Crystal Home for Easter!

Crystal was able to fly home with Jonathan's points since there is an 11 day break from college at this time of year.

I begged this photo of the girls before the three oldest took off to a cleaning job.

So happy to have the four sisters all together!

There's no end of teasing, laughter, music and noise in general with our merry daughter Crystal back home. 

(She's the one getting teased, not doing the teasing!)

And this is the sweet dog that made the mistake of grabbing Jonathan last night instead of the young dog he was mad at, 

when Jonathan was trying to break up the fight between them.

(Pictures of his ER trip later--as well as pics of the girls practicing bells and piano for Easter Sunday!)

I'm quickly posting this after typing details on a business proposal for Jonathan who cannot use his right hand for a while.

Mud in the Tub and Spring in Colorado!

This is spring on the prairies of Colorado!

While we were experiencing warm weather, crocuses, green grass and nesting storks in Slovakia,

at home the children were getting drifts this high and wide around our place.

Some good hot nacho soup was one meal Rose served while we were gone. I was delighted with the pictures they had taken.

 Shortly after we came home, we had a very frosty day.

Sunrise looked like this.

And the children begged for a ride behind Dad's truck.

The children have spent many hours out in the snow, sledding or four-wheeling, getting the four-wheelers stuck in the drifts
and ripping one pair of snowpants big time.
So yeah, you know what Mom gets to do now.

Such merry faces came in, splattered all over with mud! We will not discuss which person was wearing their Sunday coat, or how much mud was upon it, but the person was old enough to know better!!!!!!!! :)
And she was not a boy, either!

Timmy decided to help his mom out and scrub the mud from his gear himself--in the tub.

Lo, to my horrified eyes, this is what met me later.

No comments from any peanut galleries. 

I am sure nobody out there ever had any boys who did any such thing.

******

Sometimes I go out to the porch swing to eat my meal, to get some fresh air and have a little peace and quiet. 

As you can see, the peace and quiet part didn't work this time.

Our puppies love to sleep in this tub!
Thankfully by now, there have been many happy customers and only two puppies are left to find a home.

Someday soon I hope to plant flowers in this tub.
Until then, it can be a resting place for sweet puppies.

They don't seem to care a whole lot about where they nap, as long as they have each other!

And Lord, help me to remember that it really doesn't matter where I take my rest

as long as I have You!

Prison Gymnasium Hosts our Service!

The Saturday before Palm Sunday, a group of 13 of us from our church traveled down to the prison where we've gone for over 20 years.
I would have loved to take pictures, but of course, you are not allowed to take in cameras!
So while I tell about this unique prison service, I will post pictures of Palm Sunday morning service at our church!
There were some firsts this time, even though we have been there at the prison many times.

This time Saturday, we were allowed to take refreshments in to serve the prisoners, as long as the cookies were in new and unopened packages, and likewise the drinks. Sis. Gault had helped Fern Lefever with purchasing the cookies, drinks, napkins and pretty paper plates.
(No, we did not take peppers. These were just a pretty plate that I suggested for Rose to slice for supper one day!)

They had planned on enough cookies for up to 150 men to have 4 cookies each. Last service about 125 men showed up and they had only planned on enough cookies for 75 men! This effort to serve refreshments was a big help in attracting more men to the service, including some who had never attended such a service before.  About 95-100 men were estimated to have shown up this time, about ten of whom said they'd never attended these services before.
Another ten prisoners were busy up in another room setting out the refreshments, since our group was allowed to bring refreshments but not serve them. The prisoners themselves served them.

A scheduling mix-up  made it so that the visiting room where we usually have the service was being used to show a Star Wars movie, and so our service was moved to the huge gymnasium!
No one had any idea how many men there would be, and due to the situation, we were almost all given a whistle and tag to wear, with a button to press if we felt threatened. The guard guiding us through showed us what the whistle would sound like, and boy, that would wake the dead!
We hoped we would not have to use them!

The acoustics in the huge gymnasium were simply horrible and the mikes would only pick up our voices if we were about one inch away from them!
However,  Christian prisoners told us that what might seem to be working against us may actually be for the good, because there were men who would never darken the door of the visiting room for a church service, but they might come to the gymnasium! 

In fact, several new ones did show up, including some who were obviously transgender.
It was a delight to listen to Christian prisoners themselves caring about others who were unsaved, and also caring about seeing the good in what seemed to be bad--an evidence of maturity in these Christian believers.
The Lord helped us, and the prisoners were so appreciative as usual.

I think the best responses came after the trumpet and horn trio played by Robert Lefever, Jonathan Finch, and my Jonathan. The  men just loved that horn music, and also there weren't any words along with it to try to decipher in the awful acoustics.  Of course,  Jonathan's doting wife just loved the part he played on his rich baritone horn, which he has not played in a year.

The other obvious response was when our pastor and his wife sang a duet part in one of the songs.

