white

On my parent's last day in Amman, the clouds swirled down three inches of snow and sleet. After an initial few hours of the flakes melting into the earth, trees, stone balconies, the fluff began to accumulate. First, on the ledges of our wrap around marble patio, then onto the asphalt streets, hedge of evergreen lining the front of our apartment.

We sat in our warm kitchen, sipping tea and listening to the silence of falling snow, the absence of cars and trucks making background noise to our apartment living. Plans of sightseeing at the Citadel and roman ruins in Amman were laid aside for reading books, watching movies and playing games.

The kids tramped outside with Grandpa, winter coats zipped up to chins, donning new hats knitted by Grammi and Christmas-gifted waterproof gloves. Squeals of pure joy, uplifted hands and faces upturned to lick up the cold dots of frozen water. Then pushing, pushing the sticky, cold stuff into balls and a snowball fight ensues. I watch and keep in my heart the laughter between my father and his grandchildren as they bend down, throw, turn to duck and throw again.

Our city, blanketed in a layer of white, became a winter wonderland. It was not the day or the week we expected, with cloud layers pouring down heaven-sent bowls of rain, hail, sleet and snow. Yet everyone we meet here responds the same to the weather- Hum dal Allah! - Praise God! We know how much this country needs rain, how much it needs to be washed clean.

soli deo gloria



 

Weight

What do you say when there are no words?
My parents and sister's family live almost twenty miles from Newtown, CT, roughly a forty minute trip. The pictures beneath the headlines look like the backdrop of my childhood-- small town Connecticut in winter, with yellowed grass and skeletal trees looming above narrow, winding roads. An idyllic place to raise a family. Quiet. Safe.
My heart is heavy. Shaken.
The irony of it all is that there have been more shootings in the U.S. since we left this summer than here in Jordan, though I still struggle with fear almost daily.
How could this happen,
in small town Connecticut,
in an elementary school?
How could you look a child of five in the face and...
They were five and six year olds, just grown out of baby sizes, still needing someone to wipe their noses and tie their shoes. My third will be in kindergarten next year. Children at this age still hold the sweetness of innocence in their words, their hearts.
How...?
We buried our sweet Evelyn with tears, murmuring that no parent should ever have to bury their own child. Yet the funerals have begun, with two five and six year olds buried yesterdays, two today.
My heart is shaken and I yet I know Him and I cannot imagine the grief He holds for these...whose heart is ever tender for the little children. How He who created us as His image bearers would, in the fierce act of love, allow us the freedom to will, act and choose so that we could truly love and not just be programmed to love, on auto-pilot, so to speak.
And in this act of love, in His sovereignty, to allow choices to have their consequences in this fallen world yearning for redemption... 
And because I have no words, I lean on Him, the Living Word,
...He will be the stability of your times,
     - Isaiah 33:6
He is not the cause, but the answer. He will not provide illusions but a way through the reality which is the Only Way to find peace in the midst of such brutal unfairness and horrific consequences of evil.
God, have mercy on us, have mercy on America and bring those whose hearts are shattered to You. Only you can reach to the depths of their pain, You who watched as Your Son died a brutal death. Meet us in our deepest anguish, in our unanswered questions. We need you.

soli deo gloria



 

