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What. A. Day.

The day has arrived. We moved into our house today… WE MOVED INTO OUR HOUSE TODAY!!! I can see that God is stretching me however. You see TJ is not here right now. Last week he informed me that he would be out of town this week, helping with a big Job working on radio towers like he used to do. They asked him a while back if he could help with this particular job and he said yes, well it just so happened to be the same time that we were going to be moving into the house. So today arrived, it was raining and Ava was complaining of her tummy hurting, I thought OH NOOO… this is going to be a tough few days without TJ here!! TJ reminded me that my strength comes from the Lord and not to have a bad attitude… where does this guy get all his good advice?! Ava and Penny did end up throwing up, and getting sick, and I ended up having back issues today… blah!

Sunday TJ drove a trailer all around town picking up furniture items from people we are borrowing from, so that we would be ready monday morning without him. Our friend Steve, and one of our Pastors, his wife and their 3 boys helped us unload all our stuff as well as all the furniture. I could NOT have done it without them… I am so thankful for their willing and helping hands!

As my back starts feeling better, I am looking forward to unpacking our things and using our dishes again that we havn’t used in a year. Ava is sooooo excited to get her piggy bank out, she has been asking about it since we left California!! She was excited when she saw the doll house, and her toys she hasn’t seen for a while. They are excited about their new beds and their new room, so grateful for all this furniture that people are either loaning or giving to us, because literally none of it belongs to us! God is good, and has showed us his provision.

Penny was excited to see her dress up stuff, but mostly just wanted to cuddle with me today as she has not been feeling well. I think we we continue to unpack tomorrow, she will be excited about all her things coming out 🙂 Feeling the new season arriving and I’m thankful for it!

Ava and I were invited by my sister in law Leah and Ava’s cousin Ella to go with them to the Nutcracker Ballet, which was very special for Ava. We gave her an early Christmas present of some nice dress up shoes.

Ava’s new shoes

Penny is loving getting to dress up

This week I truly have felt full of thankfulness. I LOVE my family, my little unit of 4, and more than ever I can feel they each one is a true gift from the Lord!!
And no matter how much I struggle or miss my family, no matter how much I deeply desire a home to make our own, God is still God and he is still faithful. At the same time I realize that today I don’t have to know what tomorrow holds, I don’t have to “wait” for what I want (a home mainly). I can live for today and seek to glorify God in what I am doing right now. I am thankful for a supportive husband and a couple great daughters. God is good

The last couple days I have been making appetizers for our church Christmas party. I have finished making 200 potstickers and have made about 200 bacon wrapped and chili glazed water chestnuts. I am excited that I get to be involved in this event and finally be apart of serving my church, I look forward to how I can serve more in the future!!
Now off to finish cooking my appetizers.

As we wait to move into our house I have decided I need a project to keep my mind occupied instead of just “waiting”, and so I’ve decided to make all of my own ornaments for my Christmas tree this year. It’s a burlap/natural themed tree. I have all my necessary materials and have been working away. We have several different kinds of yarn and twine ornaments, pine cones with burlap bows and wood stained snow flakes made out of clothes pins, I can’t wait to decorate my tree!!

TJ has been preparing for deer hunting, he’s been building deer stands and getting guns ready. He finally got to go hunting the other day for the first time here in Florida, and got a deer!! We’ve been busy processing venison, and I am so grateful to be putting meat in our freezer! Thank you God for providing!

Yesterday while at our little table, eating breakfast in our little trailer, Ava said “I am so glad we’re in here together, just our family”. Even though I am ready to move into a “home”(in a little over a week) I am so grateful for this little abode and place of transition where we CAN just be our family. I can definitely see that our girls thrive off of family time and consistency. The fact that we can get up every morning and eat breakfast together as a family and then move on with our day is a big deal!

This thanksgiving week I am thankful for God who provides, for family who supports us, for our family of 4 and that we get to travel the world together and preach the gospel to the nations. I am grateful for amazing friends, for all our gracious supporters who are giving to spread the gospel, I am grateful for those who pray for us! God has truly blessed us!

We have been here another week.

This week TJ’s sister and her husband went on a cruise and we have had the pleasure of house sitting for them. It has been really nice to have a little more room for the girls to run around compared to the travel trailer we’ve been staying in. We will head back to the trailer in a couple days and we will be thankful for a place to stay :-).

