tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32104045500152502852024-03-13T19:36:22.749-07:00Una Mona in BogotaRebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17509527542982650593noreply@blogger.comBlogger126125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3210404550015250285.post-30459789292424016632021-04-16T13:42:00.000-07:002021-04-16T13:42:01.518-07:00Hard, hard times<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Oooooo…hard, hard times.</i></span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Mmm, mmm, mmm these hard, hard times.</i></span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s the chorus to an old Chris Ledoux song. Standing alone, the words aren’t very profound. But the images…</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Old man stand by the loading chute…won’t make the payment on the land, it’ll pay the interest on the note…</i></span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>He’s picking up cans in the roadside dust. She’s at the Feed Rack Cafe…</i></span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>No one sees the banker’s tears but the one that shares his name.</i></span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">That chorus brings other images to my mind, almost tears as I look out the window at the dust blowing by. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Homesteaders a century ago, the wind howling through the cracks, the dust blowing away their hope of a crop.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">A cemetery full of baby graves, because one year there was a sparse harvest, a hard winter and a lot of sickness. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Men walking away from home to look for a job elsewhere, mothers watching children play without shoes and stretching the last pot of beans.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The 50s, when the young man who watched his father plant 50 sacks of beans and harvest 15 walked away.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">The families packing what they could in their cars, driving away - leaving everything else in the house where they could no longer live.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Those old houses falling, ghosts of life crying out in the dust and the wind.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Oooo, these hard, hard times. </i></span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">We don’t know hard times, my generation. The news reports on a family needing stimulus money because they couldn’t deposit in the baby’s college funds. A 20+ with a medical degree has to work at Starbucks and live with roommates because he can’t find a job in his line of work in his town. Facebook hosts the cries of an “essential worker” upset because she isn’t getting hazard pay.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s a good thing to remember the real hard times, the hard times of the people we know and love in the places we know and love. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">And when I see the truck drive away full of cattle, including Smudge and Smartie and their mamas, when I see the few remaining cows dotted across the brown pasture, nibbling on the last bit of hay…When the wind wears on my mind and my heart hurts for the ranchers in the dilemma of drought…. Through the dust, I will lift mine eyes to the hills, from whence something my help. My help cometh from the Lord….</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">And here in my snug house, with plenty to eat and fully clothed children, here with my family near and grand possibilities for the future, I will remember that I don’t know <i>hard, hard times.</i></span></p><div><span style="font-kerning: none;"><i><br /></i></span></div>Rebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17509527542982650593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3210404550015250285.post-31790759903050184142020-08-28T09:11:00.001-07:002020-08-28T09:11:26.680-07:00Signs of the times<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Today I heard that the courts had given the governor power to levy fines from one law as a consequence for breaking a different law. I’m weary, weary from watching liberty worn away because we have to be “safe.”</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m especially weary of trendy Christian publishing and churches, stating that we must embrace the “safe” agenda in order to be loving. Is it not loving to preserve liberty?</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I think of Christians like Bonhoeffer and Niemoller, who challenged the good Christian citizens of Germany. I’m not calling anyone a Nazi and I’m thankful we are not yet seeing Christians in the U.S. carried off to concentration camps. But I wonder, so I rewrite Niemoller’s famed quote.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">——</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">First they came for the first right to assemble, and I did not speak because I had social media.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Then they came for businesses, but I did not speak because I did not own a business.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">They came for the right to work, and I did not speak because the government would provide me income.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">They came for freedom of religion, but I did not object because I could meet on Zoom. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">They came for freedom of speech, but I did not object because some might perceive history as offensive.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">They came for the right to private property, but I did not object because one race had been treated as property hundreds of years ago, when others of their own race caught them and sold them to traders.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">They came for my right to privacy, but I did not object, because someone might get the virus.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">They came for the Christians, but I cannot object because my faith is offensive and dangerous. I depend on the government for support. And I have no rights.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">——</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I do remember it must be so. Throwing aside citizenship and liberty will only fulfill Revelation 17:17. “For God hath put in their hearts to fulfill his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.”</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">And when that prophecy is fulfilled, Jesus will come. Come quickly, Lord Jesus, and make us ready before.</span></p><div><span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>Rebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17509527542982650593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3210404550015250285.post-59174419670724294752020-08-28T09:10:00.000-07:002020-08-28T09:10:22.920-07:00My Dad is a Cowman<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">My dad is a cowman.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">We are riding in a pasture with 25 head, many of them black. Cows are lying down and standing. A quarter mile away, legs hidden in deep grass, head shaded by the tree, a solid black cow stands. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">“That’s mine,” he says. “I can tell by the way she moves.”</span></p>Rebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17509527542982650593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3210404550015250285.post-21696287118292892362020-08-28T09:09:00.003-07:002020-08-28T09:09:26.097-07:00Lesson from a Little<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">We had been helping Seth tie fence. The girls were tired and ready for lunch (I was, too). I was driving across the pasture when I hit a hole, a deeper hole than I had seen the whole time and one of which I was completely unaware. Jael slid, Kate’s seat bounced, I jammed my arm into the steering wheel sending a sharp pain up my shoulder - and I feared that we would be stuck. Pushing the gas pedal, I said, “Oh dear God!” And Jael said, “Praise God.”</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Yes, she is right. Praise God.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">(Any time she falls and gets hurt now, she tearfully says, “Praise Jesus.”)</span></p>Rebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17509527542982650593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3210404550015250285.post-31211176477698702812020-08-28T09:08:00.003-07:002020-08-28T09:08:39.630-07:00This is your life<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">This is your life/Are you who you want to be?</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">This is your life/Is it everything you dreamed that it would be?</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">An old camp song that I never really liked, these two lines nevertheless haunt me occasionally and the answers… come.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">This is my life…</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Gone are the mornings of getting up early for coffee and quiet time before facing the world. I get up pretty early, but it’s as late as my Littles will let me sleep, and I usually get to sip one cup of coffee while nursing one and reading to the other before diving into breakfast and dishes.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Real breakfast, mind you. No more granola or cheese toast. We eat three real meals a day - granted one is usually simple (sandwiches or leftovers), but I cook meals. Maybe it’s our farming heritage lived out; certainly, trying to maintain a healthy diet plays in… Whatever the case, there’s no fast food to which we can resort and much of my time is consumed in the kitchen.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Breakfast done, I hunt for a window for exercise without my two year old using me as a jungle gym. We have to feed our chickens, and potty breaks may take up to 30 minutes. The baby usually takes a long nap, so I can tackle dishes, laundry, and lunch prep, but we wait for her to visit the clothesline because she enjoys sunshine and sticks.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Most days their dad comes in for lunch, then we read stories before naps. I always have lofty plans of writing or scrapbooking while they sleep, but paying bills or doing books for Seth’s shop wins out…if they let me sleep the night before AND they nap simultaneously. It often seems that the day is gone by mid-afternoon, because little girls waken best with lots of snuggles, books, maybe a tea party and another visit to the barn. We come in to fix supper and visit with Dad before beginning a bedtime routine.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">And every day has a twist. Those precious mornings for chores sometimes are appropriated to hauling wood or fixing fence. Perhaps we have herbs to pick and dry or flowers to plant in the yard. We might check a water or feed some mineral in an afternoon with Dad, or even have a ranch tour with Pops (my dad). Sundays we celebrate with church, and about once a week we brave some other trip - to Claunch to the post office, to town for groceries, to Mumzie’s (my mom’s), or maybe we have a bit of company. Come spring and fall, mornings come early and whole days are spent outside with the cows. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">All this sounds wonderful. And this is my life. I am who I want to be - wife, mom, daughter, rancher, homemaker. I am also a vessel needing the power of God to maintain not only peace and patience, but also my sanity…</span>The excitement of interruptions is always balanced by the neediness created when routines are changed. That, and the frustrations of sinners in an imperfect world.</p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><br /><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">You see, it’s everything I dreamed it would be, and more. I didn’t dream about washing out dirty diapers or staying up at night. I didn’t dream about the impossibility of keeping up with housework or putting all my projects on hold, feeling like I must be lazy, yet too drained to do anything more. And I certainly didn’t dream about the fact that my routines really aren’t routines at all (and this is why none of the sleep training books work for me!). It is a rare day that my plans work out. If Dad and Pops don’t make a different plan, the girls have some complication that takes my time and attention. Which is all fine and good, except…</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Unrealistic expectations can become an idol. And when I get frustrated by my seeming lack of achievement, when I get frustrated at whatever drop by mechanic customer, potty training accident, or failed recipe that messes up my plans, when I am frustrated because I can’t be in all my roles at one time - things go badly. I get cranky. I get aggravated at my children being children. I mistreat my husband and grumble at life…Because who I am is a sinner saved by God’s grace and daily seeing my need for it more. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">When I cast down the idols and leave Jesus on the throne, I see so much more than I dreamed! A baby playing with a rocking horse and headband in complete joy. A two year old quoting her books as she wakens from her nap. Happy days in the sunshine as they play in the dirt or cool morning breezes while my husband points out the sunrise. I could not have dreamed of these things because I did not know they could be. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">This is my life. I am who I want to be (by the grace of God, who is making me!). This is my life. It is everything I dreamed that it would be. And more. Except -</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">It isn’t perfect. The one dream left is heaven, where Jesus is. Perfect.</span></p>Rebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17509527542982650593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3210404550015250285.post-85554142670514759902020-08-28T09:06:00.000-07:002020-08-28T09:06:22.982-07:00Thankful in These Times<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Disclaimer: I’ve tried to not bother writing much about politics or the pandemic. It seems we have all settled into our camps of opinion. The Fox News camp, the CNN camp, the Facebook FactCheckers, the militia, the students of alternative medicine. …. And we all gather information to support our opinion. So this is not so much about COVID (or politics in general) as it is about how I see God working in little ways, caring for little details of my life.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;">----<span style="font-kerning: none;"></span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I’ve been thinking during this “pandemic,” this time of “unprecedented turmoil” (oh, how I tire of the word unprecedented), of the things for which I never knew I would be thankful.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Once I considered dating a guy who was a theological student and wanted to be a missionary. Like most of us on the Generation X/Millennial line, he was adept in acquiring electronic information. I bet he would want me to wear a mask and social distance.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">When Seth and I were dating, we thought we would live in Cortez. I don’t know what that would have been, but I know I would have had to find a new circle of friends and lean on only a little bit of family. And I know without the ranch, my girls and I would have had to “live” much more publicly. I have a friend who lives near town and has been truly isolated during this time, for her friends were all scared to gather.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">For a while, I wished we were close enough to attend this church or that, churches I knew preached the gospel and loved people. And now - some because of conviction, some for population’s sake, some by pressure of location, these churches have complied with the governor’s orders.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">And I’m thankful that these things are not.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I know many of you will disagree with me. The “pandemic” is not a gospel issue. Yes, there are Biblical principals to apply, but how they are applied and which are primary really depend on cultural issues. Where do you get your news? How do you view alternative opinions in medicine? How important is the Constitution and what do view as the government’s role? How do you determine truth in current events? How do you look at history? Every answer is like a turn in a maze, the center of which becomes the Christian conclusion of a politicized dilemma, leaving with much more a question of culture than of godliness. </span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">But I’m thankful that God has yoked me with a common culture. Although I thought he was a bit too political when I married him (:-), I’m now so thankful for a husband who isn’t afraid to read and dissect the news and beyond, one who encouraged me to abandon Facebook (even though I miss your updates and the pictures of your kids). </span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m thankful that I live - and I mean really live, every day - where I don’t have to go out in “public.” I don’t have to face the controversy. I’m thankful for the network of people around me who realize that neither news nor politicians are bound to the truth. I’m thankful for aunts (uncles, and cousins!) on my mom’s side who study health and history voraciously, finding facts. I’m thankful for uncles, aunts and cousins on my Dad’s side who would rather live in Constitutional liberty - to really live and do and care about people - than to exist only electronically. I’m thankful for my parents and in-laws, for friends and neighbors, who see death as fact and life as fragile every day, with or without a virus.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I’m thankful for my church, a church where the gospel is paramount and the Word is preached. A church where liberty is valued as a gift of God and standing for it is an act of love. A church of practicality, who strive to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Jesus said persecution is coming. The epistles say we need to be a sweet savor of the gospel, yet a peculiar people. We know truth will not be popular. And we know we will not be popular. As those times come, by God’s grace, may I continue to be thankful.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">——</span></p>Rebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17509527542982650593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3210404550015250285.post-3706671044825070322020-08-28T09:04:00.001-07:002020-08-28T09:04:35.328-07:00Because they asked<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I was single for a long time; I married late in life even for the “culture of the day,” and very late for the family-oriented homeschool community which so profoundly influenced my life. Single girls have asked me for insight into how best to serve God and what to do in days of singlehood. I don’t always have answers, but I do have words to answer one question.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">How did you know when it was time to look - why did you finally get on Christian mingle?</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I didn’t for a long time. I remember one pastor cautioning me to not be Abraham turning to Hagar, missing God’s plan and promises for one of my own. And I wanted to wait on the Lord. I had so many opportunities, a full and busy life with great privileges of serving God and others. There were times when I thought I might be content to be single in a ministry role forever; I thought I didn’t need a spouse to help me in my walk. And there were times when I absolutely was not content and wondered why God did not grant me a husband, home, and family.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I alternated in those seasons for many years, and never did I feel free to look. I let people talk of matching me up and I didn’t avoid opportunities; maybe I was a little embarrassed to look online. Mostly, I didn’t feel freed by the Spirit - I felt that if I went advertising my desire for marriage I would wind up with some warm body that was far less than God’s plan.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">Then came a really hard season in my life. I wished I had a husband to support me through it, but felt unqualified to marry. It was a season that ended with total release and total restoration, not of good cheer, but of joy, of knowing that God was enough. That I might not want to be single in that place forever, but He would support me and I would be blessed if I were. More importantly for the question at hand, it was a season of realizing my own sin. I was saved as a child, and I’d had numerous “moments” with God acknowledging my helplessness and confessing my sins (specific ones!), but it was in this season that I came to realize the inherent sin saturating my humanity. I realized that no matter how hard I tried to address my problems, they would arise again. I realized how weak I was, how prone to self deception and justification of wrongdoing. And I cried out to God, acknowledging how much I needed Him; this was followed by a cry for a companion to walk with me, but this time it was not a demand.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">And at this time, the online dating story began to unfold. I was a little nervous, but in no way did I feel I was leaving God’s will, refusing to be content where He had put me. In my mind, I was Rebekah, going out to meet the servant who’d take me to Isaac (OK, it’s a stretch, but…)</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">On this note, I will add one more word of wisdom (this is your cue to look suspicious). We communicated without meeting for almost four months, dated for almost four months, and were engaged for almost four months. We lived miles apart for most of that time, and even after Seth moved nearby, he was almost like a guest, for his life wasn’t established where we were. I’ll be very blunt here and say I did not realize all of his shortcomings. Maybe I missed the clues, maybe it moved too fast, but I didn’t expect all the struggles we’ve had.