Why we would be the worst and best couple on the Amazing Race: A peek into our lives

I grew up watching the Amazing Race and always thought how fun and exciting and AMAZING it would be to travel around the world with someone, experiencing crazy and beautiful memories. Then I married Grayson and moved halfway around the world to South Asia and discovered we would be TERRIBLE partners on the Amazing Race (read all the way to the end).

Looking back on two and a half years of living here and all the adventures/trips we had in America before moving to Asia, I’m pretty sure not only would we NOT win, but we would also be that annoying bickering couple that everyone dislikes (or is entertained by) on the show. Some of our biggest arguments happen when Grayson’s driving us on the motorcycle (and as a good wife should (not), I’m criticizing every turn he makes). We go on trips to a new place together and get so frustrated when we’re lost—which happens a lot. We blame one another for mistakes we both couldn’t have known how to avoid. We’ve yelled at ticket sellers before. We’ve been taken advantage of multiple times. We’ve almost missed trains plenty of times. We have paid WAY too much for things, not really knowing any better as well as been too trusting of the people selling it to us. I’ve gotten so angry with locals that all I want to do is things like stick out my arm and clothesline a guy coming around us on his bike way too close.  With my anxieties, how would I be able to complete some of the fear-gripping road blocks on the show? We yell, cry, and argue when we are out and about in this country. How could we ever imagine going on a race around the world together? And still come out as a happily married couple?

And yet, we ARE living an AMAZING life doing crazy things daily overseas. We ARE accomplishing really new and different tasks. We ARE surviving and thriving in a completely different environment. Though it’s not pretty, we have learned so many life lessons as well as faced and overcome many different obstacles/challenges. I have learned to face fears and anxieties head on. When put in difficult circumstances, it’s through learning and practicing phrases like “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I overreacted. That wasn’t nice of me to say” that we don’t tear each other apart, leaving lasting wounds and can continue joyfully living the life we’ve chosen. Most every successful thing we do now comes from a mistake we’ve made in the past from which we became well accustomed to saying “Well, we’ll know better for next time” rather than wallow in self pity or frustration.

So, my thinking is that struggling through life in a foreign country is crazy, fun, exciting, frustrating, angering, challenging, and ugly. And we are the better for it. We’ve done things we said we’d NEVER do (for the better). We’ve faced challenges and overcome them. We’ve worked through difficult arguments (caused by living in this place) with compassion and forgiveness. We’ve experienced wonderful and terrible things together as a couple that give memories for a lifetime. If we were filmed during this whole adventure, people would probably judge us hardcore for the way we act and the sometimes incompetence, but at the end of the day, we’re better people because of our AMAZING life. Not only that, I hope that our struggles and victories point to the Lord and bring Him glory.

At the root of our victories in hardship is our trust in the Lord. Because of all the new circumstances we live in, we’ve learned to depend on the Lord in many new ways and daily watch Him do miracles in our lives. It is through His love and grace and forgiveness that we not only learn to but are empowered to practice those same virtues. We remember that since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, [we] lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and [-] run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking [to] Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2).

Whether you find yourself overseas, in the workplace, at home with children, or any other place, run YOUR race with endurance, compassion, grace, forgiveness, and a dependence on Him to supply all your needs, and at the end of the day, you will find more of Him and more joy in whatever struggle or wonderful circumstance you’re given. Even if the “race” getting there is not so pretty.

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Norah's Birth Story

For anyone interested in Norah’s birth story, here ya go! Hopefully some of you may find encouragement or relate to some of the details of her birth story. And some of you may just be excited to finally hear how it all went down!

The majority of my pregnancy had been quite normal, not many complaints. I mostly felt great with a good bit of energy. However, for some reason in my last month of pregnancy my blood pressure began to go high and stayed medium-high the rest of the pregnancy, around 140/90. During this time, sometimes it would sky rocket to a little higher than that, then we would have to go into the hospital to get it checked and do tests for other problems associated with high blood pressure in pregnancy. It began to get very old and our doctor was beginning to worry about my health, even after putting me on blood pressure medicine. Luckily, I had no other signs of anything more serious, such as severe swelling, protein in my urine, headaches, pain, etc., so they allowed me to continue my pregnancy, letting Buttercup bake all the way through part of the 39^th week.

After meeting with our doctor on Monday, December 1 (Buttercup was due December 5^th) and having my membranes swept for the second time, we decided that if Buttercup didn’t start coming that night then we would come in Tuesday morning to begin the inducing process.

