Sara Groves, Part 2

So I went to the Sara Groves concert last night. It was over too soon.

But it was wonderful and inspiring and thought-provoking and a good excuse to hang out with Christy for 2 hours each way BY OURSELVES in the car. It didn't matter that it was snowing and that we got home at 1 am. I actually found myself thinking, "Gosh, the drive to Phoenix was too short!" Amazing what having kids will do to one's idea of a good time. We ate Blizzards and made plans to lose weight (starting tomorrow, of course). Guys would never understand the fun of that. Oh, and I got to take a normal-sized actual PURSE to the concert and it even coordinated with my outfit. I couldn't even really figure out what to put in it so that it would feel full and not floppy. Then I ruined that victory by wearing maternity clothes to church today, even though my baby is 7 months old.

But back to the concert. It was put on by Food for the Hungry...the night was called "The Truth About Poverty." We got to hear from a tiny little Bolivian woman who was able (through help from FH) to graduate high school and is almost finished with her bachelor's degree...the first woman in her rural community to do so. She wants to go back and run for assembly-woman so she can battle corruption in her district. That was heroic. Sara sang and talked and sang and I cried a little a few times. She and her husband have been drawn to partner with a community in Rwanda--raising money for sponsorships and schools and such. She had some really good things to say about short term missions, which I really liked. The theme of the night was about all of us seeing that we are broken and in spiritual poverty, and that the poor have much to offer us. She shared a quote from a Rwandan pastor: "If you are coming to help because you think I need you, then go back home. But if you are coming to help because your liberty is tied up in mine, then let's roll up our sleeves together." (or something like that) She shared about 12 American businessmen that were going to Uganda to put their money to good use--they had a "strategic plan" to find a "person of promise" that they could sponsor who would go to medical school or start a clinic or something very productive that would lead to "sustainable growth." So they met with different people and had many ideas of who would deserve their funding. The last day, their local host (a Ugandan pastor) took them to a village that the church hadn't had contact with in a while. The mood was light as they pulled up, joking and talking. As they exited their van, they sensed immediately that something wasn't right. The village was inhabited only by poor, hungry, scared children. In the time since the local pastor had last visited the village, all the adults had died of AIDS. There was one old woman left and all the children were being taken care of by one 17-year-old girl. The 12 men immediately went from being successful businessmen to fathers, rushing around patching roofs, helping where they could, even giving as many clothes off of their backs as they could do without. After loading back into their van in the rain, shivering in their skivies, they were silent and amazed at how God had worked to bring them to that village to help. They had found their "person of promise". The children probably weren't going to go to medical school or start a clinic, but were now intertwined with them in their hearts. Sara said it has changed everything about how these men do business.

I could tell you more, but I won't. My sweet husband battled my stubborn baby (and finally fed her with a medicine dropper) so that I could go and be blessed. He even stayed awake so he could listen to me chatter on and on at 1:30 in the morning. I decided not to feel guilty about his rough night because I thought of the nights I was alone while he went to seminary and knew he was happy to do it for me. I guess in closing, I need to correct my prediction that I would come back "ready to change the world". I need to instead say, "desiring to be Jesus' hands and feet and in the process, letting the world change me." And you know a small thing I decided that I can do starting today as an example to my kids? I can stop complaining.

Here's Christy, Sara, and I:


Here's Sara and I talking about setting up the pins and knocking them down:


Thanks for listening.

Olympics & Sara Groves

I love the Olympics. I don't love the lack of sleep I am getting due to the Olympics. Here is a cake the boys totally decorated themselves for the Olympics (well, I did the 2010). The snowmen are the judges and there is even an angel watching over the bobsledders and skier. And there are lots of friendly forest animals joining in the festivities, so it is very realistic.

Later, I accidentally ate a piece that had part of the Olympic rings on it. Chocolate cake with a soggy grape life saver hidden in the frosting is kind of gross, even for a person who likes chocolate cake a lot.

Tonight I am going to see Sara Groves in concert. I think I might act like I did when I got to see Elizabeth Elliot speak. I warned my friend Christy, who is going with me, that I might cry the whole time. Sara Groves just does that to me. Then I warned her that we're going to come back home ready to change the world.





Lastly, Annie learned to clap and is so proud of herself. I hope she takes a bottle from Jeremy tonight!

Things People Said

I haven't written on my blog for a couple weeks because of something someone said. It wasn't said negatively or in a mean way, but the words hung around in my head. We were headed to the park in Sedona as a family outing, and as I packed my camera, Someone (okay, it was Jeremy) said (innocently), "Are you going to write about it on your blog?" And then the insecurities started.

I had all these thoughts like, "Am I trying to be like Julie from Julie and Julia? Or the Pioneer Woman?" to which the answer is "no", but I suddenly felt like my blog was silly. But then some of you said how much you like reading it, and I thought about how much I like writing it. So I decided to continue, though I re-promised myself that I wouldn't write about every little thing that I think of (for those of you who know me well, that's a lot of things).

Here are some other things people have said lately:

--People at MOPS said we should go to this cool park (Sunset Park) in Sedona to get out of the snow, so we went!

The boys' favorite part was not the park (though they loved it), it was when we took a walk down a wash. Evan said, "We're 'splorin' mama. We're wock-kwimin', mama." I was reminded of how long boys can be entertained by throwing rocks into a puddle.


--Sam said he wanted to dress himself. Notice the purple socks as well as the two collared shirts and exercise pants.


