count down

Today, I calculated 9 flights and 30 days until I hit the eastern seaboard.
There are 15 days until we leave for vacation.
I will be finished preparing and doing inventory of my classroom in about 1 day.
And, tomorrow's my birthday.
Thinking about all of this stuff makes me tired...that's a lot of flying and waiting.

Here are some of our destinations:
June 16- Rome, Italy
June 17- Dubrovnik, Croatia and near Herceg-Novi, Montenegro
June 23- back to Rome
June 25- Brussels, Belgium
June 28- back to Rome
June 30- Boston, USA

the Sunday that topped them all

This past Sunday was a crazy day.
1) We started exam week with the HS students, which means tomorrow is the last day.
2) I thought I lost the car keys, so I was 20 minutes late for work (1st time ever).
3) I drew a fun sketch of my friends as birds while I was proctoring an exam.
4) I went to an amazing church service.

Here are some explanations, but first, here's a picture that I had to have taken covered for a visa. In this part of the world, the head scarf is called a hijab, so I was "hejba," or "covered," for the picture. The resolution isn't great, but you get the idea!

Sunday:
1)+ 3) The students come in and take one or two exams everyday, depending on the subject. Because Sunday was a two-part religion exam, the second part being Qur'an recitation (obviously I don't speak fluent Arabic or read much of the Qur'an), one of the religion teachers was in the same room as me conducting the process. That allowed my friend Kristen and I to talk and doodle...ahem...supervise. Afterward, some of the other teachers came up to our room because we were in the canteen, where students go for their break between exams. Now, before you think I'm a real artist like Jan McK or JJ A., I learned how to draw this through a 3-D practice book:


2) The evening before, Chris and I were out. When we got home, he threw his keys on the coffee table and they fell off. (Not so exciting so far, right?) To be funny, I did a hockey-type movie sending them across the floor and under a chair, which I did not remember until I had been looking for them for a solid 15 minutes the next morning. Usually, I get a ride with others from work, but because I ALSO FORGOT TO SET MY ALARM, I didn't wake up on time and the downward spiral toward being late began...My parents will tell you that punctuality has never been my strong point, but there's something about marriage that can change all that!

4) Occasionally, our church will do a combined service on Sunday nights when there are significant holidays, like Easter or Christmas. You may think that's not uncommon, but when you gather people from more than 20 different services in one place, that makes for a lot of worshippers! Now, picture that the congregation has to make an "L" shape, with the worship team and pastors in the middle so that everyone can see, half of the people being outside in the 100degree heat and the other half inside...in the 90degree heat because the A/C is on but the doors are open. That's how we celebrated Pentecost Sunday, and it was awesome.

The service lasted about two hours, which is not unusual, but I was especially drawn to one part of it, where one of the Arab pastors was praying for the country. He decided to use a translator so that he could speak more quickly, even though he is fluent in English. The whole thing was so amazing- back and forth, Arabic and English, interceding for the country- that I just wept. God used it to renew and refresh my love for these people.

Ever thought of adopting?

As we think long term about our lives, we would like to see our family with both biological and adopted children. Several of each, if I can help it. And right now, we are thinking more about what we're going to do with the next few years. We've come to the conclusion that it would be nice to throw some kids into the mix, just to shake things up a bit, you know? Whether we have biological children or not, we still want to adopt.

Last year, I read a book called Adopted for Life by Russell Moore, which one of our friends gave Chris. Though we have talked about adopting kids since before we were married (can you believe that's six years ago?), the desire to do so was fueled by that, right along with our discussions about having biological children. This book helped clear up some ideas about adoption that were confusing to me, as well as encouraged me to pray more about. If you haven't read that book or The Connected Child, I would recommend both.

In thinking about adopting children in the future, we are slowed by a major hurdle; non-Muslims are legally not allowed to adopt Muslim children. Really, neither are Muslims. As we comb through the research, statistics, and legal information to see if it can be done, we continually come up short. No Gulf, Arab, or majority Muslim country run by Shari'a Law permits adoption as we know it. In an article from an Egyptian news source, someone states it very clearly:

"In Islam, the concept of child adoption does not exist. Islamic Law does not permit an orphan to take the family name of a non-biological parent. 'They should be named after their fathers,' said Al-Azhar University scholar Abdel Mouti Bayoumi."
Orphanage Day puts Adoption into Spotlight
Besides taking a name, non-Muslims are not allowed to be entrusted with the foster care of Muslim orphans.

So, how do we accomplish something that God's put in our hearts, but the state doesn't want us to do? We're currently looking at countries that are Muslim majority, but have a statistically optimistic success rate of adoptions by parents who are US Citizens. In the mean time, we continue talking about having children in general.

Pray for us as we continue to talk about our plans for our family and our future.

On a Dusty Day

This weekend, we had a nice little dust front come through. Because of this...



I did this...

Snapshots

I know I've turned into a lousy blogger recently, but I just haven't had the energy to write down all of the riveting news in our lives- said with sarcasm, of course. Actually, we've done quite a lot recently, but we are waiting with baited breath for the end of the school year to come. I have 4 more teaching days and then a week of exams; afterward, I will do a few days of inventory and then hopefully read a few books on the school's clock. It's not my fault that the HS kids are done before MS, Elementary, and ECE...I just get to enjoy it!

So, let's see. Since April 22, I went to a flamenco show and poetry night at the Kuwait Little Theater in Ahmadi. I'll say the show was good, though I wasn't overly impressed with the dancer. The guitarists were nothing short of amazing, and the girl reading pieces of poetry, like A las Cinco de la Tarde, did a pretty nice job.


Another event was the Operation Hope Mother's Day Breakfast done on May 1st. I went to this with my friends Becky, Donna, and Darlene just to enjoy the breakfast and support a good cause. Operation Hope does a lot of humanitarian work here in Kuwait, giving out literal tons of goods and care packages to underprivileged workers every winter. They work hard throughout the year to provide for the needs of people, and the breakfast is the major event to raise money for the following year's cause.

Last weekend, I went to the 11th grade "fairwell" gathering at one of my student's houses. The girls are always funny to see interact with each other outside of a school setting, and sometimes I don't recognize them right away, because they are always in uniforms at school. Fatemah (top, 4th from R) did a great job of hosting! The kids always ask me to make lemon squares because I made the mistake of making some for a school event once. Since it was a party with about 50 people, I made two pans.



Also last weekend, we had an appreciation dinner/workshop for all the volunteers involved in the worship ministry at church. We enjoyed the fellowship with about 150 others, good food, good teaching, and just having a night out in the city. Since there are a lot of Indians in Kuwait, it's easy to find great Indian food, which is what we had at this dinner. I am going to have to master many international types of cuisine before we move back to the States or my eating style is going to change abruptly.


For the last month or so, I've been working with another teacher to put together a field trip for the 10th and 11th graders. Because both grades study the Renaissance time period in English or World History II, we decided to try to make that our theme. After countless hours of emails, phone calls, switched dates, and changing plans, our trip came to fruition yesterday. The girls watched Ever After (a modern version of the Cinderella story set in that era), ate a Renaissance inspired meal at the local Casper and Gambini's, and went ice skating. No, they didn't have ice skating during the Renaissance really, but we decided it would be fun anyway.

I think that brings us up to speed! We are excited to go on vacation once we're done with school, hitting a few countries before we make it back to the States on June 30th. We should be in Boston for about two weeks, Indiana State for a week, and then in Indiana, PA for a few weeks. Beside that, who knows?