All Seven In Helicopter Crash In Sarawak Confirmed Dead

read other articles here for additional information. i'm shocked. i read this article just this morning saying that they were rescued and safe in a local community. phony news makes me angry. i'm pretty sure the one at the top of this page is legit.

ahhh, LORD! be with their families... i can't imagine how horrible the news must have been. the search had been going on for so many days... pastor bill and others must be a mess.

i never got to meet judson. 

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how do i blog after this?

 
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haven't checked my email since sunday. kinda nice. hope nothing is pressing. if anyone's waiting for a response, i'll get to you on saturday.

found something online from the same guy who posted the brown sauce photo. he's a christian... interesting. plays in a church rock band. hah. has two kids. there's some comical stuff on his site. his daughter's birthday is july 10th- or near enough to it to have her party that day. how nice. she got a butterfly cake and candles and a picture to prove it. 

speaking of food, my enchiladas came out pretty tasty. i think i put too much chili powder in my rice (sorry, no recipe) because i was drinking horse portions straight from the tap. my black bean salad didn't have any black beans- i had to use kidney beans instead. unfortunately, my oil was too hot and it burned my deep-fried ice cream balls. i was just saying to myself, too, how i was hoping that my oil wasn't too hot because it might burn.... anyhow, they're still edible. and good. hard to ruin ice cream.

took a nap before dinner. had a scary dream that i couldn't control my arms or my voice and every time i wanted to speak i was screeching incoherently. i felt with-it, though, like i was trapped inside a defective body and didn't know how i got there. yikes. ran around some 5 story house covered in dark cherry finish with lots of bannisters and narrow hallways, flagged down mom and tried to explain what was going on with me, but she kept asking me to repeat myself. i nearly peed my pants from panic... got so scared i woke up and found myself sleeping on top of my arms which were blueish and limp. how did that happen...

i miss the sound of trains. you can't escape the train on the peninsula. it's a cozy thing. quaint. sadly, i don't hear any trains from either the newhaven flat or the baberton house. i'm also pretty far from the airport and out of the flying route of planes so i don't hear them puppies neither.

after waking up from my dream, i walked into the living room and almost fell to the ground from the shocking sound of a really big plane rattling the house invading the airspace. talk about out of the ordinary and loud. i ran to the window and found the culprit to be a huge dump truck driving down the cobblestone. i must not have completely woken up.

• token link to some pretty place in scotland. this is becoming habit. (okay, it's cramond island- i can see it from my window, too.) 
• article from the scotsman about dangerous cramond island posted, coincidentally, today. 
• here's a real photo of cramond island and what the sky usually looks like.

tonight is gordon's birthday party. i'm only 10 minutes from their house, but i'm a bit shaken up from the arms-thing. maybe tonight i'll sleep on the couch.

oh yeah- i cut my hair all by myself. i like it and i don't care what anyone says.

Lord, may your will be done with this here blog~

for the last 3 days i've been staying in steve and helen's flat.  they're on holiday down south for two weeks and offered me a set of keys to their place. i can't begin to tell you how good of a time i've been having.

they own a ton of books and no tv. every room has a bookcase piled with seriously interesting stuff to read. i finished the book i borrowed from them last wednesday and started on another bill bryson book called mother tongue. very enjoyable commentary on the english language.

they've got a few plants to water- one's a beautiful orchid. not quite sure how to not kill it. haven't touched it yet. helen said they only need water once a week. i've got a couple of days still before i need to do a google on caring for orchids.

it's a 3be/1ba on the third floor of a hilly street, with a beautiful view of the forth waters. it stays strangely warm inside the flat which is great, because i can justify opening these huge bay windows that swing in and let the landscape diffuse right into the room.

i've spent quite some time gazing out the window with my elbows propped up on the sill, listening to the sound of the occasional car driving over the cobblestone street below and soaking in the view from edinburgh's newhaven district. the water looks positively stunning. it's easy to pretend i'm on the san francisco marina- but the homes here are just so different. everything is the same color- stone color- minus an odd red or green or blue door.  here's a sample of what i see at night and what i see during the day.

poking out through the chimneys at the roofline, i see the huge spire of alien rock- an indoor rock climbing gym wildly located in a gothic cathedral. (planet granite eat your heart out.) it's right on the waterfront and just a few minutes' walk from the flat. i checked out their website several times before i left california thinking it would be a great place to get a part-time job. i had no clue how far it would be from where i'd live... well, now i know. i walked around newhaven monday afternoon to find my bearings and pay alien rock a visit. their second floor has this awesome viewing area behind glass. i may go back on a rainy day and bring my journal or book or something and sit there watching people slither up walls. very hip alternative to wasting time in a coffee shop.

it's been such a blessing to escape the more abnoxious noises of life. the flat never gets noisy unless i give it permission. and i haven't been on princes street for half a week- no mobs of tourists and bagpipers and squealing buses crawling up my eardrums. no isaac and nathan playing 'kill your brother as loud as you can and pretend you only have one leg and need to stomp everywhere you go' in their room right above the office- or worse yet, playing in the office. no shep demanding to be let out and then let back in and then 'barkbarkbark because i think i saw a burglar coming onto the property- oh wait, it was only the neighbor getting out of his car. oh well! barkbarkbark because i'm a dog and i know you love my every outburst because it means i'm hard at work protecting you from the evil one and all things like him, including prairie mice in the garage and sponge-bob action figures left under the couch.'

it's priceless to have absolute privacy. being able to keep the bathroom door open is just... invaluable. likewise, true comfort is having the freedom to roam around in your underwear- enough said. i'm being spoiled.

i'm sleeping on a real sized bed again. i'm in arm-flopping heaven. i can roll around and the comforter is wide enough to cover all my nocturnal jackie chan moves and my backside doesn't get exposed. aside from the mattress button and spring marks all up and down my body (so... the mattress might need replacing) i've slept better than i ever have since i first arrived. wow. can't describe how nice it is be so rested. what a major gift. i'd buy steve and helen a plant or something, but i think they have enough. i'll have to think of a better thank you.

i can walk to church from here. alternatively, i can catch the bus and be there in zero minutes. either way, it's a piece of pie to commute. i'm a 15 minute walk from the gym and about the same to the big and beautiful safeway. i'm not complaining about my 1.25 hour one-way commute into town from baberton, but this is wonderful! i will really miss being here when it's time to go home.

i originally thought i'd only hang out here on a couple of my more busy weekdays to fill up time gaps between morning and evening church obligations, but i'm addicted to this place. what a retreat. what a fantastic time to think and rest and pray and read and just play hooky from commuting so much. it's a bit scary. makes me feel like this will be my last chance for peace before all hell breaks loose or something.

since i'll need food while i camp out here, i went grocery shopping.  anxious to eat real mexican food, i picked up enough things to make some enchiladas, mexican rice and a black bean salad. it took me over an hour in the store to find green onion, (super-tiny basket wedged into a corner of a shelf) to gather a panel of produce employees to discuss what cilantro could possibly be called in the UK since it obviously wasn't called that, to bother other employees to help me track down a can of black beans- not black-eyed beans or any other kind of baked and sweetened beans- but the black ones, you know, the ones that are healthy and good for you- and to get a shopper's description of single cream, double cream, extra double cream, cream fraiche and what i would do with each of them.  although there are a thousand kinds of cream, none of them are pre-whipped and you have to add sugar to them if you want it sweet.  i can't believe sweet whipped cream doesn't exist here. i was searching for whipped cream to top my deep-fried ice cream. (i found el torito's recipe for deep-fried ice cream online and i'm determined to make it for my family this weekend since they've tolerated me go on and on about it...)

anyhow, i also couldn't find salsa. there was an entire aisle dedicated to pasta sauce but no salsa. (funny enough, no tomato sauce either. canned tomatoes, tomatoe puree-the really thick stuff, i think, but no tomato sauce. i guess they use pasta sauce?) i waited a good 5 minutes while an employee set off to find me salsa. he finally came back with the cutest, tiniest little bottle of the stuff. what do the brits do here, use it like a spice?! do their recipes call for one teaspoon of salsa and the rest of the bottle gets tucked away in the back of the fridge until the next year they decide to use it?! aiee.  that wasn't going to work. i ended up just buying a bunch of tomatoes (pretty cheap, surprisingly) and some other stuff and made my own BIG BOWLFUL. yum.

i also bought some cranberry juice. it's very rare when our fridge back home isn't stocked with any, and i haven't had any since i've been in sco. i was craving some of that delicious, tart goodness. well, what a bunch of baloney daydreaming taking place in my head all the way home from safeway. i opened it the minute i got back and took a bigger swig than i should have. it tasted nothing like i expected. (welcome to a foreign country. argh. i keep expecting more from these people.) there were at least 10 cups of sugar added to the mix and it tasted more like the awful blackcurrant flavour they have out here, than cranberry. it reminded me of those throat lozenges i bought when i first arrived.

i equally regrettably bought a pack of scotch pies- since i was curious and it was dirt cheap at only 68P for four of them. they're basically a pot pie stuffed with ground beef. overly salty and buttery beyond belief. after i ate it i had to go brush my teef.

if britons come to the usa and complain that our safeway doesn't carry scotch pies or nasty single whip cream or hot cross buns with sultanas or boxed packages of bubble and squeak or that our cranberry juice isn't sweet enough, well poopy on them.  

do you know they pay a whole pound for two medium sized pancakes wrapped in saran wrap and labeled with a little sticky tag from the bakery?! crazy! are pancakes really that hard to make here?! go make your pancakes at home, people! (how can they justify buying outrageously priced pancakes for years and years but they can't see automatic garage door openers as a good investment?) and keep your sugar out of places where it doesn't belong, like my cranberry juice and put it in the one place you forgot it- your cream.  

if things aren't coated in sugar or salt, they're deep fried with 5 inches of batter and drenched with mayo and 'brown sauce'. i don't understand this diet. how is it that everyone isn't walking around with high blood pressure and cholesterol levels? i'm curious what the life expectancies are for people living out here. it can't be that great, no matter how many indoor rock walls they climb. did i mention i never found black beans? how do i make a black bean salad without black beans?

ah, well. they do have a beautiful landscape. here are some more pictures you've just gotta see. (you'll find a few aerial shots of the shoreline which newhaven sits on further up the water from the two bridges in this gallery. some of these shots look incredibly similar to san francisco and the golden gate bridge... ahhh.... the picture titled 'the road bridge at sunset' makes me smile.)

last photo link, i promise. (this one's a panoramic. very, very nice. don't skip.) i plan on walking down to this pier today if the weather gets nicer. it's just a 10 minute walk up the road from alien rock. you can see the bridges in the background. and, this photo was just taken last month! it's like i could have taken it or something...

i just went to throw open the curtains in the living room. bad news. the water swallowed up the sky and it's a blender of color spitting out a dark, murky mess.

also went to the kitchen for some water and noticed my bag of green chilis has a bright red chili in the bag- it wasn't red yesterday. zoiks. do they turn colors after they've been picked? i wonder if this means it'll be hot and i should avoid it.

more blogging to come-

Lord, may your will be done with this here blog~

ever since the safeway incident of 1988 back when i was a bold and fearless 6th grader, i should have realized my entire life foreshadowed a future completely lacking directional mastery. 

bo and zina lived for a short time in a dark green house on chinook lane in san jose with cheesy wooden paneling around the fireplace and bedrooms just big enough that if i stood in the very center of the hardwood floor and streched my arms out to my sides i couldn't touch the walls. if i spun around a couple of times in my socks i was less likely to calculate the exact center of the floor. i remember propelling myself into the wall head first like this several times- half on accident, half loving the shock value.

i was given a mission to ride my pink bicycle to the safeway up the road and down the road and up the road to buy some sour cream. we were going to have borsche for dinner that night and every good russian knows you can't eat borsche without dolloping generous spoonfuls of sour cream both in your soup and on your sliced sourdough bread.  i planted myself onto my banana seat, focused on the adventure ahead and off i went to buy sour cream with my handlebar streamers flapping behind me.

yadee-yadee-yada... i made it to the safeway, bought what i needed, started my return trip home and got lost.

i absolutely couldn't tell which way was up the road and which way was down the road. i turned on a dozen streets and none of them looked right. my legs were tired and i was failing my mission- how would i ever graduate to assignments with more than one destination?  it felt like an hour passed as i cycled up and down some generic tree-lined street crying my eyes out.

i just about wobbled myself to an exhuasting mobile sleep when out of the burning rubble that was my inadequacy came brother-in-law bo on his motorcycle to rescue me. sister zina princess warrior hopped out from behind him, threw me on in her place and bo zoomed back to chinook lane chuckling the entire way while zina pedaled with high knees all the way home.

what's a directionally dyslexic child in an all-adult family supposed to do? i cried some more, felt horrible and then went back to spinning around in the spare room.

anyhow, this is all supposed to say that even though i'm doomed for eternity as a directive dope, after a handful of attempts i finally got off at the right bus stop for the gym last saturday...

