On Water

Flushing the toilet- 1 bucket

Washing the dishes- 3 pitchers

1 load of laundry- 8 buckets

My entire outlook on water has changed significantly since living without pipes and faucets.  To be conscious of the fact that every drop I use I (or Brittany) have pumped and carried to our barrel makes me a much more conservative consumer.

 In short, water is on my mind a lot more these days. Especially today; as we are in dry season there have been days where the sky is gray and the clouds look heavy with water that never falls. The wind blows, it thunders, but no water comes.  The farmers continue to haul water from the nearest source to their fields by hand or wheel barrel, the dust continues to blow in the wind.

But yesterday, God gave us a gift; a beautiful rain. It has continued today. I put on my hoodie this morning! The wind howls, the rain pours, and it is magnificent.

I just started “Tempted and Tried” by Russell D. Moore and he is talking about Jesus’ temptation and the desert, he says

 The kingdom of God that the ancient prophesies announced is the opposite of a desert; it is like ‘streams of water in a dry place (Isa 32.2)……When the Spirit is poured out, the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest because justice will dwell in the wilderness (Isa 32:15)

It is my prayer that God’s Spirit would pour out here among this people as well; that they may drink freely from the River of Life and never again be thirsty. I pray that today’s surprise rain was just a faint shadow of the showers to come in this place.

Good Books

One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp- Wow, this book was truly inspiring and beautiful-I could, and may read it every year to remind myself of the message. The tagline is A dare to live fully right where you are A farmer’s wife explores the meaning of eucharisto everyday in her life- finding thanksgiving, grace and joy in the seemingly mundane, and in the not so mundane. Voskamp is raw and honest, walking the reader through her personal pain and triumphs of life. She begins a journey by starting a journal of 1000 things for which to be thankful. Her writing style is amazing- super rich and poetic, I learned at least one new word. I was inspired to start my own list of 1000 gifts- it has been an exercise of gratitude to our Creator and Savior. The things on the list can be big or small, for me often they have been things I take for granted normally, but now as I develop the habit of thankfulness, I notice them more. My list is still short, I didn’t want to set myself a quote to meet each week, so I just write down an item when I realize I am thankful for it, so far here is my list-

1. Clean floors
2. Breezy afternoons
3. Friends who help paint
4. Voice recorders
5. Cold drinks
6. Emails from friends
7. Sunny mornings
8. Hot tea
9. Worship music
10. Quiet weekends
11. Sheets from home
12. Cool, overcast mornings

Everybody’s Normal Till You Get To Know Them by John Ortberg- I like relationshippy books, understanding people better is one of my interests/goals. That is one thing I really appreciated about nursing school and working - the opportunities it gave me to interact with different types of people; and learn how to better understand why they acted the way they did, and how to best relate to them. I really liked this book, Ortberg has included very down-to-earth and practical chapters on Authenticity, Acceptance, Empathy, Conflict, Forgiveness, Confrontation, Inclusion and other great concepts. My favorite takeaway is probably the quote  “normal, there’s no such thing, dear.”

More With Less Cookbook by Doris Longacre- This is a collection of Mennonite women’s recipes (um sold- those people can cook!) that was birthed out of the denomination-wide call for a focus on the world food shortage. This is kind of a holistic cookbook, besides the recipes it raises hard questions like Does what you eat affect who you are spiritually? Does your belief in God affect your way of living? Honestly, it has taken leaving the United States to see just how much my home culture glorifies, abuses, and wastes food in general. To quote the forward, “there is a way which gives not less but more. More joy, more peace, less guilt; more physical stamina, less overweight and obesity; more to share and less to hoard for ourselves. Okay, confession, I haven’t actually tried any recipes from the cookbook yet, but I love the prose section alone- and I am picking recipes out now to try- though as I said, they are from the Mennonites- I feel like I can’t go wrong here.

The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 5

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 10

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back. 15

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.


