Remodeling at EFM Headquarters in Bedford!

Not everyone is willing to get their hands dirty, but this crew was! I am always profoundly impressed with anyone who is willing to do the dirty work, the digging, the figuring out what to do, the sawing and drilling and starting projects and getting over hurdles and getting dirty and ending up with concrete dust in their hair and callouses on their hands.

At the same time Jonathan and I decided to make a fast trip back to Indiana to pick up a used skid steer that he bought at auction for his business, he remembered that just a week earlier Steve Gibson, president of Evangelistic Faith Mission, had texted asking if Jonathan could possibly help on a remodel project. Our friend Elizabeth Albertson had moved to Bedford a couple months ago to work for EFM, and needed living quarters. A corner of the office building was needing to be remodeled into a tiny apartment. Jonathan decided that he would squeeze one extra day into the business trip to help get that project started.

Beth rented a jackhammer and concrete saw and Friday evening Jonathan was jackhammering through the concrete to find the drainpipe to hook up a tub, and the next day was searching around in the ceiling for the water lines. He was able to tie plumbing into the old drain pipe, hook up the tub and then bring water lines down from the ceiling.

Meanwhile, Beth's father was using the concrete saw to cut out the old restroom door to make a bigger bathroom, and then cut another door through the cinder block wall for the bedroom. A tiny room that used to be just off the radio broadcasting room is being turned into a bedroom. I won't go into how the concrete saw quit because a belt broke, and how the guard part around the belt melted, and how the men had to figure out how to use an angle grinder to do the sawing.

Friday afternoon, Jonathan and I had to travel two and a half hours one way to Markleville, IN, to pick up the skid steer. Then more work at Bedford was done that evening. Jonathan is here checking out measurements and lighting, in this tiny room that used to have this window between it and the radio room which is now a room for video recording. I thought it so interesting to learn about the two red light bulbs out in the hall, which showed, when they were on, that the radio room was not to be disturbed because someone was preaching and being recorded on the radio.

Jonathan spent a couple hours or more Saturday morning just collecting material at Lowes nearby. And what a surprise awaited him when he was checking out and heard his name being called! It was Herb Halbert, Jonathan's old schoolmate who had been with him throughout many of his years of school. Herb lives nearby, and Jonathan had actually contacted Herb about possibly helping us on the project, but he had other plans. However, God still brought them together coincidentally! Herb offered that Jonathan could load the materials onto Herb's empty trailer, which they then unloaded together at the EFM building.

 

Stephen Delong's family came, and Stephen worked all day Saturday helping us. 

While Jonathan was busy with the drain and water lines, Stephen hung drywall in the office-turned-bedroom and helped shovel out the concrete chunks that Jonathan had jackhammered.

                                                            Talk about a  messy job!

Beth was such a willing helper to her dad. She would spray water on the angle grinder blade to keep the dust down while her dad cut through the concrete. Then she helped haul out the broken out concrete. 

I have seldom seen a girl I was more impressed with--hardworking, helpful, respectful to her parents, easy to work with, and fun, too! EFM has gotten a real gem to work there.

Beth will be helping with Shepherds Global Classroom materials as well as other office work such as with the Missionary Herald, EFM's paper. I loved being shown around the place, where 50 years worth of Missionary Heralds were being stored, ten from each year; where all the year's correspondence was stored; the shelves where each EFM missionary has their most recent newsletter, and where the office ladies addressed and labeled thousands of issues of Missionary Heralds besides all the missionaries' personal newsletters every month. Everything was neat and clean and smelled so much like a nice office--an atmosphere I really, really like. Sort of like a library.

This part of the building smelled different! Like concrete dust!!! Janet Albertson, who was painting Beth's office way down at the other end of the hall, said the men could not eat in the kitchen.

They were so dirty, they would have to eat meals outside!

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So we all ate outside with them. We made sure the hardworking men had seats at the table, and we ladies found seats afterward. If you think this picture is funny, you should have watched Beth and me helping Jonathan carry this thing out the first night we were here! It was too awkward for Jonathan to carry himself, so Beth and I quickly grabbed one side of the tank each and away we hustled!

