3 Ladies, 7 Kids, and a Dodge Durango

      What do 3 ladies, 7 kids, and a Dodge Durango have in common? The answer is a long, unforgettable day in Boston, Massachusetts. Jonathan, my husband, is currently at a meeting in Missouri for the Jonathan Project. Not necessarily wanting to stay alone in the 5th wheel and haggle with sewer dumps and grey water drainage, I worked out a situation to where me and the boys would stay with another Jonathan project wife and her 2 kids. The plan was wonderful. The kids would play together and we wouldn't be as stressed in our homes alone with our kids. When we woke up yesterday we decided that a trip to Boston, Massachusetts would be a lot of fun. I've never been to Boston and it would be a great time to see the Freedom Trail and celebrate our nations heritage. Being a little leery of going to Boston alone with 2 women and 5 kids, we invited along another friend that has 2 kids of her own. We decided that since parking is so expensive and difficult in Boston we would all ride in one friends Dodge Durango. We squeezed 10 people into the Durango and set off on a 2 and 1/2 hour drive to Boston. Our husbands didn't feel comfortable with this idea, but they were glad we had something to do. Lesson learned, listen to your husband.

    When we arrived in Boston, my friends Transmission Temperature light came on and the car began to overheat. We went ahead and pulled into a parking garage and decided that we weren't going to let that bother our day. It would cool off while we were touring. We were freaking out to some degree though because none of us have a clue about cars. This was just a very small glimpse into the chaos that was about to become our day. We set off amidst the cries and tantrums of two 3 year olds, one 7 month old, one 4 year old, one 5 year old, one 6 year old, and one 10 year old. While continually getting turned around and lost, Reese was having horrendous behavior and kept wanting to run away from me. The kids kept picking at each other, tattling on each other, and taking turns crying. If only this trip involved normal parenting stresses?

     After walking around some we decided that it was time to eat. We went to the famed Quincy Market and ordered food at the hall of food there. All of the ladies, the kids, and the food piled around a park bench to eat. While we were eating, the kids were being relatively quiet. Even though this involved the two 3 year old boys jumping of a low ledge, we were basking in the dinner time in the city glow. That is when disaster struck. Payton, my friends 3 year old son fell off the ledge face first onto the cobblestone and busted his head wide open. Blood was squirting everywhere. My friend, in a white shirt, grabbed her son and someone called 911. We were applying pressure to the wound and trying to comfort all the kids who starting wailing thinking that Payton was going to die. The EMT's came and said he needed to go to the ER and get stitches. Diana rode in the ambulance in the ER and Sonia and I took all the rest of the kids to walk the 10 blocks to the hospital to meet her. First we stopped at Borders to try to entertain them with story hour so they wouldn't be panicked in the hospital and then we bought them some candy. Diana got to the hospital at 7 PM and basically between the car problems and the medical disaster, our day was shot. 

   Little did we know that our night was just about to begin. Sonia and I literally walked miles pushing the heavy stroller and taking turns holding all the younger children that needed comforted. We had to walk to the ER to get the car keys, walk all the way back to the parking garage another 10 blocks away, and then walk all over looking for the car. No sooner had we gotten in the car at 10 PM, Reese threw up all over everything. It was all over the car, his clothes, his car seat, and my diaper bag. We had to get him out of the car, strip him, take apart his car seat, and clean all off him and the car with almost no napkins and wipes. Reese had to go naked, except for a pull up, and sit on the hard plastic part of the car seat because the other part was disgusting. We drove to the hospital and had to wait till 2 AM for them to be done with Payton.

  To make a long story short, it was 5:30 AM before we got home. No hotels in walking distance of the hospital had availability and so we had to entertain all the kids and walk them around in the middle of the night in Boston. I got Reese hospital scrubs to wear so he wouldn't be naked and I got many glances from employees that thought I was kidnapping a patient from the pediatric wing.

   When we arrived back home Reese threw up again all over Diana's couch, carpet, and himself. He was in the bath and we were cleaning couches and carpet at 6 am, before we had even gone to bed for the night. Needless to say, the day was memorable. I'm reminded of the following scripture. It reminds me that when I author my own life, things are chaotic.

