Posted in Life Happenings
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An update already? Wow! We are enjoying....for the most part.....a visit to Briana's. I say most part, because the younger girls are restless and one is bored (i.e. feeling sorry for herself). Combine that with 4 adults, sometimes 5, in a small apt.and it has it's moments of "not enjoying"! : ) But, for the most part...... We got here on Wed. afternoon. James went Wed. night and a lot of the day Thurs. to take pictures of Briana's dress rehearsal. The younger girls have been able to go 3 days to visit with my parents for several hours. Friday was opening night for ANNIE. It was FABULOUS! They did such a great job. There are 2 casts of the younger kids (orphans), and Friday night's cast was so good they brought tears to my eyes in a couple of the songs! I don't even have a child in those songs! Of course, MY CHILD was fabulous, too!! Her boyfriend, Troy is also in it. I picked at him, and told him that I would watch him, too, as long as he was standing right behind Briana. haha. It's so hard to keep up and watch them both when they're on stage together. And, of course, when she's dancing, I never see the whole dance, cause I'm always just watching her. I'll try to post pictures after I get home. I went back alone to see it again on Sat. afternoon. We get 5 comp tickets per show that she is in. Even though we all went Friday night, I went ahead and paid for Marissa's and Daniella's tickets because they are much cheaper. That way I save the free ones for me to go back. : ) I like going back the very next day, because there is just no way to take it all in the first time you see a show. Even after going to see them 4 or 5 times, I see something new every time. Today they are both back at an afternoon show, and the rest of us are just hanging out at her apt. There's not much for them to do here, hence the boredom. We'll be heading home tomorrow. James and I will be celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary later this year, and we are trying to decide somewhere to go together. I suggested the Bahamas! haha. Just a little unrealistic. We are also trying to plan a trip to see James' mom and my granny in Mississippi. We were supposed to go in March, but not sure if that's going to work out just yet. We had hoped Ashley and Briana could go with us, especially since Briana didn't get to go last year. But, it ends up Ashley won't be able to take off of work until fall, and Briana now has a conflict with the one week we thought she could go. Of course, we'll still take the trip, but they both wanted to visit. Growing pains!! |
Posted in Life Happenings
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Yes, it has actually been a very quiet month in our home....in everyday life, if not in volume. I have been home~not out of town~since Dec. 20th. That is the longest stretch for me since April of last year! We have spent this month, just being. : ) And, actually, I gave my body a rest at one point, and did not leave my house for 15 days!!! Can you believe it? It was terrific! In our home school, we are plugging along quite well. Daniella is whizzing through math, and loves it. She is still struggling with reading. The phonics thing is just not clicking, at least yet. I am not worried, but she gets frustrated because she wants to read so much. Most of the words that she can read at this point are words that she has just memorized their spelling. She can sound out words, but it is extremely laborious, and it never gets much better. Marissa could never read by phonics, so we may be taking that path with Daniella. We have finally reached a change, that I hope is permanent, in Marissa's attitude toward math. She struggles with it, therefore, she hates it. That part has not changed, but her willingness to sit down and just get the work done has changed for the better....much better. We are also enjoying a lapbook on the human body, especially Marissa. She finds it fascinating. They both started piano lessons~ Daniella in Sept. and Marissa in Dec. We were quite surprised Marissa wanted to take, but so far she is persevering. We are also seeing the connection between being good at math and being good in music that we have always heard about. James is in the midst of repainting a great deal of the inside of our house. Yay!! Nothing exciting. Just freshening it up, and getting rid of a wallpaper border in my living/dining area that was ancient. We are going to choose a new color, perhaps a smoky gray/blue for the foyer. We are also going to paint Briana's old bedroom, as we get rid of the little girl, and turn it into a guest room. sigh! : ) This past week, we went to Big Lots and bought a solid wood bed for that room for $150! The one in there is a rickety, old, worn out brass bed that she has had since she was three. We are all glad to see it go. : ) She bought her bed for her apt. at Big Lots, and has been thrilled with it. The quality is very good, and it is a beautiful sleigh bed, so we think we will like this new one. Ashley and I packed up a lot of the things Briana had left