Joy Found in Suffering...

We all go through suffering of some type. Mine started when I was six. Being sent to Boarding School, away from my parent's caused me a lot of heartache. I didn't realize this until recent years. I went from feeling numb most of my life, to feeling anger and then bitterness towards God and then my parents. Trudging through this with my counselor has brought me to acknowledge my pain as significant and allow God to bring healing, and give me the humility to forgive and the power to love.

My parents and I are starting our relationships on a new level, starting now. I want us to make the most of the time we have left. As I visited them with the kids this last week, I was saddened by how much older they seemed to me. But I'm holding on to the hope that the Lord will allow us to make up for "lost time."

We had some good talks each night I was there. On the last night, I asked them to tell me how they felt when they sent me to Boarding School. The tears started on both sides of the room as they responded. They shared about how it was so hard for them, they had to make some huge sacrifices for the gospel to advance. I know they felt like they were making the best decision for me. It was the best and only option they had at the time.

Then Dad shared about the current state of Burkina Faso, where they served for 30 years! He told me that the gospel is spreading so rapidly there, enough for missionaries to pull out because they are no longer needed. Unreached people groups are being reached, by other Africans! Pastors are being taught in seminaries, by their fellow Africans! Churches are being started and led by the National church. Dad was so excited as he shared all of this. And then he said, "so, Diane, the sacrifice you made to go away from home, so that we could do the work here, was NOT in vain! Take joy in that!" And I do. I would do it all over again, knowing how much God used Mom and Dad's ministry to advance His kingdom. I got to play a part in that! I don't feel bitterness anymore, not even regrets. The Lord's healing balm is so gentle and yet so powerful. Praise God!

All For Love

This is the season...It's March...It's March Madness...It's basketball season...It's Carolina's basketball season...It's my sweetheart's favorite and most intense season, therefore it's mine too. I married into it, adopted into the Carolina fan club.

As I watch the "Elite Eight" game against Louisville, my stomach's in knots and I feel the intensity already. I started out watching basketball and NASCAR with Marshall, just to understand him better and therefore love him well. Now I feel like I'm adopting the passion as my own.





In light of that, this has been my most recent reading material. These were the two books I read as insomnia hit me at 4:30 this morning. I don't count these two books as equal, by the way!

Monkeys are Evil!

You know the saying, "Monkey hear no evil, see no evil, do no evil?" Well, I think monkeys ARE evil. Before any animal activists get on my case, hear my personal interactions with monkeys. Of all my monkey interactions, none have left me with warm fuzzies!

Baboons are the scariest. First of all, they are mean looking creatures, tall and very aggressive. One of the older MKs bought a baboon from somewhere and thought it would be a good idea to drug it, force it into a cage and chain the cage to the top of a van full of kids for the 6 hour trip down to school. It pooped all over the roof, but it did get us through the border stops quite quickly. When we got to school, the baboon was chained to a tree next to the guy's dorm. He paced back and forth and kinda grunted at us. They ended up having to shoot him because he bit someone or had some disease.

Okay, so the real trauma for me started with a dorm pet. A chimpanzee named "Lulu." She was caged outside the dorm, but the middle schoolers would get her out and let her climb on them and take her all over campus. Sometimes they would bring her in the dorm. All of us little kids would call out, "Lulu down the hall!" You could hear kids jumping under beds and into closets. Then the bravest would peek out and check when she was gone, so that we could come out of hiding.

I had a fear of Lulu from the beginning, but it escalated one year on my birthday. I came into the dorm, standing in the doorway without realizing Lulu was in the dorm. Like a slo-mo movie I saw Lulu across the living room, she turned towards me and started galloping on her front knuckles and back feet, lips tightened to show All of her teeth. She ran straight for me and I was so paralyzed, I just stood there. Of course she grabbed onto my leg and took a bite. I started screaming, shaking my leg, trying to get her off. She leaned back her head and started screeching like Chimps do. Need I go on? Now you see why monkeys are evil? I was only 7 or 8, had turned it just that day!

