free at last...continued!

We now have reached the two week mark from the completion of our home stay. This time has allowed us an opportunity to process what we learned while we were there and to remove some of the emotional aspect that had jaded our view of the experience for a time. So, now is a healthy time to express what we learned through our time with this family.

It is challenge, for most everyone in western culture, to stay for an extended period in someone else’s home. We had the advantage of having built an already somewhat deep relationship with the family that we stayed with. I believe that this pre-existing relationship allowed us to go deeper in a three week period then maybe even a years worth of visits might have done. I am going to categorize our lessons learned in four sections: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.

The Physical Aspect: we went into our home stay somewhat exhausted from months of language study and a recent period of having many guests to entertain. We were excited to get started with our immersion experience and were in need of a break from our normal routine. We definitely got a physical break. We learned that as a culture these people have some physical tasks and then they spend the rest of the time socializing and doing as little work as possible. Some of the physical tasks included daily cleaning (these folks REALLY have something to teach us about house keeping!), cooking (which includes picking up the fresh supplies needed for that meal) and shopping. I include shopping on this list because if you ever get a chance to come out here and see our bazaar you will realize that maneuvering through all the ups and downs of that place leaves you quite exhausted! So we learned to do each of these tasks along side of the family. For me the most profitable thing was the cooking! I learned a ton of new dishes that are all fairly simple (although PACKED with oil and salt) that I can now use for my future guests. Also during our stay, we shared a room with Zeke and he would wake up earlier than usual each morning and the family would sleep in the living room until 10am, or so, so we were trying to entertain our busy toddler without waking everyone up, and after three weeks of that we were pretty tired and ready to go home!

The Mental Aspect: we knew before this time that spending time in this language is very mentally draining. Well, in a live-in situation that exhaustion was magnified. I would find myself starting to check-out, mentally, by early evening because I could hardly process any more! Also, we learned something about this family that we hadn’t picked up in previous visits and that was that they mix a TON of Arabic with the local language! All people do this to some extent, but this family did it more than any others we’ve met, so in some ways it felt like starting over with many new vocabulary words. They also come from a city a few hours away and therefore have a different accent, so I found it particularly challenging to understand them. I really had to humble myself and accept that they thought I knew nothing and remind myself that my value is not found in what they think about me!

The Emotional Aspect: this aspect was probably one of the toughest. One reason for this was that because of the mental and physical exhaustion we were more prone to attack in the emotional department. In this culture, if they think something about you there is no sugar-coating done in telling you about it, therefore you can undergo what feels like an attack on anything from your appearance to your intellect or even simply how you do something. Because we knew this family well I think they felt more free to let loose on us than maybe a family that we were just meeting would do. We received daily “suggestions” on how to be better parents, how to study and learn this language properly and much more. Because I am struggling to learn this language more than Scott is, I was told I was stupid and didn’t study enough and that I didn’t understand anything. Now, I have to say, the family didn’t mean to be insulting…these things are culturally acceptable and we have worked on toughening our skin against comments like these. However, hearing this day in and day out for three weeks did reduce us to tears a couple of times (when we were alone), but also gave us great insight into where people are coming from and what they have to deal with.

The Spiritual Aspect: this was a very interesting area for us. The family we stayed with had some very interesting views and we were able to have many amazing conversations with them. We discovered just how much superstition is wrapped around ever aspect of daily life here. Many of these practices don’t make any sense to us, logically, and we asked ourselves over and over “how can they believe this???” However, we kept coming back to a recurring theme throughout our time and that was that when one has a hope to hold onto, even when it is a small, hard to believe hope, they cling to it with all that they are. These people have only known one belief throughout their lives and don’t know that there is so much more for them. We learned so much about how they see God, what prayer is to them and about how they make daily decisions. We realized how much Zeke is observing what is around him because after a couple weeks we spotted him playing with water coming from a faucet and as he played he washed his feet, then his hands and then his head, which is the way these people ceremonially wash themselves before their daily prayers! We were reminded over and over of the strong hold on this place and also reminded over and over of why we were sent here.

