Postcript.

I accept.

I accept Your challenge: I accept these limits.

I accept Your will, I accept Your word, I accept Your grace

to live each day as though it is my last, and not worry about writing it all down.

To not care about what people think, to not compete for cutest blog of the year, to not worry about whether my writing is pithy or interesting, to not even care how often I post or how many comments I get.

To enjoy my boys, and let go of not being able to share every minute glorious (and mundane) detail with others who love them... to trust that's somehow for good...

To post my life here in words, not pictures-- word pictures.

I trust You.

I believe You want us here, and You want us free, You want us surrendered. I believe You want me to write music, to live whole-soully, to throw open my heart and let go into You.

To live, fully, thankfully, trustingly...

Help me.

Ah-ha.

We have finally discovered why I have to use a proxy server to even *access* my blog, or anyone else's blog either for that matter:

Our country has officially blocked "Blogger".

Great. One more perk of living over here. I'm trying not to be bitter, but this is really frustrating. So, because I have to access through a proxy, I can't post pictures (most of the time-- thank God for the wormhole I found last time), or change the look or anything else constructive while in country. (every time I try it says "you are entering a non-anonymous area-- click the link to continue" and when I click the link, nothing happens).

I am limited to *words*. Good creative writing practice, I guess. ::sigh::

So, now we know.

One Thousand Gifts

I'm really hungry.

I don't think I realized how hungry my soul is, or how dry it is living in this place, until this week. A visit from an unmet-before-but-now-sister new friend on Wednesday, who shares my heart and hunger for Jesus and leading people into His presence, who prayed for my life with love and insight and blessing, though she'd only known me an hour... awoke tears in me, from some deep unwatered place.

Finally getting to a fast internet connection this morning for the first time in a couple weeks, catching up on dearly beloved friend's blogs (whose links I don't even know how to post here because I don't even have the time to really figure out how blogging works or make the most of it), trying to grasp the quantity of changes that have taken place since I last saw many of you face to face...

Reading Ann Voskamp's Holy Experience blog, trying to grasp how a woman with six kids who homeschools has time to take such incredible photographs and craft such pithy poetry, and make her blog look absolutely fantastic... and in the midst of it all still following Jesus and spending time with Him...

...and the tears welled up again, and I had to come and just write down for you all how hungry I am. Hungry to be fed with all these incredible online resources that I just don't have access too... hungry for good music, but don't even have the time to go on iTunes and listen to snippets (each of which takes 10 minutes to buffer and comes across in 3 second bits so I don't even get the song flow anyway)... starving for time to read good books, feed my mind, feed my soul...

ok, this is a pity party.

Things I'm thankful for:

1000. That I have beautiful friends like Mary McCulloch and Jill Kasowski living on opposite sides of the world, learning similar things at similar times, blogging about the same blog (Holy Experience)... and the thrill to know we have all eternity to spend with Jesus and each other.

999. That I have a husband who loves me

998. That I have two adorable sons, the eldest of whom just came in with three croquet balls he found goodness knows where, and said, blue eyes from under his blue cap, "Roll with me, Mommy!"

997. That the youngest is peacefully sleeping in the other room with his little thumb in his mouth.

996. That I found others who want to count abundance too, and who want to do it together.

995. That I am SAVED BY GRACE, and that not of myself, it is the gift of God through Jesus Christ, my Lord, who IS feeding me, daily, with Himself.

994. That I am young, and I still have time to learn how to blog beautifully.

993. That we get to live in this most interesting, fascinating, compelling place, among interesting compelling people, and have fulfilling work that makes me want to get up in the morning.

992. That we have the privilege of carrying the precious Gospel inside our clay bodies, and the gift of words to communicate it.

991. That I have a computer with which to type

990. fingers and hands to type with

989. the Internet to use

987. and people who love our family enough to read this blog.

986. That the sun is shining today

985. and I planted all my little flower seedlings yesterday

984. and only a few of them died,

983. which means I might be not so bad at gardening after all!

982. That Ann Voskamp came up (or maybe is just passing on, I'm not sure) this beautiful way to stay praising: a gratitude community who writes down 1000 gifts of God we're grateful for, and blogs (or journals) about how it changes our life...

981. That I have a heart and a soul that was made to praise and worship God, and He Himself deigns to call forth praise from me towards Himself every day!

