resolving

a new year
it feels right 
last new years i remember feeling that the years just melted together, a break undetectable
but this is the beginning of the end of a season
10 and complete

happy new year

merry grown up christmas, world.

today

my day started at 7 am
i studied a bit and went to take my "life" exam
which i passed with flying colors! (13 points above what was needed to pass)
considering i hardly studied, i was pleased with the 83
next i went to cafe green tea and spent some time with precious people who love and feed me! tuna rolls with avocado, tea and croissant.
home to have a good cry that i couldn't get my finger prints done and would have to wait until i return from japan to have my life insurance license processed (chalk the tears up to pms and pre-show stress).
nap
up to go to the theatre
short, very interrupted and messed up warm up
personal worst ever opening night/nutcracker
to the green room for champagne with board of directors
and home to find this on facebook:

Nice to meet you.

I am George who is Japanese guy, currently studying in Australia.
I found you from "How to speak Japanese" community.

I understand that this is so stupid things.
But, I thought that if I do not ask now, I will regret later.
Of course, I usually never do that… Because, I am shy guy and cowardly guy..

Truthfully, I fell in love with you at first sight…
How lovely picture, you and dog. I am dog lover.
And sorry, I could see your some photos.
You are so beautiful..

And, honestly, I am strongly interest you. You are surely so attractive…
I was deeply moved.

I want to be your new Facebook's friend, if you do not mind..
Then, I could know more about you.

You can check my profile. My profile is open to all of users.

But if you have any reasons such as have a boyfriend, married, under 18 and dislike Asian guy, please tell me directly. I do not mind.
I am not stupid man, I am surely a sensible man.
I think that quite hard to give up about you but I have to do it.
Of course, I afraid that you got many love messages from guys...

Finally, I am so sorry to have troubled you…
And also, if you feel so uncomfortable, I am so sorry that too.
I did not have any choice to tell to you about my feeling.
I won’t bother you anymore. I promise.

Finally, I am so glad meet with you on the Facebook.
Thank you read my poor English love letter..

Love,
George

first ever love letter from a stranger on facebook

i have not stopped laughing

tomorrow i will reply with an i'm flattered but no thanks

and we do the whole theatre thing again.

i despise not being home for christmas.

it's taking all of my willpower to stay here
and it will take all of my willpower to make the trek(a long arduous journey) home

ah, to just appear somewhere would be such a useful trick

*(an useful trick??)

watched food, inc. today
terrifying

christmas time is here
and the world feels upside down for the most part
but this is indeed part of growing up

we still have not started our nutcracker
i feel insane about it
i wish we could just get it over with
i have loved seeing everyone's nutcracker pictures on facebook
time to have my own
we will be in the theatre next week.

speaking of insane
gabe, our ballet master gave us the definition of insanity yesterday
(doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results)
and suggested we were all insane because we weren't trying to fix the issues we've been having in flowers but always seem surprised when we get the same corrections.

i didn't mean to but i started laughing hysterically because he was so serious about the whole thing...
which just added to the sense that perhaps i was indeed insane.

for the most part nutcracker is coming along
snow is looking great
and for me chinese continues to improve
so i think we're about ready.

*

remember how big i am
and how big my plan is

today i stopped to think about where life is right now
about how i spend my days
how my minutes are ticked off
and whether or not i'm happy with it.

i'm happy at my jobs
i very much enjoy what i'm doing
but is this enough for life today
or is there more that the lord has for me now?

it's routine checkup time for life
the end of the year is often like that.

abraham heschel

"First of all, let us not misunderstand the nature of prayer... The primary purpose of prayer is not to make requests. The primary purpose of prayer is to praise, to sing, to chant. Because the essence of prayer is a song, and man cannot live without a song."

"I would say about individuals, an individual dies when he ceases to be surprised. What keeps me alive — spiritually, emotionally, intellectually — is my ability to be surprised. I say, I take nothing for granted. I am surprised every morning that I see the sun shine again. When I see an act of evil, I am not accommodated — I don't accommodate myself to the violence that goes on everywhere. I'm still surprised. That's why I'm against it; why I can fight against it. We must learn how to be surprised, not to adjust ourselves. I am the most maladjusted person in society."

i am very much intrigued by this man. i've been inspired to read again.