An experience like ours is bound to have its positive and negative aspects. We were definitely ready for a break when it was all said and done, but we choose to take the good that we learned from it, leave the bad behind, and move forward with our life in this place. I know that God can use this experience in our life and I look forward to seeing what all He has planned for us! Coming up….I’ve decided to write a blog all about Zeke….he has changed so much in the last year (almost) that we’ve been here, so we want to do a highlight of the little man in our lives that has changed us forever! Watch for that to come soon!

free at last!!!

We have been home for a week now after staying in the home of a local family for three weeks. It was quite the experience! Scott and I would both say that it was probably one of the most challenging tasks that we've ever had to tackle. It was mentally, spiritually, emotionally and physically exhausting. Because three weeks is a long period to cover, I am going to split this blog into two parts: 1) the details about what we did and 2) what we learned.



Today I will write about what we did. The whole purpose of this experience was to get us into a full-time language immersion setting. You might wonder "aren't they already immersed by living in the country?" That is an excellent question, and the answer is yes, but in order to have a healthy adjustment into a new home and culture it is important to create a "safe haven" for yourself and your family, and for us that is our home. We can escape from the frustrations and demands of our new culture every time we come home. It has been our way of having some of who we are, no matter where we are living. So, all that to say, we haven't been FULLY immersed except when we are out meeting with families, shopping or just doing life here. This immersion experience definitely showed us just how NOT immersed we've been!


Our day to day life was pretty simple. We started out by moving all of our gear into our new home for the month (traveling with a toddler requires ALOT of stuff!). We were blessed by having our own space in a bedroom upstairs and a private bathroom (well, a toilet..eastern style). We very easily could have been sleeping on the floor, adjacent to the family, so we were pleased to have a space to ourselves. Most days we hung out with our small family: a single mom with three teen-aged kids. Zeke made himself right at home, as he does everywhere he goes! We ate meals with the family and did everything they did throughout the day. Some of these tasks included cleaning the house (something done FAR more often than I would have thought necessary), going to the bazar, buying fresh fruit and veggies, picking up some sodas or snacks for the day, playing ball outside on the street and doing visits to the extended family. I even got to go to work with the mom one day. It was a real eye-openning experience. As we were driving she told me that the job her and her coworkers do could easily be done by one person. However, the government here seems to exist to provide jobs for the people, so they establish offices, hire dozens of people, and as I discovered, they sit around talking, eating, playing computer games and doing not a single ounce of work! It was great for me, because I got to talk with more people and hear many different accents.

We also got to try many new foods. We discovered that about 99% of the food here is cooked with oil or fried in it and doused with a TON of salt! Breakfast was generally bread, fruit, boiled eggs and tea. Then we would make a big lunch complete with salad and bread, and then for dinner we would have the left-overs. As one might imagine, we found ourselves sick on several different occasions! The food is very delicious, but its sort of a shock to the system!

We spent alot of our time having conversations both in English and the local language. We were supposed to be without English, but we found it more difficult to fight the familyon this point than we had originally intended. However, it was still very valuable for our language. This particular family has a unique accent and they mix alot more of their words with the larger, dominant language of this region. It was a challenge to understand, but good for us because they are not the only family out there that is like this.

So, that is the general run down on our activities for the three weeks we were there. As you can see, just sharing this part got very long, so in my next blog I will get into some of our thoughts and lessons learned from our experience. Until then...

away...

I think we forgot to post this quick message in our last blog. We are currently doing a homstay with a local family here. It is a three week assignment where we are pushed in our language skills through total immersion. Right now were are halfway through, but I don't have much ability to post blogs, so for those that check in us often I plan on posting a series of blogs on this experience the first week of June, so check back at that time. Please be praying for us!

1000 Husbands, 2 Cousins

Recently we had the chance to do some exploring around the area. First, our teammates' cousin arrived for a visit and they took him all over the country. I, Scott, was able to join them for a trip to a place near our city, whose name, when translated, means 1000 Husbands. I'm not sure where the name comes from, but the place is beautiful. There are several caves lodged in a cliff near the top of a long mountain ridge, probably 4,000 feet in altitude. Rumors abound that 4000 years ago the caves were inhabited by ancient Babylonians. Whatever the truth is about that, we only saw evidence of human activity dating back 3 months from the 100's of picnics there.

