Flaming Arrows!

It happens every time. When you get ready to do something you think God wants you to do, Satan is right there to discourage and try to take away the joy and hope you have. This has been a CRAZY week for all 3 of the guys going on the Kenya trip.

• Things have "blown up" at work for Gabe and it is a very stressful time of trying to mediate several imminent crises.
• Vince's brother has been sick in the hospital with something wrong with his lung
• Cars have broken down
• Trent's passport still had not come, as of yesterday. They got an email saying it had been DENIED because his parent's signature had not been witnessed by a Public Notary.

So....Vince, Michelle, and Trent are currently in their car driving 10 hours to Denver, CO to get his passport. All 3 must be present. They have an appt. at 10am tomorrow morning at which, if everything goes smoothly, they will come away with Trent's passport. We are very glad they even have this option, as there are NO appts. available at the Passport agency in Houston, and there is no other way to expedite this except for in person at a Passport Center. Please pray that all goes well at the appointment and he comes home with Passport in hand.

Makes me think of this passage:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

Ephesians 6:10-18

Harambee - Let's all come together for Kenya!

Sunday night we got to experience something really cool - one of those times when we had a small idea and God made it into something really big. Well, most people would probably not consider an 80-person get-together in po-dunk Abernathy Texas "really big", but in our book, it was.

In Kenya it's called Harambee - it means to "pull together". We wanted everyone in our congregation to "pull together" for the trip Gabe, Vince and Trent are about to make to Kenya. We asked everyone to bring something to contribute, whether it be a written prayer or note of encouragement, books or teaching materials to be taken, monetary gifts, or whatever else anyone wanted to bring. We prepared Kenyan food, which I will describe in the photo.

Planned for about 50 people.

I lost count at 82.

Prayed for God to take the 5 loaves and 2 fish and make it enough, and somehow he did! I'm sure some people would have eaten more if it had been there, but it seems that everyone got to taste the things they wanted to taste and people seemed to have a great time.

Some of the things given at the Harambee-

Beanie Babies, lollipops, cards, books, and about $850.

Gabe, Trent (17), Vince

The participants (my good friend Arnie Faye in her African garb)





Our Spread - top left to right - Beans with Coconut, chapatis (like tortilla), Coconut Chicken.
botton L to R: Samosas with lime, Mahamri (like fried Indian flatbread). We also had Chai - hot tea with milk, sugar and spices.

What fun to see new life breathed into a congregation which has, by all appearances been a little sleepy for the last few years. Everyone was excited and you could feel the energy. We are thankful that God can use this trip for his glory on both sides of the world.

Steve Gauntt, our preacher, wrote a devotional book specifically for this trip - each day has a Scripture and some thoughts. He printed a copy for everyone who wanted one. There is a group meeting each day at the church building here in Abernathy to go through the devotional thought, and spend time in prayer. We started this past Sunday and will continue until they day they come home. Gabe, Vince, and Trent will also be going through this devotional book in Kenya, at around the same time we will be reading it here in the States each day. It's pretty neat to feel the love and support of so many for this venture.

I plan to post as I hear from Gabe while he's away, so keep watching.

Memorial Day Weekend

Hey! We had a great Memorial Day Weekend - very relaxing and we enjoyed having Gabe home with us. Did lots of yard and garden work. We always say we aren't going to put much more effort into this house, but we can't seem to stop ourselves. I guess we just enjoy fixing it up, and it qualifies as "Quality Time" in our book, so we always end up working on this or that. Since we've gotten Brownie, we needed to put up a fence around the garden. Gabe found it was a bigger job than he expected and it took several days, but it turned out great! It will be so nice to have it enclosed where it won't be disturbed. Oh, funny story:

The other night the news guy came on TV and said there were severe storms headed our way with hail, and the Doppler Radar showed a huge line of storms with orange and dark red- so I went outside and covered all my tomato plants in plastic, brought in all the plants/flowers from the front porch, got Brownie inside in the laundry room. Then sat down and watched the major lightening storm as it approached. And.....we got a light sprinkle for about 5 minutes. The end.

(and, my tomatoes didn't even get the needed rain because of the stupid plastic bags over them!)

Anyway, here are some picts of the weekend. Gabe got Avery's slide put up and built handrails for climbing up the stairs. He is such a handyman - I don't believe there is anything he can't do. We need to start on our bathroom remodel, but somehow that keeps being put off. I don't think Gabe is too excited about that one.... If anyone knows how to re-plumb a bathroom, please call!!

Building fence around the garden - a much tougher job than originally thought!
Newly planted garden - tomato, squash, okra, watermelon, cantaloupe, cucumbers, peppers


Brownie's new pen for when he needs to be CONTAINED!


New slide

Isn't he growing?? Although he was sick with parvo for a few days, he has been "restored to his natural health" (as they say in C of C prayers)

Brownie looking as guilty as he usually is.

Just blogging for Myself

I just realized today that I usually blog when something exciting is going on with Avery, but today I just felt like blogging for myself!

