Pray for us!

Hey friends,
We are leaving on a mission trip with 5 students to Maputo, Mozambique, in 13 days! For those of you who aren't on our prayer supporters list but would like to pray, here's the basic info:
Please pray for...

The students: Carter, Heath, Sessely, Lauren, and Kelsey. They are in the midst of finals and wrapping up the semester, and at the same time preparing youth Bible studies and their testimonies for the trip. Pray for them to have wisdom, to use their time efficiently, and to have peace as they trust the Lord.

Pray for assertiveness for them when we’re in Mozambique, that they will be filled with and led by the Holy Spirit, and that they will take initiative and be bold in sharing. One of the opportunities that we may be involved in is visiting the children's oncology ward at the main hospital in Maputo. The missionary has a friend that has a weekly ministry there - she prays with the families, plays with the kids, takes coloring pages and does parties for them on special occasions. Many of them have pretty big tumors on their faces or heads. Pray for the students, as this may not be the most pleasant time for them, and for the kids and their famillies.

Finances: Some of the students are still raising money for the trip. We had a very successful spaghetti feed at Calvary Baptist, Hope, on Sunday, and were also able to see some old and new friends. The same church is having a yard sale this Saturday; pray for it to go well, too.

Mike and Kecia: Pray for us and our girls as we are away from each other for longer than we have ever been before! Pray for Jessica, Mikayla, and Rebecca to get along and be sweet to one another, to be respectful and helpful to their Gran (Kecia’s mom), and to see this as their service to God. Kecia’s mom will be taking care of them for 16 days…pray for her, too, for wisdom and strength and patience.

Pray for wisdom for us in Mozambique, that we would be an encouragement and a help to the ongoing ministy there, and recognize and follow God's leading. Mike and I may speak to the youth group one week about purity/abstinence. We would split them up and have Mike talk to the guys and me to the girls. Pray for us as we prepare for this and for the trip in general!

Travel: Pray for our good health and safety and that everything will go smoothly, and that the time on the plane passes quickly. Pray that the swine flu outbreak doesn't affect our trip in any way.

The Lechners (SBC missionaries we’ll be working and staying with): Pray for wisdom in planning our agenda for the week, and that God would bless them and their 4 children (Coleson, Will, Luke, and Abby) for opening up their home to us, and that He would make them bear much fruit for Him as they invest their lives in Maputo, Mozambique.

Here is our itinerary, as best we know it:

May 8--Drive the girls to Conway
May 10--Leave the girls, drive back to Magnolia
May 11--Drive to D/FW, depart for London, England at 5:35 p.m.
May 12--Arrive in London at 8:40 a.m. Spend the day sight-seeing!
Depart for Johannesburg, South Africa, at 7:05 p.m.
May 13--Arrive in Johannesburg at 6:55 a.m.
Depart for Maputo, Mozambique, at 9:40 a.m., arrive at 10:45 a.m.
May 13-24--whatever the Lechner's have planned for us! We know it will include an overnight visit to a rural orphanage, where we will be camping (!), a trip to the oncology ward, and a Bible study on purity, and we know we will have a fun 2-day safari at Kruger Nat'l Park in South Africa. Other activities may include prayer walking, meeting university students in Maputo to begin campus work there, youth Bible studies, leading/speaking at Chapel at the English school where the MKs go...
May 25--Depart for Johannesburg at 3:55 p.m., arrive at 5:05 p.m.
Depart for London at 9:20 p.m.
May 26--Arrive in London at 7:20 a.m.
Depart for D/FW at 11:40 a.m.
Arrive in D/FW at 3:40 p.m. Find my kiddos!

Farewell, Tiger--I barely knew ye

Well, Tiger was belly-up this morning.
"All drains lead to the sea..."

What a great week!

Our week that started out like this:

Ended up like this:


With this in the middle:



Last weekend we got soooo much rain--I was afraid we were going to grow webbed feet. Then the sun came out, and boom! It's summer. We had 90 degree weather several days this week--we worked in the garden, played in the sprinkler and water hose, and played outside a lot. I love it.
Wednesday night for AWANA we went to "Birthday Express" in McNeil, where the kids got to play on a bunch of inflatables. They had so much fun, and there were only about 6 minor injuries...
Friday Rebecca had a luau at preschool, which Mike attended because I was at the home school coop "field day". We had about 20 kids show up, which was really good, and they played lots of fun relays and games then had pizza and ice cream. I love the feeling of being in the sun after not seeing it for so long.
That night we met 19 of our college students at "Golf World" in Texarkana and played--they have putt-putt, go-carts, a climbing wall, and batting cages. We had so much fun. Mike gets a little crazy on the go-cart track. Jessica was big enough to drive herself, and she loved it. She also reached the top of the climbing wall, and Mikayla made it higher than I expected--about a third of the way! It was really a great week.
The downside of the week: I wanted to put a picture of our 3 new goldfish we got last week, but 2 of them, Spot and Bubbles, have already died. Only Tiger is left. We'll see how long he lasts...
Tomorrow we're driving to Hope to help with a spaghetti feed fund raiser for our trip to Mozambique. We leave 2 weeks from Monday!!!