During vacations, when we lived in the city, we stayed on a mission station that was surrounded by walls on every side. In one corner of the station one of the missionaries was raising rabbits, which we loved to play with. The only problem was that there was a little green monkey leashed to a zip line that went from his tree all the the way across to the wall. We would wait until he was up in his tree and try to run under him to the back. He would fly out of the tree and grab us by the hair, biting whatever he could get. Then when we made it to the other side, hearts beating wildly and screaming, we would look back to find him taunting us. He would jump up and down, eyes wide, mouth wide, showing all of his teeth. He was about the size of a house cat, but we were terrified of him.

A mile down from our boarding school was a zoo. We could hear the monkeys and lions if the wind blew right down the valley. Sometimes we would visit the zoo. The monkeys were chained to the trees, not caged. When you walked by, even at a distance, you would often hear a "ping" or feel a "wump" as a mango seed or rock hit. There was one huge chimp who was very laid back. If fact people had taught him some vulgar sign language, which he showed off to everyone. He also was taught to smoke. He would walk around with a cigarette in his mouth and if someone lit it, he would smoke, no lie! So he was the only monkey that came close to redeeming the whole kingdom of monkeys for me. Sorry, monkey-lovers, but from personal experience, monkeys are evil!

Dorm Life: part 2

We had a laundry room where everyone had their own cubby. There was one African man who's job was to do laundry every day, all day. This was with an old fashioned wringer washer and hanging everything on the line. When it was dry, he'd bring it in, fold it in stacks and then someone's dorm job was to put the clothes in the right box. Oh, and we had to sew name tags on EVERY piece of clothing before coming to school. BTW, my mom made us sew on our own name tags.

To make our dorm function, we all had dorm jobs. These would be switched up every two weeks or so. Some of the jobs included putting the clothes in the cubbies, distributing sheets to everyone on sheet day, watering the plants, feeding any animals, etc. My least favorite was taking care of this weird kind of cat. I don't remember what it was called, but it was real slow and slinky and lived in a cage in our dorm. I had to open his cage, take out his litter box, rake out the poop,throw it away and then put the box back in. You may think that's not a big deal, but that cat was weird, it hissed at me. So I would dread doing my dorm job!

We had a Rec room on the lower floor of our dorm. The rafters were exposed and so our dorm father hooked up a thick rope that we could swing on. We also had a balance beam and lots of mats, so we often tried to do gymnastics. There was a ping pong table and a Fooze-ball table. We played all sorts of games down there. We even climbed the rafters sometimes-that was a big "no, no."

We had a TV in our dorm living room, but we couldn't watch it hardly ever. Sometimes we would watch "Happy Days" and John Wayne westerns translated into French. It was quite comical, actually. On Sunday afternoons when I was real young, we would watch a Western. When I got older and VHS was invented we could watch an ICA-approved movie. Some of my personal favs: Savannah Smiles, The Apple Dumpling Gang, Pete's Dragon, Sound of Music, Annie and Mary Poppins.

We had one piano in the living area, as well. My mom made me take lessons. I hated it! Not because I didn't like playing the piano, I actually caught on pretty well. But I HATED practicing because not only could our dorm hear every note, but you could hear it almost all the way down to the Dining Hall. My dorm mom made everyone come to the piano recital that I had to play in. I looked out to see all the bored faces of my peers and especially the older boys I had crushes on---horrific! I wanted to crawl inside the piano and not come out. My piece was so basic, fortunately it was short, so I rushed through it.

Every day we were expected to make our beds and clean our rooms. Our rooms were graded. If we failed, then we would be grounded until it was cleaned up and checked out by a dorm parent. I never failed, but sometimes I got a lower grade because of my room mates. This is why I don't make my children make their beds and it took me years in college and after to be able to make myself make my bed. I usually make it everyday now, for me, not a grade.

Speaking of roommates, I've had hundreds. At the end of each trimester we would pack up everything in our room into footlockers and suitcases. We would pack a suitcase for vacation. We would store what we were leaving behind in the attic. We would usually switch rooms and roommates each trimester. Sometimes that was not very good for friendships. For girls, anyway. It was always a drama fest the last few weeks of school.

