Daniel´s blog post that you might want to read not all at once because it is long.

So here's why I’m bad at blogging: I have a serious authenticity fetish, or perhaps TMI complex. It's not always a bad thing -- it helps Rebekah and I be totally open with each other -- but it makes it really hard to blog. Because once I start writing, I want to say EVERYTHING, which causes 2 issues: 

         1. It’s the internet, and no matter how much one loves authenticity, not EVERYTHING should be placed where anybody can read it.

         2. I realize that to write enough to satisfy me will be a HUGE endeavor, and that becomes an overwhelming thought that prevents me from starting.

But I will nonetheless commence. It will be a long post, so I have divided it up into the following segments for your reading convenience. You may want to stop after a section and come back:

1.     Our apartment is now a home.

2.     Our church home we have found

3.     My first day of subbing

4.     Potential for photography work

5.     Our half-year anniversary weekend

6.     Spending less money on stuff

7.     Dinner with the neighbors

8.     Upcoming transition out of Crazy-Rebekah’s-Start-Of-School

1.     Our apartment is now a home.

Living room

happy.

(notice pretty plant given to us by neighbor ladies)

 

Living room and some kitchen/dining room

viewed from the entry way.

The bike garage!

Some special wedding things

in the top of the armoire in the living room 

Office and Workshop/Craft table. 

Tabletops are finished plywood, leveled on crates, file cabinets, etc. Fun project!

Finally some shelf space!

Cute little bathroom.

Little bedside reading corner.

Closet: Organized.

We love our kitchen. 

My favorite shelf is on top of the cupboards, 

where all our appliances and bulk foods go for quick access

Note the food pyramid I cut out from a cereal box! 

Also the vitamins on the stove. We want to stay healthy!

"Dining room" (i.e. eating corner)

Fun centerpiece 

It´s nice to feel like it´s a home.

2.     Our church home we have found:

Happy and eerily fitting. It's Central Christian Church, we liked the non-denominationally specific name, and the website that appeared to represent a desire for contemporary relevance, so we went and visited. We found a church home where we feel we can be fed, and where we can feed.

Why we like this Church:

-         They get that if the Bible is entirely “telling the truth”, that´s a big deal. They take sin and salvation seriously. They are excited about God's victory and their place in it.

-         They challenge each other a lot. In “Sunday School” (basically a Bible study and book group blend) people were bringing really tough questions about what it means to be believers, and disagreeing vocally and healthily.

-         They are keen to the needs of their community. They support a local domestic abuse and rape crisis center, and they´re going to learn Spanish as a church (well, those who sign up anyway) because the pastor and the board are convicted about needing to be open to and reach out to the Hispanic community.

-         Our role in the church feels clear, even eerily (divinely?) so. We arrived the Sunday the pastor shared in the sermon about his conviction that the church needed to learn Spanish. (The day before, a Spanish speaking man had come to the church asking for help and the pastor had floundered, barely getting the man what he needed by drawing pictures.) The church is buying the Rosetta stone software, which will work well for the large group EXCEPT that congregants won´t be able to speak into and be corrected by the computer. That´s where I (and Rebekah) fit in, helping correct pronunciation and accent, which have always been strong-suits of mine. Of course there will be other forms of teaching that we can do, but that's a critical one. In other news, they are looking for young adults, people to sing, people to youth minister. I have long thought I would want to help out with youth ministry, and choir is a given.

So basically, not only do we feel like we can be fed here, we feel like we can feed. And both are critical components of being in the Body of Christ. It´s not that we feel that the church is perfect -- we have some pointed concerns here and there -- but we do feel like it´s where we´re “supposed to be” (whatever that means exactly…)

P.S. Especially since one of my major looming questions right now is what kind of truth do I believe is in the Bible, I really like that here´s a church that believes it´s really really inspired, and thus will continue to force the question for me. It was easy to get lazy about that question at Gustavus, where not a lot of people believe in the “authority of scripture”.

3.     My first day of subbing:

Fun, lively, a little draining, precious. To get some high-level people-interaction time, I decided to sign up for substitute teaching. The kids were the helpful-est, sweetest bunch of little third graders EVER. The first half hour of class was filled with their exuberance as they explained everything I would need to know for the day, with a high level of honesty (which I could test by asking other kids). Once class got started, they would get chatty quickly, and like Rebekah, I found myself too permissive on the front end. But after finally giving a kid some recess detention I had the 1-on-1 chance to ask him about classroom management. He said it was louder than usual, and that he liked it quieter. (Funny, coming from the one kid loud enough to get detention!)  I asked him what I was doing wrong. He told me a couple of the teacher’s tricks. When I got back to the class I gave my version of “the talk”, which for me mostly included asking the kids the same things I asked “Detention Boy”: Was it louder than usual? Which way do you prefer it? I found that we were all on the same team, so we figured out some strategies we could all do to get it quieter. My job was to be tougher. “Do you understand why I’m going to mark you for a warning?” The kids were compliant and helpful even when receiving discipline.

Overall, I found that it worked best to recognize those little humans as humans, enlist their opinions and support, and create solutions together with them, and hold up my disciplinary end of the bargain. All in all I had a great time. At the end of the day, one of the boys, who was wearing a “tough guy” shirt, asked me, “hey, before you go, can I, like, hug you?” I got a couple nice notes from students, and it was quite sad to see them go.

All that being said, I admittedly returned home quite tired, gaining a useful understanding for when Rebekah comes home pooped and doesn’t want to move.

4.     Potential for photography work:

Two photographers just left town or retired. Nice. I probably won’t be too hard core about photography, but will do just enough to spice up the week and bring in a couple extra bucks.

