I'm dreaming of a...

So the song says "white Christmas," but as we all know that isn't possible in certain parts of the world. When we were in Tanzania we substituted "wet Christmas." Just yesterday I was thinking that neither of those really work for BC. I mean, it rarely snows, so it would truly be a dream to have a white Christmas, and it's raining all the time anyway (much like Seattle), so who wants a wet Christmas... still I felt there should be a substitution. So as we were skyping with family and noticed the glare on the computer, I found it-- "bright Christmas!!!" I'm dreaming of a bright Christmas... hahaha.

We had an awesome Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. On Christmas Eve we lounged around, went for an afternoon walk to the local playground, and enjoyed a standing-room-only service at our church. Then we came back and enjoyed a dinner of Cranberry Cider Pork Chops that were amazingly delicious (thanks for the recipe Mary McCarty!!!). Then we opened our one Christmas Eve present, which was new jammies for the family, snuggled up in our new jammies, and read our advent readings. The new pajama thing is something I'm hoping to make a tradition-- it's so fun that all of our Christmas morning pictures are in our new clothes! Anyway. We also enjoyed hearing Tim's parents read us The Night Before Christmas story on this cool recordable book they sent to Micaiah. I grew up reading that story, and while Micaiah knows that Santa isn't real (he's just a pretend character that's fun to pretend about), it was still fun to hear the story as I used to as a kid.

Christmas Day was similarly relaxed. Micaiah didn't wake up until about 8am and even then was more into snuggling with us in bed than jumping around and opening presents! Talk about a blessing! Tim read us the Christmas story in bed, then we headed out to open stockings and gifts. After presents, we had a big breakfast of eggs and sausage. Around mid-day we had lots of time to skype with family (both mine and Tim's) and Micaiah tried out all her new toys. in the afternoon we had a big lego-building party, which was oddly one of my favorite parts of the day! I made a turkey for dinner, which we barely put a dent in. But the upside is that now we have loads of turkey meat in the fridge and freezer!

It was sad to not be around family during the holidays this year, but at the same time it was very enjoyable to have some time to ourselves. Tim is gearing up for a big spring semester and will need all the energy he can muster. Plus, we're also celebrating the new Christmas story that has been published in the Mara cluster (9 languages!) in the past month or so. I've really enjoyed the opportunity to think of our friends there and how the Gospel may be impacting their lives. God is so good.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, too!

-JLR

Baby Fever

I am so excited I could burst! As we speak, Sunshine and Brenna (two of my dear friends-- in different states) are at some point in the baby-laboring process. I probably won't even know until after the fact, but I am just so excited for both families!

I always wondered what it would be like to be having a baby during the Christmas season. I'm always envisioning what Mary would have gone through this time of year, and to think about having that story at the forefront of your mind while going through it yourself... I can't even imagine! Of course, then another part of me thinks how awful it would be to be the baby and always have your birthday together with Christmas. I guess that's my December birthday speaking. :)

JLR

Christmas Decor

The day after our Thanksgiving party (which was actually a Saturday since most of our guests had classes on Thursday and Friday), we removed all the autumn decor and began to put up Christmas decor. I always used to dread the process itself, but I realize that in order to get the beautiful end-result and ambiance that I so LOVE this time of year, it is a necessary evil. :) So we made an event of it. We put on some Handel's Messiah and began to sort through boxes of evergreen garland, lights, a tree, and some bows (all that were made available to us by our landlord and/or previous renters who left stuff behind!), and got to work.
I love the feel of Christmas!

-JLR

American Thanksgiving

So much for "stay tuned for a bunch of posts"...

Three days after the turkey-toe fiasco, we celebrated American Thanksgiving. I hate having to specify which Thanksgiving, actually, since I used to only ever think there was one. :) But where was I... oh yes, the Thanksgiving get together. So much fun! We had I think nine people at our get-together. Food was the classic menu with a few special (though not exotic) dishes... turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, noodles (in a gravy for on top of the mpotatoes-- a kirksville thing), gravy, green bean casserole, garden corn, sweet potato casserole, cranberry jello salad (Tim's grandma's recipe), rolls, apple pie, pumpkin bars, peanut butter (and chocolate) pie, and ice cream. It was all so yummy!
We also had our Gratitude Garland displayed. It is a tradition we're hoping to make annual... you write things you're thankful for on autumn-colored paper leaves. Then you string them together and hang it as decor! We have so much to be thankful for, so it is a very good exercise to remember all the blessings God has given us over the past year.

