THE MOVE

Whew! What a busy week! We have been saying goodbyes, packing and finishing our last few hours of language class. Last night we ate Mynmar food with friends from Kenya, Pakistan and Asia and tonight we are going out for Russian food with my Scottish and American co-workers. I will miss the culture in this city! But, from what we have heard there is a large German population in the new city so now we are just looking forward to an Asian Oktober Fest...

On Tuesday a friend called to let us know that the five boxes we sent to the new city arrived, so tomorrow we will be sending a few more. Also, we found out about a moving company that will come to our apartment to get our bikes and a few other large items. This saves us a very long bike ride across the city to load the bikes on the train and allows us to keep some things that we thought we wouldn't be able to take.

Right now Asia is having a month long holiday. This is a great time for us to move because it gives us time to get to know the new city before we have to start back to school/work. The only downside is that we are not sure if we will be able to get our internet set up in the new apartment because of the holiday. So, we apologize in advance if the blog is not updated for awhile!

~A

We Still Need Parents

My parents and I boast, very affectionately, about how we've moved beyond the traditional father/son and mother/son relationship and ascribed to that relationship the title Friends...Best Friends, in fact. But as I was reading today, a profound sentence jumped off the page at me:

"Ultimately...parenting is mostly about...preparing our children for the final day. All parenting is ultimately a preparation for that day when your child will stand before the judgement seat of Christ and give an account." - C.J. Mahaney, Humility: True Greatness

As I reread those words I was struck with a reality: I am not ready for the final day.

Our culture places high value on self-sufficiency, independence, and individuality. This is not the case in most other cultures. Some friends we now have gladly allow their parents to choose...(insert cringing faces) their spouses...(jaws dropping open) careers...and (ghastly groans) names for their children. Us westerners would never let our parents mediate for us with our supervisors, or as we would put it, meddle in our affairs. Yet we see the mother of James and John beseech Jesus on their behalf. I am not proposing that we should develop an unhealthy dependence on our parents. I am aware of the command to leave father and mother to cling to a wife, but I also believe that the Western culture has fallaciously exalted the idea that at 18 (or marriage) the responsibility of both parent and child is completely abolished. And I am saying that it follows that since I am not ready for the final day, this going on 26, strong-willed, independent, grown man, can't forget that his best friends still have a God-given mandate to parent him and that he has a God-given mandate to honor, respect, and be parented. What does that look like?

"The biblical command to honor your father and mother is, in essence, a command to recognize [their] true greatness." - C.J. Mahaney, Humility: True Greatness

As I reflected on this I began to see the true greatness of my parents...their continued parenting of me through their example, encouragement, and love (I realized this is a slight departure, as it should be at this stage in life, from the traditional definition of parenting). Their faithfulness in ministry has been steady since I can remember. Currently, my dad trains men and boys to share Him at camps and my mom is leading a program in their church to share Him in the community. Their parental encouragement has been like an unceasing stream, from the time I took my first steps, to the day He became my Lord, to high school when I volunteered summers at camps and "spoke" at PVBC, to the day we left for Asia, to the e-mails I receive weekly. All of these things, I've come to realize, is still preparing me for that final day. But until that day, I (we) still need parents.

P.S. to my best friends: This is the only picture on my computer with just the two of you...please send more.

Sight-seeing

Last Saturday we took some time to go sight-seeing because I wanted to make sure that I had seen everything in this city before we moved. The picture of us together was taken in front of interlocking cypresses that symbolize loyal love. We noticed that a lot of couples were taking pictures in front of these trees so when we read the sign, I wanted to be cheesy and get our pic taken too!

~A

Our Move

We finally have some details about our upcoming move so we wanted to share our plans with you so that you can be thinking about us.

Tomorrow an Asian friend is coming over to help us mail some boxes to our new city. Please keep our boxes in your thoughts as they make their way to our new home since many of the things we are sending would be hard to replace.

Next week L and I will ride our bikes across town to load them on the train. From past experience we have learned that train rides are hard on bikes so please keep our bikes in your thoughts...they are a huge part of our transportation here!

On Friday morning, February 2nd, (Texas time) we will get on a train with the rest of our belongings. My co-worker Doug will also be coming with us to help with the move. We will arrive on Friday night (again, Texas time) and someone from L’s school will come to pick us up at the train station. We will then be able to go straight to our new apartment. Doug will stay until Sunday morning to show us around town since he lived there before moving here.

~A

Clayton, Help! The Language Dragon Strikes!

Yesterday I was in a coffee shop reading for several hours while A was in class and finally decided to eat something. Someone at a table beside me had just polished off a plate of pasta that looked really good, so I thought I would have that. I asked the waitress for a menu and proceeded to find the item, but couldn't tell which one it was. "Okay!" I thought, a chance for me to pratice my language. "What did the lady at the next table sitting closest to me have?" The waitress points to the menu. "I want that." Long pause. "It looks really good!" I added emphatically. At this point she starts giggling and scurried off quickly. "Bummer," I said to myself, "my long pause looking for the right words gave away my language incompetency." Then when she brought my food she had a huge smile on her face. Same when she brought my fork, then napkin, then refilled my drink that was already full. I was getting royal treatment all of a sudden from an increasingly giddy waitress. Somewhere around bringing the napkin she started some small talk, which I unsuccessfully tried to follow. Then at the end of the meal, I started retracing my words trying to make heads or tails of this strange treatment. Finally it dawned on me: Instead of saying "It looks really good" I had blurted out, "YOU look really good!" And given my long pause, there was obviously no connection in thoughts! Needless to say, I started anxiously looking at the time counting the minutes until A finished class and I could make my embarrasing escape!

My Amazing Mom

This post is a tribute to my mom. This week she found out that she has a fractured tibia. This is the amazing thing...she broke this bone in November which means that it was broken the whole time she was visiting us. She braved subways, walked multiple "just 10-minutes from our house" walks, went sight-seeing, carried suitcases, walked up and down stairs, went to markets, walked across a frozen lake...and never complained. As her doctor said when he gave her the news, "I'm blown away that you've been walking around on it. You get the tough girl award." My mom is amazing as is the One who protected her for the last two months from a more serious injury.

~A

Scottish Ceilidh

One of my co-workers, Doug (in the picture with L), is Scottish so last night we threw a big Scottish Ceilidh for our students. We rented a dance hall on campus and Doug taught us all how to dance six Scottish dances. Everyone had a lot of fun. Life is definitely never boring here! Maybe when we move L and I can host a country dance and teach everyone the Texas two-step...

~A

Happy Birthday, My Beautiful Bride!

I LOVE YOU!

Update

Now that my semester is winding down I finally have some time to read! I've updated the Our Library page (look to the right side of the blog for the link) with two new posts.

~A

For HPU Alumni

I took these pictures in May when we went to Brownwood for Jake's graduation. Recently (thanks to Sarah Huff!) we have been reading Dr. Roark's blogs. While at HPU he was one of the teachers that made the largest impact on me...its good to be his student again.

Go here to see a list of his blogs: http://beta.blogger.com/profile/08339539145393176843

~A