after

We are studying birds in science and this week's topic explained how birds instinctively know to fly south. We were awed to discover that one bird actually migrates over 20,000 miles a year, from the Arctic Circle to Antarctica, in search of daylight. What's more, birds have the ability to self-correct when they are blown even slightly off by winds or storm. The kids and I did a simple experiment that showed how easily a bird could veer significantly off-course with a slight change in the angle of its flight. They picked a point across the living room and began walking towards it. Halfway there, I said, "Turn!" and they shifted the direction of their bodies slightly to the left. When they reached the distance they had planned to walk, they were several feet from their first location.
The day after elections, I felt so down. My view of America's future feels dimmer and I wonder where our nation is heading. The current administration has consecutively shifted the compass point of America, little by little, in some profound ways. I wonder if we will even recognize the America that we once knew in four years. I believe that small shifts in foundational principles equate to significant changes in culture.
The change that was promised has not come in ways that I would hope for and expect. Yes, there has been change, but it is not for what I see as good and promising. Instead, the change that I see is the lifting of things that were once taboo, the dismissal of things once held sacred, the taking of things that is not theirs to take.
The day after, I had to deliberately "lift my eyes to the hills" and remember where my help comes from. Ultimately. Not from government or from money or even personal liberty, but from God, the Maker of the heavens and the earth, who fulfills His purposes for me. (Psalm 57) I was encouraged to be reminded online that the election results are not going to define the next four years for me, but God, who sovereignly brings all things to His glory-- Your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven...
I will have to remind myself of these things, day after day, and the mercy in this is that I am not complacent about the state of America.
I am convinced, even more so, that I want to teach my kids about how our country was founded, not in order to continue a stance of aloof arrogance in regards to the rest of the world, but in humility. Whatever we have been given, whatever freedom whatever blessing and whatever light we have is a gift from above. These gifts were made to be given away.

soli deo gloria

stone

 Last weekend, we drove three hours south on Desert Highway to Ma'an, the city which is home to Petra. I find it difficult to write this blog entry, as my words are so easily dwarfed by the images that I've posted. It is amazing. Absolutely and completely breathtaking, both for its natural beauty and the mind-boggling feat of engineering and architectural beauty that rises before you and around you. No wonder it is one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

Yet with many of these tourist sites, we first had to walk the alley lined with kiosks selling kitsch composite sculptures of the Treasury made famous in the Indiana Jones film, The Last Crusade. There was even a store named Indiana Jones store where we would purchase a hat just like Indy (not sure if they sold the whips, too!). Then the men hawking various animals for hire, namely horses and donkeys pulling a cart. We opted for the horses. The older two claimed their own horses, while our little biddy clung to me and Abby sat with Steve. The guides led us to the entrance to the Siq, or sandstone gorge cut through sandstone rock. Breathtaking. Though the Siq was relatively crowded with groups of Arabs, Indians dressed in traditional Sari, and a mix of Europeans and Americans, the atmosphere felt oddly quiet. Perhaps it was the hush of those admiring true beauty and silenced by it. After about twenty minutes of walking, we approached the bend in the way where, when the morning sun glints on its facade just the right way, the Treasury came into view in all its glory.  

 A few steps later we were in full view of the Treasury. The picture just doesn't do it justice. And once there, we came upon several camels lounging in the dust, adorned with colorfully embroidered saddle blankets and tassels. Men with donkeys approached us, offering a ride to the Monastary a few kilometers away. We declined politely as walked on, past the throngs of people gazing at the Treasury and towards the next site: the amphitheatre.

 

 

On the way, we passed Bedouin men and women sitting behind their wares: necklaces made with "Bedouin silver," camelbone beads, agate and other stones, bracelets, "authentic" Nabatean and Roman coins, ceramic beads and other trinkets. It was fascinating to see.

"Just looking," we'd say. Their response was always the same, "It's free to look, but hurry up!"

 

 

We began our ascent up a rocky path that wound its way up to the high place of sacrifice, where the Nabataens offered their sacrifices to their many gods. Later, it would be used as a place of worship akin to what is pictured in the Old Testament. When we walked along the vista area, the rock structures rose up around us like giant beehives.

On our way down, we tried to take an alternative route. We followed the worn path until it suddenly ended, or rather we veered off unknowingly. We found ourselves staring down into the main thoroughfare, bustling with tourists and souvenir traffic. However, the only way down we could see was a sheer rockface. After attempting a few passes, we ended up scaling rocks, Steve with biddy in the hiking backpack, me holding my girls hands' as we shuffled along small footholds to reach a possible descent. We walked down into the amphitheatre which was blocked off from tourists on the opposite side with fences and other boundaries. Thankfully, no one noticed the family of trespassers and we chuckled to have gotten a view from inside the amphitheatre that we otherwise would not have experienced!

