A Year of Contrasts

2010 in contrasting photographs:

Prepping food for the class eights' special lunch in G-town.

Serving dinner in the cafeteria in Minnesota

Playing tag at a missions school in Western Kenya

Playing tag at a missions school in the Mid-West, USA

Painting a school outside of G-town

Painting the activity center in Tri-town

Group work project with my team and the "new kids" - who are coming up on their own one year in Kenya mark

Group work project with the youth group

One of the churches my team attended

The service I attend in the States

Notice any similarities? It seems like, the more things are different, the more they stay the same!

Looking Back

Just over twelve months ago I was here, listening to a tribal elder tell stories, surrounded by the team that I had been living, eating, and working with for almost a year. This week I have been babysitting cousins, sewing clothing for my Etsy site, and helping my sister edit essays for her college applications.

2010 has meant moving from Kenya to Minnesota and then from Minnesota to Washington. It has meant short terms teams and a trip to Dadaab, and it has meant teaching a Sunday School class and driving across the state to a concert with my sister.

Four months in Kenya. Four months in Minnesota. Four months in Washington.

Twelve months of living this crazy kind of life that happens when I follow God where He leads.

I would not trade any moment of it for the world.

(Even sitting and watching my sister eat frozen yogurt because she couldn't find any on the coast.)

Small Miracles

Small miracles are cousins who came halfway around the world to join our family but seem as similar as if they shared genetics.


Small miracles are when extended family that has not seen each other in longer than we like to count spends a morning partially back together and the whole room knows that it is good.

Small miracles are when growing up together still counts as cousins and friends.


Small miracles are cousins who stay longer than they intended because it feels right to be with family.

A twentieth birthday party this morning managed to gather up eight people who didn't make it on Christmas, and it was good. :) Back in the days before the median cousin age jumped above eighteen, it seemed like the "kids" were always together, and it's funny how much we all slip back into those roles even now.

Small miracles are when cousins can still communicate without words.

Small miracles are the way that family heals by simply being together.

Christmas Presents - DIY style

Lack of money means getting a little creative with Christmas presents. Having fabric scraps laying around from my Etsy shop gave a good place to start. One of my little sisters got some wall art.


My littlest cousins got roll up kitchen mats with dollar store cooking sets.

One of my other sisters got a pink wall banner - that was only photographed in process, because I'm kind of special like that.

And, another sister got a quilt sham that I didn't get a picture of at all.

Christmas Traditions

Laying around on the front room floor and watching the strange antics of my family

Waking up early on Christmas morning to give each other gifts and eat breakfast

Eating Chinese food by the tree on Christmas Eve.

And, sledding at my grandparents house

Painting is so Much Easier in America

God must have thought that it had been a few too many months since I had spent any time painting walls, because, I spent today in the old youth center - now activity center - repainting, so that it could be turned back into a youth center for the high school group. (Even with as old as the building is, though, there was no paint that needed to be scraped off, and we could use rollers on the walls without worrying about the entire wall flaking off. Just a little different than painting in G-town!)

Everyone worked hard, and there was an amazing amount done for a fairly short day of painting. And...we managed to more or less leave the carpet in the same condition that it was in when we started. Impressive, right? They fully understand that this is their space and that it will look as good as they make it look, even if they can't do anything about the mismatched light switches or the woodwork that is probably from the seventies. It was fun to hear them imagine out loud as they mentally rearranged the space just the way that they thought it should be.

Over the fall, we have tried out nearly every space on the church campus as possible meeting locations for Intersect, and this was the building that they chose. Since we moved to this property ten years ago, middle school and high school youth groups have gone in and out of the double doors that don't quite stay closed unless you lock them and walked on the floors that echo downstairs like a herd of elephants is going through the building. It may not be a "nice" space compared to the rest of the church, but there is something about it that feel right to them. If youth group is supposed to be a family (albeit, a family with a heavily skewed age ratio), then they ought to have a place to meet that feels like home.

Painting is more work than it seems like it ought to be, and, by noon, there were some hungry people in the building. Yes. They woke up long before noon, on their first day of winter break, and came to paint. They really must want to be in this building. :)

A few of the moms brought in crock-pots full of soup for lunch, and, without being asked, went straight to work vacuuming downstairs - where we plan to paint next Tuesday. One mom even went across the parking lot to the main building in search of a better vacuum when they discovered that the resident vacuum was lacking in suction power.

