Noah: I'm voting for Obama.
Gary: Well, you're too young to vote.
Noah: Well I would vote for him if I was old enough to vote.
Gary: Okay
Noah: And if I couldn't vote for Obama, I'd vote for Oprah.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Friday, April 27, 2012
Leaving On a Jet Plane
Gary and I head out with a team from our church to Haiti for a week in just a few short hours. I felt pretty calm until a few hours ago, and now I'm a little weepy. I have been away from The Crazies before, lots, but it is still hard. It is especially hard to leave the wee one and Mylie is having a particularly hard time.
A few prayer requests as we head into our trip...
* Safety for our team, health
* Safety for our children at home
* For Gary and I to find a house to rent!!!
* For God to be glorified in everything we do... in a nutshell, please help us represent Jesus in an honorable way and not to do more harm than good
I will do my very best to update during the trip. I'm expecting great things! I know God will answer our prayers in surprising ways, and I can't wait!
A few prayer requests as we head into our trip...
* Safety for our team, health
* Safety for our children at home
* For Gary and I to find a house to rent!!!
* For God to be glorified in everything we do... in a nutshell, please help us represent Jesus in an honorable way and not to do more harm than good
I will do my very best to update during the trip. I'm expecting great things! I know God will answer our prayers in surprising ways, and I can't wait!
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
He Remembers Me
The roller coaster of emotional highs and lows keeps trucking on. Many days find me somewhat in disbelief that this is the path God has chosen for us. I feel totally and utterly not good enough. I find it very easy to focus on my faults, on my weaknesses, and on the talents that I simply lack. I feel like God picked the wrong person, because I'm pretty inadequate. Through this whole process of preparing to move to Haiti, there has been so many encouraging gifts from God to remind us that He remembers us, He remembers me. I don't want to keep these things to myself, but sometimes I forget how amazing God is, and I take for granted the gifts of encouragement He sends my way, just when I need it most.
One such situation has been trying to find a connection to someone in Haiti. This may sound relatively easy, given there are so many ministries going on in Haiti right now, but it feels like the biggest need, and also the area where we were hitting the most dead ends. We reached out to many people, missionaries, living in Haiti right now, only to be left without any real connection. It felt personal, like they were rejecting us. In truth, there's probably a logical explanation for each person failing to respond to our emails, but it felt frustrating and personal. I prayed that someone would respond. And we waited. And waited. And continued to reach out to anyone we could find. God answered this prayer in a bigger and more complete way than we initially hoped He might. Through a series of bizarre coincidences, although I do not believe it was coincidence, I believe God timed it just so it would work out, we met a couple, Seth and Charity, who just days before had moved to Arizona from Haiti. And not just anywhere in Haiti, but a mere miles from where we hope to live. They are not from Arizona, but are here for about a year so the husband, Seth, can complete training for his pilots' license to fly helicopters for Samaritan's Purse in Liberia. We have spent some time getting to know them, and they have just been a wealth of information for us. They shared with us their contact list in Haiti. We are talking about two year's worth of getting to know people in all sorts of positions in Haiti, including but not limited to, someone who has a house for rent, doctors, nurses, veterinarians, and connected Haitians. This has been an amazing resource for us.
Another encouragement was a visit from one of my favorite friends. My friend Sheila is a friend who I consider one of my "wise counsel" type of friends. She is giving and wise, and a visit with her was just what I needed. Plus, she flew all the way here from Michigan for our big "Meet and Greet" at church. This meant so much to me that she would take the time and money to be here for us for an event that is pretty big in our move preparation. I feel refreshed after her visit, which will make the next couple of weeks much easier and more productive!
In my Bible study at church, we have been doing a study on Thankfulness, using the Bible as well as the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. Through this study, and by practicing the discipline of thankfulness, I can say that today, even in the midst of of quite a bit of chaos (more on that tomorrow!), I'm pretty excited to see how God is going to work this whole thing out.
Thank You God for moments of encouragement during an emotional and often stressful transition!
