The Shipps' visit to Malta

We were so blessed to have our dear friends, Josh & Sarah Shipp, stop by our little island home while they vacationed in London. They were only able to stay for the weekend, but we had a fabulous time! The weather was mostly rainy, so we opted for staying in with vino, cheese, and a deck of cards. We even invented a new game called "Maltese Contract" (a version of Contract, or Oh Hell). We were very much revived and encouraged by their visit, and we can't wait to see them again in San Jo.

Check out some photos here: Shipps Slipknot Time Malta Tour 2006

(PS - We also added Thanksgiving 2005 photos!)

Ho-Ho? Ha! Happy New Year!

Well this Christmas day was pretty much the worst one we’ve ever had. I mean, Christmas in general was wonderful. The weather has been lovely, our families gave us very generous gifts, and it has been very special for us to have only each other to hold on to this year. But Christmas day itself was a real bomb.

It all started first thing in the morning. We had made a chocolate pudding the night before. Jessica was going to teach children’s church and it was going to be a special treat for the kids. But there’s no instant pudding to be found on this island, so we had to try to make the kind that you boil and let sit overnight. Well, the pudding didn’t have the same thing in mind, apparently. It didn’t set at all. So when we woke up on Sunday morning we only had a big pot of slightly thick chocolate milk. And like the fool that he is, Ben said, “Well, if we start the day this early with something going wrong, then we can only go up from here!” Yeah right!

So we rushed like mad to leave the house. Not only did we need to find an open convenience store and hunt for a pudding alternative, but we had to get to the other side of the island to pick up a woman and her daughter who needed a ride to church. We picked up both and headed to church, but halfway there we got a flat tire. Now, Ben had just replaced a leaky tire the Monday before and hadn’t yet got a new spare. (Six years of driving in CA and I’ve never had a flat. But within six months in Malta, I’ve had four.) Stranded and embarrassed, we had to wait for someone from church to come and pick us all up.

Finally we made it to church, pleasantly surrounded by the family of God. It was pretty much the only good part of the day. Afterwards, someone gave us a ride back to the car and dropped us off with a spare tire as well. We were on our own for the rest of the day.

The afternoon was slow. Jessica took a nap and Ben played games on the computer. But Jessica woke up from her nap in the early evening with a real bad case of the shivers. The weather’s never terribly cold, but the houses here have zero insulation, and the humid air sends the coldness straight to your bones. She couldn’t stop shaking, so we cranked up the propane heater. Now we had been warned of the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning with this type of heater, but Jessica was freezing so we decided to sit her right in front of it on full blast. It cured the shivers, but the direct fumes from the heater made her nauseous. She got sick to her stomach. We turned off the heater, bundled her up, and sipped water slowly. Dinner was late on Christmas night as we waited for her appetite to return.

In the evening we talked with our families on the phone and shared pictures over the internet. Our families were at Ben’s uncle and aunt’s house for Christmas. It was wonderful to talk with them all together, except for the end of the conversation, “Okay, kids. We miss you but we have to go open presents now. Merry Christmas!” We tried not to feel overly depressed. But the day really stunk.

But then fast forward to New Year’s Eve… the best New Years we’ve ever had! We were invited to a black tie dinner gala by a friend in the church whose uncle is part of the Lion’s club here on Malta. It was outstanding! It was held at the luxurious Casino Maltese. There was our friend and her boyfriend, two of her cousins, one of whom brought a girlfriend, and another young couple from the church. The nine of us sat at a table together with our friend’s mother, and I think we were the only people there under 40, maybe even 50. But don’t get me wrong, those older folks really know how to party. There was plenty of champagne, silly party hats, noise makers, and great live music.

There was one appetizer of wild boar with pear chutney, and another of bacon wrapped prawns. Then some pink champagne sorbet to cleanse the palette before the arrival of the filet mignon that was wrapped in filo and topped with wild mushroom sauce. Mm-mm!

We counted down to midnight on the dance floor. Balloons fell all around us and were popped loudly by dancing merry-makers. Everyone gave the classic European kiss on the two cheeks of anyone standing nearby and said, “Is-sena tajba!” There was more music and dancing for the next two hours, and things were just winding down when we left.

We’d never imagined that New Years could be so fun! Click here to check out the pictures we posted on our gallery. We hope your Christmas was much better and your New Years was even half as fun as ours were. May God bless you with the nearness of His presence in 2006!

PICTURES!!

