That's Life Kid!

Ever feel like the cares of the world are sitting on your shoulders? Sometimes you don't even realize it's happening until you are almost physically hunched over. You go along, nose to the grindstone day after day until you realize that you haven't looked up in quite a while. Looking up is one of God's greatest gifts of peace. The biggest stress reliever ever created.  After getting a series of stressful emails demanding answers, I looked up from my busy, stressed out grindstone mentality yesterday and saw my 5 year old sitting right next to me, laughing. I actually had the privilege of watching unconfined joy spill out into the room. And, I had the added benefit of being able to do a momma nuzzle on her soft cheek. Wow! My eyes were opened to see what true riches are and how they are right at my fingertips on a daily basis if I just have the eyes to see them. www.DaveMorrowPhotography.com This time of year, God is painting beautiful scenes like this...

Forget feeling good about yourself, it's becoming increasingly difficult to feel even ok about yourself. Social media is in front of our faces constantly. You might get on FB to check on your distant family, but get hit by pictures of the latest fabulous party. The party that looks 100% prettier than the one you last threw. The party that many of your friends were invited to, but somehow you didn't make the cut.  Then you click over to Pinterest to browse. And there, you can see the wedding pictures that were more beautifully & creatively posed than yours, the perfectly staged house that looks nothing like the crumb covered mess you are living in, and the children's crafts that make your child's last craft session look like someone from The Croods family made it.  We have to fight against comparison stronger than ever before. We have to have God's anchor deep down in our hearts. So that when the strong blast of the waves hit us, we stay pointed up.  D...

What would your perfect day look like? This question has been popping up over and over in my reading this week. I think I gave up on perfect days a loooong time ago. So when I first saw that question this week, I quickly dismissed it as a silly, unattainable quest. Life knocks us around quite a bit, hopes are dashed and we sort of give up. Eventually, we end up going with the flow, letting life push us downstream. We focus on the rough current. When we finally look up, years are gone.  How ironic is it that I can, with conviction, tell a person living in trash that they should grab ahold of the hope that God has for them to get out of that place, but I am too scared to dream bigger for myself? That is weak. We are only as strong, successful, and fulfilled to the degree with which we allow God to operate in our lives. If we don't open those places in our hearts and begin to dream with God, those dreams will never happen. It doesn't matter how farfetched and silly those ...

This is the community built around the dump. They have plenty of opportunities to live in fear. Fear of going hungry, fear of abandonment, fear of dying. There is so much panic and fear being spewed out of the media machine right now. If we aren't worried about an ISIS attack, we are worried about the person next to us coughing. They might have enterovirus or, even worse, ebola. We attended a big football game in Dallas last weekend. It never crossed our minds to avoid that area. We also flew our family to Guatemala three weeks ago. Several people wondered if we had been scared to fly overseas. But focusing on fear was never a part of our trip planning. Is that because we are special or superhuman? Not at all. If we had the time, I could tell you all about my past full of anxiety and worry. I could go on and on about how it has tried to consume me in different seasons of my life. But, God has taught me to reject fear. Fear doesn't change my circumstances. It doesn't he...

Poor Jason. This picture was from his Guatemala trip last week with our friend and board member, Scott. To get to our schools in the mountains, they had to climb aboard a small airplane, which had to land on a tiny strip of gravel covered runway. The police had to be called to move the drunks off the runway so they could land. After a big bounce and sliding sideways, they finally came to a stop. Needless to say, it was pretty stressful! The people in this mountain area have been labeled: Rejects. A people taken from their home years ago and dropped off in the middle of a mountainous no-where, left to survive on their own. No wonder they have the highest suicide rate in the entire nation of Guatemala! So their government has done a pretty good job of selling them their label as rejects. How have people tried to define you? Circumstances and life experiences work to make us feel less than what God intended. But the truth is, each of us is uniquely made by God. How do we keep our...

