Jungles or Puppies?

Can you find me?   I went to a Mystery Dinner last night. It was fun. It was hosted by our friends youth group....not really part of a church but a group of young Christians that have been more or less lifelong friends and get together for fellowship and activities.  They did a really good job on this!  Abundant food and friends! 

Disclosing clues and lies.  My good friend Debbie had to be mean to me in her character. I was kinda surprised at how well she did.   Hmmmmm......  :) 


We have an opportunity to get a newborn puppy that is going to need to be bottle fed ... A Shitzu.... a cute and healthy runt.... but, its just that... well.... thats a long commitment...how can I go live in the jungle with a puppy... but Annah wants a puppy... we live in the country, she is home-schooled and she would benefit from having a small pet to care for. 
 And What if I never make it out of the country and spend years saying no to a puppy because we may leave soon... I certainly don't see it in sight. 
But I want to be ready. 
I have my bags packed emotionally... in my heart I'm out the door but nobody else is.  :)  My other half certainly isn't.  He wants to retire first... thats like 10000 years away as far as I'm concerned. 10 years, 10000 years...its all the same to me...forever away.  So I guess I just keep playing keep up with the American life.... have a home, a puppy, lots of chocolate and pizza...  go to parties..... Minister to anyone I can as often as I can.... but its just that sometimes I just want that 100% Consistency that you get from lets say YWAM.... because then your just IN...thats what you do...you spend everyday with that very thing to do.... go out and serve God... 

I KNOW I KNOW I am doing my best to serve God every day... yeah yeah yeah I smile at the person at Walmart...maybe do a pay it forward, Foster care... etc... I know ... sure I know that... But I want to do more than acts of kindness and going to feed the homeless here and there.... smiling at a stranger to brighten their day...blah blah blah... not that I'm  trying to minimize those things because they do take effort on our part...especially mine because I tend to plow through Kroger not looking at anyone but with one goal in mind, shop and get out.  To concentrate to take the time to look at people and see if perhaps someone needs help getting something on top isle...sure yeah I can do that... its a small gesture... maybe it means the world to someone...I don't know. 

I just have my mind set on other things that seem more gigormous... like leaving the country and being in street orphanages in Brazil....or living in the jungle in a hut and taking in babies that can't be cared for...thats what I got my heart set on... but unless I'm willing to go alone then nobody else is coming and Paul's job is like so secure its almost ironic.  Yes I am SO thankful for his job... gosh yes.  I'm just saying that I know he'd be willing to leave the country and be a missionary if he didn't have his job but its very stable and secure probably for a long time and he has no intentions on walking away from it because believe me, we have discussed it at length...  

So, maybe I will stop looking out of the country and try to find something profoundly needful here to do.  I do foster care but, babies are few and far inbetween... TX is trying to give children to their family first and they are working really hard at that and for someone like us who foster newborns... family members are usually found readily to take in the newborns.  Until Annah is older, I am not venturing to take in older children and plus, I've just always fostered the babies....its where my heart leads me.  Anyhoooooooooooos........  looks like a puppy is in site?????   

 "Every good thing in the Christian life grows in the soil of humility. Without humility, every virtue and every grace withers. That’s why Calvin said humility is first, second, and third in the Christian faith. "- John Piper

Near Death Terrors

 I missed the "Wear Purple Day" Memo. :) 

Love this picture of my pretty pretty pretty girl!

....my two pretty pretty pretty girls!

A good friend of mines mom was supposedly dying... I say that because she is now being moved back to the nursing home... she has had 9 children and none of them will even really hardly speak to her except my friend and her brother and only because they feel obligated by their Faith to care for her.  The story of their childhood is not painted lovely but very ugly.  Alot of hurt, pain,severe neglect etc... and all these years their mom, no matter how they have tried to care for her, she has been very mean and hateful to the 2 of them.  When she thought she was dying she wanted to call each one of her children and began to apologize to them...consequently 2 are coming down to see her but their hearts are still full of pain.

As me and another friend where there to be with our friend, her mom did not want us in her room at all... she would open her eyes and wave bye bye to us and say "Bye Bye, goodbye, you need to go" and when we didn't leave ... because our friend liked us there and needed us... she began to get highly agitated and said she couldn't breathe with us in there and my friend said "Mom, why can't you breathe" (she had on an oxygen mask and everything) she said "Because they are taking up all the oxygen in my room".... we couldn't help but giggle at that... it was rather funny.... maybe you might not think we should laugh at a dying womans comment like that but, well....frankly it was funny and she isn't exactly a kindly, sweet old lady whose dying...she then broke out into calling her daughter an ugly pig etc....

The next day a few of us went back...when the mom was very drugged on morphine and we sat with her, talked to her about God, talked to her about Heaven, and sang to her, brushed her hair, tried to minister to her spirit for about 4 hours. We obviously would of liked to do that when she was awake but, she wouldn't allow it.  When she was awake she was screaming in agony that she was dying and she cried out that she never ever ever in her wildest dreams thought dying would be this way and then she would scream and say its going up and down...I think she meant her spirit.... and then she would beg God to help her just one more time and then she would say she didn't want to go meet God because she was terrified of 'retribution'.  

It was really very agonizing to witness.... I know that people who 'know' God and have Peace with God are not at all in terror like that.  No way.  There is no reason to experience that terror when you are at peace with God. 

Take care and have a happy Friday! :)

Captured Alive

I was minding my own business at the Fort Worth Zoo and along came a Gator or a Crocodile...I don't for sure. But, some how I fell dramatically to the ground and somehow I got my arm in his mouth. It was very surreal.

