In the meantime

[Update:  it worked!  I had started writing this blog post expecting my 10th try to upload the video to fail.  It didn't...hooray!]

We finally have our internet back after it went AWOL for a few days.  Computer stuff is always messy...even messier when it's in a foreign language and you have no older brother nearby to help you figure it out! 

I attempted to upload the promised video overnight--because our internet is so slow I started the upload, went to bed, and hoped it would be done when I woke up.  Alas, a computer update caused an automatic restart, so we're no further along.  Mei you ban fa ("there's nothing to be done"). 

In the meantime, I feel like my friend Alicia who recently lamented on her blog that she doesn't post nearly as many blogs as she writes in her head.  There are SO many things I want to write about our first week here....can one ever catch up?  Despite all there is to be done, I'm really trying to listen and follow in the footsteps of my blogosphere mentor Ann Voskamp whose first book came out in January and I've saved it to devour until we arrived.  So timely.  So rich.  So hard. 

She quotes Erasmus:  "A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit."  She describes her naming of one thousand gifts as driving nails and reminds that even Paul said that contentment (can also be called gratitude?) is something that must be learned and that learning requires practice.  And so, she writes, she lists, she names, she hammers, she learns.  And in the rest of the book she holds out the miracles that He has wrought as a result.  Miracles she did not expect (can miracles be expected?), miracles she dares to invite us to hope for, expect.  And so I take the dare.  Pick up where I left off.

*replaced lightbulbs ("Let there be light!')
*clothes dried while hanging overnight
*always a pile on deck (a parable of the continual need for repentance and cleansing)
*funky new curtains
*parasol bed spreads
*room darkening lining
*oldest girl sleeping until 6 am--finally a well-rested look in her eye
*greeting toys like old friends
*being understood despite my broken language
*stiff-dried clothes...but they're clean!
*familiar smells that spark memories
*books on the shelf that are like old friends that stowed away with us
*the hope of Skype
*friends that lay down their lives to serve
*all those that are making it possible for us to be here
*Wal-mart
*the grandmas and grandpas here that love my children
*the lady who found out for me how to say avocado in English
*realizing before it was too late that avocados are way  too expensive to buy
*beauty found in the least expected places
*birds that sing underneath our windows even on gray, smoggy days
*cardboards boxes as artists' canvas
*sweet friends for my children here
*and for me!
*prayers by others that get it just right
*truth told by folks that know
*a heart to receive it
*this poem shared by my friend Maggie