Love us some family time!

Mark's sister and her husband are really cool, and so is their cute son! We had a great time visiting them in Cluj, Romania where they have been living for a few months for Julie's work.

She is an archivist in Jewish history, especially pre-WWII. We even got to go with her to a few synagogues to scope out what kind of old documents they might have that she could organize and make available to the world, while also empowering the local Jewish communities.

Her husband, Benjy, is an incredible musician, playing the upright bass and also singing in a bunch of languages. We were so pleased to get to attend (false cognate in French! "attend" means to wait on French; "assister" means to be present at) one of his concerts and hear him preform. If you ever have the chance, you should hear him too! http://www.yiddisharttrio.com/

And, of course, another highlight was playing with their almost 2-year-old son, David. He is pretty chill and it was really fun to get to know him and enjoy some of his cuteness.

Karen waxes nostalgic about Romania

It was fifteen years ago when I took my first flight. The trip was Albuquerque (New Mexico) to Denver to Frankfurt, Germany to Bucharest, Romania. On Wednesday, Mark and I are going back to Romania to visit his sister, and I feel like I should do some reflection.

That first flight was memorable, someone in the group telling me in a nervous voice, "The plane's not supposed to make that sound!" Now I'm one of those people who ignores the safety video, despite the plea to pay attention "even if you're a seasoned passenger". (But I really appreciate those airlines that make the videos interesting! like animations with animals instead of people...)

I also have a very different perspective on Westerners going to developing countries, the gap between what they think they're accomplishing and local people would ask for if they were given a voice. (Check out When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert.) I think I might be on the brink of a new, similar realization regarding sending Westerners who don't speak a language (and likely won't stay in the country long) for years of language study instead of taking locals who know the language and training them. Don't get me wrong, cross-cultural interaction is important. "Cross-pollination" of ideas makes everyone stronger. Just saying that how I think about mission work continues to evolve.

So I'm a different person. But I was out exploring, adventuring, playing frisbee before I met Mark. Sometimes it's good to remind myself of that, especially when I want to stick with the familiar and Mark wants to do more exploring. (Alps, we're heading your way after Romania!)

Brussels mid-way

Hey!

We're done with half of our French lessons now. Three weeks in, and I feel definitve improvement now.

During one of my trips back from Kinshasa I met a German expat on the boat from Goma to Bukavu. A very nice guy, we got to talking (in English), and I shared how embarrassed I was about my French. He told me that actually his French stank as well, but that he gets by with his mistakes because, well, he doesn't have time to learn more. I asked him what he doesn't know, and he said "Well, I wouldn't be able to say 'I wouldn't be able to say' in French. That tense I just don't know." When I thought about it, I realized I had no idea how to say that either, and recognized that his level of french, wherever it was, was still far past my own.

But now I can say that I wouldn't be able to say in French! "Je ne pourrais pas dire" (this translates to "I could not say", which, I now realize, is a phrase in English that has basically the same meaning). I just checked and there are other, more sophisticated ways of saying this ("Je ne serais pas capable de dire"), but I've got the basic idea there. That is a serious accomplishment for me!

On the same vein, this last week two people here in Belgium did not think, when they first heard me speaking French, that I was an American! The first person (who himself is in my learning-to-speak-French discussion group) was just flabbergasted to learn that I was an American. The second time was at a pick-up ultimate frisbee game. A woman started speaking to me in Dutch, and later apologized for having done so. She said that, from my accent, she thought I was Dutch. So while neither thought I was a native French speaker, I took both as a compliment that my accent was closer to real French than to American English. :-)

Our church here in Brussels has been so great. There's a guy in the church who has been such a fantastic host. Last weekend he and his wife invited us over for dinner, and we spent 5 hours with them practicing French, and eating delicious Belgian chocolate mousse. Afterward he even gave us a tour of downtown Brussels, and we didn't get back to our place until midnight! It was the first time to see Brussels get completely dark. Anthony also took me downtown this Wednesday to meet some Americans who are in town... painting, maybe doing a short-term mission trip? Anyway, after some time people started asking me to interpret, and that was surreal but also encouraging. I did terrible, but just fine for what the situation called for.

We have two more days of class this week and then fly to Cluj, Romania to spend a week with my sister, nephew, brother-in-law, and his parents. It should be a good time to relax and not have to do anything except play with my 21 month-old nephew, David. Who is as cute as a button.

The Cenquantenaire Jubelparc (The 50th Anniversary Park) - Totally built by profits from Congo, finished in 1905.

The "Grand Place" (central square) of Brussels.

This is a famous statue in Brussels. It's of a little boy peeing. It's called (in French) "Mannekin Pis" 

 I've failed to turn it, my apologies.

Working Hard in a really lovely location

Here's how we're keeping busy these days.

On Saturday, one of the first really sunny days since we've been here, we saw the park. Then we studied in it.

