2012!

I am so excited about this New Year!  It feels like it is full of so much potential!  As a family, we have so much to look forward to!

We get to serve the Lord another year doing what He has called us to do.  We get to watch and see how He will provide for all our needs through His people.  It is just an amazing, faith building way to live.  Challenging... but Faith Building!  

We will take a required trip to Singapore for new visas.  The government requires us to exit the country to get our worker visas.  Currently we are here on student visas.  While we are there, we'll get to see an authentic celebration of the Chinese New Year in China Town!  About 75% of Singapore's population is Chinese so really, almost all of Singapore could be considered "China Town."  We've scheduled physicals for all of us, hope to schedule dental appointments, and possibly a surgery for Dano's knee.  While we are there we hope to visit the *free* Botanical Gardens and the World Class Singapore Zoo.  So while we are going to Singapore for "business," we'll also take care of medical things and hope to have a little family vacation time as well!  We're blessed to be able to stay in the OMF guest house which will significantly decrease our lodging and meal costs.  

After this we look forward to moving to our next point of service...the place God called Dano and me to 12 years ago before we even had children!  How exciting to see God's faithfulness as we have continued to follow Him and as many of you have continued to encourage us in so many ways!  Dano is so eager to get his hands on some airplanes!  I'm eager to get "settled."  Our first home will be another temporary home, but hopefully by June or July we'll be able to move into our permanent home on this side of the world!  We're looking forward to seeing friends that we've already made in our new location by meeting them stateside, here, or virtually via e-mail or facebook.  

So as you can see, this year has a lot of practical things to be excited about, but we are also excited about the spiritual things God has in store for us.  Dano and I plan to finish reading through the Bible this year!  We plan to take a more focused effort on teaching all of our children to pray specifically and consistently.  We're looking forward to getting involved in a local, indigenous church in our new town.  We're excited about how God will use us in speeding Bible Translation.  And we're looking forward to the unknown... knowing God holds the big picture!  

As we have all of these to look forward to, we spent the morning of January 1st sharing these with the kids and asking them what they were looking forward to and what their goals for 2012 were.  In the same fashion of New Year's Eve, I gave each family member a paper with 2012 from the free download here.  On this page, they were to draw or write what they were looking forward to or striving toward in 2012.  Below you can see our final pictures.  If you want to see one better, you can click on it to make it a little larger.

Dano's prayer is that he'll be useful in the
hanger at our new place of service.  I have
no doubt he will be.  They are anxiously
awaiting his arrival.  They are very understaffed.

Derek

Emma
She said she wants to go in outer space and look
back at the Earth!  All I can say... she has big
dreams!  =0)  

Mine

Olivia

Virginia
(front)

Virginia
(back)

Wesley
He hopes to see a hippo... that is the little blue
drawing up at the blue water.

Wesley (the back)
This is the picture of all the animals at the zoo
he hopes to see... gorilla, alligator, iguana (we
have those in our yard), tiger, & lion.  

Thank you for investing in our family for so many years.  We look forward to continuing this journey with you as we serve side by side... separated by half the world yet side by side!  Your encouragement and support means more than you could ever know.  Your prayers for our family are priceless.  We are forever in debt to you... forever in debt to our Lord!  

May the Lord richly bless each of us in 2012... but not for our own good... instead may we each turn around and be a blessing to those God places in our lives!  We are blessed to be a blessing!  

Love,

Melinda  =0)          

New Year's Eve 2011

Olivia (10), Derek (8.5), Virginia (2.5), Wesley (5), Emma (6.5)
The kids in their Christmas jammies which traditionally
Granny (Dano's Mom) sends to the kids before Christmas.
This year she sent them in plenty of time, but with the
holidays & long commute they finally arrived
on December 30th... just in time for New Year's Eve
the next day!  The kids were THRILLED!  

2011 was an amazing year for our family...difficult, but amazing!  We are amazed and humbled how God called so many people to come along side our family and help us to serve Him where He called us to go.  So many of you gave so sacrificially during 2011 so that we could answer His call!  Thank you!  We could not be where we are without your faithful gifts and prayers!  We are ETERNALLY grateful.  We pray we are making an eternal difference in the lives of those we live among even though we may never be the ones to see the fruit.  Our hearts are forever tied to these people and this people group we live among.  We are burdened for them and the darkness in which they live.

As a family on New Year's Eve, we spent time remembering 2011 by looking at photos and videos from the past year and the fun memories they represent.  We lived in North Carolina and Tennessee before moving overseas!  For the first time as a family we lived near our family for about 7 weeks!  It was great to have so much time with our family (even though a lot of that time was preparing to move).  It was fun to celebrate 3 of the kids' birthdays with family just before leaving.  The kids loved those photos.  It was fun to look at the pictures of our new life here and remember how new and different so many things were.  Now those things are our new normal.

After that I gave everyone a piece of paper with 2011 on it from a free download booklet.  Everyone was free to draw or write whatever they wanted about the past year.  It could be fun memories, new experiences, blessings, or whatever.  It was interesting to see what each person chose and how they chose to represent it.  You can see those pictures below.  Dano and I also did one.  

Virginia
no idea what this means :)
She also had a pretty picture on the back.

Wesley (front)
This is the airplane that brought us from America.

Wesley (back)
This is the volcano we visited here.

Dano
This is a picture of our house and the rice fields
representing all God did to bring us here.

Derek
He has lots of things from the last year.  You
should be able to click on it (and any others) for
a closer look.

Emma
She has the volcano and a horse she rode at
the volcano.  (some coloring she did on the back
bled through)

Mine
I can't draw pictures so well... so I used words.

Olivia
She also had lots of things to record for 2011.