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">And he didn’t realize mine. As a matter of fact, I didn’t realize all of my shortcomings. I didn’t know the sides of me that would come out when life was out of my control or when I was tired. The fact that God had brought me to a point of acknowledging my own sinful sinfulness has allowed Him to bring us through it. I realize how very, very good God is when I look back at how He has worked to bring me a husband who is better to me and better for me than I could ever have dreamed.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">I want to fix Seth, of course, but acknowledging my sin, my weakness, my helplessness allows me to let God do the work. think that everything I might have “nixed the relationship” over was hidden, so I could watch God grow and admire my husband’s heart more than I ever could have had he come to me “perfect.” And to do that, I had to realize my own role of dependence on the Savior.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">That, my dear girls, is my word of wisdom. Don’t go husband hunting because you don’t know what to do with your life. Don’t go husband hunting because you think “I’m content so I’ll choose well.” Go husband hunting because you know God is enough and He has a plan for your life, but you need Him - and gives you peace to seek someone to walk with you toward Him.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 12px;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>Rebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17509527542982650593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3210404550015250285.post-69483806685278514122020-03-27T12:28:00.001-07:002020-03-27T12:28:06.286-07:00Acacia's Birth Story (Maybe I'm a little sentimental)<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9CzyM91EuJY/Xn5SW3AGBwI/AAAAAAAABDY/NjrT9fPdd8AJjCIk5B4qupEf5pzo0uJaACEwYBhgLKs0DAMBZVoD6iXyVTiYDXybfLUvwTvjF_ezkSJA9b5fxkfQHILhwo4EoXJGhP4SWF0JGBrQs7jCLwBejWQ1hlsxLxIwxaZcIeCB-BJwgUGuHwIqrW3zFKhtRYBls-muHPk60Pdfckkf7TIi4MsMx7T4MNKcrlLsXAhL3JEgw1uAiREe7xT53bX48k5pU0qV70_7L5nU0HejVzAk5Fk6Ro3RBKfMWbIs0fnv4_rrsaD_vWQ8RnW5Z59kfLmt2nxgS6DC3Kzhzg3jtY17nWg0jE4JEP8CrYTdPAmTI9eMdfGU8SzOgd1YVJDrV9j5aMkmo_-Sgfjx-obBzjsVsF5ms0MmqyOdoqtB3SE2XLRiRVMlJOXfCVFC-Vlrfkp15XfNyfRAdkoi_vKQ1zUFj0GDNHNBkF2aXEZ34meCQh1Iebj31juyu9hrybU5vmpJXv503Qdgv5BAzTquY3DnuYBLN2to0XGHfZOMnBwc3dNifdMBFp2sKBffYi_GPXP5nHjVcFcBwnw-i0qyDQ5vDeSArm0zFOAY1UXUjZ-pFWq9OsW4RlHIaJc6i3dXBquTiK3i4neekgvajZCWNy1bVDakffsVF5TDcIFhC3MdQEdAx7kkwkKv58wU/s1600/IMG_2143.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9CzyM91EuJY/Xn5SW3AGBwI/AAAAAAAABDY/NjrT9fPdd8AJjCIk5B4qupEf5pzo0uJaACEwYBhgLKs0DAMBZVoD6iXyVTiYDXybfLUvwTvjF_ezkSJA9b5fxkfQHILhwo4EoXJGhP4SWF0JGBrQs7jCLwBejWQ1hlsxLxIwxaZcIeCB-BJwgUGuHwIqrW3zFKhtRYBls-muHPk60Pdfckkf7TIi4MsMx7T4MNKcrlLsXAhL3JEgw1uAiREe7xT53bX48k5pU0qV70_7L5nU0HejVzAk5Fk6Ro3RBKfMWbIs0fnv4_rrsaD_vWQ8RnW5Z59kfLmt2nxgS6DC3Kzhzg3jtY17nWg0jE4JEP8CrYTdPAmTI9eMdfGU8SzOgd1YVJDrV9j5aMkmo_-Sgfjx-obBzjsVsF5ms0MmqyOdoqtB3SE2XLRiRVMlJOXfCVFC-Vlrfkp15XfNyfRAdkoi_vKQ1zUFj0GDNHNBkF2aXEZ34meCQh1Iebj31juyu9hrybU5vmpJXv503Qdgv5BAzTquY3DnuYBLN2to0XGHfZOMnBwc3dNifdMBFp2sKBffYi_GPXP5nHjVcFcBwnw-i0qyDQ5vDeSArm0zFOAY1UXUjZ-pFWq9OsW4RlHIaJc6i3dXBquTiK3i4neekgvajZCWNy1bVDakffsVF5TDcIFhC3MdQEdAx7kkwkKv58wU/s320/IMG_2143.JPG" width="240" /></a><span style="font-kerning: none;">One cannot relive a memory every day, and even as we try, we lose the details and perhaps a bit of the emotion. Sometimes this is good. Pain fades, hurt feelings lose their power to foster bitterness, anger abates. Sometimes it is not. I do not wish to lose the joy of birth, the sweet peace of moments with my babies. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And so I begin, writing a letter to my sweet Acacia of her life, a letter for her, for me, and to share with those who love us. )I might mention that this baby was the baby of emotions - I will never forget crying as I heard “Little Joe the Wrangler” - for the umpteenth time, but never before with tears.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Precious Kate, from the time we knew you were coming, we were excited. And almost from he time we heard your heartbeat - certainly by the time I felt you kick - I called you Kate. Your dad picked your name, Acacia, beautiful tree of the Bible, but I had to call you something until he did so! </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I thought you were going to come before Christmas… before it was really safe for you to come. One night the labor pains were strong and I worried. You waited, and contractions came other days, but I knew it wasn’t time. Your due date drew near and I grew tired of being pregnant. Pops said it looked like you might drop out the bottom of Mama’s huge stomach and no one asked IF I was pregnant any more - only when you were due! But Jael was busy and I was tired and I told Dad-dad that if oxytocin were the happy hormone needed for labor you would never come because we were always dealing with some small tragedy!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">On Thursday, the 9th, we went to Pops and Mumzie’s to visit. All of my “to-do” list was done and Dad-dad had to go work there. I lay down with Jael for a nap at 1:30, and I felt a contraction…a nd a couple more kept me from sleeping long. We visited with Mumzie a bit when she got up and I decided to try to see if these contractions were for real, so we wandered to the barn and came back to visit more. They were often enough and strong enough that I hesitated to drive home, so we waited for Pops and Dad-dad to finish with the fence so Dad-dad could drive us home. “Call us if you need me,” said Mumzie as we left. We stopped in Claunch to feed our cows and I commented how much more painful the contractions were in the car. By the time we got home, I was sure I needed to call the midwife and I texted Mumzie.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The midwife’s name was Tiffany. We’d talked about fast labor and false labor and her coming immediately, but when I called, she questioned how strong and frequent the contractions were. I didn’t know how to describe it accurately. She said, “Well, do you want me to come now?” I thought, “I’m calling you. DUH!” But I said, “Well, I think you should for peace of mind’s sake. I doubt it’ll be right away so you don’t have to rush, but….” She said, “I’ll grab a bite to eat and be on my way.” That was at 5:30.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Meanwhile, I put a few things away and tried to help Dad-dad find supper for Jael, but finally the contractions were too strong and I went to my bed. With each one, I prayed out loud (because I had been told not to close my mouth or grit my teeth), “God, please help this baby come fast!” Meanwhile, Dad-dad and Jael were eating… and he was listening, wondering how he would help me and watch Jael.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Mumzie and Pops arrived just as the others finished eating, maybe a little after 6. Mumzie helped me get the bed ready, and braced me during contractions, while Pops read to Jael and played with her. Both Mumzie and Dad-dad were with me when things got really close - Dad-dad had tried to call Tiffany, who’d promised to walk us through anything important on the phone, but she had no service. I threw up, and then I needed the bathroom and then Mumzie asked, “Are you pushing?” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“I don’t know” (and Dad-dad began cleaning up my mess on the bed). “I think the baby’s coming!” for I felt your little head…And I yelled.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Well, for goodness sake!” exclaimed Mumzie, for they’d barely gotten through the last mess.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">One, two, three pushes, and you were out. I was turning over to hold you as they handed me towels and wrapped you up. You were so slippery, so tiny, so purple, so wrinkled, so dark. The observations were innumerable, and my feelings so scattered. I was relieved and delighted and muddled. To hold you, to see you, to know you were real I thought would bring tears, but I was so happy to be done that the relief brought a smile. </span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-W9F5sMvQbms/Xn5S0x9-mkI/AAAAAAAABD0/mb2CFjdFDcMDIiWFchkHh_Zu-f2AZC0SQCEwYBhgLKs0DAMBZVoD6iXyVTiYDXybfLUvwTvjF_ezkSJA9b5fxkfQHILhwo4EoXJGhP4SWF0JGBrQs7jCLwBejWQ1hlsxLxIwxaZcIeCB-BJwgUGuHwIqrW3zFKhtRYBls-muHPk60Pdfckkf7TIi4MsMx7T4MNKcrlLsXAhL3JEgw1uAiREe7xT53bX48k5pU0qV70_7L5nU0HejVzAk5Fk6Ro3RBKfMWbIs0fnv4_rrsaD_vWQ8RnW5Z59kfLmt2nxgS6DC3Kzhzg3jtY17nWg0jE4JEP8CrYTdPAmTI9eMdfGU8SzOgd1YVJDrV9j5aMkmo_-Sgfjx-obBzjsVsF5ms0MmqyOdoqtB3SE2XLRiRVMlJOXfCVFC-Vlrfkp15XfNyfRAdkoi_vKQ1zUFj0GDNHNBkF2aXEZ34meCQh1Iebj31juyu9hrybU5vmpJXv503Qdgv5BAzTquY3DnuYBLN2to0XGHfZOMnBwc3dNifdMBFp2sKBffYi_GPXP5nHjVcFcBwnw-i0qyDQ5vDeSArm0zFOAY1UXUjZ-pFWq9OsW4RlHIaJc6i3dXBquTiK3i4neekgvajZCWNy1bVDakffsVF5TDcIFhC3MdQEdAx7kkwkKv58wU/s1600/IMG_2141.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-W9F5sMvQbms/Xn5S0x9-mkI/AAAAAAAABD0/mb2CFjdFDcMDIiWFchkHh_Zu-f2AZC0SQCEwYBhgLKs0DAMBZVoD6iXyVTiYDXybfLUvwTvjF_ezkSJA9b5fxkfQHILhwo4EoXJGhP4SWF0JGBrQs7jCLwBejWQ1hlsxLxIwxaZcIeCB-BJwgUGuHwIqrW3zFKhtRYBls-muHPk60Pdfckkf7TIi4MsMx7T4MNKcrlLsXAhL3JEgw1uAiREe7xT53bX48k5pU0qV70_7L5nU0HejVzAk5Fk6Ro3RBKfMWbIs0fnv4_rrsaD_vWQ8RnW5Z59kfLmt2nxgS6DC3Kzhzg3jtY17nWg0jE4JEP8CrYTdPAmTI9eMdfGU8SzOgd1YVJDrV9j5aMkmo_-Sgfjx-obBzjsVsF5ms0MmqyOdoqtB3SE2XLRiRVMlJOXfCVFC-Vlrfkp15XfNyfRAdkoi_vKQ1zUFj0GDNHNBkF2aXEZ34meCQh1Iebj31juyu9hrybU5vmpJXv503Qdgv5BAzTquY3DnuYBLN2to0XGHfZOMnBwc3dNifdMBFp2sKBffYi_GPXP5nHjVcFcBwnw-i0qyDQ5vDeSArm0zFOAY1UXUjZ-pFWq9OsW4RlHIaJc6i3dXBquTiK3i4neekgvajZCWNy1bVDakffsVF5TDcIFhC3MdQEdAx7kkwkKv58wU/s200/IMG_2141.JPG" width="200" /></a><span style="font-kerning: none;">It was 6:55 when Pops heard the first cry. He brought Jael in and they came to see you and to share the joy. The next hour is a blur of you nursing, of Mumzie coaching me so the placenta would come, of Tiffany on the phone because I had a blood clot, but mostly of an odd sense of normalcy, that this is just the way things should be. </span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p2q5f_gVvbo/Xn5S5C2DGyI/AAAAAAAABDw/pfzPdfq03Qw2ovvjI2yav2cH0N0sQ_ARQCEwYBhgLKs0DAMBZVoD6iXyVTiYDXybfLUvwTvjF_ezkSJA9b5fxkfQHILhwo4EoXJGhP4SWF0JGBrQs7jCLwBejWQ1hlsxLxIwxaZcIeCB-BJwgUGuHwIqrW3zFKhtRYBls-muHPk60Pdfckkf7TIi4MsMx7T4MNKcrlLsXAhL3JEgw1uAiREe7xT53bX48k5pU0qV70_7L5nU0HejVzAk5Fk6Ro3RBKfMWbIs0fnv4_rrsaD_vWQ8RnW5Z59kfLmt2nxgS6DC3Kzhzg3jtY17nWg0jE4JEP8CrYTdPAmTI9eMdfGU8SzOgd1YVJDrV9j5aMkmo_-Sgfjx-obBzjsVsF5ms0MmqyOdoqtB3SE2XLRiRVMlJOXfCVFC-Vlrfkp15XfNyfRAdkoi_vKQ1zUFj0GDNHNBkF2aXEZ34meCQh1Iebj31juyu9hrybU5vmpJXv503Qdgv5BAzTquY3DnuYBLN2to0XGHfZOMnBwc3dNifdMBFp2sKBffYi_GPXP5nHjVcFcBwnw-i0qyDQ5vDeSArm0zFOAY1UXUjZ-pFWq9OsW4RlHIaJc6i3dXBquTiK3i4neekgvajZCWNy1bVDakffsVF5TDcIFhC3MdQEdAx7kkwkKv58wU/s1600/IMG_2152.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p2q5f_gVvbo/Xn5S5C2DGyI/AAAAAAAABDw/pfzPdfq03Qw2ovvjI2yav2cH0N0sQ_ARQCEwYBhgLKs0DAMBZVoD6iXyVTiYDXybfLUvwTvjF_ezkSJA9b5fxkfQHILhwo4EoXJGhP4SWF0JGBrQs7jCLwBejWQ1hlsxLxIwxaZcIeCB-BJwgUGuHwIqrW3zFKhtRYBls-muHPk60Pdfckkf7TIi4MsMx7T4MNKcrlLsXAhL3JEgw1uAiREe7xT53bX48k5pU0qV70_7L5nU0HejVzAk5Fk6Ro3RBKfMWbIs0fnv4_rrsaD_vWQ8RnW5Z59kfLmt2nxgS6DC3Kzhzg3jtY17nWg0jE4JEP8CrYTdPAmTI9eMdfGU8SzOgd1YVJDrV9j5aMkmo_-Sgfjx-obBzjsVsF5ms0MmqyOdoqtB3SE2XLRiRVMlJOXfCVFC-Vlrfkp15XfNyfRAdkoi_vKQ1zUFj0GDNHNBkF2aXEZ34meCQh1Iebj31juyu9hrybU5vmpJXv503Qdgv5BAzTquY3DnuYBLN2to0XGHfZOMnBwc3dNifdMBFp2sKBffYi_GPXP5nHjVcFcBwnw-i0qyDQ5vDeSArm0zFOAY1UXUjZ-pFWq9OsW4RlHIaJc6i3dXBquTiK3i4neekgvajZCWNy1bVDakffsVF5TDcIFhC3MdQEdAx7kkwkKv58wU/s320/IMG_2152.JPG" width="240" /></a><span style="font-kerning: none;">When Tiffany came (at 8:00), she got the blood clot out and cut your cord and coached me through all the things recovery involved - expecting me to even eat in bed because of pelvic floor damage. Eating in bed only lasted as long as she was here, although I did try to otherwise rest for a week as commanded. You and I spent a lot of time in our room in the rocking chair.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">She gave us all your stats: 7 pounds, 6 ounces (although you shrank to 7-1 during the first few days), 19 inches long, a head diameter of 13 inches. You looked much longer - your legs and feet and fingers and toes were so long. We were sure you took after my side of the family, although everything about you was remarkably skinny. Your cry was deep and hearty. You didn’t cry much, but when you did, we knew it! Your skin was remarkably dark and your eyes a dusky blue; you had a head full of dark hair… Somehow we knew you would transform your looks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Tiffany also had to examine you, and found an extreme tongue tie, which she snip, snip, snipped. You had to learn to nurse all over again, and it was nearly 11 pm before we were left in peace. I think you had been stimulated a little too long, for you did not sleep peacefully 6 hours, but we made it through the night.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The next morning is one of my favorite memories, sweet Kate. It was a snowy, cold morning, though I couldn’t see that except when I wandered to a window. I lay in bed nursing you, and listening. I could smell coffee, and hear the fires warming our cold house, watching the flames nearby. Pops and Dad-dad were in the kitchen fixing breakfast. Mumzie was changing Jael’s diaper. And here we were, all my favorite people, in my house, all celebrating you, my precious peaceful little life.</span></div>
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Rebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17509527542982650593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3210404550015250285.post-78185302356630025102020-03-27T12:20:00.001-07:002020-04-05T08:21:42.098-07:00Of Coyotes, Copernicus, and the Constitution: My Reactions to Coronavirus Updates<div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I started out writing a critical thinking paper to examine two sides of an issue. I wound up with a journal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I was fascinated by coronavirus news long before the craze for social distancing hit the United </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">States. I struggled to understand the reality of the problem and the reason for people’s reactions. Every morning my iPhone would provide at least three headlines on the topic from CNN, the Washington Post, or some other mainline source, and I devoured it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Now the coronavirus is here. The feds are up in arms. New Mexico’s governor is acting. Everyone on Facebook is reacting. And my phone provides multiple headlines a day with very little other news.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It seems to me that most people are in one of two camps. The vast majority of my Facebook friends, and apparently most of America, are very worried about the coronavirus. Their mantra is “have some concern for our most vulnerable populations!” And they like to say/write that if, in a few months, the coronavirus dies out and few people were harmed, “that’s the point,” (that’s why we had stay at home orders, etc.). I think you’d agree that popular media supports this view, that coronavirus is dangerous and the government is responsible to protect people from it. Certainly, if the government is protecting people and causing them to have financial difficulties, the government should assure economic protection and compensation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The benefits appear manifold. We’ll flatten the curve, not overwhelm hospitals, save lives. AND, </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">America’s over exhausted families will rest. Parents will understand what is happening in schools and children will have a chance to learn of life. People will reconnect and pollution will diminish while cows do not. I hope. I hope.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">(But… such fear from this push. Fear that crowds the ER with people not in critical condition, fear that causes resentment toward the rural who must go to town for medical care. And I fear. I fear for the children at home with unstable parents, fear for those suffering from domestic abuse undetected. I fear for those with underlying medical conditions or those needing routine preventative care. I fear for the psychiatric effects of cutting off relationships. And I fear that governmental and economic effects will be far more damaging than commonly imagined.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Then there’s the other camp. I’m not talking about the conspiracy theorists (whom I’ve spent little time reading about) or the thugs spraying off duty nurses with Lysol. I’m avoiding the extremes. I’m just talking about people who maybe aren’t as concerned over coronavirus and the handful who maybe don’t expect the government to do anything…It takes more time to understand this view because we don’t really hear about it much. And I might work backward here, and talk about government actions first. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I will interrupt, though, with a question it seems few are asking, a little of my own opinion. If the government is going to provide money in the crisis at all, where will it come from? We are already in debt. Tax the richest? Taking all their money will only last a few months. I’d rather keep my quarter than give the government a dollar so they can give me a quarter back.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>The Constitution</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Camp Two encompasses quite a few people concerned about the loss of rights involved in shelter in place/social distancing mandates. Second amendment, second part, guarantees Americans the right to assemble. Struck down in many states, including New Mexico. Right to private property, as in - use of property, right to profits from business - guaranteed by the end of the fifth amendment, but also struck down through orders resulting from emergency declarations. Now we’re tracking cell phones to check out compliance with social distancing </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">(<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/24/social-distancing-maps-cellphone-location/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/24/social-distancing-maps-cellphone-location/</span></a>). Anyone checked the fourth amendment lately? Read the <a href="https://billofrightsinstitute.org/founding-documents/bill-of-rights/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Bill of Rights</span></a> here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“It’s an emergency” one protests. Did the Founders really create the Bill of Rights assuming it would be ignored in case of emergency? The Supreme Court in 1866 said no (Ex parte Milligan), but the tide turned in the 20th century (see <a href="http://www.apple.com/"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">National Emergency and Private Property Rights </span></a> ) as World War I opened doors for multiple presidents to follow Abraham Lincoln’s example in declaring emergencies as rationale for proceedings outside constitutional limits. Nevertheless the Constitution lists the powers of the government in <a href="https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/United_States_of_America_1992"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Section 8</span></a> and lockdowns to present sickness are not among them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I concede that trying to argue the rights of the government (particularly state governments) to declare emergencies is futile, although I still wouldn’t be surprised to see violated rights wind up in court. I would like to mention that South Korea’s strategy, while very invasive in the quarantine and tracking regimes of the infected, relies mostly on voluntary defenses from the people and has not shut the country down, flatly violating the rights of all citizens.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Aside from governmental response, we do face the question - is this an emergency? Smallpox in the US in the early 20th century was highly infectious and killed 20-60% of those infected. It was curbed with governmental- mostly state - input into vaccination and strict quarantine rules for infected households. Tuberculosis is carried unknowingly by up to 13 million people in the US alone, contagious through coughs and sneezes, and causes 500+ deaths each year (1.3 million worldwide). Neither smallpox nor tuberculosis triggered lockdowns.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I wish there were a placebo, a country doing nothing, which we could examine to see how coronavirus would affect the population were it not treated as a governmental problem. The closest thing we have is the Diamond Princess cruise ship, quarantined with the passengers forced to interact. Death rate? 0.91% <b>of those infected</b> (<a href="https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-outbreak-diamond-princess-cruise-ship-death-rate"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-outbreak-diamond-princess-cruise-ship-death-rate</span></a>).</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Which brings me to coyotes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Coyotes</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The common defense of party two, the “everyone’s overreacting camp” is that people die from the flu, especially the vulnerable people. They do - and while the death rate of the flu is far lower than coronavirus, the rate of infection is far higher. Using 2019 numbers, it appears that the chance of any one person in the American population dying from the flu is .01%. Using the entire population of passengers on board the Diamond Princess, the chance of any one dying is about .15%. Scary comparison, seeming to make the coronavirus hugely more dangerous.