He also said he wanted to dress Annie, so I let him pick her outfit. He called her "The Grass Girl."


--Family Circle magazine said I could wash my plastic shower curtain in the washing machine. Do you think they would give me money towards a new shower curtain?


--Someone Else in my house (under the age of 6) said something about me that compared me to one of these:
Which made me ponder whether I am nursing Annie too much around my boys. Someone at church defended the nursing by saying, "Well, it's BIBLICAL!". Enough about that. Probably too much.


--Evan said, "I don't like Annie." I said, "Evan, say something good about her." (scowl) "Like, isn't she cute?" No answer, more scowling. "Evan, think about good things. She always laughs at you. She thinks you're funny." Furrowed brow, long pause. "I don't think I want to be funny anymore."


--Sam has been into computer games lately. He found a page on the Disney site where you can make coloring pictures. The characters even have captions where you can fill in what you want the characters to say. Here is what Sam's characters said:


--Evan says "wery wery" all the time. Like, "I wery wery sad" or "I wery wery don't like it." He reminds me of someone we met in Kazakhstan who we nicknamed "Sergei, The Overbearing Teenager." He was a teenager and very overbearing. One day at the Technopark, he made fun of my Russian-speaking abilities. He said, "When Americans speak Russian, they make many mistakes. When Russians speak English, they speak wery wery tidy." Then he started yelling (at me), "Girl! Girl! Stop laughing at me!"


--Many people have said lately that Annie looks just like Evan. I think she looks more like Sam. What do I know? I'm just her mother.



--Sam just came and showed me this:He said, "Can I take a picture of this and put it on your blog?" Which reminds me of another promise I made: to keep my blog as a record of some of the things that happen in my life, not to create things in my life so that I have something to put on my blog. Thanks for reminding me, Sam.
Yo, peace out!

Fly on the Wall...

If you had been a fly on the wall (or maybe, more appropriately, a fly on my shoulder because I wasn't always near a wall) during my recent trip to CA, you would have seen the following:

--Me throwing things into the car at the last moment (again) because I wasn't as organized as I thought I was (I once again ended up with a million clothes for Annie and 4 jackets for Sam and barely an outfit for Evan, sorry middle child).

--An amazing "golden moon" in the rearview mirror on our drive out to CA.

--Many photo-worthy moments at Disneyland...like Evan's face upon exiting Matterhorn ("I really really like that ride," he whispered, and then burst into tears. I think he meant "I really really didn't like that you convinced me to go on that scary ride against my better judgement and now I'm not sure I'll trust you the rest of the day."), seeing Angela from The Office in line at Small World (get the irony there? By the way, Jeremy said her husband looked like Toby and then Googled her and found out she is married to the actor's brother--the fact that he googled her made me feel better about the fact that I pointed at her and said, "That's Angela from The Office" really loud which was kind of uncool. We would have ridden on the same boat as her if we hadn't been having ice cream/communication problems), and the kids' faces as they watched the amazing fireworks show at the castle (thanks mom, for once again saving seats for me and even watching 3 grumpy kids while getting squashed by the crowd as Jeremy and I went swing dancing for old-times' sake).More pictures weren't taken because of the fact that 3 children are hard to manage at Disneyland

--Sweet reunions with old friends, especially one from Kazakhstan who now lives in the OC (I still can't get over hearing her talk about shopping at Costco and accidentally calling Hank Hannegraff "Frank Flannelgraph"--love you Masha!)

--The boys having a picnic in the front yard, waiting for the postman (postal carrier?) to bring Toy Story 2 (Netflix), and apparently, waiting for the bad guys to show up so a valiant warrior in tool pajamas could shoot them with a broken golf club.

--The fun/work of getting ready for a garage sale...

...my dad trying to be a good sport about it all
...having pouring rain on opening day (though the die-hard garage salers were waiting in the cul-de-sac at 6 am--I still think someone should make a reality show about them...especially the old ladies who pretend that an entire basket of new gloves are 25 cents because I said "most items are 25 cents" or the ladies fighting over an outdated pants suit)


...the boy who left his cookies for us to find later

...my sister and I betting on which outfit would sell first

answer=neither

...the boys fighting over a piece of a broken belt they found

...or Annie adopting a toy that looks like it belongs in the scary neighbor's room in Toy Story 1 not visible in picture=doll's rusted right eye

--Sam going to a Superheroes concert with my mom. After much debate about what his costume should be, he decided to go as a Navy pilot because my sister just got back from delivering food and supplies to the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. I think that's a pretty good hero!I know what the above picture looks like. It's not supposed to, people!


--Evan being bored.
Evan playing in the gutter.
Then Grandpa making him a boat to float in the gutter.
Then Evan sticking the boat into a drain pipe.
Then me giving him a wooden spoon to try to fish it out (later he put the spoon in his mouth--oops! Yuck!).

Then grandpa making him another boat, this one with a long mast (smart Grandpa).

--A delightful stop at Burger King in Kingman in which Evan threw up (might have something to do with the gutter-spoon the day before), Sam ran outside, an old man yelling at me in the playplace because my kids woke him up from his nap, 3 stinky poops, and an older woman telling me what to do with my baby. On a scale of what is a fun experience, this experience was not on the scale.

--This reunion when we came home.

Now I just need to unpack and maybe have a garage sale with all the stuff I brought home from the garage sale.