Living on the Edge...

...somebody pull me back to safety! In the last 48 hours I have had a child get stung by a Portuguese Man of War, a nine inch lizard in my house (harmless, thankfully!) and just almost lost one out an upstairs open window!!! I will leave out the details so as not to publicly incriminate the guilty parties. I'm not sure what's going on, but please continue to pray for us and our safety as well as David's! And, I echo every mother's prayer when I ask you: pray I can be the mother to these kids that God wants me to be!

First Piano Recital!

Well, in addition to having birthdays and playing baseball, Andrew and Elizabeth also began piano lessons on March 1. The lessons are here in our home, which is wonderful for me for several reasons. It gives me an added incentive to get the laundry folded and put away that's been on the couch for a day, and secondly, I don't have to load everybody up and drive them to an activity. We actually eat lunch and keep living life while she is here! Having lessons in our home makes it so much more personal--so much more like a lifestyle than just another activity. As wonderful as this is, our teacher is even more wonderful! Mrs. King has taught piano for 62 years!!! She is sharp as a tack, has great communication skills, drives a big blue pick-up truck, adores the children, has several cats and at least two dogs and brought us fresh sugar snap peas last Tuesday! (I just finished the last of them as an after dinner snack!) Did I mention she adores children? She just laughs and laughs with them as they tell her stories from their lives. And she tells them stories from her life, or about her experiences with other students or about herself as a little girl! Hannah likes to dress up, showing her all her play dresses and likes to have her piano lesson as well, which lasts about 30 seconds. Last week, she ran out of the house after Mrs. King, saying, "I love you, I love you, I love you and I want to give you a hug good-bye!" For those of you who know Hannah, getting this personal with someone she's only seen once a week for 6 weeks, this is a huge stretch. It says a lot about this delightful woman. I posted their portions of their very informal recital on YouTube. They have four recitals a year. We did not know she would be announcing each song, and the kids were prepared to play through each song they were playing in a certain order with no interruptions. All the announcing their pieces and applause threw them off a little bit, but it's still delightful to see what they've learned and that they enjoy playing for others. Here's the site: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd1S8jdA7JU Look to the left to see the option to watch Elizabeth's pieces! She's wearing a navy blue dress and is in braids. Enjoy!

Play Ball!

Ok. Well, the plays aren't quite as exciting as the big leagues yet, but they are really learning a lot and seem to like it so far! The whole team listens to the coaches and the coaches patiently explain and re-explain where to stand, how to catch, how to throw, where to throw, how to bat, where to run, etc. It's a coach pitch league for 5-7 year olds. If the child doesn't hit the ball within 5 pitches, they pull out the tee. Andrew is technically too old, but he doesn't have a lot of experience and the older league was already full. The way I see it, God knew I wasn't ready to have kids on two different teams as a single parent right now! These are pictures from their game on Thursday. They have games every Monday and Thursday through mid-May. In the very top picture, Andrew is playing catch with his friend and his friend's dad (who happens to be his Cub Scout leader!). The last picture is of our little cheerleader!

Eclipse and Super Moon!

The picture on the top, the yellowish one, is the picture of the Super Moon rising over the Florida panhandle treeline along the edge of St. Andrew's Bay. We were watching it rise from our docked boat. The picture on the bottom is a slightly fuzzy picture of the eclipse of the moon that occurred shortly before Christmas. It was the first eclipse I have ever seen in person and it was a really neat experience! I will not forget getting all bundled up and setting up my tripod and then laying on the kids' bean bags in the quiet cool, gazing up at the moon in the clear sky. I never could get too relaxed though because my ear was ever open for the sound of an approaching bear!!! That would have truly made the eclipse unforgettable, but thankfully no bears interrupted my moon watching that night! Isn't God's creation breathtaking?

Happy Birthday, Elizabeth!

