Adventures in Disappointment

You ever have those adventures where you've got your hopes up so high and then you get to wherever it is you're going only to be disappointed?  I had one of those adventures today.  But as I've learned through life, you learn to make the most of the situation and try to figure out a way to redeem it.  It usually involves a lot of silliness.

Case in point - I had nothing on the agenda for the weekend but really didn't want to sit around either and do nothing.  So I texted my cousin to see what he was up to.  Nothing.  Awesome.  Glad we're in the same boat.  What do you want to do?  I don't care, whatever you want to do.  Statehouse tour?  Christmas shopping?  Tour of local caverns? (I almost wrote taverns - that probably would have been just as exciting.)  I don't care, you pick.  You're no help.  I have a coupon for the caverns, let's go there.  Awesome.  See you in the morning.

So we roll out of bed and get ready to go on our little adventure up to Olentangy Indian Caverns, about 20 minutes from where I live.  On the car ride up, while listening to Taylor Swift's new CD (my choice), we discuss the merits of her music and try to determine whether she can actually sing.  We have no solid conclusion to that discussion, other than the fact that Taylor gets bonus points for writing her own music. 

As we get closer to the caverns, we're taking bets that we will be the only people there on a cold Saturday in November.  We were pleasantly surprised to find about 5 cars in the parking lot, better than nothing.  We grab our tickets and head underground.  We've got our handy dandy map and I look like I'm about ready to climb Everest.  I've got a ski cap on, my quilted jacket, a polar fleece coat under that, a long sleeve t-shirt under that, mittens, and snow boots on.  Hey, I get cold easily.  I know to be prepared.  So even though I look like an eskimo to the rest of the world, I'm quite comfortable.

We trudge down the stairs into the cave, pushing the buttons along the way that give audio recordings explaining this, that, and the other.  We follow the map to the first room.  Basically stand in one point spot, turn in a circle, and that's about it.  So maybe you're 150 feet below ground at this point and the ceiling is about 50 feet high.  Cool. Okay, next room.  Skinny Man's Squeeze where we find Indian Lover's Bench (no joke - that's what it's called on the map).  And yes, it's skinny.  Even I had to turn sideways to make it up there.  End of that room.  Next.  Turn in a circle, go up a few walkways and we're done.  Next.  A stalactite that looks like a beehive.  Hmm. Could have fooled me.  Crystal Room?  Uh, you might you want to give it a different name because I'm pretty sure these look nothing like crystals to me.  Looks more like moss.  Chief Leatherlips' profile in the rock?  Your guess is as good as mine.  I think maybe this is his nose and those are his eyes.  Or maybe this is his forehead and that's his nose?  Wait, if you stand here I think I see an elephant.   

Twenty minutes later we're wondering if we read the map wrong and somehow missed half of the cave because there's no way we can be done.  

But we were.  And then we were invaded by a Boy Scout troop and we decided to exit stage left.  

So now what?  We drove all the way up here and we've seen it all in less than 30 minutes.  Disappointment was setting in.  Is it possible to be disillusioned with a cave?

What do you do when all else fails? Picture time!  This is when silliness sets in, shortly after you learn to let go of your disappointment.  We trounced around the cave looking for the next great photo op.  But try finding a flat surface in a cave that isn't covered with dripping water or moss so that you put your camera on self-timer.  Not easy.  So we walked back through all the rooms again wondering we where we could snap our next Kodak moment.  Some photos I felt like we were shooting really cheesy senior photos, only underground.  But then we got to laughing so hard we didn't care.  After awhile we decided we could no longer delay our return to the surface because there was literally nothing else left for us to do.  Only so many photos can be taken.

By the time we got to the top of the 3 flights of stairs, we were both breathing so hard and our legs were burning so bad that we had to take a pit stop and gulp in air, right next to the life-size wooden Indian, of course.  (I have never claimed to work out regularly or do any form of exercise.  It clearly showed today.)  We made it back to the car and where we decided we had no Plan B by which we could redeem the day.  So we drove home, watched Ohio State's game and decided that we were glad we had a coupon for buy one get one free because I'm sad to say, Olentangy Indian Caverns isn't worth the $8.50 they charge.  

