Winter

Thirty-six degrees.  36.  Did you know it's possible to sleep in a 36-degree F. bedroom and be hot? 

Well, welcome to my world of new discoveries.  This winter has brought all sorts of hither-to-fore unimagined knowledge to my attention, including the fact that if you put seven blankets on your bed and wear five shirts, three pairs of pants, and two pairs of heavy socks, you can actually get too warm in a 36-degree bedroom.  And did you know the average temperature of a refrigerator?  Neither did I, until I looked it up on the internet in reaction to the curious discovery that my kitchen is colder than the inside of my refrigerator...making me wonder if the refrigerator-makers have any back-up plan wherein the cooling mechanisms begin heating the food to an average refrigerator temperature of 38 degrees!

Now, on the bedroom thing...don't think it's all fun and games, please.  On the nights when it reaches 33 and 34 degrees, I do get cold (those few degrees make such a difference).  And I also tend to wonder what's going to happen if it passes below 32 and the water bottle on my bedside shelf freezes!  I mean, I already don't have running water in the house (the pipes have been frozen since my return two weeks ago), and if the buckets of well water I keep on hand for manually flushing the toilet and for heating on the stove to wash my hands and face freeze, well then...well then, I just don't know what I'll do.  But I guess I'll make some discoveries and learn some new skills then, now won't I? 

I hope I don't sound too whiney, because I genuinely don't mind these circumstances too much.  It's all part of the fun of living a "real world" K'town winter, which I've been protected from the past two years by living on the school campus.  The house there is possibly the only non-government home in all of K'town with radiator heating.  Out in the real world of kerosene and firewood it's not only insanely expensive to heat your bedroom through the night, but impossibly difficult (who wants to get up five times a night to feed and stoke a fire?) and/or life-threateningly dangerous (a worker who chose to take the risk nearly died six weeks ago from carbon monoxide poisoning).

So life goes on, though the details look different.  You learn that you really don't need a shower as often as you thought you did, and as for clean clothes...well, in the winter they really don't have to be washed all that often, now do they?   I've gotta go home now from the school (where I have internet) to bake brownies for Youth Group tonight at my house.  The people here make it all worth it -- the community we have that goes from house to house "breaking bread...and eating their food with gladness and simplicity of heart" (Acts 2:46)!

Currently Reading For Women Only: What You Need to Know about the Inner Lives of Men By Shaunti Feldhahn see related

Running

Ouch!  Yesterday was the annual Thanksgiving Run at the US Embassy...I'm so glad they give little extra opportunities like that, to keep our minds healthy and our bodies in pain!   I did the 10K this year, and I'm feeling it today.  Exercise opportunities have been MUCH MORE sparse this year than last due to the heightened security level, so through this experience I did gain some valuable advice to pass on: Make sure you've been exercising consistently BEFORE you run in a race -- otherwise you're gonna feel like I do right now, which isn't fun!

I appreciate Thanksgiving more over here than I ever have before.  Though I so wish I could be with family on this day, I guess I also see the beauty of this holiday more when I am surrounded by people who don't have such a custom.  As twenty-one of us gathered in a friend's home for the celebration, it struck me anew that the reason -- the whole, entire reason -- for such a special day was TO GIVE THANKS TO GOD.  Wow.  Who does that -- just sets aside an entire day to stop work and to give thanks for all He has provided?  Apparently, people with a faith like that of the early settlers, and an eye open to His blessings like theirs were.  I want to be like that -- to see the blessings in life, rather than the hardships; to focus on the bounty, not the sacrifices.  There are plenty of blessings; we just need to open our eyes!

(And one of those blessings for me right now is, I'll be "home" for a visit in only four weeks!  Yea!)

Lousy Blogger Checking in...with Really Good News!

Well.  So you try your hardest to live life well, and what kind of nods do you get?  Comments like, "You're a lousy blogger" from your very own dear sister.  Trouble is, I'm much worse than a lousy blogger...I'm a lousy emailer/MySpace'er/internet-user in general!   So I will now try to make amends, by means of a longer-than-life blog that approximately no one will have the patience to read all of...

Things are coasting along quite well here in my third year in K'town...it seems that every year here I come to love the place more, in some ways.  Touching down in August I teared up a little at the thought that this is probably my last year here.  But the reason...ahem, the REASON (he deserves all-caps) it's probably my last year is nothing to tear up at... :)

As of this summer, the most wonderful man in the world has entered my life.  And yes, I do indeed mean, THE MOST WONDERFUL.  So I can't tell you all about him yet; that would just spoil the fun of drawing it out, but I will let you in on the how-we-met story -- it's sure a fun one, and if the Father is into writing exciting how-we-met stories, then that's sure a good sign for our relationship!

