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| Sunset out our living room window |
I am amazed at the blessing of the outdoor time our kids have enjoyed. They have local friends already! It's unbelievable how different this culture is from where we used to live. We would get to know the grandparents in our community who watched over their grandchild, but all the kids were younger than 3 (once they turn 3, they are in Chinese kindergarten, where they eat three meals a day!). Elementary aged kids typically end the school day around 4, but usually stay for an additional hour or two of homework help, and then come home around 6 or 7pm with hours of homework still to complete. All that adds up to not seeing many Chinese kids outside playing together after school, and not many opportunities for our kids to meet them and connect. But here, education is NOT the top priority for most of these families to the same degree, so the kids finish school around 4pm and come out to play.
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| Kids wrestling outside with Noah on Big Guy's back! |
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| Window cleaning taking place on the 11th floor! |
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| Close up of the window cleaner |
The people groups surrounding us love sports, especially soccer, and are much rougher in general than our previous community. For example, it's not uncommon at all for there to be constant wrestling matches going on in the patches of grass in between our apartment buildings. Unfortunately, this roughness has also earned the U people somewhat of a bad reputation of being aggressive and violent amongst other Chinese, but my boys think it's AWESOME! This first picture is of my boys with one of their new best buddies. We call him Big Guy. One day this last week he gestured for my boys to get in on the wrestling match that was going on between him and several other local kids. My older boys were a bit hesitant, but not Noah. I watched him repeatedly jumping on Big Guy's back from behind, clinging around his neck and yelling, "Woohoo!" as Big Guy spun around to fling him off. This was Eli and Hud's cue to jump into the action, and then the wrestling match was full-on. An instant bond was formed. Big Guy has shown up at our door several times over the last week asking the boys to come out to play. He's 12 years old, but seems to be a gentle giant. I've been overseeing their play very closely, and each time I do I'm amazed at how rough, and yet how careful, he is with Noah in particular. Each time we greet him in our courtyard, Noah lets out a hoot and jumps on the poor guy. He just grins in response. Soooooo thankful for our timing of arriving here when the weather is so warm and everyone has emerged to take advantage of the 4 or 5 months of pleasant outdoor time! And each afternoon that the baseball equipment comes out they draw a crowd. Ha. I should add that our equipment is a bit modified from what you would expect at a typical baseball practice. Kevin is paranoid that someone will get hurt or break a window (we are playing in tight quarters, for sure), so he has the boys using a REALLY soft ball (meant for indoors) that is Duct taped (multiple times, as it keeps splitting) to hold it together. (I've suggested that a whiffle ball would probably be okay, but we're playing it safe.) It's fun to have such an unexpected blessing of sports in community when we thought that that was truly a sacrifice we were making with the move out here. We're excited to see what other friendships He has in store for my kids as the spring and summer progresses...
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| Noah and his friend finding refuge on the top bunk |
The irony...Noah just came in with his best little friend seeking refuge because the other bigger boys they were playing with outside started pummeling them with some hoses that they found on the ground! Eesh. Hopefully we'll survive this without too many bumps and bruises--and I did discover that there is an international clinic in town (it's an hours' drive away, but still in the same city!) if my at-home skin glue isn't enough! :)
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| Hud's Bday lunch w friends |
We had a birthday celebration for Hud (his 8th) on Saturday before baseball. Oh, and this week there were sheep that we had to run off the field, FYI. Not sure where the turkeys are, but we're moving up in size and number of wildlife that seem to be inhabiting our playing field!!! Hud invited 3 other American boys over who are neighbors to have a Lego battle (which had been in the planning stages for weeks as the boys have been strategizing, forming allegiances, and even trading key pieces) and a Nerf war. We had homemade pizza and a chocolate cake (all homemade this time, as I couldn't find a Betty Crocker mix to save my life! Oh, and I couldn't find powdered sugar anywhere either, so we adapted the typical frosting recipe to use chocolate chips instead--a huge success!) and ice cream I made in the ice cream maker I was given back in our old city. When one of the other favorite neighbor kids came up to invite my boys out to play, we had him join in. I think he enjoyed the play time, but was a bit overwhelmed at the pizza and cake and ice cream (he did take a few bites of each and was very polite!).