Our pastor has a strong but mellow voice, and he and his wife both had been trained in a Bible college where they told us that they were not even allowed to use microphones at that time. (I guess it was considered worldly to use microphones.)  So they learned to sing out! You could plainly understand their words, and our pastor's wife has a very nice alto voice that is such a beautiful complement to her husband's.

You could just feel the ripple of response as they sang. 

Praise God for His help, and no, we did not have to blow our whistles!

Who Gets the Birdhouse--or the Status--Bluebirds or Sparrows?

Today just as we were starting school, a pair of bluebirds came to check out one of the birdhouses Timmy had just put up.

The mama bird sat first on one side of the fence, and then on the other,

and then checked out the inside of the birdhouse.

But suddenly a pair of sparrows flew up and there was a bit of a fight between the bluebirds and the sparrows. 

You can only see the blur of the sparrow's wings as it fights off the papa bluebird.

Mr. Bluebird might have a fancy blue suit and a fine perch on the fence post,

but can he stand up to the simple brown sparrow who needs a safe place for his family?

 Well, the naturally brown birdhouse did not seem to suit, so the sparrows checked out the barn red birdhouse!

Perhaps Mr. and Mrs. Sparrow aren't so simple after all.  Perhaps, due to their plain brown clothes,
they feel they need the fanciest house on the block so they can have at least something to show off.

 Hopefully Mr. and Mrs. Bluebird and Mr. and Mrs. Sparrow will work out their differences and both find good nesting places for their families.
The Finch family has already built several nests in the fir tree out front, from which they checked out the hummingbird feeder a few days ago!




 but bluebirds prefer birdhouses on fence posts rather than hidden in trees, and not too close to other birds.

 Perhaps it's a sort of status symbol--getting to perch in a birdhouse made and watched by humans instead of building one's own hidden nest quietly under the eye of God.

How concerned are we with the praise of man rather than the praise that comes from God alone?

How content are we to work hour after hour where there is no thanks and no status,

no honor and no platform,

 no fencepost for our bright,  fashionable suits, 

and nothing fancy to show for our work?

Just a lot of red marks on school papers, patient moments of reworking wrong answers with the students, listing jobs and projects for non-school hours, coming up with menus,

folding laundry, picking up trash strewn by hopeless puppies--and kids. 
 No bells and whistles when we make quiet and unattended sacrifices day after day, gulping back the impatient words we'd like to say when we are overwhelmed--and sometimes failing to get them gulped down soon enough?

No statues sculpted for our glory or memory like this one of the founder of Colorado Springs in front of the blanket of fog cloaking Pikes Peak one beautiful morning last week.

When  our plain brown eggs are in a plain brown basket from the goodwill...

 instead of in that fancy, bright red, newly remodeled basket from the Christmas shop--

can we surrender our honor and our usefulness to God in simplicity of faith?
Can we live in joy and peace and contentment,
with the honor that comes only from Him?
Lord, keep my heart sweet when I feel like a piece of well-worn and already much-used clothing from the goodwill instead of something fair and fashionable.
Make me to know that  in Your sight the bluebirds, and the finches, and the sparrows
are all cared for equally.

And under Your wings You have a safe nesting place for each of us!

Charming Bed & Breakfast in Brussels, Belgium

Jonathan had been able to reserve a charming B&B for us the night we had a layover in Brussels, Belgium. He had first reserved something else, but then decided to search a bit, and when he saw pictures of this place, he just knew his wife would love it!

And did I ever!
He made a majorly right decision on this one! I absolutely loved the whole place, from the daffodils in a basket outside the front door, to the wallpapered walls and ceiling in the attic in which we stayed.

There were three beds on one side, with plaid bedspreads, and a fourth on the other side with roses.
The lights had doilies for shades. Everything was cozy and charming.

The second room at the end of the attic was a kitchenette,with a small double bed at the one end
and this stairstep type chimney in the middle.

I loved how she had decorated the kitchenette with cherries.

Cherry tree tiles in the kitchen.

Downstairs the next morning, she had a luscious, magnificent spread out for us.

I could  not believe the number of choices we had!
There were three or four choices of both breads and cheese, choices of tea, walnuts, chocolate eggs, honey, chocolate candy...

and warm soft-boiled eggs placed into these darling china egg cups!
Like sheep of the Good Shepherd, who sets a table before us in the presence of our enemies, we felt out of place with such a spread!

I loved the red orange juice and had a cup of tea in this beautiful blue and white china cup.

Here is our luscious breakfast table.

I loved these teapots on the stove by the staircase.

The night we came in, the hostess was dressed in Belgian costume, and I wished I had taken a picture then. But still, you can see this sweet, gracious lady who hosted us and a lady from Holland that night.

I had been a little worried about traveling through Brussels, since that was where the terror attack happened a year ago. In fact, this spot had been cordoned off as a one-year-memorial in the airport.
But God was good to us and kept us safe.

I can't begin to say how much I enjoyed our trip to Hungary and Slovakia, with the little sidelines in Belgium, and a very brief layover in Zurich, Switzerland.