Acappella - Do you love the Lord

For the most part...

... I pretty much know that God has something in store for me. For CC. Well, for all of us, for that matter.
I just don't think that I'm LIVING like I'm EXPECTING anything from God.
Ok, I'm NOT living like I KNOW that God has something in store for me. For us. I just go from day to day, living in complacency; doing normal things that most mothers would be doing.. taking care of the kids, doing school, playing with the kids, dishes, food, laundry, cleaning, shopping for groceries. And when I can, I squeeze in a few minutes of quiet time reading a couple of chapters and saying a few quick words in prayer. Basically just enough to keep my inner spiritual man alive.
Then the other day I read something that really pricked my heart and challenged me. I'll write it out for you...

"In imagination I want you to come with me to a ward in one of our big hospitals, and here before us we see a man. He has been seriously ill for months; in fact as we approach his bed we are hardly sure whether he is alive or dead. But, as we watch him closely, we see that his chest moves slightly, and, on feeling his pulse, we find that it still beats feebly. True, his is alive, but should the ward catch fire he is too weak to save himself, and it is quite certain that he is not strong enough to rescue anybody else. But he is alive. He has Life.
"Now come with me again in imagination to Putney Bridge. Today is the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, and as we look over the bridge, there, almost at our feet, we see the two boats with their eight oarsmen in each. These men have been training for weeks, some for months, and today they are to go through one of the greatest ordeals that any athlete is ever asked to undergo - a race of four-and-a-quarter miles, from Putney to Mortlake, and as we watch them start we realize that their bodies are just tingling with Life. They have Life Abundant.
"There is a vast difference between the sick man in the hospital ward and these training athletes. The one has Life, the others Life in Abundance. There is all the difference also in the spiritual world. Some Christians have life, i.e., they are really converted people, but they know nothing of the Abundant Life which Jesus Christ came to give His people. "I am come that they might have Life, and that they might have it more abundantly." - George S. Ingram

I knew that I was that guy in the hospital. Barely alive and just enough to know it. That's not what I'm supposed to be like. I can't be ready for whatever God has for me or my little family if I'm just staying afloat in my little world. There's a song called "Traveling Shoes".. and its saying that whenever death comes knocking on the doors of the sinner, the liar, gambler's door, and they weren't ready because they didn't have on their "Traveling Shoes".. then he goes knocking on the Christian's door and asked if he was ready, and he shouts "YES!" He had on his "Traveling Shoes". He was ready at the call. And I'm not necessarily talking about death, I just mean in general. If God comes calling and has some job for me, special or not, will I be ready? Or will I be saying "Naw, Lord; You didn't give me enough time or notice so I gotta get myself ready, and then I'll let You know when I have myself together for You." I'm not doing that. And I have made a decision to be sure that I am ready for whatever God has for me. I don't want to come across a trial in my path and be like, "God, You didn't prepare me for this!"
So let's go! Full of Life and ready to GO!

Here's the children today..

I love this picture of Cherish...

My boy is getting so big on me...

He loves Cars. :)

My little beauty. :)

My life has been very busy, and full of life and little things that make our home interesting and fun. Our church just had a Bible School here, and we hosted 9 girls, and also had extra company every night for that week. After that, people just kept dropping in, to visit or for meals, and this week I begged my family to let me have one week to myself. They agreed, and this week has been much quieter, for which I am very grateful.
This weekend CC goes to preach at a small church in Maryland, so our weekend will be a quiet one too. But next weekend we go to PA for Mission's Conference! Fun times! :)
I will be blogging more, though I will probably spend more time on my other blog than this one.. I don't know if many people read this one. If you do, and you want me to keep this one up, please comment! Thanks, and have richly blessed day. :)

My thought for the day...

Sometimes I feel like we as Christians are going thru the Enchanted Grounds. (taken from Pilgrims Progress) We allow ourselves to be lured to sleep, or distracted from our walk with God over anything. We lose sight of the things that are important, and as we focus on the things that trip us up, our soul becomes sleepy and we sit alongside the road and fall into a trance over things that don't matter. We are so close to our victory's end that we forget that this is the place where Satan will fight us the hardest.

What is trust, without faith?