Elizabeth is now a very grown up six years old, as of April 4. She really had a wonderful birthday with some very special moments over the weekend before her Monday birthday. However, the big event was her "Tangled" birthday party last Friday. (If you haven't seen this movie, you definitely need to! There's some magic and a really bad lady, but Elizabeth thinks it is "Christian made" because of the powerful ending! I won't ruin it for you. Watch it and see!) So, we had a doughnut "tower" cake. That was the highlight of the party, I'd say. There were seven girls including Elizabeth ranging in age from four to ten years old. The party began with painting (just like Rapunzel) and making their own "Wanted" posters (another part of the movie). Then I braided everyone's hair and put silk flowers in the braids, just like Rapunzel. (You better believe I was braiding fast!) Then we played "Hide the Chameleon". Andrew somehow happens to own, not one but two toy chameleons, and Pascal, Rapunzel's pet chameleon, played a main role in the film. We finished up with the doughnut cake and raspberry lemonade and gift-opening. She was pretty worn out after all that excitement! She also received a Bible for her birthday. She made "official" the work God had been doing in her heart to me on February 15, praying to ask Jesus to be the Lord of her life since He had loved her so much He'd died for her sins. It doesn't get much better than that! She also loves art, so in addition to a neat art set she received from her grandparents, her dad and me and brother and sister gave her paints (washable!), paper and an easel. She's painted nearly every day since!

Happy Belated Birthday to Andrew!

Andrew turned eight years old on March 7. He had a skating birthday party with three friends and their siblings (and parents!) in attendance. They got a little bit of video game money, plenty of lemonade, soda, hot dogs and cake and ice cream, and a ton of skating! The party was scheduled from 12-4! We were exhausted, so we quit at 3:30, after the last guest left, of course. As you can imagine, skating in low light conditions did not provide a very good environment for skating pictures. Even with my expertise (ha, ha!), it proved to be too great of a challenge for me! So, only cake and present pictures. He saw the cakes at the commissary and decided to go with a dinosaur cake with an exploding volcano. I know. That's really cool to an eight year old! I was a little sad that he didn't want me to make him a cake or cookie, but I was really relieved that the cake could be marked off the list just like that! The gift he has enjoyed the most has proved to be his Action Bible, from his dad and me. It's most of the Bible portrayed in graphic novel/comic book style. Some of the pictures and the general style of the drawings is a little offensive to me, especially in something as sacred as the Bible, but I've learned to look past that, and spent time reading it with Andrew. He's really learning a lot and we know that the truth is going forth and being planted deep within him. We believe it will grow a strong, tall tree one day and bear much fruit!

Why I Love Thursdays This Deployment

Wake up, shower, work, work, work, work, eat, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, eat, work, work, scho...(usually school is an impossibility), sleep.

That is the gist of my typical day over here. Not Thursdays. Now, before I explain why I love Thursdays over here so much I must dispel any notions that my joy on Thursdays comes in any way from the cultural tendencies of this area. See, Thursday to a Muslim in an Islamic Republic is like Friday nights in America. Friday is their Djuma, or holy day, and so there is no work on Fridays (for the most part). Therefore, Thursday nights usually involve a lot of excitement among the Afghans. There are rumors of what they do, but I'd rather you do your own research rather than listen to my conjecture - needless to say, most of the rumors are not very flattering.

I digress.

So then, why is Thursday of such significance to me? Because for a few hours I am able to escape work, school, and my B-Hut (which I don't see much of) and worship the Lord at practice for the Chapel praise team.

The group of singers and musicians is dynamic and diverse but the music is wonderful, the fellowship is second-to-none, and the ability to play as loud as I want and sing however I want to praise God is without equal to me. I can't do that anywhere - not in my B-Hut (the walls are merely 3/8" plywood that seem to amplify rather than dampen sound) and not in my office (the office is truly occupied like, 17 hours a day sometimes). The Chapel on the other hand, provides a place where I can finally get back to music and open, uninterrupted praise.

Sundays are good too (when we actually foster praise and worship) - but it is occasionally too difficult standing on that platform to force that "performer" mentality out of my mind, and I seem to sometimes lose track as to why I'm really serving to begin with. Instead, Thursday practice is a judgment-free, worship-filled event with only the hours of the practice to contain our praise.

VFF: Everlasting!

We are surrounded by the reminder of the Almighty - even in a place such as this.

"My heart and my soul,
I give you control,
consume me from the inside out.
Let justice and praise,
become my embrace,
to love you from the inside out."

It is incredible to think that the same power who created these mountains lives inside me and is consuming me from within!

"Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades!"

Even these mountains will crumble and fall eventually, but His love never ends.

"Neverending, Your Glory goes beyond all fame!"

The glories of war are bestowed with pomp and circumstance yet are as fleeting as the tides.
Conversely, His Glory arrived in unassuming fashion but will see no end.




(Above quoted lyrics are from the inspired heart of Joel Houston, From the Inside Out, 2006. Associated commentary by David S. on this 1st Valleys Fill First post.)