May Reads

The Jungle Books | Kipling: I didn't read a lot of classical literature when I was growing up, so I've been trying to remedy that in the last several years.  I remember one story (Rikki-Tikki-Tavi) from a reader we had as kids, and I loved it, so I was eager to read more by Kipling.  There were a few stories or passages that were a bit tedious, but overall I quite enjoyed it.  He had some great lines like, "They [monkeys] boast and chatter and pretend that they are a great people about to do great affairs in the jungle, but the falling of a nut turns their minds to laughter and all is forgotten."

Fierce Faith | Worthington: Alli covers a number of fears - rejection, failure, missing out, betrayal, not being enough, to name several.  She talks about the unhealthy ways we often deal with fear.  She calls them "The Five Bad B's":  busy, blame, binge, bury, brood.  It was pretty decent, but didn't necessarily scratch where it itched for me.  I did appreciate her honesty and transparency.

Improving Your Serve | Swindoll: This book was written a while ago (something that showed in the typeset and formatting of the book, which didn't make the most enjoyable read).  He talks about servanthood, giving, unselfishness, forgiveness, Jesus's example of serving, the challenges of serving, and so on.  It was a decent read - but not good enough that I'd want to read it again and again.

Carla's Comfort Food | Hall: A selection of recipes from around the world, adapted for American kitchens.  Carla has a very fun, conversational style of writing, and the pictures were fantastically colorful.  I think I'd be quite happy to invite myself over, pull up a chair to her counter, and chat while sampling some of her tasty-looking recipes.

Jamie Oliver's Food Escapes | Oliver: Cookbooks like this make me want to travel all over and eat so many things.  Of course, being a realist, I know this can't actually happen (nor do I really want to spend my days gallivanting all around the world), so it just makes me want to eat all the things from everywhere.  More or less.  I loved the pictures and the stories.  He includes six different countries: Italy, Greece, Sweden, France, Morocco, and Spain.

My Paris Kitchen | Lebovitz: This cookbook left me highly uninspired (either to want to cook the food or go to the places he was describing).  It's very rare that a cookbook will do that to me, so I was quite disappointed.  Was it his writing style?  The recipes themselves?  The overall drab, grayish sort of feeling from both the pictures and his descriptions?  I don't know, but I was most thoroughly unimpressed.

Creating Great Guest Rooms | Bugg: Another rather out-dated book as far as décor trends go.  Some helpful tips for making guests feel welcome.

Cupcakes and Cashmere at Home | Schuman: Such an unexpectedly fun read!  Lots of good pictures.  Fun tips about home decorating, entertaining, renting vs. owning, plus personal stories woven in throughout.  A bonus: the setup of the book was very clean, with lots of white space (something I'm finding I appreciate more and more!).

Present Over Perfect | Niequist: I adore Shauna's writing style and voice.  Reading is effortless, yet engaging.  She's incredibly skillful in using language - lyrical, but not the vague sort of poetic-ness that leaves you wondering what on earth someone is even saying - and I love when people can do that.  Now, I have no desire to write a critique on the content of her book, but I will say it was a little bit of a mixed-bag for me.  There were some very well-put truths that I needed to hear and I loved her honest story-telling.  There were also definitely some things that I didn't agree with (or was unsure if I could agree with), but I'm still glad I read it and would love to read more of her books.  (This was the second one I've read.)

The Lifegiving Home | Clarkson & Clarkson: Written by a mother-daughter team.  I'll be honest, at first I wasn't sure what to think.  When people keep telling you how they did things in their family, it has the potential to feel a bit preachy.  But both of them were good writers and there turned out to be a good dose of honesty ("These are things we value/ideas we love, but we don't always do them perfectly or consistently."), so I let go of my initial reservations and thoroughly enjoyed this read.  Lots of great ideas about making home a haven - for your family, yourself, and to invite other people into.  They talked a lot about family traditions with special meaning to them (maybe because they moved around so much and the idea of "home" wasn't always tied to a physical location) and about celebrating everyday type things.  I really appreciated the multi-faceted perspective on hospitality as well as having the perspective of both an older lady who had raised a family and a single lady around 30.

To Bedtime Snuggles

Every time I have the chance to put him to bed, I snatch it up.

