Rainbows and Promises

I took this picture last February about an hour outside of my city.  I don't know if you can tell, but it's a double rainbow.

Rainbows have played a part in my life since I was a kid.  I recently was talking to some of my students and ended up, unplanned, sharing with them about something that happened to my family when I was a kid.

For those who don't know, my dad has a rare disease called Aplastic Anemia, where your bones don't produce enough blood or the right balance of blood for your body.  When he was diagnosed back around 1992, my family's life got turned upside down for a while.  My dad didn't work for nearly two years.  My mom worked full-time and my grandparents helped take care of my brother and me.  Additionally, a LOT of other people helped us out, specifically family members, both of blood and of the blood of the Son.

The doctors told my dad he needed a bone marrow transplant.  My uncle was a good bone marrow match.  But in NC, they didn't have a good place that specialized in that kind of thing, so they sent my dad to Texas to check out a hospital in Houston.

My parents looked a the hospital and decided it was a desirable place to pursue medical treatment, but, while they were driving around the city one day, my mom looked up in the sky.  She saw a big rainbow.  She remembered how rainbows are the signs of a promise from above.  She turned and looked at my dad and said, "I don't know why, but I don't think you're going to need that bone marrow transplant."

A few days later, back in NC, my dad went for one of his final doctors appointments before he went to Houston to stay for several months.  The doctor looked at his blood counts (the numbers that represented how many red cells, white cells, and platelets he had), and what do you think he saw?  He told my dad,  "I don't know how, but your blood counts are really good!  You don't need a bone marrow transplant!"

That was nearly 20 years ago.  To this day, my dad has never had a bone marrow transplant.

When I shared this with my students, I got to share about how I know exactly where that blessing came from; how life was hard, but others around us helped us.  But the help that we desperately needed did not come from man.  It came from Someone else.

My mom and dad on our cruise in August

Nicholas

 This is my special friend, Nicholas.  I love him sooooo much!  He is about 5 years old and a handful.  I get to see him about once every week or two.  We are good friends with his mom, who was previously an English student at our institute.  Nicholas attends a very good school here in our city, along with most of his older brothers and sisters.  He's very intelligent and also very sweet.  However, in the above photo, he is busy stealing the precious blueberry cream off of his mother's pie (there are no blueberries in K-land, so it was very special to all of us.)  On this particular night, he also did this to my phone:

We love his family so much.  They are very kind and respectful to us and have truly let us become a part of their lives.

In about 3 months time, I'll be headed back "home," but I'll be leaving behind some new "family" that I've made here in K-land.  Nicholas will be especially hard to leave behind.  Please remember him for us!

It's the Little Things!

Up until today, my neighborhood has had nasty dirt roads.  If they aren’t dusty, then they are muddy.  People have lived in my house for over 6 years waiting for our city to get around to paving their roads.  Today was that day!

We have been so excited about the road progress that we didn’t foresee some of the troubles of today.

First, an explanation of K-land plumbing.  All the water from our sinks and showers runs out into the streets.  Additionally, K people are super clean and desire to have everything spick and span 100% of the time.  It’s hard to do that in a place where a dust storm could roll in any day.  This means they wash their outside courtyards, steps, gutters, etc almost every day.  All this water runs into the street too.  Today, this was very inconvenient for the men who worked on our road.  They told everyone in our neighborhood they could not run the water into the street until they finished the road (which will actually be tomorrow).  That’s a BIG problem for K people: no cleaning!

It was a problem for me and my roommate too.  We have a major event to get ready for: a new co-worker!  We cleaned the toilet room, the shower room, the bathroom sink, did laundry, cooked some food, entertained guests, and mopped the floors earlier today, all before we were told not to use the water.  This left a big pile of dishes and us feeling pretty worn out.  We didn’t smell that great either.  We really needed to shower.  But we couldn’t!  No water allowed in the streets!  What to do???

I was desperate and decided to swallow my pride.  When my roommate looked for me around the house tonight, I answered her from behind a door, “Don’t judge me!  I’m taking a shower in here tonight!”  Where was I?  The toilet room, of course.

Yes, I used a hose to take a shower tonight.  And what made it even MORE exciting was the loss of our electricity for the majority of the time I was in there!

