We have a dresser

Holy cow.  I've been working my butt off this week!  I would be working now too, except in have such a horrible headache that I can't do anything but be still.  I do like to take take a sabbath on Sunday, but somehow I can manage too.  I feel like God was reminding me that this is not a recommendation, but a commandment by forcing me to sit still.  I have never understood that commandment.  Jesus did heal on the sabbath, but does that mean we are now permitted to go a million miles an hour on that day?  It seems like it is the most disregarded commandment.  I guess that is why I don't really follow it.  Isn't that awful, we are not meant to have a peer pressured faith.

Moving on, or back, the house is coming together.  We bribed a friend today to help us move our dresser in.  We are having him for dinner tomorrow.  Speaking of our dresser, I went with Nik to our storage in Bozo yesterday... Holy cow!  There is so much junk in there.  And in this case I really do mean junk.  There is quite a bit of wonderful finds (the dresser of course, my clock that my grandpa G made, a butter dish, mattresses and who knows what else that we haven't uncovered yet), but we will be having a garage sale this summer.  I cannot believe we acquired so much in only two years in Bozo.  Wow.

So we have a dresser again.  I would really like some couches though.  A sofa to sit on.  I might write a ode to a sofa.  So far, we have comfy folding chairs, which are great, don't get me wrong, but it's been over a month of folding chairs, and well, didn't I just tell you I've been working my butt off?  This butt would like a sofa.

I still love Big Twig!  I love not living in a city!  I love having a small community.  Might send my son to the next state over to find a wife, just to make sure he's not related to her, but love, love, love this town.  I hope that never changes.

Still traveling

I am doing more traveling now than I was when I was an expat.  We use our suitcases to travel to Billings, Bozeman, and the ranch every week!  In a way, I love it.  I don't have to live in a city any more to enjoy the benefits of one.  Of course, traveling so much can be wearing, but, eh, keeps you young right?  We rush, rush, rush to pack food, clothes, diapers, milk, meds, snow clothes, and other things we might need for the day or over night, than we get to relax when we get there.  That is except for all the errands that must be taken care of in the city or the work that needs done on the ranch.  I love my busy life.  That's not to say I don't get exhausted, but it's nice to have so much to do.

It's not that I didn't have a lot to do in Doha, but going to the store seemed more exhausting than here, even with the store being over an hour away here.  Funny.  I guess part of it is, you never knew if the shopping trip would be successful, or more precisely, more often than not you got home empty handed in Doha.  Looking for the ingredients for that recipe, either takes all day and every grocery store there is, or it takes all day and every grocery store and you still get home having to make something else.  Ya know what I mean?  A different sort of exhausting.

Well, my hubby just got home with an ingredient I forgot for tonight.  

At the end of a gun

He held his fingers like a gun to his own chest as he told me was shot at point blank range in the chest.  The "mugger" didn't wait for him to hand over his money, he seemed more interested in beating and shooting him.  The surgeon who put him back together said he should not have lived long enough to get to the OR.  But God decided he was going to live.

There is so much more to his story.  I met M and his wife at my best friend's house before her wedding last week.  We all stayed up late talking about our experiences at the end of a gun.  Dispute his experience being extremely more devastating than my own, it was amazing the shared experiences and feelings we have had.  Seeing "our guy" everywhere, taking to insurance or people wanting a bill paid and how painful that experience can be, panic attacks when you don't feel sacred, and so much more crap.

I feel like God ordained that conversation.  It was so healing to talk for hours with someone with a similar experience.  It was similar to the expat connection, but stronger.  I will be praying for M and his family for the rest of my life.  I hope I get to see them again, but it was a huge gift from God to be able to have that conversation.  It took away some of the pain.  I also feel enabled to share my story now.  I have in the past, but now I feel like God can use my story.  It's not just something I need to get over, get past, but something that makes me who I am and who I am for God.  I have been through a terrible experience and God can use it in more than my life, but others lives.

God make me a servant, faithful and true

Transitioning "home"

I love Big Timber.  We are related to basically everyone in town though.  That could get a bit sticky for my boy in the future.  Everyone is friendly.  It feels nice to be in a community that seems to really care, or at least they care because they know a reputation can be hurt much more easily (or quickly) in a small town.

We go to a Bible preaching church, which happens to be the same one that my Pop's employees go to.  We don't know if they feel awkward that we are there.  I suppose they do, but that's where we are for now, and we think it might be the right fit for us.  I talked with my husband and we talked about how we are Christians first, and Pop's so and daughter-in-law after that.  I think if we give it time, it will work itself out.

