Praise to my Savior!

It's been a while since I've posted here....and, yes....we are still alive.
But more importantly....
JESUS IS ALIVE!!!!
Man, I praise God for everything He has taken me through, every thing He continues to do in my life. I have had some low, low times here in Guam and I would love to update you on what the Lord has been doing in my life. Yet, I will just praise Him today and give Him thanks and give Him all the glory and honor for what He has done.

I am going to heaven and not to hell, so I praise you Jesus.
I am a new creature, the old has gone, so I praise you Jesus.
You took ALL my sin away, so I praise you Jesus.
I do not have to sin again, so I praise you Jesus.
You keep all your promises, so I praise you Jesus.
Your word is true, you have conquered the world, so I praise you Jesus.
I am of God and I have overcome them, because greater is He that is in me than is over the world. (derived from 1John 4:4)
Thank you Jesus for picking me up out of the miry clay and setting my feet on solid foundation.

You are the only way, the only truth and the only life.
Death could not hold You....You are truth....and I pray that I can continue to seek You and You alone in all that I do.

HAPPY RESURRECTION DAY EVERYONE!!

Walk by faith

Well I am eating brownie batter at almsot 12 o'clock midnight here in Guam....

I am really bad about keeping up with this blog. I want to continue to update and tell whats happenin' here, where America's Day begins....

I am so thankful we found a church home. What an answer to prayer! I love the people there and the girls have found some friends that they connect with. I am looking forward to growing and serving with this body of believers.
One other thing that I had prayed for was a mentor. I so badly and desparately want a woman in my life that has walked with the Lord longer than I to pray with me and to listen to me blab about my relationship with the Lord and to give me Godly wisdom....I haven't found one yet but continue to pray for one to come...maybe from the church?

I really had an emotionally exhausting day today. I feel so compassionate about the lost and I physically feel the heartbreak that I am sure God feels as His people turn and stray away from Him. I was once lost and so I know how it was to run my "own" life and to believe the lies of the enemy, thinking that I was in control....but praise be to the Lord that I am saved only by His grace and mercy....

I guess I am writing this because I have hung out and conversed with people just recently who do not know the Lord. Sad to say, I have not really gotten out much since being here and when I do it is to take the kids to church-related activities where most of the people there are saved....so to be back into the "world" so to speak was somewhat of a shock that people still think and believe the devil's lies...but again, I was there at one time and so I believed the tricks, schemes, and deception of the enemy too. I wonder to myself why and how God can allow such evil and atrocity in this world? He is all-knowing...He knows our hearts...each and every "good" and evil person's heart He knows. He knows our thoughts before we think them. So why Lord....why let evil still reign on this Earth?

The Lord today reminded me of Romans 8:28..."All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." And so I stand on His word and His word alone.....I believe, I have hope, through the nastiness that this world can bring and has recently been brought into reality again for me.....I have faith and I will walk by faith and not by sight.....

Change

Hello family and friends,

Well we have officially moved into our rental home. The Lord provided a nice 4 bedroom 3 bath place with our own semi private beach. Our furniture and other stuff arrived here on Monday and Tuesday....so we have been trying to unpack these last few days. Still got a lot more work on the house to do but we are doing a little here and there in between the girls activities, work, soccer practice, schoolwork, and church. We still don't have internet but hopefully within the next couple of days we will have it set up. I have a lot to share about what the Lord is doing in our lives. I know that whenever their is a change in my environment God is working a change in my heart...particularly about this whole concept of change. Everything is new and different and so I need to trust Him that this change is to grow me and mold me more into the image of his Son for His purposes and plans...for He says, "I know the plans I have for you...plans to prosper you and not to harm you..." Wish I could type more..but I am doing this on my cell phone on a tiny keyboard. Please know that I am praying for you.....

Hafa Adai!!

I am writing this post in Guam!!!! Yes, we are finally here and we are currently living in a hotel. This hotel is lots and lots of fun....

First of all, I like the maid service. I could personally live here the whole time we are here but of course it would be way out of the budget....

So I am enjoying the time that we are here now! There are lots of activities for the kids to do here...waterslides, a splash pool, a kiddie pool, kayaking, a kids club....which makes it hard to do schoolwork!! The weather is so nice here...in the 80's and mostly sunny. It rained a few times while we were here, but not for long.

We went to a church this past Sunday and enjoyed the praise and worship and the message....of course it wasn't like Manna and we miss Manna so much! I don't know if we will find a church quite like that out here. I am praying that the Lord will lead us to the right church...even if it doesn't seem like the right one to us.

The girls have been making "friends" while staying here at the resort. I put that in quotes because some of these friends do not speak English and so it is hard to communicate with them...but somehow just playing with them and swimming with them is enough to be a playmate!

Many of the people here, especially in this area where we are staying speak Japanese, Korean, or Chamoru. We have been learning a few simple phrases in these different languages.

