The Edge [of all] Journeys

I started writing this about a month ago. It takes me a while to finish anything lately. I have many projects waiting to be completed and goals to accomplish. One of the biggest goals I had this spring, was to have a garden. We planted 3 gardens this year. Or, I should say, we are sharing 3 gaardens. My grandparents just recently moved into an assisted living complex so I was offered the use of their garden. I planted some things for myself, but I started it mostly for my aunt and her family who live in Churchill, Manitoba but spend the summer in Winnipegosis. They have since mostly taken over the job of weeding and watering. They leave end of August and while they can enjoy some things while they’re here, I really hope they have at least some squash to take back with them. Another of my aunts, a veteran gardener is graciously sharing her enormous and delicious garden with us. We are also sharing Leon & Jen’s wonderful garden as well. The kids have worked very hard this year planting and now weeding. It has been rewarding for me to share in their excitement at seeing the corn growing almost as tall as them already, the little carrot tops finally poking up through the soil and being able to nibble the lettuce and beet leaves while they work. This year we planted herbs, carrots, lettuce, spinach, kale, beets, tomatoes, potatoes, a few varieties of squash, cucumbers, beans, peas and onions. Between the three gardens, we are hoping for an abundance of food to store, share and save for seeds. We spent a couple of weeks in Winnipeg, at the end of June, visiting with my family. We wanted to stay longer, but I wanted to get back to the gardens. Two weeks is a long time for weeds to grow! I ended up having to replant the lettuce, spinach and carrots in my aunt’s garden, but everything else survived.

We’ve had many adventures already in the three months we’ve been here. Since we arrived in April, we’ve experienced a blizzard, cool spring weather, thunderstorms, flooding, ticks, mosquitos, and now the heat of the summer. The hot temperatures have killed off most of the mosquitos (yay!) and persuaded the kids to cool off in the pool pretty much every day. The evenings are almost always cool and pleasant.

Last month we had friends come and visit and just enjoy the day, fellowshipping  together. The women went on a quad ride led by Jen, the veteran quad-er. Knowing all the paths and deep water holes to take us through, she led us in and around their property and across the highway along the river. I wasn’t sure how I was going to like it, but ending up really enjoying it, even though I did run right into a barbed wire fence. The shiny new quad got a scratch and I was a little embarrassed but got over it. It’s such a different way to enjoy the wide open country, and darned if I’m not turning into a bit of a red-neck!

We love our family and friends that are here have really started to enjoy the “Village on the Lake”, even though the lake has almost taken over the poor village this spring. Bible camp was cancelled this year on account of flooding, which was a big disappointment for the kids but with the almost limitless possibilities for them here already, they got over it. We (or mostly they) swim in the pool, go for walks in the pasture, explore the junkyard, build forts, go for quad rides, jump on the trampoline, drive to town for treats and visit family and friends.

We are still doing school nearly every day but only one subject a day, math or writing, just to keep their mind from turning to mush over the summer. We have taken the summer off in the past only to discover that they have forgotten almost everything they have learned in the previous year and I’ve had to teach them some things over again, or it takes them way too long to adjust to school schedule again. If we continue through the summer, it’s not so difficult to start again in the fall.

Well, I have now finally, after 3 months, accomplished another goal tonight: finishing a blog! My next goal will be to not wait so long before I write the next one.

Sky – Old Norse: Cloud
Aysh – Hebrew: Fire
Yachalel – Hebrew: to wait on, hope, trust in Elohim / YHWH

He spread a cloud for a covering, And fire to give light in the night.
- Ps 105:39

See, the eye of יהוה is on those fearing Him, On those waiting [hoping, trusting] for His kindness…
- Ps 33:18

As for me, I look to יהוה, I wait [hope, trust] for the Elohim of my deliverance, my Elohim does hear me.
- Mic 7:7

Born on Sep 28, 2010 during Sukkot (the Feast of Booths / Tabernacles) and through extraordinary circumstances, our precious little Punkin #6 has given us a challenge in the naming. There were so many weighty things that his name needed to carry, but it also needed to have the light-hearted nature of the excitement, adventure, and blessing that he is.

