Feb 26, 2010 | Baby Photos, Stories
Guys and gals, you are awesome. Seriously. I feel like I’d almost forgotten what it was like to interact with people you’ve known for longer than six months. If you were one of the folks who decided to say a prayer, send a message or leave a comment, thank you thank you thank you. I am truly encouraged. It was a privilege to receive your kind and thoughtful words and just to be reminded that other folks are going through the same stuff. I am looking forward to replying to each of you to thank you personally!
A lot of cool stuff has happened since my last post. I am very glad I decided to be real! Literally within a few minutes someone sent us a gift of “spendable encouragement” and then I woke up the next morning to messages and comments and good old encouraging love! Then some friends offered to pay the cost of duties and customs for the gift… and it was finally the beginning of our new fiscal month and we went grocery shopping (that always helps) … and today we had lunch with Rob & Brenda Young, two pastors and wonderful people visiting from Scotland who are very dear to us … and I am starting to sound like a six year old who just got home from school and wants to tell you everything that happened.
Needless to say, the box situation has almost resolved itself… bar some additional paperwork… we’ve spent time with dear friends (pictures to come)… the Blogher network is going to let me run ads for them and I even trimmed the Bear’s hair a little (pictures to come) and there I go again I should be typing with a lisp. Not a lot has really changed in our life situations, per se, but the opportunity tough moments give us to get a change of perspective and an opportunity to thoughtfully choose our attitudes with a little help from our friends… that’s where the good stuff happens. If that made any sense. And today’s sermon in a nutshell is: If you are trying to live life as a Christian and you don’t have a community to live it in… you need one!
I hope to have more pictures, encouragements and general-feel-goodness coming your way very soon. But I’m going to work on doing a better job of being real. Why does my grumpy real-ness get more retweets that anything else? In the meantime, I just want to say thank you again and again, and again, for being an encouragement to me!
Here’s the Bear’s before shot in the meantime…more to come!
xCC
Feb 24, 2010 | Uncategorized
Hey my friends, I don’t have much happy stuff to say right now. There are probably some nice and encouraging posts in my backlog that I could share with you. They would talk about the Bible and how good the Lord is and hopefully be an encouragement to you. But I suppose it would be putting up a front and not being real. Although the Lord is always good. If I’m real, I must say it has been a rough couple of days. An end of the month peanut-butter and honey or better yet empty soup because we’re sticking to our budget whilst arguing with South African Revenue Services and FedEx about a package my Mom sent that they want us to pay pretty much the entire value of the package for in duties and customs kind of couple of days.
I have more blessings than I can count. But sometimes I still struggle to stay content when I’ve gotten splashes of oil on yet another top even though my apron was hanging on the hook behind me, and we didn’t have enough milk to at least make chocolate milk and still have cereal in the morning. Tomorrow is another day, hopefully a pay day and a grocery-store visiting, car-filling up, smiles on our faces kind of day. But in the meantime, I’ve been working on sending encouragement your way for a while…so if you’d like to send some my way, today would be a good day, and I sure would love to receive it. And feel free to throw up a prayer or two while you’re at it, especially one including a certain 18 month old receiving his grandmother’s birthday present. Before he’s two.
Is it okay for me to be real?
xCC
Feb 24, 2010 | Guest Posts
I haven’t talked too much about what’s happening with our ministry lately. That’s mainly because right now, most of our work involves networking, meetings, gathering documents from different continents to open bank accounts and P.O. Boxes, and working on being able to import shoes to give away in South Africa without paying duties and taxes. And that’s just not very interesting stuff, is it, precious?
We are really excited about what’s ahead, and we can see the blocks beginning to build one on top of another to make it all possible. And, our first ever distribution should be happening in April, if not sooner! If you’ve missed the backstory on our work with Samaritan’s Feet or want a rundown of FAQ’s mayhaps, we’re being featured on LFS Introducing’s South Africa Fortnight.
LFS Introducing is a great blog with a great gal behind it. What a privilege! You can check out the interview there…and if I didn’t answer your questions, let me know right here!
Feb 23, 2010 | Hometastic Goodness
I‘ve decided to create a Tasty Tuesday post for Beauty and Bedlam this week, simply because my mother-in-law is a genius in the kitchen, and I need to share the genius-ness with you. I’m obviously not a genius since I just tried to say geniusness. Although I probably put on a few pounds every time we visit Hero Hub’s folks in Bloemfontein, I love it because I learn so much. A small price to pay for wisdom! Mrs. Collie shared this recipe with me for stretching your leftovers, and at first I remember thinking What will I ever use that for? But I most certainly found a use yesterday and it turned out really well. Who doesn’t want to make something new with leftovers, make them go further, and not throw them away? We’re in a recession, people! So here ya go:
Pour Over Pastry
Basically, you spread the leftovers in a baking dish, (for example veggies or foods that have been moistened with cheese sauce or soup packets — they can be sweet or savoury). You mix, pour, bake and voila! it creates a whole new lovely dish! I did it with leftover Chicken Divan last night (which is chicken with broccoli in a sort of curry-mayo sauce) and it was delish.
Here’s the play by play:
First combine:
3/4 cup flour + 1/2 tsp salt + 10 ml (2 tsp) baking powder
And then add:
one egg, beaten into 125 ml oil* (1/2 cup) and 125 ml cold water
Mix all that together, pour it over the leftovers, and bake at 180C/350F for 30 – 45 minutes. It will puff up and brown a little…yum.
*I used olive oil because it’s healthier and it was all I had in the flat.
I forgot to take a picture beforehand, but here was the finished product…
Just enough leftovers for a Bear-sized snack today. Yum! Hope you enjoy trying the leftover stretch. Let me know if you do!
xCC
You can check out this week’s other Tasty Tuesdays at Beauty & Bedlam.
Feb 23, 2010 | Travel..ling Tuesdays
Happy Tuesday! I hope your week is going well. I thought I’d share some shots with you from a part of the world I miss very much: my beloved North Carolina! When Hero Hubby and I were back there raising ministry support a couple years ago, some wonderful ministry partners offered their beach place in Nags Head to us, so that we could visit a few churches and try to raise more ministry support there. Thank you, that was a blessing!
Nags Head is in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, a 200 mile long string of narrow barrier islands just off the coast. The OBX are where the Wright Brothers’ first flight took place in December of 1903! Hope you enjoy, and that you get to visit the beautiful Outer Banks of North Carolina sometime, too!
Here’s a warm North Carolina summer sunset for you…
This is the Currituck Beach Lighthouse in Corolla. I think it’s so pretty! It’s one of my favourites.
Jockey’s Ridge is the largest natural sand dune system in the eastern United States! And lots of fun to roll down.
That’s a slice of life in a neck of the woods I miss very much! Happy Tuesday, and enjoy the adventure you have today!
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