Tea Time Melting Pot

A group of ladies I know decided to start meeting each month for "tea" at different houses to encourage each other, share struggles, and bless each other in a land that none of us call home.  They are from Nicaragua, Columbia, Morocco, United States, Brazil, and a few places in between.

The first lady who volunteered to host is from South America, but she had lived most of her married life in Kuwait before moving here. She had a party planning business there, and as you can see from the pictures below, she really knew how to throw a party.

I asked where she had gotten all of her decorations, and she said she had friends ship them to her from all sorts of places.

She has collected and moved with more Christmas decorations than I've seen in any house in this country.  I was blown away at what she travelled here with, and all the decorations made me smile.

I know this might seem like nothing to you, but after living here for three Christmas' (2019 will be our fourth), this was really a jaw-dropping experience for me. (Remember, I live in a country where people barely acknowledge the holiday and do not decorate their homes for Christmas).

This is not pork sausage.  Don't worry.

This is a special dish from our hosts' South American country.

This was my beautiful spread :)

After lunch chit-chat.

January 8, 2019

Another Teenager in the House

Caleb turned 13 last January.

His birthday was actually the day I arrived back home from Dubai, and his sisters were wonderful to make some cookie cake for him so it would all be ready when I got home.

Caleb is quite the entertainer, and he usually has me laughing about something.  Funny enough, his sisters don't find him quite as entertaining :)

He is also kind-hearted and sensitive when it matters.  I love watching him grow and seeing how God is transforming him on the inside (and the outside - seeing as how he's already taller than me).

This year, Caleb had several people convince him to use his love for entertainment and acting in a public way.

He tried out for the role of Mufasa in the "Lion King" and got it.

His performance was outstanding, but that's a few months away, so first I'll show you the beginning.

When the performance occurs, the actors only lip synch along with their own voice recordings.  Too many things can go wrong on performance night, so all voices are recorded ahead of time at a TV/radio station.

After practicing their lines during the fall, each character gets an assigned studio time to record.  Caleb went a couple of times, and then he was done with that step.

These are the doors to the Babylon studio.

 This is one of the TV sets inside.

Caleb waiting for "Simba" to finish his turn.

Now, it's Caleb's turn to growl and be demonstrative as the "daddy" lion.

As an exciting side note, two days after Caleb's birthday, my dad has a birthday.  This year, as a wonderful gift to all of his family, he rang the bell at the cancer center in Houston to celebrate the end of treatments.

January 27, 2019

Wait...Where am I??

As you prepare for Thanksgiving travels and eating this week, I'm still playing catch up on last years stories.  

It was a rough, but good year for me, however, I didn't have much margin left for blogging, and since this is sort of a scrapbook for my family, I didn't want to skip over part of our life, so let me continue.

Last January my teammate and I travelled to Dubai for a four day conference. We also ran into a friend of ours who happened to be there at the same time.

I had never been to Dubai.

Dubai is in the Middle East, right?

Glitz and Glamour

Big and Shiny

Sleek and Modern

At first, I had to remind myself that these words DO describe much of the Middle East.  It just doesn't describe the Middle East I'm more familiar with.

Dubai Mall, for example, is the second largest mall in the world by land area.

In 2011, it was the most visited building on the planet! (over 54 million visitors each year).

We only spent two hours there, so I'm sure I didn't even touch a fraction of it.

(I'm not much of a "mall" person, but there was enough extra stuff there, that I was constantly entertained)

My home state was represented (along with MANY other American franchise restaurants)

This aquarium was inside the mall.

This little building was outside the mall

The Burj Kalifa is the tallest building in the world...almost TWO Empire State Buildings.

It's hard to get the entire building in one picture, but someone surely tried...

Ok. Enough about the mall complex.

How about Global Village?

We only had a couple of nights to go out, so we were squeezing things in fast.

Global Village is an entertainment complex representing all countries of the world (except the one I live in, funny enough).

These are the front gates.  A little Indian flair along with the Statue of Liberty.

After walking in a little bit, you can look back and see the "Burj Kalifa," the "Colosseum," the "Eiffel Tower," part of the "Opera House" in Sydney, and one of the towers on the "Taj Mahal!"

Mini-Taj Mahal

Look at the building representing Iran?  Beautiful (and LARGE), right?

 

I was definitely drawn inside the Africa building.

I wanted to buy some things I had been thinking about since we left Uganda that I didn't get a chance to get.

I wasn't disappointed.

It looked exactly like a market in Africa

Except that some of the African art was displayed so that Muslims would not be offended.

The Americas (North and South) were designed to show many recognizable landmarks, but the inside was filled with South American and Native American decor with a little splash of the Old West. There was even a mariachi band playing.  Visitors here may assume we still live in the Old West.



Syria had one of the most beautiful complexes, in my opinion.



Spices Galore!



