Travel ~ Mexico

  When I was in my early twenties I went to Mexico. I was working with a man my age who had been in a tragic car accident when he was sixteen. He had sustained serious brain damage but he was a walking miracle. He was going to college to become an ordained minister. My job was to attend classes with him and help him maintain organization and read all his textbooks to him. During this time he took a year off to do a program that involved a missions trip to Mexico. I had never been there before but his parents asked if I would go for one week of the trip. His dad would go for the other week. He sometimes had seizures and he also had no bone in some parts of his skull and sometimes he would forget that he needed to be careful. My job was so try to make sure he didn't get too overtired and that he was reminded to take care of his body. It was not an easy thing. He so badly wanted to feel normal and just be himself. 

 This trip was for the purpose of building homes for people that did not currently have one. The home was built in two weeks by a team or teams of people that came from different parts of the world. It was a program put on by Youth With a Mission. The teams could bring down furnishings for the home if they so chose as well as choose the lay out of the home. We stayed on the YWAM base in rooms with multiple bunk beds. Girls were in one room boys in another. Our job was to support teams that were coming down to serve. I did not realize it would be cold there and did not pack proper clothing. I was also not able to go and help with the house building all that much as there was not enough room for me in the vehicles. I stayed at the base cooking and cleaning. It was a challenging trip in many ways. However there were a few things that struck me. We did get to go out one night to a restaurant and the food was so delicious and full of flavour. I loved Mexican food. Secondly there were tolls everywhere the roads. I had not encountered that before. Also there were random horses on the side of the highways and that seemed so dangerous. The water was beautiful as well but it was not like Belize and the beaches where we were were not clean. We did not swim much. 

 Shopping was a phenomenal experience because I had never even considered bartering in my life, but bartering in Mexico was alive and well. I bought a few treasures to bring home and throughly enjoyed arguing with the shop keepers to get a price that was a bit more fair. 

 I remember clearly when the house the team was helping build was finished. It consisted of a small front room that had a tiny propane stove. There was room for a small table and there was a door and a window. Then there was an opening to go into the back room where the whole family slept. This house was 'furnished' by the team so there was a table and two chairs, and a bunk bed. There was bedding and plates, cups, etc. It was the most simple small house I had seen. There was no running water or plumbing but when the family was brought in they were moved to tears. Their thankfulness was a good eye opener to me. This was their first home and it was a treasure. It was for a family of five I believe. 

 Another clear memory was visiting a home for elderly people. According to what I was told many elderly people were not cared for by their families in their old age. There were many who ended up on the streets. This is just what I was told. Our team was taken up a big hill where at the top of a very steep driveway was a building that held a room for woman, a room for men, and a kitchen/dining area. There were a few bathrooms and a courtyard. We were tasked with hair cutting and shaving and bathing people. Never in my life had I done that before. I tear up as I write. These sweet souls so rarely had kind touch. When we cut their hair in terrible hair cuts (because of dull scissors and zero experience) they beamed with thankfulness. We cut toenails and shaved beards in the sunshine. Many of the elderly women held dolls as we tried to trim their hair with dull scissors. All they had was a bed in a room filled with other woman in their beds. They were sweet and kind and deeply precious. We helped feed them lunch, and afterwards we did a little performance for them and then brought out a piñata. I don't know whose idea that was but it was genius. This brought SO MUCH joy to these sweet people who had really nothing to do. To see frail little ladies attempting to smash a piñata and just beaming for joy was the best thing really. We went back to the base determined to buy this place razors that actually were sharp and scissors that worked! We so wanted to help. 

 Like I had said, our job there was to be support to the base and help them with teams that were coming to build houses. Some of our team members drove big fifteen passenger vans through the streets of Mexico, with paper maps (no GPS ) to big hotels to pick up teams of wealthy people coming to serve. There were MANY close calls and the vans did sustain some damage. When I think back to what was required and how people just stepped up to do things they had NEVER done and in many ways were so dangerous....it is astonishing. It is also incredible and heart warming to think back. 

 I remember going to a prison there and my friend preaching to a room full of men who were going through so much. She preached a powerful message that impacted me deeply and them as well.

 The trip was very hard for me in multiple ways. I wasn't really part of the team, I was an outsider but all the people on the team were people I knew. The man that I was there to support didn't want me there. My travel to Mexico was SO stressful. I took a plane from my country to California  and a taxi and a train to the borders of California and Mexico and then met people who picked me up and drove me over the border into Mexico. I had never been on a train, and no idea how to catch a train. I had no cell phone. I had to find a specific taxi at the airport and that almost didn't happen, and make the right train at the right time.  When I got on the train I truly did not know if I was on the right one. There were so many close calls and just sheer panic on my part. My first train ride made me feel motion sick. I remember seeing the beautiful beaches off in the distance and a lady behind me was talking loudly on her cell phone most of the trip. By the time I arrived in Mexico at my destination I felt like I had aged many years :) 

 I came home changed. I had met beautiful people, I had gone through hard experiences, and I was challenged in so many ways. I was married at the time so I was also away from my husband for the first time and that was hard too. I had been treated really unkindly at times and felt vulnerable and alone and had to serve and serve in ways that I did not want to. Yet it was so good for me to experience all of these things and have the opportunity to gain depth of character. 

Mexico is a beautiful place and I am thankful I said yes to going. 

Belonging

 Sometimes I long to feel like I belong so deeply.  There is such a deep ache I can scarcely manage the pain. Where have I felt I belonged? I have had times of belonging and they have been sustaining now for a long time. When I was younger I lived on a hobby farm and owned chickens, a goat, bunnies and a pony. We had other animals as well that were not my own. I felt like I belonged there. Our house was right by a creek that made soothing lovely sounds. Our neighbours owned Appaloosa horses and were so kind to me. My other neighbours were good friends and all the neighbours all around were other friends and we all knew each other and played every day. The street was beautiful, full of forest and field and we were safe. Each day I spent hours outside. We had a heritage barn with huge beams stacked with hay bales that I spent hours in. I climbed trees and built forts and skated on the creek and rode my pony and homeschooled and lived the best life I could. My parents were struggling extremely during this time and so life was not perfect, there were many hard things, but I belonged there. I was so close to the Ocean and my friends were so sweet and my pony gave me purpose. We had community and freedom. 

We moved when I was thirteen back to my home town, I went to my old school and it took a few years but then I belonged there as well for a time. After graduation life unravelled little bit by little bit. Because of my time at the farm I knew what community felt like, also because of my grade eleven and twelve years of high school I also know what community felt like. It was a beautiful thing that I missed for years in my adult years.

Community is not perfect, far from it, but there are so many cultures where community is a way of life. It has its challenges but it also makes so much sense if the community is healthy and supportive. All through my adult years I have hoped that somehow community would come. However, I have not done anything to foster community for a long time. As much as I long for it I don't have capacity to foster it. I hope that maybe in the future I will feel community with my grown children although I don't want to put that pressure on them. I just wanted to acknowledge this feeling that never goes away.

xo

Simply a Mother

 What is there to chat about when you have six children plus a son in law and a grandson and they all live in your house? I can chat about them! 

I'll start with my son in law. He likes to change up his hair style often. I love it because it reminds me of my husband in our early years together. He had so many different looks. My son in law loves his friends and his family. He loves to get outside and be steeped in adventure. He is a gift to our family in that he doesn't act like he is better than us. He accepts us for who we are. He is kind and funny and authentic. We are thankful for him.

Then there is my grandson. He is so full of joy and wonder and sweetness. I am so thankful for him. His smile makes his nose crinkle, his eyes light up, and he waves hello and just shines. He is a precious miracle in our family and has brought us all together again. 

My oldest daughter ~ my greatest gift from another. She loves to be out and about. She has always been so social, so sweet, so caring, so fun and loving of adventure. I appreciate her fearlessness and confidence in trying new things that she is interested in. I love going for walks with her with all her younger siblings and feeling so deeply thankful that we can do this! 

My oldest son is the sweetest human and so funny. He is gentle, kind and loyal. Life has been challenging for him. He has had to overcome a lot of challenges and he has been such a fighter. His imagination and capacity to care have been inspiring to me. 

My bright eyed daughter who has always been precious. I think of her as snuggly and bright eyed, strong and determined. She often led the way for my older son in terms of things like riding a bike or learning new things. She was brave and he was not. She was determined and he was worried. She shone with joy and sweetness and so did he. They made a good pair. Now she milks three hundred cows at a time, is fierce on the basketball court, has the cutest giggle, and loves her friends and siblings. She is everyone's favourite sibling. 

