Joyful stressless busy-ness

This year has been transformational for me.
It all started in February, with One Thousand Gifts.
It continued in the summer with prioritizing.

And here I am now, living a different life.

It is wonderful.

My generational sin, shared with my mother, is busyness for busyness’s sake. Overcommitment.

The problem isn’t WHAT was keeping me busy. Often I was busy with good things, but they were keeping me from doing the important things, the things laid on my heart by God, the eternal things.

So February was the beginning of a purge of “good” but extra things keeping me busy.
July was a reminder that I relapsed… replacing the purged items with new “good” things.

Then September & October were a blur of job-related chaos that I had no say or control over.

But then came NOVEMBER!

I think November has been the most joyful stressless peaceful busyness if my life.

In November, there was finally room for Redeemed. Volunteering with Redeemed has been a wonderful busyness. I have made a new sweet friend Kelly Summers, spent lots of time with my Karen, and been able to share ministry with my daughter.

I love today!

HAITI STOLE MY HEART

Prior to the earthquake that rocked Haiti in January, I had not thought of Haiti ever. I may have heard that they were the poorest country in the world, but had no context for that information. And even when the earthquake hit, I did not have a face for the country.
But I started reading information posted by @caseyzachary on Twitter, links to his family’s ministry Real Hope for Haiti.
I encountered some information I never imagined.
I have NEVER imagined a life where my children suffer from malnutrition so severe that their skin cracks, and the bloat, all while weighing 15 lbs or less. (3-5 year old children)
I have NEVER imagined letting my children drink unclean water, water that will make them sick, because I have no other choice.
I have NEVER imagined having 2 children with Down syndrome, and all the medical needs they come with, and not having access to the medical care they need.
On a podcast, Planet Money (closely connected to my fav podcast, This American Life) broadcast from Haiti, they told about a mom who is an entrepreneur trying to give her kids ONE BREAK that may allow them to escape the poverty. And the radio interviewer reflects on
- how that one break is many times impossible for a Haiti family to provide, and
- how many breaks are built into the lives of many children here. (to mention a few – CLEAN water running from our faucets, public schools that are pretty good, CREDIT)
This information has made it hard for me to wear the “blinders” to the world that usually enable me to buy more clothes, drink more over-priced lattes, and spend my money the way I want.
Then yesterday, the floodgates broke.
I listened to a report from Pastor Mark Driscoll on his post-earthquake trip to Haiti. Please listen.
Then consider if you could split your “breaks” with someone else.
MAYBE WE CAN ALL FIND A WAY TO CREATE THE MUCH NEEDED “BREAK” FOR ONE HAITIAN.
For the lady mentioned on Planet Money, the “break” she needed was only about $100.

Confession & attempts to do better

Here’s the confession:
Structured/disciplined spiritual training (discipleship) has been really hard for our family. Failed attempts outweigh our successes. It is hard for Joel and I to pursue together… it is even harder to do with our kids.

Lots of factors contribute to this:

• Not prioritizing this task
• Unstructured homelife
• Inexperience training children
• Difficult training kids on different levels

But one of my deepest desires is for my children to walk with God, having the foundation in Christ to resist the cultural stumbling blocks of adolescence & young adulthood.

I will entrust them to God in prayer during those times, but I also want them to be armed for the battle. I don’t want to be surprised and naive about what is coming.

So, with the closure of Basilica, we have turned our focus to training our family.
In the absence of experience or a guide, I tried to come up with a system to cover the areas that I could think of.
Here are the 5 areas we cover each evening, immediately after dinner:

1. READ: Read bible story from children’s bible. I copy the corresponding page from “He Has Spoken By His Son” for them to color while we read.
2. THINK: Discuss story (We are fortunate to have “He Has Spoken By His Son”, a Children Desiring God curriculum purchased for Basilica… it helps us with questions to ask following the story.) We try to write a 3 word summary on the back of the coloring sheet, such as “God is faithful” or “Jesus is God”.
   • SHARE: One of the big things we are emphasizing is being able to TEACH what we learn to someone else.
     For Holden, we talk about teaching it to Darin later.
     So, we are building Journals of Bible Stories simply by putting the coloring pages from each story in order in a 3-ring binder for each kid.
     It makes reviewing the stories we have covered very easy, too.
3. MEMORIZE: Practice verse of week, as well as 2 previously learned verses. Sometimes, we do the Children’s Catechism instead.
4. BUILD FAITH: Look over family prayer journal, writing down prayer requests and reviewing for answers to prayer.
5. COMMUNICATE: Recite the Lord’s prayer. Pray.

