Washing Dishes

Recently our church had an event and some serving dishes were needed. I reached into my china closet (passed on to me from my mom and dad) and packed up what I had. There were several pieces. I remember feeling excited to have some serving dishes to share. That night as we returned home I stacked the dishes up and planned to wash them the next day.

I mentioned to Daniel as I was washing the dishes the next day that I didn't really remember mom using these dishes that had been passed down to me. He reminded me that at holidays he remembered some of them being taken out of the boxes and used. I told him that was true. My mom had a very hospitable personality and welcoming spirit but there were limited friends and relatives who came to visit at our house so I do not have memories of watching or experiencing hosting people in our home in the same way that Daniel and I have experienced since our marriage. Although, I learned in other ways how to be hospitable. Mom was a gift giver and so much of the time her gifts were gifts of food! She was a great cook!! Ahhhh, so many memories of wonderful meals. It seemed to be like magic the way she cooked. Putting ingredients together and it always turned out yummy!! I would watch and participate as we took cookies and cakes to express our love, appreciation, sympathy to friends. It makes sense that she would have dishes to put food on for her loved ones as we celebrated each holiday.

All of my memories of how kind my mom was to others, and what a loyal friend she was came out loud and clear in her life as I watched and experienced my life with her. So now as I wash the dishes the memories come back and I am so grateful for the experiences that come in odd ways.

Intercessory Prayer

I feel called to prayer -- the point in my life that I think the calling came was the summer of 1989. We had a unique opportunity for Daniel to work on a recruiting project for the CIA. There was much stateside traveling with the opportunity so we packed up the girls and hit the road. We rented our house out to a young couple for the summer; closing off one bedroom for our belongings. We traveled by car and put nearly 8,000 miles on the car. In each city we visited we would stay at least a week or more. I decided that I would find a new book on prayer in each town. We were staying in a hotel at each location, so when the girls would go down for naps or for the evening I would read. The books I read are old books now and there has been much published since then, but it was the catalyst that spurred me to pray very specifically. God knew I would need this experience the rest of my life.

Well that is the back drop of what I am getting to enjoy now. It brings tears to my eyes as I read the Lima Team newsletter this morning and watched their Christmas gift give away. I love having the specific Peruvian names that the Lima team have met so in prayer the ministry feels real to me. What JOY it is when we hear about the ones who walk into the Light! We can make a difference by asking God on behalf of others. Don't give up on that!!
This is my list of Peruvians I am praying for - looks like I may need a bigger piece of paper!! JOY!



Last night we hosted a "Sweet Hour of Prayer." We had a great group who God called to join us and we plan on doing it again. We took our Hope church directory and cut it up in sections. Each of us took a section and prayed for each member specifically. It was sweet!!
Joining us were Amy and Kyle Passmore, Chelsa Istre, and Robert Butts


I will leave you with a quote from Richard Foster, in Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home. "The truth of the matter is, we all come to prayer with a tangled mass of motives - altruistic and selfish, merciful and hateful, loving and bitter. Frankly, this side of eternity we will never unravel the good from the bad, the pure from the impure. But what I have come to see is that God is big enough to receive us with all our mixture. We do not have to be bright, or pure, or filled with faith, or anything. That is what grace means, and not only are we saved by grace, we live by it as well. And we pray by it."

Ann Voskamp at Holy Experience wrote about prayer in the home recently. Her writings never disappoint.

Bear up under the NAME

The name of God, Elohim, Mighty Creator - the one who was there before the beginning. God's creation is a gift to us, a way to show Himself to us, to appeal to us and teach us about HIM!! There is power in creating all that we see. We each are created and are sacred. I want to renew my sense of wonder and gratitude for the things He made.

Thoughts of people being created incapable of loving is hard to imagine. I love the thought that we come into the world made in the image of God and part of that is the capability to love. Good question to ponder - Why do we love?

