No Ordinary Child

S'been awhile. Namaste.

I've just put my kids to bed, and Celeste is at a meeting with coworkers. I was looking at Hebrews 11, and was interested by verse 23:

By faith Moses' parents hid him for 3 months after he was born, because they saw
he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king's edict. (Heb 11:23, NIV)

I got hung up in the middle there. They saw he was no ordinary child? What, did he glow in the dark? Did he never cry, as I've heard some parts of Christendom believe about Christ as a baby? Did Moses as a baby lift up his parents' 1940's pickup truck with his bare hands so they could change the tire? (Sorry, random Superman reference.)

How could they see that a newborn was 'no ordinary child'? I mean, every parent I know believes his/her child(ren) is (are) special, gifted, whatever. Myself included.

But perhaps that's what this means? Moses' parents saw something special in him -- as all parents do in their children -- and that perception, combined with their own courage, led them to action? I don't know. Maybe.

Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray that we would see the great things you have in store for our children, and for all of yours. And may we act, courageously and wisely, to see their potential fulfilled. Amen.

Home Again ... For Now

Slept most of the India to Frankfurt flight (after all, it left at 2am India time). In Frankfurt, grabbed some kindereggs (candy eggs with toys inside) and (the original) gummy bears. For the kids, not for me. On the flight from Germany to DFW, I only slept for an hour or so.

Not sure I've written about this, but in India, all water is suspect unless its bottled water. If an American even brushes his teeth with tap water on his toothbrush, he'll very likely be sick. Or so the travel doctor told me. And since several of my colleagues have been sick already while in or returning from India, I take that pretty seriously. So no drinking tap water.

Now, honestly, that's not such a big deal ... except that it means you can't have ice in your drinks. None. Ever. I can imagine my older brother reading this and thinking, so what? But the problem is, if you order anything cold, it is typically delivered at just below room temperature. (Or 'luke cold', as my boss commented.)

So when I got on the American flight in Frankfurt, coming home, and ordered a Diet Coke ... it was heavenly. Ice in the glass. Cold can. Refreshing. Seriously.

And as a side note, I think I wrote about this already, but I've confirmed that I'm not a big fan of Indian food. I got some ribbing for a certain 'burning' experience I had at a restaurant over there, but that's ironic to me since I eat quite a bit of Tex-Mex over here. So its not really that I don't like the spice, I just am not a big fan of the flavor.

Anyway, I arrived home on Thursday afternoon, on schedule. Mostly stayed awake for the afternoon, playing with the kids. To bed that night just after 10pm, woke up at 5:55am DFW time. 8 hours, that's good, but I wished I could have gotten myself to sleep another 2 or 3. No dice though.

Friday grabbed a Chipotle burrito at lunch. OH MY. Oh yes.

I go back to Chennai this coming Friday (yes, 8 days after I returned from the previous trip). This next trip will last 3 weeks. The Indian folks I'm working with are really great, both kind and gracious. But I am not looking forward to this trip. I swear my kids grew in visible ways while I was gone for 2 weeks last time. This time I'll come back and they'll be driving or something. And my wife will be mumbling to herself, I'm afraid. Cursing the father of her children. Hopefully not, but we'll see.

More to come.
B

Road to Chennai

So tomorrow I leave for Chennai, India (formerly called Madras, for you geographers out there). Chennai is on the southeastern coast of India, on the Bay of Bengal. According to Wikipedia, Chennai is a city of 4.34 million people squeezed into 70 square miles -- that is, the population density is about 14 times what we have here in the DFW metroplex.

I won't bore you with other stats and figures (for now at least). But suffice it to say I expect this to be a wholly different experience than what I found on my single trips to Australia and the UK.

I'll take an American flight to Frankfurt, Germany, and Lufthansa from there to Chennai, about 22 or 24 hours from here to there, including a 3 hour layover in Frankfurt. I'm told that the American flight will be somewhat more enjoyable than the Lufthansa flight, if only for the familiar food, so I'm thinking I'll mainly sleep on the second leg. So why not stay up a bit tonight and post a blog entry, right?

