My waking dreams

I'm trying to sleep but I can’t seem to find it. My mind just keeps running instead. Perhaps I’ve just got to much on my mind. I’ve been thinking lots about my future and what I’ll be doing in five years.

I’ve got dreams. My waking dreams entail many things. I’m not trying to be picky with God, I’ll go where ever He sends me but I just have things I would like in my life.

I would like a home or a flat. A place to call my own. A place where friends can come over and veg on my couch, or students can come and feel as if they were at home. A place that people can come to and feel safe and welcome.

I would like a job that challenges me. Something that keeps me thinking on new ways to do something. I want a job that keeps me busy and active. No desk for me please. I want to be challenged to get people motivated, inspired, empowered and to find new ways to show them that they are not alone.

I want a job that offers me freedom to think, plan, create and explore. I want to try new ideas that are a bit outside the box and most people wouldn’t think of.

I want to teach people, not in the conventional way but in an outside the box way. I want to teach people to try new things, to trust themselves and others. I want to teach people to love more and better. I want to teach outside the normal classroom. I want to teach people in an active way they won’t forget.

I want to talk to people. I want to motivate them from the front of the meeting hall. I want to talk to new people, make new friends and I want to talk so that people listen and are inspired to not stay the same but to change for good.

I want dishes and pots, not necessarily all my personal ones, but I want to cook and serve people food. I want to be able to make cookies, breads, and pies. I want to cook meals for friends. I want to feed students who haven’t seen a home cooked meal in weeks or longer. I want to feed people so that when they leave my house they are full and content.

I want money to travel. I want to be able to visit my best friends in their homes. I want to explore the world. I want to be able to travel and do short term or long term mission trips. I want to see the world and it’s people.

I want to live long term in a foreign country, long enough to know it’s language as well as my own. I want to live there so the people become my people and my children their children. I want to live in a mission field and be creative with my surroundings and lack of utilities.

I want to love someone and be loved. I want to know that there is someone who will love me for all that I am and have to offer. I want to love someone who challenges me to be a better person. I want to love someone who will teach me new things. I want to love someone longer than I am alive on this earth. I want to be loved in return.

I want to know that I have done my best with what God has given me and that I haven’t missed an opportunity to love others. I want to know that every day counted for something bigger than myself.

These are my waking dreams.

To whom it may concern:

Dear creators of Skype,
I can’t thank you enough for creating free video conferencing. It has helped me survive these last few months here at my new home in Norway. I can call family and friends and share a few words and looks. It’s amazing what a few faces can do to help lift moods.

I have been able to eat supper/lunch/breakfast with people in California, Tennessee and Texas. I have been able to see every bite of a luscious looking corn on the cob, watch my friend cook her loaf in the microwave and sip tea with my kindred spirits thousands of miles away. Using Skype has helped me to bridge the gap of too many miles.
Most recently I have been blessed with the opportunity to worship with my old friends in California as they had their morning staff worship. I was able to listen to their prayer requests and then take them to our Heavenly Father in prayer. How amazing is that? I was able to feel like I was sitting right along side Derek as he gave the worship thought. I was able to ask Ryan how is mom was. I felt like I was there.

Skype has meant so much to me these last few months. I wish I could thank you enough for what you have given me. I wish I understood how the whole thing worked. I remember watching Back to the Future II and watching Marty McFly get fired while video conferencing with his boss, I never thought I would actually get to play with the same type of program. I never thought I would be living Back to the Future, but I guess I am.
So if you ever need a face of Skype, a representative of sorts please look me up and call me. I would love to help. Thank you for your ever giving gift.