There were so many thoughts going through my mind in those last few weeks: anxiety over the coming labor and delivery, not knowing what to expect, questioning whether I could actually go through with the natural birth I desired, fears of not loving our baby or having trouble bonding, worries over whether I would long for the life that Grayson and I had before a new human being stayed with us forever and it was no longer just the two of us, and stress over whether I was ok and Buttercup was ok.

So, by the time there was a deadline put on inducing, I had come to grips with the fact that it was time for Buttercup to come out and that the added worries over my health (even though I felt completely normal) could only be cleared once she was born! Tuesday morning came as kind of a relief, knowing that it was FINALLY happening and that there was no longer going to be any anticipation over WHEN the baby would decide to come. Little did we know the long haul that was in store for us.

We arrived at the hospital around 10 AM and they began the process of inducing almost immediately.

First step was to apply a gel that would release hormones that are normally released to get labor started. After this, we just had to wait for contractions to start and grow stronger. They began to come but were pretty manageable and not that strong, so we spent the afternoon watching two different movies and playing a game in our room, trying to distract myself from contractions as we waited for them to pick up. Later that afternoon, they gave me a pill that was another step in trying to help my contractions pick up enough to begin real labor. They picked up some but by the time it was evening, I was still not fully effaced and barely dilated. So we slept. Me not so comfortably, but I was thankful for the little bit of rest I did get that night as the smaller contractions continued as I slept.

The next morning, they gave me another pill and told me that if that didn’t help pick them up then we would see after lunchtime if we needed to start the Pitocin drip or if I wanted to take another pill and wait for labor to begin. I REALLY did not want the drip because from my understanding, I would have to remain in bed the rest of the labor and wouldn’t be able to use different techniques to help through tough contractions. I knew that this would probably lead to getting an epidural and would deter me from having the natural birth I desired, where I felt everything and let my body do what it knew to do and to be with it and myself for the whole thing.

When the time rolled around, my contractions still hadn’t picked up, so we decided to take the pill ONE more time before agreeing to go on the Pitocin drip. We were so thankful for a great doctor and nursing staff that supported my decisions yet still were so aware of taking care of mine and the baby’s health. They wanted to give me the birth I desired while still watching out for us.

It was crunch time. Maybe it was a mental thing, knowing that the drip was in the near future or maybe it was all the walking and stairs that made my body kick into high gear, but I remember walking around outside (like we had been doing for a while) and then having one contraction that was a little bit more difficult to talk or walk through and then one pretty similar much closer afterward.  We came back to our room and from that Wednesday afternoon on, labor began to finally pick up and progress. Before this I had just been going through a medically induced prelabor, which is normally done in the comforts of your own home, being able to distract yourself with staying busy around the house. For us, it was a little over 30 hours of it in a hospital.

We called our doula, and she came over in the late afternoon. When our doctor came to check me that evening, I was almost fully effaced and about 3.5 cm dilated. We put on our game faces and began to work through the progressively stronger contractions. Our doula and Grayson were by my side the whole night, encouraging me through contractions when I needed it, massaging my back or shoulders, and sometimes just letting me concentrate on relaxing through each one. As the night went on, I kept wondering: how far along am I? Is the end near? At one point around 2 or 3 AM, I went through a series of tough contractions that left my legs shaking, and we thought maybe I was moving through transition. Nope.

Throughout the night, I tried different comfort measures I had read up on. I tried squatting through contractions. That was pretty painful for me. I tried rocking on my hands and knees. That too was intense. I ended up spending the majority of my time sitting on top of a birth ball rocking my hips back and forth rhythmically and taking calm breaths. As the contractions increased, this even became uncomfortable, but compared to standing or the other positions, this was by far my favorite! Looking back, sitting through a lot of them rather than standing, might have slowed things down a little, but I was just trying to make it through each one! By the morning time, when they were ready to check me, I was exhausted and thinking: SURELY I’ve progressed a lot over the night. Come to find out I was still not fully effaced and only 4 centimeters!! It seemed as if I had not progressed at all. Our amazing doula was very encouraging and kept telling me that my body was working and that all those hours were just part of prepping for my body to progress later.

However, I was beginning to feel very discouraged since I was so tired and mentally feeling drained, like I couldn’t mentally go through any more contractions. I began to wonder if I should get an epidural because I was having a hard time coping with the increasing strength of the contractions. I was losing hope and confidence in my ability to stay strong on this freight train that was increasingly gaining speed with no way to get off.

