Ava had a trampoline accident tonight and messed up her mouth and front teeth really badly. She’s in pain physically but also really hurting emotionally. It’s painful to look at, and she’s afraid we won’t be able to get it fixed. It looks so awful. My mama heart is a mess, and I want so badly to reassure her that everything will be okay. Please pray for good news from the x-ray tomorrow and miraculous healing and perfect restoration of her beautiful smile.

Thank you so much, friends.

It probably goes without saying that I have a LOT to write about our trip to Cambodia. And like most things that go without saying, I go ahead and say things about them anyway.

Here’s the deal. (one of my mom’s favorite phrases of mine) I have many, many posts to write. And I think I’m getting really close to being emotionally ready to write them. But they need pictures to go with them. And all of our pictures from our trip are on an external hard drive. And I’ll be darned if I know how to get them off of there an onto this laptop without accidentally deleting all of them.

So.

Until my darling husband is at a place where he can help me without wanting to kill me, we (and by we, I mean you and me) will wait patiently. Because, while I’ve spent my last few days bouncing back and forth between wandering around my house feeling lost and actually accomplishing things like laundry and grocery shopping and buying cute winter coats for my freezing daughters at the thrift store, Gabe has had to go back to work.

And it’s been rough on him.

The poor guy. We’ve kind of just gone from HEART ATTACK! to CAMBODIA AND THAILAND! to GET BACK IN THE GROOVE OF EARNING MONEY FOR MY FAMILY!

Okay, so maybe only the heart attack needed the caps, but heck, they’re free. Might as well use ‘em.

Here’s a post from my dear friend Keri though while you wait. The funny thing is that while she was busy putting the finishing touches on this post, I was actually dreaming in blog posts. About the Boys’ Center, the very thing she wrote about. She and I both have a burning in our hearts to help raise funds for the amazing people that run this amazing place. Seriously, when you hear some of these stories, your heart will break. And when you realize just how little money it will take to make a huge difference in the lives of some incredible people, you’ll just want to shake your head with your eyes wide and your mouth open.

Or maybe that’s just me.

And I’m dying to tell you about the little girl who said we made her feel valuable.

And I’m dying to tell you about a gal who has overcome all odds to serve God in a foreign land.

And I’m dying to tell you about some things God has whispered in our ears about our future.

And I will.

But for now I’ll work on getting back in the groove of homeschooling. Yesterday? Hideous. Today? Redemption. And I’ll work on drying my oldest daughter’s tears, talking her through her angst and sadness, and convincing her to go back to school tomorrow even though it was really, really hard yesterday and I let her skip today. And I’ll work on organizing my home and my life and getting my newest e-book (about the zoo trip) into the hands of anyone who cares to read it. And I’ll take one day at a time, no, one minute at a time, and do my best to be still and listen for God’s voice.

And I’ll pray. A lot a lot a lot. About our future, for people in Cambodia, for all the wonderful people who commented/e-mailed after yesterday’s post, for my sweet family.

And I’ll try to spend at least as much time thanking as I do asking.

Because I’m so blessed.

I’m on the living room floor on my shins and forearms, pounding out some words on Gabe’s laptop because even though I finally figured out where I hid mine, I’m too lazy to actually make room for it at my desk, counting the seconds until my feet fall asleep and my 36-year-old back starts to protest.

If I sound like a hot mess to you, well then.

I have something to say, and rather than wait until it’s all processed and I know how to say it neatly and sweetly, I’m just going to air it out now and get it off my chest.

Some things have got to change around here. And by “around here,” I mean this blog. And my life. And my heart.

Yesterday at church Pastor Rich mentioned 9 of the most common sins, and I’m delighted to tell you that 3 of them are not really a struggle at all for me, 3 probably are, but I haven’t really realized it yet, and 3 are pretty glaring.

Pride, anger, and self-centeredness.

