The Rocket's Red Glare

Okay, our rockets might not have had a glare to when they went off, but it still was fun.  This year at Padre, my MIL decided that on the night each family cooked, they needed to have an activity as well.  On the night MIL and FIL cooked, their activity was rockets!

While ISH seems a bit skeptical that duct tape, plastic tubing, a pop bottle, and a few pages from a magazine could be fun-

It certainly was!

See

And not just for the kids

And ISH warmed up to it.  And even started running a victory lap after each explosion

But you have to be careful, rocket launching comes with inherent danger

A good time was had by all (and in case you're wondering, the poses my boys have in this picture totally crack me up!)

Happy 4th,

Kiev

When I was 16 a missionary came to my home congregation with videos and pictures and stories of the people in Kiev who were hungry for the gospel message.  The wall had only been down five years and people in this former Soviet country were craving information about God and grace and salvation.

I can still remember how greatly my heart ached to be with those people.  People I had never met.  People I had never really, in all honesty, thought about existing before that moment.  I went home that night and cried.  I desperately wanted to go to Kiev.

I never went to Kiev.

It wasn't from a lack of trying mind you, my parents and I worked to try and arrange it for me on the summer following the missionary's visit and the summer of my 17th year.  I felt like the Apostle Paul. It felt as though I was being kept from Kiev.  Despite my trying, it just wasn't right.

Since Kiev was closed to me, my dad contacted a missionary he knew in Germany and helped arrange for me to spend a month working at the Gemunde Freizeitheim with German children during their summer camps.  It wasn't Kiev, but it was an amazing experience of mentoring- both me mentoring to the girls I was working with and the older Christian women at the camp mentoring me.

At the camp I met a girl named Jenny.  Her mother was sick with cancer and died while I was there.  But because I was there, and not in Kiev, I was able to hold her and comfort her- even with my kinder Deutsch.  God used me where I was, as I was.

Last Sunday the pulpit minister at my church preached a sermon in preparation for our Mission Sunday on July 11.  He was making the point that if we are breathing, we have a mission.  Preaching that if we are willing, whether it be in our town or across the world, God will use us where we are, as we are.  In the sermon Mark said

There are many times in scripture where God does not act until we act on our faith.

This was exactly the case for me with Kiev.  While Kiev never, or thus far at least hasn't, happened for me, had I not allowed God to touch my heart with the call for missionaries to go to Kiev, I doubt that at 17 I would have pursued traveling to German alone to work with people whom I could only moderately speak with in their native tongue.  I would have never learned all the valuable lessons that I did from making that trip (like how to pack light for starters!).  And, I would not have been there with Jenny.

Now, I firmly believe, as a friend of mine messaged to me on facebook a few weeks ago, that

If there is a ministry, GOD will create it. If God wants to sustain a ministry, then He will do it with or without you. If God wants something to happen, He will provide. If you make the decision to be or not to be a part, then God will still take care of it.

So it's not that I think Jenny would have not been without comfort had I not been there- but more that my life would have not been shaped by that moment if someone else had been Jesus with skin on to her.  My future, my faith, my thought process from that summer forward would have been different had I not acted on faith to step forward and let God use me.

If you remember, a few weeks back I was having a bit of a prayer crisis.  Feeling, if you will, a "call to Kiev" while having great doubts that it was the best choice.  This time it wasn't the political stability or lack-of-electricity-safety-concerns that were keeping my from fully moving forward with a call that was being placed so strongly on my heart- it was the suitcase full of questions weighing me down.  Keeping me from fully committing to the journey.

And specifics of that call, as LK and I boiled down the options, were not best.  We did not need to go to "Kiev."  But through being willing to move on faith- to look into it as a viable possibility- "German" doors were opened to an option that just feels right.

I'll admit, there is some apprehension as we start out on this new ministry- there normally is with something new isn't there?  But I feel such peace with this choice- a choice I would have never thought of had I not moved on faith towards "Kiev."  And I'm looking forward to the ways God will provide opportunities for growth with this new adventure, ways my family can, as we are all excitedly onboard, be Jesus with skin on to others here in "Germany."

How to Cook What Your Family Doesn't Like

Sweet Vidalia Onion Casserole, page 47 
It's really unfortunate that Geo can read.  I thought that I could cook this and serve it and if ISH didn't know that it was made with onions he would eat it and be none-the-wiser.  The plan was going brilliantly until ... Geo comes into the kitchen, reads the recipe and announces to ISH that I'm serving onions for dinner. BUSTED!  At least the other three in this family liked it.  But then when you add butter, sour cream, cream cheese, swiss and monterey jack cheese and top it off with Parmesan - well, how could anyone not like it?  Unless that "anyone" didn't like onions of course.  The best part is that I didn't take into consideration that the Florida Keys Citrus Chicken (below) that I served with this involves cooked fruit (which Geo doesn't like) so I rooked over both kids in one meal.  Best. Mom. Ever.