In between helping wherever I could and taking pictures, of course, I spent several hours doing the final editing of the book I wrote for Haskell and Ina Burch, my sister-in-law Regina's parents.

Here is the cover as seen on my laptop in our guest bedroom at the EFM headquarters. 

I was able to get through it the final time and have my nephew Ezra do all the final corrections over the phone. He formatted the book for us. 

The book is at the printer right now with the first copy coming off the press any day. 

 

Another work scene.

Jonathan with little Jonathan DeLong.

Stephen DeLong helping Jonathan make sure the skid steer is chained on well before we leave that night for Illinois.

I try to let the little ones know they are valued!

                                                            What a great time we had!

And now this skid steer is already paying for itself working like crazy back here in Colorado. Jonathan was paying so much to rent skid steers every month for his business, esp. digging out foundations and water and electric line ditches, that he felt it would be better to buy one. And this one is better than the ones he rented. I watched Sam operating it just a couple days after arriving home. He was really going places with that thing, working so much faster than the rented one the guys had to use earlier.

In Memory of Austin Weaver--A Light over His Grave

Today I drove over to Eastonville Cemetery for a second time to visit the grave of Austin Weaver, a fellow violinist of Carrie's, who had been laid to rest last Friday not far away from our home.

 Austin--the boy who, when asked just a week before his death what his best dream was, answered, "My best dream is to be with Jesus." 

And one week later, God let his dream come true. He was just 24 years of age.

The sun had shone beautifully in the chilly air of the outdoor service where we heard the heartfelt eulogies about a beautiful life, short but well lived.

Austin was a people-lover who had a habit of trying to be the last one to see anyone off who came to visit, accompanying them out the door to the vehicle. Ever since he was young, Austin would see his father off to work every day, going out with his father to the car and then running to the front door and porch where he would wave until his father was out of sight over the hill. To the day of his death, he would wave his father and other family members off.

Children would hang onto him at church because they knew they were loved. The man who talked about that said his young children had never noticed much when someone died, but when they heard about Austin, they just sobbed. The man said that there are millions of babies who never saw life outside their mothers' wombs, and perhaps God needed a babysitter up in heaven, though God could surely take care of them all! It was just a sweet thought.

 

One person told of how Austin loved to be with a group of Chinese foreign exchange students one summer. He mingled with them, learning Chinese. At the goodbye party for the students at the end of the summer, Austin took two of the helium balloons and breathed in some of the helium, and then went around speaking Chinese in a helium voice! Before the evening was out, hardly a single balloon was left because lots of others were busy getting helium voices, too! Austin just connected with people like this--not only with kindness and genuine interest, but with fun!

Austin genuinely loved God and meditated often and deeply in God's Word. He trained himself to do hard things. He would sleep on the hard ground sometimes, take cold showers, and drink horrible drinks chock full of herbs! He never talked back to his father. Never in his whole life, his dad said. And he never got mad. 

How big can one's eyes get? None of my children were like that. Not one.  My kids are ordinary.

"I had dreams for my son until two weeks ago," the dad said. "But sometimes God's dreams for our sons are different than ours. I was thinking how good a husband Austin would be, and how wonderful a father. He would be so loving and fun a father! I should have been the one to leave a legacy for my son; instead, my son left me a legacy."

 

And what a legacy! I can't even begin to have a legacy like that. But I can learn to be more like Austin, who tried to follow Christ. I can open a door for someone, pick up something for someone, meet someone at the gate instead of waiting for them to come in the house before greeting them, accompany them to their vehicle instead of saying goodbye at the door, just do little things that make them feel more valued. Most of all, I can ask God to help me to be more like Christ, instead of trying to do so much; to fill my heart with that same genuine love and respect for God and for my fellowman.

The day after the burial, I went back to the cemetery in the afternoon when I had some free time. As I stood looking at the quiet little grave, the dirt already smoothed over, I noticed something about the cross-shaped flower arrangements. Something was buzzing around the flowers--like the people in Austin's life who just came around because they were attracted to his friendliness and love and goodwill. Not just one but at least two bees, either yellow jackets or honeybees, were looking for something sweet.

