Recently, a well-meaning friend asked us what we’re doing right now.  We gave him (or her, I honestly can’t remember who it was), the run down: we’re raising the last bit of our ministry support, working on our house (it’s an investment!), and beginning the sorting/packing process to be able to return to Congo.

“No, I know all of that,” he/she said.  “What do you DO each day?  I mean, what does all that actually look like.”

And I realized she/he was right – this is probably a mystery to most.  Some days, it’s a mystery to me!  What do we DO all day?

So, I thought I’d outline a typical day to amaze your socks off.

There’s a problem, though.  That T word there…”typical.”  While we’re traveling, like when we were in WA, there was no such thing and people got that.  Now, though, as we’re at our “home” in Idaho, it’s harder to grasp the lack of typical.  So, as I outline this “typical” day for you, please keep in mind that by the time you read this, I will have forgotten what this “typical” day looked like, in exchange for a new “typical.”  Ok?  Begin.

7am:  My alarm goes off because I’m motivated to rise before everyone else and have a peaceful shower time.  However, within minutes, Amelia has crawled in bed for her morning Daddy cuddles.  It’s a must to begin the day well.  Axel has slept through the night for three days straight, at the time of this writing, and, so far, he’s good to go until 8 or 9.

8am: We all sit down for breakfast, minus sleeping Axel.  I make any variety of things – pancakes, waffles, oatmeal (a favorite for the kiddos), Dutch Babies, eggs and sausages…we have cereal only on the rough mornings.  Thank goodness for cereal.

9am: We have moved on to the first task of the day – emails, Facebook, dressing little ones, feeding Axel and planning the day.  If Matthew needs to make a run to the hardware store for something for a house project, he goes at this time and tries to take a little one or two.  We also review the calendar just in case we scheduled anything for the day and completely forgot about it (this happened once…it was a sad day…sorry Pastor Rick) – ministry partnership (this time of raising our financial support for our ministry) is not a 9-5 job, so sometimes there are 8am coffee dates, sometimes there are dinners at 7pm…everything else happens on everyone else’s schedule.  It’s fine, but it makes a routine a little harder.

10am: Snack time for Levi and Amelia!  I work on dishes, laundry, Mommy-ish things that are fun like helping Axel with tummy time (he’s sitting up all by himself now, yay!) or doing puzzles with the bigger ones.  This might be my only “downtime” with them for the day, so I try to make it count.  Matthew is usually doing ministry partnership paperwork or working on the house, depending on the day and the schedule.

11am: I get lunch ready and Matthew works on either house stuff, which could be fixing it up, or sorting some stuff to go.  Axel goes down for nap #1.

noon-ish: Lunch!  This takes an hour or so.  We plan out the afternoon, especially during nap time.  It’s vital to get something done during this quiet time!

1pm: Nap time begins!  Party!  I mean, shhhhh…  I am known to make some phone calls to potential supporters, catch up on some emails/facebook messages, write thank you notes, sort paperwork, or do some sort of research for future living needs.  I might run an errand while Matthew does his own thing and the kids are all sleeping.  There’s no set tone to our day, but there’s always progress made…

3pm: Kids wake and lately it’s been snack and outside time (well, Axel stays inside with me…mostly).  Keeping them outside is a different story, but the air and dirt are great for them and they love it.  This week’s project for Matthew on the house has been cutting out our two basement bedroom windows to make them legal egress.  So, once completed, our little investment goes from a two-bedroom to a four-bedroom.  Cha-ching!  The cement cutter guy came a few days ago and did a great job.  The new windows will arrive shortly, but meanwhile Matthew is digging window wells, framing in the window holes, and will install the new windows.  Interspersed in between the manual labor, Matthew has been focusing on his French course.  I sit with him when I can, but more often kids and house chores keep me from being able to sit too still.

