What do we do?

Sometimes when I read missionary blogs I think. "so what do they do that makes them a missionary other than live in another country" I'm pretty sure other people think that about us. And while we will have a very different focus once we move north I wanted to share this list Jose made of his weekly, bi-weekly and monthly activities. So you can get a taste of our missionary life

With the men

Make video for intense in Spanish to show to la casa del padre
Signing men up for intense
Plan weekly man church Peru service
Plan weekly teachings and schedules for men's network and continue to recruit men


Keep track of books and curriculum to distribute to men
Meet with men's cell leaders weekly to strategize to bring men to next level
Keep track of progress of men ready to be commissioned in September
Plan monthly men's breakfast
Plan year schedule for conferences, retreats and events for the men


Personal growth in Spanish
Attend class on Tuesday and Friday all morning for the focus on the family courses in Spanish
This semester it is Christian counseling, the blessing of the father,
preparation for marriage, potential principle


Oversee the worship team
We meet every other week spiritual cover the team
Oversee the group weekly to be accountable to practices and songs and next level in training another team
Sunday morning make sure team is on stage and ready


Armor bearers
Weekly coordinate with victor who helps me on Sunday for armor bearers
Help train and recruit and use the men who are not serving as lead to help with ushers.
Make sure we have order of service and any final changes clear


Transportation and sound
Every week we coordinate to transport the church to the convention center
for the services.


Arrive early Sunday with team pick up all items and load on trucks and
transport and repeat after service


Continue to recruit and train men to recruit so we have 3 transport teams
before we leave in September
Also make sure all sound is coordinated for the various activities at the church every week


Weekly stay with the boys on Monday and Wednesday and Saturday to help
Kathryn do school with them and spend time with them, use those days to
extensively read, study, pray and take the kids to the park or out so they
can play


Meetings
Conference call with pastor on Wednesdays
Upper Elder meeting with pastor Guillermo on Thursday morning


These happen either weekly or every two weeks
Cell meetings with worship team
Cell meeting with men's leaders
Cell meeting transportation team
Cell meeting with armor bearers
Mentor my wife weekly and date night
Mentor victor weekly
Spend at least one good hour talking to my dad weekly over lunch or project


Once a month we help a single mom with her poor house in the mountains.
We have been helping her rewire her house, help make it secure, fix and
install some fans, buy toys for her, bring her food and
supplies. She takes care of 8 children in a poor part of town and it's our
family outreach while we are in Lima.

He's a busy guy isn't he?
My list is much shorter.

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday I work on School with the boys
Those days I also try to do Spanish lessons and clean my house
Wednesday I attend "women who pray" the women's bible study La Casa Del Padre does
Monday nights Jose and I have date night - a word on this. We are blessed to have Victor and Jose's dad here to help us by watching the boys when we need a babysitter. Without them we would never get to go out. We learned a couple years ago that as hard as we run in ministry we need that weekly date to reconnect. It has been a great thing in our lives and I can't say enough good things about it.
Every other week I help a lady from church with her english. When we get back from the states I am hoping to start english classes once a week

So now you know what we do here.

