Cactus Flower

It's weird that photographers spend years or even a whole lifetime, trying to capture moments that added together, don't even amount to a couple of hours.  James Keivom While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.  Dorothea Lange  A good snapshot stops a moment from running away.  Eudora Welty They say a picture paints a thousand words, what about a thousand pictures? What a great looking man I have! Through the years he has only refined and gotten better.  May 30, 2010 we celebrated 23 years together in marriage.  Looking forward to the next 23! Happy Anniversary to my parents, who celebrate 46 years this week! Love you, Byron!

He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it. Clarence B. Kelland   Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope.  Bill Cosby The greatest gift I ever had Came from God; I call him Dad!  (unknown )   How can a person say Thanks to their father for all he's done in a lifetime of dedicated love to his family?  My Daddy has gone above and beyond the call of service of any normal man.  With all of his grandchildren living far from home he has worked hard to be an active part in his children and grandchildren's lives.  My brother and I are both missionaries in Brazil, so all of Dad's six little grandsons live a continent away. When the first grandson was born almost fifteen years ago in Brazil, Daddy had his first passport stamped with a Brazilian visa and was ready to travel.  This was not a done without a little courage for a man that would rather brave the open sea than fly up in the clouds!...

 chopping tomaters at camp Here's a post on a different note... Cooking in Brazil has been a long haul of flops and successes.  I should probably say lots of flops and a few successes.  Someone I know wanted to know about making good biscuits with ingredients found here.  I have made biscuits for a long time but recently Byron has declared that I have finally learned how to do it.  I take that for a compliment although it could be construed as a half compliment! This past Monday I made an all-American meal for 5 local pastors.  We had fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, chicken gravy, cole slaw, sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, sweet iced tea, and biscuits with butter.  The biscuits were all but eaten during the meal.  After everyone finally seemed full and satisfied and I had refilled the bowls on the table numerous times, someone got the jelly out and then the last of the biscuits disappeared.

In my Bible I carry a photograph.   It's a moment frozen in time, A super happy instant divine. My little nephew who barely knew me well accepted my offer of help up the stairs. And up we ran without a care! When I read sometimes my mind tends to wander. I search out the page that holds my small joy. A smile comes every time I look at that boy. My prayers span the distance, As right now we live so many miles apart, Far away, so far away, but always, always close at heart! Today is the little fellow's third birthday.  Happy Birthday, Little Isaiah!   Take care and try to be good.  Be nice to your brothers and eat the food on your plate.  Careful, don't let any bites fall to the floor!  I hear that happens a little too often these days.  Three years old is a very good age.  Not too many worries, at least not until you are four!  Then it will be almost time to start that school work and stop all that tumbling on the floor! ...

Stuff on the moving truck, 2004 This was written in 2003 before a furlough... I have an old barrel in the shed behind my house.  It was packed in the summer of 1992 or maybe 1993, I can’t remember which.  I had resigned from my teaching position at a Christian school.  I taught fourth grade and loved it.  The barrel is filled with all the books from my personal lending library.  My fourth graders could check out a book from our classroom library and return it within a reasonable amount of time.  I bought most of the books from those Scholastic papers and received many from bonus points.  Some I bought from clearance tables at my favorite book shops.  Some I had from when I was an avid fourth grade reader. A friend’s daughter helped me write the name of each book in a notebook, so each one could be carefully accounted.  I made detailed lists of what went into all the barrels I prepared to be shipped to Brazil.  Little did I know that...

My husband and I work with a campground as part of our ministry in Brazil.  It is located in the middle of Latin America's largest manmade reservoir.  Getting there from land takes about an hour and a half.  Fuel is expensive in Brazil, so many times what accidently gets forgotten at home is just TOO BAD, SO SAD! The following is an excerpt from a personal diary about a trip to the island that occurred about 5 years ago when we had just moved to the area. ******* Once I had to spend an entire week on the island with two shirts, one pair of pants, one set of undergarments.  My husband and I were responsible for a work team from the States for a week of construction projects out at our island camp.  I had to buy all the food, drinks, bread - everything you could possibly need to for a mixed group of Americans and Brazilian workers.  I had a very complete list and had purposefully overbought to not run short on anything.  I had thought of it all....