Baby Sky.

Sky Aysh Yachalel.

We wanted his name to both carry the character of his birth experience as well as the identity of what YHWH is showing us through the timing. There was also a sense of completeness and new beginnings as he is the 8th member of the family. The biggest themes that emerged for us through all of this were:

• Trusting YHWH: The adventure of Sky’s birth was filled with unexpected plot twists, difficult decisions, and Father’s unfailing provision in even the smallest details. It tested and stretched us in many ways, but especially in trusting Him.
• Waiting on YHWH: It is counterintuitive for the 6th pregnancy, but Renee’s labor was longer (by far) than any of the others. 38 hours. There were moments when we thought things might not be normal with this delivery and Father answered our prayers with wise counsel from others and options that we hadn’t thought of.
• Sukkot: There are so many themes in this one word alone that resulted in many possible name sources – covering, refuge, protection, tabernacle, dwelling, canopy, chupah (wedding canopy), etc. I had been thinking in fairly concrete terms, trying to make an overt connection between the Festival birth and naming, but nothing sounded right. Then I remembered how YHWH Himself became a Sukkah for His Children in the wilderness and promised to do so again – as a Cloud and Fire.

Humorous Prelude

This seemed insignificant at the time, but actually became a factor in Sky’s name. A few weeks ago we were having family cuddles in our bed and talking about possible names with the kids (keep in mind that we didn’t know Punkin #6 was a boy until he was born). They were all pitching in their suggestions and Jaiden said with serious conviction, “We should call him ‘Hot Fire Super.’” Before I realized how serious he was I started laughing uncontrollably until Jaiden began to cry. Imagine trying to explain to your 3 year old that you weren’t laughing at his idea, just at how he expressed it. That was a tough one. He was 100% convinced that ‘Hot Fire Super’ would be a perfectly valid name for his little brother. I guess it really isn’t all that strange after all, and in the end, ‘Fire’ became part of his name.

The Story

On Monday, Sep 19th, we had our first visit with the midwife who delivered our neice a few months ago. Back in May she told Renee’s sister that she’d love to help us if we were going to be in Winnipeg around Renee’s due date. We were blown away by her offer. Even though it was informal, and we didn’t even get to talk to her until we were already here, after praying about it in Pennsylvania we felt total peace about working our way to Winnipeg. We were also prepared to have this baby ourselves somewhere on the road if that was what would unfold.

On Friday, Sep 24th, some out-of-town friends and family joined us here at the campground as Sukkot started.

On Saturday, Sep 25th, we had a whole additional crowd of friends / spiritual family out here for Shabbat and fellowship. They stayed late and went back to their homes in the city that night.

On Sunday, Sep 26th, around 11pm labor started. We were really excited because we figured there was a really good chance of having this baby before our out-of-town family / friends had to leave for home late the next day. The plan was to do the whole thing here in our trailer at the campground with the help of our midwife. We called her around 2am just to let her know that early labor had started.

However, by the afternoon on Monday, Sep 27th, labor was still fairly slow and it became obvious that nothing was going to happen before they all had to leave. By 10pm things had picked up a bit and the testing began. We got in touch with our midwife and she had landed in an impossible situation. She was in the middle of another delivery and couldn’t make it out. She thought she could make other arrangements for us, but we’d have to go into the city. The alternative would be to stay here with the expectation that we would be having this baby on our own without the assistance of a midwife, and that initially felt scary in some ways and relieving in other ways. After praying about it with Renee and her mom we were determined to do this YHWH’s way even if it meant trusting Him completely in new areas and depths.

