well, here we go again!!!

One Week and Counting

2011-05-31T10:44:00.002-03:00

My children are wonderful. After watching most of their belongings walk out the door last week and sorting through the rest of their stuff to pack into suitcases, they are pretty much depleted of everything. Today I see their fuses short, having nothing to do and “I’m bored!” has echoed in our empty house more than once already.

So I sent them down the hall to revive a game we started many years ago – La Búsqueda de Inigo Montoya is an adventure, clue-seeking game, complete with keys, Ecuerdos (money) and shubas (capes). Last time we played my oldest was eight, so I was surprised that she was willing to play. Of course she wanted me to set it up, but I wanted to see how well they did without me. So far, so good; I haven’t heard a complaint for thirty minutes.

Yesterday we picked up our Ecuadorian visas, no problem – of course, it was the third time we visited the office. No paperwork can be done in under three visits to any office in Argentina – I would say most Latin American countries, but having never lived anywhere else extensively, I’ll hold off. While we were at the office we asked how to process more paperwork for our shipping company to begin the process of shipping. So our visa processing helper rattled off an official document verbally as I struggled to write it all down. I got about 5% of what she said, and she left us to attend to someone else.

Bryon and I wrote our own, not-quite-official-sounding document, and he headed back down there today to begin the process of making it sound better, and hopefully she will be more helpful today than she was yesterday. He went prepared, taking a flash drive with him, and plans to edit and re-edit and not return home until he has the official stamp and seal to ship our belongings! Good luck, Bryon!

Moving Muse

2011-05-24T05:53:00.002-03:00

The movers came yesterday and packed up most of our shipment; today they return to finish it up and haul it all away. The house is starting to look bare and it brings back memories of our last move. Nada q ver, eh; totally different this time.

First off, I don’t have to have the place empty and clean. That just about killed me last time. The stress was unbearable and even the kids remember me falling apart. This time we have two weeks left before we fly out and those will be days of sorting through what’s left (although most is already done) and finding new homes for everything.

We hired a moving company this time, and so I spent the last months gathering what we wanted to take with us, piling everything up in one area and doing 75% of the packing myself in my totes. I left the kitchen and books for the packers to do, which took them most of yesterday. They also are making a generalized list of what is in each tote, not a detailed description like I did – so much easier!

By this time during our last move I was questioning why we were moving, not wanting to say good bye to my life in Colorado, wondering what had possessed us to consider taking a job somewhere else. I learned not to allow emotions to rule decision making. This move has been strategic, taking us down a path that we never intended, but we can see now where it is leading us; we never would have considered a move overseas had we spent the last 2½ years in Colorado – that would have had us four years in one place, almost a lifetime!

Am I excited about Quito? I have many dreams, mostly revolving around it being as fulfilling as Colorado was. The kids are hesitant, and it is difficult to see that we took them away from something that they really loved and have been missing it ever since. What if it doesn’t pan out the way we want it to? I have a lot riding on the school fulfilling expectations, and I don’t want it to fail, but it very well could.

Watching everything being packed up and shipped, knowing all the money that an international move involves, makes me really evaluate what we are investing in, wanting it to be a sure thing. But it’s not at this point – emotionally it’s not a sure thing – and that’s scary. We live by faith and not by sight, as 2 Corinthians 5:7 says. Never have I felt that I’m living that as much as now.

Confessions, a little late

2011-05-18T10:13:00.000-03:00

Today as my son had a thermometer in his mouth, a memory flashed back to me. Waaaaay back in the day when the nurse’s office was located behind the secretary’s desk at school, I was sick and sent down there to have my temperature taken. The secretary sat me on the bed, stuck a thermometer in my mouth and told me she’d return. After what felt like hours, I wondered what was holding her up, when, to my horror, the thermometer slipped out of my mouth and went crashing to the floor, the mercury spilling all over the place.

I panicked. Dreading the inevitable lecture in high decibels, I scrambled to solve my problem. Did I have enough time to do anything? I hopped down off the medical bed, pushed the glass and mercury to the best of my first grade ability under the furniture, opened the sterilized container to take out another thermometer. Now the true test was on. Was the secretary going to return at any moment and take my temperature, but would it be accurate? Would she step on a remnant of my crime and I’d be found out? Did she know how many thermometers were in the container? And what if the thermometer didn’t have enough time to register my fever before she returned? Because as each moment passed, I was feeling sicker and sicker. I really needed to go home. I needed my mommy.

After waiting another eternity, the secretary eventually returned, confirmed that, yes, indeed, I did have a fever, and called my mom, who came to pick me up and take me home. I never found out if the broken glass and mercury were found, and imagined that they would be under that furniture forever. I never confessed to my mom about my evil deed. And after a while I forgot about the whole incident. Until today, when my son popped an electric thermometer into his mouth, and had to wait for forever for his temperature to register. Which it did, after much beeping and waiting, at 98.7°.

Gone are the days of mercury and glass thermometers, and the risk of students breaking them in the nurse’s office and trying to cover up the evidence. Isn’t that a relief?

2011-03-02T13:35:00.000-03:00

Matthew 5:43-45 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor^[a] and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

I grew up at the end of the Cold War, and like everyone else, believed that the Soviets were our enemies. They hated us, so we hated them. Their government had its finger on the nuke button all the time, and we lived under the scare that at any time, we would be bombed, nuked, obliterated from the face of Earth. The people were starving to death, they didn’t have enough food to go around. Nothing worked properly in their country, all due to communism.

Then came peristroika, and the Cold War was over. Forgotten were the Soviets, and now we were to call them Russians. Country boundaries were restored to nations we had never heard of, and really, what did it matter if the Ukraine, Georgia, Lithuania, or Armenia had their independence? Who had ever heard of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, or any of the other “stan” countries? They never appeared on the radar in the world of a teenager, and rarely for a gal starting her own family and beginning a life overseas. The animosity was dormant.

Exciting news was that missionaries were being allowed to enter and talk about Jesus. The call was urgent, as no one knew how long the window of opportunity would be open. Exciting stories made their way back to the US, astounding statistics, new inroads and accomplishments. Praise God, Russia was open to the Gospel message.

Fast forward many years to 2009, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I meet a Russian couple at the international church my husband was called to pastor. Very nice couple, warm hearted, and open to friendship. We hit it off from day one, and the next summer they invited us to their house to share a meal with them.

Meal is an understatement – it was a feast, not lacking anything, including the dessert I brought. At their home we met our hostess’s mother, who is wheelchair bound after a massive stroke two years earlier. Svetlana shares her story, of how after she heard that her mother had a stroke, she flew to Russia, took care of her and her health was restored enough that Svetlana could fly her to Argentina. I heard how she asked prayer for the long flight, that nothing would go wrong with her mother, that they would let her fly, that there wouldn’t be any complications. And God answered those prayers, hallelujah. Faina is now living with her daughter and son-in-la; unable to take care of herself, she depends on them for everything, including interpreting what she wants, as she can only say “ba-ba-ba-ba.”

I watched Faina that day, how expressive her face was, how intently she watched the children in the pool, calling our attention to anything that could be danger. She held our hand with both of hers as she babbled, trying her hardest to communicate something to us. The love that shined in her eyes and the warm smile communicated more to us than if she spoke Russian to us. She was full of hugs and warmth for all of us, no matter who we were.

It was the second time that I was in her presence that it hit me; I was in the presence of who would have been my “enemy” twenty years earlier. This poor, pathetic, helpless, old woman. What was shocking to me was that she was a human being; she lived her life during those difficult years, raised a family. She was taught to hate me just as much as I hated her, hated the idea of her. Yet she was nothing but loving, and it was to that love that I responded with my own. Had she been stand offish or grumpy or hostile in her attitude, I would have expected that, and I wouldn’t have shown her love. But she was the exacct opposite of every expectation that I had, and my world rocked.

Our “enemies” are people, they live their lives, they have to go shopping and provide for the family, keep home, raise children, have good days and bad days. They hurt, they cry, they laugh, they have parties and funerals, they bleed red just like I do. And they hear the propaganda from their governments, just like I do, and most likely hate us just as much as we hate them, but with what cause?

What right do I have to hate? Because my government tells me people living in a certain area are my enemy? Because we are at war with certain people? Because I don’t like how the people in power spew with their venom? Because I don’t like the stereotypical personalities?

Yesterday I visited Faina in ICU. She’s dying slowly, no longer able to communicate. Hopefully she will wake up from her coma, but her quality of life has deteriorated immensly. I said my good byes, hoping that we will see each other in heaven and continue to share the love of friendship that began here between two enemies.

But that is not the end of the story. Svetlana is not sure her mother ever accepted Jesus as her Savior. She never showed an understanding of what a personal relationship with God meant. She relied on her orthodox prayers from her prayer book. Svetlana wants to have an assurance that her mother understands and accepts what Jesus has done for her. She shared with me her story, how it was prohibited in the Soviet Union to talk about Jesus, to share anything with anybody about religion, Christianity, faith, etc. And then peristroika came, and the missionaries came to the country, and the very first time she heard the gospel message, she knew it was Truth, and she prayed to receive Christ as her Savior. She commented that she was ready, was prepared for the truth and received it without any hesitations. God had been preparing her, even though she had never heard of Jesus before.

And now I pray for her mother Faina, that she will wake up, that Svetlana will have an opportunity to share with her and that she will be receptive to hearing the message. Time is running out, yet God is the God of miracles, and He can do it. Please, God, please save Faina, so that she can share eternal life with You forever. Save my enemy-friend, who taught me to love my enemies.

Wii thoughts

2011-01-27T20:12:00.000-03:00

Wii got a new toy for Christmas and Wii are addicted. Not a day goes by that Wii don’t play for hours, and when Wii aren’t playing on it, Wii are thinking about it and asking to play. Wii made a rule that Wii don’t play before lunch, but still, Wii ask. Wii have a lot of fun, but Wii fight more and insult each other more and don’t play fairly. Was it really worth it?

Shouldn’t Wii be spending our time in more productive ways? What are Wii gaining by playing so much? Will employers be impressed if Wii list ‘finished all eight levels of Super Mario Bros’ or ‘won the virtual decathlon championships’ on our resumes? Wii don’t think so. And once summer break is over, Wii will limit our playing time to weekends only. And hopefully Wii will return to our manners, thinking of others before ourselves, being polite and considerate, and focused on what matters more – real life rather than the virtual world.

dealing with sadness

2011-01-25T15:31:00.000-03:00

Today I'm sad. I sent an email to a friend telling her some news, and she skyped me, telling me that she cried when she heard the news. I cried myself, thinking of how sad she was, and also how sad I am that soon we won't live near each other. We had to take a trip to the capital and turns out we were in her neighborhood, only blocks from her house. Unfortunate then, that she is currently out of the country!
I was thinking about how special our friendship has been, now it took us years to find out that we lived in the same country (we were at college together), and how we picked up as if we had never been separated for almost 15 years. God has always provided friends for me, and will continue to do so. But that doesn't make saying good bye to good friends any easier.

Motherhood and Education

2010-11-29T22:59:00.000-03:00

I love my kids. Being a mom is so fulfilling and satisfying.

Andrés gives me joy every day. Today he was practicing being a gentleman. We walked up to the school supply store and back, he concentrating on walking between me and the road, crossing the streets carefully and telling me when to go, holding my hand and directing me around the crowded sidewalks, and opening and holding doors for me. “Pase, madam,” was his polite way of allowing me to pass. As he went, he racked up points, and received a Gogo for every 20 points he earned. By the time we got home, he had 50 points.

Elizabeth has finished her school year, passing every class but one. Granted, some of her classes she received a 7, which is the equivalent of a D, but she passed. She has to take her Natural Science test again, and has until the 16^th of December to study. Next week there is a scheduled study day with the professor, so she will study at home until then, spend some time going over it with him, then take the test in a little over 2 weeks. Tomorrow she has an awards ceremony, and she is receiving an award – for scholastic excellence! I am so proud of her, that she worked hard and even though she came in towards the end of the second trimester, she has been diligent to work towards improving her grades. She says that she didn’t work as hard as she could have, and so we have something to work for next year. I told both the girls that I don’t expect that they will get 7’s next year, that I would hope (expect) 9’s and 10’s on their report cards.

Emily said yesterday, “You’re dis-concentrating me!” to Andrés, who was dis-concentrating her! Tonight she was crying again, wanting to be back in Colorado. It breaks my heart to hear her long to be back in the US, especially as I struggle with not being there, not allowing her to be where she wants to be, seeing her struggle with not having friends at school, hearing how mean they can be to her because she is so innocent. Please God, give her a friend!

Emily is my best study-er. She is very conscientious about what work is due when, and getting a huge jump on it to be finished with plenty of time. I wish her teachers could see the amount of work that she invests in her studies, whether it be for presentations, tests, or just homework. She takes more time than the average student, but she also schedules time for it as well. Many times she won’t go to bed until late because she is still working on an assignment and wants to finish. She has taken her math test twice now, has invested countless hours into studying for it, and hasn’t passed it either time (we think). She will have to take it again in December, and hopefully pass, or she will then have to take it again in February. Again, I pray, God, please help her to pass!

I’ve been thinking about classical education, and am intrigued by the idea, and want to look more into it. I don’t know much about it, only that it focuses on teaching the ability to think, and uses good literature rather than the junk that schools are using nowadays – I say that because the books Elizabeth had to read this year, and what she has to read for next year are sensational, sexual, violent, depressing, godless and (therefore) hopeless. What is she learning from reading them? How is that improving her as a human being? We have to work extra hard to combat this stuff with godly principles and give her tools in order to understand why we don’t agree with what she is learning in school. Seems pointless to have to jump through hoops for school, when you don’t agree with what you’re being taught. Or worse yet, to learn something in school that you don’t quite agree with, but it sits in your brain and you think it over, and it becomes part of your natural though processes. Elizabeth might be able to understand what we are saying about the books that she reads, but I’m not sure Emily will. She won’t understand the books, won’t understand why we object to them, and will get frustrated over it all. Is it worth it?

Polo Argentino

2010-11-28T15:03:00.000-03:00

We went to a polo match yesterday. First time I’ve ever been. I wish I had read up on the rules ahead of time. There’s not that many, but it would have been nice to know how fouls were caused.

The game is very interesting, consisting of 8 periods of 7 minutes each – they change horses every 7 minutes – it’s grueling on them, running back and forth all the time. I watched a video before leaving in which a player said that the game is 80-90% horse, and I can believe it. Those horses were very responsive to their rider, didn’t flinch at all when they were hit by a ball, and obeyed every command. We even enjoyed watching the horses which were about to go into the match be ridden and stretched as they ran alongside the field.

I can’t imagine what it would take to sponsor a polo team – four men, eight periods makes for 32 horses – plus a couple of backups. They say each team has between forty and fifty horses! Quite the expensive sport that caters to an elite world.

And what an elite world it is! I was amazed at the variety of people who showed up for the match. I heard more English – all types of accents – more there than anywhere else in Argentina. There were people dressed up, but others who weren’t, which surprised me. Between the two fields vendors have set up shop, offering all sorts of polo related paraphernalia for sale. And there were free samples of many items.

Polo has big name sponsors – BMW, Audi, Mercedes Benz, famous wine houses, Rolex, private “countrys" (gated communities for the really rich), banks, jewelry companies, and OMINT, a health insurance company here in Argentina – our host for the day.

