Dynamic Yet Consistent

The coming of a new year gives us a reason to reflect on the year that was. Inevitably, we notice how fast time goes by and how, in a relatively short time, so much can change. That notion of mutability was amplified for us in 2011.

One year ago, my wife Beth and I both had jobs we loved. We lived in a comfortable house in a quiet sub-division where we knew our neighbors. We had a great support network of friends and family. We drove cars that were paid off. Our daughter had every luxury a one-year old could want. Heck, one year ago, there was probably snow on the ground, Christmas candy on the table, a Netflix movie streaming over the Internet and left over food from our favorite restaurants in the fridge.

Today, as I am writing this reflection, I am sitting in the dark because a summer storm has knocked electricity out. My whole family is sweating because it hit the high 90s today and the humidity is unbearable. My back hurts from cutting the grass with a glorified machete. Going to town today to get our mail and groceries meant 30 minutes on dirt roads through the bush and then another 10-15 on “tar roads.” We are still mourning the loss of our dog that was killed by a 7’ black mamba. Everywhere around us people are dying of HIV, TB and neglect.

One year ago we lived in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Today we live in Swaziland, Africa. And you know what? I wouldn’t change a thing.

In January of last year Beth was teaching, I was preaching, Mikayla was playing and life seemed normal. By March we had begun selling our stuff, saying the first of our goodbyes, making last minute arrangements and preparing for a huge transition. In July, everything we ever owned was either sold, stored, loaned out or in our suitcases and we would spend 72 traveling from the life as we knew it to the bush of Swaziland. A month later we had taken in two TB positive twins as foster parents, had experienced oppressive heat of the Swaziland lowveld, and begun to learn what it means to live in a new culture. By the end of the year, while still far from full adjusted, we had begun to accept our new normal.

 
January in the States

 
December in Swaziland

Suburbia to Savannah in a year may sound like an incredibly quick transition, but in reality it was the culmination of nearly 5 years of planning, praying and preparing. In 2007, Beth and I began to take inventory of our lives and started talking about our long term goals. Up until then, our lives had floated along a very positive trajectory; we were very happy with the way our lives were turning out, even if we weren’t overt about planning. But, slowly we realized that all the things in life we wanted to do could not co-exist. We could not commit to staying in Bowling Green to make a difference while also talking about pursuing Ph.Ds at distant colleges. We couldn’t talk about living overseas while also talking about living in intentional community with our friends. Simply put, we had to make a decision about which direction our lives would take in the coming years.

You would think a big decision like that would be difficult, but it only took one conversation over dinner to decide that at some point in our lives, while we raised our kids who were yet to come, we wanted to experience life outside the United States. I think even early on we realized that it was not important to have all the details figured out, but rather we had to know what general direction we were headed and then be faithful in pursuing it.

Over the next several years we researched opportunities, got in contact with people on the ground doing ministry, and gradually allowed our future to be shaped. It was a lesson in balancing intentionality with ambiguity. We had to learn how to stay on course pursuing a reality that we did not yet understand. We had to be bold in making decisions, but humble in allowing those decisions to change if needed. Slowly, as the details came into focus, we began planning for a life in Swaziland, Africa.

In July of 2010, Beth and I flew to Swaziland and met with over 20 individuals and organizations. Our goal was not to find a job, but to see what sort of work was going on and where we might fit into it. At the conclusion of the trip we were more confident than ever that we were on the right track in moving to Africa, but completely unsure of where we would end up. Once again, we continued planning, even if we didn’t know the details.

In October we were offered positions at Cabrini Ministries (http://www.cabriniministries.org)  in the St. Philips. The irony is that St. Philips is in the lowveld bush; that means it is in the middle of nowhere and ridiculously hot. We had intentionally avoided researching any opportunities in the lowveld because of the environment. However, when Cabrini offered us the positions, we realized that even if the location was not right, the place was perfect. It offered housing, paid a modest salary, was a safe place to raise a family, and provided the opportunity to live immersed in Swazi culture. Most importantly, it was a place where good work was being done that we could be a part of and the skills we brought were exactly what they needed.