For real, tho..
how you gonna tell someone that you trust them to get something done for you, without having the faith in them that they will get it done? This includes when you you talkin about your friends, like when you share things in confidence to them, and then you ask them to not tell anyone else for the time being; you have FAITH in them that they will keep the things you enTRUSTed to them, and not betray you.
We have a lot of times when our faith is "betrayed", tho many times we don't recognize it as such when it happens, I think. When you ask your family member to do something for you, you trust them that they will get it done and you leave, having faith that it will happen. But when you get back and its not done yet, and they reassure you that they are on their way to do it right this second, was your faith betrayed? Or was it just delayed?
At a young age, I think children learn trust. When you tell your little boy, as you put him to bed in a darkened room with a small night light, "I'll be right in the next room; you are fine. Your mommy won't leave you alone here", he TRUSTs you, and his small heart beats with that trust, and every time that you tell him that, every night, his faith in you is established and that trust is founded on the faith that you will NEVER LEAVE HIM ALONE.
As one gets older and moves into their teens, they learn, thru trials, errors and sometimes heartbreak, to give, receive and earn trust. Its so important that they KNOW of a surety that there is ONE who will NEVER betray trust, and that ONE you can always have faith in, no matter where you are in life, who you are, or where you've been.
I think in marriage that trust and faith gets used every day, every moment, and it doesn't stop when you go to sleep or start when you wake up. That trust and faith is a standing one; you don't leave it at work and pick it up the next day. It doesn't stop once you completed a task that your companion asked you to do, that simply deepens that standing trust. Somehow I think that this part of trust and faith is so precious. The trust that your better half has in you that you will never betray him, never do anything to hurt him or you or both of you is, I think, HOLY and that God is just as JEALOUS over that trust as your companion is. When that trust has been injured or cut, not only do you and your husband/wife hurt, I think that God bleeds right along with us as well. After all, He IS the third part of that precious cord that binds you together.
So...
what is faith without trust?
and what is trust without faith?
I think one cannot exist without the other. And I think, perhaps, that there is a hidden beauty in this that we miss a lot.
I'm learning it now.

ok...

So, I haven't been on this thing in months! I didn't even remember I had a blog until I heard someone talking about theirs, and that's when I realized that I REALLY needed to update mine! And SOON!
So anyhow, we've been busy, just with the regular household chores, and now with spring in the air and the weather so nice, we've been doing a little outside work, planting some perennials and a shrub here and there.. I'm planning on doing more, but I wanna do only a little at a time.. hopefully this year I'm gonna be able to get some tall trees planted in our yard.. Our yard is kinda open and bare, so a few trees would make a nice contribution to shade and looks! *happiness!*
Another juicy tidbit of news is.. We're expecting a girl the end of August! At least, a girl is what our midwife/doctor told us after looking at the ultrasound scans for a half hour! Anyhow, I kinda felt like this one was a girl. :) So we're excited! Can't wait! The only downside is that I get to go thru the hot summer months big and preggie, but hey, I'm thanking God that we have Air Conditioning!!! It's gonna be one of my best friends this summer, as well as blender smoothies and all cold drinks!
Well, we're getting ready to go to some friends house for dinner, but I wanted to upload a few pics before I leave.. just to show you that we're alive and doing well!
Love to all.. chat with ya later!
Jen

Ok, friends...

Here are some pics from the School where CC, Sarah and I taught English. For the most part, many of these kids are my cousins, because they are from my village, Auala, Savaii Samoa.
Tomorrow I'm hoping to write a little on what all we did there, but for now you can check out my pics. :)
Alofa to you all.

The School Children in Auala, Savaii Samoa who stole my heart

Teaching English was SO much fun... They were eager learners. Its at times like these that remind me just how difficult the English language is, and how little I really know about it.

The School Children in Auala, Savaii Samoa who stole my heart, Part 2

All these kids are from Year 8, so ages 10 to 14. Many times we'd get students from year 7 and 6 so I think we had up to 35 kids at the most.
They all loved Micah and CC... I often laughed because when I'd wash CC's shirts the back of them would be SO dirty, and I figured out that it was because kids were always patting him on the back, giving him hugs or slapping him on his back as their best friend.

Today is the DAY!

Today is the day we leave for Samoa! We're heading out from our house in the next half hour to go load our bags into the van, and then Willie Halteman's family and our cousin, Ducky, will be driving us to the Charlotte Airport, where we'll fly out to Cleveland, Ohio, small layover there, and then on to LA, small layover there, and then final destination, Samoa!
Hopefully I'll be able to find somewhere where I'll get internet access so that I can update everyone on some of the happenings in our lives..
In the meantime, pray for us, our safety, and the Emergency Tsunami packs we're handing out, along with the gospel tract and bibles... we'll be showing the Jesus film as much as we can, and pray that God will bless that and that many ppl will come to know Him as their Saviour!
Thanks to each one of you for your interest in this project, and I'll miss you tons!
Love to you all!

Never seen that before...

