Milestones (or mile markers or whatever) #2

Since my last post was about making sweet tea the “correct way”, I decided to title this post:

“Sweet Tea in Armenia”

A group of us left Lexington BC in the summer of 2003 to fly to Vienna, Austria. We had one night and most of a day to hang out there (with Hungarian goulash for lunch and an 11-euro dinner of spaghetti and fries, if I remember correctly). Our flight for Armenia’s capital, Yerevan, left late at night and was scheduled to arrive at, oh, 3 AM or something. The other memory I have is that the ladies had to wear skirts on the flight into Yerevan. I’m just a tomboy at heart, and being uncomfortably wedged into an airline seat in blue jeans is difficult enough. That was also the flight where we “landed” too early. I wasn’t prepared to hit the runway when the little display screens showed the plane at an altitude of 4000 feet. I’m not even sure the runways, or airport, were lit.

We had to wait “forever” to get our little visa stamps, then trudged out to meet our new friends. We had collected supplies for “day camps” (sports, crafts, Bible stories with puppets) but found out two days before we left that our camp enrollment had nearly doubled. Somehow all the stuff made it safely. The day camps were scheduled for remote villages. However, city life itself wasn’t exactly modern. Water cuts? Electrical outages? Gas lines shut down? No McDonalds?
(I’m not a huge MickeyD’s fan, except for breakfast and their $1 sweet tea. I thought McDonalds were everywhere, but not Armenia, even today.)

The team split into three groups so that we could be housed with American host families, traveled back and forth each day to the villages for camp, and returned “home” for dinner. On one particularly annoying day, the national driver of our little “bus” decided to stop just minutes from “home” at a local cafe for cigars and coffee. He sat for nearly 10 minutes until we banged on the windows sufficiently to express our frustration.
That very same day, though, we were all scheduled to eat dinner together as a team with one of the host families. I don’t remember what we ate for dinner, but I do remember being shocked that our hostess, a good ol’ Southern gal, was preparing sweet tea (poured over ice) to drink with the meal. I asked her about it (since my veins are actually filled with the stuff): sweet tea? in Armenia?
Her reply was this: we have tea, sugar, water, and (for ice) electricity. Why not?
Why not, indeed?

By that summer of 2003, I had felt for several years that God had more for me than a little corner of Lexington. It’s a great place, and I miss it, but there was to be more. I had already “fallen in love” with the work taking place in Brussels, Belgium, and was trying to find a way to live and work there. That night in Yerevan, in spite of all the frustrations of utility shortages and all the other challenges, I recognized that God was trying to tell me He could care for me in Brussels or Yerevan or anywhere else I would be sent.

“If there’s sweet tea, I will follow” isn’t at all how the hymn goes, but I knew that I could “survive” and even prosper somewhere outside of America, if I was where God wanted me to be.

We left for the airport (late at night, again) to board a flight out of the country. Imagine our consternation (and fear) to be told: you’re flight is cancelled; come back in two days.

Sorry, wrong answer.

After the helpful hosts ran through the airport to argue on our behalf, and we prayed a lot, we got seats on a flight through London and only arrived home about 12 hours later than we originally hoped. While in London, everyone tried to call family, but most couldn’t get through. I called the church office and left a message, but somehow I accidentally left a message on every voicemail in the system. Some team members’ families probably got half-a-dozen phone calls from church staff before they figured out my mistake. If you’re going to use a payphone for an international phone call, you might as well get your money’s worth!

Last thoughts on this trip…
We had a “touring” morning to see the sunrise over the mountains. I have only a few photos of that morning, but I have a very vivid memory of standing on Armenia’s high plateaus over its borders into another country. That beautiful countryside was dotted with small white towers. We asked what we were seeing, and were told that those towers were mosques, calling the Muslim citizens of that country to pray to their god Allah. I didn’t know then that thirteen months later I’d be looking at those mosques again from the other side of the border.

Have you ever read a forum for “sweet tea”?

A forum–you know, ask a question online and get an answer from everyone you’ve never met?
I just Googled “How to brew sweet tea”. I usually make tea in 1-liter batches but want to branch out to gallon-sized and thought quadrupling the tea bags was unnecessary.

http://www.puritanboard.com/f84/brewing-sweet-tea-31598/
These people are hilarious, and fit all the stereotypes of North and South tea drinkers.

