Happy 2013!

The other day I was reading a magazine and came across a description of a book called, “One Good Deed: 365 Days of Trying to Be Just a Little Bit Better.” That got me to thinking, “What if we all took on the mission this year of trying to be just a little bit better?”  Not suggesting that being better will get us any closer to heaven or anything like that, but with the mindset of sharing Christ’s love to those around us.  There is always room for improvement in our contact and relationships with other people.  

The psychiatrist Karl Menninger once said that he thought the central purpose of each individual’s life should be “to dilute the misery in the world.”   Jesus Christ said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” And “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” 

So here is my challenge to all of us this year.  Let’s have 365 days of the “good deed” life.  Every single day look for an opportunity to do a good deed for someone around you.

A good deed is any situation where you can change someone’s life for the better, even if only for a moment—make something a little easier, lighten a load. The simplest thing is to just give.  A shoulder to lean on, time, sound advice, a helping hand, some pocket change—it doesn’t matter what, it just has to be from your heart. 

And then, let’s report back here some of the ways we have accomplished our good deed for the day.  What you do may give someone else an idea.  Who knows, by the end of the year we may write our own book! 

Thanksgiving At Our House

‘Tis the season, y’all!  The season to be thankful for our blessings.  And we do have so many blessings to be thankful for.  When I reflect upon the past year, I am reminded once again how things could have been so different for my family right now. 

Beginning at this time last year, we were tremendously blessed and totally immersed in chaos and desperation at the same time. 

On November 14, our precious grandbaby, Adelaide, was born.  Such joy was ours as we witnessed the beginning of this new life.  Births in this family are always suspenseful and exciting, because the parents choose not to reveal the gender or the name of the child until he/she comes into the world.  It was fun three years ago on Christmas Eve when our first grandchild was born and we discovered he was a boy and his name was Isaac Sage.  Perfect! 

This time, it was a girl.  Perfect again!  (Just what I wanted, y’all. No one else would say that but me.  lol)  She was beautiful and healthy.  She looked just like her mommy.   Everything went well; they got out of the hospital and mom was recuperating at home.  After a few days, it became apparent that something was wrong with mom.  She went to the doctor, who immediately sent her to the hospital where she stayed for two weeks, literally fighting for her life. 

How could something so wonderful turn into such a nightmare?  Things went from bad to worse to horrible in just a few hours.  By the second night, she was in ICU and we were holding a special prayer meeting begging God to spare her life.  The outpouring of love and support from our friends was truly amazing.  People everywhere were praying for her and for us.  God is good, all the time, and He did answer prayer and she began the slow road to recovery the next day.

In the meantime, Gralyn and I were at their house helping to care for Addy.  She was so precious (and still is).  Such a good baby.  At first we were trying to feed her with a syringe so that she could continue breastfeeding when mom got out of the hospital.  When it became evident that it would be a longer hospital stay than we expected, we switched to a bottle.  Either way, she cooperated like a little champ and didn’t skip a beat. 

It’s been a long time since I was that involved in baby-care.  It was sweet, although tiring.  However, with the three of us taking shifts, we got the job done.  Adam would take the first night shift up until about midnight then bring her to my room and I would take the wee hours of the morning feeding.  When she woke up in the early morning, Gralyn would take her and let me sleep awhile longer.  That worked pretty well.

Although we were all weary after a few days, it was hardest on our son.  He was spending as much time as he could at the hospital with his wife as well as making sure that his two children were cared for and taking care of his business at the same time.  Only God could have given him the strength to do all that he did with so little sleep.

Thanksgiving Day was in the middle of all this turmoil.  Unfortunately, on Thanksgiving Eve I had to come home because I was sick.  It had started with chills the day before and when I also got a fever and vomiting, I knew I had to leave even though I really tried to stay.  We could not risk the babies getting sick.  It turned out to be strep throat.  On Thanksgiving Day I was sicker than I have ever been, I believe.  I was in bed all day not knowing much about what was going on.  No Thanksgiving turkey for us this year!  With our daughter-in-law in the hospital, me sick in bed, two kids to care for, and my husband and son trying to take care of all of us, we didn’t think much about Thanksgiving turkey.  We were just thankful for all of us to still be alivc!

I stayed home for three days before I could go back to help out with the children.  We finally had some turkey and dressing provided by a good friend of ours - and it was good! 

Three weeks later we were able to see some normalcy returning to our lives.  Jane had a long recovery period even after the hospital stay.  Praise the Lord, she pulled through the crisis and is still alive and well to see her children grow up. 

