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Hold Everything, Everybody!

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:43:35 GMT

This is an excerpt from an article that was in the Love INC of Starke County newsletter that Deb Wappel writes. The little girl in the article is my youngest sister's, Katrina's, daughter, Kaydence.

Hold Everything, Everybody!
by Deb Wappel, Director

My husband and I shared a meal at a restaurant with five-year-old Kaydence Nokes recently. When the server brought our food to the table, Larry and I kept talking a bit and began to eat. Suddenly Kaydence crossed her arms, then extended them like an umpire calling safe. She sternly said, "Hold everything, everybody!" With forks halfway to our mouths, Larry and I looked at her. She calmly said, "We did not pray." We were a little red in the faces when we replied, "Oops!" Kaydence decided she wanted to say the prayer. She so sincerely bowed her head and asked God to be with the people in Africa who didn't have enough food or money. She asked Him to help provide for them and to help her remember to take her billfold to church the next Sunday so she could give money to help.

Kaydence has a deep faith in God and an open and alert mind toward learning everything in His Word and His works. She has been raised in Victory Christian Church and her family, long-time members of that congregation. Victory is one of our faithful Love INC participating churches. Kaydence is sensitive to the needs of African people because her aunt and uncle, Jeff and Tammi Brown and family are missionaries to Kenya. Kaydence's grandparents, Don and Patti Nokes, and her Uncle Travis, visited Kenya and the mission site last year and brought home many pictures and stories. Kaydence obviously listened closely and took it all to heart. There is a lot to be learned from a child's trusting unpretentious faith that the Bible refers to in Matthew 18: "Verily, I say unto you, except you be converted and become as little children ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."

Like the Biblical saying goes, "Out of the mouth of babes...." I was reminded by a child to pray first and always. Sometimes I get so busy I forget to pray. When things get stressful and I get behind and frustrated, then am I reminded to stop and pray. My days always go more smoothly and timely from the start when I remember to put everything on hold first thing in the mornings and begin with prayer. I have appreciated Kaydence's reminder many times since that evening in the restaurant.

M.I.A.

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:05:00 GMT

You are probably wondering, "What the heck happened to Tammi?" I've been sucked back into the American culture. Furlough has been busy and everything except restful. Even without rest, there have been great times, just not relaxing or restful times.

We are still chugging along trying to bring our support level up to 100%. It is slow going. Everywhere we go we hear economy, economy, economy. And to some extent, I know that is true. But when I drive by Olive Garden or the University Park Mall, both parking lots are chock full of shoppers. So is the economy really affecting things, or have our priorities shifted? Since money is tighter people are pulling away from charitable giving in order to maintain their satellite dishes and Disney vacations.

In times of uncertainty in my life, I'm drawn to Psalm 40:1-3.
¹ I waited patiently for the LORD;
he turned to me and heard my cry.

² He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
       out of the mud and mire;
       he set my feet on a rock
       and gave me a firm place to stand.

³ He put a new song in my mouth,
       a hymn of praise to our God.
       Many will see and fear
       and put their trust in the LORD.

The whole truth is that I don't wait so patiently. In my Thursday night Bible study, the teacher was talking about Abram and how God made a promise of an heir. Abram waited 25 years before God fulfilled that promise. I won't lie. I walked out of study that night asking God to not make me wait 25 years to return to Kenya. Thankfully, God is well aware that I'm no Abram. He said, "Go." Abram went without questions. But I said, "But why? And where? And for how long? And will we be safe? Will we miss out on major family events? When we return, will we be weird?"

I'm more like Abram's wife, doubting and laughing. Or like Jonah, telling God that His plan is flawed and mine is more realistic. So I'm hoping when I'm 99 years old that I won't wake up one day pregnant. And when I'm at an coast, I'm going to be on the look out for ginormous fish that may swallow me up.

High Speed Internet

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 23:53:44 GMT

I have so much I should say, but my time right now is booked solid. In a nutshell, we are in the US and already on the road for our month long road trip through some southern states. I'm enjoying high speed internet. In honor of such a beautiful convenience I am finally posting the picture that I tried and tried to post in Nairobi, but continually failed to get to load. Enjoy the headline our newspaper in Kenya from January. Best headline ever!