Your biggest fan,
Sonya Reaves

Freight train dysfunctional pink teapot

I love making hot tea; I love drinking it, serving it, the while process. I am also old fashioned and dislike greatly microwaving or electric hot water makers. I prefer to do it the same way my grandmother did it (at least I assume the way she made it), on the stove in a teapot. That was one of the exciting things about having my own kitchen was that I could use my stove to make tea when people come over or when I want to sip apple cider before bed.
My flat here in Norway came furnished with lots of things, including a mini cheap teapot, that doesn’t have a whistle hole. I was using it all the time and once when I had a lot of people over we had to refill the little guy lots. Then one day when I was cleaning it out because it had smelt a little funny I noticed something on the bottom on the inside. On closer inspection I saw it was three tiny rust holes! Gross, I had been drinking nasty water. It’s a wonder I didn’t die or something. So on the shelf my teapot went to never be used again. Thus began the serious quest for a new worthy teapot.
I went with Tatiana to get groceries for the school and myself on Monday. We stop at a mall with a grocery store inside and then head over to a place that has cheap overstocked groceries. At the second place, Price, you don’t always know for certain that some items are there because they are overstocked items. I had been there a few weeks before and glanced around at the teapots just to see what there was (I wanted a whistling teapot) .The only one I had found was one very obnoxious bright pink one, which I quickly voted a big no on. Here I was a few weeks later looking for a new one, knowing that the pink one was not for me. I looked around and looked around and couldn’t find anything, not a pink one, not a black, red or even blue one. Nothing. I was beginning to get a bit sad because I really wanted a teapot; I was tired of using a regular pot to heat my water. There was nothing romantic about getting hot water for tea from a big ugly pot. So I kept looking and looking. Again nothing, I even thought about that funny pink one but nothing was to be found. I knew that this would have been the cheapest place to buy one and I am on a budget so I started praying. I know this might seem silly but how was I to serve tea to Jesus when he comes to visit if I didn’t have a teapot? So there we are talking about it and I told God as I was looking that at this point I would even take the bright pink one. I was looking around and got distracted by the hair driers (I might need one come winter) and thought maybe I would get one this trip instead of a teapot. I decided against it and instead asked God to just help me find a teapot and I would be happy with the crazy pink one, figuring it would fit in well with my flat. I really just wanted a teapot at this point. After I said that I looked at the end cap in the big bin that holds random things and guess what I found? Yup, my bright pink teapot. I smiled and told God thank you for giving me this crazy pink little teapot. I put it in my cart and finished my shopping.
You might think my teapot story is over but alas it is not. It has a bit more. I took my teapot home and right away wanted to take it out and play with it, you know how it is with something new. So out of it’s box it went. Once it was full of water I put it on it’s new home and put it to work. I got my teacup out and selected my favorite tea of the day and waited for the whistle, that’s my favorite part of teapots. As I was waiting I noticed a very loud rumbling sound coming from the obnoxious pink teapot. I thought perhaps it was almost ready to whistle but it wasn’t. My pink teapot was dysfunctional! Then I waited a while more and it never whistled! My teapot was nutty! In the days since I have found out that sometimes it whistles and sometimes it doesn’t and it always sounds like a freight train while it’s on the burner. What a funny dysfunctional pink teapot I own. But you know what? It’s mine and I kinda like it even if it is unique, cause I’m unique too and I like me. Best of all God gave it to me :O)
So when you come over we’ll have to drink some tea and talk louder to be heard over the freight train dysfunctional pink teapot.

New Episode of Cooking with Sonya & Friends!!!!

This is me drinking the "Pesto-Lemon Head" tea concoction that is supposed to kill anything bad in your body. It's nature's way of weeding out the virus.
Here's to health and happiness.

ugg.

I had hight hopes of posting a lot of blogs this weekend. Unfortunately i don't seem to have much energy to do that seeing as how I've come down with what feels like the bubonic plague (don't worry it isn't actually). I don't understand how I could go all of last year working at GCA without getting sick once and now I've been sick twice in the last 5 months. The same things wrong, head ache, neck ache, clogged head, sore body, no energy. Maybe it's my tonsils? Whatever it is I am not happy with it.
Last night Tzveta gave me a Russian Steam treatment. I sat on a wooden chair wrapped in a sheet. There were wool blankets all around me that I was tightly wrapped in. I had my feet in a bucket of hot water with a cool cloth on my head. The most intense part of all was the pot of steam underneath me making me sweat. It lasted for about 3o min then Tzveta rubbed my hands and arms with the cool cloth and I had to rest for 30 min before I could get up. I am not sure if it helped because today I feel worse and I might have a small tiny fever. So this morning Tzveta and Tatiana told me I should take a garlic and lemon tea. I pressed about 8 garlic sections and two lemons and put boiling water in a tea pot to drink. It wasn't so bad at first but the novelty soon wore off when I was still having to chew a bit of garlic and the lemon was giving a bit of a kick on it's way down. But like a trooper I have drunken all of it in hopes of getting better. I just can't believe I am actually sick? I made it so long before now.
I was feeling really ug and like I didn't want to go on but then I remembered I have a package coming to me in the mail this week, it gave me the hope and joy to go on. I just hope this passes much faster than the last one did and that I am not down and out for long.

We'll see how things go from here, perhaps I will never get better. . . perhaps I will just waist away. . . perhaps tomorrow when I wake up my head won't hurt and my throat will not be tender. . . only time and garlic and lemon will tell.

true love.

I need to go to bed but I must write this first. I've been reminded of my life back in Africa. The power has gone out and I am writing now to you by light of my lantern [on paper]. Perhaps I am a true romantic at heart or a pioneer spirit but I love this. I often wish it was always like this.
This is my true love. Rustic. Simple. No frills. Just me, the lantern and . . . the lights just came back on. . . boo.