Stream of Consciousness...

I should not be blogging. I should be finishing laundry, packing bags, getting rid of stuff, cleaning...You get the picture. Unfortunately when I look at my house right now I see piles of stuff everywhere. It's like one of those shows where you see a bunch of small piles but then the camera zooms in and they are actually alive and taking over the entire space. OK, not really...I mean, they aren't alive. (or are they? they sure seem to reproduce) Add to that 2 wonderful little boys that like to "reorganize" and I feel like I'm losing my mind.

Yesterday I burned a pan of rice. and when I say burned I mean epic burning. The pan and lid and even my little bamboo utensil thingy are burned. The rice was turned into something resembling a tire. My whole house was filled with smoke it was bad. The reason all this could happen without my notice was I thought I turned the burner off but I actually turned it on high then drove down the street to take Jose to work. I was gone maybe MAYBE 20 minutes. yikes! I have learned to take the pan off the burner if I'm going to leave the house. And I'm still being reminded because my house smells like burned rice. Anyone know how to get rid of that smell? Oh well at least I'm moving out in 3 days. I think I will take a break from cooking for a little while. (and Fortune Village & Sushi Hana sing the hallelujah chorus-they love us...is it bad that we are recognized at 2 restaurants in our area?)

I had 2 friends come over today to pick up a couple things. They both left with full cars. I am forcing people to take my stuff. (Me"you want this blender." Them "no, that's OK" Me "No, seriously you WANT this blender") <----insert evil laughter...Ahem. Anyone want to come over? I have lots of stuff left =D

Super Dad

There are many great fathers in the world. Some are the type that father only naturally, some only spiritually  and some are fathers in the natural and spiritually. I am Super blessed to be married to the last kind.

Naturally:

One of my first memories of Jose was looking in on him teaching a class of 30 3,4 & 5 year olds by himself.

He was standing in the center of the room and the kids were all running around him screaming, laughing, etc... and he was not stressed out. In fact he was laughing. I fell in love with him all over again when I saw that. He keeps his cool in situations that I would not be able to keep mine.

Later I found out that before he got saved he didn't want to have kids. (I guess that is kind of a standard feeling for young guys) I was surprised to hear that and most people don't believe it because of what a great father he is and how much he loves it. Of course his heart changed before he met me. ;)

Recently we were at the mall with some friends and the men were ahead of the women by several feet. My friend kept saying Jose is "Super Dad" He was managing my kids plus 2 other little girls that were with us effortlessly. (Like I said he keeps his cool in situations I consider stressful )

I love watching him with our boys. He is such a natural. He always seems to know what to do and how to handle anything that happens. And he is just great with them

Spiritually:

Jose takes a personal interest in the lives of the guys he mentors. Even the volunteers that work with him at church. He fathers men that are older than him. And he does it wisely. They don't know but he thinks about them, talks about them at home and prays for them all the time. When any of the men he mentors decide to do things that are contrary to the word of God it hurts him the same as if they were his blood. I have seen what the prodigal sons father felt by watching Jose.

On Sunday 5 of his guys got commissioned and that meant more to him than anything else anyone of them could have given him.

Jose stayed up with one of the guys until 2 am to finish writing the necessary essays to complete it on time.

Because that's the kind of Father he is. He wants to see his sons successful and he is willing to do whatever it takes to help them.

As the mother linked to this father I am extremely blessed to be in his life. He always teaches me new things and I am able to see from his perspective how a father feels about his sons.

The men that call him father may know these things or they may not. Either way they are blessed to have him 

Happy (belated) Fathers Day Jose!

Me and your boys love you!

Inspiration from my past self

I was going through some old journals and a sheet of paper fell out of one of them. When I was younger I loved poetry and would usually journal whatever poem or song I was feeling the most. This paper had a poem on each side. One of them is very well known and the other is one I found in a poetry book and have never seen it before or since so I don't think it is very well known.

Here they are

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
                                   ~Robert Frost

How Did You Die?

Did you tackle that trouble that came your way
with a resolute heart and cheerful?
Or hide your face from the light of day
with a craven soul and fearful?
Oh, a troubles a ton or a troubles an ounce,
or a trouble is what you make it.
And it isn't the fact that your hurt that counts
but only how did you take it?

You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what's that?
Come up with a smiling face
it's nothing against you to fall down flat,
but to lie there-that's disgrace
The harder your thrown, why the higher you bounce
be proud of your blackened eye!
It isn't the fact that your licked that counts,
it's how did you fight and why?

And though you be done to the death, what then?
If you battled the best you could;
If you played your part in the world of men,
why the critic would call it good.
Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce
and whether he's slow or spry
It isn't the fact that your dead that counts
But only, How did you die?
                                ~Edmund Vance Cooke

I'm not sure what was going on in my life that these 2 poems inspired me then. But I think it's really cool that I found them when I did. The second one especially describes a lot of things I have thought and even blogged about already. No matter what may happen to me, the important thing is not what happened but how did I respond? I don't always respond the right way. Sometimes I let my flesh respond and that is usually when I feel like a whipped puppy. I'm learning.

In 7 weeks my world is going to change. Am I nervous? Of course! But 100 times more excited than nervous. I am so thankful for the people that are excited with me. Romans 12:15 says (Rejoice) "Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep" You guys are awesome! :-D

I have a new thingy on the side over there---------------------------------------------------------> somewhere, with our prayer partners names. If you would like to be added to our list (because we love you!) let me know (by commenting) and I will add you. I won't send you any junk mail, I will just know you are praying for us :-D we will post prayer needs as they arise on this blog. And, if you would like I can send you a direct email with our prayer needs (but only if you like...I promise not to spam you!)

(And) when I went to find the exact wording of the verse above I thought how awesome and appropriate the rest of these verses where so I decided to leave you with this.

