Update on Loonni

We all talked by phone with Loonni tonight.
She's the one with the most re-entry adjustment.
NO ONE ENVIES HER!
She's back to manual farming in NE rural Thailand.
It's rice planting season,
and she's trying to clean up her small wooden home on stilts,
to make it liveable again.

After 2 weeks back, her extended family have all come to visit her.
And ask for $ help for different things.
This is a boundary-less society, so she's used up most of the money she'd saved.
She still has some (about $800 USD)
and her son may be willing to get an eye surgery, which will help his esteem.
He hasn't gone back to school.

It's going to take a lot of God's patience and wisdom empowering her
in this tricky navigation:
how to come back on the scene as this teenager's mother.
He's not used to someone else being his boss.
But he's a sweet kid too.
She was always so patient with our boys, but she can really get frustrated and lose it with her son.

Please, pray with us that God will give her amazing patience and wisdom in guiding this boy onto a track that may give him a future out of poverty, and that in her victory of patience and grace, they will all see Jesus in her.

Week ONE:

We're settling in well. boys meeting new friends. loads of options for summer fun.
camping at the beach, Angel baseball game, basketball and light saber dueling with the neighbor boys.
Tyler's started football practice with the Maranatha JV team
(he's got a new swaggar in his step...but it might just be from sore muscles).

the apartment we've moved into is just right for us. we all did housework together this weekend.
they both LOVED the church we WALKED to this morning.

God has been generous to give us quick recovery from jet lag, health, and things falling into place relatively easily.
Two loaner cars made it easy too!
Jim's great at getting things set up: cell Phones, bought a car, internet (got our library and Ralph's grocery cards too!).

Big thing for Jim is to get the application rolling for Fuller Seminary. He was on a roll with that a few months back until he realized that he doesn't have ONE copy of any of his former academic writing. All lost along the way with all the moves. The application requires he submit something. I say, just apply and do everything else. Perhaps they'll give provisional acceptance based on his grades etc. and let him turn in his first paper at Fuller as the final requirement for admission (afterall, he was the student body president of his former seminary, and as you can probably guess, is no slouch with his grades)

for me, I've started calling people I know in the arts here, to connect with them and still figure out where I'm going to fit - what I should DO.

Registered at the local college to take theatre classes, have met some moms from kids' future schools,
was invited to lunch this last weekend with the president of my former university
- they had extra tickets for a Youth Theatre performance - and they thought of us. There seems to be no end of people I can call up or have coffee with to find out what's going on with Christians in the arts...How fun! Mentors for me!

We're just taking it one step at a time and walking through the doors as they open up.
Feel a bit like I'm following God blindfolded.
So far he hasn't let me trip...but
I'd be really happy if I had a real sense of calling here - something to focus on and not just a bunch of good activities.
But for now, I feel "mom's calling" is making sure the kids have a great year. And for that, we're off to a really great start.

First 3 days: hit the ground running...and comparing

We're going to be doing a lot of comparing in the months to come.
here are the first of many comparisons:

more humor
more homeless people,
more obese people
more selection (there are about 15,000 choices of antiperspirant)
more donuts (they had free krispy cremes at church on Sunday - Father's Day)

cheaper
wine
cars
bottled water

bigger
cars
portions
people

It's fun to wander around Target and Walmart and get a "Ralph's Club Card" for special deals on groceries. Just a photo of the PICKLE section of the grocery store.
I'm amazed!

AMERICA: Land of Opportunity
Originally uploaded by K!Mberly

in 3 days we have...
...met the new neighbors
...cruised around to check it out
...walked around to check it out
...unpacked suitcases into the fully stocked, 3 star (but very CLEAN), apartment
...attended a 50th Anniversary party with loads of old friends attending too
...been to the local branch of our bank
...signed up for library cards (this is an old city, so the civic buildings are really cool)
...sent the kids camping with grandparents for the week
...cell phones synched now with USA contacts
...got new cell phone numbers, and a home phone on the way
...not just one, but 2 loaner cars
...dates for cable and internet installation
...rec'd sms from Loonni: all her family have come to visit her and ask for $
...been to a church where an artist painted on a canvas during the worship service.
...gratefully had good nights' sleep - and quickly getting over jet lag. OK, the first morning was a 4 am wake-up, but hey! I'm almost caught up on reading last months emails now!
...seen all the neighbor kids in the courtyard playing with lightsabers and bikes and basketball hoops. The manager calls it 'the wild animal park' (this is gonna be heaven for Cameron!)

Also
...Got some great info on the nearest public school for Cameron:
One of the neighbors here in this missionary housing raved about the principal, a former missionary to india who has hired excellent teachers, many of whom are also believers.

