Winter

Would you believe it if I said it is freezing here? No, probably not. Most people (us included) are surprised by how cold it actually gets in Botswana. Of course, it's not so much how cold it gets as it is how the cold affects everything.

Imagine a house with concrete floor right on top of the foundation which is level with the ground. This house is all tile floors, all concrete walls, all windows thin and rattling in the breeze, all with no insulation to speak of. This house (the style of all houses/buildings here) is like a little icebox... it catches the coolness and traps it. Nights get down to freezing - no cloud cover 'desert effect' brings really, really cool nights. The house tempers to the cold around it, and traps that cold, no matter how warm it may get during the day. The walls and especially the floors are always cold to the touch.

It's a seeping sort of cold. We layer on clothes - sweaters and jackets over shirts, socks over other socks. Scarves, gloves, and hats, even in the house! All the layering has a purpose, because if you go out during the day and end up walking in the sun, you will probably start to overheat and want to shed a few layers. Some days it still gets up above 80 when in the sun, so you can imagine how hard it is to decide what to wear in the morning that will last you all day!

We have friends from Alaska staying with us, and even they think it is cold! Mornings I wake to see my own breath in the air, and it is so hard to roll out of the little cocoon I've made for myself to go shower in the frigid bathroom.

I just keep reminding myself of how in a few short months (maybe even weeks?) I will look back on this time with great fondness. As I sweat great drops of perspiration, I'll remember these cool mornings and wish for them to come again. :)

Thinking tonight about some facts... it's easy to get too caught up in feelings. The truth is summed up in a simple question: "DID GOD LIE?" If He has promised something in His Word, who am I to doubt what He has said?

God has never changed. Just as He was in days gone by, so He is today. I can look back and read about those in the Bible who knew God and loved Him and served Him, and I know that He is just the same today. I can see His character played out in Scripture; I can read His promises to me.

THAT is the truth. Those are the things I can bank on; those are the things I can trust.

Catch-up

When I don't write, I feel like I miss so much of life. Writing about what has happened helps me process, learn, remember, and of course, stay in touch. Failing to write makes me feel like I'm forgetting and not learning all I could from life, and of course, failing to stay in touch as I ought. :)

My short trip home was immediately followed by some crazy busy days. Here's a basic run-down of what I remember.

Days spent in immigration offices, hunting down paperwork, trying to pull together papers that I later found out I really didn't need, paying more fees and spending a lot of time in queue. Long story short... still waiting to hear about this newly-submitted application. Until a decision is reached, I get two-week extensions (which means standing in queue every two weeks to check and extend).

Preparing for another missions module group, this one consisting of a married couple, two girls, and one guy. (You can check out their blogs here, here, and here.) There were others scheduled to come who had to drop out, but it's still a pretty full house. We also hosted two families passing through (well, coming to this part of the world isn't usually passing through) - one overnight, and one for a week. Friends old and new continue to encourage us and we love making people comfortable, feeding them good food and showing them our Botswana. Plus, it's always fun to play musical rooms (or beds).

Other highlights that stick out of the rather blurry past month include a long, labored-over project coming almost to a close, a total lunar eclipse, temperatures dropping and bringing us all much pleasure, paring down my email inbox to empty (and keeping it that way for a full 24 hours!), as well as countless Bible studies. Recipe highlights include another run at poptart making (we are getting rather good at that, I must say), homeade Cheezits, and a wonderful, garlicy, fettuccine alfredo. The only 'problem' with enjoying good food and learning how to make these things when you can't just buy them is that when I am once again able to buy them, I will probably like the homeade version better. I'm creating a monster, I tell you.

My deepest apologies for being so silent on this side of things. I don't intend to neglect writing; it just happens sometimes. Does that catch you all up? More interesting things to come later... I hope!

Last night, we showed a film in the village. The air was clean and pure, and I sat and watched the sun set and the moon rise beyond the thorn tree. Such beautiful colors filled the sky and you could see the whole big moon, though only a tiny sliver was illuminated. Once dark, people came by the droves and as they watched the film of Jesus’ life and death, they awed and gasped in shock and wonder. I stood in the back and tears ran down my face as I remember everything He has done for me. In that moment, I affirmed again that I want to give everything I have for Him. Everything else is so worthless – so without meaning. He gave so much for me.

After the video, as the crowd dispersed, I stared up into the deep midnight blue sky. A million stars spanned the horizon; staring straight up made me dizzy. Such a spectacular scene and one that I never tire of seeing. The cool night air, the sounds of Africa around me; at that moment, I felt so happy and content with my world.

There are so many unknowns about my future. Never have I felt the uncertainty so much. Always, I have had the anchor of going home, and now no more. Whether to stay or to go… such questions can only be answered in His time. And, as I well know, He is never early and never late – but always right on time.

*So* after two weeks of silence immediately following that 'cryptic' previous post, I guess I should slow down a minute to explain what happened. That last post was scheduled to go up while I was in transit, headed home to PA to surprise a friend and spend two weeks in this part of the world.