In July 2011, when we finally arrived, we realized very quickly that the faithfulness and diligence of our preparation had paid off. When we began looking to live overseas, we wanted to be a part of restorative work that was driven by community needs and assets. We also wanted to head to place where we could be shaped as individuals and a family. We certainly found both. Here at Cabrini we are in one of the most forgotten areas of the country all of our work is dedicated to serving the needs geographically around us. We have an HIV infection rate of nearly 40% and nearly half of children under 18 are either classified as orphans or vulnerable children. In response to this Cabrini offers a full-service HIV/TB clinic and a child care program that includes 7 levels of care from comprehensive residential care to one-time needs assistance. Last year over 2,000 people received direct care or treatment support from the organization. One of the most phenomenal things is that most of our staff began as clients and have been capacitated to do the work needed. For instance, our current database administrator was left for dead on her homestead dying of HIV and TB and was slowly nursed back to health by our nursing staff. 2 years ago she had never seen a computer and now she manages a healthcare database that is more robust than what the government hospital runs! Of our 55 staff members, all but 3 are from Africa, and 44 of them are from within 25 miles of Cabrini.

Cabrini’s Staff

In looking back at the transition we have gone through, it is easy to make things sound much more incredible than they really are. I can make the Kickert’s sound like heroes, but the reality is that most of the time, life is pretty mundane. On one hand crazy things happen here all the time (we have had two black mambas and a cobra killed within a couple yards of our front door in the last week), but then when I look at my actual day, I spend most of it behind a computer writing grant reports or doing IT work. Sometimes we spend 25% of our time without electricity, but we have decent access to internet. There are days where I may be in a national level planning meeting, only to come home and find that I have to chase cattle out of the garden. Last night Beth cooked cookies for the “Ambassador” to the EU (European Union) while I spent hours formatting report documents. I learned real quick that I can’t take myself too seriously.

A lot has happened in the last year, but all of it has been part of a dynamic yet consistent movement in our lives. Some people move overseas with only a few months notice; it took us 5 years. The hard part has not been the transition, it has been staying on course even when there isn’t a lot of action.

I have no idea what the next year or the next 5 years will hold for us, but I am confident it too will part of this direction we have been heading in for quite some time.

-bk

This has been the first holiday season that I can ever remember where I have been away from family.  Growing up, our extended families always lived far away and we only saw them a couple times a year, but when it came to Thanksgiving and Christmas we always committed to long drives and hurried schedules in order to make sure we saw everybody.

We knew celebrating the holidays in Southern Africa could be tough.  Not only are we away from family, but the Swazi’s don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. Instead of leaves changing, the coming of cool weather and football on TV, we have torrential downpours (when rain comes), 100+ degree weather and cricket on TV.  Plus, most of the traditional Thanksgiving foods are difficult or impossible to find.

BUT… instead of pouting about it, Beth, Mikayla and I made sure we had one of the most memorable Thanksgivings ever.

Thanks to the wonders of technology, we were able to talk with all of our families overseas (even though it meant waking up in the middle of the night, it was worth it).  Also, Beth was able to put together a lot of Thanksgiving themed activities for Mikayla including a song that we will try to post on YouTube when we get a chance.

As for having a Thanksgiving meal, our plans changed many times, but ending up being extremely meaningful.  At first, we tried to coordinate with several Westerners that we are close with to celebrate this American holiday.  However, due to schedule changes and other circumstances, no one besides us was able to attend.  So, we extended an invitation to the Swazis that we are closest with.  This included several of the mangers, the office staff, and a couple other people from the mission.

When it came to food, Beth in particular was able to pull off some culinary wizardry (I am sure she will post about it on her blog shortly).  Although very hard to come by, we tracked down a frozen turkey and some smoked ham.  We had traditional mashed potatoes and green beans as well as the most amazing gravy I have ever had (thanks to the sisters!).  We had apple sauce, homemade rolls, deviled eggs, a Swazi version of collard greens along with butternut squash, and of course some sweet potatoes.  The award for creative substitution came with a variation of homemade pumpkin pie that we made with butternut squash.  It was phenomenal and if you didn’t tell me, I wouldn’t have known the difference.

By far the most meaningful part of the entire meal was being able to share it with the Swazis we are closest to.  We were able to explain the traditions and also express our gratitude to them for their support and assistance in our transition.

