What happened to my boy?

What happened was a little of this.

Lots of piles of hair.

Midway through a cute face like this.

End result: one precious boy who looks like daddy. He wanted a hair cut "like daddy" so he got one! He looks so old to me. He also looks like a cute little Russian boy, don't you think?

This kid is hilarious! The other day he asked me if I would take off his bellybutton. Seriously? He's 4 and just realized that's permanent? Later on after we cut his hair, when we were getting ready for bed, he told me he wanted to take off his short hair and put back on his "long hair". Children are so funny, aren't they? They bring such joy and laughter to life.

Open Hands.

Photo courtesy: L.J.

To endow the Law with any capacity to produce righteousness is to plagiarize the Gospel.

The Gospel brings donations. It pleads for open hands to take what is being offered.

The Law has nothing to give. It demands, and its demands are impossible.

- Luther, Commentary on Galatians.

Slices of Life.

2:58 P.M.

Slicing potatoes for homemade fries...

Laughing with my house helper as she tries to get a stain out of my sons shirt with dishsoap - who knew?

First attempt at homemade applesauce...amazing stuff.

Completely enjoying this laid back day with windows open and fall weather.

Hiking & Baseball.

We had some refreshing time this week. Weeks fly here! One of the main challenges to life here for me is planning better and being intentional with my time.

With all that said, time with my family and our kids is a MUST for staying sane here! We need to just get out (or stay in) and have that down time to reconnect and take everything in...

So this week, amidst language and starting school with my oldest, we had our first hiking experience here. There's a mountain near our home that's beautiful and we watch the sun pour through it's hills each morning through our windows. One day this week after language we thought it would be fun to take the kids and explore some. It was amazing! I'm telling you when we are out in nature and experiencing a little more of the rural landscape - my heart sings!

On our way up there was a fruit and vegetable guy. A lot of these sellers use old school scales to weigh their stuff. He gave Job a peach. I have rarely bought fruit at a place where they have not just given my children a piece of fruit that I did not pay for. I ask you, when was the last time that happened to you at WalMart? : )


The fruit and vegetables here are so vibrant and amazing in flavor.

My little hikers!

This was on the way up. It was a temple for worship and honoring ancestors.

Unique details...

Our city from the top:




On Friday we got to go to a local campus and play American style baseball with some students who are learning to play for fun. We had a blast! The kids and I cheered daddy on and enjoyed LOTS of attention via passer by's. My children may return to America someday thinking they are real celebrities.

Phin's serious baseball face ... or maybe this is "I'm a thug in the hood with my bat" face...not sure which:

One glimpse of the crowd we drew playing this "American sport":

No, that's not Alex Rodriguez... just my handsome hubby.

We had a good week. We are taking some time this week to rest, look over our days and move some things around so our schedule runs smoother and the "good" doesn't get placed above the "best" for this busy season right now.

Blessings.

Sweet Moment In My Week.

He was walking back downhill from our first mountain hike

in our new "home" country.

Wearing a huge jacket.

Giving me that smile.

You know, moms...

the one that melts your heart in a moment.

Looking like such a little boy

but

resembling a man more every day.

My Phin.

The week's Recap.

- Last weekend we took a walk with the kids down to the ocean area we have near our home (maybe a 6 minute walk?). It was so refreshing just to be out in the air and beauty, together. We've been indoors so much more than we normally like for various reasons: intense language learning, finding a place that's green, open and somewhat clean, being so new here still can overwhelm, etc. We went to these fountains that were spraying up with classical music playing around us with loud speakers. My kids had a blast playing in the water! It was such a treat for everyone involved (including the crowd it drew to see the foreign kids and take pictures of them). Here's one side view of our "audience"...

A view from the pier by the fountains..

- On that note, I am always curious ... what do people do with our pictures? We might just be blown up larger than life hanging over a fireplace, in an Asian home somewhere...

