crickl's nest

It's 4:44 and I'm Jonesing the Mojo

2012-01-27T22:12:00.000-08:00

I have so many much more serious and pressing things to say, but this is what came out of my head.....

I'm having theme days again. Seemingly random things that all have a connection keep happening and make me wonder. Am I supposed to be getting something from this, because.....I don't get it.

For several days in a row, I would glance at the clock and the time would be in sync. For example, the time would be 11:11 or 2:22. It was weird. Almost scary. I felt like Twilight Zone music would play at any moment. A few weeks ago it was herds of white cars. While driving I would gradually notice that although every other car color was mixed into the crowds of cars, the white cars would bunch up like a herd. And people kept saying the term Jonesing. I stopped in the middle of Bible study tonight to clarify what that word meant. The answer was....could be keeping up with the Joneses or it could be used to mean a craving. Who knew? (not me)

Today as I drove to the church office down 7th Street, I saw an old Volkswagon E wagon (I had to look up what it was called because teeny tiny station wagon didn't seem correct). I see it every time I drive that route in the mornings. I hear the telling VW motor beside me and I turn and smile. I love VWs. We used to drive a Vanagon. So today when an old VW Beetle with a cool vintage luggage rack on top pulled up on the other side of me it made me laugh. (I could make the dueling motor sounds for you, but then I'd have to clean my screen) Random connections. Cue Twilight Zone music.......

The guy in the wagon pulled up next to the guy in the Beetle at the next light, and I could see them talking to each other through their open windows. They each had their elbow resting on the open window and had easy-going smiles and there was some hippy-type head nodding happening as if they were saying things like, "Dude, cool car". It's just how VW owners are.....and it made me remember when we had ours.

We lived in New Jersey and drove the Vanagon all over town. Every day, I would see other VW cars pull up beside me, hang their head or arm out the window, or wave a peace sign at me to acknowledge the vehicular love. I miss being in that club.....though I do love my automatic transmission too much to go back.

People who drive Honda Accords just don't have the same mojo. Dude.

High Places

2012-01-20T10:31:00.000-08:00

I will just post some pictures for my summary of the 12 Days of Emma. The last few days were filled up with Emma seeing her friends and trying to get in last minute visits and fun.

Thank you to Sara for taking these pictures, they are great!

Hiking...this mountain park is right in our new neighborhood and the weather was beautiful!

The Sovereign LORD is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to tread on the heights. Hab 3:19

I think the best part of the 12 Days was to see how being put into a totally foreign and difficult situation made her cling to her faith more strongly and showed us her foundation is strong in Christ. I think she could do almost anything now, as long as God calls her to it, and the worries I had about her choice of career (police work) are more settled.

I rarely got to see my car during the 12 Days. ;) But that's okay.

She got to wear her favorite shirt. When you ask her.....What zombie? (scroll down)

She does this and then laughs at your shocked expression.

It couldn't have been a better visit! And now we are getting ready to go to Missouri to see her graduate from training in a couple of weeks. Then she comes HOME!

Several Drummers Leaping/Piping/Dancing?

2011-12-30T19:55:00.000-08:00

When people sing The Twelve Days of Christmas, it gets old fast. People usually can't remember if the drummers drumming or Lords a-leaping or ladies milking are day 6, 7 or 8. By the time you get past FIVE GOLDEN RINGS people get silly and don't take it seriously anymore. Consider that my excuse for the past few days. :)

Hard to believe that this is the 9th day of Emma. The past few days have gone by in a blur. I will try to recap just a little bit of it.

1. There was a lot of hiking. We just moved into a new neighborhood in Phoenix by the Phoenix Mountain Preserve, so we are getting out walking or hiking. About 3 minutes in the car and we are at trailheads that head off into the desert landscape and either up or through desert mountains. I prefer through, but Charles, Emma and Maggie have been up several of them this week too.

2.There have been a lot of friends coming, going and staying. We have this tradition....or lack of planning?....that Emma's friends just come, spending day and/or night and I just need to know how many to cook dinner for. It's been this way since Tuesday. We love it. A lot of them are the regulars who have been doing this for 5 years at our house and some are newer. It's amazing to see a group of friends from freshman in high school through sophomore in college ages. They change a LOT and I'm really pleased to see how they've grown and are getting independent and grown up!

3. Wii Just Dance. Just about all of the above mentioned friends have been coerced into playing Just Dance on the Wii game station. Last night there was a big group here and they were really squealing and shouting and laughing so loud that I had to come out and watch for a while too.

4. Netflix. We signed up for a free month and all the people who are hanging out here are watching or at least talking about old shows they used to love when they were little. It is funny to see the different personalities they have but all of them have some cultural iconishness in common from watching the same goofy television shows or movies. They would mention an old show they remembered and there were several minutes of saying quotes from it or singing the theme songs. So I mentioned Andy Griffith as we scrolled past it on the menu. They all just kind of look at me. Weird people.

5. Eating. I purposely put out all my leftover wonderful Christmas baked goods that have made their way into my house and they have amazingly disappeared! Maisy, our dog, was heavily influenced by this grazing of anything within reach. In fact, we would call her opportunistic ways greedy and gluttonous. She ate a large sized chocolate bar that was in a Christmas stocking.....along with most of the foil wrapper. We worried about her for one day but she doesn't seem to be in distress from it. She's just a little heavier to pick up.

6. Playing. There has been a little golfing, Settlers of Catan has been almost permanently on my dining room table, today there was a little remote control helicopter flying around the house (very cool!), and the sounds of Plants vs. Zombies. (yuck) Of course, the best sound of all the games is the laughter and enjoyment from being together again.

7. My favorite thing of the week was tonight though. Maggie was gone to a youth lock in, Hannah was at work and Beth across town on a date, and it was just Charles and I in the living room. Emma and Sara (the last extra left for the evening) were getting ready to go to the lock in for the worship service. Then we heard Emma pick up her guitar and start strumming and singing. She sang Slow Fade, Big House, and How He Loves Us. She and Sara sang loud with harmony and passion.

It made my throat get a big lump in it and tears ready to squirt out with gratefulness at how they have taken their faith as their own and are serving God as young adults. The world is loudly beckoning at them to join in the ruckus and they are keeping their focus. After sending our Emma out into the world to be on her own for college last year or to be owned by the army this year, it was so refreshing to see how her faith and passion is becoming stronger than ever.

Even youths will become weak and tired,
and young men will fall in exhaustion.

But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.
They will soar high on wings like eagles.
They will run and not grow weary.
They will walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:30-31 (NLT)

Day 5 almost finishes us was fun!

2011-12-26T15:58:00.000-08:00

Emma and Hannah

Christmas Day started out busy busy and ended just perfectly, with everyone quietly in their own nook of the house, enjoying new little gadgets or books.

Charles was up cooking bacon early, which rouses everyone from sleep even though there were no gifts to open. The frozen waffles were in the oven by 8am and were eating Christmas breakfast by 8:20. My waffle maker gave up on us after last Christmas but the frozen Belgian waffles were actually better than my old maker could ever make them. Bacon, waffles with berries, real maple syrup and lots of pffft (canned whipped cream) and you have a Christmas feast that was gobbled up quickly so everyone could primp for church.

Christmas on a Sunday always throws us off, but we were glad to be in the house of the Lord this morning and it was a really nice service. Charles, Emma and I took two people home afterwards and didn't get back until almost 1pm. But they are dear people and their joy at being with us and Emma on Christmas for a while made it worth the time.

By the time we got there, some of my sisters had already arrived and were setting out appetizers and cooking and generally taking over. I was glad of it too, after a busy morning. I had planned on using my grandmother's old china, then we settled on paper plates instead, to save on work for everyone. But having used all my nice Christmassy paper plates for various little parties, we had to use leftover plates from different patterned paper products....some red, some blue and some orange.

And NO ONE cared! They got covered with food anyway. :)

My niece Bobbie, and sisters Jodi, me, Becky, and Julie watching croquet.

After lounging around a bit after eating dinner, we got out one of the girls' gifts....Just Dance 2 for the Wii. Two at a time all of my sisters, then all of my daughters and nieces, got up and danced to the characters on the Wii screen. SO FUN! We laughed and laughed. There was croquet, sitting out in the sun watching croquet, monopoly, cards, naps were taken loudly...zzzzzzz.... and football was watched when the men could usurp the television after all that loud napping. They all watched Cars 2 also. Hannah's boyfriend Sam was here with us all day, as his family is in Oregon and he and my 5 year old nephew had a lot of fun playing together.

Best quote of the day....
Gabriel: Sam, you're on MY team (light saber in hand)
Sam: Okay, who's on the other team?
Gabriel: The grown ups!

Around 8pm people were gathering up their things and saying their goodnights. It was a wonderful, relaxing, fun day with family. I came back into the house, our dog Maisy was trying to gulp something down and I noticed brown crumbs all over the dining room. Someone has stolen the last of the brownies, taking full advantage of the good-bying....naughty, not nice.

As people were settling into their own spaces, Emma left went out the door with her boyfriend Tim and his family to see the new Mission Impossible movie. I can't even imagine the kind of energy you have when you are college aged anymore.

Before going to bed though, I wanted to try out the new facial peel mask Hannah gave me. It's blackberry something from Bath and Body Works and smells lovely, but it is as black as black shoe polish! Very scary to put it on your face. And I guess it was pretty funny to others because when I came out to get a glass of water, people were falling down laughing. I looked like an ole time minstrel singer, which was apparently hilarious...... It did peel off nicely and felt good afterward, so that was a relief. It was so nice to get into bed, all clean and it was so warm....

....by the time Emma got home from the movie, there was no one awake, not even a mouse....or naughty dog.

The 4th Day of Emma

2011-12-26T13:20:00.000-08:00

I wish I had taken some pictures, but I was too busy enjoying myself to think of it!

Christmas Eve found us bustling around getting the house ready for Christmas. Charles took us all to Olive Garden for a late lunch, then a third of our group went to music rehearsal for the evening service. I love Christmas Eve candlelight church service. It feels warm and people are all aglow, hugging and handing each other cards or little gifts.

We worshiped God in song and spirit. We got hot wax treatments on our hands. ;) Part of the fun of a candlelight service is the delicate balance of keeping the dripping wax on your little flat paper candle skirt. The candle won...

On the way home we stopped by a house in our old neighborhood. Every December they put up an elaborate light display and the man of the house, who is a very talented engineer of some kind, sets the lights to music and they are really the best I've ever seen! He puts together a half hour production with various types of Christmas music, from Mannheim Steamroller to Veggie Tales I Can't Believe It's Christmas and Bing Crosby. So fun!

Another tradition is to watch The Polar Express on Christmas Eve just before bed. We turn up the surround sound so it feels like the train is coming through our family room. When it was over I mentioned quietly how creepy that movie is and my daughters were all saying, "YES, it is! I wondered if I was the only one who was creeped out by it!" haha So after the creepy Christmas movie.....

For the first time....

EVER....

...we opened gifts on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas morning! Very nontraditional and strange, but of course it was fun and this year it was necessary because the Preacher had to be at church at 9:30am. And we had to have waffles, so to save us from frantic chaos on Christmas morning, we opened gifts.

When your children start becoming young adults, the presents are not as exciting or fun to open, but we did have one exciting gift. When we were all done and about to clean up the debri the Christmas tree started to play music box type music. We all just stared at it for a few seconds and then we sent Maggie to find the music box.

And it wasn't a music box. It was a cell phone. Maggie's first cell phone.

And there has been rejoicing and texting ever since.

Three days of fun.....

2011-12-24T10:00:00.000-08:00

Christmas shopping is done and the house is clean. Let Christmas weekend begin!

I know Christmas rushes by and the stress of having everything done and bought and baked is high this year...for me at least. But take a few minutes when you are walking through your decorated house or see a Christmas window display and take some time to enjoy it. Really see things and appreciate what you've go this Christmas.

Since I am taking pictures every day while Emma is here for the holidays, I am capturing some moments I've been enjoying. It's been good to not only live through these days, but also to enjoy them and capture them in my mind and heart.

And if these pictures aren't enough, I wish I had taken one just now as I went to turn off lights. I found Emma, all by herself, watching Winnie the Pooh in the family room. ;) That's my soldier.

Maggie and her Pooh Bear cookie.

Maggie, Emma, Tim

Bethany, Sam

Sam and Hannah


Minions, Charlie Brown cast, Sully from Monsters Inc, hula girl and streaker.

On the second day of Emma...

2011-12-23T22:19:00.000-08:00

Last night was sister night. For the past 3 years my daughters have been going to see The Nutcracker ballet the week before Christmas together. They get all dressed up and for over an hour makeup, hairspray and shoes fly around while they get ready.

Then we take pictures just before they dash away.

Hannah, Emma, Maggie and Beth

With Samuel.

With Sam and Jessica.

These are the only Christmas gifts I'm needing these days....warm, happy hearts and lots of love and fun. We are blessed to have each other!

Twelve Days: Homecoming

2011-12-22T11:28:00.000-08:00

After a 3 hour delay our dear girl came down the airport corridor and into our arms yesterday. She's been at basic and MP training in Missouri since September 6 and it was a long fall! Only one call per week on Sundays (if they got their privileges that week), sparse but wonderful letters and a Facebook fan page were the only form of information and communication with her for the past 4 months. And now she is on holiday leave for 12 days! With us!

We are calling it The Twelve Days of Emma. Bring it!

Day one was celebrated caroling with our church and reunions with friends of Emma who came caroling. Then we came home and finished decorating our Christmas tree. We put it up in early December, but it's only had lights and ribbon on it until last night. We had a little Christmas decorating party with Christmas punch, Fritos and Bean Dip® and little round wedding cake cookies.

Falalalala...lalalalaaaa

2011-12-22T09:29:00.000-08:00

Things we see in a city on a daily basis become invisible to us for most people. Our focus is on other things and our brain becomes a selective filtering device tailored to our own interests and causes.

Our church is large. It sits right on a very busy city street on a large, uncrowded lot. A huge sanctuary with a large swooping A frame roof and two large two story buildings behind and beside it. Yet people who travel that street daily do not know it's there. It doesn't interest them....it is not their "cause".

We are always trying to think of ideas to let our neighborhood know we care about them as a church. The desire at the core of our church is to reach our neighborhood with Christ's love. So last night my husband (our pastor) organized a Christmas caroling outreach for our neighbors. He chose the streets right across the busy street from our church. The people who live on that street must look directly at our building as they drive west every day, out to the main road.

We went to each house on three streets, rang the doorbell and left a professional looking flier and candy cane on their porch while the group sang from the street. So as they took the prepared flier, wishing them a Merry Christmas and inviting them to our Christmas services, I wondered if they recognized the name of the church or had ever looked our direction.

Only a handful of people peeked out from darkened windows, not wanting to be seen or talked to. At most of the houses, the people came out onto the porch, smiling, enjoying the songs and the "spirit of Christmas". Young couples, older retired people, single adults and families with little children gathered at their open doors to smile and thank us as we sang. One woman couldn't get over the fact that we were caroling. She hadn't seen carolers in years and years and she was thrilled! She spent several minutes with a few of our people after we'd moved on to the next house asking about our group and church and thanking them.

I think it was so well received that we'll probably make it a yearly event. Mission accomplished with a very old fashioned holiday tradition.....we made personal contact with our neighbors in a loving, fun way and did something to show them we care.

And we do. And we're praying they will find out God cares deeply about them too.

Our finest gifts we bring pah rum pah pum pum

2011-12-08T07:44:00.000-08:00

While you are making your list, include one for Jesus.
(It's His birthday)

Bring Him your best gift....something just for Him.....
and bless Him, make Him smile.

...whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
(1 Cor 10:31)

I saw this video this morning
and was smiling all the way through!
So joyful.

Scrambling up the holidays

2011-12-06T13:54:00.000-08:00

We have moved and settled into a new house! Some friends of ours bought this house as an investment and they wanted us to rent it from them (for a great deal) so they'd have renters they knew and trusted. Having never lived in such a large, beautiful home before, we are loving it! Gradually we moved our things over during the last half of November. Then the last load came over the day before Thanksgiving. And we hosted Thanksgiving dinner here. My sisters helped me organize and put up my home decor, so it was well worth it.

I didn't realize how it would put my brain in a scramble to move during the holidays though. People cringed when I said we were doing this just before Thanksgiving, but I couldn't see it til it was upon me, scrambling my thoughts and natural rhythm of living. (not sure how to word that, but that is what I ended up with) So life right now is about catching up on all that lost time, when I should have been decorating my house for Christmas and making cookies and thinking of things to buy or make. eek!

To mess with my head just a little more, Maggie is in the Christmas play at school, which is now farther away from us. Yesterday I made the drive there and back four times...that makes 2 full hours I was driving in the car. TRAFFICKY ....that was what my theme word for yesterday. (also herds of white cars....I never realized they travel in packs but I kept seeing it) And this year I was going to really try to make the holidays more simplified....when will I learn how to do that?

pfft!

Well, plays do end (this weekend), decorations eventually make it to their destinations and shopping makes me grouchy anyway. As I was typing this up, I just remembered that I spent a good portion of the past year studying a book inspired by the story of Mary and Martha with some fellow pastors' wives.....

Luke 10 ³⁸ As Jesus and the disciples continued on their way to Jerusalem, they came to a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. ³⁹ Her sister, Mary, sat at the Lord’s feet, listening to what he taught. ⁴⁰ But Martha was distracted by the big dinner she was preparing. She came to Jesus and said, “Lord, doesn’t it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do all the work? Tell her to come and help me.”
⁴¹ But the Lord said to her, “My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! ⁴² There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Jesus is so smart, isn't He? "Only one thing is worth being concerned about." I wish He followed me around and reminded me of things like that.....

...oh yeah! He does! (you can consider this your reminder too)

Conspiracy 2011

2011-11-16T16:33:00.000-08:00

We joined up with a conspiracy a couple of years ago. It's a conspiracy to take back the True Spirit of Christmas. Bring back a heart of worship, simplicity, generosity, love.

You are SO blessed. Even those who live in poverty in the United States have so much more than the people living in third world or developing countries. Most of those people do not even have clean water to drink.

So know you are blessed, recognize it! Then do something to bless someone else....every day!

So maybe don't spend so much on yourselves this Christmas. Then help someone else with that money. Here is just one idea on how to do that....this is what being a blessing looks like! Please watch.....

Advent Conspiracy 2010-2011 Thank You from Living Water International on Vimeo.

-->Military Mom<--

2011-11-13T19:11:00.000-08:00

While channel surfing this afternoon, I landed on a PBS show about women in the military. They are not supposed to be put into combat situations, but it is happening all the time. Independent Lens did a segment on the Lioness warriors. This is an unofficial name because officially they are not actually allowed to be in combat. I was drawn in to this documentary, which followed some of the women who had been involved in war in Iraq and other places. I watched with eyes wide open because we have a daughter who is finishing up boot camp right now.

She is with the National Guard, which is a reserve type branch mainly. Emma will have one weekend a month to be on duty, then 2 weeks training every summer.....unless their unit is deployed. Then they are regular Army soldiers. It makes my heart feel thump-ish and my palms clammy to think about that. Watching the documentary was not helping me feel better, but I definitely feel more educated and in a way, better prepared for what may come.

Then while I was watching it, Emma called. They get a once a week call to home. It lasts about 2 minutes. We wait all week to tell her various things we think of and then when we hear her voice, we forget all the things that seemed important and just listen to her and keep telling her how much we love and miss her.

She said this week was a very hard week for her platoon. They had a 3 day training event out in the woods during a storm with 50-60mph winds, rain, hail and a lot of mud. One of the drill sergeant's said on their facebook page that it would be something similar to what you'd see on scenes from Saving Private Ryan. Lots of GI Joe crawling around under barbed wire while machine guns and grenades are going off all around you. She said today that at times the mud became deep and she had to swim through it. Their clothes were saturated with water, sand and sweat.....then they had to sleep in tents, wet and cold. Next was a 12 mile march in full gear, which is around 40 pounds piled on your back.

She said it was the hardest thing she's ever done.

I hope that she will still be able to say that in 6 years when her enlistment is done. I pray that is the hardest thing she will ever have to do....

Unity Like Soup \o/

2011-10-27T19:46:00.000-07:00

This morning the air was different in my house. The windows had been open all night and the cool front that came through last night has cooled the temperatures down by about 15 degrees. I love fresh air in the house. It feels and smells different.

I wanted to make soup tonight not just because of the fall weather but also because my oldest daughter now has mono. She can barely tolerate swallowing things that are solid. Leftover broccoli and grated cheese in the fridge got my attention. I haven't made broccoli cheddar soup in years! But we love it, so I carefully followed a recipe from the internet and got a very nice soup. Maybe the reason I don't make it often is because I've had several bad experiences just winging it with broccoli soup. It seems so easy, yet if you don't do it right, it turns out lumpy with separated cheese and thin broth.

The recipe I used is supposed to mimic Panera Broccoli Cheese Soup. The only difference I made in the process was to stir the grated cheese in after I added the milk to the roue, before adding the broth and vegetables. I think it blends better if you add it then, instead of trying to add it to the broth full of broccoli.