The whirlwind that is my life

Phew! I've been so busy lately I haven't even looked at Blogger in I-don't-know-how-long. Here are all the things I can remember that have made me say, "I should put that in my blog."

The day I left for Stacee's funeral, Mike took Rebecca for her 5-year-old check-up. It's the first of any of my kids check-ups that I've missed! She still has her heart murmur (which the cardiologist said is "innocent"), she needs to have her eyes checked, and didn't pass the tee-tee test--had to take it again this past Friday, and still didn't pass. Has to do it again this coming Monday--she still has too much protein in there and they want to double (triple?) check it. But said not to worry. Yeah. First thing I did was google "protein in urine" to see what I should be worrying about. She also got her 4 shots on Friday--that always breaks my heart. She cried, but not too bad, and we got a snow cone afterwards. She's such a sweetie. When she touches something hot she says, "Hot-e-lula!" And I was showing her doll clothes for Rosie, and when she really liked one she'd say, "Oh. My. Darlin'." Cracked me up. She also still calls marshmallows "smarshmallows." Do I have to teach her the right way to say it?

Stacee's funeral really impacted me, and on my way home I kept hearing this song that talks about "going through the motions," and it really convicted me to want to live life to the fullest, and not go through the motions. Then I wondered what I'm supposed to be doing that I'm not, and how I could possibly do one thing more, when I realized that I don't need to do one thing more...I need to do what God has given me. Love my husband...raise my kids...lead children's sermon...teach Cubbies...be a friend...sing in the choir...with all my heart, not holding anything back. It was both an inspiration and a relief at the same time.

I bought a new shower curtain over Spring Break! Finally got rid of the rubber ducky theme. Isn't it fun!

And look at my beautiful baby dogwood tree:

The Monday after I got back Jessica and Mikayla had to take standardized tests with the other home schoolers--seemed to go fine. We had an Easter party afterward, and I did a little activity with them, telling the Easter story. We had about 30 kids there, which was great! But the one family I was hoping would be there to hear it wasn't. Oh well.

The week before Easter was full of rehearsals for our church's annual presentation of the "Living Last Supper." It's a drama/musical of the life of Christ, but the actor's freeze at the last supper in the pose from Da Vinci's famous painting. I really enjoyed watching it last year, and it was even more fun being in it this year, but it literally took up 5 of 7 nights Easter week. All 3 girls were in it, too, and the kids are just so sweet I got teary-eyed every time! It was hard not to crane my head around to see them and take pictures. We even forgot to give Mike the camera the night he came! I copied some pictures off some friends on facebook, but look how teeny they are--no way you can see my kiddos! Unless you go to my profile and look there...

I love being back in choir! I am getting to know some ladies I wouldn't have otherwise, and just losing myself in the music is good for me, with all that's been going on. There are times I find myself going up on my toes when I'm singing, a habit I picked up from my friend Sydney, and it makes me grin and miss her at the same time.

Easter was a great day. Jessica made a public profession of faith in church that morning! And so did a friend of Mikayla's and a teenage girl who's a foreign exchange student from Argentina who had gone to Miami with Mike on their Spring Break trip, as an interpreter. So exciting! They're all getting baptized tomorrow.
We had hoped my Mom could come, but her sister had surgery and needed help, so we were disappointed in that. We invited our new youth minister and his family instead, and one of our college students. They all asked for my potato casserole recipe. Hee-hee. It really is the best! We missed Matt and Jackie, as usual, and talked about them. Mostly good. Matt's a little bitter about a certain missing hat...

This week has been the first week since I had the flu that I've had both energy and time to get my house back in order, so that's what I've been doing. We've got a vegetable garden planted, and a salsa garden, and I hope this rain that WON'T STOP doesn't flood them out. As long as it's not a tornado, I'll try not to complain. We also had crazy hair night at AWANA--see:

That's all the random thoughts I can think of right now. I know there were more! But I need to iron clothes and sweep and mop the kitchen floor. We woke up to ANTS in there this morning (grrrr) and the bug guy's closed on Saturday. Anyway, I'll hopefully get all that done and then see what all of y'all have been up to!

Reflections

When I first heard the news of Stacee's death, and got so upset, I was of course very sad for her family, but, I am ashamed to say, I was also being selfish. She and I weren't really close friends, but I had been praying for her healing, really praying, believing God was going to do a huge miracle and remove all the cancer, and when He didn't--well, I threw a hissy-fit.
He is so patient with me. Almost immediately He used facebook friends to lead me to the song, "No More Night," and reminded me that she really is healthy and whole and rejoicing in heaven. Really--it's real, not just something we say to try to feel better. (And I'm SO ready for the day we'll all be there together.)