Bryon last week had received an email stating that OMINT was raffling off two tickets for the polo matches, and you had to reply to enter, which he did. Two hours later he received an email telling him that he had won! The tickets arrived via courier mail the next day and we headed down yesterday afternoon to see our first polo match.

OMINT had a booth set up to offer food, drinks, promotional health aids – sunscreen, aloe vera, etc. And so we enjoyed a free coffee and snacks on the house. All in all it was an experience that I enjoyed and would love to repeat some day.

Saying good bye...yet again

2010-11-15T21:26:00.000-03:00

Went to Tigre today – full of artisan shops, great prices. Bought a hammock! And hung out with Erin, who was shopping to take presents back to the US for her family.

She is leaving Argentina…the countdown is on. Next Thursday she departs for the US, and I don´t know when I´ll see her next. I´m trying so hard not to think about it, but it´s difficult. We were the newbies in Argentina together, have been prayer partners ever since the beginning, and have been through a lot. I will miss her tremendously.

May you have a safe trip, may you find a job quickly, a new place to stay, an F-150 shiny red and brand spankin new! May relationships go well with friends and family; may you have some precious last days with your grandmother. May God bless you abundantly beyond what you could ever imagine. And may we see each other sooner rather than later!

Costumes

2010-11-09T08:42:00.000-03:00

Trick or Treat costumes: a Yankee player, and a field hockey player. That field hockey sweatshirt was mine when I was in high school. I paid for it with my own baby sitting money. My mother, who is notorious for throwing out everything, kept it for me. She had it dry cleaned and stored it for me in her closet in Colorado. I can't believe it's still around, and that it fits my daughter.

And the Yankee fan? Trick or Treat is just starting to be part of the celebreation here, and she was invited to go out with the neighbors. I must admit I was expecting more than it turned out to be; the kids came home with candy, yes...argentine candy, which is nothing to write home about! But they had a good time anyway...

Vampire cowboy???? who knows what he was thinking.

My Kids

2010-10-29T13:59:00.000-03:00

Panini strikes again!

2010-10-28T13:37:00.000-03:00

The World Cup is over, and our Panini World Cup Sticker Album still lacks seven stickers…out of nearly 650 stickers, we are missing only seven…This was our first introduction to the world of Panini, which is a much larger world than I figured…and it keeps growing, and is turning into a monster!

The latest craze in Argentina is Gogo’s. They come three in a pack with two stickers for the album. Of course, the album is sold separately. All, as you can guess, made by Panini.

What are Gogos? Little bits of colorful plastic in many shapes, all the same size – just small enough to really hurt your foot when you step on them, just strong enough not to break! – with personalities and characteristics. The album tells you their abilities at speed, stability, and bouncing. And it also gives you ideas for seven different games. Besides all the colors under the sun, they also come in glow-in-the-dark, and florescent colors.

My boy is addicted to Gogos. We worked out a deal; when he reads in Spanish for 10 minutes each day, he gets one Gogo. He currently has 21, and every day he asks to read Spanish when he gets up in the morning. As I sit here typing, he is playing a bowling-type game with a friend of his. They are laughing and enjoying themselves tremendously.

To me it’s worth $3 a week to see his enjoyment, the interaction (in Spanish!) with his friends, his excitement when he opens a new pack and chooses which one he wants to add to his collection for that day.

Motivation: Death

2010-10-26T15:29:00.000-03:00

Today we got word that a fellow worker passed away last night due to a heart attack. He and his family had left years ago, but my husband has been in contact with him throughout the years, and had just talked to him last week.

Yesterday he and his wife had packed up a moving van and today they were headed out to a new state, a new job, a new life. What does his wife do now? Where does she go? How does she start life over again?

How does one deal with the death of a loved one? What would happen in our case, if either of us were to die? I’m almost more in a quandary of what would happen if I were to die. Death is tragic, and those left behind have to pick up the pieces, continue on, learn to cover the bases that the one who moved on was covering. Children have to adjust to living under the rule of one grieving parent, their world shaken and life as they knew it, stability and routine, abruptly interrupted. Spouses must be under tremendous stress to continue on, be a source of strength for the children, and, if they weren’t the primary bread winner, jump into the professional world overnight.

Can you imagine going to bed, saying, “today begins a new chapter of our lives,” filled with excitement and anticipation of something new, something great and thrilling, only to awaken to a whole new chapter, one never anticipated, one that very much resembles a nightmare, only worse, because it’s one where you cannot wake up? There’s no “do over”, no rewinding the tape, no wishes to restore life as it was.

What would I do if I knew my days were numbered (well, they are, but what if the number was down to double digits?), what would I do differently? Today I called for a doctor’s appointment to see my cardiologist. I also want to improve my eating and exercising habits, knowing that those will go a long way to helping my cholesterol. Unfortunately the desire to make changes won’t last – yet I want it to. I want to make permanent changes in my life, yet my determination fades over time. I wish it wouldn’t, but how do I make it last? What is my motivation to eat healthy, to exercise? Is knowing that I'm risking death enough to get me motivated?

Random Weirdness

2010-10-25T14:54:00.000-03:00

I'm quickly becoming a futbol fan...but I have a lot to learn!

At the beginning of the game between Independiente (CAI) and Boca yesterday, the CAI fans threw hamburger rolls on the field in front of Boca’s keeper. The game was delayed ten minutes while facility staff picked up all the rolls – yet even as they were picking them up, fan continued to throw rolls on the field. Later in the game, another round of rolls rained down while the keeper complained. Strange. I asked our neighbor what it meant, and he didn’t know, but said that it was significant. He suggested reading online news.

Turns out it’s pretty offensive, but since this isn’t my culture, I don’t feel it. These rolls are representing a racist attack on the fans of Boca, those who are Bolivians and Paraguayans. I guess there were songs sung and signs displayed that were equally offensive and racist. I know that Argentines are very discriminatory towards people from these two countries (among all the other countries that touch the borders), I’ve seen the discrimination, heard the venom and hatred in their voices, their irrational slander and put downs. Yet I can’t feel the hatred, thank God.

There isn’t a people group on earth that doesn’t hate another people group. When I see it in my own culture, I cringe, knowing exactly what is being implied, or said, or demonstrated. I know the insulting words, phrases and gestures that I wouldn’t want my children learning, let alone using. I’ve learned some that are used here in Argentina, but they don’t carry the same feelings for me because this is not my passport culture. My children will learn them here, and will hopefully be offended by them, not use them, and will always choose to show love rather than hatred.

Onto other weirdness…

Wednesday is Census Day. That means that the country closes down for the day. No business is to open until 5pm, and only then if the census taker has been by. Everyone is to stay in their homes, waiting for the census taker to come by.

These census takers are school teachers, which means that there will be no school on Thursday, so as to give these said teachers a day of rest after counting their fellow countrymen.

We were here for the census in 2001, I remember a young gal stopping by and asking us questions – having to repeat them twice so we could understand them – and it didn’t seem that big a deal. But when you start to consider what it means for all business to be closed for the day – does that really truly mean everyone stays home from work? What about the television stations – no one reports the news? Are all radio stations reverting to muzak for the day? What about the guards in the booths on every corner – will they be there to guard us? Are all buses, taxis, trains, subways shut down for the day? Will no one be at the utility companies to make sure everyone still has electricity, water, gas? How about farmers – are they not to take care of their crops and animals that day? Will all politicians stay at home, waiting to give their information? Does the president sit at her kitchen table, waiting for the doorbell to ring? What about all the rich families that have house help – how will they survive the day without having their meals cooked, floors washed, beds made? And I’m sure there are many other jobs that I’m not thinking of now…wait, what about all the thieves, robbers, and crooks – hasn’t it occurred to them to pose as a census taker in order to get into some of these homes? Or will they take the day off, and sit around waiting for their census taker to stop by?

It is absolutely incredulous that they take a count in this way…even more incredulous is the Argentine who looked at my North American friend with shock on her face and said, “What? This isn’t how you take a census in your country? How else would you do it??” Pulll-lllease!!!!

Memory Lane

2010-10-22T16:51:00.001-03:00

When living in Colorado, I stuck a photo memory card in our computer, and it didn’t fit; it was too small, hence stuck permanently…until this past week. It finally came out, who knows how or why now. But we got the photos burned on a cd and the pics were a pleasant walk down memory lane.

Bug was in kindergarten with his favorite teacher of all time. We have pics of the winter party in the classrooms of each kid. Have the kids ever changed in three years! I also took photos of all the kids in the lunchroom, where I worked – it was fun to see their faces again!

But the best pic of all? Pike’s Peak, of course!

Friends

2010-10-18T11:56:00.000-03:00

Recently I had three conversations with three different women in my life, in which they all mentioned, “I talked too much.” I’ve been hearing that a lot lately, more and more frequently. Very different from several years ago, when I never heard anyone say that. So have I become a listener?

The first is quickly becoming a good friend, which I need. Slowly but surely my friends are leaving, moving back to their countries of origin, leaving me looking for new camaraderie. She and I were at Starbucks, (yes, I finally broke down and entered the Starbucks down the block from my house!) enjoying a cup of coffee together. When she apologized at the end for dominating the conversation and then followed it up with an email, I became perplexed. Reflecting on our time together, I cannot honestly say that she talked more than I did, or if she did, it didn’t bother me nor did it seem obvious. We were just two friends out sharing about our lives, ministries, frustrations, hopes for the future. Both of us are in uncertain times, and I hope that we have more time together than we expect. I am very thankful that God has brought her in my life!

Another friend called me from the US and shared her frustrations over what she is going through right now. Overly exhausted from current ministry, she is on a well deserved break, but knows that in a week, she’s back in the thick of it, which will carry her until close to Christmas. Her future is unsure, and she and her husband are awaiting news that they expected to hear a month ago. I could hear her pain in her voice, the anxiety that her heart carries around. I was glad to be an ear for her. When she wrote me the next day, apologizing for being so negative and talking too much, I quickly wrote her back, assuring her that she wasn’t over talkative, that she needed to vent and that I will be praying for her. Sometimes we all just need to get something off our chests.

My third friend is chatty by nature. She is the life of the party, very bubbly, and the very person needed to make sure that the conversation continues. We were in such a situation, and I was more than thankful that she was with me. Where I would’ve run out of conversation in ten minutes, she kept it going for the duration of our time together, and I didn’t have to strain to think of things to talk about, questions to ask. She knows she is chatty, and doesn’t make any apologies about it. Not only does she entertain us with stories from her own life, she also asks questions, includes people in the conversation who are naturally timid, shy, quiet. I enjoy spending time with her, and always reflect back on our times together as joyous.

Other friends are talkers as well; one in particular talks almost non-stop when we are together, sharing stories about how so-and-so poured out her life story to her, and I wonder, how? How, when she is such a chatty person herself, does anyone else have time to get in a word? I spend time with her because she wants to, not necessarily because I desire to. Another friend is not only a good talker, but a good listener and we talk to our hearts’ content, then pray together. She and I share some common situations and can identify with one another.

In each situation, I fall into different rolls, share different levels of who I am, express different parts of me. And when I need to vent, express joy, or just verbally vomit, I call a particular friend, who listens, empathizes, prays for me, offers advice, lifts me up, stands by me. She is the one that comes to mind when I read the verses in Proverbs about a true friend (17:17, 18:24, 27:9). And she is the one to whom I find myself saying, “Sorry I dominated our conversation.” Her response is always to reassure me that it is an honor to listen to me. An honor, wow.

Reflections on Losses

2010-10-01T13:30:00.001-03:00

Five year old Lily is lying in an induced coma. She has Hemolytic-uremic syndrome, (HUS, for short), which is caused by E. coli poisoning. Of her three younger siblings, two are currently being hospitalized for the same disease, but thankfully they are not in such terrible condition. This American family arrived recently in Buenos Aires and has been involved with this for a couple of weeks now.
Today we got word that Lily has been declared clinically brain dead and will be taken off the respirator this morning. As I read the news, I was in shock. I realized that Lily was in critical condition, that even earlier this week she had a touch-and-go day, but word was that she was improving.
Less than 6 months ago an eight year old in our church was in the hospital for about 2 weeks, had dialysis, transfusions, and is doing better now. She will be susceptible to kidney problems for the rest of her life. Her mother was reflecting today on how everyone was telling her at the time that her daughter’s rapid recovery was nothing short of a miracle. Now, watching the horrors of this case, she believes it even more firmly.
The more I think about the situation, the loss, the family going through such trial, I am grieved more and more. It hasn’t been away from my thoughts for very long all day. All the questions, doubts, wondering why, hoping that God will use this for His glory, for some good, to justify why a little life had to be taken.
My oldest daughter is angry over it all. She left for school not wanting to talk about it, pretty ticked that Lily couldn’t be saved. I tried to communicate that God wants us to bring our questions, frustrations, anger to Him, that what He doesn’t want is for us to turn our backs on Him and stop talking to Him. She understands this, but says she would respond in silence, angry at God, if it were to happen in our family.
How do we deal with this? How do we help our children understand that bad things happen, horrible things, that we have no control over, and yet God is loving through it all? What if my children were to learn of the horrors that happen on a nightly basis to some little children around the world, some even living in our very neighborhood? Of the loss of innocence, of betrayal by loved family members? Of souls being traded for life-sustaining food? Of children being used in wars, or addicted to drugs to stave off hunger pains? We protect our children from so much of the evil of this world, and when they are confronted by something as innocent as the loss of a life due to illness, they are shocked. What would be the shock to learn about the monstrosities of real life in this fallen world? Is it right to continue to protect them, when do we begin to open the door to this world’s ugliness?
My oldest had to read a novel for school in which the little boy was horribly abused (physically) by his family members – twice almost lost his life, but for his sister who saved him. I have been totally against why she needs to read such stuff, what value is it adding to her life. But now I wonder, is it an opening, if even a little crack, into understanding that there are horrors in this world, and she will have either to get angry at every one or harden her heart to the pain.
Meanwhile, a mother and father have said good bye to their daughter for the last time, a grandmother struggles with keeping siblings in order while working through her own emotions of losing a granddaughter, two other children are fighting a deadly disease, and I can imagine that all the family wants to do is return to the US, have a “do over,” and forget that there even exists a city called Buenos Aires.

