An invester and some good news!

Dear Reader and dear Me,

I've just officially researched a piece of information that will keep me in the ballgame of blogging... but let me start at the beginning.

Last year, when I began blogging, it was part of a funny sort of Mukono-group-narrative... there was a woman (now friend) who was going to move to Uganda and she was a daily blogger recounting all the preparations and realities of leaving the US with her family and settling in Mukono as a missionary family.   There was an English woman (my good friend) who was leaving Mukono after 8 years of being here (and another decade or so of being in Africa); she was moving "back home" with her family and began a blog about being a "returnee" in the motherland. :)  And my other friend was spending her last year in Mukono, preparing for her move back to the US and wanted to document the "comings and goings", what it is like to be part of two worlds.

Enter Abby: By personality, every day of life involves the question "what's the meaning of life for me today, personally and in the cosmic sense?"  And while, I would love to know the writing on the wall as to what is home and what the plan is for us, I have seen the "blog" as a place to begin to record what life is like as a mother, as a woman who is away from home culture, as a woman who is raising her family in what they consider their "homeland", as a friend who has many friends coming and going, as a Christian who is accepting that life is more pilgrimage than destination, as a melancholy who will always have some angst about decisions, about values, and living it out and accepting limitations, and wanting to always learn and be open to the mysteries...

Enter Pragmatic Abby:  Who is my audience?  Though i like facebook for briefer greetings, photos, articles, etc, I liked the idea of blogging to get a bit more content about life out to my family and friends.   It's still not as personal as an email, but it does give a chance for me to share slices of our life.  But, today, i discovered what I assumed was true and adds a whole new dimension--- I can publish the blog.   Now, this is not for anyone else's sake but it is a bit like "journaling", record-keeping, photo-albuming, etc... This definitely adds a final straw to my motivation and discipline in regards to this blogging project.

I'm including this blog entry because I do think some of my other blogging co-hort :), might also be interested in the idea of publishing the record-keeping of the last year.  I'm thinking I might just do it once a year and have a sort of collection of them.

This brings me to a moment of thanksgiving-- to my mother and mother-in-law and to technology. :)
This summer when we were home, Mark's mom gave him an album of the first 18 years of his life--a project that I'm sure took hours and hours of culling, decision-making, crafting and commitment.  And I remember those bookshelves in our house growing up where my mom had leather albums of all our years growing up, our trip west, etc, etc.  And I remember the years of mom's love of the "panoramic" camera and "photo depot" trips and albums full.  My mom has always had little albums stacked up around our house and our life--markers of time and relationships and journeys.

I feel remiss that the computer and digital age has sort of given us so much that we don't always publish it and the kids don't always get to see all that we've collected.  But now, I feel that this "publishing" and  also the printing of photo albums is technology's compensation for the ridiculous amount of photos we have stored on our computers, etc.

So, there you have it-- for this soul who is always counting her energy/time in terms of "investment"--I think the blog has officially entered into the "its worth it" category.

Play ball!

Just in case you worried that Mark was gender-biased, some shots from "spring training"...

The things we carried

The Things They Carried is a collection of related stories by Tim O'Brien, about a platoon of American soldiers in the Vietnam War, originally published in hardcover by Houghton Mifflin, 1990. While apparently based on some of O'Brien's own experiences, the title page refers to the book as "a work of fiction"; indeed, the majority of stories in the book possess some quality of metafiction. Even though the characters are based on a work of fiction, they show similarities to real soldiers that O'Brien knew during his time in the war.  summary from wikipedia                                                                   



I cannot tell a lie.  I've not read the book but I think my mom said it was well written.  But the title has always stayed with me and I always think of it when we are lugging loot half way around the world.  This title and this book is about figurative "things they carried" but it comes to mind every time we are literally "carrying things" around the world.  So, let me start off with the metaphors that always come to mind in the packing/unpacking process of life overseas. 



1. Too much:As with the title of the book, I do think that our possessions are symbols of our essence-- a fact that for all the wealthy of the world is a real burden that we do and should feel.  Why are we stressed with our stuff-- because its too much.  On some deep level we know its too much, its not fair, its not quite fine.  And ultimately I think each individual is accountable to this reality, but on another level many of us are operating as "sheep" in a culture and time in history that is also responsible in some manner for creating a facade of our human existence.

Sometime this summer, I read the proverb 30:8-9 "Give me neither poverty nor riches.  But give me only my daily bread.  Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, 'Who is the Lord?' Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God."  I've enclosed a little commentary below on this proverb but when I read it this summer it totally struck me as a very true reality--I coming from the culture with too much that honestly is not in touch with our need for God, and then living in a culture where too little leads to behaviors that are dishonoring to God.  And to think the wise thing to do is to ask for only our daily bread.  That is somehow scary. And yet obviously also echoed in the Lord's prayer.  I honestly don't know what that would look like to live that out. 



