A trip to Austin

We went to Austin our first weekend here in Megabus!  We had the best seats in the bus, and a really interesting seat neighbor from Pakistan.

We visited dynamic, fun, creative, godly cousin Beth.  So good to see her new house, visit her church, and discover Austin with her! We went to the botanical gardens and ate at a yummy Thai restaurant!  Hopefully we can get down that way again soon.

Did you know they have food trailers in Austin?  They SELL FOOD out of a TRAILER and the trailers move all the time...like every week!  They are unique combinations of food like Texas Cuban!  Really yummy, by the way! 

A manicure

Do notice the artistic sparkly blue nails as I elegantly pour home brewed tea into this delicate hexagonal Chinese teacup.  

My brother got me a manicure and pedicure for Christmas.  This being my first experience with such fine care on my hands and feet I was delighted to see how clean and sparkly and fresh my hands and toes could look. I had a dream that it was chipping off, and upon sharing this with my husband, he said he'd do the dishes for me until the nails were looking old.  Good deal! 

However, this manicure experience reminding me of something else.  If you don't mind me stretching a metaphor a bit, I'd like to share this thought.  

Manicures are a telling analogy for spending time with my family over Christmas. 

I came home ragged looking and feeling. 

I was overwhelmed by the abundance of care I was given. 

I was buffed and scratched a bit by the closeness of living with others...old habits returning all too fast.

There was a little scraping and cutting away of those fleshly reactive tendencies as well. 

But soothing oils of sharing memories, home-cooked meals, and laughter washed over the rough spots. 

The choices came in a flood and my mind swirled at how many wonderful people I could spend time with.  They were the color of my days...my nieces and nephew, my parents, my siblings and their spouses, and dear life-long friends all ready to share and walk with us during our short time there. 

The choices I made while there left me sparkly...feeling refreshed. 

I have been battered and I have been renewed, and I'm so thankful for how all of this pleasure cost me very little...just being with them. 

Thank you, my family, for the manicure, for loving me, for taking such good care. 

A Home

We're finally in Dallas, TX, gearing up to start classes on January 10!  Praise God with us for a place to stay these next four months! 

With running hot water, a full stove that fits almost any baking sheet one would have on hand, washer and dryer, refrigerator, electricity, and internet our mobile home is most certainly a 5 star home for any young missionary couple. 

A star quilt on our bed reminds us that we are all part of a beautiful design that is allowing us to "shine like stars in the universe as we hold out the word of truth!"  All our blankets and sheets where here when we got here!   

We've put up our special pictures...the ones that we carried from our Nigerian home here.  They were both wedding gifts, and are very special to us.  The one of the left says, "Remain in me." Jn 15.  This was our wedding verse. 

Drinking tea from our Christmas mug given by my mother and made my Josh Mogck, a friend in Holland, MI.  We carry with us memories and homes from all over the country and world! 

I have to get my husband a more manly apron, but I sure am glad he's washing the dishes...that that he seems to be so happy about it!  Do you see the water running?  Maybe that's what he's excited about! 

Gwote

I set out to make my family a traditional soup from Plateau State.  The ingredients are:
Alehu (Spinach)
Gauta (bitter little green tomato/pumpkin things)
Maggi (Bouillon cubes)
Acha (Fonio...little grain grown in West Africa)
Green Onions
Habañero peppers
Any assortment of other vegetables you have on hand (eggplant, tomatoes, other greens)
And meat, if you have extra cash on hand and want to make it fancy

It's very common, eaten by most indigents of Plateau State.

Here you see my family eating it. However, in this recipe there is:
Chinese broccoli
Acha
Green Onions
Acha (which I brought back with me)
Garlic
Chicken bouillon
Lowrys salt
and...chicken (which in Nigeria, is often only eaten on special occasions like Christmas)

Well, I guess being with my family is an occasion to have...something that is a little bit like Gwote from Nigeria.

Comfortable?

This morning while studying this very well known phrase of the Lord's Prayer I was refreshed...Why? 

I have returned to a place that wants everyone to feel comfortable, okay with where they are in every way. Everyone's choices are their own, and there are no other choices that are any better than any others! This phrase says that there is a good Father who has a divine will for his creation.  Which includes all of these very free individuals that wander on earth as a mist in time.  

