Daughter of a Wandering Aramean

Spring 2010

2010-04-01T22:51:00.000-07:00

Family and Friends,

I'm sorry to be missing for so long. I have discovered that this website is now blocked in the country of Kazakhstan. They must have had too many international people following foreigners and their local court cases. Oh well, I try to stay out of all of that. It is just unfortunate stuff gets blocked.

Well, obviously I am writing this and so I have found a roundabout method. Having a personal VPN server is certainly recommended for international travelers. I am doing something else but a VPN would have been my first choice.

Now, I imagine this post or series of posts will take some time to get out there. Here are the highlights. I now work for a good company teaching English in Almaty. We have moved to a house that is a real blessing. The price was within our budget but that also means there is a lot to fix and deal with. Right now the biggest issues are the overflowing septic tank, clothes washer that doesn't do a final high-speed spin (my guess is that the high power transistor on the variable frequency drive module is fried), and the rodents that keep eating through the floor in the kitchen where there is a small crack. We haven't caught any of them and they are staring to do some real damage. We were also forced to take a one week vacation in Thailand for visa reasons. That was rough ;-).

With no further delay here are a few pictures. Then I need to get back to lesson plans.

With love to everyone (especially Moms, Dads, Grandparents, and Grandma),
David

Dog and a little of the house.

2010-02-12T06:04:00.000-08:00

I promised to post a few pictures of the house when we moved in. Okay, this really isn't that much about the house but rather about the newest member of our family, Max.

Hope you enjoy. I'll get some more pictures up when there is time.

We have a place to live!

2010-01-08T03:10:00.000-08:00

There is good news for Gina here in Almaty. The hunt for a permanent place to live has come to an end. Today we signed a temporary holding contract on a house that is being remodeled. Starting Feb. 1st we will live in a beautiful house just inside the city. It will be a commute to almost everything but we think it will be worth it.

Here is the details. It is a good price, a large 4-room house with several storage rooms and an unfinished attic that will become my workshop. It has a nice kitchen and lots of room to host. There is a sauna and even a gardener. Actually the owner is the gardener/ housekeeper but is willing to give us our space if we want it. She has a country house that she can disappear to but there is a "summer" home there on the property that I think she lives in.

Now for the pictures. I scrapped these off the real estate advertising page. So, these show what it will look like in the summer. Right now there is snow everywhere.

We will put up real pictures in Feb.

Happy New Year!

2009-12-31T22:32:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to all our family and friends!

Christmas has come and gone. Here in Kazakhstan Christmas is not celebrated on December 25 but rather on January 7. There are reasons for it but the truth is I have come to realize just how many or our Christmas traditions are identical to New Years traditions here. Gift giving, a new year's tree, getting together with family,... It was a blast. Literally! At midnight and even some before the whole city became one large fireworks show. Having a nice seat on the Nth floor of a nice apartment building made the viewing all the more exciting.

With no further ado here are a few pictures from New Years.

You must not think that Christmas is no longer important to us. We just haven't had much time to enjoy it. The Monday before Christmas we moved our stuff from the room where we were staying to a borrowed apartment. It was very kind of some friends to loan us their 2700 sq. ft. apartment while they are out of town on business. Here are a few shots from the windows and the festive decor.

On the job front, God is good! I have had an interview with two different companies and have been accepted by both contingent on details that will only be know mid-January. So, either way I should have a job that will take care of visas and pay a decent salary. Gina and I are looking forward to some stability to our lives in 2010. That does not mean we feel any less called by God or that what we are being called into is less important than what we were doing.

Blessings to all,

David and Gina Helbley

Summer is gone and Fall is back. We expect snow soon.

2009-10-30T21:57:00.000-07:00

Here I am at the beginning of another post. For today you will just get the pictures. I will work on adding comments after we get moved into our new apartment. I was just reminded that the last thing you have seen from us is our rough vacation. Well, we have been busy as always and working hard on new supplementary curriculum for the school.

A simple quiet vacation in Central Asia

2009-08-04T09:59:00.000-07:00

Preface: This is actually Gina's post and words. I have taken the liberty of adding somewhat random pictures to the text and changing one word from "or". Enjoy, David

We had quite a vacation!

It started a week late because there were some other things we had to do. We didn't have a chance to call ahead and verify that we were coming because all of our Russian speaking office staff were already gone on their vacations. So, we got on a bus to Bishkek - the capital of Kyrgystan- and from Bishkek decided to take a taxi to our final destination on the lake because it would be faster than a bus. It was faster, until our driver tried to pass another car on the left while he was making a left-hand turn and we collided. Luckily we crashed just outside of Tokmok - the town where David was helping with the new school being built and the furniture factory - so we called up friends and someone came to get us. David had two cuts on his face, one over the eye and one under the eye, from his glasses.

Fortunately his glasses were fine, not even bent, good thing we bought glass instead of plastic, good things for the glasses at least, no good for his face. Anyway, I had whiplash and a concussion, bruised knees, and a cut inside my lip which swelled up nicely. The other passengers both had head wounds. The man in the front seemed to be fine except for a surface cut on the back of his head but the woman who had been in the back with us had a serious cut and a bad concussion. Both drivers were uninjured but our car was totaled. We weren't allowed to leave until the ambulance finally came and then we all had to go to the hospital and sit around there for several hours. David has some nifty Frankinsteinesque stitches framing his right eye, two on the bottom and three on the top. The church members in Tokmok had an empty apartment they let us use for the night and we stayed there with the woman who had been in the back seat with us because she didn't have anywhere else to go. David's eye was a beautiful purple color but Nadia, the ADRA director, made some tea out of some weeds which David soaked cotton in and kept over his eye and that made the swelling go down. The color is almost normal now. The construction manager in Tokmok is conveniently also a chiropracter/physical therepist on the side. I think it's more of a hobby than an occupation. He was really busy but he took five minutes to "pop" me because I was in a lot of pain from the whiplash. That was scarry. It sounded like "RELAX RELAX RELAX CRAKCRAKCRAKCRACKKKK "RELAX RELAX RELAX CRAKCRAKCRAKCRACKKKK "RELAX RELAX RELAX CRAKCRAKCRAKCRACKKKK. I wasn't relaxing very well. Amazingly! It helped. I haven't had stiffness or pain since. That afternoon, which was Tuesday, we caught a bus, not a taxi, to the Lakeside town of Bosteri where the church guest house is. We didn't leave till the afternoon because we heard that all the Pathfinders were there and we didn't want to arrive and find there was no room for us. When we finally contacted someone and were able to confirm that they were expecting us we jumped on the last bus of the day. It was raining when we arrrived and armed with nothing but an address and our memories from a year ago we walked half way across town from the bus stop until we found the place. We must have been quite a sight, tired, swollen, bruised, and soaked to the bone.

The first thing we did was dry off, tell the whole saga in mime and poor Russian, and sit down to dinner with about 20 10-15 year-olds and their directors. It was awsome! The guest house is a bit like camping but with a nice big kitchen. There isn't any indoor plumbing [with] hot water but there is a Russian sauna which usually had some residual hot water even several hours after the fire died. One of my favorite parts of the guesthouse, after the sauna, is the flower garden and several apricot trees which are very fruitful in the summer. On Wednesday it was cold but on Thursday we went to the lakeside - Issykul is a large salt water lake that is purported to have medical benefits for swimmers. David had been ordered to do some swimming for his eye. Unfortunately, our Kazakh sunscreen was ineffective and we returned from our day on the beach very burned. Friday we rode the largest ferris wheel either of us had ever seen,

David happily shot photos of camels, and we talked to a young man about bringing us two horses on Sunday because we wanted to spend the day exploring the mountains. Sabbath we were very glad to find our friends from Bishkek had arrived Friday night and even more glad to find they had brought aloe vera with them. We attended church, didn't understand much, tried to sing Russian Hymns Karaoke style, had a picnic in the back yard, and then enjoyed an English Bible study with our friends.

Sunday morning the boy did not come with the horses. We called several times. He didn't understand my Uighur. I didn't understand his Russian. We went to the bazaar while we waited and bought honey. Tried Kymiz - fermented mare's milk- didn't like it. "Like beer" the smiling Kazakh man said in Russian, Yuck! Finally two boys came at 11 O'clock. They insisted on coming with us on our expedition so they climbed up behind us neatly seated on the world's most uncomfortable saddles and off we rode toward the mountains, bump bump bump bump. The boys knew where a waterfall was. "It's very beautiful" they said. High up the valley we came upon a Kyrgyz summer pasture, a yurt, a campfire, and several foals tied. "Come in and drink Kymiz" a smiling Kazkah man offered, he knew the boys and I heard him ask them in Kyrgyz how much money they had gotten from the foreigners for their excursion. We kindly declined his offer explaining that we did not like Kymiz. It took us three hours to get to the waterfall.
We climbed half way up while our adventurous young guides climbed all the way to the top and happily waved at us. It only took us two hours to return trotting most of the way - the horses were clearly glad to be going downhill and toward home. My knees and calves gave out half of the way back and I couldn't post anymore so I sat limply in the saddle going bump bump bump bump. Even at a full gallop the ride was anything but smooth. We had to keep stopping to tighten the saddle because the horse knew how to hold it's breath when the boy was pulling the cinch. Once while remounting I got kicked. It was a good horse in the beginning and even responded to knee and reign commands but by the end of the trip it was clearly sick of the little boy with the whip who kept hitting it and telling it to go faster. The boys were fun, proof that you don't have to speak a common language to be friends. They giggled with boyish delight as they tried to get us to repeat bad words in Kyrgyz. I will never forget the picture of David bumping along on a trotting horse while wrestling with the boy behind him. Conclusion: Kyrgyz horses have attitude, and Kyrgyz boys clearly have unlimited energy and tailbones of iron.

We arrived back in Almaty on Monday morning after a ten hour all night bus ride with a drunk Russian man pressing his knees into the back of David's seat, saddle sore, sunburnt, bruised, and tired. We can't wait to just lie around home for a few days and recover from our vacation.

Christmas at the Language Center

2009-06-19T21:38:00.000-07:00

We had been building up to this event for at least a month, since Thanksgiving. Christmas had finally come. At least our Christmas Friday Club. This was to be the last Friday Club Gina and I would be here for in 2008. It was a very big event. There would be two skits, a gift exchange, and graduation.

Masha, Svieta, Nadia, and Gina had been worked hard to write a skit that would portray the joy of Christmas, the gospel message, and tell the story in both English and Russian. It was a tall order but they had accomplished it.
Our director lead out this Friday Club announcing the different opening events while most of us got into costume and I rehearsed my lines.

Before the main skit the youth group again had a skit.

This time they told about a family who helped several poor and needy people who came to their door the night of Christmas when they were expecting Jesus to arrive and spend the evening meal with them. When they were disappointed at the end of a long wait, they prayed and asked why Jesus had never come. The reply was that he had come, in the form of three needy people and each time they had shared their meal with him.

The play was lovely and inspiring. I always enjoy it when our youth get involved in the events at the language center.

Time had come for the play several of the students and teachers had been practicing for.

Charl, a blind beggar man, sat near the entrance of the market place in Bethlehem calling out for gifts of money for the poor. Svieta, a rich merchant, dropped a stone in his hands as she walked past. Several of the other merchants laughed as they made their way into the market to set up for the day.

A few moments later David, one of Jesus's followers, came in and offered to tell the beggar a story that was worth much more than money.

He then proceeded to call all the villagers together and invite them to hear a story that would be of great interest. Alla /Gina Sabbath morning, who was a visitor from the north, wanted to know what was going on and so one of the traveled merchants who knew Russian translated for her.

My character was then able to tell the gospel message. One of the merchants scoffed at the story and another merchant told how it must be true because she was present so many years ago when the shepherds came and found the child the angles had told them about.

In the end the merchant who was first very mean to the beggar sees the new hope in Jesus and she apologies to the beggar and invites everyone to her house to celebrate this good news.

The play was well received and we had such a fun time. The evening was not over.

We then went on to graduate two of my favorite students I had since coming to Almaty. The graduation proceed as normal with the presentation of certificates and then took a sudden twist when my two students asked me to sit down as they had prepared a speech.

They then proceed to tell a fabulous tale about learning English with me over the last several months. They incorporated several hundred idioms into the speech. It was an amazing master piece and so special. Gina and I were rolling with laughter. I was so touched by this amazing gift.

That evening was so busy but will go down in the my memory as one of the best Christmas parties of my life.

Less than 48 hours later, Gina and I were on an airplane headed for the USA to spend Christmas with our families. This was another Christmas present that was so special.

Techno past times with a purpose.

2009-04-18T04:08:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been sitting in your apartment and been completely frustrated because the phone company won't sell you hi-speed Internet, dial-up isn't fast enough to sustain VOIP Internet phone calls, the Internet has stopped working for the last two weeks downstairs where you are bumming half the bandwidth from the local computer store for half the price, and your signal strength just isn't quite good enough to the local open access points? Well I have.