Grayson and our doula were basically cheerleaders during this time repeating to me that I COULD do it, that I was doing AMAZING, and that it was progressing.

At one point, Grayson and I walked down the hall to try to get things moving, but it was so intense just to walk through the contractions, so we went back to the room where I could get back in my comfort zone rocking on the ball. One lady tried to come check me, but she was so rough and checked me during a contraction that I yelled at her to stop and I jumped out of bed to try and make it through the contraction better.

Luckily, around 11, my doctor came in to see how things were progressing and to break my water. To all of our surprise, I was fully effaced and 8 centimeters!! To me, this was still not close enough, but our doula and Grayson both got really excited and said, “Rachel, you are SOO close now, just a little longer.”

After she broke my water, things REALLY sped up! Almost within minutes, contractions were coming on longer, stronger, and almost one on top of the other. This was INTENSE!!! I alternated between rocking on the ball forward and backward, Grayson sitting in the chair in front of me (letting me squeeze his hand) and my doula behind me, putting pressure on my lower back. I often lost control over my steady, controlled breathing, but both our doula and Grayson breathed with me and counted every breath with me. This really helped me to make it through each one. It started getting scarier as we would get close to the supposed end of the count and the contraction was still there or had unfortunately only slowed down a little just to come on AGAIN stronger. Honestly, these two were my legs, supporting my body; I couldn’t have done it without the BOTH of them. It was such an amazing experience for both Grayson and I; I’ve never seen him be so strong and encouraging and proud of me. I think his awe and excitement helped me so much through the entire process.

This stage began the “scary, crazy Rachel” stage where I began to feel and act frantic. Through almost every contraction, I was freaking out and breathing too quickly. Our doula and Grayson just spoke firmly to me to breathe slower and calm down and tell me I was doing wonderful. Whether I was standing and swaying or sitting and rocking, Grayson was at my front where I could bury my face in his shoulder and death grip his shirt while our doula was at my back pressing firmly. We were a rocking, swaying, counting, breathing, three-person machine.

I really started freaking out and said things along the lines of “Grayson, why did I want to have this baby naturally? We’re not doing this next time. We’re just going to do the epidural.”

As contractions were coming mostly one after the other, nurses would pop in and ask if I had a “potty feeling”. I wasn’t really sure, but I knew I wanted to! I was mentally ready to get this baby OUT! Finally, as I started getting those urges, we moved me quickly down the hall to the delivery room (past a hall full of waiting visitors of other moms-to-be..). When we arrived outside the room, there was someone in there!! I think they were getting an epidural or something. All I remember was standing in the hall, a contraction coming, feeling like I was about to go to the bathroom all over myself, me clinging to Grayson’s shoulder, our doula at my back, and me yelling for them to hurry up and let me go in there!

A few minutes later, we were uncomfortably getting me up onto the birthing table. Evidently, other ladies decided to have their babies around the same time too, because my doctor was busy delivering another baby and the other doctor was doing a C-section. They made me wait there as they frantically tried to make sure I was physically ready to push and getting the room prepped while they called for a doctor to come. I began to have the urge to push and started a little, but our wonderful doula helped me breathe through them and encouraged me to wait for the doctor. That was TOUGH. Because once those pushing feelings started coming, that’s all I wanted to do! Several minutes later the doctor came in and we got the show on the road. I’m not sure how long I pushed, but to me it all went by really fast. The whole time, Grayson was on my left encouraging me and my doula was on my right, guiding me firmly through each contraction and pushing and resting stage. I’m so glad she was there, because I wouldn’t have known to do the things she told me to do. Our wonderful doctor kept saying, “Wow, excellent, we’re almost there.”

Before I knew it, they were holding out a baby and saying “It’s a girl!” A few seconds after putting her on my chest, I looked to Grayson and said, “Wait, did they say it was a boy or girl?” She laid there for a few minutes before they took her to clean out some stuff from her air passages. As soon as they took her off of me, she let out her first cry. She knew her Mama already J

Man, by far, pushing and delivery was my favorite part of the whole ordeal. I actually really loved that part. It felt like the most productive and releasing thing in the whole process. Feeling those urges to push and feeling pretty normal right after the birth was awesome and made it all so worth it.

They let her stay on me as they finished stitching me up. I was moved onto a stretcher to get wheeled to our room; that was a first for me. Grayson held our slightly bloody baby girl as we went down the hall. I was able to nurse a little before Grayson took her down to the nursery to get weighed, measured, and cleaned up a little. At one point, he came running back into the room begging for a blanket. He frantically threw everything out of our bag to grab a blanket saying “They need a blanket, hurry, where are the blankets, I left her alone in there!” He was already instinctively a protective dad.

