Exercising Mommy Style

Today was a double park day. With one daughter at a birthday party, the other on a date with her daddy, my son and I walked down the ridge to the park. We invented this cool Frisbee game, called Frisbee 21. Guess how many points you have to earn? He had to throw the Frisbee straight to hit the backstop for one point, and if he caught it when I threw it to him, he’d get 2 points. Needless to say, he won all three times.

I texted hubby to tell him about the wonderful mate I was drinking, and he said he’d be right there. Twenty minutes later he calls, telling me that he thought I was at home (even though I told him we were heading to the park), and that our daughter was too hungry to jump in the car and come get us (even though it’s a 2 minute ride at the most). So the little guy and I trekked back up the hill. Halfway there he wanted a piggy back, thereby getting out of most of the walking. That’s okay, it’s been a while since I exercised, I needed it.

Then later on my neighbor was taking her kids to the park and asked if I and mine wanted to join them. So we walked back down the ridge to enjoy about an hour in the park. Part of that time she and I got three laps in; not much, but it adds up to the rest of the walking. When we left, my son was so tired that I piggy-backed him all the way home. Whew! He’s not so little anymore, and when the girls were his age, they NEVER would have gotten a ride anywhere on my body!

Another one for the Kingdom!

Andrés gave his life to Christ tonight.

At nights I haven’t been sleeping well , so I crave my seista time in the afternoon. Well, I haven’t been resting well during those, either. Am I getting old, or what? Moving right along...

Andrés woke me up from a light sleep this afternoon, asking me if he could have some skittles. I told him no, mostly because I was so upset that he had awakened me. Soon after I got up and found him in the kitchen snacking on…you guessed it, skittles. So down the hall to his bedroom we headed.

After a quite stern talking and a lot of tears, he told me, “I deserve to die.” Lately that’s been a theme in his talk, and I don’t like it. He talks about wishing he was dead or that he deserves to die, how terrible of a person he is. So today I told him that, yes, he does because he is a sinner (didn’t quite say it as bluntly as that…yeah, kid, you’re horrible, you do deserve to die!), but that God provided a way for him to live forever.

He said that he was scared, that if he asked Jesus into his heart, that he would leave him. So I explained that God would never leave his children, that he was eager and wanting to live with Andrés and that would make him God’s child forever. I also tried another tactic, that what we’re asking is that when we die, that we will go and live with God forever, in heaven, rather than be separated from God forever. He understood that concept better.

We talked about what it means to be a sinner, why we’re born into sin, and what God did so that we can be forgiven from our sins and live with him in heaven. I asked him if he wanted to pray and he said yes, that he would repeat my words. I asked him what he wanted me to say, but he began praying himself.

“Dear God, please forgive me of my sins.”
(me) What did he provide for you?
“Thank you that Jesus died for my sins.”
(me) And what do you want him to do for you?
“I don’t want to sin anymore.”
(me) What about living with him?
“I want to live with you forever. Amen.”

He was sincere, and happy afterwards. It was a wonderful experience to have the privilege to pray with him, to explain to him what it’s all about, and know that he is a believer. Awana has made such a difference this year, memorizing the verses and listening to the messages.

Strategy for Future

What is America’s obsession with American Idol? Ridiculous. Here we sit in B&N and a table close by is going on and on about it. Having never watched it, nor planning on watching it, I just roll my eyes. I hope that the television will never be such a slave master for me. I know people who cannot miss their shows, and turn down invitations to “normal” life – interacting with people – so as not to miss their show. My best friend loves, loves AI and will not miss it for anything. She, however, has made it a special event, inviting another couple in her apartment building over for dinner each and every week, thus combining her love for the show with spending time with people.

We talked with my parents last night, and my father agreed with me that OF cannot determine where we live; as long as we are living in the general area, with easy access to NYC, then they can’t ask for anything more than that. So we started looking at school rating websites and it’s overwhelming. How on earth do you choose a location to live based on schooling? We have such a large area to search, but it’s daunting to say the least.

I came up with another plan this morning, or God gave it to me. One of the requirements of Bryon working for the OF is attending an alliance church. As much as I’d love to follow the letter of the law and not the heart behind it (meaning, Bryon occasionally puts his hours in an alliance building and the rest of us would find a spiritually vibrant church), I believe that God wouldn’t be happy with my attitude. Of course, implied in all of that is the assumption that none of the alliance churches are vibrant (2/3 of all alliance churches are plateau-ed or declining, so it’s a pretty solid assumption). However, I think that the better way of pursuing a location to live is to look at all the alliance churches in the areas where we’d like to live, then search for a school in the proximity.

When I mentioned to Bryon he wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about my idea, but said he’d think about it. To him, a good school is more important than a church, not that a church isn’t important, but knowing the state of alliance churches, it’s difficult to put that as a higher priority. If it was a matter of attending any church, then that would make it easier – we’d find a vibrant church, then find a school.

We have to trust that God is in this, that He has our future in His hands, and will provide for us in all of this, including meeting our spiritual needs, and those of our children. If it were just a matter of great preaching, we’ll just continue to listen to Matt’s sermons online, and I probably will do that – he’s just an amazing preacher. But there’s also the matter of our children, and their development.