Gratitude & Thankfulness

Such mixed feelings and a head full of random thoughts
I’m sitting in coach.
The cattle call of United flight 890
10 long hours from Tokyo to LA.
My back hurts.
My legs are falling asleep.
I’m melting down.
I can’t think straight.
I can’t make a list or even move.
I’m
Stuck like a sardine
With Tyler’s head in my lap.
Sweet teenager is still my baby.
I stroke his head
While wishing I could do something about all that is bouncing around my brain.
There’s nothing to do but sit here and pray.
Ask the Lord for sanity.
Ask the Lord for an organized mind.
Ask the Lord to give me grace
And peace
And rest.

Why are my natural responses to my circumstances
annoyance rather than thankfulness?
Afterall
This could be a box car taking me to Auchwitz.
Or I could be making this trip with a termial disease.
Or to attend the funeral of a loved one.
Why am I
Aggravated by being woken up for the airplane meal instead of thankful for food?


Now we’re home with parents who love us.
Thankful for their care, eating our first meal together in a nauseated daze,
trying to take in
that in their excitement to have us here for a year,
they’ve already scouted out the neighborhood
and want to point out to us what they’ve found in Pasadena.

Finding that they’ve stocked the apartment with a new coffee maker
and some groceries, and
that they hung a few family photos on the walls.
So sweet.

But I know that soon I will wrestle with my appreciation for the
Providence Missionary Homes.
Adjusting to 4 times less living space
minus personal space
Decorated with care and obvious special touches
That reflect someone elses’ tastes.

I’ll be asking for gratitude for a brown slipcover over the couch,
the thrift store furniture, 1970’s marble wall-to-wall shag carpet,
And dull kitchen knives.

Instead of being unspeakably happy that there are two bathrooms, not one,
I’ll be wondering how both big Jim and I will brush our teeth
without giving one another a black eye.

This is the new phase of life to the theme song, “Jesus Take the Wheel”
This is the new test of my willingness to choose gratitude and “take thoughts captive.”
This is new opportunity to submit to the Lord and let him rule and reign over my thoughts and actions,
See the miracle that his indwelling Spirit can turn my mourning into dancing,
and wait on him to give me a heart that in everything gives thanks.

Last days of Labour - thoughts on the airplane

Labour. Some births are short and relatively easy, some are long and complicated.
At the beginning it’s motivating to push on through
Cause you know in the end there’s almost always the reward.

hatched.
Originally uploaded by Ella Minnow Peas

My labour with Tyler was 21 hours.
I always think of that on this flight which is the same.
At the end of this 21 hours of air travel, we’ll be seeing family again.
That's a SHORT labour.

We've just been through a longer labour.
We sometimes thought it would never end.

Weeks of sorting 10 years in Asia:
what to take,
what to store,
what to loan,
what to give,
what to throw
We’ve finally left an empty apartment behind.
One last look at the night time skyline of Singapore from the 23rd floor.
And all the keys are left behind
Hidden in a green Ikea cup, on the second shelf of a shoe rack.
The new owner, currently living 3 floors down, wasn’t home.

Small and large heartaches, losses, and joys have packed this last month so full that I often felt like the faucet of life was on full strength and the container of my heart was overflowing the brim by the gallons.
How earnest we were to make sure we all finished well these first 10 years of life in Asia. I'm really praying the 'baby' at the end of this labour is worth all the gray hairs I've sprouted this past month.

Leaving gives excuse for otherwise unsaid words of memories or affirmation.

• Mulitple sleepovers for the children.
• A photo catalog online for our friends to peruse and claim at an Open House. Buy or borrow it. (Somehow farming out my possessions gives my heart more connection to our hard earned network of relationships than if everything went to storage)
• A sweet dinner gathering of artists who follow Jesus.
• A BBQ with Jim’s CRMS colleagues.
• A phone and inbox full of sweet goodbye messages.
• Watching “24” in our hotel room with a friend (on the computer because the tv screen in the ‘family suite’ was ‘so tiny’)
• friends who treated the boys to see Fantatstic Four on opening day, our final day.
• A glorious massage with a new sweet friend in an exquisite spa.
• A final meal hawker dinner of Singaporean foods with two dear young couples who’ve become like family as we have shared in their weddings and heartaches, productions, holidays and travel.


These are the memories I want to cherish.

In time we’ll forget the people who signed up to borrow or buy things who didn’t in the end.
Like the night before the movers came, the last person came at 11:30pm only to decide to not take items she’d claimed,
and to bargain with us over a desk.
Would we take $12 instead of $20?
(Jim said of all the events this past month, this was the most personally challenging.)