I Corinthians 14:33 (KJV)  For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace.......

 

My husband wants to be a church planter....what does that make me?

My husband wants to be a church planter, what does that make me? Many women are faced with dilemma's in life where God has a calling on their husband and by proxy, they are forced to go too. I was asked by numerous people how I felt about leaving the church of my youth, the church of my first pastorate, and the city where we owned our beautiful home to live in a 5th wheel, travel for 18 months, and ultimately move into a strange area where there is nothing and carve out a work. My answer to that was, I feel great! Not that this situation doesn't present an almost daily struggle of time management, money management, family organization, and endless questioning, but I know that God would never call a man to such a drastic change without calling the whole family. Many people believe that it is the wife's roll to submit to all choices that her husband makes, and while that does have a Biblical precedent, a loving God would never require a woman to sell all, take up her cross and family and move into the unknown as an act of submission. How detrimental to your family and marriage would it be to have to "submit" to such a large act? I believe that God calls every member of a family when he has such a high calling. Many times the wives and the children are not questioning their husbands decisions and rebelling against his choice, they are rebelling against the call of God on their lives.
God has given me a very clear and great vision for what he wants to do in the Cleveland Metropolitan area. This involves me being the leader of home groups, leading prayer groups, leading musical groups, and ministering. Many times this will also involve me doing nothing more that being willing to go along with my husbands ideas and schemes. Preparing a diaper bag, ironing clothes, and comforting the children is oftentimes the most spiritual thing that a young mother and wife can do. However, ladies, don't sell yourselves short. God desires great things from you that go beyond cleaning spit up. While making your families beds can be spiritual, don't let your role as CEO of a family overtake your role as a child of God. Be sensitive to the calling on your life. Don't let your husbands be the ear of God for your families all the time while you sit content to just "submit". Ephesians says that we have a boldness through Christ Jesus our Lord and a confident access to him through faith. If you allow your husband to always be the ear of God to your family it will be a question of "Marriage or Mayhem".
Although submission is a volatile word for some marriages and families, it doesn't have to be. It can be a very easy and beautiful thing. When a husband and wife love each other, communicate with each other, and communicate with God, submission is never a question. Don't criticize each other about a calling that one or both of you feel. This will send you running back to your comfort zone, a place that God doesn't want us to be in.


Prov 15:1A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger KJV

New England Rain

Today ended several days of hard, uninterrupted rain in Connecticut. The sun is shining and there is little to no humidty in the air. This is a great victory. Sleeping in a 5th wheel with rain gushing down is difficult because it feels and sounds as if you have a tin roof. The family is doing well, and hopefully Gentry is through with his bought of intestinal illness. Who needs a pet when you have a 7 month old doing their duty on your carpet?

Yesterday we went to the Buckland mall. There is a section of Manchester Connecticut called the Buckland Hills. It intersects Buckland street. Unfortunantly, no stores would give us free goodies because of our last name.

I want to leave you with a thought today of encouragement. The Bible says In their affliction they will seek Me early."— Hosea 5:15 Another passage of the Bible says to seek the Lord early. Oftentimes we have been led to believe that god wants us to wake up at the crack of dawn and have a prayer session. While this may be true in some cases, mothers of small children understand that the mornings are filled with hectic times of feeding, dressing, wiping up milk, and referring scuffles. All God desires of us is to seek him early in our times of trouble and early in every situation. Call on the Lord while he may be found. Ask God to provide your every need, even before you have it.

Traveling Sewer or 5th wheel carrying minister?

