She Said Yes!

Andrew and Laura

This evening we got a phone call from Andrew. He was calling from the Dominican Republic and it sounded like there was a fiesta going on in the background. He had gone to Santo Domingo a day earlier than his girlfriend expected to make his de facto engagement official.

As far as I understand the story it went like this: Andrew schemed with Laura's best friend, Nicole, to come to DR a day early. Nicole had helped Andrew to reserve a restaurant on the beach (sand floor 10 feet from the ocean) where he littered the floor with rose petals and parked himself on one knee to await Laura's arrival. Nicole then cooked up some plan and managed to get Laura to the restaurant. Nicole said she needed to go to the ladies' room and told Laura to go on in and find a table. At which time she found Andrew down on his knee with a diamond in his hand.

So now he has met Laura's mom, who only speaks Spanish. Lucky for him, he speaks passable Spanish. He has also met her sister and aunts and some of her old friends. He says they all like him, but as Laura says, "He's very likeable." :-)

Andrew apologized ahead of time for not being able to phone me on Mother's Day, but he said, "I'm getting you a new daughter for Mother's Day instead."

The wedding is August 5 in Santo Domingo. I've already bought our tickets. This engagement was dramatic, but it wasn't unexpected. Pray with us that God will be leading Andrew and Laura into a strong marriage that honors the Lord.

Where's Ardith?

Hoyt family

Last night we had a visit from a family I met on line. Apparenly no ax-murderers in this bunch, just a lot of nice kids! They got to try fajitas for the first time, and seemed to enjoy them--except I did notice someone eating them with a fork!

Arguing

I've been thinking about arguing for a couple days, trying to analyze what is involved in arguing, trying to figure out why and how people argue. (The anecdotes presented here are about actual people I know, but the actual people I'm thinking of may be of a different gender than the pronoun I'm using indicates. I don't want to be too obvious.)

1. I know someone who likes to argue. I mean, he argues because it is fun for him. He is very intelligent, and finds arguing to be mentally stimulating. He has admitted to strongly arguing one side of an issue, like he really believed it, then immediately turn around and just as strongly argue the opposite side. His interpersonal skills are not the best in the world, and sometimes his arguing for fun does hurt other people's feelings. But he doesn't really feel so bad about that, since his motives were not to hurt them, just to explore all sides of an issue.

2. I know someone else who doesn't really like to argue, but does it as a way to force interaction with an introverted spouse. This couple actually doesn't have any big issues to debate, but she tends to become engrossed in work and/or other projects and unintentionally ignores him, in spite of the undying love between them. So he picks a fight--and since she doesn't like conflict, she will immediately pay attention and start talking. Arguing does make them talk, but it would be nice if there were a better way.

3. I know someone who argues out of self defense. This person is an emotional person, and if his feelings are in the least way ruffled, he becomes argumentative. His arguments may or may not have a basis in logical fact, because indeed, they proceed from feelings, not facts. It seems like if he is happy and secure, he doesn't argue. If he becomes afraid or insecure for some reason, he starts to argue as a way to protect himself.

A Free Poem

Drought

He metes out his time,
thinking if he gave it freely,
it would soon run out.
So she accepts the measured droplets,
while longing for a flood.

May Day

In recognition of May Day I have updated the wildflowers photo page on my stale website to include photos of 6 more species of wildflowers that I have recently identified. I'm always amazed at the variety God came up with when he created our world.

Foxglove Penstemon

Foxglove Penstemon

I've walked the trails several times lately, and this is the one and only one of these I've seen.

In other news, I was chatting with my friend the other day about how our kids went off to Christian colleges but didn't get engaged while there. We want our money back! We had a laugh as we came to the conclusion that she shouldn't have sent her son to LeTourneau, but I should have sent my daughter there! (Just kidding, in case any of the characters in this story are reading this ;-)

We had a nice chat with Andrew today. He arrived safely in Charlotte last night and was able to get a full night of sleep. It was nice to be able to talk leisurely for a change, since phone calls to Ethiopia are pretty expensive.

