Reminiscenses, Rabbits, and Rickshaw essays

I always mentally refer to them as 'the Tornado kids."
Thats because whatever room they've been in, it looks like a tornado went through there.
The last time I walked into a room they had subjected to their energy, we found soda spilled on the table and the floor, its carton woefully crunched in the middle of the table; cereal that I had bought for the morning scattered everywhere with the wrappers tossed about, bread crumbs sprinkled around, and various clothes articles dropped here and there. And that was just the kitchen.
Ramona and I took turns snarling while we cleaned up the carnage and tried to figure out what we were going to eat, because our plans for dinner had been scarfed down amidst the sprinkling and spilling and scattering.
However, the three Caba kids did have redeeming qualities. When I saw them next and almost boxed their ears, they all pulled the Compassion Poster Child look and Smiles International grins and cooed their apologies along with offering the small peace offering tokens, promising to be good children. I think there might have even been some flowers involved.
None of them were biologically related yet they all somehow ended up with similar eyes and their voices sounded the same. It was funny because none of them were even from the same ethnicity let alone family. But they all referred to Corina as 'Mami" and all were slightly afraid of the oldest, Ramona (one of my best friends in Romania) and all were high energy, loud, bossy, funny, and had a talent for causing chaos wherever they went but were so sincerely charming and remorseful when caught.
One time when I was there, Sarah was quite put out that I was only staying for a few days. The last time she had seen me I had stayed six months. Corina and Ramona were dissapointed but understood that Mission trips have to be scheduled around the Mission, not the trip, and there weren't any kids at the orphanage or really anything that I could help with other than drinking coffee with Corina and talking and laughing. (Sometimes just reminding people in Ministry that there are level-headed people who don't hate you or aren't out to kill you or swindle you can be very ministering)
Anyway Sarah kept interuppting to ask why I was only staying a few days. My Romanian grammer is awful and my vocabulary comes and goes and often is confused with Hungarian that I also speak when in Transylvania. But the Caba kids were always very patient and, for the most part, pursued understanding with me and didn't manipulate the language barrier to their own ends.
I tried to explain that I was going to college in the fall and needed to go home after working with the Gypsy church plants so I could spend a little more time with my family and make money. The big take away for Sarah was that I needed money. So she scampered off, emptied her piggy bank, and returned with two fistfulls of coinage.
"Is this enough?" She asked, her brown eyes doe-like and pitiful.
Corina explained that I needed DOLLARS, not Romanian coins, and that certainly wasn't enough, please stop interrupting. Sarah sighed and left Corina and I to finish our conversation.
Today I got on Yahoo chat and saw Corina's ID online. I haven't talked with her for a while and hoped it was her online, but it turned out to be her youngest, David.
He wanted me to go Skiing with them after Christmas.
Now skiing in Transylvania sounds like something I would L-O-V-E to do, however not something financially possible at this point in life.
David REALLY really wanted me to come. He even offered to dip into his savings for a new bike and help pay for the ticket.
I thanked him for the generous offer, however the bike fund amounted to about a twentieth of the ticket cost, or simply the fees the airlines charge for checked baggage these days.
He was VERY dissapointed I couldn't use his bike money.
I've been really missing Romania the last few months. The magenta landscapes, the friendly villagers, the curious traditions and mindsets, the beautiful language, the good food, the quaint coffee shops and stores, my friends scattered throughout the countryside.
The trouble has been the last year my family and I have been put through the wringer on several leves. I'm sensing the season of pain is coming to a close, and its left us sort of gasping for a breath. I'm just tired. A couple of people have asked me where I want to go and what I want to do and my answer has been mentally, "Move successfully from survival mode to thrive mode!!!"
Its just been a long season of rearranging priorities and mindsets and worldviews and misunderstandings and clearing up arguments and realizing stuff about myself and trying to repent and mature and apologize and make up and justify or figure out etc.
It would be so nice to go back to the village; the place where Time moves in a circle instead of a line and certain things don't change no matter what. Where I can just wander and observe.
My grades have been slipping the last two semesters and a couple of people have told me I need to slow down. The trouble is my scholarship ends at the end of spring 2012, so I've been trying to decide between continuing the pattern of blasting through or taking it a little more slowly, adding another year, and doing things WELL. Both options have about the same amount of pro's and con's. Its been bugging me for a couple of months now, and there's no clear answer in sight.
All that to say, I'd really like to pack my family up and escape to the land of the Tornado Kids.