here and cleaned out her closet last week, too. AND! while we were at Big Lots, we used Christmas money from James' mother and bought a couch and love seat by Ashley Furniture for our den. I am so thankful to be rid of that 14 year old, green sectional! Well, almost rid of it. We have to get someone to help James haul it off, so right now both of them are in the den. Between that mess and the mess of all the moved furniture in the living/dining room because of painting, my house is quite the disaster area. I'm ready for furniture to start crawling back into it's place. Ashley found out last week that a magazine article that she submitted to TOS is being published in the Spring issue! Very exciting for her....well, all of us! I was as excited as she was. She is absolutely loving her job at camp, and is so excited about the spring events and summer camps. It will be new to her, being in the roll of staff, and she's a little nervous, but it is going to be great. She loves her bosses, and they love her. Briana will be opening in Annie next Friday night. We will be traveling over on Wed. so that James can take dress rehearsal pics on Wed. and Thurs., then we'll come home on Sun. afternoon. Can't wait to see it. Also, this week, she was ASKED to audition for a small cast show opening in March. This is a big deal to be asked to audition. This play is mostly professional actors. There will only be one or 2 in the cast of 9, who will not be professionals. She could be one of them! : ) The audition was today. There were 6 girls/women today auditioning for one role, and she was among the 3 who got called in for a 2nd reading!! Later, they texted her, and told her to come back Tues. for a call back. Whether she makes it or not (which would be so thrilling!), it was a super great experience for her today going through this different type of audition and doing cold readings of the part with these professionals. Plus, great that she was asked to audition and called back. As for me, I started a Beth Moore Bible study a couple of weeks ago on Esther, and I have picked back up on my scrapbooking. I am working on a scrapbook of Briana's shows. I got Shenandoah finished, and am now tackling Hairspray. Talking about picture overload. Too many to choose from! It's fun, though. Thank you to those who checked on me. Life has been full of God's presence, God's teachings, God's training, my stumbling, my learning, my leaning. We are still going through some spiritual trials with a loved one (not in my immediate family), and it keeps me on my knees...and on my face ....before the Lord. He has made us great and precious promises, and He is teaching me, in even a deeper way, to hang onto those and not take my eyes off of them or Him. Letitia |
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Just like Nov......and Oct....and Sept......you get the picture!......December has been crazier than I planned. Prov. 16:9, "The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps." Most definitely true! : D I went on Dec. 3rd, spent one night with Briana, saw her in It's a Wonderful Life, then brought her back home for 2 nights so that she could help us decorate for Christmas. James took her back on Friday, and my plan was to spend the rest of the month until the 18th working on Christmas lapbooks with Marissa and Daniella, bake with them, finish up my shopping, etc. However...the Sunday and Monday after James took her back, Briana went out of town. When she got back at about 11:00 Monday night, she found someone had broken into her apartment while she was gone. She called me, and was standing at the bottom of the stairs still in the building with her dog. Her apt is upstairs. I had her get back in her car, lock the doors, and call 911. I called Troy and my parents, and they all went over to be with her. They got her computer (which mostly upset her because of all of the pictures on it, along with a story she had been writing on for about 2 years.), an old video camera (which naturally had a tape of her Oct. Utah trip in it), a $150 bracelet that was a graduation gift from her aunt, some misc. cheap jewelry, get this....a large pack of toilet paper!, vacuum cleaner, a couple of dvds, some art pencils. about $250 cash, and a bag of chocolates out of her refrigerator. They completely trashed her bedroom~dumped everything out of the chest of drawers, papers strewn all over the room, dumped everything out of the laundry hamper, jewelry thrown across the room, dumped everything out of her dance bag. Some random things from the bedroom were in the living room, 2 pieces of chocolate laying in the hall. We honestly believe from the looks of things~ the way things were randomly scattered, and things like the art pencils missing, but 2 dvds were taken out of their cases and stuffed into the bag that the art supplies were in~that a child was with them. Whoever it was also knew she was out of town and had plenty of time. It turns out that the apt downstairs was broken into also, but their front door wasn't busted down like Briana's. They went in through a maintenance door in the back and cut a hole into