Work Team Isn't Complete Without a Little Boy Along

Work teams are not the same when there is a little boy along!

Danny absolutely adds a huge dimension to a Mission Helps trip!

Here he and his daddy are trying to capture the sticky-toed frog they discovered high up on the wall!

Also he caught lizards over and over, and this one is riding about on his shoulder!

Danny spent most of his time chasing and playing with lizards, catching one by its tail and having it leave its tail in his hand,

watching other lizards puff out their "ruby throat," he called it.

He also found a bird nest in the back of the post office building at Hobe Sound. 

This was the best time I've ever experienced at Hobe Sound.(Though I've not been there very many times through the years.)

and perhaps part of it was having our  little boy along to remind us of all the fun little things there are to enjoy!

A little boy to remind us not to take life TOOO seriously. 

A little boy to beg his daddy to take just a few minutes to go down the lane to the inlet and see what they could see,

which turned out to be crabs.

And then of course, to go to the ocean a mile or two away more than once, Thursday evening to wade, and Saturday night to look for sea turtles which are starting the season of coming ashore to lay eggs.

Because of little boys (and bigger boys) we could enjoy an evening of ocean waves and breakers,

sand and sandpipers scuttling,

sea shells and sons,

sand castles,

splashes,

sky,

sand castles,

more fun with sand castles,

and sunsets.

Ships and boats and palm trees and bare feet.

We wouldn't take as much time to enjoy God's creation if it weren't for a little boy.

Somehow his eagerness and excitement and happiness double our own!

Thank you, Lord, for little boys!

Devotions, Friends, and Services in Florida

Friday morning in Florida Jonathan and I accepted the invitation to attend FEA staff devotions.

Harold Martin cooks breakfast at the school cafeteria every Friday, and once a month (if I remember correctly) brings breakfast over to share at staff devotions.

So here we were eating breakfast of bacon and eggs, hashbrowns, and biscuits and gravy with quite a number of folks, most of whom we know personally such as John Dykes, Harold Martin, the Hobbs, Benjamin McDowell, Ephraim Cruz, as well as ones we got acquainted with that week, such as Lucas Brown, the videographer.

After breakfast, we all listened to the FEA missionary in Mongolia over Skype (or some such thing), and had a time of prayer for her and other needs.

So in between all the hard work of filling nearly 5 dumpsters with old building materials, we enjoyed reconnecting with old friends and making new ones.

It was amazing on Sunday morning to see an old acquaintance from clear back when I was about 12 years old in South Dakota,

up on the platform with her family. It was Lisa [Howard] Wiseman, whose son is listed in the church bulletin as "Online Pastor" there. I went up to greet her after the service, as we hugged each other, she laughed about how we keep meeting up all the time!

Last time was at Kansas State Holiness Campmeeting last summer where she was going about with a tiny granddaughter.

We sat down, totally accidentally, beside other folk I knew from back when I was about 15 years old in Pennsylvania (only I didn't know it when Jonathan picked the seat). During greeting time I told her I thought I recognized her, and she told me their names. My how many years it has been!
And then of course there were Peter and Rebecca Brinkmann, who have been friends of our family for so many years, since I was about 21. We were so happy to see each other and catch up on our lives.

She is a grandma now, but we are both mothers of youngsters, still.

Again it was encouraging to get to talk to someone my age who understood right where I am in every way, and to encourage each other in the Lord.
Thank You, Lord, for friends!

My Birthday at Jupiter Lighthouse--Adventuring With Jesus and Jonathan

It is a good thing to be able to find joy wherever you find yourself!

When, after discovering a steal of a deal on airfare to Florida, Jonathan asked me if it would be okay to schedule a Mission Helps trip over our birthdays again, I only hesitated for a moment.  I could think of places I would rather spend my birthday than Florida, but I wasn't going to miss a wonderful chance to accompany my husband on another Mission Helps adventure! 

And, boy, did it EVER turn into an adventure!!!!!

An upside down adventure, (as I explained in a previous post) where some things were anything but blissful, but an adventure nevertheless!

And I had NO idea I would get to actually visit a LIGHTHOUSE, either!

Danny has been doing a unit in his Bob Jones English that has spent pages and pages telling about different lighthouses in the world while he has to work on grammar in those sentences.

(That is something I've enjoyed very  much about using Bob Jones English for Danny these last couple years, the wealth of interesting information in the books about interesting subjects.) 

We were becoming very intrigued with lighthouses and I was wishing very much to visit some!

And didn't the Lord permit it as a WONDERFUL surprise for my birthday!

(Along with other surprises!)

I think the Lord is soooo sweet and good to us when we surrender our lives to Him even when the circumstances around us turn upside down. 

We had celebrated both Jonathan's and my birthdays together the night before we left, since we'd be gone over both of them. (Our birthdays are three days apart, so we are the same age for three days!)

The girls made me this delightful orange icecream cake that I had wished for.

We tweeked a peppermint icecream cake recipe and substituted orange concentrate and orange cream icecream and oh, it was finger-licking good!

I had JUST recovered from several days of flu, and hadn't eaten much for three days, but I was able to eat this cake made with rice krispies and icecream.

 Of course, Jonathan wanted his very favorite peanut butter pizza complete with marshmallows and chocolate drizzle.  Sooo-don't follow our terrible example, but we had TWO desserts for supper that night!

We had also made Jonathan his very favorite bacon-wrapped jalapenos with the six poor old jalapenos I found in the frig. (Don't ask me how old they were, but when you live this far away from stores, and you've been sick for days, you don't just run in every time you need a missing ingredient or fresher food.)

The children made our birthday celebration so sweet. I was so happy for these violas that the girls gave me.

My dear 8-year-old Hannah knitted these for me--a new dishcloth, two scrubbies, and three darling little butterflies!

She also made these simple little paper tulips--out of her own head, no pattern.

I was awed at her creativity!

Jonathan apologized for not having his present wrapped, but how do you wrap prickly rose bushes anyway?

Rosie had this gorgeous basket of red-white-and-blue gifts,

including these,

and this homemade patchwork hotpad!

Birthday breakfast included a few leftover slices of bacon, fried eggs and toast.

This is what our front yard looked like the morning of the day we flew to Florida.

And so, skipping over a couple days of long hours and dirty work, here we are heading up the hill to Jupiter Lighthouse, which is just a few miles from Hobe Sound.

We took off from work in time to make the last tour at 4:00. That was the one small thing I asked for during this trip. The whole rest of the time was devoted to the work project and Jonathan doing things the boys wanted to do, so he made sure we could do this one special thing together for me.

I don't enjoy heights at all, but I managed to climb the 100 spiral steps behind Jonathan and I crept out on the platform going around the top of the lighthouse to look at the scenery with the guys.

A little distance away, we watched the drawbridge going back down after letting a boat through.


We also watched hundreds of boats, including a Sheriff boat and a Coast Guard boat which had some other boat tied between the two of them. We wondered what had happened, but the boys think maybe the engine had quit in the third boat.

I asked Jonathan to go ahead of me down the spiral steps, which were made of grating, and which you could see through to a hundred feet below, if you made the mistake of looking down.
I did not look. I hung onto the railing with both hands and looked at Jonathan's shoulder the whole way down.
His shoulder is a great thing to look at, but so is this replica of the 100 gallon oil barrel that they used to use at the lighthouse.

Outside, down about 39 more steps, is this huge spreading Ficus tree.
It is just one tree. Jonathan read that this species of tree can grow to take up many acres.

 Lots more pictures of the trip coming up, but right now I need to get back to school and work!