I was inspired today not only by spiritual things, but also by the hilarity of 5th wheel living with 2 grown adults and 2 small children, both of whom are still in diapers to some degree. Of course the aspect of potty training that my 3 year old has grasped involves pee and not the more smelly thing that our bodies produce. Between the black water build up (for those non campers that is the nice way of putting smelly sewage) and the diapers piled in the small trash can, our 5th wheel takes on quite a flavorful atmosphere. I know that most missionary and evangelist wives are way more "couth" than I am. I figured that one of my duties on the road is to expose the truth behind being a nomadic mother, dirt, silliness and all. Since we moved into our 5th wheel, the boys share the bunk room. Gentry is on the bottom bunk and Reese is on the top. At any given moment in the middle of the night we can hear the shrieks of terror coming from Gentry and run into the room to find that reese has crawled into bed with him and thinks it is funny to lay on him. Reese will then look at us with his innocent big blue eyes and say "Mommy he needs you, he's crying". All of these moments will bring me many years of laughter and great stories, but are definitely teaching me patience at this point in life.

As a self declared obsessive compulsive, 5th wheel living has definitely taught me that clutter and crumbs are not the end of the world, Smelling raw sewage while laying in bed on a clear summers night doesn't have to hinder romance, and spending hundreds of dollars in disel fuel doesn't have to kill faith.

Excellence for God

Today I have been sitting here thinking how incredible that it is that God has chosen my family and me for such a great calling and purpose. I have a wonderful husband and two fabulous sons, all given to me by God. We all have choices to make in life, and while there are several choices that seem inconsequential, each choice builds on another to make a lasting impact on your life. If I choose to eat Chinese food today instead of Mexican food, it may not make a huge impact on my spiritual status, but then again it could. God spends time communicating to each of us about our daily decisions, whether they be small or great and we need to be willing to listen. The latte that you are craving from Starbucks could be of spiritual consequence if God is in it. If you are using your daily routine and activies to minister to those in your local community, you could be purchasing your latte on the very day that the barista is looking for an answer from God. What if we prayed for every choice that we made in life even if it seemed insane?

I have a friend who plants and grows a garden. I asked her how she got such fresh vegetables when her planting grounds are not that great. She said that she prays and God leads her on how to water those vegetables and how to grow them. I begin to think about this and how it sounds so crazy in todays day and age. If God walked in the Garden of Eden and spoke to Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening, how much more can we as spirit filled Christians benefit from the guiding hand of God?

Today, make a choice for excellence. Refuse to settle for the status quo and reach forward into realms that you have never been in. If you play an instrument, don't settle on "making a joyful noise for the Lord" and think that it doesn't matter how you sound on your instrument. That scripture is referring to giving the Lord a shout of triumph in your life and serving the Lord with gladness. When it comes to playing and singing for the Lord, follow Psalm 33:3 (NKJV) "Sing to Him a new song;Play skillfully with a shout of joy." It is amazing to me how many churches that I have visited in my life that lack joy, skill, and a new song. This is scriptural proof that we need to be relevant to our culture. While there is great blessing in the hymns of old, God desires a new song and a fresh anointing to inspire his people. Practice your instrument if you play one, hone your ministerial skills (whatever they may be), and most of all, put a smile on your face.

While I am living on the road I refuse to become stagnant, but have decided to take my calling and burden for Cleveland across the USA to every church and town we visit. If God desires to build a 21st century revival church in Cleveland through us, he can certainly use us at other churches to bring that spirit as well.

Col 3:17 And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.
KJV

The Calm After the Storm

This is a quick blog to just check in. We are in New Hampshire now having officially started and finished one state of our deputation. Maine was a gorgeous state. God performed many miracles for us and I think that my initial distaste of camping has finally calmed down to some degree. It seems that our truck and our 5th wheel are finally in working order. Nobody told us that RV's were so fickle. Everyone we talk to now that we have one is telling us about all the maintenance that they require. I guess this is like our spiritual lives. We come to God excited about what he is doing and eager to jump in and be involved but over time,we lose our first love. Everything becomes an obligation. Be sure to do your routine maintenance checks. You definitely don't want to feel about God the way I feel about travel trailers =) I am enjoying my time in the North East, but I am definitely a mid-west girl. Everything seems much more expensive here. I just wanted to drop a line in case anyone is actually reading this blog. At some point when I'm not sleep deprived and in a rush to get on the road I'll write something good and relevant. For now, you get my random flows of thought.
Love ya!

