Portland II

A lovely weekend in Portland with old and new friends. On the way down we stopped at Burgerville in Centralia, where we feasted on cheeseburgers, milkshakes, and french fries - although the french fries turned out to have some gluten in them. :(

We went to sleep not long after wards (well, most of us did) and woke up in the morning to find that their had been gluten in the french fries. Mama and Lou did not feel good!

Nonetheless, we went to Charlie's lacrosse game and cheered him on. Then we headed to Bob's Red Mill and had a wonderful brunch. (gluten free for those who needed it) Pancakes, french toast, hash browns, omelets, muffins, eggs. Need I go on?

After brunch, we split up, half of us going to the Colombia Outlet.

The rest of the day we hung out and as I said, watched basketball, jumped on the trampoline, and napped.

Zaz in the play room/nook.

Lou, Peter, and Leah.

Aunt Betty and Mama catching up.

Oh, how I love trampolines! A beautiful day = beautiful pictures.

Charlie, Pete, and Lou.

Jumping for joy! Me!

Lou and I traded off with the camera, doing photo shoots of each other. So fun!

Portland

We've been here less than 24 hours and I've taken more than 150 pictures. Prepare for a picture overload sometime this week! This morning we went to a lacrosse game, Bob's Red Mill, and the Columbia Outlet. This afternoon was all about napping, jumping on the trampoline, and watching basketball.

Happy Saturday

Skiing Weekend

Two weeks ago, we had winter break at Ecole Vieux Pin. The previous post done on this subject would have been better named Christmas break, but oh well. We took a lovely two-day skiing trip to Stevens Pass the first day and Mission Ridge the second, after spending the night in Wenatchee.

Zaz was very excited to go skiing as we got ready, but slightly less so when it actually happened.

Cheerful smiles.

Zaz also spent considerable time studying the map. Even though it was upside down...

We had fairly good weather at Stevens, although it rained a bit at the end. Such beautiful sunshine!

Zaz skied very well

More studying of the map over lunch.

Mission was really beautiful too, especially after coming out of dry Wenatchee. Talking to friends later, we realized that we were truly blessed with a clear day. We could see Mt. Rainer and Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood was hiding a little behind some clouds.

The view was stunning. Lou got a bit annoyed at me for taking so many pictures. (i.e. taking my camera out a LOT!)

We also got to see the wing from the bomber that crashed there during World War II and learn it's history.

After lunch Zaz got to go play, and us other five enjoyed skiing together.

Plus a nice ski-patrol man took our picture together.

The way the wind has pushed the snow on the trees, buildings, and these posts at the top of the lift was really cool - and beautiful.

We are very thankful for a fun, successful trip, clear, blue skies, and enjoying God's creation. This was also only the second time we've able to go skiing this year, although Papa and Zaz are off to Snoqualmie tomorrow morning for a ski adventure in honor of Zaz's 4th birthday.

Marina

Beautiful Sarajevo

After three full wonderful days in Sarajevo my head and my heart are also full. They've been busy days though and there hasn't been much time to process things along the way. But much of what I've experienced and learned here follows three main streams.

Sarajevo is a beautiful ancient city with a rich cultural history that I was really very ignorant of. Is it most influenced by Austria? Turkey? Russia? it seems to depend on which part of town you are in and what you are having for lunch. In the old city narrow streets and shops bring Turkey to mind. In the background stand elegant mosques with delicate minarets shooting into the sky to catch the sunlight. In the foreground are a multitude of minature shops where wares spill out into the street. A couple blocks further and the architecture changes abruptly to an 18th century baroque style that looks like something you'd find in Vienna. An tidy square opens up in front of the catholic cathedral and serves as a meeting place for people coming out to see and be seen. Still further down Marshall Tito street broadens into a too-wide avenue with the tram line running down the center. The kind of huge broad avenue I recall from walking in East Berlin, walking on and on between big blocky buildings, realizing finally that the very structure of the place was designed to make me feel small, not holy small like in a cathedral, but small like the cog in a great machine. That's how I felt in East Berlin, and I felt it again here, down the big main avenue lined with blocky Soviet era buildings. Still, there is something very powerful about it, like we're all marching together into Progress which is just further down this same street.

