Marulaon Woman's Daybook

Just for today...Monday, May 19

Outside my window...gray and rainy, thanks to lots of people praying for rain.  The wind is blowing, too, so it's a nice, "cool" day here in Marulaon.  Clothes are drying underneath the house, because if I wait to do laundry, our dirty, sweaty clothes make the house too stinky.

Noticing that...I'm missing the NBA playoffs.  Go Spurs!

Praying for...a dear friend from college who is having surgery today to remove a brain tumor.

From the learning rooms...Benjamin starting Algebra I; reading about John Williams (the composer, not my brother) as we finish up "A Young Scholar's Guide to Composers"; flying through the 1970's and 1980's with Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan, the Cold War winding down (Peter Sis has written a great picture book, "The Wall", that is very appropriate introduction to the Cold War for children).  The school year is rapidly coming to a close!

A heart of gratitude for...Leku and Vauma who took this crazy woman fishing today.  We got soaking wet, stayed out for four hours, laughed a lot, and my arms got a good workout as we paddled around two islands.

Crafting in the kitchen...our "bounty", fifteen tiny fish.

On my bookshelf...still enjoying "Soul Survivor" by Philip Yancey.  I don't have much time to read when we are out here in the village, and this book requires some ruminating.

I am hearing...Suite from "Memoirs of a Geisha" for Cello and Orchestra, by John Williams

Around the house...Olivia staged a puppet show this afternoon to complete her Language Arts assignment of writing a script

Pondering these words...I belong, with Robert Coles, to a privileged minority.  Everyone reading this sentence belongs, in fact, for only a small percentage of the word's people has the ability and leisure to read and the resources to buy a book.  [We've found this to be SO true!]  How do we, the "privileged ones," act as stewards of the grace we have received?  We can begin, Coles tells us, by ripping off the labels we so thoughtlessly slap on others unlike ourselves.  We can begin by finding a community that nourishes compassion for the weak, an instinct that privilege tends to suppress.  We can begin with humility and gratitude and reverence, and then move on to pray without ceasing for the greater gift of love.  ~Philip Yancey, on his chapter about Dr. Robert Coles in "Soul Survivor"

One of my favorite things...a birthday box mailed in December that arrives in May.

A few plans for the rest of the week...making banana cake early tomorrow morning for the opening of a women's sewing workshop, going to the garden on Wednesday to harvest umalau for Aaron's trip to Laola Village on Thursday morning.  He'll be holding a review workshop for the four Lavukal translators and should return on Saturday evening.