jordan!!

great day. here is a taste. can't be online long because of the need to save battery so that i can post more tomorrow. enjoy!

my inner being

this week at bible study i asked the girls how their inner being was. it was my funny way of asking/wanting to know how they were doing, really. we then went around and talked about the state of our hearts and in what ways the Lord was working and what we needed prayer for. we ended the time in prayer for each other. i was touched by their prayers for each other and their prayers for me.

but it got me thinking about my inner being. how is it? i certainly stumbled over my explanation with the girls. and i still feel like i am in a state of... well... i don't know how to capture it... i feel very much in a state of tension and yet even tension is not the right word. lots of things are stirring in me. i have been missing home, community. and yet lately i have experienced more than ever before the truth that community does not necessarily mean being physically together.

this feeling is further confused when i look at my husband. this time in israel has been incredibly sweet for our relationship. and when i look at tim i feel home in ways i can't explain. safe, wanted, known, loved, accepted - maybe begin to touch the overwhelming feeling of home i experience when we are together.

so why then do i still long for our community in aurora? for my family? for the ease of calling those i love on the phone without worrying about waking them up, the ability to drive and see ken, vickie and janae, running into gabe at church, having coffee with sonya, watching averi, going over to dinner at keri and charlie's, watching tim's soccer games with some of my dearest friends who husbands also play, etc... chipotle to add one more :) maybe just another part of my grieving. another reminder of the sweet gifts the Lord gave in the last 4.5 years. another opportunity to be thankful.

As the Lord and i work all of this out together i also feel called to continue to remember. remember who He is and who i am, the work He has done and is doing.

and there is a peace in all of it for me. a sense of His nearness.

i stumbled upon this prayer this morning and i wanted to share it with you all (as henri nouwen continues to be my guide in many ways)-

Dear God,
I am so afraid to open my clenched fists!
Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to?
Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands?
Please help me to gradually open my hands
and to discover that I am not what I own,
but what you want to give to me.
And what you want to give me is love,
unconditional, everlasting love.
Amen

ultimately it seems the Lord is teaching me again and again who it is to stand in His love, to rest in it, to accept it and to respond.

two passages He reminded me of today:

You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Psalm 51:16-17

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8

my inner being. well there you go. one would think a therapist would be able to sort through this one, but at this point there it is.

that leaves me with a question: how is your inner being?
(if i knew how i would only allow anonymous answers to this one...)

6:00 AM

that's the time tomorrow we have to be on the bus headed for Jordan. goodness. we will be in Jordan for 4 days with our physical settings class. should be good. i will post if i can. miss you all between now and then. :)

daily life pics take 2

post office (building on the left with the arched windows) -
box from nico i picked up yesterday at the post office - thanks friend!!
looking out our bedroom window (towards the pre-school)

looking out our other bedroom window (towards the street)
just up from our house - notice the pile of trash - where i put my trash. (just a week after the new trash system was instituted we went back to the old way... )
shops just up from our apartment - towards one of the two main streets in the arab quarter
sign on the main street which signals our street

main street (notice the youth hostel/tea house sign)

street where i buy my groceries in the old city (man with the yellow shirt is standing across from the shop - i am standing at john's sandwich shop - for those of you who love a good john's sandwich).

the shuke - outdoor jewish market - where i buy all our fresh foods, meats, cookies, humus, nuts, etc...

eggs! we buy one crate of eggs each week (got to get protein somehow and meat is expensive here)
more pics to come. still taking requests :)

REMISSION!!

thank you jesus!!

dad's PET scan came out showing NO more signs of cancer!! he has his 5th chemo treatment thursday and hopes to just have one more after that. radiation will follow the conclusion of the chemo treatments.

thank you for your prayers. our family feels very much supported from all sides in this process. please continue to pray for dad, mom and janae, gabe and brooke. and us as we are physically distant during this process. we are incredibly thankful for this good news and the Lord's healing of dad's body.

pic of tim and kurtis

notice the sign :)

MAIL!!!!

i love mail! i love it for many reasons. the first of which is i am a gift-giver/receiver in my love language. the first runner up reason is i love feeling connected to people and home. i think this is the reason i love comments on my blog so much and emails from friends. and i think it is the reason i am addicted to checking everyone else's blogs too.

