Going to the chapel.

Look at me, blogging twice in one week. If I’m not careful, this could become a habit.

Two weeks ago this past Wednesday, I was standing at my kitchen sink doing the dishes when my phone rang. It was my dear friend Tammi, who I’ve known for over 16 years, and who is a kindergarten teacher at a local Christian school. She said, "We want you to come talk about your trips to Uganda during chapel at school!" She was SO excited, and I could tell she expected me to be, too.

My immediate, emphatic, and serious response was "NO."

For real.

Tammi was shocked, "What?! Why not? You have to! You LOVE Uganda! This is a chance for you to talk about what you did and the people there that you love!"

Yes, I love Uganda, thanks, but NO, I will not stand on a stage in our (very large) church and talk in front of all those people! Thank You, God, for the opportunity, but no thanks. Ha - I'm so dumb.

Tammi and I argued and argued and argued about it, like only the best of friends can do, until finally she said, "Well, you pray about it and let me know tomorrow what you decide."

Almost immediately when I got off the phone, God reminded me of the verse that says, “Whoever can be trusted with little can also be trusted with much." (Luke 16:10) He said, “Valerie, I’m giving you this opportunity. Can you be trusted with little? Are you going to turn this down when you’ve asked Me over and over again to give you opportunities to do something more for Uganda?” Sheesh.

I thought about the letters I painted to help raise money for Ebenezer. Little. I thought about the jewelry sale and auction I did for them. Little. Both of those were time consuming and frustrating in their own way, but I stuck it out. I wanted to be trusted with the little.

And I felt like maybe God was giving me this opportunity to take a tiny step forward on the path, traveling from "little" toward the general direction of "much". Sigh. But did it have to be something so hard? (Why I thought it would be anything less, I have no idea.) I H.A.T.E. speaking in front of people. Did you know that the fear of death is the SECOND most common fear people have? Do you know what #1 is?

Public speaking. Mmm-hmm. Hence my immediate "no" to Tammi's invitation.

Long Short story short, I called Tammi the next day and reluctantly told her I would do it. Tammi had a great idea that she could be on the stage with me, and we would do the presentation more like an interview. Whew! That made it SOO much better. It put my mind at great ease, and I actually started to get a little excited about it.

Tammi had assured me there was no reason to be nervous, because after all, I would be speaking to pre-k through 3rd graders. “Yes, and teachers and parents!” I said. She said, “Oh no, there’s only 5 (I think that’s what she said) classes (meaning only 5 teachers) and only a few parents come to chapel.”  She totally lied.

When I walked into the church Wednesday morning, the sanctuary was PACKED!! Ok, not packed. But we have a pretty large sanctuary, and it was at least half full. There were TONS of parents there. Tons. Including one of our local news anchors (his child goes to school there). Not to mention a TOUR GROUP of visitors from South Korea! What?!

Seriously. You people have no idea how much I hate this. Tammi simply cannot FATHOM why this is so hard for me. She is just about as sanguine as they come and has no concept.

But I fought down my urge to bolt, and sucked it up and got up on that stage. In the end, Tammi had ended up emailing me a list of 12 questions that the kids themselves had come up with. The kids (and Tammi) sat on the stage with me, and as I answered their questions, I did a slide show of pictures that went along with the answers.

And you know what?

I had fun.

Don’t tell anyone. :)

God gave me the opportunity to tell probably 200 (?) people about my love for Uganda! Are you kidding me? Yes, I was petrified. But God totally came through, and after the first little kindergartener asked me his question, the Holy Spirit filled me with total peace (John 14:27), and I was able to sit on that stage, reminisce about my lovely Uganda, and tell people what God allowed me to do there.

Amazing.

God is good. (and patient)

“Courage is being scared to death, and saddling up anyway.” ~ John Wayne

On being a doer (or notsomuch)

*This post was written way back at the beginning of December.  Old news, but thought it was worth posting anyway.  I didn't want all that effort to go to waste! :)  If you're friends with me on facebook, you've seen the end results of this post already, but now you'll know the back story....

I am SO not a doer. Not one of those choleric personality types who sees a need and goes after it until it’s met. Oh, I see the need alright, and I go after it alright. I’m a great starter. A great idea-er. In fact, a little too eager for my own good in the idea department. Ready to jump into all sorts of projects and activities at the drop of a hat. Great on the uptake; a little lacking in the follow-through.

I’m more of the phlegmatic runner-out-of-gas-half-way-through type. And it frustrates the dog out of me – not to mention everyone else around me.

And that’s where I find myself now with a project I started to raise money for Ebenezer Children’s Ministry in Kibuku, Uganda.

