I have taken on a few lifestyle changes in the “new year”.

Prayer board: With new prayer requests, new to me, for ministries serving the “least of these” coming onto my radar, I have come to realise that I now have more prayer opportunities than I can keep track of on a daily basis or than I sincerely can sit down and pray for daily. So instead of limiting my window of prayer, I am borrowing a 2-month dry erase board from my parents and am going to start scheduling my prayer times for each day so I can pray for everyone during a week and not leave anyone out. Since I’m a visual person, this board will prove to be a quite useful tool in my prayer life. I am also in to process of organizing my prayer/ministry handouts/brochures in a binder so I can simply flip via country/ministry and pray more specifically.

Scripture in a Year: I have taken on the challenge of reading through the Bible in a year. I really needed to discipline myself in this area so many years before, but God loves Himself this slow learner as well. 😉 Matt and I found a printout that breaks up the reading to 4 chapters per day – totally doable. Requiring a total of like an hour and a half per day (if that).  We started a bit late so in wanting to push myself to keep up the habit and make the time a priority I have pushed myself to devour Scripture at a feverish rate to begin and then will wean back to 4-5 chapters per day. Thus far I have filled almost all my free time with reading Scripture. I’ve read 18-26 chapters per day and been learning/retaining so much from Scripture. Really I have chosen to push myself really hard to “catch up” with the reading plan verses just start my reading plan in the middle of January because I know the  greatest challenge in reading Scripture is not making time, but making the priority. So I am pushing myself very hard to make it a priority to think, meditate and read Scripture. But obviously this cannot be done in neglect of the God has given me. So I will not be keeping up this pace all year. But by the end of the weekend I should be “caught up” and be able to go to my 4-5 chapters per day routine.

Gratitude Journal: Theresa and Jenney and I have taken on the challenge of making a journal of 1,000 things for which we are grateful to God for. There is no daily requirement, but it is just in efforts to train our minds to be thankful for the daily normals that God has so blessed us with. I have forgotten some days – just being real, but I really have enjoyed taking random moments to think more about how much God has blessed me so in the little norms of the day. Our God is so good.

Been praying about starting a women’s Bible study in my home. This has been a topic of conversation with Matt for over 6 months. We talked about opening our home for a group Bible study and I think we’ve landed on having separate Bible studies due to the demands and joys of ministering elsewhere taking up a lot of our schedule. So I have been praying and hoping and desiring to start a Bible study focused on reading one chapter of Scripture per week and discussing it at a weekly “mid day” meeting while my kids are napping preferably. I have talked to a few about it to see if there’s even an interest out there. But really my heart just longs for Christ-centered focus and soaking in the Word. My heart longs for the true fellowships that Christ alone can stir in our hearts, leaving aside excuses and really running hard to self-discipline ourselves to be more like Jesus. So instead of looking for that environment, I thought I’d try to create it in our home. It’s like Anne Graham (Billy Graham’s kid) said in her study, “I was so hungry for that fellowship that I was decided to lead it.”

So just a few good and doable changes to refocus and continue to push myself to be ready when God want sot use me. It’s about being ready and available so that when God says “go” you’re alert and prepared to give it all. And since God says, “go” daily, I’m just trying to get with the program here.

More crowns for Jesus’ feet!

Side note: This is a beautiful post by my dear friend and missionary, Theresa on Resilience. Oh to not keep the focus on us by clinging to tragedy, but instead to leave the focus on Jesus’ power of His hope and sustaining character…

So after a few months of not having a computer, waiting on Matt to have Internet access, and feeling semi-in the dark ages. I am pleased to have a new computerized friend to resume my “little world” here.

And as most of you have known from experience, thus begins the few hours of “getting it the way I like it” in the world of putting my files/settings on this wonderful little tool.

One thing I had not anticipated was how silent not having a computer has made life. I am not a tech-savvy person, so a computer primarily functions in online and file storage uses in our household. But one thing I really missed in the past 6 months of non-computer use during Matt’s working hours was music. Having most of our music stored on Matt’s computer, made “random playlist” options impossible. I’ve missed my ‘Christian music genera” catch-all playlist that has proven to be a background to the chores and play around the house.

So after I get the music downloaded to this computer you had better believe you will find my house back from the silent age and returning to the normal pep in our steps.

sigh… how lovely it is to be spoiled by convenience.

– grateful.