We have so much to be thankful for this year as we look back and realize that last year could have turned out differently.  I shudder to think what could have happened and how our lives could be so different today.  I praise the Lord that He saw fit to allow our precious loved one to pull through and stay with us. 

Last week we celebrated the first birthday of our precious granddaughter with our entire family present, including our daughter and son-in-law who just moved here from Washington State - another blessing!  God has been so good to us this past year in so many ways. 

“Lord, help us not to take a single day for granted but to love and care for those around us while we have the opportunity.  We know that none of us are guaranteed another day on this earth, but the days of our lives are in your hands.  Help us to be thankful for each day that you allow us to live and to take full advantage of the time we have to serve you.  Amen.”

Mission Trip to Nicaragua

(To read the entire article, be sure to click "Read More" at the end.)

We just returned from a mission trip to Corinto, Nicaragua - an adventure that I have looked forward to for a long time.  It was one of my post-retirement goals that I thought I would accomplish before now.  It was such a joy to be able to finally participate in such an inspirational event.  You can see all my photos documenting the trip on my Facebook page.

Gralyn and I were on a team consisting mainly of members from Milton First Assembly of God, Billory Baptist Church and Wallace Baptist Church, led by Cheyenne Bodie who is a missionary with International Gospel Outreach  and leads Light and Life Missions.  

It was a God-orchestrated team, each one fulfilling a specific ministry.  Different ones participated in construction, home visitation and prayer, Pastor's conference and Pastors' wives conference as well as regular church services at Luz y Vida Church (Light and Life Church). 

The barrels are the foundation columns for the future new roof.

The construction consisted of pouring concrete for foundation columns for a new roof structure that will be erected on the next trip to Corinto.

This is a view of the rear of the building.  The new structure will extend
out to the last blue barrels on the right side of the photo.

While there, our team experienced two funerals, five weddings and ten people baptized in the Pacific Ocean.  We visited many local homes to pray for the sick.  I personally participated in two people giving their hearts to the Lord and prayed over many more. 


View of the beach from the conference room.

One of the main activities of this trip was a Pastors and Wives Conference. Men on our team ministered to the pastors and myself, Molly Maxwell and Debra Gilmore spoke to the ladies. The conference was awesome! We had around 25 ladies and it was a beautiful setting in an open-air second floor building. We had a view of the volcanoes on one side and the Pacific Ocean beach on the other side. The ladies were so receptive. My topics were "A Woman and Her Identify" and "A Woman and Her Struggles." You can hear a recording of them here if you like. At the end of the conference each pastor was given a bicycle and a large bag of staple food. You should have seen the joy on their faces. They were obviously blessed.


Volcano view from the conference room.




The ladies praying for us Americans.

At the women's conferences, Molly Maxwell and I prayed for each individual lady and especially Molly was greatly used in the gifts of the spirit to give them words from the Lord. But the biggest blessing of all was when they prayed for us Americans. Oh, the spirit of the Lord was there, you could tell that they are praying women.






Gralyn putting together the bicycles.

Some of the pastors with their bicycles and pink bag of food
given to them at the end of the conference by Light and Life Missions

The funniest thing that happened to me there was when I was beginning the second session I said something like "In this session we are going to talk about sex." My interpreter (a young single lady) looked at me and said, "Are you sure?" I cracked up. Evidently she had not read the notes! But, yes, we did talk about sex and other types of intimacy. The topics were chosen by the Luz y Vida pastor's wife and her daughter (Arellys Bodie). 

On Monday, the lady pastor of Rivers of Living Water Church came by the mission house and asked if we could come to her church to have a Women's Conference.  On Tuesday afternoon at 2:00 we went to Rios de Aqua Vida and 21 women were there for the conference.  It's amazing how they get the word out so quickly about events.  We had a great time with them. 

Serving queque to the newly married couples.

Another funny thing that happened was on Sunday night after we had had a full church service and 5 weddings, we went back to the mission house with the married couples and I was helping to serve them cake.  After everyone was served I asked if anyone wanted "mas caca."  I didn't know that I had said it wrong until I heard Cheyenne laughingly say "She just said 'caca'!  I found out later that there is a lot of difference between the meaning of  "caca" (poop) and "queque" (cake).  That'll teach me to try to speak Spanish! 




Helping to baptize the oldest baptism candidate.

It was very humbling to be asked to minister to the people in Corinto.  It was indeed a pleasure to get to know them.  One lady we prayed with in her home was hooked up to an IV for fluid because she was very weak due to a bad heart.  On Sunday, she walked out into the Pacific Ocean to be baptized.  She refused to sit on the beach and let us bring the water to her.  She came up out of that water with such a smile on her face! 



