Jesus in the Jungle

Here I am twisting my hair on a Sunday afternoon, trying to unwind from the weekend. I feel like I'm recovering from something...I don't know what. Too much social activity, it feels like. I spent most of it staring into space, but it still counts. Staring into space public and staring into space in the privacy of your own lamplit room are two entirely different things.

Last night I was at the Rz. ladies meeting at Priscilla's house. There were fifteen of us there, I think, and I was laughing because when we went around the circle saying our names, there were I think 2 Lena's, 2 Sveta's, 2 Olya's, and 3 Lesia's. Ukrainian names are so pretty that I guess they just like to use the same ones over and over. For my part, it drives me crazy. I guess it just shows a cultural tendency toward individuality. It would bother me to know five people with my name :)

Priscilla shared last night about an anology she read in a book by Ann Ortland (I don't know who that is, but that's where she said it was from). It really resonated with me. It was comparing life to a river that we are floating down, each in our own boat, happily doing our own thing. We don't know that there is a treacherous waterfall ahead, and we aren't preparing for it. But along with the waterfall, there is also Someone with a strong hand, reaching out from the shore to rescue us. We can choose to take His hand and be saved.

Our Rescuer then takes us on a journey to a beautiful city far away, a city where there is no more pain, sin, sadness, or danger. Of course we want to go, but the journey is a harrowing one through a wild jungle. There are poisonous plants, dark pathways, tangled vines, ferocious cats, and poisonous snakes. It isn't a "safe" journey, or a comfortable one. But we have the promise that we'll get through safely if we hold on to our Savior's hand.

Lena N. had drawn a beautiful picture of a strong hand with a tiny one clinging to one finger, representing us walking with God. I think the holding on is simply our faith.

I was fighting tears all the way through, not very excited about breaking down in front of 14 or 15 women, no matter how nice they are. I was thinking, "Lord, I said I would follow you, and I want to...I just...I have this desperate craving to be safe." I want to feel secure. I don't want to be uncomfortable. There's something in me that yearns for wild adventure, but I feel so vulnerable. Every day I wage wars with resentment at being so "alone." I'm not that alone, and when I am, maybe it was my own choice.

I think all the sins I commit stem out of this longing for security and comfort. I try to protect myself, preserve my little world so that nothing hurts and nothing is too risky. But Jesus says those who save their lives will lose them, and it's the ones who lose their lives who actually save them.

So here I am in Ukraine, wanting a comfort zone. Working very hard for one. You have to work very hard for it, because it's about impossible to obtain. When you've lived elsewhere and spoken a different language all your life, that is. And here I am realizing (again) that no, no, no, comfort zone isn't the goal here. But I want it, God! I want it like a child wants another cookie he's not allowed to have. I want it knowing the answer is no, and almost stomping my foot. I didn't sign up for this pain. Or did I?

It's in Luke 14 I think that we're told to count the cost of following Christ, and see if it's too much for us. And I've counted the cost before. Not that I actually could do it accurately. But that's not the point. The point is that I know, I know with a crazy knowing that I have to follow Jesus, and it's both unexplainable and indisputable. He's not making me, something in me just has to. I'm in for the jungle and now it's time for some major hand holding. Gripping. Clinging. Climbing up in terror and burying my face in His broad shoulder, clutching at His shirt, afraid of wild noises in the dark.

As I was crying out for security last night, I had a picture in my mind of a baby in one of those slings...those baby slings that remind me all at once of midwives and hippies and native American indians for some reason...and Deb, just because she used to have a brown one for Noah. And I think of myself in that sling against God's chest, and Him holding me so tightly I can hardly breath. That kind of security. And that is what I have in Christ Jesus.

"Who can separate you from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress of persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?...no, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Romans 8:35, 36-39

"Special Time"

It is now snowing outside. Or maybe it's stopped. Well, it was snowing a bit ago. All week it's been melty rainy. And now snow is happening again. I'm still surprised by the beauty and glory of it, even if it's tiring to walk in after a while.

