Home from Mission Helps Trip to Florida!

My blog has sat dormant for nearly a week and a half, while we packed up and made a second Mission Helps trip in just a month! 

This time, Sammy and Timmy accompanied Jonathan and me as we flew to Fort Myers, FL, again to work on finishing projects at the church we worked on last year.

Here most of our crew is heading to the church after breakfast that first morning we were there, Friday.

We had left icicles looking like this on a bank we stopped at in Colorado on our way to the airport

on a morning starting out at minus 6 below zero.

And ended up in the sunny south a few hours later.

I was deeply grateful that the Lord had done a special little miracle for me the Sunday before--

given me a touch and lifted a load that had been on my mind and spirit.

I felt almost back to normal that day of travel.

It felt so good to walk the long, long hike through the busy Denver airport and not be half dizzy and terribly weak. 

To actually have the strength that I needed.

All the time we were down there, I was pretty much back to feeling normal-which isn't all that great, but at least I could carry on and keep up with the others part of the time!

The Spanish pastor met us at the airport--along with my brother Fain's family who had just arrived from Pennsylvania and who hopped into the church van to come meet us, too. 

Poor Pastor Rigoberto had just been hit a couple weeks ago with Bell's Palsy,

and he looked like he had a tooth pulled, he teased. 

The crazy thing was, Bro. Phil Ledger, director of the rescue mission, had also been hit with Bell's Palsy

all about the same time!

And Bro. Light, staff member of the mission had a similar but different affliction, to say nothing of the people who had suffered with a terrible flu in the last few days.

We prayed for God to please cover us and provide good health for the week we worked there,

and He answered our prayer. 

I plan to add more to my blog as soon as I have a chance, but tonight I just quickly uploaded a few of these photos.

Danny came running when we arrived back home, so happy to see his daddy.

And Hannah hugged and hugged on me. 

It was so restful to get away from the demands of running a household with small children, but a favorite blogger, Ann Voskamp, reminds us,

"Mothering is no second-rate ministry for the spiritually and intellectually mediocre. 

Mothering is a Christ-rated ministry for soul and mind sculptors and what could ever be substandard about passing on Christ's standard? "

Yes, it was back to the grind, back to hitting the ground running,

(here Jonathan is taking measurements and doing an estimate on a job on our way home from the airport)

but which task is more important?

Pulling on workboots to build platforms and case windows and set in doors of a large church,

or putting on house shoes to go out in the morning and say "Good morning" to your own little daughters and sons?

To travel abroad and gather information to write a book about a flourishing mission or ministry,

or work at the ordinary hard scrabble of simply raising a family for God in your own home?

The devotional times, or also going out together to saw and pile the dirty scrap wood

brought home from a remodel of an old deck,

to keep the day's schedule going and

to mop up muddy boot tracks from the muddy barn yard where Colorado goats and steers 

seem to be vying with Texan ones?

To spend my flight time reading my Bible and praying and reading a book about persecuted Christian sisters

Singing Through the Night,

or to take a few moments in the Dallas Airport snapping a few shots of funny souvenirs to show my children, 

which is one way of taking home something fun without paying a lot of money!

It is sometimes a struggle to feel that your work at home is as worthwhile as what you do for others.

It is not always easy to run a household when one or two or three are being grouchy and you yourself 

are kind of exhausted from a hard week in heat and responsibility.

And the serpent likes to sneak up and make you feel like most of your life is just a drudgery.

That your life at home is just a bunch of--well,

cow patty pies at best and rattlesnake poop at worst.

So on our way home, arriving at the Denver airport, I took a picture of this billboard flashing on the wall

to remind myself that I can do this.

I can come home refreshed in spirit and go on in Christ's strength, 

doing what would be impossible otherwise. 

I can be a mother--first. 

The church in Fort Myers is behind us. 

The book in the works about Fort Myers Rescue Mission can wait a few days.

The article Steve Sturtevant texted about for the Arms Around the World paper can wait till tomorrow.

Instead, we hug our children and eat supper with them and pull out the seashells we collected

and share love and happiness.

 And this evening before finishing my blog post, while three of my children were at Big R taking a Hunter's Education course,  I played a game with the two little ones--

and then I quickly read one post from my favorite blogger,

touched with these words:

"Sometimes smiling is an act of defiance against what's pressing down hard.

Sometimes smiling is an act of sheer bravery.

Sometimes smiling in brokenness is how we re-member: We are the Resurrection People & there is more happening than what seems & this is how to practice faith. Practice Smiling. Practice Joy. Practice counting gifts.