weekly roundup vol. 5 and other things.

my apologies. this was written on and off over four days. its flows in my head and i dont wish to edit it into smaller posts. somehow they all found there way just here, just now...
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amazing collection of fine art photos from the World Cup stadiums. we're down to 45 days!!!!

really? whale poop will seriously save the world?!?

this makes me really proud.

haiti doesn't want your money anymore. in fact, stop sending it..

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can i tell you how random my brain is? i wonder if there is something wrong that it can be completely absorbed in one thing and in a moment switch gears fully. i had the sweetest little conversation with my best friend today. it had been to long. i told her the latest inside information on my life. we giggled. we sighed. i almost cried. she drove. i sat. it was lovely. she could be the only truly close friend who doesn't call me boo. the rest all do. including my new south african father who upon realizing my blogspot address inquired and now can't stop. its comical and weird. 

even though i go up at night to lay my head down and sleep. i am not alone. lizzy nods her head when i ask questions or smiles when i cry and gives me hugs. jacques gives me a hug goodnight and i'm safe. jacquie and nicole clamor, "tannie bekah, look! tannie bekah, watch! auntie bekah, see what i made!" and like my boys, the smile and look with wide-eyes to see my affirmation and love and attention. so endearing the heart of wee ones are. its good to be touched.

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they tell me they won't ask me to leave.
they tell me that they will talk to me about little annoyances before big issues arise.
they tell me goodnight each evening.
they tell me i'm a leader. i'm doing remarkable work. and they believe in me.
they tease me incessantly.
they say all the inappropriate swear words good christians dont say in america, because here it is not a curse word to say them.*
they tell me their kids love me and like spending time with me.

and i sit and wait and watch and try and not test on purpose but wait for the moment of reckoning.
i wait for them to realize they don't want me to stay. and i wait for the moment i realize i don't want to stay either...

its so weird to be living with others. not just for a night or two. but living. the sort of living where i am fully laid bare and my junk is visible, and their junk is visible, and i choose to still love, and they choose to still love....or, they ask me to leave. and they promised they won't. which is marvelous, and in my head i believe them. but even if they did ask me to go back to my little lapa it would be ok. but thats another long thought and not for here. not for today....

and i'm adopted in. i'm adopted in like my siblings were. different yes. i have my family still and i will never lose them. never lose their love and that support and that family-ness. but i've been adopted in. websters says adoption is:

1. to take by choice into a relationship**

that is what they have done. by choice they invited me in. its a strange feeling and thought and i dont know if its the living or the choosing or the whatnot but i am here and its doing weird things to my mental processing. its given me a new awareness of what my all grown siblings felt when they were taken in. the process of being and morphing but still being your true self is strange. adaptation is a good thing. a hard thing. a joyous thing.

i'm learning that grace comes in many forms. many graces have been laid on my head. i don't know how to process them.
i'm a loud shout of silence.
i'm just taking and sitting and storing. but he's doing a good work in me and i can feel it. and i want to kick back and fight the absorbing and my pride longs to stand strong, but i'm not strong and i am needy (thanks, missy), and its ok. and we're all needy. and i feel He is storing up in me and preparing and healing and working out joints and marrow and hurt into something good and strong and He loves me and not an ounce of weird feelings or moving across an ocean and separating from normal will mar what He is doing or in fact what He is purposed in me and that is good and strong and joy and new-life. and He is the redeemer of all things and i am just the product that sits and watches the one i love take the hammer and chisel smooth somedays or chops into pieces other days and my marble carves out and it hurts and other times i see shiny beauty and its glorious to be carved and He does it. does the carving and does the mending.

and He throws me into fire and He mends the broken pieces and He makes me gold and shiny and silver dancing in the moonlight. and i feel all together like a mess. and i used to think missionaries were such good people. leaving behind so much, and leaving behind everything, because they felt compelled to go and share love. to share real love. and yes, there is a compelling and there lies fire in these bones that won't stop or quit till its all known by all, but there is much more than that and its hard to put it all into thoughts and feelings when it runs wild in your mind. because love moves in weird ways and love does weird things to a heart and its done weird things to my heart and i can't help but want to share that. even though right now the disconnect between the love in my head and the love in my heart seems vast and seems stronger than an ocean current and deep deep deep like the ocean floor. i can't seem to be able to reconcile what is known to what is felt and maybe i'm just too analytic for my own good. and maybe i am. or maybe i'm just too prideful to just sit and let it be and let Him be and let it all be fine. and maybe its true. or maybe the times i have felt and the times i have sang and danced and been enveloped in good freedom bursting love have all been real.

and its all been good and right and maybe i'm just thinking too much or thinking to little and i just want to sit with Him up on Bethany hill and just look over Jerusalem with Him and just hear Him long, ache and whisper how He beats to gather his children together and hold them, and hold them close, and whisper to them love, and warm away the cold night air. and just to sit and marvel next to Him that this man, that this man is the one I love. that this man is the one who has made me new and makes me new and refuses to quit on me when i quit on me. and just to watch the way his hair blows free in the moonlight and how his hands reach out and heal the little ones, and how He's full of compassion on those he's closest too, on the ones who are honest with Him and the ones He lives with. honest with their pride, honest with their hurt, honest with their disbelief, and how He kept around him the one who would betray Him and how He didn't give up believing in that one knowing it all; knowing what He'd do. and that is why i love judas, for i'm him too, but somehow and in someway i think that maybe knowing i'll run away and betray and grab my 30 pieces and toss them in the wind, that somehow maybe he won't give up on me knowing all that. that somehow he will still invest in me and trust me and that is what i ache to see. to just see the love in His eyes. to hear the miracle words He spoke with my own ears....
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*can i tell you how i still giggle tremendously to hear such a passionate man of the Word, of Jesus; a man who is my south african father, say things that my dad in america would never say?!? like normal dinner conversation to have d*mn or a*s spoken. ooooooo i will never get used to it and never understand how its normal here.
hey bud, you know, it certainly isn't helping my cursing disease to be living with them!! :)

**the other definitions don't really apply!
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sit and take Him in. pause and listen to the stirring in your heart. know that He longs to gather you, longs to hold you. feel His hair whip across the wind and speckle your face, too.