Winding Up and Winding Down

Dear Followers (aka Loving Family and Friends),


I do apologize for not keeping you posted in this way.  Consistency in communication in such a way is not my strength. I can point you to another more thorough and consistent blog, that does often include  me: 


http://emilysevidence.blogspot.com/
(This is Emily's blog)


However, I do believe that I can summarize much of the last month that you have missed through the events of today:


Today was full of things that I was supposed to do and even more that I could attend, but didn't think that I had time for.   


Today, Ryan and I awoke to the sound of harsh rain outside around 6 AM only to snuggle back to sleep amidst our weariness.  Ryan, who has been studying non-stop as is his calling, and is weary in his mind and eyes, was glad for the excuse to miss his morning run.  And I simply love sleeping to the sound of rain!  The only unfortunate thing about this re-sleep was that I was supposed to wake up at 6:30, but instead drifted through the alarm being lulled by the rain until 8...and I was supposed to be out the door at 8:30!


Alas, I still needed to make lunch for my dear husband and myself, and have coffee and take a shower and look presentable.  SO!  I went to work making an Alfredo, and coffee and jumped in the shower.  But, before you think that I'm patting myself on the back, I didn't make my deadline, and had to call off my plans!  I was supposed to meet with my new co-workers at Grensave to attend a meeting on Grenada's environment.  I was excited to attend, but luckily it was not imperative that I was there.  


I started volunteering at Grensave a few weeks ago.  I'll be testing out how it goes there before I make a definite commitment to them.  The purposes of Grensave excite me, as it is a former satellite of Save the Children, and they work in the area of Child Development.  I have been able to peek into their day-to-day orchestration and fundraising as well as dabbling at writing project proposals to the UN!  That's exciting to me.  


So, instead of making my way into St. George's this morning, I took advantage of the time to pack up and get ready to go home!  I'm so excited to go home:  to see my wonderful family and friends and get to rest with them during Christmas. I'm also excited to notice that I'm a little sad to leave Grenada.  I've been learning so much here, growing in my friendships and in the LORD.  I've become somewhat accustomed and comfortable in my tiny little apartment and to sweating all the time.  I know also that I don't handle change too well and all the transitioning will take a little debriefing.  God is sovereign over all!


I was happy in a sense to miss my meeting time with Grensave for a number of reasons:  I got to be with my husband a little bit more in the day even if he was studying ;)  But I also was able to attend the art exhibition at the school of some of the girls that I'm now tutoring.  I've been tutoring at the Bel Aire home on Tuesdays, and working with some of the older girls in hopes of helping them transition into the real world.  We've been working on reading, math and just general life skills. I was able to get some fun Christmas presents there!


But also, I was able to meet up with Emily, my new found kindred spirit and answer to prayer in developing this new life.  And we were then able to record some Christmas music before heading over to the Bel Aire home to sing Christmas songs with the kids there.  (I will upload the music if I find a way to). Any suggestions anyone?


Singing with the kids brought joy to my soul. Watching their faces light up when they recognized a song, and just the ability to belt out their little 5-year-old hearts made them smile, which made me smile too.  I left with quite the headache from singing and being serenaded by a little too eager bunch of kids only a half foot away from me.  


When I got home I made some Pad Thai, and sulked a little that I'm not asian and don't know how to make asian noodles well.  


Once I settled down a little, I read my e-mail only to find that my Thursday night class was cancelled, hence this blog post!  


Although this time here in Grenada has been very hard for me personally, I'm so grateful for the time I've been here, for what I've learned, for being with my husband, for growing in the LORD and making wonderful friends.  I know that each lesson and day here has been a part of that greater tapestry of life that my LORD is weaving together for me.  I only pray that this tapestry will glorify Him.

Just a Little Sumthin Sumthin

So, I realized I have not been so great recently about keeping up with my paper challenge.  I think the recent addition of an MBA to my schedule has altered some of my priorities a little.  But, alas!  Sometimes you can't help yourself when it comes to crafts.  


So, here is the most recent paper product:

So, just so you know: this is the back of a cereal box!

I love being limited in recourses.

I made this by cutting the corners off of the box.  

Then, I traced the words that I wanted onto the box after I found a font that I wanted to copy.  

Next I traced the words in Sharpie.  

Then I stabbed the letters in the middle with scissors, and using those holes, I cut out the letters not bothering to keep the dots in the middle of the "e" and "a".

Then I just glued a little newspaper on the back, and added some newspaper flowers on the front, and ta-da!

You're done!

Well I hope you're having a good day!

Grenada

This last Friday I had the opportunity to travel the entire country of Grenada.  After living here almost two months, I was grateful to see a bit more of the beautiful country. I haven't been too far out of the St. George's Parish (which is 1 of the 7).  On Friday at 10, a group of 30 of us piled into a bus, and started on our bobbling way.  The roads in Grenada are like anything else I've experienced.  They are windy like at home, narrow like in England, but steep like no where I have traveled before.  Thus making these roads in my mind purely Grenadian roads. With the bus creaking and jerking from the automatic functioning, we were off.

