5 Years!

On this day five years ago, our family landed in this country!!!  

To be honest it's all pretty much a daze, and when I think about it I cannot imagine how we survived.  It's like a dream... or nightmare.  I must have looked like a wide-eyed crazy lady when I stepped off that plane into the Middle Eastern heat with a 10 month old, a 4 year old, a 6 year old, and 12 suitcases.

Anyhow, after 5 years of living life on a steep learning curve, we feel like we're getting it.  Well, at least like we're getting most of it!   Well... maybe more like we're getting more than we're missing.

Anyhow, the moments where we feel comfortable and like we understand what is being done and said far outweigh the ones where we are just lost and confused.  Although, I must admit that I think Justin and I still suffer from a bit of culture stress.  It feels like there is always this underlying tension of not being able to be completely at ease or feel like you really belong.  

I am just so thankful to the Lord for His gracious provision throughout this adventure.  He has really grown and stretched us in so many ways.  But though it all He has been faithful.  

We have a lot to celebrate after 5 years.  Not the least of which being that we're still alive, and we're still here.  Even more-so, we can celebrate the fact that we want to be here.  This hasn't been a sentence that we are living out, but rather an opportunity that the Lord has given us!  We have had to opportunity to share Truth with all sorts of people in all sorts of ways.  We are sowing spiritual seeds and praying for a time of harvest.

I thought it might be fun to repost some things from the early days.  I went back one day last week to read a bit and was just so thankful to the Lord at how far we had come!  I have written 1,023 posts!  At the risk of putting up a super-long post, here is my very fist post.  It was from October 24th, 2007:

You know how in romantic comedies, which I love, everything ends up great in the end?  The plot is always the same no matter how different the setting is.  The girl shows up to something new, she doesn't look or act her best, and she can't function appropriately.  But, by the end of the movie everything is perfect.  She's figured it all out, and got the great looking guy to boot!  All of this is just two hours!  

Well, I've been in this new place a lot more than two hours, and I've got relatively nothing figured out!!  I can say, "ekmek var mı?"  Notice that the ı does not have a dot!  The question, "ekmek var mı?" means is there bread?  It is the first thing our curriculum teaches us.

So, anyhow, I can say it, and a few other things.  My point is that in the movie that is my life (and as Donald Miller says, yes, you are in my movie, you play a wonderful supporting role, thank you!) two hours have passed and I haven't gotten things all figured out!  But, you know how in the movie, they show quick little glimpses of the process the girl goes through to get it all together.  In my movie, I had my first few glimpses last week.  I thought of and spoke my very first sentence!!  Not, the sentences and phrases that I've been taught.  But, my very own!  It had the subject and verb of my choosing and was conjugated correctly.  Not only that, but the person I was speaking to understood me and answered!!  Also, last week, we got our first piece of mail!  I cannot tell you how wonderful it was.  It was a birthday card for Lucy from my mom, but our entire family devoured it!!  You have to remember that we have not seen or spoken to a real live American (other than our team leaders) in two months, so we are easily excitable.

So... it's a start- a glimpse at the possibility.  I'll get there, it will just take a lot longer than two stinkin hours!!!