My youngest son is the son I think of as 'my most Irish child'. During the years of reading many novels I have come to think of Irish men as strong, determined, fiery survivors. They are fierce warriors, loyal, determined, hot tempered people. My son is full of fire. He is also gentle and sweet and thoughtful. He is determined and his brain is brilliant. He adds so much to our family.

My promised daughter ~ my six year old. She came to me after two losses and in utero she could sense my thoughts and respond to me. She is so sensitive and so sweet. She is also creative and caring and would love to be a friend. She is a precious sister and a beautiful part of our family.

My baby girl ~ she is two and really starting to express her thoughts and feelings. She is sassy and busy and sweet and caring. She loves you and she tells you. She is so funny. She is also so coordinated and active. 

I cannot even fathom that these treasures are my own sometimes. I started out my married journey wide eyed and incredibly hopeful. After one year of marriage I got cancer in my uterus and was told I may never have children. Here I am twenty one years later. These children are my legacy, my loves, my heart. I have given all of myself for them. I have agonized in their agony, and I have waged war for them on every level. I have sacrificed so much for their care and keeping. And so, there is not much I can talk about now other than them. I am simple,  but this is what I am. I am a mother. 

xo

The Coming of the Violets

   The Violets are blooming in a tiny front plot in front of my house. They were planted by my daughter one year without my knowing and every time they bloom they fill me with hope and joy. Hope because Spring is coming, and joy because someone did something so thoughtful for me and something so lasting. They are a dark rich purple and so delicate. Violets ~ the heralds of Spring.

  My six year old has also been bringing me Snowdrops the last few weeks and I put them on my kitchen windowsill. I spend a lot of time at the sink washing dishes and those Snowdrops bring me a lot of joy. Once when I was walking with my young children down our road an elderly lady was in front of her very old home in town. I asked her if I could pick some of her Snowdrops as they were a variety I had not seen. She was so kind and said yes and we engaged in conversation. She had been living on that street for years in a big old heritage house. Her husband had died and it was just her now. Those houses were so cold in the winter as I lived in one myself. Her yard was large and unkept but her Snowdrops bloomed every year. I kept my eye on that house and over time I realized she must have passed away or had to move. The house got torn down and the Snowdrops lost, but I will always remember them. That is something I always wonder about other people. Do they remembered old long gone gardens? I do and I miss them and cherish their memory. Someone's creativity and artistic soul sewed the seeds, tended the bulbs and brought light and scent and beauty to their neighbourhood. How noble  and how kind.

  It looks like the perfect Spring day today. The sky is a light pale blue, the farther taller mountains are capped with snow and the closer mountains are looking a dark hazy blue. The air is crisp as is the air. My husband and two younger children are playing croquet in the front freshly cut yard. It looks so beautiful. You wouldn't  know that for the last three months we have not had more than a handful of days of being healthy. In fact the last three weeks some of my children have been so sick that I have not been able to sleep more than just a few hours a night. Thankfully the four sickest children are doing better and one is totally well. The last two that were desperately sick are on their way to health again. I am so deeply hopeful that Spring will bring health to our home. It has been incredibly hard to a be a nurse 24/7 plus a mother and house keeper and cook and chauffeur and more without any days off or even hours off duty. I have struggled to keep on. 

 I am grateful this winter is almost over as it has been particularly dark and ominous for me. I just have trudged through it one day at a time praying for light and strength. This coming year will be one of hard work, of choosing over and over to do the next right thing, of making sure my mind and soul are filled with sustenance and all the goodness I can muster in. It makes the coming of the Violets especially sweet. 

Travel ~ Taiwan

 When I was nineteen I went on a missions trip to Taiwan and the Philippines. We were there for almost a month between the two countries and they could not have been any more different! 

In this post I will reminisce about Taiwan. When we first got off the plane and were driving to our destination we were driving through a city but there would be places all through it where I would see elderly people in their pointed straw hats gardening. That was my first memory ~ the elderly people in their straw hats.

Another memory was the ornate temples in every town no matter how big or small. The temples were beautiful and sometimes a little terrible and very ornate and bright. 

We stayed in Taipei but then also smaller villages and towns. The city people dressed in very mismatched clothing that felt like they hurt my eyes sometimes.  In my country people were so obsessed with matching. The women wore shoes that were too big for them and that made a lot of them shuffle in some ways. The villagers and people from the mountains wore more simple traditional garb. 

The people were not warm or affectionate but reserved, guarded and respectful. Since we had just been to the Philippines this stood out in stark contrast to the warmth and affection of the Phillipino people. The people we stayed with were Taiwanese and missionaries themselves. They were so kind and caring. Taiwanese people were not very open to Christianity at that time so it took many years to build up a church community. We were, however, invited to a school where we shared what we had prepared. We spent time with the children and that was special.  

We went out to farmland and walked among rice fields. We met villagers who were astonished and kind to us foreigners. One family invited us into their home of many generations. It was such a special experience. They served us tea in tiny glasses and we visited as best we could with the language barriers. They had lived in their home time out of mind. It reminded me of a very long hallway with little rooms all along it. I think it was all made of brick.

We went up into the mountains and encountered the beauty of bamboo forests. We ate traditional food cooked inside bamboo. The bamboo as far as the eye could see was absolutely breathtaking. We also visited an area that had waterfalls and many steps to climb and traditional cultural performances. 

The trip was deeply beautiful and our encounters with people were impacting. I turned twenty while I was there. Little did I know I would be married at twenty one and life would be changing drastically at age twenty two.

I am so thankful that I was able to go to Taiwan. It was a stunning country with diverse landscape. 

Travel ~ Jamaica Part Two

 When my husband and I went to Jamaica again we had gone through a lot in a short time. When we had travelled to Jamaica before we had been married for a year and I was starting to go through my cancer journey and was going through a very long drawn out miscarriage. It was an amazing trip for us, but it had a lot of challenges for me. I was weak and sick and not sure what was happening to my body. I also was helping get ready for a wedding. It was very very hot where we were staying. When we arrived home I immediately started chemotherapy and my life was changed forever.

We decided to go to Jamaica again, because we wanted to visit our friends and see the children we had met the time we had been in Jamaica previously. In our hearts we wished to adopt them but adoption in Jamaica is almost impossible without living there for years and years.

At this time in our lives our friends had moved to a new town to start a church and I was very newly pregnant with my first son and we were also going to adopt our daughter. This time we went to Jamaica in the rainy season. Our friends didn't have a vehicle yet and so any time we were going to go somewhere we hired a driver or took a taxi. It rained a lot. It rained so much that our clothes wouldn't fully dry and the cement walls were weeping. I had pretty intense sickness from my pregnancy and while I was there someone I loved took their life. I could not attend their funeral which was very very hard for me. I was mourning and just feeling so heart broken. 

There were also such beautiful moments. We loved getting to see the children we had connected with. They were in a children's home and we so wished we could adopt them but that was not to be. We loved our time with our friends who continue to live in Jamaica to this day and have a seventeen year old church that is thriving. My husband and my friend's husband are kindred spirits and had so much fun dancing and sliding in the rain just getting to act like kids (which really we all still were) and have the time of their lives. 

Something else we did that was impacting to me was we attended a funeral for my friend's husband's grandmother up in the mountains. We rented a car and drove as far up as we could. The road was rough and more like a track. We caused some damage to the car for sure! We ended up going to the top of a mountain where a church was perched. It filled with people who were dressed beautifully and many women wore hats. The funeral was unlike any I had ever been to. There were many speeches and songs. It was a cultural experience that was totally sincere. Afterwards we also saw where our friend's grandmother had lived. There were small places close together and built with whatever material could be found.  There was no running water or electricity. There were fires for cooking. It felt like a different era.

This was the last trip I took before I had children. After that I didn't travel again until my oldest was nineteen years old. 

Going to Jamaica and suffering so much there (twice) made me never want to go back.  My husband has gone back three times and taken my three oldest children. It has been really incredible for them. Our friend's live on fifty acres now ( or something like that) and are camp directors. The property is beautiful and a wonderful place to raise children. They are amazing people and have been so impacting to thousands of people in their life time. 

I am thankful for the two times I was able to travel to Jamaica because I was able to be in my friends' wedding and see the country she adopted as her own.  I also am thankful that our husbands could become life long friends because of these trips. 