God has been gently hammering away at me for awhile about all three of these. And while the anger thing is something best dealt with in the privacy of my home and family (for one, because that’s where it shows up pretty exclusively), the pride and self-centeredness need to be dealt with here, because the internet is where I struggle most with both of those things.

It’s amazing how quickly I can make everything all about ME.

I don’t have the time/energy to re-hash all that’s happened in the past couple years on the “career” front for me, but here’s the scoop in a nutshell: I’m an author with real published books under my belt. And so that’s kind of a big part of my identity (whether it should be or not). But it’s been three years now since I’ve had a book published, and there’s a lot of hard work ahead of me if I ever want to get to the place where I can publish another one (through a publisher, not on my own). And that means a lot of platform-building and getting lots of people to notice me and know who I am and all that.

And I sense God telling me that I need to be done with that. For good.

Now, I have a ton of author friends who I love to pieces, and I’m not saying that building your platform and gaining followers is all prideful and self-centered and whatever. I’m just passing on what God is saying to ME.

And I’ve been thinking the past couple days (a dangerous activity when you’re suffering from jet lag) about the things I do (and am) online and wondering which of those things are a part of my life because God wants them to be and they bring him glory and which are things I’m just doing to get people to notice me.

I’m aware of the fact that I’m not making any sense, so I’ll just start explaining some small changes I’ve made.

Pinterest. Why did I join Pinterest a few months ago and then never look at it again? Why was I getting a ton of notifications in my e-mail that such-and-such had started following my boards?

Pinterest is cute. And swell. And helpful. But for me, it’s too overwhelming. I have too many things to do already, and there’s no space for it. I don’t really need to know about all the amazing, creative, adorable people out there that are way more awesome than me. And I don’t have to live in fear that if I’m not a part of it, I’ll be missing out and that people won’t know who I am and yadda yadda blah-blah.

So I canceled my account.

And I unsubscribed from The Writer’s View (a Yahoo group for authors) and a Facebook page for writers that I was a part of. And I unsubscribed from a bunch of blogs that I don’t have time to read but read anyway just so that I can feel like I’m “in the loop.”

And Twitter might be the next thing to go, because I haven’t even been on it in 2 months.

And I’m evaluating everything I say and do online to see what purpose it’s serving. Whose purpose it’s serving. God’s? Or mine truly?

The internet is amazing. I love the connection. I have seen God use it in a million different fabulous ways to make his name glorious. But I also know that if he calls me to just live a faithful life without telling the world about it, I need to be willing to do that.

If he calls me to move to Cambodia without blogging about it every day I’m there, I need to be willing to be his hands and feet and not his mouth.

I need to do this online thing on his terms, not mine. So I’m going to spend some time (as much time as it takes) asking him what that means practically speaking.

And I’m anticipating that I will screw up A LOT over the next few days, weeks, months. Your grace and patience would be a balm to my soul.

I’ve had a rough 24 hours. And I know from experience that getting my mind off myself means I need to take some other people to God in prayer. So I’d love it if you’d share a prayer need with me (either in the comments or e-mail).

And wouldn’t you know it, my back is aching, and my feet are asleep. That’s my cue.

I know better than to blog when my emotions are raw, but you and I both know I’m going to do it anyway. I’ll start with a little recap of our last day in Cambodia and our trip home, and then maybe I’ll have enough brain cells left to articulate how I feel right this moment. As I stare out the window at solid white everywhere. I am so scared to leave this house. Still having nightmares of walking off the little hopper plane in Columbus in flip-flops to a windchill of 5 degrees.

So Thursday was our last day in Cambodia, and since our flight was scheduled for 11:50 pm, we had the whole day to wrap things up and say good-bye.

We started our day by taking a tour of the new Student Center that Narin and Quenie hope to start soon. It will provide free housing for university students in Phnom Penh who would otherwise have to live in a Buddhist pagoda or way out in the provinces, far away from school, or in not-very-good-at-all living arrangements. More on this later. It’s going to be incredible and an amazing way to reach out to the youth of Cambodia and share the gospel with them.

