More Stories From The Wild

Last week was quite eventful. On Thursday I had the distinct pleasure of finding another wild creature in our apartment, which, if you've read our blog before, you know is becoming an increasingly common occurrence. Here goes.

I was changing Howie's diaper and got up for some reason, I think to grab a clean diaper or something. I looked over toward the wall, and there scampered a little green IGUANA. What? Now we have an iguana in the house? Normally I would scream bloody murder and turn Josh loose on the creature, but seeing as I'm now a stay at home mom, Josh was at work bringing home the bacon. For a split second I thought maybe I should just leave it until Josh got home, but then I came to my senses and realized that if I did that, the little green iguana could be making a home in my bed until Josh got home. So I left Howie on the changing pad (don't worry, it's on the floor) and ran to the kitchen to get a cup to trap the iguana under. As I returned to make the trap, I found that Howie was peeing in his undiapered state, meaning that he was unintentionally watering the carpet of our apartment. But could I go cover him up? No, I had to work on catching the iguana, who turned out to be lightning fast. He ran up the wall a little and kept evading my cup, but I eventually won. I quickly found some cardboard, slid it under the cup, turned it over, ran to the door, flung it open, and tossed the iguana over the side of our porch. Only then was I able to tend to Howie and his untimely accident. Who knows when that iguana got into our apartment. I guess he could have been a long time resident. I was just glad to get him out where he belonged. Living in this new apartment has forced me to ramp up my creature-catching ability. Before I would have given this job to Josh, but seeing as I'm a stay at home mom, the responsibility for keeping us animal-free has fallen to me during the daytime hours. It's a heavy burden, but someone has to shoulder it.

Josh and I feel like we're managing to re-enter the land of the living, emerging victorious over the you-just-had-your-first-child- battle, which definitely hit us with the force of a knockout blow. Howie is doing very well. We can't believe that he'll be 2 months old later this week!! The last 2 months have flown by.

Howie's next mountain he's trying to climb is holding his head up when he's on his tummy. He's doing pretty well, but if you leave him on his tummy for too long, he lets you know. I think he's developing an overachieving personality already. He's not content to just rest his head on the floor when he's on his tummy... he seems to feel an obligation to work at holding it up. That's fine for a while, but after he's already been working hard for a few minutes, he lets you know that he's worn out with some little shrieks until you flip him over onto his back or you really help him to just rest his head on the floor. It's pretty funny.

I posted a few new pictures on our flickr page... so please take a look.

Have a great Monday!

My Mission Trip to Hobbema, Canada

(top: five of the six high schoolers who went on our trip. bottom: "Jesus Church" where we ministered and did VBS)

I have been meaning to post on my mission trip to Canada. Here is the follow up letter that is going to my supporters. It gives you a great overview of what my mission trip consisted of.

I have returned from my mission trip to Hobbema, Canada, safe and sound . . . but not the same. Let me explain by sharing with you what happened on the trip. First, let me say a big “thank you!” for supporting me on this trip. You did not just support me; you supported the work of the kingdom of God.
We arrived in Edmonton around 1:30 on Saturday, July 14. From there we headed straight to Hobbema, home to Canada’s Cree Indians, and one of the largest Indian reservations in the country. Hobbema has a certain reputation among Canadians, in part because it has the highest rate of violent crime in all of Canada. Many people asked us, “why are you going there?” Upon arriving in Hobbema, we quickly learned of its problems. Almost all of the native teenagers are in gangs, which account for most of the violence. Native spirituality also holds a powerful sway over the people. The medicine men essentially act as both native “pastors” and individuals with great social and political clout. Into this context we came to proclaim the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We worked with Marcus Toole, a full time missionary and ordained pastor who has been working with the Cree for about five years.
We had two main projects on our trip. The first was Vacation Bible School, which our mission team, along with members from other Presbyterian mission teams, hosted at Jesus Church from Monday to Thursday (July 16-19). I had the privilege of leading singing for VBS and our team had the privilege of teaching the Bible lesson each day. After having around 20 kids the first day, we ended VBS with over 50 kids on Thursday. Praise the Lord! On this trip we learned a great deal about the reality of spiritual warfare and the importance of prayer.
The following story from our trip helps to convey what we learned about spiritual warfare and prayer. On the last day of VBS the Bible lesson was essentially a gospel call to believe in Jesus and have eternal life. The theme verse that day was Romans 10:9, "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved." This verse, as well as any other in the Bible, expresses the heart of the gospel. Anyway, as two of our youth where giving this Bible lesson, all the mission team members from all the churches noticed that kids were acting very strange. They were getting up out of their seats and walking around for no good reason, or looking out the windows of the church, or acting in other strange ways. After telling this to Marcus, he replied, "That is evidence of demonic oppression of the message you were giving. And believe it or not, that is actually a good sign, a sign that God was actually working in those kid's hearts, because Satan does not oppose what he is not worried about." What a testimony to God's grace!
We heard many stories of spiritual warfare during our trip, most of them being recounted by Marcus from his own experience. Marcus managed to strike just the right tone in telling a bunch of Western, white, middle class church goers who don’t have a lot of experience with spiritual warfare (at least that we realize) that Satan has real power, although God’s power is immeasurably greater. All of this reinforced a point that I was already stressing to the six high school youth from Redeemer who went on the trip with me and one other adult: the need to pray. Prayer is our greatest weapon in the spiritual battles that we face. I feel like our team experienced firsthand what Paul said in Ephesians six, “our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm.”
In addition to VBS, our team (along with the other teams) also did a number of work projects, including renovating a local community center and painting the fence of an elder. These work projects helped to make our presence known on the reservation, and toward the end of the week one of the Council Members (member of the Cree ruling government) hosted the mission teams for a cookout. During the cookout a few of the native children killed two gophers (for many reasons, the Cree view these animals as pests, as we do cockroaches). One of our high schoolers decided it would be fun to try to skin these gophers, in order to have a souvenir to take home! He never got the chance, however, because two local stray dogs ended up making these gophers their dinner. Our team ended up getting a big laugh out of this high schooler’s unfortunate (or should I say fortunate?) missed opportunity.
I firmly believe that our trip was a blessing both to our team and to the Cree people. One thing Marcus continually emphasized is the concept of “building” within the Cree culture. Over the years, the Cree people have become accustomed to watching big government and local initiatives start with lots of hoopla and fanfare, only to slowly die after a few years. This is not something a socially troubled and poor community like Hobbema needs. The mission teams that participated in this trip were able to give the Cree something that is “building.” For the last few years, the number of people going up to Hobbema on short term mission trips to work with Marcus has steadily increased, and the evidence of that increase is in the end result of the work projects and the kids who are exposed to Christianity each year through VBS. By God’s grace, it is my prayer that the entire Hobbema community will one day view the mission work as a blessing to their community—I know some already do. Please join me in praying for Marcus and for the people of Hobbema. Pray that God would deliver them from a dangerous native spirituality which has many social as well as spiritual consequences for the Cree people. Also thank God keeping our team safe, healthy and for giving us a greater vision of his kingdom. Yours Sincerely in Christ,

