Happy Mother’s Day!

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Happy Mother’s Day!

The kids all got up this morning and told me “Happy Mother’s Day” and gave me hugs and kisses – right after I told them to get back in their room and not bug me about breakfast. My kids are so sweet. John told me later on, “I love you, my precious Mommy.”

Mother’s Day is often a day that I reflect on the job I do as a mother. I remember one day crying because I felt like a terrible Mom and John (always my cheerleader) said “Mommy, you aren’t a terrible Mudder. I love you!” I guess I just want to make sure that I’m not scarring them for life! Yes, I am going to be influencing them but I want it to be good. I sure do love those little arms around my neck and the little slobbery kisses they give. I love having them tease me and spending time with them doing “fun things” as they say, like playing games, coloring, all the things you get to do as a Mom.

This last week I taught Jamie how to jump rope. He would stand in front of me and as the rope came around I would yell “jump!” He caught on quite quickly! Elizabeth tried and managed to jump over the rope once but it hung up on my legs so that was it.

Friday we went to the zoo. We had so much fun! It had been several months since we’d been so everything was new for the kids. We went to the snake house and they oooo’d and ahhhh’d over all the huge snakes and other reptiles. Afterward we stopped through the gift store. Wouldn’t you know, they were clearancing their stock to make room for the new stuff for this season (which starts on Memorial Day weekend). There were these stuffed snakes that the kids have been asking about for a year now that were on clearance! So ever since Friday, they’ve been carrying those things around, sleeping with them, and generally having a wonderful time with them! James’ and John’s snakes were a particular kind (some kind of rattler with a rattle on the end of it’s tail). Ethan’s and Elizabeth’s snakes were just multi-colored. So we named them – Ethan’s is a purple spotted tickle snake and Elizabeth’s a green spotted burpy snake. Elizabeth hugged hers and said “I love my burpy snake!”

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 5-12-2006

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Hello, everyone! We're home this week for Mother's Day. We rescheduled our Sunday meeting in Liberty, MO to July, which worked out for me, since I was needing to schedule a couple more for that month anyway. In the meantime, I've used the downtime to complete a significant chore: a complete redesign of the website. The old site was starting to show it's age, and I decided that it was high time for a rewrite. I'm glad it's finally over, tho'. You stare at a computer monitor long enough, you get to feeling like you're going blind. Check it out. The same basic information is there, but it's much faster, and better organized. The biggest change is the addition of a personal weblog (blog), for both Anna and I. This way, I can keep the email updates short and to the point. Then, for the stories and what not that wouldn't be appropriate for an email because of the need for brevity, we can post them to the blog, and those interested parties can check in to read them. I have placed all prior correspondence in the blog, so you can read all the back-story of our deputation so far, if you're so inclined. Additionally, Anna can now post her own stuff in a blog separate from my own, so you can get the wife's perspective on things as well. You can find that along the top navigation bar under 'Journal'. General Info has all the usual stuff relative to the ministry. Gallery has all our pictures in it, which I'll be updating soon. The Encyclopedia has all the info on Uganda, Africa News has RSS feeds with Africa news stories, and Contact Us gives you a convenient form for sending us email messages. You folks are my beta testers, so if you run into any errors, try to take a screenshot, or copy down the error, and tell me what you were doing at the time, and I'll see if I can fix it. Word to the wise: Internet Explorer doesn't quite render the site flawlessly, like Firefox. If you haven't made the switch to the Firefox browser yet, I highly recommend you do so!

Next week, we'll be heading up to a missions conference in Des Moines, IA, in Southtown Baptist Church, with Pastor Jim Chamberlain. The week after, we'll be in Answer Baptist Church in Johnson City, TN with Pastor Jason Wiley. Be in prayer for us as we travel. Pray for our safety, and our health. Pray that God will bless in these conferences, and that we will be a blessing.

