How do you begin to share your favorite moments in Africa?   I guess it would be one at a time.   On Tuesday Joe and I took 7 team members to the New Life Orphanage in Nairobi.   It's a home for abandoned and HIV positive babies. They have anywhere from 48 to 52 babies up to the age of 2 years at any given time.    When we arrived, there was another family waiting to take the tour of the home with us.   They had their 12 year old daughter with them name Abby.   Abby had been adopted from that very orphanage 12 years earlier when she was only 4 months old. Her parents are missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators and had been in Kenya on assignment for the last 16 years.   One day they had visited the orphanage and their heart was broken for the children. At that time, the orphanage had only been running for about 2 years.  So here was this girl who wanted to come back to the orphanage that she was adopted from just to love on the little babies.    It was so precious to watch her hold all the little ones.   New Life gets about  80% of the babies that come to them adopted.  The picture is of Abby and her mother.

Finally, its time.  I will be leaving for Kenya with Allie Pohlmeier on Wednesday 7/11.  Joe will be leaving two days later on the 13th.   We will be leading 29 adults into Kibera which is the largest slum in Africa.  AIM has an orphanage and a school that we will be working with for the first half of the trip.  The second half of the trip, we will be working in a local village in Owasso.   

We are planning on posting trip updates so that you will be able to read what we are doing.  Stayed tuned.  Please begin to pray for our team unity.  Most of the 29 particpants only know one or two people. Pray for our safety as well. 

Hey Guys,

Just wanted to let you know that Joe and I are leading a team of adults to Kenya this summer in July.  Details to come.  Please start praying for us and our team members.

Wow, has it been this long.  I can't believe that I haven't wrote anything in over two months. Where do I begin?  The last couple of months were filled with lots of family and friends over the holidays as well as alot of driving to and fro.  Here are the big points over the last couple of months:

1) Joe and I went home to visit our family in Oklahoma.  I got to meet up with several girls that I graduated high school with.  It was fun and a little odd.  Its been almost nine years since the last time we saw each other.  We have all experienced so much since high school that you don't even know what you have in common anymore.  It was crazy though, out of the seven girls that were there, 5 have been in minsitry or their spouse had been in full-time minstry since high school.  Thats pretty awesome!!

We also got to see alot of family which is always good.  I miss not being able to see what happens in each of their daily lives, but it always good to spend time with them and to realize how blessed we are to have so many close relatives in our lives.

2) Two of my really good friends had their babies.  Macon was born to Chuck and Amy Butler and Libby was born to Aaron and Kendra Riel.    FYI, no babies for us in or radar!!!!

3) Joe's mom went on her first mission trip to India. She got to see all kinds of amazing things.  The thing that touched her the most was when she visited an orphanage. God used her to bring joy to hundreds.  It was cool for me to have her experience the kind of work that I get to be apart of.

4) Tons of other stuff that can be said later.   SV

Thanks to all my readers who decided to point out that my title to the last article did not match the picture I chose.   I guess when you title it Married Life, the picture of the Detroit Tigers coach is not appropriate.   Anyway, this weekend before the World Series Started, Me and Joe went to the mountains for the day.  We visited the Hillcrest Apple Orchard and Amacolula Falls.   We hiked up to the top.   The view was beautiful.   It got me thinking about this message my old pastor gave a couple of years ago.   He was basically talking about how we walk around day after day and never notice the Lord.   We never see miracles.   His point was not that they don't happen or that the Lord isn't around us, but that we ignore Him when we see those images. Once in a while we "wake up" and see Lord in someone or something. Saturday was one of those days for me. The view from the top of the falls was picture perfect. All the different colors of trees were dispersed evenly over the mountain tops.   You could not help but to think that God was painting us the breathtaking view. The same can be said about people.   We don't look at people to see Jesus, but every once in a while someone crosses our path and we say wow, that was Jesus.  As we go through this fall season of beautiful changes, stop and take a look around; look past what you see or who you see, to see our Lord.

The first question that everyone wants to ask is "How is married life?".  Well let me tell you what we did this weekend and you figure it out yourself.  Friday night, we went to Joe's parents house to visit his brother that is in the army who came home for the weekend.  Then, the exciting Saturday.  6am. up and breakfast then 6:40 sent husband to work.  The next 4 hours were consumed of me doing laundry and watching a chick flick.  At 1pm. Joe broght home lunch and we sat in front of the T.V. for the next 5 hours.  It was amazing.  The Cardinals were playing the Padres in the playoffs.  Followed by Oklahoma Sooners and the Texas Longhorn Football Game.  (The first half was good).  Then at 4pm the Tigers and the Yankees played in playoffs at the same time as the Michigan/ Michigan State game.

