Cactus Flower

Uncle Byron and I have had a few different dogs over the years in Brazil, but our first dog was "Blackie with the One White Spot."  That was his "official" name given by William and Dalton.  A man and wife who helped us at one of the churches in Fortaleza, Ceara thought a family with boys needed a dog and gave us Blackie when he was a wee little puppy. It soon became evident that Blackie was stubborn, hard to teach, and quite disobedient.  But he was loving and the boys did like him.  When he was still a very young puppy, I worked hard to teach him to sleep on an old rug just outside the garage door. He would cry and whimper most of the night.  All the neighbors would complain.  Several suggested politely that we let the dog in!  I tried to explain that we were training the dog to sleep in the right place.  It took a long time and unhappy neighbors but he did finally learn. Amazingly we were able to teach Blackie a few things inspite of his demean...

When William and Dalton were just little things we moved into the only house that Uncle Byron and I ever bought and owned.  We had just gotten back to Brazil after our first furlough.  William was 5 years old and Dalton was 3.  We had a hard time finding a good house.  We knew where we wanted to live in a certain neighborhood close to the congregation we were helping.  To find houses to buy we would drive in increasingly bigger circles from the property for the new church.  One day we were only about three city blocks from the property when Uncle Byron drove down a dead end street of cute houses.  The street was one block long and the house on the dead end looked like it has the biggest yard.  I lamented the fact that it had no For Sale sign and said that we should just tell the person we liked their house and ask to buy it.  Well, Uncle Byron did! And the lady that answered the door said, OK!  She had put the house up for sale earlier t...

I have lived in a country with a form of Economic Populism for the past twenty years.  In that time I have learned through personal experience how this type of economy and its related government work, or perhaps I should say - don't work.  I've seen with my own eyes people who have died waiting for proper and promised free health care.  One of my own sons has a crooked little finger, the result of a poorly set bone in a public clinic.  Below is the story of trying to find help for a new born baby in the city of Fortaleza sometime in the year 2000. A recent convert in our congregation went to the local maternity hospital to have her second baby sometime in the summer of 2000.  Just after the birth of the baby I went to visit and found things in chaos.  The baby was born with both of its little legs broken.  The birth had been very prolonged and difficult.  The mother had suffered quite a bit and there had been a lot of  tearing.  Final...

Our Rat Killing Dog!  Go, Girl, go!  Last night a rat ran through the kitchen and living room and scrambled into my closet to hide.  Tiny cornered it in the closet.  We banged on the closet to scare it out.  Old Girl dog grabbed it up on its run for its life and squeezed the life out of it!  What a dog!  10 years old and still going strong! We have to deal with lots of critters on the mission field.  Some are ugly like rats.  Oh, how I hate them!  But we can be thankful for good dogs that help protect our house from beasts of all types including thieves!  Our dogs have cornered rats, mice, snakes, possums.  Chased big toads, ran off stray dogs and cats, and attacked a few "intruders" over the years. Thankful for my dogs!

 For several days we've been running around the Christmas bush saying, we should take it down today.  Alas others things just kept getting in the way.  This morning right after breakfast we got the tree undecorated and stored away.  The boys worked happily with some Christmas music in the background.  All they had to do was put the stuff on the table.  I put it all carefully away.  My goal this year was "all in one box." I shed a few quiet tears as I was packing.  Reading little notes attached to ornaments from Community Baptist.  Some of the dear folks are now in heaven.  One little note that called William - "Trip" - made me smile.  Our Christmas decorations weren't used in 2013 as we were in the States.  The last time they were used, was during some of the times when we were first aware that things were not going well in one of our son's life.  2012 was a rather low Christmas.  No one really helped me wit...

Oh, Frustrations of life in a far off place - credit card wouldn't work at grocery store, so took the debit - didn't work either. But hey, I was going to pay off my bill for the month all written down in ink on a large index card kept in a file. Can't do that in the States! (Now you ask - why didn't she have the two cards when she went the first time - I only carry one at a time and in my pocket, no money, no jewelry. You figure out the why of that one.) Grandma and Greyson, 2011

Sometime during the Spring of 2014 I almost lost my HOPE .  I was tired of all the chasing our rebellious son all over town.  I was tired of the daily catastrophes to resolve.  I was tired of asking every day - "What do we do now?"  I literally threw my hands up in the air one day while chatting with a friend and said I give up.  All of this mess is out of my hands.  I give it up to God.  I will search for help no more.  I will chase no more.  I will pray.  I will stop asking that question every day.  It's all up to God and my husband. One of our boys had started done the spinning out of control path of school skipping, casual drug use, curfew breaking, brushes with the law, and breaking every family rule you can think of or haven't yet.  We had tried family counseling, pastoral counseling, a big brother mentor, revision of family rules, new school situation, taking away this, taking away that, parenting semi...