Abide in Me

Abide. That's the word I've sensed the Lord laying on my heart for me personally for this coming year. In the past two years it's been Hope (hence Lillian's middle name). There are some things I need to relearn over and over again...abiding is one of them! The past few weeks have been a huge refreshing time of sitting quietly with Jesus and in His Word for long periods of time. Lot's of thinking, lot's of praying, lot's of processing, some tears, mixed with laughter (as Lillian always tries to sit on my lap while I'm journaling!).

It's harder to abide "on the go" though I believe the Lord wants us to learn to abide no matter what the circumstances. So I'm thinking through what the next few months need to look like.  Some things I've

considered as important may need to go. I don't like that. But good things will always need to make room for what is best. I also often find that what is urgent needs to make room for what is most important.  Those are always tough decisions!

This coming week life as usual resumes, with school for the kids, Classical Conversations, staff meetings in preparation for the students returning the following week (along with All Community Worship and Family Group Breakfast), working for Jordan Ministries, construction on our kitchen, Celebrate Recovery (Reid and the CR team are launching the county-wide outreach this month so we're excited to see how the Lord is going to use this!) and leading worship for our Saturday service. Thank you for your prayers for our family in the midst of it! 

Ian returns tomorrow and we are very, very excited to see him!! For those of you on his prayer letter list, we'll send out one more update in the next few weeks with his thoughts and impressions from his trip.  Thank you for your prayers for him as well family he got to spend time with and travel with! We look forward to seeing how the Lord uses this trip in his heart and life in the years to come. 

May the Lord bless you and keep you and your loved ones as you begin 2015 - may it be a year in which you abide more closely with your Savior! 

Impressions Here and Impressions There - The Dales in December

Impressions, Memories and Experiences of December so far:

- Christmas Tree, candles and the Vienna Boys Choir Holiday Pandora Channel

- Tea, tea, and more tea....and Zopfbrot...or  chai, chai and more chai ... and tea cookies for Ian! :)

- Pitter patter of little feet and an 18 month old learning to climb all over our couch and up and down the stairs, who loves to kiss and hug those she loves and could spend all day reading books in your lap! And her precious older sisters who happily read the same books to her over, and over, and over and over...so that Mommy can get other things done.

- A temporary hiatus on renovations until after Christmas which means we are really enjoying our living area right now! (After Christmas the kitchen gets torn out - we hope it can be finished before the baby comes in April!)

- Early morning hours in the quiet, working on booking and preparing concerts for Dawn during her busy Christmas Concert Season.

- Cold mornings driving Julie-Joy to school while Reid is in New York

- Oh yes, Reid is in New York! :) The Timberline students left on their annual urban missions trip
yesterday and have already had a full day of travel and subway evangelism and a trip to Staten Island on the ferry.

- evening Skype conversations with Ian, Omi, Opa as well as Melanie, Eljiah, and Jesse (Ryan is usually at work I believe and Thomas is at school).

- the wonderful hum-drum and routine of school work, house work and laundry

- running to and fro for school pick ups and meetings and Christmas parties and last minute "I forgot I need such-and-such for school tomorrow" errands!

- learning and deciding what to-and-fro runnings to say "no" to - good boundaries provide the gift of rest and quiet, so that we CAN say yes to other things!

- restless/sleepless nights filled with sick little ones that just want to be rocked and held in the dark, they also give lot's of time for prayer for family and friends; early morning hours on the couch watching the sun rise over the continental divide, (unless a big blanket of fog has settled in, which always means it will be a beautiful day after it has burned off!).

- Bibleschool students excited to go home for Christmas, some worried about going home for Christmas ... and our hearts and prayers that go with them

- Fridays filled with trips to the Denver Rescue Mission and Celebrate Recovery, Saturdays filled with worship music preparation, PBS cooking shows while the house gets cleaned, church in the evenings, sweet time with His Body at WPCC, Reid still leading AWANAS and the kids diligently helping him with Cubbies and Sparks.

- quiet times on the couch in the books of Joshua and Judges, my grandmother's old copy of FB Meyer's Our Daily Homily (that is literally falling apart), and Ann Voskamp's advent devotional
(which still smells new!). The reminder that it is not selfish to come to Him for healing - for when He heals, He always gives Himself. And He is Who we want anyway!

Those are some impressions that fill our hearts and minds this December. We're thankful for the
times the Lord gives to slow down, thankful for the friendships in the middle of it all. And always, always, always for the gift of His Grace,.... when we fail, when we judge others more harshly than we judge ourselves, when we're fearful, when we think we've succeeded and are prideful, when we're tired, when we make mistakes, and when all goes well....wave upon wave of grace...no matter what!

