Extending and Receiving Hospitality

 We've spent a lot of time with Muslims, both overseas and in the USA, for almost two decades. Someone was asking me the other day about how to interact with a Muslim family during a visit, and so I decided to write down a few things I've learned over the years. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but I hope it will be helpful to others as they build friendships with Muslims at work and in their community.

1. DO bring a gift if you are visiting your Muslim friend! Some ideas are good quality chocolate, American style cookies, or flowers. Avoid products that contain pork or alcohol. If you are bringing any food, I recommend something vegetarian unless you have access to halal meat (an animal that has been slaughtered in accordance with Islamic law) or you know about the dietary habits of your friend. Some Muslims are more strictly observant than others regarding that.

2. DO watch for cultural cues. Some people will take off their shoes at the door, some don’t. If you’re in doubt, ask your host! Normally men greet men with a hug or even kisses on the cheek, and women do the same with women. However, men and women will greet each other with the phrase “salaam alaikum” (Peace be with you) and perhaps a slight bow of the head. There usually isn’t any touching involved between the sexes. However, we’ve noticed over the years that many Muslims have adopted American or European norms, so a man might shake a woman’s hand, for example. Another possibility is that during meal time, men and women might eat in separate areas. Be aware of your surroundings and take your cues from the host. 

3. DO be open to a visit that might last longer than is typical in the USA. Again, this is not a hard and fast rule, but I recommend that if you’re going to visit a Muslim family, keep the day or evening free so you’re not rushing off to the next event in two hours. Coffee or tea usually signals the end of gathering, and it can be seen as rude to leave before that.

4. DO extend an invitation for them to visit. Some Muslims will be curious and readily accept, and some might be hesitant. Reassure them that no pork or alcohol will be served if they come over. Maybe even ask where you can buy halal meat if you want to barbecue.

5. A few dont’s:

1. Feet should stay on the ground. Don’t point the soles of your shoes (or bottoms of your feet) at someone else. This is considered rude. Things of importance are never placed on the ground. You will never see a Quran on the ground in a Muslim’s house; it will be high up in a place of honor.

2. Tread carefully when talking about politics and other sensitive topics. Your friend might ask you what you think of what’s going on in Israel and Palestine, for example. This is a great time to ask questions and only relate personal experience, not make blanket statements about one side or the other. Our goal is to continue conversations, not slam doors.

3. If you’ve finished eating, don’t clean your plate! Leave a little bit of food on it to show that you’re done.

4. Don’t be afraid! God has given us a spirit of power and love and a sound mind. I can’t tell you how many mistakes I’ve made over the years while visiting Muslim friends, but that never deterred our relationships. Muslims are people with individual personalities, hopes and dreams. They are the neighbor that we are to love as ourselves.

Vacation Bible School in Madrid

 After not having VBS in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic, we finally restarted the program this summer! It was great. The kids were engaged, and we had a good mix of kids from the neighborhood and from church. 

 This year we had 12 children ages 4 to 12 years old, and we studied the cosmos and the Creator who made it, and how our God cares for his creation and especially how he loves us. Our verses for the week came from the Psalms:

When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place,
4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?

Psalm 8:3-4

I've attached some pictures below. Can you pray for these kids, that they grow in their faith and know God in a deeper way?

Summer vacation

 Summer looked a little differently than we had anticipated back in January. Conferences were cancelled, visits were postponed, and many ministry activities were suspended due to the pandemic. I'm sure it was the same for you.

Nevertheless, after being locked down in Madrid for three months, we decided it was time to leave the city for a brief respite. We travelled to our little pueblito that we go to every year, then stayed up in Asturias and pet sat for a family that was visiting family in another part of Europe. It was great to get out on the open road and drive through the mountains, go to the beach, and play games as a family. We also took some day trips to surrounding towns.

Here are a few pictures from our time out of Madrid. We start back to school, work, etc. next week, so I'm glad we got to get out for a while.

Croatia Reflections

Last week I had the pleasure to attend a conference for women involved in full time cross-culture work. Over 100 women working in over 30 different countries came together for four days of worship, prayer, laughter, and tears. For many of us, this was the first retreat that we had ever had, for ourselves, without any other co-workers/family members present. It was only us. One hundred fifty women singing to the Lord, immersing themselves in the Word, and having time just to BE.