One such situation has been trying to find a connection to someone in Haiti. This may sound relatively easy, given there are so many ministries going on in Haiti right now, but it feels like the biggest need, and also the area where we were hitting the most dead ends. We reached out to many people, missionaries, living in Haiti right now, only to be left without any real connection. It felt personal, like they were rejecting us. In truth, there's probably a logical explanation for each person failing to respond to our emails, but it felt frustrating and personal. I prayed that someone would respond. And we waited. And waited. And continued to reach out to anyone we could find. God answered this prayer in a bigger and more complete way than we initially hoped He might. Through a series of bizarre coincidences, although I do not believe it was coincidence, I believe God timed it just so it would work out, we met a couple, Seth and Charity, who just days before had moved to Arizona from Haiti. And not just anywhere in Haiti, but a mere miles from where we hope to live. They are not from Arizona, but are here for about a year so the husband, Seth, can complete training for his pilots' license to fly helicopters for Samaritan's Purse in Liberia. We have spent some time getting to know them, and they have just been a wealth of information for us. They shared with us their contact list in Haiti. We are talking about two year's worth of getting to know people in all sorts of positions in Haiti, including but not limited to, someone who has a house for rent, doctors, nurses, veterinarians, and connected Haitians. This has been an amazing resource for us.
Another encouragement was a visit from one of my favorite friends. My friend Sheila is a friend who I consider one of my "wise counsel" type of friends. She is giving and wise, and a visit with her was just what I needed. Plus, she flew all the way here from Michigan for our big "Meet and Greet" at church. This meant so much to me that she would take the time and money to be here for us for an event that is pretty big in our move preparation. I feel refreshed after her visit, which will make the next couple of weeks much easier and more productive!
In my Bible study at church, we have been doing a study on Thankfulness, using the Bible as well as the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. Through this study, and by practicing the discipline of thankfulness, I can say that today, even in the midst of of quite a bit of chaos (more on that tomorrow!), I'm pretty excited to see how God is going to work this whole thing out.
Thank You God for moments of encouragement during an emotional and often stressful transition!
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Five
Our second born hit the big FIVE milestone this week. I am just in awe of how fast this happened. We celebrated in Krull tradition, by taking her to Disneyland by herself. She had us all to herself and it was lovely.
It was a very different experience from when we took Noah on his 5th birthday trip, but even two and a half years ago, we predicted this would be true. They have very different personalities you know. I made the mistake of looking up the weather for Anaheim a few days before we were to depart. It didn't look too good for southern California. Monday and Tuesday were supposed to be sunny, high in the low 70's. Thursday and Friday were supposed to be sunny, high in the low 70's. Wednesday, our Disney day, was supposed to have torrential rains with a high in the 50's. We were very disappointed and thought about doing a spontaneous upset of our travel plans. We just wanted the day to be perfect. Despite our apprehensions, we stuck to the original plan. I'm not gonna lie, I prayed for good weather. I prayed the rains would rain everywhere else, except for over Disneyland. Then, I prayed that if it did indeed rain, that our attitudes would be positive and we would still have a wonderful day even if we got soaked. Well, Wednesday at Disneyland was BEAUTIFUL, the lines were super short, and we made some wonderful memories with our oldest beauty.
Mylie's favorite ride: Thunder Mountain Railroad
Love their happy faces!
Happy fifth birthday Mylie Mae!
Monday, April 2, 2012
Heard Around the House {March 2012}
Mylie: I love Miss Jana. Why is her hair red?
Me: That's just the way God made her.
Mylie: God did not give her red hair. She dyed it. That's just the way God does it sometimes.
Mylie: Dad, do you see that Congratulations up there? That's when mom was Congratulated. (pointing to my diploma, from when I graduated from college)
Noah: What's that smell?
Me: Salmon
Noah: Yuck, it's making me seasick.
Me: That's just the way God made her.
Mylie: God did not give her red hair. She dyed it. That's just the way God does it sometimes.
Mylie: Dad, do you see that Congratulations up there? That's when mom was Congratulated. (pointing to my diploma, from when I graduated from college)
Noah: What's that smell?
Me: Salmon
Noah: Yuck, it's making me seasick.
He is such a ham.
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