At Five Months...

All of them, really.

Kamp

So this is what camp was like:

We loaded into the car 5 am and drove to the camp. It ended up only being a 10 hour drive, including only two short bathroom breaks. We had 11 of us in the 9 passenger van (plus luggage). The last 3 hours or so of highway wound along the mountainous coastline—incredible views of mountains rising right up from the clear blue Mediterranean and coves lined with pebbly beach or rocky shorelines. Unfortunately several passengers—including Matthew—ended up carsick.

Two other vans full (16 and 21 people, I heard) came from our city. At the camp, though, were believers from all over the southeast region—something like 160 people. The physical location was beautiful—a piece of land on the side of a hill that ended at the sea with a cove-beach that actually had sand. Pine trees and lots of dirt made up most of the terrain. Weather was hot and humid, but it didn’t rain once. Toward the end of the week evenings were (according to me—Becky) pleasantly cool.

The basic program ran like this: get up, eat breakfast (bread, olives, cheese, tomatoes, melon) listen to a sermon, break into discussion groups, eat lunch, hang out and swim or chat or sleep or sit and watch the games on the beach, eat dinner, listen to another sermon, drink tea and chat till late at night. Kids had their own program during the sermon/group time run by an awesome, sweet, hard-working Korean lady from our church. The youth were kept running from breakfast till midnight with some sort of week-long competition. And the babies—they were mine!

So as I started to write, I wondered where do I even start to tell about our whole week. I brainstormed this list of aspects of camp that stand out to me as I look back. Hopefully I can give you the flavor of the week.

Hejar, Gabriel, Daniel, Matthew, Anna, Riaya, Samuel, Deniz, Isra—these were the kids under age 4 who came to “nursery” every session. Each one is special, with unique needs and backgrounds—and I learned to love them all! I wasn’t planning to do nursery. But the first morning they were looking for someone to help, and I volunteered. It turned out the other workers had come from Romania anticipating to work with kids and youth and had never cared for babies before. They also didn’t speak Turkish, so I did a good bit of translating. Since none of us were anticipating doing nursery, we scraped together a tarp and sheet to play on, some toys I had brought for the car ride, some balls, and cookies. The first two days we mostly tried to keep everyone sane and safe; we were in survival mode. Then we discovered a playground at the top of the hill and spent a lot of time there. We had our sweet moments, crazy moments, crying moments. The last day, the Romanians and I promised eachother that if we all come back next year we will be prepared!

Romanians—this special group of 8 young people drove 36 hours to be at our camp to help however possible. They were mostly young adults, (2 highschoolers) associated with Word of Life Romania. I spent most of my time with three sweet girls who weren’t planning to do nursery, but adapted wonderfully. As a group they functioned in Romanian, English, and Spanish. I discovered that although I can no longer speak Spanish, I can understand a bit. It was a sweet time to get to know their hearts for discipleship, hear their experiences, and just make new friends.

Laundry—yup, this is in my list, since I’m getting pretty good at doing it in a bathroom sink. Three kids at camp for a week make a lot of it.

Dirt—this is related to “laundry” certainly. While no rain meant beautiful camp weather, it also meant a dusty campground. By the end of the week my kids’ knees and feet were stained brown!

Gulperi—is a local friend. Her husband is a believer, and they have 7 kids. It was fun to see her at camp, chatting with the ladies, swimming (for the first time), and enjoying it all.

Turkish—spending a week immersed in language was great, I only wish it were a month!

Yummy food—I really looked forward to the food each meal. Hunger and the great outdoors have a little to do with that. Those of you who knew me when I was little would be shocked to know I enjoyed tomatoes for breakfast. We ate stews, pilavs, pasta, melons, lots of bread, and potatoes. I’m not a fan of eggplant yet. I was also thankful for the daily can of Coke from the beach-side “bufe”.

Tired—self-explanatory—me, the kids, everyone!

Waves—I got the chance to swim twice, once with Anna, and once during naps. Generally the waves were small, the water salty but clearer than the Atlantic I’m used to. One day, though, the waves were big enough to jump and ride and all that good stuff. We could see the sea from the door of our tent.

Popular Sara Joy—she was certainly the cool girl to be with. There were very few waking moments that some teenage girl, teen boy, or woman wasn’t asking to see her, making faces at her, or wanting to take her for a walk. She ate all the attention up, no introvert there!

.

Incarnation

Did you exist before you were in Mommy's tummy? No, you didn't. But Jesus existed before He was in Mary's tummy, because He lived with God forever. And one day, God told Jesus that it was time for Him to go down the world and be born. So He said, "ok" And He went, and He was inside Mary's tummy, and He grew up, and He was born..."

So this is how the story of Jesus's life and starts out if your Dad went to seminary.

I had all sorts of good intentions about blogging about the ladies' meeting that was at my house, new recipes I'm learning, and impressions from our vacation...but tomorrow we're getting up at 4am to drive 15 hours west to "family camp." (Best as I can tell, it's not unlike a week-long retreat for all ages held at a camp ground.) Since it's after 9pm and I still need to clean out the fridge and finish packing up, I'm leaving you with just this little snippet of tonight's Bible time.