Assurance in Obedience

 I read a book last night and there were passages of it that I hope I can hold before me often. I look around and see other people living lives that seem 'better' than my own. I feel like if I could just get over certain walls that have been created by my past, or that I have built for myself, that I could do more, be better, and I could help. Help who? I don't know! Do more of what!? So many things. I just have this nagging feeling that I am doing something wrong. I wish I could bring in an income for my family and cook healthier meals and exercise, parent much more effectively, and the simple list is pretty extensive. However the list comes from a place of feeling like I am going to end up a failure, because I have not been able to do these things that I value and feel is vital with regularity or to the extent I would like to.

When I try to stand back and look at this I realize that this is the life my parents led and still lead in many ways. They are both still alive but their past trauma and their situations led them to a place now where they have a lot of pain and regret and bitterness and it's eaten them away. I want to walk towards something different but I often feel stuck in the battle. Like I am trying to scoop up the incoming tide and throw it back.

Is there truth in this? That I am doing something wrong? Not enough? Yes I think so. I also think I am doing what I can. There are days when I could do more and I don't. But more often than not I am doing every single thing I can do. It's just embarrassing that I can't do much. I think I always thought I was capable of more. Then the world sort of laughed and said nope. 

Last night when I read this though ~ it resonated with me.

'This, at least, was Molly's working theory of life. She saw plainly that her business - every day, every hour, every moment - was to order her way as He who had sent her into being would have her order her way. Doing God's things -that is, what God gave her to do - God's thoughts would come to her. God's things were better than man's thoughts, man's best thoughts the discovery of the thoughts hidden in God's things. Obeying him, perhaps a day would come in which God would think directly into the mind of his child without the intervention of things! For Molly had made the one rational, one practical discovery of being - that life is to be lived, not by helpless assent or aimless drifting, but by active cooperation with the Life that has said 'Live'. To her everything was part of a whole, which, with its parts, she was learning to know. She was finding out the secrets of life by obedience - that is, duty done - for developing even the common intellect. Those who obey are soon wiser than all their lessons, while from those who do not obey, even what knowledge they started with will be taken away."

'The Poet's Homecoming' by George MacDonald

This is a long quote but in reading it I felt a peace come over me. I so often forget that I can ask God what He would have me do. I forget to quiet my spirit and listen. I am overstimulated with the noise and clutter and energy. I am going from thing to thing not accomplishing much. However if I am doing what God has asked me to do - which I think I am that is enough. He has given me children to raise, a house to steward, relationships to give to if at all possible. It has not been much I realize compared to so many - but it is what He has given to ME. So instead of casting my eye around and looking at my lack and failures and regrets I can refocus. I can realize that in obedience I can rest in assurance. 

Maybe it doesn't make much sense. 

It has been long day and my body and brain are exhausted. My husband, daughter and son in law went snow boarding on a mountain close to us. I try to advocate for my daughter to get to go once a year. She loves to snowboard but it is an expensive endeavour and until she is older and can pay her own way this is what we can offer. Today I was home with all my children and grandson and it was a truly lovely day. Of course every day is filled with a lot of fighting between my children, a lot of whining, and I wash many many dishes and process many loads of laundry and make food over and over again. This holds much loveliness in the moments of eyes alight with thankfulness when I serve a snack that was asked for. Or when I read to someone or snuggle someone or look up when they are calling for me to watch them do something they think is absolutely mind blowing. Today I cleaned the bathrooms and washed barn clothes and cut up cabbage and read a Hardy Boy's novel to my son, and snuggled a baby to sleep multiple times. I went for a walk with my children in the beautiful sunshine and we dressed up like we were venturing out into the Arctic. I worked until my body ached. The three snowboarders came home tired, sore, bruised and happy. They had a great day. We all had a great day. Feeling peace today in amongst the chaos came from knowing that what I was doing was enough. It was what was laid before me and I obeyed. 

I am thankful

Travel ~ Jamaica Part One

 The first time I went to Jamaica I was twenty two. I went with my husband and we were going to celebrate the marriage of one of my dearest friends. I had met her when I was a baby and we had been friends until about age seven or eight. We reconnected at the age of twenty. We ended up living in the same house randomly in a totally different town than where we had first met. At that time her boyfriend lived in Jamaica and mine was in South Africa. We both were struggling students who were spending hundreds of dollars on long distance phone calls! We bonded on many fronts and have remained friends ever since. We have never lived on the same continent again but that small time together meant everything.

She came to my wedding and I was going to hers. I was a bridesmaid in the wedding actually! Back in those golden olden days of travel you could bring everything and your kitchen sink in your suitcase. I remember bringing a bag full of snacks because I didn't know what the food situation would be like. I also remember bringing a full and massive CD player along with a platter, plastic wrap, and so much more (in a suitcase). I was bringing her down the things she had gotten at a wedding shower. I brought a blow up bed, sheets, the list was endless! 

When I arrived I was hit with that same kind of heat I had felt in the Philippines. It was that tropical heat that you can't fathom until you are in it. I was travelling down with, not just my husband, but a whole group of friends. We needed to get to the coastal town where my friend was living and so we all jumped into a small taxi. I had to sit on my husbands lap. 

We were all hungry and so we tried to go through a drive through to get food. This was my first experience with Jamaican customer service. Let's just say that the fast food joint did not have ANY of the numbers we asked for and in the end the poor taxi driver had to ask the lady what numbers they DID have and she, in a VERY annoyed voice, listed off the numbers and we were then able to order. This is not an experience  I had ever had in my country. 

Then we were taken to the town. The roads were curvy, covered in potholes, the taxi was hot, goats and donkeys grazed along the sides of the road and we drove quickly. I was happy to arrive in one piece.

The town we stayed in was right on the coast of Jamaica. It was very hot there. My friend and her husband were renting a house to live in but had not moved in yet. It was completely unfurnished but it had a bathroom, a bedroom or two, a living room and small kitchen. There were no coverings on the windows but we did have electricity. 

So many things happened while I was on that trip. The small town did not have plastic wrap. I had brought it for zero reason other than I had a weird hunch we would need it. Little did I know that in Jamaican culture, at a wedding, you had to give out a special rum cake. The plastic wrap I brought was needed to wrap each individual piece of cake! While we were there we were working hard on preparing for the wedding ~ making cloth napkins, decorations, and running errands. I had a taste of my friend's life. She was only twenty two but she and her soon to be husband were pastoring a church. Just days before her wedding she got a call that four children were orphaned up in the mountains and could she take them. They were at risk for having AIDS and so until they were tested no one else would take them. She said yes. My friend's parents lived in the same town at the time so the children slept there. They were so precious and going through so much. It was very eye opening and so impacting to me.

Since we were right by the water and it was SO hot we did go swimming a lot. I saw puffer fish and other colourful fish and my husband saved me from a shark. He can truthfully say that he has saved my life. We didn't know that the area was a popular place for sharks because the fishermen gutted their fish in that area. Well, we learned our lesson. I was swimming happily when suddenly he scooped me up and ran. Everyone was hightailing it out of the water and I didn't understand what was going on. They all ran up on the banks far from the water and when I looked back I could see the shark fin circling around. It has been coming right for me. 

While we were there we got to be part of a marriage proposal and also got to be part of a Jamaican wedding. 

It was held on the grounds of a resort close to the water. I remember that the guests arrived an hour late which was expected and called 'island time'. There was a parrot in a cage that made very loud cell phone ringing noises during the ceremony. I was wearing a short strapless black dress made of cotton and I sunburned badly. My friend wore a large full satin wedding dress made for her by her mother. with a long heavy train I could not fathom how she could manage in the heat.

The wedding was beautiful ~ the groom met his dad for the first time at his wedding! He also saw his mom and dad interact for the first time in his life. The groom had grown up in a very poverty stricken area and was raised by his mom who had him, his twin brother, and other siblings. His dad had a whole other family in the States and had never visited his sons in Jamaica!

During this trip I experienced really hard things. I was in the process of slowly dying of cancer but I didn't know. I kept having these episodes where I would start haemorrhaging and I know that something was very wrong, but I was nowhere near a hospital and I'd have to lay on the blow up mattress in the sweltering heat just suffering. It was challenging and I got weaker and weaker. Everyone was young and living this carefree life and I was living such a different reality.

The ants surprised me. They were everywhere and so determined. If you left one crumb of food out there would be a trail of ants to it no matter how tall the building. 

I was most impacted by the orphans that we met, by my friend's decision to make Jamaica her forever home, by the heat and my suffering, and by the fun of the wedding. Jamaica culture is complicated. It comes from such trauma and tragedy and the people are resilient and devout and can dance! 