their bathroom wall. Those people were also out of town, and the only person who knew both of them were gone is the girl (and her boyfriend) that lives across the hall from Briana. It also had to be someone who knew the layout of the apts to get into the one downstairs. If it wasn't them, the detectives believe it was some of their friends. Briana spent the next 2 nights with my parents until the detective gave her the okay to go back. I went over on Wed. and helped her clean up, wash all of the clothes they had been through, and just to keep her company for a couple of nights. James came over for the day on Thurs. and installed metal reinforcements around the door frame, making it virtually impossible to kick the door in again. After those 2 nights AND the metal reinforcements, she was okay, and ready to stay alone again. I was not so confident and ready!!! I came home, spent the next day in bed, then had less than a week before it was time to go back over to see Troy in the closing of Sanders Family Christmas, both of them in the closing of It's a Wonderful Life, and to have dinner with them, Troy's parents, and his sister visiting from Texas. Troy and his sister came back with us that night after the last show, and spent 3 nights, leaving on the 23rd. Why is this post called December Blessings? Because there were many! ~Briana got to come home to help us decorate, which she didn't get to do last year ~She was not home when her apt was broken into ~She had left her amethyst purity ring there, because it needs resizing, and she didn't want to lose it. They missed it somehow. A picture frame on her dresser fell over on top of it and hid it from view....I think that was God's doing! ~They could have taken a lot more than they did or damaged all of her brand new furniture. ~Her dog was at my parents' house. They could have taken or hurt her. ~They didn't take her extra car key, like we had been afraid they had. ~What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger! LOL ~Someone invented metal reinforcements to go around doors, and her apt managers didn't care if we installed them. ~I got to see Briana twice in It's a Wonderful Life, and saw Troy in Sanders on a date with my husband. ~I managed to get a batch of sugar cookies cut and decorated with Marissa and Daniella before I left that day to go back over after the break-in ~Ashley helped them make and decorate gingerbread cookies. ~Ashley is loving her job in camp ministry, and she and I got to spend time together. ~Briana and Troy both auditioned, and made it into Annie. ~Briana got to come home with us on the 20th, and was here until yesterday. She will be back tomorrow for 4 more nights. The 4 sisters have had the BEST time this past week. ~Troy came and spent time with us last week. ~There was snow up in the mountains still, so we all went up and had a snowball fight while he and his sister were here. ~Somehow, some way, all of the shopping got done by Christmas (with MUCH help from my husband, who did all of the grocery shopping on Christmas Eve!) ~I had a FABULOUS Christmas with my husband and 4 girls! ~I got to go out to dinner with 2 of my friends this week. ~And, LORD WILLING, I will be home (not out of town) for 36 days straight! That will be the longest stretch since April. ~a left over Nov. blessing.....after having to have her kitty put to sleep in Oct., and after much searching on the internet, Briana adopted a dog from the animal shelter here over Thanksgiving break. She is so sweet and adorable. AND, even though the apt has a 20lb dog weight limit, they let her have her 53 lb blessing!! She named her Maddie. I'm sure there are many more December blessings I've skipped over, and December isn't quite over yet! I pray all of you have a terrific and blessed New Year!!! Briana and Maddie~  |
Posted in On Stage
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Briana has been in the musical version of It's a Wonderful Life for the past month. It closes this Sunday, and we're going over to see it again. George Bailey contemplating jumping off the bridge~ "I'm worth more dead than alive."  Briana on the right talking to Ernie and Bert while the main scene if playing out somewhere else on stage~  "I'm On My Way"~   Mr. Potter (in the wheel chair)~ played by Troy, the guy that Briana has been courting the last 7 months.  "Syncopation Rog" ~ high energy dance!     George and Mary's wedding~   Run on the bank. Briana is the one who looks like she's about to knock him upside his head!  Briana got to play Elsie, Sam Wainwright's wife from New York. She got to talk with a heavy NY accent (think the old movies). .......with a southern twang. ; ) She's in the middle with the hat.  "Sam's going to take me around the world!"    I had to throw this picture in even though it's not a very good one. : ) This is a song when George's brother, Harry, comes home a war hero. Briana and Bob (the same guy that plays Sam Wainwright), decided and got the director's permission for him to pick her up and swing her around. You can see them in the back. The thing is, this is a calm swing in this picture. When I saw the show a couple of weeks ago, she was like parallel to the ground. She was FLYING! : )  Mr. Potter and George~  "Teacher says every time a bell rings, another angel gets his wings."  "Atta boy, Clarence."  |
