Good things

Well Friends, I am headed home in a couple days. My suitcases are mostly packed, my work mostly done, and I am so ready to be there. The past few weeks have been super busy. Our apartment turned into a guesthouse about 6 weeks ago. Since then part of our work time has been spent running it- cooking, cleaning, and staying up past midnight talking to them.
Okay, that last one was our choice! It has been fun, but staying up until 12:30 or 1:00 every night for a week does something unpleasant to my nervous system. As departure date got closer and closer, and my list of things that ABSOLUTELY MUST be done seemed to get longer, my nerves got more and more frayed. Last night I decided I would just not go to bed at all.

I thought that for all of 10 seconds before I remembered that it was Friday, which meant that next came Friday night, which was the Sabbath, and even if I wanted to stay up all night working I couldn't.

Praise the Lord for the Sabbath!

Two other things have come unexpectedly to temporarily removed Lisa and I from the pressure cooker of our last week.

Thursday afternoon our neighbors casually mentioned that the circus was in town. That was interesting, and I have never been to one, but now is hardly the time. Well later that afternoon I was informed that people were going and they were paying for our tickets if we wanted to go. Well that was hard to resist!

So off we went, and for two and a half hours reality and age were suspended. We laughed at the clowns, thought the horses were beautiful, gasped as the trapeze artist slipped and nearly fell, screeched when the jump-ropers jumped three-high (all in Scottish kilts), were astounded by the ventriloquist, ate popcorn, ate cotton candy, and were perfectly comfortable in our hard wooden seats.

Of course some things are different here- the barker barked in Hebrew (is that what he is called?), the people sitting next to us were Arabs, and religious Jews were scattered throughout the audience. The circus itself was Italian, but all the performers looked like they were Romany or Eastern Bloc.

Hey, for any of you who have seen "Wild Hearts Can't be Broken" remember the redheaded guy who was always trying to invent things, and finally built a metal ball-shaped cage in which to ride his motorcycle?
Well, they had one at this circus! They started with one person in it and worked up to three! That really was scary to watch.

Anyway, the circus was just what the doctor ordered, though personally I would never have thought of it! God does have a sense of humor.

The other suspension of worry came last night after sundown. We ate dinner with the neighbors, sat around talking and laughing with them, and then decided to watch Lemony Snickett's 'A Series of Unfortunate Events'.

This was one of those movies I had heard of but hadn't paid attention too. When it came down to watching it I vaguely thought I wasn't going to like it, or that the humor would be really crass, or that it would be stupid. But it wasn't! I loved it. It was clever and amusing and somebody must have had a lot of fun filming it. It was beautiful in a storybook sort of way.

So that long rambling is to say that I am so thankful to God for forcing us to relax and enjoy life instead of spending our last few days stressing out. Amen. Have a good Sabbath rest all of you, and I'll see you soon!