I didn't know at that time but when I got home I would have to start chemotherapy and my life would be forever changed. This little slice of time in Jamaica with a group of friends, celebrating my friend getting married, was a huge blessing ~ it was the last of my youth.

I am glad we went.

Travel ~ The Phillipines

 When I was nineteen I was part of a program through a church that took a month long trip to Taiwan and the Philippines. This was an experience of epic proportions from the beginning to the end.

The plan ride was so.many.hours.long. It was important to get up and walk every so often so your legs didn't swell and you didn't develop blood clots. It was a fun plane ride though for me as it was with good friends. I liked everyone on my team. 

When we arrived the heat, humidity and noise hit me like a ton of bricks. We were loaded into a Jeepney which is a vehicle left over from World War Two days. It was a vehicle with a front driver seat and then two benches in the truck bed with a roof and walls but the walls had slits in it. Where I am from you do not use your horn ever, unless you are angry. In the Philippines you use your horn constantly to communicate to other drivers what you are doing. The roads are teeming with vehicles and there does not seem to be many rules to an untrained eye. Pedestrians have zero right of way. It is so full of pollution and noise and heat. When the traffic stops people come up to try to sell you things and you have to be careful not to have jewelry stolen off of you. We had been flying for hours and to encounter this right off the batt was an assault of the sense to the highest degree. We were overwhelmed. When we arrived at our destination we were relieved. The girls were in a room full of bunk beds and the boys were next door in the same set up. 

As we were settling in our room one of the girls let out a shriek as the first cockroach encounter of our lives happened. The boys came in to the rescue and assured us they could not see any more (which was a huge lie to keep up quiet) as the cockroach had run under a bed. Apparently there were many cockroaches under the said bed but we didn't know till later. We then had our first shower experience in the Philippines. There was no hot water and no seats on the toilet. Where we were from every shower was hot and there were seats on every toilet and there was not a single cockroach. 

My time in the Philippines was absolutely life changing and incredible. I loved the country. 

The open air markets were mind boggling to someone that had only been in quality controlled grocery stores. So many carcasses hanging out covered in flies. So many things to buy at such cheap prices. 

The Philippines was covered in litter. The streets were so dirty. Once again I had come from a country where I rarely saw litter on the streets or highways because people were payed to constantly clean and there are high fines for littering. I hope it does not seem like I am being negative or scornful about it. It was just such a vast difference from where I had come from that it stuck out to me,

I saw people defacating in the middle of the streets, and dogs and cats covered in sores. I had also never encountered this in my country. I went to a massive garbage dump where many acres of land was piled mountains high with garbage. In fact the piles were so high that there was an area that had collapsed and killed multiple people. I saw little naked children who lived the outskirts of the dump and who's parents spent their days combing through garbage to find what they could to eke out a living. Once again I had not experienced that here. There are MANY homeless people in my town but none of them are allowed to live at the town garbage dump.  

I stayed at a woman's house whose husband was a missionary for most of her marriage in another country. She had four children many years apart because she only saw her husband once every five to seven years and would then get pregnant. The children did not really know their father. Her youngest son had never met him. This woman was one of a few women that we met in the same circumstances. They stayed back and ran businesses to support their husbands. It was a strange concept that we felt was very wrong. 

We all split up and stayed in different villages. I stayed with three friends in a little village that was beautiful and where many people had basically nothing. I had never been exposed to such poverty before. I remember standing at the top of a hill and looking down onto hundreds and hundreds of shacks built out of cardboard and tin that people had constructed. It was a whole community with chickens walking down the tiny dirt paths between houses. There was no running water or sanitation but people kept their places immaculately clean. The people we encountered were so deeply kind and sweet. They gave what they could. We made food to share and children came running. We also did crafts with them and taught them what we could about the love of Jesus. 

We ate many different foods. I was struck by the fact that bananas have seeds! Since bananas are imported here they never have seeds. Also bananas in their home country are much more yellow inside. They are always white here. A delicacy was chunks of fat floating a broth. When the more picky people on my team refused to eat it the kind Phillipinos just took our bowls and ate what was left. Also a very special meal prepared for us was a whole fish with eyeballs  still in in a bowl. We were so young and rude not realizing how much they were sacrificing to feed us these special foods. When they asked us what a staple food was for us we had no idea what that really meant. We were so privileged. We said bread. They made sure to have a loaf of white bread at every meal even though they never ate bread. I am filled with gratefulness at their sacrifice to my unaware, young, privileged self. I hope I can thank them in Heaven.

In the Philippines one night I stayed at a conference that the rest of my team did not stay at. I was asked to stay by the people there and I said yes. That night I slept on the floor on a piece of cardboard that I shared with a three year old. I have never slept on cardboard again but I had a great sleep that night. 

Being in the Philippines opened my eyes to a different level of poverty I had never seen before. We met a wealthy lady and went to her house. It was amazing to see all that she had when others so close to her, just down the road, were so hungry and had nothing. She was wealthy because her son worked on a ship and was gone for months at a time but made a good wage. We met his wife who suffered from headaches and what I believe was a lot of anxiety. We met children hungry to learn but who did not have opportunity. We so wished we could rescue the many starving sick animals and help the children who so deserved all the chances we had been given. 

We met so many kind people and we ate fresh mangos and hotdogs on sticks poked into pineapple. We shopped in massive malls and in open markets. We swam at a new indoor swimming pool. The ocean was full of garbage and so it was not advised to us to swim. We saw so many different neighborhods and drove in Jeepneys and buses. 

One memory I have that is one of the best of them all for me. I have many memories of this trip that are dear, but it was how I felt during this memory that blessed me deeply.

One day it started to rain. I had never experienced a tropical downpour. Every day had been thick with heat and humidity. Our clothes stuck to us and we felt wilted. One day it started to rain and I was in a small village with three friends. We decided to go outside and walk in the rain. The rain was pouring but it was so bright outside, the air was warm, the rain was warm! It was raining so hard that within a very short amount of time the roads were flooded and water was rushing through buildings. The sewers flooded and rats were floating down the road. People were showering with soap in the rain as many did not have running water. I was struck with the thought of the people whom we had served that lived at the bottom of the hill in their cardboard and corrugated metal structures. I knew their places would be decimated. However there was this sense of elation and freedom in the warm pouring rain that felt unique to me. I had felt that once before as a child in warm rain storm with a friend and we had ran outside and rolled on the hot pavement in the rushing water. It was such a fun surprise happening at the time and this felt the same.

We got soaked to the skin and it felt like this beautiful experience. Then the sun shone again, the rain was done and we went back to the place we were staying. 

One more thing that I remember clearly from the Philippines ~

The Phillipino culture is very affectionate. Where we were from people rarely touched and were not affectionate. In the Philippines it was common to see men walking down the road with arms around each other. In our country that would mean they were in a romantic relationship. Here it was just what people did. It was normal and lovely. I had grown up with very little touch in my life and the girls on my team knew this. In the Philippines they took the opportunity to lavish me with healthy touch. We would walk down the road holding hands because that was accepted and normal. They would stand with an arm around me because that was normal and it blessed me so deeply.

I spent the last few weeks of my nineteenth year in the Philippines and I am so thankful I did. 

Going to the Zoo

  Last night my oldest daughter asked me if I wanted to go the zoo with her and her family today and bring my family. Truthfully I had had a full week and did not want to go. However, I knew for one of the first times in weeks that the sun would be shining, and so I said yes. There is so much power in the word yes and this time yes was such a good choice. See, when I am home I am consumed with work ~ mostly cleaning. My home has way too much stuff in it ~ toys and books and craft supplies. It is such a blessing, but something I really lack when it comes to parenting is consistency in teaching my children to work and clean up after themselves, and so I do most of it. It takes a lot of my time. 

 Today though, instead of cleaning, I got up and made some sandwiches and off we went to the zoo. My sister and her family met us there. The sun was shining but it was cold out. I went through my usual issues at the gate. I can never just line up and get into the zoo. There are always issues that often take thirty minutes or more. Today was no exception. After that though we were in! Today my entire family was there ~ all my children, my son in law, my husband and my grand baby. This is RARE! It was deeply special. My four youngest children also got to go on a little train at the zoo for the first time. My sister brought so much food which was so generous and hot chocolate. This made the trip so special. I had brought water and sandwiches as I was low in snack foods. She even brought a tablecloth! We had a lovely picnic lunch. The sun was shining and so all the animals were out in the sunshine desperate for the light. The Lions, Tiger, Cougars, Giraffes, Wildebeests, Snow Leopards, Buffalo, Zebra, Kangaroos...they were all out. It was the perfect day to go to the zoo. 