Proud leader moment: the group today was a pretty decent cross section of the youth group - guys and girls. These kids, all of them, know how to serve, and they do it well.

More Sweaters

My sister and some other youth group kids, in their Christmas sweaters that they wore to youth group, at Intersect ice skating. We'll just pretend that they were at youth group when they took this. Because, after all, it's a decent shot of their sweaters, and the faces are priceless. That is what I get to hang out with.

No wonder life isn't boring.

Christmas Sweaters

Youth group tonight involved an Christmas sweater competition. Almost half of the kids wore sweaters that they dug up from thrift stores or their parents' closets - more than one wore a sweater that one of their parental units are planning to wear on Christmas / Christmas Eve. We are all about multipurpose clothing. :)

My baby sister helped me decorate a sweater that came out of my mom's closet, complete with a giant bow on the back. Yes. I looked like a giant Christmas present. Not exactly my typical clothing choice.

The bonus of having all of the pieces safety pinned on was that said bow was easily moved to the back of one of the junior girls who had... neglected... to wear a Christmas sweater. It is amazing who you can "convince" to wear a shiny gold bow when their arms are being held down by a freshman.

Before the youth pastor shared his message for the night, we had them all line up, so that the leaders could choose two winning sweaters. Listening to the kids trying to explain to us why their sweater was the best was more than slightly funny. One of the Junior guys summed up his outfit with, "Mine is shiny. And, it has shoulder pads!"

Unfortunately for him, one of the other guys had a sweater with glow in the dark, sledding polar bears that knocked him out of the running.

In December Drinking Horchata

Seeing as it is indeed December... when this song came on during the drive back from my baby sister's high school, three of my siblings and I turned around at the closest exit and found a taco truck. Turns out, the taco truck didn't serve horchata, but the Mexican restaurant across the street did.

Turns out that the Mexican restaurant across the street served MASSIVE cups of horchata that were swimming in so much cinnamon you could feel the texture in the liquid.

Weird sensation.

Almost as weird as the look the guy gave us when we walked into a sit down restaurant and asked for four cups of horchata to go.

Yes. We're aware that we're odd. Any other questions?

Christmas Feast

Most of the people who had traditionally gone up to help with the Christmas Feast on the Rez are still in school out of town, trying to finish up finals and get home for break. Instead, the youth leader who has driven up almost every Tuesday for years ended up with me, a high school senior, and his mom - none of whom had ever made it to a Christmas feast.

Granted, I've been up enough to times to not be a complete stranger, and J has been going as often as he can for at least the last three years, but it was the first time his mom had ever been up to the Rez. She did awesome, though.

We walked in tons of circles serving the food, (Everything is served counterclockwise in the longhouse, so, if you need to get a pie to the table that is at the one o'clock position, you have to enter at the twelve o'clock spot and walk all the way around to one - no matter how many legs and bodies are in between. :D) washed dishes, bagged leftovers for people to take home, watched the pageant, sang carols, helped the kids with their presents, and gathered up garbage afterward.

At one point, I looked out over the room of 400+ people, many/most of whom do not claim to be Christ followers, with the smell of smoke and salmon and venison heavy in the air, and it struck me how similar this "Christmas" was to the way we spent Christmas last year.

The two tribes are so very, very different, and, at the same time, there are things about the cultures that are very, very much the same.

Either way, they have both wormed their way into a ridiculously special place in my heart, and the same God desperately loves them both - which is reason enough for me.

Cookie Exchange

Tonight was a cookie exchange / Christmas party with the cluster girls. We ate WAY too many cookies, played Apples to Apples (while those who, unlike myself, can actually spell, played Scrabble), and then laughed at least half of the cookies off taking pictures with the timer on Kara's camera.

Once upon a time, (with all of the wisdom in my soon to be seventh grade self) I said that I would never do something like this, that I would do everything possible to avoid having to serve with girls - especially those old enough to potentially be dealing with relationship issues. Then, (two years later) I worked as a co-counselor at summer camp for a cabin full of elementary school girls. And I did it again. And again. And again.

And, while they made me want to pull my hair out at times, they also made me love them.