"We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit."
—e.e. cummings

i'm missing things and places and people these days
sometimes it's frustrating that nothing will ever be in one place this side of eternity
"miss" will always be a way of life...i suppose that's true for everyone in some capacity. 

these weeks are about being alone.

going home is always a sweet reprieve. four weeks.

stolen from a facebook status

"Ever since I heard my first love story I began looking for you, not realizing how futile that is. Lovers don't finally just meet somewhere; they are in each other all along." -Rainer Maria Rilke

don't you know

i want to do everything that i love

diving

there comes a time when you have to throw away everything you know and jump full speed into what is before you.

this is such a time.

addendum

my apologies for the rather over-dramatic previous post.
my toes were bruised and i had worn through some skin in spots on my feet
nothing major. just the woes of the first few days.

life is good and i am continuing to find unexpected work here and there.
i'm pretty tired, but resting in his new mercies each morning. :)

bruised and gaping

"ever wanna quit and figure out what you're good at?"

"yeah"

tears were most unexpected today
after waiting in great anticipation
i just didn't expect the not-so-young-any-more version of my brother
or the sweetness that i remembered
or the likeness of my mother's spirit that has always interested me
it resides in me too
i have missed him
i have missed out on something tremendous for years
we can be friends now
it's all water under the bridge

so i cried

in captivity

i want to be like daniel, hananiah, mishael and azariah.

this day

i am endlessly busy these days.
i hardly have time to think
and find myself crying when i do stop to do so
i miss cleaning my house and cooking for the girls i live with.

it's kind of funny in a way...
i go and go and only pause for tears that make me feel a little better until the next pause. :)
as always i must work to find a middle ground that gives me enough time for the important things
i don't  miss the initial weeks of having nothing to do.
but i don't like the constant comings and goings that currently fill my life

two weeks from today will mark a new phase
the season with bsa will start and i can stop trying to fit in dance classes
it will just be part of the day
and life will make that much more sense

it always makes more sense to do what you are created to do...

i'm praying that life gets less complex.
certainly financially the strain will be lifted
though we have learned just how much we can do without
$20 grocery runs for the week for three girls
that's kind of a new obsession.

and now i'm off to sleep before the hours are gone

"if you're still bleeding, you're not healed"

god is infinitely gracious and asks for such simple things

i think i figured it out
i am not made to do the same thing every day
i just want to sleep in

my shulam

tonight quite unexpectedly i miss this people.

micah was in an accident tonight.
a girl, paying close attention to her gps, realized she needed to turn and suddenly pulled in front of her and micah couldn't slow down in time.
by the end of the whole ordeal the other party had successfully made it sound like micah was at fault was as i kept repeating "it wasn't her fault. kairsa cut in front of her"

sigh.

i hope things turn out the way they should

october has come

there comes a time to cut off and wait
then there comes a time to chase after the very thing we cut off

everyone isn't right at the same time
finding your own path means seeking the lord
to know what you have not known
to beg wisdom to "loosen the knots"
these are the goals

love is hard
love hurts
and mostly
love is required

wedding!

we shared at our college group tonight about indonesia
it was good to recap and remember

i talked about justification-which is becoming a new topic of great interest
i think we all crave it like we crave eternity
sometimes the craving is perverted
or maybe more selfish

regardless of the motivating factors of the desire, or our preferred outcome
i believe it always comes...
and that there are unknown rules to this game of life
god has ordained things
cause and effect are real
and he doesn't forget what he has said

so with the breath that whispers
~come quickly lord~
i will continue to ask
where is my justice?