These days are what dreams are made of. I am so thankful my daughter got us all out into the sunshine. We were there for a few hours and the sun felt so life giving and the cold air felt so refreshing. We were all full of joy. 

                  

Travel ~ Belize

   I went to Belize. I was a teenager and I took two younger teenage boys there. They were staying in my country but were Korean citizens, and they also had landed immigrant status in Belize. They had to go there every so often to get their passport stamped. Through a random series of events I was chosen to be their guardian on this trip as their parents were in Korea and they were too young to travel there by themselves. My trip was payed for.

Now, I had never travelled anywhere in my life other than a very short plane ride to visit my cousin who resided in the same country as myself. I did not have a credit card, no real proof that I knew these boys, no cell phone, and had no idea what I was doing. I question how my parents felt I could do this ~ but then I realize that my parents let me do what I wanted when I wanted, because they didn't have a lot of spare time to worry about me. 

On the plane we got and headed to Belize. First thought we stopped in Texas and stayed the night there in a motel. Texas was exactly what I thought it would be and it was awesome. My only surprise was that I was from a small town full of mostly white people and in Texas there were so many darker skinned people! I don't know why I didn't realize this but it was something I remember. Texas was hot and muggy as well and I had not experienced that sort of heat before. The next morning we got back to the airport and headed to Belize.

I knew nothing about Belize or where we would be staying. We did not have cell phones as I said before. I do believe I had an email address but I did not email a soul while I was there. When we landed in Belize I knew we were going to be staying on a small island so we needed to catch another plane. The lady in customs looked askance at me as I herded the two boys through her docket. She questioned who I was and how I was taking these boys to this island. It had just had a hurricane and we knew no one there. I was eighteen. Somehow she let us through. We got on a teeny tiny eight seater plane and flew quite low over the most beautiful coloured tropical water I had ever seen. It was a terrifying experience to fly in such a tiny plane but it was also exhilarating. 

When we landed on the tiny island we got out of the plane and the heat was a shock. We got our bags and started walking. We had no clue where to go but we knew the name of the place we were staying. Locals directed us to the building. We were sharing a room. The boys shared a bed and I had my own bed. It was very hot. There was no air conditioning and we were there for a week. 

The first night we were there we ran into some trouble. We had brought money with us but we had to bring enough to pay the lady that was accommodating us. We had to pay for food, and whatever else we were going to do there. The lady who was in charge of the trip had estimated how much to send us with but she had no idea of the prices of anything or how tourists were gouged of all they had. 

The lady who the boys were staying with in my country knew a lady who lived on this island so she was our emergency contact if we got into trouble. We did not have her number though!

So the first night we went out for dinner and ate a normal meal. This ended up costing us so much money that we were now basically broke! From then on we relied on eating one bun from a bakery in the morning for breakfast, drinking Capri Sun juice boxes, and eating Chinese food takeout for dinner. We had to make a collect call to the lady back in my country to beg her to figure out a way to get us more money so we could eat while we were there. 

There wasn't a lot to do during the day since we had no money. After we made the emergency collect call to the lady in my country who had set up the trip she called the lady she knew on the island who then contacted us. She gave us some more money and she took us out snorkelling and to swim with sharks! I had never snorkelled in my life and was not a strong swimmer. This experience was unlike any I have ever had and may never have again. Belize has an incredible coral reef. A garden under the sea. It was so beautiful and magical and vibrant. I saw a huge manta ray and so many fish and coral. I could not bring myself to swim with the sharks but one of the boys I was with did. 

One day I got horribly sunburned. I have red hair and am very fair. An American couple saw me burning and alerted me and left me their bottle of aloe vera. I was in so much pain and sick. That aloe vera was such a kind gift! I remember they also gave me an orange. We couldn't to buy fruit or veggies while there so this was such a treat. Since I got so burned I could not be outside for a few days as the pain was so bad. Our room was very dark and although we had gone to the local library and found a few books in English I could only handle reading for so long.

On this island was one main road with little shops all along it for the tourists. We had already been on it many times to pass the time. Somehow I had met one of the shop owners and chatted with her. After I was burned I asked her if I could help out in her shop. It was very dark and disorganized and dirty. She asked me to clean it. I love cleaning and organizing so I was happy to help! 

Something to keep in mind is that this island was tiny. Everyone there knew how vulnerable we were and that we had no money and that no one was there to care for us. We could have gotten into trouble so easily from evil people but the locals were kind and gracious. We were kept safe. I didn't even think about this until years later.

The first day I worked in the shop I did so for eight hours. I organized a glass cabinet filled with  hundreds of pairs of earrings that looked like they had been tossed in by the handful. Many were not joined in pairs either. The cabinet had glass shelves that were uneven and propped up by books. My first order of business was to take out every pair of earrings and wash down the shelves and then re stack the books so the shelves were even. Then I arranged pair upon pair of earrings on all the shelves. It took me hours. After this I dusted and organized and spent two days working away. The shop owner commented that I accomplished in two days what they would not accomplish for weeks. The process was so interesting as there were no garbage bags or garbage cans and no rags or dusters. I had to be creative. Their pace of life there was so much slower. They would chat with friends for hours during the hottest hours of the day and really enjoy and live their lives. At the end of the few days I worked there she braided my thick red hair in tiny braids. My hair was very short at the time so I looked ridiculous. However it was kind of her to do this for me and took her a long time.

Back when I was a teenager I had a much different view on the world and on saying yes. I wanted to travel, I wanted to experience different cultures, and I didn't live in fear. I am so thankful I said yes to going to Belize. 

Something that struck me about the local people there were a few things. They lived isolated on a tiny island. The children had to go to high school on the mainland and stay there. They didn't get to come home often. I met the shop keeper's daughter and her boyfriend and they were more my age. They told me about their lives and begged me to send them textbooks so they could study and learn more. When I got home I tried my best to do it. However the school I went to would not give me any textbooks and I didn't know how to get any other ones so I could not send them any. I still regret that to this day.

Since they had just had a hurricane the local people's homes were torn apart. The shops had survived and the bigger buildings that tourists stayed in but the villagers homes were ruined. I wondered how they would rebuild because there wasn't exactly a local hardware store to buy supplies to rebuild the huts they lived in. 

The beaches were absolutely beautiful and had the most amazing shells to gather. The water was this aqua color that sometimes changed to an almost jade green. Tourists from all over the world came to snorkel the reef. There were not many cars on the island. People drove golf carts. The store keepers changed their prices every day. I finally called one shop keeper out on it and told him I would only pay a certain price each day for the juice boxes that sustained us and he sheepishly agreed. 

What an experience for an eighteen year old! I kept the boys alive but just barely. One night one of the boys told me he had left our room while I was asleep in the middle of the night and wandered around. There was a nightclub where not good things were happening but angels were guarding him and he was kept safe.  I firmly forbade him to ever do that again but he was fifteen! I couldn't really tell him much. The food we ate was unknown ingredients from a Chinese food place because it was so cheap. The men bent over huge woks with lit cigarettes in their mouths. The ash would fall into the food and sometimes you would bite something crunchy you knew should not be there. 

We got home in one piece and I got my films developed from my film camera and those photos are what I have left to remember my trip. Those boys went home to Korea. One became a dentist and I don't know what the other one became. I have not heard from them in many years. But I can remember how the white sand shone so brightly it hurt my eyes. I can remember the heat of the day and how it felt. I can remember the priest going to all the locals houses on Sunday afternoon as every family sat outside by the water and chatted and laughed the afternoon away. I can remember the colours under the water at the reef and how warm the water was. I can remember. 

What a gift memory is. What a gift the world is.

It holds so much beauty!

xo Tansy

Travel ~ California

 Another trip I took when I was a teenager was to California. I went to another YWAM (Youth With a Mission) base called Gleaning For the Hungry. I went on a very long drive in a fifteen passenger van with a team of other people from my church. We were headed there to serve in whatever way we could. There would be other teams of people there as well from other churches. I remember the drive being very challenging. I was short so I was stuck in the very back of the van with no leg room for a lot of it. The team was varied ages from younger teenagers to people my grandparents ages. 

When we arrived we were billeted on the base and I was in a room with two other girls. We realized that we were going to be working on a factory type line with a very long conveyor belt. This base processed fruit and dried it in the sun to send to places where people were without food. We processed peaches that week. I got so motion sick the first day from the endless motion of the conveyor belt. I was fine after the first day. I was in charge of removing pits. The fruit was processed and at the end of each day the whole conveyor system would have to be cleaned. That took a long time. The fruit would be put out in the sun and dried and also preserved with some sort of spray. 

