another fav quote

Over a sketch made idly to amuse a child, an artist may not take much trouble: he may be content to let it go even though it is not exactly as he meant it to be. But over the great picture of his life - the work which he loves, though in a different fashion, as intensely as a man loves a woman or a mother a child - he will take endless trouble - and would, doubtless, thereby give endless trouble to the picture if it were sentient. One can imagine a sentient picture, after being rubbed and scraped and recommenced for the tenth time, wishing that it were only a thumbnail sketch whose making was over in a minute. In the same way, it is natural for us to wish that God had designed for us a less glorious and less arduous destiny; but then we are wishing not for more love but for less.

C.S. Lewis - "the problem of pain"

pokera

i gave it a legit try. the pictures, i mean. we have been at calvin's house for a full hour trying, with no luck. bummer. we will try again tomorrow.

tim and i head to pokera on saturday - we will go trekking for a week and then spend a week with hom, a guy who works for young life in pokera. we hope to get up to annapurna base camp (where we tried to get in 2003, but we unable to due to a huge snow storm). and the week with hom will be spent living life with him and his family for a week - going to club, talking to kids and leaders, encouraging and teaching as much we we can.

well i gots to go. k

a little taste of home

so i know i keep saying i will post pictures soon and i will, but before i post pictures about today i had to tell you all a little bit about it. tim and i were invited to the american center (or something like that) which is basically a little taste of "home" (kind of) in kathmandu. it is huge complex that reminded me of a park - but it is also a fitness facility, with a grocery store (containing all american foods/products), and a resturant (which serves hamburgers, which we enjoyed for dinner - yummy). we were invited to play soccer and we had a great time. tim enjoyed playing soccer (and hopes to return) and i enjoyed the nice grass as i watched.

that's about it. we ended up not being able to get to the mexican food place yesterday, so we went out to pizza instead. i hadn't had so much dairy in a long time, as we had ice cream afterwards. so good. we hope to get to the mexican place soon and you better believe you all will know when we make it there.

good night from nepal, kristi

mexican food - can i get an amen?!

so not that my hopes are super up or anything but calvin is taking us to what he says is a legit mexican restaurant tonight. and i am excited - they may just have cheddar cheese (well... maybe that is too much to hope for). today we returned to the restaurant where i got sick a few days ago and had a relatively redeeming experience. i had mint tea, which reminded me of jerusalem (sigh - i do miss our old home), and tim had the traditional set breakfast. except for a bad banana incident it turned out ok.

i am almost done with the fourth harry potter book. and tim has read all kinds of other books. we hope to post pictures soon. not much else to report. we are getting more and more settled in. i cleaned the bathroom like a crazy person yesterday - i don't know that much soap had seen the bathroom in a while. and today we bought a "coffee heater coil," which we hope to use to warm up water so that we can make coffee at home. the security man at the store even plugged it in for us to make sure it worked. well, sure enough it did - and in an effort to cool it down quickly the security man turned on the air conditioning and held it up to the air for a few seconds. i don't think the cold air had much effect as tim still had to hold it out of the bag by the plastic handle end for a few minutes. got to love nepal. :)

a "real" coffee shop

so in the midst of sickness tim and i haven't had a chance to share a funny, and frustrating story, that happened a few days ago...

tim, charlie and i decided it sounded fun to go to a coffee shop for dessert and to play cards. so we were minding our own business enjoying our iced coffee and peanut butter cookies, playing hearts when after an hour and a half one of the workers comes up to us and tells us we are not allowed to play cards. what?!! first, we have been playing cards for over an hour. second, charlie just ordered some french fries - so it's not like we were free loading. so after a moment of confusion the only thing that was clear was we were no longer allowed to play cards. tim asks to speak to a manager, who unfortunately had gone home for the evening. after some frustrated discussion among the three of us, tim again confronts (not care-fronts - this was strictly confronting) the worker who originally approached us. tim asked, "so we aren't allowed to play cards... just read books and computer?..." "yes," the worker says. "why???" questions tim. "because this is a real coffee shop and we don't allow games," mr worker replies.

a real coffee shop?!! what the heck? what kind of reason is that? oh my goodness. we were bummed. needless to say, next time we are in himalayan java tim is going to talk to the manager about it. no games?! and i also was a bit confused because this particular coffee shop also sells all kinds of food, soft drinks, and alcoholic beverages (i think - i thought one more item was helpful for dramatic affect).