After one bowl I had to go change from long sleeves into short. It really warmed me up. Oh, and everyone agreed on the warming affect...it's not just because of my hormones this time!

As I was enjoying my soup, I thought of this weekend. I love it when God shows me something in a word picture. I'll be joining some ladies from church for a women's ministry leadership retreat. I am hoping the blending and process of our retreat produces a really comforting and unified blend of leadership for our church. Even though we have great ladies on the team, I think it's still something to pray towards.

If you've gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Philippians 2:1-2 (The Message)

Love and Prayer

2011-10-24T19:47:00.000-07:00

About a year ago, life got very hard for three of my close friends. Hard as in, barely able to cope. Hard as in losing your spouse (2 of them through divorce and one is now a widow). Hard like recurring anxiety, health problems, depression and financial difficulties. Oh, and just throw in adult children getting married (planning weddings), having brain surgery, cancer scares, and one who is moving to another country for two years.

How do you help one friend, much less three, go through that kind of year? You just can't. It is too much. There is only one Friend who can help. And He does.

I have been praying for these friends and I have a group of online friends praying for them too. Just lately we have all been in the same small group that meets at my house. Totally unplanned, but absolutely by Divine arrangement, there are two women who are also in our group who have gone through divorce earlier in life and are a testimony of God's care and faithfulness. Even when things in our lives don't go as planned, He is faithful to take care of us and love us.

Lately I have been noticing just how much God has done in the past year in these friends' lives. Despair is starting to lift and joy is slowly returning to each of them. There are still a lot of hard days, but the despair seems to have faded. God has graciously taken care of them and answered prayers for jobs, children, health and finances. He is amazing. He has amazing love for His people.

Last week after small group one of these dear friends asked me how I was doing with a recent health issue. Then she said, "Oh I've been praying for you....wait a minute, let's pray NOW. Come on!" So she and another one of these friends joined hands and prayed with such faith and understanding that when they finished, the other woman holding hands with us just said, "Woah...oh wow," and then continued on with her prayer.

It was such a gift.

The friends I have been walking through their own valleys with this year were lifting ME up (and doing a great job of it). Besides feeling God's power and care, I felt their love for me while they prayed. It was overwhelming. I definitely think there is greater power in prayer when it comes from a place of sincere love and not obligation....love for God and also for the person you are praying for. Love and understanding. These ladies have seen the power of prayer this past year and were pouring the faith they have gained into ministering to me.

Colossians 4:2 says, Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart.

....a mind alert to what the Spirit is telling you to pray for and a thankful heart because you remember what He's done for you.

Coming Together

2011-10-17T10:01:00.000-07:00

We had a meeting after church yesterday on starting a contemporary service, going to two services on Sunday mornings. Hearing of this kind of meeting is enough to strike havoc into the guts of any church leaders. Very volatile feelings have been known to rise and bubble....even explode...to the surface in these kinds of meetings. It was such a wonderfully understanding and considerate meeting though. I was so pleased.

It was just a "what do you think about this" meeting, not a vote or any concrete decisions or plans. So our youth and young adults came to help explain the need for a more contemporary worship. Some of our newer youth, brand new Christians, were so mature and diplomatic. I cried. They talked about how they loved this church for the family feeling and that all the ages communicate and intermingle. They want the higher energy worship music that is relevant to their generation. It is how they express themselves. But don't want to segregate from the older people.

That made the older people feel so appreciated, including me! I'm telling you, it was so cool. Whatever happens with the services, it is so wonderful to know that our church people feel this way about God's family and want to be considerate of each other.

There was no talk of whether this kind of music style was good or bad. None.

The talk focused on not being divisive by having two services and wanting to make sure we would all still fellowship together and see each other regularly. We're a family and when some parts of a family are missing, it's not the same. I totally agree!

What began as a meeting about different styles of worship became a consensus on the unity of the Body of Christ. And how cool is it that we have been going through Ephesians at such a time as this? I love it.

...lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future.

...we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.
Ephesians 4:1-4, 15-16 NLT

What does it mean to be blessed?

2011-09-22T12:08:00.000-07:00

There is such a great article over at Living Proof Ministries Blog today. It is exactly the life lesson I had when I visited Mozambique a year ago. You will be blessed to read it!

What does it really mean to be blessed? What does it mean to have enough? Can I really trust myself to answer this former question?

The image is one I took in Mozambique, an offering from one of the church's we visited to bless us. (that is a live chicken in the basket)

Two things I ask of you;

deny them not to me before I die:

Remove far from me falsehood and lying;

give me neither poverty nor riches;

feed me with the food that is needful for me,

lest I be full and deny you

and say, “Who is the LORD?”

or lest I be poor and steal

and profane the name of my God.

Proverbs 30:7-9

Acclimating

2011-09-19T20:11:00.000-07:00

It is amazing how you can acclimate to different environments. I met Charles in Texas while we were attending seminary in Ft. Worth. It was the coldest winter they had experienced in years. Snow, ice, freezing rain. I bought my first ever winter coat (hey, I grew up in Phoenix). It was wool and cute and I wore it all the time. It was cold. Charles and I started dating and he introduced me to hot tea and the fixing thereof. Kettle boiled only, no microwaved water, ready the mug with a Constant Comment tea bag, pour in the water and steep for at least 3 minutes, stir, squeeze bag and save it for the next cup (we were poor seminary students). Add 2 scant spoons of sugar and a swig of milk. Enjoy with cold fingers wrapped around the mug and your boyfriend right beside you. Nice.

From there we moved to a tiny town in Oklahoma....another 2 years of cold snappish winter for that area. Snow, smell of wood smoke in the air. Then to New Jersey for 10 years, where it is cold all winter long. Lots of snowing and freezing rains and lots of hot tea, winter coats and even boots. The fall there was amazingly quaint and fun. Pumpkin picking hayrides at local farms, mums (NJ is prime mum country!), Ivan's Spiced Wafers, canning produce and absolutely electrified fall colored leaves. It was beautiful in fall and very charming with all the farm stands and atmosphere.

We finally moved back to Arizona, but not to Phoenix. We lived in a small mountain town with a miniature ski area and again, lots of snow, short summers, quick falls and damp springs with all the snow melting.

In other words....to put it shortly....and sum things up....we have always lived (as long as we've been a couple) in cold climates. Brrr, hot tea, sit by the fire, wood smoke in the air.

Then five years ago, we moved to Phoenix, where the high temperature is not under 80 degrees until November. We keep the air conditioner on until then too. It's....different. Last year I had a hard time decorating for Christmas or getting into a holiday mood because it was still warm in late November.

Today is September 20 and the highs have dipped into the 90's for a week now. The mornings are a crisp 78. I have already baked ginger snaps and pumpkin bars. I have been cooking things like potatoes and I am looking up bread recipes. Today it slipped back up to 102 but I still stopped by the grocery store to pick up some more pumpkin and baking supplies.

The manager of that store must be new in town! I asked a worker where the canned pumpkin was hiding. She explained to me in detail how it was not the season for it and they will be carrying it closer to fall. Hello....it's almost October.

I think I'm re-climatized now....back to thinking like a Phoenician I guess.

Big Soft Ginger Cookies....and dumplings

2011-09-13T10:53:00.000-07:00

I signed up to make dinner last night for a church member who had her ankle reconstructed. Chicken and dumplings and soft ginger cookies.

I got there and she was so glad someone brought a dinner. She said "Oh that is so nice. I'm so glad I don't have to eat chicken and dumplings another day." I guess someone else made them for her on Saturday and she's been eating the leftovers.

Uh...well....

After I told her I brought chicken and dumplings, we laughed. She was embarrassed and I was laughing.

I thought that was such a nonstandard dish to bring someone, but she said I had brought chicken and dumplings to someone else once (I must block these things from my mind...I have no recollection) and she tasted it and really liked it. At that time she had told me that chicken and dumplings were her favorite meal and she just never made them for herself so she hadn't had them in years.

Well, how do you explain that?? We decided that it was in my subconscious somewhere and that caused me to make them for her.

So funny though, how your subconscious can boss you around like that. Things like that always happen to me!

The ginger cookies were so good, they are all gone! Here is the recipe. It makes a neat 3 dozen 2 inch cookies.

Big soft ginger cookies

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup margarine, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 2 tablespoons white sugar

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Set aside.

2. In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, then stir in the water and molasses. Gradually stir the sifted ingredients into the molasses mixture. Shape dough into walnut sized balls, and roll them in the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar. Place the cookies 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet, and flatten slightly.

3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

Finding Beauty

2011-08-17T11:38:00.000-07:00

A young adult friend of mine has had a few years of turmoil as she's entered adulthood. It's hard to process all that your life has been about and to see what God has done in your life unless you really take the time to look back over the years and remember. For many young women, the bad memories scream so loudly that the good memories and experiences get lost and forgotten. And no one has a perfect journey....we all have a broken road.

She now...as a part of her healing process....has a heart for other young women with self-image deficit. I think that needs to be a syndrome recognized by American society because it affects a majority of young women as they grow into being their own person as young adults. (we'll just call is SD for Self-image Deficit) Taylor is now challenging young women to see the beauty in themselves and in their lives. She is keeping a journal and sharing once a week what kinds of project and theme she is working on. It is inspiring and comforting to me to see how she has changed and grown. And she is now passing that experience on. It's so cool.

Here is her project for this month at You are Beautifully and Wonderfully Made. It is a recreation of the good memories in her life as a road she's traveled. If you click on the picture on her sight, you can see it better. Great job Taylor!

I'm feeling the birthday love

2011-08-04T10:20:00.000-07:00

The President and I turned 50 today.

I don't know how he feels about it, but so far it's been okay for me. ;) For some reason though, when you turn another decade older, people think it's alright to broadcast it for you and embarrass the heck out of you. But I do love how the birthday turns into a birthweek celebration when everyone knows it's your big birthday.

Friends and family have taken me to lunch and gone shopping with me this week. Nice, bright yellow mums are sitting on my dining room table from my sweet husband. Last week my family all got together and celebrated my birthday as well as my sister Jodi's birthday and my brother being home for a visit.

Last night at small group my friend Edith made me a wonderful cake with pineapple and cream cheese and whipped cream. It looked great....well, except for the huge number 50 in the middle. I told her she was mean, but she just laughed. My small group blessed me so much last night with a huge houseplant, a card signed by all of them and some news of a new baby on the way for one of them. (I will let you wonder, but thankfully it is not me!) They really blew me away when they gathered around me and prayed blessings over me and thanked God for me. I don't even have words for that.

Then this morning and put on my birthday suit and noticed it needs starch or something. Two of my sisters called to scream "Happy birthday!" to me before they fly out to Ireland. I'm glad people are enjoying my birthday to the fullest.

I check my email to find 70+ birthday messages from Facebook friends. It made me cry. I really appreciate Facebook for more closely connecting me with friends, past and present. I like the birthday greetings on Facebook, but there is a reason I did not include my birthyear, Mom! Thanks for outing me. >:( ;)

Later today all of my four daughters and my husband will gather with me and grill steaks, play games and there may be guitar playing/singing if I'm lucky.

Feeling appreciated and loved is a great blessing. And today I am really, really blessed.

Thank you!

I'd rather have salsa

2011-07-27T10:04:00.000-07:00

I planted a garden this summer.

There hasn't been a vegetable garden for me to tend in years. Our last home had no space in the yard and the home before that was in a more harsh climate. And I am not an attentive enough gardener to keep up with constant moisture zapping wind and frost coming at random times even in June. So really I have not gardened much in about 15 years.

So this year I began slowly. Just 3 tomato plants, a zucchini, an eggplant (do you say eggplant plant or just eggplant?) and a bunch of herbs. And I started with store bought plants because seeds take way too much tending and patience for fruit to bear. I should have gotten them in the ground in March but I am not on the ball much of the time so they went into the ground in late April.

By mid May, I had tomatoes and by late June, I had tomatoes lining the window sills of our house and piled into bowls on the kitchen table. Salsa was made and brushetta, until people would eat no more and stores ran out of tortilla chips for the high demand. Then they were randomly used for slicing into sandwiches or on top of tacos and finally they just sat there making me feel guilty and overwhelmed. Well....I am ashamed to say that soon I began dumping the bowls of mushy red balls into the trash when no one was looking. I began leaving bowls of little yellow cherry tomatoes at people's houses when they were out of town.

After the 118 degree heat and a few weeks of over 110, the huge, overgrown, ambitious bushes of tomatoes began to wilt, turn brown, lose fruit before it was ready and dry up from lack of water. Yeah, who wants to go water tomatoes in 110 degree heat? Not me. Besides, they begin to taste...weird.... when it's that hot.

Last week my husband pulled up the plants for me. My heart secretly rejoiced....no more tomatoes!

While I was quietly w00ting in my heart about no tomatoes to tend this morning, God (harshly, I thought) reminded me that we have a way more important harvest to tend to. As I finished writing a heart-felt article for our state denominational magazine about our recent boatload of people coming to Christ through the church's prayerful preparation, going out to sow the seed and then seeing the harvest come pouring in, the work is not done. Who wants piles of rotten, mushy harvest?

We need to get out there and make the salsa now! What is a harvest for anyway?

Wordless Wednesday - Before and After

2011-07-05T22:20:00.000-07:00

Summer style.

More Wordless Wednesday posts are up at 5 Minutes for Mom and Wordless Wednesday Page.

Youth Camp this week!

2011-07-05T12:23:00.000-07:00

I said goodbye to my husband and youngest daughter last night as they boarded a huge tour bus for youth camp. They have a week of extreme adventures at Rock and Water Christian Adventure Camp. Fun, fun.... but there were a lot of nervous moms saying goodbye to their young teens last night. We are praying for a good (and safe!) week for them all as they play, worship and grow spiritually.

This is Cera, Samantha and Maggie ready to get on the bus! (thank you Tracy for the picture!)

Ministry of the small

2011-06-30T10:52:00.000-07:00

Twenty three years ago, while church planting in New Jersey, we started a home Bible study that later grew into a church. Nineteen years ago when Charles was a youth pastor in a larger New Jersey church, we joined a home 'cell group'. Seven years ago, we began small groups in our church in northern Arizona. In each of these settings, regular church members and some visitors started meeting together each week in homes to fellowship, study together, pray for each other and minister to each other. I can still remember each person who was in each group...their names, but also their stories and their journey. The small group atmosphere with its trust and comfort brings it out of you and draws you together. Each group I've been a part of has bonded in a deep way.

Two weeks ago our church here began small groups on Wednesday nights.

Small group tonight was the perfect combination of breaking bread together, sweet time of sharing and drawing in some new people who have not been coming long. I can see that the fellowship and small group dynamic is already at work. I could almost cry with joy and anticipation that this bonding and feeling of community could be starting here in this urban, spread out church, full of busy busy people. God bless us....every one.....with the true and deeper fellowship that brings real ministering and love in The Church.

If you are not in a small group at your church.....join one! If your church doesn't have small groups, start one.

Wordless Wednesday-Summer vacation

2011-06-30T10:39:00.000-07:00

Relaxing

Playing

Click here or more Wordless Wednesday entries.

Wordless Wednesday-Summertime

2011-06-07T19:00:00.000-07:00

Sand Dollar Beach, California '08

More Wordless Entries here at Shasher's Stories
Also Wordless Wednesday
and 5 Minutes for Mom

Africa and Phoenix need the Lord

2011-06-06T15:59:00.000-07:00

This morning we sent our missionaries back to Mozambique, Africa, something we are doing a lot in the past few years. Jim and Susan Oetter and Jessica Riemersma are IMB missionaries, but they are really ours. They are all three members of our church and have gone to spend a few years of their lives in Africa (Jim and Susan for 3 years, Jessica for 2), helping our full time missionary, another man, John Dina (who grew up in our church) and his wife, Wanne (a native of Brazil).

Let me back up. John and Wanne went to Mozambique, Africa over 15 years ago as full time missionaries. Their main job is raising up indigenous pastors in the various villages and groups of people around Quelimane, Mozambique. He has been talking to our church and others about coming to do mission trips to help him get some special things started for years. And finally a few years ago, my husband answered the call to help. He and 5 other men from our church went to see the work and to lead services in various places there. The next year a group of our women went to lead a women's conference. And finally a group of our youth and college aged members went to lead True Love Waits meetings and abstinence education classes. (which is nearly unheard of in Mozambique, where marriage is not the traditional way, and where AIDS is rampant)

Part of this last group were two young people who went to serve in Africa again. Jessica Riemersma has served as a semester missionary in Niger and is now in the middle of a two year term to Mozambique, where she and a partner are working with young women from the universities there....young women training to be nurses or teachers in their villages.

The other was Jeremiah Johnson, who went to Mozambique in January of 2010 and was killed in a motorcycle accident there in April 2010. His death threw not only our church and his family into deep grief but also the people he had ministered to in Mozambique. The posts I wrote about his work there are here. Compelled to go to the grieving Dina family and also to see the places where their son ministered, David and Diana Johnson, as well as my husband Charles and I, went to Mozambique in July 2010. The stories of our trip as well as the amazing influence Jeremiah had in his brief time there are also on that link.

This past June 2011 Charles and David went back again to teach seminary classes to the group of pastors John is helping to get better trained. They had 28 men, who for the first time in their lives heard the stories of the Old Testament and further training in pastoral care and personal growth as leaders in their churches. They each received a full study Bible in Portuguese and part of their training was in how to use the study Bibles for their own study. Up until this time, they mainly had been trained in the New Testament. Some of the pastors there had come to know Christ after Jeremiah had gone to their villages.

It all comes around. God works all things for good. He's got a purpose in life and we are blessed to be in on a little of it.

As we sent them off this morning, we had to hurry back to our church, where a group of people waited for my husband, Charles. We are having a special week of evangelism and outreach events in the neighborhoods of Phoenix. The Southern Baptist Convention is having their annual meeting in Phoenix this year. And wherever they meet each year, they also plan a lot of evangelistic events to help that host city reach out to their communities.

We've been busy prayer walking and asking God to bless our neighbors with open hearts and minds to the gospel as it is presented to them and that He would draw people in to fellowship in churches and build His Kingdom up in our area. We want to reach them and this is a huge week. Please pray for Phoenix. There are events happening all over this metro area. SBC members from all over the United States are coming to help in our hot, hot city. That alone makes it hard, but the real hardness is the human heart. That is why we're asking God to make people open, cause them to be thinking on spiritual matters, so that when people come to their door or meet them on the street or in a restaurant or at a block party, that they would already be searching. And that they will make a response to follow Christ.

The group is resting and some have seminary classes this afternoon, but already this morning God has opened the doors to two apartment complexes, where they got permission to knock on doors. And 2 people in those apartments have decided to follow Christ. They will go out again this evening for a few hours, as they will do each day this week.

On the way home from the church at lunch, Charles 'just so happened' along our next door neighbors, who were walking home from the store in the heat and he offered them a ride home. We've been praying for them and there they were, with an opportunity to serve them and get to know them better. He invited them to our block party this Saturday and she said she would bring her daughter.

Prayer opens the doors! Keep praying for our community and for God's love to draw them to Him.

God loves Mozambique and when our church members obeyed the call to go there, He blessed it.

God loves Phoenix too. Our members are jumping in there, answering the call and God's already blessing it.

Come Lord Jesus, bless this land....

Scotch Cake

2011-05-20T22:46:00.000-07:00

I spent all day trying to bake what some people call a Texas sheet cake. In my family I grew up calling it a Scotch Cake...not sure if it's because the great-grandma who called it that was Scottish or because it had scotch in it. (the recipe doesn't call for it but someone may have changed it)

Anyway, I needed to make a cake for a funeral dinner and wanted to make something nice that fed a lot of people. I started making it before lunch and realized I had no cocoa powder. A couple hours later (after picking up Maggie from school, taking a boy home and then picking up and waiting on the Emma to finish cleaning my sister's house..oh, and going to the grocery store) I continue making it. But before adding the wet to the dry ingredients I decided I'd better double it. It is a labor intensive recipe, boiling the butter and cocoa, etc...an hour later I am just putting it in the pan.

A mountain of dishes and making the frosting and putting that on...it ended up taking HOURS to make it. It's yummy though. With the double recipe it made half a sheet cake and a small pan for us at home. I took the half sheet pan to the church for the funeral meal. The cm whose dad died ended up raving about the cake and wanted to take every scrap of it home.

So it was worth it in the end.

The end.

Here is the exact recipe I used (although I made it without nuts today)....Pioneer Woman has gotten a hold of it somehow. ~~Texas Sheet~~ Scotch Cake

You can be free indeed...

2011-05-18T11:43:00.000-07:00

Saturday night my husband had a preaching gig at a downtown mission. We used to do this regularly in seminary in the mid 80's...he or some other seminary student would preach to a bunch of drunk guys and then we would hang around and talk to people and go home feeling a bit drained but good about ourselves.

This was a little different though.

It is a rescue mission, but it's not the usually sort of drop in after a long day of binge drinking sort of place. It's a live in discipleship place where men are recovering from alcohol or drug addiction, lives of crime and homelessness and they are finding Life. They come in as a mess (aren't we all?) and after detoxing, they are immediately required to be a part of the Bible study programs, Scripture memory, and community service. Every day they are kept busy doing good things. They spend so much time together and have come from the same desperate backgrounds that they bond very tightly. They go through so much healing and life learning together that they Love each other deeply.

