This week

This week I've been . . .

. . . listening to this CD

It's pretty much always on in the kitchen when I'm cooking or washing dishes. Love it!

. . . reading this book

I first read me some Shane Claiborne about 2 years ago and it has been so great to read through Irresistible Revolution again. Good stuff, I highly recommend it!

. . . missing my sister a lot. They are back in the States for the next 2 months and it's hard not having them here. I'm so thankful to have a sister that is a best friend! I broke into their apartment (not really, I do have a key) last evening and borrowed some books, movies and clothes (thanks, Mel, for expanding my wardrobe while you're gone). It was weird to be in their apartment while it was so quiet and empty, it made me sad.

. . . really hot. Every year when summer comes around I always forget just how hot it gets here and I wonder how we'll ever survive. Dramatic, I know, but I sometimes don't think I'll make it through the summer. Right now Isaiah is taking a nap, I'm sitting in front of the fan, and the 3 big kids are out on our tiny balcony in an itty bitty baby pool splashing in about 4 inches of water. I would join them, but I don't think there's any room :)

. . .  not looking forward to the next 5 days. Joel left this morning to drive to the capital city of Ankara to begin teaching the women that Get Bridged is giving work to. I'm excited for this project and how God will use it, but am certainly going to miss my hubby! Hoping the week passes by quickly - we all can't wait till he's back!

. . . thankful for good friends here that take care of us and treat us like family. I know I never have to worry when Joel goes out of town. From inviting me and the kids over for dinner, to picking up a few things we need from the store, I know we will be taken care of.

. . . repeating my mantra: "you're going to miss this!" I have it written on the white board in my kitchen as I need to be reminded of it constantly. It's so easy to get overwhelmed, frustrated and exhausted in my job as a mommy, but I want to remember that this time passes so quickly and I really will miss it! So I'm doing my best to savor the moments and try not to freak out when Vienna knocks her entire bowl of soup over or Colson kicks Yohanis in the butt while he's peeing making him miss the toilet. Yep, just keeping it real. Okay, so maybe I won't miss those things, but you get the idea.

So what are you up to this week?

I'm going to be completely honest here. Sometimes it's a whole lot easier to post pictures of my kids and talk about the cute and funny things they say than it is to be real about what life is really like here. But I want to be honest, I don't want to paint a picture of everything being all fun, easy and happy. Because while it is those things some of the time, most of the time it's hard. Really hard.

We uprooted our lives and moved our whole family to a completely foreign country and tried our hardest to learn the culture and language and raise our kids far away from everything that was familiar to us. When we first moved here I had all these good intentions of learning the language in 2 years, making lots of friends and sharing my Jesus with them. Ha! It's been 3 1/2 years now and I'm still learning the language, I have a couple friends to my name and none of them know this Jesus that I love. I'm sure glad God doesn't measure success the way that I do, cause most days I feel like a failure and wonder what the heck I'm doing here. How are we really making a difference? Some days I don't even feel like following Jesus and I'm supposed to teach others how to do that?! Pretty laughable, huh?

Most days I feel completely inadequate and it has forced me more than ever to cling to God. I'm so much more dependent upon God to live here. I can't do it without him. I feel like my faith has grown a lot since setting foot in this land, because we've had to learn to trust Him in ways we never had before living in America. 

We come from a culture that's really impressed by numbers, doing things fast and getting a lot accomplished. But you can never make people projects. You just need to love them. We are here to build deep, meaningful relationships. Truly making disciples takes time. Jesus invested his life into 12 guys. They were with him all the time. He taught them everything, they shared life together - sometimes I wonder if Jesus ever got tired of these guys hanging around him all the time, asking him stupid questions and not getting the reason he was there! But you know what? He used those 12 ordinary guys to change the world.

It takes time to make real, lasting friendships and to get past all the surfacy stuff and to truly know someone. It means letting your guard down and allowing people into your life. All of it, not just part of it. It means letting them see everything - the good, the bad and the ugly. No, it's definitely not easy, but anything that's worth something rarely is. 


We are just simple, ordinary people who don't know much about anything. But we believe that Jesus meant the stuff he said and we're trying our best to live that out, even though we mess up. A lot.

