Birthday Boy

Meeting Elijah for the first time - only hours old!  I was completely smitten with him, like I was with his brother and sister.

We thought it wasn't possible for him to be any cuter, but -

...We were wrong. 

He gets cuter all the time.  I can hardly stand it.

This was his birthday last year.  I love the sheer delight on his face.

My little tree-climbing cutie. :)

Happy birthday, Elijah!

Musical Ramblings

Such a catchy title, I know.

I’m listening to Robin Mark’s Year of Grace.  It’s one of my favorite albums.  Love it, love it, love it!  It brings back memories of driving out to the valley to visit my friend Michelle, ’cause I usually brought the CD with me to listen on the way out.  I miss those drives, the rolling hills and orchards and cows, and of course, Michelle.  Anyway, that’s not really why I like the CD, but it’s a nice bonus. :)

The song of His glorious returning rises up on the wings of the dawn...

His coming.  Heaven.  Where no one will get sick, there will be no more goodbyes, we won’t sin, we won’t have trouble getting along, and there will be no cockroaches or mosquitoes or dust or poverty or hunger.

“I guess some people might think Heaven is just some sort of a cop-out,” I said to Mom the other week.  Some sort of escape we can dream about when we don’t feel like dealing with the difficulties of this life.   Her reply: “But Heaven is supposed to be our hope.  And if the things we face here make us more eager for our true home, that’s a good thing.”

- - -

All my changes come from Him, He who never changes

I’m held firm in the grasp of the Rock of all the ages…

Sometimes when I think back over all the changes in the last several years, I get a little dizzy.  Four years ago, I was one California girl smack dab in the middle of what felt like a wintery nowhere.  I was idealistic and perhaps a bit naïve.  If you had told me what the next four years would hold, I’d have laughed at you.  Or freaked out and run the other way.

Last Friday’s six-month mark has left me somewhat reflective, I suppose.   (One of my reflections being that six months must be about half an eternity.)

The other evening I visited someone in another part of the city.  We were driving down the street, and it hit me, “I haven’t been down here since I was at Dan and Sharon’s [the family I stayed with for the first few weeks after I arrived]!”  And all the memories of those first few weeks came flooding back.  Was that really six months ago?!  So much has happened since then.

 

All is well with my soul

He is God in control

I know not all His plans but I know I’m in His hands…

All is well with my soul.  All. is. well.   Even when it doesn’t feel well.

Yes, I have friends here and I’m learning and I can get cheese after all.  But there are times when all I can see is my not-enough-ness and not-in-control-ness.

There’s a reason Matthew 14:27-33 is underlined in my Bible. :)

And of all the thousand lessons that could be learned from that story, the one I most cling to now is this: My God may not instantly calm the storm, but He will reach out His hand and keep me from sinking.

 

I am persuaded neither death nor life

Nor powers on earth or in the realms above

Can ever take us from Your hand O God

Can ever separate us from Your love…

And there’s another promise.

- - -

I feel like French sessions are going reasonably well.  I’ve figured out some things that work well, my helper and I can chat and laugh, I’m meeting my goal of new words per hour.  Most of all, I pretty much know what’s going to happen in a session – because I’m the one who plans them.

Real life?  Not so much.

It’s more frustrating and stressful and I always sound way dumber.

And that’s another reason I’m so grateful for grace.  That God’s love for me has nothing to do with performance or measuring up.

 

On love unbound I fix my gaze

Where I first saw You in the year of grace…

 

And here’s where we’ll end.

Dear _____,

Taxi driver that rear-ended another car and then honked angrily…  Ya know, that kind of was your fault.  You shouldn’t be the one honking.

 

Boy jumping rope…  I don’t know kids played jump rope here.  I’d never seen it until just last week.  Brings back fun memories. :)

 

Mosquitoes…  I hate how you all seem to have this built-in sensor for when I’m just falling asleep, and you come whining by my ear.  I’m thankful you aren’t too numerous in my neighborhood, and I’m also thankful you usually don’t find me that tasty.  But there was that one night when I had the sheet pulled up around my face, and you somehow managed to take a nibble on my eyelid.  Good thing I don’t really swell up when I do get bit.

 

Ovaltine truck…  Guess what just I decided I needed to add to my shopping list.

 

Supermarket that had a fire…  You were closed for over a week - I’m glad you’re back in operation.  I just ran out of oatmeal, and you’re the best place I’ve found to buy it.

 

Rummy Roots (a card game teaching Latin/Greek word roots)…  It’s been years since I played you, but I still remember a lot of what you taught me.  When I hear a new French word, knowing Latin roots can often give me at least a hint as to the meaning.  (And thank you, Mom, for being ever on the look-out for ways to make learning fun.)

 

Creepy thing on my dining room table that looks like a spider…  I KNOW what you are, but I still sometimes have to look twice to reassure myself that it’s not a spider.

