Rest

We had a wonderful thanksgiving week.  We had a house full of people with having both mine and Jason's family here.  We had lots of food and of course lots of fun!  Jason and I have so many wonderful reasons to be thankful.  We are very blessed. 

After so much work I wish I had a place like this to curl up in at my house. 

Be back soon with some pictures of our house.

El Salvador - Part 2

I might just be the worlds worst blogger.  I am sorry this is taking me so long to put together.  So, without further adieu...

Day three of our trip...what a day!  We traveled about an hour an a half to the orphanage.  When we got there most of the girls were in school and would be finishing around lunch time.  However there were about 10 girls that were not in school and we were able to spend time hanging out with them.  We started out by playing soccer and painting nails with the 10 girls.  Then when school was about to let out we started getting ready to serve them lunch.  We had hot dogs, chips, cookies, juice boxes and some stuff called ceviche that is used as a coleslaw of sorts to top the hot dogs.  The hotel that we stayed at made the ceviche and cooked all of the hot dogs for us.  Just in case you are wondering the hotel and it's staff are pretty awesome!  Back to the orphanage...we started feeding everyone and we found that they gave us a wrong number of people.  We ended up running out of food.  All of the kids were able to be fed but a few of the orphanage workers and our team were not.  It was a pretty sad telling the workers that we ran out of food. 

After lunch we sang some songs, did the Bible lesson and then a craft.  The craft was a backpack-like bag that the girls could decorate.

After the craft we played some more soccer and painted nails.

I went and played soccer for a while and then quit and went to the nail painting area to try and cool down a little bit.  I painted a couple of girls nails and then one of the girls kept telling me how pretty and long my nails were and asked if she could paint them.  She was so sweet, and was trying so hard to make them look perfect.  I was so very blessed by that experience.  I then went back to painting nails and met a girl who I hadn't seen until that point.  She was still in her school uniform so I am guessing she got out of school later than most of the other girls.  (The girls who had been let out at lunch immediately changed into regular clothes.)  I started painting her nails and was so surprised to learn that she spoke a little English.  So far none of the girls had been able to say anything in English.  We spoke for a while and I learned her name--Elizabeth, her age and few other things about her.  I immediately noticed what a sweet spirit she had.  I was so enjoying our conversation that I was sad when her nails were finished and she went to go change out of her school uniform.

I went to go play some more games outside with the other girls.  After a little bit I went to go look for Jason and noticed that he was talking with Elizabeth.  I didn't want to interrupt their conversation so I went back to playing games.  Jason and Elizabeth got to talk for a while.  She was very patient with Jason's poor Spanish and she said she "liked English very much, but wasn't very good at it."  She was being modest because she was pretty good at it!

After a few minutes it was time to break the pinata that we had brought.  Let me tell you watching those girls is a time of complete joy.  They get so excited about candy!!  As soon as the pinata broke the girls dog piled each other scrambling for the candy.  It was hilarious! It took a couple of minutes to get all the girls off of each other and be able to distribute the candy a bit more evenly. 

We then went to the main area to fill up the girls backpacks with the supplies that we brought.  Jason asked me if it would be weird for us to find a way to help out a 17 year old girl.  I immediately asked him who he was talking about and was so happy to hear it was Elizabeth...the same girl that I hadn't been able to stop thinking about.  We were only able to talk for a second and realize we were both completely on the same page.  Let me just say that so far in our marriage this is how God has spoken to us--always separately at first and then we come together and realize we are having the same thoughts.  So after handing out supplies I went over and asked for her whole name.  I realized that if we were going to do anything we would need that.  I was so happy when she wrote down her email address as well.  For some reason I didn't even think about them having access to the internet.  Since then, we've had some trouble getting in touch with her, but are still trying and asking God to help us to care for her if it's in His plan. 

We then got in the bus and headed back to the city.  We ate, had our devotional at the hotel and went to bed for some much needed rest.

Devotional

I want to share a devotional of mine this past week.  It touched my life in such a beautiful way; I hope that it will do the same for you.  A sweet friend gave this book to me a few years ago and it has blessed my life on so many occasions.  Thank you, Angie.

