New Baby, New Country

I'm going back to Syria

2013-02-26T07:04:00.000-05:00

I saw a friend of mine the other day who is from Syria. He told me, "I think I'm going to go back to Syria."

Me: "WHAT?!"

Him: "I know that it's going to be tough with the war, but at least my family will be able to eat."

Me: "How are you going to get there?"

Him: "I'm going to drive."

Me: "WHAT!"

Him: "It should take about week, but it will be tough [referring to his 2 wives and 5 kids that will come with him]."

So yeah, the economic situation is bad in Granada. How bad?

Bad enough that going back to a country that has seen 100,000 die in a civil war is a better option.

I passed!

2012-06-27T09:43:00.002-04:00

After 9 long months of studying the theory and taking driving classes with a certified instructor, I now have my drivers license in Spain.

This is what I had to do in order to get it.

First I had to pay 375 euros (almost $500 back then because the euro was worth more). This included an unlimited number of theory classes. Yes, that's right, you actually have to go to class. I went to class 2 or 3 times a week for 2.5 half months. Once I got up to speed on the new vocabulary, I could then start taking the tests.

That's the next step. There is a database of about 2,000 questions that you need to know in order to pass the theory test. You find these questions in is a series of tests that consist of 30 questions. So, basically, you literally have to go to the "autoescuela", sit down at a computer, and take hours and hours of tests. For the next 3 months, this is what I did. I had to get to the point where I was getting 95% of the tests right. And because the tests are constantly changing, the questions are also constantly changing.

I then went to try and take my theory test. I started to take the test and felt pretty good about it. Then one of the instructors came by and told me that I didn't bring the right papers and I couldn't take the test.

I then had to wait another month. During that month I had to study more because the questions were changing and I had to keep current with the tests.

I did finally take the written exam and passed it.

The next step was to take the driving classes. Even though I have been driving almost 15 years, they encouraged me to take 16 classes (45 minutes each). After taking these classes, I'm convinced that they are necessary. The test is very hard and it is very easy to fail. It's not unusual for you to meet Spaniards that have failed it so many times that they've given up on ever passing it.

I finally took my test on Monday and passed. I won't say it was a total waste of my time because it has helped my Spanish, but it certainly tried my patience.

The thing I feel the worst about is that for the people that failed the written/driving test. They have to pay for more classes and fines for failing. There are people that will literally spend over a $1,000 just for their drivers license. And in some cities, the base price (without the fines for failing) is $1,000.

I'm glad to be done and I thank God I won't have to do that again.

Now it's Charity's turn...

Helicopters and goats. My son's prayer life.

2012-06-24T16:55:00.000-04:00

I had to write this down before I forgot because it's just too good not share. So recently, we've been trying to tell King to pray for the things that he wants. Instead of whining to me about things that I can't change, he's actually started to pray his wants. This morning he asked me to bring "the helicopter back". Translation: there is an old man that comes to our park a few times a month with his remote control helicopter and plays with it and we are able to witness it from our window. Whenever he comes King yells, "HELICOPTER", and we all run to enjoy the moment. I, of course, have no control over this, so I told him to ask God. Within 1 hour, I heard Charity yell from the back, "Stephen, you gotta see this." The helicopter came. It was awesome.

After King's nap he asked for the helicopter again. I thought to myself, "Let's not get out of hand, he came once." With lots of doubt in my heart, I prayed for God to bring back the helicopter. Charity told me that she decided that she couldn't bring herself to pray for the helicopter to come today, so instead, she prayed that he'd come back tomorrow. We got home from church tonight and King went right back to the window. King yelled,"Mommy, he brought it! God bring it. He answered our prayers!" He started run around the room in utter delight.

I couldn't believe it.

Really, I couldn't believe it.

If this weren't enough, King asked for "sheep and goats" on the way home from church. Translation: during the spring and fall there is a flock of sheep and goat that come by and drink from the stream. We'll normally see them about once every two weeks and it's the highlight of King's day. The problem with this request is that we only see the flock when there is water in the stream. In June, July, and August there is no water because it's so dry.

As we're passing over the bridge to go into our apartment King says, "God bring back the sheep and goats Daddy?" Probably because I knew that there was no chance for them to come, I encouraged King to pray. Normally he refuses and bugs me until I pray, but this was the first time that he actually prayed.

I had totally forgotten about this request until King's got out of the bath and went back to the window. Then he shouted, "Sheep! Goats!" I was shocked, humbled, dumbfounded. There was no water, but they still came! We've lived here almost a year and I can't remember ever seeing them when the stream was dried up.

God answers prayers.

Don't take my word for it, take King's.

