Home: Five Minute Friday

I'm a bit late on this seeing as it's now Monday, but I couldn't pass up this particular topic. So, here it is:

Home

We'll spend 3 more nights in this house. The one that has been our home. The one that has been my sons' first home. It's just a building, but we chose this building. We saw it's guts. When we arrived, some of the walls were still brick, there was no ceiling board or floors poured yet. It's gone through so many transitions in the short time we've lived here. When we first moved in we had barely any furniture. The kitchen had a sink and one small countertop. Cardboard boxes served as cabinets and pantry shelves. Several rooms were unpainted and to this day there is trim that never did get painted. The front step never got the final layer on top and the closets never got doors. Still, it's home. It's the place we come back to at the end of the day. Inside these walls we have formed so many memories. There are many things about this particular house that I am ready to leave behind, a variety of critters being high on the list, but it's still home. I keep trying to prepare Jude for all the changes, particularly the physical changes he'll see: furniture leaving, our house empty, things being sold. He's not liking it. He yells, "no" with great enthusiasm each time and it makes him rather grumpy and disagreeable. And I have to admit, while I'm excited about the move, it's still hard to leave this home we've made. We're busy packing up the pieces that can go with us, but there are so many that can't: Jude's handprint in the sidewalk, the way the light comes into the hallway, all the hard work Carson put into the concrete sinks and other projects, and the breeze blowing in rainy season... as Alli Rogers says, "There are things we can and cannot keep."

Jude is 3

We celebrated Jude's birthday on Saturday with a fun day at the Gold Mine. Okay, that happens to be where we go every Saturday and it's pretty much the only place in Geita to go, but we did make sure to include the playground, lunch, and swimming all in one day. Jude had a great time and enjoyed cake and presents at lunch with our team. It's hard to believe it's been 3 years. He changed so much this last year. Here are some pictures from his birthday over the years.

 birthday

one

two

three

Ordinary (Five Minute Friday)

Ordinary. Funny how that word is usually thought of as small and boring, and yet right now I am craving some ordinary. If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you’re surely aware of the insane amount of power cuts we’ve been experiencing. In fact I’m about ready to start using the phrase power onage, because the outages are now the norm. Last night I lay in bed at 1:30 am sweating. No power to run the fan and absolutely zero breeze. The kids slept through the heat wave marvelously and woke up as normal, but to a very tired mama. It’s hard to explain, but there is no part of my day that isn’t touched by the power being cut. It’s not just an annoyance. It completely changes daily living.

Ordinary sounds nice right now. Ordinary, always on power. Ordinary, always in the pipes water. Ordinary, back and forth crazy Tennessee weather that doesn’t really matter because everywhere you go there is heat and air. Ordinary cook dinner every night because for crying out loud it only took 30 minutes with all the convenience items available. Ordinary toddler takes a good nap because the heat didn't wake him screaming 3 times. The same thing day in and day out. Yes I am ready for some plain old ordinary. 

Home

As we plan for this move I try to focus on the positives: Air conditioning, dependable power, yogurt, air conditioning, smooth roads, air conditioning... can you tell it’s been hot?! But the reality is that it is with mixed emotions that we will return next month. For me and Carson this will be returning home in a sense, our home country, state, family. But it will also be leaving home, especially for our kids. We’ve made trips back often enough that Jude has a concept of where we are going, but this is the only house he’s ever lived in. It’s where his room is, his dogs are, his life up until now has been. And no matter how many times I try to explain to him that this time we’re not coming back he can’t grasp it, because we have ALWAYS come back.

The other day he was lining up leaves on the sidewalk. I think he said they were boats. Anyway, he told me he was going to leave them until the next day so he could show his family. Carson was out of town so I assumed that was who he meant, but when I asked who his family was he replied, “Alicia and the Groens” and then proceeded to name off members of both the Groen and Harrison families. Our teammates fit in his definition of family... and ours’ too. These are people who we’ve been with for holidays, birthdays, retreats, worship, and new babies. They are the ones we've experienced the extreme changes and ups and downs of a new country, language, and culture with. 

