Yesh Li Blog: Happy Birthday, Bonnie!

Saturday, April 05, 2014

Happy Birthday, Bonnie!

Happy Birthday, Bonnie!

I start this birthday greeting with a picture of you and Grandma. She was a great communicator, and you have certainly inherited that gene. Painting, drawing, writing letters, email, social media—you keep in touch with family and friends around the world.

That is such a commendable thing to do, and we so appreciate hearing what is happening in your life and watching the children grow up and live their lives. I love that you not only created these "Quote Cards" but that you sent them all out to people of whom they made you think. They are very imaginative.

Now for a little nostalgia. The back of this one indicates you are just past your first birthday, so we were still in Rota.

Second birthday. Three little girls with birthdays within one week of one another. Puerto House.

With Mom, all dressed up for your second birthday party.

Puerto de Santa Maria.

Three years old. Chipiona. Birthday with the YWAM/Dilaram community.

Of course, that beautiful house with its marvelous tile is gone now, replaced by apartments, from what we've been told. Here's a shot on the front steps right before we were transferred to Gaeta.

It was such fun surprising you last year for your birthday.

Kudos to Rory for a wonderful plan.

And of course, the party he threw was nonpareil.

So glad we could be there.

I'll finish with a couple of fun ones. There were so many people in your life who blessed you in so many ways, and Uncle Bob was/is certainly one of them. I love this picture. He looks so peaceful, and you look a bit mischievous.

I came across this picture in my searches today. Of course, it is you modeling the hole in your windshield and kidding me about my penchant for using gray tape on everything.

We celebrate you today and every day and wish you all the best in this new year of life.

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Why Yesh Li Blog?

Why do I have a blog? Quite simply, I have a blog to share my favorite things with others. The right side of the blog has a long list of links to some of the places on the Internet that I visit often. In addition to sharing those with others, I often come here myself to find a quick link to where I am going.

Bonnie, our eldest, led the way into blogging with her Simple Beauty Blog, and later with her extremely popular Beans Blog. I decided I would give blogging a try and thought "I have a blog" might be a clever name, but in English it sounded rather lame, so I did it in Hebrew, a language I love more and more the more I learn it.

What does Yesh Li Blog mean?

We would translate (i.e. interpret) yesh li blog to mean "I have a blog" in English, but the literal Hebrew means "There is for (or to) me a blog." You cannot literally say "I have" something or other in Hebrew. It is always "there is for me," or "there is for you," or "there is for us," etc. Hebrew, the language of the Bible, is showing us that we are really stewards of what has been provided for us and for our use. Rather than private ownership, perhaps a better term for what we "own" would be private stewardship.

Languages have been my passion since at least the fourth grade, when I studied Spanish from a library book called Fun with Spanish. In high school, I was the rara avis that became enamored of Latin. In later U.S. Navy tours of duty in Spain, Italy, and Japan, we did our best to learn the local languages. Along the way, I studied some Russian and picked up some Greek by studying etymologies and some Chinese by studying Japanese writing systems.

My first introduction to Hebrew was in the early 1980s, when I took a correspondence course, but it was not until the past decade that my primary focus has been on this wondrous language. It has been deeply rewarding, and especially in the past few years since we met Ori, an amazing Israeli woman, who has become not only my primary Hebrew mentor but also our good friend. Moreover, the small group of people who meet weekly to study Torah in Hebrew in Boulder have become dear to us and enriched our lives greatly. Further, reading Jewish commentaries on the Web of the weekly Torah portions has deepened my own faith and opened up new understandings of the scriptures we share and of Christian writings based on those scriptures.

The pursuit of words has been an essential part of my life for many years (since birth?). Many things have changed in my life, but I don't see that part of it changing any time soon (until death?). Lehitraot! Shalom, Chaverim!