Unanimously Elected "Chief"

  Danny came home Monday evening with the news that he had been unanimously elected "chief of the Explorers Club," a youth training program to prepare young people for work in the fire department. He was one of five young people from Hope Family Chapel in attendance of this first meeting. Several of our church people belong to the fire department, and Danny has developed an interest, especially after working on the fire station building and becoming acquainted with some of the department officials.

He was quite tickled with the brand new fireman's cap he was given. He told us several things that he had learned, and decided to go the very next night to the regular fireman training that he was encouraged to attend.

That evening of training contributed toward the 36 hours of time he has to put in at the fire station before he can start to do ride-alongs. One of the things he learned to do that evening was how to open a fire hydrant. 

At home, Hannah operates her own fire hydrant!

The garden is coming up beautifully, esp. the peas.

Meanwhile, this week Jonathan has hired someone to help us install our mini splits for cooling since we don't have central air. 

He was up on the kitchen cupboards  putting up the mini split head.

One head went over our bed. 

Getting the big roof part installed, after a great deal of time had been spent hunting in the garage and all through the house for the box with the roof brackets.

Finally, our young helper got smart. He said, "Let's think like Danny. Where would Danny have put a long box?"

He looked over in the very middle of the garage and saw a 5-gallon bucket full of long tools like long levels, etc, and started poking around among those things.

And there was the box with those brackets! 

Here he is putting the mini split head up while Jonathan is pulling the hose through the wall.

Meanwhile, I keep trying to live at least some manner of normal life while constantly taking this or that supplement or pill 

and doing this or that treatment. This week I sewed a rice sack for a heating pad since the hot/cold pack I spent about $20 for is in Arizona and keeps popping and seeping if I leave it a second too long in the microwave.

Here is the digital scale Jonathan got for me so I could fill my own veggie caps with melatonin powder bought in bulk. I am supposed to take quite a few milligrams every night as melatonin helps keep cancer from metastasizing and fights cancer in other ways, too. I managed to get about a dozen capsules measured in about 30 or 40 minutes. Not easy, but it's less expensive than buying regular melatonin pills and having to take about 12 of them at a time.

Cool Weather? Time to Bake!

I'm taking advantage of the cool weather early this week to bake because Rose's wedding is just two weeks from this Saturday and I have to have about 700 Buckaroo Barbecued Meatballs baked for that!

At Christmas time, Tommy and Rose helped us butcher our monstrous steer, so they get to have ground meat from that for their wedding meal! Doesn't the Good Book say, "Give, and it shall be given to you"?

They gave hours of their time and energy to help, including going out in the bitter cold to saw that monster in quarters after Christmas, and they deserve some meat from it for their wedding. 

We also crisped a few pounds of bacon in the oven for garnish for the Chuckwagon Baked Beans. (The burgers on the other baking pan were for Jonathan to grill for supper.)

Baked goods never last long around here, especially raisin bread.  

I mixed a big batch of dough, dividing it into regular bread, raisin bread, and sandwich buns.  

The finished loaves--such a satisfying feeling. But I do admit I was tired after baking about 250 meatballs and all that bread while the girls were away babysitting.

Here is Crystal showing pictures on her phone to her interested dad. 

While I was baking, the men folk were starting to get an automatic gate opener installed. (I'm not sure what all is still needed, because we still have to get out of the vehicle to both open and then close the gate behind us.)

Jonathan was also trying to finish laying the block for the retaining wall and steps.  

Then came Sunday, when I took for the meal after church a big crockpot of elk roast and veggies and a loaf of that homemade bread--which disappeared appreciatively. Even the crust disappeared at the very end when Hannah decided not to take just one piece home and ate the last crumb! 

It was so nice to have our oldest daughter home for the summer and filling in as pianist for the morning service since our pastor's wife was gone.  She also played our national hymn, "God of Our Fathers," since it was Memorial Day weekend. 

And after the church meal, we pour jars of goat milk into a friend's gallon. His wife can't eat regular milk from the store and we share. Then they share honey from their bee hives with us! 

Give, and it shall be given unto you, the Bible says, good measure, heaped and running over!

That is so true!

I Have No Greater Joy--Children Serving the Lord

Today I was thinking about all the tears I have shed in the past as I struggled through twenty years of raising babies and young children--striving to train them in the way they should go despite how lonely that way was.

 

I thought of the years of struggling through home schooling and trying to get along with only a very rare babysitter. I remembered the times Jonathan would be gone on one Mission Helps trip after another, and I would be home alone with all the children. 

But when my oldest daughter finishes her third year of being supervisor for Mt. Zion Bible School and receives such a sweet going-away party with children who made the dearest note to her, I couldn't be happier. 