I miss my church in Qatar though.  The tight community, my friends, lunch after church every week...  It was a huge church, but never felt like one until the end when we moved to church city.  How are they doing?  I miss them, I want to cry, but I still haven't.  My dear sweet sisters-in-Christ.  How I miss you.  I am so glad we will see each other again in heaven.

I met a lady in the grocery store next town over that was a in Zimbabwe for a number of years.  She said we could get together for coffee.  I think I might have to find her when we get back from the wedding.  I feel in need of a connection to expat life.  Another woman here said we could talk if I ever felt like the one person in Big Timber who wasn't from here.  I get that, but I don't mind it at all yet.

I do feel alone though.  I miss the close friendships, and I know it will take time before I have that again.  God will provide, but I miss my dear sweet friends.  I'm glad I have my work for my Pop.  It gives me some outside purpose other than myself.  I can focus completely on someone else when I am working for him.  It feels good to do that.

I am also visiting at the assisted living here in town.  I love that!  I feel like my boys smiles are a gift to them, and again being able to focus on others is a gift to me.  It is not good for one's world to be too small.  Better to think of others.

I need to remember that in my marriage too!  I feel so selfish sometimes, trying to find time to cook or read or run errands.  I know it isn't, but when I am asking my husband to give up free time, I feel like I need to have a good reason.

So, life is good.

Are you out there?  Are you reading this?  How is your transition home?  Wherever home is?

My boy woke up from his nap.  Better wrap this up.  

How many people can you fit in a Qatari SUV?

http://dohanews.co/baby-leopard-attacks-boy-at-circus-outside-of-hyatt-plaza/

The latest story in people getting hurt in Doha because of lack of sufficient for thought.  Taking pictures with leopards does sound like a risk, but I don't know what the correct precautions should have been. While in Qatar, labor workers often paid the price of insufficient for thought.  Construction workers forced to work in heat that could kill, in conditions they could not control.  Often they can't even quit their job and go home because their passports were confiscated by their company or their wages were never paid this they have no funds to return home.  The human rights abuses were numerous, but perhaps that subject is for another day.  (Though I should mention I was afraid to ever post such a thing while in Qatar for fear my husband and I would be deported)

Do you remeber he thirteen children who died in a fire in the Villagio mall a couple years ago.  If only fire codes were enforced more strictly.  I am encouraged that it is getting better, but that never should have happened!  It still makes me sick!  At least an hour after the fire had started people were still leaving.  If ant even say evacuating as I picked up a visiting family member from the mall at least an hour later.  The family member had looked around for opa while before mosing out.  There was NO indication there was any danger.  Not even the security that were there rushed people out.  People were still being served their meals at resturants as children died trapped in the upstairs nursery.  Waiter and waitresses said it was nothing.  If I wasn't so furious at the insanity, I would vomit!

More than once I saw children standing in cars.  Children and maids crouding a trunk.  I will try to find the picture that I took when I counted at least eight children in the trunk in the SUV ahead of me.  The law only requires seat belts in the front seat.  Car seats are not even required for infants.  Do I need to tell you how many fatalities from car accidents there are in Qatar?  Who are the childrens advocates?  Signs don't work, there needs to be an enforced law!  

http://qataraccidents.org/2011/02/09/deaths-and-violations-by-the-number/

From the above Qatari govt website you can see someone is trying at least.  But it is hard to go against a cultural trend.  

Qatari road rules for the newbie:  

1.  If a car behind you flashes you with head lights, that means,"this is my lane, I don't care that you are going the speed limit, I want to go faster, and you are in my way.  Move."

2.  Flashing green trafic light means put on the breaks so that you won't get a fine of well over $1000 for running a red light.

3.  Be aggressive enough not to get killed, yet defensive enough not to get killed.  Only a mixture will save your life.

4.  Middle lane tends to be the safe lane.

5.  In a round about, the center most lane has the right of way.  As well  as whoever has been in the round about the longest.

6.  Other drivers are not your friends.  The only way to get them to let you in is if you are persistently trying to make eye contact and when they finally cave try to look pitiful and point out the baby in the back seat.  On the contrary, never let someone in.  

7.  Learn the roads, back streets will help you get places faster than the main ones some times.

Oh Qatar.  I made the best friends I ever have made in my life in your country, but there were times when you made me cry.

Expat women, what was the best  and worst from the country you left?  Tell me.  

With love, me