Andrew in Amsterdam

Andrew just sent an email from Amsterdam. Wow, they just don't make overseas travel like they used to. From Amsterdam he sent me a spreadsheet I needed that got clobbered when my computer died. Amazing. He had a long layover there, but he said it was too cold and rainy to go out and look around. He will have other chances.

Remember all that work Rachel went through to get her fingerprints made? Turns out the police in Bethany didn't do a very good job with her little fingers and smudged all the prints. So now she has to go to the main police station in Oklahoma City and do it again. Not something she has time for in her last hectic weeks of school, but she did find someone willing to take her there next week.

Computer Update

I spent a lot of today getting my new computer organized: installing MS Office, configuring my web browsers, installing a fancy mouse, installing the photo software, finding all my old bookmarks, installing my backup of My Documents. It all went pretty well except for one problem: I had about 15 current Juno messages (from this past week) that got clobbered when I installed the old mailbox. And I may have lost a handful of recent additions to my Juno mailbox. But, it could have been worse.

I like the screen on this laptop, so I'm not even going to use the outboard monitor, but I am using an outboard keyboard and mouse. The printer is working, as is my digital camera downloads; I haven't tried the scanner yet.

In other news: David tells me he will soon be interviewed by the father of a certain Miss Someone; Rachel has not had an easy week with solo student teaching, but she is coping pretty well; Andrew is in an airplane on his way from Addis Ababa to Charlotte, NC.

Pray for them with me, if God brings them to mind.

Third Computer this Week

At 7pm I got a phone call from the nice man at the computer services department. He had stayed late to get my newest old computer running. Wasn't that nice of him? So I went over right then and picked it up. He did a great job getting it working properly, and now I'm spending the hours to install the software I want. Next job is to get it working on our home network and then download my backup from Gary's computer. It will no doubt take me a few days to get configured like I want, but it is nice to have a "new" machine. It is a Toshiba laptop with a large clear screen, and it seems to be faster than my last two machines.

Computers and Prayer

No, I don't really mean I'm praying for my computer, though maybe if I had, it wouldn't have died. I just have two things to talk about today--my computers and prayer.

A few days ago my computer died. It was Rachel's old computer, 5 years old, so I guess it was about time to die. The bad news--I hadn't backed it up the day before. The good news--I had backed it up a week ago.

So then I moved to a Compaq laptop, which I'm using as I type this blog. This computer was also given to me, and is so old it doesn't have a USB connector. But it doesn't reboot itself, so at least it works. The strange thing about this computer is that it has some kind of nanny software on it, and there is a list of words it won't let me type. Well, I can type them, it just won't display them. This feature works equally well whether I'm using IE or Firefox, and I can't discover what program is running to cause it.

So now I'm trying to get hand-me-down computer #3 working. This one is a Toshiba laptop with a nice big screen. Still not a very new machine, but at least it has a couple USB connectors on it. We tried to install the OS and just had so many problems that we decided to ask for help. So today I just took it over the the nice guys at the Center computer services, and they seemed to think in about 24 hours they could have it working for me. It was pleasant to have them smile at me and say, "Sure, I can do that for you." So, maybe in a day or two I'll see if I have a "new" computer. Then I'll see if I can install my backups.

Now to the prayer topic. Today the whole center was supposed to spend 9am-noon in prayer. I had one assignment I had to turn in by noon, so I hurried and got that finished, then went to the meeting room where the prayer meeting was being held. It seemed hot and stuffy in there, and the weather outside is beautiful today (after yesterday's tornado warning and hail storm). So I decided I would do my praying by myself as I walked. There are some cool hiking trails behind our center, and the weather was nice, and the birds were singing, and the flowers were flowering,... I just couldn't bear to be cooped up.

And I did pray, or at least I tried to, but God kept interrupting me. First there were the flowers--how many of them did he put on that trail? Such a variety, and so much fun to try to identify. Then there were the bird conversations that I couldn't help but overhear. Honestly, birds do talk back and forth, repeatedly, to each other, first on the left, then on the right. Then there were the bugs who were mating, but I won't go into that. How did God expect me to concentrate on praying when there were so many beautiful things in His creation to take in?