Quote of the week

2012-04-15T08:28:00.001-04:00

We were in the bathroom giving King a bath last night when he looked down at himself and said,

"Look mommy, King has a tail!"

They're even better in person

2012-04-13T18:32:00.002-04:00

In honor of my bride...

2012-04-13T18:10:00.003-04:00

Six years ago about this time was when my wife and I started dating. It was after 2 months of a lot of dates directly followed by, "Let's be friends" talks. There were many rejections and I remember lying on the floor in pain more than once, but it was totally worth it.

Charity is like none other.

I will forever be in her debt.

No better life...

2012-04-13T17:58:00.002-04:00

Today I worked as the doorman for a clothing drive. It was loud and chaotic, just how I like it.

I had to give out numbers to the masses as they waited for an opportunity to come in to get clothes. Lots of people speaking lots of languages surrounded me and tried to convince me that my opinions about order were very cultural. They laughed with me, accused me of all sorts of wrongs and gave me smiles whose gratefulness could melt the hardest heart. One drunk woman yelled at me on and off for over an hour and two kids played by my side for two.

I don't get to the see the beauty of the ugliness of humanity so closely knit together that often, but tonight was a treat.

When i got home I was exhausted, but happy.

Consistency: the golden calf of parenting

2012-04-07T03:35:00.003-04:00

Consistency is not the key to parenting. Can I just say that? I know it is probably a sin, but I can't help myself.

When I first became a parent I was told that consistency was the most important thing for a parent to do. The theory goes like this: children need consistency because they need structure. With a structure, a child can be free to focus on being and thriving as a child. This idea is seed that has produced everything from why kids always have to have timeouts in a certain corner to why newborns "must" sleep at exactly the same hour every night.

Here are my top 3 reasons why consistency is not the key to parenting.

1. It makes parents create arbitrary laws. If a parent is consistent in all that she does, she will inevitably create and obey thousands of laws in order to be consistent. Therefore making every experience a law that must be documented, memorized and repeated. This is a type of slavery for every parent as we often can't remember what we've done after a long day, let alone recreate the same experience in various venues. It creates unnecessary rigidity and times for extra disciplinary actions. Essentially it adds both guilt and reward in an arena where it should not exist. For instance, in a normal situation a parent would not feel bad for putting a sleeping child to bed without a bath and brushing teeth; but the "consistent" parent has to bathe the child in order to avoid the guilt of inconsistency and the worry about "long term effects".

2. The best case scenario is the worst case scenario. Let's just say that a parent is actually consistent in everything he says to his child. How will the child respond to this? She'll know what to expect from her home. She'll know when dinner is and what she needs to do before bed. But will she feel secure? Maybe. You see the problem with perfect consistency is that it's a lie. We all know that there is something inside of us that keeps us from being consistent. Therefore, if you "pull off" showing (or lying) to your child that you are untouched by personal failings, they will inevitably respond in one of two ways. The first is that they will be convinced that they must be as moral and upright as you are. They will not look to anyone for help because you as the "consistent parent" didn't look to anyone either. And when they fail, they will feel like utter failures. The second and more likely situation is that you become unrelatable. Your kids can't relate to your moral spotlessness and therefore they will look outside of the home for someone to take your place in authority and influence.

3. It's a false gospel. Like all attractive idols, consistency is a good thing that has been taken too far. Consistency in and of itself is not bad, but when it becomes the thing that we trust in to make our children come out "right" we distort its real purpose. Essentially, as parents, by being consistent we are reflecting the image of God to our children because God is completely faithful to us in his commitments and promises. The problem with us being consistent is that we tend to be consistently sinful. Therefore if we buy into the idea that consistency is the most important thing about parenting we will consistently hurt our children with our sin and feel justified in doing it because it. Why? Because this idea is essentially a cloaked form of narcissistic legalism.

So what's the solution?

This is much harder.

Now obviously much of my life is trying to answer this very question. To say something pithy in response to this question would do injustice for the great difficulty of parenting and the great complexity of children.

My working hypothesis is that my children and I must always be both wounded and delighted by the consistency of God. So when my son and I pray together about him disobeying me by "playing" (AKA suffocating) his sister God both delights King with his forgiveness and wounds me by exposing that I have not disciplined my son in love. It is only with this great view of God can we move forward in the very holy work of parenting.

Having 2 kids

2012-03-21T06:41:00.005-04:00

It's hard. For us, the jump to having two kids was/is harder than when we had King. We are being pushed beyond our limits on a daily basis and we need lots of prayers and lots of help from our friends.

BUT, the fun thing about having 2 is, well, having King and Eden. King is at the age now where he can actually go out and do things. We went on a hike the other day and it was so fun to see him run around, play, and explore all his surroundings. He even led us into new parts of a park that we go to a lot (you can actually see the Alhambra in the background).

