10 Snippets of Life Recently

1. Me, umbrellas, wind & rain do NOT go well together. My umbrella (which I reluctantly purchased a few weeks ago in anticipation of the winter rain here) had a fight with the wind this week, and lost. It joined the massive graveyard of broken umbrellas that cover the streets on a rainy day here.
2. Quiet rainy mornings have been my place of solitude this week. Actually, they have been for my entire time overseas. Quite ironic for someone who is generally not a morning person. The Father has woken me sometimes a couple of hours before my roomates and it has been such a blessing - not because I don't love being with them (I do!) but because it has been wonderful to sit in silence, drink my hot tea, think, pray, journal, read the Word...
3. I finished reading John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress this week! I am ashamed to admit that I have never previously read this book, but now I have and I am so glad! It was a huge encouragement to me to read of the believer's journey through life - the battles, victories, sorrows, joys, lessons learned, etc.
4. As I finished one book, I started reading another: Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life by Donald Whitney. This has sat on my shelf at home for literally a couple of years now and I have finally resolved myself to read it. The first couple of chapters I have read left me feeling pretty raw. It's going to be a growing process - a good one. One that I trust will leave me more conformed to the image of my Father.
5. Banana bread, banana cake, banana muffins, etc. have become a staple in our house. We have blown through probably a couple bags of flour, but can't help buying the cheap bananas.
6. Sarah & I enjoy spending a couple of hours each week at a local coffee shop (usually Starbucks - not a lot of choices here) reading and talking and journaling. I always enjoy the combination of writing, talking, people-watching and sharing our ups & downs. This week, we sat in a particular Starbucks that was unusually overwhelmed with English speakers - I hardly knew what to do with myself. I couldn't help but eavesdrop in on all their conversations (mostly because I could understand EVERYTHING they were saying)! I didn't even have to think at all in listening! Is this what America will be like in a few weeks?
7. We have mold growing on our walls. Not cool.
8. If there were one thing I could have made room to bring with me it definitely would have been my rain boots. I am so sad they are at home in America.
9. We celebrated my roomate, Vonda's, birthday on Friday! We started the day with a lazy morning and roomate breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes. Later, we went to a coffee shop and spent some time with some of our American friends. So thankful for a day without rain today!
10. I have decided that for the month of November I am going to post a picture for every day of the month. I hope this will give a good depiction of daily life here.

Invest Yourself

One of my dear friends shared this quote with me several months ago and I found it today when I was going through my journal. I was reminded of the importance of relationships & the impact that they can have on a person. Time is not always indicative of the impact that you can leave on a person.

"I am discovering in life that not every day is going to be the best day of my life, but there is certainly beauty in each day that can be discovered or simply overlooked. The overlooked details usually come when we have our eyes opened, but our hearts are jammed shut with the busyness of life. I can disengage with people and in the process miss the greatest gift...relationships. These relationships exist in different periods and yet they are priceless. Some relationships will extend over a lifetime while others will extend over 20 seconds. The beauty doesn't always equate to the length of time, but rather the time given to engage, honor and love. My encouragement to you and me is to listen first, speak after and allow anger to straggle behind so far that it will eventually fall off."

Your Light is For the Dark

We do not have to wait for the perfect time and place to be a light. The right place is wherever we happen to be. Do not fear the results of holding up your light. Fear what will happen to your nation if you do not. Neither be content to shine your light only in a room full of lights. Your light has been created for darkness.

Tom White (Voice of the Martyrs)

Light

For it is You who LIGHT my lamp; the Lord my God LIGHTENS my darkness.  Psalm 18:28 

The Lord is my LIGHT and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?  Psalm 27:1 

For with You is the fountain of life; in Your LIGHT do we see LIGHT.  Psalm 36:9 

LIGHT dawns in the darkness for the upright; He is gracious, merciful & righteous. Psalm 112:4 

The unfolding of Your Word gives LIGHT; it imparts understanding to the simple.  Psalm 119:130 

The sun shall be no more your LIGHT by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give you LIGHT; but the Lord will be your everlasting LIGHT, and your God will be your glory. Your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord will be your everlasting LIGHT, and your days of mourning shall be ended. Isaiah 60:19-20 

Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; why I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a LIGHT to me.  Micah 7:8

Sometimes finding LIGHT is really hard.  Of the millions of people that live in my backyard here, there is so much darkness.  It is overwhelming.  The Father has burned in me a passion for this country and this great city.  I have fallen in love with the people here and I will never forget their faces.  I want to tell them of the hope that I have.  I want it to be contagious. I want them to recognize what pure and radiant LIGHT is so that they may have a hunger to pursue it.  I want them to be filled with everlasting joy!