Even on months days where it's hard, I know Turkey is where God has led our family and Turkey is where we will stay and keep on living life and loving Jesus and loving people. 

Camping

Last week we set up a tent in the living room and let the kids sleep in it for the night. We told them that if they could do a good job sleeping in the tent then we would go camping for real!

These three kiddos did AWESOME! They settled down right away, whispered to each other quietly for a few minutes and then went right to sleep.

So on Saturday morning when they woke up we told them we were going camping. They were so excited! We drove a little over an hour to a campsite right next to the beach. It was a beautiful spot and our kids loved the whole experience. We played card games, grilled and ate dinner on the beach, made s'mores and, of course, did lots of swimming! As soon as we came home on Sunday Colson wanted to know when we were going again. To say that these kids had fun would be an understatement - they cannot WAIT to go camping again!


Joel warned me that camping is a lot of work and it would probably be fun and relaxing for the kids, but not so much for us. But I really enjoyed it too (even though I did end up with about 500 mosquito bites and little to no sleep in the tent). Joel is the one who totally pulled everything off. Camping with 4 little children is not easy, but Joel did ALL the work of setting up and taking down the tents and making all of our food. He is an amazing Daddy and made it a really special time for the kids (and for me too).
 
The kids helping Daddy set up the tent standing around looking pretty

All set up and Isaiah sleeping peacefully in the pack n play.

The beach was beautiful and we had it pretty much to ourselves. So nice!

Isaiah even did a little swimming and loved it!

Naked baby in the woods - nothin' cuter!

Joel taught them how to play War. It's all they've been doing the past week.

Having fun playing with a new friend. I love that in Turkey strangers quickly become friends. There really is no such thing as "don't talk to strangers" here. It wasn't long before we had met quite a few people at the campsite and even scored some cake from some sweet next-door campers :)

After dinner swim!

Brothers

Lots of older women were loving on Isaiah! Turks cannot pass up an opportunity to hold a baby.

Naptime on the beach!

A Day in the Life

Here is a sneak peek into our daily lives. I documented our day in pictures on Monday, June 4th.

Warning: this is a long post full of TONS of pictures. I took about 400 pictures on Monday - you can be thankful I didn't post all of them ;)



7:00am - Isaiah wakes up. I nurse him and put him in bed with us and he falls back asleep.

7:30am - I get up, start to get ready and make breakfast. I do have to note that Joel is normally the one up first and making breakfast. Around 8:00 Colson sleepily makes his way out to greet me, followed by Yohanis and finally sleepy-head Vienna. They all get dressed and make their beds, usually with a little help from me.

8:30am - Isaiah is woken up from the big kids fighting happily playing together. This is his sleepy face.

8:30 - breakfast. This morning it's Turkish style breakfast which includes hard boiled eggs, cucumbers, tomatoes, cheese, Simit (bread rings with sesame seeds on top) and chai. Isaiah had bananas.

8:45ish - We have our first visitor of the day - a friend stopping in to talk to Joel for a bit. We invite him in for some chai and a little Simit that's leftover from our breakfast.

I start the first load of laundry. Yes, our washing machine is in our kitchen. Joel helps the kids brush their teeth.

Breakfast clean-up, still in my jammies :)

9:00ish - toys are dumped out all over the living room floor and are soon forgotten about

9:30 - The big kids go out back to play in the stoned parking lot behind our building where I can keep an eye on them from our bottom floor balcony. I don't know why I don't have any pictures of Joel from the morning, but he was there. Around 9:30 he heads to the office (which is really an extra bedroom in Adam and Melanie's apartment) to work on making the sample bags for our latest project with Get Bridged. He is running late because of our friend stopping by, but that is how life goes here and it's such a good thing - people take priority over schedules.

10:00 - I take the kids out to the park to play and ride bike

10:30 - We come back inside so Isaiah can take his morning nap.

My laundry is done

I hang the laundry on the drying rack on our little balcony off of the kitchen. We don't have a dryer. In the summer our clothes will dry in a couple hours, even without being in the sun.

