A Christmas to forget

Christmas day started out early (5:45!) but good. We had electricity and I knew where to find the coffee in our new kitchen, so what more do you need? Stockings were fun to open with the kids, they loved and appreciated their things, we went through the Christmas story, and then opened gifts. Thanks to a fantastic church partner who sent presents, the kids had things to open since we hadn't made it shopping what with moving. The few gifts we had brought with us from the US were wrapped in napkins and curtains because that's all we could find!

The day started to go South when I started cooking for the mission dinner. In a new kitchen and things only partially set-up, everything took longer. I finally got the dough made for orange spirals, got the piecrust baking, and started the pie filling. After stirring it for 45 minutes, I decided it simply was not going to solidify like it was supposed it, and only then did I realize the stovetop was not working. And neither was the oven any longer, and the curst was only half-cooked. Chad was walking the dogs, so when he came back he started to switch out the ovens (to move our old one in). But then he found the wiring problem, got the original one working again, and so I was back on track though sadly behind. The bread wasn’t rising properly, the pie wasn’t cooling fast enough…I finally jumped in the shower at 2:20 for our 2:00 lunch, forgetting to get the oven turned back on to cook the rolls. I didn’t realize everyone was waiting for us to arrive, which we did at almost 3, without the pie or the rolls! After filling our plates, I fed Isaac while Chad ran home to put the rolls in the oven. When he got back, I finished a few bites and ran back home to pull them out of the oven. And the bottoms were scorched. Apparently the new oven doesn’t cook so evenly. Yes, I went into Christmas-dinner-battle with an unproven oven, a mistake I won’t make again! I sat on the kitchen floor, oven mitt in one hand and charcoal rolls in the other, and sobbed. But the pie was cool, so I pulled myself together and headed back over. After a pleasant dinner, which I was almost too tired to fully enjoy, we headed home. But where were the keys??? Chad was sure I had misplaced them in my meltdown over the rolls, and I admit I had no memory of keys at all, except that the door was locked, so I had to have brought them out of the house! We tore the car apart, and in the frenzy, the Rottweiler jumped into the car, discovered the half-a-chocolate pie and ate all the real whipped cream off the top. Still no keys, so we climbed back into the car to see if they were at our friend’s house, and Ethan stepped in the remaining pie (yes, Chad had been planning on salvaging the chocolate part of the pie up until that point!). The keys were nowhere to be found, until Ethan and a friend remember that Ethan was playing in the car earlier, got frustrated with his friend, and threw the keys out the car window at him! Of course it’s pitch-African-dark by this time. Nonetheless, 11 adults and 2 kids donned head-lamps and flashlights and searched the area they swear the keys had to be, which, I’m sure, also happens to be the thickest grass in all of Lilongwe! The only other set of keys we knew of were inside the house since we had them both to move. And after 1-½ hours of fruitless searching…oh, did I mention the rose bushes all around? I have the scratches to remind me…we gave up. Miraculously, someone found another copy of the back door key and we were able to get in. On the drive home, the bowl of carrots slid over so the buttered carrots joined the smashed-in chocolate pie on the car floor.

It was 9pm, Isaac hadn’t had a nap and was screeching like a howler monkey at this point, and we were finished. I’m afraid to say we totally bombed the “real spirit of Christmas” this year. I was trying to find some spiritual lesson, or application I should have learned from this experience, but this is all I’ve come up with: some days just stink. I guess God’s gift is that when you fall into bed and think you can’t take anymore, you always wake up to a new day, and God’s mercies are “new every morning”. Today has been much better, despite the 4 loads of dishes I had to do to clean up from yesterdays’ kitchen-disasters! Our old stove is moved in, and this morning the keys were found in the exact spot we had all been looking. Of course, the other lesson to be learned is that we don’t have to do it all. I agreed to bring that food to dinner before we found out about moving. We had so much food no one would have even thought twice if I’d said I couldn’t bring the desserts after all. It was my own pride and stubbornness that insisted I act as if we hadn’t just done the impossible with moving in 3 days.

If there is a next time, which I hope there is not, I’ll know better about setting limits for myself. In the mean time, I need a nap…

The Worst Christmas Pageant Ever

Oh wait. That wasn’t a pageant…that was our LIFE!!! This will go down in history as the craziest Christmas ever, and that’s saying a lot since I was recovering from childbirth and moving states and preparing to move continents last year!

A time-line may help explain.

Monday, 10am, we get the word that renters have been found for our house and they need to move in by Dec 27 (Sunday)! No boxes, no packing supplies, no problem. We’re pros at moving! We’ll clear out the apartment so it’s ready for our things to go in. Whoops, the keys to the big front door are locked up and the only one with access to them is out of town for 2 days.