Ever since I went to the Beth Moore Living Proof Live Conference in Albuquerque, I've been pretty pumped up in my faith. I wanted to share Beth's blog with you - it's at this link. Living Proof Live Blog. She is really funny when she writes, and also I find her posts, and the comments after her posts, extremely encouraging. Sometimes she is sort of too "Texan" for me, but her faith and love for God inspires me beyond belief - she is totally genuine and humble! I have gone back to re-doing the Believing God study that a group of ladies did at our church 2 years ago. I would like to encourage you all, if you haven't already done one of Beth's bible studies, to do one. What I love about her most about her studies is that she has inspired me to be in the Word for myself, like no one ever has. My faith has grown as a result of what God has done in my life through Beth, and especially the Believing God study.

Sometimes I wonder why God let me be in positions of leadership and even to live on foreign soil as a missionary for 5 years, with the small faith and unbelief I had all those years. I mean, I thought I had faith, but now I look back and see that I really didn't have much at all. But only by God's grace and patience he let me be an ambassador for Him anyway, perhaps in some small way. I wonder what God could have done through me if I had really believed Him and trusted his power through those years?? Right now I am trying to trust him with small, everyday things. And still, I know my faith is miniscule, but I also know that all those folks in Hebrews 11 didn't realize that they were going to make "the list", they just believed and obeyed God in their various settings. I want to be among that list! These are the 5 points that Beth asked us to memorize and what the whole study was based on:

1. God is who he says he is!
2. God can do what he says he can do!
3. I am who God says I am.
4. I can do all things through Christ.
5. God's Word is alive and active in me.
   
   I now have a cozy chair in our office, and I enjoy finding moments to get away there and spend time in the Word. I am trying to memorize more scripture, so that it can be alive and active in me. It's an exciting time! How are you doing??

So glad for friends

It's great to have good friends! We enjoy getting together with Kaidance Wright and her mom Amanda - Kaidance is 6 months younger than Avery, and they have a blast together. The other night Gabe was going to be at work until late, so we offered to go feed the calves for him. But before we went, we took an outing to the park so I could keep Avery awake since she hadn't had a nap and I didn't want her falling asleep at 6 o'clock. When we got to the park, there were Kaidance and Amanda, so they went with us on our feeding adventure! It was so much fun - can't you tell by Avery's squinty eyes and big grin??

Sonshine School Program

"We really do need to get a better camera", I always say after an event like Avery's school program. We are still using our digital camera, given to us by our class at Broadway on our furlough from Kenya in 2000. We were so proud, then, that it had 1.3 megapixels!! Sadly, we are still using it and I'm sure any point-and-shoot you can buy now is no less than 4 or 5 megapixels! So our photos aren't the best, but we do have lots of them!
Here are some picts of Avery at her school program. She was the only child dancing while they were getting eveyone ready to say the pledge of allegiance! I was pretty impressed, myself. Last year she stood up there with her hands in her mouth very frightfully, so I'm glad to see she has become more confident on stage! Their program was western, and they were supposed to bring their own hat if they had one. This is the hat she wanted to wear, and when it had the rim bent up, it looked pretty good, but she kept pulling it down so that she looked like a flapper, so in the end I wished she'd just worn the one supplied by school that most of the other kids wore. Oh well, she was happy nonetheless!

Notice the child on her left watching her in all the pictures? I think he was pretty enthralled with her!

Here she is dancing, and the little boy is watching her again!

Avery's good friend Lexi.

I bet not many kids had grandparents AND great-grandparents at the program! We are so glad we live near them.

Will you "die", or "pass away"?

Brownie and Blackie - probably not Politically Correct Names

I hate it that I didn't get pictures and posts before we had a couple of untimely deaths among us. About 3 weeks ago, we inherited a brand new calf who had been orphaned. Since Gabe didn't have a place other than home to keep him, "Blackie" moved into our back yard (can you guess what color he is??). It was no problem for a while, as he needed to be bottle fed morning and night, so having him here at home was great. A few days later, Gabe found out about 3 other calves who were available, and he figured if he's going to the trouble of taking care of one, he might as well do 3 and make it a full-fledged operation. So, shortly thereafter, we had a new puppy, and 4 calves living in our backyard. It was okay, until the flies started swarming, and much to my embarassment, the cows started MOOING! And...the house next door was being re-roofed, so I knew at least 2 roofers had seen our barnyard in the middle of town. I was so mortified - talk about rednecks! Anyway, Avery enjoyed having them around, and Gabe was busily working to make them a pen out at the farm, so I knew it was a short-term situation.

Then, the 3 new calves all began to look sickly. Last Sunday after church, we came home to find that "Alligator" had "passed away". We are not sure where Avery heard this, but Alligator definitely did not die. He "passed away". That same day, Gabe got the other 3 moved out too their new home at the farm. Last Tuesday when we went out to feed them, we found that "Susie" had met her demise as well. But Susie "died". She did not pass away. She "died". We aren't sure what the difference is, but it is distint in Avery's mind - and you would do well not to argue with her about it!

Avery taking a ride on Crocodile
Anyway, we are batting 50, as Gabe says, so we have 2 calves left. They are "Crocodile", and "Blackie". Gabe & Avery are enjoying their excursions out to the farm to take care of them. We are hoping that these 2 will make it through infancy and can eventually move on to greener pastures!


Oh, the shiner on Avery's forehead is from a spill on her tricycle. She had on her new cowgirl boots (with shorts) and her feet got tangled up while she was trying to ride FAST and beat our neighbor girls. Tomorrow is her school program, so hopefully it will be pretty much healed up by then.