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I have seen another strategy used. Take Italy’s exceptionally high numbers: 8,215 deaths currently. The US population is about 5 times that of Italy, so if 5 times that number of people died, that would be 40,000 people. 36,560 people died in car crashes in 2018 - and the government already regulates traffic. Maybe we should shut down roads and cars as a national emergency.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">But I digress. I was going to tell you about coyotes. They outlawed coyote hunting contests in NM because killing them disrupts pack structures, by the way. Anyway we had a cow who had trouble calving and the calf got stuck. The coyote pack ate the calf’s head and shoulders, so the rest of the calf went back into the uterus. Despite a C-section, the cow died. We had another calf who had scours (calf diarrhea due to bacteria, viruses, or overeating). The coyotes chewed off his rear end before we found him, warm, but dead.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So what killed our calves? Did the first die from being stuck, or from the coyotes? Did the mama die from having trouble calving or from exhaustion and infection thanks to the coyotes? Did the second calf die from scours or from the coyotes? Any combination of yes and no is possible. We will never know. Probably the first calf would have died for sure anyway, and the cow, but it’s the second calf brings real doubt to my mind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Liken the coyotes to the situation at hand. Most coronavirus deaths seem to be in the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions. How many actually died from coronavirus and how many might have died anyway, in approximately the same time period, due to other health conditions? Please don’t tell me I’m being callous and putting my selfishness above the health of the most vulnerable. First of all, stay at home orders have changed pretty much nothing in this stay-at-home mama’s life or finances, so I have no personal complaint. Secondly, my grandma died less than a year ago with a lung and heart condition. One year at Christmas, Jael and I stayed home because Seth had the flu and we didn’t want to give it to her. I understand being cautious and caring for the vulnerable. I’m just not sure coronavirus numbers constitute an emergency. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Especially when we look at reports of insufficient and inaccurate coronavirus reporting and projecting…. (On <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/?fbclid=IwAR2cNEkL0H0Beqk3gka59IBmxkXaYjVkrjgNOtTA1jkJFLwy1PRLJ8peCjM"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">insufficient information</span></a> or <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/epidemiologist-behind-highly-cited-coronavirus-model-admits-he-was-wrong-drastically-revises-model"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">mistaken predictions</span></a>). And check out</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/03/uk-backed-off-on-herd-immunity-to-beat-coronavirus-we-need-it/">this chart of the effectiveness of various strategies in reducing the disease</a></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> - just quarantining the sick would reduce caseload without a “national emergency.” Even the UK has declared that coronavirus is not a “<a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/high-consequence-infectious-diseases-hcid"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">disease of high consequence</span></a>” because the death rate is lower than originally thought (and their <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/5ff6469a-6dd8-11ea-89df-41bea055720b"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">herd immunity strategy</span></a> might be working after all!)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">But hospitals are overwhelmed! Yes, bless the medical professionals who have to treat every patient as if they have coronavirus whether they do or not and who are thus out of equipment and energy. And thank God (really, please do) that we have private hospitals and research facilities to fill in gaps, something most other countries in the news lack as they depend on socialized medicine. Is scaring everyone to death and shutting down preventative care really an answer? Maybe we should call on good hearted Americans to aid and assist… something many seamstresses are already doing in trying to fill the mask gap, something Ford and GM supposedly are trying to do in providing ventilators, something neighbors are doing for other neighbors.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Yes, I have read many articles on “why coronavirus is dangerous.” There are at least three or four different defenses of why it is more dangerous than other viruses, all involving RNA. Imagine that, the RNA changes how something behaves. But a few scientists, medical professionals, etc. dare to say it is not so much more dangerous that it cannot be treated without a vaccine. Camp 1, those who believe we are in a time of emergency, say they’re kooks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Copernicus</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Anybody remember Copernicus? Sun, solar system, etc. And Galileo? They’re in our science history books, kind of famous. You know what they were considered during their lifetimes? Kooks, crazy! Good science does not always agree with prevalent science. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Most interesting to me is the media’s glaring lack of reporting effective treatments and recoveries. Example? On March 9, MedicineNet (pretty mainline website) reported that <a href="https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=228745"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Chinese doctors were doing clinical trials with intravenous Vitamin C.</span></a> I found this in several other mainline publications, along with an explanation of why such a treatment might work. The idea then disappears except on some alternative health websites, which report that it was highly effective. This isn’t “take a vitamin and avoid the virus.” It is much more intense - but far cheaper and more accessible than any pharmaceutical. Either it worked or it didn’t. Popular media doesn’t want us to know.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Likewise missing information…. Where are American recovery numbers? Even when I look specifically at the NM case tolls, I see the phrase “0 recoveries.” Yet my family has personal contact with two cases who have had multiple negative tests, indicating recovery.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">How much other news is to be found only on the “kooky websites?” Who is to say they don’t have more truth than the media, which most certainly selectively reports and has been known to falsify? </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Conclusion</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">There is a abundance of other articles I’ve wanted to share, comments I want to make, arguments I want to have. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">No, not arguments. Discussions. Because I like to to talk to intelligent people with whom I have a relationship. I like to share, to think, not to make people angry or prove how right and how smart I am. And to that end, I have limited myself to this blog, written mainly for self processing and read only by people who are really interested. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s OK if you disagree. It’s OK if you think I am a kook or fool. Please don’t use the slander going around on Facebook about how those who disagree with governmental intervention are uncaring or concerned only for their pocketbooks, for my relationship with God would reprimand such an attitude driving this blog. And my relationship with God, the forgiveness for my selfishness provided by the work of Jesus, is much more important than my opinions on coronavirus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That is all. </span></div>
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Rebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17509527542982650593noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3210404550015250285.post-52239268240729116612018-11-05T09:45:00.004-08:002018-11-05T09:45:44.811-08:00Musings from a New Mom<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Exhaustion and Joy</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It’s 9 p.m. as I lay with my husband snoring on one side and my daughter snoring in her bassinet on the other side. He is a lot louder than she, but -</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That was the end of that thought. I dropped off to sleep before I could finish it. No longer do I need earplugs, no longer do I restlessly bury my head in the pillow. I’m too tired, and the baby’s longest sleep stretch is the first one of the night so I better enjoy it!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I have always wanted to be a mom, but never spent much time around babies. Mothering a newborn is hard. Harder than I ever dreamed. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I am a milk cow. My child had a tongue tie and a slight reflux issue. She ate every 45 minutes. I love cuddling her and seeing her grow (we said she was a “2 pound a day gain” … a great compliment from the ranch, although a little over an ounce a day was closer to truth). We’ve extended the time between feeds a little now, but breastfeeding certainly strengthens the mother child bond.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">She smiles beautifully when she looks up from nursing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Sleeping has always been my favorite hobby. I don’t do it much anymore. Or at least not sequentially. Early eating and tummy issues (seriously, until this week she dirtied 10 diapers a day) didn’t help her dislike of sleep. My husband insisted I stop considering the BabyWise scheduling because we weren’t even in the ballpark of their recommendations.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">She loves to have mom in the room.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">She was so tiny and so delicate for so long. I couldn’t wash dishes or do anything really holding her, but she didn’t nap for long if I wasn’t holding her. I felt I had accomplished much if I brushed my teeth before lunch. Now she’s grown and I can throw her on one arm and do much, but the to-do lists I made for myself each day through the summer are the length of my lists for the month now. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">She snuggles.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And then there’s the drastic changes in my life because of lifestyle and babies. I can’t keep my house running smoothly when I constantly have to stop and feed the baby. The carseat traumatizes her (she can scream the entire 2 hours to town), so my family doesn’t really like me to go to town alone. Ranch life? It’s great and we don’t have a yearly calendar to follow - but when the cattle buyer wants to come, the cows need gathered, or the milk cow needs fed, guess what takes priority over my plans?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I love cows. And - fortunately - I really love to just spend my days at home.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For every struggle, there is a joy. For every “to-do” item left unchecked, there is a moment to savor. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I recently was lent a novel by a friend. It has been years since I had time to read a novel, because once I start, it so hard to stop! Jael took several naps in my lap as I, wrapped in the story, devoured the book.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It was a well-written book, lots of detail as events unfolded, but I was not interested in the details. I was caught by the story line. As is my typical practice, I had to jump ahead and read a few pages at the end just to settle my heart, but still I practiced my greatest speed reading techniques as I rushed to find out “what happened.” Oddly enough, I became as worried about those characters as I am at times over my loved ones. I felt a need to fix the problem, to control a situation that wasn’t even reality, much less mine! I was a little sad when I finished the book, because the story was over. I went back and read parts I knew I had skimmed too fast, savoring the details, enjoying those parts of the story over and more.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I realized as I prepared to return the book that sometimes this is my approach to life. want to jump to the end, put the check on the list, fix the problem. When I cannot, I worry over things beyond my control. The story is not enough for me - I am constantly seeking the ending. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">My husband says that is not how you are supposed to read books, that it defeats the purpose and ruins your enjoyment. We may agree to disagree on our approaches to reading, but of one thing I am sure - it is NOT how I am supposed to approach life. While the very end, heaven, is known (just as in a novel, one is almost assured of a happy ending!), putting a check on the to do’s and finding solutions to the problems would leave my days barren. Being in control of every situation would leave boredom (and incompletion). Worst of all, when life is over, I cannot go back and enjoy the parts I missed or savor the details.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So my lessons in exhaustion and joy come, I suppose. That I, as a mother, cannot overachieve. I have always pushed myself to accomplish much and to do every task with perfection. I can’t be the perfect mom. I don’t have a perfect child. I can’t even implement parenting techniques perfectly because for every technique there is an equal and opposite technique that seems just as fitting. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I cannot DO everything I think I should, or everything I want to. Trying to check the lists, to control the situations, to jump past the struggles is a loss. Would I choose to miss the joy or the moments to savor? Would I choose control over the story of life, written and unfolded by the Author Himself?</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I can rest in the assurance of Psalm 139:16, that <i>in His book all my members were written</i>, and I choose to obey Galatians 6:14 - <i>God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. </i>In the exhaustion and discouragement of motherhood, I know that Jesus is enough. In my loss of control and accomplishment, I will glory in what Jesus has done. And I will rest in God’s unfolding story.</span></div>
Rebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17509527542982650593noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3210404550015250285.post-48186594345286899532018-11-05T09:29:00.000-08:002018-11-05T09:54:55.454-08:00Competing with the Cousins<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">A few weeks before Jael was due, a cousin I hadn’t seen in a while came to Claunch. We began to visit, and, with a baby on the way, it was only natural she and her husband share a story we had not heard - that of the birth of their oldest son. Suffice it to say, we laughed until we cried, and I so very much envied her short labor (and the accompanying good story). </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So I had one. Granted, their story is funnier and her labor was shorter, but let me tell you our good story...</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Seth had guessed Jael’s arrival for the 17th (due date the 27th) and I had a few scattered cramps that afternoon, but it was 4:00 the morning of the 18th before I was convinced that these were contractions, and infrequent at that. At that point I was terrified by a gush of blood. Not enough to meet the “danger” requirements listed in the birth center instructions, but far more than the spotting I was told to expect. I held off calling the midwife until 6 a.m., and she was totally calm. Oh, yes, the blood was normal, and I should just call back when the contractions were closer together.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Starving, I made and ate breakfast tacos before calling Mom, who was on her way to Moriarty. She was excited, but asked how close the contractions were. Time them, she said. It’ll be a while, she said. Remember, they said to head to Albuquerque when they were every ten minutes or so, she said. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Seth disagreed. “We can go to Tim and Margaret’s and wait.” I dug my heels in. I needed a nap and I knew I wouldn’t sleep away from home. I told him I would nap and time contractions - that I did. And after an hour or so, they had were averaging ten minutes apart, so I called him. All those breakfast tacos came right back up…. I unpacked the peppermint oil, hoping to fend off another nausea attack. We called Mom and arranged to stop and pick her up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">About half an hour down the road, Dad called. He thought he’d locked the keys in the car and wondered if we could bring his spares when we came to get Mom. Seth looked at me. I didn’t think much had changed, so I thought we could turn around and get keys. We’d only backtracked about 5 minutes when Dad called back - he’d broken into his own car only to learn Mom had the keys. At least we hadn’t gone the whole way. By the time we got to Willard (halfway to Albuquerque for us), the contractions were coming often enough I couldn’t do much but pay attention to them. 20 minutes later, the peppermint whiffs lost their power. Or maybe it’s because I tried drinking water. Anyway, Seth had to pull over so I could throw up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">By the time we stopped for Mom in Moriarty, we needed her and her doula training. “Call the birth center and tell them we’re coming,” I told her. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">She asked, “Didn’t they say they should be 3 minutes apart for an hour?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“I don’t care! We are going there.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Seth inserted, “They almost have been….” Mom called.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">You know all those different positions and techniques for labor they teach in birthing classes? Yeah, we didn’t use those. I hung on to the handle above my seat, Mom tried some stretch/push/squeeze support from behind me, and Seth drove progressively faster, intermittently patting my leg and telling me to breathe. I didn’t have enough breath to say what kind of music I wanted or to respond to Seth’s bad jokes, so I demanded no music and ignored the jokes ;-). Somewhere between Edgewood and Tijeras, Seth passed me a bag so I could throw up again. At the edge of Albuquerque, my water broke. Seth tried to get around the 80 mph traffic flow, but a truck changed lanes in front of him every time. Finally, we exited at Paseo. 5 minutes to the birth center.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I wanted to quit. I really just wanted to sleep. To breathe. It was like hard physical work, some intense exercise or flanking calves, but no one would give me a break. I wondered why anyone would choose to do that. And the pushing began. Seth drove over the speed bumps faster than normal, but it didn't help.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I was mad at Seth when we entered the birth center parking lot because he didn’t park by the door. He didn’t want to leave the car in the road for the day. He and Mom dragged me in, and yes, I had to stop and push in the parking lot. As we walked in, the midwives and nurses on call were chatting as they changed shifts. I wanted the water, the nitrous oxide, the bed in the birthing room - SOMETHING for relief. They said, “Oh, we’re getting it ready…..” The midwife paused, “You’re pushing, aren’t you?!”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Through my head came all kinds of not nice thoughts. Of course I am! We called you! Help me. Do something! All I said was, “Yes.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We walked into the birthing room at 1:20 p.m. They asked if I wanted to try the water, birthing in the tub. YES! </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Dad feeds his heifers at night so they’ll calve in the mornings, but he said human babies are always born at night. It wasn’t night. We didn’t bring in the birth bag. Not the essential oils or the snacks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I flopped down on the bed, thankful to rest, only to be interrupted with a push. The midwife encouraged me to get on my hands and knees on the floor while they were still filling the tub. As Mom supported my arms, I cried, “I can’t do this.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“You can,” the midwife said. “You are. I see her!” </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">“Well then, get her out of there!”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Seth got to see her. Head. Shoulders. Body. And then they were handing me this slick, purple mess even as they dried her off and lifted me to the bed. It was 1:41 p.m. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I didn’t cry. I smiled. I think. I was in shock and awe. And isn’t it funny how the pain fades and you forget how awful labor was? It was my precious, tiny baby - with a perfect head because she’d come so fast.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Until they said, “Now the placenta has to come.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I almost wailed in protest. But it wasn’t nearly as bad. Nevertheless, I was still so very thankful that my Jael Alexandria weighed only 6 pounds, 11 ounces (19 inches long). </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I was thankful she nursed well immediately, and thankful we had those precious hours after birth together as a family. And thankful for the a labor fast enough that my husband feared a roadside birth. (The 8 hours they recorded doesn’t sound that short, but the brevity of the active labor/pushing was fabulous!)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I wonder if my grandmother had good fast birth stories?</span></div>