Posted in Life Happenings
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This has to have been the fastest, slowest year of my life!!!! I cannot BELIEVE it is already the middle of November, and I feel a little like I've missed most of this year. At the same time, when I think back to March, May, even July, it seems like an eternity ago! Is that my stress level or old age?! LOL. I am SO not ready for the holidays to be here. I love them, but I'm not ready. On 2nd thought, in a way, I can't wait. ( I told you I was mixed up this year!) Briana will get to come home for 4 nights at Thanksgiving, two or three nights the first week of Dec., and, hopefully, at least a week at Christmas!! Our annual fall camping trip was fun....weird, but fun. The last 2 years, we've camped at a state park right in the middle of the town where Briana is living, so that she could come with us. We kept having to postpone this year's trip because of really cold weather, and by the time we were able to come, she had started rehearsals for It's a Wonderful Life. And, of course, we also had to put Snickers to sleep during the week. We still enjoyed some good family time, playing games, taking some walks, riding bikes. No pictures, because I am at Briana's now, and don't have my computer. It's a Wonderful Life opens tonight! I LOVE opening nights~ getting to see a new show for the first time. She has some lines in this one, and gets to talk in an exaggerated NY accent. : ) Coming from a southern girl that should be fun! However, James and Ashley were at dress rehearsal last night taking pictures, and the executive producer at the Playhouse LAUGHED (appropriately) at Briana's lines! He recognized Ashley, and told her that Briana was really funny in that scene. Yay! Empress the executive director girl! : ) She also has a few dances in the show and lots of group songs. Her boyfriend, Troy, is also in this show, though they never have any scenes together. He is Mr. Potter. Please pray for Ashley's shoulder. I think I mentioned in the post about her Africa trip that her group was chased by a Cape Buffalo on safari (!), and she stumbled and fell. She hurt her shoulder badly, but it improved a great deal over the next few weeks. Well, the last 2 or 3 weeks, she has been back in a lot of pain. The chiropractor is not helping it. Several people have laid hands on her to pray, and we have been praying constantly for it for this whole time. We have to make a decision where to take her next~ an orthopedic dr. for therapy (not surgery!) or to a regular physician to try a steroid injection. I cringe at the thought of steroids, but if it is inflamation, that would probably be what helped it best. The therapy will be long and painful, and not sure if that is what she needs. We were set to make an appt with the ortho dr., but I ran into someone in the store the other night who told me about her injured shoulder and the shots. We're praying for wisdom. And, finally (I think), the Lord brought Ashley a great opportunity in Oct. He has been clarifying in her life this year that camp ministry is where she wants to work. She has been taking online courses for a couple of years, and has been absolutely miserable every single second. She has prayed and persevered, and has never been at peace or felt like she was where she was supposed to be. A couple of weeks after coming home from Africa, she decided she was not going to continue courses, at least for now. It was a difficult decision for her for a couple of different reasons, but she knew she could always start again, if she discovered she had made a mistake. Within just a couple of weeks of making her decision to stop school, she was offered a part time job apprenticing at the Christian camp that she is a summer counselor for every year! She LOVES it. In just a month and a half of working 2 or 3 days a week, she has led activities at 3 day camps, helped cook a meal for a zillion kids, scrubbed the lodge, helped with the planning of a mid-winter retreat, done computer work, helped design their new brochure, taken photos of the different areas of camp for the brochure, been to a meeting of the board of directors, made changes to their website.......... They want to give her the opportunity to experience every area of running a camp. They are asking her imput on changes they are making. She works directly for the camp director and his assistant (his wife). The wife is the main person she works with on a "daily" basis. She is loving it, and it was so neat to see God open up the door for her and fulfill a longing she has had for a while. She has spent countless hours on the computer this year looking for such an opportunity. They were all going to have to wait until at least next summer, and were all in other states. This one is 45 min. away. AND, the Lord blessed her with a wonderful, nice like-new Kia Sportage at the same time she was finding out about this job. She bought the car herself, but the Lord had blessed her with the money, and led her to a gently used, wonderful condition, less than 30,000 miles vehicle., at a GREAT price. Her old car was.......OLD and falling apart. It would have never made it up and down that mountain 2 or 3 times a week for very long. The Lord is working MAJORLY in a couple of other areas of our lives, as well, and it has been an amazing experience this year. Not easy, not comfortable a lot of the time, but definitely GOOD. I've sat here this morning and typed myself into excitement for what God is working on in our lives! : ) He IS GOOD! |
