Thursday, January 26, 2012


Our kids this afternoon before we said 'bye' to Hannah.


Hannah and her new Kiwi 'Mum and Dad'.

The Main Thing

We dropped Hannah off this afternoon at the home of the lovely people that she'll be living with in New Zealand. Yes, there were tears by all but it was time and she'll do well. We start the 2 day route back home early tomorrow morning.

Times like this make you really evaluate the 'main thing' as a parent. What do I want for Hannah?

While in NZ Aaron had a second seizure meaning that doctor's visits and tests were involved. He's on medication now that will hopefully prevent it from happening again. It wasn't as scary this time since we knew what was happening, but as I sat by his bedside before he regained consciousness and talked to my Father about it, I went on a bit of a mental journey.

What do I ask for? I wanted him better. But what if him being OK is really not OK and this was the start of something really difficult for him (we know NOW that it shouldn't be!). I wanted him here for me but if life became really difficult would I want him here for him? My mind went round and round.

I chiseled away until I got to the point. The bottom line was that I wanted Aaron to know my Father and know Him well. That's it. That's what I want for Hannah, too. That's it.

The rest is secondary!

Monday, January 9, 2012

Fallibility

The other day I got to go to my very first ever rodeo---in New Zealand.  Ironic since I used to live in Texas!  We had a blast sitting on lawn chairs on the hillside beside the corral.  Very fun and family oriented.  

It was the first beautiful sunny day since we arrived here and since where we usually live is so smoggy that it's impossible to get a suntan, we still had unusually fair, sensitive skin.  Lots of sunscreen was applied!

The sunscreen worked pretty well but as I stood in front of the mirror at the end of the day I had to laugh.  While most of my skin was just a bit more tanned than before, there were weird spots all over the place of red that I missed with the sunscreen.  I had remembered my ears but not the lobes where my earrings were,  the crease of one inner arm.  a sliver on the back of the other arm, one strip across the front of my neck.  It looked pretty funny!

It reminded me that I am fallible, that sometimes I can't see the whole picture, and that I often need help to do a good job.

My skin will heal, but there are so many more important things that I am glad I don't have to do in my own strength and under my own power! 

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that (His) power may rest on me."  
2 Cor. 12:9


P.S. Last week we were on holiday and took time off to just have fun!  Yesterday we kicked back into gear a bit by speaking somewhere and have lots of appointments to get together with people this week. That will be fun, too! We're also working on details to settle Hannah in to start school. 

Monday, January 2, 2012

Family

Family is wonderful!!!  We are in New Zealand now to settle Hannah in for college and have just spent a wonderful Christmas and New Years with Steve's family.  It's been so nice to catch up with people and meet some for the first time.  New Year's Eve was especially nice as all of Steve's siblings were together in the same room for the first time in something over 15 years!

                             The siblings

On the way to this event, we stopped by and met someone very special, Steve's aunt who I have never met before.  Auntie Joan is Steve's dad's sister and has been a widow with no children for the past 31 years.  While she is a very quiet person and expressed the fact that she is often lonely, she has put her state in life to good use.  She lives alone and quite simply on a small pension and gives away anything that she sees as excess.   And she sends 'upwards thoughts' all the time.  Her pr.ayer life is amazing.  

It's humbling to have people like her behind us!

We are now at Steve's sister's holiday home that she lets us make 'ours' while we're in NZ.  It was lovely to walk in yesterday and feel right at home!  Five minutes after that the kids ran up the hill to see friends who promptly invited us up for dinner as well.  

We'll be based here for several more weeks catching up with people and speaking different places on the weekends.