 

 



 The whole experience was incredible. I am in awe at the design and beauty of God's creation. And I am in awe at the creativity and wisdom He gives, even to those who don't acknowledge Him.

 

soli deo gloria.

current

Today we drove an hour south to Wadi Mugib. It is basically a sandstone gorge that empties into the Dead Sea at 410 meters below sea level. Another cool fact is that it is the lowest natural reserve in the world.

 

The dry season in Jordan has almost come to an end and we are anticipating rains beginning in November. Many of my friends have been sick with allergies and sinus infections resulting from the enormous amount of dust in the air. Amman feels like a desert city with few places of greenery provide respite for the dryness.
Friday was more of the same- hot and dry with a slight cooling breeze. We paid our entrance fee and strapped on our mandatory life jackets, laughing at the immediate paunch that these worn and scrunched-up vests added to our waists. Our good friends Doug and Sylvie came along, as well as one of Steve's work buddies.
We descended a long metal staircase and then looked up. Towering above and around was a sandstone gorge with a pale greenish-bluish river with noticeable current rushing past us. Light tan rocks scattered about the banks, along with a few struggling plants and spindly trees.
"That one doesn't have much hope of surviving here," remarked Doug as he nodded to a fern-like sapling already bending in the current.
We splashed along the foot-deep water bed until we came to our first overhang of rock. While Steve fished his ipod out of its double ziplock covering, we gazed around us, truly awed by the beauty of these looming sandstone cliffs made spectacular by erosion's grooves and patterns. We took pictures of one another, photos that witnessed how small we were in comparison to the mountaneous terrain around us.
Our walk would take roughly two hours- to the waterfall and back. Hardly a long distance, its challenge lay in the constant current that gave inertia to our footsteps and the several large boulders, worn smooth by time, that we would need to climb.
Within minutes, I felt like a child again, splashing my feet over rocks and feeling the coolish-warm water wash over my leggings. I glanced over at Steve and the smile on his face told me that he felt the same way.
At our first ascent, we waited while a small group of men huffed and pushed their way up the rock, using the blue knotted climbing rope. When it came turn for us to make our climb, I was struck by how little my feet slipped. The rock doesn't get much sunlight and the current is constant, so algae cannot grow.
I almost felt as if I couldn't make it up, but with my foot in the loop at the end of the rope, I could finally push myself up to the rock. We climbed this way, one by one, from one boulder, to a plateau, then to another set of rocks, until we reached the end of the trail. A series of three waterfalls roared and gushed into a pool about ten feet wide.

After we ventured gingerly under the falls for a few minutes, we began our trek back. Needless to say, it was much easier with the current. In the deeper parts, we lay on our backs and let the streams pull us as far as we could go or until we hit our bottoms on the rocky bed.
What an amazing experience!

soli deo gloria

 

 

famine

Every morning when Hanna wakes up, we tiptoe down the silent hall, past quiet bedrooms and snuggle down into our living room couch to watch Kipper together. This is our morning ritual and I love it. Besides bedtime, it is the only time I have in the day to talk and cuddle with Hanna alone. I get her a sippy of milk, a bowl of cheerios and raisins and her blanket.

Kipper the dog is one of the only kid’s cartoons that I can watch without grimacing at least once. Simply drawn and utterly understated, the show’s characters all talk in smooth British accents and are accompanied with a catchy jazz tune. It is the perfect wake-up show.

In one of the episodes, Kipper and his friend Tiger decide one hot day to fill up a small inflatable pool, only to discover that the pool is only big enough for one. They tousle and knock one another down before finding out that it is fun to squirt water in the air with the hose. Little do they know that the hose is only loosely screwed together at one part and that part decides to break off from the rest of the hose and accidentally flips onto an open window ledge. The water begins to fill up Kipper’s small home (interestingly reminding me of a Curious George story) until the home becomes one colossal pool.

