New Zealand - The Kombucha Shelf

We've gotten REALLY into kombucha making in the past year.  Gabe has perfected several flavor combinations, and we not only drink liters of the stuff, but we also sell it at the base and have a pretty faithful consumer following.

As a result, in our utility/office/storage/bonus room, we have a bit of a Kombucha Production shelf.  We keep our empty bottles on the bottom shelves, and let the Kombucha ferment on the top shelf in large vats.

The other day, Mara was wanting to be near me, so when I needed to rinse out some diapers, I put her on the floor behind me - between the Kombucha Production Station and an empty laundry basket.  She loves the laundry basket - primarily unloading things OUT of the laundry basket - so I pulled it over next to her and told her she could play with it.

She seemed relatively happy behind me (i.e.: she wasn't crying), so I rinsed diapers for several minutes. Then I heard some bottles fall, so I turned around to see what she was doing.  As you can see in the photo above, she had either gotten tired of the laundry basket or just ignored it, and she went for the kombucha shelf instead.

I chuckled and said something to the effects of, "Good job, Mara!  Well done exploring your world.  If you want to play with the bottles on the kombucha shelf, you go for it. You were made to explore, and you are doing exactly what you are supposed to do." Then I turned back to finish the diapers.

If the Lord had tapped on my shoulder, it couldn't have been any more obvious; I felt a strong confirmation with my words over Mara - but over me instead: "Danielle - why do you think my heart for you is any different than your heart for your daughter? If you want to explore the kombucha shelf, you can do that."

I think it is easy for me to sometimes feel like there is ONE thing I have to do with my life in order for me to be doing what I'm "supposed" to be doing.  I forget that sometimes God is perfectly fine with me exploring either the laundry basket OR the kombucha shelf (and probably some other options exist, too, that I just wasn't aware of!).  It's more about my heart than it is about my actions - if I believe I am confined to just exploring the laundry basket and I begrudge him for that or believe that is the only way to make him happy, I've got an inaccurate perspective of him in my heart.  And just like I wouldn't want Mara to be forced to play with the laundry basket when the kombucha shelf was more interesting to her - since neither was OUTSIDE my will for her, I'm equally happy with either choice she chooses as long as she knows she's free to choose.  I think that's how God feels about some of our choices, too.

New Zealand - Reaching

It's funny how there are some things that take on a new meaning after becoming a parent.  I don't subscribe to the idea that people who aren't parents do not have these same revelations, but I certainly have gained some interesting insight into spiritual things in this process of parenting.

A recent revelation I had was about my posture during worship.

I haven't always been comfortable being expressive in worship - I worry about if people are watching, if I'm doing something "right" or "wrong," if I've pitted out my shirt, if my face looks weird if I close my eyes, what to DO with my hands, etc.  For some people, worshiping expressively seems to be so natural, but for me, I don't feel natural!

So for a lot of my life, either from church culture background or those fear-of-man/insecurity thoughts, or just passivity, I have worshipped with my hands in my pockets or clasped in front of me.

But I had this thought the other day when I bent over to pick up Mara.  She was sitting on the floor, and as I leaned down to pick her up, her little arms came up and her hands started clasping and unclasping like she was trying to grab me.  She reached for me as I was reaching for her - and it wasn't just a floppy arms in the air kind of reach, it was with eagerness and yearning.

Something about her gesture - and realizing how often that happens - caused me to have this moment of recognizing a parallel between my daughter's response to me and my response to the Lord.

Mara reaches for me when she sees me.  Sometimes she reaches out to me to fulfill a need, but she also reaches for me simply because she wants me.

In fact, throughout her day, my daughter repeatedly reaches out to me.  And her desire or need for me is not a passive, self-conscious, afraid-of-what-people-will-think-of-her expression toward me.  She is open and public about her desire for my touch.

And I realized that I want to respond to God like Mara responds to me.  When I worship,  I don't want God to have any doubts about whether he is desired.  I want my body, which he has made and given for me to use, to express to him - in as clear of a manner as I can express - that I want him, I need him.

I am reaching for him.