i've been slipping up with when exactly to ring the bell on the bus-- often ringing it prematurely, making the huffing and puffing double-decker-diesel monster squeal to a lurching stop just for me. (say that ten times.) and upon realizing the stop i requested isn't the right one, i dare not shout out to the bus driver, "just kidding! he, he!" so i've been getting off the bus way too early and even a couple of times, way too late.

that's one good thing about travelling alone, by the way. no one yells at you when they have to travel an unexpected mile or twelve because of a decision you made. i don't mind my own mistakes, especially if the apocalyptic consequence is simply walking an extra block or two. but it felt good to finally get off at the bus stop closest to the gym.

happy i prevented a workout before my workout, i sang a song of celebration all the way to the ainslie park leisure centre. my song cut out quickly though when i noticed all the lights were off, the doors locked and a posted hours of operation sign stating they closed at 6pm on saturdays.

what a joke! i assumed all leisure centre locations kept the same hours- (i know for a fact that the dirty, smelly one stays open until 10:30pm.) ah, well. this was yet another charmingly backwards representation of how the UK is so different from the USA. come on! it's a saturday early evening, people. it's not like you're all out on some summer sunshine picnic at the park. where do people GO at 6:15pm on an overcast saturday in edinburgh?

it reminded me of the crazy gym routine dana and i kept for a while, heading to the san carlos 24-hour fitness at 11pm and sometimes later in the evening. we elypticized our bodies for an hour in the cardio room and talked really loudly about everything under the sun without worrying if the people next to us were listening in on our conversations because, well, there weren't any people next to us.

in the weight room there'd always be a handful of insomniacs and sterroidal no-neck men, but not too many to keep us from swinging our legs like dorks on the pull-up stand or from trying all the big boy machines without feeling super consciencious. we didn't have to wait to use a machine and we didn't have to be courteous and cut our workouts to 20 minutes or less. we could make faces in the mirrors and compare muscles all night long with no one to tell us to go home.  ahh, the joys of middle-of-the-night workouts. it's amazing sean ever let dana leave the house as often as she did. and now she's a mommy.

anyhow, i accepted my defeat. there was no workout to be had saturday evening. i walked away and thought the natural transition from workout-mode is to eat-mode, isn't it? there was a safeway down the street so i sauntered in not for dinner... but because grocery stores in foreign countries are probably my most favorite of all places to spend hours and hours in. so yes.. this wasn't a tesco's or an asda, but a safeway. how awesome! i felt a thousand miles closer to home. (the sign's in a different font. check it out.) 

i was looking to see if they sold a tea-ball dunking thing to stuff loose tea mix in and after searching the pots and pans aisle unsuccessfully, i went to the tea aisle thinking they might have a strand of them hanging off the ends of the shelves like they tend to do at the safeway back in belmont... where they're always taking one extra step to do the thinking for you.

anyhow, i discovered that every shelf had just the items that belonged in the aisle. no tea-ball dunking things hanging out in the tea aisle. no protruding add-on basket of squatty little glass dip jars in the chip section. no daisy chain of plastic spatulas in the cake mix aisle. no microwave popcorn in the soda aisle!! and get this... NO CANDY BARS near the checkout. how the UK safeways remain in business i just don't know. 

heading out of the store to the main road i noticed that against the very back fenceline stood an entire row of parking stalls reserved for parent and child. the spots were a tad bit wider than the others but they weren't by any means close to the front doors- in fact they were the farthest from it... so i don't understand what mother would prefer to park out in lower egypt just so that she could reach in the back of her minivan and not dump her stroller supplies all over the expensive car next to her. it IS a good idea, i guess, if the spots were closer to the entrance. it is quite a long walk from the fence. never noticed if these exist in california. don't think so...

i got on the bus and ended up on a newer model, fully equipped with bright plaid cushioned seats and cameras on the second deck. there was a front screen that rolled through each of the 5 or 6 different live camera shots. this was supposed to allow the bus driver to see what the passengers above him were up to. i grabbed a seat in the second row on the right side.

everything was fine until a couple came and sat in the front row on the left side. the guy discovered he was on the television every 10 seconds or so and for the duration of the bus ride, flapped his lips and stretched his ears and pointed at himself on the screen to his girlfriend. he looked absolutely ridiculous. it was even more odd that he was over 35 and possibly out of character in his dinner suit. unfortunately, i had nowhere to hide. if i laughed, he could see me laughing on camera. if i turned my head to hide my smirk, he could see me trying to deny his funniness... and the instant he discovered that he had an audience, he really hopped on centerstage and gave an entire face-contortion show. i've never had a harder time minding my own business.

i exited on princes street to transfer to the 33. not many people were out since it was drizzling by then and the clouds were nasty and dark. there was this haunting echo coming from the castle esplanade up in the hill over me.

i got flashbacks of the paris metro.  i'd be miles upon miles underground in some crevice close to the earth's core waiting for a car in complete silence because people didn't talk to each other in the metro stations- they'd just run like the wind to their proper platform and then wait and stare at each other and white-knuckle their personal belongings as the gypsies swam through us.

i remember in the later evenings when the metro emptied out, standing alone on the platform and hearing somewhere above me on some platform far, far away a beggar child playing a recorder. it wasn't a real song- it consisted of maybe 3 notes rotating in random order, sometimes stacatto, sometimes shrilled...  i could picture the kid sitting on the ground near the turnstiles a good ways above. it was creepy having the music leak down to my separate tunnel so significantly remote and boonie. how did it find me? it helped me pass the 15 minutes of silence until my car came, no doubt,  but it was still creepy.

anyhow, sorta like that, the music leaked down into princes street, causing the occasional straggler to pause and look up at the esplanade, where big-name concerts are sometimes held. the music got louder and louder and before too long i could easily make out someone singing, "i guess you'd say, what can make me feel this way.... my girl...."

what a weird time to hear the temptations. maybe it was just my imagination running away with me.

the borneo team came back and shared a bit about their trip sunday morning.  they're still pretty shaken up about judson and his helicopter. the story is that jean, bill's wife, had a fever and wasn't getting any better. judson was with the church team in the village at lunch time and suggested jean take the helicopter ride with him into town to go to the hospital. she got into this very helicopter, strapped herself in, and just seconds before they departed judson instructed her to get out and travel in a smaller helicopter that happened to be leaving at the same time. the weather conditions were really bad, so the helicopter jean was in turned back. unfortunately, judson's pilot risked it and kept going.  knowing this part of the story really brought it all home for the rest of the congregation and we revelled in the power of prayer for the team members.

vania and her father were guests for lunch at our house. we all rushed home after church because the boys swore up and down that the thunderbirds movie was going to be on tv. it sure was... the old barbie and ken doll version and not the remake like they were hoping. we had lasagna for lunch. delish.

the afternoon got a bit depressing for me- vania's dad spoke no english so the conversation went completely portuguese. denilson would often translate for me in times like this, but he was off checking his email. i got tired of trying to understand and went to watch the rest of thunderbirds. what a lame movie.

i stayed home from evening service for the first time ever. it was so nice to be home in the afternoon and to not rush around. sandro and gislene do this week after week. maybe i should get a clue. i was able to work on some chord progressions and read quite a bit of the bill bryson book. it's really funny. it'd be even funnier if i knew half the places in britain that he makes fun of. he says things like he was 'feeling only fractionally less fractious' and he called his rental car a 'ford thesaurus' and referred to a kid in a stroller treating his nose as if it were a 'mid-faced snack dispenser'. hah. he's great.

by the way, we will be watching shep for 2 months.  i didn't know that before. and... i've got two killer shiners on my knees. they're huge and green and black from where the dogs kicked me. and... i need to stop rambling. when will i learn?

talk to you later. if you get lost, don't call me.

Lord, may your will be done with this here blog~

Bukit Aman Director of Internal Security and Public Order Datuk Seri Salleh Mat Som said that the strong wind and thick clouds had prevented the SAR party from going down to the wreckage site.

"It was not easy to get to the ground in the area, the thick clouds and the drizzle have hampered rescue efforts," he told reporters here.

Earlier, he gave a briefing on the progress of the SAR operations to Deputy Defence Minister Datuk Zainal Abidin Zin.

Salleh said that he had directed that two helicopter landing pads be built near the site of the wreckage, at the foothill of Gunung Murud."

The existing helicopter landing pad is about 1.4 km from the wreckage of the helicopter," he said.

Meanwhile, Zainal Abidin told reporters on his return here from Bario to observe the SAR operations that in the event that the weather improves Thursday, there would be some progress.

He said that from the footage he had seen, the helicopter appeared to have remained somewhat intact but had landed upside down."

Based on the condition and the door of the helicopter left opened, I hope there is still a chance for those on board to be found safe," he said.

Zainal Abidin said that Russian helicopter pilots who were still in Singapore and Segamat in Johor would be called tomorrow to fly to the site of the wreckage."

The weather is not too friendly and only pilots who are daring, from Russia have the experience for such weather condition," he said.

missing not found yet, but operations suspended

helicopter found!

monday update on judson et al.

sunday's article on missing helicopter in borneo.

i want a cat.

i want an animal that disappears for days without forgetting its way back home, catches its own food and takes itself for walks. i want an animal that licks itself clean incessantly, isn't all that interested in sniffing every creature that crosses its path and doesn't break the sound barrier when it hears gophers crawling underground.

i want an animal that doesn't get attacked by three other beasts leaving me helpless with leash in hand, screaming the loudest and most gorey bloody murder i ever have in years.

so... i took shep for a walk yesterday...

we went traipsing around the gorgeous creek beds of the waters of leith. shep played fetch tirelessly and managed to graduate his twig to a small uprooted tree posthaste. he lost his balance a few times dragging the behemoth through the water and wimpered when it started floating away with the current but he got over the loss and eventually defaulted back to the twig.

on the way home, shep got sniffed out by an unleashed dog who started growling and called his two equally unleashed buddies over to have a smell. i pulled shep further down the path when my vision blurred and out from under the overgrown forest of the misty waters of leith popped the three weird witch sisters chanting fair is foul and foul is fair! and that's when all hell broke out.

the last thing i remember was shep's chain wrapping around my right hand tight enough to paralyse thought, crushing my every carpal. he yanked away from me as the dogs viciously bit his legs and oh the barking! like in a dream sequence, my ears pounded and my circle of space was abbreviated to the lower compartment of a centrifuge with spinning, black, furry masses separating me from my colloidal comprehension.

am i overdramatizing the moment?  i think not.  i was absolutely terrified. i let out a curdling scream and shut my eyes. i was up the creek literally, and in a debilitated stupor.

i don't remember the last time i screamed so loudly. in fact, i don't remember the last time i felt so afraid. really afraid- real life afraid... not spiderman 2 afraid with doc octopus jumping out of the fusion fireball.

my every skin cell was condemning me, saying 'now you've done it. you don't know squat about dogs and you don't even like them much... you routinely freak out if one barks at you and here you go stupidly exposing yourself to the world with a dog at the end of your hand. you're going to get eaten alive. you'll never go near a dog again and you'll have a pathetic phobia that will last you a lifetime and if you squint hard enough you'll see the demons of the world rejoicing.'

this dog wasn't mine. how was i to explain to shep's mummy and daddy that i killed him? i knew nothing about putting a stop to a dog fight. heck, shep didn't even come when i called him.  i may have been spacing out mentally, but physically i was 100% there, getting kicked hard in the shins and jumped on and seriously scratched for what seemed like so many minutes and i'm pretty sure i would have fainted right there if richarles didn't step in.

he had come on the walk as well and up to that point was describing to me how a pit bull attacked his nephew once and nearly ripped off the baby boy's jaw. great story. really. richarles demanded i give him the leash and he scooped shep up to somewhat safety. as he was lifting shep, another dog's jaws were clamped to shep's leg, which threw richarles off balance. i think he might have stepped on another dog at this point making it howl, which finally brought their lady owner back to life and she rushed over to see if there was anything she could do. ugh. lady! call your dogs off or something human like that... she wasn't helpful in the least bit. richarles fell to his knees after the dog whose lunch was shep's leg, changed its target and bit richarles so hard on the thigh that he began bleeding under his jeans.

i don't remember how we moved from mass chaos to about 50 yards down the river away from the hell-monsters with me in tears and shep wheezing and limping. the devil-master was calling out behind us in a cold, disinterested voice, "will everything be alright?" richarles gave her a look and we went on our way.

shep recouperated in minutes and was back to fouling the foliage and licking stale urine spots. i on the other hand, was angrier than ever at the stupidity of fear and couldn't stop shaking. once again, a brazilian saved my day.

we came home to find margaret parked outside the house with extra bedding in her hands. she's the friend of jane's whose friends were flying in from st. petersburg. the day's adventures were vamped up a level as margaret informed us that the 2 boys we agreed to house for a few days multiplied into 5 and would it still be okay? sandro and family  (accompanied by denilson, of course) were in the middle of dinner when margaret and us vietnam troops came in. wild portuguese chatter started when the news broke that the 2 became 5 and margaret was given the 3rd degree.

it was pretty hard to be angry with margaret since she was at least 75 years old and adorably wrinkled. how she managed to be responsible for transporting 5 russian musicians from st. petersburg only God knows.

anyhow, margaret left and gislene said something about the number of men in the house were more than she could count... and how even shep was a man and how crazy was that...  denilson said he would write a book called 12 people and a dog and we all laughed until sandro mentioned that our one toilet was going to be hideous tomorrow morning...

denilson and richarles went home and the rest of us prepared for our guests. sometime after 11pm, margaret called my phone and gave us the bad news. there were actually 10 of them coming....