Between Sunday night touchdowns we enjoyed writing it. We laughed about the illustration, building with a dirt foundation and creating a flood. We giggled about the idea of sticks falling all over the place and the utter joy of permitted destruction coming upon the face of a child. We laughed until tears came to our eyes as we thought of accidentally knocking down the building built on rocks and trying to explain that God does a better job at building than this demonstration. And then we sent the lesson overseas with a prayer and a smile. 

Nothing can describe the joy I felt in my heart when I found these two wonderful pictures in my inbox this evening.

I read over the account of the Bible lesson’s success and my heart leaped within me. Thank you, Jesus, for orchestrating such joy and such a blessing in my life.

I just love my little Nigerian kids and their Aunties (and now Uncle).

– to God be the glory.
– love and hugs to Theresa and Will.

So with moving to an “updated” form of blogger I get all kinds of screens of stats about my blog. Some are fun. And some are depressing. LOL.

I guess it’s kind of neat to see who checks my blog, within reason. There’s a wonderful “site feed” list that informs me of how little people are checking my blog and from where they are fed or where they begin. I have learned that most people just type in the URL. And yet, the greatest number of hits I get from an external site is from facebook. Go figure. I had begun to wonder if me posting my blog posts there was annoying people. You know, the kind of thing you block others from appearing on your wall for – – too many posts.

But then I found another fun stat that tracked the countries – yes, people countrIES- that have checked my blog. And here’s what I discovered:

U.S. some 1,327 views
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Kinda interesting, really. Nigeria, I know who you are. Canada could have been my sis on vacation, but also could not have been. France could have been an old, dear friend from elementary school, Cecile. Netherlands? Argentina? Germany? Russia?

Kinda fun. And then I read the next stat – not a single on of them returned this month. hehehehe. Clearly my posts this month have been – uh, lacking to say the least. =) Oh well, the month has just begun. =) I still have time to lose a few more. hehehe.

Thanks for reading, all. It’s flattering and terrifying all in one. =)

So a few weeks back Matt and I watched Tangled – you know, Disney’s new movie. And quite honestly I loved it. It wasn’t the typical overly-cheesey princess tale and yet didn’t succumb to slipping in a foul word here and there amid perverted jokes, which sadly make their ways into Disney movies (though I could have done without the “cupid” drunk guy in the bar). But I was happy to find a different kind of villain – still evil and twisted, but more psychological and a different kind of evil than Disney’s typical villain.

And quite honestly, I just loved this song- a reprise of the original “Mother Know’s Best” sung in the beginning of the film at the introduction of Mother Gothel’s psychological evil and manipulation of Rapunzel.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGmGLfBQ32c]

I love her “No? ….Ooh…I see how it is.” Hehehe. But I love her musical theatre voice. Such a wonderful voice – and a great villain. Is it bad that I like the villain so? Maybe it’s just that she is able to portray evil without a direct threat of physical harm associated with her evil ugliness. Only directly at the end of the film does the evil turn violent toward the “Prince”. I like that the villain has layers. And quite honestly, I like her dramatic numbers. =)

So enjoy the little excerpt and feel free to go on thinking me crazy. =D

So I feel like a kid waiting on Santa Clause today – only I know Santa doesn’t exist, but I’m still stoked! Today we get our new mattress. This may not sound too exciting to most, but to us it’s about as thrilling as it comes! We’ve been blessed with hand-me-down mattresses thus far into marriage and while those are wonderful in that we didn’t have to buy a mattress, we have experienced the wonder of “broken in” mattresses for too long. We’ve abandoned the idea of a springed mattress and have moved into the foam world. We viewed a sleep number bed, and bounced around on a tempur–pedic (WAY expensive and actually quite warm to sleep in as well) and breezed by the latex mattress world (new innovation, wonderfully comfortable, CRAZY expensive). So we found ourselves landing in the knock-off memory foam world. And let me tell you, that land in comfy and supportive. =)

So today, yes on April Fool’s Day, we will get our mattress delivered and thus bask in the hope of tomorrow being a Snow White morning – birds chirping, cute and furry animals rustling about outside, singing a little song… Well, maybe that’s asking too much, but no more back pain would be nice! =)

Anyway, that’s all my rambling for today. And when you come and visit us later… NO! YOU CAN’T JUMP ON OUR BED! hehehe.

Have a great day, all!