I shouldn't blog in the depth of frustrations

that's a fact!!! But honestly, venting my frustrations and struggles this way helps me to have a better attitude in real live... if you know what I mean...

Yesterday was a screamer of a day as well, but I coped so much better and with humour because I was well rested and refreshed.... somehow the FEELING of loving my boys was much more present then the day before that... but feeling love or not feeling love doesn't mean that I do love or not love... does that make any sense?? No matter how frustrated, stressed, discouraged, angered or whatever I am, I will ALWAYS love my kids.... and my husband, because I made a promise to do so, because I said so and because God is always there to help and pull me up out of the dirty and mess I managed to make.

How can I not love this little energy bundle who LOVES kissing you like crazy... or giving you hugs... or cuddling up to you at bed times... or peeing in the flower garden (oops, maybe you didn't wanna know that).

Confessions

I have to confess, that there are day when I am tempted VERY much to just walk away from my kids and don't FEEL like loving them at all. Yesterday was one of those days. It started all wrong. I hardly slept during the night. Ned woke up screaming around 2am and so woke me up... well, he fell asleep pretty quickly again... I didn't... Cedric decided to give a solo squeaking and screaming performance around 3:30am and only a bottle of milk stopped it. He went back to sleep, I suppose eventually I did as well, as I remember waking up in the morning... or better being woken up by the same two innocent looking boys and feeling like a piece of gum stuck to a car tire. Not a good start... additionally I still struggled with a cold and that didn't improve my mood either.

I wished one of my character traits was loving patience, but unfortunately it isn't and among all my other shortcomings they rank pretty high up. Neither love nor patience were things I felt towards both my offspring that morning.

I also wished I could say that I fell on my knees and prayed that God would change my attitude towards my boys, but unfortunately I didn't do that either... I guess what changed the tide was me having an afternoon nap myself while Ben and Ned went off to give a talk at the Ladies Fellowship at church (bless them). I felt a changed person afterwards and love and patience for offspring increased miraculously... I guess it also helped that they decided to be incredibly cute. Ned playing by himself for a while and for a while with his Aunty Jilly and his bobby car. He'd drive it up to the front gate which is slightly on an slope. Then he'd get off the the bobby car and pretend to talk to the gate while the bobby car would slowly roll down the slop (if it didn't he'd give it a gentle nudge) then he'd turn around and be totally astonished that the bobby car was gone.... sigh, I love watching him playing and doing funny things... talking about funny things, I suppose it's hardly EVER a good sign if offspring is TOO quiet while playing... well, it was very quiet for a while... until we discovered Ned in Aunty Jill's room generously applying her roll-on deodorant to his face, tongue and other body parts... hmmmmm...

And Cedric.. well... he's a little cheeky one and I wonder how in the world will I ever get him to be an obedient child... whenever you give him a strong and confident "NO" he gives you this incredibly cheeky grin:

Seee???? That's the one...!!!! And my little cheeky, grinning monkey started to do his first steps yesterday.... not alone, bless me, but holding on to my hands... you could see his little brain gearing up and all of a sudden the legs moved, whereas before he'd never get the "moving-the-legs-in-walking-fashion"-thing quite worked out... but all of a sudden he did.

I am just so glad, that however sinful I act throughout the day that there is forgiveness at the foot of the cross. That's what Easter is all about, right?? (although we did have a little Easter egg hunt and even bought an Easter bunny, which was killed by Ned in no time).

One song sung in church caught me and I could vividly see in my minds eyes what Jesus did for us on the cross. Most properly it's an "old" song for you, but for me it was new and my mascara was a bit messed up afterwards due to the tears which came streaming out of my eyes without me wanting them to actually stream out at all but tears seem to come if you want them or not, at least with me they do.

Blessed Redeemer

"Up Calvary’s mountain one dreadful morn
Walked Christ my Savior, weary and worn
Facing for sinners death on the cross
That He might save them from endless loss

Blessed Redeemer, precious Redeemer
Seems now I see Him on Calvary’s tree
Wounded and bleeding, for sinners pleading
Blind and unheeding, dying for me

“Father, forgive them,” my Savior prayed
Even while His lifeblood flowed fast away
Praying for sinners while in such woe
No one but Jesus ever loved so

Blessed Redeemer, precious Redeemer
Seems now I see Him on Calvary’s tree
Wounded and bleeding, for sinners pleading
Blind and unheeding, dying for me
Dying for me

Oh how I love Him, Savior and friend
How can my praises ever find end
Through years unnumbered on Heaven’s shore
My songs shall praise Him forevermore

Blessed Redeemer, precious Redeemer
Seems now I see Him on Calvary’s tree
Wounded and bleeding, for sinners pleading
Blind and unheeding, dying for me

Dying for me"

Casting Crowns

That's what Easter IS all about... but talking about chocolate eggs before I have to finish off with telling you one more story... about something brown... which wasn't an Easter egg.. or maybe I'll better show you a picture:

And if you were wondering what a naked baby is doing in the kitchen in the first place, wellllll, he was having his bath, as we presently do not live close to a bath tub :o)))

This and that

There have been many blog-worthy moments lately, but somehow I can't wrap my mind around it.