***

just kidding. actually, she said that somehow they had randomly arranged for another place to stay and now we didn't need to worry about housing any of them. ARGH!!

we alternated between laughs and groans for 10 minutes straight. gislene and i folded all the freshly laid bedding and asked God if He figured we had nothing more pressing to spend our time doing than making beds and unmaking them. sandro quickly called the boys' cell phones telling them to turn around and we all regrouped 'round the kitchen table sharing which lessons God was teaching us.

that was yesterday. today, margaret came back to collect her bedding and handed envelopes to myself and to gislene which contained 10 pounds each and asked for forgiveness. she announced it was her birthday, so we lit a match and sang her the birthday song (yes, she got sung to) and forced her to swallow some biscuits and tea.

we all agreed that this was a funny way for God to introduce us to each other. margaret informed us of all her russian connections in edinburgh, how she came to know jane and how perfect it was that she now knew us. she started recalling all the russian church songs she once set to memory, like Velikiy Bog... she started singing and i chimed in... and then sandro and gislene started singing in portuguese. we sang the chorus over and over... grinning at each other at how strange the moment was...and yet how beautiful. gislene said that's what heaven was going to be like, only in heaven we would all understand each other. invitations were made for dinners and hugs were given and then margaret was gone.

earlier in the morning, i took shep for another walk to the same place as yesterday. i was NOT about to let yet another lame fear crawl in and take presidence in my system so i wanted to challenge it in the face before it got settled.

we came across more unleashed dogs on the river path but none that growled for more than a second. there were plenty leashed dogs as well, and much bigger than shep, who started quivering and pulled me along whenever we came near them. when we came to the exact place of yesterday's attack, i stopped for a few minutes and let shep sniff the ground and paw at things. i thanked God for a strange sense of courage. it felt good to not be disabled by yesterday's events and i was happy to not succumb to my chicken-like tendancies.

i called shep over just now and he came to me. :-D pretty cool. i think he and i have bonded somewhat. ahhh... sheppie.

regardless, i still want a cat.

happy birthday, danny.

Lord, may your will be done with this here blog~

i gave myself the afternoon to wander the streets yesterday. i want to be more familiar with what shops are on what street so that i know where to go when i need certain things. the best way to do this, i figured, was to aimlessly meander from block to block and see what the current would knock me up against. i found two more starbucks hidden inside bookstores on princes street and found another macdonald's and kfc in the eatery basement of a mall. went inside some touristy shops... some computer stores... department stores.  wasn't in the mood to shop. was just taking notes.

found a place that sold heavy duty walking stick umbrellas for 3 pounds. might have to give in and pick up an umbrella one of these days. found a store that was very similar to bed bath and beyond or a lower-scale pottery barn. ahhh... got depressed. i'd love to have a place of my own to decorate  here... it's a challenge to know that i've got to maintain this 'long-term camper' mentality. 

i had to keep calm and remind myself i had no agenda so i needn't be in a rush. the keeping calm part was hard because it was extremely difficult to manouver my way through the crowded sidewalks just to get from store to store at anything faster than a snail's pace. it wasn't like this a couple of weeks ago.

the festival is coming. the spirit of celebration is building... the street performers, the musical acts, the plays, the comedy routines, the film shows, the book shows, the art shows, the food shows, the dance shows....it's all just around the corner. the tourists are packing it in on princes street to the point where i can't walk a straight line for more than a couple of feet because of human traffic jams and balloon animal blowers and begging bagpipers. it's sure to get even more busy than this come august 1st, the unofficial kick-off of the month-long festival.

this means i'll have to postpone anything i'd like to do in the way of touristy stuff until well after the second week of september or something, when i'll be able to enjoy things more without the inconvenience of a million other bodies laying across my feet.

although it makes daily life more challenging, the festival will be exciting. i'm anxious to experience it again- 1998 was a great year. i have good memories of the shows i saw and the amazing transformation of edinburgh into something very similar to disneyland. this time i'll be able to take a back seat and view things as a local instead of a visitor. well, who knows how back-seat things will be... the church will be taking part in some stuff... evangelism stuff... should be good.

i can't wait. and at the same time, i'm secretly looking forward to the festival's end... sometime in the middle of september- where i can sit back and say my, oh my.. what a good festival that was. aren't we all happy it's over.

just got a call from jane who has a friend who has a couple of friends flying into edinburgh tonight. they're a couple of guys who are going to be in town for a month taking part in some festival show. their usual accomodations fell through somehow and they need a place to stay. sure, no problem, i say. let me talk to gislene when she gets home from school and i'll call you back.

then she mentions they're musicians and that they're here to do music for the festival. then she mentions they're russian. WOOH! russian people. yeehaw!! the russians are coming, the russians are coming...

i started talking out loud to myself here in the office for a bit... you know, practicing... speaking in russian.. laughing at how some words just don't come to my head even though i know them... ahh. it'll be good to stretch the russian muscles again.

don't know how to best explain this sensation, but there's nothing like feeling foreign in a pleasantly uncomfortable way... currently i am the oddball in scottish circles and in brazilian circles... but i'll be completely at home when i get to feel oddballish in a russian circle. it's an awkwardness that's like second-skin. it's my favorite kind of discomfort.  hope the arrangement works out.  :-)

Lord, may your will be done with this here blog~

saw spiderman 2 on tuesday with 5 of my pals. great action movie. i was jumping all over the place. scared the people sitting to my left a few times when my arm jerked into their popcorn. you should have seen their faces. thrilled to see all the american flags planted in so many scenes. i was a lonely laugher at a few lines- i must have been the only american inside the theatre.

it just came out here. we're a bit behind in movies. i was looking at what's out in california theatres right now and felt completely lost... didn't recognize any of the titles.  i guess i can always watch the online trailers and clue myself in but that'd just make things worse since it'll be a while before they end up in theatres here anyway.

wednesday night i was a dinner guest at steve and helen's. very nice time. neat couple. had a few howls over cultural differences while listening to bb king and eva cassidy singing american tunes. borrowing a good book from them by bill bryson, father of cultural commentary. they have identical twin baby girls- zoe and lucy. they're 21 months and absolutely perfectly adorable. bowl-cut blonde hair and big blue eyes. helen was a competitive school basketball player at only 5'4" and speaks italian and steve is an environmental/biology guy who teaches geography at a local high school.  i'd love to get to know them better. might be a challenge though, since i'm not married with children. we'll see.

straightened my hair tuesday but it sprinkled on the way home, so i arrived back at baberton with curly hair. funny for my friends. not at all funny for me.  to spite the weather i straightened it again the next day. no rain this time- yesterday was a gorgeous day. but i think i've reached my quota this month for time spent fussing with hair. it's getting long. i need a trim.

visited the botanic garden before going to steve and helen's yesterday. yes, the botanic garden, not the botanical gardens, which is what i kept calling it because of our arboretum and botanical gardens in san francisco.  my tongue felt leashed not being allowed to pronounce the other letters. it's a pretty place. didn't see all of it. i'll need to go back soon.

irn-bru is a scottish original soda that's proven to be more popular than coke or pepsi. imagine that. anyhow, irn-bru has a few different flavours- i spotted a can of irn-bru american cream soda at a convenience store the other day and had to test it out.  it said the word 'soda' right on the can, but when i told the guy at the counter i just wanted the can of soda and nothing else, he gave me a look and rang me up for a fizzy juice. i must have insulted him by speaking american, but it has 'soda' printed right on the stinking can! whatever.  and fizzy juice? is that not ridiculous sounding?

(here's an interesting article on the terminology for non-acoholic carbonated beverages. check out the humungo list of soda that the US distributes in comparison to all the other countries. pretty frightening.)

anyhow, the irn-bru version of american cream soda was pretty good. and at 29P a can, it's practically dirt cheap here-cheaper than anything else you can buy to drink, which is a riot. not sure if i should feel insulted by that.

there's a 5k fun run in the botanic garden next wednesday at 7pm. how random. it's pretty rare to find a mid-week race and one that's not early morning. i'll have to look into it.  i wonder if i can bring shep.

would you look at that.. the time is 7:22am on 7/22. eerie.

tchau for now...
svet

Lord, may your will be done with this here blog~

sultanas vs. raisins:
 
according to a tesco cashier, the difference between a sultana and a raisin is that one is a dried grape and the other is a prune. (??? and they say americans are dim) when another cashier asked the first cashier which was the prune, he replied, "blimey- maybe the raisin. it's a hideous word, raisin. if it's not a prune, it should be."
 
i went to tesco's this morning to buy some raisin bran, the breakfast of champions. it's been over two months since i've enjoyed a nice bowl of raisin bran and this morning i was on a mission to not deprive myself any longer. i arrived in the cereal section in typical american style- expecting to be catered to in all forms of familiarity, which of course included expecting to find my favorite american breakfast cereal in a ho hum supermarket in the corstorphine district of edinburgh.
 
startled at the absence of a bright purple kellogg's box on the shelf, i did an aisle search for a generic brand substitute. even took a second lap up and down after my hunt was looking to be unfruitful. (har. unfruitful.)
 
i was hoping to find a random photo of tesco cereal aisles online just now, but my google search pointed me to this website. i rather enjoy this person's cynical attitude and this specific blog is somewhat relevant to my rant about obtuse cashiers... but i don't suggest reading anything apart from the linked entry- the blog gets pretty sour after that.

so, i didn't find raisin bran but i did find a box of sultana bran. i stared at the picture on the box for quite some time wondering why i never heard of a sultana and what it was doing socializing with bran. where was it hiding my precious raisin? would this sultana thing be as plump and sweet? raisins are dark. the sultanas in the photo were orangey-yellow and i didn't trust them. they were basking on a bed of bran without any cares in the world and didn't seem to be sensitive to my quest for a quality cereal. i didn't want to be surprised by a dried chunk of peach or pineapple falling apart in my mouth in an hour or whenever i was going to eat breakfast.  i just wanted my traditional raisin. i was getting perplexed.
 
not convinced that a sultana was gonna do it for me, i grabbed a box of generic plain bran and headed for the dried fruit aisle. heaps of packages of sultanas plastered the shelves. ugh. i looked for a good several minutes before i finally found a package from heaven: a baggy of california dried raisins. thank you, God. it was even more awesome knowing the raisins were california grown. very cool.
 
why doesn't the uk embrace the raisin? what's the deal? is it just culturally unhip to eat raisins and call them that? maybe sultanas or yellow raisins are commonly called sultanas in american households too... and i just for some reason got left out of that breeze of trivia. or...not? i mean, come on... when you're in the mood for baking and you head to safeway with a shopping list straight out of your cookbook, are you looking for a box of sultanas or a box of yellow raisins? don't answer that question. i may be more ignorant than i care to discover.

at the checkout i asked the lady what the difference was between a sultana and a raisin. it was early morning still and i was the only customer in line with 4 cashiers sitting bored behind their registers. i figured asking a question wouldn't be too out of line. har, again- line. i was in a line not being out of line. 
 
she looked back at me blankly and that's when she turned to the next counter over and asked her fellow employee for his professional opinion. we didn't get very far on his earlier shared pearls of wisdom, so she inspected the packaging and asked, "whatever would you plan to use these for?" she started reading the description that stated, "ideal for many homebaking uses- perfect for salads, home-made cakes, puddings and mincemeat and as a healthy addition to breakfast cereals." she hmm'ed  and raised her eyebrows and said, "ah, well. i'm dumbstruck. strange things come from california."
 
*** 
 
i discovered why my finger was feeling arthritic lately. i've been tying the laces of my running shoes together and carrying them that way in the crook of my index finger all over town until i'd arrive at the gym. one of my veins nearly popped out and socked me in the eye from pain on friday after i cracked my knuckles. my shoes now get neatly hung on the back of my bag where they may flop around a bit, but at least my typing isn't affected. 
 
***

very tragic information: last week monday, a helicopter went missing in borneo. on this helicopter were 5 people- at least two were christians. one on board was leith baptist church's beloved 'judson', a borneo-native and past missionary to LBC in the 80's who since has moved back to borneo. it was through judson that the link to borneo was established here in edinburgh. judson is spoken of often during preachings on missions and evangelism and is very much respected. LBC has a serious love for that area of the world and currently a team of 8 people are there working in the town and taking part of an international prayer conference in bakelalan. 
  
judson was taking a helicopter trip with these other people for business reasons not related to the prayer conference- just a coincidence in timing that our church team is there at the same time as this crisis. (no one from our church family was on the helicopter.)  anyhow, the helicopter hasn't been found yet. apparently it's very hard to find things in the thick jungles of borneo and it's fatally dangerous to be left in head-hunter territory. there are currently 1000 soldiers looking for this helicopter, as well as several other local search teams. it's a big deal.

our church has had groups of people praying every night in different homes for the safety of judson and his companions. please pray for their lives and for peace for their families. our church missionaries in borneo are suffering from this news as well and it may be detering them from their original plans. pray that they are able to productively do what God desires from them.
 