One of the quilts we made was given to this beautiful baby.

One of houses, beachfront property.

POST-HIKE NOTES

Well, we did it.  Hiked the Georgia section of the Appalachian Trail.  80 miles in 8.5 days, walked for 59 hours at a rate of approximately 1.4 mph.  Mostly up and down mountains.  I told my hubby on the trail, "You know, there's one thing wrong with the AT - it's mostly mountains."  Ha ha.  Of course we knew that before we took off, but we went anyway.  And enjoyed it mostly.

In spite of the poison ivy that I caught while pottying in the woods.  It's about cleared up now, took about three weeks to go away.  In spite of the swollen feet and legs that I had for a couple of days after we returned home.  In spite of it taking me at least a week to really rest up from the hike - I still enjoyed it.

If you want to read more about our AT adventures, be sure to check out my other blog. http://www.appalachiantrailsectionhiking.blogspot.com/.  You can read all about our wild night out in the wilderness with the hogs, the nights in the shelters with the mice, and the wonderful people we met along the way.

We plan to continue into North Carolina on the AT in the Spring.  I'll keep you posted.

We begin our AT hike!

Well - tomorrow's the day!  We will drive to Dahlonega, GA tomorrow to spend the night at the Hiker Hostel before we begin our hike the following morning bright and early.  Josh and Leigh Saint, the hosts of  the hostel, will shuttle us to the beginning of the trail at Springer Mountain.  We will have to hike a mile south to the trail head, then retrace our steps on the trail going north.  We definately want to get a picture of the plaque marking the beginning of the trail and also the view from the top of Springer Mountain.  The other option was to hike up 8.4 miles on the Southern Terminus Approach trail from Amicalola State Park.

Today we are checking and re-checking our gear and supplies.  We will have to carry 3 days supplies in our backpack at a time since we plan to spend about every 3rd night in a hostel and have access to our vehicle to re-supply our backpacks.  We are carrying about 2 pounds of food per day in our packs, plus one set of extra walking clothing, rain gear, long johns, extra socks, sleeping pad, tent, camelback for water, water purification supplies, sports wipes, and a few other essential items.  "Wait up's" pack weighs about 42 pounds and mine ("Catch-up) weighs about 33.  I don't know how we could carry more than 3 days worth at a time!  It sure will help that we have frequent access to our re-stock box in our vehicle.  Also, that will give us an opportunity to change our clothing plans in case the temperature drops considerably.  We waited for cooler weather on purpose, but we hope it's not TOO cool!  Also praying for no rain, but that is unlikely.
We have done our research, but never having done this AT thing before, there are a lot of unknowns for us, so we will learn as we go. 

Our chosen equipment:
Vasque Breeze Gore-Tex XCR Hiking Boots, $150

SmartWool Socks $17.00

Osprey Ariel 65 Backpack for me, bought on ebay, used once for $150

Gregory Baltoro 70 for him, bought at the local outfitter for $199

2 pair of BCG 100% polyester shorts and pullover shirt.  Quick dry and very comfortable. Also more affordable than other brands

2 Underarmour sports bras on sale for $19.99 each

AT elevation

OMG - Can we do this?  I have created a spreadsheet of the elevation ups and downs on the Georgia section of the AT.  Ugggghhh!  some of them mountains are pretty high!  that wouldn't be so bad, if the valleys weren't so low, I guess!  but we have to go from one to the other several times...........

Catch up

It's been awhile since I have posted - a lot has happened since March.  I've been through the valley and on the mountaintop - but mostly in the valley.  Thank God I have found that even the valley is higher ground than some of the places I have been in my life.  It is in the valley that God can refresh our soul and renew our spirit. 

Now onward and upward!!  Forgetting the past and looking forward to the future - I have a new goal!  Hiking the Appalachian Trail, baby!   It is something that I have often thought about in the past when my family occasionally crossed the AT on our camping adventures together.  It was brought back to my remembrance recently in a conversation with a friend who had been hiking and I thought "Why not?  It's now or never!"

So - we got right busy and began to plan our first trip - my hubby and I.  We have started our training, walking with our hiking boots on with our loaded backpacks - man, do we ever look funny to our neighbors, I'm sure. 
The first day - slow and WOE!
Second day - slow and MOE! I'm SOE!
Each day a little more until we can take off and GO!

We even have our trail names, since I have been studying how to do this and found out that people typically do not use their real name on the trail but choose something that is appropriate for them.

He's "Wait-up" and I'm "Catch-up"  ha ha, cause that's what we say to each other as he is walking 3 feet in front of me! 

This adventure will be good for us in many ways.