Overcoming Fear

I would imagine that most people who know me or read this blog would say that I am not a fearful person, that fear isn’t something I struggle with (except for fear of rodents).  In fact, I hope that is the perception most of you have, because for the past ten years or so I’ve made a concerted effort to conquer fear in my life.

I believe that fear has no place in the life of a Christ-follower, because fear is not of God.  For me, this principle is true from the very small fears to the very large fears.  I believe this so strongly that I have confessed my fear of mice as sin and asked God to forgive me as I try to conquer that irrational aversion.  (Still plenty of work to do on that front, unfortunately.)

Throughout the Bible, God’s message about fear has two themes: Fear God and Fear Not.  Fearing God comes from having a true understanding of who God is and as our understanding of God increases, our reverence (or fear) for God increases, which Proverbs 1:7 says is the beginning of wisdom.  The other command, to “fear not” seems to always be followed with a “because of God” statement.  For example, as Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt and they are trapped at the banks of the Red Sea, Moses exhorts the people “Fear not; stand still and see the salvation of the Lord which He will work for you today.”  (Exodus 14:13, Amplified)  It seems to me that the more we fear God, the less we fear other things because our understanding of God allows us to overcome the fear.

Here’s a little anecdote about how this “Fear God/Fear Not” principle worked out for me recently.  Fred travels a fair bit, a few days at a time for seminars, meetings, trainings, and I’m becoming used to that, but one recent night when he was away, I had a moment of overwhelming fear.  My usual approach to fear is to ask myself “What’s the worst that can happen if this fear is realized?” but when that fear has to do with losing my husband, imagining the worst case scenario sent me spiraling deeper into fear.  I simply couldn’t imagine living with the pain of losing Fred.  I began praying against the spirit of fear, confessing that the fear doesn’t come from God and asking for peace “beyond understanding.”  That peace came, and I fell asleep, but I hadn’t really overcome that fear.  The next morning, I was thinking about God’s heart for widows and orphans, when I realized that my fear was of that very thing…being a young widow…and the more I remembered God’s character and promises to support and care for the widow, the more I felt fear fading.  Obviously I don’t want to lose my husband and I pray regularly to have a long life with Fred, but a fear of God, respecting that God can take care of me and bring me through anything, allows me to fear not what tomorrow may bring, even if it’s that worst thing I can imagine.

I might have another post on fear coming soon, but to close out this post, here’s a photo of my recent birthday party.  We had a couple of nursing students over for dinner, which was prepared by not me.  The students surprised us by bringing me birthday presents, even though they’re all very broke.  We had a great time, and enjoyed some non-alcoholic wine spritzers with caramel corn for dessert.

Sonogram and Spinach Potato Cakes

First of all, here's the long-awaited sonogram photo.  I'm afraid it's a little blurry, but I promise, even if it wasn't, there's not much to see.  We can distinguish the head and the heart, which is good enough for us.  The slightly grumpy tech, who thought I was odd for wanting my husband in the room, said everything looks good to him and confirmed my estimate for the due date: Valentine's Day.  My belly is still growing, rather quickly, actually, but I feel good.

In exchange for such a valuable item as a sonogram photo, I am going to now subject you to a cooking lesson.  Probably boring, but it was a rather monumental achievement for me, and I feel the need to brag on myself.

I tend to be content to eat the same thing, with slight variations, every day for weeks, but my husband is more inspired by variety.  He doesn't ask for much (since there isn't much to be had), but I try to show some creativity in the kitchen from time to time, rather than just the rice and beans every night that Leah and I used to eat.  Yesterday I had fresh greens, tomatoes and potatoes that I needed to use, and it was Sabbath, so I had all the time in the world to cook.  I did a little web browsing looking for something new to cook, and stumbled across a recipe for "Spinach Potato Cakes with Roasted Tomato Sauce" on the Epicurious website (click here for link).  I just so happened to have all the ingredients, except for the optional cheeses, so I went for it.  I love food blogs, so I should have carefully photographed each step of the process, but I didn't think that far ahead, sadly. 

It sounds so simple in the recipe: four easy (long) steps.  In reality it took me most of about five hours, although I was watching Season 1 of LOST at the same time, so I wasn't in any hurry.