All of this was so obvious as we went in to the worship service. The rough looking exteriors were softened by God's love pouring through the more seasoned men who have been in the program for a while. The new ones who were still in the detox phase or maybe had just arrived 'fresh' from the back alleys sat alone and held back while the regulars put an arm around them, went to sit beside them or motioned for them to come sit with them. Everyone was welcome, loved and respected.

Pastor Jack, who came to the mission as one of these men needing help years ago, told us that so many of the men go back to the streets after a while. He doesn't pressure them. He tells them that they are welcome to come back when they decide they are done with it. They will be welcomed back in.

Everything that happened was a whole blog post in itself. There was a dog roaming freely around, getting pats and hugs from the men who were themselves desperate to be loved and desperate to have someone, even a little dog, to show love to.

There was a recognition part of the service for men who had completed 4 months in the program and one for a man who had completed 8 months. They each spoke words of thanks, mostly to God, but also to the men who had walked alongside them through the process. One of them read a paper that was full of words. It was a page full of Bible verses he'd clung to during his time there. All different places in the Bible, but strung together to show what he'd learned....

...my rod and my staff will lead you and comfort you....you were called to greatness....I will give back what was taken...I will restore honor to you....

Those are just a few I jotted down, but the words of strength went on for a good 3 or 4 minutes.

Then Pastor Jack showed the congregation an award the city had given to the mission. It was in recognition of all the community service those men had done. They go out into the neighborhoods they took from and used to destroy and they clean them up and give back. They take the men back to try to help restore what they took. How cool would that be if we all practiced that?

The worship band was made up of various men, all but one had been through the program, who were professional musicians before ending up in lives of addiction. So it was some good music. My ears had that hissing sound in them for a while after it was over because it was loud, but we loved it. As the band played, sang and led the people in worship to Audio Adreneline, Switchfoot and Skillet songs of worship, the people danced, sang, smiled huge smiles, and tears ran freely. Beautiful, sincere, unencumbered and free worship.

Charles and I both said they need to come do a service for our church sometime. It would not be the same because people who don't have problems are not as free.

Think about that....I am lately...

Of course we all have problems and sin issues....we just hide them so well (even though we're full of it) and pretend it's not there so well (even though it's obvious), that we are not as free.

Contradictory... because Jesus came to make us free (indeed....remember?). But in order to be free, you've got to be real, you have to be vulnerable and humbled. There has to be Truth. And did I mention the name of the mission?

It's Set Free.

Jesus said, "I tell you most solemnly that anyone who chooses a life of sin is trapped in a dead-end life and is, in fact, a slave. A slave is a transient, who can't come and go at will. The Son, though, has an established position, the run of the house. So if the Son sets you free, you are free through and through. John 8:34-36 (The Message)

Point me...in the direction of Albuquerque...

2011-05-02T22:48:00.000-07:00

Left Phoenix about 1:15pm.

Places along the road we've traveled so many times zip by as we sit in silence for a while. The red rock ridge of Sedona looked like it was freshly painted and the San Francisco Peaks rose up like Kilimanjaro behind it. Lovely day for driving.

The lowering sun in the west made the rock formations along the border at Window Rock and Gallup look really dramatic as we talk of current events. The world events that are shaking up the world are coinciding with shaking personal lives of so many people we know! What is the deal? We listened on Klove radio to people discussing an appropriate (or honest?) reaction to Osama Bin Laden's death. Yeah, it feels conflicting, weirdly relieving as well as sad beyond all reason.

Then later we listened to NPR reporting on lives affected by the tornadoes in Alabama. Nearly 400 people have been found dead and about that many are still missing and presumed dead. A woman was being interviewed by an NPR reporter. The reporter (deadpan voice, as is NPR's style) said the woman, "like many of the people here in the Bible Belt of the South" credited God as saving her life through the storm. As the woman looked through the ruble of what used to be her apartment for any kind of proof of residency so that she could apply for aid, the noticeable smell of death was in the air, as many people from her apartments have not been recovered yet and are there beneath the ruble still. (I cannot imagine this kind of horror) Then she found a piece of paper, a letter from her grandchild's teacher and there was her name and address on the envelope. "Thank you, Lord!" she said. She said it like the Lord was standing there with them. And He is, thankfully. The NPR reporter just closed with that woman's jubilant exclamation of thanks and "this is yada yada, reporting from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, for NPR".

In just the same way, as we see some of our friends and church members going through really tough times, there is always some ray of hope a message or gift from God that comes up in their lives, like a gleaming white envelope among that woman's collapsed home, and they give thanks in the middle of their storm too. Sometimes you just have to grab hold of the Hope among the ruble, and the stench of wrecked lives, and give credit to the One who is the revealer of Hope.

We have arrived in Albuquerque now (someone is already rumbling and poofing beside me) and tomorrow we'll head to Oklahoma City to visit with family before driving down to Plainview to fetch our college girl, who we've missed dearly, and bring her back home with us. In a month Hannah will move home too and we will all live together under the same roof again for the first time in almost 6 years.....for the summer at least. And there will be great rejoicing under that roof by some proud parents, who I know...of. ;)

Distractingly Perfect morning

2011-04-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

While trying to read my Bible on the back porch today, I was driven away by the huge, black, jumbo jet bumble bee that lives in the hollow tree by my wicker chair. My Bible literally became my shield and then my sword. God can be so funny with the word pictures sometimes.

It is just one bee that hovers around that tree. I am wondering...do they live alone? Are there more bees in there? It was warm out there this morning and the sun was shining right on that tree. It seemed like he was not in a good frame of mind, so I came in. I gave up easily and retreated. Will he remember this tomorrow and buzz me again, knowing how easily I am driven away by distraction and fear? Insert life application lesson here.....and it's so true for me.

Settling back on the couch inside, away from anything unexpected, I open my computer to read the first chapter of Colossians in safer territory. But before I read, I notice my dog looking at me.

Ummm, my dog is holding a grudge against me. Dogs do that. I won't let her get up on my new couches in the living room. Yesterday we were in there all day setting everything up, reloading shelves and hanging pictures. Every time I sat on the couch she would jump up with me. At first I would pet her, then it would instantly dawn on me that this was my new beige couch and I would push her down and call her bad. She wasn't getting the idea, so I gave her a small swat, which was the final straw for her. Confused, she just sat on the floor giving me "sidelong glances that were vague but somehow threatening". She is part French poodle after all. (Don't worry if you don't understand that last part...my kids will. Google for explanation....this post is already A.D.D. enough.)

So here I am on the couch, and she is over on the floor glancing at me with a grudge in her heart. So distracting....I can't stand it when people are mad at me. (especially when the person is my dog)

Focus now, I can do this, I finally got to reading Colossians 1. It is perfect Truth for Good Friday. (What else would I expect from God's Word?)

For God in all his fullness
was pleased to live in Christ,
and through him God reconciled
everything to himself.

He made peace with everything
in heaven and on earth
by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.
Colossians 1:19-20

Earlier this morning as I drove Maggie to school, the morning radio show host was talking about the famous sermon, "It's Friday, but Sunday's comin'" by Tony Campolo, since today is Good Friday. They were comparing, as we humans so inadequately do, Jesus' suffering on Friday and resurrection on Sunday to our suffering in life and how some Day Jesus is coming back to end all suffering.

Our lives do include suffering here on earth. I've heard of so much suffering lately in people's lives....so much.

...but Sunday's coming. Jesus is coming....and it's not so far away.

Don't let yourself be distracted. Latch on to perfect Truth and God's peace today as you remember. I am trying to also. I need to go snuggle my dog now.

Funny Honey

2011-04-14T23:22:00.000-07:00

My husband is so funny...and it's usually my job to point it out.

1. We were outside today, sitting peacefully on the back porch, when a gigantic black bumble bee came buzzing by me. (I call them jumbo jets)

I screamed "BEE!!!!" (I think I was flapping my arms and legs at the same time too)

He just looked at me and asked "What???"

I said "It's a BEE!" and he said, "Oh, I thought you were calling me." Then he just shook his head like he was relieved that he didn't have to call the paddy wagon.

I do call him B, but I never shriek it at the top of my lungs while I'm sitting right beside him. I've been laughing over it all day.

2. I checked Facebook this morning and on his profile page, it said he had 666 friends. So I posted a comment that he should notice that and add another person to his list. He wrote back that he actually needed 111 more friends.

3. I have been carefully saving up money to buy a new couch, socking away money little by little in a certain hiding place. Lately he has taken to looking at guitars on ebay, so he suggested that instead of a couch, he could get a new guitar. He was teasing me but he has a certain look in his eye....

...and I changed my hiding place. :\

Thanksgiving Practice

2011-04-11T21:40:00.000-07:00

Some dear sisters and I were challenged this week to make Mondays thankful.

We are taking Mondays just to thank God for what He is doing...not asking Him for anything, but thanking Him for working, for blessing, for leading in the lives of those we are praying for. For me, it is helping to remind me that He IS working because we are praying for people.

The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. James 5:16b

Cool huh? (all of James 5, read it!)

Practicing this all day (trying to remember to practice it) really encouraged my heart and inspired such Hope as I thanked God for what He was doing in people's lives and for me. I never ran out of things to thank Him for either.

Ministry of silence

2011-04-04T16:39:00.000-07:00

Don't you agree that ministry happens very effectively outside the church walls as well as within?

Like an evening spent on a back patio by fire-light....mouth shut, ears open, sympathy and love almost tangible. The darkness like a cloak of privacy and assured trust. A dear friend who has an ongoing, long term issue pouring out her heart. Sometimes we have heard it all before, but a person needs to process again, revisit thoughts, uninterrupted, no advice offered.

Just prayer and no other words. Just understanding.

It's a blessing and a huge ministry. This is why tens of thousands of women go to professional counselors every year. (and I am notnotnot saying they shouldn't) Could we just do that more for each other? We could save our dear friends thousands of dollars and help them to trust the body of Christ again if we could do this and then keep that cloak of privacy around that sacred trust.

...and for no reason break it.

Fragrant Life

2011-03-31T14:23:00.000-07:00

While sitting out on my back patio today, the fragrance of orange blossoms kept visiting my nose. I love that smell...it makes me close my eyes and breath in deeply. It was like God was illustrating the passage I was reading right then,

Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Ephesians 5:1-2

I love it when that happens! I want to be an orange blossom...

For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. 2 Corinthians 2:15-16

Anxiety and contentment

2011-03-25T17:47:00.000-07:00

I relaxed today. The tension went out of my jaw and I didn't look around with a panicky feeling (like someone is coming up behind me) once!

Charles got home from his trip to Africa this morning. So for two weeks I've been on alert, on guard, watching my own back. I can't help the natural tendency but it does bother me a lot.

I have already admitted it to myself in the past, but I have to say it out loud and type it out there to you. I think I put more trust in my husband than I do in God sometimes.....especially with daily, practical security. My feeling of contentment in life leans more toward my tangible partner.

I did stay all by myself in the new place one night while he was away. A few nights ago Maggie was spending the night with a friend and Bethany could not come over (even though I kind of whined to her) because of work. As it turned out though, I was glad I did it. The ladies in my Bible study that evening prayed for me and I gave my anxiety about being alone to the Lord before heading back to bed. And then I had to trust.....forced myself not to think about any anxious thought and went about my routine. The next morning I felt like I'd had a break through spiritually.....a small one, but it was significant for me.

I guess feeling incomplete when your husband is away is alright. It's kind of natural. And I am glad he makes me feel more secure when he's here. But I know I can do it if he is not. It was a step of faith to not let the anxious thoughts develop because I have a very vivid imagination and my mind can invent some scary possibilities.

I just thought I'd share my little faith/trust building event because I know it is a common problem. Trust Him and then squelch the chatter of the anxious thoughts.

The verse I have always gone back to for setting my mind straight is Philippians 4:6-9. Here it is in The Message paraphrase. I like it!

6-7Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.

8-9Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.

Excuses and stuff

2011-03-24T22:32:00.000-07:00

So I guess you can tell by my last entry why I have not been blogging lately.

My husband left for a 2 week trip to Africa on the 11th and my life was complete busyness until today, when I finally had time to relax and do some things around our new place. Maybe someone was praying that I'd be kept busy so that I wouldn't worry or that time wouldn't drag by while Charles was gone.

Uhhh, thanks....?

blahblahblah: I had my own kids coming and going from Texas and California, my brother and his daughter coming for a rare visit from Maryland and Georgia, a wedding to go to, events to cook for, meeting one of my daughters' boyfriend for the first time, along with running realtor errands and emptying out our former home. Oh yes, and the kitchen sink fiasco....and figuring out how to move our old refrigerator to the neighbor's, which they bought from us. (Special thanks to friend Larry who helped me with both of those!) And while we were moving the fridge over, the neighbor said people had been at our old house and looked like they were having a party there, which explained why the doors were all unlocked.

So....very little time to process here on the blog. And when I did have time and came here to my blog dashboard, I would just sit here and go "duuuuuuuuuuh".

Yay: Charles comes home tomorrow morning *sighs of relief all around*, I met 2 of my neighbors, who were outside chatting tonight when I pulled into the driveway, and, of course, the shower curtain dilemma is over. I would jump for joy if I weren't so tired.

Laying it down

2011-03-24T22:05:00.000-07:00

I think I've finally decided on a shower curtain. I am such a dork.

I promise you I have looked at every shower curtain on the internet....or at least all of them on Overstock, showercurtains.com, Linens and Things, Bed, Bath and Beyond, Kohl's, Target, Walmart, Sears and Penney's internet sights. That is a lot. And I barely liked any of them! I finally went back to one that I liked and stood in Target looking at for an hour one day. It's a Shabby Chic brand from Target. The problem....is the jade green tile in the hall bathroom. An ugly medium tone milky jade. bleh. So I chose one that is white with some pink flowery design on it and has some green stems and leaves.

My life is so hard, I know but that is what my week has been.....endlessly analyzing shower curtains.

Two hours later: I picked out a different shower curtain.

My daughter Hannah influenced me. (I am easily influenced) So...no pink flowers/french country look. Now it's this curtain with these wall decals. It should be cute and different. It is ordered from Amazon and should arrive by next Wednesday.

My search is over.... This is big! Now I can move on.

Catching up

2011-03-15T11:10:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I haven't posted in almost a month! Sorry mom...;)

We got our big move done and I feel pretty settled into the home we will rent indefinitely. So far the girls all feel like it feels homier than our last house. I have to agree. It's more of a have a garden, bake a loaf of bread, open the windows kind of home.

The main problem with living in an older (built in the early 50's I think) home is the maintenance. You never know when an emergency home repair will be needed. Saturday night I had the kitchen all cleaned and ready for company that was coming the next afternoon. I just had to get the carrots peeled and onions cut and ready to accompany the roast in the crockpot the next morning. I washed the peelings down the disposal and turned it on. Wow, that was a mistake.

Water and bits of carrots sprayed violently all over the cupboard under the sink. The pipe had come loose. So I mopped it up and put buckets under all leaks. Sunday morning our friend Larry said he would come over and fix it. Charles is gone on a mission trip, of course. I have used that disposal several times since living there and it waits until the husband is gone to explode. Murphy's Law or something I guess.

It is all repaired and the pipes are tight and non leaking now. I already had 2 buckets under there for various drips that we thought we could wait on....sometimes we are not so wise.

I put in some flowers under the front window. Hopefully the neighborhood cats who have been using that area as a sand box will move on now if I keep it muddy enough. (any suggestions?)

Maggie and Emma even helped me put in 2 tomato plants and 5 different herbs in the backyard. I love a garden and didn't have space for it in the last house. For those of you in cold climates, yes, it's garden time here....it's been in the 80's and even supposed to be up into the 90's this week before cooling off a little again. I even had to dig out my flip flops from my stored box of shoes.

Less than a week after we moved, we saw Charles off on a trip to Mozambique, Africa. He and David Johnson, seminary director for Phoenix extension of Golden Gate Seminary, are teaching pastor training classes there for the indigenous pastors the missionary, John Dina, has raised up. They are a great bunch of God appointed men who are serving the various villages and churches in towns there around Quelimane, Mozambique.

If you pray for them, pray that they will sleep at night. It's warm and muggy right now and it's hard to sleep, for strength and for God given understanding of Scripture foundations and pastoral care issues that the men are teaching. Thank you!

And if you want to read about our trip to Mozambique with David and his wife Diana last August it is here.

Past and present anticipation

2011-02-19T11:43:00.000-08:00

There is a sad little corner in my house. Once upon a time it looked very festive and caused a tingle of excitement to come over my heart. Here it is, see if you agree:

I put up the set of little trees the day after Thanksgiving. Knowing that we wouldn't set up our big tree for 2 weeks, I did want some Christmas spirit around, so I set them up and carefully untangled the ornament hooks, little twinkle lights and hung the fun ornaments up. I faithfully plugged in the twinkle lights each morning and left them on all day, then unplugged the at night with a sigh. Sparkly, twinkly, shiny and sweet.....a hope of things to come.

It's all about the anticipation I've decided.

Once Christmas day has come and gone, the decorations, the lights and smells just do not thrill anymore. Around about November of 2011 we will break them out again and the anticipation will begin...it happens every year. But in February a little clump of trees only serves to annoy!

The anticipation of moving to another house is less than the thrill of Christmas, but it is still a bit exciting. The boxes and crates around those little trees are beginning to annoy also, but in two weeks the excitement of setting up house again will be overtaking me and I will bustle around making the next house a home. I do love that.

Today is a blustery day. I expect Pooh and Piglet to float by with the leaves and wind at any time. But it also stirs up anticipation in me that is hard to explain. Why does a day like this remind me of the Day when Jesus will return again? I do not know and can't possibly begin to analyze that...I have boxes to pack. But it does and it's giving me a thrill again today. Maybe it is that all of nature is rustling and dancing around in the wind....

Let the heavens be glad, and the earth rejoice!
      Let the sea and everything in it shout his praise!
Let the fields and their crops burst out with joy!
      Let the trees of the forest rustle with praise
before the Lord, for he is coming!
      He is coming to judge the earth.
   He will judge the world with justice,
      and the nations with his truth.

Psalm 96:11-13 NLT

The daily touch

2011-02-15T16:18:00.000-08:00

Have you ever taken account of how many people your life interconnects with each day? I'm trying to count them up today....and it's amazing.

~My husband, morning chatter
~Daughter, quick hug and kiss before she left for school
~15 minutes with my mom as I took her to church.
~People at the church office as I manned the front office today--nothing more than a wave to 2, stuck tongue out at one (he started it), flirted with husband, small talk with another.
~Said hello to some ladies at the Bible study while I brought my mom in then I jetted off to the office.
~One of them pulled me aside (as she is always doing) and offered to prepare lunch for the people who help us move in 2 weeks.
~Chatted with a friend who is just getting out after major surgery as she popped into the office. Today was the first day she actually styled her hair (spikes...cute!) since it's started growing back in from chemo.
~Said thank you to a friend who came by with an unexpected gift. It was a very quick 'gift and run'. It blessed me.
~Sister on phone
~Dear friend, a new widow since December, on phone...plans to play racketball.
~A bed-ridden shut in on phone. Her back is very painful, please pray for RS.
~Man working on resume, just lost a good job because of the economy.
~A man from Liberia who is trying to make a living here now.
~Sent a text thanking someone (in Nebraska, not Texas) who said they were praying for me.
~Another friend who is a new widow since September. Nice to see her smiling, chattering, keeping busy.
~Theology of prayer discussion with husband over hot dogs and salad at Costco. ;)
~The man who rang up my things at Costco looked so familiar. I know him from my past...who is he? High School? College? I realized it was college as I wheeled my cart out. He didn't recognize me either so I didn't say anything. I remember his name now. But I had only given him a polite "thank you" in the store.
~An older woman who couldn't remember where she parked in the parking lot....she spotted her car just then and we laughed. I love encountering people who make me laugh.
~Waved and said hello to the neighbor who was raking up pine needles.
~Fussed at my dog for getting underfoot while carrying in heavy groceries. I forgave her quickly and we had some kisses.
~Sent a text to a very dear friend, who lives in another state, whose life is reeling with so many concerns and now she has to help plan her sister's funeral for Thursday.
~A 13 year old boy who rides home with us as we waited for my daughter to come out. We talked about Xbox and bowling.
~Chatted with daughter a bit in the car, we teased the boy and talked about Angry Birds, relatives, friends and why some girls are nice to boys but not to other girls (all in less than 10 minutes).
~Read messages from friends in far off places and wrote messages back to some ...people who I've connected with again from the past on Facebook and people I've chosen to connect with because of some similar interests on a forum. I breathed out a lot of prayers as I read along in each place. Dear people, all of them.

It is amazing how many lives we touch in the course of one day.....and they all touch ours back.

Crazy Love

2011-02-14T08:34:00.000-08:00

This is real love—not that we loved God,

but that he loved us

and sent his Son as a sacrifice

to take away our sins.

