Future Dog Trainer

Dear Mrs. Kern,
I am giving you; DOG INSGRUKSHUNS.
HECTOR
it begens, Today. So, step 1. When you come in the door from sumwhar, and He starts barcing, say, "Hollo" and egnor him. don't say, "good boy good boy!" utherwise, he will thingk munooering is a good thing. and it's not. (it's gros)
MOLLY
When I come to your house, I will show you this. Ok? Good.
Love,
Gretchen
(p.s. When my mom herd this she was in laphe world! ha ha ha) :)

Ancient & Modern Egypt at the Children's Museum

On Friday I hauled the kids down to Indianapolis because King Tut has come to the Children's Museum! It just so happens we've been studying Ancient Egypt as we work our way chronologically through history, and King Tut will only be there until late October.

What the Exhibit was Like
There were lots of amazing statues of pharoahs and viziers, treasures from their tombs, a gold mask of somebody, and plenty of text to read. I skimmed the text as quickly as I could so I could attend to my younger ones, who were more interested in wrapping up the visit asap. As we wove our way through the display, I kept thinking we'd see King Tut's sarcophagus just around the corner. Or, knowing how creative the Children's Museum is, maybe they'd even have a make-believe display of his tomb you could walk through. But no King Tut! No sarcophagus anywhere! Not sure why they marketed it as a King Tut exhibit.

In fact, it wasn't really a typical display for this museum. In other words, it wasn't a children's exhibit. It was for adults. And in fact, it was mostly adults surrounding me. It was dark and quiet and we felt we should whisper. I felt bad for another mom whose two-year-old was begging to be put down for a nap. I offered her snacks and admitted that all those security guards everywhere would probably kick me out! But no, he needed sleep, not food. And he certainly didn't appreciate the age of the artwork in front of him.



The Modern Egypt exhibit, in contrast, was quite impressive. Housed where you've seen the World Cultures exhibit, the entire area was dedicated to the culture of modern day Egypt. Here you see Jonas riding a croc on the Nile. I didn't take enough pictures. After "boarding" a plane to the country and learning some intro Egyptian, we visited a restaurant, a home, a store where you can buy head coverings, and much more to educate us on life in Egypt.

On Head Coverings
The toys marketed to kids there, interestingly, had girls all wearing head coverings. It prompted a good discussion on the ride home between my girls and me about the subject. In Egypt, head coverings are not required. It's up to the discretion of the individual or the family. As a Christian, I asked my girls, what would you do? Some Christians choose to wear head coverings, but they are quite different from the Muslim coverings. You could go along with it. Or you could wear a covering but more in the Mennonite style. How do we exhibit a testimony for Christ in a culture that has higher standards of modesty? This is a great question for my friend Alicia whose family is serving in Morocco.

The Law of Non-Contradiction

Here was a little education for our kids: two contradicting statements cannot be true at the same time. For about the fourth time since we've moved here, an accident occurred on our street corner. The green car and the black car attempted to share the same space at the same time. And the law of non-contradiction said that was impossible. Many like to believe that it is possible for you to create your own reality and believe two things that contradict each other. I don't think either driver actually believed this here; one driver just didn't stop. In the words of Ravi Zacharias, "Even in India, we must look both ways before crossing the street."

I should mention that they learned another lesson though, in observing the gentle care shown these young women, how EMTs work, and how to keep a clear head in the midst of panic.

Updated note: both drivers, ages 19 and 16, only suffered only bumps and bruises. One, however, incurred a financial migraine.

Happy Birthday #5 Colette

Today we celebrated Colette's birthday with a pink horse cake. Tomorrow she gets her first birthday party. I only do parties for the kids when they turn 5, 10, 15, and maybe 20. A formula is sort of developing: party #5 gets a pinata, party #10 is an overnight. I'm thinking about making party #15 something of a rite-of-passage event, acknowledging the son or daughter moving into manhood or womanhood. Today I just enjoy my little girl. She's cute and sweet, and easy to please.

Practicing Hospitality

The blog Girl Talk discusses in this post on hospitality about how we feel pressure to perform when we practice hospitality--putting on a Paula Deen spread, as they put it. It brought back memories of my years as a young married. (Happy 14th anniversary to my sweetie, today, by the way!) I remember being struck by how easy going my friend Deb was about having me over... actually about everything. But specifically I remember she didn't worry if her house was spotless and she had a clean tablecloth (in fact, I don't remember a tablecloth!), with all the formal accessories of hosting company. I remember how she focused on blessing me and fellowshipping with me. I felt ministered to by her opening her home, and her being secure in the fact that it wasn't perfect. She didn't try to fool me into thinking she had it all together. I simply saw that she was very much like the Proverbs 31 woman who laughs at the days to come... and at the little inconveniences in life--like her toddler playing in the toilet. She just laughed at her little girl as she pulled her away and said, "We're not going to do that!" I thought to myself, "I want to be a mom like this."

The Bible instructs us to practice hospitality. Romans 12:13 says, "Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality." In fact, it's not an option. I believe it's not only our duty but our honor and pleasure to open our home to others, favorite friends or not. After all, everything we have is the Lord's, including our home. I think we get intimidated by the thought of all the cleaning we'd want to do, or the inconvenience of cooking something special. But the Lord just wants us to open our homes and our resources up to others. After all, He's been so good to us and so generous, how can we hoard what we have to ourselves?

I'm guilty of not doing this lately, and I say it's because my husband's been in school. But I can still open my home to friends, and that's what I'm motivated to do now. Paula Deen, I'm not even going to try to compete with you! Lunch, anyone?