We worked hard each day and sweated a ton but it was fun. The base had a pool and the couple that ran the base were awesome. The wife made all sorts of pie for dinner I had never heard of like pineapple pie. Getting to eat and chat together was lovely and the YWAM base leader had services and worship times in the evening. We also go to play games and make new friends.  

We met great people during that trip and I learned a bit more about the world. On the way home we visited the church and homes of some of the team that we met on the trip from a part of Washington. It was so fun and so memorable. We didn't do any sightseeing or go to a beach but we did what we aimed to do which was serve. This was such a good opportunity for me and it broadened my horizons. On that trip a boy from California fell in love with me and later came to my town to informally propose. I was already involved with someone else and so it was awkward and I handled it badly. I hate that I did that. I was young and so rude. I hope he ended up finding a girl that deserved him. He was amazing and I was not so much at that time. He was going to go places, work hard, and I hope he was able to thrive. 

Oh the teenage years! The drama and the adventure and the self assurance and sass I had. I am so thankful that I got to go to California and get out of my tiny world and experience something bigger and greater and important. This was the first time I went to California. I was to go again for just a few hours on another trip when I was in my twenties. 

Travel ~ Hornby Island

 When I was thirteen I was invited to go camping with a family to an island called Hornby Island. It was notorious for being inhabited by hippies and free thinkers and artists. One of the strict instructions I was given by my father was to NOT go to the nude beach that was there. 

I went with a friend and her foster parents. The foster parents went every year with their extended family. They had older daughters who were older teenagers at the time ~ basically young adults. 

I have SO MANY memories from this trip. It felt like a sort of coming of age trip. The girl I went with was younger than I was but wise to the world. She was so sweet and the family we were with was phenomenal. I was a very sheltered child in many ways and also was very wanting to obey my parents and make them proud. However on this trip I decided to make some of my own choices that I do not regret and that impacted me deeply.

We stayed at a campground high up on a cliff. I remember looking down onto the water one night and seeing eerie lights in the water. There were divers (a couple on a honeymoon) scuba diving in the dark with lights. It looked so cool! This sweet couple were sleeping in tent surrounded by many other tents and I remember they were badly sunburned and I thought that this did not seem like my ideal honeymoon :)

At this camp ground there were fresh croissants brought in every morning by someone and you lined up at the little store to try to get one. I had not eaten croissants before, much less warm fresh ones, the flakey buttery experience I have never forgotten. 

My friend's foster aunt and uncle were staying on their boat there and we were allowed to sleep in the boat one night! This was a first for me as well. That night we sat on the dock and swirled sticks through the water experiencing the magic of phosphorescence. It was unearthly and deeply beautiful. 

Every day was warm and lovely and the first beach day my friend and I dutifully went to the not nude beach beside the nude beach. Her whole family always went to the nude beach. However the not nude beach was packed with many people and because we were young we had not gone to a beach alone before. It made me anxious and so I decided the next day I was going to go to the nude beach! This was direct defiance to my dad but somehow it didn't feel wrong. 

My nude beach experience ended up impacting me for the rest of my life. We went to the beach on a beautiful day and there were many people there. I didn't feel in any way that it was unnatural or wrong to be there. I chose to wear my bathing suit. It was funny to see people playing volleyball naked I have to admit. And there were creepy older men being somewhat inappropriate but we were with my friend's whole family and they were veteran nudists :) We were totally safe and comfortable.  It was a sandy beautiful stunning beach. We had a really lovely time. The next day however was the most memorable.

We went to the beach again but it was a more moody cooler day. There were not many people there and my friend and I were sitting up in the vehicle staying warm. I looked down and there was a woman dancing along the shore line naked. You could just SEE that she felt winsome and free and full of joy. I was struck with such a clear thought that I had not felt that way, maybe ever, but I so wanted to. I never forgot her.

There was a beautiful house you could see from the shoreline and it reminded me of a favourite movie and a place in it called the White Sands Hotel. It didn't look like the White Sands Hotel but it had the same feel and it was right up above the Ocean on a bluff. I wished I could stay there.

Years later I was pregnant with my son and my friend invited me to go to Hornby Island with her and a few other friends. We went. After we settled into the house she told us we were right up above the nude beach. It was early in the year so no one would actually be at the beach. When we went down to the beach I looked up and realized I was staying in the house I had seen all those years before. It was such an amazing moment. The whole trip ended up being so full of light. I meandered through the most whimsical  pottery houses. I bought the most beautiful spring bouquet off the side of the road. I went to a  free store and found treasures for my family. I ate delicious food and my friend took some photos of myself that I find to be some of the most true reflections of who I am. I was so happy, so at peace, and I could hear the Ocean waves as I fell asleep. I will never forget that time with friends and the peace and happiness I felt there. 

We went to an orchard at sunset bursting with Spring blossoms. There were driftwood houses built all through it for people to stay in and we accessed it through a meandering forest path. The ocean was right at its doorstep. This felt like a piece of the garden of Eden.

We also walked along some cliffs that reminded me of Ireland. The wind whipped our hair and felt crisp and fresh and full of LIFE. We had the best time there. 

I admit that there have been a few times I have tried to move to an island. I have wanted to live closer to the ocean air and be able to spend hours at the beach looking for treasure with my children. I have longed for the feeling of connecting with my truest self that I find when I am there at the ocean and also the peace I feel. I live with such anxiety and tension. However this has not happened and I am here in a valley that has beauty but also has never felt like home.

The memories of my times on various islands sustain me through the years and every time I am able to go back I am just so thankful.

All these experiences have made me who I am and who I am ~

I am thankful to be

xo

Travel ~ Texada Island

 When I was about twelve years old I went to a place called Texada Island with a friend that I am still friends with to this day. I went with her whole family. They went every year. I don't know why I got invited but I came from a family who never went on holidays, never camped, and so this was such a special experience. We were camping right by the ocean. At the time I lived on an island but did not get to spend much time right by the ocean. The first night I remember laying in my sleeping bag on the ground and hearing this pounding noise. It took me a while to realize it was the waves pounding on the shore! The sound was so soothing and rhythmic and loud. I fell asleep to it. The first few days had beautiful weather. We went to a quarry that was stunning in its beauty. We had to hike in and then climb down into it. The water was such an amazing color. I was struck by the beauty and never forgot it. Now you cannot access this quarry as it is on private property and access had been denied. I am so thankful I was blessed with the beauty. I remember swimming in the cold ocean and eating smores by the fire.  I remember that I got to go camping for one of the first times in my life. The rain came quite quickly after we arrived and poured so hard that it was coming into the tent. All of us kids had to be sent home early and the parents stayed a few days on their own. My camping experience was cut short but it provided memories that lasted a life time. I have often longed to once again be back in a tent listening to the waves pound on the shore.

My Homeschooling Journey Part Five

 I want to point out some massive benefits of homeschooling that I have experienced and appreciated through the years.

In year one when I didn't know what to do I was blessed by a teacher who gave me sound and really life changing advice. When you enroll your child in homeschooling here you have the opportunity for a teacher/mentor who also writes report cards for you. You have to do your homework and find the school and teacher that works well with you. I have been so blessed with teachers that have mentored, encouraged and inspired me.

Throughout homeschooling my children have been able to take such beautiful classes that may not have experienced if they were in bricks and mortar schools. They have done dance, outdoor adventure classes, art, gymnastics, pottery, drama, music classes and more. 

Through homeschooling my children have been able to go to the zoo and do projects that have been so meaningful and impactful.

Through homeschool the courses my children have taken have often been tailored to how they learn and the subjects about something they are interested in. That has been such a gift.

Through homeschool I have been able to hire some tutors that have blessed my children and I so deeply. I think I would have suffered massive breakdowns if it was not for them. They have taken my children on such grand adventures, made them feel safe and loved, planned such fun projects for them and nurtured them along side me. I am so thankful.

Three of my children have learning differences to a degree. In a bricks and mortar school they would have had various labels and may have felt quite hindered or maybe not as smart as others. At home they had no real idea they struggled and just forged ahead and learned! They were able to shine in their areas of strength and to grow in their areas they were challenged in.