Ebenezer was started by my sweet friends George and Sylvia Kooli, who I met during my first trip to Uganda in 2011. George was the director at Canaan Children’s Home (I talked briefly about him here) – where my sweet Christopher lives – during both of my trips there. When my team was there this past summer, we learned that George would be leaving Canaan shortly after our trip. I was SO SAD. But George had clearly heard the call of God on his life to start his own children’s ministry, and in obedience to that call, George and Sylvia spent their entire savings to secure a home and small parcel of land in the town of Kibuku, about 3 hours away from Jinja (where Canaan is).

George, Sylvia, and Baby Leslie

Oh friends. If you could only see the place where they live. And where they have taken in 20 HIV-infected and -affected children. When I saw the pictures I was stunned. And I’ve seen lots of stuff in Uganda.

They have cement floors (which is common), no electricity (they use TORCHES for light), and up until a couple of weeks ago had no running water.

Front of the house

bunk beds in the living room

kitchen (!)

back of the house

Sweet Sylvia tidying up the room where 20 children sleep.

Waiting for lunch.

Not long after they took in their first group of children, I received an email from George (it was a group email – not just to me personally) asking for monetary donations so that they could BUY FOOD for the children. They were out of money (remember they spent all their savings), and now that George had quit his job they had NO source of income.

Oh. My. Word. Can you even imagine? Truly. Truly. Stop for just a second and imagine that being your family.

Their only source of water at the time was a community well (hole in the ground) where they had to pull water up out of the ground in a jerry can. When the rainy season came, the well (hole in the ground) got contaminated, and they started having to buy bottled water to supply their needs.

Their water source - those are George's feet in the picture.

Now let’s back up for a minute. They didn’t have enough money to buy FOOD to feed themselves or the children, but they were having to PAY to buy bottled water. George really wanted to have running water installed at the house (which – mind you – means a spicket outside, not faucets inside). I asked him how much that would cost, and he replied apologetically that it would cost 898,000 shillings.

EGAD!! 898,000 shillings??

Um. Hold up a second. That’s $373.00 U.S.  Are you kidding me?

Oh, how I wished we just had the $373 we could send him. But we didn’t. And so I began to pray that God would show me a way I could raise some money to help them. And every time I prayed, a picture kept coming back to my mind of a picture I had seen on Pinterest of some giant wooden letters painted so cute with all manner of polka-dots and a cute bow on top.

I thought, “I could make those and sell them to raise money for George!”

Ahem.

Yes. Yes, I could.

(Great on the uptake. A little lacking on the follow through.)

And so I began a quest to find these gigantic wooden letters for a price that would still allow me to make a profit. I found the letters, tossed out an order form at Jacob’s school, and promptly got orders for FIFTEEN!! Wahoo!

Ahem.

And then I started buying ribbon to make the bows. And I bought the wrong kind and had to take a bunch of it back. And then I figured out I didn’t know how to make bows, and the lady who offered to teach me said what I really needed was one of those Bow Maker as-seen-on-tv thingies. So I bought one of those.

And then I bought spray paint and tried to paint my 15 gigantic letters and found that the wood sucked in the paint so fast you couldn’t even SEE any color on them! So I went back to the store and bought spray primer, and came home and found that one can would only cover about three letters.

Sigh.

Back to the store for more primer.

And then I read on the back of the spray can that you can only paint if the temperature is above 65 degrees. In December. Good thing we live in West Texas. And there has to be no – and I mean ZERO – wind. Not so good that we live in West Texas.

And so in between waiting and waiting for the temperature and the wind to cooperate at the same time, I started making bows. I would paint a couple letters, then make a couple bows. I made about 3 before I had to go back to the store for more ribbon.

And then more paint.

And more ribbon.

And OHMYGOSH, CAN I JUST QUIT ALREADY?!

There are probably a dozen other “ands” that I could tell you about – from trying to find the right size of painting sponge to trying to find fluorescent orange wired ribbon to the paint that literally disappeared when it dried – and with each and every one I wanted (and still want) to yell, “Just forget it!!”

But I have already told George I’m doing this fundraiser and by NO MEANS am I going to back out on him.

I’m so happy to report that some other very generous (and probably choleric) donors have already provided the money needed to install running water at Ebenezer. (THANK THE LORD they’re not waiting on me to come through! I could be here until NEXT Christmas!) But I am determined to finish this project and send the profits (which will be about $2.37 by the time I’m done making 47 trips to the store) to George and Sylvia.

Besides the fact that there are these people who’ve ordered 15 letters to give as Christmas presents and are depending on me to come through!

Oh Lord. Whatintheworld.

Please pray for me. I am truly going to need the grace of God to help me get all these letters done on time.

And please, PLEASE don’t ever let me do something like this again!

*Edited to add: By God's grace, I DID finish all the letters by the skin of my teeth.  I never wanted to see one of those giant wooden letters again.  And then....by God's grace and fabulous sense of humor, as I was making all my deliveries people started coming out of the WOODWORK clamoring to get more of them!  Before I even knew what was happening, I had orders for 15 more!!  Needless to say, my hubby and my children are not thrilled.  BUT....I asked God to show me a way to raise money for Ebenezer, and truly, my first efforts didn't really produce any profit.  I learned a lot, and have lots of paint and ribbon left over, so I'm hoping and praying this next lot will be much more profitable!  Wish me luck!  Pray for me?

