Having Very Little

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These children have just been to Phnom Penh Central Market for their semi-annual shopping experience. They bought $5 to $10 worth of shoes, jeans, or a school bag for each of them. Most of them had never had this experience until they came to Asia’s Hope orphan homes several years ago.

In Cambodia, these are not the children who have very little. These children have a home that is clean, house parents who love them, a school to attend, food to eat and clothes to wear. They have lots of reasons to hope – including knowledge of a God who has a plan for their lives.

Today our team from the U.S. joined with university students from a Cambodian church to visit a nearby slum area and interact with the children there. These children had very little clothing, some had none, there were no parents watching over them, they themsleves were coated with filth and grime and pestilence as were their surroundings. The garbage and stench was unrelenting, everywhere. They came running for the gifts being handed out… a piece of bread, a pencil, a ball. There was not enough for them all and chaos ensued. These are the ones who have very little. If only they could be taken out, one by one, washed with clean water and fed, and then put someplace a little cleaner, safer and friendlier to find hope. I’m just sayin’, we have a real problem here, a real evil to work against.

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Half Way Around the World

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I would say that I can hardly believe that I am here in Cambodia, were it not for the fact that the 20 hours in an airplane seat were all too real.  Every year the padding seems a little thinner (on the chair or on me – not sure which). 

But as time goes by I am a bit more appreciative of the work it takes to get an airbus full of people half way around the world safely and in relative comfort.  I need to qualify “full of people” because we noticed that although economy coach was full, there was no one in first class.  Those beautiful chair/beds were empty and what a waste it was. 

On Korean Air there is always a flight attendant within sight and paying attention.  They communicate clearly and are efficient in serving everythìng from beverages to hot towels.  They fed us, turned out the lights so we could sleep, woke us up and fed us again.  I’m not sure, but I think part of their schedule was an attempt to reset our internal clocks to the time of our destination. And it works… kind of. 

So we are now at the end of our first day in Phnom Penh, the sights of which are getting to be familiar to me. I’m wondering what I will notice this time that I have not noticed before.  I find that I am looking less at the garbage, the crazy wiring overhead, the ornate buildings and looking more at the faces of the people I pass on the street. And I wonder where this will lead. 

Now It’s Getting Personal…

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I was out of town over Thanksgiving and the first week of December.  My car sat in the garage, shielded from the sun, resting, but evidently not enjoying itself.  I think it misses frequent contact with the road and other cars and of course, when you meditate on what you’re missing you develop an attitude (big time).

A car with an attitude, who knew? This is not a new discovery. My car and its shenanigans have been written about before because it is a thoroughly frustrating problem for me.  It has cost me money and put me in inconvenient circumstances. Usually I’ve been able to work around and tolerate what goes on. I have a high powered battery charger with me always, and my keys are arranged so I can take the fob with me when the key is stuck in the ignition. But now, well, it’s getting personal – a whole new level.

One of my first trips out was to a meeting in Sarasota. I parked and said a little prayer as I turned the key, only to find it stuck in accessory position. Knowing I would have to leave it like that, I turned off all the things that could drain the battery, including the radio.  I got out, shut the door, hit the lock button on the fob, and the radio came on.  It would be kind of fun to have a car that behaved like a naughty child if I didn’t have to depend on it so much.

After a day or two of being docile and compliant, it again surprised me at 6:30 one morning as I woke it up to take me to work.  Lights flashed, things whirred under the hood, lots of clicking, but no starting.  After several tries the flashing and clicking got weaker so I gave up. The husband took me to work. 

The car sat in the garage with the battery charger attached for a day or two with no improvement while I got permission from our mechanic to get it over to his shop. The husband got a tow truck the next morning. Just to make sure we were still dealing with a malfunction, I turned the key and satisfied myself that we were still clicking and flashing with seemingly quite a bit of battery power.  The husband was able to put it in neutral for it to be winched up onto the truck. Off it went.

The husband went ahead to show the tow driver where to take the car and this is the report he came back to me with.  They arrived at the garage and could not get the car out of park to roll it off the truck. There was no response from the battery at all. So they had to use the “shake and jolt” method to slide the car down the ramp.  Jerk, slam, slide, bang, repeat…   After getting to the ground, the husband decided to get in and turn the key and, you guessed it, it started.  He started it half a dozen times with no trouble at all.  Then he paid the tow truck driver $50 and they left. Sob…

I have stopped in at the garage since and talked with the mechanic. Mostly what he said was “you’re in no hurry, are you?” No, I guess not. I noticed he had a charger hooked up to my car.  I can’t imagine why.  I’m just sayin’, I see a trade in my future. Don’t tell the car. 

