Month: November 2018

I want to be writing, but I just realized that I’m late in making my calendar for next year. I try to start thinking about it in October, so that when the 50% off sale comes, I’m ready to hit purchase. But I’ve been out of touch this fall and Cyber Monday caught me by surprise. So for the past 24 hours I’ve been trying to find the right photos to sum up our year — really, an impossible task. Here’s a peek at December with photos from our recent desert camping weekend. I’m sure I’ll change it 3 more times before I’m finally satisfied with it. The gray background looks drab when paired with all the sand.Better, but it still needs something . . .

I realized I don’t have a single photo of the 6 of us together from this past year (fine, I do have one group selfie taken in the lobby of CircusTrix on New Year’s with really bad lighting that is washing out half of the group. Ugh). How did that happen? Because we weren’t ever all together at the same time. We were with Calvin up north, without Josh. Then we were at the beach in Southern CA with Josh, but without Calvin. I am looking forward to fixing that during our Christmas holiday when Calvin gets to come visit for 3 weeks and we will all be in the same place at the same time for a change.

Hopefully I can finish my calendar in the next 24 hours and then write about camping. I know you want to hear the story of how I ended up in a pickup truck with a Pakistani camel herder . . .

Headed home from a Thanksgiving weekend in Oman. It was fun to get away and see our friends, but now that we are within striking distance of home and I’m back on 4G, it’s time to write before these things disappear into the mists of my memory.

Last week I wrote about anticipating another visit to church 2.0. Great news, I didn’t get lost. Between Waze and Carter, it was a breeze. Parking is actually easier at this place because the mall is totally empty on Friday mornings and we have our pick of spots. It’s refreshing to arrive at church and not be hating on all the people there for being lazy and rude drivers/parkers (blocking people in, parking illegally, blocking lanes — it doesn’t put me in a holy mood).

When we walked into church the welcomers had a plastic container of little black seeds and were offering them to everyone. I asked the lady what they were and she said, “Mustard seeds, take one.”

Oh great, what sort of weirdness is this? Some sort of natural medicine? A purification ritual? Are we supposed to eat it or hold on to it? I tucked it into my wallet and was about to google mustard seed religious ceremony, but got distracted by the very timely start of worship.

These people may be full of woo with their healing seeds, but they know the way to my heart with a timely start!

I had my eagle eye ready for any other sign of weirdness, but worship was #totallynormal. There was a clear theme to the music again (nice) and we sang a mix of songs that I knew and didn’t know. A different service leader and worship team was up front, but nothing drastically different in style or content. Communion was normal, though I’m pretty sure it’s grape flavored drink which is icky compared to actual juice, but if we aren’t committed to using wine, then a grape-ish substitute of any kind is just as symbolic as Welch’s. And they cautioned against taking communion if you aren’t a believer, just the way they did in my home church growing up. So far, so good.

And that seed thing? The part I was afraid was woo? As the sermon began, the preacher asked, “who still has their mustard seed?” He commented that he was impressed by the number of people who were still holding onto it and gave credit to those who were adventurous and ate it. But the point of it all was a reminder that we are to care for what God has given us, regardless of its size or perceived importance. Because God can do great and unimaginable things with something that we might want to cast aside.

And of course he spoke about the Kingdom of God and what it means to be part of it and the parable of the mustard seed. Of course he did. If I hadn’t been on such high CrazyAlert I would have gone there automatically. Time to dial back my own crazy.

A quick stop at the grocery store after service to pick up snacks for desert camping (my next post) and it was as easy of a morning as I could have hoped.

You know how people say that they always feel better after going to the gym? More complete, productive? I hear that’s a thing. I don’t get that feeling myself as my joy is in being done, but I do know what they are talking about. I feel that way after writing — lighter, unburdened, with nothing hanging over my head.

I’m sitting in the car, waiting to go to the gym right now and thought that by posting a quick update, I’ll be guaranteed to feel great an hour from now. Happy it’s Thursday. Tomorrow I’m back to Church 2.0 to see if it’s as normal as it appeared the first time around. Josh is still traveling so I really hope that I can get there without getting lost. I’ll be able to find the mall, but I don’t enjoy parking structures — too many dead ends and no easy access to the outside. And I never remember where I park because all the levels look the same.

Ugh, time has run out. Time for my workout. At least by hitting “publish,” I’ll feel productive before I ever walk into the gym.

One of the things we did last weekend, (besides going to the Abu Dhabi Marine Corps ball) was to attend a different church. We’ve been going to the same one ever since we landed two years ago, but with all the other changes going on in our lives, why not change that up too?

Not really, but a few things prompted us to check out some alternatives and with Josh being a music and sound guy, he was looking forward to experiencing a different style of music than the one favored by our current church. Yes, church meets inside a movie theater in a mall. Imagine the possibilities — grab a cappuccino on the way in, brunch on the way out, and pick up groceries all in one trip!
They look less than thrilled, but this is before it started and they were all still waking up. They all counted the comfortable movie theater seats as a huge plus. Carter said he could listen to a sermon all day from those chairs. I caught Josh’s eye as people walked in with their coffees and he nodded his approval. It’s like being back at Shoreline (Monterey), but everyone has an accent.

