My Messy Manger

Repost: Hard Doesn't Mean Bad or Wrong

noreply@blogger.com (SLHutchens) — Sat, 18 Mar 2023 11:44:00 +0000

I wrote this back in 2015, and have been thinking about it a lot lately. The last two months... year... five years... seventeen years... have all been difficult. Really difficult. And just as I predicted eight years ago, it has only gotten harder as time has gone on. My younger self honestly had a better outlook on it than my older, much more weary self does, and I needed to re-read these encouraging words. Maybe you do, too, so I'm sharing it again:

I've been chewing on a thought lately that I need to get out. I'm not sure how eloquently I'll get it out, but I'm going to try.

Just because something is hard, doesn't mean that it's bad or wrong.

Actually, I would argue that hard is good, and if you aren't doing anything hard, then you're probably doing something wrong.

I just thought this was a great picture for a post about doing hard things.

Because God doesn't mold us into being more like Christ through the easy stuff. Think back on the times when you grew the most in your faith. For me it has been our first move to a new city after we got married, infertility, Jude's autism, moving back from Moldova, miscarriage and more infertility, Josh struggling to find work, foster adoption... these have been the times that have been so hard, I didn't know if I could go on. The times that have left me sobbing before God and sometimes before a person or two whom I trust. The times that have made me cling to Jesus for dear life, and instead of walk away from him, say with Simon Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:68)

One of Jude's first therapy sessions. Autism has brought us to our knees probably more than anything else.

But for as desperately, miserably hard as those times have been, they have also been the sweetest times of fellowship with and comfort from God that I have ever known, and I look back on them not with regret or pain, but deep fondness and thankfulness to God for drawing me nearer to him through them. Not just for getting me through them, but for bringing me into them in the first place.

Would I have chosen to go through those times? Not a chance. Does it make me uneasy to think about the times he will bring me into and through in the future? A bit. Because if there's one thing I've learned in my 12 years of walking with God, it's that the trials that strengthen our faith and trust in God are like lifting weights--they get harder and heavier each time. But they are so worth it for the sake of a stronger faith in God, knowing and loving him more deeply, and showing his glory more clearly to those around me.

That M.Div. was worth it, but it was not an easy few years.

Think about Elisabeth Elliot, who just passed on to Heaven. Everyone who is familiar with her story looks at her in awe and wishes for just a small measure of her faith in God. But look at everything she suffered in her life, and how she clung to God through them! Our faith is small not because there was anything special about Elisabeth Elliot from a human perspective, but because we shrink away from anything that might be hard or make us uncomfortable or encroach on our American Dream, and by the grace of God she didn't. There is a reason Paul wrote to us in Romans:

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings,
knowing that suffering produces endurance,
and endurance produces character,
and character produces hope,
and hope does not put us to shame,
because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:3-5 ESV, emphasis mine)

We REJOICE in our sufferings!

So I'm learning to lean in to the hard. Not necessarily to go looking for it, but to embrace it when it comes or when God calls us into a path that we know will be hard. Because I don't want a complacent life where I never grow more into the image of Christ. I don't want an easy life that even an unbeliever could live, where God's power, love, comfort, and eternal worth aren't put on display for his glory. I want to know him and make him known through the hard times.

Don't believe the lie that hard things are bad.

If you feel God calling you to do something that will be hard, don't shrink from it. It could be the best thing you've ever done.

And the hard thing you're going through may be really awful right now, but if you hold fast to God, someday you will look back on it with thanulness when you remember the depth of comfort and faith that met you there.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. (Romans 8:18 ESV)

It Must Be Nice to Have a House Helper

noreply@blogger.com (SLHutchens) — Tue, 15 Nov 2022 18:40:00 +0000

The issue of having a house helper is one that causes embarrassment and frustration for many missionaries. It feels extravagant to have a maid, especially if she works full-time, as is the case for many missionaries in developing countries. Some missionaries stalwartly refuse to have house help, and others hide their helper's existence from friends and supporters. Those of us who do share that we have a house helper have inevitably gotten the comment at some point that, "it must be nice," implying that we're living it up on the mission field with our maids and easy lives. And while, yes, it is admittedly pretty nice to not have to clean toilets, there's so much more to understand about why most missionaries have house helpers.

First of all, you have house helpers too, yours just aren't human. Your house helpers are the obvious ones like your dishwashers, clothes dryers, microwaves, and robot vacuums. And they're also less obvious ones, like:

1. Reliable water and electricity that you never have to think about, much less stress about things like collecting rain water to fill toilets, spending what feels like half your life on the phone with the electric company, making sure you don't use certain appliances when you're on solar backup for half of every day, and constantly checking the water tank to see if you have enough water to shower that day.

2. Central heating and air so you don't have to keep your windows open all the time, which leaves your entire house covered in dust and bugs, and living in a generally cleaner environment where the streets are paved and grass holds the dirt in place so your house doesn't get as dirty, dusty, and muddy. My entire house in Malawi has to be swept and mopped every single day, and it is still never clean. I never go outside barefoot, and yet my feet are always dirty just from being barefoot inside the house.

3. Quick, easy meal options, whether that is Chick-fil-A, doordash, or canned spaghetti sauce from the grocery store. Most missionaries live in places with few, if any, fast or convenience food options and cook everything from scratch, which takes a lot of time. House helpers often either help with some of the meal prep and cooking, or their assistance with other household tasks frees up the missionary to do all this cooking.

4. Family, friends, or reliable childcare. Many house helpers of missionaries with small kids also work as a sort of nanny and help with the kids. When there are no other reliable childcare options where you live, this help is invaluable.

5. One-stop shopping that is easy to drive to and is in a language you understand. Some house helpers help with shopping because it is easier for a local to navigate the markets and shops. In the markets, foreigners are often charged what I call the "azungu price," or the foreigner price, because in many cultures it is perfectly normal to charge someone more if you think they are able to pay more. Even if the missionary does their own shopping, it takes much longer and is often more stressful than shopping in your own culture.

6. Generally living in a culture that is your own and doesn't require much thought to navigate. You wouldn't believe the amount of time and mental energy that is consumed just from living every day in a different culture. Traditions, expectations, presuppositions, norms, and taboos are all different from what you know, and can be a minefield to navigate. This gets exhausting.

And while a house helper is often invaluable to relieving much of the stress listed above, they also come with some of their own stresses. Having someone in your house all the time is pretty awkward. Many personality types feel unable to relax in their own home until the helper leaves for the day. And as you can imagine would happen with someone in your house all the time and helping with your kids, house helpers often become part of the family. This is a beautiful thing, but it also means that their struggles become your struggles. Yes, you pay them a good wage, but when a child is sick, an uncle dies, fertilizer needs to be bought, or a roof needs to be replaced, they come to you for help.

You're also an employer, a role that most missionaries have never had experience with before and don't particularly enjoy. You have to deal with them not showing up for work, managing what they're expected to do, having hard conversations when they aren't doing what they should, and all of the things a boss or HR person would usually deal with.

So the next time you hear a missionary mention their house helper and you're tempted to think, "it must be nice," remember that it isn't as simple as it may seem. Do we love our overseas lives and the work we do? Absolutely! Are we complaining about any of it? Not at all. Are we living in luxury with our maids and easy lives? Also not at all.

My Top Books of 2021

noreply@blogger.com (SLHutchens) — Wed, 29 Dec 2021 11:07:00 +0000

I have to admit, this has been a very unimpressive year of book reading for me. In past years, I've read as many as 40-50 books in a year, and this year I only managed 21. I blame it on a combination of a really hard year in multiple ways that left me without much heart to read, and my newfound love of learning Greek on Duolingo. I now spend a good chunk of the time I would have spent reading on Duolingo instead, and I don't think that's a bad thing. I'm really proud of how far I've come with my Greek in the past few months!

I realize that even though this is a low year compared to others, it's still 21 more books per year than I was reading before I decided to resume reading for pleasure a few years ago! And that's still great! Honestly, any reading is better than no reading. I still enjoy doing most of my reading via audiobooks while I'm running, doing laundry, driving, or showering.

I also read to the kids every night at bedtime, alternating between the boys and the girls (Josh does too, so one of us reads in each kids' room each night). I spent almost the entire year reading through The Green Ember series with the boys, and have just recently started a different book that will be on my 2022 list. I read more grown-up books with the girls; this year we covered Fahrenheit 451, The Little Prince, Seabiscuit, and we're about halfway through with a biography of C.S. Lewis. But this year the girls and I have started frequently having "chat nights" instead of reading, so we haven't gotten through as many books together as we have in the past. It's totally worth it, though.

So without further ado, here are my top five books of 2021:

Becoming Elisabeth Elliot by Ellen Vaughn: This is a fantastic biography of a woman I have long admired. What I loved most about it was that it didn't just show her as the perfect missionary woman that most of us think she was, but it also showed her struggles. It was profoundly encouraging to me as a missionary, but would be a great read for anyone.

The Spy and The Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War by Ben Macintyre. This is a true story of a cold war era spy, and it was really hard to put down! I loved it even more knowing that it was all true.

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard. I admit I knew pretty much nothing about President Garfield before reading this book. It was really interesting to learn about him as a person, his presidency, and all of the other well-known people whose lives intersected with his.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. This is one of the most highly recommended books for foster and adoptive parents, and I honestly have no excuse as to why it's taken me this long into adoptive parenting to read it. I was surprised to find that it is really helpful for so much more than just adoptive parents, and the majority of his work has been with war veterans or people who have experience some other kind of trauma. Highly recommend.

