I Hope that Ball Knows Where It's Going

...because we've been walking for a looong time. Overall, we’re traveling east, but there’s a lot of variation and even some looping around. It’s now been four years since we left Nahom, but I’ll bet if I were to straight line walk back to Nahom, I could do it in a few weeks.

Granted, we don’t travel everyday. As I explained before, the amount of labor required to survive is super high. Which means when we’re traveling, we don’t have time to get food. So we camp for long periods of time, and try to build up stores of food, then follow the ball a few more days until the food starts to run low. Then repeat.

Oh and I just realized, I’m so lame, I forgot to mention that I had another kid about a year ago. Her name is Naomi, and she’s growing and doing well out here. I didn’t mention it in my last post because…well, I dunno. Things are just really busy.

Everyone is doing pretty well. We’ve been lucky, all the pregnancies have gone smoothly along with the deliveries. The kids have been healthy. We haven’t had anyone get really sick since Ishmael passed. So I guess God's promises are being fulfilled.

Honestly, I don’t know when I’ll update this again. I think once we finally get where we’re going, it’ll be easier for me to update. Also, there hasn’t been a ton of drama, so not much interesting anyway. Hopefully we’ll get to this promised land soon. I’ll let you know when we get there, or if any drama happens along the way. Take care, everyone!

Huntin', Gatherin', Ballin'

Sorry it’s been so long between posts again. I really just don’t feel like I have much to post. Ever since God put me in my place, I’ve just been trying to go along with things. Sometimes Nephi will say things that push my buttons, but I just calm down and remind myself that’s just how he is. Avoiding drama leaves me with no real juicy conversations to post.

Finding enough food and water every day is a lot of work, but it doesn’t make for particularly interesting writing either. So I don’t feel like I have much to write about. Then I thought, well, maybe I’ll at least share a picture. The picture below is looking back over a canyon we just traveled through. The family is to the bottom right, just outside the frame. I climbed up to the top so I could look beyond our current location and check out where we’re headed.

So not exactly what I’d call fertile, but not completely barren either. It’s tough living, but we’re living, and I think we have God to thank for that.

...Aaand I'm Back!

Oh man, I’ve been so bad at updating this blog lately. Honestly, I almost forgot about the blog until something reminded me of it yesterday. I went back and looked at it and realized in my last post I left you all hanging with, “Hey, we almost killed my dad and brother.” Sorry, if any of you were worried. Things have actually been going pretty good for everyone over the last year.

After leaving Nahom, we started heading east. It’s not exactly easy living out here, so we’ve kept plenty busy just trying to survive (hence the lack of blogging time). And, we’re all the more busy because everyone’s got baby’s now too. Jael and I have a 4-month-old. We named her Sariah. She’s healthy and doing well, which is good. We’ve been living off raw meat since we left Jerusalem. I was worried that wouldn't be good for Jael’s pregnancy or for nursing. But Jael and the baby have both been fine, so I guess raw meat can be okay. And honestly, it doesn’t taste as gross as it sounds.

So it’s a lot of work to survive out here, but we’re getting along okay and not starving. I just hope we get to wherever we’re going soon, and there’s plenty of food there. Once all these runts need to start eating real food, it’ll require a lot more work to feed them. Oh, and speaking of runts, I have a new little brother. Jacob was born to Mom and Dad a few months after we left Nahom. It’s crazy, he’s my brother, but he’s gonna grow up playing with my kids.

The Hunger Games

Ooookaaay....

I'm kind of dispirited right now (to put it gently). Nephi broke his bow, and it’s been a few days since any of us have had anything to eat. There’s no indication of a town anywhere nearby, so I don’t know how we’re going to get food. I’ve been trying to think of a way out of this, but nothing is coming to mind. It’s too far to make it back to Jerusalem, and I don’t know how much longer we can last out here without a way to hunt. I don’t think this will be my last post—with water, which we have, a person can last a couple weeks without food—but it might be my 2nd or 3rd to last post.

Ishmael’s in REAL bad shape. He wasn’t exactly a youngin' when we left, and so the travel has been hard on him. We stopped to rest and hunt partially so he could recover. But without food, he hasn't. He’s so weak he couldn’t even get out of bed the last couple days.

Oh, and Jael’s pregnant. Not a great time to start a multi-day fast. Although I guess if we all die out here it doesn’t matter anyway. I hate to see her suffering the way she is. This is not the life a pregnant women deserves. It’s so tough because on the one hand, I’m supposed to honor my father and mother, but on the other hand, I’m Jael’s husband. I have a responsibility to take care of her—a responsibility I’m failing at as we die out here because of Dad, Nephi, and Ishmael.

I think Dad is finally starting to get it though. Laman and I were talking to him, and I was trying not to be all “I told you so,” but Laman had no qualms about it. I tried to gently explain that this is what I’ve been saying all along. The Lord protects His people, and abandoning them leaves us unprotected. Starving. In the wilderness. With no food. And no way of getting food. I think it finally got through to him because he’s pretty sad about the whole situation. It’s a bit late though. I just hope that if we don’t survive, this blog functions to help others learn from our mistakes.