Some Recent Family Pics

My sweet Psalter.
Need I say more? BFF! I did not pick out Psalter's outfit, BTW! I pick my battles with the three-year-old.
Life doesn't get much better than this!
...or this!
And, no, I did NOT pick out this outfit!

Dorm Life

Most of the dorms had two hallways (only 2 did not). In the elementary dorms there was a boy's hall and a girl's hall, across from each other with a living area in between. Each of the dorms started with "B"s. Mine were Bethel and Bethlehem. There was also Baraka, Berea, Brotheren and I forget the others.

The hallways in our dorms had a zig-zag pattern of curtains from top to bottom. You could lay on the floor in your hall and see the boy's feet as they went from room to room. We used to wrap these curtains around us, if we were indecent, but wanted to get someone's attention that was out in the living area. Several girls were merciless and would yank the curtain away from any girl that was doing this, exposing them to the world. Speaking of indecent, my earliest memory of this was when I was six. I had just gotten the "Wonder Woman Underoos." We had gotten our shipment from the States and these were my treasured items. I was so proud of them and was showing off to friends. I walked out into the living room and sat down to talk with my dorm mom, not realizing I was just in my underwear. Some boys came out of their hallway and...of course, they made fun of me.

In the elementary dorms each room had a curtain in the doorway. These became nice swings for us. We could also talk to each other or throw notes across or down the hall during long weekend noon-rests. The curtain in the bathroom became more than a swing for us, however. Since all of the floors were a polished smooth cement, the bathroom floor made a good slide. We would lather up the floor with shampoo and water or baby powder, hold onto the curtain and stand back as far as we could in the hall and then run and let go, BAM!! Of course we would get into trouble, if we were caught in the act or if someone ended up hurt.

The floors were also a great surface for playing with fire. No joke! We would pour perfume on the floor, or write a message with it and then light the match. It was amazing to see how high and long the fire would go. There was only one time this became catastrophic. We did it too close to a desk and it caught on fire. We all went running to the bathroom with our little bathroom cups to fill them with water and douse the fire. Fortunately we got it out without too much damage. I don't even think we had to report it.

We had speakers down the hallway, which the dorm parents could make an announcement through, or, my personal favorite (not really) they would play music to wake us up in the mornings. The song they always played was from the "Bull Frogs and Butterflies" album called, "Good Morning." It's an obnoxiously happy song that my kids actually love to listen to, now.

We had a chimes that the dorm parents would use to give us messages. Each tune meant something different. For example, we had one for dorm meeting, dorm devotions, noon rest starting, etc. It sounds like I lived the life of a villager, sending messages via a musical instrument.

I've Been Tagged!

I've been tagged by my friend Melissa to share 7 strange things about me. So here goes....

1. I love peanut butter and syrup on my waffles and pancakes.

2. I freeze my Kraft caramels so that they're hard and chewy. I also freeze my chocolate, so that it takes longer to melt.

3. My dream job would be to work on the "Clean Sweep" show from TLC.

4. I'm borderline OCD when it comes to cleaning, that's why I get paid the big bucks!!

5. Shoes are a weakness for me. I don't buy many, I just drool.

6. The celebrities I would like to meet and shop with afterwards are Stacy London and Clinton Kelly from TLC's "What Not to Wear."

7. When I'm in the Grocery Store section at the Children's Museum I spend the whole time rearranging the shelves and baskets to put things back where they're SUPPOSED to go! The scary thing is that Eliza does the same thing--without my asking.


I now tag Marshall, Suzanne, and Jenny

I Don't Want to See the Inside of Our Dr.'s Office Again!!!

At least not for a while. This past month, I feel like our family could have been the sole providers for the office. Thank goodness for a smart husband that set up a flex plan for this stuff. We've probably drained it by now, just within the last month!