We're leaving home and family to go home to family.

Jude and Baylor- July 2011

a link: Kelley Nikondeha and Richard Rohr

Just wanted to share a link to a blog I've been enjoying lately.
Kelley Nikondeha is an American married to a Burundian and raising two adopted Burundi kids. She write about her life between these two worlds and theology.

In the post I'm sharing a link to, Kelley shares a video of Richard Rohr talking about prayer. I'm not really familiar with him, but his name keeps popping up on blogs I read and the short video has some great thoughts. Here's the link:

Richard Rohr on Prayer

Purpose

I’ve been a bit quiet on here. As we make preparations to come back in less than two months I am filled with all sorts of thoughts and emotions, but I struggle with the right words to share them. I’m going to try. But let me preface with this: I’m ok. I’m good with where I am and where I’ve been. The following post includes thoughts that I’ve written out many times many different ways over the previous months. I can’t seem to say it without it sounding negative. Not that I'm ever really Pollyanna. There are seasons in life that are about learning and not accomplishing. So resist the urge to jump in with lots of encouragement about how much of a difference I must have made. I'm not looking for that, just trying to share a few thoughts in this space of mine.

I came to Tanzania with big plans. You know, like changing the world.

I probably don’t have to tell you that I’ve yet to change the world. 

As we make our plans to move back next month I find myself thinking over our time here and wondering what it was all for. Carson has done lots of worthwhile things and plans to continue them with Mbegu Films, so I could just simply say that we came here for his work. That would be enough. 

But that wasn’t my plan in the beginning. I wanted to be a part of things here in a direct way that I haven’t been able to. There are lots of reasons that I don’t really want to hash out. In the end I have to admit that most of my plans just weren’t the right plans. There were things I didn’t pursue because I was busy having kids and there were things I didn’t pursue because in the end they didn’t seem like the right things to do. 

After four years here I’m more confused than ever about what would actually help end poverty. There are so many programs out there, but are any of them working in a direction that will one day leave these countries independent of Western aid? And is there any way to even achieve that if the governments aren’t working in that direction as well? 

The one thing I know for sure is that these 4 years have changed me. There is just something about stepping away from what you know that opens a door to God. And the gust coming through the door shakes up everything. I think some of the dust is still trying to settle and I wonder how long that might take. And I often find myself thinking that perhaps God called me to Africa for just that purpose: to shake up my dust.

     Just a pretty picture from Lake Tanganyika

Again, and an announcement

5 Minute Friday: Where a bunch of people write for 5 minutes on the same topic. (This one might have taken me more like 7 minutes, but I had to get to the end!)

Again

When you have a 2 year old and a 5 month old and discover you are pregnant it's a question, "Again?!" It shouldn't have been possible, certainly not likely, and yet here we go again. Another pregnancy.
Another life.
Another baby... coming.
But with one short sentence the again became something very different.
"It's a baby girl."
"Are you sure I asked?" He was soft spoken and looked a bit like the Tanzanian version of Colonel Sanders. At the start I was afraid he wasn't going to say anything, but as we got going he began to point things out to us: the abdomen, the thighs, the heart... and laughing at us when we made attempts at figuring out what other parts were.
And he commented on the fact that Silas was a bit young for us to be doing this again. Yes, we know. "Just take it with a light heart and everything will be fine." he said.
Suddenly this again, same old thing we JUST finished doing seems very different.
Pink and frilly and GIRL.
I was always happy to have boys. I realize that any child can pick up my bad habits, but the boys will try to BE like Carson, not me. But a daughter....
A daughter will likely imitate my attempts at cooking and sewing. She will pick up my concepts of beauty and self worth. I will be the first woman who defines what a woman is in her mind.
This again is suddenly an all new path that I am both nervous and excited to be walking down...
with my sweet Norah Evelyn.