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Rebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17509527542982650593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3210404550015250285.post-85609432552126816152018-08-04T15:25:00.000-07:002018-08-04T15:32:24.000-07:00Seasons of Life - and Home<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;">I have been longing to write for months… Probably three months. About everything. About religion and politics and faith and how one interacts with the other. About human failures and fallacies and my own strong opinions. About life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">But life is more than what we write or think, and certainly takes priority over social sharing, so even now, as I write, I begin with that: life. And life’s changes in the last three months. Bear with me if I ramble a bit, for there is much to put into a small space.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Life changes! (32 weeks toward one BIG change!)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">As I look back over life, I see the truth of Ecclesiastes more and more, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.” I was Daddy’s girl, the tough ranch girl when I first began to “grow up.” Then I became a college student and wished someone would pay ME to continue. I taught school - and loved it! I worked summer camp and moved to the city. Colombia became my second home and took a piece of my heart. And most recently, I became a Santa Rosan, where even the well educated use Spanish phrasing in their English. I’m so thankful for each and every experience, the shaping, the lessons, and the friends.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">We saw the changes on the horizon at the beginning of this year 2018. We learned we were expecting our little girl. We learned we could move to Claunch. We learned that maybe long-term investment for “retirement” was not so intimidating as it seemed at our “advanced age.” The months since have whirled, truly feeling like the NM wind accompanying every season.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Good-bye Classroom ;-/</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I said I had been “tired” from teaching every May and now I am “re-tired,” from that! :-) It was a great year to end on - sweet kids, supportive parents, a staff of friends, and a wise principal. As August rolls in, I wonder what I will do without that challenge and joy, but I look back with a smile. Seth ended his Santa Rosa mechanic-ing business on a similar note, with April and May the best months of our time in Santa Rosa and a sincere appreciation for both customers and fellow shops. In June, we left. Leaving Santa Rosa was sad in a way - I loved my house, I had some of the best friendships I’ve ever experienced, I enjoyed my lifestyle. But for me, it was leaving to come - home.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A season past</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Home. 10 miles from the little town which I lived near all of my childhood. 17 miles from my parents. In a house that belonged to two elderly maiden ladies whom I loved to visit when I was little because they’d give me a coke while my dad discussed ranch business with them. They were amazing ladies, one having trained fighter pilots for WWII, the other a scientist who helped discover penicillin. As I grew older I cleaned for them, pulled weeds, and learned to enjoy their bookshelf and knick knacks from all over the world. And they made me feel like the best cowgirl in the world because I could work on their ranch alongside all the men.</i></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Home</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Home. In a place where Seth has said, since the first time we visited, “That is one of the prettiest spots I’ve ever seen.” And it is, especially with God’s housewarming gifts of weekly rains leading to green grass, fat cows, and full dirt tanks. Home, where my child can visit her great-grandmother regularly and grow with the joy of extended family and rural community. Never has that baby gotten excited in the womb like she did on my uncle’s porch eating homemade ice cream one hot afternoon :-)!</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Home. Where each project we do is something we wonder if we will keep for the rest of our lives. Home, where Seth can apply his wide range of skills - from mechanic to electric - to ranching, while learning the parts of ranching he doesn’t know (I might like riding around talking cows with my Dad, too!). Home, where a shop built to Seth’s specs will allow our Santa Rosa business, and all the resources God provided there, to be continue. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i>Home. A home provided by God with not only what we need, but all we could want. Our house was built in 1917, finished in the 1940s, yet the last people to live here did an incredible amount of work to fix it up - so we can enjoy little projects (well, redoing the hardwood floors was a big one!) instead of trying to survive while we make it livable! Even to the tiniest detail, like allowing us to use my grandparents’ almost brand new dining set to replace our worn out chairs, God has gifted us.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Throughout this moving adventure, we’ve come to wonder, “Why are we so blessed?” I, especially, look back on my life and wonder how it has come to be that I am God’s favorite. For I am. Of course, my dad says he’s God’s favorite, and I have a friend who says she’s God’s favorite. And God doesn’t fit in a box, for really He calls all those in Jesus His “chosen people” (I Peter 2:9), so we are all His favorites.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Being God’s favorite doesn’t mean a trouble free life, even though my blessed feeling right now might seem so. Actually, Jesus said “Blessed are the poor, blessed are those who hunger, blessed are those who weep….” (Luke 6:20 - onward). That doesn’t sound like feelings I want. My heart hurt this summer as we wept with extended family for a precious 17 year old killed in a car accident. Jesus said I would have troubles, but He said the poor and hungry and weeping are blessed for <b>having the kingdom of God</b>, blessed for that which<b> is coming</b>. I am His favorite because He has chosen me for something bigger than the seasons of this life. I am God’s favorite, so in hard times, I know “this, too, shall pass.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Right now, in the good times, I see the blessing. I am thankful and I wonder - how I can deserve to be God’s favorite? Why do I have the privileges and pleasures I wake to every day? This morning I continued reading the book of Ezekiel (this has been a months long endeavor because somehow the prophecies of destruction and their fulfillment just do not captivate my wandering mind well) and was struck by truth. God chose Israel, disciplined Israel, and and promised to bring Israel home “for His great name’s sake.” And so He has done with me. There’s nothing exceptional about me. I am selfish and weak and human and yes, very sinful when I think about that which I know to be right and wrong. I will probably never make national news, and I’ll certainly never save a drowning child (I can’t swim). God chose me to be His favorite for His pleasure, and He made me His favorite by Jesus’s work, not by me being good.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I will end, then, my post with this thought. My God is a good, good Father. He knows every detail of my life, what has been, what is, and what will be. And it is my job to thank Him. That is the sameness in every season. That is the sun changing the horizon. That is why I am home.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">(P.S. I just finished reading </span><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;">Lucky: How the Kingdom Comes to Unlikely People</span><span style="font-kerning: none;"> by Glenn Packiam, which is probably why the blessedness of the troubled is fresh on my mind. I highly recommend it if you are interested in the topic of blessing and troubles seeming incompatible).</span></div>
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Rebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17509527542982650593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3210404550015250285.post-9648866231665388382017-12-21T10:41:00.003-08:002017-12-21T12:35:32.349-08:00A Whole Year Without WritingI haven't written in a. whole. year.<br />
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I have written. Just not on this blog. Because when one has a job and another job and a spouse and friends, it is hard to sit still long enough to formulate a thought worth sharing. And so this post is a little random, but some of what is in it has been a long time coming. And I share it because I want to share life with you, my friends. I end with a brief timeline and try to share at the beginning what is significant, the blogs that have begged to be written for months - now presented in condensed form.<br />
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">As I approach my first anniversary and think through the year, it is songs that come to mind. Music has always been part of my thought processing, and this year, long-forgotten Chris Ledoux songs have come to the forefront Maybe because my husband adores me in the most romantic way, and only Wyoming girls have green eyes in songs. Or perhaps it is because on our honeymoon, </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">*We went a roamin’ all over Wyomin’</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">There’s plenty of work, but there ain’t too much pay…”</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The honeymoon was really a 10 day, 5000 (?) mile trip up north this summer, very different from our post-wedding overnight in Carlsbad. We spent the first night with friends in Cheyenne, worked our way up through Montana, to the Idaho border, stayed a night in Washington state, stopped again in Idaho, and came home to see family in Utah and Colorado. I started a blog to describe our adventures, but school started and I never finished. I certainly would have included the highlight of stopping in Kaycee, Wyoming, where we ate at a tiny restaurant that served fried chicken just like my grandma’s… And thinking of Grandma always triggers the nostalgia.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In fact, this post started out months ago, a bit wistful, nostalgic, yet thankful, as I entered the wonder of fall after a wet NM summer. Tall, cured grasses, yellowing stems with black tops waving in the wind. Buck grass and wheat grass and grama — above all, the contrasting heads of blue and black grama grass. The aroma is fresh and cured, with a sweet flavor when it is wet. All of that on a crisp fall morning awakened in my philosophic soul a longing. It was a longing to return to the lifestyle of the ranch where I live, but do not work… And I silently sang, changing a few words and images to fit my memories in the midst of my life as married schoolteacher.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Most of the time, I do just fine</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">‘Cause I’m right where I want to be</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">But I’ll never get over the way the sweet clover*</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Still works its magic on me</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And the feelin’ comes back</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">On a bright [fall]* mornin’</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It strikes without warnin’</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And it takes me away…</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In my memory’s haze, I think of the days when I was crazy</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Now I’m slowin’ down, quit runnin’ around, gettin’ lazy</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">But deep down inside, in the back of my mind</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">There’s a wild buckaroo running free</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Guess I’ll never get over the sweet clover*</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Still works its magic on me/</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And the feelin’ comes back…</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am blessed, for my husband loves my parents’ ranch as much as I, and we spent most of our fall there. Or at least, most of our fall that we had time to spend. I went to school and he to a shop 5 days of the week and sometimes a 6th, but we seized our weekends. Those working days bring to mind another song, as we’ve learned that marriage is so much more than romance and companionship. Life’s problems can loom larger when you realize another person fares into your fate, yet life’s joys are so much greater.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">We had our fill </span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Of old junk trucks* and unpaid bills</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">But our love was clear</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the struggling year.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Up against the world</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">*A shop and a room of boys and girls*</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">We fought life’s fears</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the struggling year</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hard times came easy</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And so did the tears</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Strong are the ties </span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">That bind you and I</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">From the struggling year.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The fill of old junk trucks was really Seth’s. He likes to fix things, but sometimes working on broken things for a living, as he does, gets old. And the real struggle is being the business owner, as in March we rented a shop and became entrepreneurs. Business owners deal with books and computers and lack of customers and overwhelming amounts of customers and all those other things. We are learning to see “His mercies are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness, Oh God.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And the hard times aren’t all business. I continue to work teaching and each day holds new challenges, but…For me the biggest struggle of the year was the loss of my baby. I have more hope of heaven than ever, for on September 20, 2017 a little life went to Jesus. My ability to think on what is “true and just and pure and lovely and of good report” (Phil. 4:8) was tested. I had to ask if I believed that the God of Abraham and Isaac could be trusted with my dreams. Now, believing her little life is as real as any other, I cling to a hope never found in a Chris Ledoux song as I rest in the goodness of God.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">When it’s dark and it’s cold/ And I can’t feel my soul</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">You are good, so good.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">When the world has gone gray/And the rain’s here to stay,</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">You are good, so good.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">With every breath I take in/I’ll tell You I’m grateful again.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Though the storm it may swell/Even then it is well</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And You are good.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">So how can I thank You? And what can I bring?</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">What can these poor hands/ Lay at the feet of a King?</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’ll sing You a love song/</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It’s all that I have/ To tell You I’m grateful</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">For holding my life in Your hands.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">You are holding my life in Your hands.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(You are Good; Point of Grace)</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And so is the philosophical of my first year of marriage. That God is working a new thing in my life, a new face in struggle, an new sense of my own sin and need for Jesus - yet also a new blessing in marriage, in family, in the joys of daily life from the Good Father. With anticipation, I enter year 2. Or year 2018, depending on how you look at it!</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Postscript:</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #351c75; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">TIMELINE of our year in short:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="color: #073763; font-size: x-small;">December 30, 2016 - A wedding, in which we were blessed by the best friends ever. An overnight trip to Carlsbad, where (not very bravely) toured the caverns and stayed in a historic hotel with homemade baked goods for breakfast. We returned to the Fuchs Ranch near Santa Rosa, where we have the privilege of renting a house… and yard… and barn cats.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="color: #073763; font-size: x-small;">January 3, 2017 - Back to work, Rebecca teaching 3rd grade in Santa Rosa, Seth killing juniper trees and fixing broken things for our German neighbors with a guest ranch and farm.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="color: #073763; font-size: x-small;">March 20, 2017 - The official opening day of “Lazy SR Diesel Repair,” Seth’s own shop in Santa Rosa, NM. The first few weeks included some 10:00 pm nights, but normal business hours prevailed.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="color: #073763; font-size: x-small;">June 6, 2017 - Seth took a Tuesday off because he was caught up on work. We went to help brand at the Wells’, and Seth got more calls for the business than the entire spring put together. It was a turning point for the business. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="color: #073763; font-size: x-small;">Moral: If your business is faltering, take a day off. ????????</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="color: #073763; font-size: x-small;">July 7, 2017 - We left on our grand tour of the northwestern United States and had a grand time. Rebecca got to meet Seth’s dad’s side of the family and see what it means to have roots in Idaho… which reminds her slightly of her own Arkansas roots.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="color: #073763; font-size: x-small;">August 14, 2017 - School started again for Rebecca, who learned to love her sweet little class. Seth felt he lost his wife. (So-far we’ve survived in our part-time relationship ;-) We did enjoy our evenings together reading the Little Britches book series and wondering if we could ever work that hard.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="color: #073763; font-size: x-small;">And in the midst of all these days are countless mornings, afternoons, and weekends helping work cows wherever we found a chance, working in a garden with abundant green and red chile, adventures helping barn cats survive by shooting varmints in the yard, trips to Taos with unexpected camping arrangements, and lots of friends, family, and projects.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="color: #073763; font-size: x-small;">December 21, 2017 - Rebecca’s Christmas break started. Seth went to work on a Ford and Dodge and Chevy and Case. Variety is good. Today, we greet you, wishing we could see you and praying that you know Jesus more and more as 2018 comes!</span></span></div>