First there were some routine checkups, my high blood pressure scare checkup, then there was the emergency room visit to stitch up Psalter's head injury, followed by the visit to our doctor the following week to remove the stitches. While we were at that appointment the Dr. noticed Eliza was looking rough (she'd had a high fever for a few days), so she did a strep test and sent us home with no conclusions. We ended up back there the following Tues. because Eliza's temp was still there. After many pokes, swabs, long waits, questions about whether or not she would need a shot and could we go home now and an x-ray to rule out pneumonia, the conclusion: she had a double ear infection.

At that visit, I had been coughing and feeling miserable for a few days. I did not say anything, just wanting to wait it out. By Thursday, I was hacking up and blowing out green stuff. Nice, I know. I called the office, did I need to come in? Yes....

I got to go with just Jacob this time. I got to see my Dr. She determined it was viral, sent me home with nose drops and a prescription for an antibiotic if the back of my mouth drainage started to taste bitter. Nice, again. Too bad I don't have a picture.

A few days later, Saturday, I wake up with a sore jaw. I look in the bathroom mirror and I'm horrified by my enlarged cheek and jawbone. It looked like a Brooke Shield's wanna-be botox injection gone bad! On one side. So I called the Dr. on call. So happened it was my Dr. and she would be in the walk-in clinic that day. I went. Tired of frequenting the place. I get taken into my room and when my Dr. stepped in, she took a step back, gasping and said, "Oh my!" Not the most comforting thing to hear your Dr. say. Turns out I had a stone in my parotid gland, those are the salivary glands. Really??? They can do that? She prescribed me a strong antibiotic, told me to eat a lot of sour foods to work the stone out and sent me on my way.

Several hundred co-pay dollars later, we are all healthy and taken care of. I'm thankful that I live in a country with quality healthcare and medication. I'm also thankful that we can afford insurance and the needed medications. I'm very thankful that we are healthy individuals that sometimes get sick and not the other way around! But I still would rather not see the inside of our Dr.'s office for a long, long while.

What is I.C.A.?

I.C.A. stands for International Christian Academy. Thanks for all the efforts in guessing what it stood for. It was a boarding school for missionary kids and was started by Russ and Ruth Ragsdale back in the 60s. It’s located in a small valley, east of the town of Bouake (bwa-kay), Cote d’Ivoire, West Africa.

The campus is a little over a kilometer around. The front part of the campus consisted of staff housing, the classrooms, library and offices. In the middle were several dormitories, the dining hall, clinic, and park/recreation area. South of the campus held the chapel, more dorms and more recreational areas. There were eight dorms, four elementary-junior high dorms, 2 high school girl’s and 2 high school boy’s dorms. We had two soccer fields, one at the north end and one on the south, three basketball courts, a racquetball court, a petite-porteau court (outdoor soccer on a court), one play ground with swings, merry-go-round, sandbox, see-saws, etc. and a commissary (campus store).

The south end of campus is closed in by a marigo or swamp. Because of the swamp, we had plenty of snakes, bugs and frogs on campus. Cote d’Ivoire is a very lush country. It is very tropical, even inland. Many types of plantations fuel its economy: bananas, cocoa, and coffee just to name a few. Our campus had plenty of mango, orange, tangerine and guava trees. There were several palm trees plentiful with coconuts and even a tree that produced prickly pears.

We had electricity and running water. Our buildings were built out of cement. We did not have air conditioning, but each classroom and dorm room was equipped with a ceiling fan.

So, this was part of my life, twelve years, in fact. I started going to I.C.A. when I was six years old. It holds a lot of fond memories, along with some hard ones. I made some wonderful friends, met with some incredible mentors and learned so much. What makes my heart grieve is that it will never look the same. I doubt that I will get to go back because it is not functioning as a school anymore, but rather a barracks for the French army. The French have been there since the country’s civil war began in 2002. My parents were working on the campus at the time and they had to evacuate with a whole school of children and staff. They left everything there, but a carry-on suitcase. They had to leave a lot of memories behind. Years later my dad was able to go back and get what was left of their stuff. It’s helping me to write about it, so thank you to those who read because you are getting to know a piece of me that is grieving the loss of this place that means so much to me.