Barring that, I'd like my exhaustion towards books to go away so I could get focused on reading for my J-term (the Theology has been a painful blend of infatuation and apathy for me the last week). Or at least finish Elisabeth Elliot's biography on Amy Carmichael - which I've been working on since summer. So far my response to books has been to blithely ignore it and watch DVD episodes of "NCIS" with mom three-at-a-time. ;-)

Anyhoo. It was fun chatting in Romanian with David. Now I need to go find my brother so he can show me which trees on the property need 'wrapped'. Not with Christmas paper, with this guaze-type-stuff designed to keep away rabbits and deer.

Apologies to those who have wanted me to post more regularly on here. However, my attitude towards the written word in general has been one of classic burn-out. The 25-page paper I had to write the last week of school kinda took it out of me for a while. :-)
Will try to do better, however the computer is in high demand as my 16-year-old brother is also trying to finish chemistry homework, and the 10 year old has had multiple research papers to write on Vikings, Copper, and Rickshaws. He's writing 1-page essays and I am highly envious. I have mostly upper-level classes next semester; I'm looking forward to all of them, but I'm also expecting plenty of papers due for them all. And they won't be little piddle-ee-dink one pagers either.

~Princess Ouch~

Finals week and funeral

Went to chapel on Tuesday and this was the sermon. It was interesting that the subject was death, as my dad called later in the day and told me that my Grandpa on my mom's side had passed away the night before from a brain anurism. Sudden and unexpected.

So the last twenty four hours has been a flury of coordinating with family out west about coming east, figuring out WHEN I'm going to get papers and finals done, going to work, trying not to loose it when people casually ask how my weeks been, figuring out when the funeral is, trying to remember to eat, etc.

Special thanks to all my friends at school and co workers who have been so understanding and compassionate the last 24 hours. I'm pretty sure I've been acting wacky. An odd mixture of stress, focus, and simply trying to blow off through swapping stupid humerous stories.

Am off to try and get four book reports done. Am drowning my sorrows in a cup of delicious cardamum-infused black tea from the iraqi store with whole milk and sugar.

Class presentations and prayer

It was my turn to clean the apartment this week, so I've been trying to slowly whittle away at the list of things to do over the last few days in between working 20 extra hours (I love it when Catering gets swamped with events) wrapping up the semester (realizing exactly how LITTLE reading I did whilst turning in reading reports. Snap) and dealing with the daily drama in various friend's lives or worse, my own.
I was scrubbing away at the stove this morning when my room mate ran into the kitchen holding a paper and a zip drive. "Are you leaving or eating?" she asked.
"Hunh?"
"Are you leaving or can I show you my presentation while you eat?"
"No, show me the presentation."
My poor little Naga friend was assigned a presentation on upgrading a church's technology system. This is unfortunate because #1. technology is something she doesn't care about apart from her laptop and #2 she is from a part of India where technology belongs in Science Fiction films or at best is simply unaffordable. In a word, the project was pretty much irrelevant to her future ministry.
She presented and did excellent - the only area of improvement being her pronunciation of a few words I myself had difficulty getting out and putting the emphasis on the right syllable in the long string of technological wordage belonging to the various sound-system instruments.
"Rachel PRAY FOR ME! I am so nervous and stressed about this presentation! I have been working on it for so long and I'm so stressed! I called my mom and asked her to pray for me and you must also!" she stuffed her laptop and zip drive into her bag and breezed out the door.

A little thing, this presentation, to my way of thinking, but big when I consider that English is Priskali's third language, she's a private person who doesn't like to be the center of attention and didn't care about the topic of her presentation.