Santa’s White Christmas

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Lately I’ve been thinking about too many things that make me cry.
Syria,
my immobile car, my sick quadriplegic friend,
my missed deadlines, my unkept promises, the world, my indecision,
other people’s problems, a touch of loneliness,
the economy, occasional holiday self-pity,
things I’m longing for,
things I’m waiting for,
the grocery store checker who was sharp with me,
the things I can’t afford,
Syria again, Cambodia, China,
and more…

I hate to think ‘cause I just know I’m going to cry and my head is getting tired of crying.

Normally when I feel like this I put my hands in warm, soapy water and feel better immediately (washing dishes – try it, it works). Today there were no dirty dishes so I decided to cook something for supper instead. This was not the best idea for someone who has been crying a lot.

First, there is the problem of finding something to cook. What I needed to cook was the large bag of collard greens that had been keeping cool for, oh, maybe a week. I’m a Yankee girl and I know almost nothing about collards. I bought them because I know they’re nutritious and I should eat them. So I put them in the pan and turned up the heat, then started looking for a recipe. That is not the right order.

After the collards burned, I found just the right recipe. Collard soufflé. I had all the ingredients, in a manner of speaking. What that means is that I don’t have several of the ingredients but I have something I think will pass as a substitute. Recipes are for people who live in a grocery store and have a lot of weird things on hand. I only have whipping cream when there’s pumpkin pie to go with it. I never have Jarlsberg cheese. Fresh bread crumbs, is there such a thing? I had eggs, and collards so I went with it.

The mixture looked very soufflé-ish, which was encouraging, so I poured it in the soufflé pan. Well, I mean I poured it in the spring form pan which I thought was probably the size of a soufflé pan. Those spring form pans really aren’t liquid tight so of course the egg and milk started running out the bottom all over the stove top. Fortunately, I had a pan of boiling water ready in the oven to set it in. Evidently that is the way soufflés are cooked. We’ll find out. I’m afraid.

But I’m not going to cry. While rummaging in the freezer for something to cook I found an opened bag of Santa’s White Christmas coffee from 2009. I think this is the year to finish it off and I’m going to make some right now. I’m not going to cry. I’m just sayin’…

A Christmas Conversation

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The neighbor girl, age 8, came past today as I was mowing the lawn and since I hadn’t seen her for a couple of weeks I stopped the tractor for a chat.  I asked her how she was and it led to a conversation that went something like this…

“So how have you been lately?”

“Great, my school had a “one”derful Christmas thing and my mom gave me $20 to spend. I got all my shopping done for my whole family. Everything was one dollar.” She named off her five family members that she had bought for and confessed that she had spent most of the remaining money on herself.

“What do you think this whole Christmas thing is about?” I asked.

After a bit of thinking she explained that it was the birthday of Jesus.

“So isn’t it kind of weird that we give presents to everybody else on Jesus’ birthday?”

“Well, not really,” she said. “ It’s Jesus’ birthday but lots of people just don’t care and they want presents because it’s fun to get them. I really believe in Santa.”

“Oh yeah? You mean he’s a real person? What does he do?”

“He gives presents to kids when their parents can’t get them anything, so they can have fun too.”

“And he wears the red suit and the cap and all?”

“Yes, and he comes down the chimney.  I saw the reindeer too once.”

“What do you think about all the other people who dress up like him and say they’re Santa?”

“They’re fake.”

“So, he must be pretty skinny if he fits down peoples’ chimneys?”

“No, he eat cookies at everybody’s house.”

“Oh, so he’s fat. Isn’t that a problem?”

She wasn’t used to being grilled on her Santa knowledge and by this time she was getting at a loss for words and frustrated with me.  “Santa is magic, that’s how he gets in.”  This was followed by an expose about her dad who had played a trick on her a couple years ago, saying he was teleported into their house, when really he had snuck around through the back door.  “Now he tells me!” she says, rolling her eyes and explaining that Santa is different, magic.

“And does Santa get stuff for you?”

“Yes, three or four things and he puts them under the tree.  My dad said he quit getting presents when he was four, and I said, why would you quit getting presents?! But his family didn’t keep Christmas after that and they didn’t have a tree.”

“What? If you don’t have a tree he doesn’t leave any presents?”

“Well, he has to have a tree. I have a friend who has little Christmas trees  in three different rooms and Santa left presents under every tree.  My mom tells him what she’s getting me so he knows to get different stuff. “

“How does she tell him?”

“She has his number. She calls him.”

“Well, I have to get back to mowing the lawn, and you probably have something to do too.”