Memory Scents

2010-09-23T11:36:00.001-03:00

Spring has finally arrived, the flowers are popping up all over the place, trees are budding, and the air is filled with sweet smells, heavy scents of jasmine and other aromas I can’t name. Yesterday as I was out for a walk one of those unnamable scents stopped me in my tracks and I had a flashback to England. What I smelled was part of the Elderflower scent – the rough, not the sweet part.
My mother learned how to make a drink out of the Elderflower, and every year she had us outside, cutting the flowers off the bush and counting 24 per pitcher. They were mixed with sugar and water, and made a syrup, that when mixed with water, made for a pretty disgusting drink. I guess some people like it; I wasn’t too keen on it. But I loved the scent of the flowers.
I love that scents can take you to a moment in time, to a point in your own history and wonderful memories come flooding up and overtake all your senses, if even for just a moment. The smell of wood burning always takes me back to Minnesota; evergreen has me lost in Colorado memories; heavy perfume-y flowers like jasmine leads me to Buenos Aires.
Even some food dishes are tied to memories. Recently as I was passing someone’s house, I swear my grandmother was cooking her pot roast inside, and I wanted to pull up a chair and join them. And my grandfather would say, as always, “Mother, this is deeee-licious, but it just needs a little bit more salt!” Tuna casserole takes me back to my other grandmother’s house, and little hands trying to snag some chips off the top without getting a slap in the process.
And of course, Christmas has its own smells tied into it; sugar cookies baking, mint smells, evergreen, spices, hot chocolate with marshmallows, logs burning in the fireplace. Thanksgiving is filled with a mixture of everything delicious, turkey, stuffing, gravy, pies of every kind. Easter – lamb, mint jelly, lamb gravy. 4th of July – watermelon, fresh corn on the cob, marinated London broil on the grill…
Today my house is void of all smells – I am not cooking anything, I am burning no memory-inducing candles, the windows are closed to all scents wafting in from the garden. And yet, thinking about different aromas has flooded my mind with memories and I feel all warm and fuzzy. Thank God for smells!

A Gift

2009-12-08T19:08:00.003-03:00

God gave me a birthday gift on Silvana's birthday. For the first time since we've been back, I was filled with joy and thankfulness that we were back. Thank you God!!

I took the kids to the mall (Unicenter is the largest South American mall, and is just like any mall in the US) to get some summer stuff for our beach vacation. We were leaving and in the parking lot, one of the kids mentioned how huge Jumbo (the supermarket) is, and joy just started filling me. Yes, Jumbo is huge, and yes, it's my favorite supermarket here in Argentina, and yes, we are home again.

The joy continued as we drove over to our old neighborhood to look at our old house (and the girls' school). As I stopped outside our old gate, the first thing that stuck out to me were two black cats stretched out on the front stoop. Eeny, Meeny, and Miney Moe are still there! Another love gift from God, to know that our cats are still cared for, still living there, and as content as can be. Later we passed by again, and all three cats were stretched out, taking a nap, fat as can be. I sooooo wanted to call Miney Moe and cat-nap him, but I didn't. They belong together, and if they are still there, then I assume that the new owners love them.

Thank you, God, for that gift! Only You could orchestrate those three cats to be out front when we passed by. Thank you for giving me joy about being back here in Argentina. I still miss Colorado, but I don't regret being back here. Ten months before getting to this point seems like a long time. I thought this transition would be shorter.

Last night we had a woman talk to a group of us about TCK's, what's unique about them, what makes them tick, how to help them understand who they are, help them go through times of transition, etc. It was very informational and I want to read more about the subject. Two things that were impacting to me were that sometimes children (and I'm sure this applies to parents as well!) have a difficult time adjusting to a new place because they loved the last place so much and feel either disloyal if they like the new place, or feel like they don't want to like the new place because then they'll just have to go through the same heartbreak again when they leave. The second thing is that the attitude of the parents can affect the children, and if we have a difficult time adjusting, that will affect the children's adjustment as well. Both of these apply in our case. We have struggled with this move, and the kids have as well. And we all loved Colorado so much, that it made loving Argentina again a huge struggle.

it's spring, and i want a car

2009-11-13T22:44:00.002-03:00

fb isn't as wonderful as its potential. it's too trivial, banal, and i don't care if people are going to bed or heading to walmart or ironing (unless it's a rare event, like in my house...) I like skype because i can leave comments there and the people who i care about can see them, comments that if i were braver, i'd leave on fb, but i have too many "friends" who I don't really know or care about to leave those comments there. which begs the question why i don't delete those people from the list.

the girls are downtown for their last home ec class tonight. they're cooking a meal for us, don't know how many courses, but dessert is included! they get to sleep over, and we join them for lunch tomorrow. looking forward to it.

i've been dizzy lately, yesterday i actually fell down after standing up. not good. i've been in more doctors' offices this week than in the past 10 years. i'm on cholersterol meds now, finally bit the bullet and started, cuz i got the biggest scare with my last blood check - #'s were off the charts! not good, not at all.

bug is learning Spanish like crazy in his argentine school. i love his accent.

spring is here, including torrential rainstorms. there's no real drainage off the roof, just tiny 1-inch holes in the sides of the flat roof that quickly get covered with leaves.

it's hard to write this all in English. I have to stop and think of how to say things, not just mix Spanish in with my English. the one that always gets me is "ganas" as in "tengo ganas de" I have a desire to...but that's not how we'd say it in English, and i'm forever saying, "I so have ganas to..." bear with my muddled brain.

i'm missing 825 pt pines, and the people at 811...remind me again why we moved??? will this feeling ever go away?

homeschooling is DONE until after the new year. p's come from nj on tuesday and we're not doing any more. the kids can forget all they learned, forget all they haven't learned or finished, and just enjoy the pool.

we waited almost an hour for a taxi to take us back home from the dr's office today. I want a car and Yesterday isn't soon enough.

have I caught up for my laziness? just blame it on dizziness...

My Family

2009-08-09T22:20:00.001-03:00

I love these guys so much!!

First Day of School

2009-08-09T22:13:00.001-03:00

Last Wednesday Andrés began school. In the picture the director is holding his backpack and his teacher is holding him. Both of them are very nice and helpful, wanting him to adapt as quickly and smoothly as possible.
After school, he and I headed out to purchase some school supplies, the aforementioned guardapolvo and some cuadernos (notebooks). Each class has its own different colored cuaderno, and his teacher Dolores asked us to buy 3: yellow, red, and green. So we headed out on the train. It's a trip I won't soon forget.
Have you ever seen those moms with out of control kids and you wonder why they don't just take them in hand? Well, maybe it's because the kids are just having a nervous day and is totally out of control, and the mother is taken by surprise. I know I sure was.
Andrés had to touch everything in each store that we enter. "Don't touch," was a 5 second command, and even if he remembered for longer than that, it certainly didn't apply to the next store. The worst store was the last. We went into a clothing store and when we were attended, he hid himself, not coming out when I called him. Then after we looked at the pants, he hid again, this time inside a rack of clothes, knocking off a bunch when I told him to come out. After the 5 second, "don't touch ANYTHING!" wore off, he tried on the pants and proceeded to touch the mirror, which then fell off the wall and almost hit him on the head! Finally, when I was paying, he decided to "admire" the window display with his hands - a snowman complete with tons of styrofoam snow. The owner finally told him "hands off!" as I was doing yet another "Don't touch!!"
For as wonderful as the prices were at this clothing store, I wonder if I dare step foot inside ever again. Maybe with the girls it will go better. And for having this experience, I will now give any exasperated mother the benefit of the doubt next time I see her, as she tries to get her kids under control. It could just be one of those days for her...

Starting school, Argentine style

2009-08-06T18:39:00.000-03:00

This is the official Argentine public school uniform, called a guardapolvo (dust-guarder). And for the first time in our family's history, one of ou children has to wear it. Andrés began school yesterday in a local public school. This pic was taken after his second day, and you can see how smily he is. It wasn's that way after the first day...hopefully it will be a better experience as the days go by.
Andrés is going to public school for several reasons, the first and most important is that he is considered Argentine by the government and homeschooling is not an option in their minds. So since he has to be enrolled in some school, and we found one three blocks away from our home we decided to give it a try. The main reason we even considered enrolling him is that he is so social, and he has no friends, not at his old school, not in church, and no other option to make them at this point. Being in a public school will also force him to learn Spanish.
At first he was not thrilled with the idea of learning Spanish, but when I told him that he will make friends, have many boys in his class, and they won't move away every year (as the international kids did at his old school), then he liked the idea.
Yesterday he came home upset, that the kids were crowding around him and wouldn't leave him alone, that they were calling him names (how does he know?) and some girls were chasing him. So he was overwhelmed and said, "Well, we gave that a try!" and determined that he wasn't going back today. But today was another story.
In his newly bought clothes, including the uniform, with his backpack full of his new notebooks and candy to share with all his classmates, he went to school with a better attitude. And came out with a smile on his face. The candy worked, apparently, but there wasn't enough to share so he had to share the rest of his snack (granola bars) and he was HUNGRY!! His sisters had prepared a snack for him when he got home, and he was treated like a king.
Next week we start homeschooling with the girls, even though the materials haven't arrived yet. Andrés will have some English work to do as well, and we'll have the mornings to do it. I'm looking forward to getting back into a routine, and hopefully a month from now our lives will return to some normalcy.

Vanity

2009-05-17T09:51:00.001-03:00

Sundays are my day to sleep in. After caring for Spark all night (and he got up three times last night), I get a chance to sleep to my heart’s content, well, at least until 10, when I have to get up and rush to prepare for church. This morning the dog was whining in the hallway outside my bedroom, crying to be with family. My door was open, but he wasn’t coming in to see me. He wanted the children, so after dragging my tired body out of bed, I headed out on the search.
Our bedroom opens into a long hall, with doors on both ends, a very nice place to enclose the puppy. The door to the living area was open. Strange, normally the kids are watching videos at this time on Sunday. Spark and I headed down the hall the other way, and lo and behold, we found the children, giggling, huddled around an electric heater in one of the girl’s rooms. Their reason? “This is the only warm place in the house, mom!”
Besides the fact that they are all wearing summer pj’s, and it’s now full-blown autumn, they do have a legitimate complaint. Remember when we first got here and they were painting my house? Well, I noticed that the walls above the 2 heaters were black, and now that I have a beautiful red on the walls, I refuse to mar them by turning on the heat.
I know I will lose the battle; ultimately the warmth of my family is much more important than non-blackened walls. But for now I will pretend that I am in charge and can make the decision; the day that hubby turns on the heat will be the day I back off my clean-wall campaign. Because without fail, I’ll be a frozen ice block, unable to defends my walls.

More thoughts on Schooling

2009-05-15T09:05:00.000-03:00

Everything I am doing lately is pointing to home schooling. I am getting more involved in the spiritual development of my kids, wanting to spend more time in discussing how they can grow in God and using that as my theme during my own Bible study.
They all have Bibles now, and we are looking into character development more deeply. I want to be more of an influence in their lives, providing spiritual guidance and direction. I want to spend time developing areas of their lives that they aren’t getting in school, even though the school they currently attend is Christian.
I want the girls to learn cooking, sewing, crochet/knitting, cross stitch, how to care for a home, plant a garden and tend to it – veggies and flowers.
I want to go camping and hiking with the kids, learn about the nature around us. I want to build the dollhouse with them. I want to teach Andres how to build things with his hands. I want to do the family newsletter.
And all of these things take time, and we have no time with them attending school all day, they are gone nine hours of the day, then they have homework and usually finish right before dinner; sometimes there’s not even time to finish and they have to do it after dinner or the next morning.
I know I can teach school stuff to them; grammar and math, the two most difficult subjects, I do very easily. Geography, history, natural science are all topics that we can learn together as we read books.
Eli could do a comparative study of a historical fiction book, a totally fictitious book of that period in history, and a non-fiction book of that same period.
Emily could read about plants, when to plant them, how to care for them, what to buy, etc. and do a presentation on it.
Andres could build a Lego or Lincoln log building and talk about the process, how he invented the building, what worked, what didn’t, etc.
They could learn biking, roller skating, we could join a club to get them into sports, we could use lesson time to plan for a vacation, doing research into where to go, what to take, how to prepare, what food to purchase and bring with us, what we would need if we go camping vs. staying at a hotel.
I have lots of ideas, and have a desire to do it. It’s more than just an openness to do it, I really want to do it. I will pray about it and ask God to confirm it in me. How? I don’t know. Lately I don’t know how God confirms anything in my life anymore. But I will pray and ask for confirmation. Part of what I have been praying lately is that I will be more submissive to God, and this is an area where usually I would just go ahead and do it, rather than asking for wisdom and guidance.

Spark

2009-04-30T14:11:00.003-03:00

We broke down and finally got a dog, a German Shorthaired Pointer. He is adorable and very intelligent. We are all amazed at how quickly he is learning to do his “necessities” outside. And when he’s in trouble, he knows it, and grovels without coming near the offended party – usually mommy – until he’s been restored to good graces. I was prepared to have a puppy, kind of reluctantly, but he is turning out to be an easier task than I had expected.

That’s not to say there are sleepless nights – last night was very looooong, or short, when you add up the hours I actually slept. Hopefully soon we can get him to sleep longer hours at night without needing to go outside.

Late night serenades

2009-04-19T15:52:00.001-03:00

Designed a new bulletin last night, probably not the best time to start it, at 6pm, finished around 8pm. Then I made dinner for last night, and Sunday supper for our guests coming. Exhausted! My kids were wonderful; knowing how tired I was, they all pitched in and helped clean the house and prepare the meal for today. Andres on his own decided to peel the potatoes – he’s never done it before, and it took a loooooong time, but he did it! There were peels all over the cabinets and floor around the trash can, but hey, gotta give him credit for doing it and sticking with it.

After the family went to bed I studied for the SS lesson I was teaching – somehow I let that one slip by this week. I didn’t get to bed until 1am, and wasn’t there long before a cricket IN MY BATHROOM started serenading me. Needless to say, I dreamed of crickets, and killing them…they never died in my dreams. Around 3:30am I gave up the fight and left to sleep elsewhere.

Today I’m exhausted, have a lot to do to prepare for the week, and no energy. But my best friend comes for a couple of days, along with her husband and newborn. I am looking forward to seeing them and relaxing for those days. We always have a blast when we’re together. I made a cheesecake for her, so we'll be eating well!

Appliance Wars

2009-04-18T11:13:00.001-03:00

No news yet on the school, except that all the paperwork is in, the finance committee is meeting to see how much of a discount they can give our kids. We told the kids about the possibility, they were upset at first, but now they are more positive about it, and praying that it will happen. Seeing the virtual online tour helped.

We broke down and bought a washing machine. Very modern, intelligent, and musical! It determines how much water to use, and if you put too much detergent in, it will run the rinse cycle more than once. It takes washing to a whole new level.

Our dryer is thinking about breaking. I told him no; we’ll see how long he listens to me. And Mr. Fridge is in the same boat – I actually wouldn’t have minded if he had broke, cuz then I could have purchased a new one. This one is too small, but I have another in my laundry room that seems to work, that I plugged in and we’ll see how cold it gets. Last time I plugged it in it wasn’t really cooling down.

Bienvenida, Nora Grace Schroeder

2009-04-13T08:29:00.000-03:00

Nora Grace was born this morning at 8:18 am, NJ time, weighing in at 7lbs. 2oz. and measuring 19.5 inches. Welcome, Baby Sister! We love you and have been eager to meet you!

Bad smells

2009-03-30T21:00:00.000-03:00

Something died in my house, and now it stinks. We can’t find the source and it’s getting worse. Fortunately it started smelling today, not yesterday when I had company for lunch. Unfortunately I have no idea how to get rid of it. Could it be coming from the basement, which we have yet to open (it’s accessed by a trap door)? Could it be the throw rugs donated to us recently (they didn’t smell when we first laid them out)? Could it be something in the boxes we have yet to sort through (again, donated stuff by a leaving family)? I really don’t care what it is, I just want it gone!

