The Power of an Email

Sometimes it amazes me how much power words have.  I mean we all know quotes like, "The pen is mightier than the sword."  And in the New Testament, James devotes the better part of Chapter 3 to the power of the tongue, comparing it to the tiny rudder on a huge ship that controls the direction the ship is heading. 

But sometimes it takes just a sentence in an email and the reaction it causes to be reminded of the power of words.

Last Monday, we were going about our day in the village.  It was a normal day... scrubbing laundry, doing school with the kids, making meals, sweeping the floor, changing diapers... all the regular things that fill up my day.  It was another gloomy day in Hamelengan (we had more than our fair share of them during our 6 weeks out there).  In the afternoon, when the clouds were too thick for Matt to keep working, he came upstairs to check email.  And that's when we got the email. 

It was a simple email.  It basically just said, "Would you be willing to come out on Friday, May 31?"  (Rather than the scheduled Monday, June 3.) 

Wow!  That simple question Made. My. Day!  At first, I thought it was too good to be true!  I had gone in milliseconds from feeling discouraged about yet another day of no sun and no power with a whole week ahead of me in the village, to being afraid to get too excited that this might actually happen and instead of a whole week more in the village, there just being 3 more full days out there!

Instead of wracking my brain, trying to come up with creative ideas for how to spend the remaining week with kids who were bored and fighting constantly, I instantly switched to thoughts of "How do I finish off this week of school with one less day?" and "Wow!  Now we can pick and choose dinners instead of just having do to follow the menu!"

Even Matt, who usually is never happy to leave early because he always has more work that could be done, was just as eager as I to go back home.  We climbed into bed that night elated.... instead of looking ahead all the long days, we just had a couple more days (granted, they would be filled with school, packing and inventorying supplies, and another work day for Matt in revising a chapter of Luke).

So, now I'm sitting here on a Saturday afternoon, comfortable and clean in my home.  The kids are playing with friends and guinea pigs.  Julianne is visiting our next door neighbors, whom she adores.  Matt and I are checking out everything on the internet that we've missed over the past 6 weeks (Facebook, baseball news, world news).  And it's even rainy and gloomy but that doesn't matter!  We're home!  And we even got to go watch all the 11th and 12th graders arrive at Banquet last night! 

But getting back to my original topic, words are powerful.  And they can be used for both good and bad.  As I was reminded this week and encouraged by a few simple words, I want to be more deliberate in how I use words, primarily with my children, as what I say and how I say it is very powerful.  If one email can change the course and feelings of a week, how much more the angry, sarcastic, hurtful or the encouraging, praising, uplifting words that I use throughout the course of every day with my five precious children!

I Really Am Still Around!!!

So I know I’ve been pretty bad about blogging lately.  First, there was just no power.  Lately it seems like I just haven’t had any time to sit down at the computer.  I keep busy mainly with teaching the kids, and a lot of days, it’s 3 or even 4pm before I have everyone’s work wrapped up and put away.  So things like computer time just don’t happen.  I do have some blog posts in my head that hopefully will eventually make it to my blog in the future.

 

In the meantime, here’s a fun story Nathan wrote last week for school.  They were writing a time-travel fantasy.  Enjoy! =)

 

The Crazy Travel in Time

written and illustrated by Nathan T.

 

One hot, sunny day, I walked into my backyard.  I looked around and saw something hidden in the bushes.

 

“Hey Justin!” I called.  “Come see what I found.”  Justin came running.

 

“What is it?” He asked.

 

“I don’t know,” I said “It looks like a little ball with a door.”  We walked over to see what it was.  It turned out not to be a little ball with a door, but a big ball with a door.

 

“Let’s go inside it,” Justin said.

 

“Good idea.”  I said.  I looked around the door for a handle but I couldn’t find it anywhere.

 

“The handle must have come off.”  I said.  “I can’t find it anywhere.”  We looked here and there, near and far, but couldn’t find it anywhere.  Then I saw a panel-like rectangle by the door.

 

“What’s this?” I wondered out loud.

 

“What’s what?”  Justin asked.

 

“This.” I said pointing to the panel.

 

“Oh, that.” said Justin.  We thought and thought but couldn’t think of what it could be.  All of a sudden Justin cried out, “I know!  I know.  You have to press a secret code on it and the door will open!”

 

“Silly Justin,”  I said, “even if this was a giant rock, you could probably find something and imagine you could press a secret code on it.  But still, it’s worth a try.”

 

“Okay,” said Justin.  “If that’s what you think.”

 

“Now,” I said.  “What kind of code would you use if you were going to stop people from entering a top secret all?” I asked.

 

“I wouldn’t use a code at all.”  Justin said.