 

Stocky brown horse…  You reminded me of a teenage boy, the way you kept flipping your mane out of your eyes.

 

Choral group singing in a field near my apartment…  Ahhh.  That was beautiful.  I thoroughly enjoyed the free concert.

 

Lemon tea that steeped too long…  That was not a pleasant experience.  Lesson learned.

 

Tattered notebook with my first 3500+ words and phrases in French…  A reminder of how far I've come, when it's a lot easier to remember how much farther I have left to go...

 

Guy holding up three fingers while saying “two”…  Please don’t confuse me!

 

Bus barreling down the road with only two (yes, two!) passengers…  What?!  I am still in Africa?

 

“Pumpkin” (read: butternut squash) apple cake…  I told my friend the other day that I’d lost all sense of the four seasons (even California has four seasons when you compare it to here).  Which means that if I feel like celebrating Fall in February, there’s nothing to stop me.  I’m not sure if I made you to celebrate Fall, or if I was feeling Fall-ish because I made you, but that doesn’t matter.

 

Guy at the Bambinerie who asked me “Is it for a boy or a girl?”…  Um…that’s a pink onesie I’m holding, does that help?  A girl.  She had a girl.

 

Motley assortment of exercise machines right outside a construction site…  Oh yeah.  Building muscles, building apartments - they totally go together!

 

Friend who proofread/critiqued a newsletter of mine in our Communication Skills class at MTC (four whole years ago)…  I’m sure you never imagined that your simple pieces of advice would haunt guide me to the end of my writing days.   “Don’t use too many exclamation points,” you said, “and don’t use so many ‘…’”  Obviously these Dear _____ posts totally break that second recommendation, but outside of them, I really do try to watch my ellipses.  …And my exclamation points!

Six months and "None of these things"

 

It was his birthday last week.  I had good intentions of posting something then, but…they obviously stayed just intentions.  Perhaps that makes me a bad auntie?  I could offer excuses, but I’m sure you’re not really interested in them.

 

When I first met him, he was a chubby little baby with a fuzzy head of hair.  He lost the chubby cheeks a long time ago, and he’s far, far too close to my height now.  Sniffle, sniffle.

 

I miss him like crazy.

 

 

 

He loves creating robots and other things, and he has an imagination that makes mine (at least as a child) look positively tame. :)

 

 

He’s also a huge fan of cake.

 

 

The spittin’ image of his dad.

 

 

 

Such a ham, that Jeremiah.  Especially when there’s a camera around.  Hee, hee!

 

Love you, Jeremiah!

 

- - -

 

I really miss having Susie around.  She left 2 1/2 weeks ago, but it somehow seems longer than that.  (That could just be because my sense of time is really warped right now.)

 

 

We had a really good visit.

 

We did a few fun touristy things (like visiting Gorée Island and the park in the above picture).  We stayed up late with popcorn and Larkrise.

 

We talked.  And laughed a lot...over things like this -

 

"That car won't hit us - it's too nice of a car."

 

"Last night when I turned on the light the cockroaches were having a party in the sink - but they weren't the big ones."

 

"Well, I guess the first car decided to drive on the sidewalk and so everyone else thought it was a good idea."

 

"Look, today there are only six lanes trying to merge into one [as opposed to the day before, when seven lanes were trying to merge into one]!"

 

(She says I stole these from her copyrighted newsletter, but since I was present when they were said, I say it's not stealing.)

 

 

And then there was that statue that seemed to have a problem with its head...

 

- - -

 

It's brutal.  I feel like I'm in this way over my head.  I don't understand it.  I want to quit.  I want to see the whole picture, because taking one day at a time is such a helpless feeling sometimes.  God is sufficient in the midst of the struggle, and His grace is the only reason I've made it to this point.  Were things easier, I might miss that truth.

 

I wrote that 2 1/2 years ago when I was in Linguistics, but it wouldn't be too far off now.

 

I've been here six months.  Half a year.

 

They told me that for whatever reason, the six months point is often hard.

 

And yeah, it has been.

 

I honestly miss shopping at Costco and Target (and I'm not even a shopper, it's just something familiar).

 

Cooking for my family.

 

Spanish.

 

...And a million other things.

 

 

None of these things move me.  I'm not sure if I'll ever get to the point where I can say that.  Sometimes it seems like an impossible goal.

 

And here's where I have to take a minute to review those Bible stories we've been doing in class...

 

How God kept Noah and his family safe in the ark when the storm raged around them.

 

How He took Abraham from his father's house and from his country and led him to a place he'd never been before.

 

How He promised him a son when humanly speaking, it was impossible.

 

How He used Joseph, sold as a slave by his spiteful brothers and later thrown into prison for a crime he didn't commit, to save the lives of his entire family.

 

How He parted the Red Sea.  Fed His people with manna and quail.  Gave them water from a rock in the desert.

