Hear the bells ringing…

This past Sunday Dru began our Easter by playing this song: https://youtu.be/9a2Va94Tldc

That morning I wrote portions of it on the board. Here’s a picture that could have been taken better, but I didn’t.

The children came out of their room and wanted to know what bells had to do with Easter. So Dru played the song for them. That led to a discussion about what it means to be “born again.”

For Jube it’s been thought provoking, leading to a discussion with his dad about it. “I want to be born again,” he said. We came to realize that it’s time to be discipling him more purposefully towards this commitment. We don’t want to keep the little children from Jesus, so to speak, but we want to lead him to Jesus and this big  commitment. He needs to better understand what it means to be a disciple of Jesus and what baptism is all about. Meanwhile, he was relieved to hear that Jesus could forgive his sins even today.

Havilah was a little blown away with the idea that we’re all sinners. We’re Christians, right? However, although she didn’t understand really what it mean to be born again, she did understand that that would somehow fix it and so it was okay in her little heart. Havilah is the little bird that keeps the Easter bells ringing for us here.

The words and bells are still on the board. Whenever she happens to notice them through out the day, she sings, “Hear the bells ringing…” It’s her favorite song right now. So we’re reminded daily that Jesus is risen and we can be born again.

Mushy brains and the inefficient homemaker

I am not an efficient person. Homemaking in an efficient way doesn’t come naturally for me. I’m talking the really nitty-gritty efficiency stuff.

I was married for six years until I learned to do dishes. I learned that you stand in one place and wash THIS sink full of dishes—completely—before moving on to find more dishes. My inclination had been to wash a few, remember that I had kettles on the stove, move off to get them, wash a few more, than wander to gather more, wasting lots of steps and time in the process. Then it dawned on me why Mom would say, “Bring me dishes to wash,” while we were working on cleaning up after supper. If she could stand there and wash uninterrupted while the dishes came to her, the whole system worked much more quickly.

Learning to pick it up right away—I’m still dreadfully bad at this. So a toy is laying on my bedroom floor. It bothers me all day because it doesn’t belong there but I’m planning to sweep my bedroom floor sometime today. Rather than picking it up because it’s bothering me, I’m apt to walk past it all day long. One toy on my bedroom floor is a little thing, but those little things that lay about the house all day and are bothering me, add up. Soon there is this whole little pile of things in the back of my mind that are really bugging me and I’m feeling bogged down by the condition of my house.

Bathrooms are still kind of a huge ordeal in my mind. Jube is in training about bathroom cleaning and I still feel like I need training of my own. Oh, I know the steps, but for some reason, bathrooms kind of pile up. Mostly it’s a procrastination issue. Perhaps the bottom line is that procrastinators don’t tend towards being efficient?

I don’t remember how my mom’s house looked when I was a young child.  I don’t remember her slumps over baby times. I’m sure she had her slumps. The only slump I remember is over the summer she had her hip replaced. I think I was sixteen. She sat and gave orders from her chair that summer until she could get in for surgery. Actually, she was technically out of commission for a year, I think. But by that time, we kids knew the ropes of general cleaning. Oh, I know that there were corners that bugged her to beat all and we went at them as soon as she was pain-free, out of the woods, and feeling about ten years younger. But the bathrooms got cleaned and the dishes got done and the bread got baked, because Jenny and I knew the ropes. Our young childhood days, I don’t remember so much.

Okay, Jenny knew the ropes. She didn’t even have to learn them. I bumbled along. Work was frustrating to me. But it was at a time when I still didn’t realized that I needed to stop and think about what my hands were doing. How fast was I moving? My work habits were just as terrible in school. It was no fault of my mom’s either. She realized in part what was going on, and tried to work with it—but I think in some ways the idea that I needed to think every step through consciously was an issue she had to think through in an effort to understand. What she did give me though was a good picture of what the goal was. Something to work toward. That’s why I’m able to actually work on my own inefficiency and procrastination.

I’m thinking about all of this because – hopefully – I’m coming out of a slump of my own right now. Being pregnant in the heat always takes its toll on me physically and emotionally. I move slower when I’m pregnant and feel like I waddle in circles all day long. With three children, I find that I get very little done these days. I just found out last week that my hemoglobin level was down below nine a little. It seems that it always drops around this time in the pregnancy. With all of that going on, my efficiency level drops down below a nine too, so to speak.

I was scrolling through my phone pictures for a picture for this post. I found this one. It says like it is. I think that was a bad week.

