My New Life In China: Kathryn's Photo Journal, Entry 1

Kathryn wants to introduce you to her new home! Here's her first in a series:

"The first and most important place I should show you is my favorite Ice Cream shop. They sell lots of other things too, but the ice cream is all I come here for."
















"Come on, Ellie, hold my hand and don't walk into that street!"




















"Don't we 2 look cute?"















"Here's one of my favorite snacks: they are little round cookie bites that melt in your mouth."















"Sometimes when my mom is too lazy to take the double stroller, Ellie has to ride on my lap. It's a real pain, as you can see."















"Across the street is a play area with these 2 rides. I asked my mom for MONTHS and MONTHS to ride them, and she NEVER had the right coins. This is the first day we got to."
















"We had to wait our turn but we met these 2 babies-- they were born just a few days apart."
















"The wait was finally over."
















"But we had to rush home because there was someone at the house delivering something. Here's something you see EVERYWHERE!"















"We didn't get to stay out for long, but I'll send you more pictures soon!"

Back to Joy

OK, I promised I would continue these thoughts...
(Just as a reminder--
Reflection #1: Joy comes from God
Reflection #2: Joy comes from rich fellowship
Now moving forward...

A striking trend is seen in the OT references to “joy” and “rejoice”. Here you see John Piper is right, and many who have gone before him. Yet when you read these verses for yourself, it hits you fresh:

Reflection #3: Joy is commanded

Lev. 23:40: “You shall rejoice before the Lord…”

Dt. 12:7, 12 18: “Rejoice in ALL your undertakings…”

Dt. 14:26: “As you eat in the presence of the Lord, rejoice.”

Dt. 26:11: “You shall rejoice in all the good the Lord has given you.”

*Dt. 28:47: Israel is cursed because they did not serve the Lord with joy.

The first question this leads me to is: What does this reflect of our God, who mandates that we be joyful?

The second is: Knowing the obvious struggles and despondencies of our hearts in this life, how can we possibly consistently obey this command?

So I'm taking a survey and I'm looking for your insights :) -- How would YOU answer these 2 questions?

Potty Training Round 2

Only to redeem the picture of my most-unclothed child in the last post, (You thought that once we moved away from a tropical climate, we would begin properly clothing our children, didn't you?) I'll share our latest potty escapades.

It's Ellie's turn! I now feel enough on the other side of transition that I could being entertaining the idea of potty training again. Kathryn and I began singing her a chant--


"You can do it!
Ellie can do it!
Ellie can use the potty, YEAH!"

No tee-tee, but a lot of rah-rah excitement and cheering.
Does she look ready to conquer the world, or what?

Life Up and Running

Through our many transitions, the way I have come to mark the settling-in phase of the transition is this: When your kitchen is sufficiently stocked to make chocolate chip cookies, you are well on your way. So it has become important to make cookies as soon as possible-- a sort of sign of the possible impending return of sanity. Interestingly, the ingredient I was lacking was not the baking soda or the chocolate chips. (Yes, I did bring a 72 oz. bag of Nestle's chips before we left.) It was the OVEN! Chinese people do almost all their cooking on the stove, so ovens are tough to find. I kick myself now for not shipping my oven from Singapore-- It was on its last leg, but it was bigger than anything I have found here! So I found one, and cookies were baking by that evening. You want to know what it looks like, don't you? It's kind of like a big toaster oven, and it comfortably fits a 9x13 pan.













As a bonus insight into our lives here, next to the oven you see our "water tong". You can't drink the tap water here, so all drinking water is bottled. 11 years ago, I brought with me a very pricey bottled filtering system to clean our water; Now these dispensers are standard. A few weeks back we heard some news reports that about half of the bottled water in our city was "jia de"-- FAKE. Not sure what this means-- tap water? people bottling water without a license? Hard to say. But our water delivery man swears up and down that our water is the very best quality-- how can we doubt?

OK, back to the cookies. A friend made a great suggestion. In the US, I used to love buying those Nestle Toll House break and bake cookies because you can cook just a few at a time. (Because assuredly, as many as you make will get eaten!) So my friend Julia showed me how she makes a batch of dough, shapes them into balls, and then freezes the balls so you can pop in as many as you want. This is perfect for my style-- After the first few days of a new batch, they start to get boring and dried out. But an occasional fresh-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookie is NEVER boring. So here is the first batch from our new oven:

Do you think they were a hit?

What Happened to Joy?

I imagine you have given up on me. But I haven't forgotten-- I got side-tracked for several weeks on another project, but let me promise I will resume posting "reflections on joy"... I need it!

Quote for the Day

"Before I got married, I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children, and no theories." -Lord Rochester

No need for commentary; This quote speaks for itself!