^<1Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. ²He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. ³And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.' ⁴"For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men, ⁵yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!' " ⁶And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. ⁷And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? ⁸I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?">

sonny was talking about having his parents under one roof
and we started discussing the beauty of things being right
maybe 'right again' or maybe right for the first time
either way we are realizing that a something made right leads to a lot of other things being right
things you didn't even know were broken

this is an exciting time for sonny
and for me and for those involved in his life
in the lives of the mr. morris and miss dorothy

redemption and restoration bring deep, fresh, new freedom
we didn't even know the things that were bound

jackson

i have been to jackson and back!
i had a wooooonderful time meeting with my professors from college, seeing old friends, meeting countless new ones and celebrating a wedding that has been long over due!

i have lots of thoughts and insights to share. it will all just have to wait a few days until i can get back on track with routines and whatnot. hopefully there will be pictures by then too.

for now here's to rainy san antonio! hurray for the end of a drought plagued summer.

those days

it's been overcast for almost four days now
unheard of in sunny san antonio
i think we're all starting to feel a little depressed...

micah and i have completely moved into our new townhome
we started the process on thursday night by moving a bed, dresser and desk by ourselves into a dark apartment (i didn't know all we had to do was switch the breakers on...you live, you learn)
friday we didn't do anything as we had promised the manager we would only need to place the aforementioned bedroom furniture in the townhome because we really needed to get it out of the previous owner's home. cleaning (though quite disappointing) and light construction was completed that day by the apartment people.

saturday was the major moving day. we rented a uhaul truck and, armed with the help of some precious church family, we got it all done. couches, tables, 50lb. tv, endless boxes and all.
we even got the major stuff unpacked.

sunday i spent doing little things like figuring out how to best set up the kitchen, bathrooms, etc. the space, though bigger than our last apartment, is distributed quite differently. it's all a matter of figuring out how to use it best.

this morning we were finally completely tuckered out.
maybe it's been remnants of the jet lag but i haven't been able to sleep past 7:30. this morning i could have slept until tomorrow...

the day was greeted by unpleasant things like turning the kettle that i bought yesterday on to boil and completely forgetting about it until we were running around trying to find the source of the burning smell. bugs started crawling out from under the dishwasher (no exterminator until thursday...). we can't really find everything we need thanks to some leftover boxes and suite cases i moved yesterday from the place we have been staying (most of our "every day stuff"). laundry is piled high in the back of my car with no slot in my schedule to get it done at the laundry mat (hindering my attempt to pack for my trip). the bathtub has a small gash in the bottom (long story) and i found out this morning it will cost us quite a bit to fix it. luckily we are not responsible until we move out...but $110 is $110...topping it all off, i dropped an egg on the rug at my nanny job AND we've started trying to implement the cry-yourself-to-sleep technique (i don't recommend you start this after six months of life...it's miserable for everyone involved). sigh.

it's just one of those days.

tomorrow i head to jackson. i will spend time with my teachers and friends and with sonny and his family as we celebrate the sweet marriage of his parents, dorothy and morris, after nearly 20 years of divorce. i am so excited to be a part of the restoration of this family! what an awesome honor and privilege!

i think the sun is coming out a little.
i hope your week has started better than mine.
back to work.

cheese

suddenly you wake up and realize you are no longer waiting for life to begin

this is it

this is where you live
this is where you work
these are the streets you drive
and these are your people

during the course of this singular opportunity
dream ginormously
live infinitely more life than you thought possible
laugh a lot
give away your life at every opportunity
love boundlessly
do it all well

only ina would make biscuits with half and half
i miss cooking
can't wait for my kitchen next week.
quote of the day
"i never cook with anything i don't drink." -ina garten

happy monday

talking to friend today for hours on the phone
helping me figure out how to focus my prayer life on what is important
what i can do and how i should be doing it
instead of freaking out over the situation and lack of clarity

sometimes my heart screams
her voice called me down
telling me to just ask the lord what the issues are
the burden will be lifted in time.

today i remembered that i was born to turn.
i love to turn
there is nothing quite so exhilarating as turning
i think that's a lot of why i wanted to be an ice skater

this season is going to be different and exciting

look what i learned to do. :)

more victories

yesterday we were surprised to have the doctor tell us that yutarou could come home. and this morning the hospital called before visiting hours to ask that we please come get shota. we are super excited to have these two boys home! ma-kun is most excited of all. he kept hugging shota. i wish i could have gotten some pictures. but here are a couple of our happy boys.

sitting up like a big boy

attempted smile at the camera

one of his most favorite people

a little skinny after laying in bed for so many days

these dragons

Fairy tales are more than true,
not because they tell us dragons exist,
but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.
-- G K Chesterton

a bit of sunshine

feeling better today.