I was particularly struck by the unintentional symbolism that emerged.   In America, Thanksgiving is about spending time with family and we originally tried to replicate and share that with other Americans here in Swaziland.  However, what ended up happening was much more in line with the first Thanksgiving.  Tradition holds that the feast is tied to the Europeans celebrating with the Native Americas as a sign of gratitude for their assistance upon coming to the New World.  While the parallels are not perfect, the similarities were striking.  We are outsiders who are new here, and were were able to share our gratitude with those those who were already here as a way of saying thanks for helping us make the transition.

After dinner, we all sat around for hours and enjoyed each others company.  We introduced the Swazis to the Wii and as it turns out, they are pretty good at bowling!

As the evening wound down, the tone became a bit more intimate.  Several of guys who were still around thanked us for sharing the tradition with them.  They also expressed the things they were thankful.  Esau, our maintenance manager, said he was grateful to be a part of something that was bigger than just the people involved; because we are doing important things, we can work together even if we don’t always agree.  Johannes, our agriculture manager said he felt most thankful when he could look back at all the hard work and see the fruits of his labor.  He also said he was excited to see how people from different cultures could come and make new creations with current things (he was talking about Dad’s sweet potato recipe in particular).  Mzamo, our HR Director, continued this theme by saying he was grateful for how Westerners could come to Swaziland and make things better without having to change the culture.

At the end of the day, I drove everyone back to their homesteads along with leftover plates stacked high.  It gave me new appreciation for the dedication it takes for these people to come to work every day walking miles (some up to 6 miles each way) through the bush.

Our first Thanksgiving in Swaziland brought many firsts for us (first holidays away from family, first time cooking a turkey, first butternut squash pie, etc.) and many firsts for the Swazis (first thanksgiving, first time playing wii, first time to eat many of the foods, etc.).

Looking back a day later, I certainly missed seeing all our friends and family during this time, but at the same time, this weekend did more than anything else previously to solidify the notion that we are in the in fact in the right place.

Now we just need to set up our Christmas Tree and get ready for our first summertime Christmas.

Happy Holidays from the Kickerts!

Activity here in St. Phillips, Swaziland tends to come as either feast or famine: either there is a chaotic rush of things that need to be done, or there is absolutely nothing going on.  That not only applies to the work of the mission, but also to weekends.

My Saturday started at 6:30am (sleeping in for us) so we could get the twins ready to return to their homestead.  Then I had about a 45 minute round trip commute to drop them off.  Most of the day for Beth Mikayla and I ran was comprised of a trip into town to look at a potential vehicle to purchase.  During the day we purchased beds for the hostel, visited a home improvement store (which was a huge find for us!), met a family from the US, test drove a vehicle, stopped for lunch, found our mechanic was gone for the day so the whole trip was a bit fruitless, drove to the entrance of a game park (and saw impalas), returned the vehicle, went shopping at a new grocery store (also a big deal!), and picked up pizza.  Reviewing the day’s accomplishments though, we had to admit that all we achieved was purchasing a few things (most notably a hand-held shower head!), eating pizza, and spending 6-7 hours in single cab truck to do it.   Eish… even our days off are busy.

To compensate, we have tried to "achieve" a lazy Sunday here on the mission.  Sure, I have a few hours of work to do (Annual Progress Report for PEPFAR – US tax dollars at work), but most of the time has been just hanging out, eating, making cookies, playing wii, and a family walk through the bush near our house. 

Since busy work does not make for interesting photo ops, I wanted to post a few pictures from our Bush Walk:

Mikayla posing in front of some season flowers along the road.

And a picture with Mommy.

Mikayla riding up high…

… and riding not-so-high.

Following trails through the open…

… and through the brushy.

Tree picture with Daddy.

All tuckered out on the way home.

We are at about the one month point since our big move (depending on how you count it).  And while in general things have gone very smoothly, there is one area that has been especially impressive: Mikayla’s reaction to the transition.

We have known since early on in our daughter’s life that she was pretty special; she is incredibly good natured, adjusts well to change, and is always happy.  But, we knew this move of 9,000 miles, 7 time zones, and two hemispheres might be a bit much.  However, Mikayla has never waivered.  She has been happy, and spunky, and open to change, and has taken everything in stride.

