Generosity

Yesterday we ventured out to see the Bazaar and the old Medina. Like the good "tourists" that we are we went in the morning and of course nothing is really opened yet, because -of course- it is a late night culture in these parts of the world. But we didn't really go to buy stuff or something but rather to be off the ship for a bit, have a look around and enjoy the company of good friends. We slowly walked the one kilometre or so to the old town and -of course- we had to stop at the playground.

Libyans love children, and our friends kids a two cute, blonde girls... they got so many kind pats on their blonde heads :o). People here are very friendly and generous... and they not only like cute, blonde girls but also cute dark-eyed boys AND -of course- BABIES!!!! Ced got his cute chubby cheeks squeezed so many times, although he was in his sling on my back.

One lady in particular was very kind to us (and if you live on the ship you most probably heard me telling the story many times because I think it's s cool). I stood on this playground, Ced on my back, waiting for Ben, who had been gone quickly, and watching Ned play, when this lady had a conversation with the baby on my back. Well, my Arabic is basically none existing and so was her English, but we tried to have a conversation, I told her I'm from Germany and those two boys were my sons and all of a sudden she pulled out a whole package of biscuits and just gave it to me. Wow!!! I mean, I was a total stranger and a tourist as such and she just gave me her package of biscuits... how often have I given something to a total stranger and tourist just for their kids being so cute back home???? To be honest, I can't remember ever having done such a thing. It makes me thinking... am I able to learn from this culture?? Learn to be more open and generous and kind???

I just love looking around the Bazaar.... and I love those trays!!!

As I mentioned, they do like babies.. they do like babies A LOT!!!!! Which is pretty handy and can be used as a very good "ice breaker"... especially if your Arabic is as good as none excising!! Babies are beyond language barriers or cultural differences, babies are babies and they melt away the differences with their cute little smiles AND dribbles. I took Ced with me to one of the programs on board in the evening. He was almost instantly "asked" out of my arms, I had no idea what they were saying as they were passing Ced around like an Olympic torch but seeing them charmed by my little boy's gorgeous, dribbly smile made really funny things to my heart

Not Stupid

Ned is back in his "big time tantrum stage". Great!! I guess it might be his way of dealing with all the changes we have forced on him, poor guy. Knowing that though, still doesn't help me not to be totally impatient with him, and to be honest also annoyed and slightly embarrassed by his behaviour.. I mean, who likes having a kid screaming his head of in a fully packed dinning room for at least 15 min???? It's definitely NOT my choice of kid to have at that very moment, but I guess I have to take him as he is, and sending back isn't an option, neither is selling him on ebay. That particular incident was cause only by having one more bite of his bread. One tiny little bite, that was all, I didn't ask him to eat a whole cow or Brussels sprouts or something... no, it was a tiny bit of a nice toasted cheese sandwich, but I digress... (really nice word, I really like it)

Anyway...

Today he sat for at least 45min infront of his sandwich and did not want to eat at all. Nada, nothing, njete, nix! He wanted to have a pear, and eating fruit is a very good thing, but you need something more substantial at times so I insisted on at least half of a toasted sandwich. But no, Mylord did not want to eat toasted sandwich (which he devoured a couple of nights ago). In the end I said to him, that if he didn't eat at least one bite he would get nothing, nada, njete, nix else to eat for the rest of the night, no cookies, no chocolate, no pear, no salt sick, nothing (how I hate being the evil mum). Then you could see his brain kicking in gear, and within a split of a second he grabbed the piece of sandwich, took a microscopic bite, put it back down and turned to me demanding cookies!!!! I have to admit I cracked laughing, just couldn't help myself. He did not get any cookies though, but he was happy having a pear.

my cheeky monkey

P.S. despite all the frustrations and challenges I have trying to raise a little boy to become a man of God some time in the future, I do love him dearly. And on days like today, with challenges piled upon challenges I'm so happy once he's in bed, but I just came out of his room again. I heard him coughing. I went in. I snuggled up to him, held this dear little body in my arms and all the frustrations melted away. He grinned at me with his cheeky grin and asked for a kiss. I told him it was an excellent kiss. When I leave the room he blows me another kiss, still grinning. And my heart overflows of gratefulness to my Lord and Saviour that He trusted this little boy in my care although I'm failing Him every single day again and again, but also again and again I am forgiven of my short comings, imperfections, my sins. I regret I exploded like a champagne bottle when Ned threw himself down on the ground screaming just outside the dinning room, I ask for forgiveness. I receive it. I'm grateful!! I'm so grateful for every single second my two little boys can be with me, actually not forgetting my third boy, Ben.... there are so many reasons to thankful for, so many, beyond counting. Why do I so easily forget and get caught up in frustrations and irritations?? But oh how good it is for the soul to receive forgiveness anew, every time I ask for it. Thank you, Lord!