Me, Myself, & Bob: A True Story About Dreams, God, and Talking Vegetables by Phil Vischer. I enjoyed this book so much. Our family has been VeggieTales fans for over a decade, and it was fascinating to read this history behind our favorite vegetables. Did you know that Phil was a pioneer in the computer animation field? Phil is also really funny, and I found myself laughing out loud quite a bit.

Honorable mention:

The Green Ember series by S.D. Smith. I'm just including the whole series as one "book." I read this series to the boys at bedtime this year, and they are just so good. Read them with your kids. You will enjoy them as much as your kids will, I promise.

Books I didn't like:

The Oregon Trail by Francis Parkman. It's the actual journals of someone who crossed the Oregon Trail, which I thought I would love, having grown up playing the iconic game in elementary school. But it was honestly just so boring.

That Sounds Fun by Annie F. Downs. I wanted to love this book. We are both enneagram 7's, and I was at a point where I felt like I needed a reminder of how to find the fun in life. If you're familiar with Annie Downs, you probably know that she got famous from hosting a podcast. I just cannot for the life of me understand how this happened, because I found her voice so difficult to listen to that it was honestly really hard for me to persevere with this audiobook. Also each chapter is just some story about a thing that happened to her, and then a lesson that she learned from it. That was interesting for about the first 5 chapters, but after that it started to get redundant and boring.

The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall. This book is well-written and good as fiction books go, but it's about two men who are pastors, and the overall message of the book is just so unfulfilling. I feel like the main takeaway from it is the profound emptiness of liberal "Christianity" (I put it in quotes because, although we call it Christianity, there was no Christ at all, one of the pastors didn't even believe in God). The story lines of infertility and learning to cope with having a severely autistic child obviously hit very close to home for me, and were moving and well-described. And then it ended so abruptly, still feeling so empty from a Christ-less hopeless so-called faith. I am so glad that true Christianity is so much more than how it is described in this book. I'm so thankful for the hope and peace Christ offers us.

Now here's the full list of everything I read this year, organized by category:

Nonfiction - Biography

Becoming Elisabeth Elliot by Ellen Vaughn
Me, Myself, & Bob by Phil Vischer
The Oregon Trail by Francis Parkman
Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard
That Sounds Fun by Annie F. Downs
The Spy and The Traitor by Ben Macintyre
Dolly Parton Songteller by Dolly Parton
Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand
Boone by Robert Morgan

Nonfiction - Other

Brainstorm by Daniel Siegel
The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
The Body Keeps the Score Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D.
The Bible - I read through the Bible this year using a plan on YouVersion called "Reading God's Story: One-Year Chronological Plan."

Fiction - Adult

The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

Fiction - Kids

The Green Ember by S.D. Smith
Ember Falls by S.D. Smith
Ember Rising by S.D. Smith
Ember's End by S.D. Smith
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

My Favorite Books of 2020!

noreply@blogger.com (SLHutchens) — Tue, 14 Sep 2021 11:00:00 +0000

I let life get in the way of writing about my favorite books of 2020 around the new year like I've done for the past few years. But I've been thinking about it, and not only do I love seeing what books other people are reading and enjoying, but I also love having the record of what I've read to look back on. So here we are in September 2021, talking about my favorite books of 2020. Better late than never, right?

You can see from my list that I read through a few series of books in 2020. I finished the Harry Potter books for only the second time in my life, listening to them on Audible this time. The reader is fantastic, and I highly recommend the audio books! I read The Growly Books series to the boys at bedtime, which is a sweet adventure story that was perfect for their ages. And the girls and I read the Wingfeather Saga books together, which we LOVED.

For a few years now, I've tried to be intentional about reading African and African-American authors. In 2020 that included Alan Paton, Lecrae, Layla F. Saad, Jemar Tisby, and Solomon Northup.

This was a REALLY difficult year to pick a top five, and I only have two least favorites this time. I read a lot of really good books this year!

Now on to my top five:

Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton

Educated by Tara Westover

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell

12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

And my least favorite:

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs

Here's the whole list by genre:

*A star means it is an honorable mention and really, really good.

Fiction- Children:

North or Be Eaten by Andrew Peterson*
The Monster in the Hollows by Andrew Peterson*
The Warden and the Wolf King by Andrew Peterson*
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling*
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling*
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by JK Rowling*
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling*
The Growly Books: Widewater by Philip & Erin Ulrich
The Growly Books: Morning by Philip & Erin Ulrich
The Growly Books: Haven by Philip & Erin Ulrich
The Battle for Castle Cockatrice by Gerald Durrell

Fiction- Adult:

Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens*
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens*
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte*
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Nonfiction- Biography:

Unashamed by Lecrae*
Call the Midwife by Jenifer Worth*
The Real Sherlock by Lucinda Hawksley
Educated by Tara Westover*
12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

Nonfiction- History

Caffeine by Michael Pollan

The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson*

The Lion in the Living Room by Abigail Tucker*

The Color of Compromise by Jemar Tisby*

Stories From Wales by Gwyn Jones

Nonfiction- Christian

Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren
The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning
The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs
Old Story New by Marty Machowski
The Bible, Biblical Storyline Reading Plan by BibleProject on Youversion app

Nonfiction- Other

Love Me, Feed Me by Dr. Katja Rowell
A Disease Called Fatigue by Dr. Cecile Jadin
Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad

Please let me know what your recent favorites have been, I'm always looking for new good books to read!

If you want more lists, you can also check out:

My 2019 Book List

My Kids' 2018 Book Lists

My 2018 Book List

My Kids' 2017 Book Lists

My Girls' 2016 Book Lists

My Girls' 2015 Book Lists

I didn't have the kids do their list the last two years, but I love hearing about their favorite books each year, so I hope to remember to make that happen for 2021.

My Top Books of 2019

noreply@blogger.com (SLHutchens) — Wed, 01 Jan 2020 12:12:00 +0000

Fifty-five books! Wow! Last year was my first year reading again after decades of not making time, and I read 40. This year I hit 55! I don’t set goals, that usually stresses me out and makes me want to run away from reading. I just read what and when I want.

What I Read
For 2019, I continued (and solidified my love of) reading a lot classics. I’m enjoying both adult classics and reading children’s classics to the kids at bedtime. There is a reason that most classics are classics, and it’s because they’re really, really good (with a few exceptions). As I’ve written in one of my “didn’t like” reviews, I can really feel that reading so much truly good literature has refined my tastes so that I don’t care for mediocre stuff. And really, life’s too short to read mediocre writing when there are so many amazing books out there.

I’ve also continued to look for books by African or African American authors. The Beautiful Struggle, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, The Last Resort, Becoming, Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree, and The Warmth of Other Suns were all by such authors.

I also LOVE biographies and autobiographies.

When I Read
I get asked often how I make time for reading. I do most of my reading with Audible while I’m doing laundry, gardening, driving alone, showering, or any other chance I get. I love listening to books when I'm occupied with an easy task where my mind would be otherwise fairly idle. I mostly read Kindle books on my phone when I’m somewhere with my phone and want to do something more productive than scrolling Instagram, like waiting in line at the grocery store, bank, etc. And I read physical books mostly during afternoon rest time or in the evenings.

Let's cut to the chase! Here are my top 5 books of 2019, followed by 5 I didn't like:

Top Five
#1. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Unlike a lot of people, I was never made to read this book in high school or college. I only knew that it was a classic, and in my drive to read more classics, pulled it off the shelf. Josh, who did read it in high school, warned me that I wouldn’t like it. As I read, I would comment how much I was enjoying it, and he would say, “Don’t worry, you won’t by the end.” But I got to the end and loved every moment of it! Steinbeck is a masterful writer. Even the end (which if you’ve read it, you understand) is a bit odd but I thought so redemptive for her.

#2. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
This was possibly the most emotionally engaging book I’ve ever read. The whole book kept me spellbound and emotionally on-edge, and it left me completely undone at the end. On top of that, as with The Grapes of Wrath, I learned a viewpoint from history that I hadn’t previously considered.

#3. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
I listened to this one on Audible, and really loved it. It took a chapter or two for my ears to adjust to Dickens’s style, which I can only describe as a delectable treat for the ears. I’ve really loved all the Dickens books Ive read.

#4. The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
I feel like this book should be required reading for parents of tweens/teens, educators from middle school through college, and late high school/college students.

#5. The Last Resort by Douglas Rogers
I don’t even remember how I came across this book, but it is written by a white Zimbabwean who grew up there and his parents still live there. The destruction that Mugabe caused to his own country as president is devastating, and Rogers is an excellent writer who captured the ups and downs of life as a white Zimbabwean under Mugabe’s regime through the lens of his parents’ backpackers lodge. I couldn’t put it down.

Five I Didn’t Like
#5. Farming Grace by Paula Scott
I got this for free or cheap on kindle and thought it looked worth a try. It is one woman’s true testimony of coming to adulthood and then to faith, and how God saved her, her husband, and their marriage over the course of several years. It’s a great story of lives drastically changed by the Gospel, and there aren’t glaring grammatical issues or anything, but it just isn’t great writing. It reads more like a blog than a novel. I feel a bit bad putting this one on my “didn’t like” list, cause it honestly isn’t terrible, but every time I thought about books I didn’t care for this year, this one came to mind.

#4. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
It feels a bit like heresy to put this one on my “didn’t like” list, but I have to be honest. I just really didn’t care for The Hobbit. I’m told the Lord of the Rings books are better than this one, but after reading it, I don’t have much of a taste in my mouth for more Tolkien.

