I Am Rich

No, I'm not bragging. I'm just making an observation. Often times when I'm at someone else's home or I'm out shopping I see a lot of things I would love to have...if only we could afford it! But even if I had the money to buy every little thing I wanted, where would it end? I can't imagine there being an end to the things money could buy. And we've had a lot of fun lately buying things we saved up for. My new ring, a beautiful dining room table, a kayak and camping gear, new clothing and more!

When I think about it, about everything God has blessed us with, including the food before me...I feel rich! Massively blessed! So what if our car, yes the one car that Peter & I share, is 18 years old. It's never broken down or had to be repaired once and we don't even take very good care of it, ha! There are people, countless people, on the planet right now who are struggling--REALLY STRUGGLING--just to get through today and to see that their children do the same. I just can't even fathom that kind of poverty. We are so richly blessed and I don't take it for granted for even a second (or at least I try not to!).

Right now we're in a place we've been in more than once in our 12 years of marriage. It has become so familiar by now! We are living by faith and trusting God to meet our needs. I am working VERY part-time for a business we sold to my father-in-law at the beginning of the year. Peter is also working part-time for both the business he helped our friend Paul start in Kona (which we also own a fraction of) and also for his father's business. His father's business. We are about our Father's business. So much time can be wasted just trying to figure out how to make ends meet. But if we are about our Father's business, what do we have to worry about? If we're about His business, He's about taking care of us! And He always, always, always, ALWAYS has...and in the most miraculous ways, too.

We're debt-free, we're blessed, we're rich, we don't owe anyone anything other than an encounter with God. That is our Father's business and that is the bank we are investing in. Might I add it is also the only bank that is eternal!

Anyway, just sitting here having a midnight snack (literally, it's midnight) and pondering these things. Good night!

It's New Year, a New Day

Well today seemed like a good enough day to finally write my first blog of the year, ha! Oh well. I originally started this blog to journal about the shift taking place in our family as we moved to Hawaii, added a daughter to our number, and basically started a whole new life here on this beautiful island. A year, 1 month and 10 days later... things definitely look different than we expected. But that's to be expected, right?

I didn't even look back at what I last wrote about or if I've written about Camp Hawaii being put on the shelf. We recently had a meeting with Jenny & Sully to wrap up what he had begun with them here, at least in regards to the camp and worship school on their land. I still believe 100% that we're exactly where God wants us to be and we've been faithful with what He's given us. He knew this camp thing wasn't going to fly, at least not in the way we were all going about it. I think it was all a ploy to get us to move here to Kohala, haha. Why else would we have moved to the ends of the earth on this distant island?

A lot has happened in the past year, during our month-long trip to California and since our return to the island. To sum it up... Mark is finishing up his senior year and turned 18 in December. Just last week he got his Hawaii provisional driver's license. Alex is thriving at his Kohala Elementary School in 1st grade. His reading has just taken off and so has his love for building, drawing and learning about God. His desire to read the Bible (the children's version) is fueling his desire to learn to read even more. Aaron is working out his issues at a ripe 2 years of age. He is now sleeping in a pack 'n play in our room because his fear of an earthquake in his bed was so great that he couldn't sleep at night. He presents daily challenges for us and we just love him to pieces. He's as charming and adorable as he is wild-hearted! Alyma Joy was born in Hawaii, right where she was always meant to be born, our little Hawaiian flower. :) At 9 months of age now, she's cruising around wherever she wants to go and already playing hide-and-seek with her brothers.

Peter sold Mammoth Front Desk to his dad as of January 1. This was something the Lord prompted us to do and it's been a great blessing for all involved. Peter has been freed up from the operations side of the business and is now putting in some hours for his dad managing the business accounting and month-end process. Selling the business allowed us to FINALLY pay off our debts which had loomed over our heads like a great weight since we started college. So after a year of rest (or sabbatical), we returned to Hawaii entering into a year of jubilee. In biblical times, this year of jubilee occurred every 50 years following a year of sabbatical (when the land would rest). The year of jubilee meant that all debts were cancelled. We didn't arrange it that way in our own lives, but God did. It's been fun to see everything line up as we realized jubilee occurred every 50 years, we live in the 50th state which just celebrated it's 50th anniversary. Also YWAM, a major missions center here on the island, is celebrating their 50th anniversary and calling it a year of jubilee. They are celebrating all year around the world in various ways with a grand party wrapping it up here in Kona at the end of the year. We're looking forward to being a part of it all as we increase our ties with YWAM.

Selling the business has brought many blessings to us. Along with being debt-free we actually have a savings account and money in the bank that is budgeted for various things like finally buying a kitchen table (yeah!) and going to the dentist! On the top of Peter's list was to buy me something he's wanted to buy me since we first got engaged almost 13 years ago...a new wedding ring! He presented that to me on Valentine's Day with all the kids there while we were having dinner in town. I LOVE IT and I love my husband and I'm excited about what God has in store for us this year.