Of friends and cake.

Sunday afternoon we received a last-minute invitation to have dinner at a friend's house. I love that! Last minute invitations are the best - truly. Something about it just speaks of true friendship to me. Sort of like my friend who says she feels loved when people just drop by unannounced. Now....if you're my true friend, please don't do that, but do invite me to dinner at the last minute. :)

The only problem with inviting me at the last minute is...um...well...what will I bring? I tend to live life more like Old Mother Hubbard (whose cupboard was bare) than a Boy Scout (who's always prepared), mostly just because I try to avoid going to the grocery store as long as humanly possible, until we have nothing left in the house to eat other than saltines and ketchup. And we all know I'm not gonna breeze into the kitchen and whip up something wonderful from scratch. Oh, how I was hoping for the salad assignment!

Fortunately for me the invitation was to "bring whatever you want", and I just happened to have the ingredients for the cake I had meant to take to Friday's PTA party, but hadn't had time to make. Unfortunately for me, I was making the cake from memory (note to self: what were you thinking? you know better than to try try to cook without a recipe.) and didn't even think about the part of the instructions that say to "cool completely" before applying the whipped topping.

Unfortunately for me, when we removed the cover from the cake the cool whip and the heath bar bits had completely melted, and looked like a big nasty mess. Fortunately for me, melted, gooey, nasty-looking chocolate heath cake still tastes delicious!

And so, in the spirit of Christmas, I would love to share - from memory - my gooey, chocolate, heath bar, cooling-optional cake recipe with you.



1 boxed chocolate cake mix
1 regular size can sweetened condensed milk (Not evaporated milk. That distinction is probably easy for you, but I always have to stop and think twice about it.)
1 - 8 oz tub Cool Whip
1 bag Heath bar bits or almond toffee bits

Bake cake according to package directions. While it's still warm, poke it full of holes using the handle of a wooden spoon. Lots and lots and LOTS of holes. Fill the holes with sweetened condensed milk. You should have as much milk as possible in the holes, and little left to pour on top. Then let the cake COOL COMPLETELY (or not) before covering with Cool Whip. {There is a version of this recipe that adds a layer of chocolate syrup on top of the condensed milk. I've never tried that, and really can't imagine adding it. This cake is reeallly sweet as it is.} Sprinkle the top with heath bar or toffee bits. Yum.

12 Days of Christmas

In my last post I mentioned that our friends the Mosses have a Christmas tradition of secretly blessing families they know with gifts for the Twelve Days of Christmas. We loved the idea and decided to try it this year....but we're only "blessing" one family, not six. :) We chose a family we know from school - and from church - who are having such a really, really hard time financially right now. Our small little gifts certainly won't turn their lives around, but we're praying they will at least bring a little cheer to an otherwise difficult time.

Today was day three, and oh. my. goodness. we are having so much fun!! The first night the kids and I parked across the street from their house, and a few houses down. The three of us got out and snuck (sneaked?) up to the DARK house, left the gift on the porch, then raaaan back to the car trying not to bust out laughing in our excitement.

Last night, we were expecting more of the same, but when we got close to their house we could see that the porch light was on! Aaagh! I stayed in the car to keep it running, while Kloe and Jacob slinked along the front of their garage like spies and set two mini fruit baskets on the porch. From the car I was whisper-screaming, "Noooooo, not BEHIND the screen door!!" The kids raaaan back to the car and when they got in I said, "When they open their glass door, the baskets will be behind it....they might never see them!" Kloe heaved a great sigh, then for a second time bravely faced the danger of being caught, and went back to move the baskets to the other side of the door. :)

TONIGHT....tonight we got home from church late, and so I went alone after the kids were in bed. The porch light was on again! I parked a few houses down, sneaked quietly past their garage, and just as I was about to creep up onto the porch, I could see that the curtains on their front window were open!! Surely they weren't trying to catch their mystery gifter? HaHaHaHa!! :) I love it! (and....I didn't get caught. as far as I know.)

We are having such a blast doing this! The morning after we left the first gift, as we were on our way to school Kloe grinned a huge grin and, in that same voice you use when you can't WAIT for someone to open that PERFECT Christmas present, she squealed, "They're finding their present right now!" We have been giggly and giddy about it for three days. So, so fun!

Dear Moss family, thank you so much for sharing your awesome tradition with us...albeit unintentionally. I'm hoping it will become one of our annual traditions, as well. And we will think of you (and miss you. and give you credit.) every single time we run hysterically through the dark, trying hard not to bust out laughing, secretly delivering Christmas cheer to some unsuspecting family.

Merry Christmas!