The first day with her was complete bliss. Most of our sentences consisting of “She’s perfect. You’re so beautiful. How wonderful is she. I love you, Norah, so much.”

On day 3, we were packed up and ready to go when the doctor told us that Norah had high bilirubin levels and that for her health, they wanted her to stay another night to be put under the lights. We didn’t really know all that this entailed. About ten minutes later, a nurse came in and said, “Ok, we’re going to take her now to put her in the lights.” I asked her how long she would be there and if she could come back and stay with us in the room. She told me “No, she has to stay in the nursery but that you can come feed her every time she is hungry.”

We were crushed. We are on this wonderful honeymoon with our little one and in just a few minutes, we felt like it was ripped away from us. All we wanted to do at that point was to hold her, love her, and just LOOK at her. But now we had to hand her back and allow someone else to change her diapers, comfort her, and take care of her. That afternoon was really rough for me and for Grayson, but we made it through on the hope that we would be leaving the next morning. Unfortunately, her levels didn’t improve enough, so we stayed another night. The nurses would call me every time she would start waking up and wanting to eat, and I would walk down to the nursery to feed her, burp her, and cuddle her for a few brief moments before they wanted her back to sit under the lights. It was so sad seeing her like a little patient under all those lights and not able to be near her. My heart really goes out to all the preemie Moms out there! That is a REALLY tough road.

Finally, 6 nights after we originally arrived at the hospital, after getting to know ALL the hospital staff really well, we checked out and headed to our big city home! We were proud new parents of our precious baby girl, excited to have her back as our very own.

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Giving Photos

Sometimes in this age of digital photos and constantly sharing photos with one another via things like Instagram, Snapchat, and WhatsApp, we forget how beautifully simple a printed photo can be. Pictures are no longer worth a thousand words, just the number of MB's it will take to upload it to Facebook. Where we live, pictures are not a regularly displayed on people's walls, or really anywhere, except the photos of deities everywhere. Only sometimes, if we are lucky, our friends will pull out the albums they have tucked away from a wedding or some other important life event. These are mostly filled with posed straight faced photos (imagine those 1900's family photos, only in color).
(One of the most interesting things in our house for our friends is the 15-20 photos we have stuck to our refrigerator!)
Recently, I printed out a few photos for different friends that I had taken over the last few weeks and gave them to some of them. I was blown away by the responses. They loved them and were so eager to show them to anyone around.
It reminded me of what a beautiful thing it is that we are "made in the image of God". And how beautiful it is to be able to remind one another of the beauty of that image. Hopefully we don't stop there, but turn and praise the original one, instead of just the copies.
Just thought I would share some of those photos with you guys. Enjoy.

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Who are you listening to?

A few weeks back, the lady we pay to come daily to wash our dishes and clean our floors didn’t come for two days. And when she finally did come, she came early. On the ONE day I am ever out of my house before noon. And you know what, she didn’t wait, she turned right around and left. Many thoughts went through my head then. None of them good.

On a different occasion, when we arrived at the train station from a tiring trip, we walk out to find the lot that is normally filled with at least one hundred auto rickshaws is instead filled with HUNDREDS of people and about 15 autos. Little did we know, but we scheduled our arrival on at the same time as a festival! Bad timing on our part. So this meant that EVERY auto driver we approached were in cahoots and staunchly asked for almost THREE times what the fare should have been. Anger and frustration began to boil up so quickly in my heart (which in a lady’s life generally falls somewhere between a raised voice and tears) when driver after driver refused to take us for less money. Frustration and anger began to take over. To the point that when someone else tried to get in the auto with us when we finally agreed to an insane price, we yelled at the driver to keep on going and not let anyone else in the auto with us since we were paying so much money. We passed family after family waving down the auto looking desperate for a ride home.

I could name countless other situations that are just plain FRUSTRATING. They ignite a frustration, temper, bitterness, and ill will in me that I never knew was simmering in the depths of my heart. Leave it to India to bring out the worst in you. I could have never imagined the NEW daily frustrations that we would have to face: the workers that don’t show up after you’ve talked to them on the phone several times with assurances that they were coming RIGHT NOW; the reckless drivers that cut you off on your motorcycle, sending you either to the ground or barely missing the motorcycle/bicycle/semi next to you; your water running out just as the washing machine starts to fill; the power being out for several days in the middle of the summer.