Rock'n Roll

You might think me silly, but I’d never really taken the Mediterranean seriously. I mean, on hearing the word “Mediterranean” I started thinking of holidays, sunshine, ice cream, beaches, goooood food and the like. Now the Atlantic on the other hand, I’d rather think of as the “macho” guy as Oceans go, you know, tough, hard, stormy, strong, grrrr… you get my meaning??? Well, I crossed the Atlantic on a ship for something like 13 days and it felt like a river cruise down the Danube, as smooth as it can be. And now the Mediterranean… uhm, I changed my mind… COMPLETELY!!! I mean even the bible tells us of great storms in the Mediterranean, still it didn't really sink in that it can be rather rough. From the time leaving the harbour of Valetta there was nothing smooth or gentle or holiday like, but Rock’n Roll… big times Rock’n Roll!!! Luckily I DID take a seasick tablet, so I didn’t feel sick at all, but still, it was rough sailing. Some friends I didn’t see at all others looked rather, uhm, green around their noses and other people again thought it was great fun and cheered at every rolling wave (weird sense of humor). My cabin alone looked like a robbery had just happened. Drawers came shooting out (and missed me by a meter), for precaution I’d put the microwave on the floor, the kettle was sitting in the sink, an extra pillow was stuffed inside the cupboard with the cups and plates to make them stop moving and sliding around and making annoying sounds, the bed started to gallop around the cabin so I put the mattress on the floor and tried to stay on it for sleeping, in Ned’s room I’d also taken out all the drawers, preventing them from shooting out at him, unfortunately he decided it was great fun to take every single piece of cloth out of the drawers line up on the floor and putting those items all over the cabin instead of sleeping. Mother was NOT pleased with him, NOT pleased AT ALL!!! The folding chairs would just not stay in the spot where I tucked them away and the laptop I’d preferred putting on the floor as well. I had tidied up the cabin before sailing and had to do it all over again once we arrived.

As I said, I wasn’t seasick, but I was rather tired and out of energy, unfortunately sailing didn’t have the same effect on a two year old I know, and now try entertaining the same two year old if all you want to do is lie down and chill. After dinner though I went to a lobby area on deck 5 where everyone seemed to hang out because it was one of the most stable places on board and there were many other kids to play with, hallelujah!!! It was great fun watching those kids run around like crazy: when the ship was rolling to one side they’d run uphill and when it rolled to the other side they’d run downhill. One little girls even started twirling around which made me feel slightly nauseous just thinking about it.

To get offspring up to our cabin on deck 7 and away from the other kids I couldn’t think of anything else than to bait him with the promise of a bath. I couldn’t fill in much water though, because it was rolling so much from left to right and right to left and back again, but he still enjoyed it… at least until the time when he leaned over the side of the little bath tub just when it was rolling towards that side and the whole thing including the kiddo fell over. No tear though…

Ced was as happy a chappy you could wish for, except that he decided to puke his entire evening bottle all over me, the positive side was that milk exploding out of his nose must have cleared out his air ways up there and the nose was no longer blocked.

My Malta Ambition

I'm not a very ambitious person, especially recently with having to take care of two kids all alone, because husband left me for a couple of days. Almost the only thing I'm cabable of doing is trying to entertain an adorable, sometimes very demanding or even slightly annoying, two year old. Cedric is as easy going as you can wish for, Ned, uhm, well... isn't :o) You might smile at me, but my only "ambition" for our time here in Malta was taking a good picture of one of the famous yellow Malta buses. And as we will be sailing on tomorrow, today was THE day to do it. If you ever tried taking photographs with a toddler in tow you might understand why I call it "ambitious", if you never had that pleasure you might just only think me silly, but I digress (nice word, I only learned it a couple of days ago:o) ).