Even though he usually cries over the idea of going to bed, halfway through getting pj's and a clean diaper on he changes his mind.

We close the blinds, the curtains, shut off the light, and settle in the rocking chair.

He's the sweetest snuggler, leaning his tired little self against me without protest.

His fingers wander up to touch my dangling earrings.  I remind him to be gentle and he always looks at me, patting my cheek with his little hand.  He giggles behind his pacifier...and I love that sound.

The rocking chair creaks, the sound machine blurs most of the noise downstairs, and I sing - Be Thou My Vision and Canaan's Land and Edelweiss and Brahm's Lullaby (which my mom used to sing to me when I was little, and which - to this day - makes me happily drowsy).

Little eyes droop lower and lower.  I never like laying him down in the crib; I could happily rock him for hours.  But of course I don't.  I tuck him in, kiss his cheek one more time, and sneak out, willing the door not to squeak behind me.

One day he'll be too old for bedtime snuggles, but for now, I enjoy them to the fullest.

This...

This was when Grandma needed to fix dinner so she tucked the blanket around them and put something on for them to watch.

This is Avers, a cheesy little thing if there ever was one.

These are the tulips by Tamara's house.

This is Pizza Face Boy.  (Apparently he loves wearing his pizza nearly as much as he loves eating it.)

This is the evening the graduating married ladies (pictured with a few staff ladies) shared what God had been teaching them over their two years here.  I love those evenings.  There's something so sweet and personal about their stories, and every semester I've have the chance to go I come away very encouraged.

This Jony shoveling cheese in with abandon.  It's a highly entertaining sight.

This is Carrissa and Syndey, two friends who just graduated...but hurray, they're both coming back to intern next year!

This is Connor and Raylea, two more friends that have been so fun to get to know.

This is Josiah, John, and Abby (one of my dorm daughters and such a sweet friend)...

Josiah, John, and I all come from the same church in California.  It seems like just yesterday they were two little mischievous buddies in Sunday School, and now John is finished with Bible School.  It's cliché, but my, how time flies.

This is Morgan, another graduate.  She's a fellow tea drinker and British accent-faker and I just love her to pieces.

This is learning our colors in Spanish.

This is a candid shot, half a second before I realized that Isaac had been snapping about twenty pictures on my phone.

This is just because she's too cute...

This is from when Conni and I went to the tulip festival (and ironically, though we saw thousands and thousands of tulips that day, the only ones I got pictures of were all this color).

It was such a fun day.  The drive was about two hours, and all the trees were just starting to fill in with leaves, so everything was still in that soft, feathery stage.  So pretty!

We also grabbed lunch at the Dutch-style food court - something I hadn't done last time I went to the tulip festival - and I found the food quite tasty indeed.

This melts my heart.

This is a hug that cracks me up every time I look at it.  Notice where her hands are - left one on his cheek, right one...well, it seems like she didn't know what to do with that one.

This is an itty bitty girl who is going to become a big sister in November!  Yup, Sarah and Brian are expecting and I'm quite eager to be an auntie again!

Saturday 5.26

One savory, one sweet crepe for breakfast

Bags of groceries

Rain drops speckling the neighbor's roof

Countless ants after nothing in particular

Cold-brew coffee with a generous splash of half-n-half

Quilt planning

Marvelously striped Enjoya peppers dipped in hummus

Crisp, salty Pringles

Another stack of books from the library

Hanging with the boys while the rest of the family is at a wedding

Tomato-vine smell from the plump tomato sitting on the counter

Tiny plants curling up, unsure if they want to live in the heat

Christy Nockels' Lullabies

Softest summer breeze whispering through the leaves

The Yeses and the Nos

Life is full of endless possibilities to do good things.

and

There are only twenty-four hours in a day.

It's a dilemma, to be sure, and it's an area the Lord has been slowly teaching me in over the last couple years.

I've learned that before saying yes or no to activities and commitments (especially when the calendar is getting fuller) it can be wise to pause and think honestly about my answer.  These are some of the questions I ask myself -

Am I saying yes because I'm afraid of missing out?

Am I saying yes because I want to make a point or in some way control how others perceive me?

Am I saying yes because I feel like I have to?

