My grandma just passed away on Wednesday. On Saturday she was at my cousin's wedding and by Saturday night she was in the hospital and from there, everything went really fast. Even though we will miss her like crazy, she was a believer so we are rejoicing that she is now in heaven.

After struggling with arthritis for years, it is an amazing thought to think of her in a resurrected pain-free body dancing in heaven!

She was one strong woman. This picture of her in her garden on the farm where her and my grandpa raised 5 kids puts me to shame. I think I've got it rough when I have to load the dishes in the dishwasher! It just amazes me to look at that picture and think of the life that she lived.

I guess her death has made me do some thinking about the legacy that gets passed down from generation to generation. And in the face of death, things become so very clear. It is so easy to see that the only thing that matters is Christ and Christ alone. At the end of your life, it is only what you've done in the light of eternity that counts. It has really made me think again about how I conduct myself as a mom, as a wife and as a woman. It challenges me to be intentional and active. My one desire would be that my kids and their kids and their kids would be followers of Christ. Because it truly is the only thing that matters.

While we have encountered different struggles over the last years and continue to be challenged in our new life here, my prayer is that through it all, God would be glorified and that I would be transformed. I want my kids to see that we believe and have hope in a living God that is real and is active in our lives and the world around us.

Its been a long time since I've posted. A really long time. I've decided it is time to return to the world of blogging. I suppose this blog won't be quite as exciting as when we were in the Philippines. Hopefully no more stories of worms in my kids and snakes in my house. The most excitement we've had around here lately is a giant spider in the washing machine. But all I had to do to kill it was turn the washer on and the scalding hot water that comes out of my wonderful American washing machine did the job. That spider couldn't stand the heat!

Anyways, things here in Spokane are still an adventure. We still definitely feel like missionaries here. It is just different struggles and different adjustments. More on that later.... I love that we are getting settled and are starting to know our way around. Spokane is a really beautiful place. The biggest small town you will find. Jason is starting to adjust to the schedule at work. I am starting to get a routine down with the house and the kids. AND the Lord has been so good to give me a good friend here already (makes me tear up just to write it!).

Well just wanted to get the ball rolling. More to come soon!

The worms go in the worms go out

Well, we've experienced another part of 'normal' missionary life. Living with worms. Not in our yard, not in our food. In our children's stomach. (I know this is probably too much info, but I can't resist!) Yes, this week we found a 10" roundworm the thickness of a pencil. I thought I was going to THROW UP when I saw it. I will spare you the rest of the details. We are now ALL on deworming medicine. I had no idea that I was supposed to deworm the kids about every 3 months. GROSS!!!

In an earlier post I mentioned going crazy living with my crazy daughter. In order to defend myself, I have posted some new pictures on our photo gallery. I indeed have a crazy daughter that I love. I am sure however that she will not love me when she is 16 and finds out that I posted these pictures of her to our blog!

www.schwabair.shutterfly.com

My missionary kid

We've been having lots of brown outs again, sigh. Thankfully, Mirielle has gotten used to the power going out. Yesterday when the power went out in the morning, she was able to find the positive in the situation. She looked at me with her eyebrows raised, looking like she just had an epiphany and said "Mom, God made light for us so that when the power goes out we don't have to light candles." That is an exact quote from my missionary kid.

Biker Chick

I think someday she might grow up to be a motorcycle mama. She definately gets her wild side from her dad! This is a fun little adventure that Mirielle and her dad go on every once in a while. They hop on the bike and ride just to the end of the street to get a bottle of coke. Mirielle loves it becuase she gets to wear her bike helmet and if she is anything like her mom, loves the speed! (No Jason doesn't go fast, but anything must seem fast to a 3 year old!)

Something to think about

I just started rereading Linda Dillow's book, "Calm my Anxious Heart". She starts off with the issue of contentment - just what I needed to hear. In the first few pages, she includes a list of her friend's mom, who was a missionary in Africe for 52 years.

Her "perscription for contentment":
*Never allow yourself to complain about anything - not even the weather.
*Never picture yourself in any other circumstances or someplace else.
*Never compare your lot with another's.
*Never allow yourself to with this or that had been otherwise.
*Never dwell on tomorrow - remember that [tomorrow] is God's not ours.

I'm tempted to tatoo these, along with some corresponding scripture on my forehead, or paint them on my walls, etch them into the bathroom mirror. Oh, how I struggle with each of these things. Especially not complaining, even about the weather!

Along our journey, we've heard stories about how missionaries used to pack all of their belongings into a wood coffin becuase their chances of surviving life in some of the dark places where the Gospel needed to go was pretty slim. And deep down in me I want to be that kind of follower, but I cling so tightly to what I feel like are my rights.

Pray for me as I try and rid myself of the mindset of clinging to my rights. My new prayer for myself is Philippians 2:5-8
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who being in very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing; taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross!

I want to obey even if it means giving things up that I don't think I possibly can. I want to be content in that too, not just walk around feeling like a martyr.

I am preaching to myself becuase I just flipped out the other day worrying about the tomorrows that are God's and not mine and feeling like it isn't fair that I have to deal with the things I am dealing with here. Worrying about the kids, worrying about never fitting in here, worrying about trying to establish a routine that works between me, the kids, and 2 house girls and a husband who has a schedule that can hardly be considered a schedule at all, worrying about our finances, feeling crazy becuase there are about 3 hours in the whole month where I am actually alone - by myself with no one around, feeling guilty about not being a more loving and creative mom and then to top that off, have 2 girls in my house watching me 5 days a week, as I feel like I fail every day, and on and on.