Our teammates drove their little sedan on the trip with their cousin. My tutor came along and acted as a guide. Turns out his family owns several tracts of lands close to the caves. Anyway, our car only got us within a mile or so of the caves. The road was just too rough. We all got out and started on foot further up the road before having the bright idea that since we were on foot, we could cut the corners of the switchbacks by bushwhacking straight up the side of the mountain. After about 45 minutes of pressing through thickets of thorns, tall grass, and ankle-breaking rocks we found the entrance to the caves.
There are 3 caves worth seeing. One you have to crawl on your belly through a narrow opening to get in and out of, but is fairly deep. Another you can stand up in and goes back about 100m into a large cavern. The other isn't deep, but is very wide. The views of the city and countryside are spectacular! You start to question what country you are actually in! One thing we didn't count on were the bats, hundreds of them, in the caves. And another cave had lots of wasps and bees living in it, so needless to say, our fears got the best of us and we didn't fully explore the caves.
Then my cousin came for a visit just this weekend. In addition to exploring more of 1000 Husbands, we had another first experience: picking up hitch hikers. With three guys in the car, we didn't feel too intimidated to pick up an old farmer and a young man walking together. It is so nice to be able to speak the language and not just ask them their name and work. Anyhow, after they got to their destinations, we pressed on, this time with a borrowed 4WD SUV, making it to within 150m of the caves. We decided to first go up a ravine to get on top of the mountain, above the cave entrances. We totally underestimated the distance involved, but once we got to the top, the view was a 360-degree panorama of beauty. There was our city sprawled out in front of us, mountains and hills in every direction towering over valleys laden with farms. And to top it all off, everything is still green!

the adventure continues...

We are always trying to find unique ways to have fun around here and it seems that picnics are the easiest way to get people together as well as enjoy this beautiful spring weather! Everything is in full bloom and we try to spend as much time outside as possible.

Today we headed up to the base of one of the mountains that surrounds our city. Today we chose a place that had a great park for the kids to play at as well as level ground for us to set up our table and chairs. We had some guests from the States with us and gave them the full picnic experience, including a big meal, tea and dancing. It was alot of fun. We did our best with the dancing considering there weren't any local people with us to lead the way!



We've been trying to dive into life a little more lately and experience new things. The other night we went to a local amusement park. It was really something else! We had arrived kind of late, so the park was absolutely empty except for us, the workers and maybe one or two other groups. We started out going through this cheesy "ghost house" where you went through on a roller coaster type deal that took you through pitch black until you came to a robot that lit up and made scary noises. As lame as it was, it was a little scary because we had no idea what to expect. We went on to enjoy some fun with bumper cars. Some of us got banged up a little since when you would crash your knees would hit up against the dash board area and also because they went a little faster than they were probably supposed to run! Then we rode the ferris wheel and where able to look out over the city at night, which was very cool. The workers would follow us around to each ride and make us buy tickets each time instead of just charging us all at once. You gotta respect process, I suppose. We ended our evening with the most terrifying ride I"ve ever been on. It wasn't that the ride itself was all that bad, it was that the standard of safety isn't what I am used to. I realized that a fundimental difference between the general thrill seeking that I've always enjoyed in the past and the fear I experienced the other night is trust. You can have fun and get wrapped up in being scared when you don't really believe that your life is at risk! This ride was one where you sat on a row of chairs that circled a large pole. It then would swing from side to side and then start to spin at the same time. The first thing that concerned me was that the support poles that housed the whole unit were close enough that you could reach out and touch them as you swung by, or even catch them with your leg and subsiquently crush it! Then the creeking started as it swung back and forth...still, not the worst part. The worst part was as it swung up you were looking down at a large, dirt pit where this ancient-looking motor was running with all its might and with this view came the smell of burning rubber! I yelled "stop-stop" to the operators (in their OWN language) and all they did was laugh and run the ride longer, taxing the already worn system even more! It was absolutely horrifying! It took me sometime to quick shaking when it was all over with!