School has started. Schedule of sorts has started. I've been trundling up and down the hill to the Crowes, and it's good to be getting "into the swing of things." Whatever that is :)

Right now the day is sort of broken up into half hour bits, which is nice. I guess I have a short attention span. So besides doing a spot of housework, I'm spending an alotted amount of time with each kid. Clark as "special time" then Noey, then an hour of school with Brent. After lunch, an hour of school with Tuck, then reading time with Bron and time with Rodge. I love reading with the kids.

Bron and I have been engrossed in The Penderwicks, and I don't care what the target age is, I'm just as excited about the book as she is (or maybe more). It's my favorite part of the day :) We like to snuggle up together with tea and a blanket, and she's so warm and cuddly...

I'm amazed at how the kids enjoy "special time." I always have, but didn't realize they would prize undivided attention so much. The first day, Clarky, who is just three this month, was eager for his special time, already knowing what it meant from previous "special times" with various family members. We drove tractors all over the living room and then read Who's Making That Mess and admired the colorful illustrations, peeking behind every flap.

The second day, he was immediately ready. "Have special time with Cassie, Mom?" "Cassie, I wanna have special time with you." So we built towers with wooden blocks while Noah observed woefully from the confines of an orange and white playpen. He hung on the rail and mashed him face into a grotesque expression on the netting. Eventually it was his turn, so we didn't feel too bad. "You're fun, Cassie." Clark flattered, regarding me with his arresting steely-green eyes and those long dark eyelashes. It's nice to be genuinely liked, even by someone who's under three feet tall. Maybe especially by someone who's under three feet tall.

He didn't want to stop playing. "We can play Legos now?" he inquired hopefully as I went to rescue Noah from his playpen. "Maybe tomorrow," I told him. "Tomorrow we'll have special time again."

Today I opted for the more the more toddler-friendly activity of coloring pictures and making them into paper airplanes. "Samolyot," I said in Russian :)

Sometimes I get so bored trying to play with kids it makes me feel almost sick. But the rewards are so great, and it's not always drudgery. It turns out to be fun. You start to really bond with the little gooberheads. And kids offer a kind of honest companionship that comes quicker than the kind you have with more grown up people, a kind that takes wading through a lot of foolishness about what people think and what they mean and personality differences and your own painful inhibitions and just time before you can grow real, gritty, gripping trust. At least this is the way it seems for me.

Dark has fallen. I'm eating supper with the Crowes and then trekking home to prayer meeting, which reminds me...I should call Masha. Oh, and here's a random picture of the orthodox church in Rz last week in the snow. Isn't it beautiful?

Getting Hopeful

Today I'm at the Crowe's nest keeping an eye on the little chickens while Bruce and Deb are in Kiev. Chili's on the stove, and Noah is awake and dry and running around making interesting small child noises. How he's grown! Everybody seems so settled and I can't help thinking how far the household has come since a few months ago when everyone was floundering in construction dust and disarray. It's nice. The kids are so well behaved and helpful, getting all their chores done after I got here this morning, and now playing quietly on this rainy day...

It's strange to see rain after all the snow. Last night the ground was complete ice from the front door to the outhouse, and despite careful manouvering, I managed to fall smack on my back just as I was reaching for the door knob. Broke some blood vessels, bruised an elbow, and got a stiff neck out of the deal, but I was just thinking, "It could have been so much worse!" I could have knocked myself out and been still lying there in a cold puddle when Masha returned from youth group hours later. Danger lurks everywhere :)

I'm getting excited about things God is showing me about being here. Of course I wanted to come, but in some ways it was really painful coming back. Now I'm getting hopeful. I couldn't possibly be working with a better family. Bruce and Deb are so gracious toward me, and keep emphasizing that what they want in me is a joyful helper, with the main weight resting on joy. Whatever I can do joyfully. I often worry about what I'm doing, if I'm doing it right, how much I should do...but as Bruce said, "Less is more," and it's more the joyful attitude in the things I do, whether little or much. I want to be diligent, but I guess most of all it's just holding on to that joy.