and that night - well we did as you would expect. charlie ate his french fries and we promptly left and returned home to finish or game. haha

feeling better

thank you for all of your thoughtful comments. i am feeling much better today - still weak, but we were able to rest most of the day.

tonight calvin took us to some of his nepali friend's house for dinner. it was wonderful. it was for sure my favorite thing we have done so far - mainly because i have felt a bit disconnected from the culture and tonight was good to just sit and be with some wonderful, caring, thoughtful nepalis.

time for bed. thanks for reading and praying. kristi

emergency

first sickness casualty.

we were at a local place for lunch (although, i was going to have breakfast food, i love breakfast) after sleeping in and skipping breakfast. we were with charlie dyrsten and we're planning on doing some emailing and buying tickets to pokhara in the afternoon.

we were at the restaurant long enough to order and then kristi says she suddenly isn't feeling well. (alarm bells and sirens going off in my head, you who are familiar with kristi's sudden illnesses know what i mean). she goes to the bathroom alone. i follow 5 minutes later, and she is sitting on the floor of the bathroom saying she feels like she is going to pass out and/or throw up. (ooooh, not the two options i was hoping for).

after 10 minutes in the bathroom, we stand up and head out (without getting sick or passing out thank goodness). i toss a 1000 rupee note to charlie and mournfully look at my breakfast/lunch which had now arrived. kristi heads out ahead of me (she says she has to keep moving), i find her 50 yards down the street sitting on the steps in an alley. hail a cab, get home, kristi sleeps the next 6 out of 7 hours.

she is feeling better now, less nausea and less weak. we don't know what hit her. thanks for the prayers, life is exciting in nepal. oh yeah, and kristi reminds the moms to pray rather than worry themselves silly. she thinks by tomorrow she will be feeling better. (kristi wanted me to add that it could have been much worse, but i told her i didn't see how that would make anyone feel any better...)

PS- kristi says in answer to an earlier question by danielle, no hot water in our bathroom.

tim's favorite quote of the day

while i am reading harry potter, tk is reading Pascal. here is his favorite quote of the day.

if we are not prepared to take risks we should have nothing to do with religion. for this, like everything else, appears uncertain. think of the number of chances we constantly take as we go on sea voyages, or into battle. of this i am certain, that we will do nothing if we don't take risks.

well i haven't gone on any sea voyages lately but you get the idea.

questions

danielle emailed me with a list of questions and encouraged me to share my answers with all of you (brilliant idea sister).

1. do they have cheese in nepal? - yes there is cheese here. i think it is expensive. and so far no sign of cheddar cheese. but a few days ago i had a croissant with egg and cheese for breakfast - not bad.

2. where do you wash your clothes? so far we have done laundry once. when i say we - i mean the lady downstairs had her "servant (as she calls her)" - i will call her the girl who helps her around the house - come to wash the clothes for a few dollars. having the gal come worked well the first time - we are not sure that we will continue to have her come - we are working through the tension between providing extra money for a family and just doing something i can easily do myself.

3. where is your bathroom? the bathroom is separate from our room - you have to walk out the door of our room - out to the roof and the door to the bathroom is on the roof. we are the only ones who use this bathroom.

4. what did tim get you for your anniversary? coconut crunchers. i am easy to please. these are my favorite cookie/cracker in nepal.

5. are the movies in english? yes but with nepalese subtitles

6. where do you buy water proof/close toed shoes? (apparently danielle feels a bit uncomfortable knowing we are walking through lots of nepali street water which may be the most disgusting water you have ever seen in our chacos). not sure. still thinking through the real danger of parasites coming in our bodies through our toe nails. yuck!

7. who is your supplier of pro-biotics? (calvin told us it would be good to fill our bodies with good bacteria - any thoughts on if this is really that helpful). the little pharmacy on the corner where you can buy any pharmaceutical drug you like.

more questions? yes please.

a mouse!!

so john thought a mouse was living with him - well john - there was.

yesterday i was just minding my own business reading harry potter - when tim begins to move the couch.

