A Pedicure

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This morning I had my first pedicure! I’ve always hated having my feet touched or bothered. Last year there was an opportunity for me to get one but I opted to get a much needed hair cut instead. Recently, though, my feet have gotten sort of yucky looking and the heals were covered with dry skin that was messing up my nylons badly. So I decided to take the plunge and go for it! It was wonderful! I got to sit in a massage chair while the girl worked on my feet. My back had been hurting so badly, too, that I REALLY enjoyed that. All the dead skin was worked off. My feet look great.

Truthfully, I’ve never felt a need to make this blog into a “teaching tool” or anything. But Romans 10:15 pops into my head right now – “And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!” Maybe that is because they were teaching that to the kids last night at church and our boys were telling me about it. Anyway, my feet look more beautiful than they have in a long time. (Not that I think they look all that great now!) But there is definitely an improvement!

Speaking of the children’s class last night, they played a game where they all took off their shoes and put them in a pile and then blindfolded each child and had them try to find their own shoes in the pile. The only problem with that is that all three of our boys wear the exact same style of shoe! So it got confusing pretty quickly! We’ve color coded them with dots on the inside, so when the teachers tried to find the right sizes for the boys the boys were all trying to explain that they get the “red shoes” or “blue shoes”. Finally, they let them pick and the three boys got it all figured out! They also tried to write their names on a piece of paper with a pen held in their toes. It was pretty cute to see it! James and John write their names quite well with their hands but the foot writing was unintelligible!

MISSION: Uganda Blog Udate 05-22-2006

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Greetings, once again! We're in Des Moines, IA at the moment, preparing to make the drive home to St. Louis, MO (easy drive, only six hours). We just completed the 2006 Missions Conference at Southtown Baptist Church (Pastor Jim Chamberlain). Dr. Les Frazier (SE Asia Director for BIMI), was the main speaker, and he did a great job every night. The sermons were spot on, and really ministered to both of us, and appeared to do the same for everybody else. The turnout was good every night. The international dinner on Saturday was fantastic (those things usually are). I told 'em that they were helping us get ready for the mission field in Uganda, because the Ugandans will come up and tell you you're looking fat, and mean it as a compliment, because it's a sign of good health and prosperity to them.

I went soul-winning with one of the men on Saturday morning. I'd been praying that God would help me bear some fruit, and He answered big-time: I led three Catholic girls to the LORD at the same time! It was incredible. They tried to justify themselves at first, so I took them to the ten commandments, and we talked about how God makes no difference between sins, that they all have the same penalty (death), and that if you sin in one point, you are guilty of the whole law. I could see they were under conviction, so I gave them the good news, that while they were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. They all three wanted to be saved, and prayed to receive Christ as their LORD and Savior right there in the doorway. Be in prayer for Lindsay, Ashley, and Samantha. The church will be visiting them again next week. Pray that their grandparents won't be hostile, and that they'll be able to reach the whole family. I also witnessed to a Methodist lady who was plainly under conviction, but would not believe on the LORD Jesus to be saved. The ladies from the church will be returning to visit her also next week. Pray that she will not harden her heart, but will believe and be saved. It was just a tremendous day of soul-winning and fellowship with the men, and God truly blessed.

Pray for Jim Chamberlain. He's been having some health problems lately, so pray that God will heal his flesh so he can continue to be effective in the ministry. Pray for Les Frazier's new grand-daughter. She is having some problems with her liver that the doctors are still trying to diagnose. At this point it would appear that it's not a genetic disorder (that's good), but some surgery will likely be required. Please pray.

On Wednesday, we'll be driving to Johnson City, TN for a conference in Answer Baptist Church (Pastor Jason Wiley). Pray for the trip that all will go well. Our evaporator needs to be replaced, but we can't get it done until May 31, so until then, we have to endure the heat. Pray for the conference, that God will bless, and that the Church will experience revival and God's moving. Pray that we'll be a blessing and an encouragement.

Kid stuff

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This morning James and John got up early to go with James to the Men’s Prayer Meeting with the missions conference we’re in this week. When the got back James told me that James and John ate a banana and two Krispy Kreme donuts each! “Where did you put it all?” I asked in shock (I can’t even eat more that one at a time or I feel sick!). Jamie looked at me and stated, very matter-of-factly and in a tone that said “don’t YOU know Mom?” “We put them in our stomachs, Mom.”

There is a little playground up the street from where we’re staying. The kids have been begging and begging to go play there. So yesterday morning I walked them all up there to play for a while. We hadn’t been there for 5 minutes when John fell off the monkey bars and face planted in the mulch and Ethan wet his pants for the first time in a year or more. So I comforted John and then walked everyone back and got them cleaned up. So, after days of begging, in only of 5 minutes of play time they all decided they didn’t like the park anymore!

Gaelin is crawling really well and pulling up next to things. He has finally decided that he like other food besides applesauce, namely animal crackers. They’ve been giving him animal cracker in the nursery and really getting a kick out of watching him eat them. He gets so happy when he gets the sugar inside him! He also had a juice pop the other day. He got most of it in his stomach. The rest he got all over his hair, clothes and the person who was feeding it to him!

At lunch yesterday Elizabeth had a grilled cheese sandwich, french fries and applesauce. She was also given ketchup for her fries. So she systematically ate the whole lunch, carefully dipping them first in the applesauce and then in the ketchup. But the entire lunch was gone! She ate it with such relish too, savoring each bite as it went down.

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.