earthsedge

This has been an eventful week for us. Chris finished his communications course and Aidan turned 18 months old. As a part of graduation for Chris’ school, we went with his classmates and staff to Lausanne by boat. Aidan loved eating in the nice dinning compartment and watching the water from the bow of the boat. It was also a special time for Chris and his classmates, as they thanked their staff and spent a little time together before everyone goes their separate ways.

We now have next week off, to relax a little and for Chris to get ready for the next course: a three month science and humanities school. After that, Chris just has to write a thesis and he’s finished with his degree. We’ll be writing more about what’s next sometime soon.

I am doing well. Last week was pretty busy for me. I helped to edit 9 research papers for the students in Chris’ class. It was a lot of late nights but so worth it to see people able to turn in high quality papers. It was also a good experience for me. I wouldn’t consider myself as a grammar guru, but after coaching the ESL students in that area, I have at least improved in my ability to spot grammar mistakes and help others write more polished papers.

And finally, it’s time for a little Aidan update! We are constantly amazed at how much he is changing and growing. Many of our co-workers have commented on how he’s changed, becoming more expressive and more talkative with the people here. And, of course, everyone knows how much he loves tractors; they are always willing to start up a conversation with him about his “great love”!

In addition to loving motorized vehicles of any size, Aidan is turning into a little fish. We have a real difficult time keeping him away from water. He loves splashing in pools or fountains but he’s even content to play with the sink faucet. On hot days, he can spend hours playing with buckets of water, splashing, spilling, drinking (nasty!), and wading in the water.

Aidan is also doing incredibly well with speaking. Many children his age have a vocabulary of 20 words or so; we’ve lost count, but it’s at least over a hundred. A few weeks ago, he began putting short sentences together. Some of the sentences that you might hear if you hang around him are:“Want a more, Maaa!” (“Ma” is his way of saying please); “I want cheese;” “Where’s Daddy?”; “Where’s tractor?”; and, “Go car!” (translation, “I want to go somewhere in a car.”). He’s still working on his pronunciation though. Instead of “boat” he says, “butt”; he prefers, “cracky” to “cracker” and sometimes likes to call his Daddy, “Da-dees.”

And finally, it should be said that Aidan got to ride on a tractor yesterday! He’s waited his whole life for this special event. He was very serious about it, sitting very carefully on Chris’ lap, but he did loosen up enough to play with the steering wheel and honk the horn. Here’s a few pictures from the last month.

The big moment:

Playing on the slide in Lausanne. Aidan loves to climb up and down.

On the boat, wearing his new John Deere vest from grandma:

Swinging:

Aidan’s routine is to wake up and lie on his back saying, “tractor” over and over again.

Eating cherries:

Lining up his tractors. Not quite as orderly as Edith and Emma!

Little hiker:

Two Sundays ago, I took the ferry across Lake Geneva to Yvoire, France. Yvoire is a medieval village, enclosed by a high wall and built on the hilly shore of Lac Leman (as Lake Geneva is known “on the other side”).

The houses are crumbling stone and mortar, crawling with vines and adorned with more flowers than you could find at your local nursery. There are more shops than actual residents and only a handful of streets to explore, but what it lacks in size, Yvoire compensates with charm.

Every detail of the décor of the town serves to make it one of the most eye-pleasing towns I’ve ever seen: flowering and broad-leafed vines spiral up the ancient walls;

artisan signs hang over every shop entrance;

and little antique embellishments are tucked-away, like the old grinding stone in a courtyard and a rusting bike leaning forlorn against a wine shop window.

But what’s a trip to France without eating a crepe? The highlight of the day for me was using what little French I knew to order crepes for myself and the three other girls I was traveling with: 4 lemon crepes with cream, from a street vendor. We sat down on a bench to try and eat them with our plastic forks (which is very nearly impossible, I have to say) when a man slowed down, smiled at us and said, “Bon Appetite!” By then, most of my unsubstantiated prejudice against the French had melted away and I was planning another trip to France. Hopefully Chris and Aidan will be able to come next time!

It’s a rainy spring day in Switzerland and the weather has forced us indoors. Bad weather for Aidan who prefers to spend every waking moment outside, but perfect for writing!

Chris has settled into his communications course. His schedule is pretty full, with class in the morning and on some evenings, work in the afternoon and enough homework to fill in the remaining hours. Needless to say, he looks forward to the weekends! Although the school is busy, he’s enjoying it and we feel it’s the perfect place for us at the moment.

Aidan and I are also settling into our daily routine. The people here are great and have helped us a lot with orientation. Aidan is having a little trouble still with sleeping through the night, but each night is a little better than the last. Burtigny, where we are staying, is a small village about a half hour outside Geneva. We’re surrounded by farms on hills, each sloping further until they meet the Jura mountains. Across Lake Geneva (or “Lac Leman”) are the Alps. They are especially clear after it rains.

The other day, Aidan and I had a little adventure taking the bus into a nearby town. I got off at the wrong bus stop and discovered that asking for directions is a bit problematic when I don’t speak French and most people here don’t speak any English. So I was forced to use the few words I do know and lots of embarrassing sign language. Thankfully, people here are very patient with foreigners and I eventually found my way to the grocery store and back home again. I hope to pick up some “survival” French in the weeks to come.