Surprising people is so much fun, and since very few knew I was coming, I did surprise a lot of people. These past two weeks have been so much fun and my head is just spinning with it all. Of course, I had a list of things to accomplish while I was here and a long shopping list of things to bring back with me. It's been fun to shop for my family and now comes the tricky part of fitting it all in my bags within the weight limit. :)

My days have been packed spending time with friends and reconnecting with our church. I'm staying at my brother's house, so of course enjoying all that extra time with nieces and nephews. With just a couple days left and still lots left to do, I'm looking forward to things slowing down when I get home to Botswana. But do things ever slow down for us? I have a feeling I'm going to hit the ground running. :)

lazy, dizzy day

Sunbeam-laden breeze moves white on window to bring me the thick heady scent of a hot Botswanan afternoon. The fan above my head turns lazily, rotation after rotation. I track the blades with my eyes, squeezing them shut when I get too dizzy. Parts of my room are fluttering in all this breeze – the mosquito net, hanging limp above my bed, my gray-blue silk housecoat with lace-trimmed edges, a little gathering of guinea fowl feathers, presented in a discarded jar.

Outside my window, birds flutter too. They hop from branch to branch in the shade, occasionally dipping down to sip a drink from the dog’s water bowl, or to snatch a bug that exposed itself too much.

It’s a lazy day, and were it not for the list of things to do as long as my arm, I would just as soon lay here, making myself dizzy under the ceiling fan. 

You know those colds that make your head feel like your brains are made off cotton, like your nose has grown twice the size and as red as Rudolph's, like there is a ringing bell between your ears? Ugh...

What makes it worse is that I am to be writing a script for an evangelistic film we are putting together. I'm having trouble stringing more than two rational sentences together at a time.

Others are saying I will feel better any day now, yet I keep thinking about all that I'm supposed to be doing and all that needs to be ready for next week. Special services tomorrow, visitors for lunch, paperwork to get together, another long trip to Gabs for immigration, visits to be made and Bible studies to grade... and that pesky script which should have been done days ago.

Maybe all the worrying about these things is just making me worse. Maybe I'll drink a cup of tea, take my handful of vitamins, and just go to bed. Now that sounds like a worthy goal...

My Strongest Sense

My fingertips smell like oranges, which of course reminds me of Christmas. I can’t really explain why exactly, except that we almost always got a box of clementines for Christmas every year, which we would eat like candy. And since they weren’t actually candy, Mom let us eat as many as we wanted and would usually go buy us another box or two when we all remembered how much we loved them.

So now my fingertips smell like oranges and my memory fills in the rest of the scent of Christmas – fresh pine needles stuck in our old brown carpet, fresh-baked yeast rolls and a roasting turkey.

I can still feel the scratch of my old fleecy pajamas (scratchy fleece… remember that? Way back before fleece became so cloudlike and soft?) and if I close my eyes, I can picture my 11-year old self with pink-rimmed glasses and bangs hanging in my eyes, and straight blond hair down to my waist. Sleeping in my newly redecorated ‘grown up’ room, my bed firmly anchored in the center of the room where I could slyly watch every person who came up and down the stairs or in and out of the bathroom. Down at the bottom of the stairs burned our wood stove and the rhythmic hum of the fan blowing the heat into the rest of the house lulled me to sleep on many a winter night. Outside, I would tiptoe through the snow right before bed, not wanting to break the spell of the quiet. Inside, all three brothers laughed and joked and we were only a family of six.

Those days seem so far away in so many ways, and yet all it takes is the whiff of orange on my fingertips and I am instantly there.

Of Course

For weeks, I've had some herbs that I've been tending planted in pots. There was cilantro, parsley, lavender, rosemary, and mint. These were lined up on the stoop, and although they suffered a bit when I went to South Africa, they revived within a couple days with the help of some fresh water.

Thinking the dog was used to them enough (she apparently has a vendetta against plants), we prepared a bed to plant them. Mom transferred them the other evening, adding a dill and thyme that I bought. We wanted these things to spread out and fill in, so that we could pick them whenever needed.

Wouldn't you know, that very night, the dog DESTROYED that bed. Dug up the whole bed, chewed the lavender and rosemary back to their roots, and I still haven't found the dill.

Of course.

What I'm Reading

Two books I recently enjoyed as a free download from Amazon! Even if you don't have a Kindle, you can read these books on your computer if you download the free Kindle app. Check them out!


Letters of a Woman Homesteader


From a publisher's note:
"The writer of the following letters is a young woman who lost her husband in a railroad accident and went to Denver to seek support for herself and her two-year-old daughter, Jerrine. Turning her hand to the nearest work, she went out by the day to work as a housecleaner and laundress. Later, seeking to better herself, she accepted employment as a housekeeper for a well-to-do Scottish cattleman, Mr. Stewart, who had taken up a quarter-section in Wyoming. The letters, written through several years to a former employer in Denver, tell of her new life in the new country. They are genuine letters, and are printed as written, except for occasional omissions and alterations of names." 


Elinore Pruitt Stewart was a good writer, and I loved her descriptions of homesteading life in Wyoming and stories of the interesting people that she met. 




Love Among the Chickens


I was recently introduced to the writings of P.G. Wodehouse from a blog recommendation. I enjoyed his Jeeves books, but Love Among the Chickens is my favorite of his works that I have read thus far. 


Jerry is an author who finds himself in a slump and needs to get away from big city life. Through the hair-brained scheme of a friend, he finds himself helping to run a chicken farm in the country, falling in love with a beautiful girl, and generally causing quite a stir in the neighborhood. I laughed out loud in many places in this book!