A Blessed Summer

It's early. I'm at school. T-minus 20 minutes until it begins - a week of meetings, training, and prep time to get ready for our kiddos to come back to school. It's hard to believe that summer is already over. Last night as I was winding down from the day, I started to feel very sad. Sad that it was over. Sad that I had to go back to school. Sad that I had spent the majority of my last day of freedom alone. But, pity parties are not very much fun. I was heading to take a shower and get ready for bed, but decided to sit out on the patio for a minute. God timed it just right, because I got to see the most amazing sunset! As I sat in my rocking chair, soaking up the last few moments of summer, God reminded me just how blessed I am. I have a wonderful life. I have a family who loves me. I have loving friends who are like family, who support and encourage me. I am so blessed to have an education and a career that I love. I teach at a wonderful school with some amazing teachers. I have a roof over my head, food in my fridge, clothes in my closet, gas in my car, and air in my lungs. I am rich. I have no need to be sad. God has been more than fair to me. Needless to say, my pity party didn't last long. My tears turned to tears of joy and thanksgiving! I serve a BIG God who loves to show up in the detail of my life. And I am blessed beyond measure!

Alexa & Baby Daylie

Alexa is a close friend of mine who I get the priviledge of working with at school. I have had both of her older kiddos, John and Rileigh, in kindergarten. I'm so excited that she is pregnant with their third baby! Daylie is scheduled to make her arrival in September! I can't wait to love and spoil her!

Alexa and I chose a local ranch to shoot her maternity portraits. It was early evening, so the colors were amazing! Bright yellow flowers, beautiful blue sky, and the blazing sun. It was HOT! We were both drenched by the time we finished. I had so much fun playing with the colors. I was very pleased with how they turned out.

Here are a few of my favorite shots --->

Rediscovered Passion

Photography has been a passion of mine for quite some time. My "eye" for it comes from my dad. He discovered his passion for photography when he was in college. Before the digital age. You know, back when they used film. He even developed his own photos. His shots are amazing - mostly wildlife. Which, for those who knew him... would you expect anything else?!? He, of course, shot some of my sister and I when we were growing up, too. But life got in the way - like it does for most people - and he put his camera down.

When I was a senior in high school, two close friends and I had our senior portraits taken together by a local photographer. He was phenomenal. I was completely awed by him. I can clearly pinpoint that moment as being the one when my love and passion for photography was born. However, I could not afford a "real" camera until I was in college. I got my first Canon SLR (film camera) for Christmas my freshman year of college. I played around with it for a few months, learning what all the fancy buttons did. I had photo shoots with my favorite model (my baby sister, Sarah) quite often. We would shoot several rolls and then rush off to Wal-Mart. We would find something do to for an hour, all the while dying with anticipation of what they would look like. I always thought they were SO good. Looking back at them now, I was such an ameteur (they are pretty bad!)

During my junior year in college, I asked for a Minolta Diamage A1 for my birthday - my first digital camera! My parents and friends had a surprise party for me and my new camera was the last gift I opened! I was stoked! I had been helping my former yearbook sponsor from high school with sports pictures and couldn't afford to waste film and prints anymore. So I walked into the digital world and fell even more in love. In exchange for helping with yearbook photos, I was given a free ad in the yearbook. The free advertisement, along with some of my own in the local paper, filled my appointment book. I was super excited to learn more and more with each photo shoot.

Fast forward to my 4th and 5th years of college (yes, I squeezed 4 years of college into 5!). I was beginning my education classes for my major. And just like it did for my dad, life got in the way of photography. I graduated and began teaching. Sure, I still had a photo shoot or a wedding every once in a while. I even bought myself (another) new camera - a Canon Digital Rebel - and loved it. But it wasn't like before. Other things took precident over my time - family, teaching, the passing of my dad, the worship band, church planting.

Fast forward again to just a few months ago. I'm not sure what it is, but there is a new stirring in my soul and my passion for photography is creeping back up to the surface! I have had several photo shoots in the past few weeks and I find it hard NOT to sit down with my laptop and edit photos for hours at a time.

I'm still teaching, still in a chuch plant, and still love to spend time with my family and friends. It's not like I've got tons of extra time on my hands, but I'm excited to be taking the steps toward my passion again and I can't wait to see where God takes me!

Here are some shots from a recent shoot ----->

I'll be posting more photos from my other shoots soon!

Goodbye Polka Dots!

For those of you who know me, you know that I could never say goodbye to polka dots forever. Even my kindergarten students know that polka dots make me happy! :) However, it was time for a change. Over the past several weeks, I've been collecting new decor for the bathroom in my apartment. I need to say THANK YOU to my sweet ladies who helped me out. (You know who you are, and I love you so much!) We decided on espresso, gold, and coral. Who knew I'd like them as much as my precious green?!? Here are the before and after shots:

Beautiful are the feet...

During our time in Tula and San Francisco, we had the sweetest group of ladies who cooked and served us three meals each day. In the past, we have always given gifts to the pastors' wives of the mission churches where we serve. However, the time we wanted to do something for all of the ladies. Early on in the week, one of the ladies from San Francisco said that she really liked the bags we were using to transport our craft supplies back and forth each day. She asked if she could buy one of the bags at the end of the week. *Keep in mind that the people in this village have next to nothing.* We soon found out that all of the women had been admiring the bags, but we knew there was absolutely no way we were going to accept any money for these bags. Instead, we filled the bags with goodies -- lotions, soaps, wash cloths, snacks, etc. -- for our new friends. There were 16 ladies who had served us throughout the week, and we had brought 16 bags with us. Imagine that...just enough!!! We had plans to pass the bags out to our new friends on the last day.