Most of the time we're studying in our apartment.

We've had really lovely weather here, compared to the extreme heat in Roswell and Round Rock! (But we gave you the opportunity to come visit us here, don't forget!) It's rarely been over 80 degrees. Quite an interesting "summer". Today, I'm a little down on it because it rained and was COLD!

My brain is at the point of exploding most of the time. If it's a good day, I have a few hours when I can think clearly and speak okay French, but then I get to the point when I can't think of words in English either and I just want to sleep. Then I try to watch TV or listen to the radio or music, any of those options in French.

On the bright side, I got a "Bravo!" from my prof today on an exercise she'd told Mark she was afraid was too hard for me. :) Also on the bright side, we've really gotten our money's worth out of the internet at our apartment with an average of two skype conversations per day...and almost all of the skyping is in English. :D

I know it looks beautiful here, but, phew! It's hard work! And now I realize that's also true about Congo. Speaking of, I have thought of a couple things I miss. 1) Our patio/deck, 2) Avocados: cheap, ripe and available! 3) Our people! 4) The Lake, 5) Other things that I'm too tired to come up with right now because it's 10pm and still light out.

Photos of Brussels!

Our first meal in Brussels!

My first time playing ultimate. Can you see the double rainbow? Also, this pic was taken at 9:30 pm. I REALLY love the late sun, Karen not so much.

The park that is a 2 minute walk away from our apartment.

Same park, different view. I go here almost every morning as part of my morning routine.

This is the park that is 5 minutes from our apartment. It's like being in a forest! Endless miles and miles of trails that link up.

Another picture of the forest park. So cool to be able to be in a forest! Congo has tons of forests, but not secure enough to visit. :-(

Being in Brussels is nice, but it's really weird and strange, because almost all of the infrastructure and parks and monuments here were built with money that came from King Leopold II enslaving Congolese people and the money that came out of that. There's entire books written on this subject.

C'est la vie!

Bonjour, tout le monde!

It's Friday afternoon, and I'm feeling pretty energetic! Sure, we've had 13 hours of French lessons each this week, plus enough homework to make it a full time job. Sure, it has rained every day minus one. Sure, I haven't done anything on my Seed to-do list other than respond to urgent emails. But both Mark and I feel like our French is definitely improving already, and we've gotten to eat lots of nice things. We haven't lost power or water once, and I'm listening to U2 while doing my homework. It's quite a different pace of life.

Abbey Park near our apartment in Brussels

Bien sure, Mark has gone to play Frisbee three times and has used ultimate as a topic to practice speaking French I-don't-know-how-many times. (It's hard for me to convince myself to start playing at 8pm.) It's also hard to make ourselves go to bed at a normal time when it's 9:15pm and still dusk like it was at 7:00pm.

The group classes for our French lessons are made up of very interesting people! (Almost entirely women, which surprised me.) There are students from: Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Brazil, Slovakia, Poland, and of course less interestingly Canada, Ireland, Germany, USA... Additional languages spoken include also Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Hindi, Italian. We definitely come in with the least impressive resumes in terms of languages we already speak. Interestingly, as we practice our French conversations come up around belief and it definitely feels like Europe where almost everyone else in the class proudly say that they are not really religious.

Speaking of:

1) I've been really enjoying this book I got for free on my Kindle! (The counselor I skype with recommended a kindle to help me not think about work all the time, and it has been really great!) Water to Wine: Some of My Story by Brian Zahnd. He specifically addresses the reluctance of Westerners to identify themselves as religious. I feel a kind of kinship with his journey from American Christianity (Consumerism, Fundamentalism, Sectarianism, Individualism and Politicism) to Christian religion centered on the Cross, Mystery, Eclectic, Community and Revolution. He also writes about centering prayer, which has been a practice I've appreciated for the past six years.

2) Sunday was awesome! Our pastor in Bukavu gave us contact info for some friends of his here in Brussels, so we planned to go to their church - and come to find out is it three buildings down the block from the apartment we're staying in!!! And it is a neat kind of city church plant with a large variety of ethnicities. EN PLUS, THEY WERE HAVING A BBQ! What amazing provision for us. It was a good way to launch into the week.

3) I'm excited to be using Le Livre de Priere Commune (the Book of Common Prayer) to continue in the vein of French immersion. It reminds me of the season Mark and I got to spend with St. Richard's Episcopal Church in Round Rock, TX. And I'm thankful for the friends we made there, as well as the familiarity we gained with liturgical worship.

Prayer needs:
- Patience with one another as we're together so much with little other social support here and as we practice French with each other - it can get dicey when we start correcting each other.
- Good "work"/Life balance and also knowing when it's okay to let ourselves not speak French.
- Ability to be present here and appreciate this season while life goes on in Congo and the reality is we'll be returning in six weeks.