Kenya Believe It?

Please pray for Jade.

He has been called to go on a long short-term mission (or a short long-term mission, depending on how you look at it) to Kenya.

He is stepping out in faith believing that 'where God guides, God provides' and trusting that he will be able to make all the details come together to go.

He has already started a blog.

Go to it here and sign up to FOLLOW it (and get notified every time he updates it).

Pray for wisdom for him.

Pray for God's guidance for him in all the preparation & decisions.

Pray for provision (of money, insurance, housing, travel, etc.).

Pray for discernment.

Pray for health & safety (yes, even starting now).

Pray for travel details.

Pray in advance for all the people he will be serving.

Pray for the relationships he will make.

Pray for his Spiritual discipline and diligence (now and while there).

Pray to see if the Lord is leading you to support him financially, prayerfully, and/or emotionally.  (Your support letter will be coming SOON!)

Oh, and um... pray for his PARENTS (who love having him on the same CONTINENT)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Would you trust this guy on a mission trip?

(hahaha!!!)

Resurrection Day 09

HE IS RISEN.

HE IS RISEN INDEED!

When the kids were little, we went to the "Easter House" (Gram & Pop's house in Canyon Lake) Thursday, Friday, Saturday. We did the "bunny" and candy and baskets on Saturday. Then Sunday we did Church, Resurrection, and Family.

Once Canyon Lake was sold, we still spent friday night at Grampie & Grammie's and did eggs, candy, bunny, basket on Saturday.

But as the kids got older, a whole WEEKEND was not as appreciated... so we have just been going over Saturday early in the morning. This year we didn't even head over until 9:30.

And now, this might have been our last Saturday.

We might now just be doing Sundays from here on out.

And how do you motivate a 21 year old (in college and with a job), an 18 year old (with a car who is learning appliance repair), a 15 year old (with a driver's permit and an engraved "forever" ring), and a 13 year old (with eye liner and lip gloss) to hunt for eggs???

(Miss M in her gift: a new sun dress from Urban Outfitters)

PUT MONEYIN THEM!!!!!!!!

There were 21 color coded eggs for each kid... they each had $1 in them except one had $5.

And guess what?

Surprisingly, this year they were such devoted searchers, they found almost all of them!

(Jade found all of his!)

Grammie made a delectable brunch (she even made a lower calorie version of her amazingly fatty Egg & Cheese Strata... still pretty good!).

(Grammie opening birthday gifts.)

We hung out until the complaining got unbearable "Can we go home?" / "We have been here 5 hours" / "Is it almost time to leave?" / "What time are we going?" / "It has been 7 hours" etc. that we eventually left.

We went to Sunday morning "sunrise service" at 7AM (when the sun was already *ahem* long since risen!). Although it was beautiful and wonderful to be outside and the sun did eventually warm everything up, it was freezing

(At church at 7AM... brrrrr.)

and we were under-prepared since the website specifically said the service was in the Sanctuary (bummer).

(FREEZING Deevs!)

(We felt bad, some little girls and teenagers were in tiny little sun dresses!) Pastor Tom taught and Tim Davis sang. We had some "Agnus Dei", "Our God is an Awesome God", and "Jesus Paid it All".

We came home and had a breakfast of oatmeal with fruit (back on our low-cal "A" game as D puts it).

(A little breakfast silliness: "Can you touch your nose with your tongue?")

Now relaxing and have some computer time.

Maybe dog beach or movie or hike later?

HAPPY Easter.

****************************************

EASTER IS COMING BIBLE VERSES:

Col 1:20-22

In Christ "God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of his blood on the cross. This includes you who were once so far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions, yet now he has brought you back as his friends. He has done this through his death on the cross in his own human body."

3 days 'til Easter Bible Verse: HEBREWS 12:2 "We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from start to finish. He was willing to die a shameful death on the cross because of the joy he knew would be his afterward. Now he is seated in the place of highest honor beside God's throne in heaven."

Good Friday Bible Verse -

Isaiah 53:5,6 -

"But He [Jesus] was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped, and we were healed! All of us have strayed away like sheep. We have left God's paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on HIM [Jesus] the guilt and sins of us all."

