Starting 2016 with a bang.... and a watermelon

Since the beginning of the year.....

We have studied California history and built our own bell towers...

And a mission....

And learned to help Dad mow the airstrip (this is only the first quarter!)

This little guy turned 7.... and lost his first tooth (naturally!) the next day....

Grandma thought I was crazy when I requested "edible eye balls" on my "bring from America" list. But aren't they cute? Yes, Ez's cake is in the freezer.... 80% humidity and butter cream frosting don't go well together...

We taught the tribal kids how to roast marshmallows... because, you know, we're here to help the people. :)

Our co-workers have been stuck in town for 7 weeks.... visa issues. So lots of just hanging around...

We spent a day upriver "helping" (by helping, I mean watching and doing absolutely nothing to help) the tribal people build a new canoe. (I guess they don't really build them; they hack a tree trunk into the right shape.) We got no pictures of the process, but I got some pretty scenery pictures. :)

And we had a tree felled right by our house.... it was the most scary "cultural experience" we have had yet.... it's that tree in the left of the picture - the one that is only inches away from our roof line....

They cut the tree with an ax in a matter of minutes and then used bamboo and vines (eeek!) to direct where it fell.... you can see the long thin poles of bamboo. Needless, to say, we had the boys out of the house and were praying hard! But it came down beautifully and missed the roof and our internet dish!

Our little boys are holiday junkies. They spent days and days working on Valentine's for each other. So this was what we woke up to on Sunday morning.... (those are painted rocks.... treasures gathered on our boat building trip as our village and section of the river has absolutely 0 rocks anywhere.)

We harvested our first watermelon! Such a fun treat on a hot day!

A few pics

Truth be told, we haven't been so busy I haven't been able to post pics.... really, we've been horrible at rationing our internet the last few months, so we always run out mid-month. So catching up a bit...

I requested a pumpkin on a supply order in August and got two beautiful ones that looked like this.... so they were spared being turned into puree while they served as "fall" decorations. :) 

Ezra got to his "Learning to Bake" lesson in his math book. A proud day when he made his "Apple Jack Cookies" all by himself. 

Really fun night in November - we did mini 'smores over candles with small marshmallows and egg drop cookies (like mini Vanilla wafers) and chocolate chips.

The boys' Christmas present from Brant's uncle. Yes, I gave permission for my six year old to receive a knife that's almost as long as he is. Yes, they really are sharp. Yes, we did not make it 24 hours after unwrapping them before busting out the band-aids.

Merry Christmas from our corner of the world!

Welcome to 2016

This past August we marked one year of living in the tribe. We celebrated with a steak dinner and measuring the boys' growth on the post in our kitchen. I took lots of pictures with grand plans to blog about God's faithfulness this past year, but you have yet to see those pictures.

The second half of 2015 has been a tad busy.

In the last six months we had lots of visitors - a short term college team, 2 pastors from the States, Brant's parents, 2 language consultants, 3 church planting consultants and 2 missionaries from other organizations. That is a whole lot of spaghetti and curry dinners and washing extra sheets and towels.

Our partners had to go back to the States for an emergency, were med-evaced out of the tribe twice for serious medical emergencies and then went back on their regular furlough.

I sat up half of one night with a tribal woman who didn't deliver her placenta; spent an afternoon sitting with women wailing and mourning their dead daughter, and saw a woman whose face was smashed in by her angry husband.

I have taught little boys contractions, cursive, long division, and multiplying fractions. We have studied levers and pulleys and the Civil War. I have nursed my babies through asthma attacks and malaria. I have listened to language recordings and studied verbs and aspect and mode and tense until my head spins.

I have had malaria four times since August. As I type, there is a horrible metallic taste in my mouth from a "new" medicine that is supposed to hopefully kick it "this time." I haven't decided which is worse - the medicine or the malaria, but right now I'm thinking I should have stuck with the malaria.

So today, this last day of 2015, I am tired. Brant is in bed with a fever. The boys are on hour number 2 of iPad playing. We'll tear them off the iPad soon and make them watch movies the rest of the day. We missed the big feast in the village today.

We are limping into 2016, folks.

January marks three years since we were back in America, and we are feeling it. Normally, we'd be taking a furlough about now, but we've had to push it back a bit because of our visa situation. Six months' delay doesn't sound like much, but today, it feels like these next six months might kill us.

And yet.... there's always an "and yet" - this was God's plan to end our year. We rest in that. We begin 2016 with an acute awareness that we will get through each day of this next six months only by God's grace and strength. Every verb that we figure out, every day that we stay healthy, every moment with our boys, every language hour that we log.... only by God's strength. We feel it and we know it.

That's not a bad way to start a new year.

Not much has changed

Six years ago last month....