I want to grasp the beauty of today and not be focused on its' flaws. As I walked this morning I prayed for several people in my life and one of them was my mother in law, Alice Orozco. I want for her to be able to see what God still has for her in life. Her life has changed with her husband now living in a nursing home in Austin, 25 minutes from her home. Please join me in prayer. I know there are more experiences God has for her. I get into this spiral so easy myself. It has to be very intentional that I choose to look at the beauty and not the flaws. God is sustaining us each day with His creative power. How do you think God wants to bless you today as He is Elohim?

Merry Christmas

Yes, that is an armadillo from Texas at Perini Ranch!



We were so blessed in November and December of 2011 to have such wonderful time with both of the girls and their husbands and grandchildren. Our hearts are over flowing with gratefulness to God!!

I like to list all of the things I would like to experience with the family during a visit. Our time has a beginning and end and I know myself too well to not list what I would like to see happen. Of course not all of the experiences I list happen, but we did get to almost all of it.

My list: play games, have conversation about God and His Word and read some in the Bible, a visit to Monks (a favorite place of Hannah and Jason in Abilene), out to eat to celebrate the completion of all classes for Jason's Masters degree in International Affairs at GWU, cook together, take pictures, of course - exchange gifts, a little shopping (I'm still learning what Jason's style is), have a time at Hope worshiping God together in song (I love to sit next to Alison and Hannah and hear them sing).

A really fun night at the Massingill home was one of the unplanned events that was a favorite. We gathered around and sang while many played their favorite instrument!!




We also were able to visit with some of Hannah and Jason's friends who have married and stayed in Abilene!!
Abby and Evan Young, Hannah and Jason, Justina and Marshall Thompson


Playing Phase 10 at Monks!


Treat from Hannah - We got our nails done together!


Our crew we had for Christmas Lunch - complete with a surprise entertainment from Robert Butts!




We have a tradition of putting books under the tree each year. We have packed up the books and all is back in the attic. Jason is back at work and the rest of us will return tomorrow. Good bye to our Christmas of 2011!!

I Love to Cook

A phone call came yesterday asking me to make communion bread for our church, Hope church of Christ. It is quite a treat that we have homemade communion bread each week. I would like to share the recipe and encourage you to make it sometime. It is nice to have communion with the family while they are in town for Christmas! It is a great recipe that even young bakers can make.

Communion Bread
2 cups of wheat flour
1/3 cup of brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Mix and then add the liquid
1/3 cup oil
2/3 cup water

Roll out and cook for 20 minutes on 350. Serve when you are ready. I cut mine in quarters because we use four trays!

Thanksgiving ~Christmas

The celebrating time came and the details had come together. I want to give a shout out to Alison and Justin-- Alison is the planner of all planners. She loves to have people in their home, and to prepare for all of the children. There were a total of 24 adults and 18 children!! Everyone had a chair and LOTS of choices of food. Justin cleaned windows, set up tables, prepared the yard and helped in EVERY way Alison asked!! Notice the children's table!! The table had brown paper on it and there were crayons for the children to draw, there was popcorn, candy and marshmallows, and fruit on skewers on each of the tables. We all took leftovers home!!

We got to help Alison create these little "Mayflower" boats for each child with their name on the sail!


Chelsey and Lindsey from TAMU (interns) and Kami

One of the families made a trophy and organized a washers tournament complete with a tournament seeding, with a poster. The washers tournament brought lots of cheers! John Mark is trying his best!

Wes and Stacey Yoakum won!! Notice the trophy - it may have to be passed on year after year!!


There was a salad bar put together by the four interns with everything you can imagine.

The children had a trampoline in the front and a joy jump castle in the back yard and at some point in the evening there was the showing of the Polar Express. Corban, Kellen, and Kase - the Joy Jump Castle was enjoyed by all!!

Tara and Kase, Sarah, and Stephanie - even with all of the people we had plenty of room!


START THE CHRISTMAS MUSIC!

We decided we would not wrap presents but we would have door 1 and door 2 - we put sheets over 4 chairs. Daniel and I would put a gift behind the sheet and call someone to lift up the sheet and get their gift. It was a fun time! "Christmas Morning" - really the day after Thanksgiving began with donuts!!