Just think all that she has been through in the last 2-3 month.  She has:

• Seen all of the furniture in her house slowly dismantled and given away.
• Had nearly all of her toys given away or sold.
• Moved out of the only house she has ever known into a borrowed room.
• Had the few possessions she still owns packed, unpacked, and repacked countless times.
• Put up with parents who were stressed, sad, anxious and excited.
• Endured trips all over as we tried to cram in last minute visits.
• Had her sleep routine totally disrupted.
• Said to goodbye to all her family and friends.
• Taken 72 hours to move across the world.
• Flown on three planes for over 25 hours of flight time.
• Been drug through more airport terminals than we can count.
• Had to sleep in front of a ticket counter because we missed our flight.
• Put up with her parents as they stressed about their travel plans.
• Moved into a third home in less than two months.
• Gone from a crib to a toddler bed to a mattress on the floor to a couch to a twin bed and back to a mattress on the floor.
• Had to travel over an hour for any "quick trips into town."
• Lost access to things like parks and play areas.
• Been mobbed by kids twice her size because they are so interested in her.
• Tried to figure out why everyone speaks funny.
• Been kicked out of church (twice) and Sunday School.
• Had to get used to her Dad working again and her Mom being home.
• Traded the family dog for two new mission dogs.
• Had two new family members introduced (the twins).
• Been forced to share attention, food, and toys with these new kids.
• Been kicked out of her room again.
• Had to get used to taking showers instead baths.
• And, has made all new  friends.

Yet, in spite of all these changes and struggles, Mikayla is still the same resilient, cheerful child she has always been.  She has not skipped a beat, has barely shown any jealousy and hasn’t even been cranky.  All of that is a lot for anyone to go through, let alone a two-year old.  Forget the "Terrible Twos," Mikayla has demonstrated the "Terrific Twos"… and did I mention she was a SuperStar.  I am pretty sure she has handled the transition better than we have!

Here is a video walk through of our new home.  Just as a side note, don’t expect many more videos… it took almost two hours to upload this one and fortunately we found a loophole in our internet connection so we were not charged for the whole time.

My last blog post was from my kindle and was typed in the middle of night stuck in Newark airport due to a missed flight.  At the time, things were still pretty up in the air, so I figured you would probably like to hear the rest of the story.  If you follow my twitter feed (@kickert) you will least know we arrived in Africa, but getting there was interesting.

After missing our connection in Newark, I ended up staying up the entire night so Beth and Mikayla could catch some sleep while I watched our stuff.  We basically took over a corner of the ticketing area and made a fort:

Part of the reason we stayed at the airport instead of getting a hotel (besides the fact Continental refused to help us cover the costs) is because our bags were at some indeterminate location: they came in on Continental, were supposed to go to Lufthansa on the connection, our rebooking was for an earlier Lufthansa flight, but it was being handled by United.  With so many transitions we wanted to be able to physically see our bags to make sure they made it with us.  That meant bugging the baggage agents every hour until they found our stuff. (On a side note, I have never encountered customer service employees as rude and unconcerned as the people at Continental in Newark.  I could write a whole blog on that!)

Eventually they found our bags (actually I saw them rolling past on a luggage cart and recognized them and made them give them to me) so we  could recheck in on our next flight.  It was nice to have our luggage with us because we could get extra clothes out and have the peace of mind that it would probably make it on the plane with us, but it also meant we had to move it all around by ourselves on undersized baggage carts.

I felt pretty confident in my packing ability…

…until we found the cart couldn’t fit through the elevator door.

Once we changed terminals to check in, we found that Lufthansa did not open their ticketing counters until much later in the day.  We were hoping to check in early so we could get rid of our luggage and then go back into the secure area, but no such luck.  We were fortunate enough for Mikayla to find another small child to play with.  That helped pass the time.  I was also able to grab a 45 minute nap which was nice.

