Wisconsin

For the past two weeks, Travis and I have been visiting family in Wisconsin. We are making the rounds before heading to Peru. So far, we've been able to spend time with Trav's brother, Justin, and sister-in-law, Julie. We took a road trip to the Chicago area to visit Aunt Maggie and cousin Beth. We met Jonah, Travis's new Godson, and we have spent time with Travis's parents (playing basketball, hiking, riding the ATV, and playing Farkle). Travis's parents live on a beautiful stretch of 60 acres in Wausau. I told Travis that I could handle living here.

Travis and me in Stevens Point

Julie and me outside her bakeshop.

Wisconsin sky right before a rain storm.

Travis standing on a giant rock in the Eau Claire Dells.

Some kids were jumping off that rock, and I thought we were going to have to call 911.

Travis chasing some deer in the front yard.

TWUMC Kids

Over the past few months Travis and I have had the privilege of speaking to a number of different groups about Peru. It has been a lot of fun sharing about how God has done miracles in our lives over the past few years-how He has prepared us for this next step.

Last Sunday we had an opportunity to speak at The Woodlands United Methodist student service. In a room packed with about 250 students, we told our stories. As teachers, Travis and I have never been able to explicitly share how Jesus changed us with us our students. But this past Sunday, a number of former students showed up.

I received an assembly line of hugs, and we played a game where kids had to guess what foreign food was displayed on a large screen. They were appalled that I had actually eaten a guinea pig. The morning was an answer to prayer - to be able to share with students and to encourage them to be open to God's plans for their lives.

The time Travis went to the dentist...and thought he was going to die.

So Travis has not been to the dentist in about 8 years. Although he told the dentist that it had only been 5 to try and save face. For the past year Travis has been saying that he needed to make a dentist appointment, and upon becoming his wife, I went ahead and made the appointment for him. He proceeded to tell me how much he did not want to go. I assured him that he would be fine and off he went.

An hour later I got a voicemail from Trav saying that he had bad news. Thought of root canals and rotting teeth flooded my mind. I called him, and he said (quite distressed), "I have a cavity." I smiled, told him that it was normal and that he was going to be ok. The kid in the video reminds me of what 7 year old Travis may have been like after a dentist visit.

Mission Arlington and Lego Breakdancing

Emily and I spent the weekend with my Aunt Hannah, Uncle Jonathan, and cousins Bekah, Caleb, Titus, and Lydia at Mission Arlington.  The Taussigs moved to Arlington, TX from Kansas City about 3 years ago in order to live in a low-income housing project and plant a church there.  I have looked up to the family for years and found in Jonathan a kindred spirit early in my walk with God.  He has always been someone who wants to radically live out the love of the Lord by ministering to the people who often fall through the cracks, and I admire his passion and sense of humor.

Hannah and the kids were able to come to the wedding where my cousins systematically gorged on candy and told me that I looked like I was wearing a diaper in my Save The Date photo, so Emily was able to meet them then.  But this was her first time meeting Jonathan.  As she saw him flagging us into a parking space, her first comment was, "He looks like Jesus."  It's true.  He has a beard of flannel-graph proportions, and any kid raised in Sunday School would immediately identify him as sharing a striking similarity to white Jesus.

The apartment complex that the Taussig's live in is in a rough area, but they have been able to establish a ministry involving a church in the clubhouse on Sundays, various Bible studies with the youth, a medical clinic, and partnering with Mission Arlington headquarters in order to meet the needs of many of the families in the complex.  There were continual knocks on their apartment door over the weekend, often kids looking to say hi or ask if they had any sunscreen.

My cousins Caleb and Titus immediately took me into their room to show me their collection of turtles.  It was impressive and their tanks were a little bit cleaner than the cage of Lydia's hamster, Princess.  Princess seemed to have been soiling every inch of her castle for quite some time.  At least that's what it smelled like.

After my turtle introduction, Caleb and Titus showed me their growing library of stop-animation films.  Using their webcam and a still photograph program, they would make stop-motion videos of legos and other objects laying around the house.  They even made one video in which a series of die took on the life of a snake.  It was great!  My two favorites were a Lego rendition of our wedding (complete with family photographs) and a Lego breakdancer.  The Lego breakdancer film was accompanied by Haddaway's "What is Love? (Baby Don't Hurt Me)" and featured all the essential moves: snake, side-spin, and moonwalk.  Spielberg watch out!

Emily and I spent the night in one of the old intern's apartments.  Apparently the door had been set on fire one time by a group of kids who were upset that the intern wanted some alone time.  Reminded me of some of my students.

The next day we helped them pack up over 250 packs of brand new school supplies and backpacks at the mission headquarters.  We unloaded them at the apartment clubhouse where about 7 or 8 kids showed up to help us unload and sort them before they could be distributed to families in the apartments. It was fun to work with the kids.  Emily was working with an African American toddler (probably 3 or 4 years old) with long cornrow braids and kept giving "her" directions until the rest of the kids filled Em in that "she" was a boy named AJ.  The braids threw her off.

It was fun, encouraging, and challenging to spend the weekend with the Taussigs.  The love, passion, and humility that permeate the family spreads to everything they're doing, and Emily and I saw many things modeled that we aspire to in our lives and calling.  We already miss them and want to visit again as soon as possible!

One man's sick is another woman's vacation

Over the last week I came down with a wicked bout of food poisoning. I will spare you the details other than to say that I was not aware of how many different colors could exist inside of me at once.

As I was expelling any and all non-essentials, I figured that Emily would be there to mop my brow and rub my back. But unfortunately she had other things to take care of--like swimming in a pool with friends. No joke. While I was slowly drowning in the tidal waves of nausea, Emily was creating her own waves--happy, splashy waves--at a friend's swimming pool. I really couldn't be that upset; just to think about swimming was enough to push me over the edge of the next nausea wave.

I've read enough books about marriage at this point to know that flexibility and the ability to be somewhat fluid with expectations is important, so I put the whole brow-mopping thing out of mind and knew I would have to gut this one through partially on my own. Emily got home from her day of poolside fun and sat with me in our room for a bit. I stopped being nauseous for about two minutes which let me fall asleep.

I woke up to the thundering sound of horse hooves. It seems that Emily's day in the sun was not enough excitement, and I'm really boring when sick, so she decided to watch a movie on Netflix. No, not some quiet romantic comedy or foreign kid movie--a movie chock full of cheering, dramatic orchestra swelling, and a whole lot of horse hooves. Secretariat. And to top it off, the stereo our TV is hooked up to is a bit picky when it comes to volume, and Emily hasn't necessarily gotten a handle on it yet, so the movie was playing full blast.

When I figured out I wasn't about to be trampled by horses, I put a pillow over my head and tried to recapture that sweet sickness-amnesia of sleep, but it wasn't going to happen. So instead I listened to an hour of dramatic shouting about horses mixed in with a bunch of hooves. Finally Emily had watched enough to know she didn't like the movie and she turned it off. I expected her to come in and check on me, wipe my brow, climb into bed. Instead the lights went off in the living room and I heard her stretch out on the couch. She was probably asleep in five minutes.

The next day I was still sick (like I said, it was a wicked case). Guess what Emily did. You got it, she went swimming.