Preseason?

I feel like I'm in preseason for volleyball all over again. We have a bunch of new teammates, I sweat a lot during the day, I'm working (in a different way), I can't get enough water, and my legs ache by the end of the day. Yep, sounds like preseason.

It was strange as we got off the plane, left the airport, and drove through the city...it was so familiar. It didn't seem like such a new place. It was weird to recognize roads that were being worked on, and changes in surroundings. I never thought A-stan would become my familiar. At the same time, this summer felt so familiar. I almost feel as if it is somewhere in the middle of these two countries that I would call home now. We're settling into our new house...two doors down from our house last year. It feels so much more like a home this year. We knew the things we needed to bring to make it that way, and we collected so much over last year to help. Pictures and wall decals are on the walls, and our speakers are constantly playing our new music. It's nice. Of course, a home in A-stan doesn't come without it's challenges. Our upstairs shower had a short in the water heater, so we began to shower downstairs. We started to notice water pooling up in our kitchen (right next to the bathroom) whenever we showered. Yesterday was the worst, and we woke up this morning with water coming from under our kitchen cabinets. Needless to say, our kitchen will be turned into a big project one day this week. I'm so thankful for the friends and family we have made here. Our water is turned off, but three different houses of friends have offered up their showers and washing machines. Being here truly teaches and introduces a new sense of community.

The community here is so refreshing to be back and be apart of again. On our first night back, we were invited over for homemade pizza for dinner by a family involved in our school. This family also made us muffins for the next days breakfast. A few night later, we shared dessert with leaders in the community, and we're heading to someone's home for dinner tonight. I'm so thankful that God provides us with community to help remind us of His love.

Today, I was reminded again. As I was walking down the street, a national staff worker stopped me on the street. He pulled out an envelope and said he was told to give it to me from his daughter. His daughter will be in fourth grade this year. She is precious. She wrote me a welcome back to A-stan note (in beautiful handwriting might I add!), and put in a beaded bracelet also. :) She is so excited to start school and see all the teachers. It was a perfect reminder of why we came back. It erased the frustrations from our house, and the dust and heat didn't feel so bad.

Please continue to pr*ay for us as we start school meetings tomorrow, as we still look to fill a few positions, and as we continue to settle in.

Love,
Kaley

Summer and What Comes Next

Sorry we've been out of touch on here for a while. The spring and the end of the school year we're very chaotic. It seemed like every weekend and weeknight were filled with activities and end of the year events. As I'm sure you've figured out via the facebook world, we're back in the states. We flew into Ohio at the end of June. We've been in Ohio, Maryland, and a little time in Tennessee (too short of a time!). We're heading to Florida with my family next week, and then we'll have about a week in Ohio to close out our summer. We just wanted to let you know where we were, and update you on our plan for next year.

We'll be flying back to Dubai on the 6th, and we'll get into A-stan on the 9th. Yes, that means we're going back for another school year! There are (as always) uncertainties still with the country and even the school, but we feel reassured in our call and our decision to go back. We are really excited about another year with the students and staff at the school. Thank you for your prayers and support up until this point, and thank you for continuing to pray for us through the rest of the summer and this next school year.

We're making it our goal to do a better job at blogging, for our family's sake and for our memory's sake.  Feel free to e-mail us at any time at humbleupdates@gmail.com, and we'll do our best to show you our year through pictures on facebook and our thoughts on here.

-Kaley

"Normal" Life

In February, we sent out an e-mail updating everyone on the current situation and struggles of our school. Every time a major deadline has occurred, we have managed to make it. Situations still arise, but we're in an OK place as a school right now. We wanted to thank everyone for praying for the school in these situations, and ask for continued prayer as we close out the school year (less than 2 months left).