In anticipation of this fateful day I had already seen on YouTube a tutorial for a high gain antenna. Its amazing what you can find in the trash, down at the construction bazaar, and talking to the actually people who repair computers, verses the sales reps who just want to sell you something new.

A little solder and an hour of assembly in between classes and vola. Supposedly a +18dbi antenna. If that doesn't do the trick I don't know what will.

As fate would have it, the Internet started working again from my paid source a few days later. I let the couple from South Africa borrow the whole contraption over Christmas while I was gone so they could call family. We found one open access point from their apartment.

It just so happens that a Netgear WG111T USB wireless-G dongle conveniently has a mini-antenna connector right there for your antenna upgrading needs. The signal was improved but I found it necessary to shade the built-in antenna by placing the whole unit directly behind the reflector. As expected, the antenna was very directional.

Teambuilding at Ak Bulak

2009-04-18T03:40:00.000-07:00

One bright sunny mid-December Sunday all of the teachers and some of the staff at the two language centers piled into a car and a van. The destination was Ak Bulak. A ski resort about an hour East of Almaty. All we knew was that it was an outing and we would be team building.

We arrived at the resort to find fairly modern looking ski lifts, including an express gondola. Up to this point the season had been rather dry. Even though it was mid-December only one of the local ski resorts was actually operational. We rode on both of the lifts the ski resort had to get to the top. The second half of the journey was on a typical open air 2-person ski lift. It was good to be in the high crisp mountain air. The journey up the mountain was fairly painless too.

Gina and I posed at the top for a quick picture.

One group picture with all of the foreign language teachers and our director.

Going down the mountain provided a good shot of the valley. It was a beautiful day.
I had fun getting people's attention and then snapping a shot or two.
We all had a lot of fun.
If anyone wants a promo poster I can provide this in much higher resolution!

It turns out that most of our team building that day comprised of short epic snow battles and group photos. It was a little different than I expected but I would say at the end of the day we did feel a little bit more like a team. We finished the day with an enjoyable lunch celebrating the many different cultures represented among our group.

Mountains, The Sunday After Thanksgiving

2009-04-04T07:15:00.001-07:00

Just encase you haven't figured it out by now the mountains just out of Almaty is the favorite place Gina and I like to hang out with our students. This day we were headed out just after the first good snow of the season. The hiking wasn't too bad but we were ready for the bitter cold that we were sure to find on top those rugged mountain peaks. After all, it was chilly in the valley.
Gina posed nicely for me on the railing of what looked like a coral of some sort from times past. This stop was a little over half way to our final destination.
Some of our local church members like to hike and regularly join us on our mountain adventures.
Talking and generally enjoying the company on the way up is a must. It also provides breaks so that none of us have to actually admit that we are tired.
What better to do with fresh snow than have a snowball fight? Charl never even saw it coming!

The hike took us up some fairly steep hills. We just kept telling the students, "It will be worth it."
Once we got near the top we had to start thinking about where we would eat our picnic. Local customs don't really allow people to sit directly on the ground. There are some deeply held beliefs about why a person should do that, especially women. When I figure it all out I may give it a posting all its own. What does all this mean? Well, you get the picture. Charl and Ruslan helped carry some logs we found to our final eating place on top of the hill.
Picnics with friends and great food in the crisp clean air have to be some of the best things on Earth!
Getting some special pictures along the way is special. You should get some reward or at least a picture for putting in so much work.
Two of my favorite guys.
That day the view across the foothills was amazing. The cool fog in the valley only helped to accent the warm sunny day we enjoyed in the mountains.

Thanksgiving

2009-04-04T06:05:00.000-07:00

Thanksgiving. What kind of thoughts does that bring to your mind? More food than you could ever eat, family get-togethers, travel, thankfulness, long car rides stuck between your siblings? Well for me it is all of those things and so much more.

Thanksgiving 2008 Gina and I prepared for our second Thanksgiving away from our families. This time it would be different. This time we had family. Not quite the same as our parents and siblings but we had close friends.

Gina, Charl, and I had been bonding with some of our students for over 8 months when Thanksgiving came. We had been building up to the major United States holiday for weeks. The last 3 Friday Clubs had been dedicated to the teaching our students about one American holiday that we are very proud of.

If my memory serves me correctly, the first week we showed some videos about the Mayflower and gave a brief history lesson surrounding the holiday. The second week we showed "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving." It was crammed packed with USA traditions and expectations surrounding the holiday, including the all American Apple Pie.

We had been served apple pie several times since our arrival in Almaty. There was something different about the local version from the pie from home. I would call the Almaty version "Apple cake". I can't tell for sure but it might have even had yeast in the cake and just a few pieces of apple.

For our third Friday Club before the big Thanksgiving feast we showed a video about how to make American Apple Pie and handed out recipes for many dishes including Pie and vegetarian stuffing. They were all invited to the big feast and encouraged to bring others. This was part of the reason they were also encouraged to bring home cooked food for the festival, especially an American Apple pie for the pie contest.

The students were trained, prepared, and warned that their stomachs would burst by the end of the evening. Now it was time for the big event.

Our director was a little shocked when she arrived and found out I had stolen almost all the tables in the whole school and transformed our main meeting room into a dining hall. We had seating for 40+ and needed every last one of the seats.
We were overjoyed to see some of our closes friends had come. A few even brought friends.

The youth group from the church joined us for this special event. Most of our youth can hold down a simple conversation in English and a few are fairly good at English. They performed a skit emphasizing cooperation among the group and what can be accomplished when we all work together. I didn't understand all if it since it was performed in Russian.

Following the play, we ushered people through line. All of the food the students brought was traditional in nature. They brought the types of food guests are supposed to bring. Cakes, juice, fruit, and other desserts, all of which were good and many were customized for the event. So, it was a good thing that Gina, Charl, and I had been cooking the main course all day. Charl and I are proud to say we accomplished some stellar mashed potatoes. Gina on the other hand touted the worlds largest single casserole dish of vegetarian stuffing, gravy for the potatoes, one apple pie, and three pumpkin pies.

All of the food was delicious. The students especially like Gina's gravy.

After our students were well under way with the meal, we announced the pie contest. We called for volunteer that would be the official judges for the event. Two of our most outgoing students rose to the challenge. I added my comments as we went along but never to contradict the official judges or to sway their opinion before they gave their verdict. Mostly I couldn't wait any longer before having a chance to try all of the different apple pies. They were scrumptious! The rest of the evening we talked and took group pictures. We all had such a great time.

And of course a picture of Charl and a group of students that wanted a picture "Just with him."

Stepping Up.

2009-03-13T23:00:00.000-07:00

Let me take a moment to introduce you to a young man by the name of Hemanth. He lives in India in a small village in the Cuddapah region of Andra Pradesh.
We first met Hemanth in the Cuddapah region just about 45-minutes drive from his home village. He was helping with some meetings Maranatha had coordinated in the area. He was one of the many translators that had come from Spicer for the event.
Gina got to know him much better than I did but I do know one of his passions that he couldn't stop talking about was wanting to hold a series of meetings in his own village so he could tell all his friends, family, and neighbors about Jesus.
When the meetings were over and the time for good-byes came he was one of the young men who had the hardest time saying good-bye.
Within a month of his departure our inbox and I know many others were flooded with coorispondance with budget plans and updates about who he had talked to and agreed to speak for the meetings if he could raise the money. He did persist. Right through the middle of a very sad time in Christian history in India he persisted raising money and support.
This last December 22 to 28th the meetings "took place successfully by God's grace."

Dr. Nakka Sharath Babu close friend and professor at Spicer Collge was his guest speaker. I know Hemanth was very excited about that.

He told us that in his village there are nearly "600 to 700 families out of which many of them have attended..."

250 Bibles were distributed to people who attended and baptismal canidates.

24 people have been baptized so far including 2 from his own family.

Hemanth tells us that there are now 28 church members in his home village. "We don't have church but prayers are going on. So I would like to request you to pray for the members and also to have an Adventist church for our believers in our village." He finishes his report with a quote from the Bible, "Delight your self in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your Heart."

May the Lord continue to bless and give the desires of his heart.

Where has all the time gone?

2009-02-06T23:12:00.000-08:00

Have you ever woke up one day and realized that you haven't updated your blog for four months? How does that happen? Is it possible that you can be surrounded by new and exciting things, amazed at what the Lord is doing, and fail to tell others what He is doing?
I guess it is. Life has a way of getting busy and we don't seem to have time to do some things that are still important.
This is just a short post to tell everyone that we are alive, well, and looking forward to writing more. "Hurry, we don't have much time." I spent all morning sorting through pictures to post on the blog. Now it seems I have almost missed my opportunity for the day to post. Church and Family Forum call.

Blessings to everyone,
David

White Christmas

2008-09-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

What are you doing December 21^st?

Wanna know what we’re doing?

Of course you do. That's why you read our blog.

We’re planning on sitting around for about a day and a half, eating bad food, getting very little sleep, and probably watching a few bad movies with a bunch of other strangers. I can hardly wait.

That’s right. We’re coming home for Christmas. So put a couple more boxes under the tree this year, hang up our stockings, and set an extra place at the table. We’re going to load up our plates with pumpkin pie, pour tall glasses of soynog, curl up on the lazyboy, put on “White Christmas,” and cry when Bing Crosby sings “I’ll be home for Christmas.”

Our tentative itinerary gives us three weeks in the blessed United States of America. Our director surprised us with the time off and a promise to pay for at least one ticket, her “Christmas gift” to us. Hard to believe isn’t it? It will be so nice to see you all again. You have no idea how much we miss our families.

It’s going to be a Merry Christmas!

three months in a nutshell

2008-09-12T22:18:00.000-07:00

Our English church youth group is great and active. At the beginning of the summer they invited us to go with them to the mountains for a BBQ. Several of the youth have, or could borrow, cars. It was a blast! Here Gina is helping to prepare the vegetables for pilaf.

After lunch we played several games and had a grand old time. While we were playing a form of tag, four of our friends walked by. One was a student and the other three were regular attendants of Friday Club. Most of them had joined Gina’s beginner Sabbath school group. Gina and I had been wanting to go to the mountains with them for several weeks. They played with us for a while, enjoyed watermelon together, and we took this group photo while walking down the mountain. Not everyone was there but it did represent part of the group.

Gina and I decided to take the long way back with our friends. They had walked from Medeo. Gina, unfortunately, twisted her ankle on the way down and was not up to the hike. She rode home with the youth group and I hiked back with the girls. The mountains were so beautiful and full of wild flowers.

A few weeks later Rachel stopped by to visit us. We were on our summer break and looking forward to a fun filled time touring the area with Rachel. On Sunday just after her arrival, we took Rachel on a hike in the mountains with Gina’s friends. Gina’s ankle was strong enough to make the hike this time. Gina and I stopped on the bridge for a picture.

Isn’t Gina cute!

Here we are at the waterfall. Rachel and Gina studied together and graduated in the same class.

About a month ago now, we received a forwarded e-mail from our director that she had received from two Walla Walla guys that were planning on passing through town on their Asia tour and wanted to locate the English church for Sabbath. Friday we were able to make contact with them and we invited them to crash on our floor. They were glad for the budget break and to find people that spoke English. They helped us with Friday club with the various activities and gave a short presentation of where all they had traveled over the last two months. Sunday morning we got up early and took them for a hike at Medeo before taking them to the train station and whishing them off. It was a blur, but we had fun.

Two Sabbath’s ago it was children’s dedication Sabbath. Schools all over the country start on the same day. Our children’s department was packed this day and Galina, one of our office staff and great friend of ours, told the Children’s story. All of the children and adults were captivated by her story.

I keep mentioning how Gina and I got to the mountains with our students. Some may be interested in seeing how that works. 1) We announce in classes that we will be meeting outside the front gates of the business complex where out school is located at 10am.

2) Groups of any size are acceptable because we are riding the local bus system!

3) I drag the students up the mountain to an obscure location they have probably never been to before. Just before the students die of exhaustion, we find a nice secluded knoll with a view to set down blankets or sheets, those lungies from India work great, and start the picnic. We played games for a while. Card games are not popular here and so Gina and I have been teaching them some we brought with us from America. Uno as well as Head and Foot were on the table today. When it comes time to eat, everyone empties the contents of their bags into a huge pile in the middle and then people just grab whatever looks good to eat. Each person takes turns trying to encourage others to eat the food they packed up. No one wants to carry anything but trash down the mountain.

4) Finding a place for a group photo is always a must!

5) Take a quick snap of the two of us for the family. Now if only I can get that up of the internet in a timely manner. When the day is done, we hike down and students one by one disappear off the bus as they head home.

Meet 28 kilograms of farm fresh Roma tomatoes. They have just suffered a long bus ride home from the wholesale market and a one block hike up from the bus stop. For people that still cannot think in SI that is 28 kg * 2.2 lb/kg = 61.6 lbs.

Add a few fresh ingredients in our soon to be famous recipe and the never to be patented process but closely held trade secret

Run everything through a hand crank meat grinder.