But I did get a smashed penny out of the deal.  :) 

Rafiki Update

I was excited to receive word from both the Village Director and the ChildCare Director about some recent happenings in the village.  There are moments that catch me by surprise, when I wake up in the morning maybe or when I'm at work and I see a picture of Glen and I suddenly get wistful, missing Kenya and the children like crazy.  I miss Elijah and tutoring him every day.  I miss Kate saying "super cute" in nearly every other sentence (even though the phrase does drive me slightly crazy now to hear it).  There are a lot of things I miss, but I know life goes on and I know the children are doing well and I know God is continuing to do a work there. 

From the Village Director:
Thank you very much for all the photos you have sent.  They are great!  I shall print them off for the children and into their picture books.  You may already know that we now have 96 resident children - 48 boys and 48 girls.  Four new children came "home" from Kitui early this month.  Hopefully, before month-end, the 97th "son" will come home too.  We are asking the Lord to bring us another "son" and another two "daughters".  If He permits it before the end of the year, then we will be 100.  A nice figure to work with - 50 sons and 50 daughters.

From the ChildCare Director:
On Tuesday, three days after we returned (They had been in the States), twelve-year-old Charles broke both of the bones in his left arm just above the wrist. On the way to Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital, a bus side swiped our Village director’s car in which Patty, Charles, and Rafiki Mother Lydia were traveling but it didn’t delay them too long because the local police station was less than 100 yards away. Once at the hospital, the staff took great care of Charles. A theater, anesthesiologist, and orthopedic surgeon all became available for Charles’ three and a half hour surgery at 8 P.M. For those of you who are not familiar with British English, when you’re in a hospital, a theater is an operating room, not a place of entertainment. There was no joy in the break in Charles’ arm but we’re very happy to have good medical care available here in Kenya.

Wednesday evening Rafiki Pediatrician, Dr. Elaine Tan, and Nurse Liz Prince arrived at Rafiki. It’s a huge blessing for us to have them here to do yearly physicals for the children. In addition to tablets, ointments, and syrups, Dr. Tan dispenses smiles, hugs, and encouragement to follow God’s Word.

They ask prayer for:

Patience as we wait on the government for income-tax exemption, the school registration certificate, and our charitable children’s institution certificate.


• Wisdom for the Home Office as they evaluate bids for construction of the senior secondary school.

• Funds to be available to confirm building of the first residence hall.

• God to bring us a social worker, two teachers, and a Rafiki Mother-in-training.

• Court committals and birth certificates for the new children who have come.

• God to direct us to two more orphaned girls and one more orphaned boy to make a full complement of 100 resident children by the end of the year.

• Health and safety for everyone at Rafiki Village Kenya.

• Wisdom and discernment for leading well.

• Consistent supply of water and electricity.

• God’s provision for our next term which begins January 1, 2011.

Single Today

I really appreciated this quote that my sweet friend Emily sent my way from a book she is currently reading:

"Ultimately we are single because that's God's will for us right now.  That's it.  It's not because we are too old, too fat, too skinny, too tall, too short, too quiet, too loud, too smart, too simple, too demanding, or too anything else.  It's not wholly because of past failures or sin tendencies.  It's not because we're of one race when many of the men around us are of another.  It's not because the men we know lean toward passive temperaments.  It's not because there are more women than men in our singles group.  It's not because our church doesn't even have a singles group.  Though perhaps these all feel like valid reasons, they don't trump God's will.  One look at the marriages we know or the announcements in the newspaper will assure us that these factors are present in many people's lives and they still got married.  We are single today because God apportioned us this gift today." 

- Carolyn McCulley

Taking Bets

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible. This I did."  - T.E. Lawrence

I'd say year 25 was all about crossing a few things off the bucket list and crossing off a few things that were never on the bucket list to begin with.  I've been thinking a lot about what has happened in the last year, expected things, unexpected things, but always an adventure.  It was all about being a dreamer of the day, acting on dreams with open eyes.  This I did. 

