Cajdžinica

Here’s the view from the Cajdžinica, lit. “tea shop,” a place we just discovered hidden away right off the main plaza of Sarajevo’s Turkish district, Baščaršija.  We sat on a little bench looking down the alley to the plaza and Sebilj, the lit centerpiece in the distance, which is on every Sarajevo postcard.

The Cajdžinica’s quaint, has great decor, exotic imported teas like Moroccan mint, cinnamon and rose, and my favorite, chocolate and almond.  Yes, they really do taste like those flavors.  Oh, and the owner is a really friendly guy named Hussein who wears a giant flowing white caftan robe and has a wild head and beard of white hair…making him look like a hippie Jesus.  Wish you were here!

Moves

Lately G, our almost-3-year-old, is really into dancing.  She calls it “doing my moves.”  Every day she’ll come up to us excitedly and ask if we want to do moves with her.  Hers are a combo of stomping, jerking elbows, shaking hips, and Mr. Roboto.  It’s become a nightly routine–good for her, good for us in that it gets some of her energy out before bedtime!

The other night we laughed as we realized that since we live on the 14th floor and were dancing in a well lit room, we’re visible to a whole lot of people on the hill opposite our building.  And since G is quite short, she’s not visible over the couch like we are.  So to anyone watching from outside, we look like two 30-somethings, stomping, jerking elbows, shaking hips, and doing Mr. Roboto.  Word.

Singing in Sarajevo

On a whim, my dear friend invited me to an “Open Mic Night” at a British pub in Sarajevo last Saturday night. Excited and nervous, I said yes.  I said yes because, even though I am sleep deprived, exhausted, and still very much adjusting to being a two-kid mom, I came back to Bosnia determined to use my voice.  I came back determined to enter the world of the arts, as a means of building more friendships for the sake of the Kingdom.

After putting Nora to bed, I got all dressed up and waited for my friends to pick me up.  We got to the pub, and walked up a hill in the snow to reach the old wooden doors.  As we entered this hobbit-style door, I felt my stomach clench.  I was nervous.  The band was setting up, and seats were full. My friend introduced me to the owner of the pub, who is also the director of a band that has gigs all over the city.

I asked him if I could sing tonight, and he said of course.  Only a few moments later, I sang my first song, Crazy, by Patsy Cline. As soon as I was done, the owner of the pub came back and began our conversation with, “So, you live here? I didn’t know you existed! How long are you planning to stay here in Sarajevo?” He eventually asked me if I would be interested in performing with their Blue Grass band whenever they have gigs in town.  Yes!

I sang a couple more songs that night, including old favorite Stand By Me, and Come Away With Me, by Norah Jones.  Needless to say, I left the pub elated, thankful for an open door into the music scene in Sarajevo. I pray that this leads to great things, and I look forward to what God has in store for me this year through singing…

PB, baby!

We try not to spend too much time whining about the foods we can’t get here, that we miss from back in the USA.  There are plenty of great Bosnian dishes we enjoy, and it’s no help to anyone, let alone us, to sit around complaining.

But possibly the one longing I could never get over was for real, all-natural peanut butter.  Those of you who know me (Deron) know that I consume peanut butter like your big American SUV consumes gas.  Rapidly, and in large quantities.

But it’s not a popular item here, and the few you can find are quite expensive and more like Skippy.   I long to share with our Bosnian friends the delights of all-natural PB.  Now, peanut butter is one of those things that is expensive to mail, and doesn’t fit our packing standard (it has a quite low longevity-to-weight ratio).  For a long time I’ve meant to look for a quality food processor that we could grind our own peanuts with, but have never pulled the trigger.  Our cheapo one couldn’t handle it.  So basically we do without.

But upon returning to Bos this time I was more determined.  Tonight on a whim I pulled out a simple handheld immersion mixer a friend gave us and went to work on some peanuts.  Added some oil and then honey to offset their oversaltedness, and BAM.  No, seriously, BAM.  Jess took one bite and her eyes grew to silver-dollar size.  I was dancing in the living room.

Coming up for dinner tonight: PB&Js!

And now on to learning to roast our own coffee beans…

Yes, the yield was small, but I was dealing with the tiny bit we had on hand.  And check the quality…look at those nuggets, and the color!  There’s a business opportunity here.

We’re having a…

Our second baby is due right around Thanksgiving.  We have decided not to find out our baby’s sex ahead of time.  What a cool surprise, huh?

In the meantime, EVERYONE has opinions, and freely shares them with us.  A stranger in an elevator took one look at Jess and gave his opinion.  Most recently, we were in a coffee shop a week ago and the owner, barista, and a patron got into an excited discussion about it.  They were all certain that it’s a boy.  Gabi has alternated in her opinion.

So we’ve decided to open the floor for opinions.  What do you think we’re having?  It doesn’t matter if you’ve watched Jess’ belly grow or are thousands of miles away…take a stab at it!  Could be a hunch, could be something genetic, could be the position of her tummy, could be a word from the Lord.  Vote on the link on the right sidebar of our blog.

Comments welcome, if you want to tell us the method to your discernment.

Yes, of course we wonder.  But no, we aren’t really hoping for one or the other.  Either way, s/he is ours and is coming home with us from the hospital!

