Miracle Farm Mission Trip, first work-day

My job on this mission trip was to keep everyone fed and watered and happy, and clean up the dining hall. So really I started working the night of our fun day, by driving in to Brenham and buying groceries for the next day.

Sunrise outside our cabin

We had pancakes and bacon for breakfast, then Mikayla and I drove to College Station to get more groceries at Sam's...and had pepperoni rolls from Double Dave's! Yum.  She drove the last few miles back. And learned how much you need to slow down to turn a corner. Yikes. When we got back she joined Jessica and some students repairing a fence.

Jessica and Ashley got into fire ants and had to take their shoes off.

Rebecca started being my helper, and we took snacks and water bottles to everyone working. I had to drive the "gator" to the fence workers, to make it through the mud. It was my first time! On our way back we stopped to pet the horses.

Power washing

Katie did a little painting.

Even little ones learn to rope here!

The horse she was petting belonged to one of the house parents, and he offered to let her ride it! It was so much fun.

Then everyone quit for the day and we watched the boys practice for their demonstration they will do at Day at Miracle Farm, a yearly open house they hold for the community. These boys are given a horse when they come to the ranch, and are taught to rope and ride. Some of these guys had never been on a horse 3 months ago.

This little bitty girl's parents are house parents at the ranch. She's 5 and rides better than some of the boys!

Spring Break Trip to Brenham: Getting There

Last week our family and 10 students from our BCM worked at Miracle Farm, a boys' ranch in Brenham, Texas. We left Saturday morning and drove to Galveston for our "fun day." It rained ALL. DAY. LONG. It got really bad in Houston, and with the traffic and the rain and driving through water at least 6" deep, I was a little tense. But we made it to the hotel and then ate at P.F. Chang's, which is always a treat. Then we spent a little time at the mall before heading to bed. The next day we had our own little worship time in our hotel room.

Then we went to Moody Gardens. I've driven past it and heard about it so many times; it was great to actually get to go there! And the weather was perfect! We all went through the aquarium pyramid together, then had lunch and then part of the group did the ropes course and some of us went to the Ice Age museum, butterfly garden, and down to the shore. We all met back up and a 3D movie and then went through the rain forest pyramid. It was so cool! A white-faced monkey ran right by my feet on the boardwalk! After that we (Mike) weren't planning on going 0-to the beach, but one of our students had never seen the ocean before, so we used out puppy dog eyes and talked him into letting us go for FIVE minutes. :D The smell and sound and feel of the ocean is still just a little like coming home in my heart. From there we drove to the ranch at Brenham. We worked there last year, too, so it was good to see the friends we had made. I basically dropped my girls off then grabbed two students and went to HEB to buy food for the next day. I was exhausted by the time we were done, but that just made me sleep that much better!

Aquarium:

Our students on the other side of the water!

Museum:

Jessica and Clint found their dream animals...

 Butterfly garden:

Can you find the caterpillars?

 Shore:

Rain Forest:

He ran RIGHT BY me!!

sloth

Look at that beautiful blue "bird"!

Galveston:

Mike asked them to stay out of the water...

Blogging with bigger kids

Blogging is fun, and you have so much to talk about and so many pictures to show when your kids are little, especially if you live a bazillion miles away from grandparents and don't want them to miss anything. The only trouble is you rarely have time to blog! But once they turn 13 and get on facebook/instagram/twitter, they don't want you telling the world every cute/stupid/funny/exasperating thing they do. And they claim the right to approve or disapprove of any pictures posted. And honestly, they stop doing as many cute and funny things. Thankfully, I still have Mikayla!
 The other day I was driving her home from school and we passed a field with goats in it. She said, "Oh, horses--wait, are those llamas or kangaroos?"
Rebecca is looking over my shoulder, so I'll tell an embarrassing story about her next time!

Arkansas History/Black History Thoughts. Even though February's over.