Eventually Lufthansa opened their counter and things seemed to be going well until they tried to charge us for our "extra" baggage.  If you will remember, I was already upset because Lufthansa had promised 2 free bags, but Continental had charged us b/c they were the airline of origination.  I flatly refused.  Fortunately, we had a great agent who was very patient and realized the fee was a mistake due to the rebooking.  In fact, she even went out of her way to let us pick our seats.  We got seats right behind first class so we had extra legroom and no seats in front of us for Mikayla to kick.  She even promised to try her best to improve our tickets on our final leg.

20 hours after we landed in Newark we were finally on our way to Germany (we were supposed to have a 2 hour layover).  We were able to talk with the sisters and they were able to extend their stay in South Africa.  I was also able to get in touch with my friend Ben in Frankfurt and he was able to rearrange his schedule to still meet us at the airport.  Overall the flight across the Atlantic was uneventful and even a bit relaxing after what we had been through so far.

Upon landing, I decided to go ahead and get our boarding passes for our next flight before we left customs.  That is when things started getting interesting again.  It turns out that when we were rebooked, they had us listed as standby, but neither the rebooking agent, nor the Lufthansa agent mentioned that to us.  Not only were we on standby, but the flight itself was overbooked.  Frustrated, we walked away to try and figure out what we should do.  I couldn’t imagine the sisters being excited about staying two days extra.

After thinking about things for a bit, I decided to go back to the Lufthansa agents to figure out my chances of getting off standby and actually on the flight.  At least we could try and plan better if we knew how things might turn out.  The agent told us that we had a slightly better than 50% chance of getting a seat.  We took what we could get and headed through customs into Germany.  Mikayla played at a playground in the terminal and we grabbed a quick snack to wait for Ben.

It was very cool to be able to catch up with him when he finally did arrive.  It had been 13 years since I was in Germany visiting him, and almost 7 years since Beth was in the country visiting.  At this point we were all in great need of a shower.  Ben took us back to his apartment where we were able to freshen up and grab a bite of real food.  Mikayla took a quick nap, but eventually we had to wake her up.  She was so tired she fell asleep in the shower.

We then went back to Ben’s parents’ house.  It was pretty cool to revisit the place I stayed for 3 weeks back when I was 16.  Lots of memories came back that I had forgotten.  The Dornhoffs are incredible hosts.  We had coffee and cake and Ben’s mother played with Mikayla for quite a while.

We headed back to the airport to try and figure things out.  We said bye to Ben and head through customs.  We were told our best bet to get off standby was to be at the gate as early as possible, so we made sure we were there over 3 hours before the flight left.  While that was probably good advice, it didn’t do us any good because the flight actually left an hour after we thought and the agents didn’t get to the gate until an hour and half before that.

By far, this was the most stressful part of the trip because we were in limbo not knowing if we were going to make it out of the country that day.  You could say that the worst part was knowing that it could be worse.  This was the only point of our entire journey where I was so anxious I needed to take a Xanax.

Once we did talk to an agent, we were told that even though we were first on standby, things were still not looking good.  They didn’t tell us our chances, but by the way they were talking to us, I have a feeling we were below the 50% mark.  The one comforting thing was knowing that if we did have to stay another night, at least we had people in the area who could pick us up and give us a place to stay.

Once people started loading the plane, we got more stressed out.  Beth and I talked about our options and decided that if we could only get one ticket we all would stay, but if we could get two tickets only, Beth and Mikayla would fly out and I would follow the next day with the rest of our stuff and rent a car.  We divided our stuff up so that could work if it needed to.

With about 10 minutes left before the plane was scheduled to leave the gate, the agents began looking to see if any of the standbyers could get on.  With great relief, I heard my name called.  We all got three tickets, but they were all separate.  I told them there was no way Mikayla could be in a seat apart from us.  They took our tickets and tried to work something out.  The best they could do was get us all in the same section of the plane and hope something could work out.  We took what we could and board the plane with all our stuff.

I am sure the people who had already boarded were not excited to see us come on dragging all our stuff and obviously holding up their departure.  The flight attendants were able to get Mikayala and Beth together, but I was a couple seats over in a different row.  That was fine by me… at least we were on the plane.  But then, something really cool happened.  The guy in the row with Beth and Mikayla heard what was happening and about our journey so far and offered to switch me seats.  He traded a window seat for a center seat in the center section for an 11 hour flight.  Let me tell you… that guy should be nominated for sainthood!  It made the whole flight much easier with all three of us next to each other.