I mean, let’s face it, “tea” is sweet tea on ice to nearly everyone in the South. Here it is “boiling hot in a tiny glass, do-it-yourself-sugar”. The North serves unsweet tea: makes me nervous just thinking about it.

We’ll see how the gallon turns out.

Milestones part 1

Here I promised you some milestones. Since I find myself with 4 extra school holidays –”H1 N1 go away; no one’s ill; please stay that way.”  Rain falls on the just and the unjust, and so do school holidays from the gov’t to “prevent the spread of the virus”–I have no excuses. Time to write.

The first work visa was part of the 52 days of Nehemiah. We were given every promise that the visas would be issued on time, and our director wrote an email 52 days before the first day of school on September 13, 2004: Neh. 6:15 tells us that the rebuilding of the wall of His city by His people took exactly 52 days — an amazingly short span of time for such a feat.  And the very next verse says that “When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God.”  I believe that if our work visas are processed in time for this school to start on schedule, it will be no less spectacular of a display of God’s awesome might than the rebuilding of that city wall ages ago.  Ask anyone here who has experienced national bureaucracy, and they would agree.

Eventually, everything was in place for me (and others) to travel to the new world. God was faithful: with the help of our God, school opened on time, even though our paperwork still in process. No worries, it’ll get there, said, the folks that mattered, and finally we heard: come to the station and pick up your little blue books!

I arrived as part of a group of 6 adults and 3 children. The man behind the counter kept stamping and stamping as each person approached the counter. When he saw me, he stopped stamping and said, “America.”

Translation: you win a no-expense-paid trip to America to get your visa, for reasons no one will know, understand, or be able to explain in a logical fashion, but that’s our story and we’re sticking to it.

At this point, my grandfather was gravely ill. I had anticipated traveling to the US at Christmas to see him, but it appeared I’d be there sooner. I had purchased a ticket for mid-November when the news came: he was in heaven. I arrived on Friday, November the 13th, and did make the memorial service on November 15.We had two days off from school for a national religious holiday, so it was hoped I’d miss just the three days  at the end of that week.

I had a friend FedEx my passport to the consulate on Monday the 15th. The consulate needed to place the important stamp for my visa. I confirmed that the passport arrived, but couldn’t get much else from them. Then a secretary at church answered a phone call for me from the consulate. With her “she’s not here right now” reply, they decided I must be overseas and stopped processing the visa. A quick phone call restarted the process, and on Friday the 19th they “hoped” to send it.

I got confirmation on Monday the 22nd that the passport was being FedEx’d back. I had a ticket for the 23rd, but just wasn’t sure when I’d have that valuable piece of paper in my hands. I tried to change the flight to Wednesday, but there were no flights: seems the pilots wanted to spend Thanksgiving stateside. There were no flights Thursday either, so Friday was the new departure date.

I had spent most of each day that week at my “home” church in South Carolina. Mom and I were staying with some wonderful friends who agreed to let us crash their Thanksgiving dinner. I had worked in the church office for about a year before moving overseas and knew FedEx would arrive about noonish.

Noon came and went. Nothing.

Online tracking of FedEx showed that the package had departed the downtown facility.

At about 3, the heavens opened up: rain, lightning, flash floods…and still no FedEx.

At 4, I called the FedEx facility (not an easy task.) I explained how I really, really, really, needed my package. They attempted to contact the delivery driver, but he didn’t answer his phone.

At 4:30, the office closed. We waited until about 4:45, then posted a note on the office door (call THIS number and someone will be here in 2 minutes to sign for the package.) I went to the FedEx facility to wait for the driver, in case he didn’t see the note.

The facility manager kept trying to call the driver, but he never answered. Then it was discovered that he may not have even had my envelope, since it wasn’t logged into his personal records.

I continued to wait, eating Bojangles’ chicken and reading some book or other. Eventually the facility’s pickup window closed and I was escorted into the employee break room. I watched Jeopardy.

I kept using the pay phone to call my friends (whose number was on the door) but they had heard nothing.

At about 7:45, the facility manager came running in: your friend is on the phone.

That same Tuesday evening, the church was hosting a banquet/memorial service for victims of violent crime. Most of the campus was dark except for the banquet area. My friend’s daughter was singing during the memorial service, and was shocked to look up during a speech to see a FedEx man wandering through the door.

She asked for my package and the driver accepted her signature, even without ID. My passport and visa were safe.The FedEx manager promised me that the driver would be “reprimanded” because he broke nearly every procedure with my poor little envelope.

