Team Expansion: Halverson

Looking forward to a break

O.K., it's Christmas time.  I like this time of year (how many times have you heard that?).  I really like the look and smell of fresh Chirstmas trees.  I really like thinking about the Christmas story and talking about it with my kids.  I really like the opportunity to take off a few days and just relax.  Especially this year.  You see, our students don't seem to really care about coming and learning.  They come and give the littlest effort possible and cringe at any effort you ask of them.  Not only this, but I don't feel like there is much opportunity to share my heart with them.

Thinking about our English students and their apparent apathy made me remember when I was a sophomore in High School.  I was apathetic and quite rude.  There is one instance that sticks out in my mind.  I'm pretty sure it was Christmas time in 1984.  I was a snooty wrestler and hanging out in the commons of my high school.  The choir had set up there and were singing some songs for our entertainment.  I thought, "Hey, why don't I make fun of the choir director by swinging my hands up and down like her."  Now, I said I was snooty but didn't say I was very smart.  You see, I did this but not from behind the director but behind the choir, which meant the director could see me.  Well, after they were finished Mrs. Fossum (the director's name) came straight to me.  She didn't pass go or collect $200 but came right to me.  She looked me right in the face and said, "I saw you mimicking me.  I think that if you're man enough to make fun of me then I guess you're man enough to be in the choir.  Try outs are in about six weeks."  This was a challenge, pure and simple. 

You want to know what I did?  I tried out.  You want to know what happened?  I could actually sing and I actually made it.  And I not only made the main choir but made a select choir of eight guys and eight girls.  I sang with the choir for 2 years.  I went on trips as a choir member.  I was a choir guy.  I tried out for the Colorado All State Men's Choir in 1987 and made it!  This was something that I never really would have thought I could do or even known I wanted to do, if I hadn't been an idiot making fun of a really terrific lady.  It turns out that Mrs. Fossum was a Christian woman and not only encouraged me in singing but also in my quite imperfect faith by being a great example of a Christian in the world but not of it.

I think the Lord reminded me of this story to encourage me.  I didn't want to learn.  I just wanted to play around.  But one woman looked me in the eyes and, in many ways, changed me to go on a better course.  I want to do that for these students also.  If you could pray that I would know that, no matter what, I need to keep keeping on, keep being who God wants me to be for these students. 

Thanks for praying.

Karl

Mundane Adventure

Well, it's been several weeks since I've said anything.  Why is that?  Basically, it's life here.  If you take a pot and throw in the following ingredients, you'll have a bit of understanding regarding what I mean.  Take electricity that runs at about 50 volts (out of 220); add a big jolt of said electricty (in order to blow out a 110 to 220 invertor); heap on generous portions of all of this happening during the times I have set aside to write.  Don't forget about the all important ingredient of a generator that breaks down just when all of the other things happen.  Take all of these things, throw them in our lives and you have the basic recipe for why it's been a while.

This makes me think about life here.  Is it different than in the States?  Yes.  But not really that different.  It is mundane and run of the mill.  We have gotten used to many things.  They have become day to day tasks.  Shopping is one of those.  We have to shop for food to survive, just like in the US.  We know where to buy the things we need, this makes it mundane.  Another thing is the work routine.  I teach English and Jill does a great Job at taking care of the kids and homeschooling the boys.  We have a schedule we are in and it is mundane. 

The adventurous things come when the door gets knocked on and we aren't expecting someone; when we have an opportunity to speak with someone about our hearts and hear about theirs; when we just go for a drive (lots of near head on collisions); or when we don't undertand what someone is saying and have to really work to get the meaning.  These are the times that we remember that God gives us the mundane and the adventurous. 

What does all of this mean, the mundane seasoned with a little adventure?   It means that in many ways, our lives are the same as yours- ones lived in service to the Lord, trying to thank Him every day for loving and saving us.  Please pray that we would live with this attitude, in the mundane and the adventure.

weekend

This weekend, my wife surprised me.  I got home from teaching classes at the local HS and she said, "Pack it up, we're out of here."  From the hints the kids had dropped, "Hey mom, when are the guests coming?"  Or, "Mom, is it still a secret?" I knew that she was up to something.  My birthday had been the Monday before but we hadn't had time to celebrate it.  So she had planned something for me. 