This last leg of our journey was great.  The service was astounding, the food was great, and it was long enough that all of us could get some decent rest.

We landed in Jo-burg and made it through customs without any problem.  Our luggage all arrived and the only problem we had was some of Beth’s mouthwash leaked.  We met the sisters at the gate and were ready to leave.

The whole way to the vehicle you could tell the sisters were a bit nervous.  They had been in South Africa long enough that they had their own luggage with them and they were afraid our stuff wouldn’t all fit.  There was even talk of one of them catching a bus back to Swaziland.  On any other trip, this would have been a concern to me, but after our journey so far, this seemed like a minor issue.  I had actually already thought about this possible problem and thus had packed parachute cord so we could strap things to the roof.  We packed what we could into the SUV and strapped one bag to the top.  No worries at all.

The drive back to St. Phillips took about 6 hours, but was thankfully relatively uneventful.  Sister Barbara was pulled over twice for speeding, but was able to sweet talk her way out of a ticket both times.  The border crossing was easy and they didn’t even want to check our bags.  Excellent!

We grabbed pizza on the way home, got back to the mission, unloaded our stuff and were finally able to breath easy.

From the time we left Bowling Green to the time we arrived at St. Phillips, our entire journey took 72 hours.  By contrast, if our original flight had landed 15 minutes sooner, we would have only had a 48 hour trip, and if we had flown South African Air, it would have been a 35 hour trip.

I must say, in all of this, Mikayla was a super star.  This trip could have been much worse if our toddler had chosen to be a brat, but the worst she got was the last 15 minutes of our flight when she decided to kick the seat of the guy in front of her.  If that is all we have to deal with, I am super happy.

Our first night we headed to bed early.  Mikayla got 15 hours of sleep and Beth and I got 12.  Normally I would think jetlag would be an issue, but our trip was so crazy our bodies had no idea what time it was.

I will end this post with a touching note.  Once we had everything unpacked and all our stuff figured out, I asked Mikayla where we were.  I was hoping she would say "Africa" or "Swaziland" to show she understood that we had just made the transition we had been talking about, but what she said was even more significant. 

"Mikayla, where are we?" I asked.

"Home" she said…. and she was right.  After a month of being displaced and in crazy transition, we have found our new home… and things are great here.

Right now it is the calm before (in the midst?) of the storm.  We leave Bowling Green in about 3 hours and family is scheduled to arrive any moment now.  Last night we said our goodbyes to close friends and didn’t finish our packing until a few minutes ago.  It has been a crazy few weeks.  It would have been nice to have a few more hours or days, but we have been planning this transition for over 4 years now so I can’t really complain.

Mikayla is very excited about this departure.  We have tried our best to prepare her and she certainly has a grasp of what is about to happen; but of course there is no way she can comprehend how much her life is about to change.

We have about 50 hours of traveling between Bowling Green, KY and St. Phillips Swaziland and that might be interesting with a toddler.  The sisters are meeting us at the airport on Thursday morning and then we have a 5 hour drive to get there.  It sounds like we will have some time to settle in, but there is so much to be done, I have a feeling I will jump in pretty quickly.  It will be nice to have Beth at home to help get things in order.

Lots of thoughts going through my head now.  We are certainly going to miss our friends and family, but I realize it is much different to live overseas now than it was even 5 years ago.  We may not reliable internet, but things like Skype and Facebook will keep us connected when we have access to them.

It is at times like this that the title of my blog, "Dynamic yet consistent" takes special meaning.  A whole lot has changed in our lives in the last 5-10 years, but looking back it is obvious that we have been moving in an intentional direction.  And while today’s move is pretty substantial, it is simple another step towards where we have been heading for years.  I am sure 5-10 years from now things will again look much different, but I am confident the movement will be consistent and for the better.

We will do our best to keep you posted.

Looking forward,

-bk

The day started out cold and dreary – unseasonably so for mid-May in Kentucky.  It would have been easy to stay inside and waste the day watching TV and surfing the internet.  But, Mikayla and I had plans and we weren’t going to let the weather affect us.  We decided to go hiking at a small lake in northern Warren County called Shanty Hollow (a popular climbing spot for locals).