***
 
friday afternoon i checked out a bunch of cheapo touristy shops looking for some sporty sunglasses to buy. i brought along a pair from CA that i use here occasionally, but they don't block out the scotland sun. maybe they work okay in the california sun where there are less clouds reflecting everything, but here everything still seems so much brighter and more painful to look at. didn't find any that were both affordable and my style. disappointed in not completing my task, i figured it was best to wait it out and not settle on something i didn't really like.
 
found some deals on clothes while i was shopping around... just looked, though. still avoiding purchasing clothes. nice denim jackets on clearance. maybe i'll watch the rack.

went to denilson's house for lunch that afternoon. he and a few other brazilians live with winsome- a very nice woman from church who apparently runs marathons and that whole bit.  anyway, he was toting a pair of awesome sunglasses that i complimented and he said, "you like them? take them. i found them in the street today." he picked them up not really wanting them. he professed to not liking sporty sunglasses and pulled out his personal pair from his bag to prove it.
 
i love them. they fit very well, block out the sun great and make me look like i just climbed mount everest. very awesome looking glasses. God is so fun in how he provides so randomly. he saved me 10 pounds that i might now be able to bless someone else with.  
 
saturday i ate dinner with matt and jane and their three children. little david has many viking helmets and shields and likes knights. the oldest boy james is a loyal window watcher and will wave goodbye as guests leave and wait until they turn the corner and are no longer visible or is on the parental alert and will announce to the general house audience whenever someone is coming home from work or the supermarket. anna reads like something crazy and agrees with me that boys should sit with boys and girls should sit with girls.
 
yesterday (sunday) afternoon i ate lunch with my friend ana and got to see her place. she rents a room in a very nice flat close to the city centre.  it was a gorgeous day so we decided to nap in a park in leith. the sun stayed out for several hours. was uncommonly warm.
 
i'm slowly seeing the insides of more homes. i like that. more invitations to family meals are popping up. i'm hoping the offers will be actualized and not just politely mentioned. anxious to get to know all the church kids' names and to have them know mine. i'm sure they know it unofficially since it's mentioned often around church, but it's not like they're running up to me saying, "svetlana, svetlana, look what i drew in sunday school today!"
 
***

shep has now become my sheppie. saturday morning i took his barking butt on a 7-mile run and i really enjoyed his company. he never complained that we were traveling too far and for the most part, he kept up. he eventually got over the insanity of spraying every bush with shep-markings and just pranced alongside me like a happy boy until we came home. 

i still don't love dogs, but i think if i had a little boy who was desperate for one, i'd consider it. especially since i know now how much safer i feel with an animal by my side tromping about town. it was amazingly secure-feeling having shep with me. i didn't tense up at strange passers-by and i didn't even give the housing projects i ran past a second thought.

i really got scared, though, to let shep meet other dogs along the way. and  when i saw other dogs, that was the only time i got pretty freaked out. not quite sure what to do here... do you let the dogs sniff each other and say hi? shep's pretty friendly like that, i think... but man... this is all so foreign to me. what if they start jumping all over each other and biting each other's throats out? i'm thinking that wouldn't be good.

saying that, i should also mention that sheppie went back to being just shep on sunday morning, when we all came downstairs from our bedrooms to find extremely large chunks of poop all over the hallway. shep is used to sleeping inside the house and howls like a mad dog if he's outdoors at night. hense why we left him inside the house for the night. sandro became animaniac-ish- just kinda lost it- and loudly proclaimed his love for howard and sue and kept reminding himself and all of us that it was a sunday. hah.

what a way to start the day- cleaning up dog poop from the dog you don't own and don't really care for because he likes to sleep under the kitchen table which makes your food smell like dog. poor sandro.
  
i hope howard brings me back an english-portuguese bible from brazil. i asked him...hope he remembers. they're supposed to be super cheap with the exchange rate- like 5 american dollars for a nice big one.

***

sunday services went well. evening service was a challenge again, as brian led worship and i played. it was communion night- mainly piano-based and i didn't know a bunch of the songs again. pretty sure i botched up the rhythm on one, but it was quickly forgotten when we moved into a time of spontaneous singing and playing. ahhh... such freedom. had a great time worshipping from the piano in a way i don't experience too often in a public setting.

***

mom, i got your package this morning! thanks for the snacks and the birthday card. i opened it after i got home from tesco's. on my bus ride home i remembered that i forgot to buy gum and was half-kicking myself for not picking up anything special either, like a chocolate bar. i was completely happy to find both chocolate and gum in the stash with the other things from you. totally made my morning. thanks. i love you.

...by the way, the buses here get stocked with these free commuter newspapers everyday. this morning's had a cartoon of a man supposedly representing british thought about americans. he had a weary look on his face and was saying, "awesome this, awesome that. why is everything so awesome? it isn't, is it?"

so that's an american, eh? i hope my thoughts aren't slowly turning negative as a reflection of typical british thought here. i know i can get ornery at times. Lord help me stay happy.

...funny. wasn't i just shunning my exclamation marks a few weeks ago?

okay. gislene and sandro just came home from school. time to go be with my family. gis found a denim jacket in the garage in a bag of old clothes and is demanding i try it on! wow. provision, provision, provision.  can things get any more strangely provisional? i feel like living proof that God is good.

happy monday, everyone. eat your bran.

Lord, may your will be done with this here blog~

jumped for joy yesterday evening when i ran past a mexican food joint. had to try. i~ve been craving mexican food for days. did the missionary meal-split with richarles and we feasted on a disappointing plate of WHITE jasmine rice with absolutely no seasoning, cakey beans that i didn~t even recognize to be refried and had to ask the waitress what they were before i picked up the mystery cluster with my hands because it was so hard, and chicken in a tortilla drenched in spaghetti sauce with sauted celery. that was supposed to be our burrito. what the heck. i was so stunned i wasn~t even sure how to start apologizing to my dinner pal for raising his hopes for a quality mexican meal. 
 
did~t really realize how many burrito shops we have back in CA until yesterday when i felt lost without even one good authentic restaurant around edinburgh. there isn~t even a taco bell substitute. nothing. the scots are so missing out while they live it up on chippies (fish and chip shops) and....chippies....and....oh, more chippies...
 
i~d say something more positive and upbeat, but i~m trying my hand at the shorter entries now... i~ll be happier next time.  ;-)
 
Lord, may your will be done with this here blog~

bring your bump!

that's what the flyer said for the newly advertised swimming class at the gym. huh? yeah. well, i finally discovered what they were referring to... let's see if any of you think you know-

got on the elyptical machine this afternoon and guess what i did: i entered 25 for my age. har. did that out of habit i guess. just wasn't thinking. then i started thinking a bit too much and got depressed. argh. still kinda funny.

current aggravation: big, fat binders here aren't like the ones i'm used to in america. there's some lame open and close device in the center that keeps you from adding a page to the very front of a binder- you can only add from the back... so what happens when you just put 200 pages into a binder and realized you forgot page one? gotta take them ALL out again. is this not ridiculous?! no three-ring binders to be found. honest. i looked. just these disasters. scotland, why do i love you...

stayed at the church late today- still sorting through the music files. (putting some stuff in binders, hence the binder-bind above.) thought i'd finish tonight, but looks like i'll have go to back early tomorrow morning.

richarles rode my bus all the way home with me tonight and then stayed on it to take the return trip into town to head to his house. just found out that my bus didn't get him back to town- it plopped him off at longtone road and went out of service for the night, so he had to walk the rest of the way! ahh. it's a lot longer to walk from longstone to downtown than from longstone to my house. poor guy. i don't like when people get put in lame situations because they were watching out for me.

God, please watch over my friends.


Lord, may your will be done with this here blog~

saturday was good. i woke up super early and took the 6am bus out to church. i needed to pick songs for sunday am and pm services since i was scheduled to lead worship and i didn't want to prepare last minute sunday morning.

i panicked a bit when i got back home at 11:30, knowing the girls were going to pick me up at 12. gislene was in the backyard with the boys setting up a puptent. fun. she told me edna and gwenn called and said they were going to come at 11:45 now. oiy! my half hour turned into 15 minutes to shower and be completely ready. i ran around like a madman but i succeeded- showered and all. when i came back downstairs, gislene said edna called again and now they weren't going to come until sometime after 12 because gwenn was running late. argh! anyhow, they eventually showed up at 1:45. not even kidding. happy birthday, svet! have a slice of patience pie...

we didn't go to st. andrews because we ran out of time. instead we went to north berwick beach. (i was there before with some other people a few weeks ago. that was pretty funny. they picked the one place outside of edinburgh i already toured. another slice of that pie, please!) there were about 8 of us altogether. (gwenn's cousin, brother, his girlfriend, her little sisters) we had a picnic lunch and played miniature golf. totally fun time. warning. miniature golf is NOT the same in scotland as it is in america. this is the land of golf. the course was practically as big as a real golf course and everyone was very good. i should have paid a few visits to malibu funland before i moved. we finished early on the 16th hole and went to get ice cream cones.

by the way, my camera is broken. fully broken. the lens locked up and i need to spend some serious time checking it out. i know i mentioned a thousand times i'd start posting photos. i'll get to it... once my camera isn't a nightmare.

i was dropped off at 5pm. the house was dead quiet since everyone was asleep so i spent most of my time on the computer chatting with brother john and sending email. about 7:30 gwenn and edna popped in and gislene pulled out a coconut cake she made. was pretty good. the girls left about 20 minutes later for a dinner party. i then realized that there wasn't any dinner being made, which happens sometimes on saturdays. so i heated up some leftover lunch and ate. sometime around 10pm, a few of the gang came over. (ana, lily, marcos, ezekiel, william, denilson) mom called and i chatted with her a bit. the gang headed out to a pub back in town and i went to bed before midnight. and there you have it, folks. my 26th birthday.

am i bummed? nah, not really. a birthday's a birthday. sure it was different than it might have been if i were in CA. i probably would have been sung to. i probably would have had a candle or two to blow out. i guess i was hoping for at least a candle and a song. funny how those things are such staples in a birthday celebration. (mom sang to me and so did the oregon crew. thanks guys.) i did get a couple of gifts here. the girls got me some earrings. (i don't have pierced ears) and gislene got me a beaded necklace.

anyway, it was still nice. there will be another trip to st. andrews someday soon.

sunday was amazing. i went to church on the 6am bus again. found out that although my first bus runs early on sundays, the transfer buses don't start running until shortly before 8. i ended up walking the rest of the route. (not as fun in sunday clothes.) still had plenty of time to make copies and acetates and run through chords and make last minute song changes and to pray and prepare some scripture. i thought i might be a bit nervous since brian wasn't there to fall back on, but things went very smoothly. since pastor bill and the elders were gone, loraine led the service. she did a great job. it was pretty fun to have women running the place. actually, it was very fun...

i was on a high after service. the holy spirit's presence was so thick. i had a few invitations for lunch, but i declined. i needed to be alone. i was in the zone and didn't want to kill the mood before evening service. i felt like an afternoon of silly chatter and goofing off would ruin everything that i was trying to focus on since this morning and it was SO GOOD to just be meditative and reflect on how God worked in the service and to thank Him for answering prayer.

the lightbulb for the overhead projector burned out right before evening service. that was fun. couldn't find any spares. the congregation was going to have a musical pop quiz whether they were ready for it or not. i had to remove a new song from my list and replace it with a song the church knew well and i didn't know at all. the preacher last minute requested a reflection song during prayer which normally would have freaked me out since i'm no pro at pulling songs out of my butt and would usually need some time to figure out the chord progression, but thankfully he couldn't have picked an easier song- it was that hallelujah song...where you just keep singing hallelujah... ya know which one i mean? anyway, talk about an international song. how many times have we sung that song at RGT at the end of services... and i guess it's a brazilian favorite.

it was such an honor to serve sunday. there were needs that had to be met and God allowed me to be there to meet them. it was a great experience. so good to know that the church leadership was confident that the service was left in good hands. being trusted is such an empowering feeling.

after service a few of us went to a coffeehouse. very cool place. you have to go down a quiet alley to find this one. reminded me of a tiny san francisco warehouse- turned into hip hangout with the ceiling painted black to hide all the piping and the american music playing. these guys know all the good hideouts. maybe i will too after a few more months.