#3. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
Have I ever read a more boring, didactic book in my life? I can’t remember one. This is another one I read to the girls, and we didn’t enjoy it at all. The girls and I had a few duds this year. It’s one long sermon about why people should treat horses better, which I guess I can see the need for back in its day when horses were used for transportation and farming, but have mercy. This was so boring.

#2. The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting
The idea of a doctor who can talk to animals seemed right up my girls’ alley, and the 90’s Eddie Murphy movie Doctor Dolittle was so cute, that the girls and I thought we’d enjoy this one. Wrong. It was terrible, and worst of all racist. The author even used two particularly terrible racist words that I had to stop and explain that they were very not ok words.

#1. The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart
The only book this year that was so bad that I deliberately stopped reading about 2/3 of the way through. This is a new tween/teen book that gets glowing Amazon reviews, so I decided to read it with the girls at bedtime. First of all, I hate kids books that are written in first person in an “authentic voice” that’s full of incorrect grammar. I believe that an important part of reading is for kids to learn good writing and grammar, and books like this just reinforce what is incorrect. Second, it's just booooooring. Third, the whole premise of the book is that Coyote, a teen, thinks she's smarter and knows better than her dad and so she’s justified in lying to him multiple times. (Granted, most teens probably think this, but they don't need books to reinforce the idea.) The first lie never got so much as a, "you shouldn't have lied to me," from her dad, so I strongly doubt the second big one did either. Her dad doesn't actually parent her at all. She makes a lot of really stupid choices because she’s supposedly so street smart, which her dad of course never corrects, and I would actually have to stop reading and explain to my girls why things she did were terrible ideas and dangerous things to do. The last straw for us was when they picked up a runaway girl who had gotten kicked out of her parents’ home for being gay, and Coyote muses about how it doesn't matter who you love.

The Full List by Genre
I kind of want to say a little something about each of these, since most of them feel like good friends that I spent a lot of time with over the past year. But for the sake of brevity, I'll just give a list.
Orange font = I listened to it on Audible
* = Strong contenders for Top 5, it was a tough call to narrow it down to just 5

Fiction- Adult Classics

Emma by Jane Austen
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte*
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens*

Fiction- Children’s Classics

The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis
The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis
The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis
The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle
The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Fiction- Historical

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

Fiction- Other

The Eagle Tree by Ned Hayes*
The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart
On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness by Andrew Peterson
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
The Growly Books: Begin by Philip and Erin Ulrich

Nonfiction- Self Help

The Road Back to You by Ian Morgan Cron*
The Parent’s Roadmap to Autism by Dr. Emily Gutierrez and Jana Roso
How to Think by Alan Jacobs*
The Yes Brain by Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson
African Friends and Money Matters by David Maranz
The Gospel and Personal Evangelism by Mark Dever
The Symphony of Reflexes by Bonnie Brandes
The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
Something Needs to Change by David Platt
The Back Door to Your Teen’s Heart by Melissa Trevathan and Sissy Goff
The Common Rule by Justin Whitmel Earley

Nonfiction- Biography/Autobiography

The Beautiful Struggle by Ta-Nehisi Coates
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba
Letters from Amelia by Jean Backus
The Last Resort by Douglas Rogers
Notorious RBG by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik
Becoming by Michelle Obama*
C.S. Lewis: A Life by Alister McGrath
Saint Joan of Ark: A Life Inspired by Wyatt North
My Lost Family by Danny Ben-Moshe
Farming Grace by Paula Scott

Nonfiction- History

These Truths by Jill Lepore
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick

Nonfiction- Poetry

Winter Hours by Mary Oliver

Stacy Leigh's 2018 Book List!

noreply@blogger.com (SLHutchens) — Fri, 28 Dec 2018 18:05:00 +0000

40 books!! I can’t tell you how excited I am to actually have a list of 40 books that I read this year! (If Josh's dissertation counts, then 41, because I read and edited that whole 200+ page beast this year, too.) I was a voracious reader as a kid, but as I got older school and life kind of killed my love of reading. I do remember getting absorbed in a great book here and there over the years, but it wasn’t in any way consistent.

Last fall, I attended a Wild + Free homeschool conference (which I HIGHLY recommend to my homeschooling friends), and was challenged there to read classic literature for myself. It’s been amazing. I mean, of course they're going to be good--classics are classics for a reason, right? (One BIG exception being my least favorite book of the year, which I discuss below.) My reading picked up even more when we moved to Malawi in July, because here we have limited internet and a house helper who does all of my cleaning (so I actually have some down time).

Moving to Africa this year, I also wanted to intentionally read more African and African-American literature. Homegoing, The Woman Next Door, Swing, A Mighty Long Way, and Born a Crime all fit into this category. King Leopold’s Ghost, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Daring Heart of David Livingstone, and Fear on Every Side, although not written by black authors, also deal with the history of Africans and African-Americans. I’m eager to continue learning more about this great continent where I am a guest, and the people from here, in 2019.

Josh and I have for several years read at night to the kids before bed. We take turns reading to the boys and girls every other night, so we both always have a different book going with each room. We’ve been intentional about reading mostly classic children’s literature to them, and it has been fun for me to experience these books with them, especially since I didn’t read most of them as a kid myself.

I’ve read the suggestion several times that one should always have at least 3 books that you are reading at the same time, but that just doesn’t work well for me… at least not in the conventional sense of having 3+ physical books stacked up on my nightstand or end table.

I have, however, realized that I generally do have 5 books going at the same time, but they are all in different ways. I always have an Audible audiobook that I listen to as I drive, fold laundry, or do other things where my hands are occupied but my mind is less so. I was generously given a gently used Kindle just before we moved here, and I like to always have a book going on it, generally out in the living room. I keep a physical book by the bed for reading in the evenings, and, as I said earlier, I always have a book that I’m reading with the boys and one with the girls. I hope that helps someone who may be struggling with how to read multiple books at a time.

I debated for a long time how to share the books I’ve read this year. Should I just do a top 5? Should I say something about each of them? Should I categorize them by genre, in order of how much I liked them, or some other way? I decided I would share a bit about my top 5, and then give a list of books categorized by how I read them. I hope you enjoy.

#1. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Hands-down my favorite book of the year. If you’ve never read it, it isn’t anything like you expect. It was a gripping warning about taking science too far in our own arrogance, which is perhaps even more applicable today than ever.

#2. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

I listened to this one on Audible, and could NOT stop. It was incredible. I’ve heard that the way the characters’ accents are written can make reading it difficult, but listening to it was fantastic.

#3. Are My Kids on Track by Sissy Goff

It is impossible for me to exaggerate how helpful this book was for parenting. It walks parents through the emotional, social, and spiritual milestones that all kids need to reach in order to be healthy, well-functioning adults, and how to help them reach them. This is a book I will turn to again and again as the kids grow, and one I highly recommend having a physical copy of for easy reference.

#4. A Mighty Long Way: My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School by Carlotta Walls LaNier

I picked this up on a whim at the gift shop of Little Rock Central High School when we stopped there this summer, and I am so glad I did. I think many of us who grew up in predominately white communities have a lot of gaps in our education and understanding of the civil rights movement. I had never heard of what happened at Little Rock Central High School, but I’m so thankful that Josh insisted we stop when passing through Little Rock. The book is not only educational and eye-opening, but it is well-written and hard to put down.

#5. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling

Come on, it’s Harry Potter. The girls and I spent 2 years reading through the whole series at bedtime, and loved every minute of it. We really, really struggled to pick a new book when we finished this, and halfway considered just starting the series over from the beginning again.

And here are a few I didn’t care for:

#3. Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

I’m sorry to all of the LIW fans, but I read this book to the boys and could hardly stand it (although JJ seemed to enjoy it, so it was worth it). The lengthy descriptions of how things were done or made dragged on forever and were so boring. We persevered with the series into Farmer Boy, and thankfully it was much more enjoyable.

#2. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

This is a WWII story that has a lot of interesting elements, but it was just sloooowww. It doesn’t help that I accidentally had my Audible set to half speed for the first half of the book. Even so, the plot moved slowly and resolved unsatisfactorily.

#1. Lord of the Flies by William Golding

I blame Josh for this one. He said he read it in high school, but didn’t remember much about it except that a plane full of boys crashes on a deserted island and they have adventures. I knew it was a classic, and thought it sounded like a fun read with the girls. I have never hated a book so much in my life, and probably wouldn’t have finished it if I hadn’t been reading it aloud to the girls. I get that it was an illustration of the darkness of human nature, but it was horrifying to read. And it bothered me that it never told where the boys were originally coming from or going to or how it was possible that ALL the adults were killed in the crash but none of the kids.

Here’s the whole list:

Audible

(I specify the reader on these because sometimes there are multiple versions, and the reader can really make or break a book.)