There are dozens upon dozens of references in the Word to LIGHT and as I read through them, I am overwhelmed with the reminder that the LIGHT that is spoken of in the Word is a symbol of life.  Each life that burns brightly is a life that has been touched by the radiant and glorious LIGHT of the Father.  My desire is that this city would be consumed with LIGHT and burn brightly for all the world to see!  I want LIGHT to consume this place - to drive out darkness - and that the LIGHT would flow forth from here into all the world.  I would have no greater joy than seeing brothers and sisters from here worshipping around the throne one day!

I am thankful for the LIGHT that I have been blessed to encounter.  It blesses my heart immensely to meet nationals who have chosen to follow LIGHT and run from darkness!

You are the LIGHT of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lamp stand, and it gives LIGHT to all who are in the house. Let your LIGHT shine before me in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.  Matthew 5:14-16

Life Discoveries

• I decided I really like hot tea.  Due to the absence of liquid CoffeeMate creamer here in this part of the world, I have been forced to expand my horizons beyond French Vanilla and Caramel Macchiato to discover alternative hot drinks to enjoy on chilly fall mornings…I like to try new things so this is probably good for me (especially since hot tea offers a lot more nutrional value than the artificial flavor we pour into coffee).  Since caffeine seems to have no effect on me, my primary motive in finding an alternate drink is my extreme love for holding a mug full of hot, steamy goodness in my hands.  It’s so comforting and relaxing.  I still love coffee though and am a sucker for a big cup of piping hot coffee with some delicious creamy goodness added to enhance the flavor…I will be anticipating many good cups when I come back to America!
• I love to read.  I am so spoiled, especially in my slow mornings, to lay on the couch and read.  I learn so much about life by reading and seeing the world through a different perspective.  I am encouraged and challenged as I read.  I haven’t always had a love to read, but for some reason over the past few months, I have decided to challenge myself to keep learning through reading on my own.  I like to learn, so this is good.
• I love grocery shopping. I used to love all kinds of shopping, but I have recently realized that unless I have a list and know what I am going to shop for, I get easily irritated by aimlessly wandering through stores.  Grocery shopping is my favorite.  It is task-oriented, thanks to my lists I love to create, and it presents endless opportunities for imagination of looking at all the different foods and thinking of combinations and new things to create with all that is available.  One of my favorite shopping excursions here is to the local open-air market where we can buy nearly any kind of produce we want…cheap!  It always makes my heart happy to go and pick through tomatoes, apples, etc…searching for the perfect ones.
• I love cooking.  I believe that my creative side comes out in the kitchen rather than through paintbrushes on a canvas.  This fall, I have re-discovered, or maybe only just discovered since my cooking abilities previously consisted of: spaghetti, lasagna, rice and a couple of other staples.  This is the first season in my life where I have had to learn to create a menu and plan meals for the week…through being challenged to do this, I have discovered that there is more variety in food than ramen noodles, rice, spaghetti and bananas with peanut butter! Shocking, I know! This week, I successfully made homeade (since everything here has to be made from scratch) cornbread to go with chili.  I even found cornmeal at the pazzar…finding some ingredients really is quite a chore!  I am excited about the new recipes that I have collected this fall and can’t wait to use when I get home and in my own home some day.
• Worshipping in another language is awesome!  This weekend, I had the privilege of joining a local body of national believers for their weekly service.  It blessed my heart tremendously!  While I didn’t understand anything from the message (except that at some point the speaker was talking about “fruit”…I am assuming fruit from the life of a believer haha), it encouraged me to look around the room and see nationals listening intently and eager to learn what was being taught.  Many of the songs that we sang I knew in English…but singing them in Turkish was way cooler!  Even to sing in two different languages, but to the same God is such a blessing and honor!
• Journaling is my saving grace in another culture.  What would I do without my journal?  I write about everything there.  I just finished one journal this week and my excitement to start a brand new one with crisp pages was out of control…ok maybe i’m exaggerating a bit, but i was super excited!  It is so cool to look back over the last couple of years that are encompassed in my previous journal and see where I have been…literally and figuratively.  As I am starting my new journal, I wonder where life will take me before I close the pages to it.  I am so excited!  I hope that my children can read my journals some day and learn about me…my joys and my hurts…the thoughts and emotions that I experienced that were sometimes too raw to share with my friends.  It’s where I have really learned to cultivate a personal realtionship with my Heavenly Father through journaling prayers.  So often when we are out during the day, something will happen and Sarah and I will look at each other and say “i have to journal about that tonight!”  There have been many nights that I have come home exhausted, but forced myself to stay up late and journal and process through everything that happened that day…it always leaves me encouraged and at peace to move on.  If you don’t journal or have a way to process your thoughts on paper…I would greatly exhort you to begin now! You won’t regret it!
• I love watching sunrises over the city.  I have had the privilege of watching sunrises in so many different places in my life: mountains of Colorado, water in Maryland, big hills in Virginia, flying in an airplane, the airport in London, etc. And now, looking out over a great city jam-packed with millions of people.  I have an incredible view from my apartment and I have come to adore mornings here.  If you know anything about me, then you know that especially over the past couple of years being in school I have become notorious for staying up way too late and therefore been forced to sleep past the sunrise to get a decent amount of sleep.  So, the fact that I am consistently up to see the sunrise here is a miracle.  I love it!  I love to sit and watch the city start…and journal about it! :)
• I walk fast.  For some reason, living in a large city, I have developed this incessant need to walk fast…everywhere!  I have always moved fast…my mom has often commented about my brothers and I that we have two speeds: “go and sleep!”  We are notorious for our inability to sit still for very long…Come on…life is short and there are places to go and people to see.  I need to make every minute count.
• Laughing.  This may be one of my favorite words in the English vocabulary and it is certainly one of my favorite things to do!  I have learned over and over again this fall of the necessity to be able to laugh at myself.  It is the best medicine and free therapy.  Sarah and I laugh so much together…on the bus, laying in bed at night, at the dumb things we say, and almost certainly we will pick the most inopportune times to burst into laughter!  It keeps us going though!  Learn to laugh at yourself. 