I am grateful for our close friends, a specific two. They ask us how we’re doing and make sure we feel free to share with them in our experiences and hardships. I am grateful to these specific friends for reaching out to us and being willing to love us when we need to be loved. They offer us a place of peace to just be, or a place to talk or a place to laugh. To us, this means more than they know. I love that they were intuitive enough to know we needed something even if they were not sure what it was. They weren’t afraid to reach out and let us know that they weren’t afraid to experience pain with us, or to walk with us in any way we needed. And once again I am thankful to God for such amazing friends who love us and care for us. I pray that I can be the friend someone needs me to be in the future and as loving and intuitive as our friends are to us!!

On another note:
Right now by God’s grace, we have a place to move in to, but it will not be available until shortly after thanksgiving. I am really excited because it’s pretty much exactly the location we wanted to be in! And after asking around, we pretty much have all the furniture we are going to need!! Praise the Lord!!

We have been in Cocoa Florida for one week and one day. What a journey we have been walking!! It sort of feels like we have been here for weeks and yet we just got here. Heaven is sounding so wonderful as life moves on. We build such deep relationships everywhere we go… as I look forward to our afterlife I honestly cannot wait! The union and the fellowship that we will have there I just cannot imagine. There will be NO TEARS… none! Can you imagine? You know how crying feels good when your finished? Unless you’ve cried so hard you have a headache. I wonder if there is a similar thing in heaven, without the crying… Just a thought.

Princess!

As I sit here listening to worship music, drinking my coffee with whipped cream and writing out my thoughts, I look forward to sweet, sweet fellowship I will have with Jesus and I know it is real and I know it is coming!

This year, this time in my life is hard, it is hard… we have lost 4 babies this year. I ask God why? When he has done such great miracles in our lives, I mean big things, why doesn’t he do this miracle? And yet I know I am asking the wrong questions. And at the same time I know God permits me to ask these questions anyway, he knows me, he knows my finite mind, and he also knows that I live to serve him and love him.

Eating (avocado) Chocolate pudding

So as this week has unfolded, and as I have walked through some depressing moments, at the end of the week it is clear to me that God is good, he is big and he causes all thing to work together for the good of those who are called according to his purpose. The good news is that I am called according to his purpose. It has also been made clear to me that this life and my purpose goes so much further than my own difficulties no matter how hard they may be. There is so much that is beyond ME! As I look at where God has brought me, and where he has called me, where he has called my family, I can see that we are living for so much more. I will make great sacrifices for the sake of the gospel, I want to be ready to be used by God. He is sanding me down, smoothing the rough edges, giving me a better grasp on eternity, and living for it. God has called our family to West Africa, there are so many people there who have never had the chance to hear the name of Jesus, could you imagine? People (anywhere) coming to know Christ and having a relationship with him, that is what we live for, this is the bigger thing. This is so much bigger than me. And even though I wish I could mother those babies here on earth, I know that they are being well taken care of.

I pray that God will use these things for his glory.

So… I walk forward, I take another step. I ask God to give me grace. Babies are a part of life, and I will be around them, I will be around pregnant women, but I believe God will give me grace as I walk this road, because He is God and He is good, and he knows what I need. I. Trust. Him.

Yumm!!!

So, as my perspective is changing and as my head feels more clear every day, I feel excited about being here. I am excited to be in our church! I am excited to get to know people, I am excited to serve, and I am excited to just be here. I have already spent time with precious people in my life, and I look forward to continuing that. We will be here in Cocoa until August 2015 and then we will be moving to Senegal West Africa.

A week ago today we were in Missouri shopping for and packing our boxes To go in a container. It has been a full week! I want to just say woe is me, because there have been some hard things going on, BUT there have also been some good things too! Last Tuesday we got to spend the evening with our good friends in Missouri, BriAnna and Micheal. We used to get together every week for a bible study when we lived there and we grew to be very close with them. It was awesome to see how God has grown them and been faithful to them… We love this family and their 3 girls!!