Even though my own issues have been a big hamper to me personally through these years of homeschooling I have chosen to continue on. My children have had good times and challenging times. I am thankful that we could memorize scripture and poetry. I am grateful that we have all been together so much. I am thankful for each milestone. Every time a child learns to read it is an amazing accomplishment and I got to be alongside them as they learned. I hope that one day I will realize that it does not feel as impossible. Maybe my last two little ones will be able to learn more easily and won't mind book work as much. Maybe I will have more energy to do extra curricular things and they won't have so much social angsts to work through. Maybe, maybe, who knows....

Regardless, here we are. I have been homeschooling for fourteen years. 

Go me :)

Creator

 I've looked out my window

Willing the mountains

To speak to me

They hold a life line I've learned

When you live in the valley

I've leaned out my window

Hoping the wind would sing me a song

Soothing and sweet

I've stepped out my door

Wanting the flowers to envelope me with fragrance

To bring me back to my softer self

I have driven long hours

To hear the rhythm of the waves

Their constancy bringing comfort and healing

I have hiked into forests to breathe among trees

Feeling connection that brings me closer

I have weeded a garden and watched seeds growing

Marvelling at the miracle that all of this is

I have sat beside meadows listening to bees

Watching them faithfully spread life

I have made flower crowns from Daisies and Dandelions

And felt beautiful

I have shuffled through crackling leaves holding my Grandmother's hand

Making memories to last a life time

I have leapt into lakes and sat high upon mountains

Feeling that all is well with the world

I have jumped off a waterfall

In an ecstasy of victory

I have skated on a frozen pond

Fresh and cold and free

I have sat by a creek and listened to its melody

Being comforted and blessed

I have cried as I rode on the back of a pony

All of my heartbreak spilling over onto her warm back

I have marvelled at Apple Blossoms

After a cold grey winter

I have seen whales breaching from the back of a ferry

My son and I feeling like this was just for us

I have kayaked on the Ocean during a rain storm

On an anniversary with my husband

The rain sounding like it was hitting glass

The sound unlike any I had heard before

I have swam over a barrier reef 

In shock and awe at what I didn't know existed

I have been in a forest of bamboo

In total quiet 

In all of this I have been in awe of you

Creator

The wonder of all you have done

This canvas of love 

Displayed for all

As I look out my window

Willing the mountains to speak

Marvelling at Apple Blossoms 

At sunsets

At you

My Homeschooling Journey Part Four

 Why did I decide to homeschool my fourth child if I didn't like homeschooling? Maybe I am a glutton for punishment? My fourth child has struggled with emotional regulation like my oldest son. If I had put him in school he may have needed an assistant. He also begged to stay home. He has never wanted to attend a school. He has a completely different brain than my three oldest children. He learned to read at age five and has no troubles with it. He also is quick with Math comprehension. He is also now eleven and would rather play and create. This year I put him in a three hour English class.

You know how God always gets me through? Well He did it again.

I was SO burnt out after homeschooling five children with a very needy baby last year. I wanted to put my two youngest in school in the worst way. I was exhausted and felt like homeschool was this vice in my chest. However they did not want to go. I knew that it would be a terrible and probably traumatic fight to get my eleven year old to attend school and that it was not worth it for me. I also knew that I would have to get lunches ready for all three kids and drive them to three different schools. That felt daunting. I felt trapped. What was I to do!

I saw online that there was an English class being offered for homeschoolers only for his grade for a very reasonable price and I signed him up. He said he would not go. He said he would hate me forever if I made him go. He  ran away from the first class causing all sorts of drama. For September, October and November I sat outside the classroom door and supported him. Now it is the end of December and he went to his last two classes totally independently with no anxiety or issues. He has a phenomenal teacher. He also has a tutor he goes to once a week. I don't know if I will homeschool him until graduation. I would rather not. However we shall see how things go. He is learning a lot this year. He is the first child I decided not to enrol in a school. This took a lot of pressure off of me. The rule where I live is that the child only needs to be enrolled through grades ten to twelve in order to graduate with a regular diploma. I may enroll him in grade eight but right now the set up we have it great and a lot less pressure on me. 

He is a really social and a competitive child and I think he could thrive in school if he could manage his anxiety. We shall see how the years progress. He has enjoyed being in homeschool soccer and taking art classes. He loves to learn when it's presented in a way that engages his brain :) and don't we all.

He is in grade six this year and I am homeschooling my little six year old. She is doing well. However I would love for her to be in some sort of co op or something that she can meet other children her age in. I hope I can add that into next year.

 Each year I have had to reconfigure, find support, or go it alone, and each year has been totally different. Each child is so vastly unique. There have been no easy years for me but there have been years of triumph. The year that my oldest son learned to read, or the year he did three grades of Math in one year? Triumph. The year my oldest graduated with honors? Triumph. This year my grade ten daughter is doing a lot of her work on her own. It was not long ago I read everything to her and wrote or typed all her work for her. The fact that she is working independently feels miraculous :) 

Triumph 

My Homeschooling Journey Part Three

 Now I am homeschooling a child in grade four and a child in grade one and I have a baby at home. I have more confidence and things are in some ways easier but I have two children who have learning challenges and behavioural challenges. I have a nursing baby and a child who wakes up screaming in pain every night. Homeschooling is still really hard. However, out of necessity, I do my best.

Again ~ God comes through ~ as ALWAYS ~ with support and care.

While I was pregnant with my third child an eye doctor started me on a journey to get my two oldest children tested to get funding for the financial support they needed in school. I ended up with the kindest most empathetic psychologist to test my daughter who then agreed to also test my son. In the end they both qualified for support. At first I didn't know what this meant and it took years to get this into place. 

When my oldest was in grade five she went back to a private school for three years. It was a wonderful experience for her for the first two years but in that third year much went wrong again. During that time she had some support at school and a wonderful teacher. I continued to homeschool my second child. 

It was interesting having the option to now hire help. Admittedly since adopting my oldest daughter I was used to professionals coming into my home and advising me on how to raise my child. It was not a graceful journey. I eventually realized that I was her parent, I knew her best, and advice from people who don't actually know her personally or live with her should not be taken as God's truth. 

This ended up being my journey with my son as well. As different people came into my home to help him learn it did more harm than good. It was another challenging journey to realize how and who I needed to hire to actually help him and sadly he went through trauma because of it.

If you have a child who requires support at home or at school ~ remember that you know your child best~ and you know if the hired person will be a good fit or not no matter their education and qualifications!

After grade seven my daughter came back to homeschooling and continued that journey until she graduated. She did really well through her high school years with different tutors supporting her and me at the helm leading the way (although she didn't really realize I was at the helm). She took classes that truly interested her and she was able to do a lot of extra curricular things that inspired her and taught her many great skills. She is a very gifted musician, dancer, riding instructor, artist and more. She would not have learned this about herself if she was in school all day. She also took multiple years of gymnastics and many different types of art classes. Homeschooling was the gift it could be and needed to be. She graduated with honours and went out into the great big world to live her life.

For my third child ~ the summer she was in her fifth year of life she went to a Vacation Bible School and when I saw her in her performance up on stage I knew she could not attend school. She had gone to preschool and I had hopes she could attend school. However she could not sit still for a moment! I knew she would get in trouble constantly in class. My husband had been the same way and had struggled all through his time in school. He had thought himself dumb for years because of his ADHD and Dyslexia. He is actually brilliant but his time in school taught him the opposite. I did not want that for her. She was such a bright little active light! She started kindergarten with me and has never been to a school and she is now in grade ten and fifteen years old.

She is dyslexic as are my two oldest kids. She is more severely dyslexic than them and she has ADHD. She did not learn to read until she was eleven. My son did not learn to read until he was twelve. Both of them can now read and do read a lot. My daughter reads multiple novels a month. It was such a journey to get to that place though with so much research and so many building blocks put into place to get her there. She also went and got testing done but was not given any funding. I have had a tutor for her once a week for three years now and that has helped her immensely but I pay for it myself. 

She has a dream to graduate early and is well on her way. She wants to travel and see the world and she wants to start as soon as possible.

This is the gift of homeschooling. She started taking grade ten courses when she was in grade nine, she took more over the summer, she has taken grade eleven courses while in grade ten. She is done grade ten Math and starting grade eleven Math in January because she started grade ten Math in the summertime. She has worked so hard and been so focussed. It is incredible. This is the gift of homeschooling. She also has been able to play volleyball and basketball through a local school, she has volunteered at a horse stable and now has a job that she would not be able to have if she was not homeschooling. 

Do I like homeschooling yet? NO

How many children am I now homeschooling ~ last year it was FIVE children ~ this year it is only three. 