I've always had it on my bucket list to own a Great Dane.  Well, that didn't happen but I did get to meet Tucker the Great Dane.  That will have to suffice for now since I don't foresee owning 80 acres anytime soon to accommodate owning such an animal.  My dad thinks I should just skip the Great Dane and buy a horse.   It's the same thing to him.

And then I got to watch one of my very best friends marry the Future Husband she had written about for years and in the process I got to meet one of my favorite authors at her wedding.  It was sweet to watch Erica throughout this process, seeing the crazy days, the good days, and the days when she would e-mail me in a panic about how to insert an anchor JPEG into her invitation.  I always love being a part of people's weddings and this was the year for quite a few.  I also got to see Steph get married, and numerous other friends have since gotten engaged.  I celebrate with them in those moments.

I welcomed a new niece into the world, which wasn't so much on the bucket list (like I have control over that) as it was just a fitting moment in life.  I sold some of my paintings (Thank you, Debbie S., for supporting the arts and my then-grocery budget).  I read a grand total of 45 books since last October.  That's not one of my life's aims, but I started keeping a log a year ago May of every book I have since read and I went over my list last night just to jog my memory on some of my favorites that I had read in the past year.  I capped off year 25 by finishing up Susan Casey's The Wave, which was a fantastic read.  I am now fascinated by all things surfing.  I just have no desire to add to my list "surf the world's biggest wave."  But maybe I'll add to the list "sit on the beach in Hawaii and watch someone else surf big waves." 

After that was a trip I had dreamed about since I was a kid.  Africa.  I don't need to elaborate on this one I think since I chronicled so much of that adventure on here.  But that trip was so worth it.  Even this morning, I woke up missing those kids, in particular, little David.  For some reason his sweet face popped into my head and I got a little sad about not being able to see him anytime soon.  But I know I'll go back some day.  I don't know when that will be, but I'm determined to make it happen.                                                                     

In between, I finished my MBA.  That was one of those things that wasn't on the list.  I had no intention of ever going to grad school, but away we went.  I got to laughing the other day because I pulled out my notebook where I write down the list of things I want to do in my lifetime.  I had on there "graduate from high school" and "graduate from college."  Check and check.  Just didn't have on there anything about grad school.  So that was a bonus for the year.   

 But I guess I couldn't have picked a better way to end year 25 when my brother told me he bought me tickets to the Ohio State vs. Indiana game this past weekend. I know, I know.  I had felt like I was committing some kind of crime by having lived in Ohio all my life and having never been to an OSU game at The 'Shoe.  I was waiting for the police to show up on my doorstep.  I loved everything about the game, about the traditions, about the stadium, about the Skull session, even the crazy Indiana fan sitting next to us who I thought was going to burst a blood vessel.  To top it off, it was Jim Tressel's 100th win. (Thank you, South Carolina, for bringing down Alabama - that certainly helped to catapult OSU to #1 in the country.)

So, yeah, year 25 was pretty great.  But I'm taking bets that year 26 will be better.  God has shown him faithful in numerous ways, both big and small.  And it's not to say that the best years are always sunshine and roses, for they are surely tempered with a few storms.  But I don't ever want to be the kind of person that says the best years of my life are behind me.  I think I'll tackle "own a hammock" and "spend a week or two on a dude ranch" for this year.  And who knows what will be unexpectedly added to the list. 

Why Can't They Last?

There are some stories I don't ever want to end.  I felt that way about Lord of the Rings.  I felt that way about A Severe Mercy and Seabiscuit.  I almost felt that way about the Twilight Saga until one of the characters started drinking blood to keep her half-vampire baby alive in her womb.  In fact, I get rather annoyed when some of my favorite stories end.  There's just such a sense of let-down.  I feel this sense of dread as I near the final page because I know it's all about to be over and I can't do a thing about it.  Most of the stories that I feel this way about are the ones that are so epic in nature - the ones that captive both the mind and the heart, the ones that elevate you beyond where you presently are.