Tuesday: we clear the (badly) furnished apartment by carrying everything out a narrow kitchen door, so it takes all day, and then start packing up our house in the 5 boxes we have, unpacking them in the new apartment so we can reuse those boxes for more trips. The truck isn't available because the keys are in the same place as the front door keys.

Wednesday: The truck is available, the front door keys are in hand, and 8 friends show up to help move everything big. The first load goes as smooth as silk. This is kind of crazy-fun! We always were gluttons for chaos. The second load…not so much. Just as we were driving into the apartment complex the skies opened and it POURED (did I mention our things were in a flat-bed truck? No tarp?) Amazingly, nothing was seriously damaged!

Thursday: We’re almost done, right? Only a few small things left. But those small things took FOREVER! We finally got it finished in time to make it to the mission carol-sing (I excused myself from bringing any food to contribute!) We got home at 9 and unpacked all the boxes from the living room, set up the tree (sans ornaments!) and wrapped Christmas presents, set up the stockings, and collapsed into bed. Can it really almost be Christmas??

The new apartment is nice. It's on the small side, with all 3 kids sharing a room and only 1 bathroom, but other than that, it's better in many ways. It has a fabulous shower (we've had to hold the nozzle in one hand since we arrived in April), ceiling fans (a blessing in this heat), great screens on the windows (far less mosquitoes munching us in the evening), and a fantastic yard with a long driveway for the kids to ride their bikes. We'll be here until our co-workers get moved up north to a new people group they'll be working with, and then we'll move into their old house. It could be anytime from 3 weeks to 3 months. And I'm ok with that timeline, as long as I have more than 3 days to move next time!

Grandpa Harold Kurtz

I know I’m a little young to be considering my own mortality, but then again, I never thought I’d be contemplating my grandfather’s death. I can clearly remember telling a friend (in an awed tone) that he was 60 years old and still traveling the world. Now it’s my parents who are nearly 60 and grandpa passed away on Friday afternoon at age 84. And until last year, he was still traveling the world! He went on donkey treks through the Ethiopian bush, celebrated church growth with leaders in frozen Siberia, worked with untouchables in India and gypsies in Romania, with Korean and Peruvian believers…all with one simple dream. For every people, an indigenous church; for every church, a mission vision. He was a man with a vision, with principles, with passion, and I am so proud to have known him! The world lost a champion for responsible missions, for empowerment of the 3^rd World, for us in the 1^st World to take note of what they can teach us about faith, and family, and perseverance.

He has left behind a ‘clan’ who will miss him so very much--a wife, 6 kids, 23 grandkids, and 6 great-grandkids. And he taught each of us some important lessons:

• 1. Until death do us part means exactly what it says.
• 2. Do anything possible for family, but remember that everyone is family
• 3. There’s always room for one (or two, or three…) more
• 4. We are citizens of the whole world, and we should act like it
• 5. Popcorn makes a perfectly good dinner
• 6. Always make it 100 miles before breakfast

We know he's having the greatest time, worshiping the One he served his whole life. And we are so glad that his earthly struggle with the brain tumor, which robbed him of his ability to tell stories or give advice, is finally over. The Kurtz clan will never be the same with him gone, but we are all better people because of knowing him. We love you, grandpa!

It's beginning to look more like Christmas...

As of the latest word, we're NOT moving after all, until February or so when our permanent house is available! So, with that in mind, the kids convinced us to get the tree out. By the time the 3rd ornament was up, Isaac had already pulled the whole tree over (thanks, Chad, for catching it just before it crushed him!). So, we got creative, and it now sits on top of our deep freezer. Rather odd vantage point, but you can actually see the ornaments better because they're at eye level! Perhaps we're starting a trend...

I almost didn't bring our ornaments, thinking they would be safer in storage and I would be so sad if we lost them all. But we all had so much fun rediscovering our favorites and recreating the memories of when we got each ornament, I was glad we did bring them after all. There was only one casualty, and it wasn't a critical loss. And bonus!!! Several of the ornaments were wrapped in American Kleenex, and you have NO idea just how soft that feels! (OK, yes, I did fold them up and put them in the closet to use on my next runny nose! The ornaments can go back in Malawian newspaper!)

The kids Christmas program was this week. Ethan was cast-typed as a...what else? An angel! He sang beautifully, and even sat still for the 2-hour production(!) Anya performed a dance with her ballet class. After I showed her this picture of her and her best friend (a Honduran-Scottish Malawian resident named Daniella!) she gave me a big hug and said, "Oh mom! I'm so beautiful!" Perhaps we don't need to work on the self-esteem part of life quite so much! But she was beautiful, and she danced so well! I can't tell you how happy I am to be able to offer the kids these little tastes of life back in the US, only with a distinct international flair!