4pm: Time to get dinner started and clean up anything I’ve left undone (paperwork, laundry on the table, etc.), though I suppose I intersperse dinner prep with continued work…

6pm: Dinner-to-bed marathon.  You parents with little ones know what I’m talking about.  This time period conveniently falls into the same block as the Best Time to Call People block.  6pm here means it’s 8pm on the East Coast.  Studies show that between 7 and 9 are the best hours to actually reach people on the phone.  So, we aim for 8 (after kids are in bed, before you’ve shut your brain off).  We trade off making phone calls and keeping the bedtime momentum going.  Of course, that’s not to say our kids are difficult to put to bed – actually, they’re super easy.  Clean up toys, PJs on, teeth brushed, story read, lights out and we don’t see them again for twelve hours.  But, somehow, this process still takes 45 minutes.

8pm:  Axel is winding down and heading to bed a little earlier each night.  His food needs of late have been out of this world, but if that’s what he needs to sleep through the night, I’m more than willing (thank goodness he’s started solids and he’s content to take a bottle -or two- of formula)!  We make the last of our phone calls and Matthew usually heads out to clean up from the house work of the day and make necessary notes of things to do in the morning.

9pm: Dishes, French lessons, blogging (obviously not regularly, but this is the time block for it), more emails and Facebook, West Coast/Alaska phone calls, writing a prayer letter, sorting things, and more laundry.

10pm: Matthew and I make notions of heading to bed but, instead, find funny things on the Internet and wine and chocolate (that’s practicing for France, ya’ll).

11pm: Head to bed…suddenly realizing there’s so much left to do!!!!

I realize when we write it all out, it doesn’t seem that exciting, or even that productive.  However, like I tried to state earlier, there is no such thing as a typical day.  One day we may head out to run errands as a family, usually stopping at MAF HQ and seeing all of our friends there and chatting with folks, especially our Ministry Partnership Coach, who keeps us accountable for our time spent getting to the field both by being in touch and through our weekly time sheets.  Another day we may have doctor appointments (a lot coming up in the near future!) to get us ready for life without a regular doctor.  Then, sometimes, we work on one big project as a family, such as sorting clothes, going through boxes in the garage, working on the house or making our yard nice.  Many nights we have people over for dinner, or go to someone’s house for dinner.  Like your days, each day for us is different.

So, if this doesn’t fully describe our current life, it’s because I can’t.  I can’t really, fully, answer the question our friend asked. We feel like we have all the time in the world to visit with you, get to know you and share about our ministry, but we also feel immense pressure to hurry up and get ready, have our house and things in order so that we can leave soon.  Trying to balance both is a little wearing if we let it be.  We are thankful for the Lord’s grace and that this process of living in balance of being in the present and preparing for the future is only temporary…someday, soon, we’ll put down some roots.  And make that yard nice, too.

Our second trip to WA is winding down to the last few days…  I realized I really haven’t written much about our visit here, mostly due to how busy we are when we’re here, but we took photos of the highlighted moments and I want to share them with you.  Forgive some of the randomness…or don’t.  I have a few photos from Idaho, harkening back to this post.

Rest stop photos during sunset on the way back to Idaho the first time

What kid doesn’t love a dump truck in their front yard dumping rocks!?  Also, it’s loud.

Sliding down the rock pile during our two weeks in Idaho working on the yard

Our first Sunday here, the 4th, we had a lovely time presenting at Family of Grace Lutheran in Auburn.  This church has been so supportive of our ministry from the beginning.  We had a lovely time with the congregation and presenting our newest updates of the ministry and our role with MAF.

Sibling love!

We had a few days of phone calls and planning of our trip, but we were also gifted a Family Day at the children’s museum in Olympia.  It was a fun trip – we even solicited Grandmom Lind to watch Axel so we could focus on the big kids and the exhibits.  Also, a stop at Cabela’s was a special treat.

The boat exhibit at the children’s museum was Matthew’s favorite part…

Levi built this boat all by himself while we weren’t looking!