What is God's will?  God's will is that we be brought back to himself, secondly.  God's will is that he is glorified, firstly. The Son glorified Father by doing the work that Father sent him to do (Jn 17), and the Son received glory through those the Father gave the Son out of the world to reveal the Father to! Yeah!  The Son glorifies the Father by revealing the Father to the Father's beloved creation. This is God's will, therefore, that we believe in the Son and are brought into right relationship with the Father and live forever worshiping him.  What a marvelous, good, and perfect will. 

This is refreshing to me because in praying, "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,"  I imagine that the angels KNOW that Jesus is the Saviour of the world and they worship him and the Father...all the time!  If I'm praying that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven, I am saying I want to be part of the whole world knowing the Son of God and believing in him as the way to the Father just as the angels in heaven do!

This refreshes me because it reminds me that just because we all want to be comfortable and let everyone else be comfortable too...God's will is so much greater than that!  His will is that we be satisfied deeply and eternally in Him.  Why would we want anyone to miss that by letting them stay comfortable for the mist of a lifetime on earth?  What's so great about being comfortable anyway?

I love Nigeria and I love the United States for very different reasons.  One thing I love about Nigeria, is that in the dust and dirt and harsh realities of infants dying unnecessary deaths and violence threatening your life, you don't have as much time to think about settling down to make yourself comfortable.  This earth is not meant for eternity, but we are. That's why we long for wholeness and peace.  Why don't we tell people we've found it? 

Our Father...

We're reading "Lord, Teach Us To Pray in 28 Days"  by Kay Arthur.  Day 5 she asked us, "Why do you think Jesus started with "Our Father, who is in heaven."  In meditating on this, this is what came to me.  If I was to meet an 80 year old missionary who had lived the last 50 years of her life in a rural village and was known to have a dynamic ministry, I would ask a lot of questions.  I would listen really well, and I would keep in mind who she was and what she'd done while I talked with her. Knowing who she is would change the course and nature of our conversation. My attitude toward her would be different.  You can think of a person who would be influential to your line of work as well.  A mother of 10 whose children are all fantastic and has her PHD in engineering maybe? An experienced tree climber and arborist who is known for his skill, accuracy, kindness, and honesty?  A dynamic, passionate middle school teacher who prays for her students and reaches them where they are at?

Then you imagine a morning when the Creator of all things seen and unseen, the Most High God makes himself available for a conversation.  Considering his many titles and his magnificent position of all eternity from beginning to end, of deep inside of our aching souls yet holder of the starry hosts...what a place to start a conversation!  So, Awesome God...what do you see?

Not to mention Father.  "Who of you, when his son asks for a fish would give him a serpent, or if he asks for bread would give him a stone?  If you, then, though you are evil, can give good gifts to your children, how much more with the Heavenly Father give good gifts to those who as him?" A Father who patches up mistakes in our pottery, who inspires us by reminding us of how he sees us, who picks us up out of the dirt when we have a scraped knee and covers it with love....Oh, yes, what a place to start a conversation!

You're Welcome or We Thank God

What can I say, something that bugged me about the Nigerian dialect of English has become part of my own outlook that American formalities sometimes seem trite in comparison.

 
"Your song really touched me today, Dorcas!" I would sincerely exclaim to a Nigerian sister.  "We thank God,"  came back the response.  "Thank you for responding so quickly to my email, Paul."  "We thank God," my co-worker would respond with a shining, warm smile.  'Ah...yeah,' I was thinking to myself.  'I do thank God...kind of, but I was actually thanking YOU!  I thank God for you, but he didn't write me the email!'
However, after hearing this response again and again, day after day, I started to wonder if there wasn't something precious about a constant "thanksgiving!" Just like "How are you?" and "You're welcome,"  "Thank God" can become common and meaningless.  But for this American who doesn't get to thank my God openly every time a moment of His goodness passes my way, it became special.

 
The other day one of my many dear sis-in-laws said cheerfully, "Thanks for helping me with dinner, Christy!" I had to will myself to say, "You're welcome," but realized that I don't even know what that means to me except that I most certainly did something you should be thankful that I did...for you...and I will accept your thanks for this task well accomplished by...none other...than me!
  "We thank God"  is clear as todays winter sky, but "You're welcome", well...I guess just as every culture learns and relearns the meaning of language as it changes through time and culture, this common response to a service rendered will become as natural as eating apple pie at Christmas after a year in the states...just in time to say "We thank God" all over again!