It’s kind of embarrassing to admit, but we’re debating the school again. This week, or at the latest the wee after, we will know if they are accepted at the other American school, and if they offer enough of a discount that we can afford to send our kids there. Suffice to say that the income of the church isn’t adequate to meet our needs. But God will be faithful as He has always been, this I know and feel it confirmed in my heart. I trust Him, with everything, including my finances.

Summer continues to linger, we are enjoying nice warm days and cool nights. There aren’t too many perfect days in Buenos Aires, as far as the climate is concerned, but days like today, low humidity, not overly hot, are as close as it’s going to get here.

Decisions

2009-02-25T09:54:00.000-02:00

We’ve made a decision, to keep our children in the school where they’re currently at. At peace with the decision, we now can move on to other decisions.

I think that making decisions is the most energy draining activity, and we are in a time of having to make many. Even simple things like choosing a cellular phone takes more time; evaluating the four phone companies, all the various plans they have to offer, understanding the terminology in Spanish all take time and drain us quickly.

Anyway, back to the school. The children have settled down, have made friends quickly, we have gotten into a routine. B looked at another school close to home yesterday, and while it was bilingual and offered an excellent (British) program, I didn’t have peace about it. Our oldest is heading into some challenging years, and here, things that we consider immoral are accepted as a way of life for young adults. I wouldn’t want my children to have to live under such peer pressure.

Another reason that was brought to our attention yesterday by an Argentine who has been involved in education for many years is that respect for teachers is at an all time low. He was telling us that not much teaching is happening nowadays as much as crowd control. He affirmed what we had already felt, that an Argentine education standard and curriculum are as good (and he said, even better) than that of the States, but that with the difficulties that the lack of respect bring to the classroom, the educational experience is lacking, both in public and private schools.

He recommended we leave our children where they are, and if we feel we need to make a change in a couple of years, to do it then. BAICA is in some transitional years and hopefully will come out stronger and better able to provide a great US and Argentine education.

Things I’m realizing again about Argentina…

2009-02-23T20:36:00.001-02:00

I didn’t forget the mosquitoes, but I sure didn’t miss them while I was in CO.
This is the greenest city I’ve ever visited. The trees and flowering plants are a delight.
“Standard” doesn’t exist.
For every name brand (IPod, Nike, Izod, etc), a hundred pseudo brands exist, much cheaper and more accessible.
Look the opposite way when crossing the train tracks. Trains travel like the cars in Britain, the “wrong” way.
Trash pickup every night, hence, small kitchen trash cans.
Sensational news; they don’t just tell you someone got shot, they’ll show you the body and all that entails.
Disgusting advertising: how do ladies wearing nothing sell clothes?
Purchasing food at individual markets (butcher, fruit & veggie stand, deli, bakery, fish market, chicken market) is cheaper than at the supermarket.
Trying to get more than two things done in a day is just not possible. So don’t try.
Visiting with friends cannot be accomplished in less than three hours; plan on at least four, if not more.
One o’clock in the morning is a great time to start saying good-byes. Good-byes take at least an hour.
No neighborhood consists of cookie cutter homes; all houses are unique, not only in style but in color and building materials.
We really love BA and are once again have come home.

Quick Update

2009-02-18T19:00:00.000-02:00

Have I really skipped almost a week? I sometimes store blog thoughts in my head, and forget that I haven’t written them down. So here goes a quick summary…
Wednesday we had over some missionary friends, wonderful time until chico slammed his head into the gate and came running into the house, bleeding. Flashback to park with M in CO…with same panic comment, “Where’s the hospital?????” Fortunately he didn’t need stitches, which he was most glad about, more so than even his mom.

The weekend was spectacular! We had our first asado, and our second the following night! The first was with our missionary friends, good to be back in touch with them and get caught up. The second was with the leadership of our church, at the home of one of the elders. What a wonderful time of sharing and getting to know one another better. We hung out until late at night, our kids fell asleep on the couches and we continued to talk. Ah, the night life of Argentina, how I missed it!

Monday I spent the day complaining about mosquitoes. They’ve finally found me, and I’m all chewed up. No, we’re not living in paradise, and I never expected this to be the perfect situation. I was anticipating mosquitoes again, didn’t like the idea, but will put up with them. Actually they’re a blessing in disguise for now; since we have to keep the windows closed to keep them out (although some find their way in), we are running the air conditioning, and are feeling great!

Tuesday, our oldest turned 11. We’ll have a party next weekend, invite the kids in her class, but since most of them don’t live anywhere near here, we don’t expect many to come. Tough celebrating a birthday in a new place so soon after moving. We gave her the day off of school on Wednesday, took her to the used (English) book store and she was delighted, chose half a dozen thick books and has already read two of them.

My Hero...for the day

2009-02-10T21:26:00.002-02:00

Bus trip accomplished, got my nerve up to tackle the task at hand. The driver wanted to charge me for a different zone, more expensive, but we finally understood each other, and he told me he’d let me know when to get off, if I reminded him to tell me. I sat right next to him to keep me on his mind. Feel more confident to take the bus in the future.

Today it rained. Poured. Flooded the streets. And it started just as I had to head out to get the kids. Reminder: we have no car, we walk 10 minutes on each side of a 20 minute train ride. The deluge was moving north, so as I walked to the train, with a broken umbrella, I got soaked. Along the way, crossing the tracks, I ran into B, who didn’t see me, so I turned him around to accompany me. So now there were two of us under the broken umbrella, leaping over huge rivers running down the sides of the streets.

B is my hero of the day. At one point I tried leaping a river, and left my flip flop in the flow. I was laughing hysterically when I finally got to the sidewalk, only to turn around and see my hubby running after my flip flop, trying to stop its mad rush with the umbrella, scooping up water and missing my shoe every time. By now I was bent over in laughter, the deluge finally reached us, which made us laugh even more. He finally reached down and plucked my flip flop out of the water and returned it to me, complimenting me on my “smooth move.” Hey, not everyone is as coordinated...The rain didn’t abate for hours, although it was much lighter, thank heavens. We also thank our new friends who live four blocks away and have a car, who offered us a ride home. You bet I’m making a delicious something to express my appreciation!

Supermarket Shopping

2009-02-09T12:27:00.001-02:00

One of my first goals was to find a supermarket that home delivers the groceries. I’ve asked around for locations of different supermarkets, Bryon has walked to an Express to pick up some items, and we’ve had people graciously offer rides to help out.

Last Friday we determined to find the supermarket, and set out, missing the train barely…which actually turned out to be a huge blessing, because I had forgotten that I told a friend to come and see me that afternoon. We returned home and she was waiting for us, about to leave.

Then the weekend was upon us, and we just don’t do those kinds of tasks with the children. They couldn’t have survived all the walking around. Yesterday was a lovely time with all the church people having a picnic and pool party. I enjoyed talking with everyone, getting to know them a bit better, but I was left totally drained. Four o’clock in the morning our neighbor’s alarm goes off, waking us up and destroying any hopes of a good night’s sleep.

Today B and I are exhausted, but we set as a goal to find the supermarket! We dropped the kids off at school, took the train back and got off one stop early, and found the Coto, rather small, but a supermarket nonetheless. Fortunately I asked before filling a cart, because they don’t do delivery, just taxi. I wasn’t about to pay for a taxi to take me home, knowing there are stores that will deliver for free. We purchased a few essentials, toothpaste being one of them (I don’t ever remember a time when we’ve had less toothpaste!), and headed out again to find a different store.

Walking down the main avenue we saw a huge sign for Carrefour (France’s version of WalMart, located conveniently all over Buenos Aires), pointing in one direction, 500 meters down the road, and pointing in another direction, 400 meters down a side street. Turns out there are two different stores, within 4 blocks of one another.

We shopped at one, an Express, which turns out is smaller than the other one. Go figure. We walked back and forth several times just to get most of our listed items, and finally finished, returned home to await the arrival of our food. Hopefully it will come soon, because I’m hungry, tired, and just want to crash.

I’d take a rest, but we have the painter here, and I have to cook lunch for him. It’s finally getting hot here, and muggy, what a Buenos Aires summer truly is. We’ve been fortunate up until now that the weather has been nice.

As much as I feel that I’ve accomplished enough for the day, I have yet another task ahead of me. Terry and I are going out for coffee, and I have to take a bus to meet her. I never got used to the bus system before, and so today will be a challenge for me, one I hope I’m up to!

Second School Day

2009-02-07T09:23:00.002-02:00

Second day of school was better for some, not as good for the chico. Andres cried for us at some point in the day, saying he missed his mommy and daddy. It's all part of the adjustment. His teacher told me about it after school, adding that he liked chapel. “No, I didn’t” he said. She assured him that he will. “No, I don’t think so.” Pursuing the matter, she guaranteed him that when he knows the songs, he’ll like it, but he’s not convinced. I just laughed.

Emily's Spanish has finally clicked on, praise God! She said that her teacher in English class told her to speak in English not Spanish. Emily had been helping a little girl understand, who doesn't speak any English! So all it took was someone needing her help for it to turn back on. I'm sure she'll still struggle with understanding for a while, but at least she now can speak it, and that will improve as the months go by. We were just worried that it would have taken her a lot longer to remember it.

Eli had a good day, a lot better than Thursday. She has two girl friends in class, which helps. She did struggle during chapel, when she didn’t want to dance with the songs. The school director told her she better dance or she’d move her up in front of everyone. Eli was not happy, to say the least.

We found three boxes of donated books and toys hidden behind donated furniture. (Most of the furniture is ready for the garbage, but that’s another topic.) The bags, purses and backpacks are already filled with notebooks, toys, pens and pencils. The kids found some interesting stuff as well, including a magnifying glass. So they’ve been playing Nancy Drew, surprise, surprise.

First day of school

2009-02-05T19:05:00.004-02:00

First day of school is over, and I’d call it a success because of the outcome, but based on the beginning there were doubts. School starts at 8:30 and we arrived just as the classes were lined up and going to their classrooms. So we didn’t get the girls to their lines before they left the library. We had to catch up with their classes, and that was problematic – Eli was so upset and I don’t blame her. Thinking about it afterwards I should have just waited until everyone left, then gone up to her classroom with her. But I felt rushed to get her with her class that I didn’t think it through carefully.

Emily was basically the same, but at least she knew a girl in her class, so she joined her. For her the difficulty was that the first class was Spanish and she didn’t understand anything. She has such a block, where she gets nervous and doesn’t understand because she freezes up. Eventually she’ll get her confidence back and be comfortable with it, but it might take more time than we thought.

Andrés was a card. He saw his friend whom he met two days ago, joined him in line, didn’t say good bye and had a wonderful day. On the train ride home I asked him what he did at school and he said, “well…I grew a moustache. Do you see it?” Never a dull moment!

We stopped at the school supply store on our way home with the class lists and purchased a ton of stuff! The attendant was very nice, even stacked up the supplies for each child and gave them separate bags. Eli is thrilled, and has spent the last hour playing with hers – like mother, like daughter! She’ll be content to play with them for days to come.

Knowing how stressed out I get easily, I have made a decision to accomplish one major or new thing each day. Today’s task was the school supplies, yesterday was going to the kids’ school. Tomorrow we have an insurance appointment in the morning. High on my list of things to accomplish is finding the supermarket, but rumor has it that it’s a train station ride away from here, not within walking distance. Fortunately all the grocery stores in Buenos Aires deliver, so I don’t have to walk home with bags of groceries. I was hoping to have accomplished this task already, but there hasn’t been time…we’ve been buying in small supplies and surviving.

New Beginnings

2009-02-01T21:18:00.002-02:00

Well, we made it! After the longest trip of my life, we arrived tired and worn out, but happy to be here. The most amazing thing that happened during our journey took place on the descent into Buenos Aires. Emily said to me, “Mom, I’m so excited!” Imagine my surprise! After praying and hoping that this would be a good decision for all our family, and seeing her be so against the move, I despaired her ever wanting to be here.

The kids are totally enjoying the trampoline and pool. It’s been cool here, in the 80’s, which everyone is telling us is so much cooler than it has been the past month! Thank God for cooler temperatures! And for the pool!

Yesterday we spent time getting to know the house and church; the kids spent most of their time in the Sunday School room playing with the toys. I spent it going through the boxes of stuff that people donated for our use. I am overwhelmed by Tupperware! And am lacking in essentials, like a pot with a lid. Today I went to make rice, and there was no lid to the one pot I have. I have enough pans, probably eight, but only one pot. Go figure!

I also lacked a decent pair of scissors. Last night Jorge, who lives on the church grounds, offered to take us to Jumbo, my favorite supermarket. We purchased scissors (and pillows, as the house had none!), and when I got home, I discovered that they were attached to the cardboard and I couldn’t get them off! I needed another pair of scissors to cut them off!

I’m also lacking a knife, but figure I can borrow one until we get our stuff out of the port. Bryon goes tomorrow to start the process…hopefully it will be short!

Most of the house is no painted yet, which gives me the opportunity to make sure the colors are what we really want. I should have insisted they wait; the green painted in our bedroom is electric!! It will be interesting to find anything to go with it.

It’s now 9pm, and with daylight savings time, it’s still light outside. As of ten minutes ago, the kids were in the pool, and are now coming in, wanting dinner. We’re back on our Argentine schedule! I’ll write more tomorrow of my impressions of our first Sunday.

Waiting...

2009-01-28T14:41:00.000-02:00

Silvana last night called around eight, telling me that she was at the hospital and just waiting for Morena to be born, most likely before midnight. It’s now 11:30 the next day and I’m still waiting to hear news. Why has no one called? What’s going on? By now More has to be born; waiting is frustrating!

Last night we bit the bullet and purchased a new computer – Toshiba Satellite – just like dad’s. I like the keyboard, how smooth the keys are and how much faster I can type. It’s amazing. So far, so good, with no complications. I will never buy a Gateway ever again; from hour one it didn’t work, and things just went downhill from there.

We purchased a ton of clothes for Buenos Aires, and the last two days I packed our suitcases. Now I just have to get the kids to choose which toys they want to take with them, pack those, and then we’re ready! I’m not looking forward to our 21 hour flight; it will be 24 hours in total from JFK to EZE, almost 27 from NJ house to BA house. Can’t wait until I’m on the other end of this trip!

Emotions are high with the kids, a lot more bickering and fighting going on. M came to the determination that Colorado is home for her. She’s never identified a place as home as strongly as Colorado Springs, and it will always have a special place in her heart; I’m with her on that, Colorado was very precious, and we will always look upon our time there as a gift from God. What wasn’t to like about the Springs? Everything was perfect – our neighbors, friends, church, school, job…okay, so B didn’t have the perfect job. That would have tied us down to there, but it just didn’t happen.

We are heading into a very spiritually heavy environment. Last week a mother of five from our church committed suicide, feeling overwhelmed by depression. The current pastor says that there’s a lot of attacks going on right now, and that he sees that as part of the transition the church is going through right now. Do I feel ready for this? No, not at all. I pray God will give us what we need to minister to this small church family, to show compassion even though I feel awkward. I’ve never dealt with showing comfort in times of death very well. Help, God!!

My brother ran his first marathon in Miami this past weekend. He completed it, and I’m very proud of him! He’s been very disciplined to train and he accomplished this goal. Way to go, little brother! I really can’t express how proud I am of his accomplishment; he’s truly amazing!

