In the middle of some uncertainty about where will actually be for the entire duration of winter this year we’ve started building a Winter Ark. Our friends here in PA have been awesome and have made it clear that we can stay as long as we’d like. And we have truly felt blessed being here, although it has been very very hard to watch what is likely the final decline of our dear friend to cancer. She was always so full of life and energy and laughter, that the extreme opposite just doesn’t seem like reality. But it is. For whatever bigger purpose, it is, and our friends, her family, have been an amazing testimony of grace and trust and love in the middle of a situation so tragic.
Renee has had some really wonderful moments with her over the last few weeks since they returned from Israel. We’re very thankful for the time we’ve had here with all of them. And the community living is working very well so far in terms logistics and the blessing of fellowship between busy routines.
Our biggest motivation for keeping our radar out to see if Father will provide something else like a cheap, furnished rental or a house sitting situation really boils down to one simple equation:
((Sky Aysh Yachalel + 200 sq. ft * 12 hr / day) * (Zach + Jaiden)) ^(Bennah) * (Joy + Joy) / Reayah = mass chaos @ 9K PSI & 6 megajoules
So far leads have been dead ends and I am more than content to winter it out here in the trailer, but Renee deals with that equation more directly than I do in many ways, and so, we’re praying looking. In the meantime winter isn’t waiting for us. Overall, it has been mild so far, but our hose did freeze up the other night as I had not taken any precautions with no freezing temps in the forecast. Thank you weather men. Anyway…
With the possibility for a few months of winter in the trailer and at the very least a few more weeks when it’s already November, I have been building up the battle lines, digging the trenches, and constructing elaborate winter weather defense systems this week while Renee continues her prenatal nesting patterns. I’ll have to post some more project pics another time when I can get some daylight shots, but for now, here is the latest from our cozy little pre-winter den:
[I am not making this up. Zach wrote this completely from his own brain for school. I am merely the scribe. Enjoy. –Andrew]
Part 1 – 6/7/2012:
Once upon a time there was a family and their last name was the Lundquists. They were a family of spies. There was four people altogether. There was a dad, a mom, a boy who was six, and a girl who was nine.
The dad taught the older class how to be spies. The mom taught the younger class. They gave the kids grappling hooks and taught them how to climb walls.
One day: the dad quit his job and started a new job. His new job was to guard the button that turns the whole world upside down. The button is on the wall of the tallest bank in the world.
The people who wanted to push the button were ninjas! There were 3 of them. And they lived in the African Savannah.
The spy family lived in Colorado.
Part 2 – added 7/4/2012:
The ninjas came to Colorado to invade. The spy family tried to stop them, but it was too late.
The ninjas pushed the button and the reason why they wanted to push the button was because it snapped the vault open and the money fell out.
Three weeks later the spies tricked the ninjas for a bribe and because the ninjas believed the trick they gave the money back to the spies.
Then at night the spies dragged the ninjas into the trees while they were sleeping and kept the house.
Well, I’ve managed to do something to my back. I probably would never even mention it either except perhaps that it’s part of the story. An interesting part for sure, because it’s amazing how quickly everything we take for granted can come into stark relief against something that challenges it all. So, the normal and routine have become epic and painfully slow. Walking, sitting, lying down, standing up… bending over, wait no that’s actually impossible right now along with other things that I could do a few days ago. I can’t even do a single sit-up for crying outloud and I tried to run a little tonight, but that was totally not happening.
So far it hasn’t stopped me from tending to most of the normal chores, but they take way longer and I can’t help but wonder if I’m only aggravating the condition with my stubbornness. I guess a chiropractor is getting added to my itinerary for the week. Too bad my buddy Will isn’t around. Arg.
You know, the really annoying thing too is that it wasn’t some heroic injury saving a baby from a burning building or anything either. I’ve had a weak spot in my lower back for a few years after wiping out while performing a ridiculous stunt for my kids that involved a hill full of snow and a body board in Pennsylvania. And it flares up from time to time, but never incapacitating like this. I guess all the winter fun – like shoveling a 300 foot path for my family in a foot depth of snow (before we had the 4×4 shovel out 😉 ) and digging out snow forts with the kids really did a number on it. One of those things that doesn’t bite until the next day, but wow it bit hard. I guess I wasn’t practicing proper form. Arg.
Well, I’m sure there is a purpose and perhaps my Creator is just trying to get my attention about something. Well, I’m close to all ears, and trying to get there, and wondering what implications this is going to stir up that haven’t occurred to me yet. I really don’t have the time or energy for this, but I guess I have no choice but to slow down and recover. After all I have a house to build.
Finally finished another episode of Journeys…. yay – I’m almost only a year behind now. Arg.
Before we left San Diego I snuck in a helicopter ride (actually the same morning we had to check out of the campground by noon) to shoot video for stock. Hopefully the adventure will more than pay for itself (it better 🙂 ).
