Roses

Alia and Anna in their little local dresses and pants enjoying playing "cooking" outside.

And then just had to post a few more pictures of the beatiful roses God has given us to enjoy in our yard.

Easter Celebrations

God gave us a very meaningful celebration of Jesus's death and resurrection this year!  One of the traditions in the culture here is to put henna on your hands for holidays.  Alia has seen it on the hands of her little local friends and has been asking when she gets to put some on her hands.  So for the week before Easter, we put some henna designs on our hands that told the Easter story. 

So the little lines on the tips of our fingers stand for the nails in Jesus' hands and feet.  Lower on our fingers are the drops of blood that Jesus shed when he was crucified.  Then on our palms are three suns, for the three days he was in the grave, and the third sun has rays radiating showing that he arose!  The zig zag line below our thumb tells of the curtain in the temple that was torn when Jesus died, showing that He had victory over the sin that had separated us from God and now because of Jesus we can boldly come before God's throne of grace. 

I hoped to be able to share the story with friends here, but due to the girls being sick that week, we did not get out much, however we were able to tell the story to our house helper and I pray too that as Alia heard the story several times, the wonder of it is beginning to touch her little heart!

The girls got some cute dresses from their Grammy so we seized the opportunity for some pictures out in our yard that is turning green!

Our team planned a picnic in a local park here for Easter morning, so Alia and I made some cupcakes to take along.  Alia is beginning to love to help in the kitchen!

I frosted the cupcakes and Alia put the sprinkles on!

At the park we found a nice secluded area and had a short acting out of the resurrection morning.  Then we worshipped in song with guitar.  What an amazing thing to lift our voices in song in this place declaring our Savior's resurrection and singing "Our God reigns!!"  Yes, even in this place, He reigns, though few here even know or acknowledge it!  

My thoughts then turned to my sweet little girls sitting here and thinking about what their life is going to be like growing up here . . . or even when they get older what this world may be like.  But then I thought of the song, "Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.  Because He lives, all fear is gone.  Because I know He holds the future, and life is worth the living just because He lives."  I don't know what lies ahead for them, but I know that the One who is daily with me is alive and will daily be with them in whatever kind of situation they will be in.

Following our worship, Alia, with two other little girls had an Easter egg hunt!

We enjoyed a picnic together and then Jason joined in a game of dodge ball!

 . . . while Alia went to pick some flowers!

For our celebration as a family . . .

 . . . we made a little Easter scene for the week before starting on Palm Sunday, and had our family Bible time using this.  I got some of the idea from a book by Noel Piper and made the little mountain and grave out of dough.

On Palm Sunday:  we had a branch and told the story of the triumphal entry.

Monday:  a towel, and the story of Jesus washing his disciples' feet

Tuesday:  a piece of bread, and the story of the Last Supper

Wednesday: an angel (out of pipe cleaners), and the story of Jesus praying in the garden

Thursday: a soldier and a branch with thorns on it and the story of how Jesus was beaten and a crown of thorns put on his head.

Friday: a nail, and the story of Jesus being nailed to the cross.  We wrapped him in a paper towel and put him in the tomb.

Saturday:  just waiting and talking about the sadness of Jesus' friends because he was dead

Sunday morning: we took Jesus out of the tomb and had him standing on the mountain for Alia to find --alive again!

Each day we retold the stories from the previous day and then added on the story for that day.  It was so neat to see Alia learning the stories, but also so good for Jason and me to be meditating on these stories of our Savior together throughout the week!  This year we did not have any local friends that we shared the stories with using this little scene, but I pray that as this becomes a tradition of our family, it is something that is pretty much reproducible for people here (except for maybe the pipe cleaners! :-) ) to be able to tell the story to their families.

Seeking HIS spring in us while we wait for spring

After about a week of some warmer weather, getting outside, planting grass, having better electricity, and just getting excited about spring coming, another several days of snow, cold weather and weak electricity have hit.  After sharing in our pr time on Monday morning from Jn. 4 and Is. 58 about our Father's promise of springs living water in us, even in dry places, I have felt a very difficult battle going on in my mind, wanting to just give in to discouragement, self-pity, and frustrated critical thoughts.

Yesterday was an especially difficult day with Alia with a lot of clashes between us of her not wanting to obey and me, feeling discouraged already, not having much patience.  At the breakfast table, after a spanking for disobeying, she said to me, "Mommy, can you pray for me." So I prayed for her, that Jesus would help her to obey even when she did not want to and that God would help her to be able to be happy again.  She looked up and said, "but I'm still sad.  Can you pray for me again."  So I prayed for her again.  She looked up again and said, "But I'm still sad."  There was some worship music playing and she sat there for a moment and then said, "Is God in the music?"  "Yes, the music is singing about worshipping God." I said.  She thought again, "Is Jesus in the music?"  "Yes." I said again.  It touched me to see her trying to comprehend how God could help her through low times too.

Today we woke up to a very cold house again and no electricity.  I was struggling again to find some joy in Him and have a kind attitude.  At lunch time, the kitchen was warm since I had been cooking in there, and our family/dining room was 55 degrees, so I told Alia that if she would sit well on her little stool, we could have a special lunch together at her little play table in the kitchen.  So these pictures are of us having our special lunch together in the warm kitchen.  We sat down and Alia prayed, "Thank you, God, for a warm place." :-) After we said, Amen, she says, "So, how was your day?" . . . like she was getting into us having a special girls' lunch together. :-) 

Surprise, Daddy, joined us for lunch a little later, so a pic of him with us in the kitchen too.  And then Anna woke up so we brought her chair into the kitchen with us too.  Somehow, I feel the Father lifting my head today and filling me with His spring, even with special little moments like these. 