"tim why are you moving the couch?"
"... um i think there is something in or behind the couch?..."
"huh, do you think it could be the mystery mouse?"
"probably. help me move the couch outside and then we are turn the couch over and see if it will come out."

the couch was then taken outside. and as i was inside getting a broom the mouse ran out - by some pots that are on the roof. i then (despite tim's warnings) go look for the mouse. the mouse (when disturbed by me) runs back into the apartment building. "oh no!!!"

"tim where is it? i am so sorry! i should have listened to you and left it alone - or at least closed the door first like you asked me to."

tim then goes looking for it and finds it in a fold up chair outside of our room. he then proceeds to take the chair outside. we close all doors to the apartment.

"tim i think you should shake the chair over the ledge of the building and try to get it out"
"(thinking to himself) if i shake it over the ledge then the mouse is going to come running out on my arm and i am going to drop the chair and it will fall the four stories to the ground and hit someone). maybe we should just scare it out - kristi - go protect the couch and make sure it doesn't run back in the couch."

i then go stand guard of the couch as tim shakes the chair - the mouse comes running out and goes into the corner of the deck/roof. the mouse then runs into a tube and we cover the entrance to the tube with a brick. we then move the chair and couch back inside. tim then goes to get a long stick to poke down the tube to try to encourage the mouse to jump (the tube is about 3 feet long, draining water from off the roof so it falls onto the street 10 (or 4) stories below (that's about 14,000 mouse stories). as tim is about to encourage the mouse to commit suicide our hindu neighbors come up to the roof to check out the action (hindus don't like killing animals, it be your late uncle). mission diverted.

after the commotion dies down and the neighbors have gone we returned to the previous mission. as i watch the other end of the tube over the ledge tim begins to put the long stick into the tube. nothing happens. and then i see his little head. and then i see his little body go down, down, down.

"kristi what is happening?"
"he jumped! but i am too afraid to look because i don't want anyone to know it was us."
"do you think he landed on anybody?"
"i think we would have heard a scream if he had."
"yeah you are probably right... should we feel guilty for killing an innocent animal? its a cruel world we live in, a cruel world."

so there ends the saga (and the life) of mr. mouse.

throughout this whole adventure i thought of vickie. and how the police may or may not have been called when a mouse was louse in their kitchen over 20 years ago.

the bag is here!

well the fourth bag has come - and so we spent much of the afternoon setting up our room. tim is slightly disappointed because we were planning on going to a movie tonight but now both of the movies we wanted to see are gone - and hindi movies aren't our favorite.

we are having a nice anniversary but feel like we have been celebrating it for a while. thank you all for your comments - it makes me feel more connected to you all back home. not much else new to report - i think we will soon head to our new favorite hangout - Himalayan java. yeah for good coffee on the other side of the world! and i am almost done with the first harry potter book.

room with a view

here are some pictures of our last days in jerusalem and our first few days in nepal.

here is tim and our good friend zac.
abby and i - she and husband, tim, were our weekly companions to the shuke (the outdoor market) our first few months in israel.
elena
francois and me

tim and jamil (our landlord and great friend).
tim with all of our bags. we were quite the sight - all of our bags - three of jamil's workers helping us - needless to say we attracted lots of comments (most of which we didn't understand and were directed at the workers).
we spotted kendal's look-a-like while waiting for our shurute and i managed to snap a quick picture.

good bye jerusalem.
you can make out the end of the emergency slide in the center of the picture. 2 hours later with the help of dozens of airport workers we were off to kathmandu.
yes, those are the mountains. we are loving being close to the mountains again!

the view from our window.

charlie (classic spy picture - go tk).
the highlight of tim's day was when he found out the movie theatre here is playing prince caspian and indiana jones - i think we will soon be making a few trips to the movies!

day two in nepal

update on the bag - still not here. tk talked to people at the airport and to a guy who works for gulf air. we were encouraged because the guy was able to look up the bag and read the notes about it - so we are confident it will come. the guy said it will come tonight. so we will try again tomorrow.

tomorrow marks the official 5 year anniversary. we are planning to go out to the italian place we went to the valentines day before we left for the trek in 2003 (and then on the trek got engaged). also the night we went out to the italian place tim gave me a bracelet he got for free (complimentary with the engagement ring, however at the time i thought he was just lavishing gifts on me for valentines - either way you look at it - i appreciated the gift). i wore the bracelet on our wedding day - maybe one of the few days i have actually worn it. i think tim is slightly bitter - but that's ok. i think redemption has come to the bracelet world, however, in that i have worn the bracelet (made of some wood or bone - i hope it is wood or plastic - tim thinks plastic - charlie thinks yak bone - gross.) he bought me here and gave to me at the airport when we left.

