Border Crossing Straight Ahead!

Sorry I haven't blogged.  Trying to take care of all the last minute details, visit with friends and family and stuff all of our stuff in the trailer has been all consuming.  But, we're on our way to Mexico!  Please pray for a safe crossing.  Thank you to everyone who lifted us up this past week.  We even had a pastor's wife of a supporting church call to say we were on her mind this past week and she didn't know we were packing to move.  God knew just who to burden to pray for us.  Her call was so encouraging, Sam even used it as an example in his sermon tonight! LOL!  Thank you to everyone for all the supportive notes and messages. 

Enough said!

Sprinting to the Finish

 "Witness" from Heartland Baptist Bible College

We just started our third mission conference in a row!  Last Wednesday through Sunday morning, we were at a mission conference in Bartlesville, OK.  We really enjoyed ourselves and as usual were very encouraged by God's people, even though we were trying to be a blessing to them!  It was such a tremedously blessing to meet the Steffy's, who have been missionaries to the Phillipeans for 51 years.  I tried to play basketball with the Heartland Baptist Bible College kids and hurt for several days after.

They had a pinata for the children.

 

Then due to some God orchestrated circumstance, we ended up getting to be a part of a conference in Mustang, OK Sunday evening through Tuesday evening.  Our stay in Mustang was quiet and relaxing and we got some much needed rest.  We met a pilot training to work with missionaries.  I'm very excited about the possibility of being dropped off in some remote jungle someday, to catch some babies and reach people who have never heard the gospel.  Maybe I'll even be able to put that jump school training to good use!  Just kidding, I don't plan to jump out of any more perfectly good planes!
Tonight we began our third back to back conference and our last conference before leaving for Mexico.  It is at Gospel Light Baptist our sending church.  It was so good to be at our home church with our church family.  Sam has preached four times in the last week.  So far we have been to church 8 days in a row, so if we aren't all straighten out by now there is no hope! HA!
We leave for Mexico two weeks from today and my garden seeds arrived, so I'm all ready to go!

A Fun Weekend

We were near Mountain View, AR this past weekend.  Sam is still crying because we missed the Mountain View Bluegrass Festival by just one week.  It's this up coming weekend for anyone interested.  We also didn't have our mountain dulcimers with us, and very uncharacteristic of Sam, he didn't even have his harmonics with him.  We also forgot, under wear and under shirts for the girls, a pair of tights for Hannah, the dogs food bowls and the diapers Haden still needs at night.  Maybe that tells you what kind of a morning we had trying to leave!  Anyway, there we are in the heart of blue grass country without any instruments.  My Grandmother only lives a block or two from the downtown square where there is pickn' on the porches of several of the stores.  Sam took the kids for ice cream at the soda shop and they sat and listened.  

After listening for a while, Sam said, " Since you've been playing for us, we'll sing for you."  By the second verse of Standing on the Rock, people were coming out of the shops to hear and quite a good size crowd had gathered.  The pickers were able to join in with their guitars, banjos and fiddles.  Grand applause and an encore proceeded and the kiddos came home with a pretty proud papa.

Grandmother and I chatted it up about knitting.  She got out her patterns and we thumbed through all her vintage stuff.  She even gave me one.  I can't wait to knit the shawl.  It's circa 1975, the year before I was born.

Then of course we sat on the couch and knit and chatted.  Hannah even came in and joined us for a while.  Hannah and something she was very determined to finish, but that's a different blog.  I am so happy to have the below photos of three generations of knitters.  My mom is the only one missing.  She told me just the other day that she plans to learn after she retires from teaching.

Here's a little bonus side story.  This was actually not the first impromptu performance the kids have given.  While on the east coast the kids and I found ourselves out past lunch, so we stopped at Waffle House.  We were almost done eating and Haden had to go to the bathroom, so I took him.  It was a big job, so it took a while. ;) When we came out the kids where all lined up getting ready to sing.  There was a man in the restaurant who had been humming and singing gospel songs a little.  Apparently, (and this is Hannah's words) Samuel had "sucked in his guts" and gathered the courage to ask him if he went to church.  From there the man ask him if they sang, so the kids got up in the middle of the restaurant and sang beautifully, as only siblings can harmonize like that.  Very good testimony.  I see some giants of the faith in the making.

Waffle House, Old Friends, & Beautiful Memories

This one's for Aimee. :) 

White flour, fried egg and potatoes, pork and absolutely nothing raw!  Not pictured is the white flour waffle, drenched in sugar, cooked with something they label as an oil.