Dear friends, since God loved us that much,

we surely ought to love each other.

No one has ever seen God.

But if we love each other, God lives in us,

and his love is brought to full expression in us.

1 John 4:10-12 NLT

"God's definition of what matters is pretty straightforward.

He measures our lives by how we love."
— Francis Chan (Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Love someone...

Swirling restless stacks of ...ehn!

2011-02-09T16:04:00.000-08:00

My head is in a fog and heavy today with a cold coming on...or something coming on.

The boxes piling up around me are making me moody and restless. I had a feeling it was too soon to start packing. Why did I listen to my practical husband and start? Then I realize it is not too soon.....the move is three weeks away. He is right....he is practical and I am a procrastinator. I like for things to be done and over-with right away (especially things that are not fun). Why drag it out and do a little at a time? Restlessness is threatening to incapacitate me if I let it...I will shut down with just occasional bursts of getting things done. (maybe I should take a vacation until moving day)

I need a checklist so that everything didn't swirl around in my brain so much and overwhelm me. Organizing is not hard, but when it is never done, it grates. Too many details swirling around in my brain with no immediate resolution. (It could be a fever coming on too though, it's hard to tell.) We are just moving a couple of miles away, but we have to take everything with us and set up again. That is what I can do....work on a check list. Details are much more manageable on paper than they are in my head I think.

ehn, boxes.

I must distract the brain.....

So.....and here is my point, actually.... I read a few wonderful blogs today and thought I would pass along some wonderful reading.

The photography and beautiful story telling here are making me smile today.

I've heard of God reaching down this way a lot lately.

My good friend Kim is starting a brand new blog. God is stretching her lately and opening her eyes to things beyond her corner of the world. Go read about it at Neighbourhood Sprawl.

God is wanting to tell you and show you great things, even when your head is swirling, even if it is just a plan to keep boxes from incapacitating you). Pay attention. (I am reminding myself, but if the shoe fits....)

An honor

2011-01-29T10:00:00.000-08:00

I was honored this week by a blogging friend at Chrysalis. She gave me a

.

You can check out her stylish e-zine blog here and make sure you check out her many articles and reviews....lots of interesting topics!!

Here are the Rules
• First, thank and link back to the person who gave you this award
• Second, share 7 things about yourself
• Third, award 15 recently discovered great bloggers
• Then, contact these bloggers and tell them they’ve won this award

Seven Random Things about Me:
1. I'm in the middle of a move to a different house, so I'm a crazy person (and I am sticking with that story even after the move).
2. As my children are leaving the nest and flying off to discover the world and what God has for them, my husband and I are finding it very quiet around here. It takes a lot of adjusting. And it makes our 13 year old a little restless being an only child after living in a house full of sisters and activity!
3. I started volunteering to do receptionist type of work at our church two mornings a week.
4. I love (and am quite good at) figuring out people's Myers-Briggs personality type. Oh and I'm an ESFP.
5. I do love January in Phoenix, even though I miss a snowy climate and having a nice wood stove.
6. I love Facebook and find it reminds me of living in a small town, the way that you can spread news so quickly, keep in touch so closely and stay in closer touch with friends on a daily basis.
7. My love languages are acts of service and really good chocolate.

Here are my honorees. Please feel free to follow these guidelines or not. =)

Great blogs I read and want to pass on the Award to:
1. Pioneer Woman Cooks is a great cooking blog. She makes each recipe step by step with lovely photos and hilarious commentary.
2. Pocket Lint has been a long time favorite of mine. It's written by my wonderful friend Gillian about life with two special needs children.
3. Tara's View of the World is written by my friend Tara about her life of raising three children, one with autism and being a minister's wife.
4. KQ Cards, a photography blog by my friend Kathryn who has a great eye for photography!
5. Penned in Orange is my wonderful collegiate friend Sara's blog. She writes poetry and is a great photographer also!
6. Veritas, my husband's blog..... a more serious and thoughtful blog.
7. Alive and Mortal is written by my friend Kim. It is an expressive arts blog for grieving people and a place for the grieving to share their journey.
8. A Holy Experience is a beautiful blog experience with lovely photography, devotional, inspirational and poetic writing.
9. Blackpurl's Knitpickings is not about knitting, but is a friend who knits, who also writes about life in Belize as a missionary.
10. Walking to China is another friend who is living in China and a surprise to her, foster parenting a special needs baby there as well.
11. Joann's Blog Adventure is written by another ministry wife friend of mine.....usually a very hilarious look at life in ministry and raising four children.
12. Laundromat is my friend Michele's blog. She writes from a very Canadian, very honest and very fun view of life married to a minister with two teenaged boys, one hound dog and has an interesting career as the director of a downtown cultural center for Native Canadians (because I forget the correct term).
13. Shasher's Life is an energetic blog for women by another Canadian friend.
14. Empty Handed is written by another ministry wife who lives in Australia....wonderful photography and cheerful blog.
15. Agape Life, which is my daughter Hannah's blog. She writes so well, but not often. Keep an eye on her though. She has great thoughts!

Whew! That takes a long time to get all of that together, but I am excited to show you the blogs I've been reading lately. Hope you take some time and look at them. Save the links for when you have time to peruse and read good things.

Thank you again to e-mom at Chrysalis for honoring my blog on her awards list.

Jesus in every book of the Bible

2011-01-19T08:05:00.000-08:00

~author unknown~
In Genesis, Jesus Christ is the seed of the woman and the ram in the bushes.
In Exodus, He is the passover lamb.
In Leviticus, He is our high priest.
In Numbers, He is the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night.
In Deuteronomy, He is the prophet like unto Moses.
In Joshua, He is the captain of our salvation.
In Judges, He is our judge and lawgiver.
In Ruth, He is our kinsman redeemer.
In 1st and 2nd Samuel, He is our trusted prophet.
In Kings and Chronicles, He is our reigning king.
In Ezra, He is the rebuilder of the broken down walls of human life.
In Esther, He is our Mordecai.
In Job, He is our ever-living redeemer.
In Psalms, He is our shepherd.
In Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, He is our wisdom.
In the Song of Solomon, He is the loving bridegroom.
In Isaiah, He is the prince of peace.
In Jeremiah, He is the righteous branch.
In Lamentations, He is our weeping prophet.
In Ezekiel, He is the wonderful four-faced man.
In Daniel, He is the forth man in life's "fiery furnace."
In Hosea, He is the faithful husband, forever married to the backslider.
In Joel, He is the baptizer with the Holy Ghost and fire.
In Amos, He is our burden-bearer.
In Obadiah, He is the mighty to save.
In Jonah, He is our great foreign missionary.
In Micah, He is the messenger of beautiful feet.
In Nahum, He is the avenger of God's elect.
In Habakkuk, he is God's evangelist, crying, "revive thy work in the midst of the years."
In Zephaniah, He is our Saviour.
In Haggai, He is the restorer of God's lost heritage.
In Zechariah, He is the fountain opened up in the house of David for sin and uncleanness.
In Malachi, He is the Sun of Righteousness, rising with healing in His wings.

In Matthew, He is King of the Jews.
In Mark, He is the Servant.
In Luke, He is the Son of Man, feeling what you feel.
In John, He is the Son of God.
In Acts, He is the Savior of the world.
In Romans, He is the righteousness of God.
In I Corinthians, He is the Rock that followed Israel.
In II Corinthians, He is the Triumphant One, giving victory.
In Galatians, He is your liberty; He sets you free.
In Ephesians, He is Head of the Church.
In Philippians, He is your joy.
In Colossians, He is your completeness.
In 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, He is your hope.
In I Timothy, He is your faith.
In II Timothy, He is your stability.
In Philemon, He is your Benefactor.
In Titus, He is truth.
In Hebrews, He is your perfection.
In James, he is the Power behind your faith.
In I Peter, He is your example.
In II Peter, He is your purity.
In I John, He is your life.
In II John, He is your pattern.
In III John, He is your motivation.
In Jude, He is the foundation of your faith.
In Revelation, He is your coming King

Word of the year

2011-01-05T10:44:00.000-08:00

Many thoughts overshadow and distract us as this new year begins. So many things are happening in the world and in our homes that it's hard to really focus and process what happens each day, much less each week or month....how about a whole year?

Miriam Webster Dictionary chooses a word each year. The way they decide on it is to review the major search engines of the internet. The word for 2010 has come down to Austerity. Yeah, I had to look it up too. It means "enforced or extreme economy" and was the most searched word in the dictionary after the European debt crisis last spring.

I don't really think it's a good word for a whole year. Internet searches are prone to very subjective audiences. The sixth most searched word in this past year was "doppelganger", which was a popular game on Facebook. You were to post a picture of your doppelganger (a famous person who looks like you) for your profile picture. A couple of years ago the word of the year was woot....more specifically w00t, with zeroes instead of the letter o. It is an excited shout when you are rooting for a team or person in an arena or sporting event.

It really has no bearing on our year, no real meaning to our lives.

So when I read about some friends choosing a word for this year to focus on, I gave it a lot of thought. I asked God to give me a word for this year. Then I waited. I didn't really hear anything, but started realizing in an off-handed, not conscious effort type of way (which is so often the way God shows me things...when I least expect it), that the word joy kept leaping up in my line of vision. It is all through our home with it being Christmas time. There are several words that are in multiple forms all over my house at the holidays, but the word joy kept catching my eye among the usual noel, peace, hope, love and believe.

Last year the word hope was calling my attention and I can see that it was a theme to my year, which was wonderful and really encouraging. It wasn't hope as in a wish, but more of a hope as in a future. A noun, a place, a thing. Hope with a capital H. Our Hope in Christ....Heaven, our future Hope. All significant as it was a year that could have been called despair with so many losses and personal challenges. But God focused my mind on Hope and it was cool....as it always is when He is showing you something. It kept showing up, kept reminding me, kept focusing me.

It was not an easy year, but it most definitely was a year of having Hope, needing Hope and finding Hope. I had not thought about this until I began writing today. God often helps me to process things as I write and organize my thoughts. I don't usually take the time to do that. But even though I didn't name the past year, God did.

So my focus this year is turning to joy. That is nice. Joy is a good thing! Sometimes the practice and realization of it comes along with trials, so I am also steadying myself. Sometimes joy is the underlying strength that gets you through trials in life. I usually am a very joyful person (My parents almost named me Joy), but this year has taken it's toll on my spirit, I have to admit. I feel it almost physically.

Biblically, joy is a natural result if we are abiding in Christ:

¹⁰ When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! ¹² This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. John 15:10-12

You remain in Christ, obey His commands (to love Him and each other) and joy will overflow.

Sounds so easy, almost like a formula.

I guess we'll find out this year.

2011, the year of Joy.

Other word of the year blogs:
Holy Experience There are more word of the year posts linked at the bottom of this blog.
Blackpurl's Knitpickings....an expat journal

Epicness

2010-12-29T22:15:00.000-08:00

We had an epic family day Monday...and I'm even using the word in the right way. It was long, drawn out, great...not heroic or poetic, but epic nonetheless. ;) I have no pictures as I forgot to bring the camera, but it was a fun, full day.

We got out the door by 1pm after Charles and Bethany had worked in the morning and went after Christmas shopping at the old Christown Mall (they remodeled it and named it Spectrum Mall, but no one would call it that, so they finally renamed it Christown Spectrum....Arizonans are a little strong willed).

Spent Christmas gift money and gift cards. A lot of time was spent in lines and in dressing rooms.

We went to see Voyage of the Dawn Treader (new Narnia movie) also at Christown, which was not epic, but it was very good, probably my favorite one of the three Narnia movies so far. It had beautiful symbolism of temptation, sacrifice and Christian application that was a little lost in the others, even though it is apparent in the books. We had dinner at Appleby's, then went to Zoo Lights. The Phoenix zoo, where Bethany works is open at night from Thanksgiving til mid January with huge light displays, shows and fun stuff like carriage rides, polar slide, camels rides and a couple of animals exhibits. So she bought us tickets with her discount as our Christmas gifts.

We went home and watched White Christmas. We vowed not to watch it until Hannah arrived to watch it with us and we finally watched it on a night that Bethany was working. That was not okay with Bethany so we had to watch it again. We then played Wii (our family gift), lots of fun obstacle course games and Mii making.

Then we fell into our beds and fell soundly unconscious for the night.

Epic should also mean tiring-beyond-all-reason.

Sister Day 2010

2010-12-23T14:50:00.000-08:00

My girls like to do something special together at the holidays, so yesterday was Sister Day. No one else was invited. In the afternoon they went ice skating (and since I wasn't invited, there are no pictures...sad) and I made them a nice dinner followed by an evening show downtown of the Nutcracker Ballet.

They got all dressed up and when I went to take a picture, they all just stood there (probably tired from ice skating). So without saying a word, I just started clicking one picture after another and this is what happened:

Gingerbread guy party

2010-12-18T21:05:00.000-08:00

We came home last night to Emma's friends obediently following Bethany's instructions on cookie decorating. She made the cookies and the colorful frostings and turned them loose. It was a very fun time! I especially liked Sara's googly-eyed gingerbread guys. They work like 3 cups of coffee if you look at them first thing in the morning.(click on the slide show to see the pictures individually mom)

I hear rustling....

2010-12-16T13:17:00.000-08:00

Every time I walk by our Christmas tree, I think of this verse that I found a few years ago....

Do you hear the rustling? Listen closely...

*
Let

the heavens

be glad, and the

earth rejoice! Let the sea

and everything in it shout his

praise! Let the fields and their crops

burst out with joy! Let the trees of the

forest rustle with praise before the Lord,

for he

is coming!

Psalm 96:11-13

Gift suggestions

2010-12-15T16:39:00.000-08:00

“Christmas gift suggestions:

To your enemy, forgiveness.
To an opponent, tolerance.

To a friend, your heart.
To a customer, service.

To all, charity.

To every child, a good example.
To yourself, respect.”

~Oren Arnold~

Need more inspirational ideas?
click here

Bad Nativities

2010-12-13T22:05:00.000-08:00

Just for fun, The Cavalcade of Bad Nativities again this year. And how about the Cavalcade of Bad Nativities II?

Oh, nooooooooooooooo....

Kitsch up with ya later.....;)

I need a silent night...

2010-12-12T22:26:00.000-08:00

This weekend's rush:

~Sunday school class Christmas party
~Driving through midnight and into the wee sma's to bring Emma home from Tucson, where her ride home ended
~Children's choir Christmas play tonight
~Church
~Picking out a Christmas tree
~Decorating the tree complete with traditional snackage
~3 Christmas movies
~One afternoon of futile Christmas shopping....

A friend of mine posted this song on her Facebook and I thought it was perfect. Every year I try to do it differently, but it always turns into a whirlwind.....

Conspiracy 2010

2010-12-02T14:59:00.000-08:00

Join us....pass it on....

Advent Conspiracy Blog

A celebration and a perspective

2010-11-23T18:40:00.000-08:00

I'm thanking God tonight for a rich heritage of people we've known and served with in past churches.

We were just up in our old town of Williams this past weekend for the funeral of Matthew Broehm. After driving up the night before, we stayed in the warm home of Edith Pouquette. The temperatures outside were very cold, so a bowl of hot taco soup and an evening of sitting around her wood stove visiting was absolutely delicious! The conversation was full of catching up on old friends, church news and about our current place of ministry in Phoenix.

The next morning we went for one of our favorite drives up Bill Williams mountain. Beautiful pines, fur trees, aspens and spruces lined the winding road. We stopped at finger rock and walked out to see the view. Not a soul in sight, just wind through the trees and a huge view. It puts a kind of perspective on your mind of how small you are and how huge the world is as you look out across 50 miles of ridges, mountains and canyons as far as the eye can see, no cities or people in sight. The chill in the air drove us back to our warm car and we drove down silently, thinking about our own thoughts. We were so privileged to have been allowed to live in this area for 9 years.

A visit to the coffee shop, American Flyer and then we were off to the funeral processional. We walked from the middle school to downtown and then back, about 2 miles in all, with the family and about 500 townspeople, church members and military who came to support them in honoring their son, brother, husband. As we gathered to walk, we started seeing not just a group of faces, but individual, dear, wonderful faces from the past. Our old youth group, alot of whom are all grown up and have children now, church members, people from our old small group fellowship that met in our home weekly, people from all walks of life that we had come to share life with for 9 years.

The celebration of life service was really wonderful. This young man was such an evangelist and leader during his shortened life, it was like God knew Matt only had a short time here and packed it full of passion and service. We are proud to have known him and proud of that community for their loving support of their own.

I have tried and tried to describe the kind of closeness you feel to other people in a small community like that, but I am at a loss. It's something you just have to experience and I would wish that at least once in life to anyone. It puts a kind of perspective in your mind of how large your influence can be and a huge feeling of comfort when everywhere you look there are faces of people who know you and love you from all walks of life in a community.

Thankful Thursday

2010-11-18T13:37:00.000-08:00

Today I am thankful for:

1. A leftover chocolate turkey cupcake from last night's youth fundraising dinner (made by Julie, Gabriel and Eleanor)

2. My new Christmas tree lights which are like this picture, but they are all white

3. My friend Cheryl, who I get to spend a lot of time with lately (spending time is good, but radiation treatments are a bummer....pray that this will totally zap the bad cancer cells)

4. Good friends who help us whenever we have a need around our home...Larry and Ed were just here 2 days ago putting in our new water heater, as ours was about to burst)

5. Pain pills for Charles' bad back...it's bad...Please pray for him (sciatica we think)

6. Getting my very first free lance writing assignment

7. An attentive little dog (now if she could just learn how to cook our dinner)

8. Surprise blessings and cool coincidences to encourage my faith

9. Candles

10. A quick trip up to the mountains this weekend (for a sad funeral)

11. A toilet that doesn't leak anymore (which is why Charles' back is so bad, he hunched over it and fixed it)

12. Cooler weather and looking forward to the holidays

All in

2010-11-16T22:22:00.000-08:00

Full image here

Thanking God today for the 'coincidences' and constant surprises that we walk right into in places like warehouse stores.

When we went to Africa this past August, John Dina, missionary extraordinaire to Mozambique took 10 days to show us and David and Diana Johnson all of the places, people and experiences that he could that their son Jeremiah had experienced in his mission trip to Mozambique. He never came home to them, but died there in a motorcycle accident. So we went to try to absorb some of what his passion was about. It was an amazing trip, we learned so much about how this young man's life changed into a deep, passionate walk with God and with the Monigan people along the coast of Mozambique.

One of the things John kept saying was that Jeremiah, he was just 'all in'. He was so ready to be serving and to be out there with the people that he barely had patience for the language study and preparation. God was calling him to something and he wanted to be there and threw himself into it full force. John said that usually when mission workers come they are stand offish at first and observe and try to figure out how to fit in or make connections. Not Jeremiah, he just did it. John had never seen someone come so ready.

All in. No hesitations, he was raring to go.

All in, John said.....kept saying it. It definitely stuck in my head. I've used it over and over myself, trying to explain our trip and trying to tell people why Jeremiah's story was so intriguing.

So I was in Sam's club the other day and all the televisions in the electronics dept were playing the same video. Lifehouse is one of my favorite groups, so I stopped to watch and the words hit me and made all the blood rush into my head and I got all tingly for a few minutes while it played on and on, repeating the main theme. The name of the song is All In.....yes, of course it was....there are no coincidences here. It's like it was written for him.

All night staring at the ceiling
counting for minutes I've been feeling this way
So far away and so alone

But you know it's alright
I came to my senses
Letting go of my defenses
There's no way I'm giving up this time
Yeah, you know I'm right here
I'm not losing you this time

And I'm all in, nothing left to hide
I'm falling harder than a landslide
I spent a week away from you last night
And now I'm calling, calling out your name
Even if I lose the game, I'm all in
I'm all in tonight, yeah I'm all in, I'm all in for life

....

I want it, I want it, I want it
I want it, I want it, I want it, yeah
I want it, I want it, I want it, yeah

And I'm all in, calling out your name
Even if I lose the game, I'm all in, I'm all in for life
And I'm all in, nothing left to hide
I'm falling harder than a landslide
I spent a week away from you last night
And now I'm calling, calling out your name
Even if I lose the game, I'm all in
I'm all in tonight, yeah I'm all in, I'm all in for life
Yeah I'm all in, I'm all in for life

Prayer and surprises

2010-11-15T21:48:00.000-08:00

Wow, the days are hustling by here and I am behinder and behinder!

I left my job last May thinking I'd be back in August, but that wasn't to be. The preschool only had enough children for 2 classes instead of 4 and they did not need me this year. I tried to be glad to have more time for my family, but really I felt a little out of sorts and depressed. Job loss is hard, no matter what the reason. So I started to pray and ask God to make this time off work useful and that I would be able to do some ministry things that I had not been able to do in a long time.

A few days ago I realized that God had answered that prayer. There have not been very many days that I am at a loss for something to do. And it has turned out that my family members have needed more of my energy this year, so I am glad to have it for them, to be an encouragement. And I have more mental energy to observe the people in my world and be able to act on some things that I would never have thought of as ministry opportunities.

God is a good one for surprises.