Here are my step-by-step directions for making this recipe in Africa.

- First I washed thoroughly and peeled six or seven potatoes, then chopped them in half and put on to boil.  I washed approximately one pound of greens thoroughly and remove from the stems.  We don't have spinach here, so I used something called "pea greens" which are kind of like ramp, I think.  Also, I didn't have any way to weigh one pound, so I took a half-kilo bag of pasta in one hand (1.1 pounds) and the greens in the other hand.  Close enough.  I washed very, very thoroughly the ripest six or seven tomatoes and cut in half.  I made four pieces of toast in the sandwich maker, then crushed them with the handle of the knife to get one cup of bread crumbs.

- No oven, so I had to "pan roast" the tomatoes with a conservative amount of my very expensive and precious olive oil and salt and pepper.  Meanwhile, I melted two spoonfuls of Blue Band (a kind of margarine that serves for butter here) in a pot and wilted the greens.  When the potatoes, tomatoes and greens had all cooked, I set them all aside to cool.

- I mashed the potatoes with a fork, then, lacking a blender to puree the tomatoes, I mashed those with a fork too.  I chopped up the greens, nearly removing my thumb nail in the process.  Everything was then ready to rock and roll.

- I mixed the greens, an egg, the potatoes, salt and lemon pepper (in lieu of lemon zest and pepper).  It really didn't appear to need bread crumbs, since it was sticking together well, but I was darned if I was going to waste the effort of smashing all that toast.  I used about half, just out of principle, and preserved the rest in an old coffee jar.  Here I ran into my biggest dilemma thus far: what would I use to hold the flour for dredging?  Being Sunday, our housegirl wasn't around to wash dishes for me, and I had, in true Leisha form, used nearly every dish in the kitchen.  I hate washing dishes, so I used the lid for a water pitcher instead of washing a plate or bowl.  Just call me MacGyver. 

- I formed the cakes and began dredging them in flour.  At this point, Fred came home from playing volleyball at the nursing school and eyed with mild alarm the chaos of the kitchen.  He diplomatically inquired how many dishes I had used, and I diverted the question by heating oil and beginning to fry the cakes.  The smell of cooking food had its desired effect of inspiring him to walk to the shop and buy me a soda to drink with dinner.  (This is a very important part of the recipe.)  The first cakes cooked a little faster than I anticipated, and I felt compelled to taste test one (or two) to make sure they weren't spoiled.  They weren't.

I also made some scrambled eggs to add a little protein to our dinner.  At its core, this was a meal comprised of exactly the same ingredients we always eat--eggs, tomatoes, greens, potatoes--but it tasted fantastic.  Between the two of us we ate "4 to 6 servings" of potato cakes.  They were delicious, but it's going to take another Sunday to repeat the experiment because of all that prep work and dishes, which I dutifully left for my housegirl to wash this morning.  (It's how she earns her salary, since the rest of the day she gets to spend on the sofa watching Nigerian movies.  I used to feel guilty, but then I decided not to, since I hate washing dishes and that dislike outweighs guilt every time.)

I also made caramel corn this weekend, which was another big success with my husband and the nursing school students we shared it with.  I feel like I'm finally getting the hang of cooking without a fridge or oven.  Next time I jerry rig a recipe for my kitchen, I'll take some photos.  Promise.

Oh!  In closing, here's another photo for you.  This was the view from our hotel room in Mwanza last week.  One would think I'd have taken a photo of the fabulous view of Lake Victoria from the open rooftop bar, but I never took the camera up to the bar.  I don't like looking like a tourist, taking photos of scenery or, Heaven forbid, animals.  It would take a lot of begging from you all to get me to take a those kind of pictures.  In fact, why don't you just come visit, and you can take the photos yourself?  Then I'll steal them and post them on my blog for everyone else's enjoyment.  We have a spare room (or six), and one of them actually has a bed in it.  Karibu Tanzania!