Boil it down for about an hour and add all the right spices, seasonings, and salt.

Sterilize the jars in the oven. Fill, seal, and wrap them in towels to keep the boiling contents hot for as long as possible.

When the process is done, you are left with some delicious tomato sauce that can be used to make mouthwatering dishes in seconds.

Our first batch was so good and such a big hit that we gave much of it away to friends we have made here and others who have been giving us jars with delicious contents. Sharing home canned food is a tradition here. What a great culture!!!

Seven good reasons to pray

2008-09-01T09:32:00.000-07:00

On Sabbath morning David was preparing his sermon and I sat down with my Bible. My plan was to read the Psalm reading for that day, but I kept getting distracted by the question of the state of the dead from Psalm 146:3,4 “Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save. When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing.” The KJV says it even stronger “their thoughts perish.” I haven’t felt compelled to study the state of the dead for a long time but I reached for “Bible Readings for the Home” and began searching through the contents for the passages on death. Soon I was reading through old commentary on KJV verses and looking them up in my Bible. “How would I present this to someone?” I wondered. So, I picked out a few of the classic verses Genesis 2:7; Psalm 146:3,4; Ecclesiates 9:5; John 3:16; 5:24-29; 1 Corinthians 15:51-54; Revelation 20:11-15; and Malachi 4:1-3. “That was interesting,” I thought. Then something said, “now practice it.” I had nothing else to do so on impulse I practiced thumbing through the verses and explaining each one.

After I was finished, David and I went to church. The mission spot that morning was about an Islamic sect that calls itself the white way and communicates with the dead. One of our members had been in contact with them through a relative and was asking that the church pray for them. I looked at my Kazakh friend in front of me and wondered if she understood why our church member was so disturbed by people communicating with the dead. It is not uncommon for Islamic families to pray for and to their dead relatives. They even visit them in the graveyard and bring them food.

After church we invited my friend, along with a few other people over to our house for dinner. After the meal we were enjoying a very ripe summer melon and talking when my friend mentioned that she had never been able to finish a book on death she had borrowed from our church because it was rather dry and depressing. I laughed and showed her the book I had been reading that morning about what the Bible says about death. She read the first question. I think it went something like this “By what figure does the Bible portray death?” Of course the answer is “sleep.” My friend understood what that meant immediately and suddenly had many questions. What about the TV show she had seen featuring a woman who was contacted by her dead daughter? Soon we were deep in a Bible study on death working our way through the verses I had practiced that morning. We did not even notice when one of my guests went into the kitchen and washed the dishes and the rest, which included a hyperactive five year old who would probably be on ridilin if she had been born in America, got into a violent wadded napkin fight. I think David and the five year old were the primary instigators of that war.

At the end of the evening my friend was grateful for her new understanding about human mortality, the state of death, and the resurrection. She carefully copied all the verses down in her notebook so she could highlight them in her Bible at home. Everyone else had clearly enjoyed their napkin war. After we had walked our friends to their bus stops I thanked God for preparing me that morning for this special Bible study.

The Holy Spirit is moving over the Almaty English church and we need your prayers. Below are seven things you can pray about.

1) Pray for a family ministry here in Almaty.

Almaty is a modern secular city with a very high divorce rate. The young people who attend our English school learn about dating, sex, marriage, and relationships from movies, TV shows, novels, and magazines. There is a great need inside and outside of the church for proper and Biblical education, especially among young people.

While enjoying a Sabbath dinner with some church members David and I expressed our interest in a family ministry and our hosts responded very positively. They are excited about the potential for a relationship seminar presented in English and Russian and open to church members as well as English students. There are many young people in our church. We are looking for appropriate materials and praying that God will guide us in planning a program that will present simple truths and expose media lies about love and marriage. We hope the result will be healthier relationships and happier homes as men and women learn to love, respect, and understand each other better.

2) Pray for a health ministry here in Almaty

Traditional Kazakh meals all center around meat. David, Charl, and I have met strong resistance from our students when we have tried to share with them about vegetarianism. There are a lot of strong traditional ideas about what is healthy but no real nutritional education and the propaganda of the meat and milk industries are believed without question. Refined and sugary foods are often considered “healthy” because they deliver quick energy. Meeting any of this ignorance with medical research is difficult because many of our students do not know the difference between vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates, etc. or about digestion and other physiological processes.

Because of the resistance I have met in students to listen to my crazy vegetarian ideas I was very surprised when Aiman, a church member, began asking me about vegetarianism after church last Sabbath. I told her briefly that it is not hard to substitute whole grains and legumes for meat, and that malnutrition is not a threat because whole foods deliver far more necessary nutrients than a meat centered diet. The key to getting a good diet is diversity. “Why isn’t the church teaching us this?” she asked. I replied that I didn’t know but I just thought that nobody wanted to hear it. Apparently I was wrong. Aiman wants to start a health ministry where anyone, but especially Adventists, can learn about nutrition and vegetarian cooking. It is possible that many of our members, like Aiman, are not vegetarians simply because no one has ever taught them why they should be or how to be. We are praying for the next ten days that God will lead us in making plans, that he will lead the right people to join us, and that he will shape this ministry according to his will. Would you join us in prayers? I am also looking for nutrition education resources and health presentations. Whatever shape this ministry takes I’m sure it will be practical which means that we will not only be talking but cooking together. The end result will be happier, healthier, people for the kingdom of God.

3) Pray for our English School

Our English school in Almaty was started by ADRA a number of years ago and turned over to local leadership. The school has gone through a number of changes but one thing that has always remained constant is its association with the English church where English students are invited to listen to spoken English and the word of God. Due to a number of factors our student enrollment has been dropping. The building we rent is used not only for the center during the week but is the meeting place for two different Adventist congregations on Sabbath. With less students paying for English lessons our center is struggling to pay rent. Please pray that God will bring students to our center, that our students will meet Jesus through our office staff and teachers, and that we will continue to have a place to meet.

4) Pray for the Beginners English Bible Study

When English students come to church they are invited to join a special English Sabbath School for beginners. That class is presently taught by me. I decided in the beginning to read through the gospels with the students, many of whom have little or no religious training. We will be finishing the gospel of Mark in just a few weeks and have between five and ten students attending each Sabbath, three of them have been with me from the beginning. The curriculum is very informal with simple reading and discussion. Some of the students have begun reading the Bible on their own time at home as a result of being exposed to it in our class. This is very encouraging but there is a lot of room for improvement. I am praying for wisdom to know how to continue to lead this group as it grows. Most weeks we have arguments break out and I am struggling to know how I can nurture the Biblical ideal of fellowship. Currently students do not feel free to share openly and honestly with one another. Please pray for our Beginners English Bible Study Group.

5) Pray that David and I learn Russian

Learning any new language is difficult and takes time. Russian is an incredibly complex language and very difficult for us. Please pray for us in this because our ability to communicate with the church members (many of whom do not speak English) directly affects our ability to work together with them. When Aiman asked how we are going to communicate about our health ministry if we can’t find someone willing to translate for us I joked that God would give me the gift of tongues. That would be wonderful, but God’s way is not often the easy way. The truth is, I need to learn Russian.

6) Pray that David and I will be led by the Spirit of God

Whether we are preaching in church, leading a Bible study, teaching a class, having a conversation with a student, trying to answer a difficult question, or making plans for the future. Please pray that we will be led by the Spirit of God and act according to His will.

7) Pray for long term sustainable ministry in Almaty

Finally, please pray for the future of the Seventh-day Adventist church in Almaty and in all of Central Asia. The church faces many challenges here including government restrictions, community prejudice, and lack of resources. Despite all these challenges, the Seventh-day Adventist church has so much to offer. I have a dream that someday the people of Almaty would associate the name Seventh-day Adventist with quality education, physical health, emotional freedom, and spiritual fulfillment. I have a dream that someday our center would grow to offer not only English classes but health lectures, family and relationship counseling, chaplain services, massage and water therapy, drug intervention services, Alcoholics Anonymous, stop smoking classes, cooking classes, nutrition classes, Bible classes, and a health food store stocked with nutritional yeast, tofu, natural foods, whole wheat bread, and good books. That’s my dream. Please pray that God would fulfill his dreams for his church here and provide ways for us to share the wonderful things he has given us with the hungry people of Almaty.

God's Covenant

2008-06-05T06:23:00.000-07:00

Have you ever made a promise? I’m sure you have. We all have.

Maybe you promised someone you would do something for them. Or took a loan and promised to repay it. Or made a promise to yourself to eat better or exercise more.

Often promises are spoken. Sometimes we write them down, like an IOU scribbled on a piece of paper and handed to a friend. Sometimes they are very complicated and contain lots of big words, like legal contracts. Even paper money is a promise. The paper itself has no value but it represents a bank’s promise to recognize the value printed on it.

But it’s not just global economies that depend on promises. The kingdom of God is built on a promise too, a promise so serious that it has a special name: covenant

Have you ever made a covenant? We make many promises everyday, promises to quit a bad habit, take out the trash, or help somebody with a project but we will only make one or two covenants in our lives. Covenants are very serious business.

I keep a document in my computer that I run across from time to time when I am cleaning things up. It’s simply titled “Vow.” I like to open it and read it to remind myself of one of the covenants that I live under.

This is what it says:

“David

Recognizing that marriage is a sacred covenant ordained by God and that in its highest form it is a symbol of Christ’s relationship with his church

I vow to love you and in loving you I will demonstrate my love for Christ

With Christ as my example I will serve you, even as He washed his disciples feet.

I will seek your happiness and in doing so I will please my God and your God

I will walk beside you and cling to you through sorrow, drought, brokenness, persecution, and disappointment. I will laugh with you, cry with you, and seek the face of God together with you.

I will know only one husband as the church has only one Lord

I will remember this vow and keep it continually before me in my thoughts and my actions. I will speak of it when I go in and when I come out, when I lay down and when I get up. I will engrave it in my heart and write it on the doorposts of our house as long as brick and flesh remain.

May God deal with me if I should break this covenant I make before you and before Him this day.

God keep us faithful to one another and to Him

God grant that we are separated by nothing but death, that only for a short time, and that we awake together to meet our God.

Amen”

Marriage is an example of a covenant

Unlike promises which can be quickly fulfilled and may cost us very little. Covenants affect us for the rest of our lives. Once we step into a covenant there is no backing out. It’s for better or for worse, till death do us part.

Covenants, unlike promises, are never private matters. They are community matters. They change our self identity and our community identity

Why all this talk about marriage? We are moving from something familiar that we understand and deal with everyday to something less familiar.

God also has a covenant.

We can read about God’s solemn covenant with his people in Deuteronomy 5 and 6.

Deuteronomy 5 begins like this:

“1 And Moses called all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and keep, and do them.

2 The LORD our God made a COVENANT with us in Horeb.

3 The LORD made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.

4 The LORD talked with you face to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire,

5 saying,

The Ten Commandments follow

I am the LORD thy God, who rescued you from slavery in Egypt.

Do not have any other God’s before me.

Do not make any idols or worship them

Do not misuse my name

Remember that the seventh day is a holy day of rest

Respect your father and mother

Do not kill

Do not commit adultery

Do not steal

Do not speak falsely about your neighbor

Do not want what is not yours

Moses Reminds the people how awesome that covenant making day was when God spoke out of the fire on the mountain. How he had been sent by the people to speak to God because they were afraid and how God had said:

29 O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever!

Can’t you hear the love and longing in God’s voice? Oh if only they would be faithful to this covenant. How wonderful that would be! How happy they would be! God’s covenant was not intended to be a burden. It was given as a blessing. We read in Deuteronomy 30

19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: 20 That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.

“Love,” “Hang onto,” these are not the words of a legal contract but a relationship. These are words we use in marriage covenants. The relationship God wants with us in not a legal contract defined by rules but a covenantal relationship built on promise. The Ten Commandments are God’s wedding vows with us. They are a picture of what the world would look like if we all lived in covenantal loving relationship with God.

What is your picture of paradise? What kind of world would you choose to live in if you had the choice? Wouldn’t it be a place where God is, where God is worshiped? Where everybody, even the very poor, even servants and animals, have time for rest. Where parents love children, and children respect parents. A place full of happy families and friendly neighbors. Where nobody kills. Where people keep their promises and covenants with one another and every child has a mother and father. Where nobody steals. Where people tell the truth about one another. Where everybody is content with what they have and nobody is jealous of anybody else. Wouldn’t that be paradise?

That’s what God wanted for his people then. That’s still his plan for us now. That’s why He gave us His covenant and told us not to forget. How do we remember? Deut 6

4 ¶ Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:

5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:

7 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

8 And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.

9 And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.

God told Israel to take his covenant seriously. “Firstly, it should be written it on your hearts” He said. “Then, teach it diligently to your children. Then, talk about it with one another.” In a community of faith we should not forget to encourage and remind one another about the covenant of God. “Finally, tie it on your hands and between your eyes and write it on the walls of your house.”