Hey everybody, yes. We really are in Malta, and we have the pictures to prove it!

Since we've got our new fancy-schmancy DSL line, we've been able to talk and email with our family a lot more, and we've really enjoyed the picture sharing. So we decided to jump online and put together a picture gallery for all of you.

Now we've just started, so you'll only find pictures for June and July. But we'll add more soon, and post a reminder on this blog. In the mean time, you can check out pictures from our first two months. This picture here is actually from Thanksgiving.

Let us know what you think, and please send us pictures of yourselves too!

(none of the pictures on this page or in the picture gallery have been modified. we are actually this beautiful/handsome)

But Jesus, I thought we were playing hide & seek...

Ever feel like you're playing hide & seek with Jesus? Blindfolded?

We've been spending a great deal of our time here finding Jesus. Notice we didn't say "trying to find Jesus." We know where He is - His Word tells us everything we need to know about Him. But oddly enough, that doesn't always reach our hearts. Interpreting His Word can get sticky, and people have all sorts of ideas about who He is exactly.

Thankfully we know who He's not, and sometimes seeing that reminds us that we might actually know a little bit about Him.

So, here's a glimpse of who Jesus isn't: Vintage 21. It's making our rainy Maltese days a whole lot more bearable . Click on the movie reel at the top left, then "videos." Page 2 has four videos that we think are hilarious. 1 and 3 are our favorites. Oh, and all props go to Missy for introducing us to this new world of hilarious quotes for everyday life.

"I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won't be stumbling through the darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life." NLT John 8:12

The Future is Now!!

Soon every American home will connect their television, phone and computer.You will be able to visit the Louvré on one channel, or watch female mudwrestling on another.You can do your shopping at home, or play Mortal Kombat with a friend in Vietnam!There's no end to the possibilities!

We've got DSL!! Finally we have fast, convenient, and reliable internet access. We know we haven't blogged in a long time. We hope you can forgive us. We've been a little proccupied with life and learning. And finding the time (non-peak hours of course) to sign on and post something interesting at 32kbps really stinks. But now we have no more excuses. Since we can roll out of bed and check our e-mail in our underwear, you can be sure that we'll be bloggin' again as well. I realize we run the risk of becoming the couple that cried "we'll blog." But hey, we gotta try. For the next couple of weeks at least I'm sure you'll be interested since we've got a lot of material.

For now, an update: We've got DSL! (did I say that already?) So please, please, pretty please with a cherry on top, get in touch with us. We've got Yahoo! Messenger for IMing, and Skype for internet calls. Both are easy and free (and reliably connected now that we've got DSL!!)
Other developments since our last post include the settlement of our plans to return to Cali in the Spring. We don't have a return date or anything, but at least we're sure we'll come home then. If you didn't know, we came to Malta with an open-ended mindset as to how long we'll stay. But various things have led us to start thinking and praying, and we feel God has made it clear that our original one year committment will be just right. But don't ask what we're gonna do when we get home, 'cause we don't know yet.

Ah! Winter is settling in here in Malta. The sun is actually obstructed by some puffy grey things every now and then, and they drop water a couple times a week too. And that red stuff in the thermometer isn't at the top anymore. They say this'll last for a couple of months and then things'll be back to normal.

Oh yeah! Happy Thanksgiving! We really missed all our family, but we distracted ourselves successfully by cooking a full Thanksgiving dinner for 20 Maltese people. We did a pretty good job, we suppose. Everybody loved it, but then again they've never had a Thanksgiving dinner to compare it with. The turkey was a little dry, but the flavor was good. And that was actually the first Thanksgiving dinner we've ever made, so we kinda threw ourselves in the deep end with this one. It was a blast, and helped us not to be too homesick.

Well, we'll leave you with that for now. We've got more notes about life in Malta and pictures coming up too. So give us another shot and check in next week.

(And for all those who could identify the opening movie quote - give yourself 3 extra points.)

Update

Well we’ve been kinda out of touch for the last couple of weeks, and hadn’t posted anything for a couple of weeks before that. Also we’re at the three month mark, which means that ¼ of our originally planned trip is already over. So we figure it’s time for an actual update on things. But don’t worry, there’s still plenty of anecdotes about life in Malta to come.