well i think that is about it. we went to helenas for breakfast - what once was 75 cents is now $1.50 but all and all still not bad. the waiter even thought he recognized tim. tim wasn't so sure given that it has been 6 years and the guy has seen thousands of tourists come and go, but a nice thought either way.

more to come - maybe even some pictures.

we're here

so after a crazy eventful trip we have arrived in kathmandu. calvin was waiting at the airport. 3 out of 4 of our bags arrived (please pray the other one is on it's way - we will know for sure tomorrow morning). we are staying at john's flat - he was one of the guys who tim came with in 2002 and has since come back and started a non-profit - tiny hands international (i believe tim included a link in one of our latest posts). he is in the states now - so it is a bummer we won't be able to see him - but a huge blessing to be able to stay in his room. it has an AMAZING view - i will try to post pictures tomorrow. i think i will feel more settled in over the next few days. we have some more errands to run in order to get things set but we are on our way. we spent some time with calvin today and charlie (a new hope youth guy now graduated and spending the summer traveling before he starts college who is here for a few months). we also just got done meeting with Hom. Hom is doing Young Life in Pokhora and we are planning to spend a week with him and his family at the beginning of July, with the hope of doing some teaching and encouraging of the YL staff here in Nepal.

well that is all i can think of for now. more tomorrow.
kristi

how many...

bahrain airport employees does it take to remove and replace the emergency slide exit accidentally deployed from our airplane earlier today (while we were still on the airplane, we've since gone back through security and are sitting in the terminal)?

current winning answer, an even dozen.

sweet faith

danielle just sent me these pictures and i had to post them - thanks defense. my parents (and now danielle) have been watching our dear dog faith while we are away. and it sounds like she is having the time of her life. here are some pictures.

faith waiting for the tv to come on - she loves tv (thank you charlie stivers and the rockies 21 wins).
faith smiling
with her favorite toy (thank you drew for teaching her to play fetch).

we miss our sweet, crazy dog.

london and cheddar cheese

london anyone? that is where we are headed at 5:00 pm. wrong direction you might think - well yes, this is true, however the cheapest flight went thru london - and... well... at the time we thought 10 extra hours in a plane was worth it. we will see... :) london, bahrain, kathmandu. many, many, many hours later we will see calvin's smiling face at the kathmandu airport.

it is difficult to capture the overwhelming thankfulness we feel about the opportunity to once again be in jerusalem. the Lord provided in unimaginable ways - dear friends, nurturing women (franswa, elena), amazing landlords/friends, incredible teaching and experiences - answered prayers for healing for tim's dad. i am sure i will write more when i have more time. but tears roll down my checks even now as i type and reflect on the goodness of the Lord.

thank you for your prayers. thank you for walking with us via the blog.

oh, and the cheddar cheese - i have been craving some for a few weeks now - so those of you who can freely (and cheaply) buy some - eat some for me. :)

good bye nathan and nico

nathan and nico headed home yesterday after two great weeks here with us in israel. a few highlights...

(once again, tim takes the reins of the blog while other family members clean. i love blogging.)

contrast in transportation choices down masada. two of us took the cable car, two can be seen on the switchback trail. you guess who did what.
tim: lets go check out this tel which is the ancient site of jezreel!
kristi and nicole: why on earth did tim take off through those pricker bushes and does he really expect us to follow him?

tim and nathan: how big of a rock would one have to roll down through a field of land mines to set one off?
I wish I was an ancient roman orator!