Ran into a guy I went to college with and he snapped a few pictures for us.

Our destination was the waterfall.  Mikayla enjoyed it, but had much more fun just throwing rocks in the water.

Many people know about the waterfall, but don’t take the time to follow the creek down where it cuts through the rock and makes a very cool ravine.

We then hiked out along the creek bed, stopping every 100 feet or so for Mikayla to throw more rocks into the water.  Although it was a bit cool and a bit wet, it ended up being a great morning to be out.  Here is a video of Mikayla throwing rocks!

Here is Mikayla’s tough girl look.  She picked some honey-suckles and then wanted to walk the last quarter mile on her own (up until then she had mostly ridden on my  back).

Our last stop was the lake shore… where of course she entertained herself by throwing more rocks.  She also found a hawk feather laying on the trail.

Overall it was a great morning that served as a simple reminder of the joys of getting off your butt and into nature.  I figure we had better enjoy the cold, wet weather, because the next several years won’t have much of it!

Today is Mikayla’s 18 month birthday.  A lot has happened in the last year and a half and I could not imagine how we could have been more blessed by her.  Having this mile marker come, coupled with the fact that she is learning her letters and I have been going through my old Hebrew textbooks has me reflecting on the origins of her name.

[Mikayla Lillian Kickert about to leave the hospital]

Many of you know the subtle nuances we chose to include when naming our daughter Mikayla Lillian Kickert.  First, Lillian is her great grand-mother’s name – a woman my wife greatly respected (Obviously the "Kickert" part came from me and my family).  We chose Mikayla for several reasons.  Most importantly we want to pay tribute to one of my heroes – Martin Luther King Jr. – by  giving her the initials MLK.  (I wonder how many white girls are named after King?).  But the name Mikayla also carries with it special meaning.

Traditionally "Mikayla" is said to mean "a godly woman."  It is a feminine derivative of the name Michael and has its origins in the Hebrew language:

We just happened to be thinking through baby names while I was taking several Hebrew courses at seminary and because of that I was able to recognize there is actually another way to translate "Mikayla."  It can also mean "who is like these":

Considering her initials point to a civil rights hero and her other names come from highly regarded family members, this reading carries extra weight.  Whether we use it to refer to a godly woman or to a person who is like "these" influential people, we are projecting a sincere desire that our daughter grow up as a person whom others would want to emulate.

Words are powerful and names (usually) last a lifetime.  18 months ago we were intentional about choosing our daughter’s name so that she would always be reminded of godly people who are willing and able to change the world.

Happy half-birthday Mikayla.

…I guess the real question should be "Where have I been?"

The month of October has been a blur for the Kickerts. 

At the beginning of the month we took a quick trip to Colorado and Utah as a family.  It was the first real vacation Beth and I have taken since we went to DC back in 2005.  It was also Mikayla’s first flight (we used it as a bit of a test run for the 22 hour plane ride coming up for us in July).

We flew into Denver and spent the day at the Children’s Museum.  Later that day we walked around downtown and tracked down some ice cream.  The next day we visited a cool place called the Butterfly Pavilion and headed up to Fort Collins.  Once our "city trips" were done we headed to Rocky Mountain National Park and then the next day traveled to Moab Utah and hiked around Arches National Park.

Right after returning to Kentucky I got back in the car and took a "quick" trip up to Northern Wisconsin / Upper Peninsula of Michigan to visit with my parents who just moved there.  While we didn’t have much planned, we did visit the "mysterious" Paulding Lights and did quite a bit of paddling on the small lakes up there.

On top of all the travelling, we have been making some big personnel adjustments at work and I have been prepping for our annual charge conference at church.

It seems the month just started, but it is already over.  On Friday we will have our annual Halloween Bash and then we will moving into November.

It is crazy to think how quick months go by, especially since we only have 9 more until we leave the states for a decade or so.  C’est la vie.

Mikayla at the Children’s Museum

Beth and Mikayla at the Butterfly Pavilion

Foggy day at Dream lake in ROMO

Along the Trail Ridge Road in ROMO

At Delicate Arch in Arches NP

Paddling in the Sylvania Wilderness Area