But Gina, you may be saying, that covenant was broken and is void. We now live under the new covenant. The new covenant is grace, not law.

But there’s nothing new about Grace! Grace is as old as the law. And the law is a lot older than Sinai.

Don’t we read in Hebrews that Abraham was justified by faith and not works? Abraham lived under grace a long time before Jesus.

And don’t you remember how Joseph answered Potipher’s wife when she stood in her see-through silks beckoning him into the bedroom? He said, “How can I do this thing and sin against God?” Joseph lived before Sinai but he knew the law of God.

It’s true that Jeremiah mentions a new covenant and the writer of Hebrews expounds on it more. Does that mean that God’s original covenant wasn’t perfect? No. Let’s read

Heb 8:7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.

Heb 8:8 For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:

Heb 8:9 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.

The problem was not with the covenant but with the people. They did not keep it. They forgot about the covenant and broke it. They did not allow the law to be written on their hearts. They began to worship the Cannanite God’s of power, money, and sex. They forgot the covenant that begins “I am the LORD your God who brought you out of slavery in Egypt until they found themselves back in slavery in Babylon.

The book of James is not a very large book, but twice in that book the law of God is called “The Law of Liberty.” Why? Because the law brings freedom. Before the law there was Egypt and after the law was rejected and forgotten there was Babylon. Only when we have and remember the covenant of God can we be free.

Well why would God give a law to Israel, or to us, that we can’t keep? Wasn’t He setting them up for disaster? It was never his intention that either Israel or us keep the law by our own strength. Remember even Abraham was justified by faith.

After the Babylonian captivity some very devout Jews called the Pharisees began taking the law very seriously. They concluded that they had been punished in Babylon for not keeping the law. Their solution was to study the law carefully and try harder. They took it so seriously that they had the ten commandments written on small pieces of paper which were then rolled tightly, placed in small boxes, and literally tied to their right arm and forehead. They kept the literal words of God’s law perfectly but they missed the whole point.

.They had the law on the outside of their body but they forgot that God’s first command was that it be written on the heart. They turned the covenantal promise of God into a set of rules to be rigidly followed and the law of liberty became a law of bondage.

The following story is a good illustration of the Pharisees problem:

A husband and wife didn’t really love each other. The man was very demanding, so much so that he prepared a list of rules and regulations for his wife to follow. He insisted that she read them over every day and obey them to the letter. Among other things, his “do’s and don’ts” indicated such details as what time she had to get up in the morning, when his breakfast should be served, and how the housework should be done. Try as she might, the wife never seemed to complete the tasks perfectly and there was much bickering over her accomplishments at the end of the day.

After several long years, the husband died. As time passed, the woman fell in love with another man, one who dearly loved her. Soon they were married. This husband did everything he could to make his new wife happy, continually showering her with tokens of his appreciation. One day as she was cleaning house, she found tucked away in a drawer the list of commands her first husband had written for her. As she looked it over, she realized that even though her present husband hadn’t given her any kind of list, she was doing more for him than her first husband had ever required. She realized she was so devoted to this man that her deepest desire was to please him out of love, not obligation.

Trying to build a relationship by slavishly obeying a list of rules is impossible. It doesn’t work in marriage and it doesn’t work in religion either. God intended that his covenant with his people be motivated by love.

Covenant means promise and in the Bible it is always God, not man, who is making promises. If the pharisees had only read Isaiah they would have understood that the ten commandments are about what God does for us, not what we do for God.

Isa 26:12 LORD, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us.

David understood this when he wrote.

Ps 57:2 I will cry unto God most high; unto God that performeth all things for me.

You see, our modern Bibles are all translations of the original Hebrew. The covenant of God has been translated as ten commands to reflect the more recent Pharasaic understanding of the ten commandments as a set of rules to be followed. But there is an older meaning. The Hebrew verb has no command form. That means the original Hebrew text was written in simple present tense, not as commands, but statements. So if you read the ten commandments in Hebrew they sound like this.

6 Because I am the LORD thy God, who brought you out of slavery in Egypt. 7 You will know no other God than me. 8 You will not make idols or bow down to them:. You will speak my name in reverence 12 You will rest on my holy Sabbath day. And you will give rest to your animals and servants. Children will respect their parents and have long lives. You will not kill or hurt one another. You will be faithful to your husbands and wives. You will have no need to take what is not yours. You will only tell the truth about one another. Everyone will be satisfied with what they have and no one will want what is not theirs.

You see, they are ten promises. Of course they are promises! That’s why God calls it his covenant. Covenants are always built on promises. The ten commandments are really God’s ten promises to us. They are a picture of what he promises to do for his people, in his people, if they will only love him and remain in relationship with him. Our part of the covenant is to love the Lord our God will all our hearts, minds, and strength.

Joshua understood that the command of God was to love him when he address the children of Israel this way

Jos 22:5 But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses the servant of the LORD charged you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him”

You see, That was God’s plan for Israel from the beginning and it’s His plan for us now. He wants a relationship. An eternal relationship defined by a covenant and characterized by love. His vows are already written and waiting for us to read.

What about you? Will you vow to love Him too? With your whole heart and mind and strength? Will you allow God to write his covenant with you in your heart? Will you teach it too your children? Will it be on the walls of your house? Will it be a community issue that changes your public as well as private identity?

The same covenant that God offered to Israel is now waiting there for us. God promises to do all the work in us. All we have to do is begin to walk in relationship with him. To love him with all our hearts and minds and strength.

The Fountain of Youth, Pristine Untouched Waterfalls, and Birds of ENORMOUS Size.

2008-05-22T01:14:00.000-07:00

I'm really late "editing" this. Sorry.

These incredible pictures which David has posted are from our Sunday trip to Turgen with young pastors from all over the "-stans." Turgen is a mountainous area about an hours drive from Almaty by bus.

Our first stop was the spring called "The Fountain of Youth." How's that for marketing? Appearantly it's quite a tourist destination. Ancient legend claims that an old man and woman became young again after drinking water from this spring. Send me your credit card number and I'll ship you some.
Our second stop was the waterfall. After a climb that really separated our the trekkers from the city slickers we all enjoyed the water and posing for pictures.

Then it was on to the fish farm where you can catch your own fresh fish for $8/lb and have a picnic right there. We hiked away from the people to the back of the property and ate our lunch beside the river. We also took the opportunity to pose in some of the ancient monuments to transportation that were just sitting around.

Our last destination was an ostrich farm. It gets quite cold here and I really felt sorry for these African natives but they seem to have taken to their new environment just fine. I guess their eggs and meat bring in a good profit but charging tourists to see them is probably their biggest moneymaker. While we were there an ostrich laid an egg right in front of us. David and I took the opportunity to pose with the egg. Look mom! Our very first egg!

Finally, the very best part of the trip was spending time with our incredible brothers. On the bus trip back they began singing beautiful Russian hymns. They come from places like Uzbekistan and Tajikstan where all the believers in the whole country would not fill a small church and they live under constant threat of persecution. But there is religious freedom in Almaty, if they cared to sing about Jesus on a public bus they could, and they did. We English speakers could not help joining in when we knew the tune. It was a very blessed weekend.

Hello Family and Friends. Gina will of course edit this in a few hours but for now I need to get the pictures from our latest journey onto the blog. Enjoy!!!

To our Mothers

2008-05-11T00:10:00.000-07:00

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!

You gave us life, clean diapers, food, love, and freedom
You saw potential in our ugliest and least promising moments
You taught us how to speak, walk, eat with a fork, and use a toilet.
You cheered for us at every rehearsal, school play, and game.
Thanks to you we don't put strange things in our mouths (very often)
You faithfully read every blog entry and think it's wonderful
Thank you for being our best teacher and most biased cheerleader.

You deserve a whole city full of flowers!

We Love You, Gina and David

Living in Exile--a sermon from 1 Peter

2008-05-10T23:57:00.000-07:00

Living in Exile

He was probably around 12 years old when he lost his home his family and his freedom. He was taken as a slave and forced on a long march across the desert to a strange country. It was a nightmare. Foreign soldiers everywhere, dust, swords, horses, screaming women, dying men, fire, the smells and sounds of death. The city he grew up in was burned with fire. All his familiar playgrounds became piles of rubble. We know that he was a prince, a member of the royal family. Royal families do not fare well when wars are lost and he probably witnessed the death of his parents and older family members before being carried away in chains. He was taken to the palace of his peoples greatest enemy. The people that Hebrew mothers mentioned when they wanted their children to obey. “You better obey your mother and fetch some water or the Chaldeans will come and get you.” Now they had really come and got him. There was no home anymore, no mamma, no temple, no palace. The future looked as dark as it could be. Hot tears dried instantly on his 12 year old cheeks during that long long long walk through the hot desert. In one moment he had lost everything. When he arrived on the other side of the known world he was placed in the care of the king’s chief Eunuch. We do not know what physical terrors awaited him in the palace but the possibilities are not pleasant. The king knew how to ensure that all children born in the royal palace had been fathered by him alone. It is very possible that any budding dreams of a wife and family were also taken away from the young Daniel after his arrival in Babylon. To be quite blunt. His placement among the kings eunuchs suggests physical scars as well as emotional ones. All of this at the tender age of twelve.

Our Text today comes from 1 Peter. It is a text about suffering. Last week we talked about how Jesus’ victory over death means that we can live victorious lives today. Jesus’ exalted place in heaven means that we have access to his power. And most importantly, His Spirit with us means that we are with Him, and with His Father. Heaven is open to us. Heaven comes to us through Jesus and the Holy Spirit that he sends. This is all good news! But what about when we can’t hear the angels singing? What about when we feel all alone? What can we do, how can we keep believing when the past is a nightmare and the future is dark. When we, like Daniel, become victims of violence, hate, greed, and circumstances. If Jesus promised to send heaven to us, why do we sometimes feel like we’ve woken up in hell?

I know that there are some in this room who have buried children, parents, spouses, and best friends. I know that there are some who have battled with death themselves. Some of you have experienced rejection, betrayal, addictions, abuse, violence, depression. Maybe there was a time when tomorrow has looked so dark, the pain was so hard to bear, that you considered ending it all. Maybe you are carrying pain today that you don’t dare to let anyone see. I do not know all of your stories but I am sure that what I have told you about yourselves is true. I am sure because we live in a world where suffering is so common that it is unusual to meet someone who has not suffered. I have a professor who says that everything about our world is broken. It seems like a good description. When I started reading the text for this week and thinking about the topic of suffering in the Christian life I realized I am not qualified to preach this sermon. I have not lived long enough to have answers for all the difficult questions we ask when we are hurt. So I went to the Bible looking for role model who can teach us how to live successful, abundant, heavenly lives, right here on earth. Right in the middle of brokenness and suffering. What I found, was Daniel.

Daniel’s story starts out in tragedy. Ripped away from childhood at only twelve years old and forced into the service of an enemy king. It has all the elements of a tragedy. We expect to find Daniel afraid, depressed, and bitterly silently rebellious. But instead Daniel acts honorably and courageously. He refuses to be shaped by anger, revenge, or fear. He insists on honoring his God above the king and yet serves the Babylonian king better and more faithfully than any of his other subjects. Daniel is not only successful. He is powerful. His self-control and wisdom make him the most powerful man in the most powerful nation on earth. Surrounded by conspiracies, jealousies, false Gods, and the oh so human impulse to get even with those who have wronged him, Daniel is solid. Three kings rise and fall but Daniel is not moved. Daniel is not a subject of Judah, or Babylon, or Persia. Daniel is a subject of the kingdom of God. And he brings the kingdom of God wherever he goes, even into the royal courts of Babylon. Daniel’s life becomes a mirror through which three different kings are measured and revealed for what they truly are. Daniel’s story is a story of hope in hopeless circumstances. Success at the end of human resources. Power out of complete powerlessness. Daniel’s story is a story of victorious living, free living, abundant kingdom of God living—incredibly demonstrated in the most unlikely and unfriendly of cirucumstances, in Babylon. Daniel teaches us how to live in exile.

Now let’s consider another story… This is our story.

When everyone first heard about the fires they shook their heads. Soon the whispering began, “they say Nero ran out of land to build new cities so he decided to rebuild the old ones.” “I think he couldn’t stand the thought of not having his name on every building in Rome.” “of course he’ll put a huge mausoleum right where the skilled workers houses were.” “Did you hear how many people died in the fire. It was in the middle of the night wasn’t it.” The whispers began to get louder as the whisperers became bolder. In a few weeks people were speaking openly on the streets about how the crazy emperor had burned down Rome so that he would have a building project. Nero was not pleased with this. He needed someone to blame, a sectarian group strange enough that people would be inclined to believe rumors about them, small enough that they would not be too much trouble to destroy, and poor enough that their loss would not effect the Roman Economy. He chose Christians.