Yes, sin gets me down good and I certainly get caught up in it becuase it is so much easier that going to battle. A friend wrote and told us that he would be praying for us to take our thoughts captive and making them obedient to Christ as we deal with our struggles here. Thanks for the reminder...I needed it this week.

I wonder

Yesterday we went to one of our favorite restaurants. Why is it one of our favorite places to go? First of all, we can eat there for a steal. You can get a BBQ chicken breast and a cup of rice for 59 pesos, which is about a buck. It depends on the exchange rate. Every month it gets a few cents more expensive since the exchange rate usually goes down and our dollar becomes less valuable. But still a steal! Secondly, Mirielle loves their chicken and she loves the restaurant becuase it is open air and she can run around and look at the turtles that they have in their little pond. So we go there when we need a family friendly place to eat.

After eating, Mirielle was running around with an entourage of waitresses trailing behind her. They were singing ABCs together and counting and Mirielle was telling them how old she was and her brother's name. I was thinking about how she will grow up to be a different person than if she grew up in the States. I wonder if she will grow up to be friendlier being here in a world where everyone loves the cute little white girl. Maybe she will eventually become more guarded once she gets a little older and it isn't as much fun to be the cute little white girl and to have so much attention. I wonder....

Here, everyone loves her attention. They love to talk with her, touch her white skin, they are always sharing their food with her. We really noticed the difference in her behavior when we returned to the States last year. Just after returning, we would be at a restaurant and she would want to interact with people, acting like they cared that she was there, wanting to crawl up in their laps. It was so weird for us to watch. She was so outgoing and doing what was just natural to her here and it came of seeming really weird in the States.

Things here are so different. I just wonder how Jason and I will change over the years and how our kids will grow up to be different than if they grew up in the States.

The other day, I was driving down the street and was watching kids pour out of the school that was near where I was driving and seeing the kids skipping down the road in their uniforms sent a big pang of saddness through my heart. The sight of it made me wonder if I would ever see my own kids skipping down the road to our house after school - certainly won't happen here. Maybe one year when we are home on furlough. (Although we just found out the other day that when we came home to have Kellan, since we came home becuase of me and I am not the primary wage earner, we ate up future furlough time because of tax reasons. That means that we probably won't be able to come home for a full year until Mirielle is 10.)

That means that my daughter may never grace the room of a classroom until she is 10. She will be forever stuck in this house with her crazy mother!!! And yes, part of the reason I am so crazy is because I am stuck in the house with my crazy daughter :-) I fear that my kids will never feel like they fit in here and when we go back to the States they won't feel like they fit in there either. I guess I fear that for myself. I wonder if we will ever adjust to living here. I wonder what that would even mean......

Livin' in a Zoo

When Mirielle was a little older than Kellan we started teaching her all of the animal noises. A cow goes 'moo', a pig snorts, a rooster goes 'cock a doodle doo'. I always thought those sounds were so cute, until I had to live next to them.

It seems like no matter where you go, except maybe Manila, you are constantly surrounded by livestock in Philippines. Sometimes I feel like I am living on a farm. In the empty lot next to our house a cow roams around eating all day and we have chickens that float in and out of our yard through the chain link fence.

The roosters I have mostly gotten used to. I think just about every other person in the Philippines owns a rooster. They are BIG into cock fighting here. When we went to the beach the other day, we were driving through the middle of nowhere, nothing but tiny little bamboo houses here and there and out of nowhere appears a gigantic building. A big beautiful building, cememt with real roofing on it, nice paint job. And what was it? A 2 story cock pit, compliments of the government. Nice.....

Our neighbors to the front of us have pigs. Thankfully they are quieter than the pigs our other neighbors had at the last house we lived in. Those pigs would go crazy a couple times a day. I imagined that those pigs couldn't have sounded much worse than when Jesus cast the demons into the pigs and they all ran and drown themselves. So, anyways, I am VERY thankful to have quiet pigs for neighbors this go around. I don't think that there is a sound that sets me more on edge than a screaming pig. What is hard about living here, is that all of the windows in all of the rooms are always open, so there is NO place to go in the entire house to escape the noise. Even burying myself under a pillow doesn't drown out the sounds.

I have recently discovered the second most terrible sound ever made by an animal. A bleating goat. I always thought goats were kind of cute. Just a friendly little animal that you would see at the petting zoo. WRONG! Our neighbor that owns the pig recently purchased a few goats that now roam around the property. The first few days they were here I had to convince Mirielle that the noises she was hearing were really just goats. She thought that there was a child outside screaming for help. That is kind of what these goats sound like "HELP, HELP, HELP"! Drive me nuts!!! The goats tend to roam over to the empty lot on the other side of our house, over by the kitchen and dining area, in the evening while I am making dinner. So we sit and listen to goats crying all through dinner. It sounds like someone is dieing outside. I am convinced that missionaries need to come home on furlough just so they can have some peace and QUIET!

Walking, Maybe?

Kellan just took his first steps on Saturday. I missed the first 6, he performed his new trick just for his dad. Later in the day he was so kind as to grant me the pleasure of seeing him take a few more steps on his own.

I think that I am pretty ready for him to start walking. He already crawls a warp speed and gets into about everything that I can imagine him getting into at this point. My back would be so happy if he started walking around. He is still so huge!