an experience in the arts!

Scott here, putting in my two cents. There are unique instruments in this part of the world and, being a bit of a shade-tree musician, I love it! A few days ago I got an invitation from my language helper to go to a drum concert put on by a local group. This group started 9 years ago with one guy who is VERY talented and a bunch of misfit kids! They’ve matured over the years and have now performed all over Europe, winning contests at international festivals. The concert was only about 45 minutes, but it featured some incredible drum routines and great singing.

One of the funnier parts of the time was a very large cameraman who was set up about 2 rows in front of us. The men in the row behind us were heckling him because all the other cameramen were squatting or sitting in chairs, conscious of those sitting behind them. Now that we’re fairly proficient in language I could understand what they were saying; “it’s like trying to look around a refrigerator!” Fortunately because our culture is rife with brutally honest comments, the cameraman was not insulted.

Afterwards because my language helper is from the same town as the drummer group I was able to meet and interact with the drummers. Our host culture is so full of talented artisans, but because of the trauma of the region we often miss this fact. It’s a great place to be and live!

Okay, so I know I have gotten a little out of my Monday blog posting commitment, but the idea here is “regular” communication and I think I have been doing semi-well at that! I will try and get on board with that again once life becomes “normal” again…oh wait…does that ever happen???

So we have had a particularly unique last couple of weeks. Scott went on a business trip that took him out of the country for 10 days. So subsequently, that left me to be a single mom for 10 days! I would say we did pretty well! Although, I didn’t accomplish much other than cleaning and nourishing the 3 of us, but that was a good focus to have since I am not used to doing it on my own. I would say that I already had great respect for women who find themselves in single mom situations, but I now have an even greater appreciation for those who do it AND manage to stay sane! So to say the least, we are all thrilled to have Scott back home with us.

We also recently celebrated another milestone….Zeke’s 3^rd birthday! The day of was the day before Scott came home so it was a pretty normal day, but the Saturday afterwards we were able to have a party and celebrate another year of life for our oldest! It was a fun time. Our teammates came as well as two of our local friends. We had intended to have more kids come, but it just didn’t work out so we had Zeke, our teammates’ daughter and two babies! The good news is that at this age Zeke didn’t know the difference. His focus was on presents and cake! We can’t believe that Zeke is already 3 years old! He is such a blessing in our life and we couldn’t imagine life without him! He definitely brings fun, laughter and excitement to our lives. I am excited to see how God continues to grow and mold him.

The past weekend was my turn to be celebrated! With Zeke and I both having birthdays in October means that we have a lot of cake around! I can tell you that neither Zeke nor Scott mind that fact! I had a wonderful day where I got to spend the morning having some time to myself, then in the afternoon Scott and I went and hung out at the bazaar and then the evening we went out with friends for a wonderful dinner, and rounded off the day with watching a movie. This is a wonderful way to spend a relaxing day with my friends and family! Zeke was super cute in that he kept asking me if I would share my birthday with him! God is so good to us and continues to teach and grow us in ways that we never would have imagined. We look forward to seeing what this next year holds for all of us.

You're up, You're down

Scott here, putting in my 2 cents on the interweblog-thing. I might still be the only one with an American passport NOT on Facebook. I’m quite happy for that. I guess I miss updates on people, but I figure I don’t expect people to remember my birthday so they shouldn’t care if I miss theirs. Anyway, here things work differently. Picture a neighborhood where all the neighbors—with no artificial Facebook help—know and watch each other with keen interest. This is our, and everyone else’s, street.

About 6 weeks ago, some new people moved into the house next door. They’re actually newly arrived from the States, but originally they are of another people group blatantly disliked by our host culture. During the recent local holiday, we visited our other neighbors and the visit had 0 English. These times serve as benchmarks for our language and cultural progress, and we were pleased by how we stayed with conversation even between the family’s mother and children. What really shocked us was when they asked us for the dirt on the new neighbors from the other people group! We tried to defend the new neighbors as so not to contribute to the rumor mill. But it was the invitation to join in that made us realize we have crossed a fine, but important, line of trust in our setting. People ask us for our opinion and for our help now. It is so freeing to be at a point of understanding and being understood!