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, read by Anne Hathaway

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, read by Rosamund Pike

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, read by Simon Prebble

Give Them Grace by Elise Fitzpatrick, read by Tavia Gilbert

Hands Free Mama by Rachel Macy Stafford, read by Jaimee Draper

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, read by Dominic Hoffman

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, read by Zach Appelman

King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild, read by Geoffrey Howard

The Tech-Wise Family by Andy Crouch, read by the author

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, read by Mary Sarah

Crossing the Borders of Time by Leslie Maitland, read by the author

Kindle

(A great resource for finding good deals on kindle books is BookBub.com's daily deals emails. You tell it which literary categories you are interested in, and it only sends you suggestions from your categories.)
The Last Midwife by Sandra Dallas

Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn

Finding Home: Third Culture Kids in the World by Rachel Pieh Jones

Swing by Alexander Kwame

Jesus, My Father, The CIA, and Me by Ian Morgan Cron

Physical Book

Fear on Every Side by Jonathan Newell (bought here in Malawi and isn't on Amazon)

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Born A Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

The Memory of Old Jack by Wendell Berry

The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso

A Mighty Long Way: My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School by Carlotta Walls LaNier

The Daring Heart of David Livingstone by Jay Milbrandt

Are My Kids on Track? by Sissy Goff

The Mother-Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick

The Autism Revolution by Martha Herbert

Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling by John Muir Laws

Read to Kids

Peter Pan by JM Barrie

Matilda by Roald Dahl

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

The Happy Hollisters #1 by Jerry West

Long Story Short by Marty Machowski

Heidi by Johanna Spyri

Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Hidden in My Heart: A TCK’s Journey Through Cultural Transition by Taylor Murray

Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne

Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling

The BFG by Roald Dahl

My First Stitch Fix

noreply@blogger.com (SLHutchens) — Mon, 20 Nov 2017 00:40:00 +0000

My mom will attest to the fact that I do NOT enjoy shopping for clothes for myself. I get tired, grumpy, overwhelmed, and frustrated very quickly, and almost always end up leaving empty-handed.

I have a pretty solid idea of styles that I don't like, but am bad at finding things that I actually do like. This leads me to always gravitate toward the same things-- solid colored tees and cardigans. But a wardrobe cannot survive on solid colored tees and cardigans alone.

To add to how bad I am at shopping, I have 5 kids, a Ph.D. dissertation-writing husband, and a busy schedule. Even if I wanted to go shopping, when would I??

Out with my mom, who loves shopping. I'm smiling because we were eating instead of shopping.
Also because we were together. :)

My closet is simple and sparse by American standards (I completely acknowledge my first-world perspective here), and as the temperatures have cooled off I've found that I could really use just a few new well-selected pieces to get me through the fall, winter, and spring.

So after a year or more of hearing about Stitch Fix here and there, I finally convinced myself (and, more surprisingly, my husband) that it was worth it to try a couple of times. Even though I chose the lowest price range (yes, price range is an option), I knew it would be more per piece than I'm used to spending on the Old Navy and Target clearance racks, but we both agreed that it was worth it to save me the time and frustration of actually having to GO shopping and try to pick out clothes myself.

If you haven't heard of Stitch Fix, you tell them your sizes and all about what you like and don't like, and a real person picks out 5 pieces of clothing to send to you to try on. If you like it, you keep it. If you don't like it, you send it back. There's a $20 styling fee each time, but it applies toward anything you buy, so it's basically a free service.

I filled out a style profile on their website, created a pinterest board to show my stylist what I did and didn't like, ordered my fix, and waited, feeling equal parts excited and apprehensive about whether or not I would actually like anything they sent.

To my delight, I loved everything she sent!! I think the pinterest board and the comments I made there really helped her get a sense of what I would like, and I could tell from her note that she had really read them.

The first thing I got was a super cute polka dot dress. It was more flattering in person than this picture does justice to. In fact, the first thing Josh said when I came out in it was, "That is INCREDIBLY flattering." Unfortunately I wasn't a huge fan of the sweetheart neckline, so back it went.

Second, I got this great 3/4 sleeve top with a fun floral print on the back. It was definitely a keeper!

This is the front of the same shirt, but I'll use this pic to mention the sweet jeans she sent. They were short enough for me without having to roll them up! They were so soft and looked amazing on me. Or in my husband's words, a little TOO amazing. They fit great in the waist and hips, but were (intentionally) so tight in the butt and legs that they were not quite modest enough for me. So sad. I'm hopeful that my next box will have the perfect pair of jeans in it, because I could really use some.

This sleeveless top was so cute, and flowy. I really loved it, but sent it back because I had to wear a tank under it, and I don't like having to layer in the heat of the summer.

Lastly was this soft, beautiful, jewel-toned cardigan that paired perfectly with every single other piece she sent. I absolutely would have kept it if the sleeves hadn't been too long for my midget arms.

So even though I only wound up keeping one piece from my first fix, I am just delighted with it overall because I feel like she really got me. And I didn't even have to leave my house! And when you send things back, you can go online and make notes about why they didn't work for you, so your stylist learns more about your preferences the longer you continue to get fixes.

I hesitated to share this, and have sat on the idea of posting it for a few weeks, but ultimately decided to share it because I've mentioned it to a few friends who also loved the idea of a personal stylist and not having to leave home to shop.

If you'd like to try Stitch Fix, you can waive the styling fee on your first fix (so if you don't like anything, you can send it all back and not be out anything) by clicking on these green words right here. If you do choose to try it and use my link, I get a little bit of a referral credit, and you can think of it as an easy way of supporting one of your favorite missionaries. :)

Our Last Day

noreply@blogger.com (SLHutchens) — Sat, 13 May 2017 00:13:00 +0000

Today was our last day in our home of four years.

Our home where we have
added four children to our family,
celebrated birthdays,
started a tradition of having a family slumber party in the living room on New Year's Eve,
grieved a lost baby,
put countless hours of love into the landscaping where there once was none,
bandaged boo-boos,
made so many sweet friends,
had five pets (Charles and Hippopotamus have since found other families, and Dinah went to kitty heaven, but we still have old Calvin and Molly Brown),
worked through trauma,
caught fireflies,
fought,
stayed up late canning jams and tomato sauce,
painted a whole wall with chalkboard paint,
read the first five Harry Potter books,
almost lost Jude a few times when he got out of the yard or window,
rode bikes and had family fun runs around the parking lot,
worshipped together,
watched our kids grow by the foot and blossom into awesome little people,
and so much more.

Josh summed it up well this morning with this meme:

We are equally excited about the next steps that God is leading us to take, and deeply grieving the loss of our church, friends, and home here. I'm trying to teach our kids that it's okay to hold both of those things in our hands at the same time, that feeling one doesn't mean we aren't allowed to feel the other. And I'm trying to remind myself of the same thing.

Please pray for us tomorrow as we move and settle into a new home and life.

Pastor Appreciation Month

noreply@blogger.com (SLHutchens) — Sun, 30 Oct 2016 16:10:00 +0000

I'm sitting in my living room on the last Sunday morning of October. I've been sick all week, and although I'm hopefully on the mend now, I'm still not feeling well enough to get myself and 5 kids ready for church plus wrangle them all in the pew for an hour.

So instead of being in church, I'm sitting here thinking about the man across the parking lot who is at this moment about to preach his heart out to a church full of people whom he loves dearly.

Most people will never see the inside view of the lives of pastors, but I do. At least this one. And he is the most hardworking, self-disciplined person I have ever met. He pours his life out for his family, his church, and his studies without ever expecting praise or notice. He works so hard for the church and his Ph.D studies, and somehow still manages to be more involved at home than I think is common.

He is meek and humble in ways that my strong-willed personality struggles to comprehend.

Shaving his head at the end of VBS, because the kids met the missions goal.

He loves the world and the gospel, and constantly strives to lead our church and our family toward ways that we can reach out both in our community, our country, and our world.

He is not perfect, of course, but he is still pretty darn great. I'm so thankful that I get to sit under the teaching and pastoral care of my own dear husband. And I just felt inclined to let him know, on this last Sunday of Pastor Appreciation Month, how much he is appreciated... at least by the frazzled lady who is usually in the second row with all of those crazy kids.

Malawi Famine Relief

noreply@blogger.com (SLHutchens) — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 18:37:00 +0000

$20 is pocket change for most of us in middle class America. I know that my family spends more than that on one fast food meal.

But for a family in Malawi, $20 per month for the next year will mean the difference between living and dying.

Droughts and floods have combined in the past year to completely devastate crops in the southern region of Malawi, and the people are already beginning to go hungry. Most people in the villages are subsistence farmers who only eat what they can grow, and some may grow a little extra to sell at the market. But if the crops don't grow, they have neither food nor money to buy food.

A man stands in his corn field that hasn't produced any ears of corn this year because of the drought.

Eric and Stephanie Chapman are our friends and missionaries in Malawi. They work with around 200 village churches to spread the gospel and train church leaders. Eric has been visiting villages lately, and he has seen that the people are already looking thinner and more sickly because of food shortages.

In one village he visited they were eating wild grass, and in another they were eating a bitter root that has to be cooked 3 times to get the poison out of it or else it will kill them. But the people are starving and desperate. Without relief, many Malawians will die in the coming year, especially children and the elderly.

A bowl of the wild grass that some have gathered to eat. But the grass won't last long now that the rainy season is over.

Eric has been praying and talking to people, and he has developed a plan to buy and distribute corn to the believers in the village churches through the pastors. This is dangerous work, as riots and even murders are not uncommon over food during times of famine. But as he put it in his last newsletter, "how can I turn a blind eye to such a need?"

I'm challenging you to give $20 a month for a year, which will help a family of four in Malawi make it through this next year of famine.

Many of us can afford to part with more than $20 per month and help multiple families. Please prayerfully consider making this small sacrifice so that others could live.

To give, please follow this link to the donate page of Eric & Stephanie's website, EurAsian Baptist Mission. Toward the bottom you will see options for designating your donation, and you'll fill in your donation amount beside "for African Hunger." You can choose to give a one-time gift or a monthly donation from your bank account or credit card.