Excuse the bulk of pictures of Corban -- but if I only had a video! Before opening presents we talked about our anticipation of the gifts and how that was the excitement we wanted to grow when we thought about Jesus coming. We decided to get into the excitement about Jesus with a song. "Give me a J - J, Give me an E- E, Give me an U-U......what does that spell?? Jesus!! Well, Corban became the most animated ever, moving to the tune! Great laughter came from all of us and as you can see Cailyn stood waiting for the part where she would say JESUS!! (that was her part, not the dancing as Corban proceeded to do) There was definitely JOY by ALL!! Do you see Door 1 and Door 2 in the background??



Down on the floor - lifting his leg!! So funny!! Can he express himself any louder!!


Peaking under the door to grab a present!! We may have to make this a tradition!

JOY~JOY~JOY

We enjoyed more than two weeks in Lima and just returned home today, Wednesday, Nov 30. I would like to give you a glance at how most of our days were spent in Lima. Alison and Justin gave us their bed and they slept in Cailyn's room. Her room is very big and even with her trundle bed there is room for an extra mattress. So we slept in comfort and enjoyed our own space. On the first morning Corban and Cailyn headed to our bed and we read and talked!!


Cailyn has to be at school by 9:00am. She wears a uniform which makes for a simple dressing time. Breakfast time before Cailyn is off to school.

While she is at school, Corban enjoys us reading and playing with puzzles, stacking blocks and playing with all of the animals that he has. One of the new animals we learned about was the Ibis!!! He is just getting into dinosaurs and so we enjoyed pretending with all of sounds they make. The door to the back yard is a sliding glass door and Corban is ready for it to be unlocked as soon as breakfast is over. Out he goes to kick balls and find snails....we brought a magnifying glass and he loves to check out all of the snails and leaves in the backyard. The boy can really kick the ball and he is always ready for a ride on the tricycle or walk to the park (he calls his adventures)!!


Cailyn gets out of school around 12:30 except on Wednesday and that is because she has ballet. We went early to pick her up and looked at the ballet class practicing through the window. She will have a ballet performance the day after we leave. Pictures will have to do!! The little girls at her school have their hair always fixed with hair twisted and then in rubber bands. Alison enjoys fixing Cailyn's hair, but Cailyn is very good at fixing it herself. On the first Sunday night as we went to meet with the community of believers here we noticed she had fixed three ponytails and had some hair hanging down also...made us think of some others in our lives who are free spirited with their taste in fashion. She is also very good at dressing herself. She wears leggings under most of her outfits and so she has one of every color. When she matches it all up we are always surprised to see her outfits!! I remember Alison wanting to pick out her outfits at four years old.

Corban is quite the charmer. He loves to smile and move around with lots of activity. Some of his favorite question are "what was that sound?" or "what does that mean?" There are workers everywhere you look - shoeshiners, workers in the parks raking leaves, workers cutting trees, workers cleaning windows, workers helping you get a parking place when getting into the grocery store or coffee shops, workers sweeping in front of residents and watering the yards. Corban notices each one and is constantly saying, "he working". He is able to say everything he wants to in English and Spanish. He talks constantly.



When Corban wakes up there is time to play in the backyard - we talked about some of Jesus' followers being fisherman and we pretended to go fishing. We also had a grand game of kickball. Cailyn is very celebratory when she wins!!




Each evening as the children went to bed the four of us played Settlers of Catan, speed Scrabble, and talked about their lives in Lima, the ministry of teaching about Jesus and enjoying outings with girls and guys groups.

Lee Fletcher and Wes Yoakum getting ready for Catan.


The girls (alison, angela, cathie, tara, stacey, and kami) gathered for a time of meditation and praying. This is a new monthly activity lead by a friend,who is in Lima with her children and husband (he is the director of Feed the Hungry in Lima, Angela and Ryan Smedes.