But today I felt like I could tell that all my vitamin-taking has been helping. It wasn’t so hot either. Like ninety-one rather than 100 degrees for a change. The pollution wasn’t quite so bad today. I just felt all around better about life and living it. But I realized as I did dishes tonight that moving slowly had become a habit since my brain has been so dreadfully slow and mushy. I realized, “I can do this faster. I can scrub this glass faster. I can walk from this end of my kitchen to that, faster.” And it’s not like relearning, but it is like having to tell myself, “Kick in gear.”

Heat, pregnancy, and anemic tendencies are the perfect combination for mushy brain syndrome. I hate that fog. I suppose fogs do, and will come, for all of us, for different reasons. There is something to be learned in the middle of those times too. Today though, I’m thankful for a light at the end of the tunnel.

Making Pretty

The other day I told Dru this about myself: “Every thing I am and love, my whole heart is on display here at this my home...” This feels so true right now.

If you’re here, you probably read my post about my fight with beauty. Since then I’ve come to the conclusion that to stifle the only talents I have available to me right now would be not only silly but wrong. I’m at home, pregnant, homeschooling two children. Juggling a one year old. It keeps me busy. What I have time for, or energy for, doesn’t really include anything that means leaving my house much. Dru takes me out on the weekends, usually. But mostly, I want to be at home. Making my home beautiful is an act of love, and in a sense, worship.

Making beauty energizes me. I’m making pretty at the risk of being misunderstood. But I’m really tired of that guilt fest. This is all I have to offer at this point. I can do it at home. I can do it in the cracks of my time. I can share it. Someday, this opportunity will pass. This stage of my life will pass. I’ll be able to reach outside of my home in different ways. But today, this is what I do. Not every day, because I am a mom—but as I can, when I’m not too busy or tired.

I wasn’t sure what Dru thought of my project at first. He wasn’t sure about the extra table set up in the living room. But he doesn’t mind, and he enjoys my happiness in it. I consult him from time to time regarding proper kerning and design. He wants to take the operation to school some day and have the kids play with it too. We’ll see. We both like the idea of giving these as gifts.

Is it perfect yet? No. I still have a lot to learn. I want the paint to dry a bit softer. I still have a lot to learn about simply making a stamp work well. I’m even learning how to deal with hemming without stretching seams as I go. I’d like to work with actual dyes, but don’t want to try that yet, especially with little people. Spilled dye in a rented house would be a nightmare! But I’m a happy amateur, content with where things are at now.

Thanks to all of you who responded to my earlier post about beauty. Marie Clare, for specifically saying to, “pencil it in.” My Mom, and others of you who encouraged me to keep creating beauty. And thank you to those of you who have found yourselves in similar positions and said, “I hear you!” and knew what I was talking about. Thank you so much.

About Homeschooling, I guess

Yesterday I wrote a list of things I had rattling around in my head to blog about. Then I threw the list away. Because I’m just that intelligent sometimes. Now I have some time and I’m not sure where to start.
I’ve disposed of the guilt trips concerning homeschooling. I do what I can, but I’m not letting it run my life. I have other things I want to do too, and Jube my kiddos aren’t very big yet. So we spend an hour or two at the books in the morning, then I make the kids help me with the housework so that I can play too. (More on the play later.) I follow them to their rooms and bark orders at them while they tidy. And I do more of the same in the living room. Jube knows how to empty the drainer and the basics of laundry. Havilah is easily sidetracked but we’re working on it. And although she sees dirt when cleaning, way faster than Jube, I have to teach her the ropes. For instance, when folding a washcloth that’s crunchy from hanging on the line, I have to show her how to press it down so it stays neatly folded and the corners squared. That’s something Jube would get intuitively. It’s interesting for me to watch because I’m just like her. There were tasks in housekeeping that I had to take a step back from and say, “Why am I so inefficient in this area?” and reteach myself.
For school Jube is using Math U See and CLE’s Learning to Read. I’m watching him with Math U See. He needs the manipulatives, but they’re also a crutch. I had this idea that if he truly understood math than he wouldn’t have to memorize his math facts. Humph! I don’t know where I got that but I suddenly realize that he’s got to learn them, without the help of the math blocks. So math is on the shelf for now—the book that is. However, the math facts are on the board, and we’re crossing them out as they are memorized, going to the next one. All day yesterday I asked him from time to time what 2+3 was. He’s got it now. Today it’s 2+4, and how ever more we can get down. And as soon as Learning to Read is done, we’re done for the year, regardless of where Math is at. At this point I’m thinking we’ll wrap up sometime in May. Then it’s time to have a baby the end of June.
Havilah’s doing the Rod and Staff preschool work. Today the Bible story was about when God told Abraham to offer Isaac. Jube and I agreed that that story was hard to think about. She asked why God would ask Abraham to do that. When I explained that it was hard for me to understand, the gears in her head just kind of jammed and I could see her little brain decide she didn’t have to think about that today. Which is exactly what I do with that story. She does well, but again, not intuitively like Jube. Her pencil skills aren’t like his and comprehension is lower. But I like her as my little girl and I’m really happy that she’s slower. I won’t probably even try to teach her to read till she’s six.
All of us are working on how to hold a pencil properly. My mother in law confirmed with me that yes, their pencil grips were wrong. I’ve never held my pencil quite right, but I’ve managed and was letting the kids hold their pencils at least as well as I do. But then we discovered that it was easier to just do it the good old tripod grip. It actually feels good for Jube. We spent some time experimenting with it the other day. And after I talked to my sister later on, who said she makes her daughter hold her pencil the most proper way, I decided we can to! So even I am trying to be sure to hold my pencil differently than I always did, at least when we’re doing school together. But it’s hard to remember. Especially for Havilah—my little girl whose hands must be taught to do everything properly.

