kodak moments

bethanie: can i come home with you?
me: sure, but we have to check and see if my cat is there.
bethanie: right, cause i'm lergic!
me: right. she's probably gone though. she ran away again.
bethanie: ran away?
me: yeah. sometimes she comes home, and sometimes she goes away for a few days.
bethanie: where does she go?
me: i don't know. maybe she has a secret boyfriend somewhere.
bethanie: yeah! or maybe she goes to visit her mom and dad!
me: maybe, but i think she's an orphan.
bethanie: oh. that's why you dopted her?
me: yup.
bethanie: i wonder where she is.
me: well, if you were a cat, where would you run away to?
bethanie: i would run away to you.
me: *thinking awwwwwwwwww!*

last night, i was at home reading when every single female teacher showed up at my neighbor's house. granted, there's only 5 of us... but still, the 4 who are not me were all over there laughing and chatting and eating. we really have good community here, and it seemed strange to me that the 4 of them were hanging out and i wasn't invited. especially when i live in the same building as 2 of them. and the longer i sat there and listened to the sounds of dishes clanking and loud laughter echoing, the more upset i got. i think i let satan get in my head and lie to me a little bit. right about that time, yo sms-ed to say he was going to kim's house to eat french dip subs. he asked if i wanted to come, but i was so down on myself by that point that i made some excuse about not wanting to intrude in someone else's house. so a couple minutes later, i got another sms from him saying that he had asked kim and she said i should come. after a few more sms-es, i finally relented. especially since ibu had only made me a salad for dinner - and not even with chicken like she normally does! i was pretty hungry by then.
so me and my bad mood headed over there to find kim recooking all the food for me (i guess they had eaten and already put the leftovers away). she helped me dish up and showed me what to do (can you believe i've NEVER eaten french dip before?!), and she left me in the kitchen. but as she was walking out the door, she turned around and said to me, "you know, you never have to have an invitation to come here." i almost burst into tears right there, with my head halfway in the freezer looking for ice cubes. i always feel so loved in that house.

yo had to leave, but a little while later, he came back with gentur and a guitar in tow. after playing a fanastic game of seeing who could make the stopwatch on yo's phone start and stop the fastest (i am the undisputed champion, with a record time of 00:00:00.07!), the three of us decided to go up on the roof. we grabbed the guitar and some candles and went up. at first we just passed the guitar around and played and sang a bunch of random songs (including christmas carols!), but we quickly turned to singing praise songs. and after one particular song (Lord, I offer my life to You), gt asked if we could pray together. his actual question was whether it was alright if we spent sometime interceding for one another.

i was kind of surprised. in a good way. a very good way. i guess i'm just not used to hang out time turning into prayer time. but i'm glad it did. we all had a chance to share with each other and lift each other up in prayer. and all of us have some heavy stuff we're dealing with and praying for right now.

i don't know how long we sat there. holding hands. praying. by candlelight. on a roof. in indonesia.

that's one of those "i'll never forget the time. . ." moments.

and i came away from it VERY blessed.