graciousness

 Well, they're just plain special family.  

Sometimes life is really hard.  And then sometimes, God sneaks in some unmerited, unexpected graciousness and it blesses your socks off and humbles you profoundly...and that's Dodo and Bubba.

Having them love the girls and the girls love them (Sofie's been asking for "Dodo's Houshe" all day) is just the icing on the cake.  Or the penny for the pound.

They look really happy...but they were sad to see us go, I'm sure :)  It takes a few days for the house to stop ringing after a week with the Ayars :)

We love you both and are so thankful for gracious YOU in our lives, friends we can just be family with, and you love us anyway.

This is as close as we got to Niagra Falls....we only had 30 minutes of cushion to get to our missions dinner in New Bedford!  

 New Bedford Presbyterian Church has ALWAYS been God's graciousness to us, from the first moment they found us.  I have no idea why this special group of people in PA love us like they do, but they do.  We've never done a thing for them and they found us through the newspaper, but they PRAY for us, they follow us, they send us boxes, they love on our kids, they stay in touch, and they always spoil us when we're there!

 This year was no exception...the girls thought it was Christmas :)

We had an awesome dinner overlooking the whole county, and then all had a great time catching up, playing, worrying about Debi's need to arrange all the doll clothes in perfect piles.

The girls loved to hear stories about past visits with our New Bedford family, from before they were born to when I was pregnant, when they were newborns 'till now.

Jean and Ted's house was such a gorgeous backdrop to such a fun evening!

This is the New Bedford missions committee, some of whom have been on the committee longer than they can remember!

We're so blessed to have this special family in our lives.  When they tell you they love you and that they'll be praying, they've proved it. 

 Unmerited, unexpected graciousness that blesses our socks off and humbles us, that's Aunt Lori, June, Judi, Debi....That's New Bedford!  Thank you, friends!  We thank our God for you...

This afternoon we safely made it back to Columbus, Ohio, just in time to speak and preach at Livingston UMC tomorrow morning...hope to see you there!

au revoir

After two nights of getting in after 10:30 pm, it's official...we just can't keep up with Dodo and Bubba's crazy-busy life!  Can't believe our week in Canada is finishing, and that all the events for the week ahead have suddenly becoming memories and become the week behind...

Wednesday night, we had a GREAT time at Keith and Heather's farm and a fabulous dinner with friends...

Thank you, Keith and Heather!  It was such a joy to be in your home and with your family and blessed by your friendship!

Today (Thursday) was another great and beautiful day, the morning here at home and then off to OMS Canada.

While absolutely every single person at OMS Canada's office we were coming to meet was out of the country or out sick, we got to meet some other great people and were so blessed that Mary Lou (a friend from our first few years in Haiti) drove quite a ways to see us, and Mark and Charlotte (MFM Canada) did the same, meaning we had as great a time as we had expected to have, just with different people!

After years of email relationships with the office, it was good to finally put a place with the emails, even if we're still unable to put some faces to the emails addresses!

Then, after a quick dinner with John and Dorothy, we all headed to Tina and Jerry's house, where we got to hang out with lots more friends, old and new.

Re-met lots of people who have been down to Haiti once, twice, or eight or nine times, and got to catch up with good friends from Haiti--Barry, Kelly, Thomas and Katie, and a visiting professor, Glenn.

Tina and Jerry's yard was just lovely, and it was a joy to snack on chocolate covered cheesecakes, strawberries, punch and cookies and talk with friends and watch the girls play with Thomas and Katie and talk about all of our many hearts for Haiti.

Wish I'd thought to get a picture BEFORE people headed out!  This was the last bunch to go...

We'll pack up Friday morning and sadly au revoir Dodo and Bubba (who will probably sleep and find hot pink socks for days) and hit the road again, heading for a special missions dinner in New Bedford, PA!

fun, friends, funding and farms

I feel like we need to be blogging twice a day to keep up with life!

We spent all day yesterday with Rick and Carol, good friends we were blessed to make in Haiti!  Spending the day with them was fabulous, though difficult to accept again that they have joined our list of "dear friends who live crazy-far away and we only get to see them once a year and we hate that."  

It's not even so much that we greatly wish they still lived in Haiti.  It's just that we greatly wish they would always live 10 minutes away.

We had a great time walking around down-town Elora, getting ice cream and catching up.

I need to apologize to Canada for lots of misconceptions, like the idea that the weather is always foul.  On the contrary, it has been just FABULOUS weather and beautiful countryside.  To my defense, my only other experience in Canada before this week was 5 months in Quebec in the middle of winter (think, MINUS 36 degrees and blizzards).  

our car, and experience, last time we were in Canada

Lily is incredibly excited about her new bike helmet, and is wearing it about 8 hours a day.  The neighbors have this little puff ball "Cookie" and the girls are in love.

This little blessing is Lili, who until 3 months ago, was a missionary kid with OMS in Hungary.  These two Lily's have become fast friends between Sunday and last night, even sharing four-year old stories of missionary adventures that just warmed my heart.  In both cultures, they go by "Lee-Lee", and they think that is just FABULOUS.  Hopefully they'll have one last playdate tomorrow.  

This is a little photo to teach everyone one thing:  Do not let John McCluskey have your camera.  

This is not only a terrible picture of the MFM event last night, it is also the ONLY picture we have of the MFM event last night.  All four hours of it.  John, John, John.

BUT, the event was way better than the photographer's skills :)  Big potluck with a huge turnout, GREAT people, great food, and then a little concert, presentation and then our sharing, then a Q&A time afterwards...the place didn't empty out 'till 10:30!  

THANK YOU, MFM Wellington, Albert, Al, John and Dorothy, and so many others, for making it happen, and thank you, everyone, for coming out and for all the interest, love, prayers, questions and support!