When I saw this fork in the road that Frost poem immediately popped in my head. We read it in high school and I imagine again in American literature in college. For me the last two lines are the best and most important part of the poem, kind of the whole point.
It also reminds me of being in Sunday school when I was six or seven, and Rebecca Kerby putting two images up on the flannel graph board: a yellow, pretty path made of light, and a narrow, thorny path. She asked us which path we thought represented the way to God. We all said the wide, pretty, brightly lit path. But no, the lesson that day was out of Matthew 7:13-14- You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.
To take the road less traveled is hard; whether that means blazing trails in Africa or Arkansas. Saying ‘no’ to the materialism and investing time and money for God’s Kingdom can be a thorny and lonely road in America, that doesn’t change based on location.
As followers of Jesus living in a world ruled temporarily by Satan, how can expect anything different? To daily buck a system that the majority doesn’t even question takes energy and strength that I can’t drum up from within myself.
So I take comfort that though I have chosen the path less traveled, I will never travel alone. And I know that in the end, it will indeed make all the difference.

On Water

I can honestly say I have never thought about water as much as I have in the last few weeks. How much it will take to wash and rinse the dishes, bathe, do laundry, flush the toilet, drink. We get our water from a pump about four minutes away on foot. Well, four minutes empty-handed. Confession: when Brittany told me when she started hauling water it was hard and kids laughed at her and she didn’t like it I thought “well that won’t be a problem for me.” Ha. I am terrible at balancing the bucket on my head, and my arms start aching about halfway home. I am a water-carrying wimp. Aaannnnnnndd the people laughing gets my goat (of which there are many here, by the way). I want to snarl at the kids “I am hauling this water for your sake, to have a contextualized ministry, stop laughing!” But, I don’t. Partly because I don’t speak their language yet, but mostly because I kind of doubt Jesus ever snarled at children. Just a hunch I have.
But, I will get better, with practice and time. And, bonus, what with carrying water I may not be breaking out the P90x videos as often as planned.

Books, books, books

Christianity Rediscovered by Vincent Donovan- Brittany and I read this one together; she borrowed it from a colleague. It is the true story of a Catholic priest/missionary who worked with the Masai people in Tanzania in the 70s. He had some pretty groundbreaking methods for the time, great insights expressed with wonderful writing.

The Bible Jesus Read by Philip Yancey- In this book Yancey discusses how the Old Testament is applicable to us, how it answers questions that plague us as a human race. He chooses five sections: Job, Deuteronomy, the Psalms, the Prophets and Ecclesiastes –works that are often overlooked due to the fact that they are considered hard to understand, boring or strange; and he unpacks and discusses what God is communicating about his nature through them.

Things I wish I’d Known Before I Got Married by Gary Chapman- Don’t freak out people, I just like to be prepared. This was a recommendation from a friend, when I got it; I skimmed the chapter titles and was prepared to be disappointed, because they mostly sounded fairly commonsense. But, as I actually read the book, I learned a lot and am glad I bought it.  He’s got 12 chapters based on a statement he uses as a chapter title, like I wish I had known…….that I was marrying into a family.

 

The Reason for God by Timothy Keller- So, I had had this book on my kindle for a while, I had heard talk of this Keller guy. But what made me start the book was hearing a friend of mine (someone much smarter than me) call Timothy Keller today’s C.S. Lewis, what!  This book is great, the first section takes arguments and doubts against Christianity that Keller has heard all his ministerial life and gives rebuttals to those. The second part is a positive argument for Christianity. So, yeah, I am on the TK wagon now. 

Anticancer: A New Way of Life by David Servan-Schreiber- I had always meant to read this book someday, but a family member was diagnosed with cancer this month, so I figured now was the best time. Brittany read it over a year ago and hasn’t stopped talking about it since. It is one of the main reasons she (and as a result me too) has made so many changes in diet.  Which is why I expected it to be all about diet, but it isn’t. It is much more personal than I expected it to be; it is Dr. Servan’s journey from being a fairly impersonal doctor, to being diagnosed with cancer and feeling pretty helpless about it. From his research since then, he has written this book on how cancer victims can take control of their lives through positive attitude, good support system, and lifestyle changes- not as a substitute to chemotherapy and radiation, but as a supplement. It is interesting and helpful so far, I haven’t finished it yet.