we came home and denilson let me tweeze his unibrow. sure, he fussed for the first 5 minutes but after he realized i wasn't kidding he sat still like a good boy. i was impressed. he had hair all over his nose growing like some enchanted forest and he didn't flinch or shed any tears. he even let me clean up near his eyelids. he made me promise not to tell anyone in the gang, but i hardly think i'd have to point it out to anyone for them to notice. funny thing is, (and i didn't know this prior) JUST the VERY night before, he was majorly harassing ezekiel for tweezing his brows. now denilson was eating his words. ah, well. i think he was secretly grateful. good brothers need good sisters back.

monday was tough. i got up early (becoming a habit) to catch the 6:37am bus into town. i forgot to eat breakfast and began to inhale my bowl of cereal with 6 minutes to spare. i snapped myself out of panic mode and decided to sacrifice my urgency to get to church early, to just relax with my frosted flakers and wait until the next bus. the next bus came 6 minutes early, so i missed it as well. ironic sacrifice.

i caught the bus after the second one, but it took me TWO HOURS of travel time to get to church. so much for getting there early. a ton of streets were closed because men were working on the road- which made for some seriously backed up traffic. at one point, my bus wasn't moving for 10 minutes. (we were in a tunnel at the time. i don't like tunnels. it was too dark to read my book. all i could do was sit and think about how i was in a tunnel.)

i got pretty antsy so i grabbed my stuff and shot out of the bus. even though i wasn't anywhere near church, i figured i'd get there sooner walking than sitting idle on a bus. there were lots of people rushing out of buses everywhere i looked... it was like wall to wall buses with bodies oozing out of them....bodies with nice suits and ties on...everyone was on their phones... probably calling their bosses, their wives, their next appointments.

this one guy was dressed very nicely- for work i guess... had his little boy in a stroller and was flying down the street. he went down the sidewalk curb and his boy was flung out of the stroller and landed in the middle of the road. ACK! every person nearby swallowed their hearts just then praying for the father to get to his baby before an oncoming car squeezed the life out of him. i thought strollers came with seat belts.

anyway.. so i'm walking... walking...walking... got my soul survivor tunes on...cozy in my tennis shoes... i'm cool. passing up honking cars, more people rushing all over eternity... about a mile and a half later i notice the street is becoming less congested. the traffic is thinning out. okay, i say... i'll catch the next bus that comes my way. i skip on over to the next bus stop, wait about 4 minutes and lo and behold, my very own bus driver pulls up to meet me. i had walked a good 15 minutes and my bus still was behind me. incredible. the driver starts commenting on how i jumped ship so he shouldn't let me back on and a few other cynical things. i smiled and was grateful for my headphones.

i got on and ran up to the second deck to my old seat and found it still vacant. some friendly folk gave me strange looks like i was their dead granny come back to life. others were either sleeping or grumbling obsenities under their breath. absolutely crazy. i think a rickshaw would have been faster. this country is so backwards sometimes. who does road work in the middle of rush hour on a monday!? i seem to recall things being done in off-hours and often in the middle of the night back at home. much better strategy, america.

aside from the morning chaos, i think my bus driver woke up on the wrong side of the sleeper. before we even hit downtown, he was swinging the bus into every tree growing alongside the bus stops. since i was sitting in the forward-most seat on the second deck surrounded by nothing but windows, i was at perfect tree branch level. i was convinced the tree branches were aiming for my neck. i was flinching every couple of blocks. the noise of the initial impact of these massive logs of wood crashing into the side of the bus and then the slow trasylvania-style scraping away as the bus pulled out of each stop was probably my favorite part. talk about an intense bus ride. how's this for a twisted coincidence: i just started reading a book by the left behind boys called "are we living in the end times?"

please tell me you smell the psychological hysteria stewing that morning... i was all shaken up by the time i arrived. completely flipping out. my every nerve was standing on end and my shoulders were aching from all the tension.

i eventually got to church, anxious for some alone time in the office. no such luck. about 10 minutes after me arrived someone who decided they'd waste away some time sitting at the table next to me. (why didn't i lock the office door!) on top of that i'm uncomfortable in this person's presence so i kept all answers to yes or no. after about half an hour of avoiding sneaky stares and just tolerating the funk of being with someone who had no reason to be in the office, i walked out and did what i usually do when i'm needing to shake off some stress. i started organizing.

wow. what fun. totally lost myself in cleaning out some junk drawers in the worship team filing cabinets. found a better hiding place for some of the PA stuff that tends to lay around (with the PA king's complete blessing, of course) and chucked a bunch of stuff that hid near the stage and on the benches that became permanent fixtures for no reason other than people never questioned why these things were there in the first place.

discovered that the two 2-drawer filing cabinets that normally sat out in the corner of the santuary hid perfectly under the communion table once a little shelf was taken out. nothing gets kept on the shelf and the table never gets moved, so i wasn't breaching any church logistics. besides, i think they trust me enough to let me putt around and do things like remove shelves and things. ;-) anyhow, now the filing cabinets are neatly out of sight.

there is an unreal lack of space here. we need more office space created for all the different ministries. the building itself can easily house this with a bit of creative work, and some people have filled me in on their personal ideas, but that's where things stop. it's unfortunate, since too many people are comfortable with leaving equipment and supplies anywhere, just because there isn't a place to put things. it's chaotic. i hate it. and... i love it. :-D

when i finished, i was in the mood to release some energy so i packed up to go for a run when richarles came charging into the office. 'i need to go find the police station. will you please go with me?' sure, i said. i had nothing pressing, anyway. he became ecctatic and started praying praise. apparently this visit to the police station was really stressing him out and he was really hoping for someone to go with him, but didn't want to inconvenience anyone and prayed that God would provide someone. and there i was. that was neat.

we didn't know where the police station was. i asked for and received about 4 different sets of directions. amazing. we found it soon enough and i helped him relay all the information to the officer to report his stolen wallet from last week. i got to release plenty of physical energy since we covered quite a bit of town on foot. it was a fun time. oddly enough, he thinks i'm a riot so it's pretty easy to run around town with someone who's such a good audience.

richarles' day got exponentially more frustrating as he was then obliged to do some favors for people that conflicted with other things. we parted and the rain poured out from the heavens. literally, one second we were completely dry and the next i had to do the funny-man walk to keep my soggy thighs from rubbing. i found a great place for shelter and for lunch. a bowl of chili and rice for one pound! the joint serves up a bunch of salads and fresh sanwiches, too. where was this place the day i settled for a scotch egg? i'll have to take susie here when she comes to visit.

i speed-walked back to the church alone, with my hands up near my head and wiggled my bum every few steps. i may have looked pretty bizarre, but i figured i'd dry faster that way.

***

well it's tuesday morning- i've got a load of laundry washing and i just put another load on the line. lots of clouds in the sky- hope it doesn't rain on my wet clothes.

i wish i knew how to post audio-blogs. misery loves company and here's why i'm leaning towards miserable. i've been followed around the house by shep here all morning. we're watching him for a week while howard and sue are in brazil. wow. just...wow. it's been a long time since i've had a dog in the house. (what was i, two years old when smokey ran away from home?)

anyway... OUCH. if my ears had lips they'd be pouting from the pain. this dog has some great barking skills. shep barks at everything. the sound of buses driving past, the birds in the trees, the stereo speakers. i told him that i like cats more than dogs and he started growling at me. i can't escape him. he's like a security camera on paws. he's sleeping on the couch behind me just now. i don't know if he's usually allowed on the couch, but i think i'll spoil him just this once- the house is amazingly quiet this exact moment. let's see how long this'll last.

the sun is out now and my clothes are beginning to dry. not enough clothespins for two loads of wash on the line. hope the wind doesn't kick in since i sorta hung up the other load without pins holding them down.

...and there goes shep, barking at the utility closet under the stairs. if there's a mouse in there, i really don't want to know about it. i just pulled shep's nose out from under the door and dragged him into the living room. i told him that i don't like him and he stuck his nose in my lap and whined. scary. maybe i should watch what i say.

(...and no wind outside blowing my clothes to the ground, yet- thank you, Lord.)

****

i had to boogie out to my bus. i ran out of the house and forgot something (typical... mom can attest to that) but as i ran back in i fully tripped over shep who was laying right on the other side of the door, which catapulted me into the air and i crashed chin first into the hallway. ugh. by the time i picked up all my belongings and limbs and put them back into place, i heard my bus whoosh past the house. ugh #2. i ignored my screaming knees and pounding chin and heaved over to the the last bus stop in the area. (baberton mains is a huge horseshoe. mine is the 2nd of 6 stops, so as long as i book it, chances are good that i can still catch the bus even if it passes my stop by running in the opposite direction.) it's interesting how i can run 5 miles with complete ease, but running with a few extra things in my hands uphill in boots can completely wipe me out. i was parched and wheezing and without water, but i made it to the final stop before the bus arrived and caught my ride into town just in time. fhew. well, no throwing the stick for shep when i get home. that dog alone is serving me up slices of patience pie left and right.

***

had to walk upstairs just now. shep was laying across them in a painful-looking way but i guess he was happy. i couldn't help but lean down and give him a scratch. he then threw up his paws and demanded a belly rub, which i gave him willingly. i guess dogs aren't so bad.

alright, i realize my update is once again running past 6 pages in word so i'll start wrapping it up.

william copied a bunch of stuff onto my computer for me the other day- portuguese language programs and some scottish music. fun. looking forward to digging into that.

ywam is hosting shine in a few weeks and i'm going to have a hand in that. anxious to start helping them more with their ministries.

i bought a uk-plug hairdryer this weekend and used it for the first time yesterday. i was thrilled to the max to have a diffuser attachment once again. the simple pleasures... i mean, really. SO HAPPY! it's amazing how good hair days can really make you feel like a different person. non-frizzy curls are worth at least 2 inches of confidence.

two of the brazilian girls are housesitting for shirley and david while they are on vacation in cuba and i spent some time with them the other night. shirley's house is pretty close to mine, which is nice. granted, it was richarles who invited me to hang out with the girls and not the girls themselves, i was still pretty happy. val (prounounced vow) is richarles' sister and rose(pronounced HOSE-y) are very sweet. english is still very difficult for them. rose was the one who forced her cell phone on me the first time i took the bus home by myself because she was so worried that i might get lost. aww. that seems like ages ago now.

speaking of ages.. how long have i been here now? i stopped counting weeks after the first four. :::checking calendar::: ah. it'll be 8 weeks tomorrow since i arrived. :-D fun.

***

it's wednesday morning now...

yesterday evening neuzilene invited me to her home for dinner. well, actually, bill and jean's home, since neuzilene and her family are housesitting for them until they come back from borneo. (i tell you, everyone is out of town right now... missions trip to brazil, missions to borneo, family vacations up the wazoo...) we had pizza and fries and salad. they made an american dinner just for me. ha,ha. her husband's name is reginaldo and they have two sons timothy and david. (david was the boy who stayed with us over the weekend.) they are from brazil as well. neuzilene is anxious to spend more time together to practice english, which is fun for me, since i'm eager to get to know her better.

band practice was canceled last night, but i went to the church anyway after dinner to sort through some music files. brian came back from vacation and was on the church steps dealing with some drunk guy when i showed up. he and i later sorted through material together and i found out that the andy park book i loaned him made quite an impact. it was soooo great to hear that God AGAIN worked- brian showed me the pages of notes he took while he read.. he was so stirred by andy park's words... it really motivated him to reevaluate where the worship team was at. he also marked up key places in the book itself like i asked him to. that'll be fun to flip through if/when i read the book again.

personally, i was surprised that he even started the book, let alone finished it and planned an entire rehearsal session for the following week to teach some concepts to the team. i am so excited to see what changes will take place in the next month with the team. i now know that it wasn't by chance that i bought that book off the doulos and it wasn't without God's perfect timing that i lent the book to brian at a time when he could escape from daily life on his family vacation and really soak in all the book was talking about. cool, cool, cool. thank you, GOD for letting me see all the little steps that will gradually take us to whatever changes you are planning for this group!

brian also told me that his youngest daughter joanna prays for me every night. wow. i was totally humbled. who needs birthday candles and birthday songs when you have little kids you don't even know well praying for you every night?! gosh. talk about putting things into perspective. i've been given more gifts here than i probably know.

by luck, i found out about brian's daughter's prayers. but how many more are there that i don't know about? what other types of coverage and support or future gifts like joanna's will i be blessed by? how much more important is it to be interceded for in prayer than to be given a meaningless material object or to blow out a ridiculous little candle? had i not come here, i would have never received such gifts, like the honor of being part of the focus of joanna's bedtime prayers. this is huge.

thank you father, that you listen to and answer the prayers of precious little children. thank you that i am on the receiving end of your goodness every day of my life, even when it's hard to recognize.

thank you so much to anyone who remembers me in their prayers. i'm so grateful...

okay. love you all. my left index finger is feeling painfully arthritic. better go before i do some damage.

Lord, may your will be done with this here blog~

hi there. nothing monumental to inform you of. just wanted to post a blog with my birthdate on it.