Important things I've learned from being a mother of boys

Some days I walk around my house thinking I do nothing but break up fights, talk children down from their current crises, pick up laundry, wash laundry, fold laundry, put laundry away, wipe up messes, wipe off noses, fix broken things, sweep...the list could go on and on and probably put you to sleep. So let me just say that I feel like mom/housewife duties take up so much of my time and energy that when it comes time for me to blog my brain feels like mush. But today as I was wiping off the toilet seat in my own bathroom I thought "there are some things I have learned about life since I had my boys" so *lucky you* I'm going to share them here
* a little boy not putting the toilet seat down after he pees is better than him not lifting it in the first place (see my paragraph above for the reason...yes, gross)
* sometimes boys have to check to make sure they still have...the thing that makes them a boy if~you~know~what~I~mean even if they just checked 5 minutes ago
* kids can have the exact same toy and still fight about them. "he is looking at my toy" is a very valid reason to be upset when you are 5
* children wait for the exact most embarrassing moment to say inappropriate things
* the favorite "hugger" will become invisible and disappear at bed time, mommy will be the only one who can find it
* as a parent sometimes all you want is a little peace and quiet but when you get it you will be worried because your kids are *never* that quiet unless they are doing something wrong
* if a child is inconsolable and/or getting upset a lot over nothing they need sleep no matter how old they are or how long they have not been taking naps
* girls are not the only ones with high pitched screams
* as a parent you will do, say and think things you would have never dreamed of doing, saying or thinking before you had children
* no matter how often you wash your kids hands they will get dirty again (I know what charles shultz was thinking of when he created "pigpen")
* there is no rhyme or reason to what makes something a favorite for a child. They can become attached to the strangest things for the strangest reasons and you just have to work with it.
* kids can cause you to feel every emotion there is in a single day
* pretty much nothing compares to the feeling of your little boy climbing in your lap or giving you a hug
* every one says that being a parent is worth it in spite of all the stuff kids put you through and it is, but it's hard to really understand what that means until you are there

The Loving House

You may have noticed I have made some changes to the blog. Feel free to explore ;) I have added some new information. I have to say I'm feeling pretty proud of myself figuring out how to do all this technology stuff (lol) I'm especially proud of my tabs ^up there^ yay for organizing!

I've been thinking a lot about child rearing lately. I was at a playground the other day and overheard a grandma (I think) tell her grand daughter "you are not more special than anyone else" because she had fallen from a very high place and wouldn't stop crying. I didn't witness the fall but I saw where she was sitting before she fell. (about 7 feet up) Now I am not a confrontational person and I'm not one to undermine a person's authority in front of their charge but it took everything in me not to go give that lady a piece of my mind. Really the only things that kept me sitting down were my charges talking to me. Another lady who happened to see the fall then walked up and told the woman she should take the child to a Dr because the fall was quite far. I didn't listen anymore because I already was feeling bad for eavesdropping. ::embarrassed::

My problem with that situation was this child was hurt, obviously hurt and instead of nurturing this woman chose to belittle her. I know there is a fine line to walk to keep children balanced and not have a princess complex but seriously. I hope my children think they are the most special people in the world because they are to me. I have seen so many grown people make horrible mistakes because they are not sure if they have any value. And yes some of them were very spoiled as children. So where is the line? To me possessions should not be made too important (and gifts are very strongly my love language) Children should be encouraged, loved, protected. Home should be a safe place where you always know that even when you make mistakes you are still accepted. There should always be consequences for bad decisions so the child doesn't think they are always going to be bailed out but the consequence should never be a removal of love. My kids are 4 and 5 so I'm no expert but I pray every day that this will be how I raise my children. I hope my house is what they think of always as "The Loving House"

How do you think you raise a kid that is not spoiled but doesn't have to spend their life in therapy?

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!  

family pictures

These are mostly from our spring break trip to San Antonio. I just finished sorting and editing them *this is my first time editing photo's and I just used picasa nothing fancy so bear with me.

I love this one of me and Timothy

Timothy smiled! yay! Logan on the other hand was annoyed with some noise he heard?

My 3 favorite guys!

Cuties!

Monkey was upset so Timothy was giving him a kiss

My little gangsta...and idk what Timothy is doing but it looks like he's throwing up

Look at those eyes!

    

Loves!

I was apparently going for the "That 70's show" look

Self portrait

 

Our Family

Logan and his best friend Alexis

I love how Logan and Alexis are sitting really close to each other and Timothy is looking at the space 

Logan Cheesin'

Fave!

Mama love part 3

Every morning I am strangled awake. It may sound horrifying but it's actually quite sweet because the strangling is meant to be a hug from him

I mean who wouldn't wanted to be strangled awake by this little cutie!?

Timothy is my cuddle bug. he loves to be near me and is usually found in the same room as me. We have 20 minute's a day of just him sitting in my lap with his head on my shoulder. It's become a daily requirement for both of us much like veggies and vitamins.