Posted in Life Happenings
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As usual, things are hopping around here. I"m not sure if anyone is still reading my blog,so if you are please leave me a comment and say hi. So many of my friends have stopped blogging, and I'm trying to get back to my diligence of reading blogs again. I love hearing about your families. First of all, if you haven't been by lately, you can hop over to see pictures of Ashley's 4 weeks in Kenya HERE and HERE. And, Briana is in the midst of the production of Camelot, and you can see those pictures HERE. The younger girls are plugging away at learning and loving life.....except when I make them clean up their messes. We have been working on a lapbook on the Fruit of the Spirit, but have taken the last few weeks off. In early October, the 4 of us went to North KY to the Creation Museum. They liked it pretty well, although, we didn't find it to be extremely kid friendly. They are adding a hands-on kids area soon, though. They did enjoy parts of it, though.  We also got to meet a blog friend while we were there!  Jennifer and I had a great time visiting, the kids had a great time together, and the time just flew by. We talked for almost 3 hours. We also visited an old high school friend the day before while we were there. We had not seen her since graduation, but we have become much more acquainted as friends on Facebook. After our visit with Jennifer, we went into Cincinnati, and had a great time walking over the big purple pedestrian bridge in the rain. We crossed the Ohio River, and walked from OH to KY and back again. : )  Let's see, also in this past month, we've celebrated 2 birthdays. Ashley, our oldest~which most seems to surprise most people....that she's the oldest~ turned 23. Seven days later, Briana turned 20. The day after Ashley's birthday, we went over to Briana's to celebrate their birthdays together. We had a fun night of bowling.  (Briana is on the bottom; Ashley on top!)We were supposed to be going camping this past week, but unseasonably cold temps made us have to postpone it. We're hoping to go next week, but are watching the weather. God worked out the timing anyway, because as it turns out Briana had an emergency, and I was back over to her house for 3 nights. Her 6 month old kitten, who is her baby to the core, started having seizures. He was already anemic, which turns out is probably related to this. He was in the hospital for 4 nights, and they thought he was better, but the day after he came home, they started again, and were often and very violent. He was diagnosed with something called FIP, which is basically encephalitis ~ swelling around his brain. Friday, the vet told her she needed to consider putting him to sleep. She was so heartbroken. I went over to help her through the weekend. In the meantime, the vet called and told her to put him back on the steroids. Long story short, it helped, and 11:15 pm Sat. night was his last seizure. The iron is getting into his system, and he is getting his energy and life back. Two problems, still. One, he is not drinking water, and we don't know why. She is having to mix as much water as possible into canned food, and she's giving him some a couple of times a day in a syringe. It is keeping him hydrated. They're still working on what is causing that. Second, the FIP is incurable. He will always have to take steroids, at hopefully a much lower dose eventually, and needs to avoid as much stress as possible. When she comes for a visit, they will have to increase his steroids for the time to try to prevent the seizures. Due to all of this, he may not live a full life expectancy, but he might. God has blessed us with answers to heartfelt prayers so far. Briana and I spent a painful, but sweet time earlier in the evening Sat. night (when things looked grim), sitting in the floor while she held Snickers. We cried together, and she began to think and talk about the funny things he did all the time. Before long, she was laughing so hard. I just thank you Lord for answering those prayers!!! While I was gone, the rest of my family surprised me, and chipped in on the work of buying apples, making applesauce, and canning it. All 3 of the girls helped, and James did the actual canning. Those times of asking him to, "please do this while I run and do this, " paid off! : ) He was paying attention to what he was doing! They did a great job, and got it all finished. Such a HUGE relief to me! So, here I am, back at home, as of last night. I took the day off today, and took a nap, too! I am incredibly thankful to see the sun these last 3 days, after day after day after day of dreary skies and rain. Hope the Lord is blessing your families and days! |