Our first stop was in St. George's (the capital).  But, we traveled up to the highest point in the town to see Fort Matthew and Fort Frederick.  From there we got great views of the city, and got to learn a little bit of history from the Grenadian War.

This is the Grenadian Prison.

This is a view of St. George's from the hill.

It was also at this site that the US military accidentally bombed Fort Matthew instead of Fort Frederick.  At the time Ft. Matthew was being used as an insane asylum.  The mistake cost lives of innocent victims.  Unfortunately, the forts are less than 1 mile apart.

Our next stop was at the northern most tip of the island called Carib's Leap, and the one I was most grateful for.  After an hour of crammed jerking and bouncing everyone was feeling sick.   It was here that a group of Grenadian natives leapt to their death instead of being killed by the French who were taking over the island.  But there are also beautiful views of the islands Carricou (1 of the other 2 islands of Grenada).

My favorite stop was the next, Belmont Estate.  This estate has been owned by several different families, but today is owned by the Nyack family who uses the estate to make AMAZING organic chocolate!

This is a display of Grenadian fruit.  

Fermenting the cocoa beans is a part of the chocolate process.

A cocoa pod.

Roasting the cocoa.

Turning the cocoa.

And the tasting :)

After this tour, we stopped off at Pearl Airport, the abandoned airport in the north.  By this time it was 4:30!  So, even though the entire island is only 24 miles around, the trip took us 7 hours in total.  God's creation is beautifully diverse & tasty!

Our Identity is Christ

It is easy to get caught up in the flow.  It's easy to get distracted.  It's easy to forget who we really are.  It's easy to think that when you look in the mirror you're seeing what you get.  That's it.  


It's not true.  This isn't it.  


The last two Sunday's we've been talking about identity.  Oddly enough, it has since been coming up over and over again.  I've been believing lies about who Satan thinks I am, and been caught up meandering in the stream of life.  But what Satan whispers to us about our worth, about our daily routines is not truth.  This is what Scripture says:


Ephesians 1: "To the saints...and faithful...in Christ."


1 Corinthians 9: "Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?"


Psalm 139: "For you formed my inward parts, you knit me together in my mothers' womb, I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made."


2 Corinthians 5: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."


Behold!  Look who you are in Christ!  You are redeemed, transformed, new, adopted, free, known, loved...you are a Saint! YOU ARE IN CHRIST!


A metaphor was spoken to us this weekend: 
I am living in Grenada.  But I am not Grenadian.  I know I will not be here long.  This is as it is for us.  We are in the world.  But we are not of it.  We will not be here long.  We are waiting to go home.


If you have the time, I urge you to read through Romans 8 in light of all this.  With a special focus on verses 19-24.


Do you groan with creation in eager longing for the redemption of you body? For your adoption?


I turned 23 a few days ago. I got to celebrate all weekend with my loving husband and loving friends.  But better than all of this will be the fulfillment of the promises to come.  I'm not just 23.  I'm a daughter of the king.  Living on earth.  But I belong to the heavenly kingdom.

Tuesdays are Egg Days

Good Day, Friends!

I've realized that I haven't shown you much of my living situation or told you much of what I do on a day-to-day basis.  So, I thought that I would tell you today, as I realized I'm beginning to get a little bit of a routine down to my weeks. Up above is a picture of "Nutmeg".  We live in Nutmeg R2C, which is 2nd floor right in the middle. So, you can only see our bathroom window in this photo. 

I've been here 6 weeks now, and Tuesdays, I decided as I was walking home carrying 96 eggs, are egg days. Every Tuesday a local man comes to campus and sells eggs 2 1/2 dozen for 17 EC, which is a pretty good price! That is $6.18 according to my computer calculator.  Today I bought 3, which brings me to 90 eggs: 1 for Emily, 1 for Ryan and I and 1 for next week (I'll get to that later).  He gave me six free eggs because I returned 6 crates today.  Emily and I were a bit behind in returning them. 

OK, So Wednesday, Thursday and Friday still don't have too much routine (except for the two bible studies that I've joined Wednesday and Friday nights), but that doesn't mean I don't keep busy!  I've just started my online MBA program, which keeps me reading a lot, and the daily chores keep me quite occupied as well.  I normally wake up around 6:30 and prep breakfast to send Ryan off.  When he leaves I work out by running or doing yoga, then I get into the word before I start lunch.  In the afternoon I usually do something with Emily before starting dinner and desert.  Then in the evening I have some down time with Ryan. Also in those days I usually end up at the beach, or pool at some point, and Emily and I are trying to hang out with the locals a bit more at Nick's Donuts once a week. 