Am I saying yes because everyone else is?

Am I saying no because something is outside my comfort zone?

Am I saying no because I'm feeling tired and stretched thin?

Am I saying no simply because I've never considered it in the past?

Am I afraid of what others will think if I say yes/no?

Is this an opportunity that might come again, or is this my "only chance"?

Will this opportunity interfere with faithfulness in the responsibilities God has already given me?

Is there a pressure, a sense of obligation, like God will be disappointed in me if I don't do this?

These questions give me some clarity and help me evaluate my motives.  I want to be intentional with my yeses and nos, not simply default to one or the other.  God has given me my life, time, resources, energy, etc., and He wants me to be a good steward of it.

I also believe good stewardship should be framed by our understanding of grace.  Sometimes, we might not choose The Single Most Valuable Activity that we could be involved in at given time; there's grace for that.  Evaluating decisions and seeking to be intentional doesn't mean that we should imagine God is up in heaven, just waiting to pounce on us if we somehow fall short in these decisions.  There might not even be a "best" in every situation; sometimes there are simply a number of equally good things that can all bring God glory, and we have the freedom to say yes to this one, no to that one.

So...I'm learning to pause, to evaluate, and ultimately to trust His Spirit living me as life continues to provide its endless and varied opportunities.

The Walk Home

I could take the bus, but I prefer walking home after my language sessions.  The forty minutes give me a chance to process, to decompress without being jostled by the rush-hour hordes on public transportation.

The first few blocks coming from the language center are always packed.  People wait for buses, and then there's a mad collective scramble to get on.  Someone is always hanging on the side when they pull away.

I step between business men, students, mothers with babies on their back, my natural speed-walking pace slowed down somewhat.  When the crowd is thick, I pull my already small shoulders closer together and doggedly wiggle my way through.

Two rond-points, one right next to the other, are congested with traffic.  Nobody is following the signs, of course.  At this time of day, there are often officers directing traffic with shrill blows of a whistle, much gesticulation, and shouting.  Drivers get impatient sometimes and forge their own paths, cutting across lanes and onto sidewalks.  Moto drivers are the worst.  I've been nearly run over by them more than a few times.

After the second rond-point, I turn down a side street that takes me into a quieter neighborhood.  Here, bougainvilleas cascade over walls.  They come in a dozen colors - more than I ever knew existed before I lived here - and they're a bright spot against the endless sand and sand-colored buildings.  A horse cart rumbles past, stirring up a tremendous dust cloud.  I cover my face with the dangling tails of my headscarf and cough repeatedly.

The phone credit vendor on the corner sees me and calls out a greeting.  I reply and turn again, this time to follow another main street.  The sidewalk is wider and there is little danger of getting run over here.

I pass the Catholic school, a supermarché, some fruit and vegetable stands, and various shops.  Some sell ready-made clothes, some are tailors' shops, some sell cosmetics and handbags.  A creepy mannequin stares out one of the windows and even though I know it's there, it still startles me.

The sun beats down, merciless and inescapable.  My shirt clings to me and I feel sweat trickle down my neck, but I'm more than halfway home.  The sidewalk ends and I trudge through the sand.  I can feel it coat my sticky feet, rubbing underneath the sandal straps.  I distract myself by looking at the roadside nursery, full of all kinds of dust-covered plants in brightly painted pots, and then at the makeshift goat-pen a little farther along.

A bus screeches past me - one of only two lines into Hann Mariste - and judging by the sound of its brakes, this is one of the buses from the older line.

I need bread so I stop by one of the boutiques.  For 100 CFA (about 20 cents), I get a crusty baguette wrapped in newspaper.  I could stop by the bakery, but their bread is different and I've grown accustomed to the airier baguettes - the ones with crust so thin it shatters everywhere when you cut it - that the boutiques sell.  It's the kind Angèle always buys.

The gas station is within sight.  I'm almost home.  I cut through the parking lot and briefly entertain the notion of popping into the little superette for some jam, then decide against it.  I just want to get home and change into fresh, unsweaty clothes.

Past two more boutiques, some boys kicking a soccer ball, and a girl getting her hair braided on her front steps, and then I turn the last corner in this sea of sand.

