The house dream

So, confession... I have always wanted a house. I think it's a common longing for most women - right up there with getting a husband and kids. Maybe not, and I'm just obsessed... or maybe it's an outgrowth of our wandering lifestyle...

Anyways, I have always wanted to have a house that is "mine" - that I can paint and decorate as I wish and plant flowers in the front yard just as I want to... we have played "house" at every place we have lived in since we've been married... this is our 6th house in almost 8 years of marriage - and we have painted each one and planted things in each one - and left every one after a year or so...

I think I also want a house because I hate our current house. It is wooden and horribly hard to keep clean and it's split level and I have fallen down the stairs at least 5 times... not used to stairs. :) Also, the boards are rough and I get splinters in my feet from walking around bare foot - and who doesn't want to be barefoot in their own house?!?

I pictured us buying a simple little house and renting it out, having a place to call "home" while we're on furlough and in 20-30 years when we're done here, having a place to retire in...

So, Brant and I started looking for a house a month or so ago... we shouldn't have - we should have done what all the "buying your first house" websites tell you to do - get the financial paperwork done first. We found a beautiful house and I fell in love - white stone (my dream) and an office for Brant (his dream) on a big lot in the country with a neighborhood pool and playground for the boys. We started jumping through the hoops of loan paperwork and fell flat pretty fast - right when we figured out we couldn't get a loan as "homeowners" and also be "overseas citizens" at the same time. ("Homeowners" get tax breaks and lower interest rates... so do "overseas citizens" -but you can't be both...)

I'm reading Proverbs this month and the other day read a very fitting verse... "Be wise enough to know when to quit" (Prov 23:4) We are quitting the house buying dream for the time being. Brant reminds me there will be other houses... I console myself with the fact that the white stone house didn't have a fire place - another dream of mine. But it comes down to an issue of trust, I think. I do trust that the Lord will provide for us - that we will never be homeless when we are old and gray because we didn't have the money to buy a house when we were young. But I also need to trust that His plans for my life are perfect - and if that involves never owning a home, then I need to be okay with that. I need to trust that He will provide contentment and peace with or without a house I can call "mine." When we were in the States, I was talking to a good friend who just finished building their first home and were now faced with the possibility of having to sell it. I expressed sadness at the thought of them having to leave their house of many years worth of planning and dreaming... and she replied "It's just a house... and it belongs to the Lord."

Somewhere between contented peace and always wanting more...

So, I go through phases where I have a favorite song that kinda typifies my life and faith at the moment. My song of the moment is "Somewhere in the Middle" by Casting Crowns. Don't laugh, it came out several years ago, but we just got the CD... the non-existent Christian bookstores here and lack of radio definitely put a damper on our keeping up with the music industry.

I love the lines - "Just how close can I get, Lord, to 'I surrender' without losing all control? ...With eyes wide to the difference in the God we want and the God Who is... but will we trade our dreams for His?" ...I can say I am surrendered to Christ, and to a lot of people, it may appear that I am... hey, I'm living in a third world country for Jesus - doesn't that count for anything? But the Lord knows my heart and how I fight His plan because my plan for my life is so much better.

Take my current circumstances... Brant is stuck in a tribe who knows where it is and I am stuck here with 3 little boys who are on a downward cycle of getting fussier and more disobedient by the day... and who knows when or how he is going to get home... best case scenario - he'll be on a helicopter tomorrow morning and be on the plane back here tomorrow afternoon. Worse case scenario - the guys will decide to hike out of the tribe if the weather continues to be bad... it's a grueling 3-4 day hike that will make scaling Everest seem like a piece of cake. Does that put him back next week sometime? I will be in the crazy house by then....

So this morning when I got the call they would not make it out today, I cried some and starting praying and my prayer went a little like this "Lord, I need him to come out. Please clear the clouds - I know You've done it before and can do it again - so just clear the clouds and bring them home" To which the Lord replied... Yes, I can clear the clouds if I want to... maybe it's better that I don't... So it comes down to an issue of faith - do I really trust the Lord that His plan is better than mine and that leaving the guys in there at least one extra day is in His plan? I know that is true - but sometimes I think my plans are so much better...

