Live. Laugh. Love.

It's such a cliche. 

Valentine's Day: the day for exchanging chocolates and red roses and hoping that some special person will notice you. 

Or the day for having it pointed out in no uncertain terms just how nonexistent your "love life" really is.

 But yesterday, as I was thinking through the "ideal" evening with my own "special someone," something dawned on me. Or, perhaps I should say "re-dawned" because it has occurred to me before. My favorite thing about my husband is that he is my friend. 

I know, that is cliche too. 

But I think that it is often overlooked. So much emphasis is placed on the chocolates and roses and fluffy pink feelings and romantic candlelight dinners and tuxedos (although, I will say, I'm a sucker for my dressed-up husband. With a bow tie.) 

My favorite evenings, though, are the ones where we are doing the dishes together and making fun of each other and laughing so hard we can't breathe. 

Or the ones where we are eating by candlelight again, not to be romantic, but because the power has gone out. Again. 

Or the ones where we run outside 

and desperately try to pull all of the dry laundry off the line 

as the first sprinkles of rain begin to fall, 

and we are getting all tangled up the clean clothes and clothesline 

and laughing and tripping over our toddler 

who is trying so hard to help 

and is just managing to be everywhere that is most inconvenient. 

Or the ones where we eat a whole roll of oreos (who decided that so many delicious little cookies should go in one package?) while I read a book and he sits beside me and plays a computer game. 

When we were engaged, we were warned over and over again (perhaps due to our rather short dating time) that after we were married, the fun and romance would wear off, and at some point we were going to have to face the reality that is mundane married life. 

Well… duh. Of course the fuzzy feelings can't last forever, continuously, all the time. 

But friendship can. 

And when we just aren't feeling the starry-eyed romance in the middle of the stuff that is life… 

we can always laugh. 

At each other. 

With each other. 

At life. 

And I think, that is what love really looks like. 

Not chocolates (although I do love chocolate). 

Not roses (not my favorite flower, anyways). 

Not tuxedos (although, refer to the above confession regarding my stance on suits.) 

But love is laughing and rolling up our sleeves and washing the dishes. 

Or sweeping. 

Or stumbling around and finding the matches and candles in the dark so that we can see to finish dinner. 

Or giving the toddler a bath because he sat in a puddle. Again. 

And always, being willing to laugh. 

And live.

And love. 

Life at Kudjip: The Great Laundry Dilemma

There are times in life on the mission field when you just have to stop and contemplate how amazingly complicated a formerly easy part of your life has become. Now, granted, there are plenty of formerly difficult or expensive things that are now easy, such as eating plenty of fruits and vegetables or staying active enough. BUT, there are also some of those formerly easy things that now are amazingly complicated. Case in point: laundry. There are several factors that go into making this common household chore a more complicated and involved undertaking that it heretofore might have been.

1. I use cloth diapers for Theron. Now, I have always used cloth diapers for him, this is not a new development since becoming missionaries, but I just need for you to keep in mind that this little factor lends an aura of urgency or importance to the Laundry Dilemma that it might not have if what was at stake was, say, clean underwear rather than diapers. Diapers are important. Very important. 

2. All of our water comes from a water tank, which is filled by rain. Now, granted, we do live in the tropics, so this would seem to be a non-issue. However, this is only true during the rainy season, which we are currently in. During the dry season, I am told, these water tanks do occasionally go dry, especially if you happen to do, say, a load of diapers a day. While I have not actually lived here during a dry season, this factor has to be kept in mind to understand while I feel morally obligated to be thankful for the copious amounts of rain we are currently receiving on a daily, hourly, and minutely basis. 

3. Our power goes off. A lot. Usually at least two or three times in an evening, often during the day as well. When the power goes off, laundry cannot be done at all for two reasons: (1) the water pump is electric and requires power so when the power goes off, so does our water; (2) the washing machine is electric and requires power so when the power goes off, so does my washing machine. 

4. We don't have a drier. Now, this is not a HUGE deal, as we do have a nice laundry line and I grew up hanging clothes outside to dry, since we didn't have a drier when I was a teenager. However, two issues: (1) I'm 7 months pregnant. This makes bending over to pick up clothes and straightening up to hang them approximately 235 times a day just a leetle more interesting. I can't breathe when I bend over. (2) In order for clothes to dry on a clothes line, it must at the very least not be raining. Ideally, there would actually be a modicum of sunshine. Here is where we refer back to factor #2, regarding water. As I mentioned back then, you may recall, we are currently in the rainy season. This means that we get approximately 3 minutes of sunshine per day. The rest of the time it is either pouring, sprinkling, misting, foggy, very overcast, or some mixture or variation on those condition. 

5. Not to worry, my neighbor has a drier which I am welcome to use whenever I need it! Yay! Except… see factor #3. The drier is yet another item which is electric, therefore requiring electricity to function, therefore frequently not functioning. 

SO, in summary, to have clean diapers (which is very important) I must make sure to do the laundry when we have water in the tank (requiring rain), the water pump and washer are functioning (requiring power) and there is EITHER enough sunshine to dry the clothes on the line OR enough power to dry the clothes in the drier. 

And then I must make sure to get the laundry DOWN OFF the line BEFORE it rains again, or the work I did hanging them up in the first place is negated. And it is just so depressing to have to re-hang clothes that WERE dry but then got rained on. 

I'm not complaining. Just contemplating. Now, if you'll excuse me, I believe the power is on and the sun is out so I need to run and do laundry. Because Theron is currently wearing his last diaper. 