 He's the child I mentioned before that is so enamored with cookies that he growls "coo-kee mon-so"  (He's fond of cookies. Not cookie monster. He just found out that Mommy is way more likley to cave and give cookie's when he immitates the monster...stop frowning Jami! He doesn't get cookie's that often ;)

I'm a sucker for sesame street characters\

He also calls me daddy and daddy, mommy. Not because he is confused but because he thinks it's funny to call us each others names...pray for me!

The thing Timothy loves to help me with is laundry...good thing too because I *hate* laundry. He makes it fun (until he knocks over the piles of neatly folded clothes...but that is a different post :p)

he likes to move stuff from the washer to the dryer. If I don't ask him to help me he will restart the washer on his own when it finishes...making sure our clothes are extra clean and our water bill is roughly 20% higher than it would be without his help Yay! lol 

When he eat's drinks somethig he shouldn't (which is anytime I turn my back) he smiles and says mmm hnnn A combination of mmm mmm and uhh unn. 

I think God gives mother's a special kind of love for kids like Timothy. He keeps me on my toes way more than Logan but in a way the things that drive me crazy are also things that make me love him more. Jose say's he's just like me...I wonder if that's why?  

I love you TD bear!

Mama love part 2

It's amazing how much my little boys make me laugh. I mean really, who knew you can be angry at someone because they just smashed an entire roll of oreo cookies into the carpet that you just vacuumed (thank God for multi color carpet that does not look nasty) one moment and then laughing at them the next because of the growly voiced "cookie monso!" with oreo's coming out of their mouth just like the real cookie monster.
Some days I really think I'm not cut out for this "mom thing" but then I cuddle one of my beautiful boys. Wipe away a tear. Listen to them playing them together (or alone) and I'm reminded why I do this. Why I clean up mess after mess after mess...I can't imagine a better life without them. My house might be cleaner...no it would definitely be cleaner. I would probably have more time to do the things I want to, and I would probably still have some of the brain cells I seem to have misplaced. But I would miss out on the "mommy, blow me a kiss, now throw me a kiss! I caught it! Catch my kiss mommy!" the climbing on me while I'm trying to fold laundry, or use the computer. The feeling of their little hands in mine, and best of all the laughter!

I'm trying to hold on to these things. Trying to remember the important things. I don't ever want to look back on this time and think. If only I had enjoyed them. If only I had sat down and watched that movie with them or pretended to be the monster or the princess that needed saving from the monster. If only I had read one more book to them. I'm learning a part of living life to the fullest involves doing things you really don't *want* to do but will regret later if you don't. Now I need to go, there are two little boys that need to hear a story and get a hug and blow me a kiss then throw me a kiss before they go to bed :)

Mama love

I am typing this with my oldest son sitting in my lap. His feet hang down on one side of me and he is doing his best to keep his head on my shoulder but let's face it. He is huge! As much as he tries to scrunch on my lap it isn't working. He keeps asking me to sing the "dumbo mommy song" so I pause and sing "Baby Mine" from dumbo. It's hard to believe he will be 5 in a couple weeks. I remember being painfully pregnant with people joking they were going to wheel a stretcher up to me because I was leaning so far back to balance myself and the enormous belly I was carrying. I remember having to go into surgery because he wouldn't come out and when they held up my 9 lb 11oz baby boy at 21 1/2 inches and all the nurses said "no wonder he got stuck he's bigger than you!" and I thought he looked like a toddler. In fact in my drugged post surgery state I recall saying something to that effect. I should have known he would be a big boy.