Then we headed to the Boys’ Center after two weeks off. The boys were soooooo excited to be back. The younger boys have play time from 9:30 to 10:30, then the older boys play from 10:30 to 11:30. It was so, so, so awesome to “help” them play with all the new toys and puzzles we brought. They tore through the giant floor puzzles and LOVED the mini etch-a-sketches and made great music with the maracas and tambourines and built cool things with the new blocks and played some mean games of Jenga.

Pure joy.

Then the staff gathered around us, laid hands on us, and prayed for us in Khmer. Well, Yvonne and Steph prayed in English, but I wasn’t close enough to them to hear. It was pretty stinking amazing to hear all those passionate voices praying in another tongue for our little family. Sigh.

We ate one last meal at Viejo Tonle (yum!) with Yvonne, Steph, and Panha. Then we skipped Kids’ Club so a feverish Livi could rest up for the orphanage. Gabe and I took a 2-hour pity nap with her while Ava and Nina played with Samantha, Daniel, Donna, David, and Dennis (Narin and Quenie’s kiddos) at the guesthouse.

Then we headed to the orphanage for a little good-bye celebration. Balloons, silly string, party poppers, glow bracelets, lots of hugs and giggles. We gave the kids (Sophan in particular) the new computer monitor we bought for them (with our Taviano Activity fund money–thank you!!). Theirs broke this week. We also bought some new drum parts for the older boys (Theara, Phalla) and some guitar strings for Somphors. They were so, so, so happy, and all the other kids were so happy for them too. It was beautiful. And we even had $20 left for them to get anything else they need.

The crying started before we even said good-bye. So sweet. I said a few words (Panha translated), then Gabe. Then, bless their hearts, Sophan, Sophy, Cheata, Pisey, and Savong all stood up and gave us a thank-you blessing (again, Panha translated) and Somphors gave his in English.

Then they all gathered around us and prayed out loud all at the same time (just like the Punlok Thmey staff). Sophan had his arm around my waist, and I held his hand, and the tears fell, and I thanked Jesus again and again and again.

Then we all hugged and hugged and walked out to the tuk-tuk, and our girls were crying and crying, and Ava sobbed the whole ride home.

Back to the guesthouse at 8ish, staggered dinner (outside in the courtyard with Narin and Quenie) with showers and frantic last-minute packing. Panha and Veasna, and their dad came in their dad’s tuk-tuk, Yvonne and Steph in Pu Heng’s tuk-tuk, and Savong, Pisey, and Sophan from the orphanage. Narin and Quenie drove all our luggage, and our friend Borey met us there too.

We snapped some pictures, hugged good-bye, and walked numbly into the airport. I do wonder when the enormity of all this is going to hit me. I still feel pretty floaty. Not too happy, not too sad, not really even here, just kind of in a fog.

Besides getting called back downstairs to security (the $4 tennis racket bug zapper we bought at the Russian market was a fire hazard and a no-go), everything was pretty uneventful in all the airports. And our trip was much faster coming home. They delivered the two suitcases that didn’t make the plane, and now we’re surrounded by all kinds of stuff.

Our amazing community group decorated our house while we were gone with huge tissue paper snowflakes and streamers and a little scavenger hunt. A stocked fridge. They are so, so, so good to us and make my heart swell.

I didn’t expect to feel such rage at the cold and snow. Seriously. Like I want to murder it.

Well. That was a lot of words, and I still haven’t gotten to my feelings (except the winter hatred). I’m a little bit afraid to go out and about here in this first world country. I’m a little bit afraid that I might bite someone’s head off in the grocery store because she dares to complain that there are only 14 varieties of Cheerios and none of them are the ones she wants.

I’m afraid that I will all-too-quickly settle back into my comfortable little life with my dishwasher and clothes dryer and soft couches and my lizard/rat/mosquito free house and my flat-screen TV and Netflix and my lightning-fast internet and any kind of food I could possibly want at my disposal and clean air and tap water I can brush my teeth with and my beautiful library and awesome thrift store and blah blah-bity blah.

