Keitt Update - February 2013

Shower Time - All Over the World!

I have been blessed with ridiculously wonderful friends.

This whole having a baby thing of course is a really joyous thing, but it's times like these when it also makes you especially miss the people that know you the most.  

So my friend Laci, techno-savvy that she is, decided to throw me a "virtual" baby shower, courtesy of Google+.  (For those of you, like myself, that don't really understand the point of Google+, let me just share with you that while I don't know any other reasons to have it, it does allow you to video chat with up to 9 of your friends for free.  AMAZING!)  Saturday morning we all logged on, chatted it up, shared some fun stories, and of course played some trivia.  If you know the goodness of a Skype conversation with a good friend or family member, just multiply that excitement by 9, and that's what it was like!!

In addition to our fun online time together, they, along with many others, created a blog for "Baby Keitt" & Co.  Laci sent the link to me Saturday morning and I spent quite a few minutes on the couch reading the entries while crying, laughing, and overall just being amazed by how well my friends know me and how to love me best, even from so far away.  If you want to see what I mean, just check out the blog:

babykeitt.wordpress.com

And if you ever want to contribute to the blog, just send us an email and we will send you the link to publish one!  I know that Lil' Man will appreciate someday, and his parents will now.

I also just realized that I never shared pics from the shower I had here in January.  It was a "surprise" shower thrown for me by my host/Chilean mom and a bunch of women and friends from church.  It was pretty similar to stateside showers - food (of course), games, gifts, and chatting.  We had a time of advice-giving from current mothers which was very helpful and sweet :)  Overall, it was just another humbling reminder of how many people we have that truly care about us and love us well.

As far as Lil' Man goes, we are full term (37 weeks) tomorrow!  But obviously with his mom and dad's punctuality genes, we're not expecting him to be early, if even on time :) 


 

Sleepless Nights

I've been meaning to come up with a new hobby since this insomnia is becoming ever more frequent these days.  It's not even that I'm uncomfortable, it's just that I'm completely wide awake for 2-4 hour windows in the middle of the night for no apparent reason.  And now I get really excited when I wake up in the morning and realize I made it through the entire night sleeping...  Well, minus the expected 2-3 bathroom visits of course.  Is this just practical preparation for parenthood?  :) 

Maybe it's the excitement that's getting to me.  I know (supposedly) I have 5 more weeks left before we meet Lil' Man, but it seems so close now!  And when I do sleep, I honestly wake up most mornings and kind of forget I'm pregnant... of course I quickly remember as I have to very literally "roll" out of bed... and it's like a whole new gift every morning.

It makes me think about other nights where the excitement is just too much and I can't sleep, like...

... the night before our wedding...

... the night before I moved to Costa Rica for a semester (well, more like the 2 hours I slept before my early morning flight since I put off packing until the VERY last minute, like always... Why is packing such a dreaded task???)...

... the last night of living in a dorm...

... the last night of living with my roommates...

... the night after the phone call with Tracey where we suddenly weren't just "good friends" anymore, and what the heck did that mean?? ...

... the night after we Skyped with Doug and knew Chile was exactly what God had for us...

... any night before taking a flight somewhere, (again excitement, but more likely due to my packing issue...)

... the night before my first day of teaching...

... the night before my last day of teaching...

... the night before my first half-marathon, (not a great time to not sleep...)

... the night before we knew we'd be picking Mere up from the airport... and then Joelpants and Claire a year later... and Jules if I had known she'd be flying in...  

All these sleepless nights, including the present ones, just make me more and more grateful for the life I have already lived, the one I'm in today, and ALL the unknowns of my life in the future.  And even if that includes sleepless nights that are due more to crying babies than they are to the excitement of the unknown...  well then, bring it.  It may not feel exciting at 3:00 in the morning or the next day when I feel like I've been hit by a bus... but as far as long-term excitement, you are already worth it Lil' Man!    

Keitt Update - January 2013

Cocaine. Steriods. Life.

“I know this might seem a bit strange, but have you ever or are you taking cocaine or steroids?”

About 7 years ago this was the question a doctor asked me after I had gotten my first ever and hopefully last mammogram.  The whole matter was a bit peculiar and odd especially when I had my right chest (because men have chest and women have breasts of course) pancaked between those two sterile and cold metal plates.  They should find a way to warm those pups up, hopefully they have.   

For a few months or so I kept feeling this lump and having pains and after holding out as long as I could, (I’m not the biggest fan of western medicine,) I called up the doc.  No worries, nothing was found and the lump and pain went away by the next month or so. 

Oh yeah, I forgot to give my answer to the first question.  No, never touched the stuff and never will. 