Some Things We Eat

This City Never Sleeps

7 Churches Tour

We recently just spent a week with this group from America leading them in p-walking around our city followed by a marathon 7 Churches Tour!

I Am His

I have a Maker
He formed my heart
Before even time began
My life was in His hands.

I have a Father
He calls me His own
He'll never leave me
No matter where I go

He knows my name
He knows my every thought
He sees each tear that falls
And He hears me when I call.

His name will be made great!

But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his merices never come to an end; they are NEW EVERY MORNING; great is your faithfulness.  “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.  It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. (Lamentations 3:21-26)

O Lord, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth, Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens!…When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained; What is man that You take thought of him, and the son of man that You care for him?…O Lord, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth! (Psalm 8:1, 3-4, 9)

Efes

Near Death Experience

Reason why i shouldn’t get up and out of the house early on a Saturday morning:
I am not compentent of reading and following simple instructions early in the morning.
for example, this morning when the elevator said “3 kişilik” (translated: 3 persons), logically the 4 of us would have split into 2 elevators, but instead my 3 roomates AND I all piled on and shut the door to head up to have breakfast with our friends…we didn’t go up.

As soon as we hit the button to go UP, we immediately sunk DOWN…fail.

We all had this immediate realization that we were stuck in the elevator and had no idea of what to do next!

We all said to each other “don’t panic”…as if that makes everything immediately better haha

We tried using our phones to call or text our supervisor we were going to visit…

fail…no service in that elevator hole…good to know :)

We were all a little nervous, but it was so funny…we wanted to take a picture of us all stuffed in there, but couldn’t find a camera in the tight space.

Soon, we heard the second elevator coming down and the lights to the lobby came on…after a quick sigh of relief, we all started banging on the door and yelling…it was Buddy!  We have never been so glad to hear his voice! 
His words to us: “I hear you. Please be quiet. I’m trying to find someone to get you out of there.”

He was going to find the kapaca who had the magic tool to unlock the door for us so we could step up and out into the lobby full of fresh air! 

We were so embarassed as we crawled out of the sunken elevator and had to face the kapaca and our supervisor. Although it must have been quite the site to see four “Yabancılar” (foreigners) crawling out of an elevator that smaller than our kitchen table…and all girls at that.

The 5ish minutes we were in that elevator seemed like an eternity, but the funniest thing that has happened to us…I always wondered what I would do if I found myself in that situation. Now I know…
what i learned from being stuck on the elevator:

• when it says 3 people is the limit in an elevator…they mean 3, NOT 4…i won’t ever break that rule again. ever.
• don’t panic…help will come
• breathe slowly through your nose…don’t use up all the good air
• stand still…it keeps the air cooler
• cell phone’s don’t work in elevator shafts
• i should probably learn how to say “help” in Turkish if I ever find myself in an emergency situation again

 

Life Recently

9 weeks down.
9 to go.

It is SO hard to believe the days in front of me in Centra Asia are now smaller than the ones behind. Hard to believe, and bittersweet at the same time.  Often the days go by slowly, but the weeks and months are going by quickly as i look back over them.  I don’t want to forget anything and I am trying to be more intentional to record the little things about life that I am learning in every day life here on the other side of the world…so here are some little snippets from my life recently of things that have happened to me and things that I have learned.