Then this morning, while Matt and John went golfing (after 6 years of talking about it!), Dodo, the girls and I headed to Keith and Heather's dairy farm, which of course, the girls LOVED.

This SUPER cool machine does absolutely EVERY part of the milking process (even tempting cows in and kicking them out if they're trying to double dip on the "cow candy")...it was REALLY neat to watch!  

Then Lily got to ride in this thing (I'm not going to use any farm terms or I'm going to mess it all up) to cut and collect this stuff.  Even a puppy riding along in the cab.  

She thought that was pretty great, and I just couldn't help but think of Jean-Sius, our farmer friend in Haiti, out in the fields with his machete, chopping away at the ground and planting each seed by hand...TODAY. Rising early in the morning every day of his life to milk the cow. It's a crazy world.

Sofie's thinking maybe she could be a farm girl.  

We're thinking we could stay at least a few more weeks :)  

Tonight, back to the farm for dinner, and tomorrow down to Hamilton to check out OMS Canada HQ and for an evening at Jerry and Tina Groen's...in the Hamilton area?  Hope to see you there, 7-9!

john and dorothy's crazy neighbors.

Got lots to share from a full day with friends and a great evening with MFM!!...but after finally getting the girls to bed at 10:40, I am brain-dead.

Tomorrow.

Just one small thought I've got circling in my mind.

Last night, John, Dorothy, Matt and I were up chatting about the community they live in, and got talking about the music teachers next door.

Dorothy shared that the man that used to live next door had LOVED playing pool.  After living there for a while, he bought this gorgeous new pool table, only to discover it wouldn't fit down the stairs.  So in love with his new purchase, he ended up taking out part of the ceiling/staircase  to get the table in the basement and then patching up the chunks of ceiling taken out for the project.

Eventually, he moved, and couldn't get the pool table back OUT of the basement, and sadly left it behind.

In moved the music teachers, with three pianos.

So in love with their uprights and so disgusted with the pool table, they ended up having a huge portion of the foundation removed and turned into huge bay windows, meanwhile sending the now despised pool table out the wall and making a way to insert their pianos.

So, here's what I'm thinking.

Insane?  Yeah, insane.  To me.  Insane to remove a wall for a pool table or a foundation for a piano.  But to them?  Totally reasonable.

These items represented their greatest passions.  It didn't matter what others thought, or what it cost them.  These things are their life!  Nothing could stop them.

That still small voice has been asking me today: what is my piano?  What am I willing to knock out walls for, spare no expense to keep, focus crazy time and energy on?

What is my pool table?  Is it HIM?

What if?  What if, instead of my own passions, I took on HIS, and what if HIS obsessions became MINE, and what if I, uncaring of what it cost me or how it looked to others, I made sure that NO MATTER WHAT, His heart was priority in my life?

What if--His heart for others--I took on and on and on until I looked like a crazy lady spending all my time and energy and resources loving boldly and freely and nonsensically?

What if--His mandate to die to myself--I took on and on and on until I didn't care a whit about my rights or about others opinions or how I want things or how I've been wronged or what I deserve and only cared about Him and not myself?

What if I didn't care about how my house is--and am ready, at any moment, to chop away at it if He's got something that's JUST not gonna fit "the way I am?"

What if I'm ready to give up "who I am" to be more of "who HE is" even if it means CRAZY?

I want to be John and Dorothy's crazy neighbors.

But not over a pool table, please.  Nor a piano.  Nor a pet nor a hobby nor a sport.  Nor a grudge nor a love nor a right.  Not for a plan or a paycheck or an opinion.

I wanna be John and Dorothy's crazy renovating neighbors in my HEART and LIFE, with an active God holding the blueprints and a "work in progress" sign permanently on my front lawn.  Always being molded, always getting chipped away and restored differently, clinging to nothing but HIM, and all by a God who knows BEST and has SO much to do, if only I'd let Him!

What's your house look like today, and what is HIS vision for it?

inspired

John and Dorothy are some kind of fabulous gardeners!

Their yard is so lovely we've been spending all down minutes outside, the girls watering everything, searching for snails and all of us enjoying NOT sweating through our moments together to the smell of burning trash like we have so many times in Haiti!

 Such a beautiful yard and quiet reprieve in between speaking and meetings...and so good to be with FRIENDS who don't even mind us being ourselves....

and who are spoiling us, to boot!

yep, that's a DQ ice cream cake.  I know it said "Father's Day", but I'm pretty sure I ate more than my fair share :)

Today, after a meeting this morning with Empower Global, Matt and I were interviewed for the "Inspiration Station" in Kitchner for a program called "Words to Inspire".

This was us, being very inspirational.  Or inspired.  Or singing an opera.

Seriously, though, it was a lot of fun.  Ruth was just a joy to talk with, and talking to her about Haiti and some of the people who have inspired US was such a neat opportunity.  I'm also really thankful it wasn't TV!  The program is aired every Monday, but our portion will broadcast August 18th and 19th...I'll get you a link when I have one.

Lily and Sofie seem to be entirely unaware that we are "working", and just loving craft time with Dodo, stories with Bubba, walks of the neighborhood, visits with the community dogs, playing with kids at the playground and eating lots of yummy food.  

Tomorrow, great friends we made in Haiti, Rick and Carol, are driving quite a ways to spend the day with us, and then tomorrow night we'll be back at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church for a big MFM potluck dinner at 6:30 and then we'll be speaking more about life, ministry, and His hand in Haiti around 8.  If you're in the Fergus/Elora area, we'd love to meet you!

Wish we hadn't waited so many summers to do this "tour of Canada"...great hosts, great weather (contrary to my concern there would still be ice on the ground!), lots of great conversations and new friends, and an awful lot of (very friendly) blog stalkers!