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Rebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17509527542982650593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3210404550015250285.post-35336508860228323582016-12-22T07:46:00.002-08:002016-12-22T21:58:24.322-08:00The story<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Where does the story begin? Obviously, it begins long before our lives began, with the Creator of the universe, the Good Father Who knew us before we were born (Psalm 139) and has shaped our entire lives. On that note, it is worth examining the opening chapter of the book.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>1976-1990ish</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Seth grew up near Taos; his dad built the family home at the end of a dirt road - a house with only solar electricity and no telephone. He was homeschooled until 2nd grade, then finished elementary in tiny Tres Piedras. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Meanwhile, Rebecca lived at the end of a different dirt road, also with no phone. Electricity, yes, but limited running water. She went to public school through 2nd grade, then was homeschooled. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Their lives took distinct paths during teen and early adult years, but one has to see the hand of God in the simple, family centered, country beginnings that shaped the small children.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Now let us fast forward to the current chapter of life.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Thanksgiving, 2015</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Rebecca had spent Thanksgiving Day with the Fuchs family. As always it was filled with laughter and a hard time from the teenage sons. Tyrel, the youngest, was on a mission to “find a husband” for her. He sat in front of the fireplace asking questions, finally handing her his phone. “Here, I made you a Farmer’s Only account.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">She blushed and smiled and he took the phone back, flipping through profiles. They laughed as they found people the family knew and better prospects they did not know. Tyrel insisted on sending “flirts.” “I’m going to get you a husband for Christmas.” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Yes, but you have to pay for it!!!!”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“No, I’m not going to do that.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">After she got home that night, and for the next day or two, she mulled over the idea of internet dating. Rebecca had realized in the past year that she wasn’t as “emotionally strong” as everyone thought, realized that the desire of her heart for a home and marriage has not changed, and realized that in the Bible, people often took action: Abraham didn’t lament the lack of godly wives for Isaac - rather he sent his servant to fetch one. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">She called her dad and laughingly told him of their Thanksgiving pastime. Due to some amazing testimonies of online romance that he had witnessed, he laughed with her and added, “Well, do you want me to pay for it?”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">After she hung up, she reacted. “I’ll pay for it myself!” And she did. After a few discouraging days on Farmers Only (it’s amazing how much conceit can manifest in a paragraph), she decided to go all out and see if Christian Mingle had more options.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Christmas was coming, and Tyrel wasn’t done. He found a book online called <i>How to Get Married After 35</i>. Unable to convince his mom to buy it as a Christmas present, they sat and read the free parts with Rebecca. She couldn’t convince herself to spend 30-40% of her budget on the online pastime, but she had to concede the point that one had to marry a human, not “perfection.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The days and weeks and profiles on Farmers Only and Christian Mingle were interesting. She emailed several guys, from a cowboy in the Dakotas to a missionary candidate in a city in Canada. Many were nice and some were serious (while some were quite obnoxious). It was kind of discouraging, though - no one quite fit. As she tried to imagine one coming into her life, the picture didn’t work.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>January, 2016</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Meanwhile, sweet Ms. Ruth at church came to Rebecca. “I am praying some Scriptures for you, but I want to ask you. Do you want to get married? Or is it like that one verse, ‘I would not have you ignorant brethren’?”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Rebecca laughed and said she did want to get married.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Ms. Ruth gave her Psalm 84:11b and Genesis 2:18. <i>No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly... It is not good that man should be alone. I will make a helpmeet for him.</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Rebecca wondered if she was being too picky, but the process really wasn’t that much fun anymore. By mid-January, she had decided that as soon as her subscriptions to the websites expired, she was done. One day she saw that a “country-looking” man had viewed her Christian Mingle profile. She clicked, and she liked what she saw, but she had a couple of reservations. She starred the profile to go back and look at later. The website says those stars are not visible to the person with the profile, but the mobile app has a glitch, and the stars show....</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Seth had viewed Rebecca’s profile. He had liked much of what he had seen, but certain things worried him due to past experiences. He moved on.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But then Rebecca starred his profile. He had to think about it. He wondered if it was of God. He went back.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So a couple of days after the first view he sent a “smile,” a simple little message that could be sent for free, just to see what happened.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Rebecca got the smile, and she had to admit she was excited. She answered. And waited. For almost a week, she got no response - which was OK, her subscription expired on Friday anyway. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">On Thursday night she received a long, cheery email - from the mobile app, meaning someone had taken the time to type correctly on a phone. She was impressed and excited. They emailed almost every day for the next month (she renewed the subscription). She “listened” as this man prayed through a job change and move, saw his love for his family and his careful thought in decisions.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Finally, a month later, he told her she could call him. NOOOOOOOO! That was a scary thought. She texted him (she feared that emailing her number would cause him to think it was a “DO NOT CALL” farce because of all the 0s) and told him he could call her. He texted her back, but he didn’t call for 3 days (during which time, she told her dad about him. Dad’s response? “A diesel mechanic is way handier than a cowboy!”) And the first night, when Seth called, sensible Rebecca was giddy. They talked for over an hour, texted for a couple of days, called again. By the middle of March, they talked on the phone every night.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Rebecca was impatient. Once Seth was all moved to Colorado, it was her opinion that he ought to go ahead and come meet her. But he didn’t come. They discussed visiting one another and doing things together, but he didn’t come. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Well, he’s not 40 years old and unmarried because he’s spontaneous,” Dianne Fuchs reminded her when they discussed the matter. And the time was good. Long phone conversations covered some of most all of everything under the sun.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Early in May, Seth broached the subject. “I reckon I ought to come see you.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They planned a weekend. A few days later, Rebecca found out it was the weekend of the spring when the Fuchs really needed help. It was the day to AI (artificially inseminate) the cows, and her cows were running in their herd. She asked Seth if it would be OK. He was excited to work cows.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>May 13, 2016</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">She worked all week, and on Friday after school, she went to help the Fuchs gather, while Seth left work in Colorado for the 6 hour drive south. After gathering, they had to make lunch for the following day, and straighten things up. By 9:00, the Fuchs were exhausted and ready for bed. Rebecca was tired, too, but the kitchen needed cleaned and Seth wouldn’t be there until 11.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">She talked on the phone to her friend Jen. “Are you excited?” Jen asked.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> “Did you do your makeup? What are you wearing?” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“I don’t have any makeup with me. I put it on this morning. I’m wearing my jeans and t-shirt from school, and I’m kind of dirty because it was windy this evening. He’s not going to fall in love with me for my looks anyway.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Jen was worried. Rebecca had too much going to be worried.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">At long last, Seth drove up. It was late and dark and both were tired when he stepped out of his pickup, but it was like greeting an old friend. He gave her a hug, she showed him to his room next door to the Fuchs’ house, and she went home to sleep.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It took Seth a while to wind down and the 5:00 a.m. alarm did NOT make his day. For a few minutes, he thought the whole plan was ridiculous, but he went out anyway to meet the strangers with whom he was staying, and after he was fed and given a cup of coffee, he brightened up - enough to very pleasantly say good morning to Rebecca, who was saddling his horse. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The day was not the most beautiful for cow work. The morning was cold and wet, unusual for May, and AI-ing cattle is not the most exciting of work, but Seth made an impression. He stayed on his horse without a wreck, got out of the way without being told, stepped in where he could help, and even his lack of sleep didn’t make him cranky. Rebecca’s only wish is that she had saved the snapchats taken as they stood around and watched the cows go by.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Finishing at a reasonable time, the day warmed slightly and it was time for a date. At this point, Rebecca was wondering if Seth actually “liked” her, or was just being polite because he had driven a long way and was making the best of the trip. The afternoon proved that the warm friendship, built through hours of communication ,was grounds for romance. They drove and hiked to the springs, fixed dinner, sat and talked.... Church and lunch and a walk the next day, and it was hard to part.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So went the summer. Rebecca’s sister-in-law was going to Cortez two weeks later, where Rebecca could stay with her great aunt and spend the weekend with Seth, meeting his sister, seeing his apartment, and enjoying some beautiful country. A few weeks more and he was meeting her parents. Everyone was happy and polite, but taking Seth on a tour outside, Dad showed him the backhoe attachment for the skidsteer. “All I’ve used it for is to dig graves....”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They spent the 4th of July in Taos with Seth’s mom and friends. Because Seth had to work late and Rebecca is always lost, thus needing to arrive before dark, she beat him there and had dinner with his mom and step-dad. Neither that, nor anyone she met (no one would tell stories), scared her away. Another weekend in Taos with his family, he came to the county fair, she went to Colorado to visit.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Rebecca was sure by this time. At times, something would make her doubt, some attitude or behavior of Seth’s that she feared would turn negative in the future, then they would talk and he would say, “God is working on _________,” and God did work. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Seth was sure, too, but he wanted to do it right. They planned her birthday weekend. Thinking only of driving and sleep, she planned to stay at her parents through Sunday. He wanted to be back in Santa Rosa Sunday morning. She didn’t see why it was a big deal, but they changed the plan. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>I went out with Rebecca’s dad to milk the cow. I waited until Wendell closed the gate, and got down to milking the cow. I made sure the gate was latched securely between the two of us and told him I had something I wanted to ask him. I prepared myself to run for the safety of my pickup, took a deep breath, and let the question fly: May I have your daughter’s hand in marriage? Turns out all my precautions were unnecessary...</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Actually, I waited for him to finish milking and wasn’t even scared to ask because I knew in my heart that it was God’s will for us to be married. </i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Saturday night Rebecca’s parents had a birthday party for her. Her godchild opened all the presents with her, and aunts, uncles, and friends like family excitedly greeted Seth as they showered Rebecca with love. Seth felt a little bad. He had nothing to give her.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Sunday morning, Seth knocked on the door. Rebecca was dressed for church, and he said, “Oh, you have a dress.” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“We can still go for a walk!”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They walked through the front pasture, laughing at the kitties at their feet, winding up on the rocks overlooking the house. Seth put his arms around her and took her hand, slipping something on her finger. “Will you be my wife?” It was a clear morning, cool but not cold, and they talked on the rocks, continuing over coffee.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It was the best birthday present possible. He had talked to her dad to receive a blessing, planned carefully. He had a card with Scripture from Song of Solomon, for both believed it was of God that she “come away with him.” They planned a December wedding, though it would require her to move mid-year, for neither wanted to continue the driving or the distance. Rebecca’s brother said Seth was just cheap and wanted to combine holidays with wedding expenses. They had known each other 7 months and 1 week. The wedding date would be 11 months and 2 days after that first email.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The ring Seth used was actually the wedding band; he wanted her to choose her own engagement ring, so that Monday they went ring shopping. Rebecca was overwhelmed (partially by the price tags, partially be the sales people). Seth finally was left with the choice, a ring far more beautiful than Rebecca could have chosen herself - just as God had given her a man far better than what she could have asked for herself.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Fall 2016</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The next few weeks were exciting; the every other weekend visits continued in Taos, at her parents’ ranch, in Santa Rosa. Seth’s Colorado job situation changed - no fault of his, but his company didn’t have business like they had before. He decided to move, though there were no jobs in Santa Rosa nearly equivalent to what he had there. He found a job and began to pray through the future. Rebecca’s landlords and dear friends gave him a deal on a couple months rent to get him by until the wedding. Being able to see each other daily was a new and growing experience in their relationship.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And here we are. Two backwoods kids, gone from no phone to internet dating and a relationship built on a cell phone. A first date AI-ing cattle, an outdoors wedding in December... and Rebecca is getting a husband for Christmas.</span></div>
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Rebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17509527542982650593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3210404550015250285.post-45026651332161431992016-09-13T17:43:00.001-07:002016-09-13T17:47:09.205-07:00Ephesians 6:22-32 Pictures of the Church<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Abraham’s son needed a bride.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Isaac couldn’t marry a foreign woman. He and his family didn’t just sit and wait. Abraham sent a man to find the bride. <i>Genesis 24</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And so our story began on Christian Mingle. Seth sent on the site to find his bride. Rebecca decided the site might be the servant.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The Son of God chose a bride - a people He would choose out of a sinful world. And He did not wait for them to seek Him. He came to earth to find His bride, and still sends the gospel out for the world to hear. <i>Ephesians 1:4, Romans 5:8</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Rebecca saw Seth’s profile, but she wasn’t sure. She marked it, but she wouldn’t contact him.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And so the world hears of Jesus. He sounds good. He is good. But are they really interested? <i>John 12:40</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Seth sent her a smile. Rebecca responded with an email. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So Christ touches the hearts of His people. It may be a sermon. It may be a verse. It may be a kind follower of Jesus, but He reaches out so people will respond to Him. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>I John 4:19</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They emailed for a month. He impressed her - long, well-written emails. Could this guy be for real? And then came the phone calls. She learned to appreciate the warmth of his voice and to anticipate the care he extended in conversation.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What happens when we begin to “seek” the Lord because He seeks us first? We hear His Word and we learn. The Spirit touches our hearts and we begin to sense His person, that there is something of Jesus that we want. <i>Luke 24:45, Isaiah 55:1, 3, 5-6</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And finally, after months, Seth came. Rebecca was terrified. What if he didn’t like her in person? But he did. From that first meeting, both knew that the relationship had a purpose. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The fear of the Lord is a good thing. He is holy. And we are sinful. And when we really understand Him, perhaps we fear we are not good enough. Yet He knows us before He loves us, and when we encounter Him, it is for His purposes. <i>Zechariah 3:7, Romans 3:23-26, Ephesians 1:4</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">After what seemed like long weeks of waiting, on a beautiful morning in God’s beautiful creation, Seth proposed. The next day he left, but he would come again. He left the ring, a seal... and he was going to prepare, for the wedding day was coming.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So our precious Lord, once He has sealed as His own, has gone, but He will come again. He has gone to prepare a place for us, our home in heaven, and what a joyous day when we get to live in His presence forever! <i>I Peter 1:8-9, Ephesians 1:13, John 14:3, Revelation 19:1-10</i></span></div>
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Rebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17509527542982650593noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3210404550015250285.post-46731091358903336192016-01-13T20:44:00.001-08:002023-07-04T18:01:43.936-07:00Songs, Prayers, and God at Work<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; min-height: 14px;">
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I posted those words in a blog post last summer, about forgiveness (they're posted on my wall, too). And I posted the lyrics to “Love’s Not Safe,” my prayer song for relationships.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Little did I know how God would test my statement of faith in His goodness.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In January, my prayer song changed. With all of my heart I joined the music:</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Make me empty/ So I can be healed...</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Make me empty/So I can be filled...</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Make me lonely/so I can be Yours...</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Til you are my one desire/ Til you are my one true love/</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Til you are my breath, my everything/ Lord please keep makin’ me.</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i></i></span><br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>(Sidewalk Prophets, Keep Makin’ Me)</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Mark 9:43-47, Matthew 15:1</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Mark 2:17</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">God answers prayers, even when you pray in song. That should scare you.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">One day, early last spring, my heart broke. I don’t say that sarcastically, nor do I mean it in a Texas style show of compassion. In a situation so complicated only God could unravel it, a crisis so spiritual the world would never even call it a fight, I wound up facing a broken friendship.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It’s not that I didn’t bring it on myself. Sin, even the sin of overvaluing people, has consequences. And God had whispered to me that it was coming, that I needed to turn my own eyes toward the cross, and that truth might have to be spoken.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Relationships are never simple; there’s so much more than what is on the surface. And in the weeks and months to follow, I was to learn that I am not the Healer. I could not fix what was broken.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I grieved: tears and prayers and questions. Never before had I understood what it was to question - not to question God’s existence, but His goodness, His Sovereignty, His love. Why, if He loved me, would He allow me to hurt someone in this way? Why did I hurt? How could He work good?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My song changed. It changed more than once in those dark days, and sometimes the songs were the clearest prayer I could express. But God, in His grace, heard the words I couldn’t express (Romans 8:26-27), even giving me the heart to allow Him to change my emotions.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>These voices speak instead and what's right is wrong</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>And I'm giving into them, please Lord, how long</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Will I be held captive by the lies that I believe</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>My heart's in constant chaos and it keeps me so deceived</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>But if I let these dreams die/If I lay down all my wounded pride</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>If I let these dreams die/ Will I find that letting go lets me come alive</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>So empty my hands</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Fill up my heart</i></span></div>