-JLR

Incident

I have a lot to blog about-- the past week or so has been pretty busy around here. So stay tuned for more posts coming soon...

Ok. So the incident that has prompted this post is that on Wednesday of last week (the day before Thanksgiving), I needed to get our turkey out of the deep freezer. It was to spend a few days in our fridge before roasting it on Saturday. Well, anyway, I got it out of the freezer and brought it upstairs. As I was reaching down to get a pan from a lower cabinet, I lost my grip on the handle/tag and the turkey landed on the second and third toes of my right foot. Ouch! I'll spare you the details of my overreaction and frantic call to Tim, who thought I was DYING! Turns out the second toe is broken and the third toe is bruised. I spent a good part of Wed and Thurs with my foot up and iced. Thankfully by Friday I was able to start moving around a bit.

The good news is that it's my first broken bone in my whole life. Not bad, really, if you consider how accident-prone I am. :)

-JLR

Church Split

Over the past few months, one of our supporting churches has split. Well, perhaps 'split' isn't the right word... it's more 'exploded.' Only a core of people remain and the rest have been scattered to other churches in the area. I don't know which side is right (though I have my suspicions...) and quite frankly it isn't my issue to judge unless everyone wants to present evidence from both sides and have me judge for real once I have all of the unbiased facts... and sorry, but I don't see that happening. I love people on both sides, so what do I do? Tim and I have prayed a lot and have decided it is wise to stay out of it unless we are called in to be reconciliation facilitators (again, HIGHLY unlikely). We have loyalties on both sides and hope to uphold them all and love the Body of Christ (broken as it may be) as best we can.

-JLR

Stanley Park in Vancouver, BC

Today was a beautiful day. We've been in the Langley, BC, area for more than two months now and decided that a trip to Vancouver was finally in order. You know, after driving across the US, we just weren't in a hurry to get in the car and visit ANYWHERE! So today we took advantage of the fact that we had a rare opportunity-- no classes, no work, no other obligations AND the weather was good!

Stanley Park is in the downtown Vancouver area. In a lot of ways, the urban setting mixed with natural beauty reminded me of Forest Park in St Louis, but that's before you factor in that it's on the WATER and with MOUNTAINS in the distance!!! There is an amazing walking/biking trail that runs along the perimeter of the park, right along the ocean. Or maybe it's not technically the ocean there... maybe it's a bay or a gulf or whatever. It doesn't really matter for the purpose of this post. Anyway, it was cold and we had to bundle up, but managed to enjoy a brief picnic lunch (it was cold!) and some time at Prospect Point, which seems to be a fairly famous lookout point. We took Micaiah's bike and she definitely enjoyed the riding, the playground, and later the piggy-backs and shoulder rides as we walked along part of the sea wall.

These first 3 pics are from Prospect Point.

Micaiah got to ride her bike for part of the path.
The next 3 pics are ones we took along the sea wall bike/foot path and along the second beach area. I was feeling a little artsy today and got some good pics of the sun&reflection. Keep in mind it was only ~2:15pm when I took those!
All in all a good trip!

--JLR

Candy

So it crossed my mind as Micaiah were making a huge pile of Halloween candy wrappers (ahem!!) that Canadian candy is really quite different than American candy. Not so much in sugar content or even taste, but I didn't realize how many different names were out there. In the US we're used to Halloween bags full of snickers, butterfinger, reeses, crunch, hersheys, and m&ms. This year Micaiah got mostly crispy crunch, wunderbar, smarties (the chocolates, not the little sugar rolls!), caramilk, and coffee crisp (yuck!). There was some crossover like twizzlers, starburst, reeses, and kitkat, but I was amazed at what made up the majority of her candy bucket!

We're not THAT far north of the US-Canadian border, but sometimes it sure feels like it!

