Still Here!

I can't believe it has been a whole year since I have posted! I mentioned it to a friend and they said, "Well, why would you blog in the US when you have things like water and electric all the time?" :-) At least I don't have to change my background yet. :-)

We are still in the US and are just beginning to do our deputation travels. While we waited what seemed to be too long, the Lord was working out His perfect will behind the scenes.

In February, we were approved to serve under HIM (Hope International Missions). We are looking forward to getting back to the field after we travel and share the vision God has given us in the D.R.

If you are interested in having us share the burden the Lord has given us at your church or school, please leave a comment.

God is good! His ways are perfect. Even when we can't see what He is doing, He is working beyond what we can see. We stand in awe at the awesome, almighty God we serve!

Arrived!

We have arrived in the US to begin our furlough. There is much work and preparation to do for our next term.

We praise the Lord for a great flight and His help in re-adjusting to US life.

Now we would ask you to help us pray that the Lord will help us find the right place to live. We don't want to just "pick something" but we want it all to be ordained of the Lord.

The Lord is helping, yet tears came to our eyes Sunday when we sang (in English) "I have decided to follow Jesus". It was as if we could hear our people singing it and our thoughts immediately turned to them and their Sunday service.

Separation is never easy. We ask that you pray for them and us while we are apart.

Thanks friends!

Christmas Eve day pictures

Well, here goes the Christmas pictures! Aren't you proud of me? It's even still January. :-)

We had a wonderful Christmas! Since Christmas was on a Sunday and Sundays are very busy for us, we celebrated our Christmas day on Christmas Eve day. That way we could take more time and play with the children etc.

Going into Christmas this year, I knew we would not be able to do much. We combined money with some family members to buy the children 1 nice gift. Others talked about some of their children's big gifts and then their little gifts and I began to feel bad knowing that our one gift wouldn't compare to what other kids were getting.

I told the children the situation and not to expect more than 1 gift for Christmas. While they had a good attitude about it, I still felt sad in my heart wanting to give my children more. We do not really do much for our children any time of the year so at Christmas I like to give them special things. I did mention it to my brother and he said he remembered as a child at Christmas time they would get just one gift. So it comforted my heart to know kids could survive with just 1 Christmas gift. :-)

Without telling anyone else about the situation, I took my sad heart to the Lord and told Him all about it. I left it all with Him telling Him, "You can make this Christmas as big or as little as you want and we'll be content with whatever it is knowing that it came from you."

Little did I know that my prayers were being answered as a church back home began preparing a box of Christmas presents to send us!!! When the box arrived in the mail flight and I saw how huge it was, tears nearly fell from my eyes. God had heard this mother's prayer and proved to me that He could make my childrens' Christmas big! I have learned that God cares about Christmas gifts! He has answered so many desires of my heart at Christmas time as I have taken them to Him!

This was the simple gifts we had for each other for Christmas!

And this is what it looked like after we received the box of gifts from the church!
The children eagerly awaiting to open the pile of gifts!
B. loves airplanes and was thrilled to receive these! We have found him buried in the book at times. :-)
He also loves baseball and was thrilled to receive a new bat!

Christmas

R. got a cookbook and some yummy smelling shower gel. She also got a fun book and an art set!
R. was thrilled to get legos. He is collecting them.

He also got hot wheel cars - which was a miracle from the Lord! He had told me earlier in the fall that he wanted hot wheel cars for Christmas. I knew what we were already getting and I didn't foresee hot wheels cars making it into the picture, but God saw a little boys heart and without me saying anything to anyone - hot wheels cars arrived in his Christmas package! God cares about every detail of our lives!

J. (even though he doesn't look thrilled in this picture) :-) was thrilled to get legos, too. He is quite good at building with them.

Christmas continued

J. got a package of goodies!

I got a box of neat stuff - candle (which I've been burning and it smells yummy!), deoderant, hand gel, etc.
I also got some shower gel and perfume. Shower gel is a luxury to me because it is too expensive for me to justify buying here. I am thoroughly enjoying using it!

D. got some hunting magazines.....

and some mind puzzles like this one that he enjoys figuring out.

We also received other gifts from them such as yummy candy, hot pads etc. We enjoyed the delicious chocolate and candy from the US! It's a treat for us!