Back in the day when Sam and I were young and knew EVERYTHING, our first duty station was Fort Gordon in Augusta, GA.  It was a short duty station, only a mere stop really for school and then on to a more permanent duty station.  We had been married about four years and Hannah was not yet a year old.  I was pregnant with Josiah.  I'm not sure what caused me to call Aimee.  I'm sure we had met at a officier wivies get together and chatted about church and children or something.  For some reason I decided to call Aimee and ask her to go walking with me.  After that we met almost every morning at the track on Fort Gordon and walked several miles. 
I never realized until years later, what a huge effort of love it was for Aimee to go walking with me everyday.  All I had to do was get my one baby and myself ready, Aimee had four boys.  So she would get ALL of them ready and herself, even when that required finding coats, hats and gloves.  She would give this young mom the good portion of her morning and then as I liesurely came home and enjoyed a book while Hannah napped, She would homeschool.  Now that's someone who believed people were the most important thing.  I am so grateful for her friendship and her graciousness to this then very young mother.
So, since we are on the east coast, we went to Waffle House in honor of my friend Aimee. ;)  It was one of her favs and they don't have them in her homeland, California. It was the kid's idea.  It went something like this.....Sam had just finished praying with the children and I was kissing my sweet darlings good night. 
Child 2 says, "Mama, what are we having for breakfast?" 
Mama: What do think we are having for breakfast?
Child 3:  (A little flattly) Juice. (which is our veggie/coconut oil/fruit smootie...often green) :)
Another child: Mama
Mama: Yes
Another child: (They are all in on it now)  Do you think we could go to Waffle House sometime.....in honor of your friend?
Mama:  Probably, I'll talk to Dad.
Another child:  Do you think we could go tomorrow......

Our very gracious server.  She was so kind to our kids.

The kids were so unaccustomed to eating such a heavy breakfast they couldn't finish the $3 kids meals.  The only thing they finished was the OJ. LOL!

This is a vegetable spead and embodies everything unhealthy on earth.  You can not pronounce any of the way too many ingredients.  I think it falls somewhere between plastic and a very strong artery clogging, cancer causing agent.  How in the world they are able to put no trans fats on this.....I have no idea!  I smell a FDA payoff.

We enjoyed it, but the kids haven't ask to go back. :)

Reb Ribbon and All

In August of last year we lost our dog Ollie. We were extremely sad. He had been a great dog. We had him for five years, since he was six weeks old. We have been travelling a lot so we didn't get another dog right away. Besides, we couldn't just replace our Ollie. In the following months, we still missed Ollie. Every time we had bones left from beef stew, we remember how much Ollie would have loved to chew on it, but mostly go bury it.

By December we were ready for a new dog and Sam had a breed in mind. He wanted a Great Pyrenees. I wanted a Great Dane and the kids wanted another Jack Russell like Ollie. After reading about several kinds of breeds and thinking about our needs we (Sam and I) chose a Great Pyrenees. The kids thought we were still thinking about it. After searching around we found a farmer who had a litter of Christmas puppies for a very reasonable price. Sam and I snuck away to check out the puppies. The first thing I saw when we pulled up was their great big daddy guarding the cattle and the mother, Sugar, guarding the sheep. They were beautiful animals and very social, yet sober. The puppies all came stumbling out, they were barely six weeks and still a little unstable. I was so excited. We wanted a dog that had been socialized some, we wanted to be able to see the parents and we wanted to raise it from a puppy.
Great Pyrenees are working dogs. They were breed to be flock guardian dogs and they do a very good job. We know that safety is of the Lord, but it is nice knowing we will have a family dog that likes to protect her family if need be and is social as long as she knows there is no threat. The ad in the paper said something about "fluffy ball of white fur". And that is just what she was; cute and fluffy, and a little shy at first.
Sam and I picked her up on Christmas Eve and she cried all the way to my brother’s house, where she stayed the rest of the evening. She was happy as long as my little niece held her. Sam and I picked her up after the kids were in bed. We gave her a bath, which really stressed her out and put her in her kennel in a nearby building. Sam got up at 3:00 am to check on her and she was crying. He ended up sleeping on the floor next to her to keep her from alerting the kids. In the morning we got them over to my mom and dad’s house as quickly as possible. As soon as we had unwrapped gifts, Sam announced he had forgotten my gift and jumped in the van to go get it. It is a short mile down the road. The children commenced to playing with their new toys and looking at their new books and things.

Then in comes Sam with the yet to be named, very young, very stressed out, but extremely cute puppy complete with red ribbon. The kids were very surprised and very excited.

Heidi started out quite shy; in fact she spent most of Christmas day sleep under something. She was still unstable on her feet at this point and it was so tempting to just carry her around. It didn't take her long to start to come out of her shell. She is adjusting to our family very well and is even doing well with all the travel and new places.