TV can teach you something...sometimes

Fred and I share a mild obsession with politics.  Fred being Kenyan means that he’s basically culturally obligated to be aware of current Kenyan politics and be able to discuss these issues and people with anyone, anywhere.  I’ve always found politics interesting, and I’m getting quite a (slightly biased) education on the intricacies of Kenyan political dynamics from my husband.  All this political interest on both our parts means that we were feeling the lack of news when all we had to rely on was intermittent internet and the radio.  That wasn’t so bad for Fred because the news headlines were on every hour, but they were always in Luo or Swahili, meaning that I could maybe pick out two or three words if I really paid attention, but usually I’d have to ask “What’s going on?” once it was all over.  Anyway, so a few weeks ago we borrowed a satellite dish from a friend, and Fred and two other guys spent two days setting it up in the backyard and calibrating signals for approximately 50 channels.  Here are the two most important lessons I’ve learned in the past few weeks of watching Tanzanian cable TV:

1. There aren’t many differences between witchcraft and the prosperity gospel
Of our 50 channels, about 30 of them are religious channels.  I rarely watch any of them, but the little bit of preaching I’ve watched convinces me ever more of the danger of the prosperity gospel, which basically believes that God wants to bless us with material wealth if we have sufficient faith.  I’ll describe a common scenario, and you tell me if I’m describing witchcraft or the prosperity gospel: A person has problem, usually motivated by envy and discontentment.  That person goes to a powerful spiritual leader who assures the person that his/her deity has the power to solve the person’s problem if certain conditions (*coughcough*money) are met.  The person is led through a ritual, in which the spiritual leader is very prominent, of asking said deity for a specific solution to the aforementioned problem.  Often the specific solution does not come about, which is usually blamed on the person asking for not meeting the certain conditions (*coughcough*money).  Now, you tell me which deity is being appealed to.  This mindset is presented most persistently by preachers from Nigeria (renowned for its witchcraft) and America (renowned for worshipping wealth).  Sometimes it seems like the Muslim clerics on TV are presenting more godly principles for living than many of the “Christian” pastors.
                Yesterday, though, my attention was caught by an American black woman named Prophetess Juanita something.  She was talking about the importance of faith, which is usually a lead-in to having faith that God will give you want you want.  This woman paced the stage, sweating and shouting about how the church has corrupted faith to only be for our own wants.  She said “If the church is over here, dancing about all our nice stuff, there is no room for faith for healing of the woman with cancer or AIDS.  Where are the soup kitchens and rehab programs and prostitute outreach programs that used to characterize the church?  Instead we all want big houses and Mercedes.  Someone needs to desire the kind of faith where God doesn’t need to give me anything, because the things I’m praying for are for my neighbor and the prostitute and the child dying on the streets.”  I can’t tell you how refreshed and encouraged I was by these words.  The prosperity gospel is so corruptive and so prevalent in the church throughout the world, and it was fantastic to hear her defending the simple life of faith on behalf of others.  Can anyone argue that is true gospel?

2. Often the hardest things to hear are the most important
At the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008 violence broke out in Kenya following heavily contested presidential elections.  I won’t go into detail about who did what to whom, but the politics of ethnicity mixed with poverty and inflammatory speeches led to a wave of violence that was devastating for the country.  After the dust settled, cries for justice echoed throughout the world.  The wananchi, or common citizenry of Kenya, called for justice, not just for the perpetrators of rape, arson and murder, but for the instigators.  Common knowledge held that those instigators were the top politicians in the country.  After the Kenyan justice system failed to indict the top level planners, even after reports by a special commission and the Kenyan National Human Rights Committee, the International Criminal Court began investigating.  They named six very prominent names, three on each side of the conflict, and are currently presenting the charges against them before a three-judge panel in The Hague.  K24, the best Kenyan news station, airs the hearings live every afternoon, and if we have power, we are always parked in front of the television, fascinated.  The worst part is hearing the prosecutors describe the violence which qualified these charges as crimes against humanity.  There were men of Fred’s tribe who were forcibly circumcised with broken bottles before being beheaded and even boys as young as age 5 were castrated with dull blades.  Many, many women on both sides of the conflict were raped, some contracting HIV as a result of gang rape in the streets of western Kenya, others becoming pregnant, and still others burned alive in their homes with their children.  It’s terrible, and easy to say “I don’t want to hear this”, but I think it’s so important to hear the stories of these people.  It’s important for us to bear witness and stand against this horrendous violence, especially in the context of a place like Kenya where the most powerful are rarely held accountable for their actions.  Fred wishes he’d studied law so that he could be the kind of lawyer who represents victims against the entitled power mongers who do whatever they want with impunity in Kenya.  Injustice infuriates us both, and we’re really hoping for truth and justice to come out of these pre-trial hearings at the ICC.