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:35:45 GMT

We are a week and a half from our departure day. This week I have really felt the weight of what needs to be accomplished. Yesterday I buckled down and packed 6 totes. Only 4 more to go.... We are at the point where we are finding ourselves scheduling every little thing in as quick as possible. There is much room from breathing on some days.

Part of my anxiety and rush is wanting to finish the bulk of our packing and cleaning this week. On Saturday we are picking up our furlough replacement couple, the Mangels. Jeff and I have moved out of our bedroom and into Emily's room. She's staying in the boys' room. I wanted to get our room empty (of our junk) and cleaned so that the Mangels can move directly into our bedroom and start settling in the 10 days we live together.

I wanted to plan some time for our family to enjoy some fun things here before we left. That hasn't really worked out. Although, Saturday is Elliott's 9th birthday. We are all going (plus Miriam) on a game drive through Nairobi National Park and we'll have a picnic lunch there. That afternoon, we'll surprise Elliott with some cake and ice cream (Doh! Forgot to buy the ice cream...) and a few small gifts that we've bought for him. He isn't expecting anything because we are having a big cookout/pool party to celebrate his and Edison's birthdays right after we arrive in Indiana. Even so, I didn't want the day to pass with Jeff and I packing and cleaning. And I really wanted one last game drive. The Nairobi park isn't bad, it's a good day trip kind of thing. But it's not Maasai Mara, that's for sure.

I wanted to post a funny headline that I read a while back. Unfortunately my internet connection isn't so good today. I think it's the move from our room to Emily's. I'll try to get it another time.

Not Prayer Card Worthy

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:59:24 GMT

Three weeks until we leave Kenya and I'm just now sitting down to go over my pre-furlough checklists that were sent to me in March. I'm scrambling around trying to get a decent family picture. The current one being used on all our newsletters makes me cringe every time I look at it.

This picture will not be on our prayer card.

At first I was thinking this one might be ok. But once I cropped it to this size, I realized several things. Yes, my two older kids look supremely uncomfortable. It's almost as if we have a machete we are holding behind their backs forcing them to smile. Unfortunately, they are at that age where all our photos have that look. So that's not the reason I won't use this picture.

I won't use it because of my smile. I have the lottery smile. I didn't even know about the lottery smile until last year when Alisa C. emailed us a link to these two blog postings by the same guy (post #1 & post #2).

My smile is so big that you can't even see my eyes. What the heck was I laughing about at that exact second? No one else in the picture is grinning as big as me. Well, really no one else besides Jeff is really even smiling in that photo.

Thankfully we had two pictures taken at the same time and the other one has a happy smile, but not the lottery smile. And I have someone who is going to photoshop Elliott's cold sores out. Now if only they could photoshop a smile on my kids' faces.

Plain and Simple are my friends

Mon, 18 May 2009 05:08:23 GMT

Kenya has been a country of first times for me. It makes sense that when you enter a new culture you will experience things for the first time, like foods, music, smells, clothing. I can now add buying curtains to that list.

For the first time in my 33 years, I bought curtains. It was a stressful time. The measuring and re-measuring. Realizing that I should have measured in meters and not inches when it was too late. Trying to sort through bolts of bright vibrant colored curtains looking for simple and plain. There's a reason I've never done this before.

When we owned our home in Michigan City, we had cheap venetian blinds in every window. We had two curtains in that house, one in the kitchen and one in the nursery. Jeff's mom bought both of those for us otherwise those windows would have remained naked.

When we moved to our apartment in Mishawaka, we continued with the venetian blind theme. But the little living room had a large sliding glass door that opened out to a pond. Apartment policy said we had to put up a neutral colored curtain within two weeks of moving in. Jeff ran out and bought some beige curtains to put up there. I could have cared less.

When we first moved to Kenya, the house we took over had curtains in all windows except the kitchen. I was more than happy to leave them all right where they were. But now our apartment has huge windows. We live on the bottom floor and frequently people walk by the windows (especially the large sliding glass doors) and look in to see what we are doing. We've solved the issue in the bedrooms by hanging Maasai blankets in the windows with clothes pins. It looks tacky since none of the blankets match, but it does the job.

