In Which the Heroine Returns and Recounts Her Adventures

Ito....... It's been some time since I actually wrote something, but I think I can finally put my adventures on screen. The hardest part is figuring out how. I'm thinking "timeline." 

May 20th - Yay! A plane trip to Pennsylvania, trying to find people you've never met before, and the whole auto-biography of a driver. Traveling is so much fun. I don't know why I was so scared.  And  finally meeting the girls I'm going to spend two months with was super. They made me laugh so hard! Dinner was chicken enchiladas (dessert was brownies and ice cream). Testimonies were shared. I think that was one of my favorite moments, when I got to here the testimonies of the other twelve short-termers. Hearing them all together, it was like that moment when you look at the picture and realize "wait, there's a pattern here." 

 

May 21st. - Welcome to Christar headquarters! Meeting all these nice people will be a long process, but it starts today. We got to HQ at 8:3o for devotions. Nine hours later 

we left for dinner with one of the missionary couples. Food! It was so good. Potato au gratin, bratwurst, grilled chicken, green bean casserole..... and dessert, of course. But what really fills you up is the conversation. Someday I'll have to share their "God is three-in-one" demo with you. I wish I could read the story of their lives in full, for the glimpses we got of it were awe inspiring. 

May 22nd - Lessons. Lessons. Lessons. We get a break for lunch though, to go to an Indian restaurant. Our coordinator tells the waitresses to take the silverware back to the kitchens, we're eating with our hands today! And not just bread either (though the bread was delicious), rice, meat in thick sauces, and mango chutney. All are eaten with the fingers of the right hand. 

Let me add that, though I've seemed to single out our food experiences, the classes were just as fun as the meals. Today there was one on hinduism, and an especially funny one were a missionary put on a skit with the help of a unsuspecting short-termer. But food is easier to describe, and there was less of it when compared to the vast stores of knowledge we were constantly surrounded with. Every time we got together to eat there was always an extra helping of wholesome conversation. So when I say we went to another missionaries house don't groan (even when I say that they had the best stuffed shells ever). 

 As a side note, volleyball is really fun, even when you're less coordinated than a one legged monkey devoid of any depth perception. 

May 23rd - Can you believe this is the last day? It feels so sad to be leaving everybody, when we've become so close. Since some of us are going to closed countries we know that contact will be nonexistent until next summer. But still, we all vow to try to stay connected. I don't think I've ever gotten so close with people in such a short time. I'll really

 miss them. Stay safe blazers, God bless you.

Sorry, but I can't let good food pass, even the memory of it. And dinner was at Oregon Dairies. I got to sample some real Pennsylvania Dutch food, from ham balls to chicken pot pie (which was really more of a chicken noodle stew). Naturally, dessert was ice cream. The sizes ran from heifer to bull, but I was too full to get anything bigger than a calf. 

May 24th. - Home at last! I spent the day with my sister, watching anime and packing for the 'morrow. Because, you know, that's when I'm going to Las Vegas. But that's another story.  

    

Memo on the Fridge

Hey, it's wicked early here. But good things must come to those who are waiting so patiently for a word. So here's a short note on the fridge, or a message on your answering machine. Blaze was AWSOME!  I just got back Saturday (and really should've posted then), and now I'm off to Las Vegas, which means another delay in getting to my faithfuls. So if you emailed me in, say, the last six days and still haven't gotten a response..... hang on in there. 

"Leaving on a Jet Plane"

Well, I thought it'd be bad form to leave without telling you, so here is the official notice. I'm off! It's only going to be for four days, and only to PA, which is no where near that far from here. Still, it'll be my first solo flight, and, aside from college, the only time I've been away from my family. We'll see how it goes, huh? Let's hope I manage to get a good night's sleep, or, if I don't manage that, that I at least get some last minute bonding time with my siblings. I leave at 8:00AM tomorrow and, eep! I just remembered something I forgot to pack. So, as my sister would say  " Jaa, matta nee?"  

