This is our third January here in Iraqi K-stan. Things have begun to feel more familar. For example, no longer do we get freaked out by secruity guards. They are not scary anymore :).
I have also learned over the past couple years that January is the hardest month to live here. Remember our first year here around this time? It's rainy, wet, COLD (not like outdoor Iowa cold, but like back in the old days with no proper insulation, no central heating, type of cold. Can you kinda imagine? Well it's kinda like this:
Anyway.... after that first January, God began sanctifying me. Last year, returning back in town during January with an infant had a different set of challenges but yet we just arrived back from America, so we came refreshed by family and friends and most importantly the Body of Christ. This year, planning for the dreaded January... we took some action steps! Instead of just sitting around all day....
We (by the grace of God) have a car now which helps with things more than I ever imagined! So we took a long trip out of town one day with Helen and her mom and brother that came to visit....
love Love LOVE... this girl!
Took some drives up to the mountain just as a family to eat snacks and pray over this city.
Any chance we could get outside when it wasn't raining, we would! To either play with neighbor kids in our yard for an hour, having campfires,
or going on hikes... This is surprisly a NEW thing for me. I always just stayed home with the kids when Zander seemed too small to get up the rocky terrain and seemed a bit dangerous to carry Zephie during some parts. But, we tried it this year and it was awesome! I was so proud of Zander :)
Here is my first time reaching the SUMMIT of a mountain here!
Sexy i know.... for many reasons... short sweatshirt, fanny pack, pose...etc, etc! I was so excited I didn't care :)
Team Time: Always precious to us!
Naturally the longer we are here the more we start to learn about the culture......
and how to do life differently.....
So, we knew what to expect this January and we did somethings to help us enjoy our time here this month. There were also a few UNEXPECTED things that happened.
It snowed something like 8 inches here one day. Which is the first time its snowed this much since 30 or 90 years. :) I heard both stories... A wide gap I know! Can you imagine 8 inches of snow in a city of a half of a million people with NO snow shovels or snow plows... Yeah it was nutz! So we just stayed home and played with the neighborhood kids in snow and froze our booties off! Still memorable!
(we were trying to make a bat mobile, but the snow didn't stick as I wanted)
Another unexpected...Andy was away this month more than he ever has been before. Here he went on an overnight stay with the 9th graders to a partnering school 6 hours away on a BUS... It was worth it!
I'm thankful for both. The blessing of the hard "grey" January days because we learn to depend on Him more, but also learning to be thankful for the joyful moments. Too often things can often go unnoticed. This post is a remembrance of a season of thankfulness! Thankful for the reason we are here, the sun, laughs, electricity, team, sharing life and loving others. The simple things......
