Dojo

Admiration in Purest Form

Today I finished reading through the last of the newsletters on hand, which covered the years 1995 to 2000; and I am now looking over even earlier newsletters from when we moved back from Singapore the first time. It's rather odd working with such material as it gives me glimpses of unremembered days in my own life. I come across such passages as this:

"Since we left Singapore and came back to Sweden we have been able to settle down and get things going again. The children are fine, enjoying life in Sweden, but Sanna (our daughter) sometimes asks when we are going back to Singapore. She wants to go to 'Big Splash' or 'Bedok Swimming Complex.'"

 The most fascinating entries, however, have been the letters written by my twenty-two-year-old father during his mission trips in the late seventies. They are simple newsletters, single, typewritten sheets sheets that my father took the time to punch out on a basic typewriter. My father was younger that I am now when he wrote these, and he tells of travels I cannot even imagine.

With Operation Mobilization, he rode--ate, slept, talked, read books--in the back of a truck for four weeks as his team drove from Belgium to India, traveling through Germany, Austria, Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey (sidling past Mr. Ararat), Iran (avoiding Tehran because of political turmoil), Afghanistan, and Pakistan (they just made it through the Kyber pass on the border between Aghanistan and Pakistan--after four o'clock the pass was closed down because the military could not guarantee safe passage in the evenings through a territory ruled by the local tribe, the Pashtuns). He threw himself head-first into a hot, chaotic world completely unlike his own, and he fell in love with it, despite his bout of dysentery in Jaipur. 

 

"When we drove through the city we were jostled along with horse- and ox-carts, cows and pigs, chickens that roamed around freely. The streets were teeming with people. There was the butcher's table right next to the street dentist, there sat the peanut seller on the sidewalk together with the banana man, the orange seller, etc. There, some blankets and pots that made a home for someone on the side of the road. Tire services almost in the lap of those who ate in the street restaurant. The rich, the beggars, the lame, the crippled, and people, people everywhere."

- Lahore, 1978

I find my own heart responding to my father's words, though I am thirty-three years removed from their writing. In a letter dated from New Year's Eve 1978, he expresses a longing for something other than his current circumstances, a thought which I understand intimately:

"In all honesty, I must admit that over these last few days I have been missing home quite a bit. Therefore, it is good to know that the Lord wants me here, even though right now my feelings tell me otherwise. For the Lord has several times shown me that I must put my trust in him. Even if I do not understand now (Proverbs 20, 24, 16, 9), He will guide me and lead me in his paths, and I shall later understand."

  There are more stories, but I'll save them for the book.

I'm with the Band

Check out my new album. I always knew I'd make it as a musician. Well, not really. But if I did manage to rally the troops and string them into an eclectic neo-classical post-hardcore band, we would call ourselves Autodrome.

Father, Son, and Holy Toast

For the past few mornings, I have been making toast. My sister gave my mother this Virgin Mary toast press a few years ago for her birthday. I discovered it in a drawer and have been using it since, because no one ever said my daily bread couldn't be toasted.

Chocolate Balls

Our baking had a rather unceremonious beginning. The recipe calls for sugar, as all sweet treats do, and instead of pouring it into the metal bowl I tipped the measure into the oatmeal container. We had to find a sieve and sift the oatmeal to separate it from the sugar; but still, Amelia gave me only one of those you're-rather-hopeless looks.

Sweet cousin Amelia

Regardless of my own shortcomings, I give you the recipe in hopes that you fare better on your journey. This is a tried and true no-bake classic, a delicious memory from my childhood when my mother and I made chocolate balls around the kitchen table.

Chocolate Balls

100 grams butter

1 1/2 dl sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla powder

3 tablespoons cocoa powder

5 dl rolled oats

2-3 tablespoons water

pearl sugar or coconut flakes

Stir sugar with room temperature butter. Add vanilla powder, cocoa, rolled oats, and water. Mix well. Pinch off bits of dough and work into balls by hand. Roll balls in a bowl of pearl sugar or coconut flakes. Store chocolate balls in a lidded container, preferably in a cool, dry place. (We always keep ours in the freezer.) Enjoy!

Fall Days

 After a few hours of working, I caught the bus to my cousins' house. It's a bit of a walk from the bus stop, but I didn't mind as it was one of those beautiful autumn days: the sun slanted warm across the puddles left over from last night's rain.

 

Their kitty greeted me at the door. Freya, whom I named, is a ship's cat--she has extra toes on each foot to keep her safely balanced on a tossing ship. She doesn't much like to be touched and sniffed at me and darted away, pretending to be startled by the wind in the reeds. 

The Garden

Helle bought fall plants to punctuate her withering garden with colour. I've been trying to get mother to do the same, but to no avail. I suppose it would help if we had a garden.

Once inside, I pulled off my boots and dropped my bag and spent the remains of the day with my aunt and cousins--I vacuumed for Helle and helped William with his homework (he insisted on reading the biology textbook out loud like an old man from the heartlands of Sweden) and cooked dinner and made chocolate balls with Amelia. As I haven't been there for a bit, I had forgotten where things in the kitchen were--I resorted to pulling open drawers and peeking into cupboards to orient myself--it is the oddest feeling to have only a general sense of direction when one is usually so precise.

Work

I have overtaken the kitchen table with my work. Writing this book is very much like writing a comprehensive research paper--in this case, my research exists in the form of old newsletters, which I have to scrutinize for events and underline and outline to my heart's content. I have yet to look at old photos and letters, and only after that can I start the process of writing. But it's not a bad way to spend the day.