If you're more old school and would prefer to send a check, you can send it to:
EurAsian Baptist Mission
6847 N. 9th Ave., Suite A #332
Pensacola, FL 32504

EurAsian Baptist Mission is a non-profit organization registered with the state of Florida as a 501(c)3. All gifts are tax deductible, and givers will be sent a receipt by mail or email to be used for tax purposes.

One-time gifts are of course welcome and very helpful, but remember that this is a need that is going to last until the next harvest in April 2017, and a monthly donation of $20 or more is what is most needed.

"What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and filled,' without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?" (James 2:14-16 ESV)

Beginning Running When You're Really Out of Shape

noreply@blogger.com (SLHutchens) — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 17:57:00 +0000

Let me just give a little disclaimer at the beginning of this: I know I don't look really out of shape; I'm a pretty healthy weight. But that doesn't mean I'm in good shape, it just means that I was blessed with a good metabolism. Also, I'm clearly not a medical professional, and this is not medical advice.

My husband decided to start running, and went out and ran a mile non-stop on the first day. One of my best friends runs marathons. If you're like either of them, you can just click on to something else. This is for those of us who struggle.

When I first decided I wanted to start running, I thought a couch to 5k program sounded perfect. I downloaded the free Runkeeper app and took off. But this is how out of shape I was: even it was way too hard for me. Talk about discouraging!

So I made up my own program, and slowly but surely I am improving. On my run this morning, I wrote this post in my head to hopefully encourage others who want to start running, but are really out of shape. Here is what is working for me:

I got the Runkeeper app and just started doing what they call free runs. It shows you your time and distance and a few other fun things as you run. I started out doing a mile, running for 30 seconds and then walking for 1.5 minutes. And that was really hard for me! I'm serious! Do whatever interval pushes you just enough that you feel challenged, but not so much that you can't sustain it.
Once I was doing that okay, I kept at the same interval, but increased to 2 miles.
Once I was doing that okay, I have kept at 2 miles and worked on my speed. I upped to running 1 minute and walking 1.5 minutes, then running 1 minute and walking 1 minute, then running 1.5 minutes and walking 1 minute, and so on. As of this writing, I've recently started running 2 minutes and walking 30 seconds, and it feels so great! It's been fun to stay at the same distance and work on speed, because Runkeeper tells you when you set a new personal record. Boy is that satisfying.
At some point, I will increase my distance, too. I haven't decided when I want to do that.

A comparison of my first ever run that I tracked with Runkeeper (top) vs this morning's run (bottom, the grey markers are where I had to pause several times to stop for traffic because it's just a little backroad). It's so fun to see my min/mi go down, down, down, and it motivates me to push myself!

That's probably really basic, but hopefully it will encourage someone. Here are a couple of other things that have really made a difference for me:

I have a great running partner. Running with my dog, Molly Brown, not only motivates me to get out of the house for her sake, but she is so excited when we go running that she keeps my pace significantly faster than I would run and walk on my own. She is fantastic on a leash and literally drags me along when I am struggling (in a good way). Something about running with her just makes me happy.

Running (actually I was on a walking interval when I snapped this) with Molly Brown.

I run on a scenic road. I think running anywhere that isn't a track or treadmill is much easier and more interesting, even with all the hills on my road. We got a treadmill last winter and use it when the weather is inclement, but it is SO much harder to go the same distance and pace on it than it is on the road where I have things to look at and distract me from what I'm doing.

There was a time in my life when my knees hurt so bad from arthritis that I couldn't have dreamed of running. I could hardly walk up stairs when the weather was just right. But I went gluten-free several years ago for other reasons, and one happy side effect of that is that I do not have ANY arthritis anymore. Seriously. None. If arthritis is an issue for you, please consider a gluten-free diet. Even if you aren't medically allergic or sensitive to gluten, it has been proven to cause inflammation in your body. It has been honest-to-goodness life-changing for me.

A beautiful foggy morning on the road where Molly Brown and I run.

So those are my tips from a reformed not-runner! If you are a seasoned runner and actually read this, then after you pick yourself up off the floor from laughing at how out of shape I am, please share any tips you may have for newbies, too!

Update: In case someone stumbles upon this post, I feel obliged to let you know that it turns out I wasn't just really out of shape, I had exercise-induced asthma. Cue the face palm. I didn't know it wasn't normal for your lungs to feel like they were on fire when you ran. I started taking an over-the-counter Bronkaid pill about 15 minutes before running, and I was amazed by how much I could actually run! Added bonus: I also started actually enjoying hiking with my family!

9 Years Ago

noreply@blogger.com (SLHutchens) — Thu, 21 May 2015 00:28:00 +0000

9 years ago. He was so young and skinny and shaky and unsure of himself in so many ways. But what won my heart then, and has continued to win me anew every day, was his deep, unwavering commitment to the Lord and to me. Saying yes to him was the second best decision I've ever made (second to saying yes to Jesus, of course).

For our anniversary today, we at least got to get dressed up... to go to court with our three new children. No, it wasn't an exciting court date like finally adopting them, it was just a routine 6 month check-up of sorts with the judge. After lunch, we had homemade cappuccinos, cuddled on the couch, watched an Anthony Bourdain episode from Tanzania, and dreamed of going there for maybe our 20th anniversary. Josh did finally go to his office to work for a few hours, and I played with Jude for a while (while the little two were napping and the oldest was at school) and then finally planted our little garden. Josh made bacon and egg wraps for dinner while I finished up the garden, because I'd forgotten to get any meat out of the freezer to thaw.

In most ways, it wasn't a terribly special day, but (and I know this is totally cheesy and cliche, but it's absolutely true) every day that I get to spend with this husband of mine is a special day. I could not be more thankful for him and the 9 difficult and wonderful years that God has given us together.

Two Years

noreply@blogger.com (SLHutchens) — Mon, 23 Mar 2015 12:46:00 +0000

Two years. Wow. We've lived in this house for two years.

Okay, I know that for most people two years doesn't sound like very long at all. But this is us, we're talking about here. And this is the longest we've lived anywhere in almost nine years of marriage. What? Normal people don't move that often?

In celebration of actually staying put for two whole years, let's take a walk down memory lane and look at all of the places we've lived in the last nine years:

May 2006 - December 2006

One Bedroom Land in Murray, Kentucky

Our first apartment! (If you're familiar with Murray, you probably know of one-bedroom land: a little neighborhood of one-bedroom apartments.) The neighbors' cigarette smoke came through the walls into our closet and made all of our clothes stink, and the dining/office/living room was all one tiny space, but it was our first apartment! We got married, I finished my Bachelor's at Murray State, and then we moved to:

December 2006 - April 2007

Crescent Hill Neighborhood in Louisville, Kentucky

An old house that had been converted into four apartments, this one-bedroom was quirky and drafty and honest-to-goodness had one foot of counter space in the kitchen, but we loved it. Louisville felt so big and lonely, especially on Sundays, but we learned to cling to the Lord and to one another. I had a brief stint as a car salesman, and then Josh was called as pastor of Elk Lick Baptist Church in Owenton, so we moved to:

April 2007 - October 2007

Owenton, Kentucky

We'd planned on buying a house here and putting down roots, but when that fell through, we landed in a steal of a two-bedroom duplex (the apartments were on the second floor), with a wonderful old couple as our neighbors and landlords. Then out of nowhere I was asked to apply for a position at Crossings Ministries in Louisville, which was not only my dream place to work but would also pay a lot more than I was currently making, so I did and we wound up moving back to:

October 2007 - May 2009

Clifton Heights Neighborhood in Louisville, Kentucky

We had the sweetest two-bedroom apartment here, and we loved it so, so very much. This is the apartment where we lived when Jude was born. We drove out to Owenton every Sunday until Josh graduated from Boyce and God called us to move to Moldova for two years as missionaries, so we packed up and moved to:

May 2009 - September 2009

Our Parents' Houses in western Kentucky

(I don't have pictures of our parent's houses, so here's Jude snoozing on my parents' front porch.) We moved back and forth between our parents' houses roughly every two weeks, soaking up as much quality time with our loved ones as possible until the day finally came that we left for:

September 2009 - December 2009

Camp Apartment in Vatici, Moldova

Tucked into the back of the second floor of this building that housed all of the students, it was a welcome and delightful 220 square feet of privacy and autonomy after living out of childhood bedrooms for the last 3 months. There were so many little annoyances about living there (the boys outside our door would wake up Jude during his nap, we rarely had hot water, and the winter brought a constant battle with mold, for starters), but in spite of them all, my heart only wells up with fondness and happy memories when I remember that tiny place. But we didn't get green cards at first, which meant that after 3 months we had to leave the country for 3 months, so off we went back to:

December 2009 - March 2010

Our Parents' Houses in western Kentucky

(Again, no pictures of the outside, so here's Jude and Crider with a baby goat that Mammie brought in the house.) Same as above. These seasons of living with our parents were so hard for me, but it was great to get to spend Jude's first Christmas and birthday with everyone. Finally it was time to move back to:

March 2010 - May 2010

Camp Apartment in Vatici, Moldova

(In the kitchen of the apartment. There's Jude's dresser in the hall.) Same as above. Spring at camp was glorious, and then a family we worked with asked us if we would house and dog sit for them for 8 months while they were in America, so we packed up and moved to:

May 2010 - February 2011

Herndons' House in Orhei, Moldova

Talk about stretching our legs! This was a huge, two-story, six-bedroom house with a walled-in yard. It was wonderful, especially in the winter! A huge kitchen! Fast internet! We loved it. We had a love-hate relationship with their dogs, Peanut and Heidy, but it was slightly more love than hate. But alas, they finally came back and we had to move back to:

