time for pictures

here's a few pictures (the west coast, me and karen amalie, skien at sunset, and salome getting into the jar of m&m's).

in just a few days i'll be on a plane to warm and sunny lobatse, botswana. our team is doing well, learning to work and communicate with each other. culture stress is getting better, as well. tomorrow the first team leaves for thailand and the rest of us soon follow. our "d-day" is sunday the 26th.

sorry, mom, about the last blog. =) the chin is still up. i'm glad God gave me control over my emotions. and i have decided to exercise that control starting... now.

i thought i'd post some pictures, but the batteries are dead on my camera. i'm looking into buying a quality digital camera, so if anyone has suggestions, let me know.

2 weeks. 2 weeks until i head off to botswana. every time i go somewhere new i just can't psych myself up. yes, i'm excited to go and see new places, minister, all that good stuff. but i'm a bit tired of new places and just want to sit in skien for a month or so. plus... i've been attacked. it came out of nowhere and POW! it hit and hit hard. culture shock. it sucks. look to my friend evan's blog to read all about it. there's not so many of us foreigners working here and when one of us gets culture shock, it spreads like wildfire. here's what goes through my mind. "hmm, so-and-so is irritated with norwegian. good, now i'm allowed to actually say how i feel. hmm, so-and-so is irritated with the way things are done. good, now i have an excuse to feel this way." it's dangerous. the first time i had culture shock i thought i was going crazy - seriously. i wanted to scream at everyone who opened their mouths and hit them in the gut. this weekend i went to see "match point" with a couple friends and there was a man standing in front of us wearing a very norwegian sweater (hand knit, made of wool, probably had reindeer or something on it) and even the sweater irritated my friend. you just can't help it. it's hard to have culture shock - it's not that i dislike being here or i dislike the people i'm around. quite the contrary. it just feels like i have a neon sign over my big head of hair, screaming, "she doesn't belong here! she's american! americans are trying to run the world and they really stink at learning norwegian! beware!" whew, glad to get that off my chest. i know it will pass and i just try to laugh at it, but at this time the laughter sounds a bit sinister.

yes, i still speak english

Your Linguistic Profile:

80% General American English

15% Yankee

5% Dixie

0% Midwestern

0% Upper Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

perspective

today one of the students - a girl in my small group and also a friend - went home because her father is dying. perspective. i hear people complaining all day because they are too busy, too tired, blah, blah, and i contribute to the pile of muck by complaining about the freezing temps and snow, how i'm tired as well and it is all worth absolutely nothing. nothing. her father is dying and we complain. perspective. i remember listening to a man whom i worked with one summer share about what it is was like when his wife died and left him with 5 children. he said he everything else seemed secondary. when a child spilled a glass of milk at a restaurant, it didn't matter. if someone forgot something at home, it wasn't worth making a big deal. it changed his perspective.
i remember taking a class in college and one of the lectures was about what to say/not to say to people who are hurting. i tried to remember what we were told to do as i sat there and she cried on my shoulder, but i remembered nothing. i just let her cry. maybe that was enough though.
situations like this never seems to answer any of life's questions. if anything, it raises more. but as many of us stood around and prayed tonight, i was reminded that Jesus never changes. circumstances may, lives may, but Jesus never does. maybe that doesn't solve anything, but it helps. "my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. on Christ the solid rock i stand, all other ground is sinking sand. all other ground is sinking sand."