In a related story, no one else since could “FedEx” their passports back and forth: a face-to-face visit was required. Then the procedures changed again, a perfectly normal occurrence.

We had Asian slaw at Thanksgiving. It and everything else was wonderful. Friday afternoon, I was on a jet plane back across the ocean, and landed in a city decorated with snow.

The weather is refusing to get chilly here, so snow this Thanksgiving is probably unlikely. However, I think I’ll make Asian slaw for Thanksgiving.

What a deal that was!

After reading this story about how prices are dropping, I thought I’d recount a scene from one of my favorite movies. Some years ago, I stumbled across an old movie on cable: Hers, Mine and Ours. It is loosely based on a true story, and was remade in 2005. (I saw that version on an airplane, most likely.) Anyway, in real life and the first movie, a military widower with ten kids meets a nurse / assistant widow with eight kids of her own. In spite of all the jokes and stunts the kids pull in the movie, the two fall in love and marry. Soon they go shopping: 10 “cans” of oatmeal, 12 dozen eggs, 20 quarts of milk (5 gallons if you don’t think in quarts), and all sorts of Wonder Bread, plus whatever else they could find. Three carts full, they approach the cashier. He rings up prices on his old manual push-button register: 49 cents, 56 cents…and when it is all said and done, he announces the total: $126 and some change.

I don’t know if that scene was in the new version, but I wonder how much it would have cost today? You’d have to have a lot of coupons to get that kind of deal.

Cat on a hot tin roof…

…or at least a cold aluminum one.

I have two cats. They eat in two separate places, as cat #1 would eat everything in sight if allowed. Cat #1 eats his food from a bowl on the floor.Cat #2 eats from a bowl on top of a cold, aluminum-or-some-metal refrigerator. (The kind with a fridge door on the bottom and a freezer door on the top.)

Tonight, just after making cat #2 happy with a bowl of crunchy goodness on top of the refrigerator, I decided to get some ice cream.

Cat and bowl were apparently positioned half on the refrigerator and half on the door.

Cat and bowl were suddenly in the freezer.

Basket on shelf next to fridge was suddenly on the floor, conveniently in the bowl of diet food for cat #1. Diet food now spread all over the kitchen.

Cat #1 was suddenly cowering under the kitchen table; a milestone for him because normally such noise would put him in the closet for an hour!

Cat #2 and bowl were still in the freezer, with me trying to push cat out of freezer while simultaneously picking up the food that was rolling everywhere. (Can’t let cat #1 get extra food, I’m thinking, it’s bad for his diet, not considering the fact that he is too far gone to notice the bounty all over the floor.)

Cat #2, back on solid freezer-top, bolts for the floor and the closet, leaving me to sweep all the nooks and crannies for his food.

Cat #1, sufficiently recovered, is now eating his refilled bowl while searching the kitchen and dining room for missed morsels.

I wish I had a video.

Cat #2 is now purring contentedly next to me. I thought he was hungry.

I still haven’t had ice cream. I thought I was hungry.

I’m having ice cream anyway.

Mile markers and memories

I’ve only driven on the East Coast (I-95) and the interstates in Georgia and South Carolina, but I imagine most US interstates are similar. Every 5,280 feet (1,760 yards) you see a little green sign on the passenger-side shoulder of the road. The number on the sign represents the mileage, either the length of the road you are on or the distance that particular road occupies in the state where you are driving. The Highway 520 exit used to be at mile marker 199 or so on I-95. Charleston Southern University (BCC back then) was 205 on I-26, and Lexington’s Highway 1 is at mile 58 for I-20. (Highway 378 is at 61, right?) When you are at mile marker 80 (Clemson Road?) you have 22 miles to Highway 1, so it is easy to know the distance. In the “old days”, when the speed limits were 55 to 65 mph and people actually followed the rules, you could estimate your time at one minute for one mile. (Of course, on long trips, you have to add in rest stops and Krystal breaks.)

Rush hour is another story; try driving I-26 from mile marker 80 to mile marker 58. It may be 22 miles, but you won’t be making the drive in 22 minutes at 5:15 on any weekday. If there is rain, or heaven forbid snow, you might not get through for more than an hour, because you can’t travel at the speed you desire.