980. That I have a mouth that can speak His praise out.

Please help me, Lord, to praise regardless, even when the blog doesn't work, even when I can't get online, can't get connected to people I love, can't post pictures of my sweet boys-- I HAVE them to love and enjoy every day, and I am so rich.

Birthdays and What Comes of Them

I had a great 28^th birthday. The day before, my teammate made chicken pot pie (one of my favorites) for dinner and presented me with a hilarious birthday candle that opened up and sang, and a beautiful present besides. Then on my actual birthday, my wonderful husband let me sleep in and got up with the boys, made delicious French Toast for breakfast, and helped Will make an adorable card for me that said “Happy Birthday Mom”, and then James gave me his own card with verses in it… Later on I got to talk to my wonderful parents, and had beautiful e-cards from so many wonderful friends… And then, just a few days ago, my other teammate gave me a beautiful picture of orchids that she painted just for me and framed!

However, the most meaningful part of my actual birthday for me was that three different local friends of mine came by throughout the day with presents for me! A set of six crystal bowls for candy & nuts (very useful here), and a set of six pretty drink glasses, and a set of hand towels and chocolates…. But you know, the thing I was really given was friendship, and a place in this town.

So that was Monday (May 3).

Wednesday the 5^th was Tahkmina’s birthday, a friend of mine who runs one of the shops in town. A few days before, she invited me to her party and mentioned a couple of other women I know who were going … I hemmed and hawed, but eventually decided it would be good if I went. When we arrived, we were early (at 7:30), and Tahkmina and the other women were still making food and “laying the table” (an art form over here). Tahkmina’s father-in-law is the Big Cahuna for this entire region, and they are rich. Their house looks like something out of Alice In Wonderland… sparkly ceilings, chandeliers, purple bathroom and all.

Eventually the other “guests” started arriving—but lo and behold, it was just her husband’s family, her own family, two other close girlfriends, and me!

So, as the only true “mehman” (guest), I had to give the first toast! I begged and pleaded but there was no help for it… I gave it in English and translated it into local-speak, all about how I had prayed for God to send me another musician friend in our town, and then I met her (she studied piano in college), and because we’re both artists, we became friends right away… And I thanked her for being so sweet to my boys (she always gives Will treats when we come to her shop), and wished her Happy Birthday. After I finished they all clapped enthusiastically, of course, and then her father-in-law gave his, and parents gave theirs, much more canned—“May you live a long time and may God give you every blessing and may you have good health” etc, etc… And that was it for toasts! Just the four of us! Sheesh. Up there with the Big Cahuna. I guess I felt pretty good about the fact that my toast was genuine and not canned (“off the cuff”, shall we say), but of course I spent the next half hour rehearsing what I could’ve said. Oh well. Who does these things, anyway?

The absolute rush for me was being a part of everything… I was amazed at how easy it was to keep up with the language and flow of things, I had a great time chatting with her sisters, and felt so honored to be there with her family and close friends… I’m in the mix now, and it feels so good.

So that was Wednesday.

Friday the 7^th was Mikosh’s birthday, my friend down the street whose daughter taught me Russian last summer. So Saturday night we invited their family over for pizza for our joint birthdays. Good thing I made fancy potato salad and cold chicken for appetizers, because the pizza went over like a lead balloon. Oh well. (It was mostly for the benefit of their teenage daughter, anway, who unfortunately wasn’t able to come.) We had a good time chatting with them, though, and Will loved playing with their 12-year-old son (who, incidentally, is studiously attending classes at the local mosque, and only took one cautious bite of pizza until I casually mentioned that the meat on the pizza was all hallal, and then he managed a whole piece).

The following Monday, Mikosh invited me to her own birthday party, which she said was going to be all ladies. I walked down to her house around 7:45 after the boys were in bed, hoping I wasn’t late. I was the first one there. Her other friends gradually arrived after 8, and there were only 9 of us all together. Again, I felt so honored to be included! It was a slightly odd mix of women, older and younger, quite rich and fairly poor, and I wasn’t quite sure how they all fit together. I spent the next two and a half hours making my plate of Russian salad last as long as possible so I wouldn’t be offered any more, groaning at the appearance of a plate of rice and two hamburger patties at 10pm, and straining my ears to understand the swirl of talk at top speed. So much for feeling good about my language prowess. Story after story, all the local gossip, various personalities coming out, even a few hot words exchanged… I would give my right arm to have the full transcript. As it was, I only managed bits here and there, and mostly felt totally and utterly at sea. I did catch the fact that one of the women lost her12-year-old daughter two years ago, and she claimed the floor for the majority of the evening, waxing eloquent in her grief but also using the opportunity to rehash old grievances beginning to end, garnering a mixed reaction of sympathy and exasperation.