The food too is a wonderful, delicious blend of influences. For one meal out we had stuffed everything: peppers, onions, tomatoes, with flavors that made me think of Hungary. Another meal was all kinds of grilled meat, with incredible veal sausages. Coffee out tasted Austrian, espresso with a LOT of whipped cream on top. Coffee in with friends, was Bosnian coffee, what I have always thought of as Turkish coffee, cooked in little traditional pots over the flame and then poured into elegant small cups and served with a lot of sugar. Traditional dessert for Bairam was baklava, which I have always associated with Greece but happily ate up in Bosnia. What a wonderful melange of flavors, and I'm sure I only tasted the surface! In the grocery store in different countries, I always relish seeing what's really important to a culture by inspecting what they have large amounts of. In Switzerland it's chocolate. In Bosnia a huge section of the dairy case was for plain drinkable yogurt, which apparently is what Bosnians drink instead of milk, healthy folk! Another large section is for sliceable meat, like some kind of bologna perhaps? I never tried any, but since the large majority of Sarajevans are Muslim and don't eat pork, if it were offered, I might be more inclined to try the mystery meat.


Then there is the Sarajevo that I arrived with -- memories of the confusing war in the 90s and the voice of Christiane Amanpour listing place names where the fighting was bad: Banja Luka, Mostar, Bihac, Iliza, Dibrojnia. Only now these place names have a face -- they are just towns and suburbs, where ordinary people live ordinary lives. During the brief time I was there, I was determined to try to understand more of what I didn't at the time, how and why such an awfu war could happen. Sean and Heather know a lot and have a lot of helpful books, so after saying goodnight and heading for bed, I kept staying up late and reading and reliving the war and the siege of Sarajevo. "Zlata's Diary" was particularly moving. It's the diary that a twelve year old girl started keeping as the conflict unfolds -- she doesn't know all the reasons why, she just knows her world has been torn apart by tanks and sniper fire.


For many Sarajevans, the past is gone and they want to move forward and leave sad memories behind. But for any visitor to the city, one can't help notice that there are still plenty of reminders of the past in the huge shell holes in the sides of buildings downtown and apartment blocks still riddled with bullet holes. Plenty has been rebuilt, but there are plenty of structures where just the shell remains and leafy trees grow inside, reaching far above what was once the roofline.


Heather took me to the Tunnel Museum, which memorializes the tunnel under the airport runway. It was dug by the Bosnian army and one end was under a family's house. It provided the lifeline which kept Sarajevo alive during the siege, bringing food and weapons in and getting the wounded out. An average of 4,000 people a day passed through this narrow space where I could barely stand up straight and if I spread out my arms I could touch both sides. After the war, the family whose home this is made the bottom floor into this museum. Heather said in the summer busses come there filled with hundreds of tourists and outside you can see where someone across the road has set up a snack bar to catch business in the busy season. On one wall there are pictures of all kinds of dignitaries and actors who have visited, Orlando Bloom and Kevin Spacey posing with the son of the family who runs the museum. When we came out of the museum, this son also kindly posed with me, although somehow my reputation hadn't proceeded me and he forgot to ask for a copy of the photo for his wall. While we stood there chatting, his father walked from the garden out down the road, acknowledging us with a nod but not staying to talk. As he passed, I felt something huge, like I was in the presence of someone historical. This man had given his house, time and efforts to build and maintain this tunnel to protect his family and his country. He felt like a huge hero. And such an ordinary old man. We said goodbye to his son and got back in the van, while son joined his father on the road, gazing across the open space to the airport. Then I felt, more than understood, that this man is tired. Tired of all the visitors who come to see Sarajevo's tragedy. Tired of all the people who come now, but who didn't come then, who watched horrified from afar. Tired from reliving this conflict every day, but driven to keep it alive to remind us of what can happen and the price of protecting your life and family. I felt sad, I felt guilty, I felt achey for this beautiful country and her beautiful people.



That's what brought Sean and Heather here, I think, that ache. That compassionate ache of Jesus which sits beside hurting people and shares in their ache until they heal. And that's what I see that they are doing here. The best way to describe it is thinking of a ministry our church has at a nursing home. Our church puts on a mini church service for residents who can no longer get out on a Sunday morning. In inviting us to be a part the guy in charge of organizing it told me that what they need there is people to worship with; more bodies; more voices in song and prayer. It is hard to worship in a community when you are just a few; worship is meant to be together. That's a little bit what I see Sean and Heather are doing in Bosnia. I went to find out what they do all day and while I got to see that, I left understanding more that it's actually more about what they BE all day, even though that's grammatically incorrect. It's who they are all day that matters and that can make a difference there. They have a vision for what Bosnia could be with the love of Jesus and transformed by his healing.