Today our international church remembered its milestones. The official anniversary of the weekly meetings isn’t for a few weeks, but it was a pretty compelling tale. I was already in a “remembering” mode because of one of the songs sung during “worship”. –Side note: worship is supposed to occur more than during singing, but most church folks know what happens during “worship time”: singing.

Back to the story of the international church here in our humble city:

• Some foreigners were meeting on Sundays at what they called Galatian BC in the 1970s. The part of town they met in is now one of the wealthiest, filled with foreign stores for all the diplomatic personnel.
• The 1980s were a difficult time in this land. Towards the end of the decade, the persecution deepened. National believers were arrested and some foreigners were deported. If you were a foreigner then, you couldn’t be here for any “good” reason.
• At that point in history, there were no “new” recognized churches available for anyone (foreign or national). The only “Christian” churches were on embassy grounds for foreigners or “underground” groups for nationals. The exception to the rule were those who had been open and active for as much as 1000 years; small groups, historic buildings, with services  not in the local language.
• One of the underground groups in another city tried to be officially recognized and were shut down immediately.
• The law said “Christian” churches could be official, but reality proved otherwise. A group of nationals in this city began to pray that some foreigners would come and start an official, recognized church for foreigners. If the foreigners tried it, it might work, and it not, “foreigners are disposable”; send them away and more will come.
• The first meeting was scheduled in a hotel in October 1990. Everything was ready until the Tuesday before the first service. Seems some paperwork was needed. The lawyer said, “It will take 6-9 months and you’ll be rejected.” (Remember: 6 days before the first meeting, not 6 months!) A rental contract was required, but the hotel manager didn’t want to give that “proof” to anyone. The owner said, “No problem. We’ll have church here, and if needed, we’ll make the whole hotel a church.” Ah, if it were only that easy…more paperwork needed.
• One of the committee mentioned the situation to his secretary. Seems she was from a well-connected family, and connections are everything here. The service was held on schedule. English-language, open to all. Services were held there for awhile, but the building was too small.
• The next building was a great fit until it was set on fire by those who wished it ill. Time for building number 3.
• That one worked nicely, in spite of the sewer water waded through each week. Then the landlord argued with his brother, and the solution was to bulldoze the building. Time for building number 4.
• There was no building number 4, for awhile. The international community was too large to cram into a living room or a restaurant. It needed one place to worship.
• The time had come for the public, official, recognized building and body that was prayed for so many years previously. Officially opened in 1998, our blue building has had rocks thrown at the windows, a stolen sign, and a continuing battle with tardiness. (The service starts at 9:45, or 10, or 10:05, or 10:15…) People come and people go. Some songs are in the national language. Sermons are translated. We’ve had weddings (I played piano for one) and Christmas programs, baptisms and funerals, pot-luck dinners and Easter Passover feasts.
• Our official church opened its doors 11 years ago and paved the way for several national-language churches to be officially recognized. In reality, though, the international church was first envisioned by another group: the ones who prayed for “disposable foreigners” to come and worship.
• Sadly, our group is currently the largest Protestant gathering in the country. One day, may we be just one of thousands such groups in all parts of the land.

Time: it took a few days and a few years to get this international church started. Maybe the folks in the 70s wanted an official location to be a fellowship, but the time was not right. The process of being an “association” (which gives us more legal standing) has taken several years and still isn’t completed. We are stuck in rush-hour traffic, and there are no lines on the road to keep us moving in the right direction. There are no mile markers ahead, so we don’t know how long the journey will take.

That’s why we have to look back sometimes. How can you keep from getting worried or depressed or whatever when you don’t know where you are going? Look at where you were, and what God has already done. Look for the milestones. God told the Israelites in Deuteronomy 4:9 ” Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.” Don’t forget what God did, and then teach your children (and everyone else who comes after.)

So, I now embark on what will be a series of blog entries about milestones. The first one will be the international church’s story, because that one is already organized and is the only original material I have to offer. Then, in no particular order, I’ll tell you about: the original work visa (promised here), the first day as an intern in 4th grade, the 1996 Summer Olympics, the photo at the top of my blog, sweet tea in Armenia, a need in Latvia, a surprise on Children’s Day, emails from ’round the region, and the song from today’s worship service.

When will I start this series, or end it? Who knows! You’ll just have to be patient…which happens to be this month’s character trait at school.

Something you miss over here

According to Facebook (which must be somewhere in the same category as Wikipedia for reliability on actual facts), today is World Teachers’ Day. Chick-Fil-A suggests you honor your teacher with chicken!