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<i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Capture my mind with You</i><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>(Empty My Hands, Sidewalk Prophets)</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:5</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I could not change those thoughts but God, in His grace, does not hold me as His child because I am good. Even in those gloomy days He knew I would not be made perfect by my flesh, but by His Spirit (Gal. 3:3).</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Confession. Patience. Faith - that He works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose: to conform us to the image of His Son (Romans 8:28-29). Resting with God in the secret place (Psalm 51:6, 91:1). He healed.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Time. Lots of time. And lots of love from family and friends who tolerated me even when I was less than my best. Because the sting was still there. The wound was especially sensitive as I dealt with people. To express my opinions at church was a battle, to collaborate with my coworkers exhausting, to be slighted by anyone - well, I was sure I had poor communication skills, a bad attitude, and no ability to be a friend.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Mid-June was a turning point. And in September, the dawn cracked ever so slightly. My anthems, my way of preaching the gospel to myself, were again songs...</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>No matter the bumps/No matter the bruises</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>No matter the scars/Still the truth is</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>The cross has made you flawless</i></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>No matter the hurt/Or how deep the</i></span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> wound is</i></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>No matter the pain/Still the truth is</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>The cross has made you flawless</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>(Flawless, Mercy Me)</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: I Cor. 1:30</i></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. I Cor. 5:17</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Still, one day in December, the curse of that heartbreak again loomed over my head. A disagreement at church, a conflict over what I thought was a kind deed at school. Tears filled my eyes as I told my friend, “I just can’t do anything right when it comes to dealing with people.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">She looked me in the eye.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“What does the Lord require of you?”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I whispered my response. “To seek justice. To love mercy. To walk humbly with your God.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Micah 6:8 had been a memory verse for me years ago, and again recently in Sunday School. Suddenly I realized how wrong I’d been to flaunt myself against the gospel.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">To seek justice.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Jesus has fulfilled justice. And He had turned my heart to do what was right.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">To love mercy.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I had sought reconciliation. Nothing in me was angry. And Jesus offered mercy for my wrongdoing.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">To walk humbly with your God.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">To walk humbly. Believing God. Trusting that I cannot fix a broken world, a broken relationship, or a broken person, and because I cannot, I need my God. He is a “Good, Good Father” Who is perfect in all of His ways. We are searching for answers only He provides.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqybaIesbuA">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqybaIesbuA</a></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I had a few more rough days because life just seemed so far from what it “should be.” (I am sure I will have more.) And then came last week. A situation arose for which many of us had high hopes. It could’ve been a dream come true.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It wasn’t. But I am smiling as I write this, smiling as I have been almost all day almost every day since all the drama closed. Smiling because at last, God has given me my joy back. Not because I “did something.” I didn’t change my habits, or memorize a certain amount of Scripture, or learn to meditate, acquire something to fill the void left by my lost friend, or have a vision or conviction.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">No, I am smiling because God’s grace, that mysterious gift I do not deserve, reminds me that I do not need any situation or any person for my joy. My joy is in Jesus. He is enough (Gal. 2:20, James 1:2-4, Rom. 15:13, Heb. 11:1, I Peter 1:8-9).</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>(Songs continue to minister, but the current words of the gospel speaking to my heart are Isaac Wimberly’s poem, “The Word,” linked below).</i></span></div>
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http://isaacwimberley.com/all/the-word-lyrics/<br />
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqGQEsFlQOk<br />
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Rebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17509527542982650593noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3210404550015250285.post-36031524874350204262015-07-16T20:10:00.000-07:002015-07-16T20:10:00.669-07:00On Bless Me, Ultima<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I had to read it. It’s about my home, now, about Santa Rosa. And it IS Santa Rosa. Las brujas. The owl. The bridge at Puerto de Luna, the lakes, and the wild men of the llano. It is all so real and there is a reason it is becoming a modern day classic.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I realize that Rudolfo Anaya is a spiritualist. I am not one to make every book into a moralism, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;">Ultima </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">if one can’t handle the gruesomeness of sinful humanity. Yet isn’t it the battle of good and evil that makes literature great? And isn’t that the very battle that makes me lift my eyes to heaven?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Antonio is a boy from two worlds, the mother’s farming heritage and the father’s wild cowboy blood, yearning for the freedom of the llanos. He is searching for his identity and he believes his knowledge of God will give him that identity. Yet the knowledge of God as it is taught doesn’t answer his questions, and the atrocities of life loom ever larger. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Already we see the classic dilemma of life. We all are looking for identities, torn between family and cultural ideals, and we all are surprised when life doesn’t turn out as we wish. It is Antonio’s perception of God that struck me the most, however. He is torn. On the one hand he knows the God of the church, who has the power to condemn to heaven and hell, the power to judge and to create. In his experience this God is uncaring or powerless over evil, uninvolved in the trauma he experiences. On the other he sees the golden carp, a god of peace drawing all to the happiness of the water.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And to intervene, to receive Antonio when he is in need of safety and comfort, to gain the victory over evil, there is Ultima. Yet Ultima consistently acknowledges that to battle evil, someone must be willing to receive consequences. The good she does comes at a price, always a price.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I wonder sometimes if that which God revealed of Himself in the Old Testament is a bit like Antonio’s perception of God. So unfathomable to the human mind, so impersonal as a judge of sinners that He is hard to accept as real. How often am I tempted to question God just as Antonio did? And the carp. Ah, the golden dreams of peace and prosperity offered by the world around me. It all seems so easy.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But Ultima. In every story of good and evil there is a champion. Here, the champion is Ultima. In the Bible the champion is Jesus. Not only did Jesus work the cures, not only is He the go to when the spirits have defeated humankind, He suffered the consequences on his own head. Like Ultima, He could say, “I accept my death because I accepted to work for life.” (I Peter 1:21-25).</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I rarely cry over sad books or movies and I wasn’t emotionally “into” Ultima, but I cried at the end of the book. I don’t like it when suffering has to precede salvation. I don’t like to think of Jesus paying the price, and I don’t like watching people suffer here, now, as they try, like Antonio, to save their identities, their lives, or their very souls. I cried because the truth of great literature is the truth of the Bible. Evil brings suffering. And it is through suffering that we see our Savior.</span></div>
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Rebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17509527542982650593noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3210404550015250285.post-78962813629425203082014-10-30T19:28:00.000-07:002014-11-01T09:54:47.496-07:00If/Then Statements<div style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; font-size: 13px; min-height: 15px;">
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I can’t remember if the title was in my high school logic course or a workshop on teaching reading strategies, but “If/Then Statements” rings in my head, a concept I’ve not forgotten. Supposedly these statements were a way of thinking, that in a story or a situation, one needed to determine the logical end. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So this summer I was visiting with one of my introverted friends, a friend who, like me, walks well on the outside and battles on the inside. This particular day, the discussion was forgiveness, and I tried to share the lessons God had taught me, tried to present the benefits of pursuing relationship despite offenses. I stumbled through my words, until suddenly something came out of my mouth that caused both of us to tear up and sit in silence.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If God is real... and He is.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And if He cares about you... and He does.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If/then. Those two principles are the basis of Christianity, aren’t they? That God is real? That He cares enough about you to be involved with your life? Cares enough to die?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If that is true, then what? We talk a lot about living the Christian life, but the truth is, that’s kind of a logical thing to do in itself; I mean, good morals create good lives and no one would argue that. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But if it is true. If God is real. If He cares.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Then we trust when it hurts. We forgive when relationships seem impossible. We serve for no reward. We press on when we’re weary. We love despite the risk of losing.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If God is real. And He is.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If He cares about you. And He does.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As I’ve pondered this principle, a song has played over and over in my mind. This year has been full of opportunities to love, to lose, to smile, to weep, and as I get older, I suspect those opportunities will become only more prevalent, yet I must consider: </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Everything good in life is given by His sacrifice/</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>I will give it all for Christ...</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>He’s not safe at all/He might let you fall</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>He’s not easy/but He’s good, He’s good, He’s good</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>He will take your time/He might feel unkind</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>He’s not easy/but He’s good.</i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>-Sidewalk Prophets, Love’s Not Safe</i></span></div>
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Rebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17509527542982650593noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3210404550015250285.post-24930086648192814672014-06-07T18:00:00.000-07:002014-06-07T18:00:23.833-07:00Insecurities and the Safety Net of Grace <br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My friend and I were talking about children we knew. Why, she wondered, was one little girl so set on gaining attention and earning favor, while her playmates seemed completely secure? The girls’ personalities are as diverse as their family backgrounds are equivalent. What made the difference in one who begged for approval and three others independent enough to risk walking away from a friend?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Something dawned on me during the conversation. Neither of us had noted up to that point that every one of those playmates was the baby of the family. Of course! my friend agreed. Babies of the family naturally believe that everyone adores and dotes on them. They rarely have a need to grasp for outside approval.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The conversation stirred something deep within me. I had another dear friend tell me a few years ago, “You don’t need to do things so people will love you. You are a lovable person just by being you.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I doubt I’d be considered an insecure person by most. I’ve always known that my dad adored me even if the rest of the world didn’t appreciate me, and I’m certainly capable of standing on principle. Yet I am a pleaser by nature. I worry what people think, or what will happen if I don’t please them. As a child I was so shy I wanted to hide from strangers - and I have always felt that every relationship I had was completely my responsibility to maintain. I don’t share friends well because I always fear I will lose them.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Age and maturity have brought me to a point of acknowledging my own insecurity, of acknowledging its roots (pride), of acknowledging that it is a lack of trust that God is doing a good work. As I finished the book </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;">Boundaries</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> I realized just how often that same insecurity, albeit on a much grander scale, drives broken lives. How, then, is insecurity overcome?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Philippians 2 states, “Who (Jesus) being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” (v. 6-8)</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Jesus had no insecurity. In fact, He was so secure that He could leave the ultimate in relationship, the ultimate in comfort, KNOWING that He would be completely rejected and that He would lose even His relationship with the Father for a time (Matt. 27:46).</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Yet - Jesus did not grasp at that equality. He did not work to keep or earn position or pride. He was able to take a “risk,” losing His reputation. He knew that God HAD highly exalted Him, that at His name, one day, every knee would bow (Phil 2:9-11). Jesus’ security was in God’s plan of grace, knowing that in the end, He would be where He belonged. Like a youngest child, Jesus knew He was the center of His Father's world.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Perhaps youngest children have a human advantage, a mindset into which they are “born.” Obviously, even knowing that I, just like Jesus! had a loving Father wasn’t quite enough to settle the part of me that grasped for approval.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">God has quieted me, however, as He has spent the last six or so years teaching me of His grace. He has called me Child, thanks to Jesus the Firstborn, has adored and blessed me, has forgiven me, and has used me even when I know I’ve failed. He’s taught me that it’s OK to say no, that His favor does not require that I earn the rest of the world’s, that I cannot control circumstances to perfection. And He is teaching me now to share my friends, to know that if a relationship is based on grace, it is secure; if I must fear loss, perhaps it is best to lose. Why? Because one day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord - only that matters. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It is resting in grace - the grace that God did not love me <i>for my righteousness, or for my uprightness of heart or because I was more than any people (Deut. 7:8, 9:5)</i>, but because He chose me, He created, He redeemed (Psalm 139, I Peter 1). And if I really believe that, if I really believe He is God and I really believe Jesus was the firstborn and I am the beloved “baby of the family,” and I really believe His ultimate plan is the same as it was when Jesus died on the cross - if I really believe Him, then I don’t need to make my decisions based on what someone else might do or think or say. I don’t need to live in fear or worry or insecurity. I can trust. GRACE. </span></div>
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Rebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17509527542982650593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3210404550015250285.post-63904074268271420172014-05-10T18:04:00.001-07:002014-05-10T18:04:09.327-07:00Almost home<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The gates to YWAM</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The blessing of staying with YWAM included our supper and breakfast. We arrived only slightly late, walking from one building to the other with a Colombian government official who preached revivals on the side. After the meal, we decided to join the four or five young YWAMers on the patio attempting to use the internet. I say attempting because the internet was not working well for any of us that night, and it certainly wasn’t working well for ALL of us. Awaiting a page to load, one of the young guys, probably just out of high school, started a conversation. Where were we from, were we family, why were we here, how did we know YWAM?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I answered and the Spirit of the Lord shined in the conversation. The young man had come to work full time for YWAM for awhile after completing his Discipleship Training School. Like other staff, he had to raise his support himself, but, like many Colombians, the churches in his home had little to offer. He was from Manizales, however, and that was coffee country. His brother-in-law processed coffee for the Cooperativa (the farmer’s coop that sells products without going through big coorporations). Would we be interested in buying some?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And so it was that we bought Colombian coffee of the finest quality, grown by family farms and processed only 2 weeks prior. And we had the blessing of supporting a missionary while spending less than the cost of coffee in the U.S.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Our last morning in the Amazon was uneventful. Tyrel bought machetes and we visited our taxi friends again for a ride to the airport. Initially surprised by the long line in the airport for the only outgoing flight of the morning, I was pleasantly surprised by the friendly conversation with the ticket agent, who prepared us for security and arranged for us to be seated together on the plane, apologizing that he had no window seats left. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The flight to Bogota was restful and we enjoyed another bag of potato chips that even looked like a sliced potato and wrapped arequipe. I did, however, have a moment of distress at the airport.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When we emerged, I realized that the “airport certified” taxi line as about 100 people long. I KNEW I was not interested in standing in that, but it had been so long since I’d spent time in Bogota, that I was clueless as to what bus to catch and not entirely sure how to get from the airport to the main streets. A businessman nearby noticed my look and offered, “There’s a camioneta (like a van/SUV) service with a much shorter line. Let me arrange a ride there for you.” I agreed to ask, knowing it would be slightly more expensive, and he consulted with a driver to confirm the address. The driver was only too thrilled to take us, but as he started to take our bags I asked, “How much?” “48,000.” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">You might say I overreacted. “No señor! Este no queda tan lejos, no vamos a pagar eso!” I motioned to my friends and we set out walking toward town. I tried to call my friend Jessica, as we were headed to her house and I knew she could tell me what bus to ride. No answer. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But God is good. We were right at the corner of the turn-about for the 26th Street, the thoroughfare for reaching the airport, when I realized other taxis were passing. I waved one down. It was small and we were smooshed, but the driver was fair and even very patiently turned around so that we didn’t get soaked in the downpour when finally arrived and paid our 14,000 pesos.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The man with the llama thought we'd pay him if he pushed his llama into our picture.</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As the downpour finally slowed and we set out on our tour of Bogota, I couldn’t believe how much we’d done. We saw the main city square, learned some history, visited the guards at the capital, made a few policemen smile... The Botero museum was a first for me, though I’d often played on the fat Botero horse in the park near my house in Bogota. You’ve never seen so much fat art...</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The guards are required to be stoic, but.... they almost laughed.</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It was a good trip. It was good to see how blessed I am. Good to know the things of which I read. Good to have friends to share the Colombia I’d come to love and the Colombia which I was meeting. Good to arrive safe and sound.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Because I serve a good God and He delights in our enjoyment of His goodness.</span></div>