Plan A was to get the kids ready, go to breakfast and then head to the bus station straight away. When I was woken up by my very cute alarm clock slightly earlier than the last couple of days(at 7:40am, due to a nasty cold and a blocked nose, poor fellow), I opened my curtains and immediately cancelled plan A. It was raining cats and dogs. Unfortunately I didn't really know what plan B could be, so I thought: "wait and see!!" Just before 11am it stopped, so I thought I'd grab the chance, stuffed the (not so) little one in the sling, put my camera in its bag, collected the stroller, finally made it down the gangway (almost falling off it at the end, oops), sitting Ned in his "Porsche" and off we went.

There is a neat little "short cut" from the the ship to down town Valetta: You go through a little tunnel, then you end up on a big car park, from there you take the lift up to street level, and there you are, almost as good as in down town Valetta. Well, entering the tunnel on one side the ground was slightly wet but it wasn't raining and looked rather friendly. Exiting on the other side though, it was pouring down again. Great!!! My umbrella was in our cabin, a very useful place for a umbrella to be in if you're outside and it's pouring down. Luckily I met two girls from the ship and they lent me theirs or else I would have aborted my mission and gone back to the ship lamenting over my ambitious failure of taking a photo of a Maltese bus. Now pushing a stroller, carrying a baby in a sling and holding a umbrella in the pouring rain, that's what I call multi-tasking, and when reaching the bus station level it ceased raining, I gave it a go and added another thing to my multi-tasking: taking a photo of a yellow bus of course! Once I walked over to the bus stops and had my camera out though, it REALLY started to rain, and I don't mean a nice little drizzle, I mean RAIN, bucket loads of rain, pouring down on us!! I managed to take three of four pictures before I was too afraid that my camera would drown. I don't have a rain cover for Ned's stroller only a little sun roof, which held the water off slightly, but he got so soak that he stated the obvious: "Mama, wet, cold". So, now it was really time to call it a day, and as I was pretty wet already I just marched back to the lift through the rivers of rain water on the road, BUT my ambitious Malta Mission had been successful: I DID take a photo, no, not even only one, but Four photos of a Maltese bus :o)

Yesterday, oh what a day!!!

Well, yesterday, was quite a day. First of all I got up before my baby and not because of him, was left by my husband but not for ever, had a 8,4kg baby on the arm and dragged a 15kg screaming toddler behind me up some stairs, was soaked in baby puke twice, the baby happened to be my own, ahm, could neither clean him nor myself with water because there WAS no water, had too much coke zero intake, and chocolate as a matter of fact, and the day ended with a nice chat with a good friend.
While my baby boy, as well as my other two boys slept well until 8am, silly me decided to get up at 6am, grab the camera and hit town together with a friend. It was worth it in the end, but the getting up part is soooo difficult, especially if baby sleeps and so could you. But as I said, it was worth it.

There are more photos on our Picasa Web Album, the link is somewhere here on the sidebar, if you'd like to check them out :o).

I wanted to write more, but my eye lids shut on me, so I should hit the sack. Just a finishing final note, not that you get worried, Ben didn't leave me but flew ahead to sort out some more details in our next port of call, Tripoli. So we'll be re-united again Wednesday. Ned's missing his dad and asks for him quite often and is more clingy than he used to be, but poor little chap, it has been quite some changes in the last week and now daddy's gone as well...

well, night night from my part of the world

The power of words

I hate to admit, but I'm one of those people who verbally vents their frustrations and anger. Maybe not a bad thing in itself, "Better out than in" as SHREK used to say in the first movie but words are powerful and leave an impact. There are so many unnecessary word being said, so many negative words, hurting words, pain-inflicting words, crushing words... killing words. Quickly said but remembered forever. And I am guilty of this crime, I've committed it over and over again. Partially because I'm a rather sarcastic human being and partially because that's how I let frustrations out so that I feel better. The day before yesterday I was convicted how sinful and hurting this behaviour actually is.