Definition of Marriage

Today I ran into a friend while I was at the fruit-and-vegetable store. Somehow we started talking about out kids (how often does that happen?). She told me she had two adult children living at home, and then said something funny: "We've been putting away $100 a month to pay for our daughter's wedding, and she's not even dating anyone. If she doesn't get married soon, I'm going to buy a new car."

That made me laugh, but it also dovetailed with other not-so-funny thoughts going through my head in recent hours about how society views marriage. It seems to me our society continues in various ways to bear fruit of the sexual revolution brought on by the pill, not the least of which is the dumbing down of marriage. If marriage no longer automatically means children (as it has since civilization began), then society can be free to redefine marriage in any number of new ways.

The discussions I've been part of are making me realize how truly postChristian society has become. It makes me appreciate the wisdom God had in producing a written document to last though time, not rewritten each time an event in history or science or technology produces social change.

Texas Star

Texas star 

Every spring I enjoy hunting wildflowers. Texas is ugly, I've said it many times. But there are so many beautiful wildflowers every spring, that it almost makes up for it. There are some hiking trails behind our workplace, so I took an hour's walk there the other day. I found several new flowers.

In other news, I took Gary shoe shopping today. He got two identical pairs of shoes, one brown and the other black, exactly like the two pairs he's throwing away. He's an easy man to live with.

I talked to Rachel this afternoon. She has made it through her first of two weeks of solo teaching and each day went well. She has had no time to do anything else, and has tons to do this weekend: preparing for teaching next week; homework for her one night class; work on her portfolio, etc. She was going to relax for a couple hours by attending a school musical which I expect she will enjoy. Thanks be to God for helping her to do so well this past week.

Down the Garden Path

flowery path 

In the winter of 1998, Gary ordered wildflower seeds over the internet and planted them in the strip of dirt between the sidewalk and the street in front of our house. The first spring they bloomed in an almost embarrassing flurry of showing off; cars would slow down as they passed by and people out for a Sunday stroll would stop and ask if they could take their family pictures in front of them. I think we counted 20 different species of wildflowers that came up that spring.

In the years intervening, we've gotten to observe the process of ecological succession as the dominant flowers (daisies and Mexican Hats) have crowded out others (poppies and toadflax). My husband was so taken with this process that he actually kept a spreadsheet for several years recording which species bloomed each year. (That makes him sound obsessive, doesn't it? Well, he is a scientist at heart :-) ) I have had to remind him (I also wanted to be a scientist when I grew up, but, alas...) that he is not an unbiased observer of this flower garden since he can often be found watering, and pulling out overly aggressive bunches, and even weeding it. Like you could actually weed a wildflower patch...they're all weeds!

On another topic, Rachel's solo student teaching continues to go well, though she is getting exhausted. She had two evaluations today, one by the supervising teacher and one by her professor. She didn't get a perfect evaluation, but her prof said she had improved a lot since the last evaluation. She brought home 6 stacks of papers to grade tonight, and she needs to do planning for next week, etc, etc. I hope she gets some sleep so she doesn't get sick. Keep praying for her.

Discretionary Spending

Sometimes we missionaries feel like we don't have enough money. But then other times, we are pleasantly surprised with more money than we "need," arriving unexpectedly from unexpected places. That happened to us three times recently. For example, today a check came labeled "discretionary." Isn't that a nice word? So I spent some of it discretionarily--including a ticket to go see my baby in Washington DC for a quick weekend trip in early May.

We also give thanks to God for providing for the last of Rachel's two college payments.

Speaking of Rachel, she did pretty well on her first day of solo teaching, but sounded near panic when she went on to describe all the other stuff she has to get done. I assured her I and others would keep praying for her.

Graduation Photos

Bluebonnets 

Rachel came home from college this past weekend. We expect this will be her last visit home until she graduates in just under four weeks. (Wow, I'm so excited that she is going to make it!) Anyway, we decided to try to take some photos to put with the graduation announcements. We tried the traditional photo in the bluebonnets. (This time of year you can see cars illegally parked along the freeway so people can take photos of their kids in the flowers. The police don't seem to mind.) But when we tried it, we didn't have much luck--wind blowing hair in her face, too much sun causing shadows, and squinting. Oh well, nice idea.