Sights and Sounds from a Different sort of Thanksgiving

In all about 70+ people came to the Thanksgiving Feast at the Community Center yesterday ... many
of them helped with set up, cooking, serving, greeting, and clean up. Here are a few sights and sounds we took in yesterday:

 - a single mom sitting at a table with her kids, discouraged, a slump in her shoulders ... and one of our church members with her, and arm around her, encouraging her not to give up. I didn't hear in any way what was said but I saw Jesus loving that dear Mom.

- families and couples that came because they (like us!) don't have extended family in the area and didn't want to spend Thanksgiving just by themselves but wanted to spend time with others, open to whatever the Lord wanted to do that day

- a person new to the area, just moved up the day before, still staying in a hotel. He saw the flyer and didn't want to spend Thanksgiving alone, so he came - and he made some friends.

- a person who shared with me that they had spent the last Thanksgiving (and countless Thanksgivings before) on their couch yelling at their family for doing drugs, while high themselves. This person has been sober for over a month now and just destroyed their marijuana pipe. They came because they wanted to get rid of the bad stuff in life and wanted to replace the bad with good things. "I have never volunteered for a single thing in my life! But I wanted to volunteer today. I felt it was the right thing to do."

- a gentleman who shared that he was a recovering addict and didn't want to be alone on Thanksgiving because loneliness is his biggest trigger.

There were many more stories I am unaware of. Those are just the ones I was privileged to observe or enter into.  Afterwards our family loaded up the leftover food and embarked on the 2 hour trek to Denver. Reid didn't want a single food item to go to waste, so we dropped it off downtown at the Denver Rescue Mission. It was dusk and as we drove down Lawrence Street, I heard the girls in the back of the truck saying; "I'm feeling afraid....please lock the doors, I don't like it here...it's dark and there is graffiti everywhere." Men were lining up on all sides of the street - some to get into the rescue mission for the night, others (I can only assume) hoping for something to eat and getting ready to sleep....who knows where. At least it was a fairly warm evening for this time of year.

After that we headed to the mall to stretch our feet before the two hour drive back. People lined up everywhere for the 6:00pm Black Friday sales openings (I didn't realize they were starting on Thanksgiving already... apparently we live pretty isolated up in the mountains! :). We people-watched...and wondered.  The irony. The eyes of the men lined up at the rescue mission looked no less forlorn and empty than the eyes of the ladies lined up outside Coach or the people outside H&M etc..... and I wonder how happy they are this morning with the bargains they found and how long it will last. Happiness really isn't found in stuff and great sales, is it - no more than in drugs and alcohol and paid sex. Happiness is found with Jesus and the life He has prepared for us to live - His Life in us. And He wants to offer His life and love to each and every person we saw yesterday...

Timberline had 120 people for Thanksgiving this year! I think it was helpful that the Lord gave our family other plans this time around! Mrs. Thomas (Major's wife) as well has Chris Thomas (our international director) and his wife Bonnie, are sharing during evening fireside chats about the history of Torchbearers and what the Lord is currently doing all over the world. It's a busy season for everyone. Please pray for our students as they prepare to go to New York for their urban missions trip. It is always a stretching time for them.

Ian is doing well on his trip. We Skype with him regularly. He leaves tomorrow for northern India (the Torchbearer Center up there) and we're not sure what the internet situation will be like. He'll have a week there before heading to my brother's and his family's place for the rest of December.

We're thankful for all he is seeing, experiencing and taking part in. If you didn't receive his update and would like for me to forward it to you, let me know.

For now a blessed Thanksgiving from our family to yours!

Off He goes!

With a smile and a wave he was off through security with his Dad who took him to the gate and sent him on his way. We miss him already but are excited for him all at the same time. It will be the first time our family will not be together for the holidays as he will return to CO January 1st!  Tomorrow Ian, my Dad and Mom, get on an airplane from Columbia to Atlanta and then a 15 hour flight to Dubai where they'll have a bit of a layover before they travel on to India. We're looking forward to updates and will pass them on as they come in.