sweet, never sick rin rin

pray pray pray

te-chan


yutaro. happy and ready to come home.
please pray they release him



shota. happy to be eating again
and so happy to be off the 24/hr nebulizer!
he loves to watch little einsteins on my computer


tomo tomo
still in icu. off complete anesthetic but still on relaxers to keep him from fighting
we miss them all a lot

small victories x2

te-chan opened two eyes today.
we have no idea if he sees. but it's something.

shota's 24-hour nebulizer ends in the morning.
he will be a much happier boy

tomoki was put to sleep with an anesthetic to keep him from getting too upset to get well
he's in icu, sleeping

yu can't keep his saturation up when he's sleeping
he was moved downstairs for better watching

we're getting there

pictures to come tomorrow.

epiphany

today i realized that the doctors don't know everything...and sometimes they don't know anything.
so continually asking "why" just stresses them out and frustrates us when we can't get a straight answer...though a simple "i don't know" would have smoothed the situation in my opinion...

our babies are very very sick. it's heart breaking. two are off food completely until...well, we don't know. constant IV. no nutrients to speak of. we have no idea what's going on...and i don't think anyone there knows either...

i've asked the lord a lot the last days why we are still there...asking if we can be done with kodomo byoin for good...why do we have to keep coming back to this hospital...and the answer seemed clear enough. each place that we set our foot is ours. it belongs to the kingdom of god. so we will walk all over that hospital. we will talk to as many people as we possibly can. and we will just keep caring until they ask why. we will keep playing hillsongs until they are overwhelmed by his presence. we will keep praying until they know that it makes a difference.

the lord has given us great love and appreciation for the medical staff that care for our kids. as frustrating as the situation can be, they really try to look after them when we cannot be there. so i now spend my days holding babies and praying for the staff that i see more often them my family.

i am most certain te-chan opened one eye yesterday. i saw that tiny pupil focus on me for brief seconds before the barely open lid slid shut again. my god is big enough even for babies with fifteen minutes of oxygen deprivation and barely any brain cells left. how exciting it will be to hear of te-chan's great adventures while in this deep sleep.

this cup

i've been spending all my time between hospital rooms
rotating as needed between the third and fourth floor
holding, comforting, playing, crying over the baby in 309
begging the lord for mercy, miracles, love to cover senses of abandonment

i've basically followed mom around
learned what she does
done what she does
fought alongside her, cried with her, talked and talked
and sought the lord for his very best for these kids

i wish that more people would walk in those amazing shoes
that more people would open their heart to feel compassion and love
that more people would be broken for these children
that more people would care enough to be hands and feet

there are a lot of other things i shouldn't say that want to come bubbling up
i'm still learning to let things go as quickly as my mother and father do
nothing is worth holding onto except jesus


how we miss this boy

august has always seemed the most elusive month of the year. even more so than february.
constant changes make things go faster
home is beautiful
life is beautiful
relationships, babies, jesus

sitting in Hong Kong waiting for our flight back to japan.
it is so time for home.

briefly

we've been in indonesia for over two weeks now.
we have experienced much.
mostly the unending, unfailing providence, love and amazing timing of the father.
there is more to say than words will ever express
and more pictures than can ever be displayed and enjoyed properly

the first days were filled with relief that clarity and confirmation bring
the next days were delightful
then the sick days came
and then the confused days
and now we're getting ready to leave the island of confusion and battle...also known as bali

we have fought our fights here
we are leaving with confidence that we accomplished our tasks
back to our little houses in karawaci we go. :)

i'm excited for the end

disjointed and about to leave

we're heading out! mom, ako, meg and i are still up and sewing...well, i'm not sewing exactly.
it's hard to believe the lord expects us to pick up and leave in the midst of so much...trauma...
mom has talked to me a lot, trying to help me work through the emotions and whatnot evoked by te-chan's dear death experience and (perhaps more traumatic) the actions of the ambulance people. praise the lord for her.
she is my hero
i'm changing. i feel it. the feelings that well up in me when i realize that these children have no one to fight for them except us...it's strange and unexpected.
i'm changing.
in regards to my outburst (s) at our "help", i didn't think i had it in me either, sonny. lol.

