Shish Kebabs

This week is flying by!  I've been wanting to write more about our family time this week, but it seems like before I know it, another day is at its end.

This week we had shish kebabs.  It was BJ's birthday meal, but because Friday was so busy, we ended up doing it a couple of days later.

It was our first time trying them, and they were quite a success!  The reason I called it family time was because BJ helped me cook that night! 

It was so fun to be in the kitchen together chopping and blanching the vegetables and marinating the meat.  And let me tell you, the marinades we tried were both excellent!  In fact, we couldn't decide which one we liked best!  I will post the recipes below in case anyone wants to try them sometime.

Without an outside grill, we opted to try the grill in our new gas oven.  I was very glad to let BJ do the grilling.  I am still learning how to use this gas oven.  It definitely takes some getting used to.  I have to constantly watch the temperature and adjust accordingly so the temperature stays high enough and so it doesn't get too hot to burn the food.  It is worth it though whenever the power goes out, I still have my oven. 

We thoroughly enjoyed those shish kebabs!  We had no leftovers to put away, and we will definitely do that again sometime . . . together!  I love doing things together as a family.


Hawaiian Steak Marinade

1/3 cup of apple cider vinegar
6 oz can of pineapple juice
1/2 cup light soy sauce
3/4 cup of brown sugar
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp minced ginger (fresh)

Bring marinade to a boil, stir and let cool.  Place marinade and steaks or steak chunks in a ziploc bag or in a container with a lid.  Let marinate in fridge for several hours, turning over halfway through.  (We cut this recipe in half for the amount of steak chunks that we had.)
 
 
So-Good Steak Marinade
 
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup vinegar
3 teaspoons dry mustard
2 Tablespoons dried onions
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
 
Mix all ingredients together.  Pour over steaks in a container with a lid, and let sit overnight in fridge.  Turn over once during the marinating process.  (We cut this recipe in half too.)  This marinade gelled somewhat in the fridge because of the oil, so when we were ready to use it, I just set the sealed container in some very warm water to liquify the oil again.

Fruit for Our Labor

Sunday was a blessing as two men were baptized.  One of them was a young man named John whom BJ had led to the Lord a couple of weeks ago on visitation.  John wants to begin the discipleship course, the ABC's of Christian Growth. 

BJ has taught a couple of the faithful men in the church how to disciple these new converts, and it is fun to watch their excitement to serve the Lord in this way.  BJ is working himself out of a job which is exactly what a missionary is supposed to do.  Back in January when he began pastoring the church, he felt led to start the visitation and discipleship programs, but his goal was to have both of these programs totally in the hands of the nationals by the time Bro. Madory gets back from the States.  It looks like that is what is happening as these men are gladly taking those responsibilities upon themselves. 


People in the church are growing spiritually.  Winnie taught our monthly ladies devotion for the first time this month!  I was so proud of her.  (By the way, Winnie is the lady who watched Seth for me while I took Swahili language classes.)  On Tuesdays, BJ just finished teaching the men how we got our King James Bible, and the authenticity of It.  They thoroughly enjoyed that study.  Now he is beginning a series on Prayer.  He bought each of the men a copy of E.M. Bounds' book on Prayer, and they are each reading a chapter in it every week in preparation for discussing it together in the men's meeting.  BJ is so happy to see them excited and growing in their walks with the Lord.

The Madorys are due to return the beginning of August.  Then our focus will turn more toward the Deaf, for that is what we are called here to do.  Please pray for us that God will give us wisdom where He wants us to go and also that He will make things fall into place for us according to His will.  We will need to find a house to rent wherever we move, and that is not always easy in this country!

BJ's Birthday

The last few days have been full of family time for us.  Friday evening we had BJ's birthday party together.  Earlier in the day while BJ was out on a pastoral visit, Seth and I made a German chocolate cake, and decorated our house for a birthday party.  We also made some birthday presents.  Homemade presents are so special and packed with love.  Seth and I decorated a large, empty mayonnaise jar with construction paper and stickers and called it Daddy's Candy Caddy.

Then we loaded it up with miniature candy bars.  Seth got excited about the candy bars and told me, "Daddy can sure share some of his candy with me!"  No wonder he was rubber necking over his Daddy's shoulder when that present got opened!

We also made BJ a much needed back-scratcher from a stick with a corn cob on the end.  There are no such thing as back scratchers here (except me!), and so BJ was very glad for that present!

Then we had cake and ice cream and watched "Facing the Giants" together.  Seth wanted "Fireproof" because he loves all of those fire engines!  But it was Daddy's birthday, and Daddy opted for football.  Seth fell asleep toward the end as it was about a half an hour past his bedtime.

BJ and I got some chuckles out of the sleeping position he chose!