• I love people-watching.  I always knew this but being in a new and different culture is especially exciting.  I have decided that people-watching in airports are my absolute favorite.  I love watching reunions of people and friendships, old and new.  I have loved the hours sitting and drinking coffee in the airport this fall waiting…
• I can now say that I have washed an entire kitchen-full of dishes in an entire day…OK, so I didn’t do it single-handedly but Sarah and I have accomplished this task together! 
• I don’t really miss American food after not eating it for two months, but I really miss liquid coffee creamer…A LOT!
• Living in another culture requires that you sleep a lot…I learned very quickly that I couldn’t stay up until after midnight and expect to jump out of bed at 7am the next morning!
• I have learned to sleep in the car while traveling in Central Asia…I have never done this successfully before, but can say that I have slept quite well at times propped up in the bus or van.
• I am currently a proud possessor of peanut M&M’s from America!!  A sweet volunteer brought them to Sarah and I last week and we are planning to ration them to last for the remainder of our time here! 
• Dunkin Donuts exists in my city here…enough said…why has it taken me two months to discover this?!
• I feel so much safer now that I have discovered that my roomate brought a police baton from America to ward off the bad guys.

Rain

I have learned about dealing with the rain while living in a country that receives A LOT of rain in the fall & winter:

• Nationals get it. I do not. I was the only wet person on the metro today.
• Sperry's are not completely waterproof.
• The person who invented rainboots is a genius. Why didn't I make room for those in my suitcase?
• I still love thunderstorms. They are just better when you are outside & not in the middle of them.
• FACT: It is raining too hard when rain starts coming through your umbrella.
• I am still NOT a fan of umbrellas. Living in a country that rains a lot has not changed that about me. I don't expect that it will either.
• Banana bread is a great snack to make on a rainy day.
• Eat the banana bread with a homeade vanilla latte. You're welcome.
• I love rainy days.

Update: 8 Weeks

Dear friends,

Thank you so much for all of your support and encouragement over the past 8 weeks that I have been living in Central Asia!  I am so thankful for each one of you and could not be here without you!  My heart is so full of what the Father is doing in my life and around me through the lessons that He is teaching me - I wish I had the time to let my heart explode into words in this e-mail to share with you everything.

There are so many things that I am thankful for:

• I am thankful for my incredible support system at home (you!) that I know lifts me up and encourages me through e-mails letting me know that you are laboring in the work that the Father is doing.
• I am thankful for the change of seasons that is bringing a refreshing crisp coolness to us.  It is a wonderful relief from the suffocating heat the met me when I arrived.  I love fall and was so happy to break out my fall sweaters to wrap up in!  The change of seasons is such a beautiful reminder of the control that our Father has over everything, even the seasons.
• I am thankful for each of my senses that allow me to be aware of my surroundings to soak in everything around me, including language, smells, sounds, voices, buildings, faces, etc.  The faces especially are etched in my mind forever...
• I am thankful for this incredible city that I am living in as it reminds me of the grace that the Father has shown me in choosing to call me His own.  In a country of 72 million people and less than 5,000 believers, it is an incredible privilege to worship here and call upon the L/rd in all things.  He hears us call to Him wherever we may find ourselves on this earth...even in the darkest places.

Before I head off to bed tonight, I want to share with you a few specifics that you can be lifting up.

• Please continue to lift up the region of Central Asia that the Father would work in the hearts of many men and women here to draw them to Himself.
• We welcomed a team today from America to join us here for a little over a week.  They will be doing literature distribution and p-walking with us over the next few days.  Please lift up the team as they are in a new culture and that the Father would give us patience as we guide them throughout the city.
• We also have two new girls arriving on Friday (October 8) who will be moving into our apartment, making the total then of five girls living in our apartment.  It is definitely going to be a transition as the three of us are all currently used to living with each other and are going to adjust to two more now.  We are excited to meet our new roommates and are asking that the Father would give us unity as the space becomes a little smaller with more people.

Thank you so much!

Keep following hard after the One who gave you Life!

Pumpkin Cookies

Every fall my family makes pumpkin cookies (sometimes I think they would be better described as jack-o-lantern cookies so as not to be confused with pumpkin-flavored cookies, which they are not).  I was missing fall and was feeling ambitious so I ventured to the store and found the ingredients that would create a familiar cookie to me…and persevered through the afternoon to conquer one thing on my bucket list for the fall: make pumpkin cookies while living overseas.

Success.  I was very pleased with the result :)

Traditionally, we frost sugar cookies with orange frosting and use green gumdrops for the stem, M&M’s for the nose and eyes and raisins for the mouth…but, seeing as my current location does not offer any of the above candies I decided I could break tradition this fall.  I improvised and justified my lack of food coloring by the fact that there are indeed white pumpkins in the world!