The trip will last a couple weeks, then I'll return home. After hearing the discussion on a conference call today, it sounds like I may not be home long before I go back. Not sure how long the second trip will be. Could potentially be longer than this one. As much as I enjoy an adventure, though ... I think 2 weeks is the longest I'd want to be there in a single stint.

After all, my wife has no interest in being a single mom (even temporarily). And my kids seem to be changing very fast now -- for the first time ever, Piper read books TO ME tonight (rather than the other way around). Granted, the books are easy readers with a handful of pages, and all the words are 3 letters or fewer, but it's still very, very exciting! And Christian is really developing a fun personality of his own. I hate to miss any of this.

Of course, my preferences don't determine how long or how many trips I'll take. There is work to be done, and someone has to go do it. And it's something new and different, which is the very kind of thing I've been wishing for and praying about for some time now. I just wish it were a little closer to home...

Ok, I'm done whining. Watch this space, as I intend to post from time to time, sort of a brief travelogue. Blessings to you.

Reading

Just have to brag on my daughter. Last night I watched her sound out a word, and figure out what it said. All by herself. 4 years old. Very cool.

Merry Christmas

A day late, but hey, I'm busy. Spent the weekend in Tulsa with a bunch of my family. Always a good time. Pretty wild to see the damage the ice storm did up there.

Among other things, I gave my family members their Christmas present -- the new Stefano Elliott Band CD 'Right Here', natch.

Also had an interesting conversation with one of my younger brothers about presidential candidates. I should really do more research into what these folks really stand for. Subsequently I heard about a quick online survey that will help you identify how closely aligned each candidate is with you on a number of issues. Check that out at http://kdfw.4wmt.com/cmm/

Gotta run. Hope Santa was particularly nice to you yesterday!

Happy Halloween...

...from your friendly neighborhood care bears and puppies. And from Piper and Christian too.

BOO-YAH!!!! and Playing God

Tonight, my brother Kyle scored his first Major League Soccer goal, in the Real Salt Lake game against the Houston Dynamo. In the end, Dynamo won 4-3, but that didn't lessen my excitement much. It didn't hurt that I saw him score in high def.

HUGE congrats to Kyle!

****

So we're sitting down to lunch today and I wondered whether there were any rain in the weather forecast. A minute later, my daughter says, "I'll be God and you be Noah, Daddy. 'Go build an ark Noah.'" For just a sec I blinked and wondered at the sound of my daughter using the phrase 'I'll be God'. Seriously weird. Then we role played for a couple of minutes -- she knows the story well -- and eventually we went back to our sandwiches.

Later, we're playing hide and seek (yep, all 4 of us, inside), and we end up in a bit of a chase around the house. Piper and I go down the hall, Christian high-tails it through the kitchen, and Celeste is hot on our tails. Then a sound, like a cross between a slap and a SLIZZAP!! All by himself, Christian managed to face-plant on the tile floor in the kitchen. We held him, soothed him, he cried awhile, but soon seemed ok. He commented a little later that his head hurt, but that can mean a lot of things, and we didn't see anything visibly wrong -- vague red spot on his forehead, but no blood or anything. Eventually we go to the neighborhood pool, and only then did we see the bruise and goose-egg forming on his forehead. He's fine. But yikes!

One more on Piper. She brought a book to me this afternoon, and said "Daddy, read me Alphabet Rescue". I checked, and that was the name of the book. Celeste picked it up at the library. The thing is, we hadn't read her the book yet, and Celeste said she hadn't told her what it was called. So I asked Piper, how did you know it was called that? And she answered, "I read it, Daddy." Now, I assure you she can't read yet, not really. She just turned 4 on August 4th. But it seems possible that she managed to figure out those two words. And I say, wow.

Christian's header notwithstanding, it's been a good day.