Then there was the other day that I said, “I am NOT doing school today.” I had catching up in my house to do. But then the kids were bored so I was trying to think of something creative for them to do—outside. And I remembered the leaf art I had on Pinterest. So I sent them down to the park to collect leaves and twigs and such. Guess who had the hardest time with it? Not Havilah—it was Jube. His little perfectionist self couldn’t handle the artwork as an idea, rather than seeing things exactly as they were. This leaf made the elephant too fat while this one was too small. I did have to help Havilah but she was teachable. She understood that she couldn’t put all of the details on her picture that a real picture would have. But in the end she had a very respectable fish. She was the one who figured out how to put a mouth on him and do the water and sand.

Jube got stuck. It was so bad that I asked Dru if I should make him finish or not. And he said yes, Jube needed to learn this perseverance. In the end he copied my picture—even though “birds are boring.” But he did it!

The next morning some of our leaves had curled. It looked neat on our bird’s tails but Havilah’s fish looked kind of sad and she had been very proud of her fish. But when she saw it she said, “That’s fine!” The leaf art hangs in my living room and I look at it and smile sheepishly to myself. That happened on the day when I had said we’d have no school. Then I lived around the mess and helped them with it for a good part of my day. What am I becoming other than a real and bonafide homeschooling mom?
So I guess this post is about homeschooling as it is for us right now. I still want to post about my latest project that’s been making me very happy, but that will have to wait. I need to make lunch for my hooligans and this post is long enough.

How it came to be

My mom saw a picture of this wall and said I should share how it came to be.  It was beauty created after my last post. It came to be because we needed a place to store coffee mugs. In this house I struggle with not having much cupboard or storage space. And we do coffee around here. When we have company, sometimes we do a lot of coffee. We were going to use hooks, but when Dru went out that Saturday to look for them, he couldn’t really find anything, except for these little white shelves. Now I HAD wanted hooks, but being determined not to be fussy, I said, “Yes, get them.”

I also had the black wire coffee mugs since Hannah gave them to me for Christmas a year ago. I never had a spot to hang them. So they went up by the hooks. I wanted a black board for school, lists, and etc., but that didn’t come until after my cousin Geneva sent the sign at the very top—totally unaware that I was in the middle of this project. It was a confirmation in my little heart that doing this was maybe “okay.” As for the armadillo, my mother in law gave me a whole set of ABCs like this but I was sad because I wasn’t sure how to hang or use them in this house. They’re something she actually took out of a book. All of them are laminated and tough—so far surviving all of the abuse we’ve given them. I was very tickled to think that perhaps I could hang them one at a time as Havilah studies the ABCs…and she’s not going to be nearly as easy as Jube was to teach.

As for that rooster, he was floating around the house and one day landed there. He’s been kind of stubborn about it, so there he stays.

So that’s how the wall came to be…it all just kind of floated together in a logical sequence—I didn’t know how it was going to look when I was done. But I knew I had a wall hanging from Hannah and I needed to put coffee mugs somewhere. That’s where it started. It’s a happy, practical spot for me.

