The beginning of reflection...

We left the MDS site today with a few different emotions. We only drove about 30 minutes to a hotel in Slidell but we felt that we needed to start moving forward. The kids were excited to get to a hotel and experience the full size bath tub!
I asked Willie what he was feeling or if he had a verse for me to post on the blog that would speak what he was feeling... I got a long sigh and then nothing... so I searched my heart and this is what I found: On the way out of MIssissippi there was a church sign that read "Aspire to Inspire before you Expire"
We will rest tonight and I'll continue our thoughts tomorrow. Thank you again and again!
Tisha we'll see you so soon!!

Praise God from whom ALL blessings come...

We are thankful that God is already working on another adventure for us and we're excited to meet Him there. Until then we pack and pack and repack... trying to get our lives to fit on the box of the truck! Should be fun to see if it works one last time.
So we'll be coming to a community near you.... we'll contact you on our way through and see if we can stop in for a chat... -except you Kathy and Carl... not planning on swinging by that way =)
See you all soon; thank you for your prayers! God is so good! We are in his hand as we travel west and then North and North and then North some more!

All Good Things Must Come to an End

And that is what we're feeling now but as the time is nearing when we need to start packing up(how in the world will we fit back in that truck??), we are so thankful to God who has allowed us to walk through this amazing time of refreshing and stretching. We've all had a lot of challenges and yet we are all different because of how God has blessed our socks off (we are rather attached to our flip flops and crocs!) He is faithful and we have seen it in other people's lives and in ours.

We will start the trek home on Saturday, Feb 28th. We won't go too far ... just to Louisiana to say goodbye to some dear friends and then to Texas to say goodbye to some more amazing people that we just met in November.

This past week we were all feeling lost without the friends we had with us for two weeks, the kids were actually bothered by them leaving which is odd - they were totally into knowing that the people were all just here for a short while. One morning when Olivia realized that people were leaving again (just to go to the job site) she ran away from me (we were in the dining hall) and she headed off for one of the vans on the yard. I finally caught up to her and asked her where she was going. She said "Going home, Ms. Amanda home" I realize that I've been telling her that our friends went home but that we would see them again... so she's thinking that would be a good place to be! I think she understands more about what's going on then I thought. But she keeps saying "see them tomorrow, went home, see them tomorrow".

We were so thankful to receive a package from home this last week which made our entire year! It was so thoughtful and so appreciated because again, it came right on time!! We needed to know that there were people at home that cared and God showed us that even though it's sad to leave, there are a lot of exciting things about going home, seeing faces that we have loved for a long time and that we care for and that we have missed! We're excited to see the family of God back home; just to connect again and jump back into life in La Crete.

Time to head out for the morning, it'll be a busy weekend! Thank you for your prayers - Jesus is too good!

Fun day with Callie & Carson

On the 'home' stretch...

I’ve been struggling with the blog, wondering what it is that I should be communicating to the people that are wanting to walk this journey with us. It’s hard to explain what it is that we do ... it’s one of those “you need to be there” times in our lives.

We have appreciated Harold and Sandra Friesen as project directors. We respect and enjoy their leadership. They have been great in regards to the kids being here on the site. God has given us good gifts!

There are about seven sites on the go right now, we had a home dedication last week and are starting two more rebuilds this week (I think). Busy! We were told by a local that the city of Pass Christian is now back up to about 4000 pop. Pre-Katrina the population was 6500 so that gives you an indication of how the locals really love this place. It’s so beautiful and so neat. It’s really quiet and the people are so friendly. The businesses are still not really back but the neighboring communities are real close by.

We had an amazing church service this last Sunday. A University Gospel Choir visiting - WOW!!!! I’m amazed that God has given so many people the awesome gift of music! I have a bunch of video so I’ll have to let you all see that whenever I figure out how to post video :-) Dad you would have LOVED it too! I took a picture of the ‘piano man’ for you - we’ve enjoyed this congregation so much and will miss them. Samuel loves the Sunday School and we’re starting to feel like we really belong there. It feels like home! So much positive energy and enthusiasm - I would love to bring a little of that into our church at home... allow the passion and the appreciation of Christ out - we feel so reserved in our worship of our King... why?

Well we have to get down to the post office to mail Tori’s birthday gift. Happy Birthday beautiful girl!

Thanks for the prayers -

Amanda & Alex, Aaron, Karl and Kelby - if you’re reading this know that we miss you LOTS! Samuel is a little stressed out about you being gone and Olivia just keeps calling Aaron on her toy cell phone... “I love you Aaron!” is what I get to hear about 50 times a day! Good memory makers!

Long Distance Relationships

The last two weeks have been interesting, exciting, awesome and of course a little sad. We have had some amazing people here from Ohio and PA. They have won the hearts of our kids and we have grown to love them and will miss them a lot. It’s hard for me to understand how there are so many wonderful people and God plans when you get to meet them. These 5 individuals came when we needed them the most!