God is doing crazy things at my house too. Since Masha just uses the house and doesn't have to pay rent, the owners still come around some, even though they live elsewhere. There are four grown brothers and a sister. A few days ago the sister was there with her boyfriend, I was frustrated because I felt like my privacy was infringed on, the guy was smoking in the house, and the people themselves just annoyed me. I had a bad attitude about that and was going around doing the dishes and just wishing they would go away.

Then the guy came in and asked for the cd player, and I was about to take my worship cd out of it, but he said, "no, no...it's fine," like he really wanted to listen to it. So he took it in the other room and turned it on, and they were sitting there listening to my itunes mix of Hillsong, Rick Pino, Matt Benson, etc, all these great worship songs. It just hit me that instead of listening to raunchy music about ungodly things, they were sitting there listening to songs proclaiming Jesus in our house, and it brought tears to my eyes. They don't really understand the words, and I know that music is just music, but I've been praying that Jesus' name would be known in our house, and that really meant something to me.

So God worked on my heart and softened it up...I realized, "Wait a minute, Jesus made friends with these kinds of people," and that really convicted me. And then I realized that I'd been asking God to give me contact with unsaved people and I didn't know how I'd find a way, and there, He had brought them literally to my door. Through my door.

I've been reading Blue Like Jazz, and I love it. I feel like Donald Miller was able to put into words answers to so many of my confused wonderings. I love the chapter where he talks about loving other people like Jesus did, and I think it's affecting me. He was just saying that we can simply love people and like them for who they are without being afraid and without feeling like it's our job to fix them. He described an example in his own life with a guy he really didn't like, and how no amount of judgement and disapproval could make the guy change, but when he started treating him with love, the love changed the guy. I guess that's like saying that Jesus changed him.

So I thought about that a lot, and my attitude changed from judgment and irritation to thankfulness to God for this situation, and an eagerness to honor these people and just be ready to like them. There are good things about them just like there are bad things. I know that God really, really wants to rescue them out of their hopeless cycles of sin and mess, and I want them to know Him.

If you want to pray for them, there's Anya & boyfriend (don't know his name) and Vova & girlfriend (Julia) and then two more brothers whom I haven't met.

Let the kingdom of Jesus come!

Fetching Water

Here I am fetching water with the aforementioned Nasok, in the hat Masha doesn't like. Ok, so I don't like it either, but she's the one who wants me to be warm, right?

Experiments and Adjustments

So much has transpired since I got here and blogged last. Laundry, for instance. I did my laundry in Masha's washing machine for the first time, which, as you'll see in the video, is slightly different process than what I've done before. But it worked well, and I'm happy with the outcome.

Ok. No video. it's too big to load, I think. Let's just say I had fun doing my laundry. I'm really bummed. I was thinking of doing a video each week and posting it, but maybe not. Maybe just a shorter one.

There was so much to blog and now I don't know where it has gone. I got my luggage back. It arrived on Monday evening, pretty much in one piece (or two pieces, as it was supposed to.) It hadn't even been a week since I'd packed those bags, but opening them was like Christmas because I'd forgotten what I'd put in them. Oh, my boots! That shirt! Frying pan! Peanut butter! Mint Chocolate! Bobby pins! Clean underwear! (You know, all that stuff you can pretty much live without, but is nice to have, nontheless.)

Life is much easier with good boots. The ground is snowy (and icy, now, because it's been melting the past few days.) The day I did laundry, I also went to the store and bought some things to try cooking again. I can cook American food in an American kitchen alright, but I can't seem to cook Ukrainian food, or American food in a Ukrainian kitchen with limited ingredients. Plus, I'm cooking for two people instead of a big family. Poor Masha. I made chicken and biscuits, one of my childhood favorites. The broth was great, but the biscuits...