Thank you to those who made our Christmas special and for being His hands extended to us in providing our "Christmas miracle".

Christmas Eve brunch

The Cinnamon rolls raised while we opened gifts.

Our simple Christmas brunch - ham & cheese quiche (delicious!), sausage patties that I was able to find at a grocery store here (rare), orange juice and the cinnamon rolls.
The cinnamon rolls after they were done. Mmmm!

My 2 little coffee drinkers. We 3 enjoyed coffee with our cinnamon rolls.

I poured their coffee in these cute mini coffee cups that I got as a gift at a Christmas gift exchange with some other American ladies.

Christmas pictures

This was an interesting contraption we saw. Notice it has Christmas lights on it. As we passed it, we saw it was some type of political bus.

During Christmas break (from school), we went as a family to visit 2 widowed ladies who used to come to church, but cannot anymore due to distance. I thought this was precious of her reading her Bible.
Hermana Chucha.

At Chucha's house, her daughter was making "Pasteles en hoja" - a traditional Christmas food. They fill banana leaves with some kind of filling and wrap it up and tie it and then cook it. I believe it is connected with Christmas because they liken it to Jesus being wrapped in swaddling clothes.

The Pasteles wrapped and ready to be cooked.

Christmas tree pictures

Ever since we have moved into this spacious house, I have wished for a big Christmas tree. Our little 3 foot one seemed so lonely. To buy one new is way expensive and we hardly ever buy anything new unless necessary so I remained content with my little tree.

This past fall the Lord blessed me with a tree that was being sold by someone leaving the country. We got a super deal on it. It is a pre-lit tree. I'm guessing to buy the lights alone would be what I paid for the tree. After we got it set up and decorated, we really liked it and it added a special touch to our Christmas this year. I am not rich. The Lord has always led us to what we desired or needed for bargain prices. It's amazing that He cares about the smallest details of our lives.

I could tell all about the decorations. They came from all different places - several different garage sales etc - and it all matches! The Lord is a wonderful decorator. It is amazing how He matches things.

It is fun to decorate our stairway.
More Christmas pictures to come - soon, I hope. Life is busy, but I hope to get them posted before next Christmas. Ha! :-)

Christmas tree pictures

We had fun varying the different ways you could set the lights. This picture is of the colored lights.

This is with just the white lights - my favorite.
And this is with both colored and white lights.

A close up.

It's still hard to believe we can ride bikes in Dec with no coats or anything.

Cleaning water tank

This picture goes with the post below. R. looking out of the tank. He was the only one who fit down in it that could clean it out.

Water has returned!

The water in our community came back on 2 days before Thanksgiving. We were so delighted and it was definitely one of our Thanksgiving praises. It certainly makes life easier to not have to worry about water and calculating how much you can use for each task.

Thank you to all who prayed! It certainly was an inconvenience that ended up affecting other aspects of life as well.

One blessing of the water being off was we were able to clean out one of the tanks when it emptied. D. had noticed in one of the times it was filled that there was a lot of sediment on the bottom of the tank. So one morning we had R. climb up to the top of the roof to crawl down in the tank and scoop out the remaining water. The tank to be cleaned.
You can see how dirty the water is. R. scooped it out with a bucket until it was completely gone.

D. throwing out what was in the bucket. A lot of calcium deposit was in the bottom of the tank.

After they got all the water out, they took a towel and wiped up the remaining water. It was wonderful to know our tank was now clean!

Thanksgiving pictures

Following in the footprints of Daddy - reading His Bible. So glad for a wonderful Daddy who leaves Godly imprints for his children to follow.

We were blessed to have my mom and brother visit us for Thanksgiving this year. We also had 2 other American missionary families join us.

The table is pulled out to fit all of our guests. The computer and orange desk to the left is where R. does school. I don't particularly like it there, but it is the best place that I can watch and help him and is separate from the other children.
The view of dining and living room from the dining room to give you a full view of how big our living area is. And yes, I changed the tablecloth to the orange one because I didn't like the multi-colored green one as well. :-)
A view of our dining room taken from the front door.

Thanksgiving pictures cont.

To help my husband deal with buck fever, I put this nice buck out for decoration to remind us of hunting season. The yummy food.
Our guests

The kids ate at a little table.

2 little Indians

Christmas miracles

It's hard to believe how much time has gone by since I last posted! Life has a way of keeping on.


