God's love and sick little boys

Lots of tears around here lately. Today the happy kind. 

Last night Caleb, our 8 year old, had an asthma attack. It’s been building for weeks - the cold that he never shook, the cough that kept getting tighter and harder, the sleepless nights hacking and restless. Last night was the worst. We were up almost all night giving drugs and draping towels over steaming bowls of water and essential oils. Medicine on the chest, a nebulizer borrowed from our teammate. Nothing helped. It was a long, dark night. 

This morning, before we even had electricity enough to do so, we sent out an email to the missionary medical staff in town. Within an hour, emails from two nurses and the doctor poured in, encouraging us with prayers and Scripture and medicine dosaging information and the promise of a hospital grade nebulizer and some strong medicine on a flight tomorrow. They dropped everything this morning to coordinate with the pilot and our supply buyer to take care of our little Caleb and to encourage his very frazzled and exhausted Mom and Dad. I felt so loved and cared for. I wept as I read all the emails and effort being expended for our son, for us. 

So this afternoon as I was reading my Bible and praying, I thanked the Lord for people that love us. People who pray for us in the States and support us financially so we can be here sweating in this jungle. People in town who work tirelessly to take care of our physical needs and literally keep us alive so we can one day present the Gospel to these people. 

And as I thanked the Lord for all those people who love us, clear as day He said, “That’s ME loving you. That’s how much I love you.” And I wept again as it hit me - all the love and care that so many people showed us today is God showing HIS love and care for us. He is always ready to help us, any hour, day or night. He provides exactly what we need, right when we need it. He is always there to encourage us that we are not alone - that He is here with us, cheering us on to finish the work that He has assigned us. 

On verbs and death in the jungle

In just a few weeks, we will celebrate one year of living in the tribe. This time last year I could not even say “hello” in this language. Last night I lay awake in bed working through verbs and figuring out aspect and telic with clitics and tone and all these really scary linguistic terms. I had a huge break through. I almost started crying with excitement as it all became clear.... tone 3 denotes total punctuality on verbs. So ha! We ARE going to conquer this language!

This morning I cried again. We got word that one of the women in the village died. Young mom... had 3 little kids. She was excellent at helping me with language and always very kind to our whole team. She got a cough a few weeks back - when it was going around the village and all my boys got it. I showed her how to cut lemons to boil and add sugar cane to sweeten the “tea,” but she just got thinner and weaker. And last night she entered eternity without Christ.

My verb “ah-ha” moment came too late for her. Too little, too late. Too little, too late.... echoes again and again in my head this morning as I sweep dust off the floors and wipe dead bugs off the counter tops.

I just finished reading Acts. God makes me mad in the book of Acts. Paul’s life, while exciting at times, was also, in my mind, a classic example of poor use of time. He became a believer and then spent how many years in the desert? He could have been out preaching during those years. When he was imprisoned in Jerusalem and tried before Festus, he appealed to Caesar.... later Festus says Paul could have been released had he not appealed to Caesar. Why did God allow Paul to say those words and be jailed for years because he was now bound to stand trial in Rome? I don’t understand and I don’t like it.

The woman who died last night will spend eternity in hell due to poor timing... we didn’t get here soon enough, learn the language fast enough, couldn’t explain the Gospel in time...

That’s a lie, of course. Just like Paul and King David and countless others in Scripture show us, God’s timing does not always make sense in our minds. Delays and roadblocks and detours.... in my mind, usually all a huge waste of time.... but all planned by God. All controlled by God. All part of God’s plan to bring Himself glory. 

I don’t understand and I don’t like it. But today, through the tears, I am clinging to that truth. God knows. He sees and He is here, working out His plan for my life and these people. One verb at a time. 

This & That

We finally broke down and got a 3rd computer... because 2 computers for 2 adults is not enough. :) Really, we needed a non-Mac computer to run our language learning software and some of the boys' school programs. I get the cheapo netbook for most of the day (Brant's nice newish Mac will run Parallels but my old Mac won't.)