Masha said she didn't have any baking powder and didn't know if they had it in Rz., but that sometimes people make stuff with kefir, and that helps it rise. I thought I'd give it a try. Well, I tried. The biscuits were rather short and stout, in more ways than one. Very kefiry. Masha was polite, but even I had trouble eating them. So they went to Nasok, the Dog Who Eats Anything.

I even tried cooking for us at the Crowes' today, but the results weren't too stunning.

"The key," I told Deb, spoon in hand, feeling woeful, "is to not lose hope. There's always hope." She agreed. I told her about the verse I like from Psalms that says, "I will always have hope." But then I said, "I don't think God was talking about my cooking." But she said maybe He was. I hope He was. I hope He was talking about lots of things. Hope is very useful in this life.

If homesickness was physical, I would have been in the hospital getting an IV and blood transfusions a few days ago. It just washed over me in surging waves, salty, bitter, over-my head ones. When I went to bed, when I got up, all through the day. Waves. But then, when I was walking home from the Crowes' one night, Jesus reached out a hand to me and said, "Come on out of the water and we'll sit on the beach together." So we sat there watching the ocean, and that wasn't so bad.

I've been noticing some funny things. Like the fact that my makeup smells like pumpkin spice bread when it's not supposed to smell like anything but makeup. It smells heavenly, and in the morning I just want to stand there sniffing it It's probably making me high and that's why I'm noticing those funny things.

Oh, and when I'm in bed at night, my blanket makes sparks when I move. It's very entertaining. I've heard of that before but never seen it.

Nasok and I are becoming friends. I think this is another testimony to my loopiness. I've never like dogs, but I like this one. I don't like to pet him, because he stinks, but I enjoy his company. I like yelling at him to "come here" when he goes to the store with me :) And I like it that he whined at the door while I did my shopping, and then followed me home. So I think, Nasok + Clean= Great Dog.

I think school starts at the Crowes' this coming week. It's been nice having this week to adjust. Until today, I haven't used an alarm clock, and I've slept in more than I have in all the rest of my life put together...12:30, 10:00. 10:30...this morning I set my alarm for 9:00, and I'm feeling it. I guess there really is something to be said for sleep, because I've been feeling great. I've never actually tried getting as much as I needed before, and it sort of...works. I'm following the "no naps" rule for recovering from jetlag, but nobody said I couldn't sleep in all day!

Back In Ukraine

Well, I'm back to blogging and back to Ukraine after a pretty decent flight. It was hard to leave. When it was time to say goodbye, my emotions sort of shut down and all the nice things I was going to tell everyone fled my brain, and my hugs got all mechanical and robotic. Just when you want to feel the most, you can't anymore.

I guess I expected to go away and be independent and not need my family so much, but if I saw anything over Christmas, it was that I love them more deeply than ever. They have their problems, just like I do, but I guess that's the beauty of it. They understand my issues better than anyone else. But maybe that's just another reason it's good to be gone, too. God's growing all kinds of crazy things in me that couldn't happen without this pressure. In any case, the intensity of separation drives me to God, and God...well, He's pretty amazing. He's deep love. Deeper than the need I have, which is saying a lot.

I lost both my check in bags. They are presently at large in the universe between here and Dallas. As Jono, who also lost his luggage coming here, said, "I'm now free of all unnecessary baggage." :) I prayed that God would give me grace in carrying those heavy bags, and He did! I don't have to carry them at all. If they come home, they'll go through customs themselves and get delivered here, (from what I'm told).

As I said, the flight was good and my connections were pretty much on time. I didn't even have time to buy a bottle of water! There were some really kind folks around to hoist my carry on into the compartment :)

When I arrived at the Borispol airport it was snowing and somewhere just above freezing, actually really pleasant out. The snow is so beautiful falling down. I got to see Kiev under snow, and the river frozen over, Today I saw a bunch of guys squatting out there on the ice, fishing. It seems to be a pretty big thing around here.