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Rebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17509527542982650593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3210404550015250285.post-31352454408724368682014-05-10T17:36:00.002-07:002014-05-10T19:37:06.084-07:00Back upriver<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">As we sailed upriver, we saw this village,</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">these children on the way to school,</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">and these rapids!!!</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The boat ride back to Leticia might have been the most traumatic of the trip for me. Our young pilot could not see out his windshield. He wiped it down, asked questions of his “copilot” (the grumpy secretary from the day prior), stuck his head out the window... all the while dodging logs, leaves, and trash that were washing down the river due to the heavy rainfall. Fortunately, I had two lifeguards with me. And they needed a translator. The crowning moment of this trip was near the end. After several bumps and swerves, we noticed the pilot reach for his life jacket and put it on. Of course, everyone on the boat who hadn’t had a life jacket on before reached for his as well (I already had mine!).</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The port was coming, and the police who checked to make sure the boat was in compliance with transportation laws, apparently including life jacket. We arrived safe and sound.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sights we saw while making a decision.</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Our next dilemma was what to do with our “stuff.” I think we all had a vague memory of our hot day of hiking when we arrived in Leticia, a memory we did not want to renew by hauling backpacks with us all day. We remembered the YWAM pastor who’d invited us to his base. Would we be able to leave our stuff at the base? Maybe, but we couldn’t just ask. That’s not the Colombian way. That’s not the YWAM way. We called to set up a visit to the base (fyi, the Fuchs’ T-Mobile phones worked better in the Amazon than in Santa Rosa, NM. Texting was free and calls weren’t outrageous). The next trick: arriving.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We’d learned the first day how to find the taxis in Leticia. There was a parqueadero of just taxis near a city park in the center, and the drivers had some sort of turn-taking system worked out. Our lot fell to a young man who looked confused when I showed him the address and Ethan tried to get him to understand that it was YWAM. Finally, the taxi driver’s friend turned the card over and saw the pastor’s name. “El pastor!” The friend asked his friend, and suddenly all the drivers were in a circle, asking me questions and giving the young driver directions. It was one of the greatest “sound” moments of the trip. See the video at </span>https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10203328428709347&set=vb.1169497617&type=2&theater.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Inside the Youth With a Mission International base</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We arrived just as the rain began agin, toured the base, visited with the pastor, and were duly impressed with all God was doing in Leticia. After about an hour, just as we were given coffee (I drank Dianne’s as well as mine), we asked the pastor if he knew of a good hostel. “Do you want to stay here?” he asked. “Giselle speaks English. She can tell you the cost and arrange it.” And so we visited with Giselle and as the rain faded into sprinkles, we left our backpacks and set off with umbrellas to visit Brazil.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Yes, Brazil. Tabatinga, Brazil shares a “frontera” with Leticia, Colombia and the border is open. Tabatinga, like Leticia, and perhaps even more like Bogota, is modernized. The signs changed to Portuguese, and while the shopkeepers spoke Spanish, my attempt to question the guard at a nature park of sorts to find out what exactly the park was left me saying, “Well, either it’s an open market part of the day, or it’s a nature regrowth and no one is allowed during that part of the day.” Apparently, I don’t understand much Portuguese. We were impressed with three things on our walk through Tabatinga: </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">1. The flowers. The Brazilians seemed to spend a lot more time than Colombians cultivating and pruning their native plants in order to make gardens and yards more attractive.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> 2. The number of churches. Perhaps we were on “church street,” but it seemed every block had at least one evangelical church, and many of the store fronts were painted with Bible verses.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Even the Purina feed store had verses.</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">3. </span>The chocolate. The Brazilian chocolate shop had chocolate of every shape and sort, including American brands for those only wanting the familiar.... but there is a post about this in the “Eating” blog. My favorite part of the chocolate shop was again encountering our friends from Cali. They greeted us with hugs and Colombian “kisses.” The daughter seemed to draw back a bit (perhaps she’s not used to the American LACK of emphasis on appearance, in contrast with the Colombian idea that looks are everything), but I think the old gentleman would’ve gladly just traveled along with us.</div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We’d seen about all we could think to see in Brazil, so we turned back to Colombia and headed for the boat docks. It was time to go to Peru.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On YWAM's wall, we found a map of our location.</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The Amazon River is the “frontera” with Peru, and as we walked toward the docks, we were approached by a boatman and offered a ride. This was easier than we thought! He asked if we planned to eat there, and we said no, so he told us he would wait for us, that it would take us about 30 minutes to walk through the tiny pueblo of Santa Rosa. We couldn’t believe him and told him we might be 2 or 3 hours, but he continued to promise to wait.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Even the government buildings in Peru had little to offer.</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Santa Rosa, Peru, is the poorest place I have ever been. I have been to the slums in Bogota. I have been in the part of Juarez built on a landfill. I have visited the gypsy homes in Antalya, Turkey, and we had all just traveled down the river past indigenous communities. And none were so poor as this. The homes were board shacks with thatch rooves, built on stilts of course, with open windows. But they were far more run down than those of Leticia. Even the government buildings looked as if they needed torn down and rebuilt. The ground was mud, mostly flooded apart from the main road. The people’s clothing was worn, not the name brands we’d seen elsewhere, and their electronics sparse. They stood on their porches to try to sell their few wares, hoping for tourists like us, wanting to visit “3 nations,” though Santa Rosa, Peru had nothing to offer tourists. Nothing that is, except -</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A "sidewalk" in Santa Rosa</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I was reading signs and translating them for Dianne and Tyrel when I read a hostel/restaurant sign that proclaimed “24 hour attention.” Huh? It took a minute of looking at the advertisement and establishment, then it clicked. This was a brothel. We saw at least 3 more within just a few steps. They didn’t look full of tourists, but perhaps these establishments were supported by people from across the river.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We concluded that we wanted to give our business to the families in this pueblito. After walking the town (and being asked not to take pictures of the “military base,” which had children playing soccer in the mud in front of it), we walked back to make our purchases. Tea towels for our hostess in Bogota from a lady who looked like a nun but turned out to be Jewish. Hammocks (we’re planning to sleep in them this summer) from a young girl who might’ve been making her first sale; she was ecstatic when her mother returned just as we paid her. Platano and juice. And 200 pesos to the lady selling banda paisa so Tyrel could have an excuse to pet her cat. When we’d done all we could do we headed out to find our boat driver. He was giving someone else a ride, so Ethan and Dianne decided to take a “romantic walk” onto the slow boat, which sailed like a cruise ship for 3 days, winding up in a place called Iquitos where one could have exciting adventures like parasailing. I didn’t want to even walk onto the slow boat. The thought of being on a boat for 3 days is terrifying.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As we began our departure from Santa Rosa, we talked for a moment about what to do with the few hours left before we were due back at the YWAM base. Our boat driver had mentioned some other tour to see jungle animals. We asked him more. Yes, he said, he could take us to see jungle animals, monkeys and caiman and loros, in an indigenous community down the river. How much? 100,000 for all. The problem? We were almost out of pesos - but it was OK, he’d take American cash. He had to stop and buy fuel, so we asked to use the restroom at the floating “gas station,” proving our suspicions that there was a reason we didn’t want to swim in the Amazon. Our “toilet” emptied directly into the river, along with the other trash we’d seen floating down. No surprise when I saw a special in the airport on the way home about how sick the indigenous people were getting from drinking out of the Amazon.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Inside the floating outhouse.</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This little side trip turned out to be our favorite of all, though we wished we had spent less time in Santa Rosa and had more time left. For a while we thought we were going to Monkey Island after all - and we still suspect we may have passed it - but the boat finally stopped well down one side of an island at a tiny village known as Puerto Alegria - for us it was, as the name stated, the port of happiness. This tiny indigenous Peruvian community was definitely a step back in town. We’d grown used to stilt houses, open air windows and thatch rooves, but there were no direct TV lines and I’m not sure I even noticed any electricity here. There were chickens running about, but no cats. Our guide introduced to a solemn matriarchal woman. She was the mayor, he said, and she would take a donation after we looked at the animals the villagers would bring us.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The villagers brought us their pets. Ranch kids have been known to have pet lizards, frogs, spiders... and these pets were different only in the source. First a caiman, a baby one that we held, then another. A monkey tied to the gazebo in which we stood. Another tiny monkey frisking around us, and a parrot sitting, though silent. “He only talks when he chooses,” we were told. There were a couple of sea turtles, glossy and of varying sizes.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Next they brought my favorite: the sloth. They called it a lazy monkey. I thought it was like having a cross between a teddy bear and a baby, to have and to hold and to love. I think I want a pet sloth.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An adorable sloth.</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">There was another small, strange creature we couldn’t identify. It looked like a porcupine, though the hair on its back did not feel dangerously spiny, and after we got home and saw a hedgehog on a National Geographic, we thought we had the answer! Until we realized that hedgehogs don’t live in the Amazon.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Finally, the king of all - the anaconda. Green, black, maybe 6 feet long and oh, so muscular, this creature liked Dianne. He did not like me and I suddenly understood how the larger anacondas could easily kill whatever prey they chose. I enjoyed him, but was relieved when he was unwrapped and lifted off of my shoulders.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We were not ready to leave when our guide said we must. We left what to us was pittance, but a donation which thrilled our guests. As we returned, we saw cows (cows!) and water lilies... Our last day of jungle exploration - was over.</span></div>
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<br />Rebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17509527542982650593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3210404550015250285.post-49224830598616711302014-04-21T20:50:00.000-07:002014-04-21T20:50:22.389-07:00Cultural Immersion<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Just a liiiiitttle concern touched me when we arrived to find that there were still no hammocks up in our “hostel.” The little grandmother was confused. She told our tour guide that he’d never told her that we had decided to stay (apparently we’d been allowed to leave our stuff just so we could go on his tour). She, Polo, and her husband began putting the hammocks up immediately. They tied the corners, draped mosquito netting, and looked for a location for the fourth hammock. Maybe we were the largest party they’d ever had stay. We took our showers and charged electronics. Again, I was amazed at the difference from Bogota, where you didn’t even show you HAD electronics until you were in a locked building, but here - anyone could have reached through the window and grabbed anything, but no one did.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our hammocks</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When I came back from my shower, our hostess accosted me, full of questions and stories about her native culture. No, she and Polo were not family, but they were Ticuna, so they would take care of each other. The room we were staying in had been a daycare until she hurt her knees. Now it was a place for meetings (we could tell the type of meetings by her table of “sacred” things - a Jesus on a cross, some indigenous symbols, some Catholic icons). She loved her culture and she wanted to maintain tradition. Come, she said, and look at her pieces of culture. Come and see the instrument of the mother who soothed her hungry children to sleep, the instrument of the frogs. Listen to the song...</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The hats, the baskets, the purses - all were from<br />the string so painstakingly and carefully woven<br />from grass, the process we'd seen on our arrival.</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We thought it was bedtime, but really, looking back, it was “church” time. She told us the stories of the Ticuna, sang us the songs, and took us to see her handiwork. We were awed by the hours of labor in the bags, baskets, and jewelry she’d made, and we asked questions about various other pieces. As she explained, she demonstrated. These beads fell one way if you would leave and travel, another if you would stay and marry. This was used for a Ticuna dance... and she took Dianne’s arm and they began to dance as our hostess sang in her native (not Spanish) tongue. We bought a few things, so she had to fulfill the custom of her culture and give us a gift. As she tied a bracelet around each of our wrists, she began to pray.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The song of the frogs</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It might have been Tyrel’s least favorite moment on the trip. And, truth be known, none of us were terrifically comfortable with having hands go up and down while someone chanted in a completely foreign language. I, however, am sure that the Holy Spirit living in my heart is strong enough to protect me from the “spirit of good travel” she said put into us (and trust me, we prayed, too!). Then we returned to the large room, where she called her husband to come and play a drum and she took out a long, ornamental stick. We all grabbed it and did some “Indian line dancing,” for lack of a better description. We asked her if we could pray over her. I prayed in English, because somehow the words wouldn’t come in Spanish, but then I explained that we wanted her to know Jesus in truth, because the Jesus of the Bible lived in our hearts. She said she had sensed that we had brought another Spirit which she needed. I thought of Acts, where Paul preached to the people to explain the “unknown God,” and I thought of our missionary friend who had spoken of the difficulty of separating truth for the animistic indigenous people.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Finally, rest. Dianne, Tyrel, and I were quite comfortable in our hammocks, though Ethan found his too narrow and retreated to the bed in the room where we’d put our stuff. We slept wonderfully once we tuned out the music from a nearby bar, and awakened with smiles to hear rain on the tin roof. The adventures in Puerto Nariño were over as we boarded the rapido for Leticia.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shower water is from the blue barrel.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Never, never, never run out of drinking water while on the Amazon.<br />Buy it in a bag.</td></tr>
