Well Done

I'm frequently immobile throughout the day when I sit down and nurse little D and now that she's in that stage where her maturing brain is not letting her nap well during the day, I also spend a good deal of the day soothing her to sleep either in my arms or in the bouncy seat where I bounce her with my foot while I do something else. So while nursing or gently bouncing little D to sleep, I usually have a book or my laptop.

This morning, I had already sat down and started nursing little D when I felt ready to have my time with the Father but didn't have the Good Book next to me. I did have my laptop so I went to a website I frequently go to for Sunday morning "lectures", if you catch my drift, articles, devotions, and anything I can learn from or be encouraged. I recently started reading short biographies on this website and today, I selected this famous man who lived and then died at the age of 29 in the 1700s, working among the Indians in the New England area. His diaries were published posthumously (which makes me cringe to think of all the diaries I have written in - hope they don't ever get published!) and became such an encouragement to people afterwards that this book, published in the 1700s, have never gone out of print.

The person to whom the website belongs enumerated reasons why the life of this man who died at 29 years old was such an encouragement to many people for two centuries. Two centuries. Amazing. As I read through them, I was encouraged myself. The young man endured a lot of hardships and a good deal of them was related to his health. He had tuberculosis and suffered with it for 9 years until his death. Through all the poor health, wracking coughs and pain, and other trials, he kept working among the Indians faithfully.

One particular hardship that this man struggled with encouraged me. He frequently felt tremendous compassion and love for the Indians he worked to reach with the Good News. He also frequently felt lack of compassion and ardency for the lost state of their souls and even dreaded speaking to the Indians as he went out to them and he expressed guilt about it. I definitely relate to this, especially the guilt. It's this particular struggle, among others, that has caused me to wonder many times why the Father called me to come here. I felt as if this struggle was an indication that I should not be here, that I should be sent home in shame.

I was suddenly reminded this morning of the parable LJC told of the talents. Three servants were entrusted with talents by their master who was leaving on a long journey. Two obeyed his command concerning the talents; one did not. When the master returned, his response to the two obedient servants were: "Well done, good and faithful servant."

The master praised their obedience - not whether they felt like being obedient.

This great man remained faithful and obedient until he died. Furthermore, this great man that everyone admires was a normal man who, besides the trials, had normal struggles with periods of discouragement, depression, spiritual dryness, lack of ardency for the lost, etc and yet the Father called this man to the Indians. LJC calls the imperfect, ordinary, weak people. Now I don't feel so bad....

So, it doesn't matter that I don't feel good enough and that I don't always feel compassion, love, and utmost concern for the lost people I am called to; my flesh is weak and my tender Father knows. What matters is that I am faithful to obey my calling in spite of it. I can approach the throne with confidence and ask for abundant gr@ce and energy to do what I am called to do each day and receive more than enough. When I come face to face with LJC one day, I want to hear from him:

Well done, good and faithful servant.

Darcy Brynn

I posted about Darcy's birth on the girls' blog if you're interested in reading about the labor and delivery: (click here)  or
copy and paste the following: http://kidrobinett.blogspot.com/2012/08/darcy-brynns-birth.html

This Is How We Roll

We're totally rocking this funny little foreign car. It's a Fiat Doblo, assigned to us by our company, a stick shift and drives like a van. Note the hubcap - it's the only one left on the entire car. I know I lost one hubcap side-swiping a car. We used to share this car with another family who has lost a hubcap or two.

It's madness driving in this densely populated city that suffers from terrible congestion in their streets and highways. For example, it took us 2 hours to drive 20 miles from the airport to our house today. Google Maps will tell you that it should take you 29 minutes to drive that 20-mile route from the airport. HA! Why did it take us 2 hours? There are a lot of bottlenecks on that route and too many people driving.

Here, drivers do not drive in an orderly way and they cut each other off constantly. Horns blare all the time. There are millions of one-way streets and the city isn't planned very well at all. It can be bewildering. I sideswiped a car and lost the hubcap because I was driving on a very narrow cobblestone street with both sides jammed with parallel-parked cars. I don't like driving here and don't drive very far - just in my municipality (friends' houses, grocery store, park, etc). G loves driving here because it's challenging and he drives with one hand on the horn perpetually.

Definitely experiencing city life....

Still Waiting

Yep, Baby Baby hasn't made her appearance yet. I still have about 5 days to go until the due date. My OB thinks the baby won't come until the due date or after. We'll just have to wait and see. If I end up having to be induced, so be it...just not on my birthday.