Then we had an idea. Kind of a long shot, and were were hesitant to pursue it, but felt like we should try. We met a sweet woman who came out with our friends on Saturday. Sitting around the campfire that night she mentioned that she had been a midwife before. She hadn’t practiced in a while, but we thought maybe she’d be willing to come over just to offer advice and experience in an informal capacity. I called my dear brother up here through whom we met her and asked what he thought. He said he’d call her and check. A few minutes later he called back and said she was super excited that we’d ask and she was gathering her things and would be on her way. We were so blessed by her reaction and willingness to come over and help.

We fully expected to have the baby some time that night, but Monday night turned into Tuesday morning. We had a wonderful time together that night – Renee, her mom, this dear new midwife friend who we had just met a couple nights before, and myself – but labor was not progressing as fast as we thought it should and by 5am we were all exhausted. We decided to rest and regain some strength, and one by one we started to snooze. Joy woke up around 6am and was curious to know what was going on. So I held her for a while and fell asleep with her in my arms. Our friend didn’t want to leave, but she had to get her 2 children off to school and we encouraged her to go, expecting to be in touch and return when things picked up again.

After a couple hours of sleep the contractions intensified and Renee started bleeding with each one. It wasn’t a lot, but it hadn’t been like that with any of our other birth experiences either. Our original midwife called to check in after she had a couple hours of sleep herself and we gave her the update. She was a little concerned (as were we) about the bleeding.

One of the complications in the whole arrangement that hadn’t been obvious at the beginning was that we were too far out of the city for insurance to cover our midwife. She couldn’t come out at all, like we were originally planning. But she graciously offered for us to come over to her home and she would check Renee and, if need be, we could have the baby there. She lived just inside the city and not too far from us, which was a total provision and much better than where we’d have had to go the night before.

We really did not want to leave our kids – the whole point was to do this as a family and include them, and that was hard – but the most important thing was to use the resources Father was making available to us to insure everything was ok. Our midwife was even able to arrange an immediate ultrasound for us. The primary concern was that maybe the position of the placenta and/or cord was obstructing normal labor progression and causing the bleeding. We were ready to pay out of our own pocket for the ultrasound, but the doctor didn’t charge us. Isn’t YHWH amazing!

And of course during this whole time so many people were praying for us as well.

The ultrasound showed that everything was perfect. It was only a matter of time after all (with maybe a little help from assisted water breaking). I figured the next difficult decision would be between going back to the trailer without our midwife or leaving the kids out and having the baby at her house (though I knew Renee’s mom was taking great care of them). But even that was solved nicely when our midwife offered and suggested that I go pick them up and bring them back.

We fully expected to have our midwife break Renee’s water to speed things up when I got back with the kids, but by the time I returned in about an hour, she was having constant contractions and hard labor. 45 minutes later her water broke on its own an I was catching my new son. I finally got to catch one!

Zach was so excited. He didn’t leave Renee’s side for a long time once she and Sky were settled in the bed. The different reactions were interesting. Bennah and Reayah have seen this all before and they were content to check things out and move on to other things, but the younger ones were fascinated.

YHWH provided – even down to the car seat. We had shopped around and even had one lined up through a site like craigslist, but they never got back to us about when/where to pick it up. Father had one waiting for us though. Our midwife had been given a few car seats recently around the time of her own granddaughter’s birth and was happy to get one of them out of her basement.

Overall, throughout the entire process, there were so many moments characterized by having to trust and wait on YHWH – Yachalel. And during it all – despite the uncertainties – we felt covered, protected, encompassed by His Presence as a refuge, canopy, chupah, sukkah – the cloud and fire – Sky Aysh.

He is the most precious little thing.  He will be a constant reminder to us – and hopefully others too – especially as we continue into a future that is dark and  uncertain, that YHWH is our refuge and our strength; our cloud by day and fire by night as we learn to trust Him completely and obey His leading.

Baby Sky.

It’s hard to believe that in two weeks we will have been at this for a year already. Amazing!

