chattanooga to see all my siblings. This was prompted by a visit from Tanzania by Meg, so the rest of us came to see her (and eachother.) I got back Saturday night, and my parents came Sunday night for a 4 day visit. Now my life-long friend Esther and her sister and son are here for a couple days. Next week Erik goes to a 5 day conference in New Orleans, (originally) preceded by a 3 day conference in San Francisco.

A couple weeks ago I was feeling really stressed about all these events. All are good events, yet I was feeling like my times alone with Erik and as our family would be few and far between. But as usual, God is so gracious to me and my fears:

• We’ve had some great times together as a family in the midst of and in-between all these events.
• We had a great time in Chattanooga, with my parents, and are having a good time with Esther.
• Esther’s visit was shortened by a day (giving me an extra day between visitors) and Erik’s first conference was cancelled.

God is so good to care for me even when I have trouble trusting Him. And then He not only gave me peace about all these things going on, but then to also give me the gift of more time with my family then I was expecting.

Here are some pictures from the last weeks. You can see more on Flickr.