Sisters photo shoot

Here are a few shots from a recent photo shoot we did with Alia and Anna wanting to capture some pictures of them together.



Whoa, Anna . . . her endurance for taking pictures came to an end.



Drummer Girls

So Jason, being a drummer, can't help but get his daughters interested in drumming . . .

One of Alia's favorite pastimes with her Daddy is turning on some music and getting out the drum sticks and drumming together on the floor.

Sacrifice Holiday

Last week was a three day holiday in which families who are able buy a lamb or goat to sacrifice in memory of the sacrifice that God provided for Abraham in place of his son.  Some people had bought their sheep months before to fatten it up and others bought it the week before.  We heard increasing sounds of sheep sounds in our neighborhood the week before.  On the first day of the holiday the sheep is sacrificed and then meat is given to the poor, to neighbors, and then cooked up to serve to guests and family who come visiting. 

We wanted to participate, so bought some mutton from the bazaar and I cooked up a mutton soup to serve to any guests who would come over.  In this culture, lots of oil floating on top is yummy, so I tried to make it their way . . . see below.

Beginning on the second day of the holiday, people go around visiting each other's houses and at each place they are served some meat along with a big spread of nuts, fruit, cookies and cakes.  Our spread in our newly decorated guest room is in the picture below.

Usually most of the visiting is done by men during these three days because the ladies are busy cooking the meat, making tea, and washing dishes.  Jason went out on the second day to visit some of our neighbors and then we were grateful that a lot of them reciprocated and showed up later that morning.  In the afternoon, I was surprised when some of the neighbor ladies I had not met before showed up for a visit.  They invited me to go with them to visit some of the other ladies, so I picked up Anna and Alia grabbed the hand of one of the teenage girls and off we went with them.  These ladies were so jovial and a lot of fun.  At the second house we went to, suddenly a dust storm started.  The beautiful spread of nuts and candies began to get covered in dust coming in their window covered only by a curtain.  The ladies, obviously having lived through a lot of these, just laughed about it and got out a dust rag and began helping to dust off the table cloth on the floor.  It was a good reminder to me that laughing about the dust is better than getting stressed about it (which tends to be what happens when a dust storm is going on and I can literally see dust gathering as it comes through the cracks in our windows).  After visiting two houses with the ladies, the wind and dust had become so strong I could not keep my burqa on and hang on to Anna and Alia so I told the ladies I would try to visit more the next day.

However, on day three, we awakened to a huge snowstorm which dropped about 10 inches of snow, so no visitors that day!  There is a saying here though that the men's holiday is 3 days, but the ladies holiday is the next 30 days after that.  So a few days later I headed over to another neighbor to give her holiday greetings and I hope to make the most of these next few weeks when ladies are still visiting more than usual to go meet some more of my neighbors. 

And in the midst of it all, the question has come several times, "Did you sacrifice a sheep?"  opening the way to talk about our Perfect Sacrifice who is alive now and seated at our Father's right hand, making it no longer necessary to offer an animal sacrifice.

I wish I had pictures with some of the ladies, but whipping out my camera with them screams, "I am a foreigner!" and is not conducive to knocking down differences and presuppositions they have of me as an American, so . . . as occasions are appropriate, I hope to get some pictures of people, but just wanted to let you know why there are few pictures of our local friends here.

Decorating our Guest Room

So decorating a house has never been something I enjoy doing or am good at.  In this culture, families have a special guest room that is where they entertain guests when they come over, and this room is the most nicely decorated room in the house, usually with nice floor pillows, nice carpets, and nice curtains.  Many of the guest rooms that I have been in are decorated in red/maroon.  However, when I began asking my local friends if red was the best color to make my guest room, they told me that red is really out of style now . . . an old color.  The new colors now for guest rooms are pastels--pink, lavender, light blue, mint green.  Hmm.  So after trying to take notice of a few of the newer guest rooms in people's houses, I noticed several pink ones.  However, I just could not bring myself to decorate in pastel pink, so one of my friends told me that she had been in two new brides' guest rooms that were in light blue.  I decided I liked that color.

So I bought fabric for our floor pillows (toshaks) in light blue and then asked a local seamstress/friend to go shopping with me to pick out curtain fabric to match.  Now in Tuna Town, I have to wear the burqa when I go out, so you can imagine trying to look at curtain fabric through a tiny little piece of fabric mesh over my face . . . not easy.  I noticed my friend would pull her burqa up when her back was to the rest of the store and men could not see her face so that she could get a better look at the colors and patterns.  She convinced me of a blue flowered pattern and then in looking at a curtain catalog in the store I saw a style of curtains I liked that I had recently seen in a new local home.  The man at the curtain store came and measured our windows and told us he would sew the curtains and have them ready before the upcoming holiday.

Next, I had this seamstress friend sew the covers for the floor pillows, and then was the day to stuff them.  She and two other ladies came over for this process of weighing the stuffing in order to evenly stuff each pillow, beating the stuffing with sticks to fluff it, stuffing the pillows, and then sewing them up.  It was a day and a half project.  Below are some pictures of it.

Alia had a blast playing in the stuffing



Weighing the stuffing with a balancing scale . . . on her right



Alia giving it a try beating the stuffing with sticks



This was Alia's role model, Jaime, on how to beat the stuffing.



The picture of the final result is in the next post about our holiday.