In other news, we got to escape for a little while for our spring break. We took a one-flight trip this time, instead a 30 plus hour trip like Thailand. We went to Abu Dhabi and truly got to relax. We rode a camel, did some sand surfing, went four wheeling in the dessert, ate too many donuts, saw a movie, swam in the Arabian Gulf, and lounged by a pool. I’m so thankful for that escape. It came at a good time, and seems just enough to help get me to the end of the school year. Things like going out to a restaurant for a date with Levi is something I will never take for granted again. It was so nice to be able to walk around freely together, and have hints of western life every once and a while. It’s funny to me that I consider Dubai and Abu Dhabi a “western escape.” Coming from the US it doesn’t seem like one, but going there from here sure does! Of course…coming back to K-town with blooming trees and warmer weather made things a little easier. Our house finally thawed.
We didn't take many videos in Abu Dhabi, but we put what we had together to show a little glimpse. Feel free to check out some other pictures on our facebooks.

On a not as positive note about life here, I’m sure you saw the news this week or saw one of our facebook statuses. I spent about three and a half hours in my classroom with my class and third grade. We had our safe-room gates locked, curtains closed, and children silent (mostly). It’s hard being the mother hen in a situation like that. Trying to stay calm and not show any fear, while hearing gunfire and explosions in the distance, is not an easy task. I’m thankful for a God who lets me call on him at any moment. There was thankfully a slight lull in the action, and we got all of our students back with their families. We locked ourselves into our house on Sunday night, and went to bed around 10:15. By midnight we were up again because of the “sounds in the night.” We moved downstairs to the couch, and attempted sleeping. It was a rough and loud night. Psalm 91 has been a great passage for this entire year, but especially that night. Some of my favorite verses from it: vs. 4 and 5 “He will cover you with his feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge; His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day…” Talk about relevant!

Needless to say, we didn’t have school the next day. The fighting stopped around eight in the morning, and we were eventually cleared to leave our houses. We were blessed to share a pancake breakfast at another family’s house (on campus). It was a nice reminder of community, and a nice debriefing time.

It’s hard to explain, but I still do not fear living here. Yes, fear began to creep in through the loud booms, but there was still a reassuring peace in the morning. 

Thank you for your continued prayers for us, the students, school, the teachers, and this land.

Love you,

Kaley

little things

Well, we made it to March. It seems kind of hard to believe. This winter has been really harsh, and the closer we get to spring the better I feel. Today it got up to fifty degrees! This is quite an accomplishment. K-town has turned into one giant mud puddle, but I guess that's just an ugly side affect to the melting. It does say that there are chances we will have some snow/rain showers in the middle of our week, but for now I'm pretending that's not true.

We have 3 weeks until spring break. We're planning on taking only a 3 hour flight to a much closer destination than we did over fall break. The airline we take out of A-stan just started flying to Abu Dhabi. We're excited to just go see a movie (hopefully The Hunger Games!!!), walk around the beach, ride a camel, and be WARM! Oh, and of course eat some good food. No, don't worry, no crickets this time.

As far as school stuff goes...We got our proposed schedule for next year. I'm so excited because I'll be teaching middle and high school next year. As of now, it's looking like 7th grade Oral Comm. (my students from this year), 8th grade Writing, 9th grade English, 10th grade Eng., and 11/12 Honors Eng. :) Excuse my nerdy-ness as I get really excited about this!

Other recent things...we finally got off lockdown. That's a plus. We've driven to the store...and we've walked to the store once. These are good things...good, good things.

We had a talent show. "Michael Jackson" won. :)

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Positive - Everything is melting. Negative - Water damage is all over our campus. This is some of our damage, and we've been pretty lucky.

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Basketball:

Our school is putting in a full size basketball court. Levi is really excited to get to play on it. 

Our girl's basketball team played in the National Women's Day tournament this week and got 3rd in the country! 

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Overall, we're making it one day at a time on our side of the world. Please keep praying for A-stan and some of the challenges that teaching in this country can bring. Please pray for our students, their families, and the staff of our school. We're thankful to be here each and every day. 

-Kaley

...And We're Back

Well, we didn't do a very good job of sharing our break via blog.  I had every intention of at least one or two more posts while back in the US but it didn't happen.  We were able though to get a good amount of rest while still seeing a lot of family and friends. Now we're back in K-town and 11 days into our return.