On Friday I went to Nakumatt to finally pick out some nice calm neutral bland curtains for the apartment (especially for the large sliding doors ~ Maasai blankets are too small to cover them). One thing I've learned through this fabric buying experience is that there is no such thing as calm, neutral or bland when it comes to fabric here. There are a lot of crazy ugly designs.

In the end I found one last bolt of beige-ish fabric with some small floral designs. I was trying to stay away from any pattern, but that's completely impossible here. In the kids' bedrooms, I bought kikoy curtains. They are bright and colorful, but cheap and that was the biggest selling point for me.

I'm looking forward to having curtains. It would mean that I could wear shorts around the apartment without worrying about offending one of my neighbors. Or that we could have some guests over and talk in the living room without the gate guard walking by to look in and see who we have over. Plus I think our furlough replacement couple will be happy to have us take down the Maasai blankets and return the clothes pins to the laundry area.

Sex Boycott Update

Tue, 12 May 2009 12:18:33 GMT

A Kenyan man is suing his wife over the week long sex boycott. No, his name is not Jeff Brown. Here's the link to the article. I love the fact that he suffered sleepless nights, lack of concentration and mental anguish. And how do backaches come into play? Wait, maybe I don't want to know.

Being Wormy

Mon, 04 May 2009 09:35:16 GMT

This has nothing to do with intestinal worms. I know shocking. Although we are overdue to take our de-wormer.... Since living here (and not owning a television), Emily and I have become bookworms. She enjoys almost any age appropriate book. Right now she is loving mysteries (especially Nancy Drew) and Dear America books.

I will read almost anything. It started after we first arrived. I was reading aloud to the kids, The Chronicles of Narnia, Anne of Green Gables, The Little Princess, etc. I read through everything we had. I was still in the reading mode, but I was out of kids' books to read aloud. I decided to try my hand at reading Tolkien. I decided that I wasn't going to ask my oldest brother questions about the movies anymore without having read the books.

After that I read anything I could get my hands on (all fiction, of course, I'm not looking to learn anything, just entertain myself). Two weeks ago I picked up Wuthering Heights at a garage sale. Only 100 shillings. I honestly had no idea what it was about, but figured it was a classic and I could use a little more culture in my life.

This past weekend we made a quick trip to Eldoret. We stayed in the Turkana team house there with the Mordens. Because of all the people that have come and gone over the decades, there is a mini-library in that house. Emily found six books she wanted to read (she's already on the third one since Saturday). I found a bunch of titles and authors that I thought would be fun to try, one being The DaVinci Code. I know, I know, evangelicals reading this are collectively gasping that I would read such crap and that sound you hear is my mother sobbing that her missionary daughter could be led astray. My reasons for reading it are #1 it was free to borrow and #2 I wanted to know what all the hype was about, both good and bad. I'm only one chapter into it, so I have no opinion at this point.

I also picked up Sherlock Holmes, the Complete Novel and Stories, Vol. 1. So far I'm liking all of the classics that I've been able to get my hands on, so I figured Sherlock Holmes deserved a try. I picked up and finished a Nicholas Sparks' book, True Believer. I've never read anything of his before, but knew that women everywhere love his books (actually they probably love the movies made from his books more than his actual books since I'm not sure how many people have actually read The Notebook, but it's every woman's favorite movie ~ except mine). I have seen A Walk to Remember and The Notebook. Both were just ok for me. Nothing fabulous, both quite predictable. I was hoping his writing would be a bit more exciting than the movies made from his books. True Believer was just ok for me. It's a 400 page book that I finished in 24 hours. It's an easy read. There weren't any surprises or anything exceptional that made it stand out.

I'm thinking that once I'm in the States, I'd like to read the Twilight books. I saw the first movie and I can understand why girls everywhere are enthralled about Edward, the main character. I find him atrociously unattractive, but his self control is what makes him alluring. Anyway, I enjoyed the movie, but I'd like to see how the character is portrayed in the books.

I think I might read more now than I did when I worked at the library. Back then I only read Steven King novels. I have no idea why and now that does not even appeal to me. I think me now would be creeped out by the me then. I was so desperate for reading material a few months back that I borrowed some books. One was about talking, crime solving cats. For real. I read the whole thing, more because I wanted to figure out who had done it (which was predictable). But every time one of those cats started talking to people in the book, I had to take a moment to regain my composure. Apparently there is a whole series of books about these cats. I just can't make myself reach that far into my imagination to read another one. I mean, sure I read books about hobbits, goblins, elves and wizards, but talking cats, not for me, even if they are excellent crime solvers.

