language is only a part. not the whole.

I just got up about an hour ago. I have the strangest sleeping patterns right now but I���m quickly trying to control them. Last night I told Signe, around 5pm, that I was going to take a 30 minute nap and then slept for 2 hours. This is sort of normal for me, but when I take naps at dinner time it���s just so obviously not a good idea because then I won���t be able to fall asleep that night. But I���ve been taking naps around 6pm which is about my normal time back home and man, it���s really hard to change this internal clock thing. Signe is good and stern with me. She says I have to force myself to stay up in the evenings and wake up around 8 or 9 in the morning. So I have heeded her advice and I pushed myself out of the empty bed this morning at 9am (3am Cambridge time...it was hard).

Signe is good for me to be around in many of her European ways. Like how she tells me I need to start getting up at this time and not sleep at those times. I know that doesn���t seem very big but it is meaningful because I see how she cares for me and tells me these little things boldly. Yesterday she looked at me after we ate at this hotel in the morning. I knew this one was coming. I had been waiting for it like you wait for a freakishly huge wave. I knew it was about to hit me and I couldn���t make it to the shore in time. When I was young I always finished everything on my plate. It was either that or a spanking. So I ate and never took more than I could eat because that equalled spanking. The Howard family didn���t and doesn���t make a habit of wasting. Mom has totally been known to come up behind me when I thought I was being secretive and dig for the sandwich from the trash I had just thrown away and then eat it. Yeah.

But then I turned 18 and I left home. I thought it was amazing how you wouldn���t get spanked (figuratively speaking) when you didn���t finish. So I���d take all the food I wanted and began the dangerous pattern of never finishing and not even caring that I wasn���t. In short, I became spoiled. This followed me right through Covenant and into my week home this summer. My father noticed right away and Kyrie began coming up with some sort of theory I promptly dismissed. I���ve been wasting in Norway and I���ve noticed how everyone completely cleans their plate. I told Signe my papa and grandipop would love you all. So I knew this talk was coming. She asked, when we left the hotel, ���Is that normal for you?���

���What��� I asked, ���Not finishing?���

���Ya. I���ve noticed how you leave a lot.���

I laughed quietly, ���Yeah..I���ve noticed how you all never seem to waste. I can���t believe how well you clean your plate.���

I went on to explain how although there is a lot of wasting in The States, it is not what I come from but it is what I have become. I started talking, trying to explain and suddenly it became clear to me. That always happens with Signe and me. I���m always figuring things out when I talk to her and I love that. We both do. I told her about papa, about the spankings, about college and my tendency to take food for granted because it was always there. She said she did the same in boarding school but that it changed when she began living on her own. I know I shouldn���t waste and whenever I do I���m conscience of it. I love that Signe has made me even more aware. I could tell in her expressions and her caring words that it just wasn���t going to be acceptable here. So I���m beginning to take less and eat what I take. Signe will hold me to it.

When we were eating lunch inside this hotel yesterday Signe spoke seriously to a man who was interested in her orphanage in Liberia. When Signe left Mercy Ships she was heavily involved in an orphanage and has continued to be for the year she���s been back home, raising 20,000 dollars and visiting now and then. (She���s amazing.) This hotel man has a lot of money. We were sitting in his fancy hotel as attractive rich people walked in and out. The salmon was so good. They talked of the children���s education and how many bags of rice they eat in two days. They talked of food costs and how Toni was much skinnier now than a year ago. They talked of a child���s earache and the medications they lack. They talked of how to wire money and how much would cover a year���s supply of rice. They talked of all these things and more��� I think. But nothing is said in English so I���m actually not really sure. The greeting is first and then the farewell. But mostly I am immersed in this Scandinavian language. It���s hard. Finally after 20 minutes I pulled out my little notebook and began writing about my surroundings and this big kind man who resembled Santa Clause. I do want to learn Norwegian and I have no doubt when I come back home different words will habitually scramble with other American words. I���m getting used to words like ���fe fla ta��� (oh my gosh) or ���hikka��� and ���tussan takk���. I do appreciate this time in life of having the privilege of familiar language being taken away. There are other ways to communicate and there are other things to be learned. I must figure them out. Being with little Adrienne has been hard to believe because he likes and enjoys me and yet it���s not for my words. We are more then our words and it is interesting to think so much and speak far less. When I say it���s hard this is how I mean it. I do not mean that I wish I could talk more and that it���s annoying being left out���although these things are true, they are not a big deal and I can get over them.

What I mean by ���hard��� is when I realize how funny Signe���s brothers are but I can���t laugh because I don���t really know exactly why they���re funny but still, I can tell they are. It���s hard when Signe introduces me and has to do the whole introduction because they won���t understand mine. It���s hard when I meet her grandmother and I know she knows all about me and is one of the dearest women I���ll meet but all I can do is smile and ask Signe to translate some. But so much is lost. It���s hard when I open the refrigerator at her father���s house and see ���Amerinkansk Skinke��� and Signe explains that he bought American ham just for my Sunday morning so I���d have something familiar to eat. I want to express appreciation and all I can do is look at him so immeasurably touched by his detailed kindness. It���s hard when I can tell Borger���s (Signe���s brother) girlfriend is a sweet girl but there���s no way of finding out exactly why or discovering if there���s something of a connection between us. There���s so many people I want to get to know and there���s so many people I want to tell thank you and ���tussan takk��� for me just isn���t enough. So that���s hard.

My best times though are with Signe, just me and her. Talking like we never left each other. I know she values me just as I do her and that gives me security���it���s a good feeling when you���re with someone who honestly is completely content to just be with you, and you with them. We���ve both been setting these sort of goals for the summer not really meaning too but as I look back I notice we have. We���re watching 24 every Thursday. We want to read Psalms and pray every Sunday. We want to listen to Regina Spektor every single day. We want to be conscientious of her mother���s home and space and help her out often. We want to start walking ���every 2nd day��� as Signe would say and I���d smile and she asks why���"'Cause we say ���every other day������but don���t
say that, say ���every 2nd day���. I like that better���. So yesterday we went on a long walk. We walked 30 minutes to a piece of land on a glass-stilled lake that was hers. She bought it six months ago and plans to build a house in about a year. Then she jogged home and since I���m a strong believer in fast walking I fast walked���and got really lost in the Norwegian wood. I must have been gone for an hour running into all sorts of dead ends. All I could think was ���I���ve been to Africa and back, I���ve been to China and back, I���ve been to Belize and back, I���ve been to Covenant and back, I���ve been to Norway���and I can make it back���. After a very non-helpful pep talk I prayed quickly, ���God, help me make it back.��� And took some deep breaths in and out. I made it and praised Jesus for the rest of the evening. It was actually really scary, probably something not properly conveyed in this short recap. Since I didn���t know Norwegian I couldn���t go out to the main road for help and since Signe is a name like Sara, asking someone where ���Signe��� lived would just be pointless. I figured I���d just sit down in the middle of the woods and wait for her pink shirt to come back���and then I saw the top of her house and started running.

I saw her sitting on the back porch smoking her cigarette.
I was happy.