New Zealand - Today's Whisper

Gabe and I have been thinking a lot and talking a lot and praying (maybe not a LOT but certainly we've had several different occasions) about the future.  Our commitment to staffing DTS's is up in December, and we plan to be home for Christmas, but at this point 2019 has a great big question mark over it.

We have several options we are considering and seeking more information about and asking the Lord to speak about and give clear direction.

But this has been a bit heavy on my heart for a few months now.  As the weeks tick by getting closer to outreach, closer to the end of this school, closer to our plane tickets home (which God provided a good deal on - thank you, Father!), I find myself feeling like something is a getting strung a bit tighter inside my spirit, and that tightness is increasing and the tension is mounting.

This morning I was having my quiet time and, although I started out intending to ask the Lord to speak into our future, I ended up repenting my fears to the Lord.  I realize I have a lot of them:

- I've been afraid that God won't speak to us at all about what comes next;
- I've been afraid that God will speak something but it'll be undesirable to hear;
- I've been afraid that God will speak something but we'll miss it;
- I've been afraid that God will speak something that makes us look foolish to obey it;
- I've been afraid that God will speak and give us direction, but then his goodness will run out - he won't help us follow through on what he says - and with that comes a spiraling fear that Gabe and I will end up homeless, job-less, being a burden to our families or living in a cardboard box with our baby and stuck in a circumstance that we didn't choose.

As I brought these fears to the Lord, repented for them, received his forgiveness for entertaining them, and started replacing them with truth (He says, "My sheep hear my voice" - God is a communicating God, and he DOES speak; He never leaves us or forsakes us; His eyes are on the righteous; He inclines his ear toward our prayers; He looks out of the children of the righteous; it is WISDOM to obey the Lord, etc), I felt like the Lord just whispered to me:

"What about if the best is yet to come, Dani?"

I had to repeat it to myself a couple times:

What about if THE BEST is YET to COME?

Last night Gabe and I were just recounting fondly memories from our early years of marriage - memories from living in our little white apartment on 21st Ave - opening the door and walking into our home, arranging our space to accommodate our desires, working on our little projects stemming from passions within us - for me, spending hours sitting in our comfy chair editing wedding photos, and for Gabe, spending hours with all kinds of crazy contraptions acid etching knives and ionizing titanium and stone tumbling his creations.

And we were saying how good and sweet those memories are, and how we treasure them, but we wouldn't go back because our life has just gotten richer and richer since them - going to Thailand and meeting all our precious students and growing and partnering together to teach, traveling into Burma and through Europe and seeing things and doing things we only dreamed of doing, coming to DTS and being so well loved and supported and invested into this community and gaining so many dear, sweet friendships in our lives, and welcoming sweet Mara into our family and getting to sit in the front row of watching her learn and grow and seeking to invest the best of what we have into her.

I wouldn't go back - God has truly brought us from a glorious place into subsequently more glorious places!

So what makes me think that such a growth and development is going to stop?!  I think that's the challenge God gave me this morning - His character is the same, his promises hold true, his faithfulness endures through a thousand generations.  And just as I am reading about in Deuteronomy and Joshua right now, God sent his people up into a land flowing with milk and honey, to possess houses they didn't build and eat fruit from vineyards they didn't plant - he is a GENEROUS God who loves to lavish abundantly on his children.

What if the best is yet to come, Dani?

I want to live believing he's capable of that.

New Zealand - Family Photos and the Start of a New School

We had some family photos taken in April by one of our students here at the base - she was able to get them to us today and we'd love to share a few! See below :)

Also, we're finishing up the last few days of staff training before we head into our third school staffing. The other two schools we've staffed have been very different from each other, so we're excited to see what this one ends up being like!

We've had the opportunity to join a weekly leadership training class that the base here is offering (it is called Habitudes) and we're looking forward to completing the course over the next several months.

Mara continues to grow and she is SUCH a delight! I'll post a few pictures I took of her this week in honor of her reaching her 6-month birthday! She's been eating solid foods (well, mostly puréed stuff!) daily for a few weeks now - although the interest and some occasional "snacks" have been there for a few months. It is fun to get to see her enjoying new things - mostly enjoying, that is!