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  Mark 8:34

The cross that my Lord calls me to carry may assume many different shapes.  I may have to be content with mundane tasks in a limited area of service, when I may believe my abilities are suited for much greater work.  I may be required to continually cultivate the same field year after year, even though it yields no harvest whatsoever.  I may be asked of God to nurture kind and loving thoughts about the very person who has wronged me and to speak gently to him, take his side when others oppose him, and bestow sympathy and comfort to him.  I may have to openly testify of my Master before those who do not want to be reminded of Him or His claims.  And I may be called to walk through this world with a bright, smiling face while my heart is breaking. 

Yes, there are many crosses, and every one of them is heavy and painful.  And it is unlikely that I would seek out even one of them on my own.  Yet Jesus is never as near to me as when I lift my cross, lay it submissively on my shoulder, and welcome it with a patient and uncomplaining spirit.

He draws close to me in order to mature my wisdom, deepen my peace, increase my courage, and supplement my power.  All this He does so that through the very experience that is so painful and distressing to me, I will be of greater use to others. 

And then I will echo these words of one of the Scottish Covenantors of the seventeenth century, imprisoned for his faith by John Graham of Claverhouse - "I grow under the load"  ~Alexander Smellie

El Salvador - Part 1

We have been back from El Salvador for a couple of weeks now.  I have started to try and express all of the feelings and experiences that went with this trip several times only to delete it.  You will not see any pictures of kids in this blog, it is for their safety.  If you would like to see pictures I would love to show them you. You can come on over and we can go through them over some cake and coffee!

The first day we flew into San Salvador.  At the airport, we were immediately struck by the fact that we were in a different world than where we came from.  The airport, while a smaller size compared to many in the U.S., was one of the main airports in El Salvador, we were told.  The architecture looked like it was from the '70's and though it was ducted for air-conditioning, it either didn't work or wasn't on.  Sticky and hot.  As we went through customs, we could see outside to probably over 100 people crowded together right behind a rope fence waiting for their family and friends to arrive.  After we got outside, we waited for probably a half hour for our bus to arrive.  As we waited, we observed that there were so many vehicles made by the major car manufacturers, but the models were ones you don't see in the states.  Most of the vehicles looked like they were, on average, from the '80's.  Passenger vans with a shark fin on top seemed to be a popular ride.  And they piled as many people in as could fit.  the same was true with pickup beds.  Obviously no seat belt laws for passengers!  As we waited, the air grew stickier as we watched the clouds in the distance grow dark.  It poured down for the 45 min drive to our hotel...after having been in two rain related wrecks in the past, Jason was a nervous wreck for this drive in the rain.  If you've ever experienced traffic in a Central American country, you'd understand!

 Standing up is Carlos, our driver. 

Jason and I, sorry about the hair...we got our air conditioning from the outside!

Our group minus the adults

After unloading everything at the hotel, we went to grab a quick bite to eat and pick up supplies at the local Wal-mart for the week ahead.  By the time we left we had 5 overflowing carts full of supplies for the kids.

We got several strange looks carting around baskets full of supplies.  I am sure everyone was thinking that we were crazy Americans!  After shopping we went back to the Hotel for our team meeting and devotional. 

Our second day we went to an Orphanage and met an interesting fella.

This orphanage had both boys and girls.  We started of by airing up some balls and playing basketball and soccer.  It started to rain on us so we had to move our activities inside.  We had a time of introduction and bible study, led by Tyler Cox, then some more games.  At first we had a tough time thinking up games that would involve everyone and be able to play inside.  We started off with pato, pato, ganso also known as duck, duck, goose.  The kids loved it and so did I.  I ran around that circle so many times making all sorts of crazy noises while the kids laughed.  Such a fun time.  We then played hot potato, the kids loved this game as well.  After a while we grabbed some jump ropes and started playing with the kids individually.  Lots of jumping rope and the game where one person stands in the middle with a rope and swings it around while others jump over it (sorry no idea what this would be called!).  Jason played an interesting game with the kids...they had him tie jump ropes around their waists and and they ran around while he held on to the ends of them.  It was like sledding and being pulled by a team of kids instead of dogs...they loved it!  They would go as fast as they could until one of them inevitably tripped and the others fell over him in a pile.  Jason's main goal was to not step on any of them at each abrupt stop!  Then, as quick as they fell, they'd be up again going full speed ahead.  I don't know how many times they ran around that room.   Unfortunately we had to leave this orphanage at noon because another group was coming.