My neighbors wave and we chat for a bit, little Simeon coming over to shake my hand as he always does.  I head inside and up the stairs to my fourth-story apartment.  The sun is dipping lower and the rooms are in shadows.  I flip on the kitchen light and listen to the collective dinner sounds in my apartment building - mortar pounding rhythmically, onions sizzling, and pots clanging - while I fix my own meal.

Tellement de Joies

Tellement de joies - so much joy.

It's a line from this song that runs through my head over and over these days.

The Lord is my Shepherd

I will lack nothing...

He guides me step by step...

In His presence

There's so much joy

So much joy

- - -

During my training in Missouri, God showed me that He was big.  So far beyond my imagination.  So able.  So powerful.  So outside any deplorable box that I had tried to put Him in.  This was also when my grace awakening began and it completely changed how I related to Him.

When I moved back to California and begin preparing for the move to West Africa, I saw repeatedly that God was faithful.  Faithful to keep His promises, faithful to provide, faithful to His own character.

In Senegal, I began to see just how good, how kind He was.  A good Father who loves to give good gifts.  His heart toward me is always good.  Whether or not I can understand what He does or allows, I will always have a thousand reasons to thank Him.

Coming back to California and then eventually moving to here to work at the Bible school, I learned that He is my Rock, my unshakeable safe place.  When the future was full of questions, when change swirled all around me and I wondered who I even was - He was my constant, unchangeable and completely trustworthy.  I flung myself into Him with desperation and He was enough for all of it.

In the past year or so, this truth has continued to surface, clearer and clearer with each passing month: He is the dearest and truest Friend I could ask for, and to walk with Him is unbelievably sweet.

So much joy.

I find myself looking back over the years....

And I realize, with stunning clarity, that He is sweeter to me - not in spite of, but precisely because of the disappointments, the things that didn't go the way I thought they would, and the prayers that were not answered.

This is no glib proclamation.  Life still has ups and downs.  I'm not in some constant state of saccharine happiness.  There are still questions met with silence and prayers that remain unanswered.

But there's a deep confidence now: my greatest joy is finding Him.

The Story of the Bunting

I love bunting.

It's pretty, whimsical, and festive.

And it's a truth-reminder for me.

- - -

Early on during my time in Senegal, I really struggled.  I couldn't seem to stop telling God about all the things I disliked.  Life is always a mix of the good and bad, the easy and the challenging, but I could only see the challenges.

And I was utterly miserable.

One day, something clicked.  I was waiting for something to change, for things to feel easier.  To feel like being thankful.  But that's not how joy works.  Joy comes when we make the choice to thank God for His gifts, regardless of how we feel.

I needed to do something tangible to remind myself of this truth, that every day joy was waiting for me if I'd only thank God for His goodness.  So I made bunting and strung it up in my living room.  Bunting feels so festive - like there's something to celebrate.  And there is!

Every time I walked past the living room, I had a reminder: Choose joy, not ungratefulness.  Revel in the grace that He so freely showers me with.

- - -

Now, bunting hangs wherever I call home.

It's my declaration that I believe God is always good and that His gifts are to be celebrated every day of my life.

Bunting to match the banana yellow of my living room in Senegal

Bunting made from a favorite calendar up in my third-floor apartment at the Bible school

Fabric bunting in my current little home

Unexpected

It must be the call to prayer that rouses me from my sleep.

The damp air seeps through the glassless-but-shuttered window inches away from my head.  I shift on the thin foam mattress, my foot brushing against the mosquito net.  Trucks clatter up the road past the house on their way to the market - which I can smell from where I lay.

I have never lived here before, and yet my mind has been imagining Africa for the better part of two decades.  I have read so many stories, seen a thousand pictures.

It's astonishing, when I stop to think, just how little of Senegal surprises me in these early days.

The way the heat feels oppressive - positively smothering in the middle of the day - and the way my skin is sticky with the sweat that never fully dries.  I have a prickly heat rash everywhere and it doesn't go away for weeks.

I see the children's faces, the bare feet of the ones who are begging.

The ladies balancing buckets on their heads.

Meat with flies swirling around.  Colorful vegetables in piles on sheets of tarp.  Fish.  So much fish.  Fresh, dried, smoked, salted, rotting.

