Although I haven't found any around me, I am, in fact, quite connected to encouragement. I have 9 siblings, and 5 cousins, and an honorary Kohl that have google chat on our tablets. We have reunions every now and again, catching the bunch of us up on each other's lives and speaking life into each other.
I LOVE technology. The fact that we are all spread across 5 different states, 9 different cities, and miles and miles of separation, but STILL can get together on a Sunday night to ask how we can pray for each other is SO sweet.
And besides that, I have "come up for air" every now and again and find myself in Des Moines or Iowa City on a weekend... usually only briefly, but enough to make sure that my life lines on the other ends of my device screen are also surviving life in their corner of the world. Honestly, it's my favorite when I arrive home and know there will be nothing to see on Facebook or any other social media site, simply because I just interacted with my humans in person and there was no need for artificial interaction.
And to admit my complete nerdy side that has emerged since my arrival, a certain computer game I enjoyed as a child has come out with an online portal, hooking my computer to the computers of my friends and brothers in other towns and I can spend an evening battling the evil civilizations of the ancient world with the aide of my friends... unless I'm battling my friends. Either way.. it's a form of connection that I thank the Lord for and I try not to take for granted having technology at my finger tips.
I'm not big into all that.. but when it's what you have, you can be thankful for it. And besides the online stuff, I have grown in my relationships with my brothers and sister here and have come to enjoy and appreciate their company.
Homeschooling Kolby, doing cow chores with Kyle, painting and crafting with Eva, and also taking turns taking one of them on the road with me. I would say my patience has grown and my frustrations at the different environment has subsided. It is what it is. You can't change things, you can't control things, you just do what ya do and worry nothing past your own self.
Being on the road is nice too! I mean, it hasn't ALWAYS been my favorite thing, but sometimes I forgo tromping around the farms taking on the smell of the foaming pits in the hog buildings. Sometimes, I drive to whatever near by, hole-in-the-field little town and hunt for the local library. Gas station coffee in hand, I usually find myself a cozy chair and rest in the moment. It's usually less than an hour, but it's something. I'm not usually one to enjoy doing things on my own, but I enjoy feeling like lone traveler. Popping in and out of little towns where the humans just stare at you like you came from another planet.
Perhaps I'm actually Dr. Who... just kidding. But I AM a time traveler. I come from the 21st century and often find myself in the 80s or 90s. Do people out here even know what skinny jeans are? I can't tell.
Sometimes we go into what I like to call, "mythical towns." These I call because they think they are a town, but really they're just a collection of about 10 houses within walking distance of each other in the middle of a corn field.
My favorite so far has been Carnarvon. What a name. It's the tiniest little town in the middle of a corn field outside of Wall Lake, IA. It has a church, 11 houses, and a post office the size of Christian Miller's bathroom. But the very best part is a very large business that sells boats. BOATS. Pontoons, speed boats, jet skies... BOATS. In the middle of Iowa. In the middle of a corn field in Iowa. MOST of the town is taken up by boats.
Carnarvon.. the mythical town in the middle of a corn field in Iowa that sells boats. I should write a book about it.
So, really, things are good. Joy comes steadily and consistently and life is easy. No trials, really. Unless you count getting muddy goat hooves imprinted all over your fresh clothes after having showered and readied yourself to retire for the night before the cows got out (again). Those aren't bad tho. I could complain about the muddy goat hoof prints on my car, or the goats themselves that won't get off my hood when I need to leave... but it's just an inconvenience at best.
If anything, I think I could write a comedic book about my life here. Including how often I get asked where I want to go to college when I finish highschool, what the little kids say to me at the kids club I help out at, my rebellious wearing of Hawkeye gear at every ISU presentation I attend, or even just a day in the life of Fern.
I could probably tell you about the day I finally caught the mouse that was driving me crazy and how I made eye contact with it in its little sticky trap and screamed for a half a minute before I realized that wasn't going to change the fact that I was making eye contact with a live, fat mouse on the kitchen counter. I could tell you how we gave that fat mouse to the cat but didn't bother to take it out of the sticky trap and the poor cat got the sticky trap stuck to itself. I could tell you how we attempted to rescue the poor cat from the sticky trap until we realized that the mouse's tail was still stuck in it and we weren't going anywhere near it and the darn cat could wear it for life as far as we were concerned.
But usually, I'm too tired to remember the parts that make me chuckle so much. I arrived home Sunday night from a long drive and considered it a miracle that I'd managed to keep my eyes open the whole way home. Completely exhausted and imagining I would grab my weekend travel bag and pillow and make a b-line for a hot shower, PJs, and my bed, I was reminded very quickly that life in a family is different from life on your own. If I lived on my own, those plans would have been reasonable. But I hadn't even shut off my car engine when my little brother came running up out of the dark to inform me I was just in time to haul a heavy truck bed cover across the farm, through the woods, and over the back of the truck full of feed... before the cold drizzling rain got too bad. I don't even remember too much of it, but I know that once finished with the job, opted out of the hot shower part and just went to bed.
It was honestly a little comforting to arrive home and still be needed. I'm learning a lot about not being selfish or having ideal desires in my mind. I wish I knew how many times Jesus got called away from something by his mother or father and just did it with a good attitude. It's probably good that his childhood is not recorded much in the Bible.. because homeschool parents everywhere would probably get stuck on those passages and forget to teach kids the rest of the Bible. (that was a joke btw)... But really. The good attitude stuff is what you ask the Lord for because there's no written formula on it anywhere that I've found.
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