Mixed in with these important lessons are so many smaller things, like “there is such a thing as too much news” and “the perspective of Iranian news channels is very different than CNN and BBC”.  I’ve seen some fantastic things, like a documentary about a poor family in South America which could have been filmed in our village for all the similarities.  Also, did you know that “Touched by an Angel” is still airing in some places?  It’s true.  I’ve watched it.  My life was not changed.

And finally, as promised, a photo.  It seems that our baby knew that I was going to take a picture of him/her this week and has been growing like crazy.  This week marks week 20, so we’re over halfway, and the rate at which the baby has been growing has been exhausting me the past few days.  I weighed myself last week, and I’ve actually lost two kilos (about 4.5 pounds) since I first found out I was pregnant, although the picture doesn't really show that.  Fred’s been pushing me to eat more, even when I’m not hungry, to make sure I maintain a healthy weight, and I’ve been trying to get plenty of rest.  Thank goodness for the remote control!

That’s all for this week.  All the best to all of you.  Comments welcome!

Love your Reader

I recently read a blog post by author Donald Miller who said that the best writing advice he could give is to "love your reader" whether you're writing a book or a blog.  That phrase has been haunting me of late, since this blog, which I try to update weekly, has suffered a shameful lapse, though not for lack of blog-worthy events.  Here's a run-down of the past few weeks:

- Fred or I traveled every week in August, which taught us two things: 1. I don't like having house guests when Fred's not here (if you missed the story, you can read it here), and 2. Fred does not function well without his wife.  While Fred travels, I just hide in the house and work or read or watch movies.  While I travel, Fred stops eating and sleeps like a teenager.  If it weren't for the bishop's wife, he probably would have missed a lot more meals.  He even stopped shaving.  I don't think I've seen him happier than when I got back home.  We've both been thankful to have a few weeks of reprieve where we're both home before traveling starts again.

- We hired a house girl, which I talked about in this post, and she's still doing really well.  An unexpected bonus is being forced to speak Swahili with her, which highlights how much Swahili I've forgotten from going back to the States for six months and only speaking English with my husband.  It also reminds me of my old roommate, Leah, since my vocabulary for household tasks is shamefully deficient.  I can fluently access the Swahili words for sponsorship, planning, development, poverty, flourishing, and a host of words related to spiritual development, but I cannot ever remember the verb for washing clothes.  I'm going to have to go back to studying Swahili, but be far more practical this time!

- I went to Dodoma for a week for some meetings and training with GHMD.  It was fabulous to see the kids and the staff.  I was so touched when several girls came one day after school specially because they'd heard that I was at the office.  They just wanted to see me and give me a hug!  For the most part I was so encouraged by the health and development of all the children, but there were a few notable exceptions, all on the theme of housing problems.  I'll be writing about that in my next support letter, which will be mailing at the beginning of October.  If you're not receiving my snail mail support letter and would like to, send me an email with your address and we'll get that out to you.

- Speaking of email, I have a new work email address, leishao@lahash.org (let the spam begin).  Note especially that last part: lahash.org instead of lahash.net.  We have a new website for Lahash, and it's spectacular.  You should definitely check it out.  Please note that this new address is only for work related stuff, so please don't add it to personal updates, which I love, or random email forwards.  For that use my old leishlin(at)gmail.

 - I'm supposed to be taking more photos, but I am just not in the habit, so I forget that I even have a camera.  Two note-worthy things I saw on my bus ride back from Dodoma which I would have taken photos of if they weren't flying by in the window:  an old man building a boat in front of his house using only handtools (that's how we know we live by the lake!  well, that and the thunderstorms) and a commercial gravel pit.  I know that sounds insane, there's nothing interesting about a gravel pit, except that most of the gravel in East Africa seems to be made by hand, by people with small hammers sitting next to a pile of rock.  Seeing a huge gravel pit with machinery surprised me a lot, until I saw what was built next door: a very impressive compound of houses, each with an individual air conditioner, with a Chinese flag flying over the whole thing.  It seems there is a road construction project going on nearby, hence the Chinese expat engineers with the AC and the commercial grade gravel.