The girls are going to AWANA at a Baptist church here. They of course like it a lot and the people there are very friendly. They have a service there for adults and a nursery for the little ones.

I am enjoying all that God has blessed us with while we are here...I haven't cooked in a while and haven't had to clean up very much as the maids do a wonderful job of coming to the room almost everyday...
We are still house hunting and will hopefully find a place soon. In the meantime, I am enjoying this place so much and trying to get myself ready for the "real" world soon!

Well just wanted to stop here and say Hafa Adai (hello in Chamoru) and Adios for now. I will update again as the Lord leads....much love and prayers to you all!

the view from our hotel, 18th floor:

another view of Guam from the shoreline:

swimming in the kiddie pool at the resort:

update

Hello to you blogger friends!!!

Well it has been quite a while since my last update. We are in Ohio right now and will be leaving for Guam on Friday. We are busy packing suitcases and getting ready for the long flight. Hope to update this blog once we get there....we will be staying in a hotel for a while until housing becomes available on the Navy or Air Force base.

We are looking forward to going to Guam. We feel like missionaries ready to do God's will wherever He takes us.

Much love to you all!!! Please continue to pray for us....you are in our prayers!!!

So thankful for Jesus!!

moving on and moving forward....

Already it is the end of October, and....it is moving time!!!

The movers will be here Monday to pack up our stuff. This will be the first time we have movers coming to pack and load our stuff as we have done it ourselves for all our other moves. I am really looking forward to that....

So as we are in transition I hope to keep updated on this blog and facebook of what we are doing and where we are at and what God has in store for us. It is hard to say goodbye to all the friends we have made here. I am meeting so many more gals now with girls my oldest girls ages and so it has been hard not being able to really form a relationship with them.....
but...I know all too well that I must move on and move forward into the next journey in this life, knowing that our great God has plans to prosper us and not to harm us, plans for a hope and a future.....

And so, before I go, I wanted to include some pics of the girls and the lil' guy cleaning out or playing around with their pumpkins we got on Friday at a local farm:

My birthday girls!!!

Well I wanted to make this post about my two September birthday girls. Yes, we celebrated a decade old girl and an eight year old and now I am starting to understand this whole concept of time flying by.....cannot believe my two oldest babies are 10 and 8. Yet I can believe it because I have been with them each day just about watching them grow and change into beautiful girls of God, sometimes not realizing and understanding what a blessing it is to be in each of their days. Some days got either a little overwhelming or we busied ourselves with too much activity or I just didn't stop enough to enjoy being with them in that day. I can't paint a picture of perfection here people, because of course life has not been perfect.... yet they have taught me so much and so I feel I have to post about it now before another ten years passes by....

-my oldest daughter excepted Christ before I did and she has taught me Christ-like faith. That I can come to Him in any situation and that I can believe that He is real, that He answers prayer, that He will help with big things like blessing us with a trip to Disney World or little things like dessert every night after dinner or for mommy to never pack any more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch, ever again....
her prayers for a brother have been answered too and we can't even imagine having a better, more enjoyable, more dirty and stinky! lil' dude in our house than him.

-both the girls are of course different and opposite in usual and unusual ways. They are also different than mommy. Sometimes mommy has to pray really hard and ask God to allow me to embrace these differences and use these differences to glorify Him or as a training experience for our family. The girls both like to talk, K likes to ask questions and figure things out while she is probing for answers. Z likes to just talk and talk....K likes to play outside, read, and play educational games on the computer. Z likes to play inside, read, and play entertaining games on the computer. They both share a room and that has been challenging in that one is more organized than the other, one likes the door open, one likes the door closed, one likes the fan on, one likes the fan off (most of the time...unless her sister was nice to her that day, then she likes it on), one likes the overhead light on, one likes the lamps on....you get the point (I remember sharing a room too and the challenge of opposition...) It's these kinds of life situations that I think really teaches them the concept of what the word of God says, "...treat others better than you would want to be treated." And, "love one another as I have loved you." It is training me to instill these kinds of character building traits in them and in me....

-my girls have taught me how to be more patient, kind, and loving. I want a good relationship with my children and I know the Lord put them in my life to help me to not focus so much on myself...but to truly look to Him for Strength and Wisdom and Knowledge in training them up in the way they should go...in His Word and His Ways.
I can't give myself any glory or any praise in how beautiful they are becoming. Because it is not me doing it but the Holy Spirit who is working in my life and theirs to draw us to the Truth and to the will of the Father who has a purpose for each of us and for our family.

May the Lord God continue to bless and protect my daughters as they continue to grow....and may each day draw them closer to Him. I know I can only do so much as a parent. I want to continue to allow the Holy Spirit to fully operate in my life so that I can be all that God has called me to be as a mother. I consider it a priviledge to be able to have these blessed children in my life and I hope that we can make many more memories together, that we can continue to work together, as we strive to do God's will in every area of our lives.

Much love to my daughters and sistas in Christ.....