By 11pm I was flagging. My concentration was crumbling after 3 hours, I was super sleepy from my overly full stomach combined with no nap—and all of a sudden, everybody’s pulling out money! They all handed $20 (equivalent) to my friend whose birthday it was, and all of a sudden I realized what this was. I had been invited to a chai, a mysterious gathering of Central Asian women that operates something like a club. Each country around here does it differently, and each group is different—some operate like a miniature bank, where everyone donates to the kitty every month and then whenever someone needs a loan they can borrow from the kitty. Others are less formal, and this one seemed pretty low-key—they meet every month for someone’s birthday, and everybody gives the birthday girl $20 for “a nice present.” I had already given the birthday girl “a nice present”, so I didn’t contribute, but I did feel honored to be included in their little club, even if it was just for once.

Or so I thought.

Tonight, the postscript: My friend called me up to ask if I wanted to come to Rizvangul’s birthday party (the gossipy woman who lost her daughter). Hmmm, I thought. The rich foreigner joins the club and suddenly they have an extra $20 in their kitty every month… except this foreigner isn’t rich, is definitely not a night owl, and just can’t stomach another interminable evening of straining to understand what’s going on... Maybe I should’ve said yes, but I really don’t even know this other woman, and to be frank—bed is calling.

Whew. Birthdays in Central Asia. Pretty intense.

Fresh Milk

Tonight I walked home carrying three litres of milk in a glass jar with a plastic lid, so fresh it was still warm. It made a contented sloshing sound as I walked, and the movement inside the jar made me feel like I was carrying a living thing. The air had cooled off, and a breeze brushed my face. A friend pulled me into her shop to see the new jewelry she’d brought back from the city, strings of semi-precious stones polished to a luster, matching earrings and bracelets, all gleaming seductively in the half-light. I told her I’d think about it, asked her to put a string of jade aside for me, watched while she coiled them carefully into “sellafan” (guess what that means) and dropped them into a drawer. I went with her across the street while she showed a bracelet to Takhmina, my other shopkeeper friend, who was enjoying the leisure of the day’s end by indulging in vanilla ice cream on a stick. I bought two ice creams, one for me and one for James, and stayed to chat, still cradling my jar of warm milk in one arm. The talk in the shop turned to whether or not we’d stay here, for how long, and I found myself promising years I don’t know if we’ll have… Only God knows.

I left my friend, stood stock still for a moment at the corner, arrested by mountains faintly pink in the sunset, and walked home with eyes lifted to catch glimpses of the birds flitting in the tops of the poplar trees. Vanilla ice cream in one hand, I started typing this with the other… now that I’ve caught what I want, I’ll go outside to finish planting flower seedlings in the cool, moist dusk.

Don't know why this is working all of a sudden, but here's some more while I've got the chance...

Ben's walker for 30 bucks at the bazaar-- what would i do without it. It's great-- Ben's pushing himself around now, but Will still thinks it's a race car. :)

Will at Easter

Ben in his new Jolly Jumper from Grandma Ros... another answer to prayer!

Pictures!!!

Summertime!

Daddy and Will planting an apple tree in our back yard

Will's ABCs!

Ben's "don't touch me" face

Ben at 6 months

Back online...

The power outage I wrote about last time only lasted 24 hours, thank God, and we now have a generator hooked up, so hopefully it won't happen again. But since then I have just not had a spare second to blog... I start posts in my head all day long, and never get time to write any of them down! I would love to post some pictures of the boys... they're changing all the time, and Ben especially is getting so big-- 6 months already! I was hoping to post pictures of him every month, but I guess that was wishful thinking...

So, I will do my best to write down some things that have been happening and maybe even send a post to a friend with some photos to see if someone else can get online and post for me... I'm still not sure why I can't just easily access Blogger from where we're living, but the message I get is "The server where this page is located is not responding." Even when I use my proxy server, like now, I can finally get to the blog but I can only post text, not pictures... SO frustrating.

Thank you for all of you who have said you like our blog! All the more motivation for me to figure out these logistics and get posting again... stay tuned! Thanks for your patience!