Posted in On Stage
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On Sept. 10th, Briana opened in Camelot. Since a large portion of the musical is focused on Arthur, Guenevere, Lancelot, and Pelenore, the rest of the cast doesn't get a lot of stage time, but she's enjoying it anyway. Camelot will be a 2 month run, and closing on Nov. 8. So far, I've seen it twice, and will see it again at closing. (Unless, I manage to sneak in anymore shows between now and then!) Ladies' processional~ Briana is in the kind of coral colored dress, 5th from the left  Stopping her little brother from going after the knights~  May Day       Watching the jousts   Knighting of Sir Lancelot     |
Posted in Missions
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I seemed to have taken an unintentional blogging hiatus. Life is still really hectic for us at this time, and I just don't seem to think about it, or if I do, don't have enough energy! I still hope to get back to it regularly. I miss check in on you all and sharing our life. Ashley had a very tremendous trip to Kenya! She was so blessed, and it has taken her weeks to emotionally settle back in. Physically, she did great (except for one exception I'll share at the end!) Everyone on the team got sick, but her (love God's herbs and vitamins!),, and she did great with jet lag. I don't know exactly what helped, but I had read in a magazine earlier this summer to take Pine Bark extract to help reduce the severity and length of jet lag. She took that 3 days prior to flying and 5 days afterward both ways. Plus, she was taking Vitamin C, garlic, and Silver almost daily. Even after such a long flight, 4 weeks there, including a campout and a 3 day safari, a 28 hour trip home (18 hours of flight and 11 hours of layovers, and about 40 hours of being awake, except for a couple of hour long naps on the plane), she came in completely exhausted, slept about 10 hours, and felt good and pretty rested. She would tire out by the end of the day for a few days, but we were all in amazement at how rested and good she felt. I thought that instead of me trying to explain her experience, I'd copy and excerpt of her words here. Part way through there is a video of the kids practicing one of the praise dances she taught them. It always brings tears to my eyes listening to these children, who are all orphans, sing Shout to the Lord.
"To put it simply, the 4 weeks I spent in Kenya were, overall, amazing!! I was challenged and blessed, and I learned so much. Definitely left a chunk of my heart over there. :-) Being put in the position of leading the camp was a big, challenging experience for me. It definitely worked on my boldness and leadership skills! In reality, I met so many wonderful people in Kenya. Just the people in the village we worked in were great people, especially the kids! I'll get to that in a minute. But in addition to them... We met a beautiful, sweet lady who had been suffering with cancer for 3 months -- she has since passed away, but it was an honor to have the opportunity to meet her and pray with her before she died. We also met the members of a new Kenyan Christian band called "Broken Acoustic." They are a brother-sister team. We got to meet their family, as well, and let me tell you, they all are some of the sweetest people I've met, and love the Lord like crazy! :-) Check out Broken Acoustic here. I have to say probably one of the best parts of the trip, for me -- although it was all GREAT -- was hanging out with the kids in the orphanage, especially the girls. What a great group of kids! Like I said, they range from 3 to 22 years old. We (the other girl on the trip and myself) spent quite a bit of time just hanging out with them at their dorm, talking, playing games, having Bible study, taking pictures (they loved to use our cameras), and letting them fix our hair. They just need some attention and love... and they were very curious about our lives in America. :-) I was very blessed and changed by the time I spent with the girls. I really fell in love with one particular little one -- the youngest in the orphanage at 3 years old. Wish I could bring her home with me! :-) We got to go on a 3-day safari while we were in Kenya. We went to Ol Pejeta Conservancy -- what an experience!! We saw too many animals to list, including all of the "Big Five" except the lion. It was so neat to be out in the midst of God's creation in wild Africa, seeing all the animals in their natural habitat. God is good -- He really took care of us throughout our trip. There were times we were in dangerous or potentially-dangerous situations, but He kept us safe. I didn't even get sick the whole time, even after coming home, which is a big deal for me, because I always get sick coming home from international trips. Jet lag wasn't even too bad. God gave me an amazing opportunity, and I'm SO thankful for it.