The children’s museum in Olympia has a fun outdoor exhibit

Cabela’s is like a zoo…

Then we had a super full day Wednesday.  By “super full” I mean, at 8pm Tuesday night we had no plans, then we suddenly made lots and lots of plans.  We had lunch with a family in Kirkland at a park, we stopped by Matthew’s honorary grandfather’s apartment on Mercer Island at the last minute, we met another family for dinner in Tacoma (planned by calling them on the way and they invited us for that evening), attending the prayer meeting at our “home” church in Tacoma, then stopped by a very good friend’s house at the perfect time to catch up and scheme with her.  It was a lovely day.

Papaji and the great grandkids!

That weekend Matthew attended a men’s breakfast, then we borrowed my parents’ RV and towed it to Vancouver (WA), right near Portland, OR.  We planted ourselves in a crowded RV Park – but it was cheap! – and invited some friends over who have a sweet girl STUCK in Congo that they are adopting for a white trash hot dog dinner.  They were great sports about it, though.

Sunday morning, Mother’s Day, we hauled ourselves and the RV to Westminster Presbyterian Church and got to share about our ministry for the Sunday School hour.  This was rather momentous because, after making a similar presentation about a thousand times, this is the very first time Levi and Amelia have had to sit through it without anyone supervising them.  So they sat, with granola bars and paper and pens…  It actually went well, and the congregation was full of families, so all was forgiven when Levi interjected his memory of snakes (we didn’t actually see any snakes while we lived there), when he walked up to us and informed us he “had to poo!!!!” or when Amelia just began to wander.  45 minutes is a long time…no worries.  (Axel was fine, by the way, because he slept through it all.)

After church and lots of wonderful conversations (including meeting people who are related to home office staff and long time friends of friends), we headed out for lunch with the pastor and his wife and family (who are friends of ours).  We ate ice cream sandwiches in the parking lot next to the RV in the hot sun and said goodbye.  We jumped into the truck and headed north to Puyallup (if you’re not from WA, please practice pronouncing this…it’s fun) for a small group that we got to attend during our last visit and were excited to be able to catch them again.

After great fellowship with that group we headed north up the peninsula to do some real camping.  Ok, “real” camping with an RV.  Basically not crammed in an RV park.  It was a lovely state park just between Silverdale and Poulsbo and we loved it. Not only was it on the water and perfect weather, but the best part was that we were one of only two families in the entire park!  It was awesome!

A perfect spot!

Crab found!

Mommy and Axel camping

Monday was Axel’s six month birthday – wow time flies!  We played and spent time together and even got to see an awesome event of nature: a couple of herons were catching and enjoying their fish breakfasts.  One small heron had caught a fish that was too big.  It stabbed it, played with it and was generally perplexed about its predicament.  Out of nowhere, an eagle swooped down, screeched at it and flew off.  The heron was spooked, not only by the eagle, but also by the several sea gulls that flew in to fight the eagle, since they were also apparently hoping for the heron to give up on its breakfast.  The eagle watched for a few minutes before swooping in again, much more aggressively, the startled heron dropped its fish and the eagle grabbed it out of the water.  It was a great display of nature.

Tuesday it was time to pack up and leave the campsite.  We drove into downtown Poulsbo and met two families for a fun park and dinner date.  The weather has been sunny and in the 80’s – you really can’t beat that – so the park on the waterfront was perfect.

Poulsbo has a wonderful bakery – this viking cookie was unavoidable

Wednesday and Thursday we spent time catching up from being away from communication and laundry and spent extra time with family.  We were excited to see Axel’s great uncle, his namesake (though the name Bruce has been used several times in the Lind family).  We also made the ultimate trip for any missionary family preparing for the field: IKEA.  We did well, only buying what we were planning on buying, but it’s always a fun trip to IKEA.

Ducks and more ducks!

Lind Men – Uncle Bruce and his nephew and great-nephews

We have a few days left here and are hoping the day or two of rain predicted can just stay away.  We are sad to leave WA for the last time, but also excited to get back to Idaho and continue the work of wrapping up life there.