I stood there watching for a while, and again today, as I knelt to snap a photo, a sudden fragrance wafted by. Those flowers were still fragrant! I thought what a picture it was of the Christlike life that Austin had lived--a sweet, fragrant life that made Christianity attractive to others. He wasn't perfect--one time at six years old, when his mom asked him to put away the laundry, he put the laundry back into the dirty clothes hamper and said, when he was caught, "I love laundry  so much that I thought we could just wash  it again." So no, he wasn't perfect all his life, but he was genuine, and he was friendly, and he loved God and his fellowman.

He loved them so much that a grown man wandered over to the graveside after the burial and just stood there and cried. He just stood and stood there, crying.

 Austin's example drew me back to his graveside, too, and that doesn't happen very often.I went again this afternoon, as I mentioned at first, because I had forgotten my phone/camera that day and I wanted to take a few pictures for this post. The sun was about to set, and I couldn't help noticing what looked like a wide ray of light, which, when I positioned the camera just right, stood right over the flowers on the grave.

It was easy to feel that the light that was in Austin's life was still shining--brighter and brighter

unto the perfect day.

 

Four Hands at the Piano

Last week I got a special treat!

Jonathan and I arrived late Saturday evening from Bedford, IN, at my sister Kezia's home in Illinois. Her little girls were still up, and I asked if they ever sang in church.

Kezia said that little Lydia had just started taking piano lessons and could already play something.
And that Elizabeth and Lydia have practiced some duets.

Their piano teacher has taught ELizabeth some chords and cute ways of playing alongside Lydia by ear. I enjoyed listening to the girls. It was amazing what two little girls could play!

Loved this scene from behind Kezia's harp.

I asked Lydia to play her song and let me guess what it was. My, it was hard to guess! She played it perfectly, but I just couldn't seem to think what it was! So I had to ask her to play it a second time! :)

Finally I made the guess that it was "Jesus Loves Me" and would you believe it, that was correct! Good for me!

It was a pleasant Sunday morning and I really enjoyed the service at Chris and Kezia's church. 

They don't have a pastor right now, but Chris's dad led a good Sunday lesson, and the singing was so good, with Chris's mom playing the piano in her own cheerful style for Sunday School, and Kezia playing the grand piano for worship. 

We had arrived just as the bell was rung, and behind the church dozens of people were gathering for some kind of pork BBQ. 

But what a blessing to worship in a little white church in a farming town with grain elevators right across the street.

And afterward go around in the side yard with the little children looking for the prettiest leaves.

I wanted to take a few maple leaves back to Colorado for my children to press.

We never do seem to have enough time to visit with family. We had to move on from there, taking sandwiches along for lunch on our way to Missouri to spend Sunday night with my sister Joella's family, and see my parents and Elon's and Fain's families who are living in Missouri now near my folks.

And after that, Monday morning we had to leave again and head on home to Colorado, pulling the flatbed behind that carried the skid steer Jonathan had gotten at auction in Indiana for his business.
 

Bear!

A few weeks ago, three of our children went bear  hunting with Hunter Saylor in western Colorado.

They had a blast, and Timmy got a bear!

They have too many stories to tell, including about ending up in what they called a "bear parlor" where a bear they were trailing was. The place smelled only too strongly of bear, and they felt like they were surrounded. The one they were trailing had just disappeared under their very eyes, and they knew another one was just out of sight. 

 But enough of the bear-raising stories. 

Tomorrow, Timmy is back over in that area to help Hunter's family and other guys with a concrete-pouring job. 

And actually I got interrupted and this is about a week later!

A Golden Day With My Husband

Wednesday was a very special day for me! I got to go along with Jonathan to his work. I had been getting too lonely for him what with him working 12 to 14 hour days, and I was also needing a little break from homeschooling, what with all the groans and growls related to Algebra I and grammar. So I hurried to cook us a picnic lunch, leaving the extra for the children, leaving school and work assignments with the children and letting them free otherwise, and hopped into Jonathan's truck (after helping to clean out the passenger seat).