 In our average day-to-day activities, dealing with difficulties with other people, with the government, with our city or neighborhood– these things are just a part of life. It’s part of being human, and of living in a sinful and broken world. But as someone who has lived both overseas and in the USA, I can tell you that wrestling with these issues on the field magnifies their intensity. In addition to dealing with a stressful situation, I’m wading through the murky waters of cultural nuance that I don’t fully understand. Sometimes I get tripped up in the language, and people laugh because I’ve just said something SUPER inappropriate (I can usually laugh later, but at that moment I feel humiliated). Sometimes tragedy strikes in the USA, and I have no way to go back to be there for my family or friends. All of these things build up over years and years, and to have a safe place to unpack all of that, in an environment where people GET IT, is golden. They know where I’m coming from. They know we often pour a lot of our care into the people around us – our spouses, our kids, the people groups we work with – without a lot of time for ourselves. They know we often feel forgotten when we’re not visible to our friends and family in the States.

 Anna, our speaker who served for ten years in an incredibly difficult, war-torn country, talked about courage on the field. Our first session, Courage when the Well Runs Dry, particularly resonated with me. She started with a question: “What if God asked you to have a ministry like Jeremiah?” Jeremiah’s ministry spanned about 20 years, and he saw the rise and fall of five kings in Judah. He was actively persecuted, betrayed, witnessed the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians, and overall, saw very little fruit. Whatever steps forward the Hebrew people would take during a particular time frame, such as when Josiah was king, they would immediately take about five steps back. Jeremiah’s ministry was dry. But spiritual dryness is not always from sin, or a lack of spiritual connection, or simply not doing enough. Sometimes it exists to drive our roots further into the ground, to draw on the deep water that lies there below. We need to lean into the dryness, and walk with the Spirit and be filled with it. Keep going when the well runs dry.

 Our newsletters are often filled with the good things going on in ministry, what I like to call our highlight reel. What isn’t seen are the stories of failure, rejection, and hurt. We don’t share about the periods of spiritual dryness, of feeling like we're standing in a desert even though we are faithfully spending time in prayer and God’s Word. We don’t talk about when we’ve invested time, money, and energy in a supposedly Christian family, and they turned out to be lying to us about a lot of things. Or meeting with someone, discipling them for months, only to have them disappear off the radar forever. Did they go back to their home country? Move to another city? For every “success” story we have, there are probably ten stories about failure. But we keep going because God has called us, and He is good. So for those of you experiencing this period of dryness, I say to you: COURAGE. Courage is not the absence of fear, but the presence of faith. His Word will not return void (Isaiah 55:11).

2018: Bringing (my) Blog Back!

I've noticed over the years that, as social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have become more and more integrated into our lives, I post less and less on my blog. And I miss writing. A little bit. Sometimes, a quick sentence or two suits me just fine. But today, I'm compelled to write a bit more. Things have changed over the past five years (which is when I wrote my last REAL blog post). We've been in Israel, then back in the States, and now we're overseas again. Spain, to be exact. I never thought I would end up in Europe, but this is where God wants us, and this is where we'll stay for the time being. Here's a little recap of 2017: January: Got new passports, began the process of applying for visas to live in Spain. February: I attended an amazing conference for women, put on by Crescent Project. March: Met with Aaron, our Team Leader for Light Madrid. Brainstormed about church planting in Spain and what gifts/ resources we can bring to the table. Kids started playing soccer and baseball at the YMCA. April: Visa appointment at the consulate. Paperwork is completed and submitted for processing. May: Receive the news that our visas have been approved! Pick those up and buy our tickets to Spain for the end of July. June: VBS, camps, and a visit to my grandparents up in Oklahoma. Duane got ordained to the deaconate. Started packing and sorting through our lives for the past four years (it's a lot more difficult than it sounds)! July: Packing, movers, commissioning service at our church, saying good-bye to friends and family. August: We arrived in Spain! Like most of Europe, August is when people shut down and go on vacation. However, paperwork rests for no man! Trying to get our residency cards and finding an apartment. September: A month of beginnings! We move into our new apartment, kids start school, I start language classes, Duane starts work at the cathedral. October-December: Finding our groove in a new country. Figuring out cultural differences. Learning a new language. Here are a few pictures:

Our life in the Middle East

I gave this talk at Tezel Oaks Church of the Nazarene in late 2016.