The first time visiting a church you never know if it’s a “normal” service or a one-off. It seems that 1/2 the time we visit somewhere there’s a guest speaker or it’s Missions Sunday, and we can’t get a good feel for things, but today seemed to be a regular service. We had heard it was “a bit charismatic, but not the scary kind,” which in Evangelical-speak means no snakes or on-the-spot healings — I can live with that. But a few people we know have said, “it’s a little too charismatic for us” which made me wary. Josh and I have been to churches where people were standing and speaking in tongues to the congregation and we had no idea what was being said or the preacher was declaring visions that he had of dead people (we quickly decided those churches weren’t for us) so how charismatic is too much?

From everything we had read, it seemed to be on point Biblically, so we thought we’d see for ourselves. As I kept waiting for the big reveal, it was disappointingly (or thankfully!) normal. There were a few audible amens during the sermon and some people held their hands up during singing, but there was no dancing, no jumping and it was all very organized, sedate, and exactly what we’re used to. So go figure. I guess we’ll find out next week if that was normal or not. As I told my family, it wasn’t even close to the level of Shiloh Christian Fellowship, a church in Oakland that we would attend sporadically — well, we’d attend parts of the service because they were known for being led by the Spirit into 3 hour long services so we’d sneak out after about 90 minutes before the sermon ever got going.

Josh and I joked ahead of time that this church couldn’t be too strongly led by the spirit because they were on a time clock and had to clear the movie theater before the first showings started at noon. And sure enough, they were right on time starting and right on time finishing. That gives them a lot of credit in the Chartier bank. So far, we aren’t seeing any red flags — I desperately want to make a flag joke here because Josh used to hate a previous church’s way of handing out flags and making people dance up and down the aisles in celebration on special days . . . ok, fine. We have been to some atypical churches compared to a normal American churchgoer. Maybe my idea of normal is totally skewed.

It’s true that living in the Middle East we don’t have a lot of choices, so we get used to making compromises at church. It’s not like we can walk down the street and have 3 other congregations to choose from, so there are things that we go along with that we might not choose otherwise (like the flag dancing). I guess we’ll see where our search leads us this time.
Another ball weekend — Camille as our red carpet photographer fully made up for the occasion. She picked out all of my jewelry and actually did a better job than I would have matching pieces to my dress.

Texting during a lull in the ceremony.
Happy 243rd birthday to the Marines and my Vet! (our first ever ball was 222, way back in 1997.)

There has been lots going on here, but I’m not sure how much I can say. It’s funny how even though Josh is in a new job in the civilian world there are still restrictions on what I can say — maybe not legally, but definitely from a “let’s be wise” standpoint. I actually don’t think I’ve ever put his company name on my blog, so yay for habits of discretion developed over the past 20 years.

Anyway, Josh’s job has been good for him personally, but things have been in flux ever since he joined 3 months ago. There have been 2 mergers, both at the division level and the company level, and we joke that he’s on his 3rd set of business cards in as many months. The mergers mean that everyone else is jockeying for position within the company so as to not be “made redundant” (a Britishism that sounds so much nicer than being “laid off”). We think Josh is in an OK spot because he’s the only one from his division that’s in country — everyone else works back in the US.

But beyond that, the shake-up within the company affects the people he works for and with and that creates quite a bit of stress and uncertainty. Our newest drama of the week (seriously, there really is a new issue each week — our life is like an after school special) relates to the two people who are Josh’s closest connections to the company. So, who knows what is in store for us in the future?

Thankfully, we have peace. It’s a bit humorous when we list out all of the crazy that has crossed our path since starting this civilian job thing. Starting with Toby and all of his “we don’t do that” nonsense back in June to today, seeing people dropping like flies and wondering what could possibly happen next. I think that’s as close as I can get to the line without being asked to go back and redact things. We are certain that God intended for us to be here — with so many people locally losing jobs and heading home it is a miracle that Josh got a job this year and is actually working here, but we don’t know how long he intends for us to stay. I don’t think we’re going anywhere soon, but we are willing to go anywhere and there’s a peace that comes with knowing that I can be content anywhere on the planet (as long as I can still get my Zoloft prescription).

For now, we’re putting down roots, the way we always do. Both literally and spiritually. I love my (small) garden. I take all the vegetable waste from the kitchen and pit compost it around the plants. In the heat it breaks down overnight and I love that I’m turning this sandy plot into great dirt.

One of my volunteer squash seeds is taking over the yard like Jack’s beanstalk. About 20 baby plants popped up after I composted squash remains and I thinned them to the strongest 3. I have no idea what kind of squash we’ll get, but that’s part of the adventure.  Grapevines! They were struggling in the heat after being transplanted, but have finally started bouncing back. The goal is for them to grow up and into the fence to act as screen from the street (like the yellow flowers in the below photo).  Baby eggplants! They are so beautiful. Like little purple jewels. It also helps that I love eggplant (aka Aubergine here).

We’ll keep growing and settling as we seek to discover our purpose here, but if you want to come visit, it might be wise to plan something sooner, rather than later. Who knows what next week will bring? Inshallah, inshallah.