M is for Mommy

This is my family! From the left, my brother-in-law James, my parents Buddy and Jeanie, Jeff holding Parker, me, Blake, and my in-laws Jim and Jean. We hope you all had a very merry Christmas! Jeff, Blake, Parker and I head back to Brazil on Friday!

Several months ago, God impressed upon me the notion to be very careful how I acted towards others. The Bible says in Galatians 6:7 that whatever we sow (plant), that is what we'll reap (harvest). He impressed upon me the need to pray every day to only sow desireable things in others' lives. I've seen these past months many folks who have harvested undesirable outcomes--sometimes immediately, sometimes years later. Some of these have been very mature believers. Almost all of these people have been totally unaware of what they were planting when they acted the way they did. Some have ripped people off. Then gotten ripped off. Some have tried to silence another's ministry. Their ministry has been silenced. Some missionaries have tried to get others sent home. They are home now. Some missionaries tried to force families to live in unsuitable housing conditions. They then were moved into unsuitable housing conditions. NONE of these people realize how they planted the seed o...

I covet your prayers as I board a plane tomorrow with my two young sons to head "Over the amazon and across the Carribean to Grandmother's house we go . . ." Jeff will follow us on the 20th, but I'll be on my own to get us there on Wednesday. While I'm more worried about in-flight temper tantrums or diaper shortages than hijackings, I have been thinking alot about them lately. My husband had one in his ministry this past week. It's the second one he's faced on the mission field. He handled it so well, with such grace and a Godly attitude. I was so proud of him. While almost inevitable at times, ministry hijackings can be extremely disheartening. The first ministry hijacking I ever saw happened to my mom. My mom had served a small women's prayer group for about 15 years. Every week, without fail, she unlocked the doors of the meeting room, set up the chairs, waited for the other ladies to arrive, and led the meeting. One week, a lady visited. That lady ...

Well, I'm into the last week of my " Daniel Diet ". Sunday, all bets are off. I already have the ingredients set to make that celebratory Chocolate Mousse. You're probably wondering how Thanksgiving went. I don't know exactly how to evaluate or explain, but I'll do my best. It was harder to do this while we were traveling than I thought. We drove about 9 hours to Florianopolis, an island city where all the IMB missionaries from the south of Brazil spend Thanksgiving weekend. Getting there was easy, we made one stop at a truckstop with a buffet with lots of veggies. The Thanksgiving meal was easy (I don't care for turkey and there was nothing chocolate, which helped tremendously). I tried doing what I had suggested doing in my original WWDE post, which is praying as I decide what to eat and not eat and choose accordingly. That worked AMAZINGLY well, as long as I did it. I did this for a couple of days. Then, I started to look for "patterns" and ma...