Dear Diary....

This post is nothing other than a bunch of rambling.  What has been mulling through my head in a constant stream for the past few weeks.  What I would write in my journal if I kept one.  But since I don't, it all gets to go here.  Let the ramblings begin....

Dear Diary,

I am still in shock that SixtyFeet is coming here.  Stunned.  I couldn't be more excited if it were the leadership from World Vision or Compassion International or Samaritan's Purse who was coming.  I don't know why.  I don't understand it. 

All I know is that the burden in my heart for SixtyFeet - the heart connection with their ministry and what they do - began long before I ever set foot in Uganda.  I distinctly remember the night in April when our mission team had our second conference call.  That night we learned that we would be the first "outside" mission team to ever work with a fairly new ministry called SixtyFeet.

As soon as the conference call was over and the kids were in bed, I went straight to the website and sat for hours poring over blog posts, videos, and pages about their story, the team, and what they're doing in Uganda.  Hours.  Something struck in me the minute I saw the first picture of M1. I think I read every. single. word. on their website that night.  Twice. 

Our first night in Uganda, Moses, the in-country director of SixtyFeet, came to the boarding house where we were staying to talk to us about what we would be doing at the prisons.  I was mesmerized by his every word, captivated by his testimony and his story of how he came to work with SixtyFeet.  I couldn't get enough. 

The next day it took us about an hour to travel to M1 by bus.  As my teammates and I visited and laughed and made small talk, the back of my mind never strayed far from thoughts about where we were going and what it would be like there.  When we turned off the highway onto the long dirt road that leads to M1, it became more quiet, subdued on the bus, and I think I probably didn't say anything at all for the rest of the ride.
 

And when we came up over the hill....and there in front of us was the exact same building I had looked at over and over again on the SixtyFeet website....my eyes instantly filled with tears.  Such a place of desolation, hopelessness, abandonment.  And the tears weren't far from my eyes for the rest of our time there.

When we left M1 that day, part of my heart stayed there.  I don't know why.  For the rest of the trip, they were never far from my thoughts.  I was so excited when Moses came back to visit with us on our last night in Uganda.  We were able to pray for him and bless him and SixtyFeet with some extra donations.  It was the best.

And then came the day when I read on their blog that they were having a contest to determine what three cities they would visit on their Awareness Tour.  Oh my goodness, did I want to win that contest!  I wanted them to come here so badly!  Just to have a chance to get to know the people who started this ministry that had become so huge in my heart, and to become more involved in what they are doing.  I didn't think there was any possibility whatsoever that we could win, but WE DID!!

It has been quite an ordeal making arrangements for a place for them to show the film and do their presentation.  In fact, we're still in limbo even now.  There are times when I wonder if it really is going to work out at all.  There have been times when I thought they surely would get tired of waiting on me and change their minds about coming (we were #4 in the contest, after all).

Just when I thought we had the place and time confirmed, something came up and SixtyFeet had to reschedule.  So far we haven't been able to find another time that will work with our church.  *sigh*  I'm not a naturally optimistic person, so I'm really having to fight my inclination to just say, "See?  I knew it wouldn't work.  That's it."  I'm trying.  I'm praying.  I'm hoping...  And hopefully, I'm learning.  Learning to leave things in God's hands and trust Him to accomplish His plan - whether that's what I want it to look like or not.

I don't know if God really has anything planned for me to do with this ministry at all.  I've read story after story of people who went on mission trips and then came home and joined a ministry they had visited...or started a ministry of their own...or became involved in with missions in some other way.  I so want that to be me.  But I don't know.

Maybe all of this is only about spreading the message of SixtyFeet to the people of West Texas.  Maybe there will be someone there that night - when we finally DO get it scheduled :) - whose heart will be moved to join the work of SixtyFeet in a huge way.  Maybe after they come and show their film, my part in the plan will be complete.

But then again...maybe not.

So this is was Christmas....

So....I tried to do a "12 Days of Christmas" theme for our Christmas photos, and that totally didn't work.  So here they are the boring ol' normal way. :)
 

Melting snowmen cookies - aren't they cute? :)

Kloe made a friend at the cookie-exchange party. :)

I was laughing because all the other kids in the Santa line were about 3 years old. :) 
My kids were embarrassed, but I made them sit on his lap anyway!

