Cactus Flower

Each year when we get out our Christmas tree and all the ornaments we enjoy looking back a little.  Looking back on all the ornaments that each boy has received over the years from the ladies of Community Baptist Church of Reidsville, North Carolina.  Every year the ladies' missionary circle make ornaments to send out to all the sons and daughters of the missionaries the church supports.  They hang them on a tree way before Christmas (in July I believe) with the name of each boy or girl.  Church members are then asked to choose an ornament, write a note to that missionary boy or girl, and give a gift of US$25. Every year since each of my boys have been born they have been receiving these gifts.  When William was just a little baby that $25 dollars bought his Christmas gifts that year.  When the other boys were small, that was the money I had to buy each one some much needed new clothes.  Now that the boys are older, we have been giving them the mone...

Interesting collage of some of my status messages on facebook this year.  I especially enjoy saying when I am using my Cracker Barrell mug that three other important women in my life also have in their homes.  Fun to remember Mrs. Whitten insisting on washing all the dishes while she was in my home in September this year for about a week.  Funny to see that black tea and jelly are things that I almost always run out of and can't find here in Sobradinho.  And even when our day seems long and not quite good, we can always forget it and start anew the next day! Zephaniah 3:5 ...Every morning He brings His justice to light;       He never fails...

Teaching SS while pregnant with William My first son, William, was born in Fortaleza, Brazil.  It's a city of several million located in Northeast Brazil.  It was a small miracle for me on several notes.  In the States while on deputation, I had two miscarriages.  One was never really defined beyond the point of God's will.  It occurred around 9 weeks.  The second was a molar pregnancy.  There was a fetus, but it developed a form of cancer.  That pregnancy also ended around 9 - 10 weeks.  The year following the second miscarriage, I was tested each month for any signs of cancer. None were ever found.  During that second pregancy I had gone in for a regular check-up only to find there were no life signs after a sonogram.  My was husband was traveling in Brazil and wouldn’t return for several more days.  The doctor insisted I go right over to the hospital for a DNC.  When I stated that I would like to wait for my husband...

That's how old my big boy will be tomorrow! Just a photo for today! Check Homeschoolblogger for some details about his cookout party soon.

Wedding Day 2010 Byron and I came to Brazil as a married couple to begin our lives as full-time, career missionaries in August of 1994.  We probably meet Naldo and his wife, Ivanete, sometime in  1996.  I'm sure that when we first met they only had Misraela.  They lived in the Joao XXIII neighborhood of Fortaleza and were having meetings with other Christians in there own home when we first met them.  We were asked at some point to go out and help with this work and we eventually moved to the neighborhood to be closer to the work. Byron and I had little to nothing, having arrived in Brazil to fill some positions at the MK school with the idea that when our money ran out, we would go back home.  Not too long after we met Naldo, he gave William a gift of a nice little pair of leather sandals.  He had seen that William had no shoes and felt like he needed some.  Now the little fellow was a baby and I put those little booties on him, but the...