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Rebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17509527542982650593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3210404550015250285.post-91133915686998162922014-04-21T19:27:00.002-07:002014-05-10T19:21:46.512-07:00A Day on the River<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Leopoldo or “Polo” was our guide’s name. He couldn’t say any of the Fuchs’ names, so he would simply call “Rebeca” and direct me to tell the niño, the señor, o the señora whatever he wanted to communicate. He hired a friend who had a boat, then went to buy bread which we’d need for the fish, he said. Except we found it funny that he and his friend ate all but one piece of the bread.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">We weren’t actually on the Amazon in Puerto Nariño; rather we were on the Loretayaco, a tributary. The Amazon is nearly a mile from bank to bank in places and even on the Loretayaco, it seemed the water would never end. Polo told us that the current rainy season would bring the river to its highest in May and pointed out the watermarks that explained why houses near the river were built on stilts. He also told us, to our surprise, that when the dry season (lasting through August) came, the river would go so far down that it would only consist of a few 10 foot wide streams running in the great bed.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Entering our adventure "under the jungle"</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Walking trees</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Hanging out in the walking trees</span></td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The first step of our tour was sailing “under” the jungle, basically a swamp tour. We were warned we might see caiman, but we didn’t. We did see more plants than we could ever categorize, and we learned about the “walking trees.” These trees grow branches outward that have strings hanging off. The strings reach down and touch, becoming roots in the ground from which a new trunk forms. The original trunk then dies even as the new one is repeating the branching and rooting process. In this way, one can see where the tree has “walked” over a period of a few years. One of these walking trees was known as the “biggest tree in the jungle.” While I love climbing trees, and the walking trees were perfect to play on, my fun was inhibited by the fact that when I looked down I did not see ground, but water. I never thought I’d be so glad to get back in a boat.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">We traveled to a lake (which I could not distinguish from the river) to look for the dolphins, grey and pink. It was overcast and showering when we arrived, perhaps the reason that our spottings were sparse, but they were real and we did see them. They aren't just pale pink either... more the color of a fair skinned little girl with a bad sunburn. Anyway, while dolphin-watching, it began to rain. Hard. At first Polo and his boat driving friend were going to drive us to the banks to get ou</span>t of the rain, but when we explained our fascination with rain, they agreed to just put the sides down on the “lancha” (motor boat) and sit tight. This was a stretching experience for me. Every time someone rocked the boat (gives a whole new meaning to the phrase!), I’d flinch a tiny bit, especially when it dawned on me why there was a bucket... to bail the rain water out. Tyrel found my paranoia hilarious and did his best to get a reaction. My only comfort? “You can’t drown me, because you won’t survive without a translator!”</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Waiting out a rain storm. Unfortunately, the pink dolphins don't show up in the overcast weather.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Long story short, we did what few have done - sat through a rain storm on the Amazon. And then proceeded to the next of our tour events: piranha fishing. Polo tore up the bread, tied a piece and a hook on the sticks with string, threw the string in the water and caught a sardine (live ones look like... fish!). He cut the sardine into pieces, tied a piece to a line, threw the line in the water, shook it, pulled it out and dropped a black piranha, about 4 inches long, into the boat. He then handed the rod to Tyrel. We all got our chances, and I can now say I’ve been fishing AND CATCHING and it was much more fun than just fishing. My first few fish I pulled out with a bit too much enthusiasm, giving new meaning to “catch and release fishing” as I dropped them on the other side of the boat, but I finally pulled a couple in. Tyrel endeared himself to the boat driver as a “champion” by catching 10 or more, including all 4 varieties: black, white, red, and fox. Our guide cheerfully complied with our request to cut the “shark teeth” out of one, although he wanted to take it to the village and have it cooked for us, an idea we were NOT thrilled over. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">My first time to catch while fishing...</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Shark teeth. Piranhas will not attack UNLESS they smell blood. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Judging from how fast they bit our bait, I don't think I'd risk a swim.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Finally, fishing over, we began the journey back to port. Our guide had told us he would sing and tell stories as part of our entertainment and this he proceeded to do, pulling a harmonica out of his pocket as an introduction and bridge for his songs. We were pleasantly surprised to find that both his singing ability and the songs he’d written about his beloved home were actually quite good. His last feat was to try to talk us into a “night tour.” I was, again, suspicious. Too much time in Bogota, where nights are not particularly safe and people not particularly honest. We asked if we could meet him after supper...By this time we were all hungry and salt-starved. Though the day hadn’t been as hot (we were wet from rain, not sweat), we still found that we’d drunk and not peeed, a sure sign that something was inbalanced. We asked at the touristy hostel and they looked at us oddly. Of course a night tour was safe! Who was doing it? Oh yes, it would be fine.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Polo entertaining us on our trip back.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">See this video with sound on facebook</span><br />
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10203328548552343</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">At this point, we didn’t care about anything except food, so we started trying to find the place Polo had told us about, where a meal was only $4000 pesos. Polo had taken Tyrel to buy machetes, and the man at that store informed us that nothing healthy was to be found at that price. We decided to up our budget, especially when we realized how difficult it was to come by a meal with no fish in a river town. After eating, we realized all we had energy for was sleep, or so we thought, so Polo took us back to our “hostel.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Our mission was to leave on the 8 o’clock boat up river to Monkey Island. We caught a colectivo to town and marveled at the freshness of the morning air blowing through the windows on this cloudy morning. The jungle smells were strong, moist, sweet, tangy. Like salad dressing. Unsure of the layout of Leticia’s street, we caught a taxi to the docks. Its doors could only be opened from the outside, the windows were manual, and the inside might have needed the seats replaced and everything else cleaned. But it was only $2 and we arrived.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We could see our Cali friends boarding a large, albeit old, “fast” passenger boat and figured we’d travel with them to Monkey Island, but entering the ticket office we were greeted by an unsmiling secretary who informed us we were too late for the 8 o’clock boat and the other boats would not stop at Monkey Island. Further conversation revealed that someone, somehow, had figured out how to make a fortune off that single stop and we probably didn’t want to pay the extra $30 a person to go there anyway. We bought tickets for the 10 o’clock boat to Puerto Nariño, stowed our stuff in the corner of the “rapido” (running or “fast” boat) office, and set out to find breakfast. We first found a tremendous fruit market, not so large as Palo Quemado in Bogota, but still impressive with stand after stand of familiar fruits, fruits we’d never seen, meat, chicken, and an overwhelming amount of fish, which we watched them bring in from the docks. Interesting to me is that while even the little corner stores in Bogota had fruits imported from other parts of the country - popular ones like mangos and mandarins - and Palo Quemado had anything you could possibly want, this, probably the largest market in Leticia, had primarily “local” produce. Perhaps this is because Bogota had to import almost all fruit, while Leticia had the enough options to avoid doing so...?</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Unloading platano on the docks, probably to ship out.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You can find anything at the fruit market... even cow eyeballs.</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">After an Amazonian tamal, empanadas, fresh-squeezed orange juice and many pictures later, we were finally back in the “rapido” office. We followed an employee across a board laid from shore to a floating floor, where we waited until boarding time. They packed as many bags as they could into the boats luggage racks, then threw the rest to balance on top of the boat. Not knowing we needed to be pushy, we scattered - Ethan wound up near English-speaking Germans and beside a Colombian child who loved playing with his ipad, Dianne by an American “missionary,” Tyrel by a Colombian Christian who spoke English, and I by a little indigenous girl who really wanted to close the window and was scared of me because I told her if she did, I might get sick (truth). One of our favorite sights going down the river? A school, and all parents paddling their canoes in to deliver their uniformed children. 2 hours and several rainshowers later, we were getting off on the dock at Puerto Nariño.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I didn't figure out how to rotate this before importing, but notice the approved safety walkway onto the loading dock.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Of course your luggage will make it downriver!</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The first building we passed read “Hostel. Tours Available.” Looking up at the... village? ahead, we could see that we had gone just a little further back in time. Bogota is very Americanized, very modern except in the slums. Leticia was not so much so; it was a little poorer, but still not what one might consider “3rd world.” Puerto Nariño had “river homes,” built on stilts with no glass on the windows, though some building had screens. Electricity yes, and maybe even some direct TV, but anyone would immediately realize he was not in America anymore. We later learned that this indigenous pueblo had no motorized vehicles, not even motorcycles (very common in Leticia), except a trash truck and a fire engine. And really, why would they? Except for the narrow lanes up and down the hills of the village, there were no roads. Everyone traveled on the river, or on walking paths cut through the jungle. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the prettier homes in the village.</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We’d been told to find a man with a boat on the river. We didn’t have to look far. I turned down a man with a tour company card and a hotel offer the second I stepped off the rapido. We were standing across from the hostel when the next man approached us. This Ticuna Indian was about shoulder-height to me, with a scar or birthmark across his face, very stout, talking very fast, and so “convincing” he might have scared me had I been alone. Instead, I translated. He wanted $100,000 pesos ($50) to take us on a 6 stop tour. I couldn’t quite get straight what the 6 were, but I was sure I did NOT want to go swimming in a lake. No, he wouldn’t reduce the price if we didn’t swim, he was already giving us a good deal, think how many things we would see and do. Yes, we’d do it, but we needed to put our stuff down. Oh, where did we want to stay? Did we want something economical? That hostel was $25,000 for 2, but he knew where we could sleep in hammocks for $6,000 ($3) each. Still just a tad suspicious, we asked if we could look at these lodgings.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The restroom facilities: the barrel of rain water is an important component.</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Our lodgings turned out to be a wonderful experience, but even at the first glance we knew it wasn’t a place we’d recommend to just anyone. We were introduced to a tiny indigenous grandmother who had a big empty room and a handy outhouse with a toilet flushed with a bucket and a pipe that spewed cold water for a shower - in a concrete compartment where we found at least three kinds of mold growing</span>. She gave us a key to a room with padlock and a bed where we could leave our belongings. We wondered if it was her room. <span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Preparing grass to make string to make baskets, bags, purses, and clothing.</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Our guide suggested that before we left we come see some of the artisanship of the indigenous. The tiny little woman and 2 or her friends were weaving string from grass. They parted the grass, soaked it, dried it, then braided it, each step of the process taking hours. We were later to see some of the final products and shake our heads in awe.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Finally, we were ready to set out on our adventures.</span></div>
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Rebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17509527542982650593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3210404550015250285.post-9376794701995417842014-04-01T20:21:00.001-07:002014-04-01T20:33:44.290-07:00El Mundo Amazonico (The World of the Amazon)<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We’d seen a sign as we were landing in Leticia, something about an Amazon botanical park, just over the fence from the airport. Walking there seemed a good place to start. We turned down countless taxi drivers and tour guides to walk up the dirt path that served as the road to the airport, counting the numerous motorcycles and flinching when we were splashed by a car with - HOT mud puddles. Nearing what we thought should be the entrance to the park, we were confused. I stopped to ask a “policeman” for help.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">(Keep in mind that military service in Colombia is mandatory for all boys at age 18. Many of these are recruited as “police,” who stand on street corners with various types of guns in order to increase the feeling of security in the nation. I realize it sounds scary, but I actually find it rather comforting).</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">He didn’t know about the park. Perhaps that gate was the entrance? His brow wrinkled when I pointed out that the gate was closed, and he began to call across the street to his fellow soldier. Unfortunately, just about this time several motos and cars came roaring (literally) through. He crossed halfway across the street to continue the conversation. More traffic, both gunmen yelling and me trailing along behind. The conclusion of the matter was that said ecological park was closed and we’d have to ask in town to arrive anywhere else.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We kept walking. It was hot.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And walking. We were wet.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We spotted a park services building. As we should have expected from government workers, the ladies inside informed us that since el “Mundo Amazonico” was not a national park, it was not their business to help us find it and we should go pay someone to take us.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We walked some more, finally stopping in a grocery store to buy water. I asked the clerk about el Mundo Amazonico. Of course he knew where it was and all we needed to was catch THAT collectivo and ride to Kilometer 7, then hike up the path. It sounded simple enough, but finding a working ATM, lunch, and the hiking up the path was not so simple. At 2 pm., we gladly sat in the smoky little hut (it was built like a post fence on a round corral with a thatch roof) to wait for our guide’s instructions. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Suddenly Ethan flinched, “Is there a cat on my head?”</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We all had the monkey visit, but it took a while to get the camera out. </td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It was no cat, but a tiny monkey! Three or four of them jumped down from the wall, drawn apparently by the sound of the water bottles. They drank happily as water was poured into their mouths, sat on our shoulders, jumping from person to person and perching on heads and shoulders. We knew - we were in the jungle now. And while we stowed our stuff, we shared laughter over the monkeys with an older couple and their daughter who we came to know as “our friends from Cali.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">El Mundo Amazonico is a private park, a farm that was bought by a gentleman who wanted to restore the natural environment for the purpose of sharing it with the public in an educational manner. According to the young indigenous guide, the regrowth had begun only seven years prior, but to us it looked like the untouched jungle of a story book. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We were taken first to an “aquarium,” where various species of jungle amphibians and reptiles were caught, labeled, and classified, some living, some preserved. Here, I must admit my retelling abilities may lack thoroughness. By the time I translated an entire vocabulary unfamiliar in either English or Spanish, I remembered very little of what I’d said. I know we saw fish from the depths, the middle waters, and the surface. We saw an electric eel (and an electric fish that didn’t shock quite as much), we saw piranhas of all types, including the fox piranha with his canine teeth. We saw the most poisonous snake in the jungle (preserved) and pictures of the effects of that poison, learning that if not treated within 47 minutes a bite was sure death. We learned that many snakes resemble dead branches, so you should be careful where you tramp.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These snake vertebrate hung across the ceiling of the "aquarium." They were all connected, from a snake probably 20+ feet long.</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">After the aquarium, we rejoined our friends from Cali for the plant tour. We spent a lot of time discussing the infamous coca plant, learning that the roots could be chewed for the same effect as an “energy drink,” the leaves brewed as tea or as an intoxicating liquor of sorts, and, of course, it may be processed as cocaine. The Cali gentleman informed us that less processing is being done in Colombia; the coca leaves are being exported to the U.S. as it is processed in a stronger form. After being introduced to two or three other plants used as intoxicants or hallucinogens (one of which it was recommended foreigners never try because even a small amount could cause damage if one was not accustomed to it), we sat in a small hut where we were offered cups of tea made from jungle plants.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I ask you, would you drink it?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">During our tea session, our guide showed us the recycling education efforts of the park. They’d joined with local schools to gather plastic soda bottles, fill them with compacted trash, and build walls and fences. We continued through the jungle garden. Many of the flowers looked like plastic... but they smelled. We came to a clearing with beehives - miniature beehives of bees that did not sting and only made tiny amounts of honey. I guess in the jungle, where things bloom all year, they don’t have to store it up.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Once we’d taken in more information about jungle plants than we’d ever retain (and I’m sure the guide did not introduce even a quantifiable fraction of them), we moved on to have more fun... We began to shoot the blow gun. This was no toy blow gun, or an imitation made for tourist. This was an authentic hollowed out stick, more than five feet long, with arrows and a target. FYI, I have a big mouth, but it did not help my blowing abilities at all. Tyrel and the old fellow from Cali, on the other hand, killed the target. We also had the opportunity to shoot a bow and arrow of the indigenous type. Again, the Boy Scout wowed us all and I showed the ineptness of my hand-eye coordination. We think this tour was supposed to be an “experience of the indigenous life,” as we also saw some of their artisanship. They make clothing from some type of tree bark, which they dry, dye, and sew. The only problem? It can’t be washed or it disintegrates. We also got to sample our favorite jungle fruit - the coconut-like “copa azul,” which had pulp tasting of sour skittles and seeds that could be ground up into cocoa.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My big mouth needs retrained if I'm going to use a blowgun.</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Our final tour required rubber boots or so we were told. The guide was now working overtime - in fact, we’re fairly certain that he normally had someone else give this particular tour - but he did not charge us to rent the boots. Ethan, unfortunately, could not have rented boots because there were none big enough to fit him. Colombians are small and the indigenous people are smaller. We tramped through the jungle, seeing a few frogs and bugs and trees and very carefully NOT stepping on tree roots (probably the reason for the boots). This jungle tramp was shady, so we had more than one reason to be sad as we left our Cali friends (after taking a picture with them) with their rented tour guide and car.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Many of the jungle plants looked like plastic.</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We survived the - still-hot - walk back to the main road and relaxed on the banks while we waited for the collectivo to arrive. The first bus we’d taken had had a pretty nice “caller” on the steps who’d helped us remember where to get off, but this driver took the cake for niceness. First he let a lady pay half-price because “she was on her way home from work,” then he let a little girl off without paying at all because “she was doing her homework on the bus.” When we got on, we asked to see if they could help us find the campground at which we planned to stay, but they again went the extra mile. Not only did they help us find it, he kept us on the bus until he could “make the turn,” stop, and let his caller call the owner of the campground to come and escort us in. And he gave us a discount.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The campground owner was as remarkable as his website claimed. His face was full of rings, his body of tattoos, and he was super-friendly, even offering to speak in English as he explained prices and procedures, an offer I embraced eagerly. We’d planned to camp, packing sleeping bags and mosquito netting, but at that point in the day, we all had to smile when Ethan chose a “cabaña” with its own bathroom and shower, beds, a tiny kitchenette, and a hammock on the porch. But first -dinner... you can go read the food post for a description of our candlelit meal with a shirtless, shoeless waiter, a beer can candleholder, and mystery juice that tasted like salad dressing.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Night fell, and I fell into my bed (feeling very much like an animal entering a cage because of the mosquito netting built up around it), asleep before it was my turn to shower. I’m fairly sure that was the best night’s sleep I’ve had all this year and I didn’t even cry in the cold shower the next morning.</span></div>
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Rebeccahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17509527542982650593noreply@blogger.com1