So I arrived "home" in Memphis, TN in June, where my best-friend-from-Memphis, Dave, who works in China but was also "home" on leave, was hanging out for awhile.  In the months that had passed since he'd beat me back to Memphis he'd met some new friends, and he wanted to introduce me to one of them.  As he began describing Jim to me, I thought, "That's funny.  That sure sounds like a story I've heard before..."  So I investigated: "Mom, you remember that really neat guy you met at that m-event that you emailed me about -- the one who'd been doing Kingdom Work in China -- was his name Jim?"  Yes indeed, came the answer!  Hmm...so Dave wanted to introduce me to the same guy my mom had been impressed with...

But the plot thickens.  Later that day on the phone again with Dave, I said, "Dave, you know that new friend of yours you want to introduce me to?  Well, this is really weird, but my mom thinks she's met him."  "It gets weirder..." replied Dave: "He thinks you've met his dad."  Indeed I had -- and his dad had mentioned me to him -- a three-way set-up, this was turning into!

And I'll leave it off there, with just a quick mention about the ensuing four months: They've been wonderful!  We're keeping Skype in business, and seeing where this will lead.

Everything else feels inconsequential by comparison, but there are good things happening here on the ground, as well!  The youth work is going well, and I'm getting settled, bit by bit, into this "new" house (actually the oldest, nastiest, dirtiest, grungiest house that I've ever lived in! ).  Gone are the days of 17/7 electricity (the school campus where I used to live runs its generators everyday, 6 AM to 11 PM) and a freezer with ice (I still have a freezer, it's just that with so little electricity, the ice very rarely actually freezes!).  But I love the privacy -- I have the whole bottom floor to myself, and a lady from Singapore lives on the top.  We share with each other when we cook, but other than that, we each have our own space.  And I have my own space to invite the teenagers over to!  That's wonderful, I say, just wonderful...we girls have Holy-Book Study together every Sunday afternoon, and I have the Youth Leadership Team over for lunch once a month, and I have sleepovers with the High School girls, and we do special training sessions here, and, and, and...

Needless to say, it's fun.  I never thought I'd wanna live alone.  But I'm loving it.  Having your "own place" to host events of Kingdom value and invite others into is a huge blessing...

Some of the Youth Group "kiddos" playing cards at my house during a break in a training session.

The musicians...here in K'town, the music never ceases! :)

 Under 17...under 17...UNDER 17!!!  And what, you may wonder, causes me to exclaim so nonsensically?  It's because I climbed "the mountain" in under seventeen minutes!   I'm so overjoyed.  This is a nearby mountain that we frequently climb (about every other day, to be exact), and when I started climbing a half-year ago it took me twenty-four minutes.  Now I've shaved seven of those minutes off...and yes, about killed myself in the process (I really thought I might pass out on the way up, and I'm kind of surprised I didn't throw up), but it was worth it!

With the Koochi kids who live on the mountain...when they see us heading up, they run to put on fancy clothes and make-up so they can look their best when they come and meet us on the way down.

The view from the "other" mountain...this is the "weekend" mountain because it takes forty-five minutes to climb (up only) and therefore takes too long to do before dark after school on a weekday.  Sure is beautiful though! 

Currently Listening Redemption Songs By Jars of Clay see related

AAAHH...I've been remiss!  I'm horrified to find that I haven't updated this thing since December...what in the world is that?  Definitely a lapse of my duties and responsibilities as a human .

What prods me into actually writing tonight is the overwhelming exciting-ness of the day...I have, as of this morning, received a new job for this coming school year!  I'll stay here in K'town teaching English for the rest of this school year, travel a bit (possibly Iran, Pakistan, Nepal...and, oh yes, the US ) this summer, and then return in August to teach Oral Communications (speeach) part-time AND accept my new responsibilities as...well, that's the problem; I'm not at liberty to reveal my new job yet!  But it's a good one.  Trust me.  And I'll tell you as soon as the Board makes the decision public locally.

In the meantime, here are a few pictures of my sister's adorable six kids.  Visiting them over Christmas was so much fun and it just made me want to have kids so much more...but that's not where I am now in life.  So I'll just enjoy her plethora of them for the moment (they're adopting two more from Liberia in August!)

The three "little" girls - nine, one and a half, and seven

Sharing Daddy's McFlurry...there's just nothin' like it 

Currently Reading A Case for Amillennialism: Understanding the End Times By Kim Riddlebarger see related