Sasha the Teacher

It has been a month now since Sasha and Nastiya had to go back to Ukraine. They taught me lessons this summer. These are lessons I quickly forget, so I am writing this down to help me remember.

This lesson is from Sasha.

We were on vacation at a family camp in the redwoods near Santa Cruz. A train ride down to Santa Cruz was planned one day. The train had open cars. The train would stop at the boardwalk in Santa Cruz, on the beach. Had the girls ever seen the ocean?

I tried to tell Sasha all the things that were going to happen, but she was in a rebellious mood. "No sleep. No eat." She was telling me she did not want to do anything. How could I explain to her in a way she could understand? My Russian was poor, her English was poor, pantomiming seldom got across the correct idea.

I could not let her miss this opportunity, so I picked her up out of bed, grabbed a bag with a change of clothes, and started walking to the place where people were gathering to catch a ride to the train. For half the distance, she struggled and fought to get out of my grasp. She finally realized I had enough strength to force her to do what I wanted. She then decided that she did not want to be seen in her pajamas. I found a place for her to change into her clothes.

We rode the train. We ran on the beach, and found shells, and big clumps of icky sea weed. We ate fresh fish at a restaurant on the pier. We saw sea lions. We rode many rides on the boardwalk. We gave both girls disposable cameras so they could remember their day on the beach, and the pictures were quickly used up. It was a very good day.

The lesson? How often does God come to me and say, "I have something great planned. We don't communicate well, so I can't begin to make you understand just how great it's going to be. But it will be awesome. Come on! Let's go!" And what do I usually say? "I'm comfortable here. I like this routine. I don't want to do something unfamiliar. I don't trust you." Unlike my story with Sasha, God usually lets me stay where I am, where things slowly becomes less enjoyable, and I miss the great thing God had planned. Just as Sasha did not trust me, I do not trust God.

If we can get Sasha and Nastiya back, there will many more opportunities for learning trust. And I hope that my eyes can remain open to the lessons these girls are teaching me.

I Cor. 2:9 - "... 'No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him'"

Papers and Other Terrors

The construction company is officially finished.
So I says to myself, "Why in the world should I pay a contractor to paint my house when I am perfectly capable of doing it myself?"
The new addition outside.
"I'll save a bundle for sure!"
Its a split level so the eaves are way up there.
"I like to paint."
The kitchen addition inside too.
"It will just take a few days."

Five days of painting. I'm tired of painting. Its really quite amazing how much paint we've accumulated in the 15 years we've been here. At least 5 different gallons of "white" and I still can't find the "white" that matches the ceiling in the kitchen. I'm starting to think 'Hillsborough Beige' looks exactly like the nylons I used to buy. The rough-wood-gray-outside-stain stuff is like water. Do you really just put it on with a roller? It's so drippy. I bet it would work better if I just poured it on the siding from the upstairs window.
(Haven't done that one yet but I'm tempted.)

So miss the girls. I don't even have their address. Not a good feeling. I'm working on it by pleading with people that have connections over there. I'm hoping Sasha will write a letter and send it in one of the SASE I gave her. Of course, they don't have a return addresses on them . . .

Painting the house is such a downer after the great summer we had together. Oh gee, I guess I'll clean out the game closet next week. Doesn't that sound exciting?
(Sorry, just a little bitterness seeping through.)

Papers. Yeah. I keep thinking that any day now we will be able to send our dossier over the great ocean to the country beyond (that would be Ukraine). We send papers to the lady that checks them very carefully to see if there are any booboos and she tells us there are corrections that need to be made and we make them and send them back and then she tells us there are some more papers. Its kind of like painting. Do you ever finish, really? But I think we are almost ready this time! When she finally says they are okay, I have to take the whole bundle down to Denver where the lord high keeper of the notaries will check to make sure the notaries are really notarized to be notaries and not just people with fancy embossing equipment maniacally stamping otherwise innocent looking papers just for kicks. I can't wait.



I wonder if they really ever find notaries that aren't notarized.