I stood there in the dark, and I could only do one thing: Laugh!  Only in K-land would you take a shower using a hose, standing over a squatty in a room the size of a closet, and in the dark.

I found myself thinking, “Gee, it’s very fortunate that the toilet water doesn’t run out into the street so that I can use this room to take a shower.”  Then, another thought occurred to me.  “Wait.  It’s ALWAYS a good thing the toilet water doesn’t run into the street!”

I’m so glad the Father helps me remember to be thankful for the little things:

Cruising!

So I just got back a couple of weeks ago from a Mediterranean Cruise.  See?

I spent some time with my grandparents!

And I took some pictures with my parents and brother while wearing K garb:

 Even my mom got in on the K garb, although I had to instruct her on how to tie her sleeves.

 But what does one do while on a Mediterranean cruise?  For instance, what should one do when they go to, let's say, Florence?

Wait, you mean you are supposed to go look at great works of art?  That's funny.  I thought Mediterranean cruises were specifically created for this:

No, no.  Wait, not that family togetherness stuff.  I mean this:

 GELATO!

What does one do when in Naples, at the ruins of Pompeii yet in the shadow of the still active Mt. Vesuvius?

 GELATO!

While in Dubrovnik, Croatia, does one find oneself content to just swim in the crystal clear waters of the Adriatic sea and go on boat rides around the surrounding islands?

Not without GELATO!

While in Venice, is a gondola ride what you are truly looking for with all your heart?

Of course not: GELATO!

Oh, and more GELATO

(We were there two days.  Don't judge me.)

While in Messina, Sicily, looking at fountains that have survived major earthquakes and churches made out of volcanic rock, what should one do?

 CANOLI!

(Fooled ya!)

It's a Double Wedding!

Although I remarked to someone today that I'd rather clean out our shower drain than attend another wedding here, I did in fact attend 2 different weddings tonight.  

The first was for the sister of my friend Doreen.

Doreen is in the middle.

I didn't stay too long, though.  When one attends a wedding in K-land as a friend of the bride, it is a somber occasion and everyone breaks down and cries at the end.

The other wedding was for a family member of one of my neighbors.  It involved eating dinner, chatting with a lot of new people, and taking tons of pictures.

 Even the little ones get in on the photograph taking.  This little one LOVES to get her picture taken.  But she loves it even more when she gets to see the picture afterwards:

Well, this foreigner has seen enough weddings to last her quite some time.  The next item on my agenda today is bed!

Cars!

You might remember this gem of a picture from last year:

We've been having a blast with our little red car for the past year:

We've taken it tailgating:

It's taken it upon itself to tell us that we don't really want to know how hot it is in July:

But recently we had a little incident:

Unfortunately someone decided they wanted my friend's ipod, which was inside, and decided to make quite a mess in getting it.  Although it's sad that her ipod is gone, she's handling the loss really well.  As for the window, fortunately, we were able to get it fixed the same day it happened, so all is well now.

We are especially glad as we sometimes get out to enjoy weather that currently looks like this:

 PS.  Did you know that one can experience lightning, thunder, and mud versions of rain, sleet, snow all in one day in our city?  On the day of the picture above, believe it, all of those things happened, and some of them at the same time.

Birthday Fun!

I had some great fun for my birthday this past Dec. 11th.  I got to skype with my parents; received many birthday congratulations from many, many friends on Facebook; had some great gals who took me out to dinner; and had a night of fun with some K-nationals who came over to eat cake and fruit, brought me some presents, danced, and in general had a great time.

Although I had many favorite things happen that day, one of my favorites was that, after a little begging on my part, two little girls I love dearly put on a show for me:

I love, love, love how their father likes to spend time playing with his girls.  This is extremely rare in K-land, but these girls are blssed to have a father who cares about even the little things in their lives.

I am also fortunate to have both an earthly father and another Father who care about what's going on in my life.  I'd really like opportunities and language skills to share about this with the people I'm around on a daily basis.  I'm very thankful, especially at this time of year, for my fathers and the amazing gifts that they have given to me, especially the gifts of Siblings.  I suppose the best way to show appropriate thankfulness is to share What I have been given.