Beautiful San Diego was our home for a month. Among other things, we made it to the southwest corner of CA and walked up to the border with Mexico on the beach, we played in the tidal pools at La Jolla and saw the seals and sea lions, we went to a vineyard / winery about an hour north and enjoyed tasting the wines, we played in the ocean in January and February at several different beaches, we enjoyed having a Trader Joe’s close by again, we had cook-outs with dear friends parked right behind us, we made new friends at the campground who routinely gave us fresh tangelos from their family’s tree, we went for an hour (1-way) ride on the 3-level Coastal Train along the coast up to Ocean City, CA had lunch way out at a restaurant on a massive pier and rode back during sunset, we went for walks around Mission Bay where the campground was, and many other adventures besides – all the while enjoying summer in winter.
This is our parking spot about 30 minutes south of Fresno, CA with a beautiful view to the Sierras. We’re staying on the farm of friends of friends and are so blessed to be able to make new friendships and have another taste of community in a place previously foreign to us.
We had an adventurous trip north that included lots of heavy pulling through mountains and an episode of overheating that forced us to pull over. We even lost our pyro gauge and I wasn’t sure if we were going to be able to continue at one point. But we all prayed about it and I realized there really was no option but to throw our trust completely on YHWH and keep going. As soon as the family finished praying, and I came to resolve in my heart and spirit (I was outside under the hood), the pyro gauge came back to life and we pressed on without any other setbacks.
And then there was Bakersfield! Wow. Enough words cannot be found to describe the Bakersfield miracle. We set out from San Diego with directions in hand and campground recommendations from our tangelo friends who travel between their home in Washington state and San Diego every year for the seasons. Our original plan was to head up along the coast and end up in LA and maybe Malibu to connect with friends of friends there. That door closed for a variety of reasons which ended up pushing us through a more easterly route. YHWH confirmed it was the right direction for us as we pulled into a campground in Bakersfield, CA that had been recommended by our tangelo friends. It was around 7:30pm and the office was closed, but I had called ahead and our site number (112) was waiting for us on the door. We pulled into our site after several attempts (it was quite slanted on one side and leveling a camper is everything), the kids exploded out of the truck crying shrieks of banshee freedom, and I began to set up. Enter stage right: very familiar looking gentlemen. Queue the line: “Hey, didn’t we meet you guys in New Mexico?” Turns our we had not only arrived at the same campground, but had been assigned a site immediately next to dear friends we had made at a campground in New Mexico a month and a half earlier. They travel full-time too and homeschool their 5 boys who instant friends with our kids, and we only overlapped in NM for 1 night. They went northwest to Arizona and we went west to California. We weren’t event going to stay in San Diego for a month but were supposed to go to LA and instead ended up in Bakersfield. They were only supposed to be in Bakersfield for a few days (weeks before we arrived), but ended up stuck there for weeks to work out insurance, plates, and a new van after theirs was crushed by a semi (thankfully no one was hurt). And here we wind up weeks later, without staying in touch, parked next to each other at the same campground. I would call it a freak coincidental act of fate except that I have seen YHWH do things like this throughout my entire life.
Kidology is the children’s pastor ministry they are involved with during their travels. Amazing! All honor to YHWH!
Another highlight from Bakersfield was the not-quite-lukewarm-hot-tube-date. Renee and I had Bennah and Reayah watch the kids after bed time and managed a quick dip in the hot tub. We had Sky in the car seat and rocked him to sleep beside the water. The only thing was the water… it wasn’t even as hot as I’d make my own bath water. I ended up having to jump into the freezing pool and back just to get it to feel “hot” – even if only for a few seconds. But the night was beautiful and it was nice to have a moment of quality hangout time with my wife. That’s probably the first time Renee has ever shivered in a hot tub. Not kidding.
And here we are planting potatoes on the farm where we’re staying! Fun fun fun!
This was going to be a 10-photo post, but I ended up having to write a lot more than I had originally planned… the hour drags on… and I’ll have to make this part 1. More to come!
There are many many stories by way of which I ought to bring this record up to date. And I hope to, but this day stands alone. And I will not (yet) even attempt to add paltry detail in words, for they would distract you from what the pictures have to say:
Life is a river filled with self-reflexive microcosms. The Road.
Mostly it is a constant rushing, a blur of events carrying us incessantly forward, inexorably onward. Time.
But there are moments. An eddy in the currant snags the shore and strands time’s gaze. The river doesn’t stop, doesn’t even slow, but the inertia temporarily presses perspective into a recline between the water and the sky, and it feels like floating inside a transparent womb. There is no up or down, east, west, north or south.
There is no movement but constant motion surrounds. Weightless.
And then time’s tyranny takes account, finds a subject stranded, re-asserts its impatient decree. The womb shatters. And for a fraction of perception everything stops: motion, sound, pulse, vision… every gaze is frozen, pure, unfiltered, and collides into a choice: cling to jagged womb fragments or PLUNGE.
Such chatic contentions consume themselves before they even exist – time reverses upon itself for a span too short to measure and the decision is made before the choice has even penetrated the mind. Falling.
Down.
Then forward, into a vague familiar rushing. Momentums match and fuse. The shore fades away. It’s almost as if nothing changed yet something feels different… there is a dull throbbing.
Several shards of womb removed leave vivid scars of joy. Memories.
Older scars fade slightly.
The rushing intensifies and there is only the river. The Road.