so today my day was totally made because i got three pieces of mail!! i got a note that nico sent me a box. (thank you sweet friend!! - i will pick it up this afternoon). and kurtis and erin both put letters in my box. which leads to a side note funny story:

a few nights ago we played games at kurtis and erin's house. we each picked what our reward would be if we were the winners of the games. every game my reward was mandatory mail given to me by each of them during the following week. needless to say - i did not win. erin won poker and we will all be watching juno some time soon. kurtis won the other two games (catan and beans) and because of that tim had to wear a sign on their field study the following day that said, "i suck at catan and kurtis is the king." he also had to say, "kurtis is king" every time the professor said, "pseudopigrypha" (which apparently he says quite often). tim was a great sport. i will post a picture of him and the sign soon. (i forgot the external hard drive today - so no luck with the pic right now). everyone in class, including tim and the prof, thought it was hilarious. my favorite story of the day was at one point the professor said pseudopigrypha 3 times in a matter of 5 minutes and tim had to weave his way through the class saying quietly, "kurtis is king" trying to get closer to kurtis (as to not make quite as much of a scene) and kurtis at the same time walked farther and farther away from tim. haha. good times.

so to those of you who have sent me mail again a HUGE thank you. i love it. for those of you who are thinking currently about the idea of sending me mail - just know i will be so happy and thankful and excited to receive it if you do. :)

community

nothing is sweet or easy about community. community is a fellowship of people who do not hide their joys and sorrows but make them visible to each other in a gesture of hope. in community we say, "life is full of gains and losses, joys and sorrows, ups and downs - but we do not have to live it alone. we want to drink our cup together and thus celebrate the truth that the wounds of our individual lives, which seem intolerable when lived alone, become sources of healing when we live them as part of a fellowship of mutual care."

henri nouwen

thank you all for loving us well through this season of transition. a season of unexpected challenge. a season of healing. a season of hope.

first post dedicated to daily life pics :)

ok, so these pictures may have been taken by my mom... but brooke's comment reminded me of them. thought you all might want to see me hanging laundry from the roof of our apartment and the view while i do it. :)
(and no worries brooke - i will still take pics from our windows too).

back to "normal" life

whelp i am once again in the library. have not been here for a while, which is strange because the first month or so we were here i was often enjoying the nice sun-lit room.

as tim and i walked to school today we talked about the strange reality that even though the end of school is only a month away we are just into our second half of time here. and yet it feels like we have been here a while. have settled in and made a life for ourselves. patterns, familiarity, a sense of belonging. i am thankful for each of these things.

tim and i are headed to the market after he gets out of class. for we have very little food in our house. i will try not to buy too much, because in just a handful of days we are headed away again. saturday we leave for 4 days to jordan. our last physical settings field study trip. crazy. like all of the field trips we both are looking forward to this one. this will actually be our first of two field trips to jordan. for tim's culteral backgrounds class we will go to jordan for 3 days at the end of april.

i imagine this last month of school will feel full. tim has papers to write, tests to study for. we are hoping to go the beach one day with erin and kurtis. field trips, class, well you get the idea.

also i am beginning to think and plan for our return home. looking up rental truck prices, plane ticket prices, thinking about my birthday :) not trying to rush mentally to the future - more than anything making sure we have enough money to make it all happen.

my latest mission (telling you all in hopes you will keep me accountable) is to capture pictures of our daily life. the street where we live, franswa and elena, jamil and his wife, zac, etc... many of you have asked for such pictures before and now that life is more calm i am taking on the task. let me know if you have any specific picture requests.

well that's about it. life. and life is good.

and daily thankful to be here and this incredible opportunity.

the horse and his boy

tim and i recently finished the horse and his boy by C.S. Lewis in our reading of the Narnia books together. often we read before bed and often i fall asleep within a few minutes. so it has taken us a while to get to this point. i wanted to share a bit of it with you.

"Who are you?" he said, scarcely above a whisper.

"One who has wanted long for you to speak," said the Thing. Its voice was not loud, but very large and deep.

"Are you - are you a giant?" asked Shasta.