They said that Bosnia is on a spiritual fault line. A predominantly Muslim country in Europe. Fundamentalist Muslim countries see Bosnia as a stepping stone. If Bosnia became a strictly Muslim nation, it would lend legitimacy to Islam in other European countries. To that end, they are pouring a lot of money into the country, paying women to wear the hijab and building mosques. An enormous brand new mosque in downtown Sarajevo was a gift from the country of Indonesia and two towers destroyed in the war were rebuilt paid for by the government of Kuwait. But not all Bosnians appreciate that influence and are actively searching for meaning and understanding in the choices before them: traditional Islam, the hollow materialism that has swallowed Western Europe or the love and mercy of Christ about which most have never heard.

In a country of 5 million people there are only 800 evangelical Christians. Sean and Heather are there to support those believers as they walk with Jesus and tell His good news. This year is the Year of Prayer for Bosnia.

Ecole Vieux Pin hits the Road

This was a big day for Ecole Vieux Pin. We went on an all day field trip to sites in the Jura. First stop was the Grottes de Reclere, where stalagmites and stalagtites abound in beautiful formations along a 1.5 kilometer path underground.

This formation is called "the portrait" because it resembles a woman's face in profile.

After the caves, we visited the "Prehisto-Park" where scale models of various dinosaurs are planted throughout a nice patch of deciduous forest. But our favorite critter was this kitty tour guide who walked the entire path with us and would hop up on the dinos to pose for the camera.

After the dinos we drove towards St. Ursanne, passing through a peninsula of France to get there. That's where we saw this Lavoire, an old public washing place. It's on the town square where the women of yesteryear would bring their laundry to wash all together. This illustrates the need for monograms -- so you would go home with your own skivvies and not someone elses.

Next we visited St. Ursanne, an elegant cloister built in the 1100s.

We're reading The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli and Robin is currently staying in a monastery, so it's lovely to have this example for the kids to put in their minds.

Then on the way back to Boncourt we stopped in Porrentruy long enough to put Manu and the kids on the train. Zarli was so happy that he couldn't even smile -- just took it all in.

Visiting Geneva

Geneva is the city where Manu and I met, and while we had intentions of driving along romantically along our old bus route #3 gazing into each other's eyes, instead we spent most of the day in the old city visiting Reformation sites. Here in the old city reads a sign that says, in French, "John Calvin lived here."

The interior of le Cathdrale St. Pierre, the church where Calvin was pastor. Under reformed influence the church was stripped of all it's statues and paintings. I used to think that was kind of sad, but now I think I prefer it the way it is (which is good since no one offered to change it just for me.) Compared to the chapel next door where all the ornate decoration has been restored, it is quite austere, but very restful and beautiful in simplicity.

With Calvin's chair.

John "Pete" Calvin at the International Museum of the Reformation, just across the street from the church. Highly recommended! Very interactive and lots of buttons and pulleys and sounds which drew the children in. They liked it as much as we did.

Also, very nice bathrooms and a lovely courtyard with tables to have a snack.

The Voyage and the Destination

I'm at that time of the middle of the night where my brain insists on the fact that it should be awake and busy even though I'm very weary and I've only slept a few hours so far. I lie there with my thoughts until the day's events, jet lag and weariness all swirl together and seem to make perfect sense of life, and I just have to get up and try to capture the profundity.

Antony and Laetitia's civil wedding was on Friday evening, down in the town hall of Boncourt. They had asked me to sing a song with the guitar to offset the officialness of it, and I did and it went off nicely. However I was struck with the fact that although it was a secular ceremony and very quick, there was still weight to it. More than I think there is to a courtroom marriage in the states, at least the ones depicted in film. The clerk who performed it spoke to the gravity of the step of marriage and its significance in one's personal life as well as in the life of the community. Antony and Laetitia sat with their witnesses at a big table with a crucifix on the wall behind them. Out of his red notebook the clerk read the Articles of Marriage as outlined by the federal Confederation of Switzerland, and even though he read them quickly, I clearly caught the vestiges of laws that were built on biblical principles: marriage as a foundation of society, marriage as an institution to build up and support a man and woman, marriage to protect and nurture children. Though secular in nature, the fonctionnaire made an effort to make it a meaningful occasion and read a poem at the end, finishing with a quote which while somewhat cliche is ever apt:

Le mariage, comme la vie, est un voyage pas une destination.

"Marriage, like life, is a voyage, not a destination."