- We discussed language this week and made the decision to cut back an hour a day for me when I begin schooling Job. Language is easily all consuming and I'm trying to balance my priorities. Language isn't the goal of life but it's a servant toward my making relationships here. You can always do more and do better. But I've had to be humble and admit my limitations once I am schooling my son. I need the brain power that one less hour will reserve!

- We've definitely gotten more comfortable getting out and exploring. We went on an excursion out in the city one day this week with some friends. It was so great to just see different snapshots of our city, of the people and life here and to do it all with my kids - it was so fun!

- I've been pleasantly surprised at how much I've fallen in love with reading good fiction since being here. I didn't think I'd have time. Language has made my brain and body weary and it's been so nice in the evenings or weekends to relax, crack open that book and think through, learn through and enjoy a good story. Just finished Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry. Beginning Rainwater by Sandra Brown.

- It's corn season here! It's been so interesting to watch people spread out their corn to dry all around our neighborhood grounds. Then they come back at days end to scoop it into bags for selling.

Gut Level Honesty at the Month 2 Mark.

I can't believe we've been here more than two months already. In many ways it feels like 2 years and in other ways 2 days. There's so much to be learned and this process of adjustment I'm learning is slow. But steady. There are so many facets of life here that thrill me and a myriad of ways the Lord has provided sweet graces as we plod through life here. But I will say after two months we are still very much in process. Though each day and each new experience brings us closer to feelings of familiarity, we aren't "home" yet. New friends bring comfort and laughter to our house, yet we are still very "uncomfortable". Uncomfortable as I figure out how to cook for my little family with more work than I ever have put into preparing food for us, and yes uncomfortable as I stretch and strain to push myself in gaining more language...but I don't think these things are dominate in my thoughts. I think it's mainly uncomfortable spiritually speaking. As I am placed in circumstances that come from living overseas: being humbly dependent on others, living in tension of a busy season, juggling tasks, all the "little moments" that go into a day. I am realizing just how true these words are:

A good Tree can't produce bad fruit, and a bad tree

can't produce good fruit. A tree is identified by it's fruit...

A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart,

and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart.

What you say flows from what is in your heart.

Luke 6:43-45

AND

A cup of sweet water could never spill a drop of bitter water, no matter how heavily it was jolted.
-Amy Carmichael

I would have to be honest and say when I've been squeezed by life these last two months, some bad fruit has come to the surface. Some things like...

Seeing how much I want to be Sovereign and in control instead of God.

Seeing how quickly I turn to self-reliance when push comes to shove.

Realizing how needy I am as a wife and mother - did I start to think I instinctively knew how to love well?

Seeing How deeply I've found my identity in being a "good" homemaker instead of in the Cross.

Feeling the weight of brokenness as I look at life here.

All of this has left me coming to grips with the fact that I am a desperate woman in need of a BIG redeemer.

You see I feel like I can see clearly how life here is a gift. It's a gift because it's pressing me on all sides to see myself as I am before God: broken, needy, dependent. I have always been yet have not always felt so. Doesn't the Lord put us in situations anywhere that seem to do press us this way?

I am not Sovereign. This is good news! Someone far wiser knows better what I need than I do.

I am much worse than I ever thought. Painful, yet good news! For here I mine greater depths of what Jesus has done for me and fellow sinners like me. The cost and gift becomes all the more real.

I am so utterly inadequate in my marriage and parenting to do any "good". Good News! It's here I find genuine humility as I bow under the reality of my desperate situation. It transforms me in ways the "good" I thought I had down never was effective on my heart.

I cannot accomplish all I would like to in my home in this season, nor "control" life. Good News! God is working all for my good. I can rest. I can stop resisting. What Jesus has purchased for me frees me from restless running to empty identities. He exchanges my dark, soiled and tattered robe with His Own spotless, clean righteousness. This satisfies my heart like no other fleeting stolen identity could. I am His.