Willie and the rest of the long term staff went out to the MDS All Units Meeting in Mobile, Alabama today and it’s been raining so I had a lot of time to think about stuff (in between changing my kids wet clothing)... I was thinking of this whole ‘experience’ and had time to reflect on all the people we’ve met from different worlds who all love the same God. I hesitate to call it an experience because really this is what life should be like. Waking up in the morning thinking about how we can make someone else’s day better... where can we serve and what can we do. Who needs to talk to someone and will I take time for them... How many blessings does God really have in store for one lifetime? It’s amazing what you all see when you open your spiritual eyes. It’s so fun to see Him working - I see it so often in the kids as they interact with ‘strangers on Monday’ and hug and kiss their ‘friends on Friday’. It’s hard to realize that a lot of these ‘angels’ you won’t see again on this side of Heaven. But taking what we can from each meeting and allowing it to make us a better person so that we can bless someone else.

I don’t know if any of this makes sense... I’m getting a little distracted... Willie is talking to our neighbor Merlyn through our bedroom window... we’re such Mississippi rednecks!

Medical Adventure in the South

Wednesday was an interesting day (the word ‘interesting’ was not what I thinking last night but we’ve all had a good nights sleep)...

Willie came back to camp at 3:30 and we left Olivia behind with the cook, thinking forsure we would be bake in time for supper. Crazy us.

We went out to the clinic in Waveland which is only about 15 min. away. “There are no doctors in today”. Okay that’s strange but alright... off we went to another clinic that had just moved locations - big sign saying OPENING Feb 2/09... the door was locked. A lady saw us at the door and said that the clinic in Long Beach was open. Okay... so we got in the truck and drove about 1/2 hour to Long Beach. We found the clinic (our GPS decided it didn’t want to help us out so we had to search for it.) We walked in and a nurse greeted us at the door saying the doctor wasn’t taking any more patients. Awesome! By now mom was tired and frustrated and so my question was... “Is there a doctor anywhere in the south? My son needs to see one!” By now he was having a lot of trouble walking because his feet were swelling and the joy of carrying 53lbs was fading. The friendly nurse said we would have to go to the hospital.

So we went off to Memorial Hospital in Gulfport and we arrived there at 4:50pm. We got ‘registered’ and then we sat down... We were getting a little hungry but Willie didn’t want to leave and miss the doctor so we sat. I think it was about 6:00 when we got to go do his vitals and the nurse looked at him. About 10 minutes later another nurse came and put us in a different waiting room - a VERY cold one! We were the only ones there and Samuel was super hyper by this time and hopping around on one foot and driving us crazy. He was hungry and so where we! At 6:28 Willie finally went out to the cafeteria to see if he could get something to eat... apparently they closed at 6:30pm and so he got nothing! Well Samuel was expecting Chicken and Fries and was a little disappointed when Willie came back empty-handed. At 7:00 we were called by the nurse again and we got into a room. She looked at him, another nurse came to look at him and then we sat again.... At 7:30 I was starving so I went on a vending machine hunt. The hospital is SUPER secure and so I had to be escorted out and then back in. Well on the way back in I had to wait for someone to escort me into the ER’s locked doors and she forgot about me so I stood there for 10 or 15 min. Finally the security guard could see my frustration and took me in. So ya, I missed the doctor! Willie said she had said it must have just been a really bad reaction to something and was giving him a steroid to make it go away.... so he’s on a few different things. We were back at the camp by 8:45pm. He got worse before he got better and this morning (Thursday morning) he’s walking again and he’s back to his skinny self; swelling is down and no welts or rash! In two days it should disappear completely and we’ll be back at it! We missed our play date with Callie and Carson this week because of this and we were all sad about that but look forward to next week!

Thanks for all your prayers - they were needed and they were heard. Thank you Jesus for your mercy on us!

Dependance on God for Everything and in all Situations

We were shown once again how important it is to realize that it’s all in God’s control. Samuel woke up Monday morning saying his tummy hurt and he had a weird welt right beside his eye. He doesn’t usually say anything hurts so I was a little concerned. I gave him a children’s Pepto Bismol tablet and went off to clean the dorms. When I got back he had bumps on his stomach and he was itching them. I put some anti itch cream on them and off we went for lunch. I was busy doing stuff and all of a sudden he walks up to me itching his stomach and I saw the bumps had multiplied. I got him to take off his shirt and we put more cream on.

It only got worse and then it spread up to his neck, down his arms, his back and his face. I put him in the bath thinking maybe it was something on his clothes. Well when he took off his clothes I saw it was on his privates too and then this mom freaked out. Thankfully it was close to supper and Willie was on the site here and I called him to come see. We prayed like crazy and Willie went to go buy some more drugs and we gave him some allergy medication.

By bedtime the welts had all kind of run together and he had it all over his body. We prayed lots and then before he feel asleep I noticed that it had gotten better on his tummy; there was a little less red and a little more brown skin. So I made the comment that Jesus was already starting to make him better. His response made me smile and yet a little sad.

“But mom I’m not all better yet, just some. Maybe Jesus is too busy right now.”

I assured him that Jesus was never too busy and that He was always right by him. “Well mom, maybe He’s doing computer work in my heart.” This made me sad because this is a direct reflection of his mom. When mommy is too busy it’s usually because I’m behind a computer. Made me see how kids really need to see Jesus through their parents because that is what we are to them. We need to reflect the relationship of God to man in our parental roll.

So anyway, it’s Tuesday now and he’s doing a little better. His eyes are swollen, lips are twice the normal size, he's got hives (or what I think are hives) on his neck, shoulders and scalp and the privates look pretty scary. But his body is looking a lot better. So thank you for those prayers mom and dad, Tisha and Jules! Love you.