First of all, we’d thought that we would get more responses on the last post, so we left it alone for a couple of weeks hoping to get more input. But then we had a visitor arrive and there was no time for further posts. Safiye, one of our bestest friends in the whole wide world, came to stay for almost two and a half weeks. It was a blast! Not only did we do all kinds of fun stuff like a day of swimming in the Blue Lagoon and lunch in Mdina with a view of the entire island, but we also spent lots of time just chatting and encouraging one another. It was very hard to say good-bye, and we’re now even more convinced that everyone needs to come and visit us! If you’ve got time for vacation, and friends in Malta, you’d better take the opportunity to have a personal tour guide on a Mediterranean isle. (we won’t mention any names, but someone with a broccoli flavored lamp shade comes to mind)

Another piece of great news is that Ben got a job! He’s teaching English at a small, new school called The Chamber College. It’s not a real college, as in a tertiary institution that can issue a degree. It’s just one of about three dozen official EFL schools in Malta. He’s currently teaching an upper-intermediate level of 8-12 students, a job that’s about 4 hours a day. The students are from Japan, Germany, Spain, Poland, Turkey, Italy, and China; most are teens, several in their twenties, and occasionally one or two in their thirties. He’s having a lot of fun, and in the words of his high school English teacher, “I can’t believe they pay me to do this!”

So after the fun of the last couple of weeks and with a real job, we’re finally settling down to a regular routine. Life in Malta is great! Although a visitor from home has made us home-sick all the more, so…

P.E.P.

Malta is a very international community that thrives on tourism. Still, here in the heart of the beautiful Mediterranean, there are many who are under-privileged. Postcards, for example, stand on every street corner just begging for a chance to travel and see the world. Because of this, benefactors Ben and Jessica Van Meter have instituted a fund to help these poor postcards reach their dreams. It’s called the Postcard Exchange Program. For just 22 Maltese cents, they can send a postcard to live with a loving family in the United States. But they need your help. This program only works by exchanging postcards between both host families in both countries. If you will join us by sponsoring a postcard of your own and sending it to Malta, then you will also take part in the rewarding experience of receiving a postcard from this picturesque country. Please don’t hesitate. Join us in making the world a better place. Write now. (Details below)

Thank you,
Ben and Jessica Van Meter


Instructions:
Simply send a postcard to Ben and/or Jessica at our address here in Malta. If you don’t know our address, just email us and we’ll be happy to tell you. Then in 4 to 6 weeks, you’ll receive a very happy and grateful little postcard of your very own. Your postcard should meet one or more of the following requirements:
1. Funny
2. Inspiring
3. Touristy (aka – the Golden Gate or Yosemite)
4. Really Really Funny
5. Completely Random
6. None of the above

What's in a Name?

For those of you who haven’t yet sent us a care package (which should include a six-pack of Dr. Pepper, bottled Starbucks Frapuccino’s, and bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos) you may not be familiar with the proper way to address your postage. One of the cool and interesting things about walking the streets of Malta is that the houses don’t usually have street numbers… they have names!

A lot of the houses have names that are creative and sweet. Our pastor, for example, named his beautiful house Christine, after his beautiful wife. Another house we saw on our way to the beach was given the pleasant name Sea Breeze. And then the majority of houses are named after favorite saints like St. Catherine, St. Anthony, etc. But then there’s those crazy folk who try to get a little too creative, if you know what I mean. So Jessica and I kept track of our 5 favorite house names. Here they are:

5. Miami Flats – Hmm. Our flight was pretty long. It took us half-way around the world. I could’ve sworn we weren’t in Miami anymore. Maybe that’s where Don Johnson disappeared to…

4. Antmar &…

3. Josmel – These are just two examples of a sad, recurring pattern in house names. The idea is to combine the names of the couple living within. So if Jessica and I were to buy a house, we would call it Benjes. I know… blech! These houses are named after Anthony and Maria, and Joseph and Melissa, who apparently just don’t get it.

2. Blaze of Glory – I laughed out loud too. Don’t these people realize that they’re going down?

1. Daddy – I don’t think we need to explain. That’s just weird.

We have invented several games to play as we drive around, inspired by these house names. For instance, we come up with names that are subtly anti-British, like Lexington and Concord, or Plymouth Rock. We’ve also laughed at what our friends and families would have to name their houses, like Gerjan, Davnic, Rusreb, and Skiptreas. Our most favorite game is obscure house names. Our top two choices were Count Dooku and Lafawnduh. Waddya think? In fact, we’re doing our first reader poll: if you could name your house something funny or creative, what would it be? Just leave a comment below.