What I Am Thankful For Today

I am thankful for God's salvation so full and free.  I am thankful for my husband and my son, and that we are all three in good health.  I am thankful that God has given me my heart's desire to once again be a missionary.  I am thankful for other missionary wives who constantly encourage me in the work of the Lord.

I am thankful for little things . . .

. . . like warm blankets, hot water bottles, fuzzy socks, and hot chocolate as the temperature drops in Kenya's highland region.  Brrrrrrrrrr!  Without central heat in a stone house in June, July, and August, you tend to bundle up!  Seth was so excited yesterday when BJ brought home his very own hot water bottle.  We had two.  Now we have three!  One of the first things out of his mouth this morning was, "Daddy, can I have my hot water bottle to get warm with?"

And I am thankful for a beautiful, petite, pink flower on my African violet with many more ready to open up behind it. 

I don't know why this means so much to me, but I am "tickled pink" over my first flower!  God is so good to me.  He is an amazing Creator, and I love to look at His intricate handiwork. 

A Special Prayer Request

I have a prayer request for all of my faithful friends and family out there.  My parents are needing prayer right now--prayer for health.  My mom has had a bad cough for about four months now, and the doctors there in New Guinea are not sure what is causing it.  Four rounds of antibiotics have not helped.  They are planning a trip to the States in September to attend a meeting at their home church, but it is looking like my mom may have to fly home sooner than that to get checked out.  She is worn out and hurting from coughing so much.  Also, my dad has been having problems with pressure and pain in his eye, so he will have to get that checked out as well.  I would appreciate any prayers for them that we can get, and I figured my blog would be a great place to get more prayer support!  Thanks so much, dear friends of mine!  They are on my mind a lot right now, especially with being so far away.  All I can do is pray and put my trust in God.  He is always faithful.

A Very Important Family Tradition

Yesterday for Father's Day, Seth was determined to keep up a family tradition that was started (in his mind) on Mother's Day.  He came to me with eyes twinkling and such hope in his voice, "Mommy, can we lock Daddy in the room and paint a picture for him?"

A very tired Mommy suggested that Seth color a picture for Daddy all by himself.  But that just wasn't good enough.  When it was Mother's Day, Daddy locked Mommy in her room, and then Seth and Daddy very secretly painted a pretty picture for Mommy.  (Smile).  There were a lot of excited whispers going on that night. 

Mommy knows her boy.  Mommy knew her boy would go to bed very sad if Daddy didn't get locked in his room so we could paint something very special for him.  So with Seth grinning from ear to ear, Mommy and Seth "ordered" Daddy to the room.  He went goodnaturedly.  Click.  A little boy was delighted to hear the key turn in the lock!  This, of course, is the most exciting part of the tradition to him.  Then Mommy got down the famous water paints, paint brushes, and stickers that they had used to make Mommy's special picture last month. Together at the table with many whispers, we painted Daddy a special Father's Day Picture.

Most importantly, in a little boy's mind, we made a memory together and kept a very important family tradition!

Now today, he keeps climbing up on our bed to get eye-level with the two very special pictures.  Mommy and Daddy smile to hear a lot of oohs and ahhs as he examines the handiwork of our two most recent holidays.  BJ and I are not sure if this is only to be a Father's Day/Mother's Day tradition, or if it will somehow become incorporated into every holiday!  We shall see.

Sweet Peace in Giving Up

Here comes another post on culture, but that is my life right now.  Today, I made another mistake in the culture, but afterwards, I felt that I reached a milestone. 

In trying to do what I thought was expected of me in this culture, it turned out that I was not doing something else that was also expected in the culture!  Talk about shaking your head in confusion!!! 

Afterwards, I walked in the house, looked at my husband, laughed, and said, "I give up.  I can't win for losing, so I'm done stressing over it."  It will probably take me ten years or more to learn this culture, so I decided today to give myself time to learn it without beating myself up every time I do something in ignorance.  I am 100% perfectionist, and I can't stand making mistakes.  However, today I realized that it is okay to have some grace with myself.

I also realized that although I am living in Kenya, trying very hard to learn this culture, I am still American through and through.  I don't have to throw away my own culture to learn a new one.  Ah, the sweet peace in giving up!  I am not giving up on learning the culture; I'm giving up the worry and stress of trying to make everyone happy while I do learn it!  Yes, I believe I reached a great milestone in my missionary life today!

Seth's Playhouse

Boxes make great playhouses for kids.  Yesterday, a new refrigerator and stove were delivered to our house packaged, of course, in large cardboard boxes.  BJ kept the refrigerator box to be able to transport it again whenever we move.  But the stove box was falling apart, so Seth (with Daddy's permission) laid claim to it.

It promptly became his "office".  Every boy needs an office, right?  Especially if his daddy has one.  He played out there all day yesterday.  Last night, he figured out an ingenious way to "lock" his office with one of the metal staples from the box.  He hooked the staple through a couple of the staples still stuck in the box.  Hey, it held it closed!

