Fun with wires

This is the fuse "box" for our "best case" house.  I'm told the hole is there because there was an electrician in the attic recently, hooking things up.  We'll need to figure out how good city power is to this place, and how we can/should coordinate it with solar panels -- which will need to be wired in here, as well.

plumbing, anyone?

This is a shot of the kitchen in our "best case" house.  Notice the visible gap between the sink and the drain. this is supposed to be redone (with the cabinetry completely replaced), but what will it look like afterward?
No offense meant, whatsoever, to those plumbers (nor their wives!) who did actually offer to come over and help us set up house, had we been here in their timeline...

Wanna buy a house?

In my house hunting trip last week, I found many houses unfinished, but "ready" to rent, that is, to take a down payment (of rent) large enough to give the landlord enough to finish the house.  One house needed $11,000.  I understand that some of us with justice issues might balk at giving someone an interest (and collateral) free loan so that he could have a house that you could then pay him to live in. But there doesn't seem to be any other way into the rental market here.

So I asked about the market to buy, which is basically people who have given up hope on finishing their house, and are willing (or need) to sell it.  This house was going for $37k.  Yes that is grass growing inside.  Yes there is no roof.  Yes the forms are still on the cement pillars. And local advice is that it would take another $20k to finish it.  And how much time?  Back to the rental market...

acclimation

We had a little trouble with Joel exhibiting irrational fears a couple weeks ago, on our arrival in Kenya. A neighbor's little rat dog and ants (seen or otherwise) made him unable to leave his bed without shoes or socks, and the house without adult supervision. But this week we went to an elephant orphanage, and I saw this sight, which makes it look like he's getting along just fine. This is Joel, watching elephants, and holding the hand of a perfect stranger.

Catering in Kenya

To all of you I have ever heard complaining about your long and/or irregular hours, hard work, and annoying and demanding bosses and clients in the catering business, be glad you don't work for this guy.

My Drive Home

I ran into a Nairobi roadblock one afternoon this week, so I figured I might as well record it on my phone as I waited. This is rounding the corner around where we live, to where we return the car we rent by the km.

Eulogy notes

Here are some notes from the Eulogy I gave at my grandmother's funeral this morning:

Stories of my Grandma's life seem full of the theme of encountering hardship, yet moving on. We all know her life was greatly influenced by the depression.  I remember stories she would tell about gathering coal that had fallen off coal cars.  But she also said once that she had trouble in school because she was promoted too quickly, because she had learned to read before she went to school. She told me once about getting stuck teaching math, and having to read each lesson the night before -- read it, learn it, and figure out how to explain it to the kids before they figured out how much she didn't know.

I remember her in the kitchen once, showing me how to straighten a nail with a hammer and pliers.  Who cares, right? I'd heard stories how pioneers would burn down a house when leaving it to recoup the nails, but they weren't that valuable to me. But they mattered to her, and it just didn't make sense to throw away something that could be fixed and used again.

And none of us can forget her famous pen knife that would come out when presents were opened.  Children seem to take joy in ripping wrapping paper as quickly and as violently as possible, but grandma would take the most tender care to cut the tape and remove the paper without tearing it, carefully setting it aside so it could be used again.

I, too, remember camping with Grandma.  I remember once because I was yelled at for wasting syrup on my pancakes.  You know how easy it is to let it pour, then drip down the side of the bottle?  Between the waste and the mess, that was unacceptable.  So she taught me a trick.  Take the bottle on the side, and pour enough that it flows out, then cut off the flow with a knife as you tilt the bottle back up.  No mess, no waste.

We took Grandma out to lunch for her birthday, I think last year, to Berryland in Sumner, that she seemed to like a lot.  It was cramped beyond what I expected, but we fit her and my family into a booth, and tried to keep the boys from destroying the decorations.  I don't remember what we ate, but I do remember that Grandma got a dessert with her meal, probably complementary for her birthday, but she didn't want to eat it, so she packed it into a napkin, and stuck it in her purse, and took it home. No waste.

As I went through the stuff that was retrieved from Grandma's car, a couple things struck me.  I found several pieces of plastic silverware neatly bound in a rubber band.  It wasn't "Wendy's" brand, but the many years of keeping their silverware, before I'd ever heard of "reduce, reuse, recycle," came back to me.  It wasn't environmentalism per se, just plain old organized economy.  She wasn't disorganized or cheap, but she didn't waste.  I was impressed recently at the quality of some of the kitchenware she had in the house. not cheap and nasty garage sale I-don't-ever-want-to-pay-money-for-anything stuff, but good quality. thought I'm sure she didn't pay full price for it. :-)

Speaking of organized, I looked through her vehicle log book as well, and saw the date and mileage of all fueling and services done since 2001, which was probably when she got the car.  She noted how much she paid, how much gas went in, and where she got it.  She didn't have a running calculation of her mileage....  I noticed she filled up the car the day before the accident, and had the oil changed less than two months earlier.

And over the years, as we saw the boxes pile up, I began to despair over the condition of her house. I wouldn't want to touch anything, for fear that something would fall over, and the mess would never be sorted out.  But I remember once not long after Kim and I were married, when we visited Grandma, and Kim mentioned that it would be nice to see a picture of my mom when she was younger. No sooner was it off her lips, than Grandma was up poking around in the back room, where I dared not go, and she quickly found a box of old photos, that had just the thing.  She always seemed to know much more about what was going on in her house than the untrained eye would guess.

She was economical. She was organized. She was uncomplaining.  She was hospitable.  Whenever we visited, she got out toys for our kids, and offered a meal. Had endured more pain and suffering than many of us will probably ever know, but it didn't stop her.

My mom said that Grandma wouldn't have wanted to bee seen the way she looked in the hospital. I saw her anyway, and I agree.  Not because she was ugly, but because of what someone once called the indignity of death.  We know without anyone telling us that there is something wrong with serious illness and death. So if you experience some pain or grief at it, that's OK. 

You may be familiar with the shortest verse of the Bible: "Jesus wept." Notice why he wept:

Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see."  Jesus wept. So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!"  (John 11:32-36 ESV)

Jesus knew that we were not made for pain, mourning, and death. He saw how horrible it was, and he saw the love of the dead man's sisters, and the many other mourners, and he wept.  So let's not be afraid to take some time and mourn.  This is not what we were made for.

But Jesus didn't stop there.  John later wrote

When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out." (John 11:43 ESV)

He raised Lazarus from the dead. and He didn't stop there.  He went boldly and courageously to his own death, facing it, too, with sorrow as he knew it was coming. But he didn't stop there, either.  He rose from the dead, to give us hope and a reminder that, while we are not made for this, this is not the end of the story.

I'm proud to say that this persistent diligence that I saw in my grandma, and that I see in Jesus, will provide us a good example as we encounter sadness and difficulty in our own lives.  Yes this is hard.  Yes, it is sad.  Yes, we were not made for this. But this is not the end of the story.

In the revelation to John, he writes about when Jesus comes for those who trust in Him, about the new heaven and the new earth. He says

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. (Revelation 21:4 ESV)