Day with M

2009-01-27T21:00:00.002-02:00

M and I went out to have a Talk, and created a very special memory day. She wanted to go to the lake near here and shoe skate, so we did. I taught her how to waltz on the lake, and she loved it! We slipped and slid our way through the movements. Next, we headed to Chester, but on the way I had another idea; we were close to Morristown, which is very close to Chatham, where I grew up. So we headed over there, and I showed her my house, my elementary and high school, the library, the pee hole where I learned to swim, the park where I played. We had brownies and hot chocolate at Café Beethoven, and got our nails painted. We read through the book, How You Are Changing, and had a good talk.

So yes, Chatham, I returned, incognito, with my daughter, and was pleasantly surprised to find that I indeed have good memories tucked inside all those bad ones. I was proud of my town, shocked to see some of the same places still there – for instance, the café, the pizzeria (although it’s no longer Little Italy), the sports store. Other places had changed, but that’s to be expected; the feel of little Chatham was still there.

M took pictures of my schools, my house; I took pictures of her skating on the lake. We had a wonderful day, very precious and a bonding experience. Why don’t I do this more often? Even once a year would be more than I currently do!

Bumps in the Road

2009-01-15T21:09:00.002-02:00

If it weren't for the bumps, we wouldn't realize what smooth sailing felt like. I have been blissfully ignorant for three weeks now that the flatware I purchased contained two sets of teaspoons and no small forks...hmmmmm, and the box wasn't sealed, so someone obviously tampered with it. Fine, let's just hope that the store will have another set to replace this one. A funny feeling I have tells me it won't, that we'll have to order one, and that it won't come before we leave for BA.

We've been asked to choose paint for our house in Argentina, so they can paint it while we're not there. Interesting, trying to choose colors for a house I've never seen. I spent HOURS today on the Sherwin Williams website trying to make decisions, only to finally realize that there's a lot more in life to be stressing about.

I'm hopeless at decorating, and so this stresses me out, even more so never having seen the house. I asked what it looks like now, the floors, etc. and got a very detailed email back in response, which was helpful, especially to give me more questions. But not wanting to disturb the couple who is helping us with the transition (especially as they are not living near the house, and are only there on weekends), I refrain from asking them. And anyway, does it really matter what color the walls are?

I'd love to be better at this, wish I had someone to help me once I'm there - an Argentine who not only knows how to combine colors I like with the style I like, but also knows where to go to shop for the furniture and accessories to match, and I'm getting carried away. Heck, I need a fairy godmother-decorator!!

Okay, no more ranting and raving...back to color swatches!

Christmas Photos

2009-01-13T13:29:00.006-02:00

Em was Santa this year. She created her own outfit, but couldn't find a red shirt...

After all the hard work to prepare the luminaries for Christmas Eve, it rained. Nice effort, anyway!

Not quite sure what they're thinking about...but good to see that Liza and her uncle are back to being pals again.

Cousin Ian loves his cousins, loves play-doh (boo, sam, white, murray), the wiggles (hence the color names), says "I yove you!" every five minutes, and is such a joy! He hasn't learned my name yet, but knows the kids' names (he calls the girls by the same name: eli.)

Despite the face, Buddy did enjoy receiving his presents. He loves the bionicle especially, and so do I, as it never falls apart! I've almost memorized the pattern for the spaceship...

Adjusting to Middlesex, NJ

2008-12-29T13:01:00.004-02:00

We've been in NJ a week now, and finally feel that we're adjusted to the time difference. It's strange to be thinking that if I want to call my friends in CO, that I have to wait 2 hours, or I might call too early.

We are in a strange part of NJ; close to where I grew up, Middlesex is nothing like Morris County at all, which is a good thing. It's more rural out here, and takes careful navigation to get anywhere. Even my dad, who is a navigational guru, asked for and received a gps for Christmas, saying that it's complicated to get where you're going or to find which roads connect to where you want to go.

Let's see, what's happened of interest? M&D have a hot tub, the kids treat it as a swimming pool, we've had to fill it to normal water levels once already. We've ordered portugese food, very yummy. I've made a cheesecake for my brother, have yet to eat it (it's aging nicely). I'm trying to get my nephew to warm up to me and miss Cookie terribly in the process. My nephew tends to take one look at me and run for his mom or dad - not very encouraging! I feel the time pressure - one month, less with our planned trip to Ohio - yikes!

Today we hope to go to the library, our home away from home. I'm looking forward to it!

Yesterday my aunt, who lives in WI, stopped by as she's on the east coast for a couple of days. Along with her were two of my cousins; one I would have recognized, the other - oh my word!! The last time I saw him was at my wedding, when he was, like, nine years old. I must say, that my mom's side of the family produces some very good looking men, my brothers included...

Okay, enough wandering, for now...

One Week Left

2008-12-13T14:03:00.001-02:00

Like the flowers they gave me at work?
Yesterday was the "fine dining" experience for selected students. The food service company set up the library as a fancy restaurant, complete with tablecloths, china and silverware, and floral decorations. They served a four course meal, and the aromas of their meal made all our mouths water! I hope the kids I selected enjoyed themselves. Anyway, these were the flowers used as the centerpieces on the tables, and Principal Barton gave them to me afterwards - dunno where the vase came from, it's absolutely beautiful!

Okay, time is quickly running out, going way too fast for comfort! This whole shipping business is complicated. We have to list the measurements, weight, and contents of all boxes, we have to load the truck when it comes, we have complex paperwork to fill out, and labels for all the boxes. The shipping company hires a local company to pick up our stuff, and there's no guarantee that they can get someone to come out before Thursday - there's a better chance of it if we haul our stuff to a local business, eg. our church. So we load a pickup,(neighbor says she has a nice blue one that we can use - thanks, neighbor!) haul everything over there, unload it and reload it on a truck. Then hopefully it will reappear in Argentina, but the trick is getting there before our stuff does! I'm waking up in the morning (and during the night) with my mind full of details that I've forgotten during the day. The end is in sight, I'm glad we elected to ship from here, otherwise, I'd be driving myself crazy in New Jersey over Christmas!

Ahh, the good life...

2008-12-08T12:48:00.001-02:00

Look what's waiting for us in Buenos Aires...

Less than 7 weeks left!

Shipping

2008-11-30T20:55:00.001-02:00

Has anyone invented a device to just zap our belongings to appear in Buenos Aires? Then I could avoid hours of frustration – making decisions about what to take and what to leave behind; the insurance and depreciated value of every item; freight versus air shipping, and all the minor headache-y details involved in either choice.

Is it really worth it? We want our books, the kids want their toys, and we’ve been given a ton of clothes that would cost a minor fortune to actually purchase. Then there are the keyboard, sewing machine, photo albums and framed photos, other pictures that we like, and knowing the quality of certain things like pots, pans, dishes, etc, in Argentina, it would probably be to our benefit to ship those as well.

But until we make the decision about shipping, my hands are tied. I cannot purchase totes to fill until I know more shipping details, and I’ve been waiting a week for Thanksgiving break to be over so that someone will answer the phone to field our questions.

Another thing that’s bothering me is that I’m filling a landfill pretty quickly, but the easiest way of getting rid of small stuff that no one really wants but just accumulates over the years is to pitch it. Tacks, paper clips, rubber bands, screws, nuts, bolts, candles, stickers, I could go on and on. Today I found some alcohol squares that we originally purchased when Bryon had leukemia the first time – in 2 months, they will be eleven years old! I opened one today, they’re still fresh – absolutely amazing!

To continue rambling, I exercised five days last week – unfortunately I didn’t keep up my goal of doing something every day before I left, but five is more than I usually do, so that’s good. It’s been snowing for the last two days, so I haven’t even bothered trying to go out – too dangerous…of course, there’s always the ol’ jump rope in the garage calling me….

The Decision Is Finally Made!

2008-11-24T03:28:00.000-02:00

Has there ever been something that you never tire of, no matter how long you are exposed to it? Our view is the one thing in life that I never tire of. Pike’s Peak with Garden of the Gods in the foreground. Not many people have the spectacular view we have. Every situation, whether it be sunny days, foggy mornings, dense clouds, snow, rain, wind, whatever, the view is at once the same and not the same, offering a new perspective on the familiar view.

And now my days of viewing are numbered – 26, to be exact. Twenty-six days in which to enjoy some stolen moments out on the porch, taking as many pictures as possible. I’ll also be robbing my neighbor of her time, as I will miss her tremendously. In this day and age, to form a friendship with your next door neighbor as I have had the privilege to do, is a God-thing. I will miss our conversations and times together.

But we are officially BA bound again, and that is good news. The decision wasn’t as easily made as we had thought originally. It wasn’t just a matter of determining that if they asked us to come, that we would go. We had to make the decision to go because we wanted to go. And we do want to go, we want to continue down this path God has led us down, and continue to dream about our future with Him by our side.

My biggest fear going into this move is the expectations or perceived expectations of a pastor’s wife. I’m not traditional in any sense of the word, and fortunately they aren’t expecting me to be, nor do they expect me to be an unpaid worker in the church. They have expressed a desire for me to be involved in whatever and how-much-ever I want to. If I want to work outside the home, then I have their blessings.

My other fear is falling back into unhealthy patterns in my relationship with my husband. We are a lot stronger and healthier since returning to the States, and some of that I attribute to not being in vocational ministry. But if the growth that we have made is permanent, it will withstand living overseas. It wasn’t as much living overseas as much as (going back to my previous fear) having expectations fall on me, my meeting them out of obligation and not out of joy, and my husband feeling like he was dragging me into this. Neither one of us had joy in ministry for most of our eight years – we had joy in friendships, relationships, the country, living in BA, etc. Just not in ministry, our primary reason for being there!

So, this is the beginning of good-byes, to friends and coworkers; good-bye to my favorite view in all the world; saying good-bye to dry climate and no allergies, relaxed lifestyle and very friendly people, and saying good-bye for a while to most of our earthly possessions as we pack them up and ship them off to meet us on the other side. It’s also a time of saying hello once again to upheaval, packing, difficult choices of what to take and what not to take, and how to hide what we’re not taking from little eyes and fingers. Saying hello to intimate friends who have walked down these paths with us for our two-year hiatus; and saying hello to a place that has claimed our hearts. Add up all the things we don’t like about BA, and they are barely a drop in the bucket of everything that calls us back. I can live with allergies, with city life, snobby people, high prices on imported goods, poop on the sidewalks, and everything else, if I can finally have a good cortado at a sidewalk café with a good friend. And she’s waiting for me, keeping the coffee hot!

Sweater and hat for Morena

2008-11-02T23:10:00.000-02:00

I made a sweater and hat for Morena. What fun! It was so easy, the yarn was so soft and easy to work with, and hardly took any time at all. I found the pattern on the internet.

Morena is due to join us in January, and I can't wait to meet her!

Bear Butts

2008-10-23T13:02:00.004-02:00

Two cubs visited us yesterday. Very playful animals, they are. Our garage must smell wonderful because they were sniffing around. We were delightfully surprised to greet them when we tried to enter our garage.
The night before it had snowed, so I can only guess that they are looking for food before curling up in their den for the winter. It’s a lot colder this year than last, early in the season than expected. Of course, with as dry and sunny as it is here, the snow never lasts for long.
Unlike the squirrel that posed for me in the park last week, the bears wouldn’t cooperate. I snuck a shot of one of them peeping around the corner of our house. Not wanting to enrage mama bear, I didn’t venture out too far.
Our neighbor called us later in the evening – the dogs across the street found the cubs to be wonderful playmates until said dogs treed said cubs, and Mama came a-callin’. Too bad we were out; that would have been fun to watch!

10 Things that arouse a fond memory of the past...

2008-09-21T13:20:00.002-03:00

Burning Blueberry candles
Swinging as high as I can on a autumn day
Lebkuchen – fresh, sure, but stale brings back fonder memories!
Smell of firs, outdoor fires, burning leaves, crisp air, playing croquet
Notes in the margin of my Bible
Certain 80’s songs
Alfajores, un buen cafecito, medialunas, dulce de leche, empanadas, milanesa con puré
Sousa marches
The Perfectly Worn-In Sweatshirt from Cape May, NJ
Taking a walk in a Light drizzle rain – picnic anyone?

Thanks, Melodie, for the idea!

The Buddy System, or System “Buddy”

2008-09-03T12:41:00.001-03:00

The buddy system is alive and well, I’m pleased to report. How well it works, however, remains to be seen.

Chico, known to family and friends in CO as Buddy, is still transitioning to first grade. It’s been a little rough going, adjusting to full days, a new teacher that definitely isn’t Mrs. R, a mixture of new and old classmates, and being more responsible. (Blame the last on his mother because that’s been the most visible adjustment. Obviously he needs a younger sibling, if only that his mother would let him grow up!)

Turns out that recess is his favorite subject. Say what you will, and many others vehemently insist that it’s their favorite as well, but Chico has proven that he studies hard at recess. He concentrates so much on it that he tends to miss the call to other more sedentary subjects. Last week he went missing after recess time when everyone had returned to the classroom. After a call to the office and a search party formed, he was found, safe and sound, on the playground, still intently practicing ‘recess’ with the second graders. They returned him to his classroom, only 35 minutes late.

It gets better. This wasn’t his last attempt at extending recess. No, he has successfully avoided the subject after recess twice in only his first full week at school. Hopefully the second offense wasn’t as lengthy as the first. He mother was dutifully notified and as she attempted to come up with a viable excuse for her son’s behavior, the vice principal decreed that a buddy will be assigned to Chico. Buddy will now have his own buddy. His buddy will track him down when the whistle blows, advise him to join the fellow first graders on their trek back to the classroom, and will (hopefully) insist that he give up his shameful ways.

A buddy for Buddy…has it really come to this?

Now I know that it can be difficult to keep track of a classroom of students, and even more so when they are intermixed with other classes and grades on the playground. Add to that mix not only a playground but a field, and last but certainly not least, a child lacking good observation skills (or just really bad ears), and there you have a recipe for disaster. But to my rational mind, I have to wonder why it took 35 minutes to locate Chico. I’ve lost him in a supermarket for 20 minutes and that seemed like an eternity. After frantically searching the whole store I found him within 5 feet of where I had originally lost him. He hadn’t wandered; he had just sat down to admire some socks. And I learned that the best place to locate Chico is where he was last seen, which might help the search party at his school. “First grader MIA again; implement System: Buddy. Go, go, go!”

Now that I’m thinking about the variety of occasions he’s been lost, it’s probably not a good time to bring up the whole Plymouth Plantation fiasco…

Spring In BA

2008-08-26T14:00:00.002-03:00

In Buenos Aires, winter is almost over, the wet, cold days are beginning to lighten up more and more; more sunlight, more warmth, the trees will soon be budding and flowering. I will miss the violet blooms this year, raining down on the streets, blanketing the sidewalks with their delicate color. The smell of jasmine teasing the nose to trace down its source; the vibrant red of the ceibo flower, fuchsia and periwinkle flowers that children weave in their hair – these I miss.

I long to sip a cafecito with una buena amiga at a sidewalk café, watching the people pass by. Very soon los porteños will ditch their overcoats and heavy winter sweaters in favor of lighter clothing, bringing color once again to the streets. If there is one season that they don’t like, it’s winter, with the bone chilling cold, wind and rain.

