On Earthquiakes, CHile, and missions, but not adoption (finally).

Yesterday as a group of my friends and I worked on a quilt for a new baby, we started talking about Chile and earthquakes in general, and someone remarked,

"Except for the damage and death, an earthquake seems kind of exciting."

To which I retorted, "Yeah, until you're in one big enough to rattle your brain around your head, or you have an earhtuake swarm where you have earthquakes every day for a week. It's not fun. It's better off to have a hurricane, where you at least have some advance notice and can get out of the way."

And to my surpise, people disagreed with that idea. Oh, well. To each his own. Hurricanes over earthquakes any day in my book.

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Our church is a taking a vision trip to Chile, with the goal of planting a mission team there. I really want to go, really bad. I miss using spanish to tell people about God, and I still feel more comfortable sharing the gospel with non english speaking people( weird, huh? But its true.)But I cant go and here's why:

1. All our left over money is for adoption.
2. I dont want to be a missionary to Latin America.
3. If I was a missionary, it would be because Alex and I served together somewhere in Eastern Europe. Becuase in the end, I've come to understand Russians and what makes them tick more than latinos now. I never thought I would say that. It hurts a little, but not much. It's what happens when you marry a slavic person.

I use spanish a lot here, and if I was more entreprenurial, I would make a good l.living translating for people. But alas, I really just want to be a wife and a mom.

And I cant believe I'm saying this either, but we'd both like to go back to Belarus for a while one day in the distant future when we are done having kids. Its something for us to bat about occasionally.

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We're going to belarus in June for most of the month. I'm mostly excited about this. But after 4 times, I know what to expect and how to avoid the unpleasantness:

1. My sister in law will tell me I am fat.I've been running 12 miles a week, swimming, and cutting calories. I still fit in my wedding dress. I will be much thinner when we go. She wont be able to call me a fat american.

2. Shuba. I hate shuba, but I cant avoid it. But I'm resolved to have 1 bite at each friends house and then not eat it anymore.

3. Customs. Again, I cant avoid this. But this time, I will keep my camera on my person, and wear my nice shoes through customs, and pull my usual "you cant keep that. Put it down or I will call the consulate" routine. Theatening the with consulate has only worked once, becuase a fat customs lady tried to take my shoes and the box of pasta I brought for one Alex's friends. Another trick that works a lot, especially late at night or before lunch time is to start crying hysterically (its easy when you've been awake for 30 hours straight). It's especially effective if you cry in front of men. It irritates them, and they get rid of you as soon as possible.