February 2011 - June 2011

Camp Apartment In Vatici, Moldova

(Our bedroom could barely fit a full-sized bed, a twin mattress in the floor, and a dresser. The foot of the bed actually stuck out into the doorway a little.) I still only have heart eyes for this little apartment, but after being used to the Herndons' house, moving back here felt more cramped than cozy, especially with Jude getting so much bigger and more active. It was indescribably bittersweet to then move back to America to:

June 2011 - July 2011

Our Parents' Houses in western Kentucky
Good and crazy time catching up, reacclimating, and apartment hunting. We finally found a great place in:

July 2011 - March 2013

Village Manor in Louisville, Kentucky
We settled into a two-bedroom unit in a huge apartment complex near the seminary. We had so many friends there, lots of grassy space for Jude to play, and a large fenced-in playground. By God's mercy, we had a downstairs apartment without anyone living above us for almost the whole time we lived there. The last few months with night-owl, party-animal upstairs neighbors were pretty awful, though. This was such a sweet and hard time for us. After 18 months there, God called Josh to Mt. Tabor Baptist Church, and we moved to:

March 2013 - Present

The Parsonage in Buffalo, Kentucky

Three bedrooms, 1.5 baths, a huge dining room that used to be a car port, and a two-car attached garage. It's practically a castle compared to most of the places we've lived. We could not be more thankful to God for bringing us to this church and this home! This is what it looked like when we moved in. It looks so different now! I wanted to get a "now" picture, but that will have to wait because I'm down with the flu right now.

Our Experience with HBOT & Autism

noreply@blogger.com (SLHutchens) — Wed, 04 Mar 2015 10:39:00 +0000

I know that there are many friends and family members who are eager to hear about our experience with our 30-day hyperbaric chamber rental. Let me start by saying that we are very, very thankful for the opportunity to rent the hyperbaric chamber (hereafter shortened to HBOT, for HyperBaric Oxygen Therapy), and for our generous families for making that possible.

When you start a new intervention that's supposed to help autism, everybody recommends that you only try one thing at a time, so you'll know if it works. While that does make sense, I also feel a sense of urgency to do whatever I can for Jude as soon as I can. So, I'm going to talk a little about all of the things we've been doing lately.

You have to wear an oxygen mask in there to get the benefits from it, which surprised us when it was delivered and set up. Jude hated the mask, so we did all of his sessions at nap and bedtime so I could slip it on once he was asleep.

About the same time we started HBOT, I also started him back on liquid Super Nu Thera. SNT is a multivitamin that has extremely high doses of B-vitamins. Jude takes the one that has the added P-5-P and doesn't have any A or D vitamins in it, since he gets those in his cod liver oil. We saw positive changes in Jude when we tried SNT over the winter, but honestly, it's really gross tasting, he hates it, and I got weary of the daily battle, so I stopped it. After having him back on it for a few weeks, and missing a couple of days here and there for various reasons, I can definitively say that SNT makes the most notable difference in him. Days when he doesn't get it (and especially the second day), he is so much less aware of what's going on around him. Sometimes I give him an extra half-dose in the afternoons and the next day his cognition is even better.

He also started taking a Carlson Cod Liver Oil every day. This was a total accident. He has some kids' fish oil pill that he loves because they are strawberry flavored, and the CLO pills are for me. One day he grabbed one of my CLO pills and gobbled it right up. Since these have more good stuff in them than what he was taking, I happily let him keep taking one every day. We don't see a change in him with CLO, but it is good for everyone to take, so he would be getting it regardless.

About halfway through our HBOT time, we also started him on Fivelac, a second probiotic, as a one-two punch to the yeast overgrowth in his gut. We saw a very mild die-off reaction from the Fivelac (mostly in his diaper), and then some small improvements in his sociability, but it's hard to say which intervention really caused the improvements.

He takes a chewable CoQ10 every morning, and we've also seen a decline in his cognition when he doesn't take it. Not as dramatic as the SNT, but still noticeable. He's been taking CoQ10 for several months, long before we started the HBOT.

Before bed, he takes melatonin to help him get sleepy, two BioKult probiotics opened and mixed into a spoonful of honey, and some liquid Calcium & Magnesium. I take this Cal/Mag, too, since we're both dairy-free, and it's my favorite kind I've found. It tastes good and also includes some Vitamin D and green foods. Taking Cal/Mag before bed also helps you sleep better. That said, I notice that it helps me sleep, but not him.

It's fairly dimly lit in there, but not as dark as this phone pic makes it seem. Also, he isn't wearing the oxygen mask in this pic, which I can tell because he is awake.

Okay. Now that I've gone through everything else he's taking, it's time to discuss the HBOT. Word on the street (okay, the internet) is that most people see improvements around the 20th dive, and another bump in progress around the 30th dive. We didn't notice any differences around these milestones. What we did see were very small, gradual improvements in both his cognition and sociability over the course of the month.

Jude has liked to sing for a long time. He usually has one song in his head that he'll sing for a while (mostly in gibberish, but the tune is clear), and then move on to a different one. In the last couple of weeks, though, he has been pulling up lots of old songs and he's like a little radio station switching between songs! He sings:
This is the Day
School House Polka
I'll Fly Away
Barbara Manatee
and the VeggieTales Theme Song

The most exciting thing for me this month has been that he's started saying, "Mama!" He doesn't use it much, and sometimes he doesn't use it quite right, but he is saying it, and most of the time he does use it right! For probably 2 years now, I've been playing a game with him where I get right in his face (usually when we've been wrestling) and put his hands on his cheeks and say, "Jude," and then move them to my cheeks and say, "Mama." Then, we recently downloaded the free Knock Knock Family app, and customized it with some of our own pictures (my only gripe is that it comes with a dozen or so cartoon people, but you can only add 5 of your own). He loves it and one day he saw my picture and said, "Mama!" Granted, he also said it when he saw Daddy and Tio's pictures, but I'll take it. He's said it several more times, mostly just at my picture, and once even said, "Jude...Mama," while playing the hands-on-cheeks game (though not at the same time as doing the hands).

One improvement that is hard to really quantify is that he just seems more aware and like he understands us better. Sometimes he'll obey things we say that we didn't expect him to understand, or go to something we mention, or respond correctly (by his actions) to what we say. Granted, that is only sometimes. A lot of the time he's still screaming and pulling on us and not understanding the very loving things we are trying to do for him, but sometimes understanding is better than never, so we are encouraged.

I am on A Way With Words!

noreply@blogger.com (SLHutchens) — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 18:15:00 +0000

On a whim a couple of months ago, I called in to the radio show A Way With Words to ask a grammar/lanugage question that had been bothering me for a long time. I was shocked, nervous, and excited when they said they wanted to feature my question on the air!

That episode finally aired, and it's pretty weird to hear my own voice on a national podcast/radio show.

I personally find all of every episode of A Way With Words interesting, but if you'd like to skip ahead to my part, you can start at the 16 minute mark.

Staci + Ryan's Wedding Sneak Peek

noreply@blogger.com (SLHutchens) — Fri, 12 Sep 2014 18:34:00 +0000

Hi friends! I just posted a sneak peek of pictures from Staci and Ryan's wedding last weekend to my photography blog, but since I haven't posted anything there in ages, I thought I'd share the link here, too. Their wedding was beautiful and perfect!

Click here to go see!

A Non-Update Update on our Foster Adoption

noreply@blogger.com (SLHutchens) — Thu, 04 Sep 2014 12:28:00 +0000

You may or may not have wondered over the last year how our foster adoption journey has been going. If you see us regularly, you probably realize that it hasn't really been going anywhere at all, because we don't have any new kids.

It's been 10 months since we were approved for foster care through Sunrise Children's Services. We've accepted a handful of referrals during that time for kids from 2 weeks old to 12 years old, but we weren't chosen for any of them.

I didn't know exactly how the referral process worked before we got into this, so I'm going to assume that at least someone who reads this won't either. I thought that if we got a call and accepted a placement, then that child or sibling group was as good as ours. Not so. Usually several people will accept the same placement, so the child's worker will collect all of the homestudies and decide which one seems like the best fit.

There are several factors involved in choosing which home is right for each child: obviously the needs of the child are the top consideration, but we've learned that the convenience of the worker is also weighed. If it's between two ostensibly equal homes, but one is a 10 minute drive for the worker and the other is an hour drive, guess which one they're going to choose. I really can't say I blame the workers, but it just stinks when you live out in the middle of nowhere like we do.

We LOVE Sunrise. We really super do. Sunrise is a ministry of our Kentucky Baptist Convention, and if you are a member of a baptist church in Kentucky, then it's likely that part of your tithe goes toward supporting them. You should be proud of that. Our training was wonderful, and the post-placement support is apparently top-notch. One of the things we loved about going with Sunrise is that they hold your hand and help you out a lot more than the state caseworkers are able to. Being a Christian organization with Christian staff, it is wonderful to pray with them, receive Godly counsel, and know that they are making their decisions based on prayer and a desire to honor God.

That said, we knew going into it that we may wind up having to switch to going through the state. With Jude being nonverbal, our parameters for the children we will accept are pretty narrow. That, combined with us living in no man's land, has made getting a placement through Sunrise difficult.

We began the process of switching to the state a couple of months ago, and I'm told that we should be approved by the end of the day tomorrow. Everyone at the DCBS office has talked like we should receive a placement pretty quickly after that, so we'll see what happens.

We are so eager to have more kids in our home and in our family! Will you pray with us that the Lord would be pleased to do that soon?