About 10 days later we visited another family that we have met with on and off for about 18 months. They usually compliment our language ability, but this visit we misread some cultural cues and the whole time was weird. About halfway through our time the mother started asking me why I hadn’t learned the language yet and that I should be doing so much better! Nothing like a true-faced comment to keep you humble!
It’s like a big game, being a foreigner attempting to acculturate. Every time we score a proverbial point, we realize that the locals are still way ahead of us! No matter how hard we try to understand the intricate web of details, causes and effects of society, we will always be on the fringe at best. The idea is to shed as much unnecessary cultural baggage as possible in order to assimilate and identify with people. Every day is seen with success and failure; you’re up, you’re down. Thank God for His grace to daily sustain us through this process and teach us to accept the position we are in.

shaken expectations

I think that in many ways we have become very comfortable in our current context. We still have tons to learn, and years to go in mastering this language, but overall we really do feel at home. However, there are definitely days where we feel like we are back at square one all over again. It’s a funny feeling to be caught off-guard when you feel like you know what to expect, but then you have a whole new experience altogether. This was our experience when visiting a family the other day.

We have had the opportunity to get to know a mother and her daughter through a connection we have in the states. These two women have been such a blessing to us in serving us generously through their hospitality. They are not a family of great means, yet they go out of their way to make sure we have a nice meal, clean water and a comfortable experience with them. We have become fairly comfortable with these two, having even spent time with and gotten to know some of their extended family. So, the other day when we went to visit them and bring them some pictures of family they have in the U.S. we felt fairly confident in what to expect.

In many ways the visit was absolutely normal: conversation, tea, a meal and a deepening of our relationship. All of this happened. However, here are the things that caught us by surprise. First, generally a visit with a meal is, on average, about 3 hours long. This day was an unexpected 5 hours, and probably would have been at least another hour if we had not insisted on going. Also, we had apparently obligated them to serve us a meal. The background on this was that we had tried to visit them the week before, calling the day of so that they would not feel like they had to feed us. However, they weren’t at home that day and asked us to come visit them the following Friday. We still didn’t want them to trouble themselves with cooking for us, so that following Friday we called them just before we hoped to go over and visit. We were afraid, though, that since they had had a week knowing we would be coming that they would insist we come for a meal. When Scott called over, sure enough, they asked us if Yaprax was okay (a meal made with grape leaves wrapped around a rice mixture). We agreed, although we felt bad, but this is the way it goes sometimes.

When we arrived they hadn’t hardly even started the meal, and this is a fairly time intensive dish. In addition, the mother kept telling us how much work it was and how her back and legs hurt because of it. Now, even when you are troubled by something, people do not tell their guests how much work something is. At first we thought maybe this was a good thing that she felt comfortable telling us that we had troubled her. However, as time went on we realized that we had just simply put her out. We felt awful, but even now don’t know exactly how we could have avoided it. This was also what made the visit so long because even though we had come around 11am we didn’t eat until 2! The boys were getting a little antsy over the time and I wasn’t feeling very well that day. At one point the mom came over and started to rub my back and shoulders because I wasn’t feeling well, which was really sweet, but I felt even worse about putting her out. Because the general order and time frame for the visit was off, we felt off kilter the entire time. We did finally make our escape at the end and chalked the whole thing up to a learning experience.

The people here give so much in serving others and making their guests feel welcome and special. I think because we are foreigners they sometimes give even more, even though its done sacrificially. Its often times humbling to be given so much. People are always giving Zeke toys and gifts, and bringing us food and treats. These are such a beautiful people we live among. It is a strong reminder to us that we are called to live generously, and give of the many blessings that we have received. This is not always easy, but we start each day new and try to do better in loving others and honoring God in everything we do.

Is this for real???

Sometimes I am hit by how surreal it is that we are living in this place. I think it hits me most when I am driving by myself. Picture this scene: the roads are dusty and dirty. In the distance, most days, you can just barely see the mountains. There are faded lines painted on the road, but nobody heeds them. People are whipping around each other with no regard for speed or safety. Often, when you turn, people make two or even three turn-lanes in an effort to all make a u-turn. There is construction everywhere….on houses, businesses and all over the streets. You hear honking…lots of honking. Pedestrians cross at will, with little to no regard for the cars come at them full-speed. Then there are the little motorcycles with carts attached that are going at maybe half the speed of the traffic around them. Oh, and don’t forget to add in to all of this craziness all of the cars that are parked or sit idling along the side of every major road. Let me just say it has taken some time to adjust to driving here, as well as life in general.

