the video

My brother made this for me. Sweet kid. :)

Long time

So, all of my blogging resolutions went by the wayside when life started getting busy. And I have an even better excuse - my computer was stolen. And then someone hit my car. And then a big black box appeared on our TV screen every time you turned it on. And then I accidentally paid for our spring break package twice. Isn't life just funny sometimes?

Actually all of that stuff is old news, and mostly resolved (a million phone calls later). For a while I was feeling a little overwhelmed but it occurred to me that I could really learn something from all this, and I would hate to go through a mini tragedy without gaining the lesson! So, here's what I learned:

Isaiah 43:1b-3a
Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the LORD your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

Sounds a little dramatic, the burning and consuming, but I realized that I myself was not harmed. God protected us and allowed these small things to happen but kept me safe. And I mean, really, they are SMALL things. (After my "lesson epiphany" I got an email from family friends about how one daughter was badly injured in a tornado and another daughter fleeing from a rebel army in Africa - see, my issues are small! Talk about going through the fire . . .!!) During candidate week we talked about giving up our "rights" - honestly, rights we aren't even entitled to anyway. So God is helping me along, challenging me and carefully peeling away what I might hold too tightly.

Here's to life lessons. Love learning them. Now, if only we could get that black box on the TV to disappear. . .

Conflict

It's been about a month and Kenya is still in turmoil since the presidential election. Latest reports say 800 people have died since Kibaki announced his win. Personally, I feel fairly uneducated - I'm learning more about tribes and politics than I ever have before. I mostly rely on BBC.com and NPR on the way to school. (Side note - I really like NPR. I'm one of those . . . I've only started listening since the Kenyan election, trying to stay on top of things, but I think I've been suckered in.)

So those sources give me the news, but I check in with my Kenyan friend from Taylor who explains it all to me and gives me the personal side, making it that much more real. I've only spent a month in Kenya, I am in no way an expert on politics. But that one month did a lot for me - to place Kibera and Naivasha, to have a face to go with the label of Kikuyu or Luo. This summer we heard that tribalism was dying out, or fading in the cities, at least. Apparently that assumption was rather inaccurate.

Friends in Nairobi on AIM's media team have taken some really telling photos of Kibera. Kibera is already a wonder, all of those people crammed into the squalor of this slum, and then riots, tear gas, rubber bullets, live bullets . . . homes been burned and people killed and fragile stability shattered.

What little I know about Kenya causes my heart to ache with each news update. Join me in praying for Kenya - for stability, forgiveness, for reconciliation.

More Financial Information

For those of you interested in giving financially, here's a more detailed look at the breakdown of my expenses. My "outgoing" expenses - $10,577 - are one-time gifts used to cover travel, medical, orientation school, etc. Check out the chart (click to enlarge):


My monthly support need is $1,821 per month. This is where the monthly giving comes in. Below is a pie graph with my actual numbers plugged in. Again, click to enlarge:

AIM has more information available here.

AIM has an online giving option and EFT - electronic funds transfer - available online. Check it out!

Salt of the Earth

This is my plug for Perspectives, a course on world missions, that is offered in many cities in the U.S. I took the class last year and learned so much about missions. You'd think growing up as an MK (kind of), I'd know it all, but it turns out I didn't! The class takes you through four "perspectives" on missions - Biblical, historical, cultural, and strategic. It was so interesting, seriously, and it changed the way I read my Bible.

The class meets once a week starting in January. There are different credit options as it can be used for undergrad or graduate-level credit. I actually didn't take it for credit since I am not in school and I'd say that is the way to go! That way no work is actually required, I just did the best I could to get through the reading before the next week (it was my first year teaching!). The book is great and a compilation of a lot of peoples' thoughts on missions - from Johns Stott to John Piper to Ralph Winter and a bunch of other guys I'd never heard of. The classes were taught by lots of different people, almost a different teacher every week - from professors to pastors to missionaries.

So, it was great. Look it up, pray about it. I know in Charlotte you could attend the first class without payment and make a decision. But you need to move fast, classes start in January! Look up classes near your town on www.perspectives.org.

Christmas Favorites 2007

Christmas is always wonderful. This year I had several 'favorites' that made it special.

1. Behold the Lamb concert. I went to the Behold the Lamb concert in Charlotte and absolutely loved it, bought the CD, and am now getting music from contributing artists. It's THAT life-changing. :) You can read more about it and listen to some songs on Andrew Peterson's website or, hilariously, on wikipedia!
2. Christmas cookies. Obviously this is a big part of the season - this year we had special buddies Luke, Cameryn, and Noelle come over to make cookies with us. And my mom discovered a new Peppermint Shortbread cookie that may be the best thing I've ever tasted. I can't find the recipe (it was in the paper) but maybe you could google it. It's amazing.
3. Christmas crafts. This year I conned my students into sewing . . . really, it's amazing, if you act excited (which I was) and build it up, the kids think it's the greatest thing ever. They literally cheered when I showed them my example! 5 minutes later, when the thread was all tangled and fingers pricked and teacher was flying around the room helping everyone at once, not so many cheers, but the end result was cute and I think we all learned about patience and perseverance.
4. Gift-giving. My roommates and I have "family Christmas" before we leave and the gifts were again so well-thought out and sweet. I just love these girls! And all of the secrecy and plotting and planning. My coworkers decided to do a pseudo-white elephant exchange and bring cookies and we had the most hilarious planning session ever. One of my fellow teachers is afraid of candles and will not light them in her house or buy them for others for fear she'll be responsible for burning their house down! Whonu?
5. Weary Travelers. This might not have been the highlight of Christmas, but it's kind of tradition, right? I bought this ridiculous ticket that took me from Charlotte to Louisville to O'Hare to OKC. Every single flight was delayed and I ended up sitting on the floor in Chicago for 4 hours with all the other glazed-over and exhausted passengers. There comes a point when "canceled" or "delayed" doesn't even raise a reaction from the crowd. At that point, it's just camaraderie and a mutual desire to just get where you need to be - before Christmas.
6. Being with my Family! The hours of travel just make Oklahoma more worth it!

Snow in Oklahoma!

I didn't think I'd see snow this year, but it's snowed twice in Oklahoma since I arrived! It's even snowing right now, a nice wet sticky snow that might last until tomorrow - tend to lose it pretty quickly here. It's so nice to be home, so relaxing, to the point I felt a little restless after about 2 hours of "resting." But I'm enjoying it thoroughly! And I'm hoping to get into the blogging spirit now that I have extra hours in my day. We'll see how that goes.

So I was out prancing around before church snapping pictures of the snow. I really do have more sense than this, I was just killing time waiting for the family.




Our snow people used to just get sand blown up on them when they were on our porch in Dubai. I think they like the view from our Oklahoma door a little better.