Which brings me to my final point... we don't really know what God has in store for us in Hawaii now, we just know He wants us here and we're to trust Him. So we've set aside the next 21 days to seek the Lord, spending time in prayer and worship, and we're believing He's gonna show us what's next. Peter already had an interesting meeting today, on day 1 of 21. He met with Pastor Tom, a new (and possibly interim?) pastor of a local historical church (cool info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elias_Bond). A friend of ours who attends the church put he and Peter in contact in hopes of getting a Friday night worship service going with Peter leading it. The original 151-year-old building belonging to the Kalahikiola Church was destroyed in the 2006 earthquake and just recently rebuilt. Peter got a tour of it today.

Tonight I will be starting a new women's Bible study I'm calling Living Free. I'm very excited about it and surprised to have at least a dozen ladies--most of them in my age group--who are going to be a part of it. After taking a year off from ministry, it feels right to be heading back into it like we are now.

So that's enough for now. If you're reading this and feel the urge to pray for us over the next 21 days, we'd be very grateful!

Aloha

Sadness With A Side of Hope

Ya know, I am just really sad right now. Mark was upstairs with me earlier and just paced back and forth beside the couch I'm sitting on telling me point blank, "I don't like you." over and over again. What do you do when your child tells you that? What do you say? "I don't like you either?" That's what I feel like saying when he says that. Instead I say things like, "I'm sorry you don't like me, Mark." or "I love you, anyway." Inside, I'm going off! I'm holding him by the shirt collar (if he was wearing a collar) saying, "Don't you even wonder where you might be if we had never adopted you? Aren't you even a bit thankful that we took you out of that group home and brought you home with us, got a special room prepared for you and put you in the best school we could find? We've done everything we could possibly think of to help you and show you we love you and what do we get in return? Ungratefulness. Complaining. False accusations. Hate. Will you one day wake up and realize the sacrifices we've made for you? We didn't adopt you for the Brownie points or a pat on the back, but a little gratitude would be nice someday. Instead, you don't like me. I try to help you and you say I'm harassing you and you're going to call the police. This is not what I had hoped for 9 years ago when we grafted you into our family. What I see now makes me feel ill because it is so sad and feels so hopeless. But I do have hope because I believe in God and I believe nothing is impossible with Him. I believe in miracles. I know that there is no situation too big and no heart too hard for God to penetrate and shine His light. And that is all I have to hold onto, Mark. I am scared for your future, but I release you into God's hands and know He can take better care of you than I can. I pray that someday your eyes will be opened and your heart will be healed and you'll be able to love and to feel emotion and to let people into your life. There are a lot of people who love and care about you and we aren't giving up on you."

Happy New Year (to me)

So I turned 35 yesterday. 35. 35. Really? 35??? I don't feel as grown-up as I sound. Yes, I've been married for 12 years. Yes, I have 4 children. Yes, I have made 4 major moves (even across the ocean) since I graduated high school. Maybe I really am 35. For some reason the sound of 35 is years older than 34.

This birthday felt like a big one for me. It's not just another year like any other birthday. It's a 5 birthday. Those 0's and 5's are big ones, you know. And my next 0 is the big 4-0 (yikes!). haha! I really am entering a new chapter in my life. I'm done having babies (sniff sniff). I'm even done nursing (as of the day before my birthday). No longer will I be growing or feeding any mini humans. Now it's time to raise this beautiful family God has gifted us with. I love just looking at them and smiling, remembering the days when I used to wonder what my family would look like when I grew up. And now I'm looking at their sweet faces and they're mine! Such treasures they are.

Seeing as how this birthday felt like New Years Eve to me, I thought I should make some resolutions:

1) Lose 36 pounds by my 36th birthday. This will require actually getting out of the house and exercising from time to time, so I realize this is a big goal, but I'm gonna go for it. I used some of my birthday money (funny how at 35 bday money is still a thrill) to buy a heart rate monitor to help motivate me to burn some calories!

2) Let the creative juices flow. Yes, I am a creative person. I didn't used to believe this since I can't draw or paint to save my life, but I do love to create and make things, to touch beautiful fabrics, soft yarns and sticky Mod-Podge. I feel like I never have time to spend on hobbies anymore, but I must find a way! My husband did buy me a new sewing machine for my birthday, so this is definitely a step in the right direction.

3) Start a business. Just what we need around here, right? Another business? Well, my husband isn't the only entrepreneur in this family. I really do want to start a business that works with my life as a mom and a wife. Ideally, it will have something to do with resolution #2.

Well, there are several other areas of life I could make resolutions in, but I don't want get carried away to the point where I won't be able to achieve any or all of these things. I'm going to start with these three things and see how we do. So here we are, 35. I'm excited to see how we have shaped up a year from now.

"We can only be said to be ALIVE in those moments when our HEARTS are CONSCIOUS of our TREASURES". - Thorton Wilder

Funky Foods

One thing I am loving about living in Hawaii is the endless array of new foods to enjoy. Dragonfruit, starfruit, rambutan, lychee, longan, lilikoi and the list goes on.