Life is difficult, ugly and broken - any of us would agree. Good News even in this! I can face broken life without flinching away at it's rotting, I can weep with those who weep and mourn. Yet I remember this is not my true home. I see God's beauty displayed in His redeeming the mess sin's made, mine included. Even as he mends my broken ugliness, He is mending the Worlds. He's purchased it's restoration with blood.

These are such good things for me to learn, in new ways...in this new culture.

Thank you Lord, for loving me enough to "jolt" me! For so violently loving me that you press me into situations that shatter every idea I had of good and show me how small I've thought Your good is toward me. Continue opening up my eyes to see the glory of the vast skies of walking near to you!

The latest from my little Artists.

King in a Castle with tower.

By Job. Medium: Watercolor.

September 2010.

Blind Man with presents at his feet.

By Phinehas. Medium: Washable Markers.

September 2010.

Jesus and the Sky.

By Felicity. Medium: Washable Markers.

September 2010.

My Home is God Himself.

Photo Courtesy flickriver.com

My Home is God -- Author Unknown

"My Home is God Himself"; Christ brought me there.

I laid me down within His mighty arms;

He took me up, and safe from all alarms

He bore me "where no foot but His hath trod,"

Within the holiest at Home with God,

And bade me dwell in Him, rejoicing there.

O Holy Place! O Home divinely fair!

And we, God's little ones, abiding there.

"My Home is God Himself"; it was not so!

A long, long road I traveled night and day,

And sought to find within myself some way,

Aught I could do, or feel to bring me near;

Self effort failed, and I was filled with fear,

And then I found Christ was the only way,

That I must come to Him and in Him stay,

And God had told me so.

And now "my Home is God," and sheltered there,

God meets the trials of my earthly life,

God compasses me round from storm and strife,

God takes the burden of my daily care.

O Wondrous Place! O Home divinely fair!

And I, God's little one, safe hidden there.

Lord, as I dwell in Thee and Thou in me,

So make me dead to everything but Thee;

That as I rest within my Home most fair,

My soul may evermore and only see

My God in everything and everywhere;

My Home is God.

New happenings...

Life around here has been busy! Paul began school at the University near by so he is learning language in the mornings and then more, with me, in the afternoons. Here's a snapshot of what our eyes are seeing a lot of:

The little graphics you see are small pictures representing words we are learning. We are supposed to take mental pictures and our tutor says the words a few times. Then we use these words in an activity. Maybe sometimes we ask a question using the words, or pretend we are going to the library or fruit market and use the word. Or our tutor uses a map of a town and asks us to find something (the new word) and tells us what to do with it (for example, the American man is at the train station). It's a fun way to learn language I think but definitely takes brain work!

Can you believe we have "learned" (I say the term loosely to keep you from thinking we can clearly recall and use properly each of these) almost 800 words in a month's time? I can hardly believe it myself. But I am encouraged to press on when my house helper asks me something and I recognize the word "clothes" or "eggplant"...little hints that my brain is s.l.o.w.l.y picking things up and my effort is not in vain! I am realizing language learning is not for the faint of heart!

In other news that is sure to make this weeks Asian People magazine (joking here of course)...remember my post about my friends talking over dinner about Asian celebrities living in my neighborhood? Get this:

Not a great photo but it is a movie being filmed right in front of my 9th floor apartment. Crazy. Lights, main actors, camera men and a directors chair are all there. I tell you, our neighborhood is prestigious.

Since our life has felt so hectic and busy throughout the week, I really need to feed myself on truth. Think about the big picture. Realize what comes out of my heart when I'm not "in control"... so I've began making my way through my favorite teacher/author Paul Tripp's messages online. Something he said this last week really grabbed me. Here it is:

It's easy for our lives to be characterized by complaining because we think we'd be better Sovereigns. If you embrace the theology of the sovereign grace of God then you would have to say that every moment of grumbling is a grumbling against God. You've never had a neutral grumble in your life. Your grumbling is deeply theological.

Ouch...letting that sink in hurts in a good way, doesn't it?

Fighting for my life to be a "hymn of praise" and not a grumble this week!