There is no way we could have seen it all in one night, but we took in as much as we could.  We ate food 'in' Thailand, bought treasures 'in' Africa, my friend bought a belt 'in' Pakistan, and we wondered through 6 continents.

As we left, we walked to the taxi park to head back to our hotel.

You may not be impressed by this, but it REALLY impressed me!

These taxi drivers are all lined up orderly, row by row, and not shouting at anyone.  The men know who is next in line, and they pull up one-by-one for the next customer.

As you can imagine, this kind of order does not exist where I live :)



Also, every taxi is metered and has a GPS.

In the country where I live, we have to bargain for each ride depending on where we want to go (and we are often over-charged).  And I don't know if I told you a story about the first year I was here, but I asked a man to take me to a soccer field for Caleb's practice, and he said he knew where it was.  However, at every stoplight, he yelled out the window to cabs next to him to ask them if they knew where he was supposed to take me.  Then he would call different people on the phone and ask them.

Needless to say, GPS is a nice feature!

Another thing that caught my eye was the cleanliness of everything.

There was order, beauty, rule-following, no graffiti on buildings, and no cinderblocks used as outdoor decor.

Even though I was in meetings most of my time there, I used my breaks as an opportunity to walk around and enjoy my surroundings.  It was peaceful.

Don't get me wrong.  I am fully aware that what can seem clean on the outside has a dirty underbelly, as is the truth with many things. 

I'm pretty sure I couldn't afford to live there or visit for very long.  Dubai is the 58th most expensive city to live globally.  Paris, Hong Kong, and Singapore still share the number one "spot" for the most expensive, but are they as "spotless" as Dubai? 

Nevertheless, I was glad to go back home and join my family in a city that has rough edges, dirty streets, and a little less glitz and glamour because that is where I am supposed to be.

January 22, 2019

Moved in and "cold" is a blessing

As I've told you before, there was no working heater wall unit in our new house.  We had some "fixers" come to the house, but they started on the toilet and showers first.



I'm nothing but grateful.

We can wear several layers of clothing to get warm, but it's harder to find ways to get clean.

I drove my teenage girls across town one night so they could get showers at a friend's house, but I think Doug, Keira, Caleb and I went a week without a shower.

We also had butane gas heaters, but you had to be right in front of them to feel them.  The intense cold in the house swallowed up the heat in ways I've never seen before.

However, I didn't hear any complaining.  We were all aware that there were refugees living in tents during this same weather, and we at least had a solid shelter over our heads.

SO...let's look at a blessing of a cold house.

When we moved, we plugged in our refrigerator too soon, so it stopped working.  We had forgotten to let it sit upright for awhile before plugging it in.

Our icebox of a house was the perfect answer!

We left the doors open at first,

And eventually moved it all to the ice cold tile floor.

Our refrigerator was at the repair shop for over a week, and since we didn't get heat for two weeks, our food on the cold tile floor was well taken care of.

The lovely chandelier that came with the house only has two bulbs that work in it, and I think it will always stay that way.  I see no need for Doug to go to the trouble of replacing light bulbs way up there.

But best of all, another reason not to complain, when we look out our kitchen window, we see GREEN.

We are so thankful for this house, warm clothes, blankets, gas heaters, electric heaters, refrigerators, food, electricity, FRIENDS and FAMILY!

Sharing the Mountains

Sir Edmund Hillary is credited with being the first person to summit Mount Everest.  He said, “Human life is far more important than just getting to the top of a mountain.”

Well-spoken.

So…we went to the top of the mountain with friends, and we happened to run into more friends when we got there, so we shared the mountains together.

This also led to a friendly game of paintball.  The dads and the kids played, and Keira and I peered through the chain-link fence.

Kylie, Karis, and Caleb suited up.  

Quite the battlefield.

 

All good things must come to an end. 

So after roasting marshmallows, playing late-night games, making funny videos, rolling down snow-covered hills, and eating a lot of junk food, it was time to head down the mountain.

At least I think that's where we are heading???

Is there civilization down below?

Oh my goodness, yes!
All of these people were waiting in line to come up on the teleferic on their day off (Friday).

No time to leave like the present.

Plus, it happened to be my birthday.

My family surprised me by meeting up with some friends at the same restaurant where we had Thanksgiving and ordering milkshakes.

I think Keira liked the look of hers.

My friend told the chef I liked cheesecake, and he made this presentation for me.

 Yes, we all love the mountains, and sometimes coming back down is hard.

But...

“There are far better things ahead than the ones we leave behind.” – C.S. Lewis

And this is why we come down. 

There is more work to be done.

Onward and Upward.

Spiritually, mountaintops are a great place to see the might and glory of God and feel His presence, but as we all know...it's in the valleys where we stretch and grow and begin to look more like Him.

“Everybody wants to reach the peak, but there is no growth on the top of a mountain. It is in the valley that we slog through the lush grass and rich soil, learning and becoming what enables us to summit life’s next peak.” -Andy Andrews

January 3, 2019