I will also miss the end of the school year, when the children celebrate another year completed by ripping up their notebooks and scattering their pages all over the streets surrounding the schools. I will miss our week at the beach in Villa Gesell, celebrating Christmas and New Year’s with fireworks, hanging out on the rooftops to see the sky light up all over the city with fuegos artificiales. The holidays are also celebrated with an asado with friends, sitting around in lounge chairs while the meat cooks, filling up on appetizers all the while wishing you had more room for the meat and the vast variety of salads. Then there’s there desserts. Fortunately, an asado lasts about 8 hours, so there’s plenty of time to work up an appetite again.

There’s nothing quite as tempting as walking past your favorite bakery and smelling the delicious aromas of freshly baked medialunas and other facturas. My favorites are filled with dulce de membrillo. Tommy’s favorites are filled with dulce de leche, particularly churros. The chicas enjoy those with azúcar negra on top, and Chico will eat anything with dulce de leche, usually scraping it off with his finger and leaving the rest of the pastry for anyone else to enjoy.

Why bring up all these memories? Am I torturing myself? I feel as if I am on a speeding train, which can either arrive at its destination all intact, with a happy Butler family on board, or it can crash headlong into oblivion, destroying our dreams, and our hearts, in the process. We have hope, we have faith, and we trust God that this time He is answering our petitions differently than every other time in the past year. There’s a lot to be done, most of all prayer, between now and when the train stops its journey. Hopefully we will survive! Meanwhile we will continue to dream, plan, prepare ourselves and those around us, and keep our eyes wide open.

Daring to Dream Again

2008-08-22T13:37:00.003-03:00

Last week I finally read Kissing Adrien and it impacted me so much. I’m still tearing up over it. It reminded me so much of Buenos Aires, life there, the attitude and culture, lifestyle, etc. Purchasing groceries for a daily need, walking to where you need to go, tiny elevators, old apartments, impeccably dressed people who are confident in who there are (how they look), using items for their use (sneakers for running, not for wearing as a shoe), outdoor cafés, eating late, sidewalk dining, cafecitos, pastries for breakfast and merienda, farmacias that carry makeup and professional help to aid you in your purchases, boutiques, carnicerías, vegetable stands, panadería, cotillón, heladerías, carrying your groceries home, slower lifestyle, siestas, month long vacations, meals made from scratch, people sharing their opinions whether you ask for it or not, 3 conversations carrying on at once, loooong visits over mate, friendships that last a lifetime regardless of physical distance.

And more than anything I want to serve Christ with my life. What better place to do it than in the one place I want to live, want to thrive? It’s not that I’m languishing here, it’s just that I terribly miss my adopted culture, and at this point would do anything to return there. Will God make that dream come true for us?

Exercising Mommy Style

2008-04-28T01:17:00.002-03:00

Today was a double park day. With one daughter at a birthday party, the other on a date with her daddy, my son and I walked down the ridge to the park. We invented this cool Frisbee game, called Frisbee 21. Guess how many points you have to earn? He had to throw the Frisbee straight to hit the backstop for one point, and if he caught it when I threw it to him, he’d get 2 points. Needless to say, he won all three times.

I texted hubby to tell him about the wonderful mate I was drinking, and he said he’d be right there. Twenty minutes later he calls, telling me that he thought I was at home (even though I told him we were heading to the park), and that our daughter was too hungry to jump in the car and come get us (even though it’s a 2 minute ride at the most). So the little guy and I trekked back up the hill. Halfway there he wanted a piggy back, thereby getting out of most of the walking. That’s okay, it’s been a while since I exercised, I needed it.

Then later on my neighbor was taking her kids to the park and asked if I and mine wanted to join them. So we walked back down the ridge to enjoy about an hour in the park. Part of that time she and I got three laps in; not much, but it adds up to the rest of the walking. When we left, my son was so tired that I piggy-backed him all the way home. Whew! He’s not so little anymore, and when the girls were his age, they NEVER would have gotten a ride anywhere on my body!

Another one for the Kingdom!

2008-04-26T01:01:00.003-03:00

Andrés gave his life to Christ tonight.

At nights I haven’t been sleeping well , so I crave my seista time in the afternoon. Well, I haven’t been resting well during those, either. Am I getting old, or what? Moving right along...

Andrés woke me up from a light sleep this afternoon, asking me if he could have some skittles. I told him no, mostly because I was so upset that he had awakened me. Soon after I got up and found him in the kitchen snacking on…you guessed it, skittles. So down the hall to his bedroom we headed.

After a quite stern talking and a lot of tears, he told me, “I deserve to die.” Lately that’s been a theme in his talk, and I don’t like it. He talks about wishing he was dead or that he deserves to die, how terrible of a person he is. So today I told him that, yes, he does because he is a sinner (didn’t quite say it as bluntly as that…yeah, kid, you’re horrible, you do deserve to die!), but that God provided a way for him to live forever.

He said that he was scared, that if he asked Jesus into his heart, that he would leave him. So I explained that God would never leave his children, that he was eager and wanting to live with Andrés and that would make him God’s child forever. I also tried another tactic, that what we’re asking is that when we die, that we will go and live with God forever, in heaven, rather than be separated from God forever. He understood that concept better.

We talked about what it means to be a sinner, why we’re born into sin, and what God did so that we can be forgiven from our sins and live with him in heaven. I asked him if he wanted to pray and he said yes, that he would repeat my words. I asked him what he wanted me to say, but he began praying himself.

“Dear God, please forgive me of my sins.”
(me) What did he provide for you?
“Thank you that Jesus died for my sins.”
(me) And what do you want him to do for you?
“I don’t want to sin anymore.”
(me) What about living with him?
“I want to live with you forever. Amen.”

He was sincere, and happy afterwards. It was a wonderful experience to have the privilege to pray with him, to explain to him what it’s all about, and know that he is a believer. Awana has made such a difference this year, memorizing the verses and listening to the messages.

Strategy for Future

2008-04-26T01:00:00.001-03:00

What is America’s obsession with American Idol? Ridiculous. Here we sit in B&N and a table close by is going on and on about it. Having never watched it, nor planning on watching it, I just roll my eyes. I hope that the television will never be such a slave master for me. I know people who cannot miss their shows, and turn down invitations to “normal” life – interacting with people – so as not to miss their show. My best friend loves, loves AI and will not miss it for anything. She, however, has made it a special event, inviting another couple in her apartment building over for dinner each and every week, thus combining her love for the show with spending time with people.

We talked with my parents last night, and my father agreed with me that OF cannot determine where we live; as long as we are living in the general area, with easy access to NYC, then they can’t ask for anything more than that. So we started looking at school rating websites and it’s overwhelming. How on earth do you choose a location to live based on schooling? We have such a large area to search, but it’s daunting to say the least.

I came up with another plan this morning, or God gave it to me. One of the requirements of Bryon working for the OF is attending an alliance church. As much as I’d love to follow the letter of the law and not the heart behind it (meaning, Bryon occasionally puts his hours in an alliance building and the rest of us would find a spiritually vibrant church), I believe that God wouldn’t be happy with my attitude. Of course, implied in all of that is the assumption that none of the alliance churches are vibrant (2/3 of all alliance churches are plateau-ed or declining, so it’s a pretty solid assumption). However, I think that the better way of pursuing a location to live is to look at all the alliance churches in the areas where we’d like to live, then search for a school in the proximity.

When I mentioned to Bryon he wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about my idea, but said he’d think about it. To him, a good school is more important than a church, not that a church isn’t important, but knowing the state of alliance churches, it’s difficult to put that as a higher priority. If it was a matter of attending any church, then that would make it easier – we’d find a vibrant church, then find a school.

We have to trust that God is in this, that He has our future in His hands, and will provide for us in all of this, including meeting our spiritual needs, and those of our children. If it were just a matter of great preaching, we’ll just continue to listen to Matt’s sermons online, and I probably will do that – he’s just an amazing preacher. But there’s also the matter of our children, and their development.

So the issue can be: do we attend an alliance church at the cost of spiritual vitality? Maybe it will be a moot point, in that we’ll find a vibrant, growing, healthy church in our search; who knows. Obviously I doubt it, but I want to give it to God in the hopes that He’ll surprise me.

Keeping all Options Open

2008-04-24T13:35:00.001-03:00

Spring is coming, albeit slowly to cosp; on our walk this morning I saw flowers in full bloom (don’t ask me their names; maybe I saw some daffodils?) and people have started to water their grass (not happy about that waste at all!). So for the next 2 days we have wonderful weather predicted; then Saturday either brings us rain or SNOW!! We’ll see what happens…

This school year is almost over, and I can hardly believe it; truly it has flown by, even though I work there, or maybe because I work there. I had to get on the case of one class because they are still, still, after the whole year, non-cooperative, not following my rules. Maybe it’s too little, too late, but I have a goal in mind, that they can pay attention to me, as a group, for 15 seconds. Doesn’t seem like a lot to ask, but there it is.

Elizabeth did a great job as Eva Perón in her wax museum. She memorized her speech, which not all of her classmates did. I was proud of her! She’s still struggling with math, and we have to work on that together, mostly her frustration over not understanding it and how she portrays that frustration. Her creativity continues to amaze and delight us, as she expresses herself through stories, play, drawing, and acting. I hope that we can continue to encourage her and I think she’ll go far as she is strong in her verbal communication skills.

Emily is starting to pick up on reading and enjoying it; several times in the past week she has sat down to read to her brother, which not only shows her willingness to read, but his willingness to listen to her; when she wasn’t quite as fluent he refused to sit through her reading to him. She seems to be doing well in all subjects at school; maybe what she needed was just concentrated English for the year to start off on the path of reading. Her spelling is still phonetic but that too will improve with time. She never gets more than one or two wrong on her spelling tests at the end of the week, as opposed to one or two right in the pre-test at the beginning of the week.

Andrés is doing really well. I talked with his teacher this week about his progress and she has been amazed at how well he has adjusted to school (he didn’t have any experience before this year), and how much he has learned. She almost said that he was her favorite, but the kiddos were returning to class, so she strongly reinorced how precious he is. Gym continues to be his favorite subject, of course, and he and Bryon spend a lot of time in the local park, kicking the ball around and just enjoying the lovely outdoors.

All three have participated in awana this year, and all have completed their books ahead of schedule. We are so proud of them, memorizing the verses, doing the activities and taking the tasks seriously. I’m hoping it is something they will want to continue next year.

Depending on where we are, that is. Today Bryon has a meeting with vp of OF, taking it to the next level. He also sent out some resumes to several districts. We’re exploring all options, seeing where God will lead us, praying about every step along the way. I’m torn between all options right now, and know that the biggest challenge for me right now is staying in the alliance. I need to deal with this, asking that God take the bitterness away, seeing as it looks like our future is still with the alliance. Even if it weren’t, I need to uproot this bitterness. It isn’t healthy and I want to move on, to be free of resentment against the denomination.

Regrets and New Resolve

2008-04-22T00:19:00.000-03:00

Originally I published letters to a friend as blogs, but when my friend stopped writing back, I stopped keeping up my blog. Now that a year has passed since we left Argentina, I regret not keeping up a journal of our life. Just tonight my husband and I were commenting on how we’ve been in transition since November 2006 and still our future is unclear. As I read to him from my blog it occurred to me that so much has happened in the last year that would have been good to look over.
SO! All that to say, I’m starting up my journaling again…and publishing it to my blog. Here we go.
Yes, It’s been a while, and much has happened in our lives over the past year. We’ve been out of touch for too long. Life marches on even when we don’t keep in contact.
This past weekend Bryon preached up in Wyoming, and had quite an experience with God on the way home, who wanted him to be open to becoming a pastor again. To hear him speak of it, he was not only asked of God to commit to following that path, but also God told him to ask for four things in return. He has decided to send out his resume to some of the districts, starting with western ones.
Tonight Bryon had a meeting with some leaders of the “OF”, a fund raising ministry. Now he’s confused. It’s something that he can see himself doing, they provide all the training, and we’d live in the northeast. Is this something that is part of God’s plan for us, is it a distraction, or what? What is the next step? We prayed about it and hopefully will feel that God is guiding us either towards this or not.
On another note, this was quite the weekend for me as well. Saturday night I went to church and was deeply impacted by the message. Discerning God’s Perspective, whether for the past or the future, giving us perspective to make a right judgment, not only to look at what’s happened in our life but also as to what’s coming. Lately our past has weighed heavily on my mind, as well as our future. During the message it was the latter that was on my mind, but despite not having any clue as to what our future holds for us, I felt that there wasn’t one area where I was severely out of line with God’s perspective. Of course I’m not saying that I’m perfect; naturally there are areas always for improvement; however, I felt comfortable with all of them, in agreement with what the pastor was saying.
Then Sunday night I went for the worship time, a night of singing to God. It was awesome! It impacted me life greatly, and during a time of prayer, I realized that I’m still questioning my past, what those 8 years in Argentina were all about, did we fail, or does God have something here for us that is more important than us being overseas? Did we not do a good job? Why are we here, when there are so many people here, and such a need overseas? I didn’t resolve anything with God, just got those questions out, cried for a bit, felt that God was listening to me. It’s amazing what a concentrated time of singing God songs will do for me. I feel that I’ve been floating on songs all day today.

Various thoughts on a restless night...

2007-07-18T01:57:00.000-03:00

Tonight I feel restless. I want to read something new, interesting, but nobody has published anything worth reading online. Tomorrow Bryon goes in for his biopsy, and I wonder if that’s part of my restlessness.

We leave on Sunday for our vacation, not looking forward to that looooooooong trip, but have many ideas for passing the hours. It will take some time to prepare everything, but it will be so worth it in order to entertain the kids. Where are we going? Where are we not going is more the question. First we head to Cleveland to see Mannyand Silvana, then to Bryon's cousin's wedding. Then we head to New York to see Matt and Janet, whom we haven't seen in almost 4 years. After, we hit Massachusetts, quick trip to see Brian and Sheryl and Ian, then over to Greenfield to see all the old gang. Then back to Cleveland, Chicago to see the P's, then finally back to Colorado, and all in 3 weeks!!! Whew! I'm tired already!!

Elizabeth is missing Argentina mucho, her friends, school, lamenting being behind her class, etc. Adjustment has been hardest for her, and I don’t know if we’re helping her enough through the whole process. I’d like her to be in contact with her friends from Argentina, but tonight even though she saw that she had an email from Aixa, she didn’t want to write her back, even got angry and didn’t want an email address. Now what’s that all about?

I sewed a quilt square together, and of course it didn’t turn out absolutely correct, even though I measured correctly, cut well, and sewed as straight as I could. Dunno what went wrong. Oh well. The harder part will be figuring out how to place this new square with other patterns into a bigger square to fit into the bigger picture. I have the idea, but not the quilting practice to know what I’m doing. Learn as I go, I guess.

Moving On...

2007-05-06T19:51:00.000-03:00

We moved out of our home on Friday. The kids and I took a walk in the rain around the neighborhood one last time. I took a photo of my favorite house, as seen here. Then we walked to the park, where I took some pictures of the kids by the toys. We enjoyed the walk, but because of the rain, and because even in the rain the mosquitoes were out, we didn’t stay in the park for too long.