We have no Chick-Fil-A.

No one I know knew it was World Teachers’ Day.

Somehow I feel cheated.

Where’s my sandwich? Extra pickles, please.

I’d like some polynesian sauce for the fries, and a large half-tea/half-lemonade…with free refills.

Those little blue books

I complained a little in an earlier post about the challenges and surprise costs for some of us when we renewed our work visas. Today’s English-language version of the local paper has a story about local citizens’ challenges and costs when they want to travel out of this place.

A first-time US passport is $100, and I think renewals are $70 or so. Each is for a 10-year period.

A British citizen pays about $115 for the same 10-year passport.

Many of the European neighbors, and Canada, issue 5-year passports, and the costs are somewhere between $50 and $125 in their own currencies. Russia wins with a $13 passport, according to the article.

Citizens here can purchase a passport for varying amounts of time: a 6-month passport costs about $166, with a 5-year passport at $463. Along with auto fuel prices, we claim passport fees as “most expensive in the world.”  To add insult to injury, the article continues, this non-EU-member country’s citizens have to pay exorbitant costs for visas to enter most any country its citizens would want to visit. A flight from here to Switzerland on the low-budget airline is just less than $70 one-way. The round-trip cost equals the cost of the visa a citizen of this place would need to enter Switzerland.

Only 1 in 10 citizens has ever been abroad. That means if you want to meet them and talk to them, you probably have to come here! Go ye!

I didn’t take this picture, but I wish I could have taken it!

When it snows in September, does that mean you’ll get lots of snow this winter? The folks in the northwest part of my country may find out.  They had 4 inches in some cities and nearly a foot in the mountains. Where is our snow? We need a snow day here, too! Oh well, at least the picture is pretty.

FYI: at just before sunrise, the temp here is 36 F. Even if it did snow now, which is VERY unlikely, the 65 F noonday sun would kill it. Still, I can dream…

Goin’ for the visa

Once a year, each of us working here get the privilege of going to the “security police” center to pay for our work visas. The first time my visa was issued was a whole complicated story (which would make a great “remember this?” blog) involving paperwork on two continents, a bizarre rainstorm, asian slaw and reprimand for a FedEx driver. New folks have it “easier”: the paperwork is completed only on one continent but sadly no asian slaw is available. In all cases, there are stamps and signatures and “just one more copy of …” but yesterday’s trip was, well, a trip.

We planned to leave school early, 2:30 at the latest. Two substitute teachers were needed and located. We also needed a second car and driver. The first of two cars arrived at 2:33, and the driver of the second car decided to “talk” to a friend for five minutes before we could finally leave at 2:40. Our party of 4 teachers, one teacher’s wife, and 8 children (ages 1 to 14) trooped through security. No “children” can pass through metal detectors here, FYI. It isn’t safe for them.) Then we negotiated the parking lot, full of drivers that are much more dangerous than stray radiation. We finally reached the warm, unventilated, poorly lit, overcrowded office. The children immediately attracted attention–6 are blond, one has brown hair, and one is nearly bald, with no blond adults in the mix–and sat on the floor, causing great consternation. Sitting on a floor makes you ill; it is too cold. After the third rent-a-cop told the parents and children “hasta, hasta” (ill, ill) we all moved to some seats in the hallway.
Not quite soon enough, the two dads and old-single-gal me were sent to pay for this year’s visas. A stamp and a handwritten amount on small paper squares is used for a bill. My bill was 50 more than I expected, and one dad’s bill was 400 more than expected. Seems I was “given” 4 extra days on my visa, so I paid for one month’s extension. The dad’s visa had expired during the 4 month processing time required for renewals, and a letter exempting him from penalty was on file. However, the letter did not exempt his wife or kids from that late-fee penalty; each apparently needed their own letter to be submitted and processed.
We went to pay, finally, in an office housed in a separate building. One dad held the door open so our Turkish liaison could walk through. Before I could follow right behind her, some strange man just walked in/through both of us and out the door, as if we were invisible. Later, that same dad stepped to the counter to pay, only to be cut off by a lady who had been behind all four of us.
Eventually we all signed our release forms, marched back out onto the speedway parking lot, and went our separate ways. Maybe next year, just maybe, those of us who have already had visas for six years can qualify for five-year visas and avoid the yearly paperwork hassle. It just might be worth it.