I wish these seats had cushions!

just your friendly neighborhood perfect smile competition.
kristi and a local rock star she wanted her picture taken with.

saying good-bye at jaffa gate. bff

tim and nathan. why does nathan have a question mark hovering above his head? i thought that only happened in cartoons....
we had a great time with nathan and nicole. we saw the dead sea again, spent some great time in galilee and on the coast, had fun times in jerusalem, saw some places that were new to use including shuneum, en dor, dor, acco, and aphek, and had too much fun spending time exploring israel with the parkers. they're good friends, we'll explore the world with them any day!

my favorite funny pictures of the semester

colin, me and greg - easter
ber sheba
sataf - tiny window of a house
erin and tk - after a game of rook
massada and nico
arbel
en gedi - k and dad
k wearing jordanian tourist policeman's hat while he was not present
in the galilee somewhere
lunch at nof ginosar
good times. good times.

nepal?

so sometimes people ask us why we are going to go to nepal or what we are planning to do there. it is a fairly random place to head to for the summer time.

in 2002 after i graduated from college, i (tim) and 4 friends headed over to nepal to serve there as christians. we spent most of our time building relationships with kids whose lives revolved around the streets of kathmandu. we were there for six months and kristi came over and spent the last two months there with us as well. in fact, while over there kristi and i got engaged.

since then all the friends i went over with originally have got back over at different times. one friend was part of starting an orphanage in kathmandu and getting his home church in nebraska to sponsor the children there. (mike ohara) another friend started an organization called tiny hands international devoted to helping girls targeted by the sex trafficking industry, kids stuck on the streets, and women with no job training to name just a few of the groups it serves. check them out at www.tinyhandsinternational.org (john molineux)

also a good friend we made in colorado (calvin smothers) went over last year to serve there for 3 months and now has decided to commit to spending the next few years over there and landed there just this month.

all that to say, we haven't gotten to go back and miss our friends there both nepalese and american and have been very jealous of those who got to go and revisit. when we decided to come to israel we figured we were half way to nepal with a free summer before i start school in vancouver. when better to go?

so we will head to nepal for just under 2 months. we will see friends, encourage people, do some volunteering, and do a lot of resting and reflecting. we both brought our journals from the past 5 years and plan to reflect on, learn from, heal from, recover from, the last five years. sometimes life is such a treadmill we just need to step off for a minute to look back on the past.

we also hope to revisit the place where we got engaged. perhaps we will also get to go to the spot where i originally planned on proposing but was stopped because of massive avalanche activity. (perhaps that should of been a hint to kristi about what she was getting herself into).

it should be a great time for kristi and i both personally and as a couple, we can't wait!

day of rest

today we rested. nicole and i did some shopping and went to the outdoor market, while tim and nathan spent the majority of the day at JUC reading the large amount of wonderful books in the library.

we leave in 5 days. 5 days. crazy. i am beginning to feel the tension - wanting to make sure we spend time with people, doing well saying good-bye, cover all of the details, see the last few things we haven't seen, breathe. i would covet your prayers as we say goodbye and prepare to arrive in nepal. we are extremely excited but this transition is also seasoned with grief as this has been a wonderful 5 months in so many ways.

Guest blogging!

It's me, Nicole! I'm the first guest blogger on this blog. I just happened to be at the computer when the pictures finished loading, so Kristi gave me permission to comment.

Here we are on top of the Nazareth ridge. Kristi is fashionably dressed in a flowing summer dress from the Gap, complemented by the ruby jewel toned necklace from Christina's wedding. Her complexion is nice and tan, and her sassy haircut is blowing in the breeze. I, on the other hand, am wearing the same t-shirt as I type, even though this picture was taken four days ago. I'm also sporting some cut off jean shorts from some left over pants my sister gave me that were about a foot too long.

Here is Kristi again, her svelte figure easily fitting through bars that one is not supposed to fit through. Actually, we all thought skinny thoughts and squeezed through to the other side. Through prickly bushes and weeds, Tim led us to the Bay of Parables, a site where Jesus may have taught about the parable of the sower, the lamp on the stand, mustard seed, etc.
Although between the four of us (Tim, Kristi, Nathan, and me) we probably have 500 pictures of the last five days traipsing around this intruiguing country, these were the most fun to comment on. Actually, only a few of this week's pictures have people in them, and I didn't have any witticims up my sleeve about barren tels.

Until next time...

Toodlepip!

in haifa

we are in haifa - and going back to jerusalem today. thank you all so much for the input. we decided to go through london - so marilyn we hope to be in contact with matt soon :)

we have traveled all over this country in our little car. seen a lot and much has been new to tim and me. we will post pictures soon. today we are going to see caesarea by the sea and dor. we continue to have a great time. i think the fav part for me is all of the conversations.

ok. my time is running out. hope you all are well and again thanks for the input.

christina - tim was on your team. defense - you make me laugh.