We had a wonderful Christmas! I think every year at Christmas our family experiences a Christmas miracle. I remember several years ago when we were living in the US and D. could not find a job. We were living on pure faith. It was a very difficult time and yet our faith was deepened as we watched God provide at every turn! We look back to that year with fond memories of what the Lord did for us.

I remember several miracles about that Christmas. I remember I was just about out of dish soap, liquid cleaner that I used to clean my floors, and laundry detergent. I know it sounds silly, but I don't think we had the money to buy it. God showed His amazing love and provision when one of my close friends came to the door with a gift bag. She said, "I had no idea what to get you for Christmas, but I thought you would use these." Would you believe in the bag was a box of detergent, Mr. Clean, and dish soap?!!!! I was amazed!


That same Christmas I had a newborn baby and I was feeling overwhelmed with getting little sleep at night, taking care of a 3 year old, a newborn, and homeschooling 2 children at that time in 1st and 2nd grade. Somehow I managed to make a batch of Hershey kiss cookies - our favorite Christmas cookie. It was the only kind I was able to get made with juggling everything and everyone else.


I felt the Lord nudge me to take a plate of the kiss cookies to a lady who had lost her son in an auto accident that spring. I had been in touch with her trying to show love and sympathy to her. She was not a Christian. I hesitated fixing a plate of cookies with the only cookies I knew I would likely get to bake. But I obeyed the Lord.


That Sunday I fixed up the plate of cookies for the lady to drop off at her house after church. Meanwhile, a lady from church came up to me and told me she had something for me after church. To my astonishment, she handed me a plate of different kinds of cookies. She said, "I imagined you were so busy, you wouldn't have time to bake. So enjoy these." I could not believe it! The cookies I did not have time to bake were now handed to me!


We have found that God cares about Christmas. That same Christmas I so badly wanted to get gifts for our families - not because I felt I had to, but because I wanted to show my love and appreciation for them by giving to them. I took it to the Lord and He so amazingly provided! I was able to find gifts for just a few dollars. As I prayed about it walking through the stores, the Lord seemed to lead me to the right gifts. As I handed out the gifts, the receivers really liked them and stated that it was such a lovely gift. I felt they probably liked them more than if I had spent a lot of money.


We had another Christmas miracle this year. But I'll save that for another time since this one is getting long.


Whatever miracle you may need, God cares - even about the small things and He is so capable. He just wants us to bring it to Him. Too many times we lean on ourselves instead of on Him. He will not force us to lean on Him if we want to handle it ourselves. But when we leave it to Him, He proves how big He is.


If you haven't experienced a Christmas miracle this year, I hope you will some year.


If you have experienced a Christmas miracle, I'd like to hear about it. Feel free to comment or send me a message.

Water, Water!

Today marks 4 weeks that our entire community has not had water from the main street line. They told us we are in worse shape now than before. While they have the main water pump out for repair (which has been 2 weeks), someone stole the 2 electric transformers needed to run the pump. So, it is looking like it may be a while till we have water from the street again.

The water truck is beginning to be a regular part of our community. We will see it coming in daily and sometimes several times a day. You can buy water from the truck to fill the tanks that most people have on the roof. This reserve supply is used for the normal daily water outages. But in extended cases like this, everyone is thankful to have those big tanks on the roof. It is what gives us running water in the house while there is none coming in from the street.

When someone buys a load of water, if there is leftover water, they will fill up any buckets or containers that people bring out. Here the water man is filling our buckets from the leftovers of a load of water that someone else had purchased.
Since there are very few wells here, lots of people, including us, are collecting rain from spouts. Here is a picture of 2 houses collecting rain water. Notice the blue bucket clear to the left and then the 2 buckets clear to the right - both collecting water from the rainspouts. The middle one is collecting the rain falling from the sky, I guess.

There has been a positive side to this dilemna. All of the neighbors are working together and sharing what they can with one another. It really is a beautiful sight. One lady came knocking at our door one day and told us to bring out our buckets and containers. She had bought a load of water and was making sure the neighbors would get what was leftover.

The Dominican people are some of the most sharing people. It reminds us that we help and understand one another best when we have gone through the same trials. Everyone is in the same situation and so there is understanding and a helping spirit toward one another.