...and to let you know that jessica simpson and i share the same birthday. of course she's two years younger than me. somehow that's comforting. somehow.

so she's a successful pop star with big boobs and has a gorgeous husband. i'm still older and can boss her around. happy bday, jess.

forgot to mention yesterday that i also miss just regular potato chips- like those lay's original flavoured ruffly ones. check out this site for a list of weird flavours put out by walker~s... (marmite yeast extract! COME ON! do they really expect me to think this stuff is edible!)

there are several others with bizarre european influence. btw, even the UK version of bbq is totally different. the feta crisps are probably the only kind i really enjoyed so far...(i think i mentioned that before) couldn't find them again- i guess they're not as popular with the locals.

started thinking about clothes today. haven't done the skirt-over-the-pants look in ages. i didn't bring any of those skirts on purpose... i tried to pack smartly by not taking extra stuff... but i guess i skimped on personality in the wardrobe department by doing that... kinda wish i brought more clothes to have fun with. there are goodwill stores GALORE here. they're called charity shops and they each cater to a different kind of charity- so some people ONLY shop at the leukemia shops... and others only visit the heart society shops or the homeless trust shops. it's so... categorical. they're set up like tiny little boutiques... nothing compared to the massive warehouses of our goodwills and thrift stores. haven't visited any yet... but i plan to once i can justify buying clothes.

i went back to the gym this afternoon and plugged in 25 for my age on the treadmill. man... it's like i was saving the planet... it was so important to get done. oiy. i just don't want my 25th year of life to exit without feeling like i enjoyed it... would hate to have hurt its feelings by rushing it out the door. ;-)

i'm reminded of the 25 year old club at pcc. kehau bowed out in may... now it's my turn. there were quite a few of us that were the same age at the same time. that's rare. or at least in my life it feels rare... always was the odd age out. always too old or too young... was nice to feel 'just right' for a while. i don't claim club membership anymore since i haven't seen you guys in ages. hope you're all well... miss you.

i got a phone call from OREGON today! just when i felt like my day was getting stale, you guys got me all happy and grinny. thanks. totally appreciated you remembering and the happy birthday singing... and that other great original song by dan... :-D i miss you kids... please email me! bo and zina and dan and gail... come visit. can't believe y'all went berry picking without me...

the ability to speak to 9 people at the same time is life-changing. the man who invented speakerphone should have his own holiday.

crowded home tonight. bumped into richarles as i left the church... he was in ireland for a few days and was headed to the house to unwind. dora was visiting- she's really nice. part of the brazilian project. a bit older than the rest of the crew- mid 40~s i think... denilson and william came over- good to see william- he doesn't visit much. his girl's in brazil, so i guess he's got more social time these days. he saved my computer... my IE was being attacked by something vicous and mean. he did a system restore, i think... so i guess it wasn't brain surgery, but whatever. God bless william! also, david is spending the weekend with us. i think he~s 12 years old. his parents are out celebrating their anniversary until monday. (also a brazilian family.) totally nice kid. very polite.

so...yeah. full house. still feels really random- like a brazilian pinata broke open all over me. it'd be such a shame if this chapter of my life closes without me having learned a real solid chunk of portuguese. God, help me learn. i really, really want to speak more than just simple phrases here and there. (sigh.)

tomorrow i'm taking a drive into st. andrews with edna (prounounced with a g... edgna) and gwenn. haha. just kidding. here~s an actual live 360 cam of the city and not just the golf course. (at least i think it~s live. give it a few seconds to load- the scenes are worth the wait. there are a few to choose from. talk about braveheart come to life.)

the girls are coming to get me at 12 noon. if their time frame is anything like this morning when they were supposed to pick up the boys at 10am, we'll be leaving at 2:15. :-) it's nice of them to include me in their day out. looking forward to it. should be beautiful. st. andrews is a bit of a university town but there are lots of monuments to see and take pictures of. and... gwenn has a car. imagine, touring around town without taking the bus! hallelujah.

just had some wholesome family prayer here at the house... time to turn in.

g'nite.

Lord, may your will be done with this here blog~

my personal computer~s on the fritz. i~m blogging from the church office where the keyboard is european and the question mark and apostrophe are insanely placed. please forgive.

currently listening to this awesome portuguese worship cd (track 7~s on repeat- great piano ballad) and i think i~m in love. really. in love.

it happened when i was on the bus this afternoon riding into town. my cd player volume was on 10 and the rest of the world was muted away. the music grabbed at my heart with both hands and gave it a painful squeeze. my forehead was steaming up the bus window and i guess my eyes were on the people down below making like worker bees buzzing all over the place, but i didn~t see them. i was too busy trying to explain this horrific feeling of... (gulp) love.

i may be learning the portuguese language, but i~m far from understanding every word and everyone knows songs are more challenging to understand than regular dialogue... so i was completely lost without translation. i assumed the songs were about God~s goodness or something along those lines, but you could have shot me dead- there was no way i could have even faked comprehension. my heart was fluttering all over the place and i didn~t get it.

i came up with two reasons for the onset of my seismic fixation. one- i was on-the-spot mutating into a portuguese-speaking biped or two- the cd was completely annointed by God and the Holy Spirit was doing some serious wrenching.

ahh. too overwhelming to relive the moment. need some more time to think about this one on my own.

tuesday night after band practice (which was a struggle, btw- more on that later) i hung out with ana. i didn~t have enough time to see a movie like she wanted, but we went to ocean terminal for a drink instead. i knew that if i agreed to go, i~d be putting myself at risk of missing the last bus home, but i knew it was worth staying and getting to know ana better. besides, my heart was at peace and i felt like taking time out to spend with her was the right thing to do. we shared a few hoots and dreams and had some good chat time... and then i really needed to go. (boy, can ana nurse her coke.)

the last bus to make the long haul home left 10 minutes before i arrived at the bus stop. the buses for the next hour were only going a partial route. i could either wait an entire hour before my hour-ride home and get dropped off two blocks away from my doorstep, or i could take a partial-route bus now and hike for 30 minutes the rest of the way home. i failed to mention that i did some grocery shopping that afternoon so my hands were full of bags. my messenger bag had two fatty binders of music and 4 spiral-bound music books as well as my gym stuff AND.... ezequiel dropped off his electric guitar for me that night to take home so that i could have something to practice on. totally nice of him, but totally frustrating at the same time because steve begged me to take his guitar home and hold onto it for the two weeks he~d be in brazil with the team. he left it in the church and was panicking that something would happen to it. SO... i was a bit overloaded. crazy, crazy, crazy. of all the nights to have to walk home ALONE. ugh. where were my brazilian boys now...

no sweat. i soak in the drive on the bus, letting my shoulders and back rest before they were summoned to duty. i~m bored on the ride, so i send a text message to denilson. it~s past midnight already. i wonder if he~s at my house. i don~t doubt he~s awake- brazilians don~t sleep before 2am. it~s a rule. he sends me a text message back. he IS at my house. asks where i am. i tell him i~m just getting off at longstone but i~ll be home soon. he tells me to look for him when i get to the movie theatre and that he~ll meet me there. hallelujah! i didn~t ask him to come- but i was so glad for the company. also glad to have help with my burden!

he doubles over in shock from all that i~m carrying. berates me for not mentioning that i had stuff- he would have met me at longstone. then he tells me some interesting information- he wasn~t planning on coming over tonight. he had already made plans with william but he broke them because for some reason he felt more inclined to visit sandro and just chill at the house. and to top that, his phone has been without credits for almost 4 days. he hasn~t been able to make any calls or send any texts and he hasn~t taken the time to put more money on his phone tab. when he got my text, he knew he wasn~t able to send a text back, but he thought he~d try just for the heck of it. amazingly enough, it worked. but how...and with what money! neat.

when i agreed to hang out with ana, somehow i knew that everything would work out ok. girl time with her was something i was really pining for and i had a strange peace about the risk of the hassle involved. now i know that God was totally in control and allowed for denilson to be at my house, for his phone to miraculously send text messages with NO CASH credits on it, and prompted him to drop what he was doing to come out and walk with me. i tell ya... God really is watching my back. it~s so fabulous experiencing moments where you can tangeably point out the ways God becomes mister smooth operator and takes the wheel. ahh. so fun.

not so fun- worship practice. but i changed my mind. it~s not worth talking about.

wednesday i came home at 6pm and went straight to bed. didn~t even stick around for dinner. slept until almost 9am this morning. hope i~m not coming down with something. i think my body~s just super exhausted from the commuting. also, even though i welcome the walking ventures all over town, it~s relatively new for my frame to be on the go so much. i know i~m not drinking nearly as much water as i should. it was so much easier when i was driving... the bottle was always handy and never a burden.

went to the gym this afternoon. hopped on the treadmill and you know how the machines usually ask for your age and weight, etc...(dear reader: please insert question mark... i honestly CAN~T find it.. have been avoiding using it this entire blog, but it~s getting hard.) well, even though i~m a bit early, i put in that i was 26. yeah, yeah... the machine doesn~t care about a few day~s difference.. but i thought i~d start warming myself up to the new change. i tell ya, it HURT! it~s not easy to accept being on the departing end of the 20~s. before i know it, i~ll be 30, which means john will be almost 50 (with the other siblings close behind) and mom and pap will be well past 70. oiy. NO. i will NOT get any older than 26. anyway... it freaked me out. i need to get to the gym one more time before saturday, so that i can imput my age as 25 one last real time. what the heck was i thinking, departing 25 before i absolutely had to!!

speaking of gym stuff... i~m really appreciating this town. lotsa active folk milling around. or at least they fake it by wearing adidas pants and hoodies. i feel so at home when i wear my beanie and ghetto clothes- i remember paris and how there wasn~t an underdressed person in the lot of them. ugh. talk about pressure to always get cutesy when leaving the house. so not californian. here you can always see people biking to work and home and dozens of kids in soccer socks and sandals with cleats hanging off their backpacks. it~s such a soccer world, here. (football. whatever.) (not to ignore the teenybopper population-they always dress to kill- where they~re going, who knows, since they aren~t old enough to get into any of the pubs...)

i miss my soccer sandals. i just realized i left them behind. why did i do that...

i also miss costco muffins... the poppyseed ones and the other ones that have maple dripping off the sides of them. i miss tostitos lightly salted corn tortilla chips and rosarita chunky tomato mild salsa. i miss fruit punch flavoured gatorade. i miss wishbone brand creamy ceasar dressing. i miss caramel apple dip with yummy smelling fuji apples. i miss mom~s excellent brocolli salad. i miss chocolate that tastes as sweet as i know it to be at home. i miss bottled water being cheaper than bottled soda. i miss soda being called soda and not fizzy juice. i miss having a refridgerator that~s tall enough to keep pitchers in, so that i could make some lemonade or iced tea and have it whenever i want. i hate that i~m eating more than i should because i~m so curious about how everything tastes here. how long will it take for me to finally feel like the food isn~t foreign anymore (question mark.)

aie. just realized i need to jet. it~s edna~s birthday today, and gislene made her a cake. we~re supposed to eat dessert at 10. (food, food, food.) more laments to come...

svet


Lord, may your will be done with this here blog~

NO, people.

i have no intentions of marrying a brazilian.

hope everyone's fourth was a blast. (har) i started mine in wannabe fireworks style, tossing every article of clothing i had in the air one by one. i was digging through my drawers looking desperately for some red white and blue clothing that i could wear to church. i had a red sports bra, red halter top and a red old navy sweatshirt... and some more of the same in blue, plus a few more running shirts... all things i obviously shouldn't plan a church outfit around. a mountain of material later, i ran out of the house with zero festive spirit wearing green and brown.

played the keyboard for morning worship. started off wacky. the first song needed to be played in a different key than was written or else the vocalists would screech. the guitarists forgot to transpose so we were playing in two different keys for a while until they switched over. oiy.

i'm learning to use the transpose button... lol. so easy. (...and so sleazy- really feels like i'm cheating but it's great.) at the push of a button i'm in G instead of A. where's the struggle with that? why don't grand pianos come with these things? i'm still pretty new at changing keys this way because for the second song, i forgot to change back. he,he. oops. so i started the second song in the wrong key. it was the guitarists' turns to scowl-slash-crack up laughing. man. what fun the morning service was.

we had communion. it was a great time. very sweet presence of the Holy Spirit. i felt like we just had communion, though. i don't think it's done once a month here... it's more often than that. i'll have to ask someone.

i nabbed two of the elders after service and they solved the broadband-installation problem for me on the office computer. how nice it will be to finally surf at the speed of light there.

took me a while to get out of the building after all the am chit chat. i took off on chris and left him to lock up as i ran to ocean terminal- the classy mall out by the docks. it's only a few blocks away from church, which is nice. i was blessed- all the supplies i needed were either on sale or had generic versions of the popular brand. excellent.

you know, i still have weird moments-- being in a very nice mall, surrounded by nicely dressed people (and some not so nicely dressed) browsing in typical, classy shops, i get hit with culture shock. just when i think i should feel the most comfortable because my surroundings can't more perfectly emulate the peninsula, i notice that every single person i see is white and i get the wiggles.