Then first thing this morning, he wanted me to unlock our front door, so he could go back out there to his beloved office.  I had to make him wait until after school, of course, or I would've never succeeded in pulling his mind back to his studies!  He's been out there in that box again today, this time with his toy radio listening to Scripture songs as he plays.

However, today, it is his "house".  I guess he needed a house today instead of an office.  A smaller cardboard box in there serves as his "chair".  I am loving that big box myself; it's keeping him occupied for days on end!

By the way, I am SO excited about my refrigerator and stove!  They are my toys!  The refrigerator/freezer is huge compared to the tiny one I was borrowing from our landlord.  And my stove/oven is all gas so that I don't have to rely on electricity anymore to bake.  It's quite a sinking feeling to have something half baked when the electricity shuts off!  Many things like breads won't continue cooking at a later time and have to be thrown away.

Now I am having to learn how to cook with a gas oven.  There are no numbers on it for the temperature, just a high flame or a low flame.  So I will be playing with those knobs a lot, trying to learn where the various temperatures are in relation to the flame. 

It was a blessing to not have to buy these appliances as soon as we got to Kenya.  We were able to borrow them from our landlord until we could save up money for our own.  God is good!

What Must I Do To Be Saved?

Isn't it wonderful when someone asks you this question, "What must I do to be saved?"  It happened this past Sunday.  There is a family in our church who has three grown children.  Two of their children come pretty faithfully and have good testimonies of salvation.  Their oldest son, however, is a pilot who flies most of the time in Somalia.  He is on vacation here in Nairobi for about a month.  He's been "living it up" while he's home.  He got in with some wrong friends, and just about killed himself driving at high speeds drunk last Friday night.  He came to church with his family this Sunday very much sober and scared to death to die. 

BJ preached his third sermon in a series on "Eternal Life".  At the invitation, he told the people that if anyone wanted to be saved, they were welcome to come talk to him after the service.  Well, this week someone did!  This pilot humbly asked BJ if he could take some time to show him how to be saved.  Gladly, BJ led him to his office where they talked for probably an hour.  Finally, BJ told him, "I am not here to force you to make a decision, but if you want to repent and accept Christ as your Savior today, He will gladly receive you and forgive you of your sins."  The man immediately replied that he was ready to be saved!  It was such a blessing to hear his story when they came out of that office!  Now he can go back to Somalia knowing his life is in God's hands and his eternity is sure.  By the way, he wants to be baptized soon too!  "Thank You, Lord, for fruit for our labors."

Immersed in Swahili

BJ is more immersed in Swahili than I am.  He is out among the people more, and from the beginning, he refused to use English with them.  The Kenyan people really admire and appreciate this.  By now, after ten months, he has become fairly fluent in Swahili.

The ABC's of Christian Growth.
Going to disciple a new Christian who got saved last week.

Although, I am not as fluent as he is, I am finally starting to feel more comfortable with it because it is becoming easier for me to understand what other people are saying.  We can both say what we want to say now without first having to think through the entire sentence in our minds.  This has been major encouragement for me!

It is amusing to listen to BJ talk after he gets home from men's soul-winning on Thursday nights.  The men go to Olkeri, an area where people do not understand English well.  This is where he learned to speak Swahili, and this is where he's had the privilege of leading people to Christ in Swahili.  They talk for 2-3 hours straight in nothing but Swahili every Thursday.

On his way to Olkeri--a 30 minute drive.

Anyway, when he gets home, it is almost impossible for him to say anything in English to Seth and I!  He will start to say something, and all that will come out of his mouth is Swahili.  BJ told me this morning as he knelt to pray, all he could think of was Swahili words.  Oh, well, God knows Swahili too!  And you know you are becoming immersed in a language when you begin dreaming in that language!

My Burden Increases

Yesterday, interpreting BJ's salvation message for the Deaf, my burden grew greater.  As I interpret, I watch their eyes to see if they are understanding. 

Sigh.  I could tell they were not grasping what it all meant.  They know the signs for faith, gift, accept, repent, salvation, etc, and they know that those are religious words, but they do not know what those words mean to them.  What could the death of a Man 2,000 years ago have to do with them?  I pray that one day the lights will come on.  It takes much time and patience working with the Deaf.  Some people try to rush them into making professions of faith.  The sad thing is many Deaf will go through the motions just to make you happy when they have no idea yet what salvation means.  We know it could take years of faithful teaching and going over it again and again.  This is not because they are dumb.  On the contrary, many Deaf are extremely smart.  However, without the ear gate, they have not been exposed to the Gospel as much as the hearing.  It makes it necessary to start with the very basics.

