not your average Sunday

Brian just got home from a trip to the states for the winter JV board meeting and a training for our newly formed and growing communications team. I was home with the kids for nine days (I keep saying ten, but Brian keeps correcting me). The kids were sick while he was gone, and I myself have been sick for more than nine days.

At our church us parents, who send our kids to nursery, rotate Sundays taking turns caring for the kids. Brian and I have done this together several times, and I would say a high average for us is about six or seven kids including our own. So, this Sunday, Brian very kindly offered to do nursery and to let me stay home and rest. I happily agreed, thinking at most, without our boys, he'd have six kids. I kept the boys home with me, and Cece went with Brian to help him.

While he was at church, I got a message from him with this picture. All the message said was 14 kids.

Whooops. Well, we won't be doing that again.

who's at your table

My cousin, Melanie, gave me Bread & Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table for Christmas this year. Author, Shauna Niequist, writes about her life in short essays, most chapters ending with a recipe that coincides with that moment from her life. Even though, I'm not like her, "someone who wakes up in the morning thinking about what I will eat". I am captivated by her writing style, drawn to her honesty about life, and appreciating some new ideas in the kitchen.

One of her points is that one shouldn't worry about achieving perfection before entertaining. Instead, you should just have people over. Regardless of the size of your house, your ability to make tarts, or the chaos of life. Just have people around the table, she implores, because something sacred happens when people are gathered together and nourished together.

To be honest, I have found myself jealous as she's describing the gatherings she has at her table. I get mostly jealous of the times that she has family or long-time friends gathered together. Throughout my high school and college years, my family would gather almost every Sunday after church for dinner (we called it dinner, not lunch) at my aunt and uncle's house. When it was just our two families, the ten of us would crowd around the table. When we invited others, which happened often, we'd set up two tables, if needed. It was a time of joking, sharing, laughing, and eating. Ever since I left Minnesota, I have missed those Sunday gatherings around the table.

Then, when I married into Brian's family, we'd gather together too, but never around one table because 35+ people do not fit at one table. But, often, we'd go to Florida and gather in the living room with Brian's sister's family, kids everywhere (mostly hers), and my glass was never empty. Lots of chaos, but a lot of laughing and a lot of nourishing.

Reading Bread & Wine inspired me. We do have people over for dinner all the time, so this isn't a new thing for me. However, I decided that I wanted this most recent time to be more special. I invited several girls (they are really women, but I still can't call my good friends women--seems weird to me) over for a wine party. I brought out my best dishes and even put on a table cloth. I prepared two things that I know how to make, but that don't really go together--hummus and guacamole. Four of my friends came, two Americans and two Czechs. We sat around my table telling stories of giving birth in Czech hospitals. Tales of trying to speak another language and figure out another culture. Some shared about how they met their husbands. We talked about the local schools and our kids. Two of them shared what they remembered about living here in Czech as small girls during communism.

As I was cleaning up the dishes at midnight (yes, they stayed until midnight!), I realized that "my table" looks different than it did 15 years ago. I still want my brothers and cousins at my table way more than they are able to make it out here to sit at it. However, I'm thankful for this opportunity to have these friends at my table now. I'm not sure what my table will look like 15 years from now, but this is what it looked like last night (before everyone arrived).

our sermon, gender equality, and plagiarism

You may be wondering how in the world our sermon, gender equality, and plagiarism are related. Well, I'll explain. About a month ago, Brian and I preached a sermon at our church here in Czech. I love to preach/teach, but honestly, this was one of the hardest teachings I have ever prepared for. The passage we preached on was Ephesians 5.

One interesting thing is that Brian and I didn't have a lot of conversations about the theology of marriage before we became missionaries. It's not to say that we didn't talk about it or that we didn't live out what we believed, but these past few years have sparked many a late-night conversation on the subject. (Always, completely peacefully, NOT!:))

I'm not sure how things go at your house, but what will start out as a seemingly innocent conversation or question (usually after I've read some blog and want to talk about it) can very quickly become very personal. So, for the past few years, Brian and I have been wrestling with the theology of marriage.

Funny enough, we were asked to preach at our church and the assigned passage was Ephesians 5. So for several weeks before hand, we wrestled some more, read the whole book of Ephesians (more than once), read some books, and stared at our computer screens wondering what in the world we should say. We really prayed about what to share, and I believe that the Holy Spirit gave us some great direction. We do not have this all figured out, but here's the sermon if you're interested. It's translated into Czech. Someday, I hope to able to do something like this without a translator, but that's a few years away.