So next we went over to the park and found a shaded area in the scrub trees. That seemed to work a little better. Now I've got to somehow get one of the photos into her announcements.

Please pray for Rachel if you think of her these next two weeks when she will be doing solo student teaching.


trees 

Empty

frig 

My hungry and long-suffering husband suggested I go to the grocery store today.

"Fee e fii."

In case you don't speak To'abaita, the title says, "Fees hurt." I remember that sentence from the Solomon Islands language we learned so many years ago, because it was the one and only time I made a joke in a foreign language and somebody actually got it. The To'abaita word fii means 'pain'. (That morpheme is actually part of another word, fiito'ona, which means "faith," a word we anglicized to use as a middle name for our daughter who was born there.) Anyway, back to my story--the people in the Solomon Islands have problems similar to mine--finding enough money to pay the fees for their kids to go to school. So it was a pun to say "Fees are painful" since the word for pain sounded like "fee."

So why on earth am I talking about this today? Well, we are just about to finish eight years of paying college bills. The last kid (Fitona) will soon graduate, and we only have two more payments to make to her college. I've been worrying/praying about how we could make these last two payments, and the Lord has recently answered that prayer by a couple unexpected generous donations to us. We thank him for that.

Then today I got a handwritten letter from someone in the Solomon Islands asking me for money for someone else's kid to continue their college education. This is a family we have known for over 20 years, and in the past have helped to pay the fees so their children could attend secondary school.

So did God give me extra money to pay my kid's college bill, or their kid's college bill? Probably both.

"Mom, I'm So Twitterpated."

The phone rang. It was son number two. Giggling.

"David, are you OK? What's wrong?"
"Oh, nothing's wroooooong. (giggle)"
"Where are you?"
"I'm walking home from walking her home."
"Her? Who's her?"
"She just lives around the corner from me. You'd like her, mom, I know you would. We just had a DTR."
"Wait. When did you meet her? You can't be having a DTR already."
"Well, the first time was about 10 days ago."
"10 days?!! And this DTR--what did you say and what did she say?"
"Well, (giggle) there was a lot of ums, well, you knows, and sighing."
"David! You sound like you're in 9th grade again."
"I know. Isn't it great?"
"What's her name?"
"Laurie."
"You can't marry her. Andrew's girlfriend is Laura. We can't have too many of the same name."
"No, not Laurie--Lori."
"Oh, well, in that case..."
"Mom, guess what we did on our first date?"
"What?"
"We talked about how we liked our moms. (giggle)"
"Oh, well, in that case..."

Time for the Times

Today I left work early so I could come home a blitz-clean my house and bathroom and then make homemade pizza. Our lunch guest was a freelance journalist here to interview people, including the Executive Editor, for an article he is writing for the NYTimes about the Ethnologue. We're hoping he writes a complimentary article, which I'm sure he would have done even without the pizza.

Unknown Prayers

A few days ago my boss sent out a little memo where he talked about how hard it is to pray the "right" way. He pointed out, and I completely agree, that it is too easy to be shallow, distracted, and just plain selfish when we pray. But he reminded us that God has a solution to that problem: The Holy Spirit.

Romans 8:26-27 says:

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.

True enough, we are often incapable or unwilling to pray the right way; but, thanks be to God, we've got Someone to do it for us--the Holy Spirit who really does know the right way to pray. He never has doubts like we do about what really is the will of God, so he always prays correctly, even if we are floundering.

I am taking strength in these verses. There is a situation in my life that I just plain don't know how to pray for. Sometimes I feel one way about the situation and other times I feel quite differently. So relying on my feelings doesn't seem to be a very good guide for prayer. I am encouraged that the Holy Spirit is praying with me, no--He's actually praying for me--both on my behalf and in my place. I don't always know what He is praying, but I know it is in God's will, so I can rest in that.