We spent the first part of our break in Maryland with Kaley's family and spent the second half in Ohio with my family. We managed a trip to Indianapolis in between with my family to see the Indiana Pacers opening game of the 2011-12 NBA season.  We were able to share a lot of stories about our first 5 months here with friends and family.  Unfortunately we weren't able to make it to Nashville while back due to our limited time but we look forward to spending time there this summer and seeing everyone we missed this time around.

We left Jan 4th to fly back and arrived in K-town Jan 6th.  Our fourth and final flight of the trip had an unexpected detour to another city that starts with K in the south of the country.  Needless to say by the time we got back we were pretty exhausted, but still happy to be back.  There's such a contrast between our first arrival in August and arriving back after living here for 5 months.  Most of the fear is gone or at least better managed and it is much more about just getting "home" and getting back to work.  I suppose that's a good thing.  School started back Jan 7th and we're half way through our second week already.

The highlight of our time back has by far been the winter snow that we got here over the past 3 days or so.  In all we wound up with around a foot of snow.  However, because of being 6,000 ft above sea level, it all started melting almost as soon as it stopped falling and the sun came out.  Melting snow means one thing here...  Mud.  Everywhere.  That's ok though.  It's been a long time since I've seen this much snow and I'm willing to endure a week or two of mud for it.

Below are some pictures of the snow here this past week.

-Levi

Thoughts on the Break...

After nearly 40 hours of travel, we landed in Baltimore on Saturday morning.  We have a a little under 3 weeks before we make the same trip in the opposite direction.  It's been a challenge to make the 9.5 hour adjustment back to eastern standard time.  I woke up at 1 am this morning and have been up ever since so today (Monday) may be a challenge.

I've spent a lot of these past 3 weeks or so wondering what it would be like to come back to the US after being gone for a while. Now that we've made it back though I still feel like I'm looking for the answers to the questions I had before we left on Friday. I think it's more of a reconciliation that I'm looking for.  I'm trying to reconcile life there to life here and somehow bridge the gap between the life I witnessed and experienced there and the life I knew here and am witnessing now that I'm back.

I think I'd have to carry pencil and paper around with me 24/7 in order to capture all the different thoughts and feelings that come with being back but unfortunately I haven't done that.  I have written a list of observations and notes on the past week below though.  While I wish these were all insightful observations about life there and here - most are not.  Hopefully they are a glimpse into our travels and our break thus far though.

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- Dubai in December was 10 times better than Dubai in August.  I'm strictly judging the entire city based on the weather but hopefully that goes to show how amazing the weather felt there during our 12 hour layover on Friday.

- I think going directly from K-town to Dubai is almost more of an economic/culture shock than going straight to the US would be.  Downtown Dubai (where we spent the day) is quite possibly the most modern and wealthy appearing city I have ever seen.  For lack of a better example, going straight there from K-town is sort of like watching an episode of the Flintstones and then immediately watching an episode of the Jetsons.  It's hard to reconcile the two.  (I realize there are a lot of flaws in that comparison but it's all I've got at 4 in the morning...)

- As soon as we landed in Dubai, Kaley and I both realized our clothes and suitcases all smelled like some sort of kerosene/fire combination.  Funny how you never notice such a strong smell until you go somewhere where everything doesn't smell the same.

- Still trying to figure out why our meal on the flight from k-town to Dubai had 2 plain hotdogs in the container with the eggs.  I guess they were going for sausage and eggs...

- My favorite part of the whole trip back was definitely going to see Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol in the movie theater at the Dubai Mall.  A large portion of the movie was filmed in Dubai at the Burj Khalifa (tallest building in the world) which is connected to the mall and literally right outside the movie theater.  We watched the movie and then walked outside and had dinner in the shadow of the building.

- Every 4 hours or so during our 16 hr flight I would remember I was on a plane and 39,000 ft above the earth and get really worried we were going to run out of fuel or something during the long flight.  I get so lost in the movies and tv shows you can watch on the plane that most of the time I forget my surroundings and might as well be on a bus on the highway.  Then I remember and get freaked out...