It’s not likely that the majority of people believed the emperor’s accusations but they were glad that the shows in the ampitheater had gotten more interesting. They went to watch Christian captives fight for their lives and eventually be torn apart by lions, wolves, and half starved dogs. They gladly directed all of their anger at the injustices of the emperor toward the strange Christians with their strange God and they felt better. If the emperor burns down Rome you can’t do anything about it. No one likes to feel helpless. But if you try to believe that Christians burned down Rome you can go to the ampitheater, see the villain, yell curses at him, watch him die, and then go home feeing powerful, like justice has been done. So Nero’s plan worked. Hating Christians became the popular thing to do. It was during this time that Paul was beheaded in Rome.

Persecution came as a shock to the Christian churches. They didn’t have long to mourn for their beloved leader Paul before they were fleeing for their own lives. Believers who had never even been to Rome were being drug into courts all over the Roman empire. It was absurd to implicate them in the Roman fire but nobody cared anymore about why. They were charged with being Christians and Christianity was illegal. Killing Christians had become national policy.

Most of the time when tragedy strikes it takes us by surprise. We weren’t expecting it. The first question we are likely to ask is “why me?” “What did I do to deserve this?” There is usually no answer to this question and the next question to follow is equally unanswerable “Why did God allow this to happen?” It is at this point, with too many questions and not enough answers, that we are most likely to give up. Some people give up on God and become atheists, or even worse, angry theist who believe in God but hate him. Some give up on themselves. Some commit suicide. Others act out a living death everyday. They get up in the morning, walk to work, eat, sleep, but inside they are already dead. There is nothing behind their eyes. There is no more hope left. But then there are others who manage to hang on to faith. They trust a God they can’t see, live without answers, walk on in the darkness, and miraculously transform their captivity into a tribute to freedom. How do they do it? How did Daniel do it? The same problems and questions present themselves to us. How can we live heavenly lives in the middle of hellish circumstances?

It was during the persecution under Nero that Peter wrote his first letter. It was addressed to the churches scattered around the area of modern day Turkey. His letter is a carefully composed instruction manual for Christians on how to live Daniel lives. The letter carries a very interesting postscript at the end 5:13 “ The church at Babylon, which was chosen together with you, greets you;” For seventy year the nation of Babylon held God’s people in captivity. During that period Daniel stood as an example of holy living in exile. Five hundred years later Peter addressed his letter of encouragement and hope to the persecuted Christian church “from Babylon.” And only a few years afterward, John wrote his “Revelation of Jesus Christ” from the prison Island of Patmos. It is in that book that we read the dramatic description of the final fall of Babylon. They all seem to be saying to us. Babylon is not a nice place to live. It is a place of pain. It is a place of suffering. But don’t worry. Don’t be afraid of Babylon. It is a place to practice kingdom of God living. Our exile will not last forever. Babylon will fall. We are citizens of an eternal kingdom, the kingdom of God. What can Babylon do to us?

Peter puts it this way…

3:13 Who will do you any harm if you keep your minds fixed on the One who is good? (many translations read “if you keep your minds fixed on good” but the One who is Good is a common name for God in the Bible and is a very legitimate possible reading of the original Greek.) Christians after all are not those who memorize rules for good behavior and constantly rehearse them but people who follow and constantly look up to a God who is good. Goodness in the Bible is never an abstract ideal. It’s not even a behavioral standard to strive for. It’s a person we can know. God is good.

14 But if you do suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed; this is a repetition of Jesus’ words “blessed are those who suffer for the sake of Righteousness for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.” It seems a very unlikely thing to say and we are not even sure at first if it is really helpful. Who likes to be told to be happy when they aren’t and there in nothing in their circumstances to suggest that they should be. But Jesus did say that there is a special blessing for those who suffer. In fact, he said that the kingdom of heaven is theirs. Greek verbs have many complicated tenses and he could have very easily said, “the kingdom of heaven will be yours (after you suffer faithfully)” but he used the present tense. “The kingdom of heaven is yours.” So there is something about the nature of suffering (if it is done for the sake of righteousness) that brings us into the kingdom of heaven today. If there is a reward to be had for those who respond to suffering with faith, how can we ensure that we respond correctly? have no part in their fear (do not fear what they fear) and do not be troubled; The words fear and worship are often used as synonyms in the Bible. There is a reason for this. All pagan religions are driven by fear. We try to appease the things we are afraid of through worship. If we fear poverty we will worship wealth. If we fear pain or death we will worship self-preservation. If we fear helplessness, we will worship power. There are many Gods in Babylon but if we want to learn how to live as citizen of heaven in exile, the first step is to not fear Babylon’s Gods. We serve one God. He is not the God of money or power or comfort, He is the king of the whole earth and he alone is worthy of our fear and worship. The God’s of Babylon are nothing. Not only are we told not to be afraid of them, we are told to not even be distracted or disturbed by them. Instead…

15 But give honour to Christ in your hearts as your Lord (lit: make Christ holy in your hearts) Of course Christ is already Holy. There is no way we can make him more or less holy. But our behavior can influence the way others see him. The way we live can reveal the Holiness of Christ or conceal it. When we worship God alone, and speak of the holiness of Christ those around us will notice. They will begin to ask us why we do not worship the Gods of money, power, or comfort that are so popular in Babylon. They will want to know what makes our God so Holy that we worship him with all our hearts. When Christ is honored in our hearts and lives people will notice; and be ready at any time when you are questioned about the hope which is in you, to give an answer in the fear of the Lord and without pride; When people ask us why we do not serve the God’s of Babylon it is not the time to preach a passionate sermon on the evils of idolatry. We are to answer with gentleness and humility about the hope that is in us. This is not a doctrinal dissertation. This is a personal testimony. We should be able to say, this is what God has done for me and this is why I serve Him. The remarkable thing about Babylon is how many times we find God there. It is often those who have spent many years in exile in spiritual Babylon who love God the most and speak most passionately about what He has done for them. Rather than weakening our faith, Babylon, often makes us stronger. It is there surrounded by the fears of loss and death pain and loneliness that we learn to not be afraid and to honor Christ in our hearts. It is there that we become powerful witnesses to the holiness of God.

When we find ourselves in Babylon we can know that we are in good company. Many heros of the faith have been here before us. Christ himself has been here. We read in verse 18 Because Christ once went through pain for sins, the upright one taking the place of sinners, so that through him we might come back to God; being put to death in the flesh, but given life in the Spirit;…

22 who has gone into Heaven and is on the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto Him.

It was through suffering, innocent suffering that Jesus opened up heaven to us. Therefore, Peter says. We should not be surprised if as followers of Jesus we find that life sometimes leads through very dark valleys. Jesus has been here before us. He knows this road. He can lead us. The path leads through death itself but we should not be afraid because we know that resurrection and eternal life wait on the other side.

Finally 1 Peter ends with this advice..

19 Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.

Chapter 5

6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:

7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

9 Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.

10 But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.

11 To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

In this passage Peter makes a number of incredible claims.

Firstly that suffering may actually be “according to the will of God.”

That we should therefore submit to unexplainable tragedies and dark Babylon moments in our lives and part of God’s will for us.

That we should continue to trust God to lift us up and fulfill his promises to us in His time.

That in the meantime, that means, in the very moment of pain, we can drop all of our burdens and throw all of our worries on God because he cares about us.

That faith is the weapon we must use to resist the temptations of the devil (temptations to run away, temptations to become angry, temptations to stop trusting, temptations to give up.)

That we are not alone in our sufferings but that suffering is an experience familiar to all of God’s people.

And that finally we can be assured that after our trials are over we will find that God has made us more complete, more established, and stronger than we were before.

The story of Daniel shows us that it is possible to serve God in enemy territory with the odds stacked against us and the pain of fresh wounds sitting like a ball in the back of our throat. The first letter of Peter gives us some practical advice and reminds us that Babylon is not a permanent state. Suffering will not last forever. Of course we do not have the time here to mine the deep resources of 1 Peter. There is more gold there than you can carry away at one time. It is a place to continue coming and digging with years and years of riches waiting to be discovered. That is what I hope you will do. That is what I intend to do. When bad things happen to good people for no reason let us remember that we are not home yet. We are still in Babylon, and these things happen in Babylon. But let us not live like beaten slaves. Let us take our lessons from Daniel and Peter. Let us live as free citizens of the kingdom of heaven trusting that our lives will bring Glory to the God who has made us free and that anything he permits to come to us will only leave us stronger.

Nauruz, Turkish, and Cream of Wheat Pie

2008-04-09T22:42:00.000-07:00

This is a long story with a point, cream of wheat pie. The story begins on our second weekend in Almaty. One of the English students, Marjan, tipped me off that Saturday was Nauruz, an important Kazakh holiday celebrating Spring and the new year. We were eager to see some Kazakh culture and she agreed to meet us early Saturday morning and take us to the square. English church begins at 2 in the afternoon on Saturday, so morning was a good time for us. We met her at the bus stop, pushed our way onboard, and almost an hour later we there, wandering through crowds of people selling balloons and icecream, taking pictures next to displays, and having a great time.

Marjan had promised me that we would get a chance to taste nauruz kuji, a traditional soup eaten on Nauruz. We were glad to find a woman selling a vegetarian variety. The soup was dished up cold and had a very shocking sour, and tingly flavor, as if it had soda water in it. It turns out the secret ingredient is kurut, dried salted yogurt. I laughed and laughed as I watched David consider his large bowl full of kurut soup. He is not a fan of the stuff.
In the end it all disappeared and there were no ill effects. We verified a number of times that it did not contain alcohol. It would have been scandal if I had arrived to preach that afternoon drunk on Nauruz Kuji.

After our exciting cultural experience
we joined the crowds gathering to watch the show. There was dancing and singing. As you can see from the pictures, we weren't in the front of the crowd but David still managed to get few shots. A couple joining the crowd recognized Marjan and stopped to talk. They weren't using Russian and I began to recognize a few words. Soon Marjan introduced us to her Turkish teacher and his wife. While Marjan and her teacher talked I began trying to communicate with his wife and to our delight we were able to understand each other enough to determine that we were both fine and neither of us had children, etc. Before they left, David and I had an invitation to come to their apartment for dinner the next Saturday evening. That is how it all began.

On Saturday evening Marjan met us at the center where we have church and we went together to her teacher's apartment. They had been warned that we are vegetarians so there was a lovely bean dish waiting for us, carrot salad, dolmas, cake, etc. it was a wonderful meal! Between Kazakh, Uighur, Turkish, and English we all managed to communicate and there was lots of laughter. I found out that the wife teaches Turkish to some women in her home and I was asked if I wouldn't like to learn some Turkish (it's a very useful language after all). I said I would and it was agreed that once a week on Tuesdays I would come and learn Turkish and help my teacher with her English. So that's how I happened to be in the home of a conservative Muslim family from Turkey two weeks later when she served me Cream of Wheat Pie and how I got this recipe which I am now sharing with you. The pictures are from my own interpretation of the recipe which David and I happily enjoyed for breakfast.

CREAM OF WHEAT PIE

boil milk and sugar to taste (sorry, I don't do measurements. Just make it sweet)
a pinch of salt is optional
Vanilla, cinnamon, raisins and walnuts, etc. are also optional.

Slowly add Cream of Wheat and stir with a wisk until the milk is the consistency of pudding.

crush some graham crackers, vanilla wafers, or English biscuits, into the bottom of a round casserole dish and pour half of the cream of wheat over them. Layer whole biscuits on top and add the rest of the cream of wheat. Finish off with more biscuits on top.

Refrigerate until cool then slice and enjoy with vanilla ice cream.

Notes on this week's gospel reading

2008-04-06T05:57:00.000-07:00

Some of the best and most helpful preaching advice I ever received was to use the lectionary. The Lectionary is a collection of texts to be read each Sunday as part of a liturgical church service. It is, unfortunately, an unfamiliar thing to most Adventists but it is an immensely powerful tool. I used to waste most of the week agonizing over what I was going to preach about and the end result while perhaps theologically correct, was not always biblical in the purest sense of the word. I was afraid that I would not be able to preach "canned" texts that had not somehow "spoken to me" but I decided in India that I should discpline myself to try it. The first sermon was very hard because the text demanded facts not just feelings and impressions. I struggled long over the text. In the end, the results were very rewarding and I was hooked. Now, instead of agonizing over a topic, I simply look up the texts for the week on Monday and have the rest of the week to read the texts and meditate on them. The texts become my guide so that the sermon that rises from them is truely birthed in scripture. With the lectionary to guide me sermon preparation is exiting, challenging, surprising, but not agonizing. I really wish every young preacher could discover what a rich resource is available in the many versions of the Christian lectionary.

This last week the gospel reading was the story of the two men who meet Jesus on the road to Emmaus. It was a fitting text that tied in nicely to the first lesson of the new Adventist Sabbath School Quarterly. I thought I would post my notes for anyone who might be interested. Some of my notes have come from the wonderful lectionary commentary at montreal.anglican.org

Our lessons this quarter are about Jesus, a fitting theme for Christians. The first lesson opens with the question “Who is Jesus” and offers a number of different modern and ancient answers to this question. I was very pleased to discover that on this third week of Easter the Christian community will be pondering a story from the gospel of Luke about two men who were asking that very same question. “Who is Jesus?” We will be paying special attention to how the answer to their question comes.