After picking up material at Home Depot and dropping it at one place, we went to another and were there a while where Jonathan had to oversee replacing a bathroom sink and vanity top issue. And from there we went about 20 minutes on up the road to another job site where Jonathan is doing a bid. At that spot in the mountains, there are all these beautiful aspens on the hillside. While Jonathan finished something on the phone, I scouted around for a log to sit on to eat our picnic.

    Everywhere I walked, it seemed there were these beautiful, rounded yellow leaves, like golden coins!

I told Jonathan that even had those leaves been coins, I couldn't have felt more happy and content! I am so happy walking in the woods in the autumn leaves with my husband! I just revel in this simple beauty!

So there we ate our lunch, under a blue sky clouded a bit by smoke from the fire that we learned later was exploding on the border of Wyoming and coming down into the mountains of our own state. But it was just the two of us there, noticing not so much the smoke as the quiet beauty of the aspen and pines around us.

I was so thankful for a little chance to be in the woods and spend time with my dear hubby whom I miss dreadfully most of the time!

Here were some of those golden leaves caught in the pine branches--like golden blessings floating down from heaven--blessings of relationship and fellowship and beauty and quietness and peace and family and health and sunshine and love and a pleasant day!

Like the blessings of forgiveness--we had needed to forgive each other a few days earlier, and this little excursion meant a lot to me. I had been missing trees and leaves, and I had been missing time with Jonathan, and so to spend the day going to work with him with a little picnic under the aspen in the middle of the day was a perfect way to spend the day!

I tried to tuck the memories into my heart like I tucked a few golden leaves inside the pages of my Bible to press for my little girl to make bookmarks with. And then I drove Jonathan's truck down the mountain and around a stuck stop-light while he worked on invoices on his computer. Then he had to pick up a bobcat and take it all the way down south to not far from Pueblo where his crew is working at putting in foundations for three houses almost at once.

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 We had come here a few days earlier when I had to take Jonathan to town to pick up his truck at the mechanic. Then we had left my vehicle at the edge of town while I went with him to drop a bobcat the first time near this foundation.

Now we were staying all evening with a different rented bobcat, moving dirt from one foundation place to a second one, filling one dump trailer load after another in the sunset.

I decided to spend the time doing a prayer walk, walking all around the property, around and around, praying, until I remembered that this was the property where one of Jonathan's work guys had been digging the crawlspace and dug into a rattlesnake nest. He had seen at least five rattlesnakes jumping from his bobcat or excavator shovel! Suddenly, I was not thinking so much about praying as about keeping my eyes on the ground to watch for rattlesnakes!

Before long, it was getting darker and darker. As soon as the dump trailer was full, we pulled it to the other property a mile or two down the road and dumped it down there. Except that the dump trailer's battery that ran the hydraulics went dead. So Jonathan had to find a battery charger cable that stretched from the trailer battery to the truck battery, and I had to stand at the hood of the truck, holding this cable onto the battery so that it wouldn't fall off. No problem! I was happy to make myself useful and watch my hardworking, capable husband operating the dump trailer and truck.

This is actually a picture of a sunset at home, but oh, well. The smoke from fires has been giving us especially colorful sunsets. I watched the orange moon rise that night while Jonathan filled the dump trailer for a third time.

Back home the children were all over the place, some running errands in town, one going to a Bible study, etc. 

But me--I was spending time with my hubby, and it was so worth it. It was filling up a spot in my heart that has been getting kind of empty and lonely. 

That was the same day that something I posted on Facebook about the presidential debate got shared about 365 times and counting, but as surprising and exciting as that was, it didn't hold a candle to just the delight of spending the day with the man who means the most to me in the whole wide world!

Danny's Birthday

On Danny's birthday, when I asked him what kind of cake he wanted and how he wanted it decorated, he decided that he wanted an airplane putting out a forest fire.

I didn't know how to decorate like that, but I let him do it himself! So this is how he did it! He has made dozens of cardboard airplanes, using paper clips for some of the airplane parts.

The pretzels are tree trunks, the green icing is green branches, the blue is the water the airplane is spraying, and the orange and yellow are the flames of the forest fire.

Good job, Danny! Happy 14th birthday!