I try to eat as healthy as we can afford to and it really helps when good food like this grows on trees where we can get it for free! Or, like last night, when sweet friends bring some to share. This photo on the left is of longan (pronounced like long-gone). I don't know what family of fruits this falls under, but it reminds me very much of lychee and rambutan, which is pictured on the right.



Who would ever guess that such things were edible? Both of these fruits have a hard outer shell and a soft fruit inside with a pit. This photo below is of the inside of a longan fruit.


To compare it to any other food I'm familiar with, I'd say it's most like a grape on the inside. Someday when we own our own home (hopefully in Hawaii, but who knows), I look forward to planting as many fruit-bearing trees as possible. I've never had much of a green thumb, but if I can't learn in Hawaii I don't know where I ever would!

The Great Unknown

It's way past my bedtime, but I just have this *thing* I can't explain and I need to write. I've been doing really well with our recent direction change here (no longer pursuing Camp Hawaii with Jenny & Sully). I don't know if I'm having a weak moment or if the reality of this transition is sinking in at deeper levels, but it feels scary and wild and free all at once. I guess I could say it feels like I'm riding a bike without training wheels for the first time; just that feeling of sudden speed and freedom and being almost-but-not-quite out of control. And then realizing, "This is either going to end in a graceful stop or an ugly crash!"

The future is so hidden right now. I don't need to know it all, but usually we have somewhat of a plan to refer to as we make decisions, you know. All I know right now is that we are going to Cali for a month very soon. When we return, we have just a few weeks left in our lease here in Kapaau. What then? I can't see deciding to move out of the area at that point as Alex and Mark would still be in school. I catch myself daydreaming and wondering about what it would be like to move to Waimea or Kona or even off of the island. I don't think I really mind if we stay and I don't mind if we go. It's great here and it could be great in other places as well.

Peter has spent hours on the phone with Albie lately, just talking about what's gone on here and what the future could look like. Of course Albie tells a lot of great stories, some that we've heard more times than we can count and a few that are new. We are so thankful for him and his investment in our lives. What an honor to be loved by the "Littlest Angel." Ha! And tomorrow Pastor Eric & Peggy are coming to see us, friends from the Mammoth area. They've been tracking with us since our days back at Father's Heart Ranch in the desert. I'm excited to hang out with them and can already anticipate the comfort of just being with people who are familiar to us, like a little piece of home right here in Hawaii.

I am so looking forward to seeing what God does with this whole situation and where He takes us next, I am wishing there was a fast forward button on our life just so I could take a sneak peek! I have a love/hate relationship with surprises. Gifts and surprises are great, but the anticipation of such a great unknown just about drives me crazy!

Well, I really do need to get to bed. Strangely I have been sleeping better for the past few nights than I have in a couple of months. My familiar struggle with insomnia returned at three months postpartum. But it really hasn't been an issue for the past 3-4 nights. I think it's the molasses I've been putting in my oatmeal. That's another story, but I'm not kidding!

Backpacks

Yet again, I haven't blogged in a while. Of course the usual reason is lack of time, which is true. But I've also been dealing with some deep stuff in many areas. I haven't known quite what to say about it all yet. One such area actually has to do with a very heavy backpack. This little girl somewhat resembles me as a child, so I chose her image to illustrate this blog entry. I know how she feels because I, too, have carried a heavy backpack. Somehow I don't even know when I put it on or when it became so heavy. Even so, it weighed me down more than I realized. The sad part is that it didn't just weigh me down, but my family as well.

I recently had my eyes opened to the fact that I've been carrying around a backpack full of offenses. It's crazy how those things can start out so small and end up larger than life, to the point where life itself is difficult to enjoy. Having lived in snow country, I have seen the snowball effect first-hand. Lots of little snowflakes can eventually lead to something as devastating as an avalanche, wiping out everything in it's path.

I would have to say I've felt heavy for many years. My husband has, over the course of our 12+ years together, shared with me that I sometimes bring a certain degree of weight into the atmosphere of our home. And you know I'm not talking about the stubborn baby weight that clings to my motherly self. I'm talking about the spirit of our home. It's not fun news to hear, but I have come to see it as my own personal inconvenient truth. Alex recently confirmed this upon my return from a trip to California when he said, "Mom, we have more fun when you're gone." Ouch. Honest words from a 6-year-old cut straight to the heart. A first reaction is to become angry over such a hurtful statement, but in this situation I was granted the grace to be able to take it in and receive his raw feelings as an exhortation. Mom, you need to figure out how to lighten your load because you're not fun to be around.

So I have taken a step in this direction. I have removed the proverbial backpack and set it at the feet of Jesus. "My yoke is easy and my burden is light." He never intended for us to carry so much weight. And I never intended to weigh down my own family as I have. So now begins the process of learning to keep that excess baggage off of my back and outside of our home. I hope you don't mind my frankness here, but the reason why I started this blog was so that I could have a place to process life in written form. If you want to join me, you're welcome to. If not, I certainly will not be offended!