Green Chile on the Table...

... and friends around it.

Chad and Jill took great care of me in my initial jet lag stage, even treating me to lunch at Flying Star where we connected with the ever-expanding Christensen family. I've known Kyle since he was born, Chrissy is a dear friend to me, and Ina is such a sweetie!

North America

So I'm here in Los Alamos, and the snow is beautiful (except when I was shoveling it yesterday morning). Man, this country is COLD.

But holding new babies seems to take the chill off, and I was delighted to meet Ina, Olivia, and Avalon over the last few days.

My parents are here, too, fresh in from DC, and my mom has my old cell phone. So if ya wanna get together, that's a good way of getting ahold of me.

Gotta go- I'm on a strict "every 12 hours" green chile intake schedule! =)

More Fun with Doug

Doug (and everyone else on earth) takes better pictures than I do, so here are some of his.

Hyena- I didn't realize how big they are: think Great Dane-sized, not Zeke-sized.
"The Lion King" fails me yet again...

Cape Buffalo

He really is that near the giraffe- no photoshop involved.

Doug & the Rift Valley- looks kinda like Northern NM.



Doug climbing, despite altitude, jet lag and 2-inch-thick volcanic dust

The classic self-take at the top of Mt. Longonot

Doug, an acacia tree, and the peak

Action shot- bounding down the mountain.

I'm obviously having a good time. =)

Adventures with Doug

I'm waiting for Mr. Thacker to get back from the coast so I can post his pictures of us climbing Mt. Longonot in record time, but here are some other Los Alamos-meets-Kenya pictures to hold you over.

Six of us headed into the Aberdare mountains for safari, picture taking, and general adventure. We stayed at The Ark, a lodge built by a waterhole and salt lick. Never before have I been awakened at 3 AM to the sound of elephants trumpeting... Wendy and I headed out to the viewing deck and watched tiny baby elephants hide under their mamas. Pretty cute.

The group, with the lodge in the background

The Aberdares

Giraffe and Mt. Kenya- I hope this never feels ordinary to me.

Doug walking towards some warthogs. We _tried_ to tell him they weren't razorbacks.

Pretty girls and the shadows of the people who want to take pictures of them

Cape buffalo sparring

Manicured beauty, but beauty nonetheless

A gregarious impala

Looking Good. And Mennonite.

I've been a bit appearance-conscious this week. Like I wrote last post, I recently bought a bunch of clothes that actually fit me, so I've gotten lots of compliments. Last Saturday night was the staff Christmas banquet, and I wore my "hot red dress." It's not wildly inappropriate; it's just a bright red cocktail dress that I tried on as a joke and then loved enough to bring to Africa. I have a theory that the reason the Polish flag is red and white is that Polish women look great in those colors and the men of the country designed the flag as a ploy to get them to wear 'em.

Anyway, red dress. Good.

But Sunday morning, laundry hadn't been done this week, so I chose a long dress I hadn't worn in a while simply because it was clean, I put a cardigan over it, and headed off the the monthly Hymn Sing at the Mennonite Guest House.

After the hymn singing, we stand around and schmooze over coffeecake. One father was making small talk with me, and commented that I "looked Mennonite"- is that how I ended up at Rosslyn? (Mennonites are part-owners of the school).

I absolutely don't know how to take that. I look Mennonite? Now, I'm certain he meant it as a compliment- he himself is Mennonite, and several people have mentioned that his wife and I look a bit alike. And I'm not necessarily insulted; there are plenty of things in Mennonite theology that I agree with and appreciate. But to look Mennonite? What does that mean? And it makes me wonder- did I look Mennonite the night before, in the cocktail dress? Hm. What other Mennonite women do I know? My sister-in-law is a hot Mennonite chick. I know it's possible.

But I still really don't know what to think of that comment.

A Few Highlights

Life's been crazy busy lately, so no deep and complete thoughts for blogging. But there have been a few highlights:

Teaching at a Christian school at Christmastime is nice. We get to sing carols in concerts and recognize them as the worship songs they are. I especially enjoy the last stanza of Joy to the World:

He rules the world with truth and grace
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness
And wonders of His love

It was good to sit between two of my most distractible 8th grade boys during a school concert the other night and hear them sing with gusto. I pray that one in particular, whom I know to be a Muslim, will grasp the truth of what he was singing.

