Sunday, November 23, 2008

Travels, Work, & Harley

Hello! Steve's in Fiji right now. The team he's currently leading is a group of about 20 photographers who are in Fiji being taught by a professional photographer how use their skills to promote 'M". Steve's enjoying the change of pace with this team. He gets home tomorrow night.

The kids and I had a busy weekend here. Our neighbor across the street is a single mom in a wheelchair with a spinal injury. I've longed to find a way to help her substantially since we met. I haven't had the resources beyond the occasional helping hand and listening ear, however.

Steve and I were asked a while back to organize service opportunities for people living in our part of town on behalf of our local body, so this Saturday we finally got to do something for our neighbor! It was a great day of getting members in the area to join together and show the our Father's love to her. We had a good group show up who did all kinds of yard work, deep cleaning on the inside, organizing her garage, etc. There's even a mechanic who's offered to do some badly needed work on her car for free if we raise funds for the parts. It was a great time of fellowship as well! I was pleased to see potential new friendships start for her. It will be nice to know that there are others in the area ready to help her after we go.

I also think that it's about time to show the progress on Steve's 1942 military Harley. Some have teased that it's the 'other woman' but Steve's good about not letting himself get TOO obsessed with the project! Plus, there have been two little boys out there trying to 'help' most of the time. Cute for me to watch and great for the boys! Probably not always easy for Steve (!), but he's been very patient to embrace it as bonding experience with them.

The bike's been totally stripped down into many parts, missing parts found on Ebay, sanded, repainted, etc. The main body is now mostly finished and Steve's moved on to the engine. And I'm sure he could explain this all WAY better than I can. He's having a ball!


Thursday, November 13, 2008

Adam and Dad carving!

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Our fun weekend:

We were blessed this week to have our dear friends Sammy and Tammie from Midland, TX, come through for a visit! It was great catching up with them, showing them around town, and introducing them to some Fijian and S.E. Asian foods. Tammie's such a great chef that we knew that anything we could cook that was 'American', wouldn't be better than what she could fix for herself!

Steve, Heather, Aaron, and Adam spent Sunday afternoon at the racetrack attending a NASCAR competition that included all of the top drivers in the sport. Steve commented that he was glad that that wasn't the kind of racing that he had done (just going around and around the track 312 times seemed a bit boring to him!) but we had a great time together, enjoyed the amazing skill of the drivers, and had several interesting crashes happen right in front of where we were seated much to the boys' delight especially since all of the drivers walked away from the crashes! It was a very special blessing because Steve had quietly looked online a while back at tickets and decided that they were far too pricey for our tight budget. Last week at our cell group, however, a friend who had no idea of our interest handed us 4 tickets to the finals that he had received from his office. Our Father is good at blessing his kids!

Friday, November 7, 2008

More Visitors from NZ:


We had a wonderful surprise last week as long-term friends of Steve's, Andrew and Melissa, detoured down our way for the night after seeing the Grand Canyon on their way back to Los Angeles. Andrew had been working in the States for a month and Melissa came and joined him for a bit of a holiday before he went home. They came by the house in Fiji with Steve shortly before Terry died, so I knew them a bit already as well.

We had a great time visiting together and showed them around Phoenix some the next day before the continued on their journey. They were even nice enough to watch the kids play their homeschool sports soccer matches before they left!