'Merica

  Let me start from the beginning. We came from Jamaica to Texas to have my new little brother. He was born 2 1/2 weeks ago. Christian weighed a whopping 10 pounds!!!! He is a good baby,though. He sleeps a ton. I know babies do that, but he sleeps a lot it seems. Now that he is here we have been keeping busy with other things. Pickle, Matthew,and Zachary have been playing soccer and they are loving it. Pickle enjoys being goalie while Matthew likes playing forward. Zac just likes to just run with the ball; last week he scored a goal! Erin and Allison are doing gymnastics and they both love it! So what am I doing? No sports right now. I came hoping to play volleyball, but that hasn't been God's plan. Instead right now I have been busy studying for the PSAT. Yeah! (not) I have also been helping out at my old school here- Redeemer Lutheran School. Allison and the boys are going there for this semester. 
 So now what? We will be staying here through the end of the year. Our first team of 2016 comes the second week of January. We have about 3 more months here!! We are all loving being back, but I am starting to miss our dogs in Jamaica. Oh well, on the bright side I do get to see my dog who is with my Best Friend (I had to leave him when we originally went to Jamaica).
 What else? I have driven the last 2 days and I'm hoping to get enough hours to get my license this year Lord willing. We are also in the process of moving today from my grandma's house (where we have been) to a mission house. Allison's birthday will be coming up later this month so she is excited! Other than that things will settle down for a little while. 
 This is a fairly short post, but I will try to update it as things happen. Bye for now! :)

Elephants

I don't normally journal, but when I do its usually for something important to me. Here is part of an entry from earlier this week- 
   I started a new devo called Praying for Your Elephant. Cheesy, but something, not impulse, quickly urged me to do it!  As the title suggests it was about not limiting ourselves in prayer. It seems true that we place limits on what we can and can’t ask for. Usually the impossible we tend to overlook because maybe God won’t care or it’s not important enough to bother asking….. First I do believe God is interested in what we want. Second, I sometimes feel that he dares us to ask for the “impossible” just to show us that He can! He’s done it for me before!

    Back to the devo- the Bible verse was John 14:13 “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”  There’s another verse that talks about being confident when asking God for something…And I asked God “What does a bold prayer look like? Could it be asking for food and water in the desert, or God’s help to build a wall? Then I get to that moment when I almost make God a deal. Like- “Ok if you do this, I’ll do that”. But there’s a verse about keeping promises to God (Ecclesiastes 5:4-5)….So I sat there wondering what bold prayer I can ask…I remembered promises that had been made to me that weren't fulfilled and then I had it! I made my bold prayer and I could almost feel like God was smiling saying “that’s more like it!” God taught me that bold prayers don’t have to be this big miracle (but they can), they can be some small task that 10 seconds ago we might have thought to be impossible or unimportant! I believe He cares though. If the little noisy (probably dirty) kids were valued by Jesus, wouldn't God understand what seems important to us? He did live on this Earth after all, and He made it, I think He understands it all perfectly! My challenge to whoever reads this is this- Pray for anything right now! Have no doubt (even if it seems hard!), I’m waiting for my prayer to be answered! I’m not saying you’ll get it! I’m saying have faith that you will, and if it lines up with God’s plan, it’ll happen! Pray and wait for your elephant to show up!

  

  

2015

Wow, it's hard to believe that February is almost done! One thing I have noticed so far in my life is that time goes by so fast! I know it's been a while since I last updated my blog, so let me fill you in on some things that have happened-

• Daniel kid # 7 is on its way, and due around September 20th 
• We were back in the States for Christmas and got to travel and see people from all over the US! We were in 14 states in 3 1/2 weeks!! 
• Saw the Corvette Museum, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, City Museum (Missouri), Children's Museum (North Carolina) just to name a few :) 
• Got to visit my old school.
• I got my Driver's Permit :) :)
• I got to fly a plane :) :) (I'm interested in being a pilot, and got to go on a Discovery flight) 
• Ali finished 3rd grade this week!
• Already hosted a few work teams
• Got a German Shepard puppy to replace our guard dog who died 
• Met a new missionary family who is new to the island
• Soon will be saying Goodbye to a missionary family that is going back to America
• Tomorrow will be my parents' anniversary

 As you can see we are busy! Our next work team will be coming in a week, so we will get even busier then. (Busy in a good way though :)
 Please be in prayer for our church here, We are currently renting a couple of rooms where we have our services, but  are looking to buy a building. Please pray that it can happen soon and without any problems; our church is growing and it's time to move!

 Right now as I type this, Erin and Pickle are playing the game of Life. I think it illustrates real life in a way. It seems to take a while to play, but step back and look at it, and its really short. In real life it might seem that we have lots of time to do things, but in reality, life is short. Don't waste your life. There are many paths to take (just like in the game), and we all eventually die. Then what? We have an eternity to either live with God, or without him. The crazy thing is it seem so easy, and it is. Jesus came and died for our sins. It's simple, yet huge! The choices we make (or don't make) will effect our lives forever. Jesus loves us and wants us to spend an eternity in Heaven with him!


 "Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, becaus you know that your labor is not in vain."  1 Corinthians 15: 58

1/3 of 2014

Wow I cant believe we are already 1/3 of the way through 2014!! Sounds Crazy!!!!! Its been busy here! We have had      teams come and go and a total of      people in and outta here! I hav worked with some, and had a blast! One exciting project that is being worked on is a road from the front gate all the way down to the dorms! Its been hard work, because we have had to mix alllllllllll the concrete and wheelbarrow it! Dont get me wrong, its pretty fun!
 Im proud to say I have made some new friends (that do keep in touch) which for an MK can be hard...
I also have found a new band that I really enjoy listening to-Anthem Lights. I love the music and lyrics. One of my fav lines is "....it's noting for You, it's too much for me, it's over my head, it's under Your feet!" This is from their song Lifeline, and it talks about how we cant make it on our own and we need to give up and let God take control.