- Finally, a pregnancy update.  I'm in week 19, so about halfway through.  I'm starting to show a bit, and all the nasty first trimester symptoms are long gone.  The only major symptom I'm struggling with is hormone swings...I think Fred preferred the nausea.  I'm trying to be very conscientious about my moods and conduct, but sometimes I strike up a "conversation," thinking I'm completely balanced emotionally, only to burst into tears halfway through, making Fred extremely nervous.  In saner moments we're having more conversations about cross-cultural parenting, and the aspects of each of our cultures that we want to instill in our children, regardless of where we live.  It's complicated, but one of the most valuable parts of our marriage carries over into parenting: nothing is assumed.  We can't assume that we will agree on anything, so we have to think about everything, from the languages we'll speak to our kids to the attitude toward leadership we want them to develop.  (Fred and I are both over-thinkers...can you tell?)  In a few weeks we'll go up to Nairobi to check out a few hospitals and make a birth plan.  Right before we came back to Tanzania, we were introduced to an American family who were on their way to Nairobi to work at an international school.  The wife is training as a midwife, and she's helping me do research and think through all the plans for the birth.  While in Nairobi we're hoping to get an ultrasound and buy some baby clothes.

Well, after all those snippets, I hope you feel loved!  I'll try to be more consistent in these updates, and my goal, which I'll publicly state here for accountability, is to have at least one or two photos for you next time!  If you have any requests for something you want to see, whether it's our new dining room table or my increasing midsection, leave it in the comments and I'll do my best.

My Housegirl

I finally got a housegirl!  We've been kind of half looking for someone to help me with housework.  It's very commonly done here when the woman of the house has a job, like me.  I've been functioning okay...not great...at multi-tasking, but my housekeeping would not be up to typical standards of most African mamas.

I might tempted to feel badly about this.  After all, the banner example for a Godly wife is the Proverbs 31 woman, who took care of her home and her family, did business and made fancy clothes for her kids.  Her husband and kids respected her.  I heard a sermon from Pastor Mark Driscoll on this topic one time in which he pointed out that she had a lot of help to achieve all this.  He was talking to American women, so he pointed out the dishwasher, oven, washing machine, etc. that help them take care of all this business.  He wasn't saying that it's cake for American women, just that the Proverbs 31 woman wasn't perfect and didn't do it all on her own.

I have a slightly less help from appliances than my working-wife American counterparts.  I've been asked to take more photos, and I have my camera, the cable for it, power and a fair internet connection, so here are photos of (in clockwise order):  my pantry, my dishwasher, my garbage can, my dish cupboard and my stove.  It's super glamorous, so don't be too blown away.  The garbage can is the size of the kind someone might keep under their office desk.  It serves the entire house, but we only have to empty it every four or five days.  That's good, since all garbage here is burned in a pit behind the house.  Most of ours is organic, aside from the occasional bleach bottle.

Of course, clothes are also a big thing.  We had been having a teenage boy who lives with our bishop wash our clothes every Saturday for about $2.  Then Fred's favorite t-shirt went missing, only to be found a few weeks later being used a mop at the bishop's house because no one knew whose it was.  Fred saved it in time, and it's still in good condition, but that was the last straw.  I was about to have to take over all the clothes washing, where previously I had only been doing our underwear and some emergency items that couldn't wait for Saturday.  This is my washing machine and you can kind of see the dryer in the background by the goat.

Now, as of Friday morning, I have a new dishwasher, washing machine and general cleaning agent.  Her name is Stella.  Her first day she got right to work, doing all the things I hate: washing the floors and the pots and the rugs and the curtains.  This all took her about four hours, with a tea break.  It would have taken me at least a day, maybe two.  Today she came back for her regular shift of 8am to 1pm, but there's no water today, and hasn't been all week.  Nearly all our buckets are empty, so she folded the clothes she washed yesterday, swept and mopped the kitchen and living room again, did the dishes, then I put a movie on for her while I work, and she promptly fell asleep.