“But this beautiful treasure is contained in us—cracked pots made of earth and clay—so that the transcendent character of this power will be clearly seen as coming from God and not from us. We are cracked and chipped from our afflictions on all sides, but we are not crushed by them. We are bewildered at times, but we do not give in to despair. We are persecuted, but we have not been abandoned. We have been knocked down, but we are not destroyed. We always carry around in our bodies the reality of the brutal death and suffering of Jesus. As a result, His resurrection life rises and reveals its wondrous power in our bodies as well. For while we live, we are constantly handed over to death on account of Jesus, so that His life may be revealed even in our mortal bodies of flesh. So death is constantly at work in us, but life is working in you.” -2 Corinthians 4:7-12

As I was fixating on frustration, it seemed I could do NOTHING to bring myself out of those terrible thoughts of people. Then, I finally called out to the Lord and said, “God, You have GOT to help me. I don’t feel like I have any control over my emotions.” That’s when He gently gave me perspective on the situation. And He told me, “Every minute that you spend fixating on your anger, frustration, bitterness, (etc.), you are listening to the thoughts that the evil one wants you to have. And every minute you are listening to him is a minute that you are not listening to me or what I have to share with you.”

It is so real that the enemy, the devil, is prowling around seeking to destroy us and grab hold of us by the teeth and painfully drag us to his den to devour us. But we MUST resist! (1 Peter 5:8-9) We must remember that we may live in this world, but the powers we are up against are not of this world. We are given power to demolish arguments and ideas AND to take every thought and emotion captive and subduing them into obedience to the Anointed One (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

When the Lord spoke that to me, I remembered that not only am I in a battle over my mind, but also that I must FIGHT. Resist. Take captive. For, “a person full of goodness in his heart produces good things; a person with an evil reservoir in his heart pours out evil things. The heart overflows in the words a person speaks; your words reveal what’s within your heart.” –Luke 6:45

And I’m convinced that when I’m fixated on a way that someone has wronged me or frustrated me, I am not able to fully love people, to speak in joy, to hear what my Father is speaking to me, and to bring His kingdom.

BUT I want ALL those things. The Father has given me a desire to be overflowing with joy, to offer people love, mercy, and grace, to hear from Him what He is up to on this earth.

So if I desire to hear the words of my good Father and not the prowling, destructive evil one, I’ve got to fight, to run to my strong refuge, and to ask for help in times of need.

I believe in the Lord and His power over the evil that roams this earth. This belief gives me strength to refuse to linger on thoughts that don’t come from the one that I really want to be listening to.

Any thing that you’ve been fixating on recently, that’s dragging you down and muffling your ears from hearing from the Father?

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If I had put a pumpkin on our front porch..

What is it that you like about your American culture? Is it the freedom you have in almost all aspects of life (including going anywhere you want, saying whatever you want, wearing whatever you want, etc.)? Is it the American celebration of specific holidays? Or the style of clothes that we as Americans wear?

In the past year we’ve stepped into a completely different culture (in almost every aspect of life) from the natural one we grew up in. If the darkest African woman you can imagine walked down the street in a small town in Arkansas in her native African dress (which may or may not include a shirt) and spoke loudly in her own native language while trying to relieve herself on the side of the street, how do you think she would be received into that community? I’m thinking she wouldn’t immediately be invited to your daughter’s wedding or over to your house for coffee and chatting. (Disclaimer: but maybe she would, because we, as Americans, have become so accustomed to many immigrants coming into our nation. The same certainly can’t be said for other countries.)

Similarly, we have stepped into a small town in Asia that is NOT used to immigrants with all of our (VERY DIFFERENT) culture with us. If this “strangely” dressed African woman speaking a foreign language decided to start wearing American clothes, begin learning English, and followed social norms by relieving herself in a toilet, my guess is that her acceptance in the community would increase dramatically. Keeping our social expectations in mind and understanding that the world view we have stepped in to is EVEN smaller than any American small town, we have intentionally made adjustments to the ways that we live to become more understandable to the people around us as well as to give us opportunities to step more smoothly into people’s lives without all the neighbors gawking at us out their windows and talking behind our backs.

There have been some easier cultural transitions than others. While sometimes I miss my American clothes, I have generally found my style niche in the cultural clothes here. We both enjoy cooking AND eating SPICY food (both burn-your-tongue kind and full-of-more-spices-than-you’ve-ever-used-in-your-life kind of spicy food). Bumping up all levels of hospitality has been both fun to enjoy as well as fulfilling to serve other people in the same way. But other things are a little bit harder to adjust to.