I can sometimes focus so much on getting through each day that I forget how unique my life is compared to my friends and family at home. This life is certainly not how I ever would have pictured. Its hard to imagine so much change until you step out in faith and trust God to take care of all of the details. I was reading in James yesterday about how faith without works is dead. I’ve always understood this to mean that you need to be serving others and living a life of generosity. However, when I was reading it again this time I noted the two examples of “works” that were given: the first is of Abraham offering Isaac on the altar of sacrifice, and the other was of Rahab helping the spies escape. Both of these were said to be works of faith. What hit me is that more than serving others is that the work of faith is putting our faith in action. Stepping out in faith and trusting God. If we never test our faith then do we really, truly have faith? I think this may be the more difficult side of “works” because many people seek to help those in need from time to time, but to walk daily, putting your life, decisions, finances, children, etc.. into God’s hands and stepping out even when we don’t know where that journey will lead us…THAT is faith. It is only through that faith that I can accept this surreal life and find joy in all that it brings.

a little nostalgia...

Sometimes when I think back about how much we have experienced and grown over these past weeks and months, I have a hard time believing that its only been two years since we left the states. We have now been living here, in this culture -- day in and day out in a second language—for over two years now! In just two years we have moved overseas, lived in two different houses, had a second child, learned a second language, learned how to live a “normal” life here AND managed to stay sane!

However, the past has passed, and now the future is coming at us full force! Classes started back up at the center tonight for our 3rd consecutive fall term of courses. It appears we are setting record numbers in enrollment, seeing many returning students plus referrals from former students. We are excited to get to know these new students and to see who we can build deeper, more meaningful friendships with. Its also really fun now that we are out of formal language study since we are being able to set our own schedule more, albeit busier, but we are in the phase where we are picking more of our activities and narrowing down where we invest our larger portions of time.

We continue to watch and wait and see what God wants to do in our lives. Continue on this journey with us as we enter into this new phase and see what the future holds!

Eid

We just finished a great week with our friends here. Ramadan has ended, and what follows are three days of celebration called Eid. This is a fun time because everyone is in a good mood and wants to visit you and be visited by you! Scott and I did it a little differently this year in splitting up our time a bit. I went with our new colleague, Stacy, to visit some female friends of mine on two different mornings and then Scott spent the afternoon visiting some of his guy friends with our intern, DJ. This worked great because Zeke could come with either one of us for visits while Ethan stayed home and napped. We all went to one of our students’ homes for a meal one of the days.

We are realizing that we are getting more and more accustomed to cultural traditions and what is expected of us. This is the third Eid we have been through here and we look more forward to it because we are acting in less and less awkward ways! I however made one mistake at a friend’s house. I got confused because they served 3 rounds of different drinks (usually there are only 2 at most houses) and then a long period of time afterwards. We had more visits we had to make so I thought we could excuse ourselves at that time. Apparently I was wrong, though, and had tried to go too soon. My friend’s mother put her hand on my shoulder and physically sat me back down. Then they brought some cookies out for us. However, by this time now I was all thrown off and had no idea when it was okay to go. Fortunately, some of their relatives had come to visit at about the same time we did, so when they got up to go we were able to make our exit as well.

Another fun thing that comes out only during holidays are these crazy swings that hold huge groups of kids. They look so crazy and dangerous! They pile kids on these big metal contraptions that look like those pirate ship rides at theme parks and then swing it back and forth for long periods of time. They also have donkey and four wheeler rides. Zeke so badly wanted to ride on the swing, but I just couldn’t bring myself to allow it. I’m sure a couple more years of this and maybe I’ll be on that swing myself right along with Zeke! We continue to strive to be in a position of teachability, even as our experiences and knowledge of the culture grows. Even if we spend a lifetime here I don’t think we’ll completely run out of new things to learn!