 

How He used an army of 300 - led by a nobody from the tribe of Manasseh - to route a much larger army.

 

How He supplied a widow with oil and flour for many days when there had only been enough for one last meal.

 

He is still the same.  He is still the Hero of the story.

 

I know I say that a lot.  It's not so much that I'm trying to hammer it into your heads as it is that I so desperately need to remember it myself.

 

There are times when it's just way easier to see how unheroic I am.  How bumbling and clueless and inept I am.  I can forget that God doesn't bumble.  He's never caught off guard.  He's never wringing His hands in apprehension.

 

He's got this.

 

 

He is our refuge, our safe place.  Always present.  Always with us.  Always unshakable.

 

God is sufficient in the midst of the struggle, and His grace is the only reason I've made it to this point.  Were things easier, I might miss that truth.

 

So here is to six months of grace...grace that I know I don't even see the full extent of.

Got Class?

So...what does a typical French session look like?

 

Four hours each afternoon, Monday-Friday.

 

 

 

This is where we have class - it's in a church.

 

 

We start out the session with a review of the words from the day before.  Marie-Claude (my language helper) reads the words off, one at a time, and I respond by giving a synonym, a definition, or using it in a sentence.

 

(Actually, we technically start with a bit of small talk, then move on to the review.)

 

 

We listen to Bible stories: I stop the recording whenever I hear a word or phrase I don't understand (that varies in frequency depending on the passage).  She explains the word, writes in my notebook, and we continue.

 

After that, she records all the new words from that exercise, using them in a sentence.  I use these recordings for review.  (Pretty much all the recordings from my sessions are potential review material.  Which means that by this point I have a lot of potential review material.  A LOT.)

 

Then she retells the story in her own words, and we do the same thing (listen to the recording together, stopping at any new words).

 

After that, I tell the story in much, much simpler words...and with a lot of help.

 

 

At some point, we take a little break to re-fuel our brains (or...fill our stomachs).

 

Food is my one weakness.  (No, it isn't really.)

 

 

 

I like to have somewhat of a variety of activities.  The Bible stories are great, but they tend to be longer and more work, so it's nice to have some simpler activities to mix in there.  Shaun the Sheep is a cartoon series of six-minute episodes.  The story line is straight forward and can be understood without the sound.

 

She narrates the episode as she watches it, and I record her narration.  Then we work through that recording the same way we would for a Bible story.

 

She retells the story, records the new words, and we move on.

 

 

This is another activity I sometimes do.  I use simple drawings to tell a story from my life.  I try to pick stories that I know will give me new words.  First, I tell her the story, then she retells it (while I record) in a more polished, natural way.  We record new words, etc.

 

(About the picture above - Missouri weather has furnished me some very interesting stories to tell, as well as some new vocabulary.)

 

Yet another activity is called "Scripts of life".  Basically, she gives me a detailed explanation of an activity from everyday life, such as washing dishes, mopping the floor, making coffee, taking a bus, and so on.  (At this point in the program, it needs to be a "shared experience" - not that we have to do it together, but that we both must have done it at some point.)  Example: To wash the dishes I first go into the kitchen.  I open up the cabinet under the sink.  I take out the soap.  I take out the wash basin.  I put the plates in the wash basin first, then I fill it up with water by turning on the tap.  Then I...

 

You get the point.  Very detailed.  We record any new words, I ask any questions I might have relating to the activity, and we move on.

 

We end the session by going over the words from that day.  Typically each session hour should give us about 8-10 new words.  Some days we get 30 words, some days 50, but it's been averaging out nicely.

 

That's a normal day - for this phase, anyway.  There are different types of activities depending on how far along in the program you are.

 

Questions?  Comments?  I'll refer you to the director of the French course...

In which we take a stroll

Some sights around the block -

 

 

Minarets, brick walls, and black paint: they're everywhere.

 

 

  

 

 

The variety of color and design in the iron-work (doors, balconies, and windows) is intriguing.

 

 

Coca-Cola.  It's everywhere, too...

 

 

 

 

Nescafé, anyone?

 

 

 

 

So many bricks.  So little time.  Or...something.

 

 

 

I think this is a restaurant of some sort, but it didn't look like it was open for business yet.

 

 

What a dapper pair, eh?

 

 

 

 

With all the construction work being done throughout the city, you'd expect to see more bulldozers and cranes, but you don't see a lot.

 

 

I saw three boys walking down the road with their backpacks and thought, "That would be a cute picture!"  Do you know how hard it is to take a picture of moving subjects, when you're moving and at the same time trying to be discreet?!

 

 

Here's another "while I was moving" shot.  We may not have an overabundance of tractors and bulldozers here, but there are cement mixers everywhere.

 

 

"No dumping trash, please."  Oh, the irony of this scene.

 

 

 

  

 

A house within a (not-yet-finished) house

 

 

  

 

 

Color: I will delight in it wherever I find it.