bsmiles and sunny days

I'm reading this book about a woman born Muslim and her journey from that life to freedom... *sort of: There is no true freedom except in Christ and she has not found Him, to my knowledge.* Her story is brutal. I cannot imagine living for a second the life that was born into. Here I am in America, safe with my children and husband, in a good job, a safe place to live, walking through Wal-Mart. For the first time in my life I look at the walls and walls of toys at our disposal. We could've purchased anything we wanted yesterday. Anything. And I tried to imagine coming from a hut, essentially, where women are property, and children are legally beaten at home and at school and rarely shown affection. There is war and famine and descrimination and violence in the streets. The government is hostile toward the people and they live in fear. Now back to Wal-Mart, where children are bawling because they can't have a green ball because in the rack of balls to the ceiling, the green o...

One of the coolest things we do at this church is pray together; we break off into groups of 4-6 after worship and pray for each other. You are sitting in a random spot in a crowd of people you don't know, and then BOOM, you're holding hands with complete strangers who are asking how they can intercede for you. And you know what that breeds? Intimacy in the family. I love it. This morning the couple we prayed with two weeks ago, sat behind us when they came in and we prayed with them again, this time introducing ourselves. Right from the start this guy is sharing his struggle with us. In his eyes I could see the desperation for answers that only God holds. And I can guarantee that God will bring him to my mind every day this week to pray for him and his wife. And here's another cool thing. For three weeks we've gone and all three weeks, the men are the first to speak and the first to pray. By the time it's my turn, the worship leader is already singing aga...

Yes, yes ma'am I did. People still use it and charge for it too!!! We are in a remote area that is not serviced by DLS providers except for Comcast; and they charge $60 a month for DSL. So forgive my absence from posting. We are ALIVE AND WELL in California! I feel *almost* at ease about life again. We had a nice hearty crowd of brawny fellows and a few ladies come to help us move out of the storage unit and into our new house and it was all done in two hours, ladies and gentlemen, that's right. Two measly hours. The Assembly of God church here has proven to be not only kind and helpful, but also generous and warm. They moved us in, set up our beds, brought dinner for the whole crew, and befriended us immediately. I feel embraced. Don't get me wrong, I was cynical and a critical of the pastor from the get-go, but the more I get to know him, the more comfortable I am in our new church. He is sincere; the congregation is friendly and accomodating. We are moved in, t...

So we got Dale off to his first day of work before seven this morning and then stalled for a couple of hours, hoping he'd call and say, "The door's open, the house is ours!" I waited as long as I could and then started loading the car, now with an extra box and stroller from storage and double the grocery supply, but less one person. It took three trips, but I got it all in thinking we'd go straight to the house from the hotel. Dale's car was in the parking lot on my last trip down to load the kids in the car and check out. He greeted me with, "I don't know when we can move in; just pray." I proceeded to check out of the hotel and drive around town with various errands to eat up time. Dale called me and said we would not be able to move in today so I needed to call everyone and let them know it'd probably be tomorrow. I started to let it take me down, but fought for my bearings and managed to maintain some control. So for the third time...

Church was better than I expected it to be; as consistently promised, the people were surprisingly friendly. The congregation is predominantly made up of air force guys and their families, 30s and 4os, so lots of kids and lots of energy. The kids loved their classes and Leila, who has yet to be trained to sit still in church, went without a fuss to the nursery. I felt like a train wreck. We had a rough start so it was hard to go in and be approachable. The worship was good- a meek worship leader that loves to worship and obviously doesn't care about appearances. During the course of the service, I heard two other singers with amazing voices, who helped sing on the worship team but didn't take center stage. All in all, I was pleased and look forward to going back. They don't have Sunday school so I won't be teaching any time soon, but they have a lot of activities for the kids as well as women's stuff, men's stuff, and home groups. I will have to muster u...

To a breakdown, and the end of this jog in the path. I have never had a nervous breakdown in a clincal sense, but I have felt them coming at several crossroads in my path. I don't think I need lockdown, but a padded room with no noise and no people sounds pretty good right now. Two nights ago we were on an outing to investigate the new *to us* grocery store, VONS, and Tre got away from us. I heard my name over the loudspeaker and that my son was waiting for me, but couldn't figure out what they said. He was standing at Starbucks screaming my name when a lovely barista settled him down enough to help him find me. We were upset because this isn't home yet and it seems a long way from home so we've not taken any chances with the kids getting out of our sights. So you can imagine Dale's frustration when he told Tre to stay put, turned his back for a second and he took off. He had a good laugh about it until he saw the smoke rolling out of Dale's ears. We sto...