What I found most interesting was not Kipper and Tiger’s reaction- not panic, or fear or alarm, but rather a brief look of mild surprise, then excitement as they push the inflatable pool through the window as it becomes a rowboat- but my own reaction. My first thought was- that is such a huge waste of water- and a realization that in the year and a handful of months, I have stepped out of a generic American mindset and find myself in a new place. I get it. I get that the supply that we have, whether of food or water or money, is limited. It can run out. It can become sparse. It can be squandered.

I have to say at this point: I’m not writing to expose some hidden agenda-- Kipper’s underlying promotion of excess—but rather to say that I was surprised that I even thought this or saw this depiction as something that we all take for granted. Hoses running in the backyard, sprinklers on throughout the day. Yet it shows me that life outside America is changing my perspective.

So what do I do with this realization?

Today I read through the Book of Ruth. Only four chapters long, I was able to finish the book in one thirty minute elliptical workout. The first sentence caught my attention because it moves the story forward in a significant and defining way and is one of the causes that God uses in bringing Naomi to Ruth in the first place.

"In those days, there was a famine in the land…” (Ruth 1:1)

There was a famine.

I feel redundant in saying this, but as an American, I have a difficult time truly grasping the implications of these words. Famine to me is going to Cozmo, the local store, and discovering that they are out of a particular brand of cereal. Or running out of eggs halfway through the week. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it shows how distantly I can truly relate to famine. The grocery stores always stock food. The food supply line remains constant, at least for now.

Naomi’s family faced a severe famine in Bethlehem, so intense that they uprooted their entire life and disconnected from their extended family, traveling hundreds of miles to Moab (which incidentally is located in modern day Jordan).

I wonder if we will ever have to face something of that magnitude in our lifetime or in the lifetime of our children, to the extent that it will cause a major upheaval in our daily life, changing permanently our perspective on life. I hope not.

Yet in experiencing the lack, how much more grateful are we for what we do have?

This is true in experiencing any kind of famine. His ultimate paradox. That in loss we gain. To expound on that, the more loss, the more to gain-- in true joy, true gratitude, true life.

My gardener lives in a room the size of a walk-in closet that opens out into our garage parking lot. During the summer months, he keeps his door open to get some relief from the heat and hangs a threadbare sheet across for some privacy. My Filipino helper sends money home to family who still use a wood burning stove. There are thousands of Syrian refugees that have come over into Jordan in the last several months with just a few duffel bags. The aid organizations are having to provide for them from the ground up, meaning these refugees need just about everything. Jordanians are in upheaval about sharing their already depleted water supply with thousands of foreigners.

This is famine.

No one that I know chooses famine. It is thrust upon someone ,or rather one is thrust into it. It brings you to the end of yourself. And without help, you will die.

Yet Christ chose famine. When He departed from His Father to come to earth, He chose famine in emptying Himself of everything that He once possessed to full measure, namely His intimate communion with the Father. He chose famine in dying. And in all this, God brought life, abundance, fullness.

Unlike Christ, I feel famine when I am honest about my sin, when He lovingly shows me the poverty of my spirit without Him. I see that without Him, I am living in famine. And He, the emptied One, overcame death and became life. So when He shows me the famine of my soul-- this is love?

Yes.

It’s only when I feel and know the famine in my soul, my spirit that I want to be filled. How do I become full? In making choices to empty myself of things that only weigh me down, burden me—sins that press down and weights that I carry unnecessarily.

The Divine exchange, as my sister-in-law Elizabeth calls it. My burdens, my emptiness for His yoke, His fullness. Only when I realize I am in the midst of famine can I ever hope to receive His abundant love, forgiveness, redemption—life.