i was on the second floor of the mall, near a section where you could look up and view the shoppers on the third floor or look down and view what was going on on the first floor. i leaned against the railings, watched as people crammed every bit of space on the escalators in both directions and got incredibly weirded out. got shivers up my spine in a creepy way and felt cyberported into an eerie robot movie where some supergod creats a world full of clones only the clones don't know they're clones...

maybe i should have spent more time in middle america; there were certainly more white people passing in front of my eyeballs than i could feel comfortable with. i was truly unsettled at the lack of minorities. surely the clones walking past me felt this way, too? surely they noticed a big piece of something was missing from the picture. i missed california immensely just then. i missed my tossed salad culture. the norms that have been my norms weren't the norm here and i was feeling very alone in a comically crowded place.

so what did i do? i set out to make myself feel at home. what american on a sunday afternoon on the fourth of july didn't entertain the idea of a delicious bbq of hamburgers and hotdogs? i went searching for lunch and found a cafeteria that served hamburgers- the same place bill took me for soup one afternoon when i first arrived. there was a great panorama of the firth. (or the bay for you bay areans) the mile-long wall was all window. virtually every spot indoors had a good view. there was a big deck outside with more seating. just beautiful.

i ordered my burger and chips (fries) and settled into one of the couple hundred tables available in the massive dining area. my food was brought to me and i dug in. it was a far cry from a party atmosphere. i imagined red white and blue decorations hanging from the ceiling and pretended that the table next to me of 8 sweet-looking veteran housewives lunching together after their own church service were all friends of mom's. i summoned an imaginary friend to take the only other seat at my little table, which sat pathetically empty across from me. lame, ya think? ah, well. it worked.

earlier last month, i promised myself to not visit mcdonald's or burger king while i was here, since succumbing to american fast food while not in america was pretty dumb. i held out- i didn't go to either of those places but i should have. at least there i would have finished my meal. my burger was pretty nasty. i didn't know nasty burgers existed. how could anyone ruin a charred chunk of meat with lettuce and tomatoes? even though i was done eating, i refused to leave my table early. i sat and people-watched and explored the different games on my cell phone. there's one called quattropoli, which is just like connect-four. pretty fun. i must have played 10 games straight before i looked up again. thank you God for fun distractions.

reminded me of one sunday night after the flipside when i played a dozen or so games of connect-four with deb and sue. he,he. the competition was churning that night. (sigh) i miss you girls.

anyhow, that's how i spent my fourth of july afternoon. i could have had real company but i shied away from offers from both chris and steve- i didn't want foreign friends around to remind me how far i was away from home. i was better off alone.

i met steve back at the church later in the afternoon. we were co-leading the evening service and needed to pick songs. oiy- what a nightmare. talk about friction between characters. we had fun hanging out together just the very night before for several hours- but sunday was a complete torment. i was praying up a storm for God to zip my lip before i gave him a piece of my mind. he's the complete opposite of me. frantically unorganized, freaks out at every obstacle, doesn't know the definition of calm. but this isn't a newsflash for him. God is working through this-- steve's been trying to decide whether he needs to step down from leading for a while, i'm sure these are just the effects of that. God is good.

God was also mightily working on me sunday evening. i finished andy park's book on the bus ride to church in the morning, wanting to pass it on to brian for his holiday reading since he was leaving monday. the final chapter covered effectiveness and sincerity and those themes stayed with me all day.

i was convicted through our first set of songs during the evening service. although we had great energy on stage and we were singing high-impact stuff that usually stirred the hearts of the church body, my spirit was so sad. we were going about this all wrong. the congregation needed to focus- they weren't given a chance to quiet down and be sincere. there was a lot going on- missions groups being prayed for that were leaving mid-week as well as vacations/holidays planned by several. people were mentally absent and totally distracted. there were testimonies being shared and offering being collected... but we weren't quite having church.

i was introducing 'hungry' in the second set that night, (believe it or not leith baptist has never sung it before) and it was buried in the list toward the end. i felt a tug on my heart to nix steve's list and to ignore the self-persecution of throwing a contemplative song before another high-energy song and just sing hungry before the preaching. but how?

i witnessed God's far-out style that night. He knew that i was preparing to chat with the church about focusing and to lead hungry. He also knew that i was struggling. i wasn't feeling authorized to initiate a list-change and sabotoge the song-count for the second set. i petitioned God one last time for help in understanding what the Holy Spirit was placing on my heart and how i was to act on it, when brian, who was leading the service in bill's absence, spontaneously asked the worship team to come up and maybe do just one song... and maybe that new hungry song...
ahh. wow. wow. wow.

nothing like authority taking the authority! i was all fired up and man... nothing felt more right. i could have killed steve, though, for taking the mic first and intro-ing the song by talking about sandwiches!!! NO KIDDING. he intro'd 'hungry' with a reference to food. argh. talk about being on totally different pages. we talked about it later and shared a half-chuckle... but it was so far from funny at the time. anyhow, God worked.. and the Holy Spirit became so present. people were on their knees, hands were in the air, tears were shed. wow.

i know i'm speaking from a rookie perspective. sunday night was my first time leading with both instrument and mic at leith baptist and the first time is always a mystery. although i trusted God to lead the service and give me instinct to do what is right, i still couldn't help but be amazed to see everything come together.

i loved feeling like i was on a team and yet being completely blind to who my teammates were. i didn't know what brian was feeling and he certainly didn't know my thoughts, but God pulled everything together and that feeling alone was BETTER than fireworks.

BANG. KABLOOEY. SPARKLE.

...

the night ended well. we played the rest of our spunky songs as the service ended and people socialized.

richarles' wallet was stolen by (we think) a visitor that someone saw sneak out very suspiciously... what a challenge for richarles! he was one of the people who shared a powerful testimony how God was providing for him this week. ah. poor guy.

david and rilza invited me to their house to watch a movie that night. after a very thorough tour of the house (which was remodeled and decorated all by david who did a really gorgeous job) mark, chris and steve showed up and we all watched ghostbusters. YES, ghostbusters. (i picked the movie.) :-D i forgot how greusome that movie was. lotsa big, scary demonic things. granted, they were done up in '80's cheesy technology. i still had to walk out of the room for a bit. anyhow, good movie. david drove me home (a whopping 3 minute drive) and dropped off the rest at their bus stops. i slid into bed, prayed for more GIRLS to spend time with and abandoned all consciousness.

i woke up at 9:30 monday morning. oiy. so much for my morning run. i was supposed to meet richarles at the office at 11 after my supposed completion of errands. we had planned to visit craigmillar castle after finishing up some work in the office. a few days ago David gave me his work pass to use which enabled 3 guests at a time to enter a scottish historic monument for free.

both richarles and i are the only missionaries who aren't working for pay. the others are also students at a nearby english academy, and with a student status, they are able to work part-time. we've avoided 'for-pay' tourist sites while others from the church have been touring around, spending money. since we've been quite the cheapskates, an opportunity for a free entry to anything was darn exciting.

we went to get his bus card replaced (since it was in his wallet the night before) and then had ourselves a blast of a day. we discovered we travelled on the bus too far and missed our stop for the castle, but the elderly man who was sitting behind us was incredibly kind and exited the bus with us and showed us the right road to walk to get to it. wow. an act possibly unheard of in urban america?

the funny part was when the older guy asked richarles where he was from, he made bowing motions and said he was completely honored. then he made a ton of comments about brazil's football team. i tell you the scottish really do worship brazil. football is life here.

after almost an hour's walk to craigmillar we got in with a free entrance, but only because the shopkeeper recognized me from the thousands of questions i asked him when our group stopped there during the walk-a-thon last week. otherwise, david's card was apparently not valid without david. (we thought that might happen, but it was worth a shot.)

what a good time we had. it was one of those days where there were no time constraints, no to-do lists, no people (we only saw two other people the whole time we were there) nothing to prevent us from sitting on the edge of the castle's gun-gallery at the top of a tower rotunda for almost an hour, watching the horses in a nearby pasture and soaking in the striking water views. not even the occasional sprinkle could make us move. we prayed for our families and friends and sang songs, all while lollygagging to our heart's content. we walked across really narrow and jagged ancient stone walls, played hide and go seek in the castle prison, laughed until our bellies throbbed, splashed in the puddles brought by a random 5-minute storm and napped in the scorching hot sun that permeated through the bus windows as we rode home. what a relaxing, God-charged day.

was pretty funny that i was so frustrated sunday by child-like attitudes only to embrace my own child-like attitude the very next day. not sure what that proved. maybe it proved there were right and wrong times for expressions of character. maybe it proved nothing. still it was strangely ironic.

we came home in time to help gislene start dinner. after a fantastic meal of chicken, rice and salad, gislene gave richarles a haircut. such a shame... his hair gets really curly when it's longer... such personality. i'm amazed at how gislene really takes care of these guys. she even set a plate of food aside for denilson and kept it warm on the stove, figuring that he'd probably come by sooner or later, which he did. what a mama. or a sister, i guess, since she's only three years older than him. anyhow, i later engaged in a screaming race around the house with nathan and isaac who were determined to pelt me with their new slime toys.

half an hour, several slammed doors, a soggy slipper (that fell into the toilet from a game of lana in the middle) and 5 implicit miles later i defended a not-so-convincing conversation that i was an old lady and couldn't survive another lap.

the younger boys washed up for bed, the older boys went to huddle around the computer and in the solitude of the finally quiet kitchen, gislene gave me a portuguese lesson covering the terms for ideal qualities of husbands and wives. lol. we had some pretty good laughs. and, to bring God into the picture of everything we do here at the house, i learned the fruits of the spirit in portuguese and can now sing along to a kid's song about them.

it was another day of joy, exploration and enrichment. if only it could be like this forever...

as i type this tuesday morning, my phone rings. it's ana... a portuguese girl. (not from the project, but has gotten connected to leith baptist because of the brazilian influence) she lived in london for 5 years before moving to edinburgh. has a great accent. she wants to see a movie together tonight. thank you, Lord! the girl-time is coming.

happy tuesday to everyone and happy birthday america...
how many fruits of the spirit can you list?

love, svet


Lord, may your will be done with this here blog~

click here to win your own donkey.

God is so nice!

He let me catch the very, very last possible peek at a fireworks display near home. i heard them going off in the distance as i walked home tonight, but i wasn't sold on the thought that it was a real live, actual fireworks display. (since there wasn't anything to celebrate, officially here- i mean, come on! fireworks in britain to celebrate losing control of the USA?)

i hustled my bottom to a higher point in a road where i could get a better view over some trees and sure enough, i saw the edge of a big, green fire circle in the sky. ahhh... i heard several going off at the same time. would have been nice to see it all, but i was happy enough to get that one peek.

i really miss not being home this weekend. i really want a bbq and a fireworks display and a madly massive group of friends all wearing stars and stripes. really.

...

i'll get over it. i guess.

Lord, may your will be done with this here blog~

alrighty.

the first shrek was definitely better than shrek 2. the scottish themes were the saving grace for the sequel... perhaps it was nothing more than a stereotypical 'fairytale' landscape, but i'm pretty sure the 'new' shrek who wore plaid pants and tromped around in thunderstorms with monstrous castles up in the hills had the one and only edinburgh for his inspiration.

we exited the theatre --once upone a time a fortress in this land... 'far, far away'... with a myriad of 'townspeople' all scampering about speaking gibberish-- scottish natives, of course.

it was pouring rain.

edinburgh castle stared back at us from up in the hills as we made the shrek --er, trek, home.

ahh. nothing like a hollywood cartoon to make me wonder about my own heroic ogre... wherever he may be.

-fiona
blog below from earlier today .

Lord, may your will be done with this here blog~

got up early and went for a little run around the community. dressed in layers... the clouds parted 10 minutes after i left the house... it got super hot. was gorgeous, but i was bummed about the layers. my color is fading. my skin needs to be exposed, not covered up. took my shaded red cd with me to listen to... wow. brings back so many memories... i used to love those guys... they were my favorite for so long. i guess i still really dig them. i wonder what they're doing now. i'll have to look them up.

came back and the family was still asleep. ate some cereal on the swings in the yard... watched a bit of news... (some guy went on a shooting rampage somewhere in middle america? aiee.) took a shower. family was still sleeping. went to the library... took out some portuguese learning tapes and workbook and a dictionary. figure gislene might want some teaching ideas. she's my official teacher now that the portuguese class is over. (it was temporary i guess... just to cover some basics before the group went off to brazil. they leave this coming monday.)

i am getting used to not blowdrying my hair here. i would never leave the house before without blowdrying... my hair looks really funky if i don't. the problem here is, why blowdry if it's just going to rain in a couple of hours? what once was hairdo becomes a soppy, sticky mess. to prove my point, it rained on my way home from the library. the library is about 15 minutes away so i walked it. and got soggy. the funny part is i was in flip-flops, a tank top and sunglasses. ugh. honestly. it WAS a beautiful morning. for at least an hour, i think. to be honest, i wasn't really bothered- i'm getting used to the weather. cha-cha-changes...

we're going to see shrek at 2:40pm. wahoo! totally excited. there's this juice drink brand out here called ribena that's doing a contest... 'win a donkey'. no joke. it's WILD. they've got these great commercials where this kid wins a donkey. he plays frisbee with the comatose donkey... cuddles with it.. runs in a field of flowers... it's pretty ridiculous. i wish you guys could see it. anyway.. yeah.. i could possibly win a donkey if i tried. i love shrek, but not enough to want my own donkey.

family is still sleeping! saturday is house-cleaning day... guess i'll start on the kitchen... maybe give them a gentle wake up call and throw josh groban in the stereo... ahh.. his voice practically charms me into cleaning the house. this'll be fun. just like home. hey mom! you got so sick of him, didn't you. he,he. always started vacuuming when he was on... :-)

too bad i lost his 'closer' album before i came here... listening to his first album right now. hey, does anyone out there have my cd? did i leave it in your car? maybe in your cd player? (sigh)

happy saturday...

