Choosing to Step Out of Default

What will I choose?


Will I choose to be content when

• the daytime temperature hovers between 28 and 33 degrees Celsius and the only summer skirt I own gets caught in the door and tears and I don't know where to buy sewing supplies?
• my bedroom is also a storage space?
• the things we use daily don't have 'homes' and make a visual clutter that is oh, so distracting to the mind?
• I can't find the kinds of things I'm used to cooking with - like tomato sauce and sour cream?
• the dogs in the neighbourhood bark so incessantly that I can't sleep during the night?
• my efforts at learning Spanish are making such slow progress?

None of these things are big. None of them are life-threatening. But each do threaten to destroy my contentment and peace.  I know that none of them compare even closely to the apostle Paul's challenges when he writes in Philippians:  "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances."  (Philippians 4:11)

So I have a choice to make:  Get bogged down by inconveniences or

• be glad that I have a sister who could mail me a patch for my skirt
• thank God for all the good things we have in our home and the way He arranged for us to be in it
• be thankful for the living that happens in our home every day
• appreciate the adventure of new foods and flavours
• use awake-at-night moments (or hours) as time to talk to my Father
• remember how far my ability to communicate has come and for the fact that my mistakes are at least getting more sophisticated

Each day is filled with these choices. And they are decisions that have to be made consciously or they won't be made at all, and, sadly, the default mode is 'discontentment'.

::

(I think it's time for me to get back to regular posting of the Thousand Gifts list. It's too easy to let the habit/discipline of thankfulness slide, to forget to look through the eyes of thanks.  So, regardless of how many gifts I've listed privately in my own writing in the past months, I'm going to pick up my list on PeaceLedge carrying on from the last number recorded here.)

While living in the North I enjoyed the blessing of close friends who participated in a regular Bible study and prayer time with me.  Our weekly meetings were filled with deep conversation, vulnerability, laughter, and tears, always drawing me back to the Word, deeper into the Breather of the Word.

At times we would be more sporadic in our meeting times, five women juggling families, vocations, ministry. But always we would come back together, realizing the life-giving quality of spiritual fellowship.

Maybe I relied on them too much and not enough on the Giver of Life.

Here, in this new Southern home, I don't have that same community, that tight-knit tapestry of interwoven lives. So who do I go to when I'm in need of encouragement, a listening ear, an embrace, accountability?

I cried those questions to the One Who Answers, and His gentle, loving voice replied: "Who indeed? Am I not enough?  Am I not All-in-All?"

He is.

And so I learn to lean on Him, and not on the people-gifts He gives me. It's better this way.

*Just a couple of photos from around where we live - I've been amazed at the clouds here and wanted to share them.*

Pines and Cones

We are living in a different land now, and so much is new that sometimes it's hard to know where to start with the discovering.

So we're starting with whatever comes up whenever it comes up, and we'll see where that leads us.

When we first arrived in South America we were immediately aware of the importance of the pine cone in daily life.  First of all, pine cones were everywhere.  The most obvious ones lay on the roads and in the yards. But then we also saw bags of them for sale at the neighbourhood supermarkets and gas stations. And at the firewood sale-lots. Quickly we learned that, in a country where homes don't have central heat, fires play a key role in staying warm in winter, and pine cones themselves are the items used as kindling!

Brown Eyed Boy gathering pine cones for our family

Seeing how key they were going to be to our life here, when I saw an Outdoor Hour Challenge on pine cones on the Handbook of Nature Study blog, I thought it might be interesting to take a closer look.


I read the background information on pines and pine cones in Anna Botsford Comstock's book, Handbook of Nature Study, and gathered the family. Even My Dear Man came along on this one!  We walked three blocks to the woods that have become a shortcut for us when we go visit friends, for we knew that there we would find an abundance of pines.  I asked each person to gather one open and one closed cone as well as a bundle of needles.

Did you know that the topmost branch of a pine, the one that points straight up, is called the 'leader'? And did you know that the new branches form below the leader, in clusters of 3 or more, depending on the variety? That in itself didn't intrigue the children too much, but then I asked them to look for trees that had more than one leader, either two or three.  When a certain insect lays its eggs at the top of the tree, in a little hole it has burrowed, the developing and hatching process kills the leader branch. But to compensate, the tree establishes a new leader from the new-growing branches at the top. Usually only one steps into the role, giving a new, off-centre leader, but occasionally two (and sometimes even three) will share the role. 

After hearing that information, the children and I began seeing trees with lopsided or multiple leaders! This forest was filled with trees that gave evidence of a storied past!