I just put down Secretariat:  The Making of a Champion  by William Nack and I nearly wanted to cry when I finished it because it's just such a beautiful and inspiring story and I was so sad it came to a close.  I know, I know.  It's just a horse.  I get it.  Just like the Michigan-Ohio State game is just another football game and Mother Theresa is just another woman.  But to anybody who watches that kind of history unfold knows it's never just another horse race and it's never just another horse.  I wanted to stand up and cheer just reading the darn thing.  I wanted to yell along with everyone else when Secretariat set blistering records in each of his Triple Crown races.  I mean, good grief, the horse ran each eighth of the Kentucky Derby successively faster and faster, which is just mind boggling because the times should get successively slower, not faster.  He won the Belmont by a stunning 31 lengths.  The horse was a maniac. 

When he died - 21 years ago tomorrow - they did an autopsy on him and found that his heart was twice as big as a normal thoroughbred, which meant he could pump far more oxygen into his bloodstream, giving him a competitive edge that other breeders could only dream of developing in their horses.  His offspring weren't much to brag about, with only a few garnering serious accolades - none would come close to accomplishing what their daddy had. 

But I guess the really great stories have to come to an end sometime.  At least until another comes along.



"Do you give the horse his strength or clothe his neck with a flowing mane?  Do you make him leap like a locust, striking terror with his proud snorting? He paws fiercely, rejoicing in his strength, and charges into the fray. He laughs at fear, afraid of nothing; he does not shy away from the sword. The quiver rattles against his side, along with the flashing spear and lance. In frenzied excitement he eats up the ground; he cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds. At the blast of the trumpet he snorts, 'Aha!'  He catches the scent of battle from afar, the shout of commanders and the battle cry."
- portion of Job 39

Oh, Charlie Brown...

I'm particularly fond of two classic cartoons:  Garfield and Peanuts.  I feel like most of the things that come out of Garfield's mouth are usually things I have said or thought at one point another.   Not that that is a good or bad thing, but rather just a reflection of personalities.  But I felt yesterday's Peanuts was very appropriate for my recent train of thought about living life intentionally. It seems I have had several people cross my path in recent weeks, mentioning other people in their life who have lost all sense of purpose or pursuit of the world around them.  And sometimes I wonder if maybe if I shouldn't just hand people comic strips when I feel compelled to impart important life lessons to them.  Maybe that would soften the blow some? 



Oh, how the words of wisdom ring true.  Thank you, Peanuts.

Magic in an Ordinary Life

A friend recently asked me while chatting on Facebook what books I had been reading.  And I said that I was a little burnt out on fiction and had since dived into the world of non-fiction, and then proceeded to give her in a nutshell my present selection:  "Well, one is on the Holocaust, another is about an Antarctic expedition, another is about horses, and one is about gambling."  I've got Ernest Shackleton's South and Ben Mezrich's Bringing Down the House being simultaneously read, with Bill Nack's Secretariat, Luci Swindoll's I Married Adventure, and Doris Bergen's War and Genocide on deck.  I'm going to have to work up to War and Genocide, which is a concise history of the Holocaust and I pulled Nack's and Swindoll's books off the shelf because 1) in preparation for Disney's upcoming movie version of the story of Secretariat and 2) Swindoll's book is just such an encouraging read - and talks a lot about Africa.  They are both books I've read before but books that good are always worth re-reading.  I remember having to slog my way through Nack's book initially when I read it the first time so hopefully I can make it through again.  Mezrich's book is just all together fascinating now that I have seen the movie 21, the movie being based on the book.  It's a true story about six MIT students who lead double lives and take Vegas for millions by playing black jack and counting cards.  It's a wonderfully stunning, unnerving, and exciting read all at the same time.  Makes me wish I was brave enough to take on Vegas and smart enough to count cards.  It's a fleeting thought. 