We have been doing this with about 3-4 nights per week success for 3 weeks. And that’s better than any of our other 1 time attempts!
The good thing is that everyone knows what we will do and when we are done.

Arabella and Holden had friends over on Saturday, and it was easy to do with extra kids since we just needed 2 extra copies of the coloring sheet.
The coolest part was seeing growth already:
Holden has always been REALLY private about praying. He would only pray with me, and always sang his prayers. Great for me, a bummer for Joel. But since we have been praying as a family, he is getting more comfortable praying.
When we had Nicolas and Vanessa over on Saturday, Holden actually VOLUNTEERED to pray before dinner. Amazing!

Another cool prayer story:
In the Build Faith section, we are listing prayer requests, then reviewing them to look for God’s work in the world. Holden’s main concern is always his friend, Noah, a missionary kid.
Prayers for Noah usually focus on safety. But the other night, Holden prayed for God to work on the king’s heart so he will let people learn about You.
This was not something we had given the idea of, so I definitely see the Holy Spirit giving him the words!

Back to the system.
I had one thing I wanted to tweak, and the solution came to mind as I was trying to fall asleep last night.

BUILD FAITH: In the family prayer journal, it was hard to review the prayer requests for answers to prayer, but also realize there are some things we will always need to pray for – like Noah.
So here’s my visual solution:

This board helps us see what God is doing in our world

It’s pretty simple:

• The purple paper: “Things God took care of before we knew to ask:”
• The pink paper: “Things we are asking God to sustain:”
• The white paper represents “answered prayers”
  • The blue post-it notes are “prayer requests”
  • “Prayer requests” are moved onto the white paper after they are answered

Hopefully, the white paper will be overflowing with testimonies of what we have seen God do in our small part of the world.

Please let me know if you have ideas I can incorporate. Hopefully, this will grow to encompass more areas of our life.

Back to school

I got up early on Friday, and went to San Jac for “counseling” – for a guy to hit a button on his computer so I could register.
Then I headed to the computer lab, and registered for 2 classes – Anatomy & Physiology I, and Intro to Sociology.

Really excited to start knocking pre-requisites out of the way… then if God opens a door for me to go to school, I’ll be ready.
When they did my course audit a few years ago, I needed 4 classes to go to TWU, and 7 classes for UT-Houston. I took Nutrition in Spring 2006, so that took care of 1 for both.

Texas Women’s pre-reqs	University of Texas-Houston’s pre-reqs
Anatomy & Physiology I
Anatomy & Physiology II
Microbiology
Chemistry
.	Intro to Sociology
.	Intro to Philosophy

I’m going ahead with the pre-reqs for UT-Houston, because they have several “alternative programs,” such as an excellerated 15 month program that might decrease how long we would have to live without my income.
Also, those 2 classes won’t change how fast (1 per semester) I can go through the other 4 classes.

Wish me luck!

Identity

I guess I would say I am in an Identity Redefinition… maybe Refinement.
I am not in the midst of any huge life changes, but my life has shifted itself.

• My kids are getting older, and gaining independence.
• I have more help with my kids thanks to the 2 state programs that provide support in our home for Arabella (CLASS) and Darin (MDCP).
• I have had the same job for almost 4 years, so it has gotten pretty easy for me to manage. And enjoyable.
• Basilica has 3 guys about to become elders… and even as they have been training, they have been taking over the vision and planning with Joel that we used to do together.

So, I am trying to figure out what kind of order to put to my new found time/freedom. Joel recommended that I do this in order of my roles and the priority they plan in my life… for example:
1. Child of God
2. Wife
3. Mother
4. Minister of the gospel
5. Employee
But I can’t really wrap my mind around this method yet.