"You might call me a giant," said the Large Voice. "But I am not like the creatures you call giants."

"I can't see you at all," said Shasta, after staring very hard. Then (for an even more terrible idea had come into his head) he said, almost in a scream, "You're not - not something dead, are you? Oh please - please go away. What harm have I ever done you? Oh, I am the unluckiest person in the whole world."

Once more he felt the warm breath of the Thing on his hand and face. "There," it said, "that is not the breath of a ghost. Tell me your sorrows."

Shasta was a little reassured by the breath: so he told how he had never known his real father or mother and had been brought up sternly by a fisherman. And then he told the story of his escape and how they were chased by lions and forced to swim for their lives; and of all their dangers in Tashbaan and about his night among the Tombs and how the beasts howled at him out of the desert. And he told about the heat and thirst of their desert journey and how they were almost at their goal when another lion chased them and wounded Aravis. And also, how very long it was since he had had anything to eat.

"I do not call you unfortunate," said the Large Voice.

"Don't you think it was bad luck to meet so many lions?" said Shasta.

"There was only one lion," said the Voice.

"What on earth do you mean? I've just told you there were at least two the first night and -"

"There was only one: but he was swift of foot."

"How do you know?"

"I was the lion." And Shasta gaped with open mouth and said nothing, the Voice continued. "I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the Horses new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you."

"Who are you?" asked Shasta.

"Myself," said the Voice, very deep and low so that the earth shook: and again "Myself," loud and clear and gay: and then the third time "Myself," whispered so softly you could hardly hear it, and yet it seemed to come from all round you as if the leaves rustled with it.

Shasta was no longer afraid... but a new and different sort of trembling came over him. Yet he felt glad too... while he had been talking to the Thing he had not been noticing anything else... he knew the night was over at last.

... he turned and saw, pacing beside him, taller than the horse, a Lion... it was from the lion that the light came. No-one ever saw anything more terrible or beautiful... he couldn't say anything but then he didn't want to say anything, and he knew he needn't say anything.

The High King above all kings stooped towards him. Its mane, and some strange and solemn perfume that hung about the mane, was all round him. It touched his forehead with its tongue. He lifted his face and their eyes met. Then instantly the pale brightness of the Lion rolled themselves together into a swirling glory and gathered themselves up and disappeared. He was alone with the horse on a grassy hillside under a blue sky. And there were birds singing.

May the One who is with us, even when we don't know it or feel it or even realize, reveal His nearness to us today. May we respond to His calling - May we tell Him our story, even though He already knows and was there. May we stop to listen to His voice, for He desires to speak to us. and May we know in a more intimate way who He is and the love He speaks over us.

an official amendment

dad would like the record set straight. he currently is not "left in the dust" as originally posted. but he mathematically has no possible chance of winning. but second place is still a legitimate chance.

a rivalry in our family

final four. even far from home our attention is on college basketball.

every year the knipp men face off in a winner takes dinner and movie bracket (paid for by those whose choices weren't so great). rumor has it gabe and tim are fighting it out to the bitter end, with ken left in the distance with no hope of recovery. and like in all good wars it will come down to the final moments. gabe cheering for North Carolina and tim cheering for UCLA.

tim won't be alone in his cheering. for faith dogg too is cheering for UCLA. since discovering television faith has become (like her father) addicted to tv. my mom tells me she loves college hoops, which should come as no surprise as she can never get enough fetch, soccer, basketball (anything where a ball is the focus). faith will sit for hours and just watch the tv, which i find hillarious. she only comes and says hello when the commericals come on. needless to say i am glad that within our little family we are cheering for the same team.

defense (danielle) is cheering for KU - as loyalties have been passed from jacob, her boyfrield, to her.

i secretly (and selfishly) hope UCLA wins, for when victory comes to our family we are all very happy. not that we are competative or anything. :)

book tagged by stina

pick up closest book, go to page 123, what are the lines 6-8:

"Then annoint Aaron and his sons. Consecrate them as priests to me. Tell the Israelites, "This will be my holy anointing oil throughout your generations." (The Message, Ex 30:30-33).

i thought tim's journal probably would get me in trouble. :)

rock star

nuff said.