family thoughts

its 6:17 a.m. and sure enough I've been awake for the last 5 hours, I slept for a total of an hour and a half so yeah, that makes sense. My faithful spouse fell asleep about 5:30. Joker. Anyway, waiting for the water to boil for the french press (a coffee maker I really love but wish was a smidge bigger), and I can't find my book so I thought I would get a few words down. Good month really. Colorado was splendid. Met some wonderful people and I'm so thankful. I reflect alot about what in the circles we call community but really that word isn't right. Its a family. Community is good but, man alive, family. The kind of conversations you can sit and have with a sister and brother you can't have in a community. We've met brothers and sisters that have just taken our breath away. People who love and listen like you wouldn't believe and if that isn't what the soul longs for I don't know what it is. If you don't have this somewhere get yourself among some Jesus people and don't worry about what you say. Rest assured that you will be loved and heard and you probably will be (Get yourselves out to Academy Christian in Co Springs or frankly any of at least 20 churches in the IL/ IN area). So, yeah, CO was great. Travels to Asia. Great time on the ground. Time in the air was long.
Some observations:

- New parents of little Asian girls flying home with us from Hong Kong. Sweet optimistic people. They just sat and looked at their babies like Jonathan and I did when @ was born. We had the luxury of doing all that oohing and aahing in a hospital room and at home. These people did on 15 hour flight. That is love. But they were learning you could tell. The conversation Jonathan and I had when we were beginners. "Do you think its the diaper?" "Do you think she's hungry?" "You think maybe this would work?" Doing all of that baby learning on 15 hour flight. Tons of respect for these new moms and dads. Shout out to them.

- Our @ is amazing. The kid slept on the floor underneath our seats for 7 hours. The travel agent made a mistake and we only had 2 seats when we thought we had 3, but that boy shines up like a new penny in bad times. He makes it so easy for us. - A sweeping generalization and a terrible stereotype, my impression of many Asians (yeah, characterizing several billion people all at once, I know that's wrong) is that they seem to be very caught up in appearances and a little uptight. Africa seemed more laid back. Perhaps its a "put togetherness". Very concerned about looking appropriate and in general put together. I think that is probably something I have always been able to identify in myself. I'm not that together. I can't portray togetherness very well. I get dressed everyday but only just and then I probably look pretty haphazard. A fact I've largely accepted but to an Asian I probably look really unkempt and I felt self conscious about that . I don't like to iron, thus I don't iron. I hang up as soon as possible which typically isn't soon enough. Largely I don't seem ironing. I do clean but the ironing seems silly. I also don't do vaccuuming. I sweep and mop but I don't get along well with vaccuums (can't really spell it). Ig ave up makeup to a large extent moons ago. I do it sometimes but I'm not into much anymore. I got a high maintenance haircut when we came back to the US. I wishing for pony tail length hair. So yeah, maybe my sweeping generalization says more about me than Asians...

- Loving Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance (or is it Repair). Wanting to learn to ride a motorcycle but don't really think I have an opportunity. Very into helmets. The idea of riding and thinking, very appealing. Same reason I love car rides.

- Intimidated by the number of people in the city we visited. 2 million people, no kidding. It would be the biggest city we've ever lived in. I'm intimidated by the language, by the sheer size, by the contrast to my little Africa. Everyone knew each other; no one could know everyone in this city. Huge.

- Needless to say i'm deeply intimidated about moving again and I don't know if we are going there or not. I'm suspicious though because that is the kind of thing that we are often called to. Presently though we are moving to IL so I'll take one step at a time and just walk not run. Running is characterized as good in the Bible, I find for me the opposite is true. I get into less trouble when I walk but sometimes the born sprinter comes out in me. Oh, yeah, its worth mentioning we are firmly set on moving in August (earlier portion not the later) but we've yet to even look for a place to live. I'm exercising all of my ability to walk on this one and surprisingly it isn't the test I thought it would be. Eerie is what I have to say about that. Coffee's ready and I think I'll find something else to do.


This was something I actually wrote a few days ago but for some reason I didn't post it right.