In Other News

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 05:27:31 GMT

Political strife seems to be on the rise here again. Jeff is the news junkie, so I get info from him and from the news on the street (basically that means I just ask someone's askari what the news is, but I have to be prepared for at least 30 minutes of one way conversation). Politics is the top news topic in Kenya with economy being second. We are hearing that swine flu is pretty much the big topic everywhere else in the world. When all that seems to get a bit discouraging, I turn to our Google news feed to find something more entertaining.

This morning I ran across this news article written about Kenyan women. Jeff's not home right now, but when he gets back I'll ask him if that would be a good motivator for him. In all seriousness, I can't imagine who came up with this idea and how they think it will make any progress at all. Wouldn't lack of sex just make them more angry and violent? All that frustration would be easy to take out on your enemies. I'm just saying that I don't think it was a well thought out plan.

I also found this article that is a bit more in-depth as to the motivation of the women and who they are. I think it is great that women are speaking out. And maybe they feel that by doing a "sex boycott" they will get more press and finally be heard. Men will do lots of things for sex, but I'm guessing that giving up power and completely re-tooling their government is not one of those things.

In other news, I ran across this article last week. I think it is one of my all-time favorite news stories. The poor guy was just taking his break after working on his boss's farm. I thought the story was an amazingly fantastic story. But really the part that made it my favorite was the fact that the 13 foot python escaped! The first article I originally read about this incident just nonchalantly mentioned that the next day workers went to check on the snake and it was gone, apparently from crawling under the door. How big was that gap?

I would think that if I were a police officer, I would probably have shot the snake on site. And if I was a bad shot or afraid of firing (or lacking ammunition - a rumor that I hear many gun carrying people here fit that category), then I think I would have taken the farmer's machete and chopped the beast. It had attempted to eat a full-grown man. The python is obviously strong if it carried him up a tree. But no, animal lovers around will rejoice that the python's life was worth saving. And because of that a man-dragging, tree climbing, hungry python is still on the loose. I can't wait to visit Mombasa in 3 weeks! Maybe I'll see him, too.

Facebook Anonymous

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 06:36:15 GMT

I think I have become what I hate. I am a Facebook friend collector. My current friend list is over 250 people. I'm not even sure I know that many people. Early in my Facebook journey, I made a decision that if someone requested to be my friend, I would approve them. I also decided that I would only ask people to be my friend if I honestly planned on staying in touch with them. I can tell you that I do not stay in touch with 250+ people.

I have found myself at a crossroads a few times. Once I had a guy ask to be my friend and he even put in a message asking where I live now. With the name and picture, I couldn't place the guy. We had one friend in common, my sister Jena. I sent her a message telling her I couldn't figure out who he was. She didn't know either. He was a friend collector. I think he just requested to be friends with friends of friends of friends. That was a little too stalker-ish for my liking. I broke my promise to accept anyone who asked and rejected him.

This morning I woke up to a new friend request. This is from a guy who dated my sister when she was in high school. I couldn't stand the guy. When he would call the house, I would hang up on him, or interrogate him on what his plans were with my little sister. Why would he request to be my friend? I almost accepted him as a friend. But now as I type this, I have decided to reject his decison. My negative feelings toward the guy are not still there, but would I ever send him a message? No. Would he send one to me? No. Then what would be the point of being friends.

I've been considering going through my friend list and giving the axe to people. That sounds a bit harsh, doesn't it? Maybe I won't. I just hate it when people have asked to be friends, I add them, but they've never sent me a single message or respond when I've sent them one. Why be friends?? It just clogs up my Facebook home page with the mumbo jumbo games or quizzes that they've done. (By the way, I don't do games or quizzes on Facebook. Too much of a time consumer. It takes an eternity just to download the program and I'd much rather waste my time in other mindless ways).

From now on my Facebook friend requests will undergo a more thorough scrutiny. No more instant acceptance just for asking. I think I'll need a little wining and dining to win me over. That worked when choosing a spouse, maybe the same holds try for Facebook friends.