1 KINGS 17

Here's the story of the prophet Elijah being fed by ravens, paraphrased by Tippy. You can find the real story in the Bible in 1 Kings 17.

"There was no rain for like a really long time. And so God told Elijah to live by the river, and the birds would come and bring food for him to eat. And there was no food to eat because there was a SALMON in the land."

And I reply, "Not SALMON honey, FAMINE. If there had been salmon, there would be no famine."

"WHAT IN THE WORLD?" WEDNESDAY

Today was one of those days. You know what I mean don't you? Everything was going along at a nice little clip. I was planning to eat lunch, throw some dinner in the crock-pot and take the kids rollerskating. I had plenty of time until......suddenly all I could say was, "WHAT IN THE WORLD JUST HAPPENED?"

I had Peanut in her high chair snacking on some pre-lunch fare. Some of the kids were outside playing hockey broomball. Think boys on rollerblades using brooms to whack around a ball. I was multi tasking; prepping lunch and putting together a casserole for the crock-pot. I was even humming because everything was going so well.

Just as I get my hands completely covered in raw chicken chaos breaks out. The doorbell rings. The broomball boys begin to shout, "The Schwan's man is here!" The dog is barking hysterically, because that is obviously her job anytime the doorbell rings. The oven timer is going off - french fries are done. Peanut is giving the "all done" sign in her high chair. And to top things off, as one of the girls races to get to the door she discovers the dog has just barfed in the entryway.

I'm thinking to myself: Chicken on the hands, french fries starting to burn, baby's "all done", Schwan's man at the door, and dog vomit on the floor. Take a number. Where do I begin and what exactly takes the highest priority? I'd like to think that the comedy of this timing only happens in the movies, until I realize this is my REAL LIFE. No script writer needed to produce this much chaos at any given moment. I can manage that all on my own.

"WHAT IN THE WORLD JUST HAPPENED HERE?"

WORLD CULTURES

Our family is a blend of 2 vastly different cultures. Ethiopia and America. We're proud to be both. We like to learn about different cultures around the world. Our favorite part is to try new foods! I'm being totally serious. We just don't put up with "picky or fussy" eaters in our children. Too hard with so many people to please.

In home schooling this year we have been having so much fun learning about the world. We have been praying for countries and people groups that some adults cannot even pronounce. And some that honestly, before this year of study, I had never even heard of. We can sing our way around the world thanks to some "cheesy" (but hey - they actually work) geography songs. All the kids can label the countries in Africa. It has really opened our eyes to a much BIGGER world. Pretty cool stuff I think.

This last week we were studying Russia and all those "stan" countries....Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan to name a few. If you need help with pronunciation just ask my 5 year old :) Remember I told you our favorite part was trying new ethnic foods. I'm not talking about Taco Bell here. So we were so excited to find a little Russian cafe last week and took our whole family there for lunch.

But you can kind of imagine the scene. Large family with many young children, some black, some white, entering the little Russian cafe and asking for a bowl of borscht. One woman eating inside even felt compelled to come over to our table and ask us, "What are the kids going to eat? You know their potatoes are different than french fries here?" she asks us. And we reply, "Great! We didn't come here for chicken nuggets or french fries." We came for cabbage rolls, beef stroganoff, Siberian pelmeni (dumpling with meat), potato vareniki , crepes with strawberry syrup and of course some borscht. And that is exactly what we ate. The kids gobbled it up much to the woman's surprise and to the delight of our server!

I suppose we keep people guessing about us, but we have gotten used to it.

"NOT ME!" MONDAY

If you had been at the zoo on Monday you would not have seen me with my seven children eating lunch peacefully at a picnic table. You also would not have overheard someone nearby comment and counting out loud, "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, ...how many do you have anyway?!? Wow! You're brave!" You wouldn't have seen me smile at her comment and count myself as "lucky" instead of "brave."

You also would never have noticed us in the dolphin and shark area exploring things with our eyes and hands. And you certainly would NEVER have seen one of MY children exploring the shark tank with... well, let's say MORE than his hands. Because my children do not fall into shark tanks fully clothed. Nope. Not us. We just plain don't act like that. You also would not have seen at that moment when my child was not falling into the shark tank head first, his brothers grabbing his feet, shirt and arms and trying to hoist him out. This actually continued to hold him under water rather than lift him up because he couldn't get his feet back on the ground. That is, IF that had happened, but it didn't, because it wasn't us you saw. And I would certainly NOT have been standing all the way across from the swimming child on the other side of the shark tank with some of the children, because I always keep ALL SEVEN children within arms reach, at all times. So when I turned around to see this particular child with head underwater, feet in air, and brothers struggling to resurface him - You absolutely DID NOT, I repeat DID NOT see me take off running to the rescue. And when the boy did resurface and looked generally unharmed, you would not have seen me laughing so hard I couldn't catch my breath. I don't laugh when my children have just fallen in a shark tank! Not me! That's just wrong. You also did not overhear the zoo volunteers say, "Well you're definitely not the first person who's done that!"

But none of that happened to us - because it was NOT ME!