The Thankful Lady

This is what my family calls "The Thankful Lady."  She has always hung in our kitchen, reminding us to be thankful for our food.  It is what some would call a "sacred object," not in the sense that we worship it, but because it has special meaning for my family.
     Now that my parents are packing up to leave Bongolo for good, it is one of the things I will keep, because it reminds me of something important.
     I think sacred objects are especially important to missionary kids because we move around so much.  I think it is important to have a few special things to take with me to new places, to remind me where I come from and who I am.
     Besides the Thankful Lady, I have a small plastic gecko from my brother Jeremy that goes with me wherever I go.  I stick it up on the wall to remind me of home, where geckos abound.  Another sacred object is "Panga Man," a 6-inch wooden carving my brother Josh made for me when he was in high school.
     My move to Gabon two years ago was unplanned and unexpected, so almost all my sacred objects got left behind in Cambodia.  That is one of the reasons I am going back this summer, to sift through my stuff and find the little things that remind me of home wherever I go.

Still Cookin'

Our rice cooker is really old.  We have had it since I was seven years old, and it still cooks rice.  The rice pot has a leak in it, so now we keep our rice in the freezer, so that the coldness of the rice will shrink the pot and close the leak.  The plug has a loose connection, so it has to be held in the right place by a bowl.  And the cook button doesn't stay down on its own, hence the chopstick.  But it STILL cooks rice.  Amazing.

Following Jesus

This Easter I went to a baptism at the river in a little village called Mandji.  I followed the African Christians down to the river and watched Grace get baptized.  It reminds me of another time I followed a group of African Christians to a river to be baptized myself, when I was twelve years old.  I'm thankful for the African Christians I've known in my life.  They've been an example to me of what it means to follow Jesus.

The Way We Were

Here we are, circa 1978, about two years after we first arrived in Bongolo.  I don't remember much from those early years besides playing with my brother Josh.  Dad worked at the hospital and Mom stayed home with us most of the time.  We had a house helper named Justine who would watch us when Mom went to the hospital once a week.  Mama Justine used to carry my brother around on her back in a kind of sling.  Now she is elderly and my brother towers over her.  The picture below is of my whole family, after Jeremy was born, right before we returned to America for the first time.