We are settling in here at our friend’s in Pennsylvania where we started out last year around this time after a wonderful but all too short 2-stop journey up from Georgia. We camped at the fantastic Newport News Park for a few days and missed our dear brother and sister and family who used to live just a few short miles from there.

We had a wonderful time with our dear friends Ben and Elizabeth – hanging out at the campground on Saturday and then at their place on Sunday. Joy really took to their little girl who is only 2 days older. Now, every little girl Joy sees is “Aa-bee, Aa-bee!”

I had a business meeting on Monday with the very talented and creative folks at Ethicom (who are also long time family friends), and afterwards I brought the whole family over to their office for what was supposed to be a short visit (not wanting to impose). Well, it turned into quite a much larger adventure than that and by the time we left a couple hours later the kids all had their own offices, Bennah was working for $10 a day, they had produced their own “magazines” with a little help from a copier, and they each had a new writing/sketch book and an umbrella. They were talking about their new offices the rest of the day.

Keith from Ethicom put it so well (and I hope he doesn’t mind being quoted here): “It was a pure delight to have your little family come and spend a few moments showing us what true creativity really is. We need to be reminded that the Lord teaches us about Himself through the lives of little children and to always look at life through their eyes.”

The delight was ours! And the reminder was so valuable to Renee and I as parents. We can easily get caught up in the duties of raising children and sometimes forget the simple delights. We often look at things with our adult perspective and only see the extra work that a child’s whims might entail. But if we return to our own child-like vision still buried down deep underneath all the grown-up responsibilities and “mature” perspectives we’ve collected over the years, we can quickly tap into an endless wellspring of simple joy. To all our dear parent friends out there: chase the whims of your children with them through their creative and carefree eyes and you will discover the delight of remembering that anything is possible!

From there we headed up to our old stompin’ grounds near DC. It was a lot of fun watching the kids’ reaction to the familiar sites. They were beside themselves with amazement. Bennah kept exclaiming: “I just traveled back in time!” It was surreal in a beautiful way.

On Wednesday I dropped in on my old buddies at the White House and had a wonderful time catching up a little with them and hitting my Chipotle for lunch. Yes, it is my Chipotle. I used to make the pilgrimage at least once a week while I worked there. So many things have changed and so many things haven’t changed. Several people asked me throughout the day: “So, do you miss it?” Do I miss working at the White House? I told them all the same thing – I loved working there, and I would love working there again, but I do not miss it; not one bit

Our youngest son Jaiden asks us almost every single day no matter where we are: “can we ride the metro train sometime?” Our universal answer is, “yes – sometime.” So, Thursday was finally sometime and we rode the metro into DC and invaded the National Museum of Natural History. The little ones tired out in pretty short order, but Bennah and I made an extended exploration while Renee took the others for snacks in the Fossil Cafe.

The Pohick Bay Campground in Virginia near our old home was so nice – we wanted to stay longer, but Friday came and it was time to leave. We had a very pleasant journey up to PA and are now enjoying the farm, the kids have their friends again whom they’ve been looking forward to seeing for months, and we are getting ready for Passover.

I’m still incredibly busy with business and have added even more new projects to the list. I much prefer drinking through a fire-hose I suppose. Episode #5 is now live! I need to catch up on 3 months of photos to my SmugMug galleries. Spring is coming and YHWH’s blessings abound!

We’ve arrived in Florida! Now, this isn’t the Orlando and Disney World part of Florida. This is wild boy country Florida. Where wild boars, rattlesnakes, coyotes, alligators and fire ants are all part of daily life. First day here and the kids are exhausted but happy after a very full day of playing golf, running, climbing, digging holes, swinging, petting a new horse and much more! We are parked for a couple weeks at an old friend’ s property. He and his lovely wife have three marvelous children who share the same excitement of life and hunger for adventure. Their home is in the country. The nearest town is just over 1,000 people. There is lots of room to run around and endless things to explore. We’re looking forward to many adventures and just time to chill and catch up.