So the issue can be: do we attend an alliance church at the cost of spiritual vitality? Maybe it will be a moot point, in that we’ll find a vibrant, growing, healthy church in our search; who knows. Obviously I doubt it, but I want to give it to God in the hopes that He’ll surprise me.

Keeping all Options Open

Spring is coming, albeit slowly to cosp; on our walk this morning I saw flowers in full bloom (don’t ask me their names; maybe I saw some daffodils?) and people have started to water their grass (not happy about that waste at all!). So for the next 2 days we have wonderful weather predicted; then Saturday either brings us rain or SNOW!! We’ll see what happens…

This school year is almost over, and I can hardly believe it; truly it has flown by, even though I work there, or maybe because I work there. I had to get on the case of one class because they are still, still, after the whole year, non-cooperative, not following my rules. Maybe it’s too little, too late, but I have a goal in mind, that they can pay attention to me, as a group, for 15 seconds. Doesn’t seem like a lot to ask, but there it is.

Elizabeth did a great job as Eva Perón in her wax museum. She memorized her speech, which not all of her classmates did. I was proud of her! She’s still struggling with math, and we have to work on that together, mostly her frustration over not understanding it and how she portrays that frustration. Her creativity continues to amaze and delight us, as she expresses herself through stories, play, drawing, and acting. I hope that we can continue to encourage her and I think she’ll go far as she is strong in her verbal communication skills.

Emily is starting to pick up on reading and enjoying it; several times in the past week she has sat down to read to her brother, which not only shows her willingness to read, but his willingness to listen to her; when she wasn’t quite as fluent he refused to sit through her reading to him. She seems to be doing well in all subjects at school; maybe what she needed was just concentrated English for the year to start off on the path of reading. Her spelling is still phonetic but that too will improve with time. She never gets more than one or two wrong on her spelling tests at the end of the week, as opposed to one or two right in the pre-test at the beginning of the week.

Andrés is doing really well. I talked with his teacher this week about his progress and she has been amazed at how well he has adjusted to school (he didn’t have any experience before this year), and how much he has learned. She almost said that he was her favorite, but the kiddos were returning to class, so she strongly reinorced how precious he is. Gym continues to be his favorite subject, of course, and he and Bryon spend a lot of time in the local park, kicking the ball around and just enjoying the lovely outdoors.

All three have participated in awana this year, and all have completed their books ahead of schedule. We are so proud of them, memorizing the verses, doing the activities and taking the tasks seriously. I’m hoping it is something they will want to continue next year.

Depending on where we are, that is. Today Bryon has a meeting with vp of OF, taking it to the next level. He also sent out some resumes to several districts. We’re exploring all options, seeing where God will lead us, praying about every step along the way. I’m torn between all options right now, and know that the biggest challenge for me right now is staying in the alliance. I need to deal with this, asking that God take the bitterness away, seeing as it looks like our future is still with the alliance. Even if it weren’t, I need to uproot this bitterness. It isn’t healthy and I want to move on, to be free of resentment against the denomination.

Regrets and New Resolve

Originally I published letters to a friend as blogs, but when my friend stopped writing back, I stopped keeping up my blog. Now that a year has passed since we left Argentina, I regret not keeping up a journal of our life. Just tonight my husband and I were commenting on how we’ve been in transition since November 2006 and still our future is unclear. As I read to him from my blog it occurred to me that so much has happened in the last year that would have been good to look over.
SO! All that to say, I’m starting up my journaling again…and publishing it to my blog. Here we go.
Yes, It’s been a while, and much has happened in our lives over the past year. We’ve been out of touch for too long. Life marches on even when we don’t keep in contact.
This past weekend Bryon preached up in Wyoming, and had quite an experience with God on the way home, who wanted him to be open to becoming a pastor again. To hear him speak of it, he was not only asked of God to commit to following that path, but also God told him to ask for four things in return. He has decided to send out his resume to some of the districts, starting with western ones.
Tonight Bryon had a meeting with some leaders of the “OF”, a fund raising ministry. Now he’s confused. It’s something that he can see himself doing, they provide all the training, and we’d live in the northeast. Is this something that is part of God’s plan for us, is it a distraction, or what? What is the next step? We prayed about it and hopefully will feel that God is guiding us either towards this or not.
On another note, this was quite the weekend for me as well. Saturday night I went to church and was deeply impacted by the message. Discerning God’s Perspective, whether for the past or the future, giving us perspective to make a right judgment, not only to look at what’s happened in our life but also as to what’s coming. Lately our past has weighed heavily on my mind, as well as our future. During the message it was the latter that was on my mind, but despite not having any clue as to what our future holds for us, I felt that there wasn’t one area where I was severely out of line with God’s perspective. Of course I’m not saying that I’m perfect; naturally there are areas always for improvement; however, I felt comfortable with all of them, in agreement with what the pastor was saying.
Then Sunday night I went for the worship time, a night of singing to God. It was awesome! It impacted me life greatly, and during a time of prayer, I realized that I’m still questioning my past, what those 8 years in Argentina were all about, did we fail, or does God have something here for us that is more important than us being overseas? Did we not do a good job? Why are we here, when there are so many people here, and such a need overseas? I didn’t resolve anything with God, just got those questions out, cried for a bit, felt that God was listening to me. It’s amazing what a concentrated time of singing God songs will do for me. I feel that I’ve been floating on songs all day today.