Southwestern Pizza, page 120
Geo's been asking to make this for about a month now and I just hadn't gotten around to it.  But it was well worth the ... well ... I can't say "effort" because it was just too simple for "effort" to be anywhere involved in it's description!  I had all the pieces ready to go and then came home from church on Sunday and threw it all together and presto!  Yummy Mexicali pizza.  LK and I were pretty sure the leftovers wouldn't keep well  so we only made two (because the tortillas are pretty good size) and divided the slices among the four of us and then kept the other pieces ready to make for lunch later on this week.  I used fresh tomatoes instead of canned since we're in the summer and fresh are readily available and I omitted the green onions (only because you have to buy the whole bunch for just one green onion.  Then the rest of them end up just hanging out in the fridge, hopeful to be used-- and I really hate to disappoint produce).  But the Creole seasoning! I've never used it before, however, I'm thinking this might become like the Greek seasoning that we used on pork chops all the time growing up.  This is good stuff!

Florida Keys Citrus Chicken, page 123
So I'm pretty picky about chicken.  Knowing this about myself I should have used thinner chicken breasts.  They were a bit too thick for what I like.  I'm also thinking that this could have been fun with a bit of honey cooked in too.  (Really I think I like the sauce more than chicken-- I think I could be a vegetarian if it wasn't for the fact that if you don't get the nutrients meat provides your hair could fall out and I'm bad with balancing nutrients anyway and my hair is waaaay to much of who I am for it to fall out).  I did like the way the red peppers (not too hot for everyone with only it's 1/8 tsp), garlic, ginger, lime and oranges all played nice together.

And now.... now it's time to get down to the dessert this week.  Chunky Chocolate Cookies, page 184.  LK doesn't really like nuts (man! I did a poor job picking food that didn't stomp on my family's dislike button this week!  I mean really!  Onions! Cooked Fruit! Nuts!  And how do you tell your family you love them!).  But he did say he felt like they weren't too overwhelming in the cookies.  I wasn't sure if I was buying the right cake mix because Duncan Hines had two boxes- one said chocolate fudge cake and the other said dark chocolate cake, but the dark chocolate cake had a fudge recipe on the back so I figured it was right.  I used dark brown sugar instead of regular.  I had both on hand but was feeling the dark brown call to me when it was baking time- so it won.  I used chopped pecans (she gives the choice between pecans and walnuts).

She says to butter a cookie sheet but I didn't feel the need because I have Pampered Chef stones (she said in her snooty tone voice-- the same voice the Vanderbilt recruiter used when he told her they don't have journalism at Vanderbilt).  I was wrong though.  These cookies need to be put on a buttered cookie sheet because they bake pretty thin and so they either crumble all gooey like if you take them off the sheet while hot or stick if you wait to long.  But really- crumbly or not they are good.  In fact, it would be a good idea to make these when you have company coming over so you're not temped (as I now am) to eat the whole batch yourself.

And of course, it's always good to have some helpers on hand for clean up time.

Happy eating!

Random Thought Thursday: In Need of a Wilderness Trek

What time is it: 1103A

Where am I: on the second level of the backyard, on the outdoor couch, wearing the coolest clothes (temperature-wise) I could find to not be hot while I (finally) trimmed some trees and pulled weeds.

Listening to: The boys vacillate between bickering, complain, and laughing over making the hose "fart"

Last ate: a maple flavored Nature Valley granola bar

Thoughts: Never before have I known a 7 year old boy who needed 1 hour (no exaggeration) of convincing that june bugs were not poisonous spiders incognito, that ants were not big enough to harm him, and that the outside is not a place to be feared.


I admit I am not the biggest outside kid myself, but I my ritual of being outside does not include sitting and listing everything I hate about being outside for no less than 60 minutes before someone finally places me outside the back gate and tells me to not come back until I've learned how to have fun.


I try to be a parent that listens and tries to understand where the fear come from so that he feels I empathize with him and will continue to want to talk to me about his emotions and thoughts.  But seriously!  Anyone know of a good wilderness trek program I can send this kid to so that he can get over this "I hate the outdoors" complex?

Effects of Living in a Cashless House

LK: boys, you've been very good today. I would like to get you a treat. So would you like to have a reeces peanut buttercup or cookie dough blizzard to share?

Geo: cookie dough

ISH: reeces!

Me (taking my cue from a recent Arthur episode): how about we flip for it. Geo, do you want heads or tails?

--moments pass as we explain to the boys what change is and what heads of a coin is verses tails --

Geo: heads

ISH: tails!

Me: um ... LK? ... Do you have any change?

We'll Make Great Pets

Or at least this dog did.

This week's photo challenge for iheartfaces is pets.  This dog isn't mine but is one that was at the library for a special reading night I took the boys to.  After Geo finished reading, Tatum (the dog) did a few tricks in appreciation for a job well done.

click on the iheartfaces logo to view more entries

Photo Challenge: Food

Mandy's photo challenge this week is food.  And those of you who have been reading this blog longer than a week have probably been able to figure out that food is one of the things I photograph most.  But here's a photo of food that I'm pretty sure I've yet to post.  It was from when I made the Pampered Chef confetti recipe for our small group Bible study.  Dripping chocolate- kinda makes you want to reach in there, grab to spoon and start licking.