In time I’ll not recall that I realized Cameron has missed 5 childhood vaccinations and we’d better do it here, where it’s cheap and I know were to go. In the midst of moving this meant multiple trips to the doctor or polyclinic to challenge his immujne system with “jabs” of measles mumps rhubella polio diptheria typhoid and tuberculosis (And dear Lord help me forget that his sniffling and sneezing wasn’t dust allergies from packing, as I told the doctor, but he indeed did have a head cold, which meant a high fever as he battled his flu with the rest of the diseases we’d injected him with).


In time we’ll not feel the shock and pain of losing our sweet little dog Rascal
who died unexpectedly, 6 days before we left, while getting his teeth cleaned.
A simple procedure under anethesia to prepare him for his year’s stint with the Foo Family.

In time we’ll forget the heart searing panic our helper Loonni had in hearing that her son wasn’t attending school in Thailand. And that he was intending to become a buddhist monk before her return in only 3 weeks. Her initial days of despondency and her urgent need to get on the next plane out of Singapore. In time, perhaps we'll all only remember that God gave wisdom, good advisors, and peace for her to stay until the date of her purchased air ticket, and that she had good closure to her life in Singapore. Perhaps in time, we’ll hear that this boy, and the rest of her extended family, have entrusted their lives the the Saviour that she found while working for us.


In time, I’ll forget that the plans to have our last day together sending to Loonni at the airport then enjoying together the things we love was spoiled by my accepting a lunch ‘treat’ from a friend who didn’t know how to meet me at one of the most well known and central locations in the city. Instead she said, “I’ll call you at 11:05 and pick you up wherever you are.” (how about that popular place I just suggested?) These circumstances then filled my last day with 2 hours waiting and crossing town by train to meet her, only to hear her say when she finally found me: “If I didn’t love you so much. I’d have turned around and gone home.” I took her arm and said, “We both have had a frustrating morning. Let’s go have some lunch and redeem it.”

In time we’ll forget the panic of realizing that some things we needed to take with us were packed by the movers and put in storage (receipts, documents, the pile of info regarding life in CA). ARGH!!! But there was in the very end, the relief that the important 'starhub' cable equipment we needed to return, was at our friends the Webb's house and not in a storage box afterall.

We'll forget the bad and cherish the good memories. Just like it was in having a baby.

A Devotional for our Departure:

God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and …sacrifice him as a burnt offering….". Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!...Do not lay a hand on the boy," Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. Genesis 22:1-18 (NIV)

This passage currently hangs on our refrigerator to encourage our domestic helper who, like so many others, works abroad to support her family. Recently she learned that her 14 year old only son had dropped out of school, and in his sense of a hopeless future, told her he intends to become a Buddhist monk. We’re only one week away from leaving Singapore for a year in US, and she’s headed back to Thailand to help him in his schooling, if only he’ll wait to make this drastic decision.

Today, amidst the packing and preparing, we took our sweet little dog to the vet for a simple dental procedure to make sure he was healthy for the family who will care for him while we’re away. My son signed the waiver for anesthesia without a worry and we looked forward to picking up our groggy pet later in the day. Little did we know that this puppy who brought so much joy to our family since our lonely years in Singapore, would stop breathing during the procedure and never wake up. Crying with the children tonight I wonder how many families around the world are grappling with deeper grief? How many have heard a doctor say, “I’m so sorry, we did everything we could to revive him.” How many have held a lifeless body and prayed that the God who raised Jesus from the dead, would do this small thing and bring a loved one back to life again?

In times of unexpected loss or hardship we often ask: How can a loving God let bad things happen?

But in the middle of the night he reminds me that for Jesus, there was no surprise of an ease into sleep while under anethesia. For Jesus, there was no possiblity of another way out of poverty through education. For Jesus, there was no Angel of the Lord to stay the execution and provide an alternative innocent lamb as a substitute sacrifice.

He was the lamb.

Out of his unimaginable goodness, courage, and great love for us, the God of Abraham knew the outcome of his incarnation and he still took each step toward his shameful and agonizing, torturous death. He did that to redeem us and give a hope of an “all things new” future where there is no poverty, sickness, death or deep unexpected sadness.

How could God be good and allow suffering? Indeed. It is the wrong question.


In what ways have you wrestled with God’s goodness in the face of loss or disappointment?

Do you have any hidden bitterness toward the Lord over unresolved grief?

Take a moment to thank our Lord for knowingly and willingly taking on his suffering to redeem you from yours.


PHOTO: Sacrifice of Isaac, Rembrandt at the Hermitage Museum