Homeschool Room Tour

noreply@blogger.com (SLHutchens) — Mon, 25 Aug 2014 18:48:00 +0000

I know I'm a little late for all of the fun room tour blog hops that happened a few weeks ago, but better late than never, right?

Welcome to Theodore Roosevelt Academy. Also known as our basement. This is what you see when you open the door to go downstairs:

Well, hello there little classroom. Look, there are my boys picking up toys before the first day of school. That big red bucket of soft toys drives me batty, because it just always gets dumped out.

I hung the curtains to hide some pipes on the wall, and I think they help cozy up the space a bit, too. The "Nothing worth having was ever achieved without effort" is a quote from TR, and one that I thought was very fitting for a homeschool room. The world flags are a free printable from Mr. Printables, and were a crazy amount of work to cut out, but I love them. I added a few more countries that are near and dear to our hearts, but were missing from his original pdf (Moldova, Malawi, Romania, Nicaragua, and Poland). Before you get to that area, though, you walk past this spot:

The Veggietales growth chart is very precariously hiding the fuse box. "Comparison is the thief of joy" is another quote from TR that really speaks to my heart as someone who has always struggled with what I call "the grass is greener syndrome."

This was our classroom after the first day of school:

Oh look, now it's magically straightened up:

Beside the lockers is a dry erase calendar where I've roughly planned our school year. Seeing it all at once like this is priceless to me:

On the other side of the area is a reading tent that Jude hates (but the animals love, so there's that) and a few toys. Beyond that is my poor neglected craft area. You can also see the swing where Jude swings while we sing our memory verse of the week.

Going back toward the stairs, I can't leave out the hammock and trampoline. They are crucial to our sanity on very cold and very hot days! Behind the trampoline is an office-y space where I do my printing and cutting and whatnot, and also where the file cabinet is that holds all of my plans for the year:

And I'm so excited to have finally found something to make our bare bulbs look a little more finished. I'd been searching and searching for something that would look nice, but not interfere with the light, since the basement is kind of dark anyway. These were pendant lights from Target that I got on sale, and I just took them apart. The big body of the CFL bulb holds them up on its own, otherwise I'd have been in trouble. I love them!

Well there it is! It isn't anything fancy, but I think we've made the most of it! If you homeschool, what does your area look like? Or if you don't, do your kids have a special place for homework or crafts?

Charles 6 Months Later

noreply@blogger.com (SLHutchens) — Fri, 18 Jul 2014 16:28:00 +0000

I thought somebody might be interested in seeing how Charles has grown in the six months since we got him. Everybody's been commenting recently on how big he's gotten, and they are right! What I didn't realize until I looked back at these pictures from the day we got him was how much his face coloring has changed. I didn't know that would happen!

Oh Charles. You make our lives so much more wild. And chewed up. And peed on. And barked at. Let's hope that this winter, you also learn to make our lives much more rabbit-y.

Teaching in the Lower Shire

noreply@blogger.com (SLHutchens) — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 06:54:00 +0000

On Monday morning, we woke up at 4am to drive 4 hours south to the Lower Shire (which they pronounce shear-ee) Region. The land around Blantyre and Zomba is on a plateau, and when you get just south of Blantyre, you get to the edge of the plateau and can see the Lower Shire Region for miles and miles. Well, at least that’s what we’re told. As we were driving down the plateau, there were clouds so low that it caused a very dense fog, and we couldn’t see anything.

This is how Michael rode the whole 4 hours from Zomba to the first village, because there were already 5 in the cab.

But as soon as we got to the bottom, we were finally below the clouds and could see the wide, flat plains. It’s called the Lower Shire because of the Shire River which runs through it. Our plan was to drive all the way down to a village on the outskirts of Nsange (4 hours south of Zomba, almost at the very bottom of the country), then drive back up north 2 hours to stay at a rest house in Nchalo. The next day, we drove to another village that was only about an hour south of the rest house. On the third day, the village we visited was only about 30 minutes south of the rest house. And on the fourth day, we only went about 15 minutes away. It may have made more sense to stay a little farther south, but good rest houses are hard to find in the Lower Shire, and Eric knew that Sarah’s Nest was a good one.

In each of these villages, there lives a regional coordinator for the EurAfrican Baptist Mission, which is the mission that Eric started. The regional coordinators regularly visit the churches in their regions, and they communicate with the churches when Eric needs to spread the word about something, like this week’s schools or the day camps they will be doing in a few months.

The first village we went to is on the northern outskirts of Nsange. As we drove through the village to get to the regional coordinator’s house, kids ran toward the truck pointing and excitedly shouting, “Mzungu!” (“White person,” or literally “miracle worker.”) In the third village, the kids actually started chanting “Mzungu! Mzungu!” as we drove by. Everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY stares at us.

Women and children hanging out and cooking in front of one a regional coordinator's house.

In each village, we quickly drew a large audience of children who would stare at us and giggle. In the first village, I made the rookie mistake of thinking that if I interacted with them a little then the mystery of the mzungu would lessen and they’d go play. That drew more and more kids. They just kept coming from every corner of the village. The teens were more shy, but even some of them couldn’t resist the urge to go see and try to talk to the mzungus.

Kids in the first village we visited.

Josh entertaining kids while Gama taught the pastors.

Finally I just had to learn to ignore them, and especially not to take pictures of them. They would eventually get bored and go play, though a small group of the most curious kids would still hang out nearby. Usually after lunch we would interact with them for a while. Josh tried to teach them songs, Stephanie tried to tell them Bible stories with her limited knowledge of Chichewan, Eric chased them like a zombie, and I took pictures of them.

Josh teaching in the first village.

Josh teaching in the second village. I'll never complain about uncomfortable church pews again after sitting on these for three hours!

Josh teaching in the third village.

Josh teaching in the fourth village.

After Josh would finish teaching (he taught for 3 hours straight every morning), we’d eat lunch, which a few women had been working on since our arrival.

The women fixing lunch in the first village.

The women dishing out lunch in the third village. Everybody got a huge portion of rice and nsima.

Lunch was always rice and/or nsima (cornmeal cooked into a texture between that of bread and mashed potatoes), beef, and cooked cabbage with tomatoes. They’d feed us inside a house each day because apparently everyone would’ve been too interested in watching the white people eat if we’d eaten in plain view.

The regional coordinator's house where we ate lunch in the first village.

Lunch every day. The mushy stuff on the left is nsima.

The regional coordinator's house where we ate lunch in the second village.

The regional coordinator's house where we ate lunch in the fourth village.

After lunch, Gama would spend an hour talking about church planting and preaching, and then we’d load up to head back to the rest house in Nchalo.

We have had an incredible time here. We are so thankful that God worked it out for us to come, and that our parents were able and willing to keep our boy this whole time. For as great as this has been, we miss Jude so much, and we are so, so ready to get home to him! Please pray for us as we travel home over the next two days.

Sunday in and around Zomba

noreply@blogger.com (SLHutchens) — Sun, 08 Jun 2014 17:06:00 +0000

You know how I've mentioned a couple of times in the last week about climbing a huge mountain to go to church in a village today? Well, after Eric and I were both sick yesterday from drinking the lake water, we called off the trip up the mountain for all of us but Josh. He got to hike up there with two other men, and you REALLY want to go to his blog to read all about his adventure.

I, on the other hand, got to stay at home and do laundry. By hand. In tubs. With water from jugs because the water is out. Let's just say that I can't make any guarantees about how clean our clothes are, or how well the detergent got rinsed out.

Then after the laundry hung on the line all day, I got to bring it in and iron it. All of it. Even our underwear and socks. Why? Because there's a fly here that lays eggs on damp laundry, and if you don't iron your clothes, the larvae will hatch and burrow into your skin and grow until they get big enough to come out. Do a Google image search for putzi fly if you're really brave.

Anyway. That's not nearly as interesting as Josh's story today. Go read it.

Two Nights at Lake Malawi

noreply@blogger.com (SLHutchens) — Sun, 08 Jun 2014 11:57:00 +0000

Thursday morning, we drove about 3 hours north to Cape Maclear on the southern coast of Lake Malawi. The lake runs almost the entire length of the country, and is incredibly beautiful. We spent two nights at Cape Mac Lodge for a little R&R between Josh’s time teaching in Zomba and in the Lower Shire.

On the way up, we saw some monkeys on the side of the road! I saw a big baboon before these, but we were going too fast to get a picture. When I spotted this little monkey family, Eric stopped so I could get some pictures. Can you see him sitting in the Y of the tree? There were more on the ground.

We spent the afternoon relaxing after the rough drive. Most of the roads, even the main roads, are just dirt roads, which makes travel pretty bumpy. The place where we are staying is on the beach, but surrounded by a village, and the whole beach is full of village kids playing, women doing laundry, and men trying to sell things to white people.

I went briefly out to the beach, and was immediately approached by a man trying to sell me things. I kindly told him I didn’t have any money, and he went on. Then, I was swarmed by little boys that were probably between the ages of 5-8. Only the oldest two had anything on (and just underwear briefs). They wanted me to take a picture of them, and I made them squeeze in tight so I could get one of them from just the waist up.

This is the plague of being a mzungu (white person, literally “miracle worker”) here. There is no blending in or going unnoticed like we could do in Moldova.

On Friday, we took a small boat out to an island in the lake where we snorkeled, and then the man leading our little excursion, Isaac, cooked us a lunch of rice, potatoes in tomato sauce, and grilled fish over an open fire.