We knew they would love the gifts, but it just wasn't enough. We wanted to do more. We decided to serve them by washing their freet. I can't describe just how special this time was to all of us. You see, years agho my youth pastor washed the feet of our youth leadership team. It completely redefined servanthood for me. It was beautiful to see him kneeling down at our feet, loving us and serving us in a way he never had before. I had read the story in the Bible of Jesus washing his disciples' feet, but to see it right in front of me was completely life-changing! So as we spent those frew sweet moments with the beautiful women of San Francisco, reading God's Word, singing, praying, weeping, and loving on each other, I was reminded just how beautiful are the feet of those who bring God News. I will never forget that moment, for it was by far the most amazing thing I have ever done in the mission field.

Me Gusta Las Mantanas

After spending our first night in Tula, we met up with Pastor Nimias, our friend from the local church, and his group on Monday morning and started our journey up the mountain to San Francisco. It was only 36 miles from the church in Tula, but the mountainous terrain kept us on the path for nearly two hours before arriving at the village. *It actually took us closer to 2 1/2 hours the first day because we were marveling over the mountains, the streams and waterfalls, the farmers plowing their fields with donkeys and plows, and the livestock - cows, horses, and donkeys. I learned that I am not so bad at herding cattle, but that's another blog... We stayed in a hotel in downtown Tula and drove to San Francisco every day. However, we are making plans to camp in San Francisco during our next visit in order to save four hours of traveling time each day.

As soon as we arrived in San Francisco, we were all taken back by the sheer beauty of the mountains. One of the first things we noticed was the farmers literally on the side of the mountain (think 70% incline, or higher) tending to their crops - corn, beans, and sugar cane. It was absolutely amazing! We worked together to unload the vans and prepare for our first day of VBS (it's referred to locally as Escuela Biblica de Verano - Summer Bible School). Liz and our Thursday morning ladies' mission group had worked extremely hard for months before our trip to prepare all of the lessons and crafts. We had prepared for about two hours of VBS each day. However, the majority of the kids stayed at the church with us ALL day (8-10 hours) each day. While the men were doing construction work on the church building, we played with the kids, taught them Bible stories, did crafts, had snacks, sang songs, did puppet shows, blew bubbles, played with balloons, and just had a wonderful time learning about them and how they like to play. We taught them about Jesus feeding the 5000, Noah and the flood, the Good Samaritan, and the story of the prodigal son. The days seemed to fly by, and the week was coming to a close much more quickly than I was prepared for.

One day, early in the week, when Shawn was leading a Bible study for the village/church elders and leaders, with tears streaming down their faces, they thanked him over and over for coming to their village. They said they had prayed for so long for God to send people to help them. They told him that we were the first white people to ever come to their village. One of the men wanted to slaughter one of his calves for us to celebrate the return of his son who had been lost. The men (including Pastor Shawn - he was so stoked!) killed the calf on Wednesday, and it cooked in a pit down in the ground all night long for us to eat on Thursday - our last day there - and we had a celebration. The kids' lesson for the day was about the prodigal son. How cool is that? For the craft, we made tambourines, and we had a party! During the service that night, all of the kids used their tambourines while we sang all of our songs. It was so neat to see them be so excited about worship!

It was such an amazing week and I was very sad to see it end, but I know we will visit San Francisco again. I am planning to post a few more blogs about our trip to Mexico - about some people and events that have become very special memories for me.

The Journey Begins

It was finally here. Friday, July 9th, 4:00 a.m. Our final destination was Tula, Mexico. We had plans to travel to Brownsville to sleep for the night. Of course - in true Mexican style - we did not leave on time. We loaded up the trailer in the rain and finally headed south. We had a great trip down - just enjoying each other's company and getting more and more excited as we talked about our plans for our week in Tula. Little did we know that Satan was already at work against us at the border. After spending our first night in Brownsville, we were up early Saturday morning ready to head to the border. When we arrived, we hit several roadblocks. Fortunately, Satan is stupid and God is in control. He worked out some of the problems as we sat on the steps at the border office with our expectations for the week melting in the heat. After being turned away three times, we headed back to the MOC (Missions Outreach Center) to regroup. We contacted a friend at home (Thanks, Bob!) who helped us get some paperwork in order so that we could head to the border the next morning. Since we were spending another night in Texas, we had a round-table discussion with all the VBS teachers and Craft leaders/helpers. We learned all of the crafts for the week and had fun talking and learning more about each other.

We got up early the next morning, loaded up the trailer (again), and headed back to the border. We had TONS of people back home praying for God to intervene for us at the border. And He did just that. We got the green light and headed to Tula!!! We will never know exactly why God delayed us for a day, but we've got our theories. You see, one of our younger team members had a problem with her passport and was denied a visa. So she and her mom, Veronica, headed back across the border to work out the problem. On their way across the bridge, they were offered a ride (the bridge is long and it was HOT!). On the short ride back to the U.S., Veronica shared Christ with this man and he accepted!!! It shows me just how important one person is to my God, that He would hold up 21 people at the border so that one man would accept Him. God is good.