Life is still going uuuuuuuup and dooooooown and uuuuuuup and dooooooooown and uuuuuuup and.... I guess you get the picture.

I'm living on an emotional edge presently which isn't the best for my fellow human beings at times, ESPECIALLY my children... although they seem to live on an emotional edge themselves... Ced seems to be this constant puking machine (puking, but with a huge grin on his face, and not nice baby puke but rather stinky puke) and Ned's gone a step back with his potty training, although the big business is working alright into the place where it is suppose to go:o). It really isn't the easiest situation in life and at times I want to drown in self-pity... poor me, had to move round the globe to down under, to a beautiful spot on earth called Albany with stunning beaches and breath taking nature, with lovely and friendly and open and chatty people :o).

Nonetheless it is draining not knowing where you will be living, living out of a suitcase, not finding things, camping out at different places, presently with my sis-in-law. It works out really well tough: Jill (the sis-in-law that is) sleeps in one bedroom, Ben and I in the other one on the second level of the flat, Ced sleeps in the walk-in cupboard and Ned in the broom cupboard (and he's loving it). In a weeks time though we need to move once more and a family kindly offered us their holiday house close to the beach for a couple of weeks, until the middle of June or so. After that we might be house sitting again for up to 4 months.... sometimes I wished I was a snail and could carry my house on my back, sigh. Somehow possessions seem to multiply within days and it just doesn't fit in all the cases anymore.... ou well... but there is a faint light at the end of the tunnel, but I'll only tell you once the faint light turns into a clear beacon.

That you don't feel too sorry for us I thought I'd add a couple pics of our last trip to the beach :o)

Offffff to the beach we go :o)))

gipssies

I know that at some point in the future I will laugh my head off thinking about our "new start" in Australia... presently I don't... to be honest I'm almost always on the point of crying and just one word breaks the dams (the ironic part of me has a good chuckle over myself even now already, but in the overall... well... isn't so very much excited about the situation we're living in).
I know you should live a day a time and praise God in all circumstances... but it's getting pretty difficult at times. We decided to move to Ben's sister's place, just to relax some tensions around here. Ned has been so much better after that one very horrid day, but still, he IS a little BOY and a lively child with lots of energy and still a lot to learn... and he's still adjusting... and kids sometimes just don't seem to work how you'd thing they would or should...
well, anyway, we will move to Jill's place today. Uhm, it isn't really HER place. She normally lives in Perth (only 500km North) but she's down here in Albany to do a 2 months internship at the local hospital (she's a doc.. and I think you call it an internship), so she's living in this really flash 2 room apartment which is provided for her by the hospital, so it isn't really her place and she usually doesn't live there... and you might have spotted the critical point... it's a TWO room flat... and we'll be 5 people... so we have to figure out where the kids will sleep. We can stay with her until Easter, or just before Easter, then she has some friends visiting her from Perth, so we have to find somewhere to move to again. After Easter we have an offer for moving in someones holiday house in town... but that's also just temporary... you get the picture... I'm so sick of it moving here and there and everywhere while living out of our suitcases.
You might remember the photo I put up of our luggage when we were travelling to Australia. It IS a LOT!!!