And that I’ll forget what life is like for so many of my dear friends and the many, many little people (and their families) that I fell in love with in Cambodia.

So yeah. I’ll be back soon. With more brilliant, poignant thoughts. And if not that, then lots and lots of pictures.

Gabe asked me tonight to write down our schedule for the next four days so we can be sure we don’t miss/forget anything. So I’m going to kill two birds with one keyboard and call it a blog post.

Speaking of Gabe, quick story. He’s been begging me to cut his hair the past few days (something I’ve been doing for the last 14 years), and I finally gave in (against my better judgment). See, I’d brought our clippers from home (same ones I’ve used for 14 years), but I know the outlets/voltage are different here, so I was a little scared. But we’ve plugged in our laptop and battery chargers and stuff, so I went for it.

For starters, one of the prongs on the 1/8 inch blade thingy was broken. Dumb me didn’t think it would matter much. Cough cough. Didn’t take long to realize that certain parts of his hair were shorter than others.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. The clippers kept getting hotter and hotter in my hand… and then they blew up.

Like a big ol’ bang (at 11pm), and they were toast. So, we pulled out my stash of pink and purple razors and some shaving cream and went to town.

For the first time, he’s getting more attention than cute little pale-faced, blond-headed, pudgy-cheeked Nina.

Today was a great day. Worship this morning at Gospel Commission Fellowship with Narin and Quenie and a bunch of new friends. I got to talk to a sweet gal named Eda who has three kiddos who are 11, 9, and 6, just like ours. She homeschools her younger two, and her oldest just started going to school here this year. She wants to be a writer (the daughter, not the mama).

There was an 18-person Asia’s Hope team from Sydney, Australia at church too. I got to talk to Angelo and Ann(e) and tell them all about what we’ve been up to. We promised to visit them when we come to visit you, Nixie!

After church we walked to the Russian Market (no, I have no idea why it’s called that–I have yet to see any Russians there) and bought some t-shirts for some of our tiny-to-small friends back home.

Then sweet Pu Heng tuk-tuk’ed us to Central Market where we met up with 23 kiddos and 4 adults from the orphanage and treated them to a mini-shopping trip ($5 for each kid, $10 for each adult). Thank YOU for donating money to make this possible (Asia’s Hope Taviano Activity Fund–remember that?). They were so adorable and so excited to get new shoes (!), shirts (!), and watches (!).

Then we went to Pizza Company for pizza, wings, and Cokes. So, so yummy and so, so much fun! We get to see them Tuesday and Thursday for about 90 minutes each time, and that’s it. Too sad to think about.

Then we came home and packed up some stuff and organized a bunch. Fun times.

Okay, our next four days:

Monday: 8:30am: Go to Kingdom Creations and pick up the little ID wallet/coin purses we special-ordered. Head to Boys’ Center to deliver the last of the supplies and pick up our suitcases. Lunch with Narin (and Quenie?). Gabe might do some photography around the city while we…? Dinner with new friends, Steve and Kim and their two boys at Freebird (a College Station knock-off perhaps?).

Tuesday: Morning: maybe one last shopping trip to Russian market. Lunch: Yvonne’s b-day at Pizza Company. Orphanage at 3:30. Ice cream at Blue Pumpkin for Yvonne’s b-day.

Wednesday: Gabe–photo shoot with Daughters of Cambodia. Boys’ Center opens up after break. Hang out with boys. Lunch somewhere fun. Kids’ Club. Hopefully dinner with friends at Mike’s Burgers.

Thursday: Boys’ Center most of the day. Orphanage in the evening. Cry a lot. Home for a bite to eat and showers. Leave for the airport at 10pm. Hop on a plane with much less luggage than we brought (hallelujah!) at 11:50pm. Ohio-bound!

I feel like I forgot a lot of important things. Oh, well. At least this is a start. I can’t thank you enough, friends, for praying us through this trip. You have no idea how much we felt it. Like crazy. Bless you all so much!