Geocentric Geography

This is too good not to share. It comes from my Geography 7 class, and my first thought was one of irony: In History, I'm trying to take the kids back to the Middle Ages; in Geography, I'm trying to get them out.

Am I there yet?

What was I thinking?!? Signing up for a half marathon? As of right now, I have three long trianing races left. Ugh.

Seeking cooler temps

It's been hot here in Germany since my return 4 days ago, and TCK's are nothing if no resourceful. My experience growing up in Austria without air conditioning taught me that on the particularly unbearable days, going UP in elevation can help.

Hochblauen is the closest mountain/foothill near our town, and the elevation difference is somewhere around 800 meters (or 2,400 feet). So, Emily and I decided to give it a try, and we were rewarded with a nice, cool, shady spot where we read and played a game for a few hours of afternoon relief. Plus, check out our view! It was one of the best haze-less days I've had on Hochblauen so that I even saw some Swiss Alps way off in the distance. Praise God for elevation!

Going to the fair

I remember very vividly my first fair. I was 19 years old and fresh off the boat from Austria, so the sight of so many animals in one place and the conglomeration of smells - fried food, manure, engine grease, and stale popcorn - nearly knocked me off my feet. But I loved it!

So when I arrived in Ontario, OR, early August for a weekend with a supporting church, and they told me the County Fair was going on, I was super excited! TV Baptist Church had a table in the Exhibition Center, and I was signed up to work one of the 4-hour shifts Friday afternoon, but I showed up early so that I could walk the grounds.

My adventure began in the Art Barn. I saw one of the most amazing photographs of a little boy looking up admiringly at his Dad while fishing in a lake. Then there were the aisles and aisles of homemade quilts. Talk about hours of work in one spot. The home-making section was fascinating with colored ribbons adorning jars of jam and platters of pies. But my favorite thing in this barn were the giant vegetables: there was a squash the size of head! (We just don't grow them that big in Germany.)

From there I wandered over to the arena for cattle showing. I happened to catch the scene during the Junior Competition, and the little boys and girls looked so cute in their denim jeans, checkered shirts and cowboy boots and hat to match. It must've been hot for most of them in that sun though. I found it interesting what the judges were focused on. I would have thought the cows that had their heads down or who were the hardest to get into position would be eliminated first, but they cared more about the stance of their legs. Who knew? I still don't know why ...

For lunch I had the world's best lemonade I've ever tasted (I went back for more in a different flavor twice) as well as that juicy burger, and then I found the TVBC people working the table. It was so neat. As part of the exhibition, we had a replica Repenomamus dinosaur names Pspot (pronounced Spot). He was quite the attraction, especially for some of the younger kids, and as I teacher I was naturally drawn to them. We handed out hundreds of tracts, and one of the best conversations I had was with a lady who said she attended another church in town. I told her I was visiting TVBC and invited her to come that Sunday. She ended up sharing a lot of personal family matters with me, and we exchanged names and cards with the promise to pray for each other. Nothing else can quite give you that feeling of flying high as connecting with someone in the Lord. What a neat privilege to do that all around the world.

Yep, it's decided. I love fairs!

Grief

The past two weeks I've been attending WorldVenture's Home Assignment Debrief. I truly appreciate that my mission sees value in giving us structured time in which they give us updates on changes at the home office, we reflect on our last few years in small groups, and we generally have lots of time to rest, free from speaking engagements and support raising. One of the sessions today was on the topic of mourning. People experience loss every day; missionaries' grief is often compounded when regular losses (keys, fire, job change, death, ...) collide with extra losses (moving overseas, family traditions, home culture, home language, favorite food, everything familiar, ...).

As part of our session, we looked at Jesus' grief in four different passages: Matthew 14, John 11, Luke 19:41, and Hebrews 5:7. We had to look at the WHAT and the HOW Jesus mourned these various losses and see what we could apply to our own lives. The main thought that stood out to me was a very simple truth - it's possible for even the same person to grieve differently each time.

Taking this and applying it to the TCK's I work with, I was a bit overwhelmed to think that
1. these kids encounter tons of losses for so young a life
2. each time they grieve, it may look completely different from the last time
3. our campus has 320 of these individuals who may grieve completely differently each time.

How do I prepare for that? How can I possibly offer each TCK I work with exactly what he or she needs in that moment of grief? The answer is I can't. My job is the same as it every was: to be a vessel, a channel of God's grace to them so that HE can offer them exactly what they need. According to our session today, one of the biggest graceful acts I can do is to simply give them permission to grieve. No one wants to lose, and no one wants to mourn, but it is hard to avoid. Especially for TCK's.

Please pray with me as I work through grieving my own losses, minor though they may be (see previous posts), and even more, pray that I can best serve my TCK's who mourn.

The Flower Pot

                         The Flower Pot
                                     Romans 9:21-23

Sparkle of blue
             in wasteland of gray:
simple forgotten pot

                         Red terracotta wrapped in sapphire glaze 

                         Potter’s etched ridges now smeared in ash

lumpish
unassuming
reliable
ordinary 

Created for use but not honor                         

                                       – much like us –
Testimony to God’s purposes:

                   be hardened in the first fire

                                 bring glory in the second

Fire

I’ve sat down twenty times in an attempt to write a blog about the last week, and the emotions overwhelm me every time. It’s not the grief for things lost – the books, hand-carved desks, family tree, Gmundner Keramik, and photo albums. I stopped tearing up about those things on Thursday. Rather, it’s the outpouring of love by the Body of Christ. It has knocked me off my feet. We read about how we’re the bride of Christ, meant to be radiant, drawing people in, getting ready for his return and our big wedding day. Well, this week, it surpassed the mere sense of sight for me, from words on a page into reality. I felt it in the hugs, heard about it in the gifts, and tasted it in the tears.

It’s still hard to believe my parents’ and Scotti + Fiona’s house is gone, even though we’re past the initial shock and definitely in the hard period of logistics now: ordering checks, buying shoes, meeting with insurance agents, and painstakingly trying to remember what was in each room for the itemization. (And by “we,” I really mean them). This is the beginning of the slow rebuilding phase, of trying to return to some normalcy. Poor Livvi – she’s probably having the hardest time with it. How do you explain to a 2-year-old why you can’t just return home and why all her old toys are gone?

On Sunday, the whole family (minus me, sadly) got to return and sift through the ashes. It was emotional, though not as sad as anyone had anticipated. The only few things that survived were some pottery items and a couple of mugs that had been in the dishwasher. However, it was cathartic for them to be able to say good-bye with their own eyes and hands. In typical grace-filled fashion, as they have been demonstrating all week, the four adults who lost everything came out smiling.

Obviously, I can’t wait to join them, but in the mean time, I’m relishing seeing the Body at work. One lady took Fiona shopping for clothes for the whole family and footed the bill. At Dick Sporting Goods the other day, the sales clerk recognized their street name, and they made my parents pick out more stuff and sold it all at cost to them. Here in Minnesota, both at my church and at my brother’s, two ladies have come up to us with brand new socks and sheets and toys for us to take down and share. And the youcaring.com site that a friend set up for my family has passed an astounding $12,000! You can’t tell me the Church has forgotten how to love. 

This is just overwhelming, and I probably need to finish this post, so I can go cry again. Praise God for his faithfulness, and thank you for your prayers and gifts as we all continue to process.