The results were definitely not in favor of my teams.  Cards lost, Sooners lost, Tigers won, Michigan won.  I have to tell ya it was hard for me not to be bitter.  I mean both of my teams lost and both of Joe's teams won.  needless to say, I didn't cook dinner that night.  ha ha! 

Sunday we got up at 7am.  Joe made breakfast and brought it to me in bed.  Then we went to church.  The afternoon was filled with a little shopping and moving my old roommate.  That night we went back over to his parents house to say bye to the brother who came in for the weekend.  Then we went home in which I cooked dinner and we hung out watching the Cards beat the Padres!

Married life really is great. We get to do what we like to do with each other even if it is sitting around watching sports on a Saturday. We have fun together!  The hardest part is having to spend the whole day on Monday apart (because of work) after we had a really great weekend.  As I go through all the new experiences, I am trying to get abetter grasp on some of the truths in the Bible.  I am begining to understand how precious the Lord sees us by calling us his Bride.  Wow, I just think about how much Joe loves me and cares for me and to think that the Lord sees us the same way.  This is definitely an area in which the Lord will be growing me even more this year. 

Well to tell you that it has been a crazy month would be an understatement.  Staff conference was at the  end of August.  The Joe and I were off to get married.  The wedding was everything that we wanted it to be.  It was a beautiful September night in Oklahoma. It was outside at my parents and it was awesome  Tons of family and friends came to help setup the event.  After the wedding we were off to the Dominican Republic. Now I know when you read the D.R.  you think exotic island  Well that is probalby the case for most newlyweds. We had one of the rough experiences.  I got tonsilitis the second day.  It was rough.  There were times though that were great, it just evolved around the codine pills that I got from the local D.R. doctor. 

So now were home and getting into the swing of married life.  Its been great.  Thank you for all the prayers and support to make us have a wonderful day.  It was truly amazing.  We know that one day our honeymoon will be redemed, just hopefully not in the D.R.

This summer has been full of many experiences from misson trips to planning a wedding to leading a small group bible study. The girls bible study has been one of the high lights.  Once a week, me and Mrs. Kathy get together at my house with 6 to 7 girls.  They are all going to be in the 7th grade.  To say they are entertaining would be an understatment.  Our topic for the summer was holiness.  We have been working through "The Pursuit of Holiness" book.  It is a very hard read for anyone but especially hard for 12 year olds.  Each one has come to bible study with their list of words to define for the day.  One of the girls named Taylor reminds of each week that she now knows the word morbid interspection.  Anyway, last night was our last meeting of the summer. They all go back to school the end of next week or so.  
Several things I got from the bible study. the First is that I really love the insitutional church.  These girls come from all kinds of home life styles. Most seem perfect on the outside but have some issues on the inside. Each one of the girls want someone to teach them and to make their relationship with the Lord their own.  Some have heard from the Lord this summer through the book in ways they never expected. The second is that pouring into someone on a long term scale is awesome.  One of the best things about my job leading mission trips is seeing the transformation of the kids in a week.  It is truely amazing, but being able to see someone grow on a long term scale is precious. I have been able to spend the last 8 months with these girls.  I have seen two of them come to know the Lord for the first time.  It has been a great experience to build long lasting relationships with them.  They already have Joe and I's kids named after them and who has babysitting rights. 
All that to say is that each girl: Jennifer, Taylor P., Kayla, Alli, Alyssa, Blakley, and Taylor S. are amazing and I am going to miss our summer bible study.

Sorry its been so long since I wrote.  As most of you know the summer is full of crazy times.  I spent the last of May and the first week of June in New Orleans.  we were training the Project Facilitators for all of our New Orleans trips.  It is kinda stressful when you realize the scope of your responsiblity.  I know that everyone feels that way from time to time.  New Orleans went great.  There are times that you see pictures of the devistation in New Orleans and your heart goes out to those people.  The thing about it that is that it doesn't compare to the feeling when you are walking down a street that has been deserted for over 8 months. Its a very overwhelming feeling of the reality that the city will never be the same.  For any of you that have time to serve this summer, try to make it to New Orleans.  God has been doing some amazing stuff and you can read all about it under the mission trip reports on the www.adventures.org home page.