5.     Our half-year anniversary weekend:

A fun splash of do-overs and grace. Our weekend started out funny. It’s amazing how easy it is to forget some things repeatedly, like the fact that REBEKAH IS AN INTROVERT AND AFTER A WEEK OF HARD WORK IN THE CLASSROOM SHE NEEDS ALONE-TIME AND REST! Friday afternoon and evening contained a futile attempt to celebrate our six-month-a-versary, ending with the 7pm conclusion that Rebekah just needed to rest, and that we’d have a “Do-Over” on Saturday and some of Sunday.

Do-overs are happy. There’s some definite Jesus-ness involved in do-over-ing. “You know what, we messed up, we hurt each others’ feelings, but we can forgive that and start anew.” We went for ice cream Saturday AND Sunday, and we still have more than half of a Billy’s restaurant gift card that Grandma Chris sent down for us so we can have a do-over of our Friday night restaurant excursion too.

6.     Spending less money on stuff:

Air Conditioning - We have continued to use A/C infrequently, despite a long string of 105-degree days. Approx. monthly savings: $80-100

Cell phones - Approx. monthly savings: $125. If you don’t like tech details, skip this paragraph. Or if you want, you can call me, and get an enthusiastic explanation.  We were sick of our $170/mo verizon bill. It gave us two mobile phones with internet that we could use from our computers. Nice for mobility, but not real necessary here. “Did you need your phone to be a cellphone today?... Me neither.” So we're going with landline and internet for $32/mo and an emergency cell (25c/min). Google Voice will let us keep our old phone numbers but have them ring our computers as well as our landline and emergency phone, with dirt cheap calls (free through 2011, prob 1-3 cents per min after that). So basically, it’s like a landline, but that we have whenever we have internet. Since we only pay on the emergency phone if we pick up, it serves as a pager to let us know when our Google Numbers (our main numbers) are being rung, and if someone calls twice, we can pick up.

Food - My guess is that we’re at or just above $2 per day per person while militantly following the food pyramid. Beans, tortillas, rice, potatoes, and occasional chicken form our carb and protein base. Bananas, plums, oranges, apples, carrots, broccoli, green beans, and spinach compose most of our fruits and veggies, and we’re good about taking our vitamins. I don’t know what to compare to in order to get “amount saved”, but let’s say, just to be arbitrary, $120 saved per month.

Transportation - Rebekah and I are starting to reconsider our need for a car. Car ownership is expensive. Like, really expensive:

Long-term financial benefits of biking: http://www.bikesatwork.com/carfree/cost-of-car-ownership.html

Who's paying how much? http://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/08/cost-car-ownership.asp#axzz1WWqDffxe

What about our civic? http://www.edmunds.com/honda/civic/2007/tco.html?style=100804557

We're realizing that Liberal, being about 4 miles in diameter, and only 2 miles to R's school, is quite bike-able in general. I have been exclusively biking, and finding it quite viable, even in the heat. On a bike, there is almost nothing slowing you down but wind, so you get a lot of dry Kansas wind for not a lot of exertion. Dry wind = evaporation = cooling. And for those 6-12 days a year that it’s icy, or when it's too rainy or windy, we could hire a ride from a friend like I did in college. Or perhaps we could get a more stable 3-wheeled reclining bike, perhaps with studded winter tires. 


All of these ideas are in design and early experimentation. Without solid counsel and experience under our belts, we won't be making any decisions. And "getting good experience" will probably entail living through a winter here. Above all, we need to take this decision-making process slow, since Rebekah has a ton on her plate right now, and is not by nature or nurture incredibly predisposed to utility bike riding. For now, we're still just thinking about it and keeping our mind open to a number of possibilities.

7.     Dinner with the neighbors:

FUN! These are such sweet ladies. The same ones who garden the front of our whole quinta-plex townhome building, and who gave us a plant, and gave me some lunches, AND who gave us PILES of veggies from a relative's garden… invited us over for dinner! Meatloaf per R´s request, and stewed veggies. I promise the generosity has not been only one-way: I gave them a small TV that we didn't want, and a bike helmet that we bought before my dad shipped mine down from MN. Very fun friends. They´re kind of “my” friends, while R has her school friends. I'm sure I'll move into some deep relationships at church, but Laura and Luchia have definitely become my first friends here.

8.     Upcoming transition out of Crazy-Rebekah’s-Start-Of-School:

Daniel moves from Hardcore Homemaker to... Research-y Renaissance guy? I told Rebekah that for the first two weeks of her teaching, she wouldn’t have to lift a finger in regards to kitchen and house work. We’re going to move away from that now, given that she's now pretty much getting her feet on the ground, and given that we want to consider that the work I do here is equally important, even though it is not as externally structured or immediately compensated. I guess I would divide the work I’ll be doing here in the coming year as follows:

Individual exploration

• Independent research: economics, simple living, social movements, community organizing, etc.
• Theological / worldview questions: What kind of truth is in the Bible? What matters?
•  Look into grad schools that I might be interested in enrolling for, prepare applications.

Local community

• Substitute teaching
• Volunteer at Church
• Volunteer at UnitedWay and/or other organizations?
• Photography business, perhaps with a "Bottom of the Pyramid" social business model?

Faraway community

• Vice President, Wiñarisum Health Alliance (in formation)
•  Participate in learning circles (for example, sharing and getting feedback on things I’m researching and writing, and vice versa) with people I know from my Minnesota life.

So there. I don´t pretend that this post was edited for flow, style, or even readability, but I decided that I´d rather write a clunky update than no update at all. All in all, I´d say that we're getting our feet on the ground, digging in, and having fun and joy quite nicely these recent weeks.

Peace!


~Daniel