Camping is not for me.

Hello. I just wanted to check in and let all who read my blog know that I am alive. We have had an insane first couple of weeks of deputation. We have discovered that anyone who cashes in their 401K at retirement to live in an RV needs psychological help =) God has moved in a powerful way in all of the church services that we have been to and so far, we have received a partner in mission financial sponser for our church plant in Cleveland at every service. The insane thing has been just meeting our basic needs. Upon leaving Marietta, we noticed that our electiricty kept going off, our battery kept draining, and nothing would stay on. We thought surely this can't be normal. We took it where we bought it and they checked the battery and said it was fine. Well, we lived for 4 days with no electricity or battery power in our BRAND NEW 5th wheel. The whole point in buying new was so that we wouldn't have these problems. My lowest point was spending the night in a wal-mart parking lot. We were getting little to no sleep and just literally fighting to get dressed as all of our water was cold. We went and bought an RV 101 book and found out our converter blew. Of course we discovered this on July 4 and nothing was open until Monday, July 6. We are in Bangor, Maine right now and found a place to fix our converter yesterday! Praise God for that. Also, the Maine district restored our faith in people when a couple of local pastors offered to get us a hotel from Saturday- Tuesday so we wouldn't be cave men anymore.

We had to pay to fix our converter and are now fighting with the warranty people to cover it. Why in the world would you want to spend your retirement tinkering with an RV when you can live in a house? Also, all these people that sleep in tents for weeks............what are they thinking? I have discovered that I am a spoiled 21st century girl that WILL NOT be happy without electricity and hot water. Thankfully, I can acknowledge my materialism=) I don't feel bad because I know that 99% of Americans feel the same.

On the bright side of things, since our 5th wheel couldn't get fixed, we were able to spend the day on Monday in Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor, Maine. People from all over the world were there to see this stunning work of nature. Wow! It was gorgeous. From what I've read Acadia National Park is the 2nd most visited National Park. Reese had a blast catching bugs and putting his feet in the cold sea. Another postive thing, we are making great strides with the "big boy" potty finally. Reese has what he calls "twinkling" down pat. He is keeping himself dry. Just pray that he gets over his fear of the "other" thing on the potty so we won't be elbow deep in it anymore.

I also found out that the state of Maine has only 1.9 million people in it. It has 40 UPC churches. Cleveland, Ohio has 3 million people and only 6 UPC churches spread throughout the metro area. We have a lot of work to do. Keep us in your prayers and the other churches in Cleveland that a spirit of revial will sweep the area.

Fuel: A necessary Evil

We are currently deputizing in our 5th wheel attached to our Ford F-350 Quad Cab Dually truck. Filling up at the gas station is a complete nightmere. Disel fuel in New York, where we currently are, is$5.09 a gallon and climbing. Because we are driving such a huge contraption, on the interstate we are averaging between 11 and 12.2MPG's. I have attempted to strategize a plan to avoid filling stations all together, but obviously that is not possible. We are doing all of the techniques that we read about in R-V living 101. We don't go over 60 mph, we don't idle, and we don't gun the engine. Today we are headed into Long Island in New york for a service and not only do we have the pleasure of $5.09 and higher disel, but we are facing the obstacles of $40 roundtrip tolls.

The point of this blog is not to complain, but to discuss fuel. As much as we hate fuel and filling up, our lives would be miserable without it. We would be stranded and we would not be able to experience life to the fullest. Many of us go about our spititual lives in this manner. We avoid witnessing, we avoid daily devotions, and we drag ourselves to church with no attempt to glean any spiritual fuel. Just like the engines on our car, we sputter and buck with no fuel and we eventually die off. The bible says that we need the Sincere Milk of the Word that we may grow thereby. We can fill our spitual tanks with christian music and church attendance, but that is no substitute for the Study of the Word of God. Just a continual cultural pentecostal diet will not help us to achieve the full power of our spiritual engines. If I put unleaded fuel into my disel tank, it would not run.

Don't try to avoid the spiritual pump! Fill your tank with the word of God.