The Great Rift Valley The Mediterranean Sea |
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Posted in Missions
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Ashley is at 2 1/2 weeks of her 4 week trip to Kenya. She is having an amazing time so far. She has worn several hats during this 2 1/2 weeks, but her main job on this trip was to teach praise dance as a form of worship to the young people. They had a week long camp where she taught them dances, then they shared what they learned at a crusade in a nearby refuge village this past weekend. She was excited because she said there were several of the girls that she could see in their eyes that they "got it". She could really tell that they saw how to use the dance to worship the Lord. An unexpected and delightful opportunity Ashley has had while she was there was to spend a great deal of time with young teen and preteen girls (her calling), sharing with them, teaching them, and laughing and bonding with them. She spent 2 hours alone with some of them at the girls orphanage one afternoon, and she had THE best time. They fixed her hair.....lol.....I can't wait to see the pictures of that......asked her questions about America, asked her to sing and teach them worship songs, sang the ones they know to her, and shared. She is supposed to be teaching them a 6 day Bible study in the remaining time, and I hope that is worked out. I've been blessed to be able to hear from her often enough to keep me from worrying (who me??) and to keep me from missing her so badly!, although, because of the drought, they now do not have electricity from 7-7 each day. We communicate on Facebook every few days, and I've been able to talk to her on the phone 3 times. I've also been able to get a few pictures, although, not as many lately. The internet access they have at the missionary's house is vvvveeeerrrryyyyyy slllllloooooowwwww. For those of you who haven't seen them on FB, here are a few of the pictures. At the Amsterdam airport~  Orbit School of the Cross  I've tried to rotate this next picture 3 times, so it's anyone's guess as to whether you'll see it right side up or not! This is a class at the school singing a welcome song.  Hey! It's right side up for now!If you remember me posting a couple of months ago about our sponsor child and her tragic story, this is Ashley meeting Mokoi......her "Kenyan sister."     The medical clinic at Orbit. They are trying to raise funds to keep it open more. Right now it's just one day a week, since Mokoi's baby, Ashley, died. If the clinic had been able to be open, they probably could have saved baby Ashley's life.  Orbit Baptist Church  Ashley was able to attend with the missionary an American Women's Conference in Nairobi. There were women there from several countries, and their goal is to find ways to improve the lives of women in Kenya.   Esther, in the blue in the center, is our youngest sponsor child~ 12 years old. She and Ashley have had great bonding time this trip. So far, I haven't been able to get a photo of our 3rd sponsor child, Faith. Isn't Esther, and her smile, beautiful?  Ashley and Mokoi     I love this next picture~   One of the newer youngest residents of the little children's orphanage~  Ashley and Mokoi   Ashley's hand is on the bottom....so sweet.  Ashley teaching praise dance. The girl next to her is the missionary's daughter learning also. This is also a photo of the inside of the little Orbit Baptist Church.  Teaching Shout to the Lord  Teaching the little ones sign language to Jesus Loves Me~  The group sharing Shout to the Lord at the crusade  Ashley and Esther singing Shine Jesus Shine at the Crusade. Wow! Ashley has a gorgeous voice, but I can't believe *anyone* got her on stage to sing in public! : ) I am so proud of her!   Girls at "The Well", orphanage for young girls  Please pray for rain for Kenya. They are desperate for it. Edit..... I know why the pictures overlap my sidebar, but I don't know why the words are. Hope you can read it. |
Posted in Life Happenings