My Homeschooling Journey Part Two

 When I started homeschooling my daughter I didn't have a time line in mind. I didn't know what was going to happen. I knew this was the only option for her. One of the first things I did wrong was try to do school at home in the same format as was done in a bricks and mortar school. I also tried to get her sit down and work from books. This failed miserably. I had a toddler at home who was going through a lot of struggles and a traumatized seven year old who needed to NOT do school. If I could go back in time I would have given her a month off and then started by going on field trips and reporting about them and learning so SO differently than she had at school. Instead of reawakening her love of learning that she had previously had I just cemented in her how challenging and awful learning was. I also was impatient, unkind and just overwhelmed. This set the precedent of all the years of homeschooling and how my body feels in it. 

 My next child started kindergarten and had the most wonderful teacher. He was a very challenging child because he had an anxiety disorder but she did not allow him to ruffle her at all. She was always calm and kind and non reactionary. He ended up feeling very safe in her class and did as well as he could. However when it was time for grade one the school informed me he would not be allowed to attend without a teachers assistant. I had no idea how to go about obtaining a teachers assistant for a school and they offered no advice. So once again, I felt forced into homeschooling. Now I was homeschooling two children and had a baby. 

I want to talk about something VERY important in this journey.

That is the kindness and goodness of God to me. When my daughter was at her very first school she had had this specific kind of brain testing done by a very kind elderly gentleman that the school brought in. He informed me that his wife was a homeschool teacher. When eventually my daughter did need to homeschool I called this lady and she became my homeschool teacher.

The way it works where I live is you can choose to homeschool two ways. One way is registering through a school and then doing everything on your own. No one ever checks up on you and no one knows what you are teaching your children or how. You have total freedom. The second option is enrolling through a distance learning school. This provides you with a teacher that you report to each week. You send her or him copies of your work, the school helps pay for your curriculum, and this teacher writes your children report cards. I have always chosen this option until just two years ago. It helps keep you accountable and also gives you that support when you need it. I have been blessed with amazing teachers. To be clear I do the homeschooling, the teaching at home, the teacher provided by the school is a support person. 

Having this lady become my homeschooling teacher saved me. I wish however I would have listened to all her advice with a clear calm mind. My mind was so overwhelmed and much of the wisdom she shared with me at the time went over my head. Slowly through the years I learned from her and improved. This lady and her husband were a direct gift from God to me. They ended up transforming my families' future.

I will be forever grateful to Karen and Walter. Karen helped me for many years and I was so devastated when she retired. However God provided me with another wonderful teacher who has been so kind and caring as my children have gone through high school and graduated.

My Homeschooling Journey Part One

 I have been writing up a storm lately. I have always been a writer. I learned to read and write easily when I was five my mom tells me. She homeschooled me for kindergarten and then from grade three to grade seven. When I was little I remember sitting in front of the fire during the winter writing chapter books about a busy mother named Jessica. I think I have become Jessica actually if I think about it!

I have a car journal, a home journal, this blog....I write and write. I have written a book ~ two of them actually! They are not published, but my point is ~ I write.

I did not imagine myself, however, a full time teacher.

My mom drilled into me that I should not homeschool my children. Oddly enough as a teenager and young adult my main jobs were tutoring children. I did LIKE to teach ~ them at least~ I went to university to get a certificate so that I could teach English around the world. I briefly thought that I might like to do that but it was in order for me to be able to afford to travel.

Fast forward to my first child being kindergarten age. I did not even consider homeschooling her. She was going to go to the public school down the road. That is free here. You don't need to wear uniforms and you just sign up and go! It is payed for by taxes from everyone. However I was warned that that school was not a good place to send your child and I saw that a christian school had a deal where your child could go to kindergarten for fifty dollars a month. I signed her up, got her the uniform, and off she went! She was a keen student and such a sweetheart. It was not the best scenario for her as she was in a kindergarten grade one split class and her teacher had never taught kindergarten before. However she did her best and all went relatively well. 

In grade one is where things went really wrong. I won't go into details but eventually we had to move my daughter to a new school through no fault of her own. Her teacher at that school was a very cold and strict woman and my daughter had gone through trauma and had a lot of anxiety. Eventually it got to a place where I had no choice but to homeschool. Her anxiety was so serious and debilitating.

The fact that this didn't feel like a choice (that I had to homeschool), was not what I wanted, and also was nothing I had any clue about was deeply daunting to me. And guess what, I did everything wrong, so deeply wrong, and it was horrible. We were having endless power struggles because of our personality and learning differences (which I didn't know yet needed to be taken into account). It was just a disaster and I felt like a failure every day.

I remember going to a massive conference on homeschooling where there were MANY vendors selling curriculum. I was just having panic attacks. I had no CLUE there was so many choices out in the world. I had no idea what was good or how she would learn best. I had no clue how I preferred to teach either. I felt so overwhelmed and lost.

There were no rose coloured glasses, not many lovely fun learning moments ~ it was just awful. Yet I had to do it.

That was how homeschooling started for me. My daughter was in grade 2. Guess what ~ my daughter is now twenty one and graduated and I am STILL homeschooling. Currently my three kids I am homeschooling have never even gone to a bricks and mortar school!

I will continue the story in part two

Light and the Illumination

 What light illuminates your soul today? Maybe you woke up feeling fresh and rested and ready for a beautiful day. Maybe you did not. When your eyes look out into the world ~ these windows into your soul ~ what are they looking for? What are they seeing?

Today the rain is pouring again. I am sick. My family got such a horrid flue on the 28th of December and even though I didn't get it as strongly as some of them I can't shake the sickness. It lingers. I will recover but I am in a different head space than I sometimes am.

Today the light came in the form of my two year old. She had a cold for weeks and then the flue. She finally recovered and it was alarming how quickly I had forgotten her sunny personality. This morning as she got ready for church she was singing fragments of songs her sister has taught her. She was asking for a pony tail in her hair. She was commenting on her beauty and getting on her shoes and asking everyone to make sure she was totally ready. She was shining with confidence and inner light. It was radiant.

May you find light to illuminate your soul today. Maybe you have a pet? A bird that is singing or a cat that snuggles you or a dog with soulful eyes? Maybe you have a grandchild with a sweet heart who loves you fully. Maybe you had a partner who made you a cup of tea or coffee or did something thoughtful for you. Maybe you have flowers in your yard you could bring indoors or maybe you have a Christmas gift that is continuing to bless you with its thoughtfulness. Maybe there will be a memory that is full of light and joy that comes into your mind today. Maybe you could put on some lipstick or spend time somewhere beautiful?

May you find the light

xo

Totally Empty

  It is a new year. 2026. I will turn forty four this year. I am starting out the year feeling hollow inside. I have poured out everything I had to pour in the last few weeks of this year. This is not a negative thing. It is good. It just means that right now I am hollow inside. Totally empty. I am not exactly sure what to do to fill myself up right now. That is also okay. 

The sun is shining. That in itself is filling. I am so thankful the winter sun shines through my window and illuminates the books on my bookshelf and the silk scarf on the eons old piano stool. 

It feels like there is so much needed of me. I am not sure if other mothers feel this way. I assume they do. I have a baby who wants to nurse a lot. She is my third child in a row who does not have a soother or any sort of other soothing apparatus and I am it. That is a big responsibility for a mother ~ to be the soother. 

I have five other children who would love to connect with me, who would love to feel seen by me, and who want to be known. I have a husband  as well who wants that and a grandchild.

I worked so hard to try to give my family a Christmas that felt somewhat happy and warm and caring. I hope I succeeded. 

After Christmas ~ directly after the last gathering ~ the entire family got a horrible flue. It wiped everyone out except my husband (go figure). I was up for many hours emptying buckets and processing laundry and handing out cool cloths and just being hopefully some sort of comfort. I am never enough in these situations.

Everyone has recovered now.

My house is in shambles and I don't know where to start. I have so much work but homeschool starts again in a few days. The schedule for January feels daunting and there are so many things to try to figure out for each child.

I need a hand to hold but I must hold my own.

And so I will take one day at a time

And think on Scriptures like

Romans 8:26-28 ~ Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Each year holds so much promise of good.

There is promise of pain and hardship, heartbreak and loss.

There is promise of beauty, of connection, of smiles and laughter, of warmth.

If you are really living you are experiencing, feeling, processing, all of these things day by day. You are working through it and reveling in it and making the most of it.

I am grateful to be here. Grateful for another year 

Welcome to January and welcome to 20206

In my emptiness may I go forth in singing

Xo