I have a hard time attending churches that don't know me and this is Saturday night. While I was ironing something to wear for our first Sunday in Lompoc a wave of nerves hit me and I thought, "Maybe we could just..." you know, do anything else besides church. It's stupid. This is God's house and His people, my family; but there are so many lost sheep and clueless shepherds that my cynicism betrays my attempts to be courteous or friendly and scrutiny threatens the entirety of the my experience therein. Forgive my frankness. It's difficult to be this honest here because I am so weak and I don't like to expose it, but here it is. I'm sure part of it is about being the new girl and not knowing where I fit, but the other part is, where do you plug in and plug away working toward the building up of other believers? Do you wait it out for six weeks and determine what to muddle through or do you try another and another until it "feels" right?...

Tonight, instead of a movie, we drove the twisty-turvy uppy-downy winding road to Jalama Beach, a native hot-spot. The wave of campfire hit us as soon as we got out of the car; and despite the 54 degree blast, there were five guys surfing at sunset. I was shocked at how many campers were lined up in rows because of the cold until we got out and took it all in: mountains, ocean, sunset, deer on the hill... there's just no way to describe it. You'll have to come to get the full effect! I need you, Becky! My dorky camera didn't even come close to a decent picture. On Fridays Lompoc has a block-long parking lot that hosts a farmers market; we're talking sweet and delicious strawberries, all kinds of vegetables *except corn* nuts, dried fruits and flowers. The farmers cut samples right there to guarantee their produce. Everything tasted sweet to me, even the pecans, and remarkably cheap. I have a new inspiration to cook with all fresh and healthy ingredients. No mor...

Every day I make mental notes of all the glorious things I want to write about, but the lengthy posts can become monotonous and boring, so I have to sift through all of my ideas and promise to save the rest for another day. I fear that the wonder will wear off as we slide into the day-in-day-out and the adrenaline that courses through my veins every time we see something new and spectacular won't affect me quite as dramatically on the days when I do decide to post. BUT for now, my time is limited and as much as I would love to write for hours, I just can't. *please forgive if you call and I am brief on the phone. Dale and I rarely have conversations with a third party when we're together and even though the moments are pleniful now, they are no less precious. But I do love you and will catch up with you soon!!!* I was especially crabby today; at seven o'clock I got up and got to work on laundry and "making sense out of our truck". By ten o'clock I had spen...

Leila was awake this morning when I got up and jumped in the shower. After I threw my clothes on, I woke up the kids and started packing our two-bedroom suite. My plan was to get to the storage unit by eight so as not to upset our consistently volitile mover, who wanted to start unloading at 7am. Dale wasn't as concerned about it, considering the amount of money we paid to have him drive and our schedule took precidence over his mood. We skipped continental breakfast due to the crowds and ran through a drive-thru on our way to the storage unit. At 8:30 there was no sign of him, to my relief. A few minutes later he called to let us know he was in stopped traffic about an hour away. We cruised the town, went to Wal-Mart, drove some more, talked about going to the beach, and got another call an hour later to let us know he wouldn't be there till noon. Knowing we'd be the only ones there to unload was looming over our heads and it almost tipped the scales as we spent anot...

Lompoc is, bar none, the most beautiful place I've ever seen. I have dreamed of travelling down the streets of Paris and watching the gondalas in Italy, but I never anticipated such beauty in the place of my permanent residence. What's truly amazing about God is that He is so unpredictable. What I've been told is my greatest weakness has worked for me in brute strength today in my acceptance of these peculiar circumstances. We are homeless. Isn't it a strange concept? There is nothing spectacular about it because there is an end in sight and it is arranged for us to have a house here, but it's the characteristic I would list on the *get to know me* surveys as something interesting about myself right now. But here's the good part. We haven't had Dale home with us for this long of a stretch in... oh... ever. He's never been able to spend this much uninterrupted time with us as he has/will right now. So our homelessness is a gift. It's a vacation and a...

Not quite. Thursday we started loading the 70 ft. moving truck with everything we own for, hopefully, the last time. Federal employees, when they transfer from state to state, are moved by movers; that's what I kept telling myself as we stacked the 70some boxes into the first few feet of the truck. It was sunny and beautiful from noon until about 3:30 when the storm clouds rolled in. I prayed fervently under my breath that God would hold back the rain for just one more hour, just one more hour... We had announced that we'd start loading the truck at 4:30 so people that worked could help us. The four of us loading until that time had everything on the lawn, thinking it would be easier to organize the load if it was all laid out. Around 4:00 big rain drops began to pelt our totes and funiture through the branches of the tree under which we had placed most of it. I carried one load after the next in bewilderment trying hard not to fall apart. It must've shown on my face...