Not just something little, though, something big.  I came to find out that the kids were going to our team mates home for the night and we were going to another country (this isn't too hard when the place you live is only 2 hours from one end to the other).  The other country was M and the place was the capital city at a very nice western hotel.  Wow!  One whole day just us.  This hadn't happened in a couple of years.  I got packed quickly, we shot off (as the boys like to say) to the team mates' home, dropped off the kids and it was just us.  24 glorious (as my friend Brian likes to say) hours of the two love birds (as we used to think of ourselves).  We went to a mexican restaurant for dinner, went to the Paradise  theater (it wasn't that- unless old seats, sound out of sync with film, and folks making out in the back row is paradise).  We had some treats from a really nice bakery.  Walked around the newly renovated outdoor mall and just generally had a whine free time.  The surprise was worth the not knowing.

Why am I writing this?  Basically because I am usually a person who likes to know what the surprise is before it is time to know.  I have always wanted to know what my Christmas presents were before Christmas, so much so that I have been known to peak (sorry to say that mom).  I just don't like to wait.  Yet, how many times have I missed the true surprise which is found in not knowing what will happen.  I find myself here, where I live, where I work, wanting to figure out the surprise.  I find myself trying to figure out what is going on and yet not seeing that so much of what God is doing is found in the not knowing.  It is in the surprise that I will see what has been going on all around me all the time I have been trying to figure things out and hoping that things would happen.  Then, in the surprise, I realize that everything was taken care of all along the way.  I had hoped for somethig good for my birthday and in the surprise I found that it was more than I could have expected.

Can you all pray?  Ask Him to help us to not have to know what the surprise is, that is, the surprise of what He is doing in the lives of folks around us.  I guess this would be called asking for patience.  Right now, there are few things we need more than this. 

Life on the Roads

Yesterday was a day I won't ever forget in K. I was taking some friends to Mac to get a passport replacement. After just 5 minutes on the road, I watched in horror as a small child, not much younger than my son J, ran out into the road. It all went into slow motion as he went in front of the car directly in front of me. That car hit it's brakes but only too late. There was another car coming towards him and the front right of his car hit the child. I saw as the child impacted on the car and then flew off of it as it stopped. I stopped and saw that the boy lay on the pavement and the driver of the car got out. Another man scooped up the boy and flagged down a passing car, which immeadiately seemed to know what was going on. It stopped and the man with the boy jumped in and they raced off with hazards blinking to the hospital in the capital city. I was frustrated by the fact that knowone else was trying to call the police and I did so myself. There was nothing else we could do and so we went on.

Two things really stick to me in this situation. First, how many other people die around me every day that I don't see and what happens to them without a Saviour? The answer, more than I can count and they die only to spend eternity apart from the One who loves them more than life itself. Second, Was it apathy or shock that made the expressions on the faces and reactions of those around me seem so weak? No one else (except the man who grabbed the child and the one who took them to the hospital) seemed to even have been phased by what had happened. Possibly it was shock. But, having learned of the apathy of this culture after having lived here for several years, I think apathy was mixed with shock. There is a large dose of fatalism associated with life here and those around me may have immeadiatly began to think, "Zoti e ka shkru," "God has written it." Although is sounds spiritual, it is actually full of hopelessness and fatalsim.

So, why am I even communicating this event? Why am I giving my commentary on it and what I think was going on around me after it? Basically because I would like you all to remember that every person around you who dies without Christ will be seperated from God for eternity. This statement sounds dogmatic but it is actually full of love and hope. Ask yourself, Do you want them to die that way? Do you want to encourage them to at least consider the love of the True God? Would you want to die that way?

Also, I want to encourage you to stand firm in the hope that you have in Christ. Understand though, this hope isn't like those who say, "I have hope in God's forgiveness and His mercy but I DON'T have the security that He will give me His love and His mercy." Through Jesus, we have hope AND security that what God wants us to have, friendship with Him, is ours through faith in Jesus.

Please pray that we would be able to share this with our friends here in K and we will pray that you would be able to share this with your friends in A.

First K Blog

Here we are in K. It's 11:25 p.m. and the electricity has been on all day. This is a rarity but the weather has been really good these last few days of October. As I sit and type this I am listening to the great number of stray dogs bark at and fight with each other just down the hill from our house. I don't know how the neighbors stand it- these dogs are right outside their windows. They say KFOR will come and kill them, but then don't do anything about it.

We went to a friends house for tea tonight. They ended up serving us an entire dinner of Fli, pickled peppers, pickled carrots, and chicken. One of our visiting friends said it was the heaviest cup of tea he had had in a long time. Then we did have tea and cake for dessert. We talked with the friend's dad who, in 1993 was beat by the Yugoslav police. He said that he couldn't count how many times they hit him on the head after 13. He came home black and blue on his whole body and shorlty after that went to live in Germany for 6 years until it was safe for him to return home after the war of 1999. He also told us that he worked 25 years for a Yugoslav company which, after Slobodan came into power, went bankrupt, along with his entire pension.

That's all for now.

Welcome

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