I’m still trying to decide how I can help out around the base while still maintaining Aidan’s schedule. I had a meeting today about this and it was such a relief to discover that people are flexible and sensitive to our needs as a family. So whatever I end up doing, I should be a nice balance of being a mom and doing enough work to keep me sane.

Wednesday night was “Swiss Night” and we celebrated by wearing red and white and sampling food from the different regions of the country. I love that bread and cheese are staple foods…and of course there is some awesome chocolate! Here are some random facts about Switzerland that I find interesting:

• There are 4 national languages (French, German, Italian and Romansh). We are staying in the French speaking part of the country.
• All Swiss citizens have the right to challenge a law passed in Parliament or to call for a vote to amend the constitution (direct democracy).
• Recycling is free but it usually costs to have your garbage collected; as a result, Switzerland is one of the top recycling countries in the world.

Here are a few pictures from a walk around the area.

If I had to pick one word to describe Aidan these days: busy. He’s always on the move; walking/running/falling/climbing/eating/drinking-or some combination of all these verbs. He usually has at least one toy, blanket, or sippy cup in tow with him as he bumbles around the house. He loves to explore, take baths, throw things down the stairs (and then follow them), dance, play with cars, trucks, or trains, and open/close doors.  His favorite, however, is definitely going “vroom” (any outing in the car).

He’s speaking so much more than I imagined he would at this age and has an uncanny way of communicating through his tone of voice, even if he doesn’t have the right words. The other day I was putting on my makeup and he tottered into the bathroom and pointed to something on the counter. He babbled something in an inquisitive tone that made me wonder if he had just asked, “What’s that?” So I told him, “That’s my deodorant”. He then preceded to babble something else that sounded like, “I want to see.” So I picked him up to let him take a closer look. “Ooooh!” he said. But it was the look of satisfaction that really touched me! He was pleased that he had made himself understood. When he’s not having to depend on intonation to get his meaning across, Aidan is using real words. Some of his favorites are: abple (Apple), trat (train), truck, car, vroom! (what he says everytime he sees his Grandpa), cracker, Gordon, (his favorite Thomas the Train character), hi, grapa & mah-maw (grandpa & grandma), foof (flower), thoos (auntie Sus or shoes), mema/eeda (emma and edith, his cousins), and the ever constant “oooh!.”  This is one of our favorites; he has about 15 different meanings and sounds for “oh”, ranging from extreme excitement to a statement of disappointment. It’s not uncommon for him to wander over to the refrigerator and say “aiya” (his word for water or milk) while trying to open it, or to the pantry and say “cracker”. He loves to share, but hasn’t quite gotten the concept of letting someone keep what he gives them! Just yesterday he put his pacifier in Chris’ mouth, smiled, and then yanked it out and put it back into his own mouth!

Aidan also loves to be around people. He squeals with excitement when he sees his cousins or other kids his age. If he finds himself at home with no visitors he goes to the door and bangs on it while shouting, “Out!” If he’s lucky enough to go on an outing, he expects every stranger to talk to him. He watches people approach him while on a walk and if they keep on going without greeting him, he usually turns to follow them, all while saying “hi! hi!” with his lower jaw thrust downward and a funny added syllable to the word. He’s a charming little boy! Here’s some recent pics:

Climbing on a chair (right after I took this he fell over backwards, then climbed right back on):

In mid “ohh”:

In his favorite (ok, maybe it’s ours) hat:

Playing with Thomas trains at Art Mart:

Grandma gave Aidan a Thomas toothbrush that plays music. He loves to dance while brushing his teeth:

Last week I was asked to help out with a new staff training day. The ministry team that we work with was giving some teaching on how to function in such a diverse organization. Myself and three others from different ethnic backgrounds shared our experiences working cross-culturally. First, a man from Venezuela shared some of the biggest challenges he faced when he came to Holland. He had a lot of trouble with greetings. Instead of the enthusiastic hugs that Venezuelans give each other when they meet, he was shocked that people could pass by him in the hallway without even saying “hello”. He shared the frustration and the rejection that he felt, until he recognized that it wasn’t a personal problem but a cultural difference. Today, he’s very well adapted to the culture and at the same time, he still has his Venezuelan flair.

Two others shared as well: a Dutch woman gave her perspective as someone from the host culture; and a man from Zimbabwe shared his challenges and how he overcame them. I also got to talk about what it’s like being an American in Europe, where people tend to judge me based on my nationality (or rather, the politics and culture of my nationality!) and not for who I am as a person. At the end of the training session all of the new staff had the opportunity to share something. I was amazed at the response; there was a lot of heated discussion, tough questions, newly found cultural understanding and even some unresolved pain coming up. At the very heart of it, I got the sense that people were so grateful that they could share part of their story and at the same time, come to appreciate others’ stories a little bit more.

This week, our organization started a three month training course for leaders. Seventy people from at least thirty different nations arrived on the base to receive training and develop vision for their ministries all over the world. Chris and I won’t be part of this training directly, but I mention it because one week of the training will be focused on this whole area of intercultural relationships.  Our team leader will be facilitating the training, which will be similar to the intercultural workshop we facilitated in June. In some ways, this whole issue is kind of like the big white elephant in the room of world missions: everyone knows it’s there, but no one wants to talk about it.  But if we don’t, we can’t move forward. We really believe that this is such a significant moment; to have leaders from all over the world gathered together and equipped to work together in unity. Would you please pray for this week of training? Thanks!!