So I guess I will just make a list of things that I think I want to do/would be interested in doing, and sort it that way. Then I can see what is feasible. Some of these I have already started working on/pursuing/doing:

1. Making more homemade food/less out of boxes, processed food for my kids. This summer I have already started by making yogurt every 3 days, and mixing it with berries & honey. I have also started making homemade wholewheat pita and swapping with Tammi for homemade hummus. I attempted granola and fruit leather, but neither was worth repeating. I’m gonna give pizza crust a shot this week.
2. Getting my prerequisites so I can be a nurse someday. I need to take Anatomy&Physiology 1 & 2, Chemistry, another science (forgot which one), and Philosophy before I can ever apply for a nursing program. This won’t be anytime soon (the Nursing School) cuz I have to be able to take 2 years off work… but I want to have all the pre-work done so I am ready when I can go.
3. Lose weight, get in shape, etc. I started working out 3 days per week this spring… and counted calories for awhile. I think I will try to bump it up to daily workouts for the fall. I’m not sure what strategy to go with food…maybe back to Weight Watchers…
4. Return to leadership/discipleship of women. I’m not too bad at keeping up with my girls… but actually leading a Bible study, or even writing one, has been far from my life for a few years. I think I need to get back to that!

Now to figuring out how to begin…

Triathlon

So, I’ve been inspired! My friend Courtney Orrange, in Colorado, just did the Tri for the Cure…
As I watched her blog about training, I kept thinking, “That’s crazy!”

But about 2 weeks ago, I started trying to do a rotating exercise schedule of swimming and running. But with no particular goal in mind.

Then I realized that I want to do a sprint triathlon.

So, here I am at 40+ lbs overweight and dreaming of being an athlete!

Hurricane Katrina

Well, since I work with the homeless population, things have really gotten busy. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, we have had alot of refugees from Louisiana. It has actually been really fun to have such a fast paced work environment. I figured out about a month ago that I like my job when I am busy. I don’t like it when I am bored.
I am really trying to refocus on the goal. So what is the goal… to glorify God. But what is the practical application of this.
As a mom, I am really working on playing more, bossing less. The last 2 days have been good. We have gone in the backyard and played hard after I get home from work. The kids seem to be responding to me better and acting out less – maybe they are just too tired to misbehave! I really want my kids to see me the way I see my mom. She demonstrates who Jesus is for me all the time.
As a wife, I feel like I need a goal. We have been so busy, I don’t know who to glorify God by my interactions with Joel. I have making an effort to nag less… hopefully, that is glorifying to God. I also want to support Joel more. Right now, I am in a holding pattern, waiting for him to attend the Acts 29 Bootcamp so I can follow him in the next steps for the Basilica Community.
As a child of God and member of the body of Christ, I feel like I have lost my plan. Before Darin, I had certain things I was directed to do for our church. I need to figure out if these are still the things to do.

Well, there was a big PAUSE here while I went to do some Star of Hope work…. it was really good. I got to talk to a lady for her extension (which means I decide if she can stay another month here)… she looked very sad. And for once, I had the boldness to share the Gospel. At least sprinkle some seeds. Pray for her… for confidentiality, call her GH.

Life is passing so quickly…

My ideal scenario: I plan something, tell others about it, then execute it with perfect timing.
My real scenario: God puts dreams in our heart. We begin to pray about them. Things start happening that are way beyond our control… and may not even involve us.

Case in point:
We have been praying about going to Russia for about 2 years. Almost everything in our life has been leading up to that. At Christmas this year, Joel quit his job and I returned to work, so he could pursue a degree in Russian studies at UH. In March, we went to the Hope for CEE conference, where I really began to feel direction on what to begin doing for a move in 3-4 years… start learning about the city (Rostov na Donu), sharing the information with others so they will pray, building a team of prayers and a team of go-ers…
Honestly, I was ready to put all my energy into this.
Then along came our little angel Darin Michael. And my time has been reassigned.
But the work for Russia is not waiting. I barely have time to pray, but God is still preparing people. Obviously this is a good thing. But it also feels like I am left behind and like it is very out of my control. These are feelings I don’t really like.
What’s happening is good – our friend Jessica has become interested in joining our team to work in Rostov. She has started planning a trip to get exposure to the country. And she will possibly even meet our native Russian teammember, Sam – he might translate for the trip she will go on in December.

The same thing is happening with the church plant that God has laid on Joel’s heart for here in Houston. I can pray for it, but Mike & Tammi are making connections, telling people, enlisting possible co-workers. Once again, this is really good. But it is also overwhelming because I am not very involved.

All I can figure is God is teaching me to be content to pray, and then watch Him pull together the logistics. Honestly, I didn’t have a clue how to pull together all this stuff. And now God is doing an awesome job. I should be glad I get to know about it at all.