Perspectives

Playing with this boy is one of my favorite memories of Guatemala.  It has nothing to do with this blog entry - unless you consider that this picture (with all the flowers and green) was taken in January.  Aah, for a land without snow and icicles.

We all see life from a different perspective don’t we.  I can’t stand snow, it’s cold and wet and messes up my clean floors.  Abigail on the other hand thinks that snow is wonderful and could play in it all day.  We look at Guatemala and see beauty, while others see the pollution and trash.  Different perspectives, and that’s OK.

We are finding that there are many different perspectives on missions as well.  Some look at the work that we will be doing and consider it secondary, while we see the “prototype citizens of the future” as greatly needing missionaries.  Some argue that we need to keep all of our missionaries state side to work here, while others feel that more need to go overseas.

We recently started taking a course called “Perspectives” put on by the US Center For World Mission.  We have a whole (big) textbook full of many different perspectives on missions.  We are going to be teaching a Sunday School class at church that is designed to give people a more global perspective.  What is your perspective?  Is it in line with God’s perspective?

Wrinkle Remover, apples, and travels - Oh my!

To all you parents who have ever wondered what the other side of the bathroom door looks like while you are “escaping” for a few moments of “peace and quiet,” well Ken took this picture for you.

Well, now our life seems to be back on track.  The family chore chart has reappeared, which seriously helps me focus, and our evening study schedule is actually written down.  I haven’t ever been this structured.  I think it’s because back in high school and college I could actually remember things.  I’m waiting for those little ads that pop up on face book to start showing memory aids (instead of wrinkle removers - what are they thinking!)

Our year end newsletters have gone out, and should be in mailboxes shortly.  We start our new Perspectives Course on Sunday night.  This time we are taking it for a grade, so we will actually have to do the work.  Thankfully a lot of it should be review for us.  Our good friends Bambi and Loren are taking the class with us, so it will be quite different than the last one.  Of course, it will be different anyway as we are not expecting to skew the age range quite so much.  (Maybe that is where the wrinkle remover ads started...)

Emma and Abigail are up to their usual mischief.  In fact I just broke up a silly argument over a ball, and put Abigail in a time out for totally over reacting.  I hear this will end when they are about 30.  Oh Happy Day!  I know, most of you are thinking “Apple doesn’t...” you know the rest.

Our recent trip home to Canada was wonderful.  It was great to spend lots of time with Ken’s parents.  We also had an opportunity to speak at the church Ken went to as a child.  We are so fired up to share about Third Culture Kids, and it was nice to hear many positive responses.  We left with the connections to return and hopefully speak at more churches as well.  Please pray that we will find all the opportunities God has for us in Canada as well as the USA.

The most recent news - We have purchased tickets for our short trip to Guatemala.  Thank you to those who have been faithfully sending in your monthly support - you have helped make this possible.  Please pray that we will be successful in all that we need to get done, and that the girls will be OK here at home.

Today’s Temperatures:  Home = 12, Guatemala = 68.  That is so depressing!

Enough Already

The snow may be deep, our snow blower may be broken, we may lose Emma in a snow drift...but, we can look at it all with the hopes that next winter we won’t even see a shovel, or a snowflake, or need heat in our houses, or...the list goes on!

I know, we wrote that we were dreaming of a green Christmas, but white is certainly better than brown.  At least that’s what I was telling myself 2 feet of snow ago.  This is ridiculous!!!  I feel like sending our friends in Guatemala a postcard that reads “Wish we were there!”

For those of you who don’t live in NH, or New England in general, count your blessings.  This has been a crazy winter (before it was even officially winter.)  It all started with the Ice Storm back on December 11.  50% of NH was without power for days, and some still are.  We, thankfully never lost our power, so we opened up our home to our cold, powerless, friends and family.  That was actually lots of fun.

Abigail and Emma had great fun playing with their friends.   Abigail, not used to playing with boys that much, adjusted well ... actually she still did the things she normally does, she just changed the wording.  For example, we didn’t eat Magic Fairy Wands (breadsticks) we ate Knight swords.  And we didn’t play dress-up, we played “The Knight Saves the Princess.” 

Needless to say, Guatemala’s warmth is looking really good right now - but we sure are glad to be home for the holidays!

Kernels and Cookies

Earlier this week Emma decided to mix her chocolate pudding, corn, and cheese pizza all together.  Oops, Mommy forgot she had never fed herself pudding before (unsupervised.)  I was listening for problems, not watching for them...Abigail’s laughter alerted me to the situation.

Some of you may remember the exploding popcorn bag incident.  Well, the kernel art pictures have arrived!  Can you guess which one is Emma’s?  She mostly wanted to eat the kernels, crafts aren’t yet her thing.

Thanks to the ice storm thing we are having, we had a family night in.  We decided it would be a good idea to start our Christmas baking.  

It took a little while, as the recipe was already packed away - 

glad to finally locate that box - but we managed to bake 4 dozen butter milk cookies tonight.  

It was truly a family affair.  Emma thought she was the queen of the kitchen, and she was only a little upset that she didn’t have her own apron. Abigail was really excited thto use her own rolling pin that Grammy and Grampa got her last year. (We don’t roll things often!)

Time Wanted

26 hour days would be good. The web site is on the list of things to do, it's just not as high a priority as so many other things. Lately our top thing has been taking care of the children. Go figure. If they could cook their own food, drive themselves to school, etc...we would have so much more time (HeHe...)

Please pray that Joy gets enough time to practice for her upcoming performance. 9 days to go, and she still hasn't learned all the music. (Shh...maybe no one will notice.)

In the 21st Century

Keep your eyes open...We will soon be moving the blog to our new website. Wow, it feels kind of official like to have our very own website. It is currently under construction, but visit www.eisnersinguatemala.com sometime soon. It will have all the information about Third Culture Kids and much much more. (I wonder if I can find a way to put a fun trivia game on there or something. I bet Ken can.)

Flesh and Blood

We had a great weekend in Maine. The people in Rangely were very nice, and it was nice to give our first presentation on Third Culture Kids.
We went to Gordon early for our class Monday so that we could have dinner with a real life, flesh and blood Third Culture Kid. Sam is South Korean, raised in Germany, and currently at school in the states. He is the head of Mu Kappa, an organization for Missionary Kids, and is going to get us in to be able to talk with them, and hear from them - not just a book. We are hoping to be able to establish some relationships and even have some up for the weekend. Most of them don't get off campus on their breaks.
I got to use my 1 Korean word that I had learned, and Sam confirmed that learning some Korean would be a good way to reach out and show that I care. (We'll let Ken learn Spanish first!)

We just made a new purchase tonight to help with the new TCK angle of our ministry. So many people have questions, we thought a website would be the best way to condense our information. So coming soon will be www.eisnersinguatemala.com.