Recollections while Moonbathing

All my books are packed away, and The Chrysanthemum and the Sword has been returned to the library, unfinished. I am going home tomorrow, back to my daddy's house, and my room is in proper disarray for that purpose. My bathroom has been scrubbed within an inch of its life, and my fingers have been safely marinated in disinfectant. I'm moving on to the kitchen next, packing up my pots and cleaning yesterday's neglected dinner dishes. But I will rest first, if just for a minute, to entertain delightful fancies.  

Imagine a moonlight ball on the green. With lanterns floating thro

ugh the sky, twinkling green and yellow lights. And a hundred fearsomely charming ladies in a hundred fine gowns twirling in the arms 

of a hundred gentlemen.  This one of spider silk, that one of rose, and all the coats in downy chick feathers, or the soft tummy furs of a mother squirrel. After hours of dancing one wants nothing more than to fly up into a hammock and bathe in the gentle light of the moon, while the band rubs its legs together and the lead singer lets out a solemn "Croak!" Moon beams are good for the complexion.  

Purples in various settings, and bridal clothes.

"Neither elder bother nor  younger brother"

 Japanese proverb, Benedict, The Chrysanthemum and the  Sword 

Seems I've been a little... ponderous lately. As if some great matter had weighed heavily on my mind.  I bet if I read my back-post  I'd laugh at the note of deep thought I've tried to infuse into them. With that conviction slowly burning away in my heart I've decided to stop being so pretentious. So here, view my heavily edited accomplishment of the month. A solitary glovelet. I've Cast-on for its mate, but haven't got much

 farther than that. There is hope that it will be a complete pair by, say, December. Maybe it will become my plane knitting. Oh, now that I think of it, I never mentioned that I got my tickets, did I? I leave June 6, a month and a week away. 

Totally unrelated, but on my mind, I read Matthew 22 a few days ago. When I got to verses 11-13 I paused, perplexed.

“But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’"      (Courtesy of BibleGateway)

When I think about the moving church  in America I suppose I picture youthful people in the traditional jeans-and-a-T-shirt garb. The past seven months have not done anything but reinforce this idea. And if we all go to the house of God in our jeans then why not to His wedding? But perhaps it is a metaphor for something, not a literal 

indictment on one's apparel.   There is another passage of scripture that I thought of when I read these verses: Revelation 19:7-8. It warms the cockles of my heart, this verse. I'm so grateful to the Breaking Free work book for introducing me to it, for I don't get over to Revelations much on my own.  In particular verse seven always fills me with that special hope-joy of faith. I read it when I get discouraged. Anyway, it reads "The marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready." 

Can you think of anything more natural then a bride preparing herself for her groom? In old times girls prepared hope chest, filling them with sheets and towels. Sugimoto, of daughter of the Samurai, mentioned the many little things a young girl would do to prepare for her future husband. Her older sister, for instance, stopped eating plum jelly because it would be disrespectful to her fiancé's crest, which contained plum blossoms. Estu-bo herself started eating tuna, because that was her future husband's favorite fish.

Even today the bride prepares through elaborate wedding  preparations, dress fittings, and hair-dos. It may seem a little shallow to hear a young girl talk about how busy she is with dress fittings, or how she wants this or that at her wedding, but what would one assume if a bride came to the alter in jeans? Sure, there are alternatives to the traditional white gown, but there is no alternative to the time and care put into her appearance, and there shouldn't be. It is the naturalist thing in the world to see this passage and know that His wife loves him, has been waiting for this day since she was born, and wants to make him proud. So she prepares herself. She learns to make his favorite dish, she gathers the things they'll need for their new home, she thinks about Him all the time, considers His taste and opinion in every decision, and makes herself beautiful on their special day. A women who does not do all that, who can fathom her heart? 

And so, back to the wedding guest, who could not prepare to meet his King's daughter-in-law. It may not be as drastic an example as that of a  bride in drag, but it conveys the same level of thoughtlessness. As if the man woke up in the morning, loitered around his coffee pot, glanced at the clock, and thought "Hey, there's a wedding at the palace today, I think I'll go." What do you think, oh vast void, do these passages have a connection? How do you interpret them?