After writing my last post I’ve been thinking about my little difficulty a lot. I’m finding some peace in the idea that I am who God made me and as I can use these gifts to serve and bless others, then that brings glory to God. I also think that there are somethings I need to do better about my decor in that I need to make an effort to make it practical as possible. Something living in this little house will probably drive me to whether or not I was willing.

My fight with beauty

Today I sat down on my rocking chair and picked up a Victoria magazine. A friend gave me a subscription the summer we were in Wisconsin, and the magazines came with me—although I think a couple of them may be floating about at Lance’s yet. For the first time in a while I have my brains back in my head. Maybe it’s because the sun is shining today and I’m not wrapped in so many layers that I can barely move about the house. So the kiddos and I did some house work, a little bit of school, and I sat down and picked up my magazine.

Something wakes up and breathes and shouts for joy at all of the eye candy on each page. The dainty dishes and vases, flower arrangements, linens, and food. I get inspired. I have a dream one day to do my own stamping onto linen—make my own designs. I realize that if I made it a priority, I could do that here and now. The supplies are available from the market anytime. Then I feel simultaneously guilty and trapped.

The guilty trapped feeling comes because of the country I live in. I know that there are Thai people who come into my home and are wowed by my “expensive decor.” I serve desserts on pretty plates…desserts that I have made from scratch—baked in my own oven. An oven is another luxury most Thai people do not have. We pay a bit more per month on our rent than some of our Thai friends do. I am supposed to be a missionary here, yet I am not willing to live in a house such as they do?

Little do they know that we foreigners struggle some puzzlement of our own about the way they live. Dru and I would never spend money on a large TV monitor. When we bought our first car, we were quite poor—yet we felt pressure, and not from our foreigner friends, to buy a car way out of our price range. Clothing and accessories are very important here in the Thai culture. There are exceptions – it doesn’t matter what the children wear for a quick trip to town – but what you wear seems to be a key expression of class and beauty for middle class Thais.

I can’t very well explain to them that most of the pretty things that sit around my house are gifts from friends and family. It’s silly to explain that I spent very little on doilies and tablecloths because I found them at second hand stores. Silly to say that most of the children’s toys were gifts from grandparents and nearly all of their books are second hand as well. It doesn’t really change appearances.

Throwing a small blue table cloth over an ugly pressboard coffee table comes as naturally as breathing to me.  Arranging pretty around my home is necessity. I live here, every day. I must have beauty or I die inside as the chaos of raising children and homeschooling and being pregnant overtakes me. I was raised in a beautiful home. I was taught that beauty is part of homemaking, and that there is virtue and wholesomeness in it. I was taught that I am the keeper of my home. That I am responsible to be here, and care for the needs of my family, physically, and spiritually, and however else. This is my spot. There is joy in it—when I can make pretty happen as part of that.

Were we Thai citizens, I suppose a good chunk of money would to to sending our two children to school. I’d be busy with work somewhere—so would Dru. I’d be gone all day, reaching home when the kiddos do. We’d own a large TV. We’d be making payments on two nice vehicles and a motorbike. I would possibly not wear second hand clothing…I don’t know, I just don’t know…

I also know that there are ways Thai people express beauty that I don’t even notice. I think they probably take their beauty to their workplace, where they spend much of their day. I’ll never appreciate the beauty of an intricate spirit house, but I know that is another expression. They create beautiful coffee shops and elaborate flower arrangements.

But what I want to stand up and shout to everyone is that I live the way I do because it comes as naturally to me as breathing. It’s not hard or expensive—it’s natural. I was merely taught to spend my time and my money in different ways. Right?

So, the magazine, the eye candy, the hope and happy I feel rising up within me as creativity strikes me, is suddenly squelched. And what breathed for a moment, ceased again, waiting for its moment…another day…maybe…Because for today, my expression of beauty seems to be a poor testimony.

Yet I know that I can no more quit creating beauty in my home than I can quit breathing. Deeply entrenched within me is the understanding that beauty and safety walk hand and hand. Somewhere inside I know that beauty is wholesome, and families thrive best when they are surrounded by it.

And I wonder if what isn’t hardest for me to accept in this life that I live right now, is that nearly everything I do, all the choices we make as a family, the very fact that I homeschool my children and even have 3, and soon 4 of them, is extremely counter-cultural here. Unheard of. And they don’t fail to let me know it—to my face. And why it’s okay to let me know so openly what they think, is one cultural thing I still haven’tn gotten used to, even in the seven plus years I’ve been here. I’m either considered very talented or downright foolish.  Regardless of what they actually say, I feel disapproval on some level. That’s not a pressure I’m handling very well, I’m afraid.

