Just What We Needed

I could feel myself spiraling last week. I was tired and cold (so grey and miserable in Arusha these days) and, as previously noted, I was too aware that time was rushing on and there was not much give in the weeks ahead before Jesse and Trevor leave again for California and college.

So... We grabbed the opportunity on the weekend to run away together for 2 nights. I had looked at the calendar and noticed that it was the last truly open weekend before their departure so we said, "We're outta here!" It was Friday when we made this decision and we left at 6am on Saturday.

This little camp-out with the 6 of us may well turn out to be the highlight of the summer in terms of our family life.

As we sat around the camp fire on that first night, our conversation turned to Europe. We called Europe home for about 7 years and we've only been based back in Africa for 14 months now. It was really good to laugh and talk about good memories of people, places and events. We grew so much there. It was a priceless season in our lives and it good to talk about what we miss.

It was so life-giving to recall those times together. It's healthy to give recognition and remembrance to seasons and passages of life. I found it particularly healing because I am feeling lonely for the family of friends we shared life with there very acutely right now as I know they're all in Hungary for their annual gathering. Each email from one of them, letting me know we are missed as they come together, brings me twinges of separation and loss pain.

On Sunday we spent about 8 hours hiking up to the source of the Engare Sero River and back again. It was a stunningly beautiful hike up out of the desert sands and into lush gorges and under plunging, thundering waterfalls from springs pouring out of jagged cliffs.



It wasn't entirely easy but we saw no one all day and we worked together, enjoying each other's company, for hours and hours.

Now we've returned to Arusha-town replenished. I am most re-filled spiritually when I am able to be out in Creation. Creation helps me connect with my Creator and I love that.

I'm just so thankful for the tanked-up feeling and fact that we didn't let short notice stop us from getting what we so badly needed.

Thank you, Creator God.



Photos by Jesse and Trevor Borden

Breakfast (and Life) is Good

Jesse got up early and made us fry jacks with refried beans and fried eggs for brecky today. It's a breakfast he learned in Belize and it's pretty yummy. Fry jacks are basically rounds of yeast-less bread dough that are deep fried, sort of like a flattened, sugar-free doughnut.

"Hhmmm," Jesse said as he surveyed the breakfast feast, "No wonder my skin was so bad while I was in Belize!"

Once in a while, though, it sure is worth it.

Question: How nice is it to have a son who likes to make breakfast for the fam?
Answer: Very.

This week I've been sorely tempted to think about all the things we won't be able to do this summer before the boys return to California. I've felt myself wanting to focus on the way time speeds by and the fact that their departure date seems to propel itself forward toward us as if it burns jet fuel.

It's a poor way to think.

I woke up today to the smell of breakfast cooking.

Now I need to wake up to the joy of savoring these simple moments.

Creative Thought (... or the lack thereof)

It's very quiet on my blog lately.

For me, this means that I'm moving between things too quickly and my weeks are not falling into a rhythm that includes any stillness.

I can hear a Switchfoot cd playing in the living room. "If we're adding to the noise/turn off this song."

I'd say.

Sometimes calendaring depresses me. I feel closed in when there is not much wiggle room. It makes me sad when friends suggest fun weekends and I can't find any way to clear space so that those can happen.

I'm sure I'm whining.

This is a busy season.

Now Switchfoot is into another song--

"I'm not copping out/not copping out/not copping out
And you're raising the dead in me"

Make it so.

Aragorn is King

We just finished a Lord of the Rings marathon here in our house. The Borden and Russell kids watched the extended version of each of the three films three nights in a row, concluding last night at about 1am.

It was awesome. I only watched bits and it was still awesome.

(Did you know that the extended versions are about 4 hours long each? Good grief.)

It was a little difficult trying to get to sleep with the thundering surround-sound booming out of our living room and echoing down the hall to our bedroom every night, but it made for vivid dreaming.

Aragorn has taken up his rightful place as king and all is well again. Phew!

Tolkien...what a guy!