And the people He's brought around me this year have been a blessing to me as well. I love to see God working in people's lives, but sometimes you have to pay close attention and be patient.

So I guess today I am thankful for God hearing my prayers and showing me the ways He is answering.....different than I thought it would be, but better, I'm sure of it!

One more thing....I just have to refer you to my husband's blog, Veritas, today. I loved it and need to put some words of kindness into practice in my own life.

Got blessings?

2010-11-12T19:24:00.000-08:00

Talking to some other women in ministry families the other day, we were brainstorming about how we've been blessed by our church members. Things get hard sometimes in churches, there are power struggles and personality conflicts and just plain trouble too. Believe me, there have been horror stories shared in this same group of women. So the focus on the positive was very refreshing.

We are so blessed by our church. Not only do they love us and bless us in practical and generous ways, but they get along, love each other and really have a desire for God to work in our church and community. They are a blessing to work, worship and serve with.

And may God richly bless all of our handy men who bless us with their services...so often! This week it is installing a new water heater. You're a blessing guys!

Finally fall...?

2010-11-08T13:36:00.000-08:00

Growing up in Phoenix, Arizona made it's mark on me. Scars from sun burns from childhood/teen years, more freckles than you could count, and eh, a few wrinkles. A few fortunate neighbors on my street growing up had swimming pools. We became their friends as kids.

And when no one had invited you to swim in their pool, we could walk to the community pool. It was about a mile away from our house and in those days (the olden days) we had to cross through some fields to get there. They may not have been technically fields, but they were at least huge yards where you could have horses. To make the trip shorter, my sister would short cut through these places, squeezing under barbed wire and my least favorite, crossing the ditch. It seemed huge to me and I could never make it across in one jump, so I would land in the mud and squish along the rest of the way to the pool in at least one muddy flip flop. We would get beet red and then wait for the big 'peel' to happen, which we found fascinating. It was always a contest to see who could pull off the largest piece of sloughed skin without breaking it. I shudder at the thought of all the skin damage I had as a child. We just didn't know.

Those kind of summers forced kids inside when morning faded (if you weren't swimming), so fall quickly became my favorite season. The weather got lighter, not as heavy....your skin didn't burn as you walked outside and sweaters reappeared in the closet. (I do love sweaters) I loved the rare overcast days and walking to school with a brisk chill in the air. We had huge Mulberry trees in our yard, so there was an abundance of crunchy leaves to rake into piles and take turns jumping into.

The only problem with fall in Phoenix is that it doesn't usually come until mid-November. In fact, up until last week, the weather flirted with going into the triple digits, the air conditioner ran and ran and only the mornings cooled off enough to really say it was cool, and then, not chilly, just cool.

The high today is just tipping into the 80's. It's 81 now and getting cloudy and breezy, so it feels like 70's. I am making soup.

Dare I say it? I think it's fall!

I love cool weather, I love sweaters and soup. I'm thankful today for the relief in the air....literally. But there is also some relief from the traumatic days we spent at the end of last week. Things are not feeling so heavy today. That is something to be grateful for.

When young men stumble and fall...

2010-11-06T21:17:00.000-07:00

Thanking God for the Hope we have in Him, even when things don't make sense.

My cell phone beeped yesterday morning, so I picked it up and quickly glanced at it to see who the text message was from. Instantly I threw it back down as tears filled my eyes. "Why did I read that? Why did I read that now?" My sister caught the phone in her lap. We were stopped at a light, and I had to keep driving through the tears and gasps of air.

The only words I saw were "Matthew Broehm killed...." I shouldn't have read that text in those moments. Becky distracted me by making me talk and when I was ready she read the whole thing. Charles had texted me and all of our daughters telling us that a dear friend from our church in Williams had died in Afghanistan that day. He was a Marine and I found out today from the news that he did die during combat.

He was 22.

His family and ours had moved to Williams around the same time and we all became quick friends. They were a homeschooling family with older teens, like us. They had 2 tall, strapping boys, one girl Hannah's age and one younger boy who was smaller, that was Matthew.

Matt was a very sincere kid. He always listened intently to anyone who was teaching or telling him something. It seemed like he was just eating up the information and had a great respect for people and great manners and attitude. This sometimes singles a young man out for ridicule, but no one made fun of Matt unless he was in on it too. I think this was because you could tell he liked you and was genuinely interested in you when you were around him. He was the first one to raise his hand when the youth leader asked if anyone would lead them in prayer too. He became famous for it...whenever the leader asked, we would all just look at Matt. Then he would crinkle his eyes, smiling and begin praying. What a cool kid! As he became older, the girls all crushed on him and flirted with him and made him blush.

I had the privilege of working with our youth for a few years in Sunday School and got to see him starting to really mature as a Christian and start to be a mentor to some of the younger boys....always encouraging them and talking to them, making them feel included and loved. There was some talk of him going into youth ministry too.

Maybe because he was smaller than his brother or maybe just because it caught his interest, he started taking Tae Kwon Do. Then he realized this was his thing and worked his way up to black belt and soon was teaching the class to other kids in town. He was a hard worker. He liked really hard core Christian screamo music, full of passion and conviction. At some point in those years he went from being called Matthew to Matt.

I remember being surprised (but not at the same time) that he was enrolling in the military. The Marines....wow. *shudder* No one doubted that he could do it, but at the same time we dreaded that kind of lifestyle for such a nice kid. His first visit home, he was the picture of a Marine in uniform seeing him at church for the first time....so confident and looked taller too. His parents and siblings were so proud of him.

We moved away and out of touch with many of his family, besides Facebook updates. It was on Facebook where we learned he had become engaged and married a beautiful young lady, his Marine comrades stood with him, all handsome in the wedding pictures. Then we heard of him shipping out to Afghanistan just a short time later.

And now killed. A wonderful young man. I will remember Matt very well. I can see his cute, blushing smile and his hand going up to volunteer to pray. I can see him talking seriously to our youth pastor at the time or to my husband or his father. He was always watching the men of the church, always learning from them.....he was always in the process of becoming someone...of having a meaningful life.

I am not questioning God about how He allows things to happen even though it's hard to understand. Death comes to the just and the unjust. Some are young and seem to have so much left to give and some are ready, having lived a long and fruitful life. We will never make sense of it with our mortal eyes. But we accept and we trust God and we will always remember the humble, mature and honorable way that Matt lived and died.

To the Broehm family: I love you all and am just heartsick for you having to give up your Matt so soon.

May the God of hope fill you
with all joy and peace as you trust in him,

so that you may overflow with hope
by the power of the Holy Spirit.

~Romans 15:13

Even youths grow tired and weary,
   and young men stumble and fall;

but those who hope in the LORD
   will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
   they will run and not grow weary,
   they will walk and not be faint.
~Isaiah 40:30-31

Of heart attacks and days gone wild

2010-11-06T19:55:00.000-07:00

I missed two days on writing about thankfulness, but I'm sure you'll understand when you're done reading here today.

On Thursday I was waiting until the end of the day to write my blog post in case something really interesting to be thankful for came my way. Well, let me just say before I begin that what I am thankful for is my family. (just in case this is not obvious by the end)

Thursday afternoon I was just thinking about what to put out for dinner. My husband and I both had large lunches and were not going to eat. And then, the phone rang.... and things got kicked into high gear and my day suddenly had a different plan and reason.

It was my sister Becky. She was frantic sounding as I listened to her voice while Charles was talking to her on his cell phone. He asked her several pointed, serious, urgent sounding questions, then hung up.

"Larry has had a heart attack at the cabin. He's going to be air lifted to Phoenix and we need to go meet him at the hospital."

This is the moment in the caricature my life was becoming that adrenaline squirts out of my head in little drops like a cartoon while I turn into a Tasmanian devil whirling around the house stuffing things I may need in my purse. Socks, travel sized lotion, make up, ipod, some meds, Mentholatum....just the necessities. I knew I would be spending the night in the hospital with my sister so my practical head made use of the time we had until the second phone call telling us which hospital to go to.

I made calls to family and we jumped in the car. We were walking in to the ER while the helicopter was landing. And we got to see Larry a few minutes later. He was sitting up talking and explaining and answering questions. The doctor looked at the EKG and said, "Yes, you are having a heart attack, let's get you into an angiogram ASAP." Time to visit a moment, pray and they whisked him away.

My sister had to drive down from the mountains to Phoenix all by herself and it had turned dark, so we prayed for her and she arrived about an hour later. It's an hour and a half drive, so you can imagine how she was driving and she was only pulled over by the police once. But she turned into hysterics with the officer and he waved her on, no ticket.

I can't remember how long it was until the doctor came out giving us a good report. Only one blockage and it was repaired with one stint. Simple, quick and as non-invasive as can be.

What happened to Larry is really pretty common. He had been doing some hard work, cutting wood by chainsaw that afternoon, then got tired and felt like the chain saw was extra heavy. So he came in, took a shower and sat down to put socks on. The discomfort in his chest was worrying him, but he didn't think about it seriously until he sat down and began sweating profusely. His clothing was soaked and Becky told him she was calling 911. She was surprised that he didn't argue and by that, she knew it was the right decision. Twenty minutes later, back in the woods in their cabin, he was being loaded into an ambulance, being given a field EKG and was told that yes, it was a heart attack. They just drove to the main dirt road and met a helicopter, where he was quickly flown away and to the hospital. It took 30 minutes to arrive at the hospital and he was still alert and talking, but still having the heart attack. His main artery was completely blocked and he was sitting up, talking to us.

The doctor said it would have been a much different outcome if they had hesitated on calling or if the paramedics hadn't been so on the ball as to order a helicopter or if my sister hadn't made him eat an aspirin and the paramedics hadn't given him nitroglycerin when they arrived.

It was about 12 hours later when my sister and I were sitting in his ICU room figuring out his Myers-Briggs personality temperament and reading it to him off of the internet. We were all laughing at how accurate the description was and appreciating what a great guy he is....and that he was still with us. This is how two ESFP's handle an ISTJ who is in day one of recovery from a heart attack.

Thank you to all who prayed for Larry and sent encouraging emails or messages. He's going to be just fine.

Thank you, November 3!

2010-11-03T15:20:00.000-07:00

I'm so thankful, I'm giddy in fact, that the elections are OVER!

It's not about who won or who didn't win, it's that they aren't calling me 10 times per evening and hurling accusations and slander all over my evening television.

Aaah, now this is better.

Rewards of a life well lived

2010-11-02T21:54:00.000-07:00

For the past 5 weeks, Tuesday has been the day that I take my mom to our morning ladies' Bible study at church. We go and meet with about a dozen other ladies who range in age from late 30's to 80's. It is a group of seasoned Christian women with lots of wisdom, knowledge and good sense.....and we all get along like old friends every week. I am thankful for those ladies.

They spur me on (and although spurs sometimes pinch, they work). These women have been through almost all life's ups and downs. You name the blessing or tragedy and it's there in that room each week. And they are lovely, wonderful women. Life has not embittered them, but blessed them, even with all of it's trials. I know that when they speak, there is a lifetime of hard-gained wisdom motivating their words and thoughts. Very cool when you think about it.

Today my mom and I went out to lunch and as we sat there trying to decide what to order, a man in the booth behind my mom said something about the elections today. He said something so hateful and spiteful against Christians that I lost my appetite. It was also just plain untrue. I could tell he did not actually know many true Believers and was speaking out of some pain or maybe just propaganda from some group he listens to.

It made me heartsick and shocked that someone would think that about me.

So I am thankful for that group of ladies. I can see Christ in them and the rich, wonderful rewards of living life for the I AM, the One who is. The world is changing almost daily and we must lift Him up and let our Light shine....

....because if people see Jesus in you, in us, they will be drawn to Him......and they may reject Him. But let it be based on Jesus and not on us.

A month of thankfulness

2010-11-01T21:01:00.000-07:00

It's November. I was celebrating this earlier today, kind of like this: I love November because people take the graveyard decorations out of their front yards and put up reminders of Thanksgiving and Christmas. I love November because supposedly it will turn cooler....some day this month it will actually cool down semi-permanently until spring. I love November because we gather our family close and have a banquet and remember God's blessings. I love November because for two whole months people talk about being thankful and then about Christmas....CHRISTmas. I love that.

An invitation came today for me (thanks Vicki) to join a Month of Thankfulness so I did. And even though I am not good at making promises to post every day on here, I will 'try' to post almost every day about something I am thankful for.

It has been a long, hot fall here in Phoenix, but we've seen God do some really great things in this season. Things that make tears squirt right out of your eyes before they even well up or anything. It happened to me on Sunday. Just like cartoon people, sprinkler eyes. The kind of things that just make you raise your hand to the Lord with squirting eyes and praise Him. (then try to find an antique tissue in the bottom of your purse to mop up)

I'm so thankful for God's work, for His hand in our lives.

I see it!

Secret gifts

2010-10-30T20:26:00.000-07:00

Cute, eh?

I love my sweet black and white Bible bag. But what they represent is even more sweet.

I have some secret friends that these bags represent. Their identities have been hidden to protect their secret-ness. ;)

Last spring I got a written invitation from a friend of mine who is a pastor's wife in our same area. She and another pw were starting a small group with other pastors' wives in our area of town. One of them made these cute bags to make us feel welcome and honored. I was intrigued and excited, and more than a little bit nervous. There is an online group of pastors' wives that I've been a part of for support and friendship for years now and it has become an invaluable group of very close knit friends. I've met some of them, others I do not even know what they look like, just their name, because they choose to be anonymous. We share our lives in a way that we can't do publicly. Our husbands' ministries are very public. And though I feel like I can be myself in any of the churches we've been in, a lot of pastors' wives feel under special scrutiny and judgment. So we talk about our feelings, about our weaknesses, our children, our husbands, we say things that we would never dare to say in public, but we can be ourselves there with each other and know that it will never go beyond that group. We also pray for each other with empathy and care that I have rarely felt in human friendship.

This is why the small group with real live, in person ladies was a little bit intimidating to me. Would it ever be the same as what I have with my semi-anonymous group of friends? I was willing to find out, so I went. At first it was like any group of women who are almost strangers. Awkward! It was 'on your best manners' and polite. We shared prayer requests that were not too personal, not too dangerous.....testing the waters I think. But God only let us be aloof for so long, He has been guiding us to a deeper level and I am finding some really dear friends, kindred spirits. Even with our differences and wide range of personalities, He is bringing us together.

It's a gift. I say that a lot on here, but I have to give credit where it is due! I want to chronicle in some way the good things only God brings into my life to show His love and care. His fingerprints are all over this group, because we've grown to need human comfort and understanding even more lately.

One of the ladies wanted to do some kind of get away, spend some more time together, so I asked my sister and we went up to her cabin together in late June for a retreat. You cannot get away from getting to know each other better than on a weekend trip to the mountains. Riding up with each other, sharing beds, cooking for each other, eating together, walking, hanging out on the porch in a peaceful setting started to form a bond, letting down our safe boundaries so that we could really share and pray together.

When we got back there was a greater trust level and openness among us. This was a good thing because heck started breaking through in some of our lives and we needed a place to be real, to cry and be totally accepted, not judged or scrutinized.....and prayed for. We have really started to bring each other to the Throne and have already seen God working, bringing peace in the middle of what seemed like chaos, at least inside our heads and hearts.

In August my daughter Beth was at a denominational conference. She was hanging around while helping at the conference and one of my pw friends came up to her, read her name tag and told her, "I know your mother! You are Bethany!" Then it dawned on Beth that this was one of my small group friends and out of her mouth came, "Oh! You are one of my mom's secret friends!" She said this because she didn't know the ladies I was going to meet with several times a month. But I would come home sometimes and if she asked me where I'd been, I would tell her I had been with my friends.

"You have friends? Who?"

"Oh, you don't know them."

So, they aren't really a secret, just unknown to my kids.

When my friend heard her say secret friends, she thought that was delightful and we are known as secret friends now to each other.

I feel like I've been needing to take a deep breath of cool, fresh air and it finally happened. I've got some people who understand ministry life and how so much of it is confidential or makes you feel so vulnerable, how you can't share the pain you have sometimes or that you shoulder burdens for your husband alone.

I don't know why I was surprised. God gives good gifts..... and from the beginning, even though it was company manners at first, I knew it was something God brought into my life because I had longed for it. Each time we meet together, I see these cute Bible bags lined up together or stashed on a table or chair and am thankful for our group.

So....to my online sisters and my secret Bible bag sisters, thank you for being in my life, for sharing yours with me and for taking the risk to join together on this path.

You are a breath of fresh air, a gift from God, my bag ladies, my secret sister chicks, my own prayer warriors and friends.

Kettle corn

2010-10-18T22:54:00.000-07:00

A friend posted this on facebook and I tried it tonight. It is so easy and yummy!

Mix together 1/2 cup popcorn kernels and 3 Tablespoons of white sugar*.

Put 3 Tablespoons oil in a large saucepan, heat oil until it smokes (I used medium heat on my electric stove, my regular temperature for popping corn).

Add popcorn and stir until it is all coated with oil. Put the lid on the pan and pop, keep shaking the pot. I thought the sugar would scorch, but it didn't. Just keep the corns moving as it pops.

*Another recipe on the internet said that if you use brown sugar, it tastes like carmel corn. Bethany suggested we should add some cinnamon next time.

When it stops popping turn the popcorn into a bowl and salt as desired.

The sugar coats the popcorn and makes it super crunchy. It's really good! Great snack for a movie night.

Thank you Angie!

The van

2010-10-15T14:32:00.000-07:00

I think I promised a story here. My apologies for being tardy about it.

This is a story about a van.

The first pastorate that Charles had was doing church planting in New Jersey. One of the churches in that area was Bridgeview Baptist Church, which sat in the middle of an old neighborhood in a tiny borough called Delair in the township of Pennsauken. This church had a parsonage right beside it and since their bi-vocational pastor owned his own home, they wanted the new church planters to live there for as long as they needed it. We did....for ten wonderful years. When our church planting time was over, the church next door to us was just losing their pastor because of a job transfer in his company, so they called Charles to be pastor at Bridgeview. I could go on and on about life in New Jersey, it was a place that was different in all ways from the places we had grown up and lived. Some day (not tomorrow) I'll do that little thing.

When I saw this picture below on my friend Sara's blog, I jumped up and down in my heart. (I was sitting or I may have jumped in my legs too) I showed it to all of my kids and to Charles. I posted it on Facebook wondering which of my friends would remember it. The picture was not of our van. It was taken by Sara just a few days before she posted it....in Oregon. I guess someone could have bought the van in NJ and brought it back to life and driven it to Oregon, but that is doubtful.

The other thing that struck me like a lightning bolt was that it looked like the front of our dear home in New Jersey! We had a sidewalk like the one in the picture, we had huge maple trees in the yard, and we had no driveway, so our van was always parked in front, just like in this picture. Wow, it brought back memories.

Our first child, Hannah, was only 2 months old when we moved to that house. And I was pregnant with our last child, Maggie, when we left. We lived there 10 years and raised our first three daughters there through their preschool years and beyond.

We found the van at a used car lot one day. It was roomie. You could stand up, hunched over, and walk around in it, handy with preschoolers, car seats and camping trips. It had a huge wagon area behind the back seat where we could stow everything we needed for camping trips. And it was cool.

I grew up in the 60's and 70's and had always wanted to own a VW van. I used to day dream about taking one cross country and seeing places and doing things. I just never pictured it with 3 little kids and a dog, which in reality is a lot different than my vision, but it was still fun. We did this several times in that van. Once to Colorado to meet up with family for a camping trip and once to Tennessee to meet up with family for another vacation. That trip was murder to come home from. There was a heat wave on the east coast and our air conditioning did not work much of the time in that van. So I bought a spray bottle and would spray our little kids til they dripped, and the dog too, and we drove with the windows down, like we were basting little roasts in a convection oven. We also took that van to Vermont many times on camping trips. We had a campground there that we loved, at Quechee Gorge. That was where we made a lot of memories and built strong bonds with our children.

We also drove that van across Pennsylvania each summer to a children's camp by Erie, PA. Every year Charles would be invited to do the music and teach classes at this camp for northwest Pennsylvania and the whole family would come along. We had our own little cabin to stay in and it was a great experience. I was the camp nurse once but I didn't do it again because I can't stand cleaning up wounds and blood.

It was a traveling sort of van. It evoked a spirit of adventure and exploration. We loved living in New Jersey partly because it was full of things to see. We took the van to Cape May, NJ many times, to Lancaster County, PA, to Baltimore, to Virginia, Chesapeake Bay, the shore (as they say in NJ), even New York City once to see another church planter friend in Queens.

Something that is kind of a secret we found out is that when you drive a VW van, you are automatically in a club. I started noticing right off the bat when we got the van, that people who drove other VW vans wave at you....and give you the peace sign with their fingers or nod their heads at you as you pass by. I told a teenaged friend about this and she thought I was exaggerating until she rode with me in it a few times. Sometimes when we traveled, another VW in the opposite traffic lanes would shout out the window and honk their horns at us. I loved it! Super cool. What days those were.