I stop to break up a fight between Colson and Vienna. We talk it out and they apologize to each other and all is right again after a big hug!

10:45 - the kids get out their crayons and coloring books

I sit down and color with them for a little. Yohanis took this picture. Colson was bringing me some toilet paper from the bathroom to blow his nose with. Lovely!

We take a break from coloring and the kids help me pick the ends off of the green beans for our dinner. They all like this job except for Colson who gets tired of it after a few minutes. He returns to coloring while the rest of us finish. I tell them how when I was a little girl I used to help my Mommy do this job but we had our own garden that produced a lot of green beans and I spent HOURS picking the ends off of them. Yohanis seemed to think that would be fun! I love him :)

Colson's finished product.

Vienna gets upset about Yohanis not sharing his stickers with her which results in a 15 minute crying session

11:00 - Isaiah wakes up from his nap. The kids color and play in the living room and I start getting lunch ready while holding Isaiah in one arm.


11:45 - the kids come in the kitchen for lunch - leftover lentil soup, carrot sticks and apples. If they finish all the healthy stuff first they can have leftover homemade pizza from the night before! I think Vienna is giving me a thumbs up in this picture which just cracks me up!

I nurse Isaiah and then he eats some carrots.

The bulletin board hanging in our kitchen. Joel drew a picture of the two of us - I think he was being rather generous with his drawing of himself :)

12:00 - Isaiah is entertained with kitchen utensils (his favorite thing to play with is a spatula) while I wash dishes.

Colson learned how to do this - we were pretty proud! Come on, you know you all did this when you were kids!

12:15-12:30 - The big boys get their stuff together for school and I herd all the kids out the door. Getting everyone out the door is a test of my patience every single day!


Finally on our way to school

We pass our favorite bakery where Joel and the boys often buy bread fresh out of the oven on the way home from school. The owner usually gives cookies to the kids too.

A dolmus (shared taxi)

We stop at an exercise park for a few minutes on the way to school

12:45 - we arrive at school

Everyone oohs and aahs over Isaiah

I take a few pictures of the boys with some of their best friends.

In their classroom with their teacher (and Vienna had to be in the picture too).

1:00 - Vienna, Isaiah and I begin the 15 minute walk home. Vienna begins crying about 2 minutes into it because she is hot and tired and doesn't want to walk. I have to push Isaiah in the stroller, so Vienna needs to walk. She is not happy about it and cries the whole way home. Vienna crying is pretty much a recurring theme throughout the day :)

1:15 - We arrive home all hot, sweaty and crying (Vienna that is, not me). I put Vienna and Isaiah down for their naps and I eat my lunch in peace and quiet while I check my email/facebook.

1:30 - I have some quiet time with my Bible, some iced coffee and chocolate!

2:00ish - I start making dinner, but soon hear Vienna calling to me from her bed. I let her get up and tell her to come help me in the kitchen. She gets upset about something not going her way (surprise, surprise) and I send her back to bed. I need her to sleep because we are going to be up late tonight and if she doesn't take a nap, I know it will NOT be pretty!

2:15 - Isaiah has woken up because of Vienna's crying. He plays happily for about 15 minutes. 

2:30 - Isaiah starts getting fussy and I know he hasn't slept long enough so I rock him back to sleep.

3:00 - Vienna has fallen asleep - SUCCESS! I keep working on dinner and begin uploading and editing some pictures on my computer.

3:30 - Isaiah wakes up and I nurse him.

4:00 - Isaiah and I go into Vienna's room to wake her up, we snuggle.

4:15 - We head out to the park to play

4:45 - back inside to finish up dinner. Vienna sets the table.

5:00 - I hear a knock at our door. At first I think it's Joel and the boys home from school and I'm about to fling open the door and snap a picture. I'm glad I looked through the peephole first or that could have been rather embarrassing. It's some friends that we haven't seen in awhile stopping in for a visit.