Reid and I discussed Ian being gone for so long at a young age....and we both agreed, that we would be fearful to have it any other way and would always regret holding him back. The Lord made it clear to us both that He had provided for him to go on this trip (there was no way this was humanly possible). I have had a few well meaning parents voice their concerns to us about the wisdom of allowing Ian to go on the trip. I've tried to explain that the Lord made it clear to us that our children were not ours to hold on to, but gifts He was entrusting to us for a time....and when He calls (like He called Hannah to surrender Samuel), then we would be more than foolish to stand in His way.  But I usually get blank stares, looks of pity. I can't say that I've easily gotten to a point of surrender (nor have I arrived there!), but I have learned (from personal experience!) that not trusting the Lord when He calls to full surrender causes a tremendous amount of heartache and pain ... and it's just not worth it.

In the mean time we certainly won't be sitting around the house! :) Reid is in full swing getting the community Thanksgiving Dinner advertised and organized, and then he heads to New York for a week to take our students on the urban mission trip. It's a highlight of his year! They volunteer with several ministries to the homeless and learn a lot about ministry opportunities in urban centers! It's always a great experience for the students.

Here at the house we hope to have the living room renovated and in a week or two and may take a break and start back up on the kitchen in the New Year to enjoy the holiday season.  We'll have to see. And in less than two weeks we find out if the ratio in our family will be 4:3 or 5:2! :) And of course everything else continues as well with life at Timberline, Celebrate Recovery, Classical Conversations and you name it! :)

Well I have a pot of potato soup on the stove for this cold and snowy CO day...it's been snowing all day long and is just beautiful outside. Driving in it is not so much fun however! I hope all of you are having a great week!

Spinning Plates

I have often visualized myself in life as the plate spinner. And there are weeks when it really gets to me....I vigorously spin the "homeschool plate" and the "housekeeping plate" is on the other side wobbling precariously, so I run to spin it and the "caring for (insert name of kiddo)" wobbles ... and so on...you get the picture. And you understand I'm sure. It's nerve wracking. Add to it that you feel (whether accurate or not) the expectations of others around you who only seem to see the plates that are wobbling, not the ones you've just spun, and it can become a situation riddling with people-pleasing fear and paralyzing anxiety.

So the other day this conversation ensued:
Me: "Jesus, I'm exhausted and weary! Please be my plate spinner - I am worn out!"

Him: "What if I have no intentions of spinning your plates? What if I have something completely different in mind? What if I want to take your plates down completely, set them on a great big banquet table and serve a filling, nourishing banquet to those around you - using each one of your plates?"

Me: "How is that even possible - I have absolutely no food to give, nothing to provide!"

Him: "I'm the Bread of Life. I am the Living Water. I am abundant life."

Enough said! :) I'm still not quite sure what all of that is supposed to look like, and I'm still not quite sure how NOT to spin my plates, how to rest and let Him take them down without breaking them, how to let Him prepare the banquet....but I can tell you, the idea of not being a plate spinner anymore sure fills me with a tremendous amount of hope!

The Ministry Plate

With the students being back from Moab, our regular schedule is under way.  That means all day Monday and Wednesday afternoons are spent at Timberline (I bring a huge basket of homework with me for Jenna) for Family Group Breakfast, All-Community Worship, and Covenant Group. The students have already heard some great teachers (both from Timberline as well as guest speakers). Our prayer is that God's Word would take deep root in their hearts!

The Home Plate
- Tuesdays are our weekdays at home and Thursdays for us are filled with Classical Conversations, both the morning program (Memory Work, science and art/music projects etc.), and the afternoon Grammar and Writing program that I'm tutoring. Jenna loves CC - it's the highlight of her homeschool day. (on the picture above - the kids' favorite thing to do after school is to play together out in the yard, and they include their baby sister for which Mom is very thankful as that enables me to cook dinner in peace and quiet- and we're also glad that the snow has held off so far!)

- we now officially have a toddler....she's been able to walk for quite some time but didn't care to do

so for a long time! :) (here are the girls studying their geography together! :)

- Thursday evenings are Celebrate Recovery nights right now and the training is well under way - there are already 20 people attending this leadership training and the hope is to open CR to the community in January.

- Reid has also felt impressed by the Lord to provide a Thanksgiving meal to needy families in the community and is in the midst of putting that together. The local community center is offering it's facility for free and he's working with some local food banks and rescue missions to see if the food can be provided also.

- Renovation on the living-room is well under way and the anticipation of what everything will look like when it's finished is worth living in a construction zone in the mean time.

- We praise the Lord that Ian's 2nd visa came in.  He is still in need of raising some support and we trust the Lord will confirm and provide the rest. His departure date is scheduled for November 11th and he's been working diligently to get ahead in his school work. You may have heard that a hurricane hit the orphanage - so their visit could look very differently from what they originally anticipated.