After this the kids started going to bed one by one... exhausted.  We were going to let Derek and Olivia stay up til midnight if they could to watch the nearby fireworks.  As usual, they celebrate things here in a BIG, LOUD way!  ;0)  Of course, our village could never afford the type of fireworks we are used to seeing in America, but we live right on the edge of a small city that has a hotel and several large, fancy neighborhoods who can afford nice, fancy fireworks!  We just so happen to live at a perfect location to see their display from our front porch!  Derek went to lay down "to rest" at about 10:30... we couldn't even stir him at midnight!  Dano, Olivia, and I played a few hands of Nertz (kind of like solitaire but for a group of people).  Olivia made it to midnight!  For some reason, she decided not to go outside so she enjoyed the display from the living room window while Dano and I went outside to watch and visit with neighbors.  It was a beautiful night with lovely fireworks, nice friends, loud horns, and a very busy street!  Amazingly, the four youngest continued to sleep!  We came back in around 12:30 a.m. and the noise level died down around 1:30 a.m.

This picture doesn't exactly capture the beauty of the fireworks,
but I've never claimed to be a photographer!  Look how dark
the sky is though!  That truly captures how dark it is here
when the sun goes down.  

We are thankful for a FULL year... FULL of God's Blessings, FULL of God's Mercy, FULL of God's Grace, FULL of God's Faithfulness!  Now we look forward to 2012!  You can look forward (hopefully) to my next post to see how we started 2012!

I pray that each of you are able to look back at 2011 and see God's Hand guiding you whether your year seemed harder than normal, full of heartache, or rich with blessings.

Blessings,
Melinda  =0)

Happy Valentines Day!

Okay, it is the day after, but I hope you had a great day! While this is a day of love... often thought of as romantic love, I hope you felt the love of our Lord on this day. In John 15:12-14, Jesus said, "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command." Jesus loved us so much, he gave his life for us. That is love! Then He asks us to do the same. To love others with a sacrificial love... even being willing to give our lives for them and for Him. Maybe in our lives here in the USA, we would not likely be asked to literally give our lives, but figuratively shouldn't we be giving our lives as an act of worship? We can give our lives to serve our families, to serve our friends, our neighbors, strangers, or even... our enemies! Ouch! Love is hard to give like Christ gave expecting nothing in return. In this "It's all about me" culture or "Take care of #1" culture, it is hard to stay focused on God's Command and LOVE others. I, for one, need to love more sacrificially. I need to love the unlovable. The only way we can do this is to allow Christ to love THROUGH us. And the only way we can do that is to have Christ dwell IN us. If He's going to dwell in us, we have to ask Him to come into our lives, forgive us of our sins, and make us a new creation. Then we need to SPEND TIME WITH HIM.

Boy, isn't that hard in our busy lives? But how essential. I can come up with great excuses why my "quiet time" hardly exsists. First of all, it is rarely quiet in our house with 4 kids... and now when it is, I'm wanting to catch a little nap with our 5th little blessing on the way. So the first thing I have to get over is the phrase "QUIET time." I need to meet God in the midst of my situation. He's here just waiting. So, can you lift up a little prayer for me during your "Quiet Time" that I will meet God in the midst of our busyness & noise? I need MORE of Him... less of Me... so I can LOVE my 4 blessings like Christ loves them. I want them to see HIM in me... NOT ME! Please pray that I love them with an unselfish love!

Well, that wasn't really the purpose of my post this morning. That was I guess what I needed to hear today. I hope you didn't mind listening in. =0) I wanted to post some cute pix I took of the kids yesterday. I also wanted to tell you that Dano & I got to go on a date! (That is VERY rare!) We have some friends who also have 4 kids about the same age as ours. They kept our kids last night, & we're keeping their kids tonight! What a blessing!

Yesterday was the 20th Anniversary of when Dano & I met... WOW! Does that make us old? Some days, I think so! =0) Well, enjoy your day. May you find time to spend with our Lord. Wait, I guess we all need to MAKE time. He's waiting.

Blessings,

Melinda

I took the "group" picture when we got home from church Thursday morning. Wesley fell asleep on the way home & was konked out. I layed him in his pack n play, & he stayed asleep! I took his "individual shots" after lunch! He's a mess! He's 14 months old now & busy!

Praises! Praises!

A PhotoShow my sister Marcia made: http://photoshow.comcast.net/watch/fV2BF6cs

The photoshow doesn't seem to be working... =0(

Perhaps you heard about the tornados last night in TN... well, they hit where all of our family lives... again! Thankfully everyone is okay... again! Michelle, my oldest sister, was the one most directly hit this time. From what I understand via e-mail from Marcia, another sister, Michelle's house it basically fine (still standing), but all but 2 trees are gone. (They had a lot of trees.) They lived along a wooded creek bank which no longer has trees. The dog house is gone... but Molly (the dog) was in the garage. The bass boat was spun around, but didn't hit anything. Their road is blocked from fallen trees, & power is out. There is a huge natural gas fire somewhere kind of near... orange glowing sky last night. Wow! Thank you, Lord, for your protection over our family. Please pray for my sister, her husband, & their teenage daughter as they will be working through all this & doing a lot of clean up, it sounds like. A newer update now that it is light outside... a lot of my sister's neighbors' houses are destroyed by trees or the storm. Wow. How quickly our lives can change. I know they are glad for the Lord's protection and that they are just having to put a tarp over their roof since some shingles are missing! Too bad they don't have a fireplace, they'll have plenty of firewood it sounds like!

About 2 years ago, my aunt & uncle lost their house, but the Lord protected them. My uncle was IN the house when it was picked up & moved off of its foundation! It sounds like to me that Tennessee is going to earn the name of Tornado Valley pretty soon! I think more tornados hit there than when we lived in Texas!

So, if a tornado is coming your way... take cover! Love & prayers, Melinda