So the other day I walked in and Brant was using ALL THREE computers... pure selfishness, that man. ;)

Our sky has looked like this for weeks.... (don't be fooled, those aren't clouds in the picture - they are just cotton balls glued to the computer screen)

So our river looks like this.... Actually this was taken last week.... the dry land to water ratio has greatly increased.

This week's cooking project... homemade soft pretzels.... pure yum.

Summer in the tribe

We have been on summer break for three weeks now.... getting creative with how to fill the hours...

Cooking lessons... Elijah is learning to make mac and cheese, and Caleb is learning to turn on the stove... 

Our annual Summer Reading Contest....

The boys have to write out their books and add up the pages (like how we get some math in!?)

Bugs have been popping up all over the house... thankfully the plastic types. :) But I have been scared more than once....

 The boys even laced them into the screens... notice our new railing on our back porch!

Monday is "Cooking Day" and we do a project... last week was Salt Water Taffy. Quite fun & tasty, but we decided that all future candy making will be on hold until we return to a less humid climate. :):) I told Brant that making Salt Water Taffy was a twice in a lifetime experience... once as a kid and once with your kids. :) 

I love the cool evenings and walking the airstrip before dinner. The sunsets are beautiful.

Shots, Parties and Trashy Cucumbers: Pics of our week

Saturday morning coffee cake: the only time we allow toys at the table... so they all show up.... 

A nurse flew in this week to give measles vaccines to the villagers... 

This is our trash heap where we burn our trash... Jason came over to help Brant investigate a vine growing out of the side...

Turns out we have cucumbers growing! Two huge ripe ones and about 50 baby cucumbers that are just dying to be turned into pickles... our most successful gardening venture to date! (And we didn't do a single thing to the stupid plant... maybe we should stop trying so hard with the bell peppers and watermelon!)

Yes, those are cucumbers.... right next to a tuna can lid and a plastic bag...

Last day of school... we invited our co-workers' kids over for a movie night to celebrate...

It's officially summer break in the tribe!

Routine & monotony

I get emails often asking when we will be “settled” into our life here. I am not sure how to take that question... either 1) the person thinks we have boxes still to unpack, not realizing that unlike normal Americans who move into new houses, we are actually building our house with our own bare hands and unpacking the boxes takes second place to building the shelves to house the stuff or 2) living in the tribe will feel “normal,” assuming that I can toss out 34 years of previous life experience and suddenly feel normal seeing malnourished kids on my front step and having neighbors with no electricity or clean drinking water. Yeah, not sure that’s ever going to feel “normal.” 

But if the inquirer wants to know if we are into a routine and surviving daily life, yes, we’ve got that one down. I love routine and order and am thankful that within just a few weeks of moving in here (had to get some bookshelves built first!) we had gotten into a good routine as a family and our days have a good rhythm to them. I actually love our life here. There are few interruptions; and the ones that we have fall into very defined categories: “death or craziness in the village” “somebody in our family sick” or “plane coming in today” ....that’s about it in our small world. 

So a glimpse at our day....

5 am - Brant is up and starting language study and Bible study.

6:30 am - The sun is up. Every single day of the year. Living on the equator is pretty boring on the seasonal patterns.

7 am - We have radio call in to town. The noise and the having to yell to be heard always wakes the boys and I up if we’re not already awake.

7-8:30 - Breakfast. Granola (homemade) or oatmeal (instant) every single morning. Some mornings we have eggs or leftover pancakes and every single Saturday we have coffee cake. Boys do their chores and we all get ready for the day. I wipe counters clean from the previous nights' dead bugs, clear the rafters of spider webs and sweep the entire house.... every. single. morning.

8:30 - In theory this is when we start school. But I’m really slow going in the mornings and so are the boys, so sometimes this gets pushed til 9 or 10. :) We do school all morning, with a short snack break. School is actually going really well. It’s SO easy to homeschool when no one can call you on the phone or drop by your house unexpectedly or when you don’t feel the pressure to run to the store. Our mornings are quiet and peaceful and usually decently cool. We’re studying American history together this year and it’s been really fun. We’ve also been working on science units together - last semester we spent all semester studying the human body and this semester we’re doing outer space. Brant studies language and deals with people who come to our porch and goes to the village to visit and get new words and phrases. Sometimes he works with a language helper on our front porch and I can steal outside for a few minutes and sit and listen and learn new words.