Theron at Kudjip: Spot the Toddler

After two days of Spot the Toddler, I am happy to report that my one-year-old is back to his normal coloration.
Things I am thankful for:
1. Neither grandmother was here to see his excessive spottliness because they probably would have freaked out. At least, my mom would have. =]
2. We live across the street from two wonderful doctors who don't mind being asked over and over, "are you sure it's just allergies?"
3. They were indeed sure it was just allergies.
4. Benedryl makes my child sleepy, not hyper.
5. Baby's coloration pattern is pretty much back to normal now. That is: Mud with whitish-pink undertones and Lunch accents.

Life at Kudjip: Famine and Feasting

Since we live quite a ways from town and the grocery stores there, the high school teachers only go shopping once a month. We go together on the first Monday of every month, giving the highschoolers that day off of school, and buying enough food in town to last us through the month until our next shopping day. It's not a bad plan, but for my first "shopping-for-a-month" trip, I was rather intimidated. I have never had to shop for a whole month before! What happens if I run out of food? So I carefully plotted out exactly how much food I use in a week, multiplied each item by four, and figured that would probably be what I would use in a month. And I was right.

However. (I hate howevers) The month was not actually a month. No, this last sneaky month was MORE than a month. The first Monday of January happened to fall not on a respectable number like the 1st or the 2nd of the month, but rather on the 6th. The SIXTH! That is a whole week past the four-week-mark that I used for my estimations. And let me just say, I was REALLY good at estimating. On the 31st of December we began to run out of every single staple in my cupboard. Vegetable oil, eggs, sugar, margarine, butter, noodles, all canned goods, cheese, I watched sadly as they each were fully consumed, one by one. Did I mention what an irritatingly good estimator I am? By the 6th, we had made it a week on…. well, I'm not completely sure what we ate that week. Mostly potatoes. And borrowed things. By the time our shopping trip finally rolled around, I was SO ready. Incidentally, Rachel, the other high school teacher, had done much the same thing and had also had a week of staring blankly at her bare cupboards wondering if there was a new way to cook potatoes.

We enthusiastically set about shopping. FOOD! BUY ALL THE FOOD!!!! By the time we were done going to every store we could think of (because we were out of something from each of them), the back of our land cruiser was so full we could barely fit the last grocery bags in. I got home and put the food away and began to realize that I may have gone slightly overboard. But I didn't regret it. t poked food into every nook and cranny in my kitchen, gleefully thinking of all the non-potato meals I could now make.

However, there was still some food to come. I had, along with my neighbor and some other ladies on station, ordered some meat and eggs from a mission station down the road. However, they emailed telling us that they currently did not have any cows that were ready to butcher, and so they would not be able to fill our order for some time. Well, we still needed eggs and at least SOME meat, so we decided to go ahead and drive over there and pick some up just to hold us over until such time as they could fulfill our order. I got a case of eggs (9 dozen), a couple chickens, and some little packages of mystery cuts of beef that they had lurking in their freezer. (Tomorrow we find out what "schnitzel beef" is).

That afternoon, after we got back home, we got a text from that mission station, informing us that our order was ready after all and we were welcome to come pick it up the next day. (Where did they find a cow???) SO, not only did we have our "hold us over" meat and eggs, we also had our entire order as well!

Needless to say, my kitchen is now stuffed to the brim with food. Canned food, frozen food, bagged food, vegetables, meat, eggs, pasta. But not one potato. And I think I'm ok with that.

Theron's First Birthday - A Photo Post

 

 

 

We have arrived!

> Well, it finally happened! After much waiting, and waiting, and waiting on permits and papers and visas and anything else that needed to be gotten, we finally are here!
>
> May I say that I do not recommend international flights with a toddler if they can be avoided. I, for one, hope that by the time we have to fly back to the states, a good teleportation device will have already been invented and that there will a station set up in Mt Hagen, Papua New Guinea. Here's to high hopes!
>
> Theron actually did not do too badly for a one-year-old who was cooped up on airplanes and in airports for 36 hours straight, and he has already recovered remarkably well from jet lag. On the first day, he seemed to be under the impression that morning had arrived at 4am, but by day three or so, he was sleeping in till 6 just like mommy and daddy!
>
> Morgan has started work with Field Maintenance (upkeep on mission housing), and is loving it! He works with two guys who are under strict orders not to speak any English with him, thanks to our dear fellow missionaries. As a result, he hopes to be speaking fluent Tok Pisin quite soon! =]
>
> Danielle has started at the MK high school, teaching and tutoring 6 lovely missionary kids. She is glad that she is working with another teacher who actually does have a grasp of high school calculus. However, physics, biology, and english are coming back!
>
> We still do have some support that we need -- about $350/ month in pledges. If you feel that God might be calling you to help with that, please do so! That money pays our grocery bill.
>
> Thank you all so much for your support thus far in actually getting us to the other side of the world!

On Our Way!

Well, it's finally happened! Our visas were approved, our passports were returned to us with said visas, and our tickets are purchased!

Our patience has definitely been tested over the last four months, as we thought we were going to be leaving early in August. But we know God's timing is perfect, and we have had a wonderful, if somewhat frustrating, several months.

We will be leaving the states this next week. Please pray for us as we undertake a two-day across-the-world journey with a toddler! It should be interesting.

We have enjoyed this weekend with family, and had a birthday party for Theron today, complete with lots of cake!

Support Update: Thanks to God's faithfulness and the willingness of so many people to be used by Him in our lives, we have raised the initial amount that we need in order to leave the country! We still have some ongoing support left, about $300/ month that we need in pledges. We are so humbled and amazed by the incredible God we serve and His ability to provide for all of our needs.

Next time you hear from us, we'll be on the other side of the world!