As you can see, life is quite the adventure, many of which we never could have anticipated. However, even when these adventures are awkward, frustrating or even scary we continue to trust God with our lives and try to live to the fullest that He intended! This really is the motto of our life and we are grateful for everything that God brings our way!


**this is a picture of zeke with his new haircut and enjoying his favorite afternoon snack of cheddar cheese [thanks auntie rachel:-)]!

Coke heads and Pokey McKenzie...

We have had a number of adventures lately, and we wanted to share two of the most comical ones with you here. This will be a joint venture with me (Katie) writing the first half and Scott writing the second.

The first one has to do with Zeke. He has reached the fun age where he is very adventurous, curious and resourceful. As those of you who have gone through the toddler stages know, these traits are a recipe for trouble! A few days ago Zeke made two new discoveries: the first discovery was that he can take off his own diaper! I have been dreading this moment, knowing that it would inevitable come. After his nap on this infamous day I had gone into his room to take him out of his crib. As I entered his room I could see that he had taken his pants off. Now, this act alone is nothing new. He has been able to take off his own pants for some time now and does it whenever the whim to do so comes over him. As I approached his crib I saw something more curious: his opened diaper sitting off to the left of where he was standing. I also noticed that it contained a nice little deposit. Fearing the worst, I slowed my approach, hoping somehow to not see what I expected to be the first expression of his own, personal art form. However, I lucked out! He had pulled one side of his diaper off and then simply stepped out of it. His bottom happened to be clean and he had decided to play on the other side of his crib! I didn't even have to change his sheets! I know that I am about the luckiest mom out there and I am thankful for that, although I don't expect that this will be a one time incident!

The other discovery that Zeke made this same day was that he can now reach the center of our dining room table, an area that I had thought was still beyond him. However, after we had finished having dinner with a friend I had begun clearing all of the dishes off the table as Zeke ran around playing. I had gotten everything cleared except for one tumbler which had about an inch of coca cola remaining in it. As I was coming towards the table I saw a little flash of blond running in the opposite direction. I could see that he had the glass in his hand and was toddling full-speed into the living room. I sprinted after him, but only in time to see that he had already spilled down the front of his shirt. However, upon closer inspection, along with a look of shock on his face, I saw that he had also dumped most of it on his head! He had already gotten a bath earlier that day, but it looked as though a second one was in order. I wish I could have gotten a picture because I am sure it was only 2 or so ounces of liquid which he made look as if he had dumped an entire can of soda all over himself, but we had to clean him quickly so as not to leave our guest all alone. Needless to say, it was a sticky mess, but one of those things to log away as a parenting lesson learned: never underestimate the reach of a motivated toddler!

The second adventure we had recently involved a new friend of ours who needed a little advice for his brother. (Scott here now). My tutor explained his brother had an offer for thousands of dollars from a man who emailed him out of the blue from Africa--typical internet scam, right? What a great time this would have been to explain, "if it's too good to be true, it probably is" but this was my language lesson, not his. So I agreed to go and take a look at the corroborating documents the guy had sent him. When I got to my tutor's brother's store, I was ushered into the office and found that his brother had actually believed the scam up to this point and had an internet chat set up with the guy, who promptly disappeared when he saw a native English speaker. Turns out the man said a Ray Wyborn, an Australian, and his family had died in a car crash, but had deposited $12 million in bank in Ghana before then. All my tutor's brother had to do was call the bank and tell them he is Ray's foreign business partner and the bank (of course phones run by the email scammer) would get the cash to him. But he would have to split the money with the scammer who was privy to the knowledge of the car crash. What the scammer didn't know was that here no one has a bank account, so his whole plan to steal my tutor's brother's identity was never going to work! But in order to convince my tutor's brother that the plan was real, the scammer sent a scan of an obviously photoshopped passport. When I zoomed in on the scan most of the image was pilexlated, but the font he used to re-enter his own name was clear as a bell. Funny this was, the governement must have issued his passport a year after it was set to expire. Hmm... I knew this was fishy so I went on to the other papers, "scans" (obviously created in photoshop) of poor Mr. Wyborn's contract with the bank in Ghana. The bank was no where to be found on the internet. Then the official stamp at the bottom was perfect--no seams, cracks, full-bodied ink, etc.! Quite reminiscent of the "circle tool" in photoshop, it was. If any stamp maker could do that, he'd make millions in our city! What I thought most suspicious, however, was that upon examining Mr. Wyborn's signature I noted that a certain "Pokey McKenzie" had indeed signed the document in lieu of Mr. Wyborn. Upon evaluating the evidence, my tutor's brother finally decided this was a scam. My advice to him was to email the scammer back saying only, "learn photoshop." My brother's tutor had a friend there too who knew some English. He said, "The American had decided, it is baloney." There you have it. If you ever find yourself wondering whether or not to illegally collect millions, make sure you look for ol' Pokey McKenzie's signature.

