Lavern Returns

Today, I go with Lolita into the Warszawa to pick up Lavern at the airport. He has been at Faith Builders for two weeks taking a few classes. I miss him a lot and I am sure that Lolita could multiply that statement. Hey, love grows strong in a marriage! I know she was missing him terribly!

We have had the first real snow here this year. There are probably eleven or twelve inches on the ground and a good two inches of it packed on the roads. Makes driving a little hair-raising. Les and I had a great “extract the car out of the ditch” the other night at 11:30. The van just slipped off the road into the ditch, so we used sand and a rope tied to the Lavern’s van to pull it out. I love the snow especially if you compare it to the rain that we have been having for the last several months. Hate that!

By the way, I am headed to Ireland during the middle of this week. Pretty exciting for me! Corleen, Maria, Les, and I have a off of teaching for winter break! Les found some really cheap airline tickets to Ireland and so since Corleen has some relatives there and we all are interested in the country, we decided to go. We have been saving up part of our stipends for this, but we are not going to let our little budgets keep us from enjoying ourselves. That is right! Here is a basic itinerary:

-February 1st – we play this day by ear, maybe hanging around if Cor’s relatives are not busy and doing something with them, if not we will leave early and head for our destination, the semi-northwest shore of Ireland, the Rock of Cashel. This is an amazing rock outcropping with really ancient castle ruins. I think that we will spend a good part of our day in solitude, breaking up for just being alone. In the evening we will travel a bit south to Galway for the night at a hostel.

-February 2 -the next morning we want to see Athenry just to the east of Galway as well as travel down to the Cliffs of Mohr, 7-800 foot cliffs down into the Atlantic, maybe to the Burren also. The Burren is an amazing limestone wasteland with sparse vegetation and maybe highland cattle grazing in the winter. Then we will head north again for the night, just below Galway in a town called Kinvarra. Another hostel and possibly a neat castle nearby with hot springs!?

February 3 -we drive down the western coast all the way to Kilarney. I think that we want to make a point of doing supper at least on a peninsula north of Kilarney called Dingle. Dingle is known for its original Irish atmosphere and architecture. I hear that there are also amazing Celtic and Viking ruins there also. Stone huts, fences, and other ruins. For the night we stay at a hostel in Kilarney.

February 4- sunday, we will either have our own little service or look for a local congregation to worship with, then we want to go around the ring of Kerry which is a road going around the Kerry Peninsula that is surrounded by beatuiful marshes, castles, lakes, hills, and other natural surroundings. Then we may eat lunch in Kilarney and in the evening we will be heading for Dublin to spend the night.

February 5 -back to Poland at 7:00 -7:30 we leave Ireland and touch down somewhere after nine
In reality, we are going to be a lot more wild than this. You see if you have no musical line to work off of there can be no improvisation! I plan to take a lot of pictures.

Last night, I returned from a trip to Olsztyn for services with a group of Christians we have visited before. It was a long, snowy four hour ride on the train but meeting with these people and experiencing their passion for God is a real encouragement. They are very generous people and put us up in their houses for the night. It is a lot of fun to sing with the young people there too. I feel really old because when I am with them I am one of the oldest youths. We sang some English hymns and praise songs but also a lot of Polish and Russian (Slavic) songs. I love them because they have such haunting and generally minor melody lines.

I think it was great . . . haircutting

Tonight at the end of supper, just before John gets a string of “May I be excuses?”, he announced that it was haircut time for the boys.  No one seemed to be in any mood to get off their stools and shout!  Any men who are wondering: it is a case of dull clippers or in this case a whirlwind like thing called a “flowbee”. This is a very ingenious, motorized haircutting device that attaches to any vacuum cleaner thereby removing all the loose hairs and hair-clippings.  Dull knives and dull hair removal tools of any kind are the bane to any kind of joy related to this usually painless and rejuvenating process!  I got to try this sucking, cutting machine for the first time tonight and I must say that it really would be “the ticket” if it were sharp.  However, none of the activities tonight compares with the warning that John’s youngest son, Derek, gave his dad as they were entering the homestretch of his haircut;  trimming around the ears.  He asked, “Dad, do you want me to be able to hear straight when we get done with this haircut?  Pretty soon, if you don’t stop bending my ear, I won’t hear straight.”  He was totally serious about this because when the comb pushed the top of his ear down it impaired his hearing enough to make him worry.  Man, I laughed!

The Ritual of Sacrifice

Yes, these are gruesome pictures that I posted!  They are terrible.  I don’t even like to look at them in some ways.  Yet they made a big impression on me because this is what sacrifice is.  It is death, blood, and all the gruesome details involved with it.  This is a Muslim tradition.  Eid ul-Adha (Arabic) occurs on the tenth day of the Islamic month of Dhull Hijja. It is one of two Eid festivals that Muslims celebrate. Eid ul-Adha is celebrated by Muslims worldwide as a commemoration of Prophet Ibrahim’s (Abraham’s) willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael for God.  Men, women, and children are expected to dress in their finest clothing and perform prayer (Salat) in any mosque. Muslims sacrifice their best domestic animals (usually sheep, but also camels, cows, and goats) as a symbol of Ibrahim’s (Abraham’s) sacrifice. The sacrificed animals have to meet certain age and quality standards or else the animal is considered an unacceptable sacrifice. At the time of sacrifice, Allah’s name is recited along with the offering statement and a supplication as Prophet Muhammad said. The meat then is distributed among the sacrificer’s family, friends, relatives, and the poor and hungry.

