{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Bumping right into the Media Free week from the Summer of 7 my Beloved Builder was home for a week, after working in the great Canadian North for 6 weeks.  Now he is back to work and I have pictures to remind me of the sweetest of dates nights that included pizza on a patio in the middle of downtown, a drive  that allowed us to see a doe and her fresh little spotted fawn and a walk to a pond in the middle of town that is home to beavers.

It was the finest of sweet moments all strung together.

And I’m not sure when I’ll get back to regular blogging or writing the reviews for books stacked on my desk.  That slower week full of walks and work and conversation has left me wanting more of that kind of time with our children and the friends being brought to our home.

Here’s to hoping for more fine sweet moments!

linking up with Amanda and Amy

Hi!
This is Mae.

me with Nenxy’s packet in April

Recently I got a letter from the Facilitator of the Compassion student center my Compassion child, Nenxy attends. There  were some very difficult things in the letter. The area where Nenxy lives is greatly influenced by gangs, drugs, crime, and high unemployment. As a  result, there are high malnutrition rates and other health problems. Compassion has come to strengthen the children and their families and to let them know that there is an answer for their basic needs and that there is a God who loves them and can help them get out of their situation.3

Nenxy

At the project, there are 247 children and 222 of them are sponsored. That is a lot, but 25 children still need sponsors.

Sponsorship provides children with nutritious meals, medical care, recreational feild trips, spiritual retreats, birthday celebrations and personalized tutoring. Also, the letters that children get from their sponsors encourage them and make them feel loved by somebody who doesn’t even know them and yet cares for them and that is very important to them.

If you want, here is the link to sponsor one of these children.

Perla, waiting for a sponsor

Fit to Serve.  That is the theme I found while reading Daniel over the past couple of weeks.  Here are a few examples from my journal:

* Chapter 2:14 Daniel replied with discretion and discernment.”  Discretion and discernment are qualities to learn, practice and teach my daughters.

* Chapter 3:18 Even if God does not deliver me from trials, danger…  Stay steadfast and faithful to God, cultivate that now, to develop strength for the harder days to come

*Chapter 3:28 Blessed by the God of Shadrack, Meshach and Abed-nego…yielded up their bodies so as not to serve or worship any god except their own God
    What is it that I need to do in yielding up my own body?  Romans 12:1 tells us Therefore I urge you, brethern by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual act of worship. 

*Chapter 11:32, 35 In response to the evil one to come, people who know their God will display strength and take actions.  Some will fall in order to refine, purge and make them pure until the end time.

As I read through the book of Daniel this is the theme which took form in my mind…to cultivate a spiritual and physical fitness by cultivating discretion, discernment, wisdom, to be able to face trials & danger, to display strength and take action, to present my body, a living and holy, acceptable sacrifice as an act of worship.

These words fit well into a book I was reading called “What is a Healthy Church Member.”  Recently our pastor taught a series on the book “What is a Healthy Church?  9 Marks of a Healthy Church” and he offered the “healthy church member” to the people of the congregation.

In this book, there are “10 marks” of a healthy christian, church member, described.  This of course tied right into my thoughts coming from the book of Daniel.  The 10 marks taught in this book are:

Mark 1 A Healthy Church Member is an Expositional Listener
Mark 2   …is a Biblical Theologian
Mark 3   …is Gospel Saturated
Mark 4   …is Genuinely Converted
Mark 5   …is a Biblical Evangelist
Mark 6   …is a Committed Member
Mark 7   …Seeks Discipline
Mark 8    …Is a Growing Disciples
Mark 9   …Is a Humble Follower
Mark 10   …is a Prayer Warrior

And so the theme has continued, just as always.  The Holy Spirit speaks to me, leads me, and confirms what HE is saying in multiple places, ways.  So as I begin this Summer of 7, focusing each week on a different fast topic it is confirmed to me that my over riding focus this summer is on becoming FIT to SERVE. 

And in actively pursuing that fitness, I will be practicing taking pause in the moments of my days, keeping hours you might say, to keep my focus rightly on the ONE I am seeking to serve, rather than on the work.  Ushering in peace, instead of stress.

Please, click the link below and read more.  The work Katie is doing in Uganda is rich, beautiful and inspiring.

Amazima Ministries International: Farming God’s Way: Earlier this year, Amazima had the opportunity to host a very unique training seminar at our land in Buziika called Farming God’s Way…

Meet Yolibel, Nenxy and Ronald, our Compassion Correspondent Children

Ronald, Guatemala

Yolibel, Honduras

Nenxy, Honduras

Each of these children have entered our hearts, are daily in our prayers and recieve the letters, drawings and other small gifts that we prepare each month.

If you are a current sponsor, and have the time and desire to invest in another child or two’s lives through correspondence, call Compassion International and let them know!

As spring glides into summer new life is emerging everywhere. 
Seedlings full of the hope for squash, pumpkins, salad, soup beans, ruby tomatoes, flavorful onions.  Also, seedlings of gratitude, faithfulness,  compassion, obedience peeking up in the tender soil of children’s hearts.

School lessons are being wrapped up and set aside for the lessons that happen during the sunshine rhythm of warm days pursuing creative endeavors, garden tending, afternoon games of skipbo & uno.  And I experience a surge of hope, the deep comforting hope that comes from seeing glimmers of green on the landscape of life.

gifts #1037-1051

Cheerful competitors
Smiling dancers
Rain!
Working together
Planting hope for late summer and autumn
A sister to talk to
Watermelon smiles
More work for Builder, a long ways away, the Lord gives.  The Lord takes away.  Blessed be the name of the LORD.
Family girlfriends
A hidden nest of 3 beautiful brown eggs
chickens clucking softly during backyard Bible time
warm eggs from JuJuBee
bees swarming around purple blossoms
sprouting winter’s greens and chicken food

small beginnings of Petal Rose’s soup garden ~ to raise funds for Janeth’s support

Petal Rose and Shoestring

the lovely Janeth Join us for Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers and

German immigrant and farm wife Hulda Klager possesses only an eighth-grade education-and a burning desire to create something beautiful. What begins as a hobby to create an easy-peeling apple for her pies becomes Hulda’s driving purpose: a time-consuming interest in plant hybridization that puts her at odds with family and community, as she challenges the early twentieth-century expectations for a simple housewife.

Through the years, seasonal floods continually threaten to erase her Woodland, Washington garden and a series of family tragedies cause even Hulda to question her focus. In a time of practicality, can one person’s simple gifts of beauty make a difference? Based on the life of Hulda Klager, Where Lilacs Still Bloom is a story of triumph over an impossible dream and the power of a generous heart. from the back cover

This story, Where Lilacs Still Bloom is a historical fiction based on the life of Hulda Klager. It is a rich story about the faith to believe in the God given creativity that one possesses, and the pursuit to use that gift to create beauty and to share it with others.

The story moved a bit slowly, yet there was so much detail involved that it was still a pleasurable read.  The fullness and richness of the life of this woman are shared in detail and one can almost  hear the laughter of her children, smell those lovely lilacs and see the wonderful beauty of her gardens.

I do recommend this as a summer read, maybe in the early mornings out by the gardens.  It is like a stroll through a time and place in history, where you get to know the everyday people and watch them seek the grace to take life as it comes, making something more beautiful out of it.

I recieved this book from WaterBrook Multnomah in exchange for my honest review.