A life less comfortable

We all have teachers that have had a huge impact in our lives. I have been blessed by many good teachers over the years but there is that one teacher I have often thought of over the years. She was truly a profound blessing to me and I had no way of being able to express my thanks for her beautiful impact in my young life. We moved a lot when I was young and back then there was no email or Facebook to easily keep in touch. Over the years this teacher has come to my mind from time to time though I never tried to find her. I figured it would be too hard to try to track her down, after all she was young and not yet married so her name would be changed, and well, life just has a way of getting busy. Then one day (don't you love those three little words "then one day"!?)... Then one day, I had to find my way to Rain Forest International school from my apartment. Steve was at the hangar with the truck so I called a local taxi man to arrange for a taxi ride to school so I cou...

When we drove to RFIS the other night the flood waters rushing by the roadside reminded me of pulled taffy, a rich terracotta-colored confection stretching and folding thickly over and under obstacles, pouring off banks in a ropey stream. It was beautifully mesmerising in a dangerous kind of way. The rains splashed down upon the bedlam of traffic that clotted and flowed more chaotically than usual.  People and cars competed for puddle and stream-free space. There has been a major malfunction of a power substation transformer that has left us dealing with regular power cuts all week. Our evenings have been quiet and candle-lit, flickering and hot, bereft of fan-whipped breezes. Cooking and homework in the fragile candle light is both strained and soft.  I'm at the end of week two in training for a 5k. General thoughts and feelings include the following: running with inelegant strides around a soggy soccer field, feeling misting rains cooling my ...

Steve and I have been watching a history channel show called Alone. It has captured our attention. It is a show about ten men, supposed survival experts, surviving in a terribly hostile environment on the northwest coast of Canada. They were allowed 10 survival items to fit snuggly in a backpack and were each dropped off in various places miles apart. Boundaries were given so they would not come into contact with the other survivors. The one that stays out the longest wins $500,000. It's a survival show like many others except these guys have been taught how to operate the cameras and video themselves so that they are truly alone without a single soul around. Within the first few days surprisingly several of these experts drop off. They each have a Sat phone that allowes them to punch out and call for a rescue. Right now we are engrossed in watching the four remaining men continuing to slog it out after over thirty days alone in the mouldering forest. The frost is coming... (cue om...

When life is moving too fast... literally last evening I was sitting in the back seat of our van and Joe, our oldest, was driving down I-83. I don't often sit in the back seat so my perspective was a bit different and I was wall-side of 83 feeling ridiculously anxious. The wall felt menacingly close. I had to close my eyes and remind myself not to freak out. It's not that Joe was driving too fast, he wasn't even up to speed at one point and people were passing on the right. I just feel I've hit a patch of extravagant turbulence. My world is being rocked hither and yon. I find myself comparing this summer to last summer. When we first arrived in the states last year Steve was very sick with scary high fevers that were eventually diagnosed as viral encephalitis and when he recovered he was diagnosed with malaria and before being completely recovered from that he had a gall bladder attack. This happened while we were mostly homeless and trying to get a couple of our kids...

The night sky trembled with distant light. The summer air thick and warm like crushed velvet enveloped us. The clouds on the horizon flashed and fluttered with white lightning. While in deep contrast the panorama of distant stars and planets shone high in the spangled sky. It felt like we were witnessing an ancient argument, an angry clash of darkness and light, of obscurity and clarity. That beautiful moment occurred during our "trip-cation" to Texas. We were with our dear friends, Aaron and Melissa Bequette, standing on their back deck in East Texas. We called the journey a "trip-cation" because it was a combo of trip and vacation. Sam and Megan felt calling it a vacation alone would give the impression it was effortless and leisurely. Which it was not. Hence the mash-up. We drove from York, PA to Dallas, TX with many stops along the way there and back.  Steve mapped out our 3,000+ mile journey: Driving through a large swath of the US allowed us to watch ...

Going the Cheap Route When we first came back almost a year ago I picked up a really cheap comforter from Ollie’s.  I mean, why spend the money on a quality comforter when it’s just for a year?   We decided not to buy any sheets as there were sheets that came with our fully furnished mission house.    Steve’s mom gave us a set of nicer sheets however they are made for a full-sized bed and we have a queen-sized bed.   Though they were the wrong size I still used them and with some effort they did fit!   When changing the fitted sheet on the queen, that last corner becomes a wrestling match with the mattress.    Once finally wrestled into place the victory is short-lived as it unravels whilst in slumber, the corner slips off the edge of the mattress and curls over bunching said sheet into a tangle of wrinkles and frustration.  It’s exhausting.  Also the cheap comforter is made of slippery material that slides easily.  It often ...