The kids get out of school today, we'll make gingerbread houses (minus the molasses which you can't find here, so who knows how they'll taste!) over the weekend, singing of the Messiah on Tuesday, carol singing on Thursday, and a mission-wide Christmas dinner on Friday. Sounds like fun!!! We'll make it down to the lake the next week, to get the necessary annual Christmas-holiday-sunburn if we can find gas!

Swim Gala

For the end-of-term sports, the kids had a 'swim gala' where the whole school competed over two days. Anya's started at 12 and finished at 5pm, and she raced in race 3 and race 65. Now is that cruel and unusual punishment for parents, or what??? I guess they wanted to make sure everyone stayed the whole time to cheer the other kids on! Anya came in 4th in her individual race and her team won 1st place in the relay.

Ethan raced 3 times (with his 'noodle'!) and came in 1st, 4th, and 2nd. Not too bad for someone scared of the 'big pool' 2 months ago!

Anya continues her swim lessons in January, and we're taking a break with Ethan. He'll still swim during PE once a week, and we may get a membership to the pool so we can all play there when the days get really hot. Who knew there would be such a great pool here in Lilongwe??

Look who's ONE!

I’ve decided that 1 year old seems a lot older with your first baby than with your 3^rd. Compared to Anya’s independence and Ethan’s near-independence, Isaac hardly seems out of the baby stage. Of course Chad suggested having another baby so we could see exactly how much Isaac has grown, but I think I’m going to pass on that one right now!

One year ago we were stuck in the biggest snow-storm to hit Salem Oregon since the 1960’s. We were praising God’s timing in that Isaac was born and home from the hospital before we got snowed in, huddled around a pellet-burning stove to keep warm. We had no house, no jobs, no responsibilities, and a ton of unknowns looming ahead of us. Isaac was a tiny, eating-and-pooping machine.

Now here we are, sweltering in humid, tropical heat in Southern Africa, settled in semi-permanent housing, with responsibilities and a job as soon as we can learn a foreign language, a few less unknowns ahead…and Isaac is just a bigger eating-and-pooping machine, only now the diapers have to be washed out, not tossed!

Isaac is quite content to crawl, for the moment. He’ll stand if he doesn’t realize he’s doing it, and he’ll walk holding onto a hand. He has learned the finer art of screeching when he doesn’t get his way, but his laugh comes just as quickly. He wrestles with his dad and his brother, adores his big sister, and still thinks mom=lunch no matter what time of day or night. He loves smelling flowers and petting dogs and taking walks, splashing in the bath-tub, and riding on his nanny’s back in a sling.

He’s been through such a whirlwind in his first year of life, and he acts as though nothing unusual has happened. Then again, why shouldn’t he rest easy? He’s surrounded by people who love him, he’s clothed and fed and snuggled, he has things to play with and things to challenge him and force him to grow…what does he have to worry about? He’s not having to worry about bills, or stress over decisions, or get a job done, right? He just has to trust us to do right by him, which of course we’re going to do, despite our shortcomings. What a life, huh? That’s almost enough to be jealous about!

But here’s a thought: don’t we have a heavenly Father who is providing us the same stability and love and shelter no matter what life brings our way? The same guidance and direction and nurturing, if we’ll just accept it? So that’s what He means by having faith like a child!

It's stinkin' hot, it must be December

Thanksgiving was a success! We had lots to be thankful for, and tons of great food! The piglets turned to pig-fat jelly (yum!) so we had roast chicken instead. As the only Yankees in our mission, let me pass on words of wisdom to you Northerners...If you ever get the chance to celebrate a food-involved holiday with Southerners, you should take it! Let me tell you, they know how to cook up a Thanksgiving feast!!!

This past week us ladies all got together and quilted Christmas table-runners and mantle scarves! It was my first time quilting, and actually really enjoyed myself. As a rather conservative-art soul, I did quake some at having to pick so many different patterns to be sewn together, but it turns out the earth kept revolving even with florals and plaids and stripes next to each other!

In other news, the computer crashed again (which meant we couldn't transfer money so we couldn't grocery shop) and Malawi is having a major fuel shortage (think 6-8 hour lines, violence and riots, and no guarantee of getting anything after surviving said trials!) so we can't drive anywhere. And we're moving into a 2-bedroom duplex next week, where we'll be until our permanent house opens up in January or February. We could have waited until closer to the end of the month, but why wait until the kids are out of school? This way we can celebrate Christmas without thinking about moving.

So life continues to be unpredictable and a little messy around the edges, but we are at peace in the midst of the chaos. After all, what would stressing do but add an ulcer to the list of stressors!