Then I see that we truly have so much.

soli deo gloria

rage

We stayed home yesterday. Drew the blinds, hunkered down. It wouldn't have been terribly unusual on a Friday morning to do this had it not been a great day to go to the pool. Get some fresh air and play in the pool with the kids, do some laps. exercise. But yesterday was not the day to go to the embassy.
After friday morning prayers, a large crowd men from Amman and beyond gathered in front of our Embassy to protes against the anti-islamic Youtube video that has been circulating.  Following Libya, Egypt and Yemen, it seemed that Jordan was now given the chance to express their rage. These events have placed every Embassy and American worker around the world in a position to realize the unique reality that we live in as expatriates in a Muslim society.
So we stayed home.
Steve received alerts every fifteen to twenty minutes or so, updates on the crowd amassing in front of the gates. We checked an Amman news page online and saw pictures of men burning the U.S. flag and chanting. Was Amman to give way to rage like these other countries?
In moments like these, all illusion of human security and strength fall away. In many ways, we know that Jordanian security forces are organized, strong. Yet strong enough to protect Americans against their Arab brothers? To defend the Christian West against Islamic righteousness?
And in this moment, my courage failed. I prayed with Steve, on my knees. For protection. For the binding of anger, rage, intent to murder.
Minutes later, Steve received a text that half the crowd went home. But there was still a remnant trying to decide whether or not to scale the Embassy walls. There was both relief and remaining apprehension.
And we prayed. Again. On my knees.
By nightfall, the larger crowd had dissipated, assumably after deciding not to venture further toward the Embassy. I can only trust that God had answered our prayers, quieted the rage and allowed the crowd to do what was right- to go home to their families.
Another small rally formed later that evening, but again, it ended peacefully.
Praise God.
....
In all of my prayers for the world around me, for men (and women) battling rage that could have ended in destruction, death, I forgot one important thing: my own heart. Though I spent time praying for others, I was not aware of my own stress, mounting fear and subsequently intense anger that was building in me throughout the last few days. And like a pressure cooker, my anger was building into a rage that I saw unleashed later that night.

Why is it so easy to hurt those who are closest to you?
Because in times of stress, he tends to detach and execute and I tend to emote, to reach out for something reassuring and affirming?
To go so blindly about that day, focusing on the unfolding world events, so unaware of the anger-- that we had to stay inside, fearing that exit might prove to be harmful to us or the kids, that we could be separated as a family if things erupted beyond what was expected....
And the list goes on, as it usually does in a woman's mind. Yet I didn't take time to check my heart and it began brewing anger against the one who brought us here (neglecting the fact that ultimately, it was He who brought us here) and who wasn't spending the day as I wanted- close to me, talking to me, comforting me.
Why is it so easy to mask selfishness by using the words, "I need...!" when I overlook the stress that he has been under, aware of so much more that is going on in this region.
I push, I pick and I hurt. I am so tired.
And I am reminded again that love, according to 1 Corinthians 13, is first of all: patient. I only began to understand why Paul would list patience as the first attribute of love quite recently. Before that, baffled at its prominence in love's true characteristics. And yet I see now how patient He is in allowing the world to go on as it is as I understand that love needs to be free to choose.
It is so hard to be patient when you feel that you have reason to be discontent, angry, afraid. And how much love depends on the ability to be patient when you see, year by year, more and more of each other's faults and inadequacies.
So while I spent scarce moments on my knees for the world and its rage, I needed much more than that in praying for my own anger, my own rage, the state of my heart.
Then I needed to ask forgiveness, again. Isn't marriage so humbling?
I've been reading a chapter in Proverbs each morning. Seeing how very central the condition of my heart is to my attitude and to my words, leading to actions. How I need to pray to keep my heart free from the destructiveness of anger in this season, though I feel so imprisoned by it at times. And to realize that just as the world is embroiled in a war that is unseen, so is my marriage, my family, my own heart.
How can I be proclaiming Christ and His true peace when I know it so little?
Thanks be to God for His patience with us- with me- in teaching us how to love as He does...
I covet your prayers for the Middle East, for our family and my heart.

soli Deo gloria

And remembering to be thankful that...

He governs the affairs of men,
His quieting of rage in Amman...and in me,
Concerned calls from family and friends,
A return to "normalcy" today,
Time to swim and have brunch out this morning,
God's mercy,
Forgiveness,
A clean car- dust free for a...few hours,
New flowers on the patio...