Quote of the day: At home and foreign in every land

“For the Christians are distinguished from other people neither by land, nor language, nor customs; for they do not inhabit cities of their own, nor use a particular language, nor lead a life that is unusual…But inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according to each person’s lot…they display to us their wonderful and admittedly paradoxical way of life. They inhabit their homelands, but as strangers…Every foreign land is their homeland, and every homeland a foreign land.”

– Epistle to Diogenetus, 2nd or 3rd C

Irvin, Dale T., and Scott W. Sunquist. History of the World Christian Movement: Earliest Christianity to 1453. Orbis, 2001: 96

Quote of the day: The infinite adaptability of the one truth

“The translational principle explicitly rejects the idea, enshrined in Christendom, that Christianity has a definitive cultural expression, that non-Christian peoples must embrace another culture as a condition for salvation. To editorialize John 14:6,

Christ cannot be the way if he does not know where we are coming from or meet us where we are.

Christ cannot be the truth if he is not providing answers to the particular questions we are asking.

Christ cannot be the life if he does not embody our humanity (framed by our specific contextual experiences and cultural heritage).”

– Jehu Hanciles

Hanciles, Jehu. 2008. Beyond christendom : globalization, African migration, and the transformation of the West. p105

Nice.

Right now we are enjoying a very pleasant surprise, which we never saw coming.

In eight hours, we’ll board the flight that will eventually take us to the States. We are in Prague, finishing a co-worker’s wedding and a couple days seeing the city. But our flight tomorrow is at 6am, which presented a big problem. What to do the night before, and how to maximize Gabi’s sleep? We want as cheerful a little girl as possible before a long plane flight. PRG airport is 17km from the city. As mentioned in the previous post, we have a lot of luggage. Public transportation would not be possible if we stayed in the city. I looked into airport hotel rooms (though I can’t stand paying $100+ for a room I’ll spend very little time in, I’m learning as a parent that some of these expenses are necessary), but even that would mean leaving the room at 4am and waking Gabi reeeaally early. So we decided to look for a comfy-ish place to sleep in the airport, a corner where we could put Gabi down in her travel bed. She’d be able to sleep a precious extra hour, and we’d be calmer knowing that we’re already at our destination. Of course, we predicted lousy sleep for the two of us, and a chance that Gabi would be awakened repeatedly.

Tough choice. We decided to scope out the airport and see how it looked, and then get a hotel room if necessary.

Unexpected surprise #1: We were able to check our heavy bags in at 6pm the night before our flight. Words can’t express how relieved we are to see all that stuff float down the belt and off to some back hangar, hopefully for a reunion in SEA.

Unexpected surprise #2: The woman at the check in counter didn’t give us any flack for bag weight. Some of our bags were definitely on the edge, and the wrong agent can make life quite difficult. Big smiles and small talk get you a long way in any culture.

Unexpected surprise #3: Ducking down an out of the way hallway on the third floor, we found the “Mama s Detmi” (mother with child) room. Huge score. This 20×20 carpeted playroom has a changing table, sink, table and chairs, a baby see-saw, a crib in the corner, and decorations of Lightning McQueen all over the walls! Oh, and it’s empty. Gabi had dinner and went to bed on time, and she’s been in dream land for three hours now. Jess and I got to spend some precious time in prayer for the huge transition ahead of us. We haven’t had nearly enough of that lately.

This is such a great gift from the Lord. It’s amazing how the little things mean so much to you, especially when you’re in flux. Where we expected constant loud flight announcements and bright lights on a hard floor, we instead got a quiet room with a quite romantic view of the sun setting on the runway. And now here I am blogging while Jess sleeps a few feet away.

So far our only guests have been an employee on break and a guy without kids, both of whom quickly excused themselves. If you’re reading this, pray for seven more quiet hours! And pray that we get some sleep.

*I’m slightly hesitant to blab the secret of the Mama s Detmi room, but I suppose the overlap is quite small between readers of our blog (a few) and people traveling through Prague and looking to sleep in the airport. So don’t worry PRG, your secret’s safe with us!

Deron’s classes at Fuller

Here’s what’s coming up in the next year:

Biblical Theology of Mission
Anthropology
Systematic Theology: Christology and Soteriology
Leadership & Teamwork
Research Methods
Discipleship in Secular Society
The Church & Mission
Theology in Global Context
The Making of Global Christianity
Popular Islamic Piety
Thinking Missiologically
Language and Culture Learning

All that plus a thesis…I’m excited and terrified at the same time!

The church and evil

What if, someone will ask, the people who now bear the solution become themselves part of the problem as happened before? Yes, that is a problem and it must be addressed. The church is never more in danger than when it sees itself simply as the solution-bearer and forgets that every day it too must say, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner,” and allow that confession to work its way into genuine humility even as it stands boldly before the world and its crazy empires. In particular, it is a problem if and when a “Christian” empire seeks to impose its will dualistically on the world by labeling other parts of the world “evil” while seeing itself as the avenging army of God. That is more or less exactly what Jesus found in the Israel of his day. The cross was and remains a call to a different vocation, a new way of dealing with evil and ultimately a new vision of God.

– From NT Wright’s excellent “Evil and the Justice of God”, p.99