Disney World

Me in Rome

At the Church of St Mary of the Angels and Martyrs.

Trip to Zippori

I've been (not-so) gently prodded over the past month to write a blog post. I've become a lazy blogger in light of Facebook. I know. Why sit down for 15 minutes, attempting to type out a post while the kids are screaming at one another and your lousy internet connection is not even fast enough to download a couple of pictures? Not entirely motivating. Anyway, rather than give you a "here is what I've been doing for the past year" post, since those who read my blog are also my friends on Facebook, I'll just post our most recent excursion in Israel. Nazareth is really close (about a 20 minute drive) to the ancient town of Tsippori (Sephoris). Back in its heyday, it was the major metropolis in the area. It was pretty Hellenized and later Romanized; in other words, a fairly modern city. What's interesting is that Sephoris is never mentioned in any of the gospels, although it was a hub of business in the area. More than likely, Jesus would have done business here during his carpenter days.

Entry to Sephoris with the kids. The weather was perfect for the walk!

Ancient Reservoir. If you've ever traveled in Israel, you probably know that before summer even hits, we have absolutely no rain until mid to late autumn. That's almost six months without rain! You can see the value of having a reservoir for those dry, hot months.

One of several floor mosaics. There is an entire building here that contains these beautiful works of art, and it is presumed this was a government building of sorts.

A description of how these mosaics were constructed. Quite fascinating!

A synagogue dating back to around the 6th century CE (give or take a couple hundred years). One of the oddest things on this floor is a giant Zodiac wheel that has Greek/ Roman gods along with traditional Jewish imagery such as stories from the Pentateuch, temple artifacts, etc. You can see a bit of it in this picture on the lower left corner, but a better image can be found here.

Cultural Divide

Today, I visited the Anglican church in our town. It's a small church with dwindling numbers, mostly older folks who attend regularly. There are a couple of other families there, and I've made friends with the mom of one of them (I'll call her Sara). I finally saw her this week after a couple of months of no contact, and we were catching up with each other's lives after church. And the end of our conversation, she whispered to me that she had a job at a hotel nearby, and not to tell anyone at church. Only her mom and I know, Sara said. When I asked her why, she said it was a serving job (presumably cleaning rooms) and it was only part time, but her family needed the money. I told her that there is no dishonor in caring for your family, and sometimes you have to take the jobs that are not beautiful to do so. She smiled and told me to come visit her later this week when she's off, which I will.

This is a cultural divide that I don't think I'll ever get accustomed to. Here, things on the outside are SO important. Way more than in the USA. Women go out dressed to the nines, even if they're just walking down the main street to do grocery shopping. Hair is always styled, make up is a must. You never talk about the bad stuff going on in your life, especially marital strife, lest word gets around town. Gossip is rampant. And for someone in our church (which is composed mostly of middle upper class locals), taking a job as a maid in a hotel is shameful. It makes me sad, that this woman who is struggling so hard to keep her family afloat needs to feel shamed that her job is not a "prestigious" one. So, say a prayer for Sara and her family, that God will provide for their needs in the upcoming months. Her husband is on disability, but it's barely enough to pay the rent, let alone feed the family.

Clear the Cedars, Please

I was over at The Pioneer Woman (mostly because I adore her cooking!) when an article written by her husband caught my eye. Normally, Ree does the blogging, but this time her husband was the one writing "Why We Chop Down Cedar Trees." Really interesting article, and it got me thinking about what a parallel it is to the sin that can creep into our behaviour. Left unchecked, it can grow quickly and stifle relationships and all of the good things growing in our hearts and in our lives. It seems pretty harmless at first, a lie here, a loss of temper there, but it KILLS. Sometimes, our sin even looks nice on the outside, even as it's devastating the soil of our hearts. If we want to have our lives focused on the Lord 100%, the cedars have to go.