Actually, she's great.  She speaks Swahili, and is really patient communicating with me.  If she gets that I'm not understanding her question, she's show me what she wants by miming.  She works hard (when there's work to do), and is quiet and stays out of my way.  Really, I could ask for nothing better.  Right now she lives with a family nearby, but eventually she might come live with us, especially when it gets closer to the baby coming.  She's excited about the baby, and totally okay with washing dirty nappies (diapers).  All this for $25 per month!  We'll start paying her more as time goes by and she sticks with us.  We might also start giving her a chance to learn tailoring or some other trade, so that if/when she leaves us one day, she'll be better educated and trained than when she joined us.

Anyway, that's where we're at now.  I'm excited to not have to wash dishes and she's happy to have an easy job where she can take naps and watch movies.  Plus, you got the emotional rollercoaster of feeling sorry for me when you saw pictures of my kitchen, then of feeling jealous of me because I have an awesome house-girl.  It's a win-win-win!

Sleepover Week!

Last week Fred had to travel to Nairobi for a few days.  It was a quick trip and we didn’t want to pay $50 for a Kenyan entrance visa for me, so I stayed home…alone…or not really.  Fred was a little nervous about leaving me home alone, so we invited our bishop’s two granddaughters to come stay with me.  Eva is 13 and Felista is about 9, and they love washing dishes.  Win!

Fred left on Sunday afternoon and the girls arrived shortly thereafter.  We had a good time, cooking special food and watching Toy Story 3 three times in three days.  Really, they were excellent house guests, and the only inconvenience of having them around was getting up at 5:45am to wake them up for school.  One evening when we didn’t have power, they used the dominoes to create a little home with designated dominoes representing people.  Eva told Felista a story using the dominoes, which seemed to be about the girls living with Fred and me permanently.  They love Fred, who lived in their home for several months, and, according to the many drawings they gave me signifying such, they love me too, probably because I made them hot chocolate and rice pudding.

Fred arrived home on Wednesday morning, and we expected the girls to go home after they returned from school…except they didn’t.  In fact, they brought their brother, Johnson, over to spend the afternoon.  As the afternoon passed to evening and they still made no signs of leaving, I scrambled to figure out what to feed them, since I had planned a meal for two.  That night, for the first time, Felista wet the bed, and shamefacedly confessed to Fred the next morning.  They packed their things and went home after school.  A few hours later, they were back, with their brother.  The next day was a big graduation ceremony at the nursing school (which is part of the diocese), and so many relatives and guests had come that the kids’ beds were occupied by visitors, so they came back to us. 

I could understand the predicament, and they would surely be better off sleeping in our spare beds than on the floor at their house.  Another morning up at 5:45am to wake them for school, then Fred and I spent most of the day at the graduation ceremony, which is a lot of speeches and choirs and really, really slow processionals.  We had decided to treat ourselves to a nice (for Shirati) dinner out that night, and I was looking forward to an actual date and some quiet time alone with my husband.  Alas, the kids showed up again right before we left for dinner, expecting to be fed and housed yet again.  We told them to go home for dinner, then return for sleep, and we went out.  (By the way, I should mention that their home is about 100 yards away from ours.)  We got home rather late, and found the kids all in bed, but Felista wasn’t sleeping because Eva was sick and Johnson had refused to take Felista home for dinner so she hadn’t eaten.  We scraped some food together for her, but eating and drinking right before bed was not her friend…again…and there was another nighttime accident which she didn’t admit to this time.

On Saturday Fred had to travel to a nearby town for about eight hours, and he assured me that the kids would head home as soon as they woke up.  They didn’t.  We fed them breakfast, then Fred left, and the kids spent the entire day just hanging around.  It was raining and no power, so I read a book and they took naps and otherwise amused themselves.  Their uncle, a university student, even braved the rain to come over to see what was going on, and ended up napping on our couch as well!  Eventually the rain stopped and the power came back on, so Johnson popped in a movie and they settled in for the duration.

Now, by this time, you may be wondering why I didn’t just send them home.  The main reason is that it is just not done in Africa.  Hospitality is so important that you never send a guest away, even if that guest is eating you out of house and home.  A good guest will finish their visit and leave at the appropriate time…these kids didn’t have a sense of that appropriate time.