The cool thing about this room mate is that we have this cool deal: She'll listen to me rant and rave and I'll listen to her rant and rave, we'll offer advice or feedback if asked but the main (and usually only) action taken will be prayer, and that's it. Neither of us try to convince the other to change perspectives on the matter discussed - although it is often tempting for both of us - but always turn the other back to the Bible and Jesus.

Not saying that no one else in my life does this, just saying how cool God is to make my room mate one of those people.

And there's been lots of reasons for ranting and praying lately. Various close friends are dealing with serious illness or health complications that are dangerous, dealing with the death of loved

ones, questions about what course of action to take that will effect life's future, ramifications of poor decisions, and the normal stress of finals week looming ahead. Its been a lot to process.

I've been re-reading "Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret" by Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor. If the biographies of other missionaries are any indication, the stresses listed above don't get any better as life and ministry goes on, they only get worse, more regular, and happen in seasons that are even less convenient.
Snap. Being an adult is NOT all its cracked up to be!

The main frustration for me personally is not knowing what comfort to offer or not being able to FIX anything.
So the only thing to do is offer prayer, more prayer, and even more prayer. And getting steeped in the Word.

A friend of mine who I hadn't really seen all semester asked me the other day,
"So what are you doing in your spare time these days?"

I grinned, knowing how the truth would sound but was honest:
"Praying and reading my Bible."
Jason did a double-take and gave me a look like, 'Seriously I know we'r

e at Bible college and all that, but... really?"
"Yeah I know... sounds weird and all spiritual, but honestly, that's what I do in my spare time. It's just been one thing after the other."
"Hmm... everything okay?"
"Well... yeah... I mean... no... it will be... but... you know."
It's not like there's one big horrible thing going on, its just a series of small to middle-sized things

that all pile up.

I'm glad God is using this time to show me how important Prayer is, and how much more effective Prayer is than any other method of dealing with things. But I really wish that God would teach me things outside of object lessons! Example, when I pray for patience, I'd like the patience instilled FIRST and then get the experiences where I need patience. But see God likes to give me these things backwards: gives me the experiences where I need patience and through grueling self-discipline I practice it, or at least make a half-hearted effort and feel like I botched that test; get to look forward to taking it again. *snarl*

So... as one of my friends said, "Sounds like you are just ready for break!!"

Oh yeah!

How To Handle Stress

It's the new hot topic in town. The weather is changing so we have physical stress, exams are due so we have mental stress. Churches and the Body of Christ has numerous expectations so we have religious stress, boys are non-communicative and girls are confusing so we have relationshipal stress. The cafeteria food is getting old so we have digestive stress. Mom called (or didn't call) so we have family stress (disclaimer: this is not a statement said from personal experiance. I simply state what is happening on campus) The cousin went off the deep end and Auntie and Uncle are flipping out. So we have extended family stress. Yes, the two require two separate catagories.
She said this and he didn't say that, so does it mean they like each other, but wait I had tagged that one as MINE. Oh woops I just stuck my foot in my mouth, again. Do they wish they never met me?
The professors are stressed, the students are stressed, family members are stressed, the friends are stressed, I suspect even the dog is stressed.
Yippee!
So the answer is: Let's throw a stress-party! You must be ready to loose your mind and bring a snack to come. Costumes are preferable. No zombies though, please. Enough of us are pulling all-nighters to get the homework done, we don't need external reminders.

On a more serious note, a friend asked me today how she should handle all her stress. "Haha! FUNNY!" I thought to myself, as I have been asking myself the same question. I suggested praying and she looked around for her Old King James Bible to throw at me (believe me those things hurt when thrown!!) She couldn't find one, so told me to try again and added a few threats to my life (her dad is a marine and she does South American jujitsu on the side (not sure if that's how you spell jujitsue... jewjitsoo... jijitsew... hmmm...)
I asked how devotionals were going and she said fine. How was personal time with God? Fine. How was -
"FINE! Cut the Bible college crap and tell me how to get back in control of my life!"

Ahaa!