Masha welcomed me home...she had soup cooking. I got cleaned up and went to bed around 9 and didn't get up until 12:30 today. I got up in the middle of the night for an hour or two and had a good cry, but other than that I got a great sleep, and I'm so thankful. I realized I just have to be patient with this jetlag/adjustment thing. After other flights I've spent a lot of time kicking myself for feeling so flaky and out of it, but this time I'm just going to ride out the storm and accept that this is just part of this...lifestyle...whatever it is.

It's funny...I'm remembering that I'm back in Ukraine, and there are some things that are different from East Texas :) Today after I got up I came over to see the Crowelings, and I walked by their neighbors...The guy has a shed where he butchers hogs (I think for a living) and when I walked by, there was a huge hog hanging up by it's feet, dead. It looked like a gigantic plastic pig. I've seen heads in there before, but since it's so cold there's not a smell from it, so it's hard to believe they're...real. Actually, come to think of it, it's not so much different than East Texas after all, I've seen a few deer guttings taking place in yards back home lately...

Anyway, by that time I had shed my coat because I got so warm coming up the hill, even though it was pretty chilly out. So I was walking by in just a longsleeve shirt and jeans, and the man saw me and came out, pointing at my coat. I said I was hot from walking, and then made motions and tried to come up with the words to explain that I'd been walking a lot (I still recognize words when I hear them, but I'm a little rusty on the little Russian I know. He said something to the effect of, "Put your coat on! You're going to catch a cold! Hack hack." (Demonstrating coughing.) "And put on a hat." I laughed and obliged by donning my coat and hood, just to make him feel better. People around here really seem to care about you, even if they do it by yelling sometimes (He was really nice and didn't yell, but I've had the neighbors or the babushkas at the market get sort of irate sometimes.) I almost expect them to inquire after whether or not I'm eating my vegetables :) But I kind of like it.

A Pretend Princess in a Snow Globe

Well. It's not easy to keep up with my blog these days. But then, the reasons are fairly good ones, and I'm glad to be having them. I'm just a little bummed that I wrote a 1300 word update a few days ago and then accidentally didn't send or save it. Oops. Maybe it was all for the best.

Last night I decided that my life is definitely like a snow globe. It gets violently shaken every little while so that the particles go flying in a frenzied melee which takes weeks (or months?) to subside. Right now, the last good shake (arriving in East Texas) has started to settle- the little bits are fluttering to a pleasant resting place and life feels a little more peaceful...and then, a week from now, bam! Fresh turbulence with a side of confusion.

No, it will be ok. I'm seeing that God has a purpose for these things...and as long as I hold on to my hope in Him, it will turn out for good. Nobody dies of change. Well, at least nobody I personally know.

I'm having fun being here. Yesterday I got to see Mrs. Burklin and have tea at her house like we used to do, and while Lauren went shopping I followed her around, hanging up the clothes after she tried them on. "Call me Antoinette," I told her mom later.

Yesterday morning most of my family was gone, so I was just here with Ethan. He decided we were going to play knights and princesses. "Do you have any pretty dresses?" he wanted to know. I thought about it...I love dresses but I rarely wear them. I did have a light blue formal from a couple of years ago. So I did my makeup and put it on and came downstairs, and he was quite pleased.

Hey, I don't mind pretending I'm a princess! It was fun to have the excuse, actually. As princess, there weren't a lot of demands on me...I just had to stroll around as elegantly as possible offering encouragement to the peastantry. Or should I say peasant, since there was only one.

"What's your name?" I asked Ethan.
"I don't have one. I'm just a peasant."
"Well, I'll think of a name for you."
"You could call me Sir Roland," he said, alluding to one of his favorite stories.

So I did. Haha. It really makes you feel different when you pretend to be a princess!

I've been thinking a lot about sunshine, and colors, and how much I want to write children's books, and whether or not I'll go to college. And how good it is to eat fried catfish with one's grandparents while listening to stories of the "good old days."