I'm still in language and we've been getting ready for the baby. We cleaned the house of all the dirt that blew in from open windows, set up the baby's bed, washed baby clothes and put them away, stocking up the kitchen with food, packed my hospital bag and A's overnight bag, tying up miscellaneous loose ends. I remember having all of this done long before A was born but this time, it wasn't until my 38th week that we got to work getting ready for this baby. 

I've also been busy making freezer meals this week and they should be enough to last about two weeks. We have a few families who will bring meals the first week after the baby is born but I really wanted an extended time of ready-made meals. There is nothing that I hate more than staring at the refrigerator and the pantry, trying to think of what to make, especially when cooking isn't my favoritest thing to do. I'll already be unmotivated as it is...

Speaking of freezer meals, I still have banana bread and chocolate zucchini muffins to bake and freeze for breakfast. I might have a muffin or two before putting the rest in the freezer. :-) 

I better get started...

Klima

It's been really hot here. Some days the temperatures are in the 90s but I suspect the heat index is higher with the humidity and the stored heat radiating from concrete and asphalt. I don't remember last summer being this hot. We kept our windows open and had a constant breeze running through the apartment. It was still overly warm but bearable. The downside with open windows and nice breezes is the dirt coming in and covering everything. This summer, the breezes have not been running through the apartment as much so it turns into an oven. Sometimes even when we did get some breezes, they felt like they were coming out of the furnace that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown in. It gets hot enough (in the kitchen) that the peanut butter is runnier, A's gummy vitamins are almost melting, and even the chocolate G brought home this afternoon for A (after being gone for 4 days, he wanted to treat her) melted within minutes of sitting on the counter.

As I write this, we're getting a klima installed in our bedroom. A klima is an AC unit, similar to the AC window unit in America. It does the same thing but looks different. A klima has two separate units: one outside unit that is attached to the wall outside a window, which is connected through a drilled hole in the wall to an inside unit that is hung high up on the wall against the ceiling. We can take this klima wherever we move.

We have a klima in the salon (as they call the living rooms here). It was already there when we moved in the apartment so that was nice. This klima we definitely cannot take if we move. It's wonderful to sit in the air-conditioned salon but the klima doesn't cool the rest of the apartment. Poor G and A sleep drenched in sweat in spite of the overhead fans in their respective rooms. I have been sleeping on the couch in the salon for back support and for the AC. I still get hot and sweat in my sleep when the AC shuts off periodically.

I feel like a pansy for getting a klima, when I have friends who don't have one. Some of them were telling me that they take several cool showers and even get up during the night to take one. Some are fortunate enough to live high up on a hill where they get fresh breezes (in other words, no dirt are blown in) and sleep on their balconies. My language teacher tells me she sleeps on the floor occasionally because it's cooler. I think it's worse in India. I've had friends living there tell me that they put the bedsheets in the fridge and put them on the bed at night at an effort to cool down enough to sleep.

So, yes, I may be a pansy but I've had my fair share of suffering from the heat while growing up in Florida. I've experienced heat exhaustion and passed out briefly. I've also nearly thrown up from the heat. I remember playing soccer in summer league, in 90+ heat, and then heading straight for the sinkhole to swim and cool off after a game every Saturday morning. I worked an entire summer outdoors for 40 hours a week in jeans and boots.

Anyway, I'm thankful for the klima, especially in the last days of pregnancy. I'm thankful that I can shut the windows and not have to clean up the dirt covering everything, especially since I'll be too tired from lack of sleep to clean up much when the baby's born. I'm thankful that my tiny 2-day-old newborn, soon after coming out of the pristine environment of the womb, won't be breathing in smog and dirt while she sleeps in our room.

I have 15 days left til the due date but I really need to stop counting down because it could be sooner or later. These days, I'm sleeping less and less. I don't know how one can be so tired and still be unable to sleep. I can't even nap anymore. Somehow I function okay during the day. It's probably by the grace of the Father.

I'm still very excited about the baby coming soon...

Random Acts of Kindness

We have a "charge card" for public transportation where we load money into it and use up the money as we flash the card on a little machine perched next to the driver after boarding the bus. The machine chirps and different colors flash indicating different things along with the remaining balance on your card - green ("your fare has been charged now git"), blue ("oh, free ride 'cause you're a student or disabled"), and red ("you ain't got no money on yo' card, get off!").