Saturdays are grocery shopping at the Market in St. George's, which I have yet to get pictures of.  Emily and I leave around 7:30, catch a bus and get into town by 8:00.  This is the perfect time, because things haven't gotten too busy yet, and everything has just been stocked.  We usually get most things from our market friend, Cindy.  Things are all purchased by the pound. Prices are fair, but I wouldn't call them cheap.  Though now that Cindy sees us as regulars she is starting to throw in some freebies.  We haven't gone into St. George's every weekend, because it's a bit of a hassle.  So when we don't I still have to find the fresh fruit on the streets, because the produce in the stores isn't great. 

This last Saturday I bought fruit from a man named Kevin. I was thankful he had "normal" bananas.  Most of what you find in Grenada are really tiny, really dense, and really sweet bananas.  They aren't really bananas, but they are.  They call them "figs" here.  Anyways, so I struck up a conversation regarding bananas, and I ended up getting a free guava and passion fruit!  See what a little friendly conversation does?

Well, here is the guava!  I really liked it, but Ryan liked the passion fruit better.

Sundays Ryan and I go to our CSA meeting, which is church, but they don't like to call it church because we don't have a pastor or elders.  The service starts at 11:00, but we usually get there early to go to prayer meeting, help set up, or start on the worship team.  The service ends at 12:15, and as Ryan goes off to study again, Emily and I usually find ourselves baking, reading or talking again.

This is the apartment complex where Emily lives.  The apartment that we will be living in next term is the one on the top right in the front building.  Fun spiral staircase, right?

Mom, I thought that you would like that the apartment complex is "Bougainvillea".

So, yesterday was Monday.  I found myself in the routine of running, being at Emily's to read and cooking. As I was cooking I was wondering where all my time went in the day.  I don't feel very productive here ever, but my productivity should not be what defines me.  Especially when I only have a microwave and two stove tops to cook with.  I cooked for 3 hours last night! I made home made pizza from scratch and then these oatmeal "cookies" that Ryan and I have fallen in love with.  The recipe is from one of my wedding gifts, and is actually a recipe for muffins, but I don't have an oven, so I've been cooking them into cookies.  They still taste good.

These pictures are from last Wednesday:

The ball shape didn't work out too well, but they still tasted good.

This is my husband that day.

This is from yesterday.  The same oatmeal things. 

But I promise it's a different day. How can you tell? Well, no glasses, and umm, earphones, O! and there are clothes on the back of his chair. 

And my oatmeal "balls" morphed into cakes because they cook much better that way.  I experimented with a few fun shapes last night.

I'm still trying to find contentment in my new routine.  It's hard to not measure yourself by the standards you were brought up by.  But it's not those standards that count.  It's what God says of us.  God calls us new creations, redeemed, loved, chosen a royal priesthood, his sons and daughters.  My work is in loving Him with my heart, soul, mind and strength, and I'm still working on that. It's hard to do even when our days aren't as full or busy as they used to be.

Harry Potter Party & More Paper Goods

Dear Anxious Paper Inquisitors, 

I have not forgotten my quest to make as many things out of paper as possible.  In fact, quite the opposite has happened.  I have been so busy spending my time making things out of paper, I have blogged little.

This past Friday Emily and I threw a Harry Potter themed party, in honor of the final movie coming out and my husband and her love for the man.  So we made invitations with burned edges and a Hogwarts seal and wrote the invitations in the format of the Hogwarts acceptance letter.  They came out really well!

As far as the party went, we didn't want to exclude non-Harry Potter fans, so we nixed the Harry Potter trivia and played our own version of Quidditch.  We also had themed snacks, decorations and played a non-themed game of fishbowl.  I hope you all know fishbowl, because it's fun.

As for the paper decorations, I'll mostly let them speak for themselves.

1) Our Quidditch field!

2) The supporting houses.

3) The golden snitch!

4 & 5) House banners in the Great Hall.

6) Our food labels.

7) Harry Potter glasses party favor!

8) McGonogall's hat and some kitchen spices re-labeled as potions.

Chocolate cupcakes and homemade caramel :)

Soft pretzels dipped in chocolate with magical ends.

9 & 10) Luna Lovegood's paper glasses and "Quibbler".

11) Hogwart's Poster.

The final result.

My 12th I do not have a picture of, but we put a "Platform 9 3/4" sign on the front door.

So added to the count is 13 (counting the invitation) new things you can make out of paper.  My tip is not to limit yourself at all.  You can do anything with paper, and don't worry if there is writing on stuff. No one really cares! We had a great time and I think we only ended up spending about $10, and we had lots of fun decorations.   We don't really have much of anything to work with here except for scraps and paper, but I'm loving the challenge of decorating on a tight budget!