Afterwards we returned to the house and packed up our car and headed out. The kids were pretty hungry and stressed so the ride was long. As we left I stopped in front of our home so we could say good-bye. We were al pretty emotional and many tears were shed. Even now I get teary-eyed just thinking about it. We came over to the mission home, and had some lunch before turning on the TV for 5 hours, which was a great numbing tool for the kids. I on the other hand was exhausted and yet had to make sure that Judy was able to tell me all that I needed to know about the house. As soon as Jon and Judy headed out I started the laundry! I finished washing around 2am, not that I needed to do it all that night, but certain clothes needed to be washed before the next morning, and I had to wait to get them in after getting off of certain people!

Needless to say I was pretty exhausted the next day, and being the day I promised Erin I’d help her pack, I wasn’t looking forward to all the physical labor. Fortunately she called and said that she was just going to come over to the mission house and hang out with us. Later she and I went out to Norte Supermarket and met up with Terry, so the 3 of us went shopping together! We were all pretty exhausted and emotionally drained, yet it was nice to be together. It will be very difficult saying good bye to the 2 of them.

Last night we watched Hook with the kids – more emotional than I had remembered it, and most of us cried at one point. But the kids liked it enough to watch it again today, so I guess it wasn’t that bad.

Last night was the first time in a couple of nights that Emily slept through the night without any difficulties. Lately she’s been having problems sleeping, waking up in terror. Friday night she woke up to go to the bathroom (when I was up waiting for the laundry), and she was walking around when I found her, so I took her to the bathroom, and then later laid her down with Bryon as she needed to be with someone at that point. Bryon says that she kept waking up during the night, covering her ears and saying “Make the voices stop!” He prayed over her, as we had done on the previous nights, and she eventually calmed down. Last night she didn’t wake up during the night as far as we know, so we assume she had a good night’s sleep. Could you please pray with us that she will not be tormented anymore by demonic attacks? She needs to be lifted up in prayer.

Both girls have developed nervous habits, and we ask for prayer for this as well. Eli has finally stopped, after 6 years, ripping her fingernails off. Instead she is now blowing her fingers, and it is almost continuous. Even when she talks, she pauses to blow on her fingers. Emily plays with her fingers and toes, rubbing them together, touching her fingers together in a certain pattern. She is very upset about the habit and wants to stop but recognizes that she can’t stop. I realize that this is a stressing time for both of them and am not trying to break them of the habits, only that when Eli’s blowing drives me nuts, I ask her to stop, but she can’t and that makes her even more nervous. Andres has started sucking his fingers again, carrying his blanket around with him constantly, but he will take them out when I tell him to, and will leave his ‘bati’ in the bedroom when we tell him to as well.

I don’t know if it’s our stress levels that affect the kids so much, or if this is just so overwhelming for them. And I’m sick and tired of hearing people say that children adjust well and rapidly to change, as if it doesn’t affect them at all. For over a month now my girls have had these compulsive habits and we have another 2 ½ weeks before we are in the US, then it’ll take several weeks, if not more, to adjust to life there. Then also we need to include the adjustment when school starts. Hopefully by Christmas they’ll be adjusted. I always noticed that it took 8 months for the kids to adjust to school once the school year started; so by the middle of April next year, they will have fully adjusted. That’s only a year minus two weeks from now…yikes!!!

I figured out our suitcase situation. We’re allowed 20kg. with Argentine Airlines, 32kg. with Copa, so we’re packing our suitcases at 32kg. and paying the extra with Argentine Airlines. That way we can take more and won’t have to have people ship it to us when they can take suitcases to the US for us. Still, there’s about 3 suitcases worth of stuff that people will take for us, and we’ll just have them USPS it to us. Silvana will take stuff for us, and Bryon will be in Ohio in July for his niece’s wedding and can pick it up then. Now that I figured out all that, I can fill our suitcases more and be done with it all. Actually I spent time each day doing the repacking and now just need a scale to determine that each suitcase is 32kg. or under. Hopefully I'll be finished soon, because I really hate packing!

First bump in road...

2007-04-18T19:48:00.000-03:00

We had our first breakdown today over going to the United States. Scheduled on our itinerary was a trip to a children’s museum, but Bryon was sick with a headache so we couldn’t go. I decided to do some schooling so that when we do go, we won’t have to also do school that day.

That news went over like a lead balloon. Most of all the girls didn’t want to do the spelling test. First we made a list of some fun things that we wanted to do, and I must say that the girls were very creative in their ideas. Then came the dreaded SPELLING TEST. We have a “test” every day, which consists of 25 words. They attempt to spell them, I write them, they correct them. Not really a test according to my standards.

Two words into the test, Eli commented that I probably didn’t have a test in school when I was young, and I said, yes, but it also included having to know the meaning, that we only had one once a week, but that if I wrote the words wrongly, I didn’t get a chance to correct them afterwards.

All torrents of salty water broke loose!! Despair, hysterics, calling on daddy to accompany them through rough times. Dread of going to school in the US, not wanting to leave their friends, not wanting to be the new kids again, stand in front of the class to be introduced, not wanting to make new friends again, and definitely not wanting US spelling tests, then dread of all schooling how hard it would be, learning new stuff, not having experience (why do you thing we’re doing this now?), and ultimately wanting to be home schooled. Nothing I could say or do could calm the fears and dread of the future in the moment.

Twenty minutes later we finally get to the third word. (sigh) It was a long school day.

But afterwards Eli and I headed to the local school supply store and purchased goma eva, which has a name in English but the word has failed me. Let’s just describe it as foamy paper. Wonderful stuff for crafts! We spent the afternoon making masks and finger puppets, and have planned to spend more time doing creative activities, as the days ahead might be filled with rough, salty waters. Waves of them.

Learning at any price.

2007-04-17T22:03:00.002-03:00

Hopefully it was worthwhile, chopping my finger like I did. How did I hurt it, you may ask. Well, I did something today that I’ve wanted to do for quite some time. I learned how to make empanadas from scratch (individual hand—held pot pies). And even better, I learned how to make empanadas salteñas, which is a particular variety from the province of Salta, by far known as the best empanadas to be found in Argentina. I just happen to have a maid from Salta, so she taught me!

What I really wanted to learn even more than the filling (cuz I could have gotten a recipe) was how to make the tapitas from scratch. I have never worked well with dough, and felt that it would be a complete disaster to even attempt this. But it seems pretty easy to do. Now the trick will be attempting to do it myself! Pati made it look so easy, which I know is not true, but at least it didn’t look impossible. Check back in a week and see how it goes!!

Ingredients: 1 kg flour, about 1/3 cup of melted beef grease, warm water and salt. Mixed together until it no longer sticks to the hands. See how easy it seems? We’ll see how it goes!

Every once in a while she told me “you know what else this dough is used for?” So now I have a list of other things I can make, if I ever master the dough!!

Anyway, while I was cutting up the green onions, I got a little too close to my finger and - pow! instant blood. Let me tell you, it was interesting trying to finish the task of the day - cutting, mixing, shaping, and stuffing the tapitas. But all in all it was worth it; the empanadas were absolutely delicious!

The waiting game...

2007-04-10T22:08:00.000-03:00

This is the third time the doctor has told us to wait. Wait. How I hate that word. Had she never mentioned that we could have the results early, we would have been fine waiting until Thursday; but unfortunately she expected to have the results a week early, and they never arrived. Okay, so I was skeptical, but never did I imagine that we would wait a whole week!

Friday we leave for Ushuaia and will return on Tuesday. A trip of a lifetime, but being made under trying circumstances, we wonder what kind of weekend it will be – relaxing or regretful? Because based on what the results of the biopsy tell us, Bryon could be expected to start treatment as soon as possible, and I don’t want to spend the entire 5 days wishing that he could start immediately.

Any scenario that we generate has its own timetable and requirements. Many phone calls, trying to change our non-changeable tickets, trying to arrange a doctor to treat Bryon in the US, finding out how the insurance company will consider our situation, whether it would be better or required to stay here and finish this round of chemo and then return to the States in June. So many options, the head reels with trying to keep track of every little detail, hoping it hasn’t forgotten which questions to ask for which plan. But to map it all out would be exhausting, especially as there might be only one option come Thursday.

And what happens if Thursday comes and the evaluation of his bone marrow isn’t finished? Most likely we will have to wait until the following week, as we are in mañana-landia. The longer the biopsy results are postphoned, the least likely it is that Bryon can have treatment here in Argentina, and the more likely that we return to the US prematurely, bypassing Costa Rica altogether.

Actually, any way you look at the situation, whatever plan you choose, Costa Rica is out of the picture. The only way we could still fly through Tico-land is if Bryon’s cell counts maintain themselves or actually improve between now and the end of April, which is highly unlikely, given the fact that we know that he still has leukemia in his system.

So the major question is: what is God wanting us to learn during this time? What is His purpose in all of this?

2007-03-29T12:27:00.000-03:00

This wasn’t supposed to happen, and I don’t know how to react. Bryon’s leukemia wasn’t eradicated. There’s 0.5% still in his bone marrow. How small a portion is that, I don’t know, but it’s still there, and that means that it will keep growing, in his case, rapidly (because his HCL has never been chronic), and we’re in a race with time.

46 days until we leave Argentina. In my perfect world, Bryon starts another round of chemo this week, next week he’s back in the hospital for a week, then he’s home resting for 3 weeks, and we still have a week and a half before we leave. Cutting it close, don’t ya think? But it’s do-able.

But this world isn’t perfect, and there are always complications. For instance, Bryon’s doctor wants to do another drug, Rituximab, which is an injection once a week for 4 weeks. That doesn’t fit into my timetable, because what happens if afterwards he has to be in the hospital for some time due to high fevers? Then we don’t make the plane.

And now that I actually write down my perfect plan, it doesn’t seem feasible. But waiting until almost June for treatment (we arrive in Colorado on May 22nd) doesn’t seem plausible either – with as rapidly as Bryon’s HCL multiplies, 10 weeks or more is such a risk.

What do we do?

Okay, body is finally reacting to the news. No more am I numb. What’ll we do? Please, someone, make the decision for me!!!

How do we tell the kids? Do we wait for the full results, which come in 2 weeks, to see if it’s a variant of hcl? That, in my “perfect” world, leaves us with days…and what if Bryon, not being as strong this time, has fevers for longer periods of time, has to stay in hospital, etc.? I know I shouldn’t worry about the future, but we have to consider everything in order to make a decision.

2007-03-25T00:11:00.000-03:00

Today I overdid it. I was inspired to take on some projects, which led to others, which has led to a very sore throat and exhaustion. Why am I still up at midnight typing this, then? Don’t have the foggiest.

I can’t seem to get ahead on this packing thing. Sure, everything I move, organize, or sort is one step closer in the whole process, but I just can’t see that at this point. We need to get more out of here for me to calm down. That and having a better idea of what’s going with us and how much space it will take up in our luggage.

Today I started in on the children’s toys, and was inspired by an idea – why not have the kids help choose the toys to get rid of, and help them to get rid of stuff by giving them the money that they make selling them. It might work, but then again, in a week, I might be wishing I never started this. Emily today cried over having to give up a web cam and microphone – complete in its unopened box!! Just because it looked cute, she wanted to take it with us. What will choosing toys be like for her? Help!

This afternoon the wife of the Chileno couple I met 2 days ago called, asking if she could come over and do laundry. Ummmmm…. What do I say? “Of course! Come right over!” They both came, complete with 3 bags of dirty clothes. (She did bring her own laundry soap, thank goodness!) Four loads of laundry. Each takes almost 2 hours. Halfway into the first one, she went to see if it was done, and I told her how long it took, she became a little nervous. We had had our coffee and snack, had talked a lot, asked questions about each other’s families (How old are your parents?, she asks me…huh?), she asked me for more stuff that I’m getting rid of (they’re just setting up their home for the first time, and need everything. Thank goodness for bridal showers in the states!), before more people show up. Turns out friends of ours, who know this couple very well, are on their way to a party and decided to stop by. They hang out for ½ hour and then leave, promising to come by at 9:30 to pick up our Chileno friends.

Right before the first couple showed up we were starting a movie with the kids, as it had to be returned today. So when the second couple left, I suggested we watch the movie. They watched the movie with us as the 2nd load of laundry washed. It wasn’t done washing when the video ended. I left them in the living room while I cleaned the kitchen (it was after 9:30 at this point) and wondered if I had to serve them dinner – all I have in the house are tapitas for empanadas and cheese, so I was going to make quesadillas for them. And in walks Bryon, on his way out the door to return the video, asking if I wanted him to pick something up for dinner!! Hallelujah!! I turned off the stove and continued washing the kitchen.

Close to 10pm the Chileno couple leave, one bag of dried clothes, one wet, and another load in the washer. They’ll come back tomorrow to pick up the last 2 loads (I offered to wash one for her tonight!), and you better believe I’ll have them washed, dried, folded and in bags!!

Now before you go thinking I’m all nice or anything, let me tell you the truth. I couldn’t say no. Despite the 7 loads of laundry that I hid, which could have been my excuse for not allowing her to use my machine, I invited her over. I knew the time constraint, knew that it was a more-than-3-hour commitment, yet I said yes anyway. Despite feeling terribly sick, the totally messy house (I cleaned up the living and dining areas before they came), despite the fact that I don’t need to use my new motor on other people’s laundry.

But they are borrowing money to get life started. They are both in seminary, and have seen God blessing them in so many ways. I’m part of the blessing, reluctantly. I changed my attitude. They won’t be asking again to do laundry, as this week they’re planning on buying a machine.

My attitude changed when I thought how everything I ever wanted or needed was provided for me when I got married. My first apartment had its own washer/dryer installed. The towels and sheets that I will give my new friend (Soledad) next month were brand new 11 ½ years ago, given to me as generous wedding gifts. I take so much for granted, and really am ashamed that, having received everything free, that I complained over people choosing the wrong shades on some of the items. Soledad will get what she can, and is very happy about it. So if I can be a blessing to her, may God pour down more lavish blessings on her than the 2nd hand items I’m giving her. And may God continue to make me grateful for what I have, and what He provides for me.

Finally starting to take packing seriously.

2007-03-21T20:14:00.000-03:00

Today I packed up everything from the dining room and living room that we want to get rid of and that we don’t need in the interim. WHY do we collect so much stuff? I’m at a dilemma as to how to get rid of all the stuff! Yard sales are unheard of here. Bryon suggested taking it to church and letting people just take it. Fine and dandy, but I don’t want to be visiting all these churches just so that we can set up a table of stuff to get rid of – how embarrassing!!

I am so grateful to be finally getting on this. There’s so much to do, I just haven’t taken the time to do it. As it looks, we’re not going back as light as we had originally planned – good thing for everyone who has volunteered to take stuff back for us!! As it is, I don’t think we’re going to make it. Costa Rica is a dream of ours, but it’s hard to travel through with all this stuff. Do we really need all of it? Even with sending all our books back via mail we don’t have enough space.

One thing I am glad of, is that the girls aren’t in school. Even though it would be a lot easier to get rid of stuff they value if they were in school, I can’t imagine having to teach them English in the afternoons. Since packing and sorting is physical, it’s easier to do when I’m tired, rather than trying to teach and keep my patience when I’m tired.

Today Bryon and I sorted through our cd’s to get rid of those that we don’t want anymore. 9 made it out of our 2 cd cases. Only 9!! And 4 were in sets!! We listen to probably 10% or less of those cd’s, Bryon less than I. Yet we’re taking them back with us…oh well (sigh).