I invite them in, then Joel and the boys show up soon after. Dinner is ready and I tell them at least 3 times (like a good Turk) to come and sit and eat with us, but they politely decline. She will drink coffee though, so I hurry off to the kitchen to make her coffee. Then I sit down and try to feed the kids and myself while chatting with our guests. I feel kind of awkward because I don't know if I should keep insisting that they eat, or if I should just let the kids eat while I sit down with them and wait till later to eat, but they keep telling us to go ahead and eat and that they are not hungry.

Our dinner - Bulgur (cracked wheat) pilav, Turkish style green beans (cooked with olive oil, onions, tomatoes and seasoned with salt, pepper and a tiny bit of sugar), plain yogurt and bread. A lot of Turkish meals are eaten with yogurt on the side.

We somehow manage to get ourselves through dinner while trying to entertain guests and hope that we were being culturally appropriate. They stay for about an hour. Somewhere in there Isaiah wakes up and I nurse him and feed him some lentils for dinner.

6:00 - Our guests are gone and Yohanis and Colson transform into superheroes!

The superheroes and their Daddy entertain Isaiah while he gets his temperature checked. He is pushing his 4th tooth through and has had a low fever for two days.

6:30 - Dinner is all cleaned up and the dishes are done

Isaiah is fussy and since we're going to be up late tonight I put him down for a quick nap. Joel and the kids head out back. The kids gather weeds to "feed the ants" while Joel vacuums the van.

Our apartment building. We live on the bottom right (this picture was actually taken another day - I know, I'm a cheater).

7:00 - Isaiah is up from his nap. We watch the big kid's shennanigans from our balcony that looks like a prison cell

Our good friend and neighbor comes over to chat.

He helps Yohanis collect a fruit called yeni dunya (kind of like an apricot) from the tree

8:00 - We hop in the van and head to our friend's house for a visit (this is normally bedtime for our kids and they are very excited to be staying up late!)

8:10 - We arrive and the kids head straight for the balcony to use the swing

Yohanis and their son

The adults enjoy talking together while the big kids enjoy running around their house like crazy people and making an insane amount of noise!

 Colson and a big, bouncy ball. I'm just happy there were no trips to the ER tonight :)

9:00 - The wife starts making something similar to pancakes for us to eat. I wish I would have gotten a picture of her flipping them in the air.

The kids eat first and drink ayran (a salty yogurt drink). Yohanis has his eyes glued on the the TV (which is on the whole evening. In this culture it's more like background noise. No one really watches it, but apparently my kids didn't get that memo).

The wife was boiling Erik (Turkish plums) to make juice and jelly with.

9:30 - We sit down to eat together and drink chai

A mother and her son. This family has inspired me so much. They have faced so many challenges in caring for their son, but their strength and their love for him is such a beautiful thing - especially in a culture where people with special needs are outcasts of society.

Some neighborhood kids that our kids were having fun yelling back and forth with from the balcony

11:00 - I am tired and ready to head home soon, but then some of the wife's family shows up. Yohanis entertained us all with a headstand :)

Cutest little girl!

We stay another half hour, but our kids are exhausted and then we tell them it's time for us to go. They act surprised that we're leaving so soon and try to get us to stay longer (as is polite to do in Turkish culture), but we really need to get our kids to bed.

11:45pm - We head home. 2 out of 4 fall asleep on the 10 minute drive.

12:00 - We arrive home and the kids head straight to bed. We skip the normal bedtime routine of reading books, singing and praying because they are ZONKED. I nurse Isaiah and enjoy snuggling him for a few minutes on the couch.

And that was our day! Phew!

If you made it all the way to the end, pat yourself on the back :)

Everyday doesn't look like this and our kids are not usually up till all hours of the night - 8:00 is the norm for bedtime at our house. But we have had to adjust to the culture in some ways and for the sake of relationships, a late bedtime every now and then doesn't hurt! We are slowly but surely learning to adapt to this culture and be more flexible with our time and routine. I try to be hospitable when friends show up at my doorstep at dinnertime and invite them in with a smile. It doesn't always come very naturally to me, but I am learning!

What a strange, crazy, stressful, extremely hard, but completely beautiful life I live! I'm so thankful we're not doing this on our own and that God has been with us and provided exactly what we've needed every step of the way! We only have one life to live and I want to make it count for his Kingdom. We're only here for a moment!