Then He used another facebook friend to remind me of a play Mike and Stacee were in together...as a married couple, actually! She was this obnoxious character named Anoria, with wild sparkly sunglasses, and Mike was her mousy little husband. He gave her a pedicure and foot rub for most of the play! It was hilarious!! And it made me laugh to remember it.

I also remembered the first time I met her, visiting from Idaho, wandering through the preschool department at church, trying to figure out where my children went. She helped me out and made me feel comfortable leaving them with people that were strangers to them. I can't help loving people who are good to my children. Then we got to live in Conway for a year, and I got to know her better through awesome days at Wild River Country, working at VBS and in the nursery (She used to bring the teachers/workers candy mid-way through the service--you gotta love that!), and teaching at the preschool. Jessica and Mikayla both made professions of faith that year, and Stacee gave me books to work through with them.

One day last week, my devotion for the day included Psalm 34:18, which says, "The LORD is close to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit." And also Psalm 46:1, which is the verse God put in my mind when I got the news about my own Daddy's death: "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble."

On Friday I drove back up to Conway and spent the night with Mom, so we could go to the funeral together on Saturday. It was a very sweet service, lots of people, lots of flowers. Lots of tears. Her young nephew, Joseph, sang a duet while we watched a wonderful slide show of her life and ministry...when he got choked up near the end, we all cried with him. When I saw pictures of activities my girls participated in with Mrs. Stacee, I was so thankful that God gave us that year in Conway, and let me know her. She really did live with such joy. When Bro. Dave got up to speak, he said that what he said probably wouldn't matter to Stacee as much as how he said it, so--and he ducked behind the podium and came up wearing Anoria's sunglasses and talking in her voice! It made us all smile. I think I looked at those sunglasses, above the coffin, the rest of the service.
It was a closed-casket funeral, and at the end they wheeled the coffin down the aisle and out the door. I hate that part. I know this sounds dumb, considering, but it is just so final. The last time we'll see her in this world. And her family just broke my heart.
We didn't go to the cemetery, but did get to hug a few family members in the foyer. Then I looked up and saw my friend Dana, who also worked at the preschool with me, holding her 5-day-old baby boy. He was so tiny and perfect and precious, and I thought, "He gives and takes away...Blessed be the name of the Lord!"

Here's what her Dad wrote in the program:
Our Stacee went along home last night. Kidney cancer took her, but not before she could teach us more about life and death than we have learned in all our years before. For five and one-half months after her diagnosis, she endured the torture and looked death in the face with a courage we could not believe.
The last couple of months, she could talk barely or not at all. She made no religious statements. She wanted her children and the rest of us to simply know she loved us.
At the hospital she twisted in bed and whispered, "The pillow is not straight, Daddy, but I love you." I bit my lip. "I love you, too, Punkin', but what do you want me to do with the pillow?"
She was just exactly forty-eight on the day we took her to the hospital for the last time. Born March 7, 1961. She saw things and spelled words backwards, but she fought her way to the top. She had a BA degree and two Master degrees. She had a way of seeing things in their most simple forms and so had excellent communication with children. She was the Children's Minister at Woodland Heights Baptist Church when she died. She loved Brother Dave Hatfield, her "right arm" Marnie Osborne, and all the people of that church. They returned the love in great heaps. No obituary can ever sum up the life of such a pure soul.

April Fools!

My girls had entirely too much fun with April Fool's Day yesterday. Not to mention my husband! Here are the girls' attempts to fool/prank the Mommy:
1. Hid my shower gel.
2. Pounded on the bathroom door during my shower announcing that Mikayla had fallen off her bicycle and was BLEEDING! Followed by "Where are the band-aids?" and another announcement by Rebecca. That almost convinced me (no, I hadn't immediately stopped the shower and rushed to her rescue), but then I heard her go to her sisters and say, "I said it! I said it!" And when I did go to Mikayla, she had band-aids all over her legs but couldn't stop the grin.

3. (One of my favorites) Hid my home school lessons for the day! But I found them.
4. Hid my coffee creamer. Grr. I found that, too.
5. Hid our pillows. This was another good one; since we have decorative pillows/shams on the bed, we didn't discover they were missing until we went to bed at 10:30, and then couldn't find them! Mike woke Jessica up and she said they were under her bed.
Little scamp.

But Mike won the prize. I had choir practice after Cubbies, and we got done around 8:40. I was walking to the parking lot with one of our older ladies, chatting, and she said, "This is my car--where are you parked?" I said, "I'm here, too..." and started looking around. There were about 5 cars in the lot, and none of them were mine. I thought back to moving the car after Cubbies, and was sure of the exact spot where I parked, and it was not there. Another lady joined us by this time, and I was starting to panic. I had just pushed the button to call Mike when I looked up and over and saw my van around the corner, peeking out at me, and remembered the date. So when Mike answered, I just said, "Hi, honey, I'm on my way home." He said, "Okay..." and I could hear laughter in his voice. Then he asked if I found it, and I said yes, but not until after I'd called the police.

April Fools!