And luggage has this odd tendency to multiply, I don't know how it does it, but in all my travels it has ALWAYS does that (why can't money have that tendency???). We packed a good part of our live in those suitcases, thinking to move once within the first 6 months, so now we drag our lives possessions from one place to the next, trying not to unpack too much, but still, everything gets stuffed up and you can't find a thing anymore... ou how I hate it.
So now I've packed, yet once more, (hopefully) all our belongings in various boxes and cases and it stands around the place waiting to be moved to Jill's. To be honest, my spirit is pretty low presently.
When I get stressed and depressed I tend to eat. So it's a good thing we live in other people's homes because I don't have a clue where the goodies are hidden... so count your blessings, eh??? Another good thing is, that I don't eat chocolate again since being here in Albany. I don't know what silly me would do if I ate chocolate... if I get upset I can eat tons of chocolate without getting sick or anything... so that's another blessing. And we CAN move to Jill's... so here is yet another one. Grandma will miss her darling boys immensely and shed one or two (hundred) tears herself, so here goes another blessing. See, I am still very blessed, but somehow it's so darn hard to see it when you're down in the pit. And it's so darn hard to not compare yourself with others around you and pine after what they are having and darken your heart with coveting.
Looking back on our life I don't regret any of the choices we took. I don't regret living the life of a "poor missionary's wife", moving aboard the Logos Hope, after 2 years moving yet again to the other ship, the Doulos, even though I wondered why we had to go there and I struggled a lot. I do not regret moving back to Germany for a time of refocusing and I do not regret having moved to Australia. When I cry and pine I do not feel homesick for Germany, although I do miss my family and friends. I know it's the right place for us to be right now...
...but I do hate being pushed around a game board and no one seems to know the rule... in fact no one seems to know which game we are actually playing. And I hate having to call yet another place "home"... I think I lost count of the uncountable amount of places we stayed in and I told Ned "this is home, for now at least." I'm a bit sick of this nomadic life... since Ned was born we lived in 3 places for a longer period (even though 2 of them were moving objects which moved us around to even more different places). We lived at my parents multiple times, we lived at Ben's parents several times. Last time we came Down Under for a furlough we lived in 13 different places within 3 months... we lived 3 weeks in a room in India..., we lived for 5 weeks in a hotel room in Singapore, we went for little holidays to the States, Czech Republic, Switzerland and Austria. When Ned was younger, Cedric's age, he coped really well with it, but now that he is older, he struggles with the changes and I dread to call yet another place "home" and yet another one after that... and what comes after that only God knows.
I know in my head that God DOES know the rules and the game and he doesn't just push us around for the fun of it, but at times the distance from head to heart can be pretty long, and the only thing left to us is trusting him... not but's, if's and when's... trusting Him in the here and now, in the middle of confusion and frustrations, anger and tears. He IS in control.. and I suppose it is a good thing that I am not.

Roller coaster ride

lately I feel like on an emotional roller coaster ride.. BIG times!!!! Moving a family half around the world in itself is pretty much but additionally all of a sudden not knowing where that family will live isn't the easiest....

Plan A had been to move into my in-laws place until we could move into "our" house-sitting place. Well, the owner of that house suspected to have breast cancer 2 weeks ago and told us so but only last week test have confirmed it. I feel so much with her (not only because we hoped to move into her house for a while) but she and her husband were looking forward to this caravan trip for such a long time and all of a sudden you're faced with a life threatening situation and an operation as well as chemo and radiation therapy.

When Ben had cancer almost 3 years ago it also came out of the blue and all of a sudden your plans and life turns upside down and topsy turvy... not a nice thing when you're 5 or 6 months pregnant (later on I got told that Ben enjoyed the sense of adventure... I'd prefer a different sort of adventure to be honest)... so we have been there and can honestly feel with her... and we pray for her recovery.

But...

yeah, there is a but in my thinking... but why is God's timing and planing so weird at times??? That couple as well as us where praising God about his goodness that he provided for us a place to stay and for them someone to take care of their house for 6 months or so. And now they have to deal with cancer and we're stranded at G&Gs.

It's not bad.. they have a really nice home, but it's not what you really want after moving across half the globe... I just SO much want to unpack my suit cases... I don't have a clue where things are anymore... everything looks messy and nasty within a couple minutes because you're looking for something which you just can't find. Grandma enjoys us staying at her place immensely... the problem is that grandad gets easily stressed and having two small lively boys around can cause many moments of stress... which then stresses me because I don't want grandad to be stressed but like our two little handfuls.

Unfortunately Ned's behaviour isn't on his best either... we had a couple MAJOR meltdowns, which resulted not only in offspring resolving in tears but also his mum (me). A friend analysed it this way: it's the way of a child to see if he's still secure, that the boundaries from before are still there, no matter of all the other changes. It's his way of asking "Do you still love me??". It helps to see it in this light but it doesn't help to live peacefully together.

So now here we are. Totally depended on God that he arranges something for us. We don't wait for something to fall into our laps but try to look up different options... still we have to trust God that he does something. It's all so draining.. emotionally. I can't sleep very well at night.... I guess I could sleep REALLY well during the day, but I don't want to. One part of me wants to yell at God and freak out and blame Him, but I don't want to let that part win. The other part of me looks to him in expectancy. What will He do? How will He provide??? But somehow there is always an internal fight going on. My problem is that I'm a bit.. uhm... spoiled. I like nice things. They don't necessarily need to be new, but nice. And that's somehow linked with my expectancies... they are rather high.