Neither Poverty nor Riches   By Justin Borgerwith assistance from Generous Giving staff
We can tell a lot about people’s desires by listening to what they ask for. Understanding what people want is of more than peripheral importance, for nothing shapes us more than what we want. Desire molds the motives that shape our lives. And because of this, our hungers must be carefully tended to, not just so that we can satisfy them, but for a more important reason: so that we can guard them from what is bad and guide them toward what is good. In a world full of foods and pleasures that seldom satisfy, this endeavor calls for a great deal of wisdom.The book of Proverbs contains a great deal of wisdom for choosing the “better” thing (see Proverbs 15:16, 17; 16:8, 16, 19, 32; 17:1; 19:1, 22; 22:1; 28:6). However, it is interesting that there is only one prayer of request in the entire book. That prayer, found at the back of the Proverbs in the “Sayings of Agur,” is an “exemplary prayer”—it teaches us what to ask for:

[G]ive me neither poverty nor riches. But give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God. (Proverbs 30:8-9)

Agur asks for a middle way that straddles the extremes: a middle-class life between wealth and poverty. This request—so foreign to most of our prayers today—shows that a healthy fear of wealth and possessions and the effect they can have on us is not unrelated to the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 1:7; 9:10). We should never forget that Solomon himself—one of the authors of the book of Proverbs—failed to apply the principle of moderation found Agur’s prayer (along with the specific set of guidelines for moderation for kings in Deuteronomy 17:14-17) to his own life and suffered miserably for it. And if extravagance led to the demise of the wisest man ever to live, how much more careful should we be! 

2. How does this relate to our luggage? (Mark a silver-medallion member: 3 x 50lb pieces of luggage-a privilege that extends up to 8 people on his itinerary)

I often try to tell myself, "you think too much" but I am responsible for our privilege and so at this point, I'd rather spend time processing it and knowing that with conviction, and wisdom, we will navigate our personal and cultural responsibilities that come with our privilege.  So here's a sample list of things that we brought that I feel are probably legit within our circumstances, and things that probably aren't-- and the things that aren't are probably not "fine" regardless of our circumstances. :)

1. The cloth diapers that my sister gave me, that someone had given her, that were very gratefully received by two Ugandan sisters who've just had their first babies-- diapers are a financial burden to the average family here (and in the US for that matter)
2. The various packages that people sent to us to bring them (the counselling department, a sponsored boy here, daniel's teacher from last year, other missionaries on campus, etc). Again, I'm assuming our generosity will be what we're accountable and I'll allow the recipients to sort out their own stewardship of their things. 
3. Mark's work things; mostly camping gear for his Mt. Elgon trip-- I'm letting those things be on his conscience!4. Homeschooling material: Hopefully legit and hopefully we can use and share what we have appropriately5. Food stuffs:  Is everything consumable okay to bring? Smores for the kids when we go camping next week, chocolate chips, nuts, etc? In the organic sense of this question, carrying food around the world with its carbon footprint, etc, I'm sure the answer to this is surely "not necessary" but oh so tasty!6. Clothing:  I suspect we have access to "too much" but then again in this context, i also feel lucky that we can easily share with so many people.  I don't tend to feel to guilty about this. 7. A plasma car: You help me judge this one: see picture!
8. Plastic bibs and bobs: Boo!  I hope to really internalize how bummed out I feel when I get home and realize we really don't need so many "ponies", dolls, etc...
 9. The plastic bouncy spider ball--the ball is too small for most of the kids, the cloth "spider" that goes on top actually makes it harder to bounce on, I bought it impulsively because it was half priced and was marketed to mothers like me. 
10. Canon Elph camera: A tiny camera that has taken all the photos of the recent blog posts-- much better for life with kids and on the go... not regretting it yet-- though do we really need a good SLR, a Flip video camera, a cool Canon Elph... all the proverbs questions come to mind! :)
11. Body pillow, body pillow cover-- Mary, like Mark tends to sleep full body on her pillows and I thought she'd think a body pillow would be awesome... but really, was that necessary.  certainly not. 
12. Books on raising children, on Rwanda, on Christianity and culture, on eating well, living well, etc.... not ready to assume that books are ever bad, yet. :) 


So, I could go on, but I think my main questions relate to "all things plastic", "and that has made all the difference"(this is the category where Mark says i can be brilliant or really "whiff": plasma car=brilliant; body pillow=whiff), carbon imprint--- sort of a daunting issue all the way around as our present life inevitable means flying internationally with all that entails; and the more vast issue of our material life in a developing world.  And this is definitely something that becomes nuanced the longer we live overseas but, ultimately, I feel very much a learner on this and am not working up any book proposals on this topic as I suspect I'm much more guilty than worthy regarding this topic.  

Back in the saddle

The title is figurative and literal... the following examples vary range from "settling" back in and literally being back in the sattle. :) 

Figurative example 1:

A funny t-shirt that we saw on the way into Kampala... Our life in Uganda is a constant life of visual stimulation, mental processing, humor of the unexpected, etc, etc

In case you can't see the boda driver's shirt: Dallas Cowboy cheerleader Dad

Figurative #2:  Wiffle ball days under the big tree.  A family who was part of the games left in May so the parents are having to step up a bit and join in the games... should be fun and funny for all!

Literal #1: Daniel in the back, Jude Reid in front of him and David Dennison in the front.  All learning how to trot a bit... quite a luxury to be able to have pony rides in a lovely rural setting. 

 And the girls giving it a go; my sister Sarah had a time of really riding and I think while this option is available, I like the idea of teaching the kids the virtues of man/woman in good relationship with animal.. 

Figurative #3: Our kids our very blessed to have several other missionary families near us and they have all assimilated well back together again--nice range of personalities, ages, genders, and shared experience.

Figurative #4: Not shown, a line-up of the parents of these kids... we are also lucky to have some other parents/friends on campus to help with the cross-cultural processing and decisions/values that come with living away from family and home culture.