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| My "happy place" where I go for reading and a cup of coffee once a week |
So that's the outside situation....lots of fun play. The inside seems to be a bit more complex, at least for the mom and dad of the family! I'm not sure where to begin, except to say that this whole cross-cultural living sure brings out junk that seems to be deep down. Self-confidence is not my problem. In fact, I tend to err on the side of pride and arrogance, often thinking too highly of myself. I'm certainly not proud of this, and it's an area of regular "work" on my heart, but it's also my honest reality. Very few people would use the words meek or insecure to describe me. However, there's a season for everything, and this recent one I have found myself shaken in new ways. It seems like the circumstances that leave me feeling uncertain of things or responses that are going on around me are countless. I'm an infant in the language; I don't know why others start laughing and talking in another language, looking right at me, when I'm checking out with my produce at the market. Are they laughing at me and the fact that I can't respond in their language when they tell me how much I owe? I'm self conscious when I go for a jog in our community and literally have people stopping in their tracks, mouths hanging open as they gape and I jog past. I know that we're the new kids on the block and life here is so demanding that there just isn't as much time for socializing, but should I take it personally when I have a hard time getting other families to find time to come over for dinner? Am I perceiving accurately the perception of the other western men in the community that seem to be more traditional in their views of women--that we should be taking more of a back seat than is natural for me and my natural outspoken tendency when we are in group fellowship times? The daily encounters of questioning "Who am I here?" and "Who am I
supposed to be here?" seem somewhat overwhelming. And I don't like it! My sophomore year in high school was defining for me. I had literally everything I held dear stripped away from me, and I was hurting and lonely. But it was that year that taught me what dependence on Someone beyond myself looked and felt like, and the freedom and confidence that came from abiding in Him. By His grace, I've never forgotten that lesson, and have faced challenges with joy knowing in Whom my strength is found.
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| Karis and a group of her friends having a May Day party outside |
My natural instinct in the face of a challenge is to bow up and want to prove my ability to conquer. But I've found lately that I'm wanting to crawl into my bed and pull the covers over my head instead! Not the optimal response, I know. I've found great solace over the past 12 hours of reflecting on one of my favorite passages that brings me back to the core of my identity--of knowing who I am without a shadow of a doubt. Is. 43 is chalk full of relevant reminders: "...You are mine", "You are my witnesses and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know me and believe me and understand that I am he." I've also had the new Passion cd on repeat, wearing out my phone battery, but also bringing refreshment to my soul as I meditate on Truth. When we were back in the US, Kevin and I often talked about how many daily things seemed so much simpler, so much easier. We could just coast and get away with it. And now we're back where we're supposed to be for this season, and it seems like every day is a battle. A battle to keep a positive attitude, to not get discouraged or overwhelmed, to have the energy to make it till 9pm before crashing for the evening, to keep our eyes fixed Above and not on our circumstances! I'll be honest, it's not a battle that we win everyday. My poor husband is exhausted. Language study wears you out unlike anything else, and he's putting in 4 hours a day, then working for the sports company after that. We are both feeling the strain and asking the same questions: Do I really have anything to offer the people here? How can I ever get to the place of being able to communicate in a way that blesses others? Can I cut it here? Am I going to go crazy?!!!
Whew...that's the brutally honest story. Sorry it's probably not the Ann Voskamp edition today. Maybe tomorrow will be the cheerier version! But for now, we're fixing our eyes above (reflecting on the beautiful sunset we saw out of our living room window this weekend) and plodding on one step at a time, trusting that somehow He uses even our most feeble of attempts to honor His name in the midst of our weakness and insecurities...