Day before Easter verses -

Matthew 27:63-65

"They told him, "Sir, we remember what that deceiver once said while he was still alive: `After three days I will be raised from the dead.' So we request that you seal the tomb until the third day. This will prevent his disciples from coming and stealing his body and then telling everyone he came back to life! If that happens, we'll be worse off than we were at first."

EASTER!

Matthew 28:5,6 -
"Then the angel spoke to the women.
"Don't be afraid!" he said.
"I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified.
He isn't here!
He has been raised from the dead, just as he said would happen."

Wordle 2

Ok... one more... but only because I am ADDICTED!  (I have created like 47!!!!!... the "randomizer" is the coolest, or instead of that, you can change the font, layout, colors, orientation, etc. yourself.)

Goodbye 2008 ~ Hello 2009

Sooooooooooooo Thankful for:

Family

Friends

Sobriety

God's presence & provision

Our home - more than just a roof over our heads

Our Cars - that all run right now!

Food on the table & in our pantry

Indoor plumbing (hot & cold running water)

Luxuries like climate control (Air conditioning & Heating)

Church family & home

Health (mental, emotional, physical)

Growth (mental, emotional, physical)  

Business opportunities

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION?:

To remain grateful in the face of ALL that God chooses to bring my way in 2009.

To have these lyrics be true not just externally, but internally all year long, moment by moment:

"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"

THANK YOU GOD!!!!

St. John - Day 6

Woke up at 8:30 and got on my face out on the deck for my prayer time. Nothing quite so amazing as praising God with the expanse of His glorious creation - the ocean - stretching out before you while a flock of tiny, bright yellow birds swarm a dish of sugar water and a brown thrushie bird zips back and forth feeding her nest full of chirping babies over head.

From the BIG to the little, God's creation is AMAZING.

Did my Beth Moore Bible study (catching up on the Psalms of Ascent).

Dad (D) & I woke up and had coffee & breakfast then packed up for the beach and dabbled on our laptops for a little bit.  We got gas then headed to our daily trip to Starfish to get a sandwich to take (we split one every day and bring that along with some sodas and chips and maybe a candy).  We did a little research to find out about ferries over to Virgin Gorda (fat virgin) or Jost van Dyke (pronounced "Yoast"van dyke) - which are both British Virgin Islands or BVI (whereas we are on the US virgin islands , or USVI).  We can do a self-guided all day trip to one of these via ferry or we can do more of an excursion type tour and hit 4 islands in one day.  Sounds like this might be the best way to go.

We ventured to another of the 'secret beaches' today... Gibney.  Parking is up on the road by a steel gate.  

We hiked down and there was a police officer parked at the bottom with his scout troop.  We hiked around through the water to a more secluded part of the beach and were all by ourselves (except for a dog we named "Daisy" for the day, because she reminded us of Bijou but we didn't want to call her "Jouey", so we gave her a name of her own).  

An older woman with long gray hair, a floppy orange hat, and a large gap between her front 2 teeth climbed out of the water and we were able to ask her some questions about the island.  (She currently lives in Maine, but had lived on the island for 20 years.)  She was back for 3 weeks for a 60th birthday party being held that very day in the Oppenheimer property (Oppenheimer was apparently called the "father of the atomic bomb" and he bought SOME of the property from the Gibneys back in the 1950's).

Anyhow, we were alone on the beach from about 11:30-2:30 when a group of about 12 women, no men, cam and flopped down 15 feet from us and then 20 minutes later a couple and their Yorkshire terrier cam and parked 15 feet from us on the other side.  Oh well, we had secluded paradise for a FEW hours.  Meanwhile the sounds of music floated through the air from the party and the ocean ebbed and flowed and pelicans dive-bombed the water and it was a fine day.  

We left Gibney at about 4:30 and headed 'home' where we showered in the shower with open views to the south and west and overhead (open-air skylights with screens)... feels almost like showering outdoors.

We've eaten in 3 nights and out 1 night.

I think tonight might be another 'out night.

We have also watched a DVD (rented from home before we left) every night.

(Yesterday, in the rain, we watched two.)

Ahhhh... vacation rhythm... Just limin' mon.