By the time I was going into my junior year of high school, my cabins were full of middle schoolers. Then the middle schoolers grew up and became high schoolers - who are currently sophomores in college. (Yep. Make me feel old. Thanks.) And, now, I'm a high school leader, and this awesome group of girls that let me hang out with them and do life for a couple of hours on Wednesday nights.

And. I. Love. Them.

(Never is very dangerous word to use!)

Nutcracker

Once again, it is that time of year where I am almost certain that my head will explode if I walk into a store and hear one more note of the Nutcracker Suite. For ten of the last eleven Decembers of my life, we have been involved in Mid-Columbia Ballet's production. (Well, my parents have volunteered for eleven years...but I was in Kenya for one of those.)

My dad works as a stage hand, and my mom and I run props, which translates to collecting party children's gifts, making sure the angels don't stick their candles up their noses, putting together Mother Ginger, and generally making sure that no children - or workers - are run over by moving set pieces, all while trying to watch from behind set pieces while my sisters dance.

It's fun, and I thoroughly enjoy working backstage, but, just like with any show, by the time tech week and a four day weekend of shows is over, there is a collective sigh of relief. Most of the crew would tell you that striking the set is the most exciting part of their week. :D

The stage crew finds ways to entertain themselves, though, and, sometimes, when one of the little angels gets too excited about the whole thing and pees on the stage during rehearsal, the stage manager puts on the costume instead... just to keep it safe.

Jesus Wept

Photo Credit

When I say that I get to hang out with an incredible group of high school girls on Wednesday nights, I really mean that they are incredible. I mean, ask probing questions and expect to get legitimate answers sort of incredible. I mean accept each other just where they are sort of incredible. I mean juggle the linguistic needs of an ESL (English as a Second Language) exchange student and and ESL (English Sign Language) speaker while actively engaging in the discussion sort of incredible. And, I mean sitting and waiting while someone cries out a story sort of incredible.

There were a lot of tears tonight, because, sometimes, life just sucks.

But, they loved each other through it, and, in the end, that was the part that mattered. That was what made them incredible. Because, moments where we choose to love are moments where we choose to live like Christ.

Even Jesus wept.

This is Why We Like Weddings

The sign has nothing to do with anything, except that it was on the way back to the car, and we found it entertaining (there are a lot of Lutherans around here!)

After Emily's wedding was over and the reception hall was more or less put back together, the thirteen of us from our class who had been there, went to a pub in downtown St. Paul to spend some time just hanging out and catching up. Parking was an adventure, and the hike from the car to the pub in wedding clothes was quite possibly THE coldest thing I have experienced in the last two years - about since the last time I was in a Minnesota winter. The cold was a decent trade off, though, for the chance to be with friends for a few extra hours.

In one of those odd twists of fate, most of us were barely acquaintances our freshman year on campus, but, in the summer after internship, the twenty of us that were left from our class became one giant group. (Although, we still keep track of each other by internship site.) Absence makes the heart grow fonder?

We all know that we are where God wants us to be right now (Colorado, Washington, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and various parts of Minnesota), but it was fun to get back together again and be with people who understand a part of you that is hard to explain to someone who has not lived it. Katie (Indonesia team) looked around at the group and just sighed, "This is so comfortable, you guys. [The rest of life] isn't comfortable like this."

That's probably the best way to put it. I LOVE where God has me right now, and I wouldn't trade doing what I am doing at this point in life for anything. But, being back with college friends and teammates is comfortable...in a completely different way than being in Washington is comfortable.

Church Buildings

Photo Credit: A friend who took all of the wedding pictures

I flew back to Minnesota this last Thursday to see my roommate from freshman year get married. The church they chose was really cool looking, almost more like an old theater than anything I would think of as a church. (Sorry mom. There was no stained glass.) The sanctuary was actually on the second floor of the building, up a very plain set of wooden stairs.

The building was perfect for them, even if I did have a hard time picturing a church service happening here every Sunday. To add to the oddity of it all, this is the River of Life Church. Say what?

Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that my church looks more like this in the sanctuary, although the walls have been re-painted/sound foamed, and the metal cross out front is about as architecturally fancy as we get. Perhaps I'm the one confused about what looks like a theater and what looks like a church!

Etsy

Happy dance. I made and sold all three of the above items on Etsy (see sidebar for more from my shop). They went to New York, Sacramento, and Singapore respectively. Yep. All the way to Singapore.

A little bit of extra income is always good, and... it's fun to create things that don't require any patterns. :D