Kloe's first Christmas band concert.  So fun!  And so we come full circle.... :)

Treats for teachers. {and just a few for me :) }

We had two Christmases this year - our family Christmas on Friday morning, then we traveled to the Mister's mom and step-dad's house Friday night to spend Christmas with them.

At home....

Someone couldn't stand to be away from the presents. :)

Love. :)

My mom made me this awesome scrapbook-style cookbook with recipes from members of our family. Isn't it fun? I love it!

Santa must have known Jacob was in desperate need of a new football!


Old ball - poor thing! I had no idea it was in such bad shape!   Made me so sad
when I saw that he had tried to cover the end with packing tape. :(

New.  Much better. :) 



Kloe got a much-longed-for sit-n-scoot, aka Ezy Roller. :)

It was a great Christmas!

For round 2, we had originally planned to leave for my in-laws' on Saturday morning, but the weather forcast was changed to include 3-5 inches of snow during the night along the route we would be taking, so we left Friday evening instead. Good thing we left early! The roads were completely clear for about half of our trip, then literally, when we got to the half-way point and turned south, the roads were covered!  It snowed non-stop from Friday night through Sunday around lunch time.  We got about 8 inches!  But by Monday afternoon when we got ready to start home, it was almost all gone. :)

Isn't this cool?  A tidal wave of snow coming off the roof.

Bet these cactus (cacti?) aren't used to seeing snow!

Best. Mother-in-law. Ever. :)

Hoping you all had a wonderful Christmas, filled with the love and presence of Jesus, in whom we live and move and have our being.

Merry Christmas!

Love.


Love.


Merry Christmas, friends. Praying the true purpose of our celebrating will fill your homes this year.

Gift

Dear Valerie,

Good Morning.....Surprise!

Happy Birthday!

Love,
God

Five for Friday - Happy Dance Edition

It's cold, cloudy, and spittin' something out of the sky here in our neck of the woods today.  Oh how I would love to have all my bloggy friends come curl up on the couch and share a cup of warm apple cider with me.  (Ok, not actually share a cup, but you know what I mean.)

This week's Five for Friday is all about Happy Dances.  Don't ya love it? :)

1. My Aunt Donna from Colorado came into town on Wednesday and we met her and some other family members at a restaurant for dinner.  My mom didn't go eat with us, but Aunt Donna had stopped by Mom's house before dinner.  When we got to the restaurant, Aunt Donna said, "I left a surprise for you at your mom's house, and you have to have it by December 1st, so be sure to go by there and pick it up on the way home."  Hmmm....by December 1? Any guesses? (*BIG smile*)
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Love love love love. Remember two years ago when we first planned to do a Jesse Tree? Yeah, well, we never did. Surprised? I couldn't ever decide on a book, and I never had the time to print out all the ornaments, and I didn't know what we'd do for the tree, and blah blah blah. But now! we! have! one! My Aunt Donna said she was just about to leave her house when she felt the Lord telling her to go back and get this and bring it to us. God is so cool. :)
   
   *Happy Dance*
   
   
2. Got this in the mail this week:
   
   
   
   
   
   *Happy Dance!*
   
   
3. The children's ministry at our church had a coat drive last month and asked families to bring coats that would then be donated to a local community clothes closet.
   
   Jacob asked his teacher at school if he could put up a poster asking people to donate coats. Somehow the question got passed along to the school counselor, who asked Jacob if he thought there might be also kids at school who need coats. That conversation led to Jacob taking the lead in organizing a coat drive at school FOR kids at school.
   
   The counselor interviewed him about the coat drive on the school's morning news last Wednesday, and he made this poster that is hanging in the front foyer of the school (phone pics = not great):
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Isn't it cute? Look at the little man shivering on the right with his hat and mittens on. Cute, right? See the little line coming out of his head? It's like a word bubble, but it just looks like a bunch of wiggle lines. I asked Jacob what it was. He said, "Those are "C's"....the man is saying "CCCCCCC" because he's cold." :)
   
   Love that kid.
   
   *Happy Dance*
   
   
4. Did you know if you buy a Wal*mart gift card and use it to buy gas, you get 10 cents off per gallon?
   
   *Super Happy Dance!!*
   
   
5. This discount on gas makes me especially happy nowadays, because....
   
   BEFORE[(= me being a dork :)]:
   
   
   
   
   AFTER:
   
   
   
   
   *HAPPY, HAPPY DANCE!!*

Our Thanksgiving in Pictures



It's done!