Bradish Girls

While we were in the midst of packing and shopping we got to stay with our friends Jonie and Jason and their two little girls (3 mo & 2). In the midst of their busy lives they managed to house is and hang out with us too!! I love their hearts to serve and give to others, it’s a gift from God. They are willing to do anything for us at the drop of a hat! Our friendship has grown and deepened as we experience life together and loss together, the Lord bonds us in these things and I will be forever grateful for these friends!

my good friend Jonie, and Jordon

Sweet Baby Emerson

Last Wednesday we dropped our (boxes of) money and hard work off at Friends In Action in Mansfield Missouri. Not sure when they will be shipping out, but I know our stuff (&Del and Ari’s) is ready to go! A big thanks goes out to all of you who were a part of that, honestly we couldn’t have done it without you!!

Our Boxes getting ready to go to Africa

Thursday we got to just hang out with our friends for one more day and Friday we were off, we stayed in a hotel which was fun for the girls. We decided to go out to eat, so after lots of driving around we finally stopped at this pizza place and ordered, we waited and waited and waited!!! It turns out they gave our pizza to someone else, so they gave us some of our money back and basically offered us whatever we wanted and we took the pizza to go and left. We ate in our hotel room, surprisingly enough the pizza was not very good, but we ate and we got a discount… Woohoo!! And Saturday we were off to Georgia. The plan was to speak at a sweet little church that is partnering with us to reach West Africa, and we got into Warner Robins, Georgia at a decent time so we got to hang out with the church family at a function at the Pastors house! What a blessing to experience this body of believers a little more! We stayed with our generous friends, the Schoolcraft’s who we are always blessed and encouraged by every time we are with them! We did our presentation at Shallom Christian Fellowship and we were once again blessed by them and their fellowship!

Fall

Monday morning we got to get in the car for our last leg of the journey to central Florida. On the way home we went shopping at Costco and Trader Joes to get the necessities of course. We were welcomed home by our precious family and a place to stay. We are once again in a travel trailer behind TJ’s parent’s house. We will be here until we find a more permanent place to stay, were so grateful to Lori and mark for getting it all ready for us to stay in for a bit.  We are praying for and looking for a place to stay near Port St. John or Cocoa, so if you know of very affordable place, please let us know!

My good friend Gayle who we got to stay with for a few days

It’s been a full week. We are in Roach Missouri where we trained to be tribal church planters as well as where we experienced God through loosing our baby.  Last Wednesday was Nola’s birthday, my 3rd daughter who just happens to be spending all her time with Jesus, I need to be following her example :-). We wanted her birthday to be special, and we wanted to remember her and how she has affected our lives. The day began with a pedicure for my very good friend Gayle and I.  It has been one year since I painted my toe nails, a small ode to her.

We got flowers for her to put by her grave, what a blessing to be here near her grave RIGHT now!!

Flowers for Nola

And we got flowers for us to remember her.

Flowers for us

We went to the grave with the girls, Ava had a million questions, she remembered when we buried Nola, we prayed and read a psalm. I cried. I again felt the sting of loosing her again, it’s been a while since I felt that distinct feeling, but it felt good to feel that in the sense that I hadn’t forgotten her, that she is still a part of me. For the evening we gathered with close friends (minus one who was 🙁 sick) who were with us and walked this difficult path with us. I got to spend part of the day inventing my own version of chicken and dumplings soup with bone broth, Kale, roasted butternut squash, a little cream, and sourdough dumplings.

We went around the table sharing some experiences in how God has spoken to us in our own secret places this year. It felt rich, and honoring to God. My dear friend Jonie made beautiful dark chocolate raspberry filled cupcakes with raspberry whipped cream frosting, they we’re beautiful and delicious!!

raspberry filled chocolate cupcakes

eating delicious cupcakes

At the end of the day I feel that we honored Nola and remembered her well, I look forward to actually knowing her at the end of this life. Heaven is not too far away.

On a completely different note, we are smack dap in the midst of transition. Have you ever lived in 2 (or more) places? I mean fully committed to one place and another?  Okay, we’re talking about California and Florida here. We have family and dear dear friends in Fresno/Auberry California, AND family and dear dear friends in Cocoa Florida, and I literally feel like we belong in both places.  My heart is torn between two places, and that’s just places that feel like home!  There is also Roach, Missouri where we lived for a year and a half, we have a church there and people we love, there is Phoenix Arizona where my best friend resides, there is Senegal West Africa where we plan to make our long term home.  I want to give you a picture of the difficulty of these kinds of circumstances.  Can I just say my heart hurts, it hurts.