Annah on the Merry Go Round at the Zoo.  It was Homeschool day and we got in at a discounted price although the drive was really long and traffic in Fort Worth is crazy. 

Along with getting captured by alligators we got to ride turtles too!  Not sure whats wrong with my camera...it has some blur to it. 

"Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; You will cry, and He will say, 'Here I am.' Isaiah 58:9

Favorites in Writing

When we were in Costa Rica Annah would be so exhausted that she would often want to go to bed by 8 ish which meant we would go to our room rather early.  But, that gave me oodles of time to read and take notes. I had a notebook that I began to put some of my favorite quotations from the books I was reading in. Here are some of my favorites from that months time... seems so long ago but was actually only a couple months ago. Most of these do not have any author credits..as I was not paying attention to giving credit rather just jotting down what I was reading that had meaning to me:

•  The willingness to be and to have just what God wants us to be and to have nothing more, nothing less and nothing else would set our hearts at rest and we would discover the simpler the life the greater the peace. - Elisabeth Elliott
• I'm not getting any younger. I say that with all sincerity.
• When God seems silent, make sure you are really listening. you many not hear His answer because He may not be answering the way you anticipated.  If you are confident in prayer that you are listening for God and still there is no answer, then keep on doing what He last told you to do.  God will let you know what He is doing in your life in His timing, which, is often different than ours. - Corrie ten Boom.
• When Christ ascended into Heaven, He left behind only 2 things for the fulfillment of all his aspirations for the world. His Spirit and His followers.  With the Holy Spirit we have been commissioned to demonstrate Christ's love for all the world to disciple the nations, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to heal the broken and rescue the oppressed.
• Learn to do good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widows.... Isaiah 1:15 - 17
• Here I am Send Me- Isaiah 6:8
• When you have learned who you lean on, it is not really important if there is no one to send you or receive you. God will meet all of your needs, He will not fail you.
• All great men have in them some weakness, and all weak men have in them some greatness. - Andrew Urshan
• Life is passing, youth goes, strength decays. But workd done for God imperishable. - Howard Goss.
• Prayer and Praise are the spiritual raods to the presence of God. The throne of God is hidden in the secret kingdom of God, kept safely hidden from enemy interference or intrusions, so that only the hungry, conscientious, humble spirit can find the door that leads into the secluded realm of the spirit.
• Somewhere along its length, every busy street presents an opportunity and a challenge to step out and begin presenting the Gospel.  Every city, town and suburb presents opportunities so numerous that the God called and aggressive heart is always overwhelmed by the vastness of the white harvest field. 
• Because one may not see an opportunity is no reason to become discouraged. A man, woman can always find work to do unto the Lord and do it - even though seemingly small with all his or her soul, heart and mind. God, though H is capable and able to do anything has put us here to do it and He needs us, wants us and will surely uses and bless our service when presented humbly with open hands to Him.
• It is enthusiasm that sets powers free.  - Woodrow Wilson
• God knows who His children are and will NEVER fail to find them and lead them.
• Nothing is to hard to a willing mind.
• I am willing to be cold, uncomfortable, insecure, to take beatings, misrepresentation, to suffer loss, to be thrown, tossed on a cold and unfriendly world without money and without rest, deprived of sleep or a place to lay my head. To accept joyfully any persecution or trouble the Lord allows the evil one to stir up because I believe the Bible and especially when it says "All things work together for the good to them that love God, to them that are called according to His purpose."
• Do not be afraid of the fullness of God, nor of what He might do if we yield ourselves to Him completely.
• Ordinary people have an extraordinary call to an extraordinary God who calls each of us to total commitment.
• Humility and Honesty will always remain great spiritual safeguards.
• To believe in Jesus is not such a great thing. Even satan believes and trembles. To become like Jesus is truly great.
• What a person believes is sown in their daily life and how they live and what they become under circumstances.
• The modern church, rather than going out and defending and feeding the poor and mistreated, the sick, dying and miserable, lost and unsaved have today rather become comfortable resting places for the saved. 
• Prayer, real prayer, really does change things - often by changing us. - John Rush
• The Lord reigns, let the people tremble - Psalm 99:1
• When a burden is given from teh Lord it does not lose strength with the passage of time, but rather gains intensity.
• Anything vital for God will be tested by the enemy.
• When God is at work, none can withstand Him.
• If we do not win the Communist for Christ, they will conquer the West and uproot Christianity. - Richard Wumbrand.
• If you are a Christian you should really believe God for Great things.
• We are sons of the living God and He wants NONE to be lost.
• Faith without works is dead. Period.
• The way of faith is perseverance when God has already given word to do the task.
• When walking in faith of what God has shown you to do, when you face obstacles He will provide encouragement along the way.
• We can not walk in faith and be fatalistic at the same time.
• We must actively press in to hear God's voice and obey His promptings.
• If Christianity could promise that no one wold ever fall sick, suffer a tragedy or be killed, millions would embrace it. But Christianity cannot do that.  To embrace Christ for selfish reasons goes against God's character.  God is love and He is seeking people who will embrace Him out of a heart of pure love and obedience. JOb knew that when he said "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." Job 13:15
• "Oh Lord, purify my soul from all its stains. Warm my heart with the love of thee, animate my sluggish nature and fix my inconsistency and volatility, that I may not be weary in well doing." - William Wilberforce

 Tiff and Annah having fun!