One thing I have learned during this whole experience - other than the fact that it is possible for me to take care of the boys and stay by myself and survive in a 3rd world country - is a greater appreciation for Brant! He is such a stabilizing factor in our lives and it is so nice just to have someone to share life with... I really miss him a ton. The other thing I have realized is how crucial my role is in this family... by seeing his absence and how much the boys miss him and how things are harder as a single parent makes me realize that I actually contribute a lot and I can picture myself being gone and him trying to hold it together here. ...don't know if that makes sense or not. I guess I am realizing how well we work together and am so thankful for him.

So, to all you out there in the great big blog world, please be praying that the weather clears and that Brant makes it home tomorrow. And be praying for my attitude if he doesn't. :)

The fat baby... Ezra in his whale towel after bath time.

Caleb enjoying strawberry shortcake.

Dancing the blues away

So I'm using my time as a single mom to influence my boys' in ways their father would not approve. :)

Brant is gone into Nduga land for 5 days, with two other guys who are moving into the tribe in the coming months. They needed to pick house sites, measure out an airstrip and search for usable water sources, among other things. Brant went along, mostly for the experience, but also because there is a slim possibility we might join this team.

So the boys and I are on day 3 of him being gone. :P Do not like it at all. We're doing okay - and I'm having some triumphant moments - like getting us all out the door before 8:30 this morning (8:29!), so I could be at our weekly town team meeting (which starts at 8:30 - but I tried!) I had never driven all 3 boys by myself before and am happy to say we are all still alive.

I've been trying to keep us really busy and doing lots of fun things to keep our minds off missing Brant. Poor Caleb really misses Brant - any time we go anywhere - whether outside or to the meeting this morning or to the library (after the meeting), he spends the first several minutes running around "Daddy? Daddy here?" - looking for Brant.

For the most part it's been working, except that I really miss Brant. I didn't realize how much I just enjoy sharing the day with him - all the funny things the boys do, all the news we get via email, and all the random things I need to tell him (yard worker's dad died, hosting the town team meeting next week, etc) Today Elijah was giving Ezra a pre-bedtime hug and kiss and said "Mom, I like Ezra. Let's keep him forever." Will I remember to tell Brant that on Thursday when I see him again? (Probably yes, now that I've written it down, but you get the point....)

Anyways, tonight during blueberry pancakes and pineapple, we were listening to old techno music and started dancing all crazy in our chairs. It was really fun, spontaneous and incredible non-sense. So after dinner, we had a "dance party" which consisted of me spinning the little boys around and them crashing into each other. Brant hates to dance... though he does try for my sake. So I have determined that my boys are going to know how to dance and be confident in it.... so working on starting early while Dad's not around. :)

Success

Tonight was pill night... once a week we take 4-5 pills to prevent malaria. Everyone here has different methods for getting their kids to take these nasty tasting bits of good health. Most people spread peanut butter and chocolate on bread and crush the pills on top. But since we're not much into high doses of sugar right before bed time, we have opted to teach our 4 year old and 2 year old to swallow pills like the grown little men they are.

Our first pill night took 2 hours... the first hour was spent calculating everyone's weights in kilograms and figuring out how much medicine each of us needed... and figuring out how to cut the pills into thirds and fourths so the little boys got the right dosages. The second hour consisted of screaming and holding the boys down while we jammed pills down their throats - or should I say holding Elijah down... Caleb took his pills like a pro - he tends to be a medicine junkie. After that first traumatic night with Elijah we looked ahead to years of the same and cried. I was a notoriously horrible pill taker as a kid and couldn't swallow a pill to save my life until college. I remember many times where my mom shoved a pill down my throat, poured lots of water in and then shook her head in exasperation as I managed to keep the pill in my mouth....