The plan that we have nonchalantly been telling people is that we’re gonna spend 6 months in California building stronger relationships and then go back to Florida and spend 10 months with our new sending church building relationships there. Well we have just finished the 6 months in Fresno, and I would say we successfully built relationships, the thing is that when relationships are built, there is a loss when you leave. Roots have grown, which is a good thing, it just makes it harder to uproot your children from those they love once again and move across the country. We are looking forward to being with family in Cocoa Florida and spending time with our church there, we already have deep relationships there, which makes it hard every time we leave. As we spend time with those in our church and neighborhood I would expect that by the time we leave for Africa we will have built more relationships and grown more roots, it will once again be like tearing our hearts out. What I am learning is that these connections and good relationships are what we need while we’re are bringing the good news to an unreached nation. With the spiritual warfare that we will come against, we need you!! We need our friends and family to be with us, to pray with us and understand what this means for us, for all of us.
As we come back to the Cocoa area, please have grace for us as our family is making another big move, our kids are asking for a home, they are asking to go back to Nonni’s house (that is the last home they are clinging to). Ava tells me she doesn’t like the furniture in our friend’s house we’re staying with, finally I get out of her that she just wants to have our furniture with just our family. Penny has completely regressed in her potty training and TJ and I feel a number of emotions as we take up our roots and move again.  So if you see us struggling with our girls behavior or attitude please have grace and love for us as we are trusting the Lord for his strength.  Also know that we are excited to come to you and excited to be with you. When we are with you we are all there and all invested. A wise person tells us every time we see him “grow where you’re planted, bloom where you are”. And that is our desire as we move forward with already made relationships and new relationships.

walk’n with our friends

happy to be sisters

While TJ was out we hiked up to “HaHa Tanka”

My Caaaastle!

The day we left California was our anniversary, so TJ got me flowers for the car and I got him chocolate 🙂

TJ and I on our anniversary

I skipped doing my blog last Week because it was an official vacation!! We got to spend 4 glorious days in the Rockies with our dear friends Pete and Whitney Hofmann. We were able to rest our minds and enjoy some down time as well as God’s beautiful creation, consisting of high peaks with a touch of snow and wide green valleys splashed with yellow Aspen trees.

Beautiful Creation

If your wondering where the North Mountain is, we found it, it’s in Colorado! 😉

We left there feeling refreshed and encouraged. We made it to Missouri late Friday night, and have been spending some time with our good friends Joni and Jason and their little girls. This past weekend was a camping trip for the missionaries in training, we went out there on Saturday and I got to witness the killing of some chickens as well as how to gut and cut them up… Very interesting and quite likely maybe useful some day!

Enjoying some time with my girls.

Auntie Helen got the girls a couple disney dolls, they have been a hit!

On another note it was a year ago today that we went to our 20 week ultra sound only to find out that our little girl was not alive. It feels weird that it’s been a year. We are grateful to be in Missouri right now which is where all of this took place. It feels healing and good to be here with the people who walked this with us. Tomorrow we are going to have a small get-together on Nola’s birthday to honor her life and to remember what God has done. I would have expected to be in a different place today, I thought I would have been pregnant again and getting ready for another baby, and yet that is not where we’re at. We are trusting God as we walk this road and surrendering more of ourselves to him.
I am so thankful for the Lord and how he has ministered to us, and how he has provided for us, through very hard things and through incredible! I love that God always remains the same!!
I am also so thankful for my two beautiful girls, and the true blessing that they are to me. I am thankful for my husband and the way he serves me and walks with me through every circumstance. I wouldn’t want to be doing this with anyone else!!
I am thankful for Nola Grace and for the opportunities I have had to know God more because of her. I wouldn’t have taken away her life for any reason whatsoever. I can’t wait to see you in heaven Nola girl! I know you are alive and well there!!