Life feels like it is gearing up to be BUSY, but full and good and beautiful.  And going in to this school, my desire is to put my heart and soul in to it in such a way that when graduation comes in December and I am saying goodbye to these students and this season with them, I have no regrets.  I want to know I gave it my all!


- Dani

And some 6-month photos of this sweet girl!

New Zealand - Baby Kirkwood has arrived!

Hello friends!
We have added a family member, started a new DTS, are tackling breastfeeding and sleep deprivation, and falling in love with our little girl - it has been a busy couple of weeks!

Samara Louisa-Faith was born January 8th - she was scheduled to be induced out of the womb that day, but she got labor started about 12 hours before we were to report to the hospital. Dani was very grateful for the timing of that! Her birth didn't go exactly as we'd hoped (what's the saying? "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, it'll probably be somewhere in between..." - that held true for us!), but we were still able to go home from the hospital a few hours after she was born, which was a blessing - and a cost saver!

We welcomed 65 students 5 days later, and started the process of memorizing names (Dani's still working on that!) and figuring out how to have an infant in community! So far it has been great - lots of very willing baby holders allow for afternoon nap opportunities! For the first two weeks, our friend Jasmine was on Kirkwood care duty - bringing us meals, holding little Mara, running errands, picking up supplies, and generally just serving and blessing us. It REALLY helped our transition to parenthood to have her support!

This week is our second week of lectures, so we are getting back into the groove of spending mornings in the classroom - since lectures are happening off site this school, it takes a little more organizing, but the huge blessing of having our own car really helps with the logistics and provides us with freedom to be able to come late or leave early.

We've gotten our one-on-one assignments and we're excited to start working with these precious guys and gals. Dani will be working with three young ladies - Solvar, from Norway, Alyssa, from the USA, and Elinor, from Sweden.  Gabe'll get to spend time with Tobias, from Germany, and Jonas, from Denmark. We're really looking forward to seeing all that this school holds and getting to know these students!

Gabe in lectures with Mara.

Dani and Jasmine (center) and our friends Nat (left) and Jess (right).

Our little girl - we think she's just beautiful!

New Zealand - New School and New Baby... Coming Soon!

In the strange transition between schools, my blogs have floated away along with my normal schedule!  Yet here we are, already welcoming staff members back to NZ, and preparing to start receiving new students for January DTS in just 2 weeks!

The last few weeks have been difficult at times.  It's hard to say goodbye to people who have become such close friends, and also be around so many new faces while you process that sadness (the students of the DTS school which started in October have been here all December).

Dani and I have alternated between investing in new and old friendships, helping with kitchen and maintenance duties here on base, preparing for baby K's arrival, and trying to rest (to recover from outreach in Vanuatu and to prepare for parenthood - sleep while you don't have a newborn, right?)

The last two weeks have been intense, as our ultrasounds have shown that some of baby's measurements have not been increasing as quickly as the doctors would like.  So, the doctors would like to intervene soon to induce labor, while our midwife (and us!) would greatly prefer to see us go into labor naturally - but we all want "bubs" (as they call babies in New Zealand) to be healthy, whole, and happy.  In the midst of many weighty decisions, we have been reminded of how many things in life are outside our control, but also of how many privileges and blessings we receive from the one who is in control.

So we have prayed.  We have prayed for direction and wisdom in all these decisions.  We have prayed and asked Father God to release us from fear, pride, and worry.  We have prayed over baby K, for his/her health and safety.

And we have felt the presence of God, and His peace over us.  And we have been surrounded by love and care from family and friends sending their love across the miles, as well as wonderful support from our community of friends here.  And we have seen Dani's body progress more and more quickly as we trust God to do what we cannot.

So, we rest in the peaceful fact that our Father in Heaven knows every detail of our lives, and all things move forward in His mercy and love.  Thanks to everyone who has wished us well, and sent up their own prayers on our behalf.  We are so grateful for all the support we've been shown in this time.