A few days after we preached, I came across this blog post written by Bill and Lynne Hybels. Bill Hybels is the pastor of Willow Creek in the Chicago area. The post is about a whole lot more than Ephesians 5, hence the gender equality part in my title. I was so touched by this post that I cried. I cried because of their honesty about their struggle to figure out their theology and also the realities of life and how to actually live out what you believe. It's hard. This is an expert from the blog, written by Bill:

"Starting a church proved to be far harder than I had anticipated, so I was insanely busy, and the level of responsibility I carried at a young age produced continual and extreme stress. Anytime Lynne asked me to do even a small thing to help her, I felt burdened and impatient. The fact that I was earning an income to support our family, while her efforts at home as well as in ministry were always unpaid, contributed to devaluing her work. And, of course, because of my visible ministry, I was applauded and honored. Lynne heard again and again how powerfully God was using me. “It’s a good thing Bill has you serving him behind the scenes,” was a comment that repeatedly made her ask, What’s wrong with me? Why am I not content?"

And then, yesterday, I read this post written by Neil Cole, author of Organic Church (and other books) and last year's Josiah Venture Advance conference speaker. The post is part of a five-part series of blog postings in response to a recent plagiarism accusation against Mark Driscoll. (I think Cole references this very respectfully in his initial post.) The fourth post is the one that really convicted me. He talks about how important it is to ask questions and challenge each other's thinking and even question theology. And, this was the most convicting part for me:

"What would Christendom look like if we all agreed, all the time, and no one ever raised a different point of view? Some may say that would be heaven, I think it would be hell. All learning and growing would stop. We'd be monochromatic robots with little beauty or diversity, and we would lack all creativity and surprise. Heaven will be like our Creator who made 10,000's of varieties of flowers and birds, and gave each person a one-of-a-kind DNA so that each one is unique in all of history. Personally, I am grateful for the diversity of opinion. I love people that disagree with me, and those who agree as well. We all can learn from each other. We can discover the rich depth each part of the body brings to the round table if we only humble ourselves and accept one another. Perhaps combinations of thought can produce entirely new realms of understanding."

I like it when people agree with me! I especially like it when Brian agrees with me. However, this whole process of preparing for the sermon we gave a month ago has taught me a lot. And, it's made me appreciate Brian, and I hope to handle it better when we don't agree on theology in the future (hard to imagine that even being possible:)). In the meantime, I am celebrating the conclusions that we came to about marriage, and I was honored to stand next to Brian as we preached.

mission accomplished and an awkward moment at the doctor

Despite the fact that I gave birth to twins here in Czech, had a laser ablation procedure in Belgium, and have lived here in Czech for almost four years, I sadly must admit that I don't like going to the doctor here. This has much more to do with the language barrier than anything else; however it also has to do with these awkward moments, that are usually just cultural differences, nothing wrong on anyone's part, but I'll get to that. I realized this past year that I avoid going to the doctor, a bit too much. So, I made it my goal this summer to get over my fears (and the language barrier, which I'm still working on with Czech lessons four times a week).

One of my goals was to make sure that all five of us got the flu shot. (If you're one that's opposed, please know that I still love you, so still love me too.) For the kids, it meant communicating with our pediatrician early enough, so that she could order it, which is something that I didn't do last year. For me, it meant actually finding a regular doctor. I know, right?! Four years, and I had yet to get a regular doctor. It's just that when I was pregnant with the twins, I was going to a doctor up to two times a week. Finding a regular doctor at that time seemed like a little too much.

So, yesterday, I went to a doctor who speaks English, right in my town, and I was able to get a flu shot (they even had them in stock).

My kids went to their pediatrician yesterday as well to get their flu shots, and Brian got his in the states. I didn't make all the phone calls myself, and I did have a translator with me at the kids' appointment, but still--mission accomplished. So, yes, it's getting easier, but there are still these awkward moments.

First, what you need to know (if you've never been to the doctor here) is that you sort of have to throw modesty out the window. The nurse isn't going to tell you to get undressed and put the rob on, walk out of the room and wait for you to change. In fact, the undressing is going to happen in the doctor's office while the doctor is in there. But, the thing is that I'm never sure when it's supposed to happen. You also won't always get specific directions about what articles of clothing you should take off or keep on, and I certainly don't want to over do it.

So, yesterday, when I was at this new doctor, he was doing a very routine check up, and it all felt very familiar. He checked my throat, asked me to look up and look down, and then, he said he wanted to listen to my heart. Okay, so I'm thinking, this is where the undressing part is probably going to happen. However, I don't want to just assume that, so I wait. He asks me to do something to my shirt (I honestly can't remember, but someone who is not a native English speak doesn't always say those instructions in a clear way), so as to not over do it, I just lifted up my shirt in the back. Then, I thought to myself, he probably wants me to take my shirt off, but I didn't want to just whip it off, so I said, "Is that good?" The hesitation in his answer told me no, so I took it off. That certainly is what he needed me to do because then he said, "There, now I can work!" I'm so glad he was standing behind me so he didn't see my face when he said it. He of course, didn't mean anything by it other than just that--he just wanted to have a good listen to my heart. But oh my goodness, it's those awkward moments that I just have to laugh off!