Our story is found in Luke chapter 24. Jesus is dead, or so everyone thinks. The believers are together partially because of their shared grief and partially out of fear that now that their leader is dead those who killed Jesus will come looking for them. To complicate things even more some women who have been so helpful in the past by providing food and domestic comforts seem to have been mentally affected by the grief. They are claiming to have seen angels. Everyone is disappointed, afraid, guilty for deserting Jesus or denying him, and concerned about the mental health of the women. Two believers, Cleopas and a friend, decide that it is time to go home.

13 And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs.
Two of them, probably followers of Jesus but not apostles. Eusubius the Christian historian tells us that Cleopas was a relative of Jesus. His companion is unnamed. Seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus

14 And they talked together of all these things which had happened. 15 And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them. 16 But their eyes were holden that they should not know him.
Why if they are followers of Jesus do they not recognize him? His appearance seems to have changed after his resurrection. John tells us that Mary did not recognize Jesus when she met him at the tomb. She thinks that he is the gardener until he calls her by name. Later the disciples go fishing and Jesus begins talking to them from the shore. They do not recognize him until he tells them where to find the fish. Sometimes God does not appear the way we expect him. In fact, I suspect that this is often the case. He is the mighty lion and the gentle lamb. He is the conquering king of Daniel and the suffering servant of Isaiah. He is patient but demands immediate obedience. He is forgiving and avenging. He is humble and jealous. He is unpredictable and yet completely trustworthy. He will break every definition you pin to him and yet he is always good.

17 And he said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?

Why are you speaking so sadly? It is the greatest day of victory the universe has ever known. It is resurrection day. Goodness has conquered finally and completely, the kingdom of God has come in power. Small battles may continue on the outer frontiers of the realm but the battle has been won. Jesus, the conquering general, the hero of all the universe, the darling of heaven should be celebrating his brilliant victory with his admiring angels and loving father. You know what it feels like when you do something really well. You can’t wait to share the moment with the people you love. There will be hugs and kisses and tears and precious words like “good job,” and “I’m so proud of you.” Instead, Jesus has chosen to walk down a dusty road with two sad men who have completely misinterpreted the score.

18 And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days? 19 And he said unto them, What things?
Jesus knows better than they what has happened in Jerusalem but he waits to hear how they have understood it.

And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people:

Jesus the risen Lord stands before them but they only know Jesus the man and prophet. They do not know who Jesus is so they cannot recognize him. They do not know Jesus the risen Lord.

20 And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him. 21 But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel:

There was certainly a time perhaps when they would have said Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah that the prophets spoke about, maybe even a divine being. But that time is past. The Messiah would not have been killed outside the city like a thief. Surely God would not have allowed that. The Messiah is to restore everything and sit on the throne of David. Maybe they are afraid of what this stranger will think of them putting their faith in a man who was so easily killed like a common criminal. We hoped he would at least save Israel from Roman oppression they mumble sheepishly.

and beside all this, to day is the third day since these things were done.

And there is one other thing… There is one cause for hope but it’s too farfetched to be true. It’s a crazy story and the only witnesses are women.

22 Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre; 23 And when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive.

They do not believe the women. Everyone knows that women are emotional and therefore untrustworthy. Maybe they are afraid of looking like fools again.

24 And certain of them which were with us (i.e. men) went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not.

The men did not see anything.

25 Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:

a flattering way to be addressed. Jesus has such a knack for beginning conversations. If this stranger laughed at them for pouring out their hearts to him they expected it to be for their belief, not their unbelief.

26 Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?
They did not say Christ or Messiah. They said the one who would save Israel, given the political mileu at that time the one who would save Israel was most likely meant to be understood as the one who would save Israel from Rome rather than the one who would save Israel from their sins. Jesus cuts right to the chase and starts telling them about the Christ.

27 And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

The Scriptures are about Jesus. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees “you search the scriptures thinking that you will find eternal life in them but they point to me and you will not come to me to receive life.” If we read the Bible we will find Jesus on every page the hope of salvation, the teachings of wisdom, the example of humble living, the victory over sin and evil, self sacrificing redemption, the hope of final restoration. It’s all there and it’s all about Jesus. If we want to know who Jesus the first step is to read the Bible and understand it.

28 And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and he made as though he would have gone further. 29 But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry (MenO) with them.
Rev 3:20 Jesus does not invite himself over, he waits for an invitation. The second step to knowing Jesus is to invite him in.

30 And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. 31 And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight.
It is only after we spend intimate MenO abiding time with Jesus, after we have had the inner intimate experience with him that we can know and recognize him. We may know all the stories, we may listen to people talk about him, we may know all of the Bible verses about him but to know him for ourselves we must abide with him. How do you explain the mingling and intimacy of two souls? It is an experience too big for words and so it is best described through symbols. It is the vine and branches experience Jesus speaks about in the Gospel of John. It is the bread and wine experience of Jesus and his disciples in the upper room. It is in the quiet place of the heart, alone with the Divine that we learn to call Jesus Lord. We learn to recognize his voice so that like Mary at the tomb we know who it is when he calls our name. This is the third step that leads us into a true knowledge of Jesus, intimate relationship

32 And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?

To know Jesus we must understand the Scriptures, we must take the step of faith and invite Jesus into our private places, and then we must spend time with him. Once we know who Jesus is there is one more step, it's more of a natural consequence. We share.

33 And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem,
When they finally see and recognize Jesus for who he is they are so excited about knowing the Risen Lord that they risk walking the dangerous 7 miles between Jerusalem and Emmaus in the dark just to share their new knowledge with others. There are theives on that road but they can’t even wait till morning.

and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, 34 Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon.
None of the Gospels record this meeting. I wish they did. It must have been something. I want to ask Peter about it someday. We don’t know if Jesus appeared to Peter alone or to others who were with him. What we do know is that while the disciples had not believed the report of the women, they do believe Peter.

35 And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread.

The fourth step in meeting Jesus is sharing. When we really see Jesus we find that knowing him is such good news we have to share it. We are in love and when someone is in love, everybody knows.

36 ¶ And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.

The story goes on and on so that it is difficult to find a place to stop but this is as far as we will go together today. It’s the neverending story of Jesus that John confessed would fill the whole world with books if it were written down. We are all a part of that story, everyone who has ever met Jesus and invited him into their home knows their part in the story and loves to tell it. There are many others who have also met Jesus but let him walk on and so never knew. On that great story telling day when Jesus said the hidden things would be revealed they may hear their own story and be surprised to learn who they were walking with.

Corbett national tiger reserve, India

2008-03-26T21:55:00.000-07:00

We do apologize for the delay in posting the much anticipated Corbett National Tiger Reserve vacation blog. I'm posting only a few of the pictures today and Gina will tell about them later. I will be posting this by picture groupings.

First for a few legalities: © 2008 by David Helbley
The pictures posted are only low resolution photos but if anyone wants to use them for production or posting on their website please contact me. We can work something out and I have high resolution photos available. My address is: Helb Da (at) gmail (dot) com (take out the spaces and fix it to actually e-mail me.)

Let's get started by setting the mood with a little landscape and the ride into the park.

Strangle Fig Tree

Our first big surprise was when we saw a hot-air-balloon rising from the trees next to us.

Along the way we saw a few birds and 3 of the 4 types of deer to be found in the park.

Sambar Deer (Largest deer in Asia)

Spotted Dear

The "graceful" Barking Deer (smallest deer in the park and we think Asia).

Hog Deer

Sambar Deer

Elephants are always impressive. We saw many wild elephants and took a morning elephant ride. While on the elephant ride. We heard a Tiger roar and Gina and the other riders saw the stripes of a tiger through the underbrush.

Elephant family taking a bath.

Angry mother elephant. Her calf is nearby.

Self-portrait from the elephant ride.

Elephant parking.

We of course ran across several different mammals.

Common Languar

Bad monkey (he stole those nuts)

Wild boar

Jackels

There are many other animals that will be posted soon... Including some really good bird pictures, crocodiles, fish, and more. For the sake of not putting it off another day we will skip right to the chase.

The TIGERS!!!!

This isn't like the zoo, there are no bars.

Tiger sighted at the end of day 2. Male, estimated age <2.5>

Tiger sighted at the end of day 1. Female known to have 2 grown cubs.

Day 2. Same male tiger crossing the road about an hour later.

Whenever a visitor sees a tiger they get to write about it in the log book and brag on the chalkboard. We got more than our fair share of bragging in. This is Gina and our friend Yakko from Finland in front of the brag board

Well thanks for taking a look. Gata soar.

© 2008 by David Helbley

nomads

2008-02-25T00:34:00.000-08:00

It's been only a little over a week since David and I made a quick exit from Garo Hills and arrived in Delhi on a Thursday night but everything has changed. We are pilgrims once again trying to decide what to give away and what to pack. Airport weight limits and painfully high overweight charges are very purging.

Maranatha is doing budget cuts because of the falling US economy and after a long and friendly talk with our boss we all agreed it would be best for us and the company if we left for awhile. The timing is good for us. David and I were able to save enough working with Maranatha to finish paying off my student loans so now we are free to take a larger range of volunteer positions without worrying about financial responsibilities.

We did some shopping on the Adventist Volunteers website and found a call for English teahers in Almaty Kazakhstan. We have applied with the school and received a positive response from them so we are completing paperwork and applying for a visa. Our tentative departure date is March 9.

Kazakhstan is the largest of the new former USSR countries. It is bordered by Russia on the North, Kyrgystan and Uzbekistan, on the South, China on the East and the Caspian Sea on the West. The geography is mostly steppe, high grazing land, with some very large mountains. The people were historically nomadic shepherds divided by family and tribal groups. Of course many (most?) are settled now. Almaty, Alma Ata on the map above, is one of those larger settlements called a city. It's located in the South Eastern part of the country. Alma Ata means literally, "the father of apples" and that sounds pretty good after all the grainy and creamy apples we have eaten in India. Pictures of the mountains and evergreen forests remind us of Washington State. Just because you have never heard of it you should not assume that Almaty is a backwards place. It is actually a rich and modern city. Kazakhstan, like many of the "stans," has oil. It is also a place of historical interest for Russia's space program. I have found an amateur radio club in the city. Unfortunately, their website uses cyrilic letters so I can understand very little but they have a nice photo gallery. Here's a link: http://qrz.kz/index.php?option=com_zoom&Itemid=205 David's looking forward to making contact with them.

The primary religion in all of Central Asia is Islam. It is not the extremist Islam that makes the newspapers and evening news broadcasts. It is a religion of personal devotion and surrender to the will of Allah. Alcohol, smoking, unclean meats, and immorality are all forbidden by the principals of Islam so that Islam faithfully practiced, is a religion of peace.

Our new job duties will include 24 hrs per week of English teaching, weekly duties at the local church, teaching Sabbath School, Friday night Bible Study, etc. We are sorry to leave India but looking forward to returning to Central Asia where we think we will at least understand a few more words. Russian is the primary trade language in Kazakhstan but many other turkic languages are also present including Kazakh, kyrgyz, Uzbek, tajik, and Uighur. There is even a Uighur population in Almaty. I'm hoping to make some Uighur friends that I can speak with. It's use it or lose it with second languages. God is good and his children are never bored. :-)

Garo Hills Campus

2008-02-10T20:01:00.000-08:00

A lot has happened in three months. Gina and I are back in the Garo Hills of North-east India. In a few days school starts. Work continues on the campus. I am still waiting for the truck carrying the water distribution pipe to arrive. The truck is coming from half a country away, state border crossings, paperwork and taxes to be checked and rechecked.... The local merchant gave me the assurance, that we all know is just the fastest it could get here, of 10 days. That 10 day wait ends tomorrow. Any number of things could hold the supplies up for a few days, or weeks. I look forward the long days of joining the 1200-meters of water distribution pipe, one 6-meter section at a time.
Here is a shot of the campus from across the river on a hill.

Campmeeting in the hills

2008-02-10T06:01:00.000-08:00

We may have skipped the country but are still taking in the local church functions and enjoying our status as members of a worldwide family. On Sabbath Gina and I melted into the group, as much as possible, at the 52nd Garo Annual Meeting. It was so liberating to be part of an event that would happen exactly the same whether we were present or not. We did cause a small stir and a unique photographic opportunity. Some people just had to take pictures with us.

The nightly meetings were cold. Gina dressed warm. One evening after the meeting was over a cow wandered in. I had go up and say hello.

My favorite person in the whole meeting was this old man who always had the biggest smile on his face. he seemed to be alone but always made you feel like you were part of his world.

This is my favorite picture, a child with the sun shining across his face. The second runner up.... well there were many.