Seeing so many cute fall decorations on the Internet and hearing of the fun fall festival activities sometimes makes me feel jealous and really miss the things of my home culture (naturally, because this is where I grew up). And I’ll only briefly mention how disappointing it is not to feel the excitement of football season “in the air”, because it’s a little hard to appreciate a good football Saturday afternoon when you have to wake up at 5 AM to watch a live video feed (that may or may not skip) and not have cheese readily available to make all the delicious tailgating food.

And that is just things on the entertainment and holiday side of American life. I also really miss the cultural appropriateness of women going where they want to BY THEMSELVES with THEIR OWN mode of transportation. American ladies: DON’T TAKE THIS FOR GRANTED; you are truly blessed with so much freedom. (Side issue: I should say that I do have the physical freedom to go places by myself, but after several times of being the object of an unashamed stare fest of men, getting taken down “shortcuts” that you’ve never seen before in a semi-sketchy, open rickshaw with a guy you’ve never met before, and walking down seemingly long roads with ONLY men out (who again I’ll say are not ashamed to stare), (I thought I’d never in a million years say this) it is SO much more freeing to be escorted places by my husband on the back of his motorcycle and down the street. Even though I choose to be escorted because it is the far better way to travel, I am still an independent lady who really misses getting to and from places as well as accomplishing simple things like grocery shopping ON MY OWN).

However, after more than a year in this country, there’s more than just laying down some of my natural cultural experiences and picking up new ones, there’s recently been a longing to be understood by the people around us. After so much work to be attentive and  to be quick learners (and doers) of the culture around us (and being from a culturally welcoming nation), we start to feel like people don’t know who we are as Americans and also don’t really care that much about getting to know our culture (while we are in the thick of trying to fit into theirs).

If I had a penny for every time in the last two weeks I’ve heard G tell a friend, “Well in AMERICA…”, I’d be a rich lady. This phrase has not had much room in our vocabulary in the past, but it seems to be surfacing as our relationships with people are going deeper with friends who have at this point somewhat blanketed us (thankfully) as taking on all Asian culture. But as they get to know us, they are starting to realize that unlike them, we don’t stay up till 2 A.M. or wake up at 9 AM; I don’t make roti (like a tortilla) and a fresh meal breakfast, lunch, and dinner; our music and movies are very different from theirs; I NEED to get out of the house more than once a week; and my home is always slightly messy. And generally when our friends notice new things in our lives that remind them we are not Asian, they respond in a surprising way: with the recommendation that we actually should do one of these things their way and why it’s easier/best. And when we try to share interesting things that we like about our culture like food, music, holidays, traditions, etc, we generally get a somewhat polite way of saying, “Oh that’s nice,” and then a transition of the topic to something they are familiar with.

In NO WAY do we want to force our American culture on the culture around us, but there are times when we do not want to COMPLETELY surprise our friends when we exercise our American ways of living even in small ways. And I would especially like for my American food that I was excited to share to be more than picked at and my music to be listened to rather than quickly changed to their favorite Bollywood song.

I'm thinking that this sounds slightly negative toward the people around us, but what else can I say, it is the truth about the transition we're going through here right now. We just get frustrated and disappointed with people. Don't we all sometimes? Luckily, these feelings come and go, and some Asians are more gracious than others when we want to share about our culture.

And honestly, it's okay if not everyone understands who we are culturally as Americans, we know that the life we lead here comes with hard sacrifices. But also this new life comes with some incredibly fascinating and exciting experiences that we get to have because of our location across the ocean. I may not be able to get in the festive fall spirit by decorating my front porch with a hay bale and pumpkins because our neighbors might think we have a new pet goat and are trying to feed the monkeys pumpkins (that are green I might add). And that’s okay. We just sometimes both really miss being understood by the people around us. There’s no easy solution to resolving our frustrations in culture that we’re facing right now, but we do stand firm in our Lord and our identity in His kingdom. He knows us intimately and cares for us. And we know He is with us as we struggle through this new season of life.

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Some Nuts and Bolts (and a hand saw)

We have been living in our new city for four weeks! The last few weeks have been frustrating and exciting, sometimes feeling both emotions on the same day.

We arrived in our city in the middle of the night and spent a few hours sleeping at our coworkers’ house. When the moving truck driver called around 9 am, we met him at our house to find no windows, no doors, and many other unfinished things around the flat. Many thoughts went through our mind: Why isn’t our flat completed when we agreed upon this date? What is taking them so long to finish the work? Where will we put our stuff? Will our stuff be safe? When will enough work be done so that we can move in?

