That's Life Kid!

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...

So, as I mentioned before, we were living out a normal life. A stay at home mom homeschooling her kids. An oil and gas salesman, working long hours. How could we make a dent in the sad reality of Guatemalan people? And as we prayed those prayers, God began to form us into an answer. Our pastor here in the states gave us a friend of a friend contact in Guatemala. A pastor of a 12,000 member church in Guatemala City. His daughter agreed to meet with us for coffee in Antigua. We had no idea why we were meeting with her and she even asked us why we were meeting. We could only answer that we were taking baby steps toward anything God put in our path. As we talked, our jaws simultaneously dropped. She (a Guatemalan) had attended college in our home town. She had even tried our church out twice! Now, only God can orchestrate that. Her dad had run for president of Guatemala in the previous elections and had lost. Her family felt like God was leading them to make a big change in th...

We are a pretty normal family. I mean, if normal means we can still be kind of weird and like it that way. But, we are like anyone else. We like to take fancy family pictures. Just a side note: Do not attempt three outfit changes for your family for outside pictures. Bicyclers and runners WILL come by at inopportune moments...... We like to have fun. We love vacations and our creature comforts. It's nice to jump in our cars and go wherever we want, Target being my main destination.  But then, in the midst of normal life, God began pulling us here: This is Guatemala City dump. Over 1,000 people live right around this enormous trash pile. They work there every day and they raise their families in the middle of the smell and sight of a whole city's trash. Their kids grow up believing that this is all they will ever be and the cycle continues. Very few ever get out. What started for our family as a one time, 8 day mission trip became a passion. As our past...

So, I've been away from my blog for a while. Busyness took over. I started homeschooling our three girls. Homeschooling three girls looks a lot like my daughter's hair in the picture above. It's totally crazy. It's fun and rewarding, but it's also flat out crazy. I have been at my pinnacle when my girls compared a painting they saw to a Seurat painting and I hoped everyone around us heard. And I've been at my lowest when my oldest made me a picture of the American flag. Which she made into a triangle. Which she spelled Mrica. Which I hid in my purse so no one would judge. But I've missed getting to share from my heart. I've missed purposefully finding those little jewel moments of my day so I could share them here. And so I'm back. I'm not sure how often, but I'm back. And I can't wait to share the HUGE changes that God has made in our lives over this last year. Huge! As in, so big that we are out of our league, out of our comf...