The secret club is also the reason I killed our van one day. I was on the way home from picking up Bethany at kindergarten, when someone pointed at me while passing and yelling something out the window. Strange, they were not in a VW at all....maybe they usually drive one and had forgotten they were not in their club van for identification. Then someone behind me began honking.....NOT a VW van either. Wondering if they were impatient, I pulled over to let them pass. I am just slightly not intuitive sometimes. Then a police car pulled up beside me and asked me if I knew there was smoke coming out of my van.

Yikes.

I drove into a parking lot and parked. There was gray smoke pouring out of the back of the van. Hours later Charles had to have it towed to a shop where it was discovered that I had been driving without oil and the head gasket (I still don't know what that is) had cracked (which is a very bad thing for any gasket).

Sad day.

I mourned for my van, but there was no fixing it. The one part cost as much as the van had cost in the first place. ($2500) So we had to say goodbye to our lovely van. We were booted from the club, which was also a hard blow. We bought a used Honda Civic, 2 door....no offense but there was no love for that car at ALL. A 2 door, low to the ground car, as pretty as it was, was really hard on a family of five with one child still in a car seat.

So seeing that picture, Sara, was like seeing a very old friend, like a box of memories in front of those cool fall maple trees....

....like a gift from God, a sweet connection to those wonderful days.

Thanks Sara for posting that picture!

Wordless Wednesday: Does this spark any memories?

2010-09-29T08:04:00.000-07:00

The story behind the picture tomorrow.

I think I just had an apostrophe!

2010-09-25T10:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I saw a small blip on someone's Facebook status announcing National Punctuation Day. I thought it was one of those made up things to emphasize someone's sarcasm about the lack of appropriate language skills we have come to in 2010. But no, it is a real day of recognition, not a holiday, but a remembrance of the language skills we all used to be taught and loathed.

Punctuation can be difficult in these internet and messaging driven days, where not using end marks or capital letters or even correct spelling is common and accepted by some. But it is important to someone who wants to write well or who wants to appear to be somewhat intelligent or professional. It is very important. It can be life saving in some cases. Just think about the ramifications:

"Let's eat, Grandma!" becomes "Let's eat Grandma!"

*shudder* I think you see what I mean.

I wrote a post once using the metaphor of a comma to show how my life felt after our first child left the nest. As I just looked back over that post, I actually got the graphic for that post from the National Punctuation Day sight! The original post was 5 years ago. I am so forgetful! Anyway, I love using good punctuation as a way to get my thoughts across to the reader, whether it is in editing or as a metaphor to make a point.

Personally, I do love apostrophes, commas, exclamation marks and quotation marks, but my favorite of all (do to my explainage tendencies) is the parentheses. This, even though I use the ellipsis more often. (I had to look up what they were called and found out I really should not use them the way I do...drat!) Although they are correctly used as a way of letting the reader know that words have been left out of a quote, I have been using them in that modern, electronic messaging sort of way, as explained by Wikipedia:

The ellipsis is one of the favorite constructions of internet chat rooms, and has evolved over the past ten years into a staple of text-messaging. Though an ellipsis is technically complete with three periods (...), its rise in popularity as a "trailing-off" or "silence" indicator, particularly in mid-20th century comic strip and comic book prose writing, has led to expanded uses online. It has been used in new ways online, sometimes at the end of a message "to signal that the rest of the message is forthcoming."

Even though Wikipedia is not a really reliable source of factual information, it is definitely a good source for modern cultural reference. And today, it saved my pride by giving respect to the modern manipulation of our language. It is a cultural phenomenon I guess.

What do you think? Does the modern manipulation of punctuation, spelling and grammar bother you or is it an accepted part of your culture?

God hears

2010-09-21T16:18:00.000-07:00

God hears, God sees, God speaks, God answers the fervent prayers of His children. Tomorrow is an event called See You At The Pole. It is an international event. Any kids who want to can show up at their school's flagpole an hour before school starts, where hopefully they will find other Christian kids who are standing up to prayer for their schools. Besides standing in the gap for the people at their schools, they can also see fellow Christians who go to their school and meet them.

This year's theme for See You At The Pole is Reveal. Pray that God would reveal Himself, His incredible LOVE, in our schools, to this generation, through this generation of students. We adults need to be praying this for our community's schools too. The verse this year is the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6:9–13, read from the Message modern language Bible:

With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply. Like this: Our Father in heaven, Reveal who you are. Set the world right; Do what's best—as above, so below. Keep us alive with three square meals. Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others. Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil. You're in charge! You can do anything you want! You're ablaze in beauty! Yes. Yes. Yes.

Watch the video, tell all the kids you know that tomorrow is the day!

Reptilian floral arrangements

2010-09-17T15:06:00.000-07:00

Something caught my eye as I turned on the light in the bathroom last night.

Our glass shower door was open and a streak of bouncy brown was wriggling across the shower floor. My first thought was a cricket like the one I found trying to hide behind my sudoku book the other day, and although I am nicknamed after that sort of creature, I shriek whenever I have to deal with one in the house (they always jump toward you and not away, freaks me out). So I looked closer, but not actually close and it scrambled farther along and I wondered if it was a scorpion. I am shrinking with a cringe even thinking about that. There are plenty of houses that have little reddish scorpions lurking around in Phoenix, but I have never seen one in this house. Well I put my big girl panties on and looked closer still. It was a wide eyed little, tiny, cutie patooty baby gecko!

He had huge black eyes, translucent body and I could see that he was heaving with fear even though he was tiny. I wrote about the geckos here once before and that was in September too, so this must be the season for baby gecks.

I didn't know what to do because although I like looking at geckos, I really wouldn't touch one unless it was life or death. Charles was already asleep, so I just shut the shower door really tight. Then I heard flipping around noises. I had panicked him and he was having a fit. So I took the beautiful red rose that was on my bathroom sink counter in a vase and dropped it into the shower, hoping it didn't land on him. My thought was that he could hide under it and feel more secure instead of flopping around trying to climb the wall, which obviously was not workin for him. I got curious later and opened the shower. He was no where to be seen, so I touched the rose stem...just a touch. SHOOP! Out he came scampering. So I quickly shut the door again and went to bed.

Thankfully I caught Charles this morning before he took a shower and told him about the gecko. He loves catching them so he went right back and reported that it was not there. He put the rose on the back of the toilet tank, took his shower, then went to gather his things to go to a meeting.

Curious again....you've got to be curious when there's a gecko somewhere in your house and it is not where you left it....I looked into the shower and looked up on the ceiling and around the bathroom. Then I picked up the rose to throw it out when I saw a little head pop out and look right at me. (can you stand it, the babies are so cute) I guess he either didn't trust Charles enough to make an appearance for him or maybe he was soundly asleep deep in between the lovely rose petals. (I kept thinking all day about how nice it would be to sleep between soft, velvety rose petals all night. ) By this time I was holding the rose over the bathroom sink and the gecko was trying to decide whether to jump and run or stay and look at me.

He stayed long enough to get Charles in there, who took him out to the front porch to be free to eat bugs and climb the stucco walls at night and hopefully find his mother, who will scold him for sneaking off from her.

*Photos are from google, I didn't have time to get the camera.

RSSes

2010-09-14T19:04:00.000-07:00

Okay! I asked for suggestions on rss readers since I am helpless sometimes at finding good solutions out of the huge amount of information out there.

Thank you Joann!

She recommended Google reader, so I looked it over and on Bloglines there is a nifty link under your blog list that lets you export all of your subscriptions to another RSS reader. It was super easy. Now I will still get all of my friends' blogs each day without clicking 60+ bookmarks. Joann is so smart! (and that is not the first time someone has said that about her)

Google reader also has this wonderful tool under the scroll down menu that says, "view settings" called "view in Reader Play" and it is like a slide show of your blogs! Beautiful!

:like: :happy:

Bloglines?

2010-09-14T12:24:00.000-07:00

I just read today that Bloglines is shutting down on October 1, 2010. ehn

So if you subscribe to this or any other internet sights through Bloglines, please get busy and save your subscriptions to another rss feed reader. Right now I have not found one that I like, so if you have any suggestions, please let me know!

I loved having all of the blogs I read on the same page updated daily so I could see who had put up a new post.

What to do....

...cupcakes and muzzles

2010-09-08T21:49:00.000-07:00

I have to go help my sister make 150+ chocolate cupcakes tomorrow for our ladies' fancy luncheon on Saturday! Chocolate with cherry filling....or something like that.

I asked her if I was allowed to sample if I helped and she brought up the Bible verse about not to muzzle the ox while it's treading.

I think I'm insulted. She just laughed.

1 Corinthians 9:9-10 ⁹ For the law of Moses says, “You must not muzzle an ox to keep it from eating as it treads out the grain.” Was God thinking only about oxen when he said this? ¹⁰ Wasn’t he actually speaking to us? Yes, it was written for us, so that the one who plows and the one who threshes the grain might both expect a share of the harvest.

[or the cupcakes]

Going changes you

2010-09-07T20:29:00.000-07:00

"Therefore, go

and make disciples of all the nations,

baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you.

And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Matthew 28:19-20 (NLT)

God bless Mozambique.

Surprise jello

2010-08-30T22:15:00.000-07:00

A friend called me tonight and said she wanted to bring something over. I gave her the directions to my house and there in her hands was a glass dish of stripedy jello! We have been messaging about this recipe for a few weeks now....and I procrastinate, but Angie doesn't! She is a little powerhouse and a giver and because I would not get it together and make the recipe, she did it herself and brought it to me.

Angie's been reading my blog and saw the Jello Chronicles section. She has this beautiful recipe for striped jello that her mother used to make and now she makes it for her son. And it makes her really excited! She brought it to us and stood there bursting, so we all sat down to have some.

It is delicious.

Thank you Angie. I know this really was a labor of love for us. Let's see....6 hours making a jello dish then driving across town to deliver it.....when you already work full time and have some huge challenges in your life right now. Thank you so much. We love you and love that you are the kind of person who gets excited to bring us your jello recipe. How fun and caring. For lots of reasons, it's a treasure from you.

Here is the recipe as Angie wrote it for me:

Warning: need to plan for about 10 minutes each hour for approx 6 hours in order turn out perfect. Will save little bit of time if put the dish in freezer before start so it can harden first layer quicker, it is always the layer taking longest.

1- (3oz)pkg. each of the following jello flavors:
Black Cherry, Cherry, Lime, Lemon, Orange, Orange Pineapple, Strawberry

1- can sweetend condensed milk

Mix black cherry jello with 3/4 cup boiling water & 3/4 cup cold water. Stir well. Place in 9x13 inch glass pan & refrigerate untill well set.

Mix cherry jello with 1/2 cup boiling water & 1/2 cup cold water & 1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk.
Stir well & cool, place on top of first layer & chill untill well set.

Continue layering jello, making sure previous layer is well set & mixture you are adding is cool. Even number layers are creamy.

When done you will have a beautiful 7 layer giggley jello everyone I have make if for has loooved. You end up with the cherry, lemon & orange-pineapple layers being creamy. Serve scoop of cool whip and yummy.

I have experimented with changing the flavors of jello and found that the grape is good in replace of strawberry and if you can find it the berry blue is a good layer when creamy.

Divine meetings

2010-08-24T16:09:00.000-07:00

It is a HOT day in Phoenix, the heat index is near 120º.

It is Tim's last day before he leaves for college though, so we took him to lunch. On the way back to the church, Charles recognized a woman walking across the church parking lot. She is a refugee from Iraq who lives in some apartments near our church. We go there to do some outreach and meet people sometimes. Charles thought he would give her a ride because of the heat...she is paralyzed on one side because of a stroke and walking is grueling even on a good day. With the heat today, it is just dangerous.

We picked up Aida and drove to her apartment and she insisted that we come in for a drink of water. She cannot drink the water because it is Ramadan and she is fasting (no liquids during Ramadan until sundown). She kept saying thank you and we got along pretty well with a conversation about her family and what we could help her with. Then, as we were leaving, a young couple came to her apartment too. They are also from Iraq and used to live next door to her, so they come by to see her often. They are also Muslim and they speak English well, so we stayed and talked further with Aida, since we had an interpreter.

We talked a little about other things, then the man asked if we knew of any English classes Aida could go to. As a matter of fact we do! Some ladies at our church have really responded to the need for English as a second language classes (ESL) and started a class during our Sunday School hour. Our faithful van driver picks up several refugees and they meet together for and hour learning English through repeating and learning Bible stories. So we got it set up for her to come.

She also wanted to know if we could help her call her daughter. It's been 5 years since she has heard from her daughter, who moved to Australia. Through the Red Cross she has received a phone number that she hopes will put her in contact with the daughter. So on Sunday we will help her do that too. As you can imagine, she is really excited about it and I am too. Pray that we can find information about the daughter. She doesn't know if she is even alive or in Australia anymore.....it's heartbreaking.

Aida said she had prayed for God to send her someone to help her, so she thanked God first and us second for helping. He also sent that couple to further things along with those ideas on ways to help her. Amazing to see God work, He is reaching out to this little woman who has had so much trauma in her life and is now here in a country where she cannot even communicate with people or know where to go for help. She had walked all the way to her son's school because they called her and found out that everything was fine, and they just needed some information. It was about a 1/2 mile walk each way and with the heat it was a dreadful chore, but God turned it into a divine meeting. Now she will learn about God's love more and more as she comes and as people befriend her in our church.

Remembering

2010-08-21T22:09:00.000-07:00

Four years ago, there was a monsoon storm thrashing Phoenix on this date. We were keeping vigil by a bedside where a struggle was also going on while the storm raged outside. Then the storm stopped (outside and in) and my Dad left for Heaven, quietly and peacefully, looking up as he left.

I wrote about it here last summer, but I want to keep remembering so I am linking to that post tonight. I want to remember that there is sometimes a struggle, but there is peace in the end. The night my Dad died, Heaven was so real to me that I almost expected to see it when I followed my his gaze up to the ceiling.

Now I know that death is just a transition. I've seen it and envy it a little. Can you imagine stepping over with God and reaching your Home that is more familiar and real somehow than the ones we've lived in here on earth?

Pets on Parade ;)

2010-08-19T22:18:00.000-07:00

I am really glad that I do a double take sometimes. A quick glance misses some fun details.

This morning I pulled out of my driveway to head down the street to take Maggie to school, and at fist glance I saw my neighbor riding up the street on his bicycle. This was not unusual, he is usually out there finishing his morning bike ride when I leave to take Maggie to school. Today, something about the look on his face made me do a double take and then I saw, there on his shoulder, was a parrot. I started going on about it to Maggie, "There's a BIRD on his shoulder! hahaha, isn't that funny? That is hilarious." Maggie, who is about to turn 13 just looked at me condescendingly and says, "Mom, that is not funny, it's weird." I thought it was about the funniest thing I've seen in a long time, and then I remembered my own dad.

My dad always got some kind of regular exercise too. He jogged for a while, then his knees hurt, so he took up riding his bicycle, but the ten speed bike hurt his back bending over so far while riding. He then got the idea to put long upright handlebars of an old kids' bike onto the tall, skinny, sleek ten speed bike. It looked funny....not haha funny, but ODD funny.....embarrassing to preteen daughters type of funny. I was about Maggie's age at the time. These days, this would not be an odd sight, but in the '70's it was pretty weird. When I tried to inform him of this, he just laughed. He liked his invention, he was always improving things by fiddling around with them. There was no stopping him. My dad was a nerd. I just made peace with it, even as a preteen daughter. (and I tried to stay off of the street at bike riding time)

One day he decided to take our dog for a bike ride...our poodle. He wired a metal milk crate to the back of the ten speed bicycle and put a little cushion in it and put the poodle, Muffin, into the crate. Off they went, a spectacle on wheels! He liked it... Muffin that is, (yes, Muffin was a boy dog with an embarrassingly sissy name) so Dad would oblige him almost every day from then on with a bike ride, to the enjoyment of the whole neighborhood. He wasn't a spectacle to them, he just made them smile.

I only wish I had taken a picture, but I didn't want proof back then. Some things you are only fond of by way of memory. (especially when you're a preteen girl hiding in the basement while her dad takes the poodle on a ride through the neighborhood on an incredibly strange looking bicycle)

Flying Home

2010-08-11T16:00:00.000-07:00

I got a new hard drive, so I am back online. There are a few more posts rattling around in my head about our trip and I wrote a couple on the way home in my spiral blog.

August 6, 2010:

We are waiting to take off in a jet out of Mozambique. As we sit here in the air conditioned plane, there is a stunning sunset out the western window. The sun looks huge and deep red....sinking down through a line of clouds, we watch it drop through and emerge from the bottom. It's like the punctuation mark on the end of an epic, unforgettable trip.

We just said our goodbyes to Charlie and Angie Lechner and their family. They are a missionary family in Maputo and we spent the night and a very fun day with them, breakfast at a cute coffee place, shopping at the town crafters' market, and lunch by the bay. I highly recommend making a layover in Maputo to stay at the Lechner B&B! Very fine people serving there....and now they are our friends.

The stewardess is telling us instructions over the speaker and it sounds like she is whispering a love poem to us. Charles was interpreting what she was saying, "Dear passengers....You are the most beautiful passengers we have ever seen. We will love serving you this evening, you lovely people." It makes us laugh until tears come. (When we landed and the stewardess started in with her sultry voice, Charles leaned over and interpreted again, "Dear John....leave this plane at once for you dirty rotten passengers.") Portuguese is a beautiful sounding language. It sounds like Spanish, French and Italian all mixed together. I will miss saying our most used Portuguese phrase, "Obrigada" which means "Thank you", because it sounds so nice if you can roll your r's and I can, so it's lovely to say. ;) Bon Dia means "good day" so we would say that as a greeting as we entered a village. One morning John Dina offered Diana a cup of coffee and she sleepily said, "Bon dia" instead of Obrigada, so now we use them both interchangeably to razz her a bit. Although it really is a good day when it begins with someone offering you a cup of coffee.

We are in the air now, beginning our 31 hour trip home. Before we sleep again, we have an hour flight to Johannesburg, a five hour layover there, an 11 hour flight to London, another 5 hour layover, then a 9.5 hour flight home to Phoenix, where we hope to find our families waiting to hug our necks and take us home to our beds!

We're glad to be headed home, but it is a hard goodbye. We have deeply meaningful memories and insights from God now in Mozambique. Our hearts are full even through the lingering grief. Just as the Bible passage that Michael gave to David in the Johannesburg airport on our way here, I think that God is causing a great joy to rise up in David and Diana's spirits as they come out of this journey.

You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;
you have loosed my sackcloth
and clothed me with gladness...Psalm 30:11

Blessed be Your name
When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's 'all as it should be'
Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name

Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

~Matt Redmon

A powwow and a barbecue

2010-08-05T09:05:00.000-07:00

Today, Thursday, August 5th, we stayed around the Dina's home, but we were still busy. After a quick breakfast, some local pastors started arriving for a pastor's powwow. They met in the living room while Wanne, Diana, Earnesto and I worked in the kitchen and Earnesto outside, making vegetable/not beef soup for the pastors.

We got everything chopped and into the pot to stew, then got in the truck to buy fresh bread. On the way we stopped by the apartment where Jessica R and Sally will be living while they are in Quelimane for 2 years working with students. The landlord lives on one side of the duplex and the empty apartment is on the other. Since her husband had the keys with him and wasn't home, the landlady let us look at her home. It has the same floor plan on both sides. They are a family from India and really friendly. (Cheryl they are in good hands! She is a mom of 4 daughters and they are going to keep a close eye on the girls....maybe too close, but it won't hurt them...lol) It is a beautiful apartment and in the small backyard, they will have their own coconut and papaya trees! Pretty cool, Jessica!!!! The duplex is right across the street from the bakery where we bought bread and the local 'Walmart' which is called Pep....more like a Family Dollar Store, but it was fun calling it Walmart...I have to do word associations to remember sometimes.

Home again, home again, jiggedy jig and we fed the hungry men. Then we visited, rested and used the computer while the pastors talked again....we were so glad we didn't have to be in there! Nothing but pastor talk, blah blah blah, all day! (we can say that since we are their wives) The report was that it was a good meeting though. A family who are good friends of the Dina's came by this afternoon also to talk to the Johnsons, as have several Mozambican families this week. Everyone is so comforting and speak with such love for their son. It is a huge thing to them that we all came this far to visit.

We made a trip to do more errands with Wanne. I think trying to hold firm while going over the multitudes of potholes here really works the abs baby! Too bad we are eating so much to counteract it. Wanne is a great cook and is always whipping something else out to feed us....such a good hostess. These errands were paying a bill at the car insurance place, then picking up some supplies at a place that reminded me of Walgreens....shampoo, cleaning supplies and a few food items. It smelled really good because of the detergents. We have been given an abundance of bananas, so I was looking for something to make banana pudding and Diana found custard mix and a thin wafer cookie there so we got it. An adventure in translating measurements and we have a huge pudding to go with our barbecue for tonight. Everyone is outside cooking and talking so I will join them soon. I have to go and see what kinds of exotic things Wanne and John are cooking out there. Some of it will include coconut chicken, coconut shrimp, some kind of red meat that I think was reed buck, potato salad that Wanne made this afternoon and of course the puddin.

We are waiting for a missionary family who is driving through Mozambique on their way to move to South Africa. The Dina's have known them for years, so it will be a nice reunion of them tonight.