A couple of days ago, I borrowed G's "charge card" to take the bus and meet the summer volunteer on our team and we were going to meet someone together. I'd lent my "charge card" to someone and forgot to get it back so that's why I filched G's card. No matter. I got on the bus and flashed my card to the little fare eater machine. It flashed red. The card "ain't got no money." Before I could hop off and figure out what to do, the driver had already shut the door and started rolling.

There I was, getting a free ride. I stood there right next to the driver, wondering what to do. I couldn't just slink off and hope the driver says nothing. Integrity is at stake and my conscience would kill me. I pulled out the card from my wallet (you can scan through wallets and not have to whip them out - awesome, no?) and scanned it again, hoping it was a mistake. It flashed red and showed a balance of .47 lira. A fare usually costs roughly about 2 lira or so. Yep, no money on the card. And I most definitely informed G of this when I eventually got home.

I held up the card at the driver and said, "yok," (one of the, oh...five words I know in Turkish) indicating the card was empty. We were approaching the next stop and the bus was slowing down. I made a move to get off the bus but he waved me aside, which I interpreted as "go sit down." Right at the moment, someone tapped me on the shoulder and insisted that I sit down (I think my belly is big enough to alarm people) and exactly at the same moment, a man came out of the hot interior of the bus and scanned his card for me.

I sat down, chagrined. I thought, "Hey, I do have the fare in coins. I'll just go pay that guy." The passenger across the aisle saw me digging the coins out and he gave me the characteristic facial expression particular to this culture, which I understood to mean, "don't worry about it."

I was stubborn. I have trouble with people paying for me, especially strangers. I tried to pay the guy and I could tell I offended him. I pocketed the money, thanked him, and went back to my seat.

Acts of kindness from the driver, a random stranger who paid my fare, and the person who gave up his seat for me. I'll never see them again in a city of 16 million.

I got off the bus and met with our volunteer, who I will call "J." She's a sweet girl. I told her about what happened, slapping my forehead about it. I'd felt like a doofus for not having money on my card. Wait, it was G's card. Blame the husband.

We went on our errand together which brought no result. I was a bit deflated because we'd tried to find this person before and didn't have luck then either. So, J and I went to Starbucks.

I ordered a giant (I forget the Starbucks lingo...tall, grande, something?) mango smoothie. Oh, my. It was perfect for a hot day. I gave my debit card to the cashier and it didn't work. It's really annoying because our debit cards don't work with certain locations and it mainly depends on the bank the business uses. I tried to tell the cashier to use a different swiper machine thingie with a different bank but J offered to pay for my and her smoothies. Of course, I protested and of course, she refused to let me pay her back.

Another act of kindness. Wait, I'm not done yet. I've got one more.

So, we chatted and finished our tall-grande-something mango smoothies and it was time to go home. I'd forgotten that I needed to load up the "charge card" to get home. I wasn't sure where the closest ATM was and so I decided not to bother and just walk home instead. J insisted on putting me on the bus, using her "charge card."

J teased me saying it was my day to be pampered and paid for! :-)

Fourth of July

We, along with three other families in our small group and a group of student volunteers, celebrated the Fourth of July on a secluded beach on the Black Sea. I wouldn't say that we celebrated the signing of the Declaration of Independence exactly, but we made up our own festivities with swimming, cooking out, exploring, and s'mores over a bonfire. No fireworks, no patriotic songs, no BBQ pork, no red-white-blue decorations, etc. It was more like an excuse to have a party on the beach :-) For G and I, I doubt that we'd even notice it was a holiday if someone hadn't gotten the idea to go to the beach for the afternoon and watch the sunset with s'mores over a bonfire.

The beach we went to was similar to the one we went to at Easter (see post here). The water was clear, shimmering blue and green in the sun, and the calm waves were very nice. I especially enjoyed swimming, which gave such a buoyant relief from my big belly. I vote the sea to be better than the pool for prenatal swimming. A had a blast swimming, playing in the sand with other kids, floating on the raft, and enjoying her very first s'more. She was one tired, salty, sandy little girl when we finally went home after the sun set at 8:45 pm. G had fun, too.

All in all, it was a good Fourth, even though it didn't feel like the Fourth. It occurred to me as I type this that it could be years before A experiences a genuine Fourth of July celebration in the States with fireworks, parades, horseshoe/cornhole games, BBQ pork, thick layers of bug spray, watermelon seed spitting contests, in-your-face red-white-blue decorations everywhere, etc.

Sunset on the Black Sea: love the shades of purple

I hope you all had a good Fourth.