Sara Joy Sleeping

This is how she chose to sleep. I put her down nice and even in the center of the mattress, and she rotated and scooted to this position--a typical sleeping position for her.

Vacation 2009

We took 3.5 crazy weeks of vacation to go visit family in Maryland this summer. The whole thing started when Mike's brother got engaged. Between the wedding and the timing for everyone to meet Sara Joy, it seemed like a great time to visit. I think we did something with someone just about every single day! We spent time with Mike's family and my family mostly. We camped, went to the beach, shopped, went to 4 different churches in our home counties, had an overnight romantic getaway, watched American TV, ate at half a dozen different restaurants, ate Mike's dad's famous grilled shrimp (a personal favorite of mine), saw fireworks, went swimming, visited great grandparents, got the 6 Kelly siblings in one place at one time, played with friends...hmm, is that enough? It was a great vacation. Maybe it wasn't as relaxing as some, but it was a great change of pace and very special time with family. And we brought back suitcases of kids books, baby clothes, favorite foods, and most of all memories. Love you guys!

See pictures with captions here.

.

Tomato Bottom

On Tuesdays I go to Ladies Meeting. Ladies from the church take turns hostessing a Bible Study and social time. Usually it starts around 1:30. We sing some praise songs together--one lady plays guitar. We share prayer requests and pray. Then a sweet Korean woman shares a lesson. Recently we worked through II Timothy.

After the Bible study, the hostess brings out the table cloth and we have lunch. Everyone sits around the table cloth spread on the floor and enjoys home-cooked food. Often we eat kofte (spicy bulgur or lentil balls) dolmas (various rice-stuffed veggies) kisir (cold, spicy bulgur salad), or rice and veggie saute. There is always salad, bread, and water. Sometimes we drink soda or ayran (salty yogurt drink) too. After clean-up, we all sit around and drink tea. In the summer the whole thing goes late into the afternoon--the days are long and who wants to walk home in the heat? In the winter many ladies leave a little earlier since it gets dark as early as 4:30.

Since we returned from vacation, Sara Joy and I have been going together. There's another lady who comes who has a baby just a few months older than Sara, so together they are pretty popular. Two weeks ago Sara had a bit of an upset stomach. It was normal baby stuff, gas, fussy, etc. The relevant detail is that while we were there she did one of those--you know--that made her bottom pretty red. So we (yes, everyone there got in on the act--it was a room full of moms and grandmoms) washed her bottom and let her lay out and get some air while we had tea. While I'm sitting there, Sara on her tummy across my lap, one lady comes over and before I realize what she's doing smears the cut face of a tomato on Sara's bottom. She reassured my very surprised face with "This will make her better. It made Nathaniel's bottom better two weeks ago. It's very healthy." I though Sara would holler since I thought the tomato juice would sting. But not a peep. And she was more comfortable and rash-free within 24 hours. Now Sara Joy's new nickname could be "tomato bottom."

Day trip

Last Saturday we took a day trip to a nearby historical city. We had a blast, and here are some of the pictures.

Notice the city behind the kids in some of the shots. In one shot, you can see a cross, which is from the church in the next pictures.

Here are two shots of our kids just outside the old church building. We were told at the museum that there was an old church just 100 meters down the road. So we walked 100 meters through narrow old streets and saw no church. So we asked another guy who told us that the church was 100 meters down the road. We saw something that looked like it might be the church building, but there were some other tourists with a hired "guide" walking in the other direction. I asked the guide if the church was in the direction I was going. He said yes. So the other tourists got their guide to turn around and take them to the church. Who knows where they would have ended up.

Inside a very old Orthodox church. Outside there was a sign that said taking photographs was strictly forbidden. But inside there were several people taking photos. So I asked the person who I thought might be sorta in charge. He said that I could take pictures if I didn't use a flash. This upset everyone else who were taking pictures with flashes.

Matthew was asked what he had for dinner at this scenic restaurant, he replied, "bread." The person persisted, surely you must have had something more than bread. But actually he had something called meat with bread, which is bread baked with a little bit of meat (I couldn't taste the meat), bread with a little meat on top, and just plain bread.

Local kids love to have their picture taken. The city from the previous shot is in the background.

Part of the reason for coming to the city was to take a picture at sunset. However, the cloud somewhat prevented this. So, we decided to go after the guy on the donkey instead (see below).

We made three passes with the van to see this guy, but none of the pictures turned out so great. Then we decided to stop and ask him if we could take his picture, which he was glad to let me do. He had been waving to the cars as they passed, so I asked him to wave for the picture. The city appears in the background.

We saw the lone tree against the sunset on the way home. Not having a tripod, I let the lens rest in between the van and the side view mirror. As you can see, I still couldn't get the camera still enough for the 6 second shutter that I needed.

We had this conversation while taking the picture: "My two kids need to look and the flower." Anna, "I don't see the flower mommy. Where is the flower."

Right after we took this picture we were swarmed by mosquito. We ran to the car, but Anna got bit up so much that she looked like she had chicken pocks.

Note the difference between the kids. Matthew is standing posed, probably thinking about something. Anna is leaping through the tall grass like a wild deer.

They named him Fred.

It was Becky's idea to crop out her and Matthew on each side, leaving just Anna and the turtle.