I am teaching Arkansas History to the elementary kids in our local home school group. My planning today got me thinking about Central High. When I was growing up away from Arkansas, my family still saw Arkansas as home. So whenever I got a new history book, I would look up "Arkansas" to see what it had to say. In the Pre-Bill Clinton days, it was always the Central High story. And that always made me feel ashamed of Arkansas. It is a shameful thing, and something that should never be forgotten. But today I realized that it's only something to be ashamed of from the white point of view. Black Arkansans hopefully see it as something to take pride in. I thought of the courage it took for those young black students to face the lions and grab the best education they could, paving the way for generations to follow. So when I teach those children about Central High, I plan to focus on the victory, the amazing accomplishments of the Little Rock Nine.
Photo creds: Marquette University

Movie Night

Oh my gosh, y'all! (My family laughs at me when I say that.)
We just watched the movie Unconditional on Netflix, and it was so good! It was like Como (where I taught kindergarten 25 years ago. Dang I'm old.) meets Miracle Farm (where we went on Spring Break last year and are returning to next month.) We always go into Christian-themed movies a little skeptical. I think justifiably so. And the very beginning of this one was a little weird, and her southern accent sounded fake, but then...WHAM. It drew us in. Intrigued us. By the end the parents were crying and the cynical teenagers admitted they liked it, too. I give it two thumbs up!

Here is a link to what imdb has to say about it. I was going to link to the trailer, but I think it's better if you watch it without the trailer. Seriously, WATCH IT!

I have written about Como a few times before, mostly in this post about Jarvis, which interestingly enough was also written after movie night! But it was also written before Jarvis and I became Facebook friends!! I found him and sent him a message to make sure it was him, and we've been friends ever since. :) And the amazing, miraculous, awe-inspiring part is...he's a believer, active in his church, trying to grow more like Christ. He has some issues to work on (don't we all) but I am so proud of him.

And while we're linking up, here is a link to Miracle Farm's webpage. (Is that still what they're called? Did I just reveal my age again?) Their "About Us" says:  "Miracle Farm is a 325-acre residential boys ranch steeped in western heritage and traditional values. Miracle Farm offers the Chance of a Lifetime for teenage boys and their families to experience healing, earn an education and learn respect. It is a place where boys from all over the state of Texas can step away from distractions and negative influences and become responsible young men of integrity and character, a place where self-esteem and honor can be rebuilt. A dedicated staff, incredible setting, on-campus charter school, innovative horse program and regular family enrichment sessions create a well-rounded program."  And my family is practically ready to move there.

(One more thing. I just previewed this post and decided the font was difficult to read and I need to change it. But it's past my bedtime, so I'll do it tomorrow.) Done.

Pivotal

Sometimes you can look back on your life and see a specific moment in time that determined the course of your life. A dot on your timeline that pointed you in one direction or the other. Robert Jarvik, inventor of the artificial heart (whose love story I read in Parade magazine Sunday morning as I ate my French toast) talks about a moment as “'an inflection point' in his life, a mathematical term referring to a point on a curve at which the line of the curvature changes." 

In March of 1986 I was a silly, boy-crazy freshman at Ouachita Baptist University, recently stung with the rejection of not being chosen by any of the women's social clubs on campus during rush week (another moment I now see as the hand of God in my life!). I had made friends with my next-door-neighbor Angie, a missionary kid who loved Jesus and people in an open and natural way like I had never seen before in someone my age. We hung out more and more, turning into best friend/sisters-for-life. That March, OBU celebrated its 100th birthday with "Global Focus Week," bringing in missionaries from all over the world to speak in a daily chapel and in smaller break-out sessions throughout the week. I attended a session led by Jerry and Barbara Schleiff, missionaries in Zimbabwe, because a) I had represented Zimbabwe at a model United Nations and 2) I had a schoolgirl crush on their son. Just being honest. What they said in that session blew my mind. And stirred something in my heart, something that made me want to talk to them more. I met with Aunt Barbara (as I soon learned to call her) on the steps of Berry Chapel, and told her that lately I didn't see the point in praying anymore because I felt like God wasn't hearing my prayers; they were just bouncing off the ceiling. The first thing she asked me was if I was sure that I had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and when I said yes, she asked me to tell her about it. I told her how one Sunday night when I was eight years old I had sat on my bed crying over my sins, and prayed with my parents, asking Jesus to forgive me and giving my life to Him. Her next question was, "Are you having a daily quiet time?" I said something like, "A wha...??" She went on to talk about the importance of spending time every day in God's Word and in serious prayer, not just praying the same thing before I went to sleep each night like I had been doing. (Side note: thinking about this now, after working with college students and my own teenage daughters, I realize that I had been taught these things before, by my parents, Sunday School teachers, pastors, etc. It just hadn't clicked with me until that moment.) She prayed with me, and from that moment on held me accountable, always asking me how my quiet time is going. She and Uncle Jerry started treating me like one of their special girls. Angie and I had them over to her dorm room for a visit--I don't remember if we fed them anything, like Cheezits or frozen pie, but I do remember all of us laughing a lot! 