Well that's the news here! We'd love to hear from you and how the Lord has taught you to put your spinning plates down!

Hearts set on pilgrimage...or marathons! :)

It was a challenging day yesterday, but was winding down with an emotional teen and a tired and hungry 15 month old who has 4 molars coming in all at once. When Reid walked in the door I handed him the spatula and asked him to finish the beans and rice so I could just walk outside for a few minutes. He smiled understandingly! I was disappointed when I realized the sun had already set - sunsets these days have been breathtaking - but as I came around the corner I saw a huge, full, white moon rising over the continental divide, leaving a long glimmering reflection in the lake in front of me....and I took my first deep breath for the day I think! :)

I stood there a little bit, soaked in the view, talked with Jesus for a while about it all and headed back to the house. I thought wistfully how I wished I could live in peace and quiet like that all the time....and the Lord reminded me that was not His desire for me! :) The walk with Him was a drink of cold water in the midst of a marathon.  It doesn't enable me to run as though the marathon were a mere walk in the park, but it does enable me to keep running the marathon with Him. (Psalm 84:5 says it this way: - Blessed are those whose strength is in You, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage).

Today's challenge from His Word came to me from Deut 13:3 - "for the Lord your God is testing you to find out if you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul." It's not one of those verses you want to post on Facebook to "encourage" everyone! :) Funny how we avoid those verses/passages....But the words that FB Meyer wrote in commentary encouraged me nonetheless - I'll post them at the bottom of this blog post.

At Timberline: All is quiet this week as the students and many of the staff have left for the annual trip

to Moab, UT.  It's kind of the trip that defines Bibleschool, in the sense that afterwards, we as a staff tend to have a good idea of what the year ahead will look like, which students are struggling perhaps more than others etc.

Please pray for the staff - many have yet to recover from the busy summer schedule and have jumped head long into Bibleschool in need of rest and encouragement from Jesus! Next week we will jump head-long into our regular weekly schedule of all-community worship, family group breakfast etc. (here are some pictures from our staff retreat this summer - our "normal" pose and our "crazy" pose. I always smile when I see our staff pictures - they are such dear and precious friends!)

At Home: Renovations on our living room and kitchen start tomorrow or Friday. Please pray that our landlord will still like our family when he is done! :) He has been very patient with some of the requests for changes we've asked for, in spite of His well thought-out plans etc.

We're still asking the Lord to provide about $1000 for Ian's upcoming trip in November.  We've already talked with the teachers and feel like we have some good plans in place to help him make the most out of his trip while also completing his schoolwork while he is traveling. My parents also still need to raise support for this trip.

Celebrate Recovery is well under way with the 4th meeting at Granby Assemblies of God Church and we're so thankful for the many people who have joined the leadership team and are going through the 12-Step process in preparation for launching the ministry in January. Reid is enjoying it tremendously (and also loving his weekly trips to the Denver Rescue Mission with the students from Timberline!). We've asked the Lord to use it in the way that most glorifies and honors Him and hope that it will be an encouragement and powerful outreach tool to many who are hurting and struggling in our community - those who know Jesus well and those who still need to know Him.

That's the latest here!

Here are a few thoughts from FB Meyer on Deut 13:3

How much of this happens to us for this reason! (Testing). God proves us - not that He may learn aught of us which He did not know before, but that He may reveal us to ourselves. We need to know ourselves, that we may be prompted to know and use His infinite resources and that we may be led to avail ourselves of His grace.

Let's avail ourselves of His boundless grace!!!

Love to all!
J

The right size?

Four kids.  That was always the perfect sized family to me.  After all that was how I grew up. A good even number. Four is what I had always hoped for. We were happy and content with three children and, after some loss, we were VERY surprised when Lillian made her appearance in 2013. 

And four was enough - any bigger than that was too big for our family....so I thought.  But in the back of my mind was always that nagging question "Will Lillian struggle being so much younger than her siblings? Will it be hard for her that Reid and I are older parents, not having any siblings her age to share that struggle?"  Still the thought of having more was daunting....and then the Lord surprised us by answering that question Himself.  So here we are....just got home from an ultrasound and heard the heartbeat loud and clear. April 13th is the due date (on a side note, that's a big snow month for us normally and we're a good 2 hours away from the hospital now that we've moved out to Grand Lake).

It seems that for our family, God thinks five kids is the perfect size. And we're ok with that! :)