The meetings began Wednesday night but because of work responsibilities I had to wait till sabbath to take pictures during the day. There where thousands of people, many traveled several hours from their remote villages to attend the meetings. This annual meeting means more to the Garo people than just getting together once a year. There aren't enough churches and pastors to go around so believers bring their tithes and offerings to the meetings. Pastors take the opportunity while everyone is together to conduct mass baptisms and weddings. We got the rare opportunity, as foreigners, to be present during the baptisms. The last picture is a mass wedding. Fourteen couples were in attendence.

Our first Kid!!!

2008-01-05T23:14:00.000-08:00

Gina and I have adopted our first student. He still has parents of his own but we are helping him go to school. Vamsi is enjoying his first year at school and is the excellent artist who drew all of the pictures on our virtual refrigerator.

Virtual refrigerator

2007-12-30T09:29:00.000-08:00

Good news all around

Our family is growing. We are sponsoring a young man named Vamsi Devi at the Cuddapah school. He is nine years old and very artistic. He loves to use the computer to make pictures on paint and colors in the lines very carefully.

David has lost weight, a lot of weight. He looks good.

Gina has learned how to tie a Sari

Here's the evidence

Loongies

2007-12-15T02:12:00.000-08:00

It's Sabbath afternoon. David and I are sitting on the porch of the principal's house in Cuddapah district (not actually occupied by the principal). We have been be staying here for the last week and a half. There is an academy group coming next week who will move in here so we'll have to vacate to an obscure corner somewhere. That means giving up the nice big bed and putting a couple single mattresses on the floor. I tell him he needs to hang a curtain to separate the small kitchen area and make a bedroom for us. He suggests buying "loongies" (wrap around skirts for men) to use as curtains. We both know it's just an excuse for him to buy more "man skirts." He says they are comfortable. He bought his first pair while I was away in Gurgaon. I wasn't too excited about it because men around here grap the bottom corners and lift the fabric up above their knees. The result is something like a baggy miniskirt. David has resisted the temptation to do this (willingly, see below) for which I am grateful. I suggested sharing clothes but he frowned about that. I think it's going to take some time before he's comfortable sharing. He sure looks manly in a long skirt! : )

Sabbath afternoon is very quiet. The contractors are forbidden to work and the children are forbidden to yell and shout. After church service the teacher told all the children to go back into their rooms and enjoy themselves but not to make any noise. We laughed as they immediately began jumping between the top bunks, swinging on the window bars, and (in the case of the boys) running around naked. Finally order was reinstituted. I think the command to enjoy themselves was revoked.

We went off soon after that to find food for ourselves. If we had not made a timely exit we would have been constrained to eat with the children. Everyone here is very gracious about sharing their food but I can't eat it. Everytime I eat Indian food I hate it more. They use oil as if it were water (often palm oil) and chilis as if they were salt. The chilis are everywhere. I can't escape them. Not all chilis are equal. It's the small green chilis that are my archnemesis. My chest feels heavy and my throat constricts after just one bite. They are in every cooked dish from rice pilaf, to lentils, to vegetable curries.

We have really appreciated the generosity of the principal in giving us a small gas canister and burner so that I can cook. Keeping vegetables around is a challenge. We can't just drive to the grocery store. First I have to find someone to go with me to translate (more bodies means more arms to carry bags), then we have to catch a bus. Once in town we buy as much as we can from vendors who supply bags and try to make sure the tomatoes are stacked on top of the potatos and not the other way around. Then we start stuffing spare things in bags wherever there is room (grandma's crocheted bag comes in very handy for this). Finally I buy whatever papayas we can carry. After the necessities, we usually cannot carry as many as we would like. When we board the bus with all of our bags we hope we can find a place to sit. Usually some of the school boys meet us when we get back on campus and help us carry the well traveled bags to their place on the polished stone shelf that serves as a kitchen counter.

I ran out of gas once, I was right in the middle of frying up some eggplant. David went out to see if he could find someone to help us get more. He returned a few minutes later and told me that the children were dancing. Dancing? I had to see this. Back at the children's home Hindi music was being played on the donated DVD player (that machine gets a lot of use) and one of the translators who had come early was leading a sort of dance class. The kids put up a good cheer when we went inside for a closer look and we were immediately pushed up to the front. I kept saying "We don't know how to dance." but I think the language barrier prevented my appeals from having any effect. David, and this is the best part, was wearing a loongie. Everyone kept making motions that he would have to pull it up and tuck it in to which he turned pale and made desperate hand motions to the contrary. In the end he was pulled into a room and after a long time and much encouragement finally emerged again in a baggy miniskirt. We were then forced to improvise an interpretive dance based entirely on our brief experience with Hindi music videos. It was the first time I have ever regretted not paying more attention to Indian dance routines. Our leader made it look so easy and beautiful! I really have a new appreciation for the complexities of Indian dance now. We laughed a lot and looked like complete fools but everyone had a good time and it was a lot of fun. The children still tell me "Ginaka (sister Gina) dance bagondi (beautiful)". They are such charming little liars. Dinner was very late that night. We ate half cooked eggplant and laughed about what a great adventure we had.

David will be buying three more loongies. We determined that is what it will take to make a curtain across the kitchen area in the principal's house.

Mt. Everest???

2007-11-17T09:30:00.000-08:00

Here is one for Mike. I think this is Mt. Everest but I will have to compare the shot to others. This mountain stood out above the clouds while flying. The shot is with my 300mm telephoto lens and enhanced with Picasa2's I'm feeling lucky. Earlier that day I had made to mistake of switching lenses without powering off the camera. I think I have managed to get most of the dust off the ccd. I am still looking for a camel hair brush and need to look at the official cleaning procedure.

Wildlife

2007-11-17T09:10:00.000-08:00

Many of my friends already know I have a great love for animals. Here is just a few that I have found.

A little Photo Housekeeping

2007-11-17T04:30:00.000-08:00

I'm back with more photos for the blog. Okay, I have a confession. I uploaded these pictures to my server over a month ago so I could post them easier. I figure I had better finish posting old photos of Garo Hills before moving on to our new Cuddapah project posts. Furthermore I have to confess all of these photos were taken in the first two weeks of our stay in Garo Hills. Don't worry Gina and I are headed to the main office where we will once again have an internet connection faster than dial-up.

Let's take a walk down memory lane.
The first night the rains stopped I was overwhelmed by the vast starry sky above me. I pulled our my 50mm 1.8 prime lens and took some extended exposure shots. That was fun, Gina wondered what happened to me for an hour.

Next there is a photo I like of Gina. Getting the internet through the satellite connection was a trick at times.
The next series of pictures are from around the house of our host where we stayed for the first week and a half. Local kids, lots of fruit (banana, palamalo, pineapple, papaya), vinilla bean vines, rubber tree starts, and their open well where we get our water from. I ran into a spider hanging from the tree and had to take the challenge of taking a picture of a hanging object. Grape juice was made for the church by reconstituting resins and squeezing our the juice. Last is a perspective Gina pointed out looking out one of the windows with rain falling.

Like all of the pictures in this blog I do reserve copyrights. Feel free to click on the photo to see enlargements. Please write to me in a comment requesting permission to use any of the photos for any reason. If you know me just write an e-mail for permission.

David

A rambling update, (once a year literary burst)

2007-09-26T00:19:00.000-07:00

Life here in Garo Hills has started taking on a sort of a routine. After two weeks we have started making significant progress in spite of short work days other complications. Our upstairs small third of the triplex we will be temporarily staying in when it is finished is located third from the end. The top floor is two dwellings meant for only a couple. It has a small entry big enough for a small couch or a few chairs and coffee table. The next room behind a full height barrier wall is the bedroom. A king bed is out, the whole room is just larger than a king bed. Then another full height wall and the bathroom/shower, has the only door inside the house. Last, the kitchen. Out the back door is a shared balcony with the dwelling on the other half of the house.

That will be home as soon as we have a toilet and running water. For now we live in a room about the size of the guest room Gina and I stayed in at your house, approximately 12'x16'. That includes bathroom, a table with a propane stove on it we call the kitchen, fridge, small table that we have to clear off for every meal, and a bed I am guessing is the size of a full, just larger than a twin and I think the locals call it a queen, we are still figuring out the names for miniature beds.

I have finally given the engineers in the states the information they need to complete the septic design. The seemingly simple tasks of 1) asking people with any certainty how much water each person will flush down the drain for each building, 2) Make a relative elevation (topo) map of the construction site so the engineers know up from down and can make the water flow downhill, 3) take a picture of local water plants that fit the description of reeds, cat-tails, or bulrushes so the engineers know we are actually planting the right plant, and 4) take a soil percolation test to find the water absorption rate, takes a really long time.

Now I am on to designing the water distribution for the campus. There is already one 400 foot well and we will be digging another one on the other side of the campus in light of a water tower for redundant water supply. Digging wells is about 1/3rd the price of installing a tower. Once that is done Gina and I will probably head down to the next school site and start designing the next septic system. I am quickly feeling more like a civil engineer every day and will probably be able to write a book on "waste water management out-side the United States" by the time I am done here. The interesting thing is that Maranatha will probably have me write the standard procedures manual before too long.

Gina and I are hanging in here. The living quarters are a little tight and if anyone wanted a nice QUIET corner to call their own... well India is not the place. We look forward to having our own apartment soon. Until then, we are calling it full immersion as we live in the old bank with about 10 others and we take long walks along the peaceful village roads lined with fireflies at night and in the morning the clouds hang low over the lush green hills and flooded rice patties.

I am including a picture I was thrilled to have captured. In the middle of a 2 hour conversation the three others in the car were having I heard a few English words that threw me into action. "There's an elephant", I looked up just in time to see the rear end of an elephant that looked about the same size and shape as the trucks we had been dodging at 70 km/hr. Already equipped with the camera and zoom lens, I whirled around and snapped the photo out the back window. It made my day.

Lest I give the false impression that life is all frustration and horror, it is not. The people are very hospitable and love taking us on trips to new places and seeing new people. Visiting the 5000 year old Hindu temple was a real treat. The food is good, it will take a long time for us to get used to the amount of oil and hot peppers that are in use. Sometimes, it seems like we are going so many places and doing so many things we cannot get the work done that we need to. This, of course, is frustrating. I have had to learn that shaking my head to say "no" looks strangely like tilting my head to the locals, which means "yes". I am still feeling a little weak as my body recovers from jet-lag. My ears are starting to adjust so I can now understand when people speak to me in English. Hindi is on the list of languages to learn.

Moms and Dads, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, I love and miss you all,

David

The Conquest of Green

2007-09-25T23:13:00.000-07:00

I saw it. You won't believe that I saw it, but I did see it. David saw it too. It was buzzing around me and my book while I tried to fight off a headache with some dense George Eldon Ladd theology. I only allow myself the privilege of reading my book if something (like a headache) is preventing any other productive activity. I felt guilty about it for sure. But the computer was giving me fits and making writing impossible (Note reason number two for not writing. One you will recall was a headache). The mutant insect must have been sent to torment me for my indulgence. It was a bee. A bee of unusual size, but only a bee. We have seen them two inches long out here. The most unusual aspect of the particular bee in question was not size, but color. It's stripes were not yellow, they were green! It was too big, too near for me to have made a mistake. David saw it too. The bee was black and green. It was then that I began to suspect a conspiracy of magnificent proportions. I checked the basketful of lemons that I had bought the day before. Sure enough, they too were green. Not a hint of yellow. Have I seen a yellow banana since I arrived? ? ? ? No, I don't think so. Green? yes. Black? yes. Yellow? no. In fact, green is everywhere. The housetops are covered with a green slime. Green plants have carpeted every available inch of ground. The trunks of the palm trees are covered by the green leaves of climbing plants, air ferns, and orchids. Green is completely out of control. I pondered the green back of a kingfisher hunting in the irrigation ditches of the rice paddies this morning and wondered, what is to become of yellow?

Unlike any place on earth

2007-09-11T00:49:00.000-07:00

The sun does shine in the land where the clouds come home. We had a clear night last night after a late return from a shopping trip in the city two hours away. We were on a mission to buy all the supplies we would need for our guest house when it is finally finished. We are guests now in the home of a church elder and we are looking forward very much to having our own place. The idea is that we will go far down south to Cuddapah at the end of the week and when we return our house will be finished.

The Garo people are actually the Achik people. I have not been able to discover the story of how the Garo title was imposed upon them, probably by a British explorer with a need to name something, but it seems that for millennia they have known of themselves as the Achik and that is how I will henceforth refer to them. The Achik speak Achiku, a very simple language with verbal forms that vary with the tense but not the person or number. The sentence structure closely resembles Central Asian languages with many verbal suffixes. They say I can learn it in a couple months. So far my vocabulary is restricted to namingima – hello.

The seven states which make up North East India bear very little resemblance to the people or landscape of the Indian subcontinent and there are a number of underground militant groups dedicated to the freeing of the northeast from Indian supremacy. For that reason, I try to watch my tongue and not refer to the North East as a part of India. If you want to really understand North East India, you must forget that you are in India at all and look for the characteristics that make this region so unique. Among the many peculiarities of the northeast people are their round faces and slanted eyes. The Achik claim to have come all the way from Mongolia and they certainly resemble Mongolian people.