i'm gonna miss this place

i expect much from these acts of obedience

pause

we almost lost one of our little guys today
there is nothing as terrifying as the blue of death on a little lifeless body
just yesterday we videoed him laughing hysterically at being tickled
the world stopped for a moment today
before it pounded forward with tiny heart beats
he's on a respirator and there's been no swelling on his brain
his pupils undialated. he's sedated.
i cried and cried as i was allowed to stand over his bed in the ICU
a thousand i'm sorries don't change anything
it wasn't anyone's fault. i know i know
how do you cope with something that was so preventable
there's a reason, there's a reason
i think we've learned quite a bit about the medic system here
maybe we can help change that in some small way
maybe maybe maybe

train wreck

looking at old pictures and remembering
realizing things that i have never seen
wondering if knowing then would have been easier
if i would have grown differently
i'll never know

i just know today is hard

it's official
she's coming with us!
and we all need money!
please pray for us!

pattern (s)

i think a lot of times in my life i pray for things and come up with fantastical ways that god could answer, only to realize that the answers are right in front of my face.

i'm excited about this turn of events.

the upside of down

the hardest most rewarding assignment

i'm going home.

6 days and counting. i haven't felt quite so much desire to go home in a long time. i'm ready. :) just a little more shopping, working and preparing.

i usually don't like to say things like "the enemy is against us" but this time around something is certainly not for us. :) micah realized last night that her visa had expired just a few days earlier and will be going to houston first thing monday morning to try to renew it. please pray that they have huge amounts of grace on her situation. she's a little stressed out about it all. also i am not able to go with her to houston where the embassy is so we're hoping to find another (rather argumentative) person to go and stand her ground for her when she speaks with the consulate general. please pray!

wonderful wonderful week

micah and i just returned from a lovely weekend (week for micah) in dothan. i drove to jackson with mia on wednesday and sonny (without really knowing what he was getting himself into :) drove me to dothan on thursday to appease the parents who were refusing to allow me to drive the remaining six hours after the ten mia and i had driven through the previous night. he's a very sweet man.

we all worked a whole lot to pull the wedding off. it was quite an accomplishment and i was super blessed to be a part of it all. i still hate so much that i missed sarah's. :( but sticking with the brighter side, seeing family and old old friends was amazing. micah and i had a really hard time coming back to san antonio after being with family. we're both so ready to go home!!

we left dothan at 7 am and arrived back at our new temporary home around 11:30 that night. such a long drive!!! like to osaka and back and back again! it blows my mind that we are only part of the way into texas. it's just so big. wow.

this morning as we sat at our new "mother's" table micah kept saying, "it's just ten days, it's going to fly by." and we both laughed at her pep talk to herself. our drive back together was really fun when we were both awake. :) our arrival last night signaled the release of all the pent up riding-in-the-car emotions and we couldn't stop laughing. our ridiculous jokes were intermittent with "shhhhs!" and "you're so mean, deders!" i love micah. :)

in typical deder fashion i completely forgot that my camera existed. i will try to steal some pix from other people and post before too long.

for now, here's one. :)

go go go

i realized today that i rarely spend more than a few weeks in one place without some sort of road trip, cross country trip, across the world trip... so these last 2+ months (i know...it's not that long...:) mark a significant period of just being in one place without moving around and kind of being "grown up" with a job and whatnot. needless to say i'm itching to get away and woke up this morning so excited that i'll be GOING again.

i kind of have a split personality when it comes to going. i love staying home and being in my space with people that i love...but going seems to be in my blood and i cannot escape it. who knows if i'm this way because i've always been this way or my years at belhaven ingrained in me that art of moving from place to place without ever really settling down.

i've always thought that once i'm married with children and house i wouldn't feel the need to go, that i would finally feel "at home". i've been nannying for a french woman who lives here in SA and she said no, the need to go home, to travel and move never leaves. and there is always dissatisfaction because france is no longer home and san antonio just isn't it either. so perhaps we my need for travel can simply be translated as a search for home...if anything my life in san antonio has only fed my desire to go.

or maybe, looking at the big picture, it's just my destiny, my calling, my lot, whatever you want to call it, to travel, to move, to know different things so that i can truly appreciate the constants in my life...

my baby needs me. time to go

moving along

i look forward with great expectation