Gaining understanding and perspective

2010-08-05T08:43:00.000-07:00

Wednesday morning we began the day with Wanne's scrumptious coffee cake! It was my birthday and she made a special breakfast....she didn't even know coffee cake is one of my favorites. We headed out to a village just past the quelimane airport. The women's or youth's mission team went here to work when they were here. The houses are more spread out and there is tall grass, mango trees and gardens everywhere, then a hut, then more vegetation, another hut and so on....like a country village.

The church is large and made of mud, but another church building is almost built next to it. It is even more large and made of cement blocks. They make the blocks 2 at a time in molds kept by the stack of finished blocks in the current church. Cash is scarce this year, as the rice harvest was so bad, so the tithes of cash were next to none and the building and making of blocks has come to a halt until more money is available.

The youth worship team here was amazing. I took a short video, but it will only give you a taste of what it was like. Drums, yambi's (long flat shakers), dancing and really loud, beautiful singing....it was contagious and inspiring. There was a woman with short curly hair who lead the singing, the band and also kept shooing and shushing the little children who all sat in one place together on a mat. We called her Jackie Fry....music and children's leader. ;) The youth here all knew Jeremiah, they worked with him in other areas and played competitively with him in soccer. One of the young men got up to read the Johnsons a 2 page letter about Jeremiah's legacy and their experiences with him. It was beautiful and full of love, but half way through he had to put it down and dash from the church. He was so overcome with emotion that he cried the rest of the time we were there. Sobrinho and John both tried to console him, but he was very broken up.

I think Diana and I came to a conclusion on why Jeremiah fit in so well here. Even at our church in Phoenix, Jeremiah was loved from preschoolers to senior adults. I told Diana that I remember when I would talk to Jeremiah, it was like he was fully engaged in the conversation, not just nodding and enduring a conversation with an adult. He always seemed genuinely interested in whoever he was talking to.....what a gift to give to people. We talked about how awkward it is to be here going to villages each day, not being able to communicate with the people and just smiling and nodding a lot, then you are exhausted from it. Jeremiah didn't do that. He engaged people, played with them, didn't let language or culture separate him from them. I think that was what the secret was, because we've heard the people from the villages, time after time, give testimony on how he didn't stand alone, he was one of them. And I really think this was why they felt that. God equipped him just like they needed him to be. We are having amazing revelations here.....things are coming together and understanding is taking place. Another amazing gift. I'm so glad we came.

We took the Dinas out to dinner in the evening. Eating out in Quelimane is a little adventurous and a little scary. We went to the Quelimane Hotel and all was good, it was a very nice meal. I had something called escallope, which I was glad to find out was not an exotic animal, but something like chicken fried steak, salad and potatoes and rice. The restaurant is on the 7th floor and it has an outdoor balcony, so we stood out there for a while, looking at the city and the river front/bay area. Then we came home exhausted again to a birthday cake made by one of Wanne's missionary friends named Debbie, who is from Australia. So we had African chocolate birthday cake baked by an Aussie. Fun! (and yummy)

Orlando's church

2010-08-03T02:57:00.000-07:00

Orlando's church is not as far away as the other villages, but the dirt roads here are washed out from unseasonal rains with deep ruts and 'pot holes' that are more like small ponds filled with muddy water. Driving anywhere is slow going and I want to say bumpy, but there's got to be a more descriptive word....like jolting, body slamming or as if you were driving in a trampoline. Your body moves side to side and then back and forth. You discover body parts you never knew could jostle....or at least never felt before, like your liver and spleen. I know just where they are now and I also know it's best to not disturb them. It's not just a drive, it's a workout.

So....today I am home while the others are out to another village. My back felt stiff when I went to bed and when it loosened up around 3 am, it did not go well. This morning I am sitting in the Dinas very pleasant living room with high ceiling, open windows and chiming clock. I have a heat producing gel pack between the couch and my back and 4 ibuprofen floating around in my bloodstream being nice to me.

Earnesto, the house helper, has been busily washing up breakfast dishes, sweeping floors and is now running errands. He speaks only Portuguese and I only English but it only took us 3 or 4 minutes to communicate and understand that he was going out to run an errand. He is so nice, always smiling and busy and he stays later than he is supposed to most of the time. It looked like Wanne was fussing at him the other day and she explained that she was shooing him home. But I think he wants to be around the Johnsons too since he knew Jeremiah so well. They spent 3 long weeks here by themselves while the Dinas were gone last Spring and he loved Jeremiah. We learned this morning that Earnesto also helped with a new mission started recently here on the outskirts of Quelimane. He is not the pastor, but is a disciple and believer. The Dinas have a high respect for him.

I sure wish I knew some Portuguese to say some things to him. That is one of the most frustrating parts of being here for a short time, you cannot personally communicate with people and you want to. In every village, forging along down roads, in the shops in town, you can see so clearly that these people on the other side of the world are exactly the same as people in your own culture. Humanity is a common condition, with common habits, personalities and love of friends and family.

Yes, and now on with the story. We arrived in Orlando's village, called Machimano in the Madal region, to singing. Their songs have verses and choruses and they have their own musical score, although it is not written down as far as I know. Most of the songs are in Shwabo, which is not usually written. Where I was sitting was right in front of the drum section. Two young men were on big normal looking drums that fit between your knees and are beaten with open hands. The other man was on a drum that was small and stood up on a stick. He beat that with two thick drumsticks. And though the drum he played was small....about 10 inches across....it was the loudest one. His arms went high into the air and came down with precision on that thing, beating a really enthusiastic rhythm for the singing. And all the time he played his little son, maybe a year old, sat at his side, never even blinking at the loudness or the wild arm swinging. He was almost an exact miniature of the drummer. Cute! At one point in the second song though, the people all just looked at him and the other drummer took the drumsticks and showed him how the song went. He tried again and another young man came up from the audience and took the drum and moved into that position to continue. He didn't look ashamed or embarrassed, he just scooted down the bench and clapped along. Later on after a few more songs, he silently went back and shoved the other guy out and continued playing.

As before the church members stood up and talked to the Johnsons about their son who they had come to know and love. Their admiration and honor of him really touched them. Juli McFadden said in one of her comments, "I knew God would show them amazing things that they would not know if they had not gone. (to Mozambique)" And He has. It has been amazing to hear it from the mouths of those who knew him here and see their love for him and how his influence is going on. They are so proud of how Jeremiah was letting God work through him.

Jose from Madumwe was there and added his testimony (Orlando is working with the church in Madumwe and discipling Jose). And Joao, a young man from Quelimane came with us this day. He works for SIL ministries and is college trained in Greek and Biblical studies, so he is helping translate parts of the Bible into Shwabo language for people to use in building up the churches there. Most people in these villages speak Shwabo and Portuguese, but Shwabo is their first language. He charged the church with this verse:

Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. 1 Corinthians 15:58

A few times when people here gave testimony John got very choked up and could not translate. Other times, he spoke too quietly for me to hear the translation, so maybe I will get some of those stories from him at a later time. But this service seemed to be especially meaningful for David and Diana. God is turning their sorrow into joy.....which reminds me of a story....

When we were having problems in Maputo airport, getting another flight to Quelimane, David and Charles met a man who worked there named Michael. Michael helped them with the changing of flights and would say things like "God bless you" or "God is good" and he was very kind and helpful. Then we saw Michael again at the boarding gate. This time he had a little extra time, so David and Charles talked to him more. They asked if he was a Christian (but they never told him the reason for their trip or anything about Jeremiah) and he was, so they told him they were pastors. At this, Michael looked up at them and said, "Oh! I have something for you!" He got out a slip of paper and wrote on one side 1 Corinthians 10:13, which says,

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

Then he turned the paper over and wrote Psalm 30:11, just writing the references for the verses, not the whole verse. David said he knew what 1 Corinthians 10:13 said, but what was Psalm 30:11? Michael looked at him and quoted,

You turned my wailing into dancing;

you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,

How absolutely, astoundingly COOL is our God to send us Michael, the prophet to encourage them like that? I'm telling you, this whole trip is full of little nuggets, but that one was huge.

One of the songs the people at Orlando's church sang was a simple chorus that talks about how there in no one like Jesus. I have looked and searched and there is no one like Jesus. They did motions of walking, of searching, of turning around to see, but there is no one they have found who is like Jesus.

Exactly.

Sunday in Africa

2010-08-02T06:52:00.000-07:00

This morning we traveled a long way...on dirt roads, paved one lane highways, and a very nice 2 lane highway that even had shoulder on each side to a place called Sopinho, a Monigan village where the Zambezi River meets the Indian Ocean. This is the village Jeremiah and Sobrinho were traveling back from when their accident happened. Jeremiah and Sobrinho came here in February and Jeremiah started playing soccer and gathering a crowd, as was his part of the job, and Sobrinho the evangelist would preach when the game was done. This community of believers has grown since Jeremiah's death until today Jeremiah's father, David and Charles came and baptized 17 new believers. All new Christians and all came to know Christ because of Jeremiah opening the door to the community with his soccer ball.

They welcomed us with song as we got out of the truck and sang as we walked to the beach for the baptisms. I really want to add here that these African pastors, under John Dina's lead, really prepare the new Christians before baptism. They come each week and have classes and ask the people questions about their understanding of the things they've learned. They fully realize the concept of salvation through Jesus' sacrifice and baptism being a public way of showing what's happened inside them. The new believers lined up 2 by 2 on the beach and walked in to Charles and David, where the pastors prayed for them and baptized them in the cold brown water of the Zambezi River, while all around them people washed things and brought in their fishing nets and boats. They came up from the water and were met with open arms and smiling faces to hug and kiss them, celebrating this public commitment.....very joyful!

It's not an easy commitment here. One man was a convert out of Islam. He even went to his Muslim leaders and turned in his hat and robe. They told him it would not go well for him, but so far there has not been a problem. He told the pastors that he used to live in constant worry that he was not doing enough to be right with God--that he would not make it into heaven. But now, hearing the gospel and putting his faith in Christ, he is fully at peace with this new faith and his eternal destiny. The Holy Spirit and the confidence the Scriptures give has transcended culture and background. It is a real faith and affects all who give their lives to Him in similar ways.

When one of the pastors was talking about Jeremiah's death four women began sobbing and covered their faces with their capelanas. They deeply loved Jeremiah there, the foreigner who became one of them. (common phrase we heard over and over about him) One of the women had cooked many times for Jeremiah and that boy loved to eat, so she especially had a connection with him. She gave her life to Christ and is now trying to give up alcohol, which is an addiction for her. She was baptized today along with the others and is fully committed to this new church.

When Jeremiah didn't show up for his usual Tuesday visit, the women knew something was wrong. And when one of the African pastors came to tell them of his death, the women knew and were crying before he even told them. The church there grieved, but they told the African pastors that they were going to continue in the faith and go forward as a church. John was explaining the other day that a person who has died has a special honor and respect, more so than when they were alive. A light came on in my mind. I asked John if Jeremiah's death made the message he brought even more strong among these people and he just said, "Definitely!"

It also dawned on me this day that Jeremiah's playful spirit, which got him in trouble all his life, is what God used to gain acceptance, welcome and entrance in these villages. And because of his death, the message he brought here is stronger and more respected, more so than if he had just come, been loved and then gone home. Even though his life was a short 21 years and his work in Africa was a short 4 months, the reward and the fruit Jeremiah brings with him to the throne will speak for itself. "Well done, good and faithful servant."

It is all for Christ.

Jesus is worthy of our lives, our all.

He can use anyone who decides to obey.

Saturday morning

2010-07-31T07:34:00.000-07:00

God's loyal love couldn't have run out,
   his merciful love couldn't have dried up.
They're created new every morning.
   How great your faithfulness!
I'm sticking with God (I say it over and over).
   He's all I've got left.

Lamentations 3:22-24 (The Message)

We woke up this morning to the Mozambique alarm clock, John singing loudly in Portuguese by our bedroom door. Charles was late getting up and the men were leaving in 10 minutes to go on another long day of traveling and teaching. He jumped out of bed, flipped on the light and dressed quickly and sleepily. Coffee and pancakes and he was out the door.

I got up too because I thought it was funny and once my interest is peaked, I am awake. Our agenda for the women today was to rest and shop. We did both, plus a lot of good visiting. We went with Wanne to her grocery store (pics later) and to do some errands, and we went to the cappelana store, where we bought some beautiful Moz fabrics. The missionaries here all know each other and are good friends, so we stopped by two missionary homes and had a short visit at each. One of them was a home Jeremiah went to a lot as they have sons, and we will go back there this week for dinner some evening.

The streets in town are MUDDY and lots of puddles that are more like ponds, so we are wondering how the men are doing with all their driving on the back roads today. We're hoping they don't have any extreme adventures in driving stories to share when they are back.

After lunch, Wanne went to get her hair done at a neighbor's home and we have been resting, blogging and listening to the neighborhood sounds, as well as to the Dina boys quietly playing guitar and enjoying being home on a school break. We love that they are here for our visit. We miss you too Hannah (Dina)....wish you were here.

I smell cooking, so I'd better go and help. To our families and friends: We know you're all praying and waiting to hear about the trip, so we are trying our best to keep up with this. We love you!

Villages on the coast-part 2

2010-07-31T07:12:00.000-07:00

Back in the truck after being where Jeremiah had the accident and hearing about it, the mood was quiet and thoughtful. John pointed out things along the way and soon we were out of town, turning onto a dirt road and into another world.

Tall grass grew on both sides of the rutted road. Tree branches would sometimes swipe the side of the car and come into the windows a little. Once Diana got a wet mango branch to the side of the head, sending little tiny blossoms into her hair and all over the seat and our clothes. We smelled of blossoms the rest of the day.

People walked along the road and had to step off into the tall grass when we passed by. Men roade bicycles (women are rarely on a bicycle, except when being given a ride by a man), women walked, a lot of them with big baskets on their heads. They carried sticks, garden tools, supplies and food in the baskets and there were babies swaddled onto their backs. The areas alongside the road that were cleared were planted with family gardens, long rows of mounded dirt with deep furrows between them, women hoeing or harvesting. The women here do tend the gardens and walk a long way from village to garden, such hard work.....just a normal day to them. Lots of beans, lettuce, squash and root vegetables were growing. People we passed had two reactions....either they stared and scowled at us or they smiled and waved. Most of the children run away. We smiled and waved and called "bon dia" as we passed.

Our first stop was Orlando's church. They have a large mud hut building, situated in a pleasant, clean village....very orderly and well kept. I cannot imagine that keeping a mud hut village neat is an easy job, but you can tell there is a sense of pride and ownership with the people here and they even had some bushes and plants growing around their huts sometimes. We just visited a few minutes before piling Orlando and several youth into the truck. (I just asked Wanne and she said there were about 9 people in the bed of the truck, while Orlando sat in the cab with us.) This was Jeremiah's normal routine. He and Sobrinio would ride the motorcycle here, then meet Orlando. Then the guys on the motor cycle would ride ahead, then wait for Orlando to catch up on foot. They told us a funny story about how one day they waited and waited for Orlando, but he never came, so they went back. But Orlando had come and gone to the village leaders home to get permission and they missed each other so Orlando and the village leader were waiting on Jeremiah and Sobrinio who never came. He and Sobrinio just laughed and laughed at that. I think he thought Jeremiah was impatient. ;)

We visited two more small villages that day. Both of them were preaching points that Jeremiah and Sobrinio had started by gaining favor and welcome with the soccer ball. We met Jose (pronounced Jo-shway) at Madumwe, where he became Jeremiah's first convert. Two other men came to know Christ there too and now there are several more who meet with them regularly to study the Bible with Orlando and worship under a large mango tree along the road into their village. We would come back there for lunch, so we just introduced ourselves and went on to Palani, a little more primitive village, but the people there sang and talked to us about Jeremiah and what he'd meant to them. It means so much to the David and Diana to hear it all and see the places their son came here to serve.

While we were in Palani, we took a walk down to the river because Jeremiah had told them stories about how he'd had to leave his motorcycle and wade through the mud to get to another place, you may remember his stories too. On our walk we were joined by some drunken men, who were kind of poking fun at the 'preachers', John, Charles and David. He was a minor distraction to us, but the men of the village were embarrassed by him and asked him to leave. John said their drug problem there stems mainly from homemade alcohol. They make it from the sugar cane that grows abundantly here.

Having been traveling a bumpy road all day, I finally decided that it was a good time to get an education in the squatty potty. Their bathrooms are just straw walls and the ground. They used a bucket of water to kind of rinse the ground several times a day. This one was actually upgraded with two flat rocks to balance on and a pot of water to wash your hands in after balancing practice. Wanne was so nice to remind us to wear skirts this day (squatty potties in mind)....much easier than jeans in such a situation.

....and back to the story....

We went back to Madumwe, where Jose had his people preparing lunch for us and had logs to use as benches, chairs for us guests, and a mango tree for shade. We sang and the three men who had known Jeremiah gave testimony about his work there. Then began a discussion about church growth. We felt as if we'd walked in to a building committee meeting in an American church. It all began because Jose was apologized profusely for not having a roof over us (as it was raining lightly). Orlando and John gave him lectures about how your shoes can be muddy but if you just talk about it, they stay muddy. Something like that....it was comical to me as Wanne was interpreting it, but Jose had serious tears in his eyes and shame on his face about the whole situation. He was deeply ashamed and embarrassed. The other 2 men from that village who were also converts just hung there heads and nodded. Orlando told them he would come and help them and bring other men if they would just gather materials and get some land to put it on. Jose admitted that there were women who were believers and wanted to come to learn with them, but it was dishonorable to just sit out in the air with no roof for such a thing.....this is their custom.

Jose quickly ran to his home and arranged with his wife, who is not a believer and did not seem very into the idea, to have us come to their home to eat the lunch his people had prepared. His home was interesting, as it was a mud hut, but it had nice wooden doors and windows built into the mud walls and he had a tin roof instead of straw.

Very interesting happenings to witness. I loved seeing all of it and we prayed for Jose's family to be brought into faith in Christ as we ate and visited there.

We were kind of afraid of what the lunch would be. We had passed several places in these villages where little tiny fish were lying out in the open air on mats, drying. I really started getting nervous that we would see something like that on our plates. But we didn't. They served us a very nice meal of rice and stewed chicken. The stewed chicken was not tough like the roasted kind we had the previous day. So relieved.

After that village, John drove his fully loaded truck....15 of us in all I think, to the beach. We drove out across a long plain with coconut trees waving in the wind and finally came up on a large berm that went down onto the sandy beach. We climbed down and went out to the water, it was so beautiful. I will post pictures later when I am home. The coconut trees grow right up to the beach and there were old wooden fishing boats along the shore, waiting for high tide and fishermen to ride out again into the ocean.

God's love and His work among these people is so apparent when you are here. I have heard each person who comes back to our church from here talk about how they would come back anytime they could to this place. And now I understand that feeling.

God is here in Mozambique and the harvest is ready.

Villages on the coast-part 1

2010-07-31T06:17:00.000-07:00

Today John really gave us a workout. We all piled into the truck-6 adults in the double cab and Sobrinio and the Dina boys, Andrew and Matthew were in the covered bed of the truck on wooden benches. We were prepared for a long day of driving and visiting.

Our first stop was along the road that leads out of Quelimane to the villages. This was the road Jeremiah would drive out of town on as he made his way out to the villages where he worked. It was paved, but really only a bit wider than a single lane road. The edges of the road were eroded and dropped off just a few inches to the flat dirt on both sides. The dirt on either side of the road was about 10 feet wide, very normal looking. Small businesses lined the road, lots of people walked and rode bicycles along it. We pulled over by a lumber supply yard onto the dirt alongside of the road and got out. This was the place where Jeremiah's accident happened. We just stared at the road....nothing dangerous looking. It was not as you would picture the scene of a fatal accident. John showed us where the motorcycle had fallen, where he found it when he had come back with the police later. Sobrinio remained silent and somber. Emotions were sad. There was a huge sense of "how could this happen".

It just did...it happened.

The hospital was not far away. Jeremiah was alive (yet not talking or responsive) when he'd lain in this spot, but had passed away by the time the driver got him to the hospital. Sobrinio does not remember much, just that when he opened his eyes and looked at his friend, Jeremiah could not talk and laid there quietly, probably in shock.

We talked a lot about trusting God the rest of the day, even the villagers we met talked of trusting God with this. We can only guess on any reasons God would let this happen, but really no one can know or understand the mind of God....how He works and what His plans include or why.

We do trust God. I think all of us do here on this visit. It is good though, it's healing in fact, to reaffirm this trust with God and each other after a senseless event happens and it shakes us to the core.

I remembered Sobrinio's encouragement to us just the day before at the memorial service was this:

Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

Sobrinio part 2

2010-07-29T14:20:00.000-07:00

I wanted to include some other stories of the day but the previous post was turning into a novel.