 

“What in the universe are you talking about?” I asked.

 

“I would pick something unusual, like that writing.”  I looked over to where he was pointing and saw an inscription.  It said “757 Ballmobile.”

 

“Good idea.”  I said.  I ran over to the panel and pushed 7-5-7-B-a-l-l-m-o-b-i-l-e.  The door slid open with a creak.

 

“Please enter.”  A mechanical voice said.  We walked into the 757 Ballmobile, which on the inside wasn’t a circle at all, but a square.

 

“Look at this place!” I said with amazement.  “It even has a timeline.”  I looked at the timeline.

 

“Look!  here’s the time of the dinos!”  I said, tapping it with my finger.  I was so busy looking around the 757 Ballmobile that I didn’t notice some words on a screen that said, “Get ready to travel to the time of the dinosaurs.”  All of a sudden, the 757 Ballmobile began to shake.

 

“What’s happening?” I asked.

 

“Look!”  Justin yelled above all the noise.  I turned around and saw the words.

 

“Hold on!” I shouted.  When the 757 Ballmobile came to a stop, I opened the door and peered out.  There were no houses in sight, but there was a big cloud of dust in the distance that just seemed to get bigger and bigger.  Just then Justn crawled out of the 757 Ballmobile and saw the cloud of dust.

 

“What’s that?” Justin asked.

 

“I don’t know.” I said.  Just then the cloud of dust cleared and we saw a giant brontasaurus running away from a fierce dinosaur.

 

“What’s that?”  Justin asked again.  I opened my book on dinosaurs.

 

“Don’t move a muscle.”  I answered.

 

“What do you mean?  Don’t move a muscle?” Justin asked.

 

“I mean, don’t move a muscle.” I said.  “That’s a Tyrannosaurus rex.  The fiercest of all dinos.  If you move it will come and eat you up.”  But it was too late.  The Tyrannosaurus rex was already on it’s way.

 

“Run!  Get back to the seven fi……….. I think it’s a time machine!  But that doesn’t matter right now!  We’re about to be dino food!”  I yelled.  We scrambled back into the time machine, or at least, that’s what I thought it was.  The thundering sound of the Tyrannosaurus rex’s footsteps were getting closer.

 

“What year was it when we left?”  I hurridly asked.

 

“I think it was 2013.”  Justin answered.  I quickly found 2013 on the timeline and tapped it with my finger.  The time machine began shaking.  When it stopped, we both scrambled out as fast as we could.

 

“Let’s not ever go there again.”  Justin said.

 

“Good idea.  Very good idea.”  I answered.  “I think that’s the best idea I’ve heard in a very, very long time.”  And with that, we both walked into the house to tell everyone about our amazing adventure.

 

The End

 

 

 

When Life Gives You Lemons......

I will never forget an object lesson a camp counselor gave my cabin-mates and I one summer at Camp.  She gave us all lemons and talked about how bad and hard and sour things happen.  But we can choose what we do with them.  We could take our lemon and say, “It’s too sour” or “what a waste” and do nothing.  Or (and here she gave us all a candy cane), we can make the best out of what we have been given.  And we stuck our candy

canes into the lemons and sucked up the juice thru the sugar straw.  Candy cane lemonade is pretty tasty!

 

As I look back over our first 10 days out here in the village, I’m rather amazed at what a good attitude we all currently have.  There have just been a lot (did I say a lot?  I meant a LOT!!!) of little things that have added up to make this a very difficult stay so far.  God has been gracious though, and even though we have been given a ‘bunch of lemons’ so far these 10 days, He is helping us take our ‘lemons’ and make the best out of them.

 

We started off the trip by discovering on our first day here, as we were unpacking and sorting, that the school bag containing pretty much all of Kaitlyn’s schoolwork for the next 6+ weeks was missing.  It also contained a smattering of schoolwork for Justin, Julianne and Nathan that they had brought home from their last day of school at the Ukarumpa school and needed to bring out to the village, and which I had tossed into the bag the afternoon before.  This made for a very stressful first afternoon in the village.  Considering that our supplies had been loaded onto a Kodiak at Aiyura and then flown to the airport at Nadzab (Lae), off-loaded to await a 2^nd Kodiak, loaded onto the 2^nd Kodiak and flown to the airstrip at Yalumet, off-loaded to sit and wait for the helicopter to finish flying us first from Aiyura to Goroka to Hamelengan, to come pick it our supplies and shuttle them to Hamelengan, well, there were a lot of places it could have been lost or even stolen at.  Thankfully, we did find out fairly soon that somehow, while it was taken with the rest of our luggage out to the plane in the first place, it was simply never put on the plane.  Needless to say, we’ve been very frustrated, especially me, as ‘Teacher’.  If this had happened to either of the boy’s schoolwork, it would have been frustrating as well, but both of them are quick with school and learning new concepts.  Kaitlyn is the exact opposite.  She does not learn quickly and everything is more work for her.  So to be without her schoolwork has been a challenge.