I just finished reading Ann Judson, Heroine of Burma.  I love missionary biographies!  I made sure we brought a bunch of missionary biographies to Kenya, not only for my own reading, but for Seth's as well.  I read many missionary biographies as a teenager, and I believe God used those books to "bury my heart on the mission field."  As I read Ann Judson's story, I marveled at all she went through to bring the Gospel to those Burman people.  She and her husband were treated horribly as foreigners while Burma was at war with England, yet there was not one trace of bitterness in her life, only love for the people she longed to reach.  As I read the last page, my heart cried out, "Oh, that I might be found faithful like this!"  It wetted my appetite for another book BJ has in his office called To the Golden Shore.  This book is about her husband, Adoniram Judson.  I believe it will be the next book I pick up! 

New Shoes for Seth

Seth got some new shoes in the mail yesterday from Mawmaw.  They were sorely needed, let me tell you!  Oh, he had tennis shoes, but that meant Mommy was tying shoes every five minutes as he went in and out of the house all day.  I had sewed his last pair of sandals back together again 4 or 5 times before they finally ended up in the trash. 

So Mawmaw came to the rescue!  She sent Seth a pair of crocs that he absolutely loves.  Mommy loves them too--no shoestrings!  She also sent him a pair of sandals in his next size, so we are set for a while.

Here he is spending quality time with his ants.  Every time he sees ants in the dirt, he wants bread to feed them.  Well, on this day, I just happened to have a couple of old end slices, and so he gave them a feast.  Notice how hard he is concentrating on grinding it up small for them.  Smile.

By the way, Mawmaw, I don't know if you can tell that his fingers are red in the picture.  He is really enjoying that smiley face stamp you sent him!  I make him sit at the table to use it because I know he would love to decorate our white walls with red smiley faces!  He enjoyed making all of his fingertips bright red with the ink!  Boys are so much fun, but you gotta watch 'em like a hawk!

Cultural Adjustment

My sweet husband brought me home a book yesterday.  He and I love reading books.  He went to the Christian bookstore and found some good study books.  He also found a book he knew I'd be interested in.  It is about cultural adjustment.  It is written by an AIC (African Inland Mission) missionary lady in Kenya.  I really learned from the book, especially the chapter on cultural adjustment.  I could so relate!

She gives four stages of cultural adjustment:

The fun, tourist stage.  I can remember this stage when we first got to Kenya.  In fact, you would probably be able to read between the lines of some of my earlier posts, and realize that I was going through this stage.  Surprisingly, it lasted a long time, long enough that I thought I had adjusted without going through the other stages that most people go through.  This fun, tourist stage is when everything about the country and the people is wonderful.  You feel the romantic, on cloud nine feeling of finally getting to your field. It is when you look out your window and get really excited about seeing a monkey on top of your car or baboons and zebras on the side of the road!  Even the inconveniences seem to make life fun and interesting at first--like a camping trip!   You think, "Wow!  This is going to be great!"

The fight, flight, rejection stage.  This is what I went through recently.  When the culture and behavior of the people all of a sudden come into stark contrast to what you are used to.  What seems rude to you is not at all rude in that culture, but all you can feel is the hurt, confusion, and the rejection.  You battle with embarrassment, loneliness, and perhaps even anger.  For example, in trying to speak the language, you make a really embarrassing mistake, and everyone laughs at you.  You hold in the irritation until you get home.  Then your child spills his milk, and you lash out at him.  In reality, it is not about the spilled milk but about the embarrassment, hurt, and fear that Mommy feels inside.  You want to crawl into your shell in order to not come in contact with people so that you don't get hurt again and again.

She gave some remedies for this withdrawal feeling:  Learn to laugh at your mistakes, and then reach out and make friendships.  Not easy, but necessary for adjustment.

The fit, or adjustment stage.  This is where you learn to accept the differences of the new culture, and you begin to adjust or fit into it.  It does not happen overnight, of course, but after a time, that country becomes home.  A perfect example of this is my parents.  They have lived in Papua New Guinea for 21 years.  When they go back to the States for furlough, they do well for about three months.  After that, they are ready to get home to that quiet village life, to the Pidgin language, and to the people they are used to.  No, things are not always hunky-dory like they seemed to be in the first stage.  They still have problems and inconveniences and still make mistakes in the culture at times.  But they have become comfortable there.  They fit so well!  Smile!

The self-awareness stage.  I would describe it as being able to look back and see how God led you through each obstacle you faced.  To be able to see how you have grown from the lessons you've learned.  To know it was worth it all because people came to know Christ.  To come to the place where you truly love your mission field and the people you are called to reach.  The sad thing is few missionaries ever make it to this stage.  Statistics show that 1,000 American missionaries leave the field for good each year.  75% of missionaries return home within the first three years and never go back to a foreign field.  Where does that leave the field?  Still white unto harvest with no laborers. 

This is what I've been reading the past couple of days, paraphrased in my own words and experiences!