Okay, and one more thing to add before we let you go. Tonight we had one of the most exhausting and useful language times. You know we've made lots of good friends here, and tonight we went to my other tutor's house. His mom is a FANTASTIC cook! My tutor knows about as much English as I know of his language, so we got along fine without much of a lanuage barrier until we hit deeper topics like politics and religion (off limits in the States, right? but here everyday talk). We realized something motivating again; while actions of love go a long way, until we can function deeply in this language we'll never be able to fully communicate heart to heart. Like yesterday at our neighbor's house they told us a relative died, and the word for "husband" and the word for "has died" are really close (coincidently!!) and I said "that's good" thinking our neighbor's had seen there aunt's husband. Ugh. Fortunately that was fixed quickly. We're grateful for the time we have to put into it these first two years here. Days like today are encouraging to see how far we've come and how many topics we can understand, but discouraging when you encounter a new accent or things too hard to communicate concrete words of motion (eat, send, get, fall, etc.)! Thank you for remembering us in this journey!

from death to life...

These days recently have been both busy and interesting for us. Life is always an adventure here and we are learning and experiencing new things almost everyday!. We celebrated our first Easter here. On Sunday morning we gathered with many foreigners in the city and had a time of worship and a short message, which fortunately for us, was in both the local language and in English so it doubled as language time for us! Also, many of the foreigners dressed up in their cultural outfits to celebrate the occasion, so I'm sure we were quite the sight! We were supposed to meet outside, but due to rain there was a last minute change to an indoor location. It was really a nice morning and although I had not wanted to dress up in my new outfit that morning, it did afford our team a chance to take a picture together while we were all in our outfits! Afterwards we enjoyed American-style hamburgers (with no crazy spices tucked into them), good conversation and opportunities to build new relationships with other families that are working in this city. There were no flowers, white dresses or Easter hats, but I would say it was a wonderful morning. Zeke could barely keep his eyes open on the short drive home after so much excitement.

Another thing that we have slowly been learning about since moving here is the deep and sordid history of these people. We have seen things on the news that are hard for us to understand, so we try and ask a lot of questions and see if we can glean some insights into the lives of people who have been through so much. Over the last few months we have seen story after story on tv of huge groups of coffins sitting together, each with a regional flag laid over it. Well, today there was a huge commotion in our city and we had seen more of these kinds of pictures in the news the night before, so we started asking some more questions. It turns out that during the late eighties when these people were being severely persecuted by the famous dictator of this country, that gas attacks, torture and imprisonment weren't the only things families endured. Soldiers would go out to villages, gather all of the people-- men, women, children, elderly-- and cart them out to a spot somewhere outside of town. Then they would force them to dig a large pit, put everyone inside and then bury them alive! We had heard some awful stories, but somehow they never cease to shock you! In recent times they have slowly been discovering these mass graves and are digging them up, doing their best to identify the people and then are giving them proper burials. What was happening in our city today was a procession of trucks coming through, each carrying a casket that held one of these victims. This particular procession carried 187 people. We were in class while they went through our city, but later we watched on the news as they went through a village south of us. I couldn't get over the line of truck after truck; all the people had flags and banners that they use for funeral processions. Many of the older woman were all in black and were hitting themselves as a sign of grieving. The men would wave their hands at each passing pick-up while others sang songs with their hands over their hearts. For many people these are family members that, I suspect, they thought they would never find. We recorded a small clip from the news broadcast we were watching.