But I think the book that has been most compelling for me as of late has been Shackleton's South.  I had been talking to my friend Jonathan about our latest reads and I had mentioned I wanted to get my hands on some books about Shackleton's expedition to the South Pole.  He was sweet enough to pick up a copy of Shackleton's memoir for me at a half-priced book store and I've been reading it ever since.   If you're not familiar (like I was prior to reading this book) with Shackleton's adventures or his life, you can read the cliff-notes at Wikipedia.  The short version of the story is that Shackleton set out on the dawn of WWI to cross the Antarctic from sea to sea, but his ship Endurance was eventually crushed between some ice floes and him and all of his men were stranded on ice floes for months at a time.  They all eventually - despite some of the worst weather conditions known to man and some of the severest trials - make it back to civilization alive.  Meanwhile almost all of World War I had happened without their knowledge.  Once Shackleton reached a whaling station in South Georgia and attemps to rescue the remaing men left behind in his party, he writes:

We were like mad men arisen from the dead to a world gone mad.  Our minds accustomed themselves gradually to the tales of nations in arms, of deathless courage and unimagined slaughter, of a world-conflict that had grown beyond all conceptions, of vast red battlefields in grimmest contrast with the frigid whiteness we had left behind us.  The reader may not realize quite how difficult it was for us to envisage nearly two years of the most stupendous war in history....No other civilized men could have been as blankly ignorant of world-shaking happenings as we were...

 But you know what really has me so captivated by Shackleton's story?  I think it's something that I've been thinking about for a long time, years maybe, off and on - this idea of the ordinary life.  This idea that even in the most obscure and mundane and monotonous life, there's something worth telling, a life worth living.  I think I went through this phase in college where I told myself if I didn't achieve x, y, and z, I was going to be a failure in life.  I was so driven by this idea that everything had to be a grand adventure.  And then I realized that even in a so-called common and ordinary life, I could still have a great adventure.  Now, not to say that Shackleton and his men were exactly living ordinary lives, but to them they were.  They were doing what their hearts had been set on and that was common for them.  It was their lives to be men of the sea and to suffer through freezing cold temperatures.  Shackleton would often mention times though when the ship would be stuck in a floe for a few days, the men would get out on the ice and play football.  One part of me wants to say, "You're out in the middle of the stinkin' Antarctic freezing your fannies off, and you're playing football?!"

But this was life for them, a common, ordinary life.  Shortly after the Endurance sank and the crew was facing a bleak outlook, Shackleton wrote about how some of the men were telling the cook how they wanted their tea made.  "It occurred to me at the time that the incident had psychological interest.  Here were men, their home crushed, the camp pitched on the unstable floes, and their chance of reaching safety apparently remote, calmly attending to the details of existence and giving their attention to such trifles as the strength of a brew of tea." 

An extraordinary life being played out in ordinary ways.  And as I drove to work the other morning, thinking about the story and just life in general, all I could come up with is that there is magic in an ordinary life well-lived.  It reminds me of Chesterton's (I think he said it anyway) quote when he says "one of the most extraordinary things in life is an ordinary man, his ordinary wife, and their ordinary children."

I think sometimes it's easy to get down and out about our "ordinary" lives, when we feel like all we do is punch the clock and do it all over again the next day.  But it's a matter of perspective.  If that's how we choose to view our lives, then yes, that's all it will be.   But if we choose to see our lives - common or otherwise - as as adventure, an opportunity, then even the simplest tasks are things to be valued.  I'd like to think I've been on my fair share of adventures, but I'd also like to think I can find magic in living that ordinary life.

Satisfaction

I've been running into all sort of friends and family members since I've been home from Africa.  Saw some at a local festival.  Saw them at church.  Saw them at family get-togethers.  And the question is always the same.

"Sooooooooo....how was Africa?"

I honestly think I'm a little baffled by the question sometimes, not because it's necessarily a bad question, but more because sometimes I don't know just how much of an honest answer to give.   

Do I say, "Well, it was a really great trip.  Can't wait to go back"?

Do I say, "Oh, the safari was fantastic and the children are wonderful.  Just so adorable!"?

Do I say, "It was the trip of a lifetime and I'm so thankful I was able to go"?

Those are all good and sufficient answers I suppose on some level, but I always feel this need to pull people in close (I never actually do) and look them right in the eye and really tell how Africa was.

