Culture Shock

We have a visitor. No one's told me how long he's staying, but he seems to be making himself pretty comfortable. He sleeps. He cries He makes faces. And after he eats he does leg exercises. When he first got here I had a lot of energy.  But when I calmed down we got to hang out together.  His head is even softer than daddy's! Mommy and Daddy keep on saying "isn't it great how gentle he is?  But how long will it last?" I love him as a brother already.  Can he stay? - Enoh, the proud brother.

As our son Enoh becomes more aware, more communicative and therefore more prone to showing emotion, I'm beginning to realize just how delightful the smiles and laughter are and how downright scary the tantrums can be.  Why is this?  Because children haven't learned how to mask their emotions yet.  They haven't discovered the art of manipulating their words and actions to portray what they want other people to think of them.  Therefore their emotions are true and genuine - however pleasant or unpleasant it may be at the time.  Dallas Willard has a great quote about this in The Divine Conspiracy : Interestingly “growing up” is largely a matter of learning to hide our spirit behind our face, eyes and language so that we can evade and manage others to achieve what we want and avoid what we fear. By contrast, the child’s face is constantly an epiphany because it doesn’t yet know how to do this. It cannot manage its face. This is also true ...

Our hearts grieve today over the passing of Josiah Nathaniel Wilson - the son of our dear friends Milo and Erin. The Wilsons updated their blog on Sunday afternoon with this feed: "Thank You for your prayers. Josiah's heart is now whole. He is in the loving arms of Jesus. Truly, a heart that holds on." Please continue to pray for the Wilson family. 

You may be surprised the by the similarities between Eastern Europe and America. Like the fact that both cultures work on a  "one size fits all" system .  The only difference is that in America we can adjust the size of the product to our liking.  In Eastern Europe the individual must adapt to the size of the item.  Take sinks for example.  In America, you have all kinds of different sink sizes to choose from.  The one in Petra's parent's house in the States was big enough to bathe Enoh in when he was 4 months old last Christmas.  (The American ingenuity that produced a bathtub for the sink is a topic for another post.) Whereas the one in our house in Croatia is not big enough to bathe 1 week old Ian.  (The Croatian disbelief that you would even think about bathing your child in a sink is a topic for another post.)  So Ian took his first bath on the kitchen table instead. Milk is...

If Ian has one foot in America and the other in Croatia you wouldn't know it by his name.  Petra and I set a deadline of Christmas day 2009 for deciding on a boy name if indeed baby Bohall #2  was a boy (we already had a girl name picked).  As the day of reckoning approached I was reading Enoh the following book: In the Olivia series - which we highly recommend - the heroine of the story has a brother named Ian.  After going through the predetermined formula of "look up name, google name and let name sit in our heads" we decided it might be a good fit.  We put it on our top 10 list on the fridge and watched it move up towards the number 1 spot almost overnight. But what middle name would go well with Ian?  Petra already had a name she wanted to use.  The idea came from The Kite Runner : Though less than prominant, Rahim is one of Petra's favorite characters in the novel.  It is well worth your time to read the book...

“I know we’ve talked about having more than two kids, but at this point the only way I’d be ready to have a third child is if someone offers to be a surrogate mother.” Those were my wife’s words a few minutes after giving birth to Ian Rahim at 1:40 on Wednesday afternoon. No, Petra didn’t have 59 hours of regular contractions like she did with Enoh, but the last two hours of labor were definitely more difficult for her this time around. Perhaps the more than two pound difference between Ian and Enoh had something to do with it. Ian means “God is gracious” and Rahim means “compassionate”. The nurse who recorded all the information after his birth confirmed the fact that they are both strange names and then asked “what’s your first son’s name?” Needless to say, she won’t be coming to us for advice as to what she should name her children. More on the name in a later post. We are very blessed to have two healthy sons.  Enoh, was very hyper and seemed excited to me...

To an American, the chant sounded like “evil, evil, evil”. But to the majority of Croatian voters, it was music to their ears. Ivo Josipović – the newly elected Croatian President - smiled as his supporters chanted his name after the official election results came in late Sunday night. The scene looked much like any American campaign celebration, though smaller and less bombastic. Josipović’s demeanor also lacked the polish most American politicians have. Perhaps that’s for the better. President elect Josipović is a scholar with two PhDs at opposite ends of the spectrum – classical music composition and law. His aspirations to hold a high position (but not the highest) in the Croatian government came about only recently. Unlike many Balkan leaders, his background is clean. His goal as President is to “inspire decisiveness, optimism and civic courage of Croatian people to change our society and make it a better one.'' Certainly corruption will not be erased in Croatia imme...

Though there are exceptions, this weblog focuses on three main things: culture, family/friends and faith.  Let me recommend three related blogs well worth your time. Culture: The Expat Blog  is a "living abroad website, by expats, for expats".  If you're living in a foreign country or planning on living in a foreign country this site offers plenty of information you'll be interested in. Faith: The Faith and Theology blog continues to be one of my favorite sites to visit. Benjamin Myers, an Australian scholar regularly updates this "forum for conversations about theology, books and culture". Family/Friends: The Wilson Heart  chronicles the story of a wonderful family currently dealing "with the implications of having a child with a serious heart defect".  Join the growing community of friends who support the Wilsons in a variety of ways.

There are lots of reasons  not to review a CD on this blog.  Rather than wasting time with an explanation, let me summarize the best CD of 2009:  Shocking. This CD is full of controversy.  It's also packed with musicality and truth.  We're talking art. Beauty. So it's no surprise that my favorite CD of 2009 comes from a short bald headed man sporting a Five O' Clock on the cover of his latest. Derek Webb says that “Christian art coming out of the church today deals in the most spiritual 2% of life and culture. And yet the Bible gives us a framework and a language to deal with all 100% of stuff that we find we come up against in life.” If you think about it, you’d realize he’s right on. On Stockholm Syndrome Webb endeavors to fill in some of the gaps – if you consider this Christian art. And I do. Just not the way we’ve ever seen it before. That’s the point.  After a couple listens, I felt like Webb was drawing black lines w...

On Sunday, Croatia will vote for their third president since their independence 20 years ago. I’ve learned a few things about Croatian politics, but one of the things I appreciate most is what happens the day before citizens hit the booths on Sunday. Today is called the day of “election silence”. Neither candidate will speak publicly, debate or campaign at all. Laws demand that we don’t hear anything from them for 24 hours before voting begins. A day of silence from the voices of the candidates gives us the perfect opportunity to pray for His will to be done "on earth as it is in heaven".  Please pray for the future President of Croatia.

As I observed several celebrating the New Year in their 2010 glasses I began thinking about how silly it seemed.  These people will probably never again wear 2010 on their face – even though there are 364 more days to it.  2010 was so...yesterday.  In a culture that so often over-celebrates beginnings and undervalues commitment and accomplishment perhaps it shouldn’t seem so ironic. Not that we shouldn’t celebrate the coming of a New Year.  On the contrary.  2010 will be an exciting year for many us.  Our family is no exception as we expect a baby, a 30 th birthday and…well lots of unknowns.  There will be a lot to savor in 2010 – all 12 months of it. So at the beginning of this year, like many other years, I am examining the various activities that consume my life.  Why do I do this ?  What’s the point of that ?  Indeed, some of my readers (and others who don't read) may wonder why I blog.  In my introduction a year and a hal...