 


Fallin' off the bone good!  (not sure why this picture came out all skinny-wonky)

 



My very first turkey!  It turned out great!  Tender, moist, delicious.  :)



Can you believe I cooked all that by myself? :) 
(With a little help from Kloe.)



Instead of regular pie, we had individual, mini
pumpkin cream pies.  Mmmmm!



A little after-dinner entertainment.  :)

Me and my mama. :)

The carnage. :)

We had a small Thanksgiving, with just the four of us and my mom.  Quiet.  Slow.  Peaceful.  I cooked my very first turkey ever, and it was delicious!  (Reynolds Oven Bags are the bomb!)  We watched the parade, Charlie Brown, and a little football.  The boys shot slingshots, and Kloe won the wish-bone pull.  All in all a wonderful day!

'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving....

I didn't make it too far on my photojournal of thankfulness. Only nine days of pictures, but definitely a whole month full of being thankful.

So, so thankful for my family.
Thankful for my beautiful children and wonderful husband.
Thankful for our home, warm beds, warm clothes, warm showers.
Thankful for plentiful food and clean water.
Thankful for our jobs, and that we've not had to go without during these hard economic times that have affected so many.

So very thankful. For so much.

In that spirit of thankfulness, our family participated this year in a tradition we learned from our friends the Mosses.....we had a Thankful Dinner. Jen calls it a Starvation Dinner, but I wasn't that brave. :)

We had black beans and rice for dinner, and nothing else. As soon as I said, "And just water to drink," Jacob suddenly started asking for all kinds of other things to drink. "Can I have milk? Juice? Can I put flavoring (i.e. propel powder) in my water?" What's so funny is that we drink water with dinner every night - but suddenly when it was part of the Thankful Dinner, Jacob couldn't stand it. :)

After dinner we watched Kit Kittredge - lighthearted entertainment, but also with a strong message about being thankful - and then a couple of YouTube videos to help us remember that we have SO MUCH to be thankful for. And....SO MUCH responsibility to help others.

We watched this video that I saw on Jen's blog....




And then this video that I saw on someone else's blog a few months ago....




Man.

At the end of the videos I asked the kids, "What do you think about that?"

Kloe's response: "I want to adopt. A lot." I don't know if that means she very much wants to adopt, or she wants to adopt a lot of kids. :)

Jacob's response: "I'm hungry. Will you get me something to eat?"

sigh.

I have to remind myself it's the Holy Spirit's job, not mine, to create compassion in him. My job is just to educate, and train, and remind.....and pray.

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In other news, early this morning -- or at least I thought it was early until I actually got up and saw what time it was :) -- I was awakened by the sound of incessant hammering.  When I couldn't take it any more, I got out of bed and stumbled into the living room where Kloe was watching cartoons.  I asked her, "Where's Jacob?"

"Outside."

Great.  Yep.  That was him making all that ruckus.  Hammering rocks in his size 5 overalls. :D  (Ok, can I just pause right here and ask why Blogger doesn't have emoticons that you can insert into your posts???)

Later I found him hammering nails into the fence, looking a little like Pa Ingalls in the same overalls.  (Why do we still have them, you ask?  Dress up, my friends, is a very important part of our lives around here.  He dressed up as no less than 4 different people today.)

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While Pa Jacob mended the fence, Kloe and I started on lunch for tomorrow. This guy went for a long swim in my sink for the biggest part of the day.

Kloe helped make the green bean casserole and mashed potatoes. She said, "It's like cooking school! Oh, I love Thanksgiving cooking school!" :)  Haha - she might not be so excited if she knew her teacher was the cooking school dropout!

Tomorrow morning we'll finish up the candied sweet potatoes (ONLY because my mom's coming over!), pumpkin pie, dump cake (mmmmm - love), stuffing, and of course the bird. It's my first time making the whole shebang myself (can you believe it? at 40?)....and you know cooking isn't exactly my forte, so wish me luck!

Just like today - what with the crack of dawn rock busting going on - I'm sure I'll be needing a bunch of this to get me through the morning.

Happy Thanksgiving all my bloggy friends - I hope you have a wonderful, blessed, THANKFUL day!