“Yeah, see ya.”

And so ended our conversation.  I was so fascinated at the intricacy of the fabrication she had constructed that I didn’t even attempt to address the reality of Santa.  Her parents had put some time and trouble into reinforcing  the story and although I had started a relationship with her, I didn’t feel it was my place to break the news.  Perhaps I should have given her more to think about, and maybe I will the next time I see her.  How does one begin to tell the real, deeper story?

I couldn’t help but think, as I rode around on the mower, how much effort we put into various distractions on the Christmas theme – time to decorate, time to bake, shop, party. It has to leave the birthday boy feeling a little left out, if it’s really his birthday.  Something to think about.,,

photo credit: laursifer via photopin cc

    • Cleaners and Neaters

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    For me, one of the nicest things about travel is that eventually I get to come home. Home, after two weeks away, is almost like someplace I’ve never been. It is a familiar, but still strange sort of place.

    I get to use a full size tube of tooth paste.

    My friends and family say they missed me.

    There is an abundance of meaningful work to do.

    I don’t have to wear dirty clothes unless I want to.

    And oddly enough, instead of responding to unusual circumstances that present themselves only on rare occasions, I have to think about and be who I need to be for the long haul, the majority of day to day living. More about that later.

    As I reacquaint myself with the house where I live with the husband, I am suddenly able to figure something out that I have wondered about for years.  We are different, the husband and I, and that’s good and serves a purpose. Here is my newest definition of a particular difference.

    Some people are neat and tidy but not necessarily cleaners.

    Other people makes lots of messes when they work but they are cleaners when it’s done.

    Neaters and cleaners, that’s it.  I can think of so many examples of how this works out – like our paperwork and files.  Everything is stacked or filed (kept) meticulously, but usually it is only one of us who cleans and throws out the outdated and unnecessary.  Bathroom stuff is on its shelf or drawer, but only one of us wipes out the drawer and cleans the shelf. The dishwasher is loaded and run, but only one of us clears and cleans the counters and puts stuff away.  

    Now unless you begin to think that the cleaner is in some way superior to the neater, let me say that it’s not true.  I am the cleaner (in case you haven’t figured it out) and I am capable of what I call “creative mess” at any moment.  I am following a trail and can’t be bothered with neatness along the way. Besides, I know I’m going to have to clean it up eventually, so I get to choose when. There is evidence of my creative side all over the house but the husband doesn’t often mind (or notice) as long as his stuff is in the pile where he put it (neatly). We were meant to coexist.

    Those of us who love our homes will probably admit that the cleaning and organizing that we do is part of the “love”.  The satisfaction of making a difference, even if it’s only to clean a counter or rearrange a corner of the living room, is like getting to catch up with an old friend.  Yep, that’s what I’m doing today and it’s good to be home… I’m just sayin’.

    Airport perks

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    I am sitting in the Lindbergh terminal in Minneapolis, Minnesota, land of 10,000 lakes (all of them frozen over at present). In some ways airports are similar to each other but there is usually something unique about each one. 

    I have never noticed this about MSP before so maybe it is only the case at this newest gate, but they have iPads everywhere.  There aren’t the usual rows of plastic chairs with tables here and there. It’s like a computer bar everywhere – low booths, high bar chairs with counters and all with iPads on stands ready for use. Some are free but I also see places to swipe credit cards.  There is a restaurant and bar across the isle and all the ordering is done on iPads. The waiter is only there to ask if people know how to use the gadget. Some travelers are using their own computers, like me, but many are taking advantage of the tablets and watching movies or checking their stocks (probably, I don’t know…)

    I’m just saying – the world is changing, isn’t it?

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    Related People

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    My Grandfather (well, one of them)
    My Grandfather (well, one of them)

    I’ve spent quite a bit of time today with my mom looking at family letters, journals, pictures and memorabilia. I am very confused and totally impressed with anyone who spends more than half an hour studying genealogy. Think of it this way – most of us know who our parents are. That’s two people. A lot of us know or have known one or both of our sets of grandparents. It’s not too hard yet – that’s just six people all together. A few of us knew great-grandparents, or heard about them from people who knew them. We’ve just added eight more people to the mix, fourteen to keep track of. Still with me? Now maybe you get married and have children. Those poor kids have double that number to figure out because you’ve just joined them to another line of your spouse’s ancestry. And that number doubles every time you go back another generation. We haven’t said anything about aunts, uncles or cousins yet either.