What a week!! We have been so busy, I have hardly even had to time to say the words “I need to write my blog!” I just want to highlight on a couple things. Last week TJ and Del went way up into the mountains for the night to be quiet and seek God! I loved some of the things that God spoke to TJ because they were things we needed to here. As TJ was sitting on a mountain top looking over Gods creation and reading his bible, a small gust of wind blew the pages of TJ’s bible, he looked down and began reading psalm 34, and towards the end it talks about God being near the broken hearted and crushed spirit, also that many are the afflictions of the righteous. He realized God doesn’t always have some agenda to get us to learn things by going through hard times. Because of sin and life we experience afflictions and he is sad right along with us, and we learn from them not because that was his purpose, but because anyone who knows Christ can experience redemption in all things.

Last week at the women’s retreat, one of the last optional sessions was a girl who lost her baby at full term last May, I could relate with her story in so many ways especially with how she has relied on God daily to walk daily with her. Something she said really stuck out to me. It was something like: “what we determine as a bad thing, may not really be a bad thing, the only true bad thing is not knowing Christ”. I am thankful for such needed reminders.

This week has been busy and there have been different things on the schedule. Saturday rolled around and my friend Christy made a visit up to see me, we were scheduled to speak at the 7th Day Adventist Church in Auberry and honestly it was just the next thing on the schedule… another thing to get done. But we walked into that church and God showed me more of himself. I was so humbled to be there and was reminded that all of this stuff that we’re doing, it’s not about us, it is so much bigger than our personal lives and schedules. We left feeling so encouraged, loved and supported for what we’re doing. And I’m so grateful that God does the burdening in people’s hearts, and I’m so thankful for this little church and the way they ministered to us in the midst of our busy schedule, and I’m so glad this life is so much bigger than me!

We have been saying goodbye to good good friends and precious family! We had to say goodbye to my dad last Sunday in the middle of all the business, not my favorite thing to do! We have been tearing our little apartment apart, packing and sorting. It was nice to have a break and spend a couple last hours with our friends Matt and Natalie Tuesday night. At 9:30 pm (when friends normally go home), we decided to make chalk boards out of old kitchen cabinets. We put Frozen on for our kids and went to town in our little project, we finished and they left around 11. It’s hard to say goodbye to good friends.

late night chalk board project drying

working on our chalk boards, late into the night

my dear friend Natalie, who I am going to miss immensely!!

had to include the good ones 🙂

We finished packing and cleaning our apartment, we loaded our trailer, rooftop carrier, and cooler… We are on the road.

Thursday night we had dinner with my family that is in fresno right now…. Amazing cedar planked salmon and veggies… yumm!!! Thank you mom!!
I have loved getting to know my sister in law better Sarah, and my nephew Caleb who I absolutely adore! He lights up my life, and when I’m with him I just can’t get enough. This has been a blessed season of living by/with my parents as well as in Auberry with Marybeth, Rob, Becka, and Bethany. Our life has been full here and rich with relationship and love, it’s what we hoped for and more, and less in some areas. We hoped to be with child by now, but are trusting God fully with our unborn
Children. Our relationships at Auberry Community have broadened, depended and lengthened. God is good. Yesterday we said goodbye to Del, Arielle, and ther’e boys… The next time we see them we will be in Senegal, wow, and awesome!! 🙂

Penny saying goodbye to her very best friend and cousin Silas. :'(

We said goodbye to my mom, it feels hard to do when you have an incredible relationship with your mom, the good thing is that the relationship doesn’t stop here. We live on and we love on.

Our new motto: “Here we are, our family and our stuff!”

Today we said goodbye to Barry and Helen, Bella, and Joshy. Ava has been saying this whole week, “we are going to see the last persons that we love” talking about the last of our family. Our next stop is Salt Lake City. Here we go, on to the next adventure!!

Wow what a week.  There has been some really big highs and some really big lows, from one day to the next we never know what is going to occur in our lives.  God is stretching me, he is literally bringing me to the end of myself, and I’m not sure what he wants me to do.  Do you ever get there, where you feel like you have done all you can do, and then you say “God what the hell do you want me to do now?!” I realize I just swore, however God is usually one of the few who ever gets to hear me swear.

Awesome Women’s retreat!

Thank you Costco!

Last week we went shopping for stuff to put in our shipping container!!

Penny loves her morning hugs, and her daddy! 🙂

This is my favorite views in the morning when Penny comes in to snuggle with us, these are the moments I cherish.