A review and revision of resolutions

It’s that time of year again-resolution time! I actually wasn’t gonna do them this year, but then I was looking at last year’s blog and realized that yes, actually I will give it another go. So, below are last year’s resolutions in italics, with a review of how I fared, and revisions for 2013:

    1. Spiritual- I want to really work on scripture memorization this year, I should probably name a quantity to keep me accountable....lets say a passage (vague on purpose) a week-Fail, echec, ail-fay, and any other language you would like to say it in. I did good maybe the first month.  So, this year I am revising my goal, making it more attainable and realistic- one passage a month. Start small and hopefully grow from there.

    2. Intellectual- this one is easier, I just discovered i-tunes free weekly podcasts, they have ones on economics, science, history, all kinds of things I will never sit down and read about but can listen to a podcast about! Well, I did indeed listen to podcasts for like two weeks, then I realized how massive itunes was slowing down my already burdened computer, and deleted it. So I didn’t get any smarter this year.  But, in 2013, I will read some already-on-my-kindle history and science books to expand my horizons.
   3. Physical- one word: jogging. No diet resolutions this year, come on people I live with Brittany Bedford!- yep, did it! Not everyday, but fairly consistently all year, it was so cool to jog among the mountains in France! This year it is p90x workout videos in my house, bring on the Micheal Scott-ish workout trainer in 2013!

4. Social- I will not hole up in my room and hide from French-speaking people, I will talk to them and make mistakes but build relationships through it! Ch-ch-check! Though my French is nowhere near perfect, I did indeed accomplish this resolution. This year all I have to do with this resolution is change the word French to my new language and voila!

  ok folks, hold me to it:) Happy New Year, love you!

Cool story

I meant to get this story in writing soon after I heard it at a conference in Kentucky, that was two years ago now. It has been on my mind the last couple of days, so I finally used that wonderful internet contraption and found that message online!  As he shared this story with thousands of strangers, I am taking the liberty of passing it along.

 Dr. Walt Larimore is a very accomplished physician and well known in his field, and his whole message was powerful; but this story is what I remember the most. I generally cry when I tell it, so it is a good thing I am typing now! To get the whole message you can go to http://www.medicalmissions.com/learn/resources/a-person-is-a-personno-matter-how-small

The doctor was working in his early years as a general family practitioner in a small North Carolina town. He and his wife struggled with the miscarriage of their second child. Right after the miscarriage, Larimore cursed God, but then turned to the Word and felt enveloped by invisible arms, that brought peace and comfort and in the end he turned back to Jesus.

  One day sometime after this, seventh grade boy named Danny came to his office with an injured arm, he had been injured while playing football. Instead of just a broken bone, they found bone cancer and they had to amputate his arm in an effort to eradicate the cancer. Though all this time, Danny was more than a conqueror, he trusted in God and was joyful through losing his arm, he was, he said “God is good, and this is not what I would have chosen, but this is what he chose.” 

Later they found that the cancer had spread, and the cancer research center sent Danny home to die. He was Dr. Larimore’s first hospice patient, and he visited Danny several times a week. He was often unconscious due to the medications, and Dr. Larimore took his hand and prayed that his passing would be peaceful. That is when Danny opened his eyes and said “It will be, don’t worry- I know I won’t be much longer, but I know where I am going.”

The doctor asked “where?”

“Heaven”

“How do you know for sure?”

Danny paused and said “Because Azar told me so.”

“Who is Azar?”

 “You don’t know Azar? He is my guardian angel, he comes and sits with me and we talk about heaven. He’s big and he is strong, and he has golden hair, he has a big sword, Azar said it will be him who takes me to heaven, and that is how I know.  You haven’t met him? You are sure?”

“Not that I remember.”

“That’s very interesting.”

 “Why is that very interesting?”

“Well because he says he is your guardian angel too, and your wife’s and Kate’s (Larimore’s first daughter). Azar was with you the night you lost your baby, it was Azar who took your baby to heaven, it was Azar who held your wife as she wept, and it was Azar who held you after you cursed God.”

Dr. Larimore says that nobody knew about that, not even his wife.

And that’s it, the rest of the message is great, follow this link above to hear all of it. But is that not an amazing story? Isn’t God great? I hope you were touched and that you were drawn closer to the heart of God by that account.