I feel the need to also mention that I’d made some homemade sunscreen for this trip out of only coconut oil and carrot seed oil. I read that coconut oil has a natural SPF of about 5, and carrot seed oil of about 40. I was really excited about my sunscreen, and put it to the ultimate test that morning. Sadly, it failed. It may or may not have done better if we weren’t in and out of the water (I did reapply), but I got burned to an ever-loving crisp, and so did Eric, who tried my sunscreen that morning, too.

On the way back to the lodge, Isaac took some small fish he’d brought and we went to find some eagles. He would whistle and then throw the fish, and an eagle would come out and swoop to get it. It was really cool.

We rode along the beach for almost the entire length of the village on the way back, and it was neat to see everybody out on the beach. There were lots of naked kids. Jude would fit in well here!

After we got back, we ordered a pot of coffee and drank it out in the lawn. That's kind of a mundane detail to include, but I just love the picture I got during that coffee break:

Then, Stephanie and I walked through the village. There are several souvenir booths set up along the way, and after much indecision, I finally got Jude a couple of souvenirs.

That night after dinner, I got really sick. Not puking sick (though I did feel like I could a few times), digestively sick, if you know what I mean. All night. I had choked on my snorkel a couple of times, so we think maybe drinking the lake water was to blame.

Sunburned and sick, I loaded up on Immodium and we made our way back to Eric & Stephanie’s house in Zomba. We are pooped, but so grateful for the chance to spend some time at the lake. I took a few pictures through the window on the drive back.

A fairly typical Malawian house. Nicer houses will have metal roofs.

Driving through a village on our way home.

Wednesday in Zomba

noreply@blogger.com (SLHutchens) — Wed, 04 Jun 2014 21:25:00 +0000

Today Josh wrote a nice post recapping the last 3 days that he’s spent teaching the pastors here in Zomba, and he shared several pictures that I took. He also presented a couple of different ways that you could join in on what God is doing here, in addition to the information I shared yesterday about helping feed the orphans. You really want to go to his blog and see his post today, too.

Yesterday evening, someone brought us over a serving of the food served to the pastors staying at the church. Just like how in Moldova no meal is complete without a generous helping of bread, in Malawi no meal is complete without a generous helping of nsima (pronounced “see-muh,” the n is silent). Nsima is finely ground cornmeal that is boiled into a mush. It’s kind of like white rice in that it’s completely flavorless on its own. You eat with your hands, and you roll bites of nsima into balls and dip it in the sauce that the meat is cooked in. We also had some beef and a bit of shredded cabbage cooked with tomatoes.

After that, Eric & Stephanie took us over to where they have laid the foundation for the dormitory for the Bible school that Eric wants to start here in the next few years. It’s right behind the church, just up the hill. If you haven’t already read Josh’s post for today, then click over there to learn more about this project.

I had a fun day today while Josh was teaching. First, Stephanie and I made several sock puppets. The churches that have been planted here by Eric and his team of Malawian leaders (around 200 churches), are divided into 8 regions for organization and communication purposes. A team of church leaders from each of the 8 regions will be traveling around their regions in July and August putting on evangelistic day camps, and they will be using the puppets for these camps.

She wanted them to be simple puppets made from simple supplies that more churches or groups could duplicate easily if they wanted to, so that’s what we did. I didn’t get a picture of them, but just picture your basic sock with googly eyes and felt ears, nose, and tongue.

I went over to the church to take a few more pictures of Josh teaching. It was great to get to hear the men asking such thoughtful questions and thanking Josh for coming.

After I left, I wandered around the side of the church and found a girl splitting wood. I asked her if she was cooking lunch, and she said yes and invited me around to the back of the church to see where they were cooking.

The women were sitting on rocks watching big pots of food boil. To cook, they take 3 big rocks, build a fire between them, and set the pot on the rocks over the fire. Today they were cooking cabbage, beans, and rice to feed both the pastors and the orphans.

Notice that the women are using cabbage leaves as pot holders

Definitely Mrs. Gama's first selfie; she was so embarrassed

I was really impressed by the girl’s skill at splitting wood, and as I was taking a couple of pictures of her, she invited me to try it. It was SO HARD! I told her she was much stronger than I. First, the axe head is welded to a solid metal pole and is super heavy. Then you’re trying to swing it and land it in the exact right spot with enough force that will split the wood. I couldn’t do it, and they all laughed at the silly white woman who couldn’t split wood. I asked her to take a picture of me trying it, and although she was pretty inexperienced with a camera, she did get one.

One of the women there had a tiny baby and a toddler, so I took the opportunity to ask them to show me how to carry a baby like they do. It seemed fairly self explanatory, but I didn’t know if there was some trick to it, and I sort of just wanted a chance to snuggle her sweet 4 month old little boy. They happily put him on my back and tied us up, and because it’s winter here and ONLY 80 degrees, they also had to take a heavy blanket and wrap around us over the wrap that was supporting him.

I bounced him to sleep and stood there for a bit enjoying hearing his sweet little snoring and feeling his squishy little body up against my back. I joked that I was just going to walk off and take him home with me, but I eventually gave him back to his mama, since it became time to serve lunch.

The pastors waiting outside the church for lunch

Women dishing out the rice for lunch

Tomorrow we leave to spend 2 nights at Lake Malawi for a little downtime before climbing that mountain on Sunday and then leaving early Monday morning for the Lower Shire.

Tuesday in Zomba

noreply@blogger.com (SLHutchens) — Tue, 03 Jun 2014 16:50:00 +0000

Josh reading on Eric & Stephanie's balcony

Just in case you were wondering, Josh and I have been sleeping GREAT. If you ever travel overseas, I highly recommend staying awake on the trip over (which is miserable, and we don’t do on purpose, but we just can’t sleep sitting up on a plane), and making yourself stay up until normal bedtime when you arrive. Take some melatonin when you go to bed for the next couple of nights, and you’re fine. We realized this morning that we probably don’t need the melatonin anymore, because we slept in an extra hour and still took a long time to feel awake.

Anyway…

This morning Josh went over to the church to teach again. The men are eager to learn and one told him at the end today that he would go back to his village a different man because of what he’s learning here.

I took a sponge bath and got ready to go to the market with Stephanie (they don’t have a hot water heater yet, so we boil water, pour it in a bucket, add some cold water until it’s a good temperature, and use a cup to pour it on ourselves to bathe). We walked down the road to where the taxis are and jumped in a car to go to the market in downtown Zomba. And by taxi, I mean some guy with a beat up old car who earns money by shuttling people back and forth.

The road in front of Eric & Stephanie's house

We drove by a place where a lot of women go to do laundry

Papayas, lemons, and avocados at the market

This is the booth where I bought my wrap

I was impressed by this woman's bowl of lettuce on her head, but she didn't seem amused

There were SO MANY cages of live chickens at the market

Grasshoppers and small fish dried, salted, and ready to eat

I could just eat up all the sweet squishy babies around here

Stephanie and me in the taxi on the way home, squeezed in the backseat with two other women

We got what we needed at the market and headed back just in time for lunch. After lunch, Linda, Pastor Gama’s granddaughter, met us. Stephanie and I went with her over to the church where they feed 10 orphans 7 days per week. They feed even more orphans at another church here in Zomba. (Sidenote: They don’t have enough sponsors for these orphans, and there are many more kids that they could feed with more sponsors. If you’re interested in helping them, please go here for more information.) After the kids ate, Stephanie, with Linda translating, used the storying cloth we brought to teach the kids the gospel through several Bible stories.

Stephanie and Linda with the storying cloth

This boy said he knew about the story of Moses

After the lesson, I took a picture of one boy and showed it to him. As I was hoping, after that they all wanted to see pictures of themselves. I was so excited to get to take such great pictures of such sweet, gorgeous kids!

Monday in Zomba

noreply@blogger.com (SLHutchens) — Mon, 02 Jun 2014 17:35:00 +0000

Today was a quiet day, with Josh teaching at the church from 9am to 12pm, and again from 1pm to 1:30pm. There are 72 men here to learn this week, representing about 60 churches around the region. They are sleeping at the church on straw mats, and the whole back of the church is filled with the bicycles they rode to get here.

The fish eye camera lens makes the church looks much bigger than it actually is.

The initial response from the lead pastors this morning was very positive. Josh is going through the whole story of the Bible and teaching points of doctrines as he comes to them in the big picture of the Bible. Even just talking about creation this morning, the lead pastors said that the men’s minds were being blown by things they’d never thought of before.

We rested this afternoon, and just took it easy. I thought I'd share a picture of our room at Eric & Stephanie's house. I never cease to be amazed by Stephanie's creativity and ingenuity in working with the things she has to work with. She designed the whole house, made the mosquito canopy and light fixture, and did who knows what else.

I also wanted to share these next two pictures. The first one is the view from the top of the Zomba plateau, where we were yesterday. Do you see that the hill/mountain in the middle of the picture? Now do you see the smaller hill in front of that one with the white cell phone tower on top? Eric & Stephanie's house is at the foot of that hill, just down from the tower.

Also, do you see the big mountain that goes off the right side of the picture? We're CLIMBING that mountain next Sunday to go to a church that Eric planted up there. Not driving. CLIMBING.

The next picture is the view of the Zomba plateau from Eric & Stephanie's house. It's quite the sight. I took this one with the panorama picture function on my phone. It's good because it gets the whole plateau in the picture, but it makes it look so much smaller than it really is. What you can't tell very well from the picture is how well you can see the whole city of Zomba between their house and the plateau. What you also can't tell from a picture is the ambient noise coming from the city. Not normal city noise, though. You can hear kids playing, people talking, radios playing music. It's beautiful and incredible and I love it.