Would you want this mural painted on the walls of your child's school? Take a good look at what is happening in the picture. This mural was painted on the entire width of one of the schools we will be in next January. We can't fix the situations these kids are facing, but we can help them find the life-giving power and hope of Jesus.  Dirty, broken pavement and barbed wire fences might be what the school kids see every day in the 6 schools we have been gifted for our pilot program. But, once a week, they will be taught to look beyond their circumstances.  According to the Inter-American Development Bank, barely 40 percent of Hispanic children graduate from secondary schools. International comparisons show Latin America at the bottom of the education barrel scoring on par with Sub-Sahara Africa. Here is the hope we bring: In Bolivia, our curriculum has Increased graduation rates by 45% Reduced dropout rates by 37% High school graduates advancing to any other typ...

"Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.....I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well." Teddy Roosevelt Has anyone else ever noticed the numb complacency that wants to settle over our lives like a heavy blanket? As soon as we sit back and get comfortable, it creeps in. We forget what it felt like to truly come alive. It becomes easier to shut our eyes and our ears to the hurting community all around us. And we let entertainment fill our days and lull us to sleep until we are contained like sleeping giants.  What is it that we should be doing?  Ephesians 4:7-13 MSG: He climbed the high mountain, He captured the enemy and seized the booty, He handed it all out in gifts to the people...... Gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor-teacher to train Christ's followers in skilled servant work in the body of Ch...

Have you ever started a 1,000 piece puzzle? It is overwhelming. You dump out all the tiny pieces and your first thought is "this is too much." You almost want to scoop all those itty pieces back into the box, close the lid, and stick it on a shelf in the closet. That's how it feels when we focus on the hurting people around us. Whether we are overseas, or in our own neighborhoods, we bump into too much need. It can be so overwhelming that we just shut down and shut it all out. But, what if you shift your perspective? Instead of focusing on helping someone get all 1,000 pieces together (who has time for that?), what if you took time to see what they really need? Perhaps they just lost their lid. You know, the lid with the completed puzzle picture on it? Maybe they just need you to take them to God's Word to remind them of the completed picture. Another might just need you to help them get the edge pieces together-- to give them a starting place. For others, you mi...

Scars and struggles on the way. But with joy our hearts can say. Yes our hearts can say..... This Matt Redman song has been running through my head today. This last week has been a struggle. Ever feel like the enemy has put a nice, big target on your back? Suddenly you are under fire from all sides? We thought we were handling the pressure of family life, work life, and mission work life ok. In fact, I recently had a friend ask me how I was fitting it all in: Skype calls, U.S. non-profit business meetings, Guatemala non-profit business emails, interviews, buying plane tickets, booking hotels, cooking, housework, and homeschooling. I flippantly said that God was just working it all out and we were flying above it all. Then suddenly, this weekend, we are yelling at each other in the car. Fighting about this business issue and that business decision. So now, we are both offended and in heavy silence mode. But I decide to be the bigger person and offer him a piece of gum from my pur...

I remember my oldest's first roller coaster experience. We were at Disney World and she was 4. As we stood in line for Goofy's Barnstormer kiddie coaster, she became fearful. The closer we got, the bigger the drops and loops appeared. By the time it was our turn, she was in full-fledged panic, her arms wrapped tightly around us. We finally took a step to the side and said, "If you will stop fighting this and just get on that ride, I promise you will have the time of your life".  Looking into our eyes, she let go. As the roller coaster climbed that first drop, she was still apprehensive. She thought she wanted off the ride. But then something happened. As we sailed down and into a loop, she stopped gripping the handrail and put her arms into the air. "Wheeee!" She was having a blast. As soon as the ride ended, she was begging to go again and again and again. In the end, we had to tear her away from Goofy's Barnstormer! Two years later, my...

What does a warrior look like? Is it someone who is perfect? Someone who finds life easy, always doing the right thing, always having the right answer? Is it the toughest of the tough? Never been wounded because they're too strong for that? I think that deep in everyone's heart is the desire to be a warrior. To have a life of adventure. To make a difference in the world.  Now, I'm not going to define what your adventure or you making a difference looks like because there is such a wide range for that. But I do want to talk about a couple of characteristics of warriors. Scars. We all have them. Life knocks us around and no one escapes without some kind of battle scar. The good news is, scars mean a wound has healed. They are proof that we didn't die, we weren't defeated or completely crushed beyond repair. So, what do we do with those scars? Do we pick at them for the rest of our lives? Reliving over and over the pain that we experienced and the injustice o...