Our trip here was easy and restful. The kids were amazing travelers and didn’t complain about wanting a break to run around. We took 8 days and drove through 5 states to get here (New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Missippi, and Alabama). Our first day traveling was 11 hours altogether! The consecutive days were 7 and 8 hours in the truck. The kids were pretty much content to hang out in the truck. We did school, watched movies and enjoyed the ever changing views and discoveries out our windows.

Most of the drive through Texas was acres and acres of cotton fields, wind turbines and oil rigs. I have never seen so many wind turbines in one place in my life. Hundreds of them. The cotton fields turned into a great school lesson. We pulled over and Andrew got out and grabbed a big handful of cotton from the side of the road that had blown around during the harvest. The kids each got a piece to play with while they watched some really awesome cotton harvesting videos on YouTube! I love the internet! After we saw how they made cotton bales, we started to see real cotton bales covered with tarps, waiting to be loaded on trucks. The kids were pretty amazed and I was very satisfied with a productive homeschool day.

On day 3 (Saturday), we stopped in San Antonio for three nights. We met up with an old friend there who showed us the famous Alamo, and other sites in San Antonio. The next day Andrew and I worked most of day while the kids played and enjoyed the campground and the break from traveling. We left the campground tuesday morning (day 6) and then met up in Louisiana with some good friends of ours who are nomads like us. After spending a night camping side by side in a Walmart parking lot, we went to visit an alligator house together and all the kids had a chance to hold baby alligators. Later on that day, we stopped for gas and saw a live tiger exhibit set up by the gas station!

We stopped for the night on day 7 at a campground in Marianna, Fl to clean out our tanks and get cleaned up ourselves. We arrived the next day around 3:30 pm with plenty of time to play and visit.

It’s Shabbat now and we are resting! It’s supposed to rain all day tomorrow so it might be a nice down day after all the excitement today.

This morning, while Andrew got some work done at the coffee shop, I took the kids down to the river bank to play in the sand. We had finished scripture study and had a really great time of discussion. The kids were so interested and eager to learn. While we were outside immediately after, they still had that eagerness so decided to take advantage. “Okay, everyone! Time for math! Everyone grab ten stones and line them up!” I spent time with each child individually, using the rocks to do some math problems, while the others were content playing the sand. I used the Ray’s arithmetic with Reayah, using the rocks to practice addition, subtraction and the beginning understandings of multiplication and division. Bennah is a visual person and using rocks to represent groups, he was able to practice his multiplication very easily. He has learned to count by 2s,3s,4, and 5s and is now learning to count by 6s and 7s. Zach and Jaiden did simple counting and threw the rocks into the river when they were done. As I taught them, I was rejoicing at how easy this was, and prayed that I would have many more days like these .

After lunch, the kids had some play time and then came in to do journal writing. The kids had been making up their own worship song and so I asked them to write it down as a poem. Reayah loves to write and had no trouble concentrating and filling up 3 pages in half an hour. Bennah on the hand struggles when there are many distractions around him. While we started to write, a short thunder storm started so we were all in the trailer! Including a baby who wanted attention, a tired toddler and a provocative 4 year old, who drove his truck over Bennah’s journal.  So, Bennah had a rough time and after some frustration on both our parts, he completed his assignment. I want to accommodate him so he can concentrate and do school joyously, without frustration, but I also need him to practice concentrating with distractions. He won’t always be do his work alone, away from everything. I think it’s a good skill to learn. I do want him to see that I am supportive of his struggle though, and encourage him to overcome. Writing is the hardest subject for Bennah. Not because he’s not good at it, but because it requires a different form of concentration. And sitting still!

It was a good day. We did school, we did our chores and got the trailer clean and prepared for Shabbat (Sabbath). We love Shabbat. The one day we Andrew and I can sleep in while the kids fend for themselves and run amuck!