Romans 12:14-21
Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them. Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with each other. Don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people. And don’t think you know it all!

Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable.  Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.
Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say,
“I will take revenge; I will pay them back,” says the Lord.
Instead, “If your enemies are hungry, feed them.
If they are thirsty, give them something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals of shame on their heads.”
Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.

The Chinese Starfish

Friday morning we woke up early packed up the kids in the car and drove down to Galveston. We met up with my parents and spent a large part of the day at the beach

My dad, Jose and Logan spent most of their time building sand castles,

digging holes and filling them with water

My mom and Timothy spent most of their time in the water

(Thank God my mom was willing to do that because I was getting worn out with all that in and out stuff)

Timothy is terrified of showers but his favorite thing to do in the ocean is sit (in someones lap) and let the waves wash over him and push him back

Funny kid

Logan filled those buckets with water hundreds of times but every time he got back to the hole Poppy filled the water had seeped back into the sand

It didn't matter though he still had fun

I took 200 pictures so I'm only in about 3 of them.

We went for a walk in the ocean to try out Timothy's game.

It was really windy and started raining shortly after we took this picture

about 2 seconds after this was taken a wave knocked us over

We had a lot of fun

Friday night my grandma, sister, brother and brother in law all joined us for a cook out and mosquito buffet.

My dad made amazing chicken and corn on the cob.

We enjoyed it greatly and the mosquitos enjoyed us greatly.

("off" is an urban legend)

Saturday we went on a beachcombing adventure with some "Master Naturalists"

 (I will share more on that at the bottom of this post)

We forgot to wear sunscreen

I'm sunburned but you would never know to look at me.

 When I was born I left all my skin pigment in the womb for my sister and brother to enjoy.

After all the running around we did we thought it would be fun to ride the ferry...

Everyone else in Galveston had the same idea so we waited in line for about 3 hours both ways 

We took naps

After the ferry ride we drove to Kemah and ate at The Brick Oven Pizzeria  

This picture cracks me up

This one too

Then we walked down the Kemah boardwalk to the fairgrounds to ride the train

since my boys love trains

I love these pictures of Timothy

Riding the train!

It was a great weekend and I'm glad my family could all make it.

AND NOW FOR THE STORY OF THE CHINESE STARFISH

I mentioned earlier that we went beach combing on Saturday Morning

Before we left we heard a short lecture about the different types of things we might find on the beach 

and a little history about the beach then we all headed over to find some treasures. 

Logan and I were walking around together. Logan thought the idea was to collect every single seashell on the beach and picked up probably 30 clam shells and at least 2 dead crabs. 

Jose was walking with Timothy and came to find us. As he was walking he noticed something purple slightly buried in the sand. He picked it up and it was a starfish! 

When we all gathered up to show the naturalists what we found they were all so impressed with the starfish, one of them thought we should donate it to them and one of them said we should keep it. My dad grabbed it rinsed it off in the ocean and stuck it in his pocket.

When we got back to camp he was telling my sister the story about the starfish and pulled it out of his pocket to show her. She turned it upside down and said this says china on the bottom.

I was standing a little ways away so all I heard was "No way! Your kidding me!" 

The starfish was rubber and had CHINA stamped on the bottom. 

It was caked in sand so until my dad washed it in the ocean you couldn't see the word on the bottom. 

Every one of those naturalists handled it and not one of them thought it could be fake.

I wish we had donated it

:p

  Next time I go I think I will take a plastic seahorse and see how they react 

:-D 

(My favorite picture of the whole trip)

HAPPY SUMMER! 

Stream of Consciousness...

Most little girls play cinderella or sleeping beauty. Not me, I played Wendy from Peter Pan. I loved pretending to be a mother taking care of my "lost boys." I should have known God would give me little boys. It's hard to recapture the fun of being a make-believe mother living in a forest when you are wiping noses and bottoms, making lunch and taking care of bloody noses. When you live in the forest it doesn't matter if you have dirt on the floor. The floor is dirt. (consequently my floor might as well be dirt right now. I sweep and before I can even "swiffer wet jet" my floor it's dirty again.)

Sometimes I look at my day to day life and think "wow, how much longer is this going to last?" I have a hard time just living in right now. When I start to see a dream coming true I want to run up to it and wrap my arms around it. I don't like the waiting part. Which you would think I would be used to. A couple years ago when we would talk about moving to Peru I would get kind of nervous. The nervousness that comes from not knowing what your getting yourself into or what it will be like. I still don't know what it will be like. And I'm sure I don't know what I'm getting myself into. But I'm deliriously happy to be going now. When we arrived in Peru last September I was less than dazzled by the airport and exhausted from the trip so I can't remember exactly what my first thoughts there were. I do remember the first day there. I fell in love. The way I hear people describing their feelings for Italy or Paris. That is how I felt there. All I could think was "I get to live HERE!?" So now I'm counting down the weeks and days until I get to go back. Only this time we actually get to do something! We get to minister the love of Jesus to a nation of hurting and dying people.

When Jose initially spoke to the pastor we will be working with the first year he told him our heart is for Piura. He said we were the third couple that mentioned Piura to him and nothing has happened. No one has followed through. Can you imagine what God must have in store for that part of the country? I am giddy just thinking about it.

(aren't we cute...especially him!)

Jose and I were both in wedding's last week. Mine was Sunday (and I have NO pictures) :( His was Saturday. Both had brides named Melissa. (odd) They were both beautiful and I am so happy for both of them. I've been able to see both of them grow up in their relationships with God and I've been able to watch both of their relationships (with their husbands) blossom. I love you girls! I pray for both of you and we take our roles as your sister and brother in Christ very seriously! Congratulations Mrs. Greenwade and Mrs. Echevarria!