From that week until today, I have felt loved by them. We exchanged a few letters from opposite sides of the world. They rejoiced with me when Mike and I got married, and sent a wedding gift hand-made by ladies in Zimbabwe. When they moved to Arkadelphia and we moved to Magnolia, we met them at Burger Barn for lunch one day so they could meet Mike and the girls, and then Mike loved them, too. 

Jerry and Barbara Schleiff had no reason to spend time with me 29 years ago. No reason to reach out to me and make me feel special. I'm not related to them. I was not an MK and had not felt a call to foreign missions. I had just met them and their daughter Kiki that week. But they took time to listen to me and teach me and love me, and it changed my life. I do spend time each day (or almost every day) reading God's Word and talking to Him. I made a commitment that week to take advantage of any mission opportunity that came my way, and to follow Him wherever He led. He led me to Ecuador, Houston, Clearwater Beach, inner city Fort Worth, Indio, West Virginia, New Orleans, Idaho, Phoenix, south Arkansas, Mozambique, Slovenia, Brenham, and this summer to Hawaii and Columbus, Ohio. Without that commitment, I may not have even married Mike Sandusky! (On one of our dates, he asked me if I would ever consider living in Idaho, and I said, "Well, I wouldn't go there alone!" But knowing he wanted to serve the Lord anywhere, anyhow was one of the things that made me fall in love with him.)

On Sunday I read that Jerry Schleiff will be seeing Jesus face to face very soon. As Angie said, his faith will be sight. I rejoice for him. I hurt for his family.And I am so thankful to have known him. This world is not the same because of him.

Snippets of Thoughts and Revelations

• Tonight driving home from BCM I noticed the beautiful full moon and remembered reading a Facebook post from some missionaries in Mozambique about looking at the full moon through a telescope. The same full moon she saw over Africa is now shining over us...it's just a thrill to remember sometimes.
• I'm doing the Breathe study by Priscilla Shirer. In it she encourages us to journal "big ideas." It's a study on the Sabbath--having margins in your life. So I don't know how I got from there to here, but this is my big idea for this week: if I constantly try to keep my husband and children happy (which I do, feeling like a bad wife/mother when I fail), how will they ever learn to find joy in the Lord? 
•  My pastor was preaching about prayer and how James 4:3 says, "When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with the wrong motives..." selfishly asking for things for our own happiness and comfort. And I thought about these blog posts of my friend Susan, and her mother’s courage in facing excruciating pain day in and day out. And my mother’s courage in facing Parkinson’s –alone—day in and day out. And my pastor’s courage in facing life without his daughter day in and day out. There are so many others!  So why would I think I deserve—just me, because I’m so special—a life free of pain, heartache, or need? God’s presence is my provision, my reward. My answer to prayer.
• And finally, in another sermon, Bro. Mike was talking about when Jesus told Peter that Satan had asked permission to sift him like wheat, and that he would fail, but when he was restored, to strengthen his brothers. It just hit me, even though I’ve probably heard it before, that Jesus knew all along that Peter would deny him three times, and He loved him, chose him, used him anyway. Wow.