    And ancestors can really confuse you if they happened to have more than one marriage. Also in the past, people didn’t have a lot of imagination in naming their kids, or they were too busy, or something. They just kept picking the same names that their father or uncle or sister or brother had. So every generation had repeats with a number behind the name. (If you care about genealogy, pick a unique name for your child, please.)

    I’ve about decided that I’m not going to get it all straight. I’m just going to remember some of the neat stories. For instance, one of my ancestors (George Boone III, poor guy) came over from England and enjoyed dabbling in real estate. He was the original owner of the tract of land in Maryland that became Washington, D.C. and in fact, Georgetown is named after him. There is even a plaque in the city that says so. Pretty cool, huh? Yes, there was also a George IV,

    Another of my ancestors named Squire Boone (and I have to hand it to his parents for thinking of a name I certainly wouldn’t have thought of) had two sons, Edward and Daniel. He lived in Kentucky and yes they did have coonskin caps. Edward was my ancestor, but he was killed by Indians and his brother Daniel helped raise his children. I haven’t figured out how many “greats” I have to attach to it, but Daniel Boone was some kind of an uncle of mine.

    There’s lots more and the really great thing is that so many of my ancestors were the bloggers of their day. They wrote journals, they were newspaper reporters and writers of one sort or another. Many were school teachers or ministers which gave them a familiarity with writing and an appreciation of family histories. One of “my people” sat in a tent one night during the Civil War and put down his thoughts in a poem and we have it today.

    My great aunt Esther was one of the historians for our family on my mother’s side. In spite of the fact that she wrote a lot of her notes on napkins, and lost pages of letters all the time, she did have a large collection of family history that she passed on to my mom. That’s the material we are sorting through. My mom has compiled a two volume history from most of the writings but what do we do with those precious originals? I want to thank my ancestors for writing about their ordinary lives, which, turns out for some of them, were pretty extraordinary. If this makes you want to start a journal, I’m sayin’ just do it!

    Do you have an interesting story in your family history? Tell it to me, please.

    Hair

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    Hair adorns the top of our heads, most of us. And even if it doesn’t, it probably has played a pretty dominant role in our lives as one of those things we spend a lot of time on, but still take for granted.  We get it cut, curled, pulled, washed, and we put products on it.  We care about how our hats look on it, and have preferences as to whether it should hang in our eyes or not.  We have stories we tell about Rapunzel (“let down your hair!”), Samson and Delilah, and Absalom who had such ridiculously out of control hair that it got caught in a tree he rode under and literally was the death of him. We have people who support themselves entirely taking care of our hair for us.  

    We make statements with our hair as, for instance, when our dreads hang out the back under our football helmets, or when our hair turns pink, purple, green or blue. We all refer to common sayings and know what we mean by “bad hair day” or “hair raising experience”, “get out of my hair”, “a hairy situation” or “turn it down just a hair”.

    Our hair keeps us warm.

    We cry when we get sick and our hair falls out.

    Personally, hair has figured largely in my past.  In addition to not smiling in most of my grade school pictures, I can look at them and tell whether I was in my pin curl stage, my sleeping in rollers stage or my dry the hair over the furnace duct stage. I have longish, white/gray hair now and I can find a barrette, or an elastic hair band in nearly any purse or pocket of mine. I confess, almost any time I look in a mirror, it has something to do with my hair.

    I lived with two daughters who have always had nice hair, although one of them was scarred emotionally by a perm I once gave her.  Okay, so maybe I gave a couple bad haircuts to the other one too.  And my husband has had the same barber for the last forty years – me.

    I’m thinking about hair this week more than usual because we have had a three generational hair week up here in Wisconsin.  Not mentioning any names, but some of us just don’t have time during our normal lives to take care of hair. A vacation turns out to be a good time for some fixes. 

    On one of the first days here, sitting around with my daughter and mother, I offered to take them both out for the procedure – if we could find someone trustworthy to handle our locks.  Mom told me about a relative in town at Salon Soleil who had done a good job for someone so I looked the person up.  I felt confident she was skilled when I found out she had no openings. My daughter and I went on her waiting list in case there was a cancellation, and thanks to the blizzard this week there were two of them.  (Do you wonder how some committed professionals make it 25 miles to their job in a snowstorm and count it as “just another day” at work? I do.) We caught up on family news in addition to having a pleasant time getting a head massage and being made lovelier.   

    My mom had a regular stylist and today we spent a couple hours in her home salon getting her permed and styled. She had chosen a good name for her business, A New Creation.  I like the way all three of us look with our recent changes. It kind of does something for your confidence when you look taken care of and current. I think it was a good move and money well spent. And I’m just sayin’ it was a fun thing to do with my mom and my daughter.