The pine cones we took home, sketched in our nature journals, and then each child and I narrated about the walk and the cones.  I was very pleased with the resulting drawings, especially since it has been many weeks since we've brought out our nature journals.

Costs

She's wondering how friend-love can stretch across distance, how long she can go without connecting. Her tears are real. So is her pain.


What can I do?


We're here because of a calling, a calling we believe is her calling, too. But there are costs involved in answering a calling. When those costs are mine, it's one thing. When the costs are borne by My Girl, it's another.


I turn her to the only true and lasting Comfort that she has. And I leave her with a Book and a pen. And I pray.

Preparing for Christmas without Sensory Cues

Christmas comes where there is no snow. Truly. 


I have to wrap my mind around that and work to begin preparing for Christ's arrival. 


That's what Advent is for, and here I'm finding that observing Advent is ever so much more personally necessary than it was in North America. Somehow the snow, dark evenings, cozy indoor times wearing sweaters, and snow gear all through the front hall became huge cues for me that Christmas was on its way. 


Not so here. There is no snow. The sun is still up at 9pm. Shorts and t-shirts are what we're wearing. And all the windows get opened once the air cools off in the evening (at least the ones with screens). None of those sensory cues are here for me to prepare my heart for Christmas. 


So we've started our annual Advent readings a couple of days late, but with much more longing than usual. Something has to remind us that we're about to celebrate the greatest gift of love!

What's in a Name?

For years I've wanted to be able to name our home. But it just isn't something that's commonly done in Canada. So, even if I did name it, the likelihood of the name ever coming into common use was pretty slim.

Then I moved to Uruguay.

People in Uruguay name their houses! Practically every home you see has the house name posted on the gate or on the lawn. In fact, the houses don't have numbers in most neighbourhoods of our city, just names. So when you get an address it sounds something like:

     Bay Street

     between Brunswick and Douro

     House: Talsma

     City

     Postal Code

(makes me a bit curious about mail delivery, but it seems to work)

The home we have rented already had a name: Yuchan. Yuchan is a variety of tree here that is growing in the front yard. But there was no sign, and we thought this might be my chance to name a house. 

Before long we had chosen a name.

When my Dear Man and our colleague went to work out the final rental agreement with the owner and the lawyer, they asked if we could choose our own name. The owner balked.

"You can't change a house's name! It's bad luck! It would be like changing the name of a ship or boat; it just isn't done!"

We thought that was the end of it, and I resigned myself to living in a place called "Yuchan".

And I tried not to be too disappointed.

Later that same day the two men met again with the owner about something else, and he brought up the naming question. "You go ahead and give it a name if you'd like," he said. "In all the years we've lived there we never even made a sign for it. It will be fine."

So, here we are, in a home we love, quirks and all, AND I was allowed to give it a name!

A couple of days later we realized that we needed to work fast: the telephone company was sending their workers to install our phone line and the address we'd given included the new name.

One of the teen-aged boys on our team got out his sautering iron and burned the name into a leftover piece of lumber that was in their yard. On our next trip to our house we set up the new house sign.

It is my prayer that everyone who enters our door will find refuge: a place of sanctuary and peace, welcome and safety:

Bienvenido a El Refugio

Welcome to The Refuge

50(5x2 + 6) + 5x17 + 5x5 = stress

The morning began the night before.


I stood in the living room, tears in my eyes, and sobbed to my Dear Man "It's not going to work!"


The reply came with a gentle hug. "You go to sleep. And imagine that while you're sleeping the packing elves will be hard at work."


So I did go to sleep, lying beside a tearful daughter, praying silent prayers of peace and comfort for a girl who is aching.


Wakefulness came early, just as sleep came late. The autumn sun wasn't yet risen when I returned to the living room.


Sure enough, the packing elves had been busy through the night. There were more bins sitting ready to go on the airplane with us. Unfortunately, the little piles of personal belongings seemed to be just as plentiful as they were the night before. And so the tears returned.


Another trip to the hardware store to purchase two more bins.


Another period of rearranging the binned items to keep the weights below the magical 50 pounds.


Loved Ones came to give last minute assistance and to give good-bye hugs; their help was like gold.


And by the time our scheduled departure came we were ready with our 10 allotted bags (2 each at 50 pounds) plus 6 extras (50 pounds each) and carry-ons (one carry-on of 17 pounds plus one personal item each - we quickly learned not to call those 'purses' for the sakes of our little boys!).


Let the travelling begin!