End of Summer 08, beginning of this blog

Mid August, usually marked by the anticipation of seeing school friends again, new notebooks and planners and school shoes, sadness of summer's end but a growing sense of readiness for a new beginning....  but not this year. 

Not this year.  

This year the Newman family has been thrown off the high dive of summer into the deep end of school day schedules, football, guitar, basketball, youth retreat, conditioning, papers due, meetings, choir, get up early, I need a lunch today, where are my khakis, Mom do you think this looks right, did you remember to call...., don't forget your cleats, my pads/ book/ backpack/ uniform/ money/ charger are in Dad's car, can you sign this, do you have any money, I need to be early today, hurry and eat dinner is ready and we need to go, phone ringing, can you iron this, do we have any clean socks, did you feed the dog, is Dad at work today, you really need to get to bed, are we really out of milk, I have got to turn off the Olympics and get some sleep.

How did this happen?  Did we not feel ourselves climbing up the ladder, unprepared to hit the water without our usual week or so of organizing the school uniform closet, checking off school supplies, attending pre school year meetings, buying H some new clothes, a great bag for books, stocking up on lunch making supplies, starting to gradually get up a little bit earlier each day? 

We did not feel it.

Because we were on Adventure.  

The first day of school for our boys actually happened without us. We were in the Dominican Republic on the first mission trip our entire family has taken together.  Our first day of school photo looks a little different this year... rather than posed in front of the river birch in our front yard before walking to Providence with the neighbors, we are posed in front of a Cathedral in Santo Domingo.  

Our days were filled with extraordinary experiences, some disguised as quite ordinary;

• Looking through a  photo album made for Alexander, who David sponsors through Compassion International, after meeting him for the very first time.
• Waving to the Dominican people, seeing their delighted smiles in their homes, on their "porches", in the street as our bus passed them each day on the way to and from our work site
• Playing baseball in the street with a broomstick and a "limon" with beautiful and brave Dominican boys
• Eating a mango or avocado at our lunch break offered to us by the same little boys
• Working harder than we have ever worked in our lives ... mixing, carrying, pouring cement and laying cement block - the walls of a church for a people who have prayed for God to provide a "temple" for Him for 13 years
• Laughing with and loving amazing
• little children, hundreds of them, who poured their love into us... singing, playing, helping, giving.... how could we be the same?
• Taking in the beauty of a country, the beauty of the stars from a flat rooftop in the pitch black darkness of the middle of nowhere, and the beauty of unhurried conversation
• Relishing the satisfying simplicity of having only what we need - very hard work, water, food (that could not have tasted better enjoyed together as a family), rest, worship and God's word.  
• Arriving unannounced to the door of a Dominican home, being invited in, made comfortable at the expense of the inhabitants, praying with Delia, Megellena, Anna Clara, Beinbenito
• Witnessing firsthand the beauty of the church, the magnitude of God, the glory of His creation, the satisfaction of service, the miracle and privilege of being a part of God's provision, the bounty of His blessings, the sweetness of fellowship with and unprecedented growth within our family

We did not feel the climb up to the dive off into the over filled schedule of our regular lives. But we did feel the plunge into, the under the water feeling, and the effort to kick to the surface. We have looked around and have begun to swim.  We are getting into a rhythm again.  

But it is not the same.  

The things that made us worry and fret and rush to the phone or off to the store to fix it.... don't seem that urgent.  The "got to be there, can't miss that, work harder, add more, reach higher" tendency in our lives has lost much of its pull.  No thank you is flowing much more freely.  I am free to read that book, sit down for dinner, resign from that obligation, make do with the ___ we already have, enjoy my time with you, let go of this pile of things, really see people, free ourselves for the experiences God has for us, for the best possible experience with Him.  Not perfectly, not even consistently, but it is there, for all six of us, increasingly.  The adventure was more than worth the subsequent plunge, and we can't wait to go again.  And again.  And again.     

 Just go.