Raining, raining

This week it has been raining non-stop.  It's been quite wonderful actually!  I love the rain. It's been a huge part of my testimony through God reminding me that He is always with me.  Also, it's been such a wonderful change in our Grenadian routine...well whatever routine I have had so far!  Not that we don't like the sun, but in this heat rain is a wonderful gift!


The rain this week has been torrential: beginning almost in a split second after bright shining skies, then pouring for hours.  The ground here is so dry most of the time that when it starts to rain the water has nothing to permeate into and so everything then also almost instantly floods, and the hills don't help!  But we have had a lot of fun running between buildings and getting drenched.


I've been thinking a lot about what I think God has been speaking to me this week, and I believe that He has been convicting me of the power of prayer.  In bible studies this week we looked at the second half of Ephesians 2, and Matthew 6.  Maybe not as much Eph. 2 being a reminder of prayer, but definitely the fact that we are insufficient to live in love and unity without Him requires prayer in every moment.  Matthew 6 is one of my favorite passages of scripture.  I love how the scripture says, "when you give", "when you pray", "when you fast" then expecting us to take part in these disciplines.  These disciplines require us to feel empty and to give what we have to remember that Christ is all that we need.  He is our treasure here on earth and in heaven.  


So, what does this have to do with prayer?  Everything! Our insufficiencies can magnify Christ if we choose to surrender them to Him, and seek Him in all things.  He has promised that He hears our prayers and He loves us.  


We have also been reading through the bible, and it just so happens that this week we are reading from Daniel, a wonderful book on prayer.  Daniel does not give up prayer for anything, and prays prayers with weeping conviction over the lost nation of Israel imploring for God to restore the glory of Mount Zion!  


We must remember to have expectation in prayers.  Don't pray prayers willy nilly.  Pray prayers knowing our Lord loves you and longs to answer you and He WILL. It takes the faith of a mustard seed.


I would love to update you more on what has been happening this week, and I will tomorrow.  I will add more to the list of things to do with paper :)

A few thoughts on a lot of little things

Looking out from the southernmost tip of the island.

It's 2 o'clock on Sunday afternoon September 11th, 10 years after the attacks on New York City.  It doesn't seem like it's been that long since it happened, because I can, as I know you can remember everything so vividly that day.  At the same time, I've been thinking about all that I have been through since then and how god has grown me, shaped me and changed me, and how He continues to.  I can look back and see prayers answered and seemingly pointless struggles and suffering be redeemed for God's glory.  

A view of Grenada from campus.

I can look back and see how God has taken my parent's divorce and the bitterness I've had and used it to strengthen me and used it when I found out a friend was going through the same situation.  It may have been just those few walks around Gordon's Coy Pond, and those two short conversations on how we overcame that God inflicted suffering for, but it was worth it.  I remember the challenge of relationships and the fasting from dating that God has redeemed now to a marriage relationship that only He could have ordained.


I was trying to think about what I would write for this week's post, and thoughts came flooding to my head.  A lot of thoughts on a lot of little things that God has been teaching me this week.  Those, again, are a sign that God is alive and active and working amongst His believers.


For example:  when I was reading Ezekiel this week.  The passage of Ezekiel 37 struck me in a new way as I read it in light of thoughts about evangelizing.  At bible study one of the leaders mentioned how dead things can't move, can't breathe, can't see or hear and they don't even know they are dead!  Walking back from the study, with Ezekiel 37 fresh in my mind from reading it earlier, I couldn't help but think how I had God's breath of life in me, and the poor souls walking around me had the breath only of this earth that they don't even realize is death!  This gave new meaning to the song "Marvelous Light" by Charlie Hall when the song says, "My dead heart now is beating, my deepest stains now clean, your breath fills up my lungs, now I'm free now I'm free".


O, Lord, give us a heart for the lost!  Give us eyes to see and ears to hear how you are calling us to minister today!

Our apartment is on the second floor in the middle.

I am also realizing that I have a intense love for birds that I didn't even know until I've found that I want to write about birds in almost every blog!  But, I am blessed.  I am finding fulfillment in this season of my life in little joys and pleasures like looking out my apartment window.  We are on the second floor of our building, and just this week the tree right outside our window started budding with this unknown Grenadian fruit.  It has brought floods of little birds that I just found out are called Bananaquits and Caribbean Mockingbirds to our window.  Ryan and I have enjoyed sitting and just staring at the birds as they argue over which little bushel is theirs then begin to eat only the blackened berries of the bunch.  

Even now I can look over my left shoulder to see the birds in the tree and the Caribbean breeze is blowing in the branches. I can breathe in the warm life that God has sent me today through this breeze and the delightful chirping.  I pray that we can always remember the hope that Christ has given us through His breath that has made us alive and always remember the eternal glory that is to come even if it's in this little thought of delight that God has brought me just now.