The doctor basically explained to me that they had found unnaturally high levels of testosterone in my blood.  I’m still neither exactly 100% sure, nor worried about why I have this or even if I still have this, maybe it’s just genetics or maybe eating unnatural amounts of delicious peanut butter and bananas can give you unnatural amounts of cocaine like substances in your blood.  Ok, ok, I’m talking out of my you know what with the second hypothesis, but it sounds logical to me :) 

I’ve always felt like I’ve got some sort of reality intensifying substance in my veins that gives me cascading highs with a Ben Harper “Morning Yearning” buzz of joy, accompanied by dark melancholic lows with a hint of Tom Waits “Drops of Poison.” 

Christine thinks he sounds like “Cookie Monster,” I hear unfiltered surreal reality.  To each his own, I guess, but my own is clearly better than her own.

Back to the point.  I don’t know how to do middle or regular or ok.  It’s sort of like I always knew my first move out of Charlotte couldn’t land in the northern hemisphere.  I love finding myself in situations where I’m over my head, finding a way out, and then putting myself back in mix after a short lull, i.e. mountain biking. 

Being in our present moment of life, this rhythm of mine has found even more ways to express itself.  When it’s good and it typically is, it’s sublime. 

Cherishing the conversations I’ve had with my parents and friends back home...

Relishing the moments with my Chilean family and community...

Making progress in the business and ministry, which as we always say are one in the same...

Heading out into our back yard, a.k.a Chile, to find another epic location or lunar landscape to set up our tent...

And yet I can’t deny the flip side as well.

Missing the embrace of my family, my moms infinitely wise eyes & my pops’ strong, callous and loving hands...

Feeling very much alone in a world where I don’t catch on to the inside jokes or what’s funny, because I grew up with Sanford & Son and they grew up with Chavo de 8...

Having to hit that little red Skype defect that ends the conversation and reminds you of the beauty and annoyance of time and space.   

Feeling the dull void of absence right below my rib cage and 1.25 inches inside of my torso as I follow the traffic flowing left and down from the airport, where as 8 days before I’m making that same motion but with butterflies of excitement filling that exact space as we venture off with amazing friends to experience life together for a bit...

I’m learning to embrace both sides and not deny either the space they deserve.

With that in mind I’d like to share a few pictures from some of those joyous highs (located in the photo gallery - click the lego camera on the right) because who wants to see or take pictures of the other side of the coin? :)

Cocaine.  Steroids.  Life. 

Wow.

If you didn't catch our December video, let me recap a little bit-

When I started working with House of Hope this year, I really had the mindset of "oh, all this will take is a little organization and networking and a key point person to fundraise..."  I totally thought I would just step in, raise all this money for the ministry with my administrative skills, and we would move forward.

After the first month of my "fab" admin. skills, we not only failed to gain any new donors, but we actually lost the support of someone who had been supporting the ministry for years.

Needless to say, it was a good reminder that it is not, nor will it ever be, my skills that make the difference.  From the start, way before I was around, this ministry has been miraculously sustained by ways only God can orchestrate.  And I could not feel more humbled to be a witness in His work here.

We have made it by, very literally, month by month this entire year - only enough to sustain one teacher with a horrible minimal salary and absolutely no extra money for the most basic classroom supplies or even someone to clean the building.  And it's not that God wasn't showing up in those meager months - In various "random" (eh hmm... not so random) ways, He provided each month so that we could at least get by.

So we started praying and dreaming big.  We created a "dream" budget that included a second teacher so that we can invite more kids, someone to not only clean the building, but do it on a regular basis, monthly funds for school supplies and soccer balls, and even dreamed about field trips we could plan and other events throughout the year.  

In December, we still didn't have the funds to hire another teacher, (let alone reach our minimal monthly needs,) but we felt like God was saying start looking anyway, because it's going to come in.

And then we received commitments for MONTHLY support from some of our Chilean churches here.

And we were invited to make our first presentation at a local business to ask for donations.

And we were told that our coffee fundraiser in the States is projected to raise $8,000 for House of Hope.

And then, as if all of that weren't enough, we received a $10,000 donation just before the New Year, given specifically so that we can hire a second teacher...

What all of that totals up to is approximately $20,000... divided by 10 months = $2,000 a month... which is exactly what our "dream" budget requests!

God shows up in both the dream months and the meager.
God is good, all the time.

But this is just unreal to me.

Thank you, Lord, for allowing us to work alongside of You in this ministry.  Thank you for helping us to dream big so that You can be even more glorified.  Thank you for sustaining this ministry by uniting people in ways we could never do on our own.  Thank you for your grace, your provision, and your great, great love for us.... 

  

Keitt Update - December 2012