Not sure if Nephi will ever get it. He really ticked me off this morning. He had the gall to chew us out for “hardening our hearts." My response was “Dude! My wife and unborn child are probably gonna die, and my concern for them constitutes a ‘hard heart?!'” Then I called him a self-righteous brat and told him where he could stick that holier-than-thou act of his. I turned around and walked off before he could push any more of my buttons. I generally try not to use that sort of language, but let's just say I'm not in the best place emotionally right now.

I don’t know what’s going to happen...I just don’t know...

On the Road Again

Okay, so this is not (as I promised last post) 5 Mind-Numbingly Awesome Ideas to Turn a Desert Nomad Camp into a Luxury Suite. A couple weeks ago, things changed. In fact, we’re not even in the Valley of Me anymore. Dad had a dream that we should get on the road again, and so we moved out. Unfortunately, we’re not headed back to Jerusalem, we’re headed even farther out.

We’ve been going mostly south, mostly keeping to some of the trade routes that run along the Red Sea. And we’re following the directions of some sort of ball-shaped director that we found outside of Dad’s tent. So when we leave the trade routes, it’s generally because this thing has a spindle that points a different way. I really have no idea how that thing works, but it’s done a decent job. Most of the time when it leads us off the main path, we end up in a pretty nice place for hunting and stocking up on food.

I hope that in addition to detecting game, this director can keep us away from the bands of robbers out here. We’re not a small, defenseless caravan, but we’re not large either, and trade routes draw in all sorts of thieves hoping to make bank off of caravans like ours. And in terms of fighting ability, we’re actually smaller than we look. We have only eight men that are of fighting age (Ishmael’s a bit past the age where I’d expect him to help out much against a raid), and if a gang sees that, they’ll come at us for sure. Especially because attacking us brings the prospect of women, not just wealth.

So I’ve been teaching Jael some basic self-defense just in case anything happens to me out here. I also tried to tell Dad that now that I have a role as a protector for my small family, I’m concerned about the idea of bringing them into such an area. He and Ishmael were pretty dismissive of my concerns, and said if we just trust in God, He’d deliver us.

Again, this highlights my concern, I don’t know that what we’re doing here is actually under the command of God. In fact a lot of evidence seems to point to the contrary. So is He going to deliver us when we’ve shown we don’t trust the covenants He made with the house of Israel, nor do we trust the leaders He’s chosen for us? But I’ve brought this up before, and it never seems to go anywhere with Dad, so I didn’t even bother this time.

Oh, and one other concerning development: my bow is dead. The thing has the strength of a willow at this point. Laman’s is getting there too. So if we’re attacked, Nephi’s the only one with a working bow. Also, that means he’s the only one that can hunt for big game, so it limits our hunting opportunities, which limits our food. Hopefully we’ll come to a town soon where we can trade for some new bows.

Hot, Flat, and Crowded

Four families are now nine! We had a big group marriage ceremony a few days ago. And that’s exciting and all. Problem is we don’t have 9 tents. We have 6. So…yeah. Privacy isn’t really a thing in our current situation...

…But Jael’s great. We’ve only known each other a couple weeks, but I feel like this is gonna work out great. In fact, I guess this is an upside to this whole “flee to the wilderness” thing. I don’t know if I’d have ended up with Jael had we stayed in Jerusalem, and I like her a lot better than any of the other options that Mom and Dad were considering for me. So, there’s a silver lining to this cloud.

Now, it would be a bit more convenient to start a new family not in the desert. But Jael’s a good sport, and we have a good time throwing in just a dash of snarky commentary to help make desert survival a tad more enjoyable. I’ve been thinking of some DIY ideas of how I can improve the camp and make things a bit more homey feeling for the two of us. In my next post, I’ll blog about it:

5 Mind-Numbingly Awesome Ideas to Turn Your Desert Nomad Camp into a Luxury Suite!

I'm sure it'll look just like this by the time I'm done.

Make Me a Match

Being in this small of a dating market makes for some interesting interactions. We have five single guys, and five single ladies. And we all have to match someone. If Dad and Ishmael just went down the list matching by age, I’d be with Orpah, but she’s not my type at all. Luckily, like I said in my last post, she and Sam seem to be fans of each other. Also, Dad and Ishmael seem to be taking into account how everyone interacts in the arrangements they’re making. So that’s a good sign. Laman and Nephi both made their moves for their desired lady-folk quite quickly. I’m a bit less gung ho, and have never been great at the wooing game, so from the moment we headed back to get Ishmael’s family, I figured I’d get last dibs.

But I gotta say, this is actually turning out really well. Jael’s a lot of fun, we have very similar personalities, and she knows how to rock a wimple and crisping pin combo. Oh, and none of my bros are going for her, so I think I actually have a chance getting an awesome wife. Laman, Sam, and Nephi seem to fit well with the girls they’re cozying up to, and even Zoram seems to be a good match for Salome. Although, those two are on again off again—a lot. I think they’ll settle down over time though.

Anyway, Dad, Mom, Ishmael, and Jehosheba are making plans for a big group wedding soon. I told Dad it seems weird to be doing a wedding out here in the boonies with no one around. Can’t really do the big celebration. He said something about how that’s what made this arrangement so nice. Less time worrying about unimportant stuff, and more time to get him some grandkids. Jael was sitting next to me when he said that. He’s kind of awkward, but I guess when you get older you don’t care.

I don't think we'll have enough guests to fill out the reception