Anyways, 3 months later, I cut all our pills and portioned them out without checking my cheat sheet for the first time tonight. (I did go back and recheck with the sheet after I was done!) The other major accomplishment of the night was Elijah took the pills in his little hand, put them in his mouth and swallowed them, two at a time, all by himself - his reward of little yogurt drink sitting in front of him. My mother would have been so proud. I was so proud. Another milestone passed.

Let them eat shortcake and feta cheese

Yesterday started as one of those "feeling sorry for myself" days. I continually struggle under the workload of this house - I could use a lot of adjectives before that noun... horrible, awful, horrible, awful, horrible... our house is wooden planks and plastic windows, and truthfully a lot nicer than the one we will have in the tribe because at least here the boards were sanded and plained before being nailed together, as Brant points out. But I hate living in a wooden house. You can see the ground through the cracks in the floor and the sky through the cracks in the walls. Hence, the dirt and dust comes in unabated. It is a continual battle with the broom against dust bunnies the size of Ezra and against the spiders and ants and lizards that think our floor cracks are their open door to our home.

Plus the electricity was off all day yesterday and the generator was out of gas, so by lunch I was hot and sticky and grouchy. So sitting at lunch, we listed all the things we were thankful about living here. My favorite was feta cheese... here on the edge of the world, in this back corner of a 3rd world country, you can buy feta cheese. Granted, not all the time and not at every grocery store, but occasionally you can find it - for less than what you have to pay in the States even. To me, feta cheese is the ultimate luxury item - it has no use or nutritional value other than making salads or burgers or whatever taste a little bit better. So, as we were enjoying our pasta salad with feta cheese, I thanked the Lord for such small luxury items as feta cheese.

Definitely put me in a better mood to remember my blessings, so I headed out to the (air-conditioned!) grocery store to try to procure some food for the week. Grocery shopping here is like a treasure hunt every week... you never know what will be available at the store. Surprise, this week they are out of flour! Hope you didn't need any... For months they have not had any butter, but this week the shelves were stocked with butter. No sugar though... I don't think they have had any since we have gotten here. Anyways, no matter what is on my list, it always take me an hour at the grocery store just to go up and down all the aisles and see what happens to be available this week. It is a good week if I come home with only 2 or 3 things that I could not find at the store; some weeks more than half my list is not available. (Yesterday it was raisins and cereal that were not stocked... we will be eating lots of eggs and homemade yogurt this week for breakfast!) But often times there are treasures to be found... once it was dried fruit from the States, one time I found my coveted feta cheese, and yesterday the treasure of all treasures... fresh strawberries!

Now granted, I had found fresh strawberries once before, about a month ago. The produce section had exactly four tiny cartons of them, and every one of them was moldy. Not exactly how I wanted to spend $4.50. But yesterday, there were actually several dozen little boxes of berries... all plump and bright red and smelling soooo good... and at the reduced price of $2.50 a box, I couldn't resist a couple boxes.

So last night, I made strawberry shortcake. I had left over cream from our ice cream making venture on the 4th and whipped up some biscuits and topped it with little red berries. It was fun to have dessert for no reason at all... the boys were so excited they were dancing all around. We played games together and ate dessert and let the boys stay up and were thankful for good times as a family... even on the edge of the world.

4th of July

Yesterday was really fun. We had a 4th of July party for all the people from our mission here in town. The highlight was the hamburgers. Beef is really expensive here and poor quality, so serving up 1/3 pound hamburgers was more meat than most people eat in a week. The boys had a good time - Elijah cried when the water balloons ran out, cried when the sparklers ran out and cried when we told him he couldn't have anymore homemade ice cream. Caleb cried when he tried to hold his sparkler from the wrong end.

It was a nice end to a long, hard week. I had kinda hit a wall in the whole culture acclimation process and was grouchy and hating every mosquito and lizard and spider that was taking over my house. We had taken over supply buying for a family on vacation, so Brant and I spent all week running all over town looking for the right brand, size and color of toothbrushes! Without Wal-Mart, shopping is a bit challenging here to say the least, much less trying to shop for someone else and hope you found the right type of canned green beans or bought enough shampoo.