I was frustrated, actually with my husband, who wasn't even aware I was frustrated with him and later on I discovered that it wasn't even his fault why I was frustrated with him (does that make sense??). Anyway, here I was mumbling and grumbling to myself standing in line for the food (one of the many things I seemed to have forgotten about ship's life). And so often if you're in a mood because of one thing you are in a "mood" in general, at least it is with me, I guess I'm a bit of a moody person, but I digress. So here I was slowly making my way to get our food and then I came to dessert: cookies... AND there was a ONE EACH sign. I HATE one each signs, they bring out the worst in me. I eat cookies, but generally I don't like them soooo much. These particular ones didn't look attractive to me at all, but that stupid sign made me take one just because I was only ALLOWED one, so I better take MY cookie even if I don't like it. I know it is silly, but those signs make me mad, my suggestion would be: "Consider others" or "Others would like to have some as well" or "What if you were in line a bit later and there wasn't any cookies left, how would you feel??" or "What would Jesus do???"... I would NOT have taken the cookie which I didn't want in the first place and didn't like when I eventually ate it. So I was grumbling and mumbling even more. Then I reached the salad bar and like a good girl put my greens on and other stuff to make a nice salad just to discover that there wasn't any oil and vinegar to mix your own dressing only one ready mixed dressing. So I was even more mumbling and grumbling in a loud sarcastic voice until I heard a voice behind me "What's the problem?". The chief cook stood there. At this very moment I realized my sinful behaviour, but stubborn as I am I stood my ground and complained that there was no vinegar and oil that I didn't like the ready made dressing and so on. I started feeling slightly miserable in addition to being frustrated and mumbling and grumbling. When I sat down at our table the chief cook himself brought me oil and vinegar. I felt even more miserable and convicted about my bad behaviour, and humbled. He must have overheard my mumbling and grumbling and complaining. We are supposed to be light and encouraging and not mumblers and grumblers (I'm pretty sure that there even is a bible verse about this, but it slipped my mind). In the evening I knocked at his cabin door and said sorry and asked for forgiveness. He looked sad and low in spirits, which most probably wasn't because of my vinegar/oil complaint but it made me feel even more miserable. Here is this man, coming to the ship with his wife and 3 kids to serve God in the way of providing food for over 400 people from over 40 different nations, and I don't know how it is in your family but in my family it was even difficult for my mum to cook in the way, that husband and us two kids would be happy, now just imagine you have to do that for so many people from all over the world and some of them can be rather verbal in their dislikes and displeasures like me.... man, you have to have a skin like an elephant not to feel affected by those criticisms. It made me realize that I am called to serve and not to be serve, to encourage, not to de-courage, to lift up not to pull down. Maybe he was just plain tired and didn't feel at all how I interpreted it, but it made me think... and made me feel even more miserable and horrible than I felt when going over there to apologize to him.

God gives us conviction but he doesn't want us to feel miserable and bad because of it, but rather to change our behaviour and do something about it. Feeling bad does neither help nor do any good whatsoever just makes us dwell on our own imperfection, sins and failures, instead of focusing on our Creator and the Forgiver of all sins. This conviction has to trigger a reaction, a plan of action how to change and then do it. I know change takes its time, but I don't wanna stay that mumbling, grumbling discouraging person. I can't change the world but I can change my actions to be a better ambassador of Christ, who died on the cross for my imperfection, MY sins. Words are something beautiful but like with everything created the devil abuses them and he uses even God's children to use them in a destructive way. I don't want to "obey" him though anymore, I want to use words how God intended them to be used: to uplift, to encourage, to point out beauty, to say positive things, but sometimes also for criticism, constructive criticism, not to de-courage but to truly trying to help improving... I can't really express what I mean, but sometime you have to say something, which you really don't want to do, but is the right thing to do.

We learned the last days that there is an Arabic word which is something like "Samechmi" which means "Forgive me" and you say it when you part with someone, in case you've done something wrong you weren't aware of. I thought that's a beautiful custom and I want to say "Samechmi" to YOU whoever YOU are in case I have wronged you knowingly or unknowingly and especially if I have hurt you verbally in any way. I want to change and think before I talk.

Well, on that note:

Samechmi and as-salaamu 'alaykum (Forgive me and Peace be upon you!.... hmmm I guess I have to un-dust my twenty words of Arabic to be ready for the next couple of ports....)

"So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." (Luke 11:9)

Why do babies always stop smiling once you have the camera out and ready?????