I know this is a Muslim tradition , but I was struck by the similarity of the pictures here with what we read of Jewish sacrifices; made to the God that Christians serve today.  Wow, can you even imagine the blood and stench that must have arisen from that place.  It would be worse than a slaughter house! But it was call for atonement of sin.  I looked into this Muslim tradition a bit more because I was introduced to a much more severe picture of carnage in our local Co Slychac?. The picture shows about fifteen cows strewn across the courtyard of a mosque and men wading around in the bloodbath.  It is creepy to me to think of this kind of killing.  One article I read said this: “Of course people have to eat. But maybe the celebration of this and similarly grisly rituals feeds their blood-thirstiness.”

Camel Dies

Cow Slaughtered for Eid-al-Adah

It’s Rain, Blue eyes crying in the rain.

The rain has to keep falling. I bend my head low as the gusts of wind whip me towards the muddy shoulder. Head lights cast murky, darting shadows in front of oncoming traffic as cars cascade sheets of water over my bike and waterlogged jeans. I try to focus on the glistening black of the asphalt beneath me, determined not to become part of its grimy surface. It seems that if I do not keep moving, some sinister strength will meld me into the oblivion of tar, sand, and road mush. Moisture beads up on my greased leather boots, but soon I feel a twinge of coolness seeping around the tongue and spreading over my socks. You can’t keep it out. The rain.

Beneath my steamy jacket beats a heart that remains unaffected by the wind or the rain. It pumps warm, life-giving blood through my arteries and veins as I exert myself with each pedal stroke. There is another heart within that is affected by the rain, although it is not the coolness of water that touches it but rather the very presence of falling rain. So many authors and songwriters have sought to capture some of the human experience in the falling rain. Maybe it is the lack of the sun’s light. Maybe it is the drone of rain drops falling. Maybe it comes from within and our very core was meant to be touched by the hypnotizing affects of rain. Certainly circumstances have something to do with feeling “blue”. “Blue Suede Shoes”, “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain”, “That Rain Keeps Falling”. Usually it is connected with the loss of love or desire for something in the past.

Do you think that Jesus “got the blues” when rain fell on the slopes of Palestine? I wonder if His horizon felt perpetually “blue”. It certainly had that potential.

Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain

In the twilight glow I see her
Blue eyes crying in the rain
As we kissed goodbye and parted
I knew we’d never meet again

Love is like a dying ember
Only memories remain
Through the ages I’ll remember
Blue eyes crying in the rain

Now my hair has turned to silver
All my life I’ve loved in vain
I can see her star in Heaven
Blue eyes crying in the rain

Someday when we meet up yonder
We’ll stroll hand in hand again
In a land that knows no parting
Blue eyes crying in the rain

“Do not fear my children, for I have overcome all that will come against you.”

-Jesus

I say a prayer for all those who are struggling today.  For those who are experiencing loss in their lives.  May God wrap his arms around you and love you.  I ask that He will give you the strength to turn your eyes upward.  Jesus said a powerful thing: “Just as the gold serpent was lifted up in the wilderness so I am lifted up for your strength; whoever believes in me will have Life.”

Bicycles

  I have realized how much I depend on my bicycle in the last day.  I was getting ready to ride home from Gateway to English at about twelve a.m. , “and lo, thou hath forsaken me, oh my bike” (II Rider 4:8).  The rear tire was totally flat!  This afternoon, when I finally got some time to check it, I found that someone had either taken the top of my valve stem off or else it worked itself off.  I have Schrader valves.  So, all I need to do is simply replace the valve end and hopefully everything will be solved.  Meanwhile, I was riding this absolute junker!  I got partway out of town this morning before I realized that the rear tire was nearly as bad as my normal bike’s is.  As I hit each man-hole lid in the street, I could feel the rim bottoming out on the pavement.  That is reason to wince and shift your weight over the front tire! My bike is a gift.  To have a healthy body to power my bicycle, is a gift.  I want to thank God for that.

Forgetting of the danger of riding the streets in Minsk is possible until some near accident shakes you out of your revery.  This morning there was a heavy drizzle splattering on my glasses (time to install remote wipers) as I was riding down the busy main street of town, and a car nearly collided with me going the wrong way, in my lane! This is Polish territory.  I almost collided with him.  Bring things into clear perspective!

Teacher’s Thoughts

    Well, I have been back to school for one day.  This is something that I am not sure how easy it is to get back into.  I think that having a break is nice, but it also brings back some the need for renewed effort to connect again with students.  I find one of the most dramatic things that I am always learning to do better is to explain concepts.  Breaks don’t help this! I think you must be at it twenty-four/ seven to do well.  Try explaining something like phrasal verbs to a second grader, and you will get a little of the same feeling.  To reduce a complex or abstract/ “non-existent” reason for a part of speech in the English language into a readily available sound-bite is a challenge!

I have started decorating my classroom.  Wow, that is not so easy.  It is hard to find great pictures over here in Poland.  I started with a map of the US; very creative!  Now, I have added some cowboy pictures because those were actually some of the easiest to find due to our stash of old “Farm and Ranch” magazines.  I happen to love cowboys though:)  I added little phrases to the pictures like: “it’s boots and blood, dust and mud; home on the range; they aren’t wrong, they’re different”.  Little clips from famous cowboy songs.  If someone has some more creative ideas for me, feel free, feel a sense of duty, to share them with me!  I think that I am going to cut out and hang up some brilliant flowers on the wall in a number of places.  The walls are this deep green, and so it is difficult not to have feelings of looking at a huge lawn or at the impenetrable jungle foliage.  It needs break up!

During break, Les and I built a computer and bookshelf unit for Lavern to house his massive “blob” of a monitor as well as to make a home for some deeply deprived and homeless books.  We built the shelves out of laminate covered particle board.  It is a new experience to do all of the ripping of shelf material with a skill-saw.  Hey, but we were proud of the finished product! Signing out with Polski Rolski, this is Robin.