I cleared my throat. "Do you want me to give you the friendly college girly friend answer, or the Missions Major answer?"
(it's a running joke between us: She's an Apologetics major, so she'll be the one in a cushy office with plush leather and cherry-wood furniture creating theories and teaching them in a University somewhere, and I'll be out on the mission field actually living them out)
Her face began twisting itself so that it resembled something like a lemon, and with her eyebrows bouncing and her eyes squinting she said in something between a choke and a squeak,
"Give me the Missions Major answer!"
"You, my dear, are experiancing the lovely lesson of yeilding control to the Lord."
"Oh. Well, I didn't sign up for that class." She said, with an unspoken, "where do I send the email to remind the Professor that I'm not on His roll call list?"
"Uh, sorry, yes you did."
"WHEN?!"
"When you became a Christian. Consider yourself having enlisted in the Army as a grunt."
"No. Not Army. Especially not enlisted."
"Yup. Army. Consider it Army or the Concentration Camp." (Army being Life as a Christian, Concentration Camp being life without Christ)
"OKAY definately Army! Army is good. I can do Army. So how do I do army?"

So we talked some more and came up with a few basic 'rules':

1. Stop trying to keep control. You won't ever have it, even if you think you do.
Release it to God.
2. Don't try to go through it alone. Rely on God's strength and 'enlist' the help of the Body of Christ.
3. Ask others to pray for you
4. Pray if there is any sin you are unaware of (or aware of and not dealing with) that is keeping you from effectively hearing God's voice, and ask His help to deal with it.
5. Don't give up. Ask others to remind you to not give up. If you are in the will of God, then you will get through it one way or another!

We also discussed prayer journaling. A lot of times I forget that 1. it can be better than it is or 2. it could be a whole lot worse. If I journal my prayers, I can go back and read it and remind myself of God's bringing me through 'crisis' or when He has blessed me with a 'mountain top experiance.'

So there are the wise words from Dr. Rachel. Haha. That's a scary thought!

If you have any other brilliant insights as to how to handle stress, feel free to let me know!!
Now if you will excuse me, I have some homework I've been stressing about...

~Princess Ouch~

p.s. For those of you in need of a good laugh, here's this. I didn't write it:

GREAT TRUTHS THAT LITTLE CHILDREN HAVE LEARNED:
1) No matter how hard you try, you can't baptize cats.
2) When your mom is mad at your dad, don't let her brush your hair.
3) If your sister hits you, don't hit her back. They always catch the second
person
4) Never ask your 3-year old brother to hold a tomato.
5) You can't trust dogs to watch your food.
6) Don't sneeze when someone is cutting your hair.
7) Never hold a dust-buster and a cat at the same time.
8) You can't hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk.
9) Don't wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts.
10) The best place to be when you're sad is Grandpa's lap.


GREAT TRUTHS THAT ADULTS HAVE LEARNED:
1) Raising teenagers is like nailing jelly to a tree.
2) Wrinkles don't hurt.
3) Families are like fudge...mostly sweet, with a few nuts
4) Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.
5) Laughing is good exercise. It's like jogging on the inside.
6) Middle age is when you choose your cereal for the fiber, not the toy.

GREAT TRUTHS ABOUT GROWING OLD
1) Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.
2) Forget the health food. I need all the preservatives I can get.
3) When you fall down, you wonder what else you can do while you're down there.
4) You're getting old when you get the same sensation from a rocking chair
that you once got from a roller coaster.
5) It's frustrating when you know all the answers but nobody bothers to ask you
the questions.
6) Time may be a great healer, but it's a lousy beautician.
7) Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone.

THE FOUR STAGES OF LIFE:
1 -- You believe in Santa Claus. 2 -- You don't believe in Santa Claus.
3 -- You are Santa Claus. 4 -- You look like Santa Claus.

SUCCESS:
At age 4 success is . . . not peeing in your pants.
At age 12 success is . . . having friends.
At age 17 success is . . having a driver's license.
At age 35 success is . . having money.
At age 50 success is .. . . having money.
At age 70 success is . .. having a drivers license.
At age 75 success is . . having friends.
At age 80 success is . . . not peeing in your pants.

Pass this on to someone who could use a laugh.
Always remember to forget the troubles that pass your way;
BUT NEVER forget the blessings that come each day.
Have a wonderful day with many smiles