Rainey Days

Once each quarter, our District Secretary/Treasurer Ken Burtram and his wife Johnese invite all the Potomac missionaries to their house for a get-together. We each bring a dish of some kind, so there is always tons of great food. But the best part is just catching up with one another. Last night was our fall get-together, with chili as the main dish. Fall was also reflected in the desserts: caramel apples! We had a great time chatting as usual, and Nancy Arsenovic (our official "missionary-care liason") had prepared some questions to get us all talking and laughing. We discussed our worst cultural and language mistakes, what we like about other missionaries, in what ways we've changed because of living outside the US, and more. We were representing such varied countries: Cambodia, Kenya, Yugoslavia, El Salvador, Belgium, Palestine, the Phillipines, and more! It made for some pretty amusing stories. We howled with laughter at Dr. Cynthia Calla telling a patient to eat more...

Today I'm babysitting my brother's children--my nieces Sydney and Ellie. Mom and Dad (the real babysitters) had a doctor's appointment, so I am filling in for a few hours. At the moment, they are both asleep. After a good lunch of corned beef hash for Syd and a bottle for Ellie, they both settled down for a snooze. Since it's raining outside right now, I feel like a snooze myself. What is it about rainy days that makes one want to sleep? Or am I just having the typical 3 pm slump in energy? I need Starbucks right now!

Today I ran an errand for my father, going to a health store for one of his current "handicapped" needs. While I was in there, I heard the store owner and his wife speaking in French; I asked them politely if they were from France and they affirmed that indeed, they were. Then, we had a whole conversation in French with the inevitable, "Where did you live/where are you from in France?" as the main subject. They were very surprised that I spoke French and I told them that overhearing their small chit-chat in French prompted me to speak up. Funnily enough, I find someone to speak French to about once a week. Last week, a visiting African couple spoke to me after a missions service in my home church. The week before that, a French lady who attends another church had a lengthy discussion with me about the state of French Christianity. I've found French Canadians, West Africans, Belgians, and more over the past few months of being in America. It's not quite...

I should keep this secret all to myself (so I don't ruin a good thing), but . . . . I will share it with you: people are more likely to say "yes" on Thursdays. I read this fact years ago in an article talking about telemarketing statistics. Their results were always higher/better on Thursdays. I don't know why that is true; I suppose it's something like most multiple choice answers being "c" or other random facts like that. Since today was Thursday, I started out my morning with a massive list of phone calls. I was hoping that pastors would be more likely to say yes to services and/or support. I did pretty well actually, making several bookings and leaving messages with others. In my humble (and not-at-all-scientific) experience, the pastors were indeed accomodating today! Just in time, too, because I got my new budget sent to me this afternoon, and I'm going to have to get cracking to raise it in time!

After a great service with my home church yesterday morning, I had an evening service with a church in Southern Maryland. Well, it wasn't a service as much as a missions banquet. The food was great, the folks at my table were nice, but my favorite part of the evening was some dinner entertainment by a band called Vizion. They were from Dominica (I think) or one of the other Creole speaking Caribbean islands, anyway. They did several songs that all had a very "island" sound to them, and one song was actually in Creole ( I understood about half of it). I loved their music and the audience response, too. It made me miss my Caribbean friends at the church in Bordeaux. I am sure they would really have loved it! In other news . . . . I just got back from Arabic class, and it's getting a lot harder!

My father, after having his hip replaced six weeks ago, has developed an infection deep in the hip joint. Yesterday he had a surgery for them to open and cleanse the wound from the original surgery; it was a relatively short surgery, but they doused the wound with 6 liters of antiseptic fluid. Dad came through the surgery without any problem. However, the infection doctor has not painted a rosy picture at all about the future prospects. He says its a fifty-fifty chance of it healing without a problem. The worst case scenario is dark: months of being bed-ridden, having the hip replacement surgery all over again, etc. I think that this is incredibly scary for my father, and I can imagine it would be sobering and depressing. No one wants to be laid up for weeks on end, especially considering he's just spent six weeks recuperating from the hip replacement. Please pray for his health and healing. Please pray that he is encouraged and that his faith remains strong and focused on th...

Last night I started a non-credit Arabic class at the community college. Including me, there are nine people in the class. We all had to give our reason to take the class when we introduced ourselves. I found it interesting to hear their reasons: two of the younger people thought it might help their job prospects in the future; two of them were vaguely "just interested" in Arabic; one of them had just taken a class on Islam and thought it would be a good compliment; one majored in tourism and wanted to learn yet another language/culture; one is Pakistani and can read Arabic in the Koran but doesn't understand a word of it; and one has always had a dream to learn Arabic, but couldn't find a cheap, non-professional program until now. I said that I had lived already in an Arabic speaking country and now that I am returning, I felt that I didn't want to be hindered any longer by not knowing the language. I was actually pleased during the course of the two hour se...

Several years ago, my sister took an Introduction to Psychology class at the community college, and the teacher talked about the difference between introverts and extroverts. According to her, introverts find their energy in themselves and are therefore prefer to spend time alone, to recharge. Extroverts get energized from other people, and they literally need the social contact to feel charged up. My sister realized she was definitely an extrovert by those standards. At the time, we joked about what I was. Most people would say I am an extrovert, because I am a true people person, but I also need time alone (more than my sister, in any case). Last night, I did a youth service for a church in Bel Air. It was my first youth service so far on this itineration cycle, and I loved it! I was very impressed with the dozen or so teenagers in the group; they were spiritually mature and passionate about God. I had such a great time talking to them about God's plan for their lives t...