It's Cold!

Any of you that know me well know that I do not like cold weather. So many were excited about possible snow today, but I know that with snow comes very cold weather. I know some of you are surprised because after all I am a Michigan girl, but my body prefers much warmer weather...like 78 or 80! Since winter has officially arrived in Tennessee (we had snow flurries today), I will spend the next 2-3 months with a very cold nose, cold fingers and cold toes. Even right now in my 72 degree house, my feet are freezing.

This morning though as I thanked God for so many things, I thanked him for our house and for heat. There are memories etched in my mind from Africa and then these pictures from Derek's trip to Nicaragua. Take a minute to look at them.

We live in abundance! We are so blessed!! We are richer than millions of people around the world, simply because we have a house.

Derek was able to help build a "plastic house" for this family. It's not much, but it's better than some. They were also able to build a bed for them, so that they wouldn't have to sleep on the mud floor.

A Little Christmas Magic

Wordless Wednesday

Parenting is Hard Work

We feel like we have officially gone back to school. Surely we have since we spend at least 2 hours a night on homework. Stephen is struggling in grammar. His grammar is tough...there are things I don't even remember very clearly...this is the object of the preposition and all kinds of sentence structure stuff. I don't know that I diagrammed sentences until I was in high school. I will say that Stephen is excelling in Bible, history and science. I think after 3rd grade, he could teach Old Testament Survey...seriously. Sometimes I don't know the answer and I actually have to go look in the Bible to find it. How fun that is though!

Matthew is doing pretty well overall. His reading and math have improved. He is an eager learner, so he's definitely the easiest regarding homework. He still firmly holds the belief though that mom and dad don't know anything, because Mrs. W. has been doing math for over 50 years and she's older than you... and so on.

Elizabeth is doing exceptionally well in math. That's her strength, a huge surprise to all of us. She cannot learn phonics or spelling to save her life. It's pathetic. They've recommended speech therapy at this point. We hope once her tonsils are removed and she gets some teeth, the speech will improve. She cannot say "the" no matter how hard she tries. We are looking into some speech therapy.

Anyway, the real point of this post is to share Matthew's prayer journal. Maybe I'm invading some childhood privacy, but he left it on the table. I just love this!

Here's the translation.

Elizabeth will marry Callan.

My stomach will feel better.

Mary Chandler will marry me.

Stephen will marry Leah.

Mary Chandler will love me forever.

I will be perfect.

Sounds like good prayer requests to me!

Mary's Story

You may have thought that I wouldn't post about Africa again, but today I will. This post has been in my mind for awhile, but I just haven't been able to write about it yet.

Meet Mary...16 year old Zambian. (She's on the left in the white shirt)




On Monday morning at Camp Life, they divide the kids according to school and ages into groups. I had mostly 11-14 year old girls. One of the counselors from last year wanted several girls from my group because they were in her group last year....no problem. So they did a swap. They took a couple of my girls and then said "Mary, this is Auntie Alicia". Mary was very quiet and 16 years old...the oldest in the group.

She didn't seem very interested most of the week and I really thought, "I'm not getting through to her. She's sad that these girls are all younger than her and not in her class. This really isn't fair. And so on..." Then, on Thursday, we went into the village with the Evangecube. Mary became a leader and a star. She grabbed that evangecube and started sharing with almost every adult we met. I was impressed.

When I had my one on one time with Mary, she said everything was fine at home. Maybe it is, but you just never know. Some of these kids have such horrible stories that when someone says everything is okay, you kind of wonder. On Friday after lunch we were singing as a small group (we were very close to saying our good-byes) and Mary wasn't singing. My initial thought was just to leave her alone. If she was going to be a stick-in-the-mud, well that's hard to change. But with the prompting of the Holy Spirit, I walked over to her, away from the girls that were hugging me while we sang, and went and put my arm around Mary.

She started weeping, not crying, but weeping. She wept on my shoulder for almost 10 minutes. What did I do? I cried with her and held her. There were no words that would make things better. My heart softened incredibly to Mary that day. I don't know why she wept...was her home life that bad? was she sad I was leaving? I really didn't know and I didn't feel like I was supposed to ask. My white t-shirt didn't come clean. There is Zambia dirt and tear stains on that shirt. I washed it twice and then decided, the dirt could stay. It could be a reminder to me that wounds run deep, even when we try to put on the smile or put up the wall and pretend that all is okay. Sometimes we need to talk things through, sometimes we just need someone to hold us or sit with us while we cry. The verse in Romans 12 "weep with those who weep" came alive that day. There was nothing else to do, but weep.

I love this quote from Kay Warren's book Dangerous Surrender
"But by holding her in my arms, wiping the tears from her face, looking deep into her eyes, crying with her, and speaking of Jesus' unquenchable love for her, Jesus became real and visible. I made him real to her by being his hands and feet, by acting the way he acts, by loving the way he loves, by showing mercy and compassion, by giving the very best I had--Jesus Chrsit in me."

I hope that's what I did in Zambia and I hope I do that in my day to day life here in Tennessee as well.

So many are hurting. Life is hard, but God is good.

Favorite Photo Friday

The Paternal Side of the Family

My (Alicia's) Grandpa and Us

Friendships

Top Row: Jack, Katie, Rachel, Mark, Graham, JT, Brian
Bottom Row: Kathleen, Shelby, Jill, Molly, Shannon, Me

I love how God orchestrates friendships in my life. Sometimes they just happen unexpectedly. Sometimes it takes a long time for that friendship to be deep rooted, other times it's almost instantaneous.

A mission trip together...those people become your instant friends, because you definitely don't want them to be your enemies!

My Zambia group however, they're not just friends. I love them like family and I love them all for different reasons.

Jack and Kathleen...well, they're just an incredibly, godly couple. They have incredible love for one another and for others. It just makes me happy to be around them.

Bupe (Brian)...I already loved him, because his wife is a very dear friend, but Brian made me laugh at least once an hour. He's completely transparent and goofy at times (in a funny way) and I just loved that we got to share this trip together.

Jill and Shelbi....love, love, love this mother/daughter team. I hope that Elizabeth and I can have that close of a relationship when Elizabeth is a teenager. They are just fun! They make me smile, because they love to have fun!

Molly...she's the niece of Jack and Kathleen. I so enjoyed getting to know Molly and seeing firsthand what a huge impact this trip to Zambia could have on a teenager's life.

Mark and Rachel...they didn't travel with us, they went the week before, but we still got to know them at our team meetings. I love that they've put their yes on the table and they're willing to serve however God leads.

Katie and JT (Johnny) and Graham...they are the sons and daughters of Jack and Kathleen. To see firsthand the love this family has for one another was inspiring. It gave me hope for our family of five. I hope someday our kids look at us the way these three look at their parents. They love them, it's obvious!

Shannon...well, we do not seem like we belong together and I don't mean that in a bad way (one example, she wears camo, I do not). We're just very different, yet I could not have asked for a better roommate. I love Shannon like a sister and I would do anything for her. I love that God brought our hearts together through a trip to Africa that changed both of our lives forever!

I love how God orchestrated each of these friendships. They kind of came out of the blue, because I didn't even know that I needed their friendships, but I really do. They all hold a very special place in my heart and even though we aren't having dinner together every night or making pb and j every day like we did in Zambia, it's always great to see them even if only for a short amount of time.

Saturday night was one of those nights. It was somebody's 50th birthday...not mine, so we had a Zambia reunion. What great fun! It was also just a reminder to me how incredibly blessed I am. A reminder that God knows what I need, even when I don't. He knows what friendships I need and He picks the ones that are best for me!