packing
My plan was to stay for six months.Until that moment, I had never before packed my life into two suitcases. What a chore it was to decide which of my possessions would be deemed worthy of viewing the sights of Cape Town.I remember laying out the candidates on the carpet of my bedroom floor, agonizing over which items would make the cut. Should I take that framed picture? What about that sweater? Will I want to read that book while I’m there? What about that necklace? What if it gets stolen, or lost? I pored over the decision, then jumped and stomped and laid on my luggage trying to get...
a day in the life of a domestic worker
She rises before the sun, shifting about quietly in her one-roomed shanty, careful not to disturb the three children sleeping on mats on the floor. She slips on her plakkies, fumbles around for the bucket and opens the door slowly, to minimize the volume of the creaky hinge. She pauses, giving her mocha eyes time to adjust to the pre-dawn darkness. Inhaling deeply, she notes the freshness of the morning air and thanks God for another day. Making her way to the community tap, she bends to fill her bucket with water. Lifting the full container to her head, she walks back to her shack,...
when you don’t want to go home
A month ago at this time, I was breathing in the intoxicating grandeur of the Rocky Mountains. We were in Vail, Colorado for a family wedding, and it was pure bliss. The weekend was spent hiking, dining and dancing the night away, and passed altogether too quickly. When it was time to say goodbye, we all felt like this: We didn't want to go home. In fact, I could've stayed there forever, in spite of the waves of altitude sickness that assaulted all of us at some point, irrespective of age or gender. I was reminded of my daughter, a year and a half earlier, who had been sledding for the...
dig deep, my girl
She wrapped her four-year-old fingers around the newly acquired piece of candy as if it were more precious than gold. Her fist tightly clasped, she could barely contain her glee as she skipped around the church parking lot clutching her prized possession.A while later, I noticed that her hands were empty."Where's your sweet?" I asked."Oh, I planted it over there," she explained nonchalantly, "so it will grow into a tree full of sweets."And I smiled with maternal pride, because she got it. She understood already that what you put in is what you get out.So dig deep, my girl.Find the...
the antelope in the living room
If you’re looking for a light, easy, hilarious read, look no further. The Antelope in the Living Room, by The Big Mama blog author Melanie Shankle, is guaranteed to entertain. I read her book, Sparkly Green Earrings, a few months ago, and laughed out loud with every chapter. That one, her first book, was filled with stories about becoming a mother and navigating the path through the daily hills and valleys of parenthood. In this, her second book, Melanie shares a host of stories and anecdotes about married life, and they are just as funny as her parenting quips. I particularly related to...
captured on the high seas – a review
Captured on the High Seas is Book #14 in the Adventures in Odyssey Imagination Station series. When I received a free copy of this book from the Tyndale Blog Network in exchange for my honest review, my kids were overjoyed. The older two in particular (ages 9 and 12) have long enjoyed this series.I read the book aloud to all three of my kids, and when I stopped after reading through chapter nine one evening, my daughter took the book to her room and finished it herself. She simply couldn't wait to find out how the story ended.The plot takes place during the Revolutionary War, in which...
where i belong
It's Five-Minute Friday again, and this week we're over at Crystal Stine's place with the word BELONG. Ready ... GO. It's pushing a trolley through a Cape Town Pick n' Pay and asking where to find the ketchup instead of the to-MAH-to sauce, calculating the exchange rate between dollars and rands, and wondering how many millileters are in an ounce. It's signing the credit credit card slip and being asked if that's really your surname, and then a quizzical look before, "...Why?" It's answering with an American twang why you have a Tswana surname, and still being unsure whether the...
willing to serve
A few weeks ago, my daughter landed her first summer job. She’s not even nine years old. A mom in our church asked if our eight-going-on-sixteen-year-old would be available to act as a mother’s helper for an hour a week. She basically just needed someone to go along to the library to keep her one-year-old from pulling all the books off the shelves while she looked for books to check out with her three-year-old. This generous mom even offered to pay our daughter for her services. After chatting with my husband, we decided our girlie could go ahead and help, but we asked the mom to rather...
exhale
That year, Father's Day and our anniversary fell on the same day, and was spent stuffing and zipping suitcases before scurrying off to the airport. We hugged goodbye as I gathered my three chicks around me like a mother hen and shuffled them through security to the boarding gate. One overnight leg from the southwestern tip of Africa to the bustling hub of London and a long, hungry layover in Heathrow. Another skip across the ocean after a three-hour delay, a missed flight, an unexpected night in a Cleveland hotel. Forty-something hours and four flights altogether, we finally...
losing home and finding it
Twelve years ago today, on the 2nd of July 2002, I left home. Not in the rebellious, "I'm-never-coming-back" way, but in the "I'm spending a semester overseas" way. With the ten-hour layover spent dragging my bags up and down the Frankfurt airport terminal and the seven-hour time difference, it would be two days later before I reached Cape Town, South Africa. There would be no 4th of July fireworks in that country, except those felt in my chest as I exploded with giddy college-girl excitement and fell in love at first sight with the aerial view of the city that, unbeknownst to me, would...
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