Many of the northeast tribes are matrilineal. I’ve been watching family dynamics trying to learn how a matrilineal culture operates. I was curious to know whether I would find the gender roles reversed from patrilineal traditions. To my surprise, women still do much of the cooking and cleaning. A foreigner entering this society would not suspect that this is an example of one of the rarest societal structures on earth. One reason for that may be the long standing Christian influence. Christian missionaries entered this place long ago and taught the tribal people about the humble Jesus, denominational division, the male priesthood, and God’s plan for female submission. Despite the Christian influence, of which I have observed very little positive to write, women are still treated with respect, and daughters inherit the family wealth. There is no walking ten paces behind a man here but neither is there husband abuse. My initial impression is that gender relations in North East India are marked by an extraordinary equality and mutual respect. The great experiment the world was afraid to try, has, in my estimation, proven successful.

getting our feet wet

2007-09-07T00:24:00.000-07:00

I'm writing from a temporary bamboo hut on the building site of the future Garo Hills Adventist Boarding School. Internet is delivered via satelite but it's been touchy because of atmospheric disturbance. The rain clouds are laying low over the hills and it has been pouring rain since we arrived yesterday around noon. We asked how long it would rain and they replied two more months. This is really complicating construction but the crews are still out there shoveling gravel into baskets and then carrying them on their heads to the place where concrete is being prepared or pounding boards into forms. Yesterday they tried pouring the second floor of one building but had to stop when the rain got to heavy. Monsoon is really putting a cramp in this construction project. We don't know where we are staying yet but we hope to find out before evening. Yesterday we had to sit all day while people fed us but the camera crew has just arrived and there are promised of hiking up the hill to get some good shots of the campus. I'm looking forward to that.

One week in Gurgaon

2007-09-03T00:23:00.001-07:00

I’m up at four in the morning and grateful because it’s an improvement from my first night when I was awake at midnight after crashing at four in the afternoon. Jet lag, it will make a philosopher out of anyone. After I have thought about everything I can imagine thinking about, listened to the air conditioner banging and roaring, and cuddled with David spitefully hoping he’ll wake up, there’s nothing left to do but give up the fight, turn on the computer, and write a long overdue update.

Let me tell you about the air conditioner in our room – it’s set at 30 c. I understand that’s about 92 f. I’ve never tried to measure the air outside but it’s well over 100 f in the morning when the sun comes up and only gets warmer from there. We are grateful for our air conditioner. The air is not only hot, it’s humid. David is dry when we leave our apartment in the morning and looks like he just stepped out of a shower for the second time when we arrive at the office ten minutes later. We waste no time getting inside the air conditioned office. It feels like we are living in a greenhouse. If only we could have brought our orchids with us! They would have been so happy here.

India is extravagant. There is marble everywhere. All the stairways, floors, and countertops in our neighborhood are marble. Even the courtyards and driveways are paved in it. The floors are cut with various colors of stone skillfully laid out in geometric patterns. The women are works of art in their intricately decorated saris. Little green birds dart among blooming balcony gardens and flowering trees. Stately Brahmin bulls amble along the roads blessing everyone they pass with their somber brown eyes. Marigold wreaths decorate curbside shrines or grace lighted nooks in homes and businesses. Vendors stack huge purple pyramids of eggplant in various shapes and sizes. There is a seemingly endless supply of variety.

India is friendly. I have not yet met one unfriendly creature in India, unless, perhaps, you count the monkey that darted at the heels of one of the Indian men who works at the office. I had walked past it just in front of him and it had just sat on its haunches questioningly. Maybe my pink skin confused the fight picking primate. Large brown dogs litter every corner of the city but they whine submissively and follow behind tails wagging expectantly when you speak kindly to them. One puppy rolled around on the dusty road in pure ecstasy when David rubbed its belly. Even the birds and chipmunks do not seem to fear people. Every restaurant sports a vegetarian menu. Nature and humanity appear to have reached a blissful harmony here.

We have had one week to settle in before we travel on Thursday to our more permanent home in Garo Hills. We have spent most of it sleeping through dinner, watching the sun rise in the morning, and trying to figure out how to buy food. I have an appointment on Wednesday morning with an orthodontist. David is settling in well at the office but I’m still trying to figure out how to be useful. With such an ambiguous job description I don’t expect that to change any time soon. I’ve begun making an ambitious effort to learn Hindi but they don’t speak Hindi in Garo Hills they speak a tribal language. When we leave Garo Hills we will go south where they speak Tellegu. It’s enough to discourage the most dedicated language student. We are just going to have to come to grips with the language barrier. I have not, however, given up entirely. I bought a Hindi grammar book and Hindi English dictionary yesterday on our shopping excursion.

David's fotojournalism

2007-09-02T04:48:00.001-07:00

David's, yes that is me, posts will take on more of a photojournalism taste as I believe pictures are best described in pictures.

The first morning we arrived there was the most wonderful birds chirping outside our room. We figured out how the open the door to the balcony and found cute little green birds. Our view was extraordinary as we live on the upper most floor of a 3 story house. Counting in the local method it is the second floor, ground first second.

After only two days at work Gina and I headed to the park on Friday for a company fun day. Our first task was to make it past the monkeys. We started out playing cricket and then later went on to soccer, that is 'football' to the rest of the world.

Off to another exciting day in the construction department.

Thanks for the Picasa tip everyone.

crash

2007-08-25T17:06:00.000-07:00

Sacramento is one of those citys that looks exactly the same at any given place, big buildings and lots of traffic. I wasn't a very good passenger. I spent most of the time with my eyes glued to traffic helping David drive from my perch in the passenger seat. David is what Grandma Roberts calls longsuffering. I would have told myself to shut up in his place but he only smiled and held my hand instead of the stick shift. The unsupervised stick shift should have increased my discomfort but the real issue was me, not traffic. I've been a little jumpy ever since we auctioned off or packed up everything and started living out of suitcases and relatives' spare rooms. We were in Sacramento to meet the Maranatha team and learn what exactly I was supposed to be doing when I got to Delhi. Thursday we followed Google maps to the KVIE studio and watched filming. Friday We met the office staff and I got a hurried explanation of the job description. The choleric young woman who seemed to be in charge explained that I will be writing scripts and then showed me an example, left column: time prints for appropriate video, right column: audio accompaniment. I explained to her that I do not do visual arts. I was told I was supposed to write. I write. She appeared unshaken by my profession. Not only must I arrange both the audio and video portions of the program, I must figure out how to integrate the two. I think I turned white, recovered slightly, and suggested that there would probably be a significant learning curve.

Now I'm staring wide eyed out of the passenger side windshield, knuckles white, legs braced, preparing my expectations for a head on collision with reality.

restless

2007-08-19T16:58:00.000-07:00

After traveling for almost a week and making many stops along the way David and I finally arrived in Reno late last Thursday. We are staying with his parents. We spent a long day Friday shopping for essentials: good close toed shoes, sterling silver wedding bands, underwear, a camera tripod. It looks like Reno will be the final resting place of a good portion of the stuff we packed up for India because a check on the airlines website reveals that our checked baggage weight limit is 50lbs not 70lbs as we had optimistically assumed in the beginning. We are going to have to lighten up yet again. The last couple of months are beginning to look a lot like EGW's dream of the little company traveling on a narrow ledge who had to continue leaving stuff behind and tossing it over to keep going. At least trying to make it all fit is going to give me something to do. I've been involved in frantic activity for so long that the lack of it has been alarming and disorienting. Some of the busyness has dissipated leaving behind it a vauge desperation and swirling memories without any tangible object. I'm almost relieved to have some crisis to direct all my residual anxiety towards.

What's worst is the not doing. People keep asking me if I'm scared? Scared? I'm impatient. One has no time or mental energy after the house is gone and the stuff has all been dispensed with for regret or uncertainty. The decision has been made. It is no longer up for review. Such determination and single mindedness does not attest to any saintliness on my part but just a good dose of choleric. If I were a saint. I would go more patiently. I would go more quietly. It was alright when I was surrounded by to do lists and piles of boxes and paint cans. It was awful, but I was busy. This sitting and waiting is much harder. This limbo world between the worlds where nothing moves and no one belongs is terrible. If I were a saint I would not be afraid of the silence.

introducing googlegroups

2007-08-19T13:41:00.000-07:00

I'm still discovering the wonders of Google (not just for searching anymore). Check out our new google group below. It's like a blog but anyone can post or upload to it if they are part of the group. Wanna join? Send a request.





 


 gulkiz


 Visit this group

Paid to have tea

2007-08-02T12:51:00.000-07:00

Every time David is asked what we will be doing in India he waxes eloquent on the needs associated with installing third world water and sewer systems and his experience with coordination and design. If anyone is courteous enough to query what I will do there is an admission of awkward uncertainty. Pastoring? Chaplaincy? There's no position yet, but they'll make one (we hope). It's been a point of discomfort. Especially delicate is the looming question of what I will do during his 7-10 days a month spent on the road touring building sites and doing inspections. I haven't been looking forward to those trips.

A phone call from Maranatha today settled the awkwardness better than either of us could have hoped. A sudden vacancy in the media department has created an immediate need for a journalist to prepare human interest stories for regular television features and magazine articles. "Would I, could I, maybe possibly be interested in trying..." the request was cautious and apologetic. Would I! You mean I get to travel around, have tea with people, write, and get paid for it? This isn't pastoring or chaplaincy in the traditional form at all but who would pass up the opportunity to have tea with fascinating people from all kinds of different places and cultures and then share that with others? "So, I asked casually, is this the kind of thing we could combine with David's inspection trips so we could travel together?" "Oh, of course. I mean, we didn't plan it that way but it just makes sense." YES! Thank you LORD!

I'm getting paid to have tea with people. That's almost as good as being paid to be a pastor, maybe even better, because I don't have to talk as much. Teachers and professors have been suggesting publishing to me for a long time and this is a perfect way to get some experience. If all works out you should see some of the new friends I am going to make show up on 3ABN and in Maranatha magazine soon.

down to business

2007-07-26T15:03:00.000-07:00

Our destination is West Garo Hills in the Indian state of Meghalaya. Maranatha has a school building project there with special sewage and sanitation concerns. David will be working with plumbing coordination and also reviewing pictures of other church building sites all over India through remote access. The nature of his job means internet is mandatory for us. Hooray! My job description is less defined but my education is in pastoring and I'm sure that is what I will be doing with or without a title or church. If you would like to learn more about West Garo Hills I have found an excellent government website for the area. http://westgarohills.gov.in You can find a description of the people, government, and wildlife there. We will only be in Garo Hills until the school is completed then we will either be moved to another building site or settle down near the Maranatha office in the city of Gurgaon near New Delhi.

We plan to leave our college town by August 12 and visit some family before we fly. It's been two yard sales and a few hundred dollars since we first verified we were going. Some furniture and three vehicles are gone but a glance around the house tells me we still have a long way to go. What I can't see is the piles of stuff in the borrowed garage that didn't sale last Sunday. What a burden stuff is. How difficult to pry oneself free of it. We can take only what we can fly with and store only what will fit in the small bedroom I used to occupy in my parents' home. Everything else must go, even if it means enduring the humiliation of strangers pawing through my things and bickering with me about 50 cents for the third Sunday in a row. I hate yard sales. Still, there is something cleansing about seeing it go. There is something freeing about allowing the miserly housewife to give me a quarter for my glassware and not caring. It all came from the thrift store anyway. I can't take it with me. It's a strange ritual David and I have been caught up in. We went in to the conference office earlier this week to make our wills and set up a power of attorney. We are putting all of our estate in order and I have never felt more ready to die or prepared to live.

The most difficult thing to give up has been the dogs. "Robin", found his way to us a few months ago when we were camping. He followed us on a five mile hike and we discovered that he had been abandoned near the camp ground about ten days before. He had a number of behavioral issues related to abuse and abandonment but he improved a lot under our care and was great friends with our miniature poodle "Teddy". After many posters and prayers and mass emails "Robin" has finally found a perfect home with a man who loves him and takes him everywhere he goes. We are hoping and praying the same will happen for "Teddy". We will visit with a family this evening perhaps about taking him. Meanwhile, "Teddy" does not understand why there is no longer any "Robin" for him to play with and he has been moping around the house for the last couple of days. Poor sad poodle. How do you help the dogs understand?

We had hoped to move into the spare bedroom in my parents home this weekend so that we would have a couple weeks to finish the interior painting project I started when we moved in. We promised the landlord we would do it if he bought the paint. But since we are not packed yet I don't think we will be out of here as soon as we had hoped. We'll have to paint fast. Anyway, here we sit, with a million loose ends to tie up and a checklist counting the few remaining days till we bury our life in America in dusty boxes and begin a brand new ones. We are glad will be sharing the adventure with us.

Wandering Aramean

2007-07-26T14:53:00.000-07:00

Deuteronomy 26: 4-9

"A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.

When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the LORD, the God of our ancestors; the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.

The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey."