for His joy and glory

Man, it was just one of those days!

Abel talking to us through our bedroom window at 4:15 AM started it off.  Then we overslept, because let's face it, I can't remember the last time we WEREN'T tired, or the last time Sofie didn't wake us at 5:30.

As we rushed around, I pulled a bowl out of the cabinet to make pancakes and another under it shattered into 7 million pieces.  Breakfast, therefore, was late...we, therefore, were late, and rushed to our offices.

I had 7 students waiting for me trying to make payments before class...so late for class...we both taught for three hours, Matt ran straight to his new small group (1 staff for each 7 students for an accountability/discipleship/prayer group), a group of blog-friends from Illinois came by at 12:30...tour, lunch, staff meeting.

Then, Matt had a meeting with a bawling secretary while someone accidently caught the lawnmower on the chain of Lily's brand new swingset, snapping the overhead post in two.  Lily, needless to say, bawled and bawled.  Sofie's top tooth broke through today (so lots of bawling there, too :)

My plans for cherry cheesecake disintegrated when the precious bar of cream cheese was fermented (poor refrigeration while we were gone), and then again for cherry pudding pie when the unopened, "doesn't expire until 2014", boxes of pudding mix were molded through.  Man, this climate is just not great for food!

Two of our staff drove all the way to Port-au-Prince this morning for a promised meeting at 10 that never happened, and Giselaine's dear sister lost her long, completely untreated battle with cancer today.

It has just been a hard day!

However, as always, there were beautiful things, too....

A student who has always given me a very hard time because "a woman has nothing to teach me" came and told me today how glad he is to be back from break and in my class again.   A bunch of students who thought they could never pay shared stories of His faithfulness in providing, we both had great first classes, the discipleship program had a great kick-off.

Then I confused the Creole word for kiss (Bizhou) with the Creole word for jewelry (Bisou) and talked about the difference between kisses and treasure for 3 minutes before we all had a good laugh.  I got gooey kisses from Sofie and sticky ones from Lily and scruffy ones from Matt...all beautiful.

Most, the twenty sweet minutes I got with the Lord in the middle of naps and being peed on made my day.  When you're tired and stink and frazzled and cut your finger and are stepping on toys--remembering that we are loved, precious, and in a relationship with the Mighty God, and that He is in control and that we are alive for His joy and glory--changes everything!

Might of been a rough day, but it was His...and so are we! Hang in there, friends...we are dearly loved!