-JLR

Halloween 2009

We spent Friday afternoon carving our pumpkin. Tim loves to clean out the pumpkins, I love to carve, and Micaiah enjoyed a bit of both! We also enjoyed the roasted pumpkin seeds a few hours later. :)
Micaiah in her giraffe costume (a hand-me-down from her cousins). Giraffes are her favorite animal.
So the funniest thing happened last night while I was handing out candy to trick-or-treaters. First of all, Halloween is really big here in BC. REALLY big. There are houses really elaborately decorated. One of our neighbors even staged a car vs bicycle accident in his driveway, complete with loads of fake blood! There are also lots of fireworks throughout the night and especially late in the evening. It was strange but we had been forewarned, for which I was very thankful. Anyway, a boy--probably 9 or 10 yrs old-- walked up to our door. We happened to be in our entry way and saw him reach for the doorbell (there's a window by the front door). At the exact moment he reached for the doorbell a neighbor set off a firework in our yard and it triggered the alarm in a truck parked on the street. He was so terrified! As I gave him candy, I would have sworn he had pooped in his pants bc it smelled awful! I felt so bad for the kid and yet, it was the funniest thing I'd seen all day!

-JLR

Comments

I know that I shouldn't be blogging for the comments. Having said that, I know that people out there have opinions-- probably even about my posts. I have opinions. It only seems right that others would as well. I think one of the many reasons for dropping the blog for such a long time was that I had a hard time knowing who to write to as my audience. Who was out there... who was reading my ramblings... who (if anyone!) cared when and if I posted? I know it's not as easy to comment as it is on facebook, but it isn't THAT hard...

If no one reads what I write, I think I can learn to be OK with that, but I still often debate in my mind: should this go on facebook, on the blog or in my handwritten journal??

Do me a favor... if you read my blog, would you comment every now and again? Thanks.

-JLR

Food for Thought

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these He has given us His very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. 2 Peter 1:3-4

I have been meditating on this verse and trying to commit it to memory (something I don't do often enough!). I think I usually tend to be providence-heavy as opposed to choice-heavy in my theology, but this verse seems to have a thought-provoking combination of the two.

JLR

Family Fun

We have really been enjoying a path just a few minutes from our house here. It is a Fort-to-Fort trail running along the Fraser River from Ft. Langley to another fort that is closer to Vancouver. We haven't made it that far yet. :) This area is just beautiful. And we are learning that you have to take advantage of every sunny day because there aren't that many!

The Fraser River

Mt Baker, to the South. You can only see it on very clear days!

Jeana and Micaiah taking a little break.

Little legs get so tired! Micaiah enjoys breaks where she gets to ride on Daddy's shoulders. :)

-JLR

Home

For what thanks can we render to God for you in return for all the joy with which we rejoice before our God on your account, as we night and day keep praying most earnestly that we may see your face, and may complete what is lacking in your faith? 1 Thessalonians 3:9-10

This verse stuck out to me in this mornings sermon. We love our new church. The Word is preached faithfully. The worship is powerful. The people are great. But it's not quite home yet.

As I was listening to the sermon, I remembered several times specifically that I have prayed earnestly for God to take me back to one place or another. Each of those places was "home" for a time. I feel like I have good fellowship wherever I am-- it is something we are very intentional about for obvious reasons. But the concept of "home" is still rather elusive for me. Where am I most longing to return to? What is "home" for me in my heart? Where should I tell people I am from? Where is my earthly home? Tanzania? Missouri? Nowhere? I'd love to say that my answer is as holy as Micaiah's... "my home is in God." Maybe that's true to some extent in the absence of more tangible alternatives, but I still long for a home here on this earth. I know we've used the word "nomadic" to describe ourselves, but I think today I was just feeling the depth of that more than other days.

God makes a home for the lonely. Psalm 68:6a

-JLR

Sabbatical

As you may (or may not) have noticed, this blog has been severely ignored for the past 10 months. For lack of a better term or excuse, we're calling it our sabbatical.

Lots of things happened in those 10 months. We said goodbye to all of our friends, colleagues, and Tanzanian friends in our little town of Musoma, Tanzania. We packed up all of our earthly belongings (again...) and put them into storage. We traveled to the UK for a holiday in Groomsport, Northern Ireland with our friend Katie over Easter, then on to Horsley's Green, England for a three-week academic writing course for Tim. Then it was back to the US. We arrived in St Louis on May 8 and spent the next 3.5 months traveling, speaking, and sharing with our team. Then it was packing (again...) everything we owned into the back of our little CR-V and trucking it West across the US. We are now in Langley, BC, just North of the US-Canada border on the Pacific coast.

It's beautiful here. I was thinking about the beauty of fall today while we were on our family bike ride (you just can't waste a sunny Saturday around here!) along Fraser River... oh, how I had missed autumn! The colors, the chill in the air, the crunch of leaves underfoot... this is a good place to be.

There will be more to come-- I hope!-- but for now just a note to stay tuned. :)

-JLR