One of the main attractions of this particular park is that there are a few peacocks that live there. Even more fun than King getting excited and running after them is to hear my wife give her signature peacock call. This is a little known fact, but Charity does a ridiculously good peacock impersonation. It was so good, that (and I'm not kidding) the peacock walked toward her and spread out his feathers. He proceeded to walk in a circle showing them off for a good 5 minutes.

Another fun thing about having 2 (and having a very adventurous wife) is that we can go on bike rides. Charity takes the baby on the front and I take King on the kid seat.

Charity has also started running again and is training my son (though this time he fell asleep in the stroller).

Grammy's visit

2012-02-20T04:03:00.003-05:00

Grammy has been a huge help in taking care of our little Eden.

She's been here a month and I can honestly say that we're going to be sad to see her go.

King is starting to learn how to play with Eden.

Learning about the art of coloring from Francisco.

Family picture when we went to go get a passport for Eden.

King has a hard time sitting still when we take a picture because he wants to see what it looks like (before you're able to take it).

A picture really is worth a thousand words

2012-02-05T10:28:00.003-05:00

I'm sure her future husband will get a kick out of this one.

One of my favorites

2012-01-24T09:28:00.003-05:00

Don't know why exactly I like this picture so much, but I do.

It kind of feels like a self-portrait of my own life.

Ill-prepared.
Over confident in my own resources.
Unaware of where I'm going.

Following Jesus is hard sometimes.

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! She's here!

2012-01-17T11:05:00.003-05:00

Eden Shalom Jones was born on Jan 15th, 2012 at 7:30 pm. She weighed 7 lbs. 3 oz and was 20.5 inches tall. She's got her mom's feet and hands and we already love her. She is our first Spanish baby and she is so much calmer than my son was when he was born. In fact, she's so laid back that when she came out she didn't cry like most babies. I held my breath when I didn't hear that initial scream, but my fears subsided when I heard her breathings.

She wasn't dead, she was sleeping. She slept through the whole process. For the first 30 hours of her life she cried a few times and woke up a few times.

One thing that has surprised me is how feminine she looks to me. I know I'm partial, but there is something about a feminine little baby that is truly stunning.

King rides scooter

2011-12-29T17:54:00.000-05:00

My favorite is when he pulls up his leg.

Our Flamenco star

2011-11-29T07:32:00.002-05:00

As I watched him sing, I realized that my son's face looks a lot like how a flamenco singer's. It's this combination of passion and what almost looks like anger. I decided to let you see both right beside each other.

You can fast forward to 1:00.

Mural time.

2011-11-29T06:57:00.004-05:00

We had Charity's brother Josh here in Granada (w Sara and Sophie) for a week and had a great time. I've always wanted to paint murals, but have never really had the chance. Josh and Sara are both great painters and so I convinced them to both do a mural for our little girl. It took a couple days and we all felt so happy how they turned out.

Heavy, but worth it.

2011-11-29T06:56:00.001-05:00

Jacob's Story from Unearthed on Vimeo.

King's new dance partner

2011-11-14T06:43:00.001-05:00

First horseback riding experience

2011-11-14T06:12:00.003-05:00

I felt really bad for this horse because, as you can see, my feet are nearly touching the ground. In fact, there were two horses and I had to wait until this one was ready because the other one was too small.

King on the other hand, screamed and cried as if he was going to die for a good 6 seconds.

And then...

He was in love. If he didn't know the word "horse" before this experience, it is certainly in his normal repertoire now. He even tries to make the horse sound now on a regular basis.

Family Vacation

2011-09-28T04:43:00.007-04:00

I don't think I've ever had a grown up family vacation without my parents, but we had a great time and squeezed 6 adults and 6 kids into a 4 bedroom house. My brother-in-law from London came down and my brother from the south came up.

In the midst of all this fun, we did have a tragedy. After my sister-in-law April had carried our niece for 15 weeks (they had just found out that the baby was a girl), our littlest one past away in the hospital a few days after the vacation. Abby and Sam came and stayed with us, but it was an incredibly sad time that we were all still mourning.

We are already talking about another summer vacation in 2012 for the trio.

The "after" video

2011-09-10T18:06:00.003-04:00

Here's the intro to the intro of a tour of our new place.

The intro.

Now that boy can dance!

2011-08-11T16:20:00.000-04:00

A Poem to Celebrate 4 Years!

2011-08-10T16:45:00.002-04:00

This is not my usual habit to share such personal things with the world, but I remember when one of my heroes told me he writes poems to his wife. It was one of those things that I wanted to start doing for Charity when we started dating and it has become somewhat of a tradition in our family. I thought I'd share the most recent one so that you could get a little picture of our life thus far.

