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| We took John to the Wiener Maifest at the Prater--a famous amusement park here in Wien. When you see images of Wien, they often contain the huge ferris wheel the city is famous for--it's at Prater. |
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| Enjoying some traditional Austrian food at the Maifest. We had yummy bratwurst and grilled potatoes with ham and onions, which is what John is chowing down on here. |
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| Me and the boy at yesterday's Mother's Day celebration. Forgive my hair--it is so hot, and I was at school to give AP exams all day, so I just threw it up. |
I'm enjoying a quiet morning here in (for the moment) sunny Vienna. It's supposed to rain/drizzle for a good part of the day, but this morning it is lovely. I'll take the rain, though--our apartment is HOT. All that light and sunshine that makes me happy also makes it very, very warm. Great in the winter--we rarely ran the heat--but pretty rough in the spring/summer. Marc headed out about an hour ago to meet his group at the U-bahn. He will be gone for a week, sailing from Croatia to Venice. The group is a mix of believers and those who aren't, and they're completing an Alpha course while on the trip. It is his birthday present from the kids and I (his birthday is May 26th), and I think he will really have an incredible time. Marc loves to sail, but hasn't had much opportunity to do it. He also loves to talk about Jesus, so this trip ought to be perfect for him.
If you're a prayer partner or a facebook friend, then you know that it's been a bit of a rough week for us. It started last Friday night, when we received a late call from Sarah Beth, who was in Tennessee visiting my aunt and uncle, and she was clearly upset. It's never great news when a call comes in the middle of the night, and this was horrible news about the death of a beloved family member. Saddled with that news, we had to get up early Saturday morning and take our German exam as a requirement for our visa here in Austria. I'm THRILLED to report that we (and our friends who took it with us) passed it with flying colors, but we didn't know that last week. (In fairness, we didn't worry about it after the exam. We knew we'd passed. We didn't know how well we'd done, but we knew we'd passed.) As we went to bed that night, we received a late call from my sister (see the pattern? late call = scary news) telling us that my Dad was in the hospital with chest pains and they were admitting him. Pretty much the rest of the week was figuring out what was wrong, trying to fix it, releasing him on Tuesday, enjoying about 36 hours of relief over that, only to have him readmitted to the hospital yesterday. (This time, it was a facebook message at 4am: call us as soon as you get up. That's never good news.) In the midst of all that, I was proctoring all the AP exams for the kids' school.
Here's the thing: everybody has these seasons, right? Times when stuff is, just frankly, pretty terrible all around. It happens to everyone. We have seasons of positive stuff, followed by seasons of what seem like waves of tragedy, despair, worry and unhappiness. In the middle of all this, we are still trying to transition successfully to a new culture/country/language. Culture shock makes everything magnified. Everything. Ask anyone who has been through it. Culture shock means that tiny little stuff that ordinarily wouldn't bother you becomes big, giant stuff that you're ready to quit and head back to the States over. (Yep. It's been that kind of week.) So imagine what the big, giant, this-is-really-a-bad-thing-and-not-just-me-being-dramatic stuff gets blown up into. Crisis. Tragedy. Maybe we should just go home. (Do you get the picture? We've uttered those words several times in the last week.) Even Marc, who NEVER talks about quitting and going home, talked about it this week. Now that's a bad week, my friends. (In the interest of honest disclosure: my Dad is one of Marc's closest friends. His illness has hit Marc very, very hard. He almost didn't go this morning, because Daddy is still in the hospital. They really are so close.) You get the picture, right? It's been a terrible week. Terrible.
So if everyone has these seasons, what can you do in the middle of it? I mean, there have been points this week when, given my druthers, I would have just rocked back and forth in the fetal position in a corner somewhere. Do you just give in? Do you quit and go home? If you know us, you know that the answer to that for us is no. This is our life. Here. In Vienna. We chose this life because God chose it for us. And I'm of the firm opinion that God is not a fan of me sitting in a corner rocking back and forth. :) So what do you do in the middle of the bad seasons?
- Pray. A lot. Often. Alone. With Others. I immediately sent word to my team about what was going on. I called some folks. I knew, for sure, that we could not get through this without serious prayer--ours and others on our behalf.
- Seek God. We've learned that often, in the middle of the terrible seasons of life, God is doing some of His most beautiful work. I don't know that it makes the terrible any easier, but I know for certain that it makes going through it worth it to me. So I've spent some time this week just asking, "Okay, Lord. What are You doing in me in the middle of all this?"
- Rely on your friends. This is way harder for me than it should be. I am not one to spill my guts to someone. I don't like being dependent on people. It makes me nervous. But this was a week I could not get through on my own. So I asked for some help here in Wien from a couple of gals, and I called some friends back home in Florida. And that lifted me just enough that I could continue with life.
- Thank people. When we called/texted folks late Saturday night our time that my Dad was in the hospital, they dropped everything and ran to be there. At one point, there were so many that they couldn't get in--they had to stay in the waiting room. I made sure to thank them, because they didn't have to do that. They really didn't. But what a huge comfort that was to our anxious hearts. My mom and dad were not alone. For three daughters far away from their parents, what comfort that kindness was. It occurred to me this week, as I thought my way through the multitude of small kindnesses people had afforded us, that I have never, ever regretted doing something kind. I might regret the snarky sarcasm, or the sharp tongue, but I've never once been sad that I was nice to someone. There's a lesson there somewhere, I think.
- Choose to be grateful. Sometimes, this one was a stretch this week. It was work. I had to make myself, sometimes painfully, be grateful for even the smallest comforts. And there were many small comforts. When we found out my Dad was in the hospital the first time, Hannah was crying in her room, I was crying on the couch, and Marc was probably crying somewhere else. Out of nowhere, I heard singing. It was John. In that sweet, not-yet-changed voice, I could hear, "Here I am to worship. Here I am to bow down. Here I am to say that You're my God." If that doesn't touch your heart, I'm not sure you have one. I was thankful to have AP exams to give this week. I know how to do that. It kept me busy. Plus, I really like kids, so it recharged me to be with them. Three million facebook messages. Prayers from around the world. Sarah Beth being with my parents. Cats curled up on my lap. Small kindnesses. Small comforts. They got me through the week.
His,
Kellye
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