Recently my childhood church did a restoration service for a former member who had entrenched himself in sin so deeply that he left. It destroyed his marriage, his relationships with the people at the church, the bonds of trust that had formed over the decades he had attended there. I have no doubt his kids were hurt in the process, too. While it's great to celebrate the return of one who had turned his back on his sin and returned to the Lord (and the fellowship of other Christians), the CEDARS MUST BE CLEARED. My prayer for him is that, through the wise counsel of fellow believers, through the power of the Holy Spirit, and through self-discipline, the roots of the sin will be torn out so the ground can be planted with good things that will bear much fruit in his life and the lives of others.

Helpful Hints for Life

I saw this the other day on someone else's blog and had to repost:

25 Ideas to Make Life Easier

Some of these I already knew (and I do them, too!), but I really liked the heart-shaped egg idea. My daughter's going to love it!

Trip to the mountains

A few weeks after Amelia's birthday, we took a trip to the mountains. The weather was perfect! An acquaintance from San Antonio has a cabin up there, and he was so generous to let us have it for a few days! It was a great time to relax and enjoy God's creation.





This was in Breckenridge, which we visited for the day. I told the kids that they had to have serious faces like in the old-timey photos, and they did great!

Amelia's birthday!

Well, after a crazy, but ultimately successful, move, I am free to sit down in front of my computer and do some catch-up blogging. Our past four months in Colorado have been busy, and so now begins a series of what we did while we were there.

September 15th was Amelia's birthday. This year, it was Princess-themed, and we all put on pretty dresses and played traditional princess games, like tiara pinata and pin the heart on the necklace :-) Here are some pictures from her party:






My parents even came up from TX that weekend to see us, and it was wonderful. Hard to believe Mia's going to start kindergarten in the fall! For some reason, the second kid's childhood seems to be going by faster than the first's...

Tic-tock goes the clock

"If the Lord Jehovah makes us wait, let us do so with our whole hearts; for blessed are all they that wait for Him. He is worth waiting for. The waiting itself is beneficial to us: it tries faith, exercises patience, trains submission, and endears the blessing when it comes. The Lord’s people have always been a waiting people" -Charles Spurgeon

‎"Teach us, O Lord, the disciplines of patience, for to wait is often harder than to work." – Peter Marshall

I posted these a couple of days ago on my Facebook status. As most of you know, we are still waiting on our visas to go back overseas. We applied for them over 6 weeks ago and have still heard nothing on whether we've been approved or rejected. I know that our friends/contacts overseas are doing everything in their power to get us our visas, but I feel like we're just sitting around twiddling our thumbs until we get a green (or red) light.

The second quote really resonates with me; I am now officially in frustrated/ feeling stranded in limbo land mode. I think it has something to do with the fact that August is around the corner. I hate this feeling, this situation. It's hard on our family, especially our kids. But we have to just trust, trust, trust our God. And wake up every day with a renewed sense of resolve to hope because, to be honest, I'm pretty worn out by the end of the day. I don't know if we should get my son enrolled in school here (which starts August 16), or continue to wait this out until we get a definite 'yes' or 'no'. Is that a sign of my weak faith, or me being pragmatic? If we get a 'no', then what? Where do we go from here? Questions like these buzz around in my brain like angry flies, and I spend half the day shooing them away. Not because I don't want to deal with the answers, but because I know where they're coming from. They are seeds of doubt, and they are not being planted by the Father.

So for now, pray for patience and peace for our family. We want to be back overseas, doing what we have been called to do. Every person in our line of work has struggled with issues like this, so I know it's nothing new.

And You know the plans that You have for me
And You can't plan the end and not plan the means
And so I suppose I just need some peace
Just to get me to sleep.

