I can't believe how fast this summer has gone. Although it has not been easy with the unknown still l ahead of us and Mike's job search not exactly working out like we planned, I still will cherish many memories from these last two months. Years ago my friend, Cindy, said to me "Mattie, I used to think of life and marriage in peaks and valleys but the older I get the more I realize that life is peaks and valleys at the same time." Maybe that's another way of saying, like Paul, Ive learned to be content in whatever circumstances. Or perhaps that phrase my momma told me as a kid, Count your many blessings, count them one by one. Because, when I look for them they are there. The peaks right along with the valleys, the good circumstances mixed in the middle of the hard ones.
My English students this summer. I hope I never forget my female Iraqi student, arriving faithfully everyday to improve her English. Her goal to some way get into college, despite the waiting lists in Qatar, and her not being Qatari. She smiles everyday, even when she hears again that she didn't get in. Last week she told me how she takes the lessons we do in class and then teaches them long distance every evening to her friend still in Baghdad. She wants to learn English, too. I hope I never forget her words to me..before this I hate English now I speak all the time. I love it. And I will keep the hat she knit for me, forever.
I will remember moving our good friend, Curt, into his family's new place because they really needed a different place. It was the hottest day of the summer and we were hauling stuff from one villa to the other. Mike and I laughing at trying to even remember the last time we physically moved someone! But glad, so glad to be able to help just a little bit. While we were doing that his wife and daughters were showing Robert and his best friend, Adrian, Columbus, Ohio. How that blessed us to know Robert was having a fun week with good friends.
I will remember the lunches and movies with the few of us still in town. Seeing Russell and Talitha, Pattie and Barry, Elmarie and Kobus in Abu Dhabi, thankful to be so close we can see them. The quiet evenings with Mike playing two handed Spades and going round and around about our next steps. But always, at the end of the day, knowing that God has a plan. He will show us what is next.
No, this particular summer valley isn't quite over yet but that's ok. We will be ok. He knows the plans ahead of us. We are just waiting to see what they are. :) And in the meantime, it's been a good summer.