Some of the guys in our living room sawing and working away on our window frames. (We're so ready for wood chips and dirt to be out of our house; we've lived here long enough to feel weird wearing shoes in our own house! We normally have a leave your shoes at the door policy.)

Luckily, our coworkers were really gracious and allowed us to stay in their spare bedroom for two weeks. Everyday during the past few weeks, Grayson would wake up and go sit at our unfinished flat watching about 7 guys use about 5 handsaws, 1 drill, and other very rustic looking tools hand make all of the wood windows (which are double, one on the outside with glass and one on the inside with mosquito netting). In a place where the key to accomplishing anything with people here is “to sit on their head” until they complete their work well, Grayson oversaw the painters, the electricians, and the other random workers that were in and out, making sure they were doing things well and not taking too many “chai” breaks.

It’s been slow and difficult wanting to move into our place for the last few weeks and continuing to hear from different workers, “We’re coming this afternoon,” and then not see them for several days.

We hit a speed bump when our landlords who live below us noticed a leak, so they dug up our completely finished guest bathroom to fix the leak. (Still waiting on the plumber to fill this back in..)

Grayson has been itching for our home to be finished and frustrated with workers not working very much. So he took up a paintbrush and has been helping them paint, not only to make the work go faster but also to encourage the workers to work more.

For the past two weeks we have gone to sleep in our bedroom (with plywood over the window and a lock on the door to the outside of our room) and woken up and got ready for the day to Hindi music blaring outside our door since the painters show up around 8:30 every morning. They have been painting everything from our walls to every single door and window in our house. They have been the ones in charge of sanding and varnishing all of our wood doors and windows—which from pictures you can tell there are A LOT. We absolutely love how light and airy our home is, but sometimes we wish it wasn’t at the cost of more work being done to cover those openings! Anyone else who has had work done on the inside of their house can certainly feel the annoyance of having your house in disarray and people working in your home everyday.

Just recently our screen windows have been put in about half of our windows and the frames for the glass windows have been put in with hinges. It’s a little bit different here; there is not just one contractor who oversees the work. There are guys who do the carpentry, another group of guys who do the painting and varnishing, other ones who make the safety grills for our windows, and still others who come and put the glass in the windows. Can you say LOTS of working parts?

So excited that our mosquito net windows have been going in along with doors! Without these, we have been fighting swarms to cook our dinner every night.

 Besides watching the work slowly happen in our home, we’ve been stocking our pantry while learning what food items we can buy from different stores around town. Different stores have different things that we want here. We have a few places that are about the size of a small gas station grocery store that make our life easier to buy groceries from. We will no longer take for granted a grocery shopping experience where we can take a cart (semi)leisurely down the aisles and buy fixed price items that we don’t have to worry about haggling for at the end.

We’ve also been slowly acquiring much-needed items for our home. (When you rent a place in this country, it generally comes bare bones with windows and doors.) We’ve had to purchase everything from a refrigerator to our hot water heater in our bathroom. So after price checking different places, purchasing, and installing things like hot water heaters, a week has rushed by!

We are finally settling more into our kitchen as we slowly unload boxes, wash our previously-packed dishes, and find new homes for our kitchen things.

We are currently in the market for some furniture since we are upgrading from a one-bedroom/one living room/outdoor kitchen apartment to a two room/two bedroom/indoor kitchen place (but downgrading in price!). Our flat is SO empty right now and not in a place to host our new friends. I really can’t wait for the day when our house is finished enough for me to have my lady friends over for chai and good talks! My love for hospitality is really “chompin at the bit” to host people in our home!

One thing we LOVE about our new city is the friendliness of all the people around us. We no longer get lost (and ignored) in a crowd full of tourists like we were in the capital city; here so many people stop us, talk to us, and invite us to their homes.

On a more shallow note, we love our new neighborhood because it is so QUIET (minus your occasional cow loudly mooing outside our gate) and more open with trees and beautiful animals. Grayson reminds me that he was so worried when we moved to this country because he is a man who experiences the Lord in nature and open spaces, and he thought he was going to be sentenced to busy alleyways with no trees and open spaces. However, we can see how the Lord is watching out for him because our first home had a great park just five minutes away; our second home’s porch looked out over our cul-de-sac’s personal park; and now our home has palm trees outside it with several empty lots outside it to add to the openness. We are so glad to have back our access to a roof. I don’t know many things at this point in our life that can beat watching the sunset almost nightly from your roof (I’ll have to give my dad the credit for teaching me to appreciate sunsets.)