This morning....

Not much has changed... except now they are all potty-trained and we have a way nicer couch. :) 

The one about how I hate death

We woke up this morning to blissful rain. As we cuddled in our sweatshirts and enjoyed hot coffee in the below 80 degree weather, we thanked the Lord that we are not yet in the grasp of the dreaded El Nino and its promised droughts. 

Brant worked with his new language helper for two hours this morning and made great strides in identifying different levels of tone. He was so encouraged he literally was jumping up and down. His excitement was contagious and the boys flew through their schoolwork with great attitudes as I unpacked boxes and cleaned fruits and vegetables sent in on our recent supply flight. 

It was a beautiful, cool, peaceful morning…. one you dream about when you envision missionary life in the tribe. 

And then…. you knew there had to be an “and then” in this story…. we got word that a woman from a village up river had died in childbirth. Her husband had attempted to take her down to the clinic, but she had lost too much blood and died last night. The plan was to bring her to our village to bury her; we’re still not sure why. We bribed the boys with candy and the iPad and locked them in the house, and Brant and I headed to the village to find out what was going on. We met our co-workers on the path and they went with Brant down to the port to wait for the boat that was supposed to bring her body to our village. 

I decided to take advantage of the lull and sit with a few ladies in one of the houses and practice some new vocabulary I have been studying. Not that anyone was very chatty. It was pretty solemn in the hut I went into, but the ladies welcomed me and gave me a spot to sit down. We sat for a few minutes and more people came into the hut. A growing sense of dread started to well up inside me as people in the hut began to weep openly…. a man sitting nearby motioned towards me and said “That is where they are going to put the body” ….at least I thought that’s what he said. But my funeral and dead body vocab isn’t really polished, so I did what every good language learner does when she doesn’t understand something…. I ignored what he said. 

I shouldn’t have. Within minutes, the funeral procession was coming inside the door. The wailing and crush of bodies was overwhelming. There must have been 80 or 90 people crammed into that tiny 20 by 20 foot hut - all screaming and wailing and weeping. They carried the body in and placed it right next to me. I tried not to throw up as tears started streaming down my face. They carried in the husband - too overcome with grief to walk. The mother came in and start grabbing at her daughter - yelling at her to wake up and shaking her. She collapsed on the floor - not 5 feet from where I sat. Yes, it was overwhelming. Yes, I am crying as I type this. 

They actually did prepare us for such traumatic situations while we were in our missions training. Focus on the physical details. Count the people. Notice the color of their shirts. Distract your mind. Dozens of women crowded around the body, screaming and wailing. The teenage girl I studied language with last week. The woman whose 4 year old son cut his finger with a machete on Sunday that I had helped bandage. A lady who had just given birth to a healthy baby boy. All their faces contorted and stricken with raw, violent, unrestrained grief. 

It was hopeless. Dark. Fearful. There was no Hope in that house and as I cried with the women, my heart broke. This woman, too, died too early to hear the Gospel. Her friends and relatives know little of the concept of Heaven and Hell, but they did know that the End was bleak and dark and scary. The Enemy comes to steal and kill and destroy and he had deceived these people yet again. No witch doctor or careful adherence to keeping the taboos had saved her. Hell was in that room. 

God was there too. I prayed through my tears and a gentle, cool breeze blew into the room and with it the reminder to my soul that God is already in the process of bringing Hope to these people. We are here. We shine the Light in this darkness. Brant and I and our teammates are not the Hope they need, but we carry the Message of that Hope. God is faithful. He has begun the work here and though it seems agonizingly slow at times - too slow to give this woman a chance to hear - He will complete the work of sending His Word out amongst these people. 

Tonight my clothes smell like smoke and my eyes are puffy from too many tears shed. My heart is heavy, yet at peace. There will be more funerals. There will be more death, but we work and we study verbs with as much strength as God gives so that someday soon those deaths will be marked with Hope. 

Glimpse into the last week

Lots going on here lately, but in the little boys' world...

I considered myself a parenting success after the following conversation....

Caleb (while reading a book): Mom, what's B-O-R-E-D mean?

Elijah: That's board - like what's on our walls. 

Me: No, that's a different kind of bored; not wood; it means you don't have anything to do. 

Caleb: When does that happen?

....And a failure after this one....

Me (during a history lesson on the Civil War): After day 3 of the Battle of Gettysburg, the South retreated back to Virginia and the Union claimed a decisive victory.

Elijah: YES! We are winning this war! 

Me: No, WE did not win the war.  

This little man lost his first top tooth. Two days later, he lost the second. 

The little boys are training to be spies.....

And Elijah, with the latest critter we said NO to as a pet. The people bring some new exotic animal by almost weekly.... 

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.