After the testimonies and singing, the church men brought the Johnsons a gift, an offering....much like people bring food to a grieving family's home. Except they brought in a live chicken....a rooster. The rooster looked as shocked as we were and we all teased David that it was a new alarm clock because he had overslept that morning. He had to accept it and hold it and it was flapping around.....such comic relief for a heavy visit. The boys named the chicken Rojo on their ride back home in the back of the truck with him. And by the way, Rojo is no more....may he rest in gravy. ;)

We broke for lunch at Sobrinio's church to find some men climbing a coconut tree and dropping them to the ground with a thud you could feel under your feet. They cut the tops off of some as appetizers for us. We drank the 'milk' (which was clear) from the coconut, then ate the flesh inside of them with spoons. I drank some of mine, then poured the rest into my almost empty water bottle. Then the church men brought out a huge platter of rice, pinto beans and chicken. We learned later how bad the rice crop had been this year. Sobrinio's family didn't even get a grain of rice from their crop and this is their staple food. They were so happy to offer us a huge platter of it though. We enjoyed the lunch very much and were blessed to have it.

On the way home Sobrinio wanted us to stop by his home for a visit. His family had been at the meeting. His beautiful and outgoing wife sat with their nursing baby while she led out in songs and gave testimony about Jeremiah. Their 3 other children sat on a large grass mat on the floor of the church with some other children and sang with their whole selves the songs, clapping, swaying and singing. He lives quite a ways from his church in another coconut grove in a mud house. It was very small but wonderful. Usually they visit outside the homes, but Marada (?) invited us in and we sat on large grass mats in her front room while we visited, asked questions and took pictures of the family. (we'll be posting pictures after we get home)

As we sat there inside Sobrinio's home, I felt such peace and comfort there. It is a blessed home. Just being committed enough to actually marry a woman is a huge decision in Mozambique. He is such an example to have such a home and family. It is not the norm. In fact this morning as the men introduced themselves, some would say their name, followed by "and I am married". It's something John is really trying to emphasize in the churches here.

To make a living Sobrinio rides his bicycle 20+ miles each way to buy charcoal to sell. He makes a profit of $2 per bag of charcoal and he can only manage 2 bags per trip on his bicycle. We hear stories of people living like this, but here we were being treated so well, sitting inside his home with his family on straw mats. And they were so proud to have us there. Peace and joy are theirs....it is so apparent.

Lord help me to know contentment.

We have a long day of traveling tomorrow to see the beach villages where Jeremiah loved to go and where several have become Christians. We get to attend a baptism on the weekend of some of the people Jeremiah helped lead to Christ.

The journey has been amazing....I can't think of a better word.

Sobrinio part 1

2010-07-29T13:56:00.000-07:00

After our warm bran muffins and fruit this morning, we headed out to visit a local pastor at his church and home. Sobrinio was Jeremiah's language and cultural mentor. They were very close-like brothers. Sobrinio was on the back of Jeremiah motorcycle when they had the accident and Sobrinio was so traumatized that he could not speak for days afterwards. And although his physical wounds are healed, his heart is heavy with grief for his lost partner. I think this visit with David and Diana will really help him to have some closure and relief from such a heavy burden. He is a dear man and loves the Lord and to serve, keep him in your prayers.

We met in their church building....a mud structure with a straw roof and beautifully set in a coconut grove. As we entered they were singing. John would try to help us understand the meanings of the songs....some in Portuguese, but most in Shwabo language (I know I spelled that wrong, but I can't find it on google and everyone is in bed). They sang worship songs and grieving, funeral songs. And in between the songs people from that church would stand up and tell the Johnsons their stories and thoughts about Jeremiah. It was so hard not to just lay down our heads and sob as we listened. They loved that boy so much and they knew he loved them. Here are a few of the things I remember them saying as John translated:

*He became one of us. He did not separate himself from u s, but was like one of us.

*He was a son to me. Another said he was like a brother.

*He spoke to all, not just to a few, he was a friend to all.

*He ran....he ran ....he ran. (this was in reference to how Jeremiah could play soccer)

*One man told about going to a village where the people ran away from Jeremiah and Sobrinio. While Sobrinio went to talk with the village leader about why they were there, Jeremiah got out the soccer ball and began people started coming back toward him. When Sobrinio came back Jeremiah was talking and playing with the people and they had such a welcome into their village. One man was saved that afternoon while then men talked with the people. Jeremiah's playfulness had opened a door to that community.

*Sobrinio told of how Jeremiah would try anything, even things Sobrinio felt bad about him doing, like wading through deep mud or riding on a tiny canoe with no complaining, just a big heart and adventurous spirit.

*A lot of the people expressed their thanks to the Johnsons for letting Jeremiah come to them.

*A lot of them said they did not understand why God let this happen, but they know it was for a reason. They are learning to trust God with the future, but they were so sad from grief at the same time. And they were so sad for the Johnsons losing their son.

*A few of them spoke so confidently of their assurances of Jeremiah being with the Lord and that they looked forward to seeing him again one day with the Lord.

So overwhelming. I would look over at Diana and David sometimes during all of this and wonder if it was too much, but the only look on their faces was hunger to hear more stories about what their son had done during his time in Africa. What a gift for them to hear the stories directly from the people he had worked with half way around the world.

It was a wrenching good day. I think you know what I mean.

Quelimane, Mozambique

2010-07-29T13:32:00.000-07:00

Smooth sailing on Wednesday morning as we made our way to Quelimane from Maputo. The plane we flew on was a little (lot) larger than the tiny prop plane the previous day. Mostly filled with Africans, there were a few missionary types as well as business people on board. So far the Africans we have seen are as western looking as we are, that was surprising. There were noticeably less things like ipods and laptops on this flight and I felt kind of uncomfortable getting mine out, but I did. Simon and Garfunkel were my private soundtrack to this leg of the trip and as I listened to Bridge Over Troubled Water and Homeward Bound, I said a silent prayer for these people to know the Savior.

As we landed, we realized we were not in Quelimane but Charles recognized it as Tete. Like a bus we stopped to let people off and on except we all had to disembark while the transfer took place. While we were waiting we met a missionary from Cape Town, who was coming to Quelimane for a week to help with a project here. She said she had actually been praying for the Johnsons because their church knew of his accident. So we introduced her to the Johnsons, she was full of compassion and I think it was a meaningful connection to meet a random person who had been praying for them.

After three days of travel, the Dina family looked like angels standing at the gate to meet us. We kind of air hugged through the fence, and they took us and all the luggage in two cars back to their home. Orlando and Sobrinio two of the pastors John Dina is close to were at the house to meet us. They were quiet and somber, talking a little bit through John's interpretation. These two worked closely, daily with Jeremiah and it was obvious they were still deeply affected by the past 3 months.

I have to add here that being in the Dina's home is just like being home. It is comfortable, there are places to gather and talk all you want and there are places to retreat and be quiet. Most of all though, the atmosphere the family has created is very loving and peaceful, very much a retreat. Wanne made us stroganoff, but it wasn't beef, it was reed buck stroganoff. All of their meat is game meat that John hunts. It was so good! They visited with us until late in the evening as our eyes got more and more heavy.

We're in Africa--we are using a wireless laptop and eating reed buck stroganoff in Africa!

--and we are so thankful to be here.

The Journey

2010-07-29T08:57:00.000-07:00

I am quickly writing my first Africa trip post in my spiral blog.....a spiral notebook with a real ball point pen. This is how people used to blog before technology made pens and paper seem like a lot of work. My handwriting has clearly suffered from lack of practice. We are sitting on a little prop plane.

Yes, that's right.....a prop plane that is very similar to the one Charles told me we would not have to ride on. Very interesting that we missed our original flight and are now on what I had dreaded flying on. I think sometimes God just chuckles at the way we think we have everything planned and organized.

We think it is Tuesday afternoon, but not being sure feels very strange. We have felt strange the whole way, fish out of water in so many ways. I guess that is what it's like when you travel the world....different languages, customs, food, conveniences or lack of. It is now 28 hours into the journey and we are in Johannesburg, South Africa, wondering what to do. Our flight from London was delayed because a little engine at the back of the plane was not working. The pilot assured us that this engine was not in any way involved in flying the airplane, it just pumped air into the cabin while idling on the ground. It also had something to do with getting the plane to the runway. Once the plane's jet engines were on, this little engine turned off. After an hour waiting in a very stuffy airplane cabin, they told us it was an easy fix....a breaker had blown. We were now on our way, but we were not going to make our connecting flight to Maputo once we arrived in Jo-burg.

We had just spent about 5 hours running (literally runnnning) around London with friends of the Johnsons, the pastor of William Cary Baptist Church (which really was William Cary's church before he left to begin the modern day mission movement...how cool is that!) and his wife. Very fun and joyful people and they invited us to come stay with them if we ever came back this way. We made fast friends with them while we tried to see some sights. Her Majesty was out of town for tea, so we just had some fish and chips together before heading back to the airport. We rode the Tube (London Subway) and I listened to the Headphones song while we sped underneath modern day London. It was all very surreal and went by too fast for my brain to process much of it.

So after a couple of hours of trying to get the prop plane out on the runway....sound familiar?....we finally were on the way to Maputo, where yes, we had already missed our connecting flight to Quelimane. We would have to wait there over night until the next flight, which was in the morning. The airline paid our expenses and put us in a very nice hotel in Maputo overnight. It was wonderful to have a shower and sleep horizontally, in a bed even, before we went to greet the Dinas. A missionary there named Steve gave us a ride to and from the airport. It's a cool city, right on a water front, and the hotel was really nice.

We are almost there and even though it's been 48+ hours, we feel like the journey has not even started yet.

David Johnson told us their verse they have clung to lately and for this trip:

Psalm 30:11-12

You turned my wailing into dancing;

you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,

that my heart may sing to you and not be silent.

O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever.

I have a 7 page spiral blog post coming up just about today, but I'll have to type it later. I am hogging the computer now and need to share. So hopefully it will be up tomorrow.

Into Africa

2010-07-24T17:11:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow evening my Charles and I and David and Diana Johnson will get on a really huge plane and fly nine hours to London. Then 6 hours later, having run through as much of London as we possibly can in 6 hours, we will get on a large plane and fly 11 hours to Johannesburg. We will only have time to look out the airport windows at Jo-burg while dashing to our next flight.....a small puddle jumper ride 2 hours to Maputo, Mozambique, Africa. We have a few hours there so we will be greeted and shown around by a kind missionary named Charlie (everyone who flies through Maputo on mission trips gets to meet Charlie I think) until it is time for our final (oh gee, that is a really bad word to use) flight to get us to Quelimane, Mozambique on a little prop plane. I think it also takes a couple of hours.

Thirty six hours of traveling in all. We are going to love seeing John, Wanne and their boys, but I think by then all we will want to see is the inside of our eyeballs while lying down in a bed.

Our mission is to bring the Johnsons over and accompany them as they see the places their son lived and ministered before he died. The only thing on our itinerary while we are there is for some good visiting with the Dinas (the missionaries there) and to see the places Jeremiah worked, lived and people he knew while he was there.

We're praying (please join us)....for some further closure for these two families, the Johnsons and the Dinas, healing and comfort for their minds and hearts.

And for that prop plane.....

Okay, disclaimer everyone: Charles read the post and said I was wrong (thankfully so). He said all of our planes are jets. No prop planes or puddle jumpers. This information would have saved me several nights of tossing and turning the past week thinking of the trip. aaarg!

If he is wrong, I'm going to smack him.

Everybody say YES....yes to VBS

2010-07-22T15:34:00.000-07:00

When I got my enrollment sheet last Monday, the first day of Vacation Bible School, I just cringed. I had all boys.....second grade boys. But now, 3 days later, I have to say, this has been one of the best VBS's I've been involved in. (I did get 2 girls in my class too.) Although they've been squirrely a lot of the time, I don't know if I've ever had a class in VBS in which every child really seems to be having some significant spiritual growth and hunger.

We sing this song as our special tonight at the program, so we've been practicing it a lot. Every time they sing it and I watch their faces, a sob rises up in my throat. Each one is singing with their whole heart and not thinking about who is next to them but singing to God. These days there are a lot of families who do not attend church, even if the parents do believe in Christ and I think it is such a loss for their children. Being together to study the Bible on their level, singing songs of worship and letting them explore God's Word ignites a flame and burns within them their whole lives. Only one of the children in my class actually goes to our church. A couple of the others go to other churches, but most of them do not attend anywhere.

My prayer is that their parents will see a spiritual hunger in their singing tonight and realize how important it is to bring them up in an atmosphere that sparks into flame the interest they naturally have in God at this age. The teachings this week centered around the themes in this song and wow, did they get it.

Watch the link. The man leading the song on the video writes all the music for Lifeway Vacation Bible School and does a great job. Just imagine children doing the motions and singing with all their hearts. See if you get the sob thing.

Payson, AZ 2010

2010-07-16T18:10:00.000-07:00

Finally, the pictures are all uploaded and ready. Here is our last week:

Little cabin in the woods

2010-07-01T22:23:00.000-07:00

I am back from my sister's cabin. It was very relaxing. I'm glad to be home though and soon (late tonight) my husband and 2 teen daughters will get home from youth camp. Bethany gets home tomorrow night from helping at kids' camp. Hannah flies in next Wednesday to spend a week with us back up at the cabin. All together....the whole family.

Like.

My week at the cabin with my sister, her 4 year old son and my dog included:
-Answering 4 year old nephew's endless questions, also enjoying his observations on dogs and life.
-Taking walks with my dear dog...lots of walks because she can't be trusted off the leash in the woods. We walked and I chanted, "go potty, good girl, potty time now, this looks like a good spot, go for it, potty potty."
-While doing the last walk of the day, we heard coyotes howling and yipping all around our area one night....very cool, but creepy at the same time. Maisy wasn't sure what to think but ran in the house pretty fast when we got to the porch. I don't think she is ready to answer the call of the wild.
-Watched movies after nephew went to bed each evening.
-I took a bubble bath in the claw foot tub. =)
-Went plant shopping at the local Walmart garden dept. We bought lots of flowering plants for the cabin's front gardens. We bought lots of perennial things and deer/bunny resistant plants and then spent a long morning planting them all. There will be people there consistently for the next few weeks, so we can get them hardy before Larry and Becky come back from vacation. Lavender, salvia, dianthus, marigolds, day lillies, some ground cover things with little flowers, black eyed susans, an oriental poppy plant, a gardenia plant and some portulaca. I hope they like it, it was fun to do!
-Eating breakfast on the back deck, reading our Bibles and spending time with God in His creation and keeping afternoon watch on the front porch, watching thunderstorms move in the last 2 days.
-Visited Bethany at the kid's camp. The camp is about 12 miles from the cabin. All the adults at the camp were telling me what a great help Bethany is and we saw it all first hand. She was busy helping to do a variety of things. We were also told this by people from our church when she helped last week at our kids' camp....AND the owner/caretaker of the camp was bragging about Bethany at a wedding we went to over the weekend. Very proud and happy to see her doing what she's gifted to do....hundreds of things all at the same time, organizing, keeping track of things and helping kids to have a great camp experience.
-Ate pretty healthy all week except for the brownies and ice cream but had a Lenny's burger on the way home. I now have heartburn.

And now catching up on the local news because we didn't see any news all week.

Also my husband just called and there is a detour on I-10 which is going to put them home in the wee hours of the morning. At which time I will be expected to drive over to the church and pick them up.

I need a bubble bath.

Emerging

2010-06-21T22:50:00.000-07:00

We had a new visitor in church yesterday.

My husband was preaching a sermon to the fathers and future fathers in the congregation, challenging them to become a godly, loving, purposeful example of a father to their children. Very good, very encouraging...

Then I saw the man next to me stifle a laugh while looking up past my husband who was wrapping up his Father's Day sermon. Following his gaze, I saw a blip on the white wall near the top of the baptistry. The men in our church just finished remodeling the front and it looks great, tall white walls sweep up to the dark black ceiling. Between the walls is a stone work embellished baptistry. Very nice. While I was watching, the blip started moving. It was a bug, but it wasn't crawling, it was kind of inching very slowly upwards, caterpillar-ish maybe? It was right in the path of the spotlight that lights up the back wall. I noticed this because the tiny thing was casting a shadow that would get big and short, then long and thin. The shadow of it's head would go back and forth, caricatured by the shadow.

I did keep trying to look away from it and concentrate on the sermon, but I kept staring at it, drawn to the ridiculous. Then it was time to pray. And the only thing I could think of was keeping my eyes closed even-if-it-was-a-winged-bug-and-it-suddenly-flew-into-my-hair. It didn't, thankfully. But it was gone when I did open my eyes. I had to ask Alyssa where it had gone because I saw her watching it too. She said it crawled onto the black ceiling....

....where I can only assume it will spin a cocoon. I was musing with Charles today that by next Sunday we will have a beautiful butterfly flying around the sanctuary.

A sermon in itself, yes? Transformed fathers....maybe it was a word picture, a prophetic sign. Pity if it was just a bug.

Father's Day 2010

2010-06-20T15:30:00.000-07:00

The kids for Kids' camp left after church, so we had to run our kids to get lunch at McD's, wait for the pastor to finish talking to people, then we were going to go out to eat on the way home. I asked him to choose the place, even Denny's if he so chose (I don't like Denny's except for breakfast, so it was a real sacrifice on my part) But no, he chose Schlotzkey's....yuck! I only go there with him when I really like him a lot. And he was really cute today and it is Father's Day...so.....there we were.

It was so funny, we had to get the Johnsons to sign their passports so that we could get our visas for the trip to Africa. After trying to get them on the phone, we finally decided to go ahead to lunch and left the passports with Bethany there at church, where they would eventually end up since David is going with the Kids' Camp kids to be pastor for the week. We get to Schlotzkey's and they were there!! How odd! It was only us, them and a few other couples in the whole place! Diana said they were eating there only because it was Father's Day too....she doesn't like it either I guess! I was so cracking up!

And now Charles is settled happily watching golf (oh my, what a confusing sentence, sad sad sentence). Happy Father's Day Charles. I can't believe what wonderful children we raised. Thank you for being a great father to them and husband to me.

Truly. Thank you.

Pitiful bragging

2010-06-19T15:27:00.000-07:00

Today.....laundry, Gilmore Girls season 2, discs 1 & 2, cleaned out hall closet (full of blankets slopped onto shelves), board games and gift wrapping paraphernalia, and vacuum accessories. pfft! Now all the blankets are neat and on correct shelf, games are back with all their pieces and wayward gift bags are in one large bag hanging on the rack.

I walked by the closed closet a few minutes ago and I heard faint singing "I feel pretty! Oh so pretty!" (I only report it people, I don't judge) My sewing machine is in that closet too and so I got it out and sewed some clothing that had rips. Cheryl will be so proud of me!

So now the mending is done but still out on the dining room table, laundry is all over the dining room chairs and the kitchen is full of food people bring in but can't fit into the fridge. (see post below)

But my closet is pretty! Oh so pretty!

crickl's nest

It's 4:44 and I'm Jonesing the Mojo

High Places

The Sovereign LORD is my strength;he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,he enables me to tread on the heights. Hab 3:19

Several Drummers Leaping/Piping/Dancing?

Day 5 almost finishes us was fun!

Best quote of the day.... Gabriel: Sam, you're on MY team (light saber in hand) Sam: Okay, who's on the other team? Gabriel: The grown ups!

The 4th Day of Emma

Three days of fun.....

On the second day of Emma...

Twelve Days: Homecoming

Falalalala...lalalalaaaa

Our finest gifts we bring pah rum pah pum pum

Scrambling up the holidays

Conspiracy 2011

-->Military Mom<--

Unity Like Soup \o/

Love and Prayer

Coming Together

What does it mean to be blessed?

Acclimating

Big Soft Ginger Cookies....and dumplings

Finding Beauty

I'm feeling the birthday love

I'd rather have salsa

Wordless Wednesday - Before and After

Youth Camp this week!

Ministry of the small

Wordless Wednesday-Summer vacation

Wordless Wednesday-Summertime

Africa and Phoenix need the Lord

Scotch Cake

You can be free indeed...

Point me...in the direction of Albuquerque...

Distractingly Perfect morning

Funny Honey

Thanksgiving Practice

Ministry of silence

Fragrant Life

Anxiety and contentment

Excuses and stuff

Laying it down

Catching up

Past and present anticipation

Psalm 96:11-13 NLT

The daily touch

Crazy Love

Swirling restless stacks of ...ehn!

An honor

Jesus in every book of the Bible

Word of the year

Epicness

Sister Day 2010

Gingerbread guy party

I hear rustling....

Gift suggestions

Bad Nativities

I need a silent night...

Conspiracy 2010

A celebration and a perspective

Thankful Thursday

All in

Prayer and surprises

Got blessings?

Finally fall...?

When young men stumble and fall...

Of heart attacks and days gone wild

Thank you, November 3!

Rewards of a life well lived

A month of thankfulness

Secret gifts

Kettle corn

The van

Wordless Wednesday: Does this spark any memories?

I think I just had an apostrophe!

God hears

Reptilian floral arrangements

RSSes

Bloglines?

...cupcakes and muzzles

The Sovereign LORD is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to tread on the heights. Hab 3:19

Best quote of the day....
Gabriel: Sam, you're on MY team (light saber in hand)
Sam: Okay, who's on the other team?
Gabriel: The grown ups!