53 days to go until we leave for Costa Rica. Somehow that’s not scary yet. Still seems like a lot of time. But probably in 2 weeks I’ll be wondering why I didn’t take more advantage of my time now to get more done! But then I think back to the last time we moved, when I packed up and wrapped all the furniture in 14 days. So technically I could wait 5 weeks then start…and my family would kill me!

School starts!

2007-03-03T20:27:00.001-03:00

Well, school started this week, Thursday to be exact. I’m in the teacher mode again, fun fun. Since the homeschooling company didn’t sell me all of the books in their curriculum, I’m having to invent, something I have had to do before and never enjoyed it. However, I have prepared all of the weeks between now and when we leave in May, so I think this time it’ll be easier to persevere.

And how are the girls doing? Well, hmmmmmm, must be honest and say that I didn’t start off slowly, but jumped right back into it, all subjects, full speed ahead! Poor things. They really need a better-trained teacher. Actually, they’re doing pretty well. Eli has been more resistant and complaining than Emily, but that’s typical. She’s also faster and brighter, but Emily endures more and doesn’t complain half as much.

This past week we got a letter from a church, and a 7-year-old girl (in 2nd grade) wrote a letter to the girls. It was apparent that she had written her letter without copying it, and her spelling was perfect, and she was using complicated words (she spelled ‘favorite’ perfectly). When I showed it to Bryon, he and I thought of the same thing; there’s no way Elizabeth could spell as well as this girl, let alone Emily. What are we going to do to get them up to speed for the fall???

Knowing Spanish of course outweighs perfect English spelling, but try explaining that to the school system, or try convincing them that my kids are intelligent, if they can’t pass basic entry level exams. Will we continue to home school them? That’s an option… and I’d consider doing it, if we got involved in a church that the girls could really have a social outlet. We’ll see as time goes on.
And Andrés? He’s not learned Spanish, and probably won’t. When I speak Spanish to him, he asks me to speak in ‘inglés’. I really want him to learn Spanish, yet most of the time I forget to talk to them in Spanish…I have to get into the habit if we have any chance of continuing in the States.

2007-02-17T18:32:00.000-03:00

My baby turns 9 today. Quite the little lady! I see in her a lot of me…so do many people who know me well!! She’s reached 4th grade, and is interested in things that we were all interested in back in 4th grade – jokes that are a play on words, retainers or just paper clips bent into retainers, adult conversation – wants to always be included, reading everything in site, movies for pre-teens. She’s interested in all.

Seeing her move into the new phase of life brings back lots of memories, and even though she is a lot like me, in certain ways she hasn’t had the same experiences as I did, for which I’m grateful. Hopefully this pattern will continue in Colorado.

Yesterday she read a complete Laura book! She loves to stay up late and read, coming to find us when she finishes a book. I can’t keep her supplied with enough books, and will be very thankful for the local library once we move. She enjoyed the Laura book, and spent this morning helping people, because she wanted to be helpful, like Laura. She really impressed the people she was helping! They came to compliment us on our daughter.

We were at González Cátan this morning, my first trip out there. Claudia, who will be taking over faaro once we leave, joined us, to see the ministry and to meet the pastor. Two years ago when Bryon was there he took lots of photos of the kids, and since I created the brochure and poured over those photos for hours, I felt like I knew the kids. I recognized a lot of them! One girl Stephanie and I made fast friends today. She asked me lots of questions, introduced me to her cousins and father, and wanted to be in every photo. When we left I asked her if I could take a photo of her and me together, and she was just beaming! She sat next to me and gave me a hug, but I picked her up and sat her on my lap. Such a delight!! I hope we get to go out there again before we leave.

I get all tight inside when I think of having to tell people that we’re leaving. This week we will be telling the pastor and his wife, then we can spread it around to more, but I’m really not looking forward to this. Never having been good at this, I am determined to tell people this time, not like last, when we left and I hadn’t told any of the girls’ friends or their parents that we were moving – imagine their surprise when we were not around the following school year! As much as I suffer telling people, I refuse to be a coward this time. I’ve learned my lesson!

90 Days and Counting

2007-02-14T21:15:00.000-03:00

90 days to go...the countdown has begun! 90 is the number of days that Bryon counted down our wedding with the countdown I made for him. Last night I sat up and made a countdown out of post-it notes for the kids. But it seems so far away, too long to really count down…I think the kids will get bored, and I’ll have to move most of the post-it notes to our large “COUNT DOWN” sheet. Oh well…

Field forum went well, and our time with dad and mom was excellent, as always. They commented that it was nice coming in February, and why didn’t they do it before now. Something we’ve said all along – coming in the winter is pretty depressing.

Something interesting happened on the way home from Concordia…for a while we were following Dan and Terry. Dad drove for me (I was exhausted, fearing falling asleep for most of the trip), and as I sat looking at Terry’s car, wondering if they had finally figured out that we were behind them, I was staring at the large truck in front of them….no joke, it took me about 20 minutes for the thought to register that what I was looking at wasn’t a normal view. I was looking into 3 rocket boosters, when all of a sudden I perked up – Dad and I were incredulous to say the least, and started picking out other details…like the wings folded up against the body of the rocket, CAUTION / CUIDADO sign screwed next to the boosters (duh!), and NASA written on the wings in the tell-tale NASA font. Now the question is, what was the rocket doing in Argentina, traveling down route 14, uncovered????? It wasn’t big at all, rather, it was much smaller than I would have imagined. The semi wasn’t overly large – I would have thought that a rocket would take a trailer the size that moves whole houses. Too bad I had no access to my camera...probaby no one thought quick enough to take the picture!

lime green musings....

2007-02-03T22:36:00.000-03:00

this is something i wrote a couple weeks ago. Boy, was it fun reflecting on the past!!

Lime green! What a delightful color!! Reminds me of Granny Smith apples, crunchy and tart, also of crab apples – the ones we used to pick off the tree at the Margeson’s house back in the fields. At first we dared each other to take a bite without making a face; later we became more daring, challenging each other to eat whole apples—and they were huge—right down to the cores! We’d always feel sick afterwards, and our mothers would tell us it was our own faults, but that never stopped us from our childish bravery.

It was at the Margeson’s house that we first experienced stinging nettles. Somehow the name doesn’t quite portray the excruciating pain that’s involved in the process of wading through a stinging nettle patch. It seems that only England is privy to this wonderful plant; we never came across it in the “colonies,” as the good ol’ US of A was called.

There was one time that my best friend and I got into a terrible fight, and divided our whole group into two. Her revenge was sweet, however, when she stole my history notebook and threw it into a patch of stinging nettles. I waded in after it, anger overcoming better judgment (as always), and came away with a damp notebook, too damp to ever use again. It was a shame, as it was practically brand new; brand new notebooks always inspired me to “do my best” and the first drawings were my best ever. Even my teacher had remarked on how neat I had been. Now it was all destroyed over some, most likely, petty issue that was resolved only three days later. I kept that warped notebook for years, not as a reminder of my friends nor of our fight, but as a memory of how careful I had been.

The first drawings were of castle life, serfdom, how fields were divided up between laborers and crops. We colored mostly in coloured pencils, adding details later in markers. I distinctly remember the magenta marker had bled all over the pages; I also remember crying pitifully over that ruined book; but most of all, I remember how no one thought the drawings were as good as I thought they were. They weren’t crying over because they weren’t that good; but I cried over my masterpiece being destroyed. They weren’t good but they were my best effort ever, and I’ve never done anything remotely neat and careful since then.

I seem to remember getting along with my brother better in England than in any other place during our school years (with the possible exception of New Hampshire). We were an oddity, our accents were admired, ridiculed, challenged as fake, and our customs were strange albeit in a fascinating way. We introduced Halloween to our neighborhood. The kids loved it, the adults didn’t know what to give us as a treat (life savers seems to be a household standard for treats), and at one house in particular, the man had us give a 10-minute lecture on what Halloween meant; all the while we were wishing to get out of there, foregoing the treat!

For two countries to speak the same language there sure are lots of cultural differences between England and the US. Most of the time diversities were comical. For example, during our first week in England, we saw a kid with a shirt that read, “I shot JR.” We were mystified; who was jr., and why would this kid boast having shot him? Imagine our surprise to find out it referred to J.R.’s shooting on the show Dallas, yet imagine the shock of our friends, who assumed that everyone in America watched the show!! We had never even heard of it before! They wanted to know what was going to happen next, and we were clueless, again much to their amazement and dismay.

The influence of Dallas was widespread; obviously we really weren’t from the States because we didn’t sound like JR or the other characters. It was impossible to explain that New York was far away from Texas (thank God!) and people spoke differently there (again, thank God!). Accents in England vary, almost from town to town, so you’d think they would understand this concept!

So my brother and I stuck together because we were “different”; we played with the kids on the street (pom-pom, curb ball, a fun variation of dodge ball, Mother-may-I, and other fun games), we walked to and from school together, built spaceships and space stations with his Legos, performed a magic show for our parents and grandparents (he was the magician, complete with bow tie; I, his lovely assistant, with floppy hat and sun glasses—the pictures are hilarious!!), even wrote an Easter egg hunt consisting of riddles. We had a tree house in the back yard, which we rigged up with a low-tech pulley system (a rope tied to a bucket) to transport things up and down. He would ride his bike while I rolled skated alongside as we made our way to the local sweet shop to buy bags of our favorite sweets. We destroyed our English garden playing “football”. And in the bott*m of the garden we played school in the Wendy house.

I remember one time we were hitting golf balls and over the back fence our neighbours had a glass green house. It had to be an act of God, that in His mercy the balls flew by every time while we held our breath and closed our eyes. It was a miracle we never hit it, with the amount of balls that went over the fence. One time we were inspired with a brilliant idea; rather than risk hitting the greenhouse, we would turn around and hit balls towards the house! In the middle of a Bible study, someone (I just can’t remember who…) hit a perfect line drive, crashing a window in the door, and the ball landed right in the middle of the group! Weren’t they surprised!! And weren’t we chagrined that we could hit such a small window with such agility and miss the entire glass house next door!!

I had my first boyfriend in England, although it was more of a friendship than anything else. I panicked if ever he tried to hold my hand. We went roller-skating together, brother in tow, at the community center. He practically lived at our house from the time school ended until his mother called to tell him to come home. We did our homework together, brother included, on the living room coffee table. He was an incredible artist (no, he never saw my serf fields!) and drew constantly on everything. My younger brother received “Freddie the Frog”, framed and signed, and I wonder if he still has it; it meant the world to him back then.

Yes, he was my boyfriend, we went to the same school, and yet I vehemently denied his boyfriend status, even more violently than Peter denied Christ. I would get into a fight faster than anything else if someone were to point him out to me on the school campus. We could be seen anywhere else together, just not at school.

When we returned to the US, I longed to know how he was, but was never brave enough to ask my parents for his address, and I never heard from him again. Years later, in my 20’s, I heard that he was an artist, still single, and my family and I joked that was because he and I had never broken up, and he was still waiting for me. But I think in reality that I was growing tired of him by the end of our time there.

tadpole musings

2007-01-04T00:04:00.000-03:00

This summer I killed 4,269 tadpoles….more or less. Here in Argentina summer falls in December, so in November we repaired our swimming pool’s 20-year-old water pump. (Yes, we are missionaries with a pool. Call it unmerited grace scented with chlorine). After 10 months with no filtration or care, our favorite summertime hangout had become an ecological reserve of putrid water, slimy worms and thousands of hatching frog eggs.
My job was to drain the pool and bring back the clear chlorinated blue that we loved so much. As I regularly checked to see that our temperamental pump was working, I found time to look at the multitude of those little usurpers whose hours were numbered by The Great Pool Drainer.
I had come to like some of those little creatures, although I never got around to naming any of them. As a science lesson our family watched tadpoles do what, well, tadpoles do. They grew a bit and then sprouted little hind legs. They were on their way to a “productive” frog-hood.
As the pool slowly drained, I saw that the tadpoles failed to notice they were heading towards a swift water-pressure ride that would end in a fairly small filter; that is, they were heading towards oblivion. It seemed to me that nothing they could have accomplished – task committees, better leadership, focus groups, an interfaith fungi council, not even letters to the Great Pool Drainer – would cause me to turn off the pump and buy an inflatable pool to appease my family of five. I had other plans.
I don’t know a lot about tadpole hierarchy. Possibly the tadpoles in the shallow end had nothing to do with those in the deeper end, and the upper class took exclusive vacations on the ladder rungs. Maybe culture shapers and opinion makers swam around, giving meaning and basking in the murky green light of acceptance, while tadpole leaders circumnavigated the affairs of the tadpole world. Could the tadpole community have wise gurus that studied decaying leaves in order to discern the future? Might it be that tadpole literature talked about a middle-pool of raging battles, adventure and, well, I guess fire would not have been involved…
Too me, they were tadpoles, and somehow I missed all the greatness they might have seen in themselves.
As I watched their world slowly go down the drain, I thought of my world, how our leaders, opinion makers, and trendsetters biblically can’t keep us from hurtling towards oblivion. The world is under the control of a God so powerful that we are all basically on a tadpole level as far as changing his plans go. And, without his help we could understand him about as much as those tadpoles could understand The Great Pool Drainer. Yes, that unprepared polliwog population was going to experience profound crisis, and a premeditated one at that.
In our world, in the midst of severe crisis, the book of Lamentations expresses reason for hope when in turmoil:
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassion’s never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.”
The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord. (Lamentations 3:22-26)

I am working to express God’s kingdom here in Buenos Aires. I am endeavoring to advance his church and help others do what those little creatures could not: rise above all that we think is important and see the big picture of what God is doing. What a joy to have a life with a future and a hope. What a joy to share it with others, to bring Christ into our friends’ lives. What blessing to help bring a bit more peace in a world heading towards oblivion.
All that remains of that tadpole world is a small group saved for our outdoor science labs. All the filth is gone, and I now dive into a Brave Blue World. It’s not exactly the New Jerusalem, but as I sit in it on some hot afternoons, I wonder if in heaven all missionaries will have a pool…

Elizabeth and Mommy

2007-01-03T21:46:00.000-03:00

We were just looking at an incredible blog where 9 girls are writing 9 stories about 9 kids from the same family, and we like the idea!! Elizabeth wants to create her own club when she's older. I think she'll be a great author!!! She likes to write!!

Trying to post a picture

2006-10-15T21:46:00.000-03:00

Let's see how this works.... Well, here's a pic of Dora and Mario that we took in August. Wonderful couple, have become like family to us here in Argentina.

Survived Bryon's trip to US!!!

2006-10-15T21:14:00.000-03:00

Okay, last minute trip to Olavarría helped to pass the final weekend of Bryon's trip to the US. Wonderful time with Mario and Dora, celebrating his 60th birthday and Mother's Day here in Argentina. All we did was eat all weekend, eat and talk!! And now there's only 12 hours left before Bryon's plane touches down, and most of that time will be passed sleeping!!

glad to be back.

2006-07-14T20:48:00.000-03:00

we're heading out for córdoba tomorrow. nice place, nice cabañas, but no real ganas to go. wonder what this week will have in store for us?????