Christmas

Christmas day: snow falling, my pretend-grumpy Uncle Jim, my Aunt Char and cousin-in-law Erica, my cousin Paul and me drinking tea.



Even if there are only five of you, Christmas isn't necessarily quiet!

Char and I started the day off heading to church. The 11 pm Christmas Eve service seemed too late with our colds, and we instead got to hear a wonderful sermon on Christmas Day about John 1: 1 - 3. Our rector, John Newton, talked about the telescope that's being built in Australia that will see the light from 14-billion-year-old stars, and how Jesus' friend John was looking beyond and before that when he said: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He pointed out that John was likely not penning such a different story (compared with others' manger scenes) in order to discuss a new philosophy in front of a roaring fire with a glass of port, but rather to call people to transformation. This reminded me of the book that I am already ready to re-read: Bryant Myers' Walking with the Poor: Principles and Practices of Transformational Development. When I can get my head out of my to-do list long enough (!) I am really excited about putting in to place those principles.

After church we finished the meal preparations and Paul and Erica came over. Our family friend Aldine was also supposed to come, but it began snowing and the streets were beginning to look treacherous, so she didn't come. I think we ended up getting four inches, instead of the two inches we were promised.

Fun fact: people from warmer places say funny things about snow, such as, "it's too cold to snow today". I've lived in Minnesota a total of eleven years now, all of them as an adult, and I know it gets pretty cold here, including a week every January where it never gets above zero degrees (-18 C). It also snows some, including when it's really cold. A couple of days ago it was only 14 degrees (-10 degrees C) and snowing. In fact, it's never really too cold to snow. Apparently, at -40 (same Celsius and Fahrenheit) it's not likely to snow due to the moisture capacity of the air (I just looked that up).

Family

Images of a walk near my aunt's on a snowy day: view from her house, the Three Stooges (me, my Aunt Char, my Uncle -- her brother -- Jim), view down their street, view down a lane by a Lake Judy.

It's been snowing nearly every day here. Minnesota is so great in that not only do they plow walking paths as you can see above, but people continue to run in the snow. Not me, though. I've been saying it's too icy and dangerous, even though the truth is that it sounds too difficult to jump over snowy and slushy patches. I should get over it -- it's been almost two weeks since I've done anything but short walks.

Seasons

Christmas devotional: playing music and reading "The Little Drummer Boy" around the Advent wreath

I've gotten to see my dear friends Paul and Libby with their sons Gibbie and Ezra several days so far. I was able to participate in some of the Advent devotionals they did, then see the changes after Christmas. As Libby spread out the purple Advent cloth and later the white Christmas cloth, she asked Gibbie why we use those colors. His answer (learned at the Montessori pre-school he attends 3 hours per week and at home) was: because everything has changed. Pithy answer for a 2 year-old! Tonight Gibbie and I were outside playing in the snow, and he started to sing, "Silent Night, Holy Night." He asked me why the night was holy. I explained that "holy" means set apart or separated, and the night Jesus was born was set apart because it was so special, since it was the time God chose to send Jesus to us.

Paul reading to his sons at a coffee shop.

HOUSE SALE

Here's one more posting, just because I'm so excited! Nadia handed over my keys to the new owner of my house just a few minutes ago. Yay! It's hard to believe it's really done -- it's been so long!

As I think back on the past few months, I am so grateful to all of the people that helped. I know I've said it before, but I couldn't have moved out of the house so quickly and thoroughly without my sister Lorena and then her husband Gregor coming to help me go through things, and Chrissy coordinating a massive garage sale. Chrissy even asked people to donate things to my garage sale, which they did which has really helped me financially.

THE HOUSE IS SOLD!!!!

Yippee! Yahoo! I am thrilled to announce that after 5 1/2 months in an ever-worsening market, I am no longer a home-owner!

The house had become a huge burden in terms of time and finances. Big thanks again to Erin for being my POA in September and October, Jeff for working long hours on my troublesome pool, Joe for continuing to groom my lawn to perfection while awaiting the sale, Ernie for the repairs he did in September, and Nadia for storing my things and letting me stay with her even though I still had a house of my own. Big shout out to God for the relief of the sale and for the amount that I still have in my savings account despite the loss I took. Thanks to everyone who was vigilant in prayer for this issue.

I'm also grateful to Cassie and J -- Kinko's internet was down two days ago and so I went to their house to print documents, then to J's work for him to notarize and explain my documents (since he's both a notary and a realtor) and FedEx them.

That night was great -- instead of completing the continuing medical education due next week by myself at a dial-up computer, I went to J's office with Cassie and Robyn and we worked together (which is legal, by the way!). It's much more fun to spend 4+ hours with others, and I was also glad to see Robyn for the first time since her wedding.

Buzz Words

Moving:
Geographically, I moved 2100 miles (3380 kilometers) last week.

Spiritually, lots is still happening in Argentina right now. I'm not sure what I can say while things are still in progress, so I'll keep this posting general. I was reading some information being gone through at a church in Argentina, and saw the following words:

• Holistic
• Commitment to those who are poor and marginalized
• Long-term solutions
• Local ownership and initiative
• Participatory learning
• Multiplication and movement
• Servant leadership
• Contextualization

My friend Eva calls these buzz words, and told me about the game "buzz word bingo" which can liven up staff meetings. She mentioned that to me once when I used a few too many of those words in one conversation. But they can actually be useful: on the document that I saw there was a paragraph to describe each word, and they are central concepts to the work of LifeWind. If, for example, all do not embrace a holistic strategy, ministry can quickly become focused solely in one area.

Up North

I left Missouri on Sunday morning since the Iowa DOT said the roads were clear. Thankfully I didn't have much of Missouri left to go, since their roads were still icy. Iowa was clear and dry and a beautiful, easy drive. The southern part of the state was lovely -- it was sunny out and the trees were glistening with ice and snow.

I made it to Minnesota with an hour to spare before going to a dinner that my friends Cassie and J had for me with some former residency colleagues. I hadn't seen most of them since we graduated 3 1/2 years ago, and it was fun to catch up. I had some moments of missing clinical medicine -- Jennifer was late due to two ICU admissions, and I'd always loved hospital work and haven't done it since residency. However, as we discussed other issues like charting, time, office politics, etc. I decided that I'm excited about my new job with its different sorts of challenges!

Yesterday was spent catching up with another residency colleague, Kim, who couldn't make it to the dinner. I got to meet the newest addition to her family and talk about the joys of correctional medicine as she's in the middle of a job change. I also ran into Rachael (unplanned) at a coffee shop and met her Alpha colleagues, then went to Paul and Libby's for a couple of hours. Gibbie, their 2 1/2 year-old, sung me some of the new songs he's learned.

Today is supposed to be spent on my latest to-do list: creating some work accounts, responding to contacts, continuing medical education, etc. However, I got a late start due to a nasty head cold -- priority will be going out to by some lotion-y Kleenex for my poor nose! The other venture for today, which I'm in the middle of, is to find a Kinko's to print off my title company's documents which I'm told will be ready this afternoon!! Then I get to take them to a bank for the notary service and overnight them to the title company, also wiring funds for the loss. Yippee! We're getting farther in a home sale than I've gotten since September!