That's all for now.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 05-01-2006

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Greetings! We had a great conference in Corinth Baptist Church in Corinth, ME (Pastor Kirk Mellen). Talk about a small world. Turns out, the Mellens are from St. Louis also. Bro. Mellen was Burt Squires' Associate Pastor at Lifegate Baptist Church in Ellisville, MO. Plus, our Pastor was on his ordination counsel. The trip to Maine went well. The week we were there, the weather cleared up, although it was a bit cold still, by our standards anyway. We visited Bar Harbor on Friday (pronounced Bah Hahbah), and got to see the ocean some more. I had some Maine lobster in one of the few little restaurants that was open. It was tasty but, well, it's basically just a really big crawdad (if you don't know what that is, let me know). Anyway, I've had Maine lobster now, so I can say I did it. Frankly, I'd rather have a mess of crawdads….

On Sunday, I had an epiphany. We had been scolding our son, Ethan, for talking "baby talk" all week. You know how kids do sometimes. They think it's cute to talk like a baby, when it's not, so you make them stop. He'd been saying things like "over theyah", instead of "over there", and "heyah" instead of "here" and what not. Well, we were over to a church member's house for lunch, and I was sitting outside chatting with the guys while the meat was cooking, when it suddenly hit me: he's not talking baby-talk; he's imitating all these Mainers! We had a good laugh over that one. Our Ethan, the Maineiac…

The preaching from Bro. Frazier was excellent, as always. The services went very well, and we got to bat cleanup and share our burden for Uganda on Sunday night. It's a great little church in rural Maine, and we enjoyed it tremendously. The church building was built in 1822. They have these neat little pew boxes, and this huge old-fashioned, pipe organ. One of the ladies played it for everybody on Sunday night. You just can't substitute for the real thing.

We're in Clarion, PA at the moment, and I'm getting this update written from the hotel before bed while I can, because there won't be time tomorrow. It'll be another long day of driving on Tuesday, and then we'll finally be in St. Louis and home! It's been a good trip, and we've enjoyed it, but we're all tired, and ready for some rest. Pray for our travels, and for our continued good health. Pray that Corinth Baptist will be able to support us, and that many other of the churches we've been to will do likewise, those who have not already. Pray we'll get some good rest in the next few weeks while we're home, and that we'll be able to get lots of needed tasks done.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 04-23-2006

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Greetings! We just finished up our conference at Lakewood Baptist Church in Chattanooga, TN (Pastor David Bragg). It was a tremendous time, and the LORD really worked in the meetings. We had some great preaching from Paul Marsh (former missionary to Guatemala), and some precious fellowship with this kind and gracious church. They all greatly ministered to us, and were a blessing to our whole family. Some good news: I just got a call from Faith Baptist Church in Bridgeton, MO, and they just voted to take us on for support! The support is coming in fairly steady now, which is a big encouragement. Hopefully, as of the next statement, I'll have even more good news to report. Tomorrow, we will be beginning the drive to Corinth, Maine for the missions conference in Corinth Baptist Church (Pastor Kirk Mellen). Our first leg will be to Allentown, PA, a long drive, so be in prayer. On Tuesday, we are going to swing through Stockbridge, Massachusetts so we can see the Norman Rockwell museum. We'll be staying the night in Portsmouth, NH, and finishing up the drive to Maine on Wednesday. Pray for our travels, and our health (one of the other missionary families had the flu, and we'd like to not get it). Pray for the conference coming up, that God will bless and work, and that we'll be able to minister to the Pastor and the people.

MISSION: Uganda Blog Update 04-10-2006

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Hello, all! We had a great meeting yesterday in Faith Baptist Church in Bridgeton, MO (Pastor Dan Gonnerman). We were with them all day and had a great day ministering to them, and being ministered to by them. They are voting to take us on for support, which is very good news. They're a great church full of sweet people, and it's an honor to be included in their missions family. Currently, we're getting stuff done this week in lieu of our next batch of missions conferences coming up (Lakewood Baptist Church in Chattanooga, TN, and Corinth Baptist Church in Corinth, ME respectively). Pray for Anna. She woke up sick with what all of the rest of us have had, apparently. I'm minding the store while she rests, and hopefully, we can get her healthy again pretty soon.