- Because we left Dubai at 11 pm and were flying west, it was dark outside the plane the entire 16 hr flight.  It felt a little like we were in a race with the sun and sunrise and we were winning...  until we landed in atlanta.

- Upon arrival in Atlanta saturday morning, we made our way via underground train from terminal E all the way to terminal A just to find the chic-fil-a and eat breakfast.  Then we had to quickly make our way back to terminal B in order to not miss our flight to Baltimore.  I have missed Chic-fil-a.

- I am really enjoying the high speed internet and being able to watch videos on espn.com and nba.com.

- I'm having a hard time remembering you can throw toilet paper in the toilet here and don't have to put it in the trash can.  That's all I'm going to say about that...

- I don't think it's sunk in that I can go anywhere I want yet.  I'm so used to a list of only 20 places I can go to and that was contingent on if security is good and there's a driver to take me.  I had stretches over the past 4 months where I didn't leave school/home for 10 days or more and if I did it was only for a 30 minute trip to the grocery store.

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That's all I've got for now. We've been back less than 48 hours though and I'm sure more will come. In the meantime I hope everyone is able to make good memories with family and friends during these holidays and hopefully enjoy some sort of break from work and the busyness that consumes so much of life.

Kaley and I have to make decisions very soon about what we are going to do after this school year and there are a lot of different factors that will play into that decision.  Any prayers would be greatly appreciated as we try and sort through the decision process.

We will be updating this a few more times while we are here so look for more posts (probably with a lot of pictures!).

-levi


The mountains from our roof a few days before we left.  The best time to see the snow is at sunrise!

A few pictures from the plane as we were taking off.

Hanging out in Dubai.  The last picture is from our table at dinner.  Good view of the tallest building in the world.

A 12 Year Old's Goal

My students were assigned their first five-paragraph essay. Their topic was "about me." It could be about things they like, what they want to be, goals they have, or what they enjoy doing. I had many mixed topics, as you can imagine with 6th grade. Some were pretty sad, and others were on the humorous side.

One of my students wrote an essay that is very hopeful for this country. He is very smart, but I call him my mad scientist. He is a little scattered brained and can be very forgetful. This five-paragraph essay was only 4 paragraphs, and it was turned in two days late. Sadly, this made it hard to get a good grade, but it's very good. He WILL do incredible things for this nation one day.

We'll call him A. Remember, he is twelve. I watched him write the whole thing in class. He didn't explain all three of his main points, but I had to share this. He told me I could share his essay. I'll type it exactly as it is written...except for some astricts for safety.

"My name is A; I am a boy who lives in the middle of a battlefield, in a country at war. I am twelve years old and I was born in Isl*mab*d, P-stan, on October 9, 1999. Life is hard in A-stan, but I believe that in every heart there is a glimmer of hope. In the following story I will tell you about me. I hope that one day A-stan will have peace, also I want to become a scientist and inventor to help A-stan, a last I want unity and peace between the nations of the world.

A-stan is a country at war with ter*or*sm. It seems that peace will never come back to this country due to the fact that this country has been at war for 30 years. I hope that peace will come to A-stan someday, and I hope that that someday will come soon. Even with all these wars, I do believe that there is hope and as long as we have hope we can stand strong and united. When we stand strong and united, we can stand against our enemy and through hard work we can reach our goal. I hope there will be peace one day in A-stan, and when there is hope there is a chance.

My final hope is that the nations of the world stand united and peaceful. This helps to create peace between the nations. We aready have the U.**N. as a good example of this unity. Still, there are countries that are not in the U.**N. and some are still at war. I hope that something better than the U.**N. forms, a group that maintains peace and includes all of the countries of the world. My final hope is that we stand united and have peace so that we can make Earth the greatest and most peacful planet of the universe.

I hope that one day A-stan will have peace, and lastly I want unity and peace between the nations of the world. These are my biggest goals. I will do my best at reaching these goals, and I will start today. I will talk to anyone who has the same hope of peace to join me, so that we can stand united and strong against obstacles and reach our goals."

There is hope for A-stan, and I am happy to see glimpses of it in its future leaders (the ones in my classroom everyday). :)

-K