Closing up 2015

Written New Year’s Eve, but not posted until now because of technical difficulties
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
And since I haven’t blogged since October, here’s a bit of catch up.
I did go visit the States with my baby, Rennie, in late October, coming  back in early November. It was a lovely time. Yes, I dreadfully missed my man and children. However, we didn’t say, “Never again!” We said, “we’ll wait awhile before we do that again. “I was determined not to do too much or pack my time with appointments and just spend some time with my family then I was up North to see Dru’s family for a couple days. All happy times that flew by quickly.
My sister, Amy, made the last minute decision to come with me back to Thailand for about five weeks. Sadly, we weren’t able to “show her a good time” so to speak like we would have liked to. We moved (again) over this time and so there was a lot of packing and cleaning that she got in for instead. I did manage to take her to the market and we went up the falls and to the malls with her as well. But, well, mostly she worked like the maid. I hope she’ll come back again at a time that isn’t so busy for us.

I realized that the stomach flu I was fighting as I was trying to pack to come back to Thailand was a bit odd. It dawned on me about 12 hours before boarding my plane that perhaps I was pregnant. Such is the case, so all the drama of the last several months has been even more complicated as I struggle with a foggy brain and morning sickness. Seriously, I don’t know which is worse. Thankfully, I think I am coming out of that.
                                                         

Here would be the time to say that Bob and Yai were baptized several weeks after I returned from the States. Praise the Lord! We’re looking forward to working with them in church planting here in the future.
      
Christmas parties came and went this year, very happily. I have to learn not to stress about hosting and things being “just as they are” with having just moved and all. I do better as soon as the first guests arrive and I can stop pretending that I’m actually going to manage getting things perfect before people get here.


The Sunday before Christmas we had a Christmas party/church meeting, with our Thai people. Yai’s sister and her daughter showed so we got to share the Christmas story with them.  And then we ate…and ate…and ate…Yai’s story of her friend who came from some European country where it was not perceivable to eat meals unless food is served in proper courses seemed especially unfortunate as we feasted over papaya salad, squid (or is it octopus, or maybe cuttle fish?) cookies, candy, popcorn, noodles, sticky rice and chicken, oranges and everything else—all in one happy array over the dinning room table.

Christmas Day evening was also a lovely time with our “farang” friends crowded into our tiny new home, some for supper and others came later to feast on Christmas goodies, hot chocolate, and coffee. Mae Wahn came too, and it was nice to have her and thankfully, these days when our house is full of farangs, most of us know enough Thai to include her in the fun and conversation. The only pictures that I’m aware of for sure that got taken were a few taken by our French Mennonite guest, a co-teacher of Dru’s—but they were only a few. If anybody has pictures of that evening I’d love to have them. Other guests were Lavan and Beth and their little girl, Lanus and Aggie and family, Amy, Kimberly, Leon, and Chad and Jenny Graber’s family. Happy times.

Since that evening our family hash mostly been crashing. Playing. And crashing some more. We discovered a “new” mountain on our side of town. We can get there without going all across town through much traffic. This is good. We found a cave. This was very scary and terrifying for the pregnant mother who is scared of heights. We had to ascend many steps to get to the mouth of the cave, then descend many steep and uneven steps into the heart of the mountain. Jube was totally thrilled. Havilah and I held hands and assured each other that we were scared many times until we were finally out. Once all the steps were descended, it wasn’t so bad, except for the dread of climbing them again. Once down there, there was a small monkey there who begged for food. He was the nicest thing about the cave. Otherwise it was rather like an overgrown unfinished basement, what with all those steps and all. But we made it, Havilah and I, we did!

Then that evening I took Jube skating. He did a good job. I was a bit tipsy after not having been on skates since before I was married. And all that were available to rent were hockey skates. Dru, Havilah, and Rennie, occupied themselves elsewhere in the mall until we were finished. I felt bad at first that Havilah wasn’t able to go, but in the end it was better—I don’t think she’d have lasted long and training one child while feeling a bit uncertain myself was as much as I could handle. She seemed to have a nice time with her Daddy, too.
Here’s hoping you all had a Merry Christmas and are anticipating a Happy New Year. God bless!