 

I am SO thankful for her teachers, school staff and dear friends who have gone above and beyond in trying to email (and scan and send) us her daily assignments!  I’ve had friends hand-type up her math lessons and email them to us.  Her language teacher has been scrambling to come up with new things for her to do for her reading and writing assignments, or re-typing and sending me instructions for assignments.  So while we are behind in school, at least we are not just sitting still, but still have materials to work with.

 

But that leads me to the second difficulty we’ve encountered this stay:  NO SUN!  We’ve been out here 10 days so far.  And it’s rained and been grey  and gloomy Every. Single. One. Of them.  Usually, even if it rains for most of the day, we usually have a couple of good hours of blue sky and sunshine in the morning.  Not this stay.  Today (10 days in) we actually saw some shadows when we first got up this morning.  No actual blue sky mind you, but the clouds were thin enough that some sunshine was getting through.  But here it is, 9:30 am now, and that’s long gone.  Last weekend, we did have an hour or two of some blue sky and sunshine in the afternoon on both Saturday and Sunday.  But I think all of us are feeling the need for sun.  I literally have not left the house since going to church last Sunday.  I haven’t even been going outside to the clothesline.  It’s not worth it to hang any laundry there… I just hang the wet clothes on our porch, where they will eventually dry in 2-3 days.  But Matt has had to cut work short several days due to lack of solar power, and some days we haven’t had enough power to download the emails with Kaitlyn’s schoolwork.  So that has been a frustration.

 

I know Matt has been feeling frustration about work as well.  Most of the work he planned to do while we were out here involved working with other people… our co-translators and various others.  But one of our co-translators has been gone the whole time we’ve been here so far (just got back last night), and others have been busy with their other responsibilities and it’s been hard for him to find people who are free to work.

 

I was disappointed when we arrived here to discover that my garden was gone.  Granted, it wasn’t full of stuff when I left, and we were gone for almost 6 months, but when we got back here it was in utter ruin, and even my pineapple plant that I planted a year or so ago was completely uprooted and gone.  It is always hard for me during our 6-8 week stays out here because we have no fresh food at all.  By the end of our stays, all I can think about are salads and fruit!  So having a few things in our garden (cucumbers, green onions, potatoes) helped with that a little bit.  We had been told that someone would look out for the garden while we were away, but that didn’t happen.  And who would uproot an entire pineapple plant???  So I’ve been feeling a bit discouraged by that.

 

I will say that we are all thankful that so far, we have all had good health.  That is a huge praise!  But it feels like this transition has just been too much for Elijah.  I think maybe, just maybe, he’s starting to come out of it a little now, but the first week or more has been really tough.  He’s just been a grumpy mess.  He’s not sick or teething at the moment, but he’s spent most of the past week crying and hanging onto my legs and wanting to be held and nursed 100% of the time.  I think now that he’s older (he turned 18 months old last week!) he’s just more aware of the upheaval and changes around him.  It’s been a challenge to do anything:  school with the kids, making meals, cleaning up dishes, anything because of him hanging on me and just needing to be held and comforted.

 

Finally, I have to say that (no matter where I am) exercise is one of my main sanity-keepers!  I even bring out a couple of my favorite exercise dvd’s on our hard drive so I can do those a couple times a week out here in the village.  And as much as possible I like to take the kids and get out on hikes (both to get out of the house and use up their energy, as well as get my my daily exercise quota!).  But due to the lousy weather and lack of solar power, this has been a challenge as well.  There has been no power to do an exercise video, and with the daily rain, it is too wet and muddy and slippery to even consider trying to get out for a hike.  I’ve tried to do something most days, like situps, pushups and such, and one day I attempted to run two miles in place (I figured that since I regularly run 2 miles in 19-20 mins, I could just run in place for the same amount of time).  But that gets old fast!  So I’m missing being able to regularly exercise.

 

So, there have been a lot of discouragements in our stay so far.  But I’m not trying to complain.  As I said at the beginning, I’m actually amazed at the good attitude we’ve all managed to have most of the time so far.  But please, pray for sun, and that aviation will figure out a way soon to get Kaitlyn’s schoolwork to us!  But even if neither of those things happen (or happen soon), I hope that we will continue to take our lemons and stick candy canes into them and make something sweet out of something very sour.

What's the Best Way to Spend a Rainy Afternoon?