... have you?
Any of you seen the cartoon, "The Coyote and the Roadrunner"? Remember where, whenever the Roadrunner would start to run, their legs would spin in a circle, kinda like a fan, and they'd spin away in the same place until they "PHEW!".. would take off?
Well, I saw a deer do just that today. I was driving home from some meetings, and coming down the road I saw a nice whitetail buck in the middle of the road, crossing to the other side. *sigh*. you know how deer are, they get blinded by the lights of your car? He was no exception, and he just stood there, blinking stupidly for a few seconds; til I beeped my horn, and then he pulled a "Roadrunner" and spun his hoofs so fast he never moved from where he was standing for a few seconds! It was the funniest thing.. watching him spin his hoofs in an attempt to run fast. It was almost like he was standing on ice!
And that's the funny thing.. he WASN'T on ice. Have you ever seen a deer spin his hoofs on pure asphalt? Road conditions being dry, with no moisture or heat or ice anywhere? Baffled me, for sure....
Well, what can we say... stranger things have happened...

When we woke up on our last day in Grangeville...

... we woke up to a snowy, white beautiful outdoors.

I have always loved winter; it's my favorite time of year, with Christmas being my favorite holiday.
But on our drive to the airport... there were some people who, I suppose, were not to gloriously happy about the sudden change in weather...

It was pretty dangerous, since this accident was on a downhill slope after a blind corner..
I think that everyone forgets how to drive in snowy conditions after going thru the summer and stuff...
I can't wait for snow. I love all the memories I have with it, the fun times I remember I had with sledding, snowmen and stuff. The cozy feeling in the house on those winter evenings with a few lights, apple spice candles, hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows, stories read under fleece blankets.
Sometimes I wonder if God created winter for families to slow down and spend some time together again.. reconnect, remember, relax...
If He did, or if He didn't, I don't care so much...
I'm just glad that He made winter.

Quick memo...

Well, I'm back from my visit to the West... I had a great time, visiting everyone out there, listening to what has been going on in their lives, sharing my life stories with them, eating new foods, (and a few old favorites)
**DRINKING COFFEES***
O, that was so heavenly, to wake up and know that I could have a fresh, beautiful, hot mocha by simply requesting one, or even more fun, making it myself! I had a blast working there again, and it was great to see some old-time customers.
I'll post more later, right now I have to continue to unpack and put away all my clothes.. and I have a splitting headache. Thankfully I didn't get the flu like most of the rest of my family did, but I did end up with this. *sigh*.
O well... :)

Blog Status update

Just to let other ppl know out there, this blog is specifically for those of my friends who have dial-up internet, so if you happen to see repeats on this blog from the other one, that is why. My backgrounds and playlist is too much for them to load onto their computers, so they will use this one. This does not exclude anyone from using or viewing this blog, this is to simply explain the reason for repeats or familiar pics or quotes.

Thank you for understanding, and hope that those of you who have dial-up internet will be able to see this blog without too much problem. If you do, let me know via message on here, or call me. You who need to get a hold of me have my number already. :)

Love to all of you!

Jen

Don't Mess with Old People!

HOW TO CALL THE POLICE

WHEN YOU'RE OLD

AND DON'T MOVE FAST ANYMORE.

George Phillips , an elderly man, from Meridian, Mississippi, was going up to bed, when his wife told him that he'd left the light on in the garden shed, which she could see from the bedroom window. George opened the back door to go turn off the light, but saw that there were people in the shed stealing things..

He phoned the police, who asked "Is someone in your house?"

He said "No," but some people are breaking into my garden shed and stealing from me.

Then the police dispatcher said "All patrols are busy. You should lock your doors and an officer will be along when one is available."

George said, "Okay."

He hung up the phone and counted to 30.

Then he phoned the police again.

"Hello, I just called you a few seconds ago because there were people stealing things from my shed. Well, you don't have to worry about them now because I just shot them." and he hung up.

Within five minutes, six Police Cars, a SWAT Team, a Helicopter, two Fire Trucks, a Paramedic, and an Ambulance showed up at the Phillips' residence, and caught the burglars red-handed.

One of the Policemen said to George, "I thought you said that you'd shot them!"

George said, "I thought you said there was nobody available!"

Ha, ha! True story!
(taken from an email from ******* Byler)

Greetings to all who view this...

Hello...
I created this blog for those of you who are interested in my everyday life and what goes on in NC from my point of view.
I also chose the name, "I Wanna Grow for God" because that is the desire of my heart right now...
...to grow in the love and the life of my Saviour, and to be more like Him every day.

So, I will endeavor to update as much as possible, post pics and let you know of any upcoming events that are going on!
Jen