I know she had some rough days and weeks and even years. But she taught for three years, and now God is dovetailing so many things, some of which I can't say quite yet! She has moved to South Dakota to temporarily stay with us--at least for now. And God dropped a babysitting job right into hers and Hannah's lap two days after arriving here! 

I was amazed at how the Lord dovetailed so many things--including Tovie Blackcalf who was driving a fairly large, empty trailer from her very own school campus all the way to South Dakota. He was coming to SD for an SIM board meeting, and was going to drop the trailer at Mitchel. But he was willing for Crystal and cousins to load the trailer with her belongings to bring here to White River where he and other board members stayed at the hotel up the road. We hadn't known how we were going to get a trailer to her or just what to do, but God provided a way with someone who was going to be driving all the way here anyway!

Crystal brought with her the tenderest, freshest asparagus I've ever eaten--from my brother Fain's garden, as well as three cartons of fresh raspberries from his place as well.  We got to share it all with our pastor who dropped by Tuesday. His wife had gone to a school reunion and he didn't have a cook in the house!

 I'm also thrilled when I get news from my girls who went out with an evangelism team to downtown Colorado Springs with Rev. Rodney Keister. Despite some heckling and the most rejection Rev. Keister has ever experienced, they were able to hand out some tracts, and Rose got to pray with a blind man. 

 

 Sam has just arrived safely home from his medical team's trip to Africa (and Crystal is talking to him on the phone). My other boys are busy serving the Lord in practical ways. 

Hannah is serving the Lord--reading the Bible at the neighbor a couple times a week, and recently babysitting with Crystal.  

And even when I'm having to juice greens and gulp down the green froth, and do magnesium soaks and ionic foot bath soaks and take gobs of supplements and drugs throughout the day,

I know I have so much to thank God for.

I have no greater joy than to know that my children are walking with the Lord and serving Him.

"You sowed in tears," I felt the Lord whispered to me, "and now you are reaping in joy."

 

Africa versus South Dakota

No wonder Sam was having the time of his life.

While we in South Dakota enjoy seeing a mama cow out along the road with her new calf, he was seeing mama elephants and babies!

While we watch our dog and kitty sleeping in our garage or out on the wood chip pile, he was seeing real live lions sleeping!

There they are, and you can see more behind the leaves if you zoom in. 

While  we watch the neighbor's cows gather for their morning jaunt down for water,

Sam was seeing hippos galore!

 

Victoria Falls was just minutes away from the mission where Sam stayed with his team. 

When Sam sent this picture to us, Crystal said he was standing in the same spot where her Bible team had stood several years ago. 

Here is her team from about nine years ago. 

I'm thrilled that Sam had this experience, but I am personally content with the small scenes of beauty right in my own backyard.

 Right here in South Dakota where God called my husband to work and help.

The beautiful green of springtime is wonderful to behold.

Our Son in Africa--Having the Time of His Life!

Our son Sam is having the time of his life working (and taking occasional excursions) with a medical team in Zambia. Every day he keeps us updated.

 

He is having the most fun he's ever had in his life, he says! (Of course, that was after a safari trip full of sightings of elephants, monkeys, hippos, and much, much more!)

The kids took to him like crazy.

 No sooner did he arrive than he made this friend in the missionary home!

He noticed that even the smallest children have to go get water at the pump. This one had to jump up and down to reach the handle.

Every day the team goes to a village, school, or other spot to set up and serve whatever medical needs come to them. 

Here is one spot.

Since the day before people had to stand in the baking sun, a tarp was gotten to offer shade, but the wind blew the grommets out! Sam helps to fasten the tarp in place. 

Maybe he was trying to be a monkey like these ones they saw at the wildlife park!   

Since Sam was just a helper and not a doctor, he did an awful lot of counting pills to distribute to people who had seen the doctors. 

He counted about 1400 in one day! 

Sometimes he took turns with the ones doing vitals. His EMT training helped with taking blood pressure, etc. He probably got more experience on this trip than he has in all his years of EMT and volunteer fireman work! 

(Did I ever tell how he saved a man's life recently outside the fire station in Colorado? The man was actually dead, no heartbeat, having suffered a cardiac arrest, and the driver next to the man had parked near the station to call 911. Sam was immediately on the scene and did what he had been trained to do. Taking turns with others, he and they revived the man, got his heart beating again! The man came to so well that he was fighting off the ones who had just saved his life!) They sent him off in a stretcher to a helicopter to fly to a hospital.) 

There in Africa, Sam helped with everything from crowd control (all he had to do was stand in the doorway and everyone behaved, but when another person came to take a turn with crowd control, people in line started getting rowdy again! :) so, too bad for him, he got to do the boring job of standing in the doorway!) to counting pills to leading devotions one morning (above). 

(Did I say I couldn't be a happier mom?)