Genuine motivation

"I recently read an interview in which Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison was asked why she had become a great writer, what books she had read, what method she had used to structure her practice. She laughed and said,'Oh, no, that is not why I am a great writer. I am a great writer because when I was a little girl and walked into a room where my father was sitting, his eyes would light up. That is why i am a great writer. That is why. There isn't any other reason.' " ---Donald Miller from his recent book "Searching for God Knows What"

Using Dad

A few of the books I've been reading lately keep bringing up the theme of 'using' Dad. We use Him to justify our political positions, our cultural ideals and economic status. We use him to feel accepted into a group, to feel useful, or to have a venue to fuel our ambitions. It certainly begs the question as to whether we love Him or simply His benefits. What a painful place to walk when we soemtimes realize how easiliy we've turned His goodness towards us into a license to reject the Good Giver. A little dose of repentence may be in order here for us all.

Learning Life Lessons from Selah

The other day Selah complained that her socks were dirty. Socks here are permenantly dirty here in China, even when they are clean. Carrie replied that socks are always dirty here in China. Things were different here. Selah satthere and thought about it and said, "Mommy, I like dirty socks." Ahh, humility, flexability, teachability. At what age did we lose it? Did I ever have it?

We're back

Life is "normal" again. Travel was relatively smooth, as could possibly be expected with 2 small kids. We were reminded by Malachi that he still doesn't like traveling. OUr two days in Seoul onthe way through was nice. We just was walked around a little bit and tried to adjust to the time change. It's expensive there..even more than American prices (in most American cities). In that respect, we were gladit was only 2 days. We've now been in our city for 2-3 days and doing a lot of team building type stuff. Our team really has become a family. They are such a joy to live with. We won't start visting with students for another week of so, as we have planty of other things to do between here and there. We'll get our teaching schedules soon, and it looks interesting. Brad may get the opportunity to teach philosophy again...we're hoping it's finalized soon. Carrie is feeling human again after the firts trimester...no more throwing up. More later.

Chicken heads

We went to Joe's Crab Shack and ordered chrcken fingers for Selah. While wating on our food, she asked, "Where's my chicken heads?" "well, Selah, we don't eat chicken heads in Texas." "Why?" she asked. "Well I don't know".... our puzzled 3 year old throught about it and asked a moment later. "Where's my chicken feet?" "We don't eat those either?"

A this point, she's confused and we had to figure out how to explain that we ordered her "chicken fingers" but they weren't really fingers, but more like big chicken nuggets (that looked more that people's fingers). We left out that last part, but it's true. Where do we get these names that sinply confuse our children (and us)?