So we packed everything up and went to grab some lunch while our leaders discussed what we would do the rest of the day.  It was decided that we would go to an old volcano.  This volcano was famous for an eruption years ago that was pretty destructive, and it's last eruption was five years ago, and was much smaller.  As I mentioned it had been raining all day and by time we got up the mountain it was pretty cold.  I think it was some where in the fifties, and of course none of us were dressed warmly.  As we made our way up the volcano/mountain we noticed several places along the way there were path ways in the vegetation leading to homes or huts.  There were so many people just right off the road, which is completely normal for the San Salvador area.  We got to a viewing point and there was a family that had a restaurant off to the side of the lookout.  It was a tiny little hut with chairs and tables outside, chickens running all over the place as well as dogs.  They had set up a system that collected all of their rain water in a big plastic tub and that is what they used for everything.  There were also all sorts of tires stacked everywhere.  Also a normal thing for San Salvador, though I am not sure why.   Once we made it to the top we stopped and talked to some street vendors.  I got an awesome bracelet made out of coffee beans.  Shirley picked up some fruit for the group, which we had the next day, it wasn't very sweet but really juicy. 

Then, we decided to climb up to the viewing point.  I am glad we did it was a beautiful climb.  El Salvador is a beautiful country with an amazing amount of vegetation.  The pictures don't do it justice it is just gorgeous.

After climbing back down we went to Chili's to eat, let me just say not a fan of it in the states not a fan of it in San Salvador.  Then went back to hotel for our night time recap and devotional.


Some interesting things about El Salvador...

 

Other vehicles are so close you can touch them. 

Guards are everywhere. 

They have a pizza puch, not pooch! 

Stay tuned for day three and four! 

New Project

I am working on a new project and hopefully will have more information for you very soon.  Plus I want to share about the very special trip that inspired this project.  Until I get all of this underway here are a couple of pics.  See if you can guess what my project deals with!

All images from pinterest

Last Couple of Weeks

I should have a little bit of down time this week and I am hoping it will give me a chance to get caught up on some things I have been needing to do for a while...like make a header for this blog!  But first let me tell you about what we have been doing here lately.

We had some friends over for dinner recently and Jason (aka Chi-Chi) let their sweet little girl play his guitar.  Here you can see she is trying to make a chord and her poor hand can't fit around the fret board.

Isn't she the cutest!  Their little boy was sporting headphones on his onesie for the occasion.

We finally finished our pond installation, now we just need to add some plants and a few more rocks to make it look good.

Tom is our supervisor.

Roley and Andy checked in every once in a while, just in case we needed to stop and pet something.

Embarrassing moment of the week; I wore two belts at the same time to work last week.  The saddest part is I didn't even realize it until that afternoon.  I wore one on my jeans and the other around my waist over my shirt.  It was this outfit but I am not wearing two belts in this picture.

And last but not least, our Living Room went from this...

to this...

in mere minutes.  That's right I am redecorating, pics coming soon.  At least I hope it is soon.  I told you I had some things to get caught up on.  I better get to work! 

Conference

Jason is getting ready to go to the National Worship Leader Conference again this year and it has me thinking music!  He always comes back with some great new band or song that really touched him.  Three years ago it was the group I want to share with you today, Audra Lynn.  Now if you go to Champion Fellowship you have heard them several times but may not know it.  We play their song "Wellspring" during Communion fairly often.  

I was jamming out to one of the mix cd's my husband has so generously made for me, and what should start playing but Audra Lynn's "Cross".  I had a wonderful time of worshiping right in the middle of my work day.  So beautiful how God uses special moments in the middle craziness to draw you close to Him.  I have attached that song as well as Wellspring and I hope it blesses you the way it has me. 

Please excuse the videos, just click play and listen to the music and lyrics.  I minimized the screen so I wouldn't see the videos play through.

Audra Lynn - Cross

 

 Audra Lynn - Wellspring