But then I look at Christians living in slums, oppression or persecution and I wonder how I can even dare asking God for something which will only please my own comfort, while brothers and sisters in Him struggle for their bare survival. But on the other hand, we do live in Australia now. We need a place to live... a home... and he's given us a desire in our heart for a home so it can't be "bad", right??? I suppose something good can be something bad if the heart is wrong... and I really want my heart to be "right", not haughty and "I deserve it"-attitude (because I don't), but .. yeah, but what???? You see, I'm still in the middle of the ride. I want to listen to His voice, I want to expect from Him and I want to have the right attitude of heart... AND I don't want to hang my heart on worldly possession or security... just look at what happened in Japan... it only took a couple of minutes and all your possessions and security are gone.

So the roller coaster goes up and down... nonetheless I'm grateful to be here. The other day I was riding my bicycle on a bike path trough bushland and along the beach, and I though of how blessed I am, I have all my limbs, I am healthy, my husband and children are healthy, nature around me is stunning and I can call the creator of heaven and earth my father.

8 Euros for 1kg of bananas!!!!

Yepp!!! There is a banana shortage in Australia. Most of the banana plantations were affected by the flood earlier this year. But I guess you didn't want to know that...

I guess you guessed that we made it Down Under, and yessss, you guessed right. We were just very busy doing important things... like going to the beach... or buying a new bicycle (thank you Isa and Daniel)... ou and doing them annoying important things like getting registered at certain offices and I don't know what....

But the flight went REALLY well.

We managed to take all our luggage with us.. all our 120kg of check-in, 2 strollers, 1 baby carrier, 1 travel cot and 60kg of hand luggage... I think quite a lot of people prayed and I thank them for it. On the flight which left Frankfurt at around midnight Ced fell asleep straight away with only a minor display of his lung capacity and Ned was allowed to watch movies until 2am and then lay down without complaints and slept for the next 8h or so. Ced didn't follow his brother example though, but even though he was awake for quite a bit and also let us hear his beautiful voice now and then he behaved himself alright. Our second flight from Singapore to Perth was also no problem, and as it got dark again pretty soon, we could convince Ned pretty soon to have another little couple hour nap... so all in all I was able to watch 5 movies... and that's what flying is all about, right??? :o))))

We arrived in Perth just after midnight and by the time we finally collected all our millions of belongings (NEVER EVER AGAIN!!!! ONE bag a person... that'll be the rule next time we'll fly), made it out of quarantine and and got to the accommodation for the night it was well, something like 3am... and I slept like a rock.. so did the kids.. and husband... I had to wake them up at noon. The 5h driving down to Albany was almost worse than the looong flights: no walkin' around, no TV in the seat in front of you, no meal and no free refreshments (BUT we bought a nice supashake on a stop over half way, yay!!!!)

We settled in alright so far I think, the boy's internal clock is as good as set on Aussie time, although mine still needs some minor adjustments... Ben sleeps like a log anyway... the grandparents enjoy the grandkids, so does aunty Jill... although Ned insists on speaking German, I guess it'll change soon.

We are having some REALLY beautiful sunny and warm days and we try to make the most out of it. They expect rain the next couple of days... or weeks???? Ben got his first sunburn this year... and so do my arms, but mine are just a little bit, whereas his,.. uhm, well... not so little a bit:o) (I know, I should have taken better care of him, but I was busy covering offspring with sun block).

The boys enjoy the beach A LOT!!!! Cedric ate at least half of it and the other half Ned filled in his little bucket and threw back in the ocean.

Deadlines

Honestly, I HATE deadlines!!! For a long time they are conveniently far away, so they are oh so easy to ignore. But the nasty things with deadlines is that soon than you think they are right there. In front of you. And you have to deal with them. Looking away doesn't work no more. Neither does covering your eyes. Nor doing other things and pretending to be busy.

Well, I guess moving out and to the other side of the world can be considered quite deadly deadline... which doesn't only involve packing but oh so many other nasty things... which I often refer to as "paper war" (I hate paper war even more than deadlines).... but you know what??? I discovered I work best and most efficient IF there is one of those nasty deadly deadlines is looming right over my head. Everything is done. The paper war is off my desk for now. Cards are written. Flat is clean. Laundry done. Bags re-packed and re-re-packed. And now I sit here and write my blog. It feels rather relieving. I'll be even more relieved once our bags are checked in and out of my sight... not the hand luggage of course, I don't wanna have that out of sight.

Well, I think I'll go and cook one last time here... and soon we'll be off... in 2h.... crazy... time flies....