Well ( besides running outside every 30 minutes for the entire afternoon, either to pull down the sheets because it just started pouring, or to re-hang them because the rain stopped, and the sky lightened a little and you really, really want to get those sheets and duvet cover dry! ) 
that would be experimenting with a brand new recipe.

Today I tried out a recipe for Black Bean Burgers.  I thought they turned out really yummy.  (When you use ingredients like cumin and cilantro, it's hard to go wrong!)  Unfortunately, I couldn't convince the rest of my family members to try them and I had to make regular burgers and sausages/hot dogs as well.  Too bad, because it would be a super cheap option for feeding the hungry masses.   But now I  have several of the Black bean burgers in my freezer for future quick lunches or dinners.

Not too bad looking, huh?

Yum!

Sometimes You Think Your Day Will Be One Way...

But then it turns out completely different!

Yesterday was one such day for me.  I had great plans for the day to get to work organizing piles of clothes in our spare room.  I have tons of clothes that Elijah and Julianne have outgrown that need to be gotten rid of.  I need the space to start storing items for our upcoming village trip.

But then Julianne woke up with a 104*+ temperature.  And Elijah had a non-stop running nose. 

So instead of organizing and sorting and getting rid of things, I spent lots of time just holding and snuggling fussy, miserable kids.

Thankfully, a friend helped me out and picked up Justin from school so I didn't have to wake my sleepy sickos to walk to the school to get him.

Later that day, Elijah found a marker and decided that green makeup was the cool thing.  You can't tell from the picture, but he was sporting quite the green eyeshadow.

 

And well, today my kids are a little better.  And there will be other days to sort and organize.

Happy Birthday(s) Julianne!

Last Sunday we celebrated Julianne's 4th birthday!  Wow!  Where have those years gone??

The Birthday Girl

We just had a quiet family celebration.  She got to open the presents from Grammy and Gramps and we just enjoyed playing around with them and spending time together.

I like how this picture captures some of the craziness of the moment:  Julianne opening her present, while Justin does acrobatics on the couch and Elijah tries to snatch the camera away from Matt!

Everyone wants to be the first to play with Julianne's new cash register

modeling some of her new gifts!

 Yesterday, she had part 2 of her birthday:  her party.  She invited 3 of her friends.  We played "Pass the Parcel".

Painted flower magnets.

Decorated cupcakes with sprinkles.

 
I think all in all they had a fun time. 

Julianne will have part 3 of her birthday in a few more weeks when the package from Grandma and Grandpa arrives!

Book Parade 2013

I know my posts have been few and far between lately.  It's just that sometimes (many times, actually) I go through the day and well, it's just.... routine.  Mundane.  Stuff like walking back and forth, back and forth to the school to drop off or pick up kids.  Laundry, sweeping the floor, cooking and cleaning up.  Nothing blog-worthy.

But every once in a while, something 'out of the norm' happens.  Like Book Parade Day at the Primary school.  Every year the kids' school has 2 weeks where they focus on reading.  There is a reading competition and activities for each class to participate in.  My kids all love to read, so having to read every day for a week isn't a big deal to them.  I was really proud of Justin, especially.  He read 30-45 minutes each day for the week.  I've been so impressed with his reading abilities!  He taught himself how to read last summer, and with almost no assistance from Matt or I has basically brought himself up to a reading level that passes up all the books that are used in his Kindergarten classroom!  A month or so ago, his teacher was testing the Kindergarteners on sight words, and Justin knew all but 1 of the 240+ words!  But I digress.....

So, the culmination of the 2 weeks of reading and book activities ends with the Book Parade.  The kids come up with a book character that they want to dress up as, and after lunch there is a parade and some other special events for all the kids to participate in.  Now, coming up with costumes for everyone COULD be a major ordeal.  Thankfully, for the 1-2 Book Parades we've actually been a part of now, my kids have come up with costumes that can be made from their big box of dress-up clothes (Thanks so much to the Grandma's who have supplied this box over the years!!!!!).

Kaitlyn, our animal enthusiast, was trying to come up with a book character that was an animal.  Well, she wanted to be a cheetah.  But we couldn't think of any cheetah book character.  Then I got the bright idea of Dr. Doolittle.  At first she was a little hesitant because she didn't want to dress up as a man.  But she quickly got inspired and collected stuffed animals to go along with her costume.

Dr. Doolittle and (her) menagerie

Kaitlyn (back, middle left) with her class

Nathan wanted to be a pirate.  He dressed up as the pirate dog from "Mice of the Westing Wind".  We were going to paint a dog nose and whiskers on him, but we decided not to at the end.  He made a (cute) ferocious pirate.

"Grrrrrr"

Nathan with his class

 Justin dressed up as Darth Vader.  Here he is in the parade, and with all his class.