Deal Or No Deal Hopefuls

It's official: I have sent in my application to be a contestant on our very favorite game show, Deal or No Deal!! This application was a long time in the making, started at least a month before Howie's birth and then shoved under piles of stuff after he was born, only to make a reappearance about 2 weeks ago. I finished the application, took the pictures, made the audition video, decorated the envelope like crazy, and sent it off. For those of you who were students at Covenant College during my bids for Student Senate chairs, this envelope would look like a campaign relic to you. Yes, by that I mean full of bright colored glitter and stars. (That IS how I got elected to Student Senate. No one ever said glitter couldn't get you elected.) Our game plan was to knock the judge's socks off with our envelope and its contents in terms of their garish decoration and then to wow them with my qualifications to be on the show, namely, our lack of money and the fact that we too have a family member named Howie. We're planning to take my sister Marnie and her husband Chris on as the folks who stand to the side and give you advice on whether or not to take the deal. Josh is going to play the part of the cautionary husband... "Bets, remember, that is a LOT of money..." Those of you who watch Deal or No Deal know exactly who I'm talking about. We're hoping against hope to get on the show, since we would like the prize money to fund our seminary expenses. In this family we know that God works in mysterious ways, even through game shows, so we will keep you posted should any amazing news come our way. We prayed fervently over the envelope before I took it into the post office.

In other news...

Have a wonderful day!!

And We're Back

Wow, we had a rocking vacation in Michigan. It was pretty cool and breezy the whole week, which was wonderful!! Then we had a dose of Augusta reality when we got home... I had completely turned off the AC since we were going to be gone from Sunday morning to Friday night, thinking we would be environmentally and wallet-friendly. We stepped into our apartment on Friday night, all 3 of us worn out from the trip home, and it was seriously like stepping into the seventh level of hell. I am not even kidding. The thermostat said it was 34 degrees Celsius in our house (yes, our thermostat is in Celsius and we can never understand what temperature it is), which we calculated to be somewhere in the nineties. Here we were with a hollering baby, who was hungry, exhausted, and to add insult to injury, blazing hot. It took about two hours to get down to 30 degrees. Howie slept in his diaper. We slept in our underwear. It all turned out OK, but we learned the important lesson that when leaving Augusta for vacation, it's best to leave your AC on at least a little bit, since the daytime temps when we were gone reached 108. Yeesh.

Howie enjoyed his first trip to Michigan! He experienced the beach from the deep cover of his stroller to prevent any sun exposure, but still, I'm sure he knew he was on the beach. Josh and I ventured into the lake, which was a bit chilly at first but not bad, considering some years I've gone in and come out blue all over. Josh reveled in the wonderful fact that you can swallow lake water and not feel like you've just been dumped into a salt shaker. We had a truly wonderful and relaxing vacation. Howie has become quite the seasoned traveler in his six and a half weeks of life.

So we're getting back to routine life. The youth went back to school yesterday, which means that Josh is settling into a more normal schedule. Howie is blossoming into a sweet, charming little boy. His smile is becoming easier and easier to coax out of him. His cheeks are just delightfully chubby, which makes them perfect for kissing. Josh and I were looking at pictures last night from right after Howie was born, and we couldn't believe how much he's changed. He's really growing so fast!

We had a wonderful time this past Saturday at our friend Tricia Williams' wedding!! That was like the event of the century. Howie attended, looking his best in a navy blue pinstripe suit. It was so fun to see friends we hadn't seen in a while.

Well, that's all of the updates that I can think of right now. Please look at our flickr page for lots of new pictures of Howie, vacation, random fun, etc!!

We're on VACATION!!!

Friends, we are currently living it up on the shores of Lake Michigan with my parents, which explains my blogging absence. This is Josh's first trip to Michigan and he is enjoying it immensely. Howie, who has already taken his 3rd airplane trip in 5 weeks of life, is also relishing his much- needed vacation from the rigors of being a baby.

We return to Augusta later this week, and I intend to post a full report on our trip. Until then, happy day, Friends!!