Ballet

Each of the kids were allowed one activity for the month of June. Our son chose cooking class, and our daughter wanted to do ballet. The class was a bunch of 3-5 year old girls, so the ballet was not stellar, but it was really cute! I think my daughter is more suited to soccer than ballet (judging by her physique, she's going to be more Hope Solo and less Anna Pavlova.) Anyway, here are a couple of pictures of her recital last weekend:

San Fransisco

Shortly after I got back from OK, it was time for my trip to the City by the Bay to see my brother and sister-in-law. It started off a little rocky. I woke up on Saturday morning to find out that I HAD OVERSLEPT AND MISSED MY FLIGHT. Me. I am the most anal, organized person I know - at least, when it comes to traveling! I couldn't believe I had done something so stupid. After having a brief cry/ panic attack in front of my computer screen, I called American Airlines to see what I could do. Fortunately, they were really accommodating and rebooked my flight, no problem. However, I was flying out of SF that night to Santa Barbara to visit my husband's cousin, so I then missed THAT flight. This time, it was the United crew that helped me out adn rebooked me on the 7:45 flight. I got to Santa Barbara at about 10pm... only to find that the car rental place I had reservations with had just closed. Great. Enterprise was open though, so they got me a car, even upgraded me for free and threw in a car seat gratis. At this point, my cell phone locked up for no reason whatsoever, and I didn't know the code to unlock. Couldn't call hubby's cousin to tell them I was running late. SOOOO, I got out my GPS, typed in the address, and proceeded to drive down the 101 in the drizzly, foggy weather. Totally creepy. I made it there without incident at 11 pm, borrowed Jeannette's cell phone to see if I could get mine unlocked... and found that customer service for T-Mobile had closed about 10 minutes before. Drat. Went to bed frustrated, but safe and sound!

The next day was much nicer. We went to the beach, church, the mission, and just hung around. It was great getting to know the Wynnes!
La Purisima Mission in Lompoc, CA

Samantha and I by the beach. Couldn't go down to the shore because a bunch of endangered birds were nesting or something. Stupid birds.
Harvey and Jeannette. I loved Harvey's sense of humor and Jeannette's hospitality. They are wonderful people and I hope I get a chance to visit them again in the future!

After my visit with the... cousin-in-laws?... I made it back up to SF to visit my bro and his wife. Chris and Em are really great people, and it was so nice to see where they live, what they've been doing, and how God is working in their lives. Yes, yes, more pictures! Stop talking, Sharon!

Cute baby in San Fransisco! For some reason, this picture reminds me of Monsters Vs. Aliens when Ginormica is fighting the giant robot alien.
Great pic of the Golden Gate Bridge. Chris and I walked it. Samantha screamed the entire time. Apparently, she hates strollers. Lesson learned.
Why do I have a random Asian couple in my photos? Because look at those clothes! They're AWESOME.
My bro, my sis-in-law, and me at my Aunt Judy's house.
And here's our hostess, my Aunt Judy! She invited us to dinner and made enough to feed an army. We all left with very full (but very happy) tummies!

So, all in all, the trip was a success. Hubby said that if I had to screw up travel plans, this was the right one to mess up! And things worked out in the end. So, rough beginning, and OH! Totally rough ending. Did I mention Samantha caught pneumonia the last day of our trip, and we ended up spending four days in the hospital once we returned to San Antonio?! Yeah, that was lousy. Poor baby! She's doing great now.

Memorial Day weekend

In May my dad, the kids and I traveled up to Oklahoma to see my grandma in Stillwater, OK, and my grandpa in Tulsa. It was a nice drive up the familiar I-35 route, through Austin (which now has a toll road so we can bypass traffic - Yippee!!!), Fort Worth, and on up into Oklahoma. Here are a few pics from our trip:
David keeping his baby sister entertained. Grandma getting the camera ready.
I love this picture; it reminds me of my childhood and grandma reading us all sorts of stories. My favorite? She changed up the stories and would tell us "The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig", which we found HILARIOUS. It was my first experience with reverse fairy tales.
Kids are great at making up games in the car. This one is "Rapunzel" and they are using my Moby wrap. They took turns wearing the hair, and one would be Rapunzel and the other would be Mother Gothel. It was really cute!
Amelia promptly got out of the car and started running around in grandma's front yard. Oops!

It was good to see my grandma; she came down in 2007 when we were stateside, but that was the last time I had seen her. The trip was brief, but well worth it! It's always a pleasure to see her.

We got back Monday afternoon, and the family headed over to a friend's house for Memorial Day BBQ. The kids swam, we all ate way too much food, and a good time was had by all!