Happy Anniversary Love

I remember the feeling of curiosity when I went home,
To tell my family that my feelings had grown,
It’s not that they were established or concrete,
I remember wanting to be discrete,
With the interest I could not yet trust,
Was it something real or just a fleeting lust?
I remember going through all my reasons why I shouldn’t try,
And all the hesitations that tried to deny,
That a seed of desire had actually taken root,
And my attempts to deny it would only be moot,
Because what I didn’t know in those early days,
Those days that have become kind of a haze,
Is that something beautiful was born,
A healing presence was replacing that which was torn,
So we jumped in feet first,
To find out if our love would slake the thirst,
That we had tried our best to bury,
The desire that we could actually marry,
But even though our feet were four in,
Our hands clinched branches as to bend,
Our old life that we weren’t ready to leave,
Our new dreams not ready to seize,
I thought we’d fight, pulling each other to our sides,
But instead, it was more like a collide,
And it was during this collision that we were contorted,
Painful, sure, but so important,
You see we were becoming one without the sex,
Thank you God, He spared us from it being even more complex!
So that when we said yes in front of our peers,
We could stare in each other’s eyes without any fear,
The oneness was complete and then we had to decide,
How we’d live our new lives on the other side,
Of all our great plans and best made intentions,
We were forming our desires into petitions,
Looking back now that first year seemed,
Like a time to enjoy you, to learn how to dream,
I learned that you love lazy mornings,
And that you think camping is boring,
You love to get unexpected flowers,
And have a definite routine in the shower,

Year number two entered our world with bang,
When we learned little Nile would be joining our gang,
I kissed your belly and prayed all 12 weeks,
And then we lost her, and learned how to weep,
We stood on the trust that we had constructed,
And leaned on the church when our hearts were busted,
But in the midst of that mourning and loss,
We found our new home across,
The Atlantic where we never thought we’d be,
A place that we’d learn to love and see,
As a gift from the God who brought us together,
As a gift from the One who said it was better,
To give than to receive,
To love than to leave,

And then our third year came in Lancaster PA,
Where I learned that it’s not just in the South where people say “hey”,
We shamelessly scoped mom’s fridge for a peak,
And ate at their house like 15 times a week,
I soaked in your roots and made them my own,
And learned that you were my new kind of home,
Not long after we arrived did we find out,
We’d be having our son where they eat sauerkraut,
So as we prepared for the day that was to coming,
I learned that Pennsylvania snows require shoveling,
And then King came on March the fourth,
Again our lives began to morph,
From solely focused on each other,
To turning our eyes toward another,
I thought it might rob us of the love that we had,
But in fact, all it did was add,
You know I had wondered why your pregnancy was such a turn-on,
Now I think it was our love for the baby that was starting to bond,
During that time you showed me self-sacrifice like I had never seen,
And taught me what it looks like for a mother to beam,
It was a time of beauty that I am still coming to terms with,
A time when our love surpassed even the best kiss,

And without introduction we walked into year number four,
Drowsy from the lack of sleep and reaching for more,
Normalcy, routine, whatever the word,
We were looking for some sort of stability to occur,
But we certainly didn’t find it as we packed to leave,
Nor did we find it in the tears and grief,
Of leaving the life and the home that we’d grown to love,
There didn’t seem to be enough goodbyes or enough hugs,
To sufficiently describe how much we would miss,
There love and oh how we wished,
They could come with us to our place,
Because we were often scared to face,
What it’d be like to learn to love something new,
With our limited knowledge and limited view,
But we moved here and found that God’s address,
Stretches farther than America’s blessed,
Land that we love to dream about,
But honestly think that we can do without,
We struggled but got through that first fall,
And spent the winter huddled around heaters by the wall,
And all the sicknesses that seemed to plague our son,
And even the second move and the new bun,
In the oven that we can’t wait to meet,
Hopefully this time I won’t have to take a seat.

Now we’ve finished four and enter into five,
I can’t imagine having any other by my side,
Whenever the lines turn to describing you I fumble,
I seem to start, stop and then mumble,
So I’ll just say thank you my true,
For being my bue,
And for giving me the best life I could imagine,
Helping me stretch my faith to fathom,
That our great God could actually lend,
His love to me so much as to commend,
A woman like you to someone like me,
You are so delightful and so free,
You will always be my wife, my love, my bride,
And I’ll be waiting at year number five.

Lauryn Hill.

2011-08-05T08:53:00.004-04:00

Just found this video today. She's one of my favorites and I just thought I'd share it.

The "before" video of our new place

2011-08-01T07:01:00.002-04:00

We've finally moved in and I'm going to try and take a "after" video soon.