Categories
Crossing Cultures Memoir

New patterns

During our second month in Pakistan, our family of three traveled north to Murree. For a month of intensive language learning and cross-cultural adjustment. 

We stayed in one of several flats (apartments) that made up an old house on the side of the mountain. 

And began learning new patterns for living.

Language study. Shopping for groceries. Cooking with new ingredients. Boiling our drinking water. Washing clothes and hanging them on the line.

Breathing fresh mountain air eased the adjustments. New friends helped us find our way. 

Murree. 1992.
Categories
Devotional Memoir

Hope during a tsunami

The slow but certain flood of a tsunami moves across the globe today.  

I’ve watched videos from the one that marked our lives in 2004. The wave that advanced silently. Powerfully. Into Aceh. The water just kept coming. Pushing further inland. One bright, blue-skied day. 

And then, as waves do, it pulled back out to sea. Leaving devastation. Empty communities. Unimaginable loss. 

Today. The other tsunami. Changing the topic of our daily conversations. To quarantines and lockdowns. Limiting spread to flatten the curve. Shortages of medical supplies. Death counts.

And I remember the Scripture verses that gave hope to the inexperienced. In the December 2004 tsunami and the year that followed.

Aceh. Devastation as far as the eye could see. Nearly two months after the tsunami. February 2005.