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The "Year Of the Whirlwind" continues. : ) I have been absent so much lately, because, well....I've been absent from normal life. I'm really tired, and really ready to just stay at home for a while, without any drama. It has definitely been a month of drama! Other than posting the HAIRSPRAY pictures, the last time I posted, I had been at Briana's opening night on June 25th, left on the 26th and gone home, turned around at midnight on the 27th, and gone back because Marissa, who had stayed there with my parents, was really sick. I had only planned on staying 2 nights to get her well, then come back. The day I was coming home was our 24th wedding anniversary. Well, things just didn't work out quite that way. That afternoon there was a crisis in my extended family, and in an hour's time, Marissa, Briana, and I had to leave. Briana was living with my parents, but we just packed up as much as we could. The three of us went to a hotel to figure out what we were going to do. The next morning, Briana and I decided that since she was planning to move into an apt. anyway, and because there was just too much emotion going on at the time, she would go ahead and find an apartment. I'll spare you all the details, but that day we found her an apt (me being SO thankful that James and I had done some preleminary searching!) Over the next 2 days, we got mattresses, the electric switched, and a WHOLE BUNCH of shopping for dishes, pots & pans, towels, sheets, the works. I ended up being here 6 nights, and it was an extremely stressful and emotional few days, because of the stress of the crisis and having to take care of all of this in a kind of emergency situation. But, the Lord gave me much peace and strength that I needed to get through the week. Troy (Briana's guy) was a big help bringing his dad's truck to pick up the mattress sets and helping us move them upstairs. When I left her that week, the only thing she had here was kitchen stuff, 2 sets of mattresses and box springs lying on the floor, and towels. : ) It was also very difficult to leave her. She went overnight from being with family, even me coming to stay with her when my parents were out of town, to being in an apt. on her own. But, it was another place the Lord gave us peace, and we knew He had walked with us through it. In spite of the stress and busyness of those few days, Briana, Marissa, and I had some fun times together. It was good for the 2 of them to spend time laughing and being silly together in the hotel, and it was just a good time for us in that respect. I think that time with the 3 of us together will always be special to me, because we bonded together, enjoying each other's company and laughs, in the midst of chaos. I went home for a week, then came back alone. I had already had tickets to go with Briana to see Troy in The Foriegner, so we did that, and did a lot more shopping here and the next town over. We were able to get her a dining set and a couch. I'm kind of getting my trips confused now, but I think that was when a few days later, James and the little girls came over for the day, and he brought her a great one year old washer/dryer set that we got for $300! After doing several loads that week at the laudromat, we quickly saw that it would pay for itself in 6 months, especially since water is included in the rent. Briana also bought herself a beautiful real wood sleigh bed at Big Lots for $300! It is queen size, and gorgeous. Okay, let's see. I think I was at Bri's for 4 nights that time. I then went home and spent time with Ashley and helped her get ready for Kenya! She left on July 22nd! Tomorrow she will have been gone 2 weeks. She is having the time of her life, and I will post some pictures soon. Two more weeks to go, and I have a feeling she isn't going to want to leave. : ) When you see the pictures, you can see a pure joy and gleam in her eyes, that I'm not sure I've ever seen before. I was home for almost 2 weeks, and, yep....I'm back at Briana's. With all the chaos of the first 2 weeks of the month here, I had to change my tickets to see her in HAIRSPRAY again, so those were Friday and Sat. I have also have met and had dinner with Troy's parents and had lunch with his mom and some of her friends while I was here. James brought the little girls over Sunday night, and Monday afternoon they went to my parents' house to spend a few nights with them. James and I are headed home this afternoon, and will have a day and a half alone. Well, for your sake, I will stop there. There is more. : ) But, those are the biggest events. There have been major lessons for us all this past month, and a lot of clinging to the Lord. I miss my younger girls, but the Lord has been taking care of that, too. They are learning things, too. I'm hoping to start blogging a little more often. I think I have just gotten out of the habit. I'll be popping around to your blogs catching up, too. |