I want to tell them about the overwhelming sense of satisfaction I feel when I think about my time there.  Not in a that-was-a-great-meal-I'm-so-satisfied kind of way, but a deep-in-your-gut, terribly profound sense of joy, satisfaction, and fulfillment.  I want to tell them what a rich and rewarding experience it was to not only labor alongside the Kenyans, but to play alongside the Kenyans, to see their country, to see their animals, to see their cities, to love on their children.  I want to tell people how fulfilling it felt to do something, to physically get work done and fall into bed at night and to feel like you had been productive.  In times past when I had been doing ministry overseas, the focus was so much on evangelism, which is great and has a place in God's plan, but this time around I just loved the fact that I worked.  That I was literally being the hands and feet of Jesus in practical day-to-day ways.

I miss Kenya on a frequent basis.  I do things like watch Invictus or flip through my photos or try to catch the latest online news out of Africa, just to momentarily have the satisfaction of feeling like I'm maintaining some kind of connection.  Maybe it's time to start planning the return trip?  Who wants to go?  :)        

"I'm Courtney and I don't have a ten-year plan..."

Last night kicked off the new women's Bible study at Lifepoint, Beth Moore's updated version of A Woman's Heart, God's Dwelling Place.   I had done this study once before while in college and when Beth had really big hair, but it's shaped my view of Scripture and faith in a lot of ways, so I was anxious to get started last night.  While I was watching the intro video session, I really just wanted to say to the screen, "Hello, Beth. It's good to see you again."  I've never met Beth before in person but I've met her countless times on the pages of her books, studies, and her blog, and it was good to see her again last night, to hear her deep Texas/Arkansas accent.  Her studies are always rich and rewarding, full of Scripture, grounded in its truth, and at times funny as can be.

What I think I look forward to more than anything in this transition back to life in Ohio is this time spent every Tuesday with women in this small group and then Wednesday nights with a mixed age/gender/marital status group that builds on the pastor's Sunday teachings.  I think a vast majority of people in my generation miss out on the value of multi-generational groups.  We always want to be with people our own age because that's safe, but people our own age haven't lived life any further than we have most of the time.  Not say that our own peer groups aren't vital - they certainly are.  But they come with different advantages and viewpoints than of those who have a few more adventures and experiences under their belts.  There's something to be said for spending time with people who have been down the road, miles ahead of you, and who typically know way more than you do.  That was one of the greatest gifts for me in college and the years since was to be mentored by someone older than me, to spend time listening to her words of wisdom. 

My dear friend, Myrt, pulled me aside last night and said she didn't want me to feel like she had railroaded me into coming to her small group, thinking that maybe I would like to be around people my own age.  Myrt is maybe in her 80s and is one of the neatest people I know, but I looked at her and said, "Myrt, the last thing I need is a singles group or a young adult group.  I've had enough of those in my lifetime."  I'm not anti-twenty-somethings, I think I've just spent my life gravitating toward older people.  Maybe they have more stories to tell and maybe they know how to tell them better?  I don't rightly know.
 
But there's always that moment when I feel a little out of sorts at introductions for small groups, regardless of age.  Women inevitably introduce themselves according to their marital status and the number of children they have.  "My name is Susy Q and I'm married with 3 kids."  Nobody go up in arms - I'm not saying that being defined by your husband and children is a bad thing, but I always feel this need to spice up introductions and somehow say something like, "I'm Courtney, and I don't have a ten-year plan and kids scare the living daylights out of me."  I don't think I'm brave enough to try such an introduction yet, though.

Maybe someday I'll get the gumption.       

The Lion King

I was already missing Kenya and so I figured watching The Lion King might help.  So I nestled into the couch and enjoyed seeing the animated versions of all the animals I had seen in real life, still wishing I was seeing the real thing, though.  Little did I know, however, that when my nephew came over to visit and wanted to watch a movie that, of all the countless movies we have in our house, he picks The Lion King.  So I watch it for the second time in one day.

And then I remembered I never showed you my photographs of the male lion I saw on safari.  Truly, the lion king.

Wait for it...

Let him have his beauty rest...

Now he's posing for the others...

And there you have it...

Love it.