Which made me ponder the trip here. I flew with the children a few days before Manu so that we could attend the civil wedding. I was a little apprehensive about flying alone with the kids, but not too much. I've done it before with three, and even though there's now four, the other kids are older and able to assist. What I didn't count on was the Migraine that attacks when you least expect it, when the combination of weariness, jet fuel fumes, and motion at the back of the plane combine to make you sick, sick, sick. I've been sick on a plane before and been grateful that those ubiquitous barf bags were there in the seat pocket in front of me. But this was Really Sick. So sick I used up all the barf bags in the row and the steward brought me a huge red bag marked "BIOHAZARD" in which to put my...well...Bags of Biohazard and the blanket that caught the overflow. So sick that after barf session number 4 the nice steward brought me a big can of oxygen for me to breathe to clear my head. So sick that after #5 on the next flight the eyes of my children were getting big like saucers and I could imagine them thinking, "how are we going to carry Mom off this plane?" So sick that when I got on plane #2 and found we couldn't take our seats yet because they'd put all these small exhausted children in an exit row and a middle aged Swiss guy had taken one of our seats anyway and said cheerily that I could have his window seat in the next row, but by then some other guy had taken that, and then when the breezy Swiss guy cheerily told me to talk to the flight attendant about it, I came as close as I ever have to yelling at complete strangers on a plane. Instead I LOUDLY plopped the kids down in the exit row seats that we did have, LOUDLY threw my stuff in the overhead bins and shut them LOUDLY, and while getting stares from the other passengers, said LOUDLY that now I would just stand there and look crabby. Three middle aged American Southern ladies in the row behind me started making sympathetic noises, but then one of them said something about how it was probably building my character. At that point if I hadn't been so weak I'm sure I would have started screaming and gotten carried off the plane like in Meet the Parents, but instead I just flumped down on the edge of Zarli's seat. After all, she was right, I'm sure it was building my character. Also I was wearing my cross and it entered my mind thatI didn't want to completely misrepresent my Lord.

Soon the attendant did find us an empty row into which we flopped with relief and passed out until the descent over Zurich when it was time to start barfing again. We landed, got our bags and got through customs and with relief were met by Antony. After hugs and kisses, he bought me a coffee. It came, I excused myself, and stepped out into the fresh air for barf session #6. Nice clean Switzerland, and I greeted it with an upchuck of green bile in the corner behind the bus ticket kiosk. I slept on the two hour ride to Boncourt and when we arrived, the nausea had passed even if the headache hadn't. And then the warm embraces, burdens removed and the feeling of cool cotton sheets and a soft feather pillow and the overwhelming sense of arrival and security. Aaahhhh!

I cannot make that trip without thinking of it as a metaphor. Like the fonctionnaire said, "life is a journey," and the transatlantic journey makes me think of our life journey towards our ultimate destination. When the kids ask me about heaven, I tell them about what I know is true from the Bible, and I also tell them that there's plenty I don't know. But I think the picture the Bible paints is consistent with the metaphor I give them: Think of the trip to Switzerland, how long that flight is, how tired we all are, how it feels like it will never end, like we'll be in that airplane for ever, and even when we land and drive in the car, it just feels like our journey will never ever end. But it does end. And what we feel when we climb those last steps and see the open warmly lit door and arms stretching to embrace us is almost indescribable. We're here, we made it. That, I tell them, I think that's what getting to heaven will be like.

Sometimes the journey of life is pretty good, and you get to watch movies and people bring you ginger ale. But sometimes life is is like that awful trip, barfing all the way. Plenty of times on that trip I prayed I'd wouldn't throw up anymore, but I still did. After #4, I felt downcast and asked, why Lord? He didn't say, but I knew anyway that He was in control, that He still loved me and I would get there in one piece.

Here is what really moves my heart. Yesterday I learned that a man I knew also took a journey on September 3rd. He finished it too, but his journey was the one where Jesus met him at the door with outstretched arms. He died early, of a fast moving cancer, and this past year his family, friends and acquaintances supplicated the Lord ceaselessly on his behalf, asking God to remove the cancer and spare his life. But God didn't, and He didn't give His reasons. Before he died he was in a lot of discomfort, but he was so certain of his destination and of who would greet him there that his wife said sometime last week that each morning when she woke him he was disappointed to see her instead of Jesus. But still he knew that though his journey was hard, God loved him and He was in control. Now it has ended. He has climbed those last steps and into the Everlasting Arms that embrace him. He's there, he made it.