As we learn about these things and the hopelessness these people have endured, our hope is that they can disover and experience, all the more, the riches, grace and blessings that come from God alone who through death brings life. Despite whatever people have been through, there is only one way to find that needed new life, and more than ever I long and pray for the day where we will see that discovery in our new home.

ah, finally! Happy New Year!!!

I apologize for my tardiness with this blog. With all of the busyness of life, plus a pretty nasty cold to boot, it has been tough for me to focus, sit down and write this blog. But, alas, here it is.

We had an amazing time in Jordan. It was a refreshing time with friends, family and American cuisine. Its always nice for us to get out of here and experience a life that is a little simpler for a short period of time, but when the time came, we were ready to be home. There's just something nice about being in your own bed, even if there is no electricity to accompany that comfort! As an extra special bonus, Scott's parents also accompanied us back to our home. It was a great time that we had with them, even with half of us with a nasty cold!

While they were visiting we experienced our first new years. It is the biggest holiday here and very unique since it is only celebrated by this people group and it is distinctly them. Everyone was definitely in a partying mood during the holiday. Originally we had heard it would be Saturday and Sunday, mostly, with maybe some of Monday. It turned out to be Friday through Monday solid, with a few stretching into the rest of the week. We weren't able to get our language teachers back in action until Wednesday! Along with the holiday, our neighbors and friends really wanted to show Scott's folks a good time, so we were being pulled in multiple directions the entire week. I think they may have been a bit overwhelming, but their intention was to show our family that we are loved and cared for.

What happened with the holiday was sort of the normal fun and festivities of this culture, only SUPER hyped up. Everyone spends the entire holiday in their fancy, cultural clothes, despite the fact that they aren't very comfortable. On Friday we enjoyed lunch with a some friends that are becoming very dear to us. They pulled out all of the stops with an amazing bbq and also broke out the dance music so that we could rea
lly have a good time. Because me and Zeke were really under the weather, we had to cut the fun a little early. Later that day there was a huge street party not too far from our house. I only saw it on tv, but Scott and his folks ventured down to where the people were packed shoulder-to-shoulder as they walked about, talking, dancing and having a great time. Evidently this year was much bigger than previous years, with something in the hundreds of thousands of people congregating on a shut-down section of a main road. In the evening many light fires on the streets outside there house as a symbol of their freedom and then dance and sing around it. Saturday was a day-long picnic in the mountains. This time included TONS of food, dancing, kite flying, tea-drinking, and good conversation. Once again, Zeke and I missed these festivities, but everyone we heard from had an amazing, but tiring, day. The traffic on the way home from these picnics was bumper to bumper and many had twice as long of a commute home than what it took for them to originally get to their spots.

Sunday and the days to follow were much of the same thing I've already described. Everyone has family and friends from all over come to celebrate. Our neighbor's house was packed out and we could here dancing late into the night! On Monday evening, just before Scott's parents had to head home, they asked us to come over because they had departing gifts. We were all pretty tired, so we were hoping to make it a quick visit. However, in this culture, that is easier said than done! When we got there, they told us to sit down and immediately began showering us with drinks, treats, nuts and tea. Then they wanted to do a dance for us. Finally they brought out the gifts and wanted to have each of them individually pictured with our family. The visit ended up being around 30-minutes, which is record time!

On a high-note, Zeke and I were able to experience a picnic the following Friday with many of our friends. Evidently this trend continues through the spring, until it is too hot to venture out during the daytime. We really love experiencing each new part of this culture and find it to be more and more of an enriching experience as we grow in the language. God continues to be faithful in our lives in growing our heart wider and deeper for the people of this land. We have truly fallen in love with the people and loved being able to share that experience with our family. Anyone interested in coming out and experiencing life here is always welcome! All for His glory!