About a week ago when we were longing for our house to be sealed!

We didn't take this, but we see these guys around our neighborhood weekly! So cool.

Four weeks. Wow. We’ve been settling in well here, only every now and then missing our life in the capital. But we are excited about what is in store for us in this city. We know the opportunity to experience and struggle through all these new things is only from the Lord. It really can be a blessing to live a little more uncomfortably for a short while. Somehow there is a “sweet spot” that exists there. And we are thankful for every blessing God bestows on us.

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"There's a first time for everything" ... The many new ones we've experienced

When you move to a new country (especially one literally half way around the world), countless new experiences hit you in the face rather abruptly. Some events are exhilarating and others are downright terrifying.  One day a new experience will make you want to stand in a corner and cry, and then the very next day, something new will happen that will make you take a step back and say, “Wow, I live in such a magical, neat place.”

Coming up on a year tomorrow, we look back on our time and say, “That was the first time I’ve ever done ‘that’ … or ‘that’ … or ‘that’.” Needless to say, we have experienced and been stretched so much more in the past year than we have from many years of our lives combined. I say this with the intention of understanding the importance of every year in our life but also recognizing that the amount of new things that have fallen into our unexpected laps is something hardly forgettable.

Cheers to the pictures that remind us of the many “firsts” we’ve experienced in our first year here!

 

The first time to enjoy nightly sunsets from the roof (unfortunately setting into the smog..).

My first time to ride on a bicycle rickshaw. As you can tell by my arm tightly gripped around G's, I was terrified the entire time that I was going to fall off the side.

First time to celebrate a major festival feast with our friends.

First time to share my traveling space with so many creatures!

First time to visit a South Asian carnival. Very scary standard of rules might I add, AKA there are generally no rules or regulations to riding the rides--Imagine people standing on the ends of the swinging pirate ship...

First time to ride a passenger train to visit a friend outside the city for a baby shower. This is the kind of train where you stuff into an uncomfortable train with tons of other people, meet/sit next to men who drop of empty milk cans and pick up full ones at every train stop along the way, and have about a minute and a half to exit the train with the many others pushing on and off too!

First time to celebrate Holi! By throwing water balloons off our balcony and trying to dodge the ones coming at us that are filled with color! (As you can see, G was too busy aiming at our neighbors to worry about getting "colored".

First time not only learning to speak and to understand a language but also to read it! Granted we can only read (and comprehend) at Kindergarten level. Shout out to all the kindergarten kiddos who are working so hard to sound out words and comprehend a story at the same time! How did we ever do that as children?

First time to depend on trains as our main way of traveling to other cities. We have become quite good friends with these sometimes smelly vehicles where you get to know your fellow passengers REALLY well (i.e. wake up on your sleeper bunk to find a man bouncing his baby by your head in "your" bunk..).

First time for G to drive a motorcycle on some of the world's craziest roads. And just recently, my first time to fall off the bike.. in the middle of a busy intersection.. Luckily just fell on my bum when we were going approximately 0.5 mph. No harm done, just another hit with the oh-so-familiar humility hammer.

FIRST TIME TO SEE ONE OF THE WORLD'S WONDERS!

First time to enjoy getting Henna done in a friends home!

First time for me to have my clothes tailor-made. Most of the clothes I own now come from cloth and ribbon I pick out and based on the fitting I tell the tailor. For weddings and other occasions, we both are excited to wear even more cultural clothes.

First time for the both of us to celebrate the 4th of July outside of the U.S.

First time to be inundated by torrential downpours. And learning how to function with so much rain and flooding.

First time to have a friendly neighborhood cow! :) This fellow walked through the park outside our house (with the human in the background alongside him) everyday.

This is a crazy one. First time to have a human dishwasher instead of a machine one. After some time I'm starting to get used to people being used more than machines here, and I kinda like it. It's fun to have a familiar face everyday in your home and get to make a new friend. Luckily our counters were more her height than mine! :)

First time to see the Himalayas. (Look closely at the white capped beauties in the background.)

We are thankful for all the new things we are learning and adjusting to, even when sometimes those very things really challenge us and the people we thought we were. There is still so much for us to learn about our true selves when put in situations so different then what we're accustomed to. Thankfulness to the Lord abounds when we see the ways we've grown when faced with new challenges as well as when we look at the wonderful new experiences in our lives.

-Rachel

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