(Logan holding his little friend Addison. He loves having her over and sings to her almost the whole time she's here)

Last night Timothy went with Jose to do something while I made dinner. Logan wanted to help. He brought in a chair and helped me "squash the lemons" (juice the limes lol) he would put the lime on the juicer until he thought it was done. Then he put it in a bowl so I could "squash them more" If you ever hear me say squash the lemons just know that I may never get that phrase out of my head. It's one of the remnant's of Logan's babyhood that I'm going to hold on to. I stood next to him for a minute to slice some more limes in half then walked over to my bowl of shrimp and continued my job of peeling them. (I was making ceviche...lot's of lime juice and raw shrimp required) Logan said "Mom, I can call you mom now. Come here for a minute and stand by me again" so I did and he leaned over and kissed my shoulder. Then he said "ok, you can go back now" Little moments like that make me happy for the big boy he's becoming. The one who wants to buy my lunch, get me flowers, open the door for me and carry my bag. I don't know what we did to get such an amazingly sweet little boy but whatever it is I thank God for my baby. He won't let me call him that anymore but that is what he will always be to me. I love you Shalomey I hope you always know that 

Enjoying my kids

I have given myself a challenge recently to just enjoy my kids. I mean I know we all hear it again and again. "enjoy them while they are little because they grow up before you know it" It's fine to hear it but actually doing it is where I find the challenge. Not that I don't love or like my kids. It's just that I get so wrapped up in getting things done (and often keeping the kids alive) that I find it difficult to just play with them and ignore the giant mess in the other room. Out of sight out of mind does not apply to me. I can tell you at any given moment which room(s) in my house are messy and what steps I need to take to get in back in order...(ocd much? Yes, but not enough to keep it all in order. It's a vicious cycle) I have learned that I can either have fun with my kids or have a clean house. It would be great if I could have both but it just doesn't happen here. (Judge away I know I'm not perfect)

So now you get to hear (read?) how great my kids are.
Logan loves everybody. He really loves Jesus and loves the bible (he has 2 verses memorized and loves to recite them) He prays all the time for a little sister. He even has names picked out for the sister that he is praying for. One day he was fighting with Timothy and I told him maybe we shouldn't have anymore brothers or sisters if he couldn't love the one he has. He cried for a long time while I tried to explain to him the principle of being faithful with a little and God will give you a lot. The next day (and ever since then actually) he was so sweet to his brother. When we picked him (timothy) up from sunday school Logan said "hey T! did you have a good time? and gave him a big hug. It melted my heart. He loves Thomas the train and super heroes. He loves gifts and will be very thankful when we give him a gift, even clothing. When he puts on clothes he asks me who gave him his shirt etc... once I tell him he remembers forever and mentions it every time he wears the item. He is my sweet heart. He is so excited to go to Peru and is really interested in Spanish. He constantly asks me how to say certain words in spanish. When we move there we plan to get a dog and he pretends to have a dog now so he can practice. (guess who's dog it will be?) When he grows up he wants to be a dad. We told him he has to get married first so he is currently on the search for a wife.

Timothy thinks a lot. He is the child that every day I think he will grow up to be something different. Most of the time I think he will be an engineer or something to do with electronics because the boy can figure out how to work anything he wants to. (even Logan asks him for help with turning things on and stuff like that) Other times I think he will grow up to be a worship leader. One night Jose was at a campout and T got in bed with me at 4am. He couldn't sleep and started singing "Yo Te Busco" (A spanish worship song) very loudly. His favorite part of movies is the credits because he likes to dance and watch the words. He can't read (that I know of ;-) but he will look through books with words and no pictures as if he is reading every word. In fact books are his favorite toy. He loves to look at books and for me or Jose to read to him. He thinks Logan is the most amazing person in the world. If I want him to do something all it takes usually is for me to get Logan to do it. T will do everything he can to be like Logan. He's usually shy around new people or in unusual situations but once he's comfortable you better be ready he will talk your ear off and sing at the top of his lungs the whole time. He's not usually cuddly, but when he is it's the best! He's not exactly like me but I see a lot of myself in him.

I thank God for my children they teach me so much everyday. They are amazing and I'm humbled that God trusted me with such special little people. I pray I will always be everything they need me to be and where I fail I pray that God will fill in the gaps for them. Pray for me ya'll I've got a big job ahead of me