Their uncle returned for them (“praise God!” thought I), and as they went the uncle was sure to say “They’ll be back in a little while.  Their grandfather just wants to see them for a bit.”  “Oh no, no, no, no…that’s not necessary,” protested I.  “Oh no, it’s okay.  They like it here,” returned the uncle.  “No, really, they should just stay home.  I need to…do…some…stuff,” I lamely finished.  The uncle just returned a confused, slightly offended look (maybe he’d been planning to come back and finish the movie with the kids) and left.  I breathed a sigh of relief, put in my own movie to watch, and waited for Fred...who returned with bad news.  He had to go back to Nairobi.

Yesterday, Sunday, he left for Nairobi again.  He asked if I wanted the kids, to which I replied an adamant “NO”, then tried to backpedal to legitimate reasons of establishing independence, getting ready for Innocent to come, etc, then I finally just confessed that I was tired of them!  He laughed and agreed, and explained to the bishop that he was traveling again, but that I would be fine without any house guests.  At least that’s what he said he told the bishop.  I don’t know what got lost in translation or where, but about three hours after Fred left, I went to the door to find all three kids with their backpacks on, ready to stay another week!  In desperation, I forgot all polite Swahili and just bluntly told them that I was staying alone and they should go home.  Looking confused and slightly offended, they turned and went home.

The argument could be made that I should have the kids around as much as possible to prepare for impending motherhood, but I would argue that there is a huge difference between having one’s own baby who grows into childhood with the boundaries and systems (and language) of his or her mother and having three visitors who are difficult to dislodge once established.  Plus, can’t I have these last few months to indulge the selfish whims, like sleeping in past 5:45am and watching whatever movie I want to, that will soon be a distant memory?  That's what I've been telling myself, anyway. 

Celebrations

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the way we experience good news in our digital culture.  The fact that I live so far from so many of my friends and family means that I experience the vast majority of news, both good and bad, online while I’m sitting at my computer alone.  I imagine most of you reading this blog have similar experiences. 

Several weeks ago my sister had a baby, and my mom sent me an email to let me know.  It was exciting, of course, but I had no outlet for my excitement until Fred came home from work.  In contrast, when I randomly called my parents last week, I got to hear on the phone from both my parents that my sister-in-law had had an emergency C-section three weeks early because of her high blood pressure.  It was much more fun to share that moment with my parents on the phone and with Fred in the room, then a few minutes later talking to Lyndsey on the phone.

Now Fred and I have our own news to celebrate, and want to do it right.  I’ve thought long and hard about how to tell people back in the States our news, and I’ve sent emails to family members and a couple of groups of friends, asking them to tell others so that no one is alone to celebrate our good news.  However, that doesn’t cover many, many people who love Fred and I and would like to celebrate our joy, hence this blog post.  God has blessed Fred and me with a baby due in February! 

If time and distance were no object, I’d love to have dinners and coffees herbal teas with all of you to rejoice together.  Since that’s not possible, I’m asking you to celebrate with one another!  Please call someone, someone who knows me or even who doesn’t, and have a little celebration on my behalf.  Invite someone over for dinner, pop open a bottle of wine, and thank God for his blessing in our lives.  I’ve been listening to the soundtrack for the musical “Fiddler on the Roof” (because I’m that cool), and I love the part of the song “L’Chaim” where they sing “God would like us to be joyful even when our hearts lie panting on the floor.  How much more should we be joyful when there’s really something to be joyful for?”

So be joyful with us and for us.  Celebrate in some small or large way the blessings God heaps upon each of us every day!



P.S.  I have my own small, personal celebration: I got a toaster!  Actually, it’s not a toaster in the traditional sense, it’s a small appliance called a “sandwich maker.”  Fred’s aunt has one (the aunt who lives in an apartment in Nairobi with outlets and frequent electricity, not the aunt who lives in the village without outlets or electricity), and Fred bought me one as a surprise.  I don’t know how to describe it, except that I butter the outside of two pieces of bread and put something in the middle, like fried egg or peanut butter, then close the lid, and it makes a toast sandwich, a delicious toast sandwich…when the power happens to be on during meal or snack time.  I’m not sending out personalized notifications of this, because it’s just a toaster, and I’m perfectly capable of celebrating toast by myself, unless you want to make yourself some toast to celebrate this blessing with me as well.