The 3 Beauties :-)

How wonderful it was to have Dana, Eva and Emilio here with us!

Dana and I were college students together. What I remember most is that we loved our lit classes, loved our popcorn and study times, loved to go running together and just loved each other's company. It was so fun to re-unite after all these years later and basically find that we still love all of these things, except we have books to read now instead of lit classes and I don't like running any more!

Dana, a writing specialist, spent time with the teachers at Living Water Children's Center, helping them with ideas on how to teach writing and literacy more effectively. Eva and Emilio assisted in the classroom of the youngest students. We also had beautiful adventures together in Zanzibar and the Ngorongoro Crater.

I felt sad when they left. I treasure our friendship.

Now I smile every time I enter my once disastrous pantry. Dana organized it into gorgeous shape, leaving her pretty handwriting to name all my storage tins. Thank you, Ms D! I like the feel of your touch on our home.

PS Dana is blogging about the adventure of living under one roof with her 2 young people and their 85 year old grandpa.

Dance Dance Dance

Big congrats to Heather, on the left, and her best buddy, Sianna Russell, who recently won the prize "Best Choreography" for a routine they performed at the Umoja Arts Center. What a great way to celebrate their weeks and weeks of practice in our living room :-)

Nicely done, ladies!

The Trek aka All Boys Safely Home (Updated)

The boys arrived home safely on Saturday evening and now it's time for a little photo log of their 16 days. They walked 93 miles but completed a 368 mile circuit when you include the public transportation they used.


On trail


In camp


The soda flats of the desert


Looking back over a section of the desert they crossed


Up in Loita


Loita again


And home :-)

They have some great stories... But those are theirs to tell.

A Pretty Pile of Books

I have this pretty pile of books on my shelf. They are recent gifts and loans from friends and each comes highly commended. When I glance at the pile, they all seem to straighten up in their places. It's as if each one is quietly saying, "Pick me! Pick me!"

I sigh a little when I see them because I would really like to plow my way into that pile but the days are busy and, so far, I've been making some pretty pathetic progress.

Let's see--

I'm just about done with Alan Jamieson's slender little book Chrysalis (The Hidden Transformation in the Journey of Faith.) This has been a helpful book that puts words to many things I have seen and felt.

Then there's Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love. I confess to being a little bogged down in India with her right now. This second of three sections in her book has become a little boring to me but I do want to finish the book since it has been wildly popular AND I promised Tait I would.

I'm dying to get into Lisa McKay's My Hands Came Away Red. I like Lisa. I like the essays she sends me and I like her quirky sense of self. (Maybe because I can relate to the quirk-producing life of one who has lived in many different countries.) Plus, the subject matter of struggling with faith in the face of trauma and evil is pretty darn relevant in this big ol' world. It's her first novel and it's doing very well so I'm excited to take it in.

Jesse brought me 2 books that I have been strictly instructed to read. (Are your kids allowed to enforce good reading on you?) His summer assignment for me includes Shane Clairborne's Jesus for President (A Book to Provoke the Christian Political Imagination.) The second book is Steven Bouma-Prediger's For the Beauty of the Earth, which deals with our responsibility to care for Creation. This book, I am told, will be removed from my shelf and taken back to California with him at the end of August so I'm supposed to make sure I've completed it by then.

I know less about the other books... Some Anne Lamott to catch up on... Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss. My sister sent that one and I've always loved anything she sends me.

For the great delight of it, I look forward to The Good Husband of Zebra Drive. This is #8 in a series of charming, insightful and clever little stories set in Botswana. I could devour that one in a free afternoon but free afternoon's are hard to come by.

And Rilke's Book of Hours is like chocolate. One little piece at a time, snuck in here and there, I will let the little poems bring me pleasure. Better than chocolate, they also bring me revelation. Thank you, Nelly, for the gift of your very own copy.

So I'm not getting to them very quickly, but they do fill me with a happy anticipation as they sit there so patiently on my shelf.