Lord, may your will be done with this here blog~

so... it just hit me that no one's really commented on the soapy dish thing from last week. i guess you aren't shocked...

i worked out at a gym this morning. can i even explain HOW WONDERFUL it felt???? ahhh... i wanted to kiss the elyptical machine and the treadmill and the big bouncy ball i did my situps on.

i bought a garbage can before i went (lol.... people take the darndest things on the bus here... i laughed at how 'normal' life is traveling with random objects. it's just what you do!) anyway, the lockers at the gym were not only huge enough to accomodate my garbage can, they also came with locks... and i didn't have to pay money for them.

it's a big beautiful gym. wow. so happy. my body was in heaven. i felt like that 24-hour fitness commercial they played back at home... where the people who worked out during the day had these little lions roaring out of their stomachs at night... because they were all powerful and stuff. i walked around like a lion. (lioness?) yeah. fun. fun. fun. it was almost better than going to great america.

speaking of commercials... the workout room has 4 tv's.... i was listening the music video station and there was this ad flashing on the screen... "choose which song you want played next! call in for your favorite artist!" and then in small print it read: please check with Bill Payer before calling. so i'm thinking... wow... this is a strict gym. you can't make any calls from inside the building without getting permission from this Bill-guy, first. huh. i wonder which one is Bill? so i start looking around... really. i am... i crane my neck every which way... wondering who i would go to if i wanted to make a call right now to request my favorite band... then it hits me. bill payer. bill. payer. ugh.

lou somebody has a song called sattelite of love... the music video to it made my morning. bunch of russian cartoons and USA cartoons running around... US flags everywhere... i got all happy and grinny. i was working out on a machine that was in the first of 4 rows. lotsa people behind me. i wonder if i was giving my nationality away... (groan)

my modem was delivered to the office today! wasn't all that great, though... couldn't install the software... i popped in the cd and the instructions said, "now installing...please wait." and it never said anything else. two hours later and a completely redecorated room (i got bored. :-D besides.. someone moved a desk earlier in the week and it blocked the door to the bathroom. had to come up with a better arrangement to include this other desk.) so yeah. two hours later... i stopped the install and started it again... tried some other stuff... oh well. maybe someone can help me on sunday.

the brazilians are gone. the big group of them went on to glasgow early this morning. paula and alexandre left behind some little goodies and a note for us.. it's cool to be included in stuff like that. reminds me that i'm just as much a member of the family as anyone else. fun. so, i got a little baggie (baggy?) of brazilian chocolates. YUM.

they were supposed to do drama and dance on the street last night. gislene and the kids and i went to leith walk to meet the rest of the crew, but the only crew there was sandro, who went there staight from work. apparently they all changed their minds. a bit lame. gislene invited her english teacher to come. this was supposed to be a big deal. a ministry thing. i'm sure there's a legit reason for why they didn't stick to their plan. i just don't know what it is.

steve came to see the drama stuff too... sandro and the family went home to have dinner... he and i went to go watch the semi-finals football game between czech republic and greece... greece won... amazing.

pizza for dinner again tonight... denilson came over just in time to eat. rilza (hilza) and david came over tonight... they're the scottish-brazilian couple that got married recently. they live about 5 minutes away from us.. totally fun couple. the slew of us are all going to see shrek 2 tomorrow, together. it just came out here. we're a bit behind in the movie schedule.

the evening was nice... sat around the table having a portuguese lesson with 3 teachers... laughed and sang portuguese songs...

okay... time to go to bed.. i can't think straight... if there are errors in this journal, i'm sorry... i'll review it tomorrow...

g'nite,


Lord, may your will be done with this here blog~

tons of california-influence this morning...

saw a commercial for a doobie brother's cd on tv... "the leaders of the fabulous california rock that we've all come to love... get it now! on sale at woolworth's."

flipped through an apparel catalog, saw a woman wearing a hip 'wordie' top that read: "vacation in california where the sunshine never ends"- with pictures of people on a beach. (saw a scottish chick the other day in a 'santa cruz, ca- paradise on earth' shirt. was pretty funny. i bet she doesn't even know where santa cruz is.)

er came on tv at 8am. didn't usually watch er back in ca. i needed to leave the house, but i couldn't help filling the living room with american accents. made me feel closer to home. ended up watching the whole episode. some priest on the show has lupus. did my laundry on commercial breaks, so at least i was somewhat productive while the tv was on.

35 brazilians take residency here in edinburgh through leith baptist church. 41 new brazilians came tuesday night as part of a month-long missions trip. SO MANY BRAZILIANS. the crew drove in after doing ministry in london. fun to be exposed to how people do 'church' after living in a nation that's been impacted so greatly by revival.

band practice went well. i brought a pile of songs that i thought would be songs the church kept in their repertoire. i was wrong. got a bit frustrating. i'm on the schedule to play sunday morning. even though i'm not officially leading in the evening, i will be introducing a couple of new songs during that service, so that the following sunday when i do lead the church can be somewhat familiar with them. i'm excited that brian is so open to learning more music. i don't know that all the band members feel the same way. going to have to be sensitive to that.

one of the group's 3 drivers and his wife are staying with us. they speak english very well. i had to hop in their van and show them how to drive to the house, since gislene and sandro couldn't come pick them up from the church. not easy to give driving directions when i've only been exposed to the one bus route- and i'm usually busy reading- not memorizing street names. the blind leading the blind. we made it home without problems. i was strangely surprised. always an adventure...

the phone guy came out to the office again yesterday. apparently whatever got fixed last week wasn't what was causing the line to go dead, because the line continued to 'die'. outside the office window, the wire stretches through a bunch of trees- the phone guy decided he should mess around with the trees and see what he could do differently. like maybe not string the wiring through something that goes wildly crazy with every bout of wind. guess the storms were getting the best of the trees... and our communication lines. phone works fine now. :)

went with ezequiel to his show last night at the doric. the band plays fort-nightly and usually shows up at 8 for setup- he planned to show up at 9. we walked in the door at 9:10 in pure brazilian, late style. he ran over to the group, picked up the percussions and the music took off. oiy. what a nightmarish concept of time some of these brazilians have! but it didn't matter in the end... the pub was packed with people... many people from the local bethany house project- part of the bethany christian trust-met some neat church folk- some americans as well, who have committed a year to volunteering for bethany.

i think the band was called the bossa nova beats. they rocked. mix of scots and brazilian sounds... mainly brazilian, though. the crew minus one are all brazilian. the odd man out is the band guitarist, a scottish guy who recruits the bethany frequenters, since he works with them. fun place. very clean atmosphere. people are truly there for the music. well.. minus a couple of weirdos...

the music ended a little late and i missed my last free bus of the night. (buses keep running after midnight but they charge extra) had to take another bus that only traveled about halfway home and was going to have to walk the rest of the way. no worries... ezequiel and denilson were headed to my house, of course... that fact completely erased any fears of having to make the trek alone.

it's such a new concept still- i have to remember that going home is more often than not a group effort for me here. i'm not living alone, not commuting alone, i'm running in the same circles and having the same interests as the people who frequent my home.

i've been living the lifestyle of an only child for a long time now...having to do quite a bit of things on my own, by myself. it's so new to feel like a band of brothers and to have others to depend on when fear creeps in. (like thinking about having to walk home at night alone.) there's a fresh spirit of strength and almost courage, or feeling like nothing's impossible.

i've been so bound to the belief that life is so second-rate for women... can't go for runs without looking over your shoulder every other minute... can't walk on the streets past 5pm without turning on your 6th sense... can't be kind to a homeless person because they might kill you...don't give directions to a stranger because they might rob you blind... don't smile because you might be attracting serious trouble...sounds a bit exaggerated, doesn't it. but IS IT exaggerated? hardly. it's so real... so possible...so scary. what woman doesn't experience this fear?

there's been this air of freedom, a higher level of humanity. i've been cushioned on all sides with this wall of personality that breathes 'i am male and i'm powerful. God is with me, therefore i fear not.' WHAT a way to think. amazing. really, really hard to relate to. but i'm getting pieces of it, slowly, from these guys, from my new brothers. and i recognize now that it's bringing healing.

the mission district facade is melting away. the 24th street homies and gangsters that have impacted my childhood are fading. the anal tendancy to clutch my belongings to my heart thanks to the paris stranded-on-the-other-side-of-the-world-with-absolutely-nothing incident, is less hyperactive.

i feel so protected. obviously God is my ultimate protector and maybe these are his angels in disguise that's he's brought into my life. i noticed that coming home last night, my shoulders didn't ache. i get so tense, so secretly worked up about my fear of not being safe and i'm relaxing more, now. i can take deep, restful sighs, be content...i feel so assured that i'm okay. i'm being watched after. i'm part of a community and that community doesn't disappear when i exit the church doors. Thank you, Lord.

i am blessed...and at the same time, i feel like i've been handed a trap. i can't help that the brazilian guys adore sandro and want to come over EVERY DAY. he is so good to them. he pours into them in ways maybe others don't take the time to do. he pastors them with love. i can't help that sandro and gislene open their house incredibly to anyone who wants to come. i can't help the fact that i live here, so my better friends are naturally the people who come over my house and spend a lot of time here. because i'm travelling in the same direction with these guys, i'm showing up to the church with them.. or leaving the church with them... totally harmless... but here comes the drama.

i'm concerned that the brazilian girls aren't being as friendly. girls are SO... i don't know. indescribable. right now, they're acting pretty indifferent... a bit withdrawn...not much initiation, aside from the sunday morning kisses and how are you's. it's been a while since i've spent any one on one time with them, aside from lucy, when i spent the night at hazel's. or even any small group time with them when it was just girls... no guys around.

i do NOT want to be the topic of any lame, catty conversations... please pray that i can kill any hesitation for friendship with love. sincerely... i am not looking forward to dealing with any 'girl' issues... SO not part of my gameplan. then again, i can only do and say so much to prove i want friendships with them... it takes two. ahhhh... (sigh) nothing negative has come up yet, so it very well could be nothing... just my instincts are on the prowl... i've caught a few funny looks. don't know if dismissing them is the best idea.

maybe it's a communication thing? girls love chatting? if i'm around, they are forced to speak english... less fun for them? i don't know. just a thought.

i'm making excuses, aren't i.

i do have a couple of girlfriends. i don't see them between sundays, but they are super great to me. definitely need to hang out with them more. nicole is not brazilian. she's from england and she's half chinese. she's got no wall. doesn't seem territorial. total hoot. she's fun, fun, fun. vania is awesome, too. she's brazilian, but didn't come to scotland to be part of the project. just a random brazilian girl who got hooked up with the church recently. so she's got no territorial issues either.

i hope i'm not being too vulnerable by saying what i'm saying. don't think less of me or work your imagination up to a frenzy by creating the wrong picture of what the situation is for me out here... just pray for me. trust God that He is guiding me.. and that i ask for His guidance every day.

i have access to my money now... the bank sent my pin number, so i can use my atm card with no problem. i am going shopping now to buy some face wash and a waste basket!

there's going to be a dance program put on by the new brazilians out on leith walk (similar to mission street in san francisco) tonight. i'll tell you how it goes...

nathan just got home from school. he ran into the office and showed me a workbook of drawings and dittos. there's one ditto where he had to write the english words underneath each little picture. he did pretty well... knew stuff like dog, horse, cow, grass... then, under a picture of a blackbird, he wrote in cabbage. LOL. cabbage? poor kid. he's got a lot of learning yet to do.

feeling bummed about fourth of july coming up. happy birthday to oksana and anya and ira and vita and john and john and bill and matt and ian and ben and dave and all my other july-baby friends. not sure how to feel about this time of year. will be a let-down to not have fireworks and a bbq and watermelon (haven't seen any here) and a great patriotic spirit in the air. i'll still wear red, white and blue on sunday... i need to find some americans and celebrate.

just realized my links aren't showing up unless your mouse hovers over them. (sigh. gotta fix that.) 'the doric' and 'bethany christian trust' are linked to stuff... if you care to check them out.

feeling happy... and now, not so happy...
but God is good.

Lord, may your will be done with this here blog~