In the mornings, I also try to get all the laundry done and also house cleaning and all my food prep and baking. I can usually keep up with that while I’m working with the boys.

12:30 or 1 pm - We usually do lunch late because I’m trying so hard to cram in all the school stuff and get the boys finished up. Lunch is the hardest meal for me here. All bread has to be made by hand and lunch meat is outrageously expensive and has to be ordered from off island.... so sandwiches are out. We do PB and J once a week, but again, bread making is a pain. Cheese is very, very expensive, so mac and cheese is not a good option (though I’ve been ordering cheese powder from the States by the pound and doing mac and cheese once a week.) We can get dried kidney beans here, so I make a huge thing of refried beans once a month and freeze them and we do beans and tortillas once a week. We do leftovers from dinner a lot as well. Seriously, if you have any easy lunch ideas that don’t involve anything frozen you buy at Cosco, I would love to hear them. :) 

1:30 or 2 - The little boys and I are done with school and morning jobs and they play and I get my afternoon stuff going.... I do my Bible study time during the afternoon. It’s hot and I’m usually tired and ready to rest, so I love just laying on my bed and reading my Bible and resting for a few minutes. I also get my language study time in during the afternoon - on a good day I get about an hour of computer work done (listening to recordings and reviewing words/phrases I’ve already acquired) and then I can spend about an hour out with the people practicing talking and getting new words. Brant continues to study language; sometimes in the afternoons he takes a break to exercise or get in a short nap or work on a house project.... anything to keep his focus sharp.  

5:30 - The villagers love to come out in the evenings and play ball on the airstrip or sit and hang out. It’s cool and beautiful and the kids run everywhere and play. It’s hard to make ourselves come in and get the evening going - dinner, brush teeth, reading time, bed... The boys are in bed by 8 pm. 

I would love to say that leaves Brant and I a couple hours to ourselves, but we are toast by the end of the day. We immediately shower and crawl into bed. We talk some and try to watch a TV show (already downloaded) or read before lights out by 9:30. 5 am comes early and we have to start the whole thing over again...

For the birds

The boys' latest venture in the tribe is bird hunting with their friends... both our teammates' kids and the tribal boys. They use a combination of bows and arrows, air soft guns and this type of boomerang wooden stick thing... I think the current kill rate is tribal boys - 1 million; white boys - zero. :)

I cringe every time they came back with a dead bird. We live in a tropical rain forest, people. The birds are bright green and red and beautiful and would be in a zoo in America. The boys aren't killing annoying black ravens or pigeons. :( I saw a huge white cockatoo that a tribal boy caught a couple weeks back.... it was gorgeous. It also fed his entire family for dinner that night. 

Ethics aside, hunting has led to obsession with all things bird. We're researching bird houses, bird traps, mating seasons and nest building. Last week the tribal boys came by in the morning and we (uncharacteristically and very graciously!) allowed the boys to skip school to go hunting. They came back an hour later with two "kills" that all 10 boys plucked and gutted and roasted and ate... I think each boy got half a bite of meat. That afternoon, I kid you not, we opened our history lesson to the life of John James Audubon and the founding of the Audubon Society. (Yes, I get the irony.) 

So on our vacation last month, when we gave the boys the option of visiting the zoo or visiting a bird park, they, of course, chose the bird park. 

The bird park was SO cool. I was surprised. :) The birds were everywhere but in cages. Wandering on sidewalks, perched in trees. It was literally like a big bird resort where the birds just kinda did their thing and we wandered around and tried not to get stepped on or pooped on. 

 Ever the ham....

After a show on predator birds....

Feeding time.... and no, we didn't get any white splotches on clothes or hats. :)

We did have to shush the boys at times.... "Look, Mom, we've caught one of those before!" "Oh, look, I've eaten that kind - it tasted really good!" Not sure Audubon would have approved. :)