Mortars pound, shoppers barter, buses screech, horse hooves clip-clop.

I have heard it all, seen it all, in my mind before.

What of this have I not expected?

What is different than how I imagined it to be?

Me.

I have been dreaming of doing great things for God, of being a missionary hero, ever since I was six or so and read Missionary Stories with the Millers.  How I would learn a language and befriend people and share Jesus.

And here I am.

I can't even talk to people.  I am bumbling and stupid and scared - too small in the face of the task before me.

Somehow I never imagined this in all my missionary dreams.  I was always the hero, strong and capable.

There is a depth of emptiness that I've never experienced before, a crushing sense of my not-enough-ness.

It's as suffocating as the blazing equatorial sun at mid-afternoon.

Here, in this place where my identity and expectations of myself unravel with frightful speed, God shows up yet again with His relentlessly extravagant grace.

I should expect that by now, and yet it still catches me by surprise.

This...

This is a salad that Raylea inspired me to make.  She told me about it when we were hanging out last Saturday, and I couldn't stop thinking about until Wednesday night, when I made it for dinner (with a few tweaks).

It had -

Spinach

Rotisserie chicken

Red bell pepper

Cucumber

Tomato

Green olives

Feta cheese

Roasted sweet potato cubes (she seasons them with Lipton onion soup mix; I used beef bouillon cube, onion and garlic powder, pepper, and paprika - I needed an MSG- and gluten-free option) 

Greek dressing

It was soooo good.

This is how it looks when spring finally comes to town, and everything rejoices.

This is a close-up of the tiny chartreuse pom-poms that covered my tree (and most of the others along our street) by the thousands.

This is when our lovely Tuesday small group grabbed coffee and poked around in an antique store for our last get-together of the semester.

This is because we're not always serious. ;)

This is when my office turns into a giant sorting station for piles and piles of curtains.  The good news is, we now have new curtains for ALL the guest house windows (all the big ones; the small above-the-kitchen-sink windows will require a completely different kind of curtain, so I'm not counting them as part of this project), and all the disappointingly defective/stained curtains have been returned.

Shout out (again, because they're awesome) to Casie and Kristi for helping me decide on these curtains and to Emily who helped me inspect and sort through those piles.

I couldn't be happier working with you ladies!

This is bedtime snuggles with my favorite Jonah.  He's getting so big...walking around so fast now and chattering up a storm, but I'm so happy that he still likes to snuggle before bed.  I can never have too many Jonah snuggles.

Because God Speaks French

"God, thank You that You speak French."

One of my classmates prayed that in our early days of the French program (nearly five years ago!).  I distinctly remember feeling annoyed at that prayer.

I, for one, did not like French, and I didn't like the idea that God spoke it, either.

Everyone says French is a beautiful language.  I disagreed vehemently.

It sounded awful and felt even worse when I tried to speak it, like peanut butter was stuck to the roof of my mouth.

The problem lay not with my language abilities but with my attitude.  I grumped and grumbled and complained to God.  If only it wasn't like this, I might not be so unhappy.

I did learn, though.  I understood more and more and even the sticky peanut butter words started to roll off my tongue more easily.

Something else started happening.  My host family was assigned to me and I got to know my language helper better and better.  In the context of these safe and caring relationships God was kindly giving me, my perspective began to shift.  I slowly felt less like someone outside a disliked-world.  They pulled me into this new world with them and to my utter surprise, I began, ever-so-slowly, to like it.

Grace - like it always does in my life - went from a trickle in a dam to a gushing flood.

- - -

This week, I've found myself replaying a few French worship songs over and over.  The words are powerful and the truth they convey has expressed so perfectly what is in my heart.

Yes, God speaks French.  And now I see how wonderful that is.  No one of us, no group of us, will ever be barred from a relationship with a God who cannot understand us - because He can understand every one of us.

And what's more - He is a God so great and big and infinitely awesome that no one language would ever be enough to express He who is.  All the languages together fall short, too, but they are better than just one to praise Him, to talk to Him, to tell about how great He is.

So God...thank You that You speak French.  And English.  And Spanish, and Wolof, and Serer, and all the other languages that I don't even know about.  You are such an amazing God.