Used clothes and process of getting them can be fun. Toi Market is a set of stalls on the edge of Kibera slum, and it's a great place to go when the wardrobe you brought over from the States is feeling a bit ho-hum. My friend Lara and I went a couple of Saturdays ago, and her artist's eye helped me find some clothes beyond my usual blue & purple. And our friendship moved to a new level... See, you can't really put a changing room in a market stall that's 4 feet by 10 feet. Most places don't even have mirrors. So you and a friend go together, ask, "Do you have a place to change?" and you make sure that the curtain they string along the back of the stall stays up while your friend tries on her clothes while standing on her shoes (dirt floor), and you lean back as far as possible so you can answer "How does this look?" when you're standing 6 inches apart. That'll bond you.

Rediscovering the euphonium has also been pleasant. The choir director here is a good friend of mine, and she knows my high school instrument secret. I hadn't played low brass for almost a decade, but she wrote an arrangement that included a baritone, and I performed it last night. I didn't do phenomenally, but I didn't embarrass myself either. It was nice to find that voice again, and the trombone player I was seated next to mentioned that the Nairobi Orchestra is often short on low brass; would I be interested in playing with them sometime? I don't know if anything will come of it, but it's a pleasant thought.

These upcoming days and weeks will also hold a lot- staff banquet tonight, progressive dinner Monday night, Doug's arrival Tuesday (yay!), plenty of hiking and walking and touring him around during the next few weeks. So as you can probably guess, the blogging futures for the next few weeks don't look good. But maybe we'll both be surprised.

So blessings on you, friends, as you absorb the wonders of the Advent season- that God entered our world so very tangibly, and that He always keeps His promises.

The Next Decade of Adventures

Today I got a new passport.

I could tell semi-amusing anecdotes about how American government agencies are just as frustratingly bureaucratic as any other country's, but actually, this morning went pretty well. Including the 20 minute walk each way, the 4 layers of security, and the fact that I lost my receipt and had to get a new one, the entire experience took less than an hour. Impressive.

And now I have a shiny new passport, very electronic-looking, still stiff, with a printed-in photo instead of a laminated-on one. Incidentally, I'm VERY happy to be rid of the old photo. Many of you remember my giant round glasses, and I look so peaceful in the picture that, well, I possibly look stoned. Angel calls the picture "Harry-Potter-John-Lennon-Jessie," and that's not entirely inaccurate... The new photo looks like me, which is all you can hope for in an official ID, though I'm ashamed to say that the old one also looked like me at the time.

Getting a new passport is a bit like starting a new journal- what will this one hold? What will God do in this space? What adventures will be represented by the stamps? Where will I go in the next 10 years? I barely escaped adding pages to the old passport- there was one free space left. This one's sure to be overfilled, even just with normal traffic to the States and back. I've already sent it off for my work permit and re-entry pass, and I do have a Stateside trip planned over the holidays. So that's 3 pages already spent. Other semi-planned trips include stops in Egypt, UAE/Dubai, the Netherlands, and possibly Japan. And that's just in the next year or so! My Kilimanjaro climbing buddy and I have talked about Machu Picchu, so maybe I'll finally get a South American stamp, and I'll likely visit South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Uganda at least once during this first term. I wonder if I'll be living in Africa in a decade. I wonder if China will resurface in my life after all. I wonder, I wonder, I wonder.

And of course, retiring this passport makes me reminisce about the places it has been: Thailand, Cambodia, New Zealand (I'll be very sad if that stamp's not repeated in this passport), England, Croatia, Tanzania. More unusual- my passport's been to Perth, Australia, but I haven't. But that's a whole other story featuring a sketchy visa agency, a lavish office in the middle of an empty warehouse district, a giant cigar-smoking blond Norseman with big muscles, his scantily clad Thai secretary with her desk drawer full of multicolored passports, and my host family assuring me everything will be perfectly fine. It's a good story- remind me to tell you sometime.

I never would have guessed the twists my life has taken in the past decade, and